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the-bau-quinjet · 4 years ago

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Secret's Out

Summary: Request! Reid and Y/N are secretly dating, but their business doesn't stay their business for long.

Warnings: Criminal Minds level violence

Word Count: 2974

a/n: Thank you for the request! I hope you like it :)

Sorry this took forever! It took me a while to think of case details that I liked and then I kept rewriting parts. I think I'm finally happy with it though!

Masterlist

"Spencer!" You pushed him away. "The doors could open at any moment! How are we supposed to keep this a secret if Morgan walks in on us kissing in the elevator?" You raised a brow at him.

"On average, elevators travel at a speed of 200 ft/min or about 4 seconds per floor. Being on the fifth floor means we have about 20 seconds to ourselves." He smiled triumphantly.

"Yeah, until someone surprises us on floor 3." You rolled your eyes, stepping out of the doors once they opened.

"I can't help it. I'm just... really happy with you." He whispered softly.

"I'm really happy too." You smiled at him. You were about to lean in when the elevator doors opened once again to reveal JJ and Emily.

"Hey guys, ready for another case?" Emily glanced between you suspiciously, but thankfully didn't ask any prying questions.

"Yep, let's go!" You turned quickly, walking into the round table room without so much as a glance back at the three agents by the elevator.

"What's with her?" JJ questioned.

"Said she didn't sleep well last night. Must be all the caffeine." He held his own cup off coffee up in solidarity before also walking to the round table room.

"Alright, we've got 3 dead in Billings, Montana. All three were law enforcement, and all three were found this morning around the city." You listened as Penelope introduced the details of the case.

"Could be someone who feels the police didn't do a good enough job protecting a loved one?" You threw out a theory.

"Or someone who feels wronged by the criminal justice system as a whole." Rossi added on.

"Either way, they likely won't stop until we catch them. Wheels up in 20." Hotch rose from his seat as he spoke, wasting no time in preparing for take off.

You all dispersed briefly to grab your go bags, meeting back at the SUVs to head to the jet.

Once boarded, it didn't take long for the conversation to start up again.

"When we land, L/N go to the morgue. Dave, Prentiss take the first and second crime scenes, they're only a mile apart. Morgan and Reid, check out the third scene. I'll head to the precinct with JJ."

With Hotch's instructions set, you took what little time you had left on the flight to go over the causes of death.

"Anything stand out to you on the bodies?" You asked the ME after going over the blunt force trauma and bullet wounds.

"There's tape residue and bruising on the wrists and ankles. Based on the state of bruising, they were likely held for about 3 days before they were killed."

"Thank you for your help." You shook hands, pulling out your phone to call Hotch.

"Hotchner."

"Hotch, they were held for days before they were killed. How did nobody notice they were missing?" There was nothing in the reports that indicated the victims were reported missing prior to being found.

"We just found the same pattern. They all used vacation days for various reasons in the days leading up to their deaths. Meet us back at the precinct and Reid can explain the whole pattern."

"Okay, I'm leaving now." You hung up just as you reached the SUV. Throughout the drive, you couldn't stop thinking that something wasn't adding up.

The victims were taken in the same day. It didn't make sense for the unsub not to escalate. So, why aren't any officers unaccounted for?

Suddenly, a truck crashed into your SUV, sending you flying off the road. A figure dressed in black opened the door and dragged you from the car.

"Agent L/N, it's so good to see you again." A male voice spoke, but you couldn't place it.

He hit you over the head with a handgun before dragging you to his own vehicle.

"Where's L/N?" Emily questioned when her and Rossi returned from the second dumpsite.

"On her way back from the ME." Hotch answered. "Did you find anything useful?"

"They truly are dumpsites. Both bodies were found by dumpsters, sending a pretty clear message." Dave replied.

"Same for the third site." Derek added on.

"All three victims were single and took time off leading up to their death. Nobody would've notice that they were missing until it was too late." Reid supplied the final bit of information gathered.

Hotch's phone rang before anyone else could comment. The frantic sound of Garcia's nails clicking against her keyboard echoed through the phone. She was talking before anyone could greet her.

"You need to see this, check your tablets."

Confused glances were exchanged as everyone, barring Reid, opened their tablets. Reid glanced over Morgan's shoulder to observe as well.

A seemingly live video that Garcia received a link to was streaming to the tablets.

A single woman sitting in a chair could be seen in the frame. Her wrists and ankles were bound to the chair with thick, gray tape and a bag was over her head.

"Garcia, what is this?" Hotch asked almost immediately.

"I was emailed the link just now. It's not streaming anywhere else online." Her reply came quickly, the sound of typing still filling in the silence.

"Can you trace it?" Rossi questioned.

"I'm trying, but it's being routed through multiple proxy servers."

"Did the email say anything?" Emily chimed in.

"No, it was just the link- Wait. I just got another email." She paused as the new email loaded. "It's addressed to Reid."

Every set of eyes in the room turned to Reid.

"What does it say?" He felt the nerves beginning to grow waiting for Garcia to read the words aloud.

"Dr. Reid,

I hope you remember me. What am I saying, of course you do. I've got something of yours that you might want back. You see Dr. Reid, you and your team ruined me. My family, my career, all of it, just gone. I thought I'd return the favor. A person's phone can be so informative. Tell me, does your team know about your girlfriend? I've so enjoyed getting reacquainted with her.

Happy hunting."

Spencer's face went white as he looked at Morgan's tablet again. His thoughts were racing. How did he not recognize you before? Even with the bag over your head, he should've known it was you.

"It's her." His words were barely a whisper.

"This is your girlfriend?" Morgan gestured to the screen again. Spencer could only nod in reply, his mind unable to focus on anything except you.

"Reid, listen to me. You've got to tell us everything you know about her. We'll have to split up. You can go back to Quantico with Emily and Morgan, the rest of us will stay here to work on our current case." Hotch was already devising a strategy to work both cases.

"There's no need." His words made sense to him, but sounded cryptic to the rest of the team.

"Kid, of course there is. We'll help you get her back." Morgan placed a hand on his shoulder, effectively shocking him back to the present situation.

"There's no need to split up because she's here. She's in Montana." Before he could continue, everyone was asking questions.

"Give me a phone number and I'll get you a location." Garcia was already typing away again.

"Are you sure she's here?" JJ's brows furrowed. She did her best to hide the hurt of her best friend hiding his girlfriend from her, again.

"Why would she be here?" Rossi added.

"How did she get here? Maybe we can track the transportation and figure out means of abduction." Emily was the only one thinking about the case.

Like ripping off a bandaid, Spencer blurted out the truth.

"It's Y/N."

He was met with silence in the room as everyone absorbed the information.

Garcia caught up first, a sudden gasp sounding through the phone.

"So, then that's Y/N... in the video..." Her voice wavered.

As if a switch was flipped, the team was back on the case.

"Garcia, get me a list of anyone who would have a grievance with the team." Hotch ordered.

"Go through anyone who was falsely accused. Start with cases in or around Montana. He would want to keep this close to home." Rossi specified.

"We've only had one case in Montana since Y/N joined the team." Reid supplied the knowledge as it came to him. "A name, I need a name." He muttered to himself, pulling his hair as he roughly ran his hands through it and over his face. "Garcia, look into Jameson Braddock."

"Got it." She immediately began a background check, searching through case files and news articles for additional information. "i'll get back to you with locations." With that, she hung up.

"Fill us in, kid. Who is Jameson Braddock." Morgan lead Reid to a chair, gently easing him into it.

"Our last case in Montana, Emily and I went to interview a witness." Emily nodded, the memories slowly coming back to her.

"He wasn't very forthcoming, and then he tried to run." She added on.

"Exactly, except he didn't make it very fair. We arrested him, but it turned out he was only guilty of selling alcohol to minors. When word of his arrest got out, the whole town thought it was for the serial rapes and murders we were investigating even though it was never confirmed."

"By the time we corrected the media, it was too late." JJ supplied, also remembering the man.

"So, he killed three officers just to draw us out back out here?" Morgan refocused the conversation on the current case.

"It looks that way now. The media knew we were coming, so he must have as well." Emily theororized. "If he followed us from the airport, he would've seen Y/N leave by herself."

"He likely didn't know about your relationship until he abducted her and went through her phone." Hotch paced the room.

"He's flaunting his power over us." Rossi chimed in just as Hotch's phone rang again.

"Garcia, what've you got?"

"Three addresses in Billings, Montana. Jameson Braddock has been on a downward spiral since your last trip there. His entire life fell apart, like he said. Divorced, his wife moved to Nebraska with their two kids. He lost his job at the high school, and was evicted from his house when he could no longer pay the bills." She listed the information quickly.

"He has ties to three addresses. Nobody has moved into his previous house, so it's vacant. He's got a small apartment in the northern part of the city which he pays for through working odd hours at Taco Bell. Finally, he briefly worked security at a now abandoned warehouse."

"An apartment wouldn't be enough space to hold her without the chance of someone hearing. She's not there." Rossi eliminated the location as an option.

"We'll split up to cover the warehouse and the house-" Hotch began, but Reid cut him off.

"No, we shouldn't split up. She's got to be at the house. The warehouse has no connection to his previous life. He wants revenge for our perceived wrongdoing, he wouldn't make his last stand at a new location." Reid was already putting on a bullet proof vest. Despite how his mind was racing, he refused to show how afraid he was.

"You're sure?" Morgan asked, on the fence about committing to one location.

"Absolutely." With that, Reid was out the door heading for the SUVs.

"Rossi, Emily head around back. I'll take the front with Reid. JJ and Morgan, the side door." Hotch instructed the team to split up upon arrival at the house.

Reid wasted no time in approaching the house. He was confident you were inside, but he didn't know what was happening to you.

The main floor was cleared quickly. Again, the team split up to cover the upper level and the basement.

Knowing you were likely downstairs, Reid immediately started that direction, JJ and Hotch following him.

It wasn't hard for him to find you. You were still tied to the chair in the middle of the room, bag over your head.

Before anyone could stop him, Reid lowered his gun and ran to you. He gently maneuvered the bag off your head, stopping his movements only when he felt something press into his back.

"Dr. Reid. So kind of you to join us." Braddock spoke maniacally, pressing the gun against Reid's head.

"Drop your weapon." Hotch commanded, but the man only cackled in response.

'Y/N... Y/N." Reid gently shook you in an attempt to wake you up.

"She can't hear you." Braddock singsonged.

"What did you do?" Reid tried to turn to him only to feel the gun press further into his head.

"Like I said in my email, you people ruined my life. They took everything from me, so I thought I'd try to return the favor." During his short speech, Braddock shifted just enough for JJ to get a clean shot.

He fell to the ground, gun clattering across the floor.

Reid moved quickly to remove the tape binding you to the chair while Hotch called for a medic in the basement.

The entire team watched as you were wheeled into the ambulance, still unconscious, none more scared than Spencer.

"She's going to be fine, Spence." JJ tried to reassure him, nonetheless his pacing continued.

"You don't know that. We don't even know what he did to her." He had one hand anxiously running through his hair, the other pinching the bridge of his nose in distress.

Just then, a doctor emerged from behind closed doors.

"F/N L/N." She called into the waiting room, slightly taken aback when the group of agents rushed to her.

"It was touch and go for a while, but she got here just in time." It was visible to even the least qualified profiler how relieved the team felt. Their previously tense shoulders relaxed, frowns turned to small smiles, wide eyes and raised brows pinched together with joy.

"What happened?" Emily posed the question everyone was thinking.

"In short, she was drugged. It's not clear what exactly was used, but it was likely a mix of drugs that attempted to stop her heart."

"Can we see her?" Morgan spoke next, cautiously eyeing Reid.

"You may, follow me." The doctor lead them through a series of hallways to your room. "She should be waking up soon."

With that the doctor left, allowing the team to file into the room. You looked strangely peaceful for someone who almost died.

"So..." JJ glanced between you and Spencer. "Girlfriend, huh?"

His eyes went wide. Instinctively, he turned to you for help, but you were still asleep. He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out.

"Relax, kid." Morgan grinned. "We're happy as long as you two are happy."

Spencer smiled gratefully, looking at you with an adoring gaze. "We are happy."

"How long?' Emily gestured to your joined hands. Just before Spencer could answer, you groaned.

"I want to hear your guesses first." Your voice was raspy, but there was a clear smile on your face. "Also, what happened?"

The quickly explained the email Garcia received and the events that followed.

"Now that that's cleared up, do tell us how long you think we've been together. I know you've got a bet going." You narrowed your eyes, playfully glaring at each team member.

"4 months." Hotch begrudgingly admitted. JJ followed with 3 months, Derek and Rossi both betting 10 weeks, and Emily going with 6 weeks.

"Ha, you're all wrong." You smiled triumphantly, leaning closer to Spencer.

"Wait, we haven't heard from Garcia." Derek smirked as he rung her on speaker phone.

"Oh, my beautiful crime fighters. Y/N, are you okay?" Your smile widened at the concern in her voice.

"I am indeed, but I have a very important question for you." You glanced as Spencer briefly before continuing. "How long do you think Spence and I have been together?"

"Oh, I know this one!" Her excitement caught everyone but you off guard. "7 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days."

Spencer's jaw dropped as he stuttered out, "that's exactly right..."

"How'd you figure it out?" The group of profilers wore matching expressions of surprise as Penelope explained.

"Well, we had just finished testifying in the Bigelow trial. The whole team went out for drinks, and I could just see it in Y/N's eyes the next day that something wonderful happened. At first I just thought that she got some, but then I saw her and the good doctor in the kitchen getting coffee and I knew." Penelope's voice held a mixture of smugness and pure excitement.

"Babygirl, you didn't tell me?" Derek sounded genuinely offended.

"Y/N asked me not to." Even though you couldn't see her, you knew she punctuated the statement with a shrug.

"You knew, she knew?" Spencer turned to you in shock.

You nodded. "I could see it on her face the second I walked out of the kitchen. But she promised not to tell, so I didn't either."

"The two of you, thick as thieves." Rossi lamented.

"I love you so much." Spencer whispered into your ear as he pulled you in for a hug.

"I love you too." You whispered right back.

"Honestly, I'm glad the secret's out." You smiled at Spencer before looking at the rest of the team. "Although, I wish I didn't have to be kidnapped to tell you."

You spent a few more hours in the hospital before being cleared to go back to the hotel.

The next morning, you smiled to yourself as you were finally able to cuddle with Spencer during the flight home.

Permanent taglist:

@averyhotchner

@jesuswasnotawhiteman

@strawberryspence

@sebastnstn

Criminal Minds taglist:

@mac99martin

@goldeng1rl8

@measure-in-pain

#spencer reid x reaader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #spencer reid one shot #criminal minds fic

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whenyouknowyouknow · 5 years ago

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Harry the Womanizer

This thing started because I find the whole womanizer image of Harry absolutely disgusting and wanted people to see how utterly bad and wrong it was.

Please be aware that the following does not reflect Harry’s personality but it shows us the image their label wanted him to be seen as.

Some disclaimer about where the data comes from

written, digital coverage (no print, 1-2 videos, no radio)

google search “Harry Styles”, I looked through the first 20 hits each month but didn’t read all of them ( headlines usually are a dead giveaway if an article contains a new “conquest”)

I did not list every woman that was mentioned in the same article as Harry. Also not those that showed interest in him. But most of those that were said he showed interest in (I might have skipped a few in the worst years just bc it was so freaking disgusting)

Often articles contained offhand comments about his pulling power or unrelatedly recounting his latest conquests in any given article to enforce the womanizer image. These did not make it into the list.

Deleted articles are of course not included (as of Aug 2020)

Some of the women turn up again for a round 2 (or 3 or 4), I only mention them once a year tho

I put the women into the list on the date the news coverage happened/started because many articles date back things by saying “pics have circulated since…” “They have been reportedly seen together since…” or simply tell a story that supposedly happened a few years prior

Some dates overlap. Thats either bc they pushed several woman at once (very effective to drive the whole womanizer image home) or its bc one woman was seeded in while the other was happening.

Because this is a freaking long post, I’ll put it under the “read more”

About the list

split by years

each year has Harrys age for that given year in brackets

each data set has in brackets the age, occupation and date of news coverage for the woman (if available)

winter gf get their own category as they sometimes overlap with other woman

Some of the woman get brought back up (not just mentioned in passing), those are listed at the end of each year with the dates when they where brought back up

“again” is for those who dated him again

Women linked to Harry

2010 (16)

5(?) girls from bootcamp

Cher Loyd (17, txf fellow contestant, Oct)

unnamed girl fan (13.11.)

2011 (17)

Adele (23, singer, 27.09.)

Sarita Borge (record executive, 29.11.)

2011-2012

Caroline Flack (31, txf, 23.10.-27.01.)

2012 (18)

Pixie Geldoff (21, 09.02.)

Alexa Chung (28, model, 16.02)

Alexandra Burke (23, txf, 20.02.)

Jo Wood (56, ex of Ronny Wood 21.02.)

Denise Welch (54, actress, 21.02.)

Georgia May Jagger (20, Mick Jagger daughter, 21.02.)

Sarah-Louise Colivet (24, photographer, 11.04.)

Lily Halpern (19, singer, 11.04.)

Jillian Harris (32, reality TV star, 13.04.)

Emma Ostilly (18, actor for Gotta be You MV - 22.04.)

Ellis Calcutt (18(?), friend, deniedm, 30.04.)

Emily Atack (22, TV star, 20.05.)

unnamed girl (Article about her one night stand with H, 06.06.)

Lucy Horobin (32, radio presenter, 24.06., dated back to Aug-Oct 2011)

Caggie Dunlop (23, TV star, 12.07.)

Allyssa Reid (19, singer, 23.07.)

Blond girl with pink bag (from a night out, 26.07.)

Cara Delevingne (19, Model, 05.08.)

Natalie Imbruglia (37, singer actress 28.09.)

2012-13

Taylor Swift (22 singer 19.10.-07.01. (fling dated back to April 2012 then getting back together)

2013 (19)

Hermione Way (27, reality star, 08.01.)

Millie Brady (18, actress, 24.02.)

Shaniece Nesbitt (fan, 11.03.)

Yvette Fielding (44, TV presenter, 11.03.)

Fia Litton (niece of Preston Mahon (security), 14.03)

Chelsea Ferguson (25, stripper, 14.04)

Kimberly Stewart (33, confirmed by Rod, 27.04.)

Camilla Foss (18, fan in oslo, 09.05.)

Kara Rose Marshall (22, model, 03.07.)

Alexis Allen (19, fan, 21.07.)

Cara Delevingne (20, model, 11.09.)

Paige Reifler (17, model, 30.09.)

Sjana Earp (18, model, 25.10.)

Samantha Armytage (36, TV presenter, 27.10.)

Daisy Lowe (24, model, 01.12.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 01.02./11.09.)

2013-14

Kendall Jenner (17, model, 21.10. - 23.02)

2014 (20)

mystery brunette (20.01.)

Alison Mosshart (35, singer, 07.03.)

Daisy Lowe (25, model, 11.04.)

Larissa de Macedo Machado (21, brazilian popstar, 08.05.)

Lou Teasdale (30, hairdresser, 26.05.)

Sinitta (45, Smons ex, 22.07.)

Paige Reifler (18, again, model, 25.07.)

Meghan Trainor (20, singer, 27.08.)

blond woman (at Coldplay concert, 18.09.)

Katy Perry (29, singer, 01.10.)

Erin Foster (31, 08.10.)

Kate Moss (40, model, 03.11.)

two blond woman (leaving a club in LA with H, 30.11.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 12.02./02.03./20.08./14.10./04.12.)

Emily Atack (brought back up, 23.03.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 26.03.)

2014-15

Nadine Leopold (20, model, 20.12.- 12.03.)

2015 (21)

Emma Watson (24, actress, 14.01. dated back to 26.12.14)

Suki Waterhouse (23, actress, 05.04.)

Joy Muggli (23, talent agent, 12.05.)

Sara Sampaio (23, model, 15.06.)

Georgia Fowler (22, model, inspiration for Kiwi, 15.10.)

Nicole Scherzinger (34, singer, 17.10., dated back to 2013)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 15.01./13.02./10.03./08.05./13.10./28.10.)

Caroline Flack (brought back up, 24.05./11.10.)

2015-16

Kendall Jenner (again, 30.12.- 31.01.)

2016 (22)

Pandora Lennard (28, model 31.01.)

Lindsay Lohan (30, actress, 10.03., dated back unspecified)

Kendall Jenner (again, 05.09.)

Kara Rose Marshall (brought back up, 07.10.)

Suki Waterhouse (again + dated back to 2013, 11.11.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 01.02.)

2017 (23)

Tess Ward (26, food blogger, 09.05.)

Townes Adair Jones (20s, 17.05., dated back to 2014)

Camille Rowe (31, model, 31.07.)

Sjana Earp (22, again, 05.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 18.04./12.05./03.09./09.11.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 31.01.)

2018 (24)

Delta Goodrem (33, voice coach, 27.04.)

Camille Rowe (ends 31.07.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 15.07./12.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 21.03./)

2019 (25)

Kiko Mizuhara (28, denied by K, 12.01.)

Camille Rowe (brought back up, 22.11.)

Kendall Jenner (brought back up, 11.12.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 23.08./04.11./13.12.)

2020 (26)

Daisy Lowe (brought back up, 20.06.)

Taylor Swift (brought back up, 02.03./24.07.)

data from here on is not included in the graphs, I will keep adding when things happen

Tracee Ellis Ross (48, actress, 28.10.)

The age differences

The graph shows clearly how

the age gaps are very big in the beginning, likely to attract an older audience in addition to the usual target audience of teenage girls

the amount of woman linked to Harry gets smaller each year because in later years, articles could just reference his history with woman

the amount of woman linked and mentioned in regards to Harry gets significantly lower after hiatus started

A rough timeline of women that where connected to Harry over the years

Why give Harry the womanizer image?

Would the image of a womanizer not damage the image of 1D?

If they’d portrait him as a sleeze it would have surely damaged the overal image of 1D. But Harrys image portrait him as charming, a bit quirky and overall an airhead that likes people and doesn’t want to be tied down. Thus giving the illusion of being potentially available to every woman and showing them a good, no strings attached, time. Which is a massive selling point for boybands to increase the age range of their fans.

In addition, all his conquests would be used to stir up drama or simply generate attention at crucial times to get 1D in the press without mentioning their current promo focus in every headline.

The winter girlfriends had a special role as they were the only ones actively worked as continuous dating. To build some attachment, have a continuous storyline that could be tied to the just released album and bridge the holiday pause, and when the relationship ended generate more drama to be used for promo.

Harry did keep on using his womanizer image to promote both his solo albums but in a very controlled manner. The numbers of new woman linked to him declined to 1 in 2019, for now we are at 0 (1) in 2020

HS promo used 3 woman as inspirations for songs (Towns, Fowler, Swift) and a tour gf (Rowe)

FL promo only uses the previous tour gf as now ex to push the storyline of a breakup album

He is very visibly changing his image while still maintaining a level of connection to his old image. Whether that's due to contractual restrictions or a strategy to not alienate to many fans is unclear

Jeff Azoff

For what I’ve seen Jeff and Harry seem close (the Azoff family having him on family pictures, posted by Jeff’s brother)

Looking at the timeline of Jeff and Harry

2014-03-25 first mention of Harry at Azoff family home in an article about Irvin

2014-04-23 first pics of Harry and Jeff at a sports event (Jeff named as a friend, no name or position yet)

2014-12-22 Jeff not named yet but identified as his agent

2015-01-10 first time Jeff being named and being the link between Harry and a woman

2016-03-07 Jeff leaves CAA as a music agent and launches his own company Full Stop Management

2016-03-11 Harry confirmed to have joined Full Stop Management

Jeff likely took over as Harry’s agent in early 2014. In 2015 Harry’s image change starts to become aparent and changed drastically after hiatus.

Harry choosing Jeffs management firm as soon as he left Modest is a clear indication that he feels Jeff will represent him how he wants

The Timeline - Women connected to Harry and Promo

I started the visual timeline in end 2011 when his womanizer image started to take off

The instances before where likely used as seeding for this image (first instance was a segment in txf where he was linked to 5 of the girl contestants and funny enough one older guy)

purple - women from the entertainment industry

pink - fans/no-names

lilac - winter gf

dark burgundy - thos who date him again

dusky pink - brought back up

light blue - single release

royal blue - album release

mid blue - other releases

dark turquoise - tour legs

Adendum: a few numbers analyzed,

#Harry Styles #womanizer #masterpost #aug2020 #womanizer timeline HS

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icasttourniquet · 4 years ago

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Common Misconceptions: Scene Safety and Extraction

Self-sacrifice is a fun narrative trope. Who doesn't love seeing the emotionally constipated character put themselves at risk to save someone they care about but won't admit they care about?

Which is to say, I'm not telling you to write characters who follow the priority schema below. I'm just explaining the schema your first responder character likely learned for your edification and, more importantly, because acknowledging that you are violating protocol to save someone's life adds way more angst.

Disaster Priorities

Me (the first responder and potential victim)

Bystanders (potential victims)

Other victims (potential worse victims)

Patient (potential dead victim)

(ModN was taught even one step further in his EMT: 1) me! 2) still me 3) my partner 4) me again 5) my partner again 6) bystanders 7) the patient.)

But wait! Are you telling me if I stumble upon someone bleeding out in the street, I need to look both ways before running to help them?

To which I say, yes because if you get hit by a car, the next person to stumble upon this scene will find two people bleeding out in the street, which is objectively worse. Also, don't run to them. If you break your ankle, how are you going to get them out of the street?

Scene Safe

When running a drill, the first things a (nerdy) EMT will say are: "BSI, my scene is safe..." This is because the first thing an EMT cares about in every scenario is whether or not they have the necessary body substance isolation (BSI) and whether they can treat their patient safely.

It no doubt sounds counterintuitive. Humans see other injured humans (or just injured things in general—here's a cute video about humans rescuing a beached orca because it's my post and if I want to link to a video about orcas when I'm talking about scene safety, I will; side note, I think orcas probably reduce scene safety). In many cases, it's perfectly natural for a character to run into danger to save someone else, even if it is not proper protocol. Again, you don't need to follow these rules to write your first response scene, but knowing them is helpful.

These priorities also imply the following:

If there's a HazMat situation that involves patients and bystanders, and your character is the only first responder there, they should focus on keeping bystanders out and not treating those already sick (assuming they can only do one).

Your character does not have to treat someone in a dangerous situation, like, say, someone who got electrocuted by a still-dancing electrical wire (check out this post for some CPR information though).

Sometimes, extraction takes priority over treatment.

Extraction

Let's say someone's just fallen off a small cliff into traffic (ModN contests that this is a thing that happens, but we'll go along with it for the sake of argument). Your character determines that they can offer first-aid without putting anyone else in more danger, but first, they need to make the scene safe.

Which of the following is proper procedure:

Worry about the spine and avoid moving the patient until you can do so without injuring them further

Do a primary assessment (more information about primary assessments here) and stop life threats while still in the middle of the highway

Try to figure out a method of extraction that won't exacerbate any existing injuries

Get them out of the highway! Now!

If you didn't pick 4, congratulations, you were wrong. You cannot treat a patient on an active highway. This is because of all the projectile weapons (cars) on active highways. For the record, you also wouldn't treat a patient in the middle of an active firefight.

Remember, the number 1 priority is the first responder. That means the patient needs to not be on the highway (or your buddy can stop the traffic, whichever).

But, I hear you cry, what if I hurt my patient's spine by pulling them out of the highway? To you, I say, can I recommend this relatively spine safe drag? And, if that's not convincing, can I remind you the other option is letting your patient get run over by a semi truck?

But what if I make their injuries worse by dragging them away? Getting hit by a car will also make your patient's injuries worse. Probably worse than getting dragged away.

What if they die while I'm dragging them? You probably didn't have time to treat them anyway. However, because you dragged them away, you have now avoided getting hit by a car, thereby possibly saving the life of the next first responder who arrives at the scene and decides to run into traffic.

Extraction in the real world

Trigger warning for folks: this section is going to discuss actual medical protocol used for active shooter scenarios. If you're not into that right now, skip to the summary section.

There have been two major shifts in active shooter protocol in the US in the last decade. The first is the shift from treating them more as hostage situations (when SWAT stays outside the scene to negotiate at first, and officers may stay outside to wait for better prepared people) to situations that need to be stopped immediately.

The second is the shift from clearing an entire building to extracting and treating casualties as quickly as possible. Areas in a shooting are separated into zones. The hot zone is where we're pretty sure the shooter is. The warm zone is where the shooter could be, soon, but isn't now and probably won't be. And the cool zone is where we're pretty sure the shooter won't be.

Previously, EMS wasn't sent in until the whole area was green (standard EMS still isn't – as an EMT ModN was taught to stay well behind the concrete bullet-impervious barricade until the scene is clear). Basically, people with guns guaranteed the whole scene was safe as could be before medicine started happening. Now, well-protected first responders with special training are sent into warm zones to treat patients as fast as they can and then get them out.

Enter the RESCUE TASK FORCE (RTF).

Rescue Task Force

An RTF is a team of one (or more) armed people who can protect their gaggle of medical responders. The armed people go in first to make sure the medical professionals will not immediately be shot and EMS hurries in behind.

RTFs stabilize patients as they find them (e.g. stop the bleed, opening an airway), not using any triage procedures and skipping over patients who "pass" the primary assessment. This is because the zone of safety is so small, they pretty much need to treat whoever they can get. The goal, however, is to get these patients stabilized so that an extraction team (following close behind) can get them out.

As this article succinctly puts it:

"The job of the RTF is to stop the bleeding, and keep patients breathing."

Extraction Task Force

That's when the EXTRACTION TASK FORCE comes into play. (Or, in some cases, a SECONDARY RESCUE TASK FORCE because we wouldn't want to name these two teams someting different, would we?)

This team comes in armed with stretchers and lots of hands to help get people out fast. This can vary from easy—"Hey, go that way to get out of the building"—to difficult—trying to get unresponsive or actively panicking injured people onto a stretcher and out.

Side note: When I say stretcher, you might be thinking of something like this:

In a case like this, first responders might prefer flexible stretchers, like so:

You can roll the patient onto that and let two to six people each grab a handhold. Because it is made of cloth, the patient ends up coccooned inside, which makes it difficult to fall out and much faster to apply. It's also lighter and smaller to carry.

The extraction team is not worrying about things like broken bones or bruises. The RTF has already stabilized all the victims in the area (bleeding and breathing) and the extraction team is here to get them out.

What I'm trying to get at here is, all that stuff you've heard about "not moving people" and "worrying about spines" kind of goes out the window in situations where the scene is not safe.

Summary

In a disaster, first responders and bystanders take priority.

If you cannot treat your patient where they are, your first priority is getting them somewhere else.

(Orcas are really cool).

Mod E wanted to write about Rescue Task Forces but didn't want to make a post dedicated to them.

The only thing better than one character sacrificing themself for another is when said character knows they are violating protocol to do so. So, writers, violate protocol away. Happy angst writing!

#ict #emergency medicine #rescue task force #scene safety #writing tips #writing advice

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carly-they-jepsen · 5 years ago

Text

RWRB Timeline

I originally worked out the timeline for Sep. 27, 2020, and when people suggested I post it on tumblr, I said fuck it and did the whole book.

Go big or go home, right?

I have spent the past 3 days working on this. It’s half summaries of the events of the days in order, and half “here’s a one sentence summary of the day”.

Whenever possible, I’ve detailed out when things happen by the hour, like the day at Wimbledon, or the email leak day, including guesstimations on flight times, and what time EST and BST Alex is taking off and landing. I often forgot to add vague things like “morning” in, so sorry about that.

I’ve bolded all the dates I’m sure of.

Bold and italics means an official date: emails, text threads, tweets, holidays, Georgetown, etc.

Two asterisks ** = official dates.

Just bold means a day I’m sure of, based off of official dates: Two weeks later, day one post lake house, “a tuesday”, etc.

One asterisk: * = something I’m sure of based on official dates.

I’ve also bolded days of the week I’m sure of, even if I’m not certain of the date.

I’ve left a few things vague. Like, October 2020 is a lot of “sometime between these days, this happened”. Feel free to pick a day in that range to your heart’s content.

If you don’t like the day I picked for little things like Bea walking in on face time, or coming out to June, feel free to change it.

I didn’t bold everything I’m certain on, as I technically don’t have textual evidence to back it up. (Things like the wedding day, Alex and Henry’s texts at in the beginning, some things during the campaign.)

I’m 100% willing to answer questions on why I chose certain days, and any other questions or comments you may have!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

**Aug. 28, 2019 (Wed.) — Alex starts classes at Georgetown, Winter Semester 2019

Sep. 7-Sep. 8, 2019 (Sat.-Sun.) (p. 5-6) — Alex and June attend an event and listen to an hour and a half of speeches about carbon emissions. June is whisked away to a star studded gala. Alex shows up to the presidential suite with a bottle of champagne. Around 4 a.m. Alex leaves after fake hooking up with Nora.

Sep. 12, 2019 (Th.) (p. 3-8) — June and Alex go over the tabloids. Alex has been working on a research paper all week

Sep. 13, 2019 (Fri.) (p. 8-12) — The US crew flies to London.

6 a.m. EST: Take off.

5 p.m. BST: Land in London. (Wiggle the take off time to your heart’s content. Flight is around 6 hours give or take for Air Force 1, plus time to and from the airport, plus the time change. The flight time is “11 hours” with the time change if that helps you calculate the landing time in London.) They potentially have 1-2 appearances that evening.

Sep. 14, 2019 (Sat.) (p. 12-20) — The royal wedding. The US crew has 1-2 appearances before arriving at the ceremony. The ceremony happens. Reception happens at a Buckingham ballroom. The White House Trio chats, Henry dances with June. Alex finds Henry hovering by the champagne fountain and they argue. Alex trips over his own foot and crashes into the $75k wedding cake, pulling Henry down with him.

Sep. 16, 2019 (Mon.) (p. 21-27) — Alex gets chewed out over the Incident by Zahra and the President in a White House briefing room. He gets told he will be leaving Saturday to make nice with Henry in England.

Sometime between Mon. Sep. 16 and Fri. Sep. 20, 2019 (p. 27-32) — Alex, Nora, and June meet in the Whitehouse and go over the HRH Prince Henry Fact Sheet. Alex bemoans the fact that he just finished his midterms.

Sep. 21, 2019 (Sat.) (p. 32-37) — Alex leaves in the early a.m. EST and arrives late afternoon/early evening in London. (11-12 hour difference in takeoff time to landing time. Note, this is just DC to Lon., not the other way round.). Meets Henry at the stable and a royal photographer takes pictures.

Sep. 22, 2019 (Sun.) (p. 37-53) — 12:00 a.m.: Alex is wide awake and goes into the kitchen for a snack. Henry stumbles in, and Alex posts a photo of them with their ice cream on Instagram.

9 a.m.: Interview with The Morning.

Afternoon meeting with cancer patients. Alex and Henry spend some time in the closet chatting after fireworks are mistaken for gunshots. Before his flight home, Alex puts his number in Henry’s phone. Likely lands around 7-8 p.m. EST.

Sep. 27, 2019 (Fri.) (p. 54-61) — Alex has a lecture on presidential sex scandals. Texts Nora about the probability of one of them having a sex scandal by the end of the second term and she replies with 94% and a link to a gifset of Henry and Alex at The Morning where someone has commented “omfg make out already”. Alex meets with Rafael Luna after his class.

Sometime between Sep. 27, 2019 (Fri.) and Oct. 6, 2019 (Sun.) (p. 61-68) — June, Alex, Leo, and Ellen have dinner together. June texts Alex to have dinner and he forgets to respond until 1.5 hours later when Ellen texts about family dinner. She offers them jobs in the campaign and June turns it down the next morning.

Oct. 9, 2019 (Wed.) (p. 68) — Henry texts Alex while Alex is in a policy lecture. His opening line is “this bloke looks like you” with a picture of the Ewok Chief Chirpa from Return of the Jedi.

Oct. 16, 2019 (Wed.) (p. 68-69) — Alex finally responds a week later after seeing a headline on the cover of People about Henry in Australia with a photo of him in a pair of minuscule navy swim trunks. “you have a lot of moles. is that a result of the inbreeding?

Oct. 18, 2019 (Fri.) (p. 69) — Henry texts Alex a screenshot of a Daily Mail tweet that says “Is Alex Claremont-Diaz going to be a father?” with the caption “But we were ever so careful, dear.” Henry texts Alex a screenshot of a Daily Mail tweet that says “Is Alex Claremont-Diaz going to be a father?” with the caption “But we were ever so careful, dear.” Alex gets ejected from Zahra’s weekly debriefing meeting with him and June.

Oct. 19-Oct. 28, 2019 (Sat.-Mon.) (p. 69-71) — Henry and Alex text regularly on a variety of topics including family, friends, beer, boats, and Hogwarts houses.

**Oct. 29, 2019 (Tue.) (p. 71-72) — Henry texts Alex about being in a meeting with Philip. Later that night Alex replies, asking what the meeting was about.

**Oct. 30, 2019 (Wed.) (p. 73) — 1:07 p.m. EST Henry and Alex text about Henry’s grey tie in his instagram post.

**Nov. 17, 2019 (Sun.) (p. 74) — 11:04 a.m. EST: Henry receives a box of Ellen Claremont campaign buttons with Alex’s face on them. Sniffer dogs were nearly called after the security theme thought it was a bomb. Alex and Henry text about it.

**Nov. 25, 2019 (Mon.) (p. 75-84) — Alex finds out that the turkeys his mom will be pardoning have been staying in the Willard Hotel on taxpayers dime. He convinces her to put them in his room.

10 p.m. EST/3 a.m. GMT: Alex regrets his decisions. He calls Henry to prove they’re as terrifying as Alex claims and they have a long conversation about the turkeys, Henry’s pets, and how Henry surprises Alex.

**Dec. 8, 2019 (Sun.) (p. 84) — 8:53 p.m. EST: Alex texts Henry about a Bond marathon happening on TV. He asks if Henry knows his dad was a total babe, which Henry replies with “I BEG YOU NOT”

*Dec. 20, 2019 (Fri.) (p. 84-85) — Ellen reads an article in the Post with the headline “Senator Oscar Diaz Returns to DC For Holidays With Ex-Wife President Claremont”. She continues to stress about decorations in the Lincoln Bedroom for Oscar.

*Dec. 21, 2019 (Sat.) (p. 85) — Oscar Diaz arrives at the White House. June nearly breaks a vase launching herself into his arms. Oscar and June disappear to the chocolate shop on the ground floor.

*Dec. 22, 2019 (Sun.) (p. 85-86) — Oscar and Alex bond over a cigar on the Truman Balcony.

*Dec. 23, 2019 (Mon.) (p. 87) — Alex catches Oscar in the kitchens with two of the cooks, laughing and dumping peppers into a pot.

*Dec. 21-23, 2019 (Sat.-Mon.) (p. 86-87) — Alex wishes it could be like this more often and misses having everyone under one roof.

**Dec. 24, 2019 (Tue.) (p. 87-95) — Christmas dinner is held on Christmas Eve so Zahra can still attend. Zahra wears a sensible red turtleneck. Alex wears a sweater covered in bright green tinsel. ‘O Christmas Tree” plays out of a speaker near his armpit when he presses a button on the inside of his sleeve. Dinner conversation moves to the election. Oscar and Ellen argue. Alex loses his temper and leaves.

9:30 p.m. EST/2:30 a.m. GMT: Alex changes into an old lacrosse shirt and calls Henry. Henry is wearing candy cane pjs. Alex tells Henry about the divorce and what happened at dinner and only realizes he’s been talking for an hour when henry says “It sounds like you did your best.) June knocks on the door and Alex hangs up after thanking Henry and wishing him a Merry Christmas.

10:30 p.m.: June and Alex talk about what happened after Alex left and then Alex tells her he was talking to Henry, not Nora.

**Dec. 26, 2019 (Th.) (p. 95-97) — Alex spends the day going over waivers for the “Legendary Balls Out Bananas White House Trio New Year’s Eve Party” aka “The Young America New Year’s Eve Gala” aka “The Millennial Correspondents Dinner”.

Dec. 27, 2019 (Fri.) (p. 96-97) — Alex discovers Henry is coming to the party and bringing Pez when he glances at the final guest list while the Trio are looking at confetti samples and eating cake samples.

**Dec. 31, 2019 (Tue.) (p. 97-103) — Pez posts a picture of him and Henry on a private jet headed to DC with the caption “USA bound! #YoungAmericaGala2019” Pez has dyed his hair pastel pink, and Henry is wearing a grey sweatshirt. Alex texts Henry that he will be wearing a burgundy suit and warns Henry to not attempt to outshine Alex, as he will fail and Alex will be embarrassed for him. Henry replies “Wouldn’t dream of it”. After that the Trio begins getting ready. Nora’s short curls are swept to the side with a matching silver pin to the geometric designs on the bodice of her black dress. June’s gown is midnight blue and perfectly compliments the navy-and-gold color palette they chose for the party.

8 p.m.: Guests begin to arrive. The first wave includes some White House interns, and the daughter of a first time Senator and her girlfriend. The second wave is the politically strategic invites chosen by the press team, and finally the fashionably late, including Minor to mid-range popstars and the children of major celebrities.

Pez and Henry show up. Pez is in a colorful floral print shiny silk bomber jacket. Henry is wearing a simple dark blue suit with a bright coppery-mustard tie in a narrow cut. Alex realizes this is the first time they’ve seen each other in person since their weekend in London and feels like he’s meeting a new person.

There's dancing and mingling, and June makes a speech about the immigration fund they’re supporting with their donations. June and Henry talk at the bar.

The live band breaks and the DJ takes over. Alex finds out Henry hasn’t ever dry humped to “Get Low”. There’s more dancing and crowd pleasers until midnight.

11:59 p.m.: They huddle together for the countdown.

**Jan. 1, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 103-108) — 12:00 a.m. Nora kisses Alex

Alex loses track of things. Alex goes looking for Henry. He eventually finds him under a tree. They talk. Henry is vague and Alex is dummy thicc. Henry calls Alex thick and kisses him. Henry pulls away and disappears from the party.

*Jan. 1-Jan. 4, 2020 (Th.-Sat.) (p. 109) — Alex tries listening in on his mom’s meeting as a distraction but can’t pay attention. Zahra bans him from the West Wing.

*Jan. 5-Jan 7, 2020 (Sun.-Tue.) (p. 109) — Alex studies bills going through Congress and considers making the rounds at the Senate or starting a rumor with Nora, but he has no enthusiasm.

**Jan. 8, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 109) — Alex begins his final semester at Georgetown.

*Jan. 9-Jan. 14, 2020 (Th.-Tue.) (p. 109) — Alex throws himself into classwork, meets with the social secretary to plan his graduation dinner. Henry doesn’t answer his texts.

*Jan. 15, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 110-114) — June is fed up with Alex’s pacing and takes him out for a run. Alex does some introspection. Alex tells his mom he wants to start his campaign job now, instead of waiting until he graduates.

*Jan. 20, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 115) — Alex starts his new job at the campaign offices.

*Jan. 20-Jan. 25, 2020 (Mon.-Fri.) (p. 115-116) — Alex puts 23 hours into his new job and Definitely Does Not Think About Henry.

*Sometime between Jan. 25 and Jan 29, 2020 (Fri.-Wed.) (p. 116-122) — Alex comes out to Nora and tells her about Henry.

*Jan. 30, 2020 (Th.) (p. 122-127) — Alex rushes from work to his lecture and review and returns to the White House in a bad mood. June has the week’s tabloids. Alex freaks out at the idea that Henry is going on a date with a girl. Alex finally realizes he’s not straight. Alex calls Liam.

*Jan. 31, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 128-146) — The state dinner. There's a hot makeout session and Alexander Hamilton watches.

10:48 p.m.: Alex paces around his room.

10:54 p.m. Henry arrives at Alex’s rooms

*Feb. 1, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 122) — Alex has a campaign event in Nebraska

Feb. 13, 2020 (Th.) (p. 146-147) — Henry informs Alex of a charity polo match in Greenwich, Connecticut. That evening, June asks why he’s bailing on the fund-raiser he’s meant to be at

**Feb. 15, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 147-152) — The polo match. Alex spends 4.5 hours driving up, stays for 3 hours, and then drives 4.5 hours back.

**March 3, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 152) — 7:32 p.m. EST: Alex sends Henry an email asking if he will be in Paris for a fundraiser that weekend.

**March 4, 2020, (Wed.) (p. 152-156) — 2:14 a.m.-2:43 a.m.: Henry replies, and eventually concedes after a brief back and forth.

*March 7-8, 2020 (Sat.-Sun.) (p. 157-158) — Henry and Alex have a clandestine hookup in Paris and spend the night together.

*March 8, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 158) — Zahra texts Alex a screenshot of a buzzfeed article about him and Henry.

*March 9-March 27, 2020 (Mon.-Fri.) (p. 158-159) — Alex and Henry continue to text.

Sometime between March 23 and 26, 2020 (Mon.-Th.) (p. 159) — Alex tells Henry about a voter drive he will be attending in NYC at the end of March and Henry re-schedules his visit to NYC for that weekend.

*March 27, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 159) — Alex and Henry celebrate their birthdays with champagne and a buttercream cupcake.

April 1, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 159) — Alex convinces Henry to download Snapchat.

April 4, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 159) — Henry sends a snap of him on a sailboat.

April 5, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 182) — Bea walks in on an after-dark FaceTime session.

April 9, 2020 (Th.) (p. 160) — Henry is right that Remus John Lupin is gay as the day is long and won’t hear a word against it.

April 10, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 161) — June notices the photo of the man with AIDS protesting pinned over Alex’s desk

*April 11, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 162) — Henry and Alex meet at a gala in Berlin. Alex ties Henry’s wrists to the bedpost.

*April 13, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 162-163) — Zahra notices the hickeys on Alex’s neck at the weekly briefing.

*April 25, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 163-173) — Someone paints “Powder Princess” on the side of Bea’s car. Late afternoon EST: Henry and Alex have a phone call largely centered around family.

April 30, 2020 (Th.) (p. 173-182) — 9:44 p.m.: Alex redraws districts in Texas and misses dinner with June. After getting back to the Residence, June reveals she’s known about Alex and Henry the whole time.

*May 2, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 183-185) — 4 a.m. EST/9 a.m. BST: Alex FaceTimes Henry and Pez at Llwynywermod.

**May 1-9, 2020 (Fri.-Sat.) (p. 185) — Georgetown finals week

**May 15, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 186-189) — Alex graduates summa cum laude from Georgetown. Jacinto drops out, making Richards the official Republican nominee. Alex eavesdrops on a conversation between Rafael Luna and Oscar Diaz.

Sometime between May 16 and May 22, 2020 (Sat.-Fri.) (p. 189) — Henry invites the Trio to a fund-raiser in LA the next weekend.

*May 30, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 189-200) — Alex gets lunch with his dad, who changes the subject every time Alex brings up the conversation with Luba. Alex attends the fund-raiser in LA followed by partying. Henry and Alex fuck.

*May 31, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 200-201) — 7:00 a.m.: Alex and Henry wake up. June, Nora, and Pez are heavily implied to have had a threesome. Alex realizes he has friends now.

**June 8, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 202-206) — 3:23 p.m.-7:21 p.m. EST: Henry and Alex exchange emails.

**June 13, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 207) — Alex misses his first DC pride while in Nevada. He “talks to his minibar about it”

*June 20, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 207) — Houston rally at Minute Maid Park.

*June 22, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 207-210) — Alex argues with WASPy Hunter about Texas. Alex looks up LSAT testing centers in DC.

*June 23, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 210-213) — Alex texts the groupchat “3 Geniuses and Alex” with Nora, Bea, and Henry asking where his speech for Milwaukee is.

Sometime between June 24 and July 3, 2020 (Wed.-Fri.) (p. 213) — Alex receives an invitation to Wimbledon

*July 5, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 213) — 10:20 p.m. EST: Alex takes off from DC for London.

**July 6, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 213-221) — Alex spends his one day off from the campaign at Wimbledon with Henry.

10:35 a.m. BST: Alex lands in London.

11:30 a.m.: Alex makes it through customs and Henry and Shaan pick him up at the airport.

12:30 p.m.: Arrival at Wimbledon

1:00 p.m.: The first game at Central Court begins

4:00 p.m.: Philip and Martha show up. Philip is an idiot that says “Morning”. Bea, like a smart person, says “Afternoon”. Henry and Philip argue, and Henry runs off.

4:10 p.m.: Alex finds Henry in the clubhouse

4:12 p.m.: Henry “shows Alex round the clubhouse”. Alex and Henry cum for the first time

After that they go to Kensington. Henry plays the piano for a while. They make out for what could be hours. They move to Henry’s room where Henry, at least, cums for the second time that day. Alex spends almost an hour making Henry cum for a third time. After that, Henry asks Alex to fuck him again, where Henry cums for the fourth time that day, and Alex cums for at least the second time, possibly a third time.

Alex takes hours to sleep.

*July 7, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 221-222) — 9:00 a.m. BST: Alex flies home to DC and lands around 9:10 a.m. EST for DNC prep.

The Richards campaign leaks they’ve tapped an independant.

*July 9, 2020 (Th.) (p. 222) — Claremont campaign releases the official platform.

*July 11, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 221-222) — Richards holds a rally at Vanderbilt University.

**July 14, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 223-224) — The gang flies to NYC on the evening of the second day of the DNC.

9:00 p.m.: The Richards campaign announces that the Independent senator joining Richards’s cabinet is Rafael Luna.

9:15 p.m.: Air Force One lands and the White House crew goes into crisis management meetings. Alex texts Luna “What the fuck”

11:00 p.m.: Luna responds “I don’t expect you to understand”.

*July 15, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 224-234) — 12:00 a.m.: Alex and June leave meetings and get harassed by a Post reporter. June goes to bed, and Alex goes to the bar where he meets Henry. They retire to Alex’s room.

6:45 a.m.: Zahra wakes Alex (and Henry) up, and discovers their relationship.

July 20, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 235-239) — 1:00 p.m.: Alex comes out to his mother.

2:00 p.m. — Ellen gives a PowerPoint presentation, then makes Alex do paperwork and kicks him off the campaign.

**Aug. 10, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 239-247) 1:04 a.m.-8:22 p.m. EST — Henry and Alex exchange emails about the complex nature of their relationship, and Alex extends an invite to the lake house.

*Aug. 22, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 247-257) — Day one of the lake house. The Trio arrive earlier, possibly on Friday. Early morning: They gas up the car before taking it to the hangar to pick up Henry in Austin. 1.5 hours — The drive to the lake. They arrive, Oscar welcomes everyone. Alex barbecues ribs. They spend the evening after dinner singing and playing guitar. Alex and Henry sleep in separate bunks

*Aug. 23, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 257-264) — Day two of the lake house. Alex makes breakfast. In the afternoon, Henry talks to Oscar about boats and outboard motors. They swim. That night, Henry and Alex go skinny dipping

*Aug. 24, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 264-265) — Alex wakes up to find that Henry has left.

*Aug. 25, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 266, 267) — Alex sends five texts to Henry. He also paces on the roof of the residence and wrecks his heels.

*Aug. 26, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 266) — Alex sends two texts to Henry.

*Aug. 27, 2020 (Thu.) (p. 266) — Alex sends no texts to Henry.

*Aug. 28, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 266) — Alex trains himself to check his phone after two hours instead of one.

Sometime between Aug. 25-28 (Tue.-Fri.) (p. 267) — Alex’s Claremont for America mug is smashed in the sink. 2.5 different dreams of Henry’s hair. An email is drafted and deleted.

*Aug. 29, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 267) — Luna makes his fifth campaign stop for Richards. Alex breaks his phone screen and it is replaced by the end of the day.

*Aug. 31, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 267-276) — Alex finds the note Henry left in the pocket of his kimono and smashes his phone.

5:45 a.m. EST/10 a.m. BST: Alex buys first class nonstop tickets for him and Cash and sends Cash a text.

7:45 a.m./12:45 p.m.: Alex and Cash’s flight begins boarding

8:00 a.m./1:00 p.m.: Alex and Cash’s flight leaves Dulles for London. Alex calls Zahra on the runways and asks her to call them a car in London

3:15 p.m./8:15 p.m.: The plane lands and they leave for Kensington

4:00 p.m./9:00 p.m.: They arrive in Kensington.

*Sep. 1, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 276-284) — Henry goes for a run. Philip eats plain toast. They have a conversation in the kitchen. Alex wakes up alone. Henry brings Alex coffee. They spend the day together.

**Sep. 2, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 284-293) — 2:00 a.m.: Henry and Alex sneak out and explore the V&A.

5:00 a.m. EST/10:00 a.m. BST: Alex and Cash’s plane departs from Heathrow to Dulles.

3:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. BST: Alex arrives back home.

5:12 p.m. EST: Alex emails Henry to say he arrived back home

**Sep. 3, 2020 (Th.) (p. 294-297) — 2:49 a.m. EST: Henry replies, mentions he’s considering coming out to Philip and he may have to enlist.

6:20 a.m. EST: Alex responds, worried that Henry might have to enlist. He is supportive of Henry coming out.

**Sep. 4, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 297-304) — 7:58 p.m. EST: Henry says he came out to Philip and talks about putting memories into rooms.

8:31 p.m. EST: Alex responds and sends Henry an incomplete list.

Sep. 14, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 305-310) — Zahra shows up with a diamond ring at the breakfast weekly brief. Footage of Henry and Alex at the DNC is leaked. June posts a photo of her and Henry on instagram and it spreads within hours.

Alex takes Nora on a fake date as Henry flies to DC. Henry lands in the middle of the night.

Sep. 15, 2020 (Tue.) (310-313) — June lets Alex into her SUV in the morning on the way to her fake date with Henry. After an hour at the cafe, Henry and Alex meet in the SUV and kiss. They don’t notice when someone takes pictures

*Sep. 24, 2020 (Th.) (p. 314-318) — Alex meets with Luna and comes out to him. He returns to the residence, attempts to call Henry, and then gets drunk.

**Sep. 25, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 319-321) — 3:21 a.m. EST/8:21 a.m. BST: Alex sends a drunk email.

6:07 a.m./11:07 a.m.: Henry replies.

**Sep. 27, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 321-344) — Email Leak Day

3 a.m. EST/8 a.m. BST: News breaks.

3:23 a.m./8:23 a.m. Zahra wakes Alex up and puts him on communications lockdown. Alex meets with his mom.

6:00 a.m./11:00 a.m.: Philip arrives at Kensington

8:00 a.m./3:00 p.m.: Alex gets out of meetings, starts napping

1:00 p.m./6:00 p.m.: Zahra tells Alex to pack a bag

7:00 p.m./12:00: They arrive at Kensington

11:00 p.m./4:00 a.m.: Alex finally climbs into bed next to Henry.

*Sep. 28, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 344-358) — Philip shows up at Kensington, hair uncombed and suit askew. Philip yells at them in the kitchen about breaking the communication embargo. Henry leaves, and Alex follows and leaves Philip red in the kitchen.

6:00 a.m./11:00 a.m.: They meet with the queen.

Alex takes a photo of a mural and posts it on Twitter on his way to the airplane

**Sep. 29, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 358-367) — 9:15 p.m. Jezebel tweets about DC Dykes on Bikes chasing Westboro Baptist protesters down Pennsylvania Ave.

Alex gets back to DC. Nora comes busting in with proof.

*Sep. 30, 2020 (Wed.) (p. 367-370) — The White House leaks proof of the Richarads campaign stalking, surveilling, hacking, and outing Alex. Rafael Luna announces on twitter he has left the campaign. The podcast Bills, Bills, Bills, records an episode about it.

**Oct. 2, 2020 (Fri.) (p. 370-383) — In the morning, Alex gives his speech, which June wrote. Henry is there to support him. They make out for like 45-55 minutes before the speech. Jeffrey Richards goes on CNN. Alex sees Luna in his office. Luna tells Alex about his past with Richards.

*Oct. 3, 2020 (Sat.) (p. 375) — A crowd at the Mall. Cash, Amy, and Amy’s wife are there.

*Oct. 4, 2020 (Sun.) (p. 383-385, 409) — 7:32 a.m.: The boys wake up.

9:30 a.m.: Henry leaves back to England.

Alex goes back to the campaign trail. Liam calls.

*Oct. 4-10, 2020 (Sun.-Sat.) (p. 389) — The crown makes decisions about what to do about the emails: re Bea's addiction reveal, and Henry enlisting.

Sometime between Oct. 11-17, 2020 (Sun.-Sat.) (p. 391) — Philip has a falling out with the queen and apologizes to Henry and Bea.

Sometime between Oct. 25-31, 2020 (Sun.-Sat.) (p. 386-392) — The photoshoot in Hyde park.

*Nov. 2, 2020 (Mon.) (p. 393-399) — Day before election day. Alex struggles to pick a tie. June gets a book deal. The Trio falls asleep in the bed together.

**Nov. 3, 2020 (Tue.) (p. 400-418) — Election day

Alex votes.

6:00 p.m.: The Trio arrives at the election night event.

6:37 p.m. Henry texts Alex about plane troubles.

7:32 p.m.: Oliver Westbrook from Bills, Bills, Bills tweets about GOPers backing Richards even after everything that’s happened.

8:04 p.m.: 538 politics tweets that they’re confused about Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin being too close to call.

9:15 p.m.: NYT tweets that Claremont is at 178 and Richards is at 113

9:30 p.m.: Ellen worries about losing and asks June to write a concession speech. June refuses. Alex makes a speech. Henry finally arrives.

10:30 p.m.: Richards takes Iowa, Utah, and Montana. Claremont gets California’s 55 electoral votes.

12:00 a.m.: Claremont has the lead. Alex runs into Liam. Florida and Nevada go red.

12:30 a.m.: Texas goes blue.

1:00 a.m.: Alex unlocks the door with the key around his neck.

#rwrb #rwarb #rwrb spoilers #rwrb timeline #alex claremont diaz #prince henry of wales #this is exactly 5k #meta #i guess #long post

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illfoandillfie · 4 years ago

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ok sorry but how many people do yall think rog has ever slept with cos i’m guessing four figures no lie

okay, i don’t normally respond to messages like this because, frankly, i dont really feel like its my place to speculate on roger’s sex life. Theres a difference between writing a fiction story with a character named after and inspired by him and discussing his actual personal life which i have no real knowledge about. What he gets up to in his free time is between him and the women he does it with. but i didn’t really feel able to ignore this one. please don’t take this as me telling you off or shutting you down or anything like that. If you want to speculate about roger’s body count thats up to you, go nuts with it. and i love when you guys message me and I don’t want to discourage you from feeling like you can talk to me or just send me your random thoughts or whatever about any subject. But I feel like I need to address why I disagree with this sentiment. Also so I can ask ya’ll to please stop asking me questions like this.

So firstly, just to get this out of the way. 1000 is a lot. even 100 is a lot. I think if rog had slept with 1000+ people he’d have a least a few illegitimate kids and probably would have been checked into rehab for sex addiction (not to mention STIs and such because lbr people in the 70s specifically probs werent the most careful especially if drugs were involved). I mean even if we were going to say Rog got lucky with a different woman after every show we wouldn’t reach 1000. According to google, Queen played around 700 shows in their entire career. If we add shows played by The Cross thats only another 67 odd shows (according to wikipedia).

now, i think there are 3 things that contribute to this idea of roger as especially promiscuous. 1. His attitude/demeanour/general way he sells himself. 2. the generally held conceptions about rock stars and rock star behaviour. and 3. what i’m going to call fandom dumbassery (but i mean that with a lot of love)

So lets start with the man himself. Roger Taylor is loud and opinionated and not particularly humble. He knows he’s talented and attractive though for at least some time he was a little self-conscious about how feminine he looked. He’s always up for a laugh, likes to party and has admitted to enjoying his drink and his women. He’s had kids with two different women, who’s relationships “overlapped”, and is currently married to a third. At least that’s the perception we can gleam from his interviews, behind the scenes videos, and other public appearances.

It’s easy to see how that image leads to accusations of being a womaniser and a cheater and basically a bit of a slut lmao. But here’s the thing. I think Roger, in part, markets himself that way. The thing is, if you look at his solo songs and the relationships he currently has with his kids and their mothers, and things other people have said about him/his relationships over the years, I think it’s fair to say he also has a bit of a romantic streak maybe? idk if thats the best way of describing it...he’s self confessed to not being a fan of marriage and the like but he’s not opposed to writing and singing love songs and seems to believe in ~love~ as a concept/power. He certainly cares deeply for those closest to him. Whether or not that translates to an agreement with monogamy I can’t say for certain. It’s hard to draw conclusions here because a lot of what we know of his personal life was fed to us through magazines and news paper gossip column articles and they were never looking for the truth, they were looking for scandal and sensationalism.

For instance the whole thing with the overlapping relationships. I think most people who have read anything about roger and dom and debbie realise that it’s not as cut and dry as “he was cheating with debbie and left dom for her” even though that was the story being sold by the press at the time. The reality (or at least the version closer to reality since obviously no one outside of them and whoever they were closest with knows all the nitty gritty details) is that rog and dom had already split when they got married. it was a marriage of convenience to make sure her and the kids would be looked after financially etc even after he’d moved out. So while it looked to the public like he married one chick and 30 odd days later was spotted with another, there really wasn’t anything untoward happening. I’m not saying he never had casual hookups or one night stands and i’m not saying he never cheated, but I do think some of it’s been exaggerated, whether by him to encourage the rock star perception or by newspaper/magazine articles.

Now, obviously, we have stories of rog, particularly in the late 60s and into the 70s, being with multiple women. There’s that bit in the Interview with a Queen “Groupie” (which is a fantastic read and i defs recommend checking it out if you havent already) where she talks about roger being a chick magnet and says that, at the time, it was pretty common to sleep about. But, she also says she didnt notice him doing it more or less than anyone else and seemed to mostly be with Jo (his girlfriend at the time). This is the same Jo that got a mention in the Queen in 3D book (”i think we all had the feeling that these two were together for life, but it was not to be”). Conversely, we have that quote (which i cannot find rn but i’ll link it when i do) about roger sometimes having one girl upstairs while another waited in the garage for them to be finished. I think it was about Rog in the mid-late 60s in Truro but whatever. Obviously he wasn’t anywhere near celibate and it’s likely was sleeping with people outside of his relationship(s). But one has to assume that as he got older those kinds of antics stopped happening, at least as frequently.

There is one potential story that I remember reading somewhere along the way about Roger cheating on Debbie while she was pregnant. But, take that with a grain of salt because I can’t find the article again and also I think it was from like The Sun or something equally as rubbish. The press was notoriously always printing mean shit about the boys and that might have been another thing they published to create scandal. Even so, if we assume it’s legit that is still only 1 story. Not to throw him under the bus but Brian is the one with multiple confirmed affairs, who literally wrote songs about it all. So why is Roger the one with sleazy reputation?

This is where my second and third points come in. There is a pervasive idea about what it means to be a rock star. The whole trashing hotel rooms, sleeping with groupies, passing out drunk every night thing. And I’m sure that Queen was like that to an extent. I think it’s pretty common knowledge that all of them got up to shit on the road. Between innuendo laden interviews and songs, videos and accounts of their parties, stories CT has put online, and other stories like the one of Roger bringing out lines of coke as dessert when he was having dinner with motley crue. They definitely embraced the rock and roll lifestyle. And I think with Roger’s personality being what it is, it’s easy to link him to those traditional rock star tropes and say it was all true all the time. I also think Roger has done nothing to counter those beliefs. He’s been open about how he wanted to be a rock star since the minute he picked up a guitar, he’s labelled himself as a great lay in magazines, he’s joked about girls pulling their tits out over dinner in interviews (though he said he didnt take her home), he’s written songs like One Night Stand and Dirty Mind and Airheads which explicitly mention his preference for women and alcohol. I think it’s fair to say he’s kind of encouraged that view of himself. Whether it was just a side effect of being part of such a well known band and having such a boisterous demeanour/personality, or whether it was intentional as a version of promotion i don’t know. maybe a mix of them? I mean I’m sure it didn’t hurt sales and stuff. it’s the whole guys want to be him, girls want to be with him thing, right? Maybe that’s just me being cynical though lmao.

Anyway, the fandom brain has taken all of that and compressed it into memes and jokes about rog being the band slut. Which i’m not complaining about, lord knows i’ve made the same jokes and reblogged the same posts and used those tropes in my fics. They’re funny and lend themselves to interesting fic concepts. Plus, i think roger is the sort of person who would probably laugh about most of it. But it’s an idea that keeps feeding into itself through fandom, perpetuating what is probably a misguided view of his personal life.

Again, I am sure he’s had his fair share of fun and I’m not trying to make out that he was always perfect or whatever, but I don’t think he’s been with as many women as the popular discourse would imply and I certainly don’t think he’s in the 4 digit numbers.

#i7558vjvug #please god dont let this start anything #im just here to write smut and have a good time

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shinadog · 4 years ago

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Oh, hey, forgot to post this here - Mob Part 3 is up (and part 4 is on its way).

Summary : Something happened after Haruka’s concert. (PART 2) (AO3 Link)

3 - BLAME

Eventually, people left him alone.

They had tried their best, but since he had refused their help, they decided to give him some space. He was more than alright with that. Not that "alright" could ever be a word he would use to describe himself. Not anymore.

He felt numb. Disconnected from it all.

All the events of the past few days - the concert, the crowd, the call he received in the middle of that fateful night, the sleepless nights where he almost choked because he couldn't stop crying, the funeral... He remembered living those things, but when he thought about them, he felt like a spectator watching them from afar. Not an actor, but a powerless observer, a blurry silhouette who was barely floating above those horrible scenes.

On his good days, the days where he was more or less aware of his surroundings, the awful numbness of loss was replaced by a burning anger. On those days, he started to think about the people he blamed.

He had managed to get his hands on an impressive number of newspapers and magazines. The hyenas who worked for those rags must have had a field day with this disaster - a lot of ink has been spilled over this, and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. Good. Every new article fueled his anger, made something warm shake his numb, freezing body.

Sometimes, he would see her name in those papers. His own name, too. The sight of it made him sick, and he usually skimmed past it. He didn't want to know what the idiots writing them thought about him and his pain. More often than not, her name was replaced by a number. Lumped together with the rest of the poor souls who lost everything that night. He wasn't sure he liked that better.

The journalists who were feeling exceptionally bold sometimes talked about the yakuza. He kept those articles close. In one of them, he had seen the face of that man for the first time. The buff, scary looking guy in a bad suit. The "Dragon", a big name in the yakuza world, who had apparently moved away from it all years ago. The fucker whose stupid daughter's speech ruined everything. Kazuma Kiryu.

It was so much easier to hate someone when you knew what they looked like.

**********************************

Kiryu had fought many formidable foes in all his years in (and out) the business. Deadly, dangerous men who were out to get him, monsters who wanted to hurt his family. Yet, none of them hit him as hard as the shitty little TV in his hospital room.

Whenever he was back in his room, when very tired nurses managed to drag him away from Haruka so that he'd try to rest for once, he would turn the bloody thing on. No matter what time it was then, it felt like he always managed to find a channel that talked about the concert.

Even though his various babysitters always tried to turn the TV off, to distract him from it somehow, Kiryu seemed to always come back to it. That thing was hypnotizing. He only stopped when he left the room. Or when a particularly pissed Majima threatened to explode the screen with his baseball bat.

Still, Kiryu watched those programs diligently, listening to all the people who had something to say about this whole mess with all the focus he could muster.

Seeing some of the people who were in the crowd that night talk and listening to their retelling of it left him weirdly numb.

The enemies he had faced before were, well, people. They had names, stories, reasons to act the way they did. They were tangible, something Kiryu could punch. Defeat. Forgive. He could do no such thing with a mob. There was no big guy who had orchestrated the whole disaster, no mastermind who ran things in the shadows. No one he could easily blame, fight, and move on from.

For some reason, this lack of a proper target made him resent everyone else.

Kiryu thought himself to be a pretty forgiving person. Those feelings rearing their ugly heads were definitely new, and he didn't really know what to do with them. He mostly kept them bottled up, though, because that's what he usually did with unknown feelings, but it was starting to get tiring. Blaming everyone only made it clearer than no one was to blame, and that made him somehow angrier.

Still, that's what he did.

He blamed himself, first and foremost, as it was the easiest thing to do. He shouldn't have let Haruka go, shouldn't have left the orphanage, shouldn't have left that Park woman come into their home... Oh, he wanted to blame Park herself, of course, but being dead shielded her from his rage. Mostly.

Thinking about their last discussion, before she chased him from his home, was somehow too much for him to process anyway, so he mostly tried to banish her from his thoughts. Which was not exactly easy because every time he saw Majima, he was reminded of the fact that he didn't find it necessary to warn him about her and her history with him. So, naturally, he blamed Majima for that. Among other things, including faking his own death, forcing Kiryu to come out of hiding.

He blamed Saejima and Akiyama, for pulling their annoying "let's fight together" bullshit again and making him believe this would work. It didn't. So he blamed them and their stupid plan, he blamed-

Kiryu took a deep breath, focusing once more on the TV screen. All this anger was exhausting, and he was feeling dizzy already. Oh, that was another one - he blamed his stupid body for being messed up and forcing him to lay still, when all he wanted was to do something, anything, to get his mind out of it.

The TV, showing no mercy, was still going with various interviews when he saw the crying man.

A big guy, with shaking shoulders and his head down, mumbling something as he shook.

Kiryu felt a bit too ill to really listen to what he said, which didn't matter because he couldn't take his eyes off that man. A small text at the bottom of the screen finally managed to catch his attention, and he felt a heavy lump in his throat as he realized what he was looking at.

That guy's daughter was among the four people who died that night. She was fourteen.

As if he knew Kiryu was watching, the man suddenly looked straight into the camera, and the pain in those eyes hit him hard. As if he had been stung, Kiryu immediately stood up, ignoring his stiff body's complaints and bolted out of the room.

He slammed the door behind him, and, taking the time to appreciate that no one was standing guard to see him completely freak out, decided he would not go to Haruka’s room. On his worst days, Kiryu would blame her, too, looking at her sleeping form with uncontrollable anger. He didn't want to go there when he was already this agitated, so he started limping through the corridors.

He had been allowed recently to use crutches to move around, which were replacing the wheelchair. He was shaking, though, so perhaps that it wasn't such an improvement. Collapsing in the middle of the hospital didn't exactly sound like a good idea. Walking at random in the corridors to escape his TV screen was also not a good idea, but Kiryu was already too deep in thoughts to decide to turn away.

As he kept moving blindly, trying to calm down while not losing his already fragile balance, he was startled by a man inexplicably bowing down as he passed. Kiryu found himself blinking at the guy, dumbfounded, before he noticed the Tojo pin on his lapel, and the small, almost inaudible “Fourth Chairman” he had whispered. Right. Just your average Tojo clan goon, lost in a random hospital hallway.

Well, maybe not that random. There was another man standing at the other end of the corridor, staring at him with wide eyes, and a third in the middle, his arms crossed as he stood near the closed door. Before Kiryu could ask himself why that particular hallway was packed with yakuza, the guy had hurriedly knocked on the door and opened it just as fast, getting inside in an instant.

The man who had bowed down to him straightened up, his voice hesitant as he asked, “Have you come to talk with the Sixth Chairman, Sir?”

Not really, no. In fact, if Kiryu could not speak with anyone for the next 24 hours, that would be great. Still, he frowned. “I thought Daigo’s room was a few floors up.”

“It is, but the chairman is visiting his friend.”

Friend.

Kiryu had a vague memory of Akiyama introducing Shinada as “a friend of Daigo”, something that felt like it had happened in another lifetime. And, now that he was thinking about it, someone (Akiyama again, or Saejima, he wasn’t sure) had told him the man had been admitted here after the mob roughed him up. Having been pretty much trampled by the angry crowd, he had been lucky to make it out with, to Kiryu’s knowledge, only a few broken bones and a ton of bruises. Beaten up, but still alive. Conscious, even.

Unlike Haruka.

Kiryu felt something flick in his mind, and suddenly talking didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. He had been eating up footage of the incident for days now, listening to all the people who wanted to share what they had lived, and while it surely left an impression on him, the last example having been enough to send him running for the hills, it was not enough anymore.

He started moving again, careful not to fall, feeling heavy already after only having been using the crutches for a couple minutes. Not that he cared what the bodyguards would think if he collapsed in front of them. That would give them something fun to share with their fellow Tojo buddies.

Annoyingly enough, Kiryu had barely made two steps when he was stopped in his tracks again.

“Fourth Chairman.”

It wasn’t like he was surprised to see Daigo come out of the door, greeting him with an uncharacteristic anxious edge to his voice. His bodyguard had more or less already said he was in there, but Kiryu still couldn’t help but think there was something odd about this encounter. Maybe it was the fact that Daigo was still using a wheelchair, making Kiryu tower above him. Maybe it was the way he was looking at him now, his whole body tense as if he was expecting some kind of confrontation. Kiryu hadn’t seen this kind of hostility in Daigo’s eyes in years, but mostly, the man looked tired. Worried, too. Kiryu felt his own anger fade away slightly, as he got closer, wincing when a sharp pain on his left side reminded him not to move so quickly.

“Looks like things aren’t going so well for either of us, Sixth Chairman.” he said, realizing they were not exactly the two yakuza big names they usually were, but just two wounded idiots staring at each other in a hospital hallway. The bodyguards were following the scene, looking nervous. Kiryu wondered if they were worried a fight was going to break out. He didn’t really think that was a possibility. Apart from throwing one of his crutches like a spear, which would certainly make him fall, he didn’t see how he could be a threat, right now.

Kiryu cleared his throat, remembering what he was doing here in the first place. “I came to talk with Shinada.” This wasn’t a question or a request. Maybe he was threatening, after all.

“I don’t think that would be wise.” Daigo’s voice was low, his eyes drifting back to the door. “He’s still pretty shaken up by this whole mess. It’s still too soon.”

“Akiyama told me he was doing better.”

“He is, but… I’m afraid talking about this would be too much. For him… Or for you.”

That was new. Talking to him like that was not like Daigo at all, and Kiryu had to admit he would have been impressed, if he hadn’t been instantly annoyed by this. He resisted the urge to get closer, and instead stayed where he was as he asked, “Are you going to stop me, Daigo?”

“ I’m not sure I can. I guess I could roll on your foot if you take one more step, though.”

Kiryu was about to reply that he would definitely hit him with his crutch if that happened, when a voice he failed to recognize came from inside the room. “Let him in already, will you?”

With a heavy sigh, Daigo turned his chair around, letting just enough space so that Kiryu could get in.

Once he was inside, Kiryu realized something. This room was nearly identical to the one Haruka was in. Which wasn’t so surprising - hospital rooms tended to look alike. What made him tick was the silence in this room. No machines or respirator in here, and somehow, this angered him. He didn’t like the ferocity with which this thought had imposed itself on him, but as he looked at Shinada, able to breathe on his own and even having the gall to be conscious, staring back at him with wide eyes, Kiryu felt furious.

So that’s what he was doing, now. Blaming someone he barely knew for having the audacity to be in a better shape than his daughter. Kiryu supposed his sudden surge of animosity must have been noticeable, because all the certainty Shinada had when he asked him to come inside seemed to have vanished.

Now that he was really looking at the man laying in the bed in front of him, Kiryu had to admit he wasn’t exactly looking his best. He didn’t know Shinada enough to really tell the difference, having only met him once before the concert, but he didn’t remember him looking this exhausted. His face was covered in bruises, and part of it was still slightly swollen. Of course the simple fact that he was awake at all made him look healthier than Haruka, but he had clearly been through a lot. Feeling the anger quiet down for a bit, Kiryu greeted the man with a small nod of his head, unsure of what to say, suddenly.

“Well, let’s get on with it.” Daigo’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “It’s late, already. You should both be getting some rest.”

And you’re not? Kiryu wanted to say, glaring at the corner of the room Daigo had retreated in. Kiryu had barely noticed he had gotten inside the room as well. Part of him wished he could have talked with Shinada alone, but he was somehow grateful that it wasn’t the case. He still felt agitated, ready to snap back at the smallest thing, so having some kind of onlooker in there was mildly reassuring. Still, Kiryu did not care much for his tone.

He was at least right on one thing. It was time to talk.

“Can you tell me what happened that night?” No preamble, no “hey how are you?”. Kiryu was not in the mood for small talk.

Shinada blinked, dumbstruck. “Haven’t… Haven’t they told you, already?”

“I want to hear it from someone who was actually there. I want to know how it could have come to this.”

He wasn’t wrong. Kiryu already knew more or less how it went. He had been filled in, and had seen enough from the news to fill in the blanks. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt like hearing it from Shinada’s mouth would be different, but he still felt a weird apprehension as he waited for the other man to answer.

It took him a couple of seconds, exchanging a worried look with Daigo from across the room, before he finally started. “I don’t… I don’t actually know how it began. The fight against that Baba guy had been harsh and since everything had gone well so far, I… I stayed behind for a minute. Caught my breath.”

Catching his breath. Losing precious minutes he could have used to grab Haruka before everything went downhill. Kiryu tried to be reasonable, reminding himself that he had never asked Shinada to actually get to Haruka after the concert. He was just supposed to stop the shooter. And he did. There was no real reason to blame him, as he had told himself countless times.

“When I left the Dome that’s when I realized something was up. It had already started then, and I heard the noises. The screams. People don’t make that kind of noise when they’re just leaving a concert, so I ran and-”

Though footage of the stampede no doubt existed, people having probably filmed it with their phones, the TV seemed to only show what happened after or before the mob was formed. Kiryu could only imagine the kind of racket thousands of people panicking and running everywhere would make. He frowned, feeling something boil inside him as he realized somewhere in all that noise, there might have been the voice of the child he swore he would protect.

He missed a sentence, and only came back to himself when Shinada started the next one. “It was crazy. It was like a sea of people, and they were everywhere, screaming and pushing and-”

With a nervous twitch in his eye, Shinada suddenly stopped talking. While he hadn’t talked that much yet, Kiryu noticed he seemed to be really agitated ever since he had started. He was breathing heavily now, eyes lost in some corner of the room.

He waited a few seconds for Shinada to catch his breath before he asked, “If you arrived after it had started, how did you end up caught in it?”

“Oh, uh. I heard some staff member guy yell something about one of their idols being lost in the crowd on his walkie-talkie. So I ran into the crowd.”

Somehow, Kiryu had never thought about all the people who were working there that night. Too busy focusing on Mirei Park and the fact that blaming her now was pointless, he had forgotten to add all the other folks who had worked with her to his now long list of people to blame. It was infuriating to think that between the staff members, the people of Dyna Chair who weren’t gruesomely murdered, the other idols and Shinada, all charged to keep her safe, Haruka had still been caught up in the mob.

“I thought “I’m a big tough guy, I can probably push my way into this” but that was really fucking stupid. There were hundreds of them, and everyone was panicking and running all over the place, I don’t-”

Kiryu knew that, had he been there that night, he would have ran into the angry crowd too, with no hesitation, no matter how stupid jumping right into a angry wave of people was. He wanted to believe he would have been able to fight it, too, to punch his way until he got to Haruka, but hearing the panic weaving its way into Shinada’s voice, his breath getting faster, he wasn’t so sure of it anymore. “I got knocked down pretty fast, and then I-”

There was another pause, and when Shinada talked again, it was with such a low voice Kiryu almost didn’t catch it. “It felt like drowning.”

“Enough.”

Having more or less forgotten that Daigo was in the room, Kiryu almost jumped as his hand landed on his shoulder. Apparently, while Kiryu had been busy focusing on Shinada’s retelling of the events, he had managed to drag himself from his chair, standing on his own though he was slightly hunched over, a hand pressed on his side. Kiryu would have yelled at him to sit back down, knowing that he had already messed up with his stitches at least once, but found that he couldn’t talk.

He was still stuck on Shinada’s last sentence.

It felt like drowning.

Maybe it was the word “drowning”. It was visceral. Unpleasant. Kiryu felt sick as he wondered if that was how it had felt for Haruka, too.

Shinada had managed to find some of his composure back in the few tense seconds he took for Kiryu’s brain to finally start focusing on the scene again. Daigo’s hand was still on his shoulder, though he wasn’t sure if that was to get him to acknowledge him or if he was just leaning on him. Kiryu wanted to tell him to back off and sit down again before he hurt himself, but Shinada was faster, his breathing still somewhat erratic as he said, “It’s okay, Dojima, I can-”

“Kiryu.” Daigo ignored his friend’s attempt to stop him as he tried to straighten up, locking his eyes with Kiryu’s. “What’s the point of this? You’re both still too tired to get upset about this. Let’s give it a rest.”

Upset.

The word sounded ridiculous when Kiryu could feel his anger threatening to overtake him at any moment. He was not “upset”, he was furious.

“You’re right.” He managed to blurt out, feeling somewhat nauseous all of a sudden. Maybe that he too could use some rest, that was the longest he had ever been standing up in days. He took a step back, careful not to lose his balance or make Daigo topple by removing himself from his grip too abruptly, giving Shinada one last look. “Thank you. I’ll let you rest.”

“Wait-” Shinada straightened up in his bed, trying to catch his eye. He was still talking too fast and breathing too hard, his voice cracking slightly as he said, “I’m- I’m so sorry. I wish I could have done something to stop this.”

Kiryu had become something of an expert of empty, reassuring phrases after being fed so many of them in the past few days. He didn’t even look back as he walked out of the room, his voice probably harsher than he intended. “You did what you could. I can’t blame you.”

That was a lie, too. No matter how bad he felt seeing the man almost break down over the mere memory of the events, no matter how much he wanted to sympathize with him, Kiryu still blamed him. Like he blamed everyone. Like he blamed himself.

Feeling utterly sick with himself, he retreated to his room. The TV that he had left on when he ran away seemed to be taunting him, the bleak light it was projecting in the dark giving the room a ominous ambiance.

He punched the screen with such force that he almost broke his hand.

**********************************

Shinada had never been good at holding back his tears.

He had always cried easily, and never thought it useful to try to hide it.

Back in the day, he would cry when his baseball team won. Or when they lost. When he was banned after his first real game, he had wept for days. Some of these tears were also for his family, who had swore they would never talk to him again, but mostly, he was grieving the dream he was sure he had lost forever.

While he found many occasions to cry after that (being homeless for a while, being all alone, having no food for days, those kinds of things), Shinada had managed to more or less hold on for the past decades, and only cried every now and then.

The Dream Line concert had to be some kind of personal record. Shinada cried right after his fight against the shooter, overwhelmed by the adrenaline of it all, seeing the group perform from so far away while he was sitting in the stands, away from the spotlight. He also cried a few minutes later, when Takasugi’s call reminded him some people cared for him back in Nagoya. And, obviously, he cried after the incident, too. Because he was in pain, because he felt stupid and weak and useless. Because he blamed himself for what he was certain he could have prevented, had he been stronger.

Not crying while Kiryu, that man he had only just met and that he had still managed to disappoint, was standing in front of him, though? That was something. He could be proud.

Unfortunately, as soon as the door was closed behind Kiryu, he couldn’t hold it in anymore, and slumped back in his bed, and let out a small sob, knowing fully well he would be bawling his eyes out in a couple of seconds. Trying to delay the inevitable tears, he looked around, and was suddenly all too aware of Dojima still being in the room with him, standing awkwardly in the middle of it, looking at him with his usual stern expression.

It was not like Shinada minded him being here, really. If anything, he was grateful that he stuck around while Kiryu was there, a friendly face in a sea of hostility. As “friendly” as a scowling yakuza could get, at least. He supposed he should also be grateful for the way Dojima had insisted on bringing his interview with Kiryu to an early end. He couldn’t help but wish he could have said more, though. Apologized better. Still, he got him to leave the room right before Shinada hit his limit, so that was pretty great.

“Tatsuo…?”

Not expecting to hear his name hushed with such an hesitant tone, he took a second to wonder why Dojima was now looking at him with a slightly panicked expression.

Oh, right.

He was crying. He had barely noticed he had started to.

The room got more blurry now than actual tears were in his eyes, so much so that he almost missed Dojima dragging himself to his bed, gritting his teeth with each step. It only clicked in his mind that he had moved closer when he spoke again:

“Do you mind if I sit on your bed?”

Shinada shook his head. Sure, why not. The man should be sitting down, anyway, if his shaky steps were anything to go by. He still managed to get on the bed fairly quickly, making it creak under their combined weight.

A few seconds passed, the silence of the room disturbed by Shinada sniffing softly as he kept crying. Dojima said nothing, shifting awkwardly on the bed so that he was facing him, bending his body in a way that was probably not doing any good to his still healing bullet wound.

Shinada wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt overwhelmed by an urgent need for some kind of contact, but next thing he knew he had more or less collapsed in the other man’s arms. He felt Dojima stiffen against him, making him aware that perhaps entering the guy’s personal space like that without warning was a bit uncalled for. The man remained silent, though Shinada heard a very small gasp escape his lips.

Alright, so maybe he was out of line. No matter how shaken up he was, in pain and in tears, Shinada knew he wasn’t supposed to just throw himself at someone he hardly knew. Sure, technically Dojima and him had known each other for years, but they were not exactly friends back in high school. And their reunion had been so sudden that he barely had the time to process it. Vowing to protect each other’s dream meant they had something , that much was certain, but Shinada wasn’t sure that would be the kind of relationship that involved offering a shoulder to cry on. Literally.

He could always stop, put some distance between them again. Apologize and blame it on the perfect blend of morphine and anguish in his body right now, making him a tad emotional. Dojima didn’t give him any time to back off though, wrapping his arms around him slowly. “Eh… Can I- I mean, do you…?”

Shinada wasn’t sure what he was asking. He wasn’t sure Dojima knew, either, with the way he was stammering. Still, he soon felt a hand stroking his back slowly, and that gesture was as soothing as it was unexpected. It was weird to think that last time those hands were on his body, they were in the middle of a full on brawl. The vicious punches he had received on that day suddenly felt very far away, replaced by a softness he would have never thought he’d see from his old classmate. He did look way less intimidating in his hospital gown, he had to admit. Maybe being shot just did that to people. Made them a bit more approachable. Or maybe he looked so pathetic right now that even the most cold-hearted criminal couldn’t resist him. Who knew. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he simply appreciated the fact he was offering some kind of comforting presence.

He allowed himself a few heartbeats to reposition himself, burying his face in the man’s chest before he returned to the task at hand.

Crying.

He cried because Kiryu blamed him, despite what he told him, he was certain of it. Because he blamed himself, too, obviously. Because he was exhausted, not having had a good night of sleep since the incident, waking up in a cold sweat every time he dozed off, his nightmare haunted by an angry crowd.

“I’m sorry,” Dojima’s voice interrupted his pity party, making him flinch. “I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating that, and Shinada had no idea why he was apologizing all of a sudden. He wanted to say that he was sorry too, sorry to have disappointed anyone who had believed in him when he left for the concert with the mission to protect that girl, but couldn’t make the words come out. So he kept on weeping, while Dojima kept whispering small apologies, pulling him closer.

Between two sobs, Shinada noticed there was something oddly familiar about this situation. It was not like it was a habit of his to break down and grab on to the nearest person to seek solace. Sure, he cried a lot, but he usually did it behind closed doors, alone. He had some dignity left, surely. But being held like this as he wept brought him back to his first night in Nagoya, when he had felt a semblance of reassurance in Milky’s soft embrace. Well, sort of. Dojima was no Milky, he was still pretty stiff and the motion of his hand on Shinada’s back felt a bit awkward, he was clearly not used to this kind of gesture. Still, it felt nice.

It went on for a while, and Shinada felt like he was calming down when- “I need to move.” Just like that, Dojima released him, straightening up a bit too abruptly, shoving Shinada away. “Sorry. Bullet wound.”

Shinada watched him struggle to find a position that wasn’t putting any strain on his wound, before he settled for sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet planted on the floor. Dojima grimaced as he pressed a hand to his side, giving him a look that Shinada assumed was meant to be apologetic, but ended up looking like his usual tired scowl. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rush you like that, but if I open up those stitches again, I’m afraid my doctor’s going to give up on me.” And, because he clearly hadn’t said that enough in the last five minutes, “Sorry.”

Rubbing his eyes with his hands to chase any surviving tears, and feeling pretty confident he had calmed down enough to attempt to talk, Shinada came to join him, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Why do you keep saying you’re sorry?”

Apparently, Dojima hadn’t expected his question (that he had managed to ask with a not-so-shaky-voice, not bad for a guy who had been crying for the last ten minutes), looking at him with wide eyes. Turned out the guy could somewhat emote, when he wanted to. Shinada would have found it funny if his answer hadn’t come with such a sad, almost choked tone. “You’re only here because of me. I dragged you into this. Had I left you alone, you wouldn’t be…”

“A fucking mess.”

“In pain.” His voice was low, sounding more like the man he had fought on his roof again. “I knew of the dangers and I still let you come here. And now you’re…” He trailed off, frowning even more. “I’m so sorry, Tatsuo.”

Shinada hadn’t really thought of it that way. Dojima waltzing back into his life was what had led to him being stuck here, with nightmares in his head and regrets in his heart, that was true. But when he thought of his home, where he was basically starving and where everyone had been hiding things from him, where he was basically rotting away while clinging on dreams that would never happen… Would he really have been better off if the yakuza never came to find him?

He sighed, realizing he would probably never find a satisfying answer to this question. Instead he settled for shuffling closer to his friend (he had decided that “friend” was an alright word to use, now that the guy had seen him cry and had tried his best to comfort him), resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Well, that’s silly.” Shinada’s voice was still a little hoarse, but he tried his best to sound cheerful. Well, more cheerful than he was a few moments ago, at least. “Remember how you tried to stop me from coming with you? And look, you’re nice enough not to go 'I told you so' about it, too.”

“I should have stopped you.”

“You wish. We fought for it, remember? And I won.”

“You won because I agreed to back down. I shouldn’t have. Should have kept fighting. Better have you stuck at home with a broken leg than here and in anguish.”

Shinada never thought he would hear someone say “I wish I had broken your leg” in a nice way, but here he was. He chuckled, and noticing Dojima looked still rather glum, avoiding to look at him as he stared at one corner of the room, took a deep sigh.

“Well, I don’t blame you, okay?”

He really meant it, too. Dojima remained silent, but Shinada noticed his lip twitching slightly. He wasn’t sure if it was because his wound was still acting up, or because his words had touched him somehow, but hoped it was the latter.

He knew what blaming himself felt like, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

#in this part MORE CRYING #i know crazy #mob #yakuza #rgg #rgg5 #yakuza 5 #yakuza fanfiction #stories #fics #weird art of mine

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program-800 · 5 years ago

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(An attempt at) visualising AO3 D:BH fics based on verb usage

WIP. x Interactive visualisation on my Github page (link in description/Tumblr heading).

I’ve been terribly busy (at work, but also mostly in my own head). This is something I’ve been working on for a couple weekends, but I can’t get cleaner results so this write-up’s going up first while I slowly figure out improvements.

The idea was simple: can I cluster fics based on the actions that occurred within them? Obviously there’s going to be a couple clusters for smut, but how about fics which focus around character introspection, fics which focus on fluff dates, etc?

That’s what I tried here - and as is clear from the gif (tsne visualisation), the clustering didn’t work out fantastically. Details of process under the cut. Dataset is 16,211 D:BH fics published on AO3 between May 2018 to June 2020.

1. Clean up the fics. I didn’t do any stopword removal here because of step 2. Just removal of funny symbols, etc.

2. Pull out and clean the verbs. I used Spacy’s part of speech tagger for this. I also lemmatised all verbs pulled (so you may see some odd-looking words if you do explore the visualisation). Of course, sometimes the tagger misidentifies words as verbs, so you may see what should be nouns, etc. I’ve tried to remove character names at least by relying on the long list of names I created from running topic modeling on this corpus some time back.

3. TF-IDF weight the words. Basically, count how many times a verb appears in a fic, and then multiply it by the inverse count of how many fics the verb appears in. Words which are more ‘important’ or ‘representative’ of the fic in question should be weighted higher.

4. Perform non-negative matrix factorisation for dimensionality reduction. At this point, I could have possibly gone straight to tsne for visualisation with the tf-idf weights, but the results were even worse (if I recall). So I performed NMF. Like other topic modeling methods like LDA, the number of dimensions/topics to go for is user-prescribed.

I ran NMF from 10 to 60. At each point, I calculated the mean cosine similarity between all topics (we’d want something that’s lower, topics that are too similar to each other aren’t great). I picked 40 topics in the end, since that’s where the mean cosine similarity seems to level off. This is definitely a subjective call, but since I’m just really doing NMF for faster tsne visualisation, I was ok just eyeballing the graph and rolling with this.

(The top 15 keywords for each topic can also be viewed on my Github page.)

5. Run tsne. I used sklearn’s implementation. I also normalised my NMF weights before submitting it for the run. I’m terribly new to tsne, so I’m pretty sure the parameters I selected weren’t great.

I went with a perplexity of 350, PCA initialisation, a learning rate of 100, a max number of 30,000 iterations with stopping if there is no improvement after 500 iterations. tl;dr, the output of tsne is heavily dependent on the parameters you set (there’s a great Distill article out there on this), and with my lack of experience I may have bungled this.

6. Visualise tsne. I used plotly’s scatterplot for this. Each dot is one fic. If you hover over the dot, you can see the top-5 tf-idf weighted verbs for it (the most ‘important’ verbs to that fic, according to the tf-idf metric).

Overall, the visualisation is more or less just a hairball, but to my amusement/chagrin, there appears to be what is a little nest of smutty-seeming fics lurking at the bottom:

#dbh #detroit become human #ao3 #dbh fanfic #fandom stats #text analysis #big time wip

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ghostmartyr · 5 years ago

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how a life can move from the darkness [9/?]

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

One of Eren’s mother’s many complaints about his childhood was how he wouldn’t go to his parents for nightmares. Even when he was small enough that they’d make him wet the bed. He hadn’t wanted them to know he had them, in case they said something about not fighting so much, or not watching movies they told him not to watch, or not reading those books his dad kept in his office. He didn’t want to hear about how he wasn’t grown up enough.

When he woke up in the middle of the night, heart racing from teeth and blood he wasn’t supposed to know about, and his mom and dad were out, he’d find Zeke.

Still awake, waiting on the couch for him with baseball reruns on the TV. Zeke had never said he told him so, or called him too young for anything. He would wrap Eren in a blanket too tight to move in, dump him on the other side of the couch, and tell him to go back to sleep.

Not as quiet or as gentle as hot chocolate with Frieda.

Historia actively avoided private conversations with Frieda.

They didn’t even have a TV.

They did have a couch. When Eren rushed home after work, Historia was taking up all of it, fast asleep, shoes tossed under Benjamin, and a series of very large numbers written all over both her bared arms. She’d slept all the way through dinner.

Eren would have asked Armin or Mikasa about what he was supposed to do, but he’d never listened to anything they tried to say when they thought he needed help. They always found the right things on accident, later.

He’d also scared them earlier when he told them he loved them.

He needed to say it more. He didn’t want it to be some big, heavy thing like everything else they had between them now.

Without them, and without prodding Frieda into a concern Historia didn’t need, all Eren had to go on was the feeling that he was the one staying up with a blanket ready.

Figuratively. He wasn’t at Reiner’s level of dedication, but he woke up in the middle of the night too often to force himself to stay awake when he could sleep. He kept his bedroom door cracked, but didn’t fight drifting off, reading through the articles on snowflake eels Armin had linked him and letting them ease his eyes shut.

He didn’t know how much later it was when the door opened all the way and Historia thumped down on his carpet, rousing him from using his phone as a pillow.

There were a few dizzying seconds of him blinking his eyes and trying to figure out if they were blinking or he was imagining they were. The only thought making it through the fuzz in his head was how the deterioration of personal boundaries after dark had to be genetic, and that went away when he started to wake up properly.

He looked down at the Historia-shaped shadow curled next to his bed and hoped he didn’t fall back asleep before she decided it was time to start sharing. Along with hoping she wasn’t the type of happy couple person who believed in sharing details. He’d spent all of high school overhearing too much of Sasha and Connie gleefully narrating their classmates like they were all in a nature documentary on mating. Once was enough, and Ymir was already Ymir.

The blurs of the dark were almost sharp by the time Historia said anything.

“I tried to kill myself.”

Any illusions of Eren accidentally falling back to sleep jumped out of his skin with his heart rate. “Just now?”

“What?” The Historia shadow turned abruptly to look at his way, blurs of hair growing her for a few blink cycles. “No. No still—only once. That—with the heroin. That time.”

“Right,” Eren said, too disoriented to will the moment of panic to shut up without thinking of orange bottles. At least it was too dark for him to need to look put together. Maybe there was something to having these talks at night. “What about it?”

Historia’s jeans creaked as her shadow shrunk on itself. No other noise came from the circular blob for several minutes.

Zeke had used a TV for this for a lot of reasons, Eren thought, full of 3am clarity.

He was almost back asleep despite himself when Historia spoke up again.

“Ymir lives a mile away.”

She said it so quietly that it sounded like the notes on snowflake eels. Food, habitat, personality. Things you needed to keep in mind if you were going to try raising one. Eren didn’t catch the death lurking in the words until he felt his bed frame shake.

“I almost never saw her again.”

Eren pulled himself out from under his covers and grabbed one of the blankets resting next to Historia’s head. Cotton turning into rocket science in the night, it took him full seconds to get the blanket draped over Historia. Her hands grabbed the edges and tugged it tight.

“You did see her again,” Eren said, “You’re going to see her lots. Probably every day if you ask.” The still shadow blob of his friend didn’t give him any hints of how much that truth helped. He tried a different one in case. “You’re alive.”

He could hear Historia tugging the threads on his blanket. “Am I?”

Eren didn’t give whatever argument she was going to try time to make room. “Yeah.”

She sighed at him, proving his point.

More silence followed, but Eren was awake now, and he could wait it out. It was easier once she stopped trying to take his blanket apart. He didn’t have much personal attachment, but Mikasa had learned to sew by patching up the holes her cats had left in it.

Historia unfurled enough to bump her head against his mattress.

“When I saw her again…” Historia said, “I think that’s what it feels like to be alive. I don’t think what I’ve been doing counts.” Her arms dug in under the blanket. “And now she’s a mile away and it’s too far. I want her here. I want—” her head dropped to her knees.

More quiet.

Ambulance sirens sounded somewhere off in the distance.

“I miss heroin,” she said.

Eren snorted. “Yeah.”

“I think I miss her more.”

She didn’t add to that. She didn’t really need to. Five minutes with both of them screamed it.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Eren ventured. “We’re supposed to care about people more.” That was how most of the people he knew stayed sober. Including the two of them. “She won’t kill you, and she’s not going anywhere this time. Everyone she cares about is already here.”

Historia seemed to struggle saying the next words out loud. “Eren, I need her.”

Eren shrugged. “I need Armin and Mikasa.” Plus more people than he’d ever thought he could care about, her included. Trying not to need them was where everything went wrong. Even before the pills, when he was just an angry brat who didn’t know how lucky he was.

Historia shook her head, blurred hands raking through her hair. “Not—not the way—they’re your friends, Eren. They’re yours, not your—” she cut herself off. A miasma of irritation billowed off her like fog, filling the sudden silence.

“I don’t even know if she loved me back.”

The sheets on Eren’s bed were back to his star ones Armin and Mikasa had doubled up to buy him when the holes in his shark ones ripped their way off his mattress. They’d gone back on a week ago, after over a year of refusing to look at them. His mom had made him take them home with him.

Every piece of him tied back to them in some way, and the only thing about them he could ever hate was how painfully obvious they made it that they loved him.

“She’s not heroin,” Historia said softly. “She’s not. She’s—she’s too many things for that. I can’t—I don’t want to turn her into another fix.”

Eren propped his elbows on his star-covered knees. “You said it wasn’t the same thing,” he said. “Whatever you two had.”

“It wasn’t,” she said flatly. “I was still a person then.”

Not yelling at Historia never took the same effort as not yelling at Mikasa, but if he ever changed his mind and started thinking shaking some sense into her had a chance of working, there were moments where he’d leap at it. “You’re a person now.”

“No, I’m not!”

Her arm collided with the side of his mattress. Anger, something Eren finally understood, was in every hitch of her breath. Her fist stayed pinned to his bed frame like it was held there by magnets.

“I’m not what I was, and I’m not anything else either,” she said, the stilted words scraping like sandpaper. “I can’t just fall back into her life and have everything be okay because she’s everything. I can’t give her this.” Her hand swam its way back to her, digging into her forehead.

Eren wondered if this was where the tears started, and if that would help any of him figure out what his role was supposed to be here besides support. He listened to the angry breathing, waiting.

The sobs didn’t come.

Laughter, fragile and startled, fell out instead.

“I want it.”

Eren threw a dart and hoped it landed on something. “…Ymir?”

“No—I mean, yes, but—” Historia kept laughing, hands fully in her hair. “Better. I want better.”

She said it in the same half-furious, grasping tone Eren had declared right and wrong in on seven different playgrounds. The one that said something good existed in the world, and everything was wrong because the good wasn’t theirs yet. Frustration and impotence waiting for an Armin to shine it up and point it in the right direction.

She said it like someone who wasn’t waiting around to die.

Months of weight lifted off Eren’s chest. His arms sagged on his knees, and for one Armin moment, he understood how easy it really had been for all of them to grab forgiveness instead of punishing him the way he deserved. How thrilled they must have been to have a chance to forgive him at all.

“That’s one way to get out of telling her you like her,” he said.

A corner of blanket smacked him in the face, and he tossed it back at Historia easily. She didn’t wrap it around herself again. Aided by a few more minutes awake, he could see her hand slowly tracing her arm.

“Did she write her number on your track marks?” Eren asked, peering closer.

“…Yes.”

Ymir could stand being less Ymir for five seconds of her life every once in a while. “Romantic.”

Historia’s tone turned soft. Dissolving into the gentleness Mikasa sometimes had for him and Armin. “Yeah.”

Or maybe Ymir being Ymir worked for Historia.

That was horrifying, and Eren’s cheeks hurt thinking about it. He reached out and poked Historia’s head, ignoring her limp attempts to bat him away. “You’re going to have to hurry up on better if you don’t want her to beat you to the punch.”

“I will not,” Historia said irritably. “She’s awful at talking.”

“She never shuts up.”

Historia was smiling, with enough shadows in her face to pretend the annoyance went with it. “That’s how she hides it. She keeps everything important to herself, and no one ever notices because they’re too frustrated or embarrassed to find out how she feels. Ymir’s too shy to wait quietly and risk someone seeing her.” Historia took back her piece of blanket. With a level of fondness Eren wasn’t sure he needed to hear, she said, “It’s unfair.”

When Hannah and Franz had first taught him that some people could speak in hearts, he had never thought his ears could enjoy hearing them out of anyone. He rested his head on his pillow and slid his phone back to its charger on the nightstand. “Sounds like her.”

“She’s an idiot,” Historia said, without a spot of judgment.

Eren pulled his covers up around his shoulders. “Yours, though.”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Sure.”

His mattress creaked. Eren, eyes closed, found the decorative pillow Frieda had insisted he keep on his bed. He waved it out in the air around Historia’s spot on the floor for a second before it left his fingers. He didn’t know what she did with it. The moment after it disappeared, so did he, drifting off to sleep with a smile on his face.

----

Armin would call it a multiple choice question, how mornings with Reiner went. There were the normal mornings where Eren had to keep their pace in check or worry about carrying him home, the becoming normal mornings where the bikes came out, the weird mornings where Reiner talked him into something like trying an unheated pool for laps, and the rare, apocalyptic ones where there was no Reiner.

Today was a no Reiner day.

Ymir was standing outside the house inhaling a thermos. Steam rose from the lid and a patched beanie was covering most of her head. Without bothering to say hello or make eye contact, she spoke up. “Why do you do this to yourself.”

Eren slowed his jog to a stop in front of her on the sidewalk. “I get paid.”

“Not enough.” Ymir downed the rest of her drink and tossed the thermos on top of Bertolt’s neatly trimmed hedges. “I’ve seen what this costs. You need someone else to start managing your finances.”

Before leaving the apartment, Eren had asked if the new state of Historia’s thing with Ymir meant he had to start being nicer. Historia hadn’t bothered looking up from saying good morning to Benjamin to tell him that that was exactly the wrong way to make friends with Ymir.

Making friends with Ymir had never once been something Eren wanted to care about. He still didn’t. He could feel himself caring anyway.

He asked the stupid question to get it out of the way. “We’re waiting for Reiner?”

“Nope,” Ymir said with a pop. “I booted Reiner off the island for the day. Just you and me, alone at last.”

“Stop trying to make this weird.”

“What do you take me for, Eren?” She waggled her eyebrows. “I’m saving that when we’re both all hot and sweaty.”

Eren rolled his eyes and decided to touch his toes until Ymir grew up. It was easier than looking at her. She was back to smiling, and he was embarrassed noticing how different it was from her usual smirk. He’d never thought of Ymir as someone like him and Reiner. She was the babysitter of her group. The Frieda, only without any of the shadows and fear holding her back.

Historia had talked about making that mistake. Thinking Ymir never needed anyone.

Historia would miss that someone had needed her.

Ymir would turn out to be a sap. All those romance novels had to come from somewhere.

The back of Eren’s head received a rough poke.

“Time’s wasting,” Ymir said. “Bert’s making waffles, and if you think I’m missing that to have a touching heart to heart jog, that hair of yours is starting to smother your brain.”

Eren swatted her hand away and didn’t rise to the bait, even if he did stand up. “How fast do you want to go?”

Ymir was bending backwards nonchalantly. She mirrored him and pulled her leg up to her chest, smirking that smirk that was too happy to properly deserve the word. “Tell you what, let’s make it easy on you. Your job is to keep up.”

----

One of Eren’s friends from high school had never really tried being his friend. They smashed into each other and then there was just too much debris left over to keep acting like they weren’t a part of the same circle.

Eren’s lungs were choking in his chest, his heart felt fit to explode, and his legs were burning.

Competitions with Jean usually wound up with punches and threats to finish things up in the parking lot after class. Bumps and bruises and the debate advisor screaming at them to please keep in mind the rules of engagement, and proper debate did not require a change in volume, boys.

Next to him, Ymir was trying and failing to stand up straight, both of them quietly dying in Reiner’s driveway.

No one had told him she was fast. Did she write her books on a treadmill? Their race back to the house had almost ended with a crash finish from both of them.

“So,” Ymir said, still gasping, “I promised you weird.”

“That was enough weird for one day,” Eren said, regretting the full sentence the second he started it. He clutched at his knees and willed his blood to stop beating into his head like a club.

Ymir was leaning against the side of the house heavily enough to leave sweat behind on the paint job. “That? What, you never had a proper workout before?” She reached out and tussled Eren’s hair. Pulling away nearly made him fall over.

Another minute of heavy breathing, and she grabbed at him again.

“This is going to make both of us uncomfortable, so we might as well get it over with now,” she said.

Eren didn’t have the time or energy to dread. He was left with nothing but his own spinning head and Ymir’s lanky, soaked frame dragging him into her arms.

“Uh.”

It was not a comfortable hug. Eren had his fair share to compare it to. He was tired, they were both boiling in the weak morning sun, and his clothes were damp enough without adding another person’s sweat. Ymir was also bony in a way that made her shoulders jab his.

“Thanks,” Ymir said, softly enough that Eren could only hear because of how close they were. “I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

Eren awkwardly tried patting at her back. “You’re welcome?” He thought about how much lighter they both made each other and put in another stab. “She—she didn’t think so either.”

He was rewarded with another hair ruffle that caught on a painful tangle. Ymir shoved him gently and he stumbled closer to stable ground. “I know,” she said. “Add it to the list of what that thank you counts for.”

Track marks and shivers panged in Eren’s mind. Ymir’s deliberate handwriting covering up all the memories on Historia’s arms. His heart, slowing down from the sprinting and confusion, wound up for another round.

“She would have made it,” he said. The alternative was as unthinkable as it was unspeakable. “She’s strong.”

Ymir chuckled, and Eren recognized the shimmer in her eyes. “Come on, Eren, you should know this.” She seized him by the shoulders and started walking him up the porch, giving his hair another tug. “Strong people are the ones who dig themselves so deep no one else can get them out.”

Before Eren could puzzle out if that was an actual compliment, she slapped the back of his head and strolled into the house, loudly asking Bertolt where her waffle was.

----

“No roommate today?”

Eren dragged himself away from watching Zeke throw pitches into the backstop. Armin and Mikasa were in the outfield, Armin dazzling with excitement over the gopher that had stuck around after practice ended. Eren was picking up empty bags of sunflower seeds the team before them had left behind.

Stalling.

Yelena, elbow on the roof of the dugout, seemed to take that as an invitation to talk.

“She had an appointment,” Eren said. Trying for supportive and completely opaque.

Their last meeting, Historia had tried talking. That would have been fine and great for her, but what she’d said was, “I got addicted to heroin trying to kill myself, and I need to not feel that way anymore.”

Petra had called her back after and given her a rolodex full of names. She’d asked Historia, in her most concerned tone of voice, to call at least one.

Eren didn’t know how many Historia had called to get an appointment as fast as she did, but the cost of brute forcing therapy for the week was missing out on one of Zeke’s practices, and he was supposed to be the good sponsor and approve of that instead of telling her how badly his experience with therapy went. She’d heard it all before anyway. The only positive thing he used to be able to say about group was that it was an improvement over the damn shrink, so he’d said it. Weekly.

“That’s a shame,” Yelena said. “The quartet look suits you.”

Eren shrugged instead of agreeing. Off in the distance, Mikasa was smiling at Armin like there was no place in the world she’d rather be. Eren wasn’t listed on the team. He would have skipped Zeke’s invitation entirely if it hadn’t meant dodging them, too.

Even if it was weird only having Mikasa and Armin around, and there was everything wrong with thinking that. He didn’t know which of his friends to blame for the voice in his head that said it might be less weird if he went over and admired the gopher in the outfield with them instead of shadowing Zeke. It sounded like all of them.

Several of the steps before twelve also reminded him weird was the wrong word.

Scary came closer, and if he weren’t so tired of being pissed, that would have him right next to Zeke, trying to crack a hole into the wooden parts of the backstop. Maybe that was the right move for taking a step forward with his brother, but it wouldn’t do anything to fix him.

Eren crumpled up the bags in his hands and swung up and out of the dugout, brushing shoulders with Yelena on his way to a trash can.

She followed him. “Is there a story behind why all of you are staying so late?” Yelena asked with an innocence too earnest to feel real. “If it’s team spirit, I’d be happy to join in, but it seems to be a bit more personal.”

“We’re having dinner with my mom later,” Eren chanted. He left out who ‘we’ included. He was working on it.

“That’s nice to hear,” Yelena said. “Zeke’s always had nice things to say about her. Is Historia meeting up with you all there?”

Eren stopped. He turned around to meet Yelena’s benign smile. “Zeke talks about my mom?”

“Sure,” she said. “Not as much as he talks about his beloved little brother, but she comes up. Don’t worry,” she added, like the look on Eren’s face came anywhere close to worry, “it’s nothing but good things.”

Eren balled the sunflower seed bags up and slammed them into the trash. “Excuse me,” he said—because they were talking about his mother and his mother had tried to teach him manners long after the first argument about how rude people didn’t deserve them—leaving Yelena behind for the pitcher’s mound.

Zeke didn’t change his rhythm on Eren’s way over, but he could see Armin and Mikasa both tense up out of the corner of his eye. The gopher popped back underground.

“Eren,” Zeke said, when Eren was ten feet away, “do you need something?”

It was the fourth step. Being completely, ruthlessly honest about everything wrong with you as a person so maybe something had a shot in hell at fixing it all. Eren’s hands unclenched. The open air against his palms made them feel empty. His head felt almost as empty, since the million conversations he and Zeke just didn’t have stayed crammed down his throat.

Still. “Mom wanted you to come over for dinner,” he said.

Zeke’s fastball smacked against the crude smiley face someone had doodled on the backstop. One of its eyes had a crack through it. “How kind of her. Will you be leaving with your friends, or should we all go over together?”

“Whatever works for you,” Eren said. Zeke kept throwing. There was an entire basket left by his feet. Eren wanted to kick it over.

“I’ll be done here soon.”

“We can wait on you.”

THWAK

“Wonderful.”

If the gopher hadn’t already gone down its hole, Eren stomping over to Mikasa and Armin would have gotten rid of it fast. For their sake, he ignored the look they shared while he was still out of earshot. And Armin’s deep breath before his smile.

Mikasa favored more direct approaches. “Will Zeke be joining us?”

“Yeah.”

A flurry of cloud drifted by the setting sun, and the next look Armin tried to share with Mikasa didn’t happen. She kept her eyes on Eren. Watching him, like she always did, but the reflection of irritation and futility felt more like a conversation than what he’d just managed with Zeke.

Eren was too many steps away from her to walk up and hug her without it being weird. Asking for a hug would also be weird. She’d probably worry instead of finding it nice.

Armin tried to inject some positivity. “How about Historia? Is she still busy?”

Pulling away from Mikasa’s magnetic presence, Eren shrugged. “Probably,” he said. He’d texted during batting practice and asked, but he hadn’t gotten anything back. Maybe because she didn’t need to be told not to answer her phone during an appointment. Maybe because she could sense Eren trying to probe her mood and she was already stuck paying someone to do that and once was enough for a day.

The Petra in his head could take the blame for some of that. He’d never liked being around people after shrink sessions. He’d hated being alone after them.

Eren’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he snapped it out.

Sorry, we just ordered.

Eren blinked.

He hadn’t had a fun day. The shadow of his mom, and being alone with Armin and Mikasa, and all of the things wrong with feeling wrong about that, had put him in a bad mood and Zeke had made it worse without lifting a finger.

A glimmer of something going right peered out of his screen.

[…] […] Ymir says hi.

“She’s definitely busy,” Eren said.

“Oh.” Armin sounded disappointed. “That’s…”

Eren slung an arm across Armin’s back. “It’s good,” he said, meeting Mikasa’s eyes again. Winning back that soft smile she’d had when it was just her and Armin and the gopher. “Really good.”

----

Most of Eren’s formative memories included Armin. That was what happened when you met someone that cool when you were a kid. Every memory with them mattered, because they mattered. He had life-changing moments around tying shoes because Armin was there with him.

Armin had asked, when Zeke was dangling his arms over the fence that separated the playground from the pickup zone, waiting for the teacher to decide that their grandparents really were Eren’s too, what it was like having a big brother.

“He’s like an extra stair,” Eren had answered, very wisely. “He reaches all the high stuff and helps me up so I can, too.”

“I wonder how tall we’ll be when we grow up?” Armin had asked, eyes full of sparkles and future.

Eren had known the answer to that. After declaring to his dad that he’d be as tall as a mountain when he was his age, instead of choosing to stop like he had, his dad had picked him up, placed him atop his shoulders, and said a lot of what his mom called doctor words. It all meant that if he ate right and listened to his parents, he’d probably be as tall as they were. Jeans mattered. That was why Eren was sure to never wear them.

But before all those words, his dad had smiled up at Eren, and said the important ones: “We can both be taller whenever we want. All I need is you. And all you need,” he flicked Eren on the nose, “is me.”

In the playground with Armin, Eren had declared, “As tall as we can make ourselves!” and scooped Armin on top of his head so they could be kings of the playground.

He hadn’t been able to lift Armin.

Armin’s shoe kicked him in the lip.

Their teacher had called Eren over then, and his grandparents had seen the blood dripping down his shirt and panicked. Zeke had politely asked the teacher for a tissue and picked Eren up.

Eren had pointed at Zeke and shouted back to Armin, spitting blood down on the sidewalk. “He’s very tall!”

Petra had told him once, and the group a few times, that sometimes it helped to have a solid picture of what you were aiming for. You didn’t have to fly blind into your relationships and circumstances. You could think of what you wanted and ask for it, or make it happen.

When Eren thought of what he wanted out of his brother, all that came to mind was Armin. Armin’s voice asking, ‘what’s it like?’ and none of the answers working anymore. He didn’t know what to do with a Zeke. He had Petra’s outline and a huge hole where whatever he and Zeke could be wasn’t.

From that standpoint, getting Zeke to come along to dinner wasn’t a bad achievement. His mom had mentioned it, Eren had asked, and now Zeke was sitting in the dining room, politely complimenting the stew while Mikasa staidly avoided eye contact and Armin reached over every few mouthfuls to loosen Eren’s grip on his fork.

For the third week in a row.

Eren was starting to think Historia was scheduling her appointments the way she was on purpose, just to get out of adding one more pensive face to the table.

“This is delicious, Carla,” Zeke said, folding his napkin and gently collecting his silverware on his plate. “Thank you again for the splendid meal.”

Eren’s mom, who had a bounce in her step and a light in her eyes whenever Eren showed up with the dinner crew in tow, spared an amused look for her son before smiling at her stepson. “You say that every time, Zeke.”

Zeke’s glasses flashed in the light, giving his smile an emptiness that matched the tiny hole in Eren’s gut week after week. “And every time it is warranted.”

The scraping noise irritating Eren’s ears was coming from his plate, and it stopped the moment after Armin’s hand came back to his and released his fork to its original spot on the tablecloth with a blunted clatter.

His mom shot him another look, but kept speaking to Zeke. “You’ll have to keep coming by, then. It’s so nice to have my work appreciated for once.”

Mikasa stiffened in her chair in time with Eren, and both of them objected together, even if Eren’s voice thundered over Mikasa’s. “We appreciate you.”

“It’s also lovely to see how contagious that attitude is,” she continued, barely pausing at all to squeeze Mikasa’s arm. “Thank you, Zeke. I’ve seen more of your brother in these past few weeks than I did when he moved back in.”

Zeke and Eren’s mother were the only people around the table who didn’t flinch. Sitting next to Armin felt more like sitting next to a bonfire with snapping teeth, and Eren didn’t know if he wanted to hug him or punch himself.

That was the main problem with these dinners. He couldn’t do either.

Mikasa would say the main problem was Zeke.

Finding that soothing wasn’t the way out of all this. Probably. Even if some part of his soul uncurled, imagining what it would be like for Mikasa to rage as hard as he did and choose to share it with him.

Zeke, as diplomatic as Armin was when he was trying to get whoever was between him and Eren to kindly not pay attention to how one Mikasa was all that was keeping a very bloody brawl from continuing—smiled, glasses catching the light again. “Eren’s been working hard on spending time with all his family lately,” he said. “His effort isn’t something I can claim credit for.”

Eren’s fork was grinding into the tablecloth this time, and Armin’s hand was as warm as the understanding in his eyes that Eren still hated wanting as much as he did. Eren had to be the one working hard to spend time with Zeke, because Zeke got a text about how his day was going and assumed Eren was bad step away from rehab again. All Zeke could claim credit for was—

Being there. Whenever Eren asked.

Always.

“Would you like some help clearing the table, Carla?”

Eren wanted to punch him.

“Zeke, please, you’re a guest,” his mom said, while he and Mikasa jumped to their feet and almost broke Armin’s plate when they both grabbed for it at the same time. His knife took a dive for the floor, but Eren caught it.

When he straightened, shuffling his and Armin’s plate together and waging a silent staring contest with Mikasa to see if she’d hand him hers, Zeke took up his own and Eren’s mom’s, smiling distantly. “It’s my pleasure,” he said.

Mikasa handed Eren her plate sullenly before Zeke could make it out of the room first. Eren muttered his thanks and marched into the kitchen with his brother. Who didn’t ask for Eren’s pile. They walked in together. They reached the sink. They dropped off the plates and silverware. All without needing conversation. Because Eren’s grandparents and Eren’s mom hadn’t raised animals, and they could figure out putting plates away without talking.

Wordless communication was a sign of closeness.

They walked back to the dining room.

Eren plopped in his seat, eyebrows burning from the effort of holding back his mood.

His mom was watching him, smiling wordlessly.

He tried to iron out his scowl. For her.

She tapped her forehead, only lined with age, and shook her head at him as Zeke eased back into his seat next to her. Next to Eren, Armin was there, patient and resigned to the inevitable explosion that Eren was not going to let happen.

Mikasa caught his glaring eyes and understood.

She’d been taller than him most of their lives, even if she wasn’t anymore.

Eren took a wrench to the screws in his scowl and breathed. No cheap shortcuts. No orange bottles or baggies he should have thrown away. A few weeks of bad dinners that made his mom smile wasn’t asking much.

Zeke sat calmly in his chair.

Eren needed a tennis ball.

----

Waking up earlier than anyone in the apartment wasn’t something Eren thought of as mattering. Historia stayed up too late and he sometimes wondered if he was supposed to help her with that, and he thought Benjamin judged him for being up first and not bringing him over any food, but he never thought about it as a real part of his life.

Waking up because something clattered in the kitchen was alarming and weird.

More weird because the sun was already out, so it couldn’t be Frieda.

Eren woke up with his eyes open and face smushed into the stars on his pillow, not having any idea where he was. He didn’t move. He wasn’t sure his eyes were following instructions well enough to blink. His pillow was soft. The light lining his bed from the crack in the curtains wasn’t. He had a hand dangling off his bed.

Another clang hit from outside his drowsy haze.

Pots and pans.

And voices.

Eren fumbled for his phone, digging it out from under his hip and swiping away the incomplete text he’d fallen asleep trying to send Armin. The clock blared at him. He’d slept in. It was his day off, he’d slept in, he’d failed at roping Armin into a movie, and there were people banging around the kitchen with more noise than anyone who had a key created.

They didn’t know anyone who came over without a written invitation.

Eren took a stumbling lurch out of his bed and room, the full morning light sparkling into the apartment and jabbing him directly in the eyes to go with the even louder clattering his door had protected him from.

A sing-song greeting slipped through the rest of the cacophony.

“Good morning, sleepy head.”

They knew one person who came over without a written invitation.

Eren stood in the threshold of the hallway. Ymir sat on the counter, sitting next to a waffle iron and licking a beater. The rest of the entire kitchen was strewn around her, in disarray except for three empty plates. Shopping bags cluttered the usually spotless floor. Historia, nowhere closer to helpful than he was, had her elbow perched on one of the remaining edges of the counter. She was watching Ymir with bland confusion and a spark of something Eren couldn’t name. The batter from the beater in her hand dripped down her wrist.

Across from them both, the sink was full of more dishes than he’d thought they’d owned. A mixing bowl with a cereal bowl lumped in it was sliding slowly against the side, jangling several forks.

More awake every bizarre second, Eren stared blankly at Ymir. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s the first thing she said, too,” Ymir said. She twirled her beater in Historia’s general direction. “You two could use a manners class.”

Without really looking away from Ymir, who as far as Eren could see was doing nothing outside of lapping up batter on top of their counter, Historia drifted out of whatever daze she seemed to be in. “She making us breakfast,” she told Eren.

Her elbow nudged the nearest plate. Two black slats had been thrown on top of it. They’d probably looked closer to something edible before Ymir ever touched them.

“She burned the toast.”

Ymir scoffed. “Your toaster has more settings than the sun,” she said, brandishing her beater at it. She turned back to Historia, comment at the ready—and Historia was smiling at her. Ymir stopped. Like she was back to falling off a wall, only Eren didn’t have to save her. The conversation paused, Ymir’s tongue stuck to the beater before she swallowed around it and continued with a soft rasp. “Did you just go out and buy the first, most expensive one you saw?”

“…Yes.”

Ymir was trying, badly, to hide that soft, not-Ymir smile that fit her face too well. Eren started considering grabbing a bowl of cereal and heading back to his room. A beep disrupted the thought. Ymir hopped to the floor and dropped her beater to a battered plate, popping open the waffle iron.

“A toaster that could fit a whole gingerbread house, and no TV,” she drawled, delivering a perfectly cooked waffle to one of the plates and slathering more batter onto the iron. “You guys really have your priorities set around here.”

“The TV light’s bad for Benjamin,” Historia said before Eren could. Ymir rolled her eyes and shoved the waffled plate into Historia’s hands on her way to pull the syrup off the stove.

There was syrup on the stove.

Eren slowly reached for a stool and eased onto it. Breakfast and Ymir. Bertolt and Reiner were missing, but they were missing when he came home from family dinners to Historia and Ymir fast asleep on the couch. No one expected him to talk then.

No one expected him to talk now. The third plate next to the waffle iron was the only real sign that anyone had thought he’d be in the room with the two of them. Eren’s elbows joined the small space Historia had carved out for hers. He didn’t join her in staring at Ymir. Historia covered that enough for everyone he knew and had never met.

“What are you doing to it?”

“Buttering it?”

“You aren’t going to be able to taste anything but butter. I could have grabbed a stick and shoved it in your mouth instead of going to all this trouble.”

“Ymir, that’s too much syrup.”

“It’s the right amount of syrup for—are you putting more butter on it?”

Historia jabbed the part of her waffle that was still visibly waffle with her fork, slicing the piece off and defiantly popping it into her mouth. Ymir tossed her potholder over the remains of the stick of butter. Most of it untouched. She still slumped back on the counter with the look of someone reading off a death row inmate’s crimes. Bertolt left that out when he made waffles.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Ymir said. Pretending not to be staring at her. She was like one of Mikasa’s cats, only noisier. “What about you, Eren, do you start every day trying to poison yourself?”

As removed from having an opinion on the state of the waffle Historia was chewing as he’d been for the entire conversation, Eren shrugged. “I think Historia knows how to feed herself,” he said.

“You would, wouldn’t you, but then you get to displays like this, and—”

Historia, with a speed people who made it their business to be around Ymir picked up one way or another, popped her fork into Ymir’s mouth, the skewered piece of waffle making immediate contact with her tongue. Syrup stuck to her lower lip, and Ymir’s eyes fluttered shut, taking the offered bite with no resistance. The glowering pride on her face lasted until Historia flicked away the syrup with her finger, melting her faster than the butter.

Eren watched his empty plate instead of looking back at Benjamin. Armin said people anthropomorphized their pets too much. A fish could not relate to this.

With a groan that didn’t read as exasperated as any of them were going to pretend, the fork was released to its owner. “Compliments to the chef,” Ymir said, scrubbing her battered hand over her mouth.

“The chef burned toast,” Historia said. She found the remaining free inches of counter space and sat down next to Ymir.

“Toast isn’t cooking,” Ymir said, grabbing up another fork and bypassing Historia’s halfhearted deflections to rip off more of the buttered waffle. “It’s a bargain with an electrical socket, and yours didn’t pay up.”

Reiner wasn’t here to mouth ‘ignore her’ over Bertolt’s shoulder, so Eren spoke up. “I thought you were blaming the toaster.”

“I can blame you too if you’re feeling left out.”

“I wasn’t awake.”

“Yeah, your commitment to helping has never been clearer.” Ymir stole more waffle. Shared. Historia, with a small shake of her head when Eren caught her eye, had twirled the plate around so they were eating from opposite sides.

The iron beeped, and Eren slid his waffle—which was staying his—onto his plate and dealt with his own syrup. Ymir had used Bertolt’s recipe. It tasted like his tongue was going to melt into sugar and made him want five more. Reiner passed out after three. Splitting one was probably for the best for someone Historia’s size.

He didn’t think being helpful was what Ymir was going for. She was squishing Historia most of the way off the counter and then catching her with a snipe about being more careful in the kitchen.

He still had his phone. The only thing he knew about his day off besides Ymir turning it into hers was that it was sunny out.

No one was paying attention to him anyway, so having his phone out and texting someone at what counted for the breakfast table wasn’t bad manners. He found Mikasa’s contact listing and hit send.

want to climb today?

The relief when she texted back in under a minute wasn’t anything to be proud over. Or anything he deserved, but he was supposed to be practicing remembering that without wanting to rip his throat out. Relief fit.

Of course. Where?

you pick. anywhere’s good

“And where,” Ymir said when he got up with his plate, like any of her attention was on him, “do you think you’re going?”

“Grabbing my stuff to go rock climbing with Mikasa.”

“The cat girl?”

Eren looked at Historia, who remembered Colt had a cockatiel better than that he had a brother. “Sure,” he said.

“Because spending time with her is so much better than time with us,” Ymir said, picking off a piece of Historia’s second waffle and licking away a dribble of syrup. Her elbow caught one of the bowls that had gone into the cooking, and a cascade of clatters dipped further into the sink. “Didn’t think you were the type to ditch your friends for a girl, Eren.”

Historia had worked her way into being fused to Ymir’s hip. Their feet periodically bumped together and bounced apart too carefully to be an accident. Eren said, because Ymir being Historia’s whatever only meant he had to put up with some of her, “I don’t see you cooking breakfast for Reiner.”

Ymir smirked at him. “That’s what Bertolt’s for.”

Eren rolled his eyes. “I’m going climbing.”

The chorused, “Have fun,” when he stepped out of the apartment on his day off, bag stuffed with extra water Mikasa didn’t need because she knew how to function, only felt sincere from one of them. That was fine. He had somewhere to go when they didn’t ask him to stay.

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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sirmcnasty · 4 years ago

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Marketing with Drop Cards

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One of my very favorite offline guerilla marketing tactics is advertising with money drop cards. At first I thought they would not help me grow my business, but I quickly realized I could use them in many different ways. I completely changed my way of thinking and decided drop cards marketing is a very effective, low cost, easy, and fun way to build my small business.

At the end of this dropcards marketing article; I will show you how you can use these money business cards to get 1-2 new leads per week into your business.

What are Drop Cards?

Drop cards are business cards that look just like real money. Some people call them sizzle cards which are small money business cards that when folded look like a real $100, $50, $20, $10, $5 dollar bills. Dropcards are mainly used to drop on the ground giving off the impression that someone lost cash on the ground. Someone walks by and thinks they found money on the ground. That person then picks up the dropcard and your message will get revealed.

This marketing article is going to talk about some creative and fun ways you can utilize drop cards.

What Should I Write On Drop Cards?

Indeed, in the event that you will utilize these in a littering kind of way, such as, tossing them on the ground wherever you go, you would prefer not to have your telephone number on them as you truly don't have any desire to invest your energy handling grievance calls.

I'm really not a devotee of tossing cash drop cards on the ground as they are really expected to be utilized, the explanation is, it makes a negative affiliation when the person understands they were tricked and needed to bend down to pick up your fake money business card.

7 Different ways I like to utilize Drop Cards Offline

#1 Air Travel

I attempt to get on the plane as right on time as could really be expected and place drop cards in the magazine opening before every single seat. In the magazines or whatever other writing they have. You have an enraptured crowd that is compelled to stay there for quite a long time and could actually get those magazines.

#2 In Book shops and Libraries

This is one of my top picks. I will save an hour and go to the nearby Barnes and Noble, books 1,000,000 or whatever and them select books I figure my possibilities would peruse. What sort of individual would you need to work with? I like individuals that read Ayn Rand, Robert Kiyosaki or truly anything that discussions about home business, digital marketing, or organization marketing are an ideal objective.

I will put a couple of drop cards in each book. You can do this at neighborhood libraries too despite the fact that I trust you increment the odds of getting busted at a library. I had somebody inquire as to whether this was legitimate, I exceptionally question there is a law about converse shoplifting however the main concern is, I have selected individuals utilizing this strategy yet on the off chance that you're not comfortable with it, don't do it.

#3 Lounge areas

Somewhere else where you have an engaged crowd, lounge areas and boutiques. They generally have magazines there, take your drop cards and spot them in whatever number magazines as could be allowed.

#4 Cafés

At the point when you are finished eating at the eatery and placing in that tip (ensure it is a decent tip or this won't work by any means!) slide a drop card in there; I have supported many individuals that work in the café business. You may even introduce the drop card by asking this executioner inquiry to the server or server,

"Would you be keen on a side venture in the event that it didn't meddle with your present place of employment?" Who the hell would not say yes to that?!?

#5 Tollgates

Presently you can likewise utilize Album's or DVD's for this strategy however the least expense path is to utilize a drop card. Whenever you are pulling up to a tollgate, look in your back view mirror and see what sort of vehicle is behind you, if its a fair vehicle, pay for their cost and have the administrator give the individual behind you a drop card! The administrator may even ask you for one!

#6 Paper Stands

Another fascinating one is purchasing a paper, pulling out all the papers and stuffing them with drop cards and returning them to the stand. This one makes me laugh out loud, consider this however, on the off chance that you were marketing for land, wouldn't it bode well to put drop cards in all the loft rental aides that are in these stands? Now and then you need to consider some fresh possibilities.

#7 Get Your Group to Copy

Doing drop cards is an extremely simple expertise to dominate. It doesn't expect conversing with anybody and is ease. Consider the possibility that you got your whole group to copy this cycle. I'm willing to wager that dependent on the outcomes I have seen that in the event that you get your group of 10-12 or more individuals doing this strategy, your business will experience the rooftop and afterward you get every single new individual to participate on the fun, recall, network marketing isn't just about your endeavors it is tied in with getting your group to deliver too!

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brandilovevip · 5 years ago

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What I Believe About Coronavirus

It’s been a HOT topic on Twitter...

So what do I think is really going on and what do I think about Coronavirus?

Read on.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON

When health events like this happen ( and they happen often )

there is always some fear and trepidation. In recent times however it has become an obsession in the media to track and breathlessly report the number of deaths especially with the flu and/or any other viral outbreak. They don’t do this with any of the actual leading causes of death in the USA which are:

1. Cardiovascular Disease deaths each year 647,457 2. Cancer deaths each year 599,108 3. Accidents deaths each year 169,936 4. Respiratory Disease deaths each year 160,201 5. Stroke deaths each year 146,383

So every flu season, despite the flu not making the top 5, we are fed a steady diet of fear and mounting death. When you add in a “rogue” virus like the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus, things get really out of hand. You would think that they believe The Walking Dead and Outbreak are documentaries.

This FEAR drives ratings and the progressive left’s globalist agenda. This agenda is the agenda of 90% (+) of the global media, the EU , China etc. There are few countries left in Europe and Asia that don’t want globalism. They have already been pacified. The great spirit of America however has not. Donald Trump’s election was a shock to the globalist agenda which is clearly on display in the democratic party. They are now out in the open as unabashed, socialist/communist “progressives”

meaning… globalists.

There are a number of “conservative” publications out there that believe that Covid-19 was created in a lab an purposefully unleashed. I do not believe that is the case, although I do think it is possible. I do however believe that they had foreknowledge of the virus and it’s potential spread & impact.

Why do you believe this Brandi?

Because of Event 201. If you haven’t read about this, you need to educate yourself. This ACTUALLY took place. The “players” and sponsors should be looked at closely.

Only a few months ago, in OCTOBER 2019, Johns Hopkins, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum (a fraternity of self-professed globalists) ran a “pandemic simulation” called “Event 201” specifically focused on CORONAVIRUS. Not Ebola, or Swine Flu or even Avian Flu – but CORONAVIRUS. The simulation features the spread of coronavirus in South America, blamed on animal to human transmission (pigs). The conclusion of the exercise was that national governments were nowhere near ready.

Event 201 played out almost exactly as you see it in the world today. Even their propaganda pieces are eerily similar.

Some very disingenuous or perhaps rather stupid people have been arguing that this kind of thing is “normal”, claiming that we are “lucky” that the elites have been running simulations in advance in order to “save us” from a viral outbreak.

I believe that Event 201 was not a simulation but a war-game, played out to study the possible outcomes of an event the globalists already knew was coming. They played it out to see how to use it to their advantage.

In their simulation 65 million people died worldwide. A number they knew was false but it would certainly scare the sheep into submission.

Does anyone really believe that Event 201 is pure coincidence? Does anyone really believe they left up their “findings” for any other reason than to frighten readers?

But what do globalists have to gain directly from a coronavirus pandemic beyond simple chaos that can be exploited?

Interestingly, a representative from Johnson and Johnson, one of the companies that may end up designing a “vaccine” for the Coronavirus, suggested during Event 201 that a “centralized” global economic authority in charge of funding and procuring vaccines for various nations in crisis was an option for solving the pandemic.

The reason why globalists want a collapse is simple – They need crisis in order to manipulate the masses into accepting total centralization, a global monetary system and global governance. They are also rabid believers in eugenics and population reduction.

Regarding a “centralized” global economic authority and a global monetary system ... did you notice the Democrats included language pertaining to a digital currency in their bloated, globalist agenda filled coronavirus bill after pulling the rug out from under America.

The US and China are still currently in the middle of a trade war. This trade war has been demonized by Democrats and RINO’s alike. And despite it being the right thing for America, the Phase 1 deal was always a joke because it demands that China quadruple its purchases from the US within the next 1-2 years. This was never going to happen.

The Chinese cannot be trusted. They are the most evil, unfeeling regime in the world. They are cold , calculated and intelligent. They have made, through money, slaves of many of the worlds largest, most influential and wealthiest corporations and people.

Now, because of the impact of the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus, there is no chance that China will meet the requirements of the Phase 1 deal as China’s economy will slow under the weight of the pandemic.

Coincidence?

If Trump continues tariffs against a nation in the state of a viral emergency, he will look like a monster. If he doesn’t continue the lockdown and one person dies thereafter, he will look like a monster. They have him in an almost impossible situation. He knows it, which is why he looks so somber & frustrated.

Another advantage of the viral crisis is that the globalist establishment will undoubtedly blame “climate change” for its impetus. Even though there is absolutely no concrete evidence linking human carbon emissions to climate change or viral outbreaks, given enough public fear, globalists will attempt to link the things together as if it is a proven fact.

Not only will they have a rationale for an economic collapse THEY created, but they can also present a virus as an “act of nature”, and use it as a rationale for implementing carbon controls. (ALSO PRESENT IN PELOSI’s DESPICABLE BILL)

So what is really going on:

The globalists are using COVID-19 to their advantage to wrestle back control and complete their globalist mission. They know that if Donald Trump gets re-elected their horror of a dream is over.

BUT BRANDI THIS IS A DEADLY VIRUS, YOU ARE BEING STUPID.

It is a deadly virus. It is highly communicable. But is neither as deadly or communicable as the fear mongers want you to believe. I’m not going to go through all of the FACTS here. But I would encourage you to read this excellent article:

http://archive.is/yuaUq

If the USA follows the pattern in SIMILAR countries with similar population demographics and geography then we should see maybe 250,000 total who have contracted this and a death rate of 1.5% for total deaths around 3,750

We have all been around death. Iv’e lost most of my family and it’s always gut wrenching. But if the numbers hold true, the 3750 deaths due to Coronavirus are about 5x less than the number of homicides we have every single year.

Where do I agree with the trolls that bombard my Twitter account?

I agree that we need to have a far better protocol in place for WHEN pandemics happen and I believe we need to make a HUGE investment into our healthcare system. Some things I would love to see them consider:

1. Everyone wears masks during a “Pandemic Protocol” I know , I know… surgical masks don’t stop the virus from getting in.. but if EVERYONE is wearing them it does stop a lot of the virus from getting OUT. Japan has an 80% adoption rate for masks. They have major population centers and yet.. their numbers remained low.

2. Have tests ready. Jesus. Everyone on the planet seemed to have more tests than us. That’s embarrassing. Test everybody.

3. Isolate & quarantine the most vulnerable to death, first.

4. Immediately close borders and international travel

5. If needed, in extreme situations impose a reasonable self isolation and social distancing period not to last longer than 21 days.

6. Have teams at CDC ready to collaborate with local and international physicians to discuss treatment modalities & vaccines.

7. Build regional medical facilities in conjunction with private, non profit health care systems to handle sudden increases in medical emergencies.

This closing down of the country however and spreading fear the way they have is grotesque and evil. Do you think it’s any less horrible to die from Cardiovascular Disease , Cancer an Accident, stroke, suicide or murder? No. Death is horrible and sad. But it is in fact part of life. I don’t want to die, I’m not looking forward to death but I do know that at some point, it will occur.

I’m ever thankful that in addition to my thirst for facts vs fear, I also have contacts across the medical landscape. In every single case, they tell me the same thing. If you don’t smoke, If you don’t have major underlying medical conditions and are in good health… then you have very little to fear even if you do contract the virus. Yes, it may have a 1.4% - 2.0% death rate but those numbers are skewed toward those 65+ and those with major medical issues. Regardless of age if you are generally healthy, you are looking at a death rate equal to or less than the common flu.

And they also tell me that if you do get it, demand that you be treated with the combination of Hydroxychloroquine and a Zpack unless there are contraindications.

Lastly…

Some things that have become perfectly clear:

1. Socialized Medicine would be a Disaster 2. Open Borders = Complete Insanity

References:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

http://archive.is/yuaUq

https://www.europereloaded.com/how-viral-pandemic-benefits-the-globalist-agenda-event-201/

https://docplayer.net/11605196-Foreign-affairs-april-1974-the-hard-road-to-world-order-richard-n-gardner-volume-52-number-3.html

https://www.technocracy.news/globalization-faces-disaster-with-supply-chain-leaving-china/

https://meaww.com/wuhan-coronavirus-warned-2017-lab-wuhan-deadly-diseases-escape-lab-level-4-safety-scientists

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