#but i see how it can be jarring to walk into deep exploration threads on dennis' trauma

[charmac]

Opinions on Charlie woobification? Also, do you think the fandom woobifies Dennis (too much)?

A few people have sent me asks about my thoughts on Dennis being woobified in the fandom and I’ve failed to answer them (sorry). Not for lack of interest on the subject, it’s just hard to answer. I think, though, answering this Charlie question in the same ask might make it easier to explain my thoughts on this.

When we talk about the fandom we’re generally talking about the people here, a couple hundred people on Twitter, maybe some Instagram stans(?) and tend to ignore the million (1,000,000)+ people on the subReddit and the huge chunk of people on Facebook and casual Twitter who are constantly, continually pushing a narrative that these characters have no depth, and thus their characterisation is what we see on the surface and nothing more. I think the one time it’s probably important not to ignore those people as fans of the show is when it comes to woobification.

Because at a surface level, the people who are consuming this show as a comedy and making posts that exhibit their takes/opinions on these characters to the majority of people portray the characters very simply: Charlie is an idiot and the best member of the Gang, in every sense of the word, and Dennis is a mere representation of toxic masculinity to a psychopathic degree. And those opinions are the loud majority.

So any discussion in our minority section of the fandom that woobifies Charlie or Dennis operates within and on top of the general narrative of the public perception (“face value”) of the characters. Woobification of Charlie, then, almost always further infantilises the majority of his traits to contribute to the idea that he’s not a bad guy and doesn’t deserve the position he’s in in life, while woobification of Dennis mostly works to counteract the idea that he’s a cold-blooded psychopath.

In a way, I think you have to woobify Dennis to a degree in order to properly understand his character (and Glenn makes that clear). Do some people take it too far? When it gets into the realm of genuinely somehow believing he’s not a bad person, absolutely, but in over a decade of Sunnyblr posts, I think I’ve seen that conclusion once, maybe twice. I really don’t think any post that’s diving into how Dennis' actions reflect his insecurities and trauma is ever speaking ignorant of the rest of his character, and that normally seems clear to the majority of people because rarely, if ever, does a dive into Dennis woobification cause fans to understand the character worse than they understood him at face value.

Whereas, with Charlie, you constantly do see this. Posts and threads and fights between fans arguing up and down that Charlie is better than the rest of them: he’s the smartest, actually, he means to do good, he shouldn’t be lumped in with the rest of them as sexual predators... People in this fandom genuinely argue that you are a *better person* if you’re a Charlie stan, that Charlie ships are softer, more moral, than toxic Dennis ships. The result of Charlie woobification seems to often make people less media literate about the character (and the show as a whole if we’re being real) than they would be if they just watched at face value.

They’re all morally despicable characters.

TL;DR: Due to the face value perceptions of the characters, woobification is an almost necessary tool for better exploring and understanding Dennis under his surface, while it really only exacerbates an annoying surface-level understanding of Charlie

[m0chisenpai]

Gosh, the sister Kiri and reader was really beautifull🥹 you writing is also beautifull too! I would love to see a part 2 of the sisters bond,have a beautifull day!😚

kiri x avatar!sister!reader

Part One

I love the thought of Kiri and Reader's relationship. I like to think it is rooted in something deep, something to do with both sisters connection to Eywa. But I'll rant about it later~ For now enjoy part 2!

Kiri took to breaking your shell slowly in the beginning. She could sympathize and understand why you were reserved. It was heartbreaking and strange, waking up 15 years out of a coma without a mother. Jake fathered you in an instance, but you were convinced it was out of pity and shame from what happened all those years ago. And so you walked on eggshells around him and his family. 

You felt the weight of your situation some days, it weighed so heavy you would weep for hours. Then the days would come where an odd icy feeling of nothingness filled your veins.

Because as far as you were concerned, you were an orphan. Never knew your father, ripped away from your mother. Though you were physically na'vi, you'd still felt deep in your heart you were nothing but a dreamwalker, still human. A stray that they took pity on. Kiri knew how you felt, and she made it her mission to dispel those thoughts. 

When family meals took place she'd draw you into the conversation, she tried bridging the gap between her brothers and you. Tried to get you back into hunting.

Slowly with each day you were adapting, learning how to live this new life given to you.

And just as much as you loved the loudness of it all. There were moments such as today where it filled your heart with peace.

Before her knucklehead brothers could get into their own mischief, Kiri took you by hand to explore the deeper parts of the forest. The parts where it felt as though you were close to Pandora’s heart, where Eywa breathed. You feel the slight hum in your bones as you two push aside dangling vines, looming plant leaves.

As your feet move with a newfound nimbleness and fearlessness across a long moss-covered trunk. And as you weave between greenery you can feel it more in your bones.

Your hands wistfully caress every plant. The gentle tickling of wriggling pink plants latches for a moment before letting you g. Your eyes lingered on the sky above to the point of Kiri intervening and tugging you along. The both of you push aside the foliage.

Then it's quiet.

The sun kisses your cheeks and fills your body with a warmth unlike any campfire or hug.

She takes you by hand to the soft grass illuminated by the sun's warm afternoon glow. When you sit on the grass Kiri gets to work. Her sack hits the ground and she begins opening jars that nearly make you flinch away when she massages them into your scalp. 

Salves of odd murky colors but smelled flowery. She massages it into both her palms and massage it gently into your hair. She's gentle because she can remember in one of mom's logs where you refused to come because she was too rough.

Her fingers are quick and nimble, taking down your dark locks and braiding them back in place. She weaves glass beads as well, you keep yourself busy helping her braid off ends effortlessly.

"There was this video of mom," Kiri breaks the silence gently just as her fingers plait and weave in a similar manner, "where she was talking about how she had to wrestle you just to get your hair into a few braids." She giggles silently and you do as well.

"She said you hid in one of the link chambers-"

"Because I would rather get swallowed by a thanator than let her put her fingers into my hair" you wistfully finish. "Mom was good, I was just sensitive."

You prefer your hair braided to Neytiri, but Kiri likes her hair in one long braid. You beg her to let you braid it differently each day and sometimes if you're lucky you braid two free stands to frame her face, or braid wefts of bright colored thread into her braid. 

When you're finished you eye each others work in the crystal blue pond. When you're both satisfied you both end up lying on your sides facing one another. Your arms forma comfortable nook for you to lie your head in as Kiri runs her hands gently over the fresh braids, massaging your scalp.

"Why do you think great mother brought me back" you whisper, sleep sits heavy in the slight slur to your words and the droopiness in your eyes which fight to stay open.

Kiri's soothing pauses as she lets her fingers linger at the apple of your cheek.

Kiri wondered too. You should be in your late twenties, preparing for your thirties, but here you are just barely a teen. "I think she knows what is to come and she needed you here."

You hum and close your eyes. The breeze tosses your hair and sends chills up your spine and neck. You scoot yourself closer to Kiri, closing your eyes completely.

She throws an arm over you protecting you from the cool breeze. Kiri's arms feel like home. And as you lie there in your sisters arms, surrounded by the Great Mother, you realize you are home.

[feral-ella-flynn]

Paying the Toll, pt 2: M Troll x F Human, SFW (for now)

Part 1

Male Troll + Female Human

still SFW (so far)

2.5K/6.5K word draft

tagging @feralprose @monster-bait @apocalypticromantic666 @pre-schoolervengance @bresilienne-ami @soivebuiltupaworldofmagic @dont-call-me-a-faerie @kirmalight (comment to be tagged in updates!)

I bet no one expected this to be updated! Including me! This installment is definitely not as long as I intended, because I got really hung up on details--that’s why I’m posting anyway, to get some momentum so that hopefully the third part will be both longer and not so tardy. 

Escaping a goblin raid on your village leads you to a bridge, but you have nothing to offer the troll who guards it for a toll...except yourself

You wake in darkness.  At first you aren't sure you're awake at all--it's only by touching your own eyelids that you can feel sure they're open. It seems to make no difference between the thick, pressing dark around you either way.

“Mattie?” you whisper, your voice thin and hoarse. 

There’s no answer, and understanding comes crashing down on you, like floodwater overwhelming a dam. You are not in your cramped room under the eaves of the big house, Mathilde is not sleeping on the narrow bed an armspan away–if she’s lucky, perhaps she was able to hide in the cellars or the attics, somewhere that was safe enough until the goblin raiders felt they had run out of things to raze and ravish and moved on. Or perhaps help would come, from the regiment billeted outside the market town, or from rangers who might have been near enought to see the smoke. If Mattie was unlucky….

A sob catches in your dry throat, then turns to choking dry heaves that leave you shuddering. Bile burns on your tongue. You huddle into the nest of furs, remembering now where you are and how you came to be here, naked and alone in the pitch black.

Not alone. There is the hush of leather brushing against stone, a faint musky scent. 

“Brúsi?”

“Aye.” The troll’s gravel-rough voice is low and close–you almost reach out, ready to blunder once again into his arms rather than be alone with your fears.

The scrape of flint is loud enough in the silence to make you jump. Sparks illuminate the troll, kneeling at your side, and as he coaxes the tinder to unfurl into flame you hastily wrap a fur around your bare flesh. Whatever mood made you so bold before has been banished by your nightmares.

“Is it morning?”

The troll shrugs. “Near enough.”

“Shall I–shall I make breakfast for you?” Your fingers knead anxiously in the soft nap of the pelt that you clutch closed over your chest. “What do you like for breakfast?”

The troll–Brúsi–glances at you, his head tilted in the way that is already familiar. You think it means he’s just as bewildered by your contract, and by you, as you are yourself.

“Dried goat,” he says. “Morning meal, evening meal. Unless there is a new goat.”

“Oh. Where do the goats come from?”

He shrugs. “The bridge provides.”

Well. You take a deep breath, pushing the fear and panic of the last day, of the dark dreams, down into a tight ball at the bottom of your stomach, where you can ignore it for a little while. “Does the bridge ever provide eggs?”

And so you begin your month as housekeeper to a troll. 

Your clothes are badly stained, and chilly from being spread out on the stone floor, but they're dry and you dress in them anyway, trying to ignore the scrutiny of Brúsi’s dark blue eyes as he watches you. He seems fascinated by the layers as you lace your stays over your shift, tie the strings of your petticoat, and your cheeks burn with a blush as you finally button your gown. You do your best with the tangles in your hair--letting it hide your face until your heart stops thumping in your ears before you twist it into a hasty braid. 

There are no eggs. But you take a lantern the troll indicates and follow him into another cave that serves as a store room.

“There is goat,” he says, pointing at the considerable supply of dried meat, “and other goods, if tha wish them.” His gesture at the heaps of bags, crates, jars, casks, boxes–all jumbled together and shoved to one side–is dismissive, as if there is nothing of value to be found. You stare wide-eyed at a bolt of fine silk, at the glint of gold from a carelessly overturned casket with a broken lid.

“What is all this?”

“Payment for the toll, for when there were no goats.”

“You don’t do anything with the things paid for the toll? They just sit and rot?”

He shrugs. “I butcher the goats.”

You can only shake your head, but the practicality can’t be denied–gold and silk isn’t much use in a cave, and it’s with less wonder but more delight that you find flour, oil, and salt.

Breakfast is fried bread--and goat meat.

Once the meal is prepared and cleaned away, the troll vanishes up the dark tunnel. He takes no lantern with him. He also doesn't say a word to you before he leaves, and you stand in the cave for a while, expecting him to come back with instructions, or–well, something. But he doesn’t, and  you can only twist your hands in the skirt of your gown for so long. Eventually you pick up the lantern and explore. 

There is little enough to see. Other than what you noticed when you arrived, there is an alcove that must be where the troll sleeps, on piled furs that smell musky but not unpleasant. There is the storage cave, although it seems larger than it did at first, because you realize that you can’t see the far wall before the circle of light gives way to darkness.

And then there is the tunnel entrance, where your new employer disappeared, and which presumably leads out, to--your stomach lurches at the memory of being upside down from the sky–the underside of the bridge. But perhaps that had been an illusion, and the tunnel merely led out to an opening in the bank underneath the bridge? You had been half out of your mind with fear, after all. Maybe you dreamed that part.

Maybe…maybe you could simply walk out of this tunnel, out of the dark, and walk all the way home.

Except that you agreed to a contract. And the troll did say he wouldn’t eat you, wouldn’t even touch you, which was more than any of the men at the big house ever promised...none of them had touched you, but you knew that was because you had been careful, so careful, all the time, to be invisible. 

It had helped that Mattie made it easy to fade into the background. She flaunted her pretty curls and winsome dimples, and when she sometimes crept into your shared attic room well after midnight she always had a new length of fine fabric for a dress or a necklace of amber beads to show for it. You asked once if she wasn’t afraid of falling pregnant, but she just shrugged.

“I know to be careful,” she said, and hid the coins she’d gotten for selling her latest bauble away beneath her bed.

Thinking of Mattie makes your eyes sting with tears, and reminds you that probably there was no home to walk back to–and if you tried, there would likely be nothing to be done there except burying the dead. You leave the tunnel entrance alone, and busy yourself with organizing the heaped goods in the storage cave.

When Brúsi returns, he brings you eggs, freshly laid and nested in a straw packed basket. 

“They had no goat." He shrugs. 

Other than struggling to invent new ways of preparing goat meat, most of your time is spent sorting. You find all manner of things in the storage cave, from precious jewels to plain linen fabric. The gems and gold you store in caskets, and then can’t shift on your own–Brúsi laughs at you, and picks them up with one hand, arranging them neatly along one wall as you direct him. You stack bolts of fabric, folding shorter lengths neatly into a another chest, you line up swords with gold wrapped hilts, swords with elaborately carved scabbards, swords that are short, swords that are nearly as long as you are tall, and then there are maces and axes and other things you can’t name. There’s even a pair of pistols in a tooled leather box, their handles gleaming mother of pearl. It’s more treasure than you ever imagined, and you feel that you’re in a dragon’s den instead of a troll’s cave--except that Brúsi shows little interest in the goods, except for the goat meat.

“If you don't have a use for these things, why accept them?” you asked, after the third day of sorting boxes and bundles and barrels, and still not finding the back wall of the cave. You’d found a crown, heavy and lumpy, like something out of an ancient grave, and under it a belt of bronze scales that linked together.

The troll just shrugged. “They are the toll, for the bridge. There must be a toll.”

“Then…" you bite your lip, but blurt "can I use some things?”

“If tha hast a use for them, then mayhap the bridge meant them for tha to use.”

“You make it sound like the bridge is alive,” you murmur, running your fingers over the bolts of fabric, already imagining yourself in a dress made of such soft material.

“The bridge is the bridge,” Brúsi says.

“What does that mean?”

He just shrugs.

You sigh, picking up a bolt of wool–practical, and still finer than anything you’ve ever worn. “If the bridge provides, can I give it a list? I need thread, needles, scissors, buttons…I can’t keep wearing this dress,” you gesture down at yourself. “Not without something else to wear while I wash it, at least, but I can’t make anything without supplies. And for that matter I need soap–”

Brúsi tilts his head. “Tha may always ask the bridge, but it works slowly. Simpler for tha to go to a market.”

You stare at him, your mouth falling open. “I can? I mean, is that allowed? I thought…”

He stares at you, the intense blue of his eyes unblinking, and you finally shrug. “I just thought I couldn’t leave the cave.”

“Not for long, but art not bound to the bridge as I am. Come.” He scoops a handful of coins into a pouch and leads you into the tunnel.

The ground slopes upward under your feet, and after a time there is a door before you, swinging outward. Brúsi ducks under its arch, his broad form filling the opening. When he doesn't move to let you through, you realize that he's blocking the way deliberately. Unease spikes through you.

"Is something wrong?"

"The bridge made tha sick before," he says. “Tha shouldst close thine eyes.” You squint suspiciously up at him–is he laughing at you?–but obey. You hear the rattle of his bone-decorated belt as he steps toward you, but then he stops. “I must touch tha,” he says. “Just to lift tha over the topside.”

“All right,” you whisper. You stifle a gasp as his enormous hands circle your waist, lifting you easily off of your feet, and then after a blur of motion you feel stone under you again.

When you open your eyes, you’re on the narrow stone arch of the bridge.  Your lantern flame becomes suddenly pale compared to the warm sunlight that makes you blink and squint. There is no dark and shadowed forest hemming in the river. Instead there is a road, smooth hard dirt fringed with wildflowers on either side, and the rooftops of a village in the distance.

“Where…” You look down at the bridge under your bare feet. 

“The bridge is all bridges,” Brúsi says. He holds out the leather bag of coins, and you take it, staggering a bit at the weight. “Buy whatever tha need.”

You hesitate, glancing from the troll to the road. What is there to stop you from walking away and never returning, from making a life somewhere? The bag in your hand holds more money than you had ever expected to earn in your life. There would be nothing to hold you to the bridge…except your promise.

“Tha canst not escape the bridge.” Brúsi seems to be reading your thoughts, although he’s not even looking at you. He’s gazing down at the water. “Every bridge tha sets foot on will be this bridge, until the toll is paid.”

“Of course.” The bag of coins drags at your arms, and you fumble it open, taking out a handful. “I should be able to get everything I need with these–it would be dangerous to carry all the rest of this.”

The troll frowns, glancing from you to the distant rooftops. “Danger from other humans?”

“Only if I seem to have more money than I should,” you assure him hastily. “It would get attention from the wrong kind of humans. I'll be careful.”

 The coins bite into your palm as your fingers clench unconsciously. The frown creases his forehead, not smoothed away by your reassurances, and you half expect him to shake his head and pick you up under his arm again, ready to toss you back under the bridge. 

“Please?”

 You bite your lip too late to keep the word in, but there are lazy curls of smoke rising from the distant chimneys, and you can hear the lowing of cattle nearby, the friendly chime of chapel bells...and all you can think about is cheese. Cheese, and fruit to pair it with, or potatos, perhaps. Honeycakes. Your stomach rebels at the very thought of dried goat.

Brúsi jerks his chin toward the road. “Go, then. The bridge will be waiting for tha to return.”

You hand off the sack of coins–your shoulders more than grateful to be relieved of its weight–and the troll adds it to the other oddments that dangle from his belt among the bones. He folds his arms.

The handful of coins you kept are barely enough to make your pocket sag with their weight, but you can feel them as a reassuring lump under your skirts. You run anxious hands over your hair and stained gown, smoothing uselessly at wrinkles. 

“I wish I had been able to bathe properly,” you mutter. “I look like a ragamuffin.”

But your hands and face are clean, your hair neatly tied back, and dusk is not far off, so perhaps your bare feet will not be noticed. You step from the cool stone of the bridge to the warm hardpacked dirt of the road. 

"I'll be back s--" Your voice breaks off as you glance over your shoulder. The bridge behind you is a simple one of wooden logs, straddling a stream that a child could leap across. Gooseflesh prickles the back of your neck. You hurry down the road towards the village without looking back a second time.

[weirdlyhornyforegos]

Illinois x reader

@sororia04s​: If youre still taking requests, how about Illinois and y/n fooling around with an aphrodisiac they got from one of their adventures? Illinois pouring it in his mouth and moving to kiss, aphrodisiac mixing between their tongues and hhhh. Only if ya want and are free :D

Don’t drink weird liquids you find on adventures my friends ;P

Sometimes, when you and Illinois go out on adventures together, the two of you would come back with things that you weren’t really sure what they were. 

This time, you had brought home some glass jars filed with some sort of pink liquid, with writing in an old language you didn’t understand on labels on the glass. You had sent out the writing to be translated to one friend, and a sample of the liquid to another friend, trying to figure out what it is.

So when the answers from them both lands in your email the same day, you eagerly open them on your phone, not even bothering to get your laptop. Skimming trough them, you slowly make your way to the living room of the apartment you have rented while waiting for the results. 

Looking up briefly to make sure you don’t walk straight into the doorway, you spot Illinois on the sofa, methodically cleaning his now disassembled gun on the coffee table, hat laying right next to all the parts.

“Hey Illinois, the results came back.”

“Oh, what do they say?” You look down on your phone to confirm what you’re about to say. 

“It seems that the label is mostly talking about sex and the need for it, they’re pretty sure it’s saying that it is some sort of aphrodisiac, and uhh...” You have to briefly pause to open your other email.

“As for the contents, it seems that there’s nothing dangerous for humans, just a bunch of seemingly random ingredients. Oh! There’s interestingly a lot of caffeine in it!” You hear a pop of a glass lid opening, and look up to see Illinois take a quick sniff of the now open jar that had previously been on the bookshelf.

“Do you think that means it’s safe human consumption?” Looking down at your phone again, you try to think

“I don’t know, I’ve only skimmed trough the email-” Suddenly you realise why Illinois asked, and you look up just in time to see Illinois take a big sip of the glass.

“Illinois!” He seems to have gathered most of what he drank in his cheeks.

“Spit that out right now!” He shakes his head, and beckons you with his hands to come closer. Narrowing your eyes, you know what he wants to do. You hold up your hand to signal for him to wait.

“Before we do anything more, I’m going to read these emails a little better, in case I need to take you to a hospital soon.” Illinois pouts, but it only takes a few minutes for you to read the emails. 

Sighing, you walk closer to him, putting your phone down on the coffee table.

“It seems that it’s safe, although they can’t tell if it will actually do anything except keeping whoever drinks it very awake. Dumbass.” You take Illinois’s face in your hands and drag him into a kiss. 

You open your mouth, and he does the same, letting the potential aphrodisiac flow into your mouth. It tastes sweeter than you thought it would, swallowing most of it down. You let your tongue explore Illinois mouth, getting some of the liquid back to him. Illinois makes a sound in the back of his throat as you pull away from the kiss.

“The taste wasn’t half bad, kinda tasted like strawberries to me. And a little minty too.” Illinois doesn’t give you a response, just breathing heavily while looking at you.

“Illinois? You okay?” He nods, and then his lips are on yours once more, his tongue coming out to stroke against your lower lip. Granting him access, you suddenly find yourself pressed against the nearest wall. You feel a lot warmer than you just had been minutes prior, and gasp as Illinois moves down to kiss at your neck.

“I think, I think it’s working.” Illinois grunts against your skin, biting down. You yelp, and pull him back by his hair. His eyes are wide, and his heavy breathing is matching yours. Licking your lips at the sight of him, his eyes immediately flies down to follow the motion, before leaning in for another deep kiss. 

Illinois grips your hips and shoves a thigh between your legs, grinding it up against you, causing you to moan into the kiss. You’re feeling hotter and more turned on by the second, moving against him.

You let your hand wander, one of them clutching at his shirt, the other goes down to press against the hard on very evident in his pants. He moans, rocking into your hand, which cause his thigh to rub against you again.

You settle into a rythm, getting messier, more frenzied and warmer as time goes on. You’re sweating under your clothes, but there is no way you’re letting go of each other to undress until you both have cum. 

You manage to unbutton Illinois’s pants and sneak your hand inside to touch him, and without warning he’s coming against you with shuddering breaths. You follow right after, his sounds and motions sending you over the edge. You’re coming hard too, both barely keeping yourself upright as you shake apart in each others arms.

When you get a little more coherent, Illinois is leaning heavily against you, resting his head on your shoulder. His thigh isn’t between your legs any more, and you’re keeping yourself up on shaking feet, mostly leaning against the wall for support.

“That was.....” You don’t know what to say.

“Intense.”

“Yeah.” You thread a hand in his hair, he hums as you ruffle his hair.

“Wanna try to stand a little better?” Illinois nods, leaning away so he’s standing mostly on his own, though his hands stays on your waist, pulling you with him so you’re standing too. You sigh, and he pulls you into a gentle kiss. You kiss back, lazily and slow. 

Illinos starts to walk backwards, taking you with him, not breaking the kiss. When he sits on the couch, he pulls you down on his lap so you’re straddling him, legs on either side of him. You can feel his cock press against you. You pull away, grinning down at him.

“Already?” Illinois returns your grin and noses at your throat. 

“Like you said, it’s working.” You can feel your own arousal building again too, so you grind down on him, causing him to groan against you skin.

“Oh yes.” You breathe out. Determined to not get your clothes more dirty, you start to take your top off, causing Illinois to lean back. 

As he sees what you’re doing, he mirrors you, putting his wonderful bare chest on display. 

You hum, letting your fingers slowly trail down his pecks and abs, stopping just right above his waistband. Leaning in close, you whisper in his ear.

“This time, I want your pants and underwear gone. So I’m going get up to take mine off, and when I sit back down again, yours better be off too.” You give a small kiss to his neck. Illinois groans as you get off him, but is quick to take everything off, so he’s completely nude on the sofa.

Settling down on his lap again, you rock your hips down on him as you kiss him, causing him to clutch at your hips.

“Lube?” You mutter between kisses.

“In my bag under, ah, the coffee table.” You see the bag, and are able to reach down and get it. Pulling it to you, you rummage around a little before finding the small bottle of lube. Raising an eyebrow at Illinois as you drop his bag down on the floor, he simply grins back.

“Never hurts to be prepared.” You huff out a laugh as he take the bottle from you, coating his fingers in lube sinking one into you with ease. Your breath hitch, and rock down on his hand. 

You drag Illinois into a kiss as he fingers you, one finger soon turning into to, and then to three. You moan into his kisses, and when you feel you’re good, you break the kissing to nip at his neck instead.

“Fuck me.”

“Gladly.” He lines himself up with you and you sink down with a moan. 

You start slow, simply rocking your hip down on him with slow movements, barely moving at first.

This doesn’t last long however, as the heat from the aphrodisiac kicks in again. His hands on your hips starts to move you, his own hips snapping up into as best as he can. 

You swallow what sounds you can with your lips on his, one hand in his hair, the other on his shoulder, urging him to keep moving, and moving, and moving. 

On a particular grind from you, he has to break away to moan. You chuckle, which transforms into a moan of your own as he bites down on your shoulder. The grip in his hair must be near painful, but he doesn’t protest as you use it to pull him up for another kiss.

You’re getting closer and closer to the edge, you think you might be going mad with how hot and wonderful you’re feeling. 

Illinois can tell, and his hand sneaks down your front, helping with your arousal. His hand feels like heaven, and so does his cock going in and out of you, and like that, you’re coming a second time, this time all over him.

Illinois groans as you tighten around him, and with a few more rolls of your hips, he’s coming too.

Both of you keep moving, fucking each other trough your orgasm, only stopping when you both become too sensitive to continue. 

You get off him and plop down on the couch right next to him, back against the armrest and feet resting against his thigh. You’re both breathing hard, and when you lock eyes, you can’t help the little laugh that escapes you. 

“That certainly had an effect.” Illinois laughs too, getting up on his knees so he can go between your legs and kiss you. The kiss starts out brief, just a press of his lips against yours, but soon deepens.

You end up going for another three rounds that night before falling asleep together in bed, utterly exhausted.

The next morning you discover that one of your scientist friends had sent you another email that simply read: 

“I think the effect of the liquid would kinda be like Viagra on steroids/amped up to a thousand, please let me know if the two of you try it ;).” You laugh and show it to Illinois, who also laughs.

In the end, after you leave your rented apartment for that week, it has a new couch and mattress, not that you’re ever going to tell anyone why.

[johaerys-writes]

To Build A Home

Fandom: Castlevania

Pairing: Trevor x Sypha

Summary: ‘Home is where the heart is’, or at least that’s what people say. Trevor has never had a home, not since it was taken from him. Always on the run, always drifting, never growing roots. And he’s used to that. Quite fine with it, really. Nobody can get close if he’s always on the go. Nobody can ruin his life. Really, he’s fine.

Until a pretty girl with a clever, knowing smile and bright, bright eyes takes him by the hand, and his life changes for good.

Warning: smut under the cut :)

Read here or on AO3!

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“Home is where the heart is”. That was how the saying went, wasn’t it?

At that moment, if Trevor had the person who had come up with that horse crap before him, he was sure he would have throttled them. He couldn’t help his scowl while he watched the horses’ heads bobbing as they walked, pulling the carriage forward, and listened to the soft clop of their hooves on the old dirt road. One month he and Sypha had been on the road, one entire month - and at times it felt to him like an eternity. Others, like the blink of an eye. His back hurt from the bite of the hard wooden floor of the carriage he and Sypha had come to call home. His head ached, and his throat felt parched, and he would have gladly sold Morningstar, and any other precious family heirloom he owned besides, for a mug of ale, were there any blasted inns about. Yet, there weren’t. Only woods and dirt roads filled with deep ditches that made the wheels of the carriage snag. Oh, and night creatures. Can’t forget the night creatures. Troublesome bastards.

The previous night a bunch of them had attacked them, when they had least expected it. That in and of itself was unusual - Trevor always took care to set up snares and his traps just right before they went to sleep, and Sypha’s protective wards were not easily broken. How the creatures had managed to slither past them, he could scarcely understand, and that lack of understanding had almost been his undoing. He had woken up to low growls and the acrid stench of their breaths as they surrounded them, and it had taken Trevor three seconds before lunging to his feet to grab Morningstar and his sword. Three entire seconds. When fighting these creatures, a single second can mean life or death, and Trevor and Sypha had come dangerously close to that. They had managed to fend them off, but not before they had destroyed their last reserves of food and tore at their blankets and the canvas of the carriage in their frenzy to get to them. So crazed were they, Trevor was surprised that their horses had made it out alive.

Well. That was something to be grateful for, he supposed?

He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, letting out a soft sigh. It wasn’t easy being on the road during those times. The road had always been his home - if it could ever be called that. He never liked it too much, and he never thought his mind would change.

A soft clatter echoed from the depths of the carriage as Sypha made her way to the front. Her lids were still heavy from sleep, the imprint of the pillow upon her cheek. “Why are you huffing and puffing?” she mumbled groggily, sitting beside him.

Trevor shot her a sidelong glance, biting his lip. “Wasn’t me.” He nodded towards the horses. “Ask them. They seem to be in a mood today.”

Sypha arched an eyebrow at him. “The horses. Right.” Trevor returned her knowing look with a frown, and Sypha chuckled. She plucked his cloak from her shoulders and placed it around him. “Perhaps that’ll lift your spirits, grumpy man,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek.

Trevor flushed, glancing at the cloak. “Are you sure you don’t need it? It’s quite chilly.”

“I’m alright. It’s good for a blanket, but my own cloak will do just fine now. I am made of sterner stuff, you know,” she said with a wink.

Trevor huffed a laugh, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “I know.”

They stayed silent for a long while as they watched the road before them twist and stretch languidly, like a snake. With his cheek resting on Sypha’s head and the soft rocking of the carriage, Trevor could feel himself drifting into sleep, when Sypha shook him awake.

“Trevor, look!”

He jolted where he sat, hand reaching for the sword hanging by his belt. “What? What?”

“A house!”

Trevor blinked at her in confusion, then turned to follow her gaze. The top of a large house, or rather a mansion, was peeking through the thick foliage. It looked abandoned, as most houses in that area were. Perhaps an old country home of some high lord that had been left to rot after the countryside was all but claimed by the creatures of the dark.

“We could go in and explore!” Sypha said excitedly. “We could find food there. Or at least some decent blankets. Not that I don’t appreciate your cloak, of course. But I would prefer something that smells a little less like a dog that has been dragged through the mud and dipped in stale beer.”

Trevor rolled his eyes and groaned, pulling the horses’ reins towards the overgrown path that led to the house. “You say that, yet you’re the one that hoards it to yourself and leaves me shivering in the night. Not only that, you also rub your feet on me when you sleep. Cold feet. Cold.” He shuddered dramatically at the word.

“What am I supposed to do? It’s freezing!”

“I swear, next time I’ll leave you and go sleep with the horses.”

“Well. We can’t have that, can we?” She slithered close to him, playfully tracing his ear with her finger. Trevor leaned into her touch, despite his irritation. She flashed him a bright smile. “Then you’ll be stinking of both dogs and horses.”

“Bloody Jesus, Mary and Joseph, woman-”

Sypha laughed, cupping his cheeks and cutting him short with a kiss. Trevor smiled, entirely forgetting what he had even been about to say. Her lips were soft, so soft, her tongue sweet, and the chuckle that bubbled from deep within her to crash against his lips sweeter still. Sypha edged back, grinning at him as she hopped off the carriage just as the horses stopped at the entrance of the house. She half-ran to the tall house’s gilded entrance, giddy like a little girl.

“Come on, then! What are you waiting for?”

Trevor huffed quietly under his breath, making sure Morningstar and his sword were safely hanging from his belt. One never knew what they may encounter in a building that looked like it hadn’t seen human presence in months, perhaps even years. There were birds’ nests along its roof, a thick carpet of fallen leaves on the marble staircase leading to the entrance. Half the windows were barred, while others hung open like gaping maws, shards of broken glass still clinging to their skeletal frames. That definitely did not look like it had happened by chance. His hand flew instinctively to his sword hilt as he moved on.

He let out a soft sigh. When had he become the one to watch out for danger while Sypha ran carelessly ahead?

Trevor stepped inside the mansion, glancing cautiously about him as he walked. A strawberry blonde head peeked from one of the many doors, a wide smile crossing a flushed face. “There’s no one here,” Sypha informed him. “But there’s a kitchen! And a cellar.” She ducked back inside the room, calling to him from beyond the door. “Whoever finds the most food wins!”

“Wins what?” Trevor said, his interest piqued. He might just be able to find some ale in that place. Perhaps fortune had finally smiled on him. He quickened his pace, walking through the door- only to see Sypha standing in the middle of a plundered kitchen, holding up what looked like a bag of dried peas and a jar of pickled cabbage. So much for hoping for some ale in that place.

“Winner takes all,” she said, winking at him.

Trevor grunted as he opened a cupboard, its hinges whining as it moved. “You can keep them. I’d much rather have-” he reached for the solitary jar on the shelf, squinting at its contents, “- canned pork sausage.”

Sypha made a disgusted face, turning away. “That looks like it’s been sitting there for years. I wouldn’t want it anywhere near me.”

“Good! All the more for me then,” Trevor said. “Who knows? It might actually put me out of my misery.” He gave a small start when a pea landed on his head, then another. “Sypha-” he started, when another one found him on the forehead. Sypha giggled, pelting him with peas while he circled the table to get to her. She cried out in laughter when he snatched her by her waist. He was irresistibly drawn to the look in her eyes, the bright sound of her laugh. The bag of peas fell on the floor with a muffled thud as Sypha let it go to smooth her palms along his shoulders. She kissed him gently, fingers threading in his hair.

“You are not eating those pork sausages,” she said with a mock stern frown. “A poor lover I would be if I let you meet your ultimate demise by gobbling down spoiled meat.”

Her words sent a rush of exhilaration through him. He tightened his hold around her, his hand tracing the curve of her slender waist. “My lover, are you?”

“Mm-hmm. And more besides.”

“Like what?” He pushed her gently back against the counter, nipping at her bottom lip. “Care to show me?”

“Oh, yes.” With a small wink she wriggled out of his grasp, walking towards the door. “But after we finish exploring this place. Don’t forget - we have a bet going on, you and I.”

Trevor groaned and rolled his eyes, yet he still followed her. He followed her, because to not was unthinkable.

The upper floors of the mansion were in a similar state as the kitchen; dusty, dark and thoroughly plundered. Whoever had been there last had taken great care to leave only debris and utter rubbish in their wake. Furniture, cushions, sheets, blankets, carpets had all been taken away. Not even the curtains had been left on their rods, most of them either gone or shredded to bits. No wonder no one ever came back to claim this place. It was a midden heap, a hollow remnant of its illustrious past.

“What’s that?” Sypha asked, snapping him out of his thorough examination of a broken porcelain vase. He followed her gaze until it led him to a door on the upper floor, that seemed to have been ignored by the looters. She walked to it without hesitation, carefully examining the door. “The lock looks sturdy. It doesn’t seem like any of the looters have been able to get through. I wonder what’s behind there.”

“We’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

She brought her fingers before her face, speaking in a low voice. The air around her fingertips shimmered until the lock exploded with a loud crack. She shot him a wicked smile before walking in. “I suppose we will.”

They took a few careful steps forward, eyes wide as they took in the space around them. It was a spacious room, with tall windows that let in the bright sunlight. The floor was lined with a thick red carpet, a floor to ceiling library covering the far wall. The furniture there was all untouched, unspoiled; a small sofa, an armchair and a low coffee table in front of the fireplace, a wide bed with a heavy velvet canopy, two ornate bedside tables, a gilded liquor cabinet close to one of the windows.

A liquor cabinet.

Trevor didn’t think he had covered the distance in a room as quickly as he had then. He half-ran to it, opening it wide to peer at its contents. Several bottles of wine, whisky and brandy, a crystal decanter, sets of glasses, all carefully arranged. He snatched one bottle of whisky and deftly uncorked it, sniffing at the liquid inside. It wasn’t ale, of course, but it was strong and aromatic, the undertones of rye and smoke reaching his nostrils. He tipped the bottle over his lips, taking a long draught, and sighed in pleasure. May the Lord be praised to the fucking heavens.

Sypha had drifted to the far side of the room where the library was, eyes wide in excitement. The way she picked books and opened them, smiling and muttering to herself, she really looked like a kid in a candy store.

“Find anything you like there?”

Her gaze snapped to him, blue and impossibly bright, like the morning sky on a midsummer day. “Trevor, this is amazing. Truly amazing. Look at all these books!” she exclaimed, sweeping her arm over them. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books gathered in one place. There are hundreds. Thousands. Millions!”

Trevor huffed a laugh, drawing closer to her. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

“It’s wonderful,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Think of all that knowledge, just waiting for someone to acquire it. This is, this is… fascinating. No wonder it was held under lock and key.”

Trevor walked to one of the shelves, drawing out a leather bound book and glancing at its title. “Uh-huh. Because everyone within miles would be clamoring to get their hands on the Life of St. Simeon by Archbishop Sava. Oh, look, it even has lithographies of the holy relic! Priceless.” He yelped when Sypha smacked him playfully on the arm with a book. “Are you going to hit me with every single item in this house?”

“What a great idea! I think I might.” Sypha shook her head and grinned, putting the book back in its place. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Alright, I concede. This place isn’t too shabby. And the library is a nice touch, I’ll give you that.” Trevor leaned against the shelf, watching as her fingertips brushed over the books’ spines with so much care and tenderness. She looked so enthralled, that Trevor couldn’t help the smile that blossomed on his face. “Have you ever thought of having a home?”

“A home?” Sypha’s brows were drawn in a curious frown when she looked at him. “As is, an actual home? Of bricks and stones?”

“As homes tend to be.”

“A home…” She let her words trail off, glancing about her. “I’ve never had one. My clan was my home. They were the only safety I knew, and I never sought more. I don’t think it ever crossed my mind.”

“How about now?” Trevor said, moving a step closer.

“I’m not sure… I have to admit that sleeping in a bed is much better than sleeping outside. Or in a carriage. And I suppose it’s nice, having your own space. Your own four walls. But then again… You’re inside four walls. Must be somewhat suffocating. Don’t you agree?”

“You can get out of those walls whenever you want.” He snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her close. He leaned down, burying his face in her neck. “Think of all the books you could have there,” he whispered against her skin.

“Now, that’s an idea I can get behind.” Sypha hummed, letting herself be trapped between the library and Trevor’s body. “What about you? Would you like to have a home?”

Trevor paused for a moment to think, tilting his head up as Sypha placed kisses along the underside of his jaw. “I suppose it would be nice. It would be good to bathe in a tub for once instead of in streams. Or in the barrels they have in most inns these days. Who thought it a good idea to use a barrel for a tub? Half the water gets splashed out.”

Sypha chuckled, smoothing her palms up his arms. “That’s because the barrels are too small for you. And because you always shake your head about and get water everywhere. Like a hound.”

“A hound, am I?” She squealed when Trevor lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. “You seem to have a lot of opinions about me.”

“Oh, I am chock full of opinions about you, Trevor Belmont,” she murmured against his lips as he carried her to the bed.

Trevor laughed softly, letting her down at the edge of the bed and kneeling on the floor before her. A flame sparked in his chest at the sudden flush that had crept up Sypha’s cheeks. “Care to tell me what those are?” he whispered, his palm slithering under her robes, smoothing up her legs.

A shiver ran through her, making her cheeky smile quiver just a hair. “Are you sure you want to hear them?” she said, quirking a brow.

“Oh, I’m absolutely sure.” Trevor pushed the fabric of her robes out of the way, placing kisses along the inside of her thigh. She moaned softly when he ran his lips over her smallclothes, already damp with her arousal. “Well?”

Long, delicate fingers threaded through his hair as he pulled her smallclothes down and tossed them away. “You’re so, so stubborn,” she said, swallowing thickly. “And grumpy. And you snore when you sleep. And you always complain about not having beer. And… oh-” her sentence was cut short when Trevor dipped his tongue in her wetness. Her hold on his hair tightened as her hips bucked towards him. “Oh, Trevor.”

Trevor flicked his tongue over the small bud between her legs, hidden in the soft thatch of coppery blonde curls. Her breathy moans, the smooth, rolling movement of her hips, the taste, fuck, the taste of her - they set his blood to boiling, making a wave of desire rush through him. He lapped at her eagerly, watching as she flushed and blossomed like a rose under his ministrations. She was wonderful and exquisite, and he wanted her more than he could bear.

He smoothed a finger over her entrance, relishing her gasp when he pushed it gently inside her. “Any more opinions you’d like to share?” he whispered teasingly, brushing the flat of his tongue along her cleft.

“Trevor, oh, Trevor-” she gasped, her hips rising up to meet his mouth. A small whine left her lips before she could bite it back. “You’re a wicked, wicked man.”

Trevor chuckled softly, easing another finger inside her. Sypha moaned, rocking against him, driving his fingers deeper. Driving them. She was exquisite, wanton and wanting, flushed lips parting as she breathed. Trevor’s hold tightened on her hips, fingers digging in the flesh of her thigh as he licked her greedily, gathering her sweetness with his tongue. It wasn’t long before he felt her muscles tightening around his fingers, her breaths becoming more erratic as she spasmed under his mouth.

He leaned back when he felt the waves of her orgasm abating, lips curling in a cheeky smile. “I think your impression of me has just improved.”

Sypha laughed, cupping his neck and drawing him to her. She caught his lips in a kiss, sighing when she tasted herself on his tongue. Her fingers smoothed over the buttons of his doublet, working them free. “Oh, just stop talking,” she chuckled softly. “Stop talking and take me now.”

It wasn’t like Trevor needed any further encouragement. He pulled his doublet off him and tugged his undershirt over his head while Sypha worked his belt open. They tossed their clothes over the side of the bed hurriedly, as if neither of them could stand the feel of clothes between them. Trevor was so hard he thought he would weep by the time his trousers were chucked away and he finally -finally- pulled Sypha’s robes over her head. And stared upon her nakedness. And the fire that had pooled in his belly roared and blazed.

He leaned down, between her open legs, kissing a line from her navel to her bellybutton, to the soft dip under her ribcage. Sypha sighed when he closed his teeth over a raised nipple, her palms smoothing down his neck and feeling the muscles of his back. Trevor shivered with her touch, with her rich, womanly scent, with the taste and feel of her. Pale skin, soft like velvet, her strawberry blonde strands catching in his lips when he surged up to kiss her neck, her jaw, her ear. Sweet and sharp, peaches and cream on his tongue. Intoxicating.

Trevor threw his head back when her slender fingers wrapped around his cock, pumping him slowly. “Sypha…” he groaned, thrusting helplessly in her hand.

Sypha kissed him deeply, her tongue tracing the contours of his mouth. “I want you,” she moaned. “I want you so much.”

The breathiness in her voice, the lust in her eyes, that rosy flush that brightened her cheeks; they were too much for him to bear. He angled himself at her entrance, chest heaving with his breaths as he pushed inside her. Fuck, it was good. It was unbearably, infuriatingly good. His eyes rolled back when he was enveloped in that wet, velvet heat, Sypha’s body drawing him in, fitting perfectly with his. If Trevor had ever said that beer was better than sex, he was surely the biggest fool in Wallachia and beyond.

Sypha’s arms ran down his back, fingers digging in his flesh, pulling him close. Her hips rolled in time with his, meeting him thrust for thrust. He pushed against her, deeply, eagerly, losing himself more and more in that excruciating pleasure that warmed his entire body to its core.

“Oh, Trevor,” Sypha gasped when his palm smoothed over her breast. He brushed his thumb over her nipple, closing his teeth over her bottom lip, drinking in her moans and her panting breaths. “Trevor- this is so- you’re so- oh, you feel so good, you’re so hard, oh, Trevor, please-”

Garbled words and half sentences rushed forth from her lips, making Trevor’s head swim. Sypha called out his name again and again, while her hands explored every inch of his body. Trevor was never overly fond of his name, yet now, now, spoken in her breathless voice, murmured against his skin, mumbled against his lips, like a plea, like a benediction- it made things to him that his own name shouldn’t possibly be doing.

He hooked an arm under her leg, bringing it over his shoulder, burrowing as much of his cock as he could inside her. Sypha’s head fell back against her pillow as she cried, bracing against the head of the bed. “Fuck! Oh, fuck, Trevor, ah-” she bit her lip, looking up at him, her brows drawing together in her lust. “Fuck me, Trevor, please, oh this is so good- your cock is so good- you’re amazing- fuck me harder, please- please-”

She was panting, swearing and begging him in equal amounts as Trevor pushed against her. He didn’t think he had ever heard anything as pleasant coming from her, but then again, at that moment, even if she had been reciting the Book of Psalms to him it would have probably made him lose his mind just the same. A white hot blaze of want ripped through him when she pulled his face down to hers, her tongue twining with his.

“Come for me, you beautiful hunk of a man,” she rasped against his lips. “Come for me. I want to feel you coming inside me.”

Trevor was sure he saw stars for a moment when he felt her muscles tightening around him once more. He slammed into her as deeply as he could, watching as he back arched like a drawn bow, as she cried out his name, as tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. He thrust hard and fast, letting the waves of lust rush through him until all his pent up want burst into something hot and blinding. His body flexed as he pushed shallowly a few times, pouring everything he had inside her. And then collapsed in the cradle of her arms, sweating and heaving like he had just fought an army of beasts.

Sypha sighed, running her palms down his back, tracing the sweat that had gathered in the channel of his spine. She followed that line, her palms smoothing over the curve of his spine, then over his buttocks. And gave them a little squeeze. And grinned at him. “I have some opinions I haven’t shared yet. They concern a very particular part of your anatomy. Want to hear them?”

Trevor chuckled weakly, swatting her hand away as he rolled on his back. All the tension from the previous days had eased out of his limbs, whose consistency was now dangerously close to that of jelly. He hummed in pleasure when Sypha slithered close to him, her fingers tracing the scars on his sides.

“You know,” she said, giving him a cheeky smile, “perhaps I spoke a little too soon before. I think it would be nice to have a home. If only so I could make love to you on a bed like this every night.”

“Is that right?” Trevor wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “I wouldn’t mind that either. Especially the ‘making love’ part.”

Sypha smiled and buried her face in his neck, shivering slightly. “It’s cold here.”

Trevor looked at the blanket that was folded at the edge of the bed. It looked like it had been there for ages. “Well,” he mused, “we can either cover ourselves with a very dusty blanket, or with my cloak. You choose.”

Sypha groaned. “Not your stinky cloak again!”

“Dusty blanket it is, then,” Trevor chuckled, sitting up to get the blanket when Sypha pulled him back on the mattress. She purred softly as she pressed her body against his, nuzzling his chest.

“I have everything I need right here.”

The tenderness in her touch, the affection in her words, it made Trevor’s heart swell. He hugged her tightly and pressed his lips on her hair, inhaling deeply. “I love you,” he whispered. She leaned back to look at him, her too bright eyes sparkling. He traced his knuckle down her cheek, smiling at her. “I really do.”

“I love you, too.” She kissed him gently, cupping his cheek. When her gaze met his again, Trevor thought he would melt. “I don’t need a fancy house made of bricks and stone, or a comfortable bed,” she said. “Not when I have you.”

Trevor gazed at her then, committing the map of her features to memory, locking away that moment forever in his mind. The arch of her brows, the line of her nose, the spark in her smiling eyes, the quirk of her full lips. The sunlight streaming through the windows, painting the side of her face gold. The dust motes suspended in the air. The sound of their heartbeats.

“They say that home is where the heart is,” he whispered, so softly it was more breath than sound. “You’re my home, Sypha.”

Sypha let out a sigh, her breath washing over him when her lips glided over his in a gentle kiss once more. She pressed her cheek on his chest, settling against him. Trevor wrapped his arms around her, letting her warmth seep through him.

“This is nice,” she said softly.

“It is,” Trevor replied, closing his eyes. “Beds are nice. Think you could get one? Now that you’re my home and all.”

Sypha snorted. “No, I won’t. It’s the wooden floor of the carriage for you.”

“Should have seen that coming,” Trevor sighed. “Could you at least get socks, then? You’re going to freeze me to death with your feet one these days. Really, they’re just- ooow,” he yelped when Sypha pinched him on his sides.

“Stop talking, Belmont.”

[willrenwrites]

Hello all! So, I write a writing blog. I post on it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today is Wednesday, which means I made a post that involved prompt-based piece I wrote for an event in my writing discord!  I thought it’d be nice to share it here as well, but you can find the original post here!

Please, check it out if you can!

When Marina was a young girl, she would always spend the evenings in her great aunt’s mansion, placed high up in the mountains. She loved the spiraling hallways and the endless amount of rooms that littered the estate, but as she grew older she came less and less, until her memories of the place all but disappeared.

It had been nearly twelve years since Marina had seen or heard from her great aunt, when, at the age of 21, she received a rather distressing call. Auntie Elena had passed away, and with no other living relatives left, Marina was the one who gained all of her aunt’s property.

After a grand funeral, a lot of paperwork, and many tears, Marina found herself back inside of the manor for the first time in thirteen years--she’d kept in contact with Auntie Elena for a year after she stopped visiting--with a suitcase by her side. It was certainly a step up from her tiny studio apartment, she thought. 

The manor was just as she remembered it. Shiny hardwood floors, tall, arching ceilings, and walls painted in varying pastel shades. The parlor was as lush as it always was--overstuffed couches that still, after all these years, felt like a cloud when she plopped herself onto one. She left the room, dragging her suitcase along with her, and went into the kitchen. It was spotless, the marble countertops seemed to shine when she flipped the lights on and even the floor seemed freshly waxed. The fridge, when she opened it, was empty and she pulled out her phone to set a reminder to travel to town to pick up groceries.

A folded piece of paper fell to the ground when she pulled her phone from her pocket. She’d almost forgotten about the set of instructions that had been handed to her when the will was read. She had yet to open it. Seeing her aunt’s handwriting would be too much for her, she thought.

Taking its reappearance as a sign, she sat at the kitchen island and held it in her hands. The paper was soft, and well worn. Her fingers shook ever so slightly as she unfolded the paper. At the first hint of her aunt’s cursive, tears burned in her eyes and she blinked them away.

               My dear Marina,

    It has been so long since I saw your lovely face. I miss you terribly, it’s been such a boring life here without my little artist roaming around the house, painting the walls and whatever else she could reach with her brushes. I never could convince myself to paint over your creations. Looking at them brings me joy.      If you’re reading this little note, then it’s safe to assume that I’ve passed. This house is yours now, along with everything in it. I hope that you still remember your way around, and that you love it here as much as I did.     There is something about this place that I never told you.  There’s something that you’re going to have to do while living here. I assure you, it’s nothing terrible. It’s just a weekly commitment. At midnight on the first Monday that you’re here, go out to the fountain in the back garden--not the one in the front garden, it must be the back one-- and make sure that you have a pitcher of iced tea. Please, make sure that it’s freshly made.      What you need to do will become clear soon after that, I promise.                     I love you so very much, my little artist. I hope that you continue to create with as much passion and vigor as you did back then. This is your home now, enjoy it as you wish.

                                                                                 All of my love,                                                                                                              Auntie El

Tears dampened the paper and Marina’s cheeks. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her sweater and dropped the paper onto the marble. With her tears cleaned away, she stared down at the paper, her brows furrowed. Her left elbow was propped on the table and she rested her head in her palm, threading her fingers through her hair as she looked at the instructions. It was Monday. Was she supposed to do this tonight? What was Auntie Elena even talking about? 

Marina assumed it was either a joke or a sign that her aunt had slowly been losing her grip on reality. However, with nothing better to do, and seeing as it was her aunt’s last wish, Marina stood up and began to shuffle around the kitchen, checking cabinets and drawers until she found what she needed. A pot, a pitcher, and a glass jar of tea leaves later, Marina stood in front of the stove, heating water and stirring in the leaves. Once brewed well enough, or what she assumed was well enough, she strained the leaves and put it into the container, dumping a generous amount of sugar into the liquid. She left it on the counter to cool down for nearly an hour--during which she explored more of the house, found her old drawings on the wall, and cried a bit more--before putting the pitcher into the fridge to wait until midnight.

She kept herself busy for the seven hours that she had to wait. Tidying, unpacking, making a grocery list, and walking through the front garden. Throughout it all, her hands, when not busy, stayed wrapped around herself. The silence in the house was almost overbearing. She’d have to invest in a CD player.

When midnight rolled around, and her eyelids and limbs were heavy, she pulled the iced tea from the fridge and walked into the back garden. The fountain was as big and as beautiful as she remembered. Carved from marble and depicting two women with flowing hair locked in an embrace, water still streamed from their hair. Marina sat on the edge of the fountain with the pitched of tea beside her. She kept an eye on the time, checking her phone every few seconds. Her hands changed positions every few moments--sometimes clasped together, resting in her lap, sometimes shoved into her pockets. 

The feeling of the earth shaking beneath her sent her heart into her throat and she scrambled forward, falling onto her knees. Her breathing was shallow and her eyes wide when she looked at the fountain. The statue in the center split in half and opened wide, revealing a set of stairs that trailed down into the darkness. She could hear the faint click of heels approaching and sat up, her hands balled into fists. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palms.

A woman slowly appeared. She had crimson red skin and long, flowing black hair that trailed on the ground behind her. A black, ripped dress hung from her frame and her eyes were completely black. Even terrified beyond belief, Marina couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the woman was. She watched in silent, awed horror as the woman--demon?--picked up the pitcher of iced tea and took a long sip of it. Her face screwed up in disgust for a moment and she delicately put it down, wiping her mouth.

“Elena’s little artist, are you?” her voice was deep and as beautiful as she was. 

Marina could only manage a nod and a choked out, “yes.”

“Then come. You and I have much to talk about.” The demon stepped from the fountain and held a hand out to Marina. “And, I do believe I’m going to need to teach you how to properly make iced tea.”

[thesweetblossoms]

Twelve Ways To Stop Fretting

🌴I often fret ceaselessly and needlessly about the future, rethinking unhelpful habitual thoughts, grappling with the same issues, and squandering valuable time and mind space in activities that not only do not provide any peace, but tend to agitate and deepen stresses and anxieties. Of course, the concerns range from the casual, such as what to wear to a new job, to the more existential, about whether I am fulfilling my potential and progressing incrementally, towards my layered dreams with my slow simmering efforts; recently, I have been worried about whether I would be able to devote sufficient time to my businesses, if I am also working long hours as a staff attorney at a law firm. Thus, here are a few ideas about how to approach a change, to confront an uncertain future, to duel with hastening hours, and to forestall the rough blades of doubt.

1)New Experiences: Because we cannot foretell the future, we dwell in a realm of possibilities, chances and surprises, thus one way to eliminate unwelcome worries is to be open to the unknown and to appreciate the unfolding, being aware of the nuances that may bring us moments of illumination, such as discovering a new route with prickly pair cacti, dropping date palms and cloud scaling desert willow trees, or the joy that comes with the opportunity to frequent a charming coffee shop with a decadent chocolate croissant, or even the task of choosing a daily attire, to boost feelings of wellness and comfort of a job outside of home.

2)Novel Insights: Be vivacious whenever you feel uncertain, rather than forlorn, because it is through the unknown that we are given clear sight into the wheels churning, the planets tilting, the new poppy seeds unfurling and how our own lives are steadily moving on a course that surges recklessly, between shoals of contentment and abstract rocks of chaos, because, between every awakening and every nights final snubbing of the candlelight, reveals more about the music of family, the valuable gift of lyrical leisure hours and the blue sky moments of heady enlightenment. For it is only through upheaval, changes to routines, modifications or habits and reframing of customs that we come closer to the truth.

3)Relationships: We shouldn’t hesitate to confront the new opportunities and experiences that befall us, because these are often accompanied by novel and intriguing encounters as well as chances to meet new people and develop friendships. For when we are taking a risk, changing course, or experimenting with altered methods of conducting our lives, we float into a stream swimming with potential new memories, possible friendships, and a mine of inspiration from meeting and conversing with different minds, personalities and temperaments. For when we don’t know what the future brings us, we often fill up the space with the worst imaginings and the direst outcomes, but rather then fret, we should contemplate the magical elements of not knowing who will cross our path, how they might change an aspect of our lives, or a way of thinking, or how they may improve our experience of reality.

4)Adaptability: Many of us worry, because we hate to be jarred from routine, from our well honed habits and the peace that arises from a steady and contented ritual that eases us through the seasons. Yet, by worrying we are inhibiting the adventurous spirit and the courageous instincts that we also possess in equal quantities. Thus, instead of doubting the unknown, we should utilize its cryptic nature by enhancing and polishing our ability to adapt. By taking a moment, to think and strategize about how we may grow through periods of discomfort or annoyance, of how we may challenge our behaviors and deep seated fears, we may move towards better incarnations of ourselves. We may adapt in small or new ways, perhaps continue highlighting a personality trait such as gregariousness, while tempering an inclination to be less private, or to overcome a fear of driving in town, or a phobia of transversing great distances too far off lands. Each day we might attempt to scale the barriers, by channeling our best tools, our most potent skills and our latent talents, and incrementally alter ourselves.

5)Positive Thinking: A light hand creates the most beautiful paintings, the same principle may apply, such that, the lightest thinking creates the most beautiful reality. Thus in all our rumination, our puzzlements, or bewildering half dreams, our misty morning meditations, we should err on the side or positivity, by perceiving every element in the best light. We can continue this positive trend and encourage it to seep, like dew on blossoming lilac bushes, into every element of our story by having confidence in yourself and the universe as well as an unmitigated curiosity about the unfolding of events. For any situation, after its initial explosive or even subtle entry, may provide us with emotions, answers, thoughts, inspirations and ways of thinking that we have previously not accessed or been aware of, that may reveal tentative secrets about the world around us and that could help us string together a narrative of events that makes sense only with the alchemical element of time, or it could even ensure that we act the most beneficial way to unsure favorable and happy outcomes.

6)Analyzing The Situation: A creative way to address your worries, anxieties, sadness, regret, ennui or melancholy is to create your memoir, either in your mind, or by writing, creating videos, photography and art, for each is a token of the moment that assists us in comprehending situations within the passage of time, as even the most troubling elements, often carry detectable nuances, as when we read memoirs, and notice how certain events or choices shape and alter the course of a persons life. By thinking about the future in a certain, knowing way, almost taking for granted that you will age and write your memories down, you may practice the art of hindsight even in the present moment. My favorite part of reading autobiographies, is the countless renditions of writers rising about harrowing circumstances, cruel cultural constructs or the pervasive evil of human nature, to reveal the ultimate victory of light, truth and courage. Thus, a certain degree of detachment and the steadfast employment of the power of multiple perspectives, helps us to react to events in a way that ameliorates its most haunting effects.

7)Nothing Lasts: If we remember the heartbreaking, temporary nature of life, even when we are sad, we realize how futile it is to waste even a quarter hour of the day in unhappiness. The universe is in constant flux, with the fall trees turning shades of copper, crimson and aubergine, with the chill setting into to the once balmy clouds, with candles lit and spluttering out, with the years passing steadily as a lighthouse on a thunderstruck, isolated island, with reunions coming and going, with milestones won and lost. So let go of the current distresses, for it will, also unequivocally pass away.

8)Experiment/Discover: There is so much to reality that is yet to be understood, for their has been no cure for pain, just as there has never been a thorough theory of love. So what if we could explore any situation as a momentous chance to gain jewel like insights into the mechanisms that abound around us, perhaps, contemplate the wonder of how our intuition already knows before a loved one rings, of why some trees have lived for centuries yet they have never swam in the sea, or of why candlelight, music and dancing, rinses away even the most stubborn stains imprinted into the threads of our hearts, or of why we never know ourselves no matter how much we search, or of why beautiful poetry can reduce us to tears. We should make use of champagne, or gardening, or an art as a portal to channel bliss, to see what elements align with how we hope things will turn out, realizing that maybe thinking about it in a particular, incanted light, is a secret charm, a tonic to clear away cloudy windows that reveals what we need may already be in our presence or in our repertoire. Use the worrisome aspect to discover new ways to deal with issues, unravel expedient methods to handle onerous tasks, or unveil how to manage time in a way that deliberately moves us nearer to the nebulous realms of our most coveted desires.

10)Focus On Rewards: Rather than fretting, we should focus on the future where the results of our actions manifest themselves in the clearest light. Whether in business, where long hours of effort, planning and diligence may create value for others, and later, provide revenue, or at a job, where after completing assigned tasks you are able to also share your skills and talents with the larger community for an income, or by writing or creating art that helps to ease the stubborn wounds of pilfering time, or by planting a garden with prolific wild poppies, zinnias and marigolds, it is only with patience and diligence, that we are granted the initial blooms and the first fragrance of success.

9)Gratitude: Even if initially it seems that hindrances and detours seamlessly appear whenever we move towards a certain vision, instead of lingering on the unsavory elements that rob us of our mind space, time and energy, we should tabulate our blessings, for they are just as plentiful and almost as ubiquitous, landing softly into the newly inked lines of our story, like a butterfly on a luscious frangipani blossom. By being grateful, we dwell in the space of opportunities, of pragmatism, of hacking time and energy, of doing what is needed to take us to the next step, for often, it is through change and upheaval of routines that we enter a chamber of new possibilities and happy chances.

11) Dance: Whenever you fret, do something active, take a walk, yoga, dance, work out, get up to look at the stars, or water a plant, by moving away, even an inch from our coordinates upon earth, we are also creating distance from a negative thought. I also have a theory that it is impossible to worry and dance at the same time.

12) Focus On Wellness: When we feel overcome with dread, or lapse into the eerie corridors of anxiety, we should refuel our quest for wellness. It is often challenging when we are stressed to think about our bodies and minds and to give it the priority it needs to help us through the most tiresome situations, yet, by drinking plenty of water, by making sure you sleep as much as possible, by meditating, eating healthy fresh fruits, seeds, nuts, vegetables and grains, by taking time for a facial, massages, skincare and working out, we are primed to confront whatever the next day may bring. 🐝

[swans-and-pirates]

The Art of Remembering (11/?)

Summary:  Killian hasn’t seen Emma in months, not since she ran off in the middle of the night. But when he receives a call from the hospital informing him that she’s been in an accident he rushes to be by her side. Nervous and anxious to see her again he’s not sure what to expect—but he definitely doesn’t anticipate that upon waking she would have no idea who he is. Modern au

Rating: T

Also on: ff.net, ao3

Catch up: first chapter, previous chapter

a/n: Reminder that full italic sections are memories, also know that not every memory is going to be addressed/acknowledged by Emma in present time. But know that they are things she's remembering and is therefore directly affected what she's thinking, how she's feeling, her decisions, who she is in general etc. As always thank you so much for reading! I love hearing what you think!

“This is silly,” Emma laughs as she walks backwards. Killian stands in front of her, his hands on her shoulders as he leads her through some nonexistent forest path. He’d been excited about this surprise all day, which is why she’d eagerly played along when he asked her to turn around. “Why can’t I just close my eyes?”

“Because you’ll peek,” he smirks, his eyes alight with playfulness.

Emma’s mouth drops open as she pretends to be affronted. “I will not!”

Killian’s eyebrow arches high as if to say he knows better, and she rolls her eyes a little, loving every second of this little game of theirs. “Fine…I might. But what about a blindfold? That’s got to be easier than what we’re doing now.”

Killian shakes his head chuckling. “You’d find a way to look.”

“You just think doing it this way is more amusing.”

He smirks again. “Perhaps.”

Emma huffs just as she loses her footing on a free branch. She stumbles a little, and instinctively looks back to try and catch herself. But Killian tightens his grip on her and holds her upright.

“No looking,” Killian chastises teasingly and Emma whips her head back to look at him.

“I was falling!”

“Such little faith in me,” Killian says with a shake of his head. “As if I would ever let you fall.”

Emma laughs happily, reaching up to brush a bit of his hair back. She loves when he gets like this, loves how playful he gets every time he’s trying to surprise her.

“You’re ridiculous sometimes.” Her tone is filled with nothing but affection, and its mirrored back in the way his eyes soften and his lips tip up in a gentle smile.

“I know,” he hums as he leans forward and brushes his nose against hers. Emma can’t help but sigh, her eyes closing as he presses a quick kiss to her lips.

He lingers with his forehead pressed to hers for a second longer before he straightens his spine and clears his throat. He tries to give her a serious look but all it does is make Emma bite her lip as she tries to keep from giggling again.

“Now, no more looking, Swan. You’ll ruin the surprise.”  

She can’t help the grin that spreads across her face. “Kiss me again and I promise not to look.”

Killian more than happily obliges, leaning into her and capturing her lips with his. Emma hums and rises up on her toes, pressing further into him and deepening the kiss.

She falls back on her heels with a content hum and opens her eyes to find him staring down at her with bright eyes and wind tousled hair—and oh, how this man can do things to her heart.

It’s unfair really, considering all he’s doing is guiding her down some unknown forest path.

They’d driven a little over an hour out of the city to spend the late afternoon hiking. The drive had almost been as nice as the hike. But nothing could beat the expanse of lush green trees around them, or the brisk air against their cheeks. And the only thing better than the fresh scent of pine and oak was the feel of Killian’s hand in hers.

But forty or so minutes into their trek Killian had insisted she turn around and let him lead her the rest of the way. Not that she’d been surprised, she always knows when he’s up to something—his excited smiles and attempts at nonchalance easy enough to read.

In all reality she only spends a few minutes walking backwards. They’d left the hiking trail behind, entering a maze of tall trees, and were now just far enough out to be alone should someone else come walking by, but still close enough that they could easily find the trail again when they needed to.

Emma has no idea where they’re going and a small part of her wonders if Killian actually knows either. But eventually her doubts are put to rest when they pass a noticeable tree line and enter a small clearing.

Killian grants her a boyish grin before he spins her around and waits as she soaks everything in.

She can’t stop the tiny gasp that escapes her.

The clearing is small, but filled with lush grass that sways in the breeze like a small sea of green. It looks soft enough to lie in, and deep enough that you’d disappear if you did. A small creek flows off to the left and the song of water trickling past is delicate and peaceful.

In the middle of the grass lays a large blanket, she recognizes it as the one he always has in the back of his trunk, accompanied by a couple of giant pillows, a picnic basket, and several candles locked away in mason jars just waiting to be lit.

“Killian—” she breathes a little dazed.

“Do you like it?”

She turns to find him watching her, and the depth and warmth she finds in his blue eyes never fails to leave her breathless. “When did you do all of this?”

“I may have skipped out on work this morning to come and set everything up.”

She beams at that. Most days she feels like she doesn’t deserve this wonderful man, and today is no different.

“I love it.” she breathes as she folds her arms around his neck and presses herself against him. His arms instantly wrap around her waist and they sway together for a moment. “What’s the special occasion?”

His hand smooths up and down her spine in a warm path that has her melting just a little further into him. “I don’t need an occasion to do something special for you.”  

She gazes at him a little speechless. She has no idea how he does this. How everything he does, everything about him, seems to just knit up her heart and heal every ache and every lonely night she’s ever experienced.

But he does.

And sometimes she’s not sure how her heart can hold everything she feels for him without being in danger of completely bursting.

What she is in danger of though, is becoming completely overwhelmed, and she’s not sure she could explain even happy tears right now. So with no more words to say, she surges forward and kisses him.

There’s desperation in the way her lips meet his, in the way her hands tangle in his hair. As though his lips are the anchor that keeps her from drifting, and doing anything other than kissing him in that moment is something completely unbearable.

Killian grunts a little in surprise at the intensity of her kiss, but it doesn’t take him long to melt into her and meet her with just as much fervor.

Eventually, when the need for air surpasses her need for his lips, she breaks away, her chest rising and falling with her heavy breathes.  Killian doesn’t miss a beat though, moving his lips to her neck and trailing up to the spot behind her ear that has her eyes fluttering shut.

“I think,” he whispers, his voice low and rough, and his nose still buried deep in her hair. “Your reaction to things like this is why I love surprising you.”

She swats at his chest half-heartedly and leans away to meet his eyes. “What does that mean?”

“All it means,” he chuckles as he brushes a bit of her hair back and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Is that I simply love kissing you.”

Emma cants her head to the side and smiles as she runs her hands up to rest on his chest. “I guess it’s a good thing that I also love kissing you.”

“Hmmm, indeed,” he hums as he drops his arms from her waist, only to thread his fingers with hers as he begins pulling her towards the blanket. “Now shall we have lunch? Because our hike has left me famished.”

They spend next couple of hours just enjoying each other, and too soon the sun is arching towards the ground, its light growing a warmer shade of orange even as the sky grows darker.

They should probably begin heading back to the car, but Emma’s way to preoccupied with the way Killian hovers above her, pressing her into the woven blanket as he kisses her again.

She’s too caught up in the warmth of the sunset in her hair and the fire of Killian’s fingers at her ribcage to care about any encroaching darkness.

Killian leans over her as his lips take their time exploring the line of her jaw. And Emma’s helpless to the way her eyes drift shut as she gets lost in the feel of it. “Thank you for today,” she sighs, biting at her lip when Killian nips at her earlobe playfully.

He pulls away from her, but only slightly, his face still suspended inches from hers. He studies her for a moment, his eyes drinking her in just as much as his lips had been only moments ago.

“Have I told you I love you?” he whispers

Emma can’t help but smile as she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair. “Not since this morning.”

“Unforgivable.” He shakes his head as though this is a grievous injustice. “I will tell you—”he kisses her forehead. “Every hour—” he kisses the tip of her nose. “Of every day.” He kisses her lips again and Emma can feel the grin that spreads across his face. She pulls him closer, kissing him deeper until she pushes him back and rolls them over so she’s resting atop his chest.

“You already do,” she murmurs as she lingers against his lips. “Everything you do lets me know how much you love me.”

He blinks at her as if awestruck and she feels heat rise to her cheeks. She’s not usually one for pretty words but she surprises even herself sometimes.

Suddenly shy, Emma looks away, only to be pulled back to his gaze when she feels his thumb lightly press at the dimple in her chin.

“I love you, Emma Swan,” he breathes, and the look in his eyes is complete tenderness and adoration.  

And as her eyes lock with his, her breath catches as neither of them look away, and she swears the moment is as infinite as the space between the stars. She could live in it forever—never growing tired of watching the shades of blue in his eyes shift with the fading light.

It’s hard to explain the way her heart seems to expand to consume the entirety of her chest, simultaneously stealing her breath and filling her with warmth. But Killian seems to sense it, his face softening into a smile right before he tugs her down and kisses her again.

~

Emma becomes aware of the brightness of her room well before she fully awakens and opens her eyes. But when her lids finally do flutter open, it’s only for them to immediately squeeze shut as she groans and rolls over onto her stomach. Burrowing in her mountain of pillows and blankets is always a better answer than greeting the early hours of the morning.

She drifts off into some half-sleep land before her ever increasing stream of thoughts finally entices her to stay awake. And as she flips over onto her back and stares up at the whirling ceiling fan, the one thought that had kept her up for hours the night before whisks its way back into her mind.

Killian said he loves her.

Somehow she’s known it for a while, has felt it for a while, but hearing him say it had been a near overwhelming, and yet somehow comforting, experience. It was as though something had finally clicked in place inside her, as if she’d finally made it home after weeks away.

It just felt…right.

He loves her.

Not only that, but he’d kissed her.

Her fingertips trace her lips, and she stares off a little dazed as she relives the way his lips had felt against hers. She’d imagined kissing him well over enough times in the past couple of weeks, but nothing could prepare her for the actuality of it.

A small, silly part of her had hoped that maybe kissing him would bring back all of her memories—like some curse-shattering fairytale, or romance movie kiss.

It hadn’t, but she closes her eyes as she remembers just how wonderful the kiss had been, memory triggering or not.

A ridiculous grin stretches across her face as she pushes herself out of her bed and makes her way to the bathroom. Glancing in the mirror, she notes that her hair is as messy as it always is in the morning, but even she’ll admit that her eyes look a little brighter and her cheeks a little rosier, and as she turns on the shower she has to bite her lip against an irrepressible giggle of happiness.

~

Her hair is still wet when she finally wanders out into the main area of the apartment, and though she’s used to how quiet it is on mornings when Killian leaves early for work, she can’t help but be disappointed when she sees his coffee mug already in the sink.  

She stares at it for a solid ten seconds as doubt begins to wiggle its way into her thoughts, and even though she tries not to, she finds herself wondering if he regrets last night.

It didn’t seem like he did—especially not after they got to the whole kissing part—but she knows he must have reasons to be cautious.  After all, he’d admitted that he wasn’t sure if she had loved him. And she knows her scarred and broken self well enough to figure she must have done something to make him feel that way.

She knows there’s a whole history behind them, and though somedays she wishes he would tell her, part of her is scared to find out exactly what happened between them.  

She’d told him the here and now is what she wants, and she meant it.

So with a sigh she tries to infuse positivity into her thoughts, telling herself that an early day at work really is the only reason she’s not greeted by his sleep-mussed hair and lazy smiles.

But try as she might to distract herself, she spends the whole day thinking about him, and worrying about the fact that, for all intents and purposes, it looks like he’s ran off.

Maybe it’s the years of repeated abandonments that has her paranoid, but as the hours drag on; her anxiety begins to eat away at the happiness she’d woken up with, until hardly even a sliver of it remains.

So when her phone buzzes with a text from Elsa, it’s with tangible relief that she reads it.

Elsa: Hey Emma! Do you have plans for the day? I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch with me?

Emma releases a weary puff of air as her thumbs type away a response. Getting out of this apartment is exactly what she needs. Something needs to distract her from her treacherous thoughts.

Emma: I’d love to, where do you want to meet?

Elsa: I’ll come pick you up. Say half an hour?

Emma smiles, already on her way to finish getting ready.

Emma: Sounds perfect.

~

She lets Elsa pick where they eat, and they end up going to a quaint little café where the stools are a little rickety and the paint a little chipped, but the music is soft and the natural light that streams through the floor to ceiling windows is serene.  

It’s a bustling little place, the constant flow of chairs being moved, orders being placed, and indistinguishable conversations keeps the place alive with an odd cacophony of sound. But it’s not so loud that it impedes upon a private conversation.

Emma does her best to keep things lighthearted—but lighthearted isn’t exactly her natural tendency when things are bothering her. Instinct has a way of throwing her walls up, and sullen and distant is probably a better way to describe her current state of being.

Elsa, as astute as she is, catches on immediately. She’s been side eyeing Emma since the moment she hopped in the blonde’s car.

But she doesn’t pry—in fact they make it all the way to the café, and half way through their meal before Elsa even tries to bring it up.

“You seem…quiet,” Elsa muses, folding her hands in her lap and eyeing Emma expectantly.

Emma sinks back against the cold steel of her chair and sighs, she figured she wouldn’t be able to get out of this lunch without the conversation steering this way. But still, she waits a moment before responding, pursing her lips as she thinks about what to say.

“How much do you know about me and Killian?”

Elsa’s eyes widen ever so slightly, taken aback by the abruptness of her question. “Not much…Liam and I only started dating a couple of months ago, and at the time you weren’t…here.” She hesitates, her fingers reaching up to play with the end of her braid before she continues. “I knew Killian was having a hard time with something, but I never knew what. I’ve asked Liam about…you and him…but he’s stayed pretty mute on the whole thing. Always grumbling moodily about how it’s Killian’s business.”

Elsa’s eyes drop to the table in front of her as she finishes, as if she’s aware the topic they’re delving into may be sensitive.  

Emma, on the other hand, drops her head dramatically into her hands and groans. None of Elsa’s information is new to her, not really. Emma has deduced this much on her own.

She takes a minute to hide in her hands before she straightens up and combs her fingers through her hair. “I’ve only remembered bits and pieces of things, but from what I do remember Killian and I are together…or we were. Something happened though, and I’m pretty sure I disappeared, or ran off, or did something equally as stupid.”

“How do you know it was you?” Elsa asks. “Maybe it was a mutual decision, or maybe it was Killian?”

Emma shakes her head. “It wasn’t Killian.”

“But if you don’t remember—”

“I asked him, last night, if he loved me,” Emma plays with her straw, avoiding Elsa’s gaze. “He said he did, but when I asked him if I loved him he said he didn’t know. More specifically he said there was a time he was certain I did…but not anymore.”

Elsa’s slender fingers are suddenly around hers and Emma looks up to find a sympathetic smile on her friend’s lips. She exhales audibly before trying to smile back, only to scrunch her forehead and frown instead.

“Which just makes me even more confused because from what I do remember, I was pretty damned infatuated with him.”

She’s pretty sure she loved him, actually, but she’s not quite ready to say that.

“And he’s just so sad and hesitant …and I’m just broken enough to do something stupid like run out on a man who loved me. It’s the only explanation I can think of that makes sense.”

Elsa’s eyebrow jumps up in slight surprise, but Emma sighs and continues before Elsa can express whatever it is she’s thinking.

“I don’t have any family. No parents, no…anything. I spent majority of my life alone, until I met this guy named Neal, and—” Emma inhales a shaky breath as water gathers in her eyes, and suddenly she’s feels as though she’s sharing too much. Her feelings have a way of crawling up her throat, and she chokes on the need to keep things to herself. “I guess you can say he messed me up pretty bad, and I’ve had a hard time… staying anywhere, or with anyone ever since.”

“Oh Emma,” Elsa breathes, squeezing her fingers.

Emma withdraws her hand, using it to wipe at her eyes as she shrugs and tries to laugh at herself to brush it off. “It’s fine, really. But I just have this feeling that whatever happened between Killian and I, whatever separated us, was my mistake.”

“Have you tried asking him?”

“Part of me is scared to,” Emma admits. Though terrified is probably more accurate. She’s worried she’ll ruin something before she even gets a chance to experience it. “Besides, I figure I’ll remember soon enough, and I just want to move on and not live in my past. I mean what if I never remember? How miserable is it to live my life based on a mistake I don’t even remember making? And I know it’s a bigger jump for Killian, but if he’s ready...”

She trails of shrugging again. All she knows is that she’s ready to surrender to whatever this is between them if he is.

“And what does Killian think of all this?”

Emma can’t help the tiny smile on her lips. “Well we did kiss last night, but he wasn’t here this morning so I don’t really know.”

Elsa hums before a smile starts to stretch across her face. “Have you ever considered that maybe Killian’s trying not to push you further than you’re willing to go?”

Emma’s mouth falls open slightly as she gapes at Elsa trying to decipher what she means.

“Think about it,” Elsa continues. “He told you he still loves you, but he’s not sure if you love him. To me that sounds like someone who’s already ready to go there with you.”

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” Emma says shaking her head.

“Maybe it is,” Elsa allows. “So maybe you just need to make it less complicated.”

Emma scrunches her forehead. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know,” Elsa shrugs, her voice almost wistful, and Emma’s pretty sure that beneath Elsa’s quiet composure rests a hopeless romantic. “Maybe you just need to be the one to initiate things. Because Killian’s a man that would wait forever if he thought you weren’t ready.”  

Emma opens her mouth to respond, only to close it right away as she considers what Elsa’s saying. And maybe she’s on to something, maybe she needs to be the one to open the door so to speak.

And as she muses everything over, an idea begins to take root in her thoughts. Causing an excited smile to spread across her face as the happiness she’d felt earlier that morning returns.  

“I need you to drive me to the docks.”  

~

Killian leans back in his chair staring up at the wood panel ceiling of his office as he tries not to think of the fact that he’d given in and kissed Emma the night before.

He doesn’t regret it, not really. In fact, he’s done nothing but blissfully relive it since the minute he woke up. And now that he has kissed her again, he’s not sure if he’ll ever get the feel of her hair between his fingers, or the pull of her lips against his from out of his head.

He is frustrated with himself though, because even though he told Emma he loves her, he’s still very far from telling her everything.

“Tell me, Jones, what is so bloody fascinating about the ceiling? You’ve been staring at it for nigh on thirty minutes.”

Will’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and Killian starts as he sits up in his chair and looks across the room at his business partner. Will Scarlet has this way of wiggling his eyebrows at him when he’s waiting for an answer and it’s nothing short of absolutely infuriating.

“Shove off, Will.” Killian mumbles as he swivels in his chair and begins to boot up his laptop.

“Ah, it’s Emma.” Will nods as if everything suddenly makes sense.

Killian grumbles obscenities under his breath before he says louder, “Not everything has to do with Emma.”

“Anything with you lately has to do with Emma,” Will corrects. “Now tell me, what woes are we dealing with today?”

“Drop it, Scarlet,” Killian warns through his teeth. It’s days like today that he wonders why he puts up with the man.

“Maybe you should just kiss her; I think that would solve all your problems.”

Killian’s back muscles tighten, and he clenches his jaws just as he feels his skin heating up.

“You have kissed her!” Will spins in his chair as if he himself is responsible for this happy news.

Killian rubs his fingertips against his temple, trying to stave off the headache he knows is coming. “I’m serious, Will. If you don’t leave it be I’m going to—”

A sudden knock cuts him off, and both men’s attention whips to the door just as it creaks open. The light from outside pours in, and at first nothing but a dark silhouette is visible as the visitor steps inside.

But even before his eyes finish adjusting; Killian knows that it’s Emma.

His insides jump a little in response to seeing her. He crossed a line he’d set for himself last night, but he wouldn’t take it back. But if he thought he had a hard time keeping his emotions about her in check before, it’s near impossible now that he’s kissed her after months of trying to remember what her lips felt like.

It intensified things for him. Everything inside him is fresh, and raw, and entirely exposed. Especially now that she knows how he feels about her—how he’s always felt about her.

He watches as her eyes drift around the room, landing briefly on Will before they shift and lock with his.

“Hey,” she whispers in greeting.

He inhales as he collects himself a bit, trying his best to ignore the mocking googly-eyes Will is making behind Emma’s back. “Hi.”

“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asks, turning to look at Will who shoots her a grin that is nothing short of wolfish.  

Nerves vibrate with a violent flurry in his stomach and he attempts to silence them as he answers. “Aye, of course. Maybe outside would be better?”

He pushes himself out of his chair and tries to keep his hand from shaking as he places it at her back and walks with her outside. An obvious whistle follows them out, and Killian wishes for all the world that he could kick Will in the shins.

He leads her around the corner of the small building, and both keep silent as they stand only inches from each other. Killian waits, wondering what she would want to talk about that would bring her all the way to the harbor. He could guess at a few things, and every answer reignites the nerves fluttering inside his stomach.  

She looks anywhere but at him, bouncing on her toes as though she too is nervous.

He runs an encouraging hand down her arm and dips his head lower as he tries to get her to look at him. “What is it, love?”

She hesitates, licking her lips as she tucks her wind-blown hair behind her ears and finally lifts her gaze to meet his. “Well, I’ve been thinking about what you said last night and about…everything else.” She swallows, looking out at the ocean for a brief second before returning her attention to him and all but blurting out the next bit. “And I’m here to ask you out.”

Killian blinks, just a little dazed. Of everything she could have said, this was probably one of the last things he was expecting.

And maybe it was the kiss, or maybe it was the way she’d told him she wanted to focus on the here and now, but for once he doesn’t feel the crippling fear that comes with trying to make the right choice.

All he can think about, as he soaks in the way her jade eyes gaze wide with anticipation and just a hint of fear, is how much he loves this woman.

And who is he to deny her, when she stands in front of him with a literal second chance held out to him with open palms.

Because maybe that is exactly what this is—for both of them.

A second chance.

And when he looks at it that way, he’s helpless to the way his heart beats a little faster and his stomach begins to flip.

He reaches out, and when his fingers find hers, he pulls her closer until their foreheads bump together.

“One condition,” he whispers. “You let me plan the evening.”

He can feel her beaming as much as he can see it. Her happiness radiates out of her and seeps into his skin until it wraps itself in tight folds around his heart.

And bloody hell, he shouldn’t be allowed to be this happy.

“Okay,” she nods, biting her bottom lip as if it will somehow keep her smile from growing.

“Meet you at the apartment at six?”

She presses up on her toes and presses the lightest of kisses against his lips. “Don’t be late.”

[fearofaherobrine]

Roleplay Server Log #308

“The Tomb, Candy Gift, Buff Pigs, Bad Enders”

- The cage is quiet. The offensive plant is drooping, staring sightlessly into the middle-distance from it's position on the chandelier high above the patterned floor. Far below, a little thread of blackness is wending it's way along the small divots and textures on the floor. The plant stirs a little, sensing something amiss but unable to detect it. The bit of liquid seems to hesitate and then slip soundlessly under one of the consoles. It feels around what's contained within and finds nothing of interest, just animals and broken AIs. It uses the cover of a small shadow to dart under the other one, sensing something more promising within. It probes at the mechanism, looking for an opening. It's still unusued to being in this digital place, and the instructions it's been recieving are hard to hear. But it's tired of chasing shadows and smells in this vast jungle of squares. It settles in to wait for a chance.

[Traveler] Stalks into the cage sometime later. She's still a bit angry over her new scar and needs some time to herself. With relative ease, she opens the way into the seed that generated her and never notices the intruder that follows her within. The portal opens into a desert and she gives a sigh of relief at being away from everyone else.

-At her feet the bit of oily liquid silently latches onto the back of her shoe and goes along for the ride.    

[Traveler] Walks long into the night, the occasional hostile mob noting her and usually shying away. As dawn is breaking over the hills, she spots a structure half buried in the sand and walks towards it curiously.

-The obsidian stone walls and small columns stand out starkly against the yellow sand; but there's a glimmer of something lighter within.

[Traveler] Curiously sneaks inside, minding her footing for any possible traps.

-The glimmer was quartz. Someone lovingly lined the inside walls and flooring with the pure white mineral of the Nether. At the back of the building is a stone bath of sorts, an empty vessel large enough to hold a person and raised on a modest dias. The detail that causes her breath to catch in her throat is around it though. A section of weeping obsidian, like a black stain across the pristine floor on one side of the dias.

[Traveler] Carefully skirting around it, they look down into the basin and sigh. It's empty, and likely has been for a very very long time. She swings her torch around the darkened space and pauses in front of a tablet hung on the wall.The image is strange, a lovely woman with her hands outstretched to the viewer, and the placid face of a pig. The eyes seem to ensnare Traveler, soft, and almost pleading. On a whim she removes the tablet from the wall and stows it in her inventory. There's a slight humming noise now that the wind has died down and she finds herself walking around the small space, listening intently.

[Traveler] Finds the source of the sound, it's coming from a small blank section of wall and she explores every nookmfor a button or a trick before simply chipping out a hole with a pickaxe. The light and heat spill out of the hole suddenly, the purply sparkles like spits of burning fat as they pop away from the walled off nether portal. She hisses in disgust and backs away.

-Sensing the nearness of the opening into the chaotic realm of the nether, the bit of sludge melts off her boot and flows into the hole in the wall, melting into the shadows around the black framed portal.

[Traveler] Lobs the stone pickaxe into the portal and it makes a small flash as it teleports away at the boundry. She checks the space again for anything hidden and hurries back outside.

-The pick lands with a crunch in a patch of soul sand and theres a yelp as a figure that was walking by narrowly avoids it.

-A hand reaches down and grasps the pickaxe, it's pink and humanoid and very much alive. It was pure kismet for the pigman to be in that place at that time. Away from the tiny village in it's fortified corner of the Nether. The creature looks back at the huts, the black carapaces that make the small roofs and reflect the muted glow of the lava that flowed freely down the soaring bedrock wall. He turns over the pick and walks unsteadily in the direction it seems to have come form. High on the face of a pillar of netherrack, he spots the tinest purple glow through a crack. He makes his way up the face and removes another block to make the frame more visible. Something is calling him forward towards the ocillating surface and he moves into the light without hesitating.  

-On the other side the darkness and sudden chill is disorienting, and he blinks, trying to get his small eyes to focus. Then shrieks in sudden panic as something wet slaps into his face from the ceiling, and slithers around his neck. It's no more then a thread, encircling his throat, but he knows in some inexplicable way that it can become more like a wire that will slice his head clean from his shoulders if he does not obey.

-It's not what the thing is used to controlling, and something so unsubtle would likely frustrate it's master, but there are no other good options... at the moment...

[Lie] Had felt the unease of her pod and heads down to the cage. She finds the door open and she steps inside to investigate. The cage is empty, but her pod quickly comes down to greet her- Hey, what's wrong?- The pod cannot accurately give a sense of what's wrong, only that it was something it couldn't see. Lie walked the room and looked at the consoles but couldn't find anything wrong. She shakes her head a little and decides that if something went through into one of the seeds that wasn't supposed to, then she should probably close the door. She wrote a quick note in a book and placed it by the door, stating that anybody who did get stuck in the cage should call for one of the psychic brines before she left the cage and shut the door

[Doc] Sneaks out of the castle early in the morning and trots out into the desert with a lumpy bag. Xe transforms and headbutts a hole in the world. The rank smell of old blood that flows out of the portal nearly sends hir into a coughing fit and xe holds hir nose with hir paws to stay quiet. The dragon sniffs at the hole to see if it's clear on the other side and reaches in with one paw, up-ending the bag on the floor in front of the tv. There are several boxes and one rather large, potted rosebush clunks out as well. Holding hir breath xe closes the hole again and then takes massive gulps of the clean desert air while coughing as the stench clears.

[Strangled] Had been in just the next room over and panics a bit at the sight of the rosebush before running to get Slender-

-all of the boxes have names, Slender, Trender, Sally, Ej, and the rosebush has a tag indicating it's for Offender.

[Slender] Walks in and looks at the mess in front of the tv and sighs before grabbing the rosebush and transporting it to his brother's proxies place since he has a strict no roses rule for in the house.  He gathers the rest of the gifts and reads the tags before taking and distributing them, leaving them in the rooms-

[Sally] Wakes up with a little yawn, she looks around and spots the present at the end of her bed.  She crawls over the bed and opens the gift-

-The box is full of different types of colorful candy from Yaunfen's seed.

[Polybius] Happens to walk by Slender-

[Sally] Gasps happily and starts devouring the candy happily-

[Slender] - Morning Polybius

[Polybius] Good morning sir... - He looks a bit peaky. He's obviously not feeling well.

[Slender] - What's wrong?

[Polybius] Grumbles, his voice is low- I need an adaptor... The one I was using is missing. I think I left it in the kitchen.

[Slender] - You could check BENJAMIN's room, he does have a collection  of items

[Polybius] Last time I went in someone elses room you yelled at me, and I know he's not here right now.

[Slender] - Yes, but if it is a desperate need, then entering his room is understandable

[Polybius] Thank you - He pauses - Did we get mail?

[Slender] - Apparently, from the Doctor if Strangled is to be believed

[Polybius] Huh? Did Strangled fight with the little twerp too?

[Slender] - He and his brothers were all at the Doctors home until he came back with me

[Polybius] Do we trust them? They seem kind flakey.

[Slender] - I'm not sure yet

[Polybius] Yeah. I've heard a few things that made me wonder too. Mostly Ej's incessent complaining.

[Slender] - Yes, he's having some difficulty readjusting.  The organs must be cooked now for him to consume them.  Although there was a package for him as well

[Polybius] And you just gave to him? You're sure it's not something to make him worse? Wait, so that one is for you? You should open it. Make sure it's safe.

[Slender] - If it will help put you at ease- Slender carefully unwraps the gift

-It's a rather large jar of white powder with a small note, and a smaller packet wrapped in tissue paper beside it.

[Polybius] His tv goes white for a second, - is that fucking cocaine?

[Slender] Reads the note-

-Bone meal for the healing pod plant-

[Slender] - Relax Polybius, it's simply powdered bone

[Polybius] Is craning to see the other packet - I don't know... I don't trust these young digital types...

[Slender] Unwraps the other packet-

-It's a very soft tie in a deep reddish maroon with black lines. It's a pattern of netherbrick-

[Polybius] Kiss-ass... or it's a trick.

[Slender] - I would suspect the first suggestion considering how terrified of me they are

[Polybius] Mean chuckle - Good, then they aren't entirely stupid. I still think we should check on the others though.

[Sally] Slams open her door and goes running down the stairs towards the kitchen-

[Polybius] Small electrical noise as he's instinctually drawn to the sound and looks that direction-

[Slender] - Sally?  I'm over here

[Sally] Comes running back up, her face covered in sugar- Papa!

[Slender] - ...  Perhaps I should have at least vetted hers...

[Polybius] Oh geeze... let me guess? Candy?

[Sally] - Lots and lots!

[Polybius] Gives Slender an expectant look. - Should I go kick their ass?

[Slender] - No, leave them be.  I'll speak to Splender about it- He turns to leave- If you wish to check on the others then go ahead, I'm going to clean up Sally

[Polybius] Hurries as best he can to Trender's room and taps-

[Trender] Opens the door, a bit irritated, he's got several measuring tapes around his houlders and several fabrics in his tendrils- What is it?

[Polybius] I heard the Doctor sent you something, did you open it already?

[Trender] - Not yet, no

[Polybius] Could you? Just to ease my mind? I need to check on Ej too. I don't trust this Doctor at all.

[Trender] - Oh very well, come on in

[Polybius] Slinks in. His screen is full of eyes as he scans the room for the package.

[Trender] Had placed the package on a desk and he now does and picks it up before opening it-

-As the box is opened a bit of light spills from it-

[Polybius] Swears - It's making light?! Is it radioactive?!!!

[Trender] Pulls the item out-

-It's roll of fabric that been used on a crafting table and given a blank enchantment. The color is a pale purple but it's shimmering like enchanted armor does with whites and darker purples.

[Polybius] AAARGH.

[Trender] - How interesting, I believe I saw something like this on Splender's coat the last few times I saw him

[Polybius] Goes blue screen for a moment. - It's okay?

[Trender] - Yes

[Polybius] Huffs and goes to leave - I'm still going to check on Ej....

[EJ] Is still asleep-

[Polybius] Sees the box outside Ejs door and grabs it with a growl, bumping a bunch of his dangling wires against the door-

[EJ] Rolls over- Fuck off!

[Polybius] Rips th box open aggressively and is shocked on the object inside- FFFFFUUUUUCK

[EJ] Groans and rolls out of bed, not even bothering with his mask he opens the door- What the fuck are you doing outside my door?

[Polybius] Motherfucking Doctor asshole! - He's clutching his hand and the box is on the floor-

[EJ] Looks in the box-

-It's another glitched compass like the one Doc made for Ej to shock-stimulate his guts. They assumed the pervious one might need a recharge or have gotten lost or damaged in the normal chaos of the manor.

[EJ] - Oh joy, another one of those things

[Polybius] What the fuck is it?! It shocked me!

[EJ] - Something to help my new guts

[Polybius] It's not some kind of mean joke?

[EJ] - Unfortunately, would be less annoying if it were

[Polybius] Still seems annoyed. His hand obviously needs attention, it's a bit burnt.

[EJ] - Do I need to fix your hand?

[Polybius] Growls - Maybe... - He gives the box a bit of a kick, not enough to move it. He's just being petulant.

[EJ] - I'll get some cream

[Polybius] I still want to go beat them up...

[EJ] - Pretty sure we all do

[Polybius] Then why hasn't it happened?

[EJ] - Mostly because CP is there, and Splender

[Polybius] -And Splender likes everyone... Pfft...

[EJ] - And will absolutely destroy you if you hurt one of his friends

[Polybius] Grumbles-

[Endrea] Is out flying with Ashe in the early morning. She could feel that the day seemed like it was going to be a hotter one and so the cooler morning air was currently perfect for flying. Ashe glides under his mother in the protection of her wings as he scans the ground below for signs of endermen-

[Ashe] - Mama? What are we doing?

[Endrea] - Well, you are technically the ender dragon for this seed, thus the wild enders are your enders. I don't know what sort of relationship your predecessor had with them however, so I don't know if they will obey you

[Steffan] Is walking down below with a pick over his shoulder and Enderbro loping along behind him.

[Enderbro] Sees them and waves excitedly-

[Ashe] - Mama look!

[Endrea] Glances down- Would you like to go say hi?

[Ashe] Nods and glides down, landing near the duo-

[Steffan] Oh hey Endrea, and Ashe? You've grown since I saw you last.

[Enderbro] Sweet flying googles!

[Ashe] - Yeah!  Mama and I are looking for my enders!

[Enderbro] You found one! Yay you!

[Steffan] Laughs a bit - yeah, bro was never close with Jean anyway.

[Endrea] - Well, the reason is that technically all the wild ones on this seed are Ashe's...- She lands carefully, trying not to knock over any tree's

[Enderbro] Tps to her and hugs one of her front legs-

[Steffan] Oh? Are you going to try and show em who's boss?

[Ashe] - We don't know

[Endrea] - We don't know what their relation with their previous dragon was like, and last time Ashe ran into them they did attack him- She reaches down and nuzzles Bro

[Enderbro] They're majorly uncool. Meanies!

[Steffan] Rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. -Yeah... bro's come to my defense more then a few times.

[Endrea] - Well hopefully we can figure out why and maybe put a stop to it

[Steffan] I thought the native brine wanted the mobs to be wild?

[Enderbro] Walks over to Ashe nodding-

[Endrea] - Well yes, he does, but there's also usually a natural pecking order as well

[Ashe] Sniffs at Bro-

[Enderbro] Giggles- Guess what I got?

[Steffan] I get it.

[Ashe] - What?

[Enderbro] More then one pocket slot!

[Steffan] Mutters - just so you can carry even more junk around-

[Ashe] - Really!?  Wow!

[Endrea] Humms happily at the two-

[Steffan] Yeah. Doc worked on him for the umpteenth time.

[Enderbro] Stands on his head excitedly- I got candy for being good at the Doctors too!

[Ashe] - Candy is always good!

[Endrea] - That's wonderful bro

[Enderbro] And other Steve gave me extra ghast tears for it too!

[Steffan] Kill me....

[Endrea] - Ghast tears?

[Steffan] Massages his forehead - He has a sort of swear jar. When it's full he can request some kind of treat. It's some kind of child psycological thing.

[Endrea] - I see...  Does GK often take advantage of this?

[Steffan] Yeeeeeeeeessssssss.....

[Enderbro] I got a hat!

[Ashe] - I wanna see!

[Enderbro] Rights himself and pulls a huge sombrero out of his inventory and puts it on his head. - I'm fashionable!

[Ashe] Laughs happily-

[Enderbro] And GK taught me a dance!

[Steffan] NO. Do not do the dance!

[Endrea] - Dance?

[Enderbro] Must dance!

[Steffan] No! I have no idea where he got the idea, but it's aggravating!

[Ashe] - I wanna see!

[Enderbro] Pulls out a fish. It's one of the candy fish from Yaunfen's seed and perfectly dry. It's green and gummy looking-

[Steffan] Looks ready to bolt- Bro....

[Ashe] Watches curiously-

[Enderbro] Does a rather German looking dance involving stamping his feet and slapping his knees and lightly smacking Steffan in the face with the fish-

[Steffan] I hate you.

[Endrea] Can't help but laugh a little-

[Ashe] Laughs loudly-

[Enderbro] Finishes his dance and hops easily over Steffan who's now pouting. - Ta da!

[Endrea] - That was very good bro

[Enderbro] Thanks big mama! - He takes a sweeping bow-

[Ashe] Perks a little as he hears an enderman teleport nearby-

[Steffan] Goes on the alert instantly and switches his pick for a sword-

[Enderbro] Perks a little and then slow blinks as he instantly forgets why he stopped dancing.

[Endrea] Stands over them in a more protective stance for a brief moment before relaxing- It's alright, it's one of mine

[Steffan] Oh! Okay. - He puts the sword away but stays on the empty slot next to it.

[Enderbro] Decides to stand near Ashe like a one person honor guard in his sombrero

[Endrea] - Would you like me to ask one of them to help protect you Steffan?  They can help keep the other mobs away

[Enderbro] But he's got me! I can VOOP with him aaaaand gone!

[Endrea] - Alright, Ashe and I should be going now though

[CP] Is watching Blake try and wrangle the new blazes which are wandering around the fenced in area they are in-

[TLOT] Is walking by with Steve and stops to look.

[Steve] How come they're fenced in Cp?

[CP] - Because otherwise they'll wander and I don't think you want them getting into your village...

[Blake] Is getting very irritated with the blazes-

[Steve] I thought they were...? OH. These are the new ones, right?

[TLOT] Looks slightly perturbed.

[CP] - Yup, and I'm enjoying Blake's frustration

[TLOT] Still haven't forgiven him huh?

[-CP] - Not since he's decided to start trying again

[TLOT] He really wants your ass. Do we need to find him a mate or is it just you specifically he wants to bugger?

[CP] - Well he did occasionally used to fuck Giselle as well...

[Blake] Has to catch a fire charge that one of the new blaze's launches towards him-

[TLOT] Makes a face and replies mentally- I'm glad that particular problem is no longer relevant at least....

[CP] - Yeah...- He snorts as one of the new blazes just becomes completely confused at what Blake is trying to tell him

[Steve] I always got the impression that the nonhumanoid mobs on our seed weren't too bright...

[CP] - A few seem to have some inkling of intelligence...

[Steve] Karen is at least as smart as a cat or dog.

[CP] - Yeah...  But this is pretty entertaining to watch

[TLOT] It is pretty funny. I can taste his rather toasty irritation. How are the other new recruits faring? I don't even know exactly what you took. Just that there were only twenty of them.

[CP] - Eliza's at least got the newer spiders listening to her, I've got Winston working with your pigman who surprisingly seem more intelligence than strength based

[TLOT] That's... well, I'm not going to say anything bad about them. One specific quirk of theres spared me a lot of suffering in the Nether.

[CP] - Which was?

[TLOT] They're fastitiously tidy. If you die in the Nether on my seed they'll push the bodies into the lava. It gave me a chance to heal when critically injured rather then just lie there helpless. It's also why the Wither skeleton undeads are burnt and black. They're the hostile Steves that made it to the Nether.

[CP] - Well, either way they're easier to handle than my other ones.  It means I won't have to fight them over and over again for dominance

[Steve] That's good at least. It's too small a house to have people constantly bickering

[Blake] Shouts in alarm as one of the blaze's tries to hug him-

[Steve] Awwww! Friendly blazes. So cute.

[CP] - Yeah...  Really not army material...

[Steve] Shrugs- Maybe they're good at something else? No one has ever tried to teach them stuff, at least not that I know of.

[CP] - We'll see

[TLOT] I notice that Blake is still, well, Blaz-y?

[CP] - Yeah, I'm just taking a bit of a break from coding, I've almost got it finished though

[TLOT] I'm still willing to help. You know my way is quicker.

[CP] - Nope, not happening

[Steve] So.... how was the paperwork? Are they decently happy here at least?

[CP] - I still haven't gotten to that...

[Steve] You haven't even read any of it? - Wilts a little.

[CP] - I'VE BEEN BUSY!

[Doc] Darts out of the castle and sneaks along the shoreline, what xe's about to do is risky, but xe's more confident in hir own abilities then ever before. Xe stops in the playroom beside the water and shears off a large chunk of tail fluff before putting it in the farthest corner. The dragon takes a deep breath and charges forward, breaking a hole into someplace rather familiar. They emerge into Cp's old study in the Nether.

-The place is unnervingly quiet without any mobs, things are growing dusty and the only sound is the occasional bloop from the lava far below-

[Doc] Sniffs around a little before scuttling down a hallway. Xe's nosing doors open and peeking inside. When xe reaches the kitchen, the dragon spots the coffeemaker still on the dusty counter and takes it.

-There's a bit of a crumbling sound as a bit of nether brick falls off the exterior of the building-

[Doc] Hurries along, searching for one room in particular. Though xe does stop to donkey-kick the steel door to Lie's old cell out of the wall.

-There's a slight shift to the energy in the air-

[Doc] Notices and mutters- Still hanging around huh? Fine by me. I'll steal what I want right out from under your horribly mangled nose. - They move a little faster now-

[Harvestman] His energy is coming closer at a casual pace, as if he isn't concerned by Doc's presence at all-

[Doc] Finds the room xe wants and makes a hole in the wall to get into it more easily. The stone table is as it was, but the shelves around it that once contained the healing potions are all smashed or empty. They grab the stone table, still infused with Lie's healing blooms, and wrench it off the floor-

[Harvestman] Enters the building, his pace quickening-

[Doc] Stows the table and charges back down the hallway, sensing the change in pressure. - Good thing I'm faster then you.- Their paws pound the netherbrick as they get closer and dart into a fresh portal in the middle of the study, their tail accidently knocking the desk and chair over. The dragon skids in the small area on the other side and accordians into the back wall of the playroom with an unpleasant thud as the aperture closes behind them and is swallowed over by the firewall.

[Deer] See's Doc return and types into the chat- Love?  Is everything okay?

[Doc] Hit my head, but I'm okay- Xe's putting the fluff back on hir tail-

[Deer] - If you say so...  Where did you go?

[Doc] Chuckles- I just nipped out to steal something. It was dumb, but you know I gotta indulge in the occasional grief just to clear my head. - Xe hops onto the roof of the room and takes off towards the town. -

[CP] Has herded the new blazes into the safety of a stone shelter until tomorrow-

[Doc] Does a graceful roll in the air over the town and touches down as light as a feather outside Lie's house-

[Lie] Is coming in from the green house-

[Doc] Trots over- Hey Lie!

[Lie] - Doc!  Good evening!

[Doc] Is grinning like xe's done something naughty - How are the plants faring?

[Lie] - Well, do you need something?

[Doc] Just looking for Cp.

[Lie] - Um, I think he's out back...- She's a bit suspicious

[Doc] Does a little bow and then gophers a bit to see if he's visible- Thank you.

[CP] Is heading back towards the house from the direction of the horse pen-

[Doc] Hey Cp?

[CP] - What?

[Doc] Heads towards him- You busy?

[Lie] Starts following Doc-

[CP] - ...  Not at the moment...

[Doc] I brought you something. And I pissed off your NOTCH.

[CP] - What did you do now?

[Lie] - You did what?

[Doc] Stole something out from under his nose. Really just being a Herobrine in general. Mostly symbolic.

[CP] - Did you get his sword?

[Doc] Well.... no. Even if I could take it, I'd destroy it rather then bring it onto the server.

[Lie] - So what did you bring?

[Doc] This- Xe pulls out the table and sets it on the ground-

[CP] - Why do you have that fucking thing?

[Doc] Because it has code from Lie's healing flowers embedded in it, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to have anything with bits of either of your codes left behind where anyone could mess with them.

[Lie] - Doc...  That's, very sweet of you.  But don't you think it may get more use at your place?

[Doc] Nah. Cp is training mobs. It's inevitable that someone will get hurt sparring.

[CP] - Not Lie or I, and healing stuff will hurt mobs

[Doc] Is thinking a bit loudly - there's always Markus, Cn and Stevie that visit...

[CP] - So?

[Doc] Do you really want me to take it? I can do the same thing I did with this one easily to the quartz tables I already have.

[CP] - There's no need to have it here, we have young dragons that may try crawling on it and I don't know if that may harm them or not

[Doc] Sighs- Okay... It's a bit grim for my decor, but I'll take it if it's a problem.

[Lie] - Don't worry Doc, you'll probably get more use out of it than we will

[Doc] wilts a little before picking up the table and putting it away again.

[CP] - Are we done here?  Lie accepted a dinner invitation from Notch for both of us...

[Doc] Yeah... I guess... It's not any big deal but i have something else that's yours- rummages-

[CP] - Oh what now?

[Doc] Presses the coffee maker into his hands. - Just this.

[CP] - Why the fuck did you grab this?

[Doc] Shrugs- I knew it was yours. The whole fortress is pretty spartan. If I'd seen anything else that was obviously yours, I'd have grabbed it for you.

[CP] - Whatever- He slips it into his inventory

[Doc] I won't trouble you further then, enjoy your nice family meal. I'm gonna head home

[Lie] Goes to CP and takes his hand- Come on, we'll be late if we wait much longer

-It's early morning and the little group of pigmen from TLOT's seed are looking for Cp-

[CP] Is up on the roof, watching Lie tend to her animals as CN tries to help her-

[Francis] Calls up to him - Sir?

[CP] Glances down- Hm?  What is it?

[Hoff] Can we speak to you for a moment? We have a curiousity.

[Mouth] Something odd during our patrol.

[CP] - Sure, why not.  Not like I have anything planned at the moment- He flies down from the roof

[Francis] Gestures to Hock, who seems a bit intimidated by Cp-

[Hock] We saw the Doctor chasing a zombie Testificate with a glowing apple. It was quite strange.

[CP] Scoffs- Not really that strange actually.  Golden apples and a potion of werakness can be used to reverse zombification

-There's a small collective gasp-

[Baconn] Sir...

[CP] - Yeah, it's usually just used on zombie villagers, but we did also use it on all the kids in the village and others too

[Baconn] But if it works on others... could we... try?

[CP] - You want to try?  Why?  You may just end up like normal pigs and you wouldn't be fire or lava proof anymore

[Francis] Wilts a little - We are undead though. It's not much of a life.

[Baconn] I would risk it.

[CP] Sighs- I'll see about getting the ingredients, but surely what you have here now is better than what you had before?  You have access to books and many other things

[Baconn] Holds out his hands, his stubby fingers are green and the rotting flesh has exposed a bit of bone. - I barely know my name sir. If I was something else before this, I want to know that as well. And if finding out costs me my life, then that will be on my head, not yours.

[CP] - Fine, I'll get the stuff, but I want you to be absolutely positive about what you're doing

[Baconn] I am positive.

[Hoff] Holds Moth uncertainly

[CP] - Alright, come back tonight and I should have everything you'll need

[Francis] Then we will discuss it as a group in the meantime. Thank you sir.

[CP] - Yeah yeah, whatever

[CP] Once the pigmen were gone he checks on Lie briefly before teleporting off to the castle to raid Doc's trunks for the materials he'd need-

[Doc] is walking back from the kitchen with a cup of coffee and hears him shuffling around. Xe sneaks to the nearest corner and then another and slips up behind him slightly out of reach- hey neighbor, need to borrow a cup of sugar?

[CP] - Fuck off!- He pulls out a bit of blaze powder

[Doc] Aw, come on. It's really rare for you to just come over on a whim. You must be onto something interesting.

[CP] - And it's none of your business- He starts on another chest, searching for a spiders eye to ferment

[Doc] looks at the powder - oh are you brewing? It's been forever since I made anything but coffee on mine

[CP] - How many ways do I have to say fuck off?

[Doc] smiles and takes a sip of coffee- You always tell me to fuck off, it's like your way of saying hello. You want a cup?

[CP] - No!- He finds a spiders eye and pockets it

[Doc] I saw that, you know I'd give you any materials if you just ask.

[CP] - Go away!

[Doc] Is it like LH Cp? Food tastes better if you steal it?

[CP] Growls before teleporting to a different part of the house-

[Doc] whispers in the chat to Deerheart [and Yaunfen] - hey love? Just a heads up, Cp is sneaking around the house. I think he just wants to get some materials and he's too proud to just ask

[Deer] - Do you know what for?

[Doc] He's brewing something up

[Deer] - ...  Literally or figuratively?

[Doc] Literally. He's already got blaze powder and a spider eye

[Deer] - Oh dear...  And we all know how his potions turn out...

[Doc] I think he's just not adding the proper amount of love to the mix, that's all.  - Xe's turning some old glass blocks into bottles and clinks them deliberately together-

[CP] From elsewhere in the house- FUCK YOU DOC!

[Doc] I said you could have them!

[CP] Goes dead silent in response as he grabs some gun powder-

[Doc] Sniffs around for him and walks in his direction unhurriedly.

[CP] Is just about to leave-

[Doc] Come on, let me help. I've got the whole afternoon free.

[CP] - No!

[Doc] Why not? Are you making potions to be drunk? You know mine always taste better anyway.

[CP] - Doc I am so close to murdering you right now

[Doc] How come? I didn't do anything. Why so out of sorts?

[CP] - Will you just fuck off!?

[Doc] Fiiiine. - Xe stomps back off toward the house and shuts the front door a bit hard.

[CP] Relieved to be alone teleports home and gets the rest of the stuff before taking command of Lie's brewing stand which is covered in dust and sets to work-

[Doc] Peeks back outside to make sure he's gone and then shapeshifts in the yard. Xe slips quietly down into the turf, stopping only to admire a small natural gold deposit under the spawn. The dragon slips up under Cp's yard and curls up in a small void underground, listening.

[CP] Works quietly and soon has the potion finished, adding the gunpowder to turn them into a splash potion- There, that should do it- He's debating raiding Stevie's house for gold for the golden apples

-The little group of pigmen are conferring in the yard-

[Hock] I hope he isn't mad at us for asking...

[Francis] Don't worry. It's a reasonable request. This seed must have riches aplenty if they're using potions and gold on mere villagers.

[Doc] Perks- Listening closely-

[Moth] I just feel like we've forgotten something so important....

[Hoff] Me too. it's maddening.

[Lie] Comes around the corner, about to check on her green house- Oh, hello

[Francis] Hail the queen. - There are some polite bows all around-

[Lie] - Please, there's no need to call me that

[Baconn] Mistress?

[Lie] - Just Lie is fine

[Francis] How are you faring this evening? We're waiting for your mate.

[Lie] - I am well, just going to check on my plants.  What are you waiting on CP for?

[Francis] He said he'd aid us in getting rid of our pitiful zombie status.

[Lie] - Getting rid of your zombiefication?

-There's a bit of an urgent ripple in the ground and the dragon rises up out of the grass. - He's trying to do what?

-The pigmen scatter for a moment and then coallese in a circle around Lie with swords drawn-

[Lie] - Whoa!  Calm down!  It's just Doc!  Xe's not a threat!

[Doc] Scoots back a bit-

[Francis] Squints and then relaxes- OH yes... That was just a bit... startling.

-The others shuffle a bit and sheathe their weapons again.

[Lie] - It's alright, it's one of Doc's abilities

[Moth] I think it's kinda neat. Just unexpected.

[Hoff] And we're a bit on edge anyway.

[Doc] Is shuffling around in hir inventory for the translation egg-

[Lie] - Just give hir a minute

[Doc] Okay I got it. Now what is going on?

[Baconn] We saw you trying to reverse a villagers zombiefication. We want the same healing.

[Doc] It doesn't really work the same on you guys. It may just turn you into normal pigs.

[Lie] Looks skyward- We wouldn't know till dawn...

[Francis] Is there a reversal if it fails?

[Doc] Kinda? I mean a pig that gets hit by lightning has a chance of becoming a zombie pigman...

[Lie] - But that could put you in a lot of pain...  Or kill you outright

[Doc] Curls up to think. - But that effect is a piece of coding. I might be able to isolate it...

[Lie] - Well there is a bit of time before we would do this, at least a couple of hours...

[Hock] Sits down, holding his knees. - We've waited this long.

[Baconn] I know we must have more in us then this, Lie. - He indicates the bare patch of skull that makes up part of his face. - If we can live again....

[Doc] I understand. I'll help any way I can

[Lie] - I also know that if something does go wrong, CP will work on reversing it.  He's very good at coding

[Doc] So... where is he? He was at my house pilfering materials, but I don't keep gold for apples just lying around.

[Lie] - Ummm...  I don't know...

[Stevie] From the direction of his place- BROTHER!

[Doc] I'm shocked he didn't just tear up the beacon pyramid outside the village...

[CP] Darts back into the house with Stevie chasing after him-

[Doc] Stevie? How much did he take?

[Stevie] - All of my gold and diamonds!

[Doc] Sheesh... Cp? Why the Nether did you take his diamonds? I can't think of a single reason you'd need them!

[CP] - None of your business!

[Notch] Walks around the side of the house- Oh? Did I miss the time to yell in the yard announcement?

[Doc] snorts out a laugh.

[Lie] - Hey Notch...  I'm not sure what CP is up to now...

[Stevie] - Give me back my stuff!

[Doc] He's being a pest.

[Notch] Cp! Don't steal from your little brother. That's crappy.

[CP] - But I actually need some of this stuff!

[Notch] Well you could have asked first. What are you doing?

[Doc] He needs golden apples

[Lie] - Should I go in there and try to get the stuff back?

[Notch] Puts a gentle hand on Stevie's shoulder and whispers to him. - I'm still in creative. I can give you whatever he took as long as it's basic items.

[Stevie] - Just gold and diamonds

[Notch] Come on then, I'll take care of you. I'll give him an earfull later.

[CP] Is busily crafting the golden apples-

[Stevie] - Alright, but I'm still mad at him

[Notch] Yeah, that's expected. He pisses me off sometimes too. - Gives Stevie a hug and leads him back towards Notch's little house-

[Doc] I still think he took the diamonds just to be an ass.... It's not like he doesn't already have a full set of armor and weapons that are better then diamonds anyway.

[CP] Finishes the apples- Alright, now just to wait for nightfall

[Francis] Is pacing while Baconn stares into the middle distance, occasionally glancing at him.

[Doc] Is working on some rather complex coding. Xe's seperating line by line the process that makes a pig into a zombie.

[Lie] Watches as the sun finally slips below the horizon-

[CP] Comes outside and growls at Doc- What the fuck are you doing here?

[Doc] Waves a paw at him- I'm working on my computer. What does it look like?

[CP] - Do you have to do that here?

[Doc] From what you seem to be planning, I think I might be needed anyway.

[CP] Flips Doc off before turning towards the pigmen- Alright, who are we testing this on first?

[Baconn] Steps forward- Me sir.

[CP] - Are you sure?

[Baconn] I've never been more sure of anything in my miserable existence.

[CP] - Alright- He splashes him with the potion and then clicks on him with the apple, the familiar sounds of the combination kicking into gear echoing around the area- Now we just wait for dawn

[Baconn] Shudders in the throes of the potion as the sun rises. With a yelp he suddenly turns back into a pig. He turns panicked but intelligent eyes to his friends who grunt and yip in alarm.

[Doc] Shit... Though Iwas reading, there is an unused madel for these guys besides the pig and the zombie... I might be able to do something...

[Baconn] Starts panting like a dehydrated dog.

[Francis] I'll get you some water! Baconn.... my poor comrade - He picks up the pig and rushes to the little pond.

[Baconn] Drinks and drinks with noisy slurps and suddenly leaps into the water, sinking quickly. There's a blinding flash like a lightning strike and a huge figure rises up where the pig was. He's nearly as big and muscular as Buff, with healthy pink skin and the face of a pig. His loincloth is straining over his thighs like a tiny hankerchief. - F-Francis? - There's a pregnant pause and he starts to cry. - FRANCIS. Fix him next! Please!

[Doc] Wow... um... I'll just, make you some pants... yes.

[CP] - I've got one more apple, that's all the gold Stevie had

[Baconn] Still crying-

[Francis] Confused - I trust him. Do me next.  - holds out his arms-

[Doc] That's okay, I want to throughly check them over to make sure this is stable. If Francis is volunteering then we'll have a repeatable result hopefully. - They're making a pair of green trousers from a skim of grass block texture.

[CP] Hits Francis with the potion and then the apple-

[Baconn] Watches nervously as Francis shakes and shivers and pops back to the shape of a pig.

[Francis] Makes a dead run for the water and leaps off the edge into the pond-

[Lie] Watches nervously-

-The water erupts as the pig transforms into a figure just as large and muscly as Baconn-

[Francis] Stands there blinking for a moment and then it's as if a light goes on in his eyes- BACONN

[CP] - I going to need a lot more gold...

- The two practically smash into each other and start kissing, making happy grunting noises and crying on eachother.

[CP] - THE FUCK!?

[Doc] More pants.

[Lie] - Well they are from TLOT's seed

-the other pigmen look equally confused but happy for their friends.

- happy snorting from the pond -

[CP] - You've got to be kidding me...

[Doc] Holds out two pairs of green pants and the pigmen take them, slipping them over wet skin with a bit of difficulty.

[Lie] - I wonder why water did that...

[Francis and Baconn] both trot over to Cp and kneel.

[Francis] we owe you so much sir. We will gladly defend you and Lie with our lives.

[CP] - Just keep the kissing out of sight from me

[Baconn] Yes sir.... And we might need bigger swords too.

[Doc] More work for Tungsten, Drillby and Aurum

[CP] - Yeah, now I'm off to get more gold...

[Baconn] Good hunting sir! Do you need a guard?

[CP] - No, I'll be fine...  Doc on the other hand...

[Doc] Fluffs up very slightly-

[Lie] - CP be nice

[Doc] I can't examine them if you beat me up.

[Francis] walks over to them. - what would you have me do?

[CP] - Nope, just keeping you out of my way

[Doc] Doesn't hear him because Xe's distracted- just put your hand right here and stay still... Oh... That's unusual....

[CP] Teleports off, mostly to get the gold Notch just gave his brother and then search for more-

[Lie] - What is it Doc?

[Doc] This state is unstable. It's not s perfect healing.

[Francis] frightened face- we'll die again?!

[Doc] No just turn back into normal pigs. It's a coding error that's bugging out in a specific way in reaction to the environment. The long and short is that you need to regularly immerse in water to stay as you are. Probably about once every three days.

[Baconn] So... We need to stay in the overworld to avoid reverting?

[Doc] Yes.

[Francis] I'll gladly pay that price.

[Lie] - Sounds like we might wanna build a bath house...

[Stevie] - BROTHER!

[Doc] That would look nice with your roof style...

[Doc] Oh good grief....

[Lie] Sighs- I'll start planning the building out...

[Doc] I thought you were goign to make a mob barracks anyway? Haven't they all been sleeping in your workroom?

[Lie] - Just the ones effected by rain, Eliza has built a nest for her children

[Doc] Still... they're guests of a sort. And I think they aren't going anywere.

[Francis] Can we help?

[Lie] - If you want, I'll probably recruit Notch since he has creative

[Notch] Cp! Dammit!

[Lie] Groans in irritation-

[CP] Has teleported to TLOT's room and is taking the gold blocks from there-

[Steve] Is sitting on the bed reading- Ummmm Cp? What are you doing?

[CP] - None of your damn business

[Steve] Is calling for TLOT, but he's more perplexed then angry.

[TLOT] Poofs by Cp- Could you not?

[CP] - Fuck off TLOT

[TLOT] Are you just having an Endermen day?

[Seve] Giggles-

[CP] Takes more gold blocks-

[TLOT] Building a summoner?

[CP] - Nope, personal business

[Steve] Present for Lie?

[CP] - None of your business- He then teleports off

[TLOT] Okay then. -at Steve- I'm sure we'll find out later.

[Stevie] Looks at Lie- When my brother shows back up, let me know

[Doc] Just come see me later Stevie. I'll replace anything and even give you some sweets on top of it. I have an excessive amount of donuts right now.

[Stevie] - No need, father already replaced the stuff...  Again...

[Doc] He's nice like that. Still... donuts...

[Stevie] - Maybe later

[CP] Teleports back into the house to get to work-

[Hoff and Moth and Hock] Are all in a little huddle, just waiting for Cp.

[Doc] Is muttering, - probably going to need more clothes too... Lie? You should give me a couple of flowers so I have some different colors to skim. I feel scattered. You pick.

[Lie] Thinks and spawns a blue flower, a red flower, and a yellow flower-

[Doc] Twists up a pair of robes, one yellow and one red and another pair of pants from the blue flower. All are really voluminus, just  in case.

[Francis and Baconn] Are giving each other loving pokes and tickles and speaking softly-

[Blake] Comes storming up- Mistress!

[Lie] - Yes?

[Blake] - I need to speak with the master about the new recruits, where is he?

[Doc] He went to do some griefing apparently. Just listen for the angry yelling. You'll find him.

[Francis] Gives Blake a crisp salute and a huge smile- Snork!

[Blake] - What sort of monstrosity is this?

[Lie] - Blake!

[Francis] That's a bit rude.

[Baconn] Eyeballs Blake- Says the fire squid.

[Doc] A live Pigman. Impressive, aren't they?

[Blake] - What did you call me?

[Baconn] Sorry, sir squid.

[Blake] - I outrank you!  You will not speak to me like that!

[Stevie] Whispers to Lie- Can I hit it?

[Doc] I got this- Doc puts hir paw on Blakes head- Just chill out Blake. They've just had a very strange experience and emotions are running a bit high. These two are a pair and you just insulted his mate.

[Blake] - They're abominations like this!

[Lie] - Blake that is enough!

[Endrea] Picks up on Lie's anger from her room and steps outside-

[Francis] We are not! We're alive and not rotting. This is as we should be.

[Blake] - You are ZOMBIE pigmen for a reason! You are not supposed to be like this!

[Endrea] Shifts to her full size and climbs on the roof to loom over them-

[Doc] Actually I was reading up on this... the pigmen were supposed to be a living mob as well, and have villages in the Nether the same way Testificates do in the Overworld. - Pats Blakes head-

[Blake] - But that is not how they are supposed to be now!

[Endrea] - That's enough Blake, your being a fool

[Doc] Lets go of him. - He's being an old fart. Times change Blake. Just roll with it.

[Blake] Is just growing angrier-

[Endrea] - Stand down Blake, you know I outrank you

[Doc] She has you there. Besides, You don't 'outrank' me. I'll just sit on you until you calm down.

[Francis] Giggles at the thought.

[Blake] Many frustrated noises before storming off-

[Lie] - Thank you for interfering Endrea

[Hock] Is staring up at Endrea with obvious awe - She's so beautiful...

[Moth] And BIG. That's a big dragon.

[Doc] That she is. Have you not met her yet?

-Some head shaking-

[Lie] - This is Endrea, the general for all mobs in the End.  She's bonded to me rather than my husband

[Baconn] Does a suprisingly graceful bow for his size- Madam General.

[Francis] Gestures around- I'm Francis, this is my mate Baconn, and our comrades, Hock, Hoff and Moth.

[Endrea] - It's a pleasure meeting you, if Blake or any of the other mobs give you trouble you can come to either me or Winston

[Francis] Yes mamn.

[Doc] So what do you think of the days work so far Endrea? They're a much more pleasant sight then Grayson ever was.

[Endrea] - Indded, that foul smelling idiot was quite the nusiance

[Doc] So is Winston just the Pig leader now?

[Hoff] He seems a fine fellow. Very thoughtful.

[Endrea] - Currently, yes.  But I suspect the Master will choose a new general once things have settled

[Hock] Do we get to vote?

[Endrea] - Usually the Master will choose who he thinks will fit the role best.  The pigmen were an exception in the past since his respected strength over everything else, so the strongest was the general

[Moth and Hoff] Confer quietly- Francis should be in charge.

[Francis] Why me?

[Moth] because you asked that question when I suggested it.

[Doc] Well played.

[Lie] - I'll discuss it with my husband, but he'd still probably want to wait a bit, probably wait until things have calmed down

[Baconn] Plus Cp's other two pigmen might have a problem if they aren't consulted.

[Lie] - Or....  We could potentially trick them.  They see strength above all else, we just need to make them think that you're stronger than them

[Francis] Why would you think we aren't actually stronger then them? - He flexes his muscules and it looks like several bulldogs fighting in a very small bag.

[Baconn] Heart eyes-

[Lie] - I'm not saying you aren't, but to put it bluntly?  those two are idiots

[Doc] Little laugh snort- Lets wait until you have some suitible weapons first, those swords look like toothpicks now.

[Lie] - True

[CP] Finally comes back outside with the rest of the potions and apples- Alright, we're ready

[Hock] Shaky raised hand- Can I be next sir?

[CP] - Yeah sure, why not

[Hock] Shudders and changes, stepping backwards into the water to minimize the time spent as a pig. He lets out a whoop of joy. He's not as big as the other two but stil formidible.

[CP] - Alright, you two are the last ones

[Moth and Hoff] Move to just stand in the water-

[CP] Hits them with the potion and then clicks on them with the apples-

[Moth and Hoff] Shudder and change with a crash as the potions take effect. They swell enourmously, just as large as the lovers, their chests seem to have six packs of slab muscles with a nip in the middle of each and they both have a fine coat of bristles on their heads. Now that they're healed it's blazingly obvious they're twins. The two women let out a few notes, singing their joy and the pure tones fill the yard and reverberate back like the best of operatic voices in the tight cluster of buildings.

[Moth] Sister... how could I forget...

[CP] - Take the next couple of days to readjust to these forms, I still have some coding to work on

-There's a chorus of thank you sirs, and we will sirs-

[Lie] Smiles at her husband as he heads back inside- Well, I suppose it's my turn to get to work

[Doc] Oh! Can I help? I haven't straight up built anything in a while. Anytime I expand the castle someone bitches me out for doing it.

[Lie] - Sure I just have to find a spot first

[Ashe] Is sniffling in the library-

- there's the sound of a door creaking open and Celine flies inside followed by a grumbly Mb

[Celine] Notices him and banks around, landing beside him- Ashe?

[Mb] What are you doing here kid? Where's your mom?

[Ashe] Sniffs a bit and looks up- Momma's at home...

[Mb] She know where you are?

[Celine] Why so sad?

[Ashe] Momma knows I'm here... And it's because of my ender men...

[Mb] okay?

[Celine] Are they mean?

[Ashe] - They hate me

[Mb] Eh, fuck em them. Who cares what they think?

[Celine] Why would they hate you? You're so nice!

[Ashe] - They hate me because of my predecessor...

[Mb] Oh the one that dingus Steve killed?

[Celine] But that's nothing to do with you!

[Ashe] - They were supposed to take care of my egg... But their hate... They refused to do it, that's part of the reason I was born so sickly and weak!

[Celine] Snuggles up to him- that's so terrible! Stupid Enders!

[Mb] Growls- I could beat them up for you. That would be fun.

[Ashe] - Theirs too many for that, besides, you might attack one of mamas instead

[Mb] I would hope your mamas Enders would be smart enough to run from me...

[Ashe] - Probably...

[Mb] Besides, you don't have to beat up EVERYBODY to be in charge. You hang around the same house as Cp often enough to know that shit.

[Ashe] - But I don't wanna beat them up...

[Mb] Hey, I already offered to fight them for you kid. There's no ender made thats a match for a Herobrine.

[Ashe] - But what if they hate me even more for doing that?

[Mb] Fuck em.

[Celine] Master... no fight please...

[Ashe] - I just...  Don't know what to do...

[Mb] You could always sic your big mama on them. Since Cp traded Ends with his seed and this one, the only ones left of yours would have been the stragglers in the Overworld at the time. And they should probably be outnumbered by the ones that she brought with her.

[Celine] Wraps her wings around Ashe and hugs him tight-

[Ashe] - But what if they hate me even more because of that?

[Mb] I'm a bit confused as to why you care kid.

[Ashe] - Because I don't want them to hurt everyone here...  And they've attacked me before, but I didn't know why

[Mb] You're acting like they aren't hostile to the others here already. Shit, you look at one and they go ballistic.

[Ashe] - But if I could command them like mama does with hers, then I could stop that!

[Mb] Yeah, but your mama can boss her's around because she gave birth to em!

[Ashe] - I know...  I just, need some more time to think...  I think...

[Mb] Are you sure I can't just go rearrange their faces?

[Ashe] - I don't think Doc or TLOT would like that much...

[Mb] They're the ones that wanted the mobs wild. Who cares if a bunch of assholes get beat up? You think they don't get killed for attacking people on a regular basis?

[Ashe] Unsure noises-

[Mb] Snorts- See? You only need a little mayhem to get a reputation. There's a good reason that plenty of players fear the eyes even though they've never met a Herobrine.

[Ashe] - But I don't wanna be feared, that's what made the enders hate my predecessor

[Mb] Yeah, but fear is more effective then love when you're trying to command a group that might be hostile.

[Celine] I think you're being bad Master.

[Mb] Ugh... Celine... Just don't.

[Ashe] - I don't know...

[Celine] Master is naughty!

[Mb] long annoyed sigh-

[Ashe] - I think I'm gonna go find Momma now...

[eljackinton]

The Longest Journey Series Retrospective – Part Three: Dreamfall Chapters (2016)

This is a multi-part series retrospective on Ragnar Tørnquist's Longest Journey Series, made up of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. Part One is here. Part Two is here. You can also read this article over on my main blog.

It took seven years for The Longest Journey to see a sequel, and when Dreamfall arrived the gaming landscape had come a long way. It would take another ten years for Dreamfall's follow up to arrive, and when it did the gaming landscape had moved even further.

Where TLJ was a standard point-and-click affair, and Dreamfall a third-person action-adventure, Chapters would instead present itself as a full blown episodic drama, a format popularized by Telltale's The Walking Dead and Dontnod's Life is Strange. The adventure game, long thought dead, had now been resurrected in a new form, and it seems fitting that The Longest Journey would see a revival along with it.

Chapters is in many ways the biggest departure from the series so far. Like the contemporaries that influenced it, game-play is paired down to a bare minimum, with character interaction and dialogue taking on a a greater focus. It would also be the first in the series to give the player binary choices that would impact the plot of the game. One of the neat tricks it does is trigger a message stating 'The Balance Has Shifted' upon an important decision being made. In any other game this would be a simple reminder to the player, but in a series that has constantly framed 'The Balance' as a critical, world shaping power, this gives your decisions real weight.

Dreamfall had finished on a cliffhanger, leaving many plot threads unfinished. I can't imagine what it must have been like, waiting ten years, not knowing if Zoë would even come out of that coma. Indeed, the series was in a precarious position, and it was only the changing landscape of crowdfunding that gave it new life. Tørnquist and new developer Red Thread seem to have been very aware of this, and go to great pains to truly bring together a satisfying conclusion.

Like Dreamfall, Chapters is less of a self contained story and more an installment of a larger series. Going from Dreamfall to Chapters feels natural, and the two clearly compliment each other as part one and part two of the same plot.

The story picks up almost immediately where we left off with Zoë in a coma, Kian imprisoned and April dead. It doesn't take long to get the plot moving however, with Zoë finally awaking and moving to a new city, Europolis, and Kian escaping to an uneasy alliance with the Marcurian rebellion. It also introduces a new character, Saga, who's life we play through gradually, and who's importance does not appear to be immediately apparent.

If you thought the politics would stop with Dreamfall then you'd be very much mistaken. In many ways Chapters itself becomes more overtly political in telling an allegory for the current climate. In Europolis, we see a crisis unfold around the coming election, as the two main parties are represented by a right-wing fascistic bully and a morally compromised centrist, while the far left struggles to make a diffidence due to constant infighting. Kudos to Tørnquist for so succinctly framing the problems that continue to plague western politics.

In Marcuria, the Iraq War allegory mostly gives way to a focus on nationalism and xenophobia. Onor Hilloriss, a minor villain, is clearly a stand in for many right-wing European politicians, and definitely influenced by one from the UK in particular. Through Kian we see more of the Azadi's compromised occupation and how it was intended as a mostly benevolent campaign that was, instead, prolonged and manipulated by the powerful few for their own ends. A clear representation of how many feel about the never-ending War on Terror.

Chapters weaves these stories intrinsically into each other, showing that both Zoë and Kian's struggle to find a place in the world is absolutely tied to mankind's self destructive impulses. The political chaos in Europolis and Marcuria is caused by the exact same longing that the characters suffer from, and sticking with the themes of the earlier games, the only cure is to move forward. The past can never be regained.

And it's these themes that are so wonderfully brought to a head in Chapters in bizarre and wonderful ways. Not only does the game draw back to characters and storylines from the first entry in the series, but it expands the scope even furthers, from The Balance, to The Dreaming, to Storytime itself.

It's fitting, in a way, that each entry in the series has evolved in tandem with the adventure genre. The Longest Journey couldn't have stayed a point-and-click adventure game, it had to evolve with updated technology and changing audience tastes. Just like the characters, you can't stay in the same place forever, you just can't, you have to keep moving. It's how you stay alive.

Thus, over the course of three games, we see old lives put to bed and new ones embraced.  Zoë finally finds her place in the world, Kian brings an end to the Azadi occupation and April finally realizes her destiny through reincarnation as Saga, becoming the old lady in the comfy chair that was recalling the tale all the way back in The Longest Journey.

On it's own, Dreamfall Chapters is a fine and inventive episodic drama. As the final entry in the series, it ties everything together to make them all greater than the sum of their parts. The stories and lives we witness are universal, but what's even more wonderful is just how broad the scope is.

This isn't a story about mighty warriors or powerful space marines. It's a story about artists, farmers, mechanics, bar owners and computer programmers. It's a story about the dispossessed, the persecuted and the downtrodden. It's not a power fantasy, it doesn't offer any easy answers, but it's comforting too. It lets the player into the lives of it's characters and shows that we aren't the only ones who struggle to find our place in the world.

This is only reinforced by the diversity of it's characters. Back when I was talking about The Longest Journey I already mentioned that the cast was pretty diverse to begin with, but the decision to put LGBT and POC characters front and center brings it's themes of belonging right to the forefront. A less diverse game would have been unquestionably a weaker one.

Gripes? I have a couple. The change in Kian's voice actor between games is pretty jarring, particularly how he goes from soft spoken in Dreamfall to deep and gravelly in Chapters. His redesign also looks lighter skinned, so take that as you will. The game also struggles to shake it's predecessors obtuse puzzles every now and again, in contrast to it's contemporaries more straightforward solutions. Still, these are all minor, and the freedom to choose the path of the story, and explore Marcuira in full for the very first time, more than makes up for it.

The Longest Journey series was intend to have one more entry, The Longest Journey Home, a sort of interquel set between TLJ and Dreamfall that would have followed April and gone back to the series roots as a classic point-and-click. It was set as a stretch goal for Chapters' funding, but the goal was never met, forcing Tørnquist to put the project on ice. In a way, I'm glad that this happened. I don't think it would be in the series best interest to see a sequel so immediate or nostalgic. I'd much rather see Tørnquist come back to it in another ten years time, when the gaming industry, and the world in general, has once again moved on.

All things considered, Chapters is a worthy conclusion, and elevates the series to that lofty status of high art. The worlds of Arcadia and Stark closely mirror our own, and gently warn of the pitfalls of historic reverence, and encourages us to take hold of our own destiny. I can't recommend the series enough. If you've never played them before, you have to check them out, and if you're a long time fan, they are absolutely worth a revisit.

[artofpeacelove]

When the outside is off limits, you run out of of fun and fresh things to do inside. Like once you’re down readjusting your schedule in between fits of power sobbing, you just get bored by the monotony of your scenery. I remember when I first realized this would be a problem, when my roommate told me, “I feel like we need to download TikTok.” “No, we’re 29, Amber,” I said. “Not even in an apocalypse.”

This was three weeks ago; you’ll understand that it was a different world back then.

1. Tie-dye your old T-shirts

Getting in touch with tie-dye will (literally) add some color to your drab existence.

2. Make friendship bracelets

Keeping on that summer camp train, friendship bracelets can ease you in a state of flow (and make for celebratory “We made it!” gives for when you reunite with your buds).

3. Learn a new card game

Blackjack? Poker? Go Fish?

4. Play a new virtual game with friends online

America is under Animal Crossing’s soothing lure right now, but we’re also very partial to these games you can play remotely with the whole damn gang.

5. Host a cocktail making competition

It could be virtual or it could be in your own home, but let’s see who gets the most creative with the ingredients left on their bar cart!

6. Put together outfits with the clothes you never wear

If there comes a day when you’ve exhausted black sweatpants—and I respect that some of you live there now—test out some of the lesser-used garments from your closet. You might find some hidden gems!

7. Learn how to French braid

Fishtail is fine, too, but this slumber party hairstyle is great for when you need to remember a simpler time.

8. Remove your split ends

Don’t cut your own bangs, we’re not that deep into quarantine for that kind of judgement call, but you can fix split ends safely without going hack-happy.

9. Become a ballerina

Has it always been your secret dream? Break the tights and tutu out, because there are about a gazillion online ballet classes that can make you feel like a regular Swan Queen.

10. Sew face masks

Even if homemade faces masks won’t directly protect from the coronavirus, they’re a kindness with a practical, ultimately prosocial use: they can stop you from touching your face.

11. Take a crash course in positivity

Hell, get an Ivy League joy degree with Yale University or University of Pennsylvania.

12. Get in touch with your birth chart

Learn how to read your natal chart and decrypt the nitty gritty of your star-sanctioned personality.

13. Do some purge-writing about something that’s frustrating you

Chances are you have some grievances right now. Get out a piece of paper and some wacky colored pens and blergh out all of your negative emotions. Look at a few days later and then put it through the shredder!

14. Take a virtual tour of a museum

Even if you’re not going to Paris in the spring like you planned (le sigh) you can still take a stroll through the Louvre or any number of venues to get a culture fix.

15. Redecorate your house with witchcraft

I actually gave my apartment home makeover with witchcraft last year and would highly recommend! I mean, there’s bad juju all around us and you might as well make your space a sanctuary while you’re stuck there.

16. Have a romantic solo date

I was pioneering enjoying being alone way way before it was…mandated by the government, so here’s my night-in take on my solo date idea: pour some wine, make your favorite (cauliflower) pasta, light some candles, and crank up the Frank Sinatra. You can decide if you want to take yourself home (lol) later.

17. Have a kitchen dance party

Do dance parties as much as possible! Do it with your partner! Do it with your long distance friends! Do it with yourself if you need to! Just do it!

18. Upgrade your daily stretch with laughter yoga

Head to YouTube to give yourself some lols, no downward dog required.

19. Watch the adorable penguins at the Bronx Zoo grow up

Wildly specific but there are two baby blue penguin chicks at the Bronx Zoo right now and your girl is following their every MOVE. Incidentally you can also take a virtual tour of the zoo, and heads up, there’s snow leopards!

20. Hula hoop for exercise

As the office’s resident Mrs. Maisel, hula hooping is the best form of exercise in the world, and we all should be doing it.

21. Make a gratitude jar

Write three things you’re grateful for every day and put it in the jar—highly beneficial if you’re quarantining with family and trying to not be at each other’s throats.

22. Interview yourself

Just sent my roommate a bunch of soul-searching questions, really get to know who you are and what you love about yourself.

23. Take your self-pleasure to the next level

We know times are tight, so we have some affordable sex toys, and household items you can use in a pinch.

24. Dye your hair a cotton candy color

If you’ve ever felt self-conscious or like you couldn’t pull it off, you know… f–k it. I’m rocking Manic Panic hot pink as part of my go-to isolation aesthetic.

25. Write letters to pen pals

Make a new senior friend in a nursing home or pen love letters to your long distance (read: housebound a few miles away) sweetie. Just because we can access everyone through technology doesn’t mean people don’t want written words to hold onto (don’t worry, mail is most likely safe).

26. Upcycle your old clothes

If you’re not really into a modern day hippie aesthetic, there are other ways to reinvent and repair your old threads.

27. Make some whipped coffee

I can’t lie, it looks delicious and worthy of all the Instagram love.

28. Declutter your entire home

You’re already disinfecting like crazy, go full Marie Kondo while you’re at it.

29. Dust off your grandparents’ old recipes and give them a whirl

Pull out the index cards and even Zoom them in while you’re cooking them (unless they’re like, gone, which is still a good reason to recreate YiaYia’s avgolemono soup.

30. Ask your parents to tell you a story about their childhood

I don’t know, even after a full year of “Ok Boomer,” we do feel very protective and loving towards our parents during this crisis.

31. Explore some of the most beautiful National Parks in America

Until you can explore them in person, this go for a virtual nature walk.

32. Fill every inch of your house with daffodils

Or whatever flower you find fitting, bring the outdoors indoors!

33. Read the entire Baby-Sitters Club series

During Zoom happy hour we played a trivia game, and you know who crushed the Baby-Sitters Club series? Your girl. There are 131 books total, so either check back in with Kristy and the gang for the nostalgia factor, or literally read this ridiculous YA series as a bizarro adult project.

34. Do absolutely nothing

Lol, I mean, that’s going to be a first for some of you! Enjoy the moment of sitting there and being idle!

35. Do an online workout with pop icon Cher

I mean, you can definitely do a more dignified online workout, but I’m going to start my morning with Cher’s 1980s hot dance.

36. Try out a new kind of meditation

Maybe a grounding root chakra meditation or a compassion meditation.

37. Take a bath with all the trimmings

Bath bombs, bubbles, salts, if you’ve upgraded from your garbage apartment to somewhere nice, indulge yourself.

38. Watch a movie remotely with your crush

The Netflix Party extension can help you there!

39. Redecorate your desk space

I mean, you might as well jazz up your home office while living that WFH life.

40. If you’re partnered, have an hour long make-out sesh

I’m sure your boinking like crazy, but why not kick it old school and simply enjoy kissing?

41. Spend about a trillion hours on Pinterest

Fill your feed with literally everything you love!

42. Practice a new language

There are plenty of language apps available to train you for when we can travel again.

43. Start teletherapy

It might feel weird at first, but transitioning to virtual therapy could be really worth it in this high stress time.

44. Make a playlist of absolutely flawless jams

Or check out this masterpiece editor Jessie Van Amburg blessed us with.

45. Bake banana bread

Sure, why not, everyone else is doing it.

46. Give tarot card readings, regardless of whether you know how to read tarot

I find it’s kind of funner to wing it, but here’s some simple tarot tips if you really want to learn.

47. Finally get into Podcasts

Hell, even make one if you want to, it’s the end of the world, babe.

48. Do some living room miles

Get your steps in with meditative walking.

49. Make a “Me Altar”

This is basically just a collection of items that worships the awesomeness of you, whether that’s a polaroid from a day you looked amaze to some rose quartz crystals

50. Have a Zoom brunch date with your best friend and be extra petty

Just like back in the good old days when you were overpaying for avo toast.

51. And a coffee date with all your work wives

Because the Zoom Happy Hours don’t really give you quality catch up time.

52. Get yourself a new toy

This $20 vibrator will serve you well in isolation.

53. DIY your usual manicure

If you were a former salon queen, we have some tips on how to do it the right way.

54. Organize your old photos in a photo album

To remember the good old days.

55. Watch all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It’s a show that features nothing but how to survive apocalypses, so now is the time to start if you haven’t already.

56. Order and install a bidet seat

Toilet paper is over.

57. Download TikTok

Ew. I mean, if you want.

This all being said, it’s okay if you’re not feeling your most productive right now. And if you’re social distancing alone, this is how to recreate human touch. 

from Good Advice – Well+Good https://ift.tt/2UGV4Uw via IFTTT

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[ecotone99]

Aunt Beulah

The year was 1976 and summer vacation was on its way. My dad worked at the old Cannery just over the bridge while my mom stayed home to take care of my younger brother Jesse, he was ten at the time and me. I was twelve.

Summer had come early that year, making the days at school unbearable. The heat in the air would lay heavy in our small classroom suffocating all energy from us kids. It was already tough enough having to listen to Ms. Carmel try to explain fractions and percentages to us. Really, who was paying any attention anyway? I know I wasn’t. My mind was fixated on the community swimming pool me and my pals would be heading to after school.

At the entrance to the school, my buddies Andrew and Nick along with Jesse waited impatiently for me. “Come on Lance, hurry up” cried Nick. “Lance has ants in his pants” taunted Andrew. Jesse laughed along at the jokes. Jesse had an annoying sort of laugh. He would laugh silently with sudden snorts over and over until I would sock him in the arm to make him stop which usually got me into big trouble.

When we got to the pool, it was already filled with a bunch of kids. The younger kids were usually accompanied by their moms since the dads were usually at work. Finally, all in our shorts, we ran to the edge of the pool and all together cannon-balled, sinking deep into the cool pool water. “That was boss,” Jesse said as he coughed out the water he had swallowed. The splashing and the dunking of each other quickly followed.

An hour into our swim time we heard a shriek. Mrs. Carson, little Anthony Carson’s mom, went running, her hands flailing as she screamed for help. We watched with awe as the on-duty lifeguard dove into the pool and scooped little Anthony up and out of the water. Little Anthony’s body lay lifeless on the side of the pool as the lifeguard performed CPR. Some of the other parents had to hold Mrs. Carson away as the lifeguard worked on Little Anthony. He tried to get Little Anthony to breath but nothing seemed to work. Soon the paramedics showed up and tried to save him too. No one was able to bring him back. We all watched in horror as Little Anthony’s body was covered and taken away. His mother, limp now from the hysterical fits was carried away as well.

After leaving the pool, we all walked home in silence. “Did you see how blue his lips were?” Andrew finally asked. “Shut up Andy!” was all I could manage. Andrew looked at me scolded. We walked the rest of the way home with our heads hung low. To this day, I still feel the tightness in my throat when I think about Little Anthony and how easily it could have been Jesse instead since they were the same age. Or maybe the tightness comes from what else happened that day to change my whole life forever.

As Jesse and I entered our house the telephone was ringing off the hook. I called around for my mom but she wasn’t there. I picked up the phone and discovered that she was on the other line. She was hysterical. All I heard from her voice on the other line were the words, dad… accident… dead. She had to be talking about Little Anthony. She wasn’t. At the cannery, there had been a terrible accident. Crates of canned tuna fish fell upon my dad and crushed him. They tried to save him at the hospital but there were too many internal injuries, he didn’t stand a chance.

That night I dreamed of my dad. We were in our back yard playing catch. Jesse was near the porch playing with his toy soldiers. I looked away from my dad to see my mom at the kitchen window wave to me as she washed dishes. When I turned back to look at my dad, Little Anthony was with him, holding my dad’s hand. My dad smiled at me and then began to walk away from me with Little Anthony. I yelled for my dad to stop. I screamed for him to wait for me but he just kept on walking away from me with Little Anthony. I turned to look at my brother and my mom but they just kept on with what they were doing. I felt my heartbreak. I woke up crying that night.

Moving day came quickly. My mom was now going to have to take a job to support my brother and me, so we found ourselves moving into her Aunt Beulah’s house. It was the only house centered on a long-deserted road. It was surrounded by dying trees and brush. The shingles on the house seemed to be holding on by threads. The house was old and angry.

Aunt Beulah was a very big woman and she only ever wore pajamas. Her hair was always a mess and she was mean. When we first arrived, she spit out orders of where everyone was going to sleep. She set my mom up in a room that was at the front of the house. She placed my brother and me in a room that was directly across from hers. We were banished to the back of the house, imprisoned in a small room that faced Aunt Beulah’s. At the very end of the dark hallway was a door that led to a small room. Aunt Beulah demanded that the contents of that room were none of our business and to never go in there. “You will be sorry, the one of you that enters into that room!” she growled.

The nights rolled by slowly with the hot summer air always threatening to suffocate us in our sleep. The days were long. We had moved too far from our neighborhood so we found ourselves in this new creepy place without any friends. It was just Jesse and me. Our days were spent exploring the abandoned and decrepit forest that surrounded us. The evenings were spent eating dinner alone in front of the television while Aunt Beulah slept and my mother was away at work.

One night a summer storm hit us pretty hard. It had blown out all of the electricity in the house. It was still pretty early but there was nothing that we could do so Jesse and I went to bed. As we lay in our beds, we watched with fright in our chest as the lightning would light up the room for a split second and then go dark again. I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I looked over to see that Jesse was no longer in his bed. Again, the lightning flashed and I saw that our bedroom door was opened. I heard gurgling noises come from Aunt Beulah’s room. “Jesse?” I whispered. There was no answer. I knew I was going to have climb out of bed and search for him. “Damn him!” I thought as dread filled my body. As I began to climb out of bed Jesse ran into the room. “She’s dead! She’s dead!” he cried. “Who’s dead?” I asked him. “Aunt Beulah” he cried; his eyes wide. He said that he didn’t know what had happened. He said he was asleep but woke up on a table in the middle of the room we were not supposed to go into. He explained that the room was filled with all sorts of creeping dead things.

I felt that it was my duty to investigate my brothers’ claims. I quietly snuck into the hallway and crept into Aunt Beulah’s bedroom. My stomach did summersaults as I saw her by the light of the moon lying face down on the floor. She was dead. I backed out of the room and turned to face the forbidden door that stood partway open. I entered and to my horror, Jesse was right. There were dead things everywhere. Some were in jars, some hung from hooks and some scattered on the floor. In the center of the room was the table. It looked as though it were stained with blood. I ran out of the room.

I decided to close the door to Aunt Beulah’s bedroom and the door to the creepy room at the end of the hallway. I took Jesse and locked us both in our bedroom to wait for our mom to come back from work. During our wait, I drifted to sleep but only for a moment. When I woke, I found our bedroom door was wide open and Jesse was gone again. I jumped to my feet and ran into the hallway. I peered into Aunt Beulah’s bedroom but she was no longer there. My heart fell into the pit of my stomach. I turned to the door at the end of the hallway and though my legs felt like two lead stumps I made my way over to it. As I slowly opened the door, I saw Aunt Beulah standing over Jesse. She was mumbling a bunch of strange words as Jesse lay paralyzed. Just as Jesse’s eyes shifted to me, pleading for me to save him, Aunt Beulah turned on me and with a growl pounced on me knocking me out cold.

Later that morning as my mother shook me awake, I saw that Jesse was in his bed. He was terribly sick; the doctor was with him. A terrible fever had come over him and the doctor could not explain why. When I asked about Aunt Beulah my mom informed me that she was up and in great spirits, actually dressed for the first time. When I went into the kitchen she sat at the table, looking at me. I stared at her for a long time surprised but unable to say anything. She stared back as a grin crept across her face. She stood up and she seemed thinner and younger. “What are you looking at boy?” She asked me. “I… I” was all I said as I ran to find my mother. I tried to explain to my mother what had happened the night before and how I believed with my whole heart that Aunt Beulah is what had made Jesse so sick. She refused to listen to me as the doctor came out of the room shaking his head. Jesse had died. The fever had induced a seizure that ultimately killed my little brother. As Aunt Beulah peered in, she caught my eyes and grinned again at me. I knew at that moment that I was next. I knew that I had to get away from there as soon as possible. I tried again to explain to my mother but in her despair, she would not listen to me. So that night, I ran away and never looked back. I ran for my life you could say. Shortly thereafter, I found out that my mother had taken the same fever as Jesse and suffered the same results. I learned that Aunt Beulah had somehow regained her youth and began to entertain young men from time to time. I knew I should go back and destroy her but I was too afraid. To this day I am still afraid. I know I will have to take my revenge someday. And I know that when I do, she will be waiting for me.

submitted by /u/funnygirlgriffin [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/ftxqg3/aunt_beulah/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2R1Fu3t

[terryblount]

Days Gone – Review

From the makers of Syphon Filter and… Bubsy 3D, Bend Studio is now back with a new IP, Days Gone. On the surface, it seems like “that video game again”. As in, you’ve probably seen various elements of the game in other games before. Open world. Zombies (but not really). Survival elements. Crafting and upgrades. Three skill trees. Shooting and melee. Clearing outposts. You get the idea.

But Days Gone is better than the sum of its parts, though it barely held the parts together at times. Yet somehow, it’s still a hell of a ride from start to finish.

Note: Review based on version 1.02 and version 1.03 (pre-release, before the day-1 patch version 1.04), played on the base PS4

Presentation

Days Gone takes place in the wilderness of Oregon, USA, 2 years after “things went to shit” as it colloquially referred to. Society falls after an outbreak killed billions and turned many of them into Freakers.

The open world is gorgeous. There is a dynamic time and weather system that dramatically changes the environment as well as impacting gameplay. Heavy rain turns the side roads muddy and slippery while the night brings out most of the nasty Freaks.

If you like taking screenshots, there’s plenty of beautiful (and gross) sceneries. And the Photo Mode is decent.

The open world feels small but dense but over time, it becomes larger, with some changes reflective of the story.

The zombie-like but not-zombie Freakers look and sound gross. Blood and gore do spill, with body parts falling off the Freakers, or human enemies when heavy force is applied. Like shooting at the face with as shotgun.

Days Gone has plenty of cinematics with great performances by the actors. Though I find it jarring to see a few seconds of a loading screen, a cut-scene plays, and then another loading screen to go back to gameplay. It ruins the flow a bit, especially when the scenes are just a few seconds long.

It’s really enjoyable riding on the open road (when nothing is out to kill you). The excellent soundtrack kicks in slowly on the longer, uninterrupted journeys. That particular song, which starts and end dynamically, is emotionally charged, swooping and atmospheric as it is soulful and mellow. Perfect for a biker traveling the open roads.

When the faced with the horrifying Freakers however, tunes of dread and suspense pipes in. Whilst the tender, emotional moments are just heartwarming to hear. The overall soundtrack, including the choice of licensed music, is astoundingly well put together.

Unfortunately, the game is crippled with performance issues. The pre-release version I played through saw massive dips in framerate on the base PS4. Slowdowns, textures not loading in, and sometimes even assets not loading in will happen if you move fast enough. Especially while riding the bike.

You will definitely notice the slowdown. At worse, the game crashes.

I can’t tell whether the performance issues are due to the modified Unreal Engine they are using, or a sign we have reached the hardware limits of the PS4.

Gameplay

In Days Gone, you play as Deacon St. John, a former biker gang member (or for you Malaysians: an American Mat Rempit) who is now a Drifter. He does odd jobs for various encampments, either clearing up hideouts or finding lost people or taking out bounties. While the plan was to head out north, circumstances lead to Deacon losing his bike and having to keep doing jobs with the camps he wanted to get away from.

From there on, an overarching story of multiple threads will unravel, weaving various subplots in and out as you progress. You don’t have quest lines, you have storylines, where one mission may advance one or more storyline as it is being completed.

Though for the most part, it’s a story of a man still clinging to the past. Heck, the in-game day tracker counts starting from two years (more accurately, 734 days gone) since he last saw his wife.

The map is packed and there’s really not much downtime going to point A to point B. But the fact that the roads are all windy, filled with obstacles to avoid and danger lurking, you are really on your toes while riding the bike.

If you go on the road for too long, then you better start expecting trouble is coming, either a sniper ambush or swarms of Freakers.

Fiddly (By Design) Controls

You will need to spend some time getting the hang on Days Gone’s controls. R2 is for melee and you need to aim with L2 to use your gun, no blind fire. Grenades are tucked within the Survival Wheel, which requires holding L1, select the grenades category, wait a bit, then select the grenade of choice. Combat is not that fluid, but I guess it’s a deliberate design choice- it’s a survival game, after all.

Weapons are pretty inaccurate at the start, ammo is scarce, and powerful melee weapons break. You will need to use stealth and loot for resources, but you definitely can go gung-ho once you’ve got most of the skill upgrades and stat buffs.

Loot

If the survival elements sound dreadful, just take the solemn that Bend Studio took lessons from Red Dead Redemption II. Looting is quick and easy to do- some enemies like Freakers don’t even need a button prompt to loot.

Resources and melee weapons are scattered around the desolate buildings in the world. They are plentiful but don’t expect them to respawn immediately. Thankfully, gas cans and gas stations have infinite gas.

There’s a sense of permanence in Days Gone. I had a firefight in a small town but didn’t get to loot the area properly as I was locked in a story mission. Revisiting the area not long after (within the same in-game day) and all the bodies and missed crafting components are there as I remembered.

Some Bugs

Alongside the framerate drop and texture loading issues mentioned, the AI pathfinding also frequently bugged out. I’ve seen enemies stuck behind geometry, and even friendly NPCs during missions getting stuck because a Freaker body is in the way.

This game sure has some production values but moments when such issues pop up, coupled with the controls, make it feel like a janky, cobbled-up together game at times.

The Bike

The bike is the star of Days Gone’s gameplay. It’s your only mode of transport, and it needs to be taken care of. You need to keep it away from damage and make sure you have enough fuel or face some big issues. You don’t want to be on foot for too long with Freaks roaming around ready to maul you.

It really makes you consider your traveling plans. In the early game, you’ll have to stop by a gas station for fuel or find a gas can in one of those NERO checkpoints. I spent the first few hours lifting and coasting a lot to save fuel while driving very carefully not to hit anything. And I love that I have to do that.

But later on, you get to upgrade the bike with cosmetics and performance parts, either of which changes the bike’s look, You get to see the Engine III upgrade is a bigger engine block with a different, deeper engine tone. Even racing games don’t go that deep with customisations these days.

Welcome to the Freakshow

The Freakers come in various archetypes. From the little ki- I mean Newts, to Runners, infected wolves that will chase you down even when on a bike.

But the Horde is the big selling point for Days Gone. As those early trailers showed, they are indeed vicious and they are huge. The biggest Hordes have hundreds of these Freakers roaming together.

The early game is spent on avoiding the massive Hordes unless you have a death wish taking them on. But as you progress, Deacon will get more skill points, better weapons and also stat buffs that will allow you to mow them down. Yes, it’s a lot of just running around, then looking at the back taking pot shots but the areas you fight them in do have multiple routes and explosives to use to your advantage.

Crafting all the gear needed, stocking up ammo, and laying up all the traps before engaging the Horde is both the most exhilarating and the most cathartic experience in Days Gone. Nothing like mowing down hundreds of not-zombies after hours of just gasping looking the sheer size and wondering: “How the heck am I supposed to kill them all?”

Content

Days Gone is longer than you would expect. The game has about one hour worth of tutorial before opening up the world for you to explore. The fact the open world only opens up gradually means the size, and the number of side-missions available, will not overwhelm you as a result. Side-missions like clearing marauder camps each have a small reward, which can be tracked in the menus. And finding them is easy, just explore the map and it will mark the spot when you are close enough.

The story does feel cliche. “Sons Of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead” is a rather apt description, but the plot is more than just the biker life and post-apocalypse melodrama.

There are many interwoven subplots coming in and out of the main progression, all focusing on character interaction. Deacon is a dick, the name checks out, but a generic white-man protagonist he is not. Seeing him bouncing off with the rest of the cast, some with great chemistry, others with clashing personalities, is entertaining to see. And the poignant romance story, of how he is dealing with the loss of his wife, is gripping. With a great payoff.

Outside of the surprisingly good story, expect the same-old side missions and collectibles. It is an open world game, after all. Though taking down the Hordes is really fun to do by the end game.

It took me around 41 hours to finish Days Gone and see the credits. Though completionists will definitely spend more than that.

Personal Enjoyment

Days Gone sure sounds like just another open world game on paper with technical issues. But somehow, I really like it.

I am a stickler for games running at its intended framerate cap. So there’s a lot of moments where I just reel back and cringe seeing all the slowdowns. Despite that, the pros outweigh the cons. I enjoyed seeing Deacon’s story unfolded. The number of optional camps to clear is just enough- and with enough variety- to keep me engaged.

I enjoyed customising, upgrading and maintaining the bike. Plus, there’s enough wiggle room in the systems to see something dynamic happen. I tried taking down an ambush camp but forgot to put silencers on. That caught the attention of a nearby Horde and ravaged the camp for me while I cowardly hide in a bush. That’s neat!

Verdict

Days Gone is an ambitious open world survival game that is almost bursting at its seams. The dynamic open world is lovingly crafted to not only look good, but serve gameplay purposes. The customisable bike rivals those seen in racing games. The tension coming from facing the Freakers and managing your crafting resources won’t get old. The story is amazingly well told filled with great character moments.

Yet technical issues, from noticeable framerate drops to the various glitches and crashes are a letdown. It makes you think whether the PS4 is at its last legs… or the game is just too ambitious for its own good.

Whatever the case is, should you persist through the jankiness, Days Gone is the best open world biker survival game, that happens to have sort-of zombies, out there.

It’s a hell of a ride.

Review based on version 1.02 and version 1.03 (pre-release, before the day-1 patch version 1.04), played on the base PS4. Review copy provided by the publisher

Days Gone – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[virginieboesus]

PSX Review – Final Fantasy Tactics

A little while ago, I wrote up an article on the history of Final Fantasy, including the fact that a whole bunch of spin-off games were released. One of these, which happened to be retroactively set in the same world as Vagrant Story (you can find my review of that here), was Final Fantasy Tactics. This is, surprisingly enough, a tactical RPG using the standard aspects that you would expect from a Final Fantasy game.

It features 2D characters on 3D, isometric maps, as well as chocobos, potions, huge great swords and a job system. Final Fantasy Tactics had a lot to offer at the time, but did it pull everything well? Let’s find out!

Storyline

Final Fantasy Tactics is set in the world of Ivalice, which would go on to be the setting of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1 & 2, as well as Final Fantasy XII. Since Square very, very rarely use the same world between games, this should show you just how popular this game world became. Everything felt fleshed out, with the entire land having a deep and rich backstory. Myths and legends were everywhere, as were tales of the Church, royalty and more.

The main plot of the game sees Ramza, a fallen noble turned mercenary, being branded as a heretic after discovering sordid secrets of the Church. On the run from zealots and authorities, Ramza bands together will hundreds of other mercenaries and characters from all walks of life, as he attempts to get to the bottom of the conspiracy surrounding the world of Ivalice. And as if that wasn’t enough for him, he also needs to find and save Princess Ovelia and his sister. Along the way, you learn more about the history of the world, unravelling the legends that society has been built upon.

Without going into any spoilers, one thing I can say about Final Fantasy Tactics is that it shows a real disdain for organised religion. The entire storyline focuses on the lies told by those in power in order to obtain more wealth and power. It is an epic tale that will stick in your mind for years to come. Oh, and the ending is outstanding, leaving the game open for sequels but doing so whilst managing to close off all of the questions and plot threads raised in the game.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, Final Fantasy Tactics is a 2.5D tactical RPG. Therefore, it throws away the typical turn-based J-RPG battle system and exploration in place for ongoing tactical battles with storyline sequences taking place within them. Yet, despite the lack of an open world map and huge amounts of exploration, Final Fantasy Tactics feels incredibly deep and engaging. There is a crazy amount of customisation as well, which largely comes from the Job System, making its return to the series.

Each character you get starts off with a bunch of default Jobs, or “classes”, whilst some will also have a unique class as well. From here, as you level up a default Job, it will unlock higher tiers for you to try out. This creates a web of character growth that is similar to the likes of Digimon World 2003 (see my review of that game here).

Combat involves moving your characters around tile-based areas to get into position for attacking or defending. With everything from height advantages, line of sight and range coming into play, there is a huge amount of strategic thought and planning needed in each battle. This makes for tense situations where you need to react as quickly as possible whilst also working out how to take out your foes.

Graphics

Graphically, the mix of 3D, isometric maps and 2D sprite-based characters might take some time for you to get used to. Being completely honest, it can be a little jarring at first when you go back to it. However, once you’ve gotten into the first battle scene, that all goes out of the window. Suddenly, you find that the quality of the animations, the ability to swing the camera around the battlefield, and how easy the user interface makes playing the game.

The animations, themselves, are incredibly well done. Each attack feels different and unique, including spells and summons. As you unlock and learn new skills, each one feels bigger and better, with the animations growing in scale and beauty. The developers, Square, also put enough time and thought into having the various different weapons actually look different in battle. This may not sound like much, but when you consider that many 2D sprite-based games use default weapon animations, this is a really nice little touch.

When it comes to story sections, there aren’t any FMVs (full motion videos) in Final Fantasy Tactics (except for the opening and ending video). Instead, storyline elements are shown through cutscenes that play out in maps build with the same 3D isometric maps and 2D characters. These means that you never get a sudden change in graphics, so the immersion of the storyline doesn’t get broken. The graphics may not be that incredible compared to all of the fully 3D graphics in other PlayStation games, Final Fantasy Tactics uses its mix of 2D and 3D very well. The developers did a great job of making the two graphics styles work hand in hand.

And That’s All Folks

Whilst Final Fantasy Tactics may not be the most graphically amazing game compared to other games released at the time, the gameplay and storyline really bring everything together very well. Because of this, I am more than happy to say that Final Fantasy Tactics is definitely my favourite in the long-running series. Even though I can admit it may not be the best game technically, to me, it is the most enjoyable all around.

Have you played any version of Final Fantasy Tactics? Let me know in comments below!

from More Design Curation https://www.16bitdad.com/psx-review-final-fantasy-tactics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=psx-review-final-fantasy-tactics source https://smartstartblogging.tumblr.com/post/174009276130

[bizmediaweb]

A Marketer’s Guide to Using SlideShare for Social Media

The humble slide show has come a long way. From the Kodak carousel of Mad Men fame to the ubiquitous PowerPoint, here we are in a brave new world of social, shareable, viral-ready SlideShare presentations that can build your brand and grow your audience—if you do it right.

SlideShare, simply put, is a way to put your PowerPoint presentation online. But with 400,000 presentations added every month, it’s a crowded space. So it’s important to put in the work to make a good presentation and stand out from the crowd.

Read on to find out:

Why you should be using SlideShare

How to make a good SlideShare presentation

Tips for using SlideShare in your social media marketing strategy

Bonus: Get the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence with Hootsuite.

How to make a good SlideShare presentation

If you’ve ever made a PowerPoint presentation, the same rules apply to SlideShare, but even more strictly. Why? Because when you’re presenting a PowerPoint, your audience is usually already in the room, and they usually can’t just walk away.

Your SlideShare audience is not bound by the same social mores as a room full of students or colleagues, and if they get bored or distracted, you’ve lost them for good. So let’s go over some of those rules.

Start with quality content

You can’t spin gold from lead, and you can’t keep an audience’s attention with boring presentation material. Has your topic been covered a million times? Find a new way in, an angle no one has gone for yet.

But even an original idea needs to be presented right.

One simple way to get a great SlideShare together easily and quickly is find your best piece of existing content, be it a blog post, a video, a Twitter thread, or anything else that has performed well for your business. Then repurpose it into a SlideShare presentation using the tips below.

SlideShare presentations that tend to perform well recently are “Ted talk”-style creations: they take a problem or an idea that lots of people are going to be hoping to solve, and they distill it in an approachable way. They can be ambitious — see “the Future of Everything” — but at their best they are answers to a question that can carry you through a whole presentation. Lists are always a good bet.

PS: You can create your SlideShare on any presentation software. PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, or OpenOffice are all fine.

WTF – Why the Future Is Up to Us – pptx version from Tim O'Reilly

This presentation on the future of AI and technology, “Why the Future Is Up to Us” looks and feels like a TED talk. It stylishly explores the cultural context of AI in a short presentation that doesn’t get too deep into the weeds.

Source nice stock images and fonts

Clean, attractive images that have some meaning will go a long way towards emphasizing your message. They don’t need to blow your budget, either. Check out this handy list of free stock image sites you can use.

LinkedIn SlideShare’s own data suggest that content with the right images gets 94 percent more views than without. That’s a big gap you can close with a few clicks.

And it’s been said before, but forget comic sans. Burn it to the ground. Same goes for Times New Roman and all the other overused fonts. There are a plethora of great free fonts out there, and they can underline your message—serious, classy, fun, earnest, whatever you’re trying to say—without the reader even realizing it. Creative typography, strategically used, can help you drive your idea home.

You Suck At PowerPoint! by @jessedee from Jesse Desjardins – @jessedee

Notice the use of sparse text, engaging images, and interesting typography in Jesse Desjardin’s SlideShare presentation on how to make better PowerPoint presentations. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the most popular SlideShares of all time.

Use as little text as possible

Get your message across as efficiently as possible, words-wise. SlideShare recommends 30 words or less per slide—that’s the length of this paragraph. You get one idea per slide.

That’s the golden rule of PowerPoint presentations, and it works the same way online. If you need lots of explanation to get something across, try breaking it up. Develop your idea across several slides rather than cramming them into a single intimidating slide that risks alienating or boring your audience.

How To Find Your Life Purpose (Before It's Too Late!) from Dan Benoni

This presentation on finding your life’s purpose does a great job of building ideas one short, concise sentence at a time.

Make it clear and simple

The SlideShare app gets nine times more engagement than the mobile web and desktop, according to LinkedIn. To catch the attention of those users on their tiny computers, use big fonts, clear images, and good typography. Overall, to capture those SlideShare app views, try to avoid clutter.

10 Ways to Spread The Love in The Office from Elodie Ascenci

Lots of clear images and big, bold text make Officevibe’s SlideShare on how to show your employees love is great for viewing on mobile.

Start with your strongest slide

Put your best foot forward, slide-ly speaking. Don’t expect that your audience is necessarily going to be intrigued enough by your title or introduction that they’ll dive right in past a boring slide; give them a reason to want to be drawn in.

That means visual appeal is at least as important as enticing text. Think of it like a video thumbnail: you’re telling part of the whole story in just one frame, so choose wisely and be bold.

Zombie PowerPoint by @ericpesik from Eric Pesik

If this first slide in this SlideShare, “Destroy PowerPoint Zombies,” doesn’t get your attention, it’s time for another coffee. Notice the unique typeface, the jarring image, and the catchy title—it’s got the whole package.

Use analytics to your advantage

Now that you’ve put all this work in, it’s time to… do more work.

It’s not enough to just send a SlideShare presentation out into the ether and wait for the profits to start rolling in. You have to keep an eye on your creation, check up on it, and adjust your content accordingly.

LinkedIn SlideShare provides a suite of analytics including geography, sources, platforms, and more. Keeping an eye on this, as well as audience comments and shares, can help you hone in on your audience and dial in your strategy to do even better next time.

How to Use Analytics on SlideShare from LinkedIn SlideShare

Thankfully, SlideShare has their own presentation on how to use their analytics system.

7 ways to use SlideShare for social media marketing

There’s a lot that a good SlideShare presentation can do to boost your social marketing strategy overall or to achieve specific aims, including increasing your audience, driving traffic, and increasing your B2B visibility.

Grow your audience

If your goal is to grow your web presence, there are a few ways you should look to SlideShare for help. The site gets 80 million unique visitors a month, so getting a few killer presentations out there can capture eyeballs for your business.

Google indexes SlideShare presentations too, so search engine optimization is a breeze if you’re diligent and purposeful about your language use on the platform. Be sure to craft your SEO strategy ahead of time (check out our post on SEO for social marketers for help with this), and once again, be concise to maximize the impact of all that hard work.

Drive traffic to your website

SlideShare does not allow live links in the description, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them at all. Calls to action can be included throughout the presentation (after the first three slides). They should be structured to catch your audience when they actually want to click—moments when they’re genuinely wondering, “where can I learn more about this?” That means building high-quality, informative presentations that also leave your audience wanting more.

Calls to action should also be clearly marked and, it goes without saying, directing your audience to do something. A link isn’t good enough; you need to point readers to where you want them to go. No, an arrow is not too obvious.

For more on this, check out our post on how to drive conversions on social media.

Improve your ranking on Google

With its beefy traffic numbers, SlideShare is a heavy-hitter in terms of its own Google rankings. Leverage that to bolster your own site’s ranking with a few simple tactics.

First, pick a title and keywords that are going to give you an edge over the competition. More heavily-trafficked keywords are going to be more competitive, so try for a new angle or a niche that you can really nail.

Once you know your presentation has a shot of getting noticed, check out your SlideShare profile itself to ensure it’s representing you correctly. Both your SlideShare profile and your presentations should be linking back to your site.

Promote your presentation

How do you get noticed among the 400,000 SlideShare presentations uploaded each month? Well, for one thing, SlideShare claims it gets 80 percent of its traffic from organic searches. That means you need to put your SEO best practices to work even before you upload the presentation.

The filename on your PDF when you export your presentation will become the URL slug. Naturally, “/how-to-drive-traffic-using-twitter” is going to look better to Mr. Google than “/slideshare-presentation-1-final-kathy-edits”, so make sure your filename represents your content.

And don’t skip the description! Descriptions are visible to search engines, so get your keywords in there.

From your own site, make sure you’re pointing links to the SlideShare presentation, embedding it, tweeting it, and sharing it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social media you use—all the things you’d do to promote any piece of content—because each of these actions will bring the presentation that much higher in the search rankings.

Your presentation will be transcribed automatically into a text document that’s readable by search engines, so employ your SEO throughout the body of the presentation as well. SEO never sleeps.

Get email subscribers

You don’t need to limit your calls to action to links to your website. You can also include links to your newsletter, your Twitter feed — any place you want your readers to find you. Remember, live links can be inserted anywhere after the first three slides, but not in the description. But as with anything, you need to give them a reason to subscribe, and make it clear what they’re signing up for.

Build brand awareness

SlideShare is a great place to wring out more value from your existing content, exposing it to a whole new audience. You have complete control over the identity you’re portraying through your presentation, so make the most of that opportunity by integrating your branding throughout the presentation’s visual and text elements. Be creative: a small watermark in the bottom right corner of your slides can do a lot, but maybe your brand has a very specific voice that you can employ throughout your copy as well.

Whatever you do, don’t go overboard. Your presentation has to first and foremost be valuable to your audience—not one huge advertisement for your brand. Subtle and effective is the name of the game.

Get seen by other businesses

SlideShare claims it has five times as much traffic from business owners than Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. It’s also frequented by industry-leading businesses like Cisco, IBM, Samsung, and Mashable. That’s a lot of the right eyeballs potentially falling on your presentation.

Converting those views to leads is the real challenge, and where the value lies. Follow the tips above to make a killer SlideShare presentation that will convince your fellow professionals that you really are the expert and/or brand they’re looking to partner with.

Connect with your audience using Hootsuite. Easily manage your social channels and engage followers across networks from a single dashboard. Try it free today.

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The post A Marketer’s Guide to Using SlideShare for Social Media appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

A Marketer’s Guide to Using SlideShare for Social Media published first on https://themarketingheaven.tumblr.com/

[booksontheshelf]

                                         Scallywag Reading 2017

I‘m surprised that a book was opened at all this year. So much of my time is reading online, so it seems a triumph of sorts that I am still managing to read books at all. It is not possible to do justice for all books mentioned here individually.  They all add up to the string of pearls that sustains me in some sort of equilibrium and continues to provide threads to places that only a particular book can reveal, at the particular time you are reading.  

Some of the books here were chanced on in bookshops. You never regret time spent in bookshops. There didn’t seem enough time this year though to enjoy this gentle past time. Which is probably a good thing for me, as I truly have enough books at home to read already. My daughter tries to stop me adding to my collection all the time. Can you imagine taking off one day, just to visit all the bookshops in the world? 

One day this winter, heading down Bourke St after a meeting, I stepped into The Paperback Bookshop. There I chanced on a book of poetry  by anthony lawrence called headwaters.

It has the lines

‘Her dreams have night vision, and in her sight Our bodies leave a ghostprint where we’ve laid. My darling turns to poetry at night Between abstract expression and first light.’

I’ve just finished You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me - A MEMOIR by Sherman Alexie. Hard not to proclaim this book loudly enough. Strangely the book’s poetic, diaristic chapters look superficially like the incredible work of American fiction I read this year called Lincoln in the Bardo. Perhaps the Trump-dark atmosphere of 2017 made George Saunder’s romp with the ghost of Lincoln’s past presidential time and place so strangely alluring. (The book was purchased with intelligent guidance from Readings’ Acland St staff.)

The year began with the death of one of my favourite artists/writerJohn Berger. I remember we thought 2016 was bad for the death of larger than life artists. John Berger was such a great humanist. But I love that I can still read him and hear his fabulous voice in my head. I did order his last work of essays Confabulations and made a concerted effort to gather all the books I had by him in one place. They are now housed in my studio. Vale John Berger. I return to you all the time. Thinking of artists, I loved reading the The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead.

You might gather by the next titles we have Alzheimer’s in the family - my Dad has had the disease (as far as we know) the last 10 years. Books that have helped me try to understand what is happening for him and helping me deal with it this year have been: Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s- A Groundbreaking Approach for Everyone Dealing with the Disease by Joanne Koenig Coste.   The Forgetting Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic by David Shenk.   Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. And In Pursuit of Memory- The Fight Against Alzheimers by Joseph Jebelli I am rereading Missing Out by Adam Phillips with newly minted insights from thinking about memory and who we are without it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Geoff Dwyer’s book on Tarkovsky’s film Stalker called Zona. I need to see Stalker again but as Geoff Dwyer says- it has to be cinematic not at home! The ignition of crazy nuclear war thinking by America’s President Trump, who thinks he’s eviscerating ‘Rocket Man’ with a tweet, sets a dé ja vu tone  reading about the haunted nuclear-strange Beckettian terrain of the film Stalker.

I love a good graphic novel and I have thoroughly enjoyed two by Riad Sattouf - THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE A Childhood in the Middle East 1) 178-1984 and 2) 1984-1985. I also enjoyed the short graphic novel by Jason Lutes called Jar of fools. One for the young at heart to the very young is by my friend Trace Balla- who wrote the book RiverTime. This year I read her book Rockhopping, taking me all the way to the source of the Glenelg River in Gariwerd (the Grampians).

Feeding into my marine thinking for projects, I am still working my way through The Sounding of the Whale Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century by D.Graham Burnett. I am also in the midst of The Reef A Passionate history by Iain McCalman. Hoping that Pelican1 will be on her way North to the Reef next year too. As we have worked on the Cape a lot in the last 15 years, I have also been reading the story of the explorer Edmund Kennedy in a book I found second-hand (Daylesford) called Kennedy of Cape York- Edmund Beale. Trying to get some insight into the newly colonial world and the exploration of the Eastern Cape (before the impact of the gold rush). The book tells the story from a very colonial perspective. Larissa Beherendt’s book FINDING ELIZA Power and Colonial Storytelling was a good follow on read. 

I then found myself rereading gularabulu - Stories from the West Kimberley by Paddy Roe edited by Stephen Muecke.

'This is all public, You know (it) is for everybody: Children, women, everybody. See, this is the thing they used to tell us: Story, and we know.

Paddy Roe

Back to the science books, I learnt a lot from Where The River Flows, Scientific Reflections on Earth’s Waterways by Sean W.Fleming. Had me looking at graphs of sine waves (there was a reason to learn about them in maths after all!), thinking about ‘Digital Rainbows’ and diving deeper into scientific connections between rivers, land and ocean and understanding that the physics of rivers and the quantum leap in understanding being made about their dynamics is one of the many tools that will be needed to help care for this crowded planet. The Ocean Of Life-The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts was another regular dip in as I gather ideas to try to incorporate plans for sea projects and understand our oceans more deeply (haha). A new writer  for me this year was Yi-Fu Tuan with his book ROMANTIC GEOGRAPHY in search of the sublime landscape- A geographer’s meditation on place and human emotions. I found two new wonderful reference books, the first second hand from South Melbourne Market -The Seabirds of AUSTRALIA by Terence R. Lindsey. And SEAHORSES- A Life-Sized Guide to Every Species by Sara Lourie.

Looking at the politics and economics of our times I managed to read The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein- an enlightening exposé of the behind the scenes snake-oil salesmen. The old rule of following the money results in a thorough investigation of oil’s all too human underbelly. I am still reading Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. 7 Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist. A complete creative overhaul of economics, pulling it out of our old ways of understanding the world to make ideas for a better future world possible. Highly recommend.

It’s been another tough year for journalists and the book of writings by Anna Politikovskaya Is Journalism Worth Dying For? reported from Russian frontline and includes the piece that she was working on at the time of her murder. ‘What am I guilty of? I have merely reported what I witnessed, nothing but the truth.’ It was a journalist who wrote a difficult and intense book about the 2011 tsunami in Japan that I’ve just finished. GHOSTS of the TSUNAMI by Richard Lloyd Parry. I have not stopped thinking about that wave and our visit to Japan’s Irate prefecture 3 years post the event left an indelible memory and deep affection for all the people we met still picking up and recovering after the trauma and destruction from that most unsea-like wave.

Back to Oz I loved reading Sophie Cunningham’s book Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy. I was very fortunate to take part in one of Sophie’s walks, following the footsteps of William Buckley from Sorrento to Dromana. Though footsore, it was a terrific way to connect with the Bay, while thinking of this man’s path and how different, perhaps, Australia could have been if his attitude to the First People of this Country was shared across the country. I reread much of the fictionalised account again by Craig Robertson (Buckley’s Hope -The Real Story of Australia’s Robinson Crusoe) to get me in the frame of mind for the 20k meditative walk. It was on a recommendation that Sophie shared on Facebook that I now have Phillip Pullman’s latest book The Book of Dust by my bed.

The year has been a terrible one for our ongoing torture of refugees who are STILL languishing in our offshore prisons. I heard that New Zealand had offered to take ALL the men on Manus and that offer has been refused by Dutton and MT. I went to the launch of a book that was trying to navigate the extremely polarised political territory around asylum seekers and I highly recommend it. Bridging Troubled Waters Australia and Asylum Seekers by Tony Ward. During the year I went to a wonderful event organised by Behind the Wire (http://behindthewire.org.au) and came away with their incredible book of first-person narratives called They Cannot Take The Sky- Stories from detention. I reckon our pollies should be sat in a room and this is read aloud to them.

A book that has been a good one to read this year was Hope in the Dark Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit which I read with the new foreword and afterword.

From the gifts of Christmas I have a pile that includes John Clarke- A pleasure to be here. A very sad loss to the Australian landscape, he will be missed for a very long time. The Man who Climbs by James Aldred and looking forward to A.S. Patrić’s new book Atlantic Black. Also on the pile is Robert Mafarlane’s The Old Ways- A Journey on Foot.

And looking back out to sea with a beautiful book I have just started. The Seabird’s Cry - The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson.

Might have to do a separate post on the poetry that is always by my bedside but all I can say is as I get older, reading poetry becomes more and more pleasurable.

If you have got this far in my rambling through my ambling reading, I want to wish you a very Happy New Year, illuminated by many, many fine reading adventures….