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nvrngl · 2 months ago

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˚ · .˚ ༘ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒔

synopsis. of course, you would need to be in outer space to find your soulmate. you probably just wouldn't guess it would be him. quiet, compassionate, understanding, caring. it's beautiful to learn what love is between the quietness of the stars.

pairing. bts ﹢ kim namjoon x engineer!reader ﹢ slow-burn fluff

wordcount. 1.8K

notes. written for someone special. happy birthday, k. 💖✨

you spot him before you realize who he is.

he’s standing at the far end of the prelaunch observation deck, hands in his pockets, head tilted up as the low morning sun glints off the hull of the ship outside. it’s still in its support frame, sleek and massive, humming gently with systems tests. this is your third mission, and you know every inch of that vessel—she’s beautiful, but terrifying. a good machine, and a dangerous one.

but the man in front of you doesn’t look afraid. he looks like he’s watching something sacred.

you study him for a second: tall, broad-shouldered, dressed down in dark slacks and a fitted crew jacket like everyone else. but something about him is off. too graceful. too careful. and that face—you’ve definitely seen that face before.

you open the digital manifest on your tablet. right there, near the top of the list of private passengers:

KIM NAMJOON – CULTURAL INVESTOR / CREATIVE SPONSOR – CATEGORY: FUNDING TIER A

ah. that explains it.

not just a sponsor. the sponsor. one of the quiet backers who made this entire planetary observation project possible. and now, apparently, he’s going with you.

you’re still staring when he turns around.

his gaze lands on you instantly. he doesn’t look surprised—just curious.

“do you know her?” he asks. it takes you a second to realize he’s talking about the ship.

you glance past him at the hull. “yeah,” you say. “i helped build her.”

his eyes widen, just slightly. “seriously?”

you nod.

he smiles, and it changes everything. softer. open. “that’s incredible.”

you shrug like it’s no big deal. but your chest is warm.

“i’m namjoon,” he offers, holding out a hand.

“i know,” you say before you can stop yourself.

his smile quirks up at the edge. “oh?”

“not like that,” you rush to explain. “you’re in the manifest. i wasn’t—googling you.”

he laughs. “i wouldn’t blame you if you had. i’m… kind of hard to ignore.”

that makes you pause. not because he’s wrong. but because the way he says it—it’s not cocky. more like he’s aware of the weight he carries. like he’s lived a long time under a spotlight he never asked for.

“well,” you say, gesturing toward the ship, “you’re not the biggest star here.”

he follows your gaze, grins. “true. she’s stealing my thunder.”

you don’t mean to keep talking to him. you really don’t. but somehow, the conversation flows. he asks about your background, not just to be polite but with actual interest. propulsion engineering. systems operations. orbital stabilization. and when you glance up, expecting a blank stare, he’s just nodding, listening.

“you don’t talk like the other guests,” you say quietly after a while.

“they talk too much?”

“they talk like they paid to feel important.”

he looks at you for a long moment. then nods. “i didn’t pay to feel important. i paid to feel small.”

you blink.

“i’ve been… big,” he says softly. “for so long. and i think i forgot what it feels like to be nothing next to the stars.”

you don’t say anything. you don’t need to.

you get it.

you’re not assigned to passenger detail. not directly. but with a support crew this small, your paths cross again before launch—training simulations, pressure drills, safety briefs.

he’s always asking questions. good ones. he wants to know how the oxygen cycles work, what happens if the comms go dark. not in a panicky way. more like a man building a map in his mind. preparing to be quiet in the chaos.

you like that.

launch day.

you’re strapped in sideways, reading out engine vitals from the primary screen. namjoon’s strapped in two rows behind you.

you hear his voice over the com just before ignition.

“hey.”

you glance back.

“don’t let me die up here.”

you smile behind your mask. “don’t give me a reason to.”

he grins.

then the countdown hits zero.

and the world becomes light and fire and ascent.

the ship settles into quiet orbit like an exhale.

you unstrap. stretch. check your station.

when you look up, namjoon is floating a little above his seat, hair fluffy, limbs loose, laughing quietly to himself.

“first time in zero-g?” you ask, pushing over.

“yeah,” he says breathlessly. “it’s… insane.”

you anchor near him, guiding him toward the wall handle. his fingers graze yours as he grabs on.

“how do you even get used to this?” he asks.

“you don’t,” you say. “you just stop fighting it.”

he stares at you.

“that sounds like a metaphor.”

you shrug. “maybe.”

—

you fall into rhythm.

not all at once—just slowly, piece by piece, like systems syncing up after launch. there’s always a strange stillness to space travel once the engines go quiet. you’d call it peaceful, if it weren’t for the constant risk of death.

but namjoon makes it feel different.

he's quiet, most of the time. not withdrawn—just intentional. when he speaks, it's with purpose. and when he doesn’t, he’s listening. really listening. not the polite kind of listening people do when they're waiting for their turn to talk. it’s something deeper. like he absorbs everything you say and tucks it away somewhere safe.

on day eight, you catch him in the rec module, seated cross-legged, reading a thick reference manual on atmospheric stabilization.

“you studying for my job?” you tease, floating over to him with your tablet.

he looks up, smiling sheepishly. “figured it was time i knew what half your acronyms mean.”

“half of them are made up anyway.”

“what, like S.E.F.T.?”

“strictly-engineered-fake-terminology,” you deadpan.

his laughter fills the small space, warm and open. you’re still smiling when you settle into the seat beside him, your shoulder brushing his for just a moment. he doesn’t move away.

“want the short version?” you offer.

he nods.

so you start pointing at the diagrams. explaining the way oxygen scrubs through the filters, how backup valves reroute when the CO₂ levels spike, and what would happen if someone forgot to do their job.

he listens. asks smart questions. furrows his brow in this way that makes a tiny crease form between his eyebrows.

you want to reach out and smooth it with your thumb.

you don’t.

—

by day twelve, he’s always where you are.

not in a clingy way. just… present.

if you’re doing diagnostics in the nav deck, he happens to walk through.

if you’re refitting the safety lockers, he shows up to help unprompted, sleeves rolled up, offering to hold the panel steady.

he isn’t annoying about it either. he never hovers. never flirts. he just makes himself useful.

and when the rest of the passengers start forming their little elite cliques—perfect smiles, perfectly curated zero-g photos—namjoon doesn’t join in. he just drifts next to you, eyes shining as you point out the way europa’s frozen surface glitters like powdered glass under the reflection of jupiter.

“it doesn’t even look real,” he murmurs.

“it is,” you say.

he glances sideways at you.

“you’ve seen so much more than most people already,” you add. “and you’re still impressed.”

“that’s the thing about beauty,” he replies. “the more you know, the more precious it gets.”

you don’t know what to say to that.

so you just… look at him.

and that moment stretches—like gravity’s got you both in its pull.

—

on day sixteen, you’re in the crew galley late.

you’ve been rewiring a misbehaving circuit in the medbay panel and haven’t eaten since morning. there’s barely anything to choose from—sealed rations and watery rehydrated noodles—but it’s better than nothing.

he finds you there, crouched in your oversized hoodie, elbows on the tiny metal counter.

“you always eat alone?” he asks softly, setting down a tray beside yours.

“not always. just when i stink of coolant.”

“i don’t mind.”

you raise an eyebrow.

“you could be covered in engine grease and i’d still sit here,” he says, amused. “maybe even more enthusiastically.”

you chuckle despite yourself.

he cracks his noodles open. steam fogs the air. you both sit in silence for a while, just chewing, warm knees bumping gently under the table.

“what’s it like?” you ask quietly. “being you.”

he blinks. “being me?”

you nod. “rich. famous. talked about. loved. hated. everything in between.”

he doesn’t answer right away. just stirs his soup slowly.

“lonely,” he says at last.

your throat tightens.

“people love what i give them,” he continues. “but sometimes i wonder if anyone really knows me. not the stage version. not the brand. just… the guy who likes dusty books and ugly sweaters and being in places like this, where no one expects him to perform.”

you don’t say anything.

you just reach across the tiny table. fingers brushing his.

and he lets them stay.

—

on day twenty-one, he finds you in the viewport corridor.

you’re lying against the cool glass, lights low, watching jupiter pass like a god through the black.

he settles beside you without speaking.

for ten whole minutes, neither of you say a word.

then—

“if the ship failed right now,” he says softly, “would it be quick?”

you turn your head slowly.

“yeah,” you say. “you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

he nods.

“why?” you whisper.

“i think…” he hesitates. “i think part of me came here not just for the stars. but because if something went wrong… no one would be able to say i didn’t go out doing something i loved.”

your heart aches.

he’s not dramatic about it. he doesn’t cry. but there’s a pain behind his voice. one he probably doesn’t let many people hear.

you shift closer. your hand finds his in the dark.

“you’re not going out, namjoon,” you say. “not on my ship.”

he squeezes your hand once.

and then doesn’t let go.

—

on day twenty-five, someone makes a comment.

one of the other passengers, leaning against a wall in the gym module, eyeing you and namjoon as you float through.

“bet that one’s already got her bunk warmed,” the man says under his breath, loud enough for you to hear.

you stop.

namjoon hears it too.

but before you can snap, he just reaches for your hand—gently, deliberately—and tugs you forward.

doesn’t look at the guy. doesn’t flinch.

just takes you with him. somewhere quiet.

“thank you,” you say when you’re alone.

he shrugs. “wasn’t worth it.”

you tilt your head. “you didn’t even deny it.”

he looks at you.

and for the first time since launch, there’s heat in his gaze.

“maybe because… part of me doesn’t want to.”

the silence pulses around you like air between lightning strikes.

you swallow. “joon—”

he steps closer. just slightly. enough for you to feel the warmth of his chest.

but he doesn’t kiss you. doesn’t make a move.

he just says, “i like being around you. a lot. but i’ll never push.”

you nod, heart pounding.

“okay,” you whisper.

and he smiles.

you leave the room with your fingers brushing again, and this time—he laces them through yours.

𓂃˖ ࣪⊹ navigation : all works ; guidelines ; let's be friends .ᐟ

#kim namjoon #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #namjoon fluff #namjoon angst #namjoon smut #namjoon fic #namjoon scenario #namjoon bts #bts #.txt #the man who stared at rocks

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literaryvein-reblogs · 7 months ago

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Writing Notes: Coma

Coma - (from the Greek word ‘‘koma,’’ meaning deep sleep)

A state of extreme unresponsiveness, in which an individual exhibits no voluntary movement or behavior.

In a deep coma, even painful stimuli (actions which, when performed on a healthy individual, result in reactions) are unable to affect any response, and normal reflexes may be lost.

Coma is the result of something that interferes with the functioning of the cerebral cortex and/or the functioning of the structures that make up the RAS. In fact, a huge and varied number of conditions can result in coma. A good way of categorizing these conditions is to consider the anatomic and the metabolic causes of coma:

Anatomic causes of coma are those conditions that disrupt the normal physical architecture of the brain structures responsible for consciousness, either at the level of the cerebal cortex or the brainstem.

Metabolic causes of coma consist of those conditions that change the chemical environment of the brain, thereby adversely affecting function.

As in any neurologic condition, history and examination form the cornerstone of diagnosis when the patient is in a coma; however, history must be obtained from family, friends, or EMS.

The Glasgow Coma Scale is a system of examining a comatose patient.

It is helpful for evaluating the depth of the coma, tracking the patient’s progress, and predicting (somewhat) the ultimate outcome of the coma.

It assigns a different number of points for exam results in three different categories:

opening the eyes,

verbal response (using words or voice to respond), and

motor response (moving a part of the body).

Fifteen is the largest possible number of total points, indicating the highest level of functioning.

The highest level of functioning would be demonstrated by an individual who spontaneously opens his/her eyes, gives appropriate answers to questions about his/her situation, and can carry out a command (such as ‘‘move your leg’’ or ‘‘nod your head’’).

Three is the least possible number of total points and would be given to a patient for whom not even a painful stimulus is sufficient to provoke a response.

In the middle are those patients who may be able to respond, but who require an intense or painful stimulus, and whose response may demonstrate some degree of brain malfunctioning (such as a person whose only response to pain in a limb is to bend that limb in toward the body).

When performed as part of the admission examination, a Glasgow score of three to five points often suggests that the patient has likely suffered fatal brain damage, while eight or more points indicates that the patient’s chances for recovery are good.

Expansion of the pupils and respiratory pattern are also important.

Metabolic causes of coma are diagnosed from blood work and urinalysis to evaluate blood chemistry, drug screen, and blood cell abnormalities that may indicate infection.

Anatomic causes of coma are diagnosed from CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans.

Coma is a medical emergency, and attention must first be directed to maintaining the patient’s respiration and circulation, using intubation and ventilation, administration of intravenous fluids or blood as needed, and other supportive care.

If head trama has not been excluded, the neck should be stabilized in the event of fracture.

It is obviously extremely important for a physician to determine quickly the cause of a coma, so that potentially reversible conditions are treated immediately. For example, an infection may be treated with antibiotics; a brain tumor may be removed; and brain swelling from an injury can be reduced with certain medications.

Various metabolic disorders can be addressed by supplying the individual with the correct amount of oxygen, glucose, or sodium; by treating the underlying disease in liver disease, asthma, or diabetes; and by halting seizures with medication.

Because of their low incidence of side effects and potential for prompt reversal of coma in certain conditions, glucose, the Bvitamin thiamine, and Narcan (to counteract any narcotic-type drugs) are routinely given.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Realistic Injuries

#writing reference #writeblr #dark academia #spilled ink #writers on tumblr #literature #writing inspiration #writing notes #writing prompt #poets on tumblr #writing ideas #creative writing #fiction #medicine #coma #writing resources

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jejunecartoons · 11 days ago

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I Stand Before You On The Convergence Of Entropy, Fate, And A Retail Inventory Assignment From Hell.

With tensions, stress, and a cosmic reckoning already rolling downhill. I present the following in complete and utter good faith, entire sincerity and three years experience under a revolving cast of coworkers, managers and corporate representatives. Not as a resignation, but as an acknowledgment of the shared absurdity we have all been asked to fulfill.

You demand 100% compliance to systems that are, by your own admission, 90% “common sense.” This is not accountability. This is abdication of definition.

You preach “best practice” while delegating chaos. You post workflows on every table, then fault us for improvising when those workflows inevitably fail.

You expect omniscience from associates but offer no clarity in return. “Tag what looks expensive” is not a policy. It is a loophole for blame.

Your security standards are aesthetic, not functional. They are not designed to protect product —they are designed to protect narrative. That someone, somewhere, “cared.”

You romanticize productivity like folklore. You invoke the 4-minute mile to justify the erosion of human labor boundaries — without ever asking what was lost in the race.

You seek innovation without deviation. Initiative without autonomy. You want thinkers who don’t think, and doers who don’t notice what’s broken.

You mistake quiet compliance for stability. It is not. It is the sound of disengagement.

You say, “If something’s wrong, speak up,” and then punish improvisation with retroactive scolding. You do not want initiative — you want insurance.

You confuse standardization with fairness. Fairness is adaptable. Standardization is lazy.

You mistake a rising college town’s labor surplus for a license to waste talent. You will cycle through dozens of good workers and never understand why they vanish.

And when —against all odds — something human stabilizes here… when trust is built, and morale flickers back to life… that is when you offer promotions. But only if we’re willing to leave, start over, and carry the weight again. Loyalty is never rewarded with rest — only relocation.

You introduce new security procedures — more tags, more checks, more hoops — but you change nothing about the time we’re given. Not one minute more. We are expected to move at the old speed while doing twice the work. This is not strategy. It is sabotage by euphemism.

These added steps are not protections. They are performances. We perform security. We simulate vigilance. Not because it works — but because it looks good on audit day.

If security tags worked, shrink would vanish. It hasn’t. Because shrink is not a moral flaw in your workers — it is the price you pay for pretending your processes are airtight while ignoring the cracks that open from the top.

We do not need more stickers. We need less denial. Fewer empty fixes. More admission that complexity without support is just delay in disguise.

You sell each new measure like a solution, but treat it like a punishment. Not because it helps — but because someone, somewhere, needs to be seen trying.

17. Markdowns Are The Perfect Lie.

The system knows what’s on sale.

It calculates it, tracks it, even prints the tags.

But instead of a list, we’re told: “Just find them.”

Every rack. Every shelf. One by one.

A company smart enough to generate the sale, Is dumb enough to make you re-scan the store by hand. This is not oversight. It’s outsourced labor through willful negligence.

You expect total compliance with markdowns, but you give no complete list. Not by item, not by category.

Only the ghost of a hint — a tone, a suggestion —

“You should be able to tell.” From what? A red sticker? A manager’s gesture? Whole categories go ignored for months — others get pulled every week.

There is no schedule. There is no rotation. Only the myth of one.

If markdowns matter, then act like they matter.

Define the cadence. Clarify the zones. Give us the map.

Or stop pretending we failed to follow it.

"You’re missing markdowns” But you can’t miss what isn’t there. The item was stolen. Perfectly. Cleanly. The system thinks it’s still on the shelf, gathering dust. In truth? It left the store weeks ago, Stuffed in a purse, Walked past a broken camera, And was never seen again.

The Computer Doesn't Know Theft. It Knows Absence Without Explanation. And It Blames You.

So now you’re on your knees scanning hangers for ghosts. Looking for a pair of jeans that do not exist, Because the system demands ritual compliance with its imagined inventory.

This is the quiet joke of retail: You Are Punished For The Precision Of A Thief.

Instead of fixing security, they fix expectations. More markdowns. More audits. More scanning.

Less trust. Less time. Less reality

18. The Triple Beep of Redundant Acknowledgment;

When an associate scans a valid markdown item, the handheld scanner emits three long, proud beeps —A theatrical confirmation of success, as if the user wouldn’t immediately notice the literal thermal label spitting out of the shoulder-mounted printer they are physically attached to.

This is not a harmless quirk. It is a nails-on-chalkboard absurdity, repeated hundreds of times per shift.

Especially when markdown lists contain thousands of SKUs, each scanned one by one — because bulk updates or system-synced lists are, apparently, out of the question.

You’re already straining to hold a scanner, item, printer, and sticker roll at once. You're dodging customers, balancing hangers, managing limited battery life.

And then comes the "BEEP-BEEP-BEEP"

To confirm what your printer already screamed in physical form: Yes, that was a markdown.

There is no toggle. There is no off-switch. Just endless affirmations of the obvious. It’s the small things that break people. Not a single moment of cruelty — but a thousand little ones, rehearsed daily, in stereo. But this isn’t just auditory clutter. You cannot scan another item until it finishes beeping.

Every markdown becomes a mini timeout, Forcing a pause, Breaking flow, Shattering efficiency, Not for safety, Not for clarity, But for ritual. In a list of hundreds, Even thousands of markdowns, This delay adds up to minutes lost per hour, Hours lost per week, And entire shifts wasted waiting For a redundant noise to finish announcing a truth you already physically received.

There is no override. No way to mute it. No option to multitask.

Just You, A Tag,

And The Machine Reminding You Who's Really In Charge.

19. And When The Truth Is Found;

When the numbers don’t add up, When the backroom is a war-zone, And the sales floor a graveyard of miscategorized product, It’s Treated Like a Divine Revelation. A mystery. Unspoken. Unknowable. As if the universe conspired overnight to create a discrepancy that no one could have seen coming. The people who asked for time? For training? For help? Now it’s their fault.

They “should have done something.” Should have sensed the collapse In the same way they’re expected to sense what’s on sale without being told. It Is Not The System’s Fault.

It never is. So the cycle continues: You suffer in silence. You stabilize the chaos. And when things finally start to make sense— They promote someone elsewhere, To go start the cycle again.

Because The System Is Sacred. Your Time Is Not.

20. And When The Work Is Done;

Not right, not reasonably, but fast— they call you a star. A leader. A natural. They write your name in dry erase marker at the top of a board no one agreed to race.

A scoreboard with no prize but the illusion of being seen.

And if you fall behind? No one asks why. No one checks the load.

They just move your name down quietly, As if you dropped it yourself.

Praise becomes currency. A tool. A leash.

"You’re one of the good ones.” “You’ve always been so reliable.” "What would we do without you?"

They hand you a badge and call it honor, when it’s just a shackle in bronze. Recognition Becomes Pressure Masquerading As Gratitude.

21. They Give Out Hearts.

Little pink paper valentines called “Heartbeat of [Insert Store Number Here].”

Printed Black & White on Plain Copy Paper, of Course.

Not in February— in June, for February efforts, filed under “we meant to.”

They pin your name on a bulletin board next to half-torn flyers, and call it legacy.

You made a "difference" Not to someone, not for something, but In Metrics. In Willingness.

In saying yes to something not your job,

At a time not your shift,

Because someone didn’t show up,

And someone else had a clipboard.

They hand you a card like communion. Small, bright, With a corporate smile, And the empty taste of compliance made sacred. “You made a difference.”

But no one tells you where. Just that it helped. Just that it counted.

Just enough that next time, You’ll Do It Again.

22. The Caring Cupboard

Has a $120 budget. Split across three weeks and forty lives. By week one: ramen, two oatmeal packets, a single can of chickpeas. By week two: hope. By week three: the sign taped crookedly reads "We see you."

And they do— leave crumbs.

The vending machine stays stocked on schedule though.

The microwaves technically work.

On the counter are the worlds smallest Keurig,

And a minimum viable toaster. Donated by staff of course,

Temporarily allowed until "safety" concerns remove them.

They Trust You To Operate A Compactor, But Not Filter Water, Or Clean Out Crumbs.

23. Lockers Are Provided, For your convenience.

Don’t decorate. Don’t forget your lock. Don’t leave it overnight.

It’s your locker, unless we need it back.

The Key To Belonging Is Not Belonging At All.

24. The Fun Calendar

Smiles from the break room wall.

Dress-Up Day! Cartoon Shirt Day! Mismatch Sock Thursday!

Themes chosen democratically by the assigned designer; When no one’s around.

All expressions pre-cleared by HR.

Festivities canceled for audit season.

Spirit punished with write-ups.

You can wear a graphic tee—

But not that one. Not that color. Not too funny. Not too much.

Try again next Fun Day when morale is less expensive.

All Permissible Self Expression Must Meet Dress Code Protocols. Not the actual ones; The Myth.

The Infinite list of what is and isn't allowed.

The one that always just so happens to align with the managers personal taste.

The one that, for some reason, is only levied at targets that happened to annoy them recently.

25. The Wall of Rights Stands Tall In The Break Room.

Posters from the Department of Labor—

Unpaid wages? Call this number.

Unsafe work? Report it here.

Harassment? You are protected. But behind it all?

A Laminated Copy Of Your Signed Arbitration Agreement.

You waived your right to sue when you clocked in.

"You can opt out" they say.

Just ask your manager for the form.

The one no one has.

The one no one mentions.

The one you had 30 days to find;

Between learning the register and restocking bras by cup and brand.

The Wall Is Required By Law. So Is The Silence Behind It.

26. This Week’s Safety Topic

Proper Lifting Technique. Bend your knees, not your back. Team lifts for heavy items. Rest when needed. Hydrate. Be your brother’s keeper. Meanwhile: The Stairs To The Trash Are Five Welded Death Plates.

Stitched by a ghost on opening weekend. Each step a folded razor. They rattle like judgment beneath your steel-toed shoes. The trash chute: five feet up. You hoist bags over your head like sacrifices, Hope they make it in without tumbling back onto your spine. The welds are cosmetic. One good kick and they rise like drawbridges. Somethings stuck in the chute? Here's two metal poles duct taped together.

You Figure It Out. They say it’s fine. No incidents reported. Because No One Bothers To Report Bruises Anymore. The trash panel swings like judgment. Outward. Over the stairs. You walk up with a bag, and if you’re not careful—

It Bites.

They added gummy foam tape. A soft, merciful bandage on the edge of a guillotine. Not to fix the danger— Just to hush the blood. It has tasted flesh. The crest of a scalp. A pink slash across a forearm. Now it’s padded. Now it’s “safe.�� Now it’s your fault.

27. “We Are Committed to Sustainability.”

Says the laminated break-room poster. As you "debit" a perfectly functional suit case. As you toss another plastic-wrapped hoodie into the bin. As you watch the compactor crush cardboard, plastic, and a half-eaten lunch into one glorious cube of lies.

Overseas hands fold it neat. Plastic over silk. Tape over tags. They ship it across oceans so we can rip it apart and throw half of it away. You pull Styrofoam from wall decor, And paper shreds from soap, Bottles that leaked somewhere between Singapore and Pasadena. You strip the bubble wrap, Wipe the shattered glass off a six-dollar candle, Protected only by hope and thin cardboard.

The Candles Survive. The People Don’t.

And the trash pile rises. Not in back. Not behind the scenes*.* But right here, In the fitting room, On the stores floor, In your lungs, Under your nails.

The Only Thing Recycled Is The Lie.

28. The Customers Rob Us Daily.

But the cameras point inward. One screen for every corner of your body, and all of them watching you. Not them. Never them. “Be alert,” says the poster. “Report suspicious behavior.” And below that: “250–2500 if it leads to an impact.” Not justice. Not truth. Just “impact.”

The cashiers are our front line. Smiling through suspicion. Checking twenties for counterfeits while rushing to beat the “speedy checkout” clock, Selling store credit cards to the very people the cameras won’t catch, And asking for five-star reviews, From customers who leave with three stolen items and a free pen. And if a wallet goes missing? It must have been the new guy. It always is.

“It’s not personal,” they say, as they review your locker contents, And check your bag on the way out.

Just procedure. Just policy. Just paranoia.

But when there's a pile of censors in a shoe, or a trash bag full of tags is missing? Silence.

The Eyes Of The Store Are Wide Open. And Still, They Only Look In One Direction.

29. The Name Tag: Convenience or Crosshair?

Everyone must wear a name tag. The stated purpose? “So customers know who to thank.” But the real function is faster escalation. Faster complaints. Faster identifications when things go wrong — no matter how vague or unfair the accusation. It is not a gesture of recognition. It is a prewritten accusation template: “Some guy named Alex was rude.” “The girl in red — I think her name was Sam — didn’t help me.” “Whatever her name was, it was on her chest. She rolled her eyes.”

The name tag is the shortest possible path between a moment of stress and a manager’s office. It is instant accountability with no room for context. It turns human interaction into customer-to-agent confrontation. You are no longer just a worker. You are a label, a scapegoat, a button to push when the world disappoints.

They tell you to smile.

To engage.

To wear your name with pride.

But everyone knows the truth:

It’s Not Your Name They Care About; It’s Who To Blame When The Refund Doesn’t Go Through.

30. The Water Bottle Policy

Your hydration is now a security risk. If it’s not crystal clear, they’ll ask you to uncap it. “It’s just procedure,” As they sniff your bottle for the scent of rebellion, Or worse — soda. So bring a see-through flask, Because God forbid you bring lemonade. That’s grounds for suspicion. They say it's about theft. But we all know it’s about control. Because nothing says “trust” like being told to open your drink, In front of someone holding a checklist.

We used to joke that Big Brother watched.

Now Big Brother Thinks You’re Hiding Vodka In Your Gatorade.

Meanwhile, the real thieves walk out the front door, With carts of merchandise and a smile for the cameras that never pan that way.

31. “Hi, Welcome To [Insert Store Name Here]."

"If I could have you pause for just a moment...”

A velvet rope. A security vest. A quick glance at a camera no one is watching. It’s not protection. It’s performance.

They greet everyone like a TSA agent who lost the plane.

"We’re controlling store entry to ensure a safe and secure shopping experience.”

Unless, of course, someone’s actually in danger. Then it’s “Policy says call the manager.” And the manager? They call the cops. Then it’s writing a report. Then they call corporate. It’s All Delay.

Like hanging velvet curtains in a burning theater. The thieves know this. They walk past the rope. Past the welcome. Right through the “security experience.” Carts full. Unbothered.

Because The Only People Being Managed

Are The Ones Who Work Here.

The show’s for them. Not the guests.

32. "Loud And Proud" - Surveillance as Spectacle

Every customer who walks into the store is met with a mandatory ritual: A scripted security greeting delivered by the Shortage Control Associate. It must be done "loud and proud." That’s the instruction.

Not just clearly — projected.

Not just scripted — performed.

So loud it echoes through the racks,

through the backroom,

through your soul.

You are not greeting customers.

You are declaring fealty to surveillance.

This isn’t safety. It’s ritualized theater. A performance for the camera. A constant ping to regular customers and workers, ignored by thieves: We Are Watching. And when actual theft happens? SCAs are told not to engage. Call a manager. Let it go. Say the line again.

Security is not for protection. It’s not even for deterrence.

It’s a costume, a choreography of authority that creates no power. Only presence. Only noise. Only the illusion that someone is in control.

33. Welcome to the Shortage Highway.

A pilgrimage you must take every time you clock out for lunch, for break, for breath. Walk the perimeter. Don’t stray. Don’t stop.

Smile.

You’re not allowed to just go. You must patrol. You must engage. You must high five — Not literally, of course. No touching. Just proximity marketing.

Look them in the eye.

Make them feel seen.

Make the theft feel harder.

This is not your time. Your break is not in sight. It’s borrowed surveillance. Miss a “high five”? Too quiet in your stride?

Someone will notice. Someone is noticing. T

his is the Retail way:

You will make contact. You will be a presence.

You will be visible. Even if your joy is not.

34. The Customer is Always Right.*

When they say it’s broken, you break the price.

When they say it’s missing, you remove the tag.

When they say it’s cheaper elsewhere, you believe.

The register bends. Policy flexes. Margins vanish.

*But when their kid needs to pee?

Now they’re suspects.

The bathroom is sacred. Too sacred for codes. No writing it down. No telling. Only escorting. You, the associate, become the key.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

You must walk them to the door. You must punch in the code in full view as if secrecy lies in muscle memory. The code never changes. It’s on your fingers. Anyone watching can crack it. Everyone watching already has. But the theater is mandatory. They must believe it’s secure. You Must Perform Control

Even as the bathroom floods; Even as it smells like failure; Even as the soap dispenser screams for mercy.

Welcome to customer care.

Where you smile as you surrender.

Where you follow them to the bathroom

But cannot follow them to reason.

35. The Janitor Closet is Locked.

Not with a latch. Not with a handle. With the same Key-Ring that opens the safe. The money room. The vault of gods. To mop the vomit, you must be blessed. The code to touch bleach is the same as the code to touch cash. Security is absolute — when it concerns filth. The mop bucket must not fall into the wrong hands. The Swiffer pads are sacred texts. The toilet brush, a relic. Guard them well.

And yet, the door is still warped. The handle loose. The light flickers like a prophecy. Inside? One ancient vacuum, Half a gallon of generic “all-purpose,” And a broom with no head. The floor is wet with effort. The air is thick with Lysol and resignation. You clean it, but you can’t fix it.

The walls rot behind their holy lock.

But still — you are not trusted with open access.

Because this is retail,

And nothing is holy except the illusion of control.

36. The Grand Hall of Mirrors is closed.

A dozen doors. A maze of z-racks. Enough space for a ballet. Sealed With A Rolling Gate.

You see, trust costs money. So does supervision. So instead of staffing it, we lock it up — like a memory of what dignity looked like. In its place: Two tiny stalls built by compromise and lit like a lie. Just off the register — so close you can smell the returns. Each stall has a glowing LED, like a traffic light, meant to say: “Someone is here.”

But who? For how long? With how much merchandise?

No one knows.

The cameras glare, but never act. They are the unblinking gods of a crumbling Olympus. They bear witness. They do not interfere. The Scheduled “Check-Ins” Are Rituals. Performed without faith, Once every 30 minutes, Unless we forget. Theft happens in the meantime. Not out of malice, but invitation.

The room says: “This Company Doesn’t Care.” So why should you? The customers know. The workers know.

Only corporate pretends this isn't a performance of collapse.

And still, we ask people to smile, To suggestive sell, To read minds,

To Offer Service Where Even Structure Has Abandoned Us.

37. Even The Trash Is Under Lock, Camera, And Suspicion.

The janitor closet is locked with the same key as the store’s secure cash room— A symbolic conflation of trash and treasure. Taking out the garbage isn't a mindless chore: it's a controlled operation. You're expected to bring a partner. If you're alone, you're breaking protocol. You're expected to wait. A lead or manager is supposed to inspect every bag. You're expected to be watched. A camera directly overlooks the trash area — not for safety, but surveillance.

The implication is clear: Garbage Is A Potential Crime Scene. Every discarded hanger, broken fixture, or plastic wrap could conceal theft. Employees are trusted to fold hundred-dollar coats, operate pallet jacks, and open the store— But not to throw out a box unsupervised.

This Isn’t Protection. It’s Paranoia By Policy.

38. Standardized Chaos — The Illusion of Corporate Structure

Every few months, the store receives “updated flow” and “floor plan” directives — glossy PDFs, hastily printed diagrams, or vague bullet lists labeled as corporate strategy. These updates are identical for every store in the region; Galleria malls, Suburban outlets, Cramped city retail units; All treated as interchangeable puzzle pieces in a boardroom fantasy. But the map has no respect for the terrain.

The new plan might call for three tables where there's a fire exit. Or for expanded shoe racks in a department that hasn’t had full inventory in six months. They might list a location for men’s coats where walls don’t even exist. This mismatch births a contradiction:

Staff Are Given Rigid Expectations,

And Total Freedom — Simultaneously.

You are told to follow the plan. You are expected to interpret the plan. You are penalized when it fails. You are praised if it works — even if it only worked because you ignored it.

Thus emerges a culture where initiative is punished until it succeeds, and failure is blamed on lack of “common sense.”

There Is No Flow; Only Illusion.

There Is No Plan; Only Plausible Deniability.

39. Backlog as Blame — The Pathologization of Labor

When tasks pile up — markdowns missed, freight unprocessed, displays unfinished— the assumption is not logistical failure.

It is moral.

The Accusation Is Not "The Plan Didn't Work."

It's "You Didn’t Follow It Closely Enough."

Every error is retroactively cast as deviation. Not from a clear instruction — but from an imagined perfection that lives only in hindsight. If you had truly followed the process (which is mostly “common sense”) Then surely the backlog wouldn’t exist.

This Is Spiritual Gaslighting, Made Bureaucratic. The laborer is asked to confess to sins never named. The manager is forced to divine where their will was insufficient. The structure remains blameless. The spreadsheet stays clean. And when it doesn’t, someone’s heart wasn’t in it.

Even Success Is Not Proof Of Competence; Only A Delay Of The Next Reckoning.

40. The 4-Minute Fallacy — When Overperformance Becomes the Floor

The company preaches optimization like gospel. The story goes: "Once One Man Ran The Four-Minute Mile, Others Followed." What they don’t mention is None of them worked freight until 11 PM, then clocked in the next day at 7 AM. Success is not met with relief — it's met with re-calibration.

Do something faster than expected? Now that’s the new standard.

There is no bonus. No structural change. No surge in pay or support.

Only a nod of appreciation, and a new silent burden to carry alone.

They say you’ve “risen to the occasion,”

But forget that the occasion was a collapsing dam of understaffing, shipment backlog, and rotating expectations— none of which changed after your effort.

And still, you're told to be proud. To wear the broken record of your performance as a badge.

All while McDonald’s across the street is offering $8 more per hour, with benefits, free food, and no inventory audit.

You’re Told: "We’re A Family."

But The Kind Of Family That Borrows Your Labor And Forgets Your Name.

41. Scheduling: A Machine With No Driver

The labor hours are algorithmic;

Generated by a system that doesn’t know the store,

the team, or the workload;

It calculates hours like a machine balancing books;

With no memory of yesterday and no awareness of tomorrow;

And Yet, Corporate Calls It “Optimized.”

It’s then handed to managers — not as a plan, but as a limitation.

A puzzle with pieces missing, where any correction becomes their responsibility, but no error was ever truly theirs to begin with.

If the freight shipment is late, If coverage is short, If three workers call out and none can be replaced Blame falls not on the system, But on the person stuck translating it into a workable week.

And of course, there’s no way to check the logic. No insight into why hours were cut, Or why full-time staff were given part-time hours While new hires get 4-hour weeks to “balance the curve.” Associates are left waiting for final schedules that arrive days late.

Sometimes after the week has already begun.

Sometimes changed after they're already clocked in.

You Don’t Get Consistency; You Get Warnings.

You Don’t Get Planning; You Get A Guess And A Prayer.

All Of It Is Justified By A Number;

A Number No One In The Building Chose;

And No One In The Building Can Change.

42. Process Hours Without Process Thinking

Once upon a time, the store received its deliveries in the early dawn; 6 A.M. to 8 A.M.

Before the doors opened, Before customers flooded the floor,

Before anyone had to apologize for blocking the aisle with a steel battering ram.

It wasn’t perfect — but it was functional.

Freight cages could roll out cleanly. Backroom processing could begin without dodging strollers and carts. And resets, pulls, and tagging all had a head start.

Then one day,

Without Warning Or Explanation,

Shipping Times Were Changed To 11 A.M. To 1 P.M. No memo, no logistics justification, no staff consensus.

Just an order.

Now, deliveries arrive in the middle of the store’s peak — when sales need floor coverage, and the aisles are most congested. Backroom space fills with carts that can’t be processed. Cages clog the customer lanes. And associates must choose: Process freight or serve guests. And somehow,

The expectations remain identical.

Same freight goals. Same floor times. Same audit deadlines. As if time didn’t change. As if the customer traffic didn’t double. As if the building had doubled in size to accommodate both. But the truckers didn’t request this.

They’re now navigating Calexico to Riverside mid-day, through urban congestion and parking chaos.

Everyone Suffers; No One Benefits; And No One Explains.

It’s Not A System; It’s Just A Shift Of Burden; From Planners To Processors; From Paper To People.

43. The Cycle of Internal Conflict

The change in delivery times didn’t just disrupt process— It Set Departments Against Each Other. Back of House is told to move fast: Unload. Scan. Roll. Hang. Push freight onto the floor before the next truck arrives. Speed is Compliance**.** Speed is Praised**.** Speed is Posted. And so they rush. Clothes hit the racks sideways. Hangers backwards. Tags missing. Sets broken. Inventory miscounted.

Front of house is left with the fallout: Customers asking where the rest of the set is. Cashiers juggling damaged goods and security tags that won’t scan. Managers scrambling to recover broken shelves while prepping markdowns. And when recovery is rushed or mistakes are made?

Front gets blamed. Back blames floor. Floor blames back. The Cycle Feeds Itself. Everyone knows the Truth; It’s Not Any One Department’s Failure. It’s that the system expects perfection from chaos. Speed with no slack. Volume with no pause. And instead of fixing the structure, they watch the conflict.

Let Them Fight. It Keeps Them Busy.

And As Long As It Gets Done, Eventually,

Corporate Says The System Works.

44. The Olive Branch Illusion

To soothe the growing divide between Front of House and Back of House, corporate prescribes "shared labor policies" — symbolic gestures meant to show unity.

BOH staff are required to "recover the floor" for the first 15 minutes of their shift — a pause before touching the freight. FOH staff are expected to manage the Queue Cages — pushing freight from the registers to the back hallway cages while also handling customers and checkouts.

In Theory, This Promotes Empathy. In Practice, It Breeds Silent Resentment.

Back of House hates the floor recovery. They’re trained for speed, for volume; not hangers on the floor. They see it as beneath their pace. A fake chore that cuts into freight timing; One More Delay On An Already Impossible Clock.

Front of House dreads the queue cages. There are always more than there is space. They pile up fast — especially during rushes. No room to maneuver. No help. Just the slow crawl of dealing with inventory labeled fragile, valuable, or absurdly heavy, while being interrupted by customers every five seconds.

Then, suddenly—The back is ready for cages. All of them. Now. And It’s A Panic. Staff scramble to clear paths, relocate stock, or “make room” where there is none.

So, Neither Side Feels Helped; Only Used. What Was Sold As A Bridge; Becomes A Bitter Trade. Not Collaboration; But Obligation. Not Unity; But Another Invisible Metric No One Agreed To.

45. The Myth of the Backroom Printer

For over three years, the designated back-of-house printers — Meant for mass, consistent, actualization of missing tags— Have Remained Inoperable. Not once; not sporadically; Nonfunctional For Over 1,000 Days. Every support ticket submitted is closed or ignored. Every mention to management is met with the same shrug: “Yeah, we’ve put in another ticket.”

And so the markdown printers— Lightweight, Mobile, And designed only for price reduction labels; Are used for everything. They Were Not Built For This. They jam, they print slowly, but they're all we have.

This Isn’t A Store That Failed To Keep Up. It’s A Store That Has Adapted To Its Own Decay.

And still, deadlines loom. Still, expectations remain. Still, corporate metrics hold everyone accountable,

Still for results, not infrastructure.

The Printer Is Broken. The System Isn’t. It’s Functioning Exactly As Intended.

46. The Illusion Of Prevention

Everyone Knows.

The Thieves Know.

The Workers Know.

Even Corporate Knows.

Every Security Tag Comes Off With A Magnet.

You can buy one online. You can use one at home. You can walk into the dressing room with it and walk out clean. So why tag everything? Why spend hundreds of hours a week attaching them by hand?Because the tag isn't security. It's theater. It’s a prop in the surveillance show.

It says: We Are Watching. It says: Someone Cares. It makes you pause, makes you wonder, makes you hesitate. But It’s Fake. No alarms. No ink explosions. Just plastic and posturing.

Even the greeting rope at the entrance; That velvet line and cheerful hostage speech; It’s Not For You; It’s For The Cameras; It’s For Liability; It’s For The Show.

Because when real theft happens, when someone actually takes a cart full of goods out the door: The SCA doesn’t stop them; The manager won’t chase; The police don’t come.

What Matters Isn’t Stopping Loss. It’s Appearing To Try.

That’s the Corporation's real security strategy, Keep The Illusion Alive.

Make workers perform compliance.

Make customers believe in consequences.

Make corporate believe the illusion is working.

Until Someone Notices The Emperor Has No Tags.

47. Policy Over Performance

In Retail, the systems don’t need to work. They just need to look like they work.

Security Tags?

Easily bypassed with magnets.

Still applied by hand to hundreds of items a day.

Still locked up for employee use.

Surveillance Posters?

Hanging in the break room and back hall.

"You’re being watched."

Yet the most common thefts go completely unrecorded.

SCA Greetings?

“Loud and proud” recitations of control and security.

Repeated for every customer, often to empty air.

A form of vocal compliance, not a deterrent.

The Dressing Room?

One gated room sits locked 90% of the year.

A smaller two-stall is left open with a camera.

Neither stops the theft — because the schedule is what gets policed, not the risk.

The Floor Plan Updates?

Generic layouts from corporate;

Untailored to the actual store;

Staff are expected to follow them blindly;

Regardless of real conditions.

The Trash Inspections?

A camera watches you throw away literal garbage.

A manager is expected to verify every bag.

The same process is circumvented daily just to function.

Markdowns?

Labeled as "common sense," not logic.

Scanners beep three times before printing — and you can't scan while they do.

Name Tags?

Marketed as customer care.

Function as surveillance anchors.

Direct lines of accountability when accusations arise.

This is the Play-Acting Of Process,

Where every role is performed, Every beat rehearsed, But no one’s actually watching the show. Because what matters isn’t Efficiency, Isn’t Outcomes, Isn’t even Truth. What matters is the Appearance:

That you’re working hard; That corporate is in control; That someone has thought this through.

And If The Show Falls Apart, It’s Not Because The System Failed;

It’s Because You Didn’t Perform It Right.

48. AXIOMS OF THEATRICAL LABOR

1. The Costume Is The System

What you wear, say, and gesture matters more than what you do. A name tag creates trust. A lanyard creates hierarchy. A shirt tucked in signifies responsibility.

None of these affect outcomes, but all of them protect the illusion of structure.

2. The Script Is The Standard

Whether it functions or not, you must read your lines. Loudly greet at the door. Say "pause for just a moment" like you believe it. Print markdowns with patience, no matter how broken the scanner is. Say the name of the loyalty program every transaction.

If it fails, say it again.

3. The Stage Is Arbitrary

Floor plans arrive from nowhere. Corporate flow maps are copy-pasted from cities that don't resemble yours. Storage space is fiction. Queues overflow. Back rooms flood.

You are not asked to fix it. You are asked to make it look like it never broke.

4. The Audience Is Management

You're not performing for customers. You're performing for auditors, regional managers, camera reviews, and abstract expectations. You don't need to succeed. You need to be seen trying.

Appear busy. Appear precise. Appear productive.

If the metrics are wrong, it means you're not acting hard enough.

5. The Show Must Go On

No matter how broken the register, how wrong the shipment, how pointless the markdowns — continue. If you ask too many questions, you're slowing the rhythm. If you adjust the system, you're going off-script. If you find peace with coworkers, expect to be reassigned.

Harmony is the enemy of control.

6. The Applause Is Hollow

"You Made a Difference" cards. "Heartbeat of Our Store" certificates. Boards listing your fastest times. Points systems for candy. Recognition is a tool, not a gift. It exists to keep you performing.

It is given late. It is given vaguely. It is given only when performance matches fantasy

7. The Props Are Broken

Scanners that beep but don't register. Printers that never received support tickets. Security tags that do nothing. Locks that mean nothing. Cameras watching the wrong thing.

The sets are cardboard and tape. The actors are tired. But the show is still on.

8. The Director Is Absent

Policy comes from nowhere. You Must Obey. Exceptions are undefined. Expectations change without notice. The managers are caught in the same performance.

They cannot speak plainly. They can only pass along the next line in the script.

9. The Audience Leaves Before the Ending

No one is measuring what actually works. No one notices the fire exits that don’t close. No one sees the trash compactor injuries. No one checks the real backlog. The managers know. The workers know.

But the show isn't for them.

10. The Play Is a Lie

You are pretending to work. They are pretending to lead. The customers are pretending to believe.

All of it could be done better, With half the theater, And double the truth.

49. The Extraction of Humanity

1. When people make things work, the system breaks them to “optimize” the magic.

Friendships, rhythms, trust — these emerge naturally among teams over time. But once a store finds its footing through human effort, it is punished. High performers are relocated, promoted with conditions, or reassigned under vague “development plans,” severing the roots of community they helped grow.

2. “Stabilization” is not seen as success, but untapped capital.

A smooth-running store is viewed not as a testament to shared humanity, but as wasted potential. The logic follows: if things are working, you don’t need as many people, or you should split the talent to “scale it.”

This isn’t reward — it’s cannibalism.

3. Moments of peace are interpreted as inefficiency.

When workers laugh, breathe, collaborate without chaos — these are not cherished. They are audited. “How did you have time to be calm?” becomes the question. Joy is seen as excess.

Humanity; a margin to be shaved.

4- Promotions are used as surgical tools, not as growth pathways.

Advancement is never just a reward. It is conditional: “Are you willing to start over somewhere new? Can you drop what you’ve built to serve the brand elsewhere?” Promotions extract individuals from functioning teams to test their loyalty — not to recognize their achievement.

5- The system depends on people caring just enough to fix it, But Not Enough To Challenge It.

Every stabilizing figure is shipped out, self-limiting, or burned out. Every organic system of trust is repurposed or discarded. Every heartbeat is spent proving that people can make even this broken machine run — before the machine crushes them for it.

50. I’ve Stopped Pretending This Is Normal.

Because we can build something real.

Because we can work on something that doesn’t eat people to make numbers.

Because you asked me to become an enforcer for policies you won’t define, uphold a system you won’t fix, and sacrifice my joy for a story that doesn’t end well for anyone.

I'm not asking for the reasons behind these decisions.

I'm asking why they remain in face of failure time and time again?

This is not an attack. This is not an insult. It is a statement of Fact.

I hope you will do something meaningful with it.

—[Name Redacted] *Former Cart Cleaner, Unpaid Morale Officer

06/05/2025

Addendum - 06/07/2025

Inventory didn’t break because the numbers were wrong. It Broke Because The Process Had No Soul.

Associates were called in as early as 5:30 AM, expected to be alert and presentable for a morning meeting, then sent directly to their assigned zones. Both teams were made of competent people. Both Teams had the work experience.

Team A — Made up of close friends and coworkers who trusted each other — cruised through their section laughing.

Team B — Mostly strangers corralled together under quiet suspicion; stumbled through the chaos as best as they could muster.

Team A would eventually be conscripted to fill in the gaps Team B Left.

Breaks and lunches had been preassigned on slips of paper, And you were expected to follow them without reminders. If You Forgot Your Time, You Missed It. But when it came time to log into the scanning devices? You were just expected to know your “user ID.” Or have the app. Or already be logged in. A login no one uses — except once a year.

For Inventory

If you were part of the unlucky audit group, You were held all the way until 3:58 PM — Nearly eleven hours on your feet with little clarity, little direction, and very little food. One coworker quit halfway through the day,

Not in Rage;

Not In Theater;

Whispering “I can’t do this anymore..” On The Stairwell.

Another nearly walked out hours later,

Tired,

Furious,

Only persuaded to stay when a peer — without any actual authority — told him to just leave. Eight people were held late not for real error — but because a flawed system claimed their zones hadn’t reached the 10% threshold. We scanned the same items again and again.

The numbers bounced around — 5%, 4%, 7% — never matching, never budging. The count was correct. The audits were done. But the machine didn’t believe us. The Section was scanned several times. By several hands. The store is bleeding money in overtime. All for a bureaucratic digital checkbox.

And then, Without ceremony,

Someone

Not a manager, Not the designated lead, Decided on scanning just one item from each blocked zone. A count even the system couldn’t misread. And Just Like That: The System Blinked. “10% Reached.”

Management Cheered. From the office. Over The Radio. That was it. We were done.

It Had Never Been About Accuracy — Just Compliance.

The promised donuts never came. But the bakery still did — six marked-down pastries brought in by someone who thought tradition was still worth something. No one asked them to. No one had to.

That was the real shape of the day:

Broken Systems. Barely Held Together. By Human Beings Choosing To Care Anyway.

And when it finally ended, There was no speech, No moment of acknowledgment, No thank-you for the ten-hour shift, The patience, The overtime, Or the restraint it took not to scream.

Just a single question, tossed over the noise like it meant something:

“Did Everyone Return The Devices?”

That was our finale.

So What Now?

Grab your torch and pitchfork? Throw the brick? Firebomb the Walmart?

No.

We’ve seen that story. Over and over. It Always Ends Right Back Where It Started. I don't accept the premise that a better world is only possible through justified murder. If you want this time to be different, it has to start with people speaking their peace — Not holding it in for the sake of comfort, or politeness, or fear.

Everyone’s waiting for Tyler Durden or Guy Fawkes to show up and give permission to resist. "Who’s gonna take the shot?" "Where’s the revolution?" They’re not coming. And you don’t need them.

How are you gonna fight for a better world if you won’t even talk politics at Thanksgiving? You don’t hate your family — you hate what you think they believe. You don’t hate your boss — you hate what they enforce. And you project that anger as intent, that structure as malice. You want a kinder world? Be Kinder. You want a more honest world? Start Speaking Up. And if you don’t believe in a rule — Don’t Enforce It. Stop mistaking silence for safety. Stop mistaking obedience for neutrality.

You are not a cog. You are not a drone. You are not exempt.

If someone has to be first, let it be you.

And if you’re sure, If you’ve looked at your truth and chosen it; Then you have nothing to fear in defending it. You have nothing to fear from saying it out loud. They can challenge you. Let them.

Because If You're Right, You Won’t Need Permission.

So that’s the sermon. No altar call. No revolution manifest. No dramatic ending. No brick. No firebomb. Just a mirror. Just a reminder: You Already Know What’s Right.

Now Act Like It.

If you want a better world: Shape it. If you're sure: Say It. And if you’re not sure: Say That Too.

Don’t enforce rules you don’t believe in. Don’t stay silent just because no one else is speaking up.

You don’t need a Revolution. You need a Backbone.

But if you’re still figuring out what that means, Here’s four silly songs that helped me get here —

one scream, one shrug, one sigh, and one sitcom, Take what you need. Leave the rest.

Start Talking. And For Your Sake,

Stop Waiting For Someone To Tell You What To Do

#my art #retail #customer service #prose #politics #public policy #union #workers #labor #labor rights #wages #capitalism #inequality

36 notes · View notes

anamericangirl · 27 days ago

Note

Saw live action Lilo and Stitch with my kids yesterday, and while it’s not a 10/10 by any means or the best Disney live action by any means that’ll always be 101 Dalmatians to me (Glenn Close and Hugh Laurie? In an era before it was just a soulless cash grab? Yes please), it did tear me up a few times as an oldest child of four kids with an extended age gap between me and my youngest sibling + a mom of two young kids. More on point, I didn’t take the ending change the way your other anon did at all

Lilo ends up in hospital about 3/4 of the way through because Stitch panicked in the ocean and nearly accidentally drowns her, and at that point the lady from CPS who’s been hounding Nani the entire movie essentially cements that Lilo cannot stay with her sister. It went from CPS giving her a week to get XYZ accomplished with turning their lives around so the sisters can stay together to that being off the table.

The fact that they gave David a very involved absolute peach of grandmother who’s been babysitting Lilo when her sister’s at work and who’s also willing to foster Lilo while her sister’s at school is a conveniently neat and tidy way to square the circle problem here, agreed, but it’s also not a terrible way to expand on the larger point that sometimes after parental death family is a larger ring in your immediate community and that it’s okay for them to help you when you need it.

Nani repeated tells everyone the whole movie that she’s moving on from wanting to go to her dream school to study marine biology because her responsibilities with her little sister come first, and given the alien ‘magic’ of being able to portal back and forth instantly from the mainland they show Lilo and Nani using to spend time together, they aren’t all that separated after all. We’re also given every indication that Nani will get her degree, come back to the island, and be able to be better employed and supporting her sister once she gets the chance to finish growing up and becoming a more stabilized adult.

Honestly, this all comes together in a nice showing of how the foster system is used in best case scenarios to have foster families temporarily step in while bio families are working on getting back together. Having the next door grandmother who knew Lilo and Nani’s parents temporarily have Lilo isn’t too off from IRL fosters where extended family members are assigned to step in and take kids for a few years with the end goal of that in the long run they will go home.

And if we want to deviate to IRL politics, showing the foster system like this in a Disney movie of all things in the year of our Lord 2025 is a good thing to me. You constantly get the pro-infanticide crowd screeching about ‘why aren’t the pro-life people adopting everyone in foster care’ when an overwhelming percentage of the kids in there (like Lilo) aren’t actually adoptable. Is foster care perfect? No, because human being are involved in it and we’re extremely full of faults. Can it still be a temporary necessity for some kids that’s a net positive in the long run? Yes

Since I haven't seen it myself, I can't really speak to whether one interpretation is more accurate than the next and I'm sure it's done in line with what you're saying and is overall a positive message and portrayal of the foster care system, but even with all that, my question is why?

Why did they change the ending in the first place? They changed the whole message of Lilo and Stitch for what purpose?

Nani is a person who desperately didn't want to lose custody of Lilo and would do anything to keep her. And it showed that through all their struggles, even though they have problems and aren't perfect, they can stay together. Nani is capable of providing and caring for her sister and Lilo doesn't have to be taken by CPS.

The entire point of the movie was nobody gets left behind. Staying together. Showing that with a loving support system, Nani and Lilo don't have to be separated.

And now in this movie they are completely undermining that message. It kind of steps all over what that message is. Like even with all Nani's efforts to keep them together she is giving up Lilo anyway. Even if it will only be temporary it contradicts everything that Lilo and Stitch is supposed to be about.

I think it's good to show the foster system in a positive light, but they should have made a completely new story to show that. Instead they remade Lilo and Stitch to get rid of the positive, strong message they already had, which is families staying together.

It's completely against what the character of Nani is supposed to be to give up Lilo in the end. And if we think about it in real life, legally Lilo could be taken away from her without her knowledge because she gave up custody. And I know in the fictional movie that's something that would never happen, but that's the real life situation Nani has agreed to, which is the complete of opposite of everything she is and everything she has fought for.

It's just an unnecessary change.

#anon #answered

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do-you-have-a-flag · 1 month ago

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just read that article from new york magazine, "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College - ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project."

didn't reveal anything new to me about the use and functioning of the plagiarism-grown, glorified auto-predict, language models that were rolled out so irresponsibly it means now anyone can waste water instead of their own time and effort. but was still fascinating to read, in a bleak way.

it's so interesting because cheating and corner cutting will always exist in education, whether out of desperation or laziness, it will always be there. but by university it truly is wild how many people are not actually there to learn, because at that point if you have a program do all your work for you you are fully not there to learn so why waste your time and money playing pretend at a degree. a degree you aren't qualified for because you did not do enough.

we aren't in a post-capitalist universal basic income world where the idea of a few individuals lightly supervising automation is feasible. the technology is not there and the culture and economic stability is not there. so when a professor in the article reasons to students “you’re not actually anything different than a human assistant to an artificial-intelligence engine, and that makes you very easily replaceable. Why would anyone keep you around?” that is not hypothetical. and in terms of the degrees just because the on paper grade says you passed doesn't mean you passed it means you curated automated responses that pass with no actual guarantee of comprehension or retention of information on your part.

and there are tools and templates and minor automations that can be used to supplement your own efforts! they take longer but not that significantly, and more importantly they are less likely to impede the actual practice of learning to implementation.

that's what a lot of people who cheat or use these tools in this way seem to miss.

let me pull out three paraphrased statements of possible justifications from this article:

The education system is flawed

These exercises are irrelevant

I'm bad at organisation

these are all experientially true to my experience of education at various points. and the first point exacerbates issues with 2 and 3 to where students can feel overwhelmed or underprepared or frustrated for various reasons. however where i differ personally from the choice making of these students, is that while i never had access to such a powerful tool i still never chose to cheat or cut corners with things like chapter summaries instead of reading a book, or getting someone else to write for me, or any other obvious forms of cheating/plagiarism.

and the reason for this is not lack of frustration or feelings of antagonism towards the system or confusion over content or lack of organisation skills (all issues i had). it's that throughout my education, i am talking back to primary school, i always tried to figure out WHY we were doing the work assigned to us. what in our studies is it trying to get us to engage with, what methods does it force us to put into use to communicate that knowledge, and how much of the information have we comprehended and retained. some assignments are bad at the execution of these goals but if you can see what the goals are you can still benefit from attempting to achieve them while meeting the requirements enough to pass. IMPORTANTLY the process of doing this frustrating and often inefficient process helps not just critical thinking skills but also is how you actually learn things.

no one else can know stuff for you. it makes sense to outsource a basic sum to a calculator app on your phone, but this means you are not a mathematician. if you use a chapter by chapter summary to write a book report you have not read that book. if you read the wikipedia article for a movie you have not watched that movie. all of these are more verifiable sources of information than language models.

if you get a transcript of a lecture you did not attend and use a chatbot to make notes for you then you did not attend that class- if you read the transcript and take notes and then use the chatbot and compare the difference at least then you used your capacity for thought to process the information and assess it through comparison.... but it would be better to find a classmate and compare notes with a peer so you both have the opportunity to not only check how well you understood the lecture/refresh the information covered, but also a much lower stakes chance to try out communication skills than the group assignments and oral presentations often assigned for this purpose. and on top of that you get to socialise and network with someone in your field of study in a way that benefits both of you.

i'm not even against the use of machine learning models generally, i think they are useful in a repetitive task automation and data scanning context. but why are we delegating things like Knowing Stuff and Human Connection to the 1 and 0 machine that might as easily sell our info as have it leaked to hackers. what kind of cyberpunk surveillance dystopia are we shrugging lazily into? you do not have to pay all that money to pretend to be a competent professional. and if that sounds harsh it's because it is. there are enough scammers and barely qualified people succeeding in this world.

you do not have to dedicate your life to labours that you are not capable of, at the very least be honest with yourself of your own capacity for thought and action. genuinely try to figure out if you are using this technology because of a 'can't' or a 'won't'

it's not a tool if it knows more than you- it's a tool if you could do the job without it.

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niqhtlord01 · 2 months ago

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Humans are weird: Wrath of the Pirate Queen Part 1

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

“We should have just paid them.”

“It would have bankrupted-“

Mulgrade smashed his fist into the council table. “And this isn’t?!?”

He held up a hand at the holographic projection of data feeds scrolling in front of the small council. Countless ship loses, supply convoys ambushed and destroyed, stations raided and looted across the entire subsector.

“The pirate queen has cost us three times as much damage than what she inflicted upon the Hash’tu and we’re still at war with the alien bastards!”

With a swipe of a few keys Mulgrade brought up the war map showing the latest frontline between the Hash’tu and the Cosmic Federation. The lines had stabilized when the pirate queen had been employed by the Federation. Her fleet had conducted several successful raids behind Hash’tu lines, even going so far as to destroy not only a massive orbital station, but also the defense fleet stationed inside it and the planet it had been orbiting when the station lost orbit and crashed into the planet’s surface.

“This is what it looked like six weeks ago.” Mulgrade addressed the council. ‘And this is what it looks like since then.”

The map began to slowly change with the passage of time. Pockets of conflict within Hash’tu lines ceased completely and began appearing behind the Federation’s lines instead. The frequency of attacks was nearly triple what had been carried out inside the Hash’tu. The Federation then began losing ground to repeated Hash’tu attacks including three systems before reaching the current date.

“Since we failed to pay her she has turned her fleet on us entirely.”

“What of the Hash’tu?” one of the councilors asked. “Surely they have not given up on seeking vengeance for what happened?”

“Not exactly,” Mulgrade answered as he rubbed his eyes in frustration. “They are still bent on destroying her, but in the meantime so long as she continues carrying out attacks against ourselves they are content to postpone their retribution.”

“Another reason is they may not have the forces to openly confront her and us at the same time.”

Mulgrade looked up to see a new figure enter the chamber. They wore a starch white indicating themselves to be part of Military Intelligence. Their cold blue eyes circled the room before settling on Mulgrade and giving a crisp salute.

“And you are?” one of the councilors inquired.

“Jim Hark,” the new figure replied, “special operative of Military Intelligence and former caseworker of Operation Rogue.”

Another round of murmurs before Mulgrade noticed something in Mr. Hark’s reply.

“So you were the one who was in charge of keeping Amelia in check?”

To his surprise Mr. Hark shook his head. “Sadly that responsibility was with the former caseworker Jacob Montigue.”

“Then why aren’t we speaking with them?”

Mr. Hark gave a sheepish shrug. “Jacob died at the hands of Captain Starfeld shortly after refusing to pay her for her recent exploits; I was assigned after.”

“What did you mean that the Hash’tu couldn’t afford to engage the pirates?”

Mulgrade was not going to let the conversation become bogged down with needless history lessons.

“As you know,” Mr. Hark replied by taking control of the holographic projector and bringing up the datasheet of Amelia Starfeld, “the more infamy a pirate obtains the more respect they garner in the criminal elements of our universe.”

Mulgrade nodded and allowed Hark to continue.

“Her recent successes have garnered her unprecedented levels of fame within such groups and now smaller elements of outlaws have been flocking to her banner for a chance at fame and glory.”

He pointed to a specific detailing of her fleet composition. “Originally she had a small fleet with her flagship and at least half a dozen smaller ships; but now she is commanding several fleets numbering easily over one hundred vessels divided into raiding groups with their own commander and objectives.”

“So you are saying we have created a monster?” Mulgrade put together as the last few battles began making more and more sense. The devastation she had wrought coupled with the vast fortune of goods stolen during her raids was all but ensuring that her name sake was far from just a mere honorary title. She truly was becoming the Pirate Queen.

“Indeed,” Hark nodded, “and like any monster it retreats to its lair after each raid to regroup, giving us the perfect chance to rid ourselves of her once and for all.”

“You’re talking of the “Shallow”, if I am not mistaken.”

“Correct.” Hark agreed. “It has been confirmed by several sources that after each successful raid Amelia will retreat to the Shallow for debauchery and resupply before heading out again.”

Hark entered several keys and a hologram of the void station appeared. It was easily the largest station outside of core territory but it still had a ways to go before becoming truly self-sufficient.

“My plan is to take the Storm Breaker, and a small escort fleet, and assault Amelia’s hiding spot in the Shallow rid ourselves of her once and for all.”

“Do you think it possible?” Mulgrade asked.

The Shallow was not the most heavily armed station, but from what Mulgrade had heard it was the epicenter of criminal activity amongst the stars and he doubted that their fleet would be able to simply walk in and grab them by any means necessary.

“To ensure operational stability I will be personally overseeing the mission.” Hark answered. “Believe me when I say that the sun has finally set for our most hated Pirate Queen.”

#humans are weird #humans are insane #humans are space oddities #humans are space orcs #scifi #story #writing #original writing #niqhtlord01

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kazuko-stuff · 3 months ago

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The Only Thing in The Universe That Matters is You

Summary: As the Pillar of Philos, your duty is to endlessly pray for the prosperity and safety of Philos for every single waking moment, you weren’t allowed to have any thoughts or feelings for anything else besides Philos. However after meeting your assigned guardian angel to aid you with your prayers, the seeds of destruction starts to form

Guardian Angel Caleb x Saintess MC

Inspired by Magic Knights Rayearth and Caleb’s possible new myth theories going around lately

Warnings : Angst, no happy endings, Allusions to self harming and if you know what happens in season 1 of Magic Knights….

At a young age, you were chosen to be the Pillar of Philos. You were one of the maidens, practicing the magic abilities at a young age, who was chosen to take a test of becoming the next pillar after the former has passed. You were holding the Proof of the Pillar that was in the form of a jeweled hairpin and entered the room.

The Proof the Pillar is a Protocore that takes a form based on the Pillar’s personality and is what grants peace and prosperity of Philos.

You were selected as the new Pillar and the hairpin then transformed into a tiara that you have now worn for the majority of your life.

As the Pillar of Philos, you are the literal and figurative support of the land. You became the Sovereign Saintess and are seen as the Goddess of Philos, constantly praying for the prosperity and peace of Philos. You were highly loved by your subjects.

However with this responsibility, you would never be allowed to have thoughts of your loved ones or anything else as your responsibility of being the Pillar is to only focus and have Philos in your heart and mind, since Philos’ life force is connected to yours.

This is because the Protocore’s power relies on the Pillar’s heart. Whatever the heart and mind prays, it will literally manifest on Philos. If there are dark thoughts, Wanderer monsters are likely occur due to those thoughts. Philos is a place where the power of one’s heart determines all and if the Pillar supports peace and order with the strength of their will and the purity of one’s heart. This is why the Pillar must only pray for the stability of this world.

You spent your whole life in the Palace, every waking moment praying for the well-being of Philos and the people who reside there. You pray and meditate at the Prayer Chamber of the Aether Core endlessly for the existence of the Philos. However one fateful meeting would eventually lead to a road of destruction and war.

The Chief Sorcerer brings a young man around your age to be the Guardian Angel, Caleb, to aid you with your prayers. He was the right-hand man of the Chief Sorcerer.

You noticed that he is a six winged angel and those with six wings are ranked Seraph. They are known to be the highest rank of guardian angels of all of Philos. It is no wonder why he was chosen by the heart of Philos to aid you with your prayers.

“Please call me Caleb. It’s an honor to serve you Saintess Y/N of Philos” he greets you with a warm smile.

Since the first meeting with your chosen Guardian Angel, you couldn’t help but be intrigued by the mysterious man

Despite your better judgement of staying in the Chamber of Prayers to do your duty as the Pillar, you couldn’t help but go outside to the garden. You see Caleb looking at the sky, eating an apple and turning to find you, hiding behind the garden pillars, shyly looking at him.

“Caleb” you called out meekly and blushed when his violet irises looked at you with warmth.

Over time you kept spending more time together, to the point you realize you have fallen in love with him, causing you to think constantly of him and not of Philos.

As long as Caleb is well then all is well and when he isn’t, dark thoughts starts to emerge.

You are aware that falling in love is a sin against the Pillar System, so to punish yourself, you imprison yourself in the water dungeon in attempt to only have your main focus on Philos and to avoid Caleb.

However things only worsen at one night when he finds out at one of his visits, when he found out your true feelings for him. Caleb too, had fallen deeply in love with you.

“ Caleb, we shouldn’t…” tears start to well up in your eyes. “We’re not supposed to fall in love” you cried knowing this would hurt him.

“ I don’t care for the fate or existence of Philos, there is only one thing I care about. It’s you and only you” he kisses you deeply.

You kissed back, because for once you want to be selfish but the tears wouldn’t stop because you wore so torn inside due to your duty to Philos and the love that grew between the two of you

Not knowing what to do, you remember a summoning spell of knights from another world…knowing this is the way out

You know Caleb is aware of your plan and will attempt to get rid of them. He won’t hesitate to fight them off violently because he knows why you summoned them in the first place.

Due to what he was doing was considered treason against Philos, he was considered a fallen Angel. A tyrant, who was once the right hand of the Chief Mage and a seraph, now a fallen angel who kidnapped the beloved Saintess of Philos and imprisoned her, who cruelly watches Philos crumble without their Pillar. However you and the Chief Mage knew the real truth behind his actions. You drove him into his path and wondered if things could have been different if you weren’t the Pillar.

Caleb had a deep loathing of the Pillar System, since he sees being The Pillar as a slave to Philos and knows you will never get to seek happiness because you must be devoted to the entire well being and existence of Philos. Seeing you punish yourself for thinking you committed a sin of falling in love just because it was forbidden as being The Pillar torments him and only worsens when you attempt to resist the love that was already growing between the two of you. He would rather have Philos to never exist at all, if it meant that you could have a chance of happiness.

A world where the entire planet must depend on you for all eternity , then such a planet shouldn’t exist in the first place.

#love and deepspace #love and deepspace fanfic #love and deepspace headcanons #love and deepspace caleb #lads caleb #caleb x reader #caleb x mc #caleb x you #lnds caleb #lnds x reader #lnds

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oh-great-authoress · 7 months ago

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Hey there. Was wondering if I could help jog your muse so how about this?

Can I have five facts about a Top Gun AU where Bradley is hurt on mission and Mav is of course the Dagger dad. You decide if he's actually there or on the radio. ;D

Thank you so much for this ask, @musewrangler!

I’m so sorry this took an eternity, but I only got the inspiration for this now!

*sighs in author*

Anyway, many authors better than me have tackled the idea of Bradley getting injured on the Uranium Mission, so I decided to tweak the prompt a little bit—I hope you like this!

It’s a big deal—this is the first mission of the newly formed VFA-223, the “Black Cloaks”, and it’s air cover for a high value hostage rescue in Eastern Europe; a simple task, ostensibly, for such skilled pilots: Bradley is mission lead, Jake is his wingman, with Omaha and Halo, Payback and Fanboy as their two Foxtrot teams.

Mav is there in the command center, practically ready to jump out of his skin, praying they all make it home, his heart sinking when, though the hostages are successfully rescued, the mission quickly turns bad for the Daggers; there’s much more firepower than the intelligence indicated, including a UN sanctioned missile system—however, Mav’s trained them well; they’re all able to evade its targeting system, barely using their flares and chaff, but when an RPG catches Bradley off guard, Mav practically knocks Cyclone over in his rush to get to the radio as they all hear Jake’s terrified “Roo!”.

Bradley just manages to dive to avoid most of the explosion, but the blast has damaged his right aileron, with shrapnel striking his cockpit, cutting into his leg, and shearing off most of the F-18’s right elevator; he’s about to bail out of his jet into enemy territory for the second time in two years when he feels a warm hand close around his own on the stick, the battered aircraft suddenly stabilizing. “Let me show you the way home, kiddo,” a warm voice echoes in his ear, the ghost of a mustache whispering against his cheek, and as he looks out the corner of his eye, he can see the mirage of an F-14 on his wing, with a silver and blue-helmeted pilot at the stick.

Gently reassuring everyone over comms that he had control over the aircraft, especially Mav, whose fatherly concern is thinly veiled by military protocol, he miraculously makes it home, to the shock of his whole squadron when they see the state of the aircraft, everyone hugging him, Mav the tightest of all, who then promptly drags him to medical, and if the whole squadron along with its commanding officer decides to camp out in a particular room, the corpsmen decide not to mention anything.

Over the squadron’s long and storied history, it becomes a legend reverently whispered by every aviator assigned there, that if you ever find yourself in a mission gone bad, more often than not, you’ll feel a warm hand around yours on the stick, as a mustache ghosts against your cheek, and catch the faint sight of an F-14 at your wing with a silver and blue-helmed pilot at the stick, and eventually, also an F-18E with a black, white, and red-helmed pilot at the stick, VFA-223’s own guardian angels, ready to show their aviators the way home.

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unclegrumbles · 13 days ago

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ULTIMATE DANNY PHANTOM

VALERIE GRAY

Damon and Aisha Gray were high school sweethearts. They stuck it out through thick and thin. Aisha found her calling in teaching special needs children. Damon toiled away in tech at a time when the industry was less than welcoming to black men. That would change for him in the early 1980s when Damon developed a state-of-the-art adaptive encryption system for cybersecurity applications. This caught the eye of Axion Labs who swiftly plucked him from obscurity and elevated him to Executive Director of Security for their Chicago, Illinois, branch. His persistence and intelligence were noticed by his new bosses and he swiftly rose through the ranks, eventually landing in the role of Chief of Security for the entire corporation.

This rapid career acceleration brought the Grays the stability they needed to start a family, and Valerie was born in 1990. But the pressures of Damon’s new position required long hours and extensive, international travel. Valerie and her mother alternated between traveling with her father – taking advantage of Axion Labs’ generous daycare and private tutoring benefits – and staying at home, attending traditional school while Damon spent months at a time away from home. Despite the strength of Damon and Aisha’s bond, the new lifestyle was wearing them down. They fought often. Valerie quietly feared her parents would split and, given her father’s frequent travel, worried she wouldn’t see him anymore.

Just as the Gray’s marriage reached its tipping point in the early 2000s, Damon was given an unusual new assignment. He would still be Chief of Security, but his job responsibilities would be divided between multiple regional Deputy Chiefs of Security. They would answer to him, but this delegation would free his day-to-day to focus on a new project at Axion’s Amity Park location, of the utmost importance to Axion’s operations. It seemed more like a demotion than a promotion, but it came with a significant boost to Damon’s already generous compensation package. With the Gray family relocated to Amity Park, another benefit made itself apparent. Damon’s new schedule had him home to his wife and daughter before dinner. Their troubles were firmly behind them, and a new healthy and prosperous chapter of their lives was just beginning.

Valerie was enrolled in Casper High. Being the new kid is always a little awkward, but she found herself drawn to an odd assortment of peers. They helped file down her prickly edges that had grown as a defense mechanism against losing friends. Her mother’s expectations for academic success were borne of love and good intentions, but they had made Valerie a bit of an anxious basket case. The laid back demeanor of her new friends taught her how to unwind and have fun. She skulked and lurked amidst the moody atmosphere of goth poetry jams with Sam and Kwan. She rubbed elbows with socialites at charity events with Star and Paulina. Dash and Tucker always had an extra ticket for her during Bears and Blackhawks games. The final member of the group, like her, could be found at any of these events, enjoying himself even if he was clearly out of his element. Valerie found she had the most in common with Danny Fenton, and the two developed a close bond.

Skills and Abilities

Jack-of-All-Trades: Valerie seems to have just the right amount of aptitude and talent to be good at anything she tries. Academics and come easily to her in every subject, and she can pick up a new sport or physical activity with little practice. She’s a quick study on other activities like chess, video games, cooking, and music. While Valerie’s parents are convinced she could master any one of her interests if she hunkered down and applied herself, Valerie is content to coast in the slightly-to-moderately above average skill level.

Stubborn: When inspiration or motivation strikes, it's all but impossible to deter Valerie from a goal. This has obvious advantages – she is persistent and works very hard to overcome challenges. But her stubbornness has drawbacks as well. Sometimes Valerie doesn’t know when to quit. She has a tendency to push herself too hard, and she struggles to ask for help.

---

Valerie Gray made it through school with good enough grades to get into college. It was there when she learned the value of truly applying her talents. She received scholarships for her academic and scholastic excellence. Taking cues from her mom and dad, she developed new technologies to help special needs children as they entered adulthood. Her innovations revolutionized mental healthcare, and her name would be remembered for decades, if not centuries, hence.

But that was a future for a different Valerie. That was another life.

The future of this Valerie Gray veered into darker waters the night Danny Phantom killed her mom...

#danny phantom #valerie gray

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th-compl-x · 1 month ago

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An Exploration of Function

So, I'm certain my system started with trauma.

I've seen a lot of silly discourse over endo stuff, and I just think people need to mind their own business and be more accepting, but - in my personal case - we definitely started with trauma, probably around 3rd grade (or possibly even younger).

Childhood trauma seems to be relatively accepted as the spark for DID/OSDD, etc. I can agree with this, at least in my own experiences and with other systems I've met and talked to. Still, while I personally think that makes sense for the START of a system (the psyche fracturing under immense pressure), I don't agree with it when it comes to the Alters themselves.

Again, I'm speaking from personal experience, but I really don't believe an Alter MUST be formed from some kind of traumatic experience. A system as a whole? Yeah, probably. I can believe that. But each and every individual fragment or Alter? Uuuh... no. Just no.

Honestly speaking, I don't even like that idea. It breaks my heart to think that a person's only option could ever be formulating from purely pain and suffering. That's... disgustingly sad. It makes me want to hug every headmate and make sure they're okay, which would probably confuse a lot of them because they weren't formulated that way. Yes, they've each suffered their own pain and suffering in their own lives and experiences, whatever lives those are that they've led, but they're not BORN from it: From MY suffering, at least. I think my brain just shattered one day, and now they are those pieces.

But all my Alters write their own stories.

A lot of them were born in happiness or built up from my own fascinations with particular sources of media, hence my immense amount of fictives/introjects/etc. But I don't think trauma = Alter. I think trauma can SOMETIMES = System, and then the brain does as it pleases. In my case? I think (in some cases, certainly not all!) I have nameless, faceless entities meandering in the backdrop like actors waiting for an audition, until I get hooked heavily on something like - let's say - Genshin, and then someone steps forward to try out for a role. Maybe they've played another "character" previously, like... Roxas, from Kingdom Hearts, or were an original concept now needing a new face to stay relevant. A Shifter from the Facility needing to be someone new to fulfill a job they've been assigned. Protector, caretaker, etc.

Maybe they don't do very well in that role and fade back into obscurity until a newer, better role comes along... Or, they do SO WELL that they simply become that person. Crast. Zhongli. He's the same person, just wiggling a little to fit into the mold. Maybe, even before that, he was Raphael, who even transitioned into The King in Yellow, Hastur. New names, new faces, new bodies, and lives and lovers. But, at their core, they're the same. Or, it's as I originally thought, they're all just themselves, and I happen to have a lot of them! 300+, in fact! (If not more now...) But, regardless, I know my boys aren't built from pain.

My Alters are crafting themselves from love.

So, to answer the question of, "How does my System work?" I'm still not 100% certain, but I think it's somewhere in that zone: I had trauma, that trauma broke me mentally, those pieces became people to help me stabilize, those people slowly integrated into my life via creative writing & roleplay throughout my formative years, "announced" themselves when they & I were ready, and now there's either a TON of people waddling around up here being silly and making my life a better place to be, or they're the same 50-something individuals just in a dressing room frantically putting on their next "costume" to keep up with what I'm entranced by. (Lol! What a visual 😂) Some remain the same no matter what, some age-slide, some change drastically! But, in the end, it's really all up to them who they want to be, and not me.

I don't have control over who is brought forward when or why, and I'm okay with that.

I'm just happy they're here at all and that my life is so much better with their additions to it.

And that's about that. 🤷‍♀️

PS: If anyone wants any further clarification or has any other questions, send an Ask! Even if it's not about this, send an Ask! We love chatting, so don't be a stranger, and don't be afraid to Ask the strange. 😘💕👍 Hope you have a beautiful day! 😊❤️

— The Complex

#the complex speaks #osdd #actually osdd #did osdd #osdd system #osddid #osdd 1b #actually plural #plural community #plural system #plural #plurality #pluralgang

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the-authoress-writes · 1 year ago

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Wherever You Go Chapter One

Tom “Iceman” Kazansky x Aviator!reader (Callsign: Thorn)

Moodboard by @bradshawsbaby

Written for @roosterforme’s Top Gun Rocktober Playlist Fic Challenge

Synopsis: Tom Kazansky made a mistake.

Or rather, a series of mistakes.

He chose to take the assignment as an instructor at TOPGUN.

He fell in love with one of his students.

He broke her heart.

He chose to leave TOPGUN, and redeploy.

Now, he was stuck onboard the USS Nimitz with the woman whose heart he broke, with no way out.

Unbelievably, that’s not the problem.

Problem is, he still loves her.

Series Warnings: Teacher/Student relationship (but you already knew that) with no real age gap, warnings will be updated as the series progresses.

Warnings: Here be cursing, because these are people in the Navy.

I don’t think there’s anything else, though.

Author’s Note: “It’s only going to be a oneshot.”

Yeah, freaking right.

This took forever (become a church musician, they said, it’ll be fun, they said, you’re in charge of the choir for the Advent season and Christmas while the choir director is on medical leave), but I’m fairly happy with how this turned out.

I think.

The impostor syndrome do be impostoring.

Thank you so, so very much to @roosterforme for hosting the Top Gun Rocktober Fic Challenge, and for allowing me to use one of my favorite 80s rock ballads, “The Flame” by Cheap Trick.

Lyrics from the song will be peppered in throughout this series, because it’s too good not to, and the song is the reason this story exists, as it is what birthed the plotline.

A huge thank you and shout out to @thatsrightice, who helped me so much with the hop maneuvers, by researching the F-14 and A-4 high and low for me.

Special thanks also to @valmare, the fact that I am writing Tom Kazansky x reader! fic is all your fault; but thank you so much for dragging me down with you, it’s been an absolute joy!

Previously on “Wherever You Go”…

And as he ate Carole’s heavenly consolation in a cookie, Tom reflected on just how he’d ended up in this position.

Two months ago…

“So, you looking forward to teaching the next generation of stick jocks like us, Ice?” Mav spoke, barely intelligible around the food he had in his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak whatever language that was, because it definitely wasn’t English.” Tom deadpanned, looking up from his forkful of the fairly-decent facsimile of scrambled eggs from the famed Officer’s Mess Hall of NAS Miramar.

Mav rolled his eyes and hastily swallowed his own forkful of eggs. “I said, are you looking forward to teaching the next generation of pilots like us, Ice?”

“Like me?

Yes.

Like you?

No.”

With Slider’s approval, he had taken the instructor assignment after it was offered to him shortly after the Layton, he and Slider wanting a little stability for two or three years—maybe even four—the Layton mission having shaved off what felt like a whole decade from their lifespan.

The fact that he was going to be able to fly and show off—sorry—instruct, was a nice bonus.

And the fact that his wingman, the only other pilot who could hold a candle to him, was also an instructor, was another plus.

They’d kick the asses of the hotshots they were going to teach, no problem.

“Oh, come on, you know I’m the best,” Mav grinned, nearly maniacally.

Tom put his scrambled eggs in his mouth, and made a show of chewing and swallowing, before replying, “Second best,” gesturing with his fork.

“I’m the best and you know it,” Mav practically vibrated.

Tom squinted at his wingman. “How much sugar did you put in your coffee?”

The other pilot froze guiltily. “I’m sorry.”

He sighed—hyper Mav was even more of a chaotic gremlin than normal Mav.

The younger man had an incredibly high, almost unnatural, tolerance for sugar, but put enough of it in his system, and you got one Pete Mitchell who could fly without a jet.

Tom had personally seen the other man put what seemed like half a sugar bottle in one cup of coffee. “Why?”

Mav pouted, looking like a child, and not the twenty-four year-old naval aviator he was. “I just wanted to indulge myself a little, Ice, ‘cause, you know, we’re instructors—together—we’re gonna kick ass—it’s gonna be great!”

“I know we’re gonna kick ass, but you’re not going to be able to instruct if you’re vibrating so much they can’t even see you,” Tom chuckled, shaking his head, trying to figure out how he could burn off Mav’s extra energy before they, along with Viper and Jester, had to head to the classroom to greet their new students later that morning.

“I know—but I just wanted something a little sweet as a treat,” Mav murmured, green eyes cast down and glazed with shame, and he got a glimpse of the child his wingman must have been over fifteen years ago.

He softened on the younger pilot, and reached out to ruffle the raven hair with a soft smile. “‘m not mad at you, Mav, it’s okay.”

Mav pulled away with a grimace and a slap at Tom’s hand, before fussing with his dark hair, but the familiar light returned to the other man’s eyes, though with considerably less mania than two minutes ago.

They continued eating, but Tom’s devious side reared its head. “You do know what this means, though, right?”

“Wha’?”

Tom nearly laughed right there.

Mav had half a forkful of eggs balanced on his lower lip.

“You and I are going to go for a little run around the south hangars, to burn off that energy.”

An intense green stare fixed on him, clearly considering. “Okay, fine—I might… might have overdone it a little bit with the sugar packets.”

“A ‘little’, huh?

Good for you, bud, getting more self-aware.”

“Fuck you, Kazansky,” Mav smirked.

“No thanks, not in the mood,” Tom grinned. “Come on, finish up, so we can get a decent shower after our run.”

“You okay there, old man?” came the smug voice not far above his head.

“Two—two years, that’s all you have on me, Mav,” Tom muttered, massaging the ankle and knee of his right leg, stretched out on the bench of the instructor’s locker room, mentally cursing the old injuries he’d sustained there from a bad ejection he and Sli endured during one of their first deployments, on the Constellation, when the arresting gear failed because a new crewman didn’t check the weight on the valve of the wire.

It was why he had to wear a wrap on his knee and ankle whenever he and Slider played volleyball.

Mav continued, “You know I was gonna kick your ass running even if I wasn’t amped up on sugar, right?

Tall people wear out faster—that’s what you get for being freakishly tall.”

Tom frowned. “If I’m freakishly tall, what’s Merlin?”

Long pause.

Smirk.

“No,” Mav accusingly pointed, “I refuse to fall for that—I will not speak ill of my RIO, even though I’m his teacher.”

Tom chuckled.

Merlin had been lucky to be selected for TOPGUN again, though it was with the caveat that he wouldn’t be able to win the trophy in his session, as his pilot was going to be an instructor.

Merls had taken it well in stride, glad to be at TOPGUN, even if it meant he’d only graduate, as a reserve RIO for his session.

“Hey, did you hear?

History’s being made this session—we’re teaching the first female naval aviator selected for TOPGUN,” Tom remarked, once he’d eased the ache in his knee and ankle.

“Yeah, I know—and I know her; hell of a pilot,” Mav nodded. “Hell of a woman too.”

“Oh?” a blond brow rose wryly.

“Yeah, I met her two or so years ago, when the Black Aces chopped in on the Big E.

Callsign’s Thorn.

And don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Mav’s voice was slightly muffled as he dug through his locker for a stick of deodorant. “Like you think I know her… carnally.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t flirt with any woman with a pulse.”

“Only most,” Tom nodded sagely, a smirk tugging his lips, even though his wingman couldn’t see it.

A finger was flipped in his direction over a shoulder. “Get in your khakis already, Icy-Hot-Man.”

He rolled his eyes, “Fuck you, Mav.”

“No thanks, not in the mood,” Mav threw back, and the shit-eating grin was audible in his voice, which made Tom secretly smile, to know his wingman and brother was happy.

After the two of them managed to get into their khakis in record time, they came up to the building with their classroom right with Jester and Viper, who spotted them and waved off their salutes. “Kazansky, Mitchell.

It’s good to see you both.

You ready.”

It was more statement than question, but despite the stoicism on the Vietnam veteran’s face, Tom could see the pride in his CO’s eyes, and the added glint of paternal pride, when he looked at Mav.

Though it made him sad to see that, reminding him of what he used to have, Tom was glad that the other aviator had a paternal influence in his adult life.

He’d had one before—Mav, on the other hand, hadn’t.

He really missed his Dedushka.

He pushed the thought away in time to see Viper gesture to follow him and Jester inside.

They all slipped their garrison caps off once they were under the fluorescent lights of the building, and the classroom door was in sight after a short walk.

“Alright,” Viper sighed, gaze running across all of them, a smile reminiscent of his callsign on his face, “time to school another batch of hotshots.

Let’s begin.”

The two wingmen exchanged a little grin, before squaring their shoulders and following Jester inside as Viper trailed behind.

“ATTENTION!!” Jester barked, striding to the front, Tom and Mav moving to the right side of the classroom, opposite the TV, following the order like everyone else in the room.

“At ease.”

At this, they all moved to parade rest, Tom and Mav having the luxury of clasping their hands before them, while Jester picked up a clipboard. “I will be calling out the driver and RIO teams.

After I call both your names, make yourselves known.

Lieutenant Solomon Bates, callsign “Warlock”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Kenneth Han, callsign “Shogun”.”

“Present, sir!” an Asian man about Tom’s height, and a tall African-American man enthusiastically chorused.

“Lieutenant Stephen Ruth, callsign “Babe”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Timothy Martin, callsign “Priest”.”

“Here, sir!”

“Lieutenant Edward Arellano, callsign “Belter”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Gabriel Presleigh, callsign “Elvis”.”

“Yes, sir!”

Lieutenant Henry Baker, callsign “Snackbar”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Matthias Novak, callsign “Links”.”

“Sir!”

“Lieutenant Julian Howell, callsign “Ash”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Randall Simmons, callsign “Igor”.”

“Up and ready, sir!”

The pilot, Howell, it was plain to see, had an arrogant, smug look on his face, almost like he felt it was inevitable he’d be at TOPGUN, and Tom sent Mav a sideways glance, which the other man returned.

Any hop with that particular pair was going to be interesting, and it was clear from the look on his wingman’s face, that his immediate dislike of the pilot was shared by Mav.

Tom looked forward to him and Mav educating Howell as to who were the best pilots, in the final hops.

“And finally, Lieutenant __ __, callsign “Thorn”, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Emmett Kinford, callsign “Romeo.””

“Yes, sir!” came a resonant alto and an even, low baritone, the call jarring insofar as it was to hear a woman’s voice mixed with that of a man’s in this room, heretofore the demesne of men.

Both had even expressions on their faces, pilot and RIO gazing straight ahead, while the OCD part of Tom’s mind registered that their khakis were in better form than even his own, ribbons not the slightest bit out of place, with creases you could cut yourself on, and that was saying something.

Her hair was carefully pulled into the regulation tight bun, not a single strand out of place, and her RIO’s dark waves were also the picture of military perfection.

“You may be seated.” Jester said after a beat, casting his gaze shrewdly around the room. “I am Commander Rick Heatherly—callsign Jester.

I am the Executive Officer of Fighter Weapons School, known to all naval aviators as TOPGUN, and your Lead Opposing.

Each one of you have been selected for a very specific reason; to become the best of the best’s best.

Blinds.”

The room went dark as the blinds were shut, and the familiar video began playing, the familiar speech being recited.

Soon, Jester finished his speech, calling for the blinds to be opened.

Light flooded into the room, and Tom fought to look dignified, not squinty, even as the sun assaulted his eyes.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to your Junior Instructors, and this school’s Secondary Opposing; Lieutenant Tom Kazansky, callsign “Iceman”, and Lieutenant Pete Mitchell, callsign “Maverick”, last year’s Top Gun, and second place finisher respectively—”

Both he and Mav somehow straightened further, nodding professionally at their class.

“—and finally, our Commanding Officer here at TOPGUN, the very first man to win the Top Gun Trophy; and there is not a finer naval aviator in the world.

Captain Mike Metcalf—callsign “Viper”.”

Viper strode in and told the first class of ‘87 much the same things he did the flyboys of ‘86, and they all turned to get a good look at the Top Gun Trophy, whose newest brass plaque bore the engraving “LT T. Kazansky & LTJG R. Kerner — 1986”.

“You think your names are going to be up there?” Viper gazed speculatively at the class.

However, this time, no one filled the silence with an affirmative response—unlike Mav the year before—though Ash and Igor had hungry and yet self-assured looks in their eyes.

“Well, regardless of whose name ends up in brass at the end of these five weeks, at the end of the day, you—we—are all on the same team.

Gentlemen—and lady,” Viper nodded towards Thorn, “this school is about combat—there are no points for second place.

Dismissed.”

“Report to the quartermaster for your housing assignments, you’ll have today to get settled.” Jester called out to the room at large, “and remember, tomorrow’s first class starts at 0800.”

Most of the class quickly shuffled out of the room, but not before a few of them shot Thorn and Romeo, both of whom were still seated, skeptical—and in Ash and Igor’s case, outright dirty—looks, looks which she ignored, though one would have to be blind not to notice the protective menace emanating from her RIO despite the similar expression of indifference on his features.

But once her classmates had filed out, Thorn looked towards him and Mav, her indifference giving way to a radiant smile.

“Mav,” she exclaimed, striding over.

“Acey!” his wingman laughed, pulling her into a hug, briefly lifting her a slight distance off the floor.

“Fuck, it’s good to see you!”

“You too—it’s been too long.”

“Yeah—” here her expression sobered, “and I’m so sorry—I heard about Nick—Ro and I couldn’t believe it.”

“Nick was a great guy, it was such a shock—damn canopy of all things,” Romeo said, having walked over to give Mav a warm pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Mav breathed evenly, a bit too evenly for Tom’s liking. “Oh, uh, Thorn, Romeo, this is my f-friend and wingman, Tom Kazansky.”

All too glad to take the spotlight to give Mav time to breathe, he stepped forward, extending his hand. “You can call me Ice, it’s good to meet you.

Mav’s told me about you, Thorn.”

“Oh?

Only good things, I hope,” she said, shaking his hand.

Her hand had the same callouses he and most fighter pilots had—which gave him a bit of cognitive dissonance, because he was used to only feeling those callouses on other men—with a strong grip, and a confident posture as she looked up at him.

“Practically praised you to the stars and back,” he smiled, letting go of her hand.

“Hello, I’m chopped liver,” Romeo wryly stated as he shook Tom’s hand. “Call me Ro.”

“You’re hardly chopped liver, Ro, you’re the sixth best RIO I know,” Mav interjected, his voice and breathing seeming more like baseline.

“Thank you, I guess?” Romeo frowned.

Thorn broke in, “I gotta admit, for a second, I was kind of worried that you’d suddenly become too good for the likes of me and Ro, Mr. TOPGUN-Instructor and Three-Confirmed-Kills, I swear, Mav, that was the stillest I’ve ever seen you.”

The aforementioned man shrugged. “That’s Ice’s influence.

Got to stand still so you hotshots have a chance to admire us.”

Thorn huffed a light-hearted laugh, but Mav continued, “And I only got those kills thanks to this guy.

I had to lead some of the MiGs away so that he could have one all to himself,” Mav beamed, waggling his eyebrows.

Thorn blinked, “Oh yeah, you’ve got one too.”

Before he could reply, Mav proudly cut in, “Yes, he does—and this guy held out against five MiGs.”

“Sli and I’d have burned in if you didn’t get there in time, Mav,” Tom said, determined that his wingman would get the praise he deserved.

Said wingman turned, eyes narrowed hopefully. “Is this you admitting I’m the better pilot?”

He scoffed lightly, “Any pilot would have trouble against five adversaries, the best or not.”

“I’ll get you to admit it one day,” the diminutive pilot muttered.

Tom clapped Mav on the shoulder. “Today is not that day, buddy.”

Another huffed laugh had the two wingmen remembering that their students were still in the room.

Romeo was shaking his head in the way of those who have fondly dealt with the inimitable Pete Mitchell, and Thorn had a small smile on her face, but it was no less bright than the one she had when she greeted Mav. “You look good, Mav.”

“Uhh… thanks?

But I always do.”

Thorn scoffed, and Romeo rolled his eyes so hard, Tom was surprised the RIO didn’t pull something.

She turned to him, a look in her eyes that spoke as if he had passed some test he didn’t know about, turning the tables on him, her instructor, and they weren’t even in the air yet. “You keep taking care of this Firebird for me, huh?”

Something about receiving her unsought approval shot a bolt of feeling through him, searing through his being, like standing in the middle of a lightning storm. “Of course.”

“Good,” she breathed, her small smile turning to a grin. “I guess—I guess Ro and I better go, because I’m sure our classmates got the good housing already.”

“We’ll accompany you to your housing, once you get your assignment—the uh—” he cleared his throat and sniffed, “the housing here is laid out pretty weird.”

Tom could feel Mav’s gaze snap to him at a practically supersonic speed, but he ignored it, in favor of shooting Thorn a charming, if not slightly awkward, smile.

Her head tilted at a slight angle, keen gaze analyzing him like he was some sort of problem she couldn’t quite solve. “If that’s what you want to do with your time, sure thing, sir.”

His brain shut down on him for a split second, for some odd reason, but he managed to evenly reply, “We’re the same rank.”

“That shiny Junior Instructor title of yours begs to differ, but whatever you say… sir.”

A nudge at his side snapped him out of whatever strange fugue his brain was trying to drag him into.

He’d have to get more sleep, he figured.

“What’d I tell you, Ice?

Sometimes I wonder if Acey here should have been the Firebird instead of me—because I’m well on my way to becoming an ace, as you all know,” Mav declared.

“Imagine being deployed with this for months,” Thorn sighed, but with a teasing glimmer in her eyes.

“Imagine agreeing to get stationed with him, and being his wingman,” Tom reparteed.

“Oh, I can,” she nodded knowingly. “I have stories, by the way.”

“Oh?

Do tell,” he grinned, playfully ignoring the groan from his wingman.

She blinked, her expression frozen for a split second, before she gestured to the aisle, “Mind if we walk and talk?”

“At your leave, Lieutenant.”

She shook her head slightly, but strode onwards, their strides matching in less than half a beat. “So there was this one incident with some shaving cream…”

When the four of them arrived at the quartermaster, as Thorn predicted, her and Romeo’s classmates were long gone.

“Hello, shitty housing,” she muttered, as she and Romeo approached the quartermaster, while he and Mav stood a ways behind.

“You’re being weird.”

“What?” Tom turned to see Mav staring at him like he was an F-14 requiring diagnostics and a shit-ton of maintenance.

“I said you’re being weird—”

“Yeah,” he slowly began, “I heard you the first time, Mav, what do you mean?”

“You—you’re being… nice,” was the other aviator’s perplexed reply, accompanied by an equally consterned gesture.

It was his turn to stare. “I am nice.”

“Uh-huh, but you’re not usually this—this, to people you don’t know.

Who are you, and what have you done to my wingman?”

If Tom were to be honest, he himself knew that he wasn’t exactly acting in character, but there was just something that tugged him to… be warmer towards Thorn and Romeo.

He put it down to wanting to repay the TOPGUN students for being kind to his brother, when not many others were.

“Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, Mav,” he said, sounding somewhat lame to even his own ears, truthful as it was.

“Okay, sure,” the other man nodded, in an extremely distrustful tone.

“Got it!” Thorn declared, she and Romeo marching up. “Let’s see what Government Issued shanty we’ll be put up in, shall we?

Looks like we’re at… 315 Vraciu.”

Tom spoke up. “That’s not bad, I think; a couple of our classmates last year were put up in that same housing—Charles Piper and Marcus Williams—and I don’t think they had any problems.”

Romeo clicked his tongue, “Well, that’s a first—less-than half-decent housing’s usually par for the course for me and Thorn.

This’ll be a refreshing change.”

Tom would never understand why good pilots were blamed for things they couldn’t change, Mav for his father’s “betrayal” and his own unconventional flying style, and Thorn for her gender, through relentless hazing and/or poor treatment.

If he ever rose high enough to change things, he swore he would.

The housing was a basic, cookie cutter home a little over a five minute drive from the main TOPGUN building, and on the way there, Thorn and Mav were seated in the back of Tom’s truck, catching up, while Romeo sat shotgun.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Tom saw that both pilots were animatedly discussing things that had happened since the last time they saw each other, including the infamous inverted-over-a-MiG situation.

“Are they always like this?” he said in sotto voce to the RIO beside him.

Romeo flicked his dark gaze to the backseat, a soft smile on his face. “Yeah.

It’s nice to see her happy.

Not a lot of people think much of her, since she’s a woman, you know.

But Mav, he and Goose, they never saw that, they just saw a good pilot, and I’m grateful.

They were the only ones who wanted to fly with us.”

Tom frowned in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

If Mav was singing her praises, she must be a phenomenon in the sky—who wouldn’t want to be part of that?

“Nope.

They were the only ones who volunteered, so they kind of got stuck with us that whole deployment.”

At this point, they arrived at 315 Vraciu, and they all hopped out, the two students carrying their seabags to the door.

Thorn unlocked the door, she and Romeo tossing their bags in the entrance. “Well, thanks for the ride,” she nodded, Romeo doing likewise behind her.

“No problem, my pleasure,” Tom replied, clasping his hands behind his back.

“I’ll see you both around, I guess.”

He imagined that her eyes lingered longer on him than they did on Mav, and… he didn’t exactly know how he felt about that.

Mav threw off a nonchalant salute while he sent a respectful nod, before they moved to go back to his truck.

They were halfway there when they heard, “Hey Mav!”

The two of them halted, turning to see the fire of challenge in Thorn’s brilliant eyes. “You gonna take it easy on me?”

Mav scoffed, “You think I’m an idiot?”

She carefully maintained a blank look, and Mav flipped her off with a grin.

Her expression sharpened, gaze landing on him, callsign all too accurate, as the edge of defiance in her voice rang through the air. “And how about you—are you going to take it easy on me?”

He had to admire her for that already.

“If you’re as good as Mav says, that’d be a damn injustice.”

Her answering smile was dagger-keen. “Looking forward to seeing you up there, then.”

Something in him thrilled to the thought of having another worthy opponent in the sky. “It’ll be a highlight of my day, I’m sure.”

“We’ll see.”

Though not unkindly, the door shut in their faces soon after.

Tom stared at the door a moment longer, before again turning to see Mav frowning.

“You’re really being weird.”

“…Shut up, Mav.”

“Alright boys—just to remind you, we have the classes in the morning, and we’re going up in the afternoon.

For the first hop, it’s going to be Jester against Thorn and Romeo, Mitchell against Warlock and Shogun, then Ash and Igor.”

An unexpected wave of disappointment washed over Tom as he realized Viper’s hop arrangement meant he wouldn’t get to fly against Thorn the first day, but he managed to keep most of the expression off his face, especially with Mav treating him like a problem to solve the whole rest of last night.

Indeed, the shorter man was and had been surreptitiously studying him.

“Which leaves me with Belter and Elvis, and you, Kazansky, with Snackbar and Links, then Babe and Priest, for the second hop.”

Just a banner day for Thomas Kazansky, wasn’t it?

Couldn’t fly against Thorn, and didn’t even get to school Ash and Igor.

“Everyone understand?”

A chorus of “Yes, sir!”s rang through the room, and Viper nodded, pleased.

“Dismissed, then.

To your classes, gentlemen.”

Viper knocked a fist against the table twice before he and Jester departed the briefing room.

Tom gathered his folders and looked at his wingman, who was neatening a very short stack of papers. “I was hoping to have first crack at Ash and Igor,” he muttered.

“I know,” Mav smirked.

Resigned, he sighed, “Well, kick their ass extra hard for me, will ya?”

The smaller man’s smirk took on a devilish quality. “I’ll draw first blood, then you wipe the floor with them, and us together, it’ll be game over,” he stated, as he extended a fist.

“Sounds like a plan,” Tom nodded, sealing the agreement with a fist bump.

As he bent to pick up his attaché case, Tom’s eyes were again drawn to the minuscule stack of papers the other man had. “You got the material for your class today, right?”

“Uhhh, yeah, sort of,” Mav shrugged.

“‘Sort of’.

What exactly do ‘sort of’ class materials look like?”

Mav spread his hands, and he knew. “In all honesty, I was gonna just kind of wing it.”

Tom honestly should have seen it coming—but Maverick mavericking was what made Maverick, Maverick.

“Okay,” he replied, trying to hide his grin. “Sounds good.

Good—good, good.”

He managed to hold his laughter in until he reached the hall, but even then, an “Up yours, Ice!” followed him around the corner.

Tom’s class went smoothly, and after a lunch that he eagerly finished, he eventually found himself in his flight gear, fidgeting in the instructor’s ready room.

Having completed his preflight, he decided to chalk his restlessness down to the novelty of flying an A-4, a single-seater, with no Slider in his ear or backseat, as he listened intently to the comms for the first hop, Viper doing the same across the room.

Mav and Jester engaged Warlock and Shogun, and Thorn and Romeo, respectively, once the Commander called “Fight’s on!”, and Mav made short work of Warlock and Shogun, getting tone on the other pilot and RIO in a little over two minutes.

Commendable, in his opinion, for their students.

Mav called for them to knock it off and return to base, before moving on to Ash and Igor.

It was then that he realized that Jester was still engaged with Thorn and Romeo.

Romeo was evenly calling out altitudes, positions, and break directions, while Thorn composedly called maneuvers out, interrupted only by the sound of the two aviators g-straining, the F-14’s engines in the background.

He briefly turned his attention to Mav, who had engaged Ash and Igor; the two were, as he predicted, scrambling wildly for their “lives” (and based on what he was hearing, would get tone locked in a matter of seconds), in radical contrast to Thorn, who was calmly holding her own.

In his head, he could see a vague picture of what was going on up there with Jester, Thorn, and Romeo, and Tom realized that he wasn’t sure how it was going to end, the sound of Mav getting tone on Ash and Igor fading into the background.

Tom could hear the strain in Thorn and Romeo’s voices as they fought more g-forces while calling movement and other things out—they had to be at or near corner speed to make them sound like that.

Tom could hear the faint, steady beeping which warned of imminent tone lock, and he hoped she would win this, if only to prove his wingman’s faith in her skill correct.

Just as the beeping grew faster, Thorn muttered, “Just a little… come on, come on…”

He leaned forward in his seat, and realized he was holding his breath, but he couldn’t bring himself to inhale.

Then suddenly, the blare of confirmed tone.

Disappointment for her sake sank in his stomach, but only for the briefest moment, because the voice which triumphantly called out “Good lock!” was distinctly female. “That’s a kill, Commander!”

And Tom could breathe again.

Holy shit, Mav was right—she was a hell of a pilot.

Thorn managed to keep too much of the gloating out of her tone, but it was a fairly narrow thing, and in his opinion, it was justified.

A faint sound caught his attention—if he didn’t know any better, Tom could have sworn that that was a… fond chuckle that came from Jester.

“Copy kill.

Well, knock it off, Lieutenant, and RTB.”

“Yes, sir!”

Without really thinking about it, he went to the flight line, in time to see the three F-14s and two A-4s land.

His eyes were drawn to her jet as she pulled in to the flight line, and he was faintly aware of Mav’s A-4 pulling up beside his.

She’d done the impossible; Thorn, a female naval aviator, got chosen for TOPGUN, and got tone on her instructor the first day.

Technically, that wasn’t anything new—Mav had done similar—but in a sense, it was.

Women were just starting to be seen as capable of being in the military, in combat roles, to be exact, and to see a woman do something that had been the domain of men for decades, centuries, and do it just as well as a man—better even; as evidenced by the fact that in her hop, she was the only one to get tone on her instructor…

He really had to admire that—admire her.

“That good enough of an ass kicking for ya, Ice?”

Tom was snapped out of his introspection from the sudden appearance of his wingman at his side, running a hand through his hair, helmet under his arm.

“What?”

Mav grinned, “I got tone on Ash and Igor in roughly a minute or so.

How the fuck those two got picked for TOPGUN eludes me.”

Tom scoffed and shook his head in agreement. “Bet I can get tone on them faster, though.”

Mav slapped him on the shoulder, “We’ll see, Ice.”

A sudden whoop of jubilant laughter drew his gaze, and he could see Thorn about thirty paces away, coming ever closer, and his breath caught in his throat—her mouth was split in a beaming smile, wild and passionate, illuminating her from within with effervescent joy, her shining eyes endlessly reflecting her exhilaration.

Her bun was coming slightly loose, tendrils of hair framing her face and swaying in the breeze, while her flight suit clung to her figure, helmet dangling insouciantly from her fingers; it was decorated with a briar all over, red roses among thorns made of black aces, and it had her callsign across its brow.

Her eyes landed on him, and her smile took on a mischievous quality. “We got Jester, nailed him on the first day.

You gonna be ready for us?” Then, as if she only noticed Mav next to him at that moment, she amended, “Both of you?”

He grinned, just shy of showing too many teeth, nonchalantly stepping closer, shifting his weight to lean towards her, hip slightly cocked to keep his balance, barely paying any mind to the tension in Romeo’s stance behind his pilot. “We’ll see who gets tone on whom first.”

Thorn smirked as she looked him up and down, teeth tugging her bottom lip for the briefest moment before she clicked her tongue, “Good thing I’ve got front row seats for that show, then.” She pivoted on her heel, walking backwards as she sent him a casual salute, before turning to stride back to the locker room, Romeo following her with a minutely narrowed glance over his shoulder at him.

“Huh.”

He turned from watching the pilot and RIO, to see Mav again at his side, glancing back and forth between him and Thorn and Romeo.

Tom frowned, “What ‘huh’?”

“Nothing, nothing,” came the too-quick answer. “Just huh.”

“…Now who’s being weird?”

Tom’s hop with Viper was not quite as interesting as Mav with Jester’s, though he did have to commend all three pilots for holding out for a few minutes, which was more than Ash and Igor could say.

The debrief was a thing of beauty—going in reverse order from lowest to highest hop score, meant that he got to witness Mav positively eviscerate Ash and Igor as the first order of business, and the sheer stupidity that Ash displayed in the air, made Tom wonder what guardian angel or deity sent this idiot to TOPGUN.

He mentally saw a dozen different maneuvers that Ash could have done, that, while they might not have gotten him tone on Mav, they would have helped him last longer against the other pilot.

The debrief drew on, Tom stepping forward when it was his turn, not sparing the other pilots their vivisections, though theirs were not quite as harsh, by sheer dint of them not being as idiotic as Ash and Igor, and finally, it was the debrief he was waiting for; Thorn and Romeo’s.

He had an idea of what happened in the air, but he wanted to know what exactly she had done.

It was textbook and yet genius.

He was right; once they hit the merge, flying at corner speed through a series of turns, Thorn had maneuvered to force Jester to increase his turn rate, bleeding his airspeed, playing the Skyhawk’s weakness against it, before placing him in her sights.

“…all in all, great work, Lieutenant,” Jester complimented, writing her hop score of 5 on the board, the highest number of all the teams that day, sending her a nod.

Her face was impassive as she replied, “Thank you, sir,” but Tom could see the vindication in her eyes.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve all learned something from your classes and most especially, your hops today,” Viper declared, pacing the front of the classroom. “This is only the first day, and to borrow a saying from our SEAL cousins, ‘The only easy day was yesterday’.”

The Captain stared the students down, pair by pair, searching for something in each of them.

Finally, he stated, “You’re all dismissed.”

After Jester and Viper left, leaving him and Mav, as the junior instructors, to neaten things, Ash and Igor were predictably the first out the door—just shy of storming out, while most of the others looked at Thorn with less suspicion than the day before, a few actually lingering.

While he was fixing the markers, out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Warlock step forward first, a light smile on his face. “Hey, uh, that was great, what you pulled today—I’m Solomon, but you can call me Sol or Warlock, whichever you prefer.

This is my RIO, Ken, but he prefers Shogun.”

The Asian man genially lifted a hand in greeting, “Really wish I could have seen that.”

Babe chuckled, “Yeah, that was good, wish I’d have thought of what you did, maybe I’d have had a chance against Kazansky—I’m Stephen.”

Priest, his RIO, cooed, “Aw, you embarrassed by your callsign, Babe?”

“Shut up, Tim,” Babe glared.

Priest raised both hands in surrender. “Not my fault your last name’s Ruth—I’m this stick in the mud’s RIO, Tim—call me Priest, that there’s Belter and Elvis.”

Tom almost laughed at the expression Thorn made; the momentary shock on her face was palpable, but it was swiftly concealed—the only reason it registered for him was because he was so used to reading Mav’s microexpressions.

“Thanks—nice to meet you all.

I’m Thorn, this’ Romeo, my RIO.”

Romeo shook hands with them all, a pleasant, but guarded expression on his face.

“You weren’t too bad up there yourselves, from what I heard,” she continued.

“Yeahhh, but who got tone on their instructor first day?

Not this guy,” Priest waggled his eyebrows, jerking both thumbs at his pilot, “and not any of these guys,” making the others groan or laugh.

Tom ducked his head, hiding his smile; he was glad that the others seemed to be warming up to her, he wanted her to have the same experience as he did at TOPGUN—establishing a brotherhood with his classmates.

“—Tom!”

He pivoted to see Mav snapping his fingers close to his face, and he reflexively flinched back from his wingman’s hand in his face. “What?”

He belatedly realized that he’d been saying that a little too much recently.

As if he were speaking to a particularly dull child, Mav spoke slowly. “Do you think I can erase the board now?”

“Yeah, uh, but not the scores.”

“Of course not.

You okay, Ice?”

“Yeah—fine, it’s just a… long day.”

The suspicion in Mav’s eyes didn’t fade as he sighed and nodded. “Feel up to The O Club tonight?

Maybe decompress a bit, have a drink?”

“That sounds great, actually.” Maybe a drink was what he needed, his mind seemed to be all over the place.

“‘Kay—meet you there?”

“Yeah.”

Once he finished with the room, he followed Mav out, sending a look to where Thorn was still talking with her classmates, to see that her gaze was already on him.

Her eyes immediately went back to her classmates, but nevertheless, he felt branded by her stare, like it was a tangible thing, searing through his veins, sending a paradoxical shiver down his spine.

Deep in the recesses of his mind, he could admit it; he didn’t know what it was, but he felt drawn to her.

To what end… he didn’t know.

And that…

That scared him.

Tom eased his precious Chevelle into a parking spot near the door of The O Club; a rarity, but one very welcomed, given how busy the bar seemed.

(The fact that it was within sight of Mav’s highly recognizable Ninja was a perk—he and Slider had stopped one too many parking lot beatdowns.)

He reached for his Shooters, narrowly stopping himself from putting them on (Mav hated it when he did that at night; “It makes you look like a dick”, according to his wingman), instead tucking them into the pocket of his whites, carefully opening the driver’s door, squeezing himself out of the narrow gap he afforded himself.

The black metal flake paint was pristine, and he intended to keep it that way, it didn’t matter how ridiculous he may look.

The O Club was, as the parking lot showed, busy, full of people in service whites, throwing him back to last year, that first night for the flyboys of ‘86.

He cast his gaze around the bar, peering through the haze of cigarette smoke and the people, searching for his wingman’s squirrelly figure, before a call of “Ice; over here!” pierced through the sound of numerous conversations and the jukebox, before a hand flailed wildly, becoming visible over the heads of the crowd.

Mav had claimed seats at the bar; prime real estate with the place this hectic—he didn’t want to know how the other man had kept the seat next to him free when every Tom (hah), Dick, and Harry were clamoring for a seat at the bar.

He made his way through the crowd, gratefully settling onto the barstool next to Mav, also dressed in his service whites. “Hey Mav,” he greeted.

“Hey; I ordered already, I assumed you’d want your usual vodka on the rocks.”

“Thanks; you know me too well.”

“Kind of hard to miss when it’s literally what you order every single time,” Mav smirked.

Tom rolled his eyes—he was a creature of habit, sue him.

(And if vodka on the rocks reminded him of his Dedushka, what was wrong with that?)

“Seems like all of Fightertown is here tonight,” he muttered to Mav.

“You’re not too far off on that, I saw basically all of our students here,” the other man replied, taking a sip of his beer. “Only ones I haven’t seen are Thorn and Romeo, actually,” he finished casually.

Rather against Tom’s will, something in him lurched forward, his thought process halting, making him feel like he’d just snagged the third wire on the carrier deck.

Despite that, he managed a calm—at least in his opinion—“Oh.”

“Mmm.” Another calm sip of beer from his wingman—too calm.

He narrowed his eyes and sighed at Mav. “What the fuck is that ‘Mmm’ for?”

The dark-haired aviator pulled an expression like he just sucked on a lemon. “What, can’t a guy just ‘Mmm’ anymore?”

“Not when you’ve been fucking weird for the past two days,” he replied, sending the harried bartender a grateful nod as they slid his vodka on the rocks over to him.

“I’m not weird, you’re weird,” was Mav’s reply, and he narrowed his eyes at the muted shimmer of something in the other pilot’s eyes.

He was about to retort when his eyes were drawn to the door, and the bulk of Romeo walked in, his head and whites-clad shoulders peeking above quite a few people’s.

It was mere curiosity, he told himself, that led him to lean to see if his pilot was also with him.

It took a beat, but then, several people in the crowd moved, and he saw her—her hair cascaded down her shoulders, as sharp eyes surveyed The O like it was the skies, dressed, unlike everyone else in the Navy who occupied this space, in civvies; a loose, white blouse tucked into jeans, cinched with a thick brown leather belt at her waist.

And everything seemed to fade into the background, the sight of her drowning out the sound of the bar, and Mav’s howling laughter.

To be continued…

Previous Part Next Part

Faceclaims

Russian glossary

Disclaimer: translations are from the interwebs.

Please don’t kill me.

Dedushka: Grandfather

Two years is the real-life age gap between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.

The story behind Ice and Slider’s bad ejection actually did happen to a pilot-RIO pair, then-Commander William Switzer and then-Lieutenant (junior grade) David “Bio” Baranek on December 19, 1981, aboard the very same aircraft carrier that I mentioned.

You can read the detailed description of the incident here, retold by Commander Baranek, for the Ejection Tie Club of the Martin-Baker company, who specialize in making ejection seats—including those of the F-14 Tomcat—for pilots and backseaters who have ejected using a Martin-Baker ejection seat.

VFA-41, the “Black Aces”, based out of NAS Lemoore, were featured in Top Gun: Maverick as the squadron of Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, and I thought that would be nice to include that, in this universe at least, Phoenix is a member of the squadron with the first female naval aviator selected for TOPGUN.

Icy-Hot is a liniment that has been on the market since before 1931.

The name of LTJG Kenneth “Shogun” Han is a reference to this scene in the now-ABC hit series, 9-1-1, where paramedic/firefighter Howard “Chimney” Han, played by actor Kenneth Choi, replies that if he weren’t a paramedic/firefigher, he’d have liked to be a Navy TOPGUN graduate, with the callsign “Shogun”.

The names of Henry “Snackbar” Baker, Stephen “Babe” Ruth, and Timothy “Priest” Martin are a reference to both the original name of Leonard “Wolfman” Wolfe—Henry Ruth—and the Martin-Baker company.

The speeches that Jester and Viper give are nearly word for word the same as the speeches that they gave in TG86, with some authorly variation because I didn’t want to rehash the same speeches that we heard in the movie word for word.

Again, VF-1, a now inactive squadron based out of NAS Miramar, is the squadron that Mav and Goose belonged to before they went to TOPGUN, although it must be noted that, like most of the squadron patch designs in Top Gun, the patch design as seen on Mav and Goose’s flight suits, is incorrect and not matching the squadron designation, instead bearing the insignia of VAW-110, the “Firebirds”, who flew the E-2 Hawkeye, which was shown as Comanche in TG:M.

Alexander Vraciu was a WWII Navy ace who downed 12 Japanese aircraft and sank a Japanese merchant ship with a direct hit to her stern.

The merge is a concept used in air combat, where aerial warfighters engage with enemy aircraft by steering their plane toward the adversary—this maneuver is referred to as “going to the merge.”

Corner Speed

Did anyone catch the TG:M line reference?

Special thanks to @valmare for the Ice has a Chevelle headcanon!

Service Whites

Taglist

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