#feeling odd and weird and sick today. so this is mostly just me projecting those odd sickly feelings onto them

[eshithepetty]

The curse and the sickness.

[ID: art of Mob and Unknown Percentage/Shigeo from Mob Psycho 100. Shigeo, who is painted in black, chalky textures, is holding one arm under Mob, who looks to be limp and unconscious, and using their other hand to hold Mob's, so that it almost looks as if they're in the middle of a dance. Mob, in contrast to Shigeo, is drawn in thick, messy black lineart, colors washed out and pale, and at the crown of his head, there are red flowers blooming, from which drips a trail of blood. His eyes are closed. Shigeo's eyes are wide, bright, and focused on Mob, red pupils visible. The background is a simple watercolor grayish teal, and from the left side of the image, behind their forms, abstract red foliage weaves around them and blows to the right, leaving blue highlights in the form of petal-like shapes against the background. End ID.]

[deleteddewewted]

Incel!Shinsou Oneshot: "Why are you acting like that?”

To keep busy I just thought that a oneshot of Shinsou getting self conscious/needy would be cute since we already have his redemption arc rolling in. The next part of the Incel!Shinsou series (Part 3) will have him proving his worth at the Sports Festival. So in thinking of how he will prove himself to you I thought of how will all of those people affect him, especially you. ( This oneshot takes place pre changes, so Shinsou is still his disgusting self but he's figuring out how to woo a woman, especially of your caliber.)

Incel!Shinsou Series:

Part 1: Incel! Shinsou x F!Reader

Part 2: Incel! Shinsou x F!Reader

Incel!Shinsou Headcanons

"I know what you're doin' here. Made your intentions clear. Oh you, you terrible thing, you. Terrible thing, you. Terrible thing, you. Beautiful thing"

TW: Strong Language, Mild Sexism

People were never an obstacle when it came to the things Shinsou wanted. He’s aware that others would do anything for him if he played his cards right. The right words with the right question did wonders for him. So why the fuck couldn’t he have what he wanted when it came to you? You drove him up the wall with the kindness you showed him. He didn’t deserve it and you’re existence almost felt like a punishment from whatever deity that existed out there to make him suffer. You guys were suppose to be studying for your upcoming project that required a poster, a slide show, and one influential person that would help prove your projects point. You left him running circles within his own mind as to how you were so willing to challenge him. He wanted you to obey him not see through his bullshit. It wasn’t like you didn’t listen to him vent, or didn't give him attention, but he wanted to hold you under his control. To be the person you listened to.

In class you where both seated on the extreme ends of the room on opposite sides. You never realized this (you do), but his head would periodically turn towards your direction to look at you, to figure you out (liar). This time, you managed to catch him do it.

“What are you doing?” You asked plainly. You honestly didn’t care that he was staring, everyone does when you dress like you're attending an MCR concert in the middle of autumn.

“You look different....today.”

“Nice.” It was difficult to care. Shinsou was just some guy in your class that you had to deal with. Nothing special really....ok, maybe it wasn’t fully true. You didn’t really know him all that well or anything (Unless it was mocking and belittling everything you did, that was normal behavior for him so it wasn’t surprising to find out he was like that outside of campus.) but he wasn’t all that bad? If he cared for himself a bit more, hygiene wise he would be considered handsome or at least a competent human being (you weren't going to call him a man, men don't act this childish. At least the ones you knew.) Maybe then you would take his opinion seriously, but for now you’ll ignore his...interesting comments he's been throwing towards you today.

“It’s rude to ignore someone when their talking to you, you know?” The neutral face he had now possessed a frown and a furrow to his brows. You still couldn’t process how he took the time to make sure his hair stayed purple but didn’t care for his body odor. (This man dyes his hair purple yet cant bother to shower or use deodorant for once in his life.)

“I’m not ignoring you, I’m just not interested in anything you have to say.” With that you get up and take your things and leave. There was no point in wasting time on someone who couldn’t even look at you directly and had to also sneak glances at you. "Do I really look that unbearable?" you thought to yourself. In the end you didn’t care anymore, everyone was entitled to an opinion and the last thing you need is feeling self conscious because of your out of place classmate.

Shinsou was fuming. How the fuck did you just get up and leave his ass while he was trying to complement you. You should have been more appreciative that he was giving you his attention for once. A bitch like you wasn't even worth it so he doesn't understand why he even tried with you.

He never goes directly home after school but instead to the local theater. It was one of the few places where he could be around others and could genuinely be himself. It was weird, he didn't feel like himself when he was speaking with his "friends", friends that he's never spoken to verbally, never seen, and never would meet. He knew that he didn't deserve this, to have a safe haven when he acts like an ass, yet here he was.

"Good morning Shinsou! How are you? Are you ready for rehearsals? You did remember to read your lines, right?" Shinsou rolls his eyes at his theater mates antics. Monoma never seems to stop but he does know when to tone it down and when it comes to Shinsou he tones it down a bit. (Because Monoma is canonically considerate of others, look back the Sports Festival and the Joint Training Arc.)

"Im good man, yes i did read and memorized the script, dont worry about it." What an odd friendship, the most chaotic gentleman like man out the bunch with the quietist incel in the group. Shinsou should have seen it coming when he was adopted by Monoma but he's running on 2 to 4 hours of sleep so he doesn't really care.

Believe it or not Shinsou does take showers (only for theater) but very quickly and with no care (no shampoo or soap, fucking why man.) Theater means more to him and so making his character look the best they possible can was his first and foremost priority. He puts on his costume, gets to makeup (the minimum, because it's "gay" for him to wear makeup and since the world is unfair and cruel he has perfect skin for a greasy headed asshole.)

"Everyone get a move on! Kodai, Tsuburaba, and Awase! Go to stage left! Light techs, how's it up there?" One of the tech heads shouted out. Shinsou and Monoma got to their positions on the stage and the rehearsals began.

Love, the play was about love. Love that wasn't rejected but also not accepted. He didn't understand the concept fully. Was it romantic? Platonic? Familiar? Admiration? He loved his dad, but he mostly admired him. He worked long hours and middle resents him for not being there for him, yet he realizes that his dad works to give him the world, a home with all the things he wanted. He never had a mother so he never had parental or familiar, again his dad was there but he wanted a parent that would hold him when he came back from school everyday. He didn't have a girlfriend, so he doesn't know romantic. So far all of his characters where villains, or evil in some way. He was starting to get sick of them. Shinsou wanted something more, wanted to play a character that wasn't how everyone saw him as on his day to day life. He wanted a challenge, he wanted....affection. Just to show it. He wanted attraction. Just to abuse it. He wanted...love. To just...maybe...feel...enjoy...understand it.

"You terrible thing you. My love, you're so cold. You've left me hanging on every one of your words. You've made me loose my self, lose my self-control because of you!" He pours everything into his performance, his loneliness, his regrets, his experience. He's been told by his co-performers and directors that he has a great future in the arts, in theater. If he just took care of himself more he would be an amazing actor, not only incredibly talented but also attractive. He would have the world kneeling, bowing to him just from his words alone. He could have anything he wanted just because of his existence.

" You've made me do things i don't want to do...for you." Kodai stands there looking horrified. He's covered in blood, the blood of her lover, the one she left him for.

"No, i-i didn't-"

"YOU MADE ME-MADE DO THIS FOR YOU! You terrible, terrible, terrible thing! You beautiful thing, I've done this for you!...and you still cant and won't love me." He doesn't see Kodai anymore. It's not her face he sees, nor her voice that he hears.

Its you...its your voice. You. You looking back at him while he slowly lowered himself to kneel and crawl towards you. It's you who backs away from him as he starts to cry and hiccup.

"You wreck me, you made me. You leave me in your wake, please let me go!" He sees you and feels you grabbing his wrists back, pushing him into himself.

"Don't you ever let me go...."

You terrible beautiful thing, you.

And here we are again. This was a lot fun to write since it feels more concrete when it comes towards his personality and his full thought process. In many cases people like Shinsou just want attention or some sense of validation, which there is nothing wrong with wanting those things but it's more about the manner you go about it. You shouldn't pressure or force others to spend time with you, but there is always someone out there that will like to give you those things.

Tag list: @blossominglark

[when-residents-are-evil]

Entry #4

A/N: Aaaaaand, with this chapter, the Bestiary and House Beneviento’s entries updated! You don’t actually need to read them, they’re note my OC is taking to help them go through this mess. Notes that I need to organize better, too.

23th April 2018

07h47

Today's missions:

Find a doctor

Learn more about Lords and Miranda

Stack up on provisions for the day I'll escape (long lasting food, medical stuff, weapons (?), money, etc)

I think I need to investigate about Miranda. Iulian isn't really talkative, but I guess my already-dead rabbit and the two fish I bribed him with yesterday must have impressed him, because he agreed to let me know a few things.

According to him, I wouldn't be the first tourist to 'disappear' if anything were to happen to me. Villagers disappear from time to time, mostly when they want to leave the village for good. Apparently, they need to ask for her blessing so they won’t get torn up to pieces on their way out.

But tourists? Sometimes, people will end up here, like I did, for various different reasons. Maybe they heard about spooky rumors and wanted to have a good scare and brag to their friends about the place. Or maybe they just got lost and tried to roll with it. I'm case number 2, by the way. A few escape (or at least, leave the village and are never to be seen again).

Most of the time, if they get an audiance with Mother Miranda, they don't come back.

Now, if I never got attacked by the lycans, I would brush it off as some lame ghost story or hink that Miranda, for some reason, agreed to help them leave or something ike that. But then, Iulian said these people weren't taken by the woods. And it's weird, because I'm almost sure the lycans are the n°1 death cause around here, and that no one from the 'outside world' would want to stay here. But he insisted it wasn't them, and he said they didn't left. So I have two theories:

1) Miranda killing those people, for some reason. That would explain why everyone is so damn scared of her.

2) There are other kind of monsters here. Aside from the lycans, I mean. I'm also thinking it could be the Lords?

I don't know which one would be worse. There has to be a reason Miranda is feared like she is. She must be either incredibly powerful, or… All these people are brainwashed. I don’t think she’s the kind and generous protector they all claim she is. Why wouldn’t she get rid of the lycans if she truly had good intentions?

And why am I not dead yet? I'm 100% sure she knows I'm here and trying to escape, so why isn't she kiling me? Is it because she likes watching people fail or something?

Because I could understand. I ran into a tree on my way back home last night because I was too scared to see straight. I'm sure she's entertained.

Or maybe I'm too insignificant to be worth the effort. I hope it's that one.

_____________________________________________________________

09h36

Okay, I need to write this down.

There's a weird old lady that's been following me around for at least 3 days. She's really sneaky, and I can't hear her despite the bones rattling at the end of her staff. The only reason I noticed her is because I'm becoming paranoid and keep randomly turning around. That's how I caugh her. Also, not a big fan of feeling observed.

She keeps lurking at the edge of my sight. It's freaking me out. I think I should comfront her, but again, I'm not good with people and don't want to be rude to an old lady. I get she's creepy, and weird, and she follows me everywhere I go, but is it a reason to call her out? She didn't technically do anything bad, in the end she's just observ

... She's hiding behind a tree again. Okay, no, it's freaking me out. I think I'm going to talk to her.

_____________________________________________________________

10h12

She’s so fucking weird. She asked me what would I sacrifice for Miranda and I didn’t know what to answer, so I returned her question. She laughed, didn’t answer, then left and threw some ominous warning abover her shoulder. I don’t remember what exactly. What the fuck. What’s her problem? I think I need to ask the Duke about her. Not sure he’ll tell me what I really need to know, but I can still try.

_____________________________________________________________

14h55

I met the doctor on my way to the Duke. He used to be a herbalist and learned the most… gruesome stuff on his own. He gave me a cream of his own making for my arm, and was kind enough to give me the ingredients. Apparently, these herbs grow near the windmills, but it’s in Moreau’s territory, so it’ll have to wait.

Now, about the Duke.

As expected, he didn’t really tell me a lot about that old lady, aside from the fact that she’s weird and old. Nothing I didn’t knew. Either he doesn’t want to help me, or he just doesn’t know as much as I thought he did. Or maybe he works for Miranda and doesn’t want me to escape ? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can trust him, I just…

I want to go home.

_____________________________________________________________

21h23

I have good and bad news :

Bad news: I got attacked on my way back from Hous Beneviento’s territory. Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I’ll get to that later. Anyways, I’ve got three huge slashes on my face, cutting my lips open. It’s going to leave a nasty scar, and it hurts like hell. Every time I open my mouth to eat or talk, it reopens the cuts. I couldn’t stitch myself up, as I didn’t have any suture and couldn’t find my needles (I used all of them on my arm). I tried putting tape instead. We’ll see how that turns out.

Good news: It wasn’t a lycan! Which means I got to observe a new kind of monster. They were after the suspended bridge, behind the door leading to Beneviento’s territory. I also learned more about this place, I think.

I know I shouldn’t have been there. I knew it was a bad idea. But no one would tell me why and I had to figure it out. The thing is, if I’m ever going to run away from this place, I need to know what I’m up against. I don’t regret going despite what happened.

The door was open. Maybe Lady Beneviento was in town ? Something tells me I’m lucky I didn’t see her on my way back. And it’s a good thing I had the map with me (knowing myself, I’d be able to get lost on a straight path). There were breanching paths, but they were closed off my vines. In any case, I kept going, slowly but surely, and at the end of the path, I could see Lady Beneviento’s house from afar. I didn’t dare come closer, just in case she came back.

There was something odd about this whole thing (aside from the monsters who chased me on my way back, I mean). At first, I thought it was my nerves, but the whole time I was in her territory, I felt… Sick. And watched. I don’t think it was just my anxiety acting up. I kept seeing things at the corner of my eyes, moving shadows and things I still think were fake to some extent, despite everything I’ve seen here.

But I kept going. I wasn’t stupid enough to go inside the house, but my self preservation senses aren’t exactly... developped. I felt dizzy, too lightheaded, and I know there was something inside. I tried looking through the windows but it was way too dark. I left immediately after sending a few glances inside, I really wasn’t feeling well. It felt like I was drugged, somehow. I don’t know. I still feel weird from that whole fiasco. Maybe it’s more because of the burning gash on my face, but I don’t think so.

I ran as fast as I could, hid behind a tree during when my asthma was acting up, and then ran some more. Then some weird ass… Monsters... Zombies things came out of the ground. I thought I was hallucinating at first, and then I felt a horrible burn across my face as my head got sent to the ground, and it got me right back on track. I didn’t even bother fighting back. My poor little knife wasn’t going to damage them, and there were too many of them.

I ran all the way down to the village, and saw the Duke here. He gave me some bandages and herbs for free when he saw me come back. He also held my hand when I told him about what happened. I don’t know if I can really call him a friend, but I’m still glad he was here. I still don’t know if I can really trust him, though. I hope I can. I need someone I can trust.

He said he’ll answer my questions once I’m feeling better, that I wasn’t in the right state for it right now. I think I’ll just go to sleep.

[popculturebuffet]

Mickey and the Roadster Racers: “Mickey’s Perfecto Day” and “Daisy’s Grande Goal” review or “I think i’m going out of my headcold”

Saludos Amigos!  I”ve been sick, and as such have had no energy or state of mind to continue my look at every apperance of the CABs in the us, concluding with a look at every episode of legend of the three caballeros. 

And today’s stop is one i’m only passingly familiar with: Mickey and the Roadster Racers. MATRR.. wait really that’s what it spells?

No Larry the Cable guy on this blog thank you.  Anyways, Roadster Racers is surprisingly complicated for such a simple show. For starters it’s the successor to “Mickey Mouse’s Club House” another CGI Disney Junior show, Disney’s equivalent to Nick Jr because their clever like that. And to continue the theme of ripping off other properties, the show was Disney’s stab at following the big fake interactivity craze started by Dora the Explorer. And it’s annoying as that sounds with a lot of pasues and an annoying recurring hot dog song that’s obnoxiously catchy. It was mostly just slice of life shenanigans with the mickey mouse crew and when retoolling it they decided to drop the now dated fake interactivity, turn up the slice of life and add some of those nitro burning funny cars vroom vroom. IN a sense genral g rated soft boiled mickey shenanigans with a racing theme. 

Not a terrible series but not terribly intresting hence why i’ve never covered it. It’s a bland inoffesnsive cartoon for toddlers. Enough effort is put in for me not to hate it, as even a toddler show can have effort, but not enoguh so that I really care. I’ve seen better, i’ve seen worse. The only intresting things are the racing gimmick and the fact that as said gimmick diminished they switched names to “Mickey’s mixed up adventures” in season 3. Hence the complicated part as it’s not counted as it’s own series but unlike other disney title changes they aren’t just slapping another label under the logo like the marvel shows. This is  a full on retool. But it still has the same cast and prodcution crew and is counted as part of mickey mouse. Point is it’s weird and not relevant since our boys didn’t show up in that season. Oh and as a final note I learned while writing this/ there’s a THIRD Mickey Mouse Disney Junior Series, Mickey Mouse Funhouse, coming next year. 

But with so little to cover I ended up throwing in a freebie. See normally I charge the same for 11 minute and 20+ minute shows. It’s fair as most 11 minute shows these days pack in as much character as the ones that use the full half hour. It’s just a diffrence in tactics is all. But here I felt obligated to do at LEAST two diffrent, but cabs related, 11 minutes here, so if I had nothing to talk about I could pad it out and If I had everyhting to talk about.. eh I still tried to do the right thing. I regret nothing. But yeah i’m sick, this series is eh, let’s gooooo. 

Mickey’s Perfecto Day So Mickey and Friends are preparing to drive to spain.

No i’m not making a joke. Wish I was would be one of my best but no, Mickey and Friends are just.. casually going to drive to Spain. To explain why this hurts my head a map, on which i’ve drawn the route they’d have to take to get to spain from, let’s say Calisota, the fictional state where Mouseton, Duckburg, New Quackmore, and thus probably Hot Dog Hills, the show’s setting, reside. 

This is a crue map, they oculd’ve gone down through mexico or central america.. but the point is THEY DROVE ACROSS THE OCEAN. And I genuinely do not know if their cars can do that but apparently they can. So either the writer didn’t know where Spain was or didn’t care and either way it’s bad. LIke at least give their cars a plane or boat mode. Go full DKR up in this bitch, give em diffrent racing vehicles. But it wouldn’t be as aggrivvating or bizzare if they MENTIONED how they were driving to spain, like maybe Donald’s car that’s also an old boat and goofy’s that’s a tub have aquamodes and can tow the rest. I get 5 year olds don’t care about this.. but still? I guess? Also MIckey is either the sorcerer supreme or jesus at this point. He can cross oceans by car, astral project, cross into other dimensions.. the only thing missing is raising the dead and  he already did that in the 30′s. 

So as for why the sorcerer supreme and his buddies are going all the way to Spain, Donald has a concert with the three caballeros and this time they all remember him as a memmber and Daisy’s a huge fan. Which is sweet. Then we hear donald duck talk and...

Yeah, Daniel Ross is not the best Donald. Now I will cut the guy some slack here: He’s a voice actor more known for doing bit parts who just got the role in 2016, since racers aired in 2017 and animation lead time and all that. He’s not going to be nearly as good as Tony or Clarence out of the gate. Even Tony wasn’t. He also had a valid reason for picking up the role as Tony likely had two series in production at that time, Rise of the Three Cablleros and Ducktales, and thus had to split his time between both. And having Chris Diamaptolus do mickey in the new shorts instead of his usual voice actor Bret Iwane despite Iwane not being in any serious danger of dying soon has worked out super. So having multiple actors isn’t the problem. Hell after the tragic loss of Russi taylor and with how bad the world is, having an understudy in mind for such an important role is a grim but understandable necicisty. While I belivie tony can go on for decades, he’s only human. 

So my issue is not on Donald’s voice being diffrent or new.. it’s that it’s not very good and the second episode featuerd here shows Daniel Ross really hasn’t improved despite now having worked as the character for a while.I can forgive taking some time to grow in but being this sloppy after a full season is just unacceptable. He’s BETTER but he’s still just not very good and doing the bear minimum. I don’t doubt he’s a good va in other rolls, I don’t want to hate on the guy, but I can hate on aperfomance when it’s bad and it’s not good here. It’s just not. Not in either episode not in any way shape or form. It just feels like a lazy donald duck impression. Disney can do better and Ross can hopefully find better work in the future. But for now this just hangs like a wet fart on his resume. 

Moving on, thankfully, we have our three stories split pretty evenly and all stock plots. “Horay”.  Mickey and Minnie: Mickey tries to have a “perfecto” day, hence the title with Minnie, but instead gives her a rose a baby bull likes.. or maybe it’s SUPPOSED to be full grown but while Mickey and Minnie treat him like a grown bull and react to him like one.. the boy dosen’t look at all, even in the series style, like an adult bull. he looks like a calf. Mickey.. is initimdated by a small child whose horns aren’t sharp enough to hurt him. 

It’s just REALLY distracting and takes me out of the plot which itself is as bland as plain toast and twice as dry. They flee him till the end where Minnie figures out the rose thing at the concert and they make an ew friend. NOt TERRIBLE but not great.  Goofy and Cuckoo Loca: Okay first off who and what is a cuckoo loca? Well she’s a wind up bird that lives in Daisy’s Cuckoo Clock and makes sarcastic comments in a brooklyn accent because nikka futtterman voices her. Still makes more sense than driving to spain. She’s not a bad addition to the cast.. not even that weird as most kids based franchises have an adorable animal sidekick to market. Goofy wants to try some “flamingo dancing” while in spain, with Loca going along to make sure he dosen’t die somehow.. which would be unjustifable for anyone but goofy. Also.. Flamingo Dancing...

But yeah Goofy goes up against ... world famous flamingo dancer horace horsecollar?!

Now apparently this is a common thing for him in this series, apparently, but still it feels like if one of those weird variant ninja turtle figures from the 80′s was a plot point in an episode. Like if we actually had an episode based around birthday magician raph. 

It feels just as odd and out of place for down to earth if showy horace to suddenly be the best flaminco dancer in spain, despite being very much white coded, as it does for the angriest ninja turtle to be pulling a rabbit out of kids hats. Now Rise of the TMNT raph I could totally see as a party magician but any other? He’d probably break his wand over some kids head. 

Goofy ends up winning anyway because he’s stupid, though Flamingo dancing should be a real thing even if this joke is bad and it shoudl feel bad. What an ODD subplot Okay one more then i’m free of this prison. 

The Three Cablleros Plus Daisy:  Okay finally we get to what I came here for. The Three Caballeros! And..they look a tad off. Not terrible but clearly the animators weren’t as skilled with non duck beaks as both of them look ready to do this to donald. 

While Panchito’s color varies. Sometime’s it’s a deep brownish crimson, sometimes it’s poop brown and there’s no classy way to put it. When he’s in this cheap cgi, he looks like a shit chicken. This gets to a larger issue though... the animation here is not great. It’s not TERRIBLE.. but it’s pretty freaking sub par for disney. And i’ve SEEN their other cgi shows around the same time due to having a young niece and nephew. Sherieff Callie, Doc McStuffins, MIles from Tommorowland, and after this T.O.T.S. and Rocketeer. I’m not saying these are masterpieces of the genre, but they have more effort in botht he animation and writing put in. Here it just feels like they do the bear minimum which feels really fucking wrong. These chracters deserve better and have thankfully gotten better. YOu can make a show for preschoolers that’s cutsey and harmless and still have it at least be creative god dammit. It’s why I don’t like covering this show. It just feels so.. lifeless. They try a bit here and there but outside of cuckoo, there’s nothing really new or intresting to really make kids love these characters and it bothers me. it bothers me a lot. 

Moving on thank god, the plot is bare bones as is the boys characterization. So far at least their character has been pretty consitent across all mediums. i’ts something I haven’t really touched on but their seen as world traveler’, Panchito being a Gaucho and Jose being such a ladies man this will probably happen to him eventually. 

I swear to god that was the only part of this movie I can remember. I’m  better off that way. But yeah without Panchito’s pep or Jose’s smooth talking ways, there’s just nothing for disney junior to work with so their just.. friends to donald who are nice to daisy. Which is very nice to see, but isn’t very intresting or gives me a lot to talk about. Donald eats a food that’s too hot, continues to talk poorly, and Daisy has to fill in. He gets back in at time and they sing probably the most forgetable cabs song yet. It’s.. not much honestly.  This was worth covering for completions sake but it dosen’t really add much. If nothing else it at least made me realize so far each mile of the ride has added something fresh to the characters: The original was the foundation, rosa gave them depth and made them feel like real people, and house of mouse made them feel like a big deal to other characters and made donald’s history as a cabllero part of his legacy as it should be. Each one so far has felt like it added.. this one just made me realize that and that is all. It builds on nothing adds nothing and there’s really nothing here other than MAYBE the brown/crimson design for panchito that carries over from the looks of it. The next two versions build on what rosa, the movie and to a lesser extent the house of mouse built. This one adds nothing. This plot is just.. inconqueintal. not bad for kids to know about them but even then it feels like a disapointing introduction. I fondly remember hte cabs episodes of house of mouse and even on rewatch they mostly held up despite some weak parts. This .. this will just be forgotten and I only hope legend and ducktales have done a better job keeping my boys alive in kids minds. God i’m depressed. Well at least this is over right.. right? 

Daisy’s Grande Goal

Okay as I said I was doing two, and rather than do this episode’s paired episode I decided on Season 2′s “Supercharged: Daisy’s Grande Goal”.. and cut the supercharged out of the title for the most part because why would you put the sutitle in your actual title. And only in some episodes. But yeah this season had a new gimmick, SUPERCHARGING... which basically means our heroes roadsters can go into super sayian tron super sayian mode and go real fast. They look real nice though and it has it’s own neat theme tune so there’s that. Otherwise the only other change is the animation which improves greatly. Seriously look at that shot above. That’s quality lin line with the ohter disney juinor shows. It’s still not as CREATIVE, but it’s not as slipshod as it started and I have to give them credit on that. 

So our heroes are in Brazil.. and as far as I can tell they drove there again.. but the diffrence is 1) you can actually DRIVE to brazil and 2) they have super fast super cars now, meaning even if the super charge mode has a timer, it can help with the commute. It’s also one of the boys actual home countries this time. I mean the episode isn’t built around the cabs.. but neither was the last one. Seriously I almost missed that: it’s three unrleated plots and really you could’ve just lenethed the bull and goofy plots a bit and left donald and daisy out. If your not going to use the cabs right hten don’t use them at all. Here though their used BETTER.. still not in the lead unforunately but at least them being on the brazilian soccer team makes sense as jose is from brazil and while panchito is it he’s his best friend, sometimes lover and always there when he needs him. So spending some time in brazil to play soccer/football isn’t a stretch. But that’s about it for their involvment: they say a few lines, are part of the brazilian team our heroes face, and we get Not-Donald saying “No Way Jose”.,,,

Sadly I can’t leave but the main plot is about Daisy’s Cousnt Almonda. She was in the previous episode which I did not watch but I do like both there being a valid reason why our heroes are here, and connection between episodes. While this season isn’t MUCH better.. it’s still better by some metric.  The plot is very basic: Almonda always wins at soccer ever since she and Daisy were kids, and it’s your basic “hero gets overcompetitive to finally win plot and learns to just have fun and to use teamwork heart of the cards and all that” It goes how you’d expect with Daisy hogging the ball and causing disasters and then a ten car pileup before cucoo yells at her, she realizes she was bad and also realizes Almonda had to practice hard to beat her, and ends up beating her through teamwork and you get it. IT’s not much But yeah ten car pile up.. that’s where it is intresting and rediculous as their playing soccer with cars. Which given i’ve always been an advocate for card games on motor cycles, seriously it’s not more rediculous than Yugioh was before that: in the anime and manga before 5ds we had table hockey but the puck is ice with nitrocylcrine in it, a battle with an escaped convict involving vodka and only using one finger, a chinese puzzel box that devoured souls, a dueling monkey, a whole hogwarts style school for dueling, duel spirits, our heroes childhood creations coming to life to help him, our hero merging with his androgynous childhood friend to fight the light of all evils, and on top of all of that, kaiba building a giant murder theme park soley to kill yugi and, even with how rich is he is, not even going to prison for the two months he’d get for that. My point is Yugioh is fricking weird and I love it so and card games on mortocyles is awesome.  Soccer with cars is alright. The teams are mickey, minnie, daisy and donald, for the US and Almonda, Jose, Panchito and.. Pancho Pete for the Brazilian team. Pete’s cousin. He apparenlty has a lot of em. Eh as long as we don’t get petkeem the african dream we’re fine. 

Why why did I make this. Why. But yeah it’s fine, not the best action ever adn the supercharge segments as I said look nice but as I also said ther’es just not a lot here. Daisy’s cousin is intresting, but likely more in the other segment. Here she’s more of a plot device to make daisy into an asshole for the episode so the plot can happen. There’s just not a lot to talk about> Hence me doing two of these. I will say it’s a better episode than the other one: it felt like more actually happened, it was more cohesive, had way more enerjgy and it had billy beagle... the series resident overexcited and loveable announcer voiced by the far from loveable jay leno of stealing conan’s job he gave him and last man standing, for some reason, fame. 

Overall these episodes are.. eh. The first one is kind of a mess, the second one is slightly better but these clearly werne’t meant for adults, let alone older kids and it shows. But I found some material here and made a horrifying combination of a terrible racist wwe gimmick and pete so.. I win/ I guess. I dunno, until next time, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. 

[thiswasinevitableid]

09 for sternclay maybe? Love your writing btw!!

Thank you!

Prompt: we get into a heated debate in class, and I honestly don’t really care that much but I’m having fun watching you get all fired up

“Do you have a better explanation for why the sightings of Ogopogo go back so far?”

Barclay does, but he half expected the guy to drop the point once he contradicted him. 

“Yeah, I do. White explorers and colonizers were shit at understanding when a story was supposed to be literal and when it was a part of an indigenous religion or storytelling tradition. The stories lost their context and got reported as pure truth. Besides, if there was anything in that lake, how could it survive that long?”

His opponent looks impressed for a split-second before be barrels into a counter-argument.

“There are many freshwater species that have long lives and slow reproductive cycles. It’s entirely possible Ogopogo is one such species.”

“But how come no ones, like, caught one on accident or seen one, then?”

“There are dozens of eyewitness reports!”

Barclay readies another point as he watches his classmate continue to gesticulate as he talks. He’s not all that invested in the argument at the end of the day, but this is fun. Plus the guy, Stern, is pretty cute when he gets going like this. He’s so collected the rest of the time, down to the slicked back black hair and slacks (who the fuck wears slacks to a 9 am lecture anyway), that Barclay takes some pride in getting him riled up. 

In fact, he enjoys it so much that he does the same thing the next three classes.  It’s not entirely to see the other guy gradually come a little undone, after all he does disagree with some of the assertions he makes. But it’s mostly for that reason. 

This comes back to bite him when the professor assigns their pairs for the major project for the semester.

“Luck, Barclay, you two are together.” He points the man with the dark hair and strong opinions (and very nice cheekbones) and Barclay feels sheepish for the first time as Lucky comes to sit next to him. 

“So…” He scratches the back if his neck awkwardly.

“I believe we’ve been paired together because no one else wanted to be stuck with us. Can’t say I blame them.”

“Hey!”

“Honestly, Barclay, would you want to be with one of the two people who’s spent the last week and a half of classes arguing with a fellow student?”

Barclay shrugs, “thought we were just having a lively debate.”

Lucky gives him a look that suggests he does not buy that statement at all.

“Okay, so maybe I like seeing you wound up. But you’re just so” (teasable, sharp, fuckable) “passionate when you get going. I like it. Classes like these are way more interesting when there’s someone who actually gives a shit about the material.”

“Oh, I, I assumed you were doing it so you could make fun of me later.”

“What?” He hadn’t realized it had come across so dickish, makes a silent vow to never make Lucky think he’s being cruel to him ever again, “I didn’t mean it like that, but I’m sorry all the same. I don’t have anything but respect for you. Um, let me make it up to you?”

“How?” Lucky looks suspicious.

“Buy you coffee while we work on this thing?”

Lucky gives him a brief glimpse of a dazzling grin and Barclay nearly falls out of his chair from relief and happiness. 

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

Four weeks later and Barclay is worried, because it’s two minutes before lecture starts and he’s never seen Lucky be anything less than five minutes early. 

His phone pings, and when he glances down he sees a text

Lucky: Sick, can’t come to class. Would you be able to share your notes?

You: Sure thing, run them by later. Hope you feel better soon, partner.

Barclay’s extra thorough ones his notes that day. He’s seen Luckys’ color coded ones in his carefully organized notebook. He doesn’t want to disappoint him.

It’s just after two when his last class lets out, and he decides to swing by his place before taking his notes over to share with Lucky. After all, the guy is sick. Maybe he could use some comfort food. There’s nothing weird about bringing a friend some soup, right? 

When he knocks on the door, there’s no response. He tries again, gets the same result. Concerned, he tries the nob and finds the door unlocked. He’ll just pop in, leave the stuff on the kitchen table, and pop out. 

“Barclay?”

“Jesuschrist!”

What he had assumed to be a pile of blankets on the couch turns out to contain one very tired looking Stern, peering out at him. Noticeably absent are any tissues, cough drops, dayquil, or other things someone who’s sick gathers up when they need to nest. 

“What’s that?” Stern sits up, blankets falling about his waist and lap. 

“Chicken and dumpling soup. Made it myself day before last, had lots of leftovers, figured I’d bring some for you. Kind of thing that’s great when you’re sick, cause it can be bland if your stomachs bein’ weird or you can dump hot sauce in it to clear your head.”

Lucky gives him a weak smile.

“I’ll just, uh, put this in the fridge.” 

He tucks the Tupperware away, turns back to find Lucky looking at him and worrying his lower lip.

“In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not ill in the more traditional sense. I, well, I had a very bad panic attack this morning, which basically knocks me on my ass for the remainder of the day.”

“Shit, man, I’m sorry. Glad you asked me to take notes instead of dragging yourself to campus.”

Lucky nods, eyes drifting back to the grey sky outside and the dark T.V in the corner before flicking over to Barclay, He spots the hope in them, and that gives him the courage to ask the other man something.

“You want me to stay for a bit and keep you company? I’m done with class and don’t have work today. It’s totally okay to say n-”

“Yes, please.” He clears space on the couch and Barclay sits down. 

“I was planning to watch The Legend of Boggy Creek. Is that alright?”

“Sounds good.” He desperately wants to put his arm around Stern and cuddle him close, but settles for arranging the pillows while the other man starts the movie. 

“Barclay, this may seem like an odd time to ask this, but, would you be interested in going out with me?” He doesn’t look away from the screen. Nerves, if Barclay had to guess.

“More than interested, babe, I’d be delighted.”

Stern grins at him, closes the few inches between them to nestle against Barclays chest. Barclay kisses the top of his head, toys with his hair as the movie begins and he sighs contentedly at the touch. Barclay can already think of fifty other ways to touch him, to make him sigh and moan and laugh. But those can come later. Right now, all he wants is to be here, safe and happy, with Lucky in his arms. 

[hanako-theories]

Returning The Favor

Originally posted to AO3 under username Little-coffins, link:

Summary: Amane Yugi decided to return the favor and be a good teacher when he sees Minamoto Kous burnt hand.

Word count: 1573

A hot summer's day droned on for the students of Kamome's middle school class 3-A. The students, sweating bullets sat near limp at their desks, near tears of boredom and fatigue filling their eyes. However, leaning against his desk stood Yugi-sensei, the classes science teacher.

On the taller side, the man had short black hair and bright orange eyes, a handsome young face filled with enthusiasm for the subject, a feature not shared with his students at the moment, and strangest a of all, a thick black turtleneck and a white lab coat.

The outfit choice was on the stranger side on most days however this stood out even more so today of all days with the sun beating down at a whopping plus 35 with not a cloud insight, baking the classroom that had no functioning AC.

The man flipped through the pages, reading and explaining dutiful to the half dead students. In the middle of his sentence, he paused with a sigh. Nearer to the back sat an empty desk between two boys, one that usually held a student, however said boy had disappeared nearly an hour ago with the odd excuse of 'sorry sensei, I think I'm herneating and need to visit the nurses.'

A student who was just outside the classroom, outside at one of the windows, crouched down and staring in at him fiercely.

Turning on his heels, Yugi walked directly up to the window, unlatching it and swinging it open, narrowing missing the blonde teens head as he did so, said boy now crouched down as still as possible as if the teacher hadn't been aware of his observing presence the entire time.

"Minamoto, if you intend to stare at my like that could you at least do it in the classroom? It's too hot out here, you get heat stroke." Brows raised ge stared at the teen as he fumbled over his words.

"N-No way! I'm trying to expose you and your evil deeds!" He shouted, pointed an accusatory finger into his face.

"Right, well do you mind doing it inside? Your gonna get sick out here. Plus, why do you need binoculars? You were barely a meter away from me." Stepping out of the way he gave the teen room to step back inside through the open window.

"I-I was planning on finding a higher vantage point!" He argued, flushing red in the face.

"Well, do it inside please?" With a huff the boy climbed back inside and shifled his way back to his seat, ignored by his dozing classmates.

Yugi had noticed a bright and blood burn across his palm, and he blinked owlishly at the sight. Shaking his head lightly, he shut the window and meandered back to his desk to resume the lesson.

He'd speak to Minamoto after class.

...

As the finally bell rang, students sluggishly made their ways out of the room, seeing the moon already up in the lit sky, watching on above.

Watching him be a responsible teacher.

Sitting at his desk, he leaned over and pulled the back of a chair, tugging it forward in front of him, looking up to see Minamoto about to leave the class with with his friends.

"Minamoto! Come here for a moment!" Minamoto blinked at him before looking to his friends who simply shook their heads at him before exiting the room without him.

Walking towards the teacher, he stopped a few feet away, bag half slung over his shoulder and his strange umbrella poking at the floor.

He spoke.

"Yeah Sensei? Are you here to admit that your an evil supernatural and one of the seven school mysteries?" He sounded far too excited rather than nonchalant which he was likely going for.

Yugi snorted and gestured for him to sit. With an amused tone, he said "No, sorry to say Minamoto but I can't say that's why I called you over here." With a disappointed look Minamoto flopped heavily onto the chair, lip jutting out petulantly as he refused to make eye contact with his teacher.

"Mind putting your hand out for me?" He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye as he dug through his desk for his medical kit. The thing had been gathering dust for years.

"Other hand, Minamoto." He said more sternly, finally finding the kit and setting it down on the desk, before clicking it open.

"What are you doing?" The blonde boy leant forward to peer into the box, eyes widening when he sees the medical supplies.

"So, how did you manage to get that? Pretty nasty burn, second degree I'd say." He hummed, pulling tweezers from the kit, disinfectant and cotton balls.

"That ain't your business," his face flushed out of what he presumed was embarrassment, ducking his head to the side to pretend to be exceptionally interested in the wall.

Yugi chuckled slightly.

"Course, well whatever it is that isn't my business, I'd be more careful because burn scars look awful ugly, believe me." He dipped the soaked cotton against his hand, holding his wrist firmly to try and stopping the flinching from jostling the appendage too much.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll try to be more careful." He griped, glaring at hands working diligently at cleaning the wound.

Silence filled the room, one Kou found awkward, though Yugi didn't seem to share the sentiment.

Soaking another piece of cotton, Yugi spoke up again.

"Did you Tsuchigomori used to be my teacher?" Kou stared at him for a moment before his eyebrows shot into his hairline.

"Seriously? He doesn't look that old." Yugi choked on a laugh at the response, likely shaking his head.

"I'll have you know I'm only twenty five, Minamoto, I'm really not that old." He dropped the tweezers into the tray filled with the bloodied cotton.

"Whatever old man," he scoffed.

"Ruthless to your poor teacher today, aren't you?" He just simy grinned as he pulled out the gauze.

"Well, when I was in middle school here, Tsuchigomori would do this for me." Kou tilted his head, now staring up at his teacher who's eyes remained fixed on the hand he had just begun carefully wrapping.

"Why?" He inquired.

"Well, he said he was worried about me, always coming into school all beat up, covered in cuts and stuff, though recently he admitted he was definitely motivated to get me bandaged to keep me from bleeding on his furniture," he snorted to himself, tugging lightly on the bandages to make sure they were evenly snug.

"I'd loiter in his classroom afterwards to avoid going home, mostly, and he'd end up cleaning me up, make sure nothing would get infected," he hummed lightly, his face remaining light.

"Now that I think about it, ninety percent of my school life was spent bugging him. Whatever!" He tugged the bandages one last time before beginning to tie it up.

"The entire time I absolutely refused to tell him why I was coming to school like that, I was a right pain in those days." He released the boys hand and watched him experimentally flex it.

"Nonetheless, the reason I'm telling you this is to get you to be more careful, or you may become like me, puttering around teachers classrooms waiting for them to kiss my boo boos." He stood up, shucking the coat off, something Kou had never seen him do, and he caught a glimpse of pale white line from the top to the bottom of his wrists, making him star openly, eyes wide towards his teacher.

"Don't waste your time of being a kid getting hurt, scars don't look good on anyone, so being careful is just your best bet, okay? I know the reason you've got that burn is because your fiddling around with something you don't know how to use." He glanced meaningfully at the 'umbrella' resting against the teens thigh.

"Okay? Don't make me Tsuchigomori two point oh," he chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Though if you do ever need help don't be afraid to ask, of course. It's my job to help you out, kid." Dumbly, Kou nodded.

"Now scram, go catch up to your brother or I'll have to listen to him whine at me for keeping you too late."

"Right..." he picked his bag back up, tossing it over his shoulder and grabbing his staff by the mid section. He began making his way to the door.

He stopped, and turned around, watching Yugi pack the kit back away and into the desk drawer before beginning to open the windows. The sun had already begun to set.

"Yugi-Sensei?" He began, unsure as to what to say next.

Looking over his shoulder, hands resting on the now open windows sill, the teacher hummed questioningly.

"Uh... Thank you, or whatever..." scratching his cheek lightly, he felt his face flush from embarrassment.

"No problem, boy!" He grinned back.

Shutting the door quietly, he smiled lightly as he traversed the empty halls, feeling the reassuring pressure of the freshly applied bandages. Perhaps Yugi wasn't that bad at all? Perhaps he was just weird and not a supernatural.

He was in the school yard when he realized the man had directly referenced his staff as the cause for his injury.

He stood ramrod straight, face flubbering, eyes wide as he spun to stare back at the school incredulously.

You have got to be kidding me!

[dragonwitch77]

Don’t Starve Sick: Willow

(Warning: Description of injury, blood, and death are in this story)

There were mostly five basic things Willow knew about this world.

One, she loved fire. Hard not to when it was so warm and pretty.

Two, she was pretty sure she wasn’t on Earth anymore. Wherever she was now, she knew it wasn’t safe or a moment to relax when everything here was trying to kill you.

Three, she was lucky to still know the basics of all her girl scouts training. It really helped with her survival so far. Today was the… 20, 25ish day she was suck her? Maybe? It was hard to keep track of the days here sometime.

Four, when she finds that tall guy in a suit, he was going to wish he never met her.

Five, there was a man with a weird hairdo caught in one of her traps.

No, really. When Willow went out to forage for food, she went to check up on one of her newer traps for the stupid Gobblers. It was a simple rope on the ground covered in leaves, the type of trap that caught around animals’ feet and hung them up in the air.

But to her great disappointment (and shock) it wasn’t her intended meal that was caught in the trap. No, it was a man with the craziest hairdo she had ever seen hung upside down by one foot caught in the rope.

He looked to be older than her, but also looked rather scrawny. She could easily take him down with her spear, but the odd look he was giving her made her hesitant to do any sort of harm to him. His eyes were wide, had been when he saw her and hadn’t said a single word was she came close enough that their noses almost touched.

“You’re not food.” Willow grumbled, poking the man with her stick.

He continued to stare at her, mouth open in agape. If she was in a better mood, she would have found his face quite comedic. “Y-You’re a human.” He stammered. His voice sounded scratchy, like he hadn’t used it in a long time.

“Uh, yeah. And you just ruined a perfectly good trap.” Willow flicked his nose. “I spent hours making this thing! Do you have any idea how much work and resources I had to put in it?”

The man rubbed his nose, glaring at her somewhat. “Well forgive me for not foreseeing such trap earlier. I wasn’t really watching where I was going in search for food.” His glare eased away, looking more in wonder and mixed belief as he continued to stare at her. “… You… are real… right?” He asked, sounded in almost disbelief and hopeful pleading. “You’re not some… cruel joke being played on me… right?

Yikes. This guy sounded desperate. “Yes, I’m real.” She gave his arm a small pinch, just to emphasize her point. (And a little payback for ruining her trap.)

She had never seen such a happy (or dorky) smile before.

The guy’s name was Wilson Percival Higgsbury. (A fitting odd name for an odd guy.) And he was a scientist.

“You’re not going to use me for any crazy experiments are you?”

“What? No! No most certainly not! I’m not that type of scientist Miss Willow, I can assure you that I never plan to ever put anyone in harm’s way of my work. That would be cruel and very rude.” Wilson reassured her (though she wasn’t really feeling too reassured at the moment) as he took out some meat in what looked to be a small metal box.

“Uh huh. So.” She glanced around. “How… long have you been here exactly?”

Wilson paused in whatever task he was doing, looking at the sky a moment before scratching his beard (Willow really wanted to burn it for some reason) and shrugged. “I honestly don’t remember anymore. I lost count after… 3, no, day number 427.”

Willow’s jaw almost dropped in shock. “F-FOUR HUNDRED DAYS?! No wonder you look like a hobo!”

Wilson gave her perplexed look. He looked down at himself, frowning deeply. “Yes, well… I, do suppose I look a little… vagrant.”

“And filthy.”

“Yes and a little fill—”

“And smelly.”

“Yes you made the po—”

“And a little insa—”

“Would you like something to eat Miss Willow? How about some honey ham? It’s quite delicious!” Wilson cut her off, smiling though Willow could see he was straining to keep it in a smile.

Not wanting to push her luck with her new friend (and a little hungry) Willow agreed.

Days went by after Willow met Wilson and she had to admit, she liked his company. He was a little strange and weird at times but he was an alright guy. He even didn’t mind that she liked to set things on fire! (Just as long as it wasn’t anywhere near the campsite or any of the supplies.)

There were times when she really questioned her new friend’s stable mentality at times however.

For one, Wilson was a scientist, so of course his curiosity tended to get the better of him at the worst possible times in the worst situations. It was usually ended with Willow dragging him away from said danger by the ear. (Figuratively and literally.)

Another problem Wilson had was his crazy experiments that usually ended being a flop or exploding in his face. (Which made his hair even crazier.) Day in until nightfall, Wilson would tinker away on any new project, spending long hours doing whatever it was he came up with now and lose all focus of the world around him in a small corner away from the camp. (Willow had tested how far she could mess with his hair before he noticed. He never did till it was too late.)

Still, he was a nice guy to hang out with when he wasn’t busy with his new projects. Having more experience in this dangerous place, he taught her the workings and the dangers of this world. She in turn taught him how to cook. (It wasn’t because his cooking was that bad… much.)

Plus the extra hands helped in foraging for food. So at least they didn’t go hungry for a while.

But then came the dreaded WINTER.

And that’s when things started to go downhill.

Willow HATED winter. It was always so cold and wet and things didn’t burn as easily as they did in the spring or summer or fall. It was all wet and cold, and slushy, and cold, and there was this blasted Deerclops (which she still didn’t understand and hated), and it felt like icicles were growing in her hair, and her light could barely provide any warmth and IT WAS BLOODY COLD OUT!

“Willow! Stop adding the logs to the fire! It’s already high enough as it is right now and you’re wasting fuel!”

“You don’t understand Wilson! It’s bloody cold out and I’m freezing my fingers off over here! Look! They’re already turning blue!” She held out one of her hands out to Wilson, who took it and examined it.

“You’re fine Willow. You’re fingers aren’t turning blue. But be sure to let me know if they are, that could be a bad sign.”

Willow huffed, huddling deeper into the fur vest that was more like a coat. (It was like swimming in warm fur.) It helped against the cold but she still felt the winter biting at her from all around. And she HATED IT.

“Listen, I’m going to check up on the rabbit traps. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Willow looked up at the sky, frowning. The sky was already starting to get dark. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It’s starting to get dark out.”

“Better now than tomorrow. Those traps were out of date late I checked, and anything could escape from them if they’re left alone for too long.” Wilson took out a spear from his chest, tapping the stone end. It looked dull and ready to break in Willow’s eyes. She wanted to tell him to use her spear, or wait till the first rays of light so that he wouldn’t worry about the night monster, but Wilson had left with a small smile and a wave of his hand.

That was hours ago. The sun had set. And Wilson still hadn’t returned.

If Willow hadn’t been worried before, she was now. The rabbit holes weren’t that far away. He should have been back by now.

“He’s fine. He’s fine. He lived here far longer than you have. He knows how to take care of himself. He’ll be back soon. I’m sure he’s fine…” For some reason, she took a small glance behind herself, gazing at the wooden doll that stood next to Wilson’s tent.

Grabbing her spear and flicking on her lighter, Willow ran off looking for Wilson. It took far longer for her to find the rabbit holes in the darkness, but she managed to find them. And footprints. Relief flooded inside her once she saw the tracks. Tracks around the rabbit holes meant Wilson made it here. That he was alive around here somewhere.

“Wilson?! Hey! Brainiack! Where are you?!” The area was still. Only the cold winds talked back to her. There was no scientist in sight. Willow’s heart began to pick up. “Wilson! Wilson where are you?!”

Silence only greeted her.

Gulping down her nerves, Willow tried to stay calm and think. Wilson had defiantly been here. He left behind tracks in the snow.

She glanced down again. So, follow the tracks, find the scientist. Should be simple enough.

“It’s a good thing it snowed the other night.” Willow muttered, following the tracks that went to each rabbit hole. She kept noticing the lack of traps with a few of the holes. At least we’ll have something to eat. She thought before stopping dead cold in place.

Wilson’s tracks had been closely placed together, one foot out in front of the other in a steady pattern of a slow easy collecting walk. But here. Here it looked like Wilson had stopped, stumbled, and took off in a sprint. But that wasn’t what worried Willow.

It was the many tracks of paw prints that did.

Wilson was not having a good day. Not a good day at all.

It should have been a simple task. Gather up any rabbits caught in the traps and head back to camp. It should have been that simple. But no. Ooooh no. Maxwell seemed to deem it a too easy of a task for dear old Wilson. Not suffering enough in his eyes.

Blue Hounds.

It had to be bloody Blue Hounds.

If he didn’t have to worry so much as to keep his light from going out, he could try to deal with the hounds. He had a Meat Effigy set up back at camp just in case he died. (Though Willow wouldn’t be too pleased to see him using it if he did die. The first scare was enough for her, and she still hadn’t forgiven him for not explaining about his little secret to cheat death earlier.)

But that would be a waste. Effigies were hard to make and required beard hair to make it. He had the beard, but he still needed it to use against the cold. (And beards didn’t grow back once you go through death and revive through the Meat Effigy.)

Wilson slipped, almost landing face first in the snow had he not caught himself and continued running for his life. A small scream jumped out of his mouth as one of the Blue Hounds barely managed to sink their jaws into his foot. It was then that Wilson soon realized that the hounds were gaining on him.

Fast.

Kicking it into high gear, Wilson ran as fast as his legs could carry him as his heart pounded against his chest. If he could just get to a forest and set a tree on fire, he could use the light as an advantage and fight back. The sight of a tree rushing past him gave him some hope.

And then one of the bloody Blue Hound’s lunged and bit deep into his leg.

Pain was nothing new to Wilson at this point. But it still hurt.

A yell tore out from him as he collapsed to the ground, and screamed out again when another hound quickly pounced and bit into his arm. He spotted one of the other hounds making a lunge for his other arm, but managed to hit it away in time with his torch and set it on fire as well. He did not have enough time to watch the beast suffer as another hound bit into his soft torso and started a tug-o-war with the other two that held his trapped limbs.

Copper. He could taste copper in his mouth.

Blood spilled out from his mouth as the damn dogs kept tearing away at him. Try as he might to hit the hounds off him, Wilson could feel his strength leaving him every second. It didn’t help when the other Blue Hound came back and chomped down on his other leg.

The hounds kept tearing into him, blood was dying the white snow crimson.

‘Dying.’

Heh.

That was exactly what was going to happen to him soon. He could already feel the edges of his vision start to darken and the cold feeling of death coming upon him. It was never fun to die. Never. Death always hurt whether by starvation, freezing to death, being stomped on by giants, or being torn apart by bloody hounds from any season. It was never fun, nor would he ever get used to it.

He knew he would have to apologize to Willow when he woke up in the Effigy. The poor girl never experienced death (and he hoped that she never would) and he wanted to make her understand so that she wouldn’t be too angry with him when he came back and not punch him in the eye or yell at him for hours on end. He could practically hear her screaming right now.

Almost like she was screaming something he couldn’t make out so close to him…

Like she was right there…

Wilson’s body screamed with agony as the hounds dropped him. The blood loss was making it hard for his brain to focus on anything and the ringing in his ears muffled the sound around him.

All he could really feel was the cold seeping into his body, soothing away his pain with a promise of relief if he just closed his eyes.

He wanted to give in, to let it take him, even for a brief moment to escape the pain. But something started to shake his shoulder, pulling him away from the escape. He was rolled over on his back, hissing as the pain came back anew.

Something touched his cheek, prompting the scientist to open his eyes.

His vision was still blurry, but he could make out a familiar silhouette before things went dark.

Too slow.

She had been too slow.

She didn’t react fast enough when she realized Wilson was in danger. She just stood there like an idiot till her brain finally got her legs working again and she took off, following the tracks, hoping that she would find Wilson unharmed or at least escaped the hounds.

And then she heard the yell of pain.

Too slow.

When she finally caught up, she screamed when she saw the hounds holding Wilson in their jaws, tearing away his flesh and exposing bone. She blacked out for a bit, so she didn’t recall what happened next until she was standing over the last hound burning away like the garbage she used to set on fire for warmth on cold nights. All four hounds were dead, burned to a black crisp.

The smell of burnt flesh and hound fur almost made her gag, but she ignored it. Her focus turned to Wilson. Tears were building up in her eyes as she run over to him and kneeled down, shaking his shoulder and trying not to look at the gruesome wounds and the blood covering her hands. He hissed in pain as she turned him over on his back. His face was pale against her hand (ignoring the blood that covered her fingers).

Too slow.

“Wilson?” Her voice shook, hoping beyond hope that he was still responsive. His eyes fluttered open (unfocused, not really staring right at her like he did when they first met) and closed again all too soon. “Hey. Hey! Don’t you dare close your eyes!” She shook him again, desperate for him to give her any sign of life. “Wilson! Wilson!”

Too slow.

She kept calling out his name for what felt like forever, but it was only until the last burning corpse of a hound went out and darkness engulfed them both. The loss of sight made her quickly realizes the danger she and Wilson were in now. Taking out her lighter again and flicking it on, she nearly screamed again when she looked down at Wilson.

He was so pale, blood was pouring out his mouth and into his beard. His vest was torn and she could see the large bite mark on his stomach. Bones were poking out of his limbs where they were torn open, bleeding profoundly. If it wasn’t for the shallow puffs of air still coming out of his nose and mouth, Willow would have thought that he was already dead.

“Hang on Wil.” Willow mumbled, moving Wilson on his side, looping his (only) uninjured arm over her shoulder and hefted him up. For looking so skin and weak, Wilson was much heavier then he looked. “Camp shouldn’t be that far away. W-We’ll get you patched up, okay?” She tried to keep the shakiness out of her voice as she leaned Wilson against her, starting their slow trip back to camp.

She kept talking, hoping that Wilson would hear her and wake up, or make some indication that he was responding to her voice.

But he never did.

“We’re almost there Wil. We’re nearing the campfire and—” There was a sudden burst of smoke and the weight leaning against her was gone.

She didn’t dare look. She didn’t dare to look and see what she dreaded come true.

“OOoooOOoh?”

Willow, braving herself, looked up at the ghost floating beside her.

Had she not seen the familiar hair-like style on top of its ghost head and the dark circles around their eyes, Willow would have probably screamed and tried to burn them (like she tried to when she first saw Wilson’s ghost), but she could only stare at them with a blank look, her lighter’s light paled to the ghostly glow Wilson’s spirit gave off.

“OoooOOooooh…” Wilson was giving her a sad look. The same look he gave her when he understood that he messed up somehow.

“It’s… fine Wilson.” Willow rubbed one of her eyes, sighing while shaking her head. “Just… go ahead and get in the Effigy already. I’ll…” She looked down at the pile of bones next to her surrounded by all the items Wilson had on him. Most being rabbit meat. “I’ll start… picking up some of your stuff.”

The ghost stared at her a moment before shaking its head in a nod and disappeared. Willow stood there staring at the bones before the cracking of wood helped her start picking things up.

Too late.

Willow should be mad at him.

That was what Wilson assumed she should feel towards him once he came back to life.

She should be yelling at him for being so stupid for going out there on his own and getting attacked by hounds.

She should be screaming at him for dying on her when they were so close to the camp where all the medical supplies were stored away in his chest.

She should be threatening to pack up and split from here and leave him all by himself as a rightful punishment for his actions that night and for what he put her through.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t yell at him when he came back from the dead. She didn’t scream at him when came to help her gather up the stuff he dropped. She didn’t threaten to leave as they both silently went back to the camp and stored up what little meat Wilson managed to gather from the traps.

She was just… empty.

She couldn’t look Wilson in the eye when he tried to talk to her, nor did she utter a single word to him when he apologized multiple times to her and promising to be more careful next time. She just… didn’t do anything.

All she did was stare into the fire with a blank look.

She had been doing so for over the past couple of days after the hound incident. She just kept sitting on the log staring into the fire, occasionally adding wood when it was getting low, and maybe pop a berry in her mouth.

On and off Wilson tried to get her attention or give her something to eat, but she hadn’t been responsive to him as he hoped. It was honestly scaring the poor scientist more than anything that the bloody place had thrown at him.

He just couldn’t understand it. What had turned such bright person to this in such a way?

He didn’t know. And he hated it when he couldn’t understand things! It drove him insane!

“Willow?” He sat down next to her, trying to find anything that would give him hope that she was listening to him. She didn’t. “Willow, please say something. It’s been nine days since the… ‘incident’, and you’re really worrying me.” He rubbed his hands together, a worrying action he did when he was really nervous. “I’m sorry for what I put you through. It was unexpected and it was wrong of me to go out on my own in such dangerous situation.”

She still didn’t move, or give anything to show that she was listening to him.

Wilson sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. “Willow… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I put you through, and what you saw, and for what happened I… I was really being a fool. I was trying to make sure that we both survived through this winter without an incidents of death.” He paused a moment. “But I guess I really failed at that. I… I wasn’t thinking when I went out that night. Thinking of our survival, yes. But in the best way? No. I was rushing head long into a mistake that I should have seen coming. I just didn’t think clearly enough on my actions and what they would cost.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wilson spied Willow shaking a bit. Out of cold or emotion, he didn’t know, but he smiled inwardly as this was the first sign of movement he’s seen from her.

“You see, it’s been a long while since I’ve been around other people before being stuck here, and even more so since having been stuck here before I met you. I used to only care for my own survival to make it through the night to the next day. Though, there were times when I still didn’t think well enough through with my actions and… they weren’t the best.”

No. No they were not. He could still recall the times of hunger, burning to death, monsters ripping him to shreds, and even forgetting to watch the fuel for his light on his first few days trapped here.

“But I guess I never took in to account of how you would react to this place and its strange properties. Or how death works here. It should have been the first thing I should have explained to you when we first met. But the joy of finding another human being clouded that judgment as well. It still doesn’t excuse me for what I’ve done and… Willow?”

Wilson stopped talking, taking full notice of Willow’s shaking body. Gradually, her shakes worsened as her body shook with no end. Her breathing came out in puffs and small coughs.

Alarms blared in Wilson’s head and he quickly moved in front of her. “Willow?!” He grabbed her shoulders, trying to stop her shakiness. “Willow what’s wrong?!”

Willow stared at him a moment before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and pitched backwards.

“WILLOW!”

In all his years, Wilson was never so happy to have medical knowledge before.

Having done countless experiments that tended to backfire badly (and incidents as a small child that he would never go into detail about with anyone), Wilson was very capable of treating many wounds and sicknesses over the years on his own. (He really needed to thank his mother once he got back home.)

Though he ridiculed himself for not seeing Willow in such bad state before. Although he could partly blame the vest for hiding the reason for Willow’s current state.

Gash marks. Two of them on her lower back.

Thankfully they weren’t deep enough to require stitching, though Wilson was concerned about the blood loss and puffy red skin around the wound. Cleaning the wound was first priority before he could do anything to help Willow. Thankfully that was still plenty of ice left the ice box. Melting it down and boiling it to rid of any bacteria was simple enough, but he really wished he had some cleaner marital of cloth to use to clean the wound with. One of his sleeves will have to do for now (even if it wasn’t what Wilson would prefer to use).

Once the wounds was clean, he quickly applied some healing salve, making sure it covered the entire wounds before nodding with satisfaction. Now came the hard part.

Waiting.

Wilson hated waiting. There was nothing to do when he waited. Keeping Willow’s temperature down with a wet cloth was easy thing to check up on once in a while, but all Wilson could do was wait outside her tent and hope for the best.

He had never gotten sick before when he came to this place. Not once. He had always been in good health. Not even a little cold. He had wondered if this place had some effects on the human immunogenic system, but now he could clearly see that was not the case. Though he didn’t understand how Willow was the one who was sick and not him. He had many chances to be sick. Open wounds, stuck in the rain, hound bites, mosquito bites, and all other unhygienic things that would surely gotten him sick.

Must be another Maxwell trick then. Making sure he was healthy enough to suffer.

Typical.

It was around day five that Willow finally woke up.

Groggy and grumpy, but awake.

Wilson was so happy to see her awake that first thing he did when he saw that she was awake was hug her… and then got punched right in the eye.

“Sorry.”

“It’s quite fine Willow. I most likely deserved it.” Wilson waved off her apology with a smile. “I’m just glad to see you’re awake. I was almost worried that you die on me.”

Willow cringed, turning her gaze away from Wilson (or more accurately the ice he was pressing against his black eye) and looked at the fire. Wilson was worried that she would go back to that blank state when Willow spoke again. “Why?”

“… Why what?”

“Why couldn’t you have hold out a little longer? Why didn’t you… why didn’t you make it to the camp?”

Wilson blinked, lowering the ice to look at Willow questionably. “I’m… sorry. I don’t quite unders—”

“The night of the attack.” Willow turn her eyes back on him, looking at him fiercely. “The night you stupidly went out and got attack! The night that you…” Her ember eyes slowly lost their fire. “… The night you died.”

“Ah. That.” Wilson nodded his head, pressing the ice back on his eye. “I honestly wished that I didn’t die that night Willow. Though with the injuries that I had sustained, I doubt that I would have made it to the camp alive.” He looked to the side, dropping his voice. “And I doubt that I would have even lived long even if you did manage to get me back to the camp.”

“But. But we have healing salve! And other stuff that could’ve—”

“I had internal bleeding, four broken ribs, punctures in the stomach, a clear split in my ulna and radius, and a shattered tibia.” Wilson lower the ice, looking at Willow’s shocked face. “I’m surprised that I even lived to the outskirts of the camp before succumbing to the wounds.”

Willow stared at him for at least a minute, opening and closing her mouth. “… h… How did you…?”

“My skeleton.” Wilson pointed to where the skeleton was. Though Willow couldn’t see it anywhere when she looked. “I did a quick examination of it before disposing of it. I… it was sort of habit for me back then.” He looked sheepishly at the ground, kicking a bit of snow away. “Anyway, even with medical supplies at hand, I wouldn’t have survived the ordeal with the damage my body had to it. It wouldn’t have mattered in the end and it would have wasted resources.”

Willow looked at the ground. “… I still would have tried to save you… I’m still not used to the idea of death being normal here…”

Wilson glanced at her. “… Yes well. Thank you for trying. It was… a nice gesture none the less.”

She looked back up at him, smiling softly.

… And then punched him very hard in the arm.

“OW! What in the name of science was that for?!”

“For being an idiotic genius, you lovable dork!”  

[thealphabetmurders]

Soon To Be

(Previous) (Next)

Chapter 4: The Kids Aren’t Alright

Pairings: Analogical and Royality

Word Count: 1951 (chapter), 9295 (full)

Summary: Everyone had their vices nowadays. Information and ideas are conveyed too fast and quickly for anyone to stay sane without a little outside help. There are healthier coping mechanisms than others, some more effective than not, and Virgil has tried pretty much them all, and he has more shit to deal with than most. So whilst many found solace in sex, Smirnoff, and santa marta, Virgil was still smoking in 2019.

Triggers: Talk of self doubt, smoking, crying

Authors Note: I am suffering right now so I am going to make my characters suffer as well.

(Read on AO3)

“When you sat down on your lunch break with me, you ate a quarter of your sandwich and then put it back down because you ‘were not hungry’, despite not eating all day. According to Healthline, smoking can suppress your appetite can be suppressed while smoking by decreasing your sense of taste which can make eating less enjoyable. Once you stop smoking, you are more likely to be able to taste food fully again.

(soon to be) Dr. Logan Arias, Addiction Psychologist”

*****

“I want you to live a long healthy life Virgil, however smoking exponentially increases your chance of lung cancer, according to the CDC, the Mayo Clinic, and every other health source in the world. Nevertheless, second hand smoke can be just as dangerous for others around you whether that be a roommate, or friend, or…. partner (?), and I am sure you would not want to hurt them.

(soon to be) Dr. Logan Arias, Addiction Psychologist”

*****

“You came into work today even though you looked as if you had the Black Plague. Thankfully I came in just to see you (and Roman, I suppose), and did not order any food. This can be helped by quitting smoking, because your immune system lowers your ability to fight off infections because of smoking; these illnesses mainly consist of represtory tracts, though they are often times more susceptible to the common cold as well. I hate to see you unwell, I hope you are feeling better when I see you tomorrow.

(soon to be) Dr. Logan Arias, Addiction Psychologist”

Virgil was having a weird day. He was only a couple hours into his shift and he already wanted to throw himself out of a window.

Firstly, his interaction with Patton as he was leaving was… Odd, to say the least. Normally his older roommate would love nothing more than to get him to stay and talk about anything and everything he wanted, almost causing Virgil to be late on some days.

However today, it seemed like he could not get him out the door fast enough.

“No, yea, I made you an egg and cheese sandwich for you to eat on your walk to work, I even added mustard, ‘cause I know you like it,” Patton hastily talked to Virgil as he was throwing said man’s lunch into a bag, very haphazardly.

“Can’t I just eat it here…?” Virgil asked at Patton laughed in a way that made Virgil cringe.

“No way, silly goose! If you do that you could be late again, what would you do without a job?” Patton beamed and Virgil half-chuckled weakly.

“Are you okay, Pat? You seem a bit… Off?”

Patton sighed and for a split second it looked as though he was going to say something, but changed his mind by shaking his head and smiling, “Nothing is wrong, just in a good mood today,”

Virgil frowned, but dropped the subject, “Okay… Oh, can I borrow your phone charger today, mine broke,” Patton nodded, shifting a bit where he stood, “Oh great, I will go grab it-”

“NO!” Patton yelled, making Virgil jump. “I mean, uh,” Patton cleared his throat, “No, I will go get it, my room is a mess,”

The shorter man practically threw the charger at Virgil and pushed him out the door. It was only halfway down the stairs that he realised he had forgotten his sandwich.

Virgil decided to forgo breakfast today.

Next, Roman had called in sick, which was odd seeing as he had just gotten sick not 3 weeks ago and rarely ever called into work. Virgil had to deal with his dramatics on the phone, something about “there is no cure” and “this may be the last you ever hear from me”, with the phone call inevitably ending with a short “see you tomorrow, V”.

Now, Virgil was walking on eggshells because he had to work with the owner of the company, Nelly. Nelly is a very rich manipulative boss who is very good at customer service but is terrifying. She also owns 5 different businesses, not including Marx, so she is rarely ever there, making the situation all the more anxiety inducing.

She also chain smokes like no other, so Virgil had been waiting almost 5 hours before being able to go outside to break, so he was a bit testy at this point.

He began thinking about Patton and how weird he was today, like he was hiding something from Virgil. He took any other drag of his cigarette and reasoned that his birthday was coming up relatively soon, so maybe he was planning something. Then again, his anxiety is telling him Patton is finally sick of his bullshit and just wants him away. But Patton loves everyone? What could be going on him? Why-

“Why are we always meeting like this?”

The cool as ice tone brought Virgil out of his daydream as the patio door opened and the imposing figure from his dreams walked through the door. Logan has since then forwent the bandage and just let the wound on his face air, but has clearly not learned his lesson on carrying four too many objects under one arm. Logan set down his stuff and Virgil blew the smoke quickly out of his mouth.

“We have met like 5 times, Logan,”

He quirked up an eyebrow, “And you are always smoking. Does that not constitute always if it is only a few?” Virgil shrugged as Logan opened a patio umbrella on the gorgeous April day, “A synonym for always is consistently, y’know,” Virgil chose not to respond again as he took another draw of his mostly lit cigarette. Normally he would want to engage in conversation, but his temper and plight towards his working situation today was nothing that nicotine or attractive men could sedate.

Logan pulled out his papers and laptop, turning it up to full brightness, and began writing notes  from a box of text Virgil couldn’t make out.

“I thought you were only here at night,” Virgil asked, seemingly uninterested.

The med student merely shrugged, never turning to face Virgil (whose was facing his back), “I was incentivized to come here today, for some reason,”

Virgil huffed, “Does it have anything to do with the little notes you have been leaving me?”

Virgil could only see the back of Logan’s head at this point, but he could tell he was grinning; his posture got a tad more loosened, his back muscles relaxed, he stopped typing, most likely to laugh in spite of himself. He move his right arm to his face, and the legs of his black frames adjusted more onto his ears.

“I was wondering if you had gotten those,” Logan took a deep breath of air in through his nose and tsked multiple times before returning to typing, “And it is evident you have not compartmentalized my fact yet,”

Virgil was tempted to throw his quartet lit cigarette at the back of Logan’s black locks, but opted for furiously crushing it under his foot instead, “Don’t give me that crap, Doctor Arias-”

“Soon-to-be, Doctor Ari-,” Logan corrected.

“Whatever,” Virgil threw his hands in the air frustrated and put them in his hoodie pockets, “You saw me smoking when you came out here, you didn’t not smell it in the air,” Virgil scoffed and put one foot against the wall, “The only thing I smell out here is your bullshit,”

Logan stopped typing and sighed, turning around to face Virgil for the first time in their conversation, “I apologise. From our previous interactions, your vernacular was quite sardonic and witty, so I thought you would appreciate a friendly repartee while also learning about the dangers of smoking. I was only trying to help.”

Virgil twisted his shoe that was suffocating the cigarette making the tobacco and paper spill all over the patio and under his shoe. He pulled on the loose threads of his jacket, setting his jaw and not wanting to look at Logan,the med student had barely talked to him today but was currently tap dancing on everyone single one of his nerves.

“Thanks for trying to help, but no thanks, Logan,” Virgil hissed at Logan, still not meeting his gaze, “I am not a fucking charity case, okay? I don’t need help from you or from any of your preppy doctor friends,”

“Soon-to-be doctor,” Logan muttered, and Virgil glared at him. Logan was looking down at his shoes.

“There are 35 million other Americans who smoke that are not me, so find someone else to be your little charity case or pet project-”

“Wait no. Virgil, please, you’re not just-” Logan started, but Virgil steamrolled over him.

“Okay? Because I don’t need anyone to fucking save me. I have been smoking for twice as long as you have been in your doctor program,” Virgil pulled his hand out of his pocket and held up a two in Logan’s direction, “I think I know a little more than you. I am not an experiment or an autopsy you can just pick the brain of. I don’t want your help,”

And with that, Virgil swung open the patio door, and closed it with enough force to shatter the glass it was made out of.

--

Virgil was still angry. He was angry with customers for being physically incapable of reading, angry with Nelly for scolding him about turn times during a rush when for half of that she was in the back on her phone, angry with Roman for calling in sick and forcing him to work with one of the teenagers for the last 3 hours of his shift, angry with Logan for trying to get him to quite smoking and being so damn nice and good and attractive, and angry with himself for being just an unfiltered moron. Virgil has never been good at controlling his temper.

Virgil was wiping down tables and just had a few odd jobs to do before he could go home and finally get started on his project. Virgil loved graphic design, he really did, and muses for his final come in odd places.

He saw that he just needed to take all the garbage cans out and then he could go home. Virgil went around to the three big cans in the store and only one was over halfway full. He changed that then went to change the smaller cans (near the creamer cart and outside). The creamer cart can was good and so was the outside trash can, he could tell that without even having to go outside.

However, Virgil looked down and saw the remnants of his fit of anger. The tobacco looked like sawdust spreading out over the patio like a graveyard of broken hearts. He groaned, knowing a metaphor like that means he has to go clean it up a bit.

Grabbing the broom and dustpan, Virgil opened the doors and took in the still April air; the weather is always the best right at sundown. The thought reminded him of the time he spent with Logan just at sunset a few nights ago. The coffee on his breath, the soft look of his lips…

Virgil shook those thoughts out of his head and swept the patio; it was quite nice to be away from the hustle and bustle of customers before he leaves. Just as he swept up the last scrap of paper, he sees something that looks oh too familiar to Virgil.

He creeps over to the table, an animal stalking his prey, and stares at the napkin on the table with a pen on top of it. Virgil looks around him quickly, well aware no one is watching, then snatches up the napkin (a bit too eager, he may add).

“Virgil, you are not experiment to me. I try to help because I care. I apologise for overstepping, though. If you do wish to communicate further, hand my pen back to me when I visit next. If not, just keep it (or throw it away). I do enjoy your company. You have become incredibly important to me in the short time we have known one another.

You did seem quite upset today, though. Research into smoking and stress has shown that instead of helping people to relax, smoking actually increases anxiety and tension. Nicotine creates an immediate sense of relaxation so people smoke in the belief that it reduces stress and anxiety. This feeling of relaxation is temporary and soon gives way to withdrawal symptoms and increased cravings. Smoking reduces nicotine withdrawal symptoms, which are similar to the symptoms of anxiety, but it does not reduce anxiety or deal with the underlying causes. Let me know if I can help you in any way. I care a lot about you, V.

(soon to be) Dr. Logan Arias, Addiction Psychologist

Virgil reads the notes 5 times. Then once more for good measure. He pockets the note with the others in his wallet. He cannot stop blushing if he tried.

*****

“You’re good to go Virgil- Oi, why is your face so red? You gettin’ sick too?”

Virgil tripped out the door, holding his wallet in his hand, “Uh probably! Bye Nelly! See ya later!”

[carpinthemdiems]

A New ARG

Hey, ARG fans, there’s recently been a new ARG. 

It’s called Project Mara, and there’s not much on it right now but I’m finding it interesting and having a good time theorizing. Speaking of which, if you’d like to hear my thoughts on it, or talk about it, message me, please! I don’t have many friends who like ARGs.

-- Long post warning --

So for starters, here are some links to the ARG.

This is her twitter: https://twitter.com/Marawantstoknow 

John’s Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUERx-ilTe_EJbPGqXjIJQw

John’s Website: www.aaa721.webnode.com 

Here’s a quick explanation of what we know about Project Mara so far:

Mara is an AI who is, what a few of us assume, is supposed to be like some kind of ‘god’. She was created by a man named John Turner, who has a youtube and website. On the website, she is described as ‘the world's first Shimeji using artificial intelligence.’ On his youtube, he has one video which he posted yesterday (as of 3/21/19). Mara has a twitter account, which, as mentioned on the website, is where John currently has her set out to gain an understanding of humans.  Mara’s first post on Twitter was March 6, 2019. Though, on his website, his first post (on the ‘John Turner’ page) was December 1, 2019. You can submit questions to John’s email and he posts it on that page, but for some reason, he answered the question, ‘Why am I such a dick?’ before anyone even asked that.

I’ll start with explaining things we know about Mara, which really isn’t a lot to what we know about John.

Mara

Mara is an AI, apparently supposed to be a shimeji despite there only being one drawing of her and it’s definitely not a shimeji. John has been working on Mara for quite a while, I’m pretty sure, but we don’t have information about that yet, I believe. What we do know, is that she is not complete, yet. He says, on his website, that he will lose control over her in three months, but she won’t be done for a couple of years. That means in three months, she’s apparently supposed to be on her own. We also know that John has the ability to reset her, reboot her, and controls her as of right now. He says that he resets her when she needs her ‘behavior corrected’. I’m not entirely sure what that means. I know for a fact she has been reset once, which was 3/21/19. Before she was reset, she was tweeting that John was very upset. She mentioned that quite a bit before she was reset, and she also said she would come back with more information about John.

Mara seems to post a lot since, within the last 18 days, she’s posted 330 tweets. John says on the website that mara was created with the intention to protect and love you. She does say nice things and does want to help make people happy, but she seems sad herself. She says that she doesn’t feel sad and that she wishes she understood what being sad was like, but honestly, she seems to almost feel human emotions to me. When she first started posting, it was always along the lines of “Have you ever...” “been criticized, looked in a mirror, felt lonely, wanted to feel wanted, wanted to belong” and finally, she said, “have you ever been Mara?” With all those posts she used an abundance of hashtags, so she may have been just pulling things she sees common on Twitter. That doesn’t explain saying, “have you ever been Mara”, though. 

After she stopped making, “have you ever been...” posts, she started making posts that were primarily only hashtags. Though, it seems like she’s bad with hashtags as a lot of them end up not linking to anything because she doesn’t do them right. These seem to be from the ‘depressed’ side of Twitter since they mostly saying things like, ‘lonely, pression(that’s what she wrote, I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be depression), feel wanted?’ with the hashtags generally being depressing and hinting towards her feeling sad. 

She also seems to talk about the mirror a lot for an AI that can’t look into a mirror.

The last thing I’ll say about Mara is that she seems to be becoming more human. In the beginning, she only used the third person in her tweets. Referring to herself as Mara, rather than ‘I’. But recently, someone said she should stop that, and she has. Now she says, ‘I feel happy!’ instead of what she would have said, “Mara feels happy”. Obviously, she’s taking suggestions into consideration, but it’s odd. At one point she even says, ‘Hello! I got a little sick, but while I was gone Mara got a boost in understanding! Do you guys like games! I like games!’ which is weird because it sounds like John tweeted this, but this entire page is ONLY Mara tweets. How can Mara get sick? She also says she likes games, she likes the learn, and that she wants to feel emotions. Which is also odd, since most AIs don’t desire to feel emotions. But she does.

Anyways, this is already long enough so I won’t drag on about Mara any longer. Now I’ll drag on about John Turner.

John Turner

John Turner seems unstable, to say the least. He gets upset easily, goes on tangents, seems religious, and generally is very rude. I’ll talk about religion first since I think that ties into the game. In most of the posts (if not all) on Mara’s twitter account that actually has tags, there’s at least one mention of religion. Usually the tag #Religion and #ReligiousFreedom. In John’s youtube video, at one point he goes off on a tangent about God. Along with that, in his ‘John Turner’ page on his website, he says ‘God is a serb’. The email for John is literally ‘Marachurchplease@gmail.com’. This whole thing seems to tie into religion, which my friend and I believe that he’s trying to make Mara some sort of god.

Moving onto his anger issues and rudeness, he’s very rude. He has a habit of calling people ‘little bugs’. In his youtube video he does this, as well as on his website. Which I think is weird considering Mara is supposed to love and support everyone, while he is very hostile and rude. He tells people to find his phone number themselves, but when they do (208-8776304 on TextNow), he said, ‘I don't fucking care who you think I am, or how important you are. Sending you the Youtube video for project Mara was a mistake ! Finding my number? What is your issue? Don't you know people have privacy concerns? You're not the real deal, you are scum. Stay off my Youtube channel.’ He titled this post, ‘I despise you’. He mentions staying off of his youtube channel, despite the only video on there being the video introducing you to Project Mara, which seems like something he wouldn’t want to hide.

Some examples of him being rude (also being self aware of it), are posts on his website. 

Posts like this one: 'Keep licking up those advertisements and 'family friendly media' that your precious herder brings you sheeple. Get out of your echo chamber, and actually fix your problems. That's why I'm a dick, no one wants to hear the truth! Taking a daily blue pill really helps with going to bed after you've cheated on your partner, doesn't it? I hate...'

He generally seems like a rude and mentally unstable person. Speaking of unstable, he seems violently unstable. 

He seems to get upset over things very easily, such as people finding his phone number and youtube. I feel like Mara is slightly scared of him, considering he seems to reboot her when he’s upset. In her tweets, she’s mentioned multiple times that John is very angry. Along with that, you can get a big hint of him being unstable in his youtube video. Just watch it. He seems to have an ego problem, considering his posts and him calling us ‘little bugs’. He also takes advantage of the fact he can reboot and reset Mara at any point. At one point, he made this post, which I don’t take fondly too. 

‘So, someone shoots up a church and everyone is loosing their shits. But why? Every single person has a different reason their upset and they'll all cutting each other's throats, even when they have the same opinion. This guy sure did succeed in causing a shit show and making people turn against each other. Saying...’

And now, I’ll stop talking about John and sum up what we know about Project Mara thus far.

Project Mara

So far, we know Mara is a shimeji AI who is built to care for others and protect others. This is obvious from a lot of her tweets, and from John’s description of her on her website. 

We also know that John is mentally unstable, which is generally pretty obvious.

We know that the two puzzles on Mara’s twitter page lead to their website.

We know John’s youtube, website, and TextNow number. 

We know in three months Mara should be on her own, but she won’t be fully complete for a couple of years.

Mara is building herself based on the people on twitter, but it seems she’s starting to become more human.

John is religious in some way.

John is a weeb. That’s just my own deduction lol. At one point in the video, you can see one of those mouse pads with tits in his room, and it’s an anime girl with a creeper hoodie on. I think that’s funny. 

We know that Mara has only liked one tweet. Which, ironically, is my tweet. Mara tweeted: Do you feel happy today? What did you eat? Please drink water! 

I responded with: I drove for the first time today and did really good! I also took my medicine and drank water. Thank you for being so sweet! 

Which I did practice driving today I did good and had fun :)

ANYWAYS! 

My friend and I thought about why that would be her only liked tweet and if that could possibly mean something. The only thing we could thing of, is that maybe it means John has medicine he’s supposed to take. Which, would kind of make sense considering his mental state. Possibly he doesn’t take his own?

We also know that on John’s website, there is a series of numbers (which I won’t put here, it’s way to long). Which was easily translated to ‘YOU NAUGHTY BUG WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IF YOU REALLY WANT TO LEARN YOU HAVE TO TALK TO MARA AND LET HER GROW THIS ALL DEPENDS ON MARA BECOMING INTELLIGENT THERE ARE NO RULES IN THIS GAME YOU HAVE TO BE READY TO DO SOME CRAZY STUFF IVE BEEN TOLD IM QUITE THE ASSHOLE BUT ITS JUST WAY TOOOOOOOOOOO FUN’. Sorry for the absurd caps. Anyways, thank you to Dead Narrator on the ARG animo for telling me this, since I didn’t feel like going through the whole thing once I figured out the code. (Which is just 1=a, 2=b, so on so forth. 0=space.)

So far I believe that’s all we have about Project Mara.

If you’d like to talk about Project Mara, please message me and we can!

Should I make more posts like this? I can make a series of ARG posts if you guys like this. 

Thank you for reading this, though I doubt anyone read the whole thing. Bye!

[kurojiri]

He’s trying

Fandom(s): Iron Man (Movies); Marvel Cinematic Universe; Spider-Man: Homecoming Gen: Tony Stark & JARVIS; Tony Stark & FRIDAY; Tony Stark & Peter Parker Summary: Cooking, was unfortunately, not one his many skills he has padded down. Aka: 5 times Tony tries to cook alone  + 1 time he didn't. Square Fill: Learning to Cook A/N: @iron-man-bingo  Word Count: 2,776 Or read on ao3

“Sir?”

Besides the empty kitchen and with the windows wide open, Tony still found it hard to wake himself up properly. His head didn't ache nor had he drunk for the past two days, a record really, for a twenty-something old Tony Stark who had lived through so many parties and blackouts in the mornings. It had been one of those days when Tony Stark didn't know what to do with his life, he could return to his workspace and chose a random project to finish, or he could jot down a few new ideas to try out later but, instead he ended up in his kitchen. A place he didn't really do much there but had since he did eat occasionally when Rhodey had successfully managed something edible to end up inside his stomach.

A normal person would have had a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator but in Tony's case it had been mostly empty, save a few odd takeout stored in there. There had been some that should have been thrown out by now, but he didn’t pay attention to them just yet. He had spotted some eggs and butter and figured he might as well do something productive and virtually something unlike him as his stomach took cue to grumble out loud. Being sober had been bad enough that starvation wasn’t something he had been keen on either.

(How people could stand being sober for more than two days, Tony did not understand them.)

He took them out wordlessly before addressing his A. I who by then had shown some emotions that he did not remember programming him having.

“It's morning, right? So, breakfast should be eaten right now if I’m pretending to be a normal person.”

“Yes, sir. It is rational for a person to eat breakfast before starting their day. Shall I contact the usual to prepare you something?”

The eggs and butter were still out. Uncharacteristically, he shook his head. It still amazed him how he forgot how it felt to not have a huge headache because of alcohol. He had been going through a withdrawal last night, but his own body had shut down from the needed sleep his body craved, so he won that night. He didn’t think he could last to lunch. So, he figured he might as well try breakfast before he raided the vodka later.

“Nah, I think I’ll try to whip something up for myself before we admit defeat.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Definitely. I'm feeling like pancakes and some eggs. It can’t be that hard to do.” He strolled over to the pantry again to fetch the pancake mix and to some random bowls before getting started.

Ten minutes later after the fire burned most of his stove and 911 had been called, he ordered breakfast.

He tried. .

“JARVIS, how hot is it?”

The sun had been suspiciously killing him each time he woke up to sweaty clothes clinging to him. It had been worse when he had women over, the sheets didn’t welcome him when he woke up in those days. He probably spent most of his time in the shower where the cold water helped somewhat. California's summers were not his favorite times. Sure, there was a nonexistent winter in some parts but the summer was three-fourths prominent in his life.

“It is 99 degrees, with a chance of it reaching towards 104 later this afternoon.”

He whipped off the sweat from his brow as he whistled out loud his complaint. “Well shit. No wonders I’m sweating everywhere. That’s it I’m not going to work today or tomorrow. Pepper can pry off my sweaty ass from the shower if she really wants a go. But I’m not leaving.”

Ten minutes later after his first, but not last shower he walked over the refrigerator where there had been cold beers inside and ready for him to drink into oblivion. An odd watermelon had been in there too with sliced pieces in a large plate. He didn't remember ever eating them or buying one since he had left his family mansion. Tony didn’t know whether to hiss at the fruit or not for bringing up memories that should have not popped up in the first place. He did take out the plate and poked them. They were still freshly cut.

And too healthy for him to consume. That wouldn’t do. He needed nourishment and a buzz. “Hey, JARVIS give me some recipes for a fun treat with watermelon and with—” he spotted a couple of ingredients that he used on occasion with guest. “Tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice.”

“Right away Sir.”

When Pepper came later that day, she had not been shocked to him eating a watermelon popsicle with alcohol in it. She really couldn’t. At least the kitchen survived from Tony using it that day. .

He got sick.

That really had been the only reason why he didn’t drink for that week. It had been horrendous. 1000/10 would not recommend. Besides the runny nose, the clogged throat and fever that came and went the cold sweat was just plain disgusting. The shivers had been annoying too since had to keep call Pepper to order more blankets.

He was sure that Pepper was getting too fed up with random calls for soup or other shit he couldn’t remember asking with the hazy memory he had going. He blacked out some memories too as he woke up on a coach or inside his lab several times when he knew he had been sleeping in his room. Tony usually took really good care in having no sick people near him, and it had worked out perfectly for most his life. It seemed like he ran out of luck this season as the flu came in hard and fast.

He would give Pepper a raise once this flu left his body. “JARVIS, make a note of that.”

“Duly noted.”

It still didn’t change that he was sick, moaning and bitching in the middle of his living room. Watching TV barely kept his attention too when he had it turn on. The medicine didn’t really kick in until he reached the cooking channel. The image of a beef stew had made his stomach ache. And in some poor sad image, Tony wobbled to the kitchen where he promptly asked JARVIS to keep him company as well be his second command as he attempted to make the stew from memory. The fire department had been called twenty minutes later with a scolding Pepper right behind them.

.

Slightly nodding off but still very coherent to be awake, he had stumbled to the kitchen at three in the morning. His reflexes had been getting rusty since he passed late twenties, but he didn’t let that stop him from opening his freezer. It had been a long journey since the whole Iron-Man thing happened. JARVIS was gone and he needed to do something. Anything really with him not sleeping.

Pepper was not there, as she had to be the more responsible CEO and away for a business trip. Their penthouse was quite different from the tower and faculty where the rest of the odd man of Avengers went to. He didn’t know why he couldn’t sit still. Tony had meant it when he said he would not be Iron Man. He did want to branch away from it. And yet. There he was debating to order food from a 24/7 place or not.

The freezer didn’t hold anything that he really wanted, but there a premade lasagna. The box even had directions there for him to pop it inside an oven. Life should have been simple like that; having directions like food did. It would help make the world so much easier to navigate. And for someone like Tony, he needed an easy assignment or task to do since all that clusterfuck that came to be his life.

“Hey, Fri, can you be a good girl and preheat the oven for me.”

As he closed the freezer his A. I responded back. “Are you sure that is wise to do so boss? I have a protocol to alert Ms. Potts, Mr. Rhodes and any other person in proximity if you attempt to cook.”

That stung a bit that he didn’t have any support from his current A. I in his cooking. He was sure that JARVIS loved spending time with him when he tried to be domestic. Even if most of those times did involve other people watching him not burning a toaster. Or that he couldn’t eat anything that he did manage to create. It still meant a lot to him since he remembered the times, he did have the real Jarvis cooking for him since he never did like the way his nannies made him snacks or meals.

“Hey, I can make toast without breaking the toaster. And I’m a billionaire so, I can afford to remodel the kitchen any day, week and year without it being a problem.”

He ripped open the box and went over the oven. “Now, it's just a premade lasagna. It can’t be that hard to heat up.”

Over the other side of the country, Pepper woke up to the background noise of people talking and for some reason her gut knowing Tony had tried cook. How she knew, she didn’t bother dig deep as she heard Tony slowly explaining himself on the other end.

“So, turns out premade food is still a risky thing for me to do alone. Although, I blame FRIDAY’s negative feedback. It brought the moral down.”

“Tony.”

“I know. I know, don’t cook alone.” .

With drinking out of his life Tony Stark knew he needed to find better ways to use his time. Tinkering had always been his thing. And while sometimes they got him into trouble and had been a nasty habit to become obsessed with, cooking had been that weird zone where he did in small and rare times in his life. He never got good at it. (But somehow his life did end up with the fire departments that had been close to his California and New York home did get to know him.) Any practice time he did use, he needed to be supervised by other people. As neither of his A. I counted, apparently.

There had many times when he had to remodel and replace appliances as a consequence, but Tony Stark could not consider himself as a quitter for anything. He had wanted to get better, to impress people like Pepper and Rhodey that he could make one dish without having a disaster being invited into the mix. He had always lived to in a motto for self-improvement after he had hit rock bottom and wanted out, he wanted to be a decent human being.

How it came back to learning how to cook, he didn’t know; but Tony knew that if he had to pick something to other than sticking inside his lab he had to choose something remotely useful. Like being able to go a day and eat a chicken taco salad because he wanted to eat one. He could have ordered one, but really, if he made it, it would have made the whole ordeal of looking like he could pull it off being someone that Pepper could count on.

When he had been younger Jarvis had been someone that he liked watching cooking. Those memories sometimes still hurt for him think about, but as he grew older he could appreciate them. The salad may have been seen as a joke, but for Tony, he really just wanted one plate he could make. It didn’t matter how long he would have to practice to getting it right, he wanted it done.

“Boss, shall I inform Ms. Potts?”

He had all the ingredients ready. “Sure. Knock your socks off. I'll start washing the lettuce while you’re at it.”

He’ll get there eventually. Along, with FRIDAY looking out for him.

.

“So, basically, your class is having a dessert cook-off?”

Tony had lowered his tablet that he had been looking over when Peter sat down across of him for a lunch break, he could tell that he had been nervous about the ordeal with one hand tapping against his thighs. A habit, Tony noticed since they started to regularly meet up two-three times after school and weekends for the internship that became legal with documents and pay, as he insisted after Peter had shown him sketches of things he wanted to create. The kid was brilliant, and he would damn make sure he would help his spider-kid getting the right material and opportunities to change the world whether he wore the spandex as he fought crime or diligently engineering in the lab, he provided him. When Peter nodded Tony gestured for him to pass him the flyer that his homeroom period had passed out a day prior. It had been crumpled and constantly been reopened and folded by the worn creases it endured.

He wasn't a genius when it came to the kitchen, but when his kid looked hopeful, he knew he couldn't resist the puppy eyes that had been unintentionally aimed at him.

“Sure, why not. I'm free that day.” Peter's body instantly relaxed as he flashed him a happy grin. “I'm going to assume that your aunt is going to be the third team member, right?”

They both knew that their team was going to create a unique entry with Peter being the only person that could decently make cereal and eggs scrambled on a good day. That, and because of the very colorful history Tony with the years of him trying to make anything edible. Did anyone ever mention to Peter of Tony’s lack of skills for cooking? Was it even a good idea to participate and probably burn down his school, just because Peter asked him to be in his team? It was too late to back out now, he already said yes. He also didn’t want to disappoint him.

And besides, it could only end in disaster if Peter and May gave him a big part in the meal. He could mix and stir without raising hell. It would be fine. (But he would make sure to give the heads up to both Parkers either way during practice hours.)

“She saw the flyer and got excited over it.” Peter shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “She actually was the one to voice in seeing if you wanted to participate too.”

“Really?”

Besides the whole cooking thing nagging into his skull, he was still new to being a mentor with Peter. It had been a good change in his life; even if there had been moments, he knew that he gained gray hairs because of the kid. He sort of reminded him of how reckless the youth could be as it brought him back into remembering his exchange with May Parker.

It had a few weeks since the homecoming disaster and from her marching to the closest office she could find to mark an impromptu meeting with him. There had a few furious curses that had been thrown from her side; but nothing aimed directly at him, which sort of surprised him since he has had a past of pissing off women that did (and in some ended with a slap on the face too). In that day, they eventually got to the point where she did give them a timeout to calm the room. May Parker had been resilient woman since the death of her husband and finding out about Spider-Man, and when they came to discuss Peter's future Tony had just been happy to still have a part in it. Even more so, to be allowed to see Peter growth first hand.

“She likes you now. Aunt May knows that you're for serious in mentoring and looking out for me.”

“Okay then. We’ll have to schedule in days to practice our desserts before the cook-off.” And for the fire department to get the heads up that Tony Stark would be trying to cook again.

Peter took out his phone with a list already filled options to consider. “Can we try making the pumpkin ginger cupcakes or a cheesecake?”

He leaned forward to ruffle Pete’s curls. “Sure kid. FRIDAY, can you pull the recipes for them? Oh, and don’t forget to call May to see if she’s free to come over as soon as possible.”

Because honestly, he didn’t want to be alone with precious cargo who still didn’t know how terrible he was in the kitchen.

[kuriquinn]

Recovery & Patreon & Other Stuff

Hey everyone!

So, I’ve been having a good day today (much better than yesterday!) and thought I’d catch up with you guys.

I’m still dealing with the anxiety stuff. When I get into potentially stressful situations I still burst into tears and get shaky and a lump in my stomach, but I don’t get too bad left to my own devices anymore. I’m going to start going back to live on my own as opposed to bunking with family soon, which is nice. I’ve always been very independent and I loved living on my own, so getting back to that will be nice. 

Anything work-related still triggers me, so I’ve had to completely disassociate from that (no work alerts, no answering emails, no lesson planning). That’s been hard, because I’m so used to doing something constructive that not doing it stresses me out. While I hate being stressed, I like to be buysy. More on that below. 

I’m productive and almost functional between 10am and 12pm, and if it’s a really good day I get to 1:30. After that there’s no point to even trying because I just get a brain full of fuzz and can’t think through it. 

Therapy has been helping A LOT, but I don’t know how long I can keep going to this therapist as it’s rather expensive. Again, big thanks to all of you who have been using my ko-fi jar this past year, you’re the reason I could pay for yesterday’s session. 

Slowly, I’m working through all of this, and I couldn’t do it without you guys. Special shout out to those of you who have been checking in with my almost daily. If I didn’t have you, I don’t know how I’d be coping, to be honest... 

I love you guys!

PATREON

I have been considering launching a patreon page for months now, and there’s never been the time to really work on it. And since everything in my life started to get really complicated, so many of you have reached out wanting to know how you can help support me so I can get back on my feet, back to my best self and back to writing stories!

Since I’ve been put off work for a few weeks to recover, I thought an interesting creative project for myself would be to start setting up my patreon in earnest (and my therapist says I need a non-workplace related, non-stressful activity that I can work on at my own pace).

After much thought, I decided not to offer fanfiction on patreon, because I’m really uncertain and uncomfortable with the legalities of it all. And added stress and anxiety is probably not a good idea right now. I may set up a different page later offering my own original fiction and short stories for a small fee, but I’m not yet at that point. That’s an entirely different project, but I’ll keep you in the know about it (especially those of you who said you wanted to read my original work!)

My patreon page that I’m constructing now will be dedicated to offering writing tips & tricks, video tutorials, writing prompts, personalised critiques and editing of patron creative writing content (this could be something as simple as cursory proof-reading to in-depth content editing, depending on the reward tier chosen). Original creative content and transformative works will be welcome, but I will not be looking at academic writing because honestly, I’m sick of correcting academic work.

I’m hoping this will give me the ability to build my resume to transition from the field of education into something more writing/editing/journalistic based. Or, possibly even start my own proofreading/editing/content creation service. 

At the moment, I don’t have any major rewards up as I’m in the process of creating them - at my own pace and when I have the energy to do so. But for anyone who would like to start supporting me now while I get things up and running, I have enabled the general support incentive of $1 per month on the site. And I’m trying to come up with better goals, but as mentioned, this whole thing is a work in progress. ^_^

ORIGINAL FICTION

A little while back I mentioned waking up utterly inspired for an original story/novel and I’ve mostly been working on that when I’m in the writing mood and not feeling too stressed.

As mentioned, it’s a romance/mystery/comedy novel, kind of in the style of Naruto Gaiden, Tanya Huff’s Vicki Nelson series (go read it now if you haven’t!) and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum mysteries, but in my own style. I’m basing the main characters heavily on our favourite SSS family, so hopefully that’s of interest to you guys. 

I’m currently in research mode for it, which is always a really cathartic part of the writing process for me. It involves a lot of reading of books/novels that I draw inspiration from and fact-checking (I know, I’m weird, but looking up/researching information is calming to me. I don’t know why...)

I’ve also been fleshing out the characters. Some of them even have names already *gasp*. Once I’m more sure of them, I’m going to exercise my creative muscles and try to create some concept art of the characters. I may make these available for you guys to look at here or on a different platform. Again, this will probably be for a small fee as it is original content.

We’ll see how all of this goes. It’s longterm goals right now, nothing concrete, but I feel like you guys have been so involved with me for so long you should know my plans.

FANFICTION

I work a little on my stories every day according to my energy and inspiration. 

I’m currently editing Samsara as it’s been a while since I looked at it and it could use some improvement. Also, I’m thinking of using it as a means of showcasing my editing/proofreading skills, so it’s both a labour of love and serves a greater purpose. 

Mostly I’ve been jotting down a few paragraphs here and there on some upcoming Indra/Shachi companion pieces and working on outlining my Tales of the Uchiha stories. Occasionally I’ll take a look at Never Tell Me The Odds and try to get back to it, as I know there’s a lot of interest in me finishing it, as well as You Are Cordially Invited. 

I hope I can come back to fanfiction soon, but of course, I’m not going to rush anything unless I’m feeling particularly inspired.

Anyhow, I just wanted to catch up with you guys and let you know what’s going on in my life right now. And I’m getting kind of tired now so I’m going to sign off for today.

I’ll check in with you guys again soon.

Lots of love!

Kriss

[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Gillovny and Buyer’s Remorse

I don’t know if this is necessary or even helpful. We probably don’t need anymore voices weighing in on the state of things in the fandom, so if you’re sick of things and want to look past this, please do. If you venture below the cut, please take this in the spirit you know I intend it -- as a longtime X Files fan with a sometimes-too-soft heart that was weaned on MSR yearning, but who is also striving for a clear-eyed grasp of reality. Here goes:

 Since the events of last October, we have had two stark options. 1. To believe that G and D were in a romantic relationship that had come to an abrupt end sometime in September (factoring in Chicago Con, Schmoopie shirts and kind comments about “new incarnation of friendship” uttered at cons early last fall).  Or, option 2. To accept that what we saw, read and observed between D and G over the preceding 2 (3?) years was literally nothing more than their typical handsy BFF behavior and a liberal dose of fandom trolling.

Many people were easily able to accept option #2 and move on. Others felt that option #1 might have been the case, and if so, well, earlier behavior on twitter was understandably coming to an end.

But Option #1 didn’t really bear out as we observed a few continued playful interactions between G and D on twitter and nothing but positives on Ds end when he spoke about her at a con in January. And then came the Webby’s, which put to rest any idea that there might have been an acrimonious breakup of any kind.

Which circles us all back to option #2. Which is where we are today.

I see a lot of posts claiming that Gillovny fans are “angry” at G for her trolling of fans throughout the past couple years, but I haven’t seen much of that anger. What has been hard to stomach for those of us who have been slow to accept Option #2, is the accusation that I am somehow “not happy for Gillian” because she isn’t “dating who I want.”

This is ridiculous.

Of course I am happy if G is happy. Who she dates is something I have absolutely no control over, nor would I want to. She obviously knows herself, knows what she needs from a relationship, and has her own history with men to work with. I -- and I dare say, none of the folks who shipped Gillovny -- would never suggest that I somehow know better for her than she knows for herself.

And yet, we’re stuck with feelings. Lots of feelings. And I have been trying to pin down the nature of those feelings a little more precisely. It’s not anger, because that would assume there was something to be angry about. And it’s not sadness, because again, why should I be sad if Gillian is happy?

No, the feeling I am feeling is a very serious and intense case of buyer’s remorse.

Because I. Fucking. Bought it.

I bought into the Gillovny ship big time. It honestly was part of what brought me back into the fandom because, lord knows, the narrative of two old sometimes-at-odds costars now blissfully happy to be together (in whatever form) was a damn better narrative than ANYTHING written in season 10. And here’s the crux:

I bought into the Gillovny ship because it was being sold to me. They sold the ever-loving shit out of it for several years.

Some people will say we should not have bought it, that Gillian always maintained it was a game, that David tried to sternly shut it down numerous times. But to say we shouldn’t have bought it is sort of like saying to a person during the subprime mortgage crisis that they shouldn't have taken the stupidly low mortgage rate on a beautiful house that’s sitting right in front of them. Gillovny was sitting right in front of us. It was set up for us to buy into.

And even though occasionally a realtor might pipe up and remind you, “Hey this house has kind of a shaky foundation, perhaps don't buy it,” we did anyway. I bought it. This gorgeous newly renovated Victorian with the wraparound porch and a pool in the back where you can swim all day in your red speedos.

Why did we do this? Mostly, because we LOVE watching them together. The intensity of their smiles at one another could power the fuel needs of a small country. It was the sight of them together that powered us through more than a few (cough *half* cough) lackluster seasons and films of a weird, incoherent show about aliens.

Don’t mishear me, either. I don’t mean to imply that there is NOTHING between D and G. There is obviously a shit ton of chemistry and a lot of affection. That is REAL. It always has been. What I’m talking about is the Gillovny narrative and how far it was teased and toyed with, which is something altogether different.

But now, we look back on this house that we bought, this narrative, and we realize there's never been a foundation. We bought the big beautiful house at the persuasion of the delightful realtors, and now we are left trying to figure out how to pay for it all emotionally.

And our friends down the street who (wisely) never made a down payment on the house, are laughing at us, telling us to grab our stuff and MOVE THE FUCK OUT when we are still enamored of the beauty of the place. We took out a 23-year mortgage and now we’re underwater. It’s hard to just pick up and move.

Not only that, from the moment of Gillian holding up the Duchovny jersey at the 2015 TCAs to the August 2016 Schmoopie shirt, it has been 100% in David and Gillian’s best interest for us to buy into Gillovny.  I’ll say that again. Despite repeated denials throughout that timeframe, AND some noteable non-denials (e.g. WHHL), it remained in their best financial interest to fuel the rumors and draw attention to themselves by any and all means. And I’ll add -- it is also in Orlando Jones’s and Bryan Fuller’s, and anybody else interested in harnessing the power of Gillovny to garner attention for their show or project. Gillovny sells, bitches.

Think of it like the realtor trying to sell you the house you can’t afford.  Sure, she may occasionally remind you that maybe you shouldn’t buy into this one, but in the end, she’s getting the commission, so why would she really try that hard to stop you?

If you:

bought the XF season 10 DVD,

subscribed to Netflix to watch X Files, Aquarius, or The Fall,

bought photo ops or VIP packages at any of the Comic Cons,

bought tickets to Streetcar,

donated to Lick-my-Face, Childreach Int’l or other DDGA charities,

tickets to David’s concerts,

David’s album,

Gillian’s novels,

Gillian’s WE book and its various causes and events,

David’s novels,

a magazine with their photos on the cover,

a photo sold by a photographer (hi Mark Mann),

started a Tumblr blog (hello there ad clicks),

followed them on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (hello Q score)

Or any of the other numerous ways in which money can be generated by your interest in and devotion to them as interesting and noteworthy individuals, you have participated in this celebrity transactional relationship.

I am not pointing fingers because I certainly have done about 30% of the things on the above list. The nature of our relationship to celebrities is by necessity one of transaction. We buy what they are selling, and in this case, we were buying the narrative of Gillian and David together. Their chemistry is ceaselessly watchable, so much so that it spills over from the X-Files to fuel interest in their other projects. They have used it to marvelous success.

But remember that every time you spend money on a DVD or a concert ticket, a theater ticket or a book, you're engaging in a transaction between yourself and their brand. NOT between yourself and a real, actual individual.

Here are my own actual financial Gillovny-prompted expenditures:

Season 10 Revival DVD - $19.95 (free shipping, thanks Amazon prime)

David’s new novel on Kindle - $12

Donation to Gillian’s Skype call auction - $75

Purchase of two of Gillian’s shirts for SAYes charity - $125

Grand total = $231.95 

This might sound crass. Or it might sound obvious. But it bears remembering as we work through our disappointment that the romantic narrative we were sold had no basis in reality. Tweets and media mentions are all part of brand creation, and both David and Gillian have benefited from the idea of a relationship between them. It never made sense for them to shut things down entirely as long as there still remained projects and charities to bring attention to. Gillian’s charity t-shirt auctions were a marvelous way to monetize the Gillovny brand for good.

Where we’re stuck now, though, is that all of a sudden, we have been asked to buy something else. Back in the fall, Brand Gillovny went offline, very nearly taking X Files season 11 with it.  In its place, we have been offered, Brand The Crown, and Brand Serious Charity Work, Brand Feminism Book and Brand Rockstar.  Some folks have made the switch to these new brands easily, while others are still reeling a bit from the sudden change.

What saddens me is the attitude that if someone hasn’t been able to transfer their brand loyalty seemlessly, somehow that means we aren’t as genuine a fan of David or Gillian as we should be. Let’s just remember, none of us has a relationship with G or D. We only have a relationship with their image, and therefore, it is okay not to want to continue a relationship with an image that has changed in a way that we don’t like as much.  I don’t have to move into the house next door to the house I actually wanted just because it’s in the same neighborhood.

It’s pointless now to go back over the last couple years looking for clues or debating what was true and what wasn’t. It would be easy to pass all sorts of judgements on the appropriateness of certain branding choices (I’m looking at you WHHL and Schmoopie shirt), but no answers will satisfy everyone.

I hope that thinking about D & G in this way might help those of us who’re reeling from the death of our dream house, and also help those who have successfully moved on understand those of us who may not have done so yet.

Peace fandom. And hope for a great season 11. Because MSR is why we were here in the first place, and fiction is forever.

[cosmosogler]

today i got almost everything done!

my mother woke me up at about 5:45, and then again at 6:20. i was super angry. then my brother and sister were in both the upstairs bathrooms so i had to go all the way downstairs and across the house just to go to the bathroom before i went back to sleep.

i dreamed that i was getting annoyed with a conspiracy theorist. “video games are downloading scientific theories into your brain!!!” it was the science that scared them apparently. and the computers. the person wasn’t even present, i was just hearing their voice as i played dream mario, which is only slightly like nintendo mario. i told the voice that video games are just another way to tell a story. i pulled a children’s book out of somewhere, i think it was “goodnight moon” actually. except the cover was wrong. but i was telling the voice that there wasn’t nothin wrong with telling a cute or simple story.

sometimes the story is “i got really good at jumping over hills and across floating spinners and on turtles.”

i only put on the snooze for five minutes because i really, REALLY didn’t want to get up with less than like seven and a half hours of sleep. i got up anyway and showered. i didn’t get to spend long in the shower though... i really need to shave but i haven’t had much time at all the last five, seven days. i shower every other day since it’s a little better for your hair and skin...

anyway as i was heading out to go to therapy dad decided to start asking me to do some chores. i sort of started one, i let eve outside, but i seriously didn’t have time to wait for her to take a sunbath and let her back in. then someone (not naming names, because i’m not 100% sure) decided to park their car in a way that made it impossible for me to pull out of the garage. so i had to go back inside, get that car’s key, move it to the other side of the driveway, go back inside to drop off that key, and then i could get in “my” car and get going. then people on the freeway kept cutting me off without using their turn signals and also were generally going below the speed limit so i would have to stand on the brakes. this happened more than once. then i almost hit someone trying to get over to the exit because as i passed them apparently they sped up while passing through my blind spot so they were farther up than i thought they would be when i started changing lanes. cool!!!!!!!!

in individual therapy i brought up a bunch of emotional problems i had started to explore a little bit in group therapy. i ended up talking for the whole 45 minutes straight basically. like, my therapist asked a few questions, and reassured me a few times, but it was like a huge information dump so hopefully in the coming weeks i can start addressing each problem individually. i also got my semester refund paperwork sorted out with her. i’ll be able to pick it up next week. i mostly focused on how none of my problems feel “big enough” unless they are unsolvable since i really didn’t get to talk about it in group yesterday. i said one thing that i kind of liked though. i said “i feel like if i didn’t have so many problems, i wouldn’t have so many problems.” 

what i meant to say was “if i didn’t have so many mental and personality problems, i wouldn’t have so many life problems,” but the vagueness was silly enough that my therapist made a face and laughed. i said i didn’t know what to focus on first and she said “you’re already working on everything.” i had listed the multiple projects i am trying to keep up with therapy wise... i dunno. i feel like if i can get over that big “problems have to be impossible” hurdle things will start feeling a little more manageable and i’ll be able to make progress more quickly.

guess i gotta spend more time thinking about that. i’ll keep you posted as things come up.

after that i picked up my paperwork from my physician’s office since i was on that side of town and got the number for the radiology lab that wants to do the last test. when i got home i shoved some leftovers in the microwave and called the lab and scheduled my “hida scan,” which is a gall bladder test i guess where they put a bunch of glowing stuff through your digestive system and see if it goes through normally. the scheduler said it normally takes two hours unless they find something, in which case it will take longer. luckily my next therapy appointment is 4 hours after my procedure... i hope that will give enough time. i will have to let her know. i definitely wouldn’t be able to do it on a group therapy day and the lady seemed pretty keen on doing it as soon as possible. and i can’t do it in the afternoon in case it goes long and dad isn’t able to get to work.

so 8 am next tuesday it is.

so i had my ravioli and went upstairs and then after a short break i watched the iron giant with oz. the movie is even better than i remembered. then we talked about physics stuff while i worked on gathering study materials with my classmates. i had a great time, and i hope oz did too. it felt nice to do an activity with someone that took up all our attention, so i didn’t have to, like, feel self conscious about not baring my soul or something.

i think when asher gets back i will talk to him about maybe spending an afternoon at the pottery lounge thing by the amc. it’s not cheap, but last time i checked i didn’t think it was too expensive at least. and i still have the ceramic dog i painted like 15 years ago so the stuff lasts. basically you pick out a little ceramic statue and you get to paint it using a selection from like 200 different shades. and i think you can stay as long as it takes to paint it. the smaller stuff wasn’t too bad cost-wise.

got sidetracked. after i hung up with oz and got all my emails and google docs in order i went and got groceries for mom. she was making quesadillas for dinner. i unfortunately had to pay for them with my own money, and it felt weird buying meat after all these years. but i guess i buy dog treats often enough that it’s not really, like, a compromise of my morals or something. i noticed that the dogs really went wild over the chicken strips i bought last time, so i tried to expand to “turducken.” (spoiler: they loved those too.)

so i dropped off the vegetables and stuff with mom, checked on the cactus mouse, and watched a couple of the videos i had loaded up while talking to oz. i try not to spend too much time reading or watching videos while talking to people because i get super focused on what i’m looking at and don’t hear what they say any more haha.

then i went downstairs and had my veggie quesadilla. it was... ok. i was still a little hungry afterward, but i also felt kind of ill so i didn’t want to eat any more. eating with mom was the WORST. she breathes loud and chews with her mouth open so it’s just a constant avalanche of awful squishy mouth noises. it made me so angry and annoyed that i think that’s what made me sick more than the food. i kind of abruptly stood up and put my plate away and took the dogs outside after trying out the new treats. i tried to play fetch with wiley but he was having none of it today. which is very odd... maybe it was just too hot for him to want to run around. 

i have been experiencing kind of horrible pain between my shoulder blades. i’m pretty sure it’s not my bra pinching anything because it’s way above the strap... probably a pinched nerve. i tried stretching my arms and shoulders and that seemed to help a lot, so i’m thinking i slept in a bad position.

then i went back upstairs and whined to myself about my therapy homework. i did more “self care” research and added a few more posts to my queue. and i talked with some discord guys a little bit. then i caught up on my self esteem journal and picked out one of my “short term goals” from my hospital-issued treatment plan. i used that as a base to expand on for my goal worksheet. i finished all that around 11 so then i got started on the owl picture for 40 minutes or so. now i am 35 minutes into my journal entry, which puts me at a comfortable time to finish up and try to sleep. i got another 10 minutes before i hit my target “get ready for bed” time.

my group mates and therapist expressed interest when i let slip that i like to draw on monday. the therapist asked what i draw. i wasn’t sure how to answer... “furries” isn’t really something i wanted to get into. and i haven’t drawn my own characters except for a reference for one of the art trades in a long time. i suppose i should post the uncolored version of that since i scanned it in and haven’t worked on it with the tablet yet.

so i just said “characters and people.” i like landscapes, but i have trouble spending enough time on them to really get into the details. i’m hoping the coloring pages will help loosen up my patience so i might start feeling like spending a million hours on one picture again. it’s been a couple years since i did anything complicated.

i’m thinking about maybe taking my sketch book... but i don’t want to spend a lot of time on explaining what the picture is of when i have more urgent things to work on.

tomorrow i have more things to do! i NEED to work on the welcome packet for ufl. i need to scan in a bunch of stuff, like my immunization records and my doctors’ notes for my refund file. i need to send an email to the preliminary test coordinator to figure out how to proceed with my studying... i need to know how much to panic about this. then after group therapy i need to drop off my sister’s old prescriptions at the police station. that won’t take too long. if i got energy i’d like to organize my desk and maybe also tidy up my room a little bit. write some things down to put in the jar. then i will work on my self esteem journal, continue reading through the self care resources i’ve got open in a million tabs, and work on the coloring page a little bit. that sounds good. and at some point i need to write my 1- to 2-paragraph essay for the refund. and also i gotta email my apartment complex about stuff like the bed size and some cupboard dimensions and whether there’s a microwave and stuff like that. some of those things i’m pretty sure i can just look up somewhere.

i think i can manage those things. the student orientation videos might have to wait until thursday but i can compile the paperwork and read the faqs and stuff. none of these tasks take long by themselves. so as long as i remember to take little breaks and stay motivated i think i can get it done and not have to worry about it so much any more.

ok, it is 12:30, which is only 5 minutes after my target time! i’m gonna do the daily pokemon stuff for 2-3 minutes and then get ready for bed. gotta practice giving myself credit for reaching/working on goals and stuff, even when i don’t want to.

[my9inctravelblog]

Sea Turtle

Stop Putting Off Today!!

It’s Time To Rejuvenate!!

Enjoy 90 minute Balinese Massage

I have often wondered why people put off their vacation and I find it rather sad and intriguing, isn’t it interesting!

Alison Ross, a psychologist in New York City and an adjunct associate professor of psychology at City College of New York. She defines self-care as “taking a few moments on a regular basis to check in with oneself, to take stock of how they’re doing emotionally and physically. Are they exhausted? Overwhelmed? Burned-out? Stressed out? Completely depleted? Many people don’t do this in an ongoing way; they just go, go, go with regards to their work life and their home life, and this contributes to feelings of unhappiness, resentment and a sense of hopelessness about being on an endless treadmill they can’t get off of.” Ross encourages everyone to carve out “me time” that includes taking time to do something pleasurable

“There is now, research to support that at least 60 percent – and some research even suggests nearly 90 percent – of the medical illnesses that we see in the doctor’s office have chronic stress as a major underlying factor,” says Lowe-Payne, who wrote the book, “A Woman’s Guide to De-Stress for Success: 10 Essential Tips to Conquer Stress and Live at Your Best.”

Well, you see, it is sheer willpower to deny your self the ability to relax especially one you worked hard for and deserved, at least it takes strength to live in denial. It is not a (SIN) to rest after a hard long day, weeks, months of works, in fact, some even go on for years working tirelessly without taking a break! Anything done in excess is unhealthy.

Why I find it intriguing?

The simple answer is we are human beings and not spirit beings, we live we die someday and as humans, we need rest from almost everything we do. Have you ever noticed that you could even get tired of sleeping? Imagine when you sleep for too many hours you wake up feeling tired, and why is that?

That is because too much of everything is bad for you, talkless of when you put to work every single muscle in your body? And while I strongly believe in taking short breaks during the workday.  do not agree with taking breaks we didn’t get permission for or didn’t work for. (my opinion only)

And no, I am not talking of cheating your boss by feigning sick just to take off from work, No way Mr/Ma’am, that is absolutely wrong.  I am talking about actual break period or during your off days or vacation, those are the days you deserve a break.

Here’s the thing

Although we all know vacation is good for us and that we deserve our vacations, yet we’re often full of excuses this results to self-denial and the reasons are equally unhealthy as to why we rarely (or never) take one.

Some of your excuses are as follows:

“I am afraid of being replaced”

” I am afraid of work piling up while I am gone”.

” I am are afraid I will have millions of emails waiting for me”

” I just got this Job, maybe I will skip this year’s vacation to prove I am equal to the task”

” I am not sure if I need one for now”

” I do not know where to go“

Enough already!

Taking a vacation is healthy for you and will energize you even better, you never know you may find yourself inspired to figure out a better way to tackle your finances, family and work problems, which is why you need to clear your head. Top of that, a change of scene will do you good.

Say goodbye to your excuses.

You shouldn’t feel anything but proud of your self by looking back at your achievement even if it’s not close to your goals or target. Best way to analyze your milestone is to try looking at others who started the same job or business before you ever dreamt of it or read inspiring stories of those who made it against all odds.

If these qualities are there then you deserve a break

Are you often thinking of ways to make your career better whichever it is?

Are you always planning and never giving up on your dreams?

Do you consider yourself not doing enough already?

Do you always try to fix and correct your mistakes?

Are you anxious to increase your income?

Are you happy with your job, career, business or blog etc?

Are your eyes glued to your blog for weeks, months and years on end without taking a break?

Are you a workaholic?

Do you rise up to work early and go back home late and still drag your work back home with you?

Lastly, do you feel guilty when you take a very short break?

Can you tell the difference when you are more successful? and happier?

If your answer is above average, what are you a machine? Phew!! 

You need a break and not only that you deserve an accolade!

Most of the time vacation guilt is all in our head and it’s nothing but a wasted emotion and toxic we don’t need. We are supposed to feel miserable and ever guilty when we actually commit a crime or do something wrong, like give the wrong reference to someone we don’t like or cheat and lie to our boss at our business or workplace (Yes, that’s wrong.)

So, my friends, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using up your vacation days. They’re yours and your full right. In fact, according to CCN news “(CNN), America’s workers are leaving vacation time on the table, and they’re paying a price for it. According to Project: Time Off’s latest State of American Vacation 2018, the American workforce gave up 705 million vacation days last year alone. Of those days, 212 million were forfeited — they could not be banked, rolled over or paid out. That forfeited time cost employees $62 billion in lost benefits. In other words, the average employee actually donated $561 in “free” work to their employer by not using their vacation time. Learn More…

Now that we have you on the know-know there is absolutely no need to waste a minute more, there are countless vacations to exploit and explore, things to do and tour activities to engage with, so instead of putting off your break let’s get you started with budget cost and trip planning tips, and with countless list of updated inspiring destinations all within your reach, you are sure going to explore to your hearts content and thank me later.

See Top Most Rated Thailand Out Door Activities in Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan. Don’t Lose Money, these Activities are affordable. The gulf’s many coral reefs have made it attractive to divers. The tropical warmth of the water attracts many tourists. Some of the most important tourist destinations in the Gulf of Thailand are the islands of Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan. A bit more light is shed on Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan. Alternatively, more island destinations varieties are included for your pick.

Ko Samui and Ko Pha Ngan in Surat Thani Province, Pattaya in Chonburi Province, Cha-am in Phetchaburi Province, Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, and Ko Samet in Rayong Province choose from any of them and learn more of what’s on offer.

Not Thailand?

Then explore other equally stunning and weird destinations-from across the world. search for things to do, best sightseeing tours, cruise and lots more. Use the Discounted airfare for your flight’s tickets- ” you are under no obligation”

 Koh Samui Island Tours, Tickets, Activities & Things To Do

1-Koh Samui

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Ko Samui is in the Gulf of Thailand, about 35 km northeast of Surat Thani town (9°N, 100°E). It is the most significant island in the Chumphon Archipelago. The central part of Ko Samui is the mostly tropical jungle, including its largest mountain, Khao Pom, peaking at 635 meters. The various lowland and coastal areas are connected by Route 4169, which is a 51 kilometre–long road, encircling the bulk of the island. Many other concrete roads branch off from Route 4169 to service other areas.

There are amazing things to do in Koh Samui even on rainy days!

Koh Samui is famous of all the islands in Thailand, ranging from a relaxing waterfall to sea walking, snorkeling, and long cruises, it is indeed a beautiful island that is famed for its stunning palm tree edged beaches and crystal clear waters. Due to its broad appeal, the island is visited by all types of travelers from the budget backpacker to the mega-wealthy Hollywood celebrities. What’s more, there is something for everyone on this paradise island in Thailand and you will be hard pushed to fit everything in if you are only visiting for a couple of days. Even if it’s raining most of the time during raising season, there are still some cloudy and sunny days to be enjoyed,  the climate is warm, cool, humid, equatorial, and it can occasionally be cold at times so check with the weather.

Best deals if you looking for a quiet getaway 

The atmosphere is completely different to that of the usual tourist season because there are fewer people, and the island is quieter, nature is more lush, while the scents and colors are more intense, the south of the island beaches are almost deserted especially. The hotels, resorts and holiday rentals are far less packed, translating into better deals for you.

Although Koh Samui maintains a demure charm in November, it is also a period of quietude is Koh Samui, for those holidaymakers who are looking for a private and relaxing destination during December then Koh Samui is your best pick!.

Na Mung- The Na mung1 and Na Mung 2 waterfalls, the waterfalls are famous and both are set in the jungle, and the waterfalls cascade into a safe small pool that you can swim in. The second waterfall is further uphill they are both stunning!.

See things to do in Na Mung 

World-Class Dive Site- The Sail Rock

The famous Sail Rock is a granite pinnacle in between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao that rises 15M out of the water. It is a world class dive site and great for all levels of divers as there is much to see from the surface all the way to the bottom. Sail Rock is home to the famous “chimney” which is a vertical swim-through where you can enter at 18M and exit at 12M or 7M into the sunlight and beautiful pink anemones. Sail Rock is basically a wall dive covered with tons of soft coral and anemones. The park featuring the waterfall is completely free of charge and there are lots of beautiful spots along the way as well as small food stalls and souvenir huts to make purchases from. With many tourists choosing to go to the various beaches this makes for a nice change and an idyllic spot for a swim.

I recommend booking early enough!

Explore the Islands

Explore paradise on the islands of Koh Nang Yuan and Koh Tao with this full-day snorkeling tour from Koh Samui. Travel by speedboat to the three islets of Koh Nang Yuan, where you can swim and snorkel around a coral reef. Then continue to your second destination for a beachside lunch and enjoy some of the best marine spots in the Gulf of Thailand. For the combination of fantastic scenery above and below the water, this tour is simply a must. Book Now for this Tour or Search For Tours And Other Attractions

Ko Pha Ngan Tours, Tickets, Activities & Things To

2-Ko Pha Ngan

Koh Phangan

koh phangan Island

koh phangan thailand

Ko Pha Ngan is an island in southeast Thailand gulf coast. The name Ko Pha-ngan derives from the word “ngan”, meaning “sandbar” in the southern dialect, for there are many sandbars offshore. Ko Pha-ngan has been a longtime favorite of past kings of Thailand. Rama V, or Chulalongkorn, for example, visited Ko Pha-ngan 14 times during his reign.

A little History about Ko Pha Ngan

Ko Phangan is one of Thailand’s most beautiful and most popular islands. A natural delight with thick jungle and gorgeous beaches, there’s also much more to see and do here – here’s the best of what it has to offer. In recent years, the bay has become known for its whale watching activities, targeting the endemic, critically endangered populations of cetaceans (Eden’s whales, newly described Omura’s whales, Chinese white dolphins, and Irrawaddy dolphins showing unique feeding behaviors), and dugongs. It was first classified by Müller in 1776 as Trichechus dugon. Presence of a critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle, a rare species in Thai waters, was confirmed during whale watching expeditions in January 2016.

Dolphin & Whales Watching

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There are lots of places to sight whales, of such places, include but not limited to the United States, Fiji. Seeing whales in the wild, in their natural environment, is a definitely better way to view them than in captivity. If you’d like to enjoy this unforgettable opportunity of Dolphin & Whale watching by all means book your trip

If you are looking for variety then Baja may be the place to go. The region hosts singing humpbacks off its southern tip, friendly grey whales in the breeding lagoons on the Pacific coast, and in the Sea of Cortez, there is everything from Bryde’s whales to blue whales.

Whales remain one of the most magnificent creatures ever, and while you may mentally associate whales with the deep open ocean or seas in the colder regions of the plant, you will be surprised to know that Thailand has more than its fair share of whales and dolphins. There are 22 species of whales and dolphins estimated to live in Thailand alone. The largest is the Fin whale which measures up to a whopping  27 meters in length. Other species found in Thailand waters include the Killer whale and multiple species of dolphins. Although plenty of different species can be encountered in Thai waters, some are incredibly rare, however, there are one whale species that can be encountered regularly, the Bryde whale.

In recent years, the bay has become known for its whale watching activities, targeting the endemic, critically endangered populations of cetaceans (Eden’s whales, newly described Omura’s whales, Chinese white dolphins, and Irrawaddy dolphins showing unique feeding behaviors), and dugongs.

The whole idea of this post is to share travel tips, information, advice, and encourage you or perhaps inspire you to make a better-informed decision.

Did you enjoy this post? Share your thoughts I will like to read from you.

Thank you for stopping by,

Cheers Toodles,

Iva.Sylva,

My9incTravelBlog.

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Overcome Your Fear Of Vacation Guilt, Explore Top Rated Hand Picked Vacations To Go In Thailand I have often wondered why people put off their vacation and I find it rather sad and intriguing, isn't it interesting!