mercurygray - Tumblr blog

[mercurygray]

Curt’s pov? Of my babies?? Beautiful as always, Merc!

So lovely 🥰

- your Fred Friend

Thanks, Fred Friend! I'm glad you liked it - I've had that scene in my head for a while and I'm glad I make some time to get it down.

[mercurygray]

Josiah Cross as Lt. Richard D. Macon

Masters of the Air - Part Eight

[mercurygray]

Two workers attaching a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp onto a F4U Corsair at the Chance-Vought factory in Stratford, Connecticut.

Date: March 1943

NARA: 179036630

[mercurygray]

Rose gold-filled sweetheart locket / Vintamania

[mercurygray]

Hi, I’m new to your blog so forgive me if I’m doing this wrong. I’d like to request 4. “insatiable” 32. “tease” for John Brady and your OC.

Also, I wanted to say I’ve been enjoying your writing! You’re fantastic!

Kind Anonymous Friend, I have to let you know that sometimes I can be a little tricky with the words people pick, and I think I know what you wanted here, and this won't be it. I still think it'll make you smile, though!

If anyone asked, he'd say he was borrowing trouble.

That was the phrase Curt's mother had always used, when she wanted him and his brothers out of the house and didn't much care what they did so long as they came home in one piece afterwards and didn't make a mess of her floors - "Why don't you go outside and borrow some trouble?"

And that was how he felt after missions, sometimes - the anxious, need-to-keep-moving feeling where paying attention to one thing too long seemed overrated and the afternoon was endless and finite at the same time, and the only thing for it was to ride his bike clear to the other end of the borough or keep throwing the baseball against the wall or go down to the gym and see just how long he could keep punching the bag until he was utterly worn out.

How the heck was a fellow supposed to sit still when he'd just been up in the air on the wire between life and death?

[read the rest on AO3!]

[mercurygray]

Masters Of The Air + Eyes

[mercurygray]

Hey, I never shared the rest of this boat, did I? @junojelli and I spent a not insignificant amount of time on this.

1 - Harry Welsh 2 - Floyd Talbert - The 1 and 2 seats, or bow pair, are often the smallest members of the crew, and in a coxed boat, are responsible for keeping the boat steady. While Tab's not small, both Harry and Tab are team players who look out for everyone's general well being and are steady leaders. 3 - Smokey Gordon 4 - Buck Compton 5 - Joe Toye 6 -Bill Guarnere - The middle seats of the boat are the Engine Room. They are usually the strongest rowers and are responsible in a big way for making sure everyone moves forward. Gordon, Compton, Toye, and Guarnere all work well with each other, but they're also known for providing strength to the whole team. 7- Carwood Lipton 8 - Dick Winters - 7 and 8 seats are the stern pair; they set the pace for the entire boat. The 8 seat is also called the stroke seat. It is usually the most competitive and most reliable person in the boat, and they receive a lot of shouting and instructions from the coxswain. Lip and Dick work well together, and both of them, in their way, provide direction to their team. Cox - Joan Warren - The cox, in tandem with the coach, work together to set the strategy for the race, and the cox and 8 seat work together to execute it. This pair often has a lot of shouting and a lot of frenetic eye contact. Harry convinced Joan to dump track and join the rowing crew instead. She's tall, light, extremely competitive, and for some strange reason Dick doesn't mind her shouting at him.

Here for the beer: Nixon. Rowing's not for him, thanks. It looks like work. Here for the shorts: Marj. This has been the most entertainment Marj has gotten out of a sports season since she dumped Allen and his hockey games. Also the 7 seat is cute. Not here for any of this: Kurt. It was all fun and games until his girlfriend started getting really chummy with a bunch of absolutely stacked guys in short shorts. (They also keep throwing her in rivers like this is some sort of wet t-shirt contest, and he's not here for that either.) The rest of the football team's starting to tease him about it.

Guys send help @junojelli is being mean and teasing me about a Girl Gang rowing AU.

[mercurygray]

MASTERS OF THE AIR (2024) Part four

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My funeral is tomorrow at 4:00 you’re all invited

[mercurygray]

There is a man on my professional development call right now who is a dead ringer for Nate Mann and I have to say it is extremely distracting.

[mercurygray]

JOSEPH PAYNE Masters of The Air (2024) ↳ part one

[mercurygray]

Why yes, I do resent starting my day with an angry phone call from an employee who is taking this really, really personally. Why do you ask?

[mercurygray]

Send me a number and two characters - get a five sentence drabble.

[mercurygray]

Honestly, i've gotten a lot of follows recently from people who haven't posted a single thing on their blogs in three years and YEAH, that's a little weird to me. I'm just going to say that. (What you do with your blog is your own deal, and how I judge is my own deal, and we're just going to have to make peace with that.)

I personally don't do the new follower block thing unless a) those old reblogs are content I really strongly disagree with (I got a lot of new followers recently who had been reblogging nothing but bad rightwing facebook copypasta) or b) totally, completely, blank. zero evidence of an actual human being there. To me, both of those things look like bots - and the people who haven't posted anything on their blogs in three years sort of look like hijacked accounts to me, too, so I support your decision to block.

If that's you and your blog falls into one of these categories - I'm sharing this information with you as a consideration. This web site has a huge problem with bots, and this is supposed to be a social site. The people who are here come here to be social - with real human beings. We value that attribute. Please lean into your real-human-being-ness.

Regarding the finding you on discord - that seems really intrusive, and very much a bridge too far, and that's not a person I think I would want in my internet space. I would block them there, too. You don't need that energy.

(Again - if this is you, I am being very transparent here so that you can take this information and make decisions with it. I'm not judging you - I'm just letting you know how this looks from my end of things.)

I've been pretty lucky not to have weird interactions on Tumblr so far, but maybe you all can help me out.

I got a follow today, and, as usual, I went to the person's blog out of curiosity. Nothing new has been posted or shared in three years. In my mind, that was suspicious, and I blocked the account.

That person found me on Discord and called me out for blocking them on Tumblr.

Do I engage? Block them on Discord? Has this happened to anyone else today?

[mercurygray]

ooh, could i request #3 "hour" for 1st lt summerton please?👀 thank you!❤️ — @shoshiwrites

thank you for this! i feel like it's a bit short but either i end it here or it goes for another 3k and i think i will save that for another time. of course, no proofreading we die like men. pls forgive any mistakes!

An hour. She only had to put up with him for an hour and then visiting hours would be over and he’d be out of her sight. A half-hour, probably. It was late and Mahalia was tired—if she fell asleep, she wouldn’t have to deal with him. Twenty minutes, she told herself. She’d be asleep in twenty minutes and she wouldn’t have to listen to him hem and haw for her attention in between bothering the staff about the morphine that they were purposely withholding from her. All she needed to do was keep her eyes closed and try to keep still and she’d be out in no time. 

“It’s illegal, y’know!” John Egan called after the doctor as he passed on his rounds.

Mahalia sighed from her bed. “Give it a rest. They gotta keep me alive, nothin’ else.”

“Oh, yeah? What about the Eighth Amendment?”

She scoffed. “The Eighth Amendment? You think the Eighth Amendment applies—” She was greeted by his infuriating, roguish grin when she opened her eyes. If she was holding something, she would’ve thrown it at him. “You’re full of it.”

He looked proud of himself as he slouched down in his seat and shoved his hands in his pockets, his knees knocking into the side of her bed. 

It was quiet in the infirmary and Mahalia tried to settle again. It was best if she fell asleep now while she had a visitor. Rest was rare when she was alone inside the cavernous room in the dark with the doctor doing his best to check on her as irregularly and disruptively as possible. She received treatment when there was someone in the chair next to her, or at least was left alone instead of being reluctantly prodded at like a mangy stray dumped at the door. She wouldn’t tell Egan that, of course. He’d probably add that she had fleas. 

Which made her question his reason for stopping in. It’d been seven days since her fall as of this morning and she’d seen none of him. Alex was in everyday, so was Gale; Crank, Vera, and Benny came by when they could. But the major had made himself scarce. Gale said it was because he blamed himself for the accident, but that couldn’t be it. It was an old, busted ladder that they should’ve checked before she went up on the roof. No bad blood about that, despite the rest of their bad blood. 

He seemed to be up to nothing besides staring at the floor with that boyish pout that meant he was upset about something but he didn’t know what it was. Maybe… maybe Gale was right. Now was as good of a time as ever to clear the air while she was laid up in bed with her bones in pieces and bruises along her entire backside. She couldn’t spare the energy to lie now. 

“What are you here?”

His head swiveled up, surprise passing over his features ever so briefly before he composed a nonchalant shrug. “Thought you could use some company.” 

Right. “It wasn’t your fault. The wood was rotten. Neither of us knew.”

He nodded but couldn’t look at her. He was hearing without understanding.

She slid her hand across the sheets until it hit his knee and she turned her head as much as she dared. Finally meeting her gaze, those big eyes turned a sorrowful shade of sapphire under the yellow lights above. He looked like a kicked puppy even with the straight edge of his sharp jaw and his furrowed brows; his ability to seem so small in such a broad frame amazed her. There was a change in his bearing in these rare, quiet moments and she was yet to find where he was hiding the switch.

Her fingers brushed over his knee and the heat of his skin through the fabric shocked her, causing her to yank her hand back. His expression darkened like that was an inevitability, but that wasn’t what she meant. She meant, “I’m serious.”

“I—I know,” he said, and he did that nodding thing again, listening but not taking it to heart. 

She cursed herself and she cursed him; if only she could find the words and if only he would believe her.

He was everything she’d ever called him to his face—reckless, ineffective, childish, a pain in the ass. From the day she arrived, he had done nothing but question her and get in her way, both physically and strategically. He reeked of jealousy at her, Alex, Richard, and Robert’s inclusion into the fold of Colonel Baker’s operations, and it had taken several assurances from her fellow Red Tails that it wasn’t a matter of prejudice but of pride for her to start speaking to him. Even then, he was rude, brash, and a show boater.

She found him utterly lacking in redeeming qualities, which put her at odds with Brady and others from the 100th from time to time. That was no matter to her. She made her opinions on dangerous leadership known as soon as they arose because her lack of diligence to her men was not going to be what kept them in the stalag. There was a screaming match in the yard that ended with her swinging at him while being dragged away by Alex. He’d ducked her fist, the bastard, but she nailed him in the shin as he gloated, and they were ordered to steer clear of one another after that. 

Gale had become their intercessor. The temperature in the bunk dropped whenever she and John were in there together and she knew it was a problem, but frankly, she didn’t believe that she should capitulate. He had eight inches on her; he could afford to be the bigger person.

Vera had suggested they talk and make up—Benny had suggested something a bit more obscene—but Mahalia was steadfast in her resolve. Egan got the coldest shoulder she could muster. She would not endorse such behavior from any superior, no matter how desperate she was. The Germans had taken a lot from her; they would not get her morals as well.

Then the roof started leaking, and she found something she and John both agreed on. It was simple enough: she was light enough to work on the roof without falling through and he was tall enough to pass her the panel that was going to be nailed over the leak. They would call it a truce for the ten minutes it took to make the repair. He even smiled at her as he held the ladder on her way up, which she was going to ‘accidentally’ kick him in the head for on the way back down.

There ended up being no way back down.

She’d stepped through the first wrung on the ladder as the wood crumbled under her boot and she momentarily enjoyed the feeling of flying again for the first time in months before she slammed into the ground.

He was everything she’d ever called him to his face, but as her fingertips tingled from their recent touch, she remembered how warm he was.

The mud was freezing under her as she lay looking up at the gray sky, but John’s hands were warm as they passed over her head and shoulders. His hands were warm as they steadied her neck once she found her words again and realized she couldn’t feel her left leg. His hands were warm as he lifted her onto the stretcher, telling the guards in no uncertain terms to keep their hands off her. His hand was warm in hers as they brought her into the infirmary, and she lost the feeling after that, when the impact of the fall caught up to her brain. 

Nights in the infirmary were cold and when she did manage to sleep, she dreamed of warm hands directly on her skin, down her back, up her legs. She wouldn’t tell him that, of course. 

But she did sneak a glance at those wide, flat palms and heavy fingers as he clasped them between his knees. She felt flush, itchy under the rough sheets of her bed.

She checked her watch. A half hour. She only had to put up with him for a half hour. 

[mercurygray]

OC Askbox Meme

1. Talk about a book or media piece that was influential to your OC.

2. Do you have any OCs without a story right now? What’s stopping that story from happening. (‘Time’ is a legitimate answer.)

3. We’ve talked about OCs being 'cringe’ - what have you done - or seen other writers do - to create characters that you like and feel strongly about?

4. OFCs, in particular, are often criticized for being self-inserts - representations of the author in the story. Do you think your character is a direct reflection of you? In what ways?

5. Shakespeare famously wrote that we should 'fit the action to the word, the word to the action.’ Do you find that you create a character and then find a story for them to inhabit, or does the story or premise come first and the character follows after?

6. How has your character changed over time - either in their story, or as you’ve continued writing them?

7. Have you learned or realized something about yourself from writing this character?

8. Can canon characters become OCs?

9.  Which canon characters does your OC get along with? Like, they’d take a cup of coffee if he offered? If that character were describing yours, how would they be described?

10.  Characters are often a product of their environments. Talk about a place that was very formative for your character - or, if you’re feeling brave, write a short paragraph describing that place or having your character talk about it to another character.

11.  Your OC is feeling a big emotion. Describe what they do physically and let us see if we can guess what that emotion is.

12.  We all have somewhere we retreat in our heads to calm down - a happy place. Describe that place for your character - a physical location or a time or place they felt safe or at ease.

13.  Characters have to come from somewhere before the story starts. Tell me about someone they trust before the story begins and why that trust exists. 

[mercurygray]

i've dealt with coworkers like that in the past, they can really drain the life out of you. i wish you a relaxing evening 🌟 <3

Thank you, Kind Anonymous Friend. And thank you to all the non-anonymous friends who liked or commented on that post! I am very lucky to live in a very large and very friendly and caring village.💕