[ A sealed envelope is left on the doorstep of Vindicator Ohulan’s home, marked only with his title and name, in unfamiliar handwriting. The letter within, however, bears a more recognizable style—an elegant, tidy script that’s seen millennia of practice. ]
Ohulan,
First of all, please, don't destroy this letter. I know I'm the last person you want to hear from, but these are things I feel you need to know.
Secondly, I am not writing this letter to beg you for forgiveness. There's no point in doing so, because you don't owe me that.
The fact is that, over two years ago, I left you, without any kind of notice whatsoever. It wasn't the first time, either, and I recognize that's probably why it hurt so bad—there shouldn't have been a second time. But there was, of course, and I had my reasons, misguided and backwards as they may have been. Keep in mind that I'm not asking you to find them acceptable, but I do hope you'll understand at the very least.
None of it was intended to hurt you; that was the furthest thing on my mind, in spite of everything else I felt. I loved you just as much when I left as I had prior. But that's what made it hard to stay—I couldn't bear the thought of being a burden to you with how deeply I was grieving. In retrospect, all too late, I realized you'd have understood more than anyone—you'd lost your father and an eye as well. Our bond had the potential to strengthen with that kind of support.
But my mind didn't work that way at the time. Everything was too much and I felt like I was being crushed beneath it. Lurja's death. The loss of my eye. My inability to wield a bow. Being forced from my duty as Arbiter. Another failed attempt at leadership. My inability to be a good partner to you, a good sister to Rurik and Freiha, a good aunt to Isaala. Everyone had their own problems and I just couldn't be there for them.
An impotent, incompetent, irrelevant failure. That's all I could see myself as. So I had to get away from it all. The choices presented to me by my ailing mind were to run, or to end it all. One offered an opportunity at sorting myself out and returning, while the other promised finality and release from everything. And as incredibly tempting as the latter option was, I chose to run.
I don't know if it helps or hurts more for you to know that there wasn't a single day that went by while I was holed up in Pandaria that I didn't think of you, even during the darkest (and drunkest) of them. I wanted to come back. I regretted leaving. But every time I thought about coming home, the fear of facing the pain I'd caused held me back. I was a coward for all of it, and it's going to take a long time to forgive myself for it, which is why I don't expect you to do the same. It's asking far too much of someone who has already suffered deeply from my actions.
I understand if you still don't want to speak to me—or even if you still hate me—after this. That's your choice and your right. I only hope to help give you a measure of peace regarding this particular subject so that you can move on with some kind of closure and freedom from the burdens of the past. However, if you would like to salvage and mend any kind of amicable relationship, I'd be happy to work with you on that. You still mean a great deal to me, despite everything about this situation, and I doubt I'll be able to let go of it for some time. It's because of this that I wish for you to do well and be happy, even if I'm not part of that picture.
so i have a friend with medical anxiety and this sometimes turns into obsessive thoughts about getting rabies from a bat. he has a note on his phone to remind him he doesn't have rabies. i decided to upgrade this and i'm going to stitch them an embroidery hoop,
assigning the coffee bean gang (in my au where they start college in 2005) actual phones instead of vaguely describing random phones for 2004-2006 stuff
(also laptops) (unnecessarily in-depth)
considering i'm on 2007 now in terms of plot i prob should have done 2007 instead but peter's going to be using his (prepaid/for emergencies) Nokia until the heat death of the universe probably (or at least until it can no longer connect to networks) (unless... he IS getting a BS in engineering...) (no jk i'm sure the fantastic four will hook him up when they give him a suit in 2016) so that's really nbd.
peter's Nokia is obviously an affordable phone designed to be no-frills, durable, and also designed for use with prepaid cards apparently (at least according to wikipedia) so i figured that would fit. it's not the notoriously indestructible 3310 but it's close enough considering most of their phones, including this one, have a reputation for durability, so, also important for a man like peter lol
i picked flash's cause it looked cute and seemed affordable... Like yeah I can see a jocky little closeted queer in 2004 getting that... I just think it looks nice and i can see him using it for a bit. also cause i wanted him to have a flip phone.
MJ's is FLASHY and when i saw it i was like she HAS to have this—the cover is customizable too so it's like. okay. girl. yes. it seems like it comes in other colors, though it was unclear to me which were available in the US, but the white and blue seems like the most common/popular color option and also the other options were all either black/navy/boring or else... blue and red... and as funny as it would be to give MJ a spider-man colored phone i didn't want to do that XD though the white and blue gives me huge johnny storm/fantastic four vibes.
i didn't mean to give all the poor kids Nokias but it turns out that there were not a whole lot of companies making cellphones in the mid 2000s and nokia has a lot of entry-level/affordable phones lol
harry gets the high end sony phone: a fancy camera phone (k700) that he then replaces with that nifty-looking sony walkman swivel phone in the beginning of 2006. plus the white and orange color scheme suits him imo and he seems like he (and mj) would be the most hip to music.
i also didn't intend to give gwen and harry both the same brand of phone but when i saw the z500a i was like... that's JUST "what if gwen was turned into a phone" lmao like the round shapes... the blue color... there she is. and it seems reasonably priced but not cheapo which seems about right for gwen.
i also decided that in the end of 2005 Norman is either gifted (you know, like corporate networking gifts between CEOs) or buys himself a Samsung, Bang & Olufsen Serene phone, which is a very strange, square, business-oriented fashion phone indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serene_(phone)
also it's $1275 which. For a regular clamshell camera phone... IS insane. But it is form over function and he doesn't exactly use it for texting or photos. It's only for calls. Also it's European.
idk if it was ever available in the states but he's norman osborn, he can do whatever the fuck he wants
As far as computers, BOY it was HARD to figure out which laptops were available at what price points in the mid 2000s cause basically everything prior to 2006 on the wayback machine was just not archived all the way or redirected to errors 💀 i spent way too long trying to find a good laptop for flash than is reasonable for something that gets mentioned only every once in a while.
Peter doesn't have a laptop yet, I'm still figuring out when I want him to get one. He's taking some programming classes, but his focus is on materials science and shit like thermodynamics so honestly I think he can scrape by using the school computers and computer labs. I was thinking possibly 2010, especially since he actually has a job then (well, it's part time, but it's more stable than the Bugle stuff on its own) Peter's only source of money from 2005-2009 is like... student loans and Bugle freelance so I'm like, eh.
but for Flash I decided he would have an Acer Aspire, NOT because I have one, because I fucking hate this thing, but because it was the cheapest one I could find scouring the wayback machine mostly fruitlessly. Like. I THINK it's a <$700 laptop. but also. I'm really not sure.
so Flash's dad gets him a 15" Acer Aspire 3000 for his birthday a few months before the gang starts college, so that's the computer Peter is using half of freshman year since Flash lets him borrow it. It's ugly but that's not the point. My main goal for Flash's laptop was "cheap as fuck" cause it may be a birthday present but there's no way his dad paid out the ass for a laptop for his idiot son
Gwen gets a 12" Apple iBook G4 (late 2004). So it's just like. white. The compact size and stuff seems like it would suit her, though the internet says the ibooks had a lot of... problems. I considered giving her a more sciencey laptop but this was a christmas present she got in senior year of high school and her original plan IS a nursing degree so I figure she would just use whatever mid-to-high end computer and she just seems like an apple girlie to me
this was, by the way, apparently Apple's "budget" laptop. But the thing about budget laptops in 2005 was that apparently they were all still $1000. lmao, sorry, "$999."
anyway
Harry gets something EXPENSIVE. And I know what you're thinking—he's a macbook boy right? Well, no, because those didn't exist in 2005. And he's got this GOAL right? He wants to impress his dad, he wants to be Smart like Gwen and Peter, he wants to be the STEM Student with a STEM Student Computer.
So Harry gets a 14" IBM ThinkPad T43.
Which also happened to cost over $2000.
I know that's like, well shouldn't PETER, the ENGINEERING student have that but Peter is poor. Peter is not buying a $2000+ business laptop with a *checks notes* built-in fingerprint reader.
Later on after macbooks are invented (in 2006) and harry is out of college (in 2009) he's definitely going to be the type of person who owns a macbook, and when they introduce rose gold (in 2016) you know he'll be all over that. the ThinkPad is just not very stylish or his speed at all. he's an artist at heart being pushed into a STEM box.
Also at home, he DOES have an iMac. Specifically a PowerMac G5.
Why did I pick that one? Simple: it was the most expensive one i could see on apple's website in the wayback machine.
god apple keyboards are so fucking tiny.
MJ also doesn't have a laptop for similar reasons as Peter (they're fucking expensive and she's poor) but I'm considering giving her one of those compact mini computers in 2006, like, oh you have two phones? No it's actually a PSP—sorry I mean a pocket computer based on PSP technology lmao
talkin about the Sony Mylo COM-1:
LOOK AT IT. It's too groovy not to give her.
also it's cheaper than a laptop by at LEAST $400, and doesn't need a phone plan or anything so it seems like it would be of use to her for instant messaging and stuff. she still has a phone though. she just also has a not-phone-technically-computer that looks exactly like a phone. actually idk if this thing can send calls... did they have wifi calling in 2006? i think so... well either way.
ah, clearly time well spent today.
still don't know when or what kind of computer peter gets. i think i'll just have him build a PC or something later on, when he's in grad school, or maybe a netbook
update: harry is going to buy a macbook air in 2008 and give his thinkpad to peter who will use it until it breaks (and (free?) upgrade it to windows 7 but still be using office 2003 in 2010, as well as having a linux stick cause he's that kind of nerd, and probably openoffice.org) -
BUT I'm still having him build a compact PC in 2010 with hobie's help that should cost <$400 and will run Ubuntu (because he's THAT kind of fucking nerd) (and because Ubuntu is free, otherwise this would not be a <$400 pc) that he mostly uses for homework in his masters program, watching porn—i mean movies, and light stuff, though possibly also may have some kind of CAD software as well... cannot run games but peter isn't a gamer anyway. he's not even much of a programmer or 3d modeler tbh (though he DOES do these things intermittently for spidey stuff)... but being able to do homework at home instead of the library has its upsides (plus he can still use the laptop harry gave him when he's out of the house so he doesn't need to rely on library or computer lab for word processing etc.)
(also he does analog film photography but being able to edit scans of his photos at home is a nice luxury)
