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spiffypony · 5 years ago

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Some thoughts on amateurism and “high performance” in sport

Alright @thehorsethief and @sanddancingwithanxiety, I have a 5 hour layover and no desire to do real work so here goes. Also fair warning, chrome isn’t playing nice w tumblr on my computer so this is all from mobile.

First let’s define a few things. 1) an amateur is someone who participates (in this case) in a sport without receiving any substantial compensation in the way of goods or currency. 2) high performance is a modifier referring time athletes, programs, strategies etc at the top of their sport (the highest level/most competitive/what have you). 3) a professional athlete is someone who participates in a sport for compensation, often from sponsors.

Additionally, this is coming from my own experience as an amateur equestrian, highschool varsity athlete (basketball and powerlifting), and NCAA Division III athlete (rowing). I am not a professional, I have never been, and, and this is something I’m going to emphasize: I’m not a high performance athlete. While my experience with amateurism in sports runs the gambit from v casual to quite structured, and I do participate in a program that prioritizes competitive success, I really want to be clear, I am not the pinnacle of amateur athlete.

Now then, something I see in a lot of (highschool) programs and a mindset that seems pretty common amongst horsblr is people believing themselves (or their children) in their athletic pursuits to be on a path to or on par with high performance athletes, often pros in the horse world. This is usually an inaccurate notion and in highschool sports it leads to parents pushing their kids into toxic and/or overbearing programs where kids end up burnt out or permanently injured or both before they could ever reach the desired outcome (often getting monetary assistance for college). This affects parents, it affects coaches and it fucks kids up. I have lots of feelings on it having been through it and having witnessed it, but that’s another post quite frankly. In the equestrian world, it is the primary fodder of self identified underdogs and outcasts. In the equestrian world it seems to translate into an overly high regard for one’s own knowledge and training program. This is ultimately less damaging than the highschool case generally. Also as a note here, participation in sports, and especially equestrian sports is a huge privilege of time, money, and location, and participation at a high performance level is even more so and lack of privilege is a major limitation to most people’s participation. That doesn’t diminish the importance of this conversation though.

To give an idea of what I mean, I’m going to compare the commitments of collegiate rowing to dressage in my own life. We’ll start with dressage, currently it’s in the backburner because I’m a college kid with no money and less time, I take lessons with a trainer who has a good name and has proven themself in competition and with other students weekly when I’m home. When I had a horse, I rode 3-4 times a week when I was home (about 4 months out of the year) and at school I take lessons through a club at a h/j barn for about 8 weeks a semester. In highschool I rode 2/3 times a week and spent another 2/3 hours a week on education for dressage. This adds up to an average of ~10 hours a week when you include transit time, it’s easily down to 6 or 7 if you cut the drive time out though. Additionally, dressage didn’t impact much outside of itself in my life, I was already lifting for powerlifting and rowing and it never had an effect on my diet, sleep schedule, or life rhythm. I’d say that this level of commitment is about average, and I don’t mean to disparage it, I love dressage and I do want to consistently improve in it and build skill in it. But that’s nothing compared to rowing. Rowing has two seasons a year, a 6 week season in the fall and an 8 week season in the spring. In season I have morning practice 5 or 6 days a week with one day also having an afternoon weights session and another being back to back practice and weights, so average 8 hours of practice a week, and that’s rounding down. Now add regattas (meets), they are invariably 5+ hour events, and in the spring we have them every weekend, so I’m up to an average 13 hours a week in season. Out of season we have captains practices. 5 days a week, so 5 hours a week. Additionally mid semester breaks we practice between 1.5 and 2 times as much. And over summer and winter break, we’re expected to work out 4 days a week. And that’s just pure practice time. Rowing isn’t like dressage, I get up at 5 am for practices, so I have to go to bed before 11 or I fall asleep in classes, I’m doing Hard physical exercise daily, so I have to make sure I’m not only eating enough, but eating well. Having regattas means I can’t pick up work shifts on the weekends usually. Hour wise it’s double what dressage is, at their most intense, but it’s also a more sustained substantial commitment and it has a material effect in most aspects of my life (food, sleep, work, free time). Oh, and my rowing program? It’s DIII, it’s Collegiate AthleticsLite™️. They can’t even give athletes scholarship for being on the team.

Real high performance athletes are always training, their diets, their sleep schedules, and everything else in their lives revolve around their sport. It’s why NCAA DI sports are rife controversy about whether the technically amateur athletes should be able to receive compensation. Those horror stories you’ve heard about college athletes? That’s DI. The football coaches who make more than double a professor’s salary? That’s DI. NCAA DI Sports are almost without exception high performance programs. They obtain and produce athletes who are at the top of their sport and the consequence of that is that the sport is the athlete’s life.

To be clear, not all equestrian pros are high performance athletes. Even if we rightfully exclude the “pros” who teach beginner lessons to offset board or who schooled the problem lesson horses in their youth, there’s a huge proportion of equestrian pros (specifically trainers and riders) who compete primarily at lower levels and provide basic guidance and safety to their clients. But like high performance athletes, regardless of the level of the sport, the truth remains that for pros, as with high performance athletes, the sport is their life. It’s literally how they live. They certainly do it at a greater scale and more frequently than most of their amateur clients. This has gotten rather lengthy, but really the point is this: if you do not compete at the highest level, you are Not a high performance athlete and quite frankly there’s nothing wrong with that, realistically, you probably don’t want to be a high performance athlete.

What is bad is equating yourself with a high performance athlete. It sets you up for disappointment and digs you into a pit of self pity that’s very difficult to dig out of. In dressage in particular one must be careful, because if one fancies themself on par with a pro, one will be let down always and may eventually determine that the guidelines of the sport they’ve pursued are wrong and be driven from the sport rather than learning to set reasonable goals and balance desired progress with leisure. To be clear, falling into the pit of self pity so to speak is not a moral failing, it’s a mis judgement. And it’s one most people make at some point in their life. Certainly it can have bad consequences, like a loss of drive to critically analyze ones own actions and a tendency to reject any actual outside input, but these things are temporary and are best overcome not through self brutalizations but through careful, constant consideration of the context of our participation in sport.

Now for the actual point: this has an application to conversations about high performance in sport. Namely: your experience as a non high performance athlete is of limited if any significance to such discussions. The things said and suggested in those conversations are also of limited application to your pursuit of your sport. Charlotte Dujardin’s hand tailored Pilates routine is going to do a low level rider whose only exercise is riding about as much good as going for a jog a couple times a week. Michael Jung’s favorite bit in the hands of a novice eventer on their packer is not going to shave even seconds off a xc run. Likewise, just because you wouldn’t run your bucket list foal through a jump chute at a year old doesn’t mean it’s inappropriate for a breeder advertising to higher performance athletes than you to do so on occasion. So. Stop comparing yourselves to high performance athletes. Stop pretending high performance athletes participate the way you do. You are not them. You cannot fathom being them. There’s nothing wrong with your current level of participation but for your own sake, stop equating yourself with that. Accept that your trainer gets the best out of your horse because they are on a different level than you. Accept that you cannot understand the practices of a horse pro through the context of your own experience. When you read prescriptive posts about how to be a better horse person that frustrate you think: “is this targeted at someone of my participation level” no? Move on.

Anyways I’m done now.

Tldr: A lot of equestrians are very casual in their participation if their chosen sport which is fine, good even. This means their experiences are not comparable to pros and those at the highest level. Equating ones casual participation with that of those at the highest level can cause distress to ones self as well as hinder their progress. Additionally it can cause one to make a fool of themself. For the sake of your own enjoyment take stock if your participation level and keep it in mind when setting goals, seeking advice and judging the choices of other athletes.

#discourse #athletics #equestrian sports #spiffy talks #here you are almost two hours later friends #people asked for this #long post #would have put a read more in but im on mobile #im not going to engage with pissy people on this

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letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked · 6 years ago

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Ashes to Dust

Tony Stark X Reader

A/N: This is for @thefanficfaerie A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words challenge! My moodboard prompt was “The House at The End of The Street”, and this is my spin on it! This was really fun to write!

Summary: Y/n had one rule: don’t try to change the future. No matter how much she wanted to. Then, one horrifying Halloween, she begins to question her rule when her visions turn into something worse than ever before… The End. Will she change it? Can she change it?

Word Count: About 4,100

Warnings: Angst, Infinity War, and swears…

Main Masterlist

6 months…

“Tony, it’s me…” Y/n couldn’t help he slight waver in her voice, as she paced back and forth in her bedroom, listening to the old creaking of the house as she tried to gather her bearings, “I… You need to get over here. Now. It’s… Oh my god, Tony. It’s bad. It was so bad… You just… please come. Please.”

She quickly ended the call, hoping that he’d check his phone before she had to summon FRIDAY to get him.

He’d been a busy bee lately, but… she really needed her boyfriend, right now.

It was bad, this time…

Since the shit that happened with the accords, the team getting split up, Pepper finding someone new, dealing with the government, and the crazy that tended to follow Tony Stark… He’d been a little high strung. He’d barely had any time to see her as of late, even though they talked every day. It had been at least two weeks since she’d gotten the chance to touch him, and that was two weeks too long. She missed him.

She’d gone through long stretches of time throughout their lives where the only time she saw him was on the news, but things were different now. They were in an exclusive relationship, and she was no longer on the backburner of Tony Stark’s life – like when they were growing up.

They met at the park as children, and - knowing exactly who he was at four years old – she ran up to him on the playground asking him to play. He was weirded out that she knew him by name, but immediately agreed. They played for hours, until her grandma came back from the farmer’s market and brought her home.

It wasn’t until they were nearly ten years old that she saw him, again. She’d prepared – agonized – about the moment she would see him for days, worried that he was going to think that she was a creep. When they met again, though, he was intrigued. He was so dang smart that he figured it out right away, that something was wrong with her. Y/n was… definitely weird. She named him by name, as she did the first time, but… she asked him about JARVIS. Problem was, she meant the computer, and he thought she meant Edwin Jarvis.

She’d gotten the timeline wrong.

It was easy to do when you had The Sight.

God, she felt like a bad Halloween movie when she thought about it.

After the slight slip, Y/n was forced – without giving any details about the things she saw – to tell Tony the truth about her sight. She told him that she’d seen him before meeting him at the playground, and how she knew they were going to meet that day. She had even told him that she knew they were going to be great friends as adults.

Surprisingly, Tony took that news in stride, and they were great friends… until his parents died.

He didn’t speak to her for nearly a decade.

Maria and Howard’s deaths weren’t her fault, by any means, but… he knew she had the sight. That was the downfall of telling people. He was too consumed by his grief to remember that she couldn’t control what she did and didn’t see, and – even if she could – people would go mad if they really knew their future.

Sometimes she felt mad…

She had one rule: Never try to change the future.

The future was a fickle thing. The biggest question was always: can you change your future, or is it set in stone? She was unsure. Every vision she’d ever seen had come true, in her experience. It wasn’t an answer, though. Was the future’s outcome set in stone, whether or not you change your decisions? Could a decision completely change the outcome of a future? Did she only see the true outcome, or was it unchanged because she did nothing to change it?

Either way, it wasn’t her place to try and mess with the universe.

Her last vision had her second guessing her rule.

There was… god there was so much death. This would mean… this would mean the end of the world as they knew it.

In an attempt to calm her nerves, she grabbed her black cat – Luna – off the bed and brought her downstairs with her. Luna, sensing something was wrong with Y/n, meowed loudly and nuzzled her head under Y/n’s chin in comfort.

“Thank you.” She sighed to the cat, scratching her behind her ears before placing her on the couch in her highly-decorated living room. “I’m going to clean up and make some coffee.” Luna meowed in response. “Yeah, yeah, caffeine. Okay. I’ll make tea, then. Calm me down.”

Her black booties clicked against the wood floors as she made her way to the door to her greenhouse, where she grew her own herbs and flowers. Among other things. The place was supposed to be her sanctuary… until today. She paused at the doorway, closing her eyes for a moment as flashes of her latest vision got her heart racing, again.

She’d been in the greenhouse, collecting some peppers and tomatoes to make into a few jars of salsa in exchange for a couple dozen eggs from one of her neighbors. She’d had a few coffee cans full of ashes from her fireplace on her table that she’d intended to use to make lye for homemade soaps, when her produce basket bumped a can – sending the open container to the ground.

As the can hit the dirt ground, ash flew up; swirling into the cool, autumn air. The dreary sky turned dark, and she felt the familiar pressure behind her eyes that she got while a vision happened. The scenes of her greenhouse and her vision melded together, and she felt the fear and blind panic of her future self. She was in New York, watching the scene before her as ash and dust blew through the air, and – though there were the terrified screams of the other citizens – there was an eerie silence to the city. The only sound was the fluttering of the ash falling to the ground like a fresh snow.

She turned her head, and she was suddenly surrounded by crystal clear water – spanning around her like mirrored glass. The sky was a vibrant red, yellow sparkling though as if the sky was on fire, growing lighter in hue as the colors hit the horizon line – the ombre reflecting back over the endless stretch of water. She was standing underneath a stone canopy, whose floor seemed to blend seamlessly in the unmoving, reflective water.

A… man… who didn’t look like a man… was slowly gliding through the water, walking towards her.

“Daughter?”

He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking behind her.

She turned, watching as a little girl – who didn’t look human – moved to look back at the man before her. “Did you do it?”

“Yes.” The man looked down morosely, a heavy weight upon his shoulders as he thought about what he’d done.

“What did it cost?”

He looked back to the young girl, a soulless look in his eyes as he replied: “Everything…”

A gasp broke her from her trance, as the basket she’d been holding fell to the ground – its contents rolling though the ash that coated the ground, like her vision. Her lungs were on fire, as her trembling hands flew to her mouth, her legs giving out from under her as she fell to her knees in anguish. Tears were leaving hot trails down her chilled skin, and she was afraid to close her eyes – the vision burned into her memories.

Oh…god.

Immediately after that, she’d ran to her room, nearly tripping over her Halloween décor and vomiting into her toilet.

Then, she’d called Tony.

She’d seen… She’d seen it. The end of the world.

Taking a steadying breath, she moved through the doorway, into the warmth of her greenhouse. A place that had once been so comforting to her, plagued with the memories of her vision.

“There’s nothing you can do.” She whispered to herself, bending down to pick her produce off the floor and straighten up the mess in her garden. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She glanced over to her shelf, where she kept her important items. The pumpkin-headed doll that contained her grandmother’s ashes was in its usual spot, but she felt like… she felt like the damn doll was judging her.

That damn doll was always judging her.

“Right?” She was second guessing herself. She wasn’t supposed to mess with the future. She was only there to witness it, not to change it… that’s what her grandmother always told her. Trying to change the course of fate was only setting yourself up for failure and heartbreak. “But…”

“Y/n?!” She heard Tony’s panicked voice, as he burst through the front door, nearly shattering the glass window. “Sweetheart, where are you?!”

“Kitchen!” She called back, after quickly grabbing her tin for chamomile tea. “Making tea.”

His pristine appearance was comforting. His three-piece suit unwrinkled, though his face looked worn and exhausted. Without hesitation, he immediately gathered her in his arms, tucking her head under his chin and rubbing his hand up and down her spine in comfort. “Honey, what happened?”

“Vision.” She sagged in his arms, the tears she’d been furiously trying to end melting away with the comfort that his arms brought her. “It was… awful.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“You know I can’t.” She whispered, trying to breathe in as much of his smell as she could, feeling like she could finally get oxygen in her lungs. “But… I need you. I’m freaked out.”

“Okay.” He nodded, pressing a small kiss to her forehead. “You know I’m always here to talk about it, if you need to.”

She pulled back, wiping her face and resuming her task of making tea, “Want a cup?”

“I guess so.” His face scrunched up in disgust, “As long as it’s not that nasty green shit, again.”

“You had the flu, of course you thought it tasted nasty.” She snorted, getting the kettle on the stove. “So, what do you think about the house?”

He glanced around, getting up and investigating the decorations that she’d put up a week prior. He even opened the front door to inspect the fake spider webs, the pumpkins, and the little pumpkin shrine in the yard, where the well was supposed to be. “Well… it looks like… You’re really into Halloween.”

“That was the point.”

“Honey, you always look like Halloween threw up on you.” He laughed gesturing to her outfit, which was a black dress, black tights, and black, heeled booties. “You scream Halloween year-round.”

“I live for the aesthetic.” She shrugged, watching as Luna snuck up on Tony – who hated the cat. “I see the future. I may as well look the part.”

An unmanly yelp escaped his lips as Luna jumped onto the counter, next to where Tony’s hands were neatly folded as he waited for you to prepare the tea. “Fucking cat! I swear, she hates me!”

“Hey, you’re in her house, remember?” She reminded him, pouring the tea into two glasses and sliding him his own, watching the steam rise from the small cups.

He hummed in response, side-eyeing Luna before taking a sniff of the tea, “Chamomile? That vision must’ve been bad.”

“It was.” She breathed in the comforting smell, adjusting the neckline of her dress and leaning over to scratch Luna behind the ears. “I’m okay, now, though.”

Liar.

Four Months…

It was like the weather knew something was going to happen. It was December and there was no snow. There was only wet, like the sky was weeping for it’s last moments. The rotting leaves left behind a pleasant scent, but it was only a reminder of time passed.

Some of Y/n’s decorations remained, for aesthetic, but her beautiful Victorian styled home was aesthetic enough. She looked like a witch, or psychic, which didn’t bother her in the least. She enjoyed the double-take that the neighbors or tourists would do as they walked by. She enjoyed the comforting sounds of the home, and the character that came with it.

Of course, she’d made sure to immediately cleanse the house.

She wasn’t stupid.

The snow was on its way, she could smell the crispness in the air, but she was trying to hold on to time as long as she could.

It was as if the more time passed, the more her vision revealed itself.

She was walking to the mailbox with Luna, who strolled over the wet sidewalk beside her, glancing at the wet leaves like they’d inconvenienced her walk in some way.

“They’re just leaves.” Y/n muttered to herself, rolling her eyes as she sifted through the mail next to the old box. “You… You…”

She heard Luna complain loudly as she slipped into a trance, the scene around her fading into one not of her world.

There was no clues as to which planet she was currently looking at, but it was… destroyed. Completely destroyed. Ruins littered the landscape, the gravity felt different, and… the smell.

It smelled like ash.

There were sounds of commotion this time, like there was a fight happening a short distance from where she was standing.

Turning around, she saw the same creature that resembled a man from the first vision. He wasn’t as… broken… as the first time she’d seen him. This must be before.

He was… holy mother of god he was fighting with Tony.

She watched as the nano-tech in Tony’s suit morphed his arm into a giant sword, swinging it in the direction of the creature, striking to kill.

The creature barely looked phased, as he broke it off easily, like snapping a cracker, and jabbed the sword forwards…

…right into Tony’s side.

Tony’s pained, wavering grunt was loud in the silence that followed, as the creature continued forwards. Tony stumbled backwards for a few steps, pain clouding his eyes, before finally falling backwards into a sit against some of the rubble.

She could see the blood leaking from the wound, and tried desperately to move to help, but her attempts were futile…

The mail slipped from her fingers, dropping to the wet pavement as a scream tore from her lips, bringing her back to the present as the first few flakes of snow began their descent from the sky – reminding her of ash.

The sounds of her neighbors grew louder as her screams turned to sobs, the heartbreak of loss crushing her to the ground as her knees gave out – scraping against the wet pavement and tearing at her skin.

Tony wasn’t going to make it…

Two months…

There had to be something she could do.

Anything.

What she saw… she couldn’t let that happen.

The madness was beginning to set in. She’d been in the hospital for three days, due to a hysterical breakdown in the middle of work. The visions were getting worse. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a new component of The End, and she couldn’t take it. It was too much loss.

Everyone she loved was going to fade away.

There needed to be something she could change.

There had to be some key decision that would change everything.

There had to be… there had to be…

One month…

Things were getting better.

Y/n was no longer in the hospital. It was easier to hide the pain, the loss the heartbreak… She’d accepted it… because she knew she was going to die.

She’d seen it, and she’d never been wrong.

She was watching herself standing in the woods. There’d been a fight there, recently, but there was no sounds to indicate that it was still happening. The only evidence of a fight was the broken trees, the smell of smoke, and the sight of a few of Tony’s teammates… In fact, there were no sounds at all. Just the whisper in the air of bad things to come, like fate was trying to quietly warn whoever was listening that The End was here.

Thor was standing near her, a look of horror and confusion pulled his eyebrows together, his mouth agape. He was staring at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at her own hands, a mixture of sadness and relief lining her face as she watched the color of her skin fade away to nothing, blowing into ash and mixing with the light breeze. It spread up her arms like a paper that caught fire, leaving her limbs to fade into nothing as she looked back up to Thor with a sad smile on her face, before the rest of her dissipated into ash.

“I tried…”

Two weeks…

Tony proposed.

He fucking proposed.

They’d been on a small stroll in an empty park, Luna trailing slowly behind as she tried to hunt the small critters that had come out of hibernation from the winter – finally able to enjoy the spring weather. Their fingers were laced together as they enjoyed the warm weather, finally able to get some fresh air after being cooped up all winter.

Well… Tony enjoyed the weather.

The nice weather was just a cruel reminder to Y/n that their time together was coming to an end, and she had no idea how to stop it.

“You know, I know you live for the aesthetic and everything, dear, but… It’s spring, now. You can wear colors.” He teased, reaching up and giving her short sleeve a slight tug. “Also, why does the creature need to follow us? She makes me nervous.”

Luna yowled at him in response as Y/n looked down at her outfit. She was wearing the same lacey, black, short sleeved dress with a keyhole neckline. The same outfit as Halloween. Even down to the opaque black tights and high-heeled booties.

It left an unsettled feeling in her gut.

“Luna needs exercise, too, Tony.” Y/n responded, shaking it off as the cat trotted towards her and kept pace with the couple. “Especially if you keep trying to bribe her into liking you.”

“She literally left a dead mouse in my shoe.” He scoffed, turning to glare at the unbothered cat. “She hates me.”

“She was leaving you a gift.” She shrugged, giving Luna a sly smile before leaning her head against Tony’s shoulder as they walked. “At least it wasn’t on your pillow.”

“No, just in my two thousand dollar Tom Ford Oxfords.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t buy such expensive shoes.” Y/n giggled, spinning around so she was standing in front of him and pressing a small, chaste kiss against his warm lips. “Luna doesn’t care about material items. She just likes it when you scratch her ears.”

“Tell that to the dozens of claw marks on my hands.” He replied with a snort, wrapping his arms around her waist and caressing his lips against her forehead. “I miss this.”

“Miss what?” She laid her head against his shoulder, fingers gently playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Disagreeing about Luna?”

“Being with you.” He murmured, turning his head to lay his scratchy cheek against her forehead. “I wanna’ be with you forever.”

She closed her eyes, heartbreak piercing her chest as the replay of her vision of his death played behind her eyelids. She desperately wanted to tell him about her visions, but… she was terrified that he’d become reckless or not fight with everything he had, if he knew he was going to die. There was no way to prevent his death, but she would make sure that he enjoyed the last moments they had together. She’d rather take that secret to the grave than let him feel any ounce of pain that she felt.

“I love you.” She whispered, willing the tears back as she sagged against him. “I will always love you.”

“Marry me.” He replied suddenly, shifting around and sliding his hands up to cup her face. “I’ve loved you for so long… You’ve been one of my best friends since we were squirts, and I know I don’t deserve you after what happened… and I know that I haven’t been the best at showing you I love you… and I know that we haven’t been exclusive for that long but-”

She cut off his rambling, arms sliding around his neck as she shoved her lips against his moving ones, forcing him into silence as she threw as much of her love as she could into that kiss. She’d loved him since she was young, too. She’d been so patient for him, knowing they’d eventually be together even as he was dating, sleeping around, and gaining his reputation as a playboy. She tried to think about the first kiss they’d shared as teenagers, trying to convey as much emotion as she could to convince him that she loved him. Which had only grown as they grew older.

She just wished they’d be able to grow old together…

The tears that she’d been holding back slid down her face, and she could taste the salt as she slowly pulled back, pressing her forehead against his. “Yes.”

“Yeah?” He laughed, excitement laced through his voice. “You mean it?”

She nodded, throat closing as she tried to conceal her heartbreak with excitement. The tears wouldn’t stop, and eventually a sob escaped her throat as she buried herself into his neck – hoping he would think that it was just her being emotional about the engagement.

It was better than knowing the truth…

Three days…

Drinking was a bad idea.

Why she decided to drown her sorrows was beyond her, but she was spiraling. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw someone else fade to dust. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw fire. She saw panic.

She saw him.

She knew his name, now.

Thanos.

His agenda wasn’t clear, as her visions only came with flashes, and weren’t always in order… but she knew enough to know that whatever it was, he was going to win. He was going to get what he wanted. He was going to kill to get it.

He was going to kill the ones she loved.

Her last vision had sent her over the edge.

Luna…

She took another swig of her wine, in the middle of completely trashing her greenhouse. Not that she was going to need it, anyways. She’s going to die. Why the hell not? Dirt and plant remains were tossed carelessly to the ground, the tomatoes that she’d grown to hate squishing beneath her shoes as she chucked another clay pot against the wall – shattering it from the sheer force of the throw.

Her music was on as high as she could stand it, the intensity of the heavy metal encouraging her to scream out her rage as she tossed shit around the room.

The only thing untouched was the doll that contained her grandmother’s ashes. The little pumpkin head silently judging her – as usual – as she downed the rest of the wine, throwing the bottle against the wall to add to the piles of shattered items and destroyed hard work.

“Stop- Stop fucking judging me, grandma!” She slurred, screaming at the doll as the room spun around her. “You told me I couldn’t mess with it! You did! Now, look! Now… Everyone! Everyone! They’re all- They’re all going to be gone!”

The doll just stared back.

Two days…

“Bruce?” Tony broke away from you, where you were standing in the park after being interrupted during your run.

“Hi, Tony.”

Two Days…

“Please tell me you’re not in the ship, Tony…” Y/n swallowed thickly, her worst fears beginning to come true. “Please…”

“I can’t tell you that, sweetheart.” He began to cut out, as she fell to her knees clutching the phone to her ear desperately. “I’m sorry.”

One day…

“I have to change it.” She muttered to herself, walking onto the ship to Wakanda with Bruce and the other members of the team. “I’m going to change it.”

One hour…

AIM FOR THE HEAD.

One minute…

She ran through the woods, having broke away from the fighting and sneaking out of Shuri’s lab. She knew what she had to do. She knew what needed to be done.

“THOR!” She screamed, as she happened upon the fighting and mayhem, gasping for breath, “AIM FOR THE-”

“You should have aimed for the head.”

“No!”

She was too late.

He snapped.

The end…

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@luckynumber1213

@sassyandclassyx

@mrsnegan25

@impossiblepizzapeace

@glitterquadricorn

@mellorine-paprika

@i-just-wanna-run-hell

@thefridgeismybestie

@wildefire

@httpmcrvel

@geeksareunique

@whatmakesmebeme-tblr

@breezy1415

@aparadoxsstuff

@iamwarrenspeace

@impalatobakerstreet

@tbetz0341

@castellandiangelo

@churchs-little-girl

@revivedrumble

@readeity

@fuckthatfeeling

@theglowstickofdestiny

@xxxunluvablexxx

@ilovetvshowsblog

@bojabee

@pizzarollpatrol

@yourwonderbelle

@julzdec

@mdgrdians

@imregnirbhsa

@call-me-myrtle

@vivid-fairy

@thisismysecrethappyplace

@sebba-hiddles

@joannie95

@tequila1984

@palaiasaurus64

@mendes-holland

@mariekoukie6661

@moriartysadalek

@bucky-smiles

@i-know-i-can

@saltyandsweet

@rainbowkisses31

@xnxptxnxx

@lovemarvelousfics

@everythingisoverrated

@merryyeetmas

@dsakita

@supernatural508

213 notes · View notes

spn-ficfanatic · 6 years ago

Text

Halo- Chapter 1

SPN-FICFANATIC MASTERLIST

"HALO” MASTERLIST - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE

Fic Summary: You’ve lived next door to Jensen and Jared for a year and have had a somewhat strained relationship. After a recent and massive change in your life your paths cross again and they discover the cause of that, and bridges start to mend in unexpected ways.

Characters: Jensen x Reader, Jared x Platonic!Reader

Chapter 1 Words: 2664

Genre: Angst mostly

Warnings: Swearing (the reader is a bit of a pottymouth). Blood.

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of domestic violence.

A/N: I’ve had this one on the backburner for soooo long, you have no idea! I probably finished it 6 months ago and have just had it sitting in my WIP folder trying to get up the motivation to post it. I hope you all enjoy :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their neighbour had been complaining about their “loud” music all year, so when your music started blaring through the wall separating your apartments Jared and Jensen could only look incredulously at each other.

“Is she kidding?” Jared snapped, pausing the game and putting his controller down.

“It’s pretty unusual,” Jensen commented, doing the same and looking at the wall separating them from you. They could hear shuffling against the wall also, not a sound they were familiar so they were having trouble placing it.

“What do you think?” Jared asked with a frown.

“I think she’s been pissy at us all year for our loud music, and then the first day off we have in a week to play video games she blasts hers? No deal,” Jensen replied with a huff, putting his controller on the ground and standing up. Jared followed him as they walked out the door and headed to yours, knocking loudly to try and get your attention. They weren’t normally the “mean neighbours” but your incessant irritation at their music choice, asking them to turn it down when it was already as low as human ears could hear, was tipping them over the edge.

The woman they expected to see when the door opened was not the prim and proper uptight Y/N they were familiar with though. Your hair was in low pigtails and you were dressed in a simple white t-shirt and overalls, and for once you had a smile on your face. The usual caked-on make up was gone too, showing off your actual face for the first time.

“Oh, hi guys!” you greeted them with a wide smile which lit up your entire face. Jared and Jensen just gaped as they stared at you, stunned by your unexpected look and demeanour change.

“Is everything o… Oh shit, I’m so sorry my music!” you realised with a gasp, taking your phone out of your pocket and turning the volume down, activating your Bluetooth speaker in the middle of the room. “Shit, I’m so sorry, that must have been so loud on your side. There was a quiet song and I turned it up and then I forgot and the next song played and I just kinda got into the rhythm and… sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Umm, yer,” Jensen replied, clearing his throat to try and form coherent sentences.

“It’s err, it’s fine. We’re just trying to play Xbox, you know, and …” Jared started but you cut him off.

“And my music interrupted you, of course. I can’t apologise enough, especially after how I’ve acted this whole time. Actually, hang on, I have something for you guys,” you said, suddenly disappearing to what they presumed was your kitchen. They poked their heads in and saw the floor was covered in tarp, and a bucket of water and a sponge mop were leaning against the wall you shared. Jared was about to comment when you suddenly reappeared, practically bouncing into the door frame holding a large basket.

“This is for you guys, just a little something to say ‘sorry’ and ‘I hope we can start over’,” you said clearly embarrassed, handing them the basket and backing up a step.

“Um, wow, this is… unexpected,” Jared commented, looking at Jensen who for some reason couldn’t take his eyes off you. He nudged his shoulder, knocking him out of whatever world he was in and stared pointedly at the basket to bring it to his attention.

“Err yer, Mrs Y/L/N isn’t it?”

“Oh god, please call me Y/N. And you’re Jared and you’re Jensen so that’s the introductions out of the way. And it’s nothing really, I know I’ve been hard to live next to this year. For what it’s worth I think you have brilliant taste in music! But my husband, well, ex-husband now. Wow, I don’t know if I’ll get used to saying that. Anyway, he had this thing about music, he liked what he liked and damn anyone else you know? And anyway he’d, sorta, send me over whenever he wanted you to turn it down. It’s shit really cuz I couldn’t listen to music any other time but if I didn’t go over he’d, well, anyway… I’m sorry is basically what I’m saying, you know?”

You took a breath to fill your lungs after your ramblings, and Jared and Jensen watched on with wide eyes.

“Wow ok, yer, it’s fine. Really, don’t worry about it,” Jensen stumbled out, scratching the back of his head and looking at you in concern. Jared’s attitude had also taken a complete 180, and he also watch you with a worried expression on his face.

“This is… you really didn’t have to. It’s nice that you did, maybe you could come over tomorrow and we could share the goodies?” Jared suggested with a small smile, hoping you would agree. They were both saddened when you shook your head.

“Nah, it’s ok. I mean, it’d be great to have a beer sometime but I sorta have plans.”

“You’re not talking about painting the walls are you? Because I promise we’re a lot more fun than literally watching paint dry,” Jensen said with a lopsided smirk and you let out a giggle.

“I hope you are. And yes, I AM painting but this is kinda, well, it’s dumb. It’s a bit like therapy I suppose. I always hated this colour, HE picked it out so I just need to change it like now, you know?” you asked, blushing a little and hoping you didn’t sound like a crazy person.

“I get it, makes total sense,” Jensen replied with a genuine smile, hoping to put you at ease. “We’ll let you get back to it, if you like.”

“And you know where we are if you feel like a beer or something ok?” Jared added, shuffling his hand out from under the basket to pat his hand on your shoulder. You smiled at the friendly action and swallowed down the tears that you could feel coming to the surface. You nodded and gave a small wave before slowly shutting the door and turning back to face your mission for the weekend.

“Well, THAT was unexpected,” Jensen said once they were back in their apartment.

“No shit, and what about that crap with her husband? Did you have any idea?” Jared asked, putting the basket down on the kitchen counter. Jensen shook his head.

“Nah. God, how did we never notice? I mean, looking back she was never around, you know? And the rambling? It was almost like she was worried we’d interrupt her before she finished or something.”

“It sucks man, I reckon we go over with breakfast or something tomorrow. Let her know we’re cool.”

Jensen nodded, deep in thought. He couldn’t help but look back over the last year since you and your husband had moved in, and the little signs started to become more obvious. The long sleeves in summer, the fact you never left the house only to water the lawn and get the mail. Christ, you even had a black eye once.

“Fuck man… are we idiots?” Jensen asked sadly, flopping down on the couch before Jared joined him.

“I’m starting to wonder that myself.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your basket of goodies turned out to be entirely home-made. Biscuits, croissants, muffins, a pie…. It basically turned their kitchen into a bakery. And each bite the guys took only caused further guilt to pile on. Both went to bed that night feeling uneasy, both vowing to themselves to make sure they reached out and looked out for you.

It was an unwelcome turn of events that the following morning Jared was called into set. They were supposed to have the day off however they needed a shot and they needed it ASAP. Jared grabbed a muffin on the way out the door at 8am, leaving a note for Jensen explaining he’d be back “sometime after lunch (hopefully). PS. Don’t eat all the pie. PPS. I mean it Jay, don’t.”.

Jensen would have loved a sleep-in but his mind had been racing since 7:30am from the events of the previous afternoon. He’d heard the muffled conversation from Jared’s room and made the correct assumption he was headed to the set, but opted to stay in bed instead of getting up and being forced into conversation at such an early time. A shower and a cup of coffee later, Jensen was ready to face the day of basically doing nothing. His gaming buddy was out for the count and he didn’t have any scripts to read through. When the soft sound of music floated through the air he smiled and headed for the door, before remembering what you’d said. This was your therapy, and you didn’t need him interrupting that. He groaned in annoyance and picked up the Xbox controller, throwing in Halo 3 for the hundredth time.

It was around 10am that he heard the unmistakable sound of a gasp followed by swearing. Hitting the mute button he tried to figure out the problem before racing over and embarrassing himself over a stubbed toe.

“Fucking shitballs! Ahhh ok, shit, you’re ok Y/N. Just a bit of blood, you’re fine…” you muttered to yourself, and at the mention of blood Jensen was already up and out the door.

The blood was starting to spread across your shirt, and you were limping to the bathroom for the first aid kit when a loud pounding came to the door. You were startled, but calmed down when you heard Jensen on the other side calling your name. You took a deep shaky breath and headed over to the door and opened it just slightly, enough to block his view of your bleeding abdomen.

“Jensen, hey, how’s it going?” you asked quickly and with a strained smile, holding your stomach out of his view.

“Is everything ok? I thought I heard swearing,” he said rushed, concerned plastered over his face. You sighed and closed your eyes before resting your head on the door, berating yourself internally for bothering him.

“Shit, I’m sorry about that. I’m fine really, you can go back to Halo…”

“No I think maybe I- wait, how did you know I was playing Halo?” Jensen cut you off, looking at you confused. You laughed.

“I think we’ve established at this juncture that the walls are paper thin Jensen. I’ve played 1 and 2 and recognise the music. You suck at it by the way, I can hear your terrible aim from here” you giggled, standing up straight again and enjoying the gentle banter you seemed to have quickly developed. Jensen laughed too, happy to see your eyes light up if only for a moment. The moment passed quickly though when he spotted the blood on your shirt, and he gently pushed the door open further to get a better look.

“Shit Y/N, your stomach,” he mumbled as he reached out to lift your shirt. You stepped back with surprise at the sudden physical contact and he apparently picked up on that.

“I mean… God, I’m sorry Y/N. I’m just worried, can I please check your stomach? I’d never forgive myself if you bled out after I went back to gaming,” he told you, lifting his hands into a surrender pose to show he meant you no harm.

You bit the corner of your lip, sizing him up and down. He was a big strong guy and you were alone in your apartment with him, but he had proved himself nice enough so far so perhaps it was worth the risk. You nodded slowly and pointed to the bathroom.

“First aid kit is in the vanity, I’m just gonna...” you gestured to the couch while he headed to the restroom for the bandages. By the time you were seated he was back, kneeling on the floor in front of you and opening the bag.

“What happened?” he asked as he rummaged through, looking for the antiseptic.

“Um, popped a stitch I would wager,” you replied quietly, looking down into your lap embarrassed. He looked at you confused as you gently lifted your shirt and peeled back the blood-soaked dressing to reveal the wound on your stomach. A couple of inches long, it looked red and angry and Jensen’s heart broke a little when he laid eyes on it.

“Shit Y/N, what happened?” he asked again.

“I guess you guys were out a few nights ago?”

“Um, yer, we’ve been on set late all week.”

“You missed all the excitement then, kind of explains your coming over yesterday looking like deer in headlights,” you sighed. “Michael, err, my husband… EX husband. We got into an argument while he was chopping up vegetables for dinner. Apparently the dishes don’t go in like I put them in and he could only tell me so many times and one thing lead to another and, well, let’s just say I gave Mrs Krandle across the road a mini-heart attack when I stumbled from the house bleeding,” you rambled, shutting your mouth quickly after your confession. Jensen stared at you with his mouth agape, astonished with what you just told him.

“Um… shit. That’s-”

“Fucked, yer. In a way it’s good though. It got him out of my life and the police reckon he’ll be going to prison for some time. And you know, I’m not dead so that’s always a good thing. And hey, I can stack the dishes anyway I like now so yey for that bit of freedom,” you laughed, trying to make light of the situation but when your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes Jensen could tell you were putting up a front.

“Hey,” he said, lifting your face to look at him. Your eyes were glistening and you were swallowing hard, trying to keep the tears at bay. “There is nothing ok about any of this. And I’m sorry we never noticed. We feel like such idiots for leaving you to deal with him.”

“Oh God, please don’t blame yourself. I literally don’t think I could take that, please,” you begging him, the dam overflowing and the tears falling freely now. “He was smart enough to only hurt me when he knew you were out. He was manipulative and cruel and a complete douchebag and I was too blind to realise he was playing me like a fucking fiddle. And now even after he’s gone I’m jumping at every noise and every shadow in the corner of my eye, and the damn music can never be loud enough to shut up the voices telling me I’m not good enough and that he was the only one who would want me and-”

“Y/N stop,” Jensen said firmly and you pursed your lips shut, blushing when you realised how much you’d revealed.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, this was absolutely not meant to turn into an episode of Ricki Lake or anything. You can go, I can handle this I promise,” you told him, moving to grab the antiseptic wipe packet Jensen had yet to open. He pulled it back and stared at you with worry in his eyes.

“Not a chance. Just… lay back and I’ll fix you up. And then if you want to we can talk about all that crap, or we can go next door and play Halo together. Whatever you want… Deal?”

You nodded timidly, and decided silence was golden while letting him clean you up. After declaring further stitches were not required he gently wrapped a bandage around your waist and stood up to put the first aid kit away. When he returned he looked at you, not with pity but with determination.

“So, it’s up to you. We can hang out here and talk, or you can come next door and play Xbox. Painting is so completely off the table. What do you want to do?”

Chapter Two coming soon

SPN-FICFANATIC MASTERLIST

"HALO” MASTERLIST - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE

Tag Lists (Open) Halo Series taglist: @ocean-waves-that-misbehave, @flamencodiva @krys198478, @lostnnot2befound, @deansyahtzee “Dean/Jensen” taglist: @lilydarcy (won’t tag *SOB*) “Everything” taglist: @angelsandwinchesters, @grace-for-sale, @growningupgeek, @iamnotsaneatall, @nanie5, @waywardasfudge, @ronja-uebrick, @im-dead-inside05, @julzdec, @adoptdontshoppets, @meghanbeinghappy

122 notes · View notes

omdaily10 · 6 years ago

Text

RIGHT PLACE RIGHT TIME

Album: Third

Writers/Producers: Claude Kelly, Steve Robson, Chuck Harmony, Ed Drewett, Steve Kipner, Lucas Secon, Wayne Hector, Andrew Frampton, FutureCut, Iyiola Babalola, Darren Lewis, Jim Eliot, Iain James, Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, Carsten Mortensen, Adam Argyle, Martin Brammer, Matt Prime

Release Date: 26/11/2012 (Original) / 25/11/2013 (Reissue)

Chart Positions: #1 (UK), #1 (Scotland), #3 (Ireland), #5 (Austria), #6 (Switzerland), #14 (Sweden), #17 (Canada), #19 (US), #19 (Denmark), #20 (Australia), #22 (Germany), #27 (New Zealand), #32 (Japan), #38 (Finland)

Sales: 1.38m (UK, 4x Platinum), 100k (Germany, Gold), 15k (Ireland, Platinum), 35k (Australia, Gold), 10k (Austria, Gold)

It goes without saying that ‘Right Place Right Time’ is unquestionably Olly’s best album to date – certainly the one that fans cite as their favourite to this day. The 1.38m copies it shifted in the UK alone might explain that one away, but it doesn’t tell the full story of why he is still to this day the only male solo graduate of The X Factor to better the sales of each of his subsequent albums. However, just as with its lead single, Olly’s third album in as many years had a bit of a shaky start. At least, to its US release it did.

The plan from Colombia had initially been to release an American version of the ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’ album (proposed artwork here), which would have been a 50/50 split of songs from his first two albums, in early September 2012. The flop of the US remix of ‘Heart Skips A Beat’ quickly put paid to those plans – and just as well really, for by the time that idea was put on the backburner, he had a new studio album ready to go that could be released across all markets. Naturally, however, his home turf would be the first to get the album.

Knowing full well that this was an album with an eye on launching Olly internationally, the feel of the music was reflected in the choice of producers in order to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. On his down days in between the One Direction tour in the States, Olly hooked up with Claude Kelly in New York to write with his collaborative Stateside partner Chuck Harmony, collectively known under their performing moniker of R&B/soul outfit Louis York. Out of those sessions came several songs for the album: ‘Loud & Clear’ and ‘Head To Toe’: one, a sweeping, lighters aloft torch ballad that called to mind ‘X&Y’ era Coldplay, and the other a toe tapping swingathon with a jaunty piano line and a set of counting in verses.

Columbia also granted him access to two of their star boyband’s chief writers for the record, in the shape of LA based Julian Bunetta and John Ryan, who turned in possibly the most perfectly Olly song that’s ever existed on an album of his before or since. Little wonder then, that ‘What A Buzz’ was written especially with him in mind, a shuffly slice of kitchen sink breakbeat pop calling to mind Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim)’s remix of Cornershop’s 1998 chart topper ‘Brimful Of Asha’. It’s suitably cheeky Essex lilt about first date nerves was added courtesy of lyrics from Ed Drewett, a much in demand singer and songwriter from just over the border of Essex in Bishop’s Stortford, who had turned in two number one hits for The Wanted and duetted with Professor Green on his 2010 single ‘Need You Tonight’. The pair quickly became good friends and have continued to write together on subsequent albums of his.

Whilst it is less pronounced on this record, Olly was evolving and shifting sound again, this time, to corner the same funk laden pop avenue populated by Jamiroquai, M People and Maroon 5. The sound of the former is particularly prevalent on both ‘Troublemaker’ and on ‘Hey You Beautiful’, a four to the floor come-hither belter that proved a fan favourite after Olly’s performance of it over the suspended catwalk section of his supporting arena tour around the UK and Ireland for the album in the spring of 2013.

That tour was also a first, as on several of the numbers, Olly got to showcase his skills on the guitar and piano that he’d been painstakingly practicing away at in the year since the last tour. It was the latter that got an airing for his performance of this album’s closing track – a simple but stripped back piano number called ‘One Of These Days’. It trod the same path as ‘I Need You Now’ on the last album, but also took a slight leaning towards the sound of modern country and adult contemporary radio.

The album’s original release was accompanied by a deluxe edition, on which were four additional tracks (plus a small change in colour on the artwork’s font from black to dark red). This would be the first album of Olly’s to come out on two separate formats. Adam Argyle and Martin Brammer are once again behind three of the four songs on the deluxe version, best of all being the soaring midtempo piano pop stormer ‘Sliding Doors’, a conversational track about dreaming of life with someone else in another moment that was inspired by the Gwyneth Paltrow film from 1998 of the same name. The closing track, ‘The One’, was another of his collaborations with Ed Drewett, which Olly also played guitar on, and is a rousing number, almost evocative of a poppier ‘Tender’ by Blur, about offering support to a friend in a dark place.

Critical consensus was divided between applauding and denigrating his approach of going forward by advancing the same sound that had carried him through two multi-platinum albums already. But it was seemingly missing the point either way. As Lewis Corner, reviewing the album for entertainment website Digital Spy wrote, “it may not be a big departure from Murs’ previous efforts, but when you're on to a good thing, why change the pace?” With this still being the biggest studio release of his career by far, Olly’s third album definitely was a case of being in the right place at the right time.

RIGHT PLACE RIGHT TIME: SPECIAL EDITION

When viewed retrospectively, 2013 was truly the year when Olly went global, with tour dates and promotional commitments expanding not only to Europe, but also to America, Australia and even Asia by year’s end – not to mention his successful stint supporting his ‘showbiz brother’ and former X Factor duet partner Robbie Williams on every single UK and European date of his ‘Take The Crown’ stadium tour that summer (the two would also record a rousing cover of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ from the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book for Williams’ second swing album ‘Swings Both Ways’).

This did however, create a small problem, in so far as all this hive of activity meant there was no time to record a new studio album for the end of the year, as had been the case in the last three years. Thankfully, Sony saw a little more mileage in the campaign for ‘Right Place Right Time’ to keep Olly active and present until he had his next album in the can, hence its repackaging and reissue with all new artwork almost a year after its original release.

The original twelve tracks on the album remained, and joining them were several tracks that had been recorded during the album sessions (some even earlier than that) but which for one reason or another hadn’t made the final cut first time round. It meant we got to hear ‘Stop Tryna Change Me’, a gentle paced toe tapper Olly co-wrote with Claude and Chuck which again, had a slight feel of country pop.

First demoed for ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’, ‘That’s Alright With Me’ was another jaunty post-Britpop offering from Samuel Preston and Mark Taylor, the sort of guitar flecked number you could see spilling forth from the mouths of The Kooks or Preston’s old band The Ordinary Boys. A stripped back seasonal take on Wizzard’s festive evergreen ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’, recorded back in December the previous year for BBC Radio 1’s popular ‘Live Lounge’ slot on Fearne Cotton’s mid-morning show follows and is a heart-warming delight.

Rounding out the new tracks were collaborations with two European pop chanteuses, both done to try and break Olly into their respective territories. It means that he turns up on ‘Did I Lose You’, a hypnotic, wistful track that you could’ve imagined playing over the opening credits of a Bond movie, for Italy’s Giorgia, whilst his own ‘Dear Darlin’ was given a Gallic reimagining by popular French star Alizée, who had scaled the UK top 10 in 2002 with her Europop thumper ‘Moi...Lolita’. Olly performed this version with Alizée at the Parisian date of his European tour that autumn whilst she was taking part in the French version of Strictly Come Dancing.

But the special edition didn’t end there. Footage of the first O2 show in London on Easter weekend from the spring arena tour that year had been filmed and broadcast live via Olly’s Facebook page, and it was quickly decided, after much demand from fans, to release it on an accompanying DVD, marking the first time that a live show of Olly’s had had a home video release. It was undoubtedly a large factor in helping the album to return to the top end of the album chart a year on from its debut, as well as being amongst the top 5 biggest selling albums of the year in the UK for two years running.

#Olly Murs #Olly Murs Daily #2012 #OM Daily #omdaily10 #10th Anniversary #reviews #Right Place Right Time #Third Album #Retrospective #Special Edition #Deluxe Edition

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twodaysintojune · 7 years ago

Text

All These Things That I've Done

Prompted by: Vee’s Favorite Songs Challenge

Using @nobodys-baby-now guideline:

You can use the entire song as inspiration, or take some lyrics from the song and use them as dialogue.

Song:

All These Things That I've Done -The Killers

Find me at AO3, Warnings-None

You were trying your best. But your best was nothing when you were confronted with the power of an archangel. The mightiest of the archangels. Michael.

At the moment you were helping Rowena search for every tracking and halting spell in all the notes of the bunker, you even decided to find the other Chapterhouses in order to see if they had something else inside. Something that could help you reach Dean. And some spells looked like they could have worked but something jarred it, no doubt that had been Michael. Had it been any other lesser being you were damn sure it would have worked.

Most of the time you were all by yourself these days. You still remembered the words that started your pilgrimage.

-Sam, you go and put a bunch of silver bullets over those werewolves’ hearts and stop worrying about the research for a while. I’ll do it. I’ll call you every night to keep you informed if that helps you distract yourself.

You called every night the first couple of weeks. You didn’t mind calling anymore. You couldn’t stand hearing Sam’s broken voice lose a little bit more hope every time you told him you still had found nothing. These days just a text note would go.

Chapterhouse 7 breached, everything’s in order.

Chapterhouse 7 day 1, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 day 2, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 day 3, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 day 4, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 day 5, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 day 6, nothing new.

Chapterhouse 7 done. Nothing new.

Found Chapterhouse 3.

Chapterhouse 3 entrance flooded up by the Glen Canyon Dam. Called Rowena. Impossible to breach and open.

Found Chapterhouse 11.

Chapterhouse 11 breached, everything’s in order.

Chapterhouse 11 day 1, nothing new.

Nothing new.

You even felt that the words themselves were losing meaning. What is nothing? What is new? Was it pronounced that way?

Those were the times you dropped all the books off the table. Rivers of tears flowing. Flowing for Sam, flowing for Dean, flowing for Cas, flowing for yourself. The phone rang, startling you from your breakdown. You checked out the caller id in fear before you answered the call.

-Any good news Rowena?

-And a very fine day to you too lass.

-Sigh... I’m sorry. I just… I just don’t feel like I care anymore.

Despite all the problems she had caused you in the past, Rowena had slowly become the closest thing to a confident you had these days. Oddly enough, she was a very good listener.

-Aye, that I see. But things will turn out just right. Three hundred years of experience are talking to you right now.

You couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly -I really don’t know how you’ve been able to do it. I am so much older than I can take.

The call had ended after you gave Rowena your current address. She wanted to check something in the scripture database Charlie had left as her legacy that you had copied on your laptop for easy access. Rowena still didn’t like to use computers and she preferred your company to that of the boys.

You went for your cooler to grab a beer and take a break. The table of that Chapterhouse was eerily similar to the one at home. Everything was similar to everything at home. Your mind went back to the last time you had an argument with Dean over a table just like that one.

You slammed your hand over the table.

-Oh don't you put me on the backburner, Dean Winchester!

Dean stood up exasperated. -And what exactly are you going to do over there!? It’s bad enough that we’d have to watch all of our friends die together, I don’t want to see you go as well!

-And will it even matter if everybody else dies!?

Even Gabriel winced at the high pitch of your retort. You hated to show your weaknesses and Dean had managed to push you the wrong way enough. The room had gone silent, and you had to do your best to keep the tears up to yourself while hanging your head down. Finally you turned your sight back at him.

-I don’t need to argue with you. I’ll go.

You stormed before he could say a thing against it, grabbing a couple of beers on your way through the kitchen as safeguard to help yourself stay inside your bedroom without the need of going out again for at least half a day.

A soft knock came some minutes later. -Go away Bitch!

-Wow, rude much kid?

A slight pang of guilt held your gut, wrong person to lash at. You went for the doorknob and greeted a pair of pale gold eyes. Gabriel had not been too communicative with you ever since he had arrived to the bunker, not that you had had much time to interact with the assumed archangel. Still you were curious as to what the guy wanted with you. You knew from the boys that there was some sort of history between them but they never elaborated on that. You figured it might not have been that good considering Sam always winced when reminded about it and proceeded to bitchface Dean if the older brother tried to insist on telling the story.

He strolled into the room without even asking for permission.

-Couldn’t help but notice you care about the pair of idiots out there a bit too much.

You were startled, was this guy making himself at home, sitting over your bed and having a go at your recently opened beer stash?

-I thought angels were unable to taste food at all.

Gabriel just winked at her. -I’m way above the average angel Pumpkin.

-Even powered down?

-Potato, potato… whatever. You ain’t answering my question.

-I don’t recall you asking one.

He acknowledged you with a pointing finger. -You’re sassy, I like that. Come have a beer with me, my treat.

Such a ridiculous situation would have put Sam or Dean in a snappy mode but you ended up laughing about it. How could you not? It was exactly the same thing you used to do to the guys.

-You’re weird.

-Am I?

-Yeah but it’s alright... I like that.

You went to grab the second beer Gabriel already had opened for you and sat by his side. A quiet silence fell upon the both of you while you emptied your drink.

-They care about you too.

-Sigh, I know… And I get it. I mean, they are the closest thing to a family I got now but that’s exactly why I can’t let them go alone.

-We'll take care that everything goes well for you kid.

-Thanks Gabriel.

-You can call me Gabe.

-Gabe

The sound of the phone buzzing over the table woke you up. your neck was hurting. Somehow you had snoozed off and the consequences of sleep deprivation were starting to show all over your aching body.

-Yeah?

-I’m outside the Chapterhouse sweetie, be a good girl and open this door for me.

-Coming right up ma’am.

The day passed, Rowena found her translated codes with help of the database and you had found an old archived box filled to the brim with codexes on nephilim. Maybe they would be of interest for Jack, you thought while putting them aside and filling up a note in an old recording binder denoting the time of removal of the box and the Chapterhouse to where it would be moved. Habit that you had taken up after Sam had gotten the librarian in himself out and forced everyone at the bunker to use library cards whenever a book was removed for reading after having lost a particularly important tome that appeared later on in Dean’s bedroom under a scotch glass. The idiot had forgotten he had taken it.

And there was Dean again coming back to your thoughts.

Gabriel had confronted you about it in a small free space of time at the refugee camp. The grey monotone of the land thankfully cut off by the brightness of the stars above. These were the moments where despite having angels by your side you wondered if there really was a Heaven out there.

-Oh there is a Heaven alright.

You turned to look at Gabriel in a start. This wasn’t the first time an angel had given a straight answer for an unasked question. Were your thoughts so open to every feathered ass out there? Gabriel chuckled.

-I’m sorry to break it to you Sugar Plum but you really are an open book when you let your mind drift like that. The more you let yourself be swallowed by everything around you the more your thoughts resound.

Well, that explained a thing or two you thought to yourself.

-So even if I’m not praying…

-We’ll hear you alright.

-Can demons hear me as well?

-Never seen one do that so I don’t think so.

You just nodded and sighed while turning your eyes back to the sky. Gabriel just followed your gaze.

-I know there’s a Heaven alright…

-But?

-I don’t think I’ll ever reach it at all.

You could sense Gabriel turning towards you but you were angled in a way that didn’t allow you to read his expressions. You turned your head towards the ground at your feet and slightly crouched, hiding from the light above you with loose strands of hair over your gaze.

-With all these things that I've done… Guess I just hope I’d rather be thrown into The Empty.

-You don’t know what you’re saying.

-Billy said she’d throw Dean there with her own hands. I don’t see why I can’t ask for the same.

Gabriel didn’t say a thing but you could feel him turning his whole body at you, you finally decided to face the archangel.

-Stop thinking like this. You're gonna bring yourself down.

-I just don’t want to be left alone.

-No. You just don’t want to leave Dean alone.

You blushed and turned away. You were desperate to give a comeback and deny everything but you were too tired for doing anything about it at all. You had been pining over him long enough. That anybody else could see the obvious wouldn’t change the fact that the object of your affection would never see you as anything more than a cute little sister. That battle had been lost long ago.

-It doesn’t matter.

-It matters to me. -You chuckled but had to regain some sobriety when Gabriel knelt in front of you to be at your sitting height and made a move to hold your hand. -Because you are human and beautiful. And yeah, you may have committed terrible mistakes along the way but believe it or not, you are still so very pure. The single fact that you can love someone desperately enough to follow them everywhere just to ensure their safety is proof enough of that.

Everything happened so fast. Maybe it had been the piercing truth within his words, maybe it had been the soft touch between your bodies, maybe it was the way his attention was completely concentrated on you and nothing else than you. But you had felt those walls inside your heart crumble one by one and before you even knew it, your tears had been streaming down while you made a go to hold Gabriel tight and cry your grievance away.

Rowena startled you from your pensive state when she placed a plate of small sandwiches and a cup of tea in front of you.

-Enough research for today, it’s time to let the mind rest.

-Thanks Rowena. -The witch only smiled at you while sitting by your side to enjoy the refreshments.

-Well, have you discovered anything new?

You just gave away a sigh. -Not really, there is only so much documented angel lore, let alone talk about archangel lore. If we at least still had Gabriel by our side...

-...You miss the nifty steamy boy don’t you?

You could catch the undertone of the question Rowena gave you but you just didn’t feel like answering that kind of thing. -Well yeah, it would be such a great help to have him by our side to help us out of this Michael predicament. If we could only bring him back just like Jack brought Castiel ba…

You went silent, slowly dropping your hands over the table. Rowena could have been able to literally see the cogs in your brain work.

-Of course! Rowena I’m such an idiot! Why didn’t I think of this before!?

Rowena just raised an eyebrow with a smirk. She wouldn’t admit it but your pure joy was contagious and she was suddenly happy for the simple fact that you were happy as well. She saw you pick up the phone and send a message to Sam asking if he was available to talk then wait impatiently until your phone rang.

-Hello? Sam? I think I have an idea!

#supernatural #gabriel #dean winchester #reader #vee’sfavoritesongs #fanfic #spn fanfic

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nocoffinplease · 4 years ago

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10.14

i firmly believe in and want my relationship(s) to be fueled by compassion first. wife, to me, means the person who is put first in a partnership, even a nonmonogamous one, and as such, a wife should feel cherished, considered, and chosen in a relationship. if a problem my partner is facing that could potentially affect me arises, i want it to be discussed with me so our concerns are understood and an agreed-upon plan can be made. i want my partner to have life experiences and company and fun outside of me, but i want to be thought about throughout and, should the fun impact our regular routine, be informed of it in a timely way so i can plan. it’s not that i think lennon’s “trust me” approach is bad or wrong for him to hold, but it’s always been an uphill battle to “just trust” someone when i’ve had many bad experiences having my trust violated.

speaking of, and it’s hard to say, but there are some ways in which i don’t trust lennon (and i’m sure he feels the same way about me, as i’ve not been the most stable or emotionally regulated partner all the time). i don’t trust him to use kind language or speak in a way that fosters an equal exchange of ideas and feelings when there’s a problem; it’s hard for me to express myself and my needs when i know this is a person who has said that they hate me, the sound of my crying makes him want to hang himself, that i have sex exclusively with unattractive men, and resorts to passive aggression, and condescending language to make a point or get what he wants. i understand saying things you don’t mean in moments of despair and anger, but the times and ways in which he has weaponized anger against me has created a massive mental block for me where i am afraid of what he might say if i express a dissenting opinion. he has also casually lashed out at me in public and in front of my friends in ways that were hurtful and very embarrassing. an incident at a nightclub from 2018 still stands out in my best friend’s mind and has permanently tainted the way she sees lennon and our relationship. even if he claims he didn’t mean it because he was drunk, it’s hard to not internalize these remarks, especially if he shows the remarks to be subtly true through behavior and casual remarks, like judging the appearances and attitudes of my partners, asking to see their photos and going “eh he’s okay” or “they’re ugly-hot” for example. i sometimes find it difficult to relax around lennon or be fully myself, because i fear inconveniencing him and negative judgment, so i tend to overly-apologize or ask if things are okay a lot in anticipation of that. in general, he can be extremely negative about people, media, and things he doesn’t like, and it affects the things i choose to share with him, whether it’s a movie or a band or a game or what i watch on TV as he gets home from work. i’ve been privy to conversations in which he has asked how anyone can love or enjoy something that i or close friends truly enjoy, eviscerating the media and the people who consume it, but then qualify that it’s “not about you guys” and that we don’t need to take it so personally. it’s hard operating under that level of judgment, and i think there’s a difference between being constructively critical, having a friendly debate, or simply saying “eh, not for me,” versus getting “viscerally mad” when he sees someone’s art project and thinking “they could have spent their time so much better,” and occasionally the intensity with which he declares his disagreement is overwhelming to me. i love when people are passionate about their interests and ideas, but when they are punctuated by negativity, it’s hard to listen and share in the idea, and this happens with lennon quite a bit. his interests get shared and indulged in, but mine don’t as often. as a result, my self esteem is pretty low, and i keep to myself more often than not.

i don’t trust the way he speaks about me when i’m not around, in part because of what i’ve been told by other people and in part because of how i’ve heard him speak about other people he ostensibly loves in front of me. recently he popped into my room to tell me that two things he likes about me are my enjoyment of horror movies “because shanti is a big pussy baby about them,” and that “shanti is tone deaf but [i] can hold a tune.” it didn’t lift my spirits to be complimented as a conditional to someone else that i care about being put down. this, in addition to the “helen is like a really nice sedan” remark has made me wonder in what other ways i’ve maybe been put down too. i completely understand venting about a partner's imperfections and shortcomings to a safe space, but it just bothers me to know that i’ve been spoken about in ways that have made several people uncomfortable to interact with me and participate in our polyamory dynamic.

i don’t feel like i can trust him to go through with big commitments for our future. at some point, lennon decided that he was not going to pursue a job in engineering or a job that at least had the potential for stability and upward mobility adjacent to his field. this, in addition to returning to college and graduating was a huge condition when it came to my parents letting him live with me on their property, very cheaply. though there wasn’t anything binding, i (and my family) was led to believe that he would follow the agreed upon trajectory of “go back to school, get a degree in something, start a career.” i offered to do his resume before he graduated and he didn’t give me feedback on it or work with me to get it completed. i asked him about getting a 9-5 after he requested 6 months to take a break, and he told me and my family to stop bothering him, he didn’t want to get back on adderall which he said he’d need for an office job, and i respected that. when he proposed to me late last year, he said afterwards that he was going to seek out a more stable job and move on from the restaurant, and get back on adderall with the help of my insurance benefits. the pandemic happened, which i completely understand has thrown off the economy and our day-to-day life, but he had time across the last two years to start the process of jobseeking and planning for our long-term future, and he has not actively pursued a job that could keep him, and i, safer during the pandemic. the electrician apprenticeship was decided across the last couple of months, and though i genuinely respect trades and the pursuit of them, this wasn’t a longtime idea he had put on the backburner and is revisiting: it feels like another pitstop on the road towards a thriving future, wherein he’ll take a paycut and have to get ANOTHER four year education. again, i had no idea that lennon, at some point in our relationship, did not want an office job, but instead of broaching that to me, he made me feel bad for nagging, so i stopped. even after our session last week, when things were pretty intense at home, he asked if “[i] wanna do my resume” to apply and look for more safe gigs, and when i asked if he actually wanted to, he said no way, but he wanted to put in the effort for me. i appreciate that effort, but at the same time, if the effort is only being put in after i express massive dissatisfaction and it’s not what my husband genuinely wants to do but is doing *for me* instead, i feel guilty and like the effort is compensatory instead of one truly desired. i’ve taken on jobs that weren’t my favorite or were extremely hard, but i did it for the sake of building my own experience and legitimacy in my career, because i was thinking about the future, OUR future, and what comes next. lennon vehemently rejects that the spontaneous “anything goes” lifestyle he enjoys so much isn’t powered by my stability and responsibility, at least in part, but i genuinely believe otherwise, and i don’t think this notion is appreciated at all.

lennon is very kind most of the time, but on occasion, he will speak to me in ways that feel manipulative. this is a little different from my first paragraph in that i don’t think he means to do it, but it affects my ability to be honest and make choices that are right for me. after solo therapy sessions he asked me how it went, to which i responded, “it was good but intense, and of course i still love you” because once he asked me, jokingly after a session, if i still loved him. he asked, “do you still want to be with me?” and i answered truthfully, which is that i do, but i’m also currently figuring out important things about myself, and that ideally those things line up. he said “okay” in a kind of passive-aggressive and dissatisfied way, and when i pressed further he was like “that doesn’t do anything to reassure me.” he has repeatedly said that if “anyone would be leaving, it’d be [me],” and that if i did, he’d be “really in the lurch.” he told me last week that “[he] WAS happy in our relationship [before all this], and if he wasn’t it was a reaction to my dissatisfaction.” he has implied that my family and platonic loved ones are “unknowingly proselytizing for the only way they've ever known to keep relationships together, but [he] emphatically reject[s] that perspective” when it comes to me seeking advice and input from the outside. i know i’m trying to do better to not solely triangulate with other people to form my thoughts and feelings, this is the most honest and me account i’ve given about my feelings so far, but the tone of that is concerning. a lot of things are.

i genuinely DON’T know what’s next. lennon could quit the restaurant, get that stable gig, begin prioritizing me more, and adjust his negative mindsets to positive ones, which would be great. but if by doing that, would he be going against his own values, vision, personality and goals? nobody has improved themselves quicker or more efficiently with someone tapping a metaphorical watch, but how long CAN i wait? are these things even guaranteed? would he be okay with a more hierarchal polyamorous relationship? i don’t know. but i know that i’m at least trying to put my values, my fears, my wants, and my self out there as best as possible. i genuinely love lennon very much, there are a lot of things i love about him, but above all, i want him and i to be maximally happy in life without holding ourselves, or each other, back.

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cosmosogler · 7 years ago

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hi guys! i got home after 9. so i am six minutes late starting this post. 10:06 i mean.

anyway god dang it! i forgot my dream again. i think i was thinking about math and statistics though. numbers are super hard in dreams though because all the information changes and melts between instants.

i got up at a reasonable time- 7:40. still got out of the shower super late though. i’m not even sure what takes so long! maybe it’s because i brush my teeth and blow dry my hair and everything in that span of time so it’s not just “hopped in the shower at 7:50 and oH GOD IT’S 8:15.”

i tried to have a bigger breakfast than usual- i had a bagel and some bacon i put in the microwave. and a big glass of orange juice. i watched snoopy roll around in a patch of sunlight while i ate.

then i biked to campus a little late. i was super thankful that the light on the busy road happened to turn green right as i approached. if you miss it it’s a 2-minute wait for the next cycle.

i used my lecture notes today when i started the lab period!!! people started working on their labs while i was talking though and i got a little discouraged. i’ll need to ask for feedback over email i think. maybe it’s still good to lecture so that the people who already know what’s going on can get started while the people who are still a little confused have some basis to start from.

some questions really get me turned around though. i feel kinda stupid when i have to check my notes on the lab to answer a question like “but are the forces REALLY always equal and opposite?” because i think i know an exception but really no i don’t. and then i have to explain why there are no exceptions and i try to draw on some experiences as an undergrad ta but i only remember half-sentences and bits of anecdotes and i have to try to string them together into a coherent explanation that is catered toward intro physics courses.

i’m always exhausted afterward. i really give it everything even though i’m not the best ta.

i got scolded by my supervisor for getting suzanne to help me fix one of the computers when i couldn’t find him. what had happened was, i saw him talking to suzanne out the door earlier since the lab is across from the office. when i needed to find him i checked his office first, didn’t find him, and asked suzanne if she knew where he went. when she said the other side of the building she also offered to take a look because she’d been having a couple computer problems too on monday.

but a few problems i did fix myself fairly quickly. i don’t mind troubleshooting, but sometimes i have to stand there and process information and i get quiet and kind of stare into space and don’t move and then i feel dumb because i’m not actually thinking using any words.

maybe those are less “processing” thoughts and more “racing circular” thoughts.

ehhh afterward i went to my lab office hour. one of my students with the computer issues was in there trying to finish. he didn’t though.

during my office session i received an email from the grad advisor. he said every single first year grad student needed to be at a meeting right now. it was the end of my session anyway so i packed up and went over to the office to see if anyone else had caught the email.

they were actually all discussing it with an older graduate student. jennica was scrolling through every email she’s received on the student account to try and find any previous information about the meeting. there was none.

we talked about it for a few minutes before the older grad student went up to talk to him. jennica and harrison and i went to get some lunch and i picked a smoothie up for rebika.

actually that was funny. i asked her what kind she wanted and she said “i don’t know” so i said there were like a hundred and i would have to pick one at random so she better be okay with kale. she said whatever so jennica found an online random number generator.

anyway while we were out we got another email from the grad coordinator. this one was really passive aggressive and sent to the whole department about how no one showed up and the lady making the presentation had “come all the way across campus.”

i said “???” because this was well after the situation had been explained to him. i’m not sure why he was so mean about it when it was his mistake. we had literally never heard about this before and he told us to be there one minute before it started.

eventually suzanne found a reminder for it on her phone. we had to hack it to find out when she had actually set that reminder to give us an idea of where we might have heard about it.

it was during our “graduate welcome” presentation back in the middle of august. it wasn’t written down anywhere. it had just been mentioned in passing and suzanne made a note of it in her phone because it sounded interesting. not because we knew it was required.

my classmates complained that we’d never gotten any reminders for it but i was more annoyed that we hadn’t received any written notification of the event in the first place.

after that we studied a lot. i talked about some problems, fudged some math on the blackboard, and scribbled some stuff down on the homework problems i’d printed.

harrison has started telling me to “stop talking” whenever i say something depressing. jennica picked up on it pretty fast too.

during coffee/cookie time at 3:30 ish i was chatting with one of the upper classmen aboutttt star trek i think it was. i’ve never watched it but i know... enough to talk about it i guess. i ended up having a fun discussion with taylor about the boundary between sci fi and fantasy when he said star wars was the superior sci fi story.

i said it was based on how heavily it leaned thematically on hard science and logic to inform its worldbuilding. taylor said it depended on the setting.

anyway i was talking to the guy and i was maybe talking about how i’d burned myself on my tea and also spilled some on my shirt because i’d burned my face and flinched violently. i said “thank you for listening to my problems” and jennica was all “don’t get her started, oh god, unless you want to be depressed.”

i laughed and said “hey did i ever tell you about the time i broke my ribs?” and that got, i guess, a surprised laugh out of him. jennica gave me a Look. “just kidding, my ribs were too soft to break then,” i said apologetically-but-not-really.

i really relate to that short homestuck comic about dave talking about how his bro would leave him in the ball pit when they went to the store. except the ball pit was a slab of concrete in a dark room.

ok! i said my last prayers for the physics midterm and then at about 5:30 jennica and i played five rounds of love letters, adventure time edition. we were going to 3 wins and it stayed pretty close. i admitted that it’s a lot more active with three players and four gets to be a little too much. she seemed to like it well enough at least.

then at 6:05-ish i dumped all my trail mix in my mouth and turbo biked over to the drc to take my Accommodated Test in their Testing Facility. i almost got hit by a car while i was in the crosswalk. i was crossing at the same time as another bike, but as soon as he was past and i was approaching the end of the road, a driver slammed on the gas and i had to actually for real hard brake. i stared at her as she passed, she made eye contact with me. i don’t know why she did that if she saw me.

guess i’ll just go screw myself.

anyway i got there about fifteen minutes before the test was gonna start. there was trouble with the check-in devices so i was glad i got there early. i had time to get settled and put my stuff away and brush my hair a little bit to get the helmet tangles out.

then i took the test for two and a half hours! i was allotted three, and my classmates had two, so i think i made good use of the extra time and didn’t panic too hard.

i’d felt super sleepy and lethargic all day. the test wasn’t much better. but... i recognized all the problems at least. and i knew how to start all of them. and i had enough time to finish to my satisfaction.

i’m not gonna say i did well on the test. but i did way better than if i hadn’t studied. which is kind of a given, but. i think i tried more study strategies this time and asked for more help and maybe that made a difference. can’t say. i had no particular feeling about it when i looked over my work. i noted where i knew what i was doing and where i’d forgotten something, and where i’d probably made a mistake but had no idea what to do instead, and i really have no idea how i did.

i think biking home right after that though did a lot toward helping me not die of lack of energy. i had to bike up the big hill because of where i was leaving campus. that was ok though, i got up in no time at all! in third gear, even!!!

then i got home, and took out the trash, and devoured an ice cream sandwich, and then made some dinner. and then i sat down at my desk for 20 minutes, did a little e&m homework, sent some emails, and started writing, and then here i am.

five minutes left. i will try to talk about something good about me.

i uh... i was gonna talk about something ta-related but i can’t think of anything right now that i actually like about my method haha.

i’ve made a lot of progress this last week toward finding a study strategy that works for me. i know i have to use more than one of the study style fields to really learn material. two is good, three is better, four is overwhelming. i know that i am learning material on the backburner even if i don’t consciously feel like i understand anything because i look at some problems and i’m like “oh! i know what that is!”

still having trouble remembering relationships between equations. but i think that will get better the more time i spend looking stuff up over and over. like i really Get the yukawa potential and how that one equation basically provides a link between classical mechanics and e&m, and that’s so cool.

tomorrow i’ve got group therapy and it’s SPAGHETTI DAY. AGAIN!!!!!! but i also gotta start studying for that e&m test on friday. i need to figure out how to do that. maybe i will find and talk to adamya since he was helping suzanne the other day.

ok. it is 10:45. i will stop writing now and meditate for a few minutes and then go to bed. i need to get up a few minutes early to pick up a package. i think it is either the rest of my stuff i’ve been trying to get my parents to send for the last month, or it’s the cat food that i’m glad i ordered when i did and not a day later.

later guys, i hope you are well. drink more water.

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pushesbuttons-blog · 8 years ago

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Creedy Rambles-

So this is just gonna be a new thing I do on occasion when I can’t focus on drafts or messages, where I’m going to talk about stuff related to TSP, fandoms, tumblr and roleplaying in general. I’ll be tagging these specifically, and they’ll all be under a read more. So if you don’t want to see them, just blacklist the tag.

REGARDING OC’s:

THIS IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE OR THEIR CHARACTER, SIMPLY IT IS TO HELP PEOPLE WHO WANT TO IMPROVE AND EDUCATE PEOPLE ON WHAT IS ORIGINAL IN A CHARACTER AND WHAT ISN’T- BASED OFF OF HOW MANY OTHER PEOPLE DO IT.

Before I start in I’ll quickly identify what an OC is-

OC or Original Character, is a person or entity developed entirely with the creative mind of one person and does not stem from an existing copyright/franchise.

Essentially- it is a being that you made up. You made up their personality, backstory, appearance- all of it. Yes, you probably got inspiration from other places or characters, but it is still your own character. They can be set in a specific game/movie/book or any franchise, or you can make up your own world for them.

Now unfortunately on Tumblr, Oc’s face A LOT of criticism and backlash. Not necessarily because Oc’s are bad.. but because of the stereotype that they’re bad.

And even worse, this stereotype is often very true, in the sense that- people do NOT understand how to make a character.

People make a character, but its not really original. Because it conforms to ALL the stereotypes that other people’s OC’s have. Thus negating its originality in the first-place. Making it ironically an UNoriginal character.

And it kills me, because those Oc’s ruin it for the GOOD Oc’s out there.

I’ve been on Tumblr for only around 2-ish years and I’ve seen HUNDREDS of Oc’s. Some AMAZING and others horrid.

And It hurts me that the good Oc’s aren’t given a chance because of the negative association with stereotypical ‘bad’ oc’s.

Now I bet you’re asking- ‘Creedy, what are some of the things people do that make BAD Oc’s? Surely it can’t be that bad, that people on tumblr sometimes won’t even consider writing with them, right?’

Sadly, that is completely correct.

Disclaimer: Sometimes people won’t write with your OC simply because they don’t like them, and thats THEIR problem. Not yours.

So let me give a quick rundown and reasoning as to what people do that give Oc’s (GENERALLY) a bad name-

1. Mary Sue / Gary Stu

Okay, we’ve all heard these ones. But if you haven’t- A Mary Sue is basically a stereotypical OC with NO FLAWS. She’s often described as ‘smart, pretty, honest, kind, and amazing at everything she does’.. okay.

That is already a HUGE red flag.

And even moreso- the only ‘flaw’ these characters will sometimes have is ‘clumsiness’ or some other attribute that doesn’t directly negatively effect the character’s personality, and is usually used as a trope to get that character closer to what they want... which is NOT what a flaw is supposed to do.

And if you think that your character is somehow unique in spite of all this- the FIRST instance of a Mary Sue goes as far back as 1973. In a Star Trek Fanfiction

Mary Sue stories—the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm-wrestling. This character can also be found burrowing her way into the good graces/heart/mind of one of the Big Three [Kirk, Spock, and McCoy], if not all three at once. She saves the day by her wit and ability, and, if we are lucky, has the good grace to die at the end, being grieved by the entire ship.[7]

If your character matches this description, I’m sorry but- they are NOT original. If they’re good at basically everything with no flaws (especially at a younger than normal age) that character is by all means considered a Mary Sue. A Gary Stu just being the male counterpart.

How to fix this:

Now there IS a line in the sand. Your character can be young and good at things, nothing wrong with that. But make sure you add in some flaws such as- ‘unintelligent, rude, brash, liar, insecure, boring, cruel’. And make it so that there are things they hate in the world, and people that hate them. Mary Sues are also often depicted with everyone liking them, but as we all know that is simply not realistic. Create enemies or rivals for your character- or Hell, even someone they just plain dislike.

2. DO NOT COME UP WITH EVERYTHING ON THE SPOT

This^^^ Is important

Do not force your ideas. Do not try and just pull a character out of your ass, because then that character will be shit.

Take your time, no pressure.

You do not have to come up with their favorite color immediately- or even finish their backstory.

Somedays you may like an idea but later on you might realize it was stupid or unfitting, and vice versa.

Be patient and pace yourself

But lets say you’ve already kinda rushed it with your character, no biggie.

How to fix it:

Again, take your time. Don’t immediately go deleting everything you dislike about your character. Put it on the backburner and give it time to boil, slowly but surely- it will come to you.

3. Do not LIST things.

Unfortunately I’m also guilty of this one, as is most Tumblr rpers.

When you make an about page for your character- listing the name, age, birth. Thats okay. But why do it that way when you can show off your writing skills a bit?

And don’t make giant random pointless lists of likes and dislikes. Place them in relevant categories.

How to fix it:

Instead of doing the following:

Likes: Swords, rock, fighting, snow.

Do this:

Aya lives outcast in the snowy tundra nearly 20 miles from the nearest city, but it suits her just fine. The harsh snow is actually quite comforting and she can’t imagine living anywhere else. Additionally she has a fiery passion for sword-play, and practices as often as she can in her own private training room. The adrenaline of fighting keeps her fit and on her toes, and it drives her to do the best she possibly can each day. Aya also has a great taste in music, hard rock to be specific. She enjoys rocking out to AC/DC while battling her training dummy.

Is it a bit long and drawn out? Maybe, but it’ll give that person a better idea on how you write and how descriptive you are. Its not a cookie-cutter sort of process anymore.

4. No Eye-bleeding color schemes.

Dear sweet baby Jesus.

Look, sometimes it works. But a good 99.9% of the time- using every color of the rainbow WILL NOT WORK.

When you do that, it looks like someone crushed the color out of every sharpie that exists and dumped it on your character.

Its not pretty or cute or creative, because everyone has done it and it hurts to look at. Especially if you choose NEON OVER BLACK. You will burn someone’s eyes out, don’t do that.

Here is a basic read-up on Color Theory and some beautiful Color Palettes, to give you an idea.

How to fix it:

Now look, rainbow coloring in itself isn’t bad. But instead of just choosing the brightest colors you can find. Go to google and search for a color palette and use that. A good chunk of canon characters generally have a set of 5-6 colors in the same moodset that they stick to.

Also tacking on this: generally make your character’s clothing simple. Don’t add too many crazy patterns or random hats and glasses and wings and tails just.. unless you can justify it in their backstory properly- stick to a standard set of clothing and then maybe tack on a maximum of 3 accessories. A bracelet, a fancy hairtie and glasses.. okay done! Simple but cute!

5. Do not base that character entirely on a character that already exists (especially if you intend them to be in the same fandom)

It does not take skill or originality to take Elmo and turn him blue and then call him ‘Omle’

That is not an ‘original’ character and its not ‘inspired’ off of Elmo- yet I see people do this all the time.

Now look, this one is hit or miss. Sometimes it works and its cool, but most of the time it doesn’t. Especially if they’re in the same franchise.

Inspiration =/= Copying

How to fix it:

Unfortunately if you’ve done this you may need to make drastic changes with your character. But that doesn’t mean you HAVE to take away everything, you can just add new stuff. A change of clothes, skin color, eye color, maybe body shape, swap out some personality traits and boom- you’ve already got something more original than what you’ve started with!

6. Simple, my God.. simple

Meet Simplicity, no- they’re not an OC. But they’re gonna be your new best friend.

Simplicity is what you need. No over amount of accessories, powers, positive OR negative personality traits. Just a nice SIMPLE amount.

How to fix this:

Again if you’re not comfortable putting your character through drastic changes. Then this won’t be for you. Try and limit yourself with a set number of general stuff about your character. Like top five positive traits, and top five negative traits. Okay-

Compassionate, Goofy, Hilarious, Bubbly, Kind

Airheaded, nervous, panicky, oblivious, naive.

Notice how all of these traits generally have something in common or similar to the ones next to them? That is what a character is supposed to be like. Different enough to be their own thing, but similar enough to still ‘blend’ with that character. They OVERLAP each other.

7. I...I’m not sure what to call this one?

But basically- if your character is lets say.. ‘the sonic oc’. Make sure they look as though they’re from the sonic universe, but also doesn’t look too similar to a character already in that universe.

ALSO DO NOT USE BASES.

Any art you do will be SO MUCH BETTER and IMPROVE YOU SO MUCH MORE than ANY base you use.

Bases are actually proven to make your art skills WORSE.

Here is a POSE sight used to help artists draw, this is better to use.

Disclaimer: Using bases as references is fine. Do not copy it pose-per-pose. But maybe you just want to get a general idea of that character so you look at a base- thats fine. But do not copy it.

How to fix it:

Again you may need to redesign your character if this is the case.

Can’t draw? Thats alright, a detailed description can generally be enough for an OC. And even if you feel like your art sucks, practice makes perfect. I promise you.

8. Fit the personality with the appearance.

A character in a dark hood with circles under his eyes that look soul-crushing probably won’t have the personality of a six year old girl.

When you make a character who has a sad or depressive general mood or personality, match that with colors and clothing articles. Like blue or fluffy sweaters.

Think of the emotions in Pixar’s Inside Out. Their appearance directly correlates to their personality and the emotion they give off. That is what makes them good characters.

How to fix it:

Again, a redesign might be in order.

9. Long V.s Short Backstories

Alright so theres a huge doublestandard on Tumblr that I CANNOT STAND.

On one hand- people reprimand you if your backstory is too short. Alright, fair enough. Its their life story, I’m supposed to make it long and specific right?

WRONG!!!!!!

Because then people will get lazy and not even bother to read your character’s backstory because apparently 7 pages is ‘too much’.

How to fix this:

So, what do?

You make both.

You make a small summary of your character with something like ‘Very brief history’ and then you expand upon it under the summary with a title like ‘detailed/specific history.’ At least that way people can’t piss on you for your story being too short or too long.

10. The stereotypical ‘Tragic backstory’

Okay. I’m guilt of this. I’m SEVERELY guilty of this.

However, a tragic backstory isn’t bad.. as long as there is reason behind it.

When you have a character- having sad or horrible things happen in their life is good. Otherwise they’d just be another Mary Sue. But you don’t want to completely make your character miserable unless they call for it.

Lets say your character is blind- it makes sense that they could’ve had a tragic accident that blinded them.

But if your character was bruised or beaten for...seemingly no reason and it had no effect on them personality wise.. why is it there? What was the point in throwing it into their story?

A smiley, bubbly character who is constantly happy and has nothing wrong with them is not going to have ‘Macbeth’ as their backstory. And vice versa.

How to fix this:

Add happier or brighter moments in their life, intervals where things weren’t so bad. Role models, hobbies and when they learned them. Things like that.

On the other end (if they’re too happy) Add some sad parts. Struggles they’ve had, confrontations they won’t forget etc. etc.

11. Research.

I’m not saying you have to write a book report, but looking up on google about real-world locations, how certain jobs and processes (such as being arrested, giving birth, whatever is relevant to the character/your thread) will do you some good in an rp. And you might learn something!

And this is not meant to offend anyone.

Alright. Now I want to say that yeah- you can get away with some of this stuff. I list things, sometimes my characters are over the top, or their color scheme isn’t great. And people still think the character is good.

But it IS highlighting the things literally EVERYONE ELSE HAS DONE, therefore making these tropes unoriginal and making your character unoriginal. This is meant to give tips on how to make your character more original.

Do you have to change it if you don’t want to? No.

Is your character so awful it’ll make me vomit if you don’t follow these rules? No.

But if you want to improve upon your creativity, these steps will do nothing but HELP you in the long run. I promise!

#[ 📌 :: ＯＯＣ: ͨʳᵉᵉᵈʸ ʳᵃᵐᵇˡᵉˢ ]#[ 📌 :: ＯＯＣ: ºᵘᵗ ºf ᵇᵘᵗᵗºⁿˢ ]#((These are my own personal opinions and experiences))#((Although there is joking it is not purposefully poking fun at anyone))#((But it irritates me when bad Oc's make it worse for good Oc's..))#((I will also not judge your character if they have anything considered 'unoriginal' in the oc world. No character is perfect))

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nh935 · 5 years ago

Text

Creepy America, Episode 11: Monday

Creepy America Episode 11 Monday Jackson, Mississippi

My grandmother had a saying: “a life well lived is a life with a lot of scars.” She fully understood what that meant. Both of her parents died in the Holocaust. She almost did as well. And once all that was behind her, she had to uproot her life and move to America, knowing no one, having no one to turn to, struggling to make ends meet.

She did it, though. And she never got bitter. Never complained. I always remember her smiling, happy, joking, laughing. When I asked her how she could be so upbeat in the face of all that darkness, she’d say “oh, those are just scars. I got them. Everyone does. But there’s a whole lot more of me than there are of them.”

I never fully understood that. I still don’t. And I really don’t know what it says about me that I don’t have scars.

Scars are things that healed. They may hurt, but not as much as they once did. So I don’t have scars. I have wounds. I have things that still cut deep, that still pain me as much as they did when I first think about them: Sam and the Alone place, Thorn, Zed, The Terrible Trivia Test…

...Zoey....

And Timothy Chapman’s Mondays. That wound still bleeds as fresh as ever.

***

I was getting real sick of the South.

To be fair, no matter how long I spent on the road, I never felt at home anywhere other than the Midwest. North Eastern cities are baffling labyrinths. The West Coast is simply strange. Plain States are big empties populated by winds, and the South West is more of the same.

But the South is just plain hostile. Outside of the king of venom that is New York City, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten less friendly welcomes than deep South rural towns. Their legendary hospitality only applies once you know somebody; if you don’t have that, you’re an outsider, plain and simple.

And remember, we had to interview these people. The idea for “Faces of America” was to pull from everywhere, deep South included. But they refused to bite. Everyone was suspicious that we were with somebody, or spying on them, or trying to pull an elaborate con, so it was slammed doors or chased off all around. We did manage to find a few outliers, including some amazingly sweet and generous individuals. And if you could get your foot in the door and convince others to introduce you around, man did the tune change. But it still wasn’t as much as we were hoping for.

During that time, we used Jackson as a sort of safe ground to retreat to. I wish I was joking, but after the sheriff of an extremely small town started to follow us around, we figured that heading out after we overstayed our welcome wasn’t such a bad idea, and the relative anonymity of a big city helped with that.

“I still don’t get it,” Zoey complained as she stabbed more hashbrowns. We were at Huddle House, which was located just outside the city and was slowly becoming our favorite place to eat. “Aren’t there any places around here that won’t give us the ‘move along’ treatment?”

I shrugged. “Small towns are small towns, I guess. If they see a stranger, their first thought is ‘why’?”

“Hmph,” she replied. “Well they need to lighten up a little. Maybe let them know that the Civil War is over.”

I choked on my coffee. “Jeez Zoe. Comments like that definitely won’t help.”

She slid a fork full of potatoes into her mouth and began to stab more. “Well, I’m frustrated. We’ve only got five, maybe ten minutes of stuff to put in for this section when I was hoping for at least a half hour more. And I’m tired of being stared at like a bug in a microscope LIKE YOU ARE!” she finished, violently pointing at the other side of the diner.

I followed her finger to a middle-aged white guy, somewhere between thirty and forty, with thinning black hair, glasses and a crumpled gray suit and tie. He was staring wide-eyed at the two of us, as if we were aliens from outer space.

He continued to stare for a good three seconds more, before awkwardly shifting his gaze back to the plate in front of him.

Zoey groaned. “Please tell me we’re leaving soon.”

I fished out the crumpled itinerary. “Well, Alabama is next, then Georgia, then Florida…”

Zoey perked up.

“...then back to Mississippi.”

She slumped her head on the table and extended her fork towards me. “Do you think you can jab this into my ear so hard it kills me?”

I gently took the fork and placed it next to my plate. “I think somebody’s burnt out. I know we just got a new episode ready, but do you want to put ‘Faces’ on the backburner and work on the next ‘Creepy America’?”

She looked up at me. “I suppose that does sound better than suicide by silverware.” She sighed, stood up, stretched, and walked over to the front counter with me to pay the bill.

“Do we have any leads?” she asked as I exchanged cash.

“Well, we did have that mirror,” I replied. “The Myrtles Plantation in Mississippi. It wasn’t too bad of a drive the last time I checked.”

“Hmm.” As we walked out of the door, she glanced over her shoulder.

“What is it?”

“That weird guy sure is causing a scene.”

I turned and looked back. Inside of the diner, the crumpled businessman was rushing out, pushing past waitresses and leaving his food unpaid for.

“Wonder what his problem is,” I said.

Zoey shrugged. “Maybe he just forgot the ‘dine’ part of ‘dine-and-dash.’”

“You don’t think we should follow up on it?”

“What’s there to follow up on? Nothing ever comes from the crazy ones.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

We kept walking on in silence for a while, turning the corner to get to the parking lot, until Zoey suddenly stepped close to me. “We’re being followed. Crazy guy.”

I looked back. The man in the wrinkled suit rounded the corner in a hurry and stopped as soon as he saw me watching him, instead making a big show of observing the area around him.

Zoey jabbed me in the side. “Don’t stare. Keep walking.”

I picked up the pace again.

“Who the hell is he?” Zoey muttered.

“Not Archangel,” I answered. “He sucks at this too much.”

“That’s not assuring. Not professional isn’t the same as not dangerous.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Turn down this next alley and hide.” Zoey said in a harsh whisper. “If he tries anything, we jump him.”

My stomach turned a bit at that statement, but I turned down the darkened side street without saying anything. Once there, I flattened myself behind the wall of the right building while Zoey crouched behind the dumpster.

A minute later, the man bolted in, panting and out of breath. “Where did…” he wheezed. He spun around in a circle, then widened his eyes when he saw me.

“You!” he gasped.

Zoey leaped forward and tackled him, shoving both of them onto the ground. It was hardly a fair fight, seeing as how he was a winded forty-year-old and Zoey was still in her spry twenties, so it didn’t last very long. Once he was down, Zoey scrambled back to her feet and put a foot on his chest, keeping him there.

“Why are you following us!?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, I just thought maybe you knew something or were something because I’d never seen you before today…” His words continued into more meaningless babble.

I raised an eyebrow. “He’s really not making any sense.”

“Yeah,” Zoey agreed, “maybe we should call someone…”

“No!” The man exclaimed. “Please don’t I…” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “My name is Timothy Chapman. I’ve been living the same Monday for almost twenty years. Every day is the same date. Every day, the exact same things happen.”

He opened his eyes and stared at us. “Except you two. You two are different. I’ve never seen you before, so you have to be part of this. Please…” he begged, “please get me to Tuesday.”

***

Timothy Chapman (“please, just Tim” he told us,) was staying at a Motel 6 outside of town. After pleading for a while, we agreed to meet him there and hear him out, but once we had entered the lobby, Zoey grabbed my arm and forced me to stay behind for a second.

“What are we doing here? He’s obviously nuts!” Zoey hissed. “And the dangerous kind, too!”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “We’ve seen crazier things. Hell, we’ve done crazier things.”

“But reliving the same day over and over?”

“It makes sense, given what we’ve seen.”

Zoey stared at me in disbelief.

“You remember what I was talking about at the Monolith?” I asked. “About secret pockets of space and time?”

She thought for a second, then turned back to the hallway where Tim was waiting. “So… what? You think he’s trapped in one of these secret pockets of time?”

“Exactly.”

Zoey shook her head. “Then why would we be any different?”

“I think…” I stopped to choose my words. “I think that maybe when we used that terminal, we de-syched ourselves from the normal time stream. Everyone else here may be trapped linearly, but we now exist outside of that linearity, even if we’re still going in the same direction.”

Zoey groaned and rubbed her temples. “Fine, I don’t get it, but…” she looked back at me, “tell me the truth Liam: do you actually believe this could happen?”

I met her gaze. “With what we’ve seen? A thousand times yes.”

She nodded. “Fine. We’ll at least hear him out then.”

***

Tim’s room was the normal fare for a motel: bed, bathroom, desk. It didn’t look like he had been living there long, though: the bed was still neat and made and a solitary, unopened suitcase sat next to it. He had to have just checked in, I figured, which was weird considering that he had rattled off the directions without any hesitation whatsoever.

Tim sat down on the bed and looked at us sheepishly. “So, um, I guess you need to hear about what happened to me now, huh?”

Zoey shot me a look of impatience.

I silently asked her to wait it out with my eyes.

She sighed. “If you would. And, you don’t mind us recording this, do you?”

“No, not at all.”

Zoey pointed at me and I started up the camcorder.

Tim cleared his throat. “My name is Timothy Chapman. I’m 23…”

Zoey and I glanced at each other.

“...and every day, I live the exact same Monday.”

“What do you mean by ‘the exact same Monday’?” Zoey asked.

“I mean the exact same Monday,” he insisted. “February Seventeenth, 2016. The date never changes. I go to sleep, I wake up, it’s still the seventeenth. And every single day, the exact same things happen over and over and over again. Here,” he jumped up and ran over to the window, “let me show you.”

We walked over to the window and watched.

“In twelve seconds, you’re going to see a tall woman with blonde hair walking a big white dog. In fifteen, a hispanic man with a reflective vest is going to come from the opposite direction.”

I pointed the camera at the window and waited. Sure enough, a tall blonde woman showed up, walking a poodle. A moment later, a man with a neon yellow vest passed her.

Zoey cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly…”

“We’re good, thank you!” Tim interrupted.

We stared at him.

“No housekeeping?” a muffled voice asked from behind the room door.

“No housekeeping,” he yelled, then looked back at us.

“And how do we know that this isn’t some elaborate prank?” Zoey asked.

He sighed. “Go outside and travel one block east, towards the gas station. On the corner, there’ll be a man with sunglasses arguing with a teenage kid standing next to a red ferrari that’s been rear-ended by a white station wagon. Go see, just,” he looked down at his watch, “please hurry. We’re running out of Monday.”

Zoey and I glanced at each other, then silently walked out of the hotel and down the block he told us to. There, parked behind a stop sign, was a smashed cherry red ferrari, back end rammed into by an old, white station wagon. Standing next to it was an angry white guy alternating between screaming into a cell phone and screaming at a teenage boy, head in hands, sitting on the curb.

“Now way he could arrange that,” Zoey said. “I guess he’s legitimate.”

“So now what?” I asked.

Zoey held her hands out. “That’s on you. I do people, you do weird.”

“Since when?”

“Since you saved me from the blood curse.”

“Mmmph,” I grumbled.

“C’mon,” Zoey goaded me, “don’t tell me you haven’t been obsessively thinking over this already.”

I paused. “You know, he looks awfully old for 23.”

***

When we got back to the room, Tim had the door propped open, pacing back and forth inside. Once he saw that we were there, his eyes immediately lit up. “You saw it, right?! You know I’m telling the truth now, right?!”

“Yes yes, we saw it.” I motioned for him to sit back down on the bed. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“Of course!” He sat down on the mattress and leaned forward, far enough to be in danger of falling off.

“You said you were 23.”

“Yes, I am,” he confirmed. “Or maybe, I was. I’m still aging.”

I furrowed my brow. “At the exact same rate?”

“Yes.”

“But, that would mean…”

He gave me a sad smile. “6,198 Mondays. Almost seventeen years in the exact same day.”

I slowly nodded. “The aging, is that why you move out of your house every morning?”

He looked down at the packed suitcase at his feet. “At first, it wasn’t really noticeable. But my wife, Kaitlyn, she started to say things. Asking me if I was sick, or if I was stressed out at work. After a while, she stopped recognizing me and started freaking out in, attacking me and asking me what I did with her husband, so I started sneaking out of my house in the morning and come here.”

“So you wake up in your own bed every morning?”

“Yeah. No matter what happens.”

“What about… physical harm?”

“You mean…” he mimed putting a gun to his head.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Tried several times. Never seems to work. I just wake up back in bed.”

Zoey gave me a sideways glance. “You’ve got an idea, Liam. I can see it.”

“I don’t know if it’s an exact match, but the terminal…”

“Right. Good thinking.” Zoey checked her watch. “Do you know how far it is from here?”

“About two and a half hours.”

Tim’s eyes bounced between the two of us. “What? What is it?”

“You stay here and explain it to him,” I told Zoey. “I’m going to bring the car up.”

“Right,” Zoey said, sitting down next to Tim. “Don’t worry Mr. Chapman, we’re going to fix this soon. I promise.”

***

It took me all of five minutes to get to the car, unlock the door, and slide into the passenger seat. Once there, I cracked my knuckles and slid the key into the ignition. “Right,” I said out loud to myself, “time to use this knowledge to do some good for once.”

A soft click-clack answered me. “Hello Foster.”

I glanced up into the rearview mirror. Behind me was a large tan man dressed in a black suit and trench coat, shiny aviator glasses covering his face.

“Thorn,” I whispered, “what are you doing here?”

“Just came to ask what a bright young man such as yourself is doing leaving the fine city of Jackson.” His hand moved up an inch and the black of his pistol became visible in the reflection.

“You already know, don’t you?”

He scoffed. “Of course I already know. We’ve been watching you since Bethesda. The question is, what are you doing trying to head back to the access terminal?”

“My guess is that you already know the answer to that one, too.”

“Yeah I do. What is it with you kids these days? Being famous isn’t enough, you want to be heroes too?”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “So what are going to do? Kill me?”

He chuckled. “Course not. If I wanted you dead, I would have put a bomb in your car engine. Or took you out with a sniper already. Or brought something heavier than a silenced .22 when I decided to take potshots at your RV. No, I’m here to warn you.”

“About what?”

“That if it was up to me, you would be dead.” He brought the gun up to my ear, tickling it. “Anderson thinks you’re harmless. That when push comes to shove, you’ll play ball. But I’ve been doing this for a while, Foster, and I know what a crusader looks like. You won’t quit, not until everyone and everything around you has been burnt to the ground in the name of your little quest. And you want to know why I know this?”

I stayed silent.

“Because I was part of the team that had to fix that access terminal. Quite the mess, Foster. It was going all kinds of apeshit. And that didn’t have to happen. You could have done the smart thing and walked away. You didn’t have to play with keys. But you did, because you felt you needed to know, and you caused damage that you couldn’t comprehend and that I don’t have time to explain.

“So here’s your one chance to prove me wrong: stay in Jackson, and forget that terminal exists”

“No can do.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’ve got someone in there who needs it.”

He pressed the gun closer. “You willing to stake your life on that?”

I nodded.

“What about the life of Ms. Hammersham?”

I tried to respond, but my throat went dry.

Slowly, I took my hands away from the steering wheel.

He gave another soft laugh. “That’s what I thought.” He opened up the back door and stepped out. “Think about that the next time you want to play hero, Foster. And remember, I’ll be watching.”

***

The walk back from the car to the motel was the longest walk of my life.

***

I stepped into Tim’s room to find Zoey and him waiting, suitcase slung over one shoulder.

“Alright, ready?” Zoey asked.

I shook my head.

Zoey’s furrowed her brow. “What’s…”

“We can’t use the terminal,” I replied.

“But…”

I stared and shook my head again.

Tim collapsed backwards, into the bed. “Bu… what now? If we can’t…”

“I promised I’d help you, and I’m going to keep that promise.” I sat down at the writing desk and pulled out my phone, Googling ‘Jackson MS missing persons.’ “Tim, you said you’ve been re-living the same Monday, right?”

He looked up at me with watery, red eyes. “Yes?”

“Do you remember Sunday?”

“That was so long ago.”

“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,” I whispered to myself. “That’s below the national average.”

Tim looked up at me. “Huh?”

“Nothing, just tell me about Sunday.”

He looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. “I… was excited for the new promotion at Parkway. We both were. I had worked hard to get it. Monday was supposed to be the first day, but…” he scrunched his face up, “...Kaitlyn had to go to her Mom’s and I went to the museum…”

“Museum?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Eyes still closed, he blushed a bit. “The Mississippi Art Museum. It’s kind of an interesting place.”

As I opened up Google again, Zoey leaned over my shoulder. “What are you looking for?”

“Jackson Mississippi has roughly the national average of missing people, which suggests that whatever happened to Tim hasn’t been here for long; it moved in recently. And if the last place he went was the Art Museum…”

I opened up the museum page and scrolled down to exhibits, continuing until I found , ‘Garretson’s Tempus Fugit Collection. NEW!’ Once there, I clicked open a gallery to showcase dozens of clockwork figures, animals, buildings, and humans made out of gears and metal scrap.

Zoey squinted at the text line at the top. “In this sculpture collection, Garretson, better known by his alias ‘Mind Over Matter’, demonstrates the fleeting nature of time with these interactable sculptures made out of repurposed scrap…”

Hearing those words, Tim came over and peered at my phone as well. “That’s it! I was looking at those!”

“Interactable, huh?” I flicked through the gallery pages until I came across a gray box with the words ‘Oops! We’re sorry, but it appears this image link is broken!’

I pointed at a small winged ‘A’ in the corner.

“No way…” Zoey whispered.

Tim looked back and forth between us. “What? What is it?”

“A sign that something shouldn’t have been there, and telling people like us to stay away.” I flipped from there to Twitter, clicking on the search box and typing in #MississippiArtMuseum.

“What are you doing now?” Zoey asked.

“Hoping,” I replied. Not seeing what I wanted, I hit search again and typed in #MindOverMatter.

“Hoping for what?” Zoey continued.

“That Anderson was right when he said that Archangel can’t catch everything.”

Half a page down, I found what I was looking for: a woman posing for a selfie with a clockwork old man with a cane. A sculpture that definitely hadn’t been part of the original gallery images.

“I remember that one!” Tim said, practically bouncing. “That one came with a handle that you would spin to make it move!”

I opened the picture up and zoomed in a tiny bit, over to where a wooden handle was attached to a thin metal gear. Alongside one section of it, cut into the metal itself, were the letters “WONDERLAND CONTROL GEAR 136-A.”

“Wonderland again,” Zoey whispered.

“What’s Wonderland?” Tim asked.

“Not sure,” I answered, “but everytime we run into it, freaky stuff starts happening.”

“Hang on,” Zoey interuptted, “if this is what put him in a time-loop, why haven’t these other people been affected?”

I scratched my head. “Again, no idea. But if this thing caused it, this thing can fix it.”

“But if Archangel already found it…”

“...then it’s gone, yeah.” I tilted my head back to the two of them. “But even so, I don’t think it’s gone gone. My guess is that they couldn’t move something like that too quickly, especially if it was potentially dangerous. So it’s most likely still there.”

“So all we have to do is break into a museum protecting priceless pieces of art,” Zoey grimaced. “Great.”

Tim stood up straight. “I can help with that.”

***

Tim told us to meet him at the museum at five in the evening; that would be the ‘easiest time’ to get in. That gave us a couple hours to drive around and do our best to case the place out, even though we really had no idea what we were looking for.

After our third time around, we saw Tim stepping out of a yellow taxi cab, so I swung into a parking space and stepped out to meet him.

“Are you ready?” he asked us.

“Sure, but…” I took a glance back at the building, “I don’t think there’s anyway in. That place is locked up tight.”

“You leave that to me,” he declared, striding around to a side door labeled ‘employees only.’

I turned to Zoey. She shrugged and started following him. I hurried to catch up.

As soon as we reached the door, it swung open to reveal a large, muscular black man in a kevlar vest with “SECURITY” written on it. He stopped and looked at us in bewilderment. “What the…”

“Shh… it’s okay Carl,” Tim interrupted.

The other guy took a step back. “How do you…”

“Melissa sent me.” He put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s ready for you to come home.”

I winced and stepped back a bit, ready for the man to clock Tim straight in the face.

The other guy drew himself up…

...and started crying.

“I can’t” he mumbled, tears coming down his cheeks. “That night, what I said…”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tim consoled him, “it’s okay. I know that you’re still hurting, but she’s hurting too, man, You both need to heal… together.”

“She really wants me back?” he asked.

Tim just silently nodded.

The man ran out, shouting “thank you!”s all the way across the parking lot.

We stared at Tim.

“I take it this isn’t your first time breaking in here?” I finally asked.

“After a few Mondays, you start seeing what you can get away with.” He waved us forward into the open doorway. “Follow my lead.”

We did, trailing on his heels as he moved from white stucco hallway to white stucco hallway, too fast for me to discern any pattern behind it. I could barely keep up with him, much less take time to process my surroundings.

Suddenly, he stuck his arm out and crouched low, forcing us to follow suit. Ahead of us, around a corner, was a chest-high wall and windows that reached up to the room’s ceiling, forming a small room, and inside, a red-headed man in another “SECURITY” vest was seated, reading a magazine of some kind.

“What now?” I whispered.

Tim looked at his watch. “Seventeen seconds and the Miller kid comes out.”

Zoey tapped my shoulder. I turned around and shrugged back.

“Son of a bitch!” the guard shouted. He stood up and bolted out of the room, leaving the door to the guard-house wide open.

Tim slunk out and into the guard house with us behind. Once inside, I turned the camera to the computer monitor there, showing a teenager running away and the guard close behind. Framing the chase was a large wall with scarlet spray paint dripping down the side.

“Here.” I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to the source. Tim was holding out a plastic keycard. “This should open all the doors. The PIN is 8161.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, grabbing it. “So where do we go now?”

“I have no idea,” Tim admitted. “Usually I’m here to screw around, not find things.”

“Right then,” I sat down at the computer and started hitting keys. “How long do we have until that guard gets back?”

“Thirteen minutes, give or take 30 seconds.”

I clicked through files until I found one labeled “DIRECTORY.” I opened it and scrolled through the pdf it brought up. “Temporary storage. That sounds like what we want… Wing B, Sublevel One.”

Tim leaned over my shoulder and studied the document with me. “We’re on Sublevel One right now. Wing B is a right, then a left, a left, then straight.”

“How about we just follow you?” Zoey suggested. Tim nodded and barrelled down the hallways, forcing us to run in order to keep up. He dashed down three intersections like he was being chased and abruptly stopped at the fourth, holding his arm out and causing us to almost trip and fall as we stopped as well.

A young man pushing a trash can and a mop glided past us, headphones blaring with music and eyes focused on empty space.

After another minute more, Tim waved and we continued moving down the hallway, this time at a brisk walk instead of an all-out run.

The hallway we were following turned right one more time and emptied out into a long corridor with a large, blue letter “B” painted on the side. Down the walls were dozens upon dozens of doors, each with a small, wire-meshed glass window set into the center and a keycard reader and number pad set above the handle.

“Wing B,” Tim announced.

Zoey spun around the passage. “There has to be at least 50 doors here!”

“Better get started,” I moved to the closest one on my left, slid the card Tim had given me through, and punched in ‘8161.’ Once I did, the door gave a tiny beep and I swung it open to reveal a small room filled with crates and hand-dollies.

I heard Tim mutter “the pin is 0115” behind me. A minute later, Zoey was by my side, sliding a card through and punching in keys while the sound of Tim opening doors continued behind me. I leap-frogged over Zoey and continued down the line, the three of us accessing rooms as fast as we could.

When I opened the twelfth down, a life-sized, flat sculpture of an old, hunched-over man composed out of rusted sheet metal and large, interlocked pieces of scrap and gears stood in the center of the room, a paper sheet reading “DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” taped onto it. Following the arm down, the area where the hand rested on the cane had a large wooden handle on it, and attached to the handle was a long, thin gear that read “WONDERLAND CONTROL GEAR 136-A.”

“Guys” I shouted, “I found it!”

Silence.

I turned around. Zoey was gone. As was Tim.

I walked around, seeing the doors they had been searching through swung open, but no sign of the other two. “Tim?” I asked in a harsh whisper, trying to grab their attention without revealing ourselves. “Zoey?”

They didn’t answer.

But something else did.

THERE GOES LIAM. ONE OF GOD’S OWN PROTOTYPES. TOO WEIRD TO LIVE, TO RARE TO DIE.

My blood ran cold. I slowly stepped back into the room with the sculpture. There, perched on top of it like some kind of demented angel, was Sam, green hoodie, jeans, boots and all, perched on top of the metal head and grabbed on with both its hands and feet. Two large, black wings of pure shadow extended from behind its shoulders, filling the entire top half of the room and those damnable shining pinpricks of eyes and crazy, twisted grin were visible in the blackness of his hood.

“Go away.” It barely came out as a whisper.

It cocked its head. WHAT WAS THAT?

“I said go away!” This time, I managed to shout it.

IS THAT ANY WAY TO TALK TO YOUR MESSIAH?

“Leave me alone! I didn’t ask for your help, or your baptism, or…”

FUNNY. There was a rush of darkness and all of a sudden it was in front of me. It happened so fast I startled backwards and fell over, letting Sam leer over me. YOU’VE USED MY GIFT SEVERAL TIMES WITH NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, trying to get back up.

As I sat up, he reached over and covered my face with a large, dirt-caked hand. My vision went black, then faded back into view with me sitting in the darkened RV, Zoey collapsed into a chair in front of me. “I just… I just wish there was a way to fight back,” she sighed.

“Archangel,” I said to myself. “This was the night they talked to us.” But that’s not what came out of my mouth. What came out of my mouth was what I said when I had a sudden flash of insight:

“We can. They’re afraid of ‘Creepy America.’ They’re afraid of this show.”

The colors twisted and blurred until Zoey and I were standing on top of a large desert rock, black terminal with green letters in front of me.

“No, it can’t be,” I thought to myself.

“Wonderland access terminal,” past-me said. “Wonderland. Wonderland. Worlds of… Hey Zoey, you don’t think…”

The scene faded to black and my vision returned as Sam’s hairy, dirty hand lifted from my face.

“You…” I stammered.

I TOLD YOU LIAM, Sam leaned closer to me until its face was only inches away from mine, I AM A MUSE. I AM HERE TO INSPIRE YOU TO DO GREAT WORKS. ALL YOU NEED ARE A COUPLE OF HINTS.

“I don’t want them!” I turned around and crawled away, then scrambled back to my feet.

OH REALLY? EVEN IF I WERE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING LIKE… HOW TO CORRECTLY TURN A WONDERLAND GEAR?

I stopped, then slowly spun back. Sam was leaning against the statue, gently caressing the gear with the wooden handle. MR. WONDERLAND DOES MAKE SUCH INTRICATE TOYS. BUT HE RARELY INCLUDES THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL. He stood back up and stepped forward, offering a hand to me. BUT I AM AN OPEN BOOK. I AM THE ALMIGHTY WIKI OF ALL THINGS: KNOWN, UNKNOWN, SECRET, COMPLEX, OCCULT. ACCEPT MY PENTECOST, LIAM, AND YOU CAN DO MUCH MORE THAN SIMPLY RESUME THE CLOCK OF A TOCK-STUCK MORTAL. YOU COULD OPEN DOORS TO OTHER WORLDS, ASCEND TO NEW REALMS, REWRITE REALITY ITSELF. JUST TAKE MY HAND….

I stopped.

I reached out my hand…

Sam’s eyes grew larger.

...and slapped its arm away.

“I don’t know what you are,” I growled, “but you’re wrong. I can feel it. I’m never joining you, Sam. So feel free to take your little pentecost and shove it.”

Its grin downturned into a grimace and its eyes slanted into rage. YOU… ARROGANT! It reeled back and shoved me with both arms, throwing me to the ground and sliding me into the wall behind me hard, hard enough to hurt.

“Liam!” Zoey appeared in my vision, bent down next to me.

“I’m fine,” I muttered.

Tim looked at me, then back to where I just was. “What the hell just happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I grabbed my side and hobbled back towards the room.

“‘Ey Bobby!” A staticky voice crackled near Tim. “You hear something near B Wing? Over.”

Tim pulled out a large walkie talkie from his jacket pocket and clicked it on. “It’s this damn art piece, Jamie. It’s hooked up to some kind of video clip and I can’t shut it off! Over.”

The walkie talkie laughed. “Artists, right? Over.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim replied. “Now quit yammering so I can figure out how to shut it up, Over and out.” Tim then turned back to me, panic in his eyes. “We’ve got to hurry. We’ve only got about a half hour left before the night crew comes and starts moving pieces around from here.”

“Don’t worry,” I grabbed onto the door and creaked it back open, revealing the sculpture and the handled gear attached to it, “I found it.”

Tim stepped in and began to walk around the it. “So this is the thing that got me stuck in Monday?” He sounded unconvinced.

“100 percent,” I said. “Time never works right when Wonderland is around.”

He grabbed the handle and moved it back and forth. “So what do I do?”

“Well, what did you do with it on Sunday?” Zoey asked.

He blushed. “I don’t remember.”

“Not at all?” I asked.

“It was a long time ago!” Tim protested.

There was a sharp bang from the other end of the hallway. The three of us scooted back into the room and I moved the door back, almost closed but open just enough to hear out of.

“Tim,” I whispered, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he stammered. “This has never happened before.”

There was the click-click-click of two sets of footsteps, then it stopped.

“I don’t see why this has to be done tonight…” one voice whined.

“Circumstances changed,” a deeper, familiar voice replied. “We need to get it out of here before interested parties steal it.”

Zoey tapped me on the shoulder. “Is that…”

“Thorn,” I finished quietly. “He must have decided to move the sculpture sooner after talking to me.”

“Talking to?” Zoey hissed.

I looked back at Tim. “I’m going to go out and make a distraction.”

Zoey squeezed my shoulder. “We’re.”

I started to say something, but Zoey just squeezed tighter. “Not the time to argue,” she said.

“Fine,” I sighed. “We’re going to go out and make a distraction. You stay here and experiment with the gear. Get yourself unstuck.”

“Alright. See you at my hotel room,” he smiled, “on Tuesday.”

I nodded back, then turned to Zoey. “Ready?”

“Depends,” she replied. “What’s the plan?”

“I was just going to run out and make him chase me.”

She smirked. “Think I can manage that.”

“Okay. One, and two, and three!” Zoey and I barreled out of the room, hitting the door so hard it flew around its hinge and slammed into the adjacent wall, clipping both Thorn and the headphoned janitor I had seen earlier. The janitor immediately fell over, but Thorn rolled back with the motion, bringing his arm up and pistol raised as he did so. “Foster, stop!”

“Split up,” Zoey panted. She went left and I went right. Back towards the guard shack, I realized.

I heard running footsteps, much faster than my own, stop at the intersection, then squeak and chase my path. I pushed further and dove into the guard shack, curling myself up underneath the desk.

The footsteps continued, then stopped. I heard the soft tinks of the pistol being handled as Thorn began moving slowly across the area, scanning for me.

I summoned all of my willpower and held my breath. The action inflamed my already burning lungs and turned my heartbeat into a roar.

C’mon, I mentally urged, we have to be close to thirteen minutes.

As if on cue, footsteps from the other side of the hallway sounded off, then stopped. “What the…” the voice of the security guard muttered.

“Stand down!” Thorn shouted. “I’m a member of Archangel!”

“A whowhatnow?” The guard raised something else tinky up. “Hands up! Drop the gun!”

“I’m with Archangel! Protocall Five!”

The guard brought his walkie-talkie to life with a click-beep. “Robison, call the police right now. We have someone who’s armed and dangerous, possibly insane.”

Thorn mirrored the action with his own click-beep. “Copy base, I am in pursuit of the assets, about to be detained by local law. Permission to terminate obstacle.”

The air turned deadly quiet.

“Denied,” a radio voice sounded next to Thorn. I couldn’t quite be sure, but it sounded like Anderson. “Allow yourself to be taken in.”

“Sir,” Thorn insisted, “the assets…”

“Are to be allowed to escape,” the maybe-Anderson interrupted. “We’ve told you before: they are to be given a certain degree of trust. Comply with law enforcement and consider this your punishment for disobeying orders. We will pick you up in the morning.”

The silence resumed.

Something clattered to the ground where Thorn was.

Carefully, I crawled out of my hiding spot and back the way I came. As I did, I watched Thorn stare daggers through his reflective aviators, scowling as he laid flat on the ground, hands behind his head.

***

It took another hour of sneaking around and making distractions to get out of there, an hour I’ll skip for the sake of time. Once I did, though, I found Zoey waiting for me in the parking lot. Without a word, we got into our car, drove back to the Motel 6, and headed into Tim’s room, door still unlocked and opened from when we had left.

Still silent, we sat on the bed, waiting for Thorn to come back. We sat like that for hours, not moving, not talking, until finally, Zoey looked down at her phone. “Where the hell is he?” she complained. “It’s after midnight.”

We waited a minute longer.

“He’s still in Monday,” I realized.

Zoey glared at me. “Don’t say that. He’s… he probably got caught in the museum, and they put him in jail. Or back home, or…”

I stood up and moved over to the writing desk. A solitary piece of paper sat there, covered in tiny, neat letters.

“That… wasn’t there before,” Zoey said.

I picked it up and began to read out loud:

“Liam and Zoey,

“I hope this letter manages to find you. I can only pray that these words, unlike myself, manage to find a way to get to tomorrow. It’s funny, or pathetic, I can’t say which, that at my dying hour all I can think about is you. Not my wife, or my parents, or all the friends who will wonder about me when I’m gone. No, instead, all I can think about are the two strange kids who, in one Monday in a million, found me and tried to help.

“The gear didn’t work. I don’t know why. I’ve tried a million times since, but nothing ever happens, no matter what I do. I’m sure that if you were here with me, you could explain to me how to use it, but that’s no use now. I used to be angry at you, but years later, I realize that you were just doing the best you could. Perhaps not even you knew how the gear worked, and you were just grasping at straws, like me.

“I’ve seen your work, by the way. Good stuff. I’d ask you how you do the effects, but… well, I think we both know the answer.

“I can feel my body give way as I write this. Far too many Mondays, I fear. My frame has become one of an old man, so please, consider this my Will. Remember me. The others won’t. Not Katherine. Not those who knew me. I’ll be vanished. But you, you two, who knew what happened, remember me. And keep working at it. Help others, if you can. Nobody deserves this.

“Nobody deserves this.

“Sincerely,

“Timothy Chapman”

“Well, maybe, if we get that gear, we can go back,” Zoey said, tears in the corners of her eyes. “Right, Liam? I mean…”

I hung my head.

The conversation ended.

***

“Liam, c’mon, it’s time to move on.”

It was two days later. I was seated at Huddle House, staring blankly at the spot where we had first seen Tim. Sprawled out at my booth was a large poster:

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

TIMOTHY CHAPMAN, 23

150 LBS. 5’8”

REWARD FOR ANY INFORMATION

PLEASE CALL KAITLYN CHAPMAN:

And a picture of a much younger, much happier Tim than I had ever known.

“I know it hurts,” Zoey said, “but we have to move on. We can’t beat ourselves up every time we have a loss like this.”

“At any given time, around 90,000 people are missing in the United States,” I muttered numbly.

Zoey looked at me confused. “What did you say?”

“My mantra as of late.” I buried my face in my hands. “What are we doing, Zoey? Everytime we try to help, we just make it worse.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered. “We’ve had our good moments. Millie, and Red Like Roses…”

“And Greg and Sims and Tim.” I sat back up. “We can’t save one person. Not one.”

“Liam, we’re not gods. There’s only so much you can do…”

“Wrong.”

Zoey sighed and sat down at the seat across from me. “No, Liam, we exhausted all our options.”

“No we didn’t,” I insisted. “We had something we knew would work. The terminal. But Thorn came. Intimidated me. Convinced me not to go. And then…” I swallowed, “and then, Sam came. Offered to tell me how to work the gear. But I was scared. Again. And I said no, and…”

“Hush,” Zoey commanded me. She paused, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and handed it to me.

I took it and read the top. “Raven’s Riddle. A spell for learning secrets. Dominis Enim Novit Omnia.” I looked back up to Zoey. “Is this…”

“One of Jenny’s spells, yeah,” she confirmed.

“I thought we burned them all.”

“Me too, but this was lodged under some stuff. We must have missed it when we were rounding the papers up.” She took the paper back. “I was going to get rid of it, and then Tim happened. And I turned it over and over in my hands, thinking about how much easier it would be if I could just use it once.”

I stayed silent, watching the paper.

“And you know what?” Zoey took the spell and ripped it into pieces.

“We could have used that,” I said.

Zoey shook her head. “No, we couldn’t. Liam, this… world, we keep finding, it’s not right. It’s… consuming. And the first thing we need to do is make sure it doesn’t consume us. I want to help people just as much as you do, but we can’t do that dead. Or screwed over by spells. Or under the influence of whatever a dark pentecost is.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Monday sucked. Tim should be here. But we need to be here also, and we can’t kill ourselves for the sake of one person. If we go, nobody fights this fight anymore.” She gave me a sad smile. “That alone is worth sticking around for. So… hero responsibly, okay?”

I stayed quiet, then nodded.

“Okay,” Zoey said. “We’ll win. Eventually. Trust me.”

I don’t if I believed her then. All I know is that I don’t believe her now.

#short story #series #creepy america #horror #weird fiction #cosmic horror

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karenaashbya · 7 years ago

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What I’ve Learned from 10+ Years of Body Acceptance

Someone recently asked me how long I’ve been on my body acceptance journey, and I realized it’s been more than a decade. It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning exactly because there was quite a while when I kept thinking there had to be another way than my years of chronic dieting. But to make it easier to remember, I count the beginning as when I first started seeing a nutrition therapist who specializes in intuitive eating.

At the beginning of this journey, I thought it would be entirely about healing my relationship with food. And while that has happened in many ways, so much more has unfolded from there that I rarely even think of food as one of the top things that has changed in my life since I have become more body accepting.

I say “more” body accepting because I never like to give the idea that I’m 100% body accepting 24/7/365. I actually don’t believe that’s even a thing. Or, well, I don’t think it’s a thing in the way we imagine it will be. I definitely used to think that being body accepting would mean I never, ever had a negative thought about my body ever again.

But now I think it means hearing those thoughts quiet and knowing how to support myself when they do come back around. Because I think we all have moments where doubts or old self-criticisms or comments from a hurtful person come rushing back, but that doesn’t mean we’re back to square one. Quite the opposite, really. So that brings me to the first thing I’ve learned:

1. There’s no end point to body acceptance

And that’s the good news. When I first started my body acceptance journey, I (like so many other people!) thought a day would come (sooner rather than later, please and thank you) when I could just brush my hands off and declare my relationship with my body solved. Moving on.

And, of course I thought that! Everything in culture told me that would be true and profited from me believing it. At the time, my relationship with my body was mostly transactional. I tried to tell it what to do (in the form of a diet), and it either did or didn’t respond how I wanted (99% didn’t). My body was totally other from me, which makes complete sense when you consider how I outsourced everything about it to the latest diet that told me when to eat (hunger cues? What hunger cues?) and when to move my body (time to get on that treadmill!).

I never would have thought I wanted a conversational relationship with my body because I had no frame of reference for what that could even mean. Not to mention I wouldn’t have trusted my body as a conversation partner anyway. That’s something I could only truly understand through what I learned next:

2. Body acceptance is a practice

As often as I say this, people still don’t always believe me: I’m not body accepting at all times and in all circumstances. Negative thoughts still pop up from time to time. I still occasionally get intrigued by the latest “cleanse” or “healthy eating program” (which is generally what we call diets now). But what’s different now is that when I catch these thoughts, I notice them. I don’t automatically believe them like I used to. They now make me pause and say, “Oh, you again. What’s going on here?” Then I get to be curious about how and why these thoughts are arising and how I can let them go with kindness. For me, they often come up when I’m sick or stressed, so now that I know that pattern, it’s easier for me to address it. And, also:

3. Body acceptance has shown me where body acceptance is not enough

Because sometimes you need something else/more/different. While body acceptance has changed so much in my life, it’s not the solution for every problem I have. Nor is yoga. As I’ve shared, yoga helped me get to know my body cues much better. And as I learned to listen to what my body was telling me, body acceptance helped me respect those messages and respond to them through things like decreasing stress, not saying yes when my body was telling me no, and so on. All of that sifting, plus acupuncture, journaling, therapy, movement, supportive friends, and more helped me to realize that as much as things had changed for me, there was still a core of everyday dread and anxiety that I could never shake. Enter: Zoloft. I now tell anyone who will listen that it’s the second best thing that’s ever happened to me, after meeting my husband. It’s not for everyone, but I never would have known it was for me unless I was able to get down to that place where I could see it clearly. Because, really:

4. Body acceptance is about living your life

On your own terms. I can’t even tell you how many hours (read: years) and dollars (read: thousands) I spent on dieting and changing my body over the years. You might already know about a lot of them from my book. Throughout all of that, I kept imagining my fantasy life that would happen once I finally lost all the weight I wanted to: no problems with myself, my relationships, my career, my finances, my health, and so on and so on.

It turns out I was coming at that from the wrong angle, though. I saw my life as a problem to solve that, once solved, would never be a problem again. But that’s not how life works!

Life is nothing but seasons and cycles and ebbs and flows and two steps forward and one step back. And what that means is there are spirals of growth and learning. My life isn’t perfect now that I’m more body accepting. Far from it. But it is a life I’m living, not waiting to begin once I finally lose x pounds. It’s one where I’m engaged in the muck and the glory and the everydayness of it. No more waiting on something unknown to drop into my lap because:

5. Body acceptance clarified what is important to me

Since I had a distant relationship with my body for so long, it was really hard for me to read the signs of what worked for me and what didn’t work for me. I brought the same harried energy I brought to dieting to everything I did, taking an all or nothing approach to most of my life. I also put tons of energy into school and career achievement because, at least on some level, I felt like this was a way to prove my worth that I thought was otherwise in serious question (or nonexistent) because of my weight.

Over time, as I developed more skills to be able to listen to my body, I started to notice things like — “Why do I constantly have a feeling of dread in my stomach.” And “Why can’t I ever stop people pleasing or unplug?” As I continued to deepen my relationship with my body, I began to realize that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to. I was so caught up in the rat race of success (even as a yoga teacher, which I realize is just a *bit* ironic!) that I wasn’t present for anything and rarely let myself enjoy anything. That is, until…

6. Body acceptance simplified my life

And I don’t just mean I got to toss my diet books (though that was awesome!). For so long, my life was a pile of complication: I was on a million diets, I somehow decided I needed two master’s degrees, I worked long hours, I didn’t sleep well or for very long, I constantly waited for the other shoe to drop, I wasn’t present in my relationships, I forgot much of what happened to me because I was always living in the future in my mind, and so much more.

The reason I say body acceptance simplified my life is that I thought the “end result” of body acceptance would be running through fields of puppies (basically my lifelong dream, minus the running) all day every day. It never occurred to me, again because it wasn’t possible for me to understand in my past frame of reference, that what would happen is so much would fall away.

As I started feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin, I realized I wanted more of that. I didn’t want to be so busy all the time, and I didn’t have to be (yes, there’s still plenty I have to do, but it turns out I don’t have to say yes to every single thing that comes my way). I didn’t want to say my priority was my husband and my wellbeing and my close people but put them all on the way way backburner, constantly. I didn’t want to not know what was going on with my closest friends.

So if I had to sum it all up, here’s what I’d say: Loving your body isn’t about a hashtag or wearing a specific article of clothing or getting it “right.” It looks different for everyone. And it’s about taking back the time, energy, and resources that diet and beauty culture take from us so that we can use those resources to show up — for our bodies, our lives, our relationships, our work, and our community.

The post What I’ve Learned from 10+ Years of Body Acceptance appeared first on Curvy Yoga.

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