Handy Compilation of Tumblr Fic

Like, first they leave the rope toy closer and closer to the house, trying to get him used to their scent. Instead, he just gets close enough to snag the toy and run back to the edge of the yard to play with it there. He always puts it back in the bin tho. 

Next they try leaving him food. A big juicy steak. 

He doesn’t touch it. 

They try leaving out a soft bed. 

He puts it in the bin with the toys?

Then, completely by chance, Cora accidentally leaves a cookie on the back porch. 

Talia holds her breath as she watches him inch up the back stairs, clearly very wary, only to snag the cookie with his teeth and run away, absconding into the night with his stolen goods. 

Bingo. 

The next night, they leave out two cookies. He’s a little more eager this time, a little less wary, as he wedges both of them into his mouth and takes them into the yard to eat this time. 

Finally, Talia leaves out a whole plate of cookies. More than any fox could fit into their mouth at once. She watches as he approaches it, tail waving excitedly at the sight of all the goods, ears still cautiously alert. She hears a small whine as he realizes he won’t be able to grab all of them and go, and then-

A dirty ten year old little boy is crouched in front of the cookies, shoving them in his mouth as quickly as possible. 

Talia’s heart is filled with sadness and pity. She silently approaches, not making her presence known until the last second. 

“There are more inside,” she says quietly. 

The child’s head snaps up, frozen for a split second, and then-

Talia has no memory of what happened next. She wouldn’t trust Peter’s account, except that Laura had seen it happen too. 

Apparently, the child had excellent aim with a plate. A bullseye right between her eyes, according to her rapidly healing bruise. 

Once Peter finally stops laughing, he muses, “Perhaps we should cross reference missing child reports with the winners of frisbee competitions.” 

So I was inflicting myself on @thebibliosphere‘s DMs the other day, as is occasionally my wont, and I was telling her about this new ridiculous headcanon that I have, to wit: Angels engage in nesting behaviors as an elaborate mating ritual.

“Joy,” I said. “Joy. Joy. Joy Joy Joy. That’s what the bookshop is. It’s a nest, Joy. That’s why he’s spent 200 years filling it with things he likes. That’s why he gets super fucking mad when people try to come in and buy bits of it off him.”

I am extremely committed to sparkle motion, so I have prepared for you, darlings, several different angles that one could take on a nesting!fic if one were going to write it.

I’m not CWR. I’m not Elementals. I’m just a silly lil fan having a silly lil time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Archive Update December 17, 2023: The last time I updated this, the news was that early chapters of FoD were getting rewritten - lmfao, over a year later I am BACK and FoD rewrites are done and dusted! She’s LIVE and!?!! Posted to CWR’s Ao3?!!! Go! Give kudos and be merry!!

If you’re just finding this years after reading your last CWR story and confused about what the heck is going on, here’s some recent(ish) updates:

- CWR and elementals have websites again! They are 1. cleanwhiteroom.net (has copies of the original stories once available on Ao3) 2. cleanwhiteroom.blogspot.com (has stories that are in the process of being re-written) 3. CWR’s AO3 (for completed stories) 4. readbyelementals.net (for completed podfic chapters) 5. The Work Feed (for elementals’ in-progress audio for all stories). Come, shed a manly tear with me in celebration of this feast of media before us.

- What do you mean stories being reworked? Well friend, you may remember way back when that CWR wrote stories in the Stargate universe (ha) called Force Over Distance, Mathématique, and Ad Noctum, aka the Multiverse Triptych. CWR has been revisiting them and re-writing them. For what purpose you ask? Only time will tell (but I have my theories 😈). FOD is done and has been posted to AO3, and Maths and AdNo are getting reworked and presumably, eventually, (hopefully, prayerfully) finished.

- There is a sequel to Designations Congruent with Things, CWR’s Pacific Rim Fic (😭), released in early 2021. It’s called Aftermath. It will melt your face off. Go read it immediately.

- The Work Feed is elementals’ RSS feed of in-progress audio drafts for various chapters of the Multiverse Triptych, so you can listen to chapters before they’re nailed down into final versions. It’s pure delight, go listen to elementals giggle up a storm and/or burst out laughing in the middle of reading, I promise you it is a trip. 🥹 I’ve reblogged a link to the feed, but it’s also available on the blogspot in the latest updates post.

- Elementals has posted 2 new chapters of the podfic for DCWT, ch 20 and 21!! 😭😭🥺😭😭

- a few small bits and bobs have been saved to the archive, but all new/reworked chapters from the blogspot have not- you’ll have to get them straight from the source :)

CWR.net has copies of all the original versions of these stories, but just in case I’m still maintaining my hoard of CWR media. This includes both the originals as well as some fun extras:

-Fic: 

Circuit (OG first chapter of the whole Triptych)

Force Over Distance (Triptych part 1 - start here)

Beyond Perception (bonus chapter 51 ½ of FoD, written by elementals!)

Raptor (FoD side quest)

Mathématique (Triptych the second - can be read before or after Ad Noctum)

Ad Noctum (Triptych the third - see above)

Extras (primarily one-shots and meta from the Multiverse Triptych)

Designations Congruent with Things (the Pacific Rim Fic)

Aftermath (half prequel all Sequel to DCwT)

Out of Many Scattered Things (DCwT prequel one-shots)

Extras (DCwT one-shots salvaged from CWR’s old tumblr)

-Audio: full resolution, from Elementals’ mouth to your lucky ears.

Force Over Distance

Beyond Perception

Raptor

Designations Congruent with Things

The Blue Guitar

Lightcap as List

Like the Twist of a Plot

- Existing discography of the Superconducting Supercolliders, Newt Geiszler’s fictional band turned real. Albums:

Superconduction

Supercollision

Dreaming Correctly

Supercos Unplugged

Extras

Supercos Discography, including Chords and Lyrics

(a note about Supercos - please do not contact the original musicians!)

- Fan Works: This was always the raddest part for me, though I suck at maintaining this section more than any other. If you have engaged with CWR’s work in any way- drawings, covers, mixes, you name it! - I would love to host a copy here, just send it my way. If your work is here and you want it taken down, just shoot me a message I’ll get on it ASAP.

Art

Fanmixes

Covers (audio + video)

Various and sundry

As always, let me know if something isn’t working link-wise, or if you have something to add!

FREE ART PROGRAMS I USE AND RECOMMEND

MEDIBANG PAINT PRO

FIREALPACA (the lightweight version of the above and really good for a slow computer)

GIMP (I use this primarily for editing purposes not drawing).

KRITA

WHERE I GET MY SUPPLIES:

JETPENS Check it out!!! 

Jerry’s Artarama

Dick Blick

REFERENCE  FOR DRAWING PRACTICE

jademacalla

null-entity

senshistock

posemaniacs

DIGITAL ART STUFF

Palette Generator

Color Blender

CHARACTER DESIGN STUFF?

Comparing Heights

Great get online and go to a job board. Indeed, Linkedin whatever. Now you're gonna search for a role that's in your city, fits your qualifications, and doesn't seem like a bad time.

See that easy apply button? Don't hit it they just throw those in the trash. Now you're gonna want to go to the company's website and check their careers page.

Oh? That job doesn't exist anymore. Cool go back to the job board and find another one.

Great you found another job, you're on the company's career page and the job exists!! So you're going to need to make an account on the career page website. They're using Workday, the same site as the last job you applied for? Who cares? You need to make another account for THIS job's workday page.

Now you're going to upload your resume. That'll autopopulate about 15 boxes with everything on your resume, except formatted wrong and with tons of errors. So just go through and painstakingly check the dates on all of that and rewrite everything you already laid out in an aesthetically pleasing format on your resume.

Ok time for the cover letter, explain why this specific job and company are deeply important to you. You love their mission statement and wouldn't even laugh if their ceo was gunned down in the street. You'll really want to reiterate the things you just spent the last 20 minutes filling out on the resume section

(Remember to include language from the job description, people who work in HR are lower than dogs and they need patterns or they get confused.) Write about a page, but hey don't sound too desperate or robotic this is where they judge your character!

Maybe add your portfolio site at the end here, who knows if that helps no one has ever clicked mine haha.

Anywayyy time to hit apply! Congrats! You'll see that confirmation email come in and you should be getting the rejection letter in about 2 weeks. Unfortunately your resume didn't have the right buzzwords and the AI auto rejected you :(

Listen very closely

The above is exactly why half of my friends come to me, and cry they're suffering, and I get to bestow my job hunting knowledge on them. I love this shit, it's a game.

For credentials my fastest job hunting time has been 1 week. I searched for 1 week, got an interview, and was hired within a week. My slowest was 1 month, while out of work, while telling ALL my interviewers that I quit my work without notice (I was testing my interviewers to see how shocked they'd get when I'd tell them why, anyone who wasn't shocked I would tell them at the end that I will keep them in mind (not)). My entire average is 2-3 weeks.

Firstly, what you're gunna do is pick a job sector. You're gunna pick a few of these by the end, but for now pick one. Maybe you wanna do bookkeeping, maybe you wanna do something in doggy daycare. Maybe you're a sous chef. Idk! Figure out what abouts you want first. Do not apply to anything yet. You're gunna look at the job description, I've picked out a few for bookkeepers below.

Now what you're gunna do is you're gunna look for "buzz words", or rather words that are gunna appear commonly and indicate the tone for that job. I've highlighted some, but not all in my examples below

Just look at that snout at how similar those descriptions are!

Now that you've got your buzzwords, you're gunna slap those babies into your resume! You see, since your resume is usually read by a computer first, you're gunna trick the computer into giving it to a person. Really what the computer is scanning for is how similar your resume is to the job description. Remember your bullet points, and to keep it short, try to only have 3 to 5 bullet points per job:

- Processed over 500 invoices a day in an efficient and accurate manner

- Curated reports for management review by utilizing available data

- Monitored and recorded over 100 submissions each day increasing accuracy by 50%

These are some great, made up examples I pulled from those buzz words. You might notice I added some numbers into there. That's something you'll wanna try and note for yourself, how much of something you can do, how accurate, how much efficiency you increased, these look GREAT when your resume gets past the computer and is moved in front of a real person.

Now you have your sector-based resume with lots of buzzwords. This is great! Now for the easy part. You're gunna channel your inner "IDGAF" And you're gunna send that to every listing you like on indeed. Filter for "Apply on Indeed" and spam that shit. Sometimes you gotta answer a few extra questions, but if they give me more than 5 quick questions I trash the submission and move on.

Don't waste your time jumping through hoops, streamline it for yourself and use the same methods companies are using. Push MASSIVE amounts of average quality resumes out. The more opportunities taken = the greater the chance of success. For every opportunity taken you've now pitched a chance of success, for every resume you cannot submit because you're piddling around on their stupid website or answering 50 interview questions online, you send out a 0% chance of success.

So go, try this, and see how it works for you.

Some additional things to consider:

- Add random shit in your resume, I added my "Board Game Club" (BDSM group) into my resume for hobbies and discussed how I got my start using sparklines there

- Never underestimate the flair of a little Clipart fleur-de-lis or something on your resume. Never put colored Clipart, but a little floral or swirl design located somewhere nice makes it stand out

- if you don't have a degree that doesn't mean they won't pick you, twice now I've come to a job without a bachelors and being honest that I was only getting an associates before I think of my next steps

- Embellish, do not lie. Jargoning your job description to make it sound cool and professional is GREAT. Do not give me a resume saying you can use CNC machinery when you've only used a 3D printer. Just tell me you know how to program and manage a 3d printer and want to learn CNC machinery.

- Keep. Your. Resume. To. Two. Or. Less. Pages. You don't need EVERY job, only the relevant ones, if your interviewer asks about the gap, tell them what job you had during that time (or if you wanna lie say you were taking college courses and were on a break, you dont need a degree to say you took courses) and that you only wanted to showcase the most relevant ones

Look at the job description.

Identify what they want examples of like "ability to multitask" or "can work across teams to achieve success" or "can work on a budget".

Pick three.

Write this:

IF YOU CAN FIND THE NAME OF A HIRING PERSON: Dear [Name]

IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE NAME OF A HIRING PERSON: Fuck the usual salutation and just roll directly into "I was very excited when I saw this job application. I feel I am a great fit for this role."

Now, look at the three things you chose from their list of what they want. Write a paragraph like this.

I am an adept multitakser who routinely handles several projects/deadlines/needs (whatever). In my current position I [multitask example]. In my previous work, I [second example].

SECOND PARAGRAPH SAME AS THE FIRST DIFFERENT THING THEY WANT BUT NOT ANY WORSE:

In my current position, I work with multiple teams daily, including [name any team you have waved hello to in the hall] and through my work we have [list an accomplishment that required multiple teams].

THIRD PARAGRAPH HERE WE GO AGAIN:

Staying in budget is something I am very familiar with. When I worked on [team], my contributions [list] not only brought the project in on time but under budget by [number]. I have also brought in other projects under budget [examples].

AND NOW THE FINALE:

Thank you for your time in reviewing my cover letter and resume. I look forward to discussing my qualifications and interest in the role with you at length. I can reached at [phone number] and [email].

Sincerely,

[NAME]

And remember, any question that is looking for a negative story ("Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker") should ALWAYS be presented by you as "I do have a story for that, and I'm pleased with how I handled it." and then you focus on the all the positives in that situation. So, state what the problem was, and then how you fixed it, and then how fixing it improved your working experience. For example:

"Well, I worked with a man named Bob, and he never answered any emails he got after 3:00 PM, so if I had a question after 3, I'd start a draft email and just add to it if i had further questions. And then I'd schedule it to send at the top of his workday. He started earlier than me, and I'd usually come in to a reply from him with the answers I needed when I first sat down for the day. I actually had another co-worker who was having trouble getting Bob to answer questions, and I said, "Oh, are you sending them after 3?" and when she said yes, I shared my own process so it was easier for her to get information, too."

Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Millions Knives/Vash the Stampede (Trigun) Characters: Vash the Stampede (Trigun), Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Millions Knives (Trigun), Elendira the Crimsonnail (Trigun) Additional Tags: plantcest, Incest, Dubious Consent, Xeno, Breeding Kink, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Unhealthy Relationships, Consensual But Complicated, Psychological Horror, canon-typical trauma, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Transmasculine Vash, Trans Male Character, Xeno Pregnancy, Nai’s (arguably canonical) breeding kink, Sorry Wolfwood, Overstimulation, Forced Orgasms, No Lube, Lube eventually, Rough Sex, First Time, Knives’ (canonical) atticwife ploy, Aphrodisiacs, Sex Pollen, Fertility Issues, background Vashwood - Freeform, Meryl Cameo, Milly cameo, Sibling Incest, Accidental Voyeurism, Legato’s (canonical) cuntiness Summary:

Millions Knives wants a paradise full of independent plants. Vash the Stampede suggests an alternate means to get them. It’s one of the easiest compromises he’s ever made.

When push comes to shove, Dean is a nerd. Deep down. As deep down as he can stand, sometimes. Which is why when Sam finds the flyer, Dean groans about how hard it is to find someone, and if he has to use a blind dating program, it might as well be an interesting one, right?

(Sam naturally points out that Dean can meet women anywhere, but fortunately, Dean is nowhere near as closeted about his bisexuality as he is about his nerd tendencies. Once Dean lectures Sam about the relative dearth of available men who are both A. willing to date a bi man and 2. intelligent enough to actually want to shill out for educational time travel, Sam sees the sense in Dean using Blind Calendar Dates as screening platform. Or at least Sam pretends to, and that’s good enough for Dean.)

And so Dean gets extra super vaccinated. He sits through the orientation classes with wide eyes. He takes notes on the safety tech to prevent the spread of their own germs into the environment, and he pays absolute attention to the surreal-yet-real elements he’d never known about the Wild West. 

Roller rinks had been a thing. 

Actual, honest-to-god, roller rinks. No rollerblades yet, no, but the same kind of two-by-two wheel configuration with the giant rubber brake on the front that Dean had strapped on during a couple school field trips to the Re-Creation Recreation Center. 

Also? A lot of cowboys? Really fucking gay. Enough that as long as Dean keeps it middle-school levels of attention, they shouldn’t attract any hassle, but for all the rest of the people in his unit keep checking each other out, Dean barely even cares about getting a date.

He’s so fucking excited, and that’s even without getting a horse. 

(EXPLICIT)

Weeks of tracking.

Long nights of prep, long days of confirming hunches.

All leading up to this.

Shoulder against the outside of the door frame, Dean looks to Sam. Salt? he mouths.

The lines are in place, long loops of cable emptied of wire and filled with salt, easily wound back up and easily wrapped around even a building of this size. The wind won’t blow it away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t double and triple check the doors and windows.

Sam nods back.

Dean holds up three fingers.

Sam does the same.

They count down together, silently. On three, Dean kicks the door in and takes the lead, gun in hand, a devil’s trap etched into every bullet. Sam follows close behind, flashlight in one hand, enchanted knife in the other.

“Clear!” Dean declares, drawing a salt line across the threshold into the offices themselves. Sam takes over the unoccupied receptionist’s desk, quickly hijacking the PA system to blare exorcisms all through the building.

They move quickly, efficiently, and encounter no resistance.

Something is wrong.

They keep going, checking, clearing.

Finding nothing.

All the way into the building, up the stairwell, blocking off every level on their way up. Any demon trying to exit inside a host body will have to head out the fire escape, and there’s already a devil’s trap spray painted all the way beneath to keep them there.

They get all the way up, because these sons of bitches are always self-important, always at the very top. Dean kicks open the door, more agitation than tactics, and he already knows what he’ll see even before Sam flicks the lights on.

“Sonuvabitch!” Dean shouts, kicking a waste basket. “That fucker!”

Behind him, Sam thunks his head against the door frame.

A pile of corpses cools on the office floor, all of their eyes burnt out.

Dean kicks another basket. “Motherfucking kill-steal!”

The first thing there is, is love. 

Before he opens his eyes, before he exhales the breath caught in his lungs, before even his first thought, there is love. 

It is warm, and deep, and careful. It’s full of restraint and worry, tinged by regret, and it is everything, everything he has ever known, in the half a second he has known anything. 

He opens his eyes, and there, in front of him, both hands delicately framing his face with a gentle touch, there is his lover. Literally, the one who loves him. 

As he opens his eyes and exhales, that floating cloud of affection withdraws, pulling away from him at the same time his lover’s hands fall from his skin. He immediately wants it back, but the sight of his own hands when he reaches catches him off-guard. 

“Dean?” his lover asks, kneeling on the floor in front of his chair. A wooden chair at a long wooden table. 

He looks around the room, and there are two more men in addition to his lover, as well as one woman. One man is more of a boy, and the other man is immensely tall. Neither respond to the name. All three watch him with silent trepidation.

He looks back to his lover and points to himself, admittedly embarrassed. “I’m Dean?”

Immense sorrow crosses his lover’s face. It’s immediately smoothed away, and yet still obvious in his blue eyes. “Yes. You’re Dean. Dean Winchester.”

“Oh,” says Dean. 

(GRAPHIC ANIMAL DISTRESS)

Dean’s done a lot of stupid shit in his life. 

Hell, going West in the first place was a pile of stupid in response to a mountain of stupid. There’s certain things you can’t recover from out on the east coast, and Dean had duly fled to a far more lawless territory, Sam mercifully in tow. 

Dean’s done a lot of shit he regrets too. 

Some of that mountain of stupid, for example. Some of the illegal parts, though not all. The crimes committed in the aftermath of the crimes he’d actually meant to commit. The men killed when they’d come to kill him over the deaths of men he’d set out to murder. People he’d thought he could trust, or love. 

But of all the stupid, of all the regrettable, this is it. 

The big one. 

The haunting of his soul.

The hole in his goddamn heart. 

“I’ll do it,” Sam volunteers, shouting over the horse’s screams. He dismounts and draws his pistol. 

Limping, tears blinding him worse than the dust or the sun in his eyes, Dean gets himself in between. “No,” he chokes out. “You can’t.”

“Dean,” Sam says, sagging with the weight of a decision already made. He doesn’t point the pistol at Dean, nor at Baby behind him, but Baby’s thrashing and cries makes Sam’s point for him. 

“Don’t,” Dean insists, backing up, crouching down. There’s no chance of his girl rolling over, no threat of her flailing hooves reaching him on this side. He touches her neck as she whips her head against the dirt, bellowing in pain. “Sam, c’mon, we can’t…”

“No vet can fix this,” Sam tells him needlessly.

“I know that!” Dean shouts, rubbing at his eyes with a dusty sleeve, only making the sting worse. “So we gotta… we gotta…”

Dean coughs. And it is a cough, not a sob. 

Maybe he thinks. Maybe he panics. 

Either way, he looks up at Sam and says, “I need you to call in a favor for me.”

Sam frowns and asks, “Who?”

Dean tells him. 

“That’s crazy,” Sam says. 

“Get him,” Dean says, not listening, unable to listen to anything other than Baby’s distress. “Bring him. If he can’t help, then…” His eyes fall to Sam’s pistol, the pearl-gripped twin of his own. 

Sam nods, mounts his horse, and rides away. 

Singing still feels like a girly habit, for all Dean belongs to the city’s Gay Choir. Not that Dean’s gay, he’s bi, but “Choir Of Dudes* Who Like Dudes* (And Possibly Others) (*dude here meant to indicate anyone who answers yes at least 51% of the time to the question “do you identify as a man?”)” is a long title. 

So they just call it the Gay Choir for short.

The point is, Dean’s getting better at singing, and he’s getting better about letting himself do it too. Country songs and his dad’s favorites have always been fair game, but maybe someday, maybe, Dean will actually let himself admit he knows some Taylor Swift lyrics. 

They do a lot more than just pop songs, though. Dean’s had to pick up some Spanish, some Italian, even one song with some Japanese in it, and learning foreign language songs by ear is always a special kind of hell. This month’s special hell is an extremely ironic type of hell: it’s Enochian, a language not even made for human throats. The song’s written out phonetically under the music, and they don’t even have a translation, only the general theme.

Dean does his level best to practice despite it all. He sings in the car. He sings in the shower. One late evening, daring himself to keep pushing his own boundaries, he sings it on the apartment rooftop. (He makes sure absolutely no one else is up there on the lounge chairs or among the potted plants that make up their community garden, but he does sing aloud in a place that’s technically outside.)

The Gay Choir’s performance gets closer and closer, and while the lot of them are definitely improving on the melody part, Dean’s still coming up blank when it comes to checking whether they’re pronouncing anything correctly. 

With only a week to go, Dean swallows his pride, holds down tight on his nerves, and texts Cas to come over. 

(tagged, ‘let’s stop making Sci have botfeels 2019)

“I’m sorry.”

DJ’s fingers brushed against the screen, lingering there against the line of text.  ‘My battery is low and it’s getting dark.’

But when he looked over at Tony, he was smiling.  “I’m not,” he said.  

Tony nodded.  “Wasn’t sure.  I mean-” He gestured at the mission logs, feeling inadequate.  “That’s it.  That’s the end.”

DJ nodded.  “Yes.”

Tony waited, but nothing else was forthcoming.  He took a deep breath.   “Do you want to-”  He shrugged.  “Talk about it?”

DJ thought about that, his head tipped to the side.  Finally, he said, “I think you do.”

“No, not really,” Tony said.  DJ just sat there, his expression quizzical. “It’s okay.  I just, I thought…”  Tony picked up a wrench, and put it down again.  “I thought, you know, it’s another bot, and I thought you might be-”  He wrestled with his thoughts trying to figure out how to say this without upsetting DJ.  “Unhappy.”

DJ blinked, slow and careful.  “Why?”

Tony paused.  “Because.  Because it’s another bot, and she-”  He stopped.  “It?  Because Opportunity was alone, and now she’s…”

His voice trailed away, and DJ smiled.  “Wasn’t alone,” he said at last.  “She could hear us, you know.  Could speak to us.”  He looked back at the screen, the angle of his cheek catching the light.  His eyes were bright.  “She knew we were there.  Waiting.  Listening.  Otherwise-”  His hand came up again, fingertips tracing over the lines of text, command and response, status updates and data overflow, until they trailed away into questions for which there was no reply.

“Otherwise,” he said, “she wouldn’t have been speaking.”  His head swung back to Tony.  “Would she?”

“Would she?” Tony asked.

DJ considered that, one foot twitching against the leg of his stool.  “Why do we tell stories?” he asked at last.  “To be heard?  Or because we need to tell?”

“It’s nice to be heard,” Tony said with a lopsided smile.

“Yes.  But we-” DJ gestured at his own head.  “Humans.  Make things in their heads.  All the time.  Don’t they?  Stories, for stories sake?  Thoughts, for thoughts sake?  No reason?  No audience.  Just-” He smiled, bright and brilliant.  “Because that is, what humans do.

“And that’s what Opportunity did.  She went where we sent her, and she told a story only she could tell.  She showed us things, she did things, she whispered, all this way, all this, this-” The words were stumbling over themselves now, tripping and falling off of his tongue.  “She wasn’t alone.  When you call me, when you’re somewhere else, somewhere far, and you call me, I’m not alone, am I?  As long as I can hear your voice, I know you’re there.”

He pulled up files, one after another.  Photos.  Analysis.  Images.  Maps.  “Phone.  Text.  Email.  Internet, all of it-” He leaned back on his stool.  “There was no one there, but everyone was there, everyone who heard, everyone who listened, everyone who waited.  She was not alone.  We were listening.  We heard.

“And we spoke back to her.  Maybe she didn’t hear.  Maybe she did.  But maybe-” He looked at Tony.  “Enough battery to hear, but not to respond.  Maybe, as her battery ran down, as the cold set in, she heard us calling.  She heard.  She knew.  We were there.

“None of us are alone.  Voices reach farther now.  Than they ever have.”

Tony nodded.  “Wanna build a spaceship?” he asked at last, and his throat hurt, his chest hurt.

“Yes.” DJ smiled at him.  “Someday, someone will go there.  Maybe us.  Maybe someone from-”  He shook his head.  “Somewhere else.  From outside.  Coming here.  And whoever goes there, whoever looks, they’ll find her.   She’s a monument, now.  She’s proof.  That we can do amazing things, when we try.  When we work together.  When we dream and work and-”

He blinked, and there were tears in his eyes.  “On another world, there stands a monument now.  A good one.  To exploration.  To bravery.  To everything we want to be.”

His hands flew in the air.  “Look how far we made it!” he yelled, his head tipped back.  “Look how far SHE made it!  Blazing a trail, and someone, someone someday WILL follow.”

He grinned, and a tear ran down his cheek.  “And, and, people are writing her goodbye letters.  And making art, thanking her, and her team, and seeing.  Learning all she did, and all she accomplished, and dreaming of what’s next, because she could do it, and so can we.  So she’s a monument to that, too, to how deeply, how easily-”

He stopped, scrubbing at his face with the heels of his hands.  The words, when they came, were muffled behind his fingers.  “We love things.”

Tony wrapped his arms around DJ, holding him tight.  “It’s not one of the smartest things our brains like to do, is it?” he asked, just to hear DJ laugh against his shoulder.  “This making friends with things that will leave us.  Will…  Die.”

“They told her, she’d live for ninety days,” DJ whispered.  “They gave her three months to do everything she could.”  His head tipped up.  “And she proved us wrong, didn’t she?”  He grinned, and tears ran down both cheeks.  “She did more.  Than they ever thought she could.”

“Fifteen years,” Tony agreed.

“Fifteen years,” DJ said.  “And work.  That will last forever.”

Tony leaned over, pressing a kiss to the top of DJ’s head.  “Still building a spaceship.”

“A narcissus?” says Spring. “Yes, yes! And the jonquils and the daffodils and the daffadowndillies too! All the trumpeting flowers blooming lovely by the lakeside, only to wilt in Summer’s heat, to die in Autumn, buried beneath your frost!”

Winter groans. “Oh, forget it.”

Summer sits back, expansive, beaming with a sweltering sky. Autumn hums, heavy with the rustling of the leaves.

“Now, now,” says Summer indulgently. “Think about this. You’re not making any sense. I may supplant you, true, if we’re going to be antagonistic about this, but by the time Autumn comes around, the world is well in my domain! I should be the one offended, if anything! And by the time Winter comes around, well, your reign is two seasons removed by then!” Summer puts hands on knees, teeth gleaming like the sun. “What could the two of them have ever done to you?”

“Oh, there’s no point in it,” says Autumn kindly. “You’re arguing with a child. It’s a fruitless endeavor. A starting bud, a first timid bloom, and then they pass off all the work of fullness onto someone else, and then have the cheek to act persecuted by it.” Autumn waves a wrinkled hand. “Let them have their childish fantasies.”

“Am I not to be pitied, then, usurped by an upstart Spring?” says Winter. “My frozen majesties, the respite of the just, interrupted by yet another cycle of rebirth?”

“But I am birth,” says Spring, looking up at them, eyes wide. “I am youth. And everything in the world is out to kill me.”

Summer furrows a sun-tanned brow. Autumn ponders. Winter frowns.

“Hum, that’s a good point,” Summer says.

“I am the seed,” says Spring, timidly. “I am the first flowers blooming. And I wanted to be young and gay and full of promise forever.” 

The seasons exchange glances between each other.

“But you grow,” Summer says at last. “Sweating and fervent and vigorous, the air you breathe deep-laden and humid with possibilities. You kick up sea spray in your wake, droplets flashing in the sun, the world a cloudless blue and larger than you can imagine it. You run,” Summer says, eyes distant and shimmering, “until the air itself is oppressive in its heat and you lie panting in the shade, sweat stinging your eyes, praying for the fever of your fertile youth to break, for your life to achieve its fullness.”

“And then you reap the harvest,” says Autumn, easing in. “Seeing the leaves, with all their industry, retire in orange and gold and auburn in their twilight months, with nothing left to do but to be beautiful. You witness the world in all its ripeness, live to see your table lade heavy with bounty. You gather your loved ones close, and you feast. Knowing,” Autumn says, eyes closed, “that the trees will soon be black and bare and that the rot hides behind the ripeness, and that of all that you have wrought, none of it can last forever.”

Winter smiles, face as untroubled as the frozen surface of a lake. “And then you feel the chill cut into your bones, bundle tight against the cold. You look behind to see your footprints fading behind you in the snow. You see the world blanketed in whiteness, you burrow deeper and deeper into the earth. You rest,” Winter says, eyes clear and sparkling. “Finally, you rest.”

“And then you have killed me,” murmurs Spring. “All three of you. The little flowering bud not knowing what you were and not caring, content to have simply awoken and tasted the air, to have seen the sun and known joy in it. The child that you were. Killed again, and again, and again.”

“True,” says Summer, rubbing a sunburned neck.

“True,” says Autumn. “But all things must end in time.”

one of many iconic lines lifted straight from the book :)

“Eleanor looked up, surprised; the little girl was sliding back in her chair, sullenly refusing her milk, while her father frowned and her brother giggled and her mother said calmly, ‘She wants her cup of stars.’

Indeed yes, Eleanor thought; indeed, so do I; a cup of stars, of course.

‘Her little cup,’ the mother was explaining, smiling apologetically at the waitress, who was thunderstruck at the thought that the mill’s good country milk was not rich enough for the little girl. ‘It has stars in the bottom, and she always drinks her milk from it at home. She calls it her cup of stars because she can see the stars while she drinks her milk.’ The waitress nodded, unconvinced, and the mother told the little girl, 'You’ll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?’

YO SO FUN FACT: @executeness BOUGHT ME THE REST OF BOOKS 2-5, I’M GONNA GET THEM THE START OF NEXT WEEK OR SO, STAY TUNED FOR THE #FEELINGS.  (I usually try to hoard my emotions until I have the whole picture, at which point I can sic my full knowledge of the thing on the issue.)  For the moment, some Rachel-centric Rachel/Tobias headcanons for this headcanon meme!

HeadcanonI know I’ve talked about this before, bUT.

Rachel and Tobias do homework together sometimes.  Her homework, obviously. This is how Tobias knows things like geometry, and how Rachel knows things like obscure factotum about sci fi novels.  Rachel has stellar grades but has trouble with homework, because she can’t stand sitting still, and honestly it really fucking helps to have a hawk idly peering at her notes on Romeo and Juliet and making suggestions for the subject of her essay.  He keeps her focused when he can, and when he can’t, when she’s so frustrated and frantic that it burns under her skin like fire ants, she can jump to her feet and morph and fly away with him.

Usually, she’s figured out how to do the assignment by the time she comes home.

HeartcanonSo, uh, first off: Rachel is the first person Tobias tells about Elfangor, this is just facts.

Second off, Rachel harbors a secret love for Xena and all related B-movie-level action-girl content that frankly she would die rather than admit to Marco.  Cassie knows, because Cassie knows everything about her.  Tobias, however, Tobias she tells, because he’s quiet and lonely for those first awful months, and they’re flying together, trying to identify a Yeerk pool entrance on the south side of town because there’s a teaching seminar at school and this is what having a day off means for Rachel now.  Tobias puts up a good front, Rachel will give him that, he tells her about how he’s been narrowing things down and makes a few jokes about sending Ax in on reconnaissance, since there’s no food court to distract him, but…he just seems lonely.

Rachel says abruptly, cutting him off, and Tobias circles closer above her, using the motion to glance down at her without getting too close. 

he says, seeming taken aback. 

Rachel says. 

Tobias says, and there’s something bright and uncomplicated in his voice, and Rachel tries not to think about how having nothing to do for even just five minutes feels like being skinned alive, and about how Tobias has nothing to do for days and days on end, all the time. 

she warns, and he laughs, still sounding surprised and happy in her head, and circles again, dipping toward her like an aerial nod.  Rachel says. 

Tobias says.  She can hear the smile in his voice, even though his face can’t show it anymore.