#cutting the chain is the most annoying and time consuming part of these by far oTL

[lemontongues]

mumbling "oh fuck yes kathy" to myself as i notice that this restringing job says NOT to cut the chain on the add-a-pearl necklace

[jango-fettish]

3 - A Salacious B. Crumb vs Boba Fett Story

Summary: Salacious B. Crumb is an enigma. Boba Fett is seemingly unkillable god. So what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? 

Warnings: Canonical Violence, Character Death, OCC Salacious 

Word Count: 2744

A/N: yeah the title is another britney spears song, deal with it. this has not been edited or read over after it was written so enjoy my mistakes (i meant typos and what nots, i know this entire thing could be considered a mistake). i gave up towards the end but whatever

Tagging my mutuals who tolerate my bullshit: @a-dorin @simping-for-fives @nelba @chadillacboseman @porgnugget @cptnbvcks​ @blxwjobsforclones @clonewarslover55​ @djxrxn​ @escapedthesarlacc

Gif is not mine. i got it from here. 

Tatooine was a barren wasteland, with only two outcomes for those unfortunate enough to land on the sandy dunes: a slow death or a quick death. No one ever got to choose which one would happen to them, it just happened. You could be a young child, just walking around the corner and getting caught in an unsuspected dust storm, sand filling every crevice and making home in your lungs. Or you could live for years, your skin and soul withering away under the twin suns, the heat baking you slowly from the inside out until you breathe your final breath. 

Or, for some reason, you could actually get lucky and survive something that should have been your end. In an instant you turn into a god amongst mortals, someone who could say that Tatooine tried her best to end you, but you were just better. That is until the ever-changing dunes decided that today would be the day and become your grave. It was a rare occurrence, even more rare to happen to multiple people in the same day, in the same place. But luck and whatever greater being they believed in was on their side. And they lived. 

Salacious B. Crumb, for all intents and purposes, should have died the moment he became the jester of Jabba the Hutt. The little Kowakian monkey-lizard wasn’t built for the festering, dry heat of Tatooine. What a change from the tropical climate and landscapes of his mother planet. Nonetheless, he adapted and survived. Though there were a few times that he was almost crushed by the weight of his master, or swallowed by the great slug beast for not doing his job. The little shit was tough, tough enough to be able to stare bounty hunters, such as Boba Fett, down and laugh in his face without worry of consequences. 

But Boba Fett was the type to not forgive or forget transgressions, even the same ones. The noxious laugh of Jabba’s most loyal pet seemed to bother everyone besides the Hutt. Each time he arrived back in the dais to get a new job, Boba planned out exactly how he would kill the little creature, each growing more and more violent in nature. In the end, he had three perfectly planned out executions for the little creature. He wouldn’t be able to live out his sick fantasies, at least not when the Kowakian was wrapped snugly in Jabba’s tail, stealing the small morsels of food that broke off of Jabba’s meal. 

Even as he fell into the great stomach of the Sarlacc, Boba could hear the high laugh of Salacious B. Crumb mocking him. It was cut short when there was a great explosion and, while it wasn’t one of the three ways Boba would have killed him, he was glad that at least it was done. But, their destinies were intertwined that day. Both were supposed to die in the swirling sands of the Dune Sea. But the Sea had other plans for them.

Boba Fett sat atop the throne once owned by his employer. How the fates had changed in favor of the Mandalorian, once swallowed the decaying in the bubbling stomach of the Sarlacc, now seated in a position of power no man would dream of having. 

But Boba Fett was no ordinary man. 

***********

As he stared at the bodies flooding the chamber, celebrating the ending of Bib Fortuna’s rule over the once powerful Hutt Empire, Boba felt at ease for the first time in his life. He had his father’s armor back, he completed a quest and earned himself a new powerful ally. However, even with all that, Boba could feel the bubbling of uncertainty in his gut. 

Under the safety of his visor, Boba’s dark eyes watched Fennec Shand, his faithful partner, flirt with a purple skinned Twi’lek woman. Once unsure of trusting an assassin with a reputation such as Fennec’s, who at a moment's notice could easily blind side him and take everything he worked so hard for, Boba was sure he could trust her. He had saved her life after all. No, she wouldn’t be the one to betray him. 

He didn’t have to worry about any supporters of Bib Fortuna. The pale Twi’lek had made many enemies within the five years he was in power, growing greedy and selfish. It helped that Boba’s reputation in the galaxy was well known and feared. He was a god, been to hell and back. Who would dare try to challenge him? 

“F-F-Fett,” a high gravely voice whispered from behind him. It was like a breeze, barely there, but he could hear it. 

Boba sat straighter in the throne and tried to drown out the sounds of laughing and merriment that echoed throughout the room. The helmet could only filter out so much. He wasn’t the same bounty hunter he used to be before the pit. Though he was only in the belly for two days, the Sarlacc did more damage to him than he would like to admit. His leg, which he surprisingly was able to save, burned and ached every step he took. The heavy beskar armor just added to the additional stress. He was in constant pain, unable to fully find a sedative or pill that would dull the pins and needles he felt in his knees. His ever increasing age only added to it. But gods didn’t feel pain, so Boba didn’t either. 

“Fett,” the voice called again from his left. Boba whipped his head to the side, looking in the direct the whisper came. It was coming from deep in the many caves of the palace. The voice probably travelled not that far though to get to him. He seemed to be the only one that could hear it. Part of him wondered if he was imagining things, if the voice was just a hallucination. Maybe it was a new symptom of the pit. 

Great.

Boba slowly stood up, his knees cracking each inch he rose. 

“Leaving the party so soon, Fett?” Fennec Shand asked from the edge of the dias, getting his attention briefly, before he looked back in the direction of the whisper. She held a bottle of bright blue spotchka, her drink of choice. “What’s the rush?” 

“Want to check something out,” he muttered.

“Ah, going after the ghost?” 

“Ghost?” The vocoder crackled his voice. 

“Some of the boys were telling me that they heard laughing in one of the storage rooms. Couldn’t find anything or anyone down there though.”

“Laughing? What kind of laughing?” Boba asked, looking back to Fennec. 

She shrugged, “Beats me. Said it was annoying enough to make them not want to go back in there.” 

Boba’s hand twitched slightly. An annoying laugh. He knew quite a few people who he could easily categorize their laugh as annoying, but none of them from this part of the galaxy. Except one. But he was dead...but then again, so was Boba. 

“Crumb,” Boba growled, grabbing his blaster. 

“Crumb?” Fennec asked to deaf ears as Boba made his way to the hallway entrance. 

The winding halls that led deep into the ground were dimly lit as he made his way deeper into the cave system of the Palace. The walls were glistening, the moisture collecting into little pellets the deeper Boba ventured into the ground. Where had Fennec said the laugh was coming from? One of the storage rooms? 

As if on cue, a guttural laugh resonated in the hall. The sound hit Boba right in the gut, sending goosebumps up his arms. It wasn’t fear, but irritation that coursed through his body. Boba ground his teeth together, stomping down to the one storage room he knew would hold the little monster. For years Boba watched the little shit pick at the food that was given to him or that he stole, going straight for the dried, cured meats. His beak would tear at the muscles, ripping them into shreds before consuming the food with a hearty laugh. 

Boba stood in the doorway of the storage room where the keepers of the Palace kept the dried meats. Different cuts and creatures hung from the ceiling on large hooks, perfectly still. The room had no light, other than the faint glow that flowed through the doorway. Boba’s body shielded most of the light, his shadow disappearing within the room where the light touched. 

“Where are you, you little shit?” Boba growled. He took one step forward, shifting his visor into night vision.

“ooooAHAHHAHAHAHA,” the voice cackled loudly. 

Boba couldn’t see anything, other than hanging meat, as he stepped through the room. His blaster was drawn at the ready, finger secure on the trigger. For years he dreamed a day like this would come. No longer was Jabba around to protect the Kowakian. 

“Come on now, little monkey, how did you survive?” Boba asked, pushing a piece of Bantha thigh out of his way. 

“F-Fett!” the voice called before chuckling darkly. The sound was unsettling. Boba hadn’t known the creature to speak actual words. Was it even possible? The deeper Boba stepped into the meat cellar, the greater his uneasiness grew. 

“Did Fortuna let you sneak your way back in here? If it were me, I’d have put you on the pit roast the moment you showed your fucking face.” 

Silence: something Boba did not like. 

“Show yourself!” he called out.

A chain to his left shook and he heard a scream. He turned, but a second too late and Salacious B. Crumb landed on the Mandalorian’s shoulder, his sharp beak trying to find a soft spot to sink into. The Kowakian’s claws dragged themselves across Boba’s helmet. Salacious was laughing the entire time, the haunting noise drowning out Boba’s curses. Boba gripped the scruff on Salicious’s neck, ripping him off and threw him back into the shadows. Truthfully, Boba knew that he should have strangled the little guy there, but the nauseating laughs irritated him to no end. Boba just needed him away.

Salacious clung to one of the hanging meats, his claws ripping into the tendons. He glared down at Boba, who had fully regained himself after the quick attack. How Salacious wished nothing more than to strike again, but he knew better. He had to bide his time. Boba Fett was good, better than most if not all bounty hunters. The Mandalorian looked up at Salacious, and tilted his head to the side. 

“You always were an ugly little shit,” Boba said. 

It was true, time had not been kind to Salacious. The fires from the explosion took most of his fur, save a few patches on his back. His once oil rich skin was rough and dry, as were his claws and beak. The iron rich meals he received from living in the meat cellar had provided Salacious with enough sustenance to gain weight. He was heftier, larger than Boba remembered. But it was the frenzied look in Salacious’s beady yellow eyes that struck the Mandalorian. 

“Fett!” Salacious cried out, his high voice rattling through the tense air. “Feeds on Fett Crumb will! Gain his power Crumb shall! AHAHAHAHAHHA.” 

Being alone in a dark room had made the Kowakian delirious and wild. 

“Just as Crumb did with the others!” Salacious howled again. 

“Others?” Boba asked. But a quick glance to the side answered his question. In the farthest corner that the light could touch were stacks of bones and mangled bodies of decaying Gamorreans. Boba himself had ousted most of them, not wanting to rely on the pig creatures. 

“You’ve made quite a mess, haven’t you, little monkey?” Boba said, raising his blaster once more. 

“Fett thinks he funny. Funnier than Crumb? Never!” Salacious growled, and jumped to another piece of meat. The chains rattled and moaned under the new strain. 

“You’ve gotten fat,” Boba said. 

Salacious grin was sinister and showed what rotting teeth he had left, “Fortuna got fat! Why not Crumb?” 

“I’ll give you that.” Boba watched as Salacious jumped to another, closer, piece of meat. “Watch it, little monkey.” 

Salacious went quiet and still, his head lurching to the side. His tongue flicked out from his beak, coating the tip in spit. He began making incoherent noises, babbling to himself.

“How are we going to do this?” Boba asked, “Though, to be honest with you, little monkey, I’ve already made up my mind.”

“Crumb told Fett already!” Salacious cried out, “Crumb will eats Fett!” 

“Not a great plan.” Boba took a step forward causing Salacious to hiss. “I’ve dreamed of this moment for a long time.”

Salacious’s body curled back, his eyes flickering to the piece of meat hanging to the left of Boba and Boba himself. After a few seconds, his angered look rested on Boba. He had made his decision. He lunged forward, claws ready to attach themselves into whatever piece of Boba they could. Salacious was fast, but a blaster was faster. 

And with Boba Fett at the end of the blaster, you are sure to lose. 

Salacious howled in pain, falling just before Boba’s boots with a dull thud. Smoke rose from his chest from where the blaster shot landed. He coughed out pathetically, blood spattering onto Boba’s boots, before stilling. Boba counted to three silently and then slowly began to bend down. His knees creaked and groaned with the chains. 

Before he was in a full squat, Salacious’s eyes opened wide and he swatted out at Boba. His claws connect with the beskar of Boba’s chest armor, scratching away the forest green paint in four jagged lines.

“Fuck,” Boba shouted, jumping back. 

“F..F...Fett,” Salacious said weakly, coughing once again. His chest moved erratically before completely stilling. His glossy eyes dulled over and his tongue hung limply out the side of his mouth. 

This time, Boba waited longer than three seconds, and this time, he didn’t bend down to check to see if Salacious was really dead. Boba nudged the limp body with the toe of his boot, making a satisfied noise when the body simply rolled to the other side, blood seeping out from underneath. 

By the time Boba emerged from the depths of the winding cavens, the crowd he had left doubled in size. He found Fennec easily in the mass of bodies, lounging in a large chair with a jug of spotchka, and not only the purple Twi’lek seated on her lap, but a human woman seated next to her, drinking in every word Fennec had to say. Boba approached his partner, the crowd dispersing from his path. One of the perks of being king, though it wasn’t really an issue for him before either.

“Look who finally decided to grace us with his presence. How was your little adventure?” Fennec asked. 

“Need you to do something for me,” Boba said, ignoring her question. He was in no mood for games; he just wanted to fuck off from the world and sleep.  

Fennec smiled charmingly at the human woman, “Hold on a moment sweetheart.” 

“I need you to get some men to go to the meat cellar and clean it up,” Boba began, “Tell them to get rid of everything.”

“We just got a fresh shipment the other day, why do we-”

“It’s spoiled,” Boba interjected. Fennec stared at him, leaning back in the chair. She knew well enough that it wasn’t spoiled; she had been there when the shipment came in and checked it herself. Everything was fresh and top of the line. 

“That’s new.” Fennec said, pointing her jug of spotchka to the four lines on his armor. “What happened there?”

“Fucking monkey,” Boba grumbled. Fennec was about to question what he meant, but Boba held a hand up, silencing any words from her. “Just...just have them clean the damn meat cellar.” 

Fennec nodded, taking a sip of the blue liquid. “Did you find that ghost?” 

Boba laughed darkly, “Oh I found him alright. Fucking took care of it too.” Boba grabbed the jug of spotchka from Fennec, “I’m going to my chambers, I don’t want to be bothered.”

“I was drinking that,” Fennec said. 

But her words drifted into the noise of the crowd, becoming one with the cacophony of laughs and jests and music. But the one thing Boba did not hear was that high pitched Kowakian squeal that chased him down the Sarlacc’s mouth. And he was content with that.

[danganronpa-21]

Naegiri Week Day 3 - Sunset

Happy third day of Naegiri Week! In my personal opinion, this is probably my favourite piece that I’ve written this year. It’s a sweet one with just a twinge of angst. As with the past two pieces, I have no warnings to issue aside from a little bit of graphically violent metaphor. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it kind of thing though, so there’s no need to worry too much. I hope you enjoy the piece, and that I have done our beautiful couple some justice.

________________________

A boy and a girl stood on top of the school building; their gazes turned towards the sky. The day was in the process of dying slowly, the natural cerulean fading away, melting into colours the likes of which they almost never got to see. Life so often dragged them away from something as simple as watching the sky’s transitions. Before, when the times would begin to change, they would spend their time preparing for cram school or going out to do extra work. They nearly never took notice of the refashioning. Maybe, if they were lucky, they’d stop for a second and remark to themselves about its beauty. Their eyes would catch just a hint of the rosy pinks and fruity oranges, and they could smile to themselves about what a nice view they would have during their journeys. Then, just as they always did, they would move along with their day. Never taking notice of the sky again, and missing it turn to something much more beautiful than what they had previously seen.

 Getting to ignore a sunset, they quickly realized, was a privilege. A privilege that they could no longer have. When the Biggest, Most Awful, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in human history came to fruition, there was no time for trivial things like watching a sunset. Every day melted into a flurry of rioting, fighting, and danger that could eat them alive if they weren’t careful. The students of Hope’s Peak Academy got the worst of it, and Makoto and Kyoko were no exception to this rule. Walking onto campus every morning was gambling for one’s life as the Parade clamoured for justice at the gates. Makoto’s own parents had been so terrified of him getting assaulted on his way from their house to the school that they’d begged the headmaster to set him up in a dorm for the time being. And since Jin Kirigiri was a slightly foolish, but not entirely unreasonable man, he obliged. In the end, however, it only made things a little better. He and Kyoko still promised to walk every day to and from class together every day, just to be sure that the other would arrive safely.

 It was no real life that the two of them were living, but then again, they wondered if anybody’s life was much of anything at this point. This wave of anger that consumed more than just Tokyo. It reigned across the entirety of Japan, and bled even further. Neighbouring countries began to get caught up in the tide, and then their neighbours came in, and then their allies, and then their enemies. Before anyone could so much as breathe a word of soothing nature, the world had sliced itself open and soaked its people with its bloody rage. Now, all anyone could do was attempt to rinse themselves off and stitch up the wounds. There was nothing anyone could do about the fact that some were determined to keep opening new ones. Especially not at Hope’s Peak – as far as everyone was concerned, Jin offered the students as much protection as he could give.

 Makoto just wished there was more. Not just on his side of things, but on the side of the Reserve Course students as well. He could have been in their shoes, had he not been so lucky. Hell, he probably would have been one of the students even further on the outside, who couldn’t even breathe the same air as a Hope’s Peak student. If they wanted to send him there on money alone, one of them would have had to fork over a kidney to the black market just to get enough. His family was not financially stable enough for that, and he felt certain that many of the Reserve Course kids were not that financially stable either. Yet there they were, clamouring even as the sun began to drift off to sleep. He wished they would, too. At the very least, he took comfort in the fact that their numbers were dwindling for the day.

 “They look so small down there.”

 Kyoko’s voice was flatter than soda in the sun. If he didn’t know her as well as he did, he might have thought her uninvested in the situation.

 “They do.” He muttered; his gaze fixed on a pair of boys picking a fight with the head of security. The sight of their shouting and waving their fists made him cringe. Juzo Sakakura was an alumnus of Hope’s Peak; the Super High School Level Boxer to be more specific. Not exactly the kind of man that anyone should want to mess with, especially on account of his hot temper. Pity stirred within him when he thought about how this would end. “Sakakura-san will crush them like small bugs, too.”

 She nodded curtly. “They should know better than to mess with him. He and the others have beaten up more than their fair share of Reserve Course students already.”

 Makoto bit his lip, wishing he had it within himself to do something. He was a small fish in a big pond. What could he possibly do? There was no control to be had over this situation, and yet he craved it.

 “I don’t know what they think that’s going to accomplish.”

 “Well, my understanding is that they think this will earn them some sort of equality or change, but so far their attempts haven’t born fruit-”

 “No,” he cut in, surprised even by his own interruption, “That’s not what I meant.”

 She blinked at him; her expression unchanging. Not even a twitch of the eyebrow or the lip to tell him what she was thinking. The girl was somewhere beyond neutral at this point, but she didn’t seem keen on showing it. “What did you mean, then?”

 “I don’t understand why the school hasn’t given in or tried to fix things. I’m surprised the police haven’t gotten involved,” heart thundering in his head, he continued, “Do you know if the school’s paying them hush money, or something?”

 Ah. A frown etched itself into her face within a matter of seconds, clearly the product of dredged up memories. So there was a little bit of emotion hiding behind that iron mask. Her father had had a case for her a few weeks back, after all. Though she refused to share many details, what she did tell him was that he suspended the case rather abruptly. He even went as far as saying that he “wasn’t satisfied with her work”. Her eyes had been glassy when she told him that. Keeping himself from pulling her into his arms had been more difficult than one might have expected.

 “I haven’t spoken to my father since the case.” Her eyebrows knitted themselves together as she glared at the students below. “Nor do I have any desire to speak to him again about much of anything.”

 Makoto could think to do nothing else but nod. “I don’t blame you. You were pretty upset after the whole thing.”

 “Should I not have been?” Her arms folded across her chest. “It was as if he gave me the case just to humiliate me by taking it away later. Not that it matters anyway. He doesn’t really care about the investigation. The one thing I know for certain is that he doesn’t care as much about the Steering Committee as he pretends he does.”

 Why would he not do something if that were the case? Was he honestly just sitting around twiddling his thumbs? He definitely tried not to make his impressions on people he didn’t know based on what others told him, but this seemed a little too suspicious to swallow.

 “What do you mean?” He dared to ask, shuffling slightly closer to her. Her refusal to meet his gaze remained rather blatant, but her face relaxed slowly.

 “He has little impact on the school overall,” she sighed, tucking a strand of hair back into place, “Jin Kirigiri is Hope’s Peak headmaster in title more than anything. They attempt to take his ideas into account, but he is a figurehead first and foremost.”

 “So he can’t do anything about the protests?”

 Kyoko shrugged. “He probably has been trying to, but the committee will not allow him that privilege.”

 His fingers gripped at his hoodie sleeves, as if to beg him to ground them in some way. If it weren’t for the cool air brushing delicately against his face, he might have thought himself to be in a movie scene. If Kyoko’s father really was doing all that he could, what chance did they have against the world? Things were already so close to falling off the edge into a chasm of desolation, and now nobody could do anything? The phantom sensation of a fist squeezed his throat. Part of him ached to reach his hand out to take hold of Kyoko’s own, feeling the smooth leather of her gloves against the palms of his hands. Would it be appropriate? She did still look pretty mad, but… god, he wanted to feel like everything around him was real for once. Throughout all of this chaos, she was one of a few things that reminded him that things were not as bad as he thought them to be.

 Shutting his eyes, he turned away from the scene. A few steps away from the rooftop’s chained fence managed to soothe his nerves within mere seconds. It somehow caught Kyoko’s attention, too.

 “I… I can’t watch them anymore.” He answered to the question she didn’t ask. Watching the Reserve Course students scream at shout like that is what they did all day in class and all day after. God, they needed a break from it. Regret stirred within him any time he drew himself back to the simpler days, when he took things like getting boba tea with Sayaka or rough housing with Mondo and Taka for granted. He’d give anything to go home and sit with his mom, and listen to those incredibly annoying women blather through their talk show. He missed the brief period of time in which his dad had begun to teach him how to drive, and the two would squabble over the controls and road safety. He even missed fighting with Komaru over who would get the TV on a Friday night, inducing many groans of frustrations from their parents. When all of these people were suffering, he knew was wrong to want it back, but… How could he not? Makoto’s heart was much too soft to comfortably look on as others suffered.

 The clacking of Kyoko’s high-heeled boots against the stone tiles of the roof signalled to him that she, too, had found it easier to turn away. “I can understand that. I don’t fancy watching them either.”

 “Kirigiri-san, could we…” To this surprise, his voice sounded like it was breaking. “Could we talk about something else? Something other than… whatever this is?”

 The clacking echoed closer as she moved to stand at his side; her hand found a soothing spot on his shoulder. One simple movement, and relief crashed over him in a waterfall. Warmth spread through his chest and for one moment, he felt completely safe. After so many weeks of fear and struggling, he finally remembered the sensation. His grandmother used to say that that was how you knew you loved someone. If you could find comfort in their touch during your darkest times. He definitely had it bad for Kyoko Kirigiri. The lovesickness, as his grandfather might say.

 “Is there something you want to talk about?” She spoke in a voice that felt like he was running his hand along a fleece blanket, taking in all of its softness. She tilted her body forward to try and get a good look at his face.

 A small smile tugged at his lips as he watched her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t stop himself from turning to meet her. “Anything, really. Preferably something happy.”

 “Happy, hmm?” She tapped her chin, pursing her lips slightly. It was rare that one actually got to see the cogs turning in Kyoko’s mind, but it was always a sight to behold. “Umm… Sweden has a rabbit show all about jumping? I heard about it when my grandfather and I were there on a case when I was a girl. I think it might have been called Kaninhoppning?”

 Makoto laughed, shaking his head. “That’s adorable.”

 “It really is. Come to think of it, I have many happy memories from that trip… Although I never did get to see Kaninhoppning, I did manage to slip out onto our hotel room balcony for a half an hour to catch the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.”

 Having the chance to slip away from her grandfather on those trips was a rare occurrence, that he knew well. Though Makoto had never met Kyoko’s grandfather, he couldn’t say that he felt like he would particularly like the man. The manner in which he treated Kyoko as she grew felt strange to him, in the least. She even confessed to being connected to him more by blood than by love, much to Makoto’s shock.

 “What did it look like?”

 It became Kyoko’s turn to smile as she turned her head to the sky, extending a gloved hand to point at the atmosphere spread above them. “A lot like this one, I found. A smattering of colours.”

 He followed suit, breathing in a calming breath as his eyes found a familiar sky. Puffs of pink and oranges sailed across the surface of blue like mystical ships in a vast ocean; sunlight breaking through like the heavens smiling down on them. Almost like proof that someone was still sitting up there, waiting to give this sign.

 “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

 She nodded, stepping closer to him and sliding her hand to his other shoulder. Oh god, she put her arm around him?! That made his heartbeat skip. He prayed his face hadn’t turned fire truck red. She would most definitely resort to teasing him if she caught wind of his embarrassment. Apart of him wonder if she could sense it, for only a few seconds later she tilted her head as if to rest on his shoulder. Rather than leave her there by herself, he moved his own to meet it.

 “It is rather special, I agree,” she answered him with a smile, “Dare I say it, this is perhaps even more special than the one during my travels.”

 God. That skin of his had definitely flushed red by now. It was a battle to avoid stuttering while he spoke, and a fight he lost easily. “R-Really? What m-makes this so special?”

 Kyoko shrugged her shoulders; her voice pouring from her mouth like smooth molasses. “I’m here with you.”

 Butterflies began to beat around his stomach the moment the words fell from her lips. Ack! Don’t think about her lips, he commanded himself internally. The last thing he needed was thinking about kissing those soft, full lips… a pair so perfectly rose in colour and that probably would feel so sweet against his own… Aah! No kissing, no kissing! She wanted to try and be his friend, and he was worrying about kissing. He should have been worried about thinking what to say. Could she tell that he was thinking about that?

 A quick glance at her out of the corner of his eye told him no; Kyoko Kirigiri was not a mind reader. Very adept at reading body language, but she could not telepathically tell that someone was thinking about kissing her. However, he had to admit that she could definitely tell that he was nervous. So much so that she started to apologize.

 “Sorry,” she muttered, darting her gaze to the floor, “I hadn’t mean to embarrass you.”

 He waved his hands around frantically. “No, no! I’m not embarrassed, you just… caught me off-guard, that’s all. I like hearing you say stuff like that. You’re a lot more sentimental than you let on.”

 The detective bit her lip awkwardly, doing her best to act like her face was not slowly growing poppy-red. The sight of her made him have to fight to suppress a few giggles. She has no right to be this cute, he thought with amusement. Even stereotypically cute girls like Sayaka couldn’t rival the sheer adorability of his Kyoko.

 “I’ve never really thought about myself like that… Would you consider it a good thing?”

 Makoto laughed and nuzzled her shoulder affectionately. “It’s a great thing. In fact, it’s something I like about you.”

 “I like that about you too,” she murmured, her voice cracking as she continued, “Your sentimentality, I mean. Not mine, that would be… that would be strange, wouldn’t it?”

 Oh, how the tables had turned. Now Kyoko was the one standing there, totally embarrassed. Though it had been him only for a moment earlier, he wondered if it were wrong to relish it. Seeing Kyoko flustered was as rare as Shikoku’s glowing mushroom forests; one could barely help wanting to take in all of the charm.

 “It would be, yeah,” he laughed, “I’m glad you like that about me, though. In fact, I’d like to ask you something about it.”

 Kyoko nodded ever so slightly, careful not to hurt either of their heads with the movement. “Of course.”

 “Kirigiri-san, would you promise me something?”

 “As long as it’s not to help you cover up a murder, most certainly.”

 He laughed. Ever blunt, as always. “No, nothing like that. I just… I want you to promise me that no matter what happens next, that you and I will always be there to support each other. Could you do that for me?”

 Though he expected a moment of hesitation, he was met with none. Only a smile greeted him alongside her words. “I’m surprised that you felt as if you had to ask. I would do that for you in a heart beat.”

 Makoto pressed his cheek further into her shoulder. “I never doubted you.”

[mydisenchantedeulogy]

In Chains (Chapter Eight) Electric Blue (Trafalgar Law)

It’s too much; I can’t do this. Samira frowned and stooped in defeat. She was worn out; her arms were extremely heavy and ached. Why couldn’t she do exactly what had been asked of her?

The glass bottles laid out in front of her were shattered into millions of pieces; not the outcome she desired. Her goal was to move them – not by much – but even this was proving to be too hard. Her Devil Fruit seemed to be based on destruction alone, and that was enough to discourage her. Maybe Law had it all wrong.    

“May I have a break?”

Said man agreed; this would be the third she had taken since this morning. He had to hand it to her though, she was trying and had not yet given up.

“Five minutes, then either you stop or start again.”

Samira nodded forlornly and rose, staggering over to him. Once she sunk down onto the ground next to the crate he was sitting on, she stretched her tired legs out and forced the numbness from them. It felt like small needles were piercing her skin.

“Any idea how long we’ve been out here?”

Law tossed a decanter of water near her feet. “Since sunrise; five hours, give or take.”

“And I’ve done nothing but break a few hundred bottles since we started,�� she grumbled. Laying back in the grass, she covered her eyes with her arm and sighed. “I don’t understand it; I can’t move them.”

Law remained quiet. He may have overanalyzed her Devil Fruit a bit; it was much easier than he’d originally thought. Arsenio explained it as a force, so he assumed at the time she could manifest the stored energy around objects, but that was not the case.

It was chaos, pure destructive force. Samira may have been able to limit her power, reduce its strength, but eventually it had to go somewhere.

“You can’t tame disorder; you can lessen its range though.”

Samira hummed in question and removed her arm. Did he say something?

Law had an idea, but Samira wasn’t going to like it. He stood up and gathered his sword from the ground, then moved to put some distance between them.

She watched in skepticism. “What are you doing? Going to get a little training in too?”

“Stand up, Amunet-ya. We’re going to try something,” Law ordered. He didn’t want to give away too much about his plan, but he knew that she’d never trust him again otherwise.

She listened without a complaint and stood in front of him. “Okay … what now?”

Law activated a room and unsheathed his sword. With a clean and well-planned swing, he cut her casted arm at the elbow joint. It fell with a thump onto the grass near her feet.

My arm … he took my arm. Samira stared in horror at the unnatural stump. There was no blood spewing from the wound and no pain to follow; it was just gone.

Like Arsenio. Was he going to cut her into pieces too?

“I don’t understand. Just what are you doing to me?”  

Law grinned. “Isn’t it obvious; I’m tearing you apart.”

“And what does this have to do with my training? Put my arm back on; I know you can.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t get to order me around.”

With another swipe of his sword, Samira felt her balance give out and collapsed onto her rear with a loud grunt. Her leg was gone now too. Anger consumed her; she felt utterly helpless.

“Did I strike a nerve, Amunet-ya?”

Yes, he did. The entire point of this exorcise was to help her control her power so that she didn’t ever have to feel helpless again. Samira dug her teeth into her bottom lip and glared at him.

“Put me back together. I didn’t ask,” she snarled.

Wisps of red and black moved between her fingers like an electric current. She tossed out her hand and shot the bolt of energy towards Law, eager to hit him in his smug face. The bolt hit, but Law switched places with the crate he had been sitting on at last second; it burst into nothing but slivers of burnt wood and fell into the grass as the sparks hissed out.

Law moved quickly behind her and placed the blade of his sword to her exposed neck. “Almost had me there. Not too bad.”

She panted in exhaustion. Maybe she took it too far, but surprisingly she felt much better. Still, she shot him a glare.    

“My limbs; I want them back.”

Law ignored her demand and grinned. “I can reattach them.”

He laid his sword down and kneeled beside her, taking her casted arm into his hands. Her brown skin was warm against his palm – something he tried to ignore as he pieced her back together.  

“Move your fingers for me,” he ordered.

Samira did so and was surprised to see that her fingers worked as they had before. She sighed in relief.

“You scared me for a minute,” she admitted. Looking out at the crate she blew apart in her attempt to attack Law, she bit her lip in shame. “I managed to do it again; destroy.”

Law hummed and attached her leg. “Because that’s precisely what your Devil Fruit is meant to do. I was wrong about its capabilities, believing that the force could be used to move an object. It crackles like an electric current, and expands rapidly on contact, like it did with the crate, but the longer it fosters inside you, the more damage it does.”

“Not the exact words I wanted to hear, but I understand.”

It was a part of her, connected to her emotions. It grew with her fear; her anger; her pain. Samira knew only one approach to control it; to control her emotions first.

“I know what I have to do,” she stated in glee.

Law was eager to find out.

“Another time,” he advised.

The wide-eyed look on her face made him laugh. “There are chores to do, and I still have materials to get in town before the stores close.”

Because of the festival. Samira perked up and reached out, grasping Law’s hoodie. “Go with me to the festival tonight. I really want to go.”

Law grunted in annoyance. “Don’t give me orders; I’m the captain and besides, we’re leaving first thing in the morning once the Log Pose sets.”

“That’s why I asked you to go with me,” she pouted. “So, you can keep an eye on me and make sure I return to the sub at a decent hour. We don’t have to stay long; I just want to experience my first festival before I never get the chance to again.”

Law pinched the bridge of nose. Was she serious? Her act may have worked on lesser men, but it wouldn’t work on him. He separated from her and stood up, resting his sword against his shoulder.

“Go back to the sub. You have chores to do,” he ordered.

Samira got up with a bounce in her step. “Then can we go? You said I have chores, but I can do them as soon as I get back.”

Where was this energy coming from? Law rolled his eyes; he’d think about it.

--

Penguin stared at her in amazement.

“How?”

It’s not like he doubted Samira, but he also knew how his captain was.

Samira honestly didn’t know either. “He seemed a little annoyed, so maybe I pushed him too much.”

“Either way,” Shachi stated. He took the lead as he peeked over his shoulder at them. “He gave his permission, so we shouldn’t question it.”

Penguin agreed; however, he was still amazed. Samira somehow convinced Law into permitting them to proceed to the Festival of Colors. As sudden as it was – Samira went to them once the sun had set with the news – Penguin was more than pleased to celebrate one last night before the crew continued their journey, even though he was her sitter.

“Did Ikkaku not wish to go?”

Shachi grunted in annoyance.

“Is she gonna be there too?”

Samira held back a laugh. “Yes. I asked her too. She went ahead of us; said she had something to do before the festival started, but she promised to meet up once she was done.”

“Perhaps she’ll get lost,” Shachi laughed.

No sooner had the word left his mouth, a colorful explosion of sea green dusted his face.

Samira covered her mouth and nose in fear of it being poison, but a familiar voice calmed her.

“Too bad, dunderhead.”

Ikkaku came out from the shadows of the timberline with a laugh. The same green powder covered her hands and boiler suit, but unlike Shachi, she didn’t seem to mind.

“The hell is this powder? Can it kill me?”

At his comment, she rolled her eyes. “No, idiot. It’s made from corn starch and food colorant.”

Penguin hummed in agreement. “I heard about this. The powders made in the village are thrown to pay homage to the bright colors seen during the spring season. There’s a legend too; one about an evil demoness, but most of the village celebrates the Festival of Colors to bear witness to a sense of brotherhood and social harmony.”

“Get the message,” Ikkaku brought up. “I was doin’ something nice for ya.”

Shachi wiped his mouth. “Didn’t have to throw it into mouth.”

“No, but how else was I gonna shut that mouth of yours?”

He glared at her, and tried to argue back, but Samira interrupted him with a cute laugh.

“It sounds like so much fun. I can’t wait.”

Ikkaku beamed. “The inauguration started at an earlier time, but the festival is still on, music and bonfires. I bought enough powder to throw, since the colors stand out more in the daytime and we missed the literal color toss.”

“That’s no problem,” Samira declared.

Penguin agreed. “Better get movin’ then.”

He led them down the remainder of the foot path towards the square; festive tunes lured them closer. The wavering lite of the bonfire caught his eye, and the mouthwatering scent of homecooked food consumed him; it was divine.

“Look at all the people,” Samira stated.

She had never seen so many in one place; not all of them could be natives, she thought. Layers of bright powders covered their skin as they danced and partied. She was in awe. Lured forward, Shachi stopped her.

“Ya can’t go,” he mentioned.

She rose a brow and before she could ask why, he tossed blue powder over her head, dusting her stark hair. She laughed in excitement.

“Suits ya.”

Penguin tossed his arm over his shoulder. “And a face full of green suits you.”

He grunted and tossed some at said man; he was also hit in the face and gasped as it got into his mouth.

“Want some more?”

Shachi bombarded him with color, going as far as to chase him into the crowd.

“Can they ever act normal?”

Their crewmate rolled her eyes.

Samira laughed again. “I think it’s cute. They seem close, like brothers.”

“Those two have always been together,” Ikkaku clarified. “The Captain recruited them at the same time; way before me or anyone else I heard.”

She was intrigued. This was honestly the first bit of information about the crew Samira had learned. She smiled and tried to locate them in the crowd, but they were gone. Her attention went to the bonfire where several female natives were dancing, and her mind was set.

“I want to dance; come with me please.”

Ikkaku turned red. “You sure? I can’t dance.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Samira admitted. “It’s not routine, so we can dance any way we want.”

She took her hand and ventured forward. The warmth of the fire lured her closer until she came to an opening that encircled the bonfire; the dancers were allowed a wide girth to prance around, enough space to accommodate several people. Samira closed her eyes, hearing to the sound of the drums. Her foot moved along with the rhythm and little by little her hips rocked with the tune.

“How do you do that? Get lost in the music.”

Samira hummed. “It’s not hard; I have a connection to it, many people do. I become part of the music and the music becomes part of me.”

“Seems easier said than done,” she confessed.

Samira shook her head in disagreement. She released her hand and intermingled with the dancers, facing Ikkaku as she pranced on the calloused pads of her feet to the metallic sound of the lute. She transferred her weight from one foot to the other, rocking her arms above her head as she leapt from side to side.

“Come and dance,” Samira shouted.

Ikkaku refused, hesitant to embarrass herself, but Samira was having none of this. She led her into the circle and urged her to dance. Ikkaku glanced around for incentive; every person was dancing a unique way; no two people danced the same.

“Where do I start?”

Samira beamed. “Start with your body; move your hips or sway your arms.”

As an example, she pirouetted and rocked her arms.

Ikkaku imitated her with a snort; it wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t as sinuous as Samira was, but she had a style of her own; unrefined and spirited.

Each danced in fits of laughter. This was the most fun either of them had in quite some time, Samira above all – the last occasion being her brother’s inauguration into kinghood. It was nice to eventually relax a little. Too bad Law didn’t come along with them; he could use a break.

Samira panted in exhaustion and searched the amassing throng; everyone seemed so pleased. This is the reason why a woman near stood out to her. That electric blue eye staring at her deeply with cruelty; that broad and recognizable grin.

Daiane?!

An explosion of color overwhelmed her, the thousand varying shades interflowing, masking her.

Ikkaku saw the wide-eyed expression on her face, like she had seen a phantom, and touched her arm.

“Are you all right?”

Daiane – if that happened to be her – had disappeared once the powder scattered.

“Yes … exhausted,” Samira assured her.

A break was possibly what they required.

“We need to find the dunderheads, so let’s do so,” Ikkaku proposed.

Samira agreed in uncertainty and tailed her into the throng. She remained particularly close to Ikkaku until someone pulled on her arm and halted her; pressure from their grasp shot an intense pain up her arm.

“No reason to stop on my account, sweetheart. I rather appreciate seeing you dance; suggests that I haven’t yet broken you.”

Pulling her arm away, Samira turned and tried to grimace. She was horrified, because who stood before her was a pinnacle of torment and nightmares for her.

“My, what a lovely expression. Reminds me of our past sessions,” Daiane cooed. Zany swirls overtook her eye; the other remained concealed behind a patch with an hourglass shape on it.  

Samira trembled. Why was she here? Daiane wasn’t a tracker. So, why send her? Sinking her teeth into her lip, Samira took an uneasy breath and prompted her Devil Fruit.

“You will not take me alive.”

Daiane laughed. “That's the plan, sweetheart.”

Spider-like appendages came from her back; two hoisted her from the ground and two rose above her head posed to strike.

Samira had certainly not seen her this way before. Was she a Zoan too? Her heart hammered in fear. Exactly how was she intended to battle this woman?

[medea10]

Medea’s Top 10 Worst Mothers in Anime

[myherorp]

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on civilian, riyu.

get to know them !

faceclaim: red velvet’s bae joohyun (irene)

name: seo riyu

gender & pronouns: she/her

age: 28 years old

occupation: receptionist at the angel agency.

the quirk !

quirk name: medusa

quirk description: user has a head of living venomous snakes in place of hair.

abilities:

riyu basically has snakes for hair - said snakes possessing all characteristics and abilities a regular snake would have. she is able to control and command each “lock” of her “hair”, like one would control their limbs. they can wind themselves around objects and lift them (they can lift heavier objects if all snake locks work together). she can also use them to defend herself, like shielding her face from incoming attacks.

when riyu’s sense of control on the snakes is inactive, her living locks slither and wander about her head as they wish. most would just choose to drape lifelessly over her back and sleep, forming a false image of long, regular human hair (in a good ten foot distance, if you squint).

the snakes are venomous. can be fatal once a person is bitten by them and doesn’t receive needed medical help in the following twenty five hours.

the snakes, while idle, reach just below her shoulder blades in length, but are able to extend as far to her ankles if need be.

she has an acute sense of smell that enables her to detect people easier by following their trail of scent; as would a snake would detect prey or predators.

weaknesses:

her emotions would affect her control over her hair. the more unstable she feels, the less she’d be able to deliver effective commands to her hair. for example, if she were in extreme distress, her snakes would be almost uncontrollable and high on defense; ready to attack anyone who could pose as a potential threat to them - including herself. luckily enough, the poison wouldn’t affect her physically as her body possesses a self-made antidote that neutralizes its own venom. regardless of the absence of poison - the bites would still injure her. because of this, she would carry around a medical kit of syringes and bottles of antivenom with her, in case her snakes lash out on others.

due to lack of extensive training, the snakes on her head don’t always obey her every command, and behave as if they have a mind of their own. they would occasionally act to their own desires. their behavior is always unpredictable, which puts her on a disadvantage if she wanted to behave in public.

to keep her snake locks at their optimal condition, she would have to consume generous amounts of meat daily, to keep her snakes calm and sated. the snakes get significantly more restless and snappy (like herself) if she doesn’t get her daily dose of meat. nutrients in exchange for strength - nothing different than a human.

while newer snakes can grow from her scalp, once any of the snakes are severed off her head, they cannot regenerate and she would need surgery to amputate them properly. the pain from having any of her snakes sliced in half is equivalent to having a finger sliced off.

mutation: the actual species of the snakes remain unknown, but they resemble slender black vipers, and cover her entire scalp like hair. in addition to that, her pupils are like a snake’s - oblong shapes that peak at the ends like slits. her tongue is forked and jacobson’s organ is located on the roof of her mouth to enable her stereo sense of smell. she’s almost eerily flexible - just like a snake with its flexible backbone.

the history !

triggers: amputation, animal cruelty / torture, torture, blood

she remembers.

she remembers the shriek that miss sejeong had let out when she came into her room to wake her up for school - only to be greeted with slithering monstrosities hissing at her alongside a drowsy face. her hair was already grotesque before - hard scaly locks that draped over her back like chains - and then they’ve decided to make things worse and grow glowering faces and sharp fangs overnight. she couldn’t get herself to scream - voice clogged up in her little throat and fingernails dug harshly into the sheets as she stayed seated in frozen confusion and terror. miss sejeong, stumbling to get up from collapsing on the floor, had rushed away for help. medusa, she had cried then, voice disappearing into the empty hallway as she skedaddled. your child turned into medusa!

she didn’t understand the name, but she definitely understood the fear that dripped from every syllable, trepidation seeping to even the tips of her toes. by the time reinforcements had returned, her little body was already curled up and pressed against the headboard, snake locks hissing and thrashing ferociously to mirror her despair as she warned for them to stay away in between her sobs and hiccups.

she doesn’t remember much of what happened next. however, her dreams do - flashes of paralyzed bodies and bloody crimson coming to greet her for months on end.

-

at nine, seo riyu insists that she’s beautiful.

she insists that she is, because that’s what her parents and her butlers and maids have always told her - so it must be true. they tell her that what happened wasn’t her fault - and that everyone was just caught off guard. miss sejeong, one of the main maids that took care of her, was fired after that incident, so she doesn’t have to feel like she scares people anymore.

she believes them. even if there would always be a weird look in their eyes whenever she’d approach three steps too close; even if they’d jump if she enters premises without warning them, telling her not to sneak up on them - she believes them.

although her school isn’t as generous with their kindness, she keeps her ground. she doesn’t retaliate despite the derogatory words sent her way. they either taunt her, or stay completely away from her - there is only one or the other. it isn’t even just the students. parents she comes across in school grounds gossiped, too. regardless, she stayed mum. she tells herself that she isn’t the only one with the weird quirk, so they’ll get tired of annoying her eventually. her tutor had told her to stay graceful, as she held the name of the seo family behind her.

so she stays quiet.

-

she stops staying quiet after two years.

she doesn’t know how, or when, but her temper grew with her. the accumulation of anger she’s suppressed through the months gets to her faster than she’d like to admit - and before she knew it - she started talking back. she grew feister. she doesn’t physically retaliate, but one shouldn’t underestimate the power of spiteful words (and hissing snakes).

“you disgust me.”

she smiles at those. these kinds of insults are one of the tamer ones. “oh - you beat me to it.” she titters, all eyes on them. all of her eyes. “i was about to say that to you, too.”

-

she gets into u.y.

it’s a dream come true. a typical ambition - as sharp tongued as she is; she likes to help. she wants to prove that even someone who looks as villainous as her could look heroic to others. she does well, as her diligence proves it. it shows on her grades. she makes a few friends - those who share her ideals and are also not too deterred by the snakes that poke them at the ribs every so often.

she doesn’t think her life could progress as well as it did.

-

the progress stops. if anything, it backpedals entirely.

she doesn’t remember how it started or how it ended - just flashes of memory, of bruises, of malicious laughter, of tears, of blood. she remembers falling asleep. she remembers waking up with blurry vision and restrained limbs. there were faces, but all she could make out was yellowed teeth and sharp toenails as she doubled over, screaming and crying for the pain to stop. the pain doesn’t stop. spurts of blood keep coming, and coming, and coming, each worse than the last, painting red down her face and her shoulders and her back and her feet. the butcher knife shines brightly under the dim light. she remembers voices. they aren’t coming, the voices sneer. it’s been ten minutes. let’s cut off another.

it’s when she wakes up and realizes that she’s at the hospital, that everything ends.

that doesn’t matter. her nightmares continue.

-

she dropped out of u.y. with the power of money, you can do anything, so she does nothing, for a while.

she watches the ceiling fan spin and spin and spin while she waited for new snakes to grow back. she hated them, but they were also her only company. her mind feels a lot less muddled if a lock is alive to distract her by nuzzling against her cheek.

she finishes her education indoors.

-

she’s mellowed down over the years, and prefers working behind the scenes.

she wonders if that’s okay.

the personality !

riyu grew to become more reserved as she got older - although she’s now desensitized by weird looks sent her way due to her intimidating appearance. she’s mature and sophisticated, having gone through a lot through a quarter of her life span. despite that, she still holds the habit of assuming the worst when she meets someone new - continuously wary and defensive unless they’ve proven themselves to be deserving of her undivided attention. once the ice around her heart’s been thawed, however, good luck with that - parts of her traits from her adolescence will shine through - allowing you a glimpse of her true, unfiltered personality: just a woman trying her best to stay sane.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations SARA! You’ve been accepted as HYPERION.

From start to finish, your application truly captivated me, Sara! I loved every bit of Gerrard- sorry, Bermudez’s (since we’re not friends and all) story, because you truly made him your own and brought him to life. It felt as if he could be his own stand-alone character, a protagonist of his own show or movie or something, and I am eager to tune in! He brings such a unique element that I can’t wait to see shared on the dash.

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: sara

PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 18+

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: gmt – active every 2 days-ish? about ¾ days a week

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: hyperion

GENDER/PRONOUNS: cis-male, he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS:

La Tormenta – His ring name couldn’t be more accurate to the person that he is. Unpredictable, dangerous, destructive. Growing up, he had learned to fear people outside of his family for most of his childhood. When this fear came true, it was replaced with anger and hatred. They were the things that fuelled him and became a large part of who he was. An angry, hateful boy in unimaginable pain, but the pain kept him alive and it made him grow. With pain came power for him, and after he left the place that hurt him so much, there was no getting rid of it. It became deep rooted in him. He was always angry and always looking for something to hate, and most of all he was out of control. A storm destroying anything in his path. After being taken in by the Jem Family bruiser, however, he learned more about who he was than he ever had before. His mentor taught him how to control those overwhelming feelings, and with that control he became the most powerful version of himself. Inflicting pain was somewhat fun for him, especially when he was getting paid to do it. He’s learned the ways of words and business. He’s particularly savvy when it comes to recruiting fighters and seeking information. He controls the storm, letting it out when he wants and onto whom he wishes. He controls the underground, and he controls his fighters. Sometimes his abilities can get away from him, but his fighters fear his power sometimes, and he loves how that feels. With a silver-tongue and an eye for business, being a bruiser for the Jem Family really is his happy place. Even so, the man endured horrors over his lifetime and he still holds a lot of pain and trauma. The doctors call it PTSD, but he’s sure he’ll get over it. He can do anything. Or so he tells himself. Trust is still hard for him. His smart mouth and cocky attitude make it easy for him to push people away, especially those that might even care. He’s married to the business, he tells himself. And he likes it… he tells himself.

BIO:

Tw; torture, murder

Chaos was part of him. Chaos was always by his side, haunting his memories and influencing his dreams. He seemed to be running first, running so fast in the beginning, adrenaline in his veins and blood in his ears. They were running from their life, from their homes. No, not home anymore. They were running to their new home, a place full of glamour and life. It offered so much more than their previous home. His parents dreamed of jobs, and friends, and a life they had always wanted for their son. But they were always running from something. From their home first, then from the people that wanted to send them back there. America wasn’t all smiles and open arms like they had thought. America was full of hate and death. Rather here than home. It was years of chaos, school was dangerous, so lessons were at home; neighbours could report them, so they kept our heads down; the law was always behind them, so they ran as fast as they could. One day, they didn’t run fast enough. He remembered his screams, his mother’s cries, his father’s pleas as each one was taken into strong hands, too strong for his feeble mother and his ageing father, but not too strong for the power he held. The power he didn’t know he had. He knew something was always different about him, but he needed something special to pull it out of him. He needed fear, and he needed anger. And in this moment, he had never felt those emotions so strongly, and it burst out of him in a storm of fury. The city went dark. His fingertips buzzed. His parents looked at him like they had no idea who he was. The lifeless bodies on the floor were still hot with electricity. He felt his own body fall, weak in the aftermath of his own outburst, and darkness consumed him, too.

He awoke to white. Just white. Walls, sheets, clothes, lights. White-hot rage. White knuckles. Where are my parents? Where am I? What’s happening? None of his questions made it out of his mind, but they were shortly answered. Your parents are gone. You’re in a government facility. You are going to be tested and prodded and cut open and tortured for our own benefit and pleasure. Yes, he learned that all too quickly. Fear, he knew. Anger, he knew. Hate, he learned. Ten years in this place, and his uncontainable amount of hate was all he had to show for it. That, and several hundred scars. After a while in his lonely rubber cell, the days blurred together and the torturous experiments became a mundane chore. He was thankful for the pain, as it was the only thing that kept him strong. He wondered if it was the only thing keeping him alive. Then he felt it, building in him like a storm again. Thunder was crashing in his mind and soon his body would do the damage. The echo of chaos was swirling in him once again, and again, the city went dark. He saw his opportunity, and he ran. He ran like he always remembered running. Ten years of practicing his powers, learning his way around the facility, building up enough power to take it all down. Ten years and he was finally free. With nowhere to go.

It seemed like he never stopped running. Another enemy behind him, but how many enemies were ahead? He learned not to trust anyone, to keep his head down and deter anyone he met from wanting to know more. He became bitter and hateful, and it worked. For months, he remained lost. Living on scraps he stole and sleeping under bridges seemed like the best it would get. Should have just let them kill me, he thought. But, he kept running, just like his parents taught him. He ran from one city to the next, never in the same place for too long. Until he stumbled across a community in Chicago; the first group of people he ever felt like he belonged to. The Jem Family. Their hate for humans and their experiments were as deep-routed as his, and they knew as their eyes traced his scar-littered body and the tremble of trauma in his fingers that he belonged there. He still refused to ever trust anyone, but the one person that came close was the ‘bruiser’ of the Jem Family, who turned him into somewhat of a protégé. He fought for years in that underground. La Tormenta, they called him. The Storm. Unpredictable and powerful and electric. He learned a lot during his time in the facility, but his mentor taught him something he had never been shown before; control. Chaos was enough to cause damage, but controlled chaos meant causing whatever damage you wanted. He liked that. For years, he was the undefeated champion of the underground, earning a room and a place in the gang when he was ready in return.

And when it came for his mentor to retire, Gerrard was more than ready to take up to role. He knew this was his place in the world. He knew he no longer had to run.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

Kiara was certainly a challenge for Gerrard. It wasn’t often he was faced with a challenge, but his ego did love the chase of one and the victory of completing it. He had yet to complete this one, however. Kiara was slippery, and she was strong, and he knew that she would keep away from him as long as she wanted to. It angered him,a nd frustrated him, and yet still he could never pull away. It was a strange obsession of his, though he would never admit it was for any reason other than to recruit her. It wasn’t her he wanted, just her power. Knowing the Kings Collective had someone as powerful as she and yet the Jem Family couldn’t even get their hands on her was… annoying? No, exciting. The thought of pursuing her and turning her to them was exciting. He feels like a lion trying to catch the fastest gazelle there is. Plenty of others to go around that would be easier to catch, but nothing compared to the ultimate prize. He couldn’t deny that she enticed him, so much so that the thought of her ate at him almost daily. He would get her, one way or another.

EXTRA: This section is completely optional.

I don’t have any edits or anything ~yet~ but I have a few headcannons!

-        He prefers that people call him by his last name as it feels far more business-y. his first name is too friendly, and he doesn’t do friends

-        He’s a lil bit of a hound-dog if you know what I mean

-        His body is quite literally covered in scars and marks from his facility days, and some even from his fighting days

-        He has lighting-shaped burn scared on his fingertips from his power use

-        Diagnosed PTSD but believes he’s better than that psychological bullshit so rarely takes his meds and then gets triggered by things like drill noises, white rooms etc.

-        Has amazing control over his powers until certain instances when he gets too emotional then all hell breaks loose

-        La Tormenta is his ring name meaning the storm, it’s also his ‘bruiser’ name for those who have heard of him

-        His parents are alive, they got deported back to their country (Guatemala), but he hasn’t sought them out and doesn’t intend to. He’s pretty much pushed them to the back of his mind

-        Fluent in Spanish and English

-        He’s not very academically smart. He was homeschooled until fourteen and then went to the facility so he does struggle with things like academia and reading

-        Huge chain smoker, honestly his lungs aren’t okay

-        Sexually very fluid but honestly will just sleep with anyone that shows interest

ANYTHING ELSE: nope!

[billehrman]

Investing in a VUCA World

We were clearly surprised by Trump’s tweet last Sunday informing us that he was raising tariffs to 25% from 10% on the initial $250 billion of Chinese imports as well as implement tariffs on the remaining $300+ billion. However, we had an action plan ready to go if trade talks broke down and it helped us last week. We have continued to outperform the market averages.

We have long commented that we live in a VUCA world. This a climate characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Therefore, you must always be prepared for the unexpected. Trump’s optimism that a trade deal was in reach shifted a week ago Friday after he heard from lead trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer that the Chinese had backpedaled on key portions of previously agreed to trade deal. Clearly, he was annoyed and who could blame him as he was made to look foolish having just announced that a deal was in sight.

Negotiations began again Thursday in DC but ended without a deal being reached, so the hike in tariffs went into effect Friday morning. In addition, the Chinese were given an ultimatum to reach a deal over the next month or else the tariffs on the additional $300+ billions of goods will go into effect, too. The Chinese responded with its price to conclude a trade deal yesterday. The simple truth is that we do not know what will happen, so we must plan for the worst and hope for the best.

We agree with Trump that we should all compete on a level playing field without tariffs, government subsidies, unfair regulations and currency manipulations. Protecting IP and having equal access is of paramount importance, too. The U.S. has run massive trade deficits for years with our major trading partners running huge trade surpluses. It is time to level the playing field while protecting our IP. Fortunately, we have a strong domestic economy more than just offsetting our trade deficit. The U.S. trade deficit is approximately $600 billion reducing our GNP by approximately 3% (exports are 10% of GNP reduced by massive imports). And, we have become an exporter of energy after years of huge importing from the Middle East.

Our trade deficit with China, alone, was over $420 billion in 2018: imports of $539 billion offset by export of $120 billion. There is an enormous imbalance that needs to be addressed. And that does not even deal with the greatest problem which is stolen IP over the years. Companies, if they wanted access to China, had to agree to share IP or else. And many companies, nonetheless, have not been granted access to China. Clearly the playing field has not been unfair.  

While you may not agree with Trump’s tactics, it is a necessity for the U.S. to finally address unfair trade practices wherever they may exist including with our closest allies. Can you imagine the positive impact to our GNP if our trade deficit was reduced over time due to fair trade policies and a level playing field? And what is the downside dealing with trade imbalances/huge deficits now when our domestic economy is so strong? While prices may go up slightly near term due to the impact of tariffs, it is hard to imagine our trade deficit pressuring reported GNP. Will demand be hit by higher prices? Probably a little but most likely not as much as expected as the exporter as well as the importer absorb a slice of the tariffs while the supply chain is being moved. Herein lies a HUGE RISK to China. Already many companies have shifted production from China and that will grow exponentially over time without a trade deal. Just look at Under Armour as one example here. The company has lowered its production in China from 35% 6 months ago to less than 15% today and going down further fast. The key to our future success globally is for the U.S. to remain at the forefront of technological advancement which gives you some idea why our IP must be protected at all costs.

As you can imagine from our comments, we feel that China and our other key trading partners are at far more risk than the U.S. when/if trade conflicts escalate. What is our downside when we are already running huge trade deficits? Also, we really doubt whether there will be a surge in prices as global competition is more likely to escalate to maintain production and market share in home markets. The Chinese are keenly aware that production is moving offshore as supply chains are being shifted at an accelerating rate. China is also losing its cost advantage much like Japan did over 25 years ago. So, what will China do to hold onto market share? Cut prices in the face of tariffs sacrificing profits. China loses and prices don’t go up as many anticipate due to tariffs.

So why does Trump feel that this is the time to go to the mat on unfair trade policies? He sees domestic strength and foreign weakness. Is he right? Let’s look at the most recent data points:

The U.S. is in an enviable position compared to the rest of the world. Our economy just came off a surprisingly strong first quarter and it now appears that the second quarter is shaping up well to despite really bad weather in many parts of the country. We were particularly impressed that March wholesale sales rose 2.3 percent while actual inventories fell 0.1 percent therefore the inventory/sales ratio fell to 1.32 which should lead to higher production down the road as demand increases seasonally. We were equally pleased that both the CPI and PPI came in lower than projected and beneath the Fed projections testing the Fed’s view that low inflation is transitory. It was also reported that the trade deficit came in at $50 billion in March with the trade gap with China declining to a three year low of $28.3 billion. China still is nearly 60% of our trade deficit. Our trade deficit will be penalized for a while by the absence of Boeing Max 737 sales. Finally, job openings continued to grow and now stands at an amazing 7.49 million unfilled jobs. Opening increased in transportation, construction and real estate. While we still believe that our economy will chug along for the rest of the year into 2020, we remain concerned about the impact on consumer/business psychology if trade conflicts escalate. We must acknowledge that our Fed, unlike other monetary bodies, has ample room to lower rates need be to offset any domestic weakness or fear in the system. It is equally important to recognize how financially strong our banks are especially compared to overseas banks. And never forget that 2020 is an election year. Trump will do whatever he can to stimulate the economy and have a good stock market going into elections.  

We clearly are more concerned about China’s growth prospects without a trade deal with the U.S.. There is little question that the Chinese government/monetary authorities have done as much as they could do to stimulate the economy in 2019: taxes have been lowered; domestic spending hiked; reserve requirements reduced and money has been flooded into the system. The government went so far as to buy stocks on Friday to boost their market to try and show the world that the new tariffs would not hurt. FALSE! While we won’t predict the magnitude of the impact of higher tariffs on China, it is clear that growth will be hit for a host of reasons as discussed earlier. And if the government lets the yuan fall to offset the impact of tariffs, it will eventually boomerang and hurt China’s financial system and economy. China is clearly between a rock and a hard place. While we can appreciate their desire to stand up to Trump, it is time to face reality by opening up its economy and ending huge subsidies while protecting everyone’s IP. By the way, China’s exports fell 2.7% in April while imports rose 3%. No matter what China says, its economy is at risk without a trade deal.

We remain pessimistic about the growth prospects of Europe without major fiscal, monetary, regulatory and trade reforms. And we see no way for any of that to occur with such differences between the members. The EU cut its economic forecasts for 2019 and 2020 to 1.2% and 1.5% respectively which we feel is still too optimistic.  There really is not much more the ECB can do to stimulate growth in the Eurozone. That says it all!

Japan’s future prospects rest sorely on trade deals being reached with the U.S. and with the U.S. and China. What more can the BOJ do too at this point? It appears that first quarter GNP actually fell by 0.2% as firms postponed capital spending and consumer demand fell as well. We don’t believe that Japan reaching a deal with the U.S. is enough to really stimulate Japan’s economy.

So, what are we doing now?

We quickly adjusted our portfolios last week considering that the probability of a trade deal being reached near term had diminished substantially which would lower our outlook for accelerating global growth into 2020. Could it still occur? Of course, but we learned a long time ago that it was better to be risk averse in unsettled times so that we have the liquidity to take advantage of market weakness. We sold stocks Monday that would be penalized by an escalating trade conflict with China raising cash above 17% of our assets.  In fact, we did some buying Friday morning as some stocks hit our buy points.

We agree with Lee Cooperman’s comments Friday on CNBC that the markets are fine longer term as the Fed is friendly, valuations are reasonable, and the chances of a recession are very low. We believe that the environment for risk assets is still favorable with an accommodative Fed; an expanding economy without inflationary pressures; a pro-business administration going into a national election next year; 10-year treasury yields hovering around 2.5%, bank liquidity and capital ratios at new highs; a strong dollar and rising earnings/cash flow. We do believe that long-term inflation will stay surprisingly low therefore the stock market multiple should be higher than 17 times earnings making the market still undervalued by 10% today. But we recognize that corrections can occur at any time especially in a VUCA environment.

We have adjusted our portfolios ever so slightly reducing our exposure to China while raising some cash. The overriding theme in our portfolios is owning companies with excellent managements; winning long-term business strategies in a globally competitive environment; rising volume, margins, earnings, cash flow/free cash flow and above market dividend yields.

Finally, we feel that each company sells well beneath its long-term intrinsic value.

Our holdings include pharmaceuticals with major new products; global industrial and capital goods companies; technology that enhances productivity and security; cable with content; housing related; U.S. based global financials selling beneath book; domestic steel; and many special situations. We remain flat the dollar and own no bonds as yields are just too low relative to even inflation at 1.5%.

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect and consider mindset shifts; look at your asset mix with risk controls; do independent research and…

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prospérité LLC

[mimiplaysgames]

Strength to Protect the Things That Matter (Ch. 20)

Pairing: Terra/Aqua (eventually) Rating: T Other characters: Riku Word Count: 3,361

AO3         FF.net

A/N: Here’s the promised ending of the previous chapter (and also the shortest I’ve released in a long time)! I rushed to push this out, and I released it early enough that I hope I will be able to get to the next chapter within this week, since that is it’s scheduled spot. There are now eight chapters left in this fic. I have decided to end this at the halfway point, and the rest will be released in a sequel that will be titled A Powerful Enough Dream. But out of these last eight chapters are three that I’m hell excited for, and the next one, “Clowning,” is one of them! Also, LOL over the Resident Evil inspiration I drew for this.

Hope, pt. 2

Getting to the clock tower isn’t exactly an easy task, being that there aren’t any stairs for them to take. The process is a trip through backyard alleyways, and climbing the fire escapes of neighboring buildings that are hidden from the main streets, away from the sights of anyone. Artificial light gives new life into the streets below while the stars slowly come out. Riku mumbles about how he doesn’t want to deal with any of Noctis’ confrontations, and they dart across roofs to finally reach the back end of the clock tower. 

All that’s left to do now is to climb up. They give each other boosts to reach ledges that are too high, getting lost in conversations about owning a Keyblade and what it in meant in the Age of Fairytales. If it’s a curse to have too many Keyblade wielders, and it’s a curse to have too few, then Terra wonders if it’s just better altogether to destroy them completely in order to keep everyone safe and happy.

But it’s when Riku mentions that the clock tower will be good training ground for Terra to practice controlling darkness that stops him in his tracks.

“Excuse me?” Terra holds the rung of a ladder that leads to the very top, staring at Riku.

“You don’t think that’s something you should practice?” Riku stands there, his arms limp to his side and his head cocked. 

“No, I mean- What if something happens?” He can talk about the headaches. He can talk about the anger. But it’s been such a relatively spectacular day, there’s no need to ruin it.

Riku shrugs. “What do you think I’m here for?”

“You’re here to help me find Aqua. Not fight Xehanort.”

“I’ve fought him before. He’s a little annoying, but nothing I can’t handle.” Riku waves his hand once and only once. “Besides, your armor sure had a power kick you can benefit from. It’s high time you get it together.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Darkness isn’t that much different than light. It just feeds on other emotions. Some more useful than others. Your job is to wield it like you would light. Consume it instead of letting it consume you.”

They stare at each other for a bit, and it’s like two people speaking a different language. “I just don’t understand what you mean,” Terra says, defeated.

“Think about any negative emotion. Anger is more accessible to utilize as a weapon because it’s an easier way to cope with injustice than sulking in sadness. But if you get too angry, then it dictates your behavior.” Riku brings a hand to his chin. “This is where I think Xehanort has a handle on controlling you. You need to take that control back.”

Terra leans toward the ladder as if to climb it then leans back. “What about using powers of nothingness?”

Riku’s eyes go just a bit wide. “You mean tap into Xemnas’ powers? Do you even remember what it was like to be him?”

“No.” It comes out like a scoff.

“Well, you’re human, and you can’t help but feel emotions. Getting into the mental state to create nothingness is a long shot.” Riku pauses for a moment. “It will be hard, and you’ve been through a lot.” He sighs. “But if it helps you remember, Xemnas was telekinetic. He also created explosions and unique barriers out of thin air. You’re going to have to learn how he did it... but don’t rely on those powers.”

Terra briefly looks for any way to plead a little more, but instead starts up the ladder. There’s just no time to argue.

At the top is a door bolted by several chains. But what catches his attention the most is a tower west of town, decorated with strings of light that stretch out from the buildings around it. The town for the most part is a sea of warm-colored sparkles. They outshine the stars, and they demand appreciation for their power.

To the east, however, is just a sea of shadows, a mass of abandoned buildings that go out into the horizon, not a single shred of evidence that anyone is home. 

“None of that is habitable,” he hears Riku say behind him. “It’s all crawling with Heartless. Noctis and the rest put up barriers to keep a border. But Kefka keeps pushing that border closer and closer.”

Terra crosses his arms and suddenly considers two children playing together in an alleyway far below him more interesting. It’s a nicer sight, anyway.

“I guess it’s not a wonder that this world is going to fall,” Riku continues. “Nothing good has happened here in a long time.”

Riku leaves Terra’s side and takes the bolt cutter out of his back pocket. He says that the mage who was responsible for sealing the clock tower was attacked here and couldn’t finish the job. He cuts the chain into several parts until the door is bare. It’s locked, but he kicks it open.

The inside of the clock tower looks just as much as the rest of the second district, with parts that look renovated to include brightly colored tiles, and updated machinery. Just another blend of the old and the new.

Where they stand are gears and other moving parts that keep the time. In front of them is a wooden staircase, and Riku goes ahead to start walking down, darting his eyes in every direction, probably for a sign of a Heartless.

“What exactly did your dream show you?” he asks as he continues down.

“Nothing much. Just the sound of the bells,” Terra says, also looking around. Hopefully for a fake door. Hopefully for some mass of darkness. “There was a lot of water and it was dark. I was with a girl named Naminé.”

“Naminé?” Riku stops and abruptly turns to face up at him. His face is in utter shock. “So she exists in dreams.”

“Who was she?”

Riku smirks. “She was Kairi’s Nobody.”

Terra almost loses his voice. For as much as he hates the idea of Xemnas and his existence, it’s not something he can apply to her. “Is it normal for Nobodies and humans to be so different?”

“So she got you thinking she’s her own person, too, huh?” Riku says with a laugh. “It seems that way. Although Lea swears he was the same.”

“Of course she’s her own person.” Terra swallows bile. “I mean, she always said that she was a figment of my memory. That I built her up. You could say that she probably was, since she knew things my heart already knew, even if my mind wasn’t ready to face it yet.” Terra shakes his head and draws a sharp inhale. “But she was too sentient to be just that.”

Riku wears a gentle smile. “So she’s still doing what she does best - looking out for others.” He looks ahead of him. Not at Terra, but just into the empty air. “I’ve actually spent quite a lot time with her when she was around.” His voice trails off. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Definitely.”

“The next time you see her,” Riku says slowly, “can you tell her that I’m sorry? That I’m sorry for everything I’ve done? And that it had to end that way?”

It probably has something to do with the fact that Naminé was a Nobody, but Terra doesn’t ask for more details. He hasn’t dreamt of her since that nap when he swallowed too much of the potion, and he isn’t exactly sure if he will ever see her again after such a violent vision. “I will.”

Terra steps down and passes by the boy, holding his shoulder in comfort. “I honestly should have pulverized him when I had the first chance to.” The thought of it is enough to start a headache.

Riku stops himself from snorting. “Are you talking about Xehanort?”

“Yeah. I often wish that I wrung my hands around his neck instead of listening to him. It would have avoided...” Everything? The pain caused to thousands of people, yes. But would that include preventing Naminé’s existence?

“Nah,” Riku says. “You’re talking about beating up an old man before knowing anything about him. That’s not your style.”

Terra scoffs. “It’s exactly my style that got me into this mess.”

A pregnant pause. “I think Aqua would want you to stay the same.” Riku says this with a seriousness that it’s hard to tell if he’s teasing.

It’s certainly a concept. Aqua will need a sense of home when she gets out. A semblance of normalcy. It’s hard to believe if his face is the one she wants to see, though. Terra moves the thought out of his mind, not realizing he hasn’t replied to Riku at all. He simply continues down the staircase, but when he gets far enough ahead, the silver-haired boy calls out, “I need to ask you something, Terra.”

Now he’s the one facing up at the other. “Shoot.”

Riku’s expression changes to resemble authority. “I need to know what to expect from you with this mission.”

It’s the tone and the fact that he still doesn’t know Riku quite well enough that bothers him. It’s almost talking to Eraqus when being questioned. Or when confronted by Aqua that day in Radiant Garden. “Excuse me?”

“I need to know what you want to do.” Riku maintains his tone. “I know you want to find Aqua. Quite desperately, I might add. Not to mention the very possibility that this world won’t be standing for much longer...”

Terra grips the wooden rail of the stairway enough to hurt his palm. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Terra.” Riku makes sure to look Terra straight into the eyes when he says this. “But some honesty would be appreciated.”

It’s now Terra’s turn to look into empty space as he slowly forms his words. “You need to know that I don’t intend to use Noctis or the others as payment for saving her. I’ve always wanted to be a Keyblade Master. I know it’s my job to save them.” He takes a pause that is a second too long and uncomfortable. His voice lowers into an almost-whisper, waiting for the retaliation. “But... I can’t pass an opportunity to free her.”

When retaliation doesn’t come, Terra continues. “I want to think the way Sora does. I want to see if there is some portal, or some thing in this place that can be a better answer than just letting everyone else perish.”

“I agree with Sora’s approach, if such a thing is possible.” Riku nods slowly. “But I need a back-up plan.” He crosses his arms for a while, and then his eyes light up with determination. “You know what? I’ll just call it. I’ll rely on you to help me save the others. I need you to be with me on this. But if it gets to the point where it’s too late and we both drown, then we’ll go find her together.”

Riku walks past Terra, clearly not noticing how pale the older Keyblade wielder’s face is. It’s one thing to be reckless with himself, and throwing his own body away to the Realm of Darkness. It’s another to drag someone else, especially the sole person responsible for his giving him back his existence, into such risky territory. Especially since it’s my fault she’s there anyway.

But he doesn’t have the time to object. Riku steps right out of the staircase and onto the tile floor, attracting a swarm of Heartless that surround him. However, it’s not a problem to squash them all without so much of a sweat. Terra doesn’t need the power of darkness to do this, and doesn’t try to summon it. A moment of silence, and Riku looks over to Terra, almost as if he is searching for something. Another swarm appear from thin air to replace the earlier one. They fight this group off just as easily, and Terra still refuses to call on darkness. Again, Riku eyes him warily, and Terra wonders if he’s being a disappointment because he isn’t practicing like he is expected to.

This moment of peace lasts longer than the previous one, giving the two of them incentive to search the tower. Around all of the ledges and in every room, but there is nothing to find. Another swarm appears, another missed opportunity to practice at controlling darkness.

“Let’s check the basement,” Riku says, bringing out two flashlights from the storage room. It’s difficult to determine whether he’s let down by Terra’s performance.

They go down a long staircase until they reach the bottom. The basement is huge and incredibly dark, and it’s like descending into nothingness. Their flashlights expose some piping and a boiler, which is humming. Before they can find some switches to turn the lights on, the familiar bubbling sound of Heartless approaching echo through the entire room.

“They’re like gnats.” Terra summons Ends of the Earth and begins hacking away. It’s difficult to see in the dark, but the creatures’ bright yellow eyes dancing in the shadows give them away.

And they all seem to multiply. When he sees one pair, three others join it. And three more for each one he destroys until he is surrounded by them. He pauses for a moment, listening to Riku fight his own targets. It sounds as if the basement has a high ceiling, giving too much room for Heartless to pile over one another. Without enough movement to get rid of them, they are going to continue to be attracted to this room.

And it’s going to be nine o’clock soon.

This is taking too long.

It’s like slipping into a set of old, comfortable clothes. It’s powerful, and with it he can do anything. He swings his Keyblade in the dark, emanating shock waves. He strikes the floor, and it crumbles outward, carrying electricity that illuminate the Heartless as it strikes in dark purple. Some of his attacks are doused in black fog, dimming the weak light of his flashlight, which is thrown somewhere onto the floor. And he is so quick about these attacks and he is just hammering at these stupid monsters and he is trying to do this as fast as he can so he can get to more important matters that when all is said and done - he collapses on his knees with an ear-splitting headache.

“Are you okay?” Riku scurries over with his flashlight in hand, and the glare hurts to look into.

Terra breathes, drinking a gulp of Tifa’s potion with a shaky hand. “I’ll be fine.” It sounds completely unconvincing, but he has to try. Maybe I got carried away. Darkness hurts.

Riku finds the other flashlight, not giving any critique to Terra’s performance, and together they try looking for light switches - although Terra has to will himself not to limp. When they do, the basement is finally illuminated by fluorescence. All of the piping is color-coordinated, as if for the sake of organization. The walls are painted an off-white. It’s much more modern than the rest of the clock tower, so it must be a newer addition. They search the walls, behind nooks and crannies, in between pipes, behind the boiler. Nothing.

Terra is standing straighter now, the headache still pounding but manageable. He curses to himself. All he wants is a clue to anything. Or has he interpreted his dream incorrectly? He drags his eyes all over the room, on the off chance that maybe there is something he is missing. Riku comes to his side and breathes a sigh of defeat.

There, on the floor, is a manhole. They give each other excited glances, and rush to pry it open. Surprisingly heavy and thick, they peer into the depths of the hole below them, the hot smell of sewage rising up.

Riku then turns his attention to Terra, and with a presentable wave of his hand, says, “After you.”

The sewers are just as modern as the basement. Everything is built in crisp, straightened cement. They land on a walkway, and the water directly in front of them gushes, dark and discolored. There are electric lights that illuminate the immediate area, but just barely. He can’t see too far down the large, curved halls.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this sandwich in,” Riku says behind him.

“Yeah, it stinks.”

“Ugh, at least we don’t have to be here long tonight. We should split up, but we need to be back by nine.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Terra prays that Riku will not find anything. It’s enough having just one person trapped in the Realm of Darkness.

“And next time, we’ll bring gas masks or something.” He nearly vomits.

Riku’s voice trails off as he walks away, and Terra goes his own direction. He holds his flashlight in his left hand, in case he needs to summon his Keyblade. The farther he traverses from the ladder that leads back into the basement, the darker it becomes. The walkway is covered in dirt and dust, and it curves sharply to the left, where there are no electric lights illuminating the way forward. The flashlight isn’t powerful either. By the looks of it, it is damp and disorienting. Just a long, dirty hallway of doors.

He approaches the closest door, and beyond it is another long hallway of what he guesses are more doors, since his flashlight can’t allow him to see that far. But what he does see in the shadows are two pairs of bright yellow eyes. Or perhaps three.

He chuckles to himself for a bit. If things were normal, if Eraqus was still alive and his home still existed, if he was younger and more naive, he would be a little nervous.

“I don’t think there is anything worse than the abyss,” he says out loud. To no one in particular, but he doesn’t need anyone there.

Summoning his Keyblade, he wipes the hallway clean of those three wandering Heartless. Then he stands, trying to get an idea of how long this particular hallway is. But the flashlight shows him nothing. I wonder just how many of these doors will open to more hallways.

Deciding to walk back the way he came, he passes by a door labeled Control Room. Inside, there are a few desks huddled together in the middle of the room. There are large computer monitors on the wall opposite the door, but they do not turn on. There are lockers with uniforms and other personal objects that belonged to whoever worked here last.

He searches the desk, which are mostly filled with reports. They all stop at the same date - perhaps the date when Noctis decided to seal the clock tower.

There is a map. Hovering the flashlight above it, he tries to get a sense of where he is. He hears the bubbling of Heartless materializing in the room, and he grunts loudly before doing his duty and getting rid of them.

“I’m trying to read,” he says to the now empty room. He waits a moment to see if there is a response, and when there isn’t, he yells good riddance before he puts his attention back to where it belongs.

There is no way to determine where he is on the map since he has no reference point. It seems that this is a map of the sewers that are part of the second district. Which is fine - he shouldn’t stray too far from the clock tower, anyway. Doors are marked as well. Although there are faint lines on the map that twist outside of the sewers, and it’s impossible to tell what that’s supposed to mean.

The clock strikes nine.

He slams his free palm against the table.

Staring blankly at the table only makes it feel like time is frozen, but it will continue ticking anyway. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, praying that Riku will come back empty-handed, and promising that he will be back later that night.

Tumblr readers! I’m celebrating having 100 followers! Thank you so much for reading my work and supporting me along the way. I am taking different writing requests, and you can find guidelines for that here. And yes, I’m taking anonymous requests as well. :)

[francisthegreat]

do i .... do i honestly see a "death note" fic in this wips list ... i gotta know - love, not enamored anon

hello judgemental anon listen ok this is a file of forgotten fics okay let me LIVE

also fandom knows no shame and has no sense of time passing do you not know this? this death note fic will sit in my gdocs until i die. it’s collecting dust. it’s a relic of a bygone era and a beacon. it exists outside of time and space. its behind the cut and its the cryptid of my wips. i want to believe

(*x files theme song plays*) 

A note about Yagami Light: he slouches only when he is being watched. 

Alone, his back is ramrod straight at all hours of the day, his shoulders pulled cruelly into the sort of line that speaks of militant control. It is only when he becomes aware of being observed that he carefully curls them toward himself, pronounces it more in the evening and smiles tiredly at assertions of, “You look beat, Light.” 

Once in a while he slips, when his focus narrows to a single point or he’s especially distracted, and there’s a moment - a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment - when his body is one unbendable, unbreakable line. 

A note about L: he never blinks. It follows that he never misses one of these moments; he only files them away for later.

Sleep, too, eludes him. Sometimes he will slip into the dark void of complete unconsciousness for an hour or two and then slam back awake, shuddering with the notion that he’d been just about to put something together. 

Then, of course, he puts something together. Light says the chain chafes his wrist but doesn’t offer any further complaints on it.

After two days of the chain, a problem becomes apparent: Light sleeps. 

More specifically, Light talks in his sleep. 

Most specifically, Light talks about L. 

The talking never reveals enough information to form any sort of theory, just small huffs of breath and the occasional half-murmur of L’s name, but it sends L careening toward a question so dangerous it stops the blood in his chest. 

If he fell asleep, what would he say? Would he put some deep, vulnerable part of himself straight into the hands of the most prolific serial killer in human history without even knowing it? Would he speak his own name? Would he speak Light’s name?

And further, what is Light dreaming about? 

L has never put stock in dream psychology. It is a soft subset of a soft science, and consists mostly of conjecture and wanking, both of which L abandoned years ago.

Which, of course, makes his burning curiosity all the more concerning. 

A note about curiosity: L cannot recall the last time he was burningly curious about anything. Mildly so, yes. Detached interest, yes. But true, consuming, burning curiosity? An outlier so far outside L’s observable universe it is almost entirely alien. 

Yagami Light, too, is such an outlier. It stands to reason, then, that his alien curiosity would be regarding Yagami Light.

He resolves to let it go for now, but spends a disturbing amount of free time devoting his curiosity to it.

On the 5th night chained together, L still has not slept, and his body is approaching its limit. Light, outlier that he is, notices.

“Ryuzaki,” Light says, and L feels that foreign pang of disappointment  exclusive to Light using his alias, “You need to sleep.”

L waves him off. If he sleeps now, he will shut off for approximately 12 hours, which is not at all acceptable until he’s solved the case. If he sleeps now he will lose approximately 12 hours of surveillance, anywhere from 2 to 12 Kira killings depending on who is currently occupying Kira’s frustratingly nebulous power, at least 14 servings of strawberry cake, and no less than three instances of Yagami Light stretching enough for his shirt to ride up.

L dwells uncomfortably on that last thought for a moment and then shakes his head.

He’s not thinking clearly.

Light says, “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re exhausted.”

L resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him and adjusts in his chair.

A note about identities: L has never gone this long in the presence of another human, and so has never had to keep up the exaggerated charade of his own identity for such an extended period of time before. It is unexpectedly exhausting.

His back hurts. He wants to stretch out and sleep.

Light pokes him with a metaphorical stick.

“You’re not going to be any help if your brain doesn’t work, you know.”

It is a testament to L’s exhaustion that he doesn’t argue. He simply shuffles out of the room and drags Light behind him to go make himself a pot of coffee.

“This isn’t coffee, Ryuzaki,” Light laughs, sticking his finger into L’s cup. “This is engine sludge.”

A note about Light: he has been different since the end of his solitary confinement - freer, somehow. More…innocent. He laughs more, jokes more. It is almost as if he is a different person. He even seems to approach flirting, sometimes.

Light takes his finger out of L’s cup and sticks it in his mouth. L stares.

“Sludge and sugar,” Light amends.

L blinks and takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes sweeter than before, and raises all sorts of awful questions about the specific taste of Light’s skin.

A note about L: there is a 75 - no - 78.9 percent chance that he is slightly sexually attracted to Yagami Light. Which is a problem.

Contrary to popular opinion, L is not clueless about sex. In fact, he enjoys it very much when it benefits him, and has found he’s rather good at it.

The problem, of course, is that this is not the time or person, and also that the likelihood that Light feels the same is under 12 percent.

So he drinks his coffee in silence until Light says, “Come here, Ryuzaki.”

L’s stomach does something awful and he pauses with the cup halfway to his lips. Light smiles, and it’s so honest and sincere that it scares the shit out of L.

What are you doing, Light?

“What are you doing, Light?”

Light leans against the counter and tilts his head. He must know what this position does to his body, and his legs are far too long, and L has no control over his own thought processes and suddenly realizes how desperately he needs to sleep -

“I’m just gonna crack your back for you. It’ll help, trust me.” There’s that smile again. Different than before, so different that it almost makes L believe it.

“Why?”

Light huffs and says, “Because you’re going to cripple yourself crouching like that all day.”

Why do you care?

“Hm.”

“Come here and cross your hands over your chest.”

Is this how L dies? He sees four distinct possibilities: Light cutting his throat from behind him, Light smashing his head into the counter, Light slipping something thin and sharp around his throat and pulling, Light sinking a knife into his back -

No. No, if Light wanted to kill him with his hands, he would have done it already.

Yagami Light is Kira. He is 89.8 percent sure of this fact. Kira wants L dead. He is 100% sure of this fact. The only reason he is not dead is because Kira does not have his name. He is 100% sure of this fact.

L wants Kira dead. He is … 89.8 percent sure of this fact.

Only 89.8 percent? Why -

“Ryuzaki, stop thinking. It’s giving me a headache.”

I want to hear you say my name, L thinks, and immediately regrets it.

“I’m not able to do that, Light-kun.”

Light grins and says softly, under his breath, “I bet I could help,” and then raises his voice again to say, “For god’s sake, just come over here.”

“No,” L says stubbornly. “This is a perfect opportunity for you to kill me.”

Light rolls his eyes and sighs deeply, which is … not what L expects.

“You know we’re being surveilled, right?”

“I doubt it matters to Kira-kun. My name is the only one he does not know.” L takes another sip of his coffee. “After I’ve been eliminated it will be easy to deal with the rest.”

“Fine,” Light says, looking genuinely annoyed, and throws up his hands. “Fucking suffer forever, you idiot.”

L has never seen Light curse before. It is horribly, viscerally arresting. He wants him to do it again. He wants to make him do it again.

Light immediately puts his head in his hands and says, “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

L feels a stab of genuine guilt. In his refusal to sleep over the past 5 days, he’s forced Light to sleep in the rolling chair next to his computer, or on the floor, or sometimes slumped over the desk. 

In a moment of utter insanity, L walks over to where Light is leaning against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest.

Light raises his eyebrows and looks like he’s trying not to smile.

“You have to turn around, Ryuzaki.”

L hesitates. It sets off approximately 800 alarm bells in his head to turn his back to Light. It feels … wrong. Dangerous.

Exciting.

L turns his back. It thrills him all the way to his toes, so close to unbearable he can almost feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Light’s voice is far too close when he speaks, and L cannot see him, and three new scenarios flood his mind at once: Light could snap his neck with his hands - but that would require an inhuman amount of speed and strength and is far less common than it is depicted in movies, not to mention it doesn’t seem like Light’s style. Light could choke him to death, fairly easily as the way he’s leaned on the counter gives him the perfect leverage, and the thought makes L’s toes curl in a way that is decidedly unscientific.

The third possibility evacuates his head the second Light touches him, along with an alarming amount of his other thoughts.

Light wraps his arms all the way around L and leans back a little, whispers straight into his ear,

“Relax, Ryuzaki.”

Impossible. L can hardly breathe.

Something snaps like a branch and then three or four little cracks follow in very quick succession, and suddenly L feels his legs turning to liquid. It hurts.

“There we go.”

Light stops touching him and L immediately grips the counter top, spits out, “Kira.”

Light laughs, then stops. He stares at L with wide eyes. Was he always so short?

What is he looking-

“You, uh, you’re standing up straight now.”

So he is. He takes stock of his body: he can feel all his toes and fingers. That’s new.

Light’s cheeks are pink. That’s new as well.

L is possessed by a new burning question: Does this fluster Light because of L’s sudden height advantage? Does he feel angry at the possibility that L could be physically imposing? Or -

L steps very close to Light until Light’s back is pressed against the counter top.

“What are you doing, Ryuzaki?”

“Testing a theory.”

A note about physical arousal: it is nearly indistinguishable from fear in its physiological processes.

“What theory is that?”

L sees no reason to lie. “Whether you are afraid of me -”

“I’m not afraid of you, you absolute idiot -”

“Or whether you want to have sex.”

Light’s eyes get very wide. They are nearly exactly the same color as the  honey L sometimes puts on his fruit bowls.

“With you?”

“Yes.”

He puts his hand around Light’s wrist and notes that his heart rate is nearly double his normal baseline. Pupils: dilated. Cheeks: flushed. L finds that he likes this sudden height advantage very much.

“In case you are wondering,” L murmurs, and he must be delirious from exhaustion if he’s doing this, “the likelihood that you find me sexually attractive is just over 56 percent.” A significant jump from 12. He looks at Light’s mouth to see if he mirrors it - he does. “62 percent.”

[randomstoriesofabunny]

A taste of freedom

Summary: When you’ve been trapped in your head and your memories haunt you, a little freedom is all you need.

Inspired in the song Gasoline – Halsey

Words: 3000 (ups!)

Warnings: Angst. Mentions of physical abuse. DON’T read it if this makes you uncomfortable!

A/N: I wrote this for @persephone-is-here-omg challenge. I wanted it full angst and it’s fluffy at the end, but I like the story in general :) I wrote some lines of the song in the story like dialogues so they are bold. Let me know if you found typos or grammatical mistakes. And if you liked the story c:

You are going to be hydra’s fist, whispered the voice of a man, over and over like a broken record in his head. His body was still shivering from the cold chamber they got him out. They were dragging him through a concrete hall until they reached two thick metal doors that were kept guarded by two armed men.

When they opened them, in a quick glance he took in the interior of the room. He was able to identify at least four men wearing lab coats, scientists, he thought. They were examining some files, casting glances at him and whispering among them. On his left were several machines he couldn’t recognize and a metal cabinet. In the middle of the room was a metal chair.

“Let go of me!” Bucky wanted to scream, but it sounded like a whisper. He tried to push the men that were restraining him, but his body felt limp, “Don’t touch me!” if they listened to his muttered plea they didn’t show it.

The soldiers sat him in the chair and chained his arms and ankles to it. “Let’s start the programming,” said a short man with a heavy german accent. The chair started to buzz, two metal arms moved and compressed his skull. His heart was pounding hard against his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut. Then a lightning passed through his head, setting fire to his mind. The fire started to consume everything he was, everything he knew.

Bucky wanted to fight with all his strength, to resist them. Don’t comply! He screamed in his head. But every disobedience, every provocation ended with the same result. Pain. He heard his bones crack, he saw his skin bleed over and over again until his mind started to get foggy.

He couldn’t tell how much time passed between every beating or why he was being beaten. Do they want information? About what? He tried to focus on something that made sense to him that could give him a meaning of all this situation. But the images in his mind passed so fast he wasn’t able to focus on something. Besides, he couldn’t remember how he ended in this hell.

Make it stop, please. Bucky tried to focus on something desperately, the first image in his mind was a street, and several cars were parked on both sides. A blond kid was standing in front of him, his eyes were an intense blue, like the sky and he had a wide grin on his face.

He could see his lips moving and his eyes sparkled with excitement while he cuddled a teddy bear. What did he say? He wanted to speak to him, but before he could mutter a single word a sting in his side pulled him back to the dark chamber where he was held hostage.This is not a dream.

A whimper left his swallowed lips, he spit blood mixed with saliva. An excruciated pain in his ribs made it difficult to breathe. Don’t... The voice kept telling him, but it was starting to fade into the back of his mind. What he was not supposed to do anyway? He was falling slowly into the darkness, it was like small strings were slowly sliding into his mind, he could feel it, and how they wrapped around his body.

“Soldat” barked a man. The chains on his wrists, holding his weight, tingled when he flinched after receiving another blow.

“Soldat” snarled the man, grasping his jaw and forcing his head up to look at him.

“Ready to comply” panted the winter soldier. The man let him go, a triumphant grin in his face and looked for one of the guards, “get him ready so he can go in his first mission”

A new cycle began. At that precise moment James Buchanan Barnes stopped existing and the Winter Soldier was born.

It was a never-ending cycle, and Bucky knew it, even when he wasn’t sure of how or why. For him it was like the day and the night, but instead of the warm feeling the sunlight gave when it caressed the skin, he felt cold. His nights instead of being full of peace or rest were filled with violence, either by his hand or by someone else.

He rose again, but this time there was a different man standing in front of him or that was his first impression. They are always the same, the face is different, the color of the eyes changed between blue, green, brown, and it didn’t matter to him. Each man he faced, each handler, had the same essence. Violence ruled their ways to act, they all chased the same twisted ideal of freedom and repeated it as a prayer. Cut off one head, two more will take its place.

“Soldat” said his new handler.

“Ready to comply” he answered as he was programmed to do. He waited expectantly for his instructions. This man watched him, like evaluating the new toy he received.

Another man got into the room “Well, what you think Coronel Karpov?”

“It’s impressive. Hydra’s fist, the winter soldier,” then the Coronel approached to the winter soldier and as asked the other man “How do you programmed him?” “We make him believe he is part of a machine, he is not a human being”

A voice snapped him back to reality, to the room he got in the new avengers facility. He looked around and saw a blond tall man, his blue eyes full of concern. Steve. Bucky nodded slowly. His gaze fixated on the window, he got stuck in his memories again.

“Buck?” Steve approached him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Steve… I-I” Bucky stuttered, a heavy breath escaped from his lips, “I think there’s a flaw in my code”.

It had been a stressful week, since that day he told Steve that phrase he didn’t leave him alone. He mentally slapped himself, he had finally convinced Steve that he was fine, even if it was a lie and now he was back to square one.

He just wanted to be alone, and now he couldn’t. A sigh escaped from his lips, he knew Steve was his best friend and he just was trying to help but his attempts of making Bucky feel accepted by the rest of the team made him feel crowded. They trained together every morning because Steve was the only one capable of restraining him if something happened.

He was forced to eat breakfast with the rest of the team, but he was wary of all of them and they were always on edge, ready to react if he loses his mind. I’m not insane… Am I? The fact that he tried to kill them all at some point made interacting with them more awkward.

The only members of the team he felt comfortable to be around, besides Steve, where Clint, Wanda and (Y/N). He liked to talk with Clint, he had fought side by side with him in Germany and he didn’t treat him like he would turn into the winter soldier at any moment.

He recommended him horror movies, much to Steve’s consternation. But the most important thing for Bucky was the fact Clint knew what is like to be forced to do things against your will. And he offered him the opportunity to speak when he felt he needed to vent to someone besides Steve.

Wanda was a sweet girl, at the beginning he didn’t like the fact she could read minds and tried to stay away from her or put his mind in blank so she wouldn’t read it. But when she explained to him how her powers worked he was able to relax around her presence.

And finally (Y/N), she had moved into the compound a month after him. And in a lapse of two months, he hadn’t had the chance to interact too much with her because she used to disappear a lot.

He always thought it had something to do with her powers, even if he didn’t know what powers she had. At the moment his best option was invisibility. As far as he knew, Steve and the others rescued her from a hydra base six months before they found him.

But with all the fiasco of the Sokovia’s accords she left, claiming she didn’t want to be part of that. Or at least that was Clint told him when he asked about her. He wanted to know more about her and what kind of powers she had. However, Steve has forbidden the team to tell Bucky anything related to her, arguing he had to interact with (Y/N) and ask her directly.

That punk, he usually thought when he caught a glimpse of her around. Gathering the courage to talk to her was difficult, every time he approached to her he would say a thing completely different from what he wanted. When did I lose my ability to speak with a woman? He used to think, but he could speak with Wanda and hold small talk with Natasha. Why he wasn’t able to speak like a normal human being with her?

Bucky was trying to avoid Steve and his plans to do something together like the old times, he just wanted a moment to be alone and he couldn’t have it. All his hiding spots in the compound were useless now because Steve knew them all. With his enhanced senses he could hear Steve coming down the hall and he was chatting with Sam, he groaned annoyed. He needed a place to hide and now!

He turned around and jogged quietly to the first door he found, opening and closing it carefully. He stared at the door, all his focus were in the footsteps of Steve and Sam. When the sound of their boots against the floor faded, he left a sight of relieve out until a voice called his attention.

“What are you doing?” he turned around and saw (Y/N) standing in the middle of the room. Her voice was curious, confusion written all over her face.

“I’m hiding from Steve” mumbled Bucky, dang! He just got into her room by accident, he knew he should apologize and leave.

However, his curiosity took the best of him and he looked around, taking in everything that decorated her room. The fact that all the walls were covered with clocks of all shapes, sizes and colors confused him, and beside each one they were pictures of different places.

She snickered softly, “He’s nice but he can be annoying sometimes”

Bucky chuckled and watched her, she was wearing black boots, jeans and a big coat. That was kind of odd, they were in the middle of May and he was certain they were around 86°F

“Why you have so many clocks?” he asked curiously, and he realized each clock had a different hour.

“So I know what time it is when I travel,” she shrugged and went back to her bedroom. He didn’t understand what she meant by that, but the photos caught his interest. Bucky studied them one by one. All had the name of where he supposed they were taken.

She returned with a bag pack over her shoulder and approached him.

“I’m going to travel so feel free to stay if you want or you can come with me, I’m going here to watch the dawn” she pointed to the photo of a forested mountain covered with mist. The label had written Shirakawa-go, Gifu-shi, Japan.

“How are you going to arrive before the dawn?” Bucky asked confused, the clock said 05:22 AM and the dawn must be close, it was impossible to arrive in an hour or less there. The quinjet wasn’t that fast.

“I can teleport myself,” she explained, but she was a little surprised “you didn’t know?”

“No,” he whispered, now that make sense of why they would want her as an avenger, the fact she could get in an out could be useful. And it explained why she disappeared every day for hours.

“So are you coming or not?”

Bucky doubted for a moment before he nodded.

“Then run to your room and change into something more appropriate for hiking” she smiled and opened the door “I will meet you in the common room”

Bucky ran to his bedroom and got changed. He was thrilled, after two months of awkward small chat; he finally had the chance to talk with her naturally and she even offered him a way out to the compound he wasn’t going to refuse. In less than 10 min he was ready with a bag pack. He packed a gun and some ammo, because you never know when you could find trouble, a medical kit and other stuff useful just in case.

He walked to the common room and he saw her filling her bag pack with snacks and two bottles of water. She instructed him to put away another two bottles of water. When everything was ready she took Bucky’s hand in his and told him to close his eyes and count to three.

When he opened his eyes a small gasp escaped from his mouth. The travel was so light, it felt like he gave a small jump and now they were in another part of the world. Bucky took a deep breath of cold air, taking in all the different smells of the woods and exhaled.

“Let’s go,” she exclaimed, and motioned him to follow her lead.

The forest was covered with a soft layer of mist and a few birds were singing their soft melodies. He never believed he would be in a place so peaceful and beautiful, or that he would be able to feel relaxed. They walked for twenty minutes until they reached a cliff where he could see the top of the trees covered with mist.

“This is so beautiful,” he whispered. He never felt so free before, and he wished he could stay there forever, “Now I see why you disappear all the time”

“I’m not used to be in the same place for so much time” she shrugged, “I feel like I’m suffocating inside four walls”

“I know that feeling”

Bucky started to think in all the time he spent in a forest like this with Steve and the Howling Commandos, how they used to camp together all around Europe. And his heart sank, he missed his friends and he was lucky to still have Steve with him, but here he was, hiding from him. He wanted to scream and punch every member of hydra for taking away his life and turned him into their perfect weapon.

“Breathe” her voice stopped him from getting lost in his memories. He did as she told and tried to relax his body.

“I can’t stop thinking of everything hydra put in my head”

“I know, I’ve been there,” she muttered, her eyes filled with pain. And Bucky felt guilty for making her think about it.

“I’m so sorry”

“It’s not your fault,” she said and he could see she was trying to keep her tears at bay, “Hydra is merciless and cruel”

They sat in silence for another moment, the mist over the forest was starting to fade. He wanted to say something to her, to offer her comfort, but he wasn’t sure of how to do it.

“Thank you,” Bucky said and he glared at her “for letting me come with you”

“No problem,” she smiled and stood up and stretched her body, “Do you want to explore the forest?”

“Sure”

When they returned it was around midnight in New York, but Bucky enjoyed the trip and spending time with (Y/N) even if Steve scolded both of them for leaving for many hours without telling someone. The next day they went to Machu Picchu, with her powers they were able to enjoy the view of the ancient city without cross paths with the tourist. The feeling of freedom and be limitless, her company offered was refreshing.

After a month of traveling around the world, discovering new places and even taking photos of their little adventures he was starting to feel better, he could speak with the rest of the team more than polite small talk. It was slow but it was an improvement.

They were watching the sunset, sitting on the border of a cliff, somewhere in Italy. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was soothing. Long silences between them weren’t uncommon or awkward, so he didn’t feel the need to break them.

“You know Steve thanked me for getting you out of your shell”

Bucky chuckled, he was doing better, but that doesn’t mean he was fully recovered. At the moment with the friendship he was starting to develop with her was all he needed.

“At last the little punk will stop annoying us”

And when she laughed, Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. He never heard her laugh before, yes, she smiled softly sometimes or snickered from time to time but this was different. A huge grin appeared in his face, he wanted to hear her laugh again.

“I don’t believe is that easy,” she mocked and Bucky laughed.

When the sun disappeared completely he leaned back to watch the stars, he rested his head on the bag pack and (Y/N) imitated him. Bucky started to think in the last chat he had with Clint, before he and Steve left for a mission.

“I guess he was right,” he mumbled more to himself.

“About what?”

“Clint told me something before he left,” he explained and turned his head to look into her eyes “people can mend each other”

Masterlist

[zzzwaitwhereami]

When I first viewed this condo, I was happy to see that the previous owners had updated the kitchen. And they did a good job of it using high-end finishes, granite, slow-close cupboards and under-cabinet lighting. It's a 1984 building and I've since seen some of the neighbouring units with their original kitchens and let me tell you, it is not cute. It's an outdated formica, oak and linoleum eyesore. My one neighbour Kathy has been over a couple times and the first thing she always does when she comes over is walks into my kitchen, stands there and murmers to herself: "Ohhhhhh... your kitchen is so nice. So nice. I hate my kitchen. I really hate it." Lol! So, I'm very grateful for my kitchen.

During the 2 week period between taking possession and moving in, I had contractors do the ceilings (popcorn removal), paint and put in new flooring. So everything was looking nice, except... the bathroom. The bathroom was still in it's original state with a hideous golden oak vanity, and the world's worst linoleum. Now some linoleum is just fine, nice even, but this linoleum was decidedly not. The old-fashioned pattern of it I could have lived with for a while, but the colour had changed from what was presumably white, to a gross yellow. I'm not sure if it was just age, or the chain-smoking of the previous owner, but it was yellow and dirty looking. When I first moved in, I decided a good scrubbing would do wonders. Well, it did not. I tried everything: (not at the same time, pretty sure that would have created an atomic bomb) oven cleaner, ammonia, vinegar, baking soda, full strength bleach for a 30 minute soak and then a hands-and-knees scrub with a brush. No deal. It was most definitely CLEAN. But it still looked dirty. Uggh, so annoying! There were some chips in the linoleum too, which always made it look like there was dirt/debris on the surface. Back when I was coordinating the interior updates, I had asked the contractors to at least do the bathroom flooring, but they pointed out to me that if they did that now, and then later I replaced the vanity, or shower, then I'd have to do flooring again... ack! Good point. I definitely don't want to pay for flooring twice. Without any additional reno time and no more budget, I decided then I'd just live with the bathroom for a couple of years and save up for a full bathroom reno down the road. So I cleaned and cleaned and never ever did the flooring look any better.  Sigh.  I could totally feel Kathy's pain about her kitchen cause I was the same with my bathroom. I can live with it, but man it bugs me quite frequently. I had a handyman come by a few months later and I asked him as well, is there anything quick & cheap we can do, even just glue a newer piece of linoleum over the old ugly one? It doesn't have to be perfect, anything is better than the current state. He hummed and hawed and then said no, because then the toilet has to come off, they'd have to lift my laminate transitions that I just had custom stained and put down as well as the baseboard trim.. ugggh. Okay that sounds expensive and not at all "quick & cheap". Fine. I guess I'm stuck with it for a couple years.

About a month ago, I yet again found myself thinking "dammit I hate this dastardly bathroom floor" and I decided to do some inquiring online, surely I cannot be the only one needing a quick fix for hideous linoleum!! Surely. So I googled about and came across a few ideas and solutions, the first one being paint. I was a bit uncertain about that solution, doesn't seem to me like it's going to adhere properly, but there were quite a few people saying they'd successfully done it. But then I saw others saying they'd laid down self-adhesive vinyl tiles, right on top of old linoleum. I checked out their stories, the pictures (which looked great) and how they went about it, and this seemed like something that might work for me. So, after more reading, I found some inexpensive but cute vinyl tiles on Amazon that would go with the rest of my decor and measured all the nooks and crannies of my weirdly shaped bathroom to arrive at the square footage I'd need in tiles. (They're 1 foot by 1 foot). 4 days later, I went to the post office to pick up my 6 packages of floor tiles, and it was a bit of a miss on my part as I thought being vinyl they would be light and fairly easy to carry home from the bus. NO. Not light. Not easy to carry home!! I stopped at every telephone pole and rested the box up against it to relieve my screaming arm muscles. A lady on the street stopped to ask if I was okay. lol Yes, thank you. I'm okay. I'm just a moron. Anyway I got them home and was very pleased to see the tiles looked exactly like they were pictured on the website.

In the meantime while I was waiting for the tiles to arrive, I thought to myself, if the floor is going to look decent, then I better tackle that hideous oak vanity. Those are by far the 2 ugliest things in the room, and with those two improvements, it'll all look much better. So I cracked out the sander (yes I own a sander, that's right) and over the course of the weekend sanded the oak vanity, primed it twice, put 4 coats of paint on. I painted the baseboard trim as well while I was at it, and that was a nice improvement too. The vanity looked so much better, now I was even more eager to get to the flooring! Of course, there's always some prep work involved, so I vacuumed, de-greased, and fully dried the existing linoleum. There was silicone from the shower surround to the linoleum that was ugly and also, nothing sticks to silicone, so what am I going to do about that? I did more googling and then ended up cutting & scraping it away, bit by bit, with a box cutter and a plastic scraper. I also had to time this all properly because not until all the trim paint was dry could I wash/de-grease the flooring, but then once that's dry, I can't use the shower until the flooring is fully in and the new silicone down.... anyway, I thought maybe it would take me 3 hours on Sunday to get it done, instead 6.5. I didn't realize how many weird corners and edges and toilet and cursed bi-fold closet door in the bathroom I'd have to carefully cut the tiles around, and that was more time-consuming than I'd anticipated. So, while I was sore & tired at the end of it, it turned out looking SO much better than before that it would have been worth it even if it took triple that time and effort.

Before (egads!!):

After (so much better!):

I'm so pleased with the end result! Again, this isn't a high-quality, test-of-time solution. This is an inexpensive quick fix to tie me over for a couple years until I do the whole bathroom properly. But, so long as the tiles stay glued down and don't fall apart on me, I can probably deal with it longer than 2 years if I need to. :)

[superpuffed]

Shifting Tides Ch 3

Tamatoa sat on his haunches and sifted through a pile of treasure heaped up in a corner. There had to be something in here somewhere he could use for clothing. Although most trinkets ended up adhered to his shell, if an object was shimmery enough, he’d hoard it despite its shape or apparent usefulness so he hoped something adequate would show up. Gazing around his lair, he supposed that hoarding might be part of his current problem. Not only was this place a mess, but not a lot of fabric ever caught his eye enough to keep it…when he found any, that is. Most of the time, organic materials didn’t survive long enough in Lalotai to make it to him. Either it was destroyed or eaten. Any poor fool that made his way down here was quick to find out the mortality rate was high, usually by being swallowed whole. This fact of life down here didn’t bother him, as he firmly believed that if you got caught or lost a fight you didn’t deserve to live anyway. Bottom line was that there weren’t a lot of clothes to go around.  

He let out an annoyed sigh and kicked over another pile and immediately chuckled as a particularly lustrous ring fell out and rolled towards his feet. This one had an iridescent teal colored stone set in silver; beautiful, and it fit! So far he had found six rings that fit his fingers, a bronze armband with knot work carved into it and several necklaces of varying degrees of chunkiness. He was used to stacking things on top of his shell, so wearing things the way they were meant to be worn was another experience entirely. He reveled in it a bit, admiring how his hand caught the light, the way the muscles in his arms flexed under his skin, the way his tattoos accentuated the shape of his body. He shook his head, he needed to focus. Priorities! He was still naked.

He gave himself a more critical look. Even though this body enhanced jewelry in a unique way that being a crab did not, human anatomy was still so inefficient. There were certain things that shouldn’t be hanging out like that. He supposed if he really had to, he could fashion some sort of covering out of treasure. Maybe braid necklace chains together? But he got the feeling whatever he tried would be time consuming, clunky, and heavy, with the distinct possibility of also pinching. He shuddered at the thought.

Yet another bullet to add to the growing list of things he’d never had to worry about before. Skin was… stretchy, and it kept getting snagged on things. He kept forgetting that he couldn’t just walk on anything he wanted imperviously and he was continually stubbing his toes on things. He had also managed to get a sizable cut on the inside of one of his fingers. He had no memory of hurting himself and when he stuck his finger instinctively in his mouth and sucked on it he had to wonder if it was weird he liked the taste.

Did humans ever eat themselves? Probably not, he snorted, they were all about holding hands and saving the day and loving each other and… and family ties! Which was all nonsense of course.

Tamatoa took another moment to admire himself in the pool. It hadn’t taken him as much time as he thought it would to become accustomed to this new reflection, despite the trouble he still had moving around in it. He’d been particularly taken with himself when he realized there were gold specks in the skin of his back. He gave one a cursory scratch but it didn’t come off, so he was unsure if it was part of his skin or something embedded in it. Not that it particularly bothered him; it was pretty. Some specks were as small as freckles but there were a few splotches around his shoulders and buttocks that were larger. They blended so alluringly with the natural brown tones of his skin and they were shiny too! He was pleased that his human body fell in line with his aesthetic so well, he just needed to get better at not kicking hard things with it.

Then he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye and looking up from his reflection he let out a triumphant shout. There, in the back, was a trunk with what looked like fabric sticking from the corner. The lock was rusted shut though, and he tried to pry it open with his fingers to no avail. He gave the trunk an irritated look, grabbed a rock and bashed the lock off. Forced to use a rock of all thing! This human body was ridiculous.

He soon forgot his annoyance because this one chest had everything he needed in it! How had he overlooked busting it open to see what was inside? No matter. Aside from the corner that had been exposed there was a whole roll of fabric inside. It wasn’t shiny per se, but there were white strands woven into it that glimmered when the light struck it right. There were also a couple pairs of worn sandals and a long, wicked looking dagger which he took as well. Considering how useless this body was at protecting itself, he’d need to take advantage of all the help he could get. The sandals were a little big but he appreciated the added protection they gave the soles of his feet; maybe he could avoid getting blisters now. At the very bottom of the chest were scrolls that disintegrated into dust when he touched them and some chipped bowls, neither of which he would need. This trunk had probably belonged to a traveling family at some point but now it served as a solution to all his immediate problems.

He unfolded the fabric and laid it carefully out on the ground. It was a few yards long, plenty to make what he needed. The pattern was simple: a row of small geometric red flowers at the bottom chased with umber lines and dots on a white background. He liked the clean cut elegance of it, there was so much else going on with his body that he needed something simple to balance it out. Before he’d just heap as much on as possible but now that he was so much smaller he was acutely aware of any imbalances. His style must be maintained at all costs! He wasn’t gaudy, he was gorgeous. 

He took his new dagger and cut out a strip long enough to wind around his waist and cover the necessary parts, with a little extra tucked in just in case he wanted to cover his chest. His new body was especially sensitive to changes in the temperature being so bald and exposed, and he wasn’t sure how he’d react when he got outside Lalotai’s regulated, stable environment.

Would he need anything else? He couldn’t think of anything specific, but he cut out another square of fabric and wrapped a few more pieces of treasure up to tie in a bundle to his waist. What problem could gold not solve after all? He took one last look around and headed out of the cave.

This next part of the plan was simple: find a geyser and get blasted into the overworld. He wasn’t too concerned with monsters being in the area after the thrashing he had given everyone, but he erred on the side of caution and kept to the edges of rock formations, trees and shadows. After all the work he was doing, he refused to have it ruined by getting eaten. There were too many new things to experience for him to die now.

Ironically, the first geyser he came across was the one Maui and the girl had used to escape, and he had to roll his eyes at the coincidence. He could tell because there were gold pieces scattered around that he had missed and an impression of his shell in the dirt. With a small amount of hesitation, he stepped over the geyser opening and placed his feet on either side. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to wait long because it was seeming like more and more of a bad idea the longer he thought about it.

With a rumble the ground shook underneath him before a jet of hot water shot him into the sky of Lalotai. It was probably an impressive view, but he didn’t see it because couldn’t unscrew his eyes. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but they made him nervous. The only impressions he gathered of the experience was feeling the pressure of air transforming into the weight of water until he was flung into the air once more in the overworld. With a resounding smack, he belly flopped on the surface of the water and began to sink. The shock of the impact drove all the oxygen from his lungs and he thrashed about, inhaling more water than air.

Fortunately, his arm hit a rock while he flailed and he grabbed onto it while the panic he was still feeling subsided. Gasping burning air into his abused lungs, he made a mental note that he couldn’t breathe water in this form. Good to know.

But now he was confronted with yet a new problem: aside from the entrance to Lalotai, there was nothing but open ocean surrounding him on all sides.

Great. Now what?

[ladystylestores]

Brands, Here’s Why Your Efforts on Race Are Falling Flat – WWD

https://ift.tt/2UsTapT

The following Letter from the Editor was originally published by Sourcing Journal, WWD’s sister publication. Tara Donaldson is the editor in chief of Sourcing Journal.

The black population is exhausted — whether from fighting in recent protests, fighting against long-standing systemic oppression or fighting to be heard. In many cases, it’s all of the above.

As a black woman, the Black Lives Matter e-mail messages now flooding my inbox daily are more annoying than empowering. When the statements supporting the movement and disavowing racism are, more often than not, crafted by brands’ white ceo’s, reviewed by their white colleagues and blessed by a white HR or p.r. department, you will not get the message right. You will not know how your staff or consumers want to be spoken to or what they want to hear you saying. Black social media squares and donations to causes for people of color aren’t enough.

And your overnight activism isn’t fooling anyone into thinking you’ve always been fighting for these rights, or against these injustices, or that you’ve put your money where your platitudes are and taken action to mix the makeup of your executive staff. To the brands that aren’t speaking on the issue at all, your silence isn’t the safe space you may believe it to be. Your silence is loud, and the consumers who have increasingly shown that they’ll spend their disposable income with businesses that are about something — will remember it. Yes, it’s treacherous territory no matter how you approach it, and yes, in many cases, you can’t win.

So what, then, should you do?

Try harder. Try more often.

Try relentlessly until you can confidently say everyone has a seat at the table. It’s not enough to have a smattering of low-rung, or middle-management or even executive employees who are black if, when you close the doors to your boardroom, every decision maker left at the table is white. And it’s not enough to pull any handy black staff into those boardrooms in “advisory” roles to provide just enough insight for you to pat yourselves on the back and consider your efforts diverse. Boards of directors can’t be built on nepotism, clout and number of shares alone. It’s not enough not to make space for new and necessary voices — of all colors, creeds, races, ages, sexual orientations and religious affiliations — to be heard. Most important, these varied voices have talent to bring to the table, too.

Hiring one diversity inclusion officer to sit on the fringes and keep you from faux pas isn’t entirely dissimilar to how the industry has approached compliance or sustainability — like a box to tick. There’s a reason why, when a brand has built its entire ethos on sustainability, going so far as to change all of its inputs to organic or recycled, having corporate teams spend time pulling plastic out of oceans, and pushing accords fighting climate change in front of the G7, its actions speak louder than its words. There’s a reason why when a brand has built its entire ethos on inclusion and representation, going so far as to support education programs to train multicultural youth and then hire them, and making sure non-white employees make their way into leadership roles, and pushing reform for racial bias, its actions speak louder than its words.

On the contrary, brands that cut corners or slap “sustainable” or “diverse” labels onto product or processes that are anything but, do not ring authentic. And when calls for greater transparency — which will now undoubtedly extend to hiring practices and representation — rise among consumers, exposure of the reality could, and should, cancel brands, leaving no room for recovery. Diversity cannot be another box for fashion to tick.

The only reason brands get caught red-handed with blackface sweaters on their shelves or monkey T-shirts on their young black models, is because there wasn’t a single black person in a decision-making role along the way to be the face-saving Samaritan to say, “hey, this is a terrible idea and here’s why.” Or who never actually had to utter those words because their mere presence in the room is enough to make their colleagues give things a second thought. The only reason brands can completely bail on their less-privileged, less-white supply-chain supporters before giving adequate thought to what that would mean for them, is because there are not enough voices from other underserved communities to say, “hey, this is a terrible idea and here’s why.”

So look at your staff. Make sure your decision makers have different kinds of faces. But also, look at your supply chain. The less-privileged population that makes the products on your shelves needs representation, too. Continuing to exploit them at all and any cost for your own gain is its own form of racism and, in fashion, it’s systemic. It’s the basis on which low-cost fashion was built and the reason supply chains have landed in low-cost countries where underrepresented populations are forced to work for exceptionally low pay. Factory workers, who are also part of your organization, must be given as much consideration as the white male majority shareholder who sits on your board of directors.

The backlash for these unacceptable errs in the new world we’re now entering, may not be as delicate as a few days of bad press that eventually, but quickly, gets forgotten.

Reacting won’t curry you any favor when your role, your reach, your influence should demand more than that. Reacting will get you the same collective eye roll many in the black community gave NFL commissioner Roger Goodell when he said the very thing that would have kept Colin Kaepernick on the field, when he (at least publicly) took the stand against racism the former football player was calling for by taking a knee four years ago. That’s not the place fashion brands want to be. That’s the place that will have your day-late statements remembered for the wrong reasons. That’s the place that will force your words into harsh light, and juxtapose them against your actions. Or inactions.

Diversity also means dollars if that’s an easier concept to digest. It means better, smarter, more innovative products when ideas aren’t coming solely from a singular demographic. It means better messaging to promote that product when multicultural team members can weigh in on what works for the varied audiences that will undoubtedly, and increasingly, make up your target market. It means more balanced, and representative, decision making. It means better loyalty — both from staff and shoppers — who will be able to see the work you’ve put in on inclusion and not just the empty e-mails you’ve sent expressing support for the idea of it. It means your brand stands for more than just padding the pockets of the same group that has always held the power.

That’s what the new world will buy into.

Read more from Sourcing Journal:

From the Editor: Brands, Here’s Why Your Efforts on Race Are Falling Flat

Digital Solution Used to Keep Workers Safe and Restart Bangladesh’s Manufacturing Sector

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[insidesanity]

More more fanfic

Snape sneered cruelly in affirmation.

“Or dead. All that good meat going to waste.”

Snape was rewarded with a shudder from the witch, good he was upsetting her. She might make a mistake with tempers raised. He quickly decided to continue this line of torture. “I ran out of my last supply quite a while ago. There was more than enough space again, and the room felt so empty. Ivan was so small after all.”

Mcgonagall’s scowl deepened but his comment did not elicit the expected reaction.

“Dumbledore told me, it was a matter for the order. I did not agree with his solution, but I see you quite enjoyed it.”

Snape was never one to give up easily, and with his prey so close this game of literal cat and mouse was almost as addictive as her blood. He felt if he had a heart it’d be racing.

“It was quite enjoyable. That impetuous boy attempted to fight me. I had to chase him around my quarters. He was so soaked with sweat and fear…pray tell what do you find amusing?”

Mcgonagall sat there with a blank expression, or what looked like one, but having had this much of her blood Snape was starting to tell her moods a bit. Too little too late for his initial attack, but it might help him here.

“Firstly, I am a chess master, do you think I don’t know when I am playing a game of proverbial chess?” Snape almost grinned, he didn’t doubt it, it was what made this situation so interesting, and exciting, and annoying. He hadn’t had someone to match wits with since the fall of the dark lord. It was enticing, it was enervating, it made his appetite spike and his blood run cool and cold as he calculated and thought. The fact that this woman dared, made him furious, but somewhat excited that he might actually have a worthy opponent.

“Secondly, I’m a member of the order as well, do you think I am so cold and so old that I never enjoyed a chase? My animagus is a cat for a reason Severus.” Snape had to think at that. A person’s animagus reflected who they were. He scowled, he knew that from experience with… he stopped the thought in its tracks. He had never pondered why this professor’s animagus was a cat.

Mcgonagall allowed herself a very small smile. “Do you really think this entire castle was kept mouse free by one cat?” Snape had to sneer at that. Mcgonagall hunting mice? He doubted it. Apparently his doubt showed for the professor across from him was scowling. His pawn had just taken her rook. The room was silent, neither wanting to lose ground. Mcgonagall flicked her wand at the wall and waited, the spell seemingly doing nothing. The sat silently is stale mate. Both players perked up suddenly at a very small sound, Mcgonagall drew her wand with a flash and jumped into the air landing in the corner as a cat. She walked smoothly back to Their chairs and dropped a mouse between them.

Snape sneered further.

“Eat it. A hunt isn’t complete until prey has been consumed.” Mcgonagall tightened her whiskers in disgust and quickly sat back in her seat, human before her paws touched its seat. His knight had just taken her pawn. He was winning.

“I just ate. Why don’t you?” She said levitating the mouse.

“You took my charm that allowed me to eat solid food.” Mcgonagall threw the mouse into the corner with a flick of the wrist. “Besides, that is hardly an aperitif, I prefer larger prey….” Snape decided it was time to use his bishop, his current opponent was on the defensive. “Like Mr. Banderknott.”

At this Mcgonagall stood up, her chair falling over.

“You did not.” She whispered. Snape sneered.

“The boy was so scared, crying on the floor, arm gashed by a sword he’d been pushed into by a fatuous bully. He smelled so sweet….”

Mcgonagall slashed her wand through the air and a click from the far wall reverberated through the room. The chains there came to life and snaked toward snape, locks clicking and links clanking as the manacles closed around his wrists and ankles. As they did the chair in the center quickly melted away, along with the manacles there. Snape gasped as the new silver chains cut through his socks and sleeves and the smell of sizzling flesh filled the room. With a whooshing sound the chains retracted toward the wall, pulling the stunned professor with them and with a grunt he slammed against the stone. He sneered.

“Has the pussy cat lost her temper?” Quipped snape as Mcgonagall stood furiously towering over the chained vampire.

“A student, Severus, how could you?!”

“With relish I assure you.” The potions master coughed, and spat a bit of blood on the ground. This was not a good situation, it was interesting, but dangerous. Severus quickly changed tactics. His head was pounding, the heartbeat across the room was thundering, his stomach was growling, and his skin was sizzling. Severus prided himself in his acting, it was time to put it into full use. He thrashed against the chains for a long moment before going limp. He looked up at his supposed friend and captor, putting on a mask of hate barely covering desperation, both of which were conjured easily because they were in some part real. “You’ve never been starving Minerva, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Mcgonagall frowned, there was no way this was fully real, this man was a death eater, and a spy, he would never break this easily, in most situations it would mean death. Unless he was truly that starving. She pondered, the lines of her face still disapproving, and suddenly Snape heard a mental click. She had decided her next move, and was going through with it with complete confidence. If it was a foolish move that was good for him, but if it was good, which was far more likely, he could very well be drawn into a trap… he waited, lips pursed and eyes hungry with hate. What would she say, do, what was her plan?

However Mcgonagall was silent. Her lips a fine line. She flicked her wand at her hand and a gash appeared. Snape’s eyes narrowed and widened. His nostrils flared as he breathed in the smell. It took all his willpower to do no more than that, but even still his eyes tinged with red.

“This is what you want, correct Severus?” The professor didn’t answer , he just watched as a thin drop fell to the stone floor, and another, a small echoing beat filling the room. He scowled. She suddenly had him in check. “Severus!”

“Yes Minerva?” He answered as if they were merely talking over lunch in the great hall.

“I have been starving. I have eaten mice. I have hunted and killed. How do you think I survived for months during He who must not be named’s reign. As a cat. Before you i was the only spy the order had.” Snape looked up at this, at her eyes. Something had changed. Her face was harder than normal. “And I have all the experience that comes with that. And more. Now tell me.” She flicked her bleeding hand at the professor, spattering blood across the ground in front of him just out of reach. Snape managed to stay relaxed, and didn’t move. He had a bargaining chip, information. “What would you have done with me?” Ah, but he was unwilling to give this information up… at least all of it.

“If you had survived the night you mean? I will tell you one of my ideas in exchange for…” how could he put this to make her as uncomfortable as possible, put her off balance…. “a taste.” Mcgonagall didn’t even flinch, she just flicked her hand again and spattered a bit of blood on her prisoner’s face.

“There, a taste, though you are hardly in a position to bargain mr snape.” Snape scowled. This was not what he wanted, he wanted a vial, for now. He wanted more of course, the darkest parts of him mainly wanted to be in opposite positions, while he mainly wanted to be back in his quarters with the way things were before the stupid dolt of a student Ivan had blown up that cursed potion. He frowned. But then he would have never gotten to taste this fine food in front of him. He licked at a drop on his cheek, but couldn’t reach it. The smell was almost driving him to distraction. He heard a flick of a wand and the chains loosened around his hands slightly. He glared at his captor, standing there, watching his struggle, what he considered his private moments, his ‘affliction’, and once again his darker side won. With long fingers he dexterously wiped the splatter on his cheek and quickly licked his finger.

“I suppose I might have obliviated you, healed your wound, and left, but I find that unlikely.”

Mcgonagall raised a single brow.

“And pray tell, why is that?”

“Why do you even wish to burden your mind with my plans? Do you really want to know what your friend, colleague, is capable of?”

“Of course not, but in order for it to never happen I need to know what ‘it’ is. So if you want to eat tonight,” she flicked her hand at the professor again, “actually have a meal, you will tell me all your so called ideas.”

Snape’s mind raced, she wouldn’t know if he had told her all of his ideas, he had many, he would tell her a few and keep one for himself. He grinned mentally, but outwardly he snarled as if in defeat.

“How much?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How much do you consider a meal? A sip? A vial? A pint?” As if on cue Snapes stomach growled, loudly.

Mcgonagall frowned. She didn’t actually know what a meal would consist of. A sip a week allowed her friend to survive, but a meal? She sighed inwardly, she had chosen her words poorly, and it was going to cost her. She held up an empty vial.

“A meal is what I decide it is tonight.”

Severus sneered. Pushing his luck here, bargaining, couldn’t hurt. The worst she could do is give nothing and get nothing in return, so at the least if she wanted information he would at least get a sip, a mouthful, but he wanted more.

“Considering that the last time I was awake I was about to enjoy a feast, that vial does not seem comparable. I would give you perhaps one of my plans for that.”

Mcgonagall frowned. This was where the real chess match finally began. She would have to be careful, if she revealed her whole hand too quickly.... “A vial and a half then.” she said ignoring his feast comment. Snape grinned. She was willing to play the game to the end it seemed. He shook his head. He looked at the pitcher near the wash basin and inclined his head towards it.

“Absolutely not!” Cried Mcgonagall.

“Two vials will get you very little from me. It will just whet my appetite.”

Mcgonagall looked around the room and picked up one of the opaque bottles, snape flinched. Mcgonagall smiled.

“Don’t worry this one is empty. Would this do?” Snape looked at the bottle, it was a good size, about a full 3 cups. His stomach growled, and he felt his teeth itch at the thought of that much fresh blood. He nodded and sat down on the floor, too hungry to bargain any more. Mcgonagall picked up her knocked over chair and sat down as well.

“You will Talk first, and obtain food after.” Snape growled quietly but nodded, he could wait. He pulled at his beard a bit and smiled as if reminiscing.

“If you had died I would have most likely done what I said and taken your body to my untraceable room, or given it to the squid in the lake.” Mcgonagall frowned. “What? Too much information, can’t stand the thought of being cooked like a steak?” Sneered snape.

Mcgonagall shook her head, “I highly doubt you would have cooked anything, “she said detachedly, as if they weren’t talking about her at all, the cold look on her face remaining unchanged. “In fact I far prefer that to being fed to the squid. If you ever do best me I’d prefer being immolated or eaten to that.” Severus was a bit surprised.

“Are you critiquing my method of murder and disposal of your corpse?”

“Yes, I am!” Mcgonagall snapped. “The giant squid, really. You didn’t think it through at all. The squid never eats people, only fish. I’d prefer my body not be fished out of the lake a bloated mess.”

“So you’d prefer I eat you?” Queried the proffesor, his fangs growing a bit at the thought of a willing meal, his

“I prefer not to be eaten at all!” Quipped the professor. “Now please, do continue this fascinating diatribe before I lose the ability to eat my own dinner tonight!” Snape sneered.

“If you had survived, I would probably have taken you to my untraceable room as well. I’d ruin your room, or leave a note, and most probably I’d break your wand in two.” Mcgonagall blanched at that. It was the most horrendous crime to break another wizard’s wand.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“And what use would you have for it? More importantly what use would I get from you having it besides my own death? No. Over the next week I’d savor a meal each night, until you were no more.”

Mcgonagall pursed her lips.

“I find that unlikely. You are far too practical to lose a good source of food. What would you have really done?” Snape tried to look startled, as if that was all he was going to tell her, looked longingly at the soon to be filled jar and then snarled and continued.

“I’d have filled you with nutritional potions mixed with draught of living death and blood replenishers until either I found another way to obtain food or grew tired of you. At which point I would most happily devour you.” Snape spat on the ground angrily. “Although now after what you have done here I doubt I would let you last more than a week.”

The witch ignored him.

“What else?”

Snape snarled again.

“If I decided to not destroy your wand I would look for an alternate source of food and upon success obliviate you.” Mcgonagall sat silently. Snape frowned. “But before letting you go I’d most likely create stores of your blood, or charm a vial of blood replenisher to refill with your blood as needed, and replace it with the blood replenisher in the vial. Those are all the ideas I had. I have nothing more.” He scowled, as if beaten and looked at his captor expectantly.

Mcgonagall nodded and with a flick and an accio summoned her blood and directed it into the bottle. She muttered a spell and a moment later the bottle almost overflowed with blood. Snape snarled as a good tablespoon seeped down the side as she corked it. After healing her cut hand she tossed the bottle to her prisoner and sat down. Snape grabbed for it and clutched it tightly, before glaring at his captor.

“Some privacy?”

“You’re eating dinner, we’ve eaten next to each other for many years.”

“This is a bit more ...personal.” Snape glowered, he still had his pride, and was still an intensely private man. Mcgonagall merely shook her head.

Snape glared daggers at the woman but she remained unmoved. So snape uncorked the bottle held it over his mouth unceremoniously. Quickly the blood poured down his throat as he brought it closer to his lips. He shivered as he relaxed and felt his visage change from such high magical content. His nails burst through his shoes, and grew long and sharp from his fingernails. His ears grew pointed, his fangs unsheathed as he greedily sucked at the bottle. Only when he was done did he breath in, and notice a strange taste. He dropped the bottle ignoring it shattering on the floor and stared at his friend.

“You duplicitous sneaky bitch.” Mcgonagall just looked at him, finally allowing emotion back into her face, curiosity. “What have you done to me?”

“You’re the potions master Severus, you tell me.”

Snape rolled his tongue around his mouth, honey. He tasted honey. He glared at her with hatred.

“Now, Severus, tell me what you would have really most likely done?”

Snape seethed, but found himself answering.

“I would have forced my blood down your throat. I would have put so much of my blood into your veins that when I told you to open the door in the middle of the night you couldn’t refuse. I would have you as my thrall, unable to tell anyone, unable to remember if i wanted. Available to sate my thirst whenever I wished.” He spat out angrily. His last plan. The best one. He snarled, but found himself continuing with plans he had barely thought through himself yet. “ and perhaps a long time from now, If I ever grew tired of your taste I would have you bring other teachers to tea, as you are known to do, and serve my blood to them. Little by little, subverting the faculty…until....”

Mcgonagall interrupted. “And the children, the school?”

“Untouched, it would betray my presence. The school would continue as normal, teaching is something I actually enjoy on occasion. And why should I alienate those who feed me by depriving them of their joy. Unhappy thralls are more likely to revolt, betray me or my presence. And I wouldn’t want them, the students, when I had a rich feast that could last forever...”

“Until…?”

“Forever means forever, or at least until my immortal life span would betray me. Or the faculty grows old and close to death. Upon which I might hasten their fate if they so wished. I would eventually leave, and take my favorite few with me and obliviate the rest. I would most likely take you. Perhaps I would eventually turn a few.”

Mcgonagall took a deep breath, absorbing this, as was Snape, these were things he had mused about dreamily, but had not realized how much he intended to go through with. He cursed his tongue, for it would not seem to stop talking.

“No, I mean before when I interrupted you, you said until. Until what?” Snape tensed. This was the part he dreaded sharing. He closed his mouth, but found words slipping through regardless.

“Until I had had enough magic saturated blood to reach Dumbledore.”

Mcgonagall stood up, wand at the ready, she was deeply protective of the headmaster.

“To kill him?”

“Not any time soon if I could help it.” Mcgonagall relaxed and sat down.

“Then to what end?”

“To give him my blood filled with magic powerful enough to subdue him. To have in my thrall the most powerful wizard of the century, that I could drink when I wish and obtain his power. his blood would pit me equal to a dozen of our enemies and prepare me against….His return.” Snape paused at the thought of his old master’s return and tensed before continuing. “To obtain the defense against the dark arts position, To ask him his plans and have him answer me with the simple truth. ...To prolong my friend’s life with my blood, and upon his death bed give him a choice.”

“Being?”

“To be the most powerful wizard in the world for as long as he wished….”

“Or….” snape glared at her. She knew what the answer was, and yet she dragged it out of him. He spat out his answer venomously.

“To allow me one last meal from him, and to let me be the one to bring him the painless eternal peace he deserves….”

Mcgonagall stood up and pushed the chair out of reach. She stared at her captive.

“You are an evil monster Severus Snape,” Snape sneered, “but a good man.” Snape scowled, and as Mcgonagall turned to leave he tested the chains , and lunged for her... falling far short. As she closed the door she looked at him and shook her head. And then snape was left alone. The taste of honey from his own veritaserum in his mouth.

Chpt 10 two hunters

Four days passed in darkness. Snape paced, he scratched at the burning silver chains, strained against them, and paced. Luckily the chains let him use the toilet, and wash. Soon all solid foods were out of his system, all liquids too, anything that wasn’t blood. He scraped at the walls, punched them, and paced more. He was hungry, his teeth ached, he needed the witch’s blood.

On the fifth day Mcgonagall returned with a huge pitcher. Snape could smell it. It was blood. A lot of blood. But it wasn’t the professor’s. It wasn’t what he wanted. But he was hungry, so he stood up and dusted himself off.

“And whom am I to thank for this donation?”

“Hagrid.” Said Mcgonagall setting the pitcher down. Snape scowled. “He doesn’t know you are here, but was happy to donate for when you came back.” Mcgonagall poured a third of a glass from the pitcher, then holding up her own wand waved and watched carefully as the glass filled up the rest of the way. Now snape could smell it. Her blood. His fangs ached immediately and he twitched. Mcgonagall did not fail to notice. She levitated the glass over to him and he grabbed it gently from the air with as much patience as he could muster. He smelled it, just blood. No potion or juice or other unwanted disgusting things, just blood. He sipped. No just blood. He continued to sip from the glass as Mcgonagall put a stasis charm on the blood pitcher and sat down. She pulled the bedside table over and producing papers from her robe began to grade homework. Severus sat once again on the floor and continued to nurse his drink.

Soon it was empty, he scowled but held on to the glass, it was currently the only weapon he had besides himself. They sat in silence for a good while, the only sound the scratching of a quill, and for snape a steady drumbeat.

“I can and I will get out of here.”

“After you’re no longer addicted.” Mcgonagall didn’t even look up.

“This is undignified.”

“This is safe.”

“Why are you here?”

“To keep you company.”

“Please leave.”

At this Mcgonagall looked up.

“Why?”

“You’re tempting me.”

“That is the point, resist.”

“It is tortuous…”

“Consider it payback for trying to eat me.”

“Your heartbeat is driving me to distraction.”

“Your prattling complaints are reaching that end for me Severus.”

Snape snarled.

“If I get even the slightest chance I will drain you dry.” His soft threat drifted through the air to unperturbed ears.

“Well I’ll just have to not give you one.” Said the professor and she went back to grading papers. Snape sat still and meditated. He reached out through the blood he’d consumed and felt the outer reaches of his prey’s mind. All that was going through it were facts and corrections for papers, maybe he could try to-

Suddenly he was kicked out.

“Don’t even try Severus. I may not be as good at legilimancy as you, but you are justusing yourvampiric powers, and no wand, against a fully trained spy.” Snape scowled more. He was running out of options.

“May I at least request sitting on the bed and not this floor? Or perhaps changing to iron chains?”

Mcgonagall flicked her wand and the chains near the bed reached out and attached themselves to him as the others melted away. These new chains also pulled him toward their origin, albeit with much less force.

“Thank you..”

Mcgonagall nodded. He sat in silence while she finished grading, and soon she threw him a book, a revised edition of the potion master. Soon the flipping of pages joined the scratching of the quill and all was calm.

Two hours later Mcgonagall was done. She pushed the beside table back and sat down on the other bed.

“You’re not really going to sleep here?”

“Yes, I believe that is what is implied when one sits in a bed Severus.”

“But”

“I don’t care Severus, you will deal with your hunger and your lack of privacy in quiet or I will langlock you. You need to deal with being close to what you want and get it out of your system.” And with the the professor transfigured her robe into pajamas, turned out the light, and placed her wand under her pillow. “Goodnight Severus.” There was no reply. “Severus, anger is not an excuse for bad manners.”

“Sigh. I am not a student Minerva.”

“Then act like it!”

“I shall act as my usual self.”

“By Merlin Severus there is no one here to see you, take down the facade!”

“You don’t really want that.”

“Yes Severus, I do. Though that was not the facade to which I referred. You need to take off all pretense and face this.”

“....goodnight Minerva. I do hope it is not your last, although I would enjoy it immensely.”

The transfiguration professor sighed and closed her eyes.

Snape meanwhile just stared and listened.

Hours later snape was sweating. The drumbeat was driving him mad. He had strained silently, had attempted to turn to mist, tried bending the links, to no Avail. He glared in the dark at his prize just out of reach. He was at the end of the chains, as far as they would let him, fortunately they were just on his wrists this time. He strained against the wall with all his strength and was rewarded with a very small cracking sound. The iron would not budge for him, but the stone would. Silently through the night he pulled quietly on where the chain attached to the wall.

The next morning a small sound rang out, a bird on the bedside table chirped the time. “7 am, 7am, it is 7am on Saturday!” Mcgonagall quickly grabbed her wand and quieted the bird. She then promptly transfigured her nightgown into a robe, and cast a freshening charm before turning on the lights. Severus had seemingly not moved.

“Did you sleep at all Severus. “

“No, an infernal drumming sound kept me awake.”

Mcgonagall rolled her eyes and summoned the glass she had given Severus last night, filling it with still warm blood from the pitcher after taking the stasis charm off. She levitated the glass to her friend and though he grabbed it he scowled.

“You’ll get more of what you want tonight. We are trying to get that out of your system remember?”

Severus nodded as if agreeing and sat down with his drink, sipping while Mcgonagall left to get her own breakfast in the great hall. As soon as she left he sat up and drained half the glass except for a small bit which he let dribble from his mouth, before dropping the rest on the ground. He then muttered some words and lifted the concealment charm on himself, his wings bursting through his shirt, his eyes turning red, nails growing, teeth sharpening. He rustled his hair, and took some of the blood and smeared it down his shirt. He looked truly a mess. He’d had to do worse for Voldemort, faking fights, usually really breaking bones to make it more believable. This was nothing.

He curled into a ball on the bed and waited.

Mcgonagall opened the door to a sight. She gasped and Severus looked up. She quickly closed the door and rushed a bit closer.

“Severus, what happened?”

“Half giant blood, it hurts.” Mcgonagall gasped, she hadn’t thought of that, what other types of blood might do to a vampire. Snape looked up at her, eyes wracked with pain, and pleaded. “Help me.” Mcgonagall took a worried step forward and then laughed.

“Severus, you fool. You never willingly ask for help, not that openly!” Severus only coughed, blood splattering the floor, he reached toward his friend.

“Please, i am at your mercy. I can do nothing to alleviate this.” He must hold the act. Bring doubt to her mind. Mcgonagall shook her head and summoned the table, sat down and began grading papers.

Snape let his arm fall weakly to the ground, at which Mcgonagall snorted. “You are over acting, if the pain is real, just deal with it. Like all food poisoning it will pass.”

Severus just turned over and shivered.

And hour later snape lay in much the same position, shivering. He was growing angry. But he was still patient, and still had plans. With one long nail he cut the inside of his mouth, and let the blood fill it. He coughed loudly spewing the blood on the wall. Mcgonagall got up and looked at the blood from afar.

“That’s yours Severus, and not from your stomach. You aren’t fooling me.”

“Please Minerva.” He turned over and stared at her, trying his best to use any allure he had to entrance her. “After years of friendship, can you not tell I’m in pain?”

Mcgonagall shook her head, a bit dazed, and took a step forward. Snape had never done this before, used his allure, he’d never had to, not since being turned years ago. It was awkward, using this on his friend, ally, but he had passed the point of fair play long ago, and was determined to win. Mcgonagall slowly took another step forward, and another, she was almost within reach. But suddenly she stopped, and shook her head, staring at Severus. She smirked, then covered her

Mouth as she smiled.

“Did you just try to allure me Severus snape?” She laughed. Snape was angry, but more importantly she was distracted, and close. Snape quickly put his feet against the wall and jumped, pushing off toward the professor. She gasped as the vampire reached for her, the wall cracking and the chains coming loose. She leaned back and to the side barely dodging the long nails. Snape landed in the middle of the room, between Mcgonagall and the vials of sunlight.

“Snape. I am trying to help you.”

“You’re trying to save your own skin, which is just as commendable, but don’t pretend this is anything but.” Snape grabbed the vials and threw them at the pillows away from both of them.

“Accio v” Mcgonagall didn’t finish, before she could snape had thrown his chains at the vials and broken them, their contents seeping uselessly into the fabric. He then quickly threw the chair at her, grabbed the pitcher of blood, and jumped between her and the door, where with one eye on his nemesis he greedily drank from the pitcher, which Mcgonagall had never put back in stasis.

Mcgonagall meanwhile transfigured the chair into silver dust, which with a flourish of her hand she blew back at Severus. Severus merely covered his eyes for a moment and continued to drink, pain meaning nothing to him. Mcgonagall flicked her wand and the chains from the center raced out at him, as did the silver ones. He finished the pitcher and threw the empty vessel at his prey before throwing his own chains in front of the iron chains, while the silver one clanked at him from across the room, too far away. Finding something to grab onto the iron manacles clanked shut and lay on the ground. Mcgonagall dodged the pitcher and flicked her wrist again The iron chains pulled into the floor, but with the added length of his own chains it did nothing.

“Fetra!” The spell shot out of her wand with precision and speed but the vampire dodged it. Snape kept his face cool, and calculated. He could dodge spells for far longer than the old cat had the energy to throw them. He allowed himself a small smile and stood at the ready near the door. Mcgonagall stood still too, weighing her options.

“Admit defeat and everything will be less painful.”

“A witch is not defeated as long as she holds her wand Severus.”

With a swish and flick the silver and wooden rods raced towards the door at Severus, who ducked at the last minute and dashed at his quarry. Mcgonagall would have to use the sharpened stakes now, which she wouldn’t. Snape launched himself toward her feinting right and turning left to grab her wand. Within grasp Mcgonagall fell to the floor and the silver rod she had hidden behind her whacked snape and pushed him into the loo, where the chains inside grabbed him and pulled him to the wall. He snarled, and struggled once but settled down, knowing he had been beat.

Mcgonagall stood up and dusted herself off, and with a wave of her wand righted the room, put the chains back in the wall, and removed the shards of broken glass. Then she turned and glared at Snape.

“I am trying to help both of us!”

“So am I. We have different ideas of what that

Means I believe.”

Mcgonagall scowled.

“I do not believe my dying helps me at all.”

Snape sneered.

[josephkitchen0]

5 Homestead Fencing Mistakes to Avoid

No matter what project my husband and I decide to tackle, it nearly always comes down to the same thing: homestead fencing. Garden fencing to keep groundhogs and cottontails away from our vegetables. Fences to keep our dairy goats away from our fruit trees. Fences to keep our chickens in and the neighbor’s dogs out. And just when we think we’ve tackled all of our homestead fencing projects, we decide to add another poultry house or to give the goats new grazing ground, so up go more fences.

As we travel around the countryside we often take note of new homestead fences being built and old fences, or not so old fences, tumbling down. The all-time record for the latter was a newly constructed fence that lasted all of three months before it began to sag and crumble.

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Here are five homestead fencing mistakes you can easily avoid when tackling DIY fence installation projects.

1) Choosing the Wrong Kind of Homestead Fencing

Buying materials and putting up homestead fencing is an expensive and time-consuming proposition, so it pays beforehand to do plenty of research and planning. The first place to start is with your city or county planning commission. Since local zoning laws may restrict your choice, find out if any regulations pertain to fence design or construction in your area. Putting up a fence that doesn’t conform to local restrictions can result in having to take down your newly built fence and possibly pay a fine as well.

Even where no local regulations restrict your choice, selecting the best fence isn’t always easy, since each system has inherent strengths and weaknesses. At our place, for example, the goats’ grazing area is fenced with high tensile electric fence, and cross fenced with temporary electric polywire that can be easily removed when the paddocks need mowing. We use post and plank fence along the driveway, stock panels to control breeding bucks in season, and chain link to protect our poultry and garden. We’ve learned, you see, that there is no right fence— only the right fence for the job.

Exactly which homestead fencing system will do a good job for you depends on what you are trying to accomplish: keep animals in, keep animals out, or both. It also depends on what kind of animals are involved, how big they are, and how motivated they are to get in or out. Among livestock, dairy cows and beef cattle are the easiest to contain. Horses are only a little less so. Next come pigs, sheep, goats, and game animals, in that order. Poultry, on the other hand, present special challenges because they can be small enough to slip through some fences or light enough to fly over.

Knowing the habits of your animals will help you select the right homesteading fencing system to keep them in: —are they climbers, crawlers, diggers, chewers, or back rubbers? What are their seasonal characteristics —like the ability of baby animals to slip through an otherwise sturdy fence or the propensity of breeding age stock in season to bash a fence down.

More difficult than keeping stock in can be keeping predators out, whether to prevent hungry coyotes from getting at the sheep or deterring groundhogs from nibbling on the ripe tomatoes. Here again, know the habits of these animals. Coyotes, for example, tend to be less adventuresome than dogs about getting through a fence, but once they have a taste of what’s on the other side you’ll have a devil of a time keeping them from coming back.

So determine exactly what the purpose of your fence will be. Know the habits of the animals you wish to keep in and keep out. Select a style of fence that can best withstand the demands of the most determined fence crashers. And make sure your chosen style homestead fencing conforms to local regulations.

2) Failing to Anchor Down Anchor Posts

A fence is only as strong as its posts, making posts the most important part of any fence. They’re also the most expensive part. It makes good sense, therefore, to take time and care in selecting and installing them. Most fences require at least two different kinds of post, according to their role within the fence.

You’ll need stout posts at key spots such as corners, curves, dips, rises, and gates. Posts in these positions are called anchor posts, since they anchor the fence, giving it strength and stability. Anchor posts generally are larger in diameter than line posts and are longer so they can be set deeper into the ground. Most fence failures result from anchor posts that are not set deeply enough into the ground, not properly braced for the style of fence being erected, and not set in concrete. Even when anchor posts are set in concrete, if you don’t wait a couple of days for the concrete to set before attaching the fence, your anchor posts will wobble and eventually fail.

Line posts are the evenly spaced posts between the anchor posts. They need not be as strong as anchor posts since they incur much less stress. Their primary purpose is to position the homestead fencing material. The taller your fence, the longer your line posts should be, not just to accommodate the higher fence but also so you can set them deeper to support the fence’s weight.

The type of fence you choose to install will determine the necessary distance between line posts, which may be as close together as 8′ for a woven wire fence or as far apart as 50′ for high tensile fence installation on level ground. If your soil is sandy or moist, you keep animals in close confinement, or you space your line posts farther apart than usual, you’ll need stouter line posts than otherwise.

Both anchor posts and line posts should be as straight as possible. Besides looking bad, crooked posts place extra strain on homestead fencing material. And run a string to ensure your line posts are set in a straight line between your anchor posts; even a small deviation in the position of your line posts can put a big strain on your fence.

Using trees as fence posts is a bad idea for several reasons. First, trees attract lightning, which can seriously damage your fence. Second, as a tree grows, the homestead fencing material will grow into the trunk, damaging both the fence and the tree. Finally, some future woodsman may not know the tree has been embedded with wire, staples, or nails, with possible dire consequences to life or limb when saw hits metal.

So do the job right. Take extra care with your anchor posts to ensure they are sturdy enough for your chosen fence style, buried deeply enough for your soil type, set in concrete, and well braced. Use line posts that are strong enough, and set close enough together, to adequately support your fence material.

3) Gates In All the Wrong Places

Discovering after your fence is up that your gates are in the wrong places can be annoying at best and downright inconvenient at worst. Moving gate posts can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, so give serious thought beforehand to where you’ll put your gates. Place them in well-drained areas to avoid muddy conditions. Keep them out of the path of erosion, since through traffic will only make matters worse.

Take into consideration your normal patterns of movement and put gates where they’ll be the most convenient. If you are fencing a pasture or large garden, a gate near the corner will encourage vehicle or foot traffic to move along the fence instead of cutting down the middle. If you’re confining livestock, a corner gate lets you drive animals along the fence and out.

A gate that opens onto a roadway should be set far enough back so you can pull your vehicle off the road while you get out to open the gate. A generous setback is especially important on a narrow road with little or no shoulder.

Just as important as proper gate placement is proper size. A gate designed strictly for foot traffic should be wide enough to admit your favorite wheelbarrow, garden cart, or riding lawnmower. In general, four feet is the minimum width for foot traffic.

For larger equipment or livestock, a 10- to 12-foot gate is more appropriate. For vehicles and machinery, 14 feet should be wide enough, although a 16-foot gate may be necessary for major farm machinery, especially if the driver has to turn at the entry.

If you have any doubts about what size gate you need, play it safe and go to the next larger size. The gate’s height should, of course, match your fence.

A gate gets more wear than the rest of the fence, so it should be strong and made of top quality materials. To keep the gate from sagging and being difficult to operate, set and brace your gate posts the same as you would any anchor posts.

4) Fencing Someone Else’s Property

Among the worst homestead fencing horror stories are those involving carefully putting up an expensive fence only to learn it is over the property line and has to be torn down. Sometimes the mistake is discovered right away; other times it isn’t discovered until years later, when one or the other property is surveyed prior to being sold.

So if you put up a boundary fence, make sure you know where your property line is, even if you have to hire a surveyor to find out. Local setback restrictions may dictate how close to your property line you can place your fence. You’ll also want to talk with your highway commissioner and check your deed to make sure you won’t be putting the fence inside a right of way or across an easement.

If you want to put a fence right on your property line, and local regulations allow you to do so, your neighbor may be willing to share in the cost and maintenance. Get an agreement in writing, detailing all the specifics. Where long-term maintenance is involved, record any agreement that allows you to enter the neighbor’s property to repair your fence. You and your neighbor may be best friends now, but tomorrow some old grouch may move in next door.

In the event you can’t get a written agreement, build your fence sufficiently inside your property line that you can mow and otherwise maintain both sides. At the least, allow enough setback so concrete footers and other protruding parts won’t encroach on the neighbor’s land. Some future challenge to the placement of your fence could end up in a costly court battle requiring subsequent moving of the fence.

5) Digging Into Underground Utilities

Before digging your first post hole, make sure your fence won’t interfere with any underground structure, such as a septic tank and its leach lines. If you’re putting up any kind of metal fence beneath overhead power lines, seek safety advice from your local power company. Finally, find out if your planned fence will interfere with any underground utilities.

The depth of utility lines varies, and sometimes multiple utility lines are buried together. Furthermore, each state has different rules and regulations governing digging. To keep from doing damage to utilities, causing service interruptions, experiencing bodily injury, and possibly having to ante up for a fine and repair costs, your best insurance is to dial 811 and tap into the free national call-before-you-dig service. (For online information on this service visit www.call811.com).

Your call will be routed to the appropriate utilities center. Tell the operator where you plan to set your fence posts. Any affected utilities companies will be notified about your intent to dig. In a few days, at no charge to you, a utility locator will come out and mark the locations of your underground lines, pipes, and cables. Now you can start building your fence, having the peace of mind of knowing where you can safely dig.

Originally published in Countryside March / April 2011 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

  5 Homestead Fencing Mistakes to Avoid was originally posted by All About Chickens