#Palisades Partners

[synthetic-ultramarine]

My pleroma's thesis reading list is turning out to have a recurring theme of divine/pilot relationships diverging from what is conventional for their time and place and growing to resemble the relationship models of other societies instead; it comes up in Vault of Anticipation and in the road to palisade Hounds game. The divine/pilot relationship is explicitly represented across seasons as socially constructed and as something that changes. I think this is a refreshing break from the larger media landscape, where ideas of "what a wizard is" or "what a jedi is" are frequently imagined in a more essentialist way and often not imagined by their writers as socially constructed and therefore changeable.

Anyway in the vault of anticipation, Anticipation is found to have died attempting to disprove Pleroma's conclusion that any relationship between mortals and divines is ultimately doomed to become a relationship of exploitation in the long term. Ironically, in attempting to prove that mortals and divines can have equitable relationships which do not devolve into domination and exploitation, Anticipation consumed her Excerpt, using the processing power of her human brain and leaving her a mummified husk. this Excerpt's name was "Under the cover of night, the Civet stalked mouse and berry alike", abbreviated to ⸢Civet⸣; the animal name calls back to the naming conventions of the Divine/Candidate relationship. While the Divine/Excerpt relationship is more equitable, the Divine/Candidate relationship was likened to human sacrifice. Harm or death to the human partner as a result of a relationship with the divine was considered normal in Counter/weight, but was shocking and disturbing in the twilight mirage.

Fealty and Veronique's relationship is a Divine/Elect relationship, but their story has callbacks to both the Divine/Excerpt and Divine/Candidate relationships. Veronique was recruited as a student athlete; her relative youth calls back to the teenage Candidates of the counter/weight era, who reference the child soldiers of the mech genre's canonical works. There are other counter/weight callbacks; the etymological relationship between "Veronique" and "Berenice" calls back to Cassander and the use of the javelin as a primary weapon by both partners brings to mind the iconic image of Cassander's defeat of Rigour and autocrucifixion. It's like poetry, it rhymes. Later when the heresy squad comes after them, Fealty refers to Veronique as their "excerpt," not as their elect. To the heresy squad the use of this old terminology marks their relationship as deviant/heretical and in need of dissolution. For Fealty and Veronique, deserting the principality means redefining their relationship on their own terms, and while Veronique struggles to imagine a world outside of the Pricipality, Fealty remembers a world before it ever existed, and remembers having past relationships outside of the principality's standards.

Dahlia, Commitment, and integrity are (were) an interesting one. Their relationship deviated from the standard Principality model; Commitment was always unusual with its requirement for two pilots. Integrity is as old as Fealty, if not older; its form factor is unusual, and its relationship with Sokrates was unconventional, not least because they orchestrated a coup together. The Integrity/Dahlia/Commitment triad has a divine acting as the pilot of another divine which i think might be entirely new. Dahlia is stated to be appropriating/recuperating branched ideas about bodies and about relationships with the divine. This is different from the last two examples because it's mirroring a contemporary relationship model and not a past relationship model; the branched have solved or bypassed the issues Pleroma predicted by attaining a post-post-postmodern anarchic shifting oneness with the divine. Dahlia wants to gain power by emulating that relationship model but doesn't truly understand it.

[anotherbluesunday]

✨Teaser: In Technicolor✨

So some of you may know this, but my next fic that was set to release was originally called “Ballad of a Teenage Dream” and was a Wednesday x Skam crossover that showcased all the highs and lows of high school and the growing pains that come with the transition from teenager to young adult.

Well that story has been reworked, overhauled, and given new life.

I present to you my high school dramady, In Technicolor.

Set in Los Angeles, California, the story follows two groups of friends as their worlds collide. A modern spin on the social dynamics of Romeo and Juliet where two factions are warring but cannot remember why or why their bitter rivalry is so important to their identity, In Technicolor highlights the feuding of the wealthy and the everyday citizens to show the consequences that come from stripping culture and history from the city streets in the name of gentrification. It explores the complex relationships of families on either side of the fence to reveal that wealth does not always bring happiness. And finally, at the center of it all, the complicated friendships and relationships of the members of these two groups as they meld into one.

For our East LA champions, we follow the Addams siblings and their mismatched group of skateboarders, graffiti artists, musicians, and street racers.

For our Palisades elite, we focus on the Blossoms and Galpin’s—two families from extreme wealth that are not entirely honest about what they show the world.

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Important Story Information: If the visuals were not enough to give it away, this story will be a crossover with a different fandom. Entering the mix is the ensemble from Riverdale. I do want to caution readers now, there will be crossover pairings, character retcon on both sides, ageing up, ageing down, and changes to character personalities.

One such example is that Wednesday isn’t allergic to color and isn’t entirely unapproachable. She smiles and laughs but only when around those she trusts like her family and friends. Pugsley has been aged up and is Wednesday’s twin brother. My face claim for this version of Pugsley is Xolo Mariduẽna and I have made Pugsley (who also will be going by “Lee”) more confident and hotheaded with some snark and sass. Second to that, my face claim for Pubert “Bertie” Addams is Malachi Barton and Pubert/Bertie will be one year younger than his siblings—the twins Wednesday and Pugsley age 17 and in their senior year and Bertie age 16 entering his junior year.

On the Riverdale side of the crossover, I have made certain changes that I don’t want to reveal just yet for Archie’s character. That surprise will come soon enough because next I will be posting moodboards for specific couples that will be at the center of this story. But one change I will discuss now to get it out there to avoid hate comments and harassment is the issue of is Cheryl bi or is she a lesbian. In my story, she’s bi and will be paired with a male lead. I understand that the actress for her character went back and forth on Cheryl’s orientation but, to me, Cheryl reads like a chaotic bisexual that goes back and forth on her identity because being bi is confusing enough. And as someone who is bi, I would like to see more representation and fiction for people like myself because fandoms are so quick to erase bisexuality and pansexuality and criticize us when we speak up about it. So in this story, Cheryl is bi and she has broken up with her most recent girlfriend before meeting her next partner who is a man. And it’s fine.

If this upsets you, just swipe off of this post. Don’t leave mean comments or take digs at me because I’m not for any of this fandom infighting nonsense. It’s fiction and these characters can be whatever you want them to be in your stories.

However, if you don’t mind Cheryl liking both men and women, you don’t have an opinion either way, or your curious to see how this’ll pan out, stay tuned. I’d love to share this story with you. All are welcome so long as things stay civil and breezy.

So with that, I look forward to updating with the couple’s board and then the first chapter titlecard along with the chapter itself. Until then, stay lovely and stay groovy.💜

[melit0n]

Delicate Is The Flesh - Chapter 3

- Synopsis: On the brink of the bustling new city of Rosholt lies a forgotten palisade of abandoned homes, shops and streets that sit mummified after a chemical outbreak in the 70s, leaving the city uninhabitable.

Over the years however, the place has become a hotspot for urban explorers and crime junkies alike.

Whispers of reanimated bodies stalking the dead streets and brutal murders worm their way into your friend's ears and, having nothing to do on your Winter break, you reluctantly agree to go exploring the abandoned city with them.

What could go wrong, right?

- Chapters ->

Prologue

Chapter 1: For Whom the Bell tolls

Chapter 2: Corvus and Krater

Chapter 3: Belly of the Beast (you're already here!)

Chapter 4: Something Forgotten

Chapter 5: Citrus and Cinnamon

- Obsessive! Demon OC/Reader

- Word count (for chp): 8k

- Warnings for chp: None.

- Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55444003/chapters/140685856

Draped in ebony, you peer into the darkness to try to see, well, anything; your flashlight’s lights only reach so far. The slim hallway seems endless, spiralling downwards to more immovable darkness. Even the subtle moonlight from behind you does nothing to illuminate the dank hall, nor whatever resides further down the stairs in the unseen void. You think, if you squint, you can see pearly stars watching you at the bottom of the staircase. 

Maybe, if you tripped, you’d find yourself floating in the cold nothing of the beginning of everything, surrounded by light that you’ll never touch.

Even so, it doesn’t help that the hall is somehow more cold than the outside. Each subtle wind–creeping in from the door behind you–caresses each uncovered inch of your body and sends uncomfortable jitters through each of your fingers, slowly numbing them. With every exhale of warm breath, a puff of misty smoke ascends into the air. Both make you very thankful for the thick hoodie you’re wearing. 

You tuck your uncovered hands up into your sleeves, hoping to gain back some warmth and movement to the shivering digits. Helen follows along, awkwardly shoving her hands up into her jumper with her arm still looped with yours.

“Are you cold?” Noah asks, pointing out the obvious. “You can borrow my jacket if you want?”

You’re about to reply, happy to borrow his fluffy jacket–if only for a few minutes–to stop the goose-bumps somehow still appearing on your flesh, before you realise his concern was for Helen.

“Only a little,” she smiles at him. “I will be fine, though. Thank you.” Unconsciously, she steps closer to you in an attempt to steal what little heat you give off. With another exhale of air, a small shiver racks her body.

Dust motes dance in the disturbed air, your quiet inhales and exhales their unwilling partner as they drift like ocean tides before your very eyes. Thicker particles find home at the bottom of your lungs, waltzing up and down your airways as you give in to your second coughing fit of the day, paired with a few surprisingly painful sneezes. Glancing over at Noah, you can already see the exasperated frown on his face as he sighs, sending even more dust twirling around the four of you.

“Well, this is your last chance to take an inhale of clean air.” Jeanne laughs out, giving you all a toothy grin. “You good?” She looks over at Noah, who gives her a subtle thumbs up, before dramatically turning around and taking a deep inhale of the chilly night air outside the door.

“Peachy.” He turns back around with a smile, earning a laugh from you all.

“Good, good, now-” Jeanne begins.

“-Shouldn’t we close the door?” You interrupt, “In case anybody comes looking?” Glancing between the three of them, you slow your words down closer to the end of your question. You watch Jeanne’s smile grow before she clicks her fingers and ruffles your hair.

“That’s why I bring you along to this sorta stuff.” She squeezes by you, Noah and Helen and back out the doorway.

“I thought you brought me along because you love me.” Grumbling, you do your best to rearrange your hair.

“That too.” She looks left and right before obviously spotting whatever she was searching for with an ‘aha!’ that has you envisioning an evil scientist discovering a new, just as fiendish chemical. The image brings a smile to your face. 

She presents her a find–a rotting plank of wood–like a dog would present a stick to their owner. With a lot of dramatic effort, and denying Noah’s honest help a few times, she shuts the heavy door, wedging it open with the plank and allowing a small slit of hopeful, pale light to seep through.

Noah eyes the crumbling plank sceptically. “Are you sure that’s not going to break?”

“Positive! Now…” Jeanne quickly moves on from the subject with confidence, contemplating the dusty, crumbling stairs that lead downwards into the unknown. Helen’s arm tightens around yours.

“Where are we?” You mumble to yourself for the second time today, another cough and slight gag wracking your body as you feel dust coat your tongue. You already hated this place. Hated all the darkness and its stupid dust. 

You flit your torchlight everywhere you can, but you're met with the same sight everywhere; crumbling concrete and linoleum. Crumbling concrete, linoleum and shadows that stick around even if you beam your harsh light on them. They flinch, but they stay unmoving. Whether that be in fear or intrigue, you’re unsure. 

“Well, this,” Jeanne turns around and points her light to the door, “is one of two maintenance doors. If my mate gave me the right floor plan…” She trails off, digging around in her pockets for her phone. She’s the type of person to keep anything and everything in her pockets, no matter how meaningless. They seemed bottomless, with how much she managed to carry in there, pulling out a charging wire, two pennies, a fifty pence, a bent iron nail, a used Vaseline–which you don’t even know why she keeps it in there considering it ran out almost a year ago–and, finally, her phone. 

She makes her way to her photos, and expands said floor plan, significantly less pixelated than the one before. “Down there are the storage rooms,” she jerks her head towards the inky stairwell. “We’ve just gotta follow the hallway that runs along them–which links the two apartment blocks–take a right at the boiler room, and there’ll be a maintenance door that leads us up into the main lobby.” 

“And what if the maintenance door is locked or blocked?” Noah questions, looking up from Jeanne’s phone.

You nod, “Yeah. You said this place was ‘famous’, right? You know how some people are. Plus, if it’s famous to us, it’ll be famous to the police; they might’ve blocked it off for good measure.”

Nonchalantly, Jeanne simply shrugs and gives you both a confident grin. “Well, let’s just get on our knees and pray it ain’t.”

After all these years, you’re used to Jeanne’s confidence and the nature of her ‘lucky guesses’, which, you had to admit, did tend to be right. On the few occasions they weren’t, though, they normally got you into deep shit which you had to claw your way–tooth and nail–to get out of.

You really hope this isn’t one of those times.

Sighing, you nod, and point your flashlight down the horrifying staircase.

“How far down do you think it goes?” You ask to nobody in particular. 

Noah appears beside you, lending your eyes his light, but the bottom of the staircase still sits in total darkness. “Maybe three, four stories?”

Having climbed sixteen or so floors every day for a year or two–your apartment not housing working elevators for a stupid amount of time–you certainly wouldn’t complain about such a short descent. However, it was what sat, hidden, at the bottom of that staircase that put you off. The flashlights you all used weren’t that shitty. They definitely should have been able to illuminate whatever the Hell was at the bottom of those stairs.

A glacial breeze seems to rise from the stairs below, stirring the thick dust yet again. You can’t help but be reminded of static; a low buzz creeping over your skin, almost as if you’re descending into a place a soft creature of flesh and bone shouldn’t go. 

“That is not too bad,” Helen notes, squinting into the darkness. 

You can’t tell if it’s a warning or a beckoning. 

Your mind steadily begins an anxious, downward spiral of what, exactly, patiently waited for you at the bottom of those stairs. What if it was flooded? What if the building had collapsed and now your only point of entry was blocked off? What if there was someone waiting for you down there? Some overzealous explorer or police officer? What if there was a corpse-

“Right,” Jeanne claps her hands together, echoing loudly in the small space, bouncing off of the walls of your skull and dragging you out of your thoughts. Your eyes stay affixed to what lies below. “Off we go then!” Without warning, she grabs your hand–still hidden partially in your sleeve–and drags you forward, Helen being dragged forward as well with a small noise of surprise.

Sometimes, you truly do wish Jeanne was more aware of her mortality and, as you feel rotting wood bend under your weight and hear chips of concrete clatter to an unseen end, you realise this is one of these times.

The staircase is barely wide enough for two people, so, with Helen unceremoniously squished to your side, one arm holding on to you and the other holding her flashlight, you find yourself braced against a peeling, mouldy wall: cold cheek brushing against flakes of old wallpaper. Each peeling sliver that caresses your face feels like boney fingers; nails grown too sharp and skin rubbed thin by the ever present hands of time.

“Hold on-” You begin, but Jeanne only seems to walk faster. You attempt to dig your feet into the bending wood, try to get her to stop before she sends all four of you tumbling down the ancient staircase at break-neck speed, but it seems to be no use. You don’t even know how she’s managing to walk–more like run–down the creaky stairs so fast without tripping.

Every step you take–every brief kilo of weight you press down upon wood and concrete–you hear the steps groan with pain. Pain that echoes, as all pain does, that has you fearing you may fall straight through. Fall straight through and fall down, down, down until left and right, up and down, no longer exist. 

What you believe to be an ugly cream coloured wallpaper–which may or may not have been white at some point in its life–flashes by you swiftly. At some point, you think you stopped registering the steps, letting your legs go to autopilot as you pray with all your might that you don’t trip and end up with a concussion.

Suddenly, the filthy wallpaper morphs into cold concrete and, unceremoniously, you trip over your own feet, dragging Helen down with you. That is, before being caught by Jeanne with a loud snort. Looking up, you see her sly grin and can almost hear the playful insult on the tip of her silver tongue.

“Yeah, yeah…” you mumble, straightening your back and brushing the ancient dust off yourself before turning over to Helen and apologising. 

“No! It is okay! Are you okay? You almost, what do you call, ate concrete there.” She laughs lightly, placing a hand on your shoulder and quietly scanning you for any injuries. You give her a thumbs up, before allowing your eyes to search the room, well, hall, you now find yourself in.

Unlike the staircase now behind you, the bottom of the stairwell is constructed solely from concrete. Thin fractures run across the walls like veins: mould seeping into the structure via the small cracks like bacteria to a cut. In some places, the walls have almost completely crumbled to dust, revealing old pipes and insulation. They’re like gaping wounds, begging to be stitched and cleaned as the skin around it rots in a sickly grey-green colour.

Ba-dump…ba-dump…ba-dump

Now further underground, six feet under and feeling damp dirt under your fingernails, a cold chill yet again finds you. 

Above you, more exposed, rusted pipes run lengthwise along the ceiling, carrying nothing but stagnant air and tetanus. They vary in shape and size, but all run forwards towards another endless hall. Some take abrupt left or right turns into the concrete, hidden by the decaying walls, while others simply stop and fall to the damp ground before you.

“Well, isn’t this place lovely?” Noah jokes, flicking his flashlight around. Helen laughs, which you think is all Noah really wants, and Jeanne squints at the caliginous hall before you.

“This is the hall that follows through all the storage rooms. We follow it until we reach the boiler room, take a right, and then follow the door up and out to the lobby.” Jeanne repeats her earlier explanation, slightly breathy with excitement.

“Easy enough.” You whisper, eyes searching the hallway in front of you for that of which you cannot see.

The cold concrete thrums with excitement underneath you.

Following Jeanne, you walk in silence, concrete and dead woodlice snapping and popping underneath your shoes. Occasionally, you pass the odd room, hidden to you by rotting doors and somewhat collapsed walls. Jeanne’s promise of the building being ‘structurally sound’ seems less true with each step you take. 

“Alright,” Helen begins, her voice in the silence startling you all. “Walking in silence like this makes this all the more creepy.” She looks between the three of you, sighing when you all still stay quiet. 

“Uhm, Jeanne,” you start, bringing everyone’s eyes to you as you attempt to fill the void. “You said you were taking a gap year to travel, yeah? How about we, uh, all plan to go on a trip somewhere? Maybe overseas?” The idea spills out of your mouth before you can stop it. 

They all nod with a smile, Jeanne replying, enthusiastically, “Fuck yeah! I’m so tired of this stupid city.”

“Have you ever been complacent with anything in your life?” Noah jokes. He wasn’t wrong. Jeanne was the type of person who could never keep still; she had a need to see, feel and taste everything the world could offer her. She constantly had her eyes ahead of her, never looking back or even seemingly thinking about what ‘could have been’.

“What can I say?” she shrugs. “I'm like a shark; gotta keep moving.”

She’d wanted to move away so many times…but stuck around for you. She called you her anchor, grounding her to reality when she needed, but you felt more like a useless weight tugging her down more than anything.

“Sharks don’t even function that way.” Noah frowns, their conversation slowly fading into white noise as you scan the different rooms.

Sometimes, as much as you loved her and cherished all the memories she gave you, you wish she would just find some way to- to hate you and drop you. At least, then, she could go where she wanted without ‘worrying’ about you. Even then, you could watch from afar, and maybe, just maybe, catch some of the light she gives off. Maybe it’d be kinder than the rays you currently receive, too; soft gold on your face instead of slowly scalding your back. 

Walking further into the complex, you notice that the doors of each room, instead of being closed and rotted shut, are open, allowing their contents to be seen.

In full admittance, it was why you had begun attaching yourself to Helen more; preparing yourself for when you eventually become too little for Jeanne. She knew how to soar the skies without burning, unlike you.

As you mentally monologue, room after identical room passes by you, filled with moulding and disintegrating boxes. The odd pipe appears, snaking their way in and out of the walls. Other than that, it is simply dust. Dust, dust, and more dust.

What an entertaining trip this is turning out to be. 

Eventually, one room manages to catch your eye. Unlike the previous hollowed spaces, the door is nowhere to be seen. The hinges still remain, rusted and deteriorating just like everything else in this place. Odd, but not entirely unusual. Stopping by the doorway, you flit your flashlight into the mouldy four walls, and find…dust. 

Shrugging, mentally smiling with the internal image of someone dragging an entire door out of this place as a souvenir, you begin to walk away before a disgusting odour hits your nose. Heavy, it creeps in through your nostrils and settles at the back of your throat. The only way you’d be able to describe it would be something akin to rotten eggs. The type that you’ve left at the back of your fridge for too long that have finally begun to decay in their own shells; a smell you wretch at.

Hearing your involuntary noise of disgust, Noah approaches you. “What’s wrong?” He glances at you, then the room, allowing his own torch light to join yours. 

“Nothing,” you frown, “just smells like shit in there.”

He lours, gives you a sidelong look, then leans forwards and sniffs the putrid air. You can feel the scent coat your tongue with each breath.

Watching for his reaction, he turns back to you with a mildly confused look, stating, “I don’t smell anything.” 

The moment the words fall out of his mouth, you do a double take, thinking you’d heard wrong. There was absolutely no way someone wouldn’t smell the literal shit storm that seemed to reside inside the room. You spout a dry chuckle, “No way,” before–albeit hesitantly–leaning back inside. The scent still hangs, thickly, in the old storeroom. 

As you lean back out, a disgusted look on your face, you watch Noah shrug from the corner of your eye. 

“You’re messing with me.” He shakes his head back and forth as he walks onwards to catch up with Jeanne and Helen, you following along.

“You seriously didn’t smell that?”

“No,” He laughs lightly, seemingly convinced you’re screwing around with him. “What’d you even smell? It’s probably just a rat rotting in the walls or something.”

The image sends a slight shiver through you. “Rotting eggs.” You grumble, before something sparks in your memory. “Aren’t gas leaks meant to smell like rotting eggs?”

“Well, yes,” he pauses, “but I didn’t smell it; at all. Plus, if it was a gas leak, we’d be able to smell it through this whole hall since that room didn’t even have a door.”

Before you can get another word in, Noah mumbles “shit,” before calling out, “Hey! Helen, Jeanne! Put your masks on!”

You’d completely forgotten about the particle masks. As you catch up to the other two, you slide it up from your neck and onto your face. You really wish you’d remembered it sooner; would’ve saved you the coughing fit. 

“Won’t do shit if there’s a gas leak though…” you mumble to yourself, fiddling with the strings to get them to sit right on your ears. 

As Helen approaches you, gentle hands finding the strings and tightening them for you, she asks, “Gas leak? Is there a gas leak?” She first looks at you, searching your E/C eyes for any notion of danger–a notion you attempt to warn her of with a half begun ‘maybe’, before Noah cuts in.

“No; Y/N just hallucinated the smell of shit, apparently.” He grins at you, like he knows the ways of some game he thinks you’re playing.

“Well, I certainly don’t want to wait five hours in A&E to get you two checked out, so let’s hope there ain’t one.” Jeanne jokes, slinging an arm around your–and Noah’s–shoulders and giving the two of you a hearty pat on the back before walking on.

You end up next to Helen again, conversing in somewhat aimless conversation as you trek through the darkness. Eventually, after passing by more rotting rooms, the straight hallway finally changes into a Y-intersection. As you walk towards it, bored and wary of the smell of rot in the back of your throat, you walk right past the door labelled ‘boiler room’. In your own defence, half the letters were missing and, like the rest of this place, the old sign was covered in a thick layer of dust. Legs on autopilot, you veer right, before Helen calls out, “Is this what we’re looking for?”

Jeanne backtracks, as do you, almost tripping over her feet and squinting at the small sign. “Sure is. Good eye, Len.” She pats her on the shoulder, making a move to turn left. Before you can say anything, Helen takes her by the shoulders, turns her right and–laughing through her mask–pushes her the correct way.

More identical, dusty rooms pass by you at a snail’s pace as Jeanne and Noah’s laughter bounce off of the walls–Helen keeping close to you. You’re amazed that, what was in basics, the basement of two apartment blocks was so utterly large. The hallways seemed endless; nothing changing except the stage of dilapidation of the concrete. It felt less like an extensive basement, and more of an elaborate maze; repeating itself over and over.

You’re about to say something, criticise Jeanne’s terrible navigation skills that have gotten you lost for, what, the seventh time? Before a door, jaw unhinged and open, finds itself directly in front of you. Hanging, it sits–eerily still–on old hinges. A small set of stairs lay underneath it, part old wood and part plastic boxes. It’s much too short in comparison to the other decrepit staircase you descended fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. Even if you walked down them at light speed, you still knew you went down at least two stories; Noah had said it himself. 

You look between the three of them, finding Jeanne with a smirk, Noah with his usual worried frown and Helen doing the same as you. Your eyes meet for a split second, and you both seem to come to an unspoken agreement to stick by each other if anything goes awry. 

“Well, seems our prayin’ worked.” Jeanne mutters, taking a step, a quiet shifting of dust and battered soles against concrete, before Noah shoots out a wary hand, stopping her.

While open doors in buildings lost to time aren’t necessarily a bad sign, open doors to the only usable passageway to a ‘famous’ building certainly is. While most explorers were socially acceptably kind, others weren’t; nobody really wants to share a building, after all. Let alone, you wouldn’t doubt the local police had at least enough common sense to set a tripwire or two. 

The subtle click of each of you turning your flashlights off echoes in the endless hall of void and dust.

Helen drags you forward as you put your spare hand out, not wanting to smash your head into a wall. In doing so, you find the rough fabric of Jeanne’s jacket. She jumps slightly and grabs at your hand, cold fingers feeling your crooked digits and calming. You all stare into the unknown darkness before you. Moonwalkers and star gazers, temporary prey animals, you prick your ears and listen for any noise: footsteps, speech, anything.

After a few seconds of quiet, you hear the subtle intake of breath and the beginnings of a ‘hello’ spill out from Jeanne’s mouth. Before you can do it yourself, Helen’s hand automatically clamps over her mask, probably giving her a look in the darkness to ‘stay quiet, dipshit.’ Maybe without the ‘dipshit’ part. Even so, you’re sure Jeanne can feel it, pitch black aside.

You all sit, crouched, in the artificial night for a few more deafening minutes, the only sound the inhales and exhales of your friends through their masks. In the quiet dark, where your brain, deprived of its senses, has nothing to focus on but noise, they are as loud as fire burning, centimetre by centimetre, through dry wood.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.

You think the walls are moving with each thump. Maybe it’s a trick of your tired eyes. Maybe. 

Ba-dump, drip, ba-dump, drip, ba-dump, drip.

Water falls to the ground from somewhere unseen.

After a few more seconds of silence, someone grows restless, and clicks back on their flashlight, promptly blinding you all. 

“Shit, sorry.” Jeanne apologises, flicking her flashlight into the abandoned lobby. For a few moments, she searches around–watches the dark corners and squints at things you can’t see–before she deems it safe. “Looks like we’re all good.” She turns to you all, sending another flash of bright light into your sensitive retinas that earns another loud groan from you three. She quickly points the flashlight away and smiles apologetically.

As you all flick your flashlights back on, yours jammed in its notch, Helen turns to Jeanne. “I am sorry.” She says, eyeing Jeanne sheepishly. “I was- I was just worried about someone being there.”

Jeanne smiles, again, saying, “No sweat, Len.”

Knowing Helen, it was more of an impulse rather than an act of preservation. You think the two are still similar, though.

Following Jeanne, as you always do, you step into the old entryway. 

The lobby, like the stairway and hallway behind you, is covered in striped, dull, light blue and cream wallpaper. In some spots, the paper is slashed open, sagging downwards and brushing the floor. Even so, it’s not the ugliest pairing of colours, but, you had to admit; you were getting a bit tired of the colour cream. 

Stepping up and in, careful to avoid any possible tripwire, you watch as gentle light streams through the cracks of boarded-up windows to the left of you; the front of the building. Smashed in and littering the floor, and its stupid, dirty cream carpet–who even puts a cream carpet in a front entryway?–in tiny mirrors. Creeping, climbing, crawling weeds weave their way through the wood, damp with a forgotten rain, and into the lobby, hoping to find light, and instead finding perpetual night and dust. 

Walking closer to the closed off front entrance, you spot that some of the weeds even end in pretty white flowers, white as a bride's veil, that reach skywards. You step closer, wondering what flowers they were to be blooming at night and feeding off of the pus that oozes from each crack in the concrete, only to be met with a sour smell; something halfway between sickly sweet and foul. 

What’s up with this place and shit smells, you think to yourself, pointing your flashlight to the wooden boards hiding the lobby away, dust floating through the beam of light. 

Helen coughs. “At least there is a little less dust.”

“Yeah,” Noah points his flashlight upwards. “I don’t particularly want to think how much of that is asbestos, though.”

“Well hey,” Jeanne laughs from somewhere behind you, “If it is, we’ll all be just as short of breath as you are, Noah.” She jabs.

“More like you’d get lung cancer,” he pauses for a moment, “though, I guess you’re already half-way there, Jeanne.”

You don’t catch her face, but you imagine it has some form of scowl on it. Either way, unbothered with whatever insults they decide to hurl at each other, both quick to taunts even if they were laughing with each other but moments ago, you let their back-and-forth fade to background noise, as you did before, as you observe the walls. 

Graffiti spans almost all of them, most unreadable, having been partially hidden under layers of even more spray paint and the odd square of solid white; probably an attempt to cover up the vulgar words. As your light traces each colourful line, you note the usual images, well, words, depicted. What you think to be signatures, looped around themselves like yarn, reappear on each wall, marking their territory. You have no doubt that you’ll see them later on in the building. Hidden beneath more paint are a few slurs, phone numbers and unreadable words. However, one catches your eye, painted in fading orange spray paint and slowly being covered by other random words. 

Footsteps approach from behind you and, without turning, you catch Jeanne’s shabby haircut from the corner of your eye, as well as the ever so subtle smell of smoke.

“Hm,” she hums, tracing over the wall with her eyes. “Looks like a really shitty modern art piece.” 

You laugh, “Yeah, certainly isn’t the prettiest graffiti I’ve ever seen.”

Before long, her eyes catch onto what you’d been staring at. Nudging your side, she asks “What’s it say?”

You squint, trying to decipher the neon words. “‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’,” you huff out another laugh. “Not ominous at all.”

“Pretty sure that’s a Bible verse,” Jeanne jokes, “Who even uses ‘ye’ anymore?” she scoffs, shaking her head. 

“This guy, apparently.” You mumble sarcastically.

“Mm, maybe cultists like to fuck around this place.” She replies, flashlight lighting up other pieces of graffiti.

“Mhm.” you hum, half-listening as she points out any other graffiti that catches her eye. Keeping a careful watch for Helen and Noah, you turn from her and observe the rest of the lobby. It spans out in a ‘T’ shape, opening up in the back to two elevators in the centre and a staircase to the left, leading up to the apartments above. You’d come out of the maintenance door on the right side, so you knew there wasn’t another staircase there either. It’s an odd shape, one that doesn’t really fit the exterior of the building. Well, neither did the basement either. You guess buildings from the fifties–or maybe sixties?–just had really weird layouts. 

To your left sits the receptionist’s desk, one of the few pieces of remaining furniture that isn’t overturned or slashed to threads. You can almost imagine the small space in its prime: small potted plants decorating the desk along with knick knacks and maybe a rotary phone, the afternoon sun beaming through the large windows and onto the face of the receptionist and the shiny call bell.

Smiling to yourself, you reach out and press on the top of the bell, sending a cheerful ding throughout the dusty lobby. The noise garners Jeanne’s attention, her laugh filling your ears. She dings it repeatedly, the lighthearted noise quickly becoming irritating as she leans over the counter, looking left and right saying, “Hellooooo? Anyone thereeee?”

As expected, she earns no response; no ghostly figure of a time passed appears behind the desk to fulfil her request, much to your delight. 

“Bad service, huh?” She turns to you, smirking, canines peaking over her bottom lip.

“You say that like it’s a hotel.” You giggle, watching her find her way behind the desk. With her hands on her hips, your flashlight now pointing to the back of her head, she searches through the old desk. Just like your own apartment, old keys hang–like dead men on a noose–against a wooden board, rotten and faded plaques, once marking their flat number, above them. 

Jeanne mumbles almost indistinguishably to herself as she picks the rusted keys, gently, off of the board; all you’re really able to pick up is the odd, seemingly random number. Looking closer, at least, the little you can see behind Jeanne’s fat head, you manage to spot a series of numbers at the top of the board, starting at one and ending at thirty. Seeing the number, you can feel your legs muscles ache at the mere thought of how many floors you’re going to have to climb.

Suddenly, Jeanne turns around with a “Think fast!” and tosses a few keys at you. You fumble to catch them, almost dropping your flashlight, as you open your mouth to question why on Earth you’d need keys when half the doors seemed to be rotting on their own hinges. But, as per usual, she beats you to it. 

“I know this place is old as Hell, and a fuck ton of people have been here before us, so, most of the doors will probably be wide open. However,” she slinks back around the desk, “I wanna take my chances with a coupla’ random keys and see if we can get into some locked ones.”  

“Fair,” putting your flashlight under your arm, you sift through the different keys, attempting to find numbers and letters hidden under the years of grime. As Jeanne leans into you, offering her light and comparing which keys you have, you catch the scent of smoke again. With an inhale, you begin, “Hey, Jeanne?”

“Yeah?” she replies, bringing a particularly rusty key closer to her eye.

“I thought you said you were gonna stop.” It’s more of a statement, rather than a question, posed casually and calmly if not to keep that intricate mask of hers from coming up.

From behind the key, she peers at you, searching your face for something. Maybe disappointment. She always hated when you were disappointed instead of angry. Hated the furrow in your brows and the slump of your shoulders more than anything, you think. All you do, sometimes, is think and guess with her, and you feel that you’ll spend the rest of your life doing it.

You think she smiles, one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I was just out with a coupla’ other friends, some of the other girls from baseball, the other day; didn’t change my clothes.” She huffs a small laugh. “I…I haven’t-” she swallows, looking into your eyes with what you could almost describe as fear as she fumbles slightly with her words. “I haven’t…been smoking.” She pauses.

She hesitates. 

“Promise,” she adds on, smiling wider; a pathetic attempt to convince you.

“Good,” you smile back at her, as genuine as you can manage. 

You really do wish, sometimes, you could crawl into her mind and understand. Understand what made her think she needed to lie to you, and that you wouldn’t be able to pick it up. 

Who knew the age of fifteen and a whole Summer could change a person so much?

Before you can dwell on what, or, rather, who, you lost warm winds and August afternoons, a loud clang reverberates from behind you, causing you to jolt. Spinning around, you see Helen, boredly, standing in front of the pair of rickety elevators, and Noah climbing–suspiciously Gollum-like–out of the maintenance door. 

“What on Earth are you doing?” Jeanne laughs out, probably happy for the change in topic, as you stuff keys into your pocket and get a proper hold on your flashlight.

Noah smiles, eyes crinkling, and shows off an incredibly rusty crowbar being held by his sleeve covered hands. “Going to try to pry open one of the elevators.”

“His idea, not mine.” Helen laughs, a mildly worried look on her face as you approach. 

Easily, he hooks one side of the crowbar in the small gap between the two elevator doors, rust flaking off as he does so.

“I think you’ve got more of a chance of snapping that thing in half than opening the doors.” Jeanne jokes, watching with entertainment.

“Where did he even get that?” You turn to Helen, who offers you a shrug. As the piece of metal bends more, she subtly steps in front of you. You don’t know if she even notices the movement; it sends a warm feeling to your chest, even if it’s only something small. She’s always been that way, at least, for as long as you’ve known her; ready to lose a limb if only to see someone smile when they’re hurting. 

You think someday she’ll get hurt from that mindset, but, for now, you bask in the feeling of being loved. 

“Need some help there?” Jeanne joins him, pulling up her sleeves, even though he shakes his head no.

With much pulling and tugging, some very overly dramatic noises coming out of the both of them that get a good laugh out of both you and Helen, even if you are slowly inching away to avoid getting half a crowbar to the head, they pry the door open a crack.

Leaning back in, you watch as they hook the crowbar onto the door again and, like in some great tug of war, the door opens, bit by bit, with a gritty screech. Suddenly, it slides completely to one side, Noah and Jeanne falling onto each other, not prepared for the sudden lack of pull, with a laugh. 

Helping the two of them up, you peer into the mechanical cavern of rusted iron and dismembered pulleys. The cold air, probably the same air that was in there in the fifties, sends a shiver up your spine. 

“Where’s the elevator?” Jeanne mumbles, brows furrowed, before Noah turns to her comically slowly and points his flashlight downwards, revealing the caved in lid of the elevator, disintegrating at the bottom of the shaft. “Oh.”

“Remind me to never get stuck in an elevator with you.” He grumbles, leaning forward slightly, trying to get a better look at some wire or pipe. From the corner of your eye, you see Helen take a careful bundle of his coat in her spare hand.

“What is that, a threat?” 

“Maybe.” He looks up, the almost familiar frown appearing on his face. Confused, you lean forwards yourself, keeping a tight grip on the sides of the still-stuck door.

“I’d like to remind you who’s currently leaning over the elevator shaft here.”

It’s exactly how they look in every spy movie ever, albeit much more eroded, unclean and unsafe looking. Metal beams run vertically along the concrete walls–either covered in soot or black mould–along with old wires and broken pulleys. Upwards, there are openings leading to the upper floors, some still hidden by closed doors and others letting subtle light stream into the concrete trachea. 

“How many floors did you say this place had?” Noah says, suddenly, his flashlight angled upwards. 

“Thirty.” For once, you beat Jeanne to it. “Why?”

“It looks a lot more than thirty.” Helen whispers.

Looking upward, you mumble to yourself, doing your best to count the floors. At some point, somewhere between sixteen and twenty-two, the angle becomes too steep and you’re unable to see any more floors. You have half the mind to lean further forwards–feel the cool air of an archaic exhale–but you don’t trust your grip, nor the crumbling walls.

“You think we can get it to work again?” Jeanne grips your shoulder, anchoring her to you as she gazes at the elevator, as if her eyes can pierce straight through the morose tunnel. 

“Oh, definitely.” You grumble sarcastically. The roof of it had caved in and was clearly detached from any pulleys that could haul it, well, anywhere. Plus, you could only imagine what the fuse box for this place would look like. Probably something similar to the behind of your TV. 

Suddenly, she sends a knock to your back, a harsh one that has you automatically loosen your grip–hands preparing to catch you–and for a split second you see your broken body bleeding out at the bottom of an elevator shaft, before her hold on your shoulder keeps you steady. Another hand also dashes out, one holding the back of your shirt, which you find to be Helen.

While you glare at Jeanne over your shoulder, heart thumping with a spike of adrenaline, she offers you a pat on your shoulder and a muffled, “Told you I’d get you back, Oiseau.”

Noah scoffs, completely unaware that–if not for your friend’s quick reflexes–you could’ve just been added to this town’s death toll, saying “It’s been abandoned since the seventies; I’m pretty sure all that remains of the fuse box is dust and disintegrating rubber.”

For a while, the four of you simply stare into the abandoned elevator shaft in silence, none of you really knowing what to say.

That is, before Jeanne leans back, dragging you and Helen backwards with her with a “Okay.” Once the focus is on her, loud voice like that of a preacher’s, she begins again. “So, game-plan: I vote we split up-”

Immediately, her words are met with a groan from you and Noah–Helen too kind to vocalise the sour feeling she displays on her face. 

“Hold on, I thought you said we were doing this as a group?” You eye her, wary of the frigid air that rises and sinks from the elevator shaft. Helen nods from beside you, wary of being split up since Jeanne’s main argument to get her to come was to have you do it as a group.

“We are, we are,” she assures. “Just- thought it'd be easier if we did each side of the building in twos, y’know? Like, two do block A, two do block B, and then we switch.”

“Thought you also said we have six hours, if not more,” Noah interjects. “One side of a building would take, what, forty minutes? Maybe an hour? We have plenty of time.”

Jeanne shows one of her confident smiles from underneath her mask, though, having traced each smile line and crinkled eye for these past years, you swear you see a hint of nervousness in it. The type of nervousness where she’s offhandedly lied about something minor, and it’s coming back to bite her in the ass. 

You have the feeling you might just have a little less than six hours. 

“Sure we do, I just…” she shrugs, searching for the right words to try to convince you all to agree to a nonsensical decision. “Thought it would be more fun.” She trails off slightly at the end, before hiding her unsure demeanour–a thing you only get glances of nowadays–underneath smooth words and a confident posture. 

You lick your lips, going over the logistics of the idea as Noah begins to argue with her, Helen sighing and simply watching the half-serious altercation, probably tired of intervening. You were sure this was a stupid, miniscule detail that she’d end up getting hung up on for no particular reason. She’s always been the type of person to, when making a decision, stick to it no matter what. 

“It would be so much easier to just do it as the four of us-”

“-It could also help us out if the pigs decided to show up! We could alert each other instead of all getting done in-”

“-I thought you said the police were lazy and we had nothing to worry about-”

While you wanted to do things as a group, as you always have, you’d rather avoid trying to argue with Jeanne when you knew most of her points would be simply made for the sake of it. You’d also like to avoid any sort of mildly serious debates between Jeanne and Noah: it was like watching a human and a robot try to argue that they are nothing alike, something that would go on forever with neither being able to come to a satisfactory point. 

“-Can you not agree with me for once?” she throws up her hands, body language exasperated but eyes filled with entertainment. 

“Why do you always get stuck up on the smallest points?-”

Interrupting the growing noise of Jeanne and Noah, you begin. “-Okay! Okay. Split into twos, yeah?” you say, mentally throwing up your hands as Helen sighs next to you. 

You couldn’t hold an argument with her, anyway. While she had grown to take the world by her teeth and chew until she could swallow, you had learnt that you’d rather accept what you were given and grin as you choked it down. 

They both turn to you, Noah’s brows furrowed and Jeanne seemingly sporting a somewhat sadistic grin on her face, which grows when she sees you agreeing. 

“Yeah,” she breathes out. “Split into twos, each do one block, then we meet up at a spot and switch. Then we can do whatever afterwards.”

You glance towards Helen, searching her eyes and her habitual furrowing of brows and pouting of lips as she mulls over the decision. She glances towards you, then Noah, then Jeanne. Eventually, she sighs, shrugs, and lets her face fall back into her peaceful expression. “Yes, why not?”

Noah huffs as Jeanne laughs, happy to have won the trivial argument. “Majority vote wins, I’m afraid.”

You think you’ve spoiled her over the years, playing the thin threads of her little games to help her get where she wishes. 

“Since when was this a democracy…” Noah shoves it off, scratching his wrist. 

You’d say you were simply being a loyal friend, but you think Jeanne would say differently.

“Since forever.” She pats his shoulder, maybe easing her smile into something kinder, and probably mumbles something about buying him food later to make up for it.

Say what, you didn’t know, and like everything else infinitesimal about her, you didn’t think you’d ever know, nor understand.

As are the intricacies of the human condition, you suppose. 

“So!” she claps her hands together, and you can almost imagine the rosary entangled in her calloused palms. “I’ll go with-”

“-I will go with Y/N?” Helen interrupts, soft hand intertwining with your own, unlike her. After all, her interrupting was rare. Rare, but very conscious. 

“I’m good with that.” You smile at her. You already knew what Jeanne was planning to ask, but you’ve spent your lifetime attached to her hip, so you’re sure she can take a few hours without you. 

If you were smarter, maybe you’d realise that once you fill a dog’s bowl high, it is all it ever expects. Give less, and even if you are a hand that feeds, it’ll bite.

Though, that’s more Noah’s forte than yours. 

Jeanne’s shoulder’s slump, and she opens her mouth as if she’ll say something to rebuke before she catches your eyes. You don’t know what she sees in your E/C iris, but it makes her close her mouth and nod. 

“Seems like you're stuck with me, Bonesy.” She slings an arm over Noah’s shoulder, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Lucky me.” He chuckles at the end of his sentence. 

The four of you check over your battered walkie-talkies, double checking they’re still set to the same frequency and, of course, that they still have power. Each of them hum to life with crackling static as you each send a quick word to each other, even though you all stand in a tight-knit circle. Well, technically more of a square, but who cares for the specifics? 

“How do we get to the other building, again?” Noah questions, fiddling with the back of his walkie-talkie after inserting new batteries. 

“Simple; take a left instead of a right.” Jeanne replies, shrugging. Noah huffs under his mask at the prospect of being in those dingy maintenance tunnels again, and you don’t blame him.

Afterwards, with a nod, you agree on a meeting spot: the overgrown courtyard in front of the buildings, as well as devise a ‘danger’ word, which is insisted to be ‘pineapple’, for whatever reason.

As each pair walks away, you and Helen walking backwards to the staircase, and Noah and Jeanne walking back to the dusty tunnels, you wave to each other.

“Promise not to get eaten by rats?” Jeanne calls out, waving her flashlight back and forth. 

You exhale a cold puff of air. “Only if you promise not to get crushed by the walls.” You half-joke back, mildly worried about exactly how much more, or less, intact block B was. 

“Promise!” Jeanne says.

Noah flashes you a thumbs up, followed by a “Don’t get lost!”

Helen smiles, replying, “Of course not!”

As you approach the staircase, Helen joking about aforementioned rats, you’re sure, in the hour or so that those two have together, they can find it in themselves to not tear each other to shreds over the tiniest thing. 

Hopefully. 

--------------------

I hate dialogue, but the show must go on.

Now the real fun begins! I'm super excited to write out the scenes I've got planed; I've had them stored away for almost half a year lol.

I'd like to note that I've edited the prologue, first and second chapters! Only minor edits, asides from two things. The first being that-while I implied it, looking back, it didn't go through well-is that the MC (you) owns a fish tank. Second being edits on describing the character's appearances, because, having re-read, I didn't get through all the details I wanted to. The main description begins around the line 'A smell you frown at.' and ends around '“Alright raccoon eyes, ya’ ready?”'

I also wanted to say thank you for so much love, both on here and Ao3 and Tumblr! All of the lovely comments really boost my confidence; I'm so happy so many people enjoy this. Almost 140 hearts is insane. Again, very big, genuine thank you to all of you, as well as a thank you to two of my mutuals, Popcaki and Darya, for encouraging and complimenting my writing <33

[elegyforyou]

Viennese Waltz

Severus Snape x Reader

Word Count: 989

Warnings: Fluff

You fought to get out of it; chaperoning the Yule Ball. It was terribly loud, crowded, and by your understanding, already overstaffed. But Minerva was persistent, she was tireless, ceaseless, insistent that you’d have fun, and in the end, you relented. Your resolve had been thoroughly snapped, and now here you stood, brooding in the corner of the Great Hall stuck in a dizzying cacophony with an utterly grave colleague for company.

He’d been given similar treatment, you were sure. If not by the perpetually bleak scowl he’d donned at the beginning of the night, you could see it in the tension that snaked through his shoulders and up the neck. None of which was particularly out of character for Severus Snape on a bad day, but his usual air of ill-tempered annoyance had amplified tenfold.

The word ‘jaded’ came to mind as you took the adjoining seat on his right, spared a careful glance out of your peripheral. There, you spied the meticulously brushed, charcoal hair that hugged an aged face, its softened planes detailed with deepened grooves and large, apathetic eyes. No doubt the same face of the boy you’d known back then, only a little older and a little wiser.

A thin grin molded your lips, pulled your cheeks taut as you made a statement on a whim: “you look sharp tonight.” Had you been too bold? You thought not, but nevertheless averted your gaze quickly to the undulating sea of dancing students. You needn’t see to feel the way in which he looked at you, attempting to pick you apart with a scrutinizing watch as you feigned ignorance, face burning under his wide, moon-like eyes.

You’d been avoiding him ever since you’d gotten the position. You’d kept him at arms length as if he were the plague, sat on the opposite end of every table and stood in the furthest corner of every room until tonight. When your resolution had been restored, and when again you turned to Severus after what felt like a very long while, he met you with a gaze of deep heartache that left you wondering when last he’d been complimented. If it had been you on that dreary Saturday so many summers ago. But you had your answer already, and so you stood, offered him a delicate hand and asked, “would you join me for this dance?”

The crowds had begun to wane when wordlessly he accepted, a weathered and calloused hand greeting your own with gentle hesitation. And although you had been on the outskirts of the room, you coaxed your partner further inwards, each step in time to the soft lilt of a new waltz. It was a quiet piece, gentle phrases and motifs reflecting the ebb and flow of your dance as, in a well-practiced and ease, he skillfully whisked you across the floor. “You haven’t changed one bit,” you mused quietly.

“Have I not?” He questioned, words eager and unwavering, his familiar baritone a soothing thrum in your ear as the dance ended in a winding decrescendo. And upon the mellow piano of the Blue Danube, he bowed, you curtsied, and joined hands.

You hummed, a breathless and bright laugh scurrying up and out of your lips, “not at all.” Although you had been avoiding his piercing glare, watchful and disarming, finally you met his eyes, felt the sharpened palisade of his heart begin to crumble at your feet as you drew closer with each step. “I’ve been waiting for you,” you whispered, and with each word you tread on pins and needles.

There came a sharp intake; a frightened inhale after which he said in a trembling susurration, “I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.”

You took the inside turn at the peak of his bubbling anxiety, soothed his wavering hands with a passive and warm smile, “you are ridiculous, and so am I!” You chimed in a wholehearted laugh, free of venomous intent and ridicule. “I thought the same when you left, thought I’d done something to ward you off,” you paused for the change step, “or worse.” How many years you wasted agonizing over each and every detail wondering where you went wrong. It all came equally as a great relief and awful anguish to know he’d felt the same. In the wake of the heavy quiet, you breathed, “would it be too daring of me to ask if we could start again?”

While your dance continued, arms flaring in elegant Butterflies as you progressed down the line of dance, Severus seemed to freeze, his lips that seldom wore anything but a surly flower now tipped in an angle of shock. And in the moment your heart seemed to drop, but then he swallowed in a dry throat, croaked out: “you would be with me? After all this time?”

Under the spinning impetus of uncertainty, you were enveloped in a sense of ease and repose, all apprehension ebbed away as you exhaled, “always.”

The way he beamed at you, his smile so genuine- how could you have forgotten? And the way he made your heart soar, caught in the dynamic lean as the last measure came to a brilliant close. You found your balance, pulled him into a winded embrace amongst deafened applause. “And we shall promise to talk to each other this time. We’ll take it slow,” you spoke behind a toothy grin, your scrunched nose buried in the thermal wools of his cloak that entrapped the distinct smell of cold rainfall and black tea.

And then he pulled away with a nod, face flushed and bewildered, tempting you to follow his gaze to the crowd of onlookers that had encircled you in the midst of your performance. You had certainly put on a show, but the cat-like grin Minerva wore at the pinnacle of the swarm as her lips formed a soundless: “about time,” held an entirely different message.

A/N: This is the first oneshot I've made since around 2015, so I'm getting back into the groove of things with something short and sweet. My grammar isn't always the best either, but I do check my spelling!

[seafleece]

Every time the wheel turns she thinks, it could be. It could be. It could be. Now, weak and tired, the refrain is different. It has to be. It has to be. It has to be.

(Perennial, her dance partners, her three pilgrims, and how she is outmaneuvered by them one last time)

—

my late offering for day three of @15daysoffatt day 3: wheel!!

‼️contains spoilers up until palisade episode 42, so proceed at your own risk‼️

[brucequeensteen]

ethan. i chose whatever music asks you haven’t done yet.

hi kieren im kind of obsessed with u. there are a lot that i havent done but some of them i cant be bothered to answer/genuinely cannot answer or the answer is just no so here's the ones i like <3

Do you listen to more oldies or more current stuff? A mix of both but leaning more to oldies, the majority of my favourite songs and artists are either from the 60s & 70s era, or the 90s & 00s era <3 

Would you wear a t-shirt of a band you're not into? Probably not, even if the design is cool i only wear band tshirts if i care abt the band. But if someone gave me an artist tshirt as a gift, i’d wear it AND listen to the artist it depicts 👍

Is there an artist or song that you like, despite being of a genre you don't usually like? I like all genres i don't discriminate. i’m bisexual 

A song or album from the 50s or earlier: this compilation album of old japanese pop 1950-1951… discovered through mash playlists

A song or album from the 60s: 1-800-are-you-experienced by jimi hendrix 1967 :) 

A song or album from the 70s: Born to run by BRUCIE 1975 raaaagghhhhhh 

A song or album from the 80s: King of rock by run-dmc 1985 💪💥

A song or album from the 90s Call the doctor by sleater-kinney 1996

A song or album from the 2000s: Cheap pop for the elite by kore. ydro., 2006

 A song or album from the 2010s: TRANSANGELIC EXODUS BY EZRA FURMAN 2018. GOAT

Do you and your partner/best friend share a special song? One you’d call “our song”? unfortunately for my boyfriend and i it is the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us by sufjan stevens which is indicative of how normal we both are 

Do you play any instruments? I’ve been “learning” the bass for about 2 years but havent made much progress but i can do basic riffs and improvise a little 

Who’s your favorite fictional band or artist? Marceline The Vampire 

When was the last time you cried when listening to a song, if ever? I couldn’t tell you the last time a song made me properly cry but i sort of cried listening to come on in yesterday because i was having a category 5 peter tork moment 

Your favorite artist from your city/state/country? At the moment its marina spanou and based on her lyrics i think she is literally from the same area of athens as me <3

A song you like in a language you don’t speak:

A song you like with lyrics in two or more languages:

songs that are symbolic of a time when i was literally and without exaggeration in the trenches. korean & english

Do you enjoy musicals? If so, what’s your favorite? Top 5: fiddler on the roof, jesus christ superstar, newsies, les miserables, hadestown.

Have you watched any musician’s biopics? Do you have a favorite? I’M NOT THERE DIRECTED BY TODD HAYNES MY NUMBER 1 ☝️ even if i am not the biggest bob dylan girl out there i fucking love that movie so much 

Do you listen to music when it's raining or do you stop to hear the sound of the rain? Im answerin this question cos i like it. If its raining really hard i take out my headphones and turn my music up so i can hear it out loud blended with the sound of the rain <3

Do you prefer live recordings or studio recordings? LIVE RECORDINGS ARE MY BEST FRIENDS. I dont know if i prefer them but theres something so comcorting and beautiful of hearing live stuff so yeah <3

Okay these were the questions i cared about. thank you i love you . heheheheh

[devilkittydeckbuilding]

hewwo everyone!!!! today im going to be talking about my favorite dimir deck i have made and why i think its really strong and cool!!!!

the commander is...

UKKIMA, STALKING SHADOW

(drawing is by my gf @goqmir )

this is a dimir deck built around loading up the unblockable commander with equipment and +1/+1 counters and swinging face until i win with commander damage!!!! this deck tends to kill in a few good swings if im allowed to set up due to the sheer amount of equipment that gives at least +2 to ukkimas power.

this deck is not playing the green partner commander in cazur, ruthless stalker because he isn't quite good enough in this shell (he at best gives a +1/+1 counter every one of my turns starting on turn 4) and adding green imo really changes the core idea of the deck. it probably gives me more good protection and i would love to try this deck with more good protection but ultimately it just didnt fit my vision lol

this deck has only the one creature in ukkima, and the majority of the deck is equipment, enchantments, and instants. every spell in this deck other then board wipes (which btw are mass bounce that keep ukkima on the field usually like wave goodbye and raise the palisade, also am interested in kindred dominance possibly) is built to make ukkima bigger or to protect ukkima from any potential removal. this deck runs about 14 or so counterspells, several blink spells to protect as well as blink ukkima and take advantage of her second ability, and lots of ways to give hexproof as well as phase out my commander.

this deck runs lots of utility lands that help it play the long game. some cool ones are witches clinic which is amazing and allows you to gain life while putting your opponents really close to death, cathedral of war is funny because it pumps my creature with exalted, malakir rebirth is death protection, and command beacon makes ukkima more resilient against command tax!!!!

some of my favorite cards in this deck are...

teferi's veil - this card i havent actually gotten to play with, but this deck does not block. it doesnt care about creature combat cause i want to win in a few swings with ukkima and therefore phasing my commander after combat leads to it being impossible to board wipe or hit it with sorcery speed removal. this card makes instant speed the only way to interact with my commander and that is pretty insane lol

unspeakable symbol - this is one of my current favorite cards and makes any creature that can get in into a one shot threat for only three mana and a lot of life. if you arent in danger of dying to damage this card is insane. it makes ukkima one shot starting on the turn after ukkima etbs so that it can attack unblocked versus the most threatening player or the one with the best removal and then the rest of the table isnt far behind. also if ukkima dies after the counters are placed you gain a bunch if life back lol

hatred - this card plays very similar to unspeakable symbol in that you pay a million life to one shot someone but is a little more efficient at doing it (although it does cost more :/) these are not that fun in a casual setting but they make this deck win out of nowhere if you have protection held up and thats important sometimes!!!!

homocidal seclusion - this is the reason i built the deck cause its really cute and funny with only one creature in the deck and also buffs ukkima to a 5 power creature with lifelink which is a pretty good unblockable clock!!!!

feast on the fallen - this card seems kinda crazy in multiplayer cause on my turn i deal damage which triggers this on the next upkeep and then my opponents have to deal combat damage at some point (at least in my playgroup) dotot theoretically grows ukkima every turn with a counter.

this deck overall is pretty insane and lets you play a control deck with a voltron win con and its a very fun mix of playstyles. this list could be improved further and i could probably make a green version and test that one out too but im very happy with the current state of this pile!!!!

there are a couple weird picks for cards that are my playgroup specific like unsubstantiate which is only there for bouncing thassas oracle on the stack cause my friend plays that but overall the deck is just built for speed!!!!

also my headcanon is that ukkima is a fucking girl baby!!!! she/it pronouns wooooooo!!!!

thank you for reading!!!!

[fourteenfifteen]

palisade spoilers under the cut i don’t feel like futzing w rot13

i am truly so delighted by brnine/jesset becoming more of a real thing like i wasn’t invested before hand beyond thinking it was funny but i love it here. gee brnine how come your mom lets you have two situationships. ali thank you so much

i think my actual current vision for them is something along the lines of “occasional fwbs going back like literal years but mostly they’re bros except that jesset actually has some feelings for brnine and doesn’t know how to handle it (and brnine is either oblivious or actively ignoring that (while still trying to hit sometimes))” and that is like. a perfect amount of mess it’s excellent

it’s just awesome. it’s great. i love it here. i wonder what gucci thinks of the whole situation 🤔 i think my ideal is she’s like “i don’t have the bandwidth to help my sort of partner deal w this other guy who’s clearly into them so i’m not even bringing it up” LMAO less polyamory negotiations more good luck w that

god and they all work together!! i love mess!!! and i love nonbinary people kalvin brnine you’re everything to me

[swallowtailed]

palisade 38 !

very fun episode. love to advance some clocks! love to talk about relationships! and also to deliberately not talk about them!

the qui err coalition being extremely serious about lawn games at a bontive valley cookout is The summer event. i wanna be there. also i’m with dre on this, a barbecue is a specific thing separate from a cookout and from grilling

asepsis drone speakers...

cori and elle! cori and elle!!!!! elle dreamed (or claims she dreamed) she was a true believer again… heartbreaking honestly. 

"i'm not gonna spend the rest of my life staring at your back" cori....

also a very funny little beat that thisbe thought elle was going to stab cori. like obviously it’s enemies to lovers but it’s great context for the degree of bloodlust in the blocking lmao. immediately followed by “don’t let her be the one to kill you. kill her first”

speaking of thisbe—integrity giving her the confidence to acknowledge her own autonomy! holy shit! thisbe moments!!!

"thisbe" is sort of already an excerpt nickname from "this being"

figure and eclectic’s conversation about the blue channel… very moving that figure thought to take the time to sit down and say “that’s my home and i care about it”. and eclectic, in response, telling figure about his past… 

speaking of, fantastic conversation with eclectic’s old noir partner. get mercilessly roasted by your old buddy who stayed behind when you left! sure, maybe someone thinks you owe them a bowling game, but the game was always yours and you’re never going back.

and jesset… okay, first of all, jesset taking exactly the same approach as gucci (“thought i was gonna die and it made me think about This and maybe also You”) is extremely funny.

also however. of course jesset city, party of the wolf, believes in martyrdom. it’s one thing to accept the risk of death (as the blue channel habitually does) (no time to practice dying on palisade!), it’s another to live with it. jesset’s chosen coping mechanism is memory, i think. didn’t brnine and jesset last talk while drinking the memory of jesset’s fallen crewmates? honoring the dead is something jesset believes in—he has to, or it all falls apart. because he’s party of the wolf. it must be terrifying to feel like he wouldn’t, himself, be remembered.

anyway all i can figure at this point is that brnine exudes an aura that actively prevents valence’s name from being said in their presence

the twill have decided to restore the battlefields in the bontive valley and partial’s helping!! i’m so curious about what their goals are with it… creating living space and healing some of the damage from the war, of course, but what does that materially look like to the twill?

(was also posting about this here—speculative ecology corner—but it’s like… even if the twill manage to replant and regrow, the damage will still be visible in the unique health of that landscape. will they welcome that, or will they try to erase it as much as possible? both understandable options.)

very much looking forward to both fake gur mission and brnine, thisbe, and cori's assassination mission >:)

[stargazing-imagines]

Accident -- SAVED BY THE BELL REWRITE *Prolouge*

Description: You find out the worse news which prompts you to move in with the Kapowski family in the palisades area.

Warnings: Mentions of Car accidents, Mention of being alone, mention of death, let me know if there is anything missing! This one is sad, so buckle up.

A/N: If there are some editorial errors, I apologize. I cut my index finger and that Is the finger that I type with so I apologize. This is also not tied with the series what so ever, I'm just writing this to kick it off, so enjoy!

It was a rainy day in Dallas texas, and Y/N was sitting at home doing her homework. Her parents have decided to go out that night for a little date night, but what she wasn't expecting was to hear the worse news of her life...

Two police officers were standing at the doorstep, with grim expressions on their faces. The female spoke up.

"Are you Y/N L/N?" asked the female officer as she was trying to hide her emotions for the young teenager.

"That would be me... What's going on?" The male police officer sighed before whispering to his partner.

"We can't tell her... not like this."

"we have to George!" said the female police officer who muttered under her breath

The male police officer looked at you again before speaking, this time her took a deep frustrating breath.

"Both of your parents died in a car accident tonight..."

"And they were pronounced dead at the scene..."

At that moment, you felt your heart stop. With a hand clamped over your mouth, words tangling up in your mouth.

"Wait... That can't be true..." you said as you were straining to say something "They promised they would be back..."

"I'm so sorry, but we are here to take you to the hospital." said the male police officer, who was trying to hold it together "You can say your goodbyes when we get there..."

You were standing in a hospital room, adorned in white; not beliveing that this was happening. At this rate, your eyes were puffy red and swollen, yes you cried in the police car on the way to the hospital.

"We informed a family member to come get you... They will be here in the morning."

You nodded your head before looking back down at your parents.

You stayed in the hospital lobby, waiting. Knees clutched to your chest, your tear stained cheek aganist your cold knees, you were in thought until a voice spoken up

"Y/N!" said your cousin Kelly as she rushed over to you, sitting in the chair next to you. "I heard what happened... I'm so sorry."

at that, you didn;t say a word. Not even a peep, you just looked over at your cousin before giving her a big hug.

"Their gone Kel... There's nothing I can do to get them back." you said in between sobs "I'm... Alone."

"You are not alone... You have us now." said Kelly as she wiped a tear "You're going to live with me and my family in California, and we are going to have a blast." said Kelly "So don't think of that, you are not alone."

You smiled before wiping your tears. Maybe this won't be too bad.

It has been a couple of days, and it was the funeral. You were seated next to the Kapowski family as they all came down to give you moral support.

"They always tried to make my life great, as their only daughter, that was all they cared about." you said "Even though they aren't always here with me... they will always be in my heart."

you looked down at the double caskets, breathing deep before lookinh back at the crowd of people. Some were neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family.

"I love you Mom, and Dad..."

---

Saved by the Bell Rewrite Masterlist

[candcpartnersca]

C&C Partners Design/ Build Firm

C&C Partners Design/ Build Firm is the preferred design and construction firm for custom homes in Los Angeles' most established and exclusive neighborhoods- from Pacific Palisades to Beverly Hills and the South Bay Beach Cities. Founded in 1987 by Patrick and Michael Cunningham, C&C Partners Design/ Build Firm has been recognized as one of the elite custom-home builders in the United States by the National Association of Home Builders and Custom Home Magazine.

candcpartners.com

Business Address: 508 North Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach, CA 90277

Phone: (310) 322-0803

Our Social Pages: https://www.facebook.com/candcpartners/ https://www.instagram.com/candcpartners/

[podcastingpineapple]

Full on spoilers and yelling about Palisade 25:

41:40

AAAAAGHH IT'S THEM IT'S THEM IT'S THEEEEMMM

I am LOOSING MY SHiT

(Hahaa, i knew it the SECOND they showed up)

45:00

I aM SCREAMING A U S TI N YOU CANNOT SIMPLY SAY "AH YES MISERI AND ROUTINE HAVE CHEMISTRY" WHEN COR IS RIGHT. THERE.

....alright Miseri can have two partners, i retract my statement

1:20:00

The Divine Authority...... A person hooked up to a machine..........

1:33:00

aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAA AAAAAGHH!!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!!

FigURE!!!! GURRR!!!! I AM CRYI N G

1:50:00

"Phrygian is a plane that is crashing."

Ouuuughhhh

2:26:00

I did it! I did not cry! I survived! Oh no! There are 20 more minutes left!

2:32:00

Branched Man... yall laughing. Phryg is post-divine, post-human, post-robot and yall laughing.

2:39:00

*screaming* SURPRISE AUSTIN WALKER POETRY EVENT! FULL CRYING OVER HERE, THEY ARE PLANNING THEY ARE MOVING

[amazingarchitecturewebsite]

CORSICA: Luxurious villa in the heart of the #LosAngeles Riviera by Marchem Real Estate Group / CUUB Studio @cuubstudio. Read more: Link in bio! CUUB studio has created breathtaking visualizations for our partners Marchem Real Estate Group to impress and surprise Los Angeles pleasure-seeking buyers and investors… #usa #california #архитектура www.amazingarchitecture.com ✔ A collection of the best contemporary architecture to inspire you. #design #architecture #amazingarchitecture #architect #arquitectura #luxury #realestate #life #cute #architettura #interiordesign #photooftheday #love #travel #construction #furniture #instagood #fashion #beautiful #archilovers #home #house ‎#amazing #picoftheday #architecturephotography ‎#معماری (at Pacific Palisades, LA, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnxyuY_scj9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[luckyluan]

The Detectives, Con't.

FEB 25, 2024 - 11:02PM

“How’s the hubby?” Jardin lobbed at Payton Kyle. 

Emmett Jardin tapped away on his phone’s screen and did not look up. Payton knew this was his version of interest however feigned. So, he indugled.  

“Good...good. Up at the farm...you know.” Payton mumbled. 

He worked a smile onto his face as Jardin looked him up and down.  

“You gonna hit the button, Detective? It’s ninety floors up. Let’s not wait for Ragnorok to get there.” 

Payton stifled a smile as he punched the grimey button marked with a faded ‘91.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his long khaki coat where his phone vibrated incessantly. Payton fished his phone from a deep coat pocket and read the text message that flashed across his screen. 

“Stay alert.” The message read.  

A gleam ran the length of each letter before the message disappeared with a magical flourish. The graffiti-colored doors of the elevator creaked open, and the detectives stepped out onto the soggy carpet of the ninety-first floor of Palisade Gardens Highrise Apartments. 

“Wrong way, doofus.” Emmett said. 

Payton rolled his eyes as he turned on his heel. Emmett hardly ever looked up from his phone when they were alone. Payton—for the longest time--thought his partner did not want to talk to him, but now he knew Jardin was always checking game scores and bet placements. It did not bother him as it never interfered with their work. Jardin was sharp—seasoned—and he never missed anything. 

“Do you ever put that thing away?” Payton teased Jardin. 

“Raiders lost to the Cowboys last night. I’m on a roll. So, no. Knock.” Emmett commanded. 

Payton knocked on apartment door 906 and, seconds later, a tall, dark man flung it open. He ducked in the low door frame with a shy expression on his face. 

“Look, officers, before we get started I’m asking y’all to keep an open mind. It’s not what you think!” 

[chinese-ny-real-estate]

大纽约社区介绍之University Heights, the Bronx

大学高地(University Heights)位于布朗克斯西北部，是一块面积不大、有些地方还很邋遢的飞地。布朗克斯社区大学(Bronx Community College)占地45英亩，校园横跨悬崖峭壁，视野开阔，对社区的影响举足轻重。

这不是一所典型的通勤学校。该学院最著名的建筑由斯坦福-怀特(Stanford White)设计，2012年，学院大部分建筑被评为国家历史地标。

1973年，这个拥有约3万人口的社区并不景气。纽约大学(NYU)在19世纪末建立了这所校园，作为其格林威治村(Greenwich Village)以外的乡村校区，随着犯罪率的上升和入学率的下降，纽约大学以约6200万美元的价格将学校卖给了州政府。

据史料记载，随着有宿舍的大学被学生每晚回家的学院所取代，一个艰难的过渡时期随之而来。West 183rd Street和Loring Place North等曾经是学生和教师居住的街道变得空旷破败。

但学院的管理者和居民们认为，这所在20世纪80年代斥资数百万翻新校外建筑的学校就像一条马奇诺防线(Maginot Line)，阻止了南布朗克斯的凋敝。

如今，隶属于纽约城市大学(City University of New York)的布朗克斯社区大学拥有约11000名学生和1600名教师，校门有保安人员看守，校园周围有巡逻车巡逻；2012年，由Robert A.M. Stern Architects设计的新北楼和图书馆落成剪彩。目前，学校还在翻修主广场。

6岁的盖尔-道森(Gail Dawson)说："这个地区唯一真正稳定的好东西就是大学"。1978年，她从哈林区(Harlem)的一个公共住宅区搬到了这个社区，为的是给孩子们提供一个更安全的成长环境。当时，和现在一样，身患残疾的道森女士住在一套一居室的公寓里，房租由联邦住房券支付。

她说，虽然该地区的一些城市公园已经荒废，但学院却更注重其外观。"我喜欢这里的树，"她说。"这里很漂亮"。

大学高地给人的感觉是静态的。伟大美国人名人堂(Hall of Fame for Great Americans)是一个露天校园，收藏了约100尊半身铜像，包括艺术家、发明家和总统，其中最近期的人物莫过于富兰克林-德拉诺-罗斯福(Franklin Delano Roosevelt)。

但变化正在迫近。

该市正在考虑重新划分Jerome Avenue两英里的区域，以建造更多经济适用房、公园和商店。目前，车库、轮胎店和其他汽车行业占据了这条街道。

一些长期经营的企业主对此表示担忧，比如43岁的佩德罗-蒙西翁(Pedro Moncion)，他在West 181st Street拥有一家San Rafael Auto Repair修车厂。蒙西翁先生说，将该街道重新划分为禁止工业用途可能会导致他已经经营了28年的生意终结。

此外，曾经住在附近希望山(Mount Hope)的蒙西翁先生说，在附近的许多街道上，购买杂货、衣服和电子产品的地方已经比比皆是。他说："我不知道我们还能想要什么"。

大学高地坐落在一座小山上，从这里可以俯瞰曼哈顿和新泽西州的帕利塞德悬崖(Palisades cliffs)。大学高地的北面是West Fordham Road，南面是West Burnside Avenue，东面是Jerome Avenue，西面是哈林河(Harlem River)。根据2010年的人口普查数据，94%的家庭居住在出租房中，而整个城市的这一比例为69%。根据经纪人的说法，这些出租单元中的许多都被预留给第8条(Section 8)补贴住房，或者被安排成单人间(single-room-occupancy)。

市价单位确实存在，比如位于Sedgwick Avenue的River Hill Gardens，这是一座由Goldfarb Properties拥有的五栋砖砌综合楼。校园北面还建有优雅的七层砖砌公寓楼，其中一些是装饰艺术时期的产物。

经纪人说，总的来说，University Avenue(也称Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard)以西的公寓楼最古老，也最时尚。

除此之外，还有零星的砖砌独户住宅，如West 179th Street的独户住宅，它们面对的是带前院的半独立式住宅。少数共管公寓包括位于Grand Avenue和Davidson Avenue的一些公寓。但有些共管公寓受到住房发展基金公司(Housing Development Fund Corporation)的限制，根据该公司的规定，购房者的收入不能超过上限。

市场价房产可能很难找到。据Meridian Realty Partners的副经纪人Jackson Strong称，如果有房，700平方英尺左右的市价一居室共管公寓平均售价为9万美元，两居室为14万美元。

Strong先生说，独户住宅的价格约为30万美元，而两户住宅可能高达45万美元。

StreetEasy提供的数据显示，截至今年8月31日，所有住房的平均销售价格为13.5万美元。2014年的平均销售价格为13.7万美元，2013年为15.9万美元。根据StreetEasy的数据，今年截至8月，一居室公寓的平均租金为1270美元，2014年为1230美元，2013年为1150美元。

Strong先生说："我们正在吸引那些被纽约市其他地区拒之门外的人，甚至是布朗克斯的其他地区"。

由于大多数学生都住在别处，大学城的夜生活很少。位于Aqueduct Avenue East和West 181st Street的BX Campus Deli熟食店似乎是少数几家承认自己存在的商家之一。

在West Fordham Road上，有一家Dallas BBQ烧烤店在周末举办D.J.派对。在West Burnside Avenue上，有一些小店出售水果、美容用品和眼镜。

Aqueduct Walk沿着老克罗顿水渠(Old Croton Aqueduct)的顶端延伸，从19世纪40年代到50年代，这条水渠一直将饮用水从威彻斯特县(Westchester County)输送到这座城市。如果想重温美国历史，布朗克斯社区大学的名人堂也许值得一去。10月18日，布朗克斯社区大学将参加全市范围的"纽约开放日"(Open House New York)活动，届时还将参观由马塞尔-布劳尔(Marcel Breuer)设计的粗野主义(Brutalist)风格建筑。

该地区划入了几所小学，包括Andrews Avenue上的Public School 291、Sedgwick Avenue上的Public School 226和Jerome Avenue上的Public School 33。这三所学校都教授幼儿园到五年级的课程；P.S. 226和P.S. 33还设有学前班。

根据该市的统计数据，在2013-14学年的州考试中，P.S. 291的成绩略好于其他两所学校，当时有18%的学生英语达标，31%的学生数学达标。全市的这两个数字分别为30%和39%。

公立中学有Creston Academy、East Fordham Academy for the Arts和Academy for Personal Leadership and Excellence可供选择，这些学校都在社区外。

St. Nicholas of Tolentine Elementary School是一所教会学校，位于Andrews Avenue North，学制为幼儿园至八年级。

大都会北方铁路(Metro-North Railroad)的哈德逊线(Hudson Line)在大学高地有一站。到大中央车站(Grand Central Terminal)的车程为21至24分钟，月票价格为201美元。

4号线地铁沿Jerome Avenue停靠Burnside Avenue、183rd Street和Fordham Road。

在纽约大学落户之前，校园所在区域有几处庄园，其中一处属于马里(Mali)家族，该家族生产台球毡和其他台球产品。他们的砖房最初成为宿舍，如今是巴特勒厅(Butler Hall)，为高中生上大学做准备。

转载自 New York Times, University Heights, the Bronx: Anchored by a College Campus

[iviarellereads]

Exit Strategy, Chapter 2

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which I feel a lot of secondhand anxiety and get a punch to the gut.

Murderbot needs to get to TranRollinHyfa, and fast. It looks for extra-fast transports, though not in a direct trip, and finds one leaving in four hours for a hub from which it can get to its destination.

It never particularly wanted to travel this way, but mostly because it wasn't sure it could hack weapon scanners and ID and payment systems all at once. Between expanding its hacking capabilities, and the false identities and currency cards in Gerth and Wilken's bag, it can do what it needs to.(1) It picks an ID, and peels its skin up at the shoulder to insert the marker. It even manages this without leaking. And, it's the first time it's actually labeled and considered, pseudo-legally, as a human. It feels weird.

It books passage for itself with a private cabin and meal delivery, so it can throw the food in the recycler so it doesn't look suspicious that it's not using the facilities. It only sees four humans on the way to its cabin, and hopes not to see another single one for the whole seven-cycle trip.

While in transit, it sorts through all the news and information it has. From GrayCris's perspective, Mensah bought MB right before it disappeared, then Mensah said publicly that someone needed to investigate Milu, then a seemingly uncontrolled SecUnit showed up at Milu, saved it from falling into the planet, and acquired proof it was an illegal operation. Abene and her team's testimony, as well as that of Wilken and Gerth, assured those last two points were in heavy circulation. GrayCris assumed, fairly, that Mensah sent MB to Milu to sabotage them.(2)

It also spends some time soothing its anxiety with media, including a "fictionalized documentary" about the history of human space exploration. It's surprised to see that, if the information provided is accurate, a variation of SecUnits used to be made with parts from humans who died of illness or injury. MB has trouble believing it's true, and switches shows partway through the second episode.

And, it prepares. It studies everything it could grab about TranRollinHyfa. (It's not surprised to find that Palisade also calls it their corporate home.) It fine-tunes its code for taking over security cameras.

When the transport arrives at the hub, MB is glad that nobody's waiting for it, for its own sake and because it indicates the false IDs are uncompromised. It spends a few hours in a transient hotel, pulling from any database it can access or hack into to find information about TRH, and trading its ID out. Worrying that it might already be too late, it doesn't make an extra hop, just books directly to TRH.

I hesitated over my memory clips from Milu, the ones still hidden in my arm and Wilken and Gerth’s clip. I didn’t know how useful the information was anymore. But Miki had died for that information, whether it knew it or not.(3)

Instead of taking it into GrayCris territory, MB buys a parcel package, puts all the data clips in it, and addresses it to Mensah's marital partners, taking the address from its old company records of PresAux's forms.

It's hiding in its next transport cabin when it finds a newsburst, relayed in on a ship that just docked. Dr Bharadwaj made a statement that Preservation is taking steps to resolve issues with GrayCris. MB isn't quite sure what to make of that, but it settles on this being part of hostage negotiations. It does get curious that there's nothing from DeltFall or MB's own ex-company. GrayCris is going to an awful lot of trouble for the alien remnants they can no longer sell or develop. It's not looking good.

Four cycles aboard this transport, and it reaches TRH. While monitoring the transport's comms on approach, it picks up a navigation alert from the Port Authority, and notices that there's a company(4) gunship just on the float near the station.

I had thought that if Mensah had actually gone to TranRollinHyfa voluntarily to negotiate with GrayCris, then the bond might have been high enough to require a gunship. But then why wasn’t it docked? Did Mensah need rescuing or what? I needed intel, and there was one way to get it.

Knowing it has twenty seven minutes before docking, MB does "something stupid" and hacks through to the gunship's feed, giving it a decryption key that marks it as company property, and a tag that it's in stealth mode. The transport acknowledges, and after a short delay, MB sends another signal, and receives a databurst in response. It acknowledges and breaks the connection.

Slowly, carefully picking apart the databurst, it's a disaster. The gunship's contract status is "Retrieve: Suspended Due to Neutral Party Access Denial, Escalation Out of Contracted Parameters". The client ID is Mensah's, and the same as from MB's contract, which means this is likely still part of the same bond agreement. The gunship was likely denied docking thanks to GrayCris's local connections.

Worse, the status includes "Secondary Clients Status: Recognizance", which means other clients from the contract have left company protection parameters. Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Gurathin were not in the group that returned to Preservation, and it could include any or all of them. They likely took a shuttle and docked privately.

When its transport finally docks, MB disembarks with a crowd of 43 people who were traveling together, hiding in plain sight.

Security is tight, though, and it has to deflect a lot of weapons and recognition scans. There are two companies who have SecUnits available for rental, neither its ex-company, and more security companies that might have their own stock to deploy. But, it's not too worried about anyone deploying SecUnits on transit rings, as they'd cause too much damage. It puts the odds at 15% at best.(5) And even then, they'd have to find it.

Still, my human skin was prickling with nerves. The extra security seemed to support a theory I had. Or maybe I mean a hypothesis. Whatever, the idea was that if Bharadwaj’s statement in the newsburst had been a message to GrayCris, a sign that Preservation would cooperate to save Dr. Mensah, then the stories about Mensah being arrested, about her going to or somehow being taken to TranRollinHyfa were messages, too. Messages to me.

MB thinks GrayCris might be trying to lure it here, to TRH. It doesn't know why they'd want it,(6) when they already have Mensah, but it does mean that MB has to secure an exit before it gets in too deep. It pulls all the specs from security feeds it's picked up on its walk, and tags them to examine later.

Browsing a shop as cover, MB does some more digging, and finds a single shuttle with a company ID code in dock. It feels weird, having familiar humans so close. It matches the shuttle's berth to a hotel log. It needs intel, and they're its best available source. It leaves the shop, making sure to do a performative loop of the offerings, and heads off to meet some old friends.

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(1) There's a long aside about identity markers and how the Corporate Rim tracks citizens, sub-citizens, and visitors from outside the rim, and how MB has serial numbers on bits it will never get rid of. I feel like it distracts from the plot, despite being very interesting information, so I'm discussing it down here instead. Take that, organizationally focused brainmeat! But really, it is rather interesting how it compares humans being able to cut their IDs out of them, to its serial numbers. It's a bit heavy-handed, but the serf class do have so much less freedom than the "people" classes, particularly freedom of movement, which is the most relevant here. (2) Given that the statement about investigating Milu was done publicly, I wouldn't be so sure Mensah didn't intend for Murderbot to get the message, despite not having any sort of email or contact address. (3) OOFA! A little warning next time you wanna sucker punch me like that, Murderbot/Wells. (I'm just kidding, never stop.) (4) I really find it fascinating that MB never says the company's name. Any generic reference to a company is its ex-company, unless it's very specifically being general in context about companies. It won't tell us what the logo is, only that it's etched into its bones. It's a fascinating way of dealing with the implication of the trauma of having been owned. (5) Do you know what they say about million to one chances, Murderbot? (6) I expect they think MB might have more evidence on it, and they want every loose end tied off.