#10 Seconds Chopping

[trendingnow3-blog]

A Game-Changer in the Kitchen!

I recently purchased the Rico Japanese Technology Rechargeable Wireless Electric Chopper, and it has completely transformed my cooking experience. This little kitchen gadget has exceeded my expectations in every way, and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. First and foremost, the wireless design of this chopper is a game-changer. No more dealing with annoying cords or searching for an…

[silentreigns]

Actually while we're on this topic, can we mention Daniel and his fans' reactions about him punting Yuki off track — oop I meant "overtaking Yuki" — in Mexico last year? Because that was some hardcore microaggressions against Yuki and nobody ever recognizes it.

Daniel had similar incidents with Magnussen (twice last year) and Sainz. Both got apologies from him immediately after the race, he took accountability for all of those incidents in the media after the race.

He punts Yuki's car off the track trying to overtake him. He doesn't apologize. Claims he does nothing wrong, despite the FIA giving him a penalty for this exact incident. Essentially argues that Yuki was to blame because he was on faster tires so Yuki should have just let him through (embarrassing argument from a literal race car driver to begin with, he's on a better tire strategy and still can't overtake a slower car?). So, Yuki, the only person of an underrepresented race and ethnicity that Daniel has an incident with in 2022, is also the only driver he refuses to apologize to or take accountability for ruining their race. The ONLY one.

Then we get to his fans' reactions. He's voted Driver of the Day for essentially doing nothing but being put on an optimal strategy (new softs while quite literally everyone in front of him was on used hards), and nearly fucks that up almost as soon as his team initiates it by crashing into Yuki. Immediately, there's tons of memes and jokes about how "it was worth sacrificing Yuki for Daniel to get his confidence back." Much like what's happening now, NOBODY recognizes Yuki or what a race he was having up until Daniel fucked it up; instead, Daniel is hailed a hero for essentially doing nothing but being unable to safely overtake a car on an inferior tire strategy.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to Daniel getting some karma and Yuki getting the last laugh here. That race and Daniel and his fans' behavior left a sour taste in my mouth, and I know there's quite a few other Yuki fans who took notice of their behavior then too. (There were also quite a few racist attacks from Dan fans after Daniel blamed Yuki and played victim as per usual in the media too, so buckle up, we're in for a LONG rest of the season).

The Mexican gp 2022 was one of the few races last year that I remember clearly. But I remember it for all of the wrong reasons, because the actual race was boring as hell. RedBull and Mercedes were so far ahead of Ferrari, but Ferrari was so ahead of the midfield that there weren't that many overtakes. ~50 laps had gone by and nobody had DNF'ed yet. That was until Daniel collided with Yuki and got a 10 second penalty. And then Daniel overtook Esteban and everyone was cheering for him like he was on the podium or something like that. Just look at the interactions of the tweet I linked 🤥

Looking back at it, it was very fucked up that people were essentially cheering this nonsense on. I am like 90% sure I was happy for Daniel at the time too, and I wish I could have told my past self that taking a driver out and proceeding to do a "cool" overtake aren't things to celebrate. Barely anyone acknowledged Yuki not being able to finish the race, and he was like close to the points (he was like p11 and had a better weekend than Pierre but all that goes away when someone takes you out through no fault of your own).

Doesn't help that in the next race at Brazil he took out Kevin for a careless mistake in the first lap, after Kevin just had one of the best race weekends of his career by taking pole for the first time. The Brazil incident was very anticlimactic and shows that he wasn't in good form, racing wise. I don't remember how people reacted to his Brazil DNF, but I can assure you they were more sympathetic towards Daniel than to Yuki.

[sovaghoul]

System Of A Down - Chop Suey! | In the Style of Ghost

[etlu-yume]

As someone who just spent the afternoon calling around trying to track down the dates of venesections from the last 10+ years, across 3 different medical facilities, because someone didn't track it super well at the time: yup.

Due to some stuff brought up in recent posts I believe it is time to once again extol the virtues of Ms-Demeanor's Patented Where Did I Put That Fucking Paper Organizational Binder.

Hello! I am a disorganized adult! This is the system by which I manage my important shit like pink slips for my car and medical records and tax information.

You're going to need:

A 3-Ring Binder

Transparent Sheet Protectors

Notebook dividers (optional but VERY useful)

A backpack (optional)

So the way this system works is you put the sheet protectors into the binder. You can either use the dividers to divide the binder into sections or you can label some of the sheet protectors to make different sections but what you are generally going to do is make sections of the binder labeled things like "taxes" or "vet" or "doctor" and put a few sheet protectors in each section.

Then all of your papers with important information get crammed in that folder. You don't organize them, you don't sort them by date, you don't alphabetize. You put things vaguely relating to taxes into the sheet protectors in the taxes section. You put things relating to cars in the cars section. You don't even attempt to make this readable - you're not using sheet protectors so that you can read each page and keep it legible, you're using sheet protectors because it's a cheap plastic bag that will sit nicely in a binder.

You CAN put stuff into the individual sheet protectors when you get it, but let's be realistic you probably WON'T do that, so just tuck individual papers into the front of the binder until you get to a critical mass of paperwork then take an hour to sit down and sort into categories and put it in the binder once every six months to three years (depending on how frequently you get paperwork). Sometimes these sections will outgrow their original allotted space - since my spouse had a transplant surgery the medical section has had to become its own folder - and that's okay. If you end up with multiple folders just keep them together (this is why the backpack is an option, and one I strongly recommend).

Because yeah, if my organization system relies on opening up a drawer and putting something where it belongs as soon as I get the paper, I will simply not be organized. It's not going to happen. But I can handle a messy stack of paper that sits in one place and grows until it is time to shove it into a binder. I can't organize things for thirty seconds a day every day but I can organize things for an hour once every year or so (maybe two hours every five years when I sort out stuff I don't need like copies of warranties for parts on a car I don't own anymore).

When my mom died she had about fifty pounds of paper files in her office that were neatly organized in a system that didn't make any sense to my dad, my sister, and I. I ended up sorting through those files for twenty hours, tossing out copies of paid invoices from ten years ago and student handbooks from my junior high school. I reduced one filing cabinet, two desk file drawers, and a foot-high stack to a six inch binder that I gave to my dad. My mom died five years ago; two months ago my dad asked me about a medical document and I was able to tell him to go look for it in the medical section of the binder. It was there, because ALL IMPORTANT SHIT GOES IN THE BINDER.

Where is my birth certificate? In the binder. Where is my tax return from 2017? In the binder. Where is the record of my dog's last rabies shot? In the binder. Where are the records for my life insurance? In the binder.

A lot of what people consider "being organized" breaks down to whether or not you can find the specific things that you're looking for. Does my binder look nice? Is it aesthetic? Does it have color-coded tabs and papers all laid out neatly? Absolutely fucking not. But if you ask me where to find a paper I know that I can do so within about five minutes of shuffling through the pile of letter-folded sheets that I pulled out of the appropriate section of the binder.

I've discussed the Where Did I Put that Fucking Paper Binder before, but now it is time to expand that concept to the Backpack of Important Shit.

You likely have Important Shit that does not fit in a binder. Some of my Important Shit that does not fit in a binder is stuff like jewelry and the spare key for my car. Other stuff - the reason I decided to bring this up at all - includes my backup hard drive and packaging (including product key codes) for pretty much all of the software that I own. This is also where I store printed out copies of the recovery codes for most of the online accounts that I have.

There's a lot of weird fiddly shit that we have to have that we might not access all that often. This is the kind of stuff that might end up in junk drawers or under sinks or in disused laptop bags or kicking around under a bunch of papers in a desk drawer.

It doesn't matter so much when that weird fiddly shit is a set of hex keys or a utility knife or a protractor or a copy of a student handbook but it DOES matter when it's something that you might need to put your hands on in a hurry. If your computer crashes, you're not going to want to track down the software in the back of a filing cabinet and the backup drive from somewhere in the bowels of your desk. If you lock your keys in your car you are not going to want to figure out if your spare is in a junk drawer or the old purse where you keep semi-important stuff or the tin on your desk that has buttons and pins and headphone covers. Just put it in the Backpack of Important Shit and when you need it you know where to look.

So anyway, if you are a person who is a minor disaster who has trouble finding important things when you need them please don't think that you have to get your life together and have a nice organized filing cabinet or clear plastic bins full of documents or a neatly divided storage closet where everything from board games to backup drives has its own neatly labeled place. Just assign ONE LOCATION for important shit and start putting the important shit there. It doesn't matter if you have a filing cabinet where you keep old copies of homework and printouts of online orders and family history records - you do not need to keep everything that is file-able in one place and depending on what level of catastrophe you are it might be detrimental to you if you try to do that. It doesn't matter if you have a jewelry box where you keep your collection of gauges and wrist cuffs; if you are going to stress out about where grandma's ring is when you're digging through your collection of cheap earrings and silver pendants then *do not keep grandma's ring or any other Important, Vital, Cannot Be Lost jewelry in with your day-to-day wear*.

I live someplace that has fires. My binder got upgraded to my Backpack of Important Shit when the fires were getting uncomfortably close to the house I was living in and I wanted to have one bag to grab if we had to get out fast. Once I did that, I never took the binder out of the backpack and the backpack has now made three moves with me and has meant that I've had my birth certificate handy when I needed it in the middle of a move between two states, I was able to provide a history of my cholesterol panel going back six years to a visiting nurse, and I was able to give the exact names and contact info of my spouse's previous surgeon to the hospital when I had unexpectedly moved to a new state with three bags and my work computer at the beginning of the pandemic.

Get yourself a backpack of important shit and a folder of where the fuck did i put that paper. It is so much easier to search a backpack for important shit than to go through an entire house and it is so much easier to flip through a binder than it is to dig through a filing cabinet.

Anyway good luck and happy adulting.

[shencomix]

Recently I decided to go to my local fighting game tournament.

Here's how it went.

I had been getting pretty good at Guilty Gear over the past few weeks, to the point where I was getting the input correctly for the Potemkin Buster 1 out of every 4 or 5 times I tried it. So I thought "I might not be the best yet, but, surely good enough for my local" -- and I decided to go.

It took place at a the comic & games store in the town center. The venue was full of people 10-15 years younger than me and even more drastically cooler. They all turned to glare at me as I walked through the door, but as I stood completely motionless like a gazelle hoping to blend into the grassland, their gazes slowly returned to each other and they continued to banter friendlily.

I sat down next to me first opponent, and reached out to shake their hand. They looked down at my hand, and then up at my eyes slowly.

"You're supposed to do that at the end of the match."

"Oh, s-sorry"

I got perfected twice and lost the match. At the end, I reached out again to shake their hand, but they just stood up and walked away.

Because I lost, I got moved down to the loser's bracket, which was literally below the main tournament because it took place in the basement of the comic shop. I could hear footsteps, cheering, and happy conversation in the floor above. Here in the loser's bracket though, the mood was a lot more somber.

My next opponent reminded me a little bit of me. They were equally nervous and disheveled looking. They said "Um, h-hello" and reached out their hand for a handshake as they saw me approaching. I said "you're s-supposed to do that at the end of the match." But as a look of deep sadness came over their face and they slowly put down their hand, I pulled them in for a hug.

I'm not sure why I did that.

I think that some part of me knew that, in this dark, dank, alien place, illuminated only by a single failing ceiling light and the neon glow of a few arcade machines, I had at last found a friend -- someone I understood, and who might understand me too.

They hugged back.

I lost that match by a very narrow margin, and as they jumped up and began dancing around and cheering ecstatically, I began to hate them. This was no friend of mine. A friend would not do this to me. After they were done dancing, they reached out to shake my hand. After a few seconds of pause, I stuck out my hand too, but didn't look at them and refused to close it around theirs as they grasped it. They shook my karate chop.

I thought that at that point, since I had lost and then lost in loser's bracket, I was free to go home. But one of the tournament organizers approached me and informed me that I was going down to sub-loser's bracket in the sub-basement of the store, and pointed me towards a descending staircase.

The people there were fewer, and it was darker. I could faintly hear sobbing in one of the corners, but as I went to investigate, another participant put his hand on my shoulder. He furrowed his brow in a look of pain and shook his head slowly.

"You can't do anything for them."

In sub-loser's bracket I went up against a man in a suit whose face was cloaked in shadow. He spammed May's dolphin move. I lost.

As I went to go back upstairs, one of the tournament organizers held out her palm to stop me, and pointed towards a staircase leading further down instead.

Going down through the levels, I lost to many interesting participants. One player played exclusively by bashing the controller against his face. One player was a mushroom with a few circuit cables clipped onto it, that I later learned was able to play because its bioelectrical signals got sent to a machine that interpreted them as fighting game inputs. One player didn't touch their controller at all, but instead just told me their life story, which was so tragic that I picked up their controller and won for them.

Finally, at the very bottom floor, where construction standards were long abandoned and the stairs and walls were just messily carved out of the earth's stone, I faced my final player. It was a small bit of metal framework, with a controller nestled in it. On it was a tiny piston that just pressed the jab button exactly once every second. I lost.

I hung my head for a moment, then said "close game" and stuck my hand out for a handshake, before remembering that I had played against a metal framework cube with a piston in it and retracting my hand slowly. Then I heard a slow clapping from the darkness.

"No neutral. No footsies."

Out of the darkness slowly walked a woman about my age, clad in a decorative poofy dress that looked more expensive than my entire life savings. She smiled at me warmly, continuing to clap slowly, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.

"No meter management. No mixups. No spacing. No learning. No strategy…

…You're perfect."

"Wh-what?"

"You're perfect. I absolutely must have you."

"Have me for…um…for what…"

(Her eyes went wide as her smile grew more manic.)

"WHY, MY MORON FAILSON HAREM OF COURSE."

"Um, I-I"

"Tell me, what do you do for a living? Let me guess, you work at a fast food restaurant? Or, retail?"

"No, I'm a--I'm a comic artist."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh my god, you are PERFECT. What will it take to get you."

"To-to ge--"

"You would be well taken care of, of course. 3 Michelin star dining for every meal. Only the finest, softest sweatpants and sweatshirts, pre-stained with whatever flavor of Takis your little heart desires. You would have access to the entire mansion except for the main foyer when I'm in business calls, and you could make all the comics and play all the fighting games you want."

"I'm uh--"

I knew that I had to think fast here.

"I'm already i-in a moron failson harem."

"Oh, DARN IT!! TELL ME, WHO IS IT??? WHO GOT YOU??"

"I-I think I'm not allowed to s-sa--"

She stomped her foot petulantly, her shoe clacking against the stone floor.

"WAS IT SHUXUAN?? IT'S ALWAYS SHUXUAN HOGGING ALL OF THE GOOD ONES."

"I-I'm sorry," I blurted out, shuffling along the wall to make a wide radius around her and then running up the staircase.

As I got home and began making my standard dinner of Trader Joe's microwave falafel, I thought about her offer. Maybe I should have taken her up on it after all. A 3 Michelin star meal right now wouldn't be so bad.

Then I hopped on Guilty Gear and lost 22 matches in a row.

[palskippah]

Hi! Nimona told him to do a thumbs up (also I hope you get the reference image because I couldn't find it ajkdsad)

There's some mpreg headcanons and drawings under the cut! :D

By the way the limit of images is 30 so I had to make some longer images with comics to save space and put more drawings 😭

-Also, small continuation from the previous drawing:

(I wrote baby album but maybe it should be those albums that people keep of the pregnancy process ajskd)

-When Ballister first started showing, he was a bit insecure about it, but Ambrosius helped with that, in the romantic sense of worshipping and whatever, but also like this:

Translation (did my best to see how to translate it sorry sdjksd it works better in spanish)

1 Ballister: I think it's too soon to be getting fat- Ambrosius: You know what else is getting fat? 2 Ambrosius: Who said that

-Ballister goes through the denial of needing new clothes, so imagine him still wearing the stuff he usually wears and Nimona coming from behind and picking at the clothes by his shoulder and going in a high-pitched voice, as if the shirt was talking - I'm tired, boss while Ballister swats her away and say, leave me alone, it still fits me >:(

(it doesn't)

>Also Ballister absolutely refusing to wear maternity clothes, the only one he got he was like, wearing it and looking very unimpressed, and Ambrosius' like, you don't like it? :( and Ballister says, No. It's ugly as fuck >:(

>So, he just gets bigger shirts and stretch-ier pants and that's it. Also he gets an oversized hoodie and he says that's gonna be his best friend the rest of the pregnancy, and both Nimona and Ambrosius gasp offendedly at that.

So-

Ambrosius (turning to look at Nimona): What the- hey, I am his best friend. Nimona: Course not! You lost that privilege with what happened that one time (she means the movie events, more than five years ago) Ballister: Ambrosius' my best friend, Nimona. Ambrosius: HAH >:D Nimona: Aw :( Ballister: Because you're my sidekick :) Nimona: :D Ambrosius: Hey, what now- that sounds better than best friend :(

-Ballister during most of the pregnancy is like, woo baby :) but at the very last months he's at least half of the time pissed off, tired and done with being pregnant.

(my incredible math skills in the next point)

>70% of that time he's mad at Ambrosius (who made him pregnant), 20% mad at Nimona (who consciously (and sometimes unconsciously) gets on his nerves) and the remaining 10 he's pissed off at Baby (and he gets sad about that one, because he's just a baby, so he redirects it at Ambrosius instead 😔)

>Ambrosius does his best to be of help but usually there's nothing he can do aside from being there (and sometimes getting out of Ballister's sight, if he's really angry- in the sense of 'I don't even want to see you now')

>Most of the time Ballister just cools off.

-Also Ambrosius giving him massages, sometimes randomly on his shoulders or his feet, and sometimes something more elaborated, like Ballister laying down and him using body oil, setting the ambient and all to massage his back (and Ballister almost always falls asleep in those).

>Sometimes tho he just does a 'chop chop chop' at his shoulders (it doesn't do anything besides amusing Ballister and keeping him company)

>Also Nimona said that of course he'd just randomly start chopping Ballister while Ballister does nothing about it, so Ambrosius starts chopping her instead

(made these two drawings with like three weeks of difference ajdkad)

(N/SFW thingies on the next four points and the next four images)

-Also with that previous point imagine Ballister waking up all angry, and Ambrosius just not knowing what he can do for him to stop being mad, but it turns out that Ballister had just woken up horny and pent-up.

>And once he realizes, he's like Ambrosius... (with intentions of getting some), and Ambrosius is like 🧍? because a second ago Ballister wasn't even looking at him.

-Also with this, Ballister is just very much hornier now (after the first trimester which was the worst) and Ambrosius doesn't mind at all - except when his jaw gets sore or he's running late for work because they lost track of time and also other situations ajsdks but usually he's delighted.

>(In the drawing Ballister just crossed one leg over the other once he heard Ambrosius coming in, because he can't maintain the position too long without getting uncomfortable sdjksj)

-Whenever Ballister is like >:c and looking in Ambrosius' direction, he immediately assumes that his husband is angry at him.

>Y'know when you look intensely at someone so they feel your gaze and look at you back? Ballister here is trying to apply that, but it doesn't work bc of the previous point askdad

-I had written sometime (I think) about them blaming Baby on literally anything that has more or less to do with him. If Ballister's crying, if he forgets stuff, if Nimona coddles Ballister too much and pisses him off, if Ambrosius wastes all the cleaning product in two weeks because he had been cleaning too much (he's nesting and realizes that sometime later), if Nimona and Ballister eat the weirdest stuff that at least he wouldn't eat in normal circumstances- and a long etc.

-During Ballister's pregnancy, Nimona works the most she had ever worked in her existence (in the biscuit factory):

-Both Nimona and Ambrosius are the most supportive c: yippie. Supportive husband/best friend and supportive sidekick/friend/sibling/etc

>An example would be of Ballister being tired, and if the time allows, the other two will immediately suggest a nap.

>Their collective naps usually last hours and they wake up disoriented, sweaty, with drool and the sheets marked on their faces.

>Also they wake up almost always stacked, Nimona always under the other two.

Translation

Nimona and Ballister: (snoring) Ambrosius: Fuck- what year is it? (tries to lift himself up)

-Also Nimona is the self-assigned pregnancy pillow, and at first Ballister had refused to let her do that, but as a sidekick she took it upon herself to make sure that her boss was comfy and could sleep well - and Ballister reminded her that that's not what sidekicks are for. She said, fuck off I'll do it anyways >:c

>Anyways he sleeps great with her help and earns himself a huge told you so from Nimona.

>I had written a thingy where just when she woke up she was like good morning boss :D while Ballister also said good morning and she hugged him while pushing Ambrosius away, even out of bed. I can't remember where I left it but once I find it, I'll see if it's good for posting pipipi Also Ballister and Ambrosius are corny husbands

>Also here I drew my vague idea of a bear bc I was too lazy to look for Nimona bear references sowwy

-Nimona sometimes shapeshifts into Ballister to make fun of him.

(This one joke gets lost in translation which is a shame but I'm gonna share the comic anyways sdjs)

>(She's messing around about names, doing a play in words using Gloreth's name while Ballister is already warning her to stop)

>Nimona urges them to get a name soon because Baby is almost born, and they're like yeah chill we're on it - and they're both sitting on the sofa, with Ballister's legs over Ambrosius' lap, while Ballister goes through their list on his tablet and Ambrosius focuses on giving him a massage on his feet.

They're like-

Ballister: So, Cyril? Ambrosius: No, my horse at the Institute was called that. Ballister: Right, then not that one... What about Casper? Ambrosius: Hmm... no. Ballister: Why not? Ambrosius: I don't know, I just don't really like it. Do you? Ballister: Eh, it's alright, I guess. I don't think Baby looks like a Casper, though Nimona: You don't even know how he looks yet! Ballister: You shut up, kid >:v Ballister: So, what about…

And they're making nearly to none progress but yeah sjdsd

>Also imagine Nimona (as Ballister) imitating what he does now that he's pregnant but x10 times more.

Translations

1 AUGHH- MY BACK 2 FUCKING AMBROSIUS! 3 Ambrosito? Can you get me a sweet treat? 🥺 4 I'M HUGE WAAA

>And while Ballister is like wtf I don't act like that, he turns to Ambrosius like, do I act like that? 😥 And Ambrosius, who was laughing to himself, goes, well... not so intensely, which is good enough for Ballister.

>But Nimona points out to what Ballister is eating with a mocking smile (and it is weird to be mocked by a version of himself that has a pink strand on his hair, but whatever), and he's like ? what? and realizes that he did ask for a sweet treat almost like Nimona depicted he does, because he did pull the big sparkly eyes and he did call Ambrosius Ambrosito while at it.

>Then he's wondering if he really complains about his back like that (he does, but as Ambrosius said, he isn't so intense about it, usually just holding his lower back and throwing his head back as he winces. Normal)

>(the yelling insults at Ambrosius is definitely not true. But he does throw daggers at him with his eyes when he's angry, he has to admit to himself)

>Now, about crying because he feels huge- yes. Very much true, but he doesn't wail. Just sobs and cries a river like the sensible, serious adult he is.

-Also that thing of knights don't cry and whatever. This one knight does cry, and he cries a lot (at least while he's pregnant).

>He cried once because he dreamt that Nimona was a little spider and even though he warned Ambrosius to be careful, he accidentally crushed her and he woke up not only incredibly sad but also upset with Ambrosius, even though he was aware that it was silly to get mad with him over a dream.

>Nimona was like boss :( while hugging him, and Ambrosius had to scoot a bit away because Ballister didn't even want to look at him as he wept. Ambrosius said a lot of reassuring words of I'm sorry, I think I didn't see her :( while Ballister was like, but I warned you so many times :'[

>Then he was like, I promise you, I'd never hurt Nimona. And Nimona herself said, yeah boss, I'd crush him first, don't you worry about it :) and Ballister said, but I couldn't protect you :''[ while hugging her harder.

>And both Nimona and Ambrosius are (internally) like, ohh, so that's what it's about.

>Anyways, just a bunch of hugging and comforting gets him to feel a little less sad and also Nimona saying, but you're great at protecting me now :D so, there's all that sdjksd

-Sometimes Ballister just breaks down over seemingly the most trivial stuff too (which is usually just the last straw over a bunch of other stuff going on)

Translation

1 Ambrosius: Balli? What happened? D: Ballister (with one eyeline going up and the other going down): Ambrosito, my eyeline's crooked* *the straw that broke the camel's back (his hair isn't cooperating) (his back hurts) (done) (clothes feel uncomfortable) (the baby won't stay still) 2 Ambrosius (doing Ballister's eyeline): Stay very still, love (focused) 3 (they're in front of the mirror) Ballister (laughing his ass off): BUT HOW DID YOU MAKE IT EVEN MORE CROOKED?! Ambrosius (embarrassed): Aw Ballister (holding his belly): Ow, Baby, don't kick me, sorry, sorry! I'll stay still now-

>(Y'know when a pregnant person laughs the baby inside gets all shaken skdsd I find it funny, so imagine Baby being like ??!! because Ballister keeps laughing too hard and shaking him all around and his kicks are like him going, stay the fuck still D:<) (Ballister's still weepy but now he's crying with laughter, which is better than him crying from being overwhelmed)

-Also Ballister's very scared of giving birth but he's very good at pretending that Baby will simply materialize in his arms rather than him having to push him out.

(Drawings based over this)

Translation

1 Ballister happy because his baby is almost born 2 (Remembers that he has to give birth to him)

-The day that he was in labor and all, imagine the water just breaking and stuff and Nimona being like 'okay everyone DON'T PANIC' while panicking and also Ballister's panicking too (Ambrosius' at work and when he's told he also panics and arrives at the hospital in record time still wearing his armor. The power of first-time father panic)

(But someone gotta be not panicking in the situation, so Ambrosius calms the fuck down and becomes the calming presence that Ballister can rely on c: also Nimona calms down too and goes back to being herself and is very good at distracting Ballister while he goes through contractions and the hours before pushing.)

>Also y'know how in TV sometimes someone else imitates the pregnant person's breathing exercises by going huff huff huff quickly ajsdkjd

>Also Ballister going Nimona what about the bags and also don't carry me there?! and her going shit right and ignoring the second half, then returning for the bags and grabbing them, all while holding Ballister like a doll (a doll with a little doll inside SJDS pregnant barbie)

En español pensaba que fuera = AYÚDENLO, SE LE SALE LA WAWA - NIMONA DEJA DE HACER SHOW

-Wrote a lil something about Baby's birth and Ballister going through kinda a rollercoaster of emotions because at the very beginning of the pushing stage he almost had a panic attack, but then everyone in the room helped him calm down, and when he thought everything was going great, the doctor offered Ambrosius to receive their baby, and of course his husband was very excited about it and said yes, getting dressed up in the medical gown, the facemask, the gloves and all that.

(Initially everything after that was supposed to go swiftly, but I thought, no, what if Ambrosius faints like some dads do? and after watching a TikTok of a woman whose partner did faint and they had to pause her birth to hold him up because he was like over 6 feet tall, I was like hell yeah that's it)

>When Ambrosius finally got between Ballister's legs to look, his blood pressure went the fuck down. And since he's pretty tall and the nurse that tried to catch him was pretty short, the other one had to join in and then the doctor too to avoid him slamming on the ground. The thing was that Ambrosius was clearly fighting very hard against unconsciousness, giving the three people holding him false hope about him finally holding his own weight, making them almost drop him multiple times.

>Sensibly, the situation was kinda scary, because the three people assisting his baby's birth were busy trying to hold his husband from fainting. Said husband was clearly fighting with everything he got to keep himself conscious, and Ballister could very much feel his baby crowning.

>But seeing three short people trying to hold Ambrosius up and yelping when they almost dropped him several times, and remembering that Ambrosius had been so excited about it but hadn't been able to even stand the view, and feeling pretty nervous because his main emotional support couldn't even keep himself awake-, made him crack up.

>So, he's laughing out loud and going every once in a while, owfuck- because it still hurts like a bitch, while the other three keep going, YOU'LL DROP HIM. BE CAREFUL, SIR?? SIR, CAN YOU HEAR ME? and Ambrosius' like, yea- (faints again)

>(they're well aware that they gotta deliver the baby, so they're doing their best to hurry Ambrosius to get out of the way)

>The whole thing had made Ballister's body feel weak from the laughter, and he had to try and calm down to have strength again and push the baby out.

>As you'd guess, Ambrosius didn't receive their baby, and had to sit down and eat something sweet to not faint again, but he managed to stay on his feet well enough to cut the umbilical cord yippie.

>So anyways, Baby out, wrapped and all that, Ballister kept laughing more quietly about it and saying that they should mark the date in the calendar to celebrate Ambrosius fainting over almost delivering their baby. And Ambrosius' like hmm, I don't know Balli, maybe we could use this date for our son's birthday, don't you think? and Ballister's like OH RIGHT and now started laughing at himself.

I keep thinking of new stuff that contradicts what I already have posted, sowwy

>Imagine Ambrosius practically begging Ballister to not tell Nimona, while the other says she'd love to know but also is aware that she'd never let Ambrosius live it down, so he agrees on not telling her. Both eventually tell both Nimona and Baby when the latter is older and inquired about his birth, and indeed, Nimona loved the anecdote, and never let Ambrosius live it down, since then.

-Ideas about Nimona infiltrating the room in the form of a nurse after Baby is born and blowing up her cover when she commented on the baby's nose being just like Gol- Mr. Goldenheart's. And also, his hair being black like Bo- Mr. Goldenheart's.

>At the beginning when they had been admiring their baby, Ambrosius had said, he got your hair D': pipipi (he cried the second Baby got placed in his arms, got a drawing of that but I don't like how it came out wah, Ambrosius' wearing a facemask and being all tear-eyed pipipi) and Ballister had said, he got your nose :D but Ambrosius had said no? that's just a baby's nose, how can you even tell. But after Nimona commented on it, Ballister's saying told you so, it's your nose, while Ambrosius' like, Mr. Goldenheart could be either of us (both smiling amusedly because Nimona's too silly and they clearly know it's her, but she's all idk who's Nimona?)

-Also, I don't know how to make that work with the idea that when she got kicked out to the hall for the pushing bit, she went to steal some flowers and balloons with 'it's a boy!' on them for Ballister. But anyways, I'll write that bit too.

-Also this is Goldenheart with their baby, and I drew it a while back but realized that I don't like it anymore, so I'll do a redrawing someday sdjksd

>Imagine that Ambrosius was in the hospital bed with Baby while Ballister was getting ready so they could leave to their home, and Nimona said pictures timeee and then took that pic, with Ballister pointing at Baby and being all :D Also, Ambrosius looked pretty good and all, and Ballister was all unshaven face, kinda messy hair, the hospital band with his name still wrapped on his wrist as he pointed at Baby, and yet there were some people online that were like ??! Ambrosius Goldenloin Goldenheart was pregnant??

>And the people that knew even if a little bit about the Goldenheart's life, and also because they still went out and whatever, were like ? no? didn't you see Ballister like, a week ago? (Where he was very obviously pregnant and Ambrosius clearly wasn't sdjkdj)

>Every once in a while, Nimona would remember about this and repost it again, even after Baby is much older.

And that's it! If you read till here, bless you ajsdkadj

I've got more stuff about mpreg, both written and drawn, so I hope to make another post like this sometime, they're very fun to make :D

[harrysfolklore]

tom blyth being obsessed with his girlfriend: a compilation

this was inspired by @astranva’s famous blurbs, love you and miss you novs <3

MASTERLIST | MY PATREON

It seemed like the entire world was crushing on the same man: Tom Blyth

Unfortunately for those who watched The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and came out of the theater in love with the man who played Coriolanus Snow, he was happily taken and loved to talk about his girlfriend any chance he got, which lead to fans making several compilations about the times he was a simp over his girl.

The most popular video was a 10 minute and 33 seconds compilation, which had around 445k views.

It started with Tom's interview with Good Morning America to talk about Billy the Kid, the interviewer asking about how he prepared for the role.

"It was during the pandemic, like any actor during that time I was just hoping that the world came back to normal so I could start making a cent," everyone in the set laughed at this, "I was living with my girlfriend YN in a barn house and we were like chopping wood every morning and visiting my friend's ranch. So when I got the part I kinda felt like I was ready for it."

"Your girlfriend, you say," one of the interviewers said making Tom smile right away, "Did she help you prepare for the role too?

"Of course she did, she's my biggest supporter ever."

The video moved to show some behind the scenes of Songbirds and Snakes footage, Tom dressed in his peacekeeper costume and dancing around while Rachel recorded him.

"See this moves?" he got closer to the camera, "I used them to charm my girlfriend."

"And I doubt they worked." Rachel laughed behind the camera.

"She loves me so I'm pretty sure they did."

The next thing shown was Tom sitting next to Hunter as they did an interview for Rolling Stone, the crew just asked about their thoughts on Olivia Rodrigo's single for the movie.

"I love Olivia Rodrigo," Hunter cheerfully said, throwing her arms up to the air, "The new album is so good."

"I'm a big fan as well," Tom joined in, "My girlfriend YN, she's obsessed with her, plays her songs all the time."

"Just so everyone knows, YN is like the coolest person ever," Hunter said, making Tom smile, "She brought us snacks on set so many times, such an angel."

"She's the best."

The following footage was Tom and Rachel's rapid-fire questions with Vogue.

"Can you guess where this is from?" Rachel asked holding up a card that showed a zoomed in picture of a suit.

"That's my Prada suit from the London premiere," Tom asked confidently, Rachel confirming that he was correct, "My girlfriend YN loved that suit, that's why It's one of my favorites."

"Oh I miss YN."

"So do I, so do I."

Next clip was Tom's interview Stephen Colbert, who just asked him if he was a fan of the books growing up.

"I was such a huge fan, I grew up watching the films. My mom and sister used to go to opening weekends to see the movies," the audience cheered at that, "Actually, for my third date with my girlfriend I took her to see the last movie, so getting to play a young president Snow is a real honor."

The video quickly moved to show the lat clip, one of Tom's interviews at the London premiere of the movie.

"Are you here on your own? No date?" The interviewer said once Tom finished answering the previous question.

"I'm here with my girlfriend, actually," his face beamed as he spoke, "She's probably somewhere taking selfies with Hunter, those two are like best friends."

"Is she close to your cast mates?" the interviewer asked again.

"Definitely, they try to steal her from me and I can't blame them, she's the best."

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

your boyfriend has a little habit of being sort of..spacey. or at least he looks like he is.

despite his..ditzy and aloof appearance. shouto is very acutely aware of his surroundings.

especially when you’re in said surroundings.

he’s walking along the hallways with his friends, they’re chatting about everything and nothing, school and about the results of their last test. shouto doesn’t feel the need to interject, happy to simply listen and respond when he’s spoken to. except his mind is also kind of elsewhere at the moment because even in there he’s looking for you.

no matter what he’s doing, shouto todoroki has a piece of you in his mind. if his friends are worrying about their test results he’s perfectly fine, cus he studied with you. the letters he sends to his mom talk about his daily life, with little details about you sprinkled in. his father is trying to coerce him into coming to his agency again, shouto thinks it’d be a lot more enjoyable if you were with him.

you’re not with them right now, because mr. aizawa had asked you to send in some papers to the teacher’s lounge. you said you’d catch up with your friends as soon as possible and shouto’s listening, he really is. but he’s also scanning the crowd hoping to catch a little glimpse of you.

“what about you, todoroki ?”

shouto blinks, hearing his name come out of his freckled friend’s lips as he blinks at him expectantly with a smile. ochaco and iida also seem to be awaiting a response.

okay, so maybe he hadn’t been listening as well as he claimed..

“i’m sorry. i didn’t catch that last part, what were you saying ?” he asks bluntly, midoriya doesn’t mind and he repeats “i was asking you how you think your test went.” he chirps, shouto hums thinking about the question.

“i studied well for it, so i think it went well,” his friends hum, iida congratulates him for staying focused on his academics, waving his hand around in chopping motions.

and of course, shouto is always looking for you, so nobody’s surprised when he adds “yn also helped me study, so i think i’ll be..”

everyone is surprised though when he suddenly trails off. and without another word shouto walks ahead of his friends further down the crowded hallway. the lack of “oh, give me a second.” or “ i’ll be right back.”, the lack of anything stuns the three students so hard they freeze into place. they wonder what could’ve made him speed off in such a hurry, until ochaco gets a good look and points towards the dual haired boy.

ah, shouto’s found you.

you’re surprised to see him, your eyes widen “oh, hey sho !” he returns your greeting, his face hasn’t really changed from an outsiders point of view, but he leans in towards you the moment the words leave your lips and his whole face has gone soft, almost pudgy when you smile at him.

“i didn’t except to see you, you scared me !”

he blinks at that, shock settles onto his face as he bows his head in shame “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to..” simple, but earnest and it makes you melt.

“oh no, no ! you just popped up outta nowhere and it surprised me is all, got nothing to be sorry about.” you reassured, shouto’s expression changes and he returns, nodding happily.

“i missed you.”

you snort “i was gone for at most 10 minutes, shouto.”

“it was 11 minutes. and i missed you during that one extra minute, too.” if he had a tail, it’d be wagging at the speed of sound the way his face brightens when you laugh. you call him unbelievable and a small smile grows on his face

he’s just about to ask if you need help with your bag when you suddenly wave behind him. at your friends, who all share a sort of teasing, but also absolutely not surprised look.

oh, woops..

[ittybittyfanblog]

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition) – Pt. 2

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus and a–less–oblivious player. That’s it, that’s the plot. A/N: Ok, I’ve decided to make this by series, so this one’s just going to be purely Sylus. I hope nobody minds the specific names/places/etc. I wanted to create a personality for the “player” and add a bit of backstory work (loosely based on yours truly lol) for the sake of storytelling, but there won't be any distinct description of the player’s physical appearance <3 Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, self-aware!au, suggestive language, bouts of delusion

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9 - Pt. 10

Riiiiing– RiiiNGGGGG––

...

“Huh… whazat—?” 

A shrill—earsplitting, headache-inducing, completely fucking loud—noise wakes you up rather rudely from your peaceful slumber at… Jesus Christ, what time is it? 

You blink your bleary eyes open, once… twice—fuck, all you know that it’s too goddamn early for all this ruckus. Groaning, you clumsily try to find the source of the unexpected wake-up call—quite literally in this case. 

Your hand bumps the vibrating phone straight off the edge of the mattress – along with the charger cord still attached to it – and you cuss up a storm when you hear it clatter on the hardwood floor.

The ringing finally stops, and you’re perfectly content to just leave it there and fall back to sleep when, not even ten seconds later, the blasted thing rings back to life, taunting you awake. 

Angrily, you wrestle against the threadbare blanket wrapped around your body like a warm cocoon, pushing yourself out of bed with all the rage of a sleep-deprived insomniac who’s been up til the buttcrack of dawn to grab your—huh, relatively intact—phone off the ground, while the charger cable swings haphazardly from the weight of the power brick on its tail end.  

Without checking the caller, you swipe right to answer. “What?” 

“Don’t use that tone on me, young lady,” Your mother grouses on the other end of the line. “It’s almost noon! Did you just wake up?” 

Barely five hours of sleep. Pinching the bridge of your nose, you shut your eyes and sigh. “No, mom. Sorry, just had a late night,” you clear your throat in an attempt to sound more composed. “What’s up?” 

“Oh, dear. Is it because of work again?” Something akin to sympathy replaces the sternness in her voice, and you dread the all-too-familiar spiel that comes next. “You know, honey, there’s a job opening for a– what was it again? I have to double check, but it’s where your Auntie Helen works. You know your Auntie Helen—” 

“Mom,” you interrupt, before she could go off on a tangent. “Work is fine, don’t worry. Why d’you call?” 

“Should I need a reason to call my daughter who's living by her lonesome, a country away from—” 

“Mom!” 

“Oh, alright,” she finally relents, sounding slightly exasperated. “Were you able to book me and Jodie the roundtrip flight to Orlando? Your cousin’s wedding is barely a month away and I want all the documents ready by now, sweetie.” 

Shit. “Ah— yeah. I’ll email you the flight itinerary in a bit, I’m just–” you catch sight of your protruding hamper, innocuous but an eyesore nonetheless, right by the doorway of your humble studio unit. “I mean, I just left the condo. To do errands and stuff. I’ll send the details to you when I get back home, okay?” 

“Okay, honey,” she sighs. “You stay safe outside now. Don’t talk to strangers.” 

“I am a perfectly responsible adult—” The call disconnects. “Hello? Great.” 

You rub away the remnants of sleep from your eyes, fully aware that your day’s already started, despite your reluctance. Might as well get a head start on today’s agenda.

First thing’s first– brunch. Oh, it’s almost one. Lunch, then. I could maybe grab a hotdog from the corner store before heading to Landers. Oh wait, your laundry– gotta pass by the laundromat downstairs, too. Ugh, c’mon, chop-chop. 

Just as you’re about to stand up from your supine position on the floor, another ping! pulls your attention back to your phone. “Mom, I swear–” 

Ah, you’re finally awake. You’ve had a very long night, kitten. Take it easy for the day – make sure to get enough rest between errands.

I’ll know if you don’t.  

Your heart skips a beat.

Oh! Um. That’s… new. 

… Apparently another one on the growing list of “new features” from the latest update. It doesn't sound like an invitation for you to open the game, strangely enough. It's not a call to action to claim your daily stamina, nor a prompt for you to check your Galaxy Explorer rewards. 

It’s nothing more than a greeting, really. Just one that’s particularly targeted at you, with unnerving accuracy.

You recall the weird (?) events from last night, and the now-erratic beating of your heart suddenly picks up a notch. From the unexpected dialogues to the outrageous amount of dias you’ve somehow ended up with—something you still think is some kind of glitch in the system—you can’t shake the feeling that you’re living out the plot of a Black Mirror episode, as fucking dumb as that sounds. 

Not to mention during Quality Time, Sylus_v2.0 (as you so lovingly dub this version of him in your mind) had been acting more aware of you.

And you’re not talking about the pre-programmed glances that you usually get. No– it’s like he actually hears you. 

He doesn’t say anything. But whenever you make a comment, or utter something under your breath, he reacts with a huff or a hum–depending on the context. If it’s a slew of expletives aimed at your boss, the reaction you’re met with is one of amusement. A snort; sometimes a quiet laugh, if you’re lucky. When you say something self-deprecating, however, it elicits the heavier sighs, the sharp clicks of the tongue. 

At one point, you heard him make a low sound of dissent, something close to a... growl, almost, after making a casual joke about being just another cog in the machine and how offing yourself wouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of late capitalism. As you oft do. 

Your eyes met, and for a split second, it felt like you weren’t looking at just pixels. His gaze weighed heavy on you–almost accusatory. 

It made you feel… naked, somehow. Perceived. 

You recall how quickly you averted your eyes from his, face flushing hotly from a feeling you couldn’t put into words. 

Bone-tired from last night’s (morning) overtime, you didn’t have the time to look up the news on this recent version update—although you really don’t remember any notifications in-game—so you quickly Google, “sylus acting sentient in rcent update loveamd Deepspace???” on your phone browser.

You scroll down for a bit, but none of the search results yield any relevancy, nor are they in any way similar to your current… predicament. 

(Okay, so calling it a predicament is a little unfair. You’re not exactly complaining about anything per se. No complaints from you. At all.)

Deciding that you’d do a deeper dive on Twitter (X) at a later time instead – probably tonight when you do your daily login – you briefly press the side button to lock your phone… not without a final peek at the banner notification from Sylus. 

You press your lips together in an effort to hold back the stupid giggle bubbling up your throat. 

Unfortunately, all the self-control in the world can’t help you and your need to have the last word—from what even—so you ask aloud, to no one except the person you've deluded yourself into thinking is a valid recipient of your one-sided conversation: 

“... Yeah? And what if I don’t?” 

You’re not really waiting for a response (or were you?), but the nervous flutter in your stomach betrays the impatience you're trying to mask with casual indifference. It’s small, unassuming–but there. 

Impatient for what, exactly, you’re not sure. But maybe, just maybe—

Feeling a bit braver now, are we? How bold. Care to say that to my face, sweetheart?

Oh. 

Oh.

An inhuman noise escapes your throat, embarrassingly loud, almost a keen, and you fumble with the device in your hand; the new banner notification still in full view—taunting you. 

You don’t know what to think, you don’t know how to feel. You–

Spring up, like an agitated jack-in-a-box, and the sudden rush of blood in your head leaves you dizzy. You’re a molotov cocktail of emotions; one more bombshell dropped on you and you might just blow. 

“I’m– later, okay? Uh,” Whew, girl, keep it together. “I need–I need to go.” You almost stumble as you speed walk towards the bathroom.

-

-

-

If you didn’t switch your phone to silent, didn’t make the conscious effort to ignore any incoming messages, notifications, and whatever else, in a rush to get dressed and go about your day as if it's just like any other weekend–nope, nothing unusual here–you would’ve seen one last cheeky reply:

Of course, sweetie. You take care now. 

Don’t talk to strangers. X

Endnote: This one's pretty short, but I’m world-building, trust. 

Thanks for reading! 

[tummywrites]

a nutty summertime "snack" for the calorie-addicted cows 🥜🐮

as if over 9000 calorie desserts weren't enough for you fatties, I have another recipe designed to widen that waist and pack your belly full of caloric, sinful sweets.

first, you have to get off your fatass and go to the store (or, have your groceries delivered, to save yourself some energy) and get the following ingredients.

1 pack of mega stuffed oreos (2520 calories)

1/2 cup of butter (800 calories)

24oz of cream cheese (2160 calories)

1 1/12 cup of powdered sugar (720 calories)

2 jars of peanut butter (or more, depending on how peanut-buttery you wanna go) (5320 calories)

3/4 cup of sour cream (if you want the cheesecake to have a little tang, but if not, do vanilla greek yogurt) (360 calories)

2 cups of chocolate chips (or more, again, your preference) (3520 calories)

1 cup of heavy whipping cream (800 calories)

1 family sized bag of reese's mini peanut butter cups (or more, again, your choice, fatty) (5070 calories)

this comes out to a disgusting, humiliating, repulsive 21,270 calories if you're so out of control that you can't help yourself, and stuff your fat face with every morsel of this cheesecake in one sitting.

I know you can't resist that type of gluttony, so here's how to make this sin:

listen to mommy carefully, okay?

first: make the crust

crush up the oreos to make the crust, either by hand or using a food processor until the oreos form a fine crumb texture. combine this with the 1/2 cup/8 tbsp melted butter. (if you want thicker crust, double this part. also adds an extra 3,320 calories) press this mix into the bottom of a pan that can be opened, like a springform pan. make sure you press it onto the side of the pan about 1/2-1 inch up, to add that delicious crust for the cheesecake. cover this and chill while you continue to the next step.

second: make the filling

get two bowls--in one, pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream into the bowl and beat until the whipping cream forms stiff peaks. then, in the second bowl, beat the 24oz of cream cheese for 2-3 minutes on med/high, then beat in the 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar until the mixture is smooth. at this point, make sure you add in your 2 jars of peanut butter, 3/4 cups of sour cream, and 1 tsp of vanilla extract and continue to beat the mixture until it is completely smooth. then, fold in the whipped heavy cream, some chopped up peanut butter cups and chopped up chocolate chips. (for extra calories, add chopped up peanuts as well.) spread this over the crust and place in the fridge for 4 hours, or until the cheesecake has gotten firm.

third: make the chocolate topping

grab yourself a bowl that can be microwaved, then pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream into the bowl and place into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, until the whipping cream has just begun to simmer. once it has reached this point, pour the whipping cream over chocolate chips, at least 1 bag. make sure these chocolate chips have been chopped up, so they will melt properly. after the mixture has set for a minute or two, whisk it together to ensure it is completely melted. let the mixture sit and cool for 5 to 10 minutes, and then pour the mixture over the chilled cheesecake and place back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

once it's set...

garnish with the rest of your peanut butter cups, chocolate chips, and, for extra calories, consider adding the following:

whipped cream

chocolate drizzle

caramel drizzle

peanuts

mini m&ms

remember, a moment on the lips is a lifetime on your hips, so savor every bite because it'll be with you for the rest of your life.

[dduane]

PETER MORWOOD oh my godddddd i was trying to remember who the fuck it was with the good foccacia recipe and i was like. "he is friends with diane duane on tumblr and is also an author. i scrolled for ages looking and then god sick of it, opened the ask, and it popped right in. anyway thought it'd make you laugh to know that i remember peter morwood primarily through his foccacia recipe and being your tumblr buddy than for his life's works

(chortle) I suspect he won't think that's a hanging offense. (And tbh, most of his stuff isn't in print in North America at the moment. But we're working on that.)

Meanwhile, since Himself is presently asleep upstairs after a late night, here's the link to the recipe we've been using (it's on the Washington Post's recipe site). They in turn adapted theirs from one of the focaccia recipes here at the Bread In 5 website, which comes from the people who wrote Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.

(In case it's paywalled, I'll cut-and-paste it under the cut...)

Ingredients

4 cups (500 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (390 milliliters) lukewarm water

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 tablespoon (11 grams) granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons (4 to 5 grams) dried instant yeast (not rapid rise)

1 1/8 teaspoons (16 grams) fine salt

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary (from 2 to 4 sprigs), divided

Coarse or flaky salt, for sprinkling

In a large (5- to 6-quart) bowl, use a wooden spoon to stir together the flour, water, 2 tablespoons of the oil, the sugar, yeast and fine salt until a rough dough forms. Transfer to a container with a lid, partially cover and let rest for about 2 hours on the counter. You can use the dough right away, or cover and refrigerate until needed; see Make ahead. (If you plan on refrigerating and have a lidded container large enough for mixing, you can assemble the dough in there and refrigerate it after the 2-hour rise on the counter. The dough is much easier to handle after being thoroughly chilled.)

Place a baking stone on the middle oven rack and preheat to 425 degrees. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into a 9-inch cake pan and evenly coat the bottom of the pan.

Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough lightly with flour, then pull half of it off (about 1-pound/454-gram portion; the dusting makes this task easier, as the dough is sticky). Dust the half you are using with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.

Use your hands to flatten it into a 1/2-inch-thick round 6 to 7 inches in diameter. Place the dough top side down in the cake pan, moving it around a bit to coat with the oil. It will not fill to the edges of the pan. Turn the dough over, cover the pan with plastic wrap or a plate, and let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes.

Use your hands to gently push the dough to the edges of the cake pan. Sprinkle with half of the the rosemary and coarse or flaky salt, as needed.

Re-cover with plastic wrap or plate, and let the dough to rest and rise for 20 minutes.

Repeat with the second ball of dough, or store it to bake later.

Transfer the cake pan to the heated baking stone in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the focaccia crust is medium brown and feels dry and firm on the surface. The baking time will vary depending on the focaccia’s thickness. (If baking both loaves at once, switch them from left to right and rotate from front to back halfway through to ensure even baking.)

Use a rounded knife to loosen the loaf from the edges of the pan, then transfer the focaccia to a cutting board. Cut into wedges and serve warm, or allow to cool completely.

Disclosure: ...Noting here that not one of these I've made has ever reached the "allow to cool completely" stage. Something always seems to... happen to them first. (Like Peter. Or me. Or both of us at once.) :)

[sleepingdiaryzzz]

ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ɪᴛ...ᴘᴜᴘᴘʏ ʟᴏᴠᴇ♥︎

ᴊᴏɴ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

platonic, ig? Jon is 10 while you're 18+ in this LMAO in which Jon has a crush on you but you, despite being a 18+ year old ahh vigilante is oblivious to all of it. Not a yandere content, jst chill rn

ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʜᴇʀᴇ!

The Kent farm always felt like a second home to you. The golden fields stretched endlessly, kissed by the late afternoon sun, and the gentle hum of the wind was a melody you had grown fond of over the years. It wasn’t uncommon for you to find yourself here, sitting on the porch with Lois and Clark, sharing laughter and stories about the League, or helping Jon with his homework at the kitchen table.

Jon had always been a sweet boy—bright, cheerful, and endlessly curious. You had known him since he was a wobbly infant, drooling on your shoulder as you cradled him. You remembered the way he giggled when you’d tickle his tiny toes or sing lullabies softly enough to lull him to sleep. Those memories made your heart swell with affection for him, even now that he was ten years old and growing faster than the crops in the fields.

But lately, something about Jon had changed.

“Y/N, are you staying for dinner?” Jon’s voice piped up from the living room, where he sat cross-legged on the carpet, pretending to read a book. His eyes, however, were fixed on you like you were the most fascinating story in the world.

You glanced up from the kitchen counter, where you were helping Lois chop vegetables for the evening meal. “If it’s okay with your mom and dad, sure. I don’t want to impose.”

Jon’s face lit up like Christmas morning. “You’re not imposing! You can stay as long as you want!”

Lois, standing beside you with a knowing smirk, muttered under her breath, “He’d probably ask you to move in if he thought you’d say yes.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “He’s just being polite, Lois. He’s such a thoughtful kid.”

Lois froze mid-chop, her knife hovering above the cutting board. She turned to look at you, arching a brow. “Thoughtful, huh? Y/N, sweetheart, I love you, but you’re dense”

You frowned, tilting your head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jon likes you,” she said bluntly, the words hanging in the air like the stillness before a storm.

You blinked, momentarily taken aback. Then you laughed, the sound light and airy, brushing away the tension Lois was trying to create. “Of course, he does. I’ve known him his whole life. We’re close.”

Lois groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No, Y/N. He likes you. As in, he has a crush on you.”

Your laughter faltered, replaced by a puzzled expression. “Lois, come on. He’s just a little boy. He’s sweet and affectionate—that’s all it is. Kids are like that.”

Lois stared at you, her lips pressing into a thin line as she fought the urge to bang her head against the counter. “Right. Sure. Just a sweet little boy. Nothing else.” She shook her head and muttered something about needing a Pulitzer for dealing with this level of obliviousness.

Meanwhile, Jon, who had overheard the entire exchange from his spot in the living room, felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. He buried his face in his book, hoping the ground would swallow him whole.

The truth was, Jon’s crush on you wasn’t just a passing whim. To him, you were the most incredible person in the world. You were strong, kind, and effortlessly cool. He’d seen you fight alongside his dad and the Justice League, holding your own with a grace that made his young heart race. But it wasn’t just your power that captivated him—it was the way you smiled, the way your laughter filled the room, and the way you always treated him like he mattered.

When you were around, Jon felt like the most important person in the world. And he wanted to be worthy of you.

Clark, ever perceptive, tried to broach the subject later that evening while you sipped tea on the porch swing. The sunset painted the sky in hues of gold and crimson, and the air was thick with the scent of freshly tilled earth.

“You know, Jon talks about you a lot,” Clark began, leaning against the porch railing with an easy smile.

You looked up from your mug, your lips curving into a soft smile. “Does he? That’s sweet. He’s such a bright kid—always curious about everything.”

Clark nodded, his smile faltering slightly. “He looks up to you, you know. You’re a big part of his life.”

Your heart swelled with warmth at the thought. “I love that kid, Clark. He’s like a little brother to me.”

Clark hesitated, his brow furrowing as he searched for the right words. “Right, but maybe he sees you as...more than that.”

You laughed lightly, shaking your head. “Clark, he’s ten. Kids get attached to people they admire—it’s normal. He’s just a kind-hearted little boy.”

Before Clark could say more, Lois stepped onto the porch, her arms crossed and her eyes filled with exasperation. “For the love of God, Clark, give it up. She’s as clueless as you were when we started dating.”

Clark straightened, looking mildly offended. “I wasn’t that clueless.”

Lois snorted. “You didn’t even realize I was flirting with you until I spelled it out.”

As they bickered, you sipped your tea, completely oblivious to Jon peeking through the screen door, his heart sinking with every passing second.

Jon decided that if words weren’t enough to make you notice, he’d have to try harder. Maybe he’d write you a poem, something that captured how he felt when you smiled at him. Or he could bake you a cake, like the ones he saw on TV shows, with “You’re amazing” written in frosting.

But for now, all he could do was watch you, his young heart beating wildly every time you glanced his way. To Jon, you were a constellation in human form, shining brighter than any star in the sky. You were the one who made the world feel magical, who turned ordinary moments into memories he wanted to keep forever.

When you smiled at him later that evening, ruffling his hair affectionately, Jon felt like he could fly without his powers.

“You’re going to grow up to be such an amazing man, Jon,” you said warmly. “The world’s lucky to have you.”

Jon swallowed hard, his cheeks turning pink. “Thanks,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible.

Lois, watching from the kitchen, slapped a hand over her face. “This is painful to watch,” she muttered to Clark.

“Give it time,” Clark said, though even he looked concerned about how long it might take for you to catch on.

And so, the cycle continued. Jon adored you, wearing his heart on his sleeve, while you remained blissfully unaware. To you, he was just a sweet kid you’d known forever. To him, you were everything.

But Jon was nothing if not determined. One day, he promised himself, he’d make you see. For now, though, he was content to sit by your side, basking in your presence, while his dreams of the future danced in his young mind like fireflies in the twilight.

Jon n you fr:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Antiusurpation and the road to disenshittification

THIS WEEKEND (November 8-10), I'll be in TUCSON, AZ: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Nineties kids had a good reason to be excited about the internet's promise of disintermediation: the gatekeepers who controlled our access to culture, politics, and opportunity were crooked as hell, and besides, they sucked.

For a second there, we really did get a lot of disintermediation, which created a big, weird, diverse pluralistic space for all kinds of voices, ideas, identities, hobbies, businesses and movements. Lots of these were either deeply objectionable or really stupid, or both, but there was also so much cool stuff on the old, good internet.

Then, after about ten seconds of sheer joy, we got all-new gatekeepers, who were at least as bad, and even more powerful, than the old ones. The net became Tom Eastman's "Five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four." Culture, politics, finance, news, and especially power have been gathered into the hands of unaccountable, greedy, and often cruel intermediaries.

Oh, also, we had an election.

This isn't an election post. I have many thoughts about the election, but they're still these big, unformed blobs of anger, fear and sorrow. Experience teaches me that the only way to get past this is to just let all that bad stuff sit for a while and offgas its most noxious compounds, so that I can handle it safely and figure out what to do with it.

While I wait that out, I'm just getting the job done. Chop wood, carry water. I've got a book to write, Enshittification, for Farar, Straus, Giroux's MCD Books, and it's very nearly done:

https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Adoctorow+%23dailywords&src=typed_query&f=live

Compartmentalizing my anxieties and plowing that energy into productive work isn't necessarily the healthiest coping strategy, but it's not the worst, either. It's how I wrote nine books during the covid lockdowns.

And sometimes, when you're not staring directly at something, you get past the tunnel vision that makes it impossible to see its edges, fracture lines, and weak points.

So I'm working on the book. It's a book about platforms, because enshittification is a phenomenon that is most visible and toxic on platforms. Platforms are intermediaries, who connect buyers and sellers, creators and audiences, workers and employers, politicians and voters, activists and crowds, as well as families, communities, and would-be romantic partners.

There's a reason we keep reinventing these intermediaries: they're useful. Like, it's technically possible for a writer to also be their own editor, printer, distributor, promoter and sales-force:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#intermediation

But without middlemen, those are the only writers we'll get. The set of all writers who have something to say that I want to read is much larger than the set of all writers who are capable of running their own publishing operation.

The problem isn't middlemen: the problem is powerful middlemen. When an intermediary gets powerful enough to usurp the relationship between the parties on either side of the transaction, everything turns to shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/direct-the-problem-of-middlemen/

A dating service that faces pressure from competition, regulation, interoperability and a committed workforce will try as hard as it can to help you find Your Person. A dating service that buys up all its competitors, cows its workforce, captures its regulators and harnesses IP law to block interoperators will redesign its service so that you keep paying forever, and never find love:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2024/02/13/1228749143/the-dating-app-paradox-why-dating-apps-may-be-worse-than-ever

Multiply this a millionfold, in every sector of our complex, high-tech world where we necessarily rely on skilled intermediaries to handle technical aspects of our lives that we can't – or shouldn't – manage ourselves. That world is beholden to predators who screw us and screw us and screw us, jacking up our rents:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/yes-there-are-antitrust-voters-in

Cranking up the price of food:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

And everything else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

(Maybe this is a post about the election after all?)

The difference between a helpmeet and a parasite is power. If we want to enjoy the benefits of intermediaries without the risks, we need policies that keep middlemen weak. That's the opposite of the system we have now.

Take interoperability and IP law. Interoperability (basically, plugging new things into existing things) is a really powerful check against powerful middlemen. If you rely on an ad-exchange to fund your newsgathering and they start ripping you off, then an interoperable system that lets you use a different exchange will not only end the rip off – it'll make it less likely to happen in the first place because the ad-tech platform will be afraid of losing your business:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Interoperability means that when a printer company gouges you on ink, you can buy cheap third party ink cartridges and escape their grasp forever:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Interoperability means that when Amazon rips off audiobook authors to the tune of $100m, those authors can pull their books from Amazon and sell them elsewhere and know that their listeners can move their libraries over to a different app:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

But interoperability has been in retreat for 40 years, as IP law has expanded to criminalize otherwise normal activities, so that middlemen can use IP rights to protect themselves from their end-users and business customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

That's what I mean when I say that "IP" is "any law that lets a business reach beyond its own walls and control the actions of its customers, competitors and critics."

For example, there's a pernicious law 1998 US law that I write about all the time, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the "anticircumvention law." This is a law that felonizes tampering with copyright locks, even if you are the creator of the undelying work.

So Amazon – the owner of the monopoly audiobook platform Audible – puts a mandatory copyright lock around every audiobook they sell. I, as an author who writes, finances and narrates the audiobook, can't provide you, my customer, with a tool to remove that lock. If I do so, I face criminal sanctions: a five year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

In other words: if I let you take my own copyrighted work out of Amazon's app, I commit a felony, with penalties that are far stiffer than the penalties you would face if you were to simply pirate that audiobook. The penalties for you shoplifting the audiobook on CD at a truck-stop are lower than the penalties the author and publisher of the book would face if they simply gave you a tool to de-Amazon the file. Indeed, even if you hijacked the truck that delivered the CDs, you'd probably be looking at a shorter sentence.

This is a law that is purpose-built to encourage intermediaries to usurp the relationship between buyers and sellers, creators and audiences. It's a charter for parasitism and predation.

But as bad as that is, there's another aspect of DMCA 1201 that's even worse: the exemptions process.

You might have read recently about the Copyright Office "freeing the McFlurry" by granting a DMCA 1201 exemption for companies that want to reverse-engineer the error-codes from McDonald's finicky, unreliable frozen custard machines:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Under DMCA 1201, the Copyright Office hears petitions for these exemptions every three years. If they judge that anticircumvention law is interfering with some legitimate activity, the statute empowers them to grant an exemption.

When the DMCA passed in 1998 (and when the US Trade Rep pressured other world governments into passing nearly identical laws in the decades that followed), this exemptions process was billed as a "pressure valve" that would prevent abuses of anticircumvention law.

But this was a cynical trick. The way the law is structured, the Copyright Office can only grant "use" exemptions, but not "tools" exemptions. So if you are granted the right to move Audible audiobooks into a third-party app, you are personally required to figure out how to do that. You have to dump the machine code of the Audible app, decompile it, scan it for vulnerabilities, and bootstrap your own jailbreaking program to take Audible wrapper off the file.

No one is allowed to help you with this. You aren't allowed to discuss any of this publicly, or share a tool that you make with anyone else. Doing any of this is a potential felony.

In other words, DMCA 1201 gives intermediaries power over you, but bans you from asking an intermediary to help you escape another abusive middleman.

This is the exact opposite of how intermediary law should work. We should have rules that ban intermediaries from exercising undue power over the parties they serve, and we should have rules empowering intermediaries to erode the advantage of powerful intermediaries.

The fact that the Copyright Office grants you an exemption to anticircumvention law means nothing unless you can delegate that right to an intermediary who can exercise it on your behalf.

A world without publishing intermediaries is one in which the only writers who thrive are the ones capable of being publishers, too, and that's a tiny fraction of all the writers with something to say.

A world without interoperability intermediaries is one in which the only platform users who thrive are also skilled reverse-engineering ninja hackers – and that's an infinitesimal fraction of the platform users who would benefit from interoperabilty.

Let this be your north star in evaluating platform regulation proposals. Platform regulation should weaken intermediaries' powers over their users, and strengthen their power over other middlemen.

Put in this light, it's easy to see why the ill-informed calls to abolish Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which makes platform users, not platforms, responsible for most unlawful speech) are so misguided:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

If we require platforms to surveil all user speech and block anything that might violate any law, we give the largest, most powerful platforms a permanent advantage over smaller, better platforms, run by co-ops, hobbyists, nonprofits local governments, and startups. The big platforms have the capital to rig up massive, automated surveillance and censorship systems, and the only alternatives that can spring up have to be just as big and powerful as the Big Tech platforms we're so desperate to escape:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

This is especially grave given the current political current, where fascist politicians are threatening platforms with brutal punishments for failing to censor disfavored political views.

Anyone who tells you that "it's only censorship when the government does it" is badly confused. It's only a First Amendment violation when the government does it, sure – but censorship has always relied on intermediaries. From the Inquisition to the Comics Code, government censors were only able to do their jobs because powerful middlemen, fearing state punishments, blocked anything that might cross the line, censoring far beyond the material actually prohibited by the law:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#hugos

We live in a world of powerful, corrupt middlemen. From payments to real-estate, from job-search to romance, there's a legion of parasites masquerading as helpmeets, burying their greedy mouthparts into our tender flesh:

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/visas-hidden-tax-on-americans

But intermediaries aren't the problem. You shouldn't have to stand up your own payment processor, or learn the ins and outs of real-estate law, or start your own single's bar. The problem is power, not intermediation.

As we set out to build a new, good internet (with a lot less help from the US government than seemed likely as recently as last week), let's remember that lesson: the point isn't disintermediation, it's weak intermediation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/07/usurpers-helpmeets/#disreintermediation

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

[violetrainbow412-blog]

We're back, baby!! I've been off my writing for a while now but this year's challenge really excites me, I can't wait for you to read them all. As you can imagine, this month will be (for the second year in a row) all about the fabulous Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds. Be nice, I hope you like them! 💫

I hope you enjoy it and comment on what you think. If you want to be added to the taglist, say it below:)

Fluttober 2023 list 🎀

My favorites 🍂

DAY 1: LOST PET, MEET CUTE neighbor!Reid

DAY 2: “LEFT. OTHER LEFT!” platonic!Reid

DAY 3: FAVORITE SCENT coworker!Reid

DAY 4: MARKET DAY husband!Reid

DAY 5: ACORN ex-husband!Reid and dad!Reid 🍂

DAY 6: MISTAKEN IDENTITY strangers at party!Reid

DAY 7: HOODIE WEATHER boyfriend!Reid

DAY 8: CHOPPING AND PILING WOOD family friend!Reid

DAY 9: “DON’T DO THAT!” “BUT…” best friend!Reid

DAY 10: PORCH SWING childhood crush!Reid 🍂

DAY 11: SUDDENLY SEVERED COMMUNICATION long distance boyfriend!Reid

DAY 12: “THIS IS SPOOKY” “REALLY?” opposites attract!Reid

DAY 13: CELLAR rivals!Reid 🍂

DAY 14: FANTASY AU witch hunter!Reid + enemies-to-lovers 🍂

DAY 15: “WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?” “IT’S LAUNDRY DAY!” roommate!Reid

DAY 16: YES, NO, MAYBE coworker!Reid

DAY 17: “I HATE IT” “NO, YOU DON’T” boyfriend!Reid

DAY 18: BEWITCHED husband!Reid 🍂

DAY 19: YARN roommate!Reid

DAY 20: WRITTEN BUT NEVER SENT pen pals!Reid 🍂

DAY 21: BONFIRE classmate!Reid

DAY 22: HEIRLOOM fiancé!Reid

DAY 23: STORMY NIGHT boyfriend!Reid

DAY 24: COMFORT FOOD roommates!Reid

DAY 25: HAUNTED HOUSE best friend!Reid

DAY 26: GETTING REVENGE partners-in-crime!Reid

DAY 27: AFTERNOON STROLL old flame!Reid 🍂

DAY 28: LUCKY CHARM coworker!Reid

DAY 29: TIME CAPSULE childhood friend!Reid

DAY 30: “FOREVER?” childhood promise!Reid

DAY 31: “I’VE GOT YOU” mentor!Reid 🍂

[deedee-sims]

The second part is a wedding-themed cas set! 💍

Renaissance Gown

There's nothing renaissance about this anymore, but well. It's a mashup of Mistysensation's 4t2 Miiko Renaissance Dress and Skells Flower Girl skirt. AF only, has all morphs. I made 8 recolors, but here's the PSD for recolorists. Some patterns are from Freepik and Deviantart.

Download - Alternate

Petal Gown

A mashup from the sims 3 Petal Dress and the TSM Corset Puffy Dress. AF only, has all morphs. I made 6 recolors, but here's the PSD. Some clipping might occur at the shoulder area, but I tried my best.

Download - Alternate

3t2 The Tux

Found a suit that wasn't converted yet! For AM, TM, EM, and CU, they have the appropriate morphs. There are 6 recolors, but here's the PSD. You can choose if you want the other ages repo'd to the AM files, or not. Shoes are by MDP.

Download The Tux Repo'd - Alternate

Download The Tux Standalone - Alternate

Ruched Sleeve Gown

And another gown XD. It's a mashup of Pudding's 3t2 Pointy Collar, MDP's 4t2 Cropped Bow, and Off Shoulder Evening Gown. They're for teens, adults, and elders, they have the appropriate morphs. They come in 6 colors, but here's the PSD. You can choose if you want the other ages repo'd to the AF files, or not.

Download Ruched Sleeve Gown Repo'd - Alternate

Download Ruched Sleeve Gown Standalone - Alternate

3t2 Lil Sophisticate With Bow

Something for the flower girls! CF only, has all morphs. There are 6 recolors, but here's the PSD. Shoes are from the... Celebrations SP?

Download - Alternate

Rented-Space's 4t2 EP01 Suspenders Bow

It's rare to find formalwear for tots, so here it is! For PU, they come in the original 8 colors. Shoes are 3t2 ones by Yuxi, converted to toddlers by IDEU.

Download - Alternate

4t2 EP11 Laurel Earrings Edit

I didn't like the og version of this, so I made an edit that makes more sense to me XD From TF to EF, they come in the original 10 colors. You can choose if you want them as glasses or as BV jewelry.

Download EP11 Laurel Earrings Edit as glasses - Alternate

Download EP11 Laurel Earrings Edit as jewelry - Alternate

Understated Flower Headband

I chopped it off from a sims 3 hair, then I continued suffering with it XD It doesn't fit many hairs, but I think it looks cute anyway. From CF to EF, I made 4 recolors, but here's the PSD. You can choose if you want them as glasses or as BV jewelry.

Download Understated Flower Headband as glasses - Alternate

Download Understated Flower Headband as jewelry - Alternate

Phew, that was a lot of text XD On to the last part!

[mctvsh]

first post here so i'm quite nervous, but!

all i can think of kidnapped!enemy!medic!reader x poly!tf141

cw: military & war inaccuracies + some medical inaccuracies as well, reader uses she/her pronouns, and is mostly girl based, mentions of religion & prayer, first time writing so it will unfortunately be sloppy 💕

let's just say the boys (mostly one you've come to known as, Ghost) haven't been too kind to you. taken from a random battlefield where you were technically there to help YOUR team. they practically throw you over their shoulder and find some fucked up abandoned building with nobody around to help..

great. now what?

you're mostly terrified, and a little pissed. you've heard a few things about them, whispers around your base which, to be frank, aren't the kindest words you've heard about someone! one of them is bleeding out, some guy with a mohawk and a Scottish accent. some gash on his.. thigh? you haven't really been listening since you're scared out of your mind.

your clothes are sticking quite uncomfortably on you, the wet concrete floor has made your ass numb. until they all come in. staring down at you like you're some piece of prey, holding a limping Scot.

"Fix him, yeah?" mutton-chops.

your eyes snap over to the guy who you assumed is the Captain. huh!?

"Uh- I.. need my tools-" you practically squeak out. avoiding eye contact. your medbag was taken from you the second they basically claimed you as 'theirs.'

you hear a grunt (Ghost, you're guessing) and then, thankfully, your medbag being thrown right at you.

you bite at your now chapped lips and create a makeshift bed with your jacket now on the floor and hesitantly nod to the dark skin. he was pretty, ah — getting side tracked. he was the one holding the Scot up, who had stopped his incessant comments (jokes, but weren't very funny) and was now grunting.

unfortunately, you're a medic, a person who helps people, before you're anything else.

the dark skinned male sets the Scot down, and you can see his shudder.. and you almost begin to feel bad before you feel a gun pressed to your back.

great.

"I can't help him if you're doing that." you swallow, thickly. you'll be killed!? isn't that a damn war crime!?

you feel the gun retreat after a few seconds of silence. you breathe out, albeit shakily, but trying not to give them a chance to know how terrified you were.

you locate the source of the bleeding, it isn't too bad at all. you open your medbag, grab some trauma shears, and you cut through his slacks, big enough to work on the stab wound which wasn't too deep but it still needed stitches.

you grab some gauze, disinfectant, numbing cream, and a thread and needle. okay, time to get to work..

it had been a little over 10 minutes. finally finished up with stitching as you place a bandage around his thigh, his pant leg wasn't fully cut off so it was definitely still wearable..

the second you finish up you're being pulled away by the scruff of your neck (Ghost again), your tools splayed out on the floor, thrown off to the side with a Captain staring down right at you.

"Your name?"

you blink up at him. muttering your name as you shuffle a little closer to the corner of the abandoned building. the dark skin and Ghost hover over the Scot instead. which meant that mutton-chops over here, was gonna grill you.. you think. until he stays silent and gives a hum in acknowledgment.

he would be handsome, kind even, if he wasn't staring down at you like that.

your eyes flick over to a Scot who had now been sat up with the help of a narrow eyed dark skin. you bite down, hard at your bottom lip. drawing some blood. you hear a grunt coming from the Scot who had, unfortunately, been feeling okay.

seems the numbing cream did it's job.. because he's back to flirting and making jokes.

"Thanks for patchin' me up, bonnie."

it's not like you had a choice... you nod at him and continue looking down at the floor.

"We'll take 'er back to base." Ghost.

your eyes widen and you suddenly feel a little more religious, praying to whatever God is up there and hoping for the best.

"Aye, a pretty lass, ain't she?" that damn Scot!

they're talking as if you're not right here!

"We still have hours before there's a chopper coming for us." the Captain, and that's all he says as he brings out a cigar. lighting it in your face as if it's some.. joke.

"Aye." the skull-mask says before his brooding body walks over to a corner, staring down at you with his arms crossed over his chest.

and suddenly, you feel a very familiar lump in your throat.. back to THEIR base!? who knows what they'll do to you..