#ummm should i tag this?

[baberoe-archive]

u have voted and i shall deliver. here is the (lightly edited) first 1.5k words of my baberoe fic. babe doesn't even show up yet bc this monstrosity is 20k words but this is not just a baberoe fic it is also a gene my good friend gene fic so. here's gene my good friend gene

Eugene Roe first met Edward Heffron in August 1944 on a sheet of paper in Captain Winters’s office.

“I don’t know what you think that’ll do,” Captain Nixon said, feet slung up on Winters’s desk. When Gene had walked into the office, Winters made a half-hearted attempt to get Nixon to move, but that didn’t work. Evidently, he had no interest in trying again. “That’s what, twenty, thirty names? Even if you memorize them, you don’t know what they’ll look like.”

“No, sir, but it’ll be easier if I’m familiar with their names, sir.” Antonio Garcia. Lester Hashey. Edward Heffron. James Miller.

“Maybe you oughta take a page out of Roe’s book for once, huh?” said Lieutenant Welsh. “Actually do some fucking work every now and then?”

“Oh, I don’t know… what do you say, Doc?”

Gene gave one last glance over the list then handed it back to Winters, who was staring resolutely at his typewriter, trying very hard not to smile. He nodded at Gene as he took back the list of replacements and set it neatly in a folder on his desk. Gene then turned to Captain Nixon and said lightly, “Well, sir, I wouldn’t if I was you. Colonel Sink might start expecting something from you.”

Welsh burst out into laughter and clapped Gene on the shoulder while Nixon grinned brightly and raised his glass of whiskey. “Hell, you might be onto something there, Doc.”

“Anything else I can help you with, Gene?” Winters asked.

“No, sir, thank you.”

As he walked out of the office, the sound of Nixon’s and Welsh’s laughter drifting through the open door, he went over the list of names again. James Miller. Lester Hashey. Antonio Garcia. Edward Heffron.

They arrived a week later, shuttled in on the worst trucks the army had to offer. They clung to the edges of the mess hall like Gene usually did, just watching. Although, they watched to find a way in, and Gene watched to stay out.

Gene studied their faces, tried to commit every angle of them to memory, tried to imagine them covered in blood, dirt, eyes red with tears or smoke, and did his best to assign every face a name. Last names were easy enough, printed on uniforms, but given names were another question. Especially since half of the Toccoa men, when asked about a replacement’s name, responded with a curt, “Fuck if I know.”

Lipton was the only other enlisted man with any significant interest in learning the replacements’ names. He approached Gene during mess soon after their arrival, a sheet of paper in his hands. Gene smiled knowingly at him. “If that’s the list of replacements,” he said, “I’ve already seen it.”

Lipton blinked at him once, slow like a cat, then smiled back. “I guess you’ve got me beat, then,” he said. “Still might be useful, though. I’ve been trying to take note of anything I’ve picked up.”

Gene took the list and scanned it. Each name had a number one through three, designating platoon. A good number of names had a nickname beside them, and an additional few had a state abbreviation or a skill next to it. Hashey was, apparently, from Maine, and Blake was a decent marksman. Edward Heffron’s first name was striked out, and “Babe” was written above it.

“Garcia likes to be called Tony,” Gene said, handing the list back over. “And I think I heard him speakin’ Spanish the other day.”

“Duly noted,” Lipton said. He took out a pencil and added it next to Garcia’s name in neat, careful cursive, then folded the paper and tucked it into an inner pocket. “Are you having any luck putting faces to names?”

Gene looked out at the soldiers crammed in the mess hall and frowned. There were a handful of men who were instantly recognizable — there was Garcia, who Gene had followed closely after mistaking a “mierda” for a “merde,” and Miller, who was stiff and nervous and perpetually in awe — but mostly, he was surrounded by strangers.

“No,” Gene answered, “can’t say I have. You?”

“I think I’m faring a little better,” Lipton said. “Bill warmed up to one of them, and he’s been helping me out a bit.”

“Who?”

“Babe Heffron.” Lipton nodded his head towards Bill, who was laughing alongside a green-faced, red headed stranger. “He’s from Philadelphia, too.”

“Babe,” Gene said slowly. He took note of that: Heffron had the red hair, the loud laugh, probably the same Philly accent as Guarnere. Able and willing to help with names. Babe Heffron. Heffron.

He took a sip of his coffee, and he put it out of his mind.

—

Gene jumped into Holland like a dandelion seed blowing in the wind. It was a strange change of pace from Operation Overlord, from the fear that his chute would be pierced by a bullet or scrap metal or set on fire by an explosion, the absolute certainty that he would die before he hit the ground. He could not shake that certainty, even as the late September sun shined warm on him. 

He hit the ground hard, the force of it buckling his knees. Still, he managed to look more graceful than any of the replacements, who got tangled in the straps, who could not find the release. If it was D-day, he thought, but he quickly put it out of his mind. It was not D-day, and so it was a moot point.

They were met with sporadic German fire while marching to Eindhoven. In Eindhoven, they were met with orange flags, happy Dutch citizens, and a handful of musicians playing songs Gene did not recognize. The certainty of death would not leave him, even as men shook his hand and women kissed his cheek. He felt like a grizzled old vet when he saw men, Toccoa and replacement alike, break off from formation to accept pastries and return kisses. He felt impossibly old. 

Through the throng, Gene caught sight of a man sitting at the opening of an alley, clutching a mud-and-blood-stained rag to his head. It was almost a relief to be granted a reminder of the ongoing war, a reason for Gene’s deep-seated anxiety, and it was really no choice at all to walk over with his supply bag open.

The man looked up at him with pale blue eyes, filled with a vague fear that reminded Gene of Blithe. “Medic,” Gene said, pointing to his armband. He racked his brain for the handful of Dutch he was taught and came up empty. Instead, he settled for, “I’ve got bandages, I’m here to help.”

Gene watched as the man’s muscles uncoiled and relaxed, and he took it as a sign he could get to work. Gingerly, he took the man’s hand and pulled it away from the wound, revealing a nasty cut starting right above the man’s eyebrow and ending in his hair. Head wounds nearly always looked worse than they were, but that did not make them easier to bear. He did his best to hold back a wince, then made brief work of cleaning it up.

“Ain’t too bad,” he said. The man looked at him blankly, as Gene expected, but the habit was too deeply ingrained to stop. “I can wrap it up tight, but you’ll need stitches. Hospital. Stitches,” Gene repeated, miming a sewing motion. There was recognition in the man’s eyes, and he sighed like Gene was confirming the bad news he already knew. He mumbled something in Dutch as Gene pulled out a bandage and wrapped it tight around the man’s head.

“Dank je. Thank you,” the man said as Gene stepped away. His accent was thick enough around the English that Gene almost did not catch it for what it was.

Gene nodded solemnly and stepped back into the crowd, blending in easily with the tail end of Easy. When he turned around to catch one last sight of the man, Gene found him staring down at the bloody rag in his hand, untouched by the scenes of joy around him. Something deep within Gene moved, as if tugged by this man, and he wondered what kind of horrors he had seen, what kind of horrors each of these people had seen. He wondered if they, too, had been certain that they would die.

Soon after, Gene was darting through Nuenen, patching up replacements he had only just begun to learn the names of, and he wondered guiltily as they were retreating if it had been wise to use up a bandage on that man in Eindhoven.

[blushft]

generational cycles of abuse, of course

(+ isolated guys w/o shading because i spent a good amount of time on them)

[biblically-accurate-dca]

au where moon fills in while sun is "on vacation" and nothing bad happens

[islandlobster]

might have gone overboard or something

[lesbiangiratina]

Hi do you like images. I love images. Heres a little over 100 guilty gear trading cards from the early 2000s. Every character up to xx is accounted for… some more than others. For now. But the average is probably 4 or 5 cards per character. Nearly all of the art is original. Okay have fun :)

[mx-princey]

Some Self-Indulgent Calculester Graphics 🥰

Free to Use anywhere you want, and Free to Edit. Credit not required but would be appreciated 😁

[kenchann]

hauling ass.png

[batmanego]

I SUFFER FROM THE TERRIBLE CLARITY OF MY VISION

alt colors version:

just a piece on my frustration between idea and the execution of that idea in art. had fun with it. yay<3. see also: defunctland "the only thing i hate more than making a film is not making a film"

[polito0]

Carefeul there

[large-band-112]

haha so i hit a bit of an art block

so worth it tho

have a doodle

[luzho]

TWO GRUMPY THEATER NERDS

after seeing this very important post by @picnicbitchsokka​, i was compelled to draw two theater nerd boyfriends absolutely disgusted with the ember island players latest adaptation of another classic... they like complaining together though:)

also, i didn’t really think about WHEN this is, but i suggest interpreting this as: contemporary tattoo artist zuko and skater boy sokka going to the theater, in cosplay of their favorite characters :D

[ID: This is a digital drawing of Sokka and Zuko in a theater box, drawn from their chests up and in warm colors. On the left, Zuko (wearing septum and snake bite piercings, earrings, a mullet, and a red cape) frowns with disgust as he watches the play; while Sokka (wearing matching earrings, his Water Tribe clothing and a moon and stars tattoo on his arm), reclines over him with an angry pout and a judging hand on his hip. While the stage shines and the audience laughs from below, Zuko says “ugh!!” and Sokka replies with “tch!!”. End ID]

[beatlesmenrock]

It’s getting better, since you’ve been mine!

( blood version under )

[callmehere-iwillappear]

when u try to take a selfie with three (3) ghosts. um. oops

(death wish leo & sensei by @remedyturtles / imbi leo by @dandylovesturtles)

[scramgledeggs]

guys i think my favorite is subspace. idk tho.

[milksetters]

pray! pray for me!

(uncensored is below, warning for guts, intestines!)

[lunarharp]

Very important conferences.