#experience good. experience gonna make me sleep like rock for 4 hours at which point i will wake up to piss and not go back to bed but w/e | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aforrestofstuff · 5 years ago

Note

So, my lil sister is currently playing The Sims Castaway in her laptop beside me, it makes me think: What will the heroes do if they're somehow get stranded together in an unhabited island? What chaotic things they will do with other fellow heroes in there while waiting for a rescue?

Okay, I’ve basically just written a dumbass little deserted island au for you. Thanks for the request, anon! 💓💓💓

If ALL of the main heroes were to get stranded on a deserted island all together, then I’d imagine it’d have something to do with the Association fucking up big time. Maybe they were all being transported to a threat overseas and got sent off-course? So, that means their only chance of rescue would have to be from the Association themselves (and we all know how much they lag to deal with shit). Needless to say, the heroes are gonna have to get comfortable with one another and work together to pick up a thing or two on survivalism while they wait for rescue. That’s gonna be hard.

Child Emperor will have the bright idea to separate everyone into smaller groups based on their area of expertise. Nobody argues with this because it’s pretty much common sense, but the stakes are high in seeing who gets paired with who. There’s not a whole lot of bad blood between the heroes, but lord knows they’ve got a few ego problems...

These groups are gonna be Hunters/Gatherers, Homemakers, Walmart Runners, People Who Don’t Really Do Anything, the Super Duper Strike Force, and Oh, Shit it’s the Cops.

In addition to the main congregation of heroes and their groups, there’s also gonna be one more group of people that stray from the majority. These people are gonna be called Stragglers. Stragglers consist of those that:

A. Have been excluded from the main group due to being a headass.

B. Went off on their own because they’re convinced they can survive without anyone’s help.

C. Got lost.

Now, with that being said: let’s get crackin’ boys.

Disclaimer: this shit is crack as fuuuuuck

The majority of the heroes:

Group 1: Hunters/Gatherers

This group is responsible for leaving camp constantly to go hunt/forage for food.

Flashy Flash: I’ve said this before in a previous hc, but he has a pretty decent knowledge on how to find food in the wild due to him always being sent to the middle of nowhere on assassination missions. I also hc him as pescatarian, so that means that he’d be pretty good at fishing. Even though his main protein is from fish, he also has a basic understanding on how to hunt for other animals as well. He just won’t eat them cause they’re yucky.

Zombieman: He’s not super adept at anything to do with survivalism, but he’s a quick learner. It won’t take him long to figure out how to apply his detective skills when tracking animals in the wild (I.E., looking for tracks, clues, and picking up on an animal’s sense of direction). He’s also can’t die, so he’d be the guy to try out some funky-looking mushrooms/berries/herbs to see if they’re poisonous or not, making foraging a lot easier for everyone.

Mumen Rider: The group’s resident forager. He knows which plants are poisonous and which aren’t like the back of his hand due to the many years he spent in the Boy Scouts as a young lad. He also knows a lot of basic survival necessities, like how to start a fire, how to make rope from palm leaves, basic first aid, and finding clean water. He’d essentially be a walking guide on locating basic sources for water, firewood, and fish for the Walmart Runners to find back at camp.

Group 2: Homemakers

This group is responsible for building and maintaining camp. They also do basic inventory on everyone’s resources.

Child Emperor: He’s in charge of designing and construction. He’d know the best way to build a shelter so everyone’s little huts last long enough—even while under duress from crazy island weather and basic wear and tear—for the Hero Association to come to the rescue. He’d be responsible for giving the Walmart Runners the list of what he and the rest of the Homemakers need to make camp the best it can be. He’s basically in charge of everyone. Even if they don’t like it.

Genos: Genos is in charge of cooking food every night for dinner. He would be on the Super Duper Strike Force, but he’s the only one that has an endless supply of fire, so he’s in charge of keeping every light source lit and igniting the bonfire each night in time for dinner. He’s also a walking Swiss Army knife, so he’d also be the one to do any basic repairs on the camp huts in the event that one of them gets a little hole or some shit. He gives Saitama an extra serving of food each night, which has caused some internal conflict.

Puri-Puri Prisoner: As a prison inmate, he’s the expert on making somewhere comfortable on limited resources. He’d be everyone’s guide on how to make tasty food with no seasoning nor cooking equipment, in addition to teaching everyone how to stay warm without real blankets. He’d give everyone fun ways to stay busy (like making little straw dolls or playing catch with coconuts) because it gets hella boring in prison and he’s developed an innate talent for finding ways to pass the time.

Group 3: Walmart Runners

This group is responsible for leaving camp to go find resources unrelated to food, like firewood, clean water, leaves, rocks, and other things the Homemakers might need to make camp better.

Saitama: Child Emperor didn’t really know what group to put Saitama in, but Genos vouched for him and said Saitama was a fast runner. So, he got paired with Superalloy on the Walmart Runners team. He and Superalloy don’t really have any wilderness survival skills, so they rely on people like Mumen Rider and Child Emperor to point them in the right direction and give them specific instructions on what to bring back to camp. Because Saitama is so fast and strong, he’ll leave camp and be back in 30 seconds, holding twice the amount needed of whatever Mumen Rider told him to find. He often over-stocks camp on purpose so he can take long breaks in between supply runs.

Superalloy Darkshine: He got paired with Saitama because Child Emperor thought Genos was joking when the cyborg said Saitama was basically God, so he was put on the Walmart Runners to help even everything out. He’s super cooperative with Child Emperor and Mumen Rider, often bringing back way too much supplies, just like Saitama. This is due to the fact that he’s so fucking strong and huge, he can carry enough firewood to supply a small army for weeks. He also helps the Homemakers with maintaining camp in between supply runs, typically carrying all of the heavy stuff and doing all of the hard labor that comes with construction.

Group 4: People Who Don’t Really Do Anything (but also don’t make things worse)

This group consists of people who don’t contribute shit to the survival effort, but also don’t exactly make things worse. They’re just chillin.

King: King doesn’t have harbor any knowledge that can be applied while trapped on a deserted island with like, 20 homicidal maniacs. He spends all of his time huddled in his hut having a perpetual panic attack. Nobody comes in to check up on him or tell him to get off his ass because they’re all pretty intimated and believe that he’s done enough work as a hero to warrant him having a little break. Everyone thinks he’s having the time of his life while on a little vacation, when he’s actually dying inside and wishing this whole thing was over. He’s tries to call his mom a million times but his phone doesn’t receive service. He’s suffering.

Pig God: He also doesn’t have any skills or knowledge that can be applied to surviving on a desert island, so he’s just vibin. He, like King, is a gamo to the extremo and spends most of his time playing video games/watching anime, so it’s only natural that he’d be out of his element on a desert island. Unlike King, however, some people give him shit for it. This is due in part because he eats like 19 rations every meal and doesn’t really do anything to pull his weight around camp. He’s actually gained weight since they’ve been deserted. Everyone has cast a secret vote that in the event they run out of food, Pig God is the first to be eaten.

Group 5: The Super Duper Strike Force

This group is responsible for guarding camp all hours of the day. They sleep in shifts, and are constantly watching the jungle/beach for any monster activity.

Metal Bat: didn’t want to be a part of this group because that meant that he wouldn’t get his full 8 hours of beauty rest every night, so he only agreed to join on the condition that Child Emperor let him pick the name. So, lo and behold, he’s on the Super Duper Strike Force. Badd is in charge of watching the north end of camp, and is often seen climbing palm trees to get a vantage point on the great expanse of wilderness to see if there is any monster activity nearby. While he’s on top of trees, he’ll also try tirelessly to attain cell service so he can get in contact with Zenko. He fails almost each time, but boy is he persistent. He also gets bored a lot while on watch, so he just bats rocks around while using a picture of Amai that he stapled to a palm tree as a target.

Watchdog Man: He’s always on watch in City Q anyway, so this is pretty much just business as usual. He made a little mound of sand for himself (which is really hard to do with paws, okay?) to server as a makeshift pedestal like the one he has back home. People kind of forget he exists like 3 days into this whole fiasco because he doesn’t really do anything outside of just... sitting there.

Group 6: Oh Shit, it’s the Cops

This group is responsible for making sure nobody kills each other. They’re usually people who have background experience managing groups of people (this group was also named by Metal Bat because Silverfang caught him trying to vandalize Flashy Flash’s hut, to which Badd promptly yelled out “Oh shit, it’s the cops!”)

Fubuki: Even though the Fubuki Group rarely has disagreements, she still knows how to put a fucker in their place. Nobody cares that she’s B-Class, she’s feared all the same. If someone fucks up around camp, she’ll mom the hell out of them until they straighten themselves out. On top of that, she also helps Puri make camp comfortable for everyone, and assisted Child Emperor when he was assigning roles and groups.

Silverfang: He’s a master at keeping track of murderous hobos. He raised Garou, didn’t he? He can do anything. If someone fucks up, all he needs to do if give them a side-eye and that’ll be enough for them to get back in line. He suggested that everyone maintain a strict routine to ensure that nobody goes crazy while being trapped together in a deserted hell. And so far, it’s worked out just fine. So far.

Tanktop Master: The Tanktop gang, like the Fubuki Group, rarely sees disagreements. He isn’t one to hand out punishment, discipline, or reprimands, so if he sees someone fuck up, he’ll kindly pull them aside and ask them what’s up. He’ll work with everyone to ensure that all of the heroes are friendly to each other, since that’s pretty much the best anyone can do (given the situation). He’ll also help out Silverfang with his “maintaining a routine” idea, making a personalized workout routine for everyone.

Stragglers:

Tatsumaki: Tats went out on her own the minute everyone got deserted because she was already tired of their shit to begin with. She’s been doing fine, albeit being hella pissy. She’s already magic’d herself a shelter, found that she can start fires by forcing two rocks to rub against each other really fast, and that she can also kill animals in seconds just by looking at them the wrong way. Her main gripe is being away from clean sheets and soap operas, but she’s a trooper. She’ll survive.

Amai Mask: Amai Mask got voted out of the majority because he’s a dipshit and they were all gonna jump him if he didn’t haul ass across the island, far, far, away from the main camp. He’s been suffering. He can hunt fine, but he’s got zero survival skills and is currently sleeping under a cold rock. Child Emperor gave him some bright red rope to tie around his camp so the Hero Association could easily spot him from a distance when they arrive for rescue, but the rope was eaten by a bear. He’s gonna die if he doesn’t get off that island pronto.

Metal Knight: Metal Knight willingly separated himself from the group because he’s convinced that he can survive without the help of anyone else, (even though he was just gonna get voted out anyway because everyone hates that fucker) and has since then been building an army of robot coconuts. He can engineer himself a shelter just fine, and he’s figured out how to sic his little robots on nearby wildlife so he can eat. I hate to say it, but he’s actually doing well.

Drive Knight: Drive Knight also purposefully separated himself from the majority because he saw Metal Knight do it and is currently on a quest to hunt down Bofoi and merk that fucker’s ass in the jungle with God as his witness, cold-blooded. He doesn’t need wilderness survival skills because he runs on batteries and solar panels. He does, however, need a fucking GPS because he’s been lost for three days with no robot coconut army in sight. If he doesn’t find Bofoi or the main group before the Hero Association arrives for rescue, then he’ll most definitely get left behind, and that is a risk he is willing to take. Dumbass.

Atomic Samurai and his 3 hooligans: Atomic Samurai, Iaian, and Okamaitachi got separated from the group because they somehow ended up on a completely different part of the island upon being deserted. The two disciples listened to Kami (bad idea) while he was trying to find a sense of direction, and they ended up straying even farther away from the group than they were when they started. Bushidrill also ended up on a completely different part of the island, separated from both the group and Atomic Samurai’s gang, but they found each other around 2 days into this whole fiasco by pure chance. Bushidrill was found sitting in a tree 20ft off the ground, wearing a coconut bikini, and stress-drinking a bottle of saké he had smuggled in his robe before everything went to shit. All in all, when the disciples and Kami put their heads together, they make a pretty good team. Iaian hunts, Kama makes camp, Bushi sits on his ass, and Kami sits with Bushi. They’re not going to be left behind as easily as Drive Knight, though. If they’re not found before the Hero Association comes to the rescue, then you bet your ass those corporate cronies are gonna spend a pretty penny on search parties.

So, now that we have everyone’s roles and groups down, I’m gonna make up some island shenanigans because this shit is just TOO GOOD to be left alone like this.

The shenanigans:

The quest for food:

Zombieman, while hunting with Flashy Flash and Mumen Rider: hey, stop moving. I think I see a deer over there.

Mumen Rider, looking through a set of binoculars: awww, it has a baby!

Flash: where did you get those binoculars?

Mumen: oh, they were in my wilderness survival kit!

Zombieman: what

Mumen, looking through his bag: yeah, I have a compass, a canteen, a bird-watching manual, some fire-starters, some dynamite next to the fire-starters— oh no.

The quest for food Part 2:

Flashy Flash: I found this strange mushroom, but I don’t know if it’s poisonous.

Mumen: hmm, let me look it up in my manual—

Zombieman: *swipes the mushroom and gobbles it up*

Mumen:

Flash:

Zombieman: it’s poisonous

The quest for dinner:

Child Emperor, speaking to everyone at camp: okay, guys. We’re gonna start having nightly bonfires that will hopefully aid us in making passing ships aware of our location. It’s also how we’re gonna cook our food—

Pig God: *raises hand*

Child Emperor: no, we don’t have any marshmallows.

Pig God: *slowly lowers hand*

The quest for peace:

Badd: fuck the police! *sprints away*

Tanktop Master: what did he do?

Silverfang: I caught him carving ��flash sux” into the sand and he tried to hit me with a coconut after I told him to stop.

The quest for Bushidrill:

Iaian: Sensei, it’s been two days. Maybe he’s with the others—

Kami: no, I know Bushidrill. If WE’RE lost, then he’s SUPER lost.

Okamaitachi: there! In that tree!

Bushidrill, face-planted on a tree branch 20ft off the ground: God, is that you?

Kami: I knew it.

Kami: Iaian, cut him down.

Iaian: is that really the best idea—

Kami: just do it.

Iaian: *cuts down Bushidrill*

Bushidrill: *immediately gets knocked unconscious the minute he hits the ground*

Kami: good.

109 notes · View notes

maljic · 5 years ago

Text

i have been working in the grocery industry practically my entire life. for many companies, and in many many positions. i’ve seen hurricane panic buys, i have seen post hurricane apocalypses, i have closed stores, and i have opened stores. i have been to backroom recoveries, i have worked small stores and big stores. i have seen h1n1, and i have now seen covid19. and even tho this is something unprecedented, all together it’s really not. the difference here is that it’s been going on for three weeks now and there is no end in sight. the duration is what’s so new.

so i’ve started making notes every day after i got home. just the overall experience, but also customer comments and new things being implemented. it’s a fascination change, and i wanted to write it down to maybe sometime in the future come back to this time and remember anew.

i plan on keeping notes for the foreseeable future, to keep writing a diary of sorts, to see if this ever levels out or escalates even more, if things change drastically or not at all. and if the fucking toilet paper situation ever goes away.

things started to change the first week of march. it was super subtle, i didn’t even notice it at first. it was just a steady increase in business. a solid 20% ahead in sales all across the board. and even tho the virus was already in the news it didn’t cotton on right from the start. or it did, maybe, but i wasn’t expecting it to escalate to such heights.

tuesday, 03.10.2020 9am - 5pm

people are making their own hand sanitizer by mixing rubbing alcohol and aloe vera. we’re out of both. lady is asking me by the sun tan section about the state of deliveries of aloe vera gel. we get to talking. i admit that i don’t understand the people’s need for hand sanitizer since the cdc and every doctor ever recommends hand washing first and foremost. Susan comes out and says, ‘well the only thing that really can safe us from all this is...” and i retort with, “washing your hands, right?” but Susan claps back with, “the lord jesus christ.” and i had to excuse myself real quick and leave her ass on the aisle, because why are you fucking here then trying to potion together your own hand sanitizer, Severus, if all you need is god?

a grown woman that’s working at the register is. coughing. non. stop. co workers comment on it to each other and to me, and i wonder if anyone has taken her aside to explain the current state of world events to her, and maybe asking her to cover her damn mouth. we’re all gonna die.

thursday, 03.12.2020 2pm - 10pm 11pm

parking is an absolute nightmare. i’m 10 mins late cause i can’t find a spot. welcome to hell. i ask my boss what the sales were yesterday and she says we’re 40% ahead of the forecast. which is ridiculous. at this point it’s pretty much a blanket permission for over time. we do not have the capacity to continue to run at this pace. people get worn out, we’re bound to get sick, and the customers are fucking relentless. truck is big. Karen and her brother Chad look at the soap section and wanna know when we get more hand sanitizer in.

this lady is looking at things in the cold and flu section and we get to talking about shit and she mentions something she’s read on facebook and whoops my filter went poofgone and i tell her that i hope facebook dies along with all this corona virus flu and have a good evening.

at the end of my shift after we’ve finished stocking and cleaning up, i stay longer because there’s still a fuck ton of people in the store but we only have two registers open. i check people out until 11 and then peace out. one dude dropped $650 on groceries.

friday, 03.13.2020 11am - 7pm

“where is the hand sanitizer?” Karen asks. i refrain from shouting at her to get outta my face. the store is absolutely packed. lines of lengths i haven’t ever witnessed. lines and lines of people with full bascarts of stuff. the end is nigh and we are here with a front row view of it. we have a small parking lot, and i have no idea where these people’s cars are? i didnt know we could fit that many people in the store. whats the fire marshall’s max capacity guidelines? someone should review those. meanwhile i’m trying to navigate around everybody and put things on shelves that don’t last very long.

the grocery truck arrives around 3 ish and paper products get thrown out first. usually, when the truck arrives it stays locked until the night crew shows up. we’re set up to always have a trailer at the store, so when the guy shows up he unhitches his trailer, and hitches up under another trailer which was the previous day’s grocery truck, which got emptied off groceries when the night crew stocks, and then got filled with stacks of empty pallets, paper bales, and other reusable thinks like plastic trays the meat comes in, or the eggs come in, or produce plastic trays, things like that. so now that we’re in the apocalypse of paper products, the day crew gets those pallets out on the sales floor asap. at this point we have reduced the quantities of things you’re allowed to take to 3. 3 packs of toilet paper, 3 packs of paper towels... also 3 of lysol wipes and 3 of hand sanitizers even tho we dont have any, calm down, Karen. paper products are gone within an hour.

my company makes an absolute killing that day.

saturday, 03.14.2020 10ish to whenever.

my boss said she was coming in (on her off day) so i said yo, mind if i sleep in a bit? i was scheduled 7am and if i don’t have to i don’t want to. she said ok. i rock up at 10:08. things stop showing up on deliveries. the diaper area is sad looking. people have started to buy us out of baby wipes. there’s a problem coming at us in about 2 months. you cant flush baby wipes but since the toilet paper situation is what it is, people will wipe their butts with wet wipes. have fun with that, dallas county utility department (or whoever messes with the water wastes).

displays are dwindling. we are not getting product, so we are filling the shelves in the aisles with the stuff that’s on displays. it’s a bit wonky looking. there’s half an endcap with shampoo and then the rest of it is filled with hersheys. its upside down world. but we have to keep things full. with whatever. empty shelves are bad bad bad, but empty endcaps are a cardinal sin.

people waste so much food when they’re shopping. now that the shelves are getting and staying empty, people will just put things everywhere when they decide against buying the items. bags of chips, six packs of beer, gatorade whatever. that’s not really waste. but we also see bags of salad, frozen items, meats. we are currently not in the position to walk the store every half hour and collect these things. these things are all now wasted and will get thrown out. not the chips, i’m talking about the temp controlled things. being cold to the touch is not enough. shit aint safe.

monday, 03.16.2020 8am - 4 pm 6pm

truck is gigantic. never ever have i seen a truck that big. so everything that my boss was fantasizing about me doing gets thrown out the window when the truck hits the backdoor at 11 am. everybody who is scheduled for truck is given the option to come in early. and stay until it’s all stocked. or until you’re exhausted. i help with the pharmacy stuff because that’s the biggest part. i stay until 6pm. then i’m out.

people would like to know where the hand sanitizer is, well, sugar, so. do. i. it’s the one item that has been out since the end of february, and people are absolutely gob smacked when you tell them it’s currently unavailable. i try to appease them with some hand soap, but, stupidly, people dont want to hear that. i’m thinking to myself that in about a week soap will also be unavailable, but to each their own. customers believe that we, the workers, know the exact day and time when lysol wipes will be stocked. but when you tell them that soap is getting scarce they look at you like you’re speaking a different language.

company wide, we are not allowed to order anything right now. which is huge. how it usually works is: our system knows at all times how many items we have in the store, as per bar code, and knows how much will fit on the shelves, how much we’re selling every day/hour, and then there’s the forecasting factor. so the system will order stuff based on sold quantities, automatically. all the time. if we need extra stuff for sales and/or displays and whatnot, we order extra.

the computer system wouldnt know, for instance, that there was a tornado in oct that wiped out our electricity and that of most of our customers, so we changed orders to reflect that. no frozen things, lots more batteries, ice, coolers.

a lot of things ride on added orders, which are now out

from here on in, everything is up to the system, and to the powers that be. if there’s soap in the warehouse, we will get allocated with every store in the area so that everyone gets equal amounts or close to. hoarding is, apparently, frowned upon at this level too.

tuesday, 03.17.2020 2pm - 10pm

i have come to hate the soap aisle. used to always be my favorite. so long, soap aisle, we’ve had a good run. tonight i’m stocking the pharmacy area (cold and flu, pain meds, tummy stuff, those sort of things). truck is small. super small. i try helping customers as much as i can, but most of my end of the conversation is no, sorry, we dont have any. backstocks are dwindling. the backroom is emptying out. we rely on truck deliveries for things to do and products to be put out. “do you have any [insert product here] in the back?” is the most asked questions. “there’s nothing in the back.” is the most uttered sentence all day.

people obviously do to not get what social distance means. every aisle is packed with shoppers. i’m wasting a lot of time trying to stay out of people’s paths, but people lingeeeerrrrr what the fuck. the mayor of dallas shut everything down to flatten the curve yet here all these fuckers are doing their god damn grocery shopping like it’s 3 months ago. get in, get stuff, get out. i try conjuring up some gas to clear the aisle, but the farts won’t come

go home, people. i wish i could.

somehow our store has become the hub in our area. we get trucks in the afternoon with produce and meat, and people from other stores around us show up in trucks and suvs to transport product between stores. i’ve seen so many people that i hadn’t seen in years because they’re coming by getting shit in the afternoon.

we lost one of our baristas. she’s retired but works with us the maximal allotted hours per week the government allows you before they yank your money. she’s living in senior housing (cause its cheap) and they’ve completely locked down and she is unable to come to work. her boss funnels her groceries. and they face time a lot. she’s doing ok.

wednesday, 03.18.2020 10am - 6pm

parking lot semi full, too full for a wednesday. toilet paper situation is unchanged. but alas there’s no grocery truck scheduled tonight so this is not changing until tomorrow. i’m talking to three separate people desperate for some toilet roll (lol, i love how this pandemic makes me learn new terms, hi, united kingdom, i see you - toilet roll, i love it). anyways, i explain to all three the truck schedule and how to best strategize to get some butt wipes: truck is 6 days a week, wednesday being the no truck day. when the truck arrives, usually what happens is that the paper products get stocked immediately, to make room in the back room and to alleviate the situations. be in the store at around 3ish? 3:30ish, and hang out. i explain that i don’t want to encourage anybody to spend their afternoon in the store for obvi reasons, but when you gotta go you gotta go. alternately, hang out in your car, and when you see a truck pull behind the store around mid day, chances are in about 30 mins you shall have paper. people appreciate the info.

i’m in the candy aisle trying to stock a case of twizzlers. we’re using shopping carts to stock, it’s way more flexible than lugging around huge stocking carts, especially now with the store being so crowded. this dude rocks up and asks me if i’m panic hoarding with all those boxes in my cart. he looks at me with a straight face and thinks he’s making a point. meanwhile i’m in full uniform and people around are starting to roll their eyes. i drop the box of twizzlers into my cart (its super heavy and dude is creating a scene). my box cutter comes out and i make a show of clicking the blade out while explaining to douche canoodle that i’m working here, excuse me, and cut into the tape of the box. moron.

there’s a few people that i’ve seen every day this week. and they’re all advanced in their age. i get that the store is your second home cause you’re lonely, but right now is really not the time. go home.

the question i hate the most is: when are you gonna get more soap in. the honest answer? no fucking clue, Karen. if i could predict the future i wouldn’t be working here.

thursday, 03.19.2020 10am - 6pm

there was no grocery truck last night so shelves are still as empty as they were when i left last night. still, parking lot is semi full. we’ve seem to have gotten a decent produce truck, bananas everywhere. great. my boss’s plan for me is to: whatever truck is back there, and then easter. which means i walk the back room, collect anything and everything that belongs to our department, and get it on the shelves. there’s nothing back there except a chocolate delivery which arrived on the dairy truck. a huge amount, by normal standards. at least people are still enjoying some candy.

by 3pm it’s made the rounds that one of the guys for our dept isn’t coming in: allergies. okay then. truck is not too big, i help out with that until it’s time to hit the time clock.

times are tough, and i’m a good-natured person that can dish out jokes and emphasize with you and cumbaja we’re all in this together and all the other bullshit we’re telling ourselves to make us feel better. but when dudebro comes down the soap aisle and bemoans the state of the shelves (empty) and then goes into a rant about his two parents, immunocompromised, at home, out of soap, almost getting loud and making it seem like its my fault that we don’t have what you want, then no. i’m all out of fucks to give. meanwhile, people of the free world, have you forgotten that hand washing soap does not only come in little pump bottles that you can cutsify your sink with but also LOOK AT ALL THE BARSOAP, back in the days we used that to wash our hands. calm down and take some irish spring to your parents.

grocery truck arrives. big time. in the good ole days of yester year we would get one trailer daily, most of the time not even full. we’ve been ramping it up to 2 most of the last two weeks. (and by we i mean we as a society, buying everything on the shelves and not being satisfied and always wanting more). today it was three. one of which with nothing but water. the others with lots of toilet roll and paper towels. and the usual stuff of canned goods and the likes. nothing will last tho, nothing is forever.

we have this one guy who works here who has, i believe, severe arthritis and is hygiene wise very challenged. he isn’t very mobile and does super light duty but he’s worked here a long time. i haven’t seen him in a few days. i wonder if he is just off, or if he said fuck it and stayed home.

the grown ass woman at the register is still coughing. and not covering her mouth. asswipe.

saturday 03.21.2020 7am - 3pm 6pm

“when do you expect more hand sanitizer in?”

i have no idea what you’re talking about, hand sanitizer was never a thing. lemme ask you this: is it berenstein bears where you come from?

people still want to shop brand loyal. i die inside a little bit every time someone turns their nose up at an alternative to their regular, “oh but we don’t use that brand.” dude didn’t you just say you needed vitamin c? was that a lie? here’s the damn vitamin c. it’s vitamin c, not, i don’t know, fucking coca cola. go home.

corporate finally came down and said we’re allowed to wear ppe now. like some of us haven’t since three weeks ago. i finally turned and went all ‘two by two hands of blue’ as well, and it’s really not as bothersome as i thought it would be.

weekends are now slower than weekdays. i have no idea why that is. and i’m not really sure if these past weekends have been slow, or just normal, and the weekdays are just crazy. i have lost all points of reference. it’s still busy. but is it the same busy it’s always been on a saturday and now we just have more checkers?

the company is desperately trying to hire more people. i don’t know if the new vigorous ad campaign is working yet? it’s a job, sure, especially in these times, but the starting pay is still barely above minimum wage so in any case people will collect unemployment which could still be more than they’d make working here i’m just saying.

the only real perk right now is that whoever works for a grocery store has first dibs on stuff. and if you believe we don’t have a “family and friends stash” in the back of all the items that are scarce then you don’t know how the world works. a friend of mine with health problems came to shop at our store today because we do have more stuff than what i’ve been hearing is going on in surrounding areas. and i was able to give her two cans of disinfectant wipes. another friend asked me if we had any loo roll, and they just came by my place to pick it up, cash on arrival.

we also extend (or well, i do extend) the stash to customers who always have been courteous. and believe me, after working in one location for a few years you know exactly who’s an asshole and who isn’t. we are essential, we are important, and we’ve been known that forever. we just never got treated like that. people are thankful that we’re working, that we’re doing our best (like if we could afford to just take two weeks off to self isolate, yeah right), and it’s good to finally walk the store with your head held high, to finally feel the appreciation. we are the kings of the toilet paper and it’s fucking fantastic.

the store manager (or the company, i’m not sure) bought lunch today for everybody. and there might be a texas rule of no gatherings of more than 10 people, but y’all should’ve seen the break room today at noon. we they feasted (i took two slices and went out back to enjoy) thanks for lunch, boss.

we still haven’t implemented “senior hours,” and i hate that.

hygiene challenged dude is back at work. so he just had his two days off.

monday 03.23.2020 12pm - 9pm

people keep insisting on shopping “normally” and it’s mind boggling. if you go to the store for 5 things or 50 things, it’s fine either way. but please make a list at home and roll with it. do not linger in aisles, do not pick up 3 different items and stand there to study the, i don’t know what the fuck, ingredients? country of origin? manufacturer? i have no earthly idea why you gotta look at a bottle of suave shampoo so intently and just. stay. there. reading it like its a new product on the market. go home.

people just waste so much freakin time in the store. they run into acquaintances and have to have a conversation right there when other customers have to walk around you. please stop, please please stop that. please. get in, get your stuff, and get out. if we dont have your fave available right now come back next week, it’s bound to be back unless it’s something like hand sanitizer or over the counter meds. please. go home.

the shopping pattern has changed. there’s all the action in the mornings now. tons of people, full parking lots, all in the morning. i understand it’s because people are under the impression everything gets restocked over night. which is half true. but whatever. i mean people shop all throughout the day and it’s still busy but the bulk is in the morning.

speaking of: senior hours finally!!! i’m stoked.

i feel like i’m getting fed up with customer questions so it’s usually short retorts and no eyes contact. one guy asked me where the aloe vera is and he asked very friendly and from a few feet away and i was sort of a dick to him. i felt bad immediately and rephrased my answer. yikes.

on the upside also, my work buddy was throwing water all day long. poor guy. he said something like 9 pallets of 24 packs. at one point they were replenishing a display and people grabbed water from the display instead of the pallet, and he was like, “you guys are killing me, man, please take it from the pallet and not the display. every pack you take from the pallet is a pack less i have to move.” a couple of dudes then took over stocking duty from him and threw the rest of the pallet to fill the display. how fucking nice. good eggs all around.

backroom looks like we got a crap ton of paper products. a crap ton. something like, i’m estimating, 12 pallets. so they’ve been staggering it throughout the afternoon but also kept lots in the back for senior hours tomorrow morning. it really looks like that part is getting almost back to normal. lmao fingers crossed.

no eggs tho, today. all gone.

hot shot trucks still show up in the afternoon with produce and meat. and other stores still come by to transfer stuff to their location.

company lunch today was from torchy’s taco. i abstained cause i had just eaten at home. but gatherings of 10 or more people had been had in the break room again. no idea if it was paid for by our company or if torchy’s was just getting rid of a bulk of their perishables.

some dude threw a fit about the limits on certain items. i think his beef was with water and how he’s seen someone take more than three. calm down, asshole.

tuesday 03.24.2020 10am - 5pm

it’s slow in the store. dallas county has a shelter in place ordinance right now and it’s just a slow and steady trickle of customers. the weather also has turned from grey and misty, to sunshine and 80ies. i hate it. i want my grey and misty back. and because it’s nice outside there’s a lot of people on walks and bike rides. there’s a trail behind the store and when i step out back i see people all the times. still keeping their social distance but people non the less.

we’ve finally got our hands on one of the people from the agency that has provided us with help. our girl is super nice and friendly and she works hard. i hope we’ll get to keep her in our department for however long theyre working with us. altogether there’s about 15-20 people in the store from the agency. they’re tasked with sacking groceries, cleaning shopping carts, cleaning shelves and helping to stock. it’s wonderful. they get paid $13, which is more than what you make starting out in the store.

it almost felt like it wasn’t a covid day. after what the covidiot in the wh said on monday, i was a bit unsure if non essentials would reopen (especially since the mayor just shut dallas down). it was weird. it seemed like customers stayed away because a) they went back to work or b) it’s too nice to grocery shop. but that’s prob only my stupid brain making things up.

there were two incidents, both of which weren’t covid related but needed security: a dude tried to walk out with two cases of beer (theft is a thing that happens in our store a lot) but somehow he had half the store chasing after him. i was outside taking my break when all the sudden this guy comes towards me with beer in each hand. where i was, there was no exit away from the store unless you wanted to jump the fence. and he sure did. launched himself and the beer over it. they chased him off (no one touched him, i wanna add, and no one would touch him too, even if we weren’t in the current time), but got their beer back. that was an adrenaline shock i didn’t need. the second one was a lady at the pharmacy not happy with the speed of the pharmacist and she got upset that her meds weren’t ready to be picked up. she made quite a scene with cursings and such so security was called. they are doing their best at the pharmacy but just like every other department they are swamped with prescriptions.

it was super slow and i left an hour early. went home and ate and passed out for 12 hours.

wednesday 03.25.2020 7am - 3pm

it’s probs the first time i’m on the road this early on a weekday during the self isolation period. it’s quite busy on the highway. but still no real traffic.

store is still slow but steady. i see a few customers with big bascarts and shopping lists going about their business urgent like. on the inside i was applauding their readiness and their commitment for getting it done. thank you dear customers. buy a whole cart and get the heck outta dodge. *chefs kiss*

help girl from the agency is with me today. i like her more and more. she gets it all done. baby wipes are still off and on, some days we have them, sometimes we’re out. we found 3 small cases of hand soap in the back (6 bottles each) and they are gone quickly. i’m working through shippers/displays (we’ve finally got a smattering in) but most of it goes straight to the shelves. i’m able to make some sense to one of the half shampoo/half hersheys end caps, and my eye finally stops twitching from the weirdness.

grocery truck schedule has changed and now we’re getting them also on wednesdays (for the time being). one trailer of toilet roll and paper towels, and one of canned goods and boxes and pantry stuffs. and maybe some lysol but who knows.

it’s still sunny and 80ies out, so more runners and bikers on the trail behind the store. still social distancing tho.

the news said someone from a grocery store of another chain was diagnosed. and then through the grapevine i heard that someone from our chain (not our store) also got diagnosed and is in the hospital. wash your hands. get in, get your stuff, and get out. stay safe out there.

friday 03.27.2020 9am - 5pm

there’s this lady in the store, little old lady, just wandering and shopping and whatnot for, i kid you not, 2 hours. what in the world? she’s wearing a mask, kinda like a “let me put this mask on cause i’m sanding something in the garage” you know that kind of mask. but it’s only covering her mouth? what is she doing. where is your family? do they know where you are and what you’re up to. seriously someone come get their auntie.

there’s stickers all over the floor by the registers “PLEASE WAIT HERE” reminding people to stay the heck away from each other. it’s working sometimes. people are patient.

this one lady asks me if we have this, and shows me her phone with a pic of the item like she is seriously standing 6 feet away stretching her arm as far as it’ll go. i appreciate it. she insists that the app tells her it’s in stock here. i ran out of ways to explain that the app doesnt keep up with inventory, only states that we carry it, not whether we actually have it in stock. it’s a surface disinfectant. we dont have it in stock.

rando people say their thanks that we’re working, that they appreciate it, thank you thank you. i have yet to learn how to respond to that. “youre welcome?” “oh sure!” “no problem” nothing feels right. me and my co workers all wish we could work from home, or take a few weeks off, without losing our jobs and benefits. it’s weird. how do you respond to that?

we’ve managed to stay in stock on toilet tissue all day long. one brand, one size, mind you. but! all day long! yes, toilet paper, on aisle 18!!!!

sales have leveled. business is returning to normal.

saturday 03.28.2020 7am - 3 pm

some lady lost her cool today and in her frustration she dead ass kicked over a display of gum. lmao, yikes.

every morning we have a little meeting in the store for all the department heads, or if they’re off, for whoever plays department head for that day. on saturdays that’s me. we call them huddles, although now we can’t call them that anymore because huddle doesn’t really scream social distancing. so now they’ll call it morning communication.

while walking the store today i found, get this, a bottle of purell. it was hidden behind other product. i immediately checked my surroundings (no one there) and then went and hid it in the back room. my immuno challenged friend had asked me for some for a while.

really nothing else going on. it was quiet in the morning and then a storm blew through, and then it was just gorgeous out. so the store got busier and busier. our truck was scheduled to be quite big, but it was late and i wasn’t gonna just hang around until who knows when.

monday 03.30.2020 2pm - 10pm

the break room is completely empty of chairs and tables. that’s new. just last week everyone crowded in, employees and management alike, whenever there was free lunch. and even tho one tells them, or points out that, hey, this is a bit more than technically should be in a closed space like this? all one gets back is, oh hahaha, yeah you’re probably right, but nothing changed. so now the break room is empty. only, i dont know, everyone here works on their feet, either standing (poor checkers) or standing and walking. for up to eight hours. there’s gonna be some people who will just have to sit down for 30 mins during their breaks. this was a company wide, or district wide decision, this wasn’t something our management came up with. and here’s the thing. admittedly, some higher ups in our company are seriously not the sharpest tacks in the box. and i’m not saying that you have to have a degree to make certain decisions, but it helps if you have some sort of, i don’t know, compassion, deductive reasoning, two brain cells to rub together. i, personally, will hardly be found in the break room, i don’t use it. but it’s absolutely clear to me that taking away the opportunity to let people rest is a recipe for disaster.

tuesday, 03.31.2020 2pm - 10pm

so, the owner of the dallas mavericks (basket ball) donated hand sanitizers to our company, for use of company employees. which, thanks, Mark, that was super sweet of you. no really. IF I SEE ONE CO WORKER USE THIS INSTEAD OF WASHING THEIR HANDS I WILL NOT BE MADE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS. wash your god damned hands people. hand sanitizer will never be able to do what soap and water can do. why is that such a big problem to understand.

the break room has a couple of chairs and tables in it now, and a sign on the door that reads “6 people limit, 6 feet apart.” yikes.

its the end of the month and people got paid so the store is getting busier. tomorrow is the first and i’m sure we’ll be packed. please take the following to heart: SHOP ALONE. don’t bring your wifey or hubby or roommate or kids. ok bring your kids if you have no one to watch them. do not use the grocery store as your family outing cause its the only spot you think youre allowed to go. it’s not. youre allowed to go for walks, in front of your house, in your neighborhood, heck, walk a circle around the store if you want, but don’t bring everybody into the store. social distancing is easier achieved if there’s less people to stay away from. be smart, think ahead. and if you think that shopping with two people makes it go faster? it’s not. cause you’re gonna argue over the choices made, you’re gonna veto your shopping buddies choice of beans and your gonna walk every aisle twice instead of once. and there will be more people touching more things and i could really do with less of that.

wednesday 04.01.2020 11am - 7pm

there’s a distillery in kansas who has converted their production to make hand sanitizer (or sanitizer in general) and we have received a shipment of, i think, two pallets. the fun part? they are the size and shape of vodka bottles.

they’re selling for $8 and we put a limit of 1 per family. they look super neat. it’s a plastic bottle, too. i don’t use hand sanitizer and i dont need it and there are people who need these i guess but i want one so badly. just as a, you know, reminder, a token, of these crazy times. i’m not gonna get one (but i kinda want one).

they have finally installed screens at the registers. and new rules came down from corporate: social distancing is the highest priority, hygiene is the highest priority. we are only going to operate 3 (out of 6) registers so that we can ensure that there’s enough space for everyone to feel safe. i have also spent 2 hours today thinning out displays that are cluttering up the sales floor so that we can encourage everyone to keep apart.

starting tomorrow, every employee will get their temp taken when they arrive to work. if the temp is too high you will be sent home (but paid for that day) and only be let back in to work if your temp stays normal for 72 hours without the help of meds.

pay has been increased by $2/h.

friday 04.03.2020 9am - 5pm

face masks everywhere.

like 80% of everybody started donning masks, scarves and homemade things to cover their lower face. face masks are a stark reminder that everyone should keep apart. it’s like an extra “hey, remember how we’re all potentially sick with something deadly? stay away.” i appreciate the effect it has.

there are about 5 different announcements over the PA, one about washing your hands and sneezing/coughing into your elbows, one about senior hours (which have changed now to tue, thu and sat morning), one about social distancing (about the length of two shopping carts!), one about “we’re all in this together” and one about us employees and how we’re doing so much more than our job right now.

ive stopped greeting customers. i smile maybe, since it’s something so ingrained into our brain, but i won’t speak unnecessarily.

the store is absolutely packed. the suggestion of staying away until the 3rd or the 4th that ive seen all over the internets seems to have cottoned on and now we’re slammed. with only 3 registers open now (to keep room between registers) the lines are down the aisles. one of the guys on the registers told me he loved it. it’s waaay less crowding around the registers, safer for the workers).

we have two entrances (the main one and a smaller one) and they closed the smaller one because it’s very tight there and doesn’t really work with trying to stay away from each other. it’s not locked, it’s just closed. no idea about the fire marshall code, but i have worked in bigger stores with only one main entrance so maybe it’s not part of any code.

i saw a woman with a vegas golden knights shirt and i miss hockey.

saturday 04.04.2020 7am - 5:30pm

my first day during senior hours, and admittedly we’ve only recently changed that but there are tons of people in the store and not a lot of seniors. but what do i know they all could be immunocompromised.

in our morning huddle communications meeting the store manager is spitting out a lot of numbers and percentiles and such, basically sales are still through the roof, even with the slower week we’ve had. it’s funny how there’s really no reference point anymore. forecasts and budgets have all been altered due to the situation but even those are still behind. the agency people aren’t with us anymore (since sunday) and i can see maybe 2 new people - but i’m not a reliable source for that because i don’t inter-mingle with other departments that much so i dont even know the regulars so i have no clue who is new. but we’re still running on basically the same people we’ve always had with this increased business.

aceotone is the new toilet paper. cant find it on the shelves, the warehouse is out and people are constantly asking for it. this one guy had me in stitches. he was shopping for the fam and had a list from his wife and you know, acetone, cuticle cream all the stuff you need to take care of your nails after you rip off the fake ones. i used to get my nails done so i gave him advice as best i could and pointed to some products, but no acetone. about five minutes later she finds me on the same aisle again and shows me a can of paint stripper with the word acetone in huge letters on it. i died. i told him that if his wife used that they are about to have a whole other set of problems. we both laughed. he had a great sense of humor. now go home, dude.

the side door that was closed on friday is open again. not surprised.

we are getting absolutely slammed with business. it’s a mad house. you can always tell when people start to park their cars on the fire lanes around the store. there’s just no more parking.

i do see a lot of single shoppers tho, which is so great. and then you got the families just sticking out like sore thumbs. and young college kids usually shop in threes or fours. but everybody is still taking way too much time. there was an article i read on local grocers and how some already reduced the people inside the stores and how every business is going to follow suit so we will see.

we ran out of eggs. and biscuits. and no significant numbers of paper products all week.

monday 04.06.2020 2pm - 10pm

fuck these customers, man

wednesday 04.08.2020 7am - 3pm

my company will not limit the customer count in the store. at least not in this state. when the whole thing started there was an email about store hours and they listed basically every division of our company and their changed hours - except, you guessed it, ours. i have a feeling they are going off of what other companies are doing around here, so unless theyre limiting people, we won’t. that’s my opinion. after work i realized i forgot butter and swung by a store (from a different company) close to home and they havent limited entrance either. they did have markings on the floor to encourage one way traffic down aisles, and i guess we’re gonna do that too. but nothing else. i did see smaller chains have started to limit people but not companies we’re competing with. so much for that. i guess first we need to have a few positive cases in order for them to change anything. the dollar speaks volumes, eh?

i saw this article a few days ago and i keep thinking about it. it basically sums up everything that’s going through all our minds every day. (i have no idea who this website is, i saw it and i read it and it spoke to me so dont come at me if it’s something weird - i just wanted to provide a source)

I manage a grocery store.

Here’s some things everyone should know

1. I don’t have toilet paper 2. I don’t have sanitizer 3. I run out of milk, eggs and meat daily 4. I promise if it’s out on the shelf … it’s not in a hidden corner of our backroom.

Those are the predictable ones, now for the real stuff

5. I have been doing this for 25 years I did not forget how to order product. 6. I did not cause the warehouse to be out of product/ 7. I schedule as much help as I have, including many workers working TONS of overtime to help YOU. 8. I am sorry there are lines at the check out lanes.

Now for the really important stuff:

9. My team puts themselves in harm’s way every day so you can buy groceries. 10. My team works tirelessly to get product on the floor for you to buy. 11. My team is exhausted. 12. My team is scared of getting sick. 13. My team is human and does not possess an antivirus… they are in just as much danger as you are. (Arguably more) but they show up to work every day just so you can buy groceries 14. My team is tired. 15. My team is very under-appreciated. 16. My team is exposed to more people who are potentially infected in one hour than most of you will in a week (medical community excluded, thank you for all that you do!). 17. My team is abused all day by customers who have no idea how ignorant they are. 18. My team disinfects every surface possible, everyday, just so you can come in grab a wipe from the dispenser, wipe the handle and throw the used wipe in the cart or on the ground and leave it there… so my team can throw it in the trash for you later. 19. My team wonders if you wash your re-usable bags, that you force us to touch, that are clearly dirty and have more germs on them than our shopping carts do. 20. My team more than earns their breaks, lunches and days off. And if that means you wait longer I am sorry.

The last thing I will say is this:

The next time you are in a grocery store, please pause and think about what you are saying and how you are treating the people you encounter. They are the reason you are able to buy toilet paper, sanitizer, milk, eggs, and meat.

If the store you go to is out of an item.. maybe find the neighbor or friend that bought enough for a year … there are hundreds of them… and ask them to spare 1 or 2. They caused the problem to begin with…

And lastly, please THANK the people who helped you. They don’t have to come to work!

#i dont know how to tag it i hate to tag it covid #i think it's gonna be #life in these pandemic times #thanks stumblingoverchaos

87 notes · View notes

prongsmydeer · 4 years ago

Text

Ayesha Liveblogs Oh My Ghost (2018) Ep. 9-16

Part 2 of this post because tumblr would not let me save anymore either because of the numerous images I’m commenting on or because of how many times I use the word H*rny

Kaopoon is frustrated bc Real Jiw is now vibing with her new BF Sun while she is sitting sadly on a swing set [Alexa play Sadness and Sorrow]

Backtracking to the other kind of drama: Lieutenant Murder is finally going to murder someone on screen (specifically his fellow police officer) because Lieutenant Murder jumped him for getting too close to solving Nammoon's hit-and-run case, which is at this point obvious he committed)

I love when Sun and Jiw flirt through their apartment wall

Jiw and Sun are dating now but the remaining point of contention is how much Horny Ghost just wants them to sleep together instead of getting to know each other to which Sun thinks “Jiw do u only want me for my body 😔?”

I can't believe that Lieutenant Murder's tragic backstory is that he was an orphan oh my god. Adoption is normal!! Murder is not!!

Lieutenant Murder was possessed by an evil spirit????? (After the first time he tried to murder????) WHAT WHAT WHAT

Sous Chef Rain is yelling at the restaurant staff bc of forgetting his birthday, bc he is, truly, a perennial pain in the ass

They are all out for Rain's birthday except for Sun bc of his and Jiw (Kaopoon)'s sex fight and so he is very anxious about his girlfriend being out with The Guys without him

Also Study-Abroad Win is handsome to the point of distraction AND nice where is his romance? Where is the justice for the male models of the world

Sun's Mom does not know he is Dating and Housing his employee possessed by a Horny Ghost He Thinks is One Facet of Her Personality

Presented without commentary:

Win has been politely pretending not to notice that Sun and Jiw are in a relationship and now I'm thinking he will get a romance and it will be Ida, to wrap up most of the loose ends of this relationship pentagon. Based on no other reason than that they are both single

Dkjhgkjgh lmao @ Sun going to his whole staff: “WHO WANTS TO GO TO THE MARKET?” and then saying no to everyone one by one except his girlfriend

Kaopoon is making Sun help her dad install a restaurant hose in the middle of their work day hahaha

FINALLY PROOF THAT LIEUTENANT MURDER IS A MURDERER. Warning for murder related description, there was a flashback where it showed a still body (face obscured) wearing Kaopoon's outfit on his bathroom floor

They really hammered home the ‘he is a murderer’ thing, he has a bag full of evidence of his crime

In more lighthearted news, Sun's rice intolerance is psychosomatic bc his mum never cooked rice for him and it's Sad Boy Hours

Sun and Kaopoon!Jiw seem like they're finally ready to have sex (they've talked out their feelings and are going away together) but there are FIVE MORE EPS and the murder stuff still lingers so I wonder what other madness this show will unleash on me

Actually, six more eps!! Ahhhh that's so much time

Oh how the tables have turned now Kaopoon is the one too in love with Sun too have sex (bc she will go to the afterlife if she does -- But if she doesn't she'll be an evil spirit so... stuck between a rock and hard-on)

I have been suspecting for a while tho that the sex will not change anything. She will probably have to solve her murder to pass on

You know what that is? Growth!!

Now they are back to the weird energy of Sun going “Now that we are in love I would like to have sex,” and Kaopoon!Jiw going “Sex????? Never heard of it!!”

Against Kaopoon's credit, she has not informed Jiw that their relationship has progressed this much. She's just like "yeah things are normal" bc she wants to spend as much time with Sun while she has the chance

Win and Kaopoon!Jiw are just being good bros and Sun, in tandem with the sex-back-and-forth, is jealous of their dynamic

Kaopoon has begun to solve her own murder!!! Unfortunately the first thing she did was point out inconsistent evidence to Lieutenant Parin, who extremely Murdered Her

I feel so happy for Jiw when she gets to experience normal boyfriend moments with Sun like these cheesy matching necklaces. <3 Why does Jiw's life have to be so complicated?

Kaopoon is... spiritually breaking up with Jiw, so she can end the messiness of her involvement with Sun

Ehkjehrrk Jiw is back to living her own life and a spirit just tried to grab at her and she just whacked their hand off and said, "Don't bother me now!" so she could keep cooking, love that for her

The employee-boss affair's out of the bag!!

They also keep cutting to Lieutenant Murder with his knife ready to go after Jiw for Knowing Too Much kjhgkhgjh so I guess the last four-and-a-half eps will dedicated to crime-fighting

Auntie Pu is kind of my favourite character on this show bc she goes from Ghost Nemesis to Ghost Mom all while having Sun's mom as her BFF and Sugar Mama

Hahahaha all the other restaurant staff (minus Win, who is chill) are sucking up to Jiw now bc she's dating Sun

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Jiw felt guilty about dating Sun when half the things he loves are things that Kaopoon did and now the Horny Ghost is out of the bag

I can only assume, bc he thinks she's bipolar, he will assume this is product of a hallucination

Reservations on the commentary on bipolar disorder aside, what DO u do when the person you love tells you that they can see ghosts and key relationship moments you had together were the product of them being possessed by a ghost

Sun now believes in ghosts but he's very upset about the romantic implications of this knowledge

“I think the reason I haven’t been reincarnated... isn’t the fact I’ve never slept with a man after all” HORNY GHOST CONFIRMED FOR DETECTIVE GHOST. VINNNNNDICATION!!!!!

Awww the restaurant staff are all surrounding Chef with support in his time of romantic woe

“But I want the two people I care about the most to be happy” I want Win to date Sun AND Jiw he's so good to them

AYYYYYYY Sun found out that Jiw made the recipes for the blog he liked (and called his soulmate) and now he's visiting her grandma bc he truly is in love with both Jiw AND Kaopoon

Sun said, “I acknowledge this is a complicated situation but I'm willing to work through the ghost thing and figure out how we feel about each other”

Cutting back to Lieutenant Murder, he has just meowed at his coworker threateningly in response to being investigated (for attacking that same coworker!!)

Lieutenant Murder wears this same stupid outfit every time he's gonna do a crime recently and can I just say: I hate it

WHAT'S HE GONNA DO, KILL EVERYONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT ONE OF HIS MANY CRIMES?? THAT'S A LOT OF PEOPLE! AUNTIE PU! JIW! THE FORESENICS ANALYST! ALMOST-SUN? HE CAN'T EVEN KILL KAOPOON BC HE ALREADY KILLED HER AND SHE'S A GHOST!!!!!!!!!!!

“Chef, is something wrong?” Jiw asked, after telling Sun that his brother-in-law is a murderer who also probably hit his sister with a car

Sun said, “Pls don't be a murderer I love u bro” and Parin said “My life of crime is very important to me”

This is Kaopoon possessing Auntie Pu so that Kaopoon, Jiw and Sun can be a crime-fighting trio, love that for them

There are SO MANY crimes going on right now I cannot even begin to describe but just know Lieutenant Murder is responsible for all of them

So Jiw has been kidnapped (GUESS WHO) and Sun is investigating every school in the area and Kaopoon has a network of ghosts looking for her while Jiw tries to find a way to communicate her location. The Crime-Fighting Trio Continues!!!

You'd think more people would notice what a creep this guy is considering that he is literally DIGGING A GRAVE for the woman trapped in his cupboard!!

Poor Nammoon she has no idea her husband is possessed by a murderous ghost. Which like, to be clear, he did try to murder before the ghost possessed him sooooooooooooo

“You're a good person,” said Nammoon, to a man who has committed at least three murders with a fourth on the go

Sun rescued Jiw via high speed car chase and now Auntie Pu and Kaopoon have taken Sun's car to chase Parin and GET HIS ASS

Also Jiw got 2 attack Parin which I think she deserved to get to do

Oh yikes it's possible she fatally injured him which doesn't bode well for the psychological implications of this whole ordeal

Nope I was wrong the ghost-busting continues

Well I don't know what's more perturbing, the resolution of that fight or the fact that there is still one more episode of 1 HOUR left jhfkjhkfjh this better be a happy filler ep where Jiw and Sun get married omg

HORNY GHOST SHOW REALLY MAKING ME TEARY-EYED ON THE LAST EP

The entire restaurant staff is a collective of morons who love Jiw for who she is

Jiw won a cooking scholarship and gets to study abroad in Europe for two years so it's Sad Boy Hours with Sun again

THEY GOT A SECOND DOG THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED ON THIS SHOW

SCREAM NOW AUNTIE PU IS A RICH AND FAMOUS GHOSTBUSTER MEDIUM

Sun has expanded his restaurant business, leaving Rain in charge, and so they have been sent a new employee Summer, who I guess is everyone's new Pain in the Ass just for fun kgjhkjhkgh

He was merely a plot device to prove the Chef Boys are Bros 4 lyf

In a weird turn of events Parin is still alive with amnesia???? Even if all of what he did as an adult was ghost possession stuff.... he did still try to attack a baby as a teen. That's a thing he did! Are we forgetting this????? I guess!!!

GET SOME THERAPY NAMMOON!!

BACK TO THE DOGS:

Sun is strumming a guitar woefully because he misses Jiw:

SHE'S BACK AND THE JIW SUPPORT SQUAD IS THRIVING:

Sun is presumably somewhere sadly shaking a tambourine

IT'S FINALLY HAPPY BOY HOURS

#ayesha says things #ayesha liveblogs oh my ghost #liveblogging #oh my ghost 2018 #thai television #television #long post

2 notes · View notes

brokenfoetus · 4 years ago

Text

...Real Talk for a Moment....

This is gonna be a long rant post, so by all means... quickly scroll past. Parts may even be a tad emo feels for some folks for one reason or another... There’s no shame in skipping for reals. A lot of days I can’t bother to read anything too in depth... anyway... HERE goes.... While I absolutely love art, and performance, and surreal awkward characterization of myself I call “THE END”. I also value truth, and being understood. My blog here started more as a journal for me to vent, and place to post music and art for me to look at in order to try and just relax during a very difficult point in my life. Every now and then I like to stop and ground myself and post in a sense about the actual me. There’s frankly not anything magical here, everyone has a story and their experiences and struggles we all do no matter who you are. I suppose like I said, I just like to be understood where I am coming from typically can only be slightly grasped like anyone. Even if you agree with views and relate to feelings, things become clearer with details.... hence my rants. I get it out of my system and state my perspectives all at once and anyone who happens to be curious gets to read it. Maybe gets to relate and frankly that tends to help us sometimes. It helps people realize they’re not alone in their situations. Anyway.... I was born a tiny premature gremlin on the east coast of the U.S. I was raised a devout Catholic boy. At age 11 I was diagnosed with the chronic illness Diabetes. when the symptoms started my mother called doctors concerned. We had to wait a full month for my appointment. It was rough. Some people don’t know of the disease, but most people generally are aware. It typically doesn’t seem all too dramatic to most since people think of it as old grandma and grandpa taking their pills and measuring their food. When you’re talking juvenile onset diabetes it’s different... severity can vary. but, I caught some sort of virus, with flu like symptoms... I was very very sick for a week or two. Once it passed, I was okay but slowly started feeling gross in other ways. By the time we got to see Doctors it was too late, and the damage done to my pancreas made it so it created pretty much no insulin. The only theory Doctors had at the time was the virus freaked out my auto-immune system so it made my body attack itself. It seemed that my white blood cells had attacked my pancreas. I was 11, so... I didn’t know what diabetes was. I asked my doctor if there was a cure, and he explained that there was no cure. My little boy brain after feeling so awful for a month and a half assumed I was going to die. I burst into tears as I was very very afraid. My Doctor quickly explained I wasn’t going to die like I had assumed and that it can be treated. It doesn’t seem so scary most the time when you realize it can be treated. The thing is the hormone insulin can be quite dangerous, as low blood sugars are actually very much more dangerous than high blood sugars. Insulin allows glucose in the blood to travel into cells to basically use as fuel. without it sugar levels rise in the blood stream, and the body starts rapidly breaking down fat cells to use as fuel. Now, that happens normal some anyway usually after eating. Just not rapidly.... when it does, the fuel it breaks down creates ketones which can make the blood toxic... by making it acidic.... Like I don’t really think... there’s any way I can describe what high blood sugar feels like... or what it feels like when your blood starts to become acidic.... I can’t... but... minor low blood sugar attacks can happen to anyone just by skipping lunch or forgetting to eat... and those suck... bad ones... well... they feel like you’re dying. Not to be melodramatic about it all... but that’s all I can say to explain it... it just feels like you’re dying. Probably because you sort of are..... The brain runs on glucose so when the levels get too low... your brain panics and tries to save itself and alert you. It’s not fun. It’s been many years since I had anything dangerous or serious in terms of low blood sugars but, a couple times in my life when I wasn’t doing very well emotionally and mentally I wasn’t paying attention or being careful with my insulin dosages and how much I was eating. I’ve had 3 grand mal seizures in my life when I was younger.... it’s hard to explain the experience... in mine... I don’t know.... It was like not existing at all, there was nothing. I woke to pain, I couldn’t see or hear it just hurt. Everything hurt head to toe. Then I could hear myself saying it hurt, then I could hear the people around me, and then I could see the people around me. Then I knew what had happened. I felt a bit guilty for scaring my loved ones so much. That honestly made me more upset than the pain. The reason I spell all this out... is my life has mostly been surrounded by fear. I’ve been aware of my mortality and trying to avoid dying on a daily basis since I was a very young boy. The strange thing I suppose.... is after a while... you just get sick of being afraid.... you kind of stop being scared and just get angry... I was a shy timid nervous little dude.... I’ve had long long times where... I’ve felt worthless, I’ve hated myself, felt I didn’t deserve happiness, or love. I’ve let people use me, without standing up for myself. I’ve let people be toxic and cruel, while excusing their behavior. While at the same time condemning myself for any tiny mistake I may have made in any way. I’ve made myself a martyr in personal relationships, sacrificing myself and my feelings. I’ve frankly... done a whole bunch of fucked up things turned inward. The nice thing I suppose, is I don’t do that anymore.... I still make mistakes, and I like to take responsibility for them and make amends or fix them. You can get used to some really fucked up things. Especially when struggling with self worth. I used to think I was useless and undeserving. Today... I’m well aware I’m a PRETTEH PRETTEH GOFF BOI.... I have long time close friends who love me just as much as I do them. I have a wonderful beautiful lovely lady who has my heart and soul whom I want to spend every moment I possibly can with until my bones are dust. Who helped me a great deal over the past couple years or so. Helped me with myself and helped me believe in myself again. Just by being my friend and supporting me while I continue to be the eccentric artist asshole I am. and I have Scrambles... THE MOST CUTEST BLACK KITTEH KAT EVAR. I feel rather lucky to have all I do. I appreciate what I have very very much. I’ve been dealing with Diabetes since I was 11... and had been dealing with Severe Major Depression symptoms since my early 20s. over the past five years I finally started getting help, Turns out I don’t just have diabetes.... I have adhd and some kind of sleep disorder. we’ve been calling it narcolepsy but it’s hard to say exactly, it could be hypersomnia which is a super fancy way of saying I’m fucking always exhausted 24/7 which is pretty accurate. That is usually caused by narcolepsy or something else but... who knows... still trying to figure that part out. I have discovered though that, being fucking exhausted non stop for 20 years will make you very depressed. Sometimes depression makes you tired, and sometimes being tired makes you depressed. When I was a young lad, I gave myself one single life goal.... That was to finish an electro industrial album and play some live shows. I dunno, to some that might not be a big deal.... I never said it had to be “good” after all. But, when I was at a low point dealing with my stuffs, trying to take care of myself... I honestly spent most my days sleeping. I was awake maybe 4 hours a day. Things felt very hopeless, that learned hopelessness made me believe things were pretty much pointless. I would shrug... and talk to my psychiatrist about my suffering in a manner that people talk about the weather. I didn’t even care anymore it was happening. It was “oh well... is what it is.” Until I got angry, it was a good thing I was so frustrated.... because it meant I finally gave a shit again. I wanted to get better and I wanted it to hurry the fuck up. Anyway... I’m just rambling and ranting because I was thinking back a lot after doing a sleep study... probably the first in a series of them. I don’t have apnea so I mean... that’s good. I also got to see what some of my brainwaves look like... I also apparently wake up after dreaming some a lot... I also apparently yelled in the middle of the night hahaha. So back to the whole life goal thing.....my long time friend, who introduced me to shitloads of music and bands and has always been close through good and bad times. Was saying how he knew it was something I’ve always wanted to do, so he wants to help me. He’s starting to help me plan the performance and then later will help me setup my shows and come with me to what will be really awkward and silly first couple gigs I play. An open mic night will be particularly hilarious to me, since instead of hearing shitty rock song covers, it will be an insane goth punk dude screaming distorted vocals to weird electro noises haha. It’s taken a long time to get shit finally going... but... it’s getting there... it’s still going to take a lot more work... on both me and the music. I have countless things I have to do, but I’m just happy I finally got angry enough to scream fuck it... and go for it... I love a lot of various kinds of work. I don’t really fit there very well though. Now that the sleep disorder stuff has become worse over time... it’s not really possible anyway. That’s okay though, since now I’m just doing what I’m actually good at. Eccentric artist asshole has always been my key features. xD So, here’s some photos of me before and during my sleep lab and random enjoyable crap I suppose... and my general mood. It’s been a while.... -The End-

youtube

#Me #Personal #Random #Pointless #Update #THE END

16 notes · View notes

fullbattleregalia · 4 years ago

Text

Tag Fic Game

Yay! I have been tagged for a thing! I love being tagged for a thing! Thanks, @ionfusionpunk!

Let’s shed light on some of your favourite lines you’ve ever written—you may pick one, two or a hundred, that’s up to you!

(Hmmm... these are probably going to be more “chunks” than lines.... Oh, well! 8D )

1) From my WIP A Gift, Freely Given (Mad Max: Fury Road, Max-isn’t-exactly-human-and-hasn’t-noticed!AU)

He remembers Before. Remembers so much farther back than he should and doesn’t understand why or how. Remembers warm soil beneath his feet teeming with life and great dirty gums overhead and her laughter crashing across the rocks in sprays of damp salt. Remembers her hair that swayed and twisted like kelp. It’s faint – muddled and hazy – but he remembers. More sharply he remembers the pain. The pain that fell from the sky and burned his skin as she withered and blew away leaving nothing but the salt of her tears crusting the ground. Remembers how the life teeming around him slowly faded with her until he was alone. And he remembers that he was never made to be alone. (Made? How could he have been made?) Every day he is dying, dying, dying, but he never dies. He doesn’t remember going mad with the loneliness and the anger and the unrelenting pain, but he must have. Because he is finally waking up. As if he’s becoming truly aware of himself for the first time in a long time.

He never quite runs out of water. Always seems to have just enough guzzoline to see him through even if only barely. His hand heals clean despite the rusty bolt that pierced clear through his palm. This does not seem strange to him (this is the way it’s always been), but it finally occurs that perhaps some would find it strange.

2) From What You Knead (Naruto, Butterfly Effect!AU and honestly I adore the hell out of the whole story)

“Hey, Kakashi-nii, is that your gennin team?”

Kakashi straightened up to find Naruto pointing at his old team photo.

“More or less, though we were all chuunin when that was taken.”

“You were so short!” Naruto laughed. “And-” He paused, squinted more closely at the picture, and then screeched at an ear-bleedingly loud volume, “OH MY GOSH, YOU WERE TAUGHT BY THE YONDAIME?!?”

Kakashi waited until the ringing in his ears had subsided before responding. It was okay – he probably hadn’t needed that eardrum anyway.

3) From For Innocence Lost (Bleach, featuring that time I really needed to write a cathartic death scene)

“Momo?” Aizen wheezed. He stared at her in horror. This couldn’t be happening! It just wasn’t possible! He’d spent decades forming this girl into his perfect subordinate. He’d made sure that her entire world revolved around him – that she couldn’t live without him!

“There is no place in Heaven for demons and false gods.” Her words were quiet and solemn and spoken with absolute conviction. Hinamori raised her zanpakuto and brought it down unerringly across Aizen’s neck in a killing blow.

4) From One Good Eye (Wakfu)

The most important things to a Cra were her hands, her eyes, and her bow. Cleophee had her bow and two good hands. She wished she could say the same for her eyes.

5) From my WIP Amabo Te (NCIS)

It was rather impressive that their captor was managing to look so thoroughly frustrated while standing stalk still wearing a balaclava. Tim couldn’t really blame him, though. (For the frustration, not the kidnapping. Tim was totally okay with blaming this guy for kidnapping them.) Really, giving Tony the truth serum concoction hadn’t been the best idea, Tim would probably been the much better candidate – and if McGee had been feeling inclined to, he probably would have informed their captor of this, but he was still miffed about the whole being kidnapped thing and it was general NCIS policy not to willingly give information to bad guys that could help them in the completion of their evil plots. Tim would have been frustrated, too, if he’d been the bad guy giving Tony truth serum. The instant the guy had stepped back, now-empty needle still in hand, and made it as far through his evil monologue as “truth serum,” Tony had looked up at him and grinned that manic grin that Tim had learned through long, hard experience meant trouble. Then the senior field agent had opened his mouth and proceeded to have an entirely one-sided conversation about movies, specifically Bond movies, never pausing long enough for their captor to get a word in edgewise to throw him off topic.

6) From my WIP One Lab Accident Away from Becoming a Marginally Decent Human Being (Mystery Science Theater 3000)

“Gimme that.” Kinga turned and grabbed the obnoxiously large key Max was still wearing around his neck. Max cowered but didn’t protest. He clearly realized that he was on very thin ice with her at the moment. “Stay here and get me a full refund or I’m feeding you to the space eels.”

“But-” Max hesitated. “We don’t have any-”

“I will BUY some just so I can feed you to them! And if Heston is dead, I’m buying space eels anyway!”

“Full refund! Absolutely! You got it!” Max squeaked as Kinga stomped away.

7) From From the Ashes (Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, Justice Lords!verse)

Helena was contemplating murder. It sounded like a very appealing idea and the best way of dealing with the chiming communicator on her bedside table. She finally managed to grab the blasted thing on her third flail.

“I hate you,” she told the person on the other end by way of greeting.

“Have you seen the latest addition of the Free Press, yet?” Barbara asked, ignoring Helena’s statement.

“It’s 6am, Babs. Some of us cannot subsist on caffeine alone. I went to bed less than two hours ago. NO, I have not seen the paper.”

“They ran an article on the Phoenix Corps.”

“WHAT?!?” Helena screeched, the sudden shot of adrenaline sending her bolt upright in bed. Next to her Vic groaned and stirred but didn’t wake. The man could sleep through a tornado if he put his mind to it. She started poking him in the side with one finger.

“I tried to call Q, but his communicator’s off,” Barbara was saying.

“Yeah, that’s because he remembered that he actually needs to sleep like the rest of us mere mortals,” Helena muttered, not really paying attention. Damn it, Vic was going to wake up and suffer through this bad news with her.

“Wha’z it?” Vic mumbled cracking open an eye. He hadn’t had enough sleep, yet, to erase the dark circles he got under his eyes from being up for thirty hours straight.

“Your boss published an article on the Phoenix Corps.”

“Oh…. ‘Kay.” He rolled over, apparently intent on going back to sleep.

“What?! This is bad, Vic!”

“Were gonna find out ‘bout us event’lly. Nobody’s dead. Nothin’s on fire. ‘Sall good.” He went back to sleep. Helena didn’t smother him with her pillow, but it was very close.

Well, I think that’s enough for now - I’ve rambled long enough. ^^ These are some of my favorites that are typed up (which make up about 10% of my writing - I like writing long hand)!

I tag: @greentrickster, @agirlnameded, and anybody else who wants to play! <3

#i got tagged #yay!#agentmalkere #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #the phoenix corps #what you knead #from the ashes #naruto #mad max #Justice League Unlimited #ncis #wakfu #bleach

6 notes · View notes

chyrstis · 5 years ago

Text

I won’t ask for much (but just this once, I’d like you) 5/10

Here’s the halfway point, and it’s a bit of a whopper. I think this is probably my favorite chapter out the entire thing, with the first a very close second. The talk by the fire was one of the earliest scenes that gelled for me when planning the entire fic out, and I knew that if I wasn’t able to write much else, I at least wanted to get that part down on paper.

And if things go according to plan, I might have a little something extra to add to this tonight. ;)

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw x John Seed Rating: E (but only for Ch. 10, the rest are a solid T) Word Count: 7.3K

Link to AO3!

Ch. 1 / Ch. 2 / Ch. 3 / Ch. 4 / Ch. 5 / Ch. 6 / Ch. 7 / Ch. 8 / Ch. 9 / Ch. 10

(and there’s a bonus fic to go with this one too)

—

Sharky steals a boat. It just happens to be John’s boat, and when it’s damaged along with his boathouse, John proceeds to lay out a means of having Sharky pay him back. [No Cult AU]

———–

Maybe the work schedule wasn’t as ironclad a thing as it used to be.

John liked routine, sure, and had been real anal about it when Sharky had first started out, but there was a flexibility to it now. It was no longer always about when, so long as it was done, and he could work with that.

So, he took a morning off when he needed it. Took on a few more jobs around town for anyone willing to let him shoulder it, and if there was any overlap, all it took was one message to clear it up. John was willing to work with him now, and that alone was a relief.

...But if some nights lead to more chances to hang with him one-on-one without working, Sharky didn’t complain either. Got more time around John’s plane, and even got to pitch in when it came to working on his car too.

The real shocker for him on days when he did have to work, though, had been the fresh boards and nails set. The signs that someone else had been working down there when he hadn’t.

When he’d asked, John didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it either, but after ten minutes of standing around and talking with him, he grabbed a nearby hammer and took a spot right next to him. Went right to work, without even batting an eye, and Sharky couldn’t believe it. Grinned brightly at him as he punched him in the shoulder, and found he wanted John there for once.

This was starting to feel a whole lot like he’d made a friend.

One that was cagey in a whole lot of ways still, and one he couldn’t exactly pop down on the couch with for a weekend of pizza, beer, and porn to sort through, but close. And thinking it over, he didn’t find himself minding the change all too much either.

But some nights John needed to shift things around, and when Sharky woke up that morning nursing a hangover, he had a message waiting for him.

Family, John mentioned, the text sent at an hour that made his head pound harder. Have to reschedule. Sorry.

no bg deal he sent back, fumbling at his phone. hollar if you need me ltr no plns

Then went right back to sleep. With the day open, he spent the morning seeing how long he could go without pants before anyone else dropped by.

All too quiet after that, he’d nearly gone stir crazy when Hurk called, wanting his expertise on a special job. One that was better suited to two heads rather than his one. Or better yet, four hands, each for holding a stick of their brand of high explosive. That’s how they fished, and sure, it stirred up every other critter in the area, but as long as they weren’t ambushed by bears or cougars, it was a risk worth taking.

Mid-throw was when his phone went off. Just a message, not a call, but it made his pipe bomb go wide, and nearly had the two of them go for a dunk themselves.

Change in plans. Come over.

No further clarification, no explanation from John; just those words. Not that he went off on long tangents through text, but it was the quickest turnaround Sharky had seen yet, and he actually pulled out his phone to call him.

Holding a finger to one of his ears to block some of the sound, he waited. Heard the echo of an explosion in one, and ringing in the other only to get nothing but John’s voicemail.

“Hey, I’m going to have to cut out on this.”

“Now?” Hurk asked, with a stick of dynamite in each hand. “Just when I was thinking of getting ol’ Sally out?”

Sharky never held up well in the face of his cousin’s disappointment, especially when he pulled out that tone of voice, but held strong.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s…I’ve got this weird message to check out, and you can never tell if it’s gonna be the good kind or the bad kind until it’s hitting you in the face, and there’s not a whole lot to go on here.”

“Fine, get on out, go, go, go. I’ll be here for a while, but if I catch something cool you’ll be sad you missed out.”

Pulling up to John’s place, Sharky still hadn’t pinned down what the problem was. The boathouse catching fire wasn’t likely. He’d put out any cigarettes over by the picnic table, ‘cause he’d made too much progress there to blow it now.

Ticking off other options on his fingers, he narrowed them down as he made his way to the front, and was still down to two when he hit the doorbell.

The door swung open, but John wasn’t the one waiting on the other side.

It was Jacob Seed.

Ex-military. Private. Rocked the rowdiest set of scars he’d ever seen on a person. At least, judging from the ones he could see on his face. Probably hunted guys in the woods for sport, or at least thought about it, and had the training to do it if he wanted to.

Sharky could count on his fingers the number of times he’d run into the guy outside of the odd job in the mountains, but he knew he wasn’t the kind, friendly, approachable type. No, standing taller than most, Jacob didn’t trade more than a handful of words with anyone outside of Eli Palmer, and maybe the local hunters up north.

And if he thought John was bad, Jacob’s stare was a full-blown weapon. It made Sharky squirm on the spot.

“Uh, yo.”

“Boshaw.”

“How’s it going?” he asked, smiling a little too wide to keep it casual.

Jacob shrugged. “It’s going. You?”

“Kinda. Something’s always going. it’s just not going much right now if you get what I’m-well, what I’m getting at.”

Get what I’m getting at? What the hell was that?

The longer Jacob kept him there, the more he was going to try and fidget his way out of there, and he knew he was being read. Maybe even being messed with at this point, but he didn’t cut and run. Not yet.

“Is John around?”

“You here for something?”

“Yeah it’s…you know about the whole working-with-your-younger-bro thing, right? How I’m down by the river, putting shit up, and trying to make that entire area pretty again? Well, he got a hold of me. Mentioned wanting to work, and thinks he can snap his fingers and I’ll jump or something.”

Jacob’s glance took on an amused bent. “Does he? How high?”

“Uh, I can jump up to three, maybe four feet, but that’s not…it isn’t-”

That was it. That was it in a nutshell, and joking about it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Groaning, he crossed his arms and didn’t even bother looking Jacob in the eye this time around. “So, is he here, or…?”

Jacob moved his head, motioning behind him, and stepped aside. “He’s upstairs.”

With the path now open, Sharky took it a little faster than needed, not wanting to hang back too much or stay close to Jake. But that left him standing in the middle of John’s ranch house - and seeing the whole thing in full for the first time was a lot to take in at once.

Because when he’d mentioned loving nature shit, this was that on steroids. Like someone had told John this was what a cabin should’ve looked like instead of what one actually was. The antlers, the chandelier, the fucking bear skin rug? All surrounding one giant, roaring fireplace? It wasn’t even cold yet, and John had the whole thing done up to the nines.

That had him chuckling as Jacob took a few steps towards him.

“Something funny?”

Jolting slightly, Sharky shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I, uh…no. Okay, a little. You ever see those Hallmark movies? The ones set at Christmas, or just up in the mountains?”

Jacob craned his head towards him.

“Y’know, the kind where two people are snowed in, having to wait it out and huddle for warmth and shit?”

“No.”

Okay, so maybe he hadn’t seen too many either, but he’d seen the one. Hadn’t even been one of those parody pornos dressed up as one, so he had some genuine experience there.

“Well, uh, the place looks like that. Like, John’s staging it for something along those lines. Just for cuddling, huddling, and uh…yeah. Holiday stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff and things, yeah.” That actually got a snort out of Jacob, and Sharky gave himself a mental pat on the back. “I’m serious. Like that couch is primed for mistletoe and some uh, ho ho-holy shit, I’ll stop now.”

There was the sound of a door being slammed, and Sharky jumped. Seconds after, he caught John on the upper level as he strode towards the stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Sharky called up to him. “Yo, man. Thought I’d need to-“

That’s when he caught the dark look crossing John’s face for the first time. That, and the actual speed with which he was walking. Asking was a mistake, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Uh, John? You okay, amigo? You want me to come back another-“

John grabbed his arm as he passed by, and dragged Sharky along with him. Right past a concerned Jake, and right past the front door, leading him down towards the dirt road.

“Whoa, hey, wait!”

Nothing clicked, not his words and not the way he tried to pull away. John was a man possessed, focused only on a single point, and that didn’t sit well with him at all.

“Seriously, dude, stop!”

Sharky planted his feet, and yanked his arm out of the grip. That brought John to a stop, and Sharky watched him slowly turn towards him. Breathing harder than he should’ve been, Sharky took off his cap and brushed a hand through his hair.

“What the fuck, man?”

Tense, and with his jaw locked, John didn’t even bother giving him a response. Just a stare that would’ve killed any other person dead if he’d had the ability. Still, he wasn’t chasing him off, or leaving, and that made Sharky keep on trying.

“You wanna talk or something? You really look like…”

“What I want,” John bit out as he walked right up to him, “is to get as far away from that fucking house as possible. I don’t care where as long as it’s not here.”

Sharky sucked in a breath, not prepared for that level of venom or John’s sudden proximity, and let it out. “Uh, okay. Shit, let’s…let’s go then. Not like I was in the mood to work anyway.”

Shuffling around him, Sharky started back towards his car, and waved for John to follow. The heat of his stare wasn’t as bad from this distance, but it didn’t let up until John dropped it to climb into the passenger side of the vehicle. He fired the car up after that, hoping the damn thing wouldn’t stall, and the two sped out of there before anyone could come calling.

“Now I know what works for me whenever shit like that gets me down.”

Sharky turned on the radio only for John to flip it off. Balking at him again, Sharky noted that this time the road was the one having to deal with John glaring at it, and he tried to keep as light a tone as he could manage.

“Anyway, you need an outlet. Something to kick all that negative shit in the balls hard enough to make three family lines regret it. So, you can shrug it off, get up, and go back to living life like you want to. Maybe this won’t be your thing every time, but I think you might like this.”

“…Like what?”

“Well, I’d explain it to you, but this is one of those things where it’s better just to give it a try. Not to spoil any of the surprise as we head on out, but it rhymes with…shit. What rhymes with burn?”

Urn. Turn. Learn. Yearn. That was a good one. Not that he needed it for anything, but it was good to know. Fuck. Did he say burn out loud too?

Swearing under his breath, Sharky shook his head. “Anyway, a little ‘Burn, Baby, Burn’ never hurt anyone. Least, not anyone worth knowing.”

John said nothing, leaving Sharky to listen to the sound of the road as it crunched underneath the car’s tires, but right as he’d started tapping out an uneven rhythm on the steering wheel just to break it up, he heard him sigh.

“Hey, I promise it won’t be lame. Yeah, it’s not for everybody, but…”

He stopped talking when he saw John place his head in his hand. Covering his eyes, Sharky heard the catch in his breathing, and wished like hell he had the right words for him.

Unable to offer anything else, Sharky shifted his eyes back to the road. “Yeah.”

---

“Now I know you’ve seen it once before, and it ain’t fancy,” Sharky said after pulling up to his house, “but I’ve got a place to sleep, a rocking sound system, and when I need it, lots and lots of storage space for…stuff. Like real fun stuff, but not the illegal kind, ‘cause I don’t want you thinking that. Well, not a lot of it, just some of it.”

John was looking around now, taking in the area as he and Sharky got out, and Sharky led him out across the lawn.

“My house is your house, so settle on in and pull up a chair. The show’ll start soon as I can get this all together, and make it one worth waiting for.“

He shoved some wood into the area designated for his bonfires, and patted himself down before heading over to where he kept his propane. Rooting through the items, he picked up the bottle of lighter fluid – he’d start small, no need to have a full blow-out right off the bat – and glanced over his shoulder to see what John was doing.

He had approached the firepit while Sharky was busy; still silent, but looking closely at it.

“You doing good there, amigo?”

John’s head angled towards him. “Well enough.”

That he’d said anything at all was an improvement, but Sharky didn’t believe it for a second. Not with his back towards him, as he walked back to the pit.

John watched closely as Sharky sprayed the wood liberally with the lighter fluid. Then added more after, and when he tipped it over to slap at the bottom of it to get the last few drops out, John finally spoke up.

“You’re not serious.”

“Can’t have a decent barbeque without flames, man.”

“That many?”

The wry look he gave him stopped Sharky in his tracks. Or maybe it was the way the corner of John’s mouth was inching up. In spite of everything, he’d managed that at least, and Sharky felt his mouth go dry.

“Uh, yeah.” He held out a matchbook to him, and hoped he could keep it steady. His voice was a lost cause, but his next few words were better in line. “Kinda disappointing if you light it up only to have it fizzle out. Can’t get any perks out of that.”

“And this was your plan all along?” John’s odd semi-smile stayed in place, and only seemed to grow. “To invite me here to burn it off? Literally?”

He wasn’t wrong, but seeing as this was his usual go-to and yet not, Sharky really didn’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of it all. Not now, at least.

“You wanted out, and no other place in the county’s better prepped for this, so a quick ride to Boshaw Manor made sense. I know when shit’s gone south and there’s no hope of me shaking that feeling, this works, and I try to foster an environment here that’s all about letting loose when you need it. Pants-free preferred and encouraged, but by no means required.”

“Good to know,” John teased.

He hoped like hell John couldn’t clearly see what was happening with his face right now, but at this distance it was impossible not to.

“But you, uh… You seriously looked ready to rip a bear’s fucking head off, and I thought it’d help. So, here. Light it, and after we pop one off, maybe we can get more going. Kinda sad as is right now.”

Waving the matchbook in the air, he grumbled to himself as he dropped his eyes. But he felt John take the matches, and looked up again in time to see him light one.

John watched the flame dance in front of him for a few seconds, shielding it from the breeze with his hand. Leaning over to peek at it, Sharky nearly brushed shoulders with him, and wondered how long he was willing to hold onto it.

Pretty long at this rate, as the flames licked the wood and traveled towards his fingers.

“You gonna drop that?”

“In time.”

“‘Cause that’s going to get you if you let it stick around any longer.”

Not that he hadn’t let himself get distracted by the warmth of the fire before. How it flickered as it moved, wanting it all that much closer as it inched its way down towards him.

“Surely you don’t think I’m not paying attention to it.” Irritation crept into John’s voice, but he still wasn’t dropping the match.

“Seriously, man, I can treat a rowdy-ass burn if I have to, but that shit’s going to bite.“

“Charlemagne, I have it handled-“ John flicked his hand fast as he yelped in pain.

The match went out, leaving the two standing there in front of the neglected pit. Sharky tried not to, but there was no way he could keep the laugh from slipping out. John’s sharp look shut him up a second later, only breaking eye contact to keep on waving his hand.

“Yo, you okay?”

“Fuck,” John muttered, blowing on his fingers. “Everything’s fine.”

Sharky didn’t nudge him with his shoulder, but was tempted to as he watched John continue to try and sooth the burn.

“Sure about that? I can be back in two shakes of a jackrabbit’s tail if you want.”

John didn’t waste time lighting the next match. “I’m fine.”

His hands went up, backing off completely. But at that point he had something else to focus on. The fire was dancing in the wind again, and when John let the match fall into the pit, Sharky didn’t take his eyes off of it for a second.

The warm glow took, then grew. Rising slowly but surely as the fire found its footing, and he let out the breath he was holding. There it was. The feeling that washed over him, one that sank down deep into his bones.

Like coming home, in a way. Every time.

Sighing in contentment, he gave John a quick once-over. His attention was on the fire too, locked onto it as he slowly rubbed his fingers together. No one ever seemed to respond to it like he did, but the focus was there, his eyebrows drawn together as he kept on studying it.

John still kept on rubbing at his fingers, though. He had to bother the singed one, even if he was too stubborn to bring it up again.

Sharky stepped back, and gave John a light tap to the shoulder.

“Be right back. Gotta grab something.”

Jogging over to his house, he pushed open the door and made a beeline straight for his bathroom. Anything he had for first aid was scattered across the property if not left outside, so one minute became two, then became five as he rooted around the place.

Fishing the tube of burn cream out, he sighed in relief.

It had taken the edge off of some of his worst ones - the scars on his sides and back tingling as he subconsciously recalled them. Considering how often he tangoed with fire at all, he’d all but accepted it at this point, and was glad that John wasn’t rocking anything worse than what would be a light blister.

Band-aids were down to slim pickings, however. There were only five left, but he picked the best fit and made his way back out to the pit, taking a short stop by the fridge for beer and one hastily-filled glass of tap water.

Water was the last thing on his mind most nights, but John needed something out there, and Sharky tried not to stress over it too much as he rushed back out.

John started when he handed it over.

“What’s this?” He took the glass, and eyed its contents.

“Water. You know, for drinking?” A sheepish grin inched across Sharky’s face as he made the motion with his hand. “Didn’t want to leave you hanging without anything, and my fridge’s full up with beer, so…”

“Ah. Thank you,” he said, losing the suspicious tone immediately.

He took a light sip of it and Sharky didn’t miss the way he wrinkled his nose. Probably better used to the fancy stuff they’d filter before bottling, but John still held onto it. Doing that instead of spitting it out onto the ground earned him a point or two on the ‘Don’t be an asshole’ scoreboard, but Sharky would never admit it to him.

“And those?” John asked.

“I know you said you were fine, but here.” Sharky handed the items to him, and John set his glass down. “Best stuff for burns around. Slap some of this on, and in a day you won’t even feel it.”

“Are those…dinosaurs?” John held the bandage up, flashing the green tyrannosaurus rex at him.

“Yeah, man. Dinosaurs are badass. I don’t know if Jurassic Park was your thing or not, but I had that on repeat for a good three months after it came out. Solid gold right there, and great for hand-holding or grabbing during any tense shit.” He held his hand up as he leaned in, and waggled his eyebrows. “Guaranteed. Like sixty to seventy-five percent chance of getting some action too.”

John furrowed his brows, and kept the band-aid pinched between his fingers. Both unimpressed and unconvinced, which disappointed Sharky a little, but didn’t surprise him much either.

“Anyway, that was the first one I grabbed, but I think there’s another in there if you’re more of a triceratops fan. Or raptors?”

John slowly shook his head. “I’ve-I don’t have a preference.”

“Well, there you go. And I know you like blue and all, but green’s clearly the superior color here. Just saying.”

He clapped him on the back, and John gave him a withering glance before putting it on.

Dragging over a couple of chairs, Sharky popped them close to the pit - but not close enough to catch any sparks - and settled in. He kicked back and wished he could’ve propped his feet up, but with the other chair in use he had to make do, and leaned as far back as the worn fabric would let him. It strained against the motion, but held, and he knew there was a still a fair chance he’d bust a hole in it, or topple over. Just not now, at least.

“…How did this start?”

Glancing over at John, Sharky sat up when he realized he’d asked him a question. “What?”

“How, or when did you start doing this? The fires? Or, whatever this ritual is.”

“Ritual? This ain’t anything fancy like that.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Sharky let out a long whistle. “But fuck, how many years has it been now?”

Well over twenty. Since that day when he’d had skating on his mind, that and Wendy. He had such high hopes going into the day only to find a whole other thing worth keeping on for.

“Would you believe my first time was at a skating rink? This old place that used to be down by Fall’s End. Neon lights, tricked out wallpapers, and all the oldies you could ask for?”

“Concerning you? Yes.”

John sounded so sure of it. Like he could see the memory just as clearly as Sharky did. That got a warm laugh out of him.

“Imagining that sticky carpet, the flat soda, and those tunes? Real nice, right? It was the highlight of my month. Getting invited out there, pulling off some of my finest moves out on the floor. But I had to set the mood before heading in, and had a roll of quarters ready and everything.”

A grin settled in, almost fond as he recalled the start of it. The promise had been there, all right. He’d finally get a chance to say something. Do something, instead of dreaming about it. Funny how he’d dive into so many other things without thinking, but this? This he’d thought about. Over and over. Wanted it right.

“So?” John’s voice cut through again, shaking him out of it. “What happened?”

“I really wanted to ask this girl Wendy out. Had some good one-liners going, and had watched plenty of movies beforehand that I knew she liked. Wanted to really wow her, and show her what’s what.”

That had been the first pass of the plan. It seemed foolproof. Then he’d reached the rink after he’d crammed one too many quarters in the jukebox. Took one good look at her as he skated up, and…

John’s growing frown mirrored his own. Maybe even too well.

“It, uh-it didn’t go like I wanted. Went with my gut once I saw her, and thought I’d just -my hands started going everywhere.”

Confused, John thought over his words, and Sharky hoped he wouldn’t have to spell it out. “You grabbed her?”

“I…might’ve grabbed something.”

Realization hit John hard. “You groped her?”

“Like I said, it could’ve gone a lot better! Instincts being bad and all.” Dodging his eyes, Sharky held up his hands and faced the fire. “Look, it was a dumbass move, and I got a skate to the balls for it. Still, really wish I’d tried dancing instead. No way she would’ve turned down a date with a dude pulling off a solid moonwalk. On wheels.”

“Surely,” John huffed.

Flipping him off, Sharky sighed before continuing.

“So, I head out back. Figure I could light up a cig or something. Take the edge off that way. Well, I decided I’d light a trash can on fire too. See if I liked it, and soon the whole damn back-alley’s on fire. Like burning high with no hope of stopping. It spread, took half of the place out in the process, and yeah, it sucked. But it sucked a whole lot less after seeing that too.”

“That was…not the story I was expecting it to be.”

“Lot of people say that after hearing it. And that’s all of like, three people that even bothered listening to me while I was telling it, but it is what it is. Sucks that it took out that place, though. Seriously, had a great sound system there and everything.”

John raised a hand to his mouth, eyes on the fire instead of on him, and smiled. “Thank you. You didn’t need to share that with me.”

“Eh, it’s nothing. You asked, and I told you what’s what.”

“Not everyone’s as comfortable doing that. And certainly not even half as honest.” John folded his hands on his lap, and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. “It was Joseph. Tonight, back at my ranch. He wanted to talk. This typically isn’t a problem, but he decided to do what all older brothers believe is their right, I suppose.”

“What, like go over some fantasy football stats? Or more like rite-of-passage-type stuff, ‘cept the holy kind. ‘Cause he’s not gonna take you to a cathouse, or nothing.”

“Please never say that again,” John said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Uh, which part? The football, or the...er, the part where he’s trying to help you get laid, except not?”

“That one. You see, he wanted to talk expectations. My role in the family overall, and how he wants me to rise to them.”

“That’s uh, kinda harsh. Assuming he said some pretty rowdy shit to you.”

“Not all of it,” John admitted, “but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Usually when talking about regrets and hopes for the future, not all parties will be on the same page. He was on one, and I the other, and…I didn’t handle it as gracefully as I would’ve liked.”

“But did you think he was right?”

“I don’t know. It’s too soon to say, and I’m still not inclined to agree considering how he presented it to me.”

“But you know why he did that, right?”

John’s eyes were still on the fire, but caught his when he turned away from it. “Do you have any siblings?

Sharky shook his head. “Uh, no. Parents never planned for any of that, and they sure as hell weren’t planning on me. I’m one of those miracle babies. The kind that defy expectation, if you will. They swore up and down they’d used the pill, bagged that shit, and tried damn near everything to keep from throwing a bun in that oven. Still, nine months and some change later I popped out. Was as meant to be as my Grandmama swore I was, and…it’s weird in a way. Knowing that, and still knowing the other end of it too.”

“That you weren’t wanted?”

John was looking at him differently now. Catching something Sharky wasn’t sure even he’d see after checking five times in the mirror for it, and didn’t seem as cagey as before.

“I had someone that did want me. Wasn’t the one that had me to begin with, but that’s alright. Family’s not always blood - not directly. I got Hurk, I got my Auntie. Maybe even Xander, if she plans on keeping him around, but they give a shit about what happens to me. Let me know at least once a week too if they ain’t too busy to stop by, so it’s gotta be nice in some ways. Having brothers. Having that, at least.”

Taking in a deep breath, Sharky didn’t know how to tackle this next part. Knew he was probably going to be like a bull in a china shop, but he’d try. He had to.

“Now I don’t know enough about you all to really say much, so tell me to fuck right off if you need me to, but…they seem like the caring kind. Even though Joe’s got his whole family unit going on - his weird, not-a-cult, but kind-of-a-cult aside. And Jake’ll always give me the creeps, but I feel like you’d also warn me if he was setting me up to head out into the woods and fight me - mano a mano, ‘Most Dangerous Game’ style - so I think we’d be all right.”

“They’re not one, and he’s not about to,” John replied. “And maybe it isn’t your place to say.”

That shut his mouth. “…Sorry.”

“But you’re right.” Shifting his gaze to the ground, John’s next few words were softer, almost too quiet to hear. “Both of my brothers are all I have in this life. The ones that I would do anything for, and for years we truly thought we’d lost each other. There was no finding our way back after being separated and sent to different families. Different homes.”

John flexed his fingers, stretching them out before tightening them into a fist.

“I…was not fortunate in that regard. While I now had many opportunities open to me, I would’ve traded them in a heartbeat. Because there was evil in that house, and it was regularly visited upon me. And to cope, I needed an outlet. A way to take away what I couldn’t fix. What I couldn’t change, or stop, and make it all disappear.

“So, I turned to other sources. Went well out of my way to open myself up to new experiences. Things to excite, to make me feel…something. Anything, and no price was too great. I couldn’t see it for what it was, and was content to let it all eat me from the inside out. Because that was what gave me relief, and if they hadn’t found me when I needed them most…” John shrugged a shoulder. “I would’ve let it.”

“Fuck, I-uh, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I didn’t share that to make you feel sorry for me, or to let it be an excuse. It was a little…honesty given, for honesty gained, if that makes any sense.”

Blowing out a breath, Sharky nodded. “Kinda. Think I get what you mean there.”

“And tonight, you were right. I needed an outlet, and you… You reached out to me without even thinking twice about it.” There was a sincerity there that surprised him. No dancing around it, no downplaying it. “You had no reason to open up your home to me, or do anything at all to help, but you did.”

“No reason not to.”

“Charlemagne. I haven’t given you much reason to do any of this, considering why we’re speaking at all to begin with.”

John had a point. One Sharky wasn’t going to argue, but he’d clearly overlooked a lot of the things he’d done to keep them on speaking terms. Or hell, even get friendly, because they were straddling that line, and had been ever since he’d stuck around to help him with the plane.

“Okay, so you did show up here on my doorstep. Used some strong words to get me to do some shit for you, and generally acted like a mega-dick. Admitting that’s the first step towards fixing it. ‘Cause my guess’s you wanna fix that, right?”

John pursed his lips, but said nothing. Just stared at him while his jaw tensed.

That had Sharky raising his eyebrows. “Dude, you seriously aren’t even gonna pretend to say yes to that? Not even try it?”

Glancing away, John closed his eyes. Took in a deep breath, and held onto it before sighing loudly.

“What the fuck?” Sharky muttered, watching him reach for his back pocket. “There’re like baby steps, and then you come in with this whole twelve step thing you’ve gotta work through, like it’s just that hard not to be a colossal d-”

“Done.”

Sharky paused as he took in what John held up. It was his phone.

Rolling his eyes at his confused look, John handed it over to him and pointed at the screen. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” Sharky flipped through the folder John had pulled up, not sure what he was looking for. “Like the porn you knew I was gonna search for after taking this?”

“No, not that,” John replied, grinding his teeth. “The recording.”

“The…” Holy shit. “You got rid of it. Like, no back up, no nothing?”

“That was the only one.”

Gone. That weight - what was left of it - gone.

Sharky laughed. Laughed as relief settled deep into him, and it was the sweetest thing.

Sure, John could’ve been lying to him. Could’ve had three different places where he was stashing the file for a rainy day, but he found he believed him. He wanted to take his word for it, and found he didn’t have to jump through too many hoops for it either.

“That’s-that’s uh, thanks.”

“Thank you. For proving me wrong in a lot of ways.”

Proud motherfucker that he was, that statement nearly bowled Sharky over. But he seemed to mean it too, and he flashed John a bashful grin.

“So, uh going back to before. You need to be cool to others. Treat ‘em nice, especially if you know they’re in the middle of a rough patch, and you count too. You needed something to take the edge off, and with drinking out, there were only two options left. Sex, and burning shit, and seeing as I don’t even know what your type is, I went for the easy one.”

“Easy?” Giving him a curious look, John leaned towards him. “That arson would be the easier option at all’s fascinating to me, because then I have no choice but to ask.”

“…Ask what?”

“What is my type?”

He one-hundred percent felt John’s focus now, and might’ve felt his palms start to sweat. “You want me to guess?”

“I want you to try.”

That was a tougher question than it should’ve been, and all the answers Sharky thought he had promptly left the building.

“Uh…fuck. The ladies in the catalogs. Victoria’s Secret models. Sports Illustrated, but the swimsuit issue. Porn stars. Top dollar escorts,” he said, spit-balling for whatever a rich lawyer might like. Or Bruce Wayne. Same difference. “But the kind with nice shoes, and those big-ass fur coats.”

Or was he going more for what he’d like if he had boatloads of cash to blow? And a music video to make? Maybe. Judging by the look John was giving him, though, he didn’t agree.

“Jesus, I don’t know. You asked! So, I guessed. Thought I’d get something close if I kept on going.”

“Well, you weren’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you’re telling me you wouldn’t be dicking down every woman in the valley if they asked?” Sharky took a drink of his beer, and couldn’t help but grumble his next few words into it. “I know I would.”

“You’d what?”

He coughed, beer going right down his windpipe. That was the kind of shit that should’ve slipped out when he was buzzed, and he wasn’t even there yet. And judging from John’s response, wasn’t great to hear out loud either.

“Aw, fuck. Uh, sorry. Didn’t…didn’t mean anything weird by it. Just that you’ve got a lot of women looking - er, wanting - some real one-on-one time with you, that’s all. And if I were you, I’d take them up on it.”

John snorted, “Is that so?”

“I’m serious!” Sharky insisted, flashing an awkward grin. “Not to do any ego-jerking or anything, but you’re a good-looking guy, dude. Who’d blame ‘em for trying?”

He’d meant to look away after that, but John held his stare. Gave him a look that was like a Rubik’s Cube, and the more Sharky tried to pin down exactly what it was, the more he kept on scrambling anything and everything just to match up a single side.

“I see.” John wet his lips, dropping his eyes to his bandaged finger as he rubbed it together with his thumb. “Well, I’d hate to keep them waiting any longer than I already have. Or to disappoint them, but a few may need to wait their turn.”

“Why’d you say that?”

“Because surely their male counterparts deserve a chance as well? Seems only fair.”

John lowered his lashes as he looked over at him this time around, and Sharky must’ve blinked at him fifty times before his words registered.

“Oh. Oh,” he said, watching John nod his head along with him. “Well, it’s uh, I’m a…I don’t think I got anything right there, huh?”

Face burning hot, he crossed his arms and felt like kicking himself. Mostly for the whole conversation leading up to this, but now was a close second.

“Hard to be right about something you didn’t know.”

“Saying weird-ass shit to you’s not cool to begin with. Expecting a pity pass for it’s worse, and then there’s whatever the fuck this is, so I’m sorry. It’s lame as hell, but I’ve gotta get an apology out at least. And it’s probably the last thing you wanna hear or talk about, but you do whatever the hell makes you happy, long as no one’s getting hurt or nothing,” he said, wanting to get the words out, even if they weren’t neat. “And, we uh, we can talk about something else now.”

John laughed; the sound lighter than he expected. “Uncomfortable?”

“No. Kinda. Just…I’m not a talker. If you need someone to head on up, make a speech using all of the right words, making it pretty and all, you don’t go busting down my door. ‘Cause there’s ways of saying things, so it’s all meaningful and nice with no hurt feelings involved, and that ain't it. Shit, you’ve made a whole career out of it.”

Sharky tapped the bottle against his shin, and sighed.

“When I open my mouth, people usually start throwing stuff at me instead of listening. Beer, shoes, lawn ornaments, darts, you name it, I’ve dodged it. Or had someone try to hit me in the junk for it, so thanks for not doing that. And sorry again. Probably say that a couple more times before the night’s out.”

“…Hitting you would be the last thing on my mind. I promise you that.”

Dead serious, he wasn’t sure what to make of John’s tone, or the way he was looking at him.

So, after downing the rest of his beer, Sharky went for the next best thing. Nervous laughter, and more blushing like an idiot. He’d never stop at this rate.

Rubbing his hands together, he hopped up out of his seat after that. John was too intense to stare down for long, and he put some distance between them, set on hunting down the first major firework of the evening.

“Okay, so this one I usually save for the festies,” Sharky began, carrying it over in his hands. “It’s my own personal formula. Ran through it a few times trying to see if I could get the right amount of fizz, bang, and pop that everybody loves without losing a finger, an eye, or most of my hair again.”

“Did you now?” John snorted. “It’s a miracle it grew back.”

“More like both eyebrows, but yeah, ‘cause I need to keep this around,” Sharky replied, framing his jaw with his hand. The wink was extra, but that didn’t stop him. “Chicks dig guys with a little scruff to ‘em. The look’s ‘sexy renegade’, but the kind that’ll still treat you right.”

“No doubt.”

Looking him over, John tilted his head as he considered him. Let his attention focus in on him closely, until Sharky was on the verge of snapping his fingers in front of him to break the spell he’d somehow cast.

“It suits you.”

John could’ve slapped him, and it would’ve been less of a surprise than that. “Say what?”

“It suits you. Keep it to that, though. Any more and I think you’re guaranteed to lose more than an eyebrow the next time any of this backfires.”

In the back of his mind he registered John’s statement – an actual compliment which only confused him more – but didn’t get much further than that. That’s when he caught the smile John was now wearing. This one he’d earned for sure, and didn’t want to risk losing.

Kicking his brain back into gear, Sharky blew out a breath. “So, uh…let’s see. Lighting this up, so we can have one kick-ass party. Just getting right on that shit.”

The red rocket was stabbed into the ground to the left of the pit, and Sharky held out his lighter to John. He still had the matches from earlier, but this way was easier.

When all John did was give him a questioning glance, Sharky flicked his eyes towards the rocket. “Yo, you know this whole thing’s for you, right?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. So, you kick it off. I’ve got a firework in every color, though you might want to aim them all over yonder. Nearly lit the field up straight ahead of here last time, and my PO and I ain’t gonna see eye to eye on this if another starts. Cool?”

Dropping his attention to the lighter, John reached for it. Turned it over in his hands as the corners of his mouth curved up, and eventually aimed some of that glance his way.

“Cool.”

#far cry 5 #sharky boshaw #john seed #jacob seed #john seed/sharky boshaw #I know I ultimately have control over what the characters say and do but I just didn't want to stop them here #and Jacob was a total surprise by the way #b/c I wasn't prepared for how much fun he was going to be to write #fanfiction #FC5 fanfiction #fic: I won't ask for much #fic series: we could make a home out of this

7 notes · View notes

eternalnight8806-3 · 5 years ago

Note

60 :3

OMG LOOK I’M BACK!!!!!! IT ONLY TOOK ALMOST 9 MONTHS BUT I’M HERE WITH SOMETHING NEW FOR YOU GUYS!

I’m just gonna call this Dya’s Prompt because I suck at coming up with titles so there ya go.

Note: The baby’s name roughly translates to “dark snow”.

Category: SFW, One shot, canon continuation, fluff

Word Count: 2,013

Pairing: InuKag

Rating: T for language

I’d like to thank @cstorm86 for pushing me and helping me to finish this. It’s not my best, but it’s here and right now that’s what’s important.

Also tagging: @keichanz @noviceotakus-blog @hinezumi @morikothehalfangel

If you want to be added to my tag list, please let me know.

I hope you all enjoy!

Dya’s Prompt

(You’d be a great dad)

The

time since returning to the feudal era had seemed like nothing to

Kagome. Before she knew what was happening, two whole years had passed.

She and InuYasha had married soon after her return, this being the

happiest day of both of their lives. Until now.

she looked down at the face of her newborn daughter, Miyukiyoru, Kagome

couldn’t help but smile. She was exhausted beyond anything she’d ever

felt before, having had an intense 18 hour labor to deliver the treasure

she held in her arms, but the happiness she felt was the strongest in

her memory. Claw tipped hands came into her view, stroking back the

wispy silver hairs from their daughter’s face and tentatively touching

one of the tiny triangular ears atop her head. The resemblance to her

father was uncanny, with one major difference. Her ears were jet black, a

stark contrast from her pure white hair. InuYasha leaned in and kissed

the foreheads of both of his girls, the smile on his face telling Kagome

all she needed to know.

The

first few weeks after Miyukiyoru’s birth were a whirlwind of activity.

InuYasha always made sure to get up with her at night whenever possible,

knowing he could get by with less sleep than his wife. When Kagome had

told him about bottle feeding and pumping breast milk from her time, he

and some of the village women had fashioned a few makeshift bottles from

animal hide, complete with removable nipples for the baby to suckle

from. Kagome always purified these before filling them with milk

throughout the day to ensure her baby’s health.

She

was able to pump using these same bottles and a wonderful contraption

Miroku had somehow managed to scrape together, though she had no idea

how the thing actually accomplished what it did. She was grateful for

the respite and she loved that InuYasha could experience the bond of

feeding his child like she could.

This

particular night, about 4 weeks after her birth, was a tumultuous night

for the new parents, however. Miyukiyoru would not stop crying no

matter what the couple tried. She wailed deep into the night, frazzling

the nerves of even the ever patient Kagome. She was nearly in tears

herself when a miracle happened as she stood a helpless onlooker,

listening to her beloved speak softly to their daughter.

“…

didn’t like eachother very much at first, you know. She was this spit

ball of fiery energy that stood in the way of me getting the Jewel of

Four Souls. This was gonna make me a full fledged demon, ya know.

Something your daddy thought he always wanted,” he looked up at Kagome

then, “until your momma showed me I didn’t need to change who I am to be

worthy of love.”

Kagome stood, astonished, as slowly Miyukiyoru slowly stopped crying and started listening intently to her father’s story.

“…I

woke up on that tree after 50 years with your momma pressed against me,

smelling like the sweetest flower to ever grace the Earth, though I

wouldn’t tell her that for a long time. She looked a lot like the woman

who pinned me to that tree, so I was angry and bitter at her for a long

time, until she beat some sense into me.”

Kagome

smiled as she listened. She no longer minded being reminded that she

looked like her previous life, Kikyo. She had long ago let go of those

feelings of jealousy and regret. InuYasha had more than proven to her

that she was his choice, not someone who was thrust upon him by chance

or simply second best to his former love.

“…So

your momma took that claw and attached it to the arrow, she’s so

clever, isn’t she?” InuYasha winked at his wife, making Kagome barely

stifle a giggle. “But when the arrow hit that damn bird it shattered the

Jewel into a whole bunch of teeny tiny shards and scattered them all

across the country. And thus began our year long journey to find them,

and defeat Naraku,”

Miyukiyoru’s

eyes lit up when he spoke Naraku’s name and she cooed happily. Kagome

rolled her eyes. She’s going to be a little reckless fighter, just like

her daddy, and Kagome wouldn’t have had it any other way. She slowly

lowered herself down onto the futon and curled up to listen to her

husband tell the story of their adventure to their baby girl. It was

around the point that Kagome met Sesshomaru for the first time that

Miyukiyoru finally closed her eyes and slept.

Slowly,

InuYasha placed the tiny bundle down in her makeshift bassinet and

backed away from her tentatively, almost expecting her to begin howling

again. He slumped down next to Kagome and sighed.

“Geez,

when a little brat can even wear out a half demon it makes me wonder

how you damn humans do this,” he teased as he wrapped his arms around

her and pulled her to his chest. Kagome chuckled softly.

“Patience, young padawan. You will learn the secrets in time.”

InuYasha’s eyebrow quirked. “Padawan?”

Smiling,

Kagome shook her head. “Nevermind. Go to sleep, while you still can,”

she retorted before curling up against him and closing her eyes for that

much needed sleep.

The

next night was more of the same. Miyukiyoru just would not go to sleep

no matter what they did. So finally, InuYasha decided to continue his

story from the previous night, if only to test his theory.

“Alright

babygirl, wanna hear about your asshole uncle Sesshomaru?” In response,

she giggled and raised her arms out towards her father’s face. Smiling,

he began his tale again. “So, there we all were, your momma,

Sesshomaru, the toad Jaken, and me, all inside my dad’s, your

grandpapa’s, bones in this huge demon graveyard.” InuYasha laid her down

in her bassinet but didn’t stop talking. If anything, he became more

excited, using his hands to express his excitement. Miyukiyoru never

took her eyes from him as he walked around her telling the tale.

“He

wanted Tetsusaiga, see. He’d wanted it ever since dad had died all

those years ago. But see, your grandpapa was much smarter than your

uncle and wanted your daddy to have it because he knew that Uncle Stick

In The Mud would never be able to use it properly, atleast not until he

learned some compassion. So, he went through all that just to get this,”

InuYasha pulled Tetsusaiga from it’s sheath, revealing it to his

daughter for the first time in all it’s glory. Her eyes widened and she

cooed as she watched him lightly swing it around.

“But

Uncle Sessy couldn’t even touch the sword, babygirl. Full demons can’t

touch it because of a special barrier your grandpapa put on it to

protect it. He was so mad when he discovered that, he attacked your

papa, because we didn’t really get along real good back then. Amidst all

our fighting we didn’t even hardly notice your momma and when she

pulled the sword from it’s spot in that rock your Uncle Sessy nearly had

a heart attack I think.” Miyukiyoru giggled at that.

“He

went after momma then, attacking her with his poison claws. If not for

Tetsusaiga she would’ve died right then. But this sword protected her,

because that’s what it’s meant for babygirl. Protecting the ones we

love, so long as we have compassion. Your uncle and I had a big fight

after that, and I transformed Tetsusaiga for the first time that day,

though it would be a while before I figured out how I’d done it. Your

momma knew though, because she’s always been smarter than me.”

Kagome

smiled to herself. She loved hearing him talk to their daughter, even

about battles and swords. She couldn’t help but sit quietly herself and

listen to him tell the familiar tale. The way he told it had her

riveted. She’d never known he was such a good storyteller.

“…sliced

him right through his arm, cutting it right off!” InuYasha sliced the

air with his sword to emphasis his point, pulling a loud ‘ooooo’ from

his baby. “Uncle Sessy ran away with his tail between his legs. I don’t

think he ever expected your daddy to actually be able to injure him like

that. But I did, babygirl. And that’s how I ended up with Tetsusaiga.”

He looked down after that to find she had finally drifted off to sleep.

He sheathed his sword and stuck it in its usual place by the door.

“You know, she’s gonna be so spoiled with you talking to her like that,” Kagome teased quietly.

“Keh.

She’s my daughter. She can be as spoiled as she wants to be, so long as

she can hold a sword,” he quipped back as he settled down next to her.

“With you as her father, how could she not?”

InuYasha

looked seriously into his wife’s chocolate eyes. “I want to be there

for her, always. I never want her to have the life I had. She’s too

precious for that.”

Kagome

took his face in her hands. “She won’t. Nothing is going to happen to

us, InuYasha. Our village is relatively safe, considering. Besides, with

a demon slayer and a trained monk as her godparents, nothing is getting

near her even if something did, which it won’t.”

InuYasha

grabbed her hands and smiled at her tentatively. “Yeah. I know. I just

worry s'all. The thought of her growing up the way I did makes my

stomach churn. I know I ain’t gonna be the best dad, but I still want to

be here, ya know?”

Kagome’s

lips pursed in an angry scowl. “Listen here, InuYasha. I don’t ever

want you to say that again, you hear me? You are the best goddamn father

that baby girl could ever hope for. And anyone who says different will

have me to deal with. You understand me?”

Smiling,

InuYasha simply nodded before settling down and pulling her down with

him. “Go to sleep, wife. Or else you won’t have the energy to fight all

these naysayers.”

From

that night on, InuYasha told his daughter the tale of the Jewel of Four

Souls, it becoming their nightly ritual. Whenever she refused to quiet,

the story would always hush her, but only if daddy told it. Every time

Kagome tried, she just cried harder. Kagome didn’t mind, however. She

thoroughly enjoyed seeing InuYasha spend time with their baby. The story

was theirs and theirs alone, and she respected that.

Every

night InuYasha became more brazen with his story telling, including

Tetsusaiga more and more, much to the delight of his daughter and the

chagrin of his wife. Kagome made him promise never to actually use any

of his attacks while telling the story, only using the sword as a prop.

She often had to remind him of this mid-swing of his sword. He loved to

get carried away, if it made his babygirl smile.

Three

months passed before he concluded the story for the first time, ending

it with his marriage to Kagome. As he settled her down into the crib he

had just finished making for her, Kagome wrapped her arms around his

waist and pressed her cheek against his back. He squeezed her hands

before turning around in her arms and wrapping her up in his own.

“You know what?” She whispered to him.

“Hmmm?” He mumbled back to her.

Kagome

looked up into his golden eyes, “Even when you were trying to take the

jewel from me and acting recklessly all those years ago, I always knew

you’d be a great father. And I’ll tell you everyday until the day I die

if I have to to get you to believe it.”

Smiling, InuYasha dipped his head and brushed her lips with his own. “I believe you, wench.”

#asks #dyaz stories #my writing #inuyasha #kagome #one shot #inukag #inukag one shot #inuyasha fanfic #inuyasha fanfiction #dyas prompt #fluff

82 notes · View notes

lucysweatslove · 5 years ago

Text

Day 45 // Flat on My Back in a Lonely Sprawl

I stare at the ceiling because I can not fall Asleep tonight No not at all

“Taste the Pain” - RHCP

Let’s talk about today for a small bit.

Woke up at 4:30, did some cardio (yawn) and some lifting. Even though it wasn’t perfect my any means I felt like it was decent.

Felt a little shaky this morning but attributed that to a hard workout 2-3 hours before I could eat breakfast (breakfast before gym = sick Lucy). No pain though.

Around 10 I started feeling actually ill.

Back pain started again. With it came nausea, dizziness, and a cold sweat. At one point my HR literally measured at 45 bpm and then it spiked up to 80 so it’s fair to say my body isn’t handling this back pain very well. Pain is about 6-7 at this point (keep in mind I have a legitimate “10″ experience)

To manage nausea I was like “oh, look, fun dip!” and ate two fun size packs (90 calories or pure sugar but it tastes so delicious). Also had two chocolate covered strawberries because they sounded so good.

Literally could not drink water. Any fluids sounded and tastes repulsive.

Still managed a full work day despite progressively worsening symptoms.

Went to Urgent Care after work and had to wait, no lie, over an hour to see people in no acute distress taken before me.

Probably a muscle spasm, OK to take cyclobenzaprine which I do have but don’t use because I hate taking medicine if my body will fix it on its own.

At home, Husband brought me treats (2.5 oz of delicious black licorice and these fig treats). That was dinner. Again, I feel awful.

Took said antispasmodic

Literally just want to sleep forever.

I came in to Urgent Care just wanting to be sure that a) this wasn’t an issue with my kidney or gallbladder and b) cyclobenzaprine is in fact the right medication. I want 0 narcotics/opioids and anybody who reads my chart would know I’m opposed to them on an outpatient level. I don’t like “medication” to fix a symptom if there is another intervention, holistic or otherwise. I don’t want to take cyclobenzaprine if we can find the reason behind the muscle spasm. Not that Urgent Care can do that, but it just seems weird.

Good news is that this does NOT seem likely caused by any of my lifts. Bad news is that if this isn’t clear by Thursday, like no pain at all, I probably shouldn’t do my lifts (it’s upper back/arms/chest day).

I’ve had a lot of weird health problems lately- a two-month long cold, three weeks of health, an ear infection, now back spasms. Prior to that, and something that’s been chronic: left palmar pain. My left hand is non-weight baring (unless I make a fist). I even did a couple months of OT for it and not only do I not have a real diagnosis but I don’t have actual resolution (working theory AFAIK is muscle are too loose causing bones to splay).

I got no sleep Saturday night. Legit, I was up until 4:30 on Sunday morning... and was up AT 4:30 this morning (so I had ONE day to COMPLETELY turn around my sleep cycle). And I wonder why my body struggles to maintain normal sleep patterns.

Other things of note:

Less than two days now until my rocks are done tumbling with coarse grit

UPS decided a ColourPop order couldn’t be left at my door and now they are taking it to CVS of all places (note: I do not go to CVS).

I bought a new/larger tumbler (double barrel; 3lb capacity each, so I can either process rocks of different hardness at once OR alternatively so I can have more than one grit going at the same time).

This tumbler was supposed to arrive today because it ships from a store about 250 miles away, but it’s on backorder so I don’t get it yet....

And I think that’s it :) Initially my plan for tomorrow involved going to the gym just for cardio (increasing amount of cardio a week), but given my back... nope. Gonna sleep, shower, actually make a breakfast- then get to work, hopefully in tact :)

#journal

5 notes · View notes

amyofasgard · 5 years ago

Text

Filthy

So I finally got this finished its been roughly 2 weeks I think, @sphynx-nightmare im sorry my friend but I finally did it. I've just been really busy but I've been desperate to post also @cenobxter might be somewhere in the story. one more thing there may or may not be some NSFW. Enjoy!

Amy and the rest of the Avengers were at the compound in Upstate New York. They had gone away for the weekend to train. Unfortunately for Amy, Loki had chosen to remain at the Tower, but it was probably for the best as the rest of the Avengers didn't know about their romance and their secret meetings at Amy's LA apartment had been nice and private. The only people to know where the people who shared her apartment block with; Casey and her daughter Lily, who Loki loved to make smile with pretty flowers and gifts and just his charming personality. She didn’t want anything from Loki except him, but he insisted that Amy was to accept a gift he had made for her, it was a necklace she wore, a gift from Loki, a rare Asgardian silver that held a tree with royal Asgardian Emeralds. Loki explained that it was Yggdrasil the World Tree, It was there in the beginning and it is Yggdrasil that the connects the 9 Realms and using the Bifrost is to travel on its branches, without Yggdrasil the Bifrost would not be possible and neither would traveling between the realms, this meant that Amy’s and Loki’s love would not be possible if not for Yggdrasil. Things had been getting pretty heated lately during Loki’s visits, but nothing had gone further than an extreme make-out session. Steve frowned seeing Amy lost in thought. "Amy?" He said, sighing softly as she didn't react. "Amy?!" he said louder this time, making her snap out of it. "What? Yes, sorry, just tired." She said A few of the others chuckled as a bright blush covered her face. Tony on her left nudged her with a cheeky smirk. "What's keeping you up at night this time Sabrina? Art? New gadget? Spells and potions?" Amy laughed. "Na just couldn't sleep much," she shrugged dismissively. Sam frowned, reading between the lines. "Nightmares worse than usual?" Amy sighed - they all knew about the nightmares. More than once, when Amy stayed at the tower, she'd cry out loudly and someone would come in to find her rolling around on her bed, caught in a nightmare and drenched in sweat before they snapped her out of it. After the third time Steve had come in and found her like this, he recommended she speak to someone about it and Sam, having experience in counseling, was available to talk. She dismissed it initially, but after the fourth time Steve talked to Amy's mentor, Dr. Steven Strange, and between the two of them they all but staged an intervention to convince Amy to open up to someone about what she was dreaming about. Amy didn't react well and left the tower angry and hurt, but a few days later, talking to Casey (one of the only people who knew what the nightmares were about) calmed her down and rationalized everything after she vented the frustrations. She felt bad, she knew her friends were worried about her and agreed to meet them at Avengers tower with Dr. Strange. After apologizing for losing her cool before, she agreed to talk to Sam about the nightmares, but she still wouldn't reveal what they were about to which Sam agreed as well, saying that she would open up about them when she was ready. Steve frowned at hearing she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. "Amy, maybe you should sit this one out, after all it's a hard course and it'll take about 3 hours to complete especially with the rock climbing." Amy shook her head instantly dismissing that idea. "No, I'll be okay, I'm not that tired, I just need to tire myself out and when we get back, I'll go get some sleep, deal?" Steve sighed and nodded. "Fine, but if you get too tired you head back and that's an order, okay?" Amy sighed but agreed, after all, she really didn't wanna get sent back. Steve talked them through the natural terrain obstacle course. "Okay, so first off today we'll be starting with the Mud mini obstacle course, in which you will be required to complete 4 different stages that you would usually find in your average assault course. Afterward, you move on to the 150-meter swim across the natural river." Steve smirked saying this next one "Then there's 'A Floor is Lava' in the forest exercise, where if you touch the floor then you restart that area." A few whooped in excited enthusiasm, Clint and Amy with Nat just smirking, they knew they could do that easily and some groaned in defeat like Tony and Bruce. "And lastly, a rock-climbing exercise, first to the top and hit the button on the Quinjet that's waiting there wins. Got it?" they all nodded. "Okay good, now you all have a wrist band to keep an eye on you meaning no tech, no magic, no helping each other either. This will also let everyone know if someone’s in trouble or in need of help at any point. Now positions…" They all lined up, ready to go, and a buzzer went. Most of them all sprinted off immediately to get across the mud obstacle course, but Amy wasn’t stupid, knowing she’d need all the energy she could get for later. She took her time going through the mud obstacles and it wasn’t long until she was overtaking Tony, Bruce, Wanda, Rhodey and Scott before she hit the first obstacle. Thor, Steve, and Bucky were fighting for first place halfway to the 2nd Obstacle while Amy, Nat, Clint, and Sam were just starting the muddy slope climb - a 7ft slope of mud - and if you make it up the top, you slide down into the thick muddy water below. Amy managed to get over before Clint and wasn’t able to hide her laugh as she heard him yelp, tripping and going face-first into the water. Amy pushed through the thick muddy water, it was cold, wet and tough to get through, but soon they were through it and trying to keep pace with each other. Soon they got to the next obstacle: a rope swing, only you had to grab onto another rope mid-swing to make it the rest of the way across. Amy and Nat looked at each other and instantly they both picked up the pace, racing for the rope first. Amy managed to grab it a fraction of a second before Natasha could and kicked off but accidentally jerked it as Nat grabbed it, sending her into the mud pool below as Amy got over the flew through the air on the swing, knowing she was leading the pack of non-altered heroes. As she got to her next obstacle, she looked over her shoulder seeing Sam not far behind her, with Nat and Clint where right up her ass. She couldn’t help but smirk seeing Tony and Bruce pulling themselves over the mud slope and cry out as they fell into the mud before she kept going. She got onto her stomach and had to army crawl through more thick muddy water and by the time Amy pulled herself out to the other side, she was caked in mud from head to toe. She ran to the last obstacle - Monkey Bars. Amy sighed, she hated monkey bars, it killed her arms and she knew she’d need all the arm strength she had to do the swim and the climb, so she decided to go a different way. After all, Steve didn’t say they had to swing from the bars. She ran to them and kicked off one of the thick support beams and used that to propel herself to the top of the monkey bars and run over the top of them, being careful not to slip. Amy ran to the river happy she was finally out of the mud, hoping beyond hope that the river would wash away most of it, she was absolutely Filthy after all that. Amy spotted Bucky, Steve and Thor in the middle of the river, she knew the chance of her beating any of them were slim but the wrist bands they wore suppressed powers, so their strength was depleted a bit and she could only hope that it also took away their enhanced stamina. While they were rushing full speed ahead, she could tell even Steve had forgotten that their stamina might be affected so she kept her pace faster than average but steady. Amy had been swimming since she was a kid so she had no problems with keeping a good pace and she didn’t need to push her body as hard as the guys in front did, and before long, she had caught up with the guys as they were trying to do the ‘Floor is Lava’ challenge. Amy stood for a second, watching in amusement and taking in the course. This part was in the forest area at the other side of the river, there were lots of steppingstones and some were wonky, some were moving, and some were even wobbly. The highlight came from Steve falling off a wobbly one, making one of the sensors that were over the floor go off. “Shit,” he mumbled, and Amy smirked unable to help herself. “Language!” she smirked, hearing Sam, Nat and Clint laugh. They were almost across the river now, Scott, Wanda and Rhodey were about halfway across and an exhausted Tony and Bruce were just walking to the river, not even stressing themselves about the challenge as they talked. The best reaction to her comment was Thor who fell off his steppingstone and landed on his ass, his great booming laugh echoing off the trees whereas Bucky simply chuckled before turning and continuing on. Amy smirked and realized who her opponent would be for winning place, she could really feel the exhaustion in her but she was determined to win, no one had said it but they all knew whoever won would get to pick 3 things tonight: Where they got takeaway from, what movie they watched, and what the next training session would be. Amy smirked, running towards the steps but doing exactly what she had done with the monkey bars, run and lever herself up onto the trees. All the branches were pretty thick, so she quickly made her way across them, just managing to get to the other side seconds after Bucky did. “You ain’t gonna beat me Barnes!!” Bucky chuckled but shook his head choosing not to say anything, they both knew he’d have an instant advantage because of his Vibranium Arm but Amy was smaller and a little faster when he was weakened by his bracelet. She hesitated as she got to the cliffside, feeling a little dizzy and lightheaded, but she shook it off quickly, it wasn’t that bad. She could make it to the top first, press the button, and then sleep until Tony and Bruce arrived…in a few hours. Amy looked at Bucky putting on his safety harness and an exciting thought came into her head. She had climbed smoother surfaces than this with no problem, so she started to climb, ignoring the safety harness to gain first place. Bucky was close behind and not giving up the chase, but it looked like Amy was going to win. Just as Amy got past the halfway point though, another dizzy spell hit her and she stopped, tightening her grip on the rock and trying to ground herself. Bucky noticed Amy stopped and stopped himself, knowing something was wrong. Steve, Nat, Clint, Sam, and Thor, who were on their tails, noticed too but before they could say or do anything Amy’s body went slack and crumpled as her body gave out, exhausted. She started to fall, Bucky jumped, trying to catch her, as did Steve, but just as they were both about to get to reach her she vanished, leaving them to crash into each other with pain-filled groans. Loki appeared on the base of the cliff holding Amy in his arms and cradling her gently, his hand glowing as he scanned the length of her to make sure she was okay. Steve picked himself up and came running over along with the others, minus Tony and Bruce who had no clue what was going on and only just about to finish the river. The Avengers looked shocked to see Loki “Brother? What are you doing here?” Thor asked, Loki looked up after finishing his scan “What happened?” he demanded angrily. In his head, they were responsible for protecting her, she was meant to be safe but instead he had been alerted because she was in danger, and he found her falling from a cliff face. She could have been hurt or killed!! Thor frowned, “She fainted, I think.” Bucky piped up after recovering from smacking into Steve. “Yeah she did, I looked over and she stopped, I thought for a second she needed a break but it’s Amy, she wanted to win, so she wouldn’t stop when she was in the lead…her eyes rolled back and she fell.” Sam nodded. “She did say the nightmares had been keeping her awake.” Loki frowned. “What nightmares?” Sam sighed. “I don’t know what they’re about, but she struggles with them.” Loki gently brushed Amy’s hair gently to the side of her face. “Why did you not tell me my fire? I could have helped.” he said tenderly forgetting who was around, but when he did, he looked up with a very visible blush on his face. You could all but hear everything clicking together in the Avengers’ heads. Thor looked shocked “You are courting Amy?!?!” Steve groaned. “I knew this would happen.” Nat smirked at Clint. “You owe me $500.” Clint groaned. “How did you even know she was in danger?” Rhodey asked. Loki looked up. “The necklace she wears, it’s a gift, but it will always keep us connected and keep her safe.” Amy let out a soft whimper in her sleep, making everyone fall silent. Loki held her close. “Shh my love, it’s all right, I’m here…I’m going to return her home and stand watch over her…I don’t think Casey will be pleased about this…” Loki picked her up and teleported away, laying her gently in bed before texting Casey about what had happened before laying down to watch over Amy in her sleep.

A few hours later Amy groaned starting to wake up a little trying to open her eyes she finds herself nearly blinded by the morning sun. She rolled over, burying her head in the soft pillow and sighing softly, feeling much better than she had during Steve’s cross country assault course. She frowned - come to think of it, she couldn't remember how it ended. She remembered climbing up the rock face with Bucky and then...shit. She groaned, remembering the dizzy spell she took and knowing she must have fell. Surely, she was in a hospital bed with a broken something and a looong lecture from Cap and Dr Strange waiting for her as soon as she opened her eyes, but she frowned, confused, as someone kissed the top of her head. She boldly looked up, ready to look danger in the eye, only to see soft and loving green ones gazing back at her. Amy couldn’t help the smile that lit up her face seeing Loki before pulling him into a kiss. “Hello Handsome….” She smiled happily. Loki smiled but she could tell it was a sad smile. “Why did you hide your nightmares from me my love? I could have helped…”. Amy sighed. “I didn’t want you to know, it’s something I’ve had for years but I’m okay now, it just gets to be too much sometimes. You being with me helps, knowing you’re by my side, my nightmares fade and I dream about us and our future.” A happy smile spread onto Loki’s face. “I’m here if you ever want to confide in me Amy…you don’t have to hide when you are hurting or if you need anything from me.” Amy bit her lip. “Anything?” Loki smiled. “Anything.” Amy smirked in a way that can only be described as the definition of Mischief. “Then I want you… every piece of you to join with every piece of me.” Loki went wide-eyed for a second before a smile spread onto his lips as he stood. “You don’t get a prince in bed that easy Amy, beg…” he smirked they had talked about kinks before, so he knew exactly what she liked. Amy whimpered wantingly feeling much more invigorated after a good sleep. “Please my King, I want you to take me as your Queen.” She didn’t get another word out before Loki’s lips met hers in a kiss whose passion burned hotter than 1000 suns. Loki pushed her back onto the bed making quick work of removing her clothes and kissing down her body, leaving the occasional bite mark. Until he got to her other lips and kissed there with just as much skill, making Amy writhe under his strong hold. He wasn’t letting her escape his grasp that easy. He wrapped his arms around her thighs as he held her gently, but firmly, in place causing Amy to moan. It wasn’t long before she was a panting mess and she had finished. Loki smirked clearly proud of himself. “Kneel Before Your King” he ordered, and instantly Amy was on her knees in front of him waiting for his member excitedly. It was an impressive length, just like the rest of him, and Amy took him in her mouth and started to pleasure him. It wasn’t long before Loki had finished too and that was just their starter. After Loki kissed her again pinning her against a wall his cock already hard at attention. He smirked before throwing Amy on the bed and sexily crawled up her body before getting to her and pushing in, moaning loudly himself. It was like their bodies were meant to fit together like 2 pieces of the same jigsaw. All night they spent together and in many different positions, Amy’s favorite being the reverse Cowgirl and Loki’s was when she was bound and under his control. After a long night of Passion and Pure love Amy and Loki cuddled happily together. The next morning, Casey all but kicked the door down and before she noticed what Amy was sitting on. “Wit the fuck wur you thinkin Amy!? You couldae been killed! For fuck’s sake… ya Pair of Filthy Bastards get some fuckin clathes on!” walks out “Elliot! Get the Bleach…then get in that fuckin bedroom!”

#Loki Love #microstory #microstory my ass #sphynx-nightmare #Cenobexter Mention hehe #Scottish Lang #romantic f/o #Villain F/O #Kneel Before Your King!!

10 notes · View notes

umichenginabroad · 5 years ago

Text

Level 5: Adventure of a Lifetime

Curious about where this stunning view is? You are about to find out.

Hello and welcome to one of the most thrilling levels of my journey (yeah, I lied in Level 4 that this one won’t be demanding). I am sorry I have been AWOL for a while and the game has been on hold but here we are, back again with more action than ever.

So after the summer term at UNSW ended and I successfully survived my Circuit Theory final exam, we had a week off before T1 (the first trimester) starts. This is the only major break exchange students, who are here for the tailored term, get so everyone takes the opportunity to travel and explore different parts of Australia (or the world). Some students had their parents visiting them so they went on a trip with them. Most exchange students headed off to New Zealand, and some do the East Coast trip in Australia which includes visiting the world famous Great Barrier Reef and the Gold Coast. I decided to visit Tasmania with my friends.

Tasmania, or Tassie as the locals call it here, is a small island only about an hour and a half away from Sydney via air. Before we start the level, let me introduce you to the key players we will encounter a lot in this post.

Firstly, Tin Ray Liou a.k.a Bruno, our new friend who we met through Facebook to plan a trip in Tasmania. There are many Facebook groups dedicated to travelling and backpacking throughout Australia as camping and driving around with new people is a popular method of travel here. Secondly, Nolan, a fellow Wolverine. And last but not the least, me. That’s 3 main characters but lots of special appearances will be seen throughout this level.

Let’s begin!

Sneak Peek: Nolan on the left, Bruno in the middle, and me on the right.

We took an early morning flight from Sydney to Hobart (capital of Tassie) on the 9th of February. After meeting up with Bruno at the airport in Hobart and discussing an exciting itinerary for the 8 days, we drove towards the city centre. First thing we did in the city was pick up camping gear from Kmart as we planned to camp for all 8 days in Tassie. Gear consisted of: tents, sleeping bags, camp stove, hiking kits, plastic kitchenware, and insect repellent. After that we explored Salamanca Place, a vibrant cultural town in the city center dazzling with vintage architecture, shopping markets and aesthetic sights. We also strolled along the wharf near Salamanca Place for some fresh views of the harbor and to enjoy local fish and chips.

Scenes from Salamanca Place..

There is a famous Saturday market in Salamanca Place but we missed it by a day. However, on a Sunday, there is the Farm Gate Market, where you can try homegrown Tasmanian delicacies ranging from apples, olive oil, peanut butter to bacon, gin, and cheese. We made sure to indulge in the Sunday Farm market.

Glimpse of Farm Gate Market..

Next up was visiting Battery Point, an old maritime village featuring colonial architecture. After stepping back in time and walking through the fascinating precinct of Battery Point, we set out to find some isolated lookouts with stunning views.

Views from Battery Point..

Found a beautiful secluded beach..

But maybe, we were not alone. Where do these lead us?

In just a few hours in Tasmania, we were in love with this island. We found a camping ground near this beach and set up our tents before sunset and then cooked dinner. It was going to be an interesting experience because the last time I camped was 4 years ago. The next morning, we set out to hike the kunanyi/Mount Wellington - the summit of the Wellington Range in Hobart. It was one of the first major hikes for me and I was pumped! It took us 4 hours and 45 minutes to make the return journey around the summit of 4163 ft. I was awestruck at some stunning mid-way views. The fact that we had network service, almost throughout our hike was also impressive. Although, it was a very cloudy day so we couldn’t see the whole city from the top, but it’s not every day you have got your head in the clouds...literally!

Our first steps into the Summit walk..

Head in the Clouds at 4163 ft..successful summit of kunanyi/Mt.Wellington..

Our next camping site, Eldee, was super fun and we met a lot of people from all around the world - either visiting Tasmania on vacation or fulfilling some requirements of the Working Holiday visa.

Luxury Accommodation out in the wild..

Definitely recommend a game of UNO with new friends in the camping lounge...

Now, we have talked about Tasmania a lot already but maybe we are missing something significant. The Tasmanian Devil. People, how could we forget about this infamous animal? Well, we didn’t. My friends and I had the opportunity to pay a visit to the devil in an UnZoo. UnZoo is a very interesting concept of..umm...I will have you read it for yourself.

The UnZoo Philosophy..

Presenting you the greatest jaw strength on the planet: Tasmanian Devil.

Yes, the Tasmanian Devil has the greatest jaw strength of all animals. And trust me, I could feel it when I saw it feed on a piece of meat. One can hear the bones from the meat..crunching ever so loudly. I am glad I could witness the devil in his element up close.

Before heading eastwards to begin our travel for the Great Eastern Drive, we also checked out a few more sites and breathtaking views. To get a better picture of what I mean, here:

Enjoy this spectacular view from Tasman National Park..

The beautiful Tasman Arch..

A panoramic of Tessellated Pavement - heaven for the eyes.

Alright..breathing break. Every single view on this island beats the previous one. It’s just a fantastic place to be in. It’s a small island yet it has so much to offer.

We also visited Port Arthur, a historic site which is one of the most haunted places in Australia. Now, obviously, we signed up for the special Ghost Tour of Port Arthur which took you around famous landmarks at night time - extra thrill! It was a very spooky experience hearing about the tales and torture of convicts at Port Arthur and the personal haunted experiences of the site staff.

View of the Church in Port Arthur against the grim night sky..

Not gonna lie, I slept a little scared that night in my tent. Poof, some more hikes then,

A 3-hr return journey to Cape Raoul..

Special Character: Echidna - spotted on downhill journey from Cape Raoul

In the Great Eastern Drive, we hit up the most popular tourist spots in Tasmania: Freycinet National Park, Wineglass Bay and the Bay of Fires. In Freycinet, we hiked up to Mt. Amos. It was a rough hike with a lot of boulder scrambling and damp weather also made it slippery. But, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

Peep the fascinating sight from the top of Mt. Amos..

..and the white sandy stretch of Wineglass Bay behind us.

Apologies in advance. But, we may need to take a detour to Mars.

I found Mars, it’s at Bay of Fires.

Orange rocks and a green beach paired with white sand - Bay of Fires seems more like a fairy tale. But it’s real.

Proof.

We concluded the Great Eastern Drive with Bay of Fires and started driving towards the Great Western Tiers. Great Western Tiers was a mix and match of mountains, lakes, and..caves.

Little Blue Lake - the bluest water I have ever witnessed upfront.

This blue colour is actually due to tin mining and sedimentation in this area, many years ago.

the 450 million years old Marakoopa Caves in Mole Creek..

Whatever you see in the caves is mostly calcite. Phew. We saved the best hike for the last. Cradle Mountain Summit - the 5th highest peak in Tasmania and one of the most popular hikes among avid campers in Tassie. There are multiple ways you could hike up to the top, including the Overland Track which is a 9 day overnight trek. We did the full day hike, however we did not summit due to time constraints. We still got pretty sweet views from our 5 hour return journey from Marion’s lookout - the highest trek after the Summit.

The beginning..

midway...

At the top - Marion’s Lookout.

Now is a good time to piece together the picture I started off with. That shows me looking at the peak of Cradle Mountain, and hopefully you are feeling some sort of adrenaline after reading through all this.

WOW. That was a lot of hiking and running around to explore. With only one day left, we decided to check out some local festivals in Mole Creek and explore the city of Launceston. We saw a vintage vehicle display, equestrians practicing, and a wood-chopping contest! A chill vibe at the end to complement all the adventure. By this time, we had started missing sleeping on actual beds.

Bless the sun that day for making the view 10x better..

Satisfied, amazed, and grateful are some of the feelings I can attempt to describe for the conclusion of the trip. Not a single day went by where we were not in awe of this lovely place. Every view beat the previous one and just brought us so close to nature and wildlife. For the most part, camping was nice and cool, except for one night when we had visiting guests in the form of possums. Not one, not two...but three! Right outside my tent by the bushes. They were nice enough to not bother us in sleep..phew. Mountains, lakes, beaches, history, mystery, caves..this island has it all. Just step out and explore, you will not be disappointed.

Alas, it seems like we are finishing the most adventurous level there has been. As I reminisce the last time we set up tents and our last sunset in Tasmania, I hope you enjoyed the ride and thank you for coming this far with me!

Cheers,

…

Nikhil Punshi

Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia - Winter 2020

#Umichenginabroad #IPEaustralia #NikhilPunshi #IPE Winter 2020

1 note · View note

vivala-plutofuckyou · 5 years ago

Text

Things no one tells you about being pregnant

-Keep track of your sexual encounters!! Whether you’re trying for a baby or not it’s a good idea to mark on your period calendar whenever you have sex. I downloaded the app P Tracker and it has a handy switch that you just swipe and you can put in the details, like if you used a condom. Keeping track of this will help your doctor more accurately narrow down your due date otherwise they just go off of when your last period ended and that could be way off.

-You will be sore to various degrees throughout the whole pregnancy! And this is totally normal! You’re body is physically changing and rearranging to make room for baby. Your pelvic bone moves, your ab muscles stretch, and your organs get pushed around during your baby’s growth. Don’t worry, you’re allowed to take Tylenol.

-You have to pee in a cup at every appointment. Make sure you stay hydrated and that you eat healthy. And even if it’s difficult at first, you’re gonna become a pro at peeing into a cup.

-There WILL NOT be an ultrasound at every appointment! Ultrasounds are used just to make sure baby is growing and developing properly and on time. Unless you really want to pay for an ultrasound, it’s not necessary at every appointment and it’s best to listen to your doctor on when you actually need to get them. Cherish them when they come around and if you can help it, don’t skip on the 3D ultrasound. It’s amazing!

-You get your blood drawn A LOT. Especially at around the 28-30 week mark. They’ll do this thing called a Glucose Test to see if you have any blood sugar problems. You’re not allowed to eat or drink after midnight the night before, not even chew gum. Then, they make you drink this kinda gross sugary drink. It comes in different flavors but I don’t recommend getting the colored drinks if you get sick easily. I had the lemon-lime flavor and it basically just tasted like thick, flat sprite. After that you have to wait an hour and they draw your blood. If for some reason you fail this test (like I did), then you have to go in again and this time they draw your blood 4 times. I recommend having a high protein diet and a lot of water the day before and bring snacks and orange juice for after. You’ll thank me!

-Your nipples change color. Yeah, you read that right. Not only do your boobs get bigger but nipples get darker and more sensitive. This is because your body is trying to make it easier for a baby’s developing eyes to see it’s food source. No, there’s no way to stop or prevent this. You just kinda gotta deal. Sorry.

-Morning Sickness is different for everyone. Personally, I only had a lot of “Nauseas cuz I didn’t eat/Nauseas cuz I did eat” for the first trimester or so but never got physically sick. My cousin, though, puked almost the entirety of her pregnancy. It was so bad she now has permanent dental issues and ended up losing a whole lot of weight after giving birth. Make sure you talk to your doctor about any concerns you have about your morning sickness.

-It’s okay to dye your hair! A lot of people think the chemicals are bad for you and baby but there’s been quite a bit of research saying there’s no harm done if you wanna rock a bright pink or just touch up your roots. My only advice here is make sure you’re in a well ventilated area. Those smells can really get to you!

-You’re allowed to eat seafood and steak! For a long time doctors would tell you this is a big No-No but there are some seafoods you’re allowed to enjoy! Crab, salmon, shrimp, and anything with really low mercury levels is perfectly safe in controlled amounts as long as it’s properly cooked. Steer clear of tuna though! It has very high levels of mercury and that’s bad for baby! As for steak, you can eat as much as you want so long as cooked medium or longer! Basically, all of the meat has to reach that temperature that kills bacteria that could harm baby.

-You don’t need to “eat for two”. Many people think you need to eat excessively once you become pregnant but that not true and often contributes to excessive weight gain during and after your pregnancy and can cause childhood obesity in your baby. You should eat your regular meals and then whenever you feel hungry. Don’t force yourself to eat more than you can just because you think it will go straight to the baby. That’s not how it works.

-Listen to your cravings! Often times when you crave a specific kind of food, it’s for a reason. You’re body is trying to tell you you’re missing something from your diet. Crave sweets or sugar? Drink a bottle of water and see how you feel, you might be dehydrated. Just want to eat a shit ton of ice? You could be low on iron, eat spinach and other iron-rich foods and bring it up to your doctor. There’s always a reason. And sometimes that reason is you just really want ice cream.

-Everyone’s pregnancy will be different from yours but that won’t stop them from thinking they know what you’re going through. People are constantly going to come to you with unsolicited advice, old wives tales, and stories of their personal experience. It’s going to get annoying and bothersome. Just try to keep a level head when you ask them to fuck off.

-Hemorrhoids are unavoidable. I’m sorry. Invest in prescription wipes and/or ointment.

-Nesting is a thing. You’re going to clean and reorganize the house so many times.

-It’s okay to google your questions! Not everyone has the advantage of a patient doctor willing to answer every single question and concern you have and some of you may even see multiple doctors throughout your pregnancy all of which may give you different answers. Google can become your friend here. There are so many forums and blogs and other online sources when it comes to pregnancy questions. You’ll be able to sleep easier, I promise.

-Buy thin underwear pads. Vaginal discharge can get more frequent as well as change color/consistency/smell and you don’t want to ruin your underwear.

-Doctors don’t always know best. This one is probably the most important. If you feel like your Doctor is bullshitting you, bullying you into decision-making, or just not listening to you, DO NOT assume “they’re the doctor, they know best”. You are 100% in control of your body and what you want your pregnancy experience to be. My friend’s nurses and doctors kept her epidural so high that she literally slept through her contractions and her dilation stalled to the point they had no choice but to do a C-section and it could’ve been avoided except her whole family assured her “the doctor knew best” so she didn’t express her concerns until it was too late. When my mom gave birth to my brother, the doctor let her have 2 seizures on the table after her C-section because he thought he “knew best” about her existing medications and her anesthesia and assumed that because she wasn’t a red head she lied about carrying the R1N1 gene which could’ve killed her. If you’re uncomfortable with your doctor, speak up.

Basically, this is just the stuff I can immediately think of. If you have your own pregnancy stories or tips or whatnot you want to add, please feel free, I’d love to read them. And if you have any questions, my ask box is always open and I’ll do my best to answer them.

#pregnant #pregnancy #tips #baby #babies #mom to be #pregnancy tips #advice #pregnancy advice #pluto talks #text #asks

21 notes · View notes

spideycents · 6 years ago

Text

Far From Home: Chapter 3

Blurb: When Ashlyn wins the Brother’s Trust event to visit the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home, it’s a dream come true that she doesn’t want to wake up from. Here’s hoping she doesn’t turn it into a nightmare.

a/n: I’m the worst at descriptions. Don’t ever say I didn’t warn you that this is god awful. It’s seriously so bad. I have many regrets.

Warnings: This is shit. Read at your own risk. Also language and some extremely cringey uses of memes. Sorry not sorry.

—-

We’re the last people to board the plane. Literally the last. Which is my fault though because I had to run to the bathroom and Matt didn’t want to get on without me. Brownie points for him.

“You’re lucky I love you,” he gripes when I come back to find everyone else gone. Jesus, I wasn’t in the bathroom that long.

I make a face at Matt and scramble to collect my bags. We shuffle onto the plane and find our seats. We argue over who gets the window seat and ultimately I win the 2-out-of-3 game of rock-paper-scissors so I put my carry-on in the overhead bin then climb over to my seat and shove my backpack below my feet.

“Oof,” Matt exclaims as he drops into his chair. “I am so glad we went for the side with two seats instead of three.” His eyes scan over the completely packed flight.

“Same,” I nod. Our mutual loathing for all things social interactions really comes in handy in situations like this.

We plug in our phones and headphones, then Matt disappears into his Twitter and I try to go back to Two Dots, but my hands are kind of shaking and my heart’s beating faster and my throat’s really dry and I wanna get up and run laps around the plane while I scream bloody murder and then I wanna run back home and lock myself in my room and turn off all the lights and curl up in the corner under my desk and rock back and forth while I cry because holy fucking shit I can’t believe this is actually happening.

“We’re going to London.”

“I know,” Matt says emphatically while still looking at his phone.

“We’re actually going to London. Like this is happening. We’re on a plane.”

He looks up, his eyes wide. “I know. I’m literally going to scream when we land.”

“I’m expecting you to,” I laugh lightly.

He looks at me, but before he makes more jokes, his eyebrows knit together. “Do you need water or some food? You look pale. Like paler than normal. Like are you sure you’re alive?”

“I’m not,” I say flatly. “It’s okay though. My ghost will follow you through London and stay with Tom when you leave.”

“Fine by me,” Matt smirks. “Your ugly mug won’t ruin my selfies.”

“You’re welcome,” I smile.

He goes back to scrolling through Twitter and rambles to me about some drama that’s happening right now while I dig around in our shopping bag of goodies from the concourse and find my Dr Pepper and a bag of Goldfish.

I take a swig from my drink, but I’m gonna hold off on the goldfish until we’re up in the air. I send a quick text to my parents to let them know we’re on the plane then I put phone on airplane mode.

Matt grips the armrests while we zoom down the runway.

“It’s like a roller coaster,” I say, kind of loudly so he can hear me over the engines and the wheels. “Just with a really long climb and we stay at the top of the hill for a very, very long time before the drop.”

“Don’t say drop,” he says curtly.

I grimace. “Sorry.”

“I’ve flown before,” he adds. “You don’t have to comfort me.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you said you like flying? That it’s just the security and getting through the airport that stresses you out.”

“I do,” he nods slowly, “but shakey planes are never fun.”

I turn away and look out the window as we lift off the tarmac. “Here’s hoping there’s no turbelence,” I mutter.

“I’m gonna kill you.”

My cheeks burn. “Sorry.”

I leave Matt alone until we reach 30,000 feet and the plane levels out. The fllight attendants come by and give us the typical plane goodies, then another cart follows with drinks.

I manage to talk Matt into watching a movie with me by hitting play at the same time on both of our screens. It takes us a few minutes to decide on something and I’m not even slightly surprised when we settle for Civil War.

“Can we just skip to-“

“No,” I interrupt Matt. “But rewinding and watching it 20 times is definitely an option.”

Which we do. Not 20 times, but we definitely rewatch the Peter Parker scene a few times and the airport twice and squeal our way through the end credits scene.

It ends up taking almost four hours for us to get through the movie cause we keep pausing it to talk then having to get back in sync only for us to pause it again a few minutes later.

It’s midnight Atlanta time when we finish so we both agree to try to get some sleep. It feels like minutes before Matt’s mumbling in his sleep. I don’t know how he does it. It’s like he’s got a superpower for falling asleep in the blink of an eye.

I think I blink a few times and that’s all the sleep I get.

Sleeping on planes is practically impossible already, adding my excitement and energy and racing thoughts on top of that, it's just painful, honestly.

I put my headphones on and listen to music with my eyes closed until the lights come back on in the plane and someone cracks their window a few rows up and daylight floods in.

After I wake Matt up, we spend the rest of the flight rambling about all things Spider-Man and Tom and Marvel and Avengers 4 theories and questions we might ask Tom and things we might try to weasel out of him and our plan to try to convince him to let us be extras in a scene.

We try to see the UK and London outside the window, but the clouds are too thick and rain starts to pelt the glass.

I look at Matt. “I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t apologize for the weather. You’re not God,” he laughs. “I’m not upset anyway. Now I get that real London experience.”

He still watches out the window while we go in for landing and I tell him about walking through Heathrow and taking the train to Paddington, which we won’t be doing because apparently Mrs. Holland and possibly one of Tom’s brothers will be waiting for us at Arrivals and they’re going to drive us to our hotel.

My hands are shaking when we finally unbuckle and get up to collect our stuff and get off the plane.

“Oh my god, it’s happening,” I say excitedly under my breath.

“It’s happening!” Matt mimics. “We’re here!”

“If you had to pick which twin might be with their mom outside, which one?” I ask while we walking down the aisle.

“Neither,” he says, without hesitating. “It’ll be Paddy. Not a doubt. And he won’t be happy about it.”

“You’re so right,” I laugh.

Which, of course, he is.

He always is.

It takes us a second to find them when we walk out, but Mrs. Holland is holding a sheet of paper with our names on it in big bold letters, so it’s not that hard. I am glad though that I emailed them a picture of Matt and I, so they’re not surprised when we walk up to them.

Paddy’s on his phone when we first notice them, but it’s put away by the time we reach them.

“Hi,” I smile and hope my voice isn’t croaky. Matt and I stopped by the bathrooms after we got off the plane so we could change clothes and brush our teeth, so at least I don’t have to worry about morning breath. “I’m Ashlyn and this is Matt. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hello, it's so nice to meet you as well." Mrs. Holland smiles and shakes our hands. “I’m Nikki and this is Paddy.”

He waves and half-smiles. “Hi.”

"Thank you for donating to The Brother's Trust," Mrs. Holland adds.

"Oh, of course," I smile. "You're so welcome. I love all the work you guys do."

"Thank you very much," Mrs. Holland smiles. “Shall we take your things to the car?” She reaches for my suitcase.

“Oh it’s okay, I got it,” I say politely.

“Me too,” Matt adds.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “It’s no trouble, really.”

“We’re good,” Matt smiles. “I feel bad that I didn’t pack that lightly anyway. I don’t want to make you drag my bag around.” He laughs lightly and I nod.

“We’re the worst at packing,” I say. “I might ask Tom for some pointers. He looks like he’s good at it.”

“He really isn't,” Mrs. Holland laughs lightly. “He certainly didn’t use to be, at least. You should’ve seen everything he brought when they filmed The Impossible. I thought he was trying to bring his entire bedroom.”

We roll our suitcases out of Heathrow and across the parking garage while Mrs. Holland tells us some stories about Tom and airports. Who doesn’t love embarrassing anecdotes from parents? I have to remember to mention one of these to Tom when we meet, just to see how red his face gets.

Huh.

Oh wow.

This really is happening.

We’re meeting Tom soon.

Cool.

My brain is melting to soup right now.

It’s no big deal.

It’s fine.

This is fine.

I’m fine.

—-

So, this is back. We'll see how regularly I update. lol - K :P

#ffh #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #spider man fanfic #spiderman fanfic #spiderman fanfiction #spider man fanfiction #tom fanfic #tom fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #brothers trust #the brothers trust

2 notes · View notes

dailyaudiobible · 6 years ago

Text

02/19/2019 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 7:28-9:6, Mark 3:31-4:25, Psalms 37:12-29, Proverbs 10:5

Today is the 19th day of February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, sounding a little more chipper than I feel. Jetlag is not my favorite, but welcome from the land of the Bible here in Israel. We’ve made it safe and sound and are getting all set up to take the journey around this entire land and tonight for the first time we’ll have our opening dinner, and everybody will get to see each other for the first time. I mean, lots people are on the same flights, that’s the thing of it, flights from all over are landing in the land of Israel today and everyone will be collected and we’ll all be together for the first time as a group tonight. So, thank you for your prayers over all of it. A lot of travel is happening today. Jet lag is being experienced today and there are a lot of logistics that are all to be put in place for this journey. So, thank you for your prayers and for the first time this year we will read the Bible from the land of the Bible, which will take us back into the book of Leviticus. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Leviticus 7:28 through 9:6.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Mark, Jesus is talking about agriculture, he’s talking about seedtime and harvest and planting and types of soil and then paralleling that with how people respond to the word of God. So, Jesus talked about a farmer who sowed a lot of seed and the seed itself was all uniformly good, right? Like the seed wasn't the problem. And the seed had been scattered evenly over the ground so that the dispersion wasn't the problem. However, after having done all of that, the hope of the harvest for the farmer had a lot more to do with the soil that the seed was planted in, right? The seed and the soil are equally important in the story revealing the collaboration that's required between the human and the divine in God's kingdom. And then Jesus kind of unpacks it, talks about the different kinds of soil that this seed fell into and then what happened to the seed because of the soil that it was planted in. So, I mean, we’re like a month…over a month and a half into our journey since the beginning of the year and we've been daily interacting with God's word and we've…you know...we've established a rhythm to do this every day for the rest of this year. And, so, the obvious poignant question for us is, what kind of soil our hearts are becoming? None of us don't want the harvest in our lives, right? We all want the harvest in our lives, but if the seeds only gonna be on the surface it's gonna get snatched away. If this seed is going to be planted in our hard and stony hearts there is nowhere for the word of God to take root, and if we’re distracted continually by worry or seduced into chasing any other number of desires than the soil of our heart is thorny and it's gonna choke God's word out. So, we’re about to take a journey all over the land of the Bible and it will be interactive and it will be fun and I we’ll have a good time and there’ll be lots of pictures posted and lots of conversation about what we’re seeing but since we’re right out in the front of this we can make this very poignant for ourselves. Whether we’re here or whether we’re doing this virtually, maybe it's time to tend the garden of our hearts. Like, maybe it's time to intentionally become good soil and not just say, “well, I got what I got”. I mean, the soil back on the other side of the ocean where I live in Tennessee, there's a lot of rock and there's a lot of building going on over there, a lot of subdivisions are being built. So, I’ve watched huge, you know, earthmoving machinery smash and pull out and smooth over rocky ground to make it suitable soil for building otherwise, you know, the builder or whoever the developer was to go, “well, the soils rocky, we can’t build anything here”. But instead they kind of tended it and made it what they wanted it to be so they could build on it. We have to tend the garden of our hearts. We have to maintain the soil of our hearts so that it's good and ready to receive the word of God and the seed that it plants in our lives so that it can be cultivated and become the fruit of the Spirit.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit, we invite You into that by first just taking an assessment of what kind of soil is in our hearts. And the truth probably is that we have all these kinds of soil in our hearts. There are hard places, there are stony places, there are thorny places, but there are good places too, and we want more and more of our heart to be good fertile soil so that we might produce a harvest of 30 60 or even 100 times as much has been planted. So, Holy Spirit show us how to cultivate the soil of our hearts. And we do this in part, by the way that we act and behave toward each other. So, give us an understanding and patient heart Father, we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what's going on around here.

Of course, what's going on around here is that we’re about to begin this is journey all around the land of the Bible and we’re here trying to get acclimated. It's a drastic difference when you’re moving eight hours into the future because that's enough time to get your days and nights mixed up and that is what I experience and I don't like it because I don’t like that disoriented feeling of not really knowing where I’m at and that takes a few days. Thank you for your prayers over that. I know I'm not the only one who experiences it. We’re all in this together. And, yeah, I've got my remedies. Every time I mention jetlag on the Daily Audio Bible I get some new ones. Some of them are good. I mean, I’ve tried lots of things, but the bottom line is at some point or another when you're just getting into the…into the shift your bodies like wait, it's supposed to be dark and it's light, we’re supposed to be sleeping but we’re awake, or vice versa and its just part of the journey. So, thank you for your prayers. Tonight, we will all have dinner together and it’ll the first time that we’re all in the same place at the same time and we’ll just set pray into and go over all that will be happening and then tomorrow morning we’ll be loading up and off we’ll go and I will be giving you updates every day about where we’re going, we’re seeing, we’re thinking about, we’re experiencing. And we just ask you to pray for us as we do this journeying. We’ll be leaving in the morning and heading into the wilderness.

Of course, there are other things going on at the Daily Audio Bible at dailyaudiobible.com. The Prayer Wall lives in the Community section. And if you need prayer or if you want to pray for your brothers and sisters, that’s a really good place to reach out. All of our social media channels can be found in the community section of dailyaudiobible.com. This is where we will be posting videos and photographs etc. about the journey and what we’re seeing and experiencing as we’re seeing and experiencing it. So, if want to follow along there. In a few days, this weekend, I believe this is scheduled for Saturday and I'll get all…I’ve gotta actually get a little bit beyond this jet lag and kind of look up all the different time zones and blah blah blah but we will be broadcasting live once we arrive at the sea of Galilee, and that is always a fun experience because we can take questions from brothers and sisters all over the world who are kind of going on this trip virtually, kind of bring you right in with us where we are at the sea of Galilee. So, I'll be mentioning that as we get a little bit further.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it lives on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. Thank you for your partnership, profoundly and humbly.

If you have a prayer request or comment, there is a number you can dial, 877-942-4253 is that number.

And that’s it for today. Signing off for the first time from the from the land of Israel. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey everybody this is Pelham from Birmingham, from Alabama calling. I’m always calling in for myself, it’s always selfishness and I’m working on that. I’m sorry. There’s so many people that I pray for on the line that call that come through. I forgot your name, soccer player that’s gonna be like standing like he’s on the cross every time he scores a goal, the young man that’s waiting to find a club to hire him to get him recruited. Praying for that guy. I’m praying for so many different women going through so many different things. I’m calling today because…I miss my wife. It’s Valentine’s Day. I haven’t talked to her in almost 2 months. She hasn’t said a word to me and she called today, she called this morning. I don’t know what to do. She won’t listen to me. She thinks that the God that I worship is not the right God. She thinks that we serve a different God, that she believes in a different God than me. I don’t know what that means. There’s one God and she knows that. I don’t understand. Please, you all pray for my family, pray for the Morris family and Anderson and Molly and Pelham. Thank you.

Hello Daily Audio Bible, my name is Kevin and I’m reaching out for support as I embark on my quest for a righteous life in the name of the Lord. I feel I have many sins to repent for and I am coming back into my faith after many years away from it. In my 20s __ had kept in contact with the Lord but only through spirts of troubled times. And I’m just calling for support as make my way back into this life and the life God has called upon the. I’ve struggled with the thought that I’d made a family without marriage and I’ve struggled with a past addiction of alcohol and the destruction it caused upon me and others. I hope the Lord will forgive me and I pray to stay in the narrow path He has. May the wisdom of God follow me. Lord keep us safe. Thank you.

Hi guys this is Tito Ramirez again calling from Southern California. I was just calling…I was listening to the community prayer line and I was just drawn to call in. I love you guys so much, and that prayer line is so amazing. I listen to it a lot just like Slave of Jesus, you know, when I commute back and forth and stuff in the car. And Rebecca from Michigan, I know you called a while back asking about how it is that our relationship with the Lord, God’s relationship with the church is like marriage. And I was listening today and I’m not sure what the ladies name was but she called in and was tearful and sad because she was going through a difficult time in her marriage where she had been betrayed and her husband was a sex addict and it sounded like they were trying to work through it but there was a lot of pain and a lot of hurt. And this came at the same time when we were listening to Brian read to us about the children of Israel betraying God in the wilderness and worshiping the calf and the amount of hurt. And God, God kind of, you know, the kids that I treat always say they kind of wore it, He kind of just exposed His emotion and His hurt. And I think that’s one way. And I think that as we go through the Bible and we learn more about God and how He responds and how He actually feels when we do certain things we can understand more about how His relationships are like, you the relationship of a parent and child or a relationship of a marriage with the church. And, you know, just think that how much God loves us when you hear somebody hurt like that, like she was hurting. I always think like, okay, you’re not alone, God knows that or Jesus knows that. It’s the hurt of betrayal and it makes me want to be better because I love Christ and I don’t want to hurt Him like that. I don’t want to hurt God like that. If God loves us perfectly I don’t want to betray that. And, so, I hope that helps to shed some…

Hi, DAB this is Kathleen in Mount Zion Illinois and I’m just calling in for Much Afraid who, I just heard your message on…today is February 15th and you just couldn’t give us a lot of detail on what to pray about. And anyway I just first of all want to thank you for the service to the Lord that you have been doing for the past 15 years there in an Asian country, in a Buddhist country. I can imagine the opposition that you face every day. Whether physical or spiritual, I can just imagine. And you are saying…you weren’t able to really say what was the issue, but it sounded like you are having some spiritual battles. So, I just wanted to let you know that I am praying for you. In fact, let’s just pray right now. Dear Lord Jesus, please give strength of mind and body to Much Afraid, that she can call us another time with her other name that she had mentioned. She said I should Overcome. Lord Jesus I just pray that you give her strength. Whatever battles she is facing just pray that the whole body of DAB listeners right now, thousands and thousands throughout the world pray throughout the world pray. We pray right now for Overcomer, for Much Afraid who will be overcomer and pray that she will strengthen her and thank you again for her heart of a missionary that What she has done I admire that so much…

Hi everyone at Daily Audio Bible, my name’s Megan, I am in London. __ to be calling, this is my first ever call. I first started listening just towards the end of last year but then I decided to restart everything on the 1st of January. Basically, the only reason I’m able to call today is, I, unfortunately had a migraine earlier and was sent home early from work. And its weird how God works in mysterious ways. It means I’ve managed to come home, I’ve got the house to myself for a couple of hours. I was listening to the prayers on the way home and already my head is feeling tons better. So, yeah, prayer is powerful. I can’t quite remember his name, but I think it was something along…Christ is the Light or The Light or The Light of Christ. You called in a couple of weeks ago and you’ve been in my thoughts ever since and I think you’re having a really, really tough time to say the least, but I want you to know that I’ve been praying for you every day and, well, I don’t know if things are better for you yet, but if they’re not I just want you to know God is with you, we’re all with you and I hope you feel His presence and the strength that He gives you. And I’ve got a request myself. Unfortunately, my cousin is estranged from her mother. She’s currently living with my own parent’s. I don’t live there anymore and __ and everything, but it’s really having a really strong impact on everyone. I’m not going to go into the details, it’s not my story to share but I know it’s kind of breaking up everyone’s hearts. So, if you could just pray for them. I know there are some good things coming out of it. I mean I’ve managed to reconnect with my cousins who I haven’t been out to see for years and that, just to be honest, if it weren’t for this whole situation then I probably wouldn’t have found this app. So, I am grateful to the Lord...I mean…wouldn’t it…

1 note · View note