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Follow me my friend

For the last week, a fragment of a song has tugged at Wanda's mind. Both familiar and foreign, she's looped it in her thoughts like tires spinning in mud, as if she might somehow jog something free if only revs hard enough. Sometimes, just as she's drifting to sleep, she imagines herself at the beginning of a road, the one the song tells her to find, but every time she tries to reach out further, she wakes.

In her waking hours, the song pokes at her, just out of reach like popcorn between her teeth. There's never enough melody to hum into her phone or enough words to plug into a search engine. In all the books of magic she's read, nothing quite catches fits. All the roads are metaphorical and voiceless. Even walking Darrow's ley line tells her nothing.

So, Wanda resigns herself to the annoyance. It's annoying but not troubling and she has other things to keep herself occupied. Over the last few months, she's been slowly building up both her courage and her online presence and, today, a stack of flyers. Beneath her name and the QR code for a simple website she's built, Wanda advertises herself as a "magic and witchcraft consultant." The title is silly and a little grandiose, but she thinks it captures the spirit of the help she wants to provide. There are certain adversaries and tribulations in Darrow that she can help with, not as an Avenger, but as a witch.

Since her return to Darrow, it's been so much easier to retreat to Pelagos Lighthouse, spending untold hours reading through the vast collection of magical texts left behind by Dr. Strange and its previous occupants. Ever since the meteor shower and talking to Sabrina, it's crystalized just how much she's been hiding, rather than learning. Wanda's abilities can help people and people can bring her out into the world again.

( Cut for length + erring on caution for MCU spoilers )

[[Wanda's item isn't a physical object. Instead, the Ballad of the Witches' Road has arrived to Darrow's airwaves to entice and confuse her. Other pups can hear the song too and can react to Wanda's confusion/shock/BSOD OR you can catch her earlier in the day, advertising her services as a witch for hire.

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유난히 긴 밤을 걷는 널 위해 부를게

Jae-eun has thought about this for a long time now, about getting a tattoo. Back home, it would have been another mark against him, would have made him look like a criminal, though not in the ways he is and not in the ways they already regarded him as being. That part doesn't bother him; he didn't belong in too many ways for one more to matter. It's more that they're expensive. They're expensive and he doesn't have a job and he worries about that. Sihyun never makes him feel like a burden — Jae-eun can do that perfectly well on his own — but the fact remains that he balks at spending that much on himself under his current circumstances.

( CW for mentions of self-harm. )

The process is a long one, and it does hurt at times. It feels good, too, though, and the physical part doesn't matter as much as the thrum of excited nerves as Ginny works, the buzz of the needle unexpectedly soothing. When it's done, he could swear his heart stops for a moment, relief seeping through him to the bone. He knows where the letters are, could still trace them if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. They're hidden now, tucked between flowers, vines, and leaves — some leaves that look like music notes, some vines that are also piano keys. He's not sure he'll ever be able to feel the same way about music, that he'll ever recover how easy it was a long, long time ago, but it's still a part of him, too. And this, this is beautiful, hope growing over despair. Ginny pretends she doesn't notice him getting teary-eyed as she goes over care instructions.

"It looks good," Sooyoung says, grinning. He's seated outside Bakery Bitna a few days later, and she's got her daughter on her hip. "You have to give me her number. I've been thinking of getting something done." When noona heads off with her baby to continue with her day, Jae-eun stays where he is, fingertips brushing over the fresh ink, his injeolmi and coffee half-forgotten. The feelings are, as always, complicated and sometimes contradictory, but the last few days, he's felt lighter, too.

[ Find Jae in the little Asian district in the Northwest of town. A good time to meet him or reconnect!! He's unlikely to go into any detail at all about what he covered up or how it got there or why. Open until this says otherwise. ]

AWS outage

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

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Two Soldiers Walk Into A Grand Opening

The hydrotherapy pool at the physical therapist’s was one of Daniel’s favorite places in the city, which was maybe a little strange, but it was also true. It was near the hospital in what Daniel thought of as the Medical District, which meant it was also close to their apartment, and it was usually open whenever the physical therapy practice was, which included Saturday mornings. The tub at his apartment was good, but this was larger and hotter, plus it had jets.

He was relaxing with his arms stretched out on the edge of the pool, breathing deeply and feeling the muscles in his lower back and hips slowly unwind from the spring they’d coiled themselves into over the course of the week. He glanced up when the door from the changing room opened, though. The man who came in was shorter, older, and had lighter brown curly hair that was threaded through with grey. He had a right below knee amputation that looked well-healed and he moved fluidly on his crutches. He dropped them on a bench nearby, then hopped over to the edge of the pool and carefully sat down. A wedding ring gleamed on his hand when he braced himself on the edge.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he said, and Daniel waved an arm in welcome. The man was covered in freckles and was obviously someone who went to the gym and liked it. Daniel was physically fit, but he wasn’t “built” as they called it now. This man was. He slipped into the pool and sighed a little, then closed his eyes. There wasn’t much conversation in the pool, usually, and Daniel was fine with that. He would talk if someone else did, but didn’t usually start it. After a few minutes, the other man did speak, though.

“The name’s Jack Abbot.”

“Daniel Sousa. Nice to meet another member of the club,” he said with a friendly nod, since his right leg or lack thereof was visible under the water and his own crutches were on another bench nearby.

“Not a club I ever wanted to have a membership to,” Abbot said wryly, and Daniel chuckled.

“Same, but no one asked me. Bastogne, 1944. US Army.”

Jack simply nodded. Daniel hadn’t seen him before, but he’d clearly been here long enough to know that people arrived from different places, times, and entire worlds.

“Me either. Afghanistan, 2003, also Army.”

Daniel had read about that. It had been a hell of a situation, with improvised mines everywhere and an opponent that wasn’t helpful enough to wear uniforms like the Wehrmacht had. They continued talking casually, and Daniel learned that Jack was a doctor in the emergency department at the hospital, worked nights, and he’d been a combat medic before he got hit. Since Daniel’s life had been saved by the quick actions of a medic when he’d been hit, he appreciated that and said so. Daniel, in turn, shared that he was a police detective and had been infantry.

By the time they both had to leave because the pool was closing, Daniel was pretty sure Abbot was going to be a friend. They’d watched the other to make sure there was no issue getting out of the pool, then chatted easily about their respective prostheses as they got themselves put back together again. Abbot had chuckled and shaken his head when Daniel mentioned that his first prosthetic was made of wood.

“Here’s my number if you ever want to get a drink and talk about the stupidest thing you ever saw a soldier do or the most idiotic order you ever got,” Daniel offered as they walked towards the exit. It was a business card for the precinct, but his personal number was written on the back. He kept a few of those in his card case. A doctor, especially one in the ER, might need a police detective’s business card at some point anyway, although he could hope not.

“You’re assuming they aren’t the same thing. Thanks, Sousa,” Abbot replied, since they’d fallen easily into the familiarity of using surnames.

Just outside the door, they walked into the grand opening of a “craft soda shop” named Fizzical Therapy. Daniel didn’t think it was run by the same people who ran the physical therapy practice, but maybe it was, since it was next door? It’d be quite the combination of businesses, if it was.

“Huh,” he said as he looked around at the balloons and people and … was that person wearing a giant inflatable soda glass costume?

“Never a dull moment around here," Abbot agreed.

[[As promised (threatened?), Fizzical Therapy has opened next to Darrow Physical Therapy. It's roughly at Parliament and O'Connell. There is a stereo system playing Let's get Fizzical (Thank you Angel), deals on drinks, and please feel free to invent the most ridiculous soda you can think of as a Opening Weekend Special. Gathering post because why not, so tag Jack, Daniel, both, or neither. Just let me know if you want both in the same thread.]]

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meme: test drive

MEME: Test Drive

October Test Drive is here!

Tag into this post with characters you're thinking of apping to the game (characters who are not currently in-game or currently reserved by someone else). It can be just a tag, a brief EP, whatever you want. You can be new to the game, or simply want to test out a fresh pup. Tag each other with these characters or those already in game, and have fun.