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elfwoodfae · 3 years

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“Nightcall” Harrison Eo Wells x reader

Chapter 3

Summary: As you taunt the devil another criminal may be ready to strike.

Gif credits go to the owner, I found this one on google.

Author’s note: let me know what you all think, if you have any suggestions, I hope you like it!

Once again, you were all brainstorming ideas about the man in yellow, nothing concrete, but the team had been stuck for a few days without making any progress.

“I just don’t believe that he doesn’t go somewhere after,” Barry commented.

You were sitting on Cisco’s desk and as you saw Wells roll into the cortex you decided to chip on your own ideas. Even tho he had specifically told you not to.

“You know I bet he has a day job too,” you said while noticing from the corner of your eye how Dr. Wells moved his head to look at you and rub two fingers over his lips, how he tended to do when he was thinking, probably how to get rid of you without attracting heat to himself.

“He seems smart, I bet he is some kind of doctor,” you spurred on. “I mean his suit seems pretty legit so he probably is very smart.” Now you were sassing him up. Oh boy were you sassing him up. You knew this risky comment had the potential to blow up on your face, but honestly it was a risk you were willing to take just by the look of Wells’ eyes.

“Very interesting idea y/n.” Wells said looking at you with that fake smile he gave people. God how you wanted to whip it off his face.

“Actually Dr. Wells I was wondering if I could talk to you about something” you asked him as you hopped off the desk.

He only nodded and signaled you to follow him. This plan could very much make you or break you. You were hoping for the first one.

“Those two seem to be talking a lot lately” Cisco commented once you were out of earshot.

Once in Wells’ office you reclined yourself against his desk and looked at him.

“So I have been thinking about your proposition.” You began to speak.

“My proposition? I don’t believe I have proposed anything to you” he said, the look on his face was unbelievable, you had some nerve to be sassing him up so much, and the worst part was that he couldn’t kill you or get rid of you just yet without making it obvious and drawing attention to himself.

“Yes, your proposition about me not speaking and you not killing me” you continued.

“I have thought about it, and I’m willing to accept with one condition.”

He couldn’t believe you. He just couldn’t believe that you were either stupid enough or brave enough to face him.

“I don’t believe I gave you a choice or that you have one, what part of dying was not clear to you?” He added.

“Trust me it was very clear to me since you literally stuck a hand in me, but killing aside, I will keep your secret on a condition, so please at least humor me, we both know you can’t kill me, for what reason is unclear to me but if you really wanted me dead I would be by now.”

You would be the fault in his plan if he didn’t do something about you fast. You were too smart and too fearless of him to be scare that easy. Or too stupid as he had previously thought.

“What is that condition?” He would humor you, play your game and let you think you had the upper hand until he could get rid of you.

“I will play along with you and keep your secret safe, going as far as making sure no one else suspects of you, only if you promise me that once this is all over, and you get whatever it is you are trying to achieve that you will leave a confession freeing Barry’s father of the murder of Nora.”

Now that wasn’t that hard, he would be gone, it wouldn’t affect him in any way, and if that’s what it took to keep you quite then he would oblige.

“Fine, I give you my word.” He said.

“And you won’t hurt Barry badly, or anyone else in the team” you added, feeling a wave of bravery.

“Don’t push your luck little one or you will find out what happens when you taunt me.” he said through gritted teeth, he was a very patient man, but you had a way of pushing his buttons like no one that he had encountered in a long time.

After your little conversation with Wells you felt more confident than ever, you had managed to at least get something out of it and the enjoyment of messing with him, it made you feel powerful.

“Well someone is in a good mood” Cisco said as you entered the cortex smiling and more relaxed than they had seen you in a long time.

“What happened back there?” Cisco insinuated as he looked at you suspiciously.

“Gross Cisco! Gross!” You screamed at him with a fake look of disgust.

“I’m just saying!” He added raising his hands in the air in an apologetic manner.

“Alright you guys,” you called everyone’s attention.

“I’m going to get some coffee, anyone wants anything?”Everyone made their orders and you left to Jitters.

It was getting dark by the time you were getting out of Jitters, walking to your car with your hands full, you struggled to get the key out of your pocket, and as you placed the coffees on the roof of your car and looked at your window to open the car you screamed in fear as a hand covered your mouth with some kind of clothe and the other one grabbed your neck beginning to drag you away.

Back at Star labs, the team had began to wonder what was taking you so long. It was normal to take some time since Jitters wasn’t exactly a street away, but you had been gone for almost two hours.

Just as Barry was about to tell Cisco to try and call you for the twentieth time, a message was being broadcasted on the tv.

“Cisco!”Caitlin urged him as she pointed to the monitor. “Put the volume up!”

“Flash!” The knowing voice of Captain Cold came through the speakers. “I have a friend of yours. If you don’t come and surrender yourself, she will die.” He added in his typical singsong way of speaking.

“Flash don’t come for me!” You could be heard screaming in the background, the focus changed to you as the image showed another man putting a gag in your mouth while you were tied to a chair.

“We need to do something fast” Barry said as he raised his hands to his hair in desperation. In that moment doctor Wells who had seen the whole ordeal from the entrance to the cortex spoke.

“We need to be careful Mister Allen, we don’t know where they are keeping her or if Captain Cold still have the cold gun.”

“Dr. Wells is right, we need to be careful, acting on impulse may not be the best call right now.” Caitlin added.

“I know but we can’t just stay and do nothing! He has y/n” he desperately added.

“I’m aware but I do caution restrain.” He added.

They planned a strategy, as Barry made it to the meeting point, Cisco and Joe would go to see the location where they suspected you were being kept.

As Barry struggled to defeat Cold and Heat Wave. Dr. Wells and Caitlin stayed behind guiding them through the operation. When Barry finally manage to neutralize Cold and Rory a bigger problem arose.

“Guys!” Came Cisco desperate voice through the comms. “She isn’t here, this was a decoy” he added.

Barry looked down on Cold, and as he grabbed him by his shirt collar he shook him.

“Where is she!?” Desperation could be heard in his voice.

“Flash, you really thought it would be that easy to find her? I hope you said your goodbyes earlier since in a matter of around two minutes your little friend will blow into the air.”

Dread came over Barry as he realized that no matter how fast he managed to search the city it wasn’t enough time to find you.

“I will give you a hint, why don’t you start in the East side?” Cold added as he smiled sarcastically at Barry.

Back the labs Wells excused himself from Caitlin and went to his time vault. He needed to find you fast. It was true that this was the perfect chance to finally get rid of you, but he just couldn’t bring himself to let you die by the hands of Cold.

You were seated in some kind of abandoned warehouse. In what part of town you had no idea, but you were painfully aware of the ticking bomb at the bottom of your chair. And as you heard the ticking get faster you were sure that was it, this is how you were going to die. If Barry hadn’t found you yet, you doubted he would on time.

As the seconds came to cero time seemed to stop all together, and in flash of red you were whisked away as the bomb went off and the explosion resonated all around you.

Your eyes watered as your mouth opened to let a sigh of relief come out. You squeezed Barry’s neck and placed your forehead on his shoulder as you breathed him in only for a second later to recognize this particular smell. This wasn’t Barry. As you opened your eyes you were met with a yellow suit and a pair of red glowing eyes. Still in his arms you hugged him again, adrenaline controlling your actions.

“I have never been happier to see you” you said, he only nodded and put you down on the floor.

As he speeded away you saw Barry coming to you fast. Relief could be read all over him the moment his eyes landed on you.

“She is safe” is all he said through the comms to the team.

“How, how did you managed to escape?” He questioned you once you were all back at Star labs as Caitlin checked you over.

“ I am not sure, I managed to free myself from the ropes but the bomb may have glitched as I had enough time to run as far as I could” you explained, trying to sound convincing.

“I mean but you don’t even have a scratch on you” Barry kept questioning you.

“I think I just had a lucky star tonight.” You said as you looked over at Harrison, who had just entered the med bay area.

“I think we should let Miss y/n rest for tonight Mister Allen.” Dr. Wells added.

“Yeah, I am just glad you are okay.”Barry added as they all walked out to let you rest for the night.

Wells was the last to leave and as he was about to roll out the door you stopped him. You had so many questions to ask him. He could have easily let you die and get rid of you without being suspicious, but he hadn’t.

“Why did you save me?” You asked when you were sure no one was close by. He only smiled at you and turned around, leaving as you sat there with now more questions about the man than ever before.

@mintchipcupcake

@nellethiel-aranel

@saltykidcreation

@twilightlover2007

#the flash imagines #eobard thawne fanfic #eowells fanfic #eowells x reader #harrison wells fanfic #harrison wells x y/n #eobard thawne x reader #harrison wells fanfiction #harrison wells imagine #harrison eo wells fanfic #harrison eo wells x reader #eobard thawne x reader fanfic #the flash fanfiction

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madyxtothemax · 3 years

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The Pit Stop - Part One with @MyArrowBends

Atticus:

-After a few days, the roads and sights began to blur together. Each truck stop was the same. The coffee all tasted the same and the bathrooms were all equally disgusting. I had enjoyed the solitude at first, but was now beginning to get a little stir crazy, and despite having bought a thicker foam for the bed, it still wasn’t the greatest sleep I’d ever had.

As I crossed into California, I found myself craving human interaction, and more important than that, I had decided one way or another I would be sleeping in an actual bed tonight. As I gassed up at another same looking, shitty coffee making gas station, I didn’t bother checking google for any nearby hotels, figuring I’d stop when I grew tired and see what was close at that point.

The hours passed and the sun was inching down toward the horizon with a speed that my van couldn’t seem to match. Dusk had settled and on the horizon I could see a cluster of lights that belonged to a city. I wasn’t sure which one it was, it didn’t matter. I had stopped paying attention to the names at this point since I didn’t really have a destination in mind. I would know when I was ready to stop and until I felt that feeling, I’d keep driving west.

As the city lights grew closer, that same feeling of from earlier in the day returned. I was ready to find a motel for the night, maybe even somewhere I could grab a drink and a greasy burger. The potential for brief human interaction had a grin pulling the corners of my lips up.

Still, I avoided searching something out on my phone, wanting to see what I could find on my own. Exiting off the freeway, and making my way toward the city, my eyes searched the buildings as I passed them by. Disappointingly, nothing much seemed to be open...at least nothing that grabbed my attention or sparked any interest. I wanted to find something local, I wasn’t interested in any kind of franchise. Those places were not geared toward any kind of interaction, speed and efficiency was their purpose.

Finally after a few turns bringing me deeper into the city, I spotted a neon sign. The bright OPEN flashing in the door was the only invitation I needed. Admittedly, I wasn’t paying proper attention because I was still needing to keep an eye on the road, but as I pulled my van over to the sidewalk and looked up at the sign to fully read it, I couldn’t stop my laughter as it filled the quiet around me.

A tattoo shop.

I was not a collector of skin art, even though I liked it, I had never really felt a desire or pull to permanently mark my body with any sort of image. But I could see people inside, and I could go in and look around. I could get that human interaction I was craving even if I had zero intentions of getting a tattoo. Yeah. I could do that.

Twisting the key in the ignition to turn off the engine, I unbuckled my seatbelt and made my way toward the door, noting the time on the door before opening it. I paused to check the time on my phone...they weren’t too far from closing. Perfect. Just enough time to have myself a casual conversation with someone about something I’d never follow through on before finding myself some food and a bed to sleep on.-

Madyx:

<I’d woken with it, the unshakable intuition alerting me that something was on the way. Something for me to attend to. Something significant. Someone to benefit from my unique abilities. Something to shake up the doldrums of a monotonous wave of months.

As the hours in the day had passed like any other with a few window shoppers, bookings and not much more, whatever I had been anticipating hadn’t materialized. My intuition wasn’t normally so off, in fact I momentarily wondered if I’d pissed off the wrong people and lost my privileges. But, nah, I couldn’t shake it, even as the hours ticked down to less than fifteen minutes before the neon went dark.

Having just finished with the people who’d shown up to book a session with Jordan, I was relegated to the idea I’d served as a glorified personal assistant for the day. Hell, I hadn’t even done a single piercing, let alone expressed anything in ink. At least Jordan would be pleased with what I’d lined up for her; a lot of people looking to lose their memories and oh-so-many willing to accept whatever consequences came with those choices.

I had my back turned as the group of three left, the bell chiming their exit. Oddly, the shop didn’t feel empty; I wasn’t alone after all.

Turning, I was unsurprised to see a guy had wandered in just as the others had left. First impression was strong: he looked road weary, like he’d been places, but he wasn’t weighted by fatigue - nope. He wore whatever travels he’d been on with an earnestness. He wasn’t unkempt, but it looked like he hadn’t had a shave in a few days, and there was nothing that could have been done to conceal that he was damn gorgeous. I’d need to see more skin to know if there was any ink hidden under the clothes, and there were no visible piercings… visible being the operative word…

Right.

I detoured my thoughts from veering in the direction of the gutter and noted the feeling that surfaced during the day had morphed into something more tangible.

Well then.

I walked his way, which conveniently enough, was in the direction of the sign that was about to go dark. He, whoever he was, already had an unspoken invitation to stay as long as he liked.>

Hey man, anything I can help you with?

Atticus:

-As I stood at the door, hand gripping the handle while sliding my phone into my back pocket, I looked up in time to see three people headed my way. I swung the door open and held it for them, offering an easy smile as they passed and spoke with an excitement I suddenly realized I wanted to feel. Seeing it on others left me no choice but to notice that I was heavily lacking that type of emotion in my own life. Sure, I had bought my van and felt the excitement and when I hit the road, it was there. But it was surface level excitement.

I wanted to feel the rush of doing something impactful in my life. I still wanted to have some kind of human contact, and while my opinion and lack of desire to ink my skin hadn’t changed in the thirty seconds it took for me to hold a door open and walk inside the shop, I was definitely more open to suggestions.

The guy who was working had his back to me. That was fine, he was busy and I had all the time in the world to wait to be noticed. Rather than doing something obnoxious like clearing my throat, I turned and began to look at the flash on the walls. Each page was neatly framed and hung with obvious care. Not a single one was off kilter. It made me smile. Anyone who paid this much attention to detail truly cared about what they did. I was envious of their passion.

I didn’t even have artwork that had hung on the walls in my office back in New York. Maybe if I had, my attitude toward being stuck behind a desk all day would have improved. Likely not.

As I scanned a page filled with anchors, ships and pinup girls, a voice was directed at me. I had been so lost in my head, I forgot my entire reason for stepping into a shop I had no business being in. Turning my attention on the guy, I paused at his question. Shit. Instant attraction. I couldn’t remember the last time that had ever happened. My dick twitched as if to say, SURPRISE I still work! I felt completely disarmed. A fraud. An imposter. I couldn’t help the laugh that was two parts guilt and one part eagerness.

“...anything I can help you with…”

Was there anything he could help me with? ...yes there certainly was, but I really didn’t want to admit that or what my initial reaction to him had been. My eyes searched his face first and then his gaze as it remained on me. His eyes were warm and welcoming the way my beloved hoodie felt each time I put it on.

I was taking too long to answer but he didn’t seem to mind considering I was one of those assholes who showed up 15 minutes before closing. Remembering my entire reason for coming in here, to have a conversation with someone, I lifted my hand to the frame on the wall I had been looking at and grinned lazily at him, one side slightly higher than the other as I answered his question with one of my own.- Do you know who drew these?

Madyx:

<The closer I got, the better my last call was looking. He appeared to be admiring what he saw on the wall which was a lift to my confidence after a day of nada. I was starting to pick up on the energy he was throwing off, and it was coming through strong. He was rife with a quiet excitement, like he was flirting with epiphanies and on the edge of taking chances. I was feeling it on a vibration much higher than my norm. Instant clarity. I relaxed into myself after his arrival helped me shake that unrequited anticipation I’d battled all day.

When his eyes flicked off the art on the wall to me, I was ill prepared. His steel-blue irises were rimmed in navy, and subtly backlit; his gaze flecked with mischief. The cut of his jaw was a visual temptation outfitted with an infuriatingly attractive amount of scruff. His laugh broke me out of my preoccupation. It was telling, but only thanks to my extra sensory skills.

His grin though… that was what slayed me where I stood. Crooked and slow, even stretched his lips were full and fetching. Literally, I couldn’t have hand-picked the features of my non-type type more perfectly. He was exactly what I liked in a guy, at least physically.

The lift of his hand to indicate the frame on the wall brought up my stare. A confident grin preceded my answer.>

That would be me. But those are some of my more generic samples. I’ve got a book you can check if you’re in the market. Unless you’ve already got something specific in mind?

Atticus:

-The weight of this guy’s stare left me feeling some kind of way. At first, I thought I might be getting one of those he’s into you vibes, but then he answered my question and doubt began to creep back in. Maybe he was one of those people who were far too perceptive and he could smell the scent of wannabe all over me.

No, I didn’t have anything in mind. I wasn’t interested in getting a tattoo, which was how I felt before I opened the door. I just wanted to have a conversation. Seemed the only way for me to do that without him getting annoyed that I was wasting his time so close to the end of the day was to keep looking at his work. I could do that, wanted to, actually.

I shook my head, answering as honestly and non-committal as possible as his gaze hit me with a pointed once over. All right. I knew that look. I had given it out a time or two myself. I felt more confident as I found my voice again.-

No. I don’t have anything specific in mind. I’m not exactly the type to just fill my skin with ink. -I paused and considered how my words sounded then quickly added to it so as not to insult the guy who clearly had no problem filling his own skin with ink which I suddenly wanted to check out every bit of.- I mean, not without research, that is. I’d love to see your book.

-As he guided me to where a few different books sat on top of the glass countertop, I noticed each one had a different name on the spine. The one he gave me said Madyx. I grinned at him again and flipped open the cover. There were pages of photos of tattoos done on people. Some pages had drawings, too, and I took my time looking at each one. The silence between us was comfortable and easy. When my eyes landed on a particularly colourful image that took up someone’s entire back I paused to study it.- Wow. This one must have taken quite a while. Your work is incredible, Madyx.

-I chanced a glance his way as I said his name so he knew I wasn’t just blowing smoke up his ass, before looking back down and flipping another page. I was beginning to feel like I was leading him on knowing I wasn’t going to be in town long enough to commit any kind of time like that, even if I did want ink. Which in the three minutes since I last asked myself, still hadn’t changed. I couldn’t pull the trigger on something that permanent. Plus, a tattoo that large would have taken more than one session, I knew that much. As I shifted from foot to foot, trying to figure out how to let him know I was sorry to have wasted his time, the light caught something below the glass counter. It was a showcase of sorts filled with what I assumed was body jewelry. My stomach lurched and adrenaline surged through my veins. I’d always been interested in getting a piercing, maybe...it was far less permanent than ink and wouldn’t take even a fraction of time.-

Do you only do tattoos? -Sliding the book to the side a little, I checked out the display of hardware with more than the curious interest I had previously given to his artwork.-

Madyx:

<Gorgeous seemed to be stalling. I sensed a reluctance I couldn’t quite define. I was starting to think it was definitely his first time, or maybe he was just feeling out the idea. BULLSEYE. He admitted as much by answering that he wasn’t the type to fill his skin with ink, but I wasn’t offended, nope. His eyes seemed to reflexively land on my own collection of pieces, and I wanted to invite him to gawk with those blues all he wanted.

I didn’t care if he didn’t want any work only that it might end up in him leaving sooner rather than later. I was not down with that. I almost missed when he caught his self-perceived fuck up, but was nearly punch-drunk when he took me up on the offer to check out my book. Normally I wouldn’t waste someone’s time if they weren’t actually intent on letting me scratch my artistic itch, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave and, duh, same page.

I handed off the book and he seemed to be truly checking it out. There was an excitement for me, one I hadn’t quite tasted. It was a thousand flavors, custom made...meant for me. Yeah, this was hitting way below the epidermis, into the bone, and below the belt, too. When he stopped on the page he did, my gut twisted in the best way, he just so happened to land on the favorite piece I’d ever laid down in ink. It had been inspired by Klimt’s “The Kiss” per the patron’s request, but with several liberties worked into the artistic elements. Instead of an obscure male and female, it was clearly two males. It had morphed from a symbolist piece to something more sci-fi and steampunk. There were three dimensional aspects and an inordinate amount of intricate details, like any provoking piece, it begged look after look. In total it had taken 36 hours in six sessions. I would have got lost thinking about it if something else hadn’t caught my attention - my name. The intention in his tone was unmistakable. Now we were getting somewhere.

I didn’t even care that we didn’t discuss that tatt he’d stopped on, it was logged into the distant past when his attention shifted to the display of body jewelry. I walked to the opposite side of the counter, light shining up from the backlit case, we were closer to face to face and hell-to-the-yes; I saw the change in his posture. We were REALLY getting somewhere.

I handle the piercings, too. <clearing the space of the books for the full view> But before we get to that, we need to level the playing field. Got a name or should I just call you gorgeous?

Atticus:

-Generally speaking, I was not always very quick to pick up the cues when someone was flirting with me. It usually took a couple of are they or aren’t they moments before I caught on and then properly joined in on the exchange of the flirting game. Tonight it only took me two of those moments. First when I caught sight of him looking me over and then again, just now when he called me gorgeous.

My grin at Madyx was instant and interested as I answered, holding out my hand to him for a shake, as proper dudes do.- Atticus.

-When his hand slid into mine, I gave it a solid squeeze, and chanced a light brush of my thumb over the back of his before releasing it. His hand was warm and slightly rough on the palm, not at all unpleasant, the kind of hand that knew how to do hard work and wasn’t afraid of it. Not at all like my paper-pushing, then couch lazing hands. The most work mine had been doing lately had been flicking a signal indicator for left and right.

As I returned my attention back to the display of body jewelry, I briefly thought about the other places I might enjoy the rough grip of his hands and damn near groaned. My dick was more than on board and before I could pitch any kind of tents of embarrassment, I considered piercing the damn thing just to get it to go back down. As far as ideas one might think about to initiate a cooling down effect on their body, this one should have worked for bringing my semi back to completely flaccid. Should have.

It didn’t.

The more I imagined Madyx jamming a needle through my most sensitive flesh, the more my pulse quickened and the more I discovered that I liked the idea. Fuck. Guess my body had decided for me. I now only needed to man up and tell the guy what I wanted. Vocalization time. If I couldn’t ask for the damn piercing, I did not deserve to have his hands on me, and that, judging by the sinking pit my stomach had just become was not at all what I wanted.

Given how everything else I had done since rolling into this town has been on impulse decision making, I let my mouth run without much consultation with my brain, and hoped for the best.-

I’d like to be handled. -Welp. That was a wide open innuendo of his own words that couldn’t be taken back now. Guess I wasn’t going with my usual subtle approach, then again, nothing about this encounter was close to my usual.- A piercing, maybe two? Do you have time tonight? I noticed the sign said you were closing right away. I can always come back tomorrow if you need to close up and get out of here...

-I wouldn’t keep him if he had somewhere else to be, but I really didn’t want to wait until tomorrow, I was too afraid of losing my nerve or even worse, waking up having decided I suddenly wanted an entire back piece devoted to body piercings. I shuddered at that particular thought before shaking my head, waiting to see if he was game for some over time before I even broached the topic of where I wanted him to pierce me.-

Madyx:

<There was the grin again, but this one drew me in like it was baited with something addictive. I wanted a taste. I also wanted to hear him say my name again, that was until he told me his.

Atticus.

As if I wasn’t already in deep shit with the grin, he had to go and share a name with one of my favorite literary characters. I wanted to roll it around in my brain on a loop, then say it out loud so I could see how it would feel in the slide off my tongue. I swallowed thickly and dropped my hand into the one he offered for a shake, setting off a chain reaction I had in no way expected.

Our hands fit like they belonged to each other, his warmth matched mine but his skin was smoother, more pliant. My eyes hit his just as I felt the subtle stroke of his thumb on mine. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and an electrifying buzz scaled my spine, then split and radiated north, east, south and west. My heart started to race in an erratic beat against my rib cage. When heat balled in my gut and prickled along the underside of my dick, it finally registered what was going on. Pleasure had always been my gift, but I had only played delivery boy and spectator so I hadn’t immediately recognized my receptivity. And it was specifically something about him…. I could feel his desire commingling with mine, the energy and tension between us behaving like a magnet...SNAP.

Shit. For the first time in my life I was on the other side of the glass I’d always looked through. He was human, it shouldn’t be possible, but his singular, innocent touch had been undeniably thrill inducing. My mind and body were both fully engaged. If it wasn’t for the loss of his hand and his next words, I probably would have stood there in silence like a mooning asshat…. Lost in his eyes and all that.

But, HELLO, he wanted to be handled. I crossed my arms casually over my chest and couldn’t suppress the sideways smirk that came on quick. I’d handle him all he wanted, and with curiosity layering on top of the attraction to him, I wasn’t going to be shy.

I kept getting hit with solid signals from him, they were unlike anything I’d ever felt, and somehow I knew he was also outside of his norm, but completely natural. My attention perked when he brought up piercings and something about coming back tomorrow.

Time to perish that thought.

Shaking my head, I dropped my hands in a wide sprawl on the display case, leaning towards him.>

I’ve got the time and my place is just upstairs. So what do you want, Atticus? <The question was meant to be overt and open ended. And if I loved learning his name… saying it packed a thousand times the punch.> And for the record, I’d love to handle you. <It was shameless and I was not at all sorry.>

Atticus:

-He lived upstairs...I laughed at the immediate thoughts that came to mind then shook my head slowly, speaking quickly before he could get any kind of insulted.-

Seems for the moment we are neighbours, Madyx. -The hand that had just held his, because of course I would now be differentiating my hands by whether or not they had touched him, lifted and I thumbed over my shoulder to my van parked out front. As his eyes moved to where I had indicated, I stared at the way his lips curved up at the corners and my fingers twitched at my sides wanting nothing more than to touch him again.

Since it was generally frowned upon to yank a guy I’d just met over the counter and kiss him without giving him any kind of forewarning or chance to stop me, I cleared my throat and attempted to redirect my wayward thoughts back to what we had been talking about. He’d asked me a question and the proper thing to do was answer it. What did I want?

I knew what I wanted… HIM. But that wasn’t what he’d been asking no matter HOW suggestive his voice had sounded to my ears.

In my early twenties I had looked into piercings, researched all the types and varieties a guy could get as a means of using the knowledge to impress this one chick I had liked when I overheard her talking about how hot guys who had them were. It even worked, up to a point. Turned out, simply knowing about piercings was much different than actually having them, and when she discovered I didn’t actually have any, her interest in me wavered and she quickly moved on. At that point, I didn’t see the need to get anything done since I had started out wanting to impress her, my intentions had been shallow, and lacked the intent to follow through. But now...now, my intentions were less fueled with wanting to impress someone I was attracted to and more about self-discovery.

Tonight, the idea of getting a piercing made me feel more alive than I had in years. It was the right reason to pull the trigger on this. The gut churning excitement was the same I felt when I had called the number on the FOR SALE sign that had been hanging on the window the day I decided to buy my van. I was immediately grateful to the chick of my early twenties for having inspired me to do all that research, even if her rejection had been a blow to my fragile, immature ego.

Was I being impulsive now? Absolutely. But I already knew I wouldn’t regret this which was why without any uncertainty colouring my voice, my gaze found Madyx’s and I grinned confidently as I told him exactly what I wanted.-

I’d like the first two rungs of Jacob’s Ladder.

-I knew what I was asking for, and I hoped like hell the nickname for frenum piercings hadn’t changed in the years since I had done all that research. If it had, I fully expected him to laugh in my face and tell me to get my wannabe ass the hell out. I held my breath, and counted the thuds of my pulse as they wooshed in my ears feeling less and less confident in my answer as the seconds passed by that it took him to speak.-

Madyx:

<There were several impulsive words trying to fly off my tongue, but I was biding my time. I glanced past him when he indicated he was my neighbor, noting the tell tale silhouette of his VW bus. Currently nomadic, likely sleeping on a less than comfy mattress in the name of experience. The mentality someone must possess to live on impulse was a turn on, and it worked in my favor. Without knowing it, he was feeding me information and arming my artillery with all kinds of weapons to extend the night…because without explanation, I just wanted more with him. More time. More touch. MORE.

Atticus was setting off signals like flares in a moonless night, the attraction was undeniably mutual. I knew it, but did he? He would, I wasn’t letting him out of my company without shooting my shot. . My sensory grid was lighting up in a bright spectrum of greens, this was something fae only experienced in the rarest of circumstances. I knew what it meant but couldn’t delve into all that mythology on the spot.

Fuck that. I was just going to go with it.

And then he said it. What he wanted.

I knew there was more by the way his eyes flicked over my lips and the unequivocal energy that told me he was using restraint.

My brows shot up in reaction. My grin stretched a little wider. My dick bucked in my jeans clearly in support of this development. I toed the line of professionalism in my day to day operations, but this was beyond that. I couldn’t stop thinking about getting his cock out of his pants. With a casual swipe of my tongue between my lips, I opened the case, pulling out the options so we could get down to business. I knew he wasn’t going to run. I’d bet on it.>

You have piercings I can’t see? Or do I get first honors?

<fingering a few of the barbells to draw his eyes down, even though I loved the heat of them on me> Are you thinking the same size for each? Or a descending size? Grooved balls? <I smirked, couldn’t help it> Smooth?

We’ll get to gauge when I see what we’re working with, Atticus.

Atticus:

-Just as my lungs were beginning to burn for fresh oxygen, he spoke, and I exhaled slowly, controlling myself from letting out a sigh of relief so as not to let on how unsure of myself I had been feeling. There was no laughter or smirking from him that told me I had used an outdated slang. Excellent. I was starting to feel less and less like a poser with each follow up question he asked. He was very clearly taking my request seriously though I was not blind to the less than subtle moments of flirtation he was allowing to slip out with each exchange between us. And I was about to let him see my dick. I almost laughed. I held it in. Barely.

It was my turn to speak. Right, he needed answers. I could give those. With a grin and a rub of my hands together I chuckled as I got the first question squared away.- No. I don’t have any other piercings. You’re my first, Mad.

-My eyes dropped down to the tray of hardware he removed from the display case, ears working overtime to hear each of his rapid fire queries that I was delayed in noticing I had already shortened his name from Madyx to Mad. Both suited him, but if he was about to get face up in my junk without it being sexual I figured it was all right for me to shorten his name without expressed permission, that was how nicknames were supposed to happen anyway.-

Size. I hadn’t really considered that when I went and got overzealous with my request for two piercings. -Laughing low, my eyes moved between the various sizes of barbells he was showing me before making up my mind with ease.-

I want them to be the same. As far as accessories go, I’m a bit of a minimalist and the idea of gradually increasing seems a bit pompous if not arrogant to me. I can only imagine the size needed at the base if I went and got the great idea to complete the ladder. FUCK. -A shudder of regret for future me shot down my spine then ricocheted straight into the tip of my dick. All previous arousal swifty vacated my body and in a hurry. Decision made.- Yeah. definitely the same size. And smooth.

I also know enough from my research ages ago to know I won’t be looking to stretch out the gauge, either. No matter how fast these particular piercings tend to heal, I don’t want my dick to become a branch of a Christmas tree, sagging under the weight of a too heavy ornament. God, can you even imagine?! -The mental images that began to fill my mind had me laughing again.- Otherwise, any other decisions needing made, I will heed to your expert opinion.

Madyx:

<I caught his exhale and something about it felt like he was relieved, as if he’d just confessed a long held desire for the first time, and maybe I wasn’t so off the mark as he answered that I was his first. I didn’t have time for a smart ass remark about popping his cherry because of what he said right after.

Mad. He called me Mad. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, as if a hand had ghosted upwards, calling it to attention. The sensation carried up into my scalp, and even to the tips of my ears. How was it that something so damn simple was so affecting with him? It wasn’t the first time since he walked in my shop, and the longer he stayed, the more I was convinced there was more of it in store.

I took him in as he weighed his options out loud, none of his choices surprising me. I figured he’d want something understated, but I didn’t want to assume out loud and then have him reveal his elaborate plans for a rainbow ladder with alternating barbells down the back of his cock. That would have been a grave mistake!

I laughed my ass off when he referenced a Christmas tree sagging under the weight of a heavy ornament from sizing up the gauges, unable to stop myself.>

If the piercings look like too heavy ornaments and your dick a limp tree after piercings, then someone doesn’t know shit about shit when it comes to proper technique.

You’re in good hands, Atticus. I promise you that. <I flicked my eyes up to hopefully catch his, and thankfully I didn’t miss my target.> First, proper frenum piercings need to hit at the right depth to avoid that unfortunate look. Second, and counterintuitively, because of the skin, we’ll want to use a heavier gauge. With a lighter weight, during the healing process, it would push towards the surface, also resulting in the wrong appearance and a damn inconvenient dangling effect that could lead to unfortunate zipping incidents.

<Laughing, it was a feat to drop my eyes from his as I started selecting options to suit his taste>

You’ll want to consider width dependent on your head. Sight unseen, I think this brushed steel goes with your vibe.

You also have options when it comes to the size of the balls. <smirking, I laid a few out> You don’t have to decide standing here, we’ll bring them over to my station and you can see what looks right to you.

You ready? Need a beer? Something stronger? <My mouth on your cock to ease any nerves? I kept that last one on lockdown, lifting a brow, as I anxiously waited for his reply>

Atticus:

-My previously lost arousal was swiftly returning, and reaching tenting trouble territory when Madyx promised I’d be in good hands. Wouldn’t I just love to be in his hands. I stared at them while he sorted through the barbells, selecting some he thought would work. Long fingers, nimble and sure in their movements. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now was not the time to learn I had a kink for hands, I’d never felt that way before, maybe they were just his hands I was lusting after, particularly when paired with this whole conversation that felt heavy with an undercurrent of attraction. I couldn’t deny it was flowing in both directions. He was making it pretty obvious, where I would have normally brushed it off as him being friendly in the beginning, I’d have to be blind to not see it now. I was damn sure seeing it.

Things were about to get very awkward if I didn’t get control over my body. I was a magnet drawn to a piece of metal, desperate to move closer, to obtain that satisfying click when the connection was finally made.

What was my life right now?

How could, of all the places I decided to stop on a whim have this guy right here, and have this kind of mutual attraction happen so effortlessly. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt that way toward someone and have them return it. Years, for sure. Many years. My eye was not exactly particular, it checked out chicks and dudes equally, but it took a lot to make me want a second glance.

Then he had to go and talk about ball sizing while smirking at me. I was starting to suspect he was playing with me. Cat toying with a mouse. Taunting my dick with his innuendo, coaxing it to come out of hiding and play his game. Did I want to? DUH. There was no denying how much I wanted to do just that.

But how does one go from piercing consultation to...Hey, you give me a boner, wanna hook up? Yeah…..no. He was hot, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was hit on all the time. Likely every day. I was certain of it. I didn’t want to be just some lame customer who was looking for an after hours special with the good looking tattoo shop guy.

Could I be any more of a cliche. I prided myself on being nothing of the sort...well I kind of was with my current on trend living in a van and travelling lifestyle. The only points working in my favour there was that I hadn’t documented a single moment of it outside of the memories in my mind. I wasn’t the next Van Guy with the Instagram worthy morning shots overlooking the ocean while holding a cup of coffee and casually displaying my abs for more likes. A thirst trap, I was not. I had higher standards than that.

Questions were being sent my way. Was I ready? What a loaded thing to ask, I laughed and hoped it didn’t sound as choked off to him as it did to my ears.- Yes. I’m ready. I’m good on the beer, for now. I think.

-I laughed again, this time it felt a little looser passing over my lips and I looked down at the tray of jewelry once more then looked back up at him, eyes finding his. Before I could stop myself, words tumbled out without much control over the content or how they’d be received, now was not the time to have shame or embarrassment, I needed to know if the situation in my jeans could be salvaged.- I once read that when getting dick tattoos, you had to be hard the whole time. Is the same true for piercings?

Madyx:

<The energy smacking me around was nothing I’d ever come across. Fuck. It was inexplicably intense, like we were plugged into each other and exchanging a charge. I was still mind-blown by what he was putting out. His subconscious and deep-seated pleasures were stimulating mine, as if they were dependent on one another. When I caught moments of him looking at me, my body reacted and my heart was thumping, driven by the physical and not so physical. I shut-up the internal analysis as much as I could and focused on what was in front of me.

Atticus was definitely anticipating, his excitement laced with nervousness inciting my extra fae receptors into overdrive. He covered pretty well, but his flustered laugh made me want to drop my jeans on the spot. I was stoked he’d declined the drink, especially since he’d slipped with the “for now.” Bingo. That was enough to confirm he wasn’t looking to bolt after I got up and personal with his cock.

The jewelry out, I let my attention land squarely back on him while he entertained what I’d displayed. It gave me a chance to scope the strong, lithe line of his back, and the sharp cut of his scruffed jaw. Hell, with every fresh recognition of his attributes, his hotness was intensifying right along with my craving for a thorough taste. While I had this fuck-me revelation, he was quiet, probably thinking about the dual-punctures I was about to put through his cock. I knew something was coming but the smirk that happened when he asked his question could not be helped.>

I’d like to see someone keep it hard through an entire inking. It only needs to be up for the stencil portion of the tattoo, after that there are creative ways to stretch a dick for the shading. As for you… <pursing my lips then rubbing them together> I’ll get the job done either way, as long as I can pinch the skin, I can pierce it. Generally, there’s more to work with when it’s not at attention. Chew on that and follow me.

<My smirk widened just before I broke eye contact and grabbed the tray of jewelry. Cocking my head in the direction of my station and the chair that would have him slightly reclined when he planted ass in it. I set the tray down and waited for him to get situated while I snapped on my gloves. When I turned around,shit, my eyes went straight south where it was hard to miss what was happening behind his zipper and before I could blow it, my eyes shot back to his. I couldn’t seem to stop doing that. I also couldn’t repress the urge to set him at ease and give him something to grab onto during this prelude to a pierce.

Playing it cool, casual, intent on finessing my approach, I took a seat on my stool, which kept us at eye level with one another. I knew he wanted this in my bones, but I was feeling the nerves from the risk of it. I stepped over the edge and took the cliff dive, the words passing over my lips as I felt a rush from the free fall.> How about you don’t leave after we’re done with business. <It was a question, but the way it came out sounded more like a statement. Unintentional. Organic. Assured. I dropped my eyes to his cock before they raked back up his body...to his suckable throat...his full lips...and back home to his grey-blue eyes.>

Atticus:

-“Chew on that and follow me.” Shit. He knew. He had to. There was no way he couldn’t tell I was already sporting wood. When he turned his back to me and headed to his station, I tried to chill myself the fuck out. Naturally my eyes landed on his ass and the fire that was in my veins ignited to an inferno and I knew there would be no way to get the blood to vacate my cock. This was going to be embarrassing for at least one of us in a couple of moments.

Did it matter though? I was just passing through town, at least that had been the plan when I entered the shop. I came in here looking for a conversation with another person and now I was about to leave with some metal accessories. I shook my head as I took a seat on the chair he wanted me in and took a few deeper breaths trying to slow the thundering of my heart.

I wasn’t shy about my body, never had been, but damn if I wasn’t worried about how he’d react when he took notice that I was more than eager to have his hands on me. Could I explain it away with a joke about being a masochist? Maybe, but it wasn’t true, not by the definition of the word.

As I spent precious time fretting in my mind he had turned around from setting down the tray and...YEP. I watched as Mad got himself an eyeful and like the professional I already figured he was, his gaze moved right past my crotch and straight up to my face.

He didn’t laugh. Or smile or even make a comment. The flirting that had been so natural halted. I didn’t know what to do with that. I was suddenly feeling overheated in my hoodie while worry about insulting him began to cycle through my mind, of course that was when things started to chill out for me in trouser tent town. I reconsidered the whole masochist angle again just to try and break the silence but shook my head to myself. It wouldn’t matter in a day or two or a week. I’d carry on with my drive and he’d have a story to tell his coworkers tomorrow. I was fine being a laughable story.

Before I could find something casual to say, he sucker punched me with that line of staying after he was done and I briefly wondered if he was trying to throw me a bone because he felt sorry for me. I didn’t think so. The tension between us had been palpable from the start. I nodded at his non-question.- Yeah. I’d like that. Though we both know you already know that I would.

-I laughed low as his eyes did another sweep and the previously cooling jets fired right back up again. Jesus. When did I become a thirteen year old boy seeing his first dirty magazine. I reached up behind my neck as I sat forward in the chair and pulled my hoodie off over my head, draping it on the arm of my chair, leaving me in my well worn white tee that was underneath.

There was no point in trying to hide shit, the elephant in the room had been noticed, spoken about and well acknowledged, not to mention Mad was about to shake hands with the trunk. I blew out a breath, feeling all embarrassment sliding away as easily as I had taken off my hoodie, and grinned at him.- Let’s get to you shoving some needles through my family jewels so we can have that beer you mentioned.

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palimpsessed · 4 years

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The Welsh Red Dragon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Social Activism

The inspiration behind Shepard’s pins

(original post with full artwork here.)

So, I spent A LOT of time thinking about the kind of pins our good friend Shepard (from Omaha, NE) would have on his denim jacket. Like a lot. Like an obsessive amount of time. I made a list, which seemed appropriate for this fandom. And because I’m a nerd and this sort of thing really interests me, and I’m proud of what I came up with, and because I think some of these items open up the possibility for some good, good literary analysis, I decided to make a whole post dedicated to Shepard’s pins. You’re welcome.

First, a little bit about my thought process. How did I decide what kind of pins to give Shepard? Well, he’s a guy full of stories. Stories that he can’t wait to tell anyone and everyone. And stories that others (mostly Maybes) have told him, once he’s earned their confidence. So, I wanted his pins to tell a story, his story in particular. What is the story that Shepard wants to tell about himself? More precisely, what is the story he wants to tell his new magickal friends on a disastrous summer holiday? The story is that of his own magickal credibility. His journey to magic (his come to Crowley moment, perhaps?) (I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry…) and his trustworthiness as evidenced by all of the Maybes he’s met along the way. He’s gotten drunk off dandelion wine with a creek dryad, given a toothbrush to a Sasquatch. spilled the tea with a jackalope, midwifed a centaur foal. Shep’s journey is just as impressive as Simon’s, and while Simon has been collecting notches on his dead dark creature bedpost (that’s a weird fucking metaphor…) (and now I’m thinking about dark creatures and Simon’s bedposts…so, you’re welcome, Basilton), Shep’s been collecting notches of the friendly variety. (Shoutout to @adamarks who did some super lovely analysis on Simon and Shep as mirrors here: https://adamarks.tumblr.com/post/188046272067/ok-so-when-shepard-said-he-was-cursed-the-first). So, I decided that I wanted to use Shep’s pins as a way to show the notches on his bedpost, so to speak. (Okay, I’m really losing this metaphor, but I think you’re still with me.)

Let’s dive in!

(I’m working my way down one side of his jacket at a time, for those following along at home.)

RIGHT SIDE

Welsh Dragon: I made this one very large, and easy to spot on his right shoulder. Of all of his accoutrements, this one felt like the most important. Mainly, because of Simon. Simon is, after all, half-Welsh. (The Mage, may he rest in pain, came to Watford from Wales.) And, of course, Simon, just like the Welsh Dragon, is a red dragon. (Or in the process of becoming one? Or a half-dragon? Or a dragon kitten?…) And the dragon that Simon and Baz fought on the Watford lawn, when they first worked together, and first shared magic, was a red dragon. Of course, the actual dragon in question here is Margaret. Shepard would absolutely have a pin to commemorate his friendship with her. And since I was going to give him a pin with a dragon, I knew I was going to have to use the Welsh Dragon because it would perfectly capture his burgeoning friendship with Simon, as well. Now, I want to go on a slight detour here (this blog post will be its own Odyssey) and talk more about the Welsh Red Dragon. I took the design for the pin from the Welsh flag, which is the thing that first made me think more about Simon’s Welsh connection. I’m not really making a point here, I just think it’s fascinating! There’s a lot of Welsh lore about the Red Dragon (and Margaret herself calls Simon “Great Red” - that ‘R’ is capitalized, by the way, so this seems to be a proper name for the kind of dragon that she thinks Simon is). Full disclosure, I am not Welsh and I am not a scholar on any of this by any means. That being said, a cursory, and super academic, perusal of the Wikipedia article on the Welsh Dragon led me to a few different history websites that linked the symbol of the red dragon with Merlin and King Arthur (son of Uther Pendragon, literally dragon head). Merlin, one of the most well-known magical figures and Arthur, one of the most well-known Chosen One figures in literary tradition. I know very little about Arthurian legend, and Welsh history, and dragon lore, though, so I’m going to just say, do a little research on your own when you’re bored and feeling nerdy!

Resist!: Shep is a young black man (and reasonable human being) living in the U.S. during the [redacted] Administration. I should hope this one is self-explanatory.

Hoover Dam: At some point in his visits to see Blue, I’m sure Shepard stopped off at the gift shop and bought himself a souvenir pin to mark the incredible experience he had making friends with an actual river. (This pin design is based on an actual souvenir pin of the Hoover Dam I found on Google Images—along with most of the other pin designs. I think it’s vintage, which just felt even more like Shepard to me, because he’s the kind of guy who would appreciate stuff that’s got a past.)

Deathly Hallows: I mean, IF the Harry Potter books/movies exist in the Simon Snow universe (which hasn’t been confirmed, as far as I know, by our Queen) I’m sure Shepard would have been totally into it as a kid, and probably would have found greater significance in its magical lore once he discovered that ACTUAL MAGIC EXISTS! So, he would have a pin to show his belief in the magickal world, and maybe also as a nostalgic reminder of when magic was still just something fictional he could turn to for escapism (and not something that would result in being cursed by a demon…).

The Truth is Out There: So, I know virtually nothing about The X-Files (my sister was obsessed with it to the point that she wanted to become a FBI agent for a few years, but I never watched it), but I’m sure Shepard is a fan. If nothing else, the sentiment is awfully apropos.

So It Goes: This one is very hard to see. It sort of looks like a black teardrop with a bar on top of it (it’s supposed to look like a bomb). The pin I based this off of reads “So It Goes”, which from my very superficial research, is a line repeated in Vonnegut’s anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five every time someone dies. I don’t know anything more about it, other than that it is a Kurt Vonnegut-inspired pin available for purchase on Etsy, and Shep mentions that he wanted to get a Vonnegut quote tattoo, even though “everybody has those.”

Green Alien Head: You will never be able to convince me that Shepard does not 10,000% believe in the existence of aliens. If he were still in the U.S. during the Area 51 Raid, I’m sure he would have stopped by, just, you know, for science…(I’m thinking he was probably still in the UK, but I guess we’ll see in AWTWB.)

Centaur: This one is also hard to see, but I took the design from a pin I found of one of the centaurs (the blue-haired, blue-bodied one, if that rings a bell for you) from Disney’s Fantasia. (Fun fact: I was super into Fantasia as a littlun, and I attribute my lifelong love for classical music in large part to the centaur sequence and my latent lesbianism—I mean, it was ludicrously erotic. Watch it sometime and tell me it would not make an impression on a sapphic three-year-old.) Midwifing a centaur foal was probably a very emotional and formative experience for Shepard. Buying this pin would be his way of remembering that experience, and the excitement and gratitude he likely felt to have been entrusted with that kind of acceptance from the centaur(s).

Jackalope: It doesn’t help that this pin is almost the same color as Shepard’s jacket, but it’s based off a design of a jackalope’s head that, again, I found on Google Image search (honestly, I don’t know how I ever made art without it). We know that Shepard once got some gossip from a jackalope, who vented to him about magicians calling “themselves ‘magicians’”, like “they’re the only ones with magic”. (This is totally irrelevant, but I always think of Americans when I read this. I am an American, by the way. America is a continent, but those of us living in the U.S. calls ourselves Americans, like everyone else living in America doesn’t matter.) Anyway, the jackalope offered Shepard some valuable insight into the political workings of the magickal world, so it gets its own pin.

LEFT SIDE

Pansexual Pride Flag Pin: I mean, technically, canonically, we don’t know what Shepard’s sexuality (or asexuality) is, but I just get some vibes from him. Plus, if we take him as a mirror for Simon (who is somewhere on the bi-plus spectrum), it’s not a far cry to imagine he also identifies somewhere on that spectrum.

Pentagram: This is another symbol that I chose based on my interpretation of Shepard’s character, and not so much on a Maybe or a story that he mentioned. The pentagram, or pentacle, is typically associated with the occult and witchcraft, which is something that could potentially also be said of Shep.

Sasquatch: You don’t go backpacking—or not backpacking—and introduce a Sasquatch to the benefits of dental hygiene without getting yourself a souvenir of the hike.

I [heart] Mystery Spot: The Mystery Spot is a weird sort of phenomenon in California (my home state). It’s a place outside the beach town of Santa Cruz that boasts of a “gravitational anomaly” on its website. I went once, years ago, and while you’re there, it can feel pretty convincing. (Also, I was probably like 10, so…) People outside of California will likely never have heard of this place, but driving around here (at least in the Bay Area, where I am, which isn’t that far from Santa Cruz) you’ll see yellow Mystery Spot bumper stickers on cars everywhere. I’m not really sure what the thing is with the bumper stickers. Like, I’m sure not that many people actually think it’s legit, and maybe it’s like one of those things that Californians just do (like freak out and forget how to drive when we feel water falling from the sky). But yeah, these bumper stickers are everywhere. Anyway, Shepard drives around a lot. He knows about the Vampires of Las Vegas (how is that not an indie rock band?) and the Katherine Hotel, and the Next Blood. So, he’s probably made it past Nevada and into California before. And while he was there, it’s not a great stretch of the imagination that someone who chases after magic wouldn’t wind up at a place called the Mystery Spot and get himself a pin while he was there. (And maybe even a bumper sticker.)

Black Power Fist: Unfortunately, this one is also hard to see, because the fist is black and I didn’t have anything to go over the outlines of the fingers with, which I sort of didn’t think about when I colored it. This one also feels self-explanatory. Shepard is black. Blackness has long been treated in itself as a crime by non-black members of law enforcement, and just the general racist population of the U.S. Young black men are especially vulnerable to racially motivated violence. I’m sure Shep, who drives all over the country by himself and gets into high speed chases at night in the middle of nowhere Nebraska while hunting super shifty rando Maybes has had a run-in or two. Stay safe, Shep!

Every Pronoun Belongs Here [Trans Pride Flag background]: Also, super hard to see because the letters are too small to read. I found this exact pin in a basket by the register at my local bookshop. (Support local bookshops, people!) They were being sold as a fundraiser for a LGBTQ club at one of the high schools, and I loved the idea that I could help them raise money and add this pin to my own growing collection to show off my support for trans rights. (Support trans rights and trans people, people!) I decided to give Shepard this same pin, because I could imagine him having an almost identical book buying experience in a dozen other towns that he’s probably visited. And I love the simplicity of the message, because it’s one of belonging, which EVERYONE is desperately seeking, no matter who they are or how they identify, and Shepard, and every character in this picture, is no exception. (Plus, it seemed like a cool way to connect my pin collection with Shep’s. Maybe I should have mentioned the fact that I’m also a pin person at the beginning? I walk to work and on my lunch breaks, so I carry all of my stuff in a backpack. And I proudly display my random pin collection on my backpack. Including several Simon Snow-related pins.)

Don’t Panic: This was based off a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pin. I don’t really know anything about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (including if it’s okay to abbreviate it as HGG? THGTTG? whatever), even though I did watch the movie years back when it was on TV and I still lived with my parents who had a TV. But the sentiment felt appropriate, and Shepard is a sort of magickal hitchhiker. Apart from managing to hold down a job at Dick Blick, he appears to lead a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. He tells Penny, “the road is my teacher”, and if that’s not a hitchhiker slogan, I don’t know what is. (Ass, gas, or grass?)

Black Lives Matter: They do. Just sayin’.

Magic Troll Doll: When I was growing up, the Troll doll was all the (nightmare-inducing) rage. Trolls are one of those magickal creatures that are continually mentioned in the series. Shepard talks about lonely trolls under bridges. Simon talks about killing trolls. Agatha would rather kiss a troll. And Baz was kidnapped by numpties, who are sort of like trolls. I couldn’t not include a troll. And the Troll doll specifically felt perfect, because the full name was Magic Troll Doll. You can bet if Shepard had to pick a troll-related pin, it would be a magic(k)al one.

[Asshole]: This is another Kurt Vonnegut pin. It looks like a messily drawn asterisk (*), but it’s actually meant to be an asshole (taken from the preface of Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions, and drawn by Vonnegut himself). I just thought, why the fuck not? So, here. Have an asshole pin. (I should have put it on a buttonhole…)

HONOURABLE MENTION

Shepard’s Phone Case: Remember that line I quoted earlier, about Shep wanting to get a Vonnegut quote tattoo? Well, when I was trying to figure out what to put on his phone case, I thought that seemed like a reasonable place to start. So, I googled Vonnegut quotes, to see if I could find one that I thought Shepard would like. Here’s the quote: “a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” I just loved that for Shepard.

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vndicate · 4 years

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aka the plot hole where they were like here’s some shit called the black oil / black cancer and it’s legit for alien colonization and mul.der was infected in it and the show talked about it like one valid time and then used it as a plot device to say he’s not only fine but incredibly medically healthy !!!! and that’s bananas so now i’m here. im just gonna ramble off the series of events that took place and the overall effect, with a simplified summary at the very bottom if you don’t wanna read this whole spiel. the first few paragraphs are literally just going to be a timeline and recounting.

in earlier seasons mu lder was seen having what was known as ‘ black oil ’ ( or the black cancer or purity ) poured into his face, an alien virus that was chillin in some deposits in the earth after a meteorite struck tunguska in 1908 ( the meteor actually happened google it ). in the show they displayed some wild russian gulag where random individuals were having it tested on them trying to find an immunity and mul.der got wrapped up into it. obviously, a lot of prisoners began to die due to it, but mul der eventually managed to fight his way and break free with no evident initial side effects or any influence until season 6.

the black oil is an alien virus used to infect other species in order to overtake them; essentially, it enters the body and can have a multitude of effects, including taking over full control and having the body do the aliens’ bidding as they choose. it’s an organic mind control. the entire purpose of it is to reproduce and conquer other species.

three years later, upon finding an artifact that provided proof that humanity may have been created by aliens ( gotta love txf ), mu lder falls into a crippling state as the artifact re-activates the black oil. while the reactivation doesn’t serve its initial purpose ( he’s not being controlled by anything ), the alien dna activates in a part of his brain. agent mul der begins to feel severe migraines by the first episode, but before long falls into an extremely manic state and displays abnormal brain activity, eventually deteriorating so far as being admitted to a mental hospital in a padded cell where he’s unable to communicate and is extremely violent.

our good pal kritschgau ends up helping along as well, a former character who knows about these experiments with the alien virus on humans and injects mul der with medication to slow down his brain activity. they test mul der to find he has the ability to read minds, and that he / his brain is essentially frying from all the activity and over-stimulus and etc. he is dying. he also falls in and out of a catatonic state throughout the episode, as well as falling into a seizure from the various medications he’s injected with, etc.

eventually, mul der is kidnapped by csm and diana to undergo a surgery to remove this portion of his brain. later on in the show as well, after muld.er’s eventual abduction, mul.der is said to have been dying from a brain tumor, as further indication the the oil may have done more damage while it existed. the tumor was going to take his life in less than a year by that point. returning from his abduction he died, but scu.lly had found evidence in other abductee’s bodies also exposed to the oil, that the black oil was resurrecting them to turn them into alien hybrids for colonization. they were able to save and revive mul.der with no lasting impact of the colonization.

that being said, everything after this point is going to be headcanon, everything above was just canon retellings :

fox for sure still has moderate influence from the alien dna. viruses that target specific areas of the body can absolutely cause a long term impact and scarring, and there’s no reason to expect that a virus attacking his brain and trying to change the way his body works and even beginning to succeed slowly would simply recover without a hitch. while it was said to have only effected a portion of his brain in the temporal lobe, the resiliency of the brain and its tendency to rewire and reconfigure itself based on need seems like it would be impractical if all of his issues went away because this random human brain surgeon was like i can probably just take this out and we’ll be gucci, and then later when it’s proven to still be there because of his resurrection, that anti-virals and temperature control would manage to kill it and his body could heal perfectly. that ain’t it chief.

i wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s maintained the ability to read minds explicitly, but it’s definitely tied in further with his natural intuition. as is, fox has an incredible ability to understand situations and people in realms beyond logic and science and he’s almost always right. he can set himself into different perspectives masterfully. to tack onto that : since the events of the alien dna in his brain, some of the capacity to tap into the extraterrestrial side remains, unknown to him. he isn’t aware that he can work himself harder into perceiving things greater than him, touching on reading minds or experiencing strange explainable sensations and leads from nothing again. he doesn’t even know some of the alien dna still left irreparable damage, and it may be no guarantee medical examination would be able to show the results of something that’s so unique. a medical examination may identify damage but not what. what was before a bit of uncanny luck and coincidence due to his intuitive nature is now extremely so on the occasions that he heavily exerts himself, unknowing he’s pushing himself to the limits of heightened brain activity and beginning to utilize the minimal remnants of his reworked mind. he’s grazing read minds and emotions in such a way he isn’t even realizing it, but gaining feelings, sensations, sometimes even pictures or clues or colors in ways he never has before and sometimes in manners that don’t even make sense. it’s like seeing his emotional victims/suspects/etc, finding a dead end, feeling that frustration and analyzing all the information over and over and it may be even the slightest suggestion, the image of something in his brain like an old memory he’s about to forget and all of a sudden so much makes sense but he could never explain the leap it took to get there. he often keeps these findings to himself until they make sense, but he does go out of his way to look for them and make the pieces connect as they have reliably in the past.

the temporal lobe also has dealings in memory, that is facial recognition, language / speech recognition, etc. fox has always had a fairly keen memory and a spectacular attention to detail — i would say it’s only sharpened it vaguely, in such a manner that it was surprising before, it’s not much more surprising now. scu lly would truly be one of the few people to notice any of these differences in mul der, and even then, they’re so wildly minute and specific he hardly even notices them. this is mostly important as well due to all of the concussions and knocks he’s had, a risk to his mind / memory i won’t go too deep into, but having that heightened resiliency is insurance he won’t begin to lose it or face complications in the near future in that regard.

a side effect of these heightened abilities is overworking — he can’t quite strain himself in the way he used to. the more he forces, the more he tries to focus on, the more likely he’s going to burn out and a severe migraine will begin to form like those he had initially gained from the alien artifact. he’s known to push himself for over 24 hours sometimes on some cases, and for it to be an unconventional chase where he’s going entirely off of a hunch and then some, a lot of that strain and searching for a small detail, a literal needle in a haystack, can be so painfully infuriating. bright lights begin to bother, etc.

#.☄ ° ゜ as you claw the thin ice . ⇢ fact.#i added more to the post-abduction era and etc.#not many of the long-term effects are on there but

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mementomcriis · 5 years

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´ ･ . ✶ ⧼ maya hawke, demiwoman, she & her & they & them / girl with one eye by florence and the machine + the soft, white noise crackle of an ancient vhs tape, aging newspaper clippings and yellowed family photographs pinned to a corkboard and connected with a distinct red string, and the cloying, all consuming smell of lavender and sage ⧽ ━━ don’t look now, but that’s SIDNEY AMELIA KNOX-KHAN. the twenty two year old HUMAN has been here in seattle for their whole life, and is a FILM STUDENT & VIDEO STORE CLERK. they’ve always been IRREPRESIBLE & IRON WILLED, but i guess this town just brings out the worst in people ; apparently, they’ve been way more CONTRARIAN & VOCIFEROUS than usual. it wouldn’t surprise me if they knew what was going on. you can check out their stat page HERE.

i wish that i could say that i am a LIGHT that never goes out / BUT I FLICKER FROM time TO time.

section one of three : bullet point history trigger warnings for talk of murder

sidney was born here in seattle, washington. her mother was BEATRICE KHAN, a fairly well known name in the publishing world ( though she never released any of her own countless numbers of novels ), absolutely unrelenting when it came to cutting her clients a good deal. her father was julian knox, a one time american football player who PEAKED in college and turned to writing romance novels after a career ending injury forced him to confront that he wasn’t much qualified for anything else. the family unit that they created was full of love and ever nurturing - perfect, from the inside to the out.

they were the quintessential all american family, where it COUNTED. parents that were sickeningly in love. two kids, with the perfect age difference between them. they lived in a house in the suburbs with a picket fence ( that was actually stained brown, not white ) and a perfect lawn, where the cat they had in place of a dog due to julian’s allergies would lounge, day after day. even the neighbours figured they were perfect ; the kind of thing with with all smiles, to their faces, and muttered darkly in the privacy of their own suburban homes. beatrice would go to work from eight to five, every day. julian would stay home. he got the kids their breakfast, he got them on a bus. he would go inside and write and break up the day with gardening or do it yourself projects, attending community meetings, fulfilling his pta role - and then his kids would come home, and dinner would be on the table in time for his wife’s return. perfect. clockwork.

sidney loved it, personally. she had no desire to act out. no need to break the mold, so to speak. she never felt as if she were stifled, or that her parents were pushing their own ambitions onto her. if anything, the thing that was most shocking about her early life was that she actually ENJOYED it. school could be challenging, in it’s own way - she was diagnosed with dyslexia young, but it took a few more years for them to pinpoint her adhd - but she got all the help that she could have dreamt of needing. she was allowed, if not encouraged, to try every whim that came to mind. they were, after all, within a privileged position enough to ALLOW it. piano lessons for two years, the violin for five. she attempted gymnastics and managed to break her wrist just two lessons in - never bothered to try another more physical activity, after that, but she had a healthy appreciation for watching sports, just like dad. her home life was excellent. her school life was just fine. she was a BRIGHT and curious soul, and she had aspirations for the kind of college that should she have attended, her mother could have lived VICARIOUSLY through her. she was extremely lucky to like her parents, and to appreciate the life that they had given her for all that it was.

she shouldn’t have to look back on these earlier years with sadness, and yet, life simply doesn’t work the way that it SHOULD. the week before the murders, she never could have presumed what was going to happen, though she was plagued by nightmares - something that she attributed to the horror movie marathon she had just completed or the milk drank before bed, and not to anything legitimate. she dreamt of hooded figures and serrated knives and a screaming that never stopped ringing in her ears, even after she awoke in a cold sweat and struggled to fall back asleep. she would struggle from the tangle of bedsheets with the urge to wash her hands, compulsively ; as if she were trying to get non-existent blood out from beneath her fingernails. she was fifteen years old, and she googled things like ‘can my period give me nightmares?’ and ‘is the milk before bed thing legit’, but she had NO REASON to fear the images that slipped away, as night turned into day.

it seems cruel, in it’s own way, that the night which changed the course of sidney’s life for good is one she spent completely unaware. she was staying at her girlfriends house - a sleepover planned for almost a MONTH - and the next morning, when the police came to pick her up, she had been in the midst of eating breakfast with the affectionately named ‘in laws’ and trying to swallow back a persistent feeling of unease. she was lucky that she was waiting for a lift back to her house - she was luckier, still, that a nosy neighbour had noticed her mother’s car hadn’t left for work, yet, and popped around to check in on them. if they hadn’t, and if she had gotten the early morning bus as planned, then sidney would have had to live with image of her bloodied parents until the day she DIED, too.

her mom and dad were gone. this was the gut punch, number one. number two was that her sibling - her should have been legal guardian - was under arrest. the MURDER weapon ( a phrase she had only ever heard on tv, and could never have guessed would be said in regards to her life ) had been found wrapped in one of their jackets and thrown in a dumpster outside. they had been picked up a block away, and in interrogation, their alibi didn’t stand up. it was a rather cut & dry case, and suddenly, everyone in the neighbourhood - what felt like the whole world, back then - was doing their level best to pick sidney’s picture perfect life apart. people who had once only ever had good things to say now talked about late night arguments between mom and dad. said that they had never trusted the look of her sibling, not even when they were a kid. said there was something not right about them - and that they couldn’t be sure sidney wasn’t the same. the circumstantial evidence piled against the only member of family that sid had left, and there was nothing that could be done. she was put into the system a mere week after the murders, and everything moved quickly on. she talked to a handful of reporters, but for the most part, people out in the world didn’t care for the story. it wasn’t anything too SPECIAL, she supposed.

too many stories talk of foster care becoming a sort of hell for the children stuck in it. for sidney, however, her foster home was her only salvation from the world outside her door. the one thing that she could rely on, even as she went through the most momentous changes. her first week back at school, the staring was almost painful. the whispers were worse. sidney requested she be moved, and in the process, she allowed herself be cut off from her old life - the friends she had, the partner she had loved. she started somewhere new, and she was... different, now. stranger. sidney’s way of dealing with all that had happened was to cling to things that had once only been a special interest - UNSOLVED crimes, sensationalist stories, horror movies and the supernatural. she spent a lot of time in her room, and she spent even more indulging in these new interests. the people at her new school figured that she was weird, and that assumption only got worse when they discovered what had happened to her parents. whispers of her being like her MURDEROUS sibling were somehow worse than anything else that had ever been said, but she took it, for the most part, on the chin. she couldn’t explain her sudden draw to the macabre, even less than she could explain why everything in her life had fallen apart. frankly.... it didn’t matter. she simply was.

sidney’s foster family supported her, right up until she turned eighteen, and even after. she sacrificed the dream of an ivy league school for something more achievable, beginning to attend a seattle local college after graduation and majoring in film, finding among those students - OLDER and more mature, of course, than high school kids - something she had started to forget was possible. her job as a film store clerk didn’t exactly help her rake in the cash, but once she started selling movie reviews to online publications, sidney was able to save up some money and buy professional equipment - beginning her podcast in late 2018. she doesn’t tend to talk about what happened. she doesn’t tend to think about her SIBLING. she’s got a life, now, and it’s not exactly the one she ever expected to be living - but it is her own, and that’s really all that she can hope for.

section two of three : headcanons

sidney dealt with her grief by… hyper fixating on a special interest she had always sort of had, and becoming quite the little movie buff. horror movies, more than anything, but people didn’t react very well when she went off on a tangent over wes craven’s talent, so she broadened her horizons a little. she enjoys film, maybe moreso than she should. all that led her to other special interests, and now she’s dabbled in just about everything that a woman can.

her podcast deals, of course, with unsolved mysteries. this usually takes the form of unsolved CRIMES, but... she believes in ghosts and aliens, and she throws an episode in every now and then that deals with them. she’s very open about this side gig, solely because she hopes that someday, it’ll be what she does for a living - and because there’s no point in attempting to hide something that’s such a huge part of her life, even if people do tend to... not enjoy her being so into these things, as the daughter of two murder victims.

her older sibling was acquitted of the crime - eventually. sidney still doesn’t enjoy thinking about them or it, per say, but when the news reached her, she did begin to... hyper fixate, once again, and begin to obsess over what the TRUTH was. she has cork theory board dedicated solely to her parents - and more recently has added another one, dedicated to what’s happening in seattle. she’s not gifted, or in the know, but she’s certainly not an idiot.

has a pet rat named church ( which is a fairly ironic reference to the cat in pet sematary ), and he’s NOT her first. she’s owned several since she was put into care, and they’ve always been something of an emotional support for her.

while i align sidney more with ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘true crime’ than i do ghosts and ghouls, i will admit that i tend to push a lot of spooky cliche’s onto her, because i like having a character who’s very IN TOUCH and into that season, in particular. promise i’m trying to control the impulses.

always has on at least five necklaces and eight rings, and never has any less than ten bracelets. her style would be hard to define, but the amount of cheap jewelry is FAIRLY indicative.

section three of three : wanted connections

sidney knox-khan, our maya hawke is looking for their older sibling who resembles finn cole, tiera skovbye, dacre montgomery / up to player and should be 23+. applicants do not have to contact rachel to talk over details before applying. ( pls allow me preface with the fact that i wld be happy for her sibling to be half / adopted / fostered either, and they don’t necessarily have to be named after a horror character like sid was - though the latter is a fun lil thing abt the family, so i would love if u went that route too ! sid and her sib have had. a rough life. and by that i mean, they had an entirely perfect life up until the sib was aged 18 - when they were arrested for the murder of their well to do parents. it’s all explained more clearly within sid’s intro, and basically… the evidence was circumstantial and flimsy. it probably would have made sense they spend SOME time behind bars, but it’s also possible they didn’t - though sid was put into care for the remainder of her teens, so may not know they were ever released ! the two very distinct routes this could go in are …. sid being suspicious of them and feeling as if they must of done it, because who else could have, or alternatively - sid being open to the idea of them not, because nothing about the case ever sat right w her. we could talk more abt it, but i feel like it’s one of those connects i just. wld love to have ! )

sidney knox-khan, our maya hawke is looking for their foster family ( parents, siblings, etc ) who resemble ariela barer, iman meskini, madchen amick, santiago segura, herman tommeraas, bradley cooper / up to player and should be any age. applicants do not have to contact rachel to talk over details before applying. ( sid never took their name, so first up - that’s a detail open to applicants ! basically. there’s a mother, a father, and their merry band of foster kids - probably… four… five? a nice amount. none of them have to be like one another. none of them have to fit a specific role. this is the family that took sidney in after her parents were murdered, and the fact of the matter is - there are a LOT of stories in which foster care became a hell for the protagonist, but that’s not sid’s story. she was ostracized in school. she had lost her only blood relations. her foster home became a safe haven, and the people within it became as close as could be to her. we stan one supportive household who still hold her whole heart, to this day. )

sidney knox-khan, our maya hawke is looking for their close friends ( max. four ) who resemble virginia gardner, justice smith, sydney park / up to player and should be 21+. applicants do not have to contact rachel to talk over details before applying. ( sid didn’t have ANY friends until she got to college, due completely to how #weird people began to find her. she eventually found her squad, but they’re basically. like every good horror movie group. her equivalent would be rany meeks from scream 1996, or noah foster from scream tv. she fits their archetype, but i wouldn’t say that the group MUST comprise of likeminded people. in fact, it’s more fun if they don’t. they’re not a group of jocks or cheerleaders or popular kids, but they are a sort of breakfast club. a merry band of b-listers who grouped together and have remained together for a real long time. )

sidney knox-khan, our maya hawke is looking for their ex poly ship who resemble up to player and should be 21+. applicants do not have to contact rachel to talk over details before applying. ( sidney made a bunch of… not entirely excellent choices, in the yrs following her parents deaths. that isn’t to say she acted out, or that she did anything that was too out of character for her. she really didn’t - but she did become a much more WEIRD version of who she had always been, and people pushed her away because of it. when others came along that seemed to be able tolerate who she had become, she clung to them - to almost extreme degrees. the relationship was a whirlwind if ever there was one, and perhaps wasn’t ‘true love’. maybe not even close. but they did seem to work right up until when they didn’t - and the end was quite messy, by all standards. sid did a good job of ending relationships on friendly terms, but this didn’t - all details aside from these are open for discussion ! )

#equinox.intro #˚ 　　biography 　 .　　 . ⊹ the grandchild of witches you weren’t able to burn.#death mention cw #murder mention cw

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breanime · 6 years

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Heartworm (Part Six)

Double posting takes so long! WARNING: this part has mentions and descriptions of violence, read with caution!

*gif not mine*

You decided that Detective Mahoney was the only good cop in New York City. After he’d introduced himself, he’d asked if there was a place you could go to talk. You knew Trish would have questions if you stayed at the office, not to mention your coworkers, so you took the detective to a small deli a few blocks away. He had assured you that he only wanted to talk, and you decided to play it cool until you could get a final read on this guy. So far, all you could tell was that he was a genuinely concerned cop who was actually interested in justice.

It was his poor luck that you were only interested in Billy.

“Is this okay,” he asked, “I mean, you won’t get written up for leaving early or anything, will you?”

“No, this is fine. I was on my way out anyway,” you answered, “So, um, Detective Mahoney—”

“Call me Brett.” He smiled.

“Brett,” you faked a smile back, “How can I help you? Oh,” you widened your eyes, pretending to remember something, “is this about the noise compliant I made with the city a few months ago? I told the super people had started loitering outside, but he didn’t seem to care…”

“No,” he shook his head with a chuckle, “That’s unfortunately outside my realm of influence,” his smile turned into a serious look, and you braced yourself, “Actually, I’ve, uh, I’ve been looking for you for most of the day. There’s something I need to tell you—to warn you about.” You nodded, silently encouraging him to go on. “Billy Russo has escaped police custody.”

This was, obviously, not news to you, but hearing it from the detective made your breath hitch. “When?”

“Yesterday morning,” he answered, “We have cops staking out his last known addressed and every badge in the city is looking for him.”

“That’s… That’s good,” you swallowed. You tried to bring back all the confusion and helplessness you felt when Billy had first been arrested and recreate it now. Mahoney—Brett—seemed like a kind man, but you couldn’t let him get to Billy…not yet, at least. “But why are you telling me?”

“It’s on record that you and Russo were a couple.”

“That was over three years ago,” you shook your head, “I haven’t seen Billy since then—at least not in person.” You ducked your head down shyly. “I did… I did watch the coverage on the news.” You looked back up at Brett. “But that’s it. I hadn’t heard from Billy since we broke up.” You shrugged. “I could give you a list of places he could be, maybe? I don’t know if it would be any help…”

“I would appreciate that, Ms. Y/LN,” he said, “but I don’t think you understand the danger you’re in. Russo’s dangerous, unhinged. It was reported that he asked for you by name the day he escaped. Now,” he folded his hands on the table, “it’s been three years since the two of you have talked… Why would he do that?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know,” you answered, “I mean, he was locked up all this time, maybe he was just going through a list of exes and my name happened to be the one he said outloud.” You shook your head. “I imagine Billy wasn’t doing well in a cage.”

“He wasn’t in a cage,” Brett said, “We were keeping Russo under constant surveillance at a psychiatric hospital.” You made an effort to make a confused face. “Russo sustained some major injuries and some significant memory damage,” he explained, “His therapist said he might not even be competent to stand trial.”

“So he’s faking,” you said, knowing he wasn’t, “Billy’s a smart man, I’m sure he knows it’d be better for him to get off on a plea deal than admit he’s guilty.”

“It’s possible,” Brett shrugged, “His therapist and doctors think he’s legit. Either way, you might be in danger.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card. “I want you to give me a call if you hear from Russo,” he instructed.

“Of course.” Another lie. “I mean, I don’t—I don’t think he’d bother coming after me, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“I appreciate that.” Brett gave you a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry to have to come to you with this, I can get a squad car to stay outside of your apartment if you want…”

“Oh no, no,” you shook your head, “That’s not necessary, I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking up police resources. Besides,” you gave him a weak smile, “I’m telling you, there’s no way Billy would waste time with me. He’s probably halfway out of the country by now. And even if he’s not, Billy never tried to get in contact with me theses last three years, there’s no reason he’d try now.”

“Maybe,” Brett agreed easily. Too easily. “But still, keep an eye out; make sure you’re locking your doors. Maybe see if you can stay with some family or friends until this blows over.”

You chuckled. “You make Billy sound like the boogeyman.”

Brett didn’t laugh. “He’s dangerous, Y/N. He took down a room full of guards and killed at least two men in the last 24 hours.”

Two? You knew about Arthur, who could…? Your mind conjured up an image of Billy in his blood-soaked clothes. He probably didn’t get that hideous shirt and fur-lined coat from the hospital. “So,” you took a steadying breath, “it’s all true? Billy… Billy really did betray Frank?” You had spent so much time trying to block that out, to ignore and deny it in your head, but you had to know—especially since Billy, as he was now, didn’t know.

The detective nodded. “And that’s the other thing: Castle will be looking for Russo. If he comes to you…”

“Call you,” you waved his card at him with a half-smile, “I will.”

Brett stayed with you at the deli for a while longer before he had to head out. You waited until you were sure he was far away to finally take a breath. You whipped out your phone and typed in ‘NYPD Detective Brett Mahoney’ into Google. Of fucking course. Your hunch about him was right—he was a hero cop. There were pictures of him next to Daredevil. He arrested Frank back when he first became “The Punisher”—Brett was a badass with the face of a choir boy. Your respect for him grew as you scrolled through the news reports, interviews, and list of accolades connected to his name. He was vocal in his disdain for Wilson Fisk—a bold move for anyone who lived in the city, let alone a cop—and was an active member of the community. He seemed like a really nice guy, a good guy…

…a threat.

As much as you didn’t want to, you decided to take the long way home. You lingered in the deli for another 20 minutes after Brett left, then made your way to a bookstore, a pet shop, two music stores, three boutiques, and killed an hour watching some teenagers breakdance on the sidewalk. You were pretty sure Brett wasn’t watching you, you got the impression that wasn’t his style, but Frank… Frank would totally do that. You considered what you knew as you wandered around the city: you loved Billy, Billy didn’t have his full memories, Billy still thought he loved you, Billy was guilty, the cops were after Billy, Frank would want revenge, revenge would mean death, and that would leave you… Alone again. Hell, as far as you knew, you were already alone again. How in the hell would you know where Billy was if he wasn’t directly in your line of sight? You sighed to yourself, stepping into a pawn shop and staring unblinkingly at the assortment of things. You had no idea what you were going to do—you knew what you were supposed to do, what common sense and decent protocol would call for—but your common sense had taken a back seat to your emotions. Sighing again, you looked at a glass case of knives and your mind immediately went to Billy.

“What do you do if I come at you from behind?” Billy had asked you.

You wanted to make a dirty joke, but the seriousness of the situation and Billy’s face made you reconsider. “I go for the eyes and create a distance between us while you’re distracted.”

“Good. But what if I grab you by your hair?”

You swallowed down another inappropriate comment. “I stomp on your foot or try to kick you in the shins to get you to lose your grip.”

Billy nodded. “Good,” he stepped over to you, put a hand on the back of your neck and kissed you, “Now let’s practice how to disarm a man.”

You sighed, but complied. Billy whipped out a knife—because he almost always had at least one blade on hand—and took an offensive stance. This wasn’t a new practice between the two of you; Billy had taken it upon himself to teach you how to defend yourself months ago, after reading about some guys on the subway harassing a woman. His dedication to your safety was sweet, you knew for a fact that the number of people he cared about was a low one, and that these impromptu training sessions were his way of making sure you were taken care of. You took a defensive stance, placing your feet slightly apart and raising your hands to protect your face—just like Billy taught you. He made a move to approach you (much slower than he would if he was really attacking someone), and you side-stepped him, avoiding any close contact before slapping your hand over his wrist, twisting it, and grabbing the knife out of his hands.

“Nice,” he licked his lips, “Very nice. Let’s try it again.”

So you did. You spent the next two hours going through drills. Billy was an excellent teacher, he met you where you were and catered the lessons to best fit your size, strength, and style. You weren’t nearly the natural fighter Billy was, and you damn sure weren’t a Marine, but Billy always said you were skilled. He took pride in telling Curtis how you knocked him on his ass on Tuesday, or showing Frank the bruises on his chest from when he made you practice shooting with himself as the Kevlar-wearing, moving target. You liked the training a lot, too. You got to wrestle Billy and learn useful defensive moves all in one. Truth be told, you almost looked forward to the day some asshole mugger tried to come at you.

You would never forget the day that actually happened.

You had been walking home from the corner store. Billy had texted you saying he’d be home late since he was viewing some properties for Anvil’s home office, so you decided to run out and get some snacks for the house. You had your burlap bag hanging from your shoulder, full of chips and a six-pack of beer, and you were a block from your apartment when you felt a tug on the strap of your bag.

You were yanked forward, and you turned to see a tall man in all black. You stumbled over your own feet as he dragged you back into an alley. He pushed you against the concrete wall and you felt the breath rush out of you. You didn’t get a second to scream or cry out before he shoved a knife under your throat.

“Drop the bag, cunt,” he ordered, hot breath fanning your face. “Or I open your goddamn throat all over the sidewalk.”

You did as you were told, heart racing. The blade was cold against your skin, even in the warm summer weather.

“Now kick it,” he gestured behind him with his head, “over there.”

You gave your bag a feeble nudge with your foot.

“Do you think I’m playing with you, bitch?” He hissed, nose pressing against yours as he glared down at you. You felt the sting of the blade cutting into your skin. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. He was still glaring at you when you opened your eyes and punted your bag across the alley. Your eyes scanned his face, trying to memorize every detail. Billy was going to lose his shit over this. The man sneered at you, and you felt a chill go through you. “Good girl,” he grinned, “now take your clothes off.”

You froze. Suddenly an image of your downstairs neighbor’s daughters popped up in your head. They were 15 and 13, nice girls, and you knew for a fact that they walked to the corner store all the time, night or day. Rain or shine. What was going to stop this guy from doing the same thing to them? What was going to stop him from hurting someone else?

You were going to stop him.

You lifted your arm and grabbed his wrist. You twisted it with all your strength, ignoring his shocked sound of surprise. His grip loosened and you took that moment to snatch the knife out of his hands. The blade sliced through the palm of your hand a little bit, but you didn’t even feel it. You punched him in the face with your free hand, making him fall back a bit. That gave you the perfect opening to kick him in the chest, knocking him on his ass. You tackled him to the ground and straddled him, putting all of your weight on him to prevent him from moving. His eyes widened when you put the knife to his neck.

“Whoa, whoa,” he gasped out, voice shaking, “I was just playing,” he attempted a laugh, “Don’t—don’t you know we were just playing, you and me? It’s a joke.”

You pressed the knife harder onto his neck. You watched the blood bubble up and felt a surge of excitement bloom in you. “A joke?” You asked, smirking down at him. “Would it be a joke,” you watched his eyes water when you grabbed his hair and forced his head back, “if I open your goddamn throat all over the sidewalk…” Your smirk turned into a full-on grin. “…bitch?”

He had started sobbing now. “No,” he begged, “no, please, I’m sorry, I won’t ever do this again, I—”

“—Shut the hell up,” you hissed, pulling his hair. He cried out. You looked down at this man, this weak piece of shit, and wanted nothing more than to stop him from ever drawing breath again. You wanted to be the last person he terrorized, the last women he called a bitch.

You wanted to watch the life drain from his body.

But you couldn’t.

You flipped the knife around so that the handle was against your fists and pulled your hand back. Then you punched him right in the face with all your anger guiding you. You felt his nose crack, but you didn’t hear it because he was screaming. You hit him again, and again, and again. The handle was wet with blood, and your heart was pounding. You kept punching him until he wasn’t screaming anymore. A quick glance showed he was still breathing, so you got off of him, grabbed your bag, and walked home.

You thought more about that day as you waited in line at the pawn shop. You had tried to block it out, to forgot about the fear that went through you that day, followed by that feeling of absolute power and control…it had been intoxicating. It had been frightening. But Billy had been there, and he had been your safe place.

You waited until you got home to call Billy and tell him what happened. You barely got the words—“I was attacked”—out of your mouth before he was asking you a hundred questions and rushing home to you. You assured him you were fine, and you were, but he hadn’t seemed to hear you. By the time he got home, you’d bandaged your hand, cleaned off the knife, and put the snacks and beer away. You were on your third beer when Billy came bursting into the apartment.

He didn’t say anything, just pulled you towards him and engulfed you in a crushing hug. You closed your eyes and wrapped your arms around him. This was where you were safest, where you belonged. Billy provided everything you needed just by existing.

“I’m okay,” you said into his chest, “I’m okay. I knocked him out.” You had pulled back then. “Oh shit, I should have called the cops. I should call the cops.”

“I already did,” he said, voice muffled as he spoke into your hair, “Left an anonymous tip, saw the squad cars on my way home.” He exhaled, and you felt him relax against him. “I’m so—fuck,” his hold on you tightened, and you leaned into it, “I want to kill him.”

“I wanted that too,” you admitted, looking up into Billy’s dark eyes. They were electric with rage and emotion, and you knew yours were too. “I was going to.”

He kissed you, long and slow, and you kissed him back. You wanted to absorb him, to keep him this close to you always. He stared down at you, unblinking, when you both pulled back for air. “I’m so fucking proud of you,” he said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” you breathed out. “I—Billy, is there something wrong with us?” You asked. “We shouldn’t be so comfortable with this. Because I’m not joking, Billy, I was going to stab him. I was gonna kill him. I—I—”

“—The only reason he’s not in a body bag at this very moment is cause the cops got to him first,” Billy interrupted, eyes hard, “I’ve killed for less, Y/N, and anyone who hurts you,” he put a hand on your face, eyes boring into yours, “is gonna die bloody. It’s you and me, Y/N, I’d do anything for you, and I want you to know that I love you, every part of you,” his lips brushed against yours as he spoke, “and if you had killed him…I would have helped you bury the body.”

That was it. The last thing you needed to make your decision. Billy was a killer. He betrayed Frank, he hurt Curtis, he was a traitor to his country if the news reports were right. Hell, Billy had told you himself that he’d committed multiple war crimes. Those were all facts, undeniable, inexcusable facts about him that you could never change or hope to ignore. But you loved him—that was a fact too. You had never felt more alive, more like yourself, than when you had been with Billy, even up until the very end. He was it for you. So you were in. You were all in, wherever he would go, you would follow.

You practically ran home, heart pounding with your revelation. It was like a bomb went off inside your head—everything you had, you were ready to throw it all away for Billy. You were made for him, and he was made for you. You knew, as you clutched your bag, that from this point on—nothing but death would keep you from him. You had given up on him once, and you had tried to move on with your life, but it hadn’t worked. You had been operating on auto-pilot, just going through the motions and pretending to be okay with being without him, with living in black and white. But now Billy was back, and he brought color back into your life. This time, you would fight for him. You would fight with him.

You practically ripped the door open when you got back to your apartment. You ran into the living room and felt yourself deflate a little. Everything was exactly the way you left it. You checked your room, the bathroom, and the kitchen. Empty. Sighing, you sat down at the kitchen table and put your head in your hands. Where could he be? What if he was hurt? What if Frank got to him? What if… what if he left you? Feeling trapped, you went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. You decided to drink instead of panic. It was getting late, but there was still time in the day. Billy could be back any minute. You poured yourself a drink and went to stand at the counter, contemplating whether you should bother cooking while you waited for Billy to get back when you noticed a manila folder on the counter. This was new…so Billy had been back. You put your glass down and picked up the folder. It had his name on it: Russo, William. The file was packed with papers and packets, full of details of his life. There were little color-coded tabs for Castle, Frank, Hoyle, Curtis, Madani, Dinah, and Rawlins, William. There were notes from what you assumed were his therapy sessions, and pictures of him in the hospital. Words like ‘dangerous’, ‘killer’, ‘psychopath’ jumped off the page. You flipped through the contents of the file, a sense of dread creeping into you. Finally, under all of the papers, was a handwritten note from Billy that had your breath catching.

Y/N,

I’m sorry. I want you to know that I love you. And I’m so sorry.

Goodbye.

******************************************************************************************

Hohohhohohoho! So this was my first time ever writing Brett, how’d I do? Also, anyone recognize where Y/N works? And ohhhh man, let me know what you thought of these last two chapters. Your feedback fuels me! Love you guys!

TAGLIST: @floralpeaceofmind @delicatelilyflower @dylanobrusso @ladyblablabla @banditthewriter @something-tofightfor @starsfragments @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme @hisgirlwednesdayaddams@fictionwillneverdie @maria-beretta @sadnessxvodka @ymariejp @sunnycolors @moonlightsay @its-all-o-kay @damagelove @keyeluh @itsmylife98 @funerals-with-cake @littlemermaidprobz @teacuplotus @king4thesirens @mrsjaxtellerfan @thebabblingbook @tartelette-aux-fraises @madamrogers @charlylama @iaintnofurry @k-buggz2001 @whitewolfslittlesilverfox @drinix @elanor-of-imladris @blah-blah-fuckit-shit @julliiaaq @holamor @ymariejp @shadowhunterscloset @songtoyou @anabella-baby @sssilverssserpent @heyitslexy

#billy russo x reader #billy russo imagine #the punisher #heartworm

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regentcorpse · 5 years

Text

Added after I wrote this, I know my grammar is a mess in this. This post is 2223 words, longer than most high school essays which averaged 1500 words. If you don’t want to read all of this it has been separated into paragraphs and most of the conversation points are in the last three paragraphs. This sentence was added in after word count, the original post was on Facebook which is why the link in this does point to my own blog: My sentence structures are not correct, and this is Facebook and I don’t give a crap about that here. I did try to do my best to make it somewhat understandable with several ideas and conversations all in this. Also I didn’t originally separate it into paragraphs. If a sentence seems out of place at the start or end of a paragraph, my bad. But please read, comment opinions, not angry but constructive to build a conversation. I also don’t know how but this became more like an info blog post, but valid points and openings for conversations are made.

These newish Apple features like the Memoji, like it’s aight but still lacking in so many hair styles and facial depth, forehead, chins, and noses. Hopefully the will add a lot more features to be able to make it more like you, in a cartoon version. I’m about to check out the full bitmoji app to see what all they have, but I feel like apple should of used bitmoji, and since Apple has a version, I know android does. How is their version in your experience? (Please reply even if you don’t know me, I want to have decent conversations with people, but I hardly have anyone to talk to about random stuff like this.) Also the fact that Apple has Memoji in their database of words and not Bitmoji, is extremely weird, and pointless not to have it.

I don’t know how I feel overall about Apples decisions on these updates. They seem to be trying to almost build a legit social media around their platforms, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make something like Google+, which will most likely fail all together as a product, not because it will be awful but because we already have the social media giants that control most people’s lives, work, and reputation.

Facebook is for memes mostly and socializing with like minded people with their pages and groups. Not to mention that so many people use their marketplace now as well, which did shock me that it took of with other apps offering the same thing before Facebook did. To those who didn’t know, yes, Facebook stole that idea from OfferUp and LetGo(I think there was another around before the marketplace.)

You have Snapchat, the goofy fun social media where you can have personalized stories, private or public, and I may be wrong but they are also the ones that introduced the idea(maybe didn’t originally have the idea, but did introduce it, I think. Let me know if I am wrong please, I would like to know.) Next, the thing that made Snapchat big originally was the disappearing pictures after 10 seconds, which you couldn’t edit when the app first came out, the initial release didn’t even have filters or all the extra stuff they have now, it was so basic and simple and blew up. Another thing that made Snapchat big in the same way, disappearing photos meant disappearing nudes for both male and female, only that at first they could be screenshots, that didn’t notify you. In a future version, they disabled screenshoting photos from the default system buttons, but of course people found ways and made apps to get around it. Snapchat then started to block accounts for using those apps, then came the solution of notifying users of screenshots and then recordings when Apple released that feature. I know Snapchat probably wasn’t the first to make the goofy photo filters, but they did make it so much easier and almost more advanced with their simple facial mapping(yes it is simple since it’s meant to work with phones without facial recognition and all the other fancy face features.). Now Snapchat is a place to socialize in groups, or privately with friends through photos, messages, and video. Another big use now is the porn industry, where I think it’s safe to say only females succeed at making a lot of money with. It also seems to avoid spam bots and stuff. I’ve never received anything from a fake user or bot, besides their built in Snapchat bot, so that is honestly impressive and I applaud them for trying to keep it safe and friendly, except for the usual douchebag guys that send dick picks and stalk girls no matter their age. Danger lurks at all corners of the internet, and making friends is easier now, and just an add and a message away sometimes. But be careful who you add and honestly block anyone who harasses you or sends you unwanted images. And report them, help improve internet society and safety. This goes for all social media platforms.

Instagram is built solely around the personal sharing of photos to a feed and nothing else really. I know everyone was shocked that it became as big as it did, considering you can do the same thing in Facebook, and easily share other peoples photos to your friends. Although it is just photos, the people on there that are successful, actually do influence people and promote sponsors and their products. Some use it to get money, for their more explicit content. It followed Snapchat in adding stories, then filters, and has been successful in its endeavors. You can find everything legal on their as well as some illegal content such as drug use. As mentioned above, yes bots and fake accounts exist, be weary in who you talk to and exchange messages and photos with on here as well.

Twitter has been around for a long time and honestly, I see it being the first to die, due to overall lack of community and now with all the user interface updates and whatnot, it can be difficult to understand how the social environment of it works. Basically you get I think 140 characters to insert into the status prompt or whatever you/they want to call it. I personally don’t use it much, I get on there to see any updates from game companies and some of my favorite authors and music artists. I do this maybe once a week or two. I honestly don’t understand the point in twitter nor how getting followers and conversations started on there, if you have any suggestions for me please let me know if you are still somehow reading this.

Tumblr, ye olde blogging platform, one of the best until the pornography bam that yahoo added once their app was removed from the Apple store after I think being reported for child pornography. A lot of people lost their blogs and thousands of followers and countless hours of work. Many others had a lot of their content censored by a community guidelines photo or by being completely removed. So yes we can all agree that it’s a good thing they are trying to do what they can to combat child pornography of Tumblr, but a lot of people saw this as a complete change of environment for tumblr, whether being used for art, music, porn, pizza, cats etc.. Another big complaint that caused this change is how easy it was to lie about your age and turn off the content filter that got rid of the majority of inappropriate content. It was literally just a search option, then they tried moving it to your phone settings to the app setting in there to turn it off, which was still too easy. I can say you will still see pornographic content on Tumblr, mostly by accident, but there are people still posting getting around their image search algorithms. Past that to summarize, it’s basically a bigger version of Twitter, allowing for blog posts of most media types now, they have a reblog button to repost on your own page(these also get their own sub domains where it follows such as mine regentcorpse.tumblr.com. This is not for promotion, just an easy example(it’s a new blog with only like one blog post, but yes is my personal blog.) You can use your own domain if you own the address and route it to tumblrs name-servers, which most domain hosts have guides available to help you understand the process and set it up. They follow Wordpress in allowing themes which are only visible in a web browser and not the Tumblr mobile app, but on mobile you can edit the color scheme and fonts to what they have stock. To be like twitter with the features of Wordpress except custom plugins, it is a phenomenal platform still where you can truly be yourself and no one actually has to know who you are, you just post the content you love, the content you create(except for the porn content that a lot of people now went to Snapchat and Twitter for, and probably some private instagrams). You can find almost everything you heart desires within lawful reasons, I mean honestly you could probably find someone to buy illegal stuff from like guns, drugs, etc but I’ve never looked for that type of stuff on there. I love cyberpunk culture and there are so much content around it on tumblr. It also has pretty decent privacy setting for a blog, which can be password locked I believe and you can set permissions for it to be only people you follow or follow you, or no one or everyone can message you, ask questions(which can be anonymous), and submit content to your blog(also can be anonymous). The tumblr community can be toxic but also so helpful and beautiful seeing some of the ways people come together on there. It can range from legit bugs to books and quotes to programming and even professional use.

There is also LinkedIn, which is a very professional platform where you can add your professional resume and skills and may get recruited to jobs. I remember something like this tried to launch on Facebook but I do believe it failed out, as I haven’t seen anything about it or a link since they probably removed it.

So this leads me to ask What would an Apple Social Media Platform consist of? How would they try to outdo the others, and how would they make it appealing enough for people to use/switch to. Yes Apple is a big name, but so was google which failed at social media. They had good ideas but went about it completely wrong.

I feel like Apple would attempt to make a platform around creativity and art of all types. I feel like it would be a platform that would combine GarageBand, IMessages, Memoji, and all their other great apps into one. If they added collaboration on projects a lot easier in that aspect, and didn’t force themselves into everyone(Yes, Google that’s a shot at you.), they could make a truly great platform where we could see great things made by groups, communities, artists, and I could see them adding some sort of collaboration for web developers and programmers, which I would like to see knowing that Facebook, the corporation not social network, owns Oculus, and they already have a lot of resources for developers. Do you think Apple might be working on a social media platform, or do you think they will just keep adding out of place features? Do you think they would succeed in it or absolutely fail? Do you think Apple would stand a chance against the other giants that have been around and built up their user base? Also another issue is how exclusive Apple is with everything, just the fact you can log into Apple TV and watch it on a Windows Pc is a miracle. Do you think Apple will make it exclusive or would they put in the effort of being their media platform to everyone no matter their device? Remember everyone had a MySpace, now you never even hear about it, Facebook was a surprising switch with it having limited functionality and basically no customization options for your profile like MySpace and some other media’s had.

I want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and speculations about this, let’s start an open and friendly conversation, no hate or trolls, I don’t want all of that and your comments will be deleted and I may even block you from seeing posts like this on your feed and my page. This is at an end because my thumbs are tired and my phones dying and Facebook is lagging from how much I just put on here, but seriously comment, let me know what’s running in your mind, even what you would like to see change in social media in general or even in specific ones. I hope you all do open a nice and positive and informative conversation, I want to see that on Facebook more and I want to make friends I can talk about this type of stuff with in depth or even as broad as mostly common knowledge.

#facebook #instagram #apple #android #tech #future #social media #tumblr #art #music #books #community #programming #mobile #desktop #google

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kriber · 6 years

Photo

Aaaand I made an art summary thing! I scoured my computer for art and found at least one pic for every month (2015 not included), so I compiled them all into this masterlist! Read under cut for my further thoughts on each month

2015:

Jan- I saw a youtubers as pokemon thing and did one myself,,, when I had only MS Paint as an art source. So naturally it’s shit

Feb-Apr- Nothing found.

May- Just edits of mlp bases

June- Wow! A catte!! Yes that’s a cat

July- I was just doing base drawings and two drawings in the mlp style (sorta? it’s not good)

Aug- More edits

Sep- Drawing humans/minecraft characters for the first time!

Oct- I know it wasn’t supposed to be scary but holy shit that haunts my dreams

Nov- I both drew on bases and my own. It was left unnoticed by all,,

Dec- Ok yea it fucking sucks so bad but the concept of it is even worse,,,

2016:

Jan- My first drawing of my persona! Still stuck in MS Paint land tho

Feb- Aaand we leave MS Paint land and venture into Alpaca/Medi, with what was once my old ponysona. This was a wip and my first experience with layers and when I got my first tablet!

Mar- We Do Not Discuss This One.

Apr- That was for a school project. It’s a humanization of pinkeye,,,

May- NewScapePro’s Undertale series kicked off and I loved it and drew some,, flattering fanart. Remastered 2 years later

June- I was told to draw my persona cosplaying my fav chara. It’s not,, bad? At least the face isn’t too bad. The body sucks ass fgdjkhbdsjkg

July- Genderbends aren’t bad at all!!1!11!!1 And my art is good too!!1!!1

Aug- This actually isn’t that bad. The shading needs work but it really isn’t bad at all.

Sep- Oh yea I went back to MS Paint land to draw this :/// Never Again

Oct- I Have Entered My Homestuck Phase. (fyi that’s an AU Karkat)

Nov- A troll I made. He’s much better drawn nowadays trust me

Dec- Ok now this is a step into the right direction. Before this point I was using the pixel tool, which was a strict 1-3 pixel brush with no fade at the tips. I didn’t know about turning anti-aliasing off yet and hated when it wasn’t pixely (still do) due to a shitty tablet. This is when I figured it out and life got infinitely better.

2017:

Jan- Now things are better. I turned on anti-aliasing again? for some reason??? and went through a brief Eddsworld phase. I made an au and still kinda like the designs I made for it

Feb- fuckin sexy art there

Mar- Ok anti-aliasing is gone again but HOLY SHIT THOSE ARMS. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE. Remastered a year later

Apr- Just full of hs sprites but I found some customs and they were.. not good. But we can see progression into my current style

May- what did i do here i feel Dirty

June- A piece I did for DA’s pride month thing that I’m still happy with it. Has some issues but overall not bad!

July- I tried to use multiply layers without having a multiply layer on. But the art style is coming in to my current one slowly but surely!

Aug- I stole images off google and used them for backgrounds. Not the best business practice

Sep- I didn’t find any real digital art tbh :/

Oct- Aaand we enter the Ninjago time of my life! Art is marginally better than before and actually looks presentable.

Nov- Aww my first Bruise fanart!! And me experimenting with backgrounds and art techniques

Dec- Progression of my talent is visible here,, also of my Gay

2018:

Jan- Still not my style but I was into v3 now so I made some art experimenting with brushes

Feb- Edgy Shit but it’s legit good now

Mar- I have no idea how to proportion here but the style is coming in well!

Apr- This was a diversion from the current style to make smth look pretty but my style is almost there!!

May- Same as above but also profile practice

June- All throughout June art it was almost the same as my style now! Look at that!!!

July- Some great art came from this time, art style is now the current one.

Aug-Dec- The art style is solidified and I actually like this art so much more,,,

Look at how far I’ve come with my art! I know I have like three followers on my main but I’m glad I got to share and compile this! Yea my old art fucking sucks ass

#art summary #2018 art summary #art progression #wow!! would you look at all that improvement!#art improvement

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chloemill · 6 years

Text

On what I’ve been up to the last nine years

I have always been obsessed with food. It seems silly, honestly, to be obsessed with something that’s a basic human necessity. Food, water, shelter. Too bad there aren’t water disorders or I’d be all over that. Alcoholism, I guess, is a liquid-based disorder? This is getting dark quickly but I guess we should all know what we’re getting into with this one, shouldn’t we.

So, yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I have alarmingly clear memories of food from childhood, and the sad(dest) part is most of it’s not even real fucking food, it’s like, cartoon food. I could probably describe every illustration from the Berenstain Bears installment where the dad bear and the kid bears randomly decide to go balls to the fucking wall and just mainline junk food until the mom bear is like “what the fuck is going on here” and gives them all apples or some shit and then everyone chills the fuck out. The pizza in A Goofy Movie when Goofy and Max randomly stop at a themed motel and the kids eat pizza while Goofy and Pete share what I remember to be a vaguely sexual moment in the hot tub? (There was definitely at LEAST a questionable power dynamic at play.) The kid at school whose weird helicopter mom came at lunch and hand-delivered her McDonald’s nuggets to the playground. Bake sales in the second grade - the cookies and brownies and “nachos” that were just round Tostitos with that terrifying and delicious fake cheese sauce that still honestly casts a spell twenty years later. It wasn’t quite normal, but as a kid, I didn’t think twice. When your parents are feeding you and your brain is the size of a baseball, you just kind of roll with the punches and settle for buying as much crap as possible at the bake sale with the two bucks your mom gave you. Shortly after I finished elementary school, actually, I think they stopped having bake sales as fundraisers because the school was trying to promote healthy eating. Go figure.

In high school we were allowed to go off campus for lunch and once or twice a week my sainted mother would give me money to buy lunch. It very rapidly became the bi-weekly Let’s See How Much Shit We Can Stuff In Our Body For Ten Dollars Challenge, but that’s not at all uncommon for high schoolers. At home we ate healthily, and I have a pretty fast metabolism thanks to my Slenderman of a father so I was more or less the size of a pencil for first few years of school. We’re talking, like, size double zero at Hollister. I actually used to peel the 00 size stickers off my low rise (!!!) jeans whenever I’d get a new pair and stick them on the side of my desk in my bedroom, which, as I became a normal-sized adult with not-normal-sized body image problems, morphed into a very creative form of self-inflicted psychological torment. I have some journal entries from the first few years of high school with “diet and workout plans”, but in teenage girl fashion, most of them were quickly forgotten about or amended with “forgot and ate mac and cheese today - whoops!” Stupid teenage shit. It’s actually kind of hilarious reading it back now until I remember how spectacularly fucked up everything got. ANYWAY!

My first real memory of hating my body was on a school trip to Scotland my junior year. I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of high school musical theatre and we were performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, which was an incredibly cool experience that I absolutely did NOT take full advantage of and instead did shit like drink way too much rum (fucking RUM because apparently I was a character in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), try to climb out the window of the dorms we were staying in to go see my boyfriend in his building, quickly remember I was on like the fucking fourth floor, throw up all over the carpet of my room and then pass out. My room smelled like puke the rest of the trip but that, though tragic in its own right, is not the point of this anecdote. Being both across the pond and left to my own devices, I was eating nothing but beige-colored fried food to the point that I’m certain ketchup and fruit juice used solely as a mixer for alcohol were the only things saving me from full-blown scurvy. My clothes felt tight, and not in the 2010s way that everything was tight, but bad tight. My stomach poked out of my jeans in a way that my stomach wasn’t supposed to poke out of my jeans. Keep in mind - I was probably a size 0 instead of 00 at this point, and most of this change was just a product of being sixteen instead of fourteen and growing, but to me it felt ominous in a way I didn’t know how to explain. During a group trip to some Scottish landmark or another (see how much attention I paid to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity my parents spent their hard-earned money to give me?) I remember sitting next to my close friend on the bus as we pulled over to stop for food. I was having relationship trouble with the aforementioned boyfriend, one of the first of many Musical Theatre Straight Boys™ that I would lose my fucking mind over, and I was getting emotional - more emotional than I expected. I realized something else was bothering me, and I turned to her and said “On top of everything else, I just feel… fat. I know I’m not fat, but I’m fat, like, for me.”

Two things here: first and foremost, yes, for that I know I am now the recipient of the Most Annoying Sentence Ever Spoken Aloud award and will provide the mailing address for my trophy at a later date. Second, I said that over ten years ago, and I remember it so clearly that I’m entirely sure that’s exactly what I said, verbatim. We got off the bus, and I walked into the restaurant and, after scanning the menu desperately trying to convince myself I should order something “healthy��, I ordered large steak fries and got back on the bus. I think this was the first time I ever really, consciously used food as a coping mechanism - the first time something small but powerful snapped in my head that told me fuck it - who the fuck cares? You’ve done enough damage already, what’s the point of stopping now?

High school ended, I graduated and we sang “Journey On” from Ragtime at the ceremony (baffling choice but the school was doing Ragtime next year and wanted to squeeze a promo out), I got into several of my top-choice musical theatre colleges and was so excited to go to the one I picked, which, you’ll be charmed to hear, was the absolute worst choice I could’ve made. I was 18 and a little bigger now, firmly in size 0/2 instead of 00 territory, had maybe graduated to a 32B bra instead of A, but still very thin by most standards. This was my first summer as a Very Online Person - I would stay up tlil probably 3 or 4 AM most nights blogging and watching Harry Potter movies for the umpteenth time. Because the rest of my family was, how do I put it, fucking normal, they’d go to bed at 11 or whenever and I’d be up alone for hours on the computer. This is when I started bingeing. We didn’t really keep junk food in my house, nothing legit like Cheetos or Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but we did have sugar cereal and reduced-fat Oreos and cheese and the occasional box of Triscuts. It became a nightly ritual for me - I’d wait for everyone to go to bed, then tiptoe in to the kitchen and, though I’d eaten dinner hours earlier, start eating again. Stacks of Oreos, multiple bowls of cereal, shredded cheese out of the bag. After a while my mom heard me banging around in the kitchen and told me (in so many words) to shut the fuck up, so my methods changed. I’d bring the box of cereal - Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs or whatever - a bowl, and a carton of milk into the bathroom with me. I’d run the sink and open the box and pour the cereal with the water running so no one would hear, and then I’d creep back out to the couch and eat it. Box of Oreos into the bathroom, water on, peel open the plastic, take out the biggest stack I thought I could with no one noticing, eat. Three or four granola bars into the bathroom, water on, wrappers off and hidden behind my bed or the couch or wherever, eat. Rinse and repeat.

I didn’t really know what binge eating was at this point, and some tiny, dark part of my brain buried way in the back told me that this wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good, but I pushed it away because of course I did. I did a few Google searches about it and came across the term “binge eating disorder” but was convinced that could never be me. This was just a thing, just a thing I was doing, and it would go away at the end of the summer when I went away to college because that’s when life was actually starting and it was going to be awesome and I wasn’t going to let this - whatever this was - fuck that up.

But I did, in fact, fuck it up. I fucked it up fast and hard (that’s what she said, ok back to being depressing) and college was not awesome, it was difficult and painful and I was drowning in something I had absolutely no chance of controlling on my own. I accepted very quickly that this thing I was doing had a name, and it was binge eating disorder, and I was all in. I gained weight - not a ton, maybe twenty pounds, and I was never actually overweight, but to me that didn’t matter. I hated how I looked. I overdrew my bank account spending money my mom gave me for groceries on binge food. I spent hours alone in the dining hall eating till I felt physically ill and sometimes threw up involuntarily because my body couldn’t handle what I was doing. One time I stood in the bathroom of my dorm and drank mustard mixed with warm water because I read online that makes you puke and I was so full I wanted to die (it didn’t work, please for the love of GOD don’t drink mustard water or, for that matter, anything else for the express purpose of making yourself vomit). I cancelled plans with friends and skipped classes to stay in and binge, or because I’d binged already that day and could barely move. I stole food from roommates, convincing myself no one would notice, even though of course they fucking noticed. I hid food and packaging and wrappers under my bed, in my closet, in my backpack, wherever I could because I didn’t want anyone to catch on. Lied about why I needed money so my parents would send me some and I could buy more shit. I ate stale food, food from the trash, once I literally ate straight up chocolate sauce (mustard water and chocolate sauce: 10 out of 10 doctors recommend!) because I had nothing else. Waking up for 8 AM ballet classes and seeing my body in a leotard under fluorescent lighting felt like a form of torture Dick Cheney might think was a little too harsh. I saw a therapist over the summers and ate with my parents at home, and things got better, and then I’d go back to school and everything would unravel again. I’m still kind of shocked I made it through.

I’ve been done with school and living in the city for five years now, and I can honestly say that things are better. I mean, not “better”, in the sense that this chapter of the book is still pretty fucking open. But I’m better at dealing with it. The majority of the time now, I eat normally. I still binge, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, but I carry on and try again the next day. I don’t really restrict to make up for binges anymore. I can eat some foods now that used to send me straight into Eatin’ Town USA, like cheese and bread and maybe even Oreos sometimes. I started enjoying working out, not just logging time on the treadmill as a punishment and feeling like Jean Valjean in the opening number of Les Mis (look down look down you’RE HERE UNTIL YOU DI-IE).

To be honest, I think I’m writing this mostly because the last couple months have been hard. I’ve fallen into some old stupid shitty habits, and I’ve been plugging along like normal and trying to claw myself out. But it’s not quite working like it normally does, and I don’t know why. I know I’ll make it through, because I always have, and what other option is there? But some days lately, I feel like twenty-year-old me, sobbing (very theatrically, natch) on the floor of my apartment because I should be over this by now - how am I not over this by now? This is my ninth year as a binge eater. Almost a decade! Far and away my longest and most committed relationship. When I hit 10 years strong, I should take myself out to a fancy restaurant or something but I don’t know what I’d order.

When I tell people this, I usually get some kind of “I had no idea”/“I’m sorry I didn’t notice”/“I would’ve never guessed” and the truth is that I didn’t, and still don’t, want anyone to notice. Of course I don’t. You don’t hide candy wrappers and empty pizza boxes in your closet with your winter boots because you want people to notice. It’s a very strange and secretive brand of shame that binge eating disorder brings and no one really get it unless they get it, and that’s not something I’d wish on anyone. (Okay, honestly, I’d wish it on some people, like it’s hard as hell but some people suck ass and probably deserve it? Anyway.) As I’ve grown up, I’ve started talking about this more and more. The first time I went public with all of this shit - I think I made a dramatic Instagram post a few years ago whilst day drunk during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (absolutely incredible and Very Me start to a sentence) - I was shocked at how many people reached out to me privately and were like, hey, me too, and thank you for saying something. I’m still ashamed, but I’m trying not to be, and the more I talk about it the less alone I feel. “There are dozens of us! DOZENS!”

I guess one nice thing about this whole stupid nightmare is it’s kind of a reason why I am who I am. Not the only reason, but still. I started using jokes to cope with this while I was in school, and my sense of humor, whatever the fuck it is today, grew out of that. Except now I don’t joke about this stupid shit because I’m in denial, I do it because it’s real and I’m staring it in the face and it’s not going away, and the absurdity of something so excruciatingly difficult yet so entirely in my control gets fucking terrifying. I guess laughing at it makes it seem small.

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heavenslastcrush · 6 years

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The Legend of Joan

I recently had an incredible opportunity to travel to Antarctica over the New Year’s holiday on the National Geographic Orion. The trip was an unbelievable experience full of adventure, excitement, inspiration, self-discovery… even a little bit of romance.

Traveling and beginning a New Year in a new country has become quite the ritual of mine. It began in 2015 when I went to Australia with my boyfriend. We celebrated New Year’s 2016 on a yacht on the Sydney Harbor, right between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.

By the time the end of 2016 came around that boyfriend had become an ex-boyfriend, but I was determined to have just as amazing of a time despite being newly single. I thought about the last time that I was single and really happy, and it occurred to me that it was when I was living in London. So naturally, I needed to return. That year, I went to France & England with a friend I had lived and studied abroad with while in South Kensington. Said friend was also recently single, and also needed to get away. We counted down to midnight and welcomed the beginning of 2017 on a yacht on the Thames.

For New Year 2018, I needed to one-up myself again and venture to Asia – so I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia and rang in the holiday on the Marriott rooftop in Bangkok, overlooking the city while literally being on top of the world.

Since my traveling tradition also seemed to include being on a different continent, my initial New Year 2019 plan was to travel to Brazil & Argentina. I had an entire itinerary all mapped out – I would first spend a couple of days in Salvador, then venture over to Rio. Next I would travel down to Buenos Aires to actually celebrate New Year’s, and then spend a few more days at Iguazu Falls. I would bookend my trip with about 4 days in Patagonia.

I thought I was so clever, planning out such a great vacation.

Funny how life happens while you are busy making plans.

It turns out that I couldn’t find anyone to go with me on this adventure. I asked my parents, siblings, old friends, new friends… I even put a message on Facebook to see if I could get any random connections to join me. But alas, my efforts were fruitless.

It was critical that I still go somewhere, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to venture to Brazil solo. I typically have no issues traveling alone, but everyone that I have ever talked to about Brazil was in agreement that it is not super safe for anyone to travel to, let alone by one’s lonesome, and especially as a single female.

Where could I go that would be safe? That would still put me on a new continent? That I could travel to alone?

I googled a map of the world. I revisited the list of countries I’ve already explored on my “Been” app. And, as I was sitting there (admittedly at the office, being distracted by this sometime in early-October, which is super late in the game to be planning an international excursion, by the way), I glanced at the very bottom of this Google map image at a thin strip of white with a small area jutting out.

Antarctica?

Hmm…

Well, it was on my bucket list to visit all 7 continents before I died. I guess it would make sense to try to go to Antarctica now while I’m still young and could tolerate small amounts of cold.

I started Googling more about the continent.

Population?: 4K.

Yeah, that seems pretty safe.

Photos?

Oh, well these look pretty cool. Lots of penguins. Penguins are legit.

“Alright”, I thought, “I guess I could do Antarctica”. Next I needed to figure out how to get there.

Initially, I wanted to visit the tip and see things like Deception Island. But, I also wanted to go to the South Pole. Just to say I’ve been there.

Turns out, you can’t really fly into Antarctica. (Well, I suppose you can, if you are a billionaire and really bored). It also turns out, that there isn’t all that much in the middle of the continent, and that the most interesting animals and sights are actually on the edges. Cruises were recommended galore.

As with any other Google search I always begin with “Best [insert whatever it is I want to do/explore/see/etc.]”.

So, I type in “Best Antarctica Cruises” and scroll down until I find a link where some company isn’t trying to sell me something.

I found a Conde Nast Traveller article that gave me all kinds of details on what to look for in an Antarctica Cruise. (Here’s the link if you are interested: https://www.cntraveller.com/article/best-antarctica-cruises). In this article, they recommend either the National Geographic Orion or the Silver Explorer.

“I can be on a National Geographic ship?!” SOLD. HERE’S ALL OF MY MONEY.

I’m totally kidding, I did a little more research first.

I found that National Geographic actually had two ships at the recommended size, with reputable crews, Zodiac boats on board, etc. One was the National Geographic Orion. The other was the National Geographic Explorer.

Both were fully booked.

But, I sent an inquiry to Lindblad Expeditions anyway (Lindblad & Nat Geo are in a partnership together for these expeditions) to see if these were actually fully booked, or what my chances would be to get on this ship in two months. I also wanted to know more about pricing.

The short version of this part is that a single cabin costs a small fortune. But, there was an option to share a cabin if I were willing, at a reduced rate. There weren’t any shared cabins available, but they would put me on a waiting list.

I like money, so I asked them to put me on the waiting list. And also, to please let me know if there was any way to obtain more of a discount.

A couple of weeks later, a shared cabin became available. However, when I got this notification, I was in San Jose at Twitch Con 2018. I was pretty distracted by how awesome that experience was, and I didn’t pay the cabin fee (which they require you to pay the full fare within 24 hours) in time and lost out on that cabin.

When I got back to New Jersey, I was crushed that I missed out on the opportunity. I called the company to see if they could put me back on the waiting list again, spoke to a lovely woman named Catalina, and as luck would have it another shared cabin had just become available.

BUT, this cabin cost 10% more than the previous one.

“So, Ms. Horner, would you like the cabin?”, she asked me.

I tried to see if there was any possible way to get it at a discounted rate, or if she thought another cabin at the lower rate would become available again.

“I really don’t think so, this expedition is departing in less than six weeks. It’s unlikely that passengers will cancel as they are out of the time period where they would receive any sort of refund. So, would you like the cabin?”, Catalina pressed again.

After the deepest breath of my life, I responded “Yes, I would, please.”, scurried over to get my wallet, and made the largest single transaction I’ve ever completed in my life. (Seriously, I could have bought a car for less).

“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Ms. Horner?”, Catalina asked.

“Actually, I know you can’t tell me the exact demographics of passengers on the ship. But, are you able to tell me if there are any solo travelers around my age that will be on board?”

“Actually”, she began, “because this expedition is taking place over the holiday there are many families going. We expect more of a diverse age range than usual.”

I thanked Catalina and got off the phone with her.

I was going to Antarctica.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I had assumed that my roommate would be geriatric and feeble. I knew it would be a female, but I thought it would be some little old lady, maybe on the edge of death, that wouldn’t be able to use her camera or a computer and that would be up all hours of the evening doing whatever the elderly do in the middle of the night.

Fast forward to December 26, 2018. I’ve made it to Santiago, have already spent a few days exploring the area, and am now at Hotel Santiago which is the National Geographic-commissioned hotel where all of the passengers are staying before leaving the next morning to Ushuaia on the charter flight.

When I arrived, there was a small reception of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres taking place for the passengers. I met a few folks including Mack, a lawyer from Baton Rouge, LA (who would later ultimately be my next-door cabin neighbor); Peter, a Scottish man who was part of the staff on the expedition and one of the divers on-board; and Tia, a beautiful entrepreneur from England.

I thought this would be as good of a time as any to try to meet my roommate, but alas, she was no where to be found.

After the reception, I needed to rearrange my luggage so I went to the hotel room. At this point I hadn’t streamed in a few days and knew I would have a stable internet connection so I decided to stream a bit.

Right in the middle of the stream, that’s when I met Joan.

Joan.

What can I even say about Joan?

Well, she was definitely old. 81 in fact. But, from the second I met her, I could tell this was no ordinary lady. And while she may have been “old” in age, she was anything but old in spirit or energy.

Joan is fearless.

Joan is a badass.

Joan is my spirit animal.

Joan is my role model.

Joan is my adopted grandmother.

Joan is one of my best friends.

Throughout my trip, I spent a lot of time with Joan. Not only were we roommates, but we also shared several meals and several drinks together. Here’s some of what I learned about her:

· She lives in California.

· She got married when she was 21 years old, and had a long 49 year marriage.

· She has two daughters, and one grandson.

· She was formerly an accountant.

· Her husband passed away several years ago.

· She takes college classes! (Over 7 per term in fact, which is more than most college kids!)

· She has traveled to over 70+ countries.

But of all the things I learned about Joan, it all pales in comparison to what I learned from Joan.

Joan was one of the brightest lights on the ship. By the time we were leaving Ushuaia, she knew just about everyone on board, and everyone new her. I feel like she and I had this in common, but it was a great reminder, that no matter how old you get, or how successful you become, you should never be above saying “hello” and seeking out genuine connections with those around you. Relationships make the world go-round.

I mentioned this already before, but it’s worth reiterating: Joan was a fearless badass. Her attitude towards life was incredible. There was one point on the trip where we had the opportunity to jump into the Southern Ocean. (In case you are wondering, the water was a balmy 34*F.) There were people of all ages on this trip, but only about half of the people on the trip actually leapt in. Joan was of them. While I heard countless people talking about how “crazy” jumping in was, or their fear of “freezing up”, “losing their breath”, “going into shock”, etc. I heard Joan overwhelming with enthusiasm about the opportunity. At one point, another lady on the trip, probably in her late 30’s or early 40’s asked Joan if she was concerned about getting hurt by jumping in. Joan’s calm response was “Well, if that happens, then my kids can have an early inheritance, but I’m going in”. Badass.

This woman then proceeded to try to talk Joan out of it a bit, and Joan just shook that notion off and headed to the stern where we were all jumping.

Believe it or not, Joan actually jumped in before I did. I wanted her to go first, because I wanted to be able to watch it happen. (And by this point I was so enamored with her, that if heaven-forbid something did happen, I would have dived in after her). I started a cheer before she dove, and 100 passengers all chanted along in unison with me “JOAN! JOAN! JOAN!”.

Right before she dove in our expedition leader, Doug, pulled her aside and said “If you can’t pull yourself out, don’t jump in.”

I saw her hesitate, just for a second. I could see the wheels turning in her head. Thinking about whether or not she would have the strength to climb up the ladder afterwards. A second was all that look lasted for.

“I can do it. I’m going to do it.”

And then she jumped.

81 year old badass, all the way in the Southern Ocean.

You know that feeling you might get when your favorite sports team wins the Super Bowl? Or the World Cup? That’s how I felt watching Joan pull herself out of the ocean. I was so floored by her. Badass, I’m telling you.

In that singular instance, I learned so much from Joan. I learned that you are never too old to be fearless. That you must always believe in yourself. And, that sometimes, you just have to take a leap, even when other people doubt your abilities. Because taking those risky leaps, lead to great experiences, and even better stories.

As Joan and I spent more time together, she became one of my best girlfriends. We would come back to the room in between lectures, or after dinner, and just gossip about guys on the ship, crazy stories from the day, or how ridiculous people are.

I swear Joan got more action and romance on the ship than just about anyone that ever sailed on the National Geographic Orion.

One evening, I made it back from dinner before Joan did and was in the bathroom when she came in yelling (rather loudly for a little old lady, might I add), “HEATHER, I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!”

Now, there was this guy on the ship, and I thought he was pretty attractive or whatever, so I thought she was going to tell me something about him, but was a little bit puzzled as to why she was this excited about whatever it was.

I came out of the bathroom in a hurry. “What?”, I said, “What happened?! What’s going on?!”

“I just got proposed to!”

“Wait… WHAT?!”

Joan just stood there staring at me, eyes wide, with a big smile. This was the look of a perfect blend of shock, amusement, and hysteria.

“By who?”, I questioned.

“ROD!!”

“Who’s Rod?!”, I questioned again.

“That old man!”

Ahh. I knew the one she was referring to. There was an old man on the ship who was business partners with Tia. He was 76, from England and wildly successful in his career.

“Wait, was he serious?”, I asked.

“Well, I don’t know. He sounded serious.”, Joan replied.

“Did he like get down on one knee or anything?”

“No, he just asked me from the far side of the dining room table.”

“Well, what did you say?!”, I asked. I really couldn’t tell if her tone was excitement from being newly engaged or shock at how ridiculous and preposterous such an inquiry was from someone she had only met a few days prior.

You know those times when you ask someone a question, and their reply is a firm indicator that your question was utterly absurd because they reply not only with their voice, but their full entity? This was one of those times.

“I said ‘NO!’, OF COURSE!!”

I couldn’t help but hysterically laugh. Here was my roommate, 81 years old, shining gem of the Orion, fearless badass, of course she would be getting proposed to.

“Well, I don’t know, Joan! Maybe this could be your second chance at love or something. But, that wasn’t a very good proposal.”, I managed to say in between gasping for air between chuckles.

“Listen, I am too old to be training another man. I don’t have time for all that.”

I erupted again.

Oh, Joan. You slay.

In that moment, I learned from Joan that independence is ageless, and no matter how old you get: you don’t need no man. (**triple snap, z-formation**) Sometimes I wish those trolls in Twitch chat egging me on about a boyfriend could spend 5 minutes with Joan. I think she could whip them into shape.

At the very end of the trip, once we started to head back to Ushuaia from Antarctica, Joan had booked a massage in the Wellness Center. We had a pretty chill day full of lectures, parsing through photos, and just enjoying the company of each other and all of our new friends on the ship.

The following day Joan’s back was bothering her a little bit. We wondered if it was because of a rather rocky Drake Passage the prior evening, all the hiking during the trip, or something else entirely.

After lunchtime, Joan found me in the room as I was swapping out my camera memory cards. “I got a massage.”, she told me.

Now, Joan is pretty sharp. I had never had to tell her anything twice, and she always remembered everything I told her. So, I was a bit puzzled as to why she was telling me again about her massage.

“I know”, I replied. “Yesterday morning… or, did you get another one?”

“I got a massage from Ian.”, Joan said with a sly smile.

Ahh, yes, Ian. Ian was the hotel manager on the ship. A tall, handsome, proper gentleman from South Africa.

Joan continued, “Now, if he proposed, that might be something to consider.”

Cracking me up again.

Even then, I learned from Joan, that while independence is ageless, so is romance. You can have either, or you can have both. But, the beauty in it is that you get to choose.

I was with Joan for 12 days. In those 12 days, we grew a deep and very special bond.

Joan taught me many things, but probably the greatest lesson that she taught me, or at least reminded me of, was that there is SO MUCH to live for, no matter your age or status in life, and that you can find friendship and family anywhere you go. So, always be kind to those around you, because you just might meet someone that touches your soul and that will remain a treasured part of you forever.

Joan, I love you, chica.

#travel #antarctica #national geographic #orion #inspiration #new year #new year 2019

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ellisfinejewelersnc · 4 years

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Exactly just just How 15 females remain secure and safe whenever conference someone from the app that is dating web site

Rule number 1: meet in a general public destination.

very First times aren’t just af that is scary you are placing yourself on the market emotionally, but also because conference a whole complete stranger you simply know on the net is terrifying. You will find things individuals needs to do to help make people feel safer on dates, but females usually have their rules that are own destination to protect by themselves. 15 ladies responded a Reddit AskWomen thread on what they remain safe when dating that is online.

1. “we constantly tell one or more individual where i will be. In addition often switch on location sharing, in case. I get one step further and also have a safety rule system set up if i must there get out of (both for if i am uncomfortable, at risk, fundamentally something that might justify the need to leave.) We’ll text a close buddy a code word, and they’re going to phone me personally with an ’emergency’ and save me personally. Then there is the most common: meet in a public destination, purchase/handle my personal beverages (i will not accept a glass or two he got for me personally before i acquired here, or if perhaps i did not notice it, etc). I do not accept trips from their website, or head to their

spot.” via

2. “ahead of the date, we grab that is always screen search their pics like they are doing on Catfish. We send either my bff or my cousin a display screen shot of our convo that presents their name/ contact and where our company is fulfilling. Without a doubt drive your car or truck to help you keep if it feels off.” via

3. “we tell my mum whom he’s, where he works, where he lives. In the date, it’s always in a busy destination, and in case he drives we’ll on the sly have the reg quantity and deliver it to my mum. In addition will excuse myself to attend the restroom, and allow my mum understand he is not a weirdo and I also’m nevertheless alive (our company is blunt). But before all of this, it’s most readily useful have few telephone calls and a few video clip chats whilst getting to learn them, before a romantic date is in the cards.” via

4. “I been on Tinder for 2 years now, and not had an issue (maybe i have been happy, I do not understand), but just what i actually do is definitely allow a friend that is close the thing I’m doing/where i want. Both of us have actually the discover My buddies app switched on on our phones so that they can monitor where i will be, and have them updated if we get anywhere so they really understand to help keep a watch onto it. We also always be certain We have anyone on Snapchat and communicate they are/what they look like. using them through there a little before conference, making certain my pal understands who” via

5. “we meet in a place that is public. I always share a close friend to my location. We never accept a trip from somebody brand new. We always drive myself or get an Uber. We never ever stop sharing location by having a good friend. Often my date and I also will opt to get someplace following the meeting that is initial, and my back-up have to know where i am at. I share the date’s qualifications. Every thing i am aware about them. First title, final title, career, where you work, location of residence. Photo if at all possible.

“Also, it really is difficult to estimate this, but we make an effort to provide my friend an eta for once I arrive properly house. Midnight is my standard, but until We have home secure. if it requires to be extended, I stay static in contact every hour or more after midnight” via

6. “My roomie and I also will inform one another the guyвЂ™s name, show his pic, state where weвЂ™ll be, just just just what time the conference is, as soon as weвЂ™ll be right right back. I always drive myself and fulfill in a general public area.” via

7. “If you drive/have a motor vehicle, organize your date in a general public destination where you need to buy parking nearby. Pay money for a full hour of parking. In the event that date goes well, you are able to just say ‘Oop my parking is mostly about to expire ,but i will run and feed the meter really fast if you want to talk more?’ In the event that date is certainly going downhill, you have got a legit excuse to keep! ‘Sorry, my parking is expiring quickly, gotta get!'” via

8. “should you go homeward with some one, allow a buddy recognize! Facebook messenger has an element now where you could share your local area, therefore it is very easy to content buddy as well as is able to see where you are at. Opt for your gut, if one thing seems incorrect, keep. that you don’t EVER owe anyone ANY SUCH THING.” via

9. “constantly inform some body in which you are going as soon as to anticipate you straight back. Do not be afraid to go out of if you are finding a vibe that is bad feel unsafe. We’d state it is most likely a smart idea to get yourself a feel when it comes to person with them, but that’s your call to make before you go home. I’dn’t accept at their house until I became comfortable using them. When you do get beverages using them, be mindful about making your beverage unattended.” via

10. “we (really) never return to someoneвЂ™s spot the very day that is first meet them, or accept inside their house. I like to simply take my time and energy to develop comfort and trust amounts before IвЂ™ll think about likely to their property.” via

11. “we came across some guy when at a club and I also had two beers although we waited for the comedy show . giving me personally vibes that are creepy excused myself to utilize the restroom after which went along to my automobile without permitting him understand I became making. I realised I was not good to drive when I got to my car. We known as a buddy and chatted . so worried he’d find me personally sitting in my own vehicle. Therefore simply be cautious aided by the quantity you drink if you intend to manage to drive home.” via

12. “we promised myself never to be courteous if i acquired a bad vibe; I’d one man get cranky whenever I didnвЂ™t accept their invite back once again to his on the very first date, but we held company and didnвЂ™t allow their guilt trip lead us in order to make a poor option. In the terms of my fave podcast, ‘F**k politeness!'” via

13. “satisfy , tell when/where and guyвЂ™s name. I text her once I arrive and one hour later on, however at three hours or whenever I depart. DonвЂ™t give fully out my address until later on. We additionally reverse image search and Google times in order to make certain theyвЂ™re on the up or over. Discovered a few scammers that means.” via

14. “we came across far from my hometown, constantly in a restaurant that is public left individually. It had been simple since We lived in a town that is small outside of bigger city. Therefore dates had been simpler to put up with me planning to them, and therefore means they didnвЂ™t have an idea as to where we lived.” via

15. “First handful of times had been in public areas. Nearly all of my matches had been in a town 50ish moments away, but I drove house each and every time, didn’t accept invites instantly until we was out at minimum five times. He was invited by me to mine third date. Whenever we visited their spot, IвЂ™d constantly drive my own car over. if things get laterally, not require become susceptible to obtaining a trip back into my automobile.” via

#Jewelry Buying Guide Blog Posts - Ellis Fine Jewelers

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originaldetectivesheep · 7 years

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The Thirty and One Nights' Momentary Diversion - In the Track of the Albatross, part I

Le'von, Lew, Hurley, and Allison return from "When John Frum Came Back to Peliwak" (collected in Monsters of the Week), with a new plane, a new employer, and a new wild-goose chase: a German sub missing for near on a hundred years.

In the Track of the Albatross

I spread out my toes and felt the rivets under my feet, the exact curve of the wing, as I leaned in, getting up on the edge, and hucked the tool bag down and across to Lew. He caught it out of the air, cracking a smile as he rocked back under the impact of the canvas, bare feet kicking against the side of the ship under the access door. With a motion half back inside, he chucked the bag somewhere in, down, inside the belly of the plane. "If there's a good thing about dropping off that Navy pension and coming up on this contract crap," he said, coming back, blond curls shaking as he leaned back out of the frame, "it's that now, the damn plane's big enough that we can keep all the crap we got to fix'er with inside." He patted the doorframe of the Scooper. "I tell ya, Le'von, thisn's a good plane; days I loved that old Cat, but every time you go up, she like as to break up around you."

"I hear you," I said, sidling along the roof over the door, getting ready to drop down and swing in as soon as Lew budged up from the doorway. "I'm sure glad that this plane is, like, younger than me and she don't take near as much work to keep up, but the other side of being big enough that we can keep all our stuff on board means we got to. I don't miss being cooped up on Tuganga, not so much, but sleeping in a hammock strung up between a stack of vacuum tubes and a crate of MREs gets kinda old, y'know? If they'd just let us home-port in Guam, I wouldn't have nothing to complain about." Below me, Lew nodded vigorously, staring out over the lagoon to the distant sandbars of the Chuuk reef line.

Of course, you couldn't take an ancient Catalina and its crew back to Guam, someplace civilized with modern equipment, once you closed up the antique radar station that the bird was assigned to in favor of a damn satellite. But after that business on Peliwak, and what we'd reported before the island blew up, the service wasn't about to just let us walk and go talk to whoever – and not Hurley and Allison either. They had to stick a flying boat pilot and his maintenance dude somewhere, and also their radar-ops buddy and their not-totally-useless station chief: where they stuck us, and it was all of us, was into an almost-modern Bombardier Scooper and the world's most obvious black-ops bullshit cover story.

The plane belonged to Northern Stores, technically; I found out during the 'orientation' video for our new 'employer' that this was legit the Hudson's Bay Company, still a weird mercantilist almost-arm of the Canadian goddamn government two hundred years later. Which explained why the Island Fresh supermarket in Kolonia, the capital of Pohnpei state in Micronesia, could suddenly get a seaplane attached to it and nobody blinked. When we were 'home-ported', we slept in the plane in the harbor, parked between leafy sandbars and sunken hulks blocking the channel, but we were never home in port – there was always something that someone wanted somewhere, somewhere out in the big empty of the Pacific Ocean that jets couldn't get to correctly and boats couldn't get to fast enough. So we got borrowed: Lew to fly the plane, me to keep it running and the crew from getting tetanus or dysentery, Al to spot storms and handle any kind of ELINT, and Hurley to…. well, to go talk to people that wouldn't take a Melanesian pilot or a black wrencher or a weird, socially mute radio op seriously. That was mostly what Hurley was good for, mostly what he did. Like now; that was what he was coming back from doing, standing up in the front end of a motor canoe in his Navy whites, the local pilot back by the outboard leaning way back out over the spray to keep the canoe balanced, or to get himself as far the hell away from Hurley as he possibly could. The canoe slowed up as it turned in towards the plane, and Lew and I half saluted out of force of habit.

Hurley threw it back as smart and crisp as the dress trousers none of us ever caught him washing. "Morning, Le'von, Lew; are we shipshape?"

I nodded over at the engine I'd given a going-over. "Yeah; I popped a panel after those diagnostics came up last time, but everything's in place, fluids are good, nothing's wearing out. We ain't filled up since we landed, but just driving over here to anchor probably didn't burn that much. Lew?"

Lew nodded. "Man's right; we're near full up, still all stowed from coming in. Most any patrol, we're ready to go as soon we spin up the engines."

Hurley's face was unexpectedly grave. "That's good to hear, but I'll take exception to part of it. This isn't 'most any patrol' we've got – we're going to be out a long ways, perhaps for a long time – longer than we've done in a while. We're going to need to top off what we burned taxiing over here – and to fill up the two water-bomber tanks forward with fuel as a backup."

I shifted myself sideways, edging off the door. This was serious; whoever had delivered this plane to us through whatever channels had taken out most of the firefighting equipment that had been built into it to start, leaving a lean but flexible long-range seaplane without a lot of extra weight, but there were still two of the bomb tanks opening out the hull – in case we needed to do some firefighting, or in case we needed to go farther, way out in that big empty, than anyone could rationally expect a seaplane to go. "In that case, I've got to check the doors and make sure they're sealing tight – so we aren't leaking and we aren't pumping water through the engines. I'll make it quick; wherever this is, you probably want to get going right away." Hurley nodded, and I shucked off my shirt, throwing it in past Lew as he bent to help Hurley up into the plane. I slid off the edge of the fuselage and straight down into the sea; there were gauges inside, but the surest way to check the seals on the forward bomb bay doors was to run a finger along all the seams, to feel for the water sucking in on the pressure change, getting in where it wasn't supposed to.

When I climbed back up in, scrubbing off with a microfiber towel before I dripped on something that would be expensive to have short out, the engines were already turning; the electric starters on the new Pratts sure beat the heck out of manually cranking the ones on the old ship. Lew was running through his checklist and Hurley was in the copilot's chair; I picked up my shirt from the jump seat and sat down to pull it on. "So, what's the mission, boss?" I asked, digging in with my fingers to get the last of the water out of my hair. "We've got to be going far, and out of the way, if we've got to gas up again, let alone load extra fuel into the bomb tanks. Where abouts? Wake? Kiribati? The Solomons?"

Hurley answered, even though I was mostly talking to Lew. "You're not far wrong; it's in that area, it's far away, and it's somewhat sensitive – as in the U.S. government is not supposed to be there, by orders of both the FSM and Papua New Guinea, at least one of whom owns the reefs and sandbars in the outer Bismarcks that we have to check first. They're not allowed to land; otherwise they would have sent the SEALs and might have sent a task force. Because it's fine and well for small countries to have territorial sovereignty, but when you go about building a submarine dock and berthing a two-hundred-foot boat of no known type there, the Navy gets a little anxious."

I had been nodding through Hurley's World Police ramble there, but when he got to the wild sub, I sat bolt upright. "Wait. What? They've got us off sub hunting? Why? How? And what do you mean, 'no known type' – how did nobody spot it before?"

Lew brought the engines up to taxi speed, and checked that the anchor was all the way up as he fed in the throttle to get us moving over towards the pier by the west end of the airport. "We didn't hear about it out here, being so cut off from the Internet," Hurley said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the props, "but a bunch of USGIS satelllite survey images got wikileaked a few weeks ago, and the usual conspiracy weirdos with more spare time than sense immediately put together a crowdsearch project to find the aliens, or the Jade Helm bases, or whatever rubbish people are getting riled up about this week. They found nothing like that, of course, but what they did find was a submarine, of no type known to modern navies, berthed to a crude pier on a tropical sandbar. This was remarked on, but because the leak did not include a way to make sense of the image codes, the amateurs huffing over it couldn't find what particular tropical beach, exactly, the image represented, and after diligently not finding any matching island and submarine dock on Google Earth, the wasters forgot about it and went back to their games or harrassing celebrities or whatnot.

"The government most decidedly did not forget. The Internet amateurs did not find the submarine base on Google Earth because Google, mindful of their bandwidth, does not include images in sufficient resolution to identify it for grid squares that should be merely an empty and uninteresting patch of the Pacific Ocean. But the USGIS does have images at that resolution, and as soon as someone saw the image codes, they confirmed that this square of ocean, long ignored as uninteresting, had been hosting at least one submarine base for quite some time."

"I'm not liking the sound of this – especially that 'at least one' part," I said, turning around as I stood up to check the connections between the main fuel tanks and the backup bomb tanks. Lew spun the engines down, and through the windshield ahead, I could see the motor launch from the airport coming in, trailing the hose back to the tank truck.

"I haven't even gotten to the bad part yet," Hurley said, without a care in the world. "The Navy's identified at least three more potential or former sub docks, strung out along the outer edge of the Bismarck archipelago, or on flyspeck seamounts out in the ocean between there and the Carolines; submarine docks associated with what look, to a practiced eye, like careful copra plantations and drying facilities. Someone is running a submarine around in the wastes of the Central Pacific, and fueling it with coconuts, the oil or the dry meat for coal."

"Everyone runs copra out here," I said, checking the pressure on the bomb tanks as the gas started to fill in. "Doesn't mean anything; anybody who can find themselves an uninhabited island will put up some trees and get a grow going, no matter who the land ought to belong to. Doesn't mean anything."

"Of course it doesn't; not by itself." Hurley was unaffected. "But with the submarine, it may – and not just any submarine. The sub is of no known type – no type known to modern navies. But there is a historical class that, despite the fairly bad quality of the one half-submerged satellite photo of the ship that we have available, may be a match – and that class has long been legended to be missing a ship."

The gauges were all green. I turned back around to confront Hurley about this. "Okay, fine. So what is this mystery ship? Some missing Nazi U-boat that flew in from Antarctica?"

Hurley was turned around, and he shook his head, chuckling, in that way he had that always made me wish I had a wrench to hand, and that he wasn't standing in front of anything important. "You've got the right country, Le'von, but the wrong war. Our missing ship is the nigh-mythical U-160, not recorded as launched from Kiel in March 1918 as the last of the U-151 class, the long-range cargo subs intended to connect Germany with her distant colonies and reluctant trading partners. The hull dimensions of the ship seen by the satellite are within ten percent of what we know of the U-151s; it wouldn't be impossible for a German submarine to be found out here, in the old German colonial waters, as an evacuation ship or a commerce raider or both in the dying days of the Great War. Where this becomes impossible is when that ship survives a hundred years on and is still sailing – and then why, and where, and for whose ends, becomes very interesting to a great many people."

I nodded, and crossed my arms. "Right. And when you've got a ghost ship out there doing impossible things within a thousand or two miles of Pohnpei, up and goes the ex-Tuganga Weather Station after it, because anybody knows impossible, it's them."

Hurley turned back around, putting his headset on as Lew brought the engines up again. "Tuganga's in the past, Le'von; we're with the Rachel now, and with her, well, I guess we've got to always be searching for everyone's lost children."

"Sir yes sir," I said, ignoring the reference and sitting back down in the jump seat. I had my own checklists to run as Lew opened the engine up to take us out; I didn't have much to do in the air, but when we got wherever we were going, it was going to be me on the beach – me out on the beach looking for clues to a ghost ship lost at sea for the longest part of a hundred years.

Part II

#30and1nights #fiction

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hughmccabe · 6 years

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4 Essential SEO Strategies You Need to Focus on This Year “What should I focus on this year?” This is a question that I have been hearing a lot since 2019 kicked off. I’ve been going back and forth on what the right answer to that question is, which is also why this article is being published in March and not January. Already this year, so many new ideas, arguments, and hypotheses have been thrown out into the ether for discussion, and I wanted to see how some of those unfolded before I made the final call on which way to direct people this year. I take this seriously because SEO is such a slow burn. I always want to make sure I steer people in a positive direction based on real-world experience and data. That’s the practical side of me. The other side always wants to throw out-of-the-box ideas out into the world to get folks to start thinking a little bit differently about how they approach organic search within their organizations (which is mainly based on my 15-year gut instinct in the field). Below are what I believe is a balance between those two sides. 1. On-SERP SEO (Or Whatever You Want to Call It) Rand Fishkin gave an interesting talk at BrightonSEO back in September on what he believes is the future of search: “On-SERP SEO.” Fishkin presented some staggering data that shows the decline of mobile and organic clicks and the rise of “no-click” searches. He then released a study about paid and organic clicks and their relation to no-click searches (see blog post here). The data is thought-provoking – but also somewhat disturbing. It shows the general decline of both paid and SEO clicks in favor of users getting their answers on the actual SERP and not your site (with the content Google is appropriating from your site might I add). So that sucks. While I am never a fan of immediately adopting someone else’s ideas until proven over a period of time, it’s really hard to ignore the points and the data the Fishkin has presented. Getting more visibility on the SERPs to gain more real estate is not a new concept, but this is the first time in the history of SEO where someone has put a name to it and made it an actionable practice. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t really know, and who really cares? The point is that getting creative and thinking differently about how you approach your SEO campaigns is becoming more important when it comes to your presence in the SERPs. Fishkin talks about anything and everything you could do, which unfortunately means that SEO professionals will inevitably try to do all of these things regardless if it makes sense for them – simply because Fishkin suggested it. My take? Try and keep it as simple as possible. Don’t try to boil the ocean. Everyone should be targeting answer boxes (more on that below). If you have brick and mortar locations, spend time in Google My Business, manage your locations, and ensure your NAP information is consistent. If you’re a retail brand, sync up your organic efforts with your paid/PLA keyword to see where you convert well and increase your visibility for your traditional organic listings. Make video content. If you are a publisher, use AMP. If you aren’t a publisher try AMP on your blog/articles. Leverage and control the knowledge graph for your brand. Run a local business? Use Google Posts. Use the Twitter carousel to your advantage. Talk to influencers and get them to promote your brand. If you can’t win organically for bigger keywords, look at what sites are winning for those terms and see if you can buy ads on those sites. You guys get my point. Don’t just think about how your users see your brand on your site, think of how they see you in the SERPs. 2. Write Articles/Blog Posts That Answer Questions & Solve Customer Problems I’ll let the collective sighs and groans dissipate for a moment before I move into this one. Yes, this is not news. But it is so, so important today. Taking the points I made above about the rise of no-click searches, answer boxes are the number 1 culprit for this. Google is appropriating your content into their interface and answering people’s questions without them having to go to your site. That’s the world we live in now. And it’s probably only going to get worse. All that said, it isn’t all doom and gloom. This obvious strategy is one that you should ramp up to prepare for our new future. To prove why you should do this, and that it actually does work and affect the bottom line, I want to talk about a small business I’ve been working with for several years. They developed a blog based on asking and answering questions and saw tremendous results after 12 months. Below you will see a chart that represents a local business in New York City that came to me asking what they could do to increase organic visibility with the hope of bringing in new sales. The goal was traffic and rankings and not revenue at first, that happened to just be a happy byproduct of the effort. We went through everything they could talk about, all of the questions they could answer and to their credit, they dove right in and started creating this content with both images and video content to support. We began this effort in January 2018. Here is how that strategy panned out for them: 4 Essential SEO Strategies You Need to Focus on This Year As you can see above, we saw 160 percent in growth in sessions, 166 percent growth in users, and a 93 percent increase in goal completions due mostly to this effort. Out of all organic sessions driving traffic and revenue, 63 percent of it came from the blog and drove an incremental 300,000 in 2018 for a small business. In 2019 they are already up 10 percent in both sessions and goal completions due to the blog strategy. I’ll take it. Regardless of how large or small your business is, do this. 3. The Technical Health of Your Site In 2018, folks finally realized the technical foundation of your site is important. While many of us in-the-weeds SEO professionals have been preaching this for years (it’s always nice to bask in the warm glow of being right), the best part was being able to have serious conversations around this topic with the majority of customers last year. See Anyone's Analytics Account, in Real Time. You can literally see real-time sales and conversion data for any website, and which campaigns drove that traffic. Start your free trial today. Start Now ADVERTISEMENT Listen to me folks: Regardless of how great your content and brand is, you will never reach your full organic potential if your sites foundation is crap. My advice to everyone is to get a legit auditing tool like DeepCrawl (disclosure: they are a partner, but I’ve been using them forever, so no bias here) and make sure you are monitoring and fixing technical issues on your site. You will perform better. Believe me. Common issues to look out for: Page Speed: Much bigger factor than it used to be. Mobile-Friendliness: This is how Google judges your site now. Duplicate Content/Elements: Don’t compete with yourself. JavaScript/Rendering Issues: If you use JavaScript and have a gut feeling you have indexation issues, you should look into a prerender software or dynamic rendering. Index Bloat: Are you controlling parametered, search result and paginated pages correctly? Check to see how many pages are in the index in Google Search Console and if you can focus your footprint. Google doesn’t care about the quantity of pages in the index, they care about quality. Don’t let them get lost in a fog of random pages on your site. Overbearing Security: Make sure Google isn’t hitting a wall when it’s simply trying to crawl your site. If you run your site through Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl and halfway through it starts throwing 429 errors, you might be a little too stingy on the security. This is another instance where I can go on and on. Just be aware that the crawlability and performance of your site from a technical standpoint has become an increasingly larger factor and should be an ongoing part of your day-to-day SEO strategy. 4. Don’t Obsess over Voice Search If voice search is a “big” part of your 2019 SEO strategy, stop it. Now, you can Google articles that I have written recently and webinars I have hosted which state my belief that voice search was already going to be a much larger thing for search. Sorry, everyone. I was wrong. For now. By now I had expected some type of reporting on voice search at least from Google and we haven’t gotten it. I have customers asking me all the time, “how can I win at voice search?” and the simple truth is, you can’t, or at least you can’t prove to me or anyone that you are winning because there is no way to report on it. I have sat through many presentations over the last year with agencies and consultants who have come up with really great ways for people to say, “this is how you win at voice search”, but the problem is it’s all total bullsh!t because there is no way to prove it. Until we have a universal way or dataset that we all agree on that shows what users are actually searching for on their home assistants and apply some form of MSV/value to that query, it’s all pontification. Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a few folks about this and some really cool and interesting points came up that had been heard at a conference regarding voice search, but one in particular stuck with me: “People can speak 5 times faster than they can write.” That’s a powerful statement because that would lead one to believe that voice search should be 5 times faster than traditional search. Fair statement, no? A counterpoint came up however that actually made even more sense than the previous one: “Yes, but they can’t listen 5 times faster than they can read.” This one really blew my mind because it is so true. When you think about the delivery mechanism of voice search, the logic is totally flawed. Our search bars are confined spaces that keep searches to a certain length (this isn’t something Google has determined, it’s just how people search, short, to the point phrases…most of the time). People who search using voice tend to use a more stream-of-consciousness method, which I don’t think anyone really thought of for this application. This is probably why we haven’t seen any real reporting around it. That and because I truly believe more people are asking their home assistants what the weather is versus how to make an octopus costume as the commercials imply (i.e., most voice “searches” are actually voice “commands”, which is must less valuable to a marketer in my opinion at this juncture). Regardless, the point made above that folks cannot listen five times faster than they can read really resonated with me because when you think about it, it’s much easer to scroll through results visually than it is listening to them read aloud. Think about it. If you are looking for the best Mexican restaurant near you, it’s a lot easier and quicker to scroll through reviews visually than it is to have a voice assistant dictate them to you. Maybe that’s SEO’s reprieve, who knows? The main issue is that voice search is a distraction for most companies right now. Shiny object syndrome is the most widespread plague of the SEO community and this is one of the shiniest objects that has come down the road in recent years. Most sites have a lot of basic things they have to address before they even come near a concept like voice search (see strategies listed above). While voice search will become an important part of search in the next few years, you shouldn’t be focusing on it right now – even if your site is the most SEO-sound site on the web. Focus on making your site technically sound, create content that helps your customers, and focus maybe 5 percent of your efforts on something like voice search. At the end of the day, you can prove the effectiveness of the first two to your bosses while you can’t prove you’re winning at voice search to anyone. So if you have made that one of your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) this year, you’re screwed. Try Something New This Year Everything above is approachable to anyone with a website. There are no excuses to not try some new things. 2019 is going to be a big year for search experts who approach the practice with new ideas and passion. Will you be one of them? Resource: https://ift.tt/2XHpo0K https://ift.tt/2SPTkUM

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asfeedin · 4 years

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Mac Versus PC – Here’s Why I Still Loathe Windows After 20 Years

After two decades of experience with both Mac and PC computers, I still love the Mac OS, and I still utterly loathe Windows. Admittedly, I am no computer expert. But, hear me out. If you’re an artist, this might resonate with you.

Sand Dunes, Death Valley 2005. First Processed in Photoshop CS2, re-processed ~15 years later in Lightroom CC

I built my first PC in high school, it was a Windows XP (or Windows 2000?) machine. My father took me to the local electronics superstore and we picked out the motherboard, etc. I loved the sense of pride when it first turned on, I loved making upgrades, it was fun, at first.

After the tragic “bricking” (electronic death) of that PC, due to viruses or malware or something, (curse you, Napster/LimeWire/Kazaa!) …I got into photography and bought my first Mac. I “went legit” and paid for authentic copies of Adobe Photoshop 6, 7, Creative Suite, and beyond…. (And, yes, I paid for music on iTunes!)

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and I’ve gone back and forth between Mac and PC a few times. As a post-production manager/specialist and private workflow consultant, I have to stay up-to-date on both operating systems for my work.

Shop the Best Computers For Photography Editing: (Adorama) (B&H) (Amazon)

Sony RX100 VII, 2019 Adobe Lightroom Classic

I’d estimate that my time has been split 70/30 or 80/20 between Mac/PC. Whenever I use a PC more routinely than a Mac, though, I have the exact same experience…

With each new version of Windows, my initial reaction is “oh, this isn’t so bad!” After all, I just need a few photo and video editing programs, and they’re virtually identical on both operating systems. As someone who reviews cameras for a living, re-wiring my brain quickly to jive with a few different keyboard shortcuts and Finder VS Explorer comes very easy.

Then, like clockwork, Windows begins to sabotage our relationship. Things get way too complicated, and in a totally new way each time. Each time, I quickly remember why I love my Apple machines. They just work. They’re simple, they run smoothly day in and day out, they’re just idiot-proof. I realize that makes me the idiot, and I’m OK with it; I spent all my energy mastering camera interfaces and customizations, apparently, and I have no patience left for confusing computer problems.

[RELATED READING: The Best Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts | Quick Reference Guide]

Yosemite, 2017. Nikon D750, Adobe Lightroom “Classic”

Today’s story is just one example of why, personally, as a simple-minded creative person I will probably never truly enjoy the Windows user experience like I do the Apple “sphere”. It’s probably not even a good example, there’s probably a really easy explanation for this problem, but after hours of searching the internet and asking all my PC wizard friends, I still couldn’t fix things, so here it is…

DISCLAIMER: We all have our different computer-related experience & track record. Some people have had numerous Macs crash or die on them. I’ve heard the reports of how overall quality control has declined in recent years. All I am doing today is telling my story. You’re welcome to tell your own story in a comment!

Windows PC Display Calibration Profile

Like any responsible photographer should, I attempt to calibrate my latest new PC display. It’s a 4K HDR laptop display, so the slightly older calibration device was barely up to the task. The default calibration options were very wrong for such an exotic display, and I had to re-calibrate multiple times with a lot of trial-and-error, before getting it right. To be fair, I’m not faulting Windows for this complication at all; it was an older model X-Rite device, and my Apple displays were never 4K HDR with 100% RGB! Moving on…

Even when accurately calibrated, however, Adobe applications still displayed images quite differently from Windows Explorer and other applications. (Kudos to Google Chrome for coming the closest to matching Adobe, though!)

I was confused. I hadn’t encountered this problem on a Mac in 10-15 years. And, the difference was significant enough that if I edited my images “to taste” in Adobe, they didn’t just look slightly different everywhere else, they looked horribly over-cooked.

So, I decided to dive down the rabbit hole, and see if there was a deeper level at which I needed to change a color space/display setting, or designate the new calibration profile, in order for Windows to stop over-cooking colors and contrast so much.

Also, by the way, the calibration profile keeps un-setting itself, every time the computer sleeps, even though X-Rite says it has applied it at the system-wide level. So I have to re-apply the display calibration profile every single time I wake the computer. Another reason to dive deeper and check the system-level settings. Which brings us to the present. Let’s try and figure this out together…

First, unlike on a Mac where display settings are all handled in one place through the OS preferences, on this particular Windows PC each hardware manufacturer has its own little add-on programs besides Windows’ own settings. So, I check those first – Acer has one, Intel has one, NVIDIA has one, and of course there’s one more GeForce…thing. None of them seem to have any control over the actual display profile. (Despite one of them actually having a seemingly useless option deceptively named, “Select profile”…)

So, I’m four applications (each with numerous settings) into my hunt, and I haven’t even found anywhere to force my computer to use the same display profile. Only Adobe applications seem to automatically use the X-Rite-generated display profile.

So, into Windows Display settings we go. Let’s count how many layers there are…

This is the 2nd level of the 1st settings window, where the “Color profile” setting keeps undoing itself despite double-checking in the calibration software that the profile should be saved at a system-wide/admin level. So, we’d better go down to the bottom of this window and click “Advanced display settings”…

Layer 3 – Nothing useful here; we need to click “Display adapter properties for Display 1” and go even deeper…

A whole new (2nd) window pops up. This isn’t very useful either, but I do see a tab called “Color Management”, and that sounds a little more promising!

…Sadly, the “Color Management” tab just shows a “Color Management…” button. I guess I better click it! (Depending on how you count, we are 2 windows or 5 layers deep at this point.)

Now we’re getting somewhere! 3 windows (6 layers) into the bowels of Windows settings, I finally find somewhere to set a default display device profile. Except, it’s already set to the CUSTOM profile, even though I’m definitely having the color/contrast discrepancy problems I described. What’s going on? Well, there is another “Advanced” tab in this window; let’s see where that leads…

Is this the culprit? I finally found a “Device profile” setting that I can change from the factory profile to the custom profile! (Layer 7)

…Unfortunately, changing this setting didn’t seem to help. In the lower corner of the window, however, we see a button for “Change system defaults…”

We get an identical window, except this is named “Color Management – System Defaults”. Unfortunately, the CUSTOM profile is still set as the default. Maybe there’s another “Advanced” tab? Yes, there is. At this point, (4 windows, 8 layers) I feel like I’m in a horror house of mirrors…

Finally, when I can go no further, (layer 9!) I found a “Device profile” option that was set to sRGB, even though this is an AdobeRGB display. Let’s try setting this last option to the CUSTOM profile, and see what happens.

…Surprise, surprise: colors and contrast are, in fact, a little bit closer in Adobe applications and other Windows programs. Still, they’re off by a tiny little bit. It’s a margin of error that I’m willing to accept, though, so let’s call it “good enough”, and get on with our lives!

[Related Reading: Datacolor Launches SpyderX Tool Kits for Digital Photographers for Ultimate Color Calibration]

The real question is, surely after going deeper than Indiana Jones into the bowels of my computer for just one final setting, the computer should remember this display profile at the main level, even if I let it go to sleep, or do a full restart?

…Of course not. There’s that factory calibration again! Apparently, I’ll have to re-enable my calibration profile every single time I sit down at my computer. (Unless some Windows genius comments below and tells me what I’m doing wrong!)

Conclusion: Why, Windows, WHY?

Honestly, to be totally fair, I bet the real problem is ME. I’m sure there’s a totally simple solution to this problem, and if I’m lucky you’ll be polite with your comments even though I deserve to be ashamed of my failure. I probably made some rookie mistake.

But, I did try very hard to find a solution. I spent hours reading everything I could find on Windows display calibration and profile settings. I could only conclude that having colors match in all apps may just not be possible, period, when using an HDR-capable 100% AdobeRGB display. Maybe I’m wrong, and I missed a setting in one of those other proprietary apps.

Adobe Lightroom, Visual Flow “Pastel” preset for correcting green-tinted scenes (Click here to learn more!)

Either way, my point is this: With all the Apple computers I ever owned, at least it was never NINE LAYERS of complicated. (Not to mention the additional apps for managing individual pieces of hardware, as is Windows’ custom…) I don’t care how computer-savvy you are, nine layers of settings is about 6-7 layers too many.

With a Mac, setting up a calibration, or getting it to “stick”, was never a problem. Whenever I got a new Mac, or did a hard drive upgrade and full OS refresh, it was always effortless: install the software, perform the calibration, and tell the program to make the new profile universal. Done!

I might have missed something obvious, but I still can’t get past the fact that there are eight layers, or four different windows of display settings, plus those four aftermarket programs related to the display and graphics. That’s ridiculous. Why, Windows, Why? Is this really necessary?

Why Artists Like (Or Dislike) Mac: The Simplicity

I just need a computer that works. I need a computer that only has one or two levels of complexity, because I’d rather be back outdoors taking more pictures, not “managing” my computer. I know plenty of photographers that have no problems managing their PCs. They’re also very inspiring, creative artists! I guess everybody is a little different.

I understand that PCs, on average, are an incredible value. And, make no mistake, all the PCs I’ve ever used have been awesome computers overall, including this latest one. They’re powerful, fast machines that really let me blast through a batch of high-megapixel photos, even stitching 300-megapixel raw panoramas with ease! So, if you need the best value, a PC is a great choice, even if you might experience a little bit more frustration.

My point is, if you appreciate simplicity, or if you absolutely require it in order to maintain your sanity, that’s OK! We may pride ourselves in being camera masters, or Photoshop masters, but it’s OK to make certain technology-related decisions that help keep our blood pressure down. For me, that means I’ll likely forever reside in the Mac OS camp. I don’t care about brand name status symbols, or sexy outward appeal, I just want a computer that works as smoothly as possible, for as many years as possible. How about you?

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whatanerdgirlsays · 5 years

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If you’ve been living under a rock or simply don’t live in California so your entire world doesn’t revolve around the Disneyland Resort, then you may not know that the newest addition to the park – Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – has officially opened as of this past Friday.

I’ve been excited about this for FOUR years now, since the announcement that there would be a Star Wars themed land. The closer it got though, the more that it just seemed like it wouldn’t be in the cards for me though. I unfortunately haven’t been able to afford an annual pass in quite some time, and a day ticket is a lot for me. I was counting down the days until opening but I had a feeling that I would not be there.

That literally changed about three weeks ago. Let me start with a little backstory. I’ve been to Disneyland a handful of times in the past two years and I took the same picture every single time, starting with one taken in August of 2017. They had started the construction on Galaxy’s Edge and there was a really cool walkway and wall leading to where the land was going to be. I took a picture sitting in front of it, staring wistfully at the picture, and posted it on Instagram, joking about how I was first in line.

I was contacted by someone named Frank, who is now a friend of mine after two years of instagram following, who let me know that my picture caught the eye of Disney and they wanted to know if they could have permission to use the image in promotion stuff. I thought it was kind of crazy, but gave my information and thought nothing of it. Frank and I stayed IG friends though and that was great!

A few weeks ago, Frank reaches out to me, asks for my email, saying that Disney Parks wants to get in contact with me. Hmm, okay. So I passed along my email – which is basically public anyway – and waited. I received an email from someone named Mark, who works for Disney Parks, asking if he could have ten to fifteen minutes to chat on the phone with me. After Googling him frantically and finding that he seemed pretty legit, I okayed the phone call. It basically boiled down to they can’t tell me why, but they want to come film me being surprised with…something. I set it up for a few days later.

Long story short – which you guys know I’m NEVER good at – Mark, one of the Disneyland Ambassadors, Justin, and a full camera crew came to my apartment and surprised me with a trip to Galaxy’s Edge before it opened to the public.

And while I had a *slight* idea that it had to do with SWGE, I had no idea it would be this and I was in awe of this opportunity for the weeks prior to it actually happening. You can watch the video below…its super fun and way way awkward haha!

Fast forward a few weeks to this past Wednesday, the 29th. This was the day I got to go and I found out a few days prior that this was going to be the media day and the day of the official dedication/opening ceremony. I was seriously SO excited. I had a ton of cast member friends that went to their previews, but they weren’t allowed to take pictures and I was just ACHING to have my trip to the land. I was so ready for it.

Daniel and I showed up at the Disneyland Hotel a little after 1 pm, which was the check in. We were given Park Hoppers to get into the parks before the event started 630 pm but we decided to go hang out at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar for a little bit. Its my favorite place and all of my favorite Skippers work during the day so I never see them anymore and I haven’t been in SO long. It felt like the perfect way to start what was sure to be an awesome night.

When it was finally getting close to event time, we headed to the park, rode Winnie the Pooh once because YES, and then headed over to SWGE. I was so excited and ready for it. We were told we were allowed to take as many pictures and videos as we wanted and we could start posting and sharing as soon as the media embargo ended at 6 pm. I had also learned that not only were we going to be in a great spot for the dedication ceremony but that all the food and drinks for the event were complementary. I was already sorting through my head what I could and could not try with my budget and this was SO exciting to me because I wanted to try everything!

Then it was time. At exactly 630 pm, they let the mass of media and media guests come into the land and that is when I saw Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge for the first time.

I cannot even begin to explain how I felt. It felt like experiencing something I never thought I would experience in my life. Its one thing to immerse yourself into a fictional world but its another for it to come to life in front of you and that is exactly how it felt. I spent four and a half hours in SWGE and I felt completely immersed in the Star Wars universe the entire time. I always knew that Disney was capable of transporting you – I worked there for long enough to know that – but this was beyond my expectations. I forgot completely that I was in Disneyland.

It was more than just visiting another land in the park – you were genuinely in Batuu. The cast members are Batuu residents and they are fully committed to their characters and the story of the land. I loved that the First Order Troopers walked around looking for Resistance fighters and that the Resistance fighters would hide. It felt REAL. I loved it. I loved the architecture and the shops and the food places. The Millennium Falcon? ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. My favorite fictional transportation come to life in front of me, life size? I was in love. I was truly blown away at how much I felt transported to another planet. Truly, it was amazing. I have about a thousand pictures but I tried to share some of my favorite pictures!