SingleCent

When Ilya moves to the Centaurs he doesn’t get to keep his number. Some old fuck on the team already has it and refuses to trade, no matter how much Ilya bribes him.

so, in true Ilya Rozanov fashion, he picks the number 24. People think he did it to be an asshole, which is true, but he also did it to have Shane with him all the time. Shane was both infuriated and touched by it.

but then of course, years later, SHANE transfers to Ottawa. And lo and behold, the old fuck who had number 81 retired, so when Shane has to choose a number?

81 is available.

so the first day of training, Shane walks into practice in a jersey that says Hollander, 81, with an absolutely shit-eating grin on his face.

One day Colt announces he’s bringing his brother to set, and Tom’s being being annoying about it. Bragging how Colt’s brother will be to busy being starstruck over him to watch Colt do stunts. The rest of the crew are kinda just going along and jokingly asking Colt if he’s sure his brother can handle being around such big movie stars.

-🚀💥-

Ryland Grace is 17 years old when his baby brother is born. He instantly becomes a great big brother, playing with and taking care of him in his spare time, despite soon after becoming busy with college. When Colt is 8, their parents have an accident and end up dying. And so, Ryland takes his little brother in. He promises Colt he'll never leave him. Unfortunately, he isn't allowed to keep that promise. Colt is swept up in the foster care system, where he fairly quickly gets adopted by the Seavers (distant family of Eva Stratt, she pulled strings to ensure his safety as soon as she had a spare moment)

Ages when Ryland is sent to space:

Ryland: 28

Colt: 11

Years between on earth: 25 ½

Years between in space: 8 ½ (4 traveling to Tau Ceti, six months solving the astrophage problem, 4 traveling back)(due to time dilation the travel time is condensed basically, it's complicated and I don't fully understand how and why it works. Like I kinda do, but also not)

Very important note: there was NO Taumoeba leakage. Rocky is fine (just missing his bestie) and so is Erid

(Ryland sends the beetles ahead of the Hail Mary to ensure earth is saved as soon as possible. The beetles are able to travel at twice the speed as the Hail Mary due to their size and lack of passengers. Thus, Colt is 31 when the beetles arrive, the sun begins to heal, and Ryland Grace is hailed as the Sol Savior of the world. The beetles arriving and the sun starting to restore also means the film industry picks up a bit more at this point, though it was still going during the astrophage crisis due to the human need for escapism and entertainment.)

Ages when Ryland comes back:

Ryland: 37 (due to the time dilation)

Colt: 37

It would be so interesting to see Ryland and Colt navigating their brotherly relationship together. Ryland never got to see Colt grow up, in fact the last time they saw each other Ryland was Colt's guardian, and now they're equals. So that's gonna cause friction

He remembers fear. Remembers that it hurt, but not the pain. Remembers confusion and disorientation and flickers of things - lights, a body-like shape somewhere near him, a unspecified pressure on his skin - but not events.

He remembers wanting to go home and an ache in his chest and a fear so horrific he wanted to throw up even when he knew he wouldnt. He remembers his eyes unfocusing and the hum of voices near him. He remembers that events repeated and repeated and repeated until he doesn't know when it started or ended.

But he doesn't remember those events.

He doesn't remember how he was held down. Doesn't remember restraints snapping into place or a light being shone in his eyes to check if he's conscious. He doesn’t remember the bite of a needle or the process of programming.

All he remembers is flashes of fear and pressure and temperature, and an ache for a place (or was it a person?) -shaped hole in his heart.

And somehow, that's worse than the rest of it.

The fact he doesn't remember.

(What - who? - made him forget? Why doesn't he remember that either? Wouldn't that be... worth it, to remember?

...wouldn't it?)

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

WAIT YALL KNOW THAT MEME OF THE POST-ITS ON THAT GUYS CAR DASH THAT SAYS "don't text her" That's Ryder. His thoughts on that are: If I text him I lose the idgaf war. Which will eat his pride and we know how he is about that.

EDIT: I FOUND IT

Ryder's car real:

Tim: liar.

Tim: I didn’t play with Barbie dolls.

Tim: it was either Bratz dolls or My Scene.

Jason turning to look at Dick who’s recording what they thought would be an embarrassing moment like he’s in the office.

Imagine.......When Dick is Robin, he gets into a fight with a group of gangsters, and a civilian gets injured. Panicking, Dick runs into the nearest convenience store, looking for something to clean the wound with. Naturally, the workers are very confused as to why a little boy in a brightly coloured costume is attempting to buy a bottle of vodka. They eventually sell it to him on the grounds of "Batman would probably beat us into a pulp if we said no."

Over the years, this happens several more times, even continuing whenever there's a new Robin. Convenience store workers in Gotham have gotten so used to brightly coloured children coming in and purchasing alcohol that when a new person starts working at one of the stores, no one even thinks to explain what the hell is going on.

---

Store Manager: —and last but not least, remember to ask for an ID before selling alcohol to anyone who might be underage.

New Employee: understood.

Robin: *enters, in full costume and covered in blood. walks to the back on the store, before returning and placing a bottle of vodka on the counter with a thud*

Store Manager: *immediately begins ringing him up*

Store Manager, smiling: that'll be $20.

Robin: *hands over the money and leaves with his bottle of vodka*

New Employee: ...

New Employee: ......

New Employee: ........that was a child. That was a child in a Halloween costume. You just sold alcohol to a child in a Halloween costume.