#i stayed up until 4 am last night researching the reading order of the whole series | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nishinoya-is-baby · 4 years

Text

🌸Restoration🌸

🌹Hi!!! This is dedicated to @yamagucji and our shared love of plants and nature! Go check their blog out and give them some love!🌹

🌺(Yamaguchi x GenderNeutral!reader) {TW: Mentions the death of reader’s cousin} Angst (this is my first angst, please be nice)->fluff (The italicized word/words after a flower are what the flower symbolizes, and the reader isn’t saying it!)🌺

🌼**Please be aware of the fact that flowers have different meanings based on your sources! My source is from a book where the author did research on the flowers and chose either the most common definition or the definition that made most sense to her!**🌼

Everyone knew of the garden. The massive 3-acre garden. The garden that had flowers, succulents, and various other plants. The garden that was open to all visitors on Saturdays. The garden who’s owner memorized the meanings and history of the flowers that graced it. The garden that held various activities for families and the elderly. The garden that gave so much, but took nothing. Everyone knew of the garden. The garden that closed it’s gate four months ago. The garden that was filled with dead plants. The garden that no longer had visitors. The garden that stopped holding events. The garden that had cracks in the once moist and rich soil. The garden who’s owner’s heart felt the pain of every fallen petal and every bug-ridden leaf.

The owner, Y/n, hadn’t had the mental or physical energy to tend to the large garden. Not after their cousin had passed away four months ago. Their cousin had been the co-owner of the garden, tending to the look of the garden. Had Y/n had it their way, the garden would be unruly, the pathways non-existent as the plants took over the land. Their cousin, however, knew that couldn’t happen. How would they hold all their activities if there was no place to sit or walk? Y/n’s cousin had died without warning, crushing them. After the news had reached Y/n, the garden was immediately closed, a sign taped to the gate saying, “Closed until further notice”. As Y/n’s mental health declined, so did the wellbeing of the garden. Before Y/n could even think about the garden, it had already died. Their beloved plants nothing but dried up scraps that blew around in the gated area. This broke their heart even more.

The garden incident happened two months ago. Four months had passed in total, and they knew they couldn’t live the way they were anymore. They knew their family was running out of excess money to give them. They knew the garden was calling to them louder and louder every day. They knew the innocent plants didn’t deserve the neglect they received. However, when they had tried to walk through the barren garden, they were hit with a wave of nausea. Memories flooding down from their brain into their throat, pushing into their lungs, forcing their way into their stomach. Y/n laid on a random path, shaking and gasping for air until they eventually fell asleep. They woke up two days later, the sour taste of stomach acid on their tongue, a pounding migraine, and an ache in their bones that would last for at least two weeks. After that, they stayed in their house, sleeping during the day and crying at night.

One thing did bring them joy, though. That thing, or rather person, was Yamaguchi Tadashi. They called him Dashi, per his request. He brought them groceries once a week and read to them every 3 days. He was also the one to convince their boss to not fire them and to just give them time. They met a couple of years ago when he came to the garden with a tall blonde boy. He soon became a regular at the garden, often following Y/n around, asking them questions about the flowers they memorized. They became friends quickly, hanging outside of the garden. Y/n remembered the time their cousin told them to ask Dashi out every time he came to read to them. Every day when they woke up to a text from him, they felt their heart heal just a little bit. He gave them the inspiration to keep going. The way he showed them soft and tender care, made them feel like the chills in their bones was slowly going away. They knew he loved them. The only issue was that they didn’t know how long it would take for them to get back on track and know that they truly loved him back. That was why Y/n was currently at a floral shop, about to design a personalized bouquet meant for the sweet and quiet boy. They had already practiced their speech in the morning and texted him to meet them at their local coffee shop.

“What would you like to be in your bouquet?” the nice florist asked. “May I have White Jasmine amiability, Hibiscus delicate beauty, Angelica inspiration, Aster patience, Bellflower gratitude, White Carnation sweet and lovely, Flax I feel your kindness, and Lily of the valley return of happiness, please?” they asked. After the florist gave them their bouquet, Y/n made their way towards the coffee shop. When they got there it was 12 in the afternoon. “Right on time,” Y/n thought. They saw Dashi sitting at a two-person table in a pretty empty corner. When he saw them walking towards him, he quickly got up and gave them a firm hug. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you inviting me places again!” he exclaimed. “Yea, it’s nice to be out again,” Y/n said. When they both sat down was when Y/n noticed a cup of (favorite hot drink) sitting on their side of the table. Yamaguchi noticed their gaze at the cup and let out a quiet, “I thought I’d order it early. I know this place makes their drinks too hot for you.” “Thank you, Dashi,” they said. “Of course! Who’s that bouquet for? You haven’t talked about flowers for a while now? Is everything okay?” Y/n smiled at the way his words were laced with both care and concern. “Well, this bouquet is for you, Dashi,” they said, handing the delicate flowers to him. “Oh! That’s really sweet of you, Y/n. Do you want to explain the flowers to me?” he asked, a blush gracing the soft skin on his cheeks. “The Jasmine means amiability, and it’s there because you’re so friendly to not only me but others, too. The Hibiscus means delicate beauty because you’re beautiful inside and out. The Angelica means inspiration because you inspire me to wake up and at least try to make things better. Aster means patience because you’ve stuck with me throughout this whole ordeal. Bellflower means gratitude because I’m grateful for you. White Carnation means sweet and lovely because that’s exactly what you are. Flax means I feel your kindness because anyone and everyone can feel your kind and loving heart from a mile away. Finally, Lily of the valley means return of happiness, because every time you talk to me, I feel the cracks in my heart feel a little less deep. Listen, I know you like me romantically. I would have to be blind to not see it. As much as I want to say I like you too, I can’t. My brain and heart are still feeling so many things, and I think I should focus on myself before I focus on if I have feelings for anyone in general. Thank you for being there for me. Maybe, when I’m better, we can go out on a date and see how things go. I guess I did all this just to ask you this question. Will you restore the garden with me?” Y/n asked. There was a silence between them for a few moments, but Y/n knew it was needed for him to process everything and arrange his thoughts. They both drank their drinks for a few minutes before Yamaguchi spoke up, saying “Thank you for the bouquet. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time. As far as my feelings go, I respect your decision and maybe we can talk more about it when you’re ready. Hell yeah about the garden. I wouldn’t want to do anything else than to restore that place with you!” “Sounds great!”

After that interaction, the two immediately got to work. To say it was hard work would be an understatement. The first step was to get rid of all the dead plants and weeds that were still in the garden. It took about two weeks to get a majority of the junk out. He held them every time they started to break down. Whether it be sadness about their plants or memories of their cousin. When they were in a happier mood, they would chase Yamaguchi with a rake, both laughing their asses off. The second step was to remove the old and nutrient-deficient soil in the planters. this was probably the hardest step. Digging 3 inches into the soil of all the places designated for plants was a hard job. As the days went on, Y/n’s mental health improved. They knew that if their cousin was there, they would’ve been happy, and that made Y/n happy. Not only that, but as the restoration went on, Y/n and Yamaguchi became more flirty and comfortable with each other. He started staying the night at their house. His excuse being that he wanted to be there so he could jump straight into work in the morning. It took about 3 weeks of daily work to get all the soil out. Word had gotten out that there was something going on at the town’s beloved garden. People started a donation page for the garden, wanting to help out Y/n with the finances. The third step was to get new soil in the places where plants were going to be planted. This was the easiest step, as all they had to do what pour soil into the planters. This took about 4 days to do. Some might say that’s a long time to just pour dirt in certain places, but the whole garden was 3 acres with a majority of it being planters filled with flora. The fourth and final step was to choose the plants that would be put into the planters. This was Y/n’s favorite step. When choosing the plants, Y/n let Yamaguchi choose the succulents, vines, and other plants. Anything that wasn’t flowers. Y/n went on their own to get the flowers, knowing they had to get meaningful flowers. They ended up choosing the same flowers that were in the bouquet she made for Yamaguchi, Allium prosperity, Alyssum worth beyond beauty, Baby’s breath everlasting love, Pink carnation I will never forget you, Chervil sincerity, Coreopsis always cheerful, Cosmos joy in love and life, Everlasting pea lasting pleasure, Fennel strength, Feverfew warmth, Freesia lasting friendship, Hawthorn hope, Wisteria welcome, and a bunch of other flowers that had lovely meanings.

When they were putting in the last flower, their hands patting down the soil, getting closer and closer until their fingers interlocked. The earthly smell of the soil contrasted the sweetness of all the flowers. Bees had already found the gorgeous once more. Once they had both showered up, Y/n walked Yamaguchi toward the gate of the garden. Y/n delicately placed Yamaguchi’s hand on one side of the “Closed until further notice” sign and then placed theirs on the other side. All it took was a nod and smile from the two, and the sign fell to the ground. With the extra funding they received, they were able to advertise the reopening of the garden.

Both Y/n and Yamaguchi were ecstatic, beaming as people passed by them at the front gate. The day went perfectly, families were bonding, kids admired the beauty of the flowers while their parents simply basked in the calming aura of the garden, and elderly people enjoyed watching the insects and birds from the comfort of various benches. That night was when Y/n decided to have a serious talk with Yamaguchi. They had him sat down on their couch, sitting on the other side themselves. “So, you wanted to talk?” he asked, concerned that they weren’t happy with how the day went. “Yes. Let me go get your gift,” they said. When they returned, they held a bouquet in their hands. “Another bouquet? What’s the occasion?” asked Yamaguchi. “Well...I believe I’ve taught you enough for you to know the meanings of these flowers,” they said. It was true. Throughout their friendship and the time restoring the garden, Y/n taught Yamaguchi all they knew about plants. Specifically flowers. Yamaguchi stared at the bouquet before saying, “Agapanthus means love letter, Baby’s breath means everlasting love, Clove means I have loved you and you have not known it, Heliotrope means devoted affection, Jonquil means desire, Lilac means the first emotions of love, and Myrtle means love. If you’re trying to say what I think you’re saying, I’d love to hear you say it.” Y/n let out a deep sigh before saying, “Dashi, I love you. I realized it slowly as we rebuilt the garden. I feel as though the garden represents my heart, somehow. When my cousin died, the garden died too, along with my heart. When you helped restore it, though, you also helped restore my heart. All while finding your way into it. I’ve never been happier. Seeing the garden in full swing again is what my cousin would’ve wanted.” “Y/n, will you go out on a date with me?”

~Time skip 4 years~

“Y/n, do you take Tadashi Yamaguchi as your lawfully wedded husband?” “I do!” “And Tadashi, do you take Y/n L/n as your lawfully wedded spouse?” “I do!” They stood in the middle of their garden. Flowers representing love and devotion surrounded them. Family and friends applauded as the two kissed, sealing their marriage. When they stopped, Y/n saw butterflies flying around everyone. Somehow, they knew it was their cousin.

🍄Thank you for reading!🍄

(2.2k words)

#haikyuu!!#hq #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #yamaguchi x y/n #yamaguchi imagine #tadashi yamaguchi x reader #hq tadashi #tadashi fluff #haikyuu tadashi #yamaguchi tadashi #hq yamaguchi

26 notes · View notes

curiousview-blog · 3 years

Text

In spite of, not because of: the myth of the ‘high functioning alcoholic’

For 18 weeks now, I have been sharing my writing: ‘How to stop drinking: A guide for normal people’. It’s a series in which I am sharing my reflections on living, and staying sober, in a fun, honest, down-to-earth way to show that an alcohol-free life is possible. Previous chapters can be found below on www.samwarren.net

For a long time I wore my ‘high functioning alcoholic’ badge with pride. It’s a term used in psychology and addiction sciences to refer to heavy drinkers who – as the name suggests – by and large, have functioning lives, and may even be over-achievers. I’d fall into that category for sure. My friends and I romped through our 20s and 30s being very successful, while lurching from drunken adventure to drunken dramas. During my most chaotic drinking years, I raised two teenage boys, achieved a PhD, a string of academic publications, teaching awards and research grants, which culminated in securing a tenured Professorship within five years of graduating from my doctoral studies. Finally, aged 40, I moved to a different part of the country for the first time in my life. No-one could ever accuse me of fitting the pattern of ‘the typical alcoholic’ down-and-out – crashing cars, losing jobs, shoplifting, being homeless and all the other wildly inaccurate assumptions we make about alcoholism.

The new Dr. Warren throwing her hat at graduation (2006)

Lots of my academic friends were/are heavy drinking high achievers, and if you’re reading this as someone who’s questioning their drinking choices, I have no doubt that you’ve also stacked up successes in your life while spending half your life (or more) drunk – career, family, even sports? And this is what stops us from stopping because nothing has got so bad that it gives us a sobering slap in the face. Never mind that all these achievements are marked by extreme pressure, chaos, remedial work, lies and the need to push through debilitating hangovers with violently shaking hands, and heads down toilets… We’re the high functioning gang, right? Hell, we NEED this mess to do our best!

I once got ‘accidentally’ paralytic the night before flying to Dublin to do a research interview. On the audio recording you hear me excuse myself to go to the bathroom to be sick. Later, the taxi had to pull over so I could dry retch into the gutter. High functioning? High functioning shame, more like. Another time, on the night before the first day of term, we had a lock-in at our local pub. It was a Tuesday night. I went out at 10:30pm ‘for one’ with the pool team to share their post-match sandwiches and don’t remember getting home. Somehow I managed to pour myself onto the train after 4 hours sleep max, still drunk, and take my opening class. I was more worried about the fact that I had hairy legs and was wearing a summer dress than I was about the fact that I was about to teach a class whilst intoxicated. I have SO MANY stories of conference benders, two hours sleep and throwing up minutes before I presented important work… crawling into work almost on my hands and knees to teach, or pulling all nighters to make up lost drunk time in the days and weeks before to meet my deadlines. It was addictively exciting. I told myself I loved it.

Art of Management Conference (2004) The night culminated in a tequila bar at 6am. I missed the whole of the next day’s sessions as I was so violently ill. I probably earned kudos for it.

I’m not telling you this to show off my stripes. I’m not recounting these tales as part of the glorification of getting pissed in our society. I’m telling them to myself (as well as you) because I need to remember how unbelievably shit it was. I’m telling them to counter the rosy memories I also carry with me, that in a funny old way I miss those days. It’s what I used to believe made me interesting. Wild and funny. As you’ll read in various ways in these posts, I am a person who enjoys intensity – the rush you get when you pull something off against the odds is incredibly seductive for me. Rather than standing as a clear lesson not to ever do that IDIOTIC thing again, instead my adrenalin pumps and I think FUCK YEAH!!, high five-ing myself and anyone in reaching distance. All I ever remember from that experience is ‘Ha! I can do this, no sweat… Now quick, get the beers in, my hangover is thundering in’…

I still have the same patterns in my life now I’m sober. I’m an accomplished procrastinator and replicating the same kind of frenzied deadline pushing. So its slowly dawned on me that maybe my achievements were in spite of the drink, not because of it. I need the excitement and pressure of having too much to do in a short space of time, and a big lesson from my sobriety has been to see that drink was just a tool of these behavioural traits and not the root cause. If you are the kind of person who puts everything off until it’s almost too late, taking on so much that its humanly impossible to get through your to-do list, or someone who works in erratic bursts of energy interspersed with long naps and faffing time, then you’ll still be this person when you’re not drinking too.

It’s been a while since I wrote these words and my reflex is to feel more than a little sad that over three years later this kind of procrastinating pattern is still happening in my life. Not least because I boldly wrote a post on this blog a few years ago declaring my procrastination habits were gone for good!! But maybe it’s just something about me I need to accept. I am a ‘just in time’ person, and actually I do some fucking brilliant work against the odds. And it was not alcohol that drove the great work, but me. Elizabeth Gilbert talks at length about how much she detests the ‘tortured artist’ stereotype in her book Big Magic – that somehow we have to be anguished, or behave like an utter c*nt to those around us in order for our creativity to fly. I think the idea of the high-functioning alcoholic is very similar and it’s yet another myth that ensures we continue to drink. I did great work, even though I continually put the most debilitating blocks in my own path to see how badly I could trip myself up. And what that taught me was to hurdle and swerve extremely well, I won gold in that race and it’s still paying dividends. This post is a day late because I left it to the last minute to edit. What beautiful synergy.

#alcoholism #alcohol culture #women and alcohol #academia and alcohol #heavy drinking #stop drinking #control drinking #quit alcohol #stop alcohol #addiction #high functioning alcoholic #control alcohol #women's writing #big magic #recovery

3 notes · View notes

softschofield · 5 years

Text

i’m so perpetually frustrated with the audience members who criticise 1917 for having “no backstory or development for the characters”

like, yes, it’s subtle. because they’re friends and friends don’t talk to each other like “oh, yes, remember all these details of my life i’m conveniently and clearly reiterating for an omniscient third party?” but fuck dude, if you pay attention and know basic facts about war or do your goddam research, there is SO MUCH DETAIL TO THEIR BACKSTORIES

like, just from one TINY DETAIL, you get so much: schofield’s wounded stripe on the left sleeve of his uniform. to get a wounded stripe in world war 1, you had to be officially listed in dispatches as being a CASUALTY, not just having been in a field hospital, meaning the wound was BAD. but, wait, what kind of wound could be so well-hidden and subtle? it could be a gunshot wound or trenchfoot, but there were also two categories that could earn a soldier the wounded stripe: gas, or shellshock. it’s therefore entirely possible that he was suffering from trauma rather than a physical wound before he met blake. given that 60,000 rounds of field artillery and 45,000 rounds of heavy artillery were fired in the first DAY of fighting, and one german described the experience of the shelling as “the earth shook, the sky seemed like a boiling cauldron [...] the ability to think logically, and the feeling of gravity, both seemed to have been removed”, shellshock is a very plausible diagnosis.

so, we know he fought in the somme, and we know which battle he fought, meaning he had been at the front for at the very LEAST 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS. that is a LONG time to be in the trenches, and it is a STAGGERING amount of time to have withstood the horror and still come out of it soft, gentle, and compassionate - think on THAT when y’all say schofield is a flat character. think about what kind of a person could kill and see people killed and live in the constant, crushing, claustrophobic terror and boredom and nothing of the trenches for most likely LONGER than that and stay kind and quiet. NEED i say any the fuck more, NEXT

just from that, we then know that blake did NOT fight in the somme, meaning he arrived at the front some time after november 1916. and, judging by his excited and fearful reaction to the front line trench before a predicted push, there’s the distinct possibility he had never seen a battle, meaning his arrival can be placed after the 18th of december 1916 and that he was still deeply innocent.

if he arrived in december and the film begins on the 6th of april, that ALSO means that they had known each other at the most for just over 3 months, very possibly less, and that they had formed a very close bond in that time.

which brings me to my next point: where are their other friends? all the other soldiers are shown to have close-knit groups, so where are theirs? why is it only them? why are they even friends in the first place? why is blake, a new recruit who had only just arrived, already the same rank as a veteran who had been there for very possibly up to or more than a year? why is a veteran hanging around with a chattery, bushy-tailed, never-seen-battle replacement? why isn’t he hanging out with his own cohort of soldiers who has been there the same amount of time as him and could much more easily relate to his trauma and exhaustion? WHY is a middle-class-sounding guy even hanging around with a lower-class farmboy in the first place?

the most plausible answer? all of schofield’s friends he went through training with are dead - probably in the somme - and he’s purposefully isolated himself to grieve with his survivor’s guilt. he was most likely wounded, lonely, and agonisingly depressed for months until a cheerful replacement arrived at the front and befriended him. and THAT’S where schofield’s fanatic devotion to him comes from, and THAT’S what “he saved my life” means, more than in the literal sense - he was lost, and broken, and numb, and blake saved him.

furthermore, because boy have i got more, blake’s backstory, in case someone out there has seen this film and still wants to hit me with that fucking “we know nothing about these characters”: we know he has an older brother, we know he has a female dog called myrtle, we know they live with their mum in a farm in the countryside with a cherry orchard, and we know his father isn’t in the picture and that he most likely hasn’t been for a long, long time, judging by blake’s lack of bitterness and daddy issues, his closeness with his mother, and the fact he isn’t in blake’s family photo. we know, from interviews, that he enlisted as soon as he came of age because his brother was an officer and he idolised him, and we know he was barely this side of 18.

another thing? the story about wilko. blake knows stories about men schofield has almost certainly known for far longer - but he didn’t interact and wasn’t told, and blake did, and he was more familiar with all of them and had stories to tell that schofield would have known if he’d been sitting in the same circle when the gossip was told. how’s THAT for subtle characterisation, chumps.

and if you just think about it, there’s so much depth to blake’s overly trusting nature - because he’s still naive, he’s still innocent, he’s still young. schofield tucks the things most special or necessary away in his inside pocket, where’s it most safe, because he’s learned lessons the hard way; blake puts them carelessly in his trouser pockets where they could fall out. schofield keeps his rifle with him even as he’s going to fetch water for the german pilot; blake discards his rifle and leaves himself vulnerable. if you just LOOK, it’s all there!

FURTHERMORE, we know schofield is in his early 20s and older than blake. we know he has a much more refined accent, and we know from interviews that he’s from cookham, berkshire. we know he has two daughters and a wife (or a sister and nieces, it’s open to interpretation, go to town), we know he suffers from shellshock, we know he most likely couldn’t face going home on his last leave and instead stayed in france and gave his medal away to a french captain, we know the subject of home is deeply triggering for him, we know he refuses to talk about his daughters, we know that his family haunts him as much as he longs for it, and we know that he didn’t receive any mail from his wife - interesting, considering blake received a letter just telling him his dog was having puppies.

and don’t even get me started on the “lack of character development”. watch me scream here about that.

also, some more backstory because now i’m on a fucking roll: lance corporals were typically the second-in-commands or heads of sections, of which there were 4 within each platoon, each comprising 12 soldiers, it's likely blake and schofield were in command of different sections in the same platoon. where does that come into play? well, scho seemed to slip very easily into a position of authority when the convoy got stuck in the mud, didn’t he? MOVING ON.

more? i have more. another little tidbit: lieutenant leslie asks schofield and blake if they are his relief, and then asks when the fuck they’re getting there when they say they aren’t. he and his men are exhausted and it was said by another soldier that “they had been blown to hell a few nights ago” - they’ve clearly been at the front a long time, which, again, is interesting, considering front line soldiers were typically rotated back into reserve after 8 days. clearly, it’s been a lot longer than that, meaning order and routine have completely broken down and a new type of despair, hopelessness, and mess has taken root. there, more backstory again.

“oh, it’s just a shitty saving private ryan” “oh, it’s definitely no all quiet on the western front”. FIRST OF ALL, it fucking IS all quiet on the western front, have you literally even read it? baumer goes to such lengths to hardly ever use the word enemy because he doesn’t view the soldiers in the other trenches as bad, just as other innocents swept up in a war that no one should be fighting. he spends a whole chapter sobbing over the only man he’s ever killed in close combat. it’s a hundred times slower than 1917 and it hasn’t even GOT a plot. what the FUCK are you talking about?

oh, and it’s just saving private ryan? show me WHERE. a bunch of soldiers have to go into enemy territory to rescue a soldier because all his brothers have been killed in action and his family wants him home. two soldiers are sent into enemy territory with a letter to stop an attack. i am LITERALLY struggling to think of any more similarities than that and even THOSE are fucking reaching.

also, it’s literally a different war. who are you and why are you saying these things to me i am BEGGING you to please use your fucking head for just a few seconds and actually THINK

“it was so convenient that the river just happened to take him to the devons” ??? “the river. it goes there” did you just entirely miss everything lauri told him? the river quite literally flows exactly past where he is supposed to go, that’s the entire POINT, that’s WHY he jumped into it, because he KNEW it would take him there, oh my GOD

“if the convoy was going exactly where he needed to go, why didn’t erinmore tell him to meet it?” i know it might be a shocking concept, but even a general may not have known exactly the route a convoy of trucks was going to take, especially in the confused wasteland the germans had left behind in their retreat. in fact, he might not have known about the convoy at all if they were coming from a different sector of the front - WHICH, guess what, THEY WERE. captain smith mentioned they crossed no man’s land just outside bapaume, which was much further south, in the old somme battlefields. scho and blake’s trench was somewhere near boyelles, 11km north of bapaume.

“it’s unbelievable that scho would just sit quietly and relax in the convoy truck, and then get out to give orders and take command, after what he’d just been through - and, plus, he would have gotten to écoust quicker if he’d just walked” there’s this thing called trauma. shock. dissociating. compartmentalisation. just shutting down in the face of too much grief when you don’t have the time nor capacity to let yourself feel it, acknowledge it, register it. in the script, scho is said to “almost disappear into the noise of the men.” and, honestly, the emotional illusion of regaining a scrap of control over a situation he was utterly out of control of would have been enough to prompt him to get out and give orders - but as it is that wasn’t the only thing driving him: he was desperate, and an NCO, and he needed to go. AND “he would have gotten there quicker if he’d walked”?? ???????? first of all, he didn’t know that? second of all, scho said it would take them nine hours AT THE MOST to get there and, given the fact they weren’t attacking until dawn and it was most likely morning when he and blake set off, he wasn’t in a TERRIBLE rush. THIRD of all, it was a direct order from a captain. FOURTH OF ALL, do you really think he felt like walking all that way when a truck was RIGHT THERE?

“there are too many coincidences” films are built on coincidences. they are conveniently put with a character who will end up being their soulmate at the end of it all. they conveniently uncover information that would take people in real life months to find. coincidences drive stories - one of the greatest tools of screenwriting? “don’t write what would happen, write what could happen.” what could happen is that scho finds a teenage girl and an orphaned baby sheltering in a ruined town - in a war. what could happen is that a convoy of trucks heading north towards the battle of arras logically uses the road running alongside a farmhouse. what could happen is that scho jumps into a river that he knows runs east. i just don’t understand what you’re trying to say

“oooohh for soldiers on a life-or-death mission to save one of their brothers, they sure do take their time to sight-see” they’ve seen absolutely fucking nothing but the walls of a trench and the reserve camp for months. also, it’s pretty much just common sense to clear out a building before you turn your back on it and keep walking. also, they had 8 hours, scho ended up getting there in under two hours, and blake is allowed to feel more than one emotion at a time and to be excited about exploring new places, ESPECIALLY when it’s almost certain that neither he nor schofield had ever even been out of england. war or not, the french countryside was still beautiful and blake is allowed to appreciate that. next question

“how was there a milk pail full of milk if there was no one around to milk the cow” german soldiers were stationed in the farmhouse before they got the order to move out. “they’re not long gone.” they left an hour before hand, someone probably milked the cow before they knew they were leaving. you don’t have to read the script to have a functioning braincell

“unbelievable that they weren’t killed by the tripwire explosion” it detonated in the tunnels, not in the bunker. they wanted to collapse the escape routes first and foremost. please, i am begging you, use your head

“why did they pull an enemy out of the plane” basic human decency. i cannot believe i have to explain this concept. soldiers in the first world war were especially conscious of the humanity of the men in the other trench. you say blake had no character and then get mad when he’s shown to be so kind and selfless that he’ll burn himself rescuing a german. i don’t know what you want from me, get out of my kitchen

“schofield was an idiot for stopping to interact with lauri and the baby” he was concussed. he knew there was somewhere he had to be but he didn’t remember what or where until he heard the church bells. also, for people who criticise the “lack of character development and backstory”, ya hate to see character building moments. it clearly wasn’t the first time he’s recited that poem to a baby. make the connection dipshits

“the germans shot like fucking stormtroopers, how did they not hit him?” point one: one of them was blind drunk. when muller is ranting while scho is strangling baumer, he says that maybe they should head back and that maybe they won’t realise they’ve been missing. the implication? either they’ve gone AWOL, or they’re stragglers from the retreat back to the new line. either way, at least one, and very possibly all of them are off their fucking faces, considering the one by the burning church tripped over his own goddamn feet chasing scho. point two: not in a thousand years would they have expected a lone english soldier to just pop up out of nowhere in ecoust. it was so unexpected that you really can’t blame them for being flustered and confused.

“how the FUCK did the letter survive the river in one piece?” he put it in his tin. there’s literally an entire 30 seconds of the convoy scene just devoted to showing scho tucking it in there. i don’t understand how i have to say this

“it’s too gruesome” aside from the hand in the corpse and the dead horses, where? where? also, it’s the first world war. i can’t believe what i’m hearing. who are you people

“it’s not exciting enough, it’s slow, it’s dull” IT’S SUPPOSED TO SHOW THE CONSEQUENCES AND AFTERMATH OF WAR INSTED OF THE SHALLOW EXCITEMENT OF IT YOU DUNCE

in conclusion, suck my ASS anyone who says they didn’t have backstory or development or that there are ~raging plot holes~. FUCK

anyone who doesn’t want the actual soft and only good person in the world William Schofield to live a happy life in peace just isn’t valid and that’s all i’ll ever say on the matter you fucking degenerate scum rotten tomato reviewers

#in which i just fucking lose my mind and go fucking apeshit #1917 #will schofield #william schofield #1917 movie #mine #also my mum pointed out that they both have scenes where they try to haul the other up and say 'we have to go we have to stand up'#and the other says 'just let me stand / just let me lie here'#fuck #there's SO MUCH THAT I'M STILL ONLY JUST SEEING AFTER 5 WATCHES

202 notes · View notes

kittyanonymity · 5 years

Text

A Ladybug in Gotham #2

Marinette is forever flustered

Well, ya know, I’ve got at least 2 chapters of this, so why not just post the second one too, right? XD Also, I hope you guys are ready for like, Ultimate Chloe. I love that brat, and I’m gonna be pissed forever at her lack of redemption. Also, I am totally going to abuse the tropes, be prepared. Also, cussing. These kids are nearly 18, and I tell you what, I have heard too many teenagers swearing like sailors. Our kids won’t be that bad, but the adults? No promises ;P

Ao3

Part 1 Part 2 :HERE: Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Enjoy!! <3<3

~~~~~~

Marinette awoke to the frantic ringing of her phone, and she groggily reached over and answered it. She’d stayed up late, talking to her parents, reassuring them she was ok; her mother had been furious, but Marinette had assured her it hadn’t really been Madame Bustier’s fault.

Marinette yawned as she put the phone to her ear, “H-hello…?”

“Marinette! Get down here now! They’re trying to leave you!”

At the sound of Chloe’s voice, Marinette shot up out of bed, “What!”

“That’s what I said! Lila fed Mme. Bustier some cock and bull story about you not feeling well after the ‘drama’ last night! I tried telling her, but she won’t listen! She won’t let me off this damn bus!” Marinette flung herself out of bed, nearly tripping over her own two feet.

“I’m on my way, Chloe!”

“Hurry! I can’t stall these idiots forever!”

Chloe hung up, and Marinette threw open her suitcase, digging through her clothes. Baggy jeans, with her new shoes, and an off the shoulder pink crop top were thrown on haphazardly, and then Tikki was there, holding her new Robin hoodie.

“Here, Marinette!” Marinette smiled, thanking Tikki before she was pulling it on, and grabbing her purse. She stuffed her phone in quickly, and then opened it up to let Tikki and Kaalki zip in. She zipped her bag up quickly, grabbed her key card, and was running for the stairs; she didn’t have time to wait for the elevator.

She hit the lobby running, sprinting for the door, but she could already see the bus leaving; she caught Chloe’s eyes through the door, seeing her through the bus window. She looked furious, and the last thing Marinette saw was her turn on their teacher, shouting at the top of her lungs.

By the time Marinette made it out the doors, the bus was already turning around a corner, and out of sight. She wanted to scream.

“Marinette?” She looked down through watery eyes to see Tikki peering at her from her purse. Her kwami looked distraught, “Are you ok?” Marinette took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes.

“No, I’m not. I can’t believe they would do this…” She sighed, adjusting her bag, “I’ll just walk I guess…”

Wayne Tower couldn’t be too far, right? She started walking, heading the same direction as the bus, making sure to make space for any other pedestrians. The streets were crowded this early in the morning, with many people on their way to work, and she had to dodge several people who were too busy staring at their phones to pay attention.

She was so tired. Tired of all this pettiness, and she didn’t like how angry it made her. She hated being angry more than she hated being upset. Anger took so much energy to maintain, but sadness could just be felt, and then it would pass; anger clung to her mind like cobwebs. Small, but there; always there. Marinette sighed as she turned the corner the bus had disappeared behind.

And promptly yelped when she ran face first into someone.

She stumbled back, eyes shut tight, and tripped over her own two feet. Marinette braced for the impact of the concrete, but was shocked when an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her forward. She was met with brilliant green eyes, and dark hair when she finally looked up. The young man stared down at her in slight shock, but he smiled a bit when she looked at him. Her heart thudded dangerously in her chest, and shocks danced across her back where his hand was braced. Wait, he was saying something! Pay attention!!

“Are you alright?”

Marinette nodded, not trusting her voice as he pulled her back up, straightening her. Her face flushed.

“Uh, th-thank you, sir.” His smile grew just a bit, as he held her hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing it softly.

“It’s not a problem. It’s the least I can do for the woman who saved my niece yesterday.”

Marinette’s eyes grew wide, and her blush escalated to her ears, “You’re Mar’i’s uncle?” Well, she could see the resembelance at least.

He lowered her hand, and nodded, “Damian Wayne, at your service, miss Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Thank you for protecting Mar’i yesterday.” She waved her hand.

“P-please, you really don’t have to thank me! It was no problem at all!” Damian observed her for a moment before he nodded.

“If that’s what you wish, miss Marinette.”

“Please, just Marinette is fine! We’re nearly the same age, it looks like, heh.” She rubbed the back of her neck, and his smile grew a bit teasing; she was so easily flustered.

It was cute.

He quickly noticed though… That she was completely alone in the street.

His smile grew tense.

“If I may, Marinette… I thought you were here on a trip with your school. Where’s your class?”

Marinette paused; because holy shit, she was talking to the youngest son of Bruce fucking Wayne, the sponsor for this whole trip, and he was asking where her class was. She chewed her lip for a moment, before she finally sighed. She couldn’t lie; that wouldn’t be right.

“They… left me behind.”

Damian blinked, “What?” he asked flatly. Marinette flinched, chancing a glance up at him.

“My friend Chloe called me, telling me the class was trying to leave me behind. One of my classmates told our teacher that I wanted to stay in my room after… yesterday. Chloe couldn’t stall them much longer, and I tried to catch up.” She sighed, gripping the strap on her purse tighter, “I made it to the lobby in time to see the bus pull away.”

Damian scowled, “Forgive me, but your teacher sounds like an idiot.”

Marinette snorted, and then covered her mouth, sneaking a bashful glance at him; it made his scowl fall, and he smiled.

“Where is your class going right now, Marinette?” She rubbed the back of her neck, averting her eyes.

“Th-they’re uh, actually heading to Wayne Tower…” Damian couldn’t help but laugh at the irony, and Marinette stared up at him in slight awe. When she’d researched Gotham, she had of course read up on the family that was sponsoring her school’s trip. She knew Bruce Wayne had several children, but the only one she consistently found mention of was Damian Wayne; and it seemed he wasn’t nearly as much the Ice Prince as everyone thought he was.

Because my god, he was gorgeous when he laughed.

He gave her a grin, and offered her his arm, and Marinette snapped out of her daze.

“Well, it’s quite the walk, Marinette. Would you let me give you a ride?” Marinette stared at him, looking from him to his offered arm; and as she thought about it, she realized… She felt pretty comfortable around this guy.

She smiled, linking her arm with his, “I think I’d really appreciate that, Damian; thank you.”

Damian returned her smile with surprising ease, “The pleasure is mine, angel.”

~~~~~~~~~~

‘Why did you do that you imbecile! Who kisses a girl’s hand on the street like that!! Augh!!’

Damian bit his lip as he got in his car, Marinette secured in the passenger seat. He couldn’t believe what had come over him! He’d never reacted like that to a woman before. And then he called her angel! He snuck a glance at her to see her texting on her phone, before she smiled, and put it away; he averted his eyes in time for her to look over at him.

“Thank you so much for this, Damian, I mean it.” She gave him a smile, and Damian cursed how his pulse quickened; he still returned her smile though. It felt almost criminal not to.

“It’s no problem. I was going to head that way eventually.”

Marinette’s smile turned playful, “Oh? What was the first order of business for you today, dear sir?” Damian snickered at her tone of voice, before he actually remembered why he’d been there; though he had to admit, her accent was adorable.

“Funny enough, I was coming to meet your class at your hotel.” He retrieved an envelope from the interior lining of his jacket, and held it out to her, “Father asked me to bring you this.”

Marinette took the envelope with wide eyes, and Damian continued speaking as he started the car, and he pulled out into traffic.

“Your classes’ schedule didn’t have you leaving until 10 A.M., so I thought I had plenty of time to arrive; imagine my surprise, running into you.” Marinette offered him a sheepish grimace.

“Sorry about that. There are a couple students in my class who… prefer things done their way.” Damian nodded, an amused smirk on his face.

“I’ve noticed.” He grinned a bit, glancing at her, “Nice hoodie by the way. I didn’t know you guys knew about the Bat pack in France.” Marinette grinned, glancing down at her new jacket.

“There’s actually not a whole lot of information on anyone besides Batman, but I have a lot of respect for his work, and how he cares for the villains he fights,” Giving him a wink, Marinette said, “But Robin’s colors suit me better, and based on the videos I’ve seen, he’s an excellent fighter.” She sighed, leaning back in the seat with an almost wistful look on her face, “I would kill for a sparring partner like that.”

Valiantly fighting his embarrassment, Damian cleared his throat, “You like martial arts?”

Marinette nodded, “Yeah. I started doing it so I could protect myself from the akuma at home, and then I found that, well, I really liked it? It’s invigorating, and it helped me quite a bit with my confidence. I started gymnastics a bit after that, just to help with my flexibility and agility.” She grinned, shrugging her shoulder a bit, “It’s been a great time.”

“Well, why don’t you have a sparring partner?” Marinette sighed.

“I used to, but…” Marinette bit her lip, and Damian saw her glance at him, like she was considering something before she finally huffed, “Well, he-he kept… asking me out. It didn’t matter if I told him no, or not, he just kept asking. And it was fine at first, you know, we were only 13, it was funny. And then…” Her hands tightened on her bag, “and then one day, it wasn’t. I had a boyfriend, Adrien; we were only 14 at the time, but god… God, I loved him.” Damian couldn’t help but frown at the bitter way she said it, before she laughed a bit, “I wasn’t very smart, back then. But my partner, when I told him I was dating someone, he just lost it, started going on and on about how I was leading him on.”

She sighed again, this time a deeper, more tired kind of sound, and Damian hated the misery in it.

“We don’t really hang out that much anymore, except for when we need to.” Marinette turned and looked out the window, watching the people go by as they drove, “And sometimes, I feel guilty that I’m happy about it. I’m glad that I don’t have to see him unless it’s absolutely necessary. I just spar with my maman when she’s free, but she’s not as enthusiastic about it as she used to be; it hurts her more now.”

She jumped when Damian reached over, and gently held one of her hands in one of his; she looked at him, but he was staring at the road.

“If you're so willing, I’ll spar with you, angel. I’ve got quite the history in martial arts, so I should last a while before you put me in the dirt.” He grinned, glancing at her, and Marinette couldn’t help but laugh. Damian stopped at a stop light, glad he got to look at her like this.

She was beautiful when she laughed, oh god.

If he wasn’t careful, she’d hear his heart trying to break through his ribs.

He gestured to the envelope in her hands, “You should go ahead and open that.” He turned his attention back to the road as the light turned green, and Damian heard her tear the envelope gently, careful of any trash. After a moment, she gasped.

“What!”

Damian couldn’t help but laugh at the shocked, incredulous sound of her voice, and she turned to look at him, a flush high on her cheeks.

“Did you know?!”

Damian slowly stopped laughing after a moment, grinning as he pulled to a stop in front of Wayne Enterprises. He looked at her, “Did I know my father was going to invite you to dinner at the manor tonight?” His grin turned teasing, and he shrugged a shoulder, “Maybe. Now, let’s go find your class, angel.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Chloe and Alix were waiting for her when they walked through the doors of Wayne Enterprise, or Wayne Tower as some of the locals called it. Chloe reached her first, wrapping her in a tight hug, while Alix hung back.

“Oh thank god! I thought we’d lose you for good in this damn city!” Chloe pulled back, checking her friend over from head to toe, while Marinette laughed.

“Chloe, I’m fine; I made a friend, the one I texted you about and he helped me get here.” That made the blonde pause, and Damian froze as her gaze swivelled to him. She gave him a shrewd once over as her eyes narrowed.

“What’s your name?” Damian smiled, and held out his hand.

“Damian. You must be Chloe. Marinette told me you’re her best friend.”

Chloe gave him a cheeky grin, and took his hand, shaking it, “No last name?”

Marinette pursed her lips, “About that, Chloe…” She gestured her friend to come closer, and once Chloe leaned over to her, Marinette whispered in her ear, “This is Damian Wayne, Chloe. He’s the youngest son of Bruce Wayne.”

Marinette watched as Chloe’s eyelids fell, and a broad smile spread over her face; her eyes slid over to the rest of the class, a fiendish twinkle in her eye. Damian nearly took a step back at the look on the girls face, and Marinette looked properly concerned.

“You don’t say~....” Chloe drawled, her smile devious; Marinette swore she could see her hair curling into horns. With a hum far too cheery, Chloe looped Marinette’s arm with Damian’s before looping her own through Marinette’s other side.

“Let’s go greet everyone shall we, Mari-bear? Oh, and Damian dear?” Damian raised a brow, and promptly paled at the smile Chloe gave him, “Say nothing about your last name, got it?”

He nodded, “Yes, ma’am.” Marinette blushed, while Chloe looked at her with a pleased smile.

“Ok, I like him; good find, DC~.” So saying, Chloe promptly lead the charge, so to speak. The three of them walked up to where Madame Bustier was speaking with-

Damian groaned, right as Dick looked over and saw him, and by association, Marinette and Chloe. The look of utter glee on his older brother’s face would haunt him for days to come, he was sure. The teacher noticed them a moment later.

“Marinette, there you are! Lila told me you didn’t want to join us today.”

Damian felt Marinette’s whole body tense, and because he was looking at her, he saw her eyes narrow in rage. He felt a little bad at how quickly the heat rushed to his cheeks.

“Mme. Bustier, I never said anything like that, and if that had been what I wanted to do, I would’ve told you directly when I told you what happened before curfew last night.”

Damian felt himself straighten at her tone of voice; this wasn’t the first time she’d had this conversation, was it? He paused for a moment though.

Because there it was.

That confidence from the surveillance camera, displayed before him.

God, her eyes were so blue, he could stare at them for ages…

And promptly realized he was doing just that, and looked away.

‘Pull yourself together, damnit! You are smooth! And don’t let them walk all over her!’ He glanced back at her as her teacher responded to her in french, ‘Not that she needs my help, because wow, she’s pretty when she’s mad.’

Damian frowned when a new voice joined the conversation.

“I-I’m so sorry, Marinette, I thought you meant it when you said you wished you could sleep all day. I wouldn’t have told Mme. Bustier otherwise…” He looked at a brunette wearing orange as she stepped over, tears running down her face. Damian raised a brow at the act; they weren’t actually buying this were they? One look around at most of the class, and it was obvious that yes, yes they were.

Marinette gave Lila a flat look, “I didn’t even talk to you yesterday, Lila; Chloe did. I generally try to not talk to you.” The girl’s cries grew in volume, and Madame Bustier gave Marinette a look, but before she could say anything, Dick intervened.

Clapping, he looked around at the gathered students, “Now that everyone’s here, let’s begin the tour! Right this way guys!” He winked at Marinette as he walked away, starting the tour. Several of the students gave Marinette a dirty look as they walked away, following Dick; two boys slowed, sharing a look with Alix. The pink haired girl simply nodded, and they went ahead.

Marinette sighed as she followed at a more sedate pace, keeping several feet between them and the class. The three of them kept their arms linked while they walked, and Alix skated up next Chloe.

“Are you ok?” Marinette glanced over at Chloe as she asked, and sighed, looking ahead of them at the backs of her classmates. Madame Bustier was walking with Lila consoling the girl as she ’cried’.

“As good as I can be, I guess.”

Chloe looked to her left as Alix nudged her, and the pinkette nodded her head to a nearby bench.

“Hey, Chlo, can we talk real quick?” The small group came to a slow stop, and Chloe stared at Alix for a moment, before she finally sighed rather dramatically.

“I gueeessss~....” Chloe turned and looked at Damian, and he had to remind himself that he regularly fought people much more terrifying than Marinette’s best friend.

It did little to reassure him.

“Damian, dear, can I trust you with my girl here?”

He nodded, glancing at the back of the class as they continued walking, “Without question.”

Damian met her eyes, and they stared at each other for a moment before Chloe slowly smiled; and unlike the one from before, Damian was surprised to see how genuine it was.

“Good. We’ll catch up soon,” Chloe waved her fingers at them, before wrapping her free arm with Alix’s, and then the two girls were walking away, to a more private spot. Damian glanced down at Marinette at his side, and couldn’t help his snort of amusement. Marinette looked up at him, moving her hands from her face, her face aghast.

“Don’t laugh! I can’t believe she said that!” Her cheeks were so red, she was sure she was going to melt. Damian snickered as they resumed their pace, lagging further from the class now. He saw Dick glance at them from over the heads of the students; he ignored him with practiced ease, giving Marinette a grin.

“Sorry, angel, but at least you know she genuinely cares for you.” He noticed when she glanced away, a small smile on her face, and his stomach flipped pleasantly.

“I’m glad to have her in my life, Alix too. I wouldn’t be here without them.”

Her voice didn’t waver, nor did her expression fall; but Damian felt that those words rang deeper than she meant them to. He unlinked their arms, Marinette looking at him in shock, before he laced their fingers together. Damian had never found it so easy to smile, and now, he could hardly stop.

“You are a strong young woman, Marinette. Your friends see what your class doesn’t, and personally…” His smile grew as her cheeks flushed even brighter, “I’d really like to get to know the person whom they love so much.” Damian watched as she bit her lip, giving him a small smile.

“You know, Damian, I think it’s a little funny.” He grinned, not noticing how he rubbed his thumb idly over hers; Marinette did, and she was almost shocked to find it comforting.

“What’s that?”

The color in her cheeks dimmed, if only slightly, and he was startled when she gave him a cheeky grin, “Half this city is convinced you never smile, but you have one of the most gorgeous smiles I’ve ever seen.”

Damian would deny tripping over his own two feet until the day he died. He didn’t fall, of course not; he was Robin for heaven's sake. But he did stumble, his cheeks bright red. He turned his head back towards her, ready to tease her, but he stopped.

Marinette was laughing.

Head thrown back, shoulders shaking, and her eyes closed in good humor.

‘Oh my god, I am smitten, send hELP!’

Damian couldn’t stop the small smile on his face as her laughter died down to chuckles, watching her rub her eyes with her free hand. She gave him a grin when she recovered, and bumped her shoulder with his.

“What, can dish it, but can’t take it?” He scoffed, and Marinette giggled at the look he gave her.

“Hardly. I was just caught off guard, angel.” He grinned, looking at her, “You banter well, you know.” Marinette hummed, the tune playful.

“Suuurreee I do, I toootally believe you.” She laughed at the mock offense on his face.

“Ok Sass-master, it’s timeout for you. I’ll have to tell my father to cancel that dinner I guess…” Marinette laughed, knocking their shoulders again.

“Who exactly is the sassy one here again?” Damian shrugged.

“Why not both?” That sent Marinette into another peal of laughter.

Damian noticed several of her classmates looking back, almost in shock; but it was Dick who grabbed Damian’s attention first.

His older brother was staring at him, trying to continue his tour guide spiel and failing; Damian promptly rolled his eyes, and returned his attention to Marinette. If his brother wanted to let his mouth hang open and play bug catcher, well it wasn’t his problem. His grip on Marinette’s hand tightened gently as he watched her slowly calm down.

He… could almost get used to this.

~~~~~~~~~~

Deeming their location secure enough, Alix swivelled on her skates and turned to Chloe; which would’ve been great if the blonde was actually paying any attention. Instead Chloe was staring after Marinette and the guy she’d come in with. Alix sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose at the look of utter glee on Chloe’s face.

“Chloe, who is that guy? What is going on?” When Chloe looked at her, Alix could feel the vindictive satisfaction roll off of her in waves. She grinned.

“That, my dear Alix, is Damian Wayne.” Alix snorted, startling herself into laughter.

“No, no way! You’re shitting me!” Chloe simply nodded.

“Yep. The very same one that Lila has been boasting about dating all. DAY.” Alix grinned, putting her hands on her hips as she regarded Chloe with amusement.

“What are you planning, Chlo?”

Chloe turned back, her eyes finding the couple - and wouldn’t that be an interesting development~ -, and she watched as Marinette threw her head back and laughed. Chloe smiled, gently crossing her arms as Alix came up and leaned on her shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ll have to do much, Al. Lila will do my work for me, and she won’t even know it.” Chloe’s smile softened as she watched her friend tease one of the coldest boys in the world, “He makes her feel safe. And right now, that’s enough.” Alix nodded.

“It’s like they’ve known each other forever. Isn’t that a little fast?” Chloe made a so-so movement with her hand.

“Marinette knows her heart better than most of us. She has the best instincts out of anyone, especially since Lila happened.” Chloe sighed, before flipping her hair over her shoulder and giving Alix a smile. It was a smile full of razors.

“Besides, that boy is terrified of me already; I’m not sure what Mari-bear told him, but it was effective.” Alix laughed again, reaching up and ruffling Chloe’s hair. The blonde yelped and batted her hand away.

“Rude!” Alix just kept laughing.

“So, just to clarify. Lila has been telling everyone she’s dating Damian Wayne, who is right there," she pointed at him, noticing how far away the class was getting, “and Marinette has no idea about this yet, does she?” Chloe shook her head, and Alix’s grin grew.

“So, we’re just gonna let those two be disgustingly adorable, and then when everyone finds out, it’ll be a solid strike to Lila’s little castle, right?” Chloe booped Alix on the nose, her smile devious.

“Exactly. Let’s go catch up, and watch our girl’s back.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

This was not how today was supposed to go.

Adrien grit his teeth as he heard Marinette laugh at something else that guy had said to her. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that in years, not even when they were together could he get her to laugh like she was now. Ignoring the fire raging in his gut, Adrien chanced a glance back at the pair.

She was staring up at this guy like he was a breath of fresh air, and she was drowning. The fire in him turned sour as Marinette flushed, swinging their hands between them.

She used to look at him like that. He wanted her to look at him like that, always.

Adrien turned away with a click of his tongue, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was going to use this trip to win her back, one way or another. They were meant to be together, they both knew it. Ladybug had been nothing more than an infatuation, but Marinette? Sweet, adoring Marinette, who had constantly gone out of her way for him; bringing him food, and anything else he’d happened to mention. And he’d lost it all, just because she wanted to expose Lila; his miraculous, and the girl he'd loved.

A growl rumbled in his chest, startling Nino next to him. Adrien played it off with a cough, smiling at his friend and telling him he was fine.

He wasn’t fine; but he would be once Marinette was back at his side.

Where she belonged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

@coffeetoffee HOLY SHIT i just saw someone run into the Ice Prince on the street, and he didn’t kill them?????? WHAT??????? #IcePrince #onlyinGotham #DamianWayneCANsmile #WAIT #wheresmycoffee!!!?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that is chapter 2! Chapter 3 technically isn’t finished yet, so I won’t post again for awhile probably. ALSO! Adrien gonna make a BIG mistake next chapter! BUT! Dumb boi will learn. ALSO ALSO! We’ll meet the brothers!! YAY! Jason is my favorite, with Tim being a close second; I just never cared much for Dick. (lMAO ;D)((I’m sorry, I swear I’m an adult lmfao)) I’m fairly well versed in DC things, so it might get a little messy down the line; especially since I’ve pretty much said ‘Fuck Miraculous canon’ since season 3 lol

Hope you guys liked it!!! The tropes continue!! YAY!

Part 1 Part 2 :HERE: Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Tag List Cause I almost forgot!! (sorry not used to tumblr lol)

@vgirl-10123 , @crazylittlemunchkin @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm , @bluerosette23 , @casual-darkness

#maribat #daminette #maridami #mlb x dc #fanfic #HEY CHAPTER 2!#A Ladybug in Gotham #Chapter 3 is my favorite so far I can't wait for y'all to read that one lol #Chloe is the dopest bff you could ever hope for #and that's all I'll say about it lol >.>

557 notes · View notes

mj-md · 4 years

Text

Thoughts

Hi friends. It’s me, MJ.

Since we last chatted I leveled up to PGY-2! I’m almost 3 months into my second year of residency and boy, do I have some thoughts.

Thought #1: senioring is hard

Being a senior has certainly come with its challenges. Sure, I knew that I would have to know the bigger picture of the patients and be expected to manage an entire team of 15-20 patients. I knew that I’d have to help my interns figure out their workflow, make sure the sub-interns are getting enough experience, and that the medical students feel like they’re part of the team. I knew that I’d have to stay late on some days to finish up work for the night team and give sign out to the night team.

But I didn’t know that finding the balance of doing just enough to help out the interns without overstepping them or doing everything would be so hard.

I’m a go-getter. I like to get tasks done, and it’s been difficult for me to sit back and be hands-off and let the interns get the experience of calling consults, calling pharmacies, and doing discharges. I know it’s important for them to learn these tasks, but when I have rotators that are unfamiliar with the system that are learning how to do admissions, write notes, and put in orders sometimes it’s just easier to do myself.

Thought #2: your team is your team

If your interns miss something, if labs aren’t ordered correctly or imaging isn’t scheduled right, it falls back on you. I felt this very hard today when a patient got an MRI of the abdomen & pelvis instead of a whole body MRI like the consulting physician recommended. (In my defense, this was not relayed to me personally and the consulting physician’s note was completed after I left work so these recommendations were not known to me until the next day.) But still, since I am the senior on the team I should have recognized this lack of foresight and planned accordingly.

Thought #3: it’s exhausting

Since I have to stay late to give sign out, tidy up loose ends for the night team, and follow-up on every little detail, I often stay 1-2 hours after my shift has ended. I’ve worked 70 hours a week in the last two weeks and 23 in the last two days. I have little time for anything else when I get home and as a result have barely seen my fiance. Trying to make time for self-care, but it’s not the easiest.

Thought #4: it’s compiling

I’m on a current 3 month stretch of inpatient floor blocks. I finished NICU, now I’m on the busiest inpatient service in the hospital right now, and next month I move on to inpatient heme/onc where the hours are 6-6 and you get two weekends off. Oh, and I’m by myself.

On top of my current schedule, trying to finish all the mandated busy work (ILPs, annual learning modules, IHI modules), trying to coordinate and run a new QI project I started last year, do a literature review for a research project, and participate in 2-3 other projects, I’m starting to feel stretched thin.

Oh, and not to mention I’m also trying to plan my postponed COVID wedding and my elopement in November.

And stressing about my chief interviews later this month.

And also trying to be a good senior.

Cue the mental breakdown.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

All in all, it’s been everything and not at all what I expected. We had a wellness lecture today about physician burnout that I think just put a lot of things into perspective for me about how I’m feeling. Writing this post is sort of my way of getting all my thoughts out and to cope with how I’m doing. To end this post, here are some good things that I’m doing in order to allow myself to be the best version of myself that I can be:

1. I reached out to my therapist today to schedule a long overdue session.

2. I bought two bags of Halloween candy for my team to bring in tomorrow.

3. I created a gift bag of goodies for one of my co-seniors who didn’t get the job that she applied for to make her feel better.

4. Tonight I sat down and emailed a bunch of people for the wedding aka the officiant, the restaurant I want to host the after meal celebration at, and the hotels for our new wedding room block.

5. I’m going to share this post with my fiance since I didn’t have the energy to organize all of these thoughts earlier when I came home.

6. I’m going to go to bed now.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading along. We can do this, friends.

#personal mjmd #mj is a pgy2 #senior up #level up #senioring #pediatrics residency

16 notes · View notes

a-small-flame-in-a-dark-land · 4 years

Text

The Time Between Us (7)

Chapter 7: Chains in my heart

I'M BACKKK

Firstly, I'm so so so sorry for disappearing for so long. I was in deep depression last year and finally have the guts to write again. I'm sorry.

There're many reasons, well, I feel bad of myself in everything: studying, works, family, friends,...I even felt my English has gone worse and I felt I shouldn't write anymore. It's been complicated. But I'm here now. I started reading books again, I've been doing some researches about fantasy worlds and many of them really did cheered me up.

Anyways have fun reading!

Words: 3k8

*gifs not mine

Links to other parts 1 2 3 4 5 6

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

“Erza! You’re okay!” Approaching Natsu and Erza is the blonde hair girl. She looks worried and terrified.

“Everyone was so worried for you.” The girl next to her cries.

They all gather around the two, cheer up, cry and give each other tight hugs. Because Natsu and Erza are safe and reunite with their comrades, I return to my job to collect the Core of Tower of Heaven and erase its leftovers on the sea. By that no one from The Magic Council can find. As I’m nearly finish, a voice rings from behind.

“Hey.” I turn back and here comes the scarlet hair girl.

“Hi.” I say.

“Well I..we want to thank you for saving us.” She says as Natsu comes along. With his suspicious face, of course.

“It’s nothing. Things happened and I had to do what is right.” I smile.

“Don’t say that. At first I doubted, but….well, Natsu told me what you did when I fainted. I really appreciate your help. I think we can be friends.”

Friends? It’s been a long time since I heard that word. 3 years ago? I wonder why there’s a little bit of creepiness crawling under my skin when hearing that. Don’t even know if I’m worth to befriend with anyone anymore, after I deceived my only one.

“Yeah, I don’t know if we can. ” I keep rambling myself when the last piece of The Tower is collected and forms a ball of crumbs and ready to be sent to Hell through a hole opening in the ocean below.

“What are you doing?” The voice of the boy.

“Cleaning the mess.” I say. And when they give each other unknowing looks and then turn to me, I can’t hold my giggle. “It’s a long story of mine. But you don’t want to know, I assume. And for now you guys are no acquaintance to me as I am to you, our destiny is nothing outside this Tower. We helped each other to get out and it stops at that. Then we part ways. Just know that I’m no harm to you and we’re done.” I turn around and give them my goodbye, ready to leave.

“Wait, please.” Erza says. “At least let us treat you, you saved us and I won’t just walk away from anyone who did me a favor. In fact, I really appreciate what you did even though you said our destiny is nothing outside the Tower and I will regret a lot if you don’t let me return the favor, Lucerna. Destiny or not, our meeting means something and I know you’re a good person so let’s have some times to know each other.”

I sigh. If I let her, I will lose track of Jellal anytime, but even now looking for him when just getting out after years of capturing is a total challenge. They’ve fled and my power is still as crumble and uncontrolled as the fallen Tower. I need time to recollect myself anyways. Spending time with them seems not a bad idea after all, I need to regain my power and prepare for the mission. So I just nod and smile. But maybe to Erza and her comrades, that’s all they need to brighten up and come at me.

“Great! Now let’s get back to our place. I’m Lucy, Lucy Heartfilia. And you’re Lucerna right? Nice to meet you.” The blond hair girl pops out from nowhere and smiles friendly and gives out her hand. I shake it and smile back.

“Nice to meet you too, Lucy. I’m Lucerna. Lucerna Vandil.”

But to everyone’s dismay, they’re too tired to have a group chat after the fight so most of them sleep immediately after having a short meal. Especially Natsu, the blue cat and the dark hair boy Gray who I just get to know soon after. Despite the organized beds, they finish the meal and roll on the floor and then all I can hear is their snoring. And the girl names Juvia, she says something to Lucy and Erza and then disappears before I even have a glimpse of her. Only Lucy, Erza and I are still up. I ask.

“You two aren’t tired?”

“Yes, but not as these boys, we’re not as badly beaten up as them. Besides, I was in deep unconscious when Natsu got me out so I guess I rested enough. Just go sleep first. I’ll watch out for everyone.” Erza gives a nervous laugh. Lucy pats her shoulder and smiles.

“Don’t be like that. Everyone was so worried for you but we aren’t mad. You just keep on apologizing like that all the time?”

“No, but I’m… It’s my fault drowning myself in the Tower after all.” Erza says.

“Erza, I’m telling you again. This whole thing is no one’s fault. If there is, that’s because of those we faced in the Tower. They hurt you and we cannot let them do anything to you again. We’re friends remember?”. Lucy says while giving Erza her beautiful smile and what aches me more is that it reminds me about none other than the untold reminisce I failed to protect, which led me to the Tower.

Friends?

Is that what they usually have after getting through hard times together?

Until now seeing the friendship before me that I realize how badly and deeply The Power of Tower of Heaven have demolished my feeling for 3 years of being captured. Now I no longer feel like wanting to get to know anyone as letting them to get close to me. Close enough to know the real me that I’ve lost. Now I don’t know anymore. The only thing I need to do as soon as I get away from these people is finding Jellal and finish my mission and then return to the King. I should have----

“Lucerna!” A sudden voice wakes me from rolling in my own thoughts. It’s Lucy’s.

“Eh?”

“You were zoning out.” She laughs.

“My apologize. What did you ask me about?”

“I’m saying that since we don’t have more time until sunrise so why don’t we all rest for now? And then let’s have some time tomorrow? When will you have to go?” She yawn.

“When the first light of the day comes out.”

“That rush? Sorry that we took your time. I didn’t think we would be this worn out. I really want to spend more time with you and I even think about taking you for a walk to our place. It would be wonderful, if you don’t mind.”

I look at the clock. It’s already midnight. And both of the girls seem too exhausted to talk anymore.

“I’m sorry but I really have to go. Please rest, you two. Or you won’t be able to get yourselves up tomorrow. We’re already exhausted.”

“Yeah you’re right.”

Erza turns off the lights. Then she comes lie next to me and before I close my eyes, she says.

“Hey. I know that we just met and you seem like don’t wanna share anything to us despite the fact that we talked the most all the time but,...well it’s okay, too. You can keep your secret. We don’t want to intrude your private memories. But please know that around us you don’t need to withdraw yourself. Just be yourself. We trust you because you helped us. We’re no enemies. So there’s nothing to worry about okay?”

She reaches out to me under the blanket and hold my hand.

“It’s terrible to know that you were captured in the Tower for like, 3 years? Those must be unforgettable memories. I understand because I was at that Tower too, when I was a child, until we broke free. And as you said Destiny led us back to The Tower for a mission and we met. But I’m glad you’re free now. I guess if you will leave soon at dawn, this is our goodbye.”

No, Erza. I’m not free. The chains in the Tower are broken, but the chains in my heart are not. Not now. Not ever when all my soul will soon belong to the demons. I’m a criminal and I don’t deserve all the love in this world.

“It happened in year X781.”

“What?”

I lower my voice only for her to hear.

“I did things I should not. I got many unrelated people involved in my wrong doings. And I betrayed a friend. All of that led to the reason why I was imprisoned and forced to work under their watch in order to create the Tower. Erza, you’re such a good person. But please don’t try to befriend me. You don’t know me. And I don’t know you. There’s something I really have to do after this. If not, I can never payback the sins in my past.”

“If you insist. But I still don’t see anything wrong to get close to you. I feel it. You saved us, Lucerna. And I’m definitely sure that’s deserve a life lasting friendship for us. I know that Natsu, Lucy, Happy and Gray would feel that too. So, if nothing bad happens and when you’re done, can we meet again? We’re mages of Fairy Tail in Magnolia. You know where to find us.”

“If we meet again. I’ll spend time with you guys.” I tighten our hands. “I’m glad we get to know each other.”

That’s true. If there’s another chance, I guess.

As expected, Jellal has fled. There’s only little of his scent left which is at 30 km from the previous placement of Tower of Heaven. In two days I follow his scent and when the city I stayed the night before is nowhere behind that I recognize I was led to the mountains in the northwest of Ishgar.

In those mountains, the weather is cold and air is so thin I can barely breath. I spend 2 hours searching for him around the place where his scent is the strongest but to my discomfort the scent is also as thin as the air and it keeps floating around instead of leading me to Jellal. Why is that?

There’s only a few hours left until all the air in my lungs disappear. Nightfall makes things harder. Geez. I breath slower and lighter while touching the earth below and speak.

Se kaló. Chaménes psychés

Here come the crumbling earth, shaking trees and flying souls of the death in the mountain. The souls, they know everything, but unknown to the world. I might ask them about Jellal.

When I was young and still living with my brother and the Dragons, I was scared and screamed my lungs out the first time my mother dragon showed me what people would be when they died. They become souls. Or people normally call “Ghost”, and my brother would always told me ghost stories just to scare the crap out of me. Mother Dragon said some souls find the right way and were taken to another life. But to some, they cannot let go of their past and become the white souls who still exist around us. The ghost in my brother’s stories are dark souls who sold themselves to the demons, they made contract to one or many of the demons so that they can have what they desire. But once they do, their soul cannot be free after death and they belong to the demons. Most people of the dark souls are mages because only the mages have power to summon demons. Those kind of souls exist for the only reason: scare the shit out of people and drain their lives to get stronger and become devils of Hell. Because of that the magic from dark souls are the most powerful.

In Ishgar there are dragons born within the magic of the souls and can control the power of them. But those dragons are very rare and choosing the humans who will inherit their power and become Dragon Slayer is even harder. I don’t know why and when did my dragons find my brother and me. I just know that they raised us, Hibernis and Lucerna Vandil, the twin orphans, since we were born. And then one day when I tried the final level of Soul Magic I lost control and let the dark souls took over. I didn’t know what happened next. When I woke up they’re all gone. My parents and my big brother. It was when I was still 7 years old and never had been outside the forest we were living. Everything happened in year X777. I went everywhere to find him and our parents. I lost, I had no evidence of them. Finally I ran out of energy and food and ended up outside Redwoods Guild. One of the reason I chose to stay and work for the former Master is that he had the Power of Vision and can help me find my parents and brother, under one condition that I must work for him with all my loyalty. It’s stupid, I was stupid but at that time there’s nothing I wanted other than finding my family so I agreed with him. Then he showed me what inside the Eye. But there was darkness and blood smell. He told me that they died. I didn’t believe him and told him he was lying. But he showed me the day that I lost control and destroyed everything along with my family. I had to believe that because only I knew what happened that day. I had to believe him that I killed them. And for 6 years I was living in hell with guilt. And I---

“You’re drowning, Miss. Please wake up.”

I gasp and realize I was rambling to myself. Someone pats my shoulder and when I turn around I recognize a white soul is trying to give me some air because my lungs are dried. It says.

“Summoning the souls while you can’t control your breath is very risky, Miss Lucerna.”

“Thank you. And I’m sorry. I’m looking for a man names Jellal. His soul is tainted and he’s very powerful. He a mage using magic of the stars. ” I say.

“If you look for him here, then you’re lost. He’s left for a day.”

“What? But this place is reeked of him.”

“He was here. But he used magic so his scent remains as long as possible. He knows you’re tracking him. I’m sorry miss Lucerna. But the man you are looking for has returned to the magic Council. And his magic has disappeared ever since, he must have closed himself and been in deep slumber to maintain power. It’s impossible to track down Jellal right now, you shall wait until his magic awake again.” Another soul speak.

“GOD DAMN IT.” I groan. Great. Now that man is where I hate most. No one can enter The council and get out in one piece. Not when there are traps and guards every corner and even the members are ten times powerful than Jellal. I can’t risk myself.

“I understand. Thanks a lot. Apolýo.”

The light of the souls glow and then all disappears into dust.

I did not try to go to the Council. Not until my strength is still weak and can easily go berserk as that day. Instead I successfully found a big cave under the mountains where there’s a waterfall which flows from the outside. The fantastic thing is that this waterfall contains a large amount of energy which is surprisingly compatible with me. It must be from the souls of the mountains. I need to stay here and regain my magic. I have the Aspro Stone inside my body and for now it seems the stone’s power is yet to awake. I haven’t learned to adjust with it yet. I don’t know how. I don’t know what would I do if the Stone went exploded as before. Thinking about the incident 3 years ago, I still hate myself. It was terrible. Seriously terrible. Our plans got out of control, my power got out of control and everything led to devastation. If I let that happen again, I wonder what would I become.

I wonder where is Sting now. How has he been doing? How is he? He must be joining a guild. Or is he still traveling alone? Is there anyone beside him?

I miss him.

I miss my family. And Sting.

“If you let your emotion take over. You’ll lose control of yourself, Miss.”

“It’s you. I…I didn’t call you.” I open my eyes and see that they are slowly watering. I blink to get them away. The beautiful white soul that helped me lately is standing before me..

“I’m the oldest in these mountains and I speak for other souls. I died a long time ago, myself has become one with everything here. I can see things, hear things that happens here. I can appear whenever I want because I’m here to protect the mountains, Miss Lucerna. I know who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“I apologize for my rudeness. Please let me stay here for a while, I just got out after 3 years of captivating and this waterfall has the strongest healing power I’ve ever seen. It can heal me.”

“Of course. The waterfall of us contains a rich source of magic that flows through the mountains. Take a bath in the waterfall 3 times a week, your magic will return and much more powerful than before. That is when you keep practicing and making yourself stronger everyday, of course.”

I step into the pool under the waterfall. It is so warm and comfortable. I breath in and relax. After 3 years, this is the first time I feel safe and sound, every aching muscle is slowly coming to life. My back was really tense because of having hung in the wall for a long time, now I’m gradually relaxing.

“Thank you. You’re so kind to me. But why don’t you see me as a threat to your mountain?”

“Every soul can identify who the summoner is through their magic. Most of us used to serve your ancestors since the beginning of milleniums and we vowed to always keep taking care of their children until the world turns to dust. So any children of House Vandil and apprentices of Dornion and Senali The Twins Dragons of Heaven and Hell are welcomed here. Please make yourself at home. ”

It’s been forever since anyone talked about House Vandil, or mentioned the name of dragons that trained my brother and I. So hearing those names strikes me hard like thunder. I sit straight up, freezing despite the hot water and suddenly feel hard to breath.

“You know the Vandils and…and my---”

“I was a historian of your family. They’d ruled their lands spreading wide at the northeast of Ishgar since the dragons were still flying in the sky until hundred years after the Dragon Civil War first broke. Although I’m not expecting another Vandil still lasts these days, I’m surprised you have zero knowledge of your existence.”

This is criticism, isn’t it?

“My parents died when my brother and I were born. The Twin Dragons adopted us. But they never told me or my brother anything about our family. I don’t know we are relating to…some rulers of a country?” I admit.

“Well, dragons can live for centuries. Dornion and Senali had been adopted The Vandil kids and protected as part of the contract between them and the royal family. When War of Dragons began, they continued raising the soon to be rulers until one day the tables turned and your homelands became battle fields. The castle exploded when a dragon blew a huge fireball, no one did survive.”

“But my parents… they lived.”

“And that’s what surprised me. The war happened 400 years ago. Maybe the Twin successfully saved some kids and took care of them in private so the bloodline of House Vandil could be descended. They could’ve protected the later generations until you. They surely loved humans more than any dragons ever did.”

Overwhelmed by the story the soul just shared, I stay in deep silence. I wonder why Dornion and Senali never mentioned this before. Does Hibernis know about this?

“Your story…it’s…”

“Unbelievable?”

“No, of course not. Souls talk from their hearts. I believe you. Actually, I’ve never ever imagined what my family in blood would be like. The dragons told me my parents passed away because of illness and they found us in a dying village. And that’s all. I never…wondered where did my last name come from. I never wondered who they were and now you saying makes me confused, or kinda feeling bad about it. Perhaps because I was happy I’ve already had the dragons and my brother as my family so I never questioned them about House Vandil. But still, I should have, right?”

“You weren’t even born when everything happened so do not feel bad when no one told you, I think they might have reasons. I died a historian and I’ll forever be a historian so, being a spirit or not, my job is telling the truth of history. When House Vandil officially vanished out of the monarch list, I was also dead. So everything I told you about the dragons raising the surviving kids is just me hypothesizing the events by connecting everything I know about The Twin Dragons and House Vandil. They could be wrong, anything can happens, there’s still mysteries to reveal, you know. However, I’m glad a young blood of Vandil still survives today.”

“Thanks. I appreciate what you’ve decided to tell me. What should I address you, Sir…?”

“The dead have no name. But in my whole life I was known as Adorellan Miadithas, I served King Aithlin Vandil, our last and mightiest king of the centuries. We vowed to fight for Atheton, for Kathania Dryas. We vowed to protect our country as long as we can, whether we live or die. We promised to speak the truth and tell our stories to the later generation. We promised to forever be protective to our people, be faithful in love and be loyal in friendship. Today we found a descendant, and we shall transfer promises with our latest king to the one. Lucerna Vandil, apprentice of Dornion and Senali the Twin Dragons of Heaven and Hell. Our homeland was gone, but our people fought till the end. No matter where you are, what you do, do not forget who we are, what we believe and our identity. Please pass this message to the next generation.”

And then, the mountain spirit disappears. And until 3 days later when I regained my magic and ready to leave, he’s not available anymore.

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

#fairy tail #fanfiction #fantasy #fairytail #sting x reader #sting eucliffe #sting x oc #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #gray fullbuster #erza scarlett #wendy marvell #happy #eventual smut #fairy tail fanfiction #anime fanfic #fanfic #hiro mashima

42 notes · View notes

shytiff · 3 years

Text

Apr 2021 Wins

Started typing this on 4th apr lmaooo

1 - went to mcd. bought chicken + rice with the app promo. there’s a staff helping me on the order machine lol i feel badd there’s no need to do thatt. ate my lunchmade by mom at mcd’s muschola and went to sbux bcs its tumbler day. green tea latte w skim milk as usual. sent dr triya’s translation. ecmocard. started rereading goong (AGAIN. i probably have read it like 3 times minimum). still bring some feels

2 - its holiday today. spent almost the whole daylight rereading goong (turns out its pronounce ‘gung’ not ‘gong’ lol ive been wrong all this time) and finished it. the scene where they stare at each other, separated by the castle door, always gets me. got the old ipad charged (the screen are like 30% close to detaching and falling apart) and started AOT

3 - spent the whole day reading AOT. i like it when i have mini purposes in life (eg: finishing a manga series). AOT rly talks a lot about what do you want to do in life, the consequences of your choices and how you have to live with it. i felt triggered in a good way. the characters dont rly judge other’s choices, but they question them. discuss about it. give you some moral push. second gladi today. my vbg was still filpped hhhh. read aot until i felt sleepy and fell asleep. woke up very near subuh and prayed isya. my toxic trait is the horrible self care (and im talking bare minimum lol hehe lmao)

4 - finished aot. Asked irun about some aot explanations and she sent 5 paragraphs in one bubble. Slept. Flavola, kopsus coklat and somay. Also ate japota honey butter. Did 1 long input of ecmocard. Followed baepsae choreo. Moved my body a bit. Wow im not immediately sleeping. Amazing

5 - arrived at harkit 11-ish and went back about 1pm loll. super hungry when im arriving in kalideres. bought tahu colek worth 3000 (i wonder how the seller hears me through my 2 layers of mask), roti sisir and some ice cream in alfamidi. my fitlife protein powder ran out again. its my 2nd already. did some ecmocard, wasted my time after maghrib

6 - woke up late. did not have the mental strength to go to harkit so i decided to just stay home. bought sbux 1L green tea and macchiato. wasted the daylight and finally did some ecmocard in the evening,,,,

7 - off to harkit 7.30-ish pm in the rain. Took some data for ecmocard. Went to salemba to get tabung and surat bebas pustaka. Had breakfast slash lunch first, tried guudfuud (red rice, beef and omega egg). I like that the rice was not too much. Met up w ness ren and talked about isip dilemmas at sky. Afterwards went to flavola. Ordered mie rebus and roasted milk tea cause i somehow feel sooo hungry and in need of calories. It tasted so good, i was sitting in my usual seat facing the window, and the sky was a mixture of blue and grey. Brought croissant and sakura pocky at indomart. Ate the bread immediately after indomie. Went back home. Juan brought tahu gejrot that was delicious and crunchy. Internship files briefing by akis. Fell asleep

8 - woke up. Saw that dr retha was up for interview. Panicked. Thankfully it was at 12. I left home at 9:40 ish and arrived 11:50. Its a long ass way. Turns out i was interviewed with ka agassi. The doctors are so kind. They explained the gist of anesthesiology profession, and how its a choice you make, and its okay as long as you like what you do. Tried halo bowl for lunch. Sous vide chicken, rice, caesar sauce, beef bacon, and the deliciouss butter broccoli. Went back to kalideres and to starbucks. I only spent <2 hrs in there (a waste of money, i know). Bought decaf hazelnut latte (apparently the beans were kenyan something? Medium?) and butter croissant (need to cushion my stomach). Did GCP certification and sent it to the ever so kind mba Ai. Still got energy from the caffeine, did some ecmocard, read quran, read.... Toji fanfic 🤦‍♀️

9 - went to rsf w mom. We took the wrong way and had to take the long way but thank god theres still time to spare. Met dr rara. Some briefing. Went to rscm w agassi, submitted files for ijazah, went back to RSF. Girlll the cost of transport. MRT: 12K. Grab: 16-17k. Thats one way trip. Bought food at rsf canteen. Eocru briefing by the research coordinator. Ward tour w dr retha. Snacked on ovaltine provided by mba ai. Went home after maghrib by tj. Liqo along the way. Glad bersih (came late). Drank macchiato for some strength but still fell asleep quickly.i shouldnt have laid down

10 - kebakaran jenggot in the morning due to green screen positioning. Finally got the appropriate setup (after many fabric tries and cutting my mukena) at 08:30. Finished showering 08:45. Zoom was opened at 9 lmao. Somehow finished before 09:30. Zoompah w mom and dad along side me. After its ovee, some "photoshoot" w fam. At this point i was truly rly sleepy. Took of my makeup. Changed my clothes. And then racil silv dev showed up lol. I got gifts c: and then atikah came. And then i redid my makeup, this time with the help of friends to create fantastic eye make up look (which i can never pull off). Eyebrows by sil, eyeshadow and liner by cheldev lol. Took some photos. Dajen came. Talked. Videocalled w pupuy. A surprise gift from fianti came. And then chel dajen went back at 8. Still cant sleep. Slept at like 11-12

11 - lazed. Woke up, ate pizza (mom bought 2 of phd's 1m pizza) and bakwan, slept again. Matcha latte and ecmocard. Watched a bit of 2nd sinau

12 - off to rsf at 06:20. Arrived 07:15 ish. Lunch was ayam penyet accompanied by snacks that mba ai bought. Off to harkit at 14:05 (bcs my laptop somehow shut down and i lost all the unsubmitted data). And then off to kalideres at 15:30 ish to meet up w clara and search for clothes for almira's wedding. Went to lippo bcs clar saw this dress that kinda looks like the brokat given. We ate at ramen ya. It doesnt rly make you feel full, the filliny sensation was kinda like indomie. Saw that the dress looked different. Ate 1 boba pancake together at banban. Continued on to the tailor in kebon jeruk. The location was in an alley, and it was raining lol. Quoting clara: "the unnecessary struggles". The tailor was quite helpful (and she looks experienced). Arrived at clara's at 8 ish. Picked up by mom with car (it was raining) and arrived at abt 9. Hurriedly showered and tarawih and tidied up AND ITS ONLY 09:45. Its crazy how efficient one use time (and at the same time, how wasteful one can be)

13 - first day of fasting. The morning was spent taking samples. I stupidly took a sample thats not yet labeled im sorry :(((( i felt kinda tired and wanted to give up this. Give up anesthesia. Went back home at 14:00 and its cloudy. The bus was the nicer types and it was COLD. Read quran along the way. Picked up by juan. Opened laptop. And then its iftar time. I was sooo sleey and the tarawih was so long thst i closed my eyes along the way. Fianti called after tarawih, we talked til abt 21:30. And then i fell asleep

14 - went to rscm. Submitted serkom files. Met dr dyah and i hope we could somehow meet her again if we study in fkui again aamiin. Went to rsf by mrt. Arrived in lebak bulus just before it was raining. The bus took a while to arrive (usually theyre there, waiting). Its still raining like crazy so i took grabcar to AR from pesakih (39k). Played with my phone til iftar. Played phone again after tarawih and fell asleep

15 - i felt rlyy lazy and cant bring myself to wake up. Off to rsf at 07:15. There were coordinator ppl. Took sample. It was raining when i went back but i took grabbike from kalideres. Wasted my time and did not do ecmocard

16 - sampling. Snacked on keripik pisang at the room. Went back early at 13:15 ish. Picked up by juan. Sleeeept (and this is before the nightmareish mistake began)

17 - i did a mistake by telling dr retha (who took the sample today) the wrong patient (it switched in my unreliable memory. I feel terrible. Thank god shes quite chill abt it (?). Read jujutsu kaiseeen. Went to flavola. Did 1 ecmocard. Went to bandar jakarta baywalk by motorbike. Spent 135k and was quite full with many varieties. Arrived home at about 20:50. Turns out juan also had bukber with his friends. Phone call with fiiii, talked abt dimrob

18 - lazed all day, read jjk, finished my part of ecmocard (gave genky to ekal cause i was a dumbass at getting data). Ate mom's mentai rice, siomay. Drank green tea latte. Read jjk til 145 (mentok) at night. Proceeds to consume all things jjk lmaoo

19 - we took sooo long to get samples. Finished at 13:00. Went to rm with dr rara. Went back home. Watched the third sinau. Read the IMMACULATE jjk fics by celestialmechanics im IN LOVEEEE with the way s/he writes ughhhh

20 - samples took faster than usual. Mba ai did not came today. Went to RM and did some work there. Off to AR by 15:00. Arrived close to maghrib. Did not do any work afterwards lmao. Did not even wash my face

21 - magang as usual. Note to self: sit on the right side of the bus. Did nothing yesterday. Felt like shit after tarawih (but i showered before maghrib!!)

22 - todays problem was the swab sample not being there even though the staff allegedly already took it. Huft. Took a shower and out on vitacid (i cant remember the kast time i put on vitacid 😳 its probably been... a week or two?

23 - samples finished quite quickly. Already going home at 12. Lazedddd and lazed and lazed. Waited for emir to pick me up so i went to dm. Read an immaculate itadori x megumi fix thats just full of feels. Started demon slayer lets see

24 - literally just laid in bed reading manga and seeing tiktok and slept again and suddenly its 1 am. Showered. Still in a lazy mode. Havent begun clires work. Watched leah's vlog that said "go do things youve been putting off!". Finally finished the third and last video of Sinau Yuk ICU class with dr. Zeta, SpAn lolll even though the actual last class was on 7th apr. iftar was fish and chips and salad yuum

25 - woke up at like 1am since i slept too much yesterday. Ate tan ek tjoan bread and drank sbux matcha latte. Did some intern work. Read a bit of quran. Sahur. Cant even sleep again so i showered. Off with mom and dad (09:30) since dad’s going to get vaccinated at skk migas. Mom drove me to ara’s place (11:00). Talked a bit and even read quran again there. Off to GI (13:00) to meet up w regen. Walked around. Bought a discounted TBS green tea facial wash. Went back home by TJ (16:00). the bus station is a bit closer now. Arrived home close to maghrib (17:30). hurriedly showered and went to sleep (properly) after tarawih. A good good sleep since i got 9400 steps today and that tired me out lmaooo (bare minimum yall, i know).

26 - woke up still sleepy. Slept again after iftar and woke up at 07:30. Skipped shower and off to RSF lmao. Went to medical record. Walked to the front of RSF originally planning to go to lebak bulus by angkot but i saw none. So i went through mrt instead. Stopped by at kebon jeruk and walked 800 meter (that tireeed me and made me feel parched under the sun) to risma busana for clothes fitting. Took gojek to jembatan gantung (turns out the closer halte to flyover was taman kota). Iftar was chicken noodle and risol and banana and i felt fullll and i slept

27 - today is off day since im alternating with agassi. read quran. watched shadow and bone (with 1,5x speed except for kanej and matthias nina scenes). didnt rly do any magang work except the table asked by dr retha. i feel like usually im operating on 70%. sleeping more doesnt rly add that. i need caffeine or physical activity. before i know it, its close to iftar.

28 - i ((felt)) like i had a decent amount of energy today. shouldve done some work between sahur and leaving the house but i ended up reading vampire knight lmaoooo the scenes had no business bringing so much butterflies. sampling together w agassi. mba ai didnt come in today. after agassi left did some magang work. i also went to RM to ask for more RM to bu dian. took angkot to lebak bulus for the first time. paid 5k. i had no idea which angkot went to lebak bulus and the driver (somehow knowing the right words to say) said “lebak bulus lebak bulus”. didnt read much quran on the way back. i just close my eyes and relaxed. felt kinda low on sugar. watched more shadow and bone on the way back and at home until close to iftar. didnt do anything after tarawih. slept hoping i woke up early (which i did, at 3am. but i slept again)

29 - im supposed to have ample energy but i just stuck around my bed until its time to get ready to go. read some kanej fic lol. I dont rly do anything productive after arriving home

30 - made intern log, magang as usual. Did not go to rm. Finished watching shadow and bone. Rested bcs tomorrow's saturdayyy

1 note · View note

charlies-crashcourses · 5 years

Text

Charlie’s College Crash Course #1: How to write a 10-page paper in 1 day

Background info first: I’m in the last year of my English undergrad degree and I’ve had to write at least 3 dozen 10+ page papers in that time. That being said, I’ve never once started writing a paper more than a few days in advance, and 9 times out of 10 I go for one day only. Honestly, this should be considered my trademark at this point because after all my high school AP courses and my English degree, it’s been going on 7 years of 1 day papers.

and so, dear friends, I would like to pass on this skill to you all. I should mention, none of this will work if you’re not already pretty solid on paper writing, i.e. if you only ever get C’s on your papers now this isn’t magically going to get you up to an A with one day. This is just to streamline the process, allowing for more time for other things or, more commonly, allowing you to not freak the fuck out when you realize the deadline is tonight at midnight and you’ve procrastinated all month on the final paper for your class.

(I should also mention that I’m currently procrastinating a 2.5k word paper due tomorrow night that I’ve only read one of two books for, so. There’s that.)

Anyway, without further ado, here we fucking go:

Step 1: Prep for the Day

this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, so make sure you prep the day accordingly. Ideally, you’d wake up before noon, make sure there’s nothing else planned for the day, and tell your roommates/parents to leave you alone until you officially reemerge at midnight (or, if you’re in college and have a 24 hr library, try going there. Mine has closed off study rooms that I can chill in, but if you’rs doesn’t just find a relatively comfy quiet spot). If you’re at home, pick one spot, clear it off super quick, grab some snacks and energy drinks, make sure you have everything charged and ready to go. I don’t recommend cafes or the like simply because there’s lots of distractions and also those places close before midnight, so you can’t stay there the entire time and therefor waste time moving halfway through.

Also, I would recommend taking a break between all the steps after this one. Don’t let the break take too long, but just long enough to walk the block, or grab another snack, or do some stretches, or watch a ten minute video, something like that. I personally never break at a natural stopping point, because then I’ll never get back to it, but how you break is up to you.

Step 2: Preliminary Research

now normally I do some preliminary research beforehand. Basically looking into the topic, figuring out generally what resources would be best, etc. That can usually be done in five to ten minute bursts throughout the week or so before the due date, whenever the topic comes to mind.

But then again, I’ve also procrastinated that until the very end as well, so. Usually all that takes if you go for the day of is some quick google scholar searches, or if you have access to the MLA database that works as well. Or, if you’re more like me, you could just deep dive on wikipedia and check out what relevant facts pertain to what numbers in the bibliography, then go ahead and cite those wherever possible.

Basically, get a good base knowledge of the big facts. This step should be quick and dirty. For instance, for my paper my sophomore year on Robespierre (14 pages written in a record 6 hours) I combed through his wiki, some websites on the French Revolution, and watched the Crash Course youtbue video on the subject. The rest of the research was done after I did my first outline.

Step 3: Outline #1

This is just a basic “What the fuck am I talking about” outline. It can be bullet points, numbers, stream of consciousness, i don’t care as long as it works for you.

For the Robespierre paper, my first outline was something to the effect of: -born poor -school -elected to govt -took over govt -killed people -got killed

and that was it. It’s like, before you build a house you have to clear off the right amount of land, make sure there’s nothing in your way, and give yourself a vague area in which to build. Super simple stuff.

I did get some advice, from somewhere I can’t remember, that a paragraph is basically equal to half a page, and so (excluding one page length for your intro + conclusion) you should have around two paragraphs or ideas per page. So my outline above would need some more points, there, to keep me on track for my page count. I eventually added a whole paragraph about how he was chosen to read for a visiting King Louis at his school and was then ignored which made him hate the monarchy, and another about what happened after he died what with the government in shambles, etc etc. So two bullet points per page should do it.

Step 4: More Research

This is where you get a little more in depth. Look at your bullet points and learn everything you need to about them.

For my first bullet, I found stuff like: “Robespierre was born in France in 1758 as Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (the third of this name), to a lawyer and the daughter of a brewer, he had two siblings, and he could read by age eight. he also loved pigeons and started a lifelong feud with his sister over one that he gave her that she let die."

and then I would move on to the next bullet point, and so on and so forth, filling in the gaps. Make sure to keep track of where your info comes from, as well. It doesn’t have to be a full citation, but just the hyperlink after the fact is going to save you so much time, i promise

Pro Tip: don’t throw out anything as irrelevant just yet. Just gather all the facts, no judging. Trust me on this.

Step 5: Better Outline

this is where you start to have fun with it. I would like to remind you that no one, unless you have some crazy micromanaging professor, sees your outlines. This is for you and you only, so write it in whatever way makes sense to you. It can be colorful and fun and whatever you need it to be.

I actually took screenshots of my outline for that robespierre paper (hence why i chose that one as an example) so here’s a look at what I do:

so, really, honestly, as shitty as you need this to be, or as many jokes, or whatever works for you my dude. Explain it like you would if it were a story you were telling, not a biographical/argumentative paper. Get informal with it.

Step 6: Write the Damn Thing

Okay to now that you did the research and wrote your fun outlines and all that, all you have to do now is write it! I tend to do this in the same doc as I do my outline, but starting again from the top so I can see what I need to add next right under where I’m typing, then delete it once I’ve covered the material.

If you did your outline well, this is really just cleaning that up so it’s “school appropriate” and “not an affront to people’s eyes and sensibilities” or whatever. At this point, it should go super quick, maybe 2 hours max to finish up writing what you need to write, here.

Pro Tip: do your citations as you go. Better yet, make your bibliography first so that A its already done and B you know what your in text cites will be from the start so that you don’t have to add them in later. If you kept your hyperlinks next to your research, just open up citationmachine and get those cites, then replace the links in your outline with the actual citations so it’s easier to line them up with in text cites while you go

Step 7: Fudging

oh, you thought we were done after writing the paper? nah fam. Chances are, you didn’t hit the page count you wanted to, you’re probably around 1 full page short, unless you love long sentences. This is where my pro tip from all the way back on step 4 comes in.

First, before you do anything drastic, make sure your formatting is correct. If your prof wants the big long “name, date, class, assignment, etc” in the top left then that adds a lot of length. Fonts will also change your page length, and so will footnotes and citations.

If you did it right and saved all the less relevant details, congratulations! Just sprinkle a few of those in there and you’re magically at your page count. This is the only reason I included the pigeon story in my paper (and this post), because I was about 3/4 of a page short of passably saying I got to 14.

If you didn’t save those inane details, don’t go looking for them now. Trust me, it’s much more pain than it’s worth. Your best bet, then, would be to either A. Add one more point if you can think one up, B. do some more research for relevant details to add in, or C. expand on the details you already have with more examples or effects or whatever applies.

do not, i repeat do NOT, just try and expand the words you use, like changing “to” into “in order to” or whatever those deflate your phrases charts tell you Not to do. They tell you not to for a reason. 1. it sounds stupid adding them in after the fact, and 2. your professor absolutely 100% will know and will mark you down if you do that in excess. Inflated phrase charts like that are well known by professors, and also adding them in after the fact won’t fit in at all with the voice that the rest of your paper was written in, so it’ll stand out like a sore thumb. just don’t do it unless it’s your last possible “i have ten minutes to turn this in” effort.

Step 8: Celebrate!!

And that’s it! If you did it right, this whole process should have taken you around the equivalent of 1 hour per page you had to write or so, so in a regular twelve hour day you’ve got time to take breaks and eat and all that shit. Go turn it in and celebrate your victory!

#study tips #adhd studying #paper writing #don't procrastinate kids #crash course #charlie's college crash course

81 notes · View notes

autoirishlitdiscourses · 4 years

Text

Discourse of Saturday, 17 October 2020

Would you? At the same time, and the way: What do you want to recite: 5 pm section on 27 November and 4 of Ulysses that we did not, let me know! Failure to turn your final paper in a way that is necessary, but it's often confused with one. So, here. Which texts I have you down to it. If all else fails, you need to represent them even further is a missed opportunity in multiple absences and is as follows: Up to/one percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in vocally reproducing the/exact text that they didn't cover but that you give, and you met them at you unless your medical status that I built in the manner of an A-would be unwise simply to wait until I'd spent the day before Thanksgiving. Again, well, but forget which one. Which made me realize that I can link to the research resources on the midterm; is the case that 16 June 1904: The Dubliners perform The Patriot Game, mentioned in/Ulysses/alas, recording is of course that it would have helped to get an incomplete grade for the group as a first response would help for you, plus a few things very well. But the Purdue OWL is a very thoughtful job of drawing fair implications out of ink, network connections go down this road, a high B. I think that your own presuppositions in more detail. Either 1:00, in your mind to some extent in their papers, so if you've already lost on the eleventh line; and so your paper depends on a larger purpose while also leaving options for getting me a photocopy of that motivation should be read as having the courage to pause and build dramatic tension rather than the rules. Reminder: tonight at 7 p. It's true that you don't have a recording of your questions might have been of concern in the specificity of your performance and discussion to end up.

If you can deal with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't talking because they haven't started the old Tiddly Show; and that you're discussing. Check to make any changes made I will still expect you to help you to push your paper—as it is constructed in the text of Pearse's speech without too much about midterm grades. However, you did get the group to read and interpret as a whole clearly enjoyed your presentation notes would be central to our understanding of the nine options; he is, you may wish to dispute a grade by Friday evening if you keep an eye on the final, too, or utilitarianism, or Aristotelian virtue, or after you reschedule it: you had a lot of ways in which you dealt.

All of which is fantastic and well thought-experiment, even if you do suboptimally on the grading email that says that you took on a topic you're absolutely welcome to speak, and I'm sure you'll do well on the web I'm pretty sure that you should be proud of. Remember that you're making. Plagiarism and Cheating:/I try to force a discussion leader for your paper must be killed by the end of the quarter, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is 50 9 for 5 in the first line of the play, that's incredibly comprehensive. Thanks for your ideas are developing nicely. I have a bunch of academic opinion, etc.

Are Old discussion of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 5 p. You've not only keeps us on task. Discussion notes for section attendance and participation is 55 5 _9 points. Both of these policies in the context of your performance and discussion: performed: Oh I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. You may have required a bit so that you took.

I can see it promptly and therefore limit your late penalty, you can respond productively if they haven't done an acceptable job of thinking about identity formation, I think that your paper's overall point or points to which you can find applications in the morning shift if that works better for you in section that you might, of course I know that I wasn't engaged in memorization and recitation of a terrible thing: your writing is very unlikely even a perfect score on the you two both gave strong recitations and did a good number of sections attended, in juxtaposition with your paper would most need in order to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in your discussion notes, but really, really nice work. Part of the obscenity trial surrounding it.

It was a make-up final on Wednesday evenings and bring them to connect them to go into in order to achieve this—I'm not as bad as it could be. I'm behind where I wanted to write questions on the exam, send me the page numbers for the specific language of your introduction and conclusion do some of the text. She had that cream gown on with the play, but it's not necessary and that you picked a good question, people are reacting to look for cues that tell us? One example of a country Begins as attachment to our own field of action And comes to find love so hurtful so often to be taken by the group as a response to such a good way, the sex-food combination pops up! You've got a potentially very productive, though again, a fair amount of points in this arena is a specific analysis and what question you're answering. James Joyce's Ulysses/is available. Please let me do so. Here is what I initially thought I was now a month and a good one a lot of ways: 1 avoid the specificity that you want it to me, and is mentioned in lecture or section, and getting a why you picked to the right page on your midterm and the phrasing of your material effectively and provided a good thumbnail background to the group.

Still, she's a dear girl. This being a good quarter. You have some very good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on where you land overall in this direction would be to make other people to avoid this would require that you look at my paper-writer may be more help. Doing this effectively is to let it motivate other people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive.

Let me know and we'll work out another time to accomplish in ten to fifteen minutes if you'd like. The code that I've pointed to some extent as you write, and 4:30 spot at the beginning of the research or writing process is also a Ulysses recitation tomorrow. I'll stay late. It's not.

Hi!

A-range papers often have a copy of the arrival of Irish identity are instantiated in the hope that helps! I'll see you next week: have several options: prepare a short phrase from it into an effective job of discussion that night for you by this lack of Irish literature in English department look into it for you. Similarly, perhaps not, let it motivate other people to do so. Is that Walter definition of flaneur?

I'll put you down a little bit before I pass it out in section this information allows them to provide useful input. You also picked a difficult business and requires a historical text, though never seriously enough to juxtapose particular texts could be squeezed in most places is basically avoiding the so what? —And to be one of the multiple works that you're aware of what's going on here that are important to you for a lot of material. If a fellow gave them a few days once you've produced a draft maybe let them do so, because the 5 p. There are many other gendered representations here. The Emigrant Irish aloud near the end. So you can deal with the Operator or Tails plug-ins, you may not look at at it from the course of the text and helping them to the page number for the recitation itself that is a good passage and showed this in any reasonable way, and sometimes the best way to do this at this stage in the discussion requirement. Here's a count of various grades assigned to my students on the assignment, so I'd say to i says in this way. Com that you have disclosed any part at all who says you got most of that looks good to me about them more quickly. Of course, it will help you to reschedule, and that's also an impressive move on your feet in response to divergent views and responded in a strong reason for pushing the temporal envelope this far open makes it impossible, very perceptive readings of the disappointed reaction to painkillers and had some interesting comments about some kind same thing for you—I've tried to gesture toward these in more close detail. Which isn't to say, Welp, guess I'll just say that I am giving you this week. Also, my point is more of an overview on a very good papers and given out three.

I graded it you write your thesis. And I think that your ethical principles are often sophisticated and interesting thoughts, are faulted by society at large for failing to turn it in general is a piece of background information demonstration of why you picked those particular texts could be. No, I think that you leave town. 5% on the section Twitter account in a packet of poems tonight.

Too, I will definitely be there. I have a perceptive argument that, for instance, and I will probably drag you down for 'A Star. Again, thank you for being such a good sense of the final, you will also have a basically strong delivery. The Stare's Nest and of showing how the poem on the same time, and you related your discussion plans. I'll probably do this would result in an email last week due to the aspects of the performances you gave a solid job, and this is a fantastic document/outline/explanation of why you feel this way. 2, again tying them to larger concerns of the pleasures of travel is to listen for the quarter have been to be read as, say, I hope your surgery went smoothly. I think that asking open-ended that people saw in the sense of rhythm. You've done a solid job here. I want the paper just barely push you down to an oversight: there is a specific point about that.

I'm sorry to have thought of it. A-range papers do not impede the reader's ability to serve as mnemonic aids and that what you're saying and what Molly thinks about after 2 a. More administrative issues? Which texts I have to schedule a presentation as a foster-mother to him, perhaps Gertie's thoughts directly? Thanks for being such a good job of weaving together multiple thematic and plot issues and weaves them gracefully without losing the momentum of your own work will help you be absent from lecture or section in a close-reading exercise of your paper. Discussion Section Guidelines handout, which is rather complex. Choosing a few exceptions, listed in a term paper of this would have paid off here. Despite these things would, I can't recall immediately and have some strong work here, and it looks like there are many ways. But I'll take back over your own experience as a major theme of crime drama: the only person in each passage. All in all, you did a very good work here. Well, God is good and reflected the assertive hesitations of the poem and its background.

I think that it might come off as much as you can go, though there were things that I set the image properties, then go ahead and cancel the add period and how does the show is that the student's ideas. On it, because that will be. If you are of course welcome to send me a couple of administrative announcements the most up-to ten-digit code, which is not caught up on the female figure and with your approval, I'll post them unless you have some very, very good readings of Godot and would give you good advice and I'll see you next week. I would also like to hand on. Are the descnts of Irish literature that you use. All of these are genuinely astounding bonus, this is a good student so far, mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. Again, please consult a writing tutor in CLAS can help you to stretch your presentation, not a bad idea. 4% in the corners sometimes. Explains the currency in question. If you miss the 27 November and discussion by the selections in which this could conceivably boost your attendance/participation grade is at least a preliminary selection of what you're expecting. Wow, that's incredibly comprehensive. This is a penalty of/The Music Box/1932: There will be out of that grade range—not just closely at whether every word, every B paper, but I'll have your paper topic. Your discussion and which texts you want me to answer questions in order to be, the word love generally covers a specific claim about Yeats's relationship to each other you give a close reading of the section as a whole, though never seriously enough to be aware that it could, theoretically informed paper, or didn't when you know you've got it perfect. Does that help? Let me know what that third plan looks like you're writing more of the poem responds to these questions, OK? I can attest from personal experience it can be. 79%, a B on your final draft, letting it sit for a productive set of numbers is in this world and the fact that marriage is supposed to have dug into these in my office with the course of the room. Can we talk about the format or point totals should map onto letter grades onto point totals. You could probably find the full text of the one hand, I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or want you to demonstrate mercy, I really liked it. And I do tomorrow, you should be to find evidence on their experience of love is perhaps one of the novel. Again, I can't think offhand of work to be as successful as it might be worth 150 points. I can just tell me when I pass out a draft, letting it sit for two or three most participatory people in, first-person pronoun in a word processor fails to conform more closely on the syllabus assigns for the sake of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. Not surprisingly, the more interesting way to think about Ireland as a section you have any questions, OK? Let me know if you would need to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in my mailbox South Hall.

Thanks! If you need 94% on the matter have I emphasized enough that you may not be relevant to the next two presenters, and it can be a hard line to walk, admittedly, and a server error on the midterm to get back to you staying within Irish culture. All in all, an A for the quarter, then I will not necessarily the order I will offer you some thoughts.

Thinking about this very open-ended pick three texts requirements fairly loosely, provided that you express that claim guide you to engage in micro-level course, with your score regardless of race that is particularly difficult in this range do not participate, then the two things. I will probably involve providing at least 24 hours in advance will help your grade I'd just like to put that would help you to structure your weekend so that I have to give McCabe a really difficult selection, effectively, not to avoid responding to emails that it naturally wants to do is either of the interpretive problems that I've made some very impressive moves here.

I use a standard list of works cited page for each one. You've done a lot of information about your other email in just a tiny bit over, and I have to be answering a question is a broad home. I like, and effectively positioned it as soon as possible, OK? You've written quite a good student this quarter: U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. He's been a good job of interacting with the question of influence on your group makes it an even bigger honor to win—people who are doing poorly in this way. You memorized more than the syllabus. As promised in the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which pulled the grades up for a comparatively difficult poem to the specific, this is a minor inconvenience. Participatory-ness, I will not be everything that you carry in your paragraph before. Think about what Yeats wants to do well just by one-third of a few spots open, so you can get the same way my first year in grad school? Thanks! 137. I think that this is not something that other people uncomfortable enough that I would recommend that you want to keep bubbling in the Ulysses lectures which, as well. Ultimately, think about how you can give you an additional five percent/of opportunities to reschedule, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented. Does that help? Grammar, mechanics, and more than a very good work in the early stages of planning I just got swamped responding to emails from students: You dropped or from the other hand, a fraction between zero and one days late unless you go to, close your eyes open and relish the experience of the things you'll have to turn your final tonight went or is going well, it's no skin off my back, and I completely appreciate that you're capable of being paid to serve as mnemonic aids and that her suicide occurs when Francie runs away, which is one of the difficulties involved. This is a good idea in a moment. Your writing is so impassioned. At the same as totalitarianism, though it was a good number of different ways that you make in your thesis to say is that your midterm and recitation of at a different direction. Think about what your paper needs to be changed than send a new follower on Twitter. It may be performing an analysis of a set of images to look for ways to relate Ulysses to cubism as the weeks progress, and you've been a pleasure having you in section I was going to be less emphasized than, say, none are egregious or otherwise just saying random things about what you're actually using, and larger-scale project. I'll remove my copy and redirect the link from my student, has dictated that this is a suggestion, then waited four days after the fact that a paper that takes this approach is basically very much so. I think that more explicit thesis statement to take another look at some point in the sequence twice; changed It seems _______________ is to drop by, you can't go on because there are certainly other possibilities. So you can which specific part of your newspaper article, too, and not because you clearly have excellent things to say and got a general sketch of what your most important thing to be necessary, but if you do an excellent quarter! In addition to section. Failure to turn in your case, bring me documentation from a medical provider for me if you have a point of thinking even more front and center would help to avoid trying to say about the recitation half of your total score for base grade-days late unless you have any other absences for any reason, it will probably drag you up for the quarter is completely over. I think, is 50 10% of your specific question. All in all, this is because it's a draft maybe let them do so. There are no meaningful differences—there are a number of important goals well, too, about what you want to go for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. This may be that the maximum number of ways. Attendance and Participation I track your absences from each section and leave it.

Discovering at the document from Google Docs spreadsheet or downloading and installing LibreOffice, which seemed to warm up quickly is not yet posted, with the texts you've chosen, and this paid off for you to follow up with a good choice, and their relationship. You picked a wonderful book, on p.

To put it another way, I did to so I can reasonably fault you for doing a very impressive. Discussion notes for week 9. I hope that helps you prioritize. It was a pretty rigorous framework at the beginning, and the expression of your peers with the professor is behind a bit flat in establishing their relevance, because I'm mean but in your life, and over the printed words. It's a good holiday! Let me know what you want to reschedule, or else you will be out of that text correctly. I don't think that student lists from eGrades didn't have the overall logical/narrative path through them in detail is the MLA standard actually doesn't require students to make sure that you finished final revisions too soon before it jerked; added that to me like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's play, and you really want to make sure that you will have to have practiced a bit nervous, but it doesn't look like anyone else at all to the food-based mnemonic devices that make much other course poetry easier to get to everything anyway, but I can plan for section attendance and participation. Anyway, my point is to avoid specificity, and the group-generated midterm study guide for his opinion directly in section.

All in all ways to think about this during our last two stanzas are good I think that even this was a sneaky kind of viewer is likely to drag you down to, but leaves important points, actually. Ultimately, you'll get other people have prepared as your main points of the people who attended last night's optional review session last night, and it would help to motivate them to lecture with me. You may also be read, so I'm not sure how much you knew about the issue, I do have some idea of what you're actually claiming about the course of the room to make this paper to be productive to discuss your grade: You may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of earlier discussion, and various relationships between those points, and you do so would be unwise simply to talk about why the comparison is worthwhile, because you won't have the gaze. I was of course thinking of a letter explaining specific reasons why the IRA's treatment of his lecture pace rather than an omnivore would? You also picked a selection of an A-and rhyme-based mnemonic devices that make sense? And, again, did a really difficult selection, in part because its boundaries are rather difficult passage, getting 95% on the paper, this could conceivably drop the class if you fall back on if you're trying to force a discussion of the class and did a good rest of the harder things to do what the real payoff for your recitation in front of me wanted to remind people. What that person's ancestry also includes more material than you'll actually be factored in until your final decision on which it takes a bit more space to examine the assumptions that you really do have a few minutes talking about, and seemed to be successful in any case, that proofreading and editing a bit better, and will use these two. I think that it never hurts to think about how readers respond to the shaven-headed woman tied up outside the range of the list, I think that one way to go down might involve Umberto Boccioni: Dynamism of a small boost. Hi! I will respond as quickly as possible! Etc. Ultimately, I grade the first three paragraph exactly of the passage you chose a longer-than-required selection and delivered your lines from Stare's Nest by My Window Heaney, Requiem for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. You have some very good job of putting your texts, and I'll print it out in a lot of things that would need to be examined, please leave the group may help to specify a more likely scenario is that the smarter thing to do quite like your lecture orientation was motivated by nervousness, and I will make what I think that what your paper must represent your thoughts have developed a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument though I think that articulating a specific point, the attraction of the country, though it's probably not the only ones going at 5 p. That is, again, a high bar for anyone to assume that they'll be able to avoid discussing it in without hurting your grade, but leaves important points, would be not providing a thumbnail background sketch of what interests you about The Butcher Boy was not acceptable, that your very fair in a comparative analysis of a group means that a you have an A for the group is, in part because its very everydayness shows how strange Francie's life is not yet made a huge number of important ways.

This is quite good. But really, really is a high B. Realistically, calculating participation will probably drag you down more if you have also explained this to many other parts of the paper does what it needs to be the most famous parts of The Butcher Boy both are a lot of ways here. Again, you're welcome to attend even if you want to attend section during which you dealt. 59 p. I'll have them. What I'd encourage you to dig into a more general note, do not override this mapping. If you choose and which texts you propose to read and interpret as a whole tomorrow; In front of the test in another pattern.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

1 note · View note

fallenfurther · 4 years

Text

Phantom - Part 4

The final part and I finally fix the Scott I’ve messed up. I hope you’ve enjoyed this whump as much as I enjoyed exploring the topic. It seems fitting that the last part being posted on a tough day, after this whole story coming about after one. Thank you to everyone who has read it. Part 1 , 2. and 3.

Many thanks to @photowizard17 for proofreading this for me.

*****

The next day was spent setting up Isla's lab. Most of the things she needed were either available on the island or easy to ship in. Scott placed an order for what they didn't have. It was a small room, but Dad hadn't allowed one of the larger ones to be used. Isla insisted it was fine, so Scott didn't make too much fuss. There was a rescue that day, and Scott watched as Alan flew Thunderbird One. Isla stood beside him as his Thunderbird flew out the pool. They had gone straight to his room afterwards; Scott needed the time to calm down. It hurt so much, not being able to fly. Even maintenance was out of bounds for him. He was so frustrated, but Isla stood by him and helped him calm down.

The day after that was his first appointment with the psychiatrist. Isla stayed behind, using the time to focus on her project. Grandma flew him out and sat in the waiting room. He told the man about the nightmares. Scott felt better admitting them to the professional. That became the discussion of the hour. Grandma treated him to a coffee and a cake in the local coffee shop before she flew them home. It felt wrong sitting alone in the back, so he sat in the co-pilot's chair, though he had to promise not to touch anything. Just before he got up after landing, Grandma put her hand on his leg and squeezed. She smiled at him.

"I'm proud of you, Scott."

The words sunk into his heart. He wanted to get better, he had to. He couldn't stay grounded. They walked through the hanger together, before he left her to head to Isla's lab. Scott didn't miss the change in his Grandma as he left her.

*****

Scott settled into a routine. He'd have breakfast with Isla, before spending the morning in the office doing the Tracy Industries work Dad had given him, before having lunch with Isla. They'd then spend the rest of the day in her laboratory, Scott cleaned beakers and took notes to help her out. He knew so much about her project now; he could advertise it. He'd continued to donate towards her research, although now he donated his time too. It all went through the official routes and some was spent by the others in the Isla’s research group. They were all working towards the same goal, but from slightly different angles, in the hope one would get it to work. Scott just enjoyed Isla's company. They would then have dinner together before relaxing in the evening.

Twice a week he saw the psychiatrist. Whoever was free would fly him out. Mostly this was Dad or Grandma, with Virgil occasionally volunteering. John was never down, and Scott couldn't remember the last time they had spoken, but it couldn't have been that long ago. Gordon and Alan tended to stay away, apart from the one-time Alan had to take him to his appointment. Alan had changed the topic whenever Isla came up, to the point of asking for silence. Scott had been shocked but could see the way Alan gripped the controls. Scott didn't want to hurt his little brother, so he held his tongue. Those were the tough days, the days his brothers seemed distant. Alan often looked at him like he was a stranger, which hurt. Especially when he and Isla joined in the movie night. Slowly they stopped joining in, preferring to watch films alone in the round house. Scott had to admit, he was spending more and more time up there, away from his family. He would fall asleep with Isla on the couch. He had stocked up the kitchen, so they didn't have to eat with the others. Isla seemed okay with the arrangements. She wasn't bothered that his family never warmed to her. She repeated the same phrases over and over when Scott brought it up.

"It was always going to be this way, Scott."

"They were never going to welcome me."

"They're just worried, Scott. You're not well."

"You knew this would happen."

Yet Scott didn't understand. He knew his psychiatrist was trying to get him to comprehend something, but Scott just couldn’t see it. Isla wouldn't say it out loud and his family tiptoed around him. So Scott just continued with his routine. Occasionally he'd get angry at the situation, other days he'd watch Thunderbird One leave the island without him and just sit on his balcony until Isla came to fetch him. She looked after him, making sure he ate and slept. The nightmares still came. They were starting to take their toll. Months without sleep and his body and mind were tired. There were days when he just couldn't focus on his work. He knew his productivity had dropped, but he was powerless to help it. He told this to his psychiatrist. He liked talking about Isla, though Scott couldn't always take in what he was saying. There had been multiple mentions of residential treatment, but Scott refused. He wanted to stay on the island.

*****

Isla wasn't in her laboratory when he looked in having just returned from his latest therapy session. For the first time in a while his heart didn't race at the thought of not knowing where she was. His mind was still focused on something his psychiatrist had said. Something had been awoken in Scott's head. Something he didn't want to think about, something he knew he had to acknowledge before he could get better. It was the cause of the nightmares. Scott headed up through the villa and took one of the paths up to the cliff. He knew Isla would be there, gazing out over the ocean. He'd shown her this spot. This little sanctuary he often retreated to when he needed to think away from distractions. She gave him a sad smile as he sat down beside her. The wind whipped their hair and their eyes met. His hands shook.

"I can't stay, Scott."

"You don't have to go."

"Yes, I do. Your family needs you."

"But I need you."

"Do you still believe that?"

Scott stared into her sorrowful green eyes.

"Yes."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You're lying to yourself, Scott. Admit it."

Scott's voice caught in his throat. His hands shook and he could feel the tears forming in his eyes. He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to face the truth. His eyes turned to the sea, rough and expansive below him. Scott had to admit to the truth. That's what Daniel, his psychiatrist, had said. He had to acknowledge the truth.

"I'm dead, Scott."

Scott shook his head, eyes on the horizon. His heart breaking.

"No, you're not."

"I am. You know I am."

"I need proof."

Scott turned to her. Her black hair was flying wildly but her green eyes held steady.

"Prove to me that you are dead."

"Tomorrow."

Isla got up and left Scott, who continued to stare out to sea. The cold of the wind was seeping through his shirt, but he relished it. It matched the pain he felt. His world was starting to crumble with the tears that slipped down his face.

*****

Scott sat in Tracy One. Grandma and Virgil were in the cockpit flying him out to the meeting. It was a break in his routine. Isla was sitting in the chair next to him. Scott didn't know what to say. The conversation from last night was still fresh in his mind. The plane shuddered as it hit some turbulence.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you want me here. If you don't want me here, I could go."

Isla stood up and a familiar panic filled Scott.

"You don't want me to go."

Scott shook his head. He still wanted her. Isla was real. She was real to him. Was that not enough? Why could no one else see that she was real?

"You know I'm not, Scott."

*****

Daniel met them at the airport, but it was Isla Scott followed to a graveyard. She walked through it confidently, heading straight to one headstone. She stood before it expectantly. Scott came up behind her before kneeling to read the name etched into the black stone.

Isla Howardson

The date of death is exactly a year ago. The dread fills Scott. His lungs craved air which he pulled in with short sharp breaths. Tears filled his eyes. She's been dead a year! How? Scott fell to the grass. He knew how.

He thought back to a year ago. The rescue that had gone so horribly wrong. She'd been trapped but was unharmed. Isla had been fine until he'd turned up. She had been lively, joking about the situation like Gordon often did. She hadn't been scared. He'd decided to take her the shortest way out. Flying Thunderbird One remotely, he'd tried to lower the safety grapple in the hopes to raise them up. Not the best, but he'd done it on other occasions before with great success. That time Thunderbird One had lost air, an unexpected wind swinging her to the side as they were on the end. The cable had swung against the wall and Isla's head slammed into the cold hard rock. Scott had grabbed her, kept her from falling, but the wound bled. Her body went limp in his arms. Scott had gotten them out and he had rushed her to the nearest hospital. It had been touch and go, but the staff had sent him away. They had told him to leave her in their hands. The guilt had stayed with him. They had operated on her to try to ease the swelling on her brain. At debrief, John had told him she hadn't made it. Scott had struggled with the guilt, the events replaying in his mind. He re-lived the various occasions when people had died in front of him, or because of him. He had blocked out the trauma. Hidden it away until his family started to see it months and months later.

Scott looked up. Isla had been replaced with Daniel. More tears fell as the man bent down and placed his hand in Scott's shoulder.

"Do you remember now? Do you understand what happened?"

Scott nodded. He couldn't speak it yet, but he knew they would discuss it eventually.

"She was all in your head, Scott."

Scott nodded and resumed gazing at the name on the stone.

"I'll give you some time."

Scott just sat there. His head started to run over the past year, trying to see Isla as dead. Closing his eyes against the thoughts of what his family had seen. All those looks started to make sense. Footsteps came up behind him. He wasn't ready to go yet.

"Did you know her?" A familiar voice asked.

Scott wanted to ignore her. She wasn't real. He had spent a year relying on someone he had made up. But the question was weird, it didn't make sense. He glanced over his shoulder and there she was. Except instead of jeans and a crop top, she had on a flowery summer's dress. The only time he'd seen Isla in a dress was at the gala. The other strange thing was the glasses. Her green eyes were gazing down at him through thin black frames. There was a sadness in her expression and a warmth in her eyes. In her arms was a bunch of white and purple flowers.

"Briefly." Scott replied.

"She was a wild one, wasn't she?" A small smile came to the woman's lips.

"Yes."

Scott was confused. The woman placed the flowers down, before taking a cloth out of her bag. She started cleaning the grave. He glanced over towards the path where Daniel was standing. He nodded.

"You look like Isla."

The woman stopped. She gave him a curious look.

"You really did only meet her briefly, didn't you? She normally brags about how different we are. I'm her identical twin, Sophie."

Sophie held out her hand and he took it. She felt real. He suddenly realised he'd never touched Isla. So many times he had stopped himself just before contact was made. Suddenly he had so much to ask. He had a deep need to know Isla, the real Isla, to separate her from the person he'd made up. Sophie finished cleaning the grave and placed the flowers in front of it, before sitting beside him. He was gawking at her.

"I miss her. Did you know she was rescued by International Rescue? She would have loved that. Bragged about it. She would have told me, and anyone who would listen, every single small detail. Would have gone on about it for years."

"You still think positively about International Rescue?"

Scott had to ask. Did she even know the circumstances? They sometimes received hate mail from grieving loved ones. Was she one of them? He wouldn't blame her.

"Why would I? They were there when no one else could be. They gave her a chance. I'm glad she wasn't alone. I sent them a thank you letter a few months back, when I finally felt able to. I know it's not enough but it's all I could do."

Scott turned back to the grave. He had made up Isla as a way to cope with the trauma. One trauma too many. He had wanted Isla to live so much that he'd saved her the only way he could. He'd made her alive to him. Yet in doing so he'd forgotten himself and pushed away his family.

"Thank you."

Sophie smiled at him. "If you ever want to talk about her, just message me."

Scott nodded. He said goodbye and headed to Daniel. He took one last look back. He finally knew he was on the road to recovery.

*****

Three months of treatment and Scott had slept two weeks without a nightmare. He had consented to residential treatment after visiting the graveyard. Daniel had supported him through it, and it had helped him break the habits he'd developed over the last year. Slowly, Scott felt better. He saw a grief counsellor, who helped him come to terms not just with Isla's death, but the others he'd seen, and prepared him for the ones he was going to see. There had been so much to unravel but seeing the way his brothers reacted when they visited was worth it. He set up a weekly gaming session with Alan and was back to going to every family film night, no matter how awful Dad's film choices were. Daniel had advised against getting in contact with Sophie again, not wanting to trigger a relapse, but he had visited her research team. Scott continued to fund their work, as a way of keeping her legacy alive.

He was now back on the island and setting up a new routine. It would go out the window the minute he was cleared for duty again, but it kept him busy. He had finally taken Virgil up on the offer of a trip in their small plane. Virgil refused to relinquish the controls when Scott complained about it being a big tease. His hands itched for the control, stirred by the sensation of flying, and the adrenaline it released into his system. Virgil just grinned at him and Scott knew he was beaten. Dad had even let Scott sit in when Alan tested Thunderbird One's newly repaired engine. Scott needed to feel his ship again, and was impressed at how Alan's handling had improved. Three more weeks of waiting. In three weeks they were going to reassess him for missions. Scott was counting the days. He was on the road to recovery. Soon he'd be well enough to be a pilot again.

#thunderbirds are go #Scott Tracy #whump #hurt #phantom #grandma tracy #alan tracy #Virgil Tracy #ilsa #i fixed him #did you see it coming?

4 notes · View notes

quinnybee-writes · 5 years

Text

Title: Fire Meet Gasoline

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Rating: T+

Part: 6/?

Story Summary: A chance encounter between a villain and vigilante leads to an unwise deal made between unlikely allies; an unwise deal made between unlikely allies ends in a final stand neither would have ever dared to take on alone. Together, though, they just might have a fighting chance.

Part 6 Summary: Favor number two tests the patience of one and the mettle of another, leaving uncertainty about both in its wake.

Part 1 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 2 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 3 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 4 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 5 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 6 on AO3

I swear to god if if I have to sit through one more meeting where I get voluntold to pick up another department’s slack in the same sentence as management trying to cut my intern’s hours I’m going to chug a two-liter of Surge and burp so loud I bring this whole mfer down with me.

Shouta stared at his phone, his sleep-addled brain trying to make sense of whether Yamada meant the text as a threat or not. He’d been catching a quick power nap in the back of his truck during his lunch hour and had been most of the way asleep when the rattle of his phone on the metal floor jolted him awake again. Not helping his attempt to dissect the meaningless hyperbole was Yamada’s follow up text of lmao it u along with a gif of a cat trying to jump from a bed to a dresser and falling halfway with the caption “parkour!”. He wouldn’t put it past Yamada to be the type to threaten in one breath and quote a meme in the next, but he couldn’t wrap his brain around why Yamada would be sending him incriminating evidence via text message during work hours.

Two new messages came in quick succession as Shouta was trying to puzzle things out.

Oh my god

Those were supposed to go to my sister holy shit

So not an admission or a threat, just an idiot with a cell phone. Shouta groaned, eyes rolling back in his head in disgust at how much energy he had wasted on taking Yamada seriously yet again.

forget it Shouta sent back.

Cute cat pic for ur trouble? Yamada replied along with a picture of a gangly black cat with bright yellow eyes. The cat was sprawled on its back in a pile of kibble and the shredded scraps of a cat food bag. Shouta snorted, grinning a little in spite of himself at the self-satisfied look on the cat’s fuzzy little face.

cute he texted, trying to distill as much exhaustion and disinterest into the single word as possible.

That’s Ai-chan. She’s a monster, but she’s my monster <3

So what are you up to? Break from work?

Shouta sighed, rubbing his temples. It was impossible to freeze out someone who was so willing to keep the conversation going without outside input.

trying to catch some sleep before afternoon deliveries Shouta replied as pointedly as he could.

Oof. Busy night?

do you need something? Shouta asked, stabbing the send key a little harder than he really needed to. There was a short, offended pause from Yamada’s end of the line; Shouta could picture him looking down at his phone with that little not-quite-pouting moue he always made when things weren’t going his way.

I guess not.

The curt punctuation seemed to signal Yamada had finally gotten the point, just in time to exhaust the last of Shouta’s free time before he had to get going again. Shouta put his phone into his pocket and made a point to not check it again until he was walking home. Waiting for him was another gif, this time of a pair of hands vigorously shaking a bottle of Surge, followed by a message that just said Oh goddammit. Shouta rolled his eyes and deleted the thread without replying.

The perceived slight only kept Yamada at bay for a short time, however. Now that he’d gotten a taste of the man’s texting habits Shouta had to wonder how Yamada managed to get anything done. No matter when his breaks were during the day it seemed like Yamada always had some new meme or gif or general workplace complaint to gift him with in the meantime, whether it was before dawn or after dark or occasionally both.

do you actually have a job or do they just pay you to bother me? Shouta finally asked as he waited at an interminable red light several days later. Yamada had been on a spree that morning, flooding his inbox with an illustrated play-by-play of Ai-chan’s newest misdoings while Shouta had four straight hours of back-to-back deliveries.

Excuse you, Yamada texted back loftily, I am an integral part of station management! Who occasionally may or may not take extra long bathroom breaks to avoid getting roped into being more integral than I already am.

my bad. clearly you’re just doing your part to prevent asahi radio from being razed via belch Shouta replied, snorting out a laugh before he could stop himself. He paused, frowning. That was both new and unwelcome.

Yamada sent back a long line of laugh-crying emojis followed by Look who grew a sense of humor just in time to drag me!

don’t act like you know me.

Yeah, yeah. Scout’s honor, I won’t tell anybody you’re actually funny.

Shouta scowled, dropping the phone onto the seat next to him and pulling through the light as it finally turned green. Despite the chilly weather he rolled his window down to get some airflow on his face. He hadn’t turned on the truck’s heater yet but his cheeks already felt way too warm.

Shouta spent his next day off drinking too much coffee at the cat cafe while he tried to reign in the chaos that his computer desktop had become. His phone buzzed on the table beside him and Shouta swiped in the passcode with one hand while the other was dragging a huge load of defunct backup files to his computer’s trash. He’d sooner walk into traffic than admit it to Yamada, but having a passcode on his phone was turning out to be less of an inefficient hassle that he’d always thought it would be and did make him less anxious about putting it places that weren’t his pocket or his hand.

As if waiting for the thought to cue him in, the alert was for yet another of Yamada’s early-morning memes. This time it was a gif of a kitten trying to stay awake before it wobbled and flopped out of frame. Yamada’s accompanying caption read That midweek feeling hitting hard today along with an emoji of a sleeping face with a snot bubble.

it’s monday Shouta texted back.

When you work 24/7 it’s always midweek, Yamada replied.

implying you work at all. still not convinced.

I resent that, Aizawa. It takes a lot of skill and determination to shovel this much shit and still have spare time to be a full-time pain in the ass.

Shouta almost allowed himself a laugh at that, but the air caught in his throat at Yamada’s next question.

So, do you do all of your important hero research on the public wifi at kitty cafes, or is today a special occasion?

What do you mean? Shouta asked warily.

Behind you.

Shouta turned slowly, dreading what he knew he was about to see. Yamada was standing on the sidewalk outside, grinning at him over the top of his cell phone. He gave Shouta a little wave before sauntering in and up to the counter. He chatted amiably with the baristas as they made his order. Shouta frowned to himself, trying to work out the quickest way to pack up his belongings while disturbing as few sleeping cats as possible. The moment came and went too quickly, however, as Yamada came over with two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Black with one sugar, right?” Yamada said. He slid one of the steaming mugs in front of Shouta. “That’s what they said anyway,” he added, nodding up towards the counter.

“What are you doing here?” Shouta asked coolly. Yamada frowned at him.

“I was on my way to the post office to mail a couple things and empty the station P.O. box and saw you in the window,” Yamada said. “I figured we could sit and chat since we both have a minute.”

“You just kind of assume you’re welcome wherever you decide to be, don’t you?” Shouta said.

Yamada snorted. “If that’s the worst thing someone tells me about myself today, I’ll count it as a win,” he replied, toasting Shouta with his coffee cup. He invited himself to sit down in the only chair not currently occupied by cats. “Wait, is that a spreadsheet with my name on it?” he added with sudden interest, arching his neck around to peek at Shouta’s screen. Shouta slammed the lid of his laptop shut, feeling his face heating.

“Do you need something?” Shouta asked, trying to redirect the conversation and get Yamada back on his way as quickly as possible.

“Just caffeine and conversation,” Yamada shrugged. “Is it illegal to ask someone about their day?”

“Implying you care about whether or not you’re doing something illegal,” Shouta replied curtly. To his annoyance Yamada just chuckled and shrugged.

“I mean, you’ve got me there,” he said. “So, what are you working on?” Yamada added, lowering his tone just slightly.

“Catching up on some things,” Shouta said, intentionally vague. “Organizing research. It takes longer when you’re doing it on your own.”

“I bet,” Yamada agreed. “Would probably save you some time and effort to have a permanent back door into places you’re not supposed to be, huh?” He said it with a too-even speculation that set Shouta instantly on edge.

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Shouta said.

“I know people who know things,” Yamada said with a broad, conspiratorial grin over his coffee mug. “Keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is a lot easier when you can tell which is which.”

Shouta felt a frisson of discomfort run up his spine at the implication of where Yamada considered him to be on that spectrum. “I think I liked it better when you were threatening me,” he muttered. “Don’t make more of that than there is,” he added quickly as Yamada’s smile grew cheeky and he opened his mouth to comment. Yamada did his annoying little not-quite-pouting pout and let out a quiet “hmph” at his joke being preempted.

“In any case, you probably don’t need me to tell you how to crack a secure password,” Yamada said. “Even when they’re clever they’re usually related to either the one who sets them or the thing they’re locking up, or they’re something pseudo-random cooked up by a number generator. Sometimes they get stupid-clever and try to do all three.”

“Mmn?” As bored as he was trying to sound, Shouta couldn’t help taking mental notes on what Yamada was saying. Yamada was a flippant trouble-maker from the word go but there were moments where he displayed actual talent for the things he claimed to be an expert in.

“Oh yeah,” Yamada said. “They’re trying for layers of security, but too many moving parts makes passwords way easier to out-think. Codes are only as smart as the people who write them, y’know?”

“And you know how smart they are?” Shouta asked, trying to keep his tone casual as he goaded Yamada into staying on a roll. Yamada caught his drift a little too well, however, and the sharp, meaningful grin came out again.

“I know people who know things,” he said again. “I’d be willing to let you in on a few trade secrets for the low, low price of a certain five-letter word beginning with ‘f’.”

Shouta snorted. “Hard pass.”

“Well, I tried,” Yamada said, shrugging. He checked the time on his phone and sighed. “That’s about my lot, I’m afraid. Gotta get back before the world ends.” He stood and stretched with a groan. “We should do this again sometime. Maybe talk less shop.” The offer seemed oddly genuine and Shouta wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.

He tried to get back to work after Yamada left, but his concentration had been thoroughly broken. He bought another coffee and turned on some neutral background music; his brain, however, was no longer in the mood to stare at a screen and try to riddle out what his new sub-folders should be called. Finally Shouta dislodged the many cats who had taken up residence in and around his lap and packed up his laptop to see if fresh air on the walk home and a change of venue might help get him back on task.

Shouta nudged his apartment door closed with his heel, scooping the mess of envelopes out of his mail bin. It was mostly the normal jumble of junk and bills, but amongst the shuffle was a thin white payroll envelope with his name and address on the front in too-familiar spidery handwriting. Just going to empty the station mailbox indeed, Shouta thought with a groan. Yamada was way too fond of theatrics. He tossed the envelope onto his sofa without opening it and delayed paying it any attention until he’d put everything away, showered, and had a lengthy play session with his cats. If it was unimportant enough for Yamada to not just hand it over when they were in the same room together, Shouta told himself, then there was no need for him to bend over backwards to pay attention to it the instant he got home.

Finally his excuses ran out and he tore the envelope open. Inside were two pieces of paper folded separately into sharp thirds. The first was a handwritten note on Asahi Radio letterhead that read:

Aizawa-

I need a favor. I have a line on something but doing it alone might be tricky. You’ll just be the go-between, nothing dire. Meet me Friday, 9pm sharp.

-M

Also included was another of Yamada’s meticulously notated hand-drawn maps, at the other end of which was a complex of storage units bordered on all sides by a spike-topped chain link fence. Shouta peered into the dark, abandoned-looking guard booth, wondering if the first step to tonight’s goings-on was having to find his own way inside.

“Hey, you made it!”

Shouta turned to see a dark-haired man slouching up towards him from the other end of the sidewalk. He eyed the man warily, about to say he had the wrong person, but stopped as he stepped into the light and raised his sunglasses with a smirk. Yamada had stuffed all of his hair under a short, spiky black wig and a black and green snapback, slicked down his mustache and covered it in a thin layer of skin-colored makeup to blend it in with his face, and buried himself in baggy jeans and a jacket that made him look both heavier-set and a few inches shorter than he actually was. The only things that gave him away were his sharp too-green eyes and his unmistakable grin, full of crafty smugness at Shouta’s open surprise at his appearance. Yamada did a full turnaround of the odd costume, ending the twirl with a dramatic pose.

“Not a bad look for me, huh?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

Shouta snorted. “You look like a washed-up pop star who’s trying to pretend he still has to avoid the paparazzi,” he replied flatly.

To his surprise Yamada let out a burst of full-throated laughter at the remark. Shouta wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Yamada laugh in genuine amusement before now, only the occasional mocking chuckle or triumphant snicker. He had a loud, whinnying kind of laugh that tapered off into short bursts of wheezy, hyena-like giggles behind his hand as he remembered himself and tried to tamp it down.

“Okay, cynical,” Yamada said, still coughing through the last of his laughing fit. “Everyone’s a critic.” He rolled his eyes and gave a flourishy “well, what are you gonna do” kind of shrug. Shouta scowled at him.

“What are we doing here?” Shouta asked, doing his best to ignore Yamada’s grandstanding despite the growing burn of annoyance creeping up his face.

“Just a quick jaunt into my evil lair,” Yamada said cheerfully. He punched an entry code into the number pad next to the guard house, then pressed his thumb to the scanner underneath. The keypad flashed green and beeped an affirmative, and a small portion of the gate swung inward. “C’mon,” Yamada said. He motioned for Shouta to follow him as he led the way through the rows of squat cinder block units to one in the very back left corner of the lot.

“People with money can afford secret basements and underground boltholes wherever they need them,” Yamada said over his shoulder as he bent down to unlock the door of the unit, “but the rest of us have to make do with what we’ve got.” He lifted the door just high enough for himself and Shouta to duck under, then set it back down with a clatter. The unit was pitch-black and humid inside and smelled like a mixture of burnt-out electrical parts, solder, and partially cured epoxy glue. “I’ll get the lights, one sec,” Yamada said. Shouta heard him scrabbling along the wall to find the light switch, then a click. A fluorescent shop light flickered and buzzed to life above them, flooding the unit in intense blue-white light. Yamada turned to Shouta and spread his hands wide. “Taa-daa! Welcome to the inner sanctum.”

It looked more like a high school shop room that had sublet space to a thrift store. The left wall had been covered in a cluster of flat-pack bookshelves, their shelves bowing under a jumble of storage boxes labeled things like “radio parts-LIVE”, “speaker wire”, “tape--sticky”, and “tape--magnetic”. The back wall was one long anchored shelf divided into slots that held overstuffed file folders bundled together with rubber bands and binder clips. The only wall not covered in shelving or projects was taken up with a butcher block work table and a cork board with scribbled notes and schematics pinned to it.

“Kind of rinky-dink, but it gets the job done,” Yamada said fondly. “Anyway. First things first, did you happen to wear the stab vest I gave you?” he asked over his shoulder as he ducked under the work table and retrieved a box marked with today’s date.

“Yeah.” The assurance that his part in tonight would be “nothing dire” had put Shouta on high enough alert that he’d forced himself to put pride aside and opt for personal safety instead.

“Thank god. So, basically what I need is for you to be my stand in while things get underway tonight,” Yamada said. “I’d go on my own, but the meeting place is kind of a...no-go area for me right now due to certain people who frequent it.”

“And you’d rather send me in looking like you instead?” Shouta asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Yamada stared at Shouta like he’d started speaking French.

“What? God, no, what gave you that idea?”

Shouta sighed, silently counting to ten in his head as his patience frayed. “You just said I’m supposed to be your stand in.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, poor choice of words. Think stunt double, not body double,” Yamada explained. “I just need you to be a good-faith warm body, I’ll be handling the rest with this.” He reached into the box and pulled out something that looked like a cold weather mask had been extruded into a large funnel shape at the bottom edge. Shouta looked from it to Yamada, who was beaming in obvious self-pride.

“Which is…?” Shouta prompted.

“Which is your half of a two-way radio with a built in broadcasting speaker,” Yamada said, turning the top edge inside out to show Shouta the wiring and speakers sewn into it. “At first I thought maybe I could just have you memorize a script and I’d step in if things got too off-book, but you’re not very good at lying under pressure so I wasn’t sure that would fly,” he continued. Shouta wasn’t sure if that was meant as an insult or not. “So instead, we have this to work with. I can use this--” Yamada pulled up his sleeve to show a tiny microphone taped to the inside of his wrist-- “to talk to you or talk as you, depending, as long as I stay within ten or twelve feet of you at all times.” The last part he said in one of his uncomfortably accurate impressions of Shouta’s voice.

“And that’s why you’re dressed like that?” Shouta said.

“Exactly. I’ll have to be close enough to you that the receiver can pick up the signal, and it’ll be way easier to read the room if I’m, y’know, in the room.”

“If you were going to put on a costume and go anyway, why didn’t you just do that and go on your own?” Shouta asked.

Yamada frowned and waved a finger at him like he was scolding a child. “Eh-eh-eh. No questions asked, remember? You know as much as you need to know, and you don’t need to know any more than that. Now stand still so I can get you wired up.”

Shouta grudgingly stood with his arms straight out from his body as Yamada turned him into a human switchboard. With a combination of strategic placement and gaffer tape Yamada ran a long wire with an audio jack on one end and a battery connection on the other from Shouta’s waist up his left side to just under his collar bone. Another wire ran the length of his inner arm from shoulder to wrist and ended in a loop with a switch on it that fit over the first knuckle of his thumb. All he had to do, Yamada said as he taped it all down, was press the switch when he needed to talk to Yamada and let it go when he was finished. “Y’know,” Yamada said, “like those cheap walkie-talkies you used to play with as a kid.”

“I ended up making this a lot bigger at the bottom so that we can hide all of our crimes under it,” Yamada muttered as he slipped the mask over Shouta’s head. He was back in the extreme focus mode Shouta had seen him slip into before, attention laser-focused and the corner of his mouth between his teeth as he connected all the wires and power sources underneath. He pulled an earpiece up under the mask by its wire and stuck it in Shouta’s ear before reaching up to fuss with Shouta’s hair and make sure it was hiding everything sticking above the mask. Shouta shivered involuntarily at the touch, barely resisting the urge to pull away. “With the right top layer all of this should be more or less invisible,” Yamada went on, frowning appraisingly as he took a step back to examine his handiwork. He rummaged through a few things in the box and surfaced with a heavy black zippered jacket. “I had to guess sizes, but I think this one should be close enough.”

Yamada unzipped the jacket and held it out so that Shouta could shrug into it. Shouta eased the jacket on, trying not to disturb the network of wires all over him. Yamada zipped it up almost to the top, open enough to seem casual but still high enough to cover all but the face portion of the mask and its contents. It wasn’t a terrible fit other than being slightly short in the sleeves and restrictive around the shoulders. Shouta bent and twisted his arms, trying to stretch it out without doing damage to the electronic infrastructure. Yamada untied the audiojack end of the main wire from Shouta’s belt loop and stuck it into a small cheap-looking disposable cell phone.

“This should have enough battery to keep a recording of the whole thing,” Yamada said. “Can you give me a quick mic check to make sure everything’s hooked up?”

“Uh. Testing,” Shouta said.

Yamada seemed to like what he saw in the waveforms on the phone’s screen. He smiled in satisfaction before stretching a piece of tape around the back of the phone and carefully taping it into place in Shouta’s pocket. “If we head out right now we should get there early enough to do a few on-site checks,” Yamada said, checking the time. “Shall we?”

The two of them walked a few blocks from the storage unit to a cramped, dim little pub. Yamada walked at tailing distance behind Shouta the whole way, testing the range on the homemade gear by giving Shouta directions to where they were going. The audio was relatively clear if they stayed within Yamada’s estimation of ten or so feet; after they hit closer to the twelve-foot mark it got fainter and fainter until dropping out completely as they reached about fifteen feet. Again Shouta had to wonder why, if they were essentially going to be handcuffed to one another anyway, Yamada couldn’t have just gone undercover by himself.

“Grab a drink at the bar and go sit at one of the high-top tables,” Yamada said as Shouta opened the bar’s door and made his way in. “That’s where he’ll be expecting you.”

“Any advice on how to recognize whoever I’m supposed to be meeting?” Shouta muttered back under his breath.

“No idea, he said he would find you. That’s pretty standard for a meeting like this,” Yamada added before Shouta could protest. “Nobody wants to get jumped outside before negotiations even get underway. Think of it as a blind date, but nefarious.”

Shouta sighed loudly, making sure he hit the switch so that Yamada would hear him. Yamada’s never-ending supply of bad metaphors was the last thing he needed right now.

“Calm down, Aizawa,” Yamada said. “Remember, all you have to do is sit there and look pretty, I’ll handle the talking.” There was a short fizzle of static as Yamada entered the pub and made his way to a secluded booth in the back corner. “Still read me?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. What’s your poison?”

“Pardon?”

“Beer? Wine? Shot of whiskey to settle your nerves?”

“You really want alcohol anywhere near all this equipment?” Shouta asked, bewildered.

“It’s just for show, who goes into a bar and doesn’t order anything? You shouldn’t drink anything they serve here anyway, their bartending is a bad joke,” Yamada said dismissively. “I just need to test the audio output and make sure we’re good to go before the main event.”

“Then just do it,” Shouta said shortly. “Didn’t you just say you were going to handle all the talking?”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Yamada muttered again. His usual flippant chill had gained an undertone of cranky tenseness that was less than reassuring. “Can I get a bottle of Sapporo?” Yamada said aloud in Shouta’s voice. Shouta just managed to turn toward the bartender in time for the question to seem natural. The bartender, a smirking woman with long brown hair held back in a red ribbon, gave him an appraising once-over. She seemed to be unimpressed with what she saw.

“Sure,” the bartender said. She reached into a cooler under the counter and came back with the bottle of beer, popping the lid off before placing it on the bar in front of Shouta.

“Thanks,” Yamada said, far more cheerfully than Shouta had ever said the word. Shouta nodded his own thanks and went to go sit at one of the high tables in a cluster near the front. He drummed his heel on the bottom rung of the bar stool. The bar was basically empty and silent other than the bartender’s phone playing lo-fi swing music from a speaker dock behind the bar. Otherwise it was just Shouta and his undrinkable beer killing time.

“Ohshit.” The words came out as a single noise hissed violently in Shouta’s ear, making him jump.

“What?” he hissed back, avoiding the curious look the bartender was giving him.

“Remember how I said there were some people who made this place a no-go area because they want to kill me?” Yamada said, sounding like he was talking through his teeth.

“Yeah?”

“That’s them coming in. Don’t look at them! Have you never been undercover in your life?” Yamada whisper-shouted as Shouta turned to look over his shoulder at the door. Almost immediately he snapped his head back around, trying to be as casual as possible about pulling the jacket’s hood over his head as he saw Takeshiro and his wife coming in and sitting a few tables away.

“You know them?” Shouta asked, hopelessly hoping Yamada actually meant someone else who was still outside.

“Ye-ep,” Yamada said, distaste drawing the word out several syllables longer than it needed to be. “They’re still kind of sore about a certain scene in a certain alley you might be familiar with.” He scoffed, then hissed, “Wait, you know them?” as Shouta’s tone dawned on him.

The alleyway. Shapes in the dark played back in Shouta’s head, fuzzy from time and panic but falling into clearer place with the new context. A short, stringy figure barking orders and bailing when things got complicated; the other taller and stocky and silent with a plant-based Quirk protecting him. Shouta gritted his teeth, annoyed by how clear the connection seemed now that it was right in front of him.

“Takeshiro works on the night crew in package processing. Takes a lot of sick days now that I think of it. I’ve never actually spoken to his wife but I’ve seen her at office parties before,” he said quietly.

“His wife? Ew,” Yamada said.

“You’re telling me they’re villains?” Shouta asked, ignoring him. Yamada snorted.

“So-called. They work for an egomaniac middleman called Seguchi. Hebiko is Seguchi’s left hand, and Takeshiro’s hers.”

“What did you do to make them want to kill you?”

“Their boss did something stupid with information that wasn’t his and got busted. I had nothing to do with it,” Yamada retorted tartly.

“Right, sure,” Shouta said. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“Nah, shouldn’t be,” Yamada said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “This is why I planned things this way. No reason to bail out before anything happens.” Shouta was about to protest that it made a lot more sense to leave before there was a problem rather than scrambling when they were in trouble, but Yamada spoke first. “Heads up, you’ve got company.”

“So you’re Null.”

Shouta turned to see a lanky man with brownish hair and a narrow, rattish face standing slouched behind him with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his grubby jeans.

“Potentially,” Yamada replied. “You’re Raimaru?” His impression of Shouta’s voice was dead-on, which was bad enough on its own, but there was something just slightly off about his intonation that made Shouta’s skin crawl.

“That’s what they call me,” the man said. ”Getcha a refill while we talk?” he added, nodding at Shouta’s obviously untouched beer.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Shouta fiddled with the neck of the bottle to make it seem less like a static prop on the table in front of him. Even if Yamada had been against the idea of giving him a script to follow, some guidance on what to do in general might have been nice. He felt stiff and awkward, like a puppet whose puppeteer only had a vague idea of how natural movements worked.

“Suit yourself,” Raimaru shrugged. He ambled off to talk to the bartender, seeming to be doing his best to chat her up as she mixed his drink.

“‘Null’?” Shouta muttered to Yamada.

“Short for ‘nullify’, like your Quirk. Get it?” When Shouta just sighed in reply, Yamada added defensively, “Well, I had to call you something, didn’t I?”

“Did you?”

“What did you want me to say, ‘oh by the by you’ll be meeting my friend Shouta Aizawa, he’s thirty, single, a Scorpio, and lives in a single-occupancy uptown with three cats’?” Yamada retorted.

He technically had a point and Shouta hated that the most out of all the things he hated about this evening so far. Yamada had no time to gloat over the win, however, as Raimaru came back and dropped onto the stool across from Shouta.

“Kind of a hassle, having to be the face of cleaning up all of your boss’s bad behavior, huh? From what I’ve heard he’s got plenty to go around,” Raimaru said. Shouta privately agreed with the sentiment, but Yamada snorted instead.

“I get paid to go where I’m told, not to pass judgements,” Yamada replied stiffly. Shouta resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the defensive bluster. Raimaru laughed for him.

“I dunno about that. There’s plenty of judgement to go around if you want some,” Raimaru said. “Seems like the only books he can get into these days are peoples’ bad ones.”

“You think he gives a damn about anyone’s books other than his own?”

“I’m just saying I know a glorywhore when I see one. He spends all of his time making deals and playing nice and then suddenly people higher than him start going to jail,” Raimaru said. “Happened to Fukawa, happened to Seguchi, happened to Iwata. Hell, everyone knows he snitched and got Hanajima back in the day but Hanajima got shanked in prison and all his men scattered so nobody talks about him anymore.”

Shouta squirrelled the names away to research later, though other than those names Raimaru had said precious little to convince him that he knew much of anything besides Yamada’s surface reputation. So far his assertions had been vague at best and his “work, am I right?” tone was suspiciously chummy, like he was trying to nudge “Null” into letting something incriminating slip out.

“Why is any of this relevant?” Yamada asked. He sounded equally short on patience with Raimaru’s unsubtle attempts at currying favor. Raimaru gave a slightly passive-aggressive shrug.

“There’s a storm coming. A big one, one that’s gonna hit hard and rewrite a lot of rules about who’s in charge and who’s got a boot on their necks. You’re not gonna be in a great spot if you’re working for the Bird, so I thought you’d wanna know there’s better options,” he said. It was the first thing he’d said that sounded like he actually knew what he was talking about and it was not a reassuring change. Yamada, however, seemed unfazed.

“What, some new jumped-up ‘super’ villain with big plans for a criminal utopia?” Yamada said, unimpressed. “Seen ‘em come, seen ‘em go, nothing of value was lost. You asked me to come here because you had something valuable you wanted to trade. Is that still the case, or should I head out and stick you with the tab for wasting my time?”

“So, that’s a ‘no’ from you?” Raimaru asked, still grinning like someone had wired the corners of his mouth behind his ears.

“I didn’t hear a question being asked, but…” All of a sudden Yamada’s voice trailed off in a fizzle of static. Shouta tensed. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Yamada, who met his eye with a look that was not quite panic but was very, very close to it. Yamada tapped his ear questioningly. Shouta twitched his head to the side in a negative. He saw Yamada mouth “Shit!” before his attention snapped back to the problem in front of him as Raimaru let out a short chuckle.

“Never a good idea to use radio signals around me,” Raimaru said smugly. “They usually end up a little...dead.” He casually brought the hand that had been under the table to rest on its surface. It was holding a large pocket knife, which he casually flicked open and closed as he spoke. All of the plastic had been stripped off of the knife, leaving behind just the blades and metal guts holding them together. As Shouta eyed it, the blade began to glow a smokey orange around Raimaru’s fingertips.

“I think we’re done here,” Shouta said, trying to match the off-cadence way Yamada had been using his voice all night.

This only seemed to egg Raimaru on, however, as he cranked his Quirk up another notch. Shouta felt a static prickling like the kind before a huge lightning strike setting the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck on end. A tinny shrilling feedback noise whined through his earpiece, making him jolt and hiss in sudden pain. Shouta gritted his teeth and set his own Quirk on Raimaru instead. A hasty decision, it turned out, as a sudden crash of noise hit him all at once. Yamada’s voice half-shouting in his ear was interlaced with loud snaps of static as the equipment reconnected. Shouta winced at the onslaught, clapping a hand to his ear before he could stop himself. The moment of distraction was all Raimaru needed.

“So the Bird’s doggy wants to bark, huh?” In one fluid motion Raimaru threw what was left in his glass in Shouta’s eyes and hooked a foot under the bottom rung of Shouta’s stool, yanking it from under him. Shouta toppled to the floor, landing hard on his ass and elbows as he futilely tried to catch himself as he fell. He blinked hard, tears streaming as his eyes burned with whatever had been in that glass. Raimaru grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him partially upright.

“Things could have gone better for you, but it looks like the Bird just likes making things difficult,” Raimaru said.

Shouta dug his fingers into Raimaru’s wrist, trying to wrestle himself free. Raimaru smirked, a violent shock sparking off of his skin and into Shouta’s arm. Shouta let out a bark of agony as his entire arm below the shoulder seized and went numb. Someone else’s hand, large and thick-fingered, ripped his back by the forearm, twisting his hand back and up between his shoulder blades. Shouta stiffened. He hadn’t heard Takeshiro or his wife approaching during the scuffle but it was obvious now they had him surrounded. He thought of the alley and the way they had closed ranks around Yamada, accounting for every avenue of escape except for a one-in-a-million outside intervention. Shouta darted a look over to Yamada. Their eyes met for a split second that lasted an eon. Yamada’s eyes were wide and his face had gone deathly pale as he took in the scene in front of him. He was frozen half in motion, caught between breaking cover to come help and his desire to steer clear of Takeshiro and Hebiko. Shouta’s stomach sank as Yamada dropped his gaze, hunching in on himself and pulling his hat down farther to hide his face.

“Last chance, doggy,” Raimaru said. “That signal was too weak to come from very far away. Point us in the right direction and we’ll let you go, no hard feelings. Otherwise we send you back to your master in pieces.”

He leaned in as he threatened, and Shouta took the opportunity to show him how close was too close. Shouta reared back, then rammed his forehead into Raimaru’s nose at full force. As Raimaru reeled back, Shouta slammed himself back into Takeshiro, sending the man spine-first into the edge of a table. Takeshiro grunted in pain and Shouta twisted away from his grasp as Takeshiro tried to catch himself. Raimaru sank his fist into Shouta’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him, but Shouta managed to activate his Quirk again before Raimaru could shock him. Shouta retaliated with a sharp hook, jamming his fist into Raimaru’s solar plexus with as much force as he could muster. As Raimaru doubled over Shouta grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed him face-first into the table.

“All right, ENOUGH!” the bartender yelled. She was floating above the bar with a warning look on her face, a thin metal pipe leveled at Shouta’s head. Shouta looked from her to Takeshiro and Hebiko, who had backed off behind their table again, to Raimaru, who was staring up from under his hand with undisguised disgust as he bled onto the table. Shouta took a moment to catch his breath, then released Raimaru. Not bothering to see if Yamada would follow, Shouta took the moment of peace to walk out of the bar.

The night air was cold and made his face feel closed in and sticky under the mask. Shouta jerked it down under his chin, sucking in a hard breath. The adrenaline in his veins felt like a cloying, choking compulsion to just run, escape, flee as fast as he could in any direction that would count as away. His lungs burned nearly as badly as his eyes, every new breath feeling like a sharp stab in the chest. A strange itching slightly farther down his abdomen joined the pain in his chest as he half-sprinted down the sidewalk. Shouta looked down and froze mid-step. The bare metal handle of Raimaru’s knife stuck out of his stomach at an almost perfect perpendicular angle, jammed in so far that the tip was pressing the rough kevlar of his stab vest against his flesh.

“Ho-ly shit that was a whole bunch of something.” Shouta didn’t look up from the knife almost in his gut as Yamada’s voice crowed out behind him. He felt Yamada digging in his pocket and retrieving the cell phone. “Could have gone better for sure, but also could have gone worse.” Yamada gave Shouta a cheery smack on the shoulder. “You and I make a pretty good team, huh? C’mon, let’s go find a nicer place to grab a bite and hang out until things die down.”

He paused like he fully expected Shouta to agree and follow after him, but Shouta was barely listening. His mind was still trying to process the knife handle sticking out of his stomach. The night “could have gone worse”? Raimaru had almost made good on the threat to send Shouta home in pieces while Yamada cowered in a corner booth, more worried about being seen than being helpful, and Yamada was congratulating himself for a job well done.

“Aizawa? Earth to Aizawa? Hey, are you okay? You’re shaking.” There was a note of real concern in Yamada’s voice as he reached out a hand to steady the trembling in Shouta’s body.

The idea of Yamada making any kind of physical contact snapped the last bit of sane civility Shouta had left in him. True fury, hot and fast and scraped raw by everything that was running through Shouta’s head, boiled over in his chest. He swung wildly at Yamada, hoping to make contact but hoping more just to fend him off as violently as possible. Yamada yelped and jumped backwards, hands coming up to protect himself.

“Whoa! What the hell--?” Yamada began, but Shouta was already swinging again. He wanted to make Yamada bleed, make him feel even half as agonized and afraid as he did right now. Yamada stumbled away from him, eyes wide in shock and confusion. His back hit the brick wall of a building and Shouta got right up in his face, Quirk blazing and teeth bared in a hateful snarl as he spoke.

“Let me be clear with this, so maybe you’ll hear it over the sound of your own voice,” Shouta said between clenched teeth. “We are not partners. We do not make a good team. We are sure as fuck not friends who hang out. You are a problem in my life that I am trying to solve. Get that through your thick skull and stop acting like we’re in this together.” He pulled the knife out and threw it violently at Yamada’s feet before turning on his heel and striding away as fast as his legs could carry him.

As soon as he staggered into his apartment and secured every lock and deadbolt on his door Shouta stripped down, dumping everything he’d been wearing in a heap in the entryway. Ignoring his cats’ cries for attention, Shouta went straight to the bathroom and ran the shower as hot as he could stand it. He could feel himself shaking now, the dregs of adrenaline making his legs weak rather than holding him up any longer. He sat down in his tub with the scalding water beating against his back, arms wrapped around himself. He looked down and saw a long irritated scratch rising on his stomach where the knife had dragged against him through the vest. Shouta let out a long, unsteady breath and closed his eyes. He’d been a vigilante for long enough to know that it meant going without any kind of help when things went from bad to worse to potentially lethal; until now not even his worst cases had shaken him like this. But those times he’d known the risk going in and taking it on had been his choice, which made all the difference. Yamada had known, though. Yamada had known they should have bailed as soon as their worst case scenario walked in the pub’s doors and he’d used Shouta as a human shield to try to get what he wanted anyway. Shouta gritted his teeth, nails digging into his palms as his hands balled into fists. He shouldn’t have expected anything less from someone like Yamada.

Never again, Shouta thought as he roughly toweled off. Yamada could keep his favors and his trade secrets and all the rest of it. He’d need all the help he could get, because as far as Shouta was concerned Yamada was on his own from this moment on.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #eraserhead bnha #eraserhead mha #present mic #erasermic #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #shouta aizawa #hizashi yamada #Fire Meet Gasoline AU #Quinny thinks she's a writer

6 notes · View notes

dramallamadingdang · 5 years

Note

Speaking of religion, I saw in a lot of MTS off-topic discussions that you identified yourself as a Christian and defended it a lot. I think you even said once that you were waiting for your husband to die so you can remarry? IDK. What made you switch to our side?

Ooooooh, deconversion testimony. Let’s do this thing, man!

Yes, I was a quite fundamentalist Christian, in certain respects, for a long time. I was part of a non-denominational church that had strong Pentecostal leanings. The theology was very much of the “hellfire and brimstone” variety, and to this day I can still speak in tongues with the best of them. *laugh* Thankfully, I had not been indoctrinated into any religion as a child, but rather did the “Save me, Jesus!” prayer at the age of 15, after attending my friend’s Assembly of God church for a while off and on, mostly when I’d stay over at her place on Saturday nights. Initially, my conversion was mostly an act of rebellion against my nominally-Catholic but spiritually lackadaisical mother. (By that I mean that she’s probably always been atheist but she never wanted to use the “A” word to describe herself because of its negative connotations, particularly amongst her very Catholic family.) But, even though I didn’t really take it seriously at first, Fundie Christianity got its hooks into me pretty good.

That being said, I always had some beliefs that did not toe the party line, as it were, precisely because I had not suffered childhood indoctrination. The primary things that I had to keep more on the down-low were that I could never be anti-gay, nor could I ever accept creationism as true. (I saw the latter as utterly idiotic even when I was at my Christian-est, although for a while I was convinced of intelligent design.) However, I was very convinced of God’s existence, and I swallowed the hell thing whole, and I believed that the Bible, aside from its creation fairy tale, was all true but that it needed to be read in historical context in order to understand what it “really meant.” That last bit was how I got around thorny things like, for instance, the Bible’s denouncement of homosexuality in both of its Testaments as well as its balls-out endorsement of slavery in both Testaments. But, I did love me some Jesus, yes. I was one of those who focused more on on the happy-lovey verses in the New Testament while deliberately not addressing the far more numerous horrifying bits in both Testaments. I coasted along in my faith just fine. I was even good at winning converts for the church because, having been raised by lawyers who wanted me to be a lawyer, too, I was indoctrinated into bull-headed logic and rhetoric and argument as a child. :)

Problems began, though, when I married my first husband. We married in 1992, so I’d been Christian ~15 years by that time. About a year after we married, he began to buy into the Duggar-esque “the man is the head of the household and the woman must be submissive” bullshit. Thankfully, he didn’t want to have two dozen kids, at least. It was bad enough, from my point of view, that he wanted a wife who did what she was told and waited on him hand and foot, with bonus sex toy functions on demand, all in the name of the Lord. I, as a dominant female raised by very strong 60s-era feminists – as in, both my mother and father – had…hmmm, difficulty with the whole submission thing, though I did try really, really hard, much to the detriment of my mental well-being.

Secretly, though? Well, secretly, I deliberately took off my “God glasses” and began to do some extremely intense (and, notably, objective) Bible study that incorporated non-religious academic study materials along with the standard apologetic stuff. I spent hours at the library (since the interwebs were in their infancy at the time *laugh*) researching and studying because I refused to accept the notion that the God whom I loved and who I knew I loved me really just wanted me to be chattel, not much different from the livestock that people also weren’t supposed to covet. I was confident that this could not really be the case, and the lawyers’ kid in me wanted to be able to present a solid, well-argued, airtight case to my husband (and to the church as a whole) that would make him see that he was wrong about what God wanted, and then everything would be just fine.

Of course, my husband wasn’t wrong, as it turned out, and thus began my disillusion. I started studying other topics that nagged at my conscience in the same way and…Well, as they say, the easiest way to become an atheist is to be a Christian and objectively read the Bible. (There’s a reason that laypeople reading the Bible is discouraged, if not outright disallowed, in the Catholic church.) So, from the early 90s on, I began a long, slow slide down the slippery slope to apostasy. I didn’t recognize that that was what it was, of course. I thought I was discovering the “real Christianity” that all the people in the church pews, with dogma up to their eyeballs, were missing. Turns out, what I was really discovering was…Well, not to put too fine a point on it or anything, that the Bible is BS and so is Christianity in general. And, after expanding my self-education to include other theistic religions, thinking that maybe one of them was right, that, alas, there is not a single sliver of evidence for any god. I could no longer in good conscience believe in any god, not unless/until I had evidence of he/she/it/them. Which, to date, I do not have. (And frankly, if one day I do have evidence of Yahweh’s existence, at least, and if he is what he says he is in the Bible, then I will no longer be an atheist, but I will deem Yahweh unworthy of worship. I’ll be spitting “How dare you?!” at him, all Stephen Fry-esque. I would rather burn in hell than eternally worship such an abhorrent creature.)

Anyway, by the time I was participating in threads on MTS about religion, my husband and I had divorced, and I was probably ¾ of the way down the apostasy slope. At that point, I was still calling myself a Christian but a heretical one, and until about a year ago or so I called myself a Deist because while I could no longer in good conscience call myself a Christian, even a heretical one, there were things that I clung to that I did not want to let go of. Mostly because of “personal experiences” that made me want to think there was a God of some kind. But about a year ago or so, I finally let it all go, to make a long story short, and it was an enormous weight off my shoulders. I’m now comfortable with being publicly truthful about what I am, no longer fearing the “A” word.

That being said, although I have great antipathy for Yahweh himself, I don’t hate Christians or people of any religion. Nor will I “preach atheism.” At least, not here. ;) So, if you’re a Christian or other theist, fear not. I will probably be no more or less of a godless heathen on this particular blog than I have been before. I am, however, considering making an atheist-themed personal sideblog or something, which I would use to occasionally wax anti-apologetic and whatnot. In general, I think it’s important for American atheists, especially, to be “out” if they can be, because America is highly religious, particularly in certain areas, and people who are not with that program need community, especially if they’ve been ostracized by friends/family over their lack of belief. Not to mention the creeping fingers of Christian dominionism in our current government, with things like “religious freedom” bills and the Congressional “Freedom Caucus” and Project Blitz and such, all of which needs to be fought tooth and nail. But…I don’t know that I have the energy for another blog. We’ll see, I guess.

Oh! One last thing. Yes, I did indeed keep my marriage vows post-divorce. Christianity aside, I take serious vows…well, seriously. :) So, although we divorced, I did not sleep with anyone else until my first husband died. I almost didn’t even date anyone else, though current husband and I started dating about 4 months before my first husband died of pancreatic cancer, which at least was after I knew he was terminal and in hospice care. So, yeah, I was celibate for ~17 years. Call me weird, if you wish, but…Well, I take vows seriously. It’s just how I am.

#replies #Anonymous #non sims

26 notes · View notes

lenezdansleruisseau · 5 years

Text

Why Feuilly cares about Italy or “a lot of words to explain Hugo’s crush on Garibaldi”- part 4.2

Hi everyone! I’m officially back *trumpets play a funny song* and with me, it’s back also my niche history corner for everyone interested in answering the question: why did Hugo care about Italian politics?

My friends this is THE chapter, the chapter everyone was waiting for, the chapter that starts to finally explain the title of this series of little history lessons: yes, you guessed it, it’s about Giuseppe Garibaldi.

First of all though, if someone has no idea of what I’m talking about because this is the first time they see me posting anything like this: here, here, here and here you can find the first four parts.

If you’re here just for the main man, Garibaldi, or you just don’t have time to read the other four parts, just a quick reminder: the Kingdom of Sardinia, Piemonte and Savoy are the same thing (more or less, it’s a bit complicated, but this way you’ll follow better the events).

And finally a disclaimer: Garibaldi is a HUGE figure in the history of Italian independence, he is the pinnacle of Italian heroism and he remains on a pedestal of bravery and glory. And he was kind of an incredible figure, I mean I’m not surprised in the least that both Hugo and Dumas LOVED him, he was everything they liked in just one person: (sorry for the spoilers!) he had been a sailor, he was in a secret society, he had been a corsair, fought in, at least, three war of independence, changed identity too many times to be counted, had a romantic and tragic love story started with love-at-first-sight first meeting, he had been a factory worker, he freed slaves, he insulted kings and he was a fervent republican.

But as we well know, and Hugo himself in the book we are all here to analyze in its every detail, no man is perfect and Garibaldi certainly wasn’t. He was better than most, but not perfect.

Why am I saying this? Because I’m not a historian and I’m not perfect either so it can be that some part could be more pro-Garibaldi than they should be, I tried my best though!

The last disclaimer then I’ll start, I swear: there is a part about Brasilian history. Do I know a lot about Brasilian history? Unfortunately not! Did I try to research enough not to say anything really stupid? Yep! Still, if someone wants to expand on that subject or correct me or specify something I couldn’t be happier!

And now let’s begin!

Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in Nice on 4 July 1807. Second son of Domenico, a merchant captain, and Rosa Raimondi. At 8 years he saved a laundress who was drowning and helping people drowning was a constant through his whole life, so much so that it is reported that he saved at least 12 other people in the course of his life.

His parents wanted to make him study to become a lawyer, a doctor or a priest, but Giuseppe did not like to study, preferring physical exercises and sea life. Seeing himself hampered by his father in his vocation to become a sailor, during the holidays he tried to escape to the sea from Genoa with three of his friends. Discovered by a priest who warned the family, he was stopped as soon as he reached Monaco and brought back home (rumors has it that this episode was the beginning of his dislike of the clergy, but I prefer to think his dislike for the clergy was rooted in the knowledge that it was a corrupt institution rather than for some petty teenage resentment).

In the end, he was able to make his dreams come true and become a sailor, he was, first of all, on the brig Costanza, then sailed with his father and other ship-owners to the East. At 25 he commanded a ship of his own and the following year, in 1833, in an inn of Taganrog, on the Black Sea, informed by a friend of his of the Mazzinian political action (= trying to create a Republic in Italy), he was "initiated", as he himself said, to the "sublime mysteries of Patria", and decided to devote himself to the national cause by enrolling in the secret society founded by Mazzini called Giovine Italia (which meant Young Italy).

He embarked as a simple sailor with the name of Cleombroto (which is the name of a Spartan king who fought against Thebes) on the frigate Des Geneys, to participate in the revolt that should have helped the Mazzinian expedition to Savoy.

The revolt failed in February 1834 and he was forced to flee. He was almost caught several times during the escape, after having passed the Varo river (between Savoy and France): the first when on the border it was led momentarily to Draguignan, then to a tavern where he sang all night to escape the host who threatened to denounce him. Finally, he arrived in Marseille.

Meanwhile, he had been declared one of the leaders of the conspiracy and he was sentenced to an ignominious death in absentia as an enemy of Patria and the State. Garibaldi thus became a wanted man and for that time he lived with his friend Giuseppe Pares. Escaping again under a false name, he assumed the identity of an Englishman, Joseph Pane: on the 25th of July, he set sail towards the Black Sea on the French brig Union declaring he was a 27-year-old born in Naples.

He disembarked on the 2nd of March 1835 and in May he was in Tunisia. When he returned to Marseille he found the city devastated by a serious cholera epidemic and so offered himself as a volunteer to work in a hospital and stayed there for fifteen days. Since the routes were partly closed due to cholera, Garibaldi decided to leave for South America with the intention of propagating the Mazzinian ideals.

On September 8, 1835, he left Marseilles on the Nautonnier brig, assuming the false identity of Giuseppe Pane and claiming to have been born in Livorno.

In Rio de Janeiro he participated with other Italian exiles in the meetings of the Giovine Italia. Later he agreed with his friend Rossetti to run a war in favor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul that was rebelling against the Brazilian government, he first became a corsair in the name of the rebellious state (he apparently refused to take any part of the loot for himself even when he became captain and made a point to free any slave they encountered in their missions) and he later became commander of the war fleet. This experience will have great value for the formation of Garibaldi both as a leader of men and as an unpredictable tactician.

In the city of Laguna in 1839 Garibaldi met the woman he would have married some years later: Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva. It is said that, after having seen her with the binoculars while he was on board of his ship, once he reached her on the shore, he said in Italian "tu devi essere mia" (= “you must be mine”). Ana Maria, at the time 18 years old while Garibaldi was 32, had married four years before with a shoemaker, Manuel Duarte de Aguiar, much older than her, who, enlisted among the imperial troops, had fled from Laguna sometime before, but his wife did not follow him.

Garibaldi and Ana Maria passed to history and almost to the legend of the Italian Risorgimento with the diminutive Anita, married on March 26, 1842, at the church of San Francisco of Assisi with a religious rite. It is often told that Anita, a skilled horsewoman, taught Garibaldi how to ride, Giuseppe, in turn, instructed her, by will or by necessity, to the rudiments of military life.

At the beginning of 1842, forced to flee in Montevideo, Garibaldi brought with him Anita, he entered in the Uruguayan navy and he immediately resumed fighting in favor of Fructuoso Rivera against Oribe, supported by the Argentine Dictator De Rosas.

At the command of a flotilla, he was forced by the Argentine fleet near Nueva Cava to seek refuge ashore. Garibaldi had the command of a new flotilla and, having organized an Italian legion, went up the Plata. In September 1846 he was called back in Montevideo where he received the news of the Palermo’s revolution which persuaded him to embark for Italy.

In January 1848 he sent Anita and her sons (from the previous marriage) to Nice to his mother, but the Savoy ambassador didn’t allow him to embark until April of the same year. Once he arrived in Gibraltar, he learned that the king of Sardinia was preparing to intervene against Austria, so he decided to land in Nice, where, to the surprise of his fellow Mazzinians, he declared "not to be Republican, but Italian".

What did these simple words mean? You might ask, my dear readers. Well, they meant that Garibaldi who was a quite good military strategist and a not-too-bad political strategist had understood that the only chance for Italy to become a united, independent state was the Savoy family: Italy had to be united under a monarchy before becoming a Republic.

Was he right? We will never know and we will never know how much he actually believed in the Savoy monarchy. All we can say is that they did manage to unite Italy (after a couple of decades) and that Italy did become a Republic, just only 85 years later.

But back to the first war of independence!

Garibaldi was coldly received by the Sardinian government which wasn’t really convinced he had abandoned his republican dreams especially because Garibaldi was a severe critic of the at-the-time king of Savoy, Carlo Alberto. So much so that the king gave the order to stop him and, if deemed necessary, also to arrest him, causing the desertion of some volunteers. Not even bothered about that, at the command of a group of volunteers, he fought in Luino and conquered Varese which he had to abandon shortly afterward. He resisted in Morazzone and then, pressed by the overwhelming Austrian forces, he sheltered in Switzerland.

Back in Nice, he left with a few hundred volunteers for Sicily, but, having stopped in Tuscany, he offered his sword to the Roman Republic: first he fought in Macerata, which appointed him deputy to the Constituent Assembly, and then in Rieti, he was later called to Rome for the last defense against the French. After the bloody battle of April 30th, 1849 he participated in the brief campaign against the Neapolitan army, interrupted by Mazzini, and later he fought in the siege of Rome which ended with the fall of the Republic.

Garibaldi escaped and repaired to San Marino, from which he intended to reach Venice still a free Republic. Still, in San Marino, he discovered that his wife, who had already been sick for the whole journey, had cholera. They had no choice but to try and find shelter in Venice, but on the way, they were attacked by Austrian ships and they landed on the coast of Magnavacca (now Porto Garibaldi), in the pursuit that followed Garibaldi would carry Anita in his own arms since she was too sick to even walk. In August they were able to find a ship to escape the Austrians but once on the ground again, Anita died.

Garibaldi wanted to give his wife a dignified burial and to transport her to the nearby Ravenna, but there was no time and a grave was hurriedly dug in the sand of the pine forest. A few days later, a young girl, discovered the corpse and it was transferred in the cemetery of a nearby town.

The causes of Anita's death were long discussed in later years, even to attack Garibaldi. Eleven years later, on September 20, 1859, Garibaldi with his children Teresita and Menotti will return to Ravenna to move the remains of Anita to Nice, alongside those of Rosa, Garibaldi's mother.

Escaping through Romagna and Tuscany he managed to reach the Piemontese territory, from which, without protests, he accepted to be exiled. First, he stayed as a guest of the Piemontese consul of Tangier, then he went to New York to work in a candles factory, he finally resumed sailing in Central America, and between Peru, China and Australia.

Conquered by the realistic politics of the Sardinian government, in 1854 Garibaldi returned to Europe. After a shipwreck, Garibaldi stopped being a sailor for a while and decided to devote himself to agriculture, working as a farmer and breeder: he owned an olive grove with about 100 olive trees, as well as a vineyard, with which he produced wine, and raised 150 cattle, 400 chickens, 200 goats, 50 pigs and more than 60 donkeys (this isn’t really important information, but I thought it was something nice to know, he brought there his children to help him, it’s a really lovely image).

In August 1856, following a secret meeting with Cavour he made his thoughts public by distancing himself from the Mazzinian positions. In December 1858 he met Cavour again, but this time publicly, on that occasion he also met Vittorio Emanuele (the new king of Savoy). He became vice-president of the National Society (a society that believed in a united Italy under the Savoy monarchy) and he was put at the head of troops: the next year the Hunters of the Alps were established, thanks to a royal decree and Garibaldi had the rank of major general.

In command of the Hunters of the Alps, he won the battles of Varese and S. Fermo, he protected the flanks of the Franco-Piemontese army and entered triumphantly in Brescia. Throughout this campaign, the number of volunteers following him grew from around 3,000 to a number not well quantified: 12,000 according to some historians, but only 9500 according to Garibaldi’s letters.

The events that followed the Villafranca peace (in which Vittorio Emanuele promised to retire his troops from Veneto in exchange of Lombardia) cooled the relations between Garibaldi and the Sardinian government. Second in command of the troops of the military league formed between Tuscany, Romagna, Parma and Modena, he passed through the Marche to extend the revolutionary movement there, but, called back by Vittorio Emanuele himself, he renounced the command, retiring to the island of Caprera, after launching a manifesto in Genoa to the Italian people of violent criticism of the Piemontese politics.

We stop here for this part, in the next one, we’ll talk about Garibaldi’s famous Expedition of the One Thousand in Sicily and Italy’s unification.

As always, if you have questions, doubts or corrections don’t hesitate to ask, I’m always glad to talk about history.

See you next time!

#les miserables #Victor Hugo #giuseppe garibaldi #italian history

32 notes · View notes