confession: two weeks ago my friends got sick of me slowly cooking to death in my self-pitying emotional soup of heartbreak, took me out for drinks, and installed a dating app on my phone. we are all in the same degree at uni (i'm 25 + i promise this is relevant), in a faculty that is extremely quaint and mostly comprised of academics married to people with normal jobs. two years ago a teacher-couple joined our program's faculty, a fact that caused a minor riot within the teaching staff, who thought it was unfair to give two of four tenured jobs to a couple... unfortunately for them both of these profs are extremely beloved among the students and very good teachers at that. even if you've never taken classes from either of them, you know about this couple and probably whatever rumors are going around about them too. i've taken classes w/ both.
anyway. back to me on the dating app in the bar with my friends, pretty drunk, swiping though my bumble suggestions. for extra fun, we have set the minimum age to 30 and the gender to include "both" even though i am a lesbian. the whole table is viciously tearing down dating profiles, investigating their pictures, etc. i go to the bar to get another round for the group, am about to pay for our drinks when i hear a virtual SHRIEK from our corner. i get back, dish our drinks out. my phone is in the middle of the table, untouched by anyone like it's a cursed object. i look at the screen. it's them, our teacher couple. they have a shared dating profile, stating that they are "looking for someone to explore her bisexuality with". lesbian readers will know that this is not exactly an uncommon profile type to find, but still, seeing it from people who have taught basically everything you know about 19th century literature is... quite something. so naturally i decide to swipe right before anyone can stop me.
maia, i am so proud to report: i fucked that man's wife, she was absolutely lovely, and we will see each other again, and i am currently taking another class from her husband where the vibe is more than chill. my friends have been sworn to secrecy, but i know it's only a matter of time before someone slips up and the rumor mill starts churning... but who cares? i haven't thought about my ex since!
OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT
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The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.
On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.
Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.
In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.
“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”
“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.
The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.
In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.
The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.
A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.
A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.
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Ooh shit I had the worlds worst thought— Megumi snapping at Fushigojo mom OF ALL PEOPLE in the heat of some kind or argument or bad day or something and blurting out “you’re not my mom” and then just AAAH IT WOULD BE SO SAD ALL FOUR OF THEM WOULD BE HEARTBROKEN AND MEGUMI WOULD BE SO UPSET WITH HIMSELF 😭😭😭🕳️🚶♀️
things have been difficult since tsumiki had fallen into a coma.
it's hard not to feel her absence at home. the empty seat at the dining table, the untouched laundry left folded in the hamper. somehow she's everywhere and nowhere, and it hurts.
you and satoru are heartbroken of course, but you can't begin to imagine how megumi feels.
at first he'd been quiet. megumi had always been quiet, but this was different. the two of you used to sit in comfortable silence, content to read quietly in each other's presence. now he shuffles to and from his bedroom barely uttering a word, silence hanging heavy as you try to coax him into staying.
then his grades had started slipping. you weren't awfully concerned. his teachers had been sympathetic enough to exempt him from final exams, and excuse any late or incomplete papers. despite his record of delinquency, he's always gotten high marks.
you could excuse these things. the silence, the grades. he's a little brother missing his big sister, and he's hurting.
but now he was starting to act out.
picking fights at school, talking back to faculty, giving attitude.
you startle where you stand in the kitchen when the front door suddenly slams shut, revealing a grumpy looking megumi. he kicks his shoes off, making a beeline for his room without stopping to greet you.
satoru holds a hand up before you can ask, walking over to the genkan to fix the sneakers.
"what now?" you ask, wiping your hands on your apron when your husband returns, kissing your forehead.
"suspended indefinitely for fighting," he sighs, running a hand through his hair. "he has to write an apology letter to everyone involved, and the headmaster said that next is expulsion."
"he can't keep doing this," you frown. "one of us needs to talk to him."
satoru is quick to touch the tip of his nose. "not it."
you roll your eyes (like megumi would, is that where he got it?) "yeah, it's probably best that you don't. he'd bite your head off."
he leans back against the counter, relieved. "yeah, i'd just— wait. you're doing that reverse psychology stuff on me again!"
feigning cluelessness is easy. "what are you talking about?"
"when you tell me i shouldn't do something and it makes me want to prove myself!"
"not my fault you're an incredibly prideful man."
"and just this once, i'll actually admit that talking to moody teens is not one of my many skills," he says. "this is your territory. you're the only one he might listen to. you've always been his favourite."
deep down, you know that he's right. you're the first one megumi goes to for everything. the first one he comes to with a new bump or scrape. the one whose side of the bed he squeezes into when he has a nightmare. the first one he talks to when he has a fight with a friend, or his sister...
you learned pretty quickly that megumi hated when people fussed over him (it came with his lone wolf tendencies) but he always let you.
so you steel yourself with a deep breath before knocking on his bedroom door.
"megumi?" you call gently. "can i come in?"
you decide to take his muffled response as permission, twisting the knob and slowly pushing the door open.
megumi's sat on the floor with his back pressed against the bed and his knees drawn up to his chest.
you close the door behind you. "thank you for letting me in."
he hums, peeking at you over his knees.
you sit on the floor across from him, rubbing your palms against your thighs. "i know that whatever we're feeling can't compare to how bad you're hurting, but we're worried about you."
"i'm fine."
"you're not, and you can't keep acting out at school."
"okay, i'll stop," he shrugs.
you should stop here. but you know megumi. he's only saying it because he knows that's what you want to hear.
you reach out, gently grasping his hand. "megumi, please. you can't keep this all in anymore. you always talk to me—"
"i don't want to talk about it," he snaps, jerking away from your touch. "can you just leave me alone?"
you flinch a little, surprised by the slight raise in his voice. he's never yelled at you. never snapped at you like that.
you're pushing too much, you realize. he's not ready to talk yet, you have to apologize.
"megumi, i'm—"
"just— just stop!" he shouts, expression stormy. "stop fussing over me, you're not my mom!"
to his credit, megumi looks like he regrets the words immediately, lips already shooting off an apology you can't seem to hear.
it does nothing to soothe the way your chest aches, full of hurt and a touch of betrayal. those words shouldn't hurt you as much as they do. he's right, you're not his mother.
but you don't even get to utter a word before the door swings open, a pissed off looking satoru striding into the room. shit. so he had been listening. "listen here you little shit—"
you stagger to your feet, stepping between your boys. "satoru, don't. don't! he's just upset."
"he can't talk to you like that!"
"let it go," you plead. "fighting is the last thing the three of us should be doing right now, okay?"
the three of you stand there for what seems like a lifetime, letting all the pain, frustration, and heartache fill the quiet apartment.
satoru shoots one last stern look around you before drawing a deep breath and focusing on you. you do the same as his hands come up to cup your cheeks, thumb swiping a stray tear away.
"we're just gonna give you some space, megs."
_____
"he didn't mean it," you remind satoru again that night, when sleep seems to be avoiding the both of you.
"i know. he still hurt your feelings though."
"well, he was right. i'm not his mom."
your husband tuts softly, reaching across the mattress and pulling you into his chest. "so what if you didn't give birth to them? you're something better because you chose them. you chose to love them and raise them when you didn't have to."
"of course i had to. they wouldn't have lasted a week in your care."
"oh? now who's being a little shit? i see where megumi gets his attitude from."
foreheads pressed together, the two of you laugh quietly. you feel light for the first time in weeks. the man holding you close, the boy sulking in his room, and the girl laying in the hospital.
they're your family, and you know they'll always love you as much as you love them.
waking up in the middle of the night to megumi squishing between you both (and satoru actually letting him) is as good a sign as any.
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