#and my stuff can be sold in an estate sale as long as said sale isnt run by my parents | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

childofchrist1983 · 2 years ago

Photo

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. - 1 Timothy 6:7-8 KJV

Someone once said, "There are no U-Hauls behind hearses". The implication is that you can't take it with you when you die.

There's a story of a man who tried. When the doctors told him he had a short time to live, he converts some of this cash into gold bricks, puts them in a suitcase and instructs that this suitcase should be buried with him. When he approaches the pearly gates carrying the suitcase, St. Peter stops him and asks to look inside the suitcase. The angel Gabriel asks, "What's in the suitcase?" "Pavement," replies St. Peter. The story illustrates that in heaven what we consider to be wealth on this Earth is really nothing.

Heaven's streets are paved with gold. That would be the equivalent of us finding some kind of value in asphalt or concrete chunks here on Earth. We spent a lot of time trying to get things in this world. We spend a lot of time working to get more and more and more stuff that we just don't need. If you don't believe it, take a look at what happens when a person dies without an heir: A lawyer has to come in, open up the house, and sell off all the belongs to settle the estate. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff -Sometimes, still in boxes - is sold for pennies on the dollar. An entire lifetime of obtaining things and the only thing that happens is that strangers come in to pick over the possessions a giant yard sale.

This passage tells us that we are to be content with what we have. We should be content with food and clothing. As long as our needs are met on a daily basis, that's really all we should ask for. Everything else is just bonus stuff.

And if we are spending time away from our families, if we're spending time focusing on getting rather than focusing on living, then we're being very foolish, because we can't take any of it with us. When the end comes, all the stuff that we bought in this life stays behind. While we're on this Earth, we need to make the right choices and be sure that we are able to be content with what we have. Then we may end up with few things that we want. And that's okay! For as the Holy Bible says, the true treasure and rewards await us in Heaven, not on this Earth. Especially our eternal life in God's Kingdom of Heaven. So keep your eyes on Him and what's above (Colossians 3:1-2).

May the LORD our God and Father in Heaven help us to stay diligent and obedient and help us to guard our hearts in Him and His Word daily, May He help us to remain faithful and full of excitement to do our duty to Him and for His glorious return and our reunion in Heaven as well as all that awaits us there. May we never forget to thank the LORD our God and our Creator and Father in Heaven for all this and everything He does and has done for us! May we never forget who He is, nor forget who we are in Christ and that God is always with us! What a mighty God we serve! What a Savior this is! What a wonderful Lord, God, Savior and King we have in Jesus Christ! What a loving Father we have found in the Almighty God! What a wonderful God we serve! His will be done!

Thanks and glory be to God! Blessed be the name of the LORD! Hallelujah and Amen!

Father God Almighty, Lord Jesus, I thank you for everything! I know sometimes I may seem discontent, because there are things that I think that I want and things I think that I need. But the truth is, I'm content. I'm happy with what You've done for me and all the blessings You have given me. I'm happy with my family, with my job in serving You, and with the things that I have. And most of all, I'm thankful for my eternal salvation and security in You!

I've seen what happens when you have too much in the carnal, material life and I don't want that. When I get weak and greedy, You remind me that I have everything that I need and most of what I could ever want through You. You always know what is best for me and all of us, and I am eternally grateful for that, even in the times I may grumble or not quite understand. I thank you that when it comes to my life, You truly know best. I pray that in times I may feel tempted to go my own way, or try rise on my own, You help me to remember that I am nothing without You.

Help us all to be humble and obedient to You. And help us to be courageous enough to seek You daily and to humbly and faithfully do our duty to You, spreading the truth of Your Gospel to all in all nations, as You commanded before You ascended back to Heaven (Mark 16:15-16). May our lives show the world Your light and Truth and that You are a loving God and Heavenly Father who delights in showing love and mercy. May we all be humbly and faithfully honored and excited to worship, glorify and serve You daily and to do Your will. You have been so good to us, far more than we as wretched sinners deserve. You are so good! So wonderful! Forever and always!

Thank you, Lord, for keeping me and helping me in times where I am tempted to go astray. Praise be to You today and everyday of my life and let me never forget all of the blessings that are given me by You. As much as the enemy will try, he will never be able to successful breed doubt about who You are, in the minds of anyone who truly believes and follows You. And I will follow and serve You all the days of my life and beyond! Thank you for the connection with You that we are given through Your Holy Word and Spirit. Thank you, O Lord, for all Your creation and Your miraculous ways. Thank you for being our stronghold and my refuge. Thank you for seeing us as worth the sacrifice. Thank you for sustaining us, loving us and defining us according to Your will and love for us. Thank you for making sure we are taken care of. Thank you for being the best friend we could ever have! Thank you for Your endless mercy and love that has saved us. Thank you for always protecting us and providing for us and for Your Spirit to help us when we are in need. Thank you for abiding within me and may I abide with You, my Lord. Thank you for giving us a chance to be saved from our sin and spend eternity with You. Thank you for adopting us as part of Your family in Heaven and making us one of Your own. Thank you for being our present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1). Thank you for always being near and for loving us. Thank you for giving us a reason to love others and so many more reasons to love, praise, serve and follow You. Thank you for Your selfless and sinless sacrifice. Thank you for Your guidance and protection. Thank you for Your Truth and light. Thank you for Your wisdom and strength and grace. Thank you for giving life to the world and to us. You give and take away – And we thank you for it. Thank you for everything! Your will be done! Blessed be Your mighty name! To You and Your Kingdom be the glory forevermore! In Your name I humbly pray, Amen and amen

1 note · View note

fatehbaz · 4 years ago

Text

“I was born and raised over there in the Grays Ferry community,” Philly Thrive member [SS] said in an interview. “My grandmother was raised here too, she told me all about the refinery. [...] I watched my neighbors die. Cancer, all of them,” said [SS]. “Around the corner, down the street. They were all being erased. [...] A lot of us are what you call poor people and we don’t have the resources, the money to fight. This big company? We don’t have the money for that. Not even together. [...] So it was more so, ‘shut up, live your life, deal with it.’”

[SS] described the routine she and her family developed in response to the odors that would seep outwards from the aging refinery. “Family drill was, you put the blankets down,” she said, describing how her family sought to keep outdoor air from entering her home. “When we smelled the smell, it was like, ‘go get the blankets, go put the stuff down, make sure the windows are shut.’” [SS] said that she'd moved for a while out of the neighborhood. When she returned, she was struck by the odors seeping from the refinery complex. Then, five years later, her husband [R] was diagnosed with cancer, she said. [R] died of cancer nine months after the refinery blast [...].

The Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery was — until last year [2019] — the largest and oldest gasoline refinery on the East Coast. The week it was sold began with a community rally that also served as a makeshift memorial service.

On Monday, June 22 [2020] [...], members of Philly Thrive, a local grassroots group, arrived outside the perimeter of the refinery complex in South Philadelphia. They posted “in memorium” placards bearing the names of deceased Philadelphians along the facility’s chainlink borders, handwritten fenceline memorials for departed members of the refinery's fenceline community. Speakers that day recalled less the fiery explosion that tore through the plant one year earlier and more the long-term harms caused by decades of fossil fuel production in the majority Black neighborhood.

Later that week, on June 26 [2020], Hilco Redevelopment Partners closed on the sale of this sprawling 1,400 acre refinery complex in the heart of one of the nation’s largest cities. [...]

One year earlier, nearly to the day, a never-inspected segment of pipe inside the 153-year old PES refinery wore through and burst, according to a preliminary report by federal investigators. The breached pipe released a mix of fossil fuel chemicals used to make gasoline as well as one of the most dangerous substances used by industry today, hydrogen fluoride. The blend ignited in a series of explosions, unleashing a fireball so large that it registered on weather satellites orbiting the Earth and some locals mistook it for the implosion of an atom bomb. [...]

Roughly 20,000 people live within one mile of Philadelphia Energy Solutions [...]. The majority of those living inside that radius are Black and a third of households have incomes below $15,000 a year. Expand that circle outwards to three miles of PES, and you'll find the homes of over 350,000 people, sixty percent of whom are people of color. [...] For those gathered at the June 22 rally and memorial, the now-inoperable refinery’s hazards remained all too vivid. For [SB], it lives on in her granddaughter’s respiratory problems, for [KJ] in her own multiple cancer diagnoses, and in the memories of those who passed away. “People, generations have died in South Philadelphia because of that oil refinery [...].”

In 2012, the plant spewed over three-quarters of a million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air surrounding the plant, a 2014 EPA fact sheet notes, adding that was a reduction from the plant’s 809,945 lbs of pollution the year prior. For comparison, the next largest polluter in South Philadelphia reported 9,599 pounds of air pollutants released in 2012. More than 9 percent of the total reported toxic releases in South Philadelphia that year were just one chemical: benzene. Benzene is perhaps best known as a powerful carcinogen — but it can cause other impacts, including impacts for children’s health. [...] Neurological symptoms were among the most frequently reported symptoms among a group of children exposed to benzene by a 2010 incident at a BP refinery in Texas. [...]

HRP, the real estate redevelopment unit of liquidation firm Hilco Global, says it will take several years to demolish and begin rebuilding the site, parts of which are seriously polluted from more than a century of fuel processing,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. [...] Mass-mailings about the cleanup circulated to the refinery’s neighbors name Evergreen Resources Group, LLC as the company responsible for remediating the pollution left behind by decades of the refinery’s operations. The parent company of Evergreen Resources Group is Energy Transfer — the same company behind pipeline construction projects including the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), Mariner East, and Revolution (which exploded less than a week after it was first used).

-----

Photos, captions, and text published by: Sharon Kelly. “In the Shadow of Shuttered Philadelphia Refinery, Neighbors Recall Those Lost to Decades of Pollution.” DeSmog. 1 July 2020.

66 notes · View notes

nexttrickanvils · 4 years ago

Text

Beware of Karen Ch. 2

Sorry this took so long, had other priorities but here is the long awaited chapter 2 of Beware of Karen.

Summary: After Guybrush and Stan fail to deal with the latter’s ex-wife, Elaine decides to throw her hat into the ring. It goes about as well as you expect. ---------

Elaine hummed to herself as she set the table. While Guybrush was admittedly the better cook of the two, she still wanted to surprise her Pikaroni with a nice romantic dinner. Preferably without a certain plaid wearing charlatan joining them.

While Elaine had nothing against Stan… well okay maybe she had a lot against Stan… but that wasn’t the point, she’d prefer if he hadn’t attempted to drag her and Guybrush in an ex-lover’s quarrel of all things.

But she trusted Guybrush’s wit and uncanny ability to find absurd but simple solutions to absurd problems.

Before long, she could hear footsteps on the deck, she quickly lit the candles and plated the food.

“Welcome back, sugarboots! I hope you’re...”

The door opened and in came Guybrush… and Stan.

“Hey honey! Ooh are those potstickers I smell?”

“...Guybrush… I thought you were going to help Stan with his ex-wife and thus he would not bother us.” Elaine said, gritting her teeth

Guybrush, to his credit, looked apologetic.

“Well I did try, I honestly did but well… let’s just say Stan wasn’t exaggerating about how awful Karen is. So I guess Stan will be staying with us until Karen leaves.”

Elaine groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. Guybrush sighed and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“I know, I was really excited for all the quality time too but Elaine, you have no idea just how evil this woman is. I couldn’t just leave Stan to fend for himself against her, I’m a pirate not a monster!”

“...Really? And please do tell me, what makes her so terrible that Stan has to go in hiding with us?” Elaine asked, clearly unconvinced

“Well first: I could barely breathe around her stall, the perfume she was selling was that thick! She was also really pushy with the sales pitch like waaaaay worse than Stan. She also kept making all these mean comments about me being a terrible husband and how our marriage would fall apart if I didn’t buy her stuff. And she threatened to call the island authorities on Stan if he even thought of setting up shop near her! And he didn’t even do anything!”

Elaine raised an eyebrow, “Hm, I admit she does actually sound awful. But being pushy and rude are hardly the crimes of the century, sweetie.”

“Oh it goes beyond “pushy and rude.”” remarked Stan, mouth full of potstickers

“Karen thrives on “the hunt.” All she cares about is her next sale!"

"...Sounds like you." Elaine and Guybrush both remarked

"Oh no no no, my friends. I admit that Ol' Stan here may have exaggerated or cut some corners here and there. But hey sometimes that's what you gotta do when your clientele are a buncha rowdy swashbucklers!"

Stan continued, while grabbing another pot sticker, "Karen on the other hand… she has no respect for the art of sales, it's all a means to an end for her. And if anyone gets in the way of that precious end sale even if it’s only in her mind, she will destroy you! By the way, these are amazing, you could make a killing selling these.”

Once again, Elaine found herself not entirely convinced. Stan stuffing himself with the food she made for herself and Guybrush didn’t help his case. But he also couldn’t really be considered a reliable narrator. And Guybrush, her dear Threepy, the love of her life… well he was quite prone to exaggeration.

Elaine sighed, well she wouldn’t be where she was now if she just sat and complained about a bad situation.

“Perhaps… I should speak to her…”

“NO!” Shouted both Guybrush and Stan

She just gave them a confident smile, “Oh don’t worry about me. I’m sure if I went without Stan, she won’t be as volatile. And besides, all my years as governor has given me quite the experience of negotiating with stubborn egotistic business owners. You remember that incident at the O'Malley's Galley last year, don’t you dear?”

Guybrush let out a small laugh and a blush, obviously remembering how Elaine dealt with the restaurant's owner after the man refused Guybrush's request to not serve the food on porcelain plates.

Elaine kissed Guybrush on the cheek, "I'll be fine dear. You just relax and I'll come back with the good news."

Then she looked over at Stan, "...And I suppose you just do what you can to entertain yourself."

And with that, Elaine made her way off the boat and into town. As she made her way, she kept rehearsing in her head how she'd calmly confront Karen.

However when Elaine arrived and started asking the other merchants about Karen, a feeling of dread began to form.

They were all smiles and sales until Elaine explained who she was looking for. They all suddenly dropped their grins and immediately apologized to Elaine for "wasting her time."

The most concerning interaction was from one merchant who told Elaine where Karen was then immediately begged her to not tell Karen that the two of them spoke.

Before long, Elaine found the woman of the hour making a sale.

"Trust me, dearie, this color and this scent are perfect for you! You'll be catching everyone's eye in no time!"

The female pirate grinned as she paid for her goods.

"Just remember, no refunds on used products."

"Yeah yeah yeah. Look out, Single's Night, Mama's coming!"

Elaine stepped aside to let the lady walk by then she took a deep breath and steeled herself.

"Excuse me? Are you Karen?"

"Hm?"

Elaine felt a shiver down her spine when Karen smiled at her.

“Well hello there, my dear! Whatever you need, I’ve got it.”

“Actually I’m not here to shop. You met my husband earlier? Guybrush Threepwood?”

“Ohhh! So he gave you the free sample? I knew you couldn’t resist! A woman of your taste would know fine class when you see it.”

Karen chuckled as she immediately looked through her inventory while Elaine was already finding her patience tested.

“Please just listen to me. I understand that your relationship with your ex-husband is… strained but it’s gotten to the point where he’s hiding on my and my husband’s ship trying to get away from you.”

“Hmph, Stan, being an absolute freeloader? You don’t say. Anyway…!”

To Elaine’s surprise, Karen grabbed her face.

“H-hey!”

“Hm, you look like a spring or autumn to me.”

Elaine quickly pushed her off though if that bothered Karen, she didn’t show it and went straight back to her sales pitch.

“Now your face is rather pale, you look like a ghost, dearie! Oh and you need to ditch that bandana, it clashes with your hair."

"Would you just LISTEN to me! I am not here to buy anything! Or to get make-up advice. Or whatever you think I'm here for! I need for you and Stan to reconcile whatever is going on with you two so my husband and I can be alone!"

With that, Karen just laughed.

"Oh you poor innocent sucker. There is no reconciling with that selfish mess of a man. But that's marriage for you, the minute the wifey has a problem, she's suddenly a nagging witch, am I right?"

Elaine's patience was growing thinner and thinner as she crossed her arms and glared at Karen.

"Fine. You two just can't get along, just fine. But at the very least just let Stan be. My husband and I have been looking forward to a nice romantic vacation and we can't exactly do that with Stan around.

Karen smirked and Elaine once again felt an icy chill.

"Oh really? And what do you think your "dear" husband and Stan are doing while they sent you to do their dirty work?"

"I volunteered…"

Karen continued, ignoring Elaine's correction, "They're probably just lazing about on the deck, pigging out on junk and guzzling grog. I was one of the lucky ones. I realized what a scam the whole marriage thing is and got out of there. I've still got my divorce lawyer's card, you know, when you realize that you don't need to settle with that blonde idiot."

Karen pulled out a card and placed it into Elaine's pocket. Without hesitation, Elaine grabbed Karen's wrist with an iron grip.

"HEY!!!"

“Now listen here, you can insult me all you want but my husband is a good man. He may have his moments but that goes for anyone. Do you know what we've faced off against together? Some of the fiercest pirates on the Seven Seas including the undead monster LeChuck. A real estate developer with delusions of grandeur who had the power to make mice out of men. A mad scientist obsessed with eternal life! Guybrush even conquered DEATH! And through all that, Guybrush has always been respectful, caring, and loving!”

Elaine let go of Karen's wrist but kept her steely glare on her.

"My husband may not be perfect but I cannot see myself with anyone else. Now I believe our business is done here."

Karen rubbed her wrist as she gave Elaine her own glare.

"Hmph, I suppose it is. But I am a forgiving sort. I'd be happy to help you once you figure things out."

Refusing to dignify Karen's response, Elaine simply turned around and walked away.

As Elaine stepped out of the marketplace, a shrill scream filled the air.

She looked toward the noise and saw the female pirate from earlier desperately trying to shake off two monkeys climbing all over her.

Elaine quickly came to the woman's rescue, shooing the monkeys away from her, giving the other pirate enough time… to dunk her head in the nearby fountain.

Whatever that did, it seemed to cause the monkeys to lose interest and run off.

"Oh thank Blackbeard's frilly underthings."

"Are… you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I will be."

"What in the world even happened?"

"Oh I'll tell ye what happened! I went to the bar to get ready for Single's Night and put on somea that goop that fast-talking she-devil sold me. Next thing I knew, the bar's monkey mascots were all over me."

"...And you're certain that it was the make-up that caused this?"

"DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE A MONKEY'D BE ATTRACTED TO TO YA!? They left me alone just fine then I put on that damn perfume and other stuff and they went crazy! "You'll be catching everyone's eyes in no time" apparently that includes mangy beasts!"

The other pirate stood up and emptied her bag of Karen's products. She then walked away, grumbling about her wasted money and time.

Maybe it was Guybrush's influence but Elaine couldn't help but pick up a couple of the fallen cosmetics.

Eventually Elaine made her way back to the Screaming Narwhal. Guybrush and Stan were on the deck though unlike Karen's prediction, Guybrush was practicing his banjo playing while Stan just read a book.

Guybrush immediately noticed Elaine walking onto the deck and smiled. At least Elaine had that.

"Plunderbunny! So um… how did it go?"

"...I apologize, you were both right. She's the absolute worst, how do we get rid of her?"

#Monkey Island #Anvil Writings

6 notes · View notes

silverlightqueen · 4 years ago

Text

Writing’s On The Wall

silverlightqueen’s SKZ Scarefest

ghost!Jeongin x human!reader - comedy, angst, Jeongin will stop at nothing to make sure no one moves into his house and y/n is tired of it

Word Count: 2.8k+

Summary - y/n’s job as a real estate agent has always been easy. Selling houses in District 9 has never been particularly difficult - people line up to live in the famed ‘Spooky City’ - and y/n just has the gift of the gab, meaning she’s got the highest number of sales in the company. But one house, she just can’t seem to shift. It could be the tiny box room on the third floor, or the slightly beaten down garden fence, or the ghost that scares away every family that comes to view the house. Yeah, it’s probably the ghost.

Warnings: death, ghosts, stuff that looks like blood but isn’t, I think that’s it but please let me know if I missed something!

a/n: and here is the eighth instalment of my SKZ Scarefest! I really hope you guys enjoy this, and thank you @silverlightprincess for proofreading, you’re the best! please be sure to check out the previous parts and keep an eye out for the last part tomorrow! x

taglist: @kodzu-ken @cloudsgathering @silverlightprincess

silverlightqueen navigation

My heart gets heavier and heavier as I near 325 Sunshine Street, my mood souring when I turn onto the road. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a beautiful neighbourhood. If someone’s on their front garden as you drive past, they’ll wave and smile, and everyone is so generous, kind and friendly. The houses are all big and pretty, and I can see myself living somewhere like this one day, when I’ve got a family of my own. But now, whilst I’m a struggling real estate agent, this road is my personal hell.

Maybe calling myself ‘struggling’ is an exaggeration. I mean, I’m fresh out of school and my sales are already blowing my colleagues’ sales out of the water. It probably helps that my parents own the company, so they tend to give me the best houses to sell, but that’s beside the point. The point is that I am far from struggling. But this house, 325 Sunshine Street, is the bane of my existence. I’ve been trying to sell this house for months, and every time someone shows interest, it just gets ruined.

I pull up in the driveway, having a moment to collecting myself before I push open the car door, stepping out and smoothing down my pink skirt. I reach in and grab my handbag from the passenger seat before shutting the door behind me. I look up at the house, taking a deep breath, before heading up to the front door. I push the key into the lock, turning it and opening the door, wiping my court shoes on the mat as I shut the door behind me.

I hear a sudden commotion from upstairs, sighing as I head into the kitchen, and I decide to busy myself with the coffee machine whilst I wait for him to grace me with his presence. It doesn’t take him long to materialise, and I don’t even bother looking up when he walks in, just raising a hand in greeting. ‘Morning, y/n,’ he says sweetly, and I can hear the grin in his voice, just humming in response.

It started with little things. Taps suddenly running in rooms we weren’t in, or the back door creaking whilst we were upstairs. These things weren’t enough to put the customers off – leaky taps can be fixed, and so can dodgy doors. So then, when customers would come for their second viewings, things became a little worse. Flickering lights and glasses smashing. Most people would decide against the house at the point, but the slightly braver ones would be subjected to even worse. Doors slamming in their face, or things levitating and then flying at them. They’d leave the house running and screaming.

At first, I’d been a little unnerved, wondering if the house was possessed or something, but eventually, I just got annoyed. This house was taking up too much of my time, and totally ruining my sales stats. So I made a decision that I’d fix this problem, no matter what.

The next time I went was not for a showing, or an open house. I went by myself, and I sat in the living room, and waited. For hours and hours. So long that I fell asleep. When I woke, it was late evening, pitch black outside, but the lamp had been turned on, and there was a blanket on me. I came back the next day, and did the same, and there was a blanket on me again when I woke, the lamp on and a lukewarm hot chocolate on the coffee table before me. I drank the hot chocolate before making another one and leaving it out on the counter. When I came back the next day, the two mugs had been washed and put away in the cupboard.

There was someone living in this house, but I had a feeling they weren’t actually… living.

For weeks, we did the same thing nearly every day. I’d fall asleep after waiting for so long, and I’d wake up to a warm and bright house with the radiators blasting out heat and the lights turned on, a blanket on me, and a hot chocolate ready and waiting. Sometimes, I’d arrive to a book on the sofa beside where I sat, there for me to read, or I’d wake to my phone on charge because it had died. A few times, when I didn’t bring any food, there’d be a pizza or a burger and chips from the takeout place down the road waiting for me, and I’d always leave half. When I’d come back the next day, it’d be finished with the packaging thrown in the bin.

Around two month ago, I woke up to a boy with bubblegum pink hair sat on the sofa opposite me. His face was young and innocent, but a little sharp around the edges. I blinked in surprise a couple times before asking, ‘What’s your name?’ He was silent for a moment before replying in a small voice, ‘I.N.. And you’re y/n y/l/n, from y/l/n Estate Agents.’ ‘I.N., why haven’t you said hello to me yet?’ I asked, and he hesitated. ‘I thought you might be angry with me,’ he said quietly, looking down at his hands, and I felt my heart go out to him a little. ‘I’m not angry. A little frustrated, and curious, but not angry.’ ‘Curious?’ ‘Why don’t you want anyone to move in?’ I asked, and he didn’t reply for a few moments. ‘Because… I want to live here. Not with anyone else,’ he whispered, and I raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re a ghost. You can literally go anywhere you want, in the whole world, and you want to stay at 325 Sunshine Street?’ I asked, and he nodded. ‘There’s nowhere else I want to be, other than here,’ he replied, not meeting my eyes, and I sighed. ‘The thing is… the previous owner needs me to sell the house. They need the money,’ I said, and he looked up at me in confusion before realisation passed across his face, and I wondered what he was thinking. ‘Well… can’t I just buy it?’ ‘Do you have money?’ I asked, and he shook his head miserably. ‘So… no, unfortunately, I.N., you can’t buy it. I have to sell it.’

‘But you can’t sell it if no one will buy it.’ ‘No one will buy it because you’re scaring them off. So you need to stop,’ I said softly, and he looked up at me with pity in his eyes. ‘I won’t stop. I’m not letting anyone move in,’ he said gently, as though breaking bad news to me, and I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘So, if I can’t sell the house by a certain time, someone else will be given the house to sell, and they won’t be as kind as me when they find out a ghost is living here. They’ll call the Busters to get rid of you,’ I said, his eyes widening. ‘But… but I can’t leave. I have nowhere to go,’ he said, beginning to panic, and I took a deep breath. ‘I.N., the world is your oyster. You have so many different places to go.’ ‘No, you don’t understand. I have to stay here. Please, y/n,’ he begged, and I was taken aback. ‘But, I.N., there’s nothing I can do. I have to sell the house.’

It’s been two months since then, and the house is still not sold. As you probably guessed. I even offered for him to move in with me, I was that desperate, but he would not leave that house, not for anything. And over time, he only got worse and worse. I’d arrive with potential buyers to find dead animals dotted around the house, terrible rotting smells hanging thick on the air, bees’ nests planted in the kitchen cupboards. And yet, when it was just he and I, and he’d materialise from thin air beside me, I never had the heart to shout at him. He’s looks my own age, and I just found him so tragic. A young boy who died and is now doomed to roam the Earth until he figures out what his unfinished business is, and is too scared to venture out into the world, so he sticks to 325 Sunshine Street. And so instead, I’d order takeout and we’d sit on the floor of the living room with blankets and watch a kids’ film together.

I’ve been getting a lot of shit from my parents – they just don’t understand why I can’t sell the house. It’s in the perfect location, and it’s the perfect house. But I can’t bring myself to tell them that even though people want to live in the Spooky City, they don’t want ghosts living in their houses. They’d probably get Busters into the house without another word, and I can’t let that happen to I.N., or whatever his real name is. He’s too… young, too sweet.

‘How many people are viewing today?’ he asks, jumping up onto the countertop as I hand him a cup of coffee. ‘Just one family. What have you got planned today?’ I ask tiredly, before taking a sip of my coffee, and he looks a little uncomfortable. ‘I… I’m not g-’ ‘gonna tell me, okay,’ I say, sliding into one of the seats at the dining table, and he’s just silent. ‘y/n-’ ‘Don’t, I.N., not today. I’m too tired. They’re gonna be here in about ten minutes, and I want to save my energy,’ I murmur, and he just nods, the air tense as we drink our coffee. I really like him, maybe a little too much, but my patience is starting to wear thin with this damn house.

We sit in a slightly uncomfortable silence, but I don’t mind, sipping on my coffee and collecting what’s left of my sanity for these potential customers today. When we hear the knock on the door, we both look at each other, I.N. grinning at me, and I can’t hold back the small smile on my face, rolling my eyes as he fades into thin air. I head to the front door, taking a deep breath and smiling widely as I open it, greeting the family warmly.

I let them in, and the kids are practically bouncing off the walls in excitement as I show them around the bottom floor, giving them the speech I’ve said enough times to be able to recite in my sleep. Everything’s going well, no dead animals or bad smells, and I can feel myself getting more and more nervous with each room I show them around, wondering what he’s got planned, but there’s nothing. We do the entire second floor, and not one thing goes wrong. I wonder if he’s decided to give up with scaring people off, hoping that, finally, this goddamn house will be off my hands. The family all seem to love the house, and I start to get a really good feeling about this.

And then we head up to the third floor, and as we reach the top of the stairs, my heart drops. There are little red drops on the floor, leading around to the bedroom, and I can hear the family whispering behind me as I continue on with my speech, trying to pretend that nothing’s happened. But when we step into the bedroom, I can’t really pretend anymore.

The words ‘GET OUT’ are written on the wall, massive bright red letters from floor to ceiling, the thick liquid dripping down in sinister lines. The family behind me are gasping, the kids screaming, but my reaction is pure rage, my fists balling up as I try to contain myself. ‘Is that blood?’ one of the kids asks, running into the room, and then I spot a bucket hanging on the light fixture. I feel time stop when the bucket tips a little, the kid stood just beneath it, and I act quicker than I ever have before, though it feels like I’m moving in slow motion. I grab the little kid, moving them out of the way and I feel the bucket land on my head only a moment later, liquid splashing all over my body.

I pull the bucket off my head as I take deep, ragged breaths, trying desperately to keep hold of myself as the family stare at me in shock and fear. They don’t even ask if I’m okay before they grab the kid and run, their footsteps thundering down the stairs. I’m silent until I hear the front door slam behind them, and then I scream, ‘I.N.!’

He materialises in front of me, panic all over his face, and I look down at myself, my pretty pink skirt and blazer set, my white blouse, my entire body covered in the thick red bloodlike liquid that’s on the wall. ‘Is this blood?’ I ask calmly, closing my eyes to try and keep myself together. ‘No, no, it’s this recipe I found on mumsnet, with corn syrup and food colouring and stuff. It wasn’t supposed to go on you, though, y/n, I’m s-’ ‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry, because you’re not. If you were sorry about all this, you wouldn’t have done it,’ I whisper, the boy looking at me with frantic guilt in his eyes. ‘y/n-’ ‘Don’t. I’m leaving. Someone else can try sell the house. I’m done,’ I say softly, stepping around him to leave. He grabs my hand and I wrench it away, not looking back at him once.

I hear him following me, but he doesn’t say a thing, not whilst I put our coffee cups in the sink and fill them with water to soak, not whilst I tidy my things away into my bag, not whilst I head towards the door. And then he whispers something, so softly I can’t hear, and I hesitate with my hand halfway to the door handle. ‘What was that?’ ‘I said… I’m Yang Jeongin,’ he breathes out, eyes full of tears, and the words hit me like a ton of bricks.

Everyone knows the Yangs. They were a lovely family who lived in Spooky City, just a couple streets over from where I grew up, and even if you didn’t know the Yangs personally, you knew of them, and how kind and generous they were. Their son went to my school – he was a couple years older than me, and he had this friendship group, 8 of them I think. They were the popular boys – you wanted them, or wanted to be them. I didn’t really know any of them except for the most popular one, Felix, who was known for his deeper than deep voice. I couldn’t tell the others apart, or even pick them out in a crowd, so I didn’t really know Yang Jeongin.

Everyone knew that that friendship group had bought a house together, the worst one on Sunshine Street, and had planned to move in together just after school. They spent months fixing it up, making it fit to live in, and they finished just before end-of-year exams. After exams, the Yang family went on holiday, and died in a tragic plane crash. It broke the boys to lose their friend, and they ended up not moving into the house. I never heard about what happened to the house but now, I finally connect the dots and realise I’m stood in it, with Yang Jeongin himself.

‘I can’t let go of my house, our house, that we spent so long on, that we put our hearts into. This was gonna be our home. I can’t let it be anything other than our home. I’m sorry, y/n, but I can’t. I’ve had to let go of my family, but I can’t let go of my brothers. They still come here sometimes – they just drive past and stop for a second – and I don’t ever want them to come here and see another family living in our house, our home. I know they’re trying to sell it, they think that’s what they want, but they don’t. They really don’t. They can’t let go of our home,’ he breaks down, tears running down his face, and I feel my heart breaking. ‘I.N.. Jeongin. I… I’m sorry,’ I whisper, lifting my arms, and he falls into them, and I just hold him, his choked sobs the only noise in the quiet house.

And then I wait until he’s calmed down a little before I take my arms from around him, holding his hands in mine and stifling a laugh when I see that he’s now covered in the fake blood too. ‘We won’t let go. We’re not letting of this house. I promise you,’ I say to him seriously, eyes locked with his soft brown ones, ‘I’ll keep hold of your home if it’s the last thing that I do.’

39 notes · View notes

thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years ago

Text

as usual, an unrealistic list of things I’d really like to get done over the three-day weekend, which is not super likely to go well considering I’m posting this at 5 fucking p.m. but whatever:

gaming-related

I have exactly a month left on my (so far unused, whoops) PC Game Pass subscription, so I need to go over my wish list again and identify

which games have achievements

each game’s average playtime so I can prioritize

which ones interest me the most (emphasis on spooky games because...it’s spooky season)

try Fallout 76 once it finally finishes downloading, because I played the free weekend on Steam before and this is Microsoft, and...I think my character should just be on their servers but I don’t actually know hahahaha yeah that super didn’t work, maybe in a week when our billing cycle restarts I’ll try redownloading and reinstalling it, and anyway I did download and test a couple other Game Pass games

cancel my current SWTOR subscription so I’m not still paying for that while focusing on Game Pass games

play one of a few Flash games on my to-play list, if there’s something short

misc/housekeeping

check out my current backup situation and see how hard it would be to modify, I mean at some point I have got to set up an actual system but for some reason that’s intimidating so if what I currently have is at all usable, I should add to it

and then verify my drivers. I don’t know what’s wrong with my PC and I’m really not sure how to figure that out but since Memtest86 ran for three fucking hours and came back clear, it seems like this is the next major step in the troubleshooting process okay I actually didn’t do this but I did try some other things that also didn’t work

finish claiming all the Black Panther comics

a tiny bit of room cleaning? maybe?? I actually already did a very tiny bit, and this is something (one of...many things) I could do while on a call with friends, which is also in my plans

open a couple packages from one of said friends, which keen-eyed readers might note was in a to-do list ages ago oops

check Tumblr drafts

work on modifying or fixing some masks that currently aren’t working well

send an email that’s been on my to-do list for...a while

actually another email would be a good one too

keep trying to get Hazy to learn that letting people handle her paws results in good treats, so we can make an appointment for a Petco nail trim (and ideally clip them ourselves, sometimes)

ah fuck I still need to finish my will

creative

mildly edit the short fic I posted a few days ago, give it a title, and toss it on AO3

as always, some typing would be really really good

so would...some writing...

make some more potion bottles with, uh, random stuff I’ve collected on recent walks around the neighborhood (other potion bottles with other random ideas I’ve had wouldn’t be a bad idea either...and I would like to try one of the Youtube tutorials I found for making tiny hourglasses, but I guess that’s probably not a priority)

do a little reorganizing in my giant to-do lists for a) 1/6-scale projects and b) lyrics for titles

doing more research on parts for a 1/6 female Loki is really not urgent but...I might want to...and some things are on sale right now...

repair Tiny Loki’s tiny mask

rewrite my paper list of prioritized projects, which I needed to do anyway, but now I’ve also lost the original and that’s very annoying (also make a pocket for it in my notebook so this is less likely to happen again)

make designs for a few new Pride Cap shields, maybe? it really would not take long to make just a few, and now is when I should be adding stuff to Etsy if I have any hope of like...holiday sales

for that matter, now would be an extremely good time to at least start planning what kinds of holiday-specific things (and/or other new listings) I might be able to make in time to list them on Etsy

mental health

write up a post for the ADHD Reddit and maybe other related places

experiment with Notion and Airtable as organizational options

research some bullet-journal layouts to see if anything seems like it would work for me

in general, spend some time just kind of...brainstorming the type of system that would be useful for me in keeping my shit together, so I have a better idea of what I’m looking for (also probably helpful to list like...the big problems I’m trying to fix)

see if Penzu seems like a good option for a keeping-my-shit-together strategy I have in mind from my latest therapy session, and if not, do a little research on other journal-type possibilities

shopping I probably shouldn’t be doing

make a Michaels order tomorrow when both coupons will be active, because...there are some Halloween things that are somehow already sold out at the nearest store but I still want them...and they’re available at the store all the way across town...so...

possibly go to an estate sale benefiting the rescue group where we got Scully and Hazy, which is also all the way over on the other side of town but if I’m going over there anyway, I might as well

some stuff in my Etsy cart that I don’t want to miss

ditto eBay, I think mostly in my cart but also check watch list

AliExpress is also having some sales and yes there are more tiny things I want to buy for Loki’s arcane workshop, shut up (but also if I’m going to buy another Hot Toys body, this time for Thor, I gotta...take some measurements)

politics

call legislators

I really don’t know why I bother but I’ve found a bunch more articles recently that I’d like to throw on Facebook

for that matter at some point I’m probably just going to do a Facebook post like “hey, if you care about me at all, please consider voting Biden,” which also probably won’t make a difference but like...there’s a tiny chance it might

actually write those Sierra Club letters to voters that I meant to do like...two weeks ago...and maybe also some postcards, idk

maybe go to a thing Monday afternoon

also maybe just like...look through my links and folders to see who’s doing textbanking? like I don’t necessarily have to do any of it this weekend, just figure out what’s available?

........hmm this is all a terrible idea, probably, in part because my brain is looking at this absurdly long list and still going “oh shit, oh fuck, we’re forgetting something major aren’t we!!!”

#for future reference #bad adult #why...am i Like This

3 notes · View notes

makistar2018 · 5 years ago

Link

Could Taylor Swift Re-Record All Her Old Songs? Should She? Legal Experts Weigh In

7/17/2019 by Gil Kaufman

Taylor Swift has made a career from speaking her mind and making her feelings crystal clear. That includes her widely read Tumblr earlier this month decrying the purchase of her former label, Big Machine, by Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings. Swift called it a "worst case scenario," that, according to the singer, deprived her of the chance to take control of the masters to her first six albums.

But, in a a cunning suggestion, fellow "Miss Independent" Kelly Clarkson tweeted over the weekend that Taylor could take back some real estate in the skirmish by going back to "re-record all the songs that U don't own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions." Clarkson promised she'd buy all the Taylor 2.0 songs just to "prove a point."

But could Taylor do that? And would it even make financial sense?

It wouldn't be the first time an artist had tried that tactic in a battle over masters. Both Def Leppard and JoJo went down that road, with the English rockers re-recording their hits "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Hysteria" and "Rock of Ages" in 2012 in an effort to wrestle "control of our career back" from the Universal Music Group, which singer Joe Elliott said at the time was a negotiating tactic with their former label to obtain a new compensation agreement with more favorable terms. Their redo of "Hysteria" has since sold 121,000 downloads, "Rock of Ages" has moved 207,000 and "Sugar" has sold 785,000 to date, according to Nielsen Music. (The band didn't allow their UMG catalog on digital at the time of the re-recordings, which explains the gaudy numbers for "Sugar", but their full back catalog is now on streaming services and the re-records are no longer available.)

Pop singer-songwriter JoJo re-recorded her debut album and 2006's The High Road in 2018 after a protracted battle with her former label, the infamously opaque Blackground Records, which had not made the self-titled work available on streaming services; the albums have sold a combined 2,000 copies and generated 23.2 million on-demand audio streams for their songs in the U.S., through July 11, according to Nielsen Music. At one point Prince threatened to re-record his entire back catalog, but settled for releasing 1999: The New Master, a seven-track EP of remixes of the title track, which hit No. 150 on the Billboard 200 with total sales to date of 62,000 copies, according to Nielsen Music (all figures accurate as of July 11, 2019).

Billboard reached out to music industry lawyers (none of whom are affiliated with either side in the Swift issue and were speaking in general legal terms) to find out if the singer could, or should, hit reset on her old hits as a potential next chess move in her dispute with Braun and her former Big Machine boss Scott Borchetta. Swift's attorney, Don Passman, declined to comment, and spokespeople for Big Machine and Ithaca Holdings had not returned requests for comment at press time.

"You become a competitor of your record label if you re-record and own new master recordings from the same compositions," Brian Caplan, an intellectual property lawyer at the New York firm Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC tells Billboard. "If you have the weight of a Taylor Swift that’s one thing, because you might be able to convince a portion of the community to come to you for older [songs]. But a lot of people don't have the wherewithal to start a business and become a competitor with their old label... [however] you will cut into income streams from the [old] label, you will make more money because you’ll own it and won’t have to give a piece to the label that they're entitled to under the old contract."

Caplan says that standard recording agreements have a re-recording restriction that prohibits an artist from re-making a song that was previously delivered to the record company (sometimes even ones that were not released during the contract's duration) for a set period after the deal expires, a term that typically runs three to five years. But he's definitely been in situations where clients have threatened to re-record songs or albums as part of a negotiation tactic to get better terms when they felt their original royalty rate was too low.

Sometimes those talks include offering to extend the re-recording restriction in their original contract by a few years in exchange for higher royalty payments. "But the Taylor Swift situation is not of that ilk, it's more, 'I can't stand you and I don't want my name associated with you,' for various reasons that only she knows," he says, noting that, either way, there's no way to prohibit your label from exploiting your old masters.

Like Caplan, Fox Rothschild LLP partner and senior music lawyer Ken Abdo doesn't have first-hand knowledge of the contract signed by Swift when she began her career at age 15 with Big Machine in 2006. But he tells Billboard he'd be "shocked" if that kind of 3-5 year restriction was not in that contract, or if she was able to "renegotiate that re-record restriction entirely away." Because, after all, the primary asset that a record company has is the intellectual property that an artist creates for them: the master recording.

Abdo, a self-described artist advocate who has worked with groups ranging from Hanson and Kool and the Gang to the estate of rock progenitor Bill Haley, says he's represented a number of one-hit artists who have re-recorded their signature tunes to license them on a snippet basis for commercial use. The idea of re-recording an entire catalog to compete with the original recordings, however, is not something anyone of Swift's stature has ever done as far as he knows.

"It's impractical and super expensive, but if you do it then what?" he says. "Other than license them, if you stream all of them that would create confusion in the market and be disruptive and probably not worth it economically. On principle, maybe. But if you spent millions in this streaming economy to put it out as streams and get fractions of pennies while already competing with the originals I don't believe it would be a prudent business decision."

Music attorney Brian McPherson -- who represents acts such as Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty -- agrees with Abdo that the best-case scenario for an artist is that they may be able to re-negotiate their contract in such a way that they limit the re-recording restriction and/or shorten its length. He said the situation when it comes to re-recording has actually gotten worse for artists in an era when streaming and syncs are increasingly more vital than physical record sales.

The old rule prohibited artists from re-recording a song that appeared on an album -- but sometimes even if it didn't -- for five years after it was recorded, and then for anywhere from two-to-five years post-term, depending on how much negotiating power you have. A famous example was when the Everly Brothers jumped from Cadence Records to Warner Bros., where they promptly re-recorded all their biggest hits for a smash Very Best album released in 1964.

"It didn't take long or labels to catch on to that, so now beyond that some labels are not just saying you can't re-record stuff that appeared on records, but you can't re-record stuff for sync either, which is an area people have enjoyed a lot of success re-recording their songs in," he says, adding that it was "sweet of Clarkson to suggest Swift take that tactic, but that he would find it hard to believe that Swift's nearly 15 year-old contract, likely re-negotiated over time, doesn't have a "significant" re-recording clause. (He also points out that labels have upped the ante lately, sometimes putting in clauses that deny an artist the right to re-record a track in their own "style or feel," ensuring that any remake will not use the same arrangement, or sound like the original.)

"A lot of us are Monday morning quarterbacks on these contract issues, but 99 percent of artists signed to labels don't own their own masters! It's just the way it is," he notes. The re-recording language in most contracts is fairly boilerplate, and as a fierce artist advocate, McPherson says it's always something a lawyer tries to make as favorable as possible during negotiations.

"I'll say two things: 'it has to be released by you during the term' -- this master with this song -- so if I record a song during the term but you don't release it, I should be able to re-record that. That helps you if you get dropped and you don't release your album; if you can't negotiate a buy-back of your masters you can just go re-cut it. And you just try to make the post-term period as short as possible."

Billboard

#taylor swift #billboard #2019.07.17

84 notes · View notes

lampd-intheface · 6 years ago

Text

sanders sides as witches

me: please... write what the people want... my lizard brain: witch au. now.

they all coincidentally live in the same apartment building? mostly becos there’s a ley line right through the building so there’s a lot of magical energy there

the rent is cheap too so that kinda helps

their apartment complex is in a more rural place so there’s a lot of trees and parks and stuff around them too

alongside being witches, the five of them are also just students at a nearby college

i mean, witchcraft brings in the bucks but witches have to have a plan b in this modern world, you kno???

becos they live on top of a ley line, a lot of supernatural trouble comes their way and so they just kind of try to deal with it a much as possible

patton, logan and roman know each other since they’ve been childhood friends and their families have been friends too

virgil and desmond (deceit) are kind of soloing right now which is a surprise becos they’re also helping with the supernatural disasters

i guess just so far??? virgil or desmond will like do something to help with a fae problem or with some wandering lycanthropes while patton/logan/roman had been planning on doing something???

patton: did you... do something about that one problem we talked about?

roman: no... i thought logan did?

logan: it was certainly not me

and it just never occured to the three that there were two other witches there

patton/roman/logan know virgil and desmond

it’s kind of hard to live in the same apartment building and not know each other

but they don’t know that the two are witches

virgil and desmond are kind of aware that patton/logan/roman exists and they kind of know that there’s something magical about them? but they’re not so much aware that each other exists?

which is weird becos virgil and desmond used to be childhood friends that just drfted apart becos of a stupid fight

to virgil’s knowledge, desmond is out in the world doing something

and to desmod’s knowledge, virgil goes to the same college but like... lives... somewhere else?

logan

a very intellectual witch

he has floor to ceiling bookcases just filled with tomes and scrolls and spellbooks

when he’s in his room, books are hovering everywhere. he’ll waggle a finger and a book gently flies off of a shelf and into the space in front of him. sometimes there are multiple??? books??? at the same time??? in front of him??? and the books’ pages are flipping by themselves???

king of multitasking. he’ll be reading while writing while listening to music? he’ll be going through roman’s notes on a book while reading said book? or he’ll be researching through three or four different books at the same time? his multitasking skills are a type of magic all on its own

all of his books he gets from book sales or antique shops or like estate sales (where old houses’ contents are sold for a low price becos the owners can’t afford the estate anymore). logan kind of makes it a hobby to collect as much accurate magical literature as possible

roman and patton obviously tag along whenever they can, especially to the really fancy estate sales

his favorite kind of witchcraft is arithmancy (the practice of magic using numbers) and astrology (the practice of magic using celestial bodies). the arithmancy is becos he’s really good at it. the astrology is because he just. really loves. stars??? and the night sky??? and space???

like i said, childhood friends with roman and patton. so, patton and roman will oftentimes go to logan if they don’t know something not just becos logan is very intelligent but also becos logan’s room is basically a library of magic?

patton: hey logan--

logan, already levitating a book towards patton: i believe you’re looking for this book?

often, logan will also be found on the rooftop of the apartment building just stargazing and he’ll sometimes bump into virgil when he’s up there. as far as logan knows, virgil is just another student at the college he attends and both of them are just super into stars

he’s very good at spells on knowledge (gaining it or finding it or anything of the sort)

roman

roman is a very musical kind of witch

he has a lot of instruments in his room, most of which play themselves at times when roman can’t be in more than one place. roman will be playing the violin and his electric piano will be playing at the same exact time, accompanying him

patton, happily: *hears an entire orchestra through the walls* that silly ol’ goober is up to his musical shinanigans again!

logan, slightly irritated: *hears an entire orchestra through the walls* roman...

he has milions of scented candles in his room and he never really lights them unless necessary? he just loves smelling them. the candles he uses for rituals and stuff are usually unscented but they’re in fun shapes (like flowers!) because why not?

idk he just has a lot of candles around???

he has the kind of voice that’s perfect for spells??? he’s super good at enunciation and just volume and his voice is so pleasant!!! it also kind of helps that he knows a lot of languages (french, italian, spanish, latin) and he’s on his way to learning more

roman has always had a fascination with the way words work and the power behind words. a lot of his spells are spoken and they end up very strong and sturdy

he could literally and metaphorically talk himself out of any situation

whenever logan needs help translating something, usually it’s in latin so roman helps with that a lot. it’s really nice when the two of them are just chilling together quietly, roman translating things while logan reads

roman also loves using magic to levitate, animate and even project things! people can’t physically touch his projections tho (which makes patton sad whenever roman projects a cute lil animal he can’t pet)

his specialties are incantations and spells that require any drawing of any sort (like runes and spell circles)

patton

whenever anyone needs a potion or some sort of concoction, they go to patton. need a treat for a fae? need some sort of potion for divining? just plain ol’ hungry? patton’s got you covered

his room is very messy but his kitchen is practically immaculate (in a sort of homey comfortable type of way).

everything is sorted in all of the cupboards (which are overflowing and almost won’t close), the stoves are taken care of, his pots and pans and cauldrons are spotless

he prides himself in the large assortment of glass bottles and containers he owns. he tries to keep all of them clean but, sometimes, he’ll use one and then put it somewhere (not in the sink) and he’ll forget to wash it

it’s difficult for patton to get ingredients but some of it he just grows on his own. it’s not a perfect system but it’s decent. he can do the easy ones like rosemary, basil or mint. anything harder than that and he struggles with it a little. if he can’t grow it, he’ll find it somewhere else

he’s the type to buy those lil potted herbs at wholefoods or whatever and try to grow it but he only has a 50% successful growth rate and he always feels bad when the herbs end up dying

patton enjoys a lot of different magic but nothing gets him happier than mixing and cooking things up! logan and roman don’t understand it but patton just really loves it!

patton’s also a powerful empath so he’s very emotionally intelligent and can really strongly sense how people feel. he’s very good at comforting people too and cheering them up

he doesn’t force them to cheer up with a spell or anything. usually, he just listens and, really, sometimes, that’s all people need.

patton, when someone is upset: my friend distress senses are tingling!

unfortunately, being a powerful empath also means that, when the emotion is strong enough, he doesn’t just sense it. he feels it too. but he’s very good at sensing which emotions are his and which emotions he’s just getting from other people

patton’s specialties are obviously in cooking and in brewing (potions, concoctions, etc)

virgil

virgil is a very quiet witch

he keeps to himself a lot and just does what he needs to do without really asking for anybody else’s help. he’s self sufficient (though it doesn’t mean he’s happy)

virgil loves growing things. he has huge wire shelves in front of all his windows for all of his plants so they can get all the nice sunlight they need!

he’ll grow basically anything he’ll need for everyday potions and spells as well as succulents! he just loves all of his beautiful wonderful succulents! every single one of his plants has a name too!

virgil totally talks to his plants whenever he’s taking care of them and it’ll be just little things like how his day is going or things that are happening around him or how he’s really sorry when he’s pruning them

it’s very rare for a plant to die on him and, when that happens, virgil always knows that there’s something wrong (usually magic related)

virgil has a spell that’s basically a ball of light for those long winter months where his plants won’t get enough sun

herbology aside, virgil is also very talented when it comes to divination

he has a lot of decks of different kinds of cards and a bag of stones with runes on them. he can also read tea leaves and stars

the reason virgil is alone often is because he believes he’s cursed. he brings bad luck to a lot of people he cares about and nobody ever believes anything he says about the future

that’s the reason he and desmond had a falling out. virgil was always so worried about bringing desmond bad luck that he ended up pushing desmond away

his specialties really are mostly divination (specifically cartomancy or divination using cards) and growing plants

desmond

very talented when it comes to creatures

he’s extremely intelligent and deals with the fae very well. he knows the fae court like the back of his hand and he knows the rules of the fae too

it kind of helps that he’s pretty much just as trickster-y as the fae

he’s very good at riddles too which he kind of has to be because the fae love riddles and rhymes

desmond runs out of milk and honey on an almost daily basis and he has ingredients for fae porrige at all times just in case. sometimes, he’ll leave his window open and just leave a bowl of something on the window sill

he’ll make his own butter or cream (since the fae don’t really like industrially produced butter/cream) and he tries to buy organic milk and foods. he’s not too picky about it when he’s the one who’s going to eat it

he has two or three bird feeders but only one of them is really for birds. the others are for whatever flying creature wants a quick snack

you know he has a protective ring around the entire apartment building and that he wears iron rings just in case because, yes, he may be friends with the fae but he knows them well enough to know he should never put his guard down

he has two pet snakes (which he’s lovingl named flotsam and jetsam) and a fire salamander. he doesn’t call his fire salamander a pet becos he feels they have a mutually beneficial relationship.

also there’s a brownie living in his apartment and they’re very good friends (but sometimes desmond will do stupid things and his brownie will get upset)

desmond has a pot he grows lavander in and he has named it virgil (after his dear friend virgil). he cast a spell on the plant so, if virgil is in danger or is hurt, that the plant will start wilting. it’s desmond’s way of keeping tabs on virgil

his specialties really mostly on the fae and how to deal with magical creatures

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #alternate universe #witchy au #mine

154 notes · View notes

desertdollranch · 6 years ago

Note

Do you collect anything besides dolls if you say you collect them? Do you have any favorite doll related memories?

I sort of informally collect Beanie Babies. I don’t deliberately search out specific Beanies, but if I see a cute one at the thrift store that looks lonely, I’ll bring it home. I also am just getting started collecting Calico Critters. I played with them as a kid and I just absolutely adored them, although those are long gone. The few that I do have are newer.And I also collect toy horses, also pretty casually. I’ll bring home any tiny horse of any size or shape, but my favorites are the Grand Champions I had as a kid. They’re like the more famous Breyer, except meant to be played with since they had real manes and tails, not the molded plastic like Breyer, and they were only a few dollars apiece. But like a lot of 90s toys that people get nostalgic over, these can now be super expensive on the secondhand market, and I can’t justify having the collection of my dreams when people think they can charge $40 for a single, scuffed plastic horse when they cost maybe a tenth of that originally. Sadly I don’t know what happened to the ones I had as a child. They disappeared suddenly when I was a teenager and I suspect they were quietly put out at a garage sale without telling me, which happened sometimes. My favorite was this one:

He was the Andalusian Stallion. You could only get him after collecting and mailing in box tops from Grand Champions that you had already bought, so he’s super rare and I’ve never found him for sale again. But gosh, he was gorgeous. I’d give almost anything to have him back.

Here’s my current collection of toy horses, (excluding the six tiny ones I displayed in the post featuring Antonia’s vintage toys):

On the top row, the four small ones on the left are an unknown brand. The eight babies in the middle are Grand Champions and so are the three adults on the right. In the stalls, the tall brown horse in the middle is an unknown brand, and the two on each side of her are souvenir horses I found at a gift shop up in Red River, a resort town in far northern New Mexico. I made their stalls myself, from boxes and scrapbook paper. I got the idea from watching a My Froggy Stuff tutorial. They’re kept out in the living room right now since I have absolutely no more space in my doll room.

When I was about six, my mom suggested I start collecting souvenir spoons. I kind of shrugged and said, “sure, I guess?” since I had no idea what that involved. Over the years, I acquired a huge collection, although only a small fraction were my own, since all of my mom’s friends apparently ALSO collected souvenir spoons, and they immediately dumped their unwanted collections on me. So I had spoons from places like New Zealand and New Jersey, both of which I’ve never visited. I eventually decided I had no interest in doing this after I grew up and realized that taking a picture was a much more fun and personal way to remember the places I’ve been, and so I sold my collection on eBay for whatever amount of money I got.

I mean.... if that’s your passion, cool..... but I could never really get interested in spoons. To me, they’re dinnerware. Sorry.

As for my favorite doll-related memory, I think it’s probably the little “house” I had set up for Kirsten and Felicity. My grandpa had built them beds, a trunk, two school benches, a table and chairs, and a little cabinet for their accessories. I was sharing a bedroom with my younger sister and with our two beds we had no space for doll stuff, so I moved it out to the front room that the rest of the family only used for special occasions.

Here’s the front room:

(This is from a real estate website. I haven’t been in that room in years.)

There’s the fireplace in the middle of the picture there. On the right side of the fireplace, I put the table and chairs and tea cabinet. To the left of the fireplace was their bedroom, where I had their beds set up and their school benches.

I spent a lot of time in that little house with Kirsten and Felicity. It was perfectly child-sized and nobody bothered me when I was there.

And while we’re at it, let’s see my childhood bedroom!

There’s a window behind it that faces out to the backyard, but there’s no picture of it. It wasn’t a very big bedroom, but the house really isn’t as big as it might look.

And since I literally cannot shut up at this point, my weirdest doll-related memory has got to be the time I buried a “dead” Barbie doll in my backyard. I was really into Barbies before I got my American Girl dolls. So I was probably seven, and I acted out an entire scene where Barbie died in a car crash and had to be buried. (Her head had come off and I couldn’t get it back on, so I decided that meant she was dead). The other Barbies attended the funeral and put flowers on her grave. The coffin was a cardboard box. The headstone was a rock I found and painted. Then I dug a hole and buried the box right there in the yard, and set the headstone over it.

I went back to dig her up a while later, and the headstone was gone, so I couldn’t remember where she had been buried. I guess she’s still there. Hope she’s resting in peace.

6 notes · View notes

keyhala · 6 years ago

Text

So... about life.

I've been wanting to write this for a while. I just haven't had the time, the energy, or the willingness to accept 'defeat'.

It's a long one, so below cut for length.

Some of you might remember a post I made back in 2017, which dealt with all the things that happened to me and Shortstuff between 2014 and 2016, leaving us to leave the house we'd bought, move one and a half hour away from my working place and just... destroyed us with how her mother could not behave like an adult and had to villainize us for... well, nothing.

For those of you who haven't, the post is here. Please feel free to read it.

At the time, I expressed a hope that things would get better from there on out. That we could manage the years we'd promised to rent the house out for, and things could... get better.

They didn't.

The brother said he was going to buy the house after renting it, but a few months in, he decides he doesn't want it. It has too many problems. He complains the bills are too high (I just send him the bills, I don't forge them, idiot. You pay what you use in electricity and gas) and he complains that we're stealing money from them (We're not. They're paying EXACTLY what the house costs every month, not a penny more. Nothing for upkeep, nothing for renovations, or new utilities, that's ALL on us), and proceeds to NOT PAY HIS BILLS for several months.

At the time, the mother at least steps in and pays what's due, so it's all okay. 2017 is going okay, for a bit.

Then Shortstuff's student funding is pulled in August. She gets nothing. I say it's fine, you are only studying 50%, finish school. I'll fix the money for now. She get's sick leave 50% FINALLY after years of talking with her psychiatrist, and the next hit hits.

She isn't getting any sick pay, despite being away the 50%, because she's studying, and will be getting her sick pay from her student funding. But... her student funding is zero. She gets nothing. So we go to social services, as for social funding.

She doesn't get any, because I earn money, and I can support her.

In the same breath as this, I start feeling bad. Really bad. I wake up with fevers, shaking, throwing up. I go to work, I feel disconnected, I fall asleep, I get fevers, I feel disoriented. More throwing up, more fever. I call in sick, go to the doctor. They find nothing. Rest up until fever is gone, back to work. Two weeks later, same thing.

This keeps going for a few months, until eventually I decided to make an appointment with the closes emergency psychiatrist as well. She finally connects the dots. I'm burning out, and fast. I'm so stressed I start forgetting things, I get so stressed I get fevers, I am so stressed I can't sleep. Everything is just piling up. She suggest I take 100% sick leave and rest up.

But I'm the only income we have. I can't. I make $2000 and the bills are $1600. cutting out 20% that full sick leave does will put us in the red.

In December, they convince me to take 25% off, and get a sick day in the middle of the week (Wednesday) and see if that helps. 25% means after sick pay I'll have $1800. Just enough for the bills.

But the Government takes its sweet time.

We can't cover our bills. We keep burning through our savings. Stuff at the house breaks, the brother doesn't pay his bills, the MOTHER starts not paying the bills. We go about $1000 in the red one month. Shortstuff decides to try working 10 hours a week despite her inability to do both that and study with her own sick leave, but she does it for my sake. It's not enough, we keep losing savings, we'll go bankrupt if this keeps up.

We decide to sell the house.

WW3 ensues. No, seriously. The mother is FURIOUS, she starts calling, yelling, blowing up. The BROTHER blows up, starts stealing furniture, stops paying bills entirely, tries sabotaging things for the sale. Things get worse at work, too, for Shortstuff.

At work, her mother is there. Her mother who harasses her, makes her feel unsafe, and just generally treats her bad. She gets pulled into the changing room and yelled at for personal stuff, AT WORK and can't say anything back because her mother is a group manager. She get's shoved, told to work more, told to not loiter the moment she stops a second, and just generally feels unsafe and stressed.

She gets home sick, and her mother LEAVES WORK UNANNOUNCED just after lunch to take the one and a half hour trip to our apartment, barge her way in, and proceeds to lecture Shortstuff (40 degrees Celsius of fever, sinus infection and drugged down on fever inhibitors) on what a horrible person she was, how much of a traitor she was, and that she should know that if her sister (who has late-diagnosed diabetes, and also an eating disorder, and who REALLY shouldn't be living with the mother considering how she's acting and behaves) DIES, Shortstuff would have to live with 'having murdered her sister'. She leaves after demanding she show up on Christmas, and stating she wants her 'kind and caring' daughter back.

She just wants her TOOL back. The daughter who you could get money from, put all your subscriptions on, rest your entire future on and DEMANDED would take care of you for the rest of your life.

Granted, this isn't helping matters. Shortstuff doesn't want to go back to work. I understand. We talk to the management at work about it... nothing happens. As always.

I can't get ahold of my doctor in January to prolong my sick leave, so I go back 100%. Fall sick 10 days later, stress. Finally get ahold of my doctor again in February, and she sets me back to 25% sick leave, and sends me to a psychiatrist for a proper evaluation, since my therapist says she can't seem to help me with my stress.

I keep going on sick leave 25%, being free Wednesdays and... it kind of works? It kind of works. I don't get sick every two weeks, but I still go to bed every day immediately after work. I know I'm going to Japan in June for Tales of Festival but unless the house sells and we get money in, we won't afford it. It makes me sad, makes me want to sleep and never wake up. It feels like stuff will never end.

I make calls daily. To real estate people, to bank, to government about shortstuff's rejected sick leave, to government about MY sick leave, about insurances, cutting down on things to save money, selling stuff online to get money, doing commissions—

In March, my computer dies. Not a problem for 7 years, and one day I'm drawing, it lets out a high-pitched shriek, and dies. Motherboard fried. Everyone online is the same: no use repairing, better to buy a new one.

New one is $4000. I borrow the money from my mother, and cry as friends online send me a few $100 in helping pay her back.

I finally get my evaluation from the psychiatrist. Undiagnosed for 28 years, I have ADHD and Autism. It's likely why I've been unable to handle 'normal' stress and why I've burned out. It explains SO much stuff about myself I always thought was weird. She suggests we prolong my sick leave of 25% still, and I agree.

I tell my mom. She says she doesn't think I have anything, 'anyone can get a diagnosis if they try' and she scoffs at me saying the medicines will help me. It hurts. I don't tell my dad.

medicines help. I feel more at ease, I don't procrastinate as much, I feel like I can start and finish stuff. The first few days I keep looking over my shoulder, because for once, my head is silent even when I'm not 100% engulfed in something.

We keep trying to fix stuff at the house. House showcase is set to May 3rd and May 6th. We get the photographing done, clean up (while trying to avoid the people still living there who aren't even paying the bills anymore) and get it up on the web.

First showcase is a success. 3 people interested. One person calls the realtor and asks him what we want for it. I explain we want 10% above asking price to let it go. I hear nothing back. Friday we're heading up to Stockholm for a comic convention we agreed to months before and I managed to make nothing for since I've not had a productive day for months. On our way to the train, we get a call. The person interested is willing to buy it for 10% above asking price, if we sign immediately.

We're heading to Stockholm, though, and I explain that. Realtor mentions his WIFE is working at a place close to the station, faxes the contract there and we head there in a hurry to sign, then head up to Stockholm.

The sale goes through, moving in date is 11th of June, the day before we're to head to Japan.

We book time for cleaning, reiterate to the mother and brother that they have to move out by May 31st (as stated in the contract we wrote them in February). They're not happy. I don't care, I just want the house sold. We're burning through our savings fast and will have NOTHING for Japan unless this goes through.

Zelda, our sweet, darling cat, falls sick again. We decide it's time for her to go. 6 wonderful years with a kitty no one thought would survive the first night we found her. She fell asleep in my arms out in the sun on May 23rd.

When we arrive back at the apartment (that we're renting from Shortstuff's father, who's held a VERY passive role in this... thus far), we are met by her eldest brother (not same one as who's renting) and the father. They tell us we need to be out of the apartment by June 30th.

They KNEW we were heading to Japan on the 12th, they KNEW we wouldn't be back until the 27th. They KNEW we had stuff with the house all the way up to the 11th. THEY KNEW WE JUST PUT OUR CAT TO REST.

Worst of all, they complained we 'only' gave them 3 months to find a new place to live. They gave us 1, a month we wouldn't be able to look for a place for 3 weeks of the time.

We know now, later, that the Mother was given the apartment, the 'poor thing' because we had 'ruined her life'. Also, she has been spouting to everyone she owned a 3rd of the house and we've scammed her... y'know.

We lent her $7000 in October 2016 to help with Shortstuff's sister's care. We didn't get any money back from that. They didn't pay any bills the last months, putting us back about $5000, they sabotaged stuff in the house (breaking stuff, ripping electrical sockets from wall, cutting off TV cable, letting the pool pump be out in freezing temperatures so it broke) putting us back EVEN MORE in costs for the house... but we scammed her. Sure.

So suddenly we have two weeks before going to Japan, no time to mourn our lost family member, scrambling to find an apartment.

Luckily, my dad came to the rescue. A friend of his' daughter was going to rent an Apartment just half an hour's walking distance from my job, but her job offer fell through so she had just told them she couldn't take it. We got the number, called, asked if it was still up.

It was. It's more expensive than the other apartment, slightly smaller, but it's liveable. We're told we can move in July 4th. That makes us homeless for 5 days, but dad says we can stay with him if so.

I have a meeting with a nurse at the psychiatrists office in end May, talking about how the medicines are working. I remind her they promised to prolong my sick leave and my current slip ends May 31st, and she promises to fix one.

It doesn't happen, for some reason.

We DO get the house in order (even if they moved out 2 days late, ruined stuff, and left furniture, rotting food and everything in disarray so we had to pay EXTRA for the cleaning), we get the papers signed June 11th, we get our money, pay off our debts (Mom for computer, sister and her boyfriend for covering our lost revenue on bills)... and we go to Japan.

Japan and Tales of Festival gave me life again. I met people, I laughed, I had FUN, I didn't have to WORRY for ONCE. Tales of Vesperia got so much love and I was overwhelmed when they announced the party, I looked at Shortstuff and she just went 'go'.

I love Shortstuff, so much. Without her, I wouldn't have been here today. My psychiatrist agrees. She still wonders how I'm still alive.

Japan was fun, but coming back home hit me hard. We didn't have time to think, packing everything up, and moving. We manage to pressure the father to let us stay until July 4th, since they gave us so little notice AND they overstayed their welcome in the house.

We move into the new apartment July 4th, but the previous tenants had apparently been a hassle and moved out too late too, so the electricity hasn't been wired (they were replacing old wiring) so we only had electricity in the kitchen. It would take a few weeks, he said.

It took 3 weeks of us living in only the kitchen of our 2 rooms and kitchen apartment before we had electricity. During this time, Sweden was still mid up in its '100 days without rain' and 35+ degrees outside. The apartment was 28 degrees. It was torture.

First week of living there, I get word from the government. They're denying all my sick pay from December to May, because they don't see how I can work 75% but not 100%, and why I have to have a free day midweek ('How is your work capability 100% some days and 0% some days???') which means the money I thought was gonna come in, isn't. The sick leave extension I was going to get for June (and late July) also didn't happen, so I have no choice but going back to working 100% from July 2nd. I call my doctor's office about appealing and seeing about continuing sick leave, and they tell us they'll arrange a time.

...That went as well as we thought it would.

I planned a trip to Japan September 5th to 18th for the Tales of Vesperia Anniversary Party, and in the time from July 2nd to September 5th, I've been sick home from work 26 days. 26 days out of 47. My boss is wondering if everything is okay, I tell him it isn't. They know everything that's going on, and they nod and tell me to take it easy and just say if I need help with anything.

Shortstuff comes back to work since her school is on pause, and her mother is on Vacation. It works fine for a while, and when schools tarts again she goes down to 50%. School is set to end in October.

But her mother comes back, and she gets sick. VERY sick. She gets a sick leave of 75% (because she wanted to bring in some money) in beginning August, then meets her psychiatrist again in end August, who immediately sets her to full sick leave, and antidepressants, because she's considered suicidal.

Work wonders why, I reiterate that her mother makes her feel unsafe, and that Shortstuff has been feeling bad all year from seeing me have to struggle to bring in money while she does 'nothing'. That she's had zero income since October 2017, because the government sucks.

The government still hasn't approved her sick leave.

End August, I get terrible side effects from my medicines. I feel like I'm dying, my heart beats so fast I can't breathe, and I get clammy and nauseous. I get ahold of a doctor in beginning September and they ask why I haven't called earlier (I have) and they tell me they scheduled a time for September 19th. They also tell me to cut my medication. I extend my vacation to the 19th, because I know I won't have the energy for both work and doctor's appointment that day.

Second to last day before I go to Japan, I cry at work all afternoon. I barely make it through the day and go home, I cry hysterically all evening. i just want to give up, I don't want to fight anymore, I can't. Shortstuff feels horrible, and I feel all the more horrible about making her feel that way.

I go to Japan. I spent the first few days trying best I can to just get out of bed and do the things I wanted to. I spend more money than I should, because currently, the only joy I get is from buying things. That's the only time I feel excited or happy.

It's fun, though, but I can't sleep. I Skype with Shortstuff every night when it gets too late so I can fall asleep with her there. I can barely get out of bed, I barely eat. But I try having fun. Anxiety fucks me up several times per day and I cry hysterically every evening, but I try to have fun.

I feel like giving up.

The Anniversary Party was the best day of the year. Maybe my life. I had tickets to both shows, I got to see everything, and I had a few hours of NO worry, NO real life... just Love for my absolute favourite game. I've preordered 6 versions of the Definitive Edition.

My mom would tell me to not spend all the money we got from selling the house, but I DEFINITELY need 6 versions of the remaster of my favourite game. Bite me.

I come back home. I sleep. I go to the doctor.

I break down. She can't understand why it took so long for them to book me a meeting since I called in July, she can't understand why I got denied sick pay, especially since I was set to be 100% sick but decided to try fighting because I couldn't afford being sick.

She writes a long, long list of descriptions of my burnout, my ADHD, my Autism, why they make me unable to work, why we're appealing. She prescribes me new medication, she writes me another letter. I'm on 100% sick leave from that day. She asks me if I'll be okay money wise or if we should try 75% again, and I just hell her I don't have the energy to fight anymore. I've barely gotten by for a year because I couldn't afford full sick leave and that just made it worse and I STILL couldn't afford it so 100% might be just as well.

She looks honestly sad and upset when she writes the prescription, and tells me she'll send me a copy of the Note to the government once she's finished it. She mentions she's set the initial sick leave period until the 31st of December.

I tell my boss the next day, I tell my coworkers. No one is surprised. Everyone knows what's going on, everyone knows what has happened. No one can do anything about Shortstuff's Mom being at the workplace even though she's probably 70% of the reason why Shortstuff is on antidepressants (yours truly and her guilt about that being the remaining 30%) and about 50% of the reason why I am, because it's 'difficult' to fix a situation like that.

I understand, but I also don't. On Shortstuff's Note it says 'unclear' on the question if the doctor thinks she can ever come back to work. I am on sick leave until the end of the year. But her mother gets to keep her job, gets a free apartment, and complains how 'everything' is against her and how people never care about her.

I hate her.

I got my note today. I'm crying. I'm crying now, as I'm writing. My doctor is so angry, she's describing my issues, how much Ive struggled, how much I've TRIED to work despite needing to be full sick leave, how hard I've fought to need as little government support as possible, and she CAN'T understand how they could deny a patient with that much issues.

On my note, it says 'unclear' on if I can ever go back to work.

I... I'm 28 years old. And they think that this... all this... might have damaged me so much I can never work again.

But sure, Shortstuff's Mom is the victim.

She gets away scot free and more... but she's the victim. She's alienated Shortstuff from her entire family. None of her siblings talk to her. They threw their baby sister under the bus for an abusive and manipulative mother, even after telling her they'd be on her side.

And for what?

The ONLY thing we ever did, was saying we wanted to move to a place of our own.

If that's a crime worthy of ruining two young people's lives over, then wow.

Wow.

I'm just babbling now. This has been incoherent but...

I feel horrible about this too but... I have a donation thing on Paypal. For now we still have money left from the house sale. But we've signed for a new apartment end next year... and we hope that moving there, we'll be able to get our life together. Live again.

So... if anyone has the ability to or want to, please consider dropping something in there. I might open a Ko-fi too if anyone prefers that rather than PayPal.

I'll also make some sales posts later but... yeah.

I've babbled enough. Just... I wanted people to know why I've been... on and off, and what's going on and...

Just...

Yeah.

#personal #tldr: the emotional and mental rollercoaster my life has been last few years #tw: depression #tw: anxiety #tw: mentions of suicide #tw: abuse #long post #I don't know if I'll be okay #I'm tired #but i'm just... hoping... it ends someday #that there's a light on the other side somewhere

9 notes · View notes

childofchrist1983 · 3 years ago

Photo

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. - 1 Timothy 6:7-8 KJV

Someone once said that there are no UHauls behind hearses. The implication being that you can't take anything with you when you die.

There's a story of a man who tried.

When the doctors told him he had a short time to live, he converts some of this cash into gold bricks, puts them in a suitcase and instructs that this suitcase should be buried with him. When he approaches the pearly gates carrying the suitcase, St. Peter stops him and asks to look inside the suitcase.

The angel Gabriel asks, “What's in the suitcase?"

“Pavement," replies St. Peter.

The story illustrates that in Heaven, what we consider to be wealth on this earth is really nothing.

Heaven’s streets are paved with gold. That would be the equivalent of us finding some kind of value in asphalt or concrete chunks here on earth. We spent a lot of time trying to get things on this earth. We spend a lot of time working to get more and more and more stuff that we just don't need.

If you don't believe it, take a look at what happens when a person dies without an heir: A lawyer has to come in, open up the house, and sell off all the belongs to settle the estate. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff - sometimes still in boxes - is sold for pennies on the dollar. An entire lifetime of obtaining things and the only thing that happens is that strangers come in to pick over the possessions a giant yard sale.

This passage tells us that we are to be content with what we have. We should be content with food and clothing. As long as our needs are met on a daily basis, that's really all we should ask for.

Everything else is just bonus stuff and if we are spending time away from our families, if we're spending time focusing on getting rather than focusing on living, then we're being very foolish because we can't take it with us. When the end comes, all the stuff that we bought stay right here our closets or our garages.

While we're on this earth, we need to make the right choices and be sure that we are able to be content with what we have. Then we may end up with few things that we want.

Father, I thank You for everything. I know sometimes I may seem discontent because there are things that I think that I want, things I think that I need, but the truth is I'm happy with my life.

I'm happy with what You've done for me. I'm happy with my family, with my job, with the things that I have.

I've seen what happens when you have too much stuff and I don't want that. When I get greedy, you remind me that I have everything that I need and most of what I could ever want. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for always reminding me of this and for always loving me. In Your name I humbly pray, Amen and amen

1 note · View note

aion-rsa · 3 years ago

Text

Doctor Who: Introducing John Bishop

https://ift.tt/3hJ3QeV

A teaser at the end of Doctor Who festive special ‘Revolution of the Daleks‘ introduced the audience to John Bishop, freshly cast as new companion Dan and due to appear alongside Mandip Gill and Jodie Whittaker in the show’s upcoming 13th season.

John Bishop is very well known in his native United Kingdom, mostly for his output as an award-winning stand-up comedian, and for being a mainstay of some of the country’s best-loved panel shows. In the US, he’s a less familiar face – a consequence of the US comedy scene being harder to break into than Fort Knox in a time eddy. Even in the UK there may be pockets of Who viewers unfamiliar with Bishop’s work, especially as ever-fewer people aged 16-34 are choosing to watch broadcast TV.

The only other Doctor Who actor to have been introduced in this way at the tail-end of an episode was John Hurt, a big-name British actor whose brand recognition carried across both the Atlantic Ocean and audience demographics. If the overall reaction to the casting of The War Doctor was, ‘Bloody hell, it’s John Hurt!’, it’s no slight on the soon-to-be TARDIS-travelling Liverpudlian to assume that the most common reaction this time, at least globally, might have been: ‘Who the bloody hell is John Bishop?’ But don’t worry. That’s what we’re here to find out.

The good news is: you’ll like him.

Runcorn, Football, and Bad Jobs

John Bishop grew up in a council estate in Runcorn, and always dreamed of greater things, or at least – as he told The Guardian newspaper in 2010 – a job where he wouldn’t have to go home and ‘get a wash’ afterwards. His ambition and intellect carried him to college, and thereafter into a short-lived career playing semi-professional football for Southport FC. His first foray into the working world, however, was as a vacuum-cleaner salesman, where he was mystified – and perhaps a little scared – by the go-getting ethos that the company had adopted. Each working day began with the mandatory recitation of an inspirational sales song performed to the tune of a Beatles hit. “It was mad,” he told talk-show host Graham Norton. “As a 17-year-old… I thought that’s what all jobs were like.” You can watch John Bishop having a bad-job-off with Chris Pratt in this video:

In his thirties, Bishop was living a comfortable existence as a medical rep for a pharmaceutical company. At the same time as his corporate star was rising, his marriage was collapsing, an event that carried within it – unbeknownst to him – the seeds of serendipity: his failing marriage would kick-start his comedy career, and his burgeoning comedy career would, in turn, kick-start his marriage.

From Open Mic Comedy to Sold-Out Tours

In conversation with fellow comedian Rob Brydon on the latter’s online show Brydon &, (see below), Bishop explained that didn’t nurse a burning, life-long ambition to make strangers laugh in the dark. He pretty much drifted into stand-up. He just wanted somewhere to go and something to do after he’d dropped his three kids off with his estranged wife on a Monday night; something to distract him from missing them. In fact, when he attended his first Open Mic night he didn’t even know what the term ‘open mic night’ meant, but was overjoyed to discover that one of the main things it meant was that as a performer he’d get into the venue for free.

Speaking to Brydon, Bishop recalled stepping out on stage for the first time, struggling a little and getting maybe a few polite titters from the seven-strong crowd. He quickly decided to bin his repertoire of gags, admitting to the audience, “I’m only here because I’m getting divorced”. He then launched into a funny, stream-of-consciousness, self-deprecating routine about his ailing marital fortunes.

In many ways, then, John Bishop is the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel of UK comedy (although, unlike Midge Maisel, he successfully rekindled his marriage). Perhaps we should call him ‘The Jubilant Mr John Bishop’.

Bishop had never told anyone he was doing stand-up, so it came as something of a shock to his wife when she went along to The Frog and Bucket comedy club with some workmates, only to see her husband walk out onto the stage. She came to talk to him afterwards, and told him it was great to see him more like his old self. Counselling and reconciliation followed, and the family has been rock-solid ever since. “Getting back together was the reward,” he told Rob Brydon. “All the rest of this stuff is secondary.”

Doctor Who Series 13: Jodie Whittaker Leaving Rumours, the Next Doctor, and the Future

By Jamie Andrew

Doctor Who: Ranking Every Single Companion Departure

By Andrew Blair

Bishop went on to build a solid, multi-award-winning career on the comedy circuit – branching out into panel shows and some small-screen roles – but it was his 2009 Edinburgh Festival Show ‘Elvis Has Left the Building’ that launched him into the big time.

Millions find him hilarious, but there are three key critics who resolutely don’t: his own children. Bishop told The Mirror newspaper in January 2013: “They just look at me as if to say, ‘what are you doing?’ My eldest came up to me over Christmas and said, ‘Dad, I think you should use this bit of time off to rethink your material’. I couldn’t believe it.”

You can judge for yourself here by watching one of his early TV appearances, where he muses about refrigerators and municipal tips in his endearingly droll, dad-next-door style.

Politics, Charity and LGBTQ+ Allyship

Bishop’s TV roles have provided incidental connections to the wider Who-niverse: he appeared as comedic but catastrophic dad Rob Fitch on the E4 series Skins from 2009 to 2010, a show that had also once featured future 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi; in 2012, Bishop appeared in fellow Merseysider Jimmy McGovern‘s Accused, a characteristically gritty drama in which Christopher Eccleston had also previously appeared. By 2012, Bishop was no stranger to working with smart, angry, ideology-driven writers and auteurs, having played a small but key role in Ken Loach’s 2010 pro-friendship, anti-Iraq movie Route Irish.

Politics are, and have always been, at Bishop’s core. He’s a long-time vegetarian and animal lover who regularly rails against the UK class system, an oppressive model he managed to buck by becoming the first member of his working-class family to attend university. He graduated with a BA (Hons) in Social Science from Manchester Polytechnic in 1989. He’s a staunch and outspoken socialist, and vocal supporter of the UK’s Labour Party. In short, a man who’s never afraid to poke his head above the parapets. In 2014 he told The Mirror newspaper that if he ever appeared on the political panel show Question Time he’d probably end up punching someone.

Nowhere is this anger more intense than in his support for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, a 1989 footballing tragedy that affected his beloved Liverpool football club, the act and aftermath of which intersected issues of class with police malfeasance and media treachery. The battle for accountability continues to this day. In 2014, Bishop donated £96,000 (£1000 for each of the victims) to the Hillsborough Family Support Group. In the charity sphere, Bishop has raised millions of pounds through all manner of sporting feats, most notably enduring a five-day triathlon from Paris to London.

In 2018, Bishop was named the Virgin Atlantic Celebrity Ally of the Year at the NatWest British LGBT Awards, a moment that fused the political and the social with his family. In his funny yet hard-hitting acceptance speech he revealed that one of his sons is gay. You can watch him talking about it on this clip from The Jonathan Ross Show:

One area of Bishop’s life that’s stayed relatively free of politics is his stand-up. He explained to The Guardian in 2010: “I don’t want to be categorised as a comedian going down any particular avenue. Besides, political comedians are hamstrung, because they’re waiting for other people to do stuff before they can come up with something funny.”

Dan, The TARDIS, and Series 13

And so we arrive at the latest chapter in John Bishop’s career: becoming a fully-fledged member of Team TARDIS. It almost never happened. Executive Producer Chris Chibnall created the part of Dan with John Bishop in mind, but there was too big a scheduling conflict with the star’s nationwide stand-up tour to allow him to say yes. Enter stage-left the pandemic, which reduced Bishop’s sold-out run to a shut-down nothing, and prompted him to approach Chris Chibnall to see if his offer still stood.

Given that John Bishop is a working-class Liverpudlian playing a working-class Liverpudlian on-screen, and that Chris Chibnall created Dan with John Bishop in mind, it’s tempting to conclude that we might see an exploration of class through Dan’s eyes, something the show is yet to directly touch upon despite Rose Tyler being a working class character.

Bishop has finished filming for series 13, and returns to the road on tour this September. It’s unclear whether this means he’s a one-and-done companion, or if he’ll be joining Jodie Whittaker or some as-yet unspecified fourteenth (ish) Doctor in seasons to come. But whatever the future holds for Dan, the character undoubtedly is in good hands. And Doctor Who’s audience is in good company with John Bishop.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

John Bishop will appear on the Doctor Who panel at SDCC At Home on Sunday the 25th of July.

The post Doctor Who: Introducing John Bishop appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3xWvxI2

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

godly-habits011497 · 3 years ago

Text

☀ Morning Prayer

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

From: 1 Timothy 6:7-8

Inspiration

Someone once said that there are no u-hauls behind hearses. The implication is that you can't take it with you when you die. There's a story of a man who tried. When the doctors told him he had a short time to live, he converts some of this cash into gold bricks, puts them in a suitcase and instructs that this suitcase should be buried with him. When he approaches the pearly gates carrying the suitcase, St. Peter stops him and asks to look inside the suitcase. The angel Gabriel asks, “What's in the suitcase?" “Pavement," replies St. Peter. The story illustrates that in heaven what we consider to be wealth on this earth is really nothing. Heaven’s streets are paved with gold. That would be the equivalent of us finding some kind of value in asphalt or concrete chunks here on earth. We spent a lot of time trying to get things on this earth. We spend a lot of time working to get more and more and more stuff that we just don't need. If you don't believe it, take a look at what happens when a person dies without an heir. A lawyer has to come in, open up the house, and sell off all the belongs to settle the estate. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of stuff--sometimes still in boxes--is sold for pennies on the dollar. An entire lifetime of obtaining things and the only thing that happens is that strangers come in to pick over the possessions a giant yard sale. This passage tells us that we are to be content with what we have. We should be content with food and clothing. As long as our needs are met on a daily basis, that's really all we should as should ask for. Everything else is just bonus stuff and if we are spending time away from our families, if we're spending time focusing on getting rather than focusing on living, then we're being very foolish because we can't take it with us. When the end comes, all the stuff that we bought stay right here our closets or our garages. While we're on this earth we need to make the right choices and be sure that we are able to be content with what we have. Then we may end up with few things that we want.

Prayer

Father, I thank You for everything. I know sometimes I may seem discontent because there are things that I think that I want, things I think that I need, but the truth is I'm happy with my life. I'm happy with what You've done for me. I'm happy with my family, with my job, with the things that I have. I've seen what happens when you have too much stuff and I don't want that. When I get greedy you remind me that I have everything that I need and most of what I could ever want. I thank You Lord. Amen.

0 notes

your-dietician · 3 years ago

Text

World's Fastest Property Price Surge Since Financial Crisis Sparks Bidding Wars

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/worlds-fastest-property-price-surge-since-financial-crisis-sparks-bidding-wars/

World's Fastest Property Price Surge Since Financial Crisis Sparks Bidding Wars

Around the world, property markets are going bananas.

From the U.S. to the U.K. to China, housing is riding an extended boom. Global valuations are soaring at the fastest pace since 2006, according to Knight Frank, with annual price increases in double digits. Frothy markets are flashing the kind of bubble warnings that haven’t been seen since the run up to the financial crisis, a Bloomberg Economics analysis shows.

On the ground, outrageous stories are rife, with desperate buyers promising to name their first-born after sellers and derelict buildings selling for mansion prices.

This property in Sydney’s Kensington suburb sold for A$4.7 million after a bidding war.

Source: NG Farah

The drivers for the frenzy are remarkably consistent: cheap mortgages, a post-pandemic desire for more space, newly remote workers taking city cash to regional locations — and, crucially, a pervasive fear that if you don’t buy now you may never be able to.

As prices mount, so do the risks for both individuals and society. Even without an outright crash, big mortgages mean borrowers are vulnerable if interest rates rise, have less disposable income to spend in the wider economy and are more likely to retire in debt. For younger people, buying property becomes increasingly difficult, further widening intergenerational inequality.

While regulators are starting to get nervous, there are few signs of meaningful action in most countries. They expect the market will start to cool on its own, arguing that a decade-long focus on higher lending standards combined with the prospect of low interest rates for an extended period means there is no obvious trigger for a crash. Much of the activity is also being driven by owner-occupiers rather than investors, who typically don’t all head for the door at once if prices start to drop.

So for now, expect the wild stories to keep coming. Here are a few of the most startling ones we’ve come across.

Canada

As a real estate agent, Kristin Cripps knew the market was hot in Barrie. Prices in the fast-growing city about an hour and a half’s drive north of Toronto have been pushed skyward as buyers hunt for larger homes or vacation properties on scenic Lake Simcoe.

Yet nothing prepared her for selling her one-bedroom vacation home. It’s not a remarkable property—Cripps says it looks like “a small box” from the outside—but within 24 hours of listing, 192 showings had been booked. And that was only the start.

Homes for sale in Barrie, where prices have been pushed skyward.

Photographer: Galit Rodan/Bloomberg

Throughout the following three days, bidders and agents kept showing up without an appointment, tramping through the snow to bang on the door while Cripps conducted virtual viewings inside.

The property’s narrow driveway became so congested, no fewer than six cars ended up in a ditch and needed to be towed out. At the height of the bidding war, Cripps estimates she was getting about 75 emails every 20 minutes, and didn’t sleep more than two or three hours a night as she tried to keep up with all the inquiries. In the end she received 71 offers. The property, listed for C$399,000 ($328,665), sold for almost twice that sum — C$777,777.

“You know when you see videos of Black Friday and everyone rushes in and they’re grabbing stuff and they’re having fights in the store and pulling people’s hair and there’s security and they’re grabbing people? That’s what it felt like,” Cripps said.

“Everyone was just so hot and bothered to get a property.”

Australia

It didn’t have a kitchen or a toilet or power, let alone flooring or paint. Yet the semi-derelict home about seven kilometers (4.4 miles) south of Sydney’s city center sold anyway—for A$4.7 million ($3.5 million), after a heated bidding war.

It’s just one more jaw-dropping sale in the harborside city, where more than half the houses sold this year fetched at least A$1 million and quarterly gains to May were the highest in more than 30 years. House prices rose by A$1,263 a day in May.

Prospective buyers place bids during the auction of a house in Sydney’s Paddington area in February.

Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

“I’ve been involved in this industry 25 years and seen nothing like it,” selling agent Joe Recep of NG Farah Real Estate said. “We had 30,000 enquiries on the property in four weeks—from UAE [United Arab Emirates], Dubai, America, New Zealand and all the Asian countries.”

It’s the top end of the market that’s really motoring. Cashed-up buyers returning from overseas and wealthy locals kept in the country by Australia’s closed borders are prepared to pay eye-watering amounts for a desirable lifestyle.

Sydney’s Top-Tier Home Prices Soar

Values rise fastest for the most expensive properties

Sources: Corelogic Inc., Bloomberg

D’Leanne Lewis, a principal at real estate agency Laing+Simmons in the tony eastern suburb of Double Bay, sold homes worth a record A$60 million in a single day in May—more than she had ever previously sold in a month.

Among the five houses Lewis sold on her banner day was an eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom property in Bellevue Hill, an expensive area in the city’s east. It was snapped up pre-auction for $25 million—almost 40% above its advertised price—and more than triple the $7 million it sold for just five years ago. While palatial, it doesn’t have the waterfront views or access you’d normally expect in Sydney at that price.

“It’s crazy but does make sense when you think about it,” says Lewis. “Being locked down in a place like Sydney does not feel so dismal when you compare it to the rest of the world. People are looking for a safe haven.”

U.S.

In the wealthy enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut, you can’t even bank on being able to see a property before you put in an offer.

Shut out of appointments to view a just-listed $1.55 million house, one set of homebuyers decided to make a cash offer above asking price anyway. Their only condition was to be allowed into the house once before signing the contract.

“It was accepted as the highest and best bid, and they’d never been in the house,” said Mark Pruner, a broker with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Greenwich. “There were all these other people lined up for appointments in 15-minute intervals for two days.”

New York’s Divided Property Market

Prices in Manhattan keep falling as bidding wars erupt in the outer boroughs.

Source: StreetEasy, Bloomberg, Q1 2021 data, YOY % change

U.S. home prices jumped the most in 30 years in April, with even more dramatic increases in many suburban and rural areas. At the peak of the pandemic, Greenwich attracted exiles from New York City — and they’ve kept coming ever since. Signed contracts for single-family homes more than tripled in May from a year earlier to 165, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. And that’s after a first quarter when the median price of home sales surged 31% to $2.24 million.

In Manhattan, sales have picked up in recent months too, but that’s largely thanks to the prospect of discounted prices. By contrast, buyers pushing deep into the outer boroughs in search of more spacious homes are facing bidding wars.

Things are even hotter in more remote areas of the U.S. Take Boise, Idaho, a picturesque city of roughly 225,000 set against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. An influx of buyers from California and other more expensive states has sent the market wild: Prices at the start of June were up 42% from a year earlier, according to brokerage Redfin. In April, eight in 10 offers made by its customers faced bidding wars.

An influx of buyers has sent the Boise market wild.

Photographer: Jeremy Erickson/Bloomberg

Desperate buyers are doing whatever they can to secure a deal — including promising not to actually move in. Shauna Pendleton, a local Redfin broker, said one vendor negotiated the right to stay in the property for five months on a peppercorn rent until their new home was built.

“Sellers know they’ve got power in this market, they know they hold the cards and that they pretty much make the rules,” Pendleton said.

U.K.

Buying a U.K. property right now is nerve-jangling. Almost a quarter of homes sell within a week, according to estate agents Hamptons International, many before they even hit the property portals.

The intense competition is leaving would-be-buyers like Alyson Nash, 63, and her husband out in the cold. They sold their family farmhouse last year and moved into rented accommodation so they could hunt commitment-free for a property near Guildford, a commuter hub in England’s southeast.

Property listings in Guildford, U.K. Almost a quarter of homes sell within a week, according to estate agents.

Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Eight months later, after making offers for three homes at their asking prices of at least 2.5 million pounds ($3.5 million), they’re no closer.

“I had never in my life anticipated it being this difficult,” Nash said. “There’s very little on the market and what there is, is being chased down by too many people.”

U.K. House Prices Are Rising Faster Outside London

The capital city isn’t attracting buyers the way it once did

Source: Acadata

The booming market has led to the resurgence of a practice known as gazumping. Property deals in the U.K. aren’t legally binding until contracts are formally exchanged, which can take months after an offer has been accepted—particularly when mortgage lenders and lawyers are struggling with high volumes.

At any point in this period sellers can accept a different offer. That’s what happened to Charlotte Howard, 46, in February. Four months later, as glacial proceedings on another property left her terrified of being gazumped again, she found herself contacting the seller on Facebook to reassure them of her interest.

“I’m feeling just a bit broken and a bit bruised,” Howard said. “Things can go wrong still.”

Fortunately for Howard, she and the seller exchanged on June 11th.

China

Reining in property speculation is a key objective of the Chinese government. But even they are struggling. While in much of the world the pandemic spurred a dash to the suburbs and beyond, buyers in China piled into top-tier cities where the best jobs and schools can still be found.

New apartments under construction in Shenzhen, where prices are rising faster than anywhere else in China.

Photographer: Yan Cong/Bloomberg

Existing home prices in those cities rose 10.8% in the year to May, despite crackdowns on loopholes such as fake divorces, designed to bypass rules on how many properties a family can own.

In the tech hub of Shenzhen, an apartment costs 43.5 times a resident’s average salary, according to the research institute of real estate firm E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings Ltd. That’s not far behind Hong Kong, the world’s least affordable city. With Shenzhen prices rising faster than anywhere else in China, the list of obstacles facing would-be buyers just keeps getting longer—and more arbitrary.

China’s Home Price Gains Slow, But Don’t Stop

Increases continue despite tough cooling measures

Source: China’s National Bureau of Statistics

At one new development in the city’s west, interested parties had to temporarily transfer 1 million yuan ($157,000) and upload personal credit reports before they could even make a bid.

Many of those who managed to do so—not easy, with queues of bidders snaking around the block at bank closing time—still didn’t even get their offers considered.

Under pressure from the local housing regulator to prioritize residents, local developer Coaster Group decided to vet applicants on how long they’d paid taxes in the city. The 2,114 successful applications all had more than 23 years of tax records.

That meant renewed disappointment for many, including Jerry Huang, 29, who has 14 years of Shenzhen tax history. It’s the third time that non-monetary requirements have prevented him from even making a bid.

“It looks like I have to shelve the purchase plan for a long time,” Huang said. “There are so many people competing I’m not sure I have a winning chance.”

— With assistance by Emily Cadman, Ari Altstedter, Olivia Konotey-Ahulu, Charlie Wells, Emma Dong, Nabila Ahmed, Prashant Gopal, and Oshrat Carmiel

(Updates Sydney house price chart to include June data.)

Source link

0 notes

coeurdastronaute · 7 years ago

Text

Essays in Existentialism: Polo

ok so, lexa is a polo player and clarke is one of those fancy girls who watch the game and clarke develops a crush on lexa when she sees her playing and then stuff happen (my idea finish there sorry ) but anyways thanks for your amazing fics i love you they make me happy

The drinks flowed for hours before the game even started. While the field occupied a large section of the estate, the tents and tables and mingling crowds of people in expensive dresses and hats swarmed around it all around the pitch. It was a sunny day with a handful of the magnificent, fluffy white clouds that took their time to get across the sky.

From her table, Clarke listened to the people around her talking and found herself utterly bored by the entirety of it. Not one thing was interesting to her. Not her mother droning on about some wedding a few weeks ago. Not her father talking business with a partner. Not her friends talking about their plans for the following day.

The sun sizzled and sang that summer song while the heat weighed down the day, and Clarke excused herself for a bit of air as the game started.

It was necessary for her, sometimes; to disappear from it all. These types of events were rarities, ones that she endured only long enough to make her father happy so that he didn’t cut her off. He was already more okay with her majoring in art history than her mother, and she liked spending time with him most of the time. He could appease him from time to time. He did pay for her school and bills and anything else she wanted. This was the trade, though deep down, she wagered he would never even hold it over her. She went so he didn’t have to ask.

On the pitch, the horses thundered by as she made her way toward the edge, watching the riders as they wove and nudged and raced around. Clarke paused there and sipped her drink, eager to take off her heels already.

Her parent’s divorce had been everywhere in the past two years. And that was hard enough. But what no one understood was just how difficult it was to see them sitting near each other at a table and hating each other from a distance. It was exhausting. Her world had been turned upside down, it shattered her worldview, and still, they pretended, sat there and avoided each other except for that show of friendship for the people to marvel at and appreciate their maturity. But their daughter knew the truth, and so she stood on the edge of the pitch and held her breath, hoping someone would score so she could scream.

But no one did, and she returned to the table to the quiet battle that remained and felt herself going absolutely insane, and the day had just begun.

It wasn’t that game wasn’t fun. It was always fun, always felt like a drug, with pure adrenaline and a high that didn’t last long enough and left her chasing the next one eagerly. Games were always enjoyable. Games of a certain caliber were damn near close to sex, in her own opinion.

But this game.

This game was not a game of true importance. It was a dull high. A weak release that had moments, but wasn’t enough of a challenge. It was a vanity game for the person who paid her. It was an exhibition in which the team owner participated to feel like their money was well spent. And Lexa found herself to be a dancing clown for more coppers.

“Well done,” she cheered as she passed off an easy goal for herself in favor of an assist.

The owner bought her a new pony. The owner let her travel and play and train and live, and for that, she sold her soul, played in pointless games where people sipped drinks and didn’t watch, and she gave away points to make sure he gave her spending money.

“Great block, great pass,” Kane circled back around after the whistle.

Three nodded politely and lined back up for the next round.

It was a normal game, the regular game that was routine. And before it, she showed off horses and charmed investors. After the game, she would shower and mingle after taking the time to check on her ponies. And she would be just as bored as she was in this very game. But she would have more money hopefully, and she would get to play in a cup next month. And this was how she sold more and more of her soul.

Thoughtlessly, or at least primarily very distracted, she went through the motions and was still better than everyone else on the field, even the other two or three players who were also at half-effort and selling their souls.

She sprinted down and tried to bump someone after the ball before a movement caught her eye and she jerked hard on the reins, losing part of the play. A stock of blonde bounced along the sideline, half cutting across the field on Lexa’s side having made it most of the way around. Not even a horse thundering toward her made the raging princess move, and the player yanked the reins before she felt herself tumble over her horse’s head and onto her back.

The familiar feeling of the wind being knocked out of her lungs made her grumble, and as she quickly got up, she looked toward the stranger that broke her stride, and noted that she didn’t even look back.

“Head over heels?” Kane teased as she tapped the dust off of her uniform.

With a scowl she climbed back on as play was whistled live once again.

The game wasn’t fun, she decided, back and shoulders aching, pride wounded. Not fun at all, and her soul was clearly on sale.

“You’re a pretty fellow,” she cooed at the nose that jutted out of the stall.

Far away from the tents and the hats and the people who all said one thing and meant another, the stables were quiet and a refuge. Worse than her anger at her parents, her anger at needing to be their show pony, worse than feeling so tired and overwhelmed, Clarke felt the sick kind of burn of being nothing more than a cliché. The girl with the parents who gave her whatever she wanted, who still asked for more and was unhappy. It was exhausting, and she was stuck in a game that would never let her out or let her win.

And so she rubbed the soft skin of the horse’s chin and she caught her breath.

The thing that she got good at, during these types of events, was always finding a moment to regroup. Ever since she would sneak out on the roof at the McMillan’s annual Christmas party, or down to the basement at the Company mixer, where she was expected to be polite and smile and be the pretty, picture-perfect family for her father’s firm, she had a knack for finding herself eventually.

In just a few minutes, she’d be gone, back to the party to fulfill her parent’s wishes. It wasn’t hard to do. It was just plain phoney. But she gave herself until the applause of the match. She could have that much time alone without raising suspicions.

The hands in the barn didn’t say anything to her, didn’t see her at all. She knew well enough it was because she was in that stupid dress her mother sent over, and they were afraid of her. She took it though. It helped with the illusion of complete anonymity and--

“You!”

Dumbly, she glanced around before looking toward the stomping and the bellowing voice, as if she could see someone else accepting that kind of accusation.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here after that stunt?”

The voice was angry and came from an angry player who tossed her helmet on the ground with her gloves as she tugged them off and glowered at the stranger to the stables. The uniform was muddy, and there was dirt on her cheekbones. Her eyes were pure fire as she started to tug at her uniform top from her pants, freeing the stiffness somewhat into an organized and planned chaos of after-game disrobing.

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” she spoke with her hands waving. “Walking across the pitch during a game? Of all of the-- the--” the words that followed were in a different language as lips moved faster than human speed and hands waved emphatically.

All Clarke could do was watch the absolute hurricane of a person approach her landfall, and she didn’t even have a moment to brace for it. All at once, green eyes were closer, and a belt was tugged off to accent the words.

As frightened and indignant in equal measure as she found herself to be, Clarke couldn’t shake the feeling of being slightly turned on by the crazed girl with strong forearms and the pretty face and the sweaty thing. It was absolutely not appropriate, but there it was, and she didn’t know how to turn it off despite herself.

“And now you’re in here, with my ponies,” she scoffed. “Go on. Speak then. What is your problem?”

“Currently? Being yelled at in Spanish by a crazed, sweaty woman,” Clarke sassed, standing her ground as soon as she was given the chance. “What’s your problem?”

“Haven’t you heard? You don’t think I have enough of that to worry about, and now killing one? Do you have a death wish?”

The polo player pressed close and furrowed so deep, Clarke was certain her disapproval was etched permanently on the bone of her forehead. She stood taller as well until both were almost touching. There was a familiar air to the player. Clarke had seen her face before, or so she thought, that tiny hint of the known lingering just enough, hidden right beneath the anger and frustration.

“Do you have any manners at all? What did I do to you?”

“My manners might be missing because of an entitled princess putting me on my back because she thinks she can cut the pitch during a game!”

“If I wanted you on your back, you’d be there!”

Both with chests heaving they stared and glared and waged a war despite the blush that crept into Clarke’s cheeks at the suggestion and the proximity.

“Is that so?” the stranger cocked her head, a smirk hidden beneath the overwhelming anger. “Not on your life, ticket holder.”

“What, is that an insult?”

“Just don't walk on the pitch. Okay? It’s not that hard. I know you think you can do whatever you want, but not out there,” she muttered, brushing past the partygoer.

Still stunned, Clarke wondered how her day had turned into this. She hadn’t cut the pitch, she was almost certain. But it was a blackout blur of the need to escape. She must have. She must have done something to be remembered by a player. A player that she knew but didn’t.

“Oh, is that it?” Clarke asked, wheeling around and stomping after the player. Woods was blazed across her shoulders. “Scream at someone, insult them, and walk away?”

“Yes,” she shrugged and turned toward the showers.

They approached a restricted area, but nothing was deterring Clarke from this battle. She had many to fight today, and this wasn’t one she could afford to lose, though she was certain she already has. She would take a pyrrhic victory if offered at that rate.

“I don’t know what you think you know about me, but you don’t know shit--”

The sight of a shirt being pulled off made her mind fail. How could it not. Two minutes after meeting a gorgeous girl, and she was suddenly near a shirtless hot girl. With the muscles. And the body. And the… just all of it.

“I have to shower and look nice so people like you will give me money so I can play,” she put her hands on her hips.

The mud streaked down the side of her neck and over her collar. There was a streak of bruises already forming on ribs and hip and Clarke looked, despite herself.

“Yeah, well me too,” she snapped, hands on hips, ready for another standoff like boxers before a bout.

Maybe she didn’t understand, and the confusion was evident on her face, but the polo player slacked slightly, the tension on her shoulders and face diminished just enough to notice. Maybe it was because she was amused, maybe it was because she was tired, but she searched the blonde’s face and nodded to herself.

“I’m going to shower now, so unless you’re going to take off that pretty dress--”

“You wish,” Clarke sneered, looking her up and down and silently begging her to make that wish. Make it. Just a little bit. Tempt away.

The smirk was still angry, still defiant, still there and infuriating. The polo player unbuttoned her pants before her hands moved for her sports bra and Clarke turned around immediately.

“Stay off the pitch during a game, princess!” she called as Clarke stomped out of the shower room.

“Be a better player!” she taunted before finding fresh air.

Back to where it started, just ten feet from the showers, Clarke stood stark still and evaluated what had just transpired, and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what or how or even who she’d been before it. But here she was, in the now, and painfully aware that a specimen like that existed in the world and had a temper.

It wasn’t the worst fact to mull and distract herself with as she decided to seek out her parents once more for another round of earning her keep.

In under an hour, she was showered, cleaned, and put in a pretty dress for all to see, smile permanently affixed and brain decidedly shut off as she made the rounds and talked shop wit weekend players and observers who followed but couldn’t play.

Those were conversations she could have. She liked talking about the state of the league and the projections for the cups. She liked talking about projected ponies and trainings.

What she didn’t particularly enjoy was talking about how she modeled to pay the bills. About how she was on billboards and in magazines for perfumes and such, because it made her blush, and her father raised her to be modest.

He also raised her to be humble, but she was working on that part.

“We play in California in a few weeks, and then Kentucky,” Lexa explained to a few people.

“And my team is going to win. Hands down,” their benefactor regaled the group, raising his glass joyously.

Marcus Kane was richer than rich. He had money that was comparable more to a small country rather than another person. And it wasn’t that Lexa disliked him for it. In fact, she actually almost enjoyed him as a person. If he hadn’t spent twenty years of his life building an empire, he might have even been a professional player.

Lexa had been on teams with overbearing owners, and she was fortunate that her’s genuinely just enjoyed the game. It was a blessing, and one that she knew. Even he didn’t enjoy the pomp that came sometimes, but still, she didn’t let him know how uncomfortable it made her.

“You gave us a run, that’s for sure,” the owner of another team nodded, offering the winners another round of drinks.

“A good play all-around,” Lexa politely agreed before excusing herself to mingle.

It wasn’t terrible. She was good at it, good at turning her head off and pretending. She loved the game, loved what she could be, and if this was just another part of it, then she was okay with that. She’d resigned herself to it.

The food wasn’t terrible. She liked the little sweet lemon cakes. They reminded her of home, and for an instant, the moment it hit her tongue, summertime.

She circled back around, carefully following the cakes back into the large country home that operated as the hosting house for the tournament. The garden party now covered the lawn, ebbed and flowed and moved through the expansive state. As the sun began to set, the party just got better, got bigger, got more elite.

Eventually, her teammates found her and formed a safe circle. It was what they did after all requirements had been met.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dismounted,” Lincoln teased.

“I did it to myself, so it doesn’t count,” Lexa countered.

“It sure as hell does.”

“Kill someone or hit the brakes,” she argued. “I think it’d look bad if I trampled someone.”

“Sure.”

Surrounding the small table and with celebratory drinks, the team devolved into discussing the game and the pretty wives that wanted to sleep with them. It was their normal talk, and they chattered while Lexa sipped her champagne.

For some reason she hadn’t thought about seeing the girl from the stables. Her temper had gotten the best of her, her rashness, her disregard for the old count to ten method. She blamed it on her mother and those genes and the adrenaline of competition.

And as caught of guard as the stranger had been, when she stood up and glared, Lexa felt a little intrigued, a little bad about the yelling until her body would ache and then she remembered she could have killed her.

But to see her in the party was another sight completely. She was the prettiest girl there, and she wouldn't even bring it up to the table because they would try to debate it, and she knew the truth. Sullen and bored, the blonde princess looked like she was as miserable as anyone else.

“Lexa, I’ve been looking all over for you,” the familiar tug of Kane’s hand around her waist shook her awake again, and she lost her in the crowd.

“Just accepting a brutal thrashing from the team.”

“Not too sore from that?” he pressed as they navigated through the crowd.

“Not a bit,” she lied.

His personality was catching, his enthusiasm was overwhelming and she did like him as a person. Honest and good and a kind man, and though she had bouts of melancholy about selling her soul, she was happy.

“I want to introduce you to someone. I’m sure you’ve seen her at practice, but I haven’t been able to articulate my thoughts about it, or we’ve been very quiet. You know how these people are,” he shook his head, as if he weren’t part of the machine that kept lining his own pockets with the people who all did the same.

“Holding out on us?” she elbowed him slightly.

“Yes. I don’t want to hear what they have to say,” he chuckled.

“We’ll mock you later.”

Before he could give her a look, he paused and let go of her and reaching out for a brown-haired woman on the opposite side of the pitch.

While the lights all burned and created a galaxy, the night crept it and loosened the people, let them enjoy the skyline in the background and the feeling of being rich and well lubricated.

“Honey, I want to introduce you to one of the best players in the country. Hell, the world.”

The woman who turned around was beautiful, for her age. But Lexa knew the secret of love, and she looked to her boss as he smiled and looked adoringly at the woman, and she knew how important this woman was to him in an instant.

“I’ve heard so many stories,” she nodded politely. “Alejandra Woods?”

“Lexa is fine,” she smiled, toothy and wide as she shook a hand.

“This is Dr. Abby Griffin,” Kane smiled as he kissed her temple. “Genius and beautiful savior of people’s brains.”

“And cringer while watching the game. Thank goodness you wear helmets.”

“He’s got a hard head,” Lexa assured her, earning a laugh. “And he’s not half bad.”

“I was impressed,” she agreed, placing her hand on his chest as the meshed together.

To Lexa it was very honest and very cute. She loved love. She loved seeing love, and she loved seeing people she liked when they were in love. It was like sunshine and rain and all manner of goodness mixed together for her to steal.

“Lexa has been my favorite investment of all time,” Kane boasted proudly. “Fills my halls with cups and humors me enough to still teach me a few things.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“Well don’t overwhelm me with compliments,” he chuckled.

“That was a compliment.”

“I like her,” the doctor nodded, amused and enjoying the polo player. “I have a daughter about your age running around here. And an ex husband who might not like you on principle, so I apologize in advance.”

“Who doesn’t have a few of those, right?” Lexa tried.

“Actually, I think I see her. Clarke?” Kane called while Abby asked Lexa something about her family back home.

“You were in those ads, weren’t you? You model sometimes?”

“I do. It helps pay the bills.”

She was everything Lexa would imagine Kane would like in a woman. Articulate and polite, just distrustful enough to be prudent but also that fake kind of warm while she sized someone up. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful, for a woman of her accomplishments and age.

“And this is my daughter,” Abby smiled as Kane waved her over. “I apologize in advance for her. She just found out about Marcus and myself.”

“Clarke, I’m glad you’re still here. I want you to meet my star,” Kane referenced Lexa yet again. “Lexa, this is Clarke Griffin.”

And that was why the cutting the pitch happened. And that was why she was angry. Lexa recognized her yet again. The girl in the purple dress with the blue eyes and the anger.

“We’ve met,” she pursed her lips.

“Glad to see you’ve managed to avoid the pitch,” Lexa taunted, satisfied with her dig.

“That was you?” Kane put it all together.

“I didn’t realize. But I just found out that you’re fucking my mother and couldn’t get away quick enough.”

The entire conversation died down before Kane ran his hand along his beard and looked at the doctor. Lexa shifted her gaze from the girl to the distance in hopes of melting away, in hopes of having someone rescue her.

“If you’ll excuse me, I see some alcohol with my name on it.”

With that, she was gone as quickly as she came, and Lexa was left oddly intrigued by another clichéd problem of people who gave her money.

The best option was to leave. Clarke knew it, and yet, she couldn’t pass up the drinks that existed, nor could she leave without her best friend who was currently networking for her tech startup, and thus, she let her devotion overrun her urge to flee at all costs.

That was how she met Kane in a new way, as her mother’s boyfriend. That was how she saw her father’s face fall and grow tight until he excused himself and busied his night with the rest of his firm, drinking and smoking cigars and playing cards in some parlor tent. That was how she had not one, but two awkward encounters with a hot polo player. That was her night, and there was no escaping it.

So she elected to ride it out.

“Perhaps we should properly introduce ourselves,” a newly familiar accent slid across her shoulders and made her gulp.

From her spot at the fence, she surveyed the pitch and the dancing and the band and all gaiety of the tournament’s final night.

“I don’t know. I like our rapport,” she finally turned to see the player.

“It seems our paths may cross often at this rate. You should know my name.”

“I don’t think they will.”

“Your new papa is my boss,” Lexa offered, leaning against the bar near the fence. “I’m sure you’ll be around from time to time. And I should also maybe apologize for my temper.”

“You should.”

“Clarke, it was?” she asked, innocent and awfully cute for someone Clarke knew to have a wrathful kind of anger when provoked.

“Yes.”

“Lexa Woods,” she extended her hand and waited. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Clarke didn’t look at her when she dropped her hand, just drank and stared out at her mother laughing in a crowd. For her entire life, she’d watched her mother fake it, and for some reason, this looked real. She dusted Kane’s jacket and she smiled when he whispered in her ear, and Clarke wanted to be happy, she truly did, but she was not that big of a person yet. She needed time.

Unbeknownst to her, the player beside her searched her profile and smiled into her drink before helping herself to another lemon cake. When she was satisfied with figuring out how gorgeous the blonde was, Lexa followed her sights to the newly outed couple.

“My mother said she’d been in love with him since the first time she saw him back in college, before she even knew my father.”

“That is a good story,” Lexa nodded to herself.

“Time and life and pride kept them apart, she said. But everything is finally lining up.”

“Felicidades.”

“I don’t know how people fall in love at first sight,” Clarke sighed and watched her mother dance her with her new boyfriend. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree,” the polo player murmured as she sipped from her glass. “I need at least one conversation.”

That was what it took for Clarke to finally look at Lexa, who was not the same person who yelled in the showers, who was someone who seemed at peace and relaxed. It was infuriating that it was so catching.

“Just one?”

“If it’s stimulating enough. Lust and love are linked.”

“But not interchangeable.”

“But necessary in good measure.”

They debated and grew closer without meaning to until Lexa pulled away to signal for a water, and another for her new friend and patron.

“You would rather have lust, wouldn’t you?” Clarke accused as she caught her breath and waited “The quick and easy and simple thing that it is. Love a bit too complex for someone who hits a ball around with a stick while riding a horse?”

“That might be the third time you’ve insulted my intelligence in the very short time I’ve known you.”

“You missed the other two?”

There it was. She earned a laugh and smile, not a smirk, a pure smile. And it changed the set of the players face, it changed the slope of her cheeks. It wasn’t the worst to look at, for the most part.

“You are so very wrong about me, princesa,” Lexa shook her head and nodded a thanks for the drinks. “You dismiss lust as if it were something bad.”

“Not bad, just not enough. Not a good foundation. Lust passes quickly. It’s a shot, taken back and felt for a second. Leaves a bad hangover.”

“I think a good love is possible to be passionate. It’s necessary, actually,” she insisted. “A good conversation will stimulate passion and lust. That’s easy. A great conversation is when I will fall in love.”

“You seem to have strong opinions on it.”

“I do. We all should have opinions about love. It is inevitable.”

“But you don’t believe in love at first sight?” Lexa asked again.

“I don’t even believe in love at first conversation,” Clarke decided, turning away from the couple on the dancefloor again.

She stared at the polo player in the pretty dress, with the pretty face and the pretty muscles and the pretty smile and challenged her once again.

“Well, then when do you believe in love, hermosa?”

The battle raged once again, a quieter, toned down version of their match in the stables, though the stakes felt just as high, just as different and just as necessary. Clarke couldn’t help it, though she wanted to very much look away. She watched Lexa take a sip from her glass.

“I don’t know if I do,” she confessed.

“You don’t believe in love at all? You’ve never felt it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t believe in stimulating conversation?” Lexa tried.

“I don’t believe you can meet someone and know that you are deeply, madly, mythically in love with them. Not in a look, not in a conversation, not in a lustful night.”

“How long will it take for me to get you to fall in love with me?”

Clarke thought about the question as she sized her up politely. She had been drinking all day, but she wasn’t drunk. She’d learned from a young age to pace herself. Lexa didn’t appear drunk, and she didn’t even seem too bothered by the question, though it was hard to determine if that was just because she lived at two extremes, either a fiery temper or a cool peacefulness were her only settings, or because she just like taking the piss when she was drinking.

But Clarke thought about it as she looked at the beautiful face and the smile that made her head spin.

“I don’t even lust you.”

“So a while?”

“A while,” she nodded. “You were just yelling at me earlier.”

“Passion is passion. Love and hate are so close.”

“And how long would it take you to fall in love with me?”

She watched the grin spread as the player suddenly turned bashful and looked at her watch before back at her.

“Whenever this conversation ends.”

Many disappeared from the party. Many left and bled into the night, following the veins back to the heart of the city after a well-spent day doing absolutely nothing but eating and drinking at someone else’s expense.

Lexa was still there though, long after her normal curfew she imposed on herself because she still could not figure out if a certain beautiful blonde hated her or was intrigued, and the only true way to celebrate a win was with a beautiful woman. Everyone knew that.

There was no end in sight to the conversation though, and it had been a joke, but now she wasn’t so sure she wasn’t falling in love with the idiot who walked across the pitch and laid her out on her back.

“I guess I just like real people. Sometimes these people don’t seem real. Sometimes a lot of people don’t seem real,” Clarke explained as they strolled through the stables.

“And that is why you left?”

“And the divorce was messy. They didn’t notice me quietly disappearing.”

“You’re the same as me then,” Lexa nodded as she paused at a stall and ran a hand along a nose that poked out at her.

“How so?”

“My father isn’t rich, but he taught me to play with ponies he took care of for a richer man,” she explained as she ran her hand along forehead and earned a nudge. “And he said he sold his soul to play. That was the price. Kane buys me horses, he buys our uniforms and he pays us to work here, train him. The only reason I get to play is because he says I can. If I wasn’t as good as I am, he’d drop me.”

“He seems to like you.”

“He likes winning.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Gently, Clarke held out her hand and felt the lips searching for sugar before they snorted in her palm at the absence of a treat. She relegated herself to watching Lexa push away hair and kiss the patch of white on the black horse’s forehead.

“But you’re the same. You come to these things because your father pays your rent, and your mother pays for school.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not so bad, if you don’t think about it,” Lexa grinned. “But sometimes I think about it too much. Especially on days like today.”

She wasn’t accustomed to so many words coming out, but she said them and she knew that Clarke understood. So she looked at her in the dim light of the stable and watched her watch back.

“I don’t know which you I like,” Clarke pondered. “The thoughtful, kind one now, or the angry, half-naked one from earlier.”

“I get that a lot.”

There was a quiet now, between them. And there was the woozy kind of blur to the night, where the memories were tinged on all sides, all laden with alcohol and commiseration.

“Did you fall in love with me?”

The question came with a bit lipped and a shift in bodies. It came beneath eye lashes and in, Lexa’s opinion, the most sultry gaze anyone could muster. And she as damn sure that Clarke knew it, too.

“Is this the end of our conversation?”

“It might be.”

“Then I might have,” she decided, stepping a little closer to the daughter of the people who stomped her divots.

It was bold, but she was known to be. She placed her hands on Clarke’s hips and pressed her against the door to the office.

“Do you do this often?”

“Never.”

“Me neither,” Clarke swallowed as Lexa hovered close.

“Do you want this?”

Lexa waited for a response and only got a kiss. Her hands gripped hips tighter as she caught up and felt tongue. Her own hips pinned the relative stranger against the door. That was all of the response she needed as she opened the door and they slammed against the inside.

“I can certainly call it lust,” Clarke decided as she was lifted to a desk and the door was kicked shut.

Just like that, the hall where the horses were was quiet again as they disappeared to the dark office. She tugged the player closer again and wrapped her legs around her thighs. Things were digging into her back. A stapler fell to the ground with a cup of pencils.

“You think too much about things that do not matter.”

“What matters?” Clarke challenged, her nails scraping along back.

“You, me, poetry, horses, wine, and sunshine,” Lexa recited, dragging her lips over neck as she spoke, earning arching back.

Lexa stood between Clarke’s legs as she laid on the desk. She ran her hand down her chest, over her stomach and back up again toward her neck where she held her jaw. There were many things her hands could do, and this was one of them.

“Are you going to fuck me or write me a poem?” she taunted.

“Can’t I do both?”

“Have you been planning this since earlier?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I hated you this afternoon.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’m indifferent.”

Clarke chuckled and pulled her closer, catching onto the dry humor that seemed to emanate from the polo player. She bit her lip and she moaned into her mouth as she ground against her.

“Te pareces al mundo en tu actitud de entrega,” Lexa whispered as her hand slid beneath the dress.

“Oh God,” Clarke moaned, clinging to her shoulders, breathing hot against her ear.

Lexa wanted to slide lower. She wanted to pull down the dress and kiss everywhere, to do it properly, to do it well. But she had those noises and she wanted more of them or else she was certain she would die.

“Pero si cada día, cada hora, sientes que a mí estás destinada con dulzura implacable, si cada día sube una flor a tus labios a buscarme,” Lexa whispered as she fucked the beautiful girl on the desk. “Ay amor mío, ay mía, en mí todo ese fuego se repite.”

“Fuck. I’m--”

She didn’t stop. She whispered poems to her and she earned arching back and a long moan followed by a body that relaxed into itself and jolted as she moved her fingers. Still, Clarke clenched around her, and still, Lexa enjoyed it.

“You can admit that you love me now,” Lexa smirked.

“Shut up.”

“While you’re collecting your thoughts and your panties,” she decided as she began to straighten herself up a bit. “I should tell you that I studied for my degree in literature while playing for my school’s team. I have degrees. I’m not a brute.”

“Show off.”

“For that, I am keeping these then,” she teased, waving lacy black fabric around her finger.

“You earned them.”

506 notes · View notes