#mineshaft ii

[chr0macide]

this shit is done because i cant think of anything else to write in it WOOHOO

this takes place right after Break In II: The Novelette (i.e. right after they leave the villain base for those who dont know what the fuck Break In: The Novelette is but i recommend reading all that if you want to understand this better) and its just about the miscellaneous shenanigans that occur while they try to get along with each other hooray

the ao3 link is up there but ill post the fic under the cut here as well for those who like to read on tumblr (this is about 4,000 words long split into 2 chapters)

Intermission

Chapter I – Road Trip

The kids stared down the elevator shaft. It felt like minutes had passed by the time they heard it crash on the lowest floor of the base. Nobody would be following them back up from there now. Larry let the segment of steel rope fall from his jaws as he climbed down from the service platform. He nearly stepped on Stephanie carelessly before Monica pulled her out of the way.

“Are you gonna to tell us where your safehouse is?” Prince asked skeptically.

Larry hesitated. “We need a car.”

Prince made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Why mention your safehouse in the first place if we can’t get there?”

“What, you don’t have a car? How did you end up in the middle of the woods?”

“We had a car. It’s totaled.”

“There’s a garage at the east wall. We don’t keep the keys in there, but I can probably hotwire one of the vans,” Isaiah offered, motioning for everyone to follow.

They left the mineshaft’s rickety elevator and made their way back to the base’s entrance building. The tree branches stone-grey sky framed the barbed wire twisting around the edges of its roof. Prince couldn’t help but notice how loud their footsteps sounded, even when they were muted by the soggy dirt. It was dawn in the middle of a forest. Birdsong should have permeated the air, but aside from the gentle rustling of leaves in the wind, he heard nothing. It was too quiet.

Larry lingered behind the crowd, falling into step beside Bradley. “Aren’t your friends going to give you a ride home, Detective?” he prodded, his voice dripping with false concern.

Bradley ignored him. He was supposed to get to the road and call for transportation, but he had come to find that his radio was spitting out nothing but white noise, even after they’d reached the surface. Mary had likely jammed the signal before she’d confronted everyone.

It wasn’t any of Larry’s business, but he seemed to know what Bradley was thinking about. “No signal, hm? Not that it matters,” he chuckled quietly. The sound was like sandpaper scraping against iron. “How many people in your department do you think are spies, hm? They were never coming back for you anyway.”

For a second, Bradley felt stupid for agreeing to come here in the first place, but he brushed it off. Of course he knew there were double agents all around him, but the mafia had just as many spies in their own ranks as his police station did, and he wasn’t getting anywhere without intel. “Considering that none of them work for you anymore, their names would be useful, Mr. Clockturn.”

Larry huffed some steam out of his vents. Before all this, he’d put plenty of his own men in caskets for snitching, but… he scratched at the scars beneath his suit. Some of his valves still felt strange. “I’ll have to think about that.”

They came to the back of the base. The garage door’s circuits sparked worryingly as Larry forced it open. He flicked a switch. Sickly yellow light illuminated the only van stationed there, black with masks emblazoned on the sides. A set of rambars were affixed to the front. He waved Isaiah in and promptly smashed one of the windows, setting off an ear-piercing car alarm.

“What the hell, man?!” shouted Hadrian over the blaring.

Isaiah looked back at him. “What? We don’t have the key. Bradley! You got something I can strip the wires with?”

The Detective tossed him some pliers, but the noise cleared everyone else out of the building and away from the noise. Twado padded to the tree line and busied himself sniffing the cold air.

Hadrian crouched down next to him. “Smell anything interesting?”

The dog kept sniffing. He licked his nose and thrust it into the undergrowth, ambling into the bushes. Hadrian heard hissing. The foliage rustled. An orange cat sprinted out of the leaves with Twado in pursuit. The others in the clearing watched them race across the grass. “Is that Cheeseball?” Prince said incredulously.

The cat darted into the garage just to see Larry, annoyance evident in his narrowed eyes. He hadn’t forgotten that it had launched itself at his face like furry missile twice. Cheeseball skidded across the concrete floor and yowled, trapped between him and Twado. Stephanie ran after them and swept the cat into her small arms. “Cheese!” she squealed, but her face fell as soon as she realized how close she was standing to the automaton. She ran back outside with Cheeseball in her arms. The dog trailed behind her, still trying to inspect the unfamiliar animal.

Hadrian narrowed his eyes at the cat as Stephanie brought him to the rest of the group. Cheeseball did the same to him. They’d left him with a neighbor before leaving for their disastrous camping trip. “What is that thing doing here?”

“Maybe he snuck into the car before we left,” Prince guessed. He gave the cat a pat on the head. Cheeseball merely tolerated it. “I’m glad he jumped out before it blew up.”

Everyone stood in a circle as the surprise wore off. They had to talk, but nobody knew where to start.

There was a pained look on Monica’s face as she glanced at the garage. “So… we’re gonna hop in a mafia-branded van and let the serial killer drive us around?”

Uncle Pete scrawled something on his whiteboard. I think we should go with him. He’s telling the truth. This forest has plenty of abandoned places to hide in. I know there’s a homestead and an old powerplant here somewhere.

“No, this is stupid! We’re the ones who got him into this mess. How do you know he won’t kill us?” Monica protested. Prince pressed a finger to his lips and pointed at Larry. The guy was right there.

Bradley reached into the van to hand Isaiah his screwdriver before joining the group outside. Pete stared at him with his lips pressed into a thin line. Bradley stared back.

“What are you looking at me like that for?”

Pete’s marker hovered over his whiteboard indecisively. What did you find in the base?

“It’s confidential. No need for you lot to worry about it.”

The Headmaster wants them dead. I think we’re long past the point where they don’t need to worry, Pete wrote back.

Bradley scratched his overlarge moustache in thought. “It’s just going to put them in more danger. Imagine if he finds out what they know.” He shook his head. “Imagine if Larry finds out.”

He’ll understand.

“Ha! You think so?”

We’ll be fine. He’s not a time bomb, Bradley.

That was highly debatable. The Detective looked over his shoulder at Larry. They heard Isaiah curse from inside the van as the automaton seated himself on the hood, rocking the entire vehicle. Bradley sighed. “If you say so.”

He turned away from the garage and rifled around underneath his trench coat until he found one of the folders he’d escaped with. The edges were rough and the cardboard had turned yellow with age. Inside was a blueprint, and while the letters and pictographs were blurry after being photocopied so many times, Pete’s eyes flooded with recognition.

I’ve seen that before.

“Uh, I think we all have. Larry’s got one of those things in his back,” Hadrian pointlessly pointed out.

I mean this blueprint. I saw it a long time ago. It’s the original schematic for those things. I never had the chance to read it. What does it say?

“Most of these notes are very vague, but back when Larry was human, that key grew roots inside him. Over here, it says it strengthens whatever host it’s implanted in, but it disrupts certain functions of the brain. Especially the… well, I won’t bore you with the fine details, but mostly parts of the frontal lobe,” Bradley explained.

I guess that explains the bizarre personality shift.

“You talk like you used to know him,” Prince remarked.

I went to school with him. And after that, Purge University. He used to be so normal. I knew it had to be the key making him act weird, but

Pete stopped writing. Even if he’d been able to get his hands on the blueprint all those years ago, he doubted that he would’ve been able to help Larry. He shook his head at himself. Nothing we can do about it now. What else does that thing say?

Bradley’s eyes returned to the file, reviewing it thoughtfully. “Like I said, the notes are ambiguous. It says, ‘key cannot give you full control,’ but it’s not clear who ‘you’ is supposed to be. I’ll have to cross-reference it with some of the other intel I took, but I hope it doesn’t mean he’s a puppet… either way, it seems that his actions might not always be his.”

Pete waved his whiteboard. You get what I’m saying right? This isn’t really him. He was good man. He’ll help us.

Prince and Monica exchanged glances. Pete was overly optimistic, they thought. Sure, they could believe Larry used to be just some guy a long time ago, but what did it matter? Pete was old, and if they knew each other as kids, that meant he’d had that key for who knows how long. Years and years of criminal insanity. They could only guess how many horrors he’d perpetrated between then and now.

Bradley looked around at everyone else. “You don’t trust Larry, do you? Is that what all this is about?” he figured.

“Why would we?” Prince muttered.

“He’s a loose cannon,” Bradley acknowledged with a small nod, “but Pete’s right. About him helping us, I mean. Larry is no fool.” He closed the folder and returned it to his coat. “The Headmaster wants him gone, too, and even he can’t survive that alone. Certainly not during a purge. We’re the closest things to allies he’s got.”

Their Uncle looked at the words on his own whiteboard. His shoulders slumped. He wiped the words away with his forearm and wrote something else. I don’t know what Larry’s gonna do when this is all over, but Bradley’s radio can’t reach anyone. We’re stuck out here. Larry is the best chance we have.

The eldest siblings looked at each other again. This talk wasn’t over for them, but they supposed there were more urgent problems to worry about, and the car alarm had stopped shrieking. The van lurched again when Larry stood up, eliciting another expletive from Isaiah as his head struck the roof. He was scowling as he stuck his head through the window.

“We’ve barely got half a gallon of fuel left in this thing. We won’t make it,” he called out.

Prince knocked a row of jerrycans over with his foot. All empty.

Larry thought for a moment. He pried one of the tool cabinets open and grabbed some supplies. “Unlock the back. We might be able to salvage some gas at the old power plant.” He tossed the equipment inside. The padded benches at the edges hinted that it had been a police raid van before the mob had “repossessed” it. Larry walked to the front and shoved Isaiah over into the shotgun seat before cramming himself behind the wheel. He had to sit hunched over awkwardly, and even then, his head was still pressed against the roof.

Bradley and Pete climbed into the back. Everyone else followed them reluctantly. Twado wedged himself securely in between the front seats. He knew what kind of driver Larry was.

The top of the van scraped against the partially open garage door as he backed out. He brought the car around the front of the base, steering it along the path Prince and his family had come from. They reached the road and passed the fallen tree and the misshapen husk that used to be their car. Larry slowed the van down and eyed the remains. “What did you say happened to that thing?”

“It exploded. I think the tree crushed the engine,” Prince told him.

Bradley craned his neck to look at the wreckage. “Engines don’t explode. Someone planted a bomb in there.”

Prince didn’t reply. It felt like his life was getting worse every time he said something. Some criminal mastermind really, really wanted them dead.

They drove around the wreck. Charred scraps of metal crunched under the wheels. Larry sped up and rammed through the fake construction barricades. The impact would have sent Stephanie airborne, but Monica caught her and fastened the seatbelt for her.

“Who decided this guy was going to drive?” Prince complained.

Larry glared at him in the rear-view mirror. “Oh, are you the one who knows where the power plant is?” he sneered.

Isaiah sighed and switched the radio on. He tried tuning the frequency to a local news station. There was only static. He tried a different one. Nothing… but one of the music stations seemed to work. “No local radio. Your signal isn’t jammed, Bradley. I reckon whoever’s in charge of the purge this year knocked the power grid offline early,” he guessed. He put his feet on the dashboard and left the music on. It was better than listening to these nutcases bickering.

Larry grumbled. “Get your shoes off my dash, kid,”

“It stopped being yours a year ago, old man.”

“Tsk.”

Isaiah tapped his foot on the front window. “Who do you think the purge leader is this time?”

Larry shrugged. “Certainly not Miss Gearwise anymore… did you know she was supposed to kill me a year ago?” he laughed. “The Headmaster is going to be pissed when she tells him I’m still-"

A brief violin solo came through the speakers. Larry’s glowing eyes dilated. The van swerved dangerously, throwing everyone on the benches out of their seats. The automaton pulled his fist back and punched the radio hard, silencing the music and accidentally launching a shard of plastic at Isaiah’s eye. He slammed on the brakes at the same time. The tires screeched. Everyone ended up in a pile at the back of the vehicle.

“What the hell was that?” Prince yelled as everybody disentangled themselves from each other. Hadrian grimaced as he pried Cheeseball’s claws off his leg.

Larry didn’t respond immediately. He opened the door and staggered outside instead, smoke billowing from his vents. Isaiah had managed to end up folded almost in half underneath the dash, but he squeezed free with some effort and got out of the van as well. “Larry? You good?” he whispered, reaching out to steady him. Larry pushed him away.

“I’ll be fine… you drive this fucking thing. I have a migraine now,” he groaned.

He limped over to the other side of the van. Isiah took the driver’s seat. “Take the next right. I’ll tell you when you need to drive off the road,” Larry said. He put his head against the front window and shut his eyes.

Isaiah glanced at him. He didn’t know what Miss Gearwise had done before she’d decided to cut out his heart, and while there were clearly lingering effects, Isaiah wasn’t stupid enough to ask about what happened to him back in that base. Nobody else was, either. The ride was as eerily noiseless as the rest of the woods.

Chapter II – Last Stop

The power plant looked even more ancient than the base did. Prince could hardly see it at all through the vegetation ensconcing everything. The decay on the walls was hidden by thick blankets of moss. He could see through the broken windows that the insides hadn’t escaped nature, either; the walls were discolored by mildew and weeds had slowly inched their way across the grout between the floor tiles. Even the tips of the turbines were concealed by creeping vines. It would have been beautiful in an otherworldly kind of way if not for how grey all the foliage looked in the dawn’s pale light.

“You think there’s anything left to salvage here?” Prince said to nobody in particular as everyone climbed out of the van. There were a few somewhat car-shaped lumps of moss and flora in the area, but in a place this old, chances were someone else had already siphoned any gas left in them a long time ago.

Larry led them to one of the buildings, though nobody else could tell what it used to be. He pulled some ivy away from the entrance. The rusty hinges produced a grinding noise as he pushed the door open and ducked under the frame.

The inside was a labyrinth of scaffolding and handwheels and corroded pipes, some small and some more than large enough for a person to fit inside. With the windows blotted out by greenery, the only sources of light were the holes in the roof. Patches and ferns and grew on the floor wherever the light touched. The sound of dripping rainwater echoed through the boiler house.

Larry heaved a metal hatch on the floor away from the opening it guarded. “There were a few supply stores hidden here. I’m sure at least one of them still exists. The rest of you can wait up here,” he said as he descended the ladder.

The basement was completely lightless, but Larry stepped over the smashed machinery as if he could see just fine. He heard someone trip on a discarded toolbox and turned towards the sound, golden eyes glowing in the dark. Larry squinted in irritation at the sudden flood of illumination as Bradley decided to switch his flashlight on.

“It’s just a power plant, Detective. What are you expecting to find?” Larry snorted.

Bradley brushed the dust and debris off his trousers as he got to his feet. “This used to be one of the mafia’s fronts, no? You wouldn’t have caches here otherwise.”

“Psh. It was, 50 years ago. You’re just wasting your time at this point.”

The Detective shone his light around the maintenance room and did a quick once-over of the trash pile at his feet. He pocketed a bullet casing and a fragment of someone’s identification card. Larry felt an unpleasant combination of contempt that Bradley would waste so much effort on what must have been a cold case and respect that he could spot anything useful amongst all that junk.

“If you insist on being here, some of the supplies are behind this thing. Why don’t you get over here and help me move it?” Larry said, motioning to the tall steel crate at the end of the room. Bradley stood next to him. They slowly pushed it out of the way, revealing a cavity in the wall. Amongst the resources, they saw the fuel they needed, but Larry’s eyes narrowed. There were smudged footprints just inside. Fresh ones. The mud was still a little wet.

Bradley’s flashlight beam swept around towards the other end of the room and fell upon the figure above them, reclining atop one of the boilers. Like so many of his associates, the mafioso’s face was obscured by a mask, but they knew only one mobster with unnaturally enlarged muscles and orange-dyed hair.

“Hi, boss,” the Wadren waved. Bradley reached for the gun under his coat before remembering that he’d run out of ammunition months ago. “Relax, Detective! I’m not gonna hurt you,” the Warden laughed.

“Markus? How the hell did you get out of the base so quick?” Larry questioned. Mary had locked down all the exits except for the one they’d just destroyed. Anyone else who wanted to leave would’ve had to take the stairs all the way to the surface.

Markus smiled wryly beneath his mask. “You know how long I had to work at that shitty hideout? I remember override codes that even she didn’t know.”

“What happened after we left?” Bradley demanded, eyeing him suspiciously.

“After Larry woke up? Some people thought he’d take the base back”—the Warden gestured at the automaton—“and some people didn’t like that. I told them to calm the fuck down. Sure, Mary was a bitch, but there was no point, you know? I told them you’d never stick around after everything that… happened to you,” he said to Larry. “But you guys saw the fight.” He took a swig from the can he’d swiped from the cache. “No idea what their fuckin’ problem was.”

Larry chuckled at first, but… “Markus, you just abandoned your post right before the next purge.” Surely the Warden didn’t think he’d make it alone.

Markus sat up. “I was hoping I might ride it out with you,” he told them, looking both men up and down, “but you’re walking targets, now that you mention it. All of you. I’ll figure something else out.” He drained the last of his beer. “But hey, since we ran into each other, I think still owe you a concussion, Detective. How about a rematch?” he suggested, crushing his empty can between two fingers and tossing it aside.

Bradley gripped his umbrella a little tighter, but Markus laughed again. “I’m joking, I’m joking,” the Warden said. “It was you or me back there. I get it.”

Larry picked up a couple of jerrycans from the stash. If Markus had made it out of the base, others had probably followed the trail of functional elevators he’d left behind, and chances were that not all of them would be so friendly. “We need to leave before anyone else shows up. Are you going to help me carry these back up or not?” he asked Bradley.

Bradley picked up another can and passed it up to him as he stood at the top of the ladder. Markus waved goodbye. “See you guys later, maybe,” he said before Larry dragged the hatch cover back into place.

“Was someone else down there? We heard a lot of talking,” Prince inquired as he picked up one of the fuel cans.

“It was Markus. Don’t worry about him. He’s an alright guy,” Larry claimed.

Prince side-eyed him. “The Warden? He tried to dissolve us in your acid pit.”

“It’s not an acid pit. The substances I used were very alkaline,” he replied, because that was more important than Markus trying to kill them.

The troupe trickled back out of the building. As Larry started to refill the gas tank, Isaiah cast a sour look at the boiler house. “So, Markus made it out, huh? Thought I heard his stupid fucking voice.”

“Come on, Isaiah. I’ve had worse lieutenants,” Larry grinned.

“He was such a dickhead after you left. I get it,” he snapped when Larry opened his mouth to speak. “He didn’t like Miss Gearwise. None of your guys did after she took over. He didn’t have to make it everybody else’s problem.” Markus would toil all day if it meant nothing got done. Isaiah had been screwed over by his antics plenty of times, and he wasn’t the only one by a long shot. The only reason he was never demoted was that Mary couldn’t be bothered to find a replacement.

Larry shrugged. The mob was filled with all sorts of psychos like himself, sure, but Markus wasn’t one of them, despite his… abrasiveness. There were just as many regular people who were surviving in the only way they could. “He’s not a bad guy. An asshole, maybe. But not bad,” he said as he removed the spout of the spent can from the fuel tank’s opening and inserted a second one.

Near the boiler house, Prince and Monica were watching Cheeseball bat at Twado’s nose. As the pets cavorted and rolled around in the tall grass, Prince found that he felt jealous of them, in a way. They must have had no idea what was happening. He laughed at himself inwardly. Envious of pets.

In the silence, Prince’s own mind absorbed him. He thought of Hadrian as he saw him wading through the tall grass and talking to the animals as if they could understand him. Prince knew he shouldn’t be as surprised as he was by how normal he was acting. Plenty of people wrote his younger brother off as an airhead, too dense to realize when the world was burning down around him, but Prince knew he simply lived for today. Hadrian had once asked him why people bothered worrying about things they could never change. He had no answer.

Whatever happened to Hadrian would happen.

Prince thought of Stephanie, as he had so many times. She was only six. His little sister scarcely said a word since they’d been trapped in the base, and now that they were out, she was still the same way. How much did she understand what was going on? He had lost count of how many deaths she had witnessed. What would she become when she grew up? If she grew up?

As if on cue, Stephanie wandered over to them, dragging her teddy bear behind her. She reached up and tugged on Prince’s jacket. He crouched down. “You doing ok, Steph?”

“Are we going to die?”

Prince couldn’t do anything but stare at her for a second, but then he pulled Stephanie into a hug. He couldn’t look at her wide, hollow eyes right now.

“Are we?” she asked again flatly.

 “Larry is going to take us somewhere safe. He’s not as scary as he looks,” Prince lied. He turned his eyes towards the automaton to see that he had already been looking at him. Dried blood stained the front of his suit. He returned Prince’s stare unblinkingly. “We’ll all be fine. I promise.” The words tasted like ash. Larry was out of earshot, but he had seen the boy’s expression on a hundred different corpses. Prince saw the corners of his serrated mouth upturn into a thin smile.

Larry pulled the last jerrycan’s spout out of the fuel tank’s port and threw it aside. “Everyone back in the van! We’re done here,” he called out.

Prince felt like he was stepping into a hearse.

[semifinaldraw]

Okay, absolutely obsessed with that szczesny x lewy fanvid, the song fits them so well, but WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS SONG? Like, I remember seeing that video a while ago and loving that song and searching for that song and I didn't find it and now again? Even Shazam has failed me, telling me the wrong song like??? Help? Please?

it's mineshaft II by dessa :)

[bisexualautism]

Mineshaft II is Suvi/Ame in a world where Suvi chooses the Empire

[sockich]

music shuffle game!

Rules: shuffle your ‘on repeat’ playlist and post the first 10 songs, then tag 10 friends to do the same.

I was tagged by @softbrah and my brain is too fried to think of who to tag, so if you see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged.

Måneskin - La paura del buio

Maren Morris - cut! (feat. Julia Michaels)

Plavi Orkestar - Prije nego odeš iz života mog

Doechii - BOILED PEANUTS

Kendrick Lamar with SZA - Luther

Christopher Tin - Waloyo Yamoni

Måneskin - Coraline

The Chicks - Sleep at Night

Dessa - Mineshaft II

Kendrick Lamar - reincarnated

[wanderingchronicle]

is children's work named after the dessa song? I haven't read any iwatex fics yet but I love dessa

Yes, it is! Every instalment in the series bar one is named for a Dessa song. "Children's Work" is the IWATEX song ever to me. The other currently-released fics are named after "Tell Me Again," "The Crow", "Mineshaft II" (ANEMONE ENJOYERS TAKE MY HAND), and "The Beekeeper".

Is this my conspiracy to get as many people into Dessa as possible? Mayhaps.

[archivist-crow]

On this day:

ANASTASIA

On July 16, 1918, in Siberia, Bolshevik revolutionaries reportedly executed Russian Tsar Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra; and their family, whom they had imprisoned shortly after the murder of Alexandra's despised advisor, the sinister monk Rasputin. Rumors of the royal Romanov family's survival have never stopped. Their bodies were supposedly thrown in a trunk by secret police, butchered, soaked in acid, and tossed down a mineshaft. Inquiries were inconclusive. In the 1970s, investigation discrepancies were discovered: A vital telegram went missing for six months. An unexamined eyewitness died mysteriously. When the mineshaft was first investigated, it was found to be empty. Insider information said only Nicolas and his son were killed; the women were spared, though Tatiana and Anastasia were often beaten for trying to escape.

In early 1920, police rescued Anna, a young woman, from drowning in a Berlin canal. She had tried to kill herself after suffering a series of misfortunes and claimed to be Anastasia, the former Romanov princess. The imperial fortune, worth billions of dollars, was at stake. Grand Duchess Olga, Nicholas Il's youngest sister, upon meeting Anna, was surprised by the girl's resemblance to her "missing" niece. For three months they exchanged affectionate letters, and then Olga abruptly declared Anna an impostor.

Medical examination revealed that Anna shared physical similarities with Anastasia, including a scarred finger, caused when a careless footman slammed the coach door on it. Claiming to have been only wounded at the execution, Anna also said she had used pearls and emeralds, sewn into her dress, to get help escaping. Anastasia's relatives were divided about Anna's authenticity. In 1970, after twelve years of rulings, West German courts decided that her identity could be neither refuted nor proven.

The Romanov's fortune, reportedly smuggled out of Russia before the revolution, included exquisite objects of gold, enamel, and precious stones created by Peter Fabergé and has never been found.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[thienvaldram]

Forgotten Lives Doctor Lifespans Speculation

A mostly unsuccessful attempt to establish some kind of bounds on the lifespans of the Morbius Doctors based off of the Forgotten Lives charity anthologies.

Update: Added Forgotten Lives 3

The First Morbius Doctor

The First Morbius Doctor lives through ‘less than a year’ in an aberrant timeline and 24 years between ‘The Knocking in the Mineshaft’ and ‘The Hand of Light and Shadow’ (As Daveth meets the Doctor in 1780 and dies in the latter story with his death date being given as 1804). The latter story is also this Doctor’s rejuvenation story and thus the ending bound on his age, though the beginning is unclear.

Stated: >24 years

Calculated: >25 years

The Second Morbius Doctor

Very little is actually said about the lifespan of the Second Morbius Doctor, we know he established a base on Earth in and around the outbreak of World War II (1936 at the earliest) and was still there as of 1944. His rejuvenation occurs later in his life, during free travels with Joan Weston, plus we know he travels in the TARDIS whilst based on Earth, so the actual time passed for him is more than the linear time he was present on Earth.

Stated: >8 years

Calculated: >8 years

The Third Morbius Doctor

The Third Morbius Doctor has two children, Cedric and Jilly, who are implied to age from 0-15 between 1939/1940 and 1955, this is implied to be linear as Cedric and Jilly age at the same rate as their friends. In addition, he states that he spent 20 years on Earth during World War I, which is implied to be in this incarnation, similarly he first crash landed on Earth in 1918 and lived through to 1955. However, in addition to this, this Doctor claims he can ‘barely remember how many centuries’ it had been since he last saw musician Fred Bailey, who recognises this specific incarnation, indicating he lived for more than one century at a bare minimum, he says in FL3 he doesn’t always travel with Cedric and Jilly and his visits have been getting less and less numerous.

Stated: >57 years

Calculated: >200 years

The Fourth Morbius Doctor

This incarnation is claimed to have ‘met a premature end’ implying that he is the shortest lived of the Morbius incarnations. In addition to this, interviews with the author implied he actively travelled with only one major companion. ‘Rue’, whom he met on the first adventure after his renewal. The only statement we have is that he lived for four years on Earth between Rue’s departure and Swan’s first travels.

Stated: >4 years

Calculated: >4 years

The Fifth Morbius Doctor

The Fifth Morbius Doctor implies he lived a similar amount of time to the linear amount of time passed between the outbreak and aftermath of Space War II. Totalling to 16 years, in that story he meets his companion, Dattany, who resembled Patience 16 years prior but had greyed between then and when she starts travelling with him. She was stated to be 147 and look 60 by his rejuvenation/execution and no longer resembles Patience at all. Scaling her lifespan based off the average human lifespan and whatnot gives a total of approximately 61 years of travel with the Doctor. However, we do know that this incarnation did drop Dattany off in the aftermath of his family’s deaths, long enough to travel with at least one other companion.

Stated: >16 years

Calculated: >77 years

The Sixth Morbius Doctor

‘The Captain’ claims that the Sixth Morbius Doctor has lived for at least 120 years, this is still early in their lifespan but no other counts are ever given so that’s all we can go off.

Stated: >120 years

Calculated: >120 years

The Seventh Morbius Doctor

The Seventh Morbius Doctor has a total of 50 handlers, which all seem to last enough time for him to remember them. One mission alone lasted 49 days and assuming each handler lasted at least one mission would put an absolute lower bound on this incarnations lifespan of 7 years. Though he likely has lived for much longer as, in addition to that lower bound being really low, this incarnation explicitly had a travelling era before being given a handler, plus months of rehabilitation after the events on Ortmeir and an unknown amount of time having escaped from Gallifrey travelling with Bretor Ohm.

Stated: N/A

Calculated: >7 years

The Eighth Morbius Doctor

The Eighth Morbius Doctor has pretty much no indication of his lifespan other than the implication he’s had a large number of companions and that he lived longer than the Fourth Morbius Doctor who ‘met a premature end, which implies he lives for at least four years. Jack and Varne seem to age roughly in sync between FL1 and FL3’s stories, implying if Varne’s aging matches human aging that Varne travelled with this Doctor for roughly two years.

Stated: N/A

Calculated: >4 years

[anonil88]

My next shirt/project design is for a fictional queer club/lesbian bathhouse.

My question is what should the logo be? (Dm or reply suggestions)

And when I say bathhouse I mean like how gay men have bath houses, aka gym community pool and cruising center galore. But with the intended focus on lesbians and other queer people (bipoc would be to the front but all are welcome vibes).

My inspirations are; Queer clubs and party nights throughout the world primarily u.s. in the 80s thru 00s like Gauntlet II the club (@ileaveclawmarks has some ads on their page) and MEAT I'll insert images, thermes in ancient Greece and Rome, currently existing saunas like Steamworks which there are a couple of and now closed bathhouses like Man's Country in Chicago which had sets inside.

I'm trying not to go full brand and identity board and just making a logo/tshirt design. Fun fact this all started cause I was looking at match books and fell down a rabbit hole.

You don't have to read the rest to answer, I'm just going to free write about my design/research process a bit.

Many of the gay saunas have artwork by Tom of Finland, REX, or similar art style. G.B.Jones makes similar work for lesbians but I'm not trying to use anyone's art cause that's weird to do and copyright.

I could however draw something but idk still feels too...obvious. I do like the abruptness of events like Garlands or Clt Club but i do want to make something people could have worn and get an "Oh 😏" rather than a 😒. Many of these new places still operate with some discretion or at least act like they're just a gym with day passes that happens to have a glo hole in the bathroom. This is where I was looking at other venues and events that were lgbtq owned but cheeky. For example a bird logo for a bar named White Swallow (San Francisco closed in 80s). Kind of seems like even some of the more openly "its artsy rabbit season in here" had a secondary logo that was simple or just their name for similar reasons.

All I've got right now is a rough simple flip flop, inspired because of this original tile they found at an ancient thermae site in Libya [image link]. The other thing I've drawn is a flower out that kinda looks like a sticker seal or those boob light fixtures. Thought about a toilet drawing cause lavs short for lavender and lavatory. Oh the name is Lady Lavs.

Anywho curious what others think.

Inspo images below:

Here's some article links, it would take some time to link everyone i've been lookibg at:

Mother and Jackie 60/Meat/Cl't Club - a nice breakdown

Remembering Cl't Club

Man's Country closing article and images -they just closed in 2017

Manchester 90s photos

Mineshaft NYC - Back2Stonewall

[hopecel]

Dear Marie, you were right about me Dear Marie, you were right, you were right

[cerealforkart]

how about moar Hadestown talk?? was your Hades "sleezy" or "charming"? Eurydice having to walk into "garage door" instead of gettin lowered give her diff agency, or nah? Least fav song?

Oh always excited for Hadestown talk!

Hades was definitely more charming than sleazy, but he was mostly dispassionate and dismissive towards the other characters, I would have loved a little more aggression from him actually. I think the whole show could have used a little more anger and growl tbh, but that’s something that changed in between drafts I think

I like the garage door a lot actually! I think it definitely got the mineshaft elevator energy, and I loved the very first time it appeared in particular when was lit up with warm lights like a door to another scene and Hades stood there lit from behind

Least favourite song is tricky, weirdly enough, as much as I love the earlier version Road to Hell II, I find the final Road to Hell Reprise to be kind of repetitive, it might be exaggerated by how much I loved Road to Hell II that makes me say that though

[utilitycaster]

Mineshaft II by Dessa is a Marion song

[seveneyesoup]

mineshaft ii is like one of the most insane songs ever made. if you trust my taste even a little bit go listen to mineshaft ii from dessa’s 2010 album a badly broken code NOW

[toofewtrueblue]

Hey someone whose actually watched clone wars or anything that Ahsoka is in can you tell me if you think mineshaft II by dessa is a good older Ahsoka song

[wanderingchronicle]

for the fic thing: 5, 15, 17, 19, 29, and 30 (i desperately want to know what else you're gonna write)

Oh gosh, fan mail. Under a read more, cause I actually talk a lot about process in this and my answers get long. Including some discussion about the next installments of "children's work", lol

5. What ships captured your heart?

Now, this might surprise people, but I'm actually not that much of an OTP person. I'm a habitual multi- and polyshipper, and when I say "I ship it" that doesn't mean I think it should be endgame. In some cases I think they should be exes.

With that said? Rex&Nomi-Nomi is *so* fun to write. They're so god damn cute, and there's a lot of meat to dig into in the form of their acceptance and understanding of the others VERY different relationship orientation.

Obviously SolCal but also Sol and many of the dateable characters makes me insane. Please read my work knowing I believe that every iteration Sol is at least slightly in love with all of their friends.

More under the cut!

15. What was your hardest fic to title?

My titles are actually super intentional so thank you for asking this question! The songs are all relevant, and the lines used as titles are specifically relevant again.

The hardest, I think, was "you're built to balance on two feet." Almost every fic in Children's Work, including the ones that haven't been written yet, the title was basically immediate as soon as I had the concept of the fic down.

I had a few working titles, all drawn from "The Crow" by Dessa. to say "anger is just love, left out and gone to vinegar" (used as a chapter title for four chambers instead) tryna get a slow dance middle of a knife fight you come as fragile, soft machines

I ended up going with "you're built to balance on two feet" because Rex is standing in the shoes of the singer, looking at the unhappy people around him and trying to empathise with them.

I also really struggled with "four chambers, just a standard issue." "Mineshaft II" has loads of really good lines, but many of them are very long or don't make as much sense out of context. But I liked the comparison of the human heart to a lethal weapon.

17. Share your favorite opening line

Cal loves the creche. He loves his parents too, all four of them, but the creche has all his friends, and shelf upon shelf of books and holovids. There must be an end to them, surely, but they seem endless – he watches documentary after documentary about the plants and animals of earth, sometimes while Tammy shrieks and peeks out from between her fingers.

This one is my favourite. It's such a character-establishing moment -- Cal's a happy go lucky kid! He has a big and loving family, he's having a good childhood, he loves learning about animal facts and he has a bestie who watches documentaries with him even if she has to cover her eyes during the scary bits. Cal gets older and sadder and more complicated, but this is how the reader meets him.

19. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Oh this one is so haaaaaard I love writing dialogue. I love banter. But it's probably this conversation between Rex and Cal, in "if we're just play fighting, how come that blade's shining":

Cal’s entire train of thought not only comes to a screeching halt, but derails and explodes with no survivors. Sol has feelings for him? That’s really how he’s been coming off?  “And I don’t know what’s up with you,” Rex continues, “but I don’t think you’re the kind of person to deliberately mess with someone’s feelings. So I’m telling you to either seal the deal already, or cut it out and stop getting their hopes up.” “Sol has feelings for me. Like…they want to date me,” Cal says slowly.  Rex stares at him for several seconds. “Holy shit,” he says faintly, “you’re lucky you’re pretty, because you are phenomenally dense. They have feelings for you, they have had feelings for you for a while, and if you have feelings for them you should do something about them.” “But…you and Sol…” “Solace and I will still be best friends no matter what happens,” Rex says sharply, “you’re not coming between us. Hooking up with them is fun and I like doing it, but if we stop because Solace is monogamously loved up with someone else, I won’t be upset. I’d be upset if you didn’t want us to hang out anymore, but if you did I’d tell them to ditch you for being a weirdo anyway.”

Rex and Cal have what is legitimately a pretty tough conversation! Rex is absolutely 100% willing to throw hands on Sol's behalf, but slowly comes to the realisation that Cal has absolutely misread a whole bunch of things because he's a himbo. Rex asserts himself as someone who loves Sol, and at this point he's probably the only person aware of how much of a soft touch Sol actually is. When every other POV looks at Sol they see someone cool and mysterious. Rex sees a kind and loveable dingus.

Cal's just a dummy, figuring out that he's a dummy. Rex put the mental image of Sol doing a soaking-wet rainy Mr Darcy confession in his brain and it's scrombled him a bit.

29. What's left on your to-do list for 2024? Finish "four chambers, just a standard issue." Maybe the next installment of children's work, which is called "we stand upright, build fires at night" and is about Sol and Cal grappling with the decision to become parents, and what that means when you're struggling with estrangement and grief over your own parents.

I might write some other stuff. I have a Tang character study and a Sol/Nomi&Rex fic idea, because I have Thoughts about both Nomi and Rex needing to unpack some amatonormative assumptions about what it would mean for one of them to fall in love with someone else. Both are likely to be quite short (famous last words lol)

30. What would you like to write next year?

People who have been following along with Children's Work may be excited to know there are four installments left in the series, and then it will be done. 1. we stand upright, build fires at night (flulu/geranium pre/canon and sol/cal 5 years post canon 2. rather be six feet under than be lonely (vace is going in the contraption. 6 years post canon, completes a triptych with "you're built to balance on two feet" and "four chambers, just a standard issue".) 3. they say there's good grief (tangent, 20 years post canon) 4. we lean to turn in the velodrome (winky face don't worry about it)

I'd like to finish the series over the summer, and then maybe write some other stuff. Whatever I decide I want to explore more with fic! I definitely want to write some SolNem, though. Maybe some weird rarepairs. Who knows! The worms will seize me as they see fit.

[itsemptyachilles]

Noah Kahan said “I divvied up my anger into thirty separate parts, keep the bad shit in my liver, and the rest around my heart.”

and Dessa said “you opened your heart up right there on a napkin on the carpet and part of it was frostbit but you’ve always been a smart kid--could still distinguish the blood black as pitch. valves had gone stiff, veins and scar tissue. four chambers, just a standard issue, but none had room--forgiveness is huge--and you had two full of ice water, one full of salt, one packed with coal eager and ready and willing to find fault.”