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elodieunderglass · 1 year

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Hey bestie whats a narrow boat? I saw you tag that on something you reblogged and I'm pretty curious now!

- Terry Darlington, Narrow Dog to Carcassone

A narrowboat (all one word) is a craft restricted to the British Isles, which are connected all over by a nerve-map of human-made canals. To go up and down hills, the canals are spangled with locks (chambers in which boats can be raised or lowered by filling or emptying them with water.) As Terry says above, the width of the locks was somewhat randomly determined, and as a result, the British Isles have a narrow design of lock - and a narrowboat to fit through them. A classic design was seventy feet long and six feet wide. Starting in the 18th century, and competing directly with trains, canal “barges” were an active means of transport and shipping. They were initially pulled along the towpaths by horses, and you can still see some today!

Later, engines were developed.

Even after the trains won the arms race, it was a fairly viable freight service right up until WW2. It’s slow travel, but uses few resources and requires little human power, with a fairly small crew (of women, in WW2) being capable of shifting two fully laden boats without consuming much fossil fuel.

In those times the barges were designed with small, cramped cabins in which the boaters and their families could live.

During its heyday the narrowboat community developed a style of folk art called “roses and castles” with clear links to fairground art as well as Romani caravan decor. They are historically decorated with different kinds of brass ornaments, and inside the cabins could also be distinctively painted and decorated.

Today, many narrowboats are distinctively decorated and colorful - even if not directly traditional with “roses and castles” they’ll still be bright and offbeat. A quirky name is necessary. All narrowboats, being boats, are female.

After a postwar decline, interest in the waterways was sparked by a leisure movement and collapsing canals were repaired. Today, the towpaths are a convenient walking/biking trail for people, as they connect up a lot of the mainland of the UK, hitting towns and cities. Although the restored canals are concrete-bottomed, they’re attractive to wildlife. Narrowboats from the 1970s onward started being designed for pleasure and long-term living. People enjoy vacationing by hiring a boat and visiting towns for a cuter, comfier, slower version of a campervan life. And a liveaboard community sprang up - people who live full-time on boats. Up until the very restrictive and nasty laws recently passed in the UK to make it harder for travelling peoples (these were aimed nastily at vanlivers and the Romani, and successfully hit everyone) this was one of the few legal ways remaining to be a total nomad in the UK.

Liveaboards can moor up anywhere along the canal for 28 days, but have to keep moving every 28 days. (Although sorting out the toilet and loading up with fresh water means that a lot of people move more frequently than that.) you can also live full-time in a marina if they allow it, or purchase your own mooring. In London, where canal boats are one of the few remaining cheapish ways to live, boats with moorings fetch the same prices as houses. It can be very very hard for families to balance school, parking, work, and all the difficulties of living off-grid- but many make it work. It remains a diverse community and is even growing, due to housing pressures in the UK. Boats can be very comfortable, even when only six feet wide. When faced with spending thousands of pounds on rent OR mooring up on a nice canal, you can see why it seems a romantic proposition for young people, and UK television channels always have slice-of-life documentaries about young folks fixing up their very own quirky solar-powered narrowboat. I don’t hate; I did it myself.

If you’re lucky, you might even meet some of the cool folks who run businesses from their narrowboats: canal-side walkers enjoy bookshops, vegan bakeries, ice-cream boats, restaurants, artists and crafters. There are Floating Markets and narrowboat festivals. It’s generally recognised that boaters contribute quite a lot to the canal - yet there are many tensions between different kinds of boaters (liveaboards vs leisure boaters vs tourists) as well as tensions with local settled people, towpath users like cyclists, and fishermen. I could go on and on explaining this rich culture and dramas, but I won’t.

Phillip Pullman’s Gyptians are a commonly cited example of liveaboards - although they were based on the narrowboat liveaboards that Pullman knew in Oxford, their boats are actually Dutch barges. Dutch barges make good homes but are too wide to access most of the midlands and northern canals, and are usually restricted to the south of the UK. So they’re accurate for Bristol/London/Oxford, and barges are definitely comfier to film on. (Being six feet wide is definitely super awkward for a boat.) but in general Dutch barges are less common, more expensive and can’t navigate the whole system.

However, apart from them, there are few examples of narrowboat depictions that escaped containment. So it’s quite interesting that there is an entire indigenous special class of boat, distinctive and highly specialised and very cute, with an associated culture and heritage and folk art type, known to all and widely celebrated, and ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWN outside of the UK - a nation largely known around the world for inflicting its culture on others. They’re a strange, sweet little secret - and nobody who has ever loved one can resist pointing them out for the rest of their lives, or talking about them when asked to. Thank you for asking me to.

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satorimoney · 2 years

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I paid off £15,000 in debt and saved £10,000 by travelling in a campervan for 18 months – how you can do it too

WHEN Laura Greenland was furloughed in 2020, she worried about how she would pay her rent and manage debts if she was made redundant. Just years later, she’s cleared her credit cards, saved £10,000 and set up a thriving Read Full Text

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#000 by travelling in a campervan for 18 months – how you can do it too #000 in debt and saved £10 #I paid off £15 #Money #News #Top #UK #US

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majestyeverlasting · 2 months

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𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭

Pairing Rockstar!Eddie x Reader | friends -> lovers

Summary Eddie comes back to Hawkins during a break on his national tour, and realizes he lost touch with someone he cares about deeply: you [angst and fluff]

Word Count: 2.7k

Above, a blue sky melts into orange, bearing a falling sun that makes Lover’s Lake shimmer. Tree branches rustle in the breeze. Until Eddie showed up at your door, whispers of his return to Hawkins had been just that. If you were still in the habit of calling each other regularly, you reckon you would’ve been the first to know. There’s no skepticism now, as the two of you sit on the tailgate of a cherry-red F-150. It’d been a gift from him to Wayne that he had on loan for the outing. This is a spot where campervans usually staked out for the view, but the universe must’ve known the evening belonged to you two.

There were so many things you told yourself you were going to say when he got back from the road, but the words were hard to find. Elation and confliction had decided that your heart would be the grounds for their tug-of-war. Time had a habit of doing that, muddling feelings. Blurring old lines.

“Does it feel weird?” you ask. They’re the first words you’ve spoken in a while. It takes Eddie a second to realize you’re talking to him.

He straightens up in apology. “Does what feel weird?” The hole in his jeans gives sight to the bruise on his knee. You study it, imagining the many ways it could’ve formed. Knee-sliding on stage, most likely.

“Being back in Hawkins,” you say, meeting his gaze.

The immediate answer that poses itself on the tip of his tongue is no. Then it occurs to him that what you’re really asking is if it feels weird to be back with you. To that, there is no concrete answer. No such thing as black and white. There’s only technicolor when it comes to you, so vivid and complex that he wished it was as simple as a binary.

“I don’t know if I’d use the word weird.”

“Different?” you supply.

He lifts a shoulder. “That’s a little more like it,” he says. “Coming home always is.”

You hum, twisting the gold bracelet around your wrist. There’s a silver one around his own and his fingers are adorned with bulky steel rings. More tattoos have found a home beneath his skin as well. The longer you study everything new about him, the more a look that hauntingly resembles grief blooms on your face. As if something that once belonged to the two of you had been lost to the passing of time. When the same sense begins to swell within his own chest, he tries to snub it out the best way he knows how, beckoning whatever levity may be waiting in the wings.

“But a lot of things stayed the same. Like Mike,” he starts. “I thought he would’ve called it quits by the time I got back, but he’s still kicking around at the auto shop. I was more surprised to see him than he was to see me.”

After teaching Eddie the little his father failed to teach him about cars, Mike Summerdale gave him his first steady job the summer before his senior year. Working at Starcourt hadn’t held up, neither did Family Video or any other ‘boring’ employment. Mike’s Tire & Auto Shop was the only gig he sustained before the world had bigger plans. Eddie was the type who needed to move around, work with his hands, be challenged. Mike was one of the only people who’d been keen enough to discern that.

Working at the shop not only gave him a sense of stability, but it also gave him you. The evening you came by for a last minute oil change on your parent’s Peugeot 504—ten minutes before closing—was the day he learned you were even funnier and more down to earth than what he’d gathered from within the stuffy halls of Hawkins High.

A smile starts on your own lips. “He was probably ready to put his best man back to work,” you say. “Your hands are all pretty now.”

Scoffing, Eddie turns his palms up as if he’s prepared to prove you wrong. There’s calluses on his fingertips from playing guitar, but not much else. His hands are nowhere near as rugged as they were when he was a mechanic. Back when you’d finally had enough of his indifference, you remember getting him a special cream and even rubbing it into his hands yourself when he puppy-dog-eyed his way into it. Some nights, long after you were supposed to have been back at your parents place, you’d be sitting in his living room with the TV glow illuminating your faces as the scent of eucalyptus lingered in the air between you.

Eddie follows your hand as you reach over to run your fingers over his palm. “If I gave you a socket wrench right now, you probably wouldn’t even know how to use it.” You’re shamelessly teasing him now. It feels good.

A genuine smile pulls on his lips, eyes brighter as he looks over at you. Even in his amusement, his next words are thoughtful. “Some things you don’t forget.”

Sobering words, more like. Memories begin to roll in one by one until they avalanche and you can’t help but relieve yourself of the pressure by shoveling it over to him.

“Do you remember the night we met?” you ask. “After that we were together all the time.”

Back when time was all you had. Twenty-four hours wasn’t the same anymore. There were more responsibilities to fill it with, different relationships to entertain. For a while, the only thought ticking in your minds was when you’d get to see each other again. When the phone calls stopped, the care never went away. Neither did the curiosity, the stress of not knowing how the other was doing or where they were in the world. Those concerns continued to ring on and on, reverberating down the hallways of want that built themselves within your hearts.

The rouge tear that streams down your cheek is the pioneer of more to come. Eddie swallows the lump in his throat when he sees it, hand twitching once in his lap. The next time, he doesn’t stop himself from reaching out to wipe your tears with his thumb. It’s a gesture meant to distract him from the fact that he’s the reason behind them. There’s no escaping the tidal wave of guilt that rushes in to drag him out to sea. You sniffle and shake your head to let him know that it’s okay, but his head is already under water.

“I do remember,” it comes out quiet, thick. “The night we met—everything.”

“Then what happened? What did I do wrong?” The wind is knocked out of him at that. “I know things changed so fast, but did everything before you left just get resigned to a spot on a timeline? Something for you to talk about to Rolling Stone?”

Eddie tries to swallow around his guilt, but ends up choking on offense.

“I never asked for any of this,” he asserts, hopping off the truck bed. “I may’ve begged God when I was a kid, but that’s ‘cause I didn’t know any better,” he says. “You don’t know what it’s been like. You don’t get to suggest that I stopped giving a shit.”

“Then what did you do, Eddie? Because that’s what it feels like.” You don’t mean to raise your voice, but there’s no way to reel it back in.

You can see the moment his stomach drops. It’s in the way his body grows tense, the faint color that rises to his cheeks, the light that wavers in his eyes. “You’ve been right here in Hawkins with all your friends and family three steps away. I’m the one who’s been in a new city every other night, cameras flashing wherever I go.” His voice remains level, but he talks with his hands like he always does.

“I’ve been on autopilot for the past three months to make it back here with a semblance of sanity. So I’m sorry if I stopped picking up the phone to call. I was too busy trying to breathe with a goddamn elephant on my chest.” He paces away from you to run his hands through his hair. When he faces you again, he looks small. “This is all new to me. If you could just extend some grace.”

Every word hangs heavy in the space between you. Which feels like miles. Eddie doesn’t huff or move or make any rash decision he’ll regret. He averts his gaze to refocus his attention on the lake. Its stillness feels like a mockery. There’s a dull thud as your feet meet the ground, followed by footsteps as you head into the woods. Despite every inch of you that wants to, you don’t look back. The feeling of his gaze is enough.

He follows a few minutes after you’ve disappeared. The whole way, he wonders if his words were too harsh, if he’d gone about expressing himself the right way. The earthy crunch of his footsteps are soft as comes up behind you. You’re standing at The tree. The one everyone in Hawkins manages to come across in a lifetime, even if they decide not to leave their mark. The stories you heard about it growing up made it out to be a relic.

Wound-Bearer was the name it had been given by a man from the class of ‘66, meant to immortalize the proof of love, romantic and platonic. Or at least bear a sign that it once existed. Looking at it now, more initials had been added since you and Eddie contributed to it your senior year. The carving stood out more than the rest, not because it was particularly noticeable or impressive, but because it was yours. Eddie stops a few paces away and spots it in seconds as he looks over your shoulder.

Both of you hold your breath until you give in.

“I didn’t mean to sound selfish. I’ve just been scared, Eddie.” You’re ashamed as you turn around to face him. “Scared that you didn’t want to talk anymore. That our friendship was fading away,” you say, scoffing a second later. “Now I sound like we’re in a movie.”

A tenderness settles in his eyes that you don’t believe you deserve. “Our lives are a fucking movie,” he says, breathing out a chuckle.

Things began to take off after he got scouted by the agent who’d flown out from California to visit family. You remember the dreams that had filled your head, each one of them somehow including you—you tagging along on the road, sitting front row at his shows, being right off camera during interviews. Reality proved itself to be nowhere near as sweet as your imagination. Later, when he signed to a label and was set for a national tour, the sacrifices of the limelight revealed themselves as pressing and real.

Joining him in that new stage of his life meant leaving everything you’d ever known, bypassing university, being subject to thousands of eyes that just wanted to gawk. That’s why the day he left Hawkins was the day he left you behind. Even in his own mind, you not being his personal assistant was for the better. Him losing a sense of stability to chase his dreams didn’t mean you should be strapped to his side and subject to the same.

At least you had a shot at creating a nice life for yourself. You were smart, talented, and someone worth building a life with. Music was all he had going. Leaving Hawkins was his only shot and it meant walking through the fire.

A surprised sound escapes him when you crowd into his space to wrap your arms around him like he’s a soldier home from war. It’s the same type of hug Wayne had given him earlier that afternoon. It felt like love, like safety, like home. He melts into you, and the two of you stand like this until you remember that embraces aren’t meant to last forever.

•••

Tonight, Eddie Munson takes it slow for the first time in his life. The speed limit signs on the side of the road dare him to go their limit. There’s hardly anybody on the roads to give him trouble for it either. It’s nice, the long way home always is. The radio plays low as the warm night air flows in through the widows. Eddie drives with his right hand, left arm hanging outside the truck.

“Fuck, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he grouses as he brakes for a stop sign. There’s enough earnestness in his voice to make you startle as you track his gaze.

On the opposite side of the street, the old location for Scoot’s Scoops sits idle with boarded windows and a dimmed sign.

You heave a sigh. “They just relocated,” you assure, rubbing your chest to calm down. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Eddie’s eyes are apologetic as he looks over at you. “I damn near had one myself. Sorry.” He reaches over to squeeze your thigh before his brain catches up to his body. It’s a fleeting touch that warms your entire being and stuns you into a brief stillness as if he was electric.

He shifts in his seat and clears throat. “Maybe we can go to the new location tomorrow. Get some ice cream.”

You blink a few times, mind still fuzzy. “Yeah, that’d be fun.”

The remainder of the ride is quiet. When he pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex, you’re swift to gather your things into your lap, still buzzing. “Thanks for the ride back,” you say, biting on your lower lip as a loud silence stretches. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He wants to walk you to your door, but he fears he’s already overstepped. “Yup. G’night.”

Eddie curses under his breath as the door snaps shut behind you. After running a hand down his face, a tube lipstick catches his attention in the passenger seat. It takes him a few seconds to grab it and follow after you. By then, you’ve already made it inside and up the short flight of stairs. When the door of the complex closes behind him, it cuts off a cacophony chirping insects.

Upon making it to the second floor, there’s something intimate about seeing you standing under the dim, humming lights fiddling with your keys. It isn’t until you get the door open that you regard him.

His smile is sheepish, unlike him in every way. “You forgot this.” He reads the label as if he hadn’t committed it to memory during his short trip up the stairs, “Strawberry Crush, New Hydrating Formula.” A boyish smile buds on his face as he holds it out to you.

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much.” Contrary to your words, there’s no inflection of surprise in your tone as you take it from him. Forgetting hadn’t been a mistake. His eyes flit inside to get a glimpse of your apartment. “Maybe I can give you a proper tour tomorrow after ice cream,” you offer.

Eddie shoves his hands into his pockets. “Sure, I’m down.”

He waits until you’re inside to walk back to his truck. You rush to peep out your living room window to watch him climb into the truck. He doesn’t pull away like you expect him to. Instead, he stays parked. Headlights shining, attracting moths and other flying things. The urge to see him one last time overpowers your better judgment in a fight that lasts all of five seconds.

In record time, you’re back outside. He rolls down his window as you approach.

“Forget something else?”

“I did, actually.”

You rest your forearms on the window sill and he instinctively leans towards you, warm eyes searching your face trying to get a read. In another life, he sees your next move coming. In this one, it seems too good to be true: a kiss as soft as they come to the sounds of the night.

Any and all interaction appreciated. I see you <3

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie x reader #eddie x female reader #eddie x y/n #stranger things fanfic #stranger things 4 fanfic #joseph quinn #eddie munson friends to lovers #friends to lovers fic

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local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti · 6 months

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Please share all you can about Toa the orca calf, I think his story is very important. I don’t know too much but it seems like a case of activists being but in charge rather than actual experts.

Yeah it was a mess from start to finish. Toa was found stranded on the rocks, with witnesses saying the waves had thrown him up there. Already he would have been distressed and had been on his side on a hard surface for a few hours at least.

They got him back in the water and then videos of these interactions started to surface:

No PPE, giving Toa belly rubs and ignoring any formal rescue protocols (if you're trying to refloat a whale, you're not letting them turn upside down)

The sun was going down and DOC wanted people out of the water. Ingrid was on her way and giving instructions to her team. The decision was made to put Toa on a trailer overnight - it's unclear if that was her decision or not but it's clear that, despite not having any rehab facilities in New Zealand, people were determined to rehab this calf and release it back into the wild at any cost.

So they cobbled together a "sea pen" on a boat ramp in a dirty harbour. This is where Toa would eventually die in a few weeks time. Whale Rescue was already selling the story of a miraculous rescue and the plan to "reunite" Toa with his pod. And lying openly that orca calves had been successfully released in the wild before:

He wasn't injured, they said. He was fine. They just had to find his pod now.

When asked reasonable question about where the PPE was for volunteers, Whale Rescue immediately became defensive:

The call for PPE went ignored for about a day while people were in close contact with a sick orca. And the call went out for more "volunteers" aka anyone with a wetsuit. This sparked immediate concerns from the Advisory Group.

Photos like this started showing up - 6 people crowding Toa in a circle, no where for him to go if he wanted a break from people:

The excuse was that Toa needed help swimming. Yet he was swimming okay and avoiding the fences without any obvious issue. And so the habituation began... Despite continuing advice from the Technical Advisory Group - including Loro Parque and SeaWorld, who both have extensive calf raising experience.

"There is no need to have people 24/7 in the water when the animal is able to float and swim alone."

Finally PPE was being used but the habituation and intense contact with Toa continued. Ingrid gave it the okay and other inexperienced members of the public continued to encourage it.

Whale Rescue continued to affirm to the public that they are merely "duplicating natural behaviour" for Toa

And the cultish and unquestioning worship of Ingrid Visser allowed this to continue - note the amount of people in the water for Toa's "massage." They only started wearing PPE when people started questioning it.

If you're wondering what I mean by cultish behaviour see the comment thread below:

They actually believe that Ingrid was communicating with Toa. Because that's what she told them she was doing. And they believed it without question.

When Toa was moved into the freshwater pool due to storms, it got even worse.

This photo was quickly deleted but look how absolutely foul the water is:

There didn't appear to be any sort of filtration or pump system.

At this point volunteers and Ingrid were being fed by donated food from the local pubs, Ingrid was sleeping on site in a donated campervan and the entire community were rallying around trying to "help." Note how close they're all set up to the pool.

Putting him in the pool also made Toa a lot more accessible. Concerns were raised about the stress to the calf and an exclusion zone was agreed upon. Buuut it was immediately disregarded.

7 people! In that tiny pool! And the photos of the complete flouting of the rules continued to surface.

The comments find it all very amusing!

Roll up, roll up! Come and see the dying baby orca calf!

And then, as we near the end of this animal's torment, Ingrid brags to the press about how she's now TRAINING the animal she intends to release into the wild. Because we definitely want to be training cooperative care and making life saving feeding and hydrating procedures all about Choice.

Remember when Ingrid Visser didn't like the "exploitation" of orcas in captivity? Remember when she said that training "tricks", even husbandry behaviours, is cruel and bad? I do!

It makes me seriously wonder if she just wanted to be an orca trainer all her life.

But anyway, Toa's getting bouts of colic (gee, maybe changing the formula without permission wasn't a good idea!) and DOC is starting to get concerned about him. At this point, people are still denying that SeaWorld and Loro Parque are involved and any mention of a facility getting involved is immediately shut down.

This is what was being said in the Advisory Group:

At this point both SeaWorld and Loro Parque have provided formulas, advice ect. Ingrid Visser was claiming she knew these things all along and that the formulas were from her hand picked experts.

So these are what the comments were:

Whale Rescue thought it was appropriate to reply to comments of concern like this:

The cult of Visser continues to fuel the anti human care sentiment.

DOC starts to report concerns with Toa's health and Whale Rescue decides to double down that everything is completely Fine. Don't listen to DOC, keep giving us money.

The donations are getting up to 20k.

Because of Whale Rescue casting dispersions, anti DOC (Department of Conservation - who put in about 10k into the rescue efforts) sentiments grow.

And, only a few days later, Toa dies. I reached the end of my image limit but I still have plenty more screenshots I can share.

I recommend you check out the documents released by DOC to see the sources of these screenshots - the other screenshots were taken from news reports, Facebook groups and posts as well as videos:

#Toa #Toa the orca #cetacean welfare #orca #killer whale #Ingrid Visser #New Zealand #whale rescue #cetacean rehab #cetacean rescue

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caledoniancampers · 2 years

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doukeshi-kun · 10 months

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imagine visiting stalker!Kolya before a show, staying with him inside his campervan. Could it be painting his nails, trying makeup on him or just playing with his hair as reader and him cuddle?

I love domestic scenarios ☹️🤍 (plus, I developed an obsession for stalker!Kolya)

𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙚𝙧!𝙣𝙞𝙠𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙞 + 𝙘𝙪𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙨

replies ⨳ nikolai is supposed to be obsessed with us, not the other way around ( ಡ⁠ ͜⁠ ⁠ʖ⁠ ⁠ಡ) btw thanks for pulling me out of writers block lmao enjoy this short drabble gshdjsh

notes ⨳ stalker!nikolai series

contents ⨳ fluff, obsessive thoughts, fem!reader

Nikolai is nervous.

His brain is short-circuited and he cannot stop staring at you. He has around five more hours before he has to leave for a show, though he still has some paperwork to review. And yet here he is, on the bed, with his girl lying against his body, carefully painting baby blue nail polish on his nails.

He found out—through... interesting method—about your sudden interest in nail arts. He even bought a complete set of manicures for you, intended to surprise you with the set once he visited you. But you came to visit him instead, and thus he decided to just give you straight away.

“Do you want a small flower?” your question snaps him out as he glances at his blue nails. Your hand is holding his, checking whether his thumbnail is dried or not. Nikolai swallows hard. His skin flares when he realises how close you two are, how he could smell you, how he could feel you. His finger twitches when he sees your skin is touching his.

Too much. Too much. You're too much.

Even after so many months, you're still too much for his poor heart.

“I-I do,” Nikolai says, smiling softly at you. You turn your face towards him and he almost gasps by how close your faces are—I could kiss you right now. I really want to kiss you. Please, I really want to kiss you. May I, love? I'll be good. Just a kiss, please, little dove.

“You okay? You seem to be... out of it,” you ask, reaching for a small packet of nail ornaments.

“Can I kiss you?”

You raise your eyebrow. It's rare for Nikolai to ask permission to kiss. He doesn't even ask permission to invade your house while you're sleeping and yet here he is, with puppy eyes, baby blue nails and a beige sweater, asking if he can kiss you. You nod slowly and Nikolai giggles happily before he leans forward, kissing your lips. shortly.

“Haha! I'm happy!” he exclaims before he kisses you again. You cannot help for a smile crook on your lips at his childish reaction.

“Ooh! You smile! How adorable!” Nikolai cups your face with his hands, pulling both your cheeks together so that they pucker your lips. “I'm gonna fucking eat you, I swear to God,” he whispers.

Whatever he means by 'eat' —whether literally or sexually, you do not really want to know.

“F-Funny....” you mutter before you tap his arm. “Let me go or you won't get a flower on your thumb,” and Nikolai is quick to obey you, pulling his hands away and offering his painted thumbnail. You glance at him for a second—noticing his gaze is darkened. You decide to ignore it for now. You may have an idea of what Nikolai might be thinking, but he is one unexpected guy. Everything he does seems spontaneous even when he has planned for it long beforehand.

As you're sticking the daisy charm on his nail carefully, your phone rings. You reach it and Nikolai leans forward, trying to listen to your conversation just because he can. You shoo him, pushing him by his chest to give yourself a personal space because he is invading almost every one of your spaces. Pouting, Nikolai huffs and stays on his spot as you answer the phone.

But Nikolai is not giving up. He leans just slightly, enough to see the name on the screen. A common name for men. And he finds his heart races faster when he hears a faint masculine voice talking to you on the other side. Nikolai frowns—well, this enthusiasm doesn't seem nice.

He could barely hear what's the man babbling about, so he depends on your facial expression to figure out what's happening. He could hear muffled, jumbled words like 'work', 'rejected', 'apply', 'coffee', 'out', 'free time', 'help', 'together'—

No.

“That would be wonderful. Thanks. Yeah! Okay, see you there. Thank you so much.”

You end the call, finally looking at Nikolai who is now quiet. You sigh, knowing he probably listened to chunks of your conversation with the hiring man. “Kolya...” you call softly as you scoot closer again to him. Your hands tangle themselves in his fluffy hair, caressing his soft white strands.

“You goin' on a date?” Nikolai pouts.

“It's for work, Kolya... He'd help me to secure another position I've applied for. It's not a date.” you explain carefully. It's not that your current job at the cafe is bad, but you need a more stable financial source. Though Nikolai has offered to take care of you fully, you still want to work for yourself.

"Hm~ I know." Nikolai leans closer, exhaling softly at the way your hand caresses his head. He finds himself getting more possessive and easy to get jealous when it comes to you. He needs more time to think rationally when it comes to keeping you around with him.

“I trust you. You won't—” he hugs you tighter, closer. “—leave me, right?”

Your bodies are embracing one another. You bury your face in his chest as your hands caress his hair and face and neck and shoulder and chest.

“Don't you leave me,” he warns. He makes a large step forward and grabs your arm tightly. “You do not leave me. I love you so much. I love you to the Hell and Heaven. I will not let you leave. We are meant to be together, love, we are meant to be! I need you in my life. I need you, to be my freedom. You and I, we complete each other, little dove.” his mouth is forming a deranged smile as he begins to get impatient.

A distant memory rushes past your mind. You stay still before a soft nudge of his knee against your stabbed thigh pulls you out of that lane of memory. You tug on him tighter and look up at him. You hold his face, kissing his lips slowly, once again making sure of yourself. He moans lowly and smirks against your lips. His hand holds the back of your head as he returns your kiss.

Words aren't enough to describe your declaration to him. It's enough to just—I won't leave you.

if you like my works, consider buy me a ko-fi!

#道化師-jest❃ུ۪ #nikolai gogol x reader #nikolai x reader #bsd x reader #bsd imagines #bsd nikolai gogol #nikolai imagines #bsd nikolai x reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader

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gil-galadhwen · 2 months

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What Do The BG3 Companions Drive?

A friend posted what they think the BG3 companions drive on another site, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so here's my two cents...

Shadowheart

A Vespa and no, you can't ride with her.

Astarion

A Tesla or other electric car he keeps forgetting needs to be plugged in occasionally (he has better things to think about)

Halsin

A campervan decked out beautifully with carved wooden panneling and the comfiest bed on earth (something like this)

(Pics from Parkingonthewildside)

Gale

He doesn't drive and only uses premium rideshares cause he thinks he's fancy

Wyll

He had an electric bike for about two weeks before it was stolen. Now he gets the bus while fundraising for a new one (he sometimes gets Halsin to pick him cause he knows he'll never say no)

Karlach

A beat up pick up truck with a whole lot of crap in the back (mostly bits and pieces she finds she thinks might be useful for her heart/engine)

Lae'zel

An Aston Martin Bulldog (need I say more?!)

Jaheira

An old Mustang she inherited, but it keeps breaking down. She won't give it up, though, cause it used to belong to one of her children

Minthara

I haven't had Minthara in my party yet, but I think she'd be a badass motorcycle girlie

What do you think? 👀

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 companions #bg3 #shadowheart #astarion #halsin #karlach #lae'zel #wyll #jaheira #minthara #gale #my thoughts #personal #my headcanons

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cerastes · 16 days

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hey drimo, with the RA2 monthly update having dropped I figured it was high time to go build up my Forward Camp a bit for the Warfare monthly maps - do you have any advice on how to create a proper torment nexus in the Forward Camp?

My first inclination had been to just recreate what I made in RA1 (winding labyrinth with lots of net launchers, gas launchers and a narrow kill lane), but IDK if that will work out and the resource outlay for a properly built up torment nexus IS pretty huge even with all the extra ways to get stuff in RA2

(sent by @the-cornuthaum)

Recreating an RA1 format base is indeed a good long term goal in my opinion, but as you said, it’s a resource intensive matter, particularly because it takes literal thousands of Stone -- Lighting Ore is really not an issue if you do a lot of Strange Territories -- to make all those ideal Urban Barriers III.

Personally, I would start with making a simple kill lane and building outwards from there, probably with a loop being the next thing after the kill lane. Cover your Campervan with Urbans, then choose a direction and make your lane there, and then stretch to either side of preference and make a basic loop surrounding 3-4 Battlements. This is highly informed by my own preferences and player expression, mind you, because I love radial range units -- Lin, Gnosis, Arturia -- and it tends to be how I start, but, of course, I think you need to adjust your layout to your own preferences.

I know most people don’t share my playstyle -- radial units close up, very long range artillery blasting those tiles while the radials damage/crowd control, like Horn, Firewhistle, Fiammetta, Ray, W -- so instead of a loop, you can do a zigzag funnel with Battlement ‘alcoves’, extending all the way to one of the enemy spawns with a single opening so all enemy spawns have to enter through there. I’m at work so bear with my MS Paint skills here but I think a small visual representation can help:

Basic, low resource kill lane. Greys are Urbans, browns are Battlements. The Battlement directly on the enemy route near the Campervan is intentional because a good kill lane will not have to worry about them reaching there in the first place. You can comfortably put several Battlements on the Battlement side, like rows of 2-3 per line, depending on your needs, and long range bombardment like Fortresses behind them. The straight line Battlement is good for Ifrit/Corroseum, Ray, Fartooth, Schwarz, any straight line killer of your choice. Apply Cursed Mire as needed, but keep in mind a Cursed Mire tile is a tile you don’t get to deploy Melee units on, so leave a gap here and there if you want to put an Ambusher like Manticore here and there. Your straight line Battlement can also be under the entrance, but do mind ranged enemies.

From there, you can extend like this for a funnel, like so,

Do zigzag alcoves like this,

or make a simple loop like this

Added a red line to show you how the enemy pathing would go; you can add more Battlements to the empty space down there in the loop.

Then, with a few more blocks, you can create this Purple Zone above the loop, which is where I would put all sorts of goodies like Net Launchers or long range artillery Battlements, aimed towards the loop.

This is already a potent set up for a base, you don’t need to occupy all of your space, simply make good use of little space to get started. From here, you really can build absolutely anything you want and start dressing it as you see fit, but as a starter, powerful set up, this is what I recommend.

#arknights #the cornuthaum #reclamation algorithm #ra2 #dreamknights

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