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faerielleart · 3 years ago

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Hi sorry you don’t have to answer this! But I’ve seen you speak about LGBTQ+ and from my understanding you are a part? So I want to ask I have been dealing with my self identity and struggles and I want to ask if you can share experiences and how you find out since I think I am not straight to be sure… Thank you I hope this ask doesn’t put you in uncomfortable place.

yo anon hello!! 👋 no worries, i’m not in any way uncomfortable and i’m always happy to help if i can

first of all, keep in mind that not everyone’s experiences are the same and what i went through in my journey to exploring my sexual identity might be completely different from what someone else went through, hence take what i say with a huge grain of salt and know that everyone’s experiences are perfectly valid

alright hhhhh well my story’s pretty funny actually LMAO i think i already answered this some other time iirc? but yeah i started “having doubts” in middle school. i wasn’t interested in boys, i was genuinely meh in front of any dude my female friends found cute, i never thought about dating and i never thought about marriage. some people (my family) called me a “late bloomer”, my classmates secretly made fun of me for being “gay”.

thing is, i was obviously gay but i didnt know at the time- however everyone else did 💀💀💀 i was out there saying shit like “i wish men didn’t exist” “i wish the planet was only populated by women” and stuff like that on the DAILY and each time my classmates looked at me like 👁👄👁 and it was like the class’ inside joke that i wasn’t a part of. i was bullying victim unfortunately and i was the class punching bag 🚶‍♀️

one day, i was at my (at the time) best friend’s birthday party and all the girls in class were invited with some boys to her house. i remember we were playing truth or dare, my turn came and i chose truth; there was this girl who hated me with all her heart for no reason whatsoever and loved humiliating me while pretending to be my friend and i was too much of a pushover to say anything to her, anyway bitch started laughing and yelled in front of everyone “IS IT TRUE THAT YOU’RE A LESBIAN?????” and i was ,,,,, pretty much shocked. firstly i thought that was a dirty word, i had never known lesbians irl and i only knew gay men and i kinda associated lesbians with something taboo? i think i was maybe 11 or 12 years old but it was all peer influence, i was lucky to have parents who were never homophobic and never taught me to hate? so this “hesitation” towards this word was something that was instilled into me by my schoolmates who treated it as if it was something shameful and to make fun of. anyway, i told that girl to mind her own business and i was silent and sulking for the rest of the party.

several days later i was at the mall with my parents who asked me what was wrong bc i had been behaving weirdly since the party and i remember telling them exactly “we were playing a game and [girl’s name] asked me if i were…” and i didn’t finish the sentence. “if you were?” and i still was hesitant to answer but then i said “gay” in a really small voice and i remember getting super flustered and feeling so embarrassed?? and my parents just looked at each other and i think that was the start of everything lol in the next years through middle and high school i was so confused about myself i was refusing to label myself bc i thought i was “figuring myself out” and for a long while i thought i was bisexual. i used to tell my ex best friend about these doubts that i had and she was always a bit weird about it 🧍‍♀️

she randomly asked me shit like “do you wanna have sex with a guy? if you had a boyfriend would you have sex with him? would you suck his dick?” and shit like that and i always was so embarrassed about answering those questions? because my answer was always a straight up no, but i thought something was wrong with me if i didnt wanna do stuff with men. despite that, i still didnt truly question my attraction to men, i just went “yeah i mean all girls secretly think that men are ugly right that’s normal” for SO MANY YEARS LOL i thought everyone had the same experience??? i reached the point where i was 100% sure of my attraction to girls and i was forcing myself to be attracted to men as well bc “that’s the right thing for me”. i forced myself to be enthusiastic when my friends talked about boyfriends, i forced myself to pretend to have a crush on celebrities and THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING BUT LIKE ONE TIME I WAS WATCHING THIS TV SHOW WITH MY MOM AND THERE WAS I THINK ORLANDO BLOOM AS A GUEST AND I GOT THE IDEA OF PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY TO SEE HIM BC I THOUGHT HE WAS “THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN EVER” AND I SPENT LIKE HALF AN HOUR INSISTENTLY TELLING MY MOM “LOOK AT HIM HE IS SO ATTRACTIVE OH I AM SO IN LOVE WITH HIM” TO SHOW MY MOM I LIKED MEN 💀💀💀💀💀💀 I DID THAT A LOT IT’S LIKE I WANTED VALIDATION FOR IT i want to bury myself in sand thinking of this

anyway after an extremely failed coming out to my grandma whom i saw for the first time ever expressing disgust at the thought of me potentially being attracted to women i was terrified to do it again and i refused to tell any other member of my family. i still haven’t truly come out and i don’t think i ever will tbh even if i know my parents would love me and accept me regardless i still think of my grandma’s reaction and i start legit crying whenever i think of that

march 2020 comes and i finally accept that i am a lesbian. how did that happen? i was watching harry potter and i went “holy shit i wanna fuck hermione” literally that’s it nothing else. nothing else. that was that. that’s how i knew 100% i was a lesbian and i was tired of pretending i wasn’t. don’t ask me why, don’t ask me how but that’s literally what happened.

and that’s when everything started making sense tbh? like i just felt as if i had a huge huge burden lifted off myself for the first time ever? i said it out loud and i felt happy? the more i said it, the happier i felt? through the years i had always known deep down i didn’t like men, i was just pretending i was, comp-het was hitting me SO HARD and then finally i stopped letting it influence me.

what helped me was asking myself extremely specific questions after that to be sure, in the same fashion my ex bestie used to be weird about it when i “came out” to her. i imagined myself in really specific situations with fantasy boyfriends, i asked myself what i liked about men and the answer was always “nothing”, i asked myself “could i be capable of falling in love with a man?” and the way i was setting standards so high and ridiculous for any human for my “dream man” was the obviously negative answer to that question, i asked myself more intimate questions like “if it came down to it would you ever actually sleep with a man?” and the answer was always a solid no. basically putting myself in theoretical situations is what helped me finally understand. i had done that through the years and my answers were the same since the beginning, but i still refused to admit the truth to myself, until one day i just stopped.

and that’s my journey LOL it’s kinda pathetic tbh,,,,,, i could’ve been much happier with myself if i had just admitted it to myself since the beginning, bc deep down i always knew. would’ve spared me years of not feeling okay with myself, would’ve spared me years of surrounding myself with the wrong people who caused me terrible pain every time i heard them say lesbians are disgusting. but anyway, what’s done is done and i’m just happy now i get to be free and accept myself for who i am, unapologetically. on the internet. bc in real life i’m still traumatized 🚶‍♀️

i think questions are the easiest place to start. imagine yourself in situations, ask yourself how would you act and why. figure yourself out bit by bit and take your time to understand what you like. don’t ever let yourself feel pressured by anyone, don’t even let yourself feel pressured by the need of labels. don’t let anyone tell you your experiences are wrong or not valid, don’t let anyone tell you there’s a set way to explore your identity, don’t force yourself to do anything you’re not comfortable doing. if you need to vent, my dms are always open. be happy exploring your identity, there is no right way to do it. and remember that you’re always valid. 💜

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jimlingss · 4 years ago

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Hey Kina!! any advice about the LSAT exam you could provide? I’m about to graduate as well, and I haven’t taken the LSAT yet QQ, I’m starting to study now and planning to take it August. I’m in Canada I’m hoping to get a response by December after I finish my application in Oct.

LG and reading comp. literally traumatize me with the time limit and I feel so burnt out whenever I look at the books and plan my time for how many hours i need to study a week. I’m only really only a week in and my head pounds.

I would really appreciate the advice! I’m an absolute fan of all of your stories, i don’t know how you manage to juggle writing with school and upcoming graduation, what a god 🤯

you give me too much credit but hell yes I have advice regarding the LSAT. That exam is really something and it feels like I’ve went to hell and back so I’m happy to help others however I can with it.

I’ll break this answer down with my experience and then my recommendation.

Experience: I started studying for the LSAT six months before I took it. I went in completely blind and started with practice test LSAT 40 and scored about 143. ofc I timed it. When you take the practice exams, you have to simulate actual testing conditions as best as you can, so that means printing it out and doing it with the timing restrictions. The first 3 LSAT tests I did I scored in the 140s.

I gradually improved and hit the 150s range. At first I did the entire test in one sitting (with breaks ofc) but it’s so time consuming that I started just doing one section a day. But on Saturdays, I did one entire practice test and on Sundays I would mark that + go through it. So on average, I did 2 practice tests a week.

But then disaster struck when I was stuck in the 150s.

From practice LSAT 43-70 no matter how much I went through it, how much I studied, I could not break into the 160s that I needed. At best I could maybe get 159, but typically I was scoring 155. Which clearly isn’t enough. I started to panic. I knew I needed to do something different.

So I picked up The Loophole by Ellen Cassidy. During that time, I didn’t do any practice tests whatsoever. I stopped doing LSAT and went through the book a chapter a day. And while it’s focused in LR, a few chapters really helped me out with reading comp. I think there’s 14 chapters (if I remember correctly) so it took me around 2 weeks to go through it. Maybe I should’ve slowed down but I was running out of time. But the book helped me break into the 160s. I loved it.

I was pretty happy and relieved and from LSAT 70ish-89, I was scoring from 160-169 with an average of 164.

COVID was a thing by then so the LSAT was online. I had saved the two practice tests they have online and practiced with those and when the day came, I did it in a quiet space without any interruption. I ended up with a 160.

A bit of a bummer considering I was scoring 164 consistently before that but it’s good enough, I can’t really complain. I decided not to re-take it.

Recommendation: Honestly if I had to recommend to someone how to approach the LSAT, I’d tell them to take the first 3 LSAT practice tests blind w/o any knowledge of what it is and without any prior textbook reading. Learn by doing it and get the gist of what it’s about.

After the first 3 LSAT practice tests, pick up The LSAT Trainer by Mike Kim. I don’t have experience with it personally but I’ve heard great things about it from others. ((For me - I thought I didn’t need textbooks and I could study completely on my own but that was very dumb. I honestly wish I had more time, I would’ve picked this book up + the Loophole sooner)).

After completing The LSAT trainer (try to do it in a month? to not waste time? if possible). Then do a few more LSAT practice tests. I’d say 5 of them?

After that, pick up The Loophole. Do that within a month. Then just keep rolling with the LSAT practice tests.

The most recent practice test released is your holy grail. That will be the test most similar to the actual test you will receive so make sure you save that one but make it one of your last tests. For me that was LSAT 89 (or 90?) but there might’ve been newer ones by now. There’s no point in studying LSAT 1-39 because they’re so old that it won’t be that similar to what you’ll take.

ALTERNATIVELY - Sign up for 7sage. I know loooots of people do that. Don’t really know how it works since I haven’t used it but it’s advantageous if your LSAT will be online since 7sage is also online.

I’d still pick up those two books I mentioned above tho.

Other Recommendations - LSAT is sooo time consuming that your whole day is basically consumed by it. Not to mention you have to mark it and learn your mistakes afterwards. Look into doing a timed section a day? That’s only 35 mins so it becomes wayyy more manageable.

Also take marking very seriously. You learn just as much from what you did right and wrong as actually doing the timed section.

Another note, make a whole schedule to manage yourself. I made a google document on what I was going to do every single day. What section. What practice exam. What chapter of what textbook. Plan it all and then by the end when you have the plan, you’ll feel a lot more comforted. Like wow it’s not thatttt much + as long as I follow through with this and do a little a day, I’ll make it.

One more thing - take the exam when you start consistently scoring what you want to score. If you want to score in the 160s and you’ve been hitting that mark for the past 5-10 exams, you are probably ready. If you study too much, that’s a bad thing too. You want that sweet spot timing before you’re burnt out.

Also take breaks. Schedule them in. One day breaks. It’s easy to be burnt out.

((I got most of my practice tests for free btw on b-ok.cc)).

Now I’ll be a bit more specific in my advice....

LR - The Loophole helped me a lot with LR. Also I did a lot of LR practice questions and I naturally started to pick up on patterns. But this section fluctuated a lot for me. Sometimes I did well, sometimes I did poorly.

underline the ones you’re unsure about and move on. it’s better to just go back if you have time in the end then wasting time dwelling on it when you could be getting others right.

Reading Comp - At the beginning I fluctuated a lot with this section. But the first chapter of the Loophole really helped me improve and break down readings. The sentences in reading comps are very long winded and purposely written poorly, so keep that in mind. Just read slowly and soak in as much as you can the first time. I was never a fan of the advice of reading it over twice. It felt like a waste of time. Instead, the first time, as you read, try to guess what might be important or a question and underline it. That helped me.

Games - My favourite section and the section that you can most easily improve on. Just do a lot of practice games and then watch the videos on how others do it. Once you master a game style, you’ll know how to replicate it in the future.

for some reason timing started to become an issue for me later on in the games section in spite of having improved on it, but I realized it was because I was dwelling and double checking when I didn’t need to.

In general: LSAT is a super interesting test as it’s unlike any other test. It’s not dependent on information that you’re supposed to know. It’s not studying info and being asked questions on it. It’s not regurgitation. It’s not memorization. And in that way, ANYONE can improve. It’s a test you can learn. So don’t lose hope!!

And good luck!

((edit - some things I forgot to mention. I tried to pick up Powerscore but their system was so complicated, I zoned out. some folks like the book tho. I’d still recommend the Loophole. also I hope this doesn’t make me seem like a know it all and that this is wayyyy too difficult - I literally started crying once while taking a timed exam. the test is stressful so its ok its understandable to have a breakdown. i sure did lol. so give yourself a break if you start getting stressed.))

#and it's ok to write it several times #everyone is different #for me I did it once and studied for six months #I've heard of others who studied for one #or three months #my sister took it 3 times and studied for a total of 2 years #the LSAT is a test of strength and willpower and hardwork #so you can do it anon!!#hopefully this helps #sorry if its long and overwhelming but I really tried to think of everything lol #Jimlings #Anonymous #LSAT

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megamegaturtle · 4 years ago

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mon chou, mon chou, mon chou

pairing - draco malfoy/luna lovegood

raitng - m

words - 1,993 (complete)

summary - mon chou:1) A French term of endearment meaning honey or sweetie; literally translates to "my cabbage"2) The time Draco helps Luna steal cabbages from her neighbors

(For the Rare-Pair Judged by the Cover flash comp in the Dumbledore's Armada Discord; Prompt: Crimes and Cabbages; Winner for Host's Favorite)

ao3/ff.net

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Magic thrives in the midnight hours when the world sleeps. Magic is at work, too, when Draco Malfoy knocks on Luna Lovegood’s door. He lingers on her doorstep, nerves fluttering under his skin like both butterflies and bats. Draco longs for fresh air that is not within Wiltshire. He longs for company that sees through him and what he could be rather than his past mistakes and follies.

Draco knocks on the door, the oak firm under his knuckles. The knob twists as if Luna had been waiting on the other side for him. She greets him with the same hospitality she would if she’d provided an invitation.

“I am torn between saying ‘good evening’ or ‘good night’ at this hour,” she muses with a smile. “But, hello, Draco.” Her voice catches between sleeping and awake.

He clears his throat before leaning on her door frame. “Fancy a walkabout, Lovegood?”

She nods and grabs her coat, granting his wish like a creature of the night. Luna leads him down a path only her feet have traveled.

The forest and moon witness them together, standing shoulder to shoulder with all the world’s creatures as their eyes. Down the path they wander, Luna’s hum filling the silence as she carries a basket at her side. They stroll passed a farmhouse before discovering a vegetable patch guarded by Britain’s loneliness scarecrow.

Luna does not fear scarecrows and enters to greet her old friend.

There’s a hum in the garden and a dance in her step as she inspects the perfect cabbage. She kneels in damp soil and unsheathes her blade. She peels back the outer leaves with tenderness, pats the head, and kisses its forehead like a baby.

“One cabbage, two cabbages, where can I find you? Mon chou, mon chou, mon chou,” she sings, off-key, but sweet.

Draco watches from the edge of the cabbage patch, his dragonhide shoes free of any mud. Her footprints lay heavy in the soil, weaving between pumpkin vines and corn stalks, looping around large, midnight-colored aubergines.

The night stills, but watches with bated breath.

The moon swallows Luna, soaking her in silver. She wears the moonbeams like a cape. Bright blue eyes find his across the darkness, and he can see the smile in them. Eyes are windows to the soul, but Luna’s are only labyrinths.

Draco can’t find any scorn or malice in her mazes.

“Cabbages don’t pick themselves, Draco,” she says, her voice drifting across the garden as if she speaks for it. Luna’s voice echoes from all corners and looms in his ears.

The soil squelches under his shoes, the sound reminiscent of spongy bodies and bloody puddles. But Luna beckons again and cares not what he remembers. Draco is at her side in fewer steps than he’d assumed, heart hammering out of sync as she serenades the cabbages.

“Three cabbages, four cabbages, oh how’d I’d like to know you. Mon chou, mon chou, mon chou.”

She saws the cabbage’s stem halfway before she snaps it free and the ringing crack reverberates in the air. She does not look at him as she moves onto the next one. It is a dance, the way she dips into a curtsy, her hand fanning out to her side as if she grabs the skirt of a ballgown. She sinks her knees into the soil again, unbothered by the moisture that sticks the fabric to her skin.

Draco sighs and charms his trousers so they don’t get wet. “Why are we stealing cabbages?”

Luna stops ruffling the leaves and gives him a sidelong glance. “Stealing implies we’re taking something that doesn’t belong to us.”

“Well, yes. The family that lives here might think we’re stealing their vegetables.”

She shrugs and returns to her work. “The fairies that live here said we could take whatever we need. They were here first.”

“And you always listen to fairies?”

“Yes. It’d be stupid to cross a fairy. They know things we don’t know. Wizards? We know just as much as them. More even.”

“Because fairies?”

She gazes at him, her head tilted to the side. “Oh, no, Draco,” she states simply, “it’s because you and I are intelligent.”

Draco nods but says nothing. Dirt packs under his fingernails. A rocky piece of soil pinches his skin. He pulls back the cabbage leaves in search of a head that’s smooth and green.

He watches her out of the corner of his eye as Luna walks further into the garden. She squats with some herbs and takes a sprig of mint. She holds it up to night sky, almost as if it is an offering to the moon who watches from her palace amongst the stars.

Draco isn’t sure when he came to her side again, but he was not called to be. He lowers himself beside her and plucks the herb from her hand, placing the sprig of mint behind her ear like a flower. Luna blinks with surprise, her hand gently touching the leaves as if rose petals.

“Thank you,” she whispers, wearing a faint smile. “This will help me keep cool.”

“Are you feeling warm?”

He tries to rest a hand on her forehead, but Luna jumps up and away, leaving Draco kneeling in the mud alone.

Her gaze is to the sky, her arms overhead as if she’s stretching. “Sometimes, I feel very warm when I’m with you. You take all the coolness when you occlude.”

The stare of the forest weighs heavily on Draco’s shoulders, the expectations haunting him from the shadows.

“All set?” he asks.

Luna fastens the buttons of her coat. “As a bone will ever be.”

The forest’s stare lingers as they walk along to Luna’s cottage. She still wears her spring of mint as if a treasured jewel. Her hum and their footsteps the only noise in the silence.

She invites him inside as if he has always belonged inside her cottage in the dead of night. The moonlight pushes him forward and closes the door as he crosses the threshold. Together, they place their harvest on her modest table. A warm fire crackles in the corner.

They scrub their hands in more silence at her sink. A cauldron bubbles on her counter with a nondescript potion. It smells like springtime and fresh lemon despite that autumn is to be winter next month.

“You have not slept,” Luna says.

“You steal vegetables from your neighbors,” he replies.

“Only wizard neighbors. Fairies gave permission.”

Draco swallows. “Do I—can I—” he says, but then stops.

He closes his eyes and inhales. The warmth of the cottage settles into his bones. Luna taps the counter in a steady rhythm that soothes his heart. He opens his eyes and gives her a deprecating smile.

“What is the unknown?”

Her lips purse together, and she rests a hand on her chin. She does not blink when she answers, the universe wide in her eyes. “The absence of known, but it has its own siren call.”

He laughs. “What does that even mean?”

Her gaze softens. She steps closer. The moonlight filters through her window, and outlines of enchanted wings rest on her back. “It means that I forgive you and I want you,” she says. “It means your unknown is known.”

Draco stops breathing for a second, but then confidence awakens in his chest. “Does that mean I can steal a kiss, mon petite chou?”

She chuckles quietly. “Stealing implies it’s not yours.”

In the moments that don’t add up, Draco crosses the arm’s length between them, kissing Luna on the mouth. She smells of mint and soil, but her touch is fire on his skin as she cups his face. He buries his fingers in her fine hair and their bodies meld together.

“Sleep with me,” she commands, and he obeys.

Like her muddy footprints, their clothes trail them as they make their way to her bed. He trips trying to get out of his trousers, and she is there to catch him with calm yet sturdy arms. They laugh as they fall into bed, her lips peppering his face with kisses. They are only vested in their undergarments.

He settles into the plush comforter, the scent of lavender encompassing them both. She leans over him, her hair a silky curtain that tickles his bare shoulder. Luna traces the soft skin under his eye. “I’m so happy that you’re here.”

He grasps her hand and kisses her palm. “You’re too good for me, Luna.”

“I am only as good as one’s idea of morality. To me, we are both good. I wouldn’t invite you in otherwise.”

Adoration wells in Draco’s chest, and he pushes himself up to kiss Luna again. He takes his time and savors each moment. There is no rush or need for frantic passion as his hands trail down the curve of her spine. He unclasps her bra and relishes in the feeling of her chest against his.

She giggles as he lightly glides his hand across the dip of her waist, but then he tugs her knickers off without a care in the world.

“Perfect,” he whispers with reverence. “Absolutely perfect.”

Luna does not hide her body and preens under the praise. Her fingers trace his forearm as she spreads her legs open. Her arousal perfumes the air.

“Touch me, please.”

In the soft glow from the moon, Draco teases her warm slit. His fingers slide inside her with ease, and there is nowhere more he’d rather be. He kisses her neck as he pumps his fingers inside of her, enjoying the way she moans. Her hand finds her clit, and together they bring her pleasure. She presses hard onto herself, her fingers moving in precise circles she’s traced a thousand times.

Draco matches her pace, the tension in the room mirrored in the locking bones of her body. Luna fucks herself on his fingers, and their hands bump into each other’s. She stops breathing, her back curving off the mattress. She smiles to the moon hiding behind the roof, her free hand intertwined with Draco’s. Her hips jerk, the tension of her body snapping as she rocks into his hand in a slowing descent. Her content sigh as she opens her eyes reminds him of a gentle breeze at the seashore.

With a breathy laugh, she reaches for him and palms his cock through his briefs. “Hi.”

He kisses her chest, sucks on the spot above her heart until he’s left a mark. Her fingers find his hair as he shimmies out of his pants. With a lightness that only comes with hearing Luna’s breath in his ears, Draco allows the warmth to encircle him as he enters her. He feels worthy of this moment, feels that he belongs to the witch beneath him.

Luna crosses her legs behind him and forces him to bottom out inside of her. She giggles as he groans into her neck, her hands gripping his shoulders to draw him closer. He rocks into her slowly, taking his time as the concept disappears. There is only now, only the feeling of Luna under him, meeting him stroke for stroke.

She touches herself again, blunt nails smooth against his cock as he fucks her. She squeezes tight, and Draco wonders if these are how constellations are made. Supposes the stars above come from moments where two people join as one. Her breath hitches again, her back curving. Her nipples skim across his skin.

“Draco,” she whispers, a ghost of a kiss on his shoulder.

Draco holds her tighter, finds her mouth to swallow her moans, steals her breath because she’s given it to him. He comes with her lips cool across his, her tongue soft and saliva sweet as she orgasms. He can feel her heart beating hard as he cuddles into her chest, finding home and purpose where his future has no crime, except for stolen cabbages.

#druna #hp fanfic #draco malfoy #luna lovegood #draco x luna #dmll #drabble #my fic #i'm really happy with this story!#i'm really glad i won host's favorite too!#eeee :D #also #totally old school on the tumblr by posting the whole chapter #I WILL ALWAYS DO THIS LOL #can't get it out of me

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rimmers-swimming-certificate · 4 years ago

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Red Dwarf fanfic - Comatose (16/19)

Lister rested his chin in his cupped hand, propped up by an elbow on the arm of the wheelchair as Kryten pushed him through the corridors of Red Dwarf. He came to a stop outside the entrance to the quarters that Lister shared with Rimmer, and the door opened.

“Okay, thanks Krytes, I can take it from here,” Lister told him.

Kryten shook his head. “Nonsense, sir,” he insisted. “It’s no bother at all, I’ve brought you this far, I’m going to make sure that you get safely from the door to the bed.”

Lister sighed. He knew from past experience that there was little point arguing with Kryten when he was in nursemaid mode. Instead, he sat passively as the mechanoid manoeuvred the wheelchair through the door.

“There we go, sir,” Kryten said. “Home safe and sound. Now, how about we get you tucked up into bed?”

“Really, Kryten. I can do this bit myself,” Lister said.

“Of course you can, sir,” Kryten told him. “But you’ve had a very busy day. Your first time outside of the medi-bay in three weeks, I imagine it’s all a bit overwhelming for you. Now, You just relax, and I’ll pop you in bed.”

Lister cringed and gave Rimmer, standing in the corner of the room with arms folded, an embarrassed glance as Kryten bent over and picked him up out of the wheelchair.

“Be careful with him!” Rimmer said. He approached, nervously, arms outstretched as though he could catch Lister if Kryten were to drop him.

Kryten carefully deposited Lister on Rimmer’s bunk, placing him with his back resting against the far too many pillows that had been arranged there. He pulled the cover over him, and proceeded to tuck him in.

“Now then, how about a nice cup of tea?” Kryten asked him. “And maybe some of those bickies you like? Or better yet, a nice mug of warm milk to help you get off to sleep.”

Lister shook his head. “I don’t like warm milk, Kryten. I told you, it’s disgusting. Tastes too much like milk. And that weird horrible skin it gets on the top sometimes?” He shuddered.

“Tea, then,” Kryten said.

“I’m fine, really.”

“A glass of water, then. Don’t forget, now you’re back in your own quarters, I’m not going to be here all the time. I’d hate for you to wake up thirsty in the middle of the night and not be able to get yourself a drink. I’ll get one for you now, just in case.” He turned to leave, then hesitated. “Unless, of course, you’d rather I stayed the night. It’s really no problem.”

Rimmer took a step forward. “Er, yes it would be, actually. It would be a problem for me.”

Kryten appeared unconcerned. “Yes sir, but surely you must agree that as a human, Mr Lister’s needs come above your own.”

Rimmer glared hard at Kryten. “I agree no such thing,” he said. “Now kindly smeg off before I order you to microwave your head.”

“I…” Kryten said. He straightened up, then turned back to Lister. “I’ll get that water.”

“I don’t want any water, Kryten,” Lister told him. “I’m fine, honestly. I just want to get my head down.”

Kryten hesitated. “I’ll come back in an hour or so,” he said. “Just in case you’ve changed your mind.”

Lister sighed, but didn’t bother to argue. He knew there was no point. As Kryten left the room and the door closed behind him, Lister relaxed. He untucked the sheets and threw three excess pillows onto the floor next to the bunk, then he turned to Rimmer. “Microwave his head?” he asked.

Rimmer shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with on the spot.”

“It worked.” Lister shuffled a little further down the bunk and rested his head on the remaining pillow. “Thanks for swapping beds with me,” he said.

“Well, I could hardly leave you at Kryten’s mercy in the medi-bay until you had enough strength to climb a ladder, could I? I think that would constitute cruel and unusual treatment.”

Lister laughed. “He’s not that bad really,” he said. “He’s just…” he hesitated. “Okay, he is that bad. It was alright when I was still ill, but now I’m getting better, yeah. Except for the exercises the medi-comp set for me, he literally won’t let me do anything for myself. Too much longer and I think I’d have gone insane.”

“I’d have thought you’d be used to not doing things for yourself, after five months as a hologram.”

Lister looked at him. “That’s different.”

Rimmer nodded. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know. How are you adjusting, anyway?”

He hesitated, not sure how to answer that. Part of him wanted to talk about how he sometimes had trouble getting to sleep because he kept noticing the way the sheets and blankets felt against his skin, or how the first time Kryten had left him alone and he had had the strength to get out of bed himself, he had touched everything. He had savoured the feeling of the cold floor on his bare feet, and ran his hands over everything, feeling the difference between hard and soft, rough and smooth, cool and ward. Part of him wanted to tell Rimmer how much he had missed him, even when he was in the room with him. Even now, when they were so close that they could almost touch.

If anything, that made it worse.

“Lister?” Rimmer asked.

Lister blinked. “Uh, yeah. Fine,” he said.

Rimmer nodded. He sat down at the table, then stood up, paced the room, then sat down again. “What’s it like?” he asked.

“Honestly?” Lister shrugged. “I dunno. Right now, it kinda sucks. Kryten’s still not let me have a curry, can you believe it? Or a lager. Ask me again when I’m back on my feet properly.”

“But everything else though,” Rimmer said. “To have a physical presence again…” he tailed off, hands clenched as though he was imagining grabbing something that his hand did not pass through.

Lister sighed. “Come on, Rimmer, Don’t do that to yourself, man,” he said, warningly. “You don’t want to listen to me bang on about how great it is to be able to pick things up. It’s not that great anyway. It’s totally overrated.”

Rimmer folded his arms and looked away. “Really?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Lister lied, knowing full well that Rimmer didn’t believe him.

“Well… good.” Rimmer said. “I suppose I’d better get to sleep, anyway, if that metal moron’s going to come blundering in checking if you need a drink of water all through the night.”

Awkwardly, without the ability to touch the ladder or the bunk with his hands, Rimmer managed to balance well enough to climb up to the bunk. Lister didn’t watch. He had managed it himself, but there had been more than one reason he had enjoyed sharing the bottom bunk with Rimmer when he had been a hologram.

“This won’t be for long,” he promised. “Soon as I’m strong enough to get up and down the ladder without falling, we’ll swap back.”

“It’s fine,” Rimmer said, sounding a little breathless from the exertion. I’m figuring it out. If you managed it, I certainly can.”

Lister rolled his eyes.

“incidentally, any idea when that will be?” Rimmer asked. “If it’s going to be too long, we’ll get all these posters moved. It looks a real mess up here, Lister.”

Lister shrugged. “Dunno. Right now I’m exhausted from a short walk on the treadmill and lifting a couple of weights. I mean, I finally convinced Kryten to let me cut up my own food, but that’s not too strenuous. Other than that, all I’ve done today is sit around in bed, sit around in a chair, and sit around in a wheelchair while Kryten pushed me around the ship, and I’m still wiped out. I feel like I’ve spent the day in the gym.”

“And how would you know?”

“Hey! I’ve been to the gym before!”

“Yes, but while at the gym, have you ever done anything other than sit in the jacuzzi enjoying the bubbles?”

Lister grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Once. Ended up feeling exactly like I do now, that’s why I never did it again.”

He rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, feeling the cool of a fresh bit of pillow against his cheek and the soft sensation of the freshly laundered cotton sheets against his skin. He touched the bed with his hand, caressing it in slow circles, savouring the sensation.

Something told him that sleep wasn’t going to come as easily as he had hoped.

(next)

#red dwarf #red dwarf fanfic #my fic #dave lister #arnold rimmer #kryten #this is just a short one

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anteroom-of-death · 5 years ago

Text

Life, For Dummies p6

a/n: so the words just flew out and boy. much thanks to all who read and commented and reblogged/liked! im sorry ahead of time! it will get uptempo again.optimism, babes.

You stood in the console room in wait, you had no clue the punishment that lay waiting. You didn’t know what was going to happen and that was worse than knowing. There had to be worse consequences for a consummate freak out that bordered on betrayal.

For a snap you thought of just reverting back to being her companion just to smooth things over. To stop all the madness that was bound to ensue. But you didn’t. You held your ground, despite having to run away.

You shivered involuntarily. You felt like a freezer that happened to be left open all night. You let yourself be crippled by everything. Seeing them left you blindsided, if you were a quarterback it’d have been a sack at the tenth yard line.

Did that make the Master the coach?

You ended up stripping off your blazer and leaning over the console, mildly hyperventilating. Your arms glistening with sweat in the ambient lights.

The door swung open and you hunched up. Jaw clenched your ringing in your ear came back, drowning all else out.

You swore he was speaking but your mind was so swirled with thoughts and crackles and the persistent ring you ended up trying, “Get on with it, punish me. Kill me. You know I’m no good to you now.” but it came out garbled, as if you suffered a stroke.

Maybe you did.

You started a brief list of stroke symptoms but decided, was no use. If he was going to do what you thought, he’d probably use your own laser screwdriver against you.

You suddenly remembered ages ago yourself in a similar situation. You disrespected him. You’d’ve done it three times now.

If going by the sudden need for sports metaphors you were currently riding, third strike- you’re out.

He wasn’t doing anything and that drove you absolutely insane. Clutching your sides, you spun around and met his eyes. Those eyes, so large and so beautiful and emotive were virtually unreadable. Your vision was getting blurry and your eyes started stinging. You were aghast with the day. It was a simple scheme. How could it go so wrong. You had heartburn. The acid was rising in your stomach and you tried to not hurl. The anticipation was getting to you on all levels.

You elected to allow yourself to black out. You were headed that way, so you just gave into it without a fight.

When you came to, you found yourself at your house, on your couch. Your favorite mug with your favorite tea blend was waiting for you and across the room leaning on your wall was him.

The Master. Your Master.

“Nice touch, passing out. Noble even.” His eyes yet again unreadable voids.

Your head pounded and the back of your skull was a dull pain.

You did notice and take appreciation from the pillows cupping you and your feet up.

“We need to talk.” His voice was just as unreadable as his eyes. The sentence flooded your throat and dropped into your stomach. You clenched your eyes and relaxed your jaw as you brought yourself up and cupped the mug gingerly.

“Thank you.” You gave him a meager smile in genuine thanks.

“Don’t think of it.” He waved it off.

He was uncharacteristically devoid of emotion or passion. Stoic.

You took a few sips, letting the warmth and the taste give you strength and some comfort. You had lots of experience where this was going. Why fight it? He was an ageless alien and you were a human. The fact that he gave you all you got was phenomenal.

You could feel your heart stop when you put it down. The silence was starting to get to you.

“I need some time.” He murmured, voice silky.

“How long?” You hoarsely whispered.

“No clue. I just need to process this.”

What was processing time? Feasibly for him? You could be just here for a few moments and he could have taken centuries. Or he could have taken a day or 36 hours and you could already be dead.

Maybe he was just telling you this to shake you off and stop more damage.

You wanted to fight him on it. But how? Your jaw unlocked and lay slack.

“You have a concussion. I’ve dealt with the necessary care. I put some pills that’ll take a week to heal you up properly.” He pointed towards the vicinity of your bathroom before pushing off your wall and headed towards a curio cabinet you really didn’t notice until now.

Obviously, more than a week.

“Text me?” You said.

“Maybe.” He looked at you, his eyes were big and seemed filled with nothing but agony and resolve.

You swore you saw his mouth move and a whisper of something you couldn’t make out. A different language.

He stepped in and the curio cabinet vanished from your living room.

You leaned back, the Fam mentioned that your place was dusty, but obviously he must have broken out the dust buster. That was sweet of him to take care of the place before you were unceremoniously dumped on your ass. You went for your neck. The collar that you usually stroked in times of stress was gone, along with him.

What was the date? You had no clue. Days passed, flooding into weeks. This agony of not knowing outweighed anything. You vaguely remembered the Covid-19 “shelter at home” but that was truly another life entirely.

Twenty-twenty passed on and you had to get a new job, but nothing seemed to take for you. You’d either get fired for lackadaise or not showing up or quit out of the blue because you felt deep down you deserved better. Dozens of civilizations across the stars probably still spoke of you in hushed tones as a haughty goddess, or Queen sent by the divine.

The nights were the roughest. A few times the cops were called because you were wailing in your sleep. They soon just stopped coming, unless your neighbors just accepted it as the new normal.

If you could joke, and if you were in a joking mood, you’d probably remark how this was just like Bella Swan in New Moon “sksksksksk jksk lol!” But you weren’t anymore. You weren’t in a joking mood no matter what at the time.

Life, without the Master, simply wasn’t worth living.

How could you go back? After all those stars seen? People met? And emotions felt.

You felt your heart harden and break.

You half thought of trying to push through the pain and see if you could somehow contact him. At least see if he was okay. Especially since you overheard the news at a metal bar you started working at that some strange lights followed by a subsonic explosion happened in a small city far away and there were confusing footages being leaked on social media of Daleks and death. It went away in a day, but still. You swore you heard a TARDIS in a few of the Facebook Lives people did as they died. People thought it was a hoax. People were so dumb.

It made you ache.

Maybe it was the Doctor, or the Master convincing them to go destroy somewhere more important.

It was more likely her.

You didn’t know which one would be worse, just in case more footage was released and you saw a flash of a face.

You broke again, dropping the heavy drink laden tray on the ground and locking yourself in the walk-in fridge. Rackus sobbing came out of your chest like a snarling animal. You had to get yourself together before you lost the only job you made good tips at. You knew it was purely because the uniform was trampy, and not your sparkling personality or wit. You placed your head between your thighs and screamed through it, trying to see if that would stop you from your tears. It was literally more time that had passed than you had actually ran away with him at this point.

You should have moved on. If not moved on, repress it enough to worry any mental health specialist. This wasn’t like you.

So you tried therapy.

The big mistake there was dumbing it down and humanizing the Master and the Doctor so you didn’t sound like you needed inpatient care or to go on some watchlist somewhere in the universe. Let alone your planet.

Some people somewhere might want to abduct you and harvest your organs for the residual artron energy. That could be valuable on certain markets.

Or your brainwaves. Some planets would pay rogue Time Agents to harvest them and the knowledge you knew and technology you learned.

You became more skittish when walking at night. You had gotten so used to just blasting anyone who’d try to wrong you with your screwdriver. It was a crutch you missed. Every moving shadow scared you.

You also had to consider someone, somewhere might be angry enough with him enough and see that his little human whore was no longer velcroed to his side and go look for you. Penance for his actions, delivered unto you.

Not like he would care, obviously he was far gone and far away.

Your manager came in and gave a quick look at the sight before him.

“Why are you in here? People at table 6 were complaining. Had to give them vouchers and comp their bill.”

You wiped your eyes and got out from your hutched state, “The news. So much death.” You snorted up the snot threatening to leak out.

Strange cognitive dissonance coming from someone who aided in toppling empires and had a past of executing people.

It wasn’t that, but my goodness, you had to sell it. It was a human thing to say.

“Oh, wow. I’ll give you a minute, then get back to work.” He closed the door gently and let you be.

You paced and paced and thought, “What would he do?” But all the answers involved space tech you didn’t have in a five by eight cooler. Or loud theatrics and sass.

You had none of those.

For the first time in a while, you went to your neck and rubbed at it, wishing you still belonged to him, and you knew what to do. Anger flooded through you and honestly, you didn’t know who it was directed at. The anger felt good. A blistering difference to the waves of agony and silence in you.

You bratted off and knocked down a row of premade salsas and stomped out before heading to table 6.

“Oh, so you didn’t fancy me dropping the drinks? Or whatever? You were complaining about the shape of the wings earlier? Anything else, your highnesses,“ You false curtsied before straightening out and untying your apron and tossing it on the ground, “Anything?” You spat.

They recoiled.

The paunchy middle aged man asked, “What the fucks your problem? Like, what do you want? Cause you’re definitely not getting a tip now?”

An idea shot into your brain, “What do I want?” You jabbed a finger at yourself, “I want you to kneel!” You pointed at him and made a vague “get down” gesture with your index finger.

“Kneel?”

“Kneel!” You ordered, all the chutzpah of a former self radiating through. You tossed a glass at that man’s head. It was no laser to the stomach but would do the trick. “I said, kneel for me, love.”

The blood streaming from his head as he obeyed you, his fatty neck blubbering in pain and tears streaming down his face filled you with nostalgia. It felt good to be in this position again. Someone obeying you, the fear in their eyes, the sense of power it gave you knowing that you held the keys to their fate in your hands. A small pool of wetness nearly started between your thighs. Power was just so good, and feeling the fear come to him? Icing on a perverse cake.

Him kneeling was almost as natural as it felt for you to kneel ages ago. A labored, pleased breath escaped your lungs as you smiled and let off a laugh.

You turned to your manager and gave a grimace, “I quit, I just can’t take the pressure, dock my pay for the damages. Bye.”

You grabbed your stuff from behind the bar and ran out again from yet another job.

At the back of your brain, you knew that possibly you’d go to prison for this. You assaulted a man. Out here in the real world, not the magic little world of madness, assault meant fines, sharing a prison cell with someone called Big Irma, ugly orange jumpsuits and a permanent record. Something that would prevent you from life.

Not that you had a life anymore.

You arrived home and finally allowed yourself to let out all the true amount of tears you felt. You fell asleep on the linoleum of your entrance hall waiting for the cops to show up and take you away.

You were out for over a day, you woke up so sore and dehydrated.

But the brunt of your emotions, you felt were over.

You knew you had to consolidate who you were, who you had been, and where you were now. Make yourself one person, not a section of phases altered by the presence of Time Lords.

But who were you before you’d met the Doctor and been the Master’s?

That was the hard part.

Jogging that memory up.

You massaged your temples and went over to chug water directly from the kitchen faucet.

A normal human just couldn’t force people to follow their every whim. Or flit from here or there.

Well, unless they were a politician or born to extreme wealth.

You needed to be able to hold down a job, you needed to move on. He wasn’t coming for you. You finally and truly got it through your thick, pathetic human skull…

You wiped the water off your face with your bare hands and ripped off the bar’s uniform. You hunched over in your kitchen and cursed the day you ever met either Time Lord. Cupping your face in your hand you let out another massive groan and shook yourself free.

Those topics were not to be verboten.

You had a traitorous thought, unless you worked for a government organization or paramilitary that dealt with the extraterrestrial. The job prospects for that seemed slim. You were formally in league with them. People might argue a conflict of interests or claim you were a double or triple agent. There was no true way to prove to a stupid ape that, you, another stupid ape weren’t giving off trade Earth secrets to known enemies of the planet. The list of aliens on watchlists was getting larger in the 21st century by the day. The Master definitely had to be on at least most of them. If not all. Though, the money would be quite good…

It was thought.

You were Earth-bound and just had to reintegrate. There had to be some books you could read. Life, For Dummies? Men are from Gallifrey, Women are from Earth? Something, even an obnoxious celebrity and an ill-trained life coach making a podcast on how to cope with a break up. Something.There

Easier said than done.

It had to be done, however how hard.

What a pity, what a sham.

To paraphrase a comic, you were young, shiney and dumb. Easy to fool.

You felt yourself utter, “If I ever see you again, first I’m going to kiss you, then I’m going to kick your ass.”

You pulled yourself back from those unhealthy words and bit your tongue.

This was bound to be hard.

But not impossible...

#personal #i wrote this #dhawan!master #dhawan!master x reader #master x reader #doctor who self insert fiction #angst #fanfic #self insert #the master

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butterflydm · 5 years ago

Text

fic: safe (as) houses

For @queliotweek (2019) | Day 2: Hedge Witches | read on AO3

main ship: quentin/eliot; background ships: julia/penny/kady; margo/alice; rated: mature for brief discussion of sexual acts

Quentin didn't feel the wards drop, only became aware Eliot had returned when he felt a soft kiss on the top of his head. He closed his book, tossed it – carefully – onto the coffee table, and tilted his head back to get an upside-down kiss from his boyfriend.

“Ugh, we have rules about PDA,” Julia said from the other couch. “Take it to your bedroom, guys.”

Eliot kissed Quentin for a while longer, enough to more than make the point that Julia wasn't the boss of him, then he pulled away.

“If we leave, Q will get to see all the new spells first,” Eliot pointed out, climbing over the back of the couch and weighing down Quentin's lap with his long, long legs. “You'd definitely regret that, Jules. Bambi gave me some great ones this time. That horomancy elective she's taking has some fascinating implications for an amateur meta-comp specialist.”

Eliot tossed a hefty binder onto the table and grinned when Julia snatched it up and started flipping through the pages.

“You're the best,” Julia said, in a sing-song, eyes lighting up as she ran a finger down the detailed diagrams and notes. “I'm really looking forward to meeting your Bambi one day. So comprehensive. Exquisite penmanship, too.”

'One day' probably wouldn't come until after Eliot's friend graduated from Brakebills. It was risky enough for her to be feeding spells to an expelled student – if anyone found out she was essentially teaching an entire hedge safe house, Quentin wasn't sure what might happen to her.

“Speaking of PDA, where are your better two-thirds?” Eliot asked. “Bambi was able to sweet-talk Sunderland into spilling more info on how travellers work.”

“Supply run,” Julia answered, still focused on the binder. Penny was always the best choice on a run, since he could blip them out of trouble if things went sideways. Kady had volunteered to join him this time so that Julia and Quentin could get the chance to chill as friends.

They'd caught up on some of the shows that their housemates declared 'too nerdy' for their tastes, and then settled in to read different books in the same room. Eliot said that didn't count as a 'social activity' which just proved that even Eliot could be wrong sometimes.

“Oooh, yes, we've got notes from Glasses, too,” Julia said, with great delight. “Tell your Bambi to never break up with her – she's got such an amazing handle on contradictions and sympathies in circumstances.”

“I will pass on the request,” Eliot said, faux-solemnly. “No dumping the hottie with great tits who makes her gush like a fire hose when she comes. It'll be a trial for her, I'm sure, but she'll probably manage.”

“Ugh, fuck, Q, rein in your boyfriend's mouth,” Julia said, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, you do realize he's probably told Bambi all about your kinky sex games, right?”

“We don't have-”

“Try that on someone who didn't walk in on you,” Julia said, darkly. “You were suspended from the ceiling. There were clamps in places I didn't realize people ever put clamps.”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “I refuse to believe Kady's never tied you up.” And Julia blushed and said nothing, so that was a point for him.

He rested his hands on Eliot's legs and let himself stare a bit. Eliot had on a new vest (embroidered and golden) and a new tie (blue but with swirls that matched the vest) and he looked amazing. Eliot always ended up with new clothes after a day out with Bambi, and he looked so perfectly put together that Quentin was struck with the sudden desire to muss him up. He tugged the tie loose, crumpling the fabric – silk? – between his fingers. Eliot smiled at him, lazy and self-satisfied, and Quentin honestly didn't care how much of their sex life Eliot was sharing with Bambi. If it made him that happy to spend time with her, that was all that mattered. Even the magic didn't matter as much as Eliot's smile.

Anyway, they owed her a lot. She was the only reason their safe house even existed, after all. She'd broken the rules after Eliot had been expelled, had sought him out and brought back his memory.

One day, when she wasn't tied to Brakebills anymore and it was safe for them to meet her and know her real name... Quentin was really looking forward to thanking her. Having the safe house, having Eliot... he was pretty sure it had saved his life.

So, yeah, all things considered, Quentin didn't care if she knew all his dirty sex secrets. She'd earned them.

“Q, there's a cooperative in here that you've got to do with me,” Julia said. There a pause, then a heavy sigh. “Jesus, Coldwater, do I have to pull out our safe-house agreement to remind you about the rule regarding PDA in the goddamn common room. Taking off Eliot's clothes qualifies as P-D-fucking-A, asshole.”

Quentin was about to protest his innocence when he realized his hand was halfway down Eliot's shirt.

“Some people would pay good money for a show like this,” Eliot said, unrepentant.

Quentin, meanwhile, sheepishly pulled his hand away and put it primly back into his lap. “What- uh- what were you saying about a cooperative spell?”

“It's a reversal spell – kind of like casting 'dispel magic',” Julia said, firmly ignoring Eliot. “But incredibly strong. Anyway, it's- well, the best way to describe it is 'anti-sex magic'.”

“Anti-sex magic?” Quentin asked, dubiously.

“Yeah, it's friendship-based and, apparently, a lot stronger if there's no sexual energy between the casters.”

Even now, two years after his crush on Julia had whimpered in its final death throes, that was a difficult sentence to hear.

“Well,” Eliot said, very deliberately, before Quentin could trip all over his own words awkwardly. “It'll have to wait. I need to steal my boyfriend away and explore some extremely sexual energy with him.”

Eliot stood up, held a hand out to Quentin.

“Or, you could carry me,” Quentin suggested, not moving. He wondered if Eliot remembered their first meeting as vividly as Quentin did, the way he'd asked if Q and Julia were a 'matched set' and Julia had laughed and said Quentin was 'like a brother' to her and Eliot's face had been- sympathetic in a way that didn't feel condescending at all. He suspected that Eliot did remember.

“Spoiled,” Eliot said, approvingly. He reached down and scooped Quentin into his arms, and Quentin felt the soft familiar tingle of Eliot's telekinesis taking part of his weight. “You're going to make me do all the work, aren't you?”

Quentin threw an arm around Eliot's neck and pressed himself against Eliot's chest. Nodded.

“You are literally a few feet from your bedroom and its silencing wards,” Julia said but from the corner of his eye, he could see her starting to look through the book again. “Oh, and, hey, Eliot? Bring him back in two hours so he can do this spell with me.”

“I make no promises,” Eliot said lightly, and carried Quentin away.

#queliotweek #queliot #the magicians #queliotweek 2019 #myfic

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cs-discourse · 6 years ago

Text

here we go

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179953845684/uuuuwuu-every1-whos-concerned-abt-biased-judging

ok this attitude has been pissing me off long enough that it's time for one of my Big Ole Posts (tm) about how shitty this is! thanks.

uuuuwuu every1 whos concerned abt biased judging in comps is just soooow entitled !!!1 i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11 bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 also my last braincell just died pleas h

so here's the og post in question for quick reference

i honestly have no idea why people keep bringing up this idea of bias in judging competitions because, while i do think there is a type of bias that certainly exists, i think a lot of so-called "bias" that people have is ... not whatsoever like what people think it is lol. artists are people and there's always going to be SOME kind of bias no matter what you do, because it's literally fuckin impossible to NOT be biased. by that i mean:

your taste in plots/types of characters/medias influence your judging

quality of writing or art can influence your judging

the person who's applying for the adopt you may have previous judgement about

even if you say you aren't biased, you STILL have preferences and tastes in things that you prefer more than others, which in of itself is a kind of bias

people who know you (friends for example) will naturally know what your taste is.

a competition is judged based on what form the artist thinks is best, right?

NEWSFLASH EVERYONE'S IDEA OF "WHAT'S BEST" IS DIFFERENT FROM PERSON TO PERSON ..... "BEST" is literally the most subjective thing there is, and while i agree that there are certain aspects of art and writing that you can use as objective measurements of tangible skill, it's... still subjective. what people think is "best" will vary from person to person because we all have different tastes. so, essentially, this boils down to the idea that the winner of an adopt competition will ALWAYS be the form the artist liked best, because that is what the artist perceives as best. so like. when people appear biased in adopt competitions towards friends or certain circles, it's probably because they're literally friends because they have similar tastes in things, and therefore the form the artist likes best is naturally going to be from someone who shares similar tastes.

so whenever i hear about """bias""" in competitions i just kind of roll my eyes tbqh because it's usually followed by complaints of "BUT I PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT" or "I WROTE SO MUCH MORE THAN THE WINNER" uhhhh. if adopt contests were won by effort alone it wouldn't be a contest, it'd be an endurance test lol. literally just "who has the most time to waste writing out 60000k words of absolute meaningless fluff"... because, i hate to break it to you, but ANYONE can write 5000 words of mindless drivel that has literally no substance to it.

now in caps for emphasis. takes a deep breath

THERE IS NO SKILL NEEDED TO BLOAT YOUR WORD COUNT.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE WELL TO WRITE 5000 WORDS.

YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TYPE AND PUT SENTENCES TOGETHER.

quality > quantity, always. like, i'm sorry you put in so many hours of effort but, those people who win with MUCH smaller wordcounts... did they not work to get as good as they did with writing? you put in 5 hours into one tryout. but others, take me for example: i have been writing for over 10 bloody years. i've worked hard to improve my writing, so you can't tell me i "didn't put in as much effort" as you because i did. i put in YEARS of work to get better so doing simple things would take me LESS time now. inb4 IT'S UNFAIR! dude, the literal definition of a contest is for the best to win. it wouldn't be a contest if it wasn't like that lol. it'd just be charity. what you should be doing instead of complaining about it is ASKING FOR CRIT and WORKING TO IMPROVE like a good sport? i get that it's discouraging but you should be prepared to lose when you join a contest. it's valid to be upset about but the moment you say you deserve it more than others JUST because of your effort, then i have a problem.

and you know, there's gonna be times where i think a comp winner is objectively less skilled than other tryouts. honestly i just kind of shrug that off on account of different taste lol. sometimes that's just how it be, bc of those predetermined biases i mentioned before, and maybe a judge and i are just in completely stages of life so what i call quality might not appeal to the judge. that's also fine. anyway this really got off on a tangent but i'm leaving it in bc i think it needs saying. back to the og post

> i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11

wtf didn't i address this in a different post

here let me link it for you

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179841459154/post179838988303-the-difference-is-that-you-have

which was replying to this: https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179838988303/179837734509-idk-anon-i-kinda-agree-with-the

i said it once but i'll say it again: artist entries aren't main adopts lol. people don't work for artist entries. all you fucking do is post on one like "can i have this pls" .. there is... no effort put into that lol. main adopts you WORK for. it's a CONTEST. claiming an artist entry is NOT a contest. if a bunch of little nasty gremlins come running up to me like a hungry horde trying to be the first one to claim my design, i think giving friends first pick is COMPLETELY FINE, BECAUSE WHAT DID ANYONE ELSE DO TO "DESERVE" THAT DESIGN? nothing. you did. nothing. you're literally coming here with this attitude that NOT GIVING THINGS AWAY TO STRANGERS FOR FREE SOMEHOW EQUALS BIAS? i literally do not understand your logic whatsoever. like. i'm trying really fucking hard. at least with main adopts the "payment" is the effort you put in trying to answer the artist's prompt. i know i sound super dumb repeating myself but i don't know how much simpler i can make this concept tbh

and this is EXACTLY why i say ya'll are fucking entitled because merc and any of the kal artists could be making REAL $$$$ selling their own designs and adoptables and art and NOT deal with all the bs ya'll throw at them. they're literally here because the ENJOY MAKING ((( FREE ))) CONTENT for you, and they're not obligated to do this. they can stop whenever they want. if you had to pay per hour for the length of time collectively worked by ANY species artist staff, the lot of you would be fucking broke. i'm actually constantly shocked that species artists work like, 8 hours or more on some of these gorgeous designs just to give them away for free in a contest.

so, yeah, as someone who hasn't spent my entire life on CS (i've only been here for a year and a half), ya'll seem pretty fucking entitled to me lol. the world outside CS rarely gives out such gorgeous designs in write-to-adopt contests so i'm honestly baffled at the amount of bloody entitlement i see

>bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1

this part i don't actually understand what you mean. do you mean they... help judge other comps? or like, enter them? i don't get what you mean by "weigh in" but listen, lol. just because something DOES happen doesn't mean it gives you a good reason to assume the worst. i mean... of course it happens. it's statistically impossible for skewed contests and bias to NOT happen, because there's always going to be cases of it happening. but like, what proof do you have that merc will be biased lol? like, real proof? because your main point i've basically debunked and don't believe in at all. do better than "i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11" because this doesn't make any sense to me for the reasons i already listed above lmao. if artist entries were supposed to be contests they'd be contests. what the hell makes you important enough to get first dibs on a stranger's work. ARTIST ENTRIES AREN'T EVEN MADE TO BE GIVEN AWAY, THEY'RE MADE AS ARTIST ENTRIES.... LIKE.... JESUS i struggle to understand ya'll

anyway im done here, if you wanna actually talk and debate this hmu on discord at lysander#9229 bc if you actually talk to me instead of spew this hot mess on the blog i might actually listen to you and change my mind and be nice about it instead of being a condescending bitch.

wait one more thing

>also my last braincell just died pleas h

yea clearly

p.s., why do you ppl keep going to the blog to give critique on merc's designs when on literally every other design merc makes there's this:

https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3950980

here i even linked it for you. idk why it's so hard for yall to give constructive crit like decent human beings

#cs discourse #submission

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notallbloodmages · 6 years ago

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My studio was out of power for almost a week

I’m re-vamping my Patreon again in an attempt to make up the lost $ from this past week. I lost a lot of work time, mostly time that would have been spent making and releasing new products. Luckily I got it back just in time to fill in orders that were due.

Details of the studio power troubles below the cut.

The first week that I had the studio, we spent a ton of time just making it clean and slightly warmer. The second week, I was able to move in all of my furniture and start using it to take orders!

Halfway through that second week, however, the power stopped working. The wiring had just given up and was honestly probably dangerous at that point. I called the building manager at 4:30PM and was told that I’d have to wait until Monday because the maintenance man only worked 8 to noon. I was furious, but didn’t get mad. I did have my first panic attack in months, though, and ended up hanging up on the guy.

Monday came and went, and I texted the building manager. The maintenance man would be there Tuesday. He was, but he didn’t fix anything. He just took apart the outlets and called it a day. On Wednesday, two of the power outlets we working and there seemed to be no intention of fixing the rest. I decided I could live with that, since they were luckily within reach of my computer and my machine.

That was all in October.

Now, in January, the power went out a second time. This time it wasn’t just the outlets in my studio, it was also the ones in the hallway. I called the manager, doing my best to stay calm, and was reamed for not saying “good morning” straight away (sidenote: it was 2pm). He seemed way over the top angry for such a little thing so I offered to call back at another time. He stated that he was at his daughter’s birthday, but that he had time and wanted to know if I was a tenant. I told him yes, but insisted on calling back later since I didn’t want him to miss his daughter’s birthday. I hung up as I could feel the anger rising in my throat - both at his shitty attitude and at his gall to answer his work cellphone at his daughter’s birthday. I had only planned on leaving a polite message anyway.

The moment I hung up, I started crying, but got myself under control quickly. I sent a long and very strongly-worded (yet still polite) e-mail to the management company about how frustrated I was that this happened yet again, and included what the manager had said during out short one-sided conversation. E-mail means a record of contact, which I definitely prefer now since the first time this happened was only over the phone.

Sunday- nothing Monday- nothing. I know Monday was a holiday, but these are rich white realtors who could be bothered to answer an email. Tuesday- I sent two more emails in the morning.

When I didn’t hear back by about 2pm, I wrote another email (mentioning legal action this time) before calling the leasing office. They’re desperate for new tenants right now, so naturally it didn’t even ring once before I was answered. I was greeted by an over-the-top-polite woman who called me “sweetie” every other sentence. She at least allowed me to share the whole story, starting from when I moved in. I complained to her about the hired management’s lack of professionalism, constant sub-par “maintenance” experienced by myself and the other tenants, and that I was not afraid to break my lease if this happened again. She promised to have maintenance call a professionally licensed electrician this time, and stated that that’s what should have been done in the first place.

Right when I got off the phone, I received an email back from the management office. No apology, just one sentence saying that an electrician would be out by the end of the week. It was something, but I didn’t have “until the end of the week.” I had orders to fill and new products that needed to be stitched out ASAP. One of the other management office folk called me, the man who showed me the unit in November, and asked me for the whole story. My fiance was there for the whole conversation so that I didn’t forget anything. He also promised that this would never happen again, and he was going to be talking with maintenance.

Quick note, every time that I e-mailed, talked to, or texted anyone at all, I made sure to say that I did not want maintenance to go into my unit without me present. Fully knowing that they wouldn’t listen, because this request had been ignored before, my fiance and I set up a security camera in the corner and had it alert us of any movement. Sure as hell, the maintenance man was in and out of my studio dozens of times between 9:30AM and 11:30AM on Wednesday morning. What was he doing? Going around with one of my plug-in devices to check each power outlet several times and then scratching his head while looking at the ceiling. I also got him calling the leasing office to tell them that I wasn’t there. The woman on the other end of the line sounded frustrated, as if the problem was going to have magically fixed itself and they weren’t going to have to spend any money.

Around 11:30, I got an email from management saying that an electrician would be there in an hour. No hello, no goodbye, no apologies for the trouble. Just, “an electrician will be out within the hour,” and the nested email that she was replying to. I checked the camera, and the electrician was already there. The maintenance man was letting him in, despite my repeated requests to not do that. I had a friend go with me to my studio so that I would hopefully not embarrass myself. On the way, I call from the leasing office saying that an electrician would be out around 4pm. I didn’t question it at first, since I’d already seen that an electrician was there and maybe they meant they’d be there by 4pm.

The moment we got there, I composed myself and was polite but firm to the maintenance - an old bald white man missing most of his teeth and any actual know-how about how to fix this problem. Which would be fine except that he did try to fix it previously. He left naked wires just sitting in the wall with no caps on. He installed outlets wrong. Worse things that the wiring getting fuzzed out could have happened. I was lucky that his idiocy and the management’s cheapness didn’t cost me my equipment.

The electrician was in the middle of disassembling one of the breaker panels in the hallway. The maintenance man literally told me he had no idea where the breakers for my unit were. WHAT THE FUCK. I knew where some of them were. I didn’t know about this one, because it’s still labelled with the room numbers from the goddamned 1940s. I was about to lose my cool when the electrician - someone I had not right to be mad at yet - asked me to tell him what all wasn’t working. So, I led him into the studio to point out what stopped working back in November, what still wasn’t working, what maintenance had “fixed”, what maintenance said he fixed but hadn’t, what still wasn’t working since November, and the “fixes” that had re-broken. He was confused at how all of this happened when there was nothing I was running that should have made this happen. He opened one of the outlet panels that maintenance had “fixed” and discovered that it was installed incredibly wrong. Another sidenote - I know how to install an outlet safely. But maintenance dude didn’t, but tried anyway. You don’t do that. I also asked the electrician if he could please re-install some of the outlets that maintenance removed completely for whatever-the-hell reason.

Once the electrician had a good idea of what was going on, my friend and I left because there wasn’t really anything we could do. Needless to say I continued watching on my camera until they left. I got a text from management reminding me that the electrician would be there around 4. Upon calling them back, I found that maintenance and management called two separate electricians without communicating with each other. I was too stressed out to go back to my studio. I also fell asleep around 10-ish when all the stress of keeping a cool and collected demeanor all day hit me.

On Thursday I could still feel the stress of dealing with this shit again in every single muscle and joint. Also it was like, -13*F here and that never helps. Upon checking my studio, I found all the outlets to be in working order and gingerly started working on an order, certain that the power would bust again.

Luckily it’s all still fine, and I got a whole week of backlogged orders done today.

However, I still missed out on 5 and a half days of productivity. I did stress this to management, and it looks like I’ll be comped for a month of rent. We’ll see if they follow through. Now I know that threatening legal action and threatening to leave and spread their shit through the artist-seeking-studio community (definitely still gonna do that last part) does work.

The other artists in the buildings are planning a straight up coup against management. This realty company treats its tenants terribly compared to every other similar set-up in the area. My documented issues will definitely come into play very strongly when we rise up. We will not be treated this way. We will not allow these people to profit off of our tenancy while they do jackshit to improve or fix the building., or respond to complaints.

Last week there was a guy violently yelling in the halls and the tenants were told not to call police by the management because they “didn’t want trouble”, and instead simply escorted him out. Glad I have both a security cam now and 12inch shears.

#art studio problems #honestly this realty company is basically tumblr staff #they bought the buildings hoping to make a quick buck without doing any work to make the spaces safe #there's literally asbestos tile in most of the rooms #and the pipes have been exposed to TCE-laden water

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coreytravelogue · 6 years ago

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Fort McMurray - June 8, 2018

It is a good thing I took a few weeks to process what was a mixed kind of long weekend filled with nostalgia, decent weather, ok times and good ol Alberta anger. This trip covers my May 25-27 trip to Fort Mac.

The first thing I noticed coming into Fort Mac was the smoke, apparently there was a forest fire near the highway, felt well I came in at the right time. We flew through to a sea of grey trees. At first I thought it must be normal till I seen patches of green lush trees here and there. That will be a ongoing theme of my report of my hometown.

I touched down in YYM expecting to walk into the same old shack or warehouse I left Fort Mac from 11 years later to discover a brand new airport. I just came from Calgary International which was a decent looking airport renovated to be pretty impressive but this was on a different level. I won’t say it was high tech because the airport was too small to have golf carts moving people around like Calgary but it was brand spanking new and down right gorgeous. Say what you want about Albertans but when it comes to building stuff they don’t half measure it, they go big and the money is put into it. Again this will be a reoccurring theme.

After I got my fridge magnet because I figure there wouldn’t be a place to buy one in the city I set out to do something I didn’t get to do very much while I lived in Fort Mac; take the bus. Mind you as a kid I was spoiled so my parents drove me where ever and if they didn’t I either walked or if it was summer I rode my bike there. As a kid and a teen if felt buses at least the ones here were dirty and worn down, at least the ones I remember were. However in the last 11 years I have become more into and more of a user of transit than I ever was when I was I was in Fort Mac last. To say the least my expectations were at knee level but again I was pleasantly surprised.

The bus that pulled up looked brand new and the interior looked wont say sparkling new but definitely within the year new. If it wasn’t I will say they better be paying their janitors well because they kept their buses in tip top shape. The best part about the bus wasn’t the bus itself though it was the price; a buck twenty five...... A BUCK TWENTY FIVE! Even. If it is only good for and hour that is still a steal at least for someone like me who has had to shell out 2.50 plus just to use a bus to get somewhere 15 min drive/train from where I was each time. On a buck twenty five if you wanted to you could grab a bus from the airport and get right to the back of timberlea and back (in 2018 oil bust Fort Mac traffic at least).

I was in Gregoire within 5 minutes but it didn’t go along the highway which I should have expected but since Gregoire has always been half industrial and half residential you don’t need to look hard to see the one way in and one way out of Fort McMurray and what I saw was not there last time I was there. Where there was once armies of green beautiful birch trees were now frontlines of grey and some still burnt trees still standing from the fire that came too close to burning down my hometown. It wasn’t a good feeling to me, while I was. Never the outdoorsy type I always appreciated how beautiful what forest we did have here. It is hard to not notice it since this city is surrounded by it and it is five hours of it south before you seen another city.

The trip down Gregoire hill made it more real for me. For 20 years so many times as a kid I would go up and down Gregoire hill. The trip up is not memorable because it is a uphill trip and a Gregoire with all due respect is not really a go to place in the city, it was always the trip down I looked forward to whenever I was returning home, especially after a five hour road trip from Edmonton which was usually the case. From the hill going down if you looked right there was always trees among trees as green as fresh grass that you couldn’t see past. Now most of them burnt to never be green again. Despite that if you looked below young treelings were growing beneath them that breathed hope in me however it would probably take a generation or two maybe barring another forest fire before they would grow to be as big or as green as their predecessors were.

Instead of heading straight to the main terminal I wanted to start my tour of the city from start of Franklin Ave which is basically the Main Street of the city, very much the Hastings Street of the city like Vancouver it literally covers 90% of downtown. Where I stopped was a place I knew fairly well which was once a trailer park where an aunt and uncle used to live. I remember both me and my cousins whom were around my age all going back to the house for recess to watch tv or do whatever as it was just a five minute walk from my high school. They were already in the process of developing that area into something by the time I left but I never knew what. Returning I noticed they turned it into a sports facility for Keyano College, the only real college or post secondary institution in the city. The main building had remained the same, still made of bricks w it’s floors that look like they came from 70s (another reoccurring theme) however unlike most things as I grew up the college was almost always well kept and you wouldn’t be able to guess the age of at least the theatre entrance from looking at it. Then there is the purple building that has always been purple and still is, always wondered why it was coloured purple I never found the answer.

Right next door to it was my high school, Composite High School where from 1998/99 to 2002/03 (I graduated in 2002 but I spent an extra year upgrading) I went to school. I was looking forward to going inside and reminiscing on the time I spent there. Mind you most of my memories were of sitting against walls and lockers in between classes and during recesses when my cousins soon graduated or left schools themselves. However I was not able tog eat in because the school appeared to be undergoing major renovations. Long over due I am sure like most things in Fort Mac a lot of things have been left to I won’t say rot but used long after it should have been refurbished.

Composite never really looked like a dingy or run down place, they reputation went to Father Mercredi High School whose run down and edgy condition matched the student attitudes I who went to it. It was never the nicest looking high school either in the city which went to West Wood High School which was seemingly the high school for rich kids in the eyes of everyone who didn’t go to that school because unlike Comp and Merc West Wood seemingly had everything and everything looked brand new. Hopefully after these renovations Comp will get that distinction because it deserves/deserved to. Composite was always over crowded, I don’t know if it was as. Over crowded as the other but it always felt like it. Father Merc and West Wood were both situated in Thickwood and technically were for kids in the Thickwood, Timberlea, Dickensfield and surrounding neighbourhood. While they are the biggest neighbourhoods those schools were for those neighbourhoods.

Composite on the other hand is the only one on the other side of town which means it has to cover not only cover downtown but Gregoire, Abasand, Beacon Hill and whomever from the other neighbourhoods Merc and West Wood would cover who want to be with their friends.

Suffice to say I was disappointed and walked a couple blocks down to Dr. Clark Elementary which was open. I never really had great memories here. I will always resent the school, the principal and whomever closed Clearwater Elementary for making me have to go there. The three years I spent at this school felt long and torturous to me. That being said Clearwater is a office building now and had been for decades so this place would be the closest I would have to guide to nostalgia. The staff did not see it that way however and I can’t really blame them. I went in and asked politely if I would be allowed to walk around the school. They then gave me a look as if I was a pervert and told me they have nobody to give me a tour because it was sports week. The perv look was tinged with a look I would get from a lot of people. That why the hell would you want to come here look.

Fort McMurray is not a tourist destination, most people who live or have lived there will tell you people only go there for one main reason and it is not for the pizza (even though their pizza is good) it is for money. Thwarted again at another chance to breathe in nostalgia I continued my way down Franklin. I noticed the Hospital on hospital hill still looked like it was built in the 70s with the same colour scheme but it was in the middle of being renovated itself. When I went inside it was the same old floors and same old look. Thankfully the emergency room got renovated though, that area always looked like a shit hole. Now it looks like a sit table place.

From the top of the hill is where I got to see just how close the fires came before it almost touched downtown. It got way too close than I would have wanted it to. Thinking about it now it does allow me to appreciate what I could have lost here, though as you will come to see there is not much if anything left for me in Fort McMurray outside of memories that are stale because so much of what I grew up with and known in Fort Mac is gone for good or bad.

The next stop were two malls that I hung out quite a bit both in my early childhood and late teen years and that was Plaza One and Two. Plaza One is still the same name but for some reason they decided to change Plaza Two to River City Centre and gave it a brand new colour scheme to where it not long has the 70s black and warm orange but the late 90s light black and cyan blue. The interior was still the same however minus the ramp way I called it as a kid. It was a ramp way that lead to the upstairs portion. It was built in a circle formation, I used to run up and down the ramp all the time when I was a kid. There were no stores I remembered as a kid outside of two; Shoppers Drug Mart whom only moved to the IGA Grocery store portion of mall (I wonder if it still has a mould and rat problem?) and the other was a place called Mom’s Resteraunt.

I have very vague memories of that place only that I had one or two burgers there as a kid and I liked them but apparently they have gone downhill. I tried to eat here during my time but thwarted again.

Plaza One was once one of my favourite hang out spots, prior to how it looks right now it used to be a T shaped sort of a building. The right side of the building has remained the same but the left went through changes. There used to be a straight line that would intersect with the right side but they decided to remove that intersection for some reason that made no sense to me, maybe the need for parking space but even then that never made sense. For years and even now behind the plazas there was always a shit ton of parking space and when it wasn’t paved I remember it being just a empty field. I might be wrong as I am reaching back to the early to mid 90s but that is what I remember.

Prior to that change and even a little while after depending on the side there were shops you could always fine me in. On the right side was a comic store I don’t recall going to much, I can’t remember why as this was during my comic book binging time. I am assuming it was because I had no money and the store guys didn’t like me there or because they just never had stuff I wanted or it was too expensive. I really don’t know the reason why I just know the place closed in the early 00s like most of the comic book shops at that time. There was a online gaming room there as well that I can’t remember the name of but I remember for a summer or two all my friends hung out there to play computer games because at that time it was much more easier to play there than a t home. Not everyone had a computer or internet let alone a strong connection. this place allowed kids to play computer games together in each other’s presence with little to no lag and To play games that they may not have afforded to own. I didn’t like this place not because of they staff or anything it was just I never saw the point, I could play most of these games at my house against my friends and I knew they could too. Plus the games I wanted to play I never could get people o play because this was the era for which Counterstrike was the game everyone was playing.

The most important shop on the right side, the one that is still there and will remain unless the owner decided to stop is Jomaa’s Pizza. Have I had better pizza sure but I would say Jomaa’s ranks in the top five if not at the number 2 spot and i would still buy it over my number one because it is cheaper. When people ask me how I like my pizza I often think of that place and how they did it. Jomaa’s is a institution in Fort Mac, it just is. I wound. Up having pizza for dinner that night from there as well as Saturday night and Sunday morning. That is how much I love their pizza.

One the left prior to the renovations used to be a cards and collectables shop, unlike the comic book shop the owner loved me and my friends hanging around because we actually spent a fair bit of money there. This was during the short window of time where I collected cards. There was only really one card collection I sought after and for a few years i would come in only buying those packs in order to try and complete the collection which I never did at least until 7 years ago when I decided to just eBay the rest of it (I like tot insist what I start even if it takes me 15 years or so). I did buy other cards and try to collect others but never with the same vigour as I did with X Men Ultra Fleer 94.

The other place as soon as I say it you immediately think ahh so that is where his love for that came but you would not be.....entirely correct. There was a Doniar shop three shops away from the cards store that if my parents had to choose the first place to find me if they needed to track me it would be here but not because of the doniars but because of the arcade games in the store. I can’t remember which games they had there outside of Super Ghosts and Goblins but since the arcade was a easy walk away from my house whatever spare quarters I had often went there. I never if ever bought doniars there though I wish I did. I do remember now and then the owner giving us a slice of doniar meat now and then and I do remember having one doniar and not minding it. It was a taste of a doniar that made me want o have another when I got older but at the time I was more into candy and sweet stuff. Sour tasting foods didn’t become big into my life till I was a teenager. I never understood why this place closed down, it never seemed dead there. Part of me thinks it may have turned into Jomaa’s because i think they did serve pizzas there and the owner I believe was Lebanese (they have a long and strong presence in the city). Weird how I just possibly put two and two together but that is only an assumption. When they shop possibly moved the arcades didn’t thus why as a kid the shop may as well have been dead to me.

Next stop was the most important part of the tour; my old neighbourhood. First thing I spotted was newish but terrible paint job one of the old apartments had. For years it was just beige and brown but they painted it in rainbow colours which I have no problem w it’s but the shades made it look disgusting to the eye.

At f fist glance the neighbourhood which I inhabited for 20 years appeared in tact however it only took 3 houses down before I started to notice. Somethings were missing, missing namely certain houses.

After I moved away from Fort Mac the city was experiencing the biggest boom its ever had. This city lives and dies off the price of oil so when the prices are high the city is booming and moving, if the oil prices are low the city is hurting and dying on the vine. During this boom many developers had it in their mind to want to try and add more condos to the downtown area. The only issue is there was no more room to be had. So like smart developers they decided to try and buy out houses from. Our neighbourhood since we were located very centrally within the downtown area. It makes perfect sense, and during this time they did succeed in buying properly from particular home owners. Once they owned the property they tore the house down and basically attempted to snatch more and more property. However it’s pretty easy to see when you are down there to notice either they could never find the right price to get the remaining houses and/or they couldn’t do it fast enough before the low price of oil ruined whatever interest there was to do so. So now all that is left is empty lots that used to be houses, one of which was home to one of my childhood friends. It was weird, almost being like in a Doctor Who episode even. That being said it didn’t make much of a difference to me as long as one or I guess two houses.

After the nostalgia trip I headed back down to Franklin Ave and continued my tour but I started to realize how hot it was getting and the harshness of the sun was getting sharper so I needed to get sunscreen. I first looked at Safeway since I worked at the gas bar for two years. The slant area where skaters used to always play looked completely run down, not worth skating over now. The Safeway itself looked the same as it always did but I decided not to buy sunscreen there and chose to go to Superstore instead. What wound up happening on my way there nearly spoiled my entire trip.

As I was walking down that way I noticed 3 guys walking in my direction, I noticed Anne of them notice some guy under a tree whom started to that guy started to kick the shit out of him. The second guy ran towards the other to try and stop him. As I was watching as this was going on the third guy told me to keep on walking. I told him he did not need to threaten me, if I was a smart man I would have just walked away but sadly I am not a smart person and my pride kicked in. The guy rebutted thinking he could intimidate me, till I gave him the Corey Stare and told him he does not need to threaten me. I would like to think I gave him the look of I am not looking for a fight but if you are looking for one I will give it to you.

He did nothing and I walked away and passed by another group of guys who wanted to try and hassle me but I ignored them. For the rest of the day I was pretty bitter about that altercation. What can I say that event reminded as to why I left this city.

Peter Pond Mall was next, Peter Pond Mall was and remains the main mall of the city. I have spent many a time here and seen it as it has gone through its many changes however it is still very much the same old place.

I made my way to the government building which was as orange as ever but without the library and in its place a cafe. There was once a bar across the street next to a stereo store but like the houses in my neighbourhood it was just a empty up un utilized property. The theatre I seen so many movies in was also a empty space. The building that used to be the video store has been split between a empty spot and a blood donation area.

Next was the Morrison Centre, another sort of mall though slightly not. It was always a area that had a interesting mix of stuff. Once it had a comic book store and a computer game store. Now neither are there but other stuff that doesn’t interest me outside of a brewery which is new and a statue in front of it which was the only Jayne hat table statue I could find. There were some small statues but all were absolutely filthy and don’t count in my eyes.

I wanted to go see the new McDonald Island but by the time I got very close I realized my ankles were about done after all the walking and decided to just head to where I would be staying for the weekend. As a kid going from Mac island back to my neighbourhood was fairly easy, you just had to go through the syne then bang. However it was not that easy, the syne had changed a fair bit since I was there last. As a kid it was basically a poor or lazy person’s dumping ground and just a place for sea boats to land and take off. Now the entire area was being torn up for what I later discovered was a building of a new road to ease the traffic on Franklin which makes perfect sense. The problem was they were still making the roads which made it very difficult to get back to my old neighbourhood but I finally did.

I arrived and met my host who was nicer than I was expecting. I was expecting the worst but the guy was basically a lot like me it seemed. His children however looked at me like a alien but I can’t say I blame them. If I was them I would probably be no better seeing a stranger come around every now and then. I dropped my stuff off and decided to have Jomaa’s pizza which was still as awesome every followed by going tot he brewery to have the hometown beer.

While I was there some local guy was singing covers of 90s music which felt very appropriate at the times since much of that music was music I grew up on. I ate the most vegetarian thing I could find in the menu which was a falafel burger. I then proceeded to have a taste of every beer they had. Can’t say I was entirely impressed but it wasn’t bad. I do think the brewery does have a long way to go on quality but in all honesty even the fact I that the city has a brewery is a big step up. Event he liquor stores had a ok selection, over priced selection but a decent bit. Before I left the only real options you had was of the Molson, Labatt or Old Milwaukee variety. There were others but outside of the generic brands that was it. I think a lot of that has to do with the beer boom that has happened over the last few years. While it has been bigger in Vancouver the waves were felt there.

After having my fill of beer I headed back to my room and rested my legs for the night.

For breakfast I wanted to go to Mom’s Resteraunt in Plaza 2 but it was closed when it should have been opened and decided to go to the Newfie resteraunt called Kozy Korner. I only remember being in this place once and I remember I disliked it so much I faked fainting as a kid for the entirety of it. As a kid I never liked going to traditional style joints because as a kid I felt why bother going to these places if the food was going to be the same as home (I never took into consideration my mom was sick of cooking all of the time, I was a child). Plus the quality was always touch and go. I remember the place being ok looking as a child. Coming in this time it didn’t look run down but it looked like it has needed a renovation for awhile but hasn’t. I decided to try something new and have eggs benedict. The place itself was not bad, definitely Newfie oriented but no better than any other traditional food place.

I knew day 2 was going to be another full day and I knew it was going be a full day. Started with walking to Lion’s Park. Lion’s Park was my favourite park growing up as a kid. My parents would often take me there on special occasions or picnics. I remember having lots of fun there but as I grew up the park got run down and turned into a campsite for homeless people. Returning I am glad that park has been completely redone. Well not entirely redone but I should say cleaned up and it looks about as good as I remembered it minus the huge slide and the other playground stuff that was there as a kid. I am glad it is this way right now and seeing kids playing and having fun there. I decided to do something I had only ever done once and could barely do and that is walk up Gregoire Hill.

If this was me in 2005 or even 2007 I would have a hard time going up this hill, it is a rather long and steep hill but going up this this time wasn’t so bad. Only hard part about it was getting a up close look at all the burnt down trees in and around trail. From the midway point of being up on Gregoire hill I got to see just how close the fire was to overtaking downtown. I had heard that the fires were sitting right on top of the downtown area but never came down. Downtown sits in the valley portion of the city. It serves as great protection for Fort Mac people because tornados cant hit it and in terms of fires it also can protect as well but doesn’t save from floods though. However I noticed nearly a line between where the trees were untouched and the ones that were burnt. Fort McMurray is lucky to still be standing.

I finally made it up to Gregoire, it hadn’t really changed much from w hen I last went up there. Still very much a industrial area with some residential pockets. I wanted to go to the Oil Interpretive Center. I had not. Been there since I was a child and wanted tot o in there to see how the oil industry was spinning their importance to the city/Alberta/Canada/World but apparently there was a power outage in the area and the Center was closed. So basically everywhere I wanted to go to I could not go to.

After that I decided to cross the highway to see where was once a RV area for those who did not want to camp far from the city. It was no longer there anymore just big blank space just like much of downtown. However unlike where other places burnt down and new trees were starting this property looked like it would developed. Could not help but t hint of Big Yellow TAXI BY Joni Mitchel. This was a sector of beautiful forest, now in a few years it will be another line of liquor stores (to add tot he three in a 4 block radius in Gregoire alone), a car dealership (2 already in the area), a gas station and a fast food Joint like A&W. Depressing

Crossed the highway and paid a 1.25 to get back downtown and let fate decide whether I went to Timberlea or Thickwood first. I preferred Thickwood because Timberlea was never part of my childhood or barely. It was a new neighbourhood during my time and it is one that continues to grow to this day because it is the only area for which can grow. My ticket was still good and for about an hour and a half I got a full tour of not only Thickwood but The outside end of Timberlea. The bus driver looked at me weird from t I met it ime wondering why I didn’t stop anywhere while he was driving. I only got off when we got back downtown.

Upon returning I decided to go probably the only place I hadn’t been to since coming back and to the only people I still know here in the city, I went to McMurray TV to catch up with Daryl and Gerry.

Though my first real job was at Superstore selling Christmas trees I feel my first true job was working at McMurray TV as basically the odd job guy. Everything they needed to get done around the store I did. Whether it be cleaning, installing electronics, stocking shelves, reorganizing, basically everything. I was a bit shy going in, could never understand why. They were always great to me and were always loyal to me. I walked up to them and it took Daryl a moment before he realized it was me. Both him and Gerry seemed happy to see me and both seemed absolutely surprised at how thin I was. It is often hard for me to imagine feeling like I am in good shape because I am so used to being in the shape I am in. If I am honest with myself I am in decent shape, not cut or really lean but in decent shape, definitely not fat or over weight. They asked me where the other half of me was which reminded me of how heavy I was before I left when I was a little north of 200 pounds. They had always owned much of the city block they inhabited but now it felt more literal as they took over the Chinese resteraunt that was next door turning it into more TVs in the TV room. The place where I used to go in and out of to hunt down boxes had now become a furniture display area for them. Gerry and Daryl had always tried to grow their business and they still are. They and their family are as much a staple of the city as Jomaa’s, more so than them I would say. After reuniting I decided to finally head to Macdonald Island.

Last time I seen Mac Island it was basically a generic red building whose curling rink was also used a trade show area every now and then. What I saw returning is probably the king of all red centres. Like I have said before say what you want about Albertans.when they commit to something or fund something to get something built they do not half ass it at all. This red center had just about everything, so much it puts all other red centres to shame. It had a gym, library, ice rink, running track, a couple of base ball diamonds, football and baseball arena like areas for big crowd games, floor hockey rink, water park as well as a water park within and that was just all I could say. I wish I brought my swimming trunks is all I could say.

By the time I finished it was too late to do anything unless I wanted to go back to the bar but I didn’t want o do that, not in Fort Mac. What I wanted to do was try more Alberta beer that I haven’t tried before. I bought a 6 pack of beer then went to Jomaa’s for my last bit of beer. Spent the rest of night drinking beer I thought I never had but I did and it wasn’t that great and only had four. Ate most of the pizza but left enough for breakfast the next day.

I laid in bed and watched a movie called Suck It Up and Porcupine Lake. Bother we’re ok movies but nothing to shout home about.

Slept in a bit and before leaving I had a pretty decent talk with my host. I found out he used to be a government official working for the municipal government. He was very knowledgeable of the city but since retiring has basically started selling paintings for which he looks good at. Basically doing his own form of portraits of famous people including famous or important Fort McMurray people. We talked about the city in the past, the fires as well as pipeline stuff. Thankfully he respected my opinions on it, I think he understood the BC side, there was no arguments on that end which I was glad. I really hoped to avoid getting into arguments about pipelines with people here and thankfully I did.

I knew I didn’t have time to do much but one more thing which was to see my house one last time. I knew I must have creeped some people out walking past there all the time but I found seeing my house an not being able to go into it probably the most painful part of the whole trip and made it hard to leave. After walking by there I got on the bus and headed back to the airport.

Outside of nearly getting into a fight this trip had no setbacks and no issues, no travel delays no nothing just simply was around. Well no setbacks outside of not being able to go into either school I went to, my house or the oil sands center everything was uneventful.

Now that it has been two weeks since this trip I haven’t had any dreams about Fort Mac since which is good. I do feel like it was a worth while trip, would like to come back again in the next 5 years this time and not 11 years. I do not know if I want to bring my girlfriend here, it’s not really a exciting city and I have already gave her the tour via google maps. If I was to come back I would scope out the places I missed like the Center, Waterways, Beacon Hill and Abasand. Mainly the places hit by the fires. I didn’t go there mainly because I never really went to those places a lot as a kid so I have no real attachment to them but I would go there next time. I do feel like I got closure with this trip, much needed closure.

Fort McMurray is not really the same city I left, mainly for the good. When I left it was a angry, testoserone driven city ruled by bitumen and was run down. Now while the city is still a bit angry and testosterone driven after the fire there has been a greater need to give the city a much needed make over, more money is put into infrastructure and it shows. When I was a kid I felt like this city was safe and family friendly, as I grown older I came realize that the city was losing that family appeal. I am glad this city is trying to fix that with all the playgrounds and cleaning the streets up but there are still instances where poverty is evident parts are unsafe.

The city feels like a relative I had a falling out with that I meet up with after a long while. The relative still has a ‘problem’ but you know they are trying to clean up their life. The effort is there to change but it is not happening over night. One thing that has changed about this city is that it tries to be tourist friendly though if you were in the eyes of people here people would think you are weird because why would anyone want to visit this city if they are not here for money? This city lives and dies on bitumen and that is the saddest part, as much as I want this country and Alberta to get off the oil addiction getting off it would basically sentence Fort McMurray to death unless there was a way to make it thrive without bitumen and that does not look likely at all at this point in time and won’t be for a long time.

Grading my hometown, that feels very weird but let’s get started.

Transportation, this and another was a big surprise for me because coming in I had a very low bar. My previous experience with transit in this isolated areas is that it is over bare bones and basic and that is it. Fort Mac’s transit is still very basic but it covers everywhere you could go if you need to. Every 30 min a bus will take you somewhere easily. The buses are extremely clean and the best part about it is it’s dirt cheap. I am shocked transit is not used enough but probably because of the stigma behind using the bus in a city driven pun intended by having your own truck and driving your own way around. Dollar twenty can get you anywhere for an hour and you should be able tot eat there in an hour.

This city was always very bikeable, not safe to bike on the streets but enough side streets to use to get you where you need to go. As for walking this city is small and most places are walkable outside of going up the hill. I am not impressed with Gregoire’s lack of sidewalks. I give transportation a 3/4 C. May seem like much but the price of transit as well as its coverage on top of bike trails and the walkable size of the city it is the reason for this grade.

Food was another surprise but it was a pleasant surprise. When I left this city had next to no food options. There was Mexican, Chinese, traditional and pizza. I don’t want o say Italian but I don’t recall an Italian place. In downtown alone I seen so many other kinds of restaurants, so many cultures it was shocking. I didn’t go to any of them outside of Jomaa’s simply because of time but it is night and day difference. I will still give it a 1/2 C simply because there are lots of options but little options but the options are the same now as regular cities versus not on the level.

The beer has also come a long way, though I think that has to do with the beer boom over the last few years but still there are so many options now and it is great. That being said the beer is still expensive here needlessly and this is not just because of Fort Mac it is like this in Edmonton too. Too overpriced for the quality and the beer in the city while still drinkable is very meh. With that I grade it with a modest 1/3 C.

Fort McMurray is still a fairly boring place to live. They have made strides though with Mac Island and they have always had bike paths, hiking and camping on top of the one museum they have but that is about it. Winter there is skiing as well but yeah there are still not many options ad this city has nearly no night life unless you want to drink with dangerous people. I have heard many stories over my life in Fort Mac of people basically getting mugged getting beaten up even if they did nothing while hanging around bars thus why I didn’t stay around long during my trip. With that I give the city a 1/4 C grade for things to do.

If you asked me Friday night what the vibe was it would be a next to no vibe for Fort Mac but if you asked on Saturday or Sunday I may have eased up. This vibe of the city is still negative and worrisome. Much of that is the economic uncertainty of the city but that being said I lived int he city during large economic growth and the city still had a angry and negative vibe. While visiting this city I felt like a alien in the city. I kept getting looks from people like “Who is that guy, why the hell is he taking pictures of the A&W? Why would anyone want to come and visit here if not for work?” Outside of my host and maybe one or two people I didn’t really feel welcome in Fort Mac. This city has always been defensive but if they want to draw people in outside of just for work and money they have be nicer and given the Alberta Anger that he city perpetuates they got a long way to go. I give the city 1/8 of a C on that.

So the overall grade of may as well be CC on the Corey Scale (or 1 23/24) and I think that is a fair grade. Fort McMurray is not a travellers destination and that not a knock on them,w ell maybe it is but the thing is it is a city built to be a place to house people who work in the oil sands. People don’t go there unless it is work that is just how it goes. The city is boring, there is very few t hints one could do here that one could not already do in their home town. Nothing really sets Fort Mac aside from another place outside of the fact that you go there for money. Like Whitehorse it does have a outdoor element you can’t quite get in bigger cities but that really is it while Whitehorse still had other things one could do even if it could be a day affair. In all honesty if I was a visitor here the only thing of note here would be the Oil Sands Interpretive Centre and maybe MacDonald Island....that is it.

That being said the city has vastly improved since I lived here, it is turning less into a man made shit hole/Ralph Klein’s wet dream and more of just a regular city again. I am happy I went and I may return again because I while it is no longer my home or a place I even recognize anymore it is still my hometown and nothing can change that.

That concludes the rest for my long distance travel for the summer. It will be in September when I go to Australia and try to see as much of the country as a kind while being with my girlfriend. If I go anywhere it will probably be Victoria or even Edmonton but I don’t even feel they count anymore. I have thought about Kelowna or other places in the BC interior but I think this summer needs to be another summer of saving even though I tend to always work through the summer but especially now if I plan to do a lot of flying in Oz. I am excited I am not going to lie but September feels way too far away from me. Till the next time I leave VanCity,I shazbot nanu nanu.

#Fort McMurray

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uberff · 7 years ago

Text

Chapter 6

Robyn

I literally woke up with a big goofy smile on my face. The only thing I could think about was how good Kai made me feel last night. After we were finished at my place, we went back to his. I knew my legs were like noodles so I wasn't even gone attempt to walk.

I managed to take a quick bath since Kai was downstairs doing lord knows what, but I literally was limping. I think the hot bath made my legs better though.

"You finally up?" Kai asked as he came in scratching his head. He had on his durag, boxers, and socks looking like a whole full course meal. Kai didn't even have to try.

"Yea, how long was I sleep?"

"10 hours g.." he shook his head with a smile as my eyes widened. That's honestly a blessing for me. No wonder I woke up feeling refreshed.

"Haven't gotten sleep like that since I was in the womb." I admitted, making Kai laugh. It was true. I've always had trouble staying asleep growing up and I still do. Maybe I need Kai to dick me down every night.

"I made breakfast.. you hungry?" He said as he grabbed a pair of sweats out of his drawer before slipping them on.

"Yes, but you gotta carry me." I smiled as he winked at me before coming to pick me up bridal style.

As he carried me to the kitchen, the mixture of different foods filled my nose and it smelled lovely. When Kai sat me down on one of the high chairs, I gasped at what was in front of me.

"Kaiden! You didn't have to do this, thank you!" I said still in disbelief. I was shocked because I didn't think he could cook and because he made a whole feast. He must've loved our little event from last night because he doesn't even cook for himself.

"Yea I did.. its my way of apologizing from spazzin' last night. I hate fighting wit you, especially over small shit. Plus, you put it on a nigga.. I ain't even gone lie." He grinned at me as he ate a piece of a strawberry. Just when I was about to thank him again, his phone started ringing.

"Hello?" He answered, giving me the hold on signal with his finger.

"Ma, I got comp-" Ma? I know that isn't short for mom, which is short for mother.

"You outside?" I looked down at my attire and mentally cursed to myself.

"Uh baby.. my mom's outside and I'm pretty sure you don't want her seeing you like this so you might wanna go put on some clothes. I mean it don't matter to me but.." he assured me, referring to the red bra and panties I had put on specially for him since it was his favorite color. Scratch that, did he say his mom?

"Kai I know you did not just say your damn mama." He looked at me with a look of sympathy on his face because he knew I wasn't ready to meet her yet. Especially when I just got done riding her son's dick into the sunset. How could he?

He's told me many stories about his mom, and she seems like a sweet lady. I don't really care if anyone doesn't like me, but I WANT his mom to. Meeting her like this just gives me bad vibes. I swear Ima kill Kai when she leaves.

"We ain't got time to discuss this ma, just go throw some shit on." He said as he jogged towards his living room. I swear this nigga probably set this whole thing up.

I ran up the stairs so fast, I almost busted my damn ass in the process.

Shaking my head in slight anger, I snatched off my bandeau and replaced it with a plain T shirt and a pair of biker shorts. That was appropriate enough I guess.

Leaving my hair in its ponytail, I took a deep breath before making my way down the stairs where I heard Kai, his mom, and his brother.

"Baby, who's got you cooking? Every time I try to get you to cook with me, you never want to." I heard her say to him as I chuckled lowly. When I was at the last stair, I hurriedly walked to the kitchen to show my face.

I didn't even step a toe in there yet and they were already looking at me. A smile immediately spread across his mother's face as she walked up closer to me. Wyd?

"Buttercup! Is this the one you've been talking my ear off about?" She looked at Kai as he nodded and smirked at me. Wow, he's been talking to his mom about me? Kai trying to earn some cool points I see.

"My little almond! Come, come!" She said anxiously as she motioned for me to come and hug her. Kai and his brother were too busy laughing at the fact that she nicknamed me her little almond, but I didn't care. I thought it was cute. Her dimples were the cutest.

She was just a gorgeous little petite lady with long black hair. Her black didn't crack at all. She looked like she could be his sister.

"Hi Ms-"

"Honey, you can call me Kaidyn or mama Kai." She assured me as she released me from the hug. She smelled like fruit.

I'm guessing Kai was named after her. I didn't feel comfortable just flat out calling her by her government yet, so Mama Kai it is for now.

"Kai talks about you all the time! You raised him into a great, respectful young man and I want to thank you for that. The way he treats women is incredible." I explained to her as she nodded.

Kai was always saying how didn't disrespect women because he came from one and grew up in a house hold full of them. Plus, he wouldn't want anyone disrespecting his mother.

"Yes, I'm very thankful that he remembers what I taught him. He will not stop calling me every night about you, Ms. Robyn. You're even prettier in person."

"Thank you, you're gorgeous."

"Ma, when we gone eat?"

"Who is we? I made this for my baby and mama." Kai rose an eyebrow at his brother. They were forever being mean to each other. I don't know if that's how they express their love or what.

"You need help Mama Kai?" I asked once I noticed she was setting up the table.

"Oh no baby, thanks for asking though." She gave me a big smile as she started to get out some plates for all of us. I forgot that Kai had told me that she was a chef, so of course she'd enjoy doing this.

"So Mama Kai, I hear you're a chef.."

"Yes ma'am, I have a passion for cooking. Ever since I was little, I'd always be in the kitchen helping my mother cook. Kai obviously does too, but he thinks it's "gay"." She explained, shaking her head at the end of the sentence.

"Kai why? I think it's cute."

"Why you gotta put me on the spot like that, ma?" He said as he looked down at her. Kai was a good 6'5, so he was the tallest in here.

"Boy please, wait til I show her your baby pictures."

"So what about you Robyn?"

"Well, I have a passion for designing clothes. I'm launching my Summer Collection in a few weeks. I've gotten as far as designing hundreds of prom dresses, wardrobe for Met Gala, many award shows, and I'm currently working on a makeup line for my girls of color." I explained confidently, as she nodded with a look that said she was impressed.

"That's great! I wish you nothing but more success in the future. I might have to get you to design my wedding dress." She smirked at me as I nodded. I would love that.

Once she had brought us our plates, no words were said. Everybody was just eating, and the food was so damn good. I honestly haven't had cooking this good since my mom.

Popping a piece of gum in my mouth, I grabbed my purse and carefully walked down the stairs. I had on heels, and I would hate to break my ankles trying to be cute going down the stairs.

When I reached the last stair, I seen Jaylen in the kitchen munching on whatever. Probably a bunch of junk food.

"Where you going wit ya nipples out?" He smirked as he winked at me.

"A place." I stated dryly, trying not to get too carried away in the conversation.

"Damn, what a nigga do now? You being all dry and shit." He got serious and looked down at me. I went into the fridge and grabbed one of my waters before sitting on the couch since Winter wasn't here yet. She was forever taking her sweet ass time.

I didn't want to ignore him I just.. I don't know.

"So you don't hear me? Aight cool." He nodded before leaving and slamming the door in the process. I knew one of his biggest pet peeves was being ignored, so I don't know why I would do that. He'd never do me like that.

"I'm so stupid." I sighed as I put my head in my hands. I was honestly confused. I just wish Jaylen wouldn't have said what he said to Kai, because if he didn't things would be so different. I'm not even gonna put all the blame on Jaylen because it was both of them. Sometimes Kai doesn't know how to let stuff go and he gets mad too fast.

*Flashback*

I've been out dragging Kai with me all day to buy new fabric. The way I've been working, I was bound to run out.

Both of us were tired as hell and since my place was closer, I just decided to go there. Hopefully O was in his room.

Jaylen 🤡: wya

I was honestly too lazy to text back so I would have to get to him later. I knew Kai was tired of holding all my damn bags so I hurriedly unlocked the door.

As soon as I waited for Kai to come in, I couldn't believe who I seen on the couch. Jaylen was about to speak until he saw Kai come behind me and kiss my neck. "I'll be in ya room sleep."

"Fuck you doing with this buster ass nigga?" Jaylen stood up, pointing to Kai. Kai stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to make sure Jaylen wasn't talking to him.

"Fuck you said?"

"I said fuck you d-"

"Jaylen!" I yelled, not wanting this to go further. I swear Jaylen doesn't know how to shut up. I saw Kai come closer so I tried to hold him back but failed miserably.

"Nah watch out, let him repeat that shit." He stood there waiting for him to go on. Jaylen waved him off as if he wasn't here and turned back to me.

"So this why you be some-timing Robyn? Cause you got a nigga now? You stopped fucking with me for this monkey ass nigga?"

"Yea she got a nigga now. Fuck you worried bout my girl for? Wit this damn over processed perm you got." I didn't even get a chance to talk.

"Look here coochie beard, once again I ain't talking to you. Did ya mom not teach you to speak when you spoken to? Damn." He aggravatingly sighed. Jesus..

"You guys ch-" I started to say but was cut off.

"Ion give a fuck if you talking to me or not, the fuck you worried bout my girl for? She good, she don't need to be talking to you." He said, which Jaylen found funny. I really hope he wasn't about to do or say anything stupid.

"Since you know everything and y'all so gucci, was she ya girl when we was just on the phone two nights ago? Was she ya girl when we was just chillin' on Wednesday? Was she ya girl when she was letting me touch all up on her? Was she ya girl when I ate her puss-"

That's all it took for Kai to charge for Jaylen and deck him right in the mouth. Next thing I know, I saw him pull something from the waistband of his jeans and my heart dropped. "Talk that shit now, bitch ass nigga!" Kai yelled aggressively.

"Nigga fuck you!" Jaylen spat.

I knew about his past so I knew him shooting Jaylen would be nothing for him. But this was over something so small and stupid and believe or not, I'd hate to see Jaylen get hurt in any type of way.

"Kai stop!" I pushed him back with all my force. When he saw the look on my face, his eyes softened but he was still breathing hard. He shook his head before tucking the gun back in his jeans and storming out of the condo.

Sighing, I noticed Jaylen holding his jaw on the couch. "You aight?" I questioned as he nodded.

"Damn Jaylen, you need to learn to stop talking to everybody like you're crazy. Why would you say that to him?"

"Fuck outta here, that nigga was coming at me like I'm a bitch." He spat before standing up and grabbing all his things to leave.

*Flashback Over*

I shook my head at the event and realized that Jaylen's art show was tomorrow night. I had been working on my dress for decades because literally everyone was gonna be there. It was really important to him and I know he would hate me if I missed it.. Fuck.

"Girl what you over there looking like a lil lost puppy for?" I heard Winter's voice, making me smile a bit. I haven't talked to her in forever. She was like a big sister to me.

"No reason-"

"Wassup hoodrat?" I heard Jaylen's voice. Winter's happy mood immediately changed. It was so funny, because she literally could not stand him. Everyone knew that.

"Boy you look like one of Santa's elves with all this damn green on, fuck outta my face." She rolled her eyes as she snatched her keys off the table.

"Come on Robyn, before he make me hurt him." She mugged him as she left out of the door first. I looked back at him and he looked at me, shaking his head.

"Hollywood, yo." He said but I just shrugged it off.

Was I?

Kai

Once my mom left, I felt relieved. I knew she would like Robyn because she got along with everybody. The only way she wouldn't like you is if you were disrespectful to her or family. Other than that, she straight.

I didn't have much cleaning to do since all the food was gone. My mom told every damn body in her phone that I cooked, so a few of my cousins and shit came over. I didn't mind though, cause I didn't want all the food just sitting here.

I had felt bad for yelling at Rob like I did yesterday, so I cooked for her. I would've went out and bought her a new bag or something, but she would've declined so I did something simple.

I wasn't trying to be insecure or nothing, but when you get fucked over so many times, it's hard not to think some fishy shit going on.

I don't give a fuck about Robyn having a nigga as a friend at all. It was just that nigga that I don't like. This nigga sat there and flirted wit my girl in my face like that wasn't disrespectful. He had the nerve to tell me what went down between them like I wasn't gone do shit. I swear if Rob ain't calm me down, I would've bodied his dumbass. I got heat for niggas like him.

That's why I don't want her fucking with him. I trust her, it's just him that I don't trust. I got the perfect career, and the girl of my dreams. I ain't letting nobody fuck that up, real talk.

It took a lot of shit to get to where I'm at today. Shit used to be dangerous and hectic before I saved up enough money to start my own business. Before I even started, I bought my mom a gigantic, beautiful house and a brand new Snow White Jag. That was one of my biggest goals before anything. She took care of me all my life, so I felt as if I needed to start taking care of her. Whatever she wants, she can get it because she wasn't always rich, but she still made sure we had everything we wanted and needed growing up.

After I realized that I had more than enough to start my own business, I left that dangerous life style behind. Being a hitman wasn't always easy, but it paid hella good. Good enough to where I started expanding my work.

I just pray that this shit doesn't catch up to me because I'm doing great right now. I'm genuinely happy. But you know every time some shit going good, you get slapped in the face with some bullshit. It never fails.

I swear I been feeling like some shit was bout to pop off lately, like I needed to go see a therapist or something. I keep having these paranoid thoughts that I'm either bout to get killed or go to jail. I really didn't want to talk to Robyn about this neither. That's why I needed to see a therapist.

"Babe, you seen my sketch book?" I heard Rob ask from my room. Snatching her book off of the island, I jogged to my room only to see her fat ass in the air searching for something on the floor. She stayed wearing those tiny ass shorts around me. Her ass swallowed them every time.

"Aye, I wanna talk to you about something.." I said in a stern like tone as I sat down on the bed after handing her the sketch book.

"Man Kai don't tell me you got something, I'll kill you." She stressed as I looked at her like she was crazy. What type of nigga would I be to fuck her raw if I knew I had something? I don't get down like that.

"Nah, you got me bent."

"Sorry, spill."

"I love you, aight? Like that first day I saw you, I ain't think you was gone talk to me but I'm glad you did. These months I've known you have by far been the best moments of my life. Swear I can't even go 30 minutes without talking to you. You special Robyn, and I just wanna say that whatever happens to me in the future.. I'm sorry and I love you." I explained to her as she wore a confused look on her face.

I didn't wanna tell her about my thoughts because she would stress about that shit and I know she got enough shit on her case to be stressing about already.

"Kai, where is this coming from? Don't talk like that, I'd lose my shit if something happened to you."

"Just remember what I said, you got me?" She nodded followed with a sigh. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her slightly big forehead.

"What you wanna do today? I'm all yours." She looked up at me as I became deep in my thoughts. I didn't want to sit around, because I knew tomorrow was quickly approaching.

Tomorrow it was going to be 5 years since my baby girl's been gone, and it's a hard time for me every year. If she was still here, she would've been 9. I could've still been walking her to class every morning, tucking her in bed every night.. all that.

I remember cooking for her and she would always be right by my side, watching my every move. She told me that she wanted to be a chef one day because she loved to help me cook. I didn't think cooking was gay, I just said that shit cause I didn't wanna explain the real reason. Ever since my baby passed, I gave that shit up.

I missed her more than anything, and since she's gone I don't even know if I ever wanna have another child.

"Kai?" Robyn sat up and held my face, breaking me out of my thoughts. She didn't know the exact day my baby died, so of course she didn't know what I was thinking about. I didn't want to talk about it either. I need to text Kayla though, to see if she's still coming with me and my moms.

"Yea wassup?"

"What you wanna do today?" She repeated, stroking my beard. It actually felt good.

"Oh, it don't matter babe. We can go have to the park or something it don't gotta be nothing big."

"How about a picnic?" At first I was about to decline until I thought about it. That ain't sound too bad.

"Yea, that sound chill. Go pack some shit and I'll get everything else." I told her as she nodded and made her way to the kitchen. She better not pack no vegetables and shit. I was cool with fruit.

The sound of my phone vibrating had broke me out of my thoughts. It was Kayla.. my assistant.

Assistant🤞🏾: everything's set for the week, thank me later 😊 ungrateful bastard

I huffed at the last part of her message. She was forever complaining about how I don't appreciate her enough. I thanked her lil annoying ass every second of the day.

Me: you still going wit me & my mama to see baby girl?

Assistant🤞🏾: duh Kai.. don't forget she was my baby too.

Not wanting to argue with her, I left it at that and just went on about my day. Going to the hall closet, I got out two small and old blankets that Robyn and I could use.

Once I was done, I went in the kitchen to see her leaning on the counter scrolling through her phone. Her booty was poking out of her shorts and I had to get her.

"Let's go!" I yelled as I sent a hard slap to her ass causing her to jump up immediately. "Kai! Ouch!" She dramatically whined.

"You'll be aight." I laughed as I rubbed the spot for her, as she led the way out of my house. I noticed that she had caught an attitude so I was literally about to kiss her ass.

Getting on my knees, I wrapped my arms around her waist so she could stop walking. I gently kissed the spot that I hit before standing back up. "Happy now?" I asked as she nodded with a smile.

Shaking my head at her fake attitude, I opened the car door for her as I made sure she got in and put on her seat belt. After getting in myself, I started the car and followed the directions that she had put on my phone.

Cause I Love You by Lenny Williams was softly playing on the radio and I had seen Robyn turn it up. "What you know about that? That's grown folk music." I smiled at her as she waved me off.

"Boy I grew up on this music. This is the jam." She said as I nodded in agreement. Ain't nothing like that good old school music. You could never go wrong with it, it was good for the soul. I liked our generation of music too, but I was more of an old soul.

"I love youuuuuuu." I sang to Robyn as I gripped her thigh while I drove. She covered her ears and shook her head no.

"You sound like a dying lizard." She busted up laughing, as I couldn't help but smile. She was forever talking shit about ya boy.

I looked over at the short shorts she was wearing, but I didn't mind. I felt like since it was her body, I couldn't tell her what to do with it. If she look good in the shit, why would I tell her to take it off? Just know if a nigga look, I'm cutting his eyes out.

Once we reached the park, I shut the car off and grabbed the basket as she grabbed the old blankets. We had walked up to the hill that Robyn told me about and it was as dope as she described. Some serious brainstorming could be done up here.

"Robyn this all you brought?" I asked as I sat everything on top of the blankets she had put down.

"Yes babe, I told you I'm trying to go vegan." She smiled confidently. This girl..

"Why you ain't pack nun' for me then?"

"Cause then I would've asked for some, I'm sorry." She apologized as her face twisted up into a frown.

"You just too cute. You ain't gotta apologize, I guess I'll just be healthy with you." I said as I popped a grape tomato in my mouth. Which was a stupid thing to do by the way, cause I fucking hated tomatoes.

"How you know about this view?"

"My daddy used to take me up here all the time and read me his little poems." She smiled as she looked off into space.

I took that as my time to let her do her and enjoy the view myself. I had to get a picture of this shit though. Just imagine it at night when you can see the stars and shit.

Putting my phone away, I decided to just admire the sunset and my girl's presence. I tried not to think about the fact that these mosquitoes were tearing a nigga up.

Some Marvin Gaye was playing from her Beats Pill, and I ain't know about her but that shit was making me horny. The way the sun bounced off of her toffee colored, smooth, freshly shaved legs.. the way her ass say gently onto the ground. The way her natural beauty stood out on her bare face. I could go on.

"Why're you staring like I'm not yours?" She smiled, looking over at me. Damn she was beautiful.

Not wanting to reply to that, I grabbed her hand and interlocked my fingers with hers, lightly squeezing her dainty hand. Her hand felt like butter and shit. Her whole body felt like it, to be honest.

She had let go of my hand and grabbed it, which broke me out of my thoughts. I was about to ask what she was doing until she shushed me before smirking.

Her hand slowly guided mines from her small perky breasts down to the band of her shorts.

"I like how you trying to be sexy and shit, but we gotta speed this up before a bear pop out and eat both of our asses up."

I told her as we both busted out laughing but I was lowkey dead ass.

Jaylen

You seen Robyn? Her ass been ducked off."

"Fuck that hoe." I mumbled only loud enough for myself to hear. It's crazy how people do you.

"Huh?"

"Nothing man, I'ma bounce." I said, and with that I dipped. I wasn't in the mood to talk about her fake ass right now.

First of all, she cut me off out of no where and to be honest, that actually hurt the little bit of feelings that I did have left. She ain't say why or nothing.

I'm thinking that maybe her phone was broken or whatever, so I thought she hadn't forgot about my event and was still coming. Boy was I wrong. She had me looking hella stupid.

*Flashback*

Everyone was here, but Robyn. She was supposed to be like the first person here, but here we are.. 3 hours later and she a no show. This event was about to be over in a few minutes.

Once I thanked everyone for coming, people were starting to leave so I took that as my time to hit her up again hoping that she had a good excuse. She better have had the bubble guts or got shot or some shit.

Calling her for like the 100th time, her phone had went to voicemail. "You good?" Odell asked as he noticed the frustration on my face. I couldn't tell him that I was pissed because his sister ain't show up. He'd think we fuck with each other.

"Ion wanna talk about it.." I told him as I walked away and sat outside on the steps. I had on a maroon suit and Robyn was supposed to have on the sparkly maroon gown that she made specifically for this night. She wouldn't stop talking about how she couldn't wait for me to see it. A nigga was actually excited to see it, too.

I really couldn't believe this motherfucker. She could've at least called in advance and let me know. I wouldn't even have been mad, but to stand me up? She got me hella fucked up.

After a while, a car pulled up a few feet away from me making me look up. When the door opened, there appeared a tipsy Robyn wiping her mouth. I then started to put the pieces together when her nigga or whatever was zipping up his pants. Why did she even bring this clown? Now I was really pissed.

I thought they were about to come inside of the building, but they went the opposite way to the hotel next door. So she blew me off to suck some dick? She could've did that earlier. It couldn't wait?

"I swear as soon as bitches get dick that's all they see, think, smell, and breathe." I mumbled to myself as I pulled out my phone to check my messages.

That familiar scent that I loved so much had caught my attention. I looked over and noticed that Robyn had went back to the car to get something. I took that as my que to speak to her.

"So you really stood me up for some dick, Robyn?" I stood behind her as she jumped at the sound of my voice. She slowly turned around and blinked. She sobered up real quick.

"Jaylen, you were constantly touching on me, flirting and all that and you knew I had a boyfriend. You even told him about the little event that we had, which caused him not to like you. If it was the other way around, I would tell him to cut off a girl that's constantly stepping out of the friendship boundaries as well."

"Ok and instead of cutting a nigga off, you could've fucking told me to chill. Its cool though, cause I see that he more important than me. Even though I was here for you before him. I see where your loyalty lies Rob." I chuckled bitterly.

"Jayle-"

"You ain't even gotta apologize to cause you know you ain't even sorry." And with that, I walked away.

*Flashback Over*

That was the last time I heard from her trifling ass, which was a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I needed to talk to her just for a second cause I think I left my watch in her room the last time I was there. Now I was wishing that Winter liked me, cause I could just tell her to get it. Oh well, here goes nothing.

Sucking my teeth, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number since it wasn't saved anymore. After a few rings she answered. "Yo," I heard a male voice, which made me think I had the wrong number but it couldn't be.

"Where Robyn at?" I asked blankly. He started to laugh, which confused me.

"I know this ain't who I think it is.."

"Nigga you guessed it. Now put her on the phone, I ain't call to catch up on old times and shit. Time is ticking."

"Nah she occupied wit my dick right now."

"Aight, well can you put it on speaker?" I asked, waiting for him to stop bullshitting. I didn't care about all that extra shit, I just wanted my watch honestly.

Next thing I know, the phone had hung up making me suck my teeth. I guess I would just have to go over to O's place my damn self.

Grabbing a condom or two, I slid them in my wallet before sliding it in my back pocket. Once I stepped into my shoes, I grabbed my car keys and went next door.

It was quiet in here so I was hoping that Robyn wasn't here. That way I could just get my watch and leave. When I walked into Robyn's room, there she was on the bed laid up with Kyle. Cuties.

"Yo-" I cut off his attempt to start ranting. He could never chill, like dude ain't nobody even worried about yo funky ass.

"Nigga chill out ain't nobody checking for yo nut head ass girlfriend, I came to get my rollie." I waved him off as I went to the closet and grabbed the duffle bag I had left over here for decades.

They had went back to ignoring my presence but when I started to walk out, I threw some water onto her bed to where it got on both of them. Her nigga immediately got up and I dashed off, laughing my ass off. You would've thought that I was Jesse Owens.

I knew her nigga stayed strapped, but I just liked fucking with him. He got so mad over shit and it was mad funny. I could tell he really ain't like but I ain't give a fuck.

Once I was back in my crib, I unzipped the duffle bag and my watch was right at the top. I was only going to the store to get more paint but I still needed to look good. You never knew who you were going to see.

Since I only lived on the second floor, it took a few seconds for me to get off of the elevator. When I got to the parking lot, I unlocked my car with the button on my keys and got in. The first thing I did was put on my seatbelt, safety first.

Michael's was literally a 5 minute drive since it was around the corner. With the way my speeding skills were set up, I was there in no time.

As I went to the aisle with paint, I noticed a petite light skin girl trying to reach for something. She had on a shirt with a little girl that read RIP. The girl looked like her too.. damn.

I heard some stuff fall which broke me out of my thoughts. She was struggling over there. "I got it. What you need?" I assured her as I walked over to her. She looked at me confusingly before speaking.

"The lavender paint. I don't know why they put it at the top today. The pastel colors go at the bottom." She said as she started to pick up the things she dropped. I noticed that it looked like she had been crying, but I ain't wanna get all in her business.

"Here you go.." I handed her the paint as she just stood there staring at me like she was thinking about something. She was looking at me like I was a piece of meat.

"I.. My bad. Thank you." She said lowly as she took the paint from by hand. I chuckled because I could tell that was nervous as fuck.

"Need anything else?"

"I needed that, I haven't had sex in years." She caught her breath as she took her hair out of the ponytail that it was in, letting it flow down her back. I had been pulling on that shit for the longest.

Long story short, she told me that she just wanted to do something to take her mind off of whatever she was sad about. We went back to my place, and y'all know how that go. I ain't think she had it in her.

We talked for a bit, ended up drinking way more than what we was supposed to, then had sex. It's been a minute for me, so I was geeked about that.

She never told me what she was crying about, but I got some pussy instead so I wasn't tripping. "Why is that?" She shrugged. She started to put back on her clothes.

"I'm gonna go though, bye..-" I stopped her then remembered we never exchanged names. I mean it really wasn't important, it's not like I'ma ever see this girl again.

"Jaylen."

"Kayla." She smiled weakly before leaving out of the room. I heard my front door slam shut, so I took that as my time to get up and get in the shower.

Washing my body and hair for about 30 minutes, I finally stepped out and just threw some shorts and a plain white tee on. I was only going to O's house. I guess that was the spot for tonight.

Lacing up my vans, I made sure everything was turned off before leaving and going next door. When I walked in, I seen O and Winter playing Uno.

"I got a blunt." I called out as I seen Winter smile. Now she was trying to be my friend. Pulling the blunt and lighter out of my pocket, I took a seat at the table where they sat.

Once it was lit, I started to take a few hits before feeling buzzed. Winter had reached her hand out making me laugh. Fuck her, I just remembered all the times she put her hands on me.

"Get Out the way, tranny." I said as I playfully pushed her out the way. I knew she'd curse my ass out, but it was funny every time. I loved fucking wit her. All bullshit aside, she was the homie though.

"Look here Banana bitch, I'm warning you now.. I will fuck you up today." She threatened as I tried my best to hold in my laughter.

"Jay, why you always fucking wit my girl? One day she gone fuck you up and I even ain't gone say nun'." O chuckled as he wrapped his arm around her. She stuck her tongue out at me and I flicked her off. I swear if Winter was my girl, I'd have her in check fuck that attitude shit. He be letting her punk him.

"Here.." I gave the weed to O. Winter scoffed. I knew he couldn't smoke since Football but I was trying to make her mad.

"Why didn't you pass it to m-"

"Cause nobody like y-" I started to say before her hand came in contact with the back of my neck. This hoe.

"I got my own weed from back home anyways fuck that weak ass corn you got." She rolled her eyes as she got up to go in O's room. She always felt the need to let everybody know that she got her weed from Jamaica. She need to take her ass back, don't nobody care.

"Corn? Girl please." I waved her off. Now she was just saying shit just to say it.

"Y'all argue too much."

"That's her, she can't ever take a joke."

"Cause you not fucking funny nigga. You swear you Kat Williams wit your ugly ass." She rolled her eyes. I really tried to hold in my laughter, cause I ain't want her mad ass to explode on me but this shit was funny.

"You know who funny? You are. You funny as shit. HAHAHA." I draped my arm across her shoulder as she quickly pushed it off with a mug on her face.

"I'm going to sleep, you're aggravating." She waved me off as she put her head down on the table, putting her damn stale ass ends on my plate in he process.

"I love you." I teased her, only for her to ignore me. She was really pissed off.

I was about to speak until I seen Robyn come down the stairs with Kangaroo. She really cut me off for this hairy nigga.

"You let her have company?"

"Yea.. I trust her." He shrugged as I sucked my teeth. But if it was me, he wouldn't condone that shit.

I'm guessing her nigga had left, because she came back and started small talk with Odell.

I tried my best to ignore her like she been doing me but she had a nigga beat. I was still putting in effort to ignore her every move and gon' about my business but, shit. She was breath taking, I glanced at her with the quickness and froze when we locked eyes.

She looked away but I pulled some Kanye shit and kept looking to make her feel uncomfortable and I succeeded. Her conversation with O was cut short, she rubbed the back of her neck nervously and headed towards the bathroom, a few steps away from the kitchen where I was. I gave it a few seconds before I headed that way, to make it really seem like I had to piss.

I heard her talking to herself softly before I opened the door, of course Robyn ain't lock the damn door. She jumped and I put my hands up in surrender. "It's only me."

"Jaylen, you scared the shit outta me." she said, holding her heart. Her chest heaving up and down. Damn, I really scared her.

"I hope you flushed." I joked but she ain't catch it. I smiled nervously and she smirked. "Anyway, I ain't know you was still in here. My bad." I tried to guilt trip her into talking to me. Drastic times, drastic measures. I started making my way out and her voice stopped me.

"It's okay." she said softly. She wanted to talk to me but it was something or someone holding her back.

"We grown, we ain't kids. This nigga tell you to stop fuckin' wit' me?" I mumbled with a slight frown.

"Yeah." she mumbled lowly.

"I respect that." I said to her surprise and mine...I meant it though.

"You do?" I nodded. "I woulda respected the situation even more if you woulda hit my line and told me where we stood. I was thinking we was cool during the finals. You up and left a nigga like KD did Westbrook and ain't say shit."

The basketball reference must've confused her because her eyebrows came together.

"You just cut me off like I was dead weight. Like it won't shit for you to leave me alone."

"I do miss us being friends. Kai don't though."

I rolled my eyes. So this nigga the reason why she missed my event? Rob ain't known for breaking promises so I know she ain't do that shit by free will.

"We friends. This nigga won you at an auction or sum'n? You his property? He fuckin' you?" I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Knowing Rob's curious ass, she probably turnt the hell out already.

"Friends don't look at each other the way you look at me and touch me, and talk to me. He felt some type of way."

"Nigga, pineapples. Create a fuckin' safe word, you had me out here lookin' stupid at my event. Where's Rob? You seen Rob?" I imitated my head ass emotions. "I ain't doing shit on purpose, you fine and sometimes I can't-"

"See. Friends don't call each other fine."

"Man, shit. You pretty, far from ugly. Name one nigga who wouldn't tell you that every chance he could."

She couldn't.

"Exactly. Look, I'll stop the flirting. We could be strictly friends, you know I ain't got much other than O and big head ass Winter. I told you some dark shit and you up and left wit' it."

"Sorry, I should've said something." she said. "Sorry, you're right. How was your event?"

"My fleeky bestie wasn't there to match my fly. It was cool though, killed it by myself."

"Happy for you." she said. And then it dawned on me, he told her to stop talking to me but we see who got the upper hand. We having a whole ass conversation in the bathroom. Nigga nowhere to be found.

"Wait. We talking, you gon' make sure thuggish-ruggish bone ass Kenny don't pop the trunk on my bitch ass?" I said in air-quotes, mocking and quoting him from that one altercation. Nigga thought he was tough. My skinny ass could murk him in two licks AND walk away with his bitch.

"I told him we were just friends. I'll make sure he doesn't try shit."

"Shit, I'll make sure he don't try shit. Fuck him." I spat and she shook her head.

"Jealous ass."

"I got a right to be."

"You started it. How I let you eat and you go in for seconds on the same night with a random?"

"She ain't random, we know her very well."

"Nigga...okay, I'm going upstairs."

"I'm playin', Rob. Good talk, though."

"Yeah, cool ass. Let's try this again when you ain't on 10." she smiled cutely and I mirrored it.

"I'ma chill out." I semi-promised. I'ma try to at least so we could be on good terms. She my only real friend.

"Kay. I know you didn't really have to use the bathroom, stalker." I was about to respond and say something childish back, but I remembered that she never showed me the dress cause she didn't show up.

"Ay, you should show me that dress that you never got to wear."

"Oh yea.. I did tell you I'd show you. Come on." She grabbed my hand in excitement and quickly led the way to her room. I missed our friendship and I wasn't letting nobody come in between that shit this time. Kai who?

#chris brown #chrisbrown #chris brown fanfic #teambreezy #cb #privacy #odellbeckham #odell beckham jr #obj #raven tracy #soooraven

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xaeneron · 7 years ago

Text

On Path of Fire

I haven’t done one of these in a while (or rather I wrote them and then forgot to post them lel), so maybe I’ll actually post this one for the new GW2 expansion after spending the week running around.

Overall, I found the expansion to be pretty solid; the maps are beautiful, the mounts are hilarious and well-implemented, the story was interesting and decently paced, and I’m still experimenting with the new elite specs. Massive spoilers below the cut!

Questions on anything I wrote, thoughts of your own? Feel free to boop me; I know I wrote a lot.

But really, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There are a LOT of bullet points beneath that cut. xD

On the maps

Obligatory: they are huge. It’s fitting since they were designed against HoT’s verticality and more geared towards the use of mounts, so it’s more of an observation, less of a complaint. There’s a lot of detail and a lot of little things here and there, and it’s incredibly fun to see what you can get away with using mounts to get around the terrain.

That being said I do miss the verticality of HoT maps. Maybe a combination of both pls? :3

I kind of wish there were more large obvious meta events, but I haven’t gotten to see all of the sort of meta events that go on in the PoF zones. I do think the large metas add replay value, but again a balance is a good thing.

We spur-of-the-moment yolo’ed the Ruptured Heart meta with 11 people. It was actually pretty fun. Also so many cannonades ;-;

Hearts feel like they take just a little bit too long. Some of them are amusing, but when trekking through zones doing map comp (or redoing hearts to get collection items) they drag on a bit. Guild chatter about hearts was fantastic though:

“These nobles are useless. What should I do with the chamber pot, throw it off the side or throw it at one of them?”

“I’m throwing flowers at people and making them happy?”

“Matchmaker heart best heart.”

Bounties are hilariously fun? Sometimes you get unfortunate bullshit combinations of modifiers (anti-stacking fleas + pls stack in the bubble to actually be able to hit the boss mob, I’m looking at you), but overall they’re quite fun. We spent a good few hours trekking through all five zones murdering things and getting murdered.

These actually look super promising for replayability; our goal/challenge as a group has always been to optimize and work together, so it should be fun to go track down bounties and see what kind of dumb shenanigans we can get up to.

I actually find these really fun in small groups of 5-10. Zergs sound...unfun. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The caffeinated skritt is...kind of annoying. Mostly because it doesn’t operate like the treasure mushroom in HoT and you have to be on the class you want the collection item on, and the maps are so large someone could trigger a chest and no one would be the wiser.

A tip though for people wanting to complete multiple collections: you only need to loot the last bag it drops. If you’re wandering around with friends and they’re nice enough to chill at the bag, you can reload with other characters and grab the bag again for another collection item (until it despawns). I have no idea if this was intended, but I burned a few TP to friends on this for the lulz.

I had a lot of GW1 feels running through these maps, especially going down to the Desolation and Vabbi. I appreciate that these places still exist but have changed with the years, and it’s nice to see what happened.

Although Vabbi is one weird-ass place now.

BUUUUUUT Zomoros’ lair was hilarious.

I haven’t explored for the sake of exploring in a very long time and it was really, really nice.

CHOYA PINATA.

On the elite specializations

I haven’t actually gotten to try all of them yet, but I’m also not super enthused about all of them (Spellbreaker, I’m looking at you). Also a gentle reminder that my opinions are mainly based on my background as a PvE player and moreso as a raider. Also they’re just initial opinions. Opinions change.

I started with thief (duh), and proceeded to do the entire story with Daredevil. I’m not particularly a fan of Deadeye; I appreciate the archetype but I don’t really see rifle having a place with a game designed more around active response in combat. Also as someone who still can’t shake the seaweed salad dance, rifle just feels really static and dull to me. But we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have to make the Predator hue. D/D Deadeye also felt strange, so idk. But we’ll keep fiddling with it.

Mirage still feels kind of odd but I need to get poor Naois the spec since he’s actually specced for condi, unlike Eet. It seems like an upgrade to condi mesmer, and the triple blink is hilarious.

I really hope Scourge ends up with some sort of place. Initial benchmarks look hilarious (but then, so did Soulbeast/Weaver/Firebrand ones), but I took out Richter again for Scourge and I’m actually really happy to play him again. It’s been so long ;-;

My brother told me, “do yourself a favor and put down a sand shade near some enemies, then press F4.” I tried it. I laughed pretty hard.

Weaver is so much button-pressing but it’s really fun? I’m still getting the hang of it but I do like it a lot. At least it’s more challenging than condi tempest. *grumbles eternally*

Soulbeast looks promising, although I hope it doesn’t lead to another “let’s use condi ranger/thief on absolutely everything” situation again. The new pets are also...interesting.

Although when it comes to ranger I’m a druid at heart, so we’ll see. Not that I’m usually conscripted for DPS roles anyway

Firebrand looks silly. And broken. I’m all for alternative sources of quickness (and alacrity in the case of other specs), but I don’t really want to see raid meta go to 2x PS 2x druid 2x chrono 2x firebrand (or something like that) with only 2 flex spots. That doesn’t sound fun at all.

Also I’m guessing Firebrand will be the first to get the nerfbat. The damage numbers people are getting are bonkers.

And hey look, they got the nerfbat. Down to 33-35k. At least that’s better than 50k? Ugh.

Renegade feels pretty decent. Revenant has always been in a weird “built around elite specs” class, and that hasn’t changed. I’m not sure how I feel about condi rev being more of a thing and less of a meme, but ayyy

Holosmith seems like it would be a lot more relevant if the transform wasn’t currently borked. Scaling damage to a level 76 fine weapon is...sad. If it’s fixed power Holosmith could be something legit? Maybe? Overall though I like the theme and look of it. Also lol lightsaber.

Spellbreaker I...idk. Thematically I like it a lot; I was a big fan of mesmer and shut down mechanics in GW1 and I like the idea of Spellbreaker, but from a mostly PvE perspective, it’s just kind of...eh? WvW and PvP I see it being incredibly useful but with limited boons to nom in PvE it doesn’t really look particularly great (especially with condi berserker getting tuned through the roof).

On mounts

I keep dyeing them funny colors. Yes Quill’s are all some shade of yellow.

I honestly think they were well done. I was never a supporter of adding them to the game (not against, but not for them either), but now that they’re here, I’m pretty okay with them.

I like that each mount is useful in some specific capacity - raptor for flat open stretches, springer for verticality, skimmer for no touchy floor, jackal for portals and evasion through high mob density areas, and griffon for the absolute lulz of flying.

I keep getting the “mount doesn’t render so your character model is riding away sunk in the ground while your camera remains in place” bug (I think it’s attached to trying to mount up before things are completely loaded), and while it’s funny, it’s kind of frustrating.

Mount swapping is a bit awkward, although binding each mount to its own key helps a lot.

I appreciate that the starting mount (the raptor) is still relevant even when you pick up the other three (four), as it’s definitely the fastest mount on flat ground and it’s improved leap is hilariously long.

Also it’s a giant scaly puppy so I have no problems with this.

The springer is hilarious. And super terrain-breaking. High cliff? No problem, bunny hop. Core and HoT map comp probably just got much, much simpler. Also JPs that don’t have mount restrictions.

The skimmer is adorable, and riding it around is strangely...calming? idk. Also as one of my guildies put it: “maybe this is Anet’s answer to underwater combat: glide right over it.” rip.

Of the four core mounts I think the jackal (blink doge) is my favorite. It has a gorgeous design and the blink/portals are super cool. Although the blink can get a bit titchy if you’re trigger happy with the jump button.

Of course I have the griffon.

IT’S SO FLUFFY.

I think it handles a little strangely (esp when you can’t dismount quickly, although you can divebomb), but it’s pretty solid. And adorable.

250g was entirely worth it.

Also that Tahlkora cameo hit me right in the feels.

On the story

I’d get here eventually! Eventually...;-;

All salad-shaped biases aside, the male sylvari VO is still my favorite and no one can convince me otherwise. There was a good amount of sass, seriousness, and everything inbetween. Ive is one to take everything with a “hahahaha you’re kidding what am I doing here help,” so overall the voice acting and dialogue fit him fairly well.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of race-specific dialogue. Humans don’t seem to have any special dialogue with or concerning Balthazar, and everyone else doesn’t really have a chance to comment as an outsider. I know it’s more work and I still enjoyed the story as is, but it would have been a nice touch.

Like Ive would literally not give a shit about half of the things brought up. Not because he doesn’t care about others, but because he has no clue what anyone is talking about.

This was particularly funny with Joko in the Domain of the Lost, because his whole tirade about the PC not knowing who he is could quickly be shut down with “I’m a salad, I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

The “decisions” were interesting, although unsurprisingly they had very little impact on the game as a whole (maybe in the future? Doubt it). I did appreciate that depending on the order the “decide on Amnoon’s independence” steps are done in, the dialogue changes.

I admit that I’ve gotten a little less partial to Taimi as she’s edged closer to Deus Ex Machina territory, but her dialogue and conversations (both with the PC and with others like Phlunt later on) are quite funny.

I wish there were more Vlast/Gleam before he died. It’s sad that he showed up and just...died, but I can understand why they chose that path as well.

Although some of that was my own fault; the chapter with the Exalted and Vlast’s upbringing I got supremely distracted by the jumping puzzle and spinning around on my new skimmer.

Still. More Vlast!

RYTLOCK. RYTLOCK WHY. Nice job breaking it hero. Surely you would know better than to accept help in the Mists from a random shackled man who CONVENIENTLY knows how to relight your magic sword. Sigh.

I thought a lot about the Herald of Balthazar after finding the notes in Night of Fires. I went back to it after talking to my brother and came to a very similar conclusion as a theorizer on the GW2 subreddit. If that theory is true, that makes me very sad.

Pls say it’s true I like gut-punch feels.

Speaking of gut-punch feels, The Departing was amazing. It was super disorienting not having access to the inventory or the minimap, but it was a very well-done instance and I enjoyed it immensely. I appreciated that they stuck to the “you lost your name and purpose” thing to the point of replacing your character name (including in the hero panel) with Lost Spirit.

Balthazar murdering the PC was pretty neat.

Also Aurene showing up exactly on time was both cliche and NO BALTHAZAR BAD STAY AWAY FROM BABY DRAGON.

This, like a few other story missions later on, is super awkward to do as a group. It’s supposed to be rather personal, and so the not-instance owners are reduced to buffing wisps (like later on in the thrall party instance, not-instance owners are just awakened thralls), and idk I was lucky I was instance owner but that seems rather :|

Ive had a lot of feels hearing everyone’s voices again. Also the feels of him not exactly remembering everything and having to follow his purpose through his own memories and not quite remembering everything. Including Trahearne.

Also tfw the story mission is essentially Full Circle (as a sub-section of Closure) with a bit of bonus Balthazar.

Joko is being very obviously set up as a “you left me in a cage I swear vengeance rahhhhhh” villain. Or Anet is going to pull a fast one and he will never show up again, which would be hilarious.

Bonus feels for everyone else surviving and Ive being the only one dead (think Eet).

Backtracking slightly, I’ve never liked Kormir. I still don’t like Kormir. And the human gods are miserably terrible people. At this point there’s not much questioning as to whether or not they exist, but with the extent of their influence, their decision to just kind of peace is...rather appropriately god-like, for better or for worse.

Seriously though, gods pls. I can see some of the logic of “world will be destroyed anyway if god attempts to fight god,” but surely there are other things that need be maintained.

Also I like how Kormir notes that Balthazar had been stripped of his powers, and yet he still curbstomps the PC (unless it was entirely the imprisonment in the Mists that just locked his powers away, but Kormir’s dialogue suggests otherwise).

I would kill for a library like that. Seriously. So jelly.

The “let’s disguise ourselves as the Archon and go and convince Palawa Joko’s army to fight for us” part was so incredibly stupid that of course it worked. We spent the entire time laughing at how incredulous it was.

The battle at Kodash Bazaar was actually kind of awesome? There was stuff everywhere and my only inclination for the first part of the instance was “go hit things.”

It was incredibly weird to just have Sohothin for the entire instance. Yes I’m aware I could have dropped it. But it was hilarious in a Caladbolg sort of way. With less idiotic knockback, and more 300s cooldown skills.

AURENE. Balthazar stop hurting my dragon >:(

Also because he just yolo killed her other brother before she had a chance to meet him in person? rip.

Although now that I think about it, how would that meeting even go? Talking to the Exalted indicates that Vlast was isolated and not well-acclimated to the world around him, so by the time they realized he should be interacting with other races it was too late for him to form any empathy for anyone. His dialogue seems to imply that his motivation was simply the fulfillment of a goal; he seemed far more interested in fulfilling his legacy as Glint’s son than the reason why she needed him and Aurene to do anything in particular. He doesn’t really have a reason for what he’s doing, he just does.

Aurene is implied to have an empathic link with Vlast similar to her connection to the PC, but idk, it just seems like any actual meeting between the two of them would just be incredibly awkward.

I very much enjoyed both the penultimate and ultimate fight against Balthazar. Also because if you turned around, you could see Kralkatorrik’s massive face just chilling in the sky because oh shit angry elder dragon. It was...quite something.

I understand the PC’s current caution about killing elder dragons because of magic imbalance, and I also understand the need to stop Balthazar from being a total moron. I also understand that there’s not much you can do to stop a mad god besides killing him (since those with the means to imprison him decided to float on). But uh. I’m not sure what anyone expected would happen if you kill the god who absorbed two dragons’ worth of magic with another dragon just chilling nearby. Surely Kralkatorrik absorbing everything and flying off into the sunset while extending the Brand wasn’t a surprise.

Seriously though what did you think was going to happen.

Baby dragon absorb magik and is not quite so baby anymore. Aurene come back I miss you already ;-;

I commend you if you actually read all of that. xD

Overall, a solid expansion with quite a bit of content. We’ll see how replayable it ends up being as time goes on, but I am still quite amused by it and have plenty to do as it stands. The story was fairly solid (although sometimes strange with questionable logic, as always), and I’m looking forward to where they take it with LWS4.

#guild wars 2 #path of fire #path of fire spoilers #seriously all the spoilers #the artist rambles #a lot #that was really long #and still not all of it but ayyy #bullet points

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intimatevoid · 7 years ago

Text

Shamelessly stolen from @notfinlandjosswhedon because I have time to kill

Do you ever sit with your legs open? Not much anymore, but sometimes when I’m alone.

Have you ever been offered drugs on the street? Been asked for, many times. Offered, no.

What is one place you have been to and hated? Any place where the temperature reaches 30 degrees, really.

Have you ever seen a jellyfish? Not in person!

What’s your favourite kind of soup? The soy broth that they make at the ramen shop near my place :D

Do you ever put bread in your soup? Like dipping? Yeah. Not, like, dropping it straight in.

Is there anything in the USB key slots in your computer/laptop? Um, let’s have a look. Mouse, keyboard, external HD, microphone, and 360 controller. I actually thought there’d be more.

What advertisements are on your screen at the moment? I’m going to try out Star Wars: The Old Republic today, so that’s downloading now, and the launcher has some ads for premium content on it.

Do you ever get a really itchy nose when you’re unable to scratch it? Way too often.

Has anyone ever randomly licked your face? Dogs, and Ash, although that was probably in retaliation considering I licked their face earlier that evening ^^:

When was the last time you bought a book? Not too long ago? I think I picked up an ebook recently. But an actual, physical book? Fuck, I have no idea.

Are you upstairs or downstairs at the minute? I am on the one and only floor that my unit has.

Have you ever been asked for directions? I get asked every now and then, yeah. Last time I was pulled up a a traffic light and a woman on the street approached my car and asked which way to the shops.

Are there any farm animals near you? There are plenty on the edges of town. Like, within a few km for sure.

Are there any lakes near you? Nah, the closest would be Wivenhoe Dam and that’s like an hour and a half away.

Was there ever a time when you felt absolutely terrified? Yeah, it happens sometimes.

If so, why? Existential horror and anxiety. It’s veeeeery rarely from a tangible source. Oh, and my memory loss is pretty fucking scary too.

Have you ever been in your local newspaper? lmao nah

Have you ever called your mother ma or mammy? I just call her “Mum”.

Can you imitate any other accent? I’m really bad with accents, but if you have no idea what an Irish accent sounds like then I might be able to fool you. Oh and if I just speak English using Japanese sounds and form then I can probably do what passes as a Japanese accent.

What is your funniest memory of the 6th contact in your phone? It’s one of my D&D party. Our funniest memory – which happened during a game, naturally – would be either the time she tried to get the party druid to sling her over a high wall and onto a room, or she led the group in playing Lute Hero at a pub.

Were you ever chased by an animal? … Huh, I don’t actually think so.

Are you single/or taken? I resent the binary implications of this question, haha. I am in a relationship, and simultaneously on the market.

^Are you happy with that? Of course ^_^

Do you make the first move or do you prefer it the other way around? Depends on the situation! I mean, I’ve only ever had one other person make the first move, so usually I have to take the lead, but I’m fine with that. Still, it would be nice to be hit on every now and then.

What is the most painful thing you’ve experienced? The time I jumped a fence on a job site and turned my ankle. My boss threatened me not to report it for worker’s comp and just stay home while he paid me, because he was a skinflint and didn’t want his insurance premiums to go up. The month off was excruciating, and yet I still ended up being pressured into going back to work long before I was ready My ankle is still quite weak to this day. And I have CPTSD from that god damned job lmao

Do you hug someone whenever you see them? If I know they’re comfortable with it. If not, I’ll ask them first.

When was the last time you bled? What happened? I squeezed a pimple a few days ago. It emptied nicely, and then blood came out afterwards of course, so I guess that counts as bleeding.

When you look behind you what catches your attention the most? The sun coming through a crack in the curtains. Today is going to be disgustingly hot. :(

Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend? No. I think I’ve been that, though, back in my very first relationship :( How many true heart breaks have you had in your lifetime? A pretty rough breakup I had about a year and a half ago. Learned some solid life lessons from that one, haha. Who last grabbed your ass? Ash, I’m pretty sure.

Do you have any gay family members? More than half my siblings are queer. It’s just that I’m the only one who’s publicly out, so nobody knows about any of them except me. I guess I don’t mind pulling that attention, but it’s lonely without their solidarity. Where did you get the shirt you are wearing? Just target , for a costume party. I painted the Wonder Woman logo on the front myself, because a bottle of fabric paint and a cheap shirt were cheaper than trying to find an actual license top in the style and size I needed. Do you feel like everything is falling apart around you? They is literally life for me. Everything is always falling apart. The only was to survive is to stay vigilant and rebuild as fast as things crumble, while simultaneously trying to support what is still currently stable so it doesn’t collapse too. Was your first kiss romantic? Yeah, I guess. In hindsight I cringe. But at the time I guess it was. Do you know anybody whose last name is a color? The person I’m stealing this from. Half of her last name is a colour. What are you most likely to go to jail for? Probably for being queer in a place that doesn’t allow it Do you ever feel like life is going by too fast? Fast, yeah, but not too fast. I can’t wait til I’m older. Who was the last person to sleep over at your house? Sage, and they brought their beautiful dog too ^_^ Is there someone that always intimidates you? I think so, though tbh I can’t really remember right now. Have you ever liked anyone that was in a relationship with someone else? I’ve dated multiple people who were in relationships at the time. I’m dating one right now. Would you ever get a boob job? At this rate I don’t think I’ll need to. My family’s genes are finally coming through for me :O Did your last relationship end because of you or the other person? I’m not entirely sure I understand the phrasing of this question, but I broke up with him, because I could not tolerate a certain thing he did. Do you ever ignore texts from some people? If I’m in a bad headspace and can’t answer, then sometimes I delay answering til I’m ready. Have you ever tried to break up anyone because YOU liked the guy/girl? Why would anyone ever do that when polyamory exists? That’s so petty and awful :( When is the last time you felt left out? Yesterday. Not going into detail. When was the last time you flirted with someone? Yesterday, I think. But I flirt with people on most days. I flirt with practically everyone. What would you think if you found out your ex was gay? Most of my exes are queer. That’s, like, kinda necessary considering that I am queer. As for my one straight ex, I’d be surprised as hell but also glad he was doing what made him happy. Would you ever take someone back if you found out they cheated on you? Nope. Anyone who felt they needed to cheat, while dating my polyamorous self, is clearly not someone who I need in my life.

What does your last text message say? “Haha, well you can always try it on my floors! I shall keep you updated.” A friend of mine is trying a new mop. We are exciting people. What colour is your hair right now? Brown. Do people ever compliment your eyes? Actually, yeah. Apparently they’re my best physical feature. Do people ever tell you that you’re funny? Sometimes, yeah. Would you be upset if you caught your boyfriend looking at porn? I would send him more. How many people has your best friend had sex with? Zero, I’m pretty sure. What’s the last song you listened to? I was going through old music and I think the last one I played was Hats Off To The Bull by Chevelle. Who’s the last person that hung up on you? Not a clue. Four days from now, will you have sex? Four days, four weeks, for months – not happening unless something drastic changes in my life. (grey ace yo) Do you look intimidating? I have been told that I do. What does your second to last text say? “Behold, my floors will SPARKLE!” What makes you laugh? People being people. What were/are you most looking forward to today? When the sun goes down and it starts to get cooler. How is your hair? Desperately in need of a trip. The split ends are running rampant. When was the last time you had a conversation with an ex? A couple of days ago. Are you worried about anything right now? It would be easier to list the things I’m not worried about. My life is one long series of worries and anxieties. Living in poverty is great. How do you think tomorrow will be? Exactly the same as today. Is there a guy who knows everything or almost everything about you? Yeah, Seb knows a fair bit about me. If you could pack your bags right now and were given a plane ticket, where do you go? Canada, to visit @aelwen. How far away are you from the person you have feelings for? "have feelings for” is such a VAGUE way of putting it, haha. But there’s a cutie I know who lives roughly 13,500km away from me. Your last ex calls wanting to hangout, what do you say? “Yeah, sure, though you’ll have to travel to see me cause I am not travelling all the way to Brisbane on this notice.” Where were you at 2 this morning? Watching Stranger Things 2 with Ash. Only the first ep, though, and then I passed the fuck out. Have you ever kissed anyone who’s name started with a K? … huh, I don’t think so! Have you accidentally sent a text to the wrong person? Occasionally, haha. Last time you were TOTALLY happy? A few weeks ago, I was having a really bad day. Ash took me to get bubble tea and Japanese. I nearly cried with gratitude. Could you go the rest of your life without drinking alcohol? I could but I’m not going to. Is there anything currently hurting on your body? Yes. A lot. Ever kissed someone with green eyes? Ash has green eyes ^_^ When you are home alone, do you still close the door when you shower? Yeah, cause it keeps all the warmth in. Are you mad at anyone right now? Nah. Do you like your music loud or at a reasonable level? Depends. If I’m in the mood for it, loud can be good. But usually I need to to be quieter. Loud noises fuck me up. Have you held hands with anyone in the past 30 hours? Multiple times ^_^ How often do you sleep in? Every day. It’s the only way I get anywhere near a reasonable amount of sleep. Will you be in a relationship next month? I don’t see why not. Do you stay up later than ten o’clock on a week night? Always. Who’s the last person you told a secret to? Hard to say. I am kind of an open book about myself. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? Doubt it. Would you rather have big or small dogs? Medium dogs! Will you cry tonight? Possibly. Depends on how badly my brain fucks me ^^; Do you have respect for people even if you don’t like them? Depends on why I don’t like them. What’s one fruit you love in drinks? Lemon goes well with a lot of things. Have you ever tried wine? Yeah. Not a huge fan, but sometimes it can be nice. In your life, do you plan on visiting other countries? Eyyyup. At the very least I want to visit Canada, Japan, and NZ. Is there an ex you want to make up with? If my second-to-last ex came along, apologised for everything, and showed that she was sincerely trying to be a better person, I’d accept that.

Does cuddling freak you out? I freak out unless I’m cuddling (okay not really but you get the idea) How much time do you take to get ready in the morning? Depends on how much prep I did the night before. I usually take between half an hour to an hour, though. Do you love where you live? Yeah, it’s okay. :) Will your next kiss be drunk or sober? Sober. Ash will wake up soon, come into my room, and I’ll kiss them. Do you wear high heels everyday? Nope, I rarely wear heels at all. Are you an aunt or an uncle? Yes, I have a niece! Were you texting someone right before you fell asleep last night? Yeah, a couple of people. Did you have any unread text messages when you woke up today? How many? A couple of messages from the group chat, and a few from Chloe. Are you happy? With myself, yes, more than ever. With the way I’m treated because of who I am? Absolutely not. Are you an alcoholic? Nah, I don’t drink much. Can you go a day without thinking about the person that’s on your mind now? I assume that "the person that’s on your mind now” means “the person you’re most attracted to right now”? Cnsidering we talk almost every day, I guess the answer is no. Could you go the rest of your life without a cigarette? Yes. Does anyone know every little detail about you? Not really, not even partners or exes. I mean lots of people knows lots of little details, but they’re just the ones I wear visibly.

What’s one thing you really want right now? A steady income. As it is, I have to choose between paying bills and buying medicine. Who was the last person you took a picture with? I think it was @aturinfortheworse, at Riverfire. Did anything “cute” happen today? lmao no Are you wearing shoes right now? Nope. Have you ever just laid outside and looked at the stars? Yeah, it’s nice when I go out of town to do it. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos? Yes! Mostly tattoos at this point. I already have a ton of piercings and can only thinks of a couple more that I want. Do you smile everyday? Um, yeah, I suppose. Who are you more like, mom or dad? I look more like my mum, and have a personality that’s kind of a mix. Could you date someone shorter than you? That is, indeed, what I Am currently doing. Where do you wish you were right now? Somewhere that wasn’t fucking 30 degrees Have a crazy side? *snerk* Something you do a lot? I probably game way too much.

What is your natural hair color? Brown How many people have you kissed? I count 12, but I’m like 99% certain I’ve missed some people.

Ever kissed someone you weren’t dating at the time? Most of them. Ever kissed someone you’d met less than an hour before? Sure have. Were any of them in relationships with someone else at the time? Helloooooo. Polyamorous. How old was the oldest person you’ve kissed? 35. How young was the youngest person you’ve kissed? 15. I should clarify that I was 16 at the time. Since her, I've only kissed people who were older than me. Ever been kissed by a legal adult when you were a minor (or vise-versa)? No. Ever been walked in on while you were making out with someone? Yes, and then he joined me with kissing her. It was a good time lmao Weirdest place you’ve kissed someone? (geographically, not physically) I can’t really think of anywhere. I mean, there was that access corridor through the inner city shops in Toowoomba, where I got pushed up against a wall and made a peace sign at the dude who was staring like 8O from outside the glass doors? But even that wasn’t really, like, weird. Ever kissed someone and had someone else get really mad about it? i mean there was the (multiple) time(s) i caused a couple to break up by showing one of them what a good relationship could actually be like, does that count Ever stopped kissing someone because they had bad breath? Eyyyup. I can’t stand morning breath kisses. They taste awful D: Ever not known the name of someone you kissed? I can’t remember the names of four out of those twelve people. Ever kissed someone on a dare/as part of a game? Sure have. Kissed someone you didn’t really like just to make someone else jealous? Nope. Ever had a really horrible kissing experience? haven’t we all Ever been called a bad kisser? On the contrary ^_^ Ever called someone else a bad kisser? I don’t think so. Where’s the most public place you’ve ever made out with someone? Probably at the shops or something similar. Where’s the most private place you’ve ever made out with someone? Bedroom I guess. Ever thought of someone else while you were kissing someone? What about the person I’m kissing, and someone else, at the same time? Do you usually kiss on the first date? Sometimes. If I’m definitely attracted to the person, and know they seem to have positive feelings as well, I’ll ask to end the date with a small kiss. It makes my intentions and interest unequivocally clear.

#tumblr games #this was a long one #but it killed enough time that my download finished #mission accomplished!

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survivor-kuwait · 5 years ago

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Episode 8 - “These bitches really do be getting on my nerves” - Chloe

rip stevie :( in the aftermath of that tribal that legit just felt like one massive personal attack i decided to go do some homework bc something felt off to me!! madison was out there whining about OMG BEING IN THE WARZONE THE WHOLE TIME BOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO and yet lmao she's either been "excused" or gotten a strike for deadass just not doing the challenges. the jig is uP! i think it's fairly obvious people are just using the warzone as a way to build relationships and i mean who can blame them, but her whole pity party at these tribals needs to stop. my mood towards her has definitely soured in the last hour lol i'm over it fam. also i've been talking to ian since the tribal to get some tea since tommy is legitimately useless. i'll like ask him what happened at tribal and he literally just goes "oh i just heard his name from everyone" shrug emoi LIKE!! WOULD IT KILL YOU TO FIND SOME MORE TEA OUT... anyways i find out from ian that cullan apparently brought up that they should target timmy for challenge prowess, to which ian said he shot down due to that being a slippery slope which soon leads to him. if that's true i'm v glad that that got shot down bc that's, in my mind, a shot fired at me. GIRRRRRL, like just leave me alone i shouldn't be fucking persecuted bc half of you guys are throwing challenges and i've actually been doing them. that doesn't mean shit.

youtube

I was able to get 217 seconds on the slide puzzle. Would I get any better? 🤷‍♂️ I dont think so. I have my graduation today so hopefully this score is enough.

not gonna lie I compleeeeetely COMPLETELY forgot about the chall until this morning when I was walking to class and my dumbass is at class and work and class again until 10 pm today so I don’t rlly have a MOUSE on me..... cut to me desperately and embarrassingly texting my classmates asking them to bring a mouse to class for me nnnn this is not gonna go well. maybe it’ll be good for me to go to war zone anyways I guess

Hi sisters! Last vote was super easy. It was like “Stevie k?” “K.” But also even though I feel like I’m a big part of the decision making process for every vote, I never get less nervous that everyone is lying to me! Strategic playing, or crippling trust issues? You decide.

These bitches really do be getting on my nerves

Its almost graduation time and im sooo nervous and excited. It would be nice to not be in warzone tonight. Please survivor gods help me.

Well this is a crucial immunity. After being out of the war zone for 2 in a row I feel at this point I am a little outside the people who have been there so many times. I think I have some strong bonds with some players but I do not that a couple have it out for me. Namely Madison and Jacob, which at this point I fed they should be over the whole Renee vote but that’s their prerogative.

Sooooo Final 15 baby! Honestly Im so proud of this time around on my TS journey cause Im actually liking the individual competition portion of this game. Its like the merge part of any Survivor game but with a "tribal competition" aspect. Meaning that I only have to worry about me, myself, and I and I love that. I just need to show that Im the bad bitch that is in control and take this game by the fucking reins and show it who's boss. Aint no way Im gonna get 15th, 14th or 12th again madam. No way.

Reinke

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I survived, yeet. Kait survived, yeet. Ian went in, f*ck. Maynor went in, f*ck. Chloe went in, f*ck. Adrian went in...yeet.

Hello! I am safe again, 2nd time in a row? Idk. I do like Kait but I don't entirely trust her. I think I can use her for a bit as she'll believe she's using me. If I have the chance to get her out before or early merge, I will. Thomas is the most boring person in this game. I have yet to meet Timmy but I doubt anyone can beat Thomas in this feat. Talking to him is like talking to a wall. A white wall too. Also, he has no manners, demands favours and doesn't say please or thank you... The second I have the chance, he's gone. Nehe should've stayed, not him. Otherwise, Ian and I are working on some kind of power together for battleship. I really do like Ian. I hope we can make it far together, he's my number 2 after Owen. Together, we have the Topaz Idol and a potential save vote and a potential new power. Maynor and I have been socializing and friendly, I want him gone sooner than later but he's not a priority. He isn't great in comps generally. Still love Trace and I do trust him to an extent. I dislike Stephen, would like to see him leave relatively soon. I don't trust him at all. On the other side, Matt is going to tribal and him and I have built quite a bit of trust previously, I hope he makes it. I'm happy Cullan and Owen and Adrian are safe as I trust all 3 to certain extents. I would like Timmy to go due to his comp prowess and due to the fact we have yet to interact, but he's immune, again. I hope Chloe makes it out okay. I also hope Devon makes it out alive. I love that guy. I think Devon, Chloe, Trace and Ian can work together though! Matt could join with them as him and Devon were big parts of the Renee vote. Madison and Maynor, who were both left out of that vote, could see their way out which is A-okay by me. Jacob was also left out of this vote but I think Ian won't target him, just my two cents. I see Jacob as a better ally for me down the road compared to Madison or Maynor. That being said, I like many people in this game. I think my social game is strong. I do need to be careful with my words as some may catch on. And I may find myself at tribal with 7 ppl I like. I have my hierarchy of allies in my mind and I know who's at the bottom of my totem poll, I just hope I can get those who aren't even on it out first. I'm also a comp threat. Usually, I can lurk in the shadows more easily but with the dynamic and my low level of comfort with risk, competition prowess combined with my social game, though flashy, is what I'm betting on to keep myself safe. Owen and Kait and Timmy's competition prowess outshines mine and people peg Madison as the socialite who throws/does not complete comps to be in warzone. As long as there are some who play flashier than me, I'll be okay. Until next time!

I found a Rock Saver with the help of Corey, chill but I'm more than happy to send that over to him the second I'm back from warzone. That is such a situational power and there aren't really alliances yet to risk rocks for, but when there are it will be within Corey and I's power to use. Again, I'll play the idol to survive if I need to, but I'll do everything I can to prevent having to play it at f16, the jury doesn't care about what happens in the premerge portion of the game.

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It's going to be Jacob or Madison this round. Idol or bust, Cancer will take a hit, because fuck cancer. I'm done with the waiting for someone to take out players who have been just chilling in the Warzone, I'm done with the throwing challenges, I'm done with the deceit. The Warzone is not redemption island, you can't feed me a fish and send me on my way to build your jury presence. Madison is sans her warzone buddies, she's vulnerable besides Jacob. Let's go!

I may be in the war zone rn but Ian is here and I have fuckin missed that boi so yanno pros and cons

I so so so do not want to be here at Warzone again. This vote is probably the most complicated thus far because at this point I need a lot of things to go a very specific way in order for people to not realize I’m in the middle. Devon trusts me and wants to go with Ian’s plan to vote our Madison or Jacob and Madison and Maynor want to vote Ian which I would also like. However at this point I need to make everyone happy and the odds of doing that are so slim. I just have to convince Maynor wnd Madison to vote Jacob or Devon to vote Ian and neither one is the path of least resistance. I’m on the path of MOST resistance and by path I mean 1 inch wide tightrope suspended over hungry sharks.

I was not that surprised when I got voted out. I did not expect it because voting out Stephen did in fact seem like a plausible option and i felt that between him and myself it was kinda similar. It was believable that he would be voted off, but I totally understand why I was voted off. The interesting part about it to me is I think I was the least connected person in the game and I can see how that can get dangerous in merge because those people can flip a lot, but right now I thought it might've been a good opportunity to gain me as a number. I think this tribal was my first interaction with Trace and Ian. I did like them and I liked talking to them and I think I had potential to work with them if the plan of voting me out wasn't already in place. There were a few people I did not talk to that round because i didn't think I should've had to reach out to EVERYONE in order to talk to them. I just think there are alliances that have formed that i am not a part of because the decision-making for these votes is kinda weird and I don't always understand the motives. So to me an alliance i am not a part of makes the most sense. I was very excited about the lagoon though. I am hoping I get a chance to come back because that would be lit. I just need to stick it out through these votes and I am hoping Renee is connected to at least one of the other three so we can stay. Kinda glad Nehe is gone. I think he was bad for my game

Devon has been a godsend so far today, I talked to him last night about wanting Jacob or Madison out and he has up and ran with it. Devon being the face on this vote? Yes please, I don't want to blow back on me if it flips.

I actually have people working with me and talking to me this round? 😮😮😮 crazy that maybe these people have finally stopped trying to get me fucking out

Trying to talk to cullan rn and I can’t decide if it’s more or less difficult than talking to Thomas. He’s sent like three one word answers now.... Me: you doing anything exciting this weekend!? Cullan: Graduating. Ummmm ok hoe sounds real exciting hskshdjd like elaborate? Oh well I’m not answering. I tried to reach out bc my social game is ass rn but I’m not putting myself thru that today!!!! I miss Kait :( and I want to talk to corey :(((( grrrr they the real ones. And matt. Have yet to have a stimulating conversation with literally anyone else in this game. Wait ok actually I do like Timmy and madison SJSU’s je but madison busy too and Timmy sends LONG messages. Why can’t I have an in BETWEEN!!

I'm definitely going to see at least one vote tonight, I'm nervous about it because if people flip on me instead of voting Jacob I'll be dead to rights because I will not play my idol unless another idol is played. My thought process is that if I need my idol to save myself from a majority vote tonight then I wasn't bound to go far in this game anyway. I'll take my ball(advantages) and go home. 5 people told me they are voting Jacob, Matt told me Jacob is voting for me, if I'm being fed bullshit by everyone then that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Today has been quiet but people have brought up that Jacob and Madison are a strong duo. Matt was able to put the target on Jacob. It could be a 4-4 tie but Matt Madison n I might just go with majority and vote Jacob.

As per usual, I have no idea if I made a confessional about this or not. I can’t believe I won immunity, like I didn’t even have computer access. And i got 3rd so i had some margin to be safe (granted Adrian got 4th with one second more than me but still). That was the first time I did the puzzle because my other times were worse. If I was doing it on a computer my time would’ve been so much better so idk what happened with everyone else. And today Owen messaged me saying he feels kind of fucked because he hasn’t been to tribal in ages, which might be true but also he can probably win a lot of immunities come merge and people like him. I’m happy to work with him right now because we both have a lot of challenge wins but honestly I want him to go earlier on in merge because he is good at getting quick social connections.

oof mama, what a round this is panning out to be. First of all, I felt personally victimized by that challenge. The Ard tribe is full of some SERIOUS competitors, and that's the reason that I will most likely continue to show up at these stupid war zones until we merge. Fucking Kait has made it this far without going to the war zone at all, which is putting SUCH A LARGE target on her back. bUt whatever, it's just frustrating being on a tribe of people that probably do online puzzles for fun. So this round is interesting. After last round's unanimous vote, I feel a lot more comfortable working with certain people in the game. Ian has kind of solidified his spot as my number one in this game (more to come about that too). He came to me and was like we NEED to make a move against Madison/Jacob. He said he knows that Madison is a challenge threat, but is purposely trying to lose the challenges so that she can make connections with people in the war zone. Though he had made some points, I really don't think Madison is that smart to figure out how to do that. I really just think she is busy/not prioritizing and keeps showing up here. She seems pretty innocuous. That being said, she has become a bit of a social threat, slipping by all of these rounds without having to really do much. BUT, I do trust her and don't want her to be sent packing quite yet. Jacob, her star sign partner, on the other hand, can go. He doesn't talk at all, and when he doesn't they're boring one word answers. So I had pretty much set my heart on Jacob even though he is on our tribe, making my chances higher of showing up here if we keep doing the war zone format. To make matters more interesting, I talked a bit more to Matt this round and he told me that Madison and Jacob were gunning for Ian this round. Madison claims she is good with voting for Jacob, but everyone else says they seem to be a strong pair. I went straight to Ian with this and then he TOLD ME HE HAD AN IDOL. Honestly I am so happy to know he has it and not someone against me, because that's going to be some great information to have later on down the road. I think he is really paranoid, but at this point I just really cannot tell who is lying and telling the truth. I am hoping that people are being truthful and going to actually vote for Jacob, but I am trying to figure out who exactly has been saying Ian's name. It's ultimately going to be up to him whether he wants to play the idol this round but oof, if I were him, I'd be sweating. SO we shall see, but lord knows I'm shaking in my loafers!

#survivorstarzone #episodes

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trentteti · 5 years ago

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Your June 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction

You did it! You studied for months, training your brain to think about information in way you never thought you’d have to. You’ll never look at the word “unless” the same way again. You put those skills to the test by doing tons of practice exams. You made sacrifices along the way — to your friends, your better halves, your hobbies, your Saturday mornings that could have been spent doing literally anything other than a full practice exam.

But this afternoon, you entered your test center and finished the one that counts — the real deal. The true test. The June 2019 LSAT. And after you spent four nasty, brutish, and somehow still too-short hours reading some stuff and coloring in some bubbles, you emerged. And that is cause to celebrate.

…And yet, you’re here. On a blog. An LSAT blog, even. Looks like you’re putting the celebration on hold until you unpack that exam a little bit more. Maybe get a few things off your chest in the comment section. Or just figure out which section was your experimental section.

But that’s all right! We’re here for you. As we do following every exam, we’re using this post to address what we’ve heard about this exam, to see how our predictions fared, use our well-honed powers of deduction to figure out which sections was your experimental section, and more.

And yet … we can’t get too specific. We are free to discuss how difficult certain parts of the test were, how your proctor and the quality of your test center fared, and what were the topics of passages, games, and LR questions. We can even try to identify the experimental sections used on this test. We cannot cannot discuss the answers to the questions or how to get them, lest we incur the wrath of LSAC. If your comment is removed, it most likely violated some kind of rule or was close enough that we didn’t want to risk it. Here’s a pretty good guide of what’s acceptable.

But, based on reports from test takers, here’s what we know about this June exam (and are allowed to talk about).

Logical Reasoning

Well, we might as well get the embarrassing part out of the way: we were super wrong about our prediction that the multiple-prompts-per-stimulus-style questions would return on this exam. I haven’t even heard that those appeared in anyone’s experimental section. But as they say, shooters shoot, and you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

That said, there was a weird thing that happened in this test’s scored Logical Reasoning sections: both sections had 26 questions, according to test takers. If Reading Comp had the typical 27, and Logic Games had the typical 23 — as test takers are also reporting — that’s [pulling out calculator, running the numbers, waiting for the response] a total of 102 questions. Which, if true, is tied for the most questions to ever appear on a single LSAT. Almost every LSAT has 100 or 101 questions. They’ll sometimes dip down to 99 questions — though it’s been a long time since that’s happened. The last time an LSAT has had 102 questions, though, is December 2010. So, June test takers, we’ll apologize on behalf of LSAC that you had to endure at least one more question than almost any other test taker.

Now, we won’t know exactly how the Logical Reasoning sections shook out until the exam gets released in a few weeks, but we did hear many reports of the questions’ subject matter. One question that seemingly everyone remembers is the one about spiders from Guam. It remains to be seen, however, if these spiders — like the spiders from Mars — accompanied Ziggy while he played guitar.

Other questions referenced dieting pilots, evil vampires, cheetahs and whales and endangered birds, bus routs and bike lanes, chemicals that cause strokes, and healthy oats. So, you know, normal dinner table topics. Also, because the people who write this exam love to get topical (and also because questions can take years to actually appear on an exam after they’re written), there was apparently a deeply 2016 question about journalists using polling data to incorrectly predict the winner of a election.

Logic Games

On the real, scored Logic Games section, there was a game about oil and watercolor paintings, a game about product commercials, a game about people’s occupations (and apparently they were really classic occupations, like doctors, lawyers, judges, and nurses), and a game about people attending movies at a festival.

Most reports about the game section do not suggest it was especially difficult (so we were wrong about that prediction, too). But some are saying the last game was a bit of a slog — the kind where there aren’t a ton of deductions or an opportunity to make scenarios, and you had grind it out in the questions.

There was a game in the experimental logic games section that some got about putting decorations on four walls that people hated. Like, people who were subjected to that game expressed a level of antipathy towards the “wall” game that’s usually reserved for walls proposed by 2016 presidential candidates that no journalist who’s looked at the polling thinks can win that election.

Reading Comprehension

Finally, the Reading Comprehension section was just about universally regarded as the hardest section on this exam. On the real RC section, there was a passage about reproducing films, a passage about fish farming, the requisite legal passage about the reliability of witness testimony, and a passage about, apparently, everything from African storytellers known as griots to the musical traditions of Wolof-speaking people to the blues. The fish farming passage seemed to be the most difficult to most.

Final Takeaways

The good(-ish) news from this exam is — 102 questions aside — there wasn’t anything especially novel or unique or panic-inducing. No reports that I’ve heard would suggest that your score on this exam would be substantially different than your recent practice exam scores, barring any test center disasters. If those diagnostic scores were around your target score, it’s time to party. If you want to keep that party going all the way to the June 27 score release date, no one (other than perhaps your liver) is going to stop you.

There’s not much else to do now except sit back, stay busy, and wait for your score. If you’re not too thrilled when you get your score back, then chill. It’s going to be ok. You won’t be penalized for retaking the LSAT. You might want to try a different kind of prep. For example, if you exclusively went to an LSAT prep class, try doing an online LSAT course. If you did purely online, try a hybrid course where you get live instruction streamed live to you. Or, if you’ve done all the above, let’s talk about tutoring. Our Academic Managers can help match you with a tutor that fits your personality!

If, on the other hand, you’re thinking about canceling this score, you have some time to make this decision. You can read up on LSAC’s official cancellation policy here. The official cancellation policy according to LSAC: you have until 11:59 pm EST on the sixth day after the exam to cancel using your LSAC account. In layman’s term: you have until Sunday, 11:59 pm Eastern to cancel. So sleep on it. Take a look at this video, for the advice from Blueprint co-founder Matt Riley.

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Before canceling, you should also be aware that nearly every law school will simply use your highest LSAT when constructing your academic index, or whatever calculation it uses to assess you as an applicant. Although law schools will see every score you got on the LSAT, the vast majority of them won’t hold having multiple LSAT scores against you to a significant degree. For most test takers, our recommendation is … don’t cancel. Choose to receive your score, just on the chance that you’ll be happy enough to with the score that you don’t have to study for the next exam. For more thorough discussion of this issue, check out this blog post.

Either way, you deserve a hearty congratulations. So get off this post, leave your computer for a little bit, and enjoy the life you’ve neglected to study for this test! If you decide you’d like to take another shot at the exam in July, we’ll be here for you, ready to help.

Your June 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction was originally published on LSAT Blog

#instant recap #june lsat #LSAT #trent teti #lsat

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