#san francisco is only a she because she has known a lot of ships who are usually shes and just went aight seems neat

[activatebutterflyshield]

The Muses hit me with some random inspiration today so here’s a proper design sheet for He of the Lingering Smog and the Glittering Lights, aka Hollywood Angel, aka the God of Los Angeles, featuring the script Chahvinik by @thecrazyneographist.

He’s mostly based on the name of his city, the fashion sense of the famous bit of Humanity that calls him home (clothing is half gala dress, half black tie suit), all the ink those writers use up, paparazzi, Hollywood’s history of censorship, the smog that blankets his land, the manipulative nature of the industry, and the horses of the Spanish who took the land for the Angels.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Today is the 117th birthday of the world’s oldest living person, Maria Branyas Morera.

Maria was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco, USA, but returned to Spain with her family when she was eight to settle in Catalonia.

She's lived in the region ever since and has resided in the same nursing home for the past 23 years.

She became the oldest person on Earth in January 2023, following the death of 118-year-old Lucile Randon (France).

"She is very grateful for all the congratulations received and the interest that so many people have shown in her state of health," said Eva Carrera Boix, the director of Maria's nursing home.

"She is happy to be able to celebrate this special day intimately with her family and colleagues and wishes everyone a happy Monday."

Beyond being hard of hearing and having mobility issues, Maria has no physical or mental health problems.

In fact, she's in such good condition that she has agreed to undergo scientific testing by researchers who hope to gain further insight into the secrets to long life.

Scientist Manel Esteller, who has conversed with Maria at length, told Spanish outlet ABC:

“She has a completely lucid head. She remembers with impressive clarity events from when she was only four years old, and she does not present any cardiovascular disease, common in elderly people.

It is clear that there is a genetic component because there are several members of her family who are over 90 years old.”

Samples of Maria’s saliva, blood and urine have been taken and will be compared with those of her 80-year-old daughter.

The researchers hope that assessing Maria’s genes will aid the development of drugs which could combat diseases associated with ageing.

Befitting her status as the world’s oldest person in the digital age, Maria is active on X (formerly known as Twitter) with assistance from her daughter.

Her bio states: “I'm old, very old, but not an idiot.”

In addition to “luck and good genetics,” Maria attributes her longevity to “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”

Due to her poor hearing, Maria's family use a voice-to-text device to communicate with her.

She became permanently deaf in one ear when she was a child, after falling while playing with her brothers during the voyage from America to Spain in 1915.

This wasn’t the only misfortune the family suffered aboard the ship – Maria’s father sadly died due to pulmonary tuberculosis towards the end of the journey.

Maria lived through the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 as well as the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), which she said she has “very bad memories” of.

She got married in 1931 to a Catalan doctor named Joan Moret, with whom she had three children.

Her husband passed away in 1976; she has also outlived her only son, August, who died in a tractor accident at the age of 86.

Over a century after the 1918 pandemic, Maria also survived COVID-19.

She contracted the virus a few weeks after turning 113 in 2020 but made a full recovery within days, becoming the world’s oldest COVID-19 survivor.

The title was taken later in the year by Lucile Randon, who was three years older than Maria.

Despite admitting that she’s “getting closer and closer to death” in a post on X last month, Maria maintains a positive outlook on life and believes that there is always something new to learn every day, even at her grand old age.

She is now the 12th oldest verified person in history and should she reach her 118th birthday, she’ll climb up to 5th place.

The oldest person ever authenticated was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who lived to the age of 122 years 164 days.

Source: Guinness World Records

Celebrating the World's Oldest Person: Maria Branyas Morera's 117th Milestone

5 March 2024

From surviving global pandemics to outliving generations, Maria’s journey is a testament to longevity and resilience.

[teenageread]

Review: The Papers Daughters of Chinatown

Synopsis:

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu.

Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. She is told to stay hidden, to stay silent, and to perform an endless list of chores, or else she will be punished. Tien Fu thinks her life couldn’t get any worse, until she is sold again to an abusive shopkeeper and tasked to care for a young boy. If she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

When Dolly Cameron arrives in San Francisco to teach sewing at a mission home for orphaned Asian girls, she meets Tien Fu, who is willful, defiant, and unwilling to trust anyone. Dolly quickly learns that all the girls at the home were freed from lives of servitude and maltreatment. Dolly immediately joins the group of women dedicated to saving more of these “paper daughters” because some in authority have turned a blind eye to the situation.

Despite many challenges, Dolly and Tien Fu forge a powerful friendship as they mentor and help those in the mission home and work to win the freedom of thousands of immigrant women and girls.

Plot:

At dinner, one night, Tai Choi’s father announces that she shall go to America to visit her grandmother. Her older brother was furious, as the eldest boy should be the one going off to America and not Tai Choi. Her mother was frightened, begging her husband not to send Tai Choi there. At seven years old, Tai Choi was a bit excited, having never traveled, she was curious to see what the golden coast looked like. It was only later that Tai Choi realized that she was sold to settle her father’s gambling debt. Sent to a brothel house, Tai Choi learned the labors of hard work and the punishment for laziness. Sold again, to another abusive owner, Tai Choi had a grim outlook on life, as her care for a baby determined her health for the day. Baby crying got Tai Choi bruised and burned, and a happy baby set Tai Choi on edge for the downfall. Life was downhill until Tai Choi was rescued by the Occidental Mission Home. A home dedicated to rescuing enslaved Asian girls, Tai Choi was one of the thousands who found peace and happiness within the mission home. Tai Choi loved the home, and was wary of new people, like Dolly Cameron who came to San Francisco to be their sewing teacher.

Dolly, a twenty-six-year-old, of Scottish descent, came to San Francisco to help. Arriving in Chinatown, Dolly was confronted with the choice that staying at the mission home meant fighting the tong and stealing these girls away from their owners. Knowing she came from San Francisco to help, Dolly agrees to carry on the dangerous missions the Mission Home was known for. Never turning down the call for help, Dolly and the director became friends as they worked collaboratively to save as many girls as they could. At home, Dolly was loved by all, except Tai Choi, who always held Dolly at a distance. Learning to love the spitfire of a girl, Dolly and Tai Choi's relationship grew throughout the years as the two became unlikely friends whose mission to save all the enslaved girls of Chinatown keeps them united.      

Thoughts:

Heather Moore, the original author of the story, spared no detail as they and Allison Merrill adapt this truly heartfelt story into a version for young readers to enjoy. Having read Moore's original story, there are a lot of differences, however, the feeling and message are all the same. In this story, Donalida is just Dolly, but the character’s actions, hearts, and motives are all the same. Dolly is such a strong-willed character who always does her best, and chooses kindness whenever possible, making her a character you root for. Choosing to tell Tai Choi's story instead of Mei Lien, gives readers a child worth rooting for. Despite the abuse Tai Choi suffered at the beginning of the novel, not done in detail but enough to know the pain she was in, Tai Choi chose to live a life of kindness towards others, as she is always at the mission home trying to help out and make the younger ones feel loved. With easy-to-follow writing that keeps the plot moving fast, Moore and Merrill make this story easy for young readers to understand and learn some history without all the accurate detail that could bore a story. Overall, similar to Moore's version, this is a powerful story, worth the read, and the fact that they made it available for younger readers proves the importance of the message and Tai Choi’s story.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[buraidragon]

All right, let's go for a recent one--(your) Commander Shepard

Hohoh!

– Overall opinion of them Jazz Shepard here can hold so much trauma. So much being an asshole to get things done. But also so much kindness under all the scars and regrets. She grew on me hard and fast.

– Gender/sexuality headcanons Female-ish gender left Asexuality. Specifically sexually repulsed, why would you [REDACTED] when you can just cuddle and watch movies together?

– Favorite moment in canon

So far, it has to be talking down the one other surviving squad member of the Akuze disaster, Toombs. Not so that Cerberus bastard could survive, no, but because Toombs has done enough, suffered enough. So please, old friend, let her have this scum's blood on her hands and not yours.

– Favorite moment in a fanwork

I haven't written much myself, but I just adore any work that has any Shepard go off on the Illusive Man. Get outta here with your xenophobic human-supremacist shit, asshole. Your points don't justify the horrific shit your organization does.

– Favorite line, in canon or otherwise

Hmm. Don't really have one from cannon, but from what little I've written of her it's probably "Seeing as he was gnawing on one of those Turian breakfast jerky sticks, he looked more like a tired old man." In regards to Garrus in the mornings, wearing fuzzy F&F slippers.

– Characters I love seeing them interact with Tali, Garrus, Wrex, Grunt-- any of her alien friends, really. Not so much the humans as Shepard's known a lot of humans. Also that one asshole/in-your-face reporter on the Citadel. Always fun to see Shepard dance around her logic with high Paragon values, or be blunt and to the point with Renegade options.

– Last thing before sleeping headcanons

Depends on how bad the PTSD is acting up. If it's mild, she'll just have a glass of warm milk and pass the hell out. Any worse, and depending on if the Normandy is around a planet that has wild areas to drive like a lunatic or not, she'll either take the Mako/Hammerhead for an insane joyride to tire herself out completely (We're talking "How the fuck did you get this thing to flip 4 times mid-air and land on it's side only to spring back onto it's wheels one second later??? levels of driving. Crazy Taxi on steroids.) If they're in space, she'll grab one of her friends who also needs to sleep and drag them to her quarters, before curling around them like a very large cat and slowly drifting off as she listens to them ramble about anything.

– Sleeping habits headcanons

Sleeps like the dead until a single unexpected noise occurs, in which case she's on her feet with a pistol in the face (or face equivalent) of whatever made said noise.

– First thing after waking up headcanons

You ever get one of those mornings where everything is just a bit too sore to be comfortable? That's Shepard after being brought back from the dead. She lies still and bitches to herself until the pain stops, after which she does stretches to loosen up all the painful areas.

– Favorite locations headcanon

There's one spot on Earth she loves. The top of a mountain not-often climbed these days near San Francisco, where she grew up. Just goes up there and watches the city at times. Seeing as the mountain is abandoned as there was a ship crash there that still has to be cleaned up, she ends up sitting on a metal beam that's partially melted.

Aside from that one spot, she does like the Citadel's Persidium. Parks are nice. Space parks where you can see the curve of the station far above you are better cooler. If Shepard had 'fuck you' ammounts of money, she'd build a circular agri-station and just spend most of the day lying down in a patch of grass made for herself staring upwards. As is, sometimes when walking to an ambassador's office or to the Councilor's spire, she'll pause and just stare up with a wistful smile for a bit.

[thecomposerofstories]

Information on Amy.

(Be warned it's a ~little bit~ long, any other pieces of information you want to know I'll gladly answer if you ask.)

~General Information~

Fandom: Toy Story.

Name: Amy the Ragdoll.

Nickname, if any: Amy, Ames, and Doll-Face(usually by more villainous characters or used in a joking manner).

Gender: Female.

Sexuality: ??? (I mean I know the gender of who she has a crush on, but I'm unsure on what her actual sexuality should be tbh)

Age: Mentally, mid-twenties in the first story second movie, thirties to forties in the third and fourth. Physically, she doesn’t have an age, but in regards to when she was made (the 1950’s) makes her fifty to sixty.

City they currently live in: San Francisco, apparently that’s where Toy Story takes place.

Any pets: Would Rex count? He just follows her around like a nervous puppy.

Current occupation: I mean she’s practically a therapist, but she’s a toy and she only treats Rex so it probably doesn’t count lol

~Physical Appearance~

Height: 10 inches.

Body type: Stocky, but a bit gangly too, similar to Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Eye colour: Black.

Skin tone: Light.

Clothing style: Pale green/turquoise shirt with short puffed sleeves, with a denim dungaree dress with a daisy print in the centre over it. She wears yellow rain boots.

Hairstyle: No style, it’s just there. It’s messy and gets in her face easily and is made out of dark brown thin string.

~Speech/Language/Communication~

Amy speaks quietly and politely, rambles a bit if left without a reply or under pressure, very nervous in front of intimidating characters.

First language: English.

Learned languages: A bit of Spanish (Ya’ll remember Toy Story 3!)

Accent: American.

Pitch of voice: High, but soft, not quite annoying, unless she’s stressed, then it gets very pitchy and shrill.

~Behaviour/Habits~

Amy tends to just stand there when she can’t find anything to do, and will immediately try to find Rex, Hamm, Buzz or Jessie if surrounded by strangers (Though she’s not sure if it’s for their comfort or her own) Amy is very polite.

Spending habits: She doesn’t like to be made a fuss of at all, the very fact of someone giving something to her is unnerving (even if the thing never costed anything at all) and she feels compelled to give the giver something in return.

Morning routine: She gets up same time as the others, but wishes she could stay in bed a bit longer though. Before she came to Andy’s room, her sleep pattern was all over the place.

Bedtime routine: Similar to above, now she goes to bed the same time as the others, but before she just slept and got up willy-nilly.

Nervous habits: Amy will try to find Rex if she’s nervous, and she’ll pretend it’s because she’s worried for him, which is quite true, but she also just feels most safe with him. Speaking of, Amy will let Rex hold her hand and squish it whenever he or Amy is nervous, it’s calming to the both of them.

Bad habits: Not a very good exerciser, but then again, she’s spend basically half her life in a small attic, so I’ll give her a break.

Skills/talents: She’ very logical, mind-over-matter, (mostly, very good at calming others down and/or convincing them. She’s very good at spelling and knows quite a lot of words, some of which others haven’t even heard of.

Hobbies: Reading, talking (especially with Rex, Jessie or Hamm), and generally just lazing about or walking around somewhere, on her own or with a friend.

~The Past~

Amy’s first owner was a little girl called Alice. Alice loved nothing more than to read Amy stories (Mostly fairy tales), but of course, Alice grew up like all kids do, and she left Amy in the attic for someone else to have her.

Amy waited for many years, and all that time she’d never given up that someone would find her.

She thought she’s hit the jackpot when Andy and his family move into Alice’s old house, but they don’t go up into the attic to collect her. Some weeks later, though, Andy’s mother brings a set of boxes filled with junk into the attic and leaves. Woody, Buzz, Slinky, and Rex were trapped in one of the boxes (Call me a cheater but this part was actually inspired by a Toy Story comic, where those four toys get stuck in the attic that way and have to escape. It struck me odd that they never met at least one new friend there, so I made one. It was also my first story, I needed some inspiration!)

Amy, in a fit of panic, goes and hides.

But then she’s found by Rex as he and the others try to find a way out.

They then decide to let the strange, dust-covered ragdoll come back to Andy’s rom with them. (well, Rex did, anyway.)

Home town: Would Alice’s old room count? But it’s now Andy’s Room, so it won’t count will it?

Happy or sad childhood: Pretty normal to be honest, as normal a life as a toy could have anyway. And as for sadness, having spent all that time on her own for all those years, having missed out on so much, is a little sad. But Amy made sure she never became bitter over it or used it as an excuse for anything.

Earliest memory: Waking up in her toy store, with a friend of hers for company (a ragdoll Prospector, a much as she remembers) and as she gets bought by Alice’s Auntie, she says she hopes he gets picked up by a kid. (Unbeknownst to her, she would meet him again in a while to find out he never got to experience it)

Saddest memory: One, being left by Alice, yet being so happy for her and how much she’s grown up, if she could cry tears of joy for her owner, she would. Two, some (or most) of the days she spent waiting for a new owner to arrive. And three, watching Rex have a mental breakdown of anxiety.

Happiest memory: One, the time she and Alice went to the park, (Amy absolutely adores nature) Two after sliding down a drainpipe to get to Andy’s room, and three, having known she’d helped her friend out.

Significant events: Being bought, being left in an attic, being rescued from the attic, while gaining some new friends.

~Family~

The entirety of Andy’s room, whether they like it or not, they’re all in this together and are some kind of mish-mash, found family in a sense.

Siblings: I’ve been thinking of giving Amy a brother (since I based her on Raggedy Ann, a matching bootleg Raggedy Andy seems reasonable) bur I’m unsure about it, since I’ve already mapped out Amy’s entire series of stories (Around six or seven all together, so far I’m currently writing only the third) and I can only fit him in the fifth or sixth if I can.

~Relationships~

Romantically? I’d like to say she has a crush on Rex, I don’t know why I thought of it, I was contemplating it one day as I sketched a rough (and terrible) sketch of her, and I drew Rex too because he’s just so fun to draw and I wanted to make a scale for Amy’s size, and one of my friends (who had been watching me) immediately said “I ship it!” and well, the rest is history, I made the decision to ship it too.

Friends: Jessie, Hamm, Buzz, and Rex are her closet friends, but she’d like to say that all the Gang are her friends. Later on she becomes good friends with Mr. Prickle Pants, Buttercup, Trixie and Totoro, and she absolutely loves the peas and Forky.

Best friend(s): Hamm, Mr. Prickle Pants, Jessie, and Rex.

What do people like about them? Amy’s pretty easy to talk to, she’s polite and attentive and will sit in companionable silence with someone if they need it. But she won’t hesitate to give hard truths and advice if it’s needed.

What do people dislike about them? Amy is quite a doormat, if someone is rude to her or breaches anything she just lets it happen, and sometimes she’s too indecisive about her own stuff, unsure whether she’s going to offend others or not over the smallest things, which annoys others quite a bit.

~Mentality/Personal Beliefs~

Amy is a toy of logic, and though she believes others can do it if they set their minds to it, she doesn’t quite believe in herself. She believes she must follow the rules of being a toy at all times, no matter what.

Phobias: Dust. She hates it. It took a good five weeks to brush all the dust out her hair and clothes, and even so there’s still some in her pockets and places she can’t reach. And being alone, too. Now she can’t be alone for more than an hour before she starts to get antsy and nervous. And for a short time books gave her a strange tiredness, after reading them for so long and for so many years she couldn’t even stand the sight of them.

But of course, not for long, since Amy found out Andy had a copy of Red’s Dream by a Mr. William Reeves.

Optimist or pessimist: Depends on the situation really, if her mind can’t come up with a solution, then there’s no point in trying anymore. Unless someone else can think of something, that is.

Personal philosophies: “You are here to make good things happen. No person here is made for one reason only, or even only one. There’s no point in pretending to be someone you’re not just for the attention of others, no matter how cool they are. We should find are own meaning, as we’re the only ones who have control of it.

It’ll take a while, but I swear, it’ll be worth it.”

Biggest dream/wish: Amy wants nothing more than to find meaning for herself, but finds it rather hard to do so. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’ll settle for someone else’s meaning. As cheesy as it sounds, she just wants an adventure. She doesn’t necessarily want to be the hero, though, she’s just happy to go along with the ride so long as it gets her out the house for a few hours. She also, above all else, wants Rex to find meaning too, even if she never does, it would be nice to know that he had.

Greatest strength(s): Persuasion, story-telling, logic, and good grammar.

Biggest flaw: Despite being a ragdoll, Amy can’t sew because of her fingerless hands, which are just soft mittens in shape. Amy is also quite a doormat, as I said before, so if her calm persuasion and reasoning doesn’t work, she’s left to be walked all over.

Regrets: Staying in that dratted attic too long, the window was open, she could’ve just climbed out, but no, she had to stay there for some mind-rotting decades. But if she had just escaped, she would never have met her new friends. Amy just wishes she had met them a lot sooner.

Achievements: Escaped the attic, slid down a drainpipe, leapt onto the windowsill (though nearly knocking Woody and Buzz over in the process) stopped her friend from having a panic attack, and managed to remember the entire Dictionary and is able to recite it down from A to Z, and even Z to A.

Secrets: Not much, just strange feelings for one of her friends, but it’s not much of a secret, Bo knows, and Mr. Potato Head and Hamm could see it from a mile away, and the others have their suspicions.

Goals: Read the entirety of Andy’s (and later Bonnie’s) bookshelves, become more confident in herself, have her own book-worthy adventure, and figure out what those strange feelings for her friend is.

~Likes/Favourites~

Favourite colour: Even before meeting Rex, Amy’s favourite colour was always green. Every time Alice had taken her to the park, Amy adored watching the sunlight pour through the leaves with a golden-green glow.

Favourite book(s): Because it’s sentimental to her, being her owner’s favourites, she loves Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz. They all hold similar plots (a little girl in a blue dress goes to a fantasy land, has a few adventures, and then leaves said fantasy land to go home to her family and responsibilities) but it reminds Amy of her old owner Alice (who was actually named after Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) and their playtimes together.

Favourite Book Quotation(s):

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”

“There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is facing danger when you are afraid.”

Favourite movie: Amy does much prefer books, since they allow her to imagine the setting and characters in her own way, but doesn’t mind movies, and isn’t picky on what they watch, though she does quite like horror films.

Favourite song: Amy likes any kind of music, new or old.

Favourite game: Amy never really cared for games, the competitiveness always bothered her and stressed her out. But she’s more than happy to watch Rex play his video games and cheer him on.

~Relationships with other characters~

~Rex~

- Hit it off pretty quickly.

- Amy helps him with his anxiety, and helps him find confidence in himself, she acts as a certain therapist to him.

- Both become very stressed without the other around.

- Rex will hold and knead at Amy’s hands sometimes; it calms him down.

- Rex will let Amy ride on his back if she’s tired or needs to see something (Because she’s so short).

- One of them can basically be talking about the most boring-est things ever, yet still the other will hang on to their every word.

~Jessie~

- Became friends pretty quickly.

- Will drag Amy along anywhere.

- Get along fairly well.

- Jessie does the talking and Amy does the planning.

- Jessie always pranks the other toys and makes Amy tag along (along with Hamm).

- Introvert/Extrovert dynamic for sure.

- Both were left in alone for years so like to find solace in each other.

~Hamm~

- Hamm begrudgingly warmed up to the timorous ragdoll.

- Surprisingly good pals.

- Have full conversations without saying anything.

- Like to sit and look out of the window together.

- Hamm makes Amy laugh when she really shouldn’t (mainly when he makes fun of the other toys, mainly Woody).

- Hamm makes fun of Amy having a crush on Rex every once in a while, though he doesn’t mean any harm.

~The Potato Heads~

- Mr. doesn’t really interact with Amy much, but finds her surprisingly tolerable, if a bit high-strung and annoying.

- Like Hamm, Mr. makes Amy laugh at the most wrong moments.

- She and Mrs. Are quite good friends, and she sometimes lets Amy take care of the aliens if she and her husband are busy.

~Woody~

- Are aquianteces.

- Don’t exactly interact much, even though the whole room practically revolves around him, in Amy’s opinion, though she would never say it to his face.

~Buzz~

- Amy thinks he’s super cool (then again, he is Buzz Lightyear, he practically invented coolness)

- Both are just as clueless as one another when it comes to social cues and interactions.

- Amy helps him with vocabulary and spelling every once in a while.

~Mr. Prickle Pants~

- Are absolute BFF’s.

- Go back and forth with book quotes to the point of driving the other toys insane.

~Bo Peep~

- Amy's not exactly sure if Bo has befriended her or not.

- (She has)

- They later become good friends.

- Amy misses their talks, Bo was one of the only toys she could talk to that could keep a secret.

[solarwindswriting]

Oh, The Places You’ll Go

Chapter 2

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Loosely inspired by the song Greek Tragedy by the Wombats

Pairing: Scotty x FemalePresenting!Reader

Word Count: 3313

Summary: The Enterprise welcome party is in full swing, and our two main characters finally meet each other!

Warnings: excessive alcohol consumption (I think that’s it)

A/N: So, I didn’t notice how long this part was until it was too late. I wanted to slip it into two but I couldn’t find a reasonable place to do it. So instead you get over 3k words. Sorry lol. Also, thank you so much to those who showed interest in being tagged, you have no idea how big that is for me!

Tags: @mournthewicked @damalseer  

“Oh my, does this dress make my butt look bigger?” Sara asks, standing in front of the mirror in a shop.

“Is that what you want? If so, yes. Why do you need a new dress anyway? You have so many beautiful ones already.” Y/n wonders out loud while looking through the racks.

“Because I want to make a good first impression. Besides, I heard the crew of the Enterprise are all quite attractive. I’ve got to live up to that.” Sara responds, walking back into the dressing room.

“Sara, you are one of the most attractive people I know. Neither of us would have a problem if we went in something we already owned.” Y/n laughs, pulling out a flowing deep blue dress off the rack. “What about this?”

Sara pops her head out of the dressing room, watching as Y/n holds the dress up to her body. Sara’s eyes widen and shake her head frantically in agreement before her head disappears back into the dressing room, “absolutely. Go try that on right now.”

Y/n walks into a dressing room with the dress in hand. The dress was made with elegant royal blue tulle with embroidered stars speckled over the top layer. It fell over Y/n’s body perfectly, off the shoulders and stopped to about mid-calf, and whished when she moved. Stepping out, Y/n looks at Sara who was now sitting in a chair with the black cocktail dress she had tried on previously.

“You look like a greek god in that dress, Y/n,” Sara mused.

Y/n walked in front of the mirror and twirled. “Is it too much? If I get this, you have to pick a more exciting dress than what you’ve got.”

“It’s not too much but if it takes me getting that dress that makes my butt look good for you to buy that, I’ll do it,” Sara responds while walking over to the rack where she found the aforementioned dress.

With both dresses paid for, the friends left the shop and headed to Y/n’s apartment to pick up the things she needs to get ready at Sara’s.

“So, Let’s see what we’re getting ourselves into,” Sara started, looking at her datapad with photos of the crew while she walks.

“Sara, we’ve looked at these photos thousands of times. We know what they look like,” chuckles out Y/n, weaving their arm with hers.

“Yes, but that was different. Now we’re performing reconnaissance for the party tonight.” 

“And what does your reconnaissance tell you?” Y/n glances at the pad.

“That Lieutenant Uhura is very attractive and only one rank above us.” Sara giggles as she reads Uhura’s personnel entry. “She’s also incredibly smart.”

“And very taken by Commander Spock,” Y/n points to the relationship status on file.

Sara deflates slightly before swiping through the next few personnel files. She stops on Commander Spock next.

“And this is the Vulcan you’ll be working under. Good luck with that, Y/n. I hear he’s rather cold.” Sara comments before continuing to swipe.

“He’s not that cold if he’s in a relationship. Also, isn’t he half human?” Y/n stops Sara before she walks into the busy street.

Sara ignores the potential harm she could have caused herself, and next stops on Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, better known as Scotty. 

“Cheif of Engineering. I hear he’s basically married to the ship,” Sara laughs and restarting to walk once the crosswalk is open.

“Next,” Y/n chuckles bad.

“Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer. I heard he has a cute accent but is a bit of a hardass. Remind me not to get hurt a lot.” Sara side-eyes Y/n while she talks.

“Good to know. Bet he knows how to make a good drink though.” Y/n speculates as they enter their apartment building.

“And Lastly, for the head of different groups, Captain James T. Kirk. Quite the looker.” Sara smirks to herself.

“And quite the flirt,” Y/n laughs at her friend as she unlocks her apartment. “I’ll be right over. I just need to pick up a few things.”

Living in the same building as your best friend had its perks. Getting ready for events was one of them. After picking up her makeup and a pair of heels that match her dress, Y/n walks over to Sara’s apartment and opens the door.

“Hey, why didn’t you wake me up this morning?” Y/n questioned, setting her makeup down next to Sara’s.

“Oh, I tried, you wouldn’t budge. I figured you’d make it eventually. And you did! So points for Sara.” She muses as she grabs two hard ciders from her fridge.

“I could have missed graduation!” Y/n fakes anger as she takes the cider from her dear friend.

Both get to work on their makeup and hair. Sara loosely curls her auburn hair, whereas Y/n does her hair in her favorite style. Once they were both ready, they left Sara’s apartment towards the location of the welcoming party, an old-style bar reminiscent of old San Francisco. The two stood in front of the main doors, peering into the windows, unsure if they should just walk in or not.

“Lieutenants! Very nice to see you two could make it.” A strong hand falls on Y/n’s shoulder, causing them and Sara to turn towards the voice to see a hand outstretched. “How about a proper introduction? I am Captain James T. Kirk. You’re welcome to just call me Kirk when we are off duty. And this is Commander Spock.”

  Y/n takes Kirk’s hand to shake then trading with Sara to shake Spock’s. “I am Lieutenant Junior Grade Y/n Y/l/n. I just go by Y/n when off duty. And this is-”

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Sara Conners, Sir! It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, we should probably get inside and join the party, yes?” Kirk suggests, holding the door open for the other three.

The music playing was just above a comfortable volume, but quiet enough where you could hold a conversation without yelling. Sara and Y/s walk up to the bar to order drinks when a young man approaches them with a wide smile.

“Hello, I’m Pavel Ch-”

“Chekov. Navigation right?” Sara finishes for him, reaching out her arm. “Sara Conners. A pleasure to meet you!”

Pavel chuckles shaking Sara’s hand, “Did your research I see. And you are?” He finishes with a soft Russian accent, looking at Y/n.

“Y/n Y/l/n.” She says, shaking his hand. “Got any suggestions on what to order from here?”

“Well, the midtier brandy is spectacular here. But they do have a wonderful mint julep.” He states before waving over the bartender and ordering himself a brandy.

“We’ll take two mint juleps please.” Sara catches the bartender before he’s able to walk off.

“So, are you two in a relationship? You seem very close.” Pavel questions, sipping from his glass.

“No, just really close,” Sara answers, reaching for the newly arrived drinks and handing one to Y/n.

“Ah, cool,” Pavel beams. “Have you met the rest of the bridge crew yet? I can introduce you!”

Pavel leads Sara and Y/n to a table where Kirk and Spock were sat with two others.

“This is Nyota Uhura and Leonard McCoy. You’ve met the Captain and Spock already, yes?” Pavel introduces the crew with a bright smile. “Everyone, this is Y/n Y/l/n and Sara Conners.”

Hello’s and handshakes were exchanged. Pavel is pulled away by a few other ensigns towards what Y/n now notices a karaoke machine.

“So, Lieutenant Y/l/n, You will be working under me. Is there a particular area of study you wish to work on while abroad the USS Enterprise?” Spock questions.

“Oh, um yes. I’m looking specifically for new worlds with large deposits of Bio-mimetic Gel. It has many wonderful medical applications but very-” Y/n is cut off by Leonard.

“Regulated by the Federation. Do you have the proper paperwork and training to be handling such a hazardous material, young lady?” Leonard questions.

“Hey, we’re here to celebrate and have a good time, not to discuss work. Give the girl one more night of freedom.” Kirk interrupts and chuckles. “Also, call him Bones, he hates it.”

“I would love to answer your question, Lieutenant Commander McCoy. My last two years at the Academy majorly consisted of training and research with Bio-mimetic Gel under the supervision of Erika Biordi. My research has been in stabilizing the gel for transport and more widely used medical purposes. I have papers signed by President Kenneth Wescott and the proper containment materials that should already be aboard the Enterprise. This could be major for doctors all over the Federation. Also, I wouldn’t be able to do this work unless the Captain has approved it.” Y/n smiles thinly at the doctor.

Kirk, Spock, and Uhura all look impressed by the confidence in which Y/n spoke. Bones looks more apprehensive about the situation. Kirk broke the silence, “Y/n have you met Scotty yet?”

Y/n shakes her head no and notices Sara slinked off at some point to talk with Pavel more. Kirk leads Y/n towards the back corner to a table with three chairs. At the table sat a gentleman in a brown leather jacket and a Roylan both embroiled in a heated conversation about… power converters?

“No, Keenser, that will overload the Warp Drive, she won’t be able to take that kind of power without the proper energy suppressers.” A thick Scottish accent talks tensely between sips of whatever is in his glass.

“Can no one on my ship take a day off?” Kirk laughs, clapping his hand onto Montgomery’s shoulder.

“Ey, not when you have a potential explosion risk due to Keenser, Sir,” Montgomery responds.

“Well, I’ve got bad news then. I’d like to introduce you to Lieutenant Junior Grade Y/n Y/l/n. One of the newest graduates from Starfleet Academy. She will be studying Bio-mimetic Gel.” Kirk pulls the third chair out and motions to Y/n to sit. “She’s not getting along so great with Bones and thought you two might get along better.”

And with that Kirk walks away. The three are quiet, Y/n sipping on her mint julep that She’s about half done with.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I’d be interrupting a conversation. You can act like I’m not here.” Y/n said just loud enough to be heard over the sound of Sara and a couple of ensigns poorly singing Africa on stage.

“Why did you decide to study Bio-mimetic Gel?” The question from Montmonery surprised Y/n.

“Oh, um, when I was younger, Bio-mimetic Gel saved my mother’s life while out on a five-year mission. Her ship shouldn’t have even had any onboard, but they had just commandeered some from a smuggling vessel. If they hadn’t found that ship when they did and the doctor on board willing to take the risk, my mother would be dead and I would never have been born. So, when I heard they were wanting to do more research into it to potentially make it a commonly used substance by Federation doctors, I jumped at the chance. Sorry, that’s probably a lot more information than you were asking for.” Y/n found herself rambling.

The Cheif engineer just shook his head slightly, finishing off his drink. “No, I asked, Lass. I rarely get full explanations of why someone joined Starfleet. It’s refreshing. I’ll be right back, I’m going to get a refill. Can I get you anything?”

“Yeah, Sure. I’ll take one of whatever you’re getting. Thank you, Montgomery.”

“Please, call me Scotty.” He said, before walking off towards the bar.

Keenser and Y/n sat in more silence as they finished their drinks waiting for Scotty to return. Peering towards the bar, Y/n notices Scotty being stopped by some ensigns to chat.

“So, how long have you been on the enterprise?” Y/n asks Keenser.

Keenser babbles in his native tongue something along the lines of “not very long.”

Y/n nods in acknowledgment, “very cool. Do you like it?”

Keenser simply nods as Scotty returns, placing a glass in front of Y/n.

“Thank you, Scotty.” Y/n smiles at the man now sitting across from them.

“No problem, Lass. This will unfortunately be my last drink for the night. Going to head up to the Enterprise tonight to get a head start on some undocking prep. Coming with Keenser?” Keenser huffed in response, Finishing his drink and hopping down from his chair.

“Oh, okay. Have a goodnight then. Don’t overwork yourself. It’s supposed to be a night off.” Y/n waves goodbye to Scotty and Keenser.

Almost as soon as they leave, their spots are taken by Sara and Pavel.

“Y/n! You HAVE to get up there and sing!” Sara’s words slur as she waves her arm towards the small stage in the bar.

“Yes, you should take her advice, Lieutenant,” Pavel smiles towards Y/n.

“No, I’m perfectly fine here. And call me Y/n, Pavel. When do you want to go home, Sara?” Y/n looks with a soft smile towards her friend. She isn’t feeling the alcohol as intensely as Sara but she assumes that’s because she’s had significantly fewer drinks than her friend.

Sara looks at Y/n like they’ve just committed the most heinous crime. “What do you mean you don’t want to go up and sing. You have the most beautiful voice! And I bet your dress would look stunning under those lights.” Sara leans further into Y/n, head now resting her head on her shoulder, and whispers, “You can sing that old Earth song you like so much.”

Y/n chuckles at her friend while shaking her head. “You’re going to have to get a lot more alcohol into me before I’m willing to sing in front of the whole crew.”

Before Y/n could finish talking, Pavel was already up and at the bar, ordering a double round of shots. After a couple of minutes, he returns with a tray of purple shots. The trio cheers the first round to their health and quickly follows it with another to their safety aboard the ship. The trio continues to drink and after about an hour, Y/n is successfully sloshed. Sara convinced Y/n and Pavel to sing Sara’s favorite song that her grandmother loved called ‘Shut Up and Dance’. This was not a song to sing well, but more to just yell the word to. They even got a few of the old crewmates to sing along. Y/n was having a blast and finally thought she couldn’t wait to be working with these people. A group of nurses went on next and sang some modern rock anthem.

Y/n cut themself and Sara off after that song and convinced Sara to drink some water and eat some more food. Both slowly started to sober up, Pavel never seemed very drunk though. People begin to leave back to their homes or hotels for the night. It was starting to get late. Y/n shivers.

“Are you cold, Y/n?” Pavel asks.

“A bit, but I’ll be fine.” Y/n smiles at the kind man.

“Um,” Pavel looks around and spots something on the back of Sara’s chair and grabs it, “put this on.”

‘Scotty’s jacket? When did he take that off?’ Y/n wonders to herself as she slides the jacket on. ‘I’m sure her wouldn’t mind. I’ll just bring it to him on the ship tomorrow.’

“Y/nnnnn, come ooon. Barely anyone is left and I got you drunk like you said I had to. Go sing a solo song.” Sara nudges Y/n elbow towards the stage again.

“Fine, but I’m not happy about it!” Y/n laughs, walking onto the stage after the current song ends.

Sitting on a stool on stage, Y/n adjusts the mic to her sitting height. ‘Take Me To Church’ starts playing.

***

Scotty left earlier than he had planned. But talking with the new science officer made him feel odd and he didn’t want to be rude so he lied about needing to work on the ship. She’s much too young for him he thought. She has her whole life of research ahead of them. He couldn’t be with someone who dressed so elegantly, he was a bumbling fool and could never compare. She didn’t need him, some old Scotsman pinning for her. So instead, he and Keenser walked around the surrounding area until they got tired. About an hour had passed when Scotty realized something.

“Keenser, where’s my jacket?”

Keenser looks at Scotty and responds in his native tongue, “you left it at the bar.”

“Damnit, why didn’t you say anything?” He huffs out, turning around to walk back to the bar and get his Jacket.

He had walked further than he realized from the bar and took him about half an hour to return. As he entered the front doors, he watched Y/n walk onto the stage with his jacket on. Confused, he walks up to Kirk who now sat alone at the bar.

“Y/n said you went back to the ship,” Kirk prodded at the engineer.

“Yeah, but I noticed I forgot my jacket.” Scotty’s accent was unmissable.

“I noticed.” Kirk glances knowingly at Y/n who has started singing on stage.

Most people continued to talk but a few people stopped to listen to Y/n sing. Sara and Pavel sat at their table swaying dramatically to the song. Sara even started waving her arms slowly above her head, causing Y/n to chuckle as she sang. Scotty became enraptured in Y/n singing and began swaying lightly to her voice.

On the last line, “Good God, let me give you my life,” Y/n makes eye contact with Scotty, making her instantly blush.

Hopping off the stage, Y/n shuffles towards him while taking off his jacket.

“Sorry, Pavel found your jacket. I planned on giving it to you tomorrow on the ship but I got cold and put it on. Sorry.” Y/n talked fast, face beet red while shoving the jacket into Scotty’s arms and running back towards Sara before he could get a word out.

“Thanks,” Scotty whispers under his breath, looking down at his jacket.

He slides his arms into it, still warm from Y/n wearing it. Her song had entranced him. It wasn’t a song he was familiar with, must be old. He doesn’t usually care for music, but he thought he would listen to music for hours if she was the one singing it. Scotty shook his head free of those thoughts. By the time he came back to reality, Y/n was gone.

“What are you thinking about, Scotty?” Kirk prodded.

“Nothing, Sir. Goodnight” Scotty straightened out his back before leaving the bar and walking to his hotel room.

***

“Sara, it’s time to go,” Y/n spoke quickly

“What? But I’m still having fun.” Sara huffed.

“Yeah, and we both need to be up and on the transport shuttles at 0700. Let’s go, Rockstar. Goodnight, Pavel, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Y/n pulled Sara to her feet and waved goodbye to Pavel.

The cool, damp air was refreshing on Y/n’s skin. The walk wasn’t long to their apartments, which Y/n was thankful for. She helped Sara into her apartment and bed, setting their friend’s alarm with plenty of time to get ready before going to her apartment to do the same. Y/n quickly fell asleep with oddly invading thoughts of one Montgomery Scott.

[gta5-watchdogswriter]

Soooo, I did mention this before and I might as well give more on her. 

Let me introduce y’all to my Watch Dogs OC, Eden Bane. Well, she is more of a multi-verse OC, which means she can adapt to any universe I put her in. Correction: She is more so that in terms of rping. Her main and default verse is Watch Dogs, which has a lot of information more than any other universes I put her in. Besides my book’s universe that is. 

Anyways, I had her for almost six months now. I knew Watch Dogs before that, but never joined the fandom until Late May - early June. June 9th is the official date that I introduced Eden to the world. I was in process of making her a day or two before then though. I had no intentions of naming her Eden. In fact, I was struck on choosing a name and made my roommate choose the name for her, which she chose Eden. 

It’s funny cause of how similar her name spells like and pronounce as to Aiden. When I realized that info, I start making jokes about how some of the Watch Dogs characters can mistaken their names if they weren’t careful enough, making both get confused on who is being referred to or called to. Some of my friends begun to start shipping them too, which makes it even funnier when it comes to their ship name. Even one of my friends couldn’t come up with a ship name because of how similar their names is. Their ship name would basically be their own names. 

Moving on, Eden is a woman in her late thirties. The exact age is unknown. She is described to be a cheerful, energetic, and chaotic woman, who - if y’all haven’t known yet - has a thing for creating chaos. It’s why there’s mostly two types of relationships she has. Either people are annoyed by her presence and wants her out of their lives, which is difficult to do, or they join her on her chaotic spree. The reason why I say it’s difficult for her to get rid of because once she is in your life, she is there for a long time, no matter what type of relationship she has with you. She always seem to find her way into your life, regardless of what you do. 

Her chaotic nature is the reason why she has another identity called Cha0tic. Selective few know the connections between the two. Otherwise, everyone is clueless of who Cha0tic really is. So many stories and rumors came up because of that. Eden even made sure there is little to nothing that would connect the two as one person. She even made sure her mannerisms, body language, speech pattern, appearance, e v e r y t h i n g, is different as Cha0tic. When she was younger,  she had a different name. It was a little before she had to rescue her sister that she changed her name to Cha0tic and kept it since then. 

During the events of the first Watch Dogs, Eden kept a low profile. She kept off the radar for a little while to help her sister out. Annie - the name of her sister - been through a lot. So, Eden wanted to avoid causing too much trouble. Unfortunately, one of the jobs she had to do resulted in her having to kill off some members of the Chicago Southclub. For a little bit, Lucky Quinn was confused on who was behind it. It wasn’t until Brad, a shitty ex boyfriend of Eden’s, came in and pointed fingers. How he knew is unknown. Eden  and her best friend had to deal with Lucky Quinn and later Iraq. Shortly before Iraq was dealt with, he ended up killing Eden’s best friend. After he was dealt with and solving the problems with Lucky Quinn, Eden left Chicago and disappeared for a little while. Whatever happened during those years is unknown exactly. 

She was later found in San Francisco. During that time, she remained to work alone before joining Dedsec. It’s quite surprising to see such things cause she normally worked alone. But since joining and getting closer to the members, she ended up helping out a lot with Dedsec. Even can be seen helping in Legion.  I like to mention that Eden was in Chicago when she was a teenager. Up until she was able to move out on her own and left Chicago to live on her own. Since thirteen years old (or rather a little before), she had been into the hacking business. She only went into it because of her sister, Annie. Their father was a shitty person, which is why Annie ran away from home. Eden wanted to make sure her sister was okay. 

At one point, she did get separated from her twin sister for like ten years before they were reunited again. While Willow did hacking on the side, Eden had it for a full time thing. 

There’s a whole bunch of other information to drop, but like I said, it’s a lot. I don’t want y’all to read a long ass post. I do like to mention that Eden has Russian and Indian in her. Out of all of her siblings, excluding Willow, Eden looks more like her father. She looks like she is adopted because of her olive skin. Don’t think she is scrawny either. She is pretty built. She hides her body under her baggy clothes. 

[samgraca]

( DANIELA RUAH + FEMALE ) —  Have you seen SAMANTHA GRACA ? This THIRTY-SEVEN year old is a PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT NYU who resides in MANHATTAN. SHE has been living in NYC for A MONTH (LEFT INITIALLY WHEN THEY WERE SIXTEEN), and is known to be EARNEST and CHARISMATIC, but can also be ABRASIVE and UNFORGIVING, if you cross them.  People tend to associate them with INK STAINED HANDS and BOXING GLOVES CHUCKED CARELESSLY ON HER DESK — @codstarters​

Trigger warnings: death, murder, violence, sickness, ptsd

PAST

The Smith family were as normal as the name itself. Mia Grace and William Smith seemed like a match made in heaven. Both from rich families (hers being based primarily in England), with personalities that balanced each other out. Once the children came along, they were the quintessential American family.

Unlike many families it hadn’t felt like a facade. Despite their many roles, both Mia and William were heavily involved in the lives of their daughter. WHether it was going to Sam’s soccer games or little Madeline’s dance rehearsals. They were always there.

Sam (called Samantha only by her parents) was the oldest daughter by eight years. She always had been a little combative, a difficult child per say. Too much energy her teachers used to say. Even so, she was sweet and kind and her anger was always in defense of somebody else. Usually Madeline.

While she loved both her parents, she was always a dad’s girl. She wanted nothing more than to become a big time soccer player like him and then coach afterwards.

Then she turned sixteen and a few days afterwards, everything fell apart.

For the six months beforehand, New York had been shook by a series of murders. Young girls, twenty-two of them. Every female in the city was scared and for good reason. Sam’s parents had even refused to allow her out at night until the man was caught.

Ironic, considering that a few days after her birthdays, a couple of detectives came to the house and arrested William Smith for the murders. Even just over two decades later, the memory of the police pulling him away, her mother sobbing and asking what the hell could have been going on, remains burned in her memory.

One should never think that things couldn’t get worse because just when Sam thought it couldn’t, it did. On the day of his trial, William Novak disappeared. No one is exactly sure how, just that he went into the police van but when it got to the courthouse, he was gone. It was almost like a magic trick. 

Oh the city kicked into gear again and both Mia and Sam were interrogated what felt like constantly, detectives and agents desperate to find the man that had terrorised the city for what felt an age. After six months, he was still in the wind.

After that, the family was public enemy number one. The house was vandalized, the family excluded from every social event and on one horrific occasion, Mia was attacked on the way home. She was okay, but it was the last straw. How could they stay in a city that hated them, that would not soon forget such hate? Already Sam was skipping classes to stand outside Madeline’s class and lunch area, determined to not let anyone get to her or say anything at all that might scare her. So, with nothing left to lose, Mia packed up her life and her daughters and moved them all back to her home in London.

From there, Mia was determined to forget New York and for her daughters to do the same. They changed their last names back to Mia’s maiden name and endeavoured to pretend that it never happened. For little Madeline, who wasn’t quite old enough to understand the intricacies of what was going on, it was easier. For their mother and Sam however? It was not the same.

Sam pulled away from the world. She was angry and people made it worse. Madeline was the only one who didn’t receive her anger. Her baby sister still had light in her and she’d be damned if it was lost.

She stopped playing soccer then. Soccer was her and her dad’s thing and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. So instead of sport and instead of people, her time was spent studying. It was a distraction and it was a damn good reason to tell people to piss off. Which she did, alot.

It wasn’t until she got to Oxford (her mum cried when she got the acceptance letter) where she started to find a new part of herself. One that William Smith had never met.

Studying Elizabethan  History felt like studying a whole different world. Maybe that's why she fell in love with it. The idea that this world had existed not all that long ago was thrilling. She can’t pinpoint the moment where she decided that this was it. That she wanted to spend her time on Earth talking about Queen Elizabeth and all her intricacies. A far cry of a life in soccer that’s for sure.

Oxford became a version of home to her. She liked being talked about for reasons that she was proud of. For being good at her job, the best even. Despite everything, she had created some sort of life for herself.

Madeline ended up back in the states. That was hard. The longest Sam had ever lasted there, even in San Francisco, was a week. Visits were rare but it was okay right? Oh well if she missed her baby sister more than anything. Maddie was happy and free of the chains that her mum and sister still wore. It was okay.

Until Maddie got sick that is. Then Sam’s world fell apart again. The worst might have been that she couldn’t be there. America was still too much for her. It was embarrassing and it felt  shameful. Her heart wanted to be as close to her baby sister as she could but also couldn’t handle it. Their mum was the same. Let’s not even talk about what William Smith still being out there did to them. What if he heart about his youngest daughter dying and decided to turn up?

Maddie was too young to remember the terror her father caused and reading about it just wasn’t the same.

Despite all hope, two years ago, Maddie still died. It felt wrong. Madeline, the best of the whole family was the one to suffer so badly. Sometimes she wished she could have swapped places with her. Maddie deserved better. Always.

PRESENT

Sam has always bounced between teaching and researching/writing. The past two years however has been spent primarily working on her latest book. This one was on the School of Night and their influence in England and beyond.  

Soon after it was published, two months ago, she was offered a professorship. Now such steady work is hard to come by as an academic and any in their right mind would jump at the chance.

The catch though? It was in America but not only that, it was in New York. Oh, how she had agonised over what to do. It was the perfect opportunity for her but it was New York and New York was the big bad.

Eventually it had been the idea of what Maddie would have wanted that made her take it. She had disappointed her when she had been alive and there was no going back. Maybe this would help. Maybe Maddie would be looking down on her big sister and be proud of her. Sam hoped so.

New York is different then she remembered, parts of it at least. Last time she was here, there were posters of her father everywhere but no longer.

Being Professor Samantha Graca is a lot easier than being Samantha Smith. She tends to spend most of her time at NYU, still unable to bring herself to explore the city, to trust that city but even still. It was progress.

She’s some kind of happy here, sometimes at least.

EXTRA

Sam has a distinctive birthmark in her right eye called the nevus of Otis. It gives the appearance of one of her eyes being black instead of brown. Her little sister used to call it her dead eye.

She has a 1968 Dodge Charger called Billy that she is currently dearly missing. It’s been an absolute ordeal trying to get it shipped from England.

There’s a tremor in her right hand, one that’s been there since everything that happened with her dad. It only tends to start when she’s either really stressed and upset or when anything at all to do with her dad comes up. It’s a good judge of how badly she’s doing to be honest.

[ltwilliammowett]

Topic: Lady Jane Franklin ????

Oh yes and with very great pleasure, she was a fascinating woman. Quite the opposite what the society expected from her and yet she stood her man. Since I did not quite know what exactly you wanted from her, I simply chose her biography to give an insight into her life. But please don’t be angry if I put the whole thing under the continuereading line at some point, but the text is really very long and with the pictures even longer. But I hope you like what I wrote about her.

Lady Jane Griffin (Franklin) (1791-1875)

Jane Griffin was born as one of three daughters of John Griffin and Mary Guillemard on 4 December 1791. She was very well educated at home and thanks to her father could travel a lot early on, which she also did with passion, and was a very good friend of Eleanor Anne Porden, who was married to John Franklin and gave birth to him a daughter. Unfortunately she died on 22 February 1825, only six days after John left her for an Arctic expedition. When he returned in 1827, he became known as the man who had eaten his boots, and had to realise that his wife had died of tuberculosis. His daughter Eleanor was meanwhile raised by her friend Jane. The two quickly came together and already in 1828 they were engaged and married in November of the same year, even if it was only a small and very quiet marriage. Less than five months later she became Lady Jane Franklin because John was knighted. And she was always called Lady Franklin, never Lady Jane.

Interestingly, it is always said that she had never been photographed. But that’s not true, there is a single picture of her together with her niece. Sophia is the one in the middle and Lady Franklin sits on the side.

From 23 August 1830 to 1834 John left her alone in England as he commanded the Rainbow, 28 guns, and then stayed in the Mediterranean. Jane didn’t let this bother her either, but she accompanied her husband from time to time, but mostly used her free time and travelled to Africa, Syria and Asia. An incident brought her a little more trouble with her husband. She sailed on the Nile and met a young man named Johann Lieder. A smart young portestant missionary. He flirted very strongly with her and even lay down with her on a blanket. She even wrote all this in her diary, but she lacked this certain kind of passion which led to the conclusion that she had also had sex with him. Rather, she seemed to have no interest in sex at all, suggesting that she might have been asexual. Since her marriage was also free of children. The society had rather suspected John and there were even rumours in the circles in which the two moved that he allegedly froze his hangings during his Arctic expedition. But what really was the reason why the two had no children and whether she really had no interest in sexual activities can definitely not be said today.

Lady Jane Franklin, by Thomas Bock 1838

When John was promoted to Lieut. Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1836, it didn’t take long for Jane to follow him with his niece Sophia Cracroft. Who was to live with them from then on. Jane saw Van Diemen’s as an opportunity to become active there and tried everything to change this island culturally and socially. Especially the female prisoners had done it to her. So she tried to give them a second chance with education and tried it instead of punishment with resocialization. John gave her his consent and so she could decide relatively freely and do what she wanted. Jane even founded a museum, a scientific society that became the first Royal Society for the Advancement of Science outside the UK. She also founded a scientific journal, a boys’ school, a botanical garden, an art gallery, a farm for peasants in the Huon. She paid one shilling per capita to get rid of snakes. She adopted Aboriginal children to see what happened when they were “civilized” - although she paid little attention to them herself and left “civilization” to others.

Only the men of society didn’t like that and so she, but also John, was repeatedly pointed out what kind of role she had to play and that would be a passive one. Also her very offensive flirting with Captain James Clark Ross, when he stopped in Tasmania to start his Antartis expedition, was considered too daring and was openly admonished to refrain. Ross but also Franklin didn’t seem to mind that much. At least there are no written statements or official reports about it.

Sir John Franklin, portrait by E.P. Hardy, engraved by D.F. Murphy, ca 1845

She was also interested in research. She was the first European woman to climb Mount Wellington and travelled by land to Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s wild west coast. On the mainland, Franklin travelled from Melbourne to Sydney, which in 1839 was considered a difficult journey and probably the first woman to do so. In 1841 she visited South Australia and New Zealand, taking countless notes on everything she observed. When John was called back under shabby circumstances in 1843 and heard that John Barrow, the Admiralty’s polar research man, was planning another search for a Northwest Passage, he strongly supported the command and got it. HMS Erebus and Terror and 129 crew members started in May 1845 with a big fanfare from the Thames, but they could not be seen again by any of their countrymen. In this time she travelled together with Sophia to America.

After two years without a word Jane took over the reins and began to ask the admiralty to conduct search expeditions. The earliest, ordered by James Clark Ross, was sent out in 1848, and it was only the first of about 40 expeditions that would search land, ice and seas in vain for 11 years. Many of the searches took place with Royal Navy ships under admiralty orders, but six were with ships owned or financed by Jane, using commanders and crews selected and paid by her. She even wrote to the US President and her wealthy American friend, Henry Grinnell, whom she had visited in 1846, asking for her help, and they responded by sending two ships owned by Grinnell and manned by the US Navy.

A sledge flag embroidered with Sir John Barrow’s motto ‘HOPE ON HOPE EVER’ made by Lady Jane Franklin for Lieutenant Bedford Pim. It was flown from HM sledge ‘John Barrow’ commanded by Pim when he made contact with the crew of ‘Investigator’ on 6 April 1853, during the Belcher Franklin search Expedition 1852-1854

The Royal Navy abandoned the search in 1855 after John Rae, the land explorer, brought artifacts from the Franklin ships acquired by the local Inuit, stories of men dying attempting to migrate south, and even reports of evidence of cannibalism. The accusation of cannibalism outraged Lady Franklin - English did not do such things, not under John Franklin’s supervision - and she purchased another ship, a luxury yacht, which Fox converted and dispatched with the experienced Arctic explorer and sled master, Francis McClintock. It was this expedition that finally found on 6 May 1859 a pile of stones with a document certifying that Erebus and Terror had been abandoned, the men now on foot, and that John Franklin had died on 11 June 1847. Jane could now rest, now that John was in peace.

The past years had been very exhausting for her and she started to travel again with the certainty that John would not come again. So in 1860 her way led her to New York and from there to Canada. But she was also awarded with the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder’s Gold Medal in that year. She surrounded Cape Horn and travelled again a while through America (San Francisco, Victoria and so on) until she travelled to the next one, via Hawaii, to Japan and finally to India.

But the year 1865 was a hard year for her because she heard rumours from Charles Francis Hall that there were still survivors of Franklin’s expedition based on Eskimo reports. She wanted to question him personally, and when she learned in September 1869 that he had returned from King William Island and relied on it with others, they set off with Sophia to meet him in the United States.

They circumnavigated Cape Horn again, stopped again in San Francisco, and then travelled further north on the Newborn steamship at the end of April 1870. After a few days among old friends in Victoria, they drove up the west coast to Alaska. On May 10, they stopped in Tongass and two days later reached Sitka, where they spent a month. In Cincinnati, Ohio, and later in New York, they reached the big destination of their journey, interviews with Hall. Unfortunately, no record of what happened between them has survived. At the time of their meetings Hall’s plans to reach the North Pole had been worked out, but he obviously agreed to renew his search for survivors later on or near King William Island.

Memorial for Sir John Franklin, Westminster Abbey, erected by Lady Jane Franklin, 1875

Already when she was in the 1980s, Lady Franklin’s attention was still firmly focused on Arctic affairs, and in 1875 she was actively interested in the preparations of George Strong Nares’s expedition to the North Pole and in particular Allen Young’s proposed search for Franklin’s plates. Among her ultimate concerns was the erection of a monument to her husband in Westminster Abbey, which was unveiled two weeks after her own death. It bore in part these words: “…erected by Jane, his widow, who, after long waiting and many in search of him, set out herself to search for him and find him in the kingdom of light…”.  She died on July 18, 1875. At her funeral on July 29, among the palace bearers were the Captains McClintock, Collinson and Ommanney, R.N., as well as many other “Old Arctic” involved in the Franklin search. She was buried on the Kensal Green Cemetery in a tomb, West London, next to her sister Lady Mary Simpkinson.

[spunky-89]

Shipwreacked

A/N: So this is the next part in my titans!jason fic. This technically comes before Broken Ship but oh well, I never was good at posting things in a proper timeline  😂

If you haven’t yet, please take my poll to help me name this series because I’m struggling... https://forms.gle/VG6QcMY3nyGJJcTU6

Read part one and two here

WC: 1700

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

You weren’t thrilled being in San Francisco to hunt down a human assassin, but it was what your father had asked of you, and as much as you wanted to hate him, you wanted to please him. 

You were following the ridiculous feud between the assassin and the child heroes. You flinched when you thought about it. You tried to convince yourself that you weren’t going to run into him while on this quest. Rationalizing it due to the size of the city.

You had gotten a lead on where the assassin would be so you were prepared for him. Deathstroke. The killer of one Aqualad. Apparently, your father took a liking to him and wanted his killer dead.

You realized a few minutes before the broken team that the meet was a distraction from something else. Something with the elder Robin. You had no way to trace them though. So you waited until one of the others noticed and when the alien did, you followed after her. Sticking to rooftops using rainwater or open pipes to make bridges. By the time you got there, you heard something that stopped you cold.

You heard his scream. You saw Him falling to his death. You didn’t have to think twice before busting open a fire hydrant and jetting yourself up to intercept. But some kid jumped and grabbed him first. You used the water to cushion the fall for the unknown boy. You could see Him looking around, trying to spot the source of the water cushion. You stuck to the shadows, frozen in place. You could see his eyes from where you were. They were just as gorgeous as the last time you saw them.

You shook your head as the tears started to gather in your eyes. You moved to walk away when you saw Deathstroke slinking from the building. You moved to intercept him but you felt a searing pain in your shoulder, looking down to see blood spilling from a bullet wound in your chest. You turned around when you heard a second thump. You saw the kid who saved him on the ground with a similar wound to yours. You took a step and reached out to the water before the pain intensified and you let out a scream as you fell to the ground. You heard your name being called just before the black dots overtook your vision. But you knew exactly who it was.

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

You were in and out of consciousness. You could hear voices, sometimes soft and comforting, and other times loud shouts. All you knew was you were in pain, so you welcomed the unconsciousness each time. Until one time, you managed to stay awake just long enough to hear something that gave you hope.

“We need to get her to the beach!”

“Why? Give me a reason and I’ll agree but I’m not letting you take this girl to the beach on a hunch.”

“It’s not a hunch Dick, you gotta trust me.”

Then you were out again. The next time you woke up, you were underwater. You gasped as you felt the saltwater starting to close your wounds a bit. You let yourself sink to the bottom to breathe for a minute. You took in your surroundings. You were definitely on a beach, and if you had to guess, you’d have to say it was the San Francisco Bay. You took in your surroundings and saw legs covered in rolled-up jeans to your right. The face staring down into the water. You could hear yelling, but the face above you stayed focused on you. 

You swam backward and shot up from the water, breathing heavily due to pain and shock.

“What the fuck?!” You exclaimed, staring at the few people on the beach. You quickly recognized them as members of the Titans. Which meant the person in the water with you was Him. Which made sense. He was the only one who would have known that the water would heal you.

“(YN)?” He asked quietly.

“I’m fine, I’m good.” You spoke, clearing your throat, still refusing to even look in his direction. 

“Are you okay?” A tall man with brown hair and light eyes asked you as you started to walk towards the beach.

“I’m fine, thank you.” You said with a tight-lipped smile.

“How the hell are you dry?” A tall muscular man asked before getting elbowed by a petite blonde.

“Of all the questions you could-Sorry about him. Are you sure you’re doing alright?” She asked.

“Yeah, I promise. I’m all good.” 

“That’s bullshit.” You heard him mutter behind you.

You ignored him and proceeded to talk to the kind woman. “Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the nearest... anything?” You asked when you realized you were in the middle of nowhere. 

“Um, we’re about-”

“Why are you in a hurry?” asked the first man, cutting off the nice blonde.

 “Because I was kidnapped and now I’d like to know what direction to go to get back to civilization before all hell breaks loose at my disappearance.”

“We saved your life and that’s all you have to say?” The taller man asked, his voice dripping with distaste. 

“Thank you for saving my life, may I go now?”

“Are you just going to ignore me or are you going to acknowledge the fact that I’m the reason you’re alive.” You heard him say behind you, hearing him wading back to shore. 

“I said thank you, what more do you want? And might I remind you that the only reason my life was in danger was because I decided to save some dumbass who was falling from a building.” You turned to look at him and voice dripping with venom said, “If I’d known it was you I would have just let you fall and save myself the trouble.”

“WHoa! Let’s calm down here.” The blonde lady said, bringing my attention back to her.

“I’m perfectly calm right now, you’d know if I wasn’t. But I am getting annoyed that no one has given me any form of an answer as to where the fuck we are and if I’m getting a ride back to the city or have to find my own way.”

“Look, we’ll drive you back, we just want to make sure you’re okay.” She said as her eyes flicked down to my shoulder. 

You rolled your eyes and said, “Then let's go so I can move on with my life.”

“But seriously how are you dry and bonehead is sopping wet?” The muscular man asked.

“Oh I'm so stealing that name. But I’m surprised the bonehead in question didn’t give you the 411.” 

You all started walking off the beach to where an SUV was parked. As you walked you started taking a quick inventory of her appearance. She was in clothes that weren’t hers, but she was glad to feel the cold metal of her necklace against her collarbone. 

“Nah, said something about respecting a secret that isn’t his.” 

“Wow, didn’t think he had any honor so that’s a shock.”

The rest of the walk and the drive was quiet after that. You had been given the front seat so you weren’t squished in with people you didn’t know/like. You soon noticed that the driver, Dick as he’d introduced himself, was taking you to wherever their little lair was. It was a long and tense ride. When you pulled into a dark underground parking garage you whipped out a dagger and held it up to Dick’s throat. 

“If this is anything but what I think it is I will not hesitate to eliminate any or all of you. Do you understand?” You threatened.

“(Y/N)! Chill out!” he exclaimed.

“It’s okay Jason. Her point is valid.” Dick said calmly. “Just know that you pull another stunt like this and we will get a lot less friendly.” He threatened back.

You nodded and made a show of making your blade disappear in an instant. He raised an eyebrow, showing he was unimpressed. You smirked and exited the car, your Jackson attitude showing full force.

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

“Well your wound is definitely much better, but it’s still nowhere near healed.” A dark-skinned woman, Kori, informed you as she examined your shoulder.

“So I can go?” You asked hopefully.

“I’d feel more comfortable if you stayed here a few days so we can monitor your wound. Samples from your wound could help us save our other patient.” Dick said.

“I’m not playing guinea pig.” You said firmly.

“I’m not saying that. You can leave if you want, but we could use your help on this.” He said walking towards the door. He stopped in the threshold and turned back to you to say; “And I want to know exactly who you are and what the extent of your abilities are.”

You scoffed as he walked out. “Did he really just say that to me?”

The woman laughed and said, “Yes he did. He has the best intentions but,”

“His execution might need some work.”

“Yeah, you’d think with all that charm he’d be better at communicating with people.” She smiled as she shook her head.

“Oh gods you’re sleeping with him aren’t you.” You spoke as the dots connected in your head.

“I don’t think you have much grounds to stand on, cause the way I see things, we have a similar taste in men.”

“We so totally do not!” You defended quickly.

“So you were in a relationship though?”

“Look the past is in the past, leave it there please.”

“So that’s a yes then,” She smirked

“It’s a never was never will be kinda a situation.” You said, venom in your voice.

“You say that, but your first instinct was to catch him as he fell.”

“If I’d known it was him-”

“You’d have let him fall, yeah I heard. But I think you’re full of shit.”

“Look, lady, I’m cooperating cause I don’t feel like starting a war. Nothing more. So if you could please mind your own damn business it would be much appreciated.” You snapped as you stormed out of the room. Preparing yourself for the days to come.

[ourimpavidheroine]

An Anniversary

Five years ago today, the 13th of February, 2015, I published, all in one shot, a piece of fanfiction called Please Excuse My Penmanship.

I hadn’t, at that point, written - never mind published - any fanfiction for over fifteen years. I had written some X-Files fanfic back in the day but I’d lost it; my backup floppies disappeared when I moved to Finland and, like just about everyone else back then, the places I had posted it to online disappeared without warning. (Toss a coin to your Archive, oh valley of plenty.) I’d been pretty torn up about losing my fic that way, which put me off writing. Time went on; I had twins in 2002 and they both turned out to have non-verbal autism and different flavors of ADD/ADHD and my life got very complicated and very difficult for a lot of years there. Writing for pleasure wasn’t even on the table.

By 2015 my life had settled a bit. My wife was disabled and suffering from severe and untreated depression and the kids were in special ed and a lot of therapies but we were managing. I had watched Avatar: The Last Airbender with my kids (on DVD - they were too young for it when it first aired) and had gone on to watch The Legend of Korra with them as well. 

I really liked Mako as a character; he was too internal and complex for most of the kids watching, however, and wasn’t well liked. Most fans saw an inflexible jerk who caused and fucked up a love triangle; what I saw was an autistic man who was suffering from pretty severe PTSD. He grabbed my interest. I related.

I really liked his dynamic with Prince Wu, despite the fact that he was a really annoying character. Queer-coded as fuck, although the showrunners were plainly ignoring it. And I started to headcanon who they would be as a couple. How to make Wu less annoying while still making him canon Wu? How to humanize Mako while still acknowledging his autism and PTSD? Headcanon was all it was, though, a way for me keep myself occupied. I’ve been writing stories inside my head as long as I can remember. It’s what I’ve always done.

I read a post on here on Tumblr where the OP stated that there was no such thing as a good Letter Fic; I thought to myself, Bet I could do it. And so in the end of January 2015 I sat down at my PC and started to type up all of my headcanon.

I went back and forth with Wu. What I first started to write was too clumsy, by half; I tried to stick to his endless slang and it was as annoying as it had ever been on the show. I knew if I stuck to that shallow, silly, stupid, canon Wu he wouldn’t be interesting to read. I struggled with it for a time until I remembered something.

My maternal grandmother told me a story once about a girl from Mexico. Claudia was her name; she was a year older than my mother. Her own mother had died when she was born; her father, who was one of my grandfather’s business partners in Mexico, had left her in the care of her grandparents, who were extraordinarily wealthy denizens of Mexico City. At some point the adults involved thought that it would be a great idea to send this girl to stay with my mother’s family to learn English; in return, my mother would then go and stay a summer in Mexico City to learn Spanish. (Which she did; she’s fluent to this day.) Claudia had no English at all but my grandmother had working Spanish and I guess they all figured it would be enough for this poor girl? 

The first day Claudia arrived in San Francisco my grandmother kindly showed her into the bathroom and told her to take a shower. My Grams realized about ten minutes or so later that the water hadn’t turned on; she went to check on her and there she was, sitting obediently on the toilet seat, fully dressed, waiting for the maid to come and undress her and turn the water on for her shower. 

She had no idea how to do either of those things for herself. She had never, at the age of thirteen, undressed herself or operated a shower. And there it was, the opening of my story. Wu remembers arriving in Republic City on the run from the Red Lotus, checking into the hotel, and having no idea whatsoever what to do next. And I thought to myself...What if he isn’t actually stupid? 

And there he was. My Wu. Just like that.

I wrote feverishly for a week, drawn into the story that was sitting in my head, waiting to be told. I didn’t have a Betareader; my wife liked my writing but rather tersely told me that TLOK wasn’t her fandom and she wasn’t interested in reading it, something that hurt me pretty deeply, especially since my X-Files fanfic was how we’d actually connected in the first place. 

(She was, at that time, in the process of slowly dying of heart failure, but I didn’t know that then.)

I wasn’t going to publish it. I just wanted to write it, to see if I still had it together after a seventeen year hiatus. Wuko wasn’t at all a popular ship; after the show finale a couple of months prior all the fanfiction being feverishly written and published was Korrasami. (In fact, I checked AO3 at the time and found exactly two Wuko fanfics, both of which were one-shots and not to my particular taste.) I went back and forth with it and then thought, Fuck it. I’ll just do it. And maybe no one will read it but at least I’ll have done it. I read it through one more time and then, on the thirteenth of February, took a deep breath, told myself to stop being a coward, and posted the entire fic at once. 

I got my first comment, and I was elated. And then I thought to myself, Well, fuck, you may as well write some of the other stuff in your head. You might learn something about yourself as a writer on the way.

Then, a few months later, on the seventeenth of June, my world fell apart. My wife, staying at our summer cottage with our twelve year old twins, died of a heart attack while the kids were off playing and I was here at home, getting ready to travel down the next day on the train to meet them all for the summer. My daughter was the one to find her; she was long past saving at that point. Family friends brought the children, our pets, and our car the two hours back home as I collapsed on the floor of our flat and rocked myself back and forth, wordlessly keening, my hands trembling uncontrollably.

The next year was unspeakable. I was a widow at forty-six; I was living in a foreign country with two disabled children, with no family or friends nearby and an imprecise grasp of the language. My wife had told me she had life insurance; she lied. I was flat broke. My grief was deep and whole and devastating; my children were traumatized and barely functioning. I had no one to help me, and I’d cook meals at midnight so my sleeping children wouldn’t hear me sobbing in the kitchen.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

And I wrote.

I wrote out of desperation; I had to do something to keep me tethered to this world. I wrote of love and families, of a traumatized child from the street that was my daughter’s age, full of bravado and choked fury. I wrote of an autistic boy growing into a man, bullied and shunned, aching to be free, much like my own. 

I took my children to more therapists. I took myself to a therapist that turned out to be homophobic; I found another one. I made dinners; I cleaned the house, I walked in circles around my living room, whispering over and over to myself, You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay you’re okay, before making another phone call.

And I wrote.

In August of 2018 my daughter attempted suicide and was hospitalized. I was trying to write I Do Not Ask The Night For Explanations and I had to stop. I had severe panic attacks whenever I tried to work on it. I brought her home and I cut my work hours down to four hours a week so that I could be with her at all times; she wasn’t safe to be left alone. I cared for her. I cared for her twin, who was terrified, unable to sleep, afraid that if he wasn’t watching her she’d try it again. I fought until I got them different therapists. I stopped sleeping. My health suffered.

And I wrote. When I could. It was, without any doubt at all, the only thing that was keeping me going during that time. I would tell myself that I had to keep going, that I still had so much of this story in my head, I needed to get it out. Sometimes I would write while sobbing. Sometimes I would sit here at my desk and nothing would come. I just kept going, though.

It’s better now. She missed most of last year of school and is making it up this year and doing so well. Her brother is at a new school and has, for the first time in his life, made friends. I was able, in December, to actually leave them for three days; the first time I had been away from them since we lost their mother. 

They’ll be eighteen this summer and we’re finally able to breathe. We’re moving forward, the three of us. We’re still broken, but we’re making something new out of the pieces instead of trying to put them back together.

My writing is what saved me. It wasn’t about how many hits/comments/kudos I got; I appreciate every single one I get, believe me. But the writing was making me hold myself accountable, making myself get out of bed, get dressed, brush my hair and teeth, sit down and try. Sometimes that was all I could manage; the writing just wasn’t happening. But it gave me a goal when I needed one. And boy, did I need one.

Thank you all for reading. For those of you that have been there since the beginning and those who just started reading now. For those who faded away from the fandom over time or who left because they didn’t like how the story was going; I wish you well and thanks for reading when you did. Thank you for the hits and the kudos and the comments. You may not have known you were helping to save me, but you were. So thank you.

I am not done writing yet. I am not oblivious; I know I am so far in AU territory now that you’re for all intents and purposes reading original fic. That’s okay. It’s the story that was in my head, that is still in my head. Maybe someday I’ll try to publish it and maybe I won’t, and I’m fine with that. I’m not ready at this point to do what’s necessary to take it past fanfic and that’s okay. It has served and is continuing to serve its purpose for me; if you all enjoy it then that’s just biscuits and gravy, as my Great-Aunt Margie used to say.

I wrote us all a little anniversary ficlet; this takes it full circle for me. (And then back I go to Wu and Qi’s wedding!) 

Mind the warnings at the bottom if you think you need them.

Chapter 132: 252: Wu

[angstymarshmallow]

Who did you romance in the Storyscape games? 😊

Dearest anon -

Okay the first time I tried to write my thoughts, tumblr just decided not to post it but I would like to say thanks for asking me (i’ve been secretly hoping someone would lol). Now let me try this again

I’ll start with Life 2.0 (mostly because it’s the story I’ve replayed the most). On my first device I romanced Jaime (and what a mistake that turned out to be), because his life was a mess. Like a hot mess. He’s cute, but the guy has to figure his stuff out. I know MC’s life is kind of a mess too as she moves into San Francisco but his life is REALLY a mess. But I guess I wasn’t expecting just how much of a mess it was, it kind of surprised me lol (kudos to the storyscape team for being able to do that). And now replaying it the few times that I have - I get it. I get some of his choices, how he’s gotten to this point. Other than how the game hinting at the rough neighbourhood he grew up in by showing you where he’s lived (which he will defend tooth and nail about), the little bits with his cousin and his ex. I get why specifically he feels stuck in his ex-relationship. And not just his relationship, I feel like it spills over in other parts of his life too. But in regards to his relationship with his ex, I think I understand especially since I’ve had friends in similar positions in the past. Not to absolve him of any guilt - because he totally should have given MC more of a warning and been more open about it when he had the chance. It still just sucks on the other end of that. Even though my first MC Zara is more of open and to kind of likes to take everything day by day; she isn’t the type to fall for someone that isn’t upfront about something like that. Honesty is huge for her. So this as a big-time red flag. So nipping that into the bud, Zara moved on between flirting with Mishel and Cute Dave (who is very cute but very awkward lol, and I feel like there isn’t enough chemistry there) until Etan came along and honestly? I really like Etan. He’s older which surprised me but in a good way. He has this kind of sophistication without being a dick about it. And although his introduction was kind of cringey considering MC’s circumstances at the party and his ‘rescue’, BUT when he DECKED that asshole of a CEO - 10/10. I was like yup, that’s all I needed for you to convince me.

I also made it a point to romance Mishel on my second device with my MC Dior - who is very very gay. The whole Jaime flirting didn’t work out well for him and I forgot to mention how smitten I was with Mishel’s design? The girl is gorgeous and her cgs are probably my favourite in storyscape. (So are her flirting scenes). They’re hot, raunchy - and she’s got a great personality. I also like that they didn’t introduce her so…girl-next-door, I’m-only-here-to-be-your-friend, and more like a force to be reckoned with. Abigail grew on me in a way I think she was supposed to and I find that drunk kiss near the end of the book, very endearing. Also that the kiss in the rain? Romantic, beautiful *chief’s kiss*. Basically I sort of ended up romancing a little bit of everyone but what I really enjoyed is that the game doesn’t force you to choose one or the other and some characters (like Mishel when it came to Abigail) encourages you to pursue your options.

The characters made Titantic interesting for me. I wasn’t particularly sure I would enjoy it but I think every character had a part to play and the LIs were all interested but for their own different reasons. Matteo was definitely my favourite. He started off the way I expected; cold, callous and very-business like. Even when as he kind of came to terms with his attraction to the main character, he didn’t see it as anything more until later. But her influence on him changed the way he perceived things and I really love that kind of character development. I didn’t like Charlie’s as much and haven’t finished pursuing him; mostly because you have the option to leave him on the ship willingly or beat him over the head to knock him out. But his be the hero shtick made leaving him the best choice (and I’ve read that he gets really upset at you for taking him against his will), which sucks because his romance was more light humoured and sweet while Matteo’s was a lot more passionate and raw. I’ve started again for romancing Zetta because that woman is gorgeous and she deserves much better than the man she intended to marry but I haven’t finished that route yet.

I’m not sure if the X-files has any romance because I haven’t played it yet, but Eternal City kind of hints towards romance with the people your MC has known for their entire life. Because my MC was more of a loner it was kind of hard at first to make that connection seem intrinsic, but she did get a long pretty well with Cinder and when the option to kiss him came up as he was saying his goodbye, I was like huh? It was cute and bitter in a heartbreaking kind of way for him to leave their little circle but I wasn’t sure beyond that how to feel. IT HAD A CG AND EVERYTHING. Plus there’s also this really adorable scene between Violet and MC if MC chose to complete the Cager ritual with her by going to rescue her. Violet kind of brushes her forehead against MC’s after and I was really touched by that moment. But I don’t think there’s romance persay as yet in this part of the story, but I’m hoping it will continue with another season of Eternal City.

Well, I’ve written it all (mostly) again. I’M SORRY I WROTE SO MUCH. I just had so many thoughts about it. I hope I didn’t bore you, I appreciate the ask :)

[long-arm-stapler]

EP 1: Sayuri

[00:14]

Maira: Hi! Um my name is Maira and this is the very first episode of Long Arm Stapler, which is a podcast about zines. And this is my guest, you can introduce yourself.

Sayuri: Hi, my name is Sayuri. I am a zinester who works in Oakland and I’m really glad to be here and talking about zines, and Ara today. Um, so yeah I guess, you know.

Maira: Yeah, um, so today is December 2nd, which is a very somber day in the Bay Area. Um, a year ago we lost 36 artists, creative people, weirdos, um, and one of the people we lost was Ara Jo. Who was basically the patron saint of zines in the Bay Area and probably other places too. Her reach was just super, super everywhere. Um, and we are gonna honor her with this episode.

Sayuri: Yeah

Maira: So, a little bit about how I got into zines. So, back tracking to zines in general. I got into zines through my friend Kristen, we run Queer Anxiety Babiez Distro with our friend Ali. We’re based out of the East Bay, um, we focus on gender, mental health, and queerness. And we publish zines by other people, we publish zines by ourselves, we travel around, we get the word out, and make friends along the way.

Maira: And how did you get into zines?

Sayuri: I formally got into zines when I moved to the Bay. But before that I was always making little books and little magazines without knowing there was an entire like, scene that did that. So when I came to the Bay it was really awesome because I was like “Oh my god, other people are doing this weird thing that I thought only I was doing, publishing little books, or making little fake tabloid magazines, that’s what I always did as a kid-

Maira: Yeah!

Sayuri: And then when I moved up here, my roommate Anjelica, she runs Lemon Drop Press, which is a small risograph printing press out of our garage. So we just, I sort of just got into the zine scene because of her. Yeah.

Maira: That’s awesome. Where are you from?

Sayuri: I’m from LA-

Maira: Okay

Sayuri: So there’s a pretty strong zine scene there too, which is awesome.

Maira: There is, I have witnessed it firsthand.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah, uh, it’s really cool. I’m from the Bay Area originally, but it’s really cool to talk to people from outside of the Bay who have like moved here about just how different the scenes are, but at the same time they’re both very communal and welcoming and warm. That’s what I like about the Southern California zine scene is, like, I’ve made friends with the organizers of Long Beach Zine Fest, they’re amazing. Shout out to all of them! Um, the LA Zine Fest people are really nice. My friend Alan runs a queer zine fest down there called Zine Queens. There’ just so much going on and everyone is so excited to see you. And that’s why zine fests down there, even if I’m not from down there, it feels like “coming home.” It feels very nice.

Sayuri: Yeah, LA’s pretty interesting because, growing up there, I just felt like there’s so much, it’s so huge. LA’s a huge place, so it does take some work to find like, your people. Or your community. But I feel like the LA zine scene is really strong and you know when I found it, I was like “this is awesome, how come I didn’t know about it?” And it’s because LA is so huge so I’m really glad that there are these pockets of people just making books and it’s really important.

Maira: Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt in the Bay too. Because like, so I’m from the East Bay, I moved to San Francisco for 7 years, and now I’m back in the East Bay, and when I was growing up it was kind of a similar situation where I would just make stuff all the time and I didn’t really know what to do with it, or like know other people who made stuff. Um, so I just had a bunch of like, weird little pocket books, full of stuff. And I would collect like, the Pocket Guide to the Spice Girls, and all those little like, mini zines basically. Um, and I would write all the time, but I didn’t really have a community around it, and then when I moved to San Francisco, I met Kristen, who actually lived in the East Bay, we met through tumblr, and … tea break…

Maira: They got me into zines, and they were like, yeah it’s this really cool thing where you basically have total control over like, what you’re putting out. And I was like “woah, that’s awesome! Um, yeah. And it’s been a wild, amazing ride ever since.

Sayuri: Yeah, zines are really important. I think, like, a lot of modern day like society especially in America is very capitalist, so this is a way for artists and creative people to get around that and make stories and share stories that are really, um, not about, you know, making money or the bottom line. And it’s kind of very far removed from the whole, you know, publishing world, which is-

Maira: I feel like publishing is like, I don’t know, I’m kind of trying to get into publishing. But I feel like independent publishing is what you’re saying, is very removed but it’s got some of the same aspects, but like, I don’t know I find it way more accessible.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah, I think accessibility is like a huge part, and like never before has everyone’s stories in the world been so accessible. I mean here we are, just chatting zines and sharing with the world, so it’s like we’re living in a really critical time where we can share stories in a powerful way, so it feels really good to be here.

Maira: Yeah! Um, so, how did you meet Ara?

Sayuri: How did I, well, ok-

Maira: That wasn’t a smooth transition at all

[both laugh]

Sayuri: How did I meet Ara? I met Ara, the first time I met Ara was at 2015 EBABZ, so the East Bay zine fest

Maira: If you’re watching, you can see my shirt, but if you’re not watching you can’t see my shirt.

Sayuri: Shout out to EBABZ.

Sayuri: Yeah, so, the first time I met her I was helping my roommate set up her booth, she had the flu that day so I was like “dude I’ll help you,” uh we were setting up our table and I think we were on the second floor and Ara was on the third floor and we just hear this voice like [shouting] HEY EVERYONE!

Sayuri: And I was like “woah, what’s that?” It was Ara just telling everyone like, what to do and how we’re going to have a great time and like, thanking everyone for supporting. And at that moment I was just like “wow, this is a really powerful person.” So that’s how I met Ara, was through a zine event, and it was just really, you know, magical seeing her doing her thing and this project she had been working on for so long come to fruition. Through EBABZ, that’s kind of indirectly how we met?

Maira: Yeah

Sayuri: Because if I didn’t know, so, after the-

Maira: Six degrees of separation

Sayuri: After the Ghost Ship fire, it happened about a week before EBABZ

Maira: Literally a week before, and I’ll get into that later. That was a wild, rough week.

Sayuri: Yeah that was a really crazy week, and the fire happened and I was thinking “oh my god, what’s gonna happen with EBABZ?” And there were a bunch of volunteers that met up at Sgraffito, where Ara lived and was a gallery manager, so I went there, there was a very last minute – of course, because that was the best we could do – and everyone sort of got together “ok well we have a bunch of construction paper, let’s make signs, and do whatever we can,” I met my friend Lani there, who was one the volunteers, and Lani knows Maira, so [laughing] that’s how we got here today.

Maira: Yeah, um, we met at, we had a picnic for EBABZ this year as a lead up event. EBABZ is next week, December 9th, by the way, shout out. Um, and we were like “we both like making buttons, we both like making zines, we both love Ara, let’s do this.” I met Ara in a very similar way, actually, at 2014 EBABZ, which was my very first tabling event ever. I had just started making zines, and my friend Kristen, who I mentioned earlier, invited me to table with them and I said okay, and I saw this, this person, this like force of a person. And it was Ara. And I remember just beaming the entire time I was at the fest because it was so exciting and such a wonderful way to get myself out there and meet people and share ideas. And I went up to buy a t-shirt at the merch table, which is the t-shirt I am wearing right now, and I was like “Hey! This is amazing!” And I was just talking to her and Tricia, one of the other organizers that year, and telling them how included I felt, for someone who was coming in from the outside. Ara was very excited about that, and this was the very last bright orange t-shirt and I felt really special that I got it. And I just kept telling Ara that I felt amazing being there, and she was really stoked on that. I didn’t really interact with her again until 2015 EBABZ, so like, um, initially our friendship was really just in passing at zine stuff, but one memory that I have of meeting her outside of a zine event was I saw her on BART. I was going to Oakland and I was just like “shit, that person looks so cool.” Ara dressed so cool, she had the best clothes, like, and the best style. I just remember being on BART with her and looking over at her and being like “she looks so cool. Oh, that’s one of the EBABZ organizers, okay!” So later I was riding my bike and we like crossed paths way later down the street. And she was like, “Hey! You’re in Queer Anxiety Babiez!” I had an “Oh my god, you know who I am?” moment

[both laughing]

Sayuri: Celebrity crush.

Maira: Celebrity crush, oh yeah. For sure. So I had that moment with her, and I was like, “Yeah, I’m about to go to a reading,” and she was like, “cool!” We chatted for a little bit, and that’s when I was like, “I really want to be friends with Ara Jo.” She had that kind of magnetic personality that really made you feel loved and included and welcome even if you had known each other for 5 seconds.

Sayuri: Yeah, I felt like she really embodied the zine spirit, of you know, how- why zines are there.

Maira: Community. Like, Ara Jo was zine community.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah yeah. After the fire, I just, because of her, I met so many other people. Even like after she left this world she’s still making connections between people. I feel like she’s still here. So, doing this for you Ara baby.

Maira: Um

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: I just want to talk about Ara! Like, she was just, last night I was on BART and I was getting really sad because of this weekend, and I was coming home and just like, crying, but not necessarily sad, just “I can’t believe I got to exist at the same time as her?” And like I can’t believe, I mean I can believe, because it happened, but it’s just amazing that I got to meet her, and be friends with her, and spend time with her, because she was just such a powerful, booming, bright force of energy.

Sayuri: Yep

Maira: I’m going to cry on this podcast!

[both laugh]

[both]: But in a good way.

Maira: Yeah, like, organizing EBABZ, so last year was my first organizing EBABZ – the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest – because I had been, honestly I signed up to organize so I could hang out with Ara. Like that was my-

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: I love zines, but I also really want to befriend this person. So last year I started organizing, and the week leading up to the fest was one of the most intense weeks of my life. Because you know, we had a group chat on Facebook with all the organizers, and I remember waking up on the 3rd, so last year’s Saturday, today last year.

Sayuri: That was a very confusing time.

Maira: Yeah I remember waking up to a message from Tricia that was just saying “Hey Ara, please just let us know you’re okay.” Um, and I was really confused. And then I looked up what was happening and was like “woah,” the group chat got very somber very fast, with all of us just trying to find Ara. We were calling Ara, um, she had been in the hospital for like a, she had a really bad cold a few weeks before, so we had already lost contact with her for like a week, so we were like “oh, is this the same thing?” So we just couldn’t get ahold of her, um, and then when we found out that she was gone, we scrambled. Um, we found out that the venue we thought we put a deposit on, we hadn’t put a deposit on. We found out we didn’t really have anything aside from like, a hundred tablers, we had no space anymore. And so, that week really brought the community together, to just, make EBABZ happen. And last year was one of my favorites, no, it was my favorite, zine fests of all time. And I’ve been to a lot of zine fests, and I love EBABZ with all my heart, but last year was magical.

[both] Yeah

Sayuri: I remember that whole week, from the fire til EBABZ was just, so confusing. I mean, I just felt so, I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know what I was seeing, I didn’t, I just felt so disconnected. And then I remember at EBABZ, it was the first time everything felt okay, or there was a moment of calm. I just remember everyone there, not just me, it was just the first moment that it felt okay. Things were alright for just a second, was at that zine fest.

Maira: There were like three thousand people there.

Sayuri: Yeah it was crazy packed, too.

Maira: We had to turn people away.

Sayuri: Oh really? That’s pretty awesome.

Maira: Because of the space constraints of the venue, not because we didn’t want people. We, yeah, it was the first time a lot of us had been in the same room together in general, but also a lot of us as friends and community members since the fire, and it felt very… warm. And it was a very cold, rainy day, um, and it felt very safe. I was running around crying the entire fest. Like, I was like, asking people if they needed anything, breaks, and yeah I was just sobbing the entire fest. When I was at my table, [fake crying] “Here you go.” Just hanging people zines and I was running around with my organizer hat crying and people were telling me how great the fest was going and I was just kind of like, collapsing and saying “Thank you.” Like, I think last year we just all really wanted to make Ara proud. Of like, the fest. And I mean this year, obviously, we want to make Ara proud every fest from last year on. That’s my goal with EBABZ, as an organizer.

Sayuri: Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of just like, reflection on Ara’s legacy, I guess I knew her in the context of zines, I guess our relationship was more formal. We were just like, you know, hang out and do zine stuff together. I was just thinking about her legacy, and I think it’s really important that artists just continue making stuff, and just sort of like, plow through the sadness that we get a lot. Our community isn’t supported by mainstream people, governmental institutions, so we really have to be there for each other. You know, for ourselves and I’ve just been thinking a lot about like, self-love and loving your friends and showing up for your friends and um, making projects happen. And not being afraid of a failure. Or thinking that your work is not good enough or that someone is cooler than you. I always thought Ara was super cool, like way cooler than me, and like the first time we hung out she was cutting my hair and she was like “We’re going to make you look like Kristi Yamaguchi!” And I was like damn, you’re so cool. Like ohm y god and you’re cutting my hair?

Maira: That was such a good Ara impression.

[both laugh]

Sayuri: She was like, “We’re going to cut your bangs like this,” you know, and like in that moment, I was like she’s really awesome, and she barely knew me. You know, I think that same warmth is really important, um, and that’s why I love the zine community, there is always that warmth, and it never feels cold or unpopulated, so that’s why I’m in it.

Maira: That’s also why I’m in it! Um, it’s been a really good way to make friends, and meet people, and share ideas. Um, I, and it’s cool because I see the same warmth and welcoming in other zine communities too. Like, for example, I went to Omaha Zine Fest, not the middle of nowhere, but like, Nebraska. And I live in California, so that’s like, quite a ways away. I had never been there before, and I went to the very first one and the organizers were like, “Yeah, come stay at our house! We’ll take you out to breakfast and show you all the sights of Omaha,” which was really just like, every location every mentioned in a Bright Eyes or Desaparecidos song.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Um, that’s really what it was. The tour of Saddle Creek. And, I feel that spirit in every single zine community I’ve ever witnessed. You know, I’ve been up and down the West Coast to fests, I’ve been to Chicago Zine Fest, Omaha Zine Fest, and I feel like I’m just name dropping at this point, but, I just want to shout out everyone who has ever put on a zine fest or has like, welcomed strangers into their home for a zine fest, because that’s really cool.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah. Kudos to you. I mean I could not organize a zine fest, that is insane.

Maira: It’s-

[Sayuri laughs]

Sayuri: I make the zines.

Maira: Yeah, the zines! I was so inspired by EBABZ 2016, last year, that I founded my own zine fest. The Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, which was on June 17th. It was amazing, and it was a labor of love. And it was for Ara, like that’s what it was. You know, it was an idea that we had talked about, just as a very far out “Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we had a queer zine fest?” And then I made it happen with the help of a lot of other people. And it felt really good, and I felt like she would have been proud of that too. Um, as far as your zines go…

Sayuri: Okay-

Maira: We’re going to talk about you a little bit.

Sayuri: Yeah let’s uh, okay, well, I brought a few zines that I’ve made in the past. I don’t know, I think I want to start with the one that is not finished yet. But it will be or EBABZ which is next weekend on-

[both exclaim]: December 9th!

Maira: At the Omni Commons, I don’t have the address, but-

Sayuri: You should put the info up.

Maira: I’ll link it.

Sayuri: Um, so, every year I make an end of the year zine, so it’s pretty much in a comic book format and I look at the year’s, the past year. I wasn’t able to find my 2016 one, but I found my 2015 abridged tale, so this is kind of what I make every year. So even if I make one zine, it will be this.

Maira: If you’re just listening, this zine looks amazing. It looks very detailed and very professional.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: And I’m a little intimidated.

Sayuri: Don’t be! This year I was kind of crazy, like, I’ve got to make it look so professional. The ones now are like, less manicured than this, but I was pretty proud of this one. So I just like, review my year in a positive way, and it’s just, I feel like it’s really good for me to get out of my head, and be like, “Okay, well what good happened this year?” And I think like a lot of artists, I get depressed, and I get sad, and it’s hard for me to see the positive.

Maira: [sarcastically] What’s that? What’s depression? And artists?

Sayuri: I get sad sometimes, and I forget how amazing my friends and family are. I’ve been making these for the past five years, so I’m making my 2017 one, so hopefully that will be at EBABZ. Um, another project that I’m also trying to get done for EBABZ is this book, it’s not done yet, but I printed out the cover. Yeah, so this is the cover, it’s called “Ritual.”

Maira: That looks amazing.

Sayuri: It’s going to be great. So, this zine has been in the works for about a year. And so, this is just the cover art, and it features nine artists, healers in the Bay who submitted their rituals. There’s a banish the patriarchy ritual, there is a safe space ritual, I contributed, uh, I actually contributed a ritual that I did for Ara. After the fire happened, so this was a ritual that I organized with some friends and um, we, it was pretty much to help Ara’s spirit move, um, to the next wherever she is now. But this was really good for the participants because it helped us cope with our grieving in a communal way, um, but yeah. So my upcoming zine is going to be a magic zine, so it is about magical rituals and how to heal ourselves and our friends in dark times. And I’m really excited to finally have it done because I feel like, I mean I’m sure you get this too, where it’s like, “It’s not done yet! It’s not done yet!” Or like, “I started that how many months ago?”

Maira: Forever ago!

Sayuri: What’s going on with that? So, this is a zine that I’ve been sitting on for a while. But I actually don’t feel too bad about it now.

Maira: Nice! I hope that… I’m kind of doing that, I’m working on a King of the Hill zine right now, a follow up Zine of the Hill 2, this time it’s about feelings is the subtitle. I’ve been working on it for a while, and I don’t think it’s going to be done for EBABZ, but if it is, it will be a miracle and I’ll feel so good.

Sayuri: But if not that’s fine too.

Maira: But if not it’s fine too! I’ll release it first thing next year, and, because I don’t want to, I don’t know, with zines, sometimes I want to just like, get the product out if I’m feeling rushed before a zine fest and that’s usually if it’s a really personal one. And I’ll just have this like, creative flash and I’ll just only work on that for a week straight and I’ll just put it out there. But then, with other zines, you’ve got to sit with them, you’ve just got to let it happen naturally and organically.

Sayuri: Yeah, I like that, that resonates a lot with me. I think a lot of the time, I’m pretty like, I don’t like to categorize people but I’m Type A for sure, and so I’m always like, rushing to finish things, “How am I going to get this done if I’m not moving? I’m not doing anything!” So it’s, I’m actually coming to terms with like, the zine I am making might take a year, but maybe because of that it will be better because I didn’t-

Both: Rush it.

Sayuri: Yeah, so, don’t rush it.

Maira: I like to think of zines as, I reference this a lot but I took a history of rock and roll class in community college, and we had a week on Prince and a week on Michael Jackson.

Sayuri: Wait, what?

Maira: It was history of rock and roll since the 70’s, we went over like every genre of music, but where I’m going with this was, Prince was very “I’m going to make a million things and just put them out there, whether or not they’re polished.” And Michael Jackson was very, “I’m going to release a few things and they’re going to be super, super polished.” And yeah, super polished. And it’s not in a rivalry way, but in a like, production way if that makes sense.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah. Creative process.

Maira: Yeah, creative process way. So, I think about that a lot when I’m making zines.

Sayuri: Yeah, I like that analogy, I’ve never thought about Prince and Michael Jackson like that. But now I am!

Maira: Shout out to that professor I had!

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Don’t remember your name, sorry! Your class was great.

Sayuri: I actually brought a Prince button.

Maira: I just got a Prince tattoo, too.

Sayuri: It’s funny because, I was, so Maira has a button maker. I make buttons. So I hung out with you, was it last week?

Maira: A couple days ago.

Sayuri: It was really recent, and they were like, “What’s up with that podcast?”

[Sayuri laughs]

Both: So here we are!

Sayuri: This is great.

Maira: So, I had just gotten my Prince tattoo, and Sayuri came over and was like, “Yeah I’m making Prince buttons!” And I was just like, I lifted up my sleeve, because I got Prince’s eyes.

Sayuri: His beautiful eyes.

Maira: And my hair is purple, and everything felt very… puzzle pieces.

Both: Yeah, yeah.

Maira: And so here we are, in this podcast.

Sayuri: Yeah, I think magic is definitely in the air, and we’ve got to pay attention to the weird things that the universe is telling us, if it’s, you know, a Prince tattoo and a Prince button and your hair is purple, that makes sense!

Maira: Like, we’ve both got orange on today, which we did not talk about.

Sayuri: Yeah, we didn’t plan the orange, orange, and then orange up here.

Maira: No. Oh, yeah, Sayuri made this “What Would Ara Do?” by the way. Do you want to, I know if you’re listening to this you can’t see it, but I’ll probably, I’ll link a photo of it-

Sayuri: Okay.

Maira: When I post the podcast. But do you want to talk about the art?

Sayuri: Yeah, should I grab it? It’s, there’s a lot of symbolism in it. So, this is the poster I made of Ara, it says, “What Would Ara Do?” um, and she is standing between two pillars. So, when I made this illustration, I was working on a tarot project, so I was thinking about the High Priestess a lot, and the High Priestess in the Rider-Wait deck, the classic Rider-Wait deck, has the High Priestess standing between two pillars of light and dark, and I thought a lot about Ara as the High Priestess. And I put her on Lady Guadalupe’s body. Um, I think Ara was from LA, too-

Maira: Yeah.

Sayuri: Yeah, Ara was from LA, because her grave is in San Dimas, which is where I used to work.

Maira: Oh really?

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: I’m going down for New Years and I’m going to try to visit it.

Sayuri: Yeah, I mean her metal plaque-

Maira: It’s got a photo of her.

Sayuri: Yeah and my roommate actually made the artwork that is now on her plaque on her grave.

Maira: Oh yeah, because it’s that poster, I have that in my room.

Sayuri: Yeah, so my roommate and I both make Ara posters. Um, but yeah so, she is embodied as the Lady Guadalupe, whom I love, and she’s standing behind a crescent moon. And um, the moon in a lot of cultures has to deal with death, and in a lot of cultures they believe when you die you go, you return to the moon. We’re from the moon, we’re like, weird space creatures. I kind of like that idea. And then, at the bottom, there’s a little baby kewpie, I love kewpie and-

Maira: Ara fucking loved kewpies.

Sayuri: She loved kewpies, kewpie’s here, you know, with its wings, supporting everyone, and then there’s little rainbows and clouds. Ara was a huge supporter of the queer community, and that was, I think, really amazing. Um, and this is my interpretation… And actually, if you look closely, there are 36 stars, for the 36 people who died in that fire. So, there’s lots of little tricks in there. But yeah so, this I will have at EBABZ. So, I’ll have this at EBABZ, and you can get one for free, or you can donate, get one for a donation, and I’ll give all the money, 100% of the proceeds to EBABZ. So that they can get their space for next year. So, you know, if you like art, if you like EBABZ, um, pick up a poster, throw a few bucks my way, and um yeah, get some cool art. And support the zine community.

Maira: Yeah, um.

[36:35, indistinguishable]

Sayuri: I got it, I got it.

Maira: It’s just been moving up and down all day and I’m totally okay with it.

Sayuri: It’s okay.

Maira: I, so we’re currently sitting at my kitchen table, which is a 6 by 3 folding table, commonly used at zine fests, um, because I moved and we didn’t have a lot of money for a new table, but I was like, “Multi-purpose! Let’s get a zine table!” So this is where I do most of my crafting, and I have this poster that I just have above my craft table that um, because I like to think of, “What Would Ara Do?” when I’m making stuff. Um, I made a zine about her, um, Sgraffito opened the Ara Jo Zine Library a few months ago, um, and they were like, “If you have zines about Ara, if you have zines for Ara, bring them to this space.” And it was really cool, and…

Sayuri: Lani is here!

Maira: Lani? Hey, Lani.

Sayuri: Hi Lani!

Maira: Hey, everybody.

Sayuri: Oh, hey everyone, hey Gabby.

Maira: For everybody watching, Meredith and Jackie and Charissa.

Sayuri: Hi everyone, thanks for joining us.

Maira: Um, and we went and I made a zine about Ara, and one of the things I wrote about… So I wrote the zine using this pen that Ara gave me for my birthday. Hey, Poliana! And, it’s one of those pens where you can change the ink color, and when my own house burned down earlier this year, two of the things that I made sure I grabbed when we were allowed back in the house after everything was soaked were my pin, my Ara pin that I made for the memorial, um, right after the fire, and then pen that she gave me. And I do most of my special zine projects with that pen, and I hold it very, very close to my heart. Um, yeah she gave me a pen for my birthday and she made the next EBABZ planning meeting like an unofficial birthday party for me and we had ice cream for breakfast and she was all, “I’ve always wanted to have a party with ice cream for breakfast!” Yeah, she was very stoked.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: And she just pumped me full of ice cream at like, ten AM. Um, because that’s just who Ara was… amazing, that’s who Ara was, just amazing.

Sayuri: Mhm

[Maira sighs]

Maira: So if you’re not doing anything today, and even if you are, think about your friends, and think about how much you love them, and tell them you love them, and hold them close. And think about all the amazing things that you can create together. Um, yeah.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah that’s great.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Those are my words of wisdom. Um, yeah, I’m probably, I actually live near Ghost Ship now, where Ghost Ship was, and I’m probably going to go by today. I’ve never been but I’ve looked for it, obviously not very hard because I didn’t find it, but I think I’m ready today to go, and I’m just going to pay my respects. We lost 36 really amazing, amazing creative people in that fire, and while, you know, we focused on one of them today, there’s thirty five other beautiful, beautiful, creative – I keep saying that – but you know it was freaks and weirdos in the best possible way.

Sayuri: It was, yeah, it was.

Maira: Um, do you have anything that you’d like to plug?

Sayuri: Um, no. Well, EBABZ. Everyone should come to EBABZ, I know there’s a lot of stuff going on that weekend, there is Magic Makers happening, which is the queer healing fest, which is happening at the Humanist Hall-

Maira: December 9th and 10th, so Saturday and Sunday.

Sayuri: There’s EBAB happening on the 9th.

Maira: On the 9th.

Sayuri: And there’s also-

Maira: Max’s Garage Print Sale?

Sayuri: Yeah, there’s also… Ok Gabby, I’ll plug my zine too. Um, there’s also Max’s Garage Print Sale happening in Berkeley on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I think it’s the first time they’re doing all three days, so it’s a really great… I’ll have some of my prints there too, but it’s a really great place to pick up really affordable, great art, by artists living in the Bay. So go support your community, get your friends some art this year. One last plug, you should check out Ritual once it’s done at EBABZ. I’m also going to try to do some relatials with my friend Gabby Lala, and she’s giving me a lot of good feedback right now, thanks Gabby. Gabby and I are going to team up, she’s probably going to play some sitar… Gabby? Maybe some sitar? Yes?

Maira: I see some hearts.

Sayuri: So, there’s going to be some sitar music, I might lead a little ritual, and I’ll be selling these zines. So, come support your local artists, and um, the zine community. And I guess, I hope that everyone can be really kind and loving and compassionate today, well every day, but especially today.

Maira: Especially today and the next few days.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: One last memory I have of last year is um, the big memorial at Lake Merritt.

Sayuri: Mhm, yep.

Maira: One thing that really stuck out… I pass Lake Merritt a lot because I live in Oakland. But every time I pass by, I don’t know what that area is called, with the pillars and stuff.

Sayuri: I don’t know what it’s called, but I know what it is, with the pillars.

Maira: Yeah, the pillared area at Lake Merritt, if you’re familiar, they had a bunch of glow sticks in the trees. And every time I see a glow stick now, I think of Ara and I think of that night and everyone just kind of like, coming together and crying together and hoping that this never happens again. And you know, like, I don’t know, people coming together. I’m starting to cry. Community is so important to zines and friendship and art, and I really want to stress that focus on these things, find these things, find your community, find your freaks and weirdos, and stick by them, and tell them you love them, a lot, all the time, because you never know what’s going to happen.

Sayuri: We love you everyone who joined us.

Maira: So we recorded this live on Facebook, and-

Sayuri: Why don’t you tell people where they can find the podcast.

Maira: Yeah, so podcast is going to be up on Libsyn, and I think it’s going to go up on Spotify and iTunes, I’m going to post a bunch of links, Gabby Lala you are totally correct, we should not wait for bad stuff to happen to come together.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: And I think people take that for granted, until bad stuff happens, and then we come together and we’re like, “Ah, never again!” So hopefully this time it sticks. East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest, next Saturday, um, I’ll actually be recording the podcast live, probably not broadcasting live, but recording the podcast at the fest, and releasing it a couple days later. So look out for the next episode of Long Arm Stapler.

Sayuri: Yay!

Both: Signing off.

Maira: Bye everybody!

Sayuri: Bye!

[fyeahwildfire]

Before Among the Dead

Chapter 2

Two days later, your life changed forever with Ez’s mother being murdered and Ez going to jail for killing a cop. His plans to spend the rest of his life with you were halted.

With you returning back to San Francisco, you promised Ez you would visit him and wait for him until he got out. Although he told you not to, you didn’t listen. Ez was the love of your life and your first love.

With Christmas approaching, Victoria planned a Christmas party for her family. However, her plans were interrupted when a Shimada assassin appeared, killing Maseo and injuring Tatsu.

Shortly after, the assassin kidnapped hostages and threatened to kill them if the Angel of Death didn’t meet him. You eventually arrived and freed the hostages. You then battled the assassin, but was nearly killed in the confrontation. 

He revealed himself to be your older half-brother Hanzo, using your humanity against you. He stabbed you with his knife. You barely escaped by knocking him out.

You called your father for aid and revealed your identity to him. He was displeased upon knowing you were parading around the city as a vigilante, but he also had his suspicions. He could not judge you as it would be hypocritical, you were leaving a trail of bodies, but you were also saving the weak and innocent while he sold weapons to the Mayans, SAMCRO, and the government.

Six weeks later, you caught word that the Yakuza was targeting your father, who was in Charming selling weapons to SAMCRO. Once the attack began, you interfered saving the lives of your father and SAMCRO, while driving the Yakuza to retreat.

A year later, you graduated from Stanford and threw yourself into vigilantism. Your father helped you on your crusade as he knew this was a way for you to coop with Ez being in jail.

You continued to train on your own in hopes of intervening and foiling all of the Shimada’s assassination attempts. During one of the interventions you met with a Europol agent named Sara, who had been investigating the Shimada clan. Together, you both sought to dismantle the clan.

However, you were arrested and abducted by other Europol agents. Feeling betrayed, Sara assured you that she was still on your side.

Not long after, the Shimada ninjas infiltrated the Europol safe house, where you were being held, in attempt to kill you and everyone inside. Sara freed you and together you managed to escape, but you suffered from near-fatal wounds.

Sara had taken you to a motel to hide and allow you to recover. With you unconscious, she implanted a tracking device, as the Shimada ninja assassins were not long behind. Unable to fend them off and protect you, she hide outside the motel until back up arrived to help her.

By the time back up arrived, Hanzo and the other ninjas had already captured you and took you to Lord Shimada to be executed and be branded as a traitor. During the transport back, you used your ninja techniques to heal your own wounds.

At the Shimada retreat, a bucket filled with water splashed on you. You awoke to see yourself bound to a pole in the middle of the courtyard by a thick rope that bite into your flesh.

Lord Shimada stood before you, as well as the rest of the clan, down to the youngest of them. They watched silently. You noticed the ugly scar that ran diagonally across Lord Shimada’s face.

“Your life is meaningless compared to the survival of the clan. Because of it, we have endured for hundreds of years and will endure hundreds more.” Lord Shimada looked to the rest. “Weakness compels strength. Betrayal begets blood. This is the way of the ninja assassin.”

He turned to you, “I have waited many years for this moment.”

“Keep waiting bitch!” You seethed.

Lord Shimada hit you hard. “You will suffer for five days, one day for each year you defied me.”

His hand jutted deep inside your gut, “For five days, everyone here will make you suffer. You will live through it all, you will feel through it all. You will know pain like no other human being has ever known.”

Blood gurgles up through your mouth and flows down your chin, as Lord Shimada twisted something in your belly.

“Your death will be remember for a thousand years.”

Sara and Europol Special Forces used the tracking device to locate you, they attacked your former allies. Sara had freed you from your bindings.

You go in search for Lord Shimada to avenge Harumi, but end up coming across Hanzo and other ninjas. You proceeded to kill every single one, but left your older-brother Hanzo severely injured. You couldn’t kill him, you knew the risk and you were willing to take it.

You finally confronted Lord Shimada in a sword duel. He called you a disgrace and spoke ill about Harumi, how her “weakness” rubbed off on you. Enraged, you use shadow-blending to kill your former mentor.

With the Shimada clan defeated, you finally felt free. You were no longer a slave or bound to a master… you became a Ronin.

Shortly after this, you targeted a real estate developer who built poor-quality and dangerous homes in Charming. However, the real estate developer was kidnapped by a wannabe vigilante and was executed while filming on a video via a website.

The next day, the wannabe vigilante targeted and captured the VP of SAMCRO Jax Teller. With the help of your father, you were able to intervene and save Jax’s life. With him thanking you, you immediately told him you were not going to make a habit in saving his life. He was a criminal and one day you would go after him. You then dropped the wannabe vigilante off at the police station.

A week later, you visited Ez in jail as much as he loved seeing you. He couldn’t ask you to waiting for him. He wanted you to follow your dreams and so in order to keep you from coming back. He decided to break things off with you. You didn’t take it that well as you knew he was just trying to push you away.

Shortly afterwards, you visit Shado, Papa Reyes, and Angel in Santo Padre. You revealed that Ez had broken things off with you, Papa Reyes and Angel were disappointed in Ez’s decision, but accepted it. They had told you, you were still welcomed into their family and if you needed anything, they would be there for you.

After leaving the Reyes family, you tracked down a man named Javier who was working for the Salazar cartel. They dealt with cocaine and sex trafficking. Javier and a few other members had planned on transporting a group of young women into shipping containers and threatened to torture them if they resisted in any way. You intervened and attacked the Salazar crew.

With all the gangsters now eviscerated, you freed the women and lead them towards the police station.

Afterwards, Rose and Lydia are among a group and are held as hostages inside a museum. You donned your costume and rescued your sisters before handing the terrorists over to the police, who were surprised as you didn’t keep most of your victims alive.

The next day, you managed to locate your 4 year old half-brother Micah. He and his mother were being held hostage by none other than Hanzo, who was threatening to kill them both if you didn’t meet him. No doubt he was trying to get revenge for what you did to the clan.

Upon arriving, you begged Hanzo not to harm Micah and his mother. His hate and vengeance was towards you not them. In your palm was a single shuriken.

Instead of listening to your pleas, Hanzo kills Micah’s mother with his sword. The shuriken in your palm abruptly fanned into many like a deck of cards. Your arm whipped as the shuriken lashed and cut into Hanzo’s flesh.

Hanzo moves with you, matching your speed and ferocity and the ability to disappear within the darkness. Swords clashed against each other. Blood falls. You blocked a sword thrust from him and you dodged around a hail of shuriken.

Your swords continued to crash back and forth, sending sparks flying. Hanzo takes advantage of your tired and wounded state. His blade connected with your side. He ripped his sword free and you stumbled backwards. Your life’s blood dripping down.

Hanzo smiles with pride, “This is the end for you, sister.”

You dodged his blow and lashed out at him, you sword makes contact with his side, just like his had. You pulled your sword free and saw his blood hit the concrete. You attacked, defended, and attacked again.

Hanzo managed to dislodge your sword from your hand, leaving you to use your kyoketsu-shoge to defend yourself. He attacks only for you to block his attack. As he brings his sword around, you get a loop of chain around the sword and it locked tight.

Your faces inches from each other as you both spun. You had taken this advantage to use your hidden blade in your sleeve. The steel drives into Hanzo’s heart. Hanzo stands for a moment, then slumps dead to the concrete floor.

You approached your younger brother Micah and revealed your identity to him. You had promised you wouldn’t harm him. You then called your father seeing as you were losing a lot of blood and it was unsafe to drive.

Later that night, your father gathered the necessary herbs to allow you to recover. He then stitched you while Micah was upstairs with your mother and sisters. Your secret was no longer hidden from your mother, she was by no means accepting it like your father had.

A few days later, your family organized a funeral for Micah’s mother. You watched from afar and felt responsible that Micah had lost his mother. Maybe if you had killed Hanzo before, none of this would have happened. After the funeral, your mother and father spoke of adopting Micah seeing as he had no other family.

2 Months later, you and your family relocated to Atlanta Georgia. To provide an alibi for your vigilante crusade, you planned to turn an old warehouse into a nightclub.

During your patrol through the city, you heard your mother’s and sister’s cries. You rushed over to see they were being mugged. One of the attackers slammed your mother’s head against the wall and pulled out their knife. You engaged the criminal in a fight, throwing yourself off the fire escape ladder.

The other two noticed and tried to intervene. You were able to use your heightened senses to predict when their attacks were coming and fought the three. With two left unconscious, you wrapped your kyoketsu-shoge chain around the last mugger and knocked him out with a final kick in front of your mother and sister’s. You then proceeded to call the police as you decided to change your lifestyle.

Shortly after this, while working your mother found a child who had similar DNA as you, your sisters, and Micah. She met your 13 year old half-brother Hiro in a foster home, there she was informed that his parents had died in a car crash. With evidence pointing that he had living half-siblings. Your mother did everything she could to unite Hiro with his long lost half-siblings.

After four months, Hiro was introduced to you, your sisters, and little Micah. With Hiro being the last biological child of your biological bastard of a father, you felt an overwhelming sense of pride, knowing you all weren’t alone. You were all finally together and nothing was going to separate you.

Nine months later, your parents are out of town and in Texas conducting business, when the undead apocalypse hit. You were forced to look after your younger siblings while evading the dead.

Before you left the confines of your home, you had your sibling’s bag important necessities only. Grabbing the first aids, weapons, food and water supplies, you load them in the back of the SUV. You place your leather costume in one of your bags as well as the bow, arrows, sword, and kyoketsu-shoge in the back of the SUV.

After inspecting your siblings clothing and shoe attire, you write down a message for your father just in case before leaving. Instead of going to the refugee center you make a break for the highway. You knew it would be swarmed with people who were ill.

You managed to get your siblings out safely before the military helicopters bombed Atlanta in hopes to quarantine the outbreak. On the highway, you met a group of people who had been stopped by a roadblock, they asked you and your sibling’s questions about Atlanta. Lydia replied that it had been over-runned and you barely managed to get them out.

A few weeks later, Shane gradually became the group’s leader as he was a former cop. You sit on the side lines observing in case you needed to protect your brother’s and sister’s.

One of the survivors, a guy named Glenn had tried to befriend you. Not seeing him as a potential threat you accept but keep your distance. To most people it would seem you were shy and timid, but to Lydia it was the complete opposite. You were waiting for something to happen.

Rose had quickly befriended Carl and Sofia. Lydia had befriended Amy. You and your brother’s Hiro and Micah stayed together, unless you had to hunt.

Three weeks pass, you and Glenn helped a man named Rick, who had fallen of his horse and was forced to retreat inside a tank. 

With Glenn guiding Rick through the radio, you climbed down the ladders and met with Rick.

Together the three of you made it back to the department store, where the three of you met up with the other survivors.

Shortly after, you and the survivors made it back to camp, where Rick revealed he dropped a bag of guns and Merle was still handcuffed to the ventilation pipe. Rick asked you and Glenn to go because of your knowledge with the city. T-Dog volunteered to go as well as he blamed himself for Merle.

There were complications with the mission as Merle had cut off his own hand and was nowhere to be found. Glenn was also captured by a group of survivors.

In the end, Glenn was set free and Rick passed some guns to the nursing home staff. You all discover the vehicle you used to get into the city was missing. Rick believed it was Merle, who was going to take his vengeance back to the camp.

Later, when the group feasted on fish, Amy and Rose decided they needed to use the bathroom in the RV. As soon as Rose was finished she had gotten bit by an unseen walker.

Amy had rushed over to help but ended up getting bit as well. You, Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog arrived…but you were too late.

The remaining survivors decided to burn the Walkers, though Glenn insisted that friends should be buried. You and your siblings surrounded and mourned Rose, while Andrea cradled Amy.

Neither of you are willing to let anyone near their bodies. It is only until they turn into walkers that you and Andrea decided to shoot them in the head.

Shortly after, you all decide to head to the CDC in hopes of searching for a cure. There Dr. Edwin Jenner performs blood tests and offers food and wine, as well as hot showers.

The next morning, Jenner showed you and the group brain scans of his wife. He revealed he did not know what the disease was or how to cure it.

You noticed the count down and asked. It turned out the CDC’s generators were running out of fuel. When they hit empty, the building would self-destruct in order to contain all the viruses and diseases.

Jenner allowed you and the group to flee. However, Jacqui ended up staying behind as she was afraid to end up like Amy, Rose, or Jim. You and the group watch as the CDC exploded.

[csnews]

Whales in the bay: Great for sightseers, but biologists are concerned

Peter Fimrite - March 23, 2019

An unusually large influx of gray whales into San Francisco Bay this year has thrilled boaters, beachgoers and tourists along Crissy Field, Angel Island and other shoreline locations, but the strange behavior and apparent poor condition of the magnificent sea creatures has marine biologists worried.

Four whales, all between 25 and 40 feet long, were spotted in the bay Thursday, a remarkable occurrence in any other year. But this year, it was merely the latest in a constant stream of leviathans entering the estuary since last month.

Whales have been seen in the bay every day since Feb. 17 and are hanging out there for long periods of time. The behavior is abnormal for a species that generally makes a beeline from Mexico for Alaska this time of year, and some believe it is indicative of a desperate search for food.

“Definitely it’s unusual,” said Bill Keener, a marine biologist with Golden Gate Cetacean Research, who identified one whale that has been hanging out in the bay for more than a month. “We see two or three a year come into the bay and stay a day or two. All of a sudden we have multiple whales.”

The whale bonanza isn’t necessarily a problem, according to marine biologists, but a major die-off occurred the last time scientists saw this many whales in the bay.

There have been other disturbing signs, too. The females arrived later than usual this season to the lagoons in Mexico, where they nested and gave birth to fewer calves than normal. More of them than average also died or appeared emaciated, according to researchers.

Then one of two whale carcasses found in the bay last week died of severe malnutrition, the Marine Mammal Center and California Academy of Sciences said. A cause of death could not be determined for the second. Both were 23-year-old females.

Researchers are afraid the whales are not finding enough food to sustain them through the year because the retreating ice fields at their feeding grounds in the Arctic are forcing them to swim farther to find prey. This, in turn, means they’re not fully nourished when they head south again, causing a lower birth rate and forcing the famished beasts to stop for snacks as they pass San Francisco again on their way north.

“In recent years, biologists have observed cases of young gray whales in poor body condition,” Dr. Padraig Duignan, the chief research pathologist at the mammal center, said in a statement after the necropsies. “This species faces the longest annual migration of any whale on Earth. It’s likely that after not feeding this winter,” the animals don’t have “enough reserves built up to survive” the journey north.

The situation is troubling, but a lot of whales cavorting in the bay doesn’t necessarily mean there is an emergency, said Frances Gulland, a marine biologist with the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.

Gulland performed the two necropsies, which she said did not definitively point to a lack of food as the problem. The emaciated whale had entanglement scars, she said, meaning it could have starved as a result of being trapped in fishing gear. The other whale had a large propeller wound, she said.

“It could be an early warning or it could be a little blip. At this point, it’s not as if there are hundreds of thin whales dying of starvation,” Gulland said. “But I’m definitely on the alert. All the whale researchers should be paying attention and getting as much data as we can.”

The cetaceans, known as Eastern North Pacific Gray Whales, generally leave their breeding grounds in Baja California and migrate with their calves from Mexico to the Arctic between February and May. They generally don’t eat during the northern migration and then feed in Alaska throughout the summer before turning around for the return voyage between November and January.

Gray whales are one of conservation’s major success stories after being hunted almost to extinction over the past 200 years. A whaling station existed in Point Richmond until the 1960s.

There were only about 4,000 gray whales in existence in the 1930s, but, because of bans on whale hunting, the population has steadily rebounded since then. In 1999, there were 26,600, according to the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, and then a huge die-off occurred.

In 1999 and 2000, the population declined about 20 percent, to 18,000. At least 40 dead gray whales were found on beaches in the Bay Area in those two years. The population has again recovered, and now there are an estimated 25,000 North Pacific grays, which is close to their historic population.

What is alarming some scientists is that the last time this many gray whales were seen entering the Golden Gate was in 1999, just when the big die-off was getting under way.

John Calambokidis, a senior research biologist with Cascadia Research in Olympia, Wash., said the population may have simply reached carrying capacity.

“We may be facing another situation where they have reached the limit of their food supply,” said Calambokidis, who added that an unusually large number of skinny whales have also been seen in Puget Sound. “This is the tail end of their seasonal fast, where they have not been eating for three or four months and they may be desperate.”

The big mammals clearly face many perils. They are often hit by ships — as many as 9,000 large vessels pass through the Golden Gate every year — or get entangled in fishing gear. Killer whales also patrol Monterey Bay and ambush mothers and their calves as the leviathans attempt to cross a deep-water canyon there.

The question is to what degree are human factors playing a role in limiting their food supply.

It has been well-documented that the Arctic ice has been retreating as a result of climate change. Scientists believe gray whales, which feed on the edge of the ice shelf, may have been forced to swim farther and cut short their feeding time because of it, thereby reducing the number of calves born the following year.

“I absolutely think it’s something we should be concerned about,” Calambokidis said. “Whenever you see an increased number of strandings, animals in unusual areas, animals in poor nutritional condition, these are things that we want to investigate.”

[x5red]

Sixty fun & fascinating facts about the classic Supergirl (1 / 4)

Great guns! How time flies!

May 2019 will mark sixty years since the pages of Action Comics #252 carried its landmark tale: a crashed rocket ship in a Midvale field, and emerging from within, an enthusiastic young teenager who was destined to become one of Earth’s fiercest champions. That teenager was, of course, Kara Zor-El -- otherwise known as Supergirl..!

To celebrate the classic Kara Zor-El’s sixtieth anniversary, compiled below is part one of a series outlining sixty surprising or unusual facts about the original intrepid Argo City teen who leapt from that crumpled Midvale rocket ship. Covering her original Silver and Bronze Age incarnation, in comics and on screen, each factoid is calculated to intrigue and delight -- hopefully even seasoned Kara fans will find a few morsels of trivia that had previously escaped their attention.

Enjoy...

1. She wasn’t originally known as Kara Zor-El when she debuted in comics.

What’s in a name? Well not a lot, it seems, if you happen to be Kryptionian..!

Although everyone knows Supergirl’s real name is Kara Zor-El, the Maid of Might herself didn’t deem it worthy of a mention until Action Comics #288 (May 1962), three years after her introduction, when she innocently referenced her full moniker during a dream sequence. After that readers would need to wait another fifteen years(!) before she’d mention it again in Superman Family #177 (June 1976). Outside of these rare instances Kara was usually known as Kara of Argo City, or in very early comics simply just as Kara, her birthplace itself not having acquired a name until Action Comics #280 (Sep 1961).

2. 1984′s Supergirl wasn’t actually the first movie headlined by a superhero female.

Many movie buffs will list 1984′s Supergirl as the breakthrough release that finally saw women headline a movie in the superhero genre, but this is far from the truth.

Supergirl’s record is true, but only in the English-speaking world: there had already been numerous superhero movies in non-English markets centred around super-powered female crime fighters, most notably in the Philippines. The most popular Filipino superheroine, Darna, had already racked up no less than eleven movies by 1980, plus one guest appearance in another hero’s movie.

3. She once fell madly in love with a woman.

As incredible as it seems today, the straight-laced DC Comics of the 1960s once okayed a story in which the Maid of Might fell head-over-heels in love with a woman. It happened in Adventure Comics #384 (Sept 1969), and, as you might expect, the story had a few twists and turns before the true nature of Kara’s romance was revealed.

The short version is this: Kara uses computer dating to select a match suitable for a superwoman. The computer picks Volar, a male superhero from the deeply misogynistic planet of Torma (second planet of Star-Sun 447B, in case you want to pay a visit.) Kara travels to Torma and is smitten by Volar, but he seems reluctant to reciprocate her affections. Eventually the plot reveals its twist: due to Torma’s notorious chauvinism, Volar is actually a superheroine forced to masquerade as a superhero. ”I’m heading back to Earth – where I belong!”, exclaims a disappointed Girl of Steel, “I found out Volar was no hit – but a real miss!” (Ho ho!)

4. She’s a self-professed fan of Jazz.

Growing up in both Argo City and Midvale, Kara was probably exposed to a wide range of different musical styles -- but at the end of a long day saving the world, what kind of sounds did she like to relax to? The pages of Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #7 (May 1983) dropped readers a hint when Kara expressed a strong affinity towards Jazz music. Indeed in a later issue of that same series, it is while attending a free Jazz concert with friends in Chicago’s Grant Park that Kara first tangled with the super-villain Reactron (making his comicbook debut.)

5. She once packed in her superhero career to become a socialite and style-icon in Paris.

The mid-60s was an interesting time for DC Comics; a tipping point between the juvenile gimmick-driven hangover of the Golden Age, and the more mature storytelling style of the upcoming Bronze Age, as one generation of artists and writers slowly gave way to the next. Brave and the Bold #63 (Dec 1965) fell squarely into the former category with its outlandish story, Revolt of the Super-Chicks.

The tale begins with a restless Kara feeling unappreciated: the public see her as just a hero in a gaudy costume, ignoring the sophisticated woman inside. Much to the chagrin of Kal-El, Kara abandons her superhero-ing career and heads to the bright lights of Paris to live it up. Kal sends Wonder Woman to Paris to talk some sense into Kara (the first time the pair had shared an adventure, by the way), but Diana is likewise wooed by the socialite lifestyle and joins Kara in her nocturnal revelry. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of the villain Multi-Face, the pair might have still been in Paris now.

6. Producer Ilya Salkind regretted Helen Slater’s casting as Supergirl.

When Ilya Salkind took on the task of co-producing Superman-related movies in the mid 1970s, he’d argued against the wishes of both Warner Bros. and his producer father, Alexander, by suggesting that the title role not go to a Hollywood A-lister. Ilya followed exactly the same logic when it came time to cast 1984′s Supergirl, championing an unknown actor called Helen Slater over more bankable names such as Brooke Shields (favoured by his father.)

In an interview in 2000, however, Ilya seemed to have some regrets, telling Scott Michael Bosco on behalf of Digital Cinema, “[...] frankly, with hindsight I regret it. Brooke Shields would have – not made it a better movie, but perhaps a more commercial one. This I’m convinced. I think there would have been more men seeing the movie.” Commenting on how Slater’s screen presence was more Katherine Hepburn than Sophia Loren, Salkind noted, “What happened, I think, is that we lost a lot of the audience, the male audience. I think it was also because the girl was a little unattainable.”

7. One of her most iconic costumes was originally designed by a fan.

Supergirl has had a number of crime-fighting outfits over the decades, but two particularly stand out as being iconic: Helen Slater’s 1984 movie costume (plus its imitators, such as the post-Crisis Matrix costume and Melissa Benoist’s tv costume), and the 1970s hotpants outfit.

The Girl of Steel’s hotpants attire was a racy number that screamed 70s sexploitation at a volume only Kryptonian lungs could achieve: short shorts, a plunging V neckline, billowing sleeves, and a neck choker, all in the customary red, sky blue, and yellow. The design wasn’t something dreamt up by one of DC’s staff of artists, however. but taken from a sketch submitted by reader John Sposato of Edison, New Jersey. DC had used several fan submitted costume ideas during the early 1970s -- each outfit typically receiving one or two story outings -- but John’s submission was obviously so liked by DC artists that it eventually became her permanent costume for most of the 1970s.

8. She turned Streaky into a Super Cat by accident.

DC in the Silver Age prided itself on being a family-friendly brand, free from the squalor and depravity that had once graced the pages of some of its competitors, causing moral crusaders (armed with books written by Dr. Fredric Wertham) to brand the medium as a threat to the youth of America. Without the use of excessive violence to bring thrills and drama to its superhero comics, DC relied on gimmicks such as Kryptonite. Consequently, by the Silver Age, the stuff was everywhere(!)

With her keen practical mind, Kara decided (much to the condescending amusement of her cousin) to develop an alchemy that would neutralise the harmful effects of this ever burgeoning supply of Kryptonite (Action Comics #261, Feb 1960.) She failed, naturally, but the discarded end-product, labelled X-Kryptonite, ended up accidentally giving a local stray alley-cat super powers. And so Streaky the Super Cat was born -- entirely by accident..!

9. Lena Luthor wasn’t the only female Luthor family member giving her trouble.

The Luthor family has a long history of causing trouble for the Girl of Steel. Not only did Supergirl struggle to keep her secret identity from the telepathic Lena (Thorul) Luthor -- Lex’s little sister -- but Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) saw the introduction of Lex’s scheming niece, Nasthalthia. Nasty, as she was known, joined Stanhope College with a determination to help Uncle Lex flush out which of Stanhope’s students was secretly Supergirl. Suspecting Linda Danvers from the start, Nasty even followed Linda when she graduated and moved to San Francisco to become a TV camerawoman. The pair would play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game throughout many early 1970s Supergirl tales, but Nasty never quite got the proof she needed to unmask the Maid of Might.

10. She was married when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

A story published in Superman Vol. 1 #415 (Jan 1986) saw the Fortress of Solitude infiltrated by a mysterious visitor from a distant planet. Intent on stealing a memento of the recently deceased Kara, the handsome green-skinned thief named Salkor is quickly apprehended by Superman.

Salkor explains how he had found Supergirl drifting unconscious in space some two years previous. He had cured her of Kryptonite sickness, but she had been left with severe amnesia. In the days that followed Salkor and Kara drew close and entered into a quickie marriage, but not long after the marriage he awoke to find Kara missing -- her memory had presumably returned. Over the next two years Salkor slowly traced his bride back to Earth, but tragically he arrived just as news of her death was broadcast around the world.

11. Her creation was part of a strategy to boost DC’s flagging superhero comic sales.

Supergirl wasn’t created on a mere creative whim; the impetus behind her introduction was likely a long-term sales strategy DC Comics had been following since the mid-1950s. According to Gerard Jones in his book Men of Tomorrow, DC knew that the demographics for the Superman radio and television shows revealed a sizeable share of young girl audience members, and that market research showed that girls read their brother’s Superman and Batman comics (second hand!) DC therefore set out to entice young girls into buying their own superhero comics by introducing titles like Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, and characters like Batwoman and Supergirl. Although some superheroines have been accused of being nothing more than eye-candy for the young male audience, Supergirl was introduced squarely to inspire young girls.

12. She could read your mind.

In Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) Supergirl investigates a mystery girl found in a coma on the Stanhope College campus. As the anonymous patient lies motionless in a hospital bed, the Girl of Steel conveniently remembers that she has the ability to perform Vulcan mind-melds: ”I'll try to delve into her subconscious -- maybe I can learn something”. The trick reveals that the mystery girl was the victim of a black magic cult, causing Supergirl to infiltrate the group undercover (literally!) Strangely, although the Girl of Steel can read other people’s minds, she seemed very poor at reading her own, as she promptly forgets all about her mind-reading abilities after that single issue.

13. She always knew how to be popular.

When Kara from Argo City first landed on Earth, she took it upon herself to pick her own secret identity name. “While you were gone”, she tells her cousin, “I used my super-hearing and heard many Earth girls’ names! I thought of a good one for myself.” The name she chose, of course, was Linda.

It isn’t perhaps a surprise that her super-hearing fixated on that particular name, given that according to names registered with US Social Security, Linda was one of the most popular girls’ names in the 1950s, beginning the decade in the top slot, but dropping two places to third by the time Kara arrived on Earth in 1959. (Kara, by the way, was 935th on the girls list at the time that Ms. Zor-El crashed her rocket ship in Midvale.)

14. Her first appearance on television was in a 1962 comedy sketch, played by Carol Burnett.

In 1962 the Garry Moore Show featured a seven minute sketch lampooning the popular George Reeves Superman TV show -- the comedy gimmick being that instead of the Man of Steel, the sketch’s evildoers were pitted against the Maid of Might, played by comedian Carol Burnett. (A similar spoof by Lucille Ball a few years earlier doesn’t count, btw, as Lucy was playing Superman, not Supergirl.)

The madcap plot sees Carol dashing to and fro, frantically switching back and forth between her everyday clothes and her hero costume, while performing an array of ridiculous feats of strength. It is debatable whether this truly qualifies as a genuine Supergirl appearance, given the obvious Reeves inspiration, but Burnett’s 1962 version does use the Supergirl name and a reasonable facsimile of her 60s costume.

15. Her first proper appearance on television was in an advert, selling underwear!

Even if the 1962 Carol Burnett sketch is ruled out as not being canonical Kara, Supergirl’s late-70s underwear commercial qualifies without a shadow of a doubt. The short advert, for the kids brand Underroos, sees Supergirl, Spider-Woman, Wonder Woman, and even Batgirl, all extolling the virtues of wearing superheroine themed undergarments. Dating from sometime around 1978, the ad seems to be the first authorised on-screen appearance of Supergirl, meaning that the ad’s opening line, “Now Supergirl is on Underoos”, is the first spoken line uttered by any actress playing the Girl of Steel. (It is unknown who the lucky voice artist was.)

That’s all for part one -- hope you enjoyed it..! Check out part two (soon) for another fifteen fascinating factoids.