#definitely going to benefit from doubling my ram

[dravidious]

Related: Android Studio, the program I have to use for the class, fucking DEVOURS my computer's ram, so much so that it finally pushed me to upgrade my ram. Turns out an 8GB ram stick is only $20, and I just so happened to have a pair of $10 amazon gift cards from my birthday, so looking forward to that arriving.

I just spent the past 2 days struggling with a mobile development project. It's one of the only times in my college career that I've gone over a deadline. And as I open up the class webpage to check the late work policy, I'm greeted with an announcement saying that a lot of people have been struggling with this project and so the deadline has been extended by 4 days. Fucking RELIEF

[lacependragon]

So since I got so much traffic on my last post, I figured I’d update everyone. I’m in the midst of playtesting what is probably one of the largest modpacks I’ve ever messed around with. As you can see, we sit at about 465 mods, with many being content mods. I’ve included a list of all the interesting ones (I think) below.

My computer takes a little over 8gigs of RAM to run it smoothly, I give it a little more for safety, and it holds between 40-60 FPS. Dips into the 30s when genning new entities or terrain.

I’ve got magic mods, tech mods, world gen mods, biome mods, mob mods, storage mods, decoration mods, and so much more. I’ve been slowly piecing together the configs, the ore gen, and the recipe alterations. It’s definitely not perfect, but I’m having a lot of fun. I’ve played for a couple hours on survival and I found some stuff I still want to tweak, so that’s what I’m up to at the moment.

Takes about 7 minutes from launch to main menu, and about the same to load into a save. About twice that to generate a new world. But I can still watch videos and scroll Tumblr on the same computer, so I don’t really care.

For what it’s worth: no, my computer doesn’t get hot, yes it runs well, yes the fan does turn on but it’s not at full speed, and my computer is a laptop on a lap desk.

Oh, and I’ve called this modpack: Attempting to Escape the Planet of Dragons with Rockets.

By all means, feel free to reblog and ask questions/be surprised/leave tags. I really loved it last time.

Interesting Mods:

Lag Meter Dragon Mounts Legacy Abnormal's Delight Absent by Design Advanced Chimneys Addendum Additional Enchanted Miner Advanced Rocketry AI Improvements AIOT Botania Akashic Tome Alex's Mobs All the Modium Angel Ring Apotheosis Appleskin Aquaculture Archer's Paradox Architect's Palette Architectury Ars Nouveau Artifacts Astral Sorcery Atmospheric Attribute Fix Baubley Heart Canisters Bed Benefits Bedspreads Better Badlands Better Advancements Better Biome Blend Better Burning Better Dungeons Better End Forge Betterlands Better Mineshafts Better Spawner Control Better Strongholds Better Than Mending Better Tride Return Bigger Reactors Biome ID Fixer Biomes O Plenty Block Carpentry Blood Magic Botania Botany Pots Botany Trees Bountiful Baubles Bow Infinity Fix Builder's Addition Building Gadgets Buzzier Bees Oh the Biomes You Will Go Cable Tiers Caged Mobs Carry On Spice of Life: Carrot Edition Catalogue Cat Jammies Cavalry Caves and Cliffs Backport Charging Gadgets Charm Charms Cherished Worlds Chicken Chunks Chickens Shed Chipped Clay Conversion Clumps Cobble for Days Colds Enchants Colored Bricks Colytra Comforts Common Capabilities Compacter Connected Glass Construction Wand Cooking for Blockheads Copper Pot Corail Recycler Corail Woodcutter Corail Woodcutter BYG Extension Craftable Horse Armour Create Create Stuff Additions Create Addition Crock Pot Cable Tiers Culinary Construct Curio of Undying Curios Curios Quark OBP Curios Armor Stands Curios Elytra Curios Shulker Boxes Customizable Elytra Cycle Paintings Cyclic Dank Storage Darker Depths Dark Utilities Data Fixer Slayer Decorative Blocks DeLogger Demagnetize Diet Differentiate Ding Doggy Talents Double Slabs Draconic Evolution Dragon Seeker Drawer FPS Dungeon Crawl Dungeons Gear Dungeons Mobs Dungeons Plus Earth Mobs Mod Easy Hammers Easy Paxel Eidolon Elevators Emendatus Enigmatica Enchantment Descriptions Enchant With Mob The Endergetic Expansion Enderite Ender Storage Engimatic Graves Ensorcellation Entangled Entity Culling Environmental Materials Environmental Tech Expandability Extended Caves Extended Bonemeal Extra Golems Extra Storage Extreme Reactors Extreme Sound Muffler Fairy Lights Farmers Extra Foods Farmers Delight Farmers Delight Integrations Farming for Blockheads Fast Bench minus Replacement Faster Ladder Climbing Fast Furnace minus Replacement Fast Leaf Decay Fast Suite Farmers Delight Cookbook Find Me Flamboyant Flicker Fix Flux Networks Flywheel Forbidden Arcanus Endertech FPS Reducer Framed Blocks Friendly Fire FTB Backups, Chunks, Essentials, Ultimine Garden Arsenal Glassential Guard Villagers Healing Campfire Help Wanted Ice & Fire I Like Wood I Like Wood BYG Illagers Plus Illagers Wear Armor Immersive Cooking Immersive Engineering Industrial Foregoing Inspirations Inventory Essentials Inventory Tweaks Iron Chest Iron Furnaces Iron Jetpacks Item Collectors Item Zoom JEI + addons Krate KubeJS & addons Lantern Colors Lenient Creepers Light Overlay Lighting Wang Log Protection Lootr Mana and Artifice Masonry Macaw Bridges, Doors, Fences, Furniture, Lights, Paintings, Roos, Trapdoors, & Windows Mekanism Metal Barrels Mini Coal Mining Gadgets Mob Grinding Utilities Mod Name Tooltop Mooshroom Tweaks More Crafting Tables More Dragon Eggs More Villagers Morph o Tool Mouse Tweaks Mystical Agriculture & Aggradditions Nature's Aura Nature's Compass Neapolitan Nether Portal Fix No Fog NoMoWanderer No Potion Shift No Villager Death Messages Nyfs Quiver Occultism Ocean Floor Oh My Gourd Omni Organics Out of Sight Outer End Overloaded Overloaded Armor Bar Pam's Harvestcraft 2 Paraglider Peaceful Recipes Peaceful Surface Pipez PizzaCraft PneumaticCraft Repressurized Pocket STorage Potion Bundles Potion Descriptions Powah Pretty Pippes Project E Project Red Quantum Storage Quark Quark Oddities Quark O Plenty Quartz Chests Random Patches Ranged Pumps Ratlantis Rats Refined Pipes Refined Storage + addons Relics Reliquary Repurposed Structures Resourceful Bees RF Tools suite Gauges & Switches Sapience Savage and Ravage Save My Stronghold Scaffolding Drops Nearby Scuba Gear Serene Seasons Shulker Drops Two Shulkered Shulkersception Shut Up Experimental Settings Silent Gear Silent Gems Simple Magnets Simple Generators Simple Sponge Simple World Timer Simply Backpacks Simply Jetpacks Simply Light Skinned Lanterns Small Ships Smooth Boot Snad Sodium Solar Flux Reborn Sophisticated Backpacks Spark Spartan Shields Spartan Weaponry Spawn Egg Recipes Spawner Fix Starlight StartupQoL Storage Drawers Structures Compass Structuerize Supplementaries Sushi Go Crafting Swing Through Grass Tank Null Tinkers Planner Terraforged Tesseract The Undergarden The Abyss Chapter 2 Thermal Suite Time in a bottle Toast Control ToolBelt The One Probe + addons Torchmaster Towers of the Wild Trample Stopper Translocators Trash Cans Trash Slot Travel Amchors Traverse Treemendous Twiglight Forest Unnamed Animal Mod Upgrade Aquatic Upgraded Netherite Useful Railroads Valhelsia Structures Vanilla Food Pantry Vanilla Tweaks Mr. Crayfish Vehicle Mod Mry Crayfish Furniture Mod + More Furniture Villager Names Void Totem Waystones Well Behaved Mobs Wireless Chargers Wither Skeleton Tweaks Wool Tweaks woot Wormhole Wyrmroost XNet + Gases Yungs Extras

[goddess-pan]

Tailor!Reader in Dream SMP

Dsmp x reader prompt; Tailor!Reader in Dream SMP. Credit would be appreciated so more people can find this and make their own things based on it.

Can fully be read as platonic. GN!reader with they/them pronounce as a placeholder so anyone can adapt it however they want. Both general and character specific parts included.

Characters who have a lot written for/about; Eret, Ranboo, Foolish, Tommy, Technoblade, Philza and Michael. Mentioned; Tubbo, Sam Nook, Purpled and Foolish Jr.

This ended up being super long so I’m putting it under the cut in order not to clutter people’s pages. My personal favourite part is Phil’s and Techno’s part. These could be read as headcanons but are still available as a prompt(s) to use for anyone.

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

The reader joining after the doomsday as a time frame in my mind.

The reader helping people patch up their current clothes since most of it got pretty banged up during the doomsday, and it's not like they can just go get a new outfit since quite a few people had just lost all their belongings and only had the clothes on their back. So at first prioritizing helping patch up the current clothing people were wearing and then moving on to making some simple fast to make and easy on the resources clothes for people. Just like basic shirts and shorts/pants, nothing fancy. Then when everyone has at least a couple of different clothes to change to and from starting their own business to sell people more if they wanted. However waving payment if they brought them the materials and what they wanted wasn't overly complicated.

People at first thinking they are just some chump who knows basic sewing or something. A very kind chump, but still a chump. So imagine their surprise when one day they are just walking by the reader's now established tailors and they see these absolutely stunning designs displayed at the windows. 

Just like their reactions seeing these beautiful designs they can't help but stare at. I'd imagine some of them just doing a double take when they walk by, someone pressing their face up to the glass trying to see it closer, the braver ones going inside and talking to the reader about their designs and the more anxious and/or shy ones only going inside when the reader isn't there to look at designs closer. 

And the reasons they like/are amazed by the designs vary also ! Some just have monkey brain that goes "Pretty. WANT", some who just love the colour and art of the pieces, some who imagine how epic this design or others would look on them, some who love the fashion aspect of it and of course the very small portion who actually know anything about tailoring/sewing and the amount of work that goes into making something intricate.

Some specific character/group interactions I thought of;

Making warm well insulated clothes for people moving to Snowchester so they don't freeze. +A warm cape for Ranboo for the same reason.

Eret being one of the firsts (if not the first) to get himself a fully tailored and customized outfit. Them also being the first and very possibly only person to get a dress or a skirt since most of the other people on the server prefer to wear pants (excluding maid dresses which people might get as joke). The reader crying in joy for getting to design something different for once. And hey if the reader ends up making a few extra ones that she didn't order, but decided to give her anyway it was all just some extra ones they had lying around, never mind the fact that the dresses/skirts are perfectly tailored for Eret and are her style. Just a coincidence, nothing suspicious there. Eret also models for the reader and once he even convinced them to hold a fashion show to showcase some of their work to the whole server. Of course he was the main model presenting the outfits.

At start of the reader beginning to display their designs at their shop Ranboo sees a really cool looking suit on display and his brain just goes "Want." He probably wouldn't be able to buy anything pre-made and be comfortable in it due to his physique. And him having just moved into the arctic and only starting to get settled in, he doesn't have comfortable enough funds for him to get something as expensive as a custom tailored suit AND have enough for any possible rent that he might be required to pay. 

Eventually when he gets richer he starts considering getting one but the anxious side of him always ends up winning and he doesn't. However once he finally gets the courage to go commission the suit for himself he doesn't regret it at all. The reader did their best to not overwhelm him and to make it the best possible experience. Just imagining the absolute joy he would feel for having a properly fitting suit that's made just for him, not too short sleeves nor too wide torso and shoulders, just perfect. If he ends up ordering a couple more suits that's between him and the reader. He actually ends up probably being their most frequent and reliable customer.

And we should all know why that is, but let me clarify just in case; Michael.

The reader basically becoming Michael's personal stylist (/hj) . Not only does Ranboo buy a god awful amount of clothes for Michael, the reader also makes some free ones for him. The free ones are things the reader felt like designing since they absolutely adore Michael and the ones Ranboo pays for are commissioned by him. Michael absolutely has the biggest wardrobe in the whole server. The reader learning how to make plushies so Michael could have some more toys, this learning experience including learning to crochet and knit to see what he like best.

Using their newly acquired plush making skills, the reader starts their quest to make some plushies for others after seeing people stare at the plushies wistfully either while they were working on them or seeing Michael with the plushies. People who got them include the minors, their close friends and basically anyone they thought might benefit from them. Some of the ones they made (that I could think of);

Of course a bee for Tubbo, but also throwing in a little ram one as well

Ranboo gets a grass block plush/pillow

Tommy gets a cobblestone block plush and a cow plush. He also later receives a Sam Nook plush while he's working on the hotel

Purpled getting two different sized ufos, one to hold and the other more of a big pillow

Eret definitely gets a flamingo plush

Foolish gets a totem and a gold block plushies

Phil gets crow plush as well these tiny fake coin and gem plushies (the latter causes problems for him which I'll expand upon later)

Techno gets a pig one as well as polar bear one

Back to the individual/group part

The reader just chilling w/ Foolish as a fellow artists. Them talking about both their arts and catching up every time the reader comes to deliver something to Snowchester when Foolish is building the mansion. Just two pretty peaceful artists talking about their passions. I’d imagine Foolish and the reader could relate to each other and their place in the server due to their similar hobbies/jobs as well as their similar time of joining the server. Foolish's first commission from them being an intricate blanket for Foolish Jr so he could have a more comfortable resting place. He may or may not end up receiving that and several other (though less intricate) blankets as well as a tiny shark plush to give to Foolish Jr. Later on when the reader gets better at either knitting or crocheting they end up making a tiny shark jumper with a hood for Foolish Jr as well. Foolish would definitely cry when he sees his tiny shark baby. Any commissions of clothes for himself tend to always take some time due to sheer amount of work needing to be done due to his size so he always makes sure the reader doesn’t already have a lot on their plate and that they know he’s fine with waiting if they need to take a break from it.

Then there's Tommy, who they sometimes teach more about sewing since he already knows some basics. Him probably being the first person aside from Michael they make a plush for, due to him demanding one once he saw the reader making them. Then proceeding to get three plushies in rapid succession. The first being the cobblestone, the second being the cow and the third one being the Sam Nook one. He ends up losing one of them during the prison fiasco and when the reader asks if he'd like a new one they only get the answer of "Don't want to think about what happened and the same one might make me do that". He then promptly receives new clothing (so he isn't wearing the same ones he was wearing in prison) and some extra blankets (for comfort) from the reader. 

After Tommy meeting Michael does he use him to scam the reader to make them matching outfits for free? Yes, yes he does. Does it work? Yes, yes it does. Are they bothered by it? Not really, they look adorable in their matching outfits.

The reader being the source for Sam Nook's construction gear/clothes or at least the original patterns for them.

And then there's the arctic boys (minus Ranboo, who will still get mentioned) who are an interesting bunch clothing wise. The first one to commission the reader out of them would be Phil who got the original warm cape for Ranboo but also at the same time commissioned one for himself that would include slits for his wings. Eventually getting to design clothing for him which is always an exciting challenge with his wings. And when Phil finally manages to convince Techno to get something made for himself as well, Techno almost immediately gets addicted to having high quality clothing when they finish their first piece for him. The fun the reader has designing clothes for these boys is immeasurable with their different styles and needs in the clothing. Aside from clothing Techno also commissions them for a pet bed for Steve. 

When the boys got their plushies it was adorable but also a very chaotic. Techno giving his pig one to Steve so he wouldn't miss him when he was away from home, but also bringing the polar bear one with him when he couldn't or wasn't allowed to bring Steve with him but still needed comfort. While on Phil's side of things; he was showing his crows the crow plushie joking about he'll replace them if they aren't careful however he made the mistake of showing them the tiny coin and gem plushies as well. I want you to imagine hundreds of crows descending upon this poor fool of a man in the background while the reader is walking away hoping they like their plushies. 

The war that ensued the couple following days amongst the crows starts to cool down but the bickering doesn't, every waking moment Phil can feel eyes on him and one or more of the crows coming to complain about the others having had the shiny plushies for too long. He quickly caves under the pressure and commissions more of the tiny shiny treasure plushies. And by more I mean a lot more. 

When he finally has enough of the things he goes around distributing them to the crows. Finally a moment of peace, but he still feels like something is staring at him occasionally. Deciding to ignore it since it's finally quiet he goes to makes himself a cup of tea and while waiting for the water to boil he fishes out the few shiny plushies he had saved for himself. The second he does he feels eyes burning into him and now that it's quiet he hears it, quiet muffled snuffles and snorts of discontent. Then he sees what ‘it’ is, it's Techno behind the window looking at the shinies in his hand with such intensity Phil fears for his life (/hj). Phil just sighs deeply before walking over to the window and opening it. For a second Techno looks like a deer in headlights before returning to intensely staring at the shinies in Phil's hand before Phil just dumps the shiny plushies into Techno's hand and closes the window. Happy piglin noises can be heard outside while Phil debates the pros (getting to have shinies himself) and cons (the embarrassment of having to commission even more of the shiny plushies than he already has) of getting new ones from the reader. And in all this the reader has no idea the amount of chaos they inadvertently caused.

And finally; Techno commissioning robes/cloaks for whole the Syndicate to wear in their meetings, because he’s dramatic like that. But since he’s a thoughtful guy, he wants them all to fit the members well and not be uncomfortable to wear so he gets everyone’s measurements. Once he has them all he goes to the reader with the order for the robes, he has all the measurements written down under just Person 1, Person 2 etc. to keep their anonymity and when asked what the robes are for he just tells the reader it’s a book club. When he gets them all and the reader asks no further questions he thinks he’s gotten away with getting some cool robes for the Syndicate with their secrets safe. Little does he know the reader actually now knows all the members in the Syndicate since they can just reference the gotten measurements with everyone’s measurements written down from previous work done by them. Whether the reader thinks it’s some weird cult they all are a part of or just an actual book club people are too embarrassed to admit they are in, is up to interpretation. 

[rueluxprince]

Why Does Jin Guangyao Have So Many Goddamn Ships

This dude. I don’t know what is with him. He can be shipped with so many goddamn people, and you can find something in canon (show/novel/audio drama) to justify it. You like a specific trope? He’ll have a ship that gives it to you. (Lets extrapolate some from canon)

Qin Su/Jin Guangyao: Naive yet headstrong heiress trying to fight on the battlefield and contribute to the greater good. Bit off more than she could chew and was rescued by a gentle and quietly self-assured young man. Romance and comedy ensues as she vows to make him her husband! Flowers! Hijinks! Enlisting quirky handmaidens for advice! Jin Guangshan doesn’t exist in this one!

Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao: hero saves the beauty, gay edition. Young bookkeeper wants to be worthy of noble young master’s esteem, works his ass off, puts himself in years of danger, finally climbs to the top and now must deal with the “is he or is he not” of romance in politics! Is he or is he not? He’s always at your house and gives you a free pass to his house and draws you exclusive paintings and only attends conferences hosted by you and trusts you completely! But he never says anything! Cue the yearning! The soft touches! Reminders of etiquette! Swooning into strong arms!

Jiang Cheng/Jin Guangyao: reluctant and accidental co-parents reluctantly and accidentally fall in love in the long years of raising a precocious nephew into adulthood. The kid turned out surprisingly okay, with a commendably hard moral backbone. One realizes it’s nice to have a perpetually angry grape ready to blow up in your defense. The other realizes someone closest to him is already fulfilling all his marriage requirements and he didn’t even know it! Domestic bliss! Cute kids! Internal struggles of sexuality! The italicized oh!

Nie Mingjue/Jin Guangyao: Noble and righteous leader recognizing and promoting downtrodden but talented beginner –> no good opinion forthcoming but still wants to care his own way older brother x turning down a dark path but still wants to go back the way things were younger brother –> So much resentment fierce corpse x unable to forget the guilt murderer –> they are buried together. Deteriorating relationship! Shakespearean tragedy! Ultimate darkness! Death! Eternity with each other!

(Honorable mention: 3zun - a wholesome ouroboros loop of death, mystery and found family)

Nie Huaisang/Jin Guangyao: you ever have that one childhood friend that takes care of you and indulges in your oddities and protects you with murderous looks and a scarred back even though he’s frailer than you are; and then that childhood friend murders your older brother but leaves you alive and still takes cares of you and spoils you and would drop everything to help you with a made up problem? And so you’re now left seething in rage because how dare he ruin you and love you all without pause?! Cue the revenge plots! Lies! Deceit! Best actor winners going toe to toe on the world’s biggest stage! Inner conflict! Angst! More conflicted plotting!

Mo Xuanyu->Jin Guangyao: You’re weak and a mess and constantly bullied and the only one in this huge and scary house that ever showed you kindness is your older half brother. He becomes a god in your eyes, all golden and brilliant and surrounded by equally golden and beautiful people you can never touch. But you still try despite everything because he’s the sun and he wanted you to thrive, and you’re just a little moth ramming head first into the flames. And when you’re scorched to the bone and everyone still keeps on trying to stomp you into ash and you finally decide to take revenge, you still can’t bring yourself to blame that splendid sun who were never yours in the first place. Resentments! Unrequited love! More angst! Inner courtyard intrigues! More tragedy! Poetic inner monologues!

Su She->Jin Guangyao: generous and focused ruler x dedicated and competent supporter. He gives you all the respect you need and you know in your soul you will die for him and you don’t care one whit about it. You protect his heart but you always stood one step behind. The position beside him is taken, often by a soft figure in golden silk, or an eminent figure in blue satin. Jealousy! Loud expressions of loyalty! Ego management! Pining and simping!

Xue Yang/Jin Guangyao - friends who murder together stays together. One causes wanton destruction and the other picks up after them. Not because he particularly cares that people are getting hurt but the cost analysis tells him it’s not worth the clean up. You pay for my shopping, I rip out the tongues of anyone that insults your mother. Lighthearted talks of murder! Scheming with friends! Lots of cursing! Dubious experiments! Lots of magical cursing! Friends with benefits!

Wen Ruohan/Meng Yao: local megalomanic tyrant sees this random ass kid all bloodied up and gleaming with spite and went “I would like to raise that one. I’ll give it a sword and I’ll teach him stuff and I won��t say I appreciate him but I will definitely save him from imminent danger.” And that kid acknowledges said tyrant as his teacher and tortures for him pretends to love him, all the while stealing his secrets and preparing to stab him in the back to win the war. Struggle! Trauma! Living in hardship! Double agent reminding themselves not to be conflicted! Psychological torture!

Wen Chao + Wen Xu: uhhhhhh, the canoodling with stepmom trope? Do we even go that far on tumblr? It’s a possibility I’ve considered for about two seconds and now I wish I could wash my brain out.

Jin Zixun~~Jin Guangyao: the “I know I’m slapping the me two years ago in the face with what I’m doing right now but it’s love so I don’t care” trope? All the Jins do this. The year before you were all “why are you always here you don’t belong here you bastard son” and now you’re all “wheres A-Yao he promised he would ambush this public menace with me owo?!??!!??” What a weakass motherfucker with weakass principles.

Honorable mentions:

Wei Wuxian + Jin Guangyao: best in law dynamics, potentially. Terrorizing the Cloud Recesses, eating lots of spicy food, hiding secrets in perfectly groomed hair, causing aneurysms in Lan Qiren, violating all the OH&S regulations Etc.

Lan Wangji + Jin Guangyao: best in law dynamics, actually. It’s a whole battle. Jin “I am physically incapable of seeing someone and not wanting to take care of it” Guang “yes I will be calling you Wangji and trying to give you stuff and show audible concern for your love life” Yao vs. Lan “I do not wish to know you I do not care for your seating arrangements do not ever invite me to your banquets again” Wang “just because you’re maybe dating my precious older brother does not mean I will not refute you to your face about my boyfriend at your banquet in front of said brother” Ji.

(And yes the last two are purely familial/platonic. And also everyone else? You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift is the most fitting theme song for half of them)

~more MDZS metas under #my thing# tag~

[marymccartneyphotos]

Paul Weller in conversation with Mary McCartney: ‘We used to pinch a lot of Beatles songs’

For this Woking-born son of the 1970s, there were four father figures who underpinned everything, from his first guitar to an inspirational career that continues to expand and explore more than 50 years later. On the release of his latest solo record, his third in three years, we asked Paul Weller to pick through the past with an artist who knows better than any how The Beatles shaped the generation that followed. By Dylan Jones; 4 June 2021 from British GQ Magazine

(edited for Mary McCartney content only)

For Weller’s latest GQ appearance, we thought it would be good to put him together with an old friend, the photographer Mary McCartney. Which is what we did...

Mary McCartney: So, Paul, when did you become a Beatles fan? When you were 12?

Paul Weller: When I was five years old. I had some of the singles, because my mother bought them, but the first time I saw them was the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, when I was five. From the time I saw The Beatles I loved music and then when I was around age 12 I started trying to learn to play guitar. Me and my mate had a few lessons for a bit and got a few weeks in, but the guy was trying to teach us how to read music, so we got bored with that. And as soon as we learnt enough chords we stopped the lessons and we just start doing it ourselves.

MM: When did you actually start writing songs?

PW: As soon as we – me and my mate Steve Brookes – learnt the three or four chords. I’m still mates with him now. We started a band and we just learned together and we just kept swapping whatever we’d learned in the week, swapping back and forth. It was just me and him and then we just gathered up people as we could find them. There was never any doubt in my mind that’s what I would do and, even at around 12, I thought that was definitely what I was going to do for a living. Well, I didn’t know it could be a career, I just knew I was going to do music. So by the age of 14 we were playing pubs, working men’s clubs and social clubs with The Jam. But your dad’s band was the catalyst for all of it.

MM: You know, I’m directing a documentary about the history of Abbey Road Studios at the moment, so I’ve been taken back to those times. There is a photograph of me aged three months on one of the sofas in the studio, so I was there before I can remember being there. Whenever I walk in through the doors I still get a funny feeling. But I’m learning a lot about The Beatles’ recording process, though. What was your writing process in the early days?

PW: When we started to write songs we just used to pinch a lot of The Beatles songs. They were very basic, just us taking our first steps as songwriters. I was actually very passionate at the time, but I didn’t have the skills to articulate that passion. That kind of developed. Our first songs would have been nonsense songs, just “My Baby Love Me” stuff... But, like every other fledgling songwriter, I just started off by aping other people, like The Beatles did, like Dylan did. Everyone starts out copying other people.

MM: I assume you recorded your new album during lockdown?

PW: I did. I had about four or five tracks left over from [last year’s] On Sunset and they were just lying around, unused. So I started working away, chipping away, trying to put together a new batch of songs. As ever, I recorded them all in the studio down in Surrey, just me and a guitar singing along to a click track. If I couldn’t record with the band, I’d send the recordings to them and they’d play their parts and then send them back. It was a very odd process, but it worked. However, when we could finally all record again together, it was like the first day of school after the summer holidays. It was great. The writing process was actually the same as it always is, but because I knew I didn’t have any live work for the foreseeable future, we just created all this space. I think the lockdown was actually hugely influential in a way, as all the quiet made me appreciate nature in a way I hadn’t done for quite some time, maybe ever. I could really feel and hear and see nature again, it started to take over. I loved hearing the birds sing and not seeing any aeroplanes in the sky. It helped me think about things I would never normally think about in any situation. I felt more in tune with nature. I had a thought that if we weren’t here, if we all disappeared, which I’m sure we will do one day, the earth would just reclaim itself and that it will always be here and we won’t.

MM: It was such a nice feeling, actually stopping and looking and appreciating, not rushing around. I was lying in bed one night in the middle of London. It was 2am and it was so quiet it felt like we had gone back 100, 200 years. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the underground and it was almost as though cars hadn’t been invented.

PW: How was your lockdown, Mary?

MM: Mine was good, but we’re not here to talk about me. I’m grilling you today. But mine was good. Well, I say it was good, but it was unnerving. I think, on a global scale, it was just unnerving because it was like living in a science fiction movie. I think the main thing a lot of us benefitted from was having to slow down and not being able to just go and do things. So, in that sense, it wasn’t a bad thing. I was obviously worried about people’s health and the economy, but, like you, I really got in touch with nature. I did a lot more photographic work outside. And, of course, I started to prep for the Abbey Road doc. What’s the perfect recording scenario for you?

PW: Well, I love my studio and, to be honest, I’d be quite happy to never come out of the place. I could quite happily stay there forever. I bought the building in 1999, but it’s only really been the past 15 years or so that we’ve really got it together, with the sound and the vibe and the equipment. I’m continually making little acoustic adjustments to the room. We’ve got a drum kit set up all the time, as well as a mic’d piano, so it’s always ready to roll. I can play guitar, obviously, as well as bass and piano, but I’ve never really enjoyed playing the drums, because I can’t sing and drum with any conviction. It’s a different art altogether, playing drums. I like drummers who play the song, who can play the tune and who aren’t trying to do their own thing. That requires a certain amount of discipline, a different discipline: not playing too much but playing the right thing. Your dad is a good drummer.

MM: Yeah, he is. Mum introduced me to a song he played drums on years ago, called “My Dark Hour”, by the Steve Miller Band. He’s credited as “Paul Ramon” and he does backing vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It was recorded in Olympic Studios in London towards the end of 1969, after an argument Dad had had with the others over Allen Klein becoming their manager. The others had gone off and he said Steve Miller walked in and asked if he wanted to play the drums on this track he was recording. I think the drumming on it is so good, but you can tell he’s letting out a lot of tension.

PW: I love that first solo album of your dad’s, the one with you as a baby on the back. That’s probably one of my favourite records. It was lo-fi before lo-fi was even talked about.

MM: I love the rawness of it, as it’s just so personal. I still listen to McCartney and Ram a lot. They shot the album cover up in Scotland. They were horse riding and he zipped me up in his jacket. He put me in the jacket so I was safe, as he was going riding. I love that picture from a photographic point of view as well, as it’s very real. It’s taken at the end of the day, during the golden hour. It’s so natural.

PW: Now, what was it like growing up, then, as a daughter of a Beatle?

MM: Well, it was more like growing up as a daughter of Paul and Linda, because they were such a great couple. But,

also, they were such adventurous people. So, we were kind of following them around and going on lots of adventures. We went on tour with them and we really only stopped when we needed to go to school. So I have lots of memories of travelling as a girl. I even remember going on the double-decker that they used as a tour bus in 1972. The seats on the upper deck were replaced by mattresses and bean bags.

PW: I assume it was your mother’s inspiration that made you want to be a photographer...

MM: I think so, as I think I just always saw her taking pictures. She had such a casual style too. She didn’t do a lot of setting up and neither do I. It’s just so much nicer when you connect with your sitter and when you just casually take pictures. I much prefer that and I certainly know that you don’t like to have your picture taken in a very set-up kind of situation. What really got me into becoming a photographer was looking at Mum’s pictures from the 1960s. They were about her being with someone and taking pictures and very much not “This is Jimi Hendrix”. Again, casual. When I became a photographer, I took Mum’s talent for granted. She would take pictures out the car window and then they became these books or a print on the wall. When I started doing it myself I’d put the camera up and I’d be like, “Dad, can you turn the car around so I can take this picture?” And he’d be like, “No.” She would take pictures so effortlessly and I didn’t realise there was a knack to it. Mum and Dad would treat everyone equally; I do remember that. We were always surrounded by people, so I suppose that’s why I think I am a bit of a people person. I like meeting people and I like connecting with people, but I still find I’m quite shy about it. I find it stressful, but I like it. But I could never in a million years get up on a stage, ever. Even thinking about it makes me feel like fainting. When did you first walk out in front of a big crowd? How does that feel? Is it just feeling that adulation and love and appreciation and then giving that back? Does that feel really healthy? I always think when it works perfectly, it just must be such a healthy feeling.

PW: It’s almost a weird thing, because just prior to going on stage, especially in the hour before, I’m in bits. I’m so nervous and so don’t want to be there and want to go home, and then within minutes of actually being on stage, as soon as that first tune strikes up, I automatically feel as though this is completely where I’m supposed to be. It feels like the most natural, most comfortable, Zen-like place you could possibly be, it’s so weird. I’ve always felt nervous before going on stage. That’s never changed. I mean, it’s got a little bit better as I’ve got older, but not much. I think I need to have that feeling. It was weird, because there was a time when I tried to stop drinking – before I stopped completely – and when I stopped I suddenly wasn’t nervous before going on stage. And I didn’t like it. It felt really odd.

MM: Isn’t there something superstitious about this?

PW: No, I don’t think so. I just think it gives you an edge. Those nerves can make you edgy and I think that’s important for me.

MM: And then did the nerves come back?

PW: When I started drinking again they did.

MM: But now you’re not?

PW: When I finally stopped drinking it took me at least two years to get used to that feeling of going on stage totally sober and straight. And now I love it. But it took a good two years to get comfortable, as it was really odd at first. I’d be on stage and I’d notice so much, like there’s a guy in the front row who’s wearing a green shirt or something, and now I don’t feel that at all. Now it feels natural and I have a greater appreciation of it. That’s the other thing as well, getting more from it and being more conscious of what we’re doing.

MM: Growing up, watching Mum and Dad on stage just felt natural. But I’ve seen you play a few times and it makes me realise how much I couldn’t do it myself. There is such great energy and it’s really entertaining and you look completely natural, but I wouldn’t be able to feel comfortable in that position. Also, to me, it feels like your music has to be played live. I went to a concert before lockdown and the person was so vacant and not connected to the audience and, because of that, it made me nervous. You could tell they were going through the motions, that it was an act. They had no connection at all. Whereas when I look at Dad on stage he’s all about connection. I think I had taken it for granted before that, but when you see someone who doesn’t connect, you realise how important it is.

PW: I know some people who turn up just before they go on stage and as soon as they finish they get in the car and they’re off. I don’t understand that either. It’s a far bigger thing than that for me, because I’m looking for that connection. As much as the audience might be, I am as well, and my band too, because I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes and there are some nights where you get so connected together by an audience that this thing just grows and grows. It transcends the moment.

MM: It’s like magic.

PW: It’s something special. The last time I played at the Fillmore in San Francisco, a couple of years ago, it was like that, and it wasn’t because of gear. It was almost like we took off, like the whole room just lifted up.

MM: Have you got a ritual for after the show?

PW: No, not really. No.

MM: My dad has this sandwich and a Margarita, because he doesn’t eat before he goes on. He waits until after.

PW: I have a cup of tea these days. In the past, I would have got off my nut, but I don’t any more. But if you have a gig like that and that becomes your benchmark, you’re always looking to get back to that moment, which is not always possible. But that becomes the thing you’re always searching for, to find that connection. We’re always striving for the spectacular. It’s the same with record companies. Sometimes you have to compromise, but what you really want to do is pursue your own passions. It was more difficult when we first started, because the record company tried to step in more and tried to guide us to do this or that. In the early days of The Jam they even suggested we cover a 10cc song. We said, “No fucking way is that going to happen.” You’ve got to stick to your guns. You’ve got to pursue what you set out to achieve.

MM: Fashion and clothes feel important to what you do, maybe because they make you feel a certain way to be able to perform?

PW: Yeah. But although I was too young to be really involved in the 1960s, I still lived through that time and that whole thing has never gone away for me. I love that period and it informs a lot of what I do, including how I dress. The whole look and sound of that time is just really formative. I don’t feel I’m stuck in that time, but it will always be the cornerstone of everything I do. I just thought it was such a brilliant time for music and fashion and art and all that stuff.

MM: What do you think it is about it? Is it experimentation?

PW: I think so. It was those postwar years, coming out of all that austerity, that bleak black and white, grey world – large parts of the country were still like that in the early 1960s. There were still bombsites. There was still slum housing. So it took a long time for Britain to become modern, but when it did, it was explosive.

MM: Dad describes it as it all suddenly going technicolour.

PW: Yeah, I think that’s true and you just see the clothes and music expanding. Men stopped wearing demob suits and started wearing all these bright-coloured clothes.

MM: And the pill came about and made life a lot easier.

PW: Then the other pills came a little bit later and helped expand everyone’s horizons. These people were pioneers. And also look at the art world – Peter Blake, David Hockney, Bridget Riley. It felt as though everything was becoming more modern and opening up and becoming different and colourful. I was only a very tender age, but, nevertheless, that influence was of great importance and value and always has been. Punk was probably the first time I experienced that freedom. We missed out on the 1960s, had a lift with Bowie, but after that it was largely a cultural wasteland. I was always looking for when I thought it was going to be our term. The 1970s were still very much in the shadow of the 1960s until punk. And then it all blossomed. Then it all started to make sense.

Fat Pop (Volume 1) by Paul Weller is out now.

Producer: Grace Guppy. First assistant: Pedro Faria. Digital technician: Alexander Brunacci. Make-up: Jane Bradley. Retouching: The Hand Of God

[cakejots]

Unstained, Chapter 1

After certain events that happened in the day, Chat Noir revealed to Ladybug that he knows who she is under the mask. Her reactions astounded him. After certain events that happened in the night, Ladybug unveiled to Chat Noir why she can’t do what he asked of her. His reactions astonished her.

Rating: T, Words: 6938. Chapters: 4/4

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4

Read on AO3

Exiting from the bakery with a sigh, Marinette was glad that she had at least 15 mins to spare and relax before returning to class. The bakery had a massive order to attend to and Marinette wanted to ease the burden on her parents. She just hoped that the pastries she had for lunch were enough to last.

*SLAM*

Marinette jumped and looked up to find the source of that sound a few metres ahead of her. Adrien had just stormed out of his car and up the stairs into the school court. She regarded his back and did not bother to look at the car leaving the school grounds. Something seemed off.

Not long after the car left, Adrien’s head peeked from the entrance door, and he darted out of school.

Something is clearly wrong.

“You are a failure as an Agreste.”

These words were still fresh within Adrien’s mind. His day was already as agonising as it is, given that it is his final year in lycée, he had a ton of workload to deal with on top of his private lessons and whatnot he had agreed to as conditions set by his father.

That was fine. Those were fine.

After all, he would do anything to avoid getting locked up in that mansion again.

Yet, during his lunch ‘talk’ with his father, he had to go the extra mile to make Adrien feel like shit.

“Think pragmatically, that degree you have chosen is useless and brings no benefits to the family business.”

How dare he deemed the degree Adrien had in mind useless. How dare he assume that Adrien would even want to continue working under him. How dare he imply that he is not capable of making his own decisions.

His father did not even address his name throughout the whole ‘discussion’.

“Your mother would have hated how you turned out to be.”

He stopped running. No! His mother would have supported his decisions. His mother would have— his mother would have…

What would his mother have done?

Had he really left his memories of her behind to the point where he can’t remember much anymore? Had he really moved that much forward that his mother meant nothing anymore?

That admission had Adrien taking a step back and tears welling up in his eyes.

Would his mother have really hated him?

His surroundings were silent, so silent that he could footsteps running towards him.

“Adrien!”

He turned his head to see Marinette running towards him. But before he could wipe his tears away from his face, he heard a voice speaking in his mind.

.

As soon as she saw the cursed butterfly fluttering towards Adrien, Marinette bolted towards him and shouted his name.

But it was too late. A purple mask was already visible on his face. Marinette ran harder and made sure to ram into him to sway his focus from his mind. Her hands were on his shoulders, shaking him violently, with tears flowing down her face.

“No, no, no, no, please, please, please! Adrien, fight it! Nothing good comes out of this, please!” Marinette cried.

She will do anything to prevent a repeat of that timeline.

She will do anything to protect her kitty.

Marinette grabbed his face and slammed her lips onto his, hoping that shock was able to jerk him out of his trance.

She pulled back and looked him in the eye; his eyes had widened but he was not looking at her.

This is not good. This is definitely not good.

Adrien was not responding, which meant that the brainwashing was going well. Marinette sobbed. She needed to transform as soon as possible to restrain Chat Blanc. She knew where the Akuma had gone. She would make sure the fight ended as soon as it started.

No, she had to.

“Save me,” Chat Blanc pleaded all those years ago.

Marinette hugged Adrien and whispered, “wait for me, I’ll definitely save you this time.”

And with great reluctance, she left his side.

.

“What do you… ?”

Adrien was barely listening to Hawkmoth. His astonishment that Marinette had just kissed him roughly was enough to ignore and reject Hawkmoth’s offer. The purple butterfly materialised on his ring and fluttered away.

And save me? What did she mean by that?

At the same time, Ladybug dropped right in front of him, disbelief written on her face.

Adrien was surprised to see her. What was she doing here? Did he miss patrol? Was there an Akuma attack? Akuma?

Adrien clutched his head as his memories from moments before came rushing back to him, reminding him that he was the one who was in the process of transforming into an Akuma. The last thing Adrien remembered was Marinette calling for his name.

Adrien quickly checked his phone and surroundings, there were no Akuma alerts, and they were in a secluded area. There was no way anyone else knew about the Akuma appearing. Adrien also recalled that they had a patrol planned, but that was supposed to happen at night. Adrien became aware of his own heartbeat. For Ladybug to appear on the scene so quickly—

Marinette is Ladybug.

Ladybug’s shoulders visibly sagged and she let loose a sigh of relief. She was about to turn around and leave when Adrien grabbed her forearm.

Marinette?

That was what he would have like to say, but he respected his lady’s insistence on secret identities, so instead, he went with:

“Ladybug? Is something wrong? Where’s the Akuma?” Adrien asked with concern as he took notice of Ladybug’s red eyes.

“No no, just patrolling the area, have to keep Paris safe and all!” Ladybug reassured.

Adrien unwillingly let go of her hand but nodded nonetheless. At this, Ladybug faced him and placed her hands on his shoulders firmly.

“Adrien, if something is bothering you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a friend. It’s a lot better than keeping it all bottled up inside.”

Marinette was the only one who saw his tears. He now had real confirmation that Marinette is Ladybug, and replied with a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thank you for the advice.”

.

Looking at the illuminated lights from the ground to the sky, Ladybug was sitting at the edge of a random building, waiting on Chat before they began their patrol. The scenery in front of her might not have existed if she failed to—

Ladybug heaved a sigh. That was all over now, she would not think about it any longer. Ladybug was so impressed that Adrien was able to break free from Hawkmoth’s connection. An affectionate smile fell on her lips, and she made a mental note to bring his favourite passion fruit flavoured pastries the next time they meet up for patrol. It was too late to go back to the bakery now that he was arriving at their meetup spot.

She stood as Chat Noir landed behind her.

“Ladybug… I know who you are.”

She froze, before turning her head towards him. “Huh?”

“I know who you are behind the mask,” he clarified while looking nervous.

“How?”

“If I tell you, I’ll… I’ll risk giving out my identity,” unease laced in his voice.

“Fair. Then, who am I?” She was fully facing him now.

“You’re… you’re Marinette.”

Ladybug stared. She stared at him for so long that he legitimately thought he had gotten it wrong.

Until she seemed more relaxed than she had ever been the whole day.

“Guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh?” She quipped with a quick bark of laughter.

She sat back down and petted the area next to her.

Chat was not expecting her to react like this. Shocked and disbelief at his discovery? Yes. But laughter? Never. His heart broke at the sight of Ladybug so near her breaking point, and furious at himself for not reaching out to her more. He knew that living the double life was tough, it was something he hoped no one experienced. But now that he knew Marinette is Ladybug, he felt even more anguished. The burden she carried must be equivalent, if not more than what he had.

He cautiously approached her side and took a seat. Ladybug was now looking at the sky with her palms placed behind her on the roof tile beneath them, seemingly regarding the vast canvas before them. He figured he followed suit, to enjoy whatever this was before the inevitable “talk” happened.

“Ladybug, are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, just exhausted is all,” she breathed.

Time passed, and noises can be heard all throughout the bustling city. But between the two of them, silence reigned. Feeling anxious with the quietness of the situation, coupled with his curiosity, Chat Noir broke the ice with that one question he has had ever since he discovered Ladybug’s identity.

So he asked, and she answered.

“So, are you going to take my Miraculous away?”

“I suppose.”

[twistedblud]

Could you please do a yungblud x reader using 81 82 and 106 prompts from the smut prompt list ok bye have a nice day

 y#81, #82, & #100: “stop dancing like that or i’ll cum in my pants.” “i’m not going to touch you unless you beg.” & “what are you doing in my bed?!”

(there’s no #106 so i’ll assume you meant 100) 

warning(s): unprotected sex, hair pulling, oral (female receiving). can’t think of any other ones. i’m quite tired so enjoy!

y/n and dom were friends. solely friends. although a few months ago the two had engaged in a friends with benefits type of situation. dom had gotten out of a relationship and grew closer to y/n, y/n being there for dom during the whole situation. one night, something clicked, and they ended up having sex. it wasn’t planned, at all, but after the events that transpired between the two? neither party complained.

they continued having sex up until about a month ago, when y/n broke the one rule dom and her had established. no catching feelings. she knew it was foolish to think she could fuck someone and not eventually develop feelings for them, but it happened. she rejected dom’s suggestive texts that same night she realized her true feelings. 

tonight, however, dom was far from her mind and y/n headed downtown to meet up with a tinder date, praying this one didn’t have a hair fetish like the last guy. she shuddered at the mere thought as she headed through the already open doors of the club her and her date planned to meet at. she took a seat at the bar, signaling for the bartender with a smile. “vodka please. straight.”

the bartender nodded, pouring her a full shot, which she quickly downed in a matter of seconds. one turned into a few more and y/n began to feel buzzed, but nowhere near drunk. she checked her phone notifications and skimmed through the messages from her date. he said something about not being able to make it because of a work emergency, asking her to reschedule. she ignored it, simply getting up to go dance, letting the stress flow away from her busy week.

she completely let loose, not minding the sweaty bodies near her. one could say y/n was in her own world, that was until she felt a tap on her shoulder. she swiftly turned around and made eye contact with the last person she’d expect to see here.

“dom?! what? i-”

“’ello y/n. it’s been a while hasn’t it?” dom shouted over the loud music, leaning down so y/n could hear her better. she felt a familiar run down her spine when his breath fanned over her ear. she couldn’t figure out what to say to him. she hadn’t planned on facing dom anytime soon. dom almost completely read her mind, reassuring her. “you don’t have to say anything. just dance with me.”

y/n agreed was confused but still agreed, letting dom grab her hand and bring her to a less crowded area of the dance floor. they found a spot and began dancing. sure, at first it was awkward. dom being stiff and y/n being hesistant on what moves she’d do next. however there was a change of heart when [insert your upbeat song] came on, the two immediately recognizing it as y/n’s all time favorite. 

she forgot dom was behind her, grinding on him mindlessly as he let her dance freely, going along with her flow. dom didn’t want to be that person, but y/n was basically grinding on his crotch. he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t turning him on, even in the slightest bit. he’d definitely be lying because there was evidence which happened to be the evident outline in pants. he was hard. he leaned down to whisper in y/n’s ear, “stop dancing like that or i’ll cum in my pants.”

“what if i don’t wanna stop?” y/n challenged him. she didn’t understand what possessed her to say this but it was fun. fun knowing how she made dom feel this way. he froze at her words, lust laced in her tone. he definitely knew y/n was challenging him. and he loved a good challenge. 

“i have an idea.”

---

“f-fuck!” y/n cried out, dom mercilessly pounding into her from behind. the two ended up at y/n apartment where dom practically dragged y/n to. he didn’t like how bold she gotten. so it was obvious he needed to remind her about who exactly was charge. dom didn’t plan on showing any mercy to y/n, grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking against him, still pounding into her. “don’t think i forgot about you going M.I.A. angel.” dom sighed at the feeling of y/n’s walls clenching around her, watching her, helpless in this grasp.

y/n couldn’t form a coherent sentence, too distracted from dom ramming into her core at a rapid pace. “mmm,” y/n simply groaned out, not satisfying dom with her answer at all. he pulled out and flipped her over so she was lying down on her back. he hovered over here and began kissing her stomach, leaving a trail of them down her navel. letting out a relieved sigh, y/n knew exactly what he was doing, shutting her eyes to brace herself. 

dom simply chuckled at her assumption and stop kissing her body. she shot her eyes open in confusion, wondering why he stopped now out of all times. “i still didn’t get my answer love.”

“what answe-. oh. don’t wanna talk about it” y/n mumbled, squirming at the thought of confessing her forbidden feelings for dom. his eyebrows furrowed, wanting her to elaborate, or just simply get any type of answer.

“y/n, you ghosted me. for a month. that shit sucks yeah? the least you could do is tell me wh-”

guilt rising up in her, y/n cut off dom. “fuck, dom, i like you okay? like i have actually feelings for you. exactly what we agreed to not do” y/n breathed out honestly scared for his reaction. it completely caught her off guard when dom went in to kiss her, cupping the sides of her face as he did so. the kiss was short but sweet with dom pulling away, breathing out.

“i’ll take that as a good thing?” y/n laughed as dom laughed at her words. he nodded, kissing her again to fully reassure her. “so that means we can get back to what we were doing?” y/n suggested, smoothing her thumb over dom’s cheek. 

“nope,” dom moved over to her ear and whispered, “i’m not going to touch you unless you beg” he sternly said, and pulled away from her ear watching her face scrunch up with irritation.

y/n rolled her eyes at his childish game, but wanting to give him so badly. “come onnn dom. please?” y/n pleaded as she tried to convince him.

“please, what, doll?” dom made his way down to her core, hovering over it, admiring the glistening view of arousal tinted on her core. his breath fanned over her cunt, making her squirm even more in frustration. 

“please...need your tongue” y/n begged and pleaded. if she didn’t get some type of contact soon, she’d go crazy. “need it so badly.”

greatly satisfied with her answer, dom planted a sloppy kiss on her core before diving in with his tongue, licking a strip up her folds. y/n whimpered out at the sudden feeling, her right hand finding its way entangled in dom’s hair. he continued eating her out with an occasional attack on her clit, sucking it - which got a more than pleasing reaction from y/n. she lifted her hips up, her cunt already sensitive. he got a firm grip on her stomach and held her stomach down, knowing she’d use their safe word if she were truly uncomfortable.

y/n cried out in overbearing pleasure, “dom. dom. dom!” as her release snuck up on her as she let go in his mouth, dom letting her calm down. he got up and helped y/n move to her preferred side of the bed whenever dom came over, placing her under the covers. he made his way to the other side, slipping under the covers as well, letting y/n doze off. he reached over to the lamp on the nightstand, turning it off. he noticed y/n was now fully asleep and he kissed the top of her head - mumbling out a quick “goodnight” before drifting off to sleep himself.

---

y/n woke up in slight discomfort as she rose out her bed, padding over to the bathroom to freshen up. she noticed dom wasn’t on his usual side of them which bothered her a bit. she assumed he had left, sighing, before hopping into the shower to wash off the activities from the night before.

after drying off and putting on a fresh t-shirt, along with panties and shorts, y/n headed back into her room. she placed her towel on the floor, reminding her to a) wash her clothes and b) get a new hamper. as she walked past the bed, she did a double take, noticing a figure in the bed. it was dom, sitting up with semi-tired eyes, scrolling through his phone. he wore no shirt, but instead just boxers. 

“dom? what the hell? “what are you doing in my bed?!” y/n questioned, genuinely confused at where he was before when she had woken up. 

“in case you forgot love, i slept here last night. got up to get some water and then i got hungry. so i made me self some cereal” dom informed her with a quick glance from his phone. y/n stifled a laugh, climbing on the bed and over to dom, removing his phone from his hand, giving him a quick kiss before moving onto his lap. dom smiled at her action, his big grin planted on his face.

what am i gonna do with him?

[priyanshusharma10]

IS BLUEHOST WORTH BUYING? COMPLETE GUIDE

Did you know that Bluehost is home to more than 2 million websites?

Bluehost is a top option to consider if you’re in the market for a web host. They power more than 2 million sites across the globe.

But web hosting services are not created equally.

I see so many new webmasters make the mistake of just going with the cheapest web host or the web hosting site that appears first in their Google search results.

For something as important as web hosting, weigh your options in order to find the best web hosting plan for your needs.

Since so many of you will likely come across Bluehost during your search, I want to give you the best information you can to make a decision.

I’ll explain all of their hosting plans, pricing, and discuss the best parts about using Bluehost. I’ll even tell you about a couple of cons associated with Bluehost, just to make sure you have all the facts before you sign up.

Let’s look in to some of the benefits of bluehost webhosting!!

Benefits of Using Bluehost Web Hosting

While Bluehost offers a lot of great features, some of them are really stand out.

Low pricing options

Bluehost allows you to spend much less on web hosting. That’s great especially if you’re looking to build a site on a budget.

As you’ve already seen, the introductory rates for Bluehost shared web hosting starts at just $3.95 per month. Being able to host your site for less than $50 is a great deal.

All Bluehost shared hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate and free marketing credits. When you factor in the storage and bandwidth you’re getting, that’s a fairly decent value for the price.

Overall, this is one of the lowest prices you’ll see for a legitimate web host.

Great security

Even though Bluehost has some inexpensive pricing options compared to other web hosts on the market today, it doesn’t mean that they’re inferior when it comes to crucial security features.

I’ve already mentioned that an SSL certificate comes standard, regardless of which plan you choose.

Furthermore, their plans have a feature to hide the personal information that you used when signing up for a private domain. Lots of times hackers will target this information from website owners.

Bluehost has features to prevent malware attacks, as well as tools used for automatic daily backups. You’ll also get a security tool that offers spam protection for the email address associated with your website.

Again, this is all a great value considering how much these plans go for.

Top loading speeds

Page loading speed is something that always needs to be taken into consideration when you’re shopping around for the best website host.

If your site takes too long to load, it’s going to kill your engagement metrics. People will abandon your site, and you won’t be able to drive conversions. It’s as simple as that.

The average response time for Bluehost in 2020 is 352 ms. To put that into perspective, refer to my SiteGround web hosting review. SiteGround’s average response time over the same period of time was 662 ms, which is still fast.

Bluehost nearly cuts that time in half.

Easy to use

You don’t need to be a tech expert to host your website with Bluehost. Nearly anyone, regardless of their experience level, can find a beginner hosting plan from this platform.

That’s definitely not the case with all web hosting providers on the market today. There are plenty of web hosts out there that are specifically designed for advanced webmasters.

Whether you’re using WordPress or taking advantage of the Bluehost website builder, everything will be pretty straightforward and easy to follow.

Excellent support

Even though Bluehost is easy to figure out, you may still find yourself in a situation where you need some help or guidance.

In most cases, you should able to find an answer through their knowledge base page. This is essentially a support center that has how-to guides, tutorials, and articles with instructions for troubleshooting and FAQ. Simply search what you’re looking for, and there will likely be a resource to help you out.

Furthermore, Bluehost has 24/7 phone support, which is great for those of you who like to be talked through problems.

If you’re like me, you’ll probably just take advantage of their live chat agents. It’s a fast and easy way to get an answer without having to leave their website.

High uptime

You can’t give a web hosting review without referring to uptime rates. Take a look at where Bluehost stacks up compared to other web hosting providers in this recent study.

Bluehost ranked second on the list with a 99.991% average uptime for the year. That percentage is identical to MidPhase, which ranked first on the list.

Furthermore, you can see that Bluehost only had seven total outages on the year, which was the lowest for all hosts in the top five, including the top-ranking provider on the list.

It really doesn’t get much better than that. So if you host your website with Bluehost, you can rest assured knowing that your site isn’t going to have much downtime throughout the year.

Money-back guarantee

Like most web hosting services, you won’t get a free trial to try them out. But with that said, Bluehost does offer a 30-day money-back promise.

So if you’re on the fence about using Bluehost, it’s comforting to know that you’ll get refunded if you’re not ultimately satisfied in the first month.

But with that said, it’s worth noting that the refund only applies to web hosting costs. So if you use Bluehost for a domain name or other add-ons, those purchases are final.

WordPress hosting

If you’re using WordPress hosting, Bluehost is definitely a top option for you to consider. That’s because this web host is just one of the three “official” recommended choices from the WordPress website.

Hostgator and interserver are the other two recommended web hosting services on this WordPress resource.

With that said, you can still use nearly any other web hosting service on the market to create your WordPress website. But it’s definitely a positive sign that Bluehost is recognised as a WordPress partner.

Compare Bluehost Web Hosting Plans

Not every website has the same web hosting needs. Bluehost knows this and has three different types of web hosting options for you to choose from.

• Shared

• VPS (virtual private server)

• Dedicated server

Choosing which kind of web hosting plan to go with will vary based on how much you want to pay, your expected site traffic, and the type of website you have. Below I will give you a more detailed description of the differences between these hosting options.

Shared hosting

If you have a new website and you’re on a tight budget, shared hosting might be your best option. Bluehost offers four different pricing plans for its shared hosting services.

• Basic — $3.95 per month

• Plus — $5.95 per month

• Choice Plus — $5.95 per month

• Pro — $13.95 per month

I know what some of you are thinking. If Plus and Choice Plus are priced the same, wouldn’t you automatically go with Choice Plus?

All Bluehost plans go up in price once you renew. The advertised prices above are just the introductory rates. It’s worth noting that Plus renews at $10.99 per month, while Choice Plus renews at $14.99 per month.

Bluehost has managed shared hosting platforms, meaning you won’t have to worry about managing servers or anything like that

VPS hosting

VPS hosting from Bluehost is the middle-tier option of the three plans. There are three pricing options for a Bluehost virtual private server.

• Standard — $19.99 per month

• Enhanced — $29.99 per month

• Ultimate — $59.99 per month

The biggest differences in these plans are the cores, SSD storage, RAM, bandwidth, and IP addresses.

With the Standard plan, you’ll get 1 core, 30 GB of SSD storage, 2 GB of RAM, 1 TB of bandwidth, and 1 IP address. Cores, SSD storage, and RAM double at each tier for the Enhanced and Ultimate packages.

Using Bluehost for a VPS gives you dedicated server resources. You’ll be able to use your RAM, CPU, and disk space, no matter what other users on the same server are doing. VPS hosting also has increased security, since you won’t be sharing an operating system with any other Bluehost users.

Dedicated hosting

Picking a dedicated server plan from Bluehost means you’ll be taking advantage of their top of the line services. These plans are made for those of you who are tech-savvy and want complete control over your server.

• Standard — $79.99 per month

• Enhanced — $99.99 per month

• Premium — $119.99 per month

As you can see, top-tier plans come at higher price points. With VPS hosting, you’re maxed out at 120 GB of SSD storage, 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB of bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses. But dedicated servers from Bluehost go all the way up to 1 TB of storage, 16 GB of RAM, 15 TB of bandwidth, and 5 IP addresses.

These plans will probably exceed the needs and uses for what most of you are looking for. But with that said, as your website grows and your traffic scales, you might want to consider a dedicated server in the future.

Conclusion:

With all said, I definitely recommend Bluehost as a web hosting option among various services in the market with it’s leading uptime and fast loading characteristics in the market.

It also has hosting types, plans and options to meet the needs of any website. From these options, I’m sure, you’ll able to find an option that best fit for your online business and hosting needs and plans.

[sweetness47]

Risks

Pairing Dean x Vampire!Reader

@heavenandhellbingo​ – Silver/Salt/Holy water

@spndeanbingo​ – vampire

@spngenrebingo​ – enemies to lovers

@spnkinkbingo​ – purgatory! Dean

Warnings!!! MATURE 18+ READERS ONLY!!! Smut, angst, language etc…

Summary: Dean’s in purgatory, and in trouble…but from the monsters or his own heart? Written from Dean’s POV.

Jesus, the monsters were never ending! I’d lost track of Benny, but managed somehow to stay alive. There was no rest, no time to relax. Just hiding, running, fighting. I was tired, but I couldn’t give up. I had to find a way back home, back to Cas, back to Sam.

I didn’t hear the damn leviathan come up behind me, but he wasted no time in trying to tear me apart. I barely managed to avoid the teeth, squirming constantly in a vain attempt to get myself out of his powerful grip. I could feel my ribs begin to bruise, they were close to breaking, but he was so strong, and I was tired.

Just as I begin to lose consciousness, she came out of nowhere, ramming into the huge monster, knocking all of us to the ground. The leviathan scum focused on the new threat, his growl menacing, trying to scare her. But she stood and stared him down. He charged. She evaded. He charged once more, she grabbed his arm as she sidestepped, and ripped it right off it’s body. The creature howled in pain, mixing with the anger he felt as he attempted once again to attack. She easily avoided his charge, then did a quick turn around, thin blade in hand, and decapitated the creature.

I did a double take. This was too good to be true. A hot chick, and I mean H.O.T!!! Even with pain in my chest from the ribs, my dick was more than willing to test her features. But, after watching her fight and take that thing down, I was hesitant. While she cleaned her blade (it was one hell of a blade by the way), I pulled a flask of holy water from my jacket and poured some on my hand.

She reached out to help me up, and I accepted the offer, first using the regular hand. She was way stronger than a human, there was no strain at all as she helped me to my feet.

“Thanks for the assist.” I managed, holding my torso.

“No problem. I was in the neighbourhood.”

My cock twitched. Her voice was something out of a fantasy dream. Soft, pliable, sweet like honey.

Fuck!!

“I’m Dean.” I said, holding out the test hand, the one with the ‘water’.

She reached to grab it. “YN.”

A hiss escaped her lips as her hand made contact with the holy water. “Fuck!” She jerked her hand back and looked at the blistered palm.

My saviour was a freakin’ vamp.

I raised my blade. “Why did you help me?”

She sheathed her katana. “Easy. I’m not looking to kill you. I might be a vampire, but I didn’t choose this life. I hate what I am. I kill these freaks here for fun. And I’ve never killed a human.”

I raised a brow. “Ever drank blood?”

“Only the occasional lycanthrope. I hate the taste. I drink only when I find my energy is low.”

“Huh.”

If she was lying, she was doing a damn good job of it. I believed her. And it wasn’t just because I thought she was hot.

Leaves crunching broke the awkward silence. “We should move. I know a place where we can hide out.” She motioned me to follow her, and since the options were rather low, I went.

My ribs were aching something fierce, but I kept the pace, knowing the dangers we could potentially run in to. By the time we got to her safe location, I was all but wheezing. I was sure one of the ribs were cracked, possibly more.

She saw my discomfort as we entered the shelter. “I need to look at your ribcage, and bind them. You need to rest.”

I gave her a sideways glance. “I suppose you’re a doctor?”

She nodded. “Yes, actually. Before I was turned, I was an emergency doctor.” When I didn’t move right away, she added, “I promise I won’t hurt or bite you.”

I sighed carefully and nodded. She helped me remove my jacket and shirt, then examined my torso. I looked down at the bruising. It was bad. I winced as she felt them, checking for breaks. The last one made me actually grunt and pull away.

“This one is definitely cracked Dean. Wait here, I’ll grab something to bind them.”

I wasn’t going to argue. Truthfully, it felt good to sit, although I was pretty sure sleep would be non existent. Purgatory didn’t have any pharmacy stores. So I was shit out of luck for Tylenol. She came back with some ripped up blankets and did my ribcage up nice and tight.

She helped me lay down, removing my boots for me. Then she went and grabbed me some food. It wasn’t overly lavish, but it was filling. I tried to relax, ignore the pain, but it was really bad. Then, as if hearing my ribs screaming, YN produced a bottle of T3’s, and a bottle of Jack. I looked at her in awe, and she only shrugged.

“I was on my way home from the store when I got sent here.”

I took two of the pills, and a long swig of the whiskey. The burn felt good. “Thanks.”

YN smiled. “Your welcome.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll help each other for now. You watch my back, I watch yours. But if you turn against me or try to bite me, I end you.”

Nodding, she agreed. “That’s fair.”

She moved to her makeshift couch to lay down, and I hated the idea that she’d be sleeping on that piece of shit. “You could lay here beside me. There’s plenty of room.”

YN looked over at me. “You trust me not to hurt you?”

I nodded. “If you really wanted to, you’d have done so already. So, yeah, I trust you.”

She came over to where I was lying down and joined me. I tried again to close my eyes, desperately willing my body to relax. The whiskey/Tylenol mix was starting to kick in, taking off some of the edge, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch.

“You ok?” she asked.

“Yeah, just waiting for the drugs and alcohol to kick in.”

She laughed. “That’s probably not a good combo, but I’m not judging.”

I chuckled, and grimaced. “YN? Thanks again. I would have been monster chow if you hadn’t shown up.”

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Your welcome.”

I stiffened at the gesture. She immediately apologized. “Oh my god, I’m sorry.”

Shaking my head, I replied, “No worries. No harm done.”

My body moved on it’s own then, turning gently on my side to face her, then my hands pulled her close, lips seeking another kiss. She responded, moaning into the lip lock, hands roaming over my stomach, lightly grazing my torso. She stroked the hard bulge in my jeans, and it was my turn to groan. I went onto my back once more as she removed her clothes, then my jeans and shorts. She straddled my groin, and my hand guided my throbbing erection to her waiting entrance. She sank slowly onto my shaft, and I swore I’d gone to heaven.

She was so tight, but man it felt good. She took my entire length, adjusting to my girth, her walls stretching to accommodate. I would have sworn she was a virgin.

She rocked her hips back and forth, doing the majority of the work while I enjoyed the benefits. There was mild protest from my ribcage, but it was slowly dulling, drowned out by the beautiful goddess riding me like a stallion. We climaxed together, her cries and mine mixing in the air.

I slept then, and woke feeling somewhat better. YN was already up, and had some more food waiting for me. I ate after she helped me sit up, then we made love once more before dressing.

I never thought I’d ever go near a vamp for anything other than to kill it, but she was different. If her story was to be believed, she wasn’t given a choice about it, and hated herself because of it. We ventured out with caution, making sure there were no unwanted visitors. We needed to find some firewood and some more food for me.

Our hike was interrupted by footsteps. YN pulled me down behind a large boulder covered by moss and bushes, and we held our breath, waiting for whatever it was to pass by.

It was Cas.

YN tried to stop me, but I went anyways. “Cas!” I yelled.

Cas turned. “Dean, thank heaven. Sam and I have been worried sick. Are you ok?” he asked as he embraced me. His senses didn’t miss the grunt of pain as he hugged my ribs. “You’re hurt.”

“Mostly bruised, one is cracked I think.”

Cas put his hand over my chest area, dispersing healing angelic light from his palms. YN stood in awe. “What is he?”

Her question had me back on the reality train. “Sorry, Cas, this is YN. She helped me bandage my ribs up. YN, this is Castiel. He’s an Angel.”

Cas went to shake her hand, but she hesitated. I explained. “She’s not human Cas. She’s a vampire.”

An angel blade appeared instantly, Cas’s body taking a defensive position. “Relax. She’s ok. She helped me. I promised to take her back with us.”

Castiel lowered his blade but not his guard. “Dean, it could be a trick.”

I nodded. “True, but she’s had plenty of opportunity to turn against me, yet she’s kept her word about not attacking me. I already had a talk with her about what happens if she does.”

The angel mildly relaxed and stowed the blade for future use. “I have an open rift for us to get out of here. YN, you can come as well, but any betrayal…”

She finished the sentence, “I know, will be the end of my existence. Trust me, I have no intention of hurting anyone, least of all Dean.”

We began walking briskly toward the rift, home. Then we heard company behind us, and not the friendly kind. This wasn’t Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood. We took off running, and got about 10 feet from the rift before they caught up with us. I unsheathed my blade, and watched as Cas and YN did the same. The three of us stood back to back, while the rift floated like a vision just mere feet away.

There were a lot of them, all kinds, shapes and sizes. And they weren’t here for tea. We began slicing and stabbing what we could, all while keeping an eye on the way out. It began fizzing and sputtering shortly after, and we knew it was closing.

“You and Castiel have to go! I’ll hold them off!”

I shook my head. “No! You’re coming too!” I yelled back.

“Dean don’t be a stubborn ass! I’m not even human! I’m a monster for fuck sake! You have a life, a purpose! Don’t fucking throw it away because of me! Let me help!”

The rift fizzled again. “C’mon Dean. We have to move!”

Cas pulled my arm as I took one last look back at YN. She yanked a large werewolf back by the scruff of the neck, tossing him far from the shimmering opening. I could hear myself calling her name as I was dragged through before it closed. She looked back once more, smiling, then horror replaced the smile as a group of leviathans took huge chunks from her side.

I couldn’t get her off my mind. I’d only known her for a day, but it felt like a lifetime. She will always be in my heart. My YN.

@akshi8278

[codeithub]

Laptops Requirement for Programming

This article will guide you to choose the best laptop for programming and some of my top laptops picks for programmers in India.

As a programmer or developer, it becomes really confusing to pick the best laptop from thousands of laptops available in the market. It becomes even more difficult for a person who is just starting programming.( codeithub )

When choosing the best laptop for programming, there are several things you need to consider. Of course, you need plenty of power so having one of the best processors and fast RAM is very important, especially when you’re testing and running your codes. However, while cores, threads, and clock speeds are important, they aren’t the only things to consider.

A speedy SSD is also necessary to help you save you time when accessing files and projects. As is a comfortable keyboard that is responsive and satisfying to use, and a display that is easy on the eyes you’re likely to spend hours upon hours staring at it. If you work remotely and sometimes travel, you might want to spend a bit more to get something that’s thin and light (maybe one of the best Ultrabooks).( wordpress codding )

Below I have shared some key points that will definitely help you to pick a perfect laptop for working on any programming technology.

How to Choose the Best Laptop for Programming?

Choosing the right laptop for programming can be a tough process.

It’s easy to get confused while researching the various options. There are many different laptop models out there, each with a different set of trade-offs.

You can write code on most laptops. Yet, your productivity will improve if you use a machine suited to the type of tasks that you perform.

There are different types of development, and various tools are required with each specialization. So, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to buying a development machine.

RAM

It is the first most important thing that you should look for. A laptop with 8GB RAM is an ideal choice but 16GB RAM would be the best choice. If your budget is too low then you can go with 4GB RAM also.

Believe me it really sucks working on a low performance machine. Earlier I used to do android app development on a laptop with 4GB RAM. It was so annoying because everything works really slow.

So I would highly recommend you a 16GB RAM laptop if you are a mobile app developer.

Best Choice: 16GB RAM

Ideal Choice: 8GB RAM

Mobility

Laptops come in all shapes and sizes. You need to figure out how portable you want your laptop to be.

If you do not need to carry your laptop around often, you might want to consider a 15-inch laptop. These will usually have better specs and more screen estate for multitasking.

If you work in different locations or travel a lot, a 13 or 14-inch laptop may be best for you. They are lighter and provide longer battery life.( Wordpress Customization )

Unless you’re buying a 2-in-1 laptop, a touch screen does not provide enough benefits to justify the extra cost. I’d suggest you avoid the touchscreen.

Display

A laptop’s screen is one of its most important features, especially for programmers. Developing applications involves staring at the screen for long periods. You need to pay close attention to the details.

Most budget laptops ship with a 1366 x 768 display, which I consider to be mediocre at best. The display doesn’t have enough screen estate for multitasking. Also, the text isn’t sharp enough for you to have a comfortable reading experience.

A 4k display is overkill for a laptop, especially when you consider the added costs and the battery drain that you will encounter.

Whatever you do, don’t buy a laptop with less than a Full HD 1920 x 1080 (1080p) display. If you have to pay a little extra to get 1080p, do it.

Also make sure the display has good viewing angles; your laptop’s screen should not double as a mirror! ( code it hub )

Screen Quality

To code properly, you need a laptop with excellent screen quality. After all, you’ll spend hours in front of it, so you have to get it right. It also has to be the right size, or you may experience strain while writing code.

Avoid any laptop that ships with a 1366 x 768 screen resolution for two reasons. First, this display has a lower pixel count. That means you have less screen real estate than similar screen sizes with more pixels per inch. Secondly, your images won’t be as clear or as crisp, and you won’t read or write code well.

Storage type and capacity

Getting an SSD (Solid State Drive) should be near the top of your priorities. This will give you significant performance improvements over a standard hard drive. Every operation will be a lot faster with an SSD: including booting up the OS, compiling code, launching apps, and loading projects.

A 256GB SSD should be the baseline. If you have more money, a 512GB or 1TB SSD is better. If cost is a factor, opt for a smaller SSD, where your Operating System will live alongside your apps and frequently accessed documents (such as project files). Your remaining stuff, such as music or videos, can rest in a larger external hard drive.

Hard Drive

As far as hard drives go, it isn’t so much about storage capacity. Read-and-write speeds make all the difference to a developer. Faster speeds are always better, no matter the task you’re running.

In this case, choose a Solid-State Drive (SSD) or flash over a standard Hard Disk Drive (HDD). SSDs will give you exponential speeds, which means your laptop will boot in seconds where a HDD would boot in minutes.

Since SSDs have no moving parts, you won’t deal with mechanical failure if you accidentally drop your laptop. Also, they won’t consume much power, which translates to better battery life.

Keyboard

You can’t afford to compromise on your laptop’s keyboard quality since it is what you’ll use to bang out code all day. I tend to go for laptops with a more compact keyboard layout.

The most important thing is to try out a laptop’s keyboard thoroughly before you buy. Make sure the keys are comfortable and easy to reach with good travel. A back-lit keyboard is useful if you intend to work in low-light conditions often.

Battery Life

Most modern laptops have excellent battery life, so you won’t have to worry much here. Most of the time you’ll always be next to a power outlet anyway. But if you ever move away from your desk or are a digital nomad, get a laptop with a long-lasting battery. A good example is the 2-in-1 Dell Latitude 9510 laptop.

It’s easy to tell how long a laptop battery lasts. Customer reviews on websites like Amazon will tell you much about a laptop’s battery performance. Don’t rely on manufacturer estimates.

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: x

because no episode today and I obviously have many feelings. I am sorry that the quotes above the readmore still look messed up, because tumblr is a stupid website with stupid problems. it should be fine once you click through to the blog, or on mobile, or as a reblog. or just read it on AO3. idek.

part ix/AO3.

In any other circumstances, the fact that Garcia Flynn is presently crushed in the backseat of a vehicle that can only generously be described as “economy size” would be the worst thing about this situation. His knees are practically rammed through his chin, he may develop a permanent crick in his back from hunching, and he suspects, from catching her smirks at him in the rearview mirror, that Emma goddamn Whitmore is thoroughly enjoying watching him suffer. Except, of course, that this isn’t the worst thing about the situation. Emma is in the driver’s seat, left hand on the wheel and right hand cuffed to Lucy’s – she doesn’t have the box cutter blade at her wrist any more, but Flynn can’t try to dive forward and grab the wheel (assuming he could even get up enough leverage to move) without hitting Lucy, and then obviously endangering her in any resulting crash. If it was just him, he might take his chances, but her –

He blinks hard until the memory that has just flashed through his brain goes away, and tries to focus on the task at hand. He doesn’t know where Emma is taking them, or who they might be meeting. He’s still trying to figure out how this just went so terribly, horribly, no-good-very-badly wrong. Should have guessed that Wyatt Logan sending them a too-good-to-be-true willing Rittenhouse defector was some kind of trick – and frankly, Flynn wondered, but ignored it. Getting the files was more important. And now the files turned out to be a fat lot of nothing, and he has no idea what the situation is, much less how to get them out of it. All his training is screaming at him that this is what you avoid, you have no control, and you especially don’t want to get mixed up in it with a non-combatant. Wonderful.

Lucy sits stiffly in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, as Emma pulls out. They seem to be heading for the interstate – 95, if Flynn had to guess. They drive in silence for several minutes. Too much to ask that she at least put the fucking radio on. Then Lucy says, with admirable composure considering that this is the second time in less than six weeks that she’s been snatched by Rittenhouse, “So where are we going?”

“Just to sort some things out.” Emma accelerates up the merge ramp – yes, 95 northbound, they’re headed somewhere in New England. Flynn’s mind reels feverishly through potential Rittenhouse possibilities or important sites in the area. He isn’t entirely sure that Emma is working for them, as her statement in the library left just enough ambiguity that she could be in this for herself, or Mason Industries, or even as a double or triple agent, but it has to be deemed the most likely. “You’re in no danger, princess, as long as you cooperate.”

“Stop calling me that,” Lucy says through her teeth. Flynn could have warned her that this was a mistake; never show your enemy that they’re getting to you. “And yeah, the threatening me with a box cutter part made me feel really safe.”

“That was just to get his attention.” Emma throws an amused look over her shoulder at the fuming Flynn. “He doesn’t really do subtle. I had to prevent him from doing something stupid. Stupider, that is. It was the most direct.”

“So what was that beforehand?” Flynn barks, not that he has any expectation of a proper answer. “Show up playing the wounded fawn, run away from your evil overlords, want to go to London – that was all a lie?”

“Oh no. I want to go to London. It’s important to get our overseas operation established, just like I said. That was entirely true.”

“Overseas operation meaning Mason Industries or Rittenhouse?”

Emma gives him a demure, nasty little smirk, enjoying even more the fact that she isn’t going to tell him. Flynn curses viciously under his breath. He’s gotten himself into a lot of dicey situations, admittedly, but this ranks up there. He makes a mental note to throttle Wyatt when he sees him again – it won’t fix anything, but it will make him feel better. Assuming he does see him again. It has not escaped Flynn’s attention that Emma has promised Lucy’s safety in exchange for her cooperation, but said nothing about him. Well, he’s been a major pain in Rittenhouse’s ass for several months now, and if he had gotten a proper chance, would in fact have rushed back to the Bay Area with the intention of destroying this purported time machine, no matter what. Great way to make friends with a multi-billionaire tech mogul and all his likewise important buddies, but Flynn has never cared about making friends.

There is silence for another few minutes as they drive. Emma cuts someone off, they honk, and she raises her middle finger without looking back, in a gesture of such utterly unconcerned fuck-you that Flynn almost (almost) can’t help but admire it, considering that is how he operates most of the time. Then Lucy says, “So the turning up and promising to help us research Rittenhouse – that was strategic, wasn’t it? Get a few boxes of unimportant papers, make it look like you were really helping, find out how much we knew, and not actually give anything away. But why bring in the Nicholas Keynes stuff?”

“You might have really learned something, if you looked at those,” Emma remarks lightly. “They were mostly for your benefit, Lucy. But your boyfriend blew it.”

“He’s – not my boyfriend.”

“Oh? So when I walked in and you were about to run into each other with your faces, you just tripped and ended up that way, did you?”

Flynn can make out the flush in Lucy’s cheeks, even without her turning around. He looks down, just because whatever is on his own face, he thinks it’s better if neither of them see it. He clenches his fists, trying to forget the sensation of touching her, after diligently avoiding it for several days, since – well. And then since all his self-control went out the damn window when he did, perhaps it’s for the best, in a sick way, that Emma interrupted them. Definitely not the opportune moment, but when it comes to this, when could it possibly be?

Some interminable time passes in silence. There is obviously not a lot to gab about on a road trip with your mortal enemy, after all. They seem to be heading for New York – there have to be half a dozen Rittenhouse installations there, don’t tell Flynn that Donald Trump isn’t up to his ears in it – but Emma bypasses the city, continuing up 287. Apparently they are headed upstate, though how far isn’t clear. They can’t really do anything (or rather, Flynn can’t do anything) until they arrive, though he refuses to give Emma the satisfaction of asking if they are there yet. (It might annoy her, at least, but still.) Finally they take the freeway exit for West Point, and Flynn’s hackles go up. Are they visiting the academy? What the hell is going on there – target practice, using him? Emma’s got his damn gun. Shit.

Flynn is almost inclined to be relieved when they do not drive through the gates of a heavily secured military facility, but rather down a bumpy dirt road to a stately old house at the end. It looks like a colonial museum, handsomely restored, but the two black cars parked out front makes it clear that they’re not expecting hordes of Nikon-wearing tourists and their sticky-fingered offspring to descend. This is… not necessarily an improvement. If they disappear out here, nobody is likely to be any the wiser.

Emma parks the car and opens the driver door, swinging out. Since her right wrist is still cuffed to Lucy’s left, Lucy obviously cannot get out the passenger door, but is dragged awkwardly after her, banging her shoulder into the gearshift and getting her shoulder wrenched over her head in a way that looks painful. Flynn reminds himself that he needs to be careful, but his blood is boiling and he is sick of being careful. He’s already broken the cardinal rule, has let his enemy transport them from the scene of the crime – even basic police advice tells you that if your assailant takes you somewhere else after they nab you, they’re planning to rape and/or kill you. This is deep on their ground, and Emma has his gun. He is going to have to get that back posthaste.

Flynn yanks the door open and bursts out of the car, wrathful as only a six-foot-four man who has been packed in an orange crate to be kidnapped possibly can be. Emma jerks Lucy pointedly in front of her. “Watch it with the sudden moves.”

The whites of Lucy’s eyes are showing, but she’s calm. Coldly she says, “What was that about how I was in no danger as long as I cooperated?”

“Are you cooperating?” Emma asks – fairly enough, Flynn supposes, but he still hates this woman with every inch of him. “I’m not sure.”

“Yes, well, you people don’t really make it easy to like you, do you?” Lucy explodes. “At least Cahill tried the sweet-talking approach, get me a dream job, see the world, all the stuff that an ordinary human might like! This, now – ” she rattles the handcuff – “just went straight for the ropes and chains, didn’t you?”

“Look.” Emma seems impatient. “Just tell him not to make any trouble, and this can be a lot easier for everyone. Like I said, it’s really him we want. You just happened to get in the way. I can’t release you just yet, because you would run off and call someone and make it messy, but stop fighting me. You might not believe it, but this is the gloves on. I have orders to treat you gently. But out here – ” she waves at the house – “who knows if I do?”

A chill goes down Flynn’s spine. He’s met a lot of people in a lot of wars, some of whom like killing and some who do it because it’s their job, and he is belatedly realizing that yes, that wounded-fawn act, even if it didn’t entirely take him in, has blinded him to Emma Whitmore’s full danger. Not because she’s a woman; it has nothing to do with that. Just that she straight-up wants power (he thinks that’s Rittenhouse’s lure on her, at any rate), wants control, wants pain, and she has been given plenty of enjoyable opportunities to explore her talents. He doesn’t know what she has in there. He has to get Lucy out of this.

“Fine,” Flynn says in a growl. “I’ll play nice, for the time being.” The tone of his voice leaves it clear that if Emma takes her eyes off him for an instant, she’s dead, but she probably expected that. “Now let’s get this over with, huh?”

Emma smirks primly, then turns and starts toward the door, Lucy perforce accompanying her. She enters a code in a secret keypad, too many digits for Flynn to follow, and the door swings open, leading them into a dim, dusty front hall. An elegant chandelier tumbles crystal droplets from the ceiling, a grand staircase leads off into the gloom, and by the reverent look on Emma’s face, they might be walking into some old cathedral, some hallowed hall of power. Flynn doesn’t know what this is, but when Emma opens a glassed French door and they step into a study crammed to the brim with clocks, his stomach begins to turn. Clocks of every description, large and small, ancient mahogany grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks, handsome brass navigation instruments, ornate gilded ones that look as if they’ve been ripped from a fin-de-siècle train station, fancy golden pocket watches in various stages of assembly and repair… a mad clockmaker’s lair. And the thing David Rittenhouse was known for, aside from astronomy, was –

“Yes.” Emma seems to have been following the process of realization on his face. “This is Rittenhouse’s house. You don’t realize how lucky you are, you both are, getting to see a special place like this. Ah, Millerson, Vincent. About time, boys.”

Flynn glances up to see two men, clearly the owners of the cars outside, entering the study from the other side. They both are wearing suits and have sidearms strapped to their torsos, as well as any other possible number of hidden weaponry, and they are not here to appreciate the historical value of the place. (Well, maybe, but still.) These are clearly Emma’s Rittenhouse cohorts, the muscle of the goon squad, and they come to a halt, looking at her for orders. It’s clear that she isn’t just some random piece in the system, but one of its essential and high-ranking cogs. Of course, they’d want their agent in Mason Industries, right next to the time machine, to be one of their best and brightest. Flynn feels sick.

“Got him,” Emma says briefly, jerking her head at Flynn. “It wasn’t even that hard. Like I said, don’t send a man to do a woman’s job. Boys, you take him upstairs to debrief him. We need a full and complete account of everything he knows, everyone he might have passed intel to, all his sources of information, how long he’s been on the case – everywhere. We need to make sure we have it airtight, any more leaks cut off. I know about Logan, we’ll be dealing with him, but anything else – remember you need him to talk.”

“Good luck with that,” Flynn snarls. “I’m not going to.”

Emma eyes him again, then rattles her handcuffed wrist, making Lucy’s arm shake. “Are you?”

That takes him like a punch in the gut. They can beat up on him all they want, but if they go after Lucy – and these people are exactly the kind who would do that – he doesn’t know if Emma is bluffing, if Lucy’s pureblood status (and where has he heard that before?) is enough to protect her. Lucy has rejected Rittenhouse, after all, and made things plenty difficult on her own. But if – but if –

For the moment while Flynn’s defenses are down, Millerson and Vincent swoop in on either side, grabbing hold of his arms and twisting them behind his back. They march him away – they’re good-sized gents, but it’s still taking considerable effort from them both – and up toward the stairs. He doesn’t know whether to fight. He thinks he hears Lucy yell, but then the door slams behind him, and he is in darkness.

Once the women are alone in the creepy clockmaker parlor from nightmare land, Emma undoes the cuff from her own wrist, fastens it to the old sofa instead, and obliges Lucy to sit down with a short push. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Be real,” Lucy snaps. “Like I’m drinking anything you’d give me.”

“What, princess? Think I’d give you a poisoned apple?”

“I don’t know, wicked stepsister. You might.”

“Wicked stepsister?” Emma laughs. “That’s the best you can come up with? It’s almost kind of adorable. As I said, you’re still safe, for now. But it might be a long wait.”

Lucy doesn’t answer, because she is straining with every inch of her to hear any sound from beyond the door, or from upstairs. Flynn was shot barely a month ago, she saw the wounds herself, they’re not totally healed. If they start hitting him in his bad shoulder, or pulling out the waterboard or the pliers or whatever other terrible idea they have – Rittenhouse’s idea of debriefing him is clearly not going to be a pleasant and gentle experience. This must be a major Rittenhouse black site. If she ever did get back to a godforsaken normal life, could she call someone and tell them to check David Rittenhouse’s mansion in West Point – Lucy never knew he lived in New York, what was he doing here? Or would they get here and find nothing but a handsome old historical house, all illicit tracks expertly covered, or a Rittenhouse agent waiting to shoot them and hide the corpse in the root cellar? It might be a regular Cask of Amontillado situation down there. Her heart is hammering in her ears. Oh God, oh God, this is bad. She has not the first idea of how to fight her way out of this.

“So,” Emma says at last. “You and Flynn, huh? Garcia Flynn. I suppose he’s cute in a tall-dark-and-psycho Eastern European way, but really, what else does he have going for him?”

Lucy cannot believe that Emma really thinks they will sit here and girlfriend-gossip about boys (she probably doesn’t, she’s just trying to get under Lucy’s skin) and thus maintains a dignified silence. It’s broken by a distinct thump from overhead, and Emma’s eyes swing up toward the ceiling. In that, despite the fact that she very much is still handcuffed to an antique piece of furniture, has only that Krav Maga class going for her, and is terrified out of her wits, Lucy Preston lurches (it is not nearly anything as graceful as leaps) into action.

She jumps up, wrenching her wrist in the cuff, but manages to headbutt Emma solidly under the chin, hard enough to make her teeth click. Lucy shoves a hand into Emma’s jacket and her groping fingers find the butt of Flynn’s gun, which she hauls out, trying to find the safety and switch it off. She somehow manages it, clicks the trigger to cock it, points it at the chain, and shoots.

The sound of the gunshot at close range is deafening, making her madly flash back to seeing Flynn shot in front of her in the car, and it’s like using a flamethrower to kill an ant, but it does the job. Lucy pulls her freed wrist out of the blown-apart couch, feathers floating everywhere, just in time to hear another heavy clunk, and freeze. Emma has recovered herself enough to grab a spare gun from a nearby drawer, which she is pointing dead at Lucy’s head with hands far steadier and more accurate than Lucy’s own. “I wouldn’t do that. Princess.”

The tension crackles almost unbearably as they stare at each other, as Lucy struggles with the idea of pointing it at Emma, at some vital part of her, and actually doing it. Not that there is any guarantee she’d make it, since it would be the grand total of a second time she has fired a gun and beginner’s luck is nothing to count on in this situation, but still. She feels nauseous even trying to train it on Emma’s arm or shoulder, much less her head or heart. She is not Annie Oakley, cannot shoot the gun deftly out of Emma’s grip without hurting her. And frankly – Emma has hurt them, has her thugs upstairs probably beating holy hell out of Flynn, works for an incredibly evil organization and enjoys it remorselessly – does she deserve to be treated nicely? Does she deserve to die?

Lucy can’t breathe, can’t focus, feels like she’s having a panic attack, which is obviously not conducive to firing a gun in any circumstance, much less this one. Her hands rattle hard enough to make the muzzle wobble crazily in all directions. Emma clearly doesn’t think she can or will do it, but she’s not an amateur; she’s not going to laugh off someone with motive to want her dead pointing a heavy Glock at her. Her eyes don’t leave Lucy, waiting to see what she’s going to do, what she’ll possibly –

And just then, there’s a sound at the door, it opens. One of the goons has clearly heard the gunshot and rushed down here. “Emma?” It’s Millerson. “Emma, are you – ”

“Ryan, you idiot, don’t – ”

Lucy swings around, brings the gun up, and fires in the direction of the door. There is a yell and a heavy stumbling sound, and she ducks low and sprints across the parlor. There’s another door on the far side, she doesn’t know if it leads upstairs as well – Emma is shouting, swearing – Lucy hit Millerson somewhere, he doesn’t sound like he’s dead, but she shot him, put the gun against his head pulled the trigger now he’s – no, she didn’t, he’s not, not Bohemian Rhapsody, not now, this is stupid, this is demented, this is –

There’s a staircase on the far side, which Lucy hurtles up, not sure what she’s going to find at the top and not sure she wants to, but driven on with blind panic. Halfway up, she runs very hard into someone coming down, screams (or tries – it gets choked in her throat as a gurgling squeal) and raises the gun again, just as they grab it. “Lucy! Jesus!”

She almost faints again, for a different reason. It’s Flynn, blood running down his face and shirt torn, as he wrenches what is, after all, his own gun out of her hand. This is probably a wise idea, as he can be much more effective with it, and by the looks of things, he caught Vincent in a moment of distraction after Millerson had hurried downstairs to check the gunshot. Vincent is probably soundly unconscious on the floor, if Flynn didn’t have time to do anything else, Lucy hopes he’s dead, with a savage, burning need that scares her. She hopes he's fucking dead.

There is a lot of banging and crashing behind them, and Flynn grabs Lucy’s hand, half-throws her over his shoulder (they seem to spend a lot of time escaping from Rittenhouse-owned properties in this fashion) and runs down the back corridor. They reach a door, which he wrenches open, and they spill out abruptly into the muggy spring afternoon beyond, into the thick tangles of untrimmed greenery that abut the back of the house. They bash and barge through it, branches lashing at Lucy’s face as Flynn does his best to break a path, feet slipping out from beneath them in six inches of mud. Nonetheless, they keep running, sliding down gravel and splashing through a murky green rivulet, through more trees on the far side, and finally out into an abandoned play park, which is exactly as creepy as it sounds, but looks like a warm and sunny daycare after the Rittenhouse of Rittenhorrors. Graffiti defaces the slide, the swings hang off their chains, and by the looks of things, local teenagers or junkies come here at night to get high. Lucy sways, grips hold of the monkey bar post, and goes to her knees, hoping not to stab herself on a stray heroin needle. Then she is very sick.

Flynn is likewise breathing as if they have been chased by a train, but he crouches next to her, almost but not quite putting a hand on her back, as if she is still a piece of dangerous ordnance that will explode if approached unwisely. “Lucy,” he says hoarsely. “Lucy?”

Lucy can’t answer, because she’s still throwing up, but finally spits and shudders, remaining on her knees, hair hanging loose in her face. She can feel herself shaking, a fine and constant tremor, and doesn’t know how to make herself stop. Her wrist is still in the cuff, the broken chain dangling. She feels half as if she is watching this remotely from above. Shock, she thinks. This is called shock. It’s entirely understandable, but you should have a blanket and somewhere to put your feet up. Probably also liquids and deep breathing.

All of those things seem as far away as Mars at the moment, and she retches once more, but doesn’t bring up anything except a dribble of sour bile. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. Her voice is hoarse and deep when she speaks. “What’re… we going to do?”

“We need to get out of here.” Flynn glances edgily back in search of pursuit. If Vincent is unconscious or dead, and Millerson is shot, hopefully Emma has been delayed, but they would clearly be foolish to think it was forever, and they’re still far too close. “Can you walk?”

Lucy obediently tries to struggle to her feet, but her knees immediately give out, and Flynn catches her, swinging her across his chest as he did on their escape from the first Rittenhouse shindig back in Marin County. (That one looks much more civilized and preferable, really – maybe Cahill is not so bad after all.) She can feel him shaking too, ever so slightly, as she tucks her head under his chin and buries her face in his shoulder. There is a wet spot of fresh blood on his shirt where the thugs must have broken his scab, and she shifts restlessly, pressing her hand to it. “Garcia, you’re…”

“Shh.” Flynn doesn’t break stride. “It’s fine, it’s nothing.”

“What did they – did they – ?” To judge from that and the blood on his head, he must have taken at least a few good licks, but thank God they didn’t get enough time to really dig in and go to town. “Are they – did you – ”

“I didn’t tell them.” Flynn hesitates. “Much.”

In that, Lucy can sense that whatever he did tell them, however deliberately misleading and unhelpful, was to make it sound as if he was cooperating, so they would not have any occasion to try to hurt her. Her abused heart clenches almost unbearably. They have crossed some kind of Rubicon here, some point of no return. Rittenhouse is not going to stop. They are going to keep looking for Flynn – and for Lucy, and probably for Wyatt, by the sounds of things. They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop.

Lucy falls into a fevered half-doze despite herself, worn out with exhaustion and terror, as Flynn keeps going. Finally, she stirs as he is stepping into the parking lot of some backwoods motel, two-story whitewashed cinderblock with garish pink doors. Flynn goes in and tells the receptionist there’s been a hiking accident, his wife is hurt, they really could use a room, at least for a few hours. He will take care of phoning the emergency services, and he has a little money, but still – if she could find it in her heart –

The receptionist, clearly alarmed by their appearance and hoping this is not the start of a TV horror series, quickly agrees. Five minutes later, Flynn is awkwardly unlocking the door of the end second-story room, carrying Lucy through, and setting her down on the bed with its polyester floral bedspread. The portable air conditioner wheezes in the grey, stuffy air. He shuts the door and swears, for which Lucy can’t really blame him in the least.

“Is this going to be our life now?” she asks weakly, eyes closed. “Hiding out in shitty hotel rooms from Rittenhouse? Running from one to the next? Having to hope we don’t get caught and do it all over again?”

Flynn doesn’t answer. It’s plain that he can’t, that he has no idea, that he has not had anything to recommend him at keeping her safe – that every time he reappears in her life, trouble and danger inevitably follows. Lucy cracks an eye to see him still standing there, staring down at her. Then he sits down on the bed and carefully picks the handcuff off her wrist, smoothing his callused fingers lightly along the abrasion. “Did Emma hurt you?”

“No, she…” Lucy feels her stomach revolting again, even though there’s nothing left to bring up, and pushes herself clumsily upright. Flynn is looking down at her hand, very small between both of his, still not quite meeting her eyes. “She just. . . she said I was safe for the time being, and gloated. I… startled her, I stole your gun and got the chain off, and…” Her words stutter to a stop. “I shot Millerson.”

At that, Flynn does lift his gaze, startled and pained. He looks at her for a very long moment, the way she can’t stop her lip from trembling, the way her eyes are wet, how she feels as fragile as porcelain. It’s clear he can’t quite decide how he wants to respond to that. He lifts one of his hands as if to tuck her hair behind her ear, still not entirely touching her. At last he says, “Did you kill him?”

“I don’t think so.” Lucy’s stomach turns over once more – and then, weirdly, it stops. She should be feeling worse about this. She, like any godless liberal academic, has plenty of opinions about American gun culture, about gun control (or lack thereof), about all the ways it’s ridiculously easy to kill someone in this country even if you aren’t part of an evil secret society. And while she does feel bad, obviously, it’s a worryingly less degree than she should. She might be able to do it again. She might be able to shoot somewhere less easily mended. This is not, is not, how Lucy wants to feel about it. And yet.

Flynn glances at her under his eyelashes again, her hand still in his, which Lucy feels as if she shouldn’t remind him of in case he pulls back. Finally he says, gruff and awkward, “Well. Good – good job. Getting away from them. Someone should teach you how to properly shoot, though. In case it happens again.”

Lucy does not want to know how to properly shoot. She wants to go home to her books and her papers and the safe, ordered, settled nature of her old life, which might have had its problems but at least was not an active turd volcano. She doesn’t know why Flynn still won’t entirely touch her or why she even wants him to, doesn’t know, doesn’t know. She is the one to pull her hand loose this time, and stands up. Has an overwhelming urge to wash until her skin comes off. “I think  I’m going to take a shower.”

Flynn glances at her with a pained and haunted expression. All he can fucking bring himself to say, however, until she almost wants to slap him, is, “Should I go look for some food?”

“If you want. I’m not really hungry.” Lucy sits up, and her head reels. He automatically reaches out to steady her, and their fingers lock. His tension is clearly evident, and after a dumbstruck instant – as if they haven’t been holding hands this entire time, because he has to make everything as difficult as possible, always – he tries to pull back.

Lucy, just then, has had enough. He clearly cares about her, gave up his gun when Emma had a box cutter at her throat, and even before that, in the reading room, he wasn’t exactly cringing in horror from her ugliness. But with this and everything, she isn’t in the mood to just patiently and graciously overlook his inexplicable, yo-yoing behavior one more time. This is not really a smart or healthy thing to do, but neither has been the rest of it. Lucy leans forward, catches his chin clumsily in her hand, and kisses him.

After all this time, and their multiple near misses, it’s – well, it’s as exactly as awkward as kissing someone you can’t decide if you love or hate for the first time, angry and messed up and just off a near-death experience, can possibly be. Lucy almost misses his mouth, and their teeth scrape, their noses knock, his head is not at quite the right angle and he momentarily seems to have had a heart attack anyway. His hand floats up, ghosting over her hair. The angle gets adjusted, and she cups her free hand at the back of his neck. His lips open. It turns into a proper kiss for five or ten glorious seconds, Lucy sliding forward on her knees and leaning down into him, eyes half-closed. It feels so much better than shouting at him. Then, since he must have gone too long without making a clanking emotional gaffe, he pulls back, turning his head just enough to separate their mouths. “Lucy. . .”

“Can’t we just. . .” Lucy slides up on him again, knees on either side of his hips. She has solid evidence, if you will, that he does not mind this at all. “For once, can’t we just. . .”

Flynn glances up at her with that same expression from earlier, that almost-anguished, disbelieving, tender, adoring look, that contains all the emotion he is such utter crap at articulating aloud. “You’re not in the right – ” he starts, then stops. “You’re angry, and you’re feeling like you want to lash out, and – you need a shower, Lucy. A shower, and maybe some food, and to sleep. You do.”

This may be, and indeed probably is, entirely true. Lucy, however, is aggravated beyond belief that the one time he’s able to come up with a mature, rational emotional response is the one time she doesn’t want him to. She also can’t tell if this is the “this isn’t the right moment, but we’ll get to it later” kind of gentle shutdown, or the “you’ve definitely read it wrong and I’m trying to let you down nicely” kind. You wouldn’t think so, given everything else, but she has given up on his guessing games. Fine. This has already been the worst day of her life, what else can really go wrong at this point?

Face burning, Lucy collects herself, slides off him, and retreats to the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror until her eyes cross and the image blurs. Then she undresses and turns on the tap, trying to get it past a tepid trickle. The ancient boiler seems incapable of running properly hot, and the water pressure isn’t great either. It feels like standing under a dribble of warm spit, which is far from the soothing deluge that Lucy envisioned, and isn’t helping her tension or her frustration. She runs her hands over her face, through her wet hair, still possessed of the phantom urge to scrub. There’s a hard bar of blue soap that feels like gravel when she scrapes it over her skin. She sits down and watches the water circle the drain. She would like to think she’s handling this relatively well, but she has no idea.

Lucy remains where she is until the water has run completely cold, then gets out of the shower and dries herself with another sandpapery towel. She looks at her clothes and can’t really stomach the idea of putting them back on, doesn’t feel released or relaxed. Finally, she just struggles them back on, fingers fumbling. She doesn’t look at herself in the mirror this time. She’d rather not see.

Flynn is gone when she emerges back into the room, and she goes tense, staring out the window at the mostly-empty motel parking lot. There aren’t either of the black cars that must have belonged to Millerson and Vincent, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have stolen the decrepit seventies RV parked at the end and turned it into a mobile surveillance unit. Did Flynn leave his gun here? No, that would be stupid. After what just happened, he will probably only be parted from it on pain of literal death. The world is turning out from under her, it feels like the walls are closing in. This isn’t nearly a small enough room to trigger her claustrophobia in the ordinary course of things, but –

Breathe, Lucy instructs herself firmly, locking her knees. You’re fine. You’re fine.

And in fact, since she is, in some terrible way, fine, things level out the next moment. There’s a rattling at the door, and Flynn enters with a brown grocery bag, probably from the general store down the road – this seems like the kind of place that has a general store down the road. He sets it down, regarding her cautiously. “Dinner.”

“I’m – not very hungry.” Lucy turns away, crossing her arms over herself. “If you were thinking of a shower, it’s terrible.”

Flynn raises one eyebrow, but doesn’t immediately respond. The tension in the room is thick as maple syrup, but much less enjoyably so. They have reached the limit of their polarities, cannot continue to be forced apart without some sort of major explosion, but it’s less certain if it would not then be a bigger one if they came closer. The way Flynn is standing just inside the door, watching her warily, is proof of that. They don’t know if they are arguing or on the verge of making out or slapping each other or sobbing (or perhaps that’s only Lucy). She feels like a rack of dishes tilted over and slammed on the floor. Whatever is in the bag smells good, but she can’t get herself worked up to actually eating.

At last, after another painfully awkward silence, Flynn penguin-shuffles closer, digs the food out – looks like a deli chicken special, some rolls, a couple prepackaged Caesar salads and two bottles of fruit juice – and sets it on the table. “Hey,” he says, in that gruff but gentle voice. “Come here, Lucy.”

She pauses, then walks closer, feeling rather light on her feet and glad to sit down. Flynn opens the chicken box and pulls out a leg, then hands it to her. Despite herself, Lucy almost laughs, as he reminds her of a concerned mother bird anxiously testing out the juiciest worm for an ailing nestling and trying to force it down her beak. She nibbles a little, just to placate him, as he stubbornly keeps up the process with torn bits of the bread roll and salad, handing her the juice every so often as if to get her sugars up. As food tends to do, it helps. Lucy’s head settles a little, she feels less fragile and off the handle, able to breathe more deeply and clear out the knot in her chest. “Thanks,” she manages at last. “Thank you.”

He inclines his head, watching her carefully. “Better?”

“Yes.” Lucy lets out a long sigh, then nods timidly at his cooling portion; he’s barely paid any attention to it, too involved with feeding her. “You should eat yours too.”

Flynn shrugs, then economically dispatches it, clearly as an afterthought. The silence has tipped toward the easier, and there is less chance of a stray spark blowing the whole room sky-high, but the conversation is still not bountiful. At last he says, “I still think this is too close, but without a car, we can’t move anywhere tonight. That piece of shit is not worth it.” He aims a disparaging look at the RV. “Tomorrow, when there’s daylight, I’ll find something else.”

By the sound of things, Lucy thinks, Flynn is going to steal a car. This is possibly something she should talk him out of, but she can’t be arsed. She eats a final bite of salad and then pushes it away. “So. . . I’m guessing interviewing at Kenyon would be out?”

“I think you should.” Flynn swigs the last of his juice and tosses it across the room into the garbage, with a casual skill that Lucy can’t help but admire. “Get out of California. Away from all this. It might be safer.”

“And you?” Lucy tries to speak as offhandedly as she can, but her voice trembles. “What are you going to do?”

Flynn’s eyes are shadows beneath his drawn brows. “I’m going to fight them.”

Lucy was afraid of that. She doesn’t know that she expected anything different, or that Flynn would be content to go back to whatever life he used to have before this, but it still turns something over cold in her stomach to hear it confirmed. “Garcia. . . this thing with the time machine, whatever’s going on at Mason Industries, I don’t pretend to understand it, but if that’s the scale of what you’re up against, how can you. . .” How can you do it alone?

Flynn looks back at her steadily, gently, very sadly. “Do I have a choice?”

Lucy doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, doesn’t know if they are both fooling themselves with the comfortable, comforting delusion that she can take the job at Kenyon and recuse herself from all of this. As if moving to Ohio would be any kind of deterrent to Rittenhouse, if they were determined to catch up to her. She could change her name (ha, like that’s a foolproof method). She could move to Australia. She could run. It’s all possible.

And yet. Lucy has tried to run away from Flynn enough times by now, for whatever reasons, that she’s not altogether sure there’s going to be any different result this time. And she doesn’t want to, she still doesn’t want. Yet going with him down this path is unimaginably dark and dangerous, so far out of her comfort zone that it can’t even be spotted with the Hubble Telescope. She doesn’t owe this to him. She doesn’t have to risk it.

And yet.

Lucy leans forward slowly and takes Flynn’s hand where it lies on the table, clenched and tense. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, doesn’t know what the answer is, other than that she wants their stars to align for a little while. She doesn’t want to try another move on him and get shut down again, doesn’t know what his problem (rather, problems) are. Just links their fingers and lets them rest together on the table. It is getting dark in the room. Headlights waver past on the country highway outside, a brief flash of illumination, and fade.

At last, Flynn stirs from his reverie, gently lets go of Lucy’s hand, and stands up. He strips off his shoes and belt, then shucks his shirt, revealing his undershirt beneath. There is more bruising around his wounded shoulder, deep in the muscle and continuing down the arm where Millerson and Vincent must have hit him, and Lucy sucks in a breath. It’s not like there’s much she can actually do for it, but she makes half a move to get up. “Garcia. . .?”

“It’s all right, Lucy.” He prods at it, and grimaces. “You should get some sleep.”

As there is again only one bed in the room, Lucy does not feel up to facing another bizarre repeat of the Sheraton incident, where he insisted on sleeping on the floor and then wouldn’t look at her. Her pulse is fluttering in her throat as she pulls off her own shoes and socks. Taking off her own shirt would leave her in just her bra, and that definitely seems a little too forward. Is he going to flip out again? He’s managing to act remotely normal right now, but who knows. It’s as if he can be a disaster all he pleases, but the instant she’s in worse distress, he somehow acquires the magical ability to pull himself together and try to support her. It’s almost cute, in a tragic way.

Tentative and careful, they get into bed, still in their clothes. Flynn is not insisting on the floor, so there is that, at least. The sheets smell slightly musty, and the pillows are not the most robust item of bedding ever produced. They lie there side by side, staring up at the ceiling, neither of them clearly getting much sleep given the way they jump at small noises. Then very slowly, Lucy lifts her head and moves it to his good shoulder, settling into the broadness of his chest. It’s more comfortable than the scanty pillow, and it makes her feel safer to be close to him (his gun has been left in easy reach on the bedside table). She listens to the beat of his heart, deep and strong and slow, and rests her hand lightly on his arm.

Slowly, tentatively, Flynn wraps his own arm around her, gathering her closer. Lucy edges close against him, curled into his side, still afraid of him going haywire again and doing something else regrettable. But for now, the fragile, unspoken truce is holding, and she could swear he presses the ghost of a kiss to her hair. If she’s not dreaming already. It’s the same way they spent last night (God, was it just last night?) in the same hotel bed, and yet something, yet again, has changed. Later. She’ll work it out later.

Lucy closes her eyes, and although she hears screaming in her head, she sleeps.

[tkmedia]

2021 Fantasy Best Ball Mock Draft: Strategy tips, advice for half-point PPR leagues

Best ball leagues have emerged over the past few years as one of the more popular trends in fantasy football. Why? Well, it's simple. There's nothing fantasy football owners love more than drafting. That's when endless opportunities exist and fantasy owners have countless sleepers and value picks circled on their cheat sheets. All you have to do is draft and wait for the points to roll in. Everything is out of your control after the draft. Your optimal lineup is automatically set on a weekly basis. There's no start 'em, sit 'em choices, waiver wire pickups, or trades. As fun as those can be, they're also time-consuming and agonizing. While best ball adds a little extra stress during the draft, it still beats the headaches that come with lineup decisions.  DOMINATE YOUR DRAFT: Ultimate 2021 Cheat SheetYou can study different strategies ahead of best ball drafts, but the only way to be truly ready is to test out a mock draft or two. Recently, I participated in an 18-round best ball draft with 11 other fantasy owners at Underdog Fantasy. The half-point PPR league had 18 roster spots with no defenses or kickers (common for best ball), and I ended up with the No. 9 overall pick. Because I was picking late in the first round, my strategy was to double up on running backs early on. Waiting until the third round to draft my RB2 could get risky, and I might have a chance to draft a borderline RB1 with both of my first two picks. After that, the plan was to grab receivers often and build up a wealth of depth there since this league starts two RBs, three WRs, and a flex.MORE 2021 FANTASY HELP: Mock Draft Simulator | Position battles | Bye weeks | Best team namesWhile I followed our top 200 PPR rankings at times, I also had to make some adjustments. Best ball is a season-long format with no transactions or start/sit decisions, so it made sense to add some younger, upside-based sleepers to the fold. They come with some risk, but if they pop off, then they could really buoy my team.Also, a key difference with best ball is your flex is often a receiver. In season-long leagues, you often want stability in that position going into the week; in best ball, the highest-scoring player is going to wind up there automatically, and that's often a WR who caught a 40-yard TD pass, not a handcuff RB who received 10 touches and failed to get into the end zone. That's why I went WR heavy after the first couple rounds.FANTASY DRAFT STRATEGY: Snake Draft | Auction | Best Ball | Dynasty/Keeper | IDP

2021 Fantasy Best Ball Mock Draft: 12-Team half-point PPR league

* This draft was for a half-point PPR best ball league that starts 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 FLEX and has 10 bench spotsAustin Ekeler, RB, Chargers (Round 1, Pick 9). There were backs that ranked higher than Ekeler among our top 200 PPR rankings, but he carries a lot of value in half-point PPR formats. He had 92 catches, 993 yards and eight receiving touchdowns in 2019, the last time he played a full,16-game season. Ekeler still produced 933 scrimmage yards in 10 games last year, and he should only be better given the improved blocking in which the Chargers have invested. He's a nice high-floor option at this early stage.Antonio Gibson, RB, Washington (2.16). We actually have Gibson ranked higher than Ekeler in both our standard and PPR rankings, but I wanted to see if I could get him at the 16th spot. Mission accomplished. Like Ekeler, Gibson is a great pass-catcher, as he played receiver in college. He had 36 catches in 14 games (10 starts) last year but should eat into J.D. McKissic's target total in 2021. McKissic was targeted 110 times last year. Gibson also did well between the tackles, averaging a strong 4.7 yards per carry and totaling a whopping 11 TDs. He did that with little experience at the running back position. With a full offseason at his new spot, he should be even better than he was as a rookie.2021 PPR FANTASY RANKINGS: Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker | Top 200Cooper Kupp, WR, Rams (3.33). With two strong running backs in tow, the third and fourth rounds were all about adding a couple of high-quality receivers. Getting Kupp with the 33rd pick was a good start. Kupp has averaged 129 targets over the past two seasons and has been on pace for 1,102 receiving yards and seven TDs per 16 games during that span. The impressive thing? Kupp did that all with Jared Goff. Matthew Stafford should be an upgrade over Goff, so Kupp's ceiling is even higher that usual. While some prefer his teammate, Robert Woods, we actually have Kupp rated slightly higher in our WR PPR rankings.Brandon Aiyuk, WR, 49ers (4.40). Receivers were flying off the board at this point — as they're wont to do in best ball leagues — so we had to reach a bit here. We also faced a tough decision: Odell Beckham Jr. or Aiyuk. Ultimately, we went with Aiyuk because he was on pace for 128 targets last year while generating seven total touchdowns (five through the air and two on the ground). He's a safe, multi-faceted weapon with upside. Beckham certainly is appealing, too, but Aiyuk's floor/ceiling combo is just a bit higher.2021 STANDARD FANTASY RANKINGS: Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker | Top 200Javonte Williams, RB, Broncos (5.57). If you can land three high-quality running backs in best ball, you're usually in great shape at the position. That's why I grabbed Williams here. The price was right for our 54th-ranked player, and he adds some extra upside to our RB room. Plus, he'll protect against any potential injury to Ekeler or Gibson, who both missed time last season. Williams averaged 7.9 yards per touch in his final year at UNC and scored 22 times. He won't repeat that production at the NFL level, but he can still be a rock-solid RB2. Melvin Gordon will take some touches away from him, but it wouldn't be surprising to see Williams emerge as the workhorse by the end of his rookie season.Josh Allen, QB, Bills (6.64). I wasn't planning on drafting a quarterback this early, but Allen was too good to pass on. He's our No. 3 ranked QB for 2021, yet he was available early in the sixth round. Allen has an elite rushing floor, as he ran for 421 yards and eight scores last year. He had 45 touchdowns in total and threw for more than 4,500 yards. Allen has improved markedly in each of the past two seasons. If he makes another leap, he could be the best quarterback in fantasy football. Even if he doesn't, he'll still be a sure-fire top-five option. He is a steal and will allow us to wait on another quarterback until much later in the draft.2021 FANTASY AUCTION VALUES (Standard & PPR): Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker | OverallDJ Chark, WR, Jaguars (7.81). Chark kickstarted a run of five consecutive receivers for my team, as I was desperate to add depth and talent at the position. Chark is dealing with a broken finger right now, but he should return before the start of the season. He has averaged 13.6 yards per reception each of the past two year despite playing with a plethora of different quarterbacks. If Trevor Lawrence can close that revolving door, Chark could have his best season yet. At the very least, he's a good deep threat and a nice WR3. You could also make a case for his teammate, Laviska Shenault, here, but Chark is the more proven option.Darnell Mooney, WR, Bears (8.88). OK, this was definitely a reach, but sometimes, you have to take risks in best ball leagues. Drafting Mooney in Round 8 qualifies as one that could pay off. Mooney caught 61 passes for 631 yards and four touchdowns as a rookie. Those numbers are modest, but his potential is sky-high. He was targeted 98 times despite starting just nine of 16 games. Frequently, he was able to shake open downfield but Nick Foles and Mitchell Trubisky couldn't get him the ball. Take this play, for example.So, is Mooney a risk? Definitely, but his upside is through the roof. Once Justin Fields gets on the field, Mooney could be a great deep threat. And with Allen Robinson there to take attention away from him, opposing defenses won't be able to focus on him.2021 FANTASY SLEEPERS: Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Each teamDeVante Parker, WR, Dolphins (9.105). If Mooney is a boom-or-bust pick, Parker is a vanilla pick. He averaged a solid 7.4 fantasy points per game (FPPG) last season in 14 games. He's a steady performer, and at this point, he is what he is. A good starter that will be a worthwhile flex play in most matchups. He may even be a WR3 if Tua Tagovailoa continues to perform as well as he has during the preseason. Parker has only played a 16-game season once in his six-year NFL career, but he has never played fewer than 11 games either. He's a nice, safe foil for Mooney and will be fine as our main flex option if Mooney busts.Gabriel Davis, WR, Bills (10.112). As a rookie, Davis averaged 17.1 yards per catch and scored a touchdown on seven of his 35 catches. He had 599 receiving yards while playing 73.3 percent of the Buffalo snaps. Davis figures to have an even bigger role in 2021 with John Brown gone. The Bills brought in Emmanuel Sanders to repalce Brown, but he will likely serve as the fourth receiver and a versatile backup. Davis could be a big-time TD threat and like Mooney, will benefit from playing across from another dynamic receiver, Stefon Diggs. He's a great 10th-round value, and stacking him with Allen will raise our team's ceiling. Boom-or-bust backups like Davis are a must in best ball leagues.2021 FANTASY TIERS & DRAFT STRATEGY: Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/STJakobi Meyers, WR, Patriots (11.129). Meyers is one of the best sleepers to target in best ball PPR formats. He caught 59 of 81 targets in 14 games last season and figures to be the No. 1 receiver on the Patriots in 2021. If Cam Newton can stay healthy or if Mac Jones can perform at a high level as a rookie, Meyers should have a chance to be a reception machine. He averaged 5.8 targets per game last season but should see even more with other receivers like Nelson Agholor there to draw attention away from the defense.Jonnu Smith, TE, Patriots (12.136). Waiting on a tight end can be risky, but I managed to get a good one in Round 12. Having Smith and Meyers may not look ideal, but Meyers is my WR7, so I don't have to worry to much about them cannibalizing each other's production. Smith had nine total touchdowns last season despite dealing with a knee injury. He's a versatile player who can be used in-line, as a receiver, and out of the backfield, so Josh McDaniels will scheme up ways to get him the ball. If you're waiting on a tight end, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than Smith.2021 FANTASY CONSISTENCY RATINGS: Read the full article

[cloudytep]

Did you know that Bluehost is home to more than 2 million websites? 

 Bluehost is a top option to consider if you’re in the market for a web host. they power more than 2 million sites across the globe.

 But web hosting services are not created equally.

I see so many new webmasters make the mistake of just going with the cheapest web host or the web hosting site that appears first in their Google search results.

For something as important as web hosting, weigh your options in order to find the best web hosting plan for your needs.

Since so many of you will likely come across Bluehost during your search, I want to give you the best information you can to make a decision.

I’ll explain all of their hosting plans, pricing, and discuss the best parts about using Bluehost. I’ll even tell you about a couple of cons associated with Bluehost, just to make sure you have all the facts before you sign up.

Let’s look in to some of the benefits of Bluehost webhosting!!

 Benefits of Using Bluehost Web Hosting

While Bluehost offers a lot of great features, some of them are really stand out.

 Low pricing options

Bluehost allows you to spend much less on web hosting. That’s great especially if you’re looking to build a site on a budget.

As you’ve already seen, the introductory rates for Bluehost shared web hosting starts at just $3.95 per month. Being able to host your site for less than $50 is a great deal.

All Bluehost shared hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate and free marketing credits. When you factor in the storage and bandwidth you’re getting, that’s a fairly decent value for the price.

Overall, this is one of the lowest prices you’ll see for a legitimate web host.

 Great security

Even though Bluehost has some inexpensive pricing options compared to other web hosts on the market today, it doesn’t mean that they’re inferior when it comes to crucial security features.

I’ve already mentioned that an SSL certificate comes standard, regardless of which plan you choose.

Furthermore, their plans have a feature to hide the personal information that you used when signing up for a private domain. Lots of times hackers will target this information from website owners.

Bluehost has features to prevent malware attacks, as well as tools used for automatic daily backups. You’ll also get a security tool that offers spam protection for the email address associated with your website.

Again, this is all a great value considering how much these plans go for.

 Top loading speeds

Page loading speed is something that always needs to be taken into consideration when you’re shopping around for the best website host.

If your site takes too long to load, it’s going to kill your engagement metrics. People will abandon your site, and you won’t be able to drive conversions. It’s as simple as that.

 The average response time for Bluehost in 2020 is 352 ms. To put that into perspective, refer to my SiteGround web hosting review. SiteGround’s average response time over the same period of time was 662 ms, which is still fast.

Bluehost nearly cuts that time in half.

Easy to use

You don’t need to be a tech expert to host your website with Bluehost. Nearly anyone, regardless of their experience level, can find a beginner hosting plan from this platform.

That’s definitely not the case with all web hosting providers on the market today. There are plenty of web hosts out there that are specifically designed for advanced webmasters.

Whether you’re using WordPress or taking advantage of the Bluehost website builder, everything will be pretty straightforward and easy to follow.

Excellent support

Even though Bluehost is easy to figure out, you may still find yourself in a situation where you need some help or guidance.

In most cases, you should able to find an answer through their knowledge base page. This is essentially a support center that has how-to guides, tutorials, and articles with instructions for troubleshooting and FAQ. Simply search what you’re looking for, and there will likely be a resource to help you out.

Furthermore, Bluehost has 24/7 phone support, which is great for those of you who like to be talked through problems.

If you’re like me, you’ll probably just take advantage of their live chat agents. It’s a fast and easy way to get an answer without having to leave their website.

 High uptime

You can’t give a web hosting review without referring to uptime rates. Take a look at where Bluehost stacks up compared to other web hosting providers in this recent study.

Bluehost ranked second on the list with a 99.991% average uptime for the year. That percentage is identical to MidPhase, which ranked first on the list.

Furthermore, you can see that Bluehost only had seven total outages on the year, which was the lowest for all hosts in the top five, including the top-ranking provider on the list.

It really doesn’t get much better than that. So if you host your website with Bluehost, you can rest assured knowing that your site isn’t going to have much downtime throughout the year.

 Money-back guarantee

Like most web hosting services, you won’t get a free trial to try them out. But with that said, Bluehost does offer a 30-day money-back promise.

So if you’re on the fence about using Bluehost, it’s comforting to know that you’ll get refunded if you’re not ultimately satisfied in the first month.

But with that said, it’s worth noting that the refund only applies to web hosting costs. So if you use Bluehost for a domain name or other add-ons, those purchases are final.

 WordPress hosting

If you’re using WordPress hosting, Bluehost is definitely a top option for you to consider. That’s because this web host is just one of the three “official” recommended choices from the WordPress website.

Hostgator and interserver are the other two recommended web hosting services on this WordPress resource.

With that said, you can still use nearly any other web hosting service on the market to create your WordPress website. But it’s definitely a positive sign that Bluehost is recognized as a WordPress partner.

 Compare Bluehost Web Hosting Plans

Not every website has the same web hosting needs. Bluehost knows this and has three different types of web hosting options for you to choose from.

Shared

VPS (virtual private server)

Dedicated server

Choosing which kind of web hosting plan to go with will vary based on how much you want to pay, your expected site traffic, and the type of website you have. Below I will give you a more detailed description of the differences between these hosting options.

Shared hosting

If you have a new website and you’re on a tight budget, shared hosting might be your best option. Bluehost offers four different pricing plans for its shared hosting services.

Basic — $3.95 per month

Plus — $5.95 per month

Choice Plus — $5.95 per month

Pro — $13.95 per month

I know what some of you are thinking. If Plus and Choice Plus are priced the same, wouldn’t you automatically go with Choice Plus?

All Bluehost plans go up in price once you renew. The advertised prices above are just the introductory rates. It’s worth noting that Plus renews at $10.99 per month, while Choice Plus renews at $14.99 per month.

Bluehost has managed shared hosting platforms, meaning you won’t have to worry about managing servers or anything like that

 VPS hosting

VPS hosting from Bluehost is the middle-tier option of the three plans. There are three pricing options for a Bluehost virtual private server.

Standard — $19.99 per month

Enhanced — $29.99 per month

Ultimate — $59.99 per month

The biggest differences in these plans are the cores, SSD storage, RAM, bandwidth, and IP addresses.

With the Standard plan, you’ll get 1 core, 30 GB of SSD storage, 2 GB of RAM, 1 TB of bandwidth, and 1 IP address. Cores, SSD storage, and RAM double at each tier for the Enhanced and Ultimate packages.

Using Bluehost for a VPS gives you dedicated server resources. You’ll be able to use your RAM, CPU, and disk space, no matter what other users on the same server are doing. VPS hosting also has increased security, since you won’t be sharing an operating system with any other Bluehost users.

 Dedicated hosting

Picking a dedicated server plan from Bluehost means you’ll be taking advantage of their top-of-the-line services. These plans are made for those of you who are tech-savvy and want complete control over your server.

Standard — $79.99 per month

Enhanced — $99.99 per month

Premium — $119.99 per month

As you can see, top-tier plans come at higher price points. With VPS hosting, you’re maxed out at 120 GB of SSD storage, 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB of bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses. But dedicated servers from Bluehost go all the way up to 1 TB of storage, 16 GB of RAM, 15 TB of bandwidth, and 5 IP addresses.

These plans will probably exceed the needs and uses for what most of you are looking for. But with that said, as your website grows and your traffic scales, you might want to consider a dedicated server in the future.

Conclusion:

With all said, I definitely recommend Bluehost as a web hosting option among various services in the market with its leading uptime and fast loading characteristics in the market.

It also has hosting types, plans and options to meet the needs of any website. From these options, I’m sure, you’ll able to find an option that best fit for your online business and hosting needs and plans.

[ploddingaroundtheglobe]

Tokyo

Travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo via plane was around 7 hours, we travelled with Air Asia for a second time. We arrived in the evening of 20th December 2016. Very little research was done before we arrived, Japan was not one of our planned destinations. Our next venture was supposed to be Australia but due to visa issues, we decided to be spontaneous and travel somewhere random. Japan was totally different to what we imagined and exceeded our expectations. What an amazing little country! We hopped into a taxi transfer to our small apartment, we had rented for several days, little did we know and not until we reached the highway, that we was in a chauffeured hat and suit taxi and the meter was going up very quickly, when we arrived it was equivalent to £112.00, we felt sick and reluctant to pay the guy but it was our own faults for just jumping in, we may still have been in Asia but it was not as cheap as Thailand and actually quite an expensive city.

Tokyo is the capital city of Japan, with 37.393 million residents all residing in this one city. Tokyo was originally known by the name Edo, the city was founded by the Edo clan in the late twelfth century, they went on to build the Edo Castle. Japanese currency is known as Japanese yen, their seasonal weather is identical to the UK. Although it does get much warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter months. Spring is one of the most popular months due to the cherry blossom season. Japanese love cherry blossoms, it symbolizes human life, transience and nobleness. They hold flower watching parties known as “Hanami”. We would have loved to have visited the cherry blossoms but unfortunately it was mid winter when we arrived. 

Me and Tom were literally lost in translation in Japan, obviously we had not learnt any Japanese language apart from Hai which meant yes and Arigato which means thank you. When we went into the shops, locals would spiel off full conversations and all we could reply with was Hai, we could have been agreeing to anything. Occasionally we would come across a local who spoke broken English which was a god send, but some how we made our way about Japan winging it. At the train stations the places and locations had English spellings underneath which did help us and they usually had English speaking person on the information desk. The trains were always rammed with people, doing their daily commutes. The Japanese are very reserved people, so trains were busy yet so quiet. It was forbidden to make loud conversation on the trains.

Spending Christmas in Tokyo felt right as it was their winter too, we come prepared with clothing as in Malaysia we decided to buy coats and winter accessories to keep us warm. It was the first time we had experienced cold weather in about 5 months so it was actually quite delightful. We spent Christmas in Tokyo in our little apartment. We had traditional Japanese style beds on the floor, which consisted of a wooden mat and padded cushions. It was actually really comfortable and has better benefits for the back allowing you to sleep in a more firm supportive position. we purchased our xmas gifts to one another from the 100 yen shop, which is like their pound shop. We got each other essentials like gloves, back massagers and chop sticks and of course Christmas hats. In Japan their traditional Christmas dinner is a KFC take out. 3.6 million Japanese families enjoy KFC on Christmas day. People have to prebook their meals due to the popularity and demand at Christmas time, otherwise they have to face long ques. We managed to scrape together some ingredients to make a Christmas meal. Going back to the part about getting lost in translation, what we thought was a traditional gravy was actually a soy sauce so when our meal was prepared we covered our meals in soy sauce and that pretty much cremated the meal.

There is so much site seeing to be done in Tokyo, our feet were aching most days from the amount of steps we put in. The city has arcades splashed all around, from photo booths, to teddy crane machines. Japanese are not allowed to gamble with actual money so they all play a game called Pachinko. It is a type of mechanical game used as both recreational and gambling. Purchasing Pachinko balls in the hope to win double back. Its like a loophole into gambling. watching them all fixated on the machines was crazy, there was even some areas where it was legal to smoke and play. Some of the players would sit there hours on end. 

A lot of the locals walking round were wearing wacky clothing or fancy dress, Japanese love to bring out their inner child. There is a street in Tokyo called Takeshita Street. It is a pedestrian shopping street, lined with fashion boutiques cafes and restaurants. The street is mobbed with people in fancy dress, the shops are full of the latest gadgets and accessories, full of colour and character. Tokyo has the best crepe shops filled with your desired choices. Definately a must try whilst here!

Dressing like childrens toy dolls is popular in Japan, there is even a barbie cafe, where female Japanese would dress up as their favourite dolls and take a long their toy dolls, they would all meet up and enjoy afternoon tea together. Back home people would think it was a bit weird, but it was something that made them happy and reminisce been a child. 

We visited one of the Maid cafes in Tokyo, in these particular cafes the staff dress up in maid costumes and act as servants, treating the customers as their masters in their private homes. This was definitely even a bit weird for me, it was a place for fetishes. The clientele was predominately old creepy men. As we sat down in the cafe, we was each given animals ears, and when we wanted to order we had to make animal noises. It was all too weird for me, you was not allowed to video or take pictures until your designated time where you would pose for a picture with one of the cafes maids. 

Tokyo is so noisy and busy at night time, venturing the streets at night is amazing. Shibuya crossing is the famous and most busiest crossing at the peak times. When the lights turn red and green for pedestrians, people from all directions cross the road at the same time, you literally cannot stop in the middle as people would just stamp all over you.

There were even tours which you could join, where you could ride real life Mario go karts around the city. The gadgets in Tokyo are  on another level, the toilets are amazing, you could literally loose 20 minutes just playing with each toilet function, the heated seat was my fave especially on a winters morning. 

In Tokyo there are love rooms which can be rented by the hour, for people who would like some privacy for a few hours. The rooms usually come equipped with jacuzzi tubs, complimentary condoms and mirrored ceilings. We rented a room for the experience, we mainly just wanted to sit in the jacuzzi, nothing seedy about the visit.

It was essential that we didn’t leave Tokyo without seeing the sumo wrestlers. Sumo is a form of competitive full contact wrestling, where the wrestler “Rikishi” attempts to force his opponent out of the circular ring. Japan is the only place where the sport is practiced professionally and considered a national sport. The sumos wear a Mawashi which is a 30 foot long belt that they tie in a knot at the back. The thickness of the belt will cover the nether regions, the belt can be grabbed by the wrestler and used to assist them during the tournaments. Living a sumo life sounds very regimented, certain behaviours have to be followed, for example growing their hair into a top knot, they are also expected to dress in Japanese traditional wear, the type and quality of their dress depends on their hierachy status. Their strict eating regimens state that they should skip breakfast and have a large lunch, they will then have a siesta after this. This time allows them to gain the weight they need. Rich diets of meats, fish, and veggies washed down with a beer. The lifestyle of a sumo impacts their health as they usually only have a life expetancy of 60-65 years of age, as they usually develop health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. In the neighborhood of Ryogoku, there is a training facility for sumos, we was able to visit one morning and watch them in training through the window. They even ventured outside afterwards to pose for pictures. The stance and stretches that they can get into is unbelievable. with all that weight and they are still so flexible. 

Tokyo's famous landmark is the Sky tree, it is a observation and broadcasting tower. It became the tallest tower in 2011 at 634 metres high and the second tallest structure in the world after the Burj Khalifa. 

Our 6th year anniversary on boxing day was celebrated in Tokyo. We visited Meji Jingu Shrine. This is one of the most popular shrines in Japan. Nestled in the heart of the city and a bit of an escape from the busy city outside. It is located just outside the Harajuku Station, and there are approximately 100,000 trees in the surrounding area. The shrine is dedicated to the derifed spirits of the Emperor Meji. Inside the shrine was a station where visitors were writing down their wishes before posting them into a sealed box. We wrote down our wish and placed it into the love box. The shrine was vibrant and beautiful, a great little visit if your in the area. 

We absolutely loved Tokyo and we would definately return in the future maybe in the spring next time. Our next venture was to Hakone to visit the Yunessun Spa via train.

[cyanoticfireflies]

Pokémon Sword Avatar Challenge Playthrough Part 1

Thus begins our little tale. Strap in, everyone, and join me on an adventure through the Galar Region!

I have been doing Pokémon Avatar challenges for several generations now and have decided to take on Galar as a Water Tribe trainer.

For those unfamiliar with the Pokémon Avatar challenges, it’s fairly simple: each Pokémon type is assigned to a nation.  You may only catch/use Pokémon with a type that is assigned to the nation you choose. You may not use a Pokémon from outside your nation.  The link previous has the more detailed rules.  I’m using the nation allocations updated for X and Y since they take Fairy type into account.

I will be playing Pokémon Sword as it is the version I own.  I do not have the expansion, though I may end up getting it partway through the playthrough.

Ready?  Let us commence.

We step into Galar as a female trainer from the town of Postwick.  As always, we’re watching the beginning of the exhibition match between Leon and Raihan.  Is anyone else getting a little tired of Charizard?  (Watch me be chased off the Internet for that….)  Can we get some love for the other Gen 1 starters up in here?

Also, I know his brother is the Champion, but Hop’s house is huge?  Like it looks massive from the outside.  Remember the days when your rival’s house was a kitchen and their bedroom because apparently they made their family members sleep under the dining room table?  Ah, those were the days.

Real talk: how does Hop think Leon’s going to get lost?  It’s literally a straight shot!  The train station is directly in front of the road that goes to his house?  Where would he turn?  Also, my god the music in Potswick sounds like the music for the “Back Alley” in Kingdom Hearts II.  Or am I just nuts?

Our first partner is the starter Pokémon, the grass type Grookey.  I name him “Anyu” for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  He’s Relaxed nature, so more Defense and less Speed. I wasn’t counting on Anyu being that fast, so that’s fine with me.  Grookey starts with Scratch and Growl.  Since we’re not using any hacks, his ability is Overgrow.  This, of course, will give Hop a Sobble.

We Scratch down Wooloo despite Wooloo getting a lucky crit against Anyu.  After Wooloo goes down, Anyu hits level 6 and learns “Branch Poke,” a new Gen 8 grass type move.  Just in time to use this new super effective move to take Sobble down in two easy strikes and hit level 7.

We get ready to begin our Pokémon journey but are immediately waylaid by a Wooloo trying to give itself brain damage by ramming into a fence.  But we have to go save it!  Surely the fog-covered Slumbering Weald where we’re forbidden to go won’t be any big deal, right?  Rookidee having Peck sucks, though, and is quickly showing one of the benefits of the nature-boosted Defense stat early.

We faint dramatically due to the simply overwhelming presence of a strange Pokémon who (despite being on the box art) will certainly not be the game’s legendary Pokémon . Definitely not.

I’m feeling Hop’s slang though.  Leon’s “pants” with directions, mom will go “spare.”  It’s okay, I’m hip.  I know what the youngsters find groovy.  On the topic of language, if Pokémon say their own names why does Grookey say “tumtum?”

A quick peek in the bag shows we start out with five Pokéballs, a potion, and a fishing rod. Hey, remember when we had to find/buy that stuff ourselves?  Good times.

We add a Skwovet to the team as our first encounter and the first Pokémon I’m allowed to catch. (Normal type: Allowable for all nations if it doesn’t gain an incompatible type upon evolution.)  We name her “Rajuna.”  She’s level 6 at catch, with the ability Cheek Pouch.  She joins the team with Tackle, Tail Whip, and Bite.  Impish nature, so more Defense and less Sp. Attack.  Right now, our team is all physical walls….  Since S/S have catch experience, this also gets Anyu to level 8 and he learns “Taunt.”

We also grab a Grubbin and name her “Karane.”  I’m typically a fan of Vikavolt and since all Bug types are usable by all nations this is within the rules (a change from the Gen 1-5 Avatar challenge rules).    She’s Rash nature, so extra Sp. Attack but less Sp. Defense, which is fine.  Level 4, ability Swarm – nothing too special.  But adding the Electric type coverage is going to be good for any Flying types for now.  We may not end up using Karane long-term.

After a little grinding, all three members of our team are Level 9/10.  I pass on the chance to catch a level 2 Caterpie just to save my own sanity.  Not gonna lie, I’m so tired of Butterfree/Beedrill – but at least Beedrill got a mega-evolution.  I accidentally one-shot a Blipbug with a critical Vice Grip from Karane, so… meh. That happened.  Plenty of chances later.  I purposely pass on a Wooloo.  Don’t want to double-up on my Normal types right away.  All that said, I will be prioritizing the Gen 8 ‘mons. Still working on getting to know the newest 87 Poké-pals.

We arrive in Wedgehurst to see Charizard flaunting his flames and Leon about to visit the lab.  We get a special introduction to Sonia, Prof. Magnolia’s granddaughter who is apparently a good cook because this is important somehow?  But Sonia gives us the Pokédex that I’ll never end up using, so.

I give everyone an Oran Berry then go drop some Poké-dollars on a shirt and pants because I’m imagining doing all that running in the dress and my thighs would be chafing until I cried. #BigGirlProblems

We snatch up a Blipbug and name him “Rorou.”  Level 6, Gentle nature so more Sp. Defense and less Defense.  His ability is Swarm and he only knows Struggle Bug, but let’s work on him.  This will be our only opportunity to add a Gen 8 psychic type to the team besides Mr. Rime fairly late in the mid-game, so I’m excited to see how this goes.  

We also catch a Chewtle. I feel like I can’t be the only one to not love this thing’s face, but whatever.  It’s evolution is fine.  His name is “Amal.”  He is also level 6 and has a Quiet nature, so more Sp. Attack and less Speed. Considering the line has abysmal Sp. Attack, those Water Guns are still going to be dribbles, but whatever.  He has the ability Strong Jaw which will make Jaw Lock and Ice Fang hurt.  For now, though, he only has Tackle and Water Gun.

We’ll finish out Part 1 by grinding the team to around level 11-13.  I always forget just how quickly the early game Bug Pokémon evolve!  I wasn’t even thinking about Blipbug evolving soon, but we’re not even through Route 2 and Rorou evolved into Dottler!

So that concludes Part 1 of our epic adventure.  I hope you guys will join me next time!  See our exit stats below: