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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 4: Read Between The Lines]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

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It is your first week of basic training at Great Lakes on the north side of Chicago, and as you lie in the top bunk of your assigned bed you wonder what the hell you’ve done. You enlisted right out of high school, eighteen, no driver’s license, no work history, never been more than fifty miles outside of Soft Shell, Kentucky. The drill sergeants are always yelling and you’re bad at push-ups; you can’t understand the recruits from big cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Detroit, Houston, and they don’t seem to get you either, and aren’t interested enough to try. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t signed that five-year contract, but where would you be if you weren’t here? Home is not words but textures, colors, fumes that still burn in your sinuses: cigarette ash on rose pink carpets, red embers glowing in the wood stove, Hamburger Helper and Mountain Dew, coffee creamer in Hungry Jack potatoes, laughter and heavy footsteps and slamming doors, scratch-off games, dogs barking, collecting coins from couch cushions for gas money, scrubbing clothes in the bathtub when the washer quits, Mama taking gulps from her favorite cup—plastic, Virginia Beach, filled with equal parts Hawaiian Punch and vodka—when she thinks no one is looking, blue shows flickering on the television, Family Feud, Maury, Good Morning America, WWE SmackDown. For as long as you can remember you’ve known you couldn’t stay. Now you’re getting out, but nothing in life is free.

You are at Class A Technical School in Gulfport, Mississippi, and even though it’s hotter than some noxious, volcanic hellscape—Mercury, Venus, Io—you are beginning to like it. You taste the salt of sweat when you lick your lips, sugar in the sweet tea they serve in the chow hall. There’s a magic in building something where there was only empty space before, in patching roofs and painting walls. Here being quiet and watchful is exactly what they want from you: head down, hammer striking nails, measurements and angles and long hours under the sun with no complaints. You’re not just running away anymore. You are creating something new.

You are sitting beneath swaying palm trees and a full moon on Diego Garcia, draining cans of Guinness with Rio, and he’s telling you things he shouldn’t, too personal, too honest: Sophie wants to try for a baby next time he’s home on leave, and part of him wants that too but he’s terrified. As thunder rumbles in the distance and raindrops begin to patter on the waves of the Indian Ocean, you tell Rio you think he’d be a good father. He wonders how you figure that, and you say because he’s not like any of the men from home. He gives you one of his crooked smiles—a flash of teeth, knowing dark eyes—and doesn’t ask what you mean.

But of course, when you swim up from the inky currents of sleep you are in none of these places. You are curled up on the floor of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio, cheap worn black carpet peppered with stars and swirls in neon green, pink, blue. You stretch out with a yawn. Someone has left a Lemon Tea Snapple within reach; you twist it open and guzzle it, hoping to extinguish the pounding in your skull, a rhythmic thudding of warm maroon, half Captain Morgan and half misery. The music isn’t helping. From the green Toshiba CD player, a man is singing in Spanish. Aegon and Rio are sitting at the nearest table and playing Uno.

Aegon says as he ponders his cards: “You know Enrique Iglesias, right Rio?”

“You are so racist.” Rio puts down a wild. “And the new color is red. Racist.”

“So what’s he saying?”

“Aegon, buddy, I told you, I was born here. My grandparents came over in the 60s. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t understand any of it?” Aegon is skeptical. He plays a skip, a reverse, and a seven. “My dad never taught me a word of Greek but I can recognize plenty of phrases. Vlákas means idiot. Spatáli chórou is a waste of space.”

Rio sighs, relenting. He puts down a two. “The song is called Súbeme La Radio, Turn Up The Radio For Me. Bring me the alcohol that numbs the pain… I don’t care about anything anymore…You’ve left me in the shadows…”

“Damn, now I’m sad. Draw four, bitch.”

“When the night comes and you don’t answer, I swear to you I’ll stay waiting at your door…” Rio studies his cards. “What’s the new color?”

“Green.”

“Yes!” Rio slams down a skip. “Fleeing from the past in every dawn, I can’t find any way to erase our history…”

Everyone else is awake already. As muted late-morning daylight streams in through the small tinted windows, Aemond is weaving between tables, pointedly checking on each person. He glances at you, says nothing, turns around and walks the other way.

“That’s tough,” Rio says sympathetically, popping open the tab on a can of Chef Boyardee and shoveling ravioli into his mouth with a plastic fork.

Aegon gives you a smirk. “You want to fake date now?”

“I’ll think about it.” No you won’t.

Helaena appears, a prairie girl vision in a modest blue sundress and with her hair tied back with a matching scarf. She reaches into her burlap messenger bag and offers you a choice between a ranch-flavored tuna pouch or a silvery pack of Pop-Tarts. “Strawberry,” she tells you.

“I’ll take the Pop-Tarts.”

Helaena gives them to you and then shakes a bottle of Advil. You’re so groggy it takes you a few seconds to figure out what she wants, then you obediently hold out a hand. Helaena lays two tablets in the center of your palm and moves on, soundlessly like a rabbit or a spider.

You wash the pills down with Snapple. As you nibble half-heartedly on a Pop-Tart—trying not to look at Aemond, multicolored sprinkles falling down onto the carpet—your eyes drift to the tattoo on the underside of Aegon’s forearm. It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You’ve spotted it before. Only now do you remember where you recognize the lyric from. “Is that Green Day?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says, enthused that you noticed. “Letterbomb.”

“I love that whole album.”

“Me too. I could sing it front to back if you asked me to.”

“I’m not asking.”

Aegon cackles and resumes his Uno game with Rio. Baela is wearing denim shorts and a crop top, slathering her belly with Palmer’s cocoa butter from Walmart as she chats with Rhaena and eats Teddy Grahams. Daeron is waxing the string of his compound bow. Jace is gnawing on a Twizzler as he scrutinizes Aegon’s map, annotated with Xs and circles and arrows in sparkling gel pen green.

“I’m going to be a thousand years old by the time we get there,” Jace mutters.

Aegon hits the table with his fist. The discard pile collapses and cascades, an avalanche of Uno cards. Rio, undisturbed, continues contemplating his next move. “You know what, Jace? The cities are full of zombies, the interstates are blocked by fifty-car pileups, if we bump into anyone else who’s still alive they’re just as likely to rob and murder us as want to be friends, and on top of all that I’m trying to do you the favor of preventing you from getting so irradiated you turn into Spider-Man. If you have a better route in mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Spider-Man…? You’re such a dumbass, what are you talking about?!”

Luke says from where he stands by a window: “Aemond, someone’s outside.”

“What?” Aemond stares at him. “Zombies?”

“No. People.”

Aemond bolts to the doors, the rest of you close behind him. Rhaena turns off the CD player. You, Rio, and Aegon squeeze together to peer out of one of the windows. There are men—three of them, no, four, all appearing to be in their forties—passing by on the main road through town. They are armed with what are either AR-15s or M16s, you can’t tell which.

Rio whistles. “If you get shot by one of those, the exit wound will be the size of an orange.” Everyone looks at him. This was not an encouraging thing to say.

You elaborate: “Thirty-round magazines. Semiautomatic, assuming they’re AR-15s for civilian use. I guess they could have gotten ahold of M16s somehow. Those have a fully automatic setting.”

“So regardless, we’re out-gunned,” Jace says.

“If they know how to use them. Some men think guns are wall decorations, like deer heads or fish.”

Aegon recoils. “Fish?! What the fuck. I’m glad the colonies left.”

“Maybe they’ll keep walking,” Daeron says hopefully. One of the men stops and points at the bowling alley, saying something to his companions. They laugh and begin crossing the small parking lot. They are less than two minutes from the door. “Oh, great…”

“There’s an emergency exit in the back,” Baela says.

Aegon snorts. “Yeah, that we stacked about twenty boxes of bowling pins in front of to zombie-proof.”

“We won’t be able to get out before they hear us,” Aemond says. Then he abruptly orders: “Grab your guns, let’s go. Helaena, Baela, Rhaena, you’re staying here.” Aemond’s remaining eye—briefly, reluctantly—skates over you as Rio, Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Daeron scatter to obey him. “You too.”

“But I’m the best shot.”

“I don’t want them to know we have women with us.”

“I’m of more use to you outside.”

Aemond rips his Glock out of its holster, pointing it at the floor. His frustration is palpable, an electric shock, heat that refracts light rays until they become mirages on the horizon. “You’re going to stay here, and if a stranger comes through those doors you’re going to kill them. Okay?”

His urgency stuns you; his eye is blue-white summer storm lightning. “Okay.”

“Now get back.”

You soar to the nearest table, duck under it, reach for your Beretta M9 and double-check the clip, fully loaded. You click off the safety.

“Aemond, wait, let me go first,” Aegon is saying by the door. “I’m better at de-escalation, I’m less…uh…intimidating.”

“Less socially incompetent, you mean,” Jace quips.

“I’ll lead,” Aemond insists. “Aegon can talk. Rio, you’re up front with me.”

Rio pumps his Remington 12 gauge. “I’d be delighted.”

Jace is amused. “I’ve been demoted, huh?”

“He’s bigger,” Aemond replies simply, then opens the door and vanishes through a blinding curtain of daylight. The others follow closely; Daeron, the last one out—his compound bow in hand, the strap of his Marlin .22 slung over his shoulder—shuts the door behind him.

Very faintly, you can hear Aegon: “Hey, guys! What’s happening? How’s the apocalypse treating you…?”

Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are under the table with you. They deserve to have options. You tell them: “If you want to go hide behind the lanes or try to get out the back door, now’s your chance.”

Helaena shakes her head, clutching your t-shirt: black, Star Wars, pawed off a shelf at the Walmart. “I want to stay with you.”

“Same,” Baela says determinedly, gripping her Ruger. She barely knows how to use it, but she’ll try. Rhaena is shaking, her eyes filling up her face, small fragile bones like a bird’s.

You can’t hear voices from outside anymore, but there are no gunshots either. You keep your M9 aimed at the doors, your breathing slow and deep, your heart rate low. Your hands are steady. Your eyes hunt for the slightest movement, for the momentary shadow of someone passing by a window. Against your will, your thoughts wander to Aemond. I hope Aegon is on his left side. Aemond can’t see there.

“Rhaena, get your gun out,” Baela says sharply. “Come on. Turn the safety off. What if you were alone right now? What if we weren’t here to protect you?”

Rhaena nods, fumbling to free her revolver from its holster. “I’m sorry…I’m trying…”

Now there is a stranger’s voice, gruff and deep. He must be just beyond the door, the farthest one to the right. There is a creak of hinges, a sliver of sunlight. “That’s just too damn bad, fellas. You got a nice little hideout here, and you’re gonna have to share it—”

The door opens. Two unfamiliar faces, too shellshocked to raise their rifles in time. You close an eye, line up your sights, fire twice, and that’s all it takes: one headshot, one in the throat, blood like a fountain, spurting scarlet ruin, thuds against the carpet strewn with neon stars, gurgling and spasms as their brains send out those final electrical impulses: danger, catastrophe, apocalypse. Rhaena is screaming. Helaena is covering her ears with both hands.

You run to the doorway; there are more booms of gunfire out in the parking lot. You cross into the late-morning light to see the other two men on the pavement: one with an arrow through the eye, the other with a gaping, hemorrhaging hole where his heart once was. Rio is admiring his work, holding his shotgun aloft. He scoops a handful of Cheddar Whales out of his shorts pocket and shovels them into his mouth.

“Goddamn, I love Remington Arms Company.”

“Oh, that was awesome,” Aegon says, wan and panting, hands on his waist. “Yeah, that was…that was…” He bends over and vomits Snapple and Cool Ranch Doritos onto the asphalt.

“Everyone okay in there?” Rio asks you.

“Yeah.” Behind you, Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are stepping through the doorway. Your thoughts are whirling sickly: I killed someone. I killed someone. “They wouldn’t leave?”

“We told them the bowling alley was ours,” Aemond says, not looking at you. “We asked them very politely to keep moving. They chose to try to intimidate us into letting them stay. They weren’t good people, and these are the consequences.”

You click on the safety and re-holster your M9. You’re wearing Rio’s on your other hip. They seem to weigh so much more than they did ten minutes ago. I’m not supposed to be a killer. I’m a builder.

“Aegon, are you okay?” Daeron asks, a palm on his brother’s back.

Aegon retches again. “Shut up. You can’t even buy fireworks.”

“Zombies.” Luke is peering through his binoculars. “Not many, just two. Way up the road.”

“There will be more.” Baela’s cradling her belly; you don’t even think she’s aware of it. “They heard the gunshots, the sound carries for miles.”

“We’re leaving,” Aemond says. “Right now. Everyone get your things.”

As backpacks are hastily zipped and Daeron and Aegon stand guard in the parking lot, you kneel down beside the men you murdered and check their rifles. They are M16s, either stolen or illegally purchased: there’s a little switch by the trigger to choose between semi-automatic or the so-called machine gun mode.

“They barely had any bullets left,” you tell Rio. Just like us when we were trapped on that transmission tower.

“Yeah, same story for the other two guys. Four bullets in one magazine, a half dozen in the other. But it only takes once. We don’t have any ammo that will work with M16s, do we?”

“No, we definitely don’t.”

“Fantastic. Well, we’ll throw them in a Walmart cart and take them with us just in case.”

You’re staring down at the man you shot through the head. His eternal resting place is a puddle of blood and brains in a bowling alley in rural Ohio; surely no one deserves that. “He was a real person,” you say, dazed. “Not a zombie. Just a person.”

“Hey.” Rio grabs your shoulders and spins you towards him. From where he is helping Luke gather up the remaining food, Aemond’s head snaps up to watch. “You hurt him before he could hurt us. You did the right thing.”

“Sure.”

“I killed a dude too. I blew his heart right out of his chest. You think I’m going to hell for that?”

“No,” you admit, smiling. “And if you’d be there with me, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Rio grins, wide and toothy. “Well alright then. Let’s finish packing.”

The ten of you depart from Shenandoah, Ohio heading northwest on Route 603 just like Aegon marked on his map, Jace chauffeuring Baela in one shopping cart, Rio pushing another loaded high with food and M16s.

“It looks like rain,” Helaena says.

Everyone else peers up into a clear, cerulean sky, wondering what she means.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re a few miles north of Shiloh when the storm rolls in, cold rain and furious wind, daylight that vanishes behind dark churning thunderheads, jagged scars of lightning in an opaque sky. The road is only two lanes, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and ravaged crops and untilled earth; it would look like the patchwork of a quilt if you were gazing down from an airplane, but of course the FAA grounded all flights over a month ago when the world went mad: Revelations, Ragnarök, the fabric of the universe unweaving as death burned through families, cities, nations like a fever, like plague.

“Maybe we should cut across one of these fields,” Jace says, pointing. He is soaked with rain; it drips from his curls, runs into his eyes. Baela is in her cart again; each time she tries to get out and walk, she’s gasping and can’t keep up within half an hour. You’ve all taken turns pushing her, much to Baela’s dismay. She’d be humiliated if she wasn’t too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

“Here, let me do it,” you offer, and Jace gratefully relinquishes the cart. Baela gives you a frail wave of appreciation.

“We stay on the road,” Aemond insists, flinching as rain pelts his scarred face. “Farmhouses have driveways and mailboxes, we’ll pass one eventually. If we lose the road, we might not be able to find it again. We’ll end up wandering around in circles in the woods.”

“Just like the Blair Witch Project,” Aegon says glumly, his Sperry Bahama sneakers audibly soggy.

“There!” Luke announces, spotting something with his binoculars. “Up ahead on the left. Past the bridge.”

You can’t see what Luke does until there is an especially brilliant flash of lightning: a farmhouse, old but seemingly not derelict, and with a number of accompanying buildings, guest houses and stables and barns and towering silos.

“Home sweet home!” Rio says. “And I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred of those undead bastards to get in, it’s mine.”

“Well, hopefully not a hundred,” you reply, in better spirits now that a sanctuary has been found. Aemond keeps glancing back at you as you push Baela’s cart. If he wants to say something, he’s doing a good job of resisting the temptation. “We don’t have that much ammo.”

There is a concrete bridge over a river, probably unremarkable and only five or ten feet deep normally but now torrential with rain. Water rushes by beneath, a muddy incline on each side as the earth rises back up to meet the road. A reflective green sign proclaims that you are only two miles from Plymouth, which Aegon plans to skirt along the edges of. It’s a decent-sized town; he thinks you might be able to find a car to steal there, something with gas in the tank and keys on a hook just inside the house.

“I call the master bedroom,” Jace says craftily, rubbing his palms together. You’re near the center of the bridge now, another ten yards to go. “Nice big bed, warm cozy blankets, and I was up for half of last night keeping watch so tonight I am off duty, I am a free man, it’s going to just be me and my girl and eight glorious uninterrupted hours of sleep—”

Rhaena shrieks, and then you hear it over the noise of the storm, pounding rain and rumbling thunder: moans, growls, hisses like snakes. Not one zombie. A lot more than one. They’re crawling up from under the bridge, from the filthy quagmire at both ends. There was a hoard of them waiting, aimless, dormant, almost hibernating. But now they are awake. They are grasping for you with bony, dirt-covered claws. They are snapping with jaws that leak blood and pus and bile as their organs curdle to a putrid soup.

“Get off the bridge!” Aemond is shouting. He has his Glock in his right hand, a baseball bat in his left. He’ll shoot until he’s out of bullets, and then, and then…

Rio helps you get Baela out of the cart, then opens fire. His Remington doesn’t just pierce skulls, it vaporizes them. When he’s out of shells—there are more in his backpack, but no time to reload—he yanks the M16s out of the other Walmart cart and empties each of them, mowing down zombies as the rest of you scramble across the bridge. All around you are explosions of gunshots, thunder, lightning, zombie skulls crushed by bullets and blunt force trauma. Baela is firing her Ruger as you half-drag her, one arm hooked beneath hers and around her back. When the last M16 is empty, Rio starts clubbing zombies with the butt of it. You’ve all reached the north side of the bridge, except…

“Fuck off, you freaks!” Jace is screaming. They’ve backed him up against the guardrail, a swarm of ten or more. His Remington shotgun is out of ammo; he’s swinging it wildly, but he doesn’t even have enough room to maneuver. There are still more zombies emerging from under the bridge. You can hear them snarling and groaning. You swipe an M9 off your belt and put a bullet in the brain of a zombie as its fingers close around your ankle, then you start picking off the ones mobbing Jace. You aren’t fast enough. As they lean in to bite him, teeth gnashing at the delicious throbbing heat of his jugular, Jace throws himself over the barrier and into the surging water below.

“No!” Baela cries. She careens off the road and into the field, running parallel to the river as swiftly as she can. You are helping her, steadying her, firing at any zombies you have a clear line of sight on. The others are here too: slipping in the muck of the flooding earth, shouting for Jace. He surfaces through the frothing current, flails pitifully, disappears beneath the water again. You glimpse a white hand, a shadow of his dark hair, a kicking shoe. There are more zombies on the opposite side of the river, trailing after Jace, lurching and slobbering viscous, gory saliva. They cannot swim, but they can follow him until he washes ashore.

Jace bursts up through the waves, gasping. “Help! Aemond…Aemond, for the love of God, help me…” He blubbers and then is dragged under. Aemond and Luke are continuing frantically after him. Baela is hysterical, sobbing, trembling with adrenaline. Aegon is yowling as he swings at zombies with his bloodied golf club. Helaena is darting around almost invisibly, always cowering behind Daeron or Aegon or Rio.

You glance north towards the farmhouse, growing not closer but farther away. We can’t leave shelter. We can’t leave the road. You lock eyes with Rio. He’s thinking the same thing.

“Aemond, we have to go,” Rio says, but in the midst of the rain and the turmoil it barely registers.

“Jace, we’re coming to get you!” Aemond swears. The ground is increasingly sodden, deep, difficult to trudge through. Jace resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“Jace!” Aegon wails. He caves in the skull of a zombie who was once a registered nurse as Helaena crouches behind him. “Jace, I’m sorry! I’m gonna miss you, man!”

Jace splashes in the rising river, his arms flailing helplessly. He is being swept away far faster than any of you can move on foot. “Aegon, you dumb bitch!” Jace manages, then slips beneath the water and doesn’t reappear.

“Where is he?!” Baela is saying. “Aemond, where…?”

You are trying to soothe her, to bring her back to reality. She was always so pragmatic before; you have to wake her up. “Baela, listen, we can’t stay here, he would want you and the baby to be safe—”

“Aemond! Aemond, we have to go!” Rio catches him, wrenches him around, roars into his face as driving rain pummels them both: “We have to go, or we’re going to die here too!”

It hits Aemond all at once; he understands, horror and agony in his sole blue eye. “We have to go,” he agrees. And then louder, to everyone: “Get to the farmhouse!”

Baela collapses into the mud, howling, tears flooding down her face. “No, he’s still alive, he’s still alive, we can’t leave him!”

You and Rhaena are trying to haul Baela to her feet. Now Aemond is here, pulling you away from her—his fingers tight and urgent around your wrist—as he and Luke take your place. “Go,” he commands. “You run. Don’t wait for us. Rio?”

“I got her,” Rio replies, grabbing your free hand with an iron grip. Gales of wind rip at you; every millimeter of your skin is soaked with rain. As you flee across the fields towards the farmhouse, dozens of zombies pursue you. More are still staggering along the banks of the river, swept up in the hoards chasing Jace and the promise of his waterlogged corpse when it reaches its final destination. Daeron has run out of arrows and is shooting with his .22, which is very much not his preference. Aegon trips, getting covered in mud as he rolls, and Rio stops to help him. While he is distracted, you look back at Aemond. He, Luke, and Baela are moving quickly, but not quickly enough. A drove of zombies is closing in on them. You have a spare few seconds at last. You yank your backpack off, grab a box of ammo inside, and reload your M9.

“Chips?!” Rio calls over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you well enough to listen. The world goes quiet as your finger settles on the trigger. There’s a rhythm one slips into, an impassionate lethal efficiency. It’s easier to keep going than to stop and have to find it again. You fire over and over, dropping eight zombies. You sheath your M9 and whip Rio’s out of your other holster, the sights finding grotesque decaying faces illuminated by lightning. You pull the trigger: blood, bones, brains, corpses jerking and convulsing as they fall harmlessly to the mud. Aemond is here; when did he get here?

“I told you to run!” he’s shouting through the storm, furious. He’s shoving you towards the farmhouse. You resist him.

“Let me kill as many as I can—”

“Go! Now!” Aemond orders over the clashing thunder, and then sprints with you all the way to the front porch to make sure you listen. Everyone else is already there. Helaena has fetched a spare key from under the doormat and is turning it in the lock.

Daeron observes her anxiously. “We don’t know if it’s safe in there, Helaena.”

“Not in,” she says, insistent. “Through.” Through this building, and maybe through the next one too. The average zombie is not terribly clever. If they lose sight of you, without the benefit of the momentum of a hoard they are lost. Helaena opens the door. The living rush inside, and she locks it behind you. As you are bursting out the back door, you can hear zombies pounding their rotting palms against the front one. You soar through a stable full of dead horses and donkeys, leaving the doors open; this should keep the zombies distracted if they make it this far. Then you race to the farthest guest house. Luke, swiveling with his binoculars, spies no zombies approaching as you steal inside. There is no spare key this time; Rio punches out a first-floor window for you to climb through. Once everyone is inside, he and Aegon move a bookshelf to cover the opening.

You all stand in the living room, gasping and shivering, dripping rain down onto the rug and the hardwood floor. The air is dusty but clean of any trace of vile, swampy decay. Outside, thunder booms and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the lightless house. The sky is so dark it might as well be nightfall. Baela sinks to her knees, clamping both hands over her mouth so she won’t sob loudly enough for a zombie to hear. Rhaena and Luke are beside her, both weeping quiet rivulets of tears, trying to comfort her in whispers. Helaena is rummaging around searching for candles; she has already taken a lighter out of her soaked burlap messenger bag.

“Daeron, bro, come over here,” Aegon chokes out. He embraces Daeron, clutches him tightly and desperately, doesn’t let go. Rio is reloading his Remington 12 gauge.

Jace is dead. Jace is dead.

Aemond says to you, his voice low but seething: “What the fuck was that?”

You blink the raindrops out of your eyes as you stare at him, bewildered. “You needed help.”

“I told you to run.”

“I’m an asset, I have skills that can keep you alive, why am I here if I’m not going to be useful—?”

“You’re not in the fucking Navy anymore!” he hisses. “When I tell you to run, you run, you don’t stop, you don’t look back, because I can’t worry about you and take care of everyone else.”

“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”

“But I do.”

“Aemond,” Aegon pleads, waving him over. Aegon’s plump sunburned cheeks are glistening with rain and tears. “Man, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now. Please come here.”

“I’m going to clear the house,” Aemond says instead.

Rio raises an eyebrow at you—this is one fucked up guy, Chips—and then pumps his shotgun. “Me too.” He sweeps with Aemond through the main floor and then vanishes up the staircase.

Helaena is lightning candles she found in the kitchen and arranging them around the living room. Daeron starts gathering food from the pantry. Rhaena and Baela are murmuring to each other softly, mournfully. It doesn’t feel like something you should intrude on. Luke is peeking out of a window with his binoculars, vigilant for threats. Aegon sniffles, wanders over to you with large, sad, shimmering eyes, pats your shoulder awkwardly.

“Hey, Chocolate Chip. You doing okay?”

“No,” you answer honestly.

“Yeah. Me either.” Then he flops down on the hideous burnt orange couch and lies there motionless until Daeron brings him a can of Dr. Pepper. Aegon pops the tab, slurps up foam, and then begins singing to himself very quietly, a song so old you can remember your grandfather saying it was one of his favorites as a boy: A Tombstone Every Mile.

When Rio comes back downstairs—heavy footsteps, he can’t help that—you meet him at the bottom of the steps. “The house is good,” Rio says. “And Aemond’s in the big bedroom on the right if you’d like to go up there and talk to him.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”

“I could not disagree more,” Rio says with a miserable, exhausted smile. Then he goes to the couch to check on Aegon.

You pick up one of the flickering candles, white and scentless, and ascend the staircase. You find Aemond in the master bedroom, the same accommodations that Jace laid claim to when he was still alive. He is sitting at the edge of the bed and staring at the wall, at nothing. Tentatively, you sit down beside him, placing the candle on the nightstand.

“Aemond…what happened to Jace…it wasn’t your fault.”

“Criston said I was in charge, that’s the very last thing he told me. They might be the last words I ever hear from him, and I just…” His voice breaks; he wipes the rain and tears from his face with open palms. “I really wanted to get everyone home.”

“I’m so sorry about what I said at the bowling alley,” you confess, like it’s a dire secret. “I don’t want to fight with you, Aemond, I…I want to help you. I can see what you’ve done for everyone here, me and Rio included, and I believe in you. I want to be a part of this.”

He nods, an acceptance of peace, but he still doesn’t look at you.

“Can we start over? I’ll never bring it up again, okay? I wasn’t trying to guilt you or upset you or anything. I should have just dropped it. I overreacted. And I understand why being with someone like me maybe wouldn’t be…super appealing.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Aemond wrings his hands, shakes his head, at last turns to you, golden candlelight reflected in his eye, his scar cloaked in shadows. His words are hushed, clandestine, soft powerless surrender. “I’m already so afraid of losing you.”

He cares, he hopes, he wants me too? “I’m here right now, Aemond. I don’t know what else I can say. I’d promise you more if I could.”

He reaches out to touch you, to ghost his thumb across your cheekbone, wet with rain. Then he kisses you, so gently you cannot help but imagine the wispy borders of calm white summer clouds, the rustle of leaves as wind blows down the Appalachian Mountains. You don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking, what it feels like. You can read it in the startled, firelit wonder on his face.

You taste like the beginning of something, here at the end of the world.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n

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spookygibberish · 4 months ago

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who are the dogstock?

There’s quite a bit to go over with this so bear with me

Pictured: 3rd male and Virgin Queen (Uhasr)

The Dogstock are the Godstock People of the Dog, descended from an ancient warrior class of a now very dead culture. There’s still a lot of details to work out so I’m skimming over this part, honestly. The warriors of this culture ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Dog to become more like it, and were changed. The level of change that just imbibing the flesh of the Dog imparted is not sufficient to explain the level of purposed biology that characterizes Dogstock, and this culture didn’t practice active manipulation of stock in the way the Jacantese do, so the full history of their origins are somewhat mysterious. (I have ideas (not worked out)).

The Dzuzhnutte Empire perfected the Dogstock as they exist today, and their design, handling, and breeding as perpetuated still in Orimat today. The Dzuzhnutte conquered the entirety of the Dochira, the Hochkiskuph Steppes, and the isthmus in between which now holds the modern day the Kiiz principalities (Ann-Kiiz, Bel-Kiiz, Osat-Kiiz) primarily by the strength of a massive and powerful army of specialty bred and trained Dogstock soldiers. One could argue the high cost of maintenance of this army (among other factors) was the nail in the Dzuzhnutte Empire's coffin, but honestly it's all conjecture. Like the people who first captured and consumed the Dog, the Dzuzhnutte are no longer around.

There are three major broad cultural groups of dogstock that I'll be talking about, if i talk more about these guys publicly:

The Uhasr (/yhezr/) (i cannot pronounce this word correctly either)

The empire didn't collapse all at once, it shrank, it abandoned its peripheries. One of the first such regions to be abandoned was the Hochkiskuph, a relatively small, cold desert region with little obvious wealth in anything other than sheep. The Dogstock soldiers stationed in the Hochkiskuph were not retrieved, as there was no particular need for them. Dogstock are cheap to breed and expensive to feed, or so it goes. This happened about 700~ years from the modern day, and the abandoned Dzuzhnutte Dogstock warslaves formed the basis of the modern day Uhasr culture.

Uhasr Dogstock are a very decentralized culture characterized more or less entirely by their shared language. Uhasr means "ear-having", and is a reference to their uncropped ears. Dogstock slaves of the Dzuzhnutte (and descendant cultures, the tradition persists) had their ears and tails cropped as a mark of servitude, and the Uhasr, being master-less, take great pride in their intact ears and tails, enough to consider them their defining features.

The Uhasr Dogstock are nomadic hunters who exist in an ongoing state of constant conflict with the indigenous Hochki people, who are mostly nomadic herders. The Dzuzhnutte Dogstock were brought to the Hochkiskuph to hunt people, and did not stop doing that once left to their own devices.

Uhasr Dogstock practice exocannibalism (they eat their enemies' flesh), collect body body parts as war trophies (particularly hands and heads), observe religious practices that could be said to be the only surviving form of the ancient Dzuzhnutte state religion, have a strong culture of storytelling and communal theatre, and are generally known as "Feral Dogstock."

Oan Dogstock

Citizens of the Kiiz are Oan. A person from Ann-Kiiz is Ann-Oan. Oan Dogstock are Dogstock who are legally citizens of the Kiiz. The Kiiz are a trio of city states controlling the isthmus between Dochira and the mainland. They political history of this region is up in the air, I'm working on it. You'll get what you get lmao.

The Kiiz are currently undergoing a period of high art and culture, scientific developments, religious inspiration, lofty patronage of the arts. The Kiiz are an enlightened culture where Dogstock live freely among humans, slavery is illegal in the Kiiz, unlike Orimat, and all Dogstock are full members of society. In practice, it's rare to find anyone willing to sell property to Dogstock, and 95% of Oan Dogstock rent houses, or live with human sponsors, for who also often employ them in exchange for food and housing.

The Dogstock of the Kiiz exist in a strange, tense state, trapped between the Uhazr and the Orimish Dogstock in the eyes of their human contemporaries. The experience of the Oan Dogstock is one of supplication and opposition, they crop their ears to distinguish themselves from the feral Uhasr savages, and leave long their tails to distinguish them from servile Orimish slaves. A notable percentage of Oan dogstock are particularly strict adherents of the local religion of the Kiiz (idk much about it other than it's monotheistic - one of if not the only monotheistic religions on the continent).

The Orimish Dogstock

I know the least about this culture of these groups. It is the region where they're still actively kept as slaves. I'll get around to it.

#I have been in an art rut lately but have this #i dont think this world has horses.....#all of this is subject to revision as per usual #followers of this blog should be used to half baked content by now #think of it like a progress journal and not the final product #bc thats. kind of actually true #who knows if there even will be a final product #its just fun to think about #im just here to have fun #dogstock #jar of mice #answering #if i only posted things that were complete or set in stone this would be an empty blog

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ram-bles · 4 months ago

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daisuke / reader | call it love.

#: angst. fix-it but not really. character deaths. not proof read.

Daisuke could've have been many things.

Sounds blasting from many speakers of several flashy machines. Buttons clicking and the satisfying sound of a faux cha-ching and similar shiny effects added to the mix. He popped the panel close on one of the DDR cabinets before twisting the key to lock it after doing some troubleshoots. He flashes a grin and thumbs up at the teens who were now ready to play. They remind him of himself, skipping class to drop by the arcade with his friends.

The blare of a car horn snaps him back. Was he that sleepy? He almost drops his umbrella. It was raining and he flips a finger at the driver before pointing at the pedestrian lane. His shift just ended. Finally. Unfortunately, it was rush hour and the way back to the train station wasn't all too fun. It ended up being packed and he grips on the handles hanging from the ceiling. It sucks. It was mundane. The only color to his uniform was his pink necktie adorned with embroidered hibiscus of a shade slightly brighter than the cloth.

The stadium lights were blinding and the cheers and chants were deafening. This was the final game for this season. Just one last round to seal that shiny gold trophy. It was nerve wracking. No pressure right? The grip on his bat tightens for a moment as he positions himself.

There were many more like this, all these visions. Happy, sad, and all the emotions. But they all seem to have something similar. One of his rings were either added or repositioned on his left hand. Ring finger to be exact.

After doing a round through the arcade, he approaches the counter where you were working in. Daisuke's arm wraps around your waist as he kisses you and you playfully smack his shoulder and he laughs. What is this, a romcom? Corny. You fucking loved it anyways. You adjust the collar of his colorful Hawaiian shirt as an excuse for him to hold you longer before he excuses himself to check something at the back, making sure to leave you one more kiss.

Home. It was a shitty, small, cheap apartment. But it was home. Daisuke thought the stupid doorknob would be his reason to crashout that day, but when he hears a bark and footsteps, he stops and waits. The door flies open and he was dragged in by the necktie, then pressed up against the door as it closes and you lock it as you kissed him. He drops everything and returns all the affection tenfold. All of the day's stress washes off when you ramble about what you cooked for dinner and what you and Polle — the dog — saw for this morning's walk.

A home-fucking-run. The cheers and screams were deafening, hell, he probably screamed so loud his voice would be screwed later, but he doesn't care. He immediately tried to find where you were seated and made a dash for it, lifting you up and kissing you without care. Daisuke does this all for you, of course. You're the reason why he's got into the team after all.

You were in all of them. You made it all tolerable no matter how shitty it was.

Even in this one. When instead of closing his eyes, he looks at you, stained with what he thinks was his blood. He couldn't tell with this lighting.

Where you held his limp hand as you wailed, frustrated, angry, sad— you can't tell either but it hurt. It was all too sudden for you to process your feelings. Even Swansea couldn't console you and you couldn't even say Daisuke's name if you tried. Too busy sobbing. It was definitely overwhelming and it gets into someone's head. It only quiets when the bullet hits the middle of you parietal bone and you fall on Daisuke's body, laying on his chest.

How romantic.

#daisuke #daisuke mouthwashing #daisuke x reader #mouthwashing #x reader #mouthwashing game #rambles

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treason-and-plot · 8 months ago

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Hey Groovers! I hope you're all well! I'm back from my two week holiday in Vietnam. Here's a pic of me standing in Hanoi's famous Train Street, where you can enjoy a beverage or a meal while a high speed train whooshes past literally inches away. More Vietnamese picture spam under the cut.

Some pics too of one of the hotels we stayed at in Hanoi which blew me away with the beautiful design and facilities and the amazing staff. We felt like rock stars staying there! It was just across the street too from the Australian Embassy:

Another hotel we stayed at in Saigon had the BEST rooftop pool:

Vietnam is an incredible holiday...still very cheap but with world class hotels and delicious food. The countryside is captivating, and the beauty of the landscape in Ninh Binh and Halong Bay in particular was jaw-dropping. The cities are a mind-blowing experience, especially the well-documented traffic 'chaos'. The favoured mode of transport is scooters/ motorbikes and there are very few rules when it comes to driving. Drive on the right, on the left, on the footpath...anything goes. Everyone seems to be driving while on their phones, often while carrying two or three passengers. Sometimes there's a dog sitting between the driver's feet. For the first few days we were there crossing the road was quite a hair-raising experience, but you quickly learn to tap into the rhythm of the traffic and to be 'predictable' as my son described it. If you need to cross the road just walk at a steady pace, don't make any 'unpredictable' moves, and the motorbikes will go around you. It sounds crazy as I type it out now when I'm back home but really, that's the system that worked best for us! We had no 'near misses' either.

Vietnam was an amazing experience, and I would recommend it as a holiday destination 100%. I also need to add that I feel very humbled and moved by the history and culture I was exposed to, in particular the War Remnants Museum in Saigon. Things we saw and read about there will haunt me forever.

#personal #non sims #saviorhide #Vietnam

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lavender-vixen · 5 months ago

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hiiiiii! This might be a stretch from what you do, but I was wondering if you could a list of some of Patrick’s favourite things? Idk like favourite foods, bands, colors, things about himself… I need some new ideas for a fic I’m writing about him. Thanks!!!!

here are some!

fav music: nine inch nails, the cure, depeche mode, guns n' roses, & mötley crüe. he likes industrial rock/metal, darkwave/goth rock like siouxsie and the banshees & bauhaus, & some hair metal. he listens alone in his room with his walkman, cranking the volume to drown out everything while he does homework, or walking through derry at night.

fav songs: "killing moon" by echo & the bunnymen, "somebody" by depeche mode, and later in '94 "closer" by nine inch nails.

fav movies: action & sci-fi - the terminator (1984) & robocop (1987). horror films - a nightmare on elm street (1984), the texas chain saw massacre (1974), the shining (1980). cult classics - clockwork orange (1971), maybe he'd also reluctantly like heathers (1988). crime films - scarface (1983), taxi driver (1976).

fav foods: he eats like shit but has a fast-metabolism, so he stays looking like a beanpole. probably a lot of convenience store snacks - beef jerky, slim jims, gas station hot dogs, energy drinks, sour candy (warheads, sour patch kids), popcorn drenched in butter & salt. fast food - burgers & fries loaded with cheese & bacon, pizza (pepperoni or meat lovers), anything spicy from taco bell. at home, he probably goes for easy things like mac and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, & chicken nuggets dipped in bbq or honey mustard sauce. for dessert, probably milkshakes (vanilla) or ice cream (cookies & cream or rocky road). weird cravings for him would be pickles, hot sauce, and burnt toast.

fav drinks: coca-cola in the glass bottles so he can smash them afterwards, mountain dew, dr. pepper, slush puppies, energy drinks like jolt cola. when he sneaks it, cheap beer like budweiser or miller high life. he'd mock people for drinking wine coolers, but he secretly likes the sweet flavors like bartles & jaymes. he prefers vodka over whiskey. gas station slushies, where he mixes all the flavors together.

fav hangouts: the barrens, the junkyard, the arcade, abandoned buildings, the quarry, the 7-eleven and gas station, the train tracks, henry bowers' house.

fav weather: thunderstorms, overcast skies, light rain, fog, cold & windy days.

fav smells: gasoline, cigarette smoke, metal, rain on asphalt, leather, pine trees & forests, freshly struck matches, spray paint, blood, wet earth, cherry or blue raspberry artificial scents.

fav class: honestly, it might be art. he can put on his headphones, sketch or make whatever he wants, be left alone, zone out, and still get praise from his teacher for doing a good job. he has talent. he'd like science, especially chemistry experiments & dissection. math comes easily to him, but it's boring, so he doesn't try and gets bad grades. i think gym class would be tolerable because he gets to exert physical aggression behind the veil of competitiveness and athletic drive in games like dodgeball. study hall obviously.

fav thing about himself: his ability to control & manipulate others. his eyes, his independence.

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rottenpumpkin13 · 1 year ago

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AGSZC are forced to take care of Dark Star for a week, who does the best job?

Angeal: Figures that it's not that different from taking care of Zack; the dog needs to be walked, fed, played with, and distracted. So he takes Darkstar for a run, feeds it Zack's favorite sandwich, puts on Zack's favorite show for it to watch, and even dresses it in Zack's clothes. Darkstar likes it.

*Zack walks into the training room to see Angeal sparring with Darkstar, who's holding a sword in its mouth and wearing a SOLDIER 2nd Class uniform*

Zack: What are you guys doing?

Angeal: You've been replaced.

Zack: $#!@&!

Genesis: Is a bit disgusted by the idea of having to take care of an animal, but realizes that if the dog can't speak and can only listen to him, it makes for an excellent conversationalist. He feeds Darkstar gourmet meat, takes it on walks, and even buys an expensive collar with a friendship charm that matches his.

Genesis: Sephiroth recently confided in me that Angeal's Bolognese recipe does not have enough meat. Should I tell Angeal?

Darkstar: Bark! (translation: No)

Genesis: You're right. Not only should I tell Angeal, but I should also insinuate that Sephiroth called him cheap. What do you think?

Darkstar: Bark! (translation: DON'T do that)

Genesis: And then I should twist Angeal's response and make it so that he insults Sephiroth's taste.

Darkstar: Bark! (translation: WTF)

Genesis: You're right! Then, when they hate each other, I'll swoop in and mend our friendship back together! I'll be seen as a hero.

Darkstar: Bark! (translation: You crazy bitch)

Genesis: Aww, I love you too.

Cloud: Loves Darkstar. He never got to have a dog when he was a child, so he spoils Darkstar and lets it do whatever it wants: chewing up the leather couch in the rec room, eating Genesis' books, tearing apart Angeal's plants, everything.

*Cloud is playing go fetch with Darkstar*

Sephiroth: Have you seen my sword?

Cloud: Don't worry about it.

Sephiroth: Don't worry about it?

*Darkstar throws Masamune back, Sephiroth ducks to not be hit by it*

Sephiroth: !!??

Zack: Follows the schedule Rufus gave him flawlessly, walking Darkstar at the right times, following the meal plan, and keeping up with its training regimen. Unfortunately he doesn't realize that Darkstar has been seeing him as a pet this whole time.

*Genesis enters the communal showers and finds Zack submerged in a bathtub, with Darkstar hosing him down*

Genesis: What are you doing!?

Zack: Giving Dee a bath.

Genesis: .....Are you sure it's not the other way around?

Zack: Aww man. Has it been doing this the whole time? It brought me lunch in a doggie bowl earlier.

Genesis: Why didn't you question it then?

Zack: I felt loved.

Sephiroth: has been given a living, sentient being and is told he must take care of it, a job he takes very seriously. He goes all out; grooming Darkstar, buying it stimulating toys, giving it adequate attention, and cooks each meal from scratch. It's bad enough this poor creature was created in a lab, the least he can do is make sure it feels loved and safe while under his care.

*Sephiroth is wheeling around a baby stroller*

Tseng: Sephiroth, when did you have a baby?

*He looks inside and sees Darkstar*

Tseng: What the fuck

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #sephiroth #final fantasy vii #ffvii crisis core #genesis rhapsodos #angeal hewley #zack fair #cloud strife #crisis core

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viridianriver · 2 years ago

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∘◦✩◦∘ My Long Posts ∘◦✩◦∘

Nature, The Outdoors, Travel

Lazy Girl's Guide to Houseplants

How to survive in the wilderness for dirt cheap (+added info in reblogs)

How to stay safe traveling solo (Minus the classism that usually creeps into these articles)

Engineering & Machines

Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence

Queer Girl's Tips For Surviving Engineering

Engineering Job Interview Tips

2023 USA Railway Projects!!

Using your art to train an AI is theft! Here's how to fight back!

Sustainability & Anti Consumption

Sustainable Shopping - Alternatives to Corporate Stores

Shopping at corporations only when they're taking a loss

No Corporations November

Intro & Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Summary

SIKE YOU THOUGHT I STOPPED? NOPE IT'S NO CORPORATIONS 2024!!!

Tech & Computer Science

ChatGPT & Bias in "AI"

The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises for "Content"

Cybersecurity & "Smart" Devices

Cop Robo Dogs

"AI" & The Meaning Of Intelligence

Dude... The Matrix is real?

Titan Submarine Disaster

Systems Engineering

Human Factors Engineering

Corporate Negligence & Regulation Dodging

Detailed Disaster Timeline

A Better Designed Submarine

Miscellaneous Opinions

Extinction Bursts & Misogyny?

Want to write a realistic sci-fi story about "AI"?

Get Crabs! Spread Crabs! (Fundraising vs Advertising-Based Social Media)

Machine Learning / "AI" Failure Modes

Politics & Economics

USA politics rant - We're not well represented by a 2 party system

Charitable Trust Donations are Not That Charitable? (+added info in reblogs)

Natural Gas & The 2023 Attacks on Gaza

The economy doing well isn't helping us

Debunking Finance Myths

STONKS

What is the Middle Class really? (I think it's propoganda)

Health, Wellness, and The Body

Science based skincare that doesn't focus on products / brands!

Antivaccers and an abusive Medical Industry

How to engage in activism without burning yourself out

Feet, and the damage modern shoes cause

Recipes For Dumbasses

Very Extra Pancakes

Soup is Easy?

Asks

Resources to learn about economics?

How to clean/sanitize thrifted stuff!

how to get shit done when you've got executive dysfunction

AI Bubble?

#long post #long reads

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grison-in-space · 2 years ago

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Yeah, okay, Dogblr. Matilda is making it extremely clear that she wants to play disc more than any other thing we do together: she wants to play disc so badly that she will attempt to conscript any human who holds still long enough to release her outside where the frisbees are, and then also come out and throw them.

She has already taught herself to leap 2-5 feet in the air, sometimes while twisting and flipping, to catch a Frisbee sailing through the air. She will bring me discs or drop them as asked. I am a mediocre thrower but I get a lot of practice these days. We are using cheap shitty PetSmart frisbees mostly with a couple of Chuckit Paraflights for her training go bag. I'm open to purchasing better discs but they have to be sturdy: my dogs aren't allowed to chew Frisbees, but Benton tends to get hyperfixated by digging at frisbees in the dirt and it's not always possible to immediately get them back. I am also poor, so budget stuff is great.

I listen to my dog--I already had plans to enroll her in a disc class next summer--but while I know the kinds of things that help set up a puppy for agility well and that a puppy absolutely should not do, I do not know those things for disc. Matilda is 10mo: still definitely growing. I don't think I can stop her choosing to jump for things, even flippy jumps; she's frankly too fast and too determined. She does not give a shit about wipe-outs or falling. She wants a chance to catch a flying disc above basically every other reward in her universe.

What should I know about disc to keep my puppy from injuring herself and to help us elaborate the game she loves together?

I will be starting with MN Disc Dogs as a reading guide but does anyone know of good disc dog resources? Their getting started page is for people struggling with a different problem than I have: teaching the dogs that the Frisbee can be fun to catch in the air. Matilda knows that the Frisbee is fun and has been known to steal totally dead Frisbees off tables and present them to someone to throw. Are there any good disc dog resources predicated on wandering into the sport because your dog is extremely motivated and you are a hapless naif?

She's ready. Throw the Frisbee.

#disc #matilda #australian cattle dog #10 months #disc dog #dogblr #dog disc

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streamdotpng · 2 years ago

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Military School AU

Wednesday gets (semi) seriously hurt in a challenge/Event and Addams' will fight to death (or just literally unable to continue) and Enid has a flashback to the night with the Hyde and her mind goes blank besides protecting Wednesday.

That's how the Nightshades/Wednesday realize Enid doesn't actually hate them/was just hurt and bitter. And how Enid's Pack realizes just how important Wednesday is to their Alpha/realize Enid Imprinted on Wednesday.

Or, Wednesday comes into contact with one of the Pack (handshake, combat, whatever), and has a vision of what Enid's been going through/feeling and how the Pack has been helping/taking care of her. And to everyone's surprise, Wednesday looks absolutely wrecked (but is trying hard not to show it), and gives them her gratitude and thanks for caring for her Wolf when she wasn't there (no matter how much she wanted to be).

[Sorry if this reads weird, I'm typing this in the car on my phone.]

its all good bud! sorry for answering this so late, i desperately tried to draw this but my hand is not handing today so let me set the scene

Incoming huge werewolf lore dump!

Grimwolves are emotional beings. Any overwhelming emotion can lead to a partial shift! from a burst of a werewolf paw coming forth or the shifting and dislocating of bones to a bigger form-

you can say its part of the reason why enid was so cold. A cheap attempt to control herself, to try and be better. Especially during her 'slump' in the 2nd semester of her sophomore year. It didn't help that when the pack settle into the dorm, there are times where they can see Enid desperately clenching her fists before slipping on her bracers.

Sometimes, when they wake up early enough to catch sight of Enid without them, they can see the way the muscles in her arms twitch and shift before settling in a way other werewolves shouldn't.

They keep their mouth shut, all too aware of the fact that enid wears her muzzle during classes too. They aren't really dumb, they know of how Enid got her alpha rank after all but there is a difference between hearing and seeing

And at the end of the semester when Enid seems to be coping all the more better and the muzzle wasn't such a need anymore, they can see the way she tends to pant with her mouth open at times. It wasn't anything new, most werewolves do that too at times

But it gives them an eyeful of the way too big teeth that most werewolves don't have

(aka enid still tends to get overwhelmed at times and having the ability to shift whenever isn't as much as a blessing like most think)

so! the pack are aware that enid's different. They don't know the exact name and she's a bit too big for her size whenever its time for monthly shifting but they never see her fully shift in distress

And that changes alot.

So as explained briefly here, werewolves have the whole day to get ready for their shift in the night. Which means that they don't tend to be too aggressive, theyre a touch more rational and their body can properly regulate all that wolf magic hormone stuff

Which leads to them looking more wolf than man. Which was a good thing! Makes it easier to blend in with the normies of back then

But grimwolves?

Their shifts are sudden and there is no period to get ready. It's just snap and you're a wolf but normal werewolves aren't made for that and so the body accommodates

So most of the time, it leads to the image above. Grimwolves were rampant back then along with violence so it spread to normies that these were how werewolves are supposed to look like. Thus reinforcing their monstrous nature, rumors begin to spread amongst normies and you get the point

Obviously it's been disproven by outcasts as times began to get more modern because grimwolves are totally myths

Now, imagine being in a tournament fully expecting to be able to beat a bunch of trained dogs because hey its not like it's the full moon, what can they do?

They already took down the Addams girl and her flowery friends, what's wrong with besting those smug mutts too?

I can't say much since I have trouble with words but Enid wrecks their ass. She's been trying to control her shifting since her second semester last year but honestly, Wednesday has always lead to her doing the craziest of things

Revealing her existence on live was certainly not one she expected to do but if it meant keeping Wednesday alive-

Well, it wouldn't be the worst thing Enid has done

#Reference #Military school au #My art #rendered

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9r7g5h · 2 years ago

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Truly

Fandom: My Hero Academia, Boku no Hero Academia

Rating: G

Genre: Romance

AN: This was written for the CASBkDk event, so each fic is based off a song by the band Cigarettes After Sex!

Words: 958

Being a hero was about being brave. Being willing to jump head first into the kind of shit other people ran from, put your life on the line for others, face the darkness that reveled in other people's pain. Stand as the line between villains - true villains, not just shitty thieves or graffiti artists but people who actually wanted to kill, destroy - and the innocent people who couldn't stand for themselves.

Katsuki hadn't realized that when he was younger, blinded by the glory and fame and riches that came with a successful career, but he'd quickly learned. Sure, everyone might have had their own motivation to get started, but only those who were brave and willing enough to die stayed.

So Katsuki knew, on the battlefield, facing down a villain, he was brave. He could force away the fear and focus on what was needed, determination and adrenaline burning away the fear.

But, apparently, he was chicken shit when it came to love.

"Come on bro," Denki said with a shrug, as if it was oh so easy, "you just gotta go for it." Maybe it was easy for him, sliding in and out of relationships like they were no big deal (ignoring, of course, the squad mandated ice cream and cry nights after each break up). But Denki's experiences had been with random extras, students from random other classes, no one Katsuki gave a fuck about.

This was Deku.

Izuku, who deserved more than a couple of cheap dates, a few make outs, and some giant blow up that seemed to make up the pattern of Denki's relationships. They already had enough drama from their past, and while they, he, was working on it, if he was going to actually go through with this, Izuku deserved more.

Katsuki wasn't entirely sure more was something he could give him, but he sure as hell wanted to try.

"If a big confession is too much for you," Mina chimed in, throwing her arm around his shoulders and leaning her weight on him, making him stop the incessant pacing he'd been doing since he called this little meeting, "then start small. You can work up to the marriage proposal and promises of forever and all that fluffy stuff you're practically allergic to. But for now, do something tiny that you know will mean something to him."

"The only thing I'm allergic to is your breath, Pinky," Katsuki growled, pushing her playfully away. "What'd you eat for lunch, dog ass?" He took comfort in her insulted gasp, the teasing that followed, watching as his friends volleyed insults back and forth with ease as he digested her suggestion. It was a good one, one he could already think of something for.

Just the thought made his heart pound and his stomach turn, that cowardly bit of him that he'd tried so hard to stomp out begging him to reconsider. 'We don't have to risk rejection if we just keep the status quo.'

Katsuki instead just pushed it down harder. He'd accepted that fear was part of the job, but this, Izuku, deserved him being brave.

It still took him a week to put that tiny little plan into action, because fuck him he really was chicken shit, but a week later he found the perfect opportunity.

They were alone in the locker room - the least romantic place Katsuki could imagine, surrounded by the smell of rotten BO and farts, but they were still alone, a rarity since they'd moved into the dorms. Training with All Might gave them more opportunities, but it still wasn't often they were like this, together, with no one able to walk in anytime soon. Tired, sure, hungry and sweaty and exhausted by the new regiment All Might had put them on, but still alone.

So, swallowing his fear and the bile that threatened to rise in his throat, Katsuki let his body just move.

Even with the scars and calluses, Izuku’s hand was surprisingly soft. Rough in the way fighting and training made all of their hands, but warm and soft, even the bumpy scar tissue surprisingly smooth. A different texture against his own skin, something Katsuki wanted to spend hours studying, memorizing, because it was something so uniquely Izuku he hadn't known before. And he was supposed to know everything about him

Something for later, he quickly decided, because he was holding Izuku's hand and Izuku was turning to look at him, eyes wide and curious, letting his hand be held. Eyes that got wider as Katsuki continued to act on instinct, refusing to let his brain get in the way of his raising Izuku's hand to his face, lips ever so lightly brushing against his knuckles, less of a kiss and more of a caress. Never once breaking eye contact, a small smirk turning his lips as Izuku's face broke out bright red and beautiful, squeezing Katsuki's hand with his own at the action.

"K-kacchan, wha-"

"Good job out there, nerd," Katsuki forced himself to say casually, letting Izuku's hand drop, their fingertips lingering ever so slightly as he spoke. "Keep it up and you might actually get on my level."

It was all teasing; they'd been teasing each other for months now, an easy back and forth they'd fallen into, but now Izuku could only just stare at him and sputter, frozen to the ground as Katsuki grabbed his bag. He brushed their hands against the other as he walked by Izuku, one more quick touch before he left back for the dorms, knowing Izuku was a mess behind it.

It was fun to play with him, and hopefully this all just meant that his move was a successful first step.

[END]

If there are any questions/requests, I have a Curious Cat and a Retrospring! :3

curiouscat.live/9r7g5h

retrospring.net/@9r7g5h

And if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-fi! :3c Tips are appreciated! Comms are open, so if you're interested, info is on my Ko-fi page.

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/9r7g5h

#the 9 one queues it #fanfic #bakudeku #bkdk #mha #bnha #my hero academia #fanfiction #izuku midoriya #katsudeku #bakugou katsuki #mha bakugou #DkBk #DekuBaku

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stephensmithuk · 2 years ago

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The Missing Three-Quarter

Published in 1904, this forms part of Return.

"Weird" in its present meaning is first recorded in 1815.

A three-quarter is someone who plays near the back of a rugby union formation.

Trinity College, Cambridge, was formed in 1546 by the merger of two existing colleges. It is the Oxbridge college with the lowest proportion of state-schooled pupils and no less than six British Prime Ministers are among its alumni. More infamously, four of the five members of the "Cambridge Five" spy ring went there.

Professional sport was just starting to get going on the UK, to considerable controversy. Rugby Union and Rugby League split because of a disagreement about paying players. Many of the clubs were made up of lower- and middle-class players who were missing work to play rugby, so split off in 1895 to form the latter which has slightly different rules and were pro from the get-go. Rugby Union remained amateur until 1995.

The first England international rugby match - and indeed the first such match between two national sides - took place in 1871 against Scotland; they lost. The Scottish team included a non-white player, Alfred Clunies-Ross, who was half-Malay.

Matches were mostly among the "Home Nations" until 1905.

Rugby Union has 15 players to a side - one notable difference from American football is that you're not allowed to pass the ball forwards.

Cambridge is accessible by train from King's Cross and Liverpool Street.

Klinger points out that the richest man in England is so cheap that he's taking the bus.

Intercepting someone's telegrams, telephone calls or mail legally required a warrant signed by the Home Secretary. This of course had the potential for abuse.

The Cambridgeshire Fens are low-lying, flat and marshy. Not good for hiding.

Draghounds follow a prepared scent trail instead of a live animal; thus the sport remains legal despite the more general ban on fox-hunting within dogs passed in 2004.

Pompey was a Roman Republic general and statesman, but the name is also one closely associated with Portsmouth.

Trumpington is a real village, first recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book.

"Consumption" or tuberculosis was a common thing in Victorian/Edwardian literature to inflict on innocent, attractive female characters, who could die in a "beautiful" manner.

The BCG vaccine used to prevent tuberculosis did not start being used on humans until 1921; the main treatment at the time was rest and good food.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #the missing three-quarter #MISS #history #factoids

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osrs-stonks · 2 years ago

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OSRS Stocks: Ensouled Chaos Druid Heads

Old-school Runescape has a mechanic where some enemy mobs drop ensouled heads when you defeat them. Usually enemies will drop some standard items like bones, ashes, coins and/or meat, and then have a small chance of dropping some other stuff like weapons, ammunition, armour or runes. The ensouled head is an occasional drop that - as you've probably guessed - gives you their head with a little bit of their soul inside of it.

The purpose of this mechanic is to help you train your prayer skill. Prayers are basically just buffs, and the higher you make your prayer skill, the more prayers you unlock. You also get an extra prayer point per level so your buffs last longer. Before ensouled heads were added to the game, the primary way to train your prayer skill was to bury bones; you had regular bones, big bones, monkey bones, dragon bones etc. that would grant you higher amounts of prayer experience when you buried them. Other remains came a bit later.

Unfortunately, burying bones is a very tedious task with a very middling XP reward. The lowest class of bones grants you 4.5 prayer experience, and the highest class - superior dragon bones - only grant 150 XP. There are ways to amplify the payoff, but you're still looking at a maximum of 600 XP per pile of bones.

Ensouled heads can be resurrected at an altar, summoning an astral body to be refought so you can gain prayer and combat experience. The "worst" ensouled head, the goblin one, grants 130 experience - again, the bog-standard bones that just about everything drops only grants you 4.5 XP per pile. The best head - a dragon head - gives you a massive 1,560 prayer XP.

The ensouled chaos druid head nets you 584 prayer experience, just shy of the superior dragon bones.

Superior dragon bones - which I might make a post on in the future, because there was a massive dip in value in 2022 - cost 7,861 gold pieces to buy on the GE at the time of writing. These bones are only dropped by a story-relevant boss named Vorkath which has a minimum combat level of 392 (compared to the player character's maximum combat level of 127).

Ensouled chaos druid heads cost 404 gold pieces, and the mob that drops this item seems to only exist at level 13.

The low value of ensouled chaos druid heads has interested me for a while. In this post, I'm going to go deeper into the value of other ensouled heads and speculate as to why the ensouled chaos druid head is the second cheapest head to buy on the Grand Exchange.

---

The value chart for the ensouled chaos druid head is interesting, in that the peak of its value is when the item was launched on OSRS:

After which it dipped significantly, and stayed mostly in the same ballpark.

You can see that there was a brief boom in 2020, where the price almost hit 1,700 gold pieces:

After which it hit its lowest value of 352 gold pieces per head:

The ensouled chaos druid head is the second cheapest ensouled head you can buy on the GE, compared to the ensouled goblin head which only offers 130 prayer experience. And sure, it's no ensouled dragon head with its 1,560 prayer XP, but the next best option is the ensouled giant head at 650 XP, and that head is almost twice as expensive as the chaos druid head.

I'm starting to believe that the price for this head is so cheap because of the daily volume of ensouled chaos druid heads being sold on the GE.

Like - unicorns are rare and kind of a pain in the ass to farm for heads. According to the wiki at the time of writing, the daily volume of ensouled unicorn heads being sold on the GE is like 170. Ensouled dog heads only drop from two hostile dog mobs ranging between combat level 44 and 63, and the daily volume of that item is 117.

The daily volume of ensouled chaos druid heads - again, the DAILY volume - is just shy of 6,000:

So case closed, right?

Well, maybe not.

Ensouled chaos druid heads grant 584 prayer experience when you resurrect them at the Dark Altar in Arceuus. They're preceded by ensouled dog heads which grant 520 prayer XP when resurrected and defeated, and they're succeeded by ensouled giant heads which grant 650 prayer XP when defeated.

Over 26,000 ensouled giant heads go through the Grand Exchange every day, and the price is almost double what ensouled chaos druid heads are worth:

And I think I might have an answer for why the figures are the way they are.

Chaos druids are kind of common. There are five or six outposts of them in the entire game, and they're only ever at combat level 13, so they're easy enough to mow down and farm heads. Low combat level, easy to farm, common enough mob compared to dogs and unicorns. I'd imagine they're also a lower level slayer task.

Giants are fucking EVERYWHERE.

You've got hill giants, moss giants, ice giants, fire giants and cyclopes. They're a common slayer task, and they're often a reasonable option to train your combat skills and farm key drops to take on Obor and Bryophyta.

Giant heads might be the single most common ensouled head you can get in the game. And because of that and the slightly superior XP gain, giant heads are always moving through the GE and are always fairly valuable.

In my opinion, chaos druid heads are fairly common compared to its contemporaries, so it faces a sort of mundanity that keeps the value low and the daily volume high. Giant heads are plentiful and popular, so the value remains much higher than that of the ensouled chaos druid head despite not being all that different. Chaos druid heads are mundane, like toilet paper. Giant heads are popular, like McDonalds.

Other heads that grant less XP are more valuable than the chaos druid head only due to not being as common of a drop, presumably due to their mobs not being as common in the game world or not being a popular mob to grind. Like who's out there grinding scorpion mobs? They barely drop anything. Low daily volume, low item reserves, higher price. You can say the same for pretty much every mob with an ensouled head prior to the chaos druids, except for the common goblin.

I like ensouled giant heads well enough, but ever since learning about the ensouled chaos druid head I've come to feel kind of sorry for it. It's not much worse than the ensouled giant head, but it's not nearly as popular and it's extremely cheap on the Grand Exchange. I love an underdog, and honestly using chaos druid heads to train your prayer is probably the best coin-to-XP value due to its reduced value compared to giant heads.

So the next time you're considering training your prayer level, consider the humble ensouled chaos druid head. They're not quite as good as giant heads, but you're not missing out on much and you're getting a fantastic bargain.

#osrs #old-school runescape #oldschool runescape #runescape #grand exchange #ensouled chaos druid head #osrs stonks

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pawsitivevibe · 1 year ago

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I think maybe I should start volunteering at agility trials through the winter. I don't have a dog to trial rn so obviously I haven't been going. I'm not the volunteer coordinator for the club anymore, so I don't go to board meetings or trial committee stuff anymore. But I've been feeling so lonely and isolated. It might help to be involved in the community. I know several people who don't compete but go and volunteer at the local trials. They always need more volunteers too. I should go.

My club has a semi-competitive fun league that I used to do. The getting together with a group aspect was honestly nice. I have been thinking I'd like to get back into it, because I could run Leia, or even Arthur (I just wouldn't care about the points aspect lol). But despite me telling the person running it several times that, no, please don't take me off the mailing list, I seem to have now been removed, because I haven't got any emails about the January events. Sigh. I think I'll try to contact her for February.

There's some agility fun matches coming up that I think I should make the effort to go to. They're pretty cheap, and I want Arthur to have lots of no-stress ring time. And people I know will be there.

I had to stop going to rally classes since I quit my job and can't afford them. Which sucks. Bit of a social aspect to those. I still have Arthur's ratting classes at least, and my rally trainer of many years coincidentally just joined the class so hey someone I know really well. I just feel like I'm not really getting out much though. Just the one class a week .... I was supposed to start teaching my classes again after the holidays, but the lady who runs the training school hasn't got back to me. Probably gonna have to send another email.

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fairyofthehollow · 2 years ago

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13 12 23

it feels like the night before christmas. i go home tomorrow. I GO HOME!!! i’m so so so excited. i need to go home. i want to sleep in my bed and see my dog and USE MY KITCHEN and just be in my home. i am nervous about the journey but i think its alright. i was meant to get to the station at 9 (like two hours before the recommended time to come lmfao) but i bought a new ticket because there’s no way i’m doing that. i only got it because it was cheap. i should’ve thought about it more :| but it’s ok. im just manifesting all of my train rides are NOT delayed and i don’t miss them lol.

i just can’t believe my first ever term of uni is over. it’s so crazy to me. time flies so fast it’s frightening to be honest. everything kind of blurred together. i felt weird and out of place in the world and in my life like 80% of the time. it still doesn’t feel real that i’m at uni and this is my life now. i just hope when i come back for spring term it’s better. i think it will be. i’m excited for my new classes and i have a better handle on adulting (kind of). and i made some friends!!

speaking of… musical theatre society had their annual christmas dinner on monday and it was loads of fun!! i love my prod team sm <3 and i love every single person in that society, they’re all so lovely.

some bts photos of me “getting ready” for the dinner (can you tell im in my photocard era)

#vi muses ♡

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icarus-suraki · 1 year ago

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So this is fascinating to me because I taught basic computer use/literacy classes to the public during my librarian days--sometimes individually, sometimes as a group. Like, I nearly wrote my MLS thesis on part of this topic (generational differences and their needs re: computer training in public libraries).

What I learned was that the Silent Generation and the oldest Boomers knew very, very little about computer use.* They needed help using a mouse and finding files and folders. They could type, that's for sure! But they were often intimidated by The Computer. I had a dog training clicker I used to demonstrate single and double clicking, y'all. All they really wanted to do was type something and print it or maybe learn how to "do email" with their family. That was about it. The real basics and not much more. How to turn the computer on, do the one or two things they wanted to do, then turn it off again.

But then you had the younger Boomers, the ones who came of age when "computer science" was really becoming a field. The ones who had to learn how to use computers in the course of their professional lives in the 1970s and 1980s. The ones who were actually interested in computer technology. These people were, by and large, good with the basics: typing, mouse, clicking, files, folders, internet, &c. They had pretty much learned what we were teaching in the basic skills classes. They wanted to know about digital cameras, cloud storage, setting up wifi, e-readers and tablets, searching techniques on Google, how to use Facebook (lots of that), and maybe email. So the libraries had to pivot towards these more advanced topics instead of the super basic stuff we'd gotten used to.

Gen X and Millennials? We're fine with computers. As a child of two Boomers, one of whom was into computer science since the early 70s, computers were not intimidating to me at all. We were using Macintosh desktops when I was in kindergarten to learn phonics. Generally speaking? We're good.

And then everything got honed and improved, honed and improved, and now everything has come full circle again and it's the Zoomers and Gen Alpha who are as confused by "full-on" computers as the old Boomers and Silent Gen were. Just exactly like the above story. I have seen the thing where they pick up the mouse.

"Digital native" is more like "smartphone babies" anymore. App children. Something.

I don't quite know what to do besides try to educate them. Typing, mouse use, upload/download, all of those are such important skills, especially since the people in charge of schools and workplaces are from the generations that know how to use laptops/desktops. I am typing on a desktop right now. Most of what I do for work can't be done on a phone or a tablet.

But yeah: it's ironic how, in the span of a couple of generations, it's come back around again.

*This is glossing over the element of income involved in computer skills/knowledge. Comparatively speaking, laptops and desktops are expensive; smartphones and tablets are cheap. But you can't do a job application on your fucking phone. But if that's what you can afford, that's your usual internet/email/online connection and it works well for a lot of things. So you get familiar with that. And if you have no regular opportunities to use a desktop or a laptop, you won't get as familiar with it. And then you struggle with using the desktop or laptop. You don't know your passwords or even email address because you just have it saved on your phone. You can't edit your resume because you only have a photo of it. I saw this a lot when I worked at a library in a low-income area and it killed me. This is the digital divide.

So this was originally a response to this post:

****

Which is about people wanting an AO3 app, but then it became large and way off topic, so here you go.

Nobody under the age of 20 knows how to use a computer or the internet. At all. They only know how to use apps. Their whole lives are in their phones or *maybe* a tablet/iPad if they're an artist. This is becoming a huge concern.

I'm a private tutor for middle- and high-school students, and since 2020 my business has been 100% virtual. Either the student's on a tablet, which comes with its own series of problems for screen-sharing and file access, or they're on mom's or dad's computer, and they have zero understanding of it.

They also don't know what the internet is, or even the absolute basics of how it works. You might not think that's an important thing to know, but stick with me.

Last week I accepted a new student. The first session is always about the tech -- I tell them this in advance, that they'll have to set up a few things, but once we're set up, we'll be good to go. They all say the same thing -- it won't be a problem because they're so "online" that they get technology easily.

I never laugh in their faces, but it's always a close thing. Because they are expecting an app. They are not expecting to be shown how little they actually know about tech.

I must say up front: this story is not an outlier. This is *every* student during their first session with me. Every single one. I go through this with each of them because most of them learn more, and more solidly, via discussion and discovery rather than direct instruction.

Once she logged in, I asked her to click on the icon for screen-sharing. I described the icon, then started with "Okay, move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen." She did the thing that those of us who are old enough to remember the beginnings of widespread home computers remember - picked up the mouse and moved it and then put it down. I explained she had to pull the mouse along the surface, and then click on the icon. She found this cumbersome. I asked if she was on a laptop or desktop computer. She didn't know what I meant. I asked if the computer screen was connected to the keyboard as one piece of machinery that you can open and close, or if there was a monitor - like a TV - and the keyboard was connected to another machine either by cord or by Bluetooth. Once we figured it out was a laptop, I asked her if she could use the touchpad, because it's similar (though not equivalent) to a phone screen in terms of touching clicking and dragging.

Once we got her using the touchpad, we tried screen-sharing again. We got it working, to an extent, but she was having trouble with... lots of things. I asked if she could email me a download or a photo of her homework instead, and we could both have a copy, and talk through it rather than put it on the screen, and we'd worry about learning more tech another day. She said she tried, but her email blocked her from sending anything to me.

This is because the only email address she has is for school, and she never uses email for any other purpose. I asked if her mom or dad could email it to me. They weren't home.

(Re: school email that blocks any emails not whitelisted by the school: that's great for kids as are all parental controls for young ones, but 16-year-olds really should be getting used to using an email that belongs to them, not an institution.)

I asked if the homework was on a paper handout, or in a book, or on the computer. She said it was on the computer. Great! I asked her where it was saved. She didn't know. I asked her to search for the name of the file. She said she already did that and now it was on her screen. Then, she said to me: "You can just search for it yourself - it's Chapter 5, page 11."

This is because homework is on the school's website, in her math class's homework section, which is where she searched. For her, that was "searching the internet."

Her concepts of "on my computer" "on the internet" or "on my school's website" are all the same thing. If something is displayed on the monitor, it's "on the internet" and "on my phone/tablet/computer" and "on the school's website."

She doesn't understand "upload" or "download," because she does her homework on the school's website and hits a "submit" button when she's done. I asked her how she shares photos and stuff with friends; she said she posts to Snapchat or TikTok, or she AirDrops. (She said she sometimes uses Insta, though she said Insta is more "for old people"). So in her world, there's a button for "post" or "share," and that's how you put things on "the internet".

She doesn't know how it works. None of it. And she doesn't know how to use it, either.

Also, none of them can type. Not a one. They don't want to learn how, because "everything is on my phone."

And you know, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe one day, everything will be on "my phone" and computers as we know them will be a thing of the past. But for the time being, they're not. Students need to learn how to use computers. They need to learn how to type. No one is telling them this, because people think teenagers are "digital natives." And to an extent, they are, but the definition of that has changed radically in the last 20-30 years. Today it means "everything is on my phone."

#library life #librarian emerita #i got my 90 wpm typing via aim chat rooms #you had to type fast or you'd get left behind

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