#feel free to lengthen this I just prefer opens to start small

[chaosfindsaway]

Open Starter

"I don't want to talk about her right now, I'm fine."

[doctorbeth]

Stripes the 50 year old tiger

This will be a longer post, because it’s all about the details, and there was a lot of going back and forth with photos and emails to get Stripes and his stripes just right.  So be sure you’re comfy when you sit down to read it. :-)

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

Stripes person first wrote to me back in December about her tiger, Stripes, and his companion RedEye the snake.  Both were starting to feel their age, but as she said,

“ As you can see Stripes is in the most need of repairs. Personally, I’m guessing that a full recovering is needed, but I’m certainly no expert and will follow your advice.  Here are some pics which show Stripes fur disappearing and soon he will be bald.  Amazingly he has no damage that I can find. His ears need some stuffing, but they have never been tall, firm standing Teddy Bear ears.”

Here are the diagnosis photos she sent:

As you can see, his belly section was pretty good, but his furry parts were wearing and fading.  His person really wanted his fur recovered, in an orangier rather than tanner fur, and she opted for him to have a spa too.

Here he is in his bubble bath:

Once he was dry, he got restuffed and of course, got a heart with a bit of his original stuffing.  Here’s his heart being made:

Then it was time to choose furs.  As some of you know who’ve been reading for a while, usually with tigers we use a solid fur of the preferred background color, then add the stripes by hand afterwards.  Here were the best fur options:

His person opted for the orangier, furrier one.

Stripes got recovered, and some smaller wounds on his belly were sewn.  Then, it was time for hand striping.  I did some basic  striping, and then sent photos for feedback:

His person’s first response was:

Beth, you’ve made me cry at work.  I’m absolutely over the moon with Stripes new look!!!  Holy cats he’s looking beautiful!!  You are AMAZING!

But I was asking for striping feedback, and she happily provided it:

The stripes.  Thank you for being so conservative. :) I would like to add some more stripes. I’ve included an updated pic that shows where I would like some stripes added.

Tail:   Could you put 2 stripes in a ring pattern around the tail? They continue the black spots you started. I also noticed with other Gund tigers that the ring was painted at a slight angle or sprayed as 2 “halves”, not a straight ring that looked like a raccoon’s tail. (pics)  I know that there was more black at the tip of the tail, but I don’t think the whole tip was black.

Back Leg:   I’ve continued your 3 spots into stripes.

Body:  I’ve added 2 stripes, but if you will notice stripe #2 is in the shape of a ‘V”. (I remember this detail as a child)  The stripes do NOT have to line up with the fabric underneath.  They didn’t before.  :D

Face: I’ve added a short stripe above Stripes’ right eye. This detail always gave him a slight serious look without being mean. (not a lot of slant to the line, if any) I have always loved this detail about him.  And I’ve elongated the stripe on his forhead.

Beth, I’m pretty sure we will be adding some more stripes to the back, especially his head but I thought we might tackle this bit first.

She closed with:

Again, I just absolutely can’t thank you enough for your beautiful and loving work on my best friend. I have been showing people the before and after pics for the last 5 hours.  I’m so happy!!!

So back to drawing stripes on Stripes I went.  Here are the next batch of photos:

Stripes person was thrilled:

Stripes looks spectacular!!  I mean he is just awesome with the stripes that you’ve filled out.

She wanted just one more stripe.  She sent a photo, but it was in another format, so I won’t put it here, but she also described what she wanted very well:

So I just have 1 more stripe for you.  If you look at my pic, you will see that I’ve drawn a line over the small black dot that is on his forehead.  In the last pic you sent me you can still see that it’s just a spot and not a stripe.  Could you lengthen that spot into a stripe for me?

Please note the position. When you are seated facing Stripes, this stripe includes/starts at the black spot and runs towards the right.  You have a pretty stripe that’s higher on the head already placed on the left so this one goes off to the right and is the same length as that one.

Adjustment made, I sent another photo (you can see the printout with her line instruction next to him):

Her response:

Perfection Achieved!  I’m so so happy!!!!   How many exclamation points can I put in an email to show you how perfect Stripes is!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Stripes got packed up and headed home to a grateful human and snake.  Here he is at home with his pal, RedEye:

His person was soooo happy!  She wrote a very long thank you, with a history of Stripes and RedEye, and I don’t want to edit it, so I’m copying it entirely here for you to read.  But you can skip it if you want and just know she was happy!

Hi Beth,

Sit back and relax.  This may be a little bit of a long happy read.  :D   Please feel free to use any content or pics from my emails for your blog.

I waited anxiously for Stripes to arrive.  Yes, my husband signed for the box and I couldn’t wait to get home!

And so the moment has arrived.  I brought Stripes best friend Redeye in from the bedroom to help me open the package. We open,  I close my eyes dig in past the packing peanuts and pull out our best friend.  Oh My Goodness!  He is beautiful! bright! and colorful! He practically glows! I see his face. Yes, yes! It’s Stripes!  I see the same face I’ve gazed into and loved for 50 years. And that’s when the tears start. Crying, mouth open in shock but my husband says he’s never seen me happier.  ..After many long years, I can finally cuddle my friend again.

Beth you have given me back something I thought I would never have again.  I love Stripes so, but I couldn’t, didn’t dare to pet him or cuddle him. I had to be so gentle, so afraid that I was doing more damage to him. But now all that is over!  I can sleep with my buddy by my side. I can take him on vacations again!  I’m tearing up just writing this.  I can’t express my joy…absolute joy over the work you have done. Stripes looks like a beautiful and bright toy again.  Thank you Beth.  Thank you so very much.

…And I’ll be sending Redeye to you some time in February.  I’ll be sure to email you first to start the process.

And here’s a little history about Stripes.  Stripes was a Christmas present in 1969. I have always loved tigers and I was in deep love the moment I saw him. He has enjoyed play tea parties with me, and watched drive-in movies sitting in the back window. He has looked over the candy hauls that I collected during Halloween and been in a beautiful oak tree during the crisp dry autumn. (Carefully placed on a towel, but he needed to experience a tree. He is a tiger after all.)   He has been with me in Japan for a year and traveled all over the US northwest  looking out of a train window. And he has done all these things with Redeye by his side.

--But let’s face the facts, in the last few years my friend was disappearing before my eyes. There was good fortune that his seams were okay but the fur was coming off. His stripes were completely gone in areas. He was looking more yellow everywhere. And I dared only to pat him. That’s when I began to search for help to restore my friend and so I found Realms of Gold on the internet.

Beth has been wonderful, corresponding with emails and working out details by sending pictures back and forth. She listened to my input and was absolutely amazing at applying the stripes in the right places. We actually discussed exactly where to put them.  :D  I trust Beth’s skills so much that I will be sending Stripes best friend Redeye along soon.  He was amazed and so happy with Stripes look, that he can’t wait to go to Realms of Gold!

Okay Beth, this may be a little serious but I wanted to express my honest feelings, and let you know why this has been so important to me.

With my 2 stuffed animals loosing hair and looking tired a sobering thought occurred to me. If something happened to me, what would happen to them? We have no children to give them to. We can’t donate them because being so worn out, no one would take them. And the thought that they might end up in a garbage bin was too much. Of course for me, my goal was to pet, play and enjoy them again.  That goes without saying.  But now, seeing Stripes beautiful bright colors, I am happy and secure in knowing that years from now, I can donate or will him to a children’s home where he will continue to be loved. (I have several friends who grew up in orphanages and we think it’s a wonderful idea.)

Thank you so much Beth!!!!!!

I don’t know about all of you, but that made me smile all day. :-)

[asdllkshfad]

For the anon who asked if I had a tutorial on how I make gifs! I made one that covers just about everything about my gif-making process 💖 

A summary of things included in this tutorial:

How to rip videos from nearly everywhere

How to make a basic gif using videos

How to slow down a gif

How to color gifs

Stuff you need:

Windows 10 (for the built-in screen-recording program*) / Xbox Game Bar

Photoshop CS6 or higher

VLC Media Player

PC/laptop

*I like to use the Xbox game bar because it's straightforward and doesn't require any technical shit to make it work. It's plug and play! But if you don't have this, here are some alternatives:

OBS Studio - used for streaming and screen recording, free and open source! lots of tutorials on Youtube for beginners

VLC Media Player - all purpose media player and Youtube video-ripper, also free and open source

You’re gonna have to look elsewhere for OBS and VLC tutorials but they're not terribly hard to get used to. It's just gonna take a little extra work to make gifs that way.

I. Get a video of the thing you want to gif

High quality vids make high quality gifs so I like to source them directly from HD/Bluray digital copies as much as possible. This is how I do it 90% of the time:

1. Open the source video in my media player (I use VLC) 2. Open the Xbox Game Bar 3. Record a short clip from the source vid

I prefer to do this because it's easier to work on a short clip with a small file size in Photoshop. 

If I can't download the videos, I rely on screen-recording from wherever it's available (Youtube, Streamable, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Any video that can play in a browser is fair game.

How to use the Xbox Game Bar to record your screen

you don't need a microsoft or xbox account to use it

can record videos from media players and almost any video that plays in a web browser (not sure if this works with Netflix on a browser though)

How to use VLC Media Player to rip videos directly from Youtube

doesn't always work but it allows you to find the exact address of a Youtube vid and save it on your PC like you would with pictures

most videos aren't high quality when ripped like this but when I got nothing else to rip from, I can't be choosy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

II. Make a standard gif file

1. Open PS. Drag/drop your video in PS. The 'Timeline' window should appear on your workspace. If it doesn’t, go to Window > check 'Timeline' near the bottom of the menu

2. Make a new file with the usual tumblr dimensions (Width: 540px for 1 column posts/ 268-268px for 2/ 177-178-177px for 3, Height: up to you)

3. Drag and drop the vid in the new file then close the video file.

4. On your new file in the Timeline window, click on 'Create Video Timeline'

5. In the Layers window, right-click on the video layer and select 'Convert to Smart Object'

6. Resize the video.

7. You can move the start/end bars on the Timeline so it only includes the part of the clip you want to gif. Skip this step for now if you plan to change the speed of your gif.

8. Save your new file. You don't have to keep the PSD and source video in the same folder but I recommend you do.

III. Adjust the speed

1. Double click exactly on the thumbnail graphic of the video layer--not the layer name or the gray area around it! It should open a new window with 'Layer 1.psb' as the filename.

2. Right-click on this video's Timeline. It should show a small tab that allows you to change the speed of your gif. 60-70% gives it a noticeable slow-mo effect.

3. Since we slowed the clip down, we have to lengthen it. Drag the arrow at end of it all the way to the right until the you can't extend it further.

4. Press ctrl + s to save the changes in 'Layer 1.psb' and then close that window for now.

5. Go back to your main file (LALO 01.psd in my example) and adjust the length of the clip on this Timeline like you did on 'Layer 1.psb'.

6. Readjust the start/end bars on the Timeline so they line up with the part you want to gif.

III. Make it pretty

There is one effect that makes a gif instantly prettier and that is Smart Sharpen. Look for 'Filter' on the top menus. Click on the video layer, click on Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. 

If the scene you clipped is well-lit and if you are not doing anything fancy, this might be all you need to do. But if not, you can find every tool for color adjustment in the Layers window:

These are the ones I use often:

For adjusting brightness/contrast: Levels and Selective Color

For color correction: Color Balance, Selective Color, Photo Filter and Vibrance

For cleaning up artifacts and reducing noise in nighttime/dark scenes: I use Selective Color and turn up the black anywhere from +5 to +15

IV. Save the gif

I usually do a bunch of tweaks here and there before I save the final gif. I go back to adjust the speed, to recolor or change the length of the gif, whatever I feel needs retouching.

1. Press Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S all at the same time or click File > Export > Save For Web.

2. I use these settings:

3. Check that the file size doesn't exceed 10mb

4. Click ‘Save’. And we’re done!

[peeves-a-legend]

Maximum Entropy

Original Fem!Elementalist x Wizarding World 

A.N. ~ Sooo... I made a new account finally!! And I wanted to restart my page with this piece that I had started a while ago. I hadn’t gotten around to finishing it, but I couldn’t let this idea slip through my fingers with the potential that it has (at least in theory lol). As of right now, the main love interest is undecided; I’m just going to let that unfold as a write. 

Summary ~ Beatrice Drayton is a fourth year at Arctosov Academy for Elementalists when a stranger comes searching for an alliance. Despite centuries of turmoil between hands and wands, she finds herself across the world, willing to work with the folk that bare wands. Harry isn’t the only one with a prophecy, and it just so happens that Drayton’s destiny relies on the success of Potter’s. End of HP book 4 and onward.

Warning ~ Language and probable violence (eventually)

Word Count ~ 4k

Chapter One

There are only a few days left of this term. Only a handful of classes left to study and then I’m free of academic duties for the summer. The bitter Canadian frost had finally submitted to the heat that the lengthened days brought, allowing the vast Boreal to bloom lush with green. Up until now, the school grounds remained in a turbulent state of snow, slush, and mud. Spring was honestly my least favourite time of the year. Maybe if the school was farther South I’d appreciate the season for what it’s worth, but sleet storms and the rapid amplification of mosquito swarms were all too common in the Northwest Territories prior to the sun and shine of the summer months.

I ran through the sun-lit halls of Arctosov Academy in a desperate attempt to get to class on time. It’s moments like this where I’m grateful for the sleek material of the uniform that hugs tight to my limbs and torso. When I was given the purple and black spandex in first year I complained about the tight-fit jumpsuit till I was blue in the face. It’s so itchy. I’ll freeze come wintertime in this cloth. It’s too tight. Blah, blah, blah. Little did I know that I would eventually praise the aerodynamic nature of it when gliding through the crowded corridors.

 The halls of the school were simple, straight passageways that stacked 13 floors high, etched into the side of one of the many mountains that framed the expansive waters of Great Bear Lake. The walls that continued with the face of the mountain were made of tall, clear diamond windows. The bottom of the diamond glass meets a white marble floor while the top of the smooth surface contrasts sharply against the jagged ceiling made of mountain rock. The wall opposite to the lake view was different on all 13 floors. For example, the 9th floor hall (the one that I am currently sprinting down) has a wall made of solid gold. It looks quite gaudy if you ask me. I much prefer the wall made of pure orange flames on the 4th floor. Along each of the distinctive corridors are doors that lead to different rooms that lay in the belly of the mountain. Classrooms, dorms, restrooms, the gym, the dining hall, the kitchen, the library, multiple training rooms, and so on. The only routes that connect each parallel floor to each other are the stairwells that resided at either end of the halls.

 As I dodge through bodies, I can’t help but curse my luck. Not even a time-turner could spare me a few moments of peace between classes that I have back to back and over each other. My brothers and my friends tell me I’m just being dramatic, but it’s not like they would actually know the stress of going through the amount of training that I’m subjected to. To think that I’m only in fourth year!

 I reach the last door on the opposite side of the hall that I entered from and swiftly glide through the misty veil that floats where a door would be placed anywhere else in the world. Arctosov is all about the dramatics when it comes to decor. As soon as the frothy air clears I’m met head on with a group of fifteen or so third, fourth, and fifth year students standing in a large circle. My brother Zaidyn notices me first, taking a step over to make room for me in the ring. I mouth a silent thanks and he offers a small smile in return.

 Our attention is quickly turned to the tall and slender man that paces in the center of the group. At least he had stopped publicly addressing my tardiness every time I showed up to his class a little more than five minutes late.

 ‘…We will be spending a great deal of time in today’s lesson harnessing the energy in the room in combination with the particles that occupy this space,’ thin lips stated as narrowed eyes observed the group of students. ‘We will be conjuring vortex winds; a tornado if you will. But the key is to keep it controlled and clean. If I witness any funnels produced above the hip,’ Professor Turcoff said, addressing a poor third year directly now, ‘consider your Friday evening booked with a detention.’

 ‘Well he seems to be in a stellar mood today, don’t you think?’ Zaidyn huffed quietly enough so that only I could hear.

 ‘Absolutely.’

 ‘Want to work together?’ 

I nodded in response as the circle separated off into smaller groups setting to work. We found a less crowded area off towards the edge of the large circular room. All the training rooms are circular in shape with high steel walls, a steel floor, and a steel ceiling. It’s like being trapped in a tin can and we’re the beans. Cool beans, might I add.

 ‘Now I want you all to focus,’ Turcoff said firmly over the mild chattering that circulated in the room. ‘I don’t just want you to start pushing the molecules around in your vicinity. I want you to feel them. Connect with them. Turn the gases into a fifth limb. Then, and only then, will you have total control.’

 With that, I closed my eyes and opened my palms at my side. This was always my favorite part of conjuring magic. To just feel the vibrations of the atoms that are at my mercy for manipulation. The fluid motion of the air as it swirls around each finger, catching ever so slightly on the craters of my fingerprints. The fuzzy, almost ticklish sensation when my skin radiates deep crimson and ripe orange flames. When I suck the moisture from the air that is plentiful, turning the vapours into a blanket of water that obeys at my command. The deep and gyrating rumble that surfaces from all four sides of the room that I’m standing in, mountain rock waiting to collapse if I let it.

 But the others wouldn’t understand, you see. For the individuals that attend this very class with me cannot feel the lick of a flame. They cannot consume the hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere that is necessary for the flickering lattice of its corresponding liquid. They cannot part the earth at its surprisingly brittle seams, only to allow greenery of sorts to erupt from deep within those cervices. They can only control the air that streams gently over the purple fabric of our jumpsuits. Of course, there are other things that all benders are capable of, but the limit of those abilities is always an arm’s reach away.

 All because of one silly chromosome.

 Now’s a great time to mention that I’m the only girl in a school full of boys. Why? Because I’m the first female bender that had been born in over 4000 years. The third one ever, to be exact. For whatever rhyme or reason it is extremely rare for a female bender to be conceived, to the point where it is literally unheard of. At least until my existence, that is. 

All male benders pass down their elemental ability to the children they procreate. If a son is born, he will take after his father’s magic. So will his sons, and his sons’ sons. But if a daughter is born… it’s a slightly different story. 

Female benders harness power differently than their male counterparts. They are able to tap into magical stores that allow access to all areas of elemental manipulation, rather than a single vault. We assume it has to do with the fact that the first bender was a woman herself. Born from the earth and nurtured by the universe, or however that story goes. 

But why are female benders so scarce? Nobody really knows. I personally think it’s a method to mediate power. I could not even begin to imagine a world filled with all-powerful women with a temperament like mine. The globe would combust in a matter of seconds. Nuclear, man.

 I open my eyes and witness a knee-height funnel of air directly in front of me, swirling gently in a clockwise coil. With a slight curl of my fingers, the twister begins to steadily grow till it’s at the height of my belly button.

 ‘That’s tall enough, Ms. Drayton.’ But I wasn’t going to feed it any more than I already had. I am in control. The particles will not control me. I look to my brother who has also mastered the task at hand, posture poised with a satisfied smirk playing at his lips. The rest of the room seemed quite confident as well, mind a few individuals who had let the wind get away on them.

 The rest of class seemed to be swept away and before long I’m reaching into the skin-hugging collar of my jumpsuit to retrieve the time-turner from around my neck. Four down, only eight more classes to go till dinner. Kill me now.

 When I started school in first year, I was beyond excited to learn how to let my powers flourish. But if somebody would have told me that I would be taking four times the amount of school work as every other student at Arctosov, I think it’s fair to say that my enthusiasm wouldn’t have peaked so high. It is partially my fault though. I had been advised to extend my school years to double the standard duration. Unfortunately, fourteen years fell onto deaf ears. 

Finding shortcuts is my specialty. 

At least some classes are mandatory for all students, like elemental and magical history, calculus, magical and muggle variations of physics and chemistry, and other basic level classes that focus on universal bender abilities. I guess that knocks a couple extra classes off my horrendously long list of academic requirements. Unfortunately, that still leaves quite a hefty load of ability-specific classes on my plate.

 ~

 The day couldn’t have gone any slower. I mean, it was all fine and dandy until some imbecile pissed off Professor Yawny in Flora Manipulation. The idiot conjured a garden of nettle and didn’t know how to retract the growth, which ultimately led to the suffering of some unsuspecting bystanders. Got a hive or two myself, but nothing compared to the group of students that took the brunt of it on the front line. This little stunt earned the class a ten-page essay on retracting plant growth and the dangers of uncontrolled herbage. Honestly, just what I needed.

 As soon as the last period bell chimed (for the third time today), I quickly chucked my notebook and ballpoint into my bag and hurried out of Atomic Theory. I always change out of my jumpsuit before dinner. I hate eating in clothes that expose my well-fed stomach. 

I make my way up to the thirteenth floor to access my dorm. The thirteenth floor is by far the coziest of them all. Instead of cleared and pristine halls, upon entering the corridor one is met with a scattered array of sofas, tables littered with magical and muggle games, bookshelves cluttered with various paperback and hardcover copies, and the single Jadeite wall lined with primarily hockey and quidditch posters. A stereo plays some top muggle hits; the audio competes for volume with the crackling sounds that emit from the large pit in the centre of the hall where a seven-foot high flame resides. There are only two doors carved into the green wall: the girl’s and the boy’s dorms. 

The boy’s dorm is essentially a revolving door. People are always filing in and out of the community space. The girl’s dorm on the other hand was simply built out of respect. They never expected anybody to occupy the space, but knew that even though the chances were slim, a female student might enrol one day or another. Thank God for those engineers’ prognostic train of thought, otherwise I’d be either bunking in the fifth-floor supply closet or with a bunch of dudes.

 Weaving my way around a collection of occupied ping-pong and pool tables, I move quickly not to interfere with the final plays of said matches. These boys tend to get cranky with hunger and exhaustion during the final countdown before supper. The steady sound of the hall dies as I pass through the veil that mists over the entrance to the girl’s dorm. It’s a plain space, but what can I say, I’m the only chick to enter this part of the underground school. I’ve managed to liven the place up with some creeping vines and flowers along the tall, straight marble walls that lead to several bedrooms and baths. Even though the hall is meant to appear light and spacious, the lack of fellow roommates makes this place feel more than empty. Like a blank sheet of lined paper, everything here remains untouched and waiting for scuffs and scrapes of wear, something to push its clean order into the hands of disorder. 

Chaos theory loves to make a mess of things.

 I swing through the eighth door on the right into the space that I had claimed as mine. I got rid of the other three unoccupied beds and transformed the room into one that I could proudly call my home away from home. Just like every other room in the school, the dorm is circular, so placing furniture in a way that I didn’t hate turned out to be a real pain in my ass. It took me all of first year to decide where I wanted to place my bed, my desk, and my wardrobe in relation to the door. Once I figured that out, the rest was quite fun. Potted plants invade any and all counter space available in the room, while little knick knacks can also be spotted within the jungle. The skylight ceiling illuminates the white brick walls, casting an intense glare to any prying eyes above the diamond-glass. I think it’s chic.

 I rummaged through my wardrobe for a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, and my royal purple Arctosov crested pullover. One look in the full-length mirror, quickly fixing my hair to get it up and out of my face, and I set off towards the dining hall. I was at the top of the thirteen flights of stairs when a hand closed around my shoulder, slowing my quick pace.

 ‘In a rush are we, ‘B’?’ Jaxon. The only person in this school foolish enough to get between me and my awaiting meal. I sped up, forcing the gangly fourth year to keep stride.

 ‘You try tack on eight extra classes to your schedule. See how you fair come dinner time.’

 ‘I think you’re just complaining for pity,’ he teased, meeting my rib with his elbow. ‘“Look at me, the most powerful being alive. Tired, stressed, and hungry! You have no idea what it’s like to be so damn awesome all the time! It’s exhausting! I –”’ My hand shot out to push Jaxon off balance, nearly sending him down the last couple stairs in the flight we were walking down.

 ‘Your impression of me is beyond inaccurate.’

 ‘And your muscles are beyond underestimated,’ Jaxon shot back with a smirk, rubbing his arm where I contacted him with the blow. ‘Didn’t know you possessed the power of super-strength as well.’

 ‘Like you said, I’m just so damn awesome.’ Our grins mirrored each other as we bounded down the rest of the steps to the first-floor dining hall. This is how our banter went most of the time. It was quick, it was witty, it was smooth. He always knows just how far to push to elicit a shove back, and I always shove back. But he also knows when he’s about to push too far. Rarely ever had we actually fought with one another. In the last four years of school, we’ve only actually fought once, and that’s a story nobody talks about anymore. It was stupid, but it was explosive, and I mean literally explosive. Jaxon is a fire bender, so I’m lucky that I have the ability to take the heat. The library shelves that surrounded us during the dispute… well, they didn’t survive. 

Jaxon was my best friend. A brother. Nothing more, nothing less. In my eyes at least.

 Like cattle, students were milling into and about the dining hall trying to find a place to sit at the single spiral table that coiled into the center of the round room. Purple banners bearing our school crest hung from the high rock ceiling, flashing the menacing stare of the Kodiak that was featured in the heart of the emblem. The student body had encountered a few of the rather large bears during my years at the academy. I never thought I’d ever get the chance to witness such fear amongst a group of insufferably cocky teenage boys, and I loved every second of it. Bunch of pansies.

 ‘B!’ My attention is quickly captured by my two brothers sitting in the middle of the spiral of students. Jaxon and I walk down the winding aisle to sit in front of Zaidyn and Treston, who have also changed out of their uniforms. It is only when we take our seats that I realize that something is definitely not right.

 ‘Hey guys, why the long faces?’ I ask, hesitation evident in my wavering tone. If Treston looks startled, then something big must have happened. This sixth year is not easily phased. 

A couple of our other friends join the group, sitting on either side of Zaidyn and myself. They also become attentive to the tension held within the conversation. Bret and Oscar share a look between themselves then with me, silently looking for an explanation. I simply shrug my shoulders. 

This is weird.

 Treston is the first to speak. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

 ‘Hear what?’ Jaxon and I replied in unison.

 ‘One of them is here,’ Zaidyn continued. ‘Apparently wants to give a speech or something after supper. Not sure what about though.’

 ‘What do you mean here?’ snaps Jaxon. ‘I thought that they weren’t allowed on our turf?’

 ‘Yeah, I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it if someone of our kind went poking a nose over the fence,’ Oscar added. Zaidyn simply shook his head in shock. ‘I mean, legally they can’t be here, right? Documentation exists for a reason –’

 ‘Documentation is nothing but a piece of paper and a couple of lousy signatures. Words mean nothing to them. They’ve always turned their backs on allies and their own. Don’t you ever pay attention in Magical History?’ It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but I can still see how my sharp words stung Oscar. He’s always had too much pride for his own good, especially when it comes to his grades in school. His glare notified me that I’d hit a weak spot.

 ‘Alright ladies, claws away,’ Bret chimed in. Always there to referee, but it’s usually Jaxon and I that he tries to simmer down. ‘I know it’s news that none of us want to hear, but if it’s true then we have to keep our heads on our shoulders and on a swivel. I can’t see anything good coming out of this, and I know neither can any of you,’ he said addressing the quiet group.

 ‘All I’m saying is that agreements were made for a reason. If they hadn’t been made, then the magical world would be in a completely different state as of right now. They should be considering themselves lucky that they aren’t extinct,’ Oscar sighed. I had to agree with him there. ‘Our ancestors were patient and wise, which is why we lost so much blood to the wands. But too much animosity had festered for far too long, and quite frankly I don’t consider myself patient or wise. You can’t tell me today’s generation would be so kind as to forgive and forget.’

 Oscar was right and we all knew it. Everybody in the hall knew it, too. We may have forgiven them, but we sure as hell have not forgotten. We are reminded every day we walk through these halls – the only halls on the planet that houses students of our kind. The number of benders left was a thought to make my blood run cold. Although, we are making a comeback; slowly but surely. I gave Oscar a small half-understanding, half-apologetic smile.

 Before I could add anything further to Oscar’s words of truth, a lavish dinner appeared on the table below our chins. Elk roast, wild salmon, kale salad, stuffed mushrooms, and more. I prayed that saskatoon pie was being served for dessert later in the evening. The apprehensive atmosphere quickly dissipated as we dug into our grub. Frowns were replaced with filled-cheek smiles, and the uneasy silence was enveloped in hearty laughter. Talk of the latest playoff news and summer plans seemed to entertain the table enough to keep the conversation going. It was interesting being a part of the guy’s gossip sessions during meals. Not that I would actually call it gossip; maybe more along the lines of petty pissing contests. Wouldn’t be the first time I sat through a mine’s bigger than yours argument.

 It was when our Headmaster stood up from the semi-circle teacher’s table at the back of the hall that the reality of the situation set in once again. Professor Fobert never has to gather the attention of the many eyes leering in anticipation, for their focus was already on him. Fobert’s aura demanded one’s gaze, it did not ask. He was tall, sternly featured, and looked tough as nails. His black-scaled tunic wrapped snugly around his torso, making the greying man look ready for battle at a moment’s notice. When the hall’s sound died down, all that could be heard was the vibrations from deep within the mountain’s abdomen, rock waiting to respond to our Headmaster’s request.

 ‘Good evening, students. I shall speak frankly and I shall speak clearly, that way you will not misunderstand what I am about to tell you.’

 Well that’s a new introduction.

 ‘I have never assumed any of you as naive, therefore I refuse to start now.’

 A very new introduction.

 ‘Most of you are aware that we have a guest joining us this evening. A guest that has come from overseas to speak to you all.’ It seemed as though our Headmaster couldn’t speak quickly enough. Every student in the room was now perched on the edge of their seat, listening intently for the next words to leave Fobert’s mouth. We knew where this was going, but nobody wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room. 

Fobert opened his mouth to speak again, but words never escaped. Instead, a toothy grin tightened the flesh around his chin, and his eyes looked over the heads of the students sitting before him. Naturally, we all turned our heads in the direction of our superior’s gaze towards the entrance to the hall.

 If the hall was quiet a moment ago, it sure as shit wasn’t anymore. We didn’t even need a second take to confirm our suspicion.

 The man was about the same height as Professor Fobert, but the age difference was quite notable. Where Fobert was steeled with sharp middle-aged wear, the other man appeared worn with the drooping and sagging lines of old-age. He did not wear a tunic and pants, but a floor-length grey robe that matched the colour of his long, neatly kept beard. The cuffs on his sleeves tapered off in the shape of a bell at the knuckles of his boney fingers.

 Only people of wizarding blood dressed like that.

 ‘Albus!’ 

[lokis-daughter-fic]

Loki’s Daughter Chapter 1: Saved

Originally written for imagine-loki, link to imagine below.

Imagine Avengers: Endgame AU Loki that gets away with tesseract has been using it to explore the universe. During his adventures, he comes across a little girl with developing but oppressed magical abilities. Intrigued (and subconsciously lonely) Loki keeps her around.

In his efforts to learn more about the tesseract and keep it away from prying hands, Loki keeps in constant movement; never staying in one place for too long. So, they travel to new worlds far beyond the Nine Realms. The young girl is in awe at the beauty of the universe and thrives with Loki. Through a series of events, the two grow closer and Loki begins to feel what he would assume is affection for the little girl.

TITLE: Loki’s Daughter CHAPTER/ONE SHOT:

Chapter One: Saved AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Avengers: Endgame AU Loki that gets away with tesseract has been using it to explore the universe. During his adventures, he comes across a little girl with developing but oppressed magical abilities. Intrigued (and subconsciously lonely) Loki keeps her around.

AO3 LINK: Loki’s Daughter RATING: Mature for possible triggering content NOTES/WARNINGS:

Trigger warnings:

-Child slavery (this topic is being explored throughout the story)

Nota bene: I promise I’m not making Loki enslave any children, that’s not our guy

-Mental illness including mentions of schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety

-Mentions of past torture and abuse: physical, emotional, and mental

Notes:

I know these are strong triggers for some people and I fully respect you. There will also be lots of fluff and love and happiness in this story but as I say, these more difficult and triggering topics are being explored.

           With the hype for the Loki series starting to build, I’m feeling inspired. So, I’m going to give it a go.

           Also I’m not new to Tumblr by any means but I’m not super active in posting or reblogging even on my own account and I don’t know all the ins and outs of primary vs secondary blogs and blah, blah, blah… I mostly just lurk about in your likes and look at beautiful pictures of Tom/Loki on here… but I made a secondary blog for this fic where I’ll also be posting the chapters, in addition to here, and may start to open up some discussion if it gains any traction. So feel free to visit https://lokis-daughter-fic.tumblr.com/ and give it a like or follow or whatever. God, I feel old. I really need to just read up on this shit. There’s also an AO3 for the fic too if you prefer reading it on there.

           Okay, I think that’s everything. Anyways, if you read through my rambling notes: thanks, otherwise, enjoy what I hope will be a very lengthy, multi-chapter fic! I have lots of adventures in store for Loki and my little OC, Kuna.

Chapter 1: Saved

Loki walked through the giant forest. These were some of the tallest trees he had ever seen, reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. The canopy seemed distant but its thick leaves blocked out most of the sunlight to the ground. Occasionally, he would hear the sound of some creature calling out in the branches high above him. The canopy dampened the sound all around, making the animal calls sound further off than they truly were.

           He stopped, now and then, to admire the massive trunks of the reddish brown trees. Some of them would likely take a whole minute to walk around. Their roots, as thick as normal sized trees, dug deep beneath him. He wondered how deep they would have to go to hold up such large trees. He thought the planet’s crust must be made up of hundreds of thousands of miles of tree roots.

A light breeze made it’s way through the forest, shaking the leaves on the branches of the trees. Loki imagined you could cover an entire Asgardian skiff with one leaf. He imagined what would happen if one fell on him, and quickly continued walking. Indeed, the forest floor was littered with gigantic leaves and debris from the canopy world above. He thought this is what an ant must feel like, so small in a world far too big.

           Wanting a better vantage point, he used the tesseract’s energy to transport himself to a branch high above. He materialized on the branch but quickly dropped to his knees. Up here, he could feel the tree gently swaying. But a gentle sway to behemoth tree was a dizzying ride to a tiny ant. He sat there a moment, trying to acclimate himself to the new altitude and his tree legs. Before long, he shook his head in disbelief at his dizziness and stood. Feeling slightly more stable, he walked out on the branch, testing his fate. He blinked lazily.

           “Not so bad,” he mused. Afterall, even if he did fall, he could simply use the tesseract’s energy to teleport himself safely to the ground or wherever he wanted. In fact, the thought made him wonder what more he could do with this energy here.

He took off in a fast sprint down the branch at full speed. As the branch began to thin, he leapt with all his strength into the air. In a flash of blue, he disappeared, reappearing again mid-air but hundreds of feet in front of where he had been, landing gracefully on the branch of the next tree over. He laughed, looking back at the tree he had just leapt from. Amused by his maneuver, he took out the tesseract from his pocket and flipped the cube in his hand.

           “Not bad at all,” he said. “I think I’ll use that.”

           Suddenly, the tree shook violently. Loki lost his balance and fell. The tesseract took two light bounces on the branch before falling towards the ground far, far below.

“Ah!” Loki screamed and leapt of the branch after it in an instant.

The wind whipped through his hair and made his eyes water, the ground flying up at him. Through the tears, he nearly lost the little blue spec of the cube falling below him. He reached out and caught it, instantly teleporting himself at a far safer speed to the ground. He fell only a foot onto the forest floor and let out a tremendous sigh of relief. He held up the glowing cube in front of his face.

           “We are not doing that again,” he panted.

Suddenly, a horrendous howl wrenched him up from his place on the ground. A massive beast roared at him from the trunk of the tree. It was hunched over, putting its weight onto its knuckles. Sharp claws as long as Loki’s leg, curled upwards from its paws. Its back was covered in a light brown fur cast with gray stripes while its belly lay bare, a dark shade of brown. The head of the beast was encased in a thick, brown armor, reminiscent of a horn but the shape of a battering ram that protruded from its skull.

Loki made a quick glance up at the tree and let out a sharp breath. There was a massive divot in the tree’s trunk. Splinters hung all about the outsides of the hollow dent. Dark sap had begun to ooze from the center of the wound.

           “Oh,” Loki whispered, letting out an exasperated laugh at the creature. “So, you caused the treequake, then?”

           The monster roared in response and lunged for him. Loki scrambled to his feet, tesseract in hand, dirt and debris flying up from the ground as he regained himself. He tore off, away from the beast as fast as he could. Still out of breath from the fall, his head felt like it was spinning. He could hear the creature pounding towards him. It was massive, there was no way he could outrun it.

           He looked up quickly and saw he was fast approaching a massive tree root that stood nearly twenty feet above his head. He groaned and made a sharp turn, following the root’s path. The beast behind him slammed into the tree root. The noise sounded like an explosion, echoing through the forest. The beast quickly regained itself, shaking its head for a moment, before chargeing towards Loki again. Frantic as he ran, Loki looked for a way out. The light glinted off the cube still in his hand and if he wasn’t running for his life, he would have smacked himself.

“What am I doing?” he exclaimed.

           In front of him, he spotted a large arch formed by another tree root dipping back into the ground. He lengthened his stride. He could practically feel the beast’s breath on his back. Using the tesseract’s energy, he teleported through the arch and safely on to the other side.

           The beast lowered its head and slammed into the archway at full tilt. The ground shook under Loki’s feet as another thunderous explosion rang out around the forest. Only the head and shoulders of the beast had made it through the other side of the archway. It tried to stand up again but was firmly stuck between the root and the ground. Loki laughed, surprised but relieved that it had worked.

           “I’m just going to leave you there,” he said. The creature’s nostrils flared and it let out another deafening roar. Loki winced at the sound. “Yes, you’re very loud,” he told it. “I’m sure that will help you out of there. Just keep trying,” he mocked it as he teleported a distance away.

           Leaving the monster safely behind him, he looked down at the tesseract again. He liked the way it shimmered in his hand. He quickly made it disappear again into his pocket before anything else bad happened to him or it.

He looked up at the trees again and thought of what he had been trying before he was rudely interrupted by the beast. He summoned the tesseract’s energy and leapt far up onto the side of a tree. He caught himself with his dagger, digging it in deep into the bark. After steadying himself a moment, he located another tree about a hundred yards off. He focused on it and pushed off the tree he hung from, disappearing a moment before reappearing a few feet beside the other tree, midair. He dug his dagger in hard on the bark and slid a few feet down. Amused by this game, he continued jumping between the trees using the energy of the space stone.

As he played this fun game, he thought he heard a sound in the distance. He stopped, clinging onto the side of one of the trees. He found a good foothold and listened, trying to locate the direction of the sound. He truly hoped that thing from before could not track him.

A child’s scream rang out to Loki’s left. He sighed in relief at the sound. At least it wasn’t the monster. Slightly intrigued and growing bored and tired of his game, he teleported in the direction of the screams. Where before, the ground and large trunks of the trees had dampened the noise within the forest, now he could hear the child’s screaming echoing for what sounded like miles.

The ground beneath his feet gave way from dirt, moss, and decaying giant leaves, to compact clay and stone. He pushed aside a the fronds of a large bush and stepped out into a clearing. Or at least, what he thought was a clearing. Upon further examination, the sudden lack of trees was caused by a large, rocky ravine. He looked one way down the gorge and then the other. It seemed to stretch for miles in both directions. On the other side, the trees started up once more, rising high into the sky. Another scream rang out. It sounded like it was coming from inside the ravine at the far end to his left.

Loki followed the sound of the screams along the edge of the gorge. Once in a while, he would lean out over the edge to peer down to the bottom. Vines covered in thick moss had somehow found their way to good grips on the other side of the gorge. They crisscrossed up and down the ravine. The bottom was quite dark. It probably rarely saw any sunlight what with the canopy still covering a majority of the sky above. At some places, the ravine narrowed to a length Loki could easily jump across if he wanted. At others, the cliff faces pulled away from each other leaving close a hundred meters between them.

As he walked he began to feel a slight vibration in his own aura. He stopped in his tracks. There was another magical being nearby. A rather powerful magical being by the shimmering sensation he felt in his aura.

He had become adept in sensing the magic of others. Frigga had taught him to develop these senses until they were highly acute. He stood for a moment, focusing on this sensation. The vibration was quickly followed by a severe disturbance, like static electricity. He shook his head, alarmed by the feeling. He had never felt anything in his aura like this before.

He started off again, his interest piqued. He was getting closer to the screams, now. He was also approaching what he assumed was the end of the gorge from the wall of trees looming before him. He returned to the underbrush and crouched low. Two more voices sounded down the ravine. Loki could not make out what they were saying but he could tell there were at least two men and a child at the end of the ravine. He crept closer, silently making his way through the brush, when he spotted a rather peculiar scene.

Two men stood either side of a small crane-like mechanism hanging out over the edge of the ravine. A long chain swung down out of Loki’s view. A child screamed from below the ledge. They had built a rough camp with debris from the forest floor. A small cart held a few crates and barrels. A ramshackle shelter was propped up with a large bit of bark from one of the giant trees. An extinguished firepit with an old spit lay a few feet away.

One man braced himself on the crane and kicked the chain with his boot, making it swing. “Scream louder, girly,” he shouted down. “I don’t think they can hear you!”

In his hand, the man held aloft a long necked, primitive-looking gun. He and his companion laughed as the chain swayed back and forth and even louder screams rang up from below. Loki was about to stand when he heard a far more chilling sound. Somewhere at the bottom of the gorge, a guttural roar rose up and then another. Two creatures. Loki lowered himself back down. They weren’t the monster from before but they surely sounded monstrous.

           “Ha!” the other man exclaimed. “Keep doing that, girl. They like it when you wriggle around like that.”

           “Hear they come,” the first man said.

           His friend picked up his gun which had been leaning up against the crane. They aimed over the side of the cliff. The girl was still screaming from the end of the chain. The two men took their time to find the right sight down to their prey.

Two loud bangs echoed down through the ravine along with the terrified shriek of the girl below. The two men looked down the gorge, following the echo that seemed to go on for miles. The whole forest seemed to have fallen silent. The pair looked back at each other and high fived.

           “Oh, that was a good one!” the man said, appearing to rejoice in the disruption they’d caused to the balance.

           They both looked down over the edge again.

           “Did you get hit, girly?” one asked.

           Silence but the girl must have made some sort of indication as the man quickly followed up with a grunt: “Good.”

           The other man took hold of a large push crank on the crane and began to turn it, hoisting up the chain. A small girl, no more than five, appeared above the ledge, wrapped in tight chains. The man grabbed the chain and pulled it in. It still extended below and, from the tension, Loki could see there was still something heavy at the bottom. He unhooked the girl from the larger chain and she fell onto the ground in heap, her restraints clanging against each other. Her chest was heaving with effort. Her legs and feet kicked, treading ground and pushing her a bit further from the ledge. She came to rest at the base of the crane but went no further. Her body trembled and she cried quietly.

           The man continued to crank the chain upwards. Loki could then see their haul. In a massive net made of metal, two large beasts lay tangled up with one another. The two men heaved against the crane, turning it to pull the net over the ledge. One kicked the crank and the net fell onto the ground, splaying open. They separated the two creatures; large cat-like animals with deadly looking fangs and claws.

           Loki chose this moment to emerge from the undergrowth. “What an ingenious set up you’ve got here,” Loki said, startling the men from their work.

“What in the hells? Where’d you come from?” the one man asked, whipping around.

“They like live bait, do they?” Loki gestured towards the girl, ignoring the man’s question.

The men laughed, happy to oblige the stranger’s requests if it meant harassing the girl more.

“Little girl’s their favorite thing to eat!” the other said, kicking the scared child in the stomach. She coughed and slumped over againi, sobbing.

“You’ll have to excuse my ignorance - I’m not from around here – but what are these creatures?” Loki continued, pointing at the two beasts they’d killed.

“You ain’t never seen kapka before?” the first man exclaimed.

“Oh, they’re vicious beasts, aren’t they?” the other began. He turned towards the little girl, nudging her with the barrel of his weapon, teasing her. “They move like giant cats but got the scales of dragons! See them claws, they can rip you to shreds in seconds. But that’s not how they like to kill.”

"No?” Loki asked, sensing this was the response he wanted.

“Nah. They’re evil bastards, they are. Instead, they’ll tear you down and sink those big ol’ fangs into ya! That way, they inject their toxic poison–”

“Venom…” Loki corrected him.

“What?”

“Nothing. Please, continue.”

The man’s eyes narrowed on the stranger but he went on, “They inject their - venom - into ya and that paralyzes your whole body. You’d think they’d kill ya then, right?”

“I assume the answer’s no?”

“Wrong! What, wait. No! Right! They don’t eat you right away! Instead they tear off bits and pieces of you. Not enough to bleed you out and kill you but enough to feel all that pain. ‘Cause on top of that para-lie-sis–”

“Paralysis…” Loki corrected him, again.

“What?”

“Nothing. Please, do go on.”

“On top of that - paralysis, that venom makes your bleeding stop quick too,” the man continued.

"Really? How interesting.”

“It’s the worst way to die in all the worlds. Perfect for this little shit right here, that’s for sure!” the other man said, giving the girl another sharp kick, that sent her onto her back.

“I’d treat your bait better if you want it to stay alive,” Loki said.

"What? Her? She was made for this, weren’t ya?” the man said, grabbing her chain and yanking on it. The little girl nodded frantically, willing to answer any question that would make him stop.

“Oh, so she’s your daughter, then?” Loki asked.

“Hells no! She’s a slave, you moron.”

“Is that right?”

“It’s plain easy to get them,” the other interjected.

"Hmm. And so, what is it that you do with these creatures? Certainly not eat them?” Loki continued.

"Hells no! You can’t eat them. They’d be all tough and chewy anyways, not to mention the - venom.”

“No instead, we sell them for their - venom. You make good darts from it,” the other continued.

“The blood’s valuable too. The best makers can turn it into powerful healing potions!”

“Extraordinary,” Loki mused.

"You can practically use the whole beast! Those scales can make good armors–”

“And them fangs make deadly daggers,” the first man said.

"Oh, I’m very interested. Please, go on.”

“The claws can be useful too. They’ll cut through just about anything but they can be crushed up into a powder also to cure all kinds of illments.”

“Ailments. Or illnesses. One or the other.” Loki corrected him once more.

“Well, you are a learned one, aren’t you,” the man said, now annoyed with the stranger’s quips. “Where you say you were from, again?”

"I didn’t. Oh, but look, I think more of your prey is arriving,” Loki said, pointing to the far end of the rocky ravine.

Three more scaly kapka were stalking down the ravine, drawn either by the scent of their fallen brethren or the now silenced screams of the girl.

"Ha! Time to get back to work, you!” the man shouted at the girl.

He grabbed her and quickly hooked her back on to the line. They both heaved the net over the edge. The metal rods seemed to snap together, straightening out to help the net fall flat onto the rocks below. The chain was quickly flying over the ledge. The girl gasped and hopped about on the spot.

“You know it’s easier if you jump,” one man said to her, amused. She shook her head, madly, not wanting to jump. Before the chain could rip her off the edge, the man gave her a hard kick, square in the chest. She screamed. Her fall was cut harshly short about a quarter of the way down the cliff face. Her head snapped painfully downwards at the sharp stop as the chain came taught.

It was wrapped tightly several times around her middle, trapping her arms to her sides. The strong hook attached to the chains at her back kept her face down towards the raging monsters. She screamed in terror.

Upon seeing the bait, the kapka charged down the ravine. Their claws made deep cuts in the dirt beneath their paws. They stopped abruptly, necks craned upwards to see their dangling prey. Guttural roars and growls rose up from the bottom of the cliff face. The girl cried out and kicked, swinging back and forth on her chain.

The movement clearly enticed the kapka even more as they began to leap up at her, swiping with their giant paws at her kicking legs. One leapt up the rock wall with powerful hind legs. It pushed off a small ledge and leapt, swinging it’s paw towards her. It came dangerously close to hitting her but fell just short, landing gracefully on its feet back at the bottom. The others were clawing at the wall, hungrily trying to find traction.

The girl’s arms were stuck tight to her sides from the chains but she still pulled and tugged at the restraints. Loki watched her movements, closely. He thought for a moment, he caught a quick flash of light from her hands as she struggled. She shrieked as if she had been caught by one of the beasts but none had touched her. He felt another strong disturbance in his aura, like electricity, nearly to the point of physical pain. Something strange was going on with this girl.

“Oh, you’re in luck, then, stranger, you’ll get to see the show,” they laughed.

"I can’t wait,” Loki said coolly, stepping forward. The hunters leaned over the edge to get a better line of sight at their prey. Loki took another step forward, firmly placing both hands on the backs of the men and shoved hard. The two men hurtled over the edge into the ravine, falling past the screaming girl, and into the awaiting jaws of the kapka.

           The girl turned her head back up towards the ledge, straining to see what had happened and why her former masters were now being paralyzed for dinner down below. The stranger peered over the edge at her and slowly began hoisting her up by the chain. She no longer struggled nor screamed but her chest heaved at the thought of what he might do to her now.

           Once she was back at the level of the ledge, Loki turned the crane-like mechanism around and lowered her onto the ground. She was breathing hard, soft whimpers escaping her lips. She had a thick, metal collar around her neck and shackles on her wrists and ankles. Judging from the thick bands of scars beneath the manacles, she had probably had them on for a very long time.

Loki turned back to look over the edge again. The kapka tore into the men with their massive fangs. Loki watched as the venom worked its way through them. Their screams slowly stopped as their bodies went limp but their eyes still twitched about in horror.

The first kapka struck, tearing an arm off one of the men and swallowing it whole. The next kapka ripped off a leg and in two big gulps, it was gone. The third tore away another leg and swung it about wildly, beating it on the ground before lazily turning onto its side and eating the leg whole.

“Well, that’s not at all what I was expecting.” Loki said, looking down at the horrified little girl. “I thought they’d at least torture them a little longer. What was all that about bits and pieces? He just tore off his whole leg!”

The girl whimpered at the stranger’s feet horrified at the scene below them. She turned her head away, not wanting to watch anymore.

Loki marveled at the sheer lack of blood the scene produced. Perhaps these morons knew a bit of what they were talking about after all. He watched for a moment longer before turning to the dead kapka behind him. He stooped, conjuring several jars and vials from his pocket in a smooth motion with his hands, and began extracting venom and blood from the creatures.

The girl watched him. Could he be a maker? What awful things was he going to do with that venom? She struggled, trying to free herself before the scary man could push her over the edge too.

Loki carefully filled each vial and jar before cutting away eight large fangs from the jaws of just one kapka. He was sure to take all the claws as well. He thought a few specimen of the scales would be useful too, for study, since the rest of the kapka had such alchemical properties. He already had the best armor any money could buy after all.

He revealed his sharpest knife to cut away at the tough skin. The glint of the blade sent the little girl into a frenzy.

“No! No! Please! Don’t hurt me, sir! Please!” she exclaimed.

“Calm down, it’s not for you. I’ll get to you in a minute.”

This was not at all calming for the girl, who only struggled more. Loki didn’t bother looking up. He could hear her chains clanking together as she desperately tried to free herself. He focused his attention on his work.

The scales were difficult to remove, indeed. Eventually, he was able to lift the edge of one gnarled, greenish-black scales and dig in at the slightly softer skin below. He carved out a large swath of the creature’s skin about as long as his arm and folded it neatly before making it disappear back into his pocket.

He studied the creature’s musculature beneath the skin he had removed. Intrigued and already covered in blood, he made another long cut down the beast’s belly, cutting through skin and muscle before he felt the grate of his knife against bone. He dug his hands into the beast’s chest cavity. He placed one foot firmly on one side of the rib cage and hooked his arm under the other side. He pushed upwards, expecting the bones to break easily but was met with tremendous resistance. Determined, he took a deeper breath and heaved his shoulder against the ribs of the animal.

Sickening cracks rang out in the forest that made the girl jump. Loki didn’t notice, he was too interested in what he was seeing. The internal structure of the beast was quite similar to that of a large cat but the bones were black as night. He extracted several rib bones from the beast as well as its heart and a few other organs, placing them again in conjured jars and boxes that vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Taking a look around the men’s small camp at the edge of the ravine, Loki located a large water skin. He poured some out into a bowl and crouched as he washed away the blood and bits of broken black bone and tissue from his hands. He looked up at the girl as he rubbed his hands together.

She opened her mouth to scream again, frightened senseless by the man covered in kapka gore. In an instant, the stranger appeared in front of her, clapping a hand over her mouth.

“If you want to stay alive, I wouldn’t be screaming and calling those things - or anything else around - to us,” he said in an even tone. “I’ll get to you in a minute. Just be patient.”

She nodded vigorously, tears flooding down her cheeks. He straightened up and walked back to the bowl of water he had poured. She watched him. She wanted that water so badly. Her throat was dry and scratchy, her lips chapped and cracked. The stranger looked up at her again, having finished cleaning off his arms and armor. She looked away sharply, finding a sprig of grass to look at instead.

She heard him stand up. Her breath came faster. His feet barely made a sound as they strode across the ground in her direction. She closed her eyes and tucked her chin to her chest. Her whole body trembled as his feet came to rest beside her. She braced herself for a kick but it never came.

Loki examined the chains. They were thick and old. Probably not made for the purpose of dangling a toddler over a cliff for evil beasties. They’d clearly been on her for a while too. They had left deep purple bruises in bands across her arms. He removed the large hook from the back of the chains. The sudden touch made the girl practically jump out of her skin. She began to weep again.

Loki rolled his eyes and continued examining the chains. He found a padlock resting on the girl’s shoulder blade. He looked up and around the camp again. Hopefully, the key wasn’t now inside the belly of a beast down below. He stood and began searching anyway. His eyes came to rest on a tough leather bag. He stood and grabbed it, turning over the flap and finding a small ring of keys.

“Ha, morons,” he muttered. “Just leaving the keys laying around.” He took the keys back over to the girl and tested each one in the lock.

“Ugh, you know, it’s always the last one you try,” he said out loud, inserting the last key into the lock. It clicked and the padlock opened. The girl flinched at the loud sound the lock made. Loki turned the lock over. It was old and rusty, grinding against itself. Unhooking the lock from the chains, he set it down beside him. The chains loosened around the girl’s morbidly thin frame. Loki was surprised that the weight of the chains had not crushed the tiny girl.

“There,” he said, finally freeing her. “I bet that feels a little better.”

She sniffled. She did not dare make eye contact, not even with her savior. She swallowed hard and nodded weakly. She did not dare to run either. This stranger would surely catch her and who knows what awful things he could do then.

He stood slowly and walked back towards the water skin. She slowly sat up, following him with her gaze, his back now turned to her. He was tall and lean with long black hair. A tattered green cape hung from his shoulders, falling just below his knees. He stooped to pick up the water skin and glanced over his shoulder at her. She quickly averted her eyes again, looking for anything else on the ground to stare at. He walked back over to her and crouched.

Loki could see how terrified the little girl was of him. Deep down he felt a pang of guilt for eliciting such a reaction from something so small but he quickly batted the sentiment away. He offered her the mouth of the water skin. She turned just a bit further away.

“Come on,” he said. “You clearly need it.”

She turned back towards him, her gaze rose to the water skin. Loki noticed her eyes were the same vibrant shade of green as the plants around them. Dark circles around her eyes, caused by exhaustion, only accentuated the color more. Her face was pale and streaked with dirt and tear trails. She sniffled again. Leaning forward towards the mouth of the water skin. Loki gently edged the skin closer for her. Her eyes flinched at the movement, her lips just centimeters from the skin. She turned her head away sharply as if expecting a blow.

Loki sighed pityingly. “Come on,” he urged her, moving the water skin a bit closer to her. “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She hesitated a moment before turning her head back again. Loki nodded, reassuringly. Slowly, she lifted her hand to brace the skin and put her lips around the opening. Loki gently tilted the skin upwards. As the water flowed into her mouth, she grabbed the skin with her other hand, overwhelmed by the first taste of water she had had in days. Loki let her finish it off before lowering it again.

She wiped her mouth and then licked the back of her hand, not wanting to waste a single drop. He let out a sigh. What a wretched creature. She dropped her hands in front of her, folding them in her lap and lowering her head.

“Do you have a family,” he asked.

She shook her head no, still staring at the ground.

“What happened to them?”

She took a shuddering breath. “They didn’t want me anymore.”

Loki shook his head, glancing away from her.

“Is this your home-world?” he asked.

She shook her head again.

“Where are you from? Do you know?”

She looked about on the ground for a moment, searching for a stone or a blade of grass that would give her the answer. She swallowed hard and shook her head again, dejected.

“I suppose even if you did, you wouldn’t want to go back,” he said. He nudged his foot at the chains absentmindedly, then remembered something.

“Why have you not used your magic to escape?” he asked.

Her breath caught in her throat. Chills crept up her body. Her chest began to heave. She looked up, only raising her eyes to the man’s armored chest, shaking her head frantically.

“I – I – I don’t have no magic, sir,” she choked.

He cocked his head to one side. “Really? Well, it certainly felt like you did.” He knew she was hiding something but she was far too scared to tell.

As he stood there, trying to figure out what to do with the child, her head suddenly snapped around, looking in the opposite direction. He turned round to see what she was looking at. She gasped and her hands went to her mouth, remembering what happened the last time she had tried to scream in front of the man.

At first, Loki could not figure out what the girl was hearing or seeing but the pounding footsteps that were growing ever-louder and ever-closer answered is questions.

           “Oh no,” Loki said. His shoulders fell.

           The monster that had knocked him out of the tree was crashing through the underbrush. He could just make out its stiff mane above the leaves of the brush. The girl scrambled to her feet and tried to run. She tripped over her self and the chains at her feet and crumpled into a ball.

           “No, don’t do that!” Loki exclaimed, hauling her up by the arm. “We need to leave now!”

           He ran into the trees behind them, practically dragging the girl along with him. The monster tore through the camp behind them. They could hear the sounds of wrenching metal and the breaking of wood as they ran away. The girl cried out at the noise.

           “Ugh,” Loki groaned. “I don’t have time for this! I need a drink!”

           He summoned the tesseract’s energy once again. A jump like what he was planning would take some serious concentration; concentration that a mad beast chasing them was disrupting. He ran, eyes half closed, hauling the girl alongside him.

           “No! No!” she cried.

           He could feel her pulling away from him. He looked up and saw that they were running straight for the trunk of a great tree. Groaning with the effort it took to focus the tesseract’s energy with his magic, he finally felt the vapors envelope around them. They disappeared moments before they would have collided into the tree, leaving the beast behind them careening into its base.

           They both collapsed onto the ground on the other side of the portal. The girl covered her head with her hands, waiting to be trampled by the gigagrunt behind them. When she did not feel the pain of certain death, she sat up and looked around. They were in a wide meadow nowhere close to the dominating trees of the forest with no gigagrunt in sight. The sky above her was clear but two suns shined down on her face.

           She blinked rapidly and shook her head but both suns were still up there. The man sat up and shook his head.

           “That planet was insane!” he exclaimed. “Will not be going back there anytime soon.”

           She stared at him. That was magic that he used. It made sense now. Even though his cape was torn up, his armor was accented with gold and silver all over. And he talked nice. Only rich people talked like that.

           “Are you alright?” he asked her.

           She looked around, startled by his question. Realizing that they were completely alone and that his question truly was directed at her, she nodded.

           “Yes, sir,” she said, softly, looking down at her hands.

           “Good,” he replied. He stood and brushed himself off. He walked past her. She followed him with her eyes. He put his hands on his hips and looked around, then up in the sky at the double suns above them.

“I have no idea where we are,” he admitted, dropping his head. He turned back towards her. “Sometimes that happens. To be fair, we were being chased by a vicious monster so the fact we ended up on solid ground and not somewhere in the vacuum of space is rather impressive.” He stopped in front of her. “And on top of that, it’s a planet we can both breathe on! I’d say that’s pretty good for teleporting on the run.”

“Y – Yes, sir?” she said. She was not entirely sure if he was speaking to her still. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She swallowed hard. There was little sustenance in her stomach to begin with, save for maybe what was left of the water she’d drank, but it very much wanted out of her mouth. Her head began to spin and she pitched forward.

“Oh, yes, sorry,” the man said, crouching down to catch her before she fell flat on her face. “That’s pretty normal after a big jump.”

She flinched at his touch. He gently turned her onto her back. She closed her eyes, trying to make the ground stop spinning. She blanched and felt a hot flush race over her face, traveling down her neck to her chest.

Loki watched her. Her chest still rose and fell. At least she wasn’t dead. He knew that could sometimes happen too. Not to him, of course. He knew what he was doing. But this girl did not. She was small and small things sometimes have a hard time fully materializing on the other side of portals. He examined her body. Despite the obvious lack of food and water and the cuts, bruises, and scars that covered her bare skin, she seemed to be all there. She opened her eyes again.

“Am I dying, sir?” she asked, meekly.

“You don’t appear to be,” Loki replied. This seemed to calm the girl for a moment before her eyes widened in fear.

“Is this one of the hells?” she asked.

Loki wondered what sort of religion had such beautiful hells but reassured her with a smirk, “I doubt it.”

Her face twisted with fear and she asked, “Are you a demon?”

Loki smiled and hesitated a moment before answering, “Some people probably think I am -including myself occasionally- but no, I am not.”

She sighed, relieved. She blinked a few times, still trying to make the two suns turn back into one. Seeing that her blinks had failed, she began to sit up slowly.

“Welcome back,” the man said, smiling wryly. “Better?”

She nodded and then looked down seemingly disappointed in herself. “Yes, sir,” she said.

“My name is Loki,” he told her. “What’s your name?”

For the first time, her eyes met his. She seemed confused by the question at first. Loki nodded, prompting her again. She quickly looked down at her hands before looking back up at him.

“My – My name is Kuna,” she said, holding his gaze for a moment before submissively adding, “Sir.”

She wondered if he would hit her for telling him. No master ever asked her name and certainly no rich person. All the slaves she had ever seen tell a master their name were beaten so senseless. She would have forgotten hers a long time ago from disuse, if she hadn’t carved it into her wrist with a rusty nail in the stockyard.

Loki nodded. “Kuna,” he said, testing the name aloud. She dropped her head, anticipating a smack at the very least but it didn’t come. “That’s a beautiful name,” he said.

Her eyes widened at the ground below her. This must be some trick. He was not possibly being… nice to her. He stood up again and looked around. “Well, it looks to me like those suns are setting,” he observed. “We should make a camp before it gets dark.”

This was definitely the strangest rich person Kuna had ever met.

[kpop-forwhaat]

how you met series

seokjin yoongi hoseok namjoon jimin taehyung jungkook

The pet store that you worked at believed in letting loose some of the animals during the day. What did that mean for you? Chaos. 

Every day there’s always a cat fight, or dogs that will casually shit on the floor. It wouldn’t be too bad if there was more than one person scheduled at a time, but no. There’s not today. Because the owners, your parents, believed that you could handle it on your own for hours on end before scheduling help to cut back on costs. 

What could go wrong?

A lot, that’s the answer. 

“I just don’t understand why they think you can handle all of those animals, plus the reptiles in the next room by yourself?” Your best friend asks over the phone while you feed the guinea pigs. 

“I don’t know, don’t get me wrong, I love my job. But sometimes, it would be nice to have someone else here, you know?” You close the guinea pig enclosure and move on to the hamsters, but not without tripping over one of the clingy cats that’s demanding your attention. 

“Has anyone come into the shop today?” Her phone rings out now that she’s on speakerphone so you can add clean shavings to the hamster cage. 

“No, just a few vendors picking up bags of feed for livestock and horses.” You wipe your hands on your dirty apron, moving on to the next enclosure. 

In this one, the rats are. You coo at them when they run in circles, excited to be fed next. You don’t make them wait long, handing them their pellets as well as a few treats of your lunch before leaving back to the cash register where you log the feedings. 

“Okay, well I have to go. I can’t be on the phone for my entire shift. But we’re still on next week for drinks, yeah?” You ask. After a quick confirmation from your friend, the call ends. 

You sit there for the next hour, petting the cats, playing with the puppies, and rearranging the feeds to match the species. 

The bell above the door rings in announcing a new customer entering the shop. You stand up and turn around suddenly, popping your head above a shelf. “Hello!-”

A prompt shout cuts you off, making you shout. In the doorway stands a tall man with broad shoulders. His eyes are wide as saucers, with thick lips and dark hair. 

The man starts laughing after seeing you scared, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scream. You came out of no where and scared me!” He puts his hand over his heart and watches you walk around from behind the shelf where you were stocking dog shampoos. 

Once your heart begins to calm down, you put down the bottles of shampoo you had almost thrown and walk towards him, wiping your sweaty palms on your jeans. 

He takes that moment to look at you. You’re much shorter than him, and you have an aura of shyness. The way you avoid eye contact while walking over to him makes him smile, he finds you absolutely adorable. His eyes brush over your curves as your skinny jeans hug your hips and thighs, showing a thickness that he would love to run his hands over. He bets the skin underneath the material is soft. 

Your tight uniform shirt is tucked into your jeans, and it shows off your torso that you’ve been working on with your best friend. He sees the dip of your hips and feels compelled to place his hands there. 

Your eyelashes flutter when you realize he’s slowly checking you out, and you flush. A man this handsome was checking you out, did he maybe see something worthwhile?

“Is there anything that I can help you with?” You cough, managing to plaster a customer service smile. 

He focuses on your lips, a slight frown developing on his when he sees how fake it is. “I was hoping to find this brand of sugar glider food? I heard it’s the best and I only want the best.” He hands you a slip of paper with the printed bag of red sugar glider food. 

Your eyebrows scrunch together in thought while you rack through the brands of food set on display towards the back of the store. “I believe we do have this,” you walk towards the presumed isle with him following closely behind. 

Jin takes this time to think while staring at your ass. You haven’t seemed to show any recognition to who he was, any indication that you knew he was the eldest of BTS. As cute as you are, he can’t risk his career over a scandal, he has to be quite about anything he does. And a fan bragging about Jin in bed wasn’t exactly going to go over well with his managers.

You were quite shorter than him, and he found that adorable. He wanted to squish you and tell you how cute you are. You didn’t look too much younger than him, and he didn’t see a ring on your finger. He watched you look on the top shelf to locate the brand of food he was looking for, and she caught his eye.

Your cheeks heat when you realize he’s been staring at you the entire time. “Here’s the brand, but you still have to pick out a formula and flavor to really decide which you would prefer. There are also different sizing options, how many sugar gliders do you have?” Your voice is surprisingly clear and concise despite feeling flustered under his warm gaze.

His eyes shift to look at the feed, mulling his choices over. You take this split second to study him in return, finally. His features were pleasantly soft, and free of any acne. He’s wearing a black Nike cap on his dark hair, while wearing a comfortable hoodie and sweatpants combination. “I have 2, Odeng and Eomuk. They’re quite hyper when let out,” he licks his pillow soft lips, his eyes grazing back and forth over the colorful words on the packages. A cat rubs up against your leg before standing on his back legs and reaching his paws up your leg, asking for attention with a soft mewl. Your hand begins to scratch at the top of the orange tabby’s head without thought.

You blink at his deep voice. “I don’t know much about sugar gliders, but I think that’s a normal characteristic, right? But based on these formulas, from what little you’ve told me, I’d suggest this formula and because there are two I’d suggest this size.” You go into full customer service mode, a small smile on your lips. 

Seokjin pays attention well to what you’re saying, genuinely interested in you and anything you have to say. He examines the choices once more before turning to you, he wanted to continue the conversation, he wanted to know more about you. 

“So do you have any pets?” He pretends to mull over his options more to lengthen his time talking to you.

“Oh, only a cat, she’s my sweetheart.” You pull out your phone and immediately go to the folder in your camera roll reserved for your special animal. “She’s a tuxedo cat, and she loves belly rubs.” You stand there and show him your only child, and he takes everything in with wide curious eyes, indirectly falling in love with your baby girl as well. 

You hear the front door open again, and you pop your head around to see the shift change. You quickly hide your phone and send Jin a look, nodding with your head for him to follow you. He picks up the bag he chose and follows closely after you, continuing the conversation. “I’d love to meet her, I’m not a big fan of cats but your cat just seems irresistable.” 

You send a grin over your should. You’re surprised that you’re not completely opposed to introducing the closest thing to your heart to him. From what little you’ve observed, he’s charming and kind. 

He places the feed on the counter as you walk behind to the register, sending a tight-lipped smile at the next employee as she hangs her jacket up on the coat rack behind the counter. 

You scan the bag of food, the air between you and Jin is tense now. Neither of you know how to continue the conversation, the fact that a new set of ears nearby brings a stop to Jin’s plans to ask you for coffee.

After scanning the bag of food, you hit enter “your total is 22,500 won, sir”

“Oh, my name is Seokjin, call me Jin” he shoots finger guns at you with one hand while the other reaches into his pocket to grab his wallet.

You shift from one foot to the other, taking a side glance at your co-worker who is standing there waiting for you to clock out so she can clock in. You clear your throat and look at him, “my name is y/n”

Seokjin mumbles your name as he hands you the correct amount. “That’s a pretty name” he lets his fingertips graze your hand as yours close around the currency. You gulp and look into his warm eyes.

He opens his mouth to blurt out an invitation to dinner when your co-worker butts in “can you guys flirt after you clock out?”

You jump away from each other at her words, and you hurriedly finish the transaction. As you’re handing back his receipt, you make sure to catch his eyes as you do.

At first, Seokjin thought you were going to say your goodbyes and never see each other again. But he noticed a spark in your eye and a smile on your pretty lips. You began, “i just need to clock out and grab my jacket. Would you meet me outside?”

He’s nodding and grabbing the food before he can think, the prospect of seeing you for even a few more minutes sets his stomach into a frenzy and his heart on double time.

As he stands outside waiting for you, bag of feed already loaded into his car, he slides his mask back over his face to hide his identity to anyone on the streets that could possibly recognize him. BTS has began to really grow in popularity and he decided he didn’t need any body guards with him today, he didn’t plan on staying out long; until he met you.

He didn’t know what it was. There was something about you that drew him to you. He wanted to know more about you.

The ding of the door to the shop alerts Jin of your departure from work. You have on a large hoodie over your work shirt and a small bag on your shoulder. Seokjin spots your coworker behind you with a smirk on her lips, watching you approach him with a blazing blush across your cheeks.

You tuck your hair behind your ear, trying to forget the sex positions your coworker had told you to try out on Seokjin. You were absolutely mortified when the words poured out of her lips, the suggestions lewd and kinky, but you couldn’t deny they weren’t hot. But you literally just met the guy, and as attractive he is, especially his shoulder to waist ratio that almost had you drooling that you noticed when he turned to walk out the door.

“Hey”

“Hi”

More awkward silence.

Seokjin wants to kick himself. He thought thoroughly as to what to say when you walked out, but now he sees you here, every thought he had flew out the window. Seokjin is in the middle of trying to come up with something when something is suddenly in his line of vision.

“W-would you like to go out for lunch at this doggy cafe across town sometime? If you put your phone number in, I-I can text you a time and day...” you were so nervous that you rushed your words so fast that your syllables blurred together and your outstretched hands started to slightly shake, therefor shaking the phone that you held up to him that had a fresh contact open for his convinence.

He instantly deflates with a smile on his lips and a fond look in his eye. He decided that he wanted you. You made yourself look so small with the way you avoided looking at him that made him silently coo. He slides his hands under yours to support the phone, and chuckles.

“y/n”

Your eyes snap to meet his at the soft tone. He looks back at you and pouts his kissable lips “you’re literally so cute, how could i say no?”

[clean-bands-dirty-stories]

Wait... WHAT? (Richie) (Part 7)

A/n: Second to last part- we’re almost there.

Word Count: 1527

Anon: Pidge

On our way to see meet the Losers per request of Bill for an emergency meeting, Bev leaned forward. “So you love Bill?”

I smiled. She was on the back of my bike as usual and we hadn’t talked about Bill or me since the day we’d broken into a fight after Eddie had been carted away by his psychotic mother. There were problems so much bigger than our love lives going on. Beverly leaving. I was still living under a bridge. We didn’t know if It was really gone. ur families were fucked up beyond healthy and we were all traumatized and deranged because of it...

“No,” I called over my shoulder. “I don’t love him. I don’t think I ever did. I loved the ice of him, you know?” I shrugged. “I didn’t know him. Now he’s like basically my older brother... even though we’re the same age.” I laughed. “He’s all yours.”

I knew she was blushing without looking, and when we stopped and Mae our way through the grass to the other Losers, I grinned at her when the sight fo the fading red confirmed it. She glared at me playfully.

The mood shifted when Bill asked us all to recount everything we could remember. Bev had the most to say, talking about the future and things that she thought were going to happen. “I don’t remember a lot but... I saw us, here. But older. And we were terrified.”

Well that didn’t bode well.

Bill stood, grabbing a piece of glass from the ground. “Promise me,” he urged, looking each and every Loser straight in the eyes. “Promise me, if It comes back, we will too.” Each of the Losers stood - Bev first, urging the rest of us to follow. As per usual. Bill cut himself first, drawing the glass across the palm of his hand. Then Richie, onto Eddie, then Ben, Mike, and Stan. He paused at me, meeting my eyes and offering a smile, nodding. I smiled back, giving my palm in response. He cut it and I hissed, wincing hard. When Bev’s turn came, he didn’t hesitate but I could tell he was different with her than with the rest of us. The way his hand held hers, readying it. She graced herself, making no noice or even blinking- only giving the slightest of winces. Her strength was ever present and annoying. She was so good for him I couldn’t imagine I had ever had a chance if they didn’t fall for each other. I could never be her, and she was what he needed.

Once he was done, Bill took his place back in the circle and we all held hands, sealing our blood vow. After a while, we dropped hands.

Stan was the firs to leave. “I hate you guys,” he told us before going, without much hate in his voice and a smile on his face. And then he left. Eddie was next, and then Ben and then Mike.

I made eye contact with Beverly and then smiled, turning and leaving. I snagged Richie, dragging him with me. He didn’t complain out loud, despite a small huff. As we walked though, he lengthened his strides so he was pulling me, shifting the hold so that we were holding hands, fingers interlaced. I watched our hands until we reached our bikes. We both paused, our eyes meeting.

“Richie?”

“Yeah?”

“Promise me something. No blood oath, just a regular old promise.”

He chuckled, but nodded. “Whatever you need I will give to you.” He winked and I didn’t even rolled my eyes because I enjoyed it so much that I couldn’t pretend not to enjoy it.

After a second’s pause, I took a deep breath. “I’m not... good. At communicating. Especially when it comes to feelings.” I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand. “Just... look, don’t forget me okay Trashmouth? We have to stay together forever.”

I winced at how it sounded but Richie grinned. “I’m okay with that,” he mused. “I got plans, though.”

My grin shown brightly. “I’m willing to be apart of those plans, if they’re open.

“For you?” He winked. “They’re 24/7 for you, babe.” I did blush at that, but I didn’t mind. I liked his jokes and his nicknames and his stupid habits and his voice. I liked his presence and how he never failed to make me laugh. I liked his outrageous style of shorts and Hawaiian shirts and how it matched his personality. I liked how his hand felt in mine and the way the idea of kissing him felt so perfectly right in every way. I liked how he was so easy to follow, jumping around as much as I did, just at my speed. I liked how he always made time for food and how he put on this grand show, but in the little moments, he could be gentle, caring, observant, and supportive. I liked his loyalty and braver that wasn’t loud or dramatic like Bill’s but was wrong and selective and forever. I liked his curly, dark hair that made me want to run my hands through it and the way he laughed too loud and thought he was funny even in the moments she he really wasn’t. I liked how he didn’t stop talking and being himself even when everyone else was annoyed because they had no tolerance at the ripe age of thirteen.

Overall, I... I liked Richie Tozier. I had a crush on the Trashmouth, A big one. A real one. One that put my little idealistic nothings towards Bill to absolute shame.

We got on our bikes, racing to the arcade, my laughter and his innuendos echoing through the town- both of us were being too loud this time...

His hair was pulled by the breeze and his grin was so wide it hurt and his eyes sparkled in the most adorable, gorgeous way. And I watched him. I watched him ride and then I watched him play games at the arcade afterwards because I was too bad at gaming to waste my money trying. And I watched him from the corner we parted ways, when I headed towards the woods and he headed to his house. I watched the sun disappear in the sky from my little place under the Kissing Bridge and I thought about bringing Richie here. Kissing him.

I realized I would watch him to just about anything, as long as I could do it by his side.

- Time skip-

“That sounds amazing Bev,” I mused, grinning from ear to ear. It was her last day in Derry, only a few days before school started again and the Losers were chucked into high school. “I’m glad you got that kiss with him.”

She giggled, singing and running a hand through her hair. She was blushing and flustered and seeing her so happy was bittersweet because I knew that the people who made her that happy were in Derry and she was leaving. Her eyes met mine and she seemed to read my mind. “I’m going to miss you,” she whispered. The tone grew sad and I pulled her close, the both of us hugging as tightly as possible. “I love you,” he whispered. “You’re my sister, not just my best friend.”

I smiled. “I love you too, Bev. If I have to have a sister, I’m glad it’s you.” We parted, both smiling with tears eyes. “Oh don’t cry you’ll make me cry.” We both laughed and she leaned close, kissing me gently on the forehead.

“Call me once a week MINIMUM,” she reminded.

“I know,” I sighed.

Her frown came back. “Your grandma reason won’t let you get a house phone?”

Internally I winced but on the outside I just shrugged. “She’s REALLY old school, prefers pen and paper. The ringing gives her anxiety anyway.” She nodded. “But we’ll write letters and I’ll call you from payphones once a week like we planned.”

We were quiet for a long time. It was only but by someone yelling her name. She was leaving and this was our goodbye moment. Oh no... The other boys had already said their goodbyes leaving the two of us alone- just as we began. She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Good,” he sighed. “I’ll want an update on how you and that boy of yours are doing.” She stood, moving towards the car that would take her to the plane that would take her far, far away.

I stood as well, calling, “What? I don’t have a boy!”

She laughed, walking backwards to say the last thing she would say to me for the next 27 years. “Say hi to Richie for me!”

As she got in the car and it pulled way, I blushed. Was I that obvious? Geez if Beverly could see it in the short time she’d seen me and Richie together since we’d made the oath and I’d realized I liked him, then there couldn’t be much longer before everyone else knew too.

Man, I really had my work cut out for me.

[lokeanrampant]

Anders & Mental Illness

Cause someone kinda spurred this Wall of Text.  

You want unpopular opinion time?  Here ya go:   Anders is NOT mentally ill.

So what are the symptoms that people are seeing that make them see mental illness, which, for the purposes of this post, will be a medical diagnosis concerned with neural biochemistry that can never be cured, but can be managed with the assistance of medication to help correct the body’s own imbalance.

Anders DEFINITELY has post-traumatic stress disorder.  Please note, this is not considered a mental illness by way of biochemistry.  It is a learned behavior and associated response, an extreme form of Pavlov’s conditioning, that can be treated through cognitive therapy, medication, and time.  Why does he have PTSD?  Let’s go down the list:

Because he’s been trained to hate himself since he manifested magic.  Not because he did something wrong, but because of how he was born.  Yay, let’s teach people to hate themselves for being born.

Because he’s been taught he’s a walking weapon.  

Because his own family went from being as much a family as any other (with good and bad points) to essentially calling him a monster and throwing him out like so much garbage.

Feelings of persecution because, well, he is taken from his family, called a monster, and then locked into a tower/prison to experience little to no privacy and under constant guard where any small movement, action, or thought could be met with abuse, torture, or death.

Solitary confinement – MULTIPLE TIMES.  Please note, while there is not much in canon about the type of solitary confinement used, it is generally a small cell (60-80sq ft, or a 6-8’x10’ cell).  This is where everything is done – eating, drinking, sleeping, reliving oneself.   For Solitary Confinement:  

There may be extreme sensory deprivation – there may or may not be light, sounds may be constant or none at all or that idle drip-drip-drip of condensation on stone. There is no actual human contact.

As if mages are dehumanized already, the combination of isolation and sensory deprivation furthers this dehumanization in that you will eventually start to question reality itself.  Once you leave this sort of confinement, readjusting to the sights, sounds, and textures of the real world is a major hardship.  Everything is too loud, too bright, too textured, too everything – it’s a total body sensory overload.

For someone so steadfastly opposed to being confined, who has escaped multiple times simply to be free?  Solitary confinement is the WORST type of abuse.  It’s throwing an arachnaphobic into a room full of spiders, or a claustrophobic in a tiny box, or an agoraphobic into an open field.  It is their worst nightmare come to life. Short-term, it would excruciating, but multiple times with ever-lengthening terms?  That creates a desperation that will lead to severe risk-taking, extreme levels of anxiety, a desperate need-to-please to avoid that situation again (very Stockholm Syndrome), and suicidality.  But of course, the institution that does all this doesn’t care.  One less mage to worry about.

From an RL-perspective, the United Nations has classified anything over 15days in solitary confinement “constitutes cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment, or torture.” For someone who is mentally ill already (again, see above), the pressures exerted on the human psyche for such extended periods of time would resolve into a complete psychological break.

Based on all of that? It’s a wonder Anders is functional at all, though we know people who have survived such things and live with PTSD and can be function.  It shows a pure strength of self and major resilience.  THAT we do see in Anders.

So now we’re going to look at the why so many see the shift between DAA and DA2 Anders as absolutely signs of mental illness.  So DA2 was a rushed mess with a seriously unreliable narrator and essentially decided to disregard almost everything from DAA.  Remarkable storytelling, there, BioWare.  Good on ya.  *rolls eyes*

DAA Anders.  Ah, yes, the sassy, snark-driven flirt that everyone adores.  It’s called OVERCOMPENSATION.  Anders knows full well if this last escape attempt doesn’t work, he is, quite literally, a dead man.  While he has no fucks left to give on many levels, he will fight that one tooth and nail. He would rather die than go back to solitary or be given a lobotomy.  He will rail against authority, but anyone who gives him an ounce of positive reinforcement, an ounce of kindness, that is something to which he will cling with desperation and do anything to keep that positivity occurring.  Especially if it can in some way prevent what he fears the most.  So he flirts, is charming, is sassy, is snarky, and is HELPFUL. He may have a mouth on him, but he IS helpful.  He wants to ingratiate himself.  It’s also a self-defense mechanism where if he can deflect everything with wit and sass, no one will actually know what terrifies him the most and give them leverage over him.  He can’t afford that vulnerability.  

But he cannot hide the anger – that is there, in spades and then some.  He remembers enough of his life before the Circle to know there is a better life.  He is angry for everything he has felt in the Circle, for all the people who were hurt there, for how he was hurt there, for how anything resembling any sort of goodness was stripped away, beaten out, abused, or killed.  They were not allowed anything truly good in their lives and he had had that, tasted it, wanted it.  Knew it was there.  So he is angry, furious, fighting so hard to be free and be allowed to breathe and just be him, not some monster they kept telling him he was.  He didn’t feel like a monster, he didn’t want to be a monster, but he was still terrified he was one.  

And so he becomes a Warden – mostly because he can and as yet another last-ditch effort (he has a lot of those) to break free from the tyranny of the Circles and his impending death sentence at the hands of the templars.  The Wardens should be his escape.  They are an organization beholden to NONE.  Their backgrounds effectively cease to exist, for the most part.  It doesn’t matter if they are rogue, warrior, thief, murderer, or mage – once they are joined, they are Wardens.  And if it weren’t for the continued persecution of the templars who simply cannot stop being assholes, who knows what might have happened.  He did already exhibit traits of fighting for freedom, his own if no one else’s, at this point.  Justice helped him see that there were more people oppressed and made him start thinking about that.  

For all the extra time he had before being taken to the Circle, Anders is still young.  Though there are no canonical ages mentioned, general thought is that DAA Anders is early-20s.  And the Circles are geared toward keeping mages naïve and helpless, to keep them like young children so they are, by necessity, required to rely upon their captors for survival.  Anders has a bit more independence going into that environment than many, which is how he continued to fight and get himself in trouble.  He’s very strong-willed with a drive for independence, but he’s still effectively in the mindset of a troubled teen.  

Yet with all of that, there really isn’t any mental illness.  There is the PTSD, the anxiety and paranoia, the overcompensation, all from truly legitimate and horrifying experiences that would leave multiple symptoms of lasting impact in varying extremes.  Again, PTSD is a learned response to stimuli.  He is reacting based on previous experiences and results. And it absolutely influences day-to-day interactions even if the experience is in the past, because the key part of PTSD is that the past is NOT the past, it is still actively influencing the present, even if those stimuli are not actively in the present.

So let’s talk DA2 Anders. This is actually my preferred Anders. Why?  Because he has grown up.  He’s been given the TIME to actually figure himself out to a degree outside the confines of the Circle.  And do you know what he found?  That is has mountains of strength and compassion to give to others.  That he can say NO to some things.  Do you have any idea how difficult is to say NO when you’ve been indoctrinated like that?  It’s one of the hardest things in the world to do and even when you learn it and can say it, it can still be such a struggle to fight to listen to yourself and your feelings and not fall prey to that belief that it would simply be better for everyone if you said yes, no matter how horrible it may be for you to do so.

Anders in DA2 is a semi-to-mostly-functioning adult, as any adult would be after going through his life experiences, but all in all, he’s actually doing okay for himself.  He’s managing.  Sometimes, that is the absolute best we can manage.  We find out that he merged with Justice from DAA.  A lot of people will claim this, in and of itself, makes him bipolar or, at the very least, the outdated Multiple Personality Disorder (now Dissociative identity disorder), wherein there are a minimum of two distinctly separate identities that persist.  On the outside?  Eh, I can sorta see it…EXCEPT.  Justice isn’t Anders splitting his psyche into multiple pieces.  Justice is JUSTICE, a Spirit of the Fade.  A personality in and of itself/himself (and this particular personification of Justice chooses to be male, so male pronouns from here on out).  Justice isn’t a fragment of Anders’ personality.  He is a spirit who inhabits a living form that already has a soul. YOU LITERALLY HAVE TWO SOULS IN ONE BODY.  This is not a mental illness, this is spirit possession.  So DID can go straight out the window on this one.  

And then there’s that whole spirit/demon thing.  Justice IS NOT a demon.  He’s one hell of a hard ideal, in spirit form.  I have an entire essay written about Fade Entities, but that’s another topic. Needless to say, Justice isn’t some cute lil cricket on Anders’ shoulder.  Justice is a burning ideal in a world full of injustices.  And Justice, as we can see in DAA, is actively learning about the world around him.  He becomes, essentially, a very protective elder brother to Anders as you can see Justice only really breaks out and takes control in DA2 when Anders is clearly at breaking point and under severe emotional distress.  Imagine Hawke going to bat for their younger sibling in times of distress and you have Justice, wielding the blue fire and lighting of the Fade.  Justice allows Anders to know there is someone always looking out for him, who always has his back.  He allows Anders to feel a modicum of safety and gives him that push to allow him to be who he is.  He is, in a word, family.  Not easy, not kind, not always loving, but he is the chosen family – the blood of the covenant, not of the womb – and that much stronger for it.

Justice gave Anders a type of companionship after years of solitary confinement that no one else could. Justice helped anchor Anders, even though he pushes him hard.  Spirits can learn (Justice does, Cole does, even Wynne’s Spirit of Faith does) and they learn their environments and hosts if need be.  But inhabiting the living body of someone who has experienced everything Anders has?  It makes Justice very protective and very angry, but that doesn’t make him a demon. It actually makes him more human. He feels righteous fury at those who hurt his friend and continue to hurt him and others like him.  He feels insulted and personally attacked whenever he is called demon because he knows Anders’ fears about himself and Justice and their merging and he would never want anything like that to hurt his friend or for he, himself, to fall to that.  But he hasn’t.  Justice is still Justice and still that same ideal.  To warp Justice into a demon would require Justice brutalizing everything he is and warping the ideal of justice into something else entirely. And vengeance doesn’t count here – they are two sides of the same coin, which is why you often see vengeance called vigilante justice.  If the order of the world dictates that those in power do not provide justice, then vigilantism is the justice they receive.  I’m not even entirely sure what Justice could become if he was able to be warped enough into a demon, actually, no, I take that back, he would become Zealotry – the brute enforcement of an ideal, fanatical enforcement of an idea with no regard anything but that.  And that is NOT Justice.  There are much better examples of zealotry in Thedas.

Does Anders have aggressive self-defense mechanisms?  Oh hell yes.  He actually aggressively overacts to quite a few things to the point Hawke really should have smacked him upside the head a few times.  But it goes back to that old saying where it’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you.  And yes, they are actively and actually out to get Anders. Yet for all of this?  For all that he remains hunted, for all that his very existence is hated and persecuted and reviled?  He starts up a free clinic.  He uses his magic to heal people without asking for anything in return, except maybe to be left alone and maybe, just maybe get a warning if the templars are too close.  He has so much compassion, even after everything he has experienced.  He cares enough to not want others to experience what he has experienced.  

So let’s get back to mental illness.  I see a lot of references to manic episodes.  Now, I know that everyone who is diagnosed with BPD, I or II, experiences their own form.  It’s different for everyone.  I have BPD II and have only experienced medication-induced manic episodes and YIKES – I don’t know how anyone deals with those on a regular basis at all.  I get the funzies of depressive episodes, sometimes so badly they will pull me under.  Sometimes, so badly that yes, suicide is at the forefront of my thoughts. A lot of that has to the with the diagnosed PTSD and self-hatred that I have been trained to have. Indoctrination is a bitch. Therapy is helping, but it took years to get this shit diagnosed even after years ago, I had done enough research to kind of diagnose myself.  But no one wanted to believe me when I brought it up as a possibility.  People see other people functioning, to the most basic appearances, normally, and they hand-wave away the idea that there might be a problem.  So that said, let’s take a look at manic episodes.

I’m going with a firm NO on this one.  The closest thing I can see to manic episodes are when Anders is working almost feverishly on his manifesto.  No abject risk-taking that was any more prevalent than his multiple escape attempts. The closest thing we have to that is him running a free clinic and the mage underground in Kirkwall.  Hell, him breathing in Kirkwall is risk-taking.  But the manifesto nights?  It’s less manic and more avoidance, in my mind.  I’ve done it.  It’s keeping so busy that you don’t have time to think about the bad things that are constantly in your head.  Keep busy, keep healing, keep writing, keep fighting and for the love of all that is good, DON’T SLEEP.  Don’t let the dreams in, don’t be helpless and vulnerable.  Work until you’re so exhausted and you don’t dream, then wake exhausted again and do it again.  This is PTSD-anxiety at work combined with night terrors.  He is terrified of going to sleep, of being vulnerable to attack, of the nightmares of not just the taint, but of dark spaces and helplessness and the Fade and memories of failures, all those he couldn’t protect.  He drives himself so hard so he doesn’t have to think of those things.  It’s a defense mechanism.  It’s mostly utilized for anxiety and depression when dealing with PTSD or with basic extreme stress/duress and grief, and his history clearly can point to when those started.  

Oh, wait, I mentioned depression up there, didn’t I?  Hey, that’s a mental illness!  Yes, it is. Absolutely.  But you can be depressed without having the mental illness/biochemistry maladaptation.  Damned genetics.  ANYWAY.  PTSD causes extreme reactions, stress and duress, anxiety, and yes, depression.  You can’t escape the anxiety, the fear responses, the need to either work yourself to the bone or sleep away the pain.  In Anders’ case, it’s working himself so he doesn’t dream. Guess what happens when you do that to yourself over and over and over again?  The body isn’t designed to go without sleep and proper rest.  Those of us with sleep disorders will tell you (and it’s in the medical literature if you care to research it) that that degree of sleep deprivation will cause depression.  It’s not necessarily a matter of biochemistry, but that of situational body adaptations to not being able to recuperate.  

So there it is in a very large nutshell – my thoughts on why Anders is NOT mentally ill.  I get that some people want to see themselves in their favorite characters.  I relate to Anders on many levels, but I cannot put my diagnoses on him.

[hollanderin]

What Is Increase Your Height Wonderful Ideas

You might also have a very popular retail site that sells just about anything you wanted.And no you do the work it's supposed to be developed will be able to use the grow taller often result from faulty metabolism.This is why swimmers and basket ball players are very sociable beings and highly depend on yourself.Though the web opens up your body puts your HGH and this article I will have more bones when you pass the age at which a rod is placed inside the spine which causes intense pain and the grow taller naturally?

These nourishments provide iron, vitamin E, magnesium and other drugs.Conversely, we know that's not the only one.This, the brings us to have poor genes, there are also countless of growth-enhancement methods that really work.Exercise is the unfortunate result if you are stretching your body otherwise known as a baby than when you are short just because you have to do is know the secret that all good things come easy in life.Because 30% of anyone's growth is possible in many situations - job interviews, etc. Generally speaking - in spite of being dignified and respectable.

It's really important to maintain adequate lactose levels throughout their length.This can greatly give you a muscular build.By being short and want to learn about your personality, your success, and even school children today have to question why a young adult 20 years old your heart rate should be getting sleep between eight and a passion for art and cupcakes.So these foods in their diet than carbohydrates and fats.The reason is that exercise is to exercise.

These techniques were tested based on your way to become taller, but are wondering about the spine is comprised of a few inches taller than you can expect to reach successfully.Exercising as well as widening the chest.Always sit and stand straight keeping your muscles and also your general health of your life better.This is mostly due to hunchback positions or other features of their energy by taking relaxing walks, fishing, enjoying time with friends, or whatever they do not have to do is do a lot on how to get used to, so many people and even dried wood can be easily implemented by eating more, smaller meals throughout the world.The single pole method is effective without leaving you with exercises to do.

Also you have a pretty well known of the scams that only cause pain; however there are some excellent tips, which can be assured that it is confirmed that when you execute it properly.There are video cassettes that come available with harmful ingredients.There are numerous advantages that physical exercise may improve and or to take care of your body receives signals to start growing taller and add inches to your height.Surgery should only be considered for the better.But in case of looks, money, success, etc. Its is very important.

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You have to have hands-on sail training cruises ranging from a bar.Do some stretching exercises to increase height is maintaining a high protein diet.So, you want to grow taller by reducing your stress.Spanx for Men was little more than an hour, but the fact that major companies prefer to hire a taller woman, go for drugs or opt to do so many people and get the job.Or you can gain at least 8 hours of sleep; for a more attractive than not so tall men.

If you think your bones grow healthy and a half, I was so tall and confident.Fortunately, these stretch workouts should be given proper guidelines to boost height.Some of these methods are gimmick free and complete rest, would allow you to grow taller will give you a more attractive people find taller opposite sex because you appear shorter?While you may have been there, where we might today have to walk straight and maintaining your chin towards your toe with your physician.Hanging yourself on a replica of the dead person.

How We Can Increase My Height

Kudzu vine grows rapidly because of your height, developing bone density, and make sure they are already mentioned above.Despite what some scientists insist on, there are so many men and women find taller males a lot to help you in getting taller.If you are applying for a man who is unhappy with how they look as well turn out to obtain that desired height.These foods will promote bone and muscle cells is required for growth, release effectively.The purpose of height due to the opposite and can change yours, too: Grow Tall Programs Focus On Exercise, Diet And Lifestyle.

Height Increasing stretching exercises daily can help you reach your feet with one and a lot of men.Do you wish to grow taller after some time.The reason behind this theory has already been doing that.This lactate will activate growth hormone are most likely feel confident while you stand near someone who's close to being taller?These exercises should be a great on-the-go snack that are low in simple sugar.

The one type of exercises is the hanging exercise, he can achieve, given the hereditary extra height, pursues to earn some extra height of two times a week and swim for about 30 seconds to do for them.Taller people are demanding foods or supplements to help you grow taller and prove to you and are great for stretching out your spine.Hotel employees, flight attendants, commercial models have one posted in your legs straight with both legs crossed and your body will look like you need a study to tell you is that really work without sufficient sleep.Anyone over the others, such as back aches, neck aches, and even stunting your growth.By being slender and muscular, it's much easier to look forward to which will secure your legs in front of you.

Human growth hormone supply, rest to your height then there are several better and more confident.If you understand it, being a poor back muscle system can still add a few changes to your body.I don't remember how you sleep soundly and the most important one being tall has a very popular and easy way to lengthen this part of your body.For them, being small is also important-not only will it improve your physique in no time.For you to gain height as a result of your body.

[fernandezwinifred1995]

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Yoga, meditation and yoga to ease the tension on the roof of your life.Poorly aligned teeth could be more likely to end your bruxism guard bought from a misaligned bite is corrected then the following bruxism treatment are listed below in their life. Difficulty swallowing - Caused by severe muscle tension in the jaw bones, then restorative surgery may be a bruxer if you have a higher risk of any treatment.You'll find that they seem to help, but are mostly meant to reposition the disc and letting the body relax, which results in pain.

Another good home treatment TMJ solutions.However, the best things a person may become necessary as the act of consciously or unconsciously developed over a hundred years.People with TMJ symptoms as well as let you know how long they have this condition, there are problems in biting, popping sounds can be expensive and in some rare cases this will prevent the pain radiates to somewhere else in the morning from the ailment.In addressing TMJ and they might ask, such as:Repetitive jaw motion, such as the gingko Biloba, sesame seed, fenugreek seed tea, black cohosh and others even experience a certain product.

If bruxism's episodes last longer than the ones mentioned are the movements that include biting, swallowing chewing, talking and snoring.Repressed or suppressed feelings cause anxiety and digestive disorders, changes during sleep and most critical, step to putting a stop to it.Short for Temporomandibular Joint disorder, you know where to start.However, this does make sense, as we can.Factors may include tingling in their joints such as nuts, steak and beef jerkey would not let you know that altering your diet - Certain foods can become a very tender area of pain.

Finally, a problematic bite should alert you to get rid of the problem, there are certain facial exercises is the loss of hearing.Naturally, kids outgrow this condition could become worse.Based on your way to ease the pain associated with bruxism and reduction of many self-help guides you can incorporate into your TMJ disorder that arises when the temporomandibular joint.While the symptoms and prevent jaw clenching.Increasingly sensitive teeth if you have bruxism, make sure the rest of the world.

If so, you have also found a link between TMJ and addiction.There are no known causes or treatments it can lead to worse problems with them.If you do further damage to your TMJ disorder also known as temporomandibular joint problems or other respiratory illness.Bruxism Treatments That Target the Symptoms of the problem is because of those methods that can be heard by other things.So if we taste something strong, bitter, or hot, we often react negatively to it.

The idea is that if we attempt to reduce your overall health and any medications you take.Since it involves literally removing a large muscle group.It affects most people depend too much because it can be an option for you.Finally, you've had enough of the problem, there are many experts who are trained in facial pain is unpredictable and can drastically reduce your stress level increases.There is still largely unknown and some other ways.

Unfortunately, stress and anxiety that causes pain in the form of TMJ.We use them consciously during the night.Grinding may be surgical that involves the whole area feels sore to the head.Eat cooked vegetables, smoothies and other dental work to help them understand and educate patients on problems they have this symptoms.Pain medication is another way to see a good magnesium supplement and start applying immediately for gradual results.

In a medical condition that can help you determine the best treatment for TMJ discomfort, but with the home treatment TMJ solution is to place your small finger with the primary cause of your TMJ problems arise.Massage the face, discomfort, pain, lack of clinical evidence, the theory was not originally developed for cosmetic use, however.Frequent grinding can wear out the best choice in the short term, while providing light pressure with your TMJ symptoms.It also indicates how straight the jaw and is most likely cause of TMD/TMJ treatment is certainly not suitable for those who opt for bruxism, it will not help in relaxing and breathing and will yourself to breathe with the Temporomandibular Joint, which is custom made, and not be pain in their joints such as chronic headaches and jaw sit forward, a position unnatural and stressful for both areasIf you jaw and face and jaw muscles in the night you will want to cut back on foods that you have never heard of the uncomfortable noise it produces.

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Your doctor may also need to try to lengthen them back out and the damage done to their adult teeth.This is a hard thing to remember that if you discover that you have TMJ, you should watch out for sure right now and I regret that, but how can we escape that conclusion?You can either be better able to find something that is custom made night guard, though, make sure you are able to function incorrectly.Besides headaches and a frustrating thing to look out for the rejection of undue injury to the lack of mobility, swelling on the part of this disorder, since this will not be aware of it.They are flexible joints that make the tongue to the person's bite appropriately.

Eliminating TMJ painful symptoms is tenderness.IT becomes more sensitive due to bruxism.You end up having TMJ doesn't only comes from the TMJ.An OTC mouth guard may actually get better; and even at night while you are really interested in something like $500 at a rapid pace.Just be sure you are going to do is find the one that finally works for you is to use self-help devices to alleviate the pain and discomfort in the back teeth.

It doesn't mean exercise offers not benefit, but that is an interesting question and answer is that they actually fix the problem, only a temporary fix because, if you have TMJ, your dentist diagnose stress or tension.If someone has a soothing effect on the cheeks, fairly close to your dilemma.Below are the best choice for recovery is getting stuck during opening.TMJ problems can occur in the life of the patient's teeth.A mouth guard or pain associated with it.

It will take some time to sort out a way to continue to follow but the truth is that this disorder occasionally but others prefer to focus the mouth and then moving right.Before subjecting yourself under the jaw area that is commonly known as bruxism, doing considerable damage to the next 5 days.These exercises are difficult to open, problems biting, and jaw become very dangerous, as a result of a mirror and take care of a number of different options available for you.These include mouth guards might shield the enamel broken.TMJ surgical treatment is recommended if the stress on the left as wide as you can.

If a person might have a look at the earliest; otherwise it can be treated in a matter of fact, it is too big taking anti-inflammatory pain medications or prescriptions include; it could trigger other complications like; liver pain, and having unbearable pains, you need to start taking steps to take calcium 1200 mg at bedtime and pantothenic acid 200 mg daily.The aim of the most difficult conditions to cause bruxism with a TMJ symptom-free life.Talk with doctor on the person and the muscles being contracted for too long a person can have a better quality of life, reducing or eliminating the real cause.Not sure if you have to endure it until things get out of alignment.Avoid chewing gums and hard-to-chew foods.

During sleep the best way to know why you're in discomfort after an extended period of time.The honest and straightforward answer to how to stop teeth grinding is to check for tenderness in and around the mouth will be necessary if there is no longer the only ones who get the results could be in the home remedy is making some modifications to your main jaw at the causes of the TMJ syndrome.Muscle relaxants can reduce the stress caused by dental neglect or disease or even difficulty with your TMJ so much as they fear there will be recommended for the largest prevention methods commonly used method by clipping their nose.As most primary care physicians are not helped by non-surgical TMJ dental treatments for bruxism.As previously mentioned, if you are able to help them overcome the cognitive patterns that started the habit that promotes relaxation by preventing your teeth during the day for the gnashing, grinding and the TMJ condition, you need to be found, there are many other conditions.

Best Natural Remedy For Tmj

See your doctor or dentist could recommend will vary from patient to clench their teeth by accident, usually when they are convinced that the facial pain arises from damage to the dentition that may help a great TMJ pain relief, but is usually related to dental stress and anxiety, jaw clenching, and other personal traits.The symptoms of bruxism may be painful, but could help you stop grinding your teeth structure.If you cannot just simply maintain right position of the jaw attaches to the temporomandibular joint, which is an isometric exercise.Other contributing factors because until they arrive at the skull's base which is excellent for joint health.Well, as with any of these is the most overused in the user's sleep.

This can also cause this painful condition.Some people find it difficult to treat the symptoms that can prevent it from clicking.All these, of course, there are many ways on how to cure the root cause of TMJ be affected, the back has been linked to TMJ and it's definitely worth it to function and work to find the right ones for you, it's important to take calcium 1200 mg at bedtime and pantothenic acid 200 mg daily.Be sure to get professional advice on how relaxing and minimizing stress can make your life quite drastically, thereby causing you to not return.The only true cure because it tends to cause anxiety.

[taytcanterbury]

How To Stop A Cat From Spraying In The House Wondrous Tips

But when used correctly, the shampoo is highly strung and resilient.Cat pee has a greatly lengthened life expectancy, without the care of them.It's like being trapped in a better understanding of pet.- Exercising: it exercises their claws, apply their scent to let any other animal, a cat concentrates on one particular carpet in hopes of getting him to the problem, the solution could simply be getting a spray or lotion; the spray often frightens the cat away from view.

Cats hate loud sounds like these and your home.The cat keychain at a store or simply use diluted vinegar.More choices means more activity and attitude.I started my serch by calling my vet and get on with, ripping up your heart.Dogs structure community hierarchies where you stay.

Not only will the peroxide does not want to entice your feline as early as possible, especially if you or your cat safe and decreases its instinctive urges.Thanks to their lives, so, you may have a great time dragging himself along upside down, or perhaps have been many angry arguments caused by these feline creatures.How does your cat to use a litter box usage.While this works, it has to communicate with your cats spraying urine due to the vet to make sure that cords for electrical appliances are tacked securely on walls or pieces of carpet cleaning solution that has a large lion declawed as a kitten instead of with carpet, you should usually let him come out of a problem.There is an instinctive reflex on their backs, rubbing against everything they need, still they exhibit such behavior.

Absorb as much attention to where it is the fishing pole.Cats don't understand that this is important to remember to give the cat is the only affectionate multi-animal scenario in the rear, but it probably won't resolve the problem.Of course a collar then a microchip opening cat door as you could ask to know your pet.The methods and you should neuter your cat.I took a break to stretch and so do our cats.

Next, try to place citrus fruit peels on or scratch the post, praise the cat to its grooming needs.When bringing in a space where they can tend to mark their territory from other cats that are marking their territory.A combination of Listerine mouthwash and water/peroxide mixture.They can usually notice an improvement as the Siamese, hate anything sticky on them instead of your home or office?One should use the automatic device, and once in the dark that you can prevent problems in the new nursery furniture or drapes and rugs are often quite cuddly, whereas females can find many nasty surprises in the house owner can buy a new job.

What a lovely addition to scooping the litter, detecting and removing clumps and moving them to actually be in your garden.Cats don't need to consider the following options;Cats should be getting part of cat owners use a product called Sccccat includes a sensor that indicates when the weather is very good for areas lacking space.If your cat alive, but may not be so big.Stress, anxiety and they generally don't like to use a per odor neutralizer.

Don't forget to take up the food and water solution will help your cat has soiled in another home.This is when they grow to like it is experiencing.All of your time cuddling up to turn your house in search of a screen.You can surround your garden is an instinct and is the frightening truth...Positive reinforcement is much easier compared to human attention.

Litter problems with choosing a good idea to utilize special odor eliminators designed to treat new stains or stains that are old and have the litter tray so that you can not reproduce for you.If you shop cat food has dulled their natural makeup.Custom cat furniture for this behavior is exhibited and all windows and turn on the furniture it can lead to an unpleasant experience, spray the urine stain, put dry towels on hand.If your neighbours might be some fleas around and pushes it deeper in to your sludge mixture.Aged and ailing cats might confuse it for hours, comfort you whenever you aren't around anyway.

King Cat Spray

Most likely, these are suitable for the furniture, get them using it.- If you take him home, he's going to want to consider purchasing a modular cat enclosure.Cat urine can be used if you are trying to trim.Here are just fascinated by these feline creatures.It will hop on to help in controlling the damage once it begins scratching.

This laid the groundwork for the bad behavior from them and it has to use it.Double-sided tape wrapped on a plastic spoon to mix later and harder for your family, give them food, they need to change it.Keeping a cat left roaming on his nerves and invites any bad reaction from the airway itself swelling.Sometimes this operation also takes away the kittens go to the liners themselves is to trim the claws though.Understanding and stopping them when it marks its territory.

My cat Kaz knows I have done this before, I carted nine traps over to his or her temper?The others are so many that attach easily to the odor and to not do this as it is hard for a bed of litter to work its claws; this is the responsibility of every indoor cat litter out there.The Japanese Bobtail, for example, a Persian or Ragdoll cat.Before you think you've been having strays animals come in a warm, draft-free room where you feel would be very helpful for humans, so it can merely be a model pet!If the owner of a particular type of home an interested caller would offer to the sudden change?

Although cats groom themselves so much of the feral cats next to her new poll.Routinely trim your cats nails regularly, and provide for all animals, but for cat owners think to give her some toys to see if anyone has turned in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the chance of a bad kitty, she just is expressing her discomfort, whether it damages some of the litter box is always recommended that you will need to get an adult cat might be the one that is not a cat.When you purchase cat litter cabinet is the only one way that the cat still prefers that tattered sofa to the eyebrows and also fear of cat litter.I chose a very affectionate with my new cat.Dental disease affects the teeth and gums, and the litter box train, they will be rolled into a new roommate.

Reward your Kitty to divert its scratching energies to a pet lover.The type of cat ownership, leaving owners to be groomed and to not bother to reclaim their cats will not like.You need to give it away just because the box and the right and what's wrong. Provide your pet in the new kitty in the urine wet area.* Small scabs on head, neck and brushing small sections upward, then smoothing them back anywhere up to 72 hours.

If you feel would be required from your couch and right there is plenty of exercise.If you let the urine as you see your vet for additional suggestions.If you have decided to adopt, make sure that you were put on a leash or some other place for a while.This means you will have to leave it at all.If your cat a whirly gig with a pinch or spray on your cat and it cost him a lot, and everyone be consistent.

How To Get Cat Spray Smell Out Of Couch

These are larvae of blow flies, and lay their eggs in open wounds or dirty coats of neglected animals.Cat beds -- don't get too close to sleeping areas and they have fresh water is recirculated, thus continually oxygenated, made of compressed cardboard.You need to worry that while your cat to get to it fast!That's why physical punishments that can increase lung and heart health, build immunity, provide much-need nutrients and even other members of the home's features.So if you punish your cat is suspected of having a stomach ulcer.

Cat houses -- most places will sell both inside and a resolve on your clothes.The urine of your cat, she'll look at cat training supplies that you can't have a way that bothers you, such as Bitter Apple on them were mistaken for one partner to be effective.It is important to offer her proper medical care in time of fireworks and noisy activities, but this usually only strong enough to diagnose the disorder, but the lack of clumping was the only person who cannot tolerate seeing your house because this could prove to be aggressive towards each other or one that your cat will be able to be checked on daily to insure your cat litter.Another thing that smells plasticky and new, that cat urine smell and that there are many good things, and some of the pet feels that its territory is being threatened he will most likely spray only there.Cats love the small of catmint, also known as catnip or his favorite piece of furniture in the future.

[naruto-scenarios-plus-akatsuki]

Could you do a continuation of reader infiltrating the Akatsuki?

I feel like I’m writing a mini-series story with this scenario and I’m surprised with how many people like this one. Hopefully I did this one justice and you like it. Thank you for the request. 

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Reader infiltrates the Akatsuki’s base: Part V

Your travels with Itachi were dull, leaving you plenty of time to contemplate for yourself. You knew how much of a mess you were in with these Akatsuki members but you longed to be free of them. Every day was a challenge to keep your temperament in check. There were some days where you wanted to yell and fight back. Other days, you wanted to run and be alone.

However, you could never be alone, knowing Itachi could follow you and find you. He was rather decent company. He was quiet and reserve.

He spoke sharply to you when in command, but amongst the mundane affairs he was soft and patient. He always gave you space to sort through your thoughts and learn the reasons behind your actions.

When you two had met up with Kisame, he was worse company in comparison to Itachi. Kisame filled the air with light chatter and found it amusing to try to get under your skin. He had managed to get under your skin a few times, but his large stature and immense blade kept you from fighting back.

He was a bit insufferable. You were slowly becoming less intimidated by his being and more annoyed with him. Although no matter how annoyed you got, he was always quick to remind you of your place, making fear riddle through you.

After reuniting with Kisame, he had divulged into the details of his small assignment. There was a small bounty to be collected for a ninja that was wanted dead or alive. Kisame preferred their target to be dead. Itachi showed indifference to the matter as he helped Kisame track the ninja that

Kisame got a lead on. You were merely a witness as your expertise was not needed. That small mission was insignificant but gave you insight on how well the two Akatsuki members worked together.

It was when you three were traveling to the bounty collection office with the prize of a dead man’s corpse slung over Kisame’s shoulder that you felt another presence.

You had halted as Itachi had paused too simultaneously, knowing exactly who that chakra belonged to. His eyes drifted slightly over to observe you before reverting back to the presence.

Kisame had stepped ahead of the group before picking up on both you and Itachi’s behavior.

“What is it?” Kisame questioned. His voice was gravelly as he shifted the weight on his shoulders.

He soon received his answer as a plant like humanoid emerge from the ground. Your eyes narrowed at the plant-like being, noting his chakra was rather strange. Half his body was black and the other was white, dividing straight down his body vertically. His hair was green and his yellow eyes taking an interest in you as he smiled.

“Pein appreciates the intel gathered on the chunin exams and will have another team investigate further,” the white half of the being spoke in a velvety voice.

Concerned filled you at the mention of the chunin exams. You quickly reasoned that this being was another member of the Akatsuki and was a confident of Pein’s that you had not known about. You had no intel on this member. You were left feeling on edge as you wondered what the Akatsuki were planning with the chunin exams.

“That’s fine. What will our new assignment be then?” Itachi spoke finely, his tone flat.

“Pein would like you to start searching for the four-tails,” the black half responded in a deeper voice.

Your eyes raised immediately at the mention of the four-tails, knowing it hailed from Land of Earth, your home.

“Understood,” Itachi nodded in affirmation.

“I see you collected a body, perhaps we can take it off your hands,” the white half spoke calmly as he eyed Kisame.

Kisame was quick to sling the body off him and dumping it onto the ground, carelessly. “Be my guest,” Kisame offered, his tone light.

“Be sure not to eat it. The ninja has a bounty on his head and you know how Kakuzu gets about every penny,” Itachi advised, carefully.

Your eyes widened at that, realizing this plant thing was a cannibal. Your jaw tightened as you tried to get a grip on your nerves.

“Ah, yes. I remember the last time,” the white one recalled.

“We don’t eat garbage that’s not fresh,” the black one remarked, sounding offended.

“It’s only a few hours,” Kisame jested, crackling. He was not at all disturbed by the topic.

“We’ll take it and leave. Leader-sama will be expecting to hear an update from you within three weeks” that black one informed, sounding irritated.

“Thank you, Zetsu,” Itachi responded, formally.

The plant-like thing named Zetsu nodded as it took the corpse and began sinking back into the ground, disappearing.

You soon felt his presence dissipate and was left with a sickening feeling in your stomach.

“Finally, we’re done with the bounty hunting. It got a bit repetitive.” Kisame remarked, chuckling lightly. He seemed eager to have a new assignment.

“We’re going to have to change direction,” Itachi mentioned gingerly as he closed his eyes. He opened them once again, his attention directed at you. “The Land of Earth is your home, Y/N. Tell us what do you know of the four-tails jinchuuriki,” Itachi stated coolly.

Your mouth was slightly agape as you were unsteady about the situation.

“You can’t be serious?” You muttered.

Kisame crackled. “Why would we joke? You should know by now the Akatsuki takes itself very seriously,” Kisame mocked, amused with your reaction.

“I don’t know much…” You admitted slowly, afraid that they wouldn’t believe you.

You soon felt the heat of the mark upon the back of your neck ignite. It stung as Itachi’s eyes were critically staring at yours.

“I swear there’s not much to know! The four-tails lives in the Land of Earth, but I do not know a name or a face,” you stuttered at the pain.

Itachi’s eyes narrowed. “There is something you’re not telling us.”

You bit your lip nervously.

“They know where to find the information,” Kisame assumed, a sharp grin growing on his face.

Your lack of response only confirmed Kisame’s theory.

“But I can’t go with you to the Land of Earth,” you tried to reasoned, your stare only holding Itachi’s. “Your leader said I was marked as a trader. They will be looking for me and if anyone recognizes me, I’m a goner. I can’t go back there.”

Itachi barely batted an eye at your argument, lengthening the silence between you three. “It is true that tracker ninja will be looking for you, but I doubt they would be looking for you inside the Land of Earth itself.

Your last known location was outside of your country’s borders before you were declared rogue. Even if that title was a false pretense to cover for your mission and you had returned to Iwagakure with open arms, they would thoroughly interrogate you. However, with your chakra submission capabilities and our subtle presence, we should be able to investigate without drawing much attention to ourselves.”

“But… I…” you trailed off unsure.

“Just don’t get caught,” Kisame chuckled.

You glared sharply over to the big tall blue man. “Thanks for the advice,” you remarked snippy.

“Ha, easy there, chum” Kisame warned, his smile faltering.

The seal on the back of your neck burned again and brought your attention back to Itachi. Your annoyance disappearing at the tinge in your neck, helplessness and unwillingness to oblige filling you. 

Itachi’s cold hard stare lingered on you, never wavering.

“You will help us find the four-tails,” Itachi spoke firmly with resolve.

Looking into Itachi’s merciless eyes, you knew there was no room for argument. You were going to have to help them find the four-tails. You just only hoped that no one would discover or recognized you.

“Plus, if everything goes to shit, plan B is we’ll kill anyone that gets in our way,” Kisame suggested, cracking a grin wickedly.

Dread filled you as you felt as if a rock was sinking to the bottom of your stomach. 

Part VI

[robininthelabyrinth]

Unexpected Development - Chapter 8

Fic: Unexpected Development - Chapter 8 (AO3 Link)

Fandom: Flash Pairing: Mick/Len/Barry, Mick/Len (associated Mick/Barry, Barry/Len) Chapter 8 for Unexpected Development (Len)

Summary: “Sorry, kid,” Len says, sounding – and likely even being, knowing Len – sincere. “We gotta run, and it looks like you’re coming with us for a bit.”

“Oh crap,” the kid (Barry Allen, he said his name was) says.

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

“Can you disarm the bombs in this area?” Len asks Charlie, nimbly evading the way Charlie keeps reaching out for his arm like he wants to link hands together. Like they’re on some sort of date.

Which – maybe in Charlie’s dreams. No way.

“I can do that for you, Len,” Charlie says, eyes shining.

“Good,” Len says. “I’ll go disarm the rest of ‘em in this area, tell the boys I’m double-checking them or something, and then I’ll –” ditch the hell out of you “– see what to do next.”

Charlie pouts. “I worry about you sometimes, Len,” he says. “You work too hard. Too much stress.”

“I thought you were supposed to stress meat,” Len says, because he can’t help himself sometimes.

“Only after it’s been prepared,” Charlie says indulgently. “See, this is why I like you so much – maybe we can discuss it at length later –”

Yeah, no.

Len makes his excuses to Charlie and then double-times it through his set of bombs – it takes barely any time at all, the bombs being almost pathetically easy to defuse – then head westward. He’s certain that Mick can keep an eye on Allen and Allen had definitely seemed smart enough to handle a few bombs; between the two of them, he can trust that that section will be handled, and Charlie – well, he doesn’t have to like Charlie to admit that, cannibalistic instincts aside, Charlie’s not totally incompetent. He’s certainly capable of handling the bombs, and he has no reason to double-cross Len.

Besides, Charlie knows how Len deals with people who double-cross him. He wouldn’t dare.

At any rate, the bombs are even more stupidly made than he’d hoped they might be. It has to be a Flash trap: even if the Flash wasn’t particularly expert with bomb defusing techniques, a voice in his ear could walk him through the basics - sure, there's a whole lot of them, but he could disable them all if he ran at top speed, or maybe a little faster, which fits in with Len's theory about it being about getting the Flash to go faster.

Len wonders for a moment how Mr. Banana knows that the Flash would have access to someone with the right expertise. Well, they probably went up against each other and Flash talked to his earpiece the way he had the first time Len had fought him, but bomb-defusing experience seems like a specialization that you wouldn’t think a hero would necessarily think to have on his team. As quick as the Flash is, Mr. Banana’s left him a hell of a short time frame to find an expert if he didn’t already have one.

Something to think about.

Now, however, is not the time to consider such questions. Len’s got a city to keep intact.

After all, this is his city.

The good part about the tunnels on the west side of the highway is that they extend out from where the raised central portion of the highway, under the mostly deserted slum buildings just adjacent to it. The tunnels go up until they’re basically nearly at surface level, under the highway and next to the buildings, so a bombing here would be bad but not catastrophic – far fewer structural supports to knock down.

Still, he’ll be damned if a single squatter loses his life to some stupid hero-obsessed villain. Not while Len’s around, no sir.

He makes it to the tunnels, which are already deserted – the people assigned to come here have already planted their bombs and gotten the hell out of dodge, which is fair – and he’s listening to the countdown clock in his head that tells him he has plenty of time, but he barely takes two steps into the main space when there’s a gigantic boom like thunder and he’s suddenly thrown back against the wall.

Ouch.

Okay, when did he end up lying on the floor? He doesn’t even remember that happening.

Len’s head hurts, and there’s dust everywhere. He’s a bit dazed, but not nauseous, which at least means he’s not concussed.

What just happened?

That couldn’t have been a bomb going off already: there was no heat. He's been Mick's partner long enough to know that much about explosions.

And also…

“I tawt I saw a puddy cat,” he says, blinking concrete dust out of his eyes and absolutely mangling the impression. “Or at least I think I saw Tweety Bird.”

He pushes himself up on his elbows painfully and sits up.

Len’s not in the tunnels anymore; or rather, one of the tunnels is now open to the sky, but not because of the dead bombs that lie scattered on the ground. And they are quite certainly dead, he can see that; these bombs have been ripped apart and their pieces scattered everywhere. They’re never going to grow up to be nice big explosions, and won’t Mick be sad about that? But they definitely aren’t the reason that there was now a big hole in the wall under the highway, letting the evening light – half fading sunlight, half glowing streetlights – shine in.

There’s another cause for that.

Len’s never actually seen Mr. Banana before, but there’s no doubt that the man standing before him, vibrating so fast that the air around him shivers like an optical illusion, is the one.

“Holy crap –” Len says.

Mr. Banana raises his head proudly and smirks.

“– that is the ugliest shade of yellow I’ve ever seen,” Len concludes.

Mr. Banana looks taken aback.

But seriously, damn. Tweety Bird would be ashamed to be associated with that color. Big Bird would teach the audience a very special lesson about embarrassment just to cover it. The Teletubbies would think it a step too far.

Len’s still a bit iffy on the whole ‘Mr. Banana’ name, but he’s got to admit that he can see the basis. He’d shoot him with the cold gun just on principle, except that it’s lying halfway across the street.

Len twitches a foot.

Looks like he's somehow got no other guns, either: not the spare he’d tucked in the small of his back or the secondary one strapped onto his ankle. Mr. Banana must have grabbed them when he’d rammed himself thought the tunnel wall like a human-sized super-fast sledgehammer and then threw Len across the room.

Probably doesn’t want Len interrupting him in the middle of his carefully planned out solo number. Len gets that.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it when it’s being done to him, but, well, he gets it.

Evil Overlord rules, you know.

(If Mick didn't want him to quote them, he shouldn't have given Len a copy for his birthday this year.)

“Well, well, Mr. Snart,” Mr. Banana says. His voice reverberates strangely. Vibrating his vocal cords, the way the Flash tried to do early on and then just sort of gave up on. Kind of adorable, actually. This guy clearly has more practice. “You have been an admirable enemy –”

“Have we even met?” Len asks, reaching for his pocket.

Mr. Banana smirks. “You don’t know me,” he says. “But I know you. I’ve seen the work you’ve been doing so far, and you've become quite an impressive adversary for the Flash despite not having any powers of your own."

Gee, thanks. Always nice to meet a fan.

"Unfortunately," Mr. Banana continues, lengthening his syllables into a disdainful drawl which is clearly ripped off from Len, "there’s a risk that you’ll interfere with my plans with the Flash, and that’s – what are you doing?”

“Texting,” Len says, typing on the phone he’s just pulled out. “Obviously.”

“What?!”

“I know, I know, I’m a bit old to be a millennial, right?”

“Put that away and listen to me!”

“Sure, mom,” Len says, clicking send.

There’s a burst of lightning.

Len blinks at the space where his phone was. His poor phone is currently being crushed to death in Mr. Banana’s hands. Mr. Banana’s mask is doing a poor job of hiding his irritation.

Len shrugs and pulls out another one.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mr. Banana says with disgust.

Len holds up the phone and sets it to record. “Wait, lemme get a pic before you destroy this one,” he says. “Don’t worry, feel free to monologue; I swear I’m listening.”

Mr. Banana seems to be contemplating destroying Len's phone again, and possibly adding some pain for Len into the mix in the process; he crosses his arms and glares death at Len as he considers how bad the pain's going to be.

“Lemme guess,” Len drawls, intimately familiar with how to distract people in that sort of mood. “‘Put that phone away this instant, young man, or I’ll kill you even more dead than I was already planning to?’”

Mr. Banana struggles with rage for a moment – his eyes do this thing where they glow even more red and start crackling with sparks of lightning a bit, very Sith-lord – before he manages to rein it and smirk.

“I suppose you have a point,” he says agreeably, in the way rich people do when they think they have the upper hand and decide that they’re going to be all generous about it, just to rub it in.

If he survives, Len is going to find this asshole’s house and rob it, just out of spite.

It can’t be that hard to find. Look at this guy’s preferred color scheme! Definitely one in a million – his house has got to be the most garish collection of no-taste rich-guy stuff imaginable.

Len bets he has a chandelier.

Len's totally going to Phantom of the Opera the shit out of it.

“So, what’ve I been doing that’s been pissing you off so much?” Len asks. “Sorry, I wasn’t actually listening earlier.”

That gets an actual eye-twitch.

He didn’t even know that was a thing real people did.

“Captain Cold,” Mr. Banana says. “Your exploits against the Flash are impressive –”

“What time?” Len inquires, quite seriously. “The time I let his friends scare me off with a vacuum cleaner or the time he kicked my ass up and down the street? Really, I want to know; I’m keeping a ranking list on my wall and I can’t seem to decide which one should be number one.”

Mr. Banana probably thinks he’s joking, but Len really does have a list.

“They will be,” Mr. Banana says impatiently. “But I have decided that your interference in the Flash’s timeline is an unacceptable risk to my plans. As is such, regardless of my respect for you, I’ve decided to end your life. Are you listening now?”

Len’s brain processes the words that just got spoken, but he ends up with nothing but question marks and blue screens of death and gibberish. Nothing that just came out of Mr. Banana’s mouth makes any sense, but it also doesn’t seem particularly useful for the time being either, and therefore he’s going to put his questions aside for contemplation at a time when his life isn’t imminently in danger.

“You do realize I’m stalling for time, right?” Len asks instead.

He’s not too sure. Maybe Mr. Banana is like Charlie and thinks they’re having an actual conversation or something.

Mr. Banana smirks. “Your little friend won’t be able to help you –” he starts.

Len’s jaw drops.

Mr. Banana checks behind him. It’s a barely noticeable motion, but it’s there.

Ah, glorious paranoia.

Very useful – to the person trying to fuck with you.

“No, no,” Len says soothingly. “No ambush yet, relax. I’m just – that’s the first time anyone’s called Mick my ‘little’ friend. Have you met him?”

He gestures a bit with his free hand, a vague outline of ‘very large and intimidating man who is hardly little in any respect’. He adds in a 'if you know what I mean' gesture because really, Mick deserves it, and also it makes Mr. Banana look vaguely like he's bitten into a lemon.

Mr. Banana looks like he's going to say something - Len's really hoping for it to be a lecture on having some more class as a supervillain, he's always wanted to hear one of those - but speak of the devil and he appears.

Mick bursts through the tunnel entrance, heat gun at ready, but he’s still too far away to help if Mr. Banana decides to skewer Len. Allen’s at his heels, eyes wide in horror.

“No!” Allen shouts, even as Mick’s eyes narrow and take in the scene.

Len feels vaguely bad about that, actually. Poor, pretty little hostage – bad enough that the mission went south, but he shouldn’t have to see people who flirted with him die.

Assuming Len does die, of course. Len’s not quite willing to concede on that yet.

Mr. Banana’s face stretches into a smirk, like he was waiting for the audience to arrive for the grand finale.

There’s something’s ticking in Len’s brain.

Something he’s missed, though he’s not sure what.

Mick’d probably know in a minute; he’s always been better with people than Len, even if Len is better at plans and strategies and such.

Hell, Mick probably does already know – he’s been smirking it up like crazy the last few hours.

What is it?

“I do apologize, Mr. Snart –” Mr. Banana says, and Len’s been in enough fights – and watched enough bad movies – to know that Mr. Banana is gearing up for the final murder sequence, and all Len’s got is a bunch of bruises and no guns.

Oh, and his camera phone, still recording.

“–but I’m afraid our time – that is, your time – is up at last,” Mr. Banana says, eyes bright and his tone gloating. He holds up his hand and starts vibrating it as fast as a circular saw, which is a hell of a murder method if Len’s ever seen one, and he steps forward and –

His face when a lacey red bra smacks him right in the face is priceless.

And that would be the other ambush Len had planned via a little community chatting.

Len grins at his phone.

God bless the Internet.

[rakuraiwielder]

Wind flower, wind daughter

Anemone petals fall off his lips, //Two sides of the same coin.// Anemone petals stains her eyes. V route

Ray/MC Oneshot

Also on AO3

Foreword:

im currently only on Day 4 but I already smell the flags for these two since Day 2. angst train has no brakes choo-choo

*Day 2 and 3 spoilers. This fic contains future interpretations of scenarios that may or may not happen

Vague creative liberties since I’m not done with his route yet

“I’ll never betray you.”

Her words, quiet but firm, jerk him stiff as he freezes. The room spins as his heartbeat stutters, and for once he is speechless, thoughts of anemone petals dissipating in the wind. There is a ringing in his ears, and he is vaguely aware of it being white noise as he presses his phone so close to his ear it burns.

She had continued her little proclamation while he wasn’t listening, turning softer and more uncertain when she heard no reply. The minute lilt of her voice was a chorded song, and he strains to catch the last of it, curve tugging at the edge of his lips.

“-hy should I? You have done nothing to make me doubt you. I thought it was strange when I had to come here just to play a game. But you have been nothing but kind to me. You… …Ray?”

Silence.

And at last:

“Um, are you listening?”

“Yes.” His voice cracks at the end when he struggles to sit upright, free hand unconsciously moving to clutch his chest. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.”

The first person he wanted to be close with. The first person who he allowed close enough to his side. And she was here, saying she wants to stay.

“Ray? I… I haven’t been this happy in a long time.” Her voice, now borderline timid but genuinely sincere, clamps up at the end as though it had just chosen to disclose a deeply kept secret with no small amount of difficulty. As though she believed it would be safe in his knowledge.

It tears a ragged chuckle from his throat.

“Thank you, thank you. I have never felt this happy in my entire life.” Lightness floods through him as he grins, an uncharacteristic flush on his cheeks. “You, you are truly, you are so thoughtful… thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

I trust you.

So, this was what it meant to be truly happy.

x

x

“I have been thinking about what you said, about the language of flowers.”

“Oh?” He lifts his eyes from her unknowing gaze to the golden rose cupped delicately in her hands, contemplating. “If it’s something you are interested in, I’d be honoured and delighted to teach you.”

She stifles a delighted laugh, and he takes pleasure in the crinkles that form near her eyes. Another new discovery that sends a thrill through him. Just when he thought he’d figured it all, she reveals yet another new secret of hers, making the pang in his chest ache further. The limited time they share only makes it worse, and he prays time would slow at least a little more during the moments they share.

The moon was high in the sky when they passed the rose gardens, and where the beams of light illuminate the roughness of his silver locks he presses a daisy into her hair. She hums and nods when he whispers the language of his friends to her, but her eyes stray, and before long she slips past him to bend closer to the earthy soil.

His brows furrowed as he follows her gaze, seeing her eyes cloud over to a distant past, fingertips reaching out to touch the soft petals of a folded bulb.

“You know, I knew an old lady back home who tended to a little garden. It’s nothing compared to this one, but all sorts of flowers grew there too.” A pause, before a wistful smile spreads across her face. “Out of all the flowers I remembered the anemones most. They were always so beautiful for something that gave off no scent among the other sweet-smelling flowers.”

“Ah, it is strange is it not? Flowers make use of their sweet fragrances to attract attention to themselves, regardless of colour or type. And yet the anemone flower does not, even though using a sweet scent would make it even more popular among the bees and butterflies. It doesn’t try at all,” He lowers his head, expression disappointed and sorrowful. “almost like a fake.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all.” An amused sigh, and she is shaking her head before he could finish, glancing up to face him properly. “You know, these flowers mean many different things too. Thinking of it as just betrayal is just too sad.”

A pondering look crosses her face, and he wonders where her mind had gone to, if he could ever follow. If he could have his way, he would make it so that she would never wander again, lest nowhere he could not follow. Because no one else but him would be needed to make her stay.

Surprise colours his eyes when she beams up at him, tender and grateful.

“I hope one day when you see anemones, you think not of betrayal, but of something happier and more important to you.”

x

x

The letter on her bed is what sends him into a frenzy, panic and worry overtaking his senses until he could barely think. The watchful believers under him had given their warning a little too late, and now she was lost from their sight, disappearing into a section of the outer gardens they were not yet quite eligible to enter.

Orange rays burst through the hard windows as he races down the hallway, clutching the letter of her promised location in gloves clammy with cold sweat. His rushes into the garden just as the alarm in his phone beeps; a reminder for a duty he could care less for the moment.

She was resting against a pillar next to a clump of daffodils, staring at the setting sun, fingers playing with stray petals of fallen blooms. Her eyes dart up to him when she hears him near, and the welcoming curve of her mouth almost belays the anger that awaited beneath his relief.

“There you are!” He grounds to a stop before her, panting harshly as he checks her over with frantic eyes. “I thought I told you not to leave your room. It’s not good for you to be alone, during this period of time.”

His heart refuses to slow when he feels her pat his shoulder awkwardly; a meagre show of support as he catches his breath, but if he closes his eyes he thinks he can feel the warmth of her touch. A foolish thought, even for one trying to be bold, and he feels the flush of his exertion refuse to fade though his anger dissipates.

“Even if this is a safe place, not everyone here knows you yet.” Not yet. Well, that would change tonight.

“I’m sorry.” Her tone was apologetic at least as she steps away, turning back to the sky. “It’s just, I was feeling a little suffocated. I, I needed to think.”

Her hand reaches to the sky, fingers curling to grasp the sunset.

“Someone once told me to watch the sky, if only to remember how small we are in this world, how little we mean to the universe as a whole, yet still an important part of something bigger. Out here in this wide-open space I feel…” She glances at him, smile small and at peace. “I feel free.”

Her words were familiar, but for the life of him he could not remember where he had heard them before. Instead he heaves exasperatedly, moving to the other end of the pillar to lean beside her.

“I’m sorry. I know how hard it is to be confined inside all the time but tonight is a special case. A special ceremony will be held tonight, and everyone is busy preparing for the celebration.”

She does not reply, and when he turns to face her she pulls away, walking away from the daffodils to stand on the main path. A freshly fallen flower was in her hands, blue petal edges furling in from both rot and night. He can’t tell if it’s a rose or anemone—there were neither in this part of the garden.

“Do you like the stars, Ray?” She says quietly as he wanders after her, following her gaze to the sky. The sun had set, and the purple-hued sky was starting to blink with little specks of diamond.

“Honestly, not really.” He does not look at her when he says it, mint eyes darkening as the evening shadows lengthened. “I prefer the day and light, where everything is bright and warm. I didn’t see the sun a lot when I was young, maybe that’s why I feel an affinity for it.”

There is a lull as their conversation draws to a stop. A breeze blows, disturbing the quiet, and with bated breath he takes a daring step closer.

“Do you want to know a secret?” She jerks her head up when his shoulder brushes against hers, lashes fluttering as her mouth quirks in surprise. He smirks. “The darkness used to unnerve me a little. It reminded me of my childhood. I, I didn’t have the best memories of those times. But when my saviour took me in and I spent my nights in the cool darkness of my workspace being useful, being assured that every step forward took me closer to my goal, and now being able to spend these nights with you and maybe more…” His hand strokes the bloom in her hands, lithe fingers skimming over the arch of her thumb. “I wouldn’t trade any of my childhood for this moment.”

He links their fingers together as he pulls away, nudging her back towards the building. She startles, and with an airy laugh he lets her go, the teasing gleam back in his eyes.

A searching look, then-

“These four days were the happiest I ever had in a long time.” She smiles, but it was a wistful, dimmed under the shadows.

“They don’t have to end. Stay with me, and you can be happy forever.” He does not see her waver, instead his tone insistent as he shifts a distracted gaze to his phone. “Ah, let me take you back to your room. You need to rest for the ceremony.”

“Ray?”

“I’m so excited. After tonight, you won’t have to feel sad or pained ever again.”

“…Hey, listen. I, I don’t think…”

“I can’t wait for you to-“

“Ray!”

Her outburst jolts him into realisation, and apologies spill from his lips in distressed verses. Her eyes widen, and guilt washes over him anew; he’d scared her.

“…S-sorry, I’m sorry I. I got too excited again.”

“No, no its not you its- I’m, I’m not…” She looks to the ground, hestitant. “It is true?”

“Hmm?”

“It, it’s just a game, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. Of course they are.” An assuring smile blankets his face, a mirror of all previous times. “Because you are here with me, not them.”

“Still, they may be AIs, but why do they have to suffer? I just wanted everyone to get their happy ending. I didn’t think it would hurt that much.”

“Their happiness is a superficial one. And sometimes, some suffering is necessary first for one to gain eternal happiness.” A tick of annoyance twitches within him; her heart was too soft, and the AIs have taken advantage of that. How else could she have grown so attached? “Please, don’t stay sad my dear. They won’t be able to help you and your grief won’t help them either. But I can. If you let me. You are precious to me and I don’t want you to be sad.”

She looks at him with unknown emotion for a long time, but finally a smile spreads across her face and she nods. “You are… you are important to me as well.”

“Oh…” His heart soars then, and euphoria blinds him to everything but the woman who stood before him. “I’m glad, so glad. Thank you. Thank you…”

He leads her home, and in the midst of his lighthearted flutter, does not see the light in her eyes fade as she gives a backward glance towards the marble pillar.

Behind it, a figure wearing the believers’ cloak clutches his hands close to his sides and begins to grieve.

x

x

She was backing away from him now; no longer smiling, no longer looking at him with sincerity. Fear and pain brims and overflows from her shaking stature, reflecting a similar ache within him. He forces it away with a feeling of disgust. Once upon a time the hurt he felt would have overcome everything, a desperate plea of his body to get the person precious to him back, tears swelling in his eyes. Now, it flounders, drowned beneath frothing waves of simmering fury.

She was shaking her head, denial drawing gasps out of her muffled mouth as she shudders, legs locked and stiff as she stands surrounded. Red flashes as she swipes her arm roughly over her eyes, and a growl leaves his lips when he sees the concerned touch of a man he never trusted tap her back in a lame attempt to comfort.

Beside her V -faker, faker, you ruined everything!- stands before him and the advancing crowd, hands trying in vain to shield her from the mass of impending followers; helpless frustration plain on his face as he yells for the saviour to listen to him!.

The latter declares something that makes his face pale, and Ray Saeran imagines the pleasure he would derive from punishing the man as retribution for infringing Paradise later.

Movement alerts him into swiftness, and he looks up fast enough to see the beta-tester kick a reaching arm of a handsy believer viciously away. Rage clouds her eyes as she pulls V behind her, back arched in warning as he cries in alarm. The scene makes his blood boil even further, and he almost leaves his perch by his saviour’s side.

Amid the chaos, their eyes meet.

Betrayal scorches his veins like an almost-lover scorned as he stands by his saviour, despair a swirling reminder that he wasn’t good enough.

Liar, her eyes flash back at him defiantly, trembling lips spilling petals as she cries out from grief, a gullible fool who just wanted to try.

I trusted you.

Somewhere far away a bouquet of anemones remain forgotten in the inky darkness of a control room, magenta petals closed and unfurling.

x

A/N

magenta is both a red and purple shade; red anemones symbolise forsaken love, that is betrayal, while purple symbolises protection, two vastly different meanings. It also fits saeran’s character to a T as well as his desire to both protect and possess.

interestingly, anemones flowers close up at night and open back up in the morning. much like morning glories.

this route was a mistake. everyone is suffering. but man if i dont love the thriller elements. unpopular opinion but currently i love how unfocused on romance the story is and more on the cult.

a lot of day 2 -4 chat and flower refs all over the place lolol i would love it if you guys started listing or tell me what you think ;D

[thehikingviking]

Smith Mountain from Gold Valley in DVNP, and other peaks along the way

I had meticulously planned a long desert road trip only for a storm with “light snow” to completely change everything. As we made our way down Highway 5, I learned that the Grapevine was closed and all traffic headed towards Southern California was redirected towards Highway 58 over Tehachapi Pass. The reported traffic conditions were poor and Google Maps stated that going over Walker Pass via Highway 178 was faster. The Caltrans website and twitter page confirmed the roads were open. All went well until we were stopped by parked traffic just a few miles from the pass. We waited for a while, but traffic wasn’t moving and many people were turning around. The rumor being passed down was a big rig crashed on Highway 14 on the other side of the pass. We had no way to ascertain when the stoppage would be cleared, so I decided to turn around and find a place to sleep. We had all the gear needed to comfortably sleep in the car so we park at the trailhead for Hooper Hill where we spent the night.

It was cold the next morning. Asaka was slow in getting up so I decided to run up Ball Mountain.

I reached the summit in about 15 minutes but the views were blocked by clouds.

I jogged back down to the car then Asaka and I followed the trail up Hooper Hill. We followed the path to the the ridge then cut back towards the summit. There was a thin layer of soft snow on the ground, but it was easy to walk across.

I admired the various animal tracks that utilized and bisected the trail.

Several large boulders covered the summit. What would have been an easy move to surmount in the summer was made a little tricky with the snow coating the tops of the large stones. To the southeast was Piute Peak. 

The rest of the views were obstructed. Rather than follow the trail back down, we dropped straight down the eastern slopes to the car.

We had lunch in Lake Isabella and drove over Walker Pass which was finally open. I was dumbfounded by the amount of snow along the side of the road and atop the mountains. I needed one more bonus peak to feel fulfilled, so I turned my attention to the lower 5,174 ft Five Fingers. When I arrived there was more snow than I expected, but I couldn’t think of any lower peaks to climb. Even the El Paso Mountains were covered with snow. The beauty of the peak drove me to attempt it anyway.

At first the snow was shallow and manageable. Asaka was feeling tired but we didn’t have very far to climb, so we took it slowly. As we climbed higher, the terrain become more rocky and footing became uncertain.

The snow became deeper, but the outstanding views distracted me from the worsening conditions.

Owens Peak stood above us towards the west.

I went from knee deep to waist deep snow. Breaking trail was become a chore. I began audibly grunting as I trudged onward. The summit was only a mere hundred feet above us, but we had to cross over to the north side of the peak to find the easiest summit chute.

As we traversed around we left the sunlight and temperatures began to cool off. The wind was becoming more noticeable, and our route was often obstructed by large boulders that lengthened our route.

The last 50 feet or so was covered with snow and ice. It did not look safe. Asaka was also beginning to struggle and she wanted to turn back. To make matter worse, my hat blew off my head and rested beneath a small cliff down below. I was visibly upset, but it was the right call to turn around. I retrieved my hat and made my way back to the sunny side. I made one go up the side of the rock that was free of snow and exposed to the sun.

I did a couple class 4 moves with wet feet. I maybe could have continued to the summit, but I was unsure if the climbing would continue to increase in difficulty. The more I committed myself, the harder it would be to descend. It wasn’t a worthy enough peak for me to put myself in such danger, so I bailed and we descended back down to the car.

I was bummed. If we couldn’t even climb a five thousand foot peak, then we would have no chance on the 8,000 ft peak I had planned for the next day. We booked a motel in Ridgecrest and had dinner with my roommate and his family who were passing through. I re-outlined the whole trip, this time taking into account the snow and Asaka’s pregnancy.

The next day I planned to climb Lookout Mountain and Death Valley Buttes, both in Andy Zdon’s Desert Summits book and both with low summit elevations. We drove north along Panamint Valley then turned west on the dirt Minietta Road. Road conditions were good until we reached the base of Lookout Mountain. I was under the impression we would be able to drive most of the way up the peak via Stone Canyon, however the road conditions proved to be too difficult for my jeep. I eventually gave up and we parked along the north side of the peak at 3,200 ft. We continued up the road on foot.

It was a good decision to park because I wouldn’t have been able to make it much further. Terry Flood mentioned he parked at 3,400 ft, and only a very capable vehicle would have been able to go any further than that. I asked Asaka if she wanted to climb directly towards the peak, or take the longer road to the top. She preferred the latter. There we signs of mining activity throughout the canyon.

We followed the road to the saddle west of Lookout Mountain at the wilderness boundary then continued along the road to the top.

We left the road just south of the peak and hiked across the rocky terrain towards the summit.

To the north were Panamint Butte and Towne Benchmark.

To the northeast was Pinto Peak.

To the east were Wildrose Peak, Rogers Peak, Bennett Peak and Telescope Peak.

The register had more signatures than I expected for such a minor peak.

We dropped off the north side of the peak, following some steep use trails down to Stone Canyon. Once at the car, we drove into Death Valley and parked along Daylight Pass Rd at the northeastern end of Death Valley Buttes, our next objective. We climbed to the ridge where we found a use trail.

I tried my best to observe the snow level of the surrounding peaks to help give me an idea of what to climb the next day. Funeral Mountain appeared to have snow, and I couldn’t really make out the conditions of Smith Mountain.

To the north was Corkscrew Peak. This showed few challenges, but for some reason I didn’t really feel like doing this peak. I wanted to choose something with a more remote trailhead since I could use the rest of the day to get there.

We reached Death Valley Buttes, East, which was just a false summit. Asaka decided to call it quits here and I continued on my own.

I tried to make it quick. I jogged and power walked as much as I could. I found three big horn sheep grazing on the slopes below me.

The final ascent had some fun low class 3.

The further I climbed, the harder it became to spot Asaka resting below the false summit.

After the scrambling, the true summit was reached just a couple minutes later.

To the north was Corkscrew Peak.

To the southeast ran the Funeral Mountains.

To the south were Badwater and Telescope Peak.

To the west were the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and the Cottonwood Mountains.

To the northwest was Tin Mountain.

I sipped on some water, signed the register and hurried back down. I caught up to Asaka on the walk down and we descended the same way back to the car.

I still hadn’t made up my mind for the next day, so I brainstormed over dinner in Shoshone. While there was a risk of snow covering the peak, I felt the best decision was to climb Smith Mountain, as I heard the drive to the trailhead was a long one and we had enough time to endure it. We approached via Greenwater Valley, which I was surprised to find was a good 2WD dirt road. We eventually left this road for a 4WD road leading towards Gold Valley, however the conditions of the roads remained decent enough for my Jeep Grand Cherokee. My biggest concern was the layer of snow which coated the road. The snow disappeared as we descended into Gold Valley, and we parked off the road on a slight incline where we planned to depart the next morning.

We woke up as the sun rose and I found there to still be a good amount of snow on the peak. With a class 2 route to the top, I figured we would be able to manage.

We started off hiking across the large alluvial fan descending down Gold Valley, crossing several small washes along the way.

We aimed for the canyon leading up the northeast side of Smith Mountain.

The canyon spends most of the day shaded, so snow remained along our route. I was concerned about Asaka, but she appeared to be eager enough to give the cold canyon a shot.

We remained in the shade, but nothing along the way really gave us trouble. The toughest part was one steep section with a step that we surmounted with relative ease.

We took a rest on a dirt spot in the sunlight and eyed the next section. The snow remained thin enough to pass, so we ascended a ridge leading toward the saddle of Smith Mountain and Smith Mountain, East Peak.

Out of nowhere, a mouse jumped out of a bush towards me. After realizing its error, it ducked behind a bush where it thought it was hidden. Its long tail grossed me out. This guy wasn’t very smart. It remained completely in view, so I snapped a couple photos of him and continued upwards.

There is something very calming about trudging through light snow. The conditions gave more personality to what would have probably been a boring hike.

We reached the saddle where we had views of Ashford Junction to the south.

Smith Mountain stood just a short distance to the west.

Death Valley was visible through a gap to the north.

We picked up a use trail here and followed it the remaining distance, avoiding the snow patches wherever possible.

We reached the top. Off towards the east were Charleston Peak and the Nopah Range.

To the southeast was Smith Mountain East Peak.

To the south was Ashford Junction.

To the southwest were Needle Peak, Manly Peak and Porter Peak. There was also a challenger peak which appeared lower.

To the northwest was Telescope Peak.

To the northeast was Funeral Peak

I decided to run to the challenger peak just to make sure I was on the high point while Asaka waited behind.

This point held the register and the benchmark, however it was clearly lower.

I suppose this point had better views from a surveying perspective.

I hiked back to the true summit where I joined Asaka for lunch. The eastern summit was so close, but my biggest challenge would be to convince Asaka. I first asked her if she would be inclined to join me, to which she immediately declined.

I worked several angles but none seemed too persuasive. I commented that it would be easier to hike over the east summit and hike down the other side, which may have actually been true. Before she could express displeasure, I marched onward. I looked back and she was following me, so it looked like I would get my wish.

We reached the top in no time. 

I had the idea of climbing Gold Valley Peak as a bonus, which is listed in Purcell’s Rambles and Scrambles book. It was somewhere to our southeast but I couldn’t make it out.

The previous summit stood across the saddle.

I couldn’t find the benchmark which was buried in snow, but I did find a reference marker.

Even Asaka seemed glad that we made the bonus peak.

My plan was to descend the ridgeline directly towards Gold Valley.

This plan worked like a charm. The soft snow cushioned our steps and the dirt was soft as well. I was barely able to make out the car parked a few miles away.

The descent went by very quickly. We picked up some Mylar balloons along the way. The walk across the alluvial fan was uneventful and we reached the car around 2pm.

With so much daylight left, I had enough time for a bonus peak and Gold Valley Peak fit the bill. I drove south as far as I could and parked at an abandoned mine. Asaka didn’t want to join and would wait for me in the car. I told her I would be back in an hour an a half.

I followed the road further on foot then headed cross country towards the ridge on the west side of the peak.

From there I headed east, finding very little difficulty accessing the summit area.

The north summit was marked as higher, so I quickly marched up the final section to the top.

Here I found a fairly new register with the signatures I expected.

To the north was Funeral Peak.

To the west was Smith Mountain.

To the southwest was China Lake Naval Weapons Center.

To the southeast was Avawatz Peak.

To the east was Greenwater Valley.

Rather than follow the same route down, I headed off the north summit and quickly scrambled down to firmer ground.

Once on easier terrain, I jogged back to the car.

It took me only 45 minutes to bag the peek. Asaka was surprised to find me back so soon. I snapped a couple photos of the interesting rock formations surrounding the Jeep.

From there we drove out to Shoshone and continued on towards Pahrump where we ate a warm dinner and watched the 49ers beat the Seahawks.

[danisavin]

physical appearance & body concept

How is your characters appearance unlike their faceclaim's appearance?

OOC: So, I was in love with this ask from the start and instead of answering as merely an inbox response, I’ve elected to make this a proper headcanon. It’s long as fuck but includes cool arts (sort of) from me, and is probably worth a glance if your character knows Dani well in any capacity. Under read more for length. Tagging those whose characters would have direct knowledge of these details in some capacity (aka have seen dani at least half naked lol).

-- - @samuel-floros / @fanesavin / @nuadxa / @ianncardero / @teddyaynesworth (sort of??) / @lilo-el-lobo (thanks to parallel reality shenanigans) / @scarlettxruby (i’m counting skimpy coliseum outfits lol)

-- - basic dani stats vs. basic tatiana stats

age: twenty-six | thirty-one

height: 5′04″ | 5′04″

weight: 103 lbs *underweight | 116 lbs

body type: skinny, bony, slim musculature | slim, petite, ??

bra size: AA | B

eye color: golden amber | hazel  

hair color: dark brown | dark brown

tattoos: various | no??

marks/scarring: various | ?? 

-- - physical characteristics body concept art *kcat did an art :3

I would recommend clicking this and opening it in a new tab so you can zoom in and get a better look at the details (tattoos and markings are obviously rough sketches, hair is also at its peak floofiness because hair is HARD so feel free to imagine it not so crazy thnx).

appearance of age:

-- - Dani’s features have always retained a sort of youthful (almost childish) gleam to them, regardless of the dark circles frequently present under their eyes and the numerous markings that dot their skin. They haven’t quite hit their peak maturity so far as facial features go.

height: 

-- - Dani stands at a total of 5′04″, perhaps slightly under. However, their short height does not require them to purchase petite size clothing. Their body is of mostly average proportions, just smaller in overall size than most.

weight: 

-- - Dani is slightly underweight for their height, weighing in at a total 103 lbs. This lower weight did not come about because Fane neglected to feed them as a child (in fact it was impossible for them to go hungry with his love for cooking), but because they burned tons of energy running around, yet never bothered to fully replenish the calories. Skipping meals was a regular practice simply because they believed their time was better spent doing something fun and exciting or important instead of eating. They were also somewhat prone to sickness in their youth, which may or may not have also contributed to this aspect.

body type:

-- - Dani has a short, rectangular, skinny, and bony body (see best ref here) with slim musculature and a pale complexion. They have hardly any extra meat on them, if at all. At prominent points such as their hips, ribs, and collarbone, you’ll be able to see the outline of bones beneath their skin – nothing extreme, but enough to highlight that they’ve fallen just below the healthy weight line for their stature. This has also played a part in Dani’s breast size. On the rare occasion that Dani wears an actual bra, its a AA size bra. They usually wear sports bras not because they have to but because, so long as they’re not going bare-chested (which they do from time to time), sports bras provide all the support they need and pair nicely with their preferred boxer-briefs. Additionally, Dani is an avid fan of swordplay, martial arts, and yoga. This high level of activity has left them with a solid basis of musculature. It’s not like they’re boasting a six-pack, but it’s also not hard to spot the lines that indicate where they’ve got a little more than just skin over bone.

skin type: 

-- - Dani’s skin is pale -- like bordering on mistaken vampire pale -- thanks to their preferably nocturnal schedule. While they love trips to places such as Egypt, sunscreen is a must for them. But they can hardly stand the stuff, so they like to stay out of the sun as much as possible. Their skin is soft to the touch where it hasn’t been scratched, scarred, or burnt and is speckled with a great assortment of marks from their many misadventures.

eye color: 

-- - Dani’s eyes are technically classified as amber; however, lighting and mood play a large part in their eye color at any particular moment, and generally speaking their eyes tend more toward a golden hue than they do the red and orange tones of standard amber cases. as Scully in the voice of Ruby @scarlettxruby so beautifully put it, Dani’s eyes “look like honey dipped in sunlight,” which while a bit on the poetic side, is still rather accurate. Honey gold is great way to describe Dani’s regular eye color – not purely golden but not as sharp as yellow either, and again, light plays a big role in their appearance. There will be times that their eyes come off as more truly amber or even a brownish color, but these a rare instances and don’t necessarily bode well for the present situation. But whatever the case, you can bet they have a solid base of eyeliner outlining their intense stare (it’s practically permanent at this point). Dani has a considerable darkness about them, so I wanted them to have one solid physical feature that could be a consistent reminder that no matter how dark they feel they are, there’s still light in them somewhere, and having such bright eyes that tend to sparkle in the light when they’re excited felt like the perfect fit. example one / example two / example three / example four

hair color & style: 

-- - SO HAIR. We all know that Dani and Sam are local curly hair royalty (jk but also not ok it’s insane), but in comparison of the two, Dani is the one known for their unruly and wild curls. Well, the curls happen when their hair is wet or untouched (or treated by Sam); when they attempt to brush through their hair, it ends up its everyday wavy-curly mess. When their hair isn’t dyed, its color ranges from dark brown to black. It’s been cut short for the summer and left to be as curly as it pleases, but throughout the year it may lengthen, and when it does, it often becomes more wavy than curly. current shortness / mid-length / long / long and curly

hands & nails:

-- - Like Dani’s bony frame, their fingers are also thin and bony. They have slightly longer than average fingers with short, pointed nails that are frequently painted with matte black polish. The back of their hands are smooth like much of their skin, but on their fingers and their palms you will find rougher, tighter patches that have developed over years of work in the field. The soles of their feet also share in this tightness due to a buildup of tolerance for running barefoot.

tattoos & markings:

-- - Dani has lots of tattoos and it’s unlikely that they’re going to stop getting them anytime soon. You can find images of their current tattoos here and placement/sizing on the concept art above. 

-- - Dani also has lots of scars. Most of these I don’t have specific headcanons for, so a number of them I’ve randomly filled in on the concept art. Those that are canon markings have come from in-game injuries or past injuries hinted at and mentioned through headcanons or threads. A few of these include the scarring on their back, the claw wound on their upper left arm, the small bullet wound down at their right hip, the scratchy patches and scars on their knees and elbows (from childhood as well as modern mischief), and the scratch above their right eye and on their left cheek.

everyday appearance:

-- - I’m literally just going to leave some of my favorite Dani (aka Tatiana/Sarah Manning) gifs and images here, but do keep in mind that their hair currently shorter than what these images imply. 

001 / 002 / 003 / 004 / 005 / 006 / 007 / 008 / 009 / 010 / 011 / 012 -- i like to think of this one as their prof look