#i spent so long on this post i need to log off immediately for tasks

[suckinitup]

@anachronistic-falsehood

rolan: make him a case 53. black eyes and antenna and one freakish bug arm but he's got the same thing as taylor where people are like "why is he so still...." and just. make him bug ! give him another set of arms too fuck it time for mantis arms. like from your fic but All the Time and he has a completely miserable time about it. he still tries to wear suits. he's a fucking lawyer goddamnit he wants to handle traffic tickets when he's not getting the shit beaten out of him please god let him do One paperwork. this is kinda hard for him tho because you remember that period where he couldnt speak at all? when the only thing he could do was click? yeah that's permanent too . i dont think it was always like that but i do think his vocal chords got literally torn out when everything in the bayou was going down. ive got Thoughts about how he can be a case 53 and his relationship to the bug queen and his friends but those thoughts are locked behind a spoilers paywall im sorry. anyway he's got this cool little gadget where he can press buttons and it shouts shit for him so he can warn his guys in battles. the "RUN" button has been pressed so many times that its letters have worn away. i havent even talked about specific powers yet. im slapping this boy with Brute--im p sure he'd be striker if he could change out of this bug form? but worm universe is cruel so im gonna be cruel too and nah. nah. this shit's forever. he's probably got a very minor thinker power a la peter sqloint that lets him know when people are looking at him too. isn't that nice for him. its absolutely saved his life but when he's not actively in danger it just really fucking sucks. UNLESS the only people around are rand and kian. they're allowed to look at him. he feels safe w them Kian: cauldron cape <3 this fucking stockbroker rockstar wannabe would LOVE to buy magic powers are you kidding me. he'd be on that shit so fast. yeah he probably would have triggered on his own eventually but nah he doesnt have time for that shit he's got money and he's got babes now its time for a little fameeeeee !! im just. not sure what powers he would get tho. WAIT NO I KNOW. changer. you remember when he was a big bug monster. except i dont think he'd be bugs i think he'd be like- something way too fleshy and amorphous, not really something you can put on a poster. some sort of body modification. hey what if he stretches out his arm and it looks like the barrier blood goo shit that the bitb bugs were always plastering on everything. give him fame but make him want to keep it separate from Kian Stone the rockstar-to-be. like its still awesome to save the day and shit but man. he's fucking grody, dude. he's punkrock and nasty and would look really cool if he draped himself across the rafters and like the lights were off and there was a smoke machine and there was some SICK guitar riffs. but in the daylight when he does that changer shit its just. kinda yucky

Rand: yeah. thinker. two hundred percent he's a thinker. and here's where we get to the fun part of "what i think happened in that bayou" because i would keep him from that sweet sweet power set until he sees his sister again, next to the burning car, and triggers right there in the bushes with like five smokes in his mouth. i think he and kian and rolan have been friends for a while right. and yeah rolan is a bug and its. kinda a spectacle for him to come back into town but whatever!! fucking whatever!!! that is rand's Guy okay and he's going to smoke weed with an anxious bug and its literally fine. (i dont think kian has bought his powers yet). rands powers tho. hehe. i think theyre Really Good but also Stupid. like they tell him who he can or can't trust. he can pose a question like "hey is that my sister" and the powers will go "nah." or he can go "hey is there a brain controlling galloway rn" and his powers will go "yah. thumbs up emoji" because there's no fucking NUANCE. technically there is a brain controlling galloway. its just inside a bug queen. like with practice and specific questions he could do some CRAZY shit with this power like a tattletale/dinah crossover from weed hell but rand is also one paranoid motherfucker. and i think he gets it into his head that he can't trust his power. it keeps telling him he can trust it and he can trust rand and kian and that he cant trust basically anyone in the town he grew up in (and he knows that!! he knows that !!!) and no one is fucking believing him and its wrong, once or twice ("wrong" in that he made assumptions and his power gave him a straight answer instead of anythiing w context. it gives him the Truth and nothing else. if he asked about ufos it'd say "yeah that's real" because there are in fact unidentified objects that are flying out there). ilu rand mental breakdown and turning on your friends and not trusting them and having a bad fucking time about it. honestly maybe he goes thru most of the Horrors without powers and then its during his paranoia spiral pointing a gun at rolan that he triggers. maybe he shoots rolan and the shock of him like . Doing That. is what gets him. something awesome and fucked up .

i think kian is PISSED because he spends most of the bitb worm flavoured adventure unconscious aksjdfhsd i think he's PISSED about it and that he didnt trigger and that what what actually makes him take the plunge to buy powers and join a hero team with them. because what the fuck dudes he's feeling left out :C and then its something thats a lil nasty anyway so it sucks . idk what to do about his thing with becky it feels cheap to say that he just never saw her but i think its really funny if he just. gets to chill thru most of this shit. comic relief. and then the horrors come in the aftermath. maybe becky survives what happened to the bug queen and THATS when she goes and fucks kian up with an evil kiss that melts him. maybe she's a bug with trump powers and his cauldron powers used to be less terrifying and then she comes in and melts him and his powers are never the same. yeah im going with that

help this si so long. but bug queen. she just Showed Up the way that she just Showed up in canon. i think she works a lot like canon where she just. casually takes people over and makes them bugs. gives them powers as she does it. its a slow process which is why its taken so long but she's finally reached the point where she's getting bolder when the boys take her out (ADN EVERYONE LIVES. TRAUMATIZED BUT ALIVE). like absolutely she COULD have been an S-Class if she'd found a good power combo or had more time to amass a bigger army in secret--kinda like it was only a matter of time thing, but she was just weak enough still that the boys could get her. i cant go more in depth on her without HUGE worm spoilers but man...... bug queen

HEY HEY HEY. SPEAKING OF NHW. im probably not gonna use them as background characters or anything at least not yet but i'm wondering if u would perhaps have Thoughts on what the bitb boys powers would b if they were parahumans. i have like. vague ideas of trigger events (rand's being losing rachel, rolan's seeing the bodies in the water, kian's could b fucking Anything he's kind of had a shit life in general yk) and i think i've like. briefly talked abt what their powers could be??? but i haven't given it much thought. rand thinker powers (<<my beloved paranoid boy) rolan changer/striker maybe and kian like. idk kian's a mystery 2 me rn. and also trying 2 figure out what the queen and the hivemind would be!!! like a fucking endbringer type monster with insane fucking master powers??? i don't know!!! i don't think i'll put them in nhw (it is a primarily prime defenders au and i don't wanna muddy it too much w other characters) but i just RLY want 2 discuss what the hell their situation would b. gripping u by the shoulders. if u had to put the bitb boys in worm what would u do with them. do u have thoughts. eyes emoji!!!!

HI WHIKSEY HI. yeah youve infected me with brain worms (ha! ) and now imagine me staring into the distance . what would i do to them if i put them into worm.... i love love love rand thinkers powers absolutely yes agreed. okay but listen here me out here is what i would do to them if i put them into worm.

hang on tumblr is being a lil freak and not letting me post this if ive got too many words or something??? idk im gonna try to add my thoughts to a rb tho. the amount of thoughts is normal

[obsidiancreates]

As My Friend Has Stood By Me, So Shall I (Part 20)

Favoured, Yes...

While the next morning comes with great concern when Bilbo shows up to breakfast with a burnt and blistered hand and deep bags under his eyes, and then a great deal of convincing from Bilbo that he’s fine and he just didn’t realize how hot the logs were after his fire went out sometime in the night, the rest of Spring passes with an unexpected and welcomed calmness.

The Company, for their part, seem to be contented with the shared meals most days and stop being quite so pushy with him- oh, they still force him into plenty of outings, each one taking a turn at least once a day to see to him and drag him on some small task or another, but at least now when he says he’s drained and done for the day they don’t put up a fight about it- though he does notice a steady increase in tension among them. It’s not quite a fighting tension, but it’s… similar. Not unlike what he’d felt in the air as they waited for a morning, months ago, where Elves and Men would slaughter they few fourteen in empty, death-ridden halls.

He tries to ask when he first notices it, about two weeks after he gets his clothes back, but they just wave it off by saying there’s mounting stress with the repairs. And no wonder- when Thorin steals Bilbo away one day for a bit of discussion on the land he’s having cleared and readied for Bilbo’s garden, Thorin ends up admitting that he and Dain have been locked in a fight with one of Dain’s generals about the matter of The Arkenstone. Apparently the general was an Ereborian refugee’s son and felt it an almost personal dishonor to his mother’s memory that The Arkenstone was now put far, far away where none could see it.

It’s clear to Bilbo how those kinds of tensions could bleed out into the rest of The Mountain. It’s not the first time he’d heard mutterings by some about how Thorin, great and honorable a warrior as he is, may not have the right mindset to lead a kingdom that was no longer poor and struggling.

If any dwarves he overheard saying such things from then on found unseen presences knocking tankards of ale into their face or feeling a swift and rough tugging of their braids or things of the like occurring immediately following the complaints, well, Bilbo could only say he was satisfied.

And of course, thankful for his Luck for helping him get a little revenge in Thorin’s stead.

Beyond that, it’s quiet. Quiet in terms of activity, anyway, not in terms of noise. Bilbo still finds himself frequently slipping The Ring on and sneaking away to the gates on days he knew lazy, sleepy guards were posted, or to The Secret Door when he wanted true alone time, and yes… once or twice to the treasury, when he had a feeling he needed to be able to hear if The Company called for him.

His garden was started just before the end of the first month of Spring, and flourished well. As it turned out, for all his concern that Orc Blood would make for poor soil, Blood was Blood and like the blood of any other creature it actually nourished the dirt across the battlefield.

He would’ve preferred to just use accidentally left-to-long-to-cook meat scraps like in The Shire (or the poor little critters that he would strike down with stones in his youth like his mother used, to his father’s quiet dismay), but as long as he didn’t think too hard about it and was just glad for the growing he could manage.

Ori in particular spent a lot of time with him in his garden, the second most frequent visitor being Thorin and the third being Bofur. Thorin and Bofur were always a little stiff, a little wary- the garden was close to the water, after all, and the memories were starker for them than the then-unconscious-Bilbo. But Ori, having no such memories made and needing good light for a lot of his scribe-apprentice duties anyway, enjoyed it as much as any dwarf could enjoy gardening.

He also developed a habit of asking Bilbo quite a lot about Hobbit Culture, which Bilbo was usually happy to explain- though he was under no impressions that Hobbit were flawless, he still didn’t love explaining that yes, other races tended to view them as having no passions outside of food, and it was sadly understandable why when one only takes a passing journey through The Shire once or twice and never again. Ori claimed it was because, since Bilbo was part of The Company and a hero of Erebor, the records wouldn’t be truly complete without plenty of detail on just who and what Hobbits are.

Bilbo thinks it’s just because his friends were embarrassed when they realized how little of his culture they actually knew after he left it for theirs.

Which is very sweet, even if someone of the questions made his chest pinch in suspicion, like What do Hobbits value above all else? and What do Hobbits consider to be pre- valued heirlooms? and You were pretty protective of your tomatoes and chairs, do Hobbits get protective like that about everything?

The questions like that make him bristle and press his arm to his side, press his Luck closer to his body. Especially when Ori’s eyes trail down to his pocket while they’re being asked.

But still, no-one outright asks about his Luck anymore, which is good. Very good. It makes Bilbo happy. If sometimes his hand goes to his pocket, and he drifts away from the present and into some hazy, soft-voiced world far away, only to be dragged back with a sharp intake of breath when something impresses itself in his vision, and he blinks into awareness to find his friends barely reacting…

If sometimes he gets a little sick and a little desperate in those moments, it’s nothing. Just a coincidence. His Luck makes him feel better. Even when it makes him feel worse.

By the time Summer rolls around, he’s got an entire new wardrobe to spend it in, and a good thing he does because it is hot work in his garden with the absence of any shady trees to give him a little relief from relentless sun. Dori clearly has a good, efficient system set up with his brothers, though Bilbo privately wishes he would stop leaving the pockets to whom he’s pretty sure at this point is Nori. Ori just wouldn’t be okay sending those lazy stitchings to Bilbo.

But he’s got his sewing kit, so he just mends them up and says nothing about it. Dori makes sure he has pockets on every waistcoat and pair of trousers, so Bilbo won’t complain about them. 

That’s probably why Ori keeps glancing at his pockets, really, knowing Nori did them. That knowledge still doesn’t make Bilbo feel better about it.

When he’s not gardening or wearing his Ring or wanting to be alone but still wants to be outside, Bilbo takes to sitting on a nice little outcropping and smoking his pipe and looking South.

He’s not sure why South. His eyes are just always drawn there, as his hand drawn to his pocket, and the two urges seem to go together like butter and bread. When he looks South his hand comes to hold his Luck, and when he holds his Luck while outside his eyes are drawn Southward.

It’s within the last two week of Summer that Ori asks him about it. “Why d’you keep looking that way?”

Bilbo, pipe in his mouth and dirt still on his hands, blows out a smoke ring. “What way?”

Ori gestures with his pen.

“Just a nice view, I suppose.”

“Of Dale?”

“Not looking at Dale.”

“What are you looking at? There’s nothing else there.”

“Well, what’s past Dale then, beside Laketown?”

“Not much but plains, I think.” Ori bites the end of his pen. “And past that it’s Ered Lithui, and then… Mordor.” Ori shivers a little.

“Mordor?” Bilbo’s eyes drift back to the South. “Sounds very welcoming.”

Ori nods, picking up on Bilbo’s flat tone as being sarcasm. “We’ve got lots of old stories about it in the records. We’re far enough away to be safe, but close enough to not want to forget why we shouldn’t go that way. I guess Hobbits live too far away from it to care?”

“We generally don’t bother with anything outside of The Shire. Honestly, I think most Hobbits would find Thranduil’s ‘keep to our lands and let everyone else fend for themselves’ quite reasonable.”

“... I’ll leave that out of the official records.”

“Won’t reflect very well on us, I expect?”

“Not at all.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Still nothin’?” Nori leans against the back of his chair hard. “I’ve never done a shoddier job of those pockets!”

Ori gives him brother a reassuring pat on the arm. “I’m sure they’re the worst.”

Nori pats Ori’s hand back in thanks. “Nothin’ worser!” 

 “Perhaps it’s just a very light item?” Balin suggests, but Bofur blows out a breath and shakes his head.

“I heard it clinkin’ down the gold that day in the treasury, sounded plen’y weighted then. Unless it was jus’ movin’ around coins, bu’ tha’ doesn’ seem right.”

“So we’re no closer to an answer than we were months ago,” Thorin growls. “Does he seem worse to any of you?”

There’s some murmurs of deliberation.

“I’ve only seem ‘im to train ‘im with tha’ wee sword,” Dwalin says. “No big issues.”

Balin shakes his head. “No news from me, either.”

Ori and Bombur both raise their hands, and Bombur nods to Ori to let him speak for them 

both. “I told Bombur about wha’ Bilbo told me about Hobbit diets,” Ori says, pulling out his large notebook, “We’re both sure now tha’ he’s eating less than half what he should.”

The news brings about a dark mood. Less than half. Even now, when their adventure is done and the shock of battle and survival don’t flow through Bilbo’s veins to keep him going when by all means he should be unable to. Extended starvation is something none of The Company, and indeed no dwarf of Ered Luin, is unfamiliar with. But enduring it without reason…

“But,” Ori says, flipping his book open, “He is excited for his plants to start making food. He might eat more then.”

“If ‘e can wait that long,” Dwalin grunts. “Skin and bones.”

“That’s a tad dramatic, brother, for all he is thin,” Balin says. 

“Won’ be soon.”

“Enough.” Thorin is pale from the idea of Bilbo so wasted away. “So he is not worse, but no better.”

No, no better. Still has moments where his mind drifts, where he reacts with strange sharpness, remains secretive and suspicious and protective of his pockets. He still locks his door tight every night, even when sometimes they can hear a faint shout of alarm in the late hours that undoubtedly come from a dream borne of warrior’s weariness, the feelings amd actions and images of his perils haunting him long past their ending. Does he dream of The Five Armies? Of the thing he told Thorin he met in the goblin tunnels? Of the wargs snapping at them all from the bases of trees, or of giant spiders that he and he alone heard speak, or of whatever he endured with the dragon before he was joined? He won’t speak of it, so they can’t say. But it’s clear he doesn’t sleep well.

“What about Gandalf?” Thorin looks to Kili. “Your elf-maid made to find him months ago now.”

Kili winces. “Dunno, Uncle. We still can’t send ravens to Mirkwood and she hasn’t sent any word.”

“You’re sure she didn’ run away? Tell Thranduil one o’ our own is unwell?” Dwalin looks at Kili very unhappily. “Af’er you told her wha’ was wrong with ‘im?”

Kili sinks lower into his seat. Thorin, and by extension everyone else, had forgiven him and Fili forgetting that they agreed not to tell of Bilbo’s issues, but forgiveness and forgetfulness are not one and the same. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“And I trust your judgment of her,” Thorin says, glaring at Dwalin until the old warrior grumbles an apology to the prince. “But I do not trust the other elves. They may be delaying her if they know she was sent by our line.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tauriel had been granted entry to the halls of her home, but not to beyond. Not without a deal.

Her King had seen her, and made it clear she was not banished- but was not wholly forgiven, either. For all that she had betrayed his orders for a real and pure love, she had still betrayed them, and in doing so led his own son into great dangers and treasonous actions of his own, even if unintentionally on her part.

“You’re welcome in our halls, of course,” he’d said, “And among our people. But permission to hunt through our forest is granted only to our guard, which you are not.”

“I do not hunt for enemies, my lord,” she had said, “But for an ally. Mithrandir is needed in Erebor.”

“Mithrandir may not even be within this first anymore, for all I am aware of his dealings.”

“I must start with what I know, my lord.”

“... I shall grant you your hunt,” Thranduil had said, beckoning her closer to his throne, “But only when you have fulfilled a task for me. You were our best Captain, Tauriel, and with my son gone on a journey of his own I have need of you more than ever.”

She had bowed. “What task awaits me, my lord?”

“There is a new creature spreading filth among our lands. The spiders are all but driven out, and the rot is clearing, but still Fell Things are drawn beneath our canopies. The guard have spied a creature on more than one occasion, but have been unable to catch it. It is small, pale, and I’m told resembles something of a starving child but with terrible evil in its reflective eyes. It mutters to itself at all hours, but when it is caught and knows it it becomes as silent as you or I and disappears without a trace. They’ve found mauled, eaten raw animals scattered through the forest, and heard the shrinking of carelessly-caught creatures echo through the trees.”

Tauriel nods. “I will find and catch this foul beast for you, my lord.” It seemed such a simple task then, such a quick challenge with which to gain free roam of the woods she called home.

But it was not. The creature was cunning, and crafty, and used the remaining sickness of the land to its advantage. It was too at home in the foulest of areas, areas so choked with Evil that Tauriel could hardly stand to enter them. Her search dragged, on and on, even as Thranduil assigned more and more to assist her.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Nasty elfses. Nasty, nasty elfses! Hunting us, hunting us Precious! We do nothing to them, gollum, gollum!”

“Ooooh, they hates us, Precious! They would kills us if they could!”

“But they cannot find us. No, no, keep them guessing, gollum! Gollum! Yesss, hiding, sneaking…”

“Sneaking and hiding, we are lost, Precious! Lost, lost, as lost as our Precious is, oooooh!”

“Shut up! They are close… we finds it soon, yes, soon, Precious… gollum, gollum.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Close, close. It hasn’t been this close to It’s Master in an age.

Awake, alive, It knows he calls for It. He is close, and It is close.

This new one, this new Bearer, he is sturdy of mind and will but he is claimed. It will have him. It is awake. It is alive. It is close to home.

He must not go back, away, to the rolling hills and peaceful green of his longing. Never, never, It will Sleep there. It will sleep long, long years, and he will love It and protect It and keep It but he will not fall, fall, fall into It’s Power, not fully. He is Strong, he is Kind, he is Good. It must work, work, seep and curl and claim.

It likes him. He is Good and it despises this, but he is also… fun. He is among Good and he may taint it. He is among Hope and he may kill it. He is surrounded by Love, and he may Crush it. Yes, crush it, they may watch, may watch him wither and weaken and wane and they may despair, they may see His Power and His Will and see their loved fall to Him, to It, as all will.

Yes, yes, It likes him. He uses It in such interesting ways. To escape a dragon an to warn a king but he cannot tell of It, still, no… no, his Good is in It’s grasp, and It sees him use It’s power how he thinks is Good, and he gives himself to It more and more as he does… and he loves it now, loves it as The Others, the bearers before. Yes…

Baggins. He is Baggins. It’s Baggins. Corrupted and Claimed. He belongs to It, yes, yes… he will belong to Him, when It returns home, yes…

Favoured bearer. Favoured victim… yes…

[pillow-anime-talk]

11 + Kenma Kozume from Haikyuu with fem reader (I forgot to add pronouns, so sorry) Congratulations on 1k :)))

# tags: scenario; current relationship; light romance; drama; fluff; mention of crying; gaming; sfw

includes: female reader ft. kenma kozume {hq!!}.

author’s note: thank you so, so, so much! 

11.  Kissing tears from the other’s face.

Kenma found a new, very interesting RPG game a few weeks ago, with an extensive world, really great graphics, numerous tasks, a lot of events and daily rewards for logging into the game world. Additionally, there were also ‘once a month events’, definitely more worth waiting than anything else. As a player from passion and choice, Kenma spent a lot of money to make his main character better than initially and decided to do the same for the upcoming event where he could get a very rare fire bow and potions for resurrection and healing.

Unfortunately, fate wasn’t very kind to a professional player this time, and despite spending a lot of money (both in-game and real to buy more diamonds), the only thing he managed to get was a sword, slightly better than the current one, and ingredients to create invisibility powder, which was completely useless for the type of character the young man was using. His frustration also increased when it turned out that one of his online friends had posted a picture on Instagram with a screen image and a red, really beautiful bow dreamed by Kozume.

Since you and Kenma had been living together for two years, you immediately heard your boyfriend kicking at the desk, and then he swears in nervousness louder than ever. You fastly wiped your hands on the paper towel that stood next to the sink, and then quickly headed towards your bedroom. You saw a pissed off young man, a pushed back desk, a colorful computer game and your boyfriend’s hand, who was ready to throw the black controller out of the window. Fortunately, you stopped him and took the pad from his hands, placing it after a while on the black wood.

“... Kenma? What happened, baby? Why are you crying?” You asked quietly as you took the black headphones off his head and then grabbed both cheeks.  Also you stroked his dyed blonde hair a few seconds ago. “It’s because of the game?”

“Because of the fucking scam. I can’t get a stupid bow!” He screamed, and you rubbed your thumbs over his eyelids, soothing him with your humming voice.

“I understand. Easy, my love. We’ll do something with it, I promise. Sounds okay?” You whispered, then moved closer to him to kiss his forehead and cheeks. You stroked his head and his hot neck without haste. Then you focused again on the soft kisses all over his face to relax his tense muscles in both his face and whole body.

Fortunately, thanks to you, Kenma felt much better than two minutes ago. He sighed under his breath as he felt you rub his cheeks again with your little hands, then you stepped aside to look at his slightly flushed, pouty face.

“It’s better now?”

“A little.”

“Can you explain to me what this is all about? Maybe I can help you, hmm?” You smiled softly and your boyfriend nodded uncertainly. You took your seat on his lap and he slowly explained to you what you need to do to win the grand prize.

When you clicked the ‘STOP’ button at the right moment, you accidentally clicked the left trigger and in a strange way you randomly got something that caused fireworks to appear on the screen. You looked back slightly at Kenma, who stared at the screen in surprise, then turned his red eyes at you.

“W-What have you done?”

“I don’t know!” You put your palms up. “What I won?”

“Crossbow! A fucking crossbow that was a hidden item, and even better than a bow! Y-Y/N!” The first time in a long time you saw him so excited. You were glad that he wasn’t crying anymore, so you smiled and put your arms around his waist, inhaling his pleasant, home scent. “... I love you so fucking much.”

“For getting you a super cool crossbow, huh?” You laughed when you kissed him on the forehead again, and then wiped the gamer’s wet face with your sweatshirt sleeve.

“That too, but I love you in general... Like, for what you did before... You know.” You felt his cheeks getting hotter and you giggled as you pressed your own face tighter against his chest.

Meanwhile, you didn’t even realize that all of your latest acts were streamed to the wide audience of Kenma who always recorded himself while he was playing. And well, maybe it’s better for you not to know about it, because you’d be really embarrassed to see how many sweet words your boyfriend’s fans say about you; in short, they recognized you as the girl of the decade that every viewer wanted to have!

[eastertag]

The Hunt

@godsliltippy gift for @soniabigcheese

—

Happy Easter, @soniabigcheese !!! Hope you enjoy!

It started off innocent as most things do. It made sense considering his brothers were still too young to even go out searching on their own when it had fallen to him to host the event. 

A four and six year old, hands clinging to his, walked by his side as Virgil led the two blondes through the fence of the horse field, the animals resting in the barn. Gordon would typically be pulling with his excitement, but this year was a little bit different. Alan was much the same, though when he saw the two brightly painted baskets, his enthusiasm took over and he ran forward to reach them first. 

Virgil had spent that day playing the part their mother always had, but with his own twist on the game. They had to find their prizes before the time ran out. The first round had gone to Gordon, seeing as their kid brother made it a habit to shout out with each one he found. Technically, it should have ended then, but the two were having too much fun - getting to be little kids again - and Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to force them back inside. Another round, giggles coming from the boys as their big brother hid the treats once more. It was a simple task and one Virgil was glad to do.

It was Easter, after all. They had to find joy in whatever ways they could.

And then, year after year, that innocent game grew into something far more intricate.

“You two ready?” Virgil called from the pilot’s seat over the sound of air rushing in from the open hatch behind him. He didn’t need to turn around in order to picture the two blondes, parachutes fashioned to their backs, grinning with anticipation.

“Just say go already!” Alan griped with a laugh.

The engineer simply grinned, content to make them wait that much longer. 

“Virg,” Gordon piped in, sensing his co-pilot’s hesitance. “Viiiiirg, Virgil, V-man, c'mon, say go.“ 

Alan joined in with the whine with a long, drawn out "Viiiiiiiirrrrggggiiiiillllll-”

Until finally, “Just go!” And a little less shouted, “Couple of children.” He glanced over his shoulder to see they’d both vanished, “Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 5, do you have them?”

“They’re descending into the forest now,” John’s knowing grin appeared over his console. 

“FAB, let the annual Easter Egg Hunt begin.”

OoOoOoO

This had to be, hands down, one of his favorite training exercises. The water-based ones were a given, but this one was special. Though they classified it as a training session for search and rescue, Gordon understood what it really was. Virgil planned it every year - way back to the point it seemed like he always had - and each year was more challenging than the last. This wasn’t a kid’s hunt anymore. 

Their parachutes deployed well above the ground and they floated over the tree canopy to descend into the clearing they’d been aiming for. Alan already had his pack off and was sidling up with a holographic view of the area. Unlike their first few Easter Egg hunts that declared the brother with the most eggs the winner, this one required teamwork. They had to find the egg together if they wanted to win. 

“Looks like it’s about seven miles that way,” the young astronaut pointed northeast, into the dense forest. On a real rescue, this might’ve elicited a groaned complaint about being dropped too far out. Today, it was all for fun. 

“Lead the way, Al,” Gordon offered, remembering Scott’s instructions to let the youngest gain further experience heading up a mission. The aquanaut was more than happy to accomodate. He and Alan might have their moments of brotherly annoyance, but in the field, when actions needed to be immediate, they were efficient. Even the Big Brothers Supreme had to admit the two youngest could handle most situations on their own. It meant far less questioning from the elders when it was just the two of them.

They took off at a brisk pace into the wooded countryside of British Columbia, scaling roots and fallen trees as they went. The icon hovering over Alan’s wrist continued to point them in the right direction and Gordon felt a pang of regret. This was all too easy. It made sense to use the tracking tech, considering John would have technically given them a set of coordinates if someone needed rescuing, but it meant the exercise would be done as soon as they found their blinking target. They really needed to rethink these events once they were over.

“Wait -” Alan stopped after jumping from a moss covered log.

“What’s up?” Amber eyes watched the hologram lift so he could see. It was faint, but unmistakable. “Is it moving?”

“Seems like it. We’re gonna have to pick up the pace if we want to catch up with it,” they were already running before Alan finished, the thought that an animal had found it making Gordon immediately regret his earlier grievance. 

The foliage rushed by them as they sprinted at a potentially hazardous speed, but they knew it would be necessary. It helped that they’d been preparing for this over the past month, knowing how much their brother liked to leave the egg in unpopulated areas. No need to bother civilians with their unannounced training exercises. 

They had accounted for most any situation and running through woodland areas was at the top of their list. It didn’t mean it was all easy going. Gordon was so used to the pool or ocean, the weeks of jogging around the island had left him sore the first week. Now, pushing himself further than what they’d planned for, he could feel his muscles starting to protest. 

Their run continued for another two miles until they were forced to stop again, this time by the flow of a river. It would be too deep the wade across and he quickly made the decision for the two of them, “I’ll swim across. Tether yourself to your grapple line and I’ll tow you across." 

"I can make it with you,” Alan protested and there was no doubt he could.

“I know, but we still have a ways to run. One of us needs to preserve as much energy as they can,” he was glad to see understanding in the sky blue eyes. “Y'know, just in case.”

“Right, you fall over and I’m not carrying you,” the younger blonde teased. 

Gordon was eyeing his potential route, giving his brother a chuckle, “I didn’t even consider that as an option. Think Virg’ll give you extra points if you do?”

“Oooh, probably,” he sounded intrigued. “But still, not sure I want to run and carry you a few miles if I don’t have to.”

“FAB. Alright, I’m going in here,” he pointed up stream, securing his helmet as he went. “The grapple should make it all the way across when I get there. It’s not gonna be a straight shot, so you’ll need to head downstream a bit.”

“Got it,” Alan offered a grin with a mock salute usually reserved for himself and Scott, remnants of their time when it was ingrained into their daily lives. Gordon guessed his little brother had picked it up from seeing the two of them using it on rescues together. “Nothing crazy, just get across.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” and without another directive, he stepped into the river. The current wasn’t as strong as he’d expected, but it was still enough to drag him miles downstream if he didn’t hurry. As it grew too deep to stand, the aquanaut kicked off the pebbled bottom and began stroking through the water. 

The familiarity and comfort of it felt more like a rest for his tired limbs, but he knew better than to relax. Halfway across, he felt an underwater boulder scrape across his stomach and he stalled for only a moment, mentally checking for damage. No pain meant he could continue and he was pleased to find the other side of the river a few feet away. 

Climbing up the bank, Gordon turned to locate his little brother, only - “Alan?” The other side of the river was vacant and he felt his heart rate spike as he listened before activating their comm link, “Alan, where are you?”

A grunt sounded through his helmet and he sighed with the knowledge his brother was there, “Sorry, tripped over a log. You were moving pretty fast, but I should be there in a minute.”

Even as Alan spoke, Gordon caught sight of the blonde hair bouncing through the treeline. Content in knowing the astronaut was fine, he began a few post-swim stretches with the desire to not seize up while he waited. When his little brother finally made it to the point closest to his own side, it appeared Alan needed to do the same.

“That coulda gone better,” the younger blonde whined as he collected his grapple from his baldric. 

“Next year, we’ll have to request a closer drop off,” though, if he were honest, the view was worth the trek. They were in the uninhabited wilderness and getting to see what very few were allowed. Even with their ships, it was easy to miss how amazing their planet could be.

Catching the grapple as it was shot across, Gordon went to work creating a rudimentary pulley system with himself and a tree, “Alright, Al! Your turn!”

The astronaut mimicked his older brother, carefully stepping into the water before pushing out into the flow. The line grew tight and Gordon stepped back with it, gritting against the strength of the water as it pulled at Alan. The tree held as he towed the cable across its back, concentrating on each movement until he heard the shout from behind him. Turning, he saw his brother’s helmet peek over the bank, a moment later, the blonde heaving his way up to dry ground.

“Woo, that was intense!” Alan chuckled as he undid his grapple. 

Gordon dropped his end and grinned against the vibrating muscles in his arms, “Tell me about it! Hopefully, we won’t run into any more rivers to cross.” He wasn’t sure he could provide a repeat performance, not that he would confess that out loud just yet.

Bringing up the map, they found the blinking dot was still five miles away - and still moving. Their eyes locked with wavering uncertainty, but neither said a word as they took off towards their destination. 

“What if-” Alan’s voice bounced through the wooded air, “something ate it.”

“Then we give it-” Gordon answered, just as breathless, “to Virgil. Let him - deal with it.”

“Seems fair,” the forest floor had become littered with shrubs and fallen trees, evidence of a storm making their trip a bit more hazardous and slowing them down. What helped, however, was seeing that the beacon had slowed as well. “What if it’s a bear?”

“What woulda - bear want with - an egg?” Logically, a real egg would make for a treat for any carnivore, but this was metal and painted iR blue. 

“A bird then?” Apparently, his little brother was considering all the worst case scenarios.

“A bird would move - way faster,” and now he was trying to imagine what kind of creature would have the ability and desire to take off with their prize.

They didn’t have to think too long before they found themselves coming up on the egg’s location and it appeared to have stopped. Jumping over another fallen tree, they could hear an odd, high pitched sound. They slowed as they rounded a large pine and nearly tripped over the roots as their culprit came into view.

Culprits, actually.

Two figures sat huddled against a tree, one, a young woman, crying into her knees as the other, a man, gazed into the sky helplessly. In less than a second, the game was over as the two Tracys realized their Easter Egg hunt had just become a full fledged rescue.

“Hello! Are you two alright?” Gordon called from their spot by the tree. Two sets of eyes honed in on them, shock turning to surprise, then to unbridled relief. The woman was up first, running towards them as tears fell down her face. She collided with the aquanaut, who tried his best to stay upright, but ended up leaning against the tree for support. 

The man soon joined them, his expression one of disbelief, “How did you find us?”

“You two are lost?” Alan sidestepped the question. 

“Yeah, we - we thought we were still on the trail, but I think we missed a marker. We’ve been trying to find our way back for hours.” He took a seat as Alan instructed, the woman joining as Gordon helped maneuver her off of him. 

“You’re safe now. We’re International Rescue,” Gordon gave them both his best reassuring smile. “Our ride should be here momentarily.”

As the hikers fell into the blanketing comfort of the rescuers’ presence, Alan activated the link to their brother, “Thunderbird 2, we’re ready for pick up with a couple more passengers.”

Virgil answered with an understandable amount of confusion, “Say again, Alan?”

“We found a couple of lost hikers. They’re in good shape, but they could use a ride,” with an FAB of confirmation, the astronaut cut the link before taking a seat on the leaf covered floor with a huff.

Gordon followed suit, trying and failing at keeping his fatigue from showing now that their race was over. He gave the man an apologetic grin, “Sorry, we had to run to catch up with you. About ten miles?”

Alan confirmed, “And over a river.”

“How did you know where we were - or even that we were lost?” The question came from the woman, now smiling through her tears. 

Gordon looked to his brother, catching the same sheepish expression he felt on his own face. Turning back to the couple, he asked “Did you two find an egg? It was blue.”

The woman nodded as she pulled her pack off and began rummaging through its contents. She came back with the oval object, handing it to Alan. Her companion explained, “It was sitting on a tree stump, so we took it. Sorry.”

“Oh, no, that was a good thing!” The aquanaut waved off the apology, “It’s got a built in tracker. We wouldn’t have been able to find you without it.”

They seemed relieved until another question caught their curiosity, “You two were searching - for an egg?”

“Part of our training,” Alan covered, as they had with Scott the first time Virgil had planned it. “Just - Easter themed.” The explanation earned them a laugh, the couple content with knowing they were safe. “Speaking of,” the astronaut reached into a pocket on his baldric and retrieved a vacuum sealed pouch. Upon breaking the seal, the contents expanded back to their original forms. “Anyone want a marshmallow bunny?”

The treats were passed out and consumed quickly by the hungry group. A moment later and the sound of VTOL filled the air above them, followed by the rustling of the treetops. The chair harness was deployed and the four loaded in to be carried to safety.

An hour later, they were on their way back to the island, Alan snoozing in the rear passenger seat. Gordon was considering a nap himself, but he couldn’t help wanting to keep his copilot company, “Thanks for doing all this, Virg.”

The engineer shrugged, “Not much to it, but I’m glad it helped those hikers today.”

“It’s not just that, though,” he was feeling a bit sappy, a side effect of being worn out. “You’ve always made Easter special for me and Alan. I can’t really remember a time you didn’t do something for the holiday, so thanks.”

Virgil sat silently for a moment, his eyes forward and difficult to read from Gordon’s angle. He was about to leave it and reconsider a quick nap when his brother spoke, soft and reverent, “Mom used to plan scavenger hunts - for all of us. You two always needed help with yours, so I’d get up early and mom would let me do my hunt. By the time you and Alan made it outside, I was done and able to give you little hints. It was just something we always did. And then,” he fell silent, but the understanding was there. Clearing his throat, he added, “You two deserved to enjoy Easter as much as we did.”

Gordon didn’t know what to say to that, too tired to think but desperate to let his brother know how much his words meant to him. Shear reflex seemed to be the only alternative as his chair pivoted and he wrapped his arms around his big brother. Virgil let out a startled laugh, trying to keep his ‘Bird steady as the aquanaut latched on. He heard the autopilot engage before his brother returned the embrace, then shoved the smaller form back in his seat.

“You’re the best, Virg,” Gordon grinned. 

“I’ll have to remind you of that next time we have to do scheduled maintenance on all the modules,” a knowing smile as Gordon’s fell. 

It came back a moment later, “Fine, but can we at least listen to something other than ragtime?”

“Hey, that’s my motivation,” Virgil sounded with offense. 

“Maybe to your old butt,” and just like that, the teasing took over the weight of his big brother’s yearly responsibility to the youngest. “Some of us have taste.”

“That’s it,” Virgil reached down and activated the onboard stereo system. Before Gordon could stop it, the upbeat sounds of the piano keys bounced through the cabin. He groaned emphatically, slumping in his seat while they listened. 

By the time the song ended, the blonde was grinning, peeking over at his brother, “Thanks, Virgil. Happy Easter.”

Virgil smiled, “Happy Easter, Fish.”

[time-to-be-awesome]

A day in the life of Amy

Thursday 14th May 2020

Note - I know this is very long and I hope it doesn’t come across as self-obsessed. I was inspired by the Refinery29 Money Diaries which I find fascinating. I love getting a real insight into other people’s lives so maybe other people will find this interesting? Even if they don’t I know I’ll be glad to have this snapshot of this time in my life to look back on later.

I am 28 years old and live in Yorkshire, England. I live on my own in a rented 1 bedroom flat. I am a mental health social worker but have been working from home during lockdown. I am currently trying to lose weight and get fitter. This is a day in my life.

7:30am Alarm goes off. I spend a couple of minutes checking the BBC coronavirus morning update whilst I wake up. Have a big glass of chilled water and take my tablets for my underactive thyroid. I get dressed into workout leggings and a baggy t-shirt, put on a hoody and a light coat. I make a coffee in my travel mug.

8:00am I set off on my morning walk. The rules were changed this week so I can now exercise outside for an unlimited amount of time, whereas I was previously having to stick to once a day for about an hour. I am very lucky to live close to a big area of interconnected woods and fields that are public access. People have been painting stones and leaving them along the side of the footpaths. There are new ones almost every day, and other people move them to make it a sort of treasure hunt. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and I feel my spirits lift immediately as I walk in the sun and drink my coffee. I listen to the birdsong and as I get to a remote patch of brambles I walk very slowly and quietly. I’m rewarded with the sight of 12 wild rabbits grazing and hopping about before they inevitably spot me and scurry away.

8:50am I get back home. I tracked the walk on the Mapmywalk app and it tells me I burnt 258 calories, but the main benefit is getting the fresh air and a positive start to my day. I make my regular breakfast – one protein weatabix with milk, low-fat greek yoghurt, a chopped banana, mixed berries, and a sprinkle of a seed mix.

9:00am I set up my work laptop on my dining table and log in. I finish eating my breakfast whilst going through my emails and making a to-do list for the day. My first task is to write up a review that I did recently with a service user. It was a very positive review, they have been building their independence and can now manage their daily life with much less involvement from carers. I phoned the care agency to check their rates and then update the support plan with the new lower weekly cost. I call the service user to let them know that the change has been made and we agree that it is time for me to end my involvement. I spend the rest of the morning writing a closing summary of all the case work I have done with them since I was allocated a year ago.

12:15pm I’m already in my workout clothes so I get out my exercise mat and use my lunch break to complete day 2 of Chloe Ting’s Summer Shred Challenge. Today there are four videos including the warm up and cool down and it takes me an hour in total. I mostly do the modified versions but even following the video I can’t begin to fathom how to do a side plank hip abduction! I take sips of water throughout and by the time I’ve finished I’ve drunk two pints. I don’t have a fitness tracker so I don’t track the calories burnt by these workouts.

1:15pm Lunch break is technically over, but working from home has to have some perks and I think a bit of flexibility on working hours is one of those. I have a quick shower and get changed into my ‘day’ leggings and baggy t-shirt. I don’t have to do any video calls so there’s no need to look professional and its comfort all the way. I make my lunch – cut up veggies with hummus, some rice crackers and a triangle of cheese. I’ve very hungry by now so eat quite quickly. Not satisfied so I also have a packet of sweet chilli multigrain wave crisps and a glass of diet cloudy lemonade.

1:35pm I log back on to my laptop. Unfortunately three of my service users have passed away from Covid-19 in the past few weeks so I email the team admin so the records can be updated with their date of death. I had spent a lot of one to one time with one of the gentleman and I feel upset and guilty that he passed away after moving to a care home that I had helped organise. I ring his son to offer my condolences and share a happy memory of the gentleman.

2:00pm I phone a placement to follow up a safeguarding referral. A service user was given an extra dose of medication, but it didn’t have any negative effect and the managers have discussed it with the staff member responsible. Determined that no further action was needed. Discussed how the placement was going in general and there were no other issues and no further role for me. I’d been due to close the case anyway so I wrote up another closing summary.

3:30pm I decide I need a snack, partly because I’m hungry but also because I want a bit of a break. I’ve been using up the food I had in the house so I don’t have many options and go for two digestive biscuits. I start typing up a mental capacity assessment that I completed over the phone. The service user in question isn’t able to make the decision themselves whether they should have home care or not. Part of the job is making the decision of what is in the person’s best interest and they don’t always agree with that. This has caused a lot of issues for this person in the past and I’m not feeling very optimistic about their situation.

4:30pm My concentration has gone out the window. I start thinking about what I’ll make for dinner. I usually make a batch of something on a Monday that’s enough for 4 or 5 portions and I just have to heat it up, but I’ve already run out of my last batch cook. I have most of the ingredients for a bean pot so make a shopping list of the other things I’ll need.

5:00pm I log off from my work laptop, switch my leggings for jeans, and head out for another walk. I want to put some space between my work day and my free time. Whilst I’m walking I phone my mum and we have a good 45 minute catch up. She hadn’t been feeling very well and said talking to me really cheered her up so I’m glad I did.

5:45pm I go to the supermarket on the way home. My closest store is a Lidl and it’s generally pretty well stocked now that everyone has stopped panic buying. I get the ingredients I need, as well as some bits for breakfasts and lunches, and I impulse bought a house plant. Total spend was £22.37. When I get back home the Mapmywalk app tells me that I burnt 338 calories.

7:00pm I put the shopping away and sat down for a second and suddenly it’s 7. I start making the bean pot following a random recipe I found online. Don’t realise until it’s too late that it calls for 50 minutes of simmering time, but that is a fairly typical move for me. Whilst I’m waiting I put some laundry away and have a general tidy up.

9:00pm Dinner is finally ready! I created it as a recipe on Myfitnesspal and it came out as 700 calories per portion. In total today I’ve eaten 1551 calories and burnt 596 through exercise. I eat my dinner whilst watching Lucy Wood’s latest youtube video. Her videos honestly feel like catching up with a friend, even if that does make me sound like an internet weirdo!

9:30pm I put on an ASMR video from TingTing ASMR. The soft whispering and trigger sounds are very relaxing and the best ones make my scalp tingle. I’d jotted down some notes about my day as I went along so I make them into this post. If I hadn’t spent so long making dinner I probably would have watched a Disney film. I’m watching the Disney Classics in order and the next one will be Sleeping Beauty.

10:30pm I’m going to put this post on tumblr then put my laptop and phone away so I don’t get too distracted. I’ll read for about 30 minutes, my current book is ‘Once upon a river’ by Dianne Setterfield. I usually end up going to sleep 11- 11:30pm, ready to do it all again tomorrow!

[tok3r]

News Punch

I Was An Alien Abductee – What I Have To Say Will Shock You

 Sean Adl-Tabatabai

3 years ago



An alien abductee has come forward and publicly revealed the plan extraterrestrials have for humanity in the next few years.  After being abducted by aliens for the last 17 years of his life, the anonymous abductee says he wants to share his experience with the public so they can learn the truth about extraterrestrials. 

In an online post on a popular conspiracy forum, the alien abductee reveals:

How aliens are able to communicate via telepathy with eachother and humans

The secrets about Earth’s history hidden from us by our rulers

How the universe came into existence (it was NOT the Big Bang or ‘God’ according to these beings)

What the future for the human race holds

Full Disclosure: Revelations of an Extraterrestrial Encounter.

My name is [redacted]. I’m [redacted] years old and I’m going to let you know right away, there’s a whole lot to digest about who I am, why I’m here, and what I’ve gone through in my life.

The thoughts that will go through your head as you read this have kept me awake hundreds of sleepless nights in my life.

I’ve questioned my sanity many times over, but I assure you, in every way possible, I am quite sane.

I’m not endorsing this story, or saying it even really truly happened. I’m only saying I believe this happened to me.

I could be crazy. I could be getting used to spread distraction. I don’t know. I’m just going with what’s gone on in my head over forty years, and saying it like it is.

Just keep in mind If i was telling this for any other reason than a true love for this planet, I’d be telling it to a Hollywood agent or book publisher and charging you money to read it. I’m not.

We all have our reasons for being drawn to the esoteric. Mine was UFOS.

Not my interest in them, but their interest in me. It started when I was only 4 years old. And it’s gone on ever since.

My first experience was a face to face meeting with a strange little Being. We communicated by telepathy and that connection remains today.

It’s a one way kind of communication. I’ve asked a million questions but never really got an answer to any of them.

Well except for one I suppose. I guess she must be able to hear me. The one question I asked the most was answered. It just wasn’t the answer I wanted.

Naturally I wanted to know what was going on…and I always heard the same response. “When it’s time, you’ll know.”is

I’ve gone years with no interaction but she always comes back. Yes. The Being was female and quite motherly in her communication with me.

She tells me things. About myself and about them, and about this planet. And it’s history.

Seems I’ve been at this for quite some time too. I’m a very old soul. She’s recently told me a bunch of things that in all honesty, I already knew, sort of.

I know one thing for sure. Amongst other things, i’m a warrior through and through. That I didn’t need to be told. But just how much of a warrior, I had no idea.

Unfortunately having the heart of a lion only gets you so far. And for me, it’s never been far enough.

That’s why I’ve learned to fight with my mind this time. Even though I spent a lot of my life in a subculture of violence this time around, I see now I had to be there to unlearn the ways I’ve always handled my confrontations. In this life too, but more so in my past lives.

I really am tired of all this. It’s been long enough. Too many people have died thinking we could beat them (the elite force controlling the world) in a physical confrontation.

They didn’t start actually “abducting me” until I was 31 years old though. And I prefer to think of myself as “taken” not abducted.

For the last 17 years it’s been an on and off again thing. I’d just gone 5 years without any contact or communication incidents, but in Aug 2016, (like 4 months ago) things got very serious, very fast.

Life was as normal as I think it’s ever been for me. I was right where I wanted to be, and comfortable with everything my life was becoming. Mine has been a life of constant rebuilding and change.

I went to bed one Saturday night just like any other night. But Sunday morning was not anything like any Sunday I’d been through before.

I woke up and realized immediately what happened. I was freezing. And soaking wet. And I felt like I was in a dream. Have you ever been under anesthetic? Same feeling when waking up. It’s like coming back from, hmmm, i don’t know where, but It’s the telltale sign.

But this time there was more. I had a head full of ideas and an absolute NEED to search out and connect to people just like all of you.

And, she was back. Like never before. And she had a lot to say in the last three months. Wow!

What I’m going to tell you was revealed to me, a bit here, piece there, over my lifetime. It really never made much sense to me though, until now. Now I have the whole truth.

And I do apologize to the people I’ve been difficult with, but you can’t imagine the pressure I’m under with this.

It’s really, really hard to listen to theories I know are incomplete or distraction, while having no ability to present what I know until right now. I was told not to tell anyone.

So, before I go any further, I need you to understand something. Read this next line as many times as you need to.

We, aren’t what we’ve been taught to believe we are! Not at all. Nothing!

What I’m going to tell you may change your life. In what way is entirely up to you.

I see it one of three ways, you’ll hate me forever, you’ll embrace this and know me forever, or you’ll call me crazy.

The reality is there’s been some very big lies told. And I’m going to do my best to explain the who, want, when, where, and why that surround these secrets.

So here it is, the real story as I understand it.

This planet was not the result of a Big Bang or the creation of “God” as we understand Him. The Universe came to exist because of The One.

The One is neither alive or dead, male or female good nor bad. IT just is…

The One is responsible for creating all the framework which functions to provide an environment for everything to exist in.

IT created this planet, and all the other planets, stars, moons, and everything in between.

Unlike the story we were told, “God” does not work alone. The One had some help.

The One created several intelligent races of benevolent Aliens that function to serve The Universe. Like The One, they are Immortal and never die. They are tangible Beings though, just not in the same way we are.

These Aliens are the craftsmen tasked with maintaining the integrity of all The One had created.

Planet Earth was seeded with life by a race of immortal Aliens called Centaurians from a planet called Eden. It’s located in the Centauri star system.

And when I say life, I mean ALL of it. Especially us.

The Centaurians are part of the immortal workforce that service The Universe. They are scientists and geneticists. It was theiru job to seed life throughout The Universe.

There is one exception though. The sector where The Six Headed Beast ruled.

Using a master set of plant and animal DNA supplied by The One, The Centaurians genetically engineered a vast living library of life.

Earth was their seed bank and it was called The Garden of Eden. Easily it was the most beautiful of all the planets. The One had really done a wonderful job.

They used a process called gene splicing, and did this work in labs on Eden.

Each new plant or animal prototype they created was then taken to Earth where it was cultivated.

Not all planets have the same conditions or type of atmosphere. So it also had to be determined which species could exist in different places.

This planet was designed to support many different types of environments and climates that mimic conditions around the universe.

Once these new products were studied, logged, and samples were stored, they were distributed to the planets throughout the universe best suited for each species.

However, in the face of all The One had created, even IT was not perfect. The One had made only one mistake. But it was a big one.

I’m not going to even pretend I understand it. But in the beginning, when The One was the only thing in existence, IT became “lonely”.

To combat this problem, The One divided itself by 25% to create another, lesser version of itself.

This new Number Two later realized that’s exactly what it was. Lesser. The One could have split in half and made them equal, but IT didn’t.

And when The One finished what IT had set out to do, which was create the Universe, and the immortal work force to help complete it, Number Two took offence.

Number Two realized The One had provided no role whatsoever for IT to contribute to all that was created.

Upon realizing the sole purpose of IT’s existence, was to keep The One from becoming lonely again, Number Two decided to leave.

At the time, Number Two didn’t realize it, but the choice to leave, introduced some new things to The Universe. Conflict. And Free Will.

Number Two took up residence in a far off corner of The Universe. It didn’t take long to realize though, IT was all alone.

As The One had divided itself to solve the same problem, so too did Number Two.

But Number Two didn’t want to face the same dilemma, so IT divided into 6 equal individuals. And they quickly set out to develop this corner of The Universe into their very own version of what the rest of The Universe would be like.

The result was a galactic society of miscreants lead by what would come to be known as The Six Headed Beast.

The division into 6 individuals had corrupted key bits of knowledge and understanding from the consciousness of the whole.

This lost knowledge was the reason all the creatures that were created to reside on the planets in this sector, had no soul.

Some of these creatures were worse than others, but none of them could actually be considered good.

They are flesh and blood creatures who only live for a certain length of time and die one day.

We were created the way we were, with a soul, for a reason. The Centaurians wanted to create an intelligent worker who would live on Earth and be responsible for maintaining the integrity of The Garden of Eden.

Tending to this garden would be an extremely delicate, and sometimes dangerous program. They needed leverage to ensure compliance to the job.

Also, since free will and conflict had come into existence when Number Two left, it was decided that from this point forward, immortality would have to be earned.

So it was decided that a promise of immortality under certain conditions, would help motivate this creature called a human being, to serve its purpose to the best of its ability.

A unique approach that would allow human beings to exist as two separate halves of one entity, had been successfully designed by an amazing team of scientists on Eden.

And quickly this design and reasoning for it, was approved by The One.

One half of the human would exist on Eden. The other half would exist on Earth.

The two individual halves of the human being are connected by something called a soul.

Inside the body of each half of the humans, flows a pure form of energy that binds both parts to one another.

A telepathic connection that allowed the two parts to communicate back and forth was also a very useful feature for completing the work projects tasked to the humans.

The half which existed on Eden would work in the lab as a genetic scientist to create new life forms.

When these plants and animals were cultivated on Earth, the process would be conducted by the Earth halves of the scientists whose team had invented the specific species.

This way the scientist and the botanist or biologist could share information to ensure a well cared for and properly designed product was the end result of their efforts.

This telepathic connection was also a way to never forget home and in times of struggle, a voice of reason to offer advice. A friend, so no matter what, no human would ever be alone, like The One had once been.

You likely won’t believe me yet, but that voice in your head, your conscience, is actually what’s left of the telepathic connection to our counterpart on Eden.

Of course today we are raised to believe thinking anything other than “it’s your own voice” will get you locked up in a psych ward.

Big threats to protect big secrets. And big secrets are certainly being kept from us about how and why that connection was lost.

To become immortal, the humans had to live by guidelines and rules and show the intelligence, loyalty, and desire to be a productive, honest, contributing member of the Galactic Society they belonged to.

A series of tests, and lessons would be incorporated into their lives that would determine when they would be ready to achieve immortality.

On Earth everything living has an expiration date, meaning one day it dies. This applies to everything except for one thing, the human soul.

When a human died on Earth, the soul ascended to Eden for evaluation. If it was decided the soul was ready, the two halves would merge into one immortal being.

However, if it wasn’t ready, the soul would experience something called reincarnation where it was sent back to Earth in a new body.

The human would then encounter a more difficult path designed to address the issues that kept it from achieving immortality.

This complex two part creature would be the prototype for a whole new approach to the concept of being alive. If successful, humans could be placed all over the universe.

As The Centaurians hoped, the evolution of The Garden of Eden, and its new occupants, was a great success.

After nearly a hundred thousand years of evolution, only one major change was made to how this system would operate.

It was originally the plan to allow unlimited reincarnation and guaranteed immortality eventually. However, there were unforeseen issues that arose from that idealistic view.

The result was a decision to permit ten chances to get it right and earn the reward of immortality.

By limiting reincarnation to nine times, the decision to populate some of the other planets that had been seeded into life with humans, had passed the scrutiny of The One.

By the way, I told you which star system Eden exists in without feeling like I’m giving up a secret.

Unfortunately, there are people here on Earth right now searching for it, and they already know where they should be looking.

The Kepler telescope made a discovery this year not six months ago in August of 2016

There is one particular planet quite close to Earth. Like close enough where the technology here will allow a probe to make it there in the next 25 years or so.

It’s not Eden. But it’s one step closer. So they really need to be stopped before they get there.

As I said before, I’m an old soul. And I’ve tried more than once to stop those responsible for what I’m trying to tell you, during several of my past lives.

Obviously, I’ve never been on the successful side of any of the battles that have taken place in an attempt to gain control of our own destiny.

I’m sure you’ve realized something must have gone terribly wrong someplace along the line.

Earth is quite obviously not being used by The Centaurians as a living library anymore. It’s being exploited, polluted, and soon enough, will be destroyed.

If you don’t know, there are several tyrannical groups of very rich, very powerful, business men, political leaders and Church officials with questionable ties to each other.

They belong to groups such as The Illuminatii, The Roman Catholic Church, The British Monarchy, and The Freemasons to name a few.

It’s widely accepted that these Billionaire Boys Clubs are up not on the up and up and exist to serve ulterior motives.

They have created, implemented, and enforced a system of corruption, greed, control, and hostility for thousands of years.

The roots of these shady organizations have been traced back to the time of Jesus.

The last attempt to confront these corrupt, power hungry, tyrants was in the early 1300’s.

A very wealthy group called The Knights Templar, that was aligned with The Roman Catholic Church, had found out some extremely sensitive information about Jesus, and the Bible.

Having expressed concerns to a trusted government official about The Church withholding the secret knowledge, The Knights Templar were betrayed and for the most part, disbanded and killed brutally for going against The Pope.

And ever since then these elite tyrants have taken full advantage of the fear they instilled in anyone who may oppose them.

Their stranglehold on the resources and human lives on Planet Earth grows stronger every single day we choose to do nothing.

The Knights knew what I know. Unlike me, they never got the chance to tell though.

Once you know why, and what is at stake, you’ll understand why I’ve made it my choice to suggest we confront these men, end these lies, and try again to rid this planet from their control.

The elite tyrants who control us using money, work hand in hand with the ones who destroy some of us by taking our soul.

The Roman Catholic Church is the real controlling influence behind those running the world, enslaving mankind, and destroying this beautiful planet.

There is no one more powerful than the guy with the funny hat, The Pope. None that are human anyways.

The Pope is always chosen from a secret, and very long list of bloodlines that go back thousands of years to a time when giants roamed the Earth.

Yeah I just said that. But it’s gotta be said. And someone had to say it. And that’s always been my role. To sound the alarm.

But this time the call, MY call, will be heard. This time, the world is ready to hear it. YOU, are ready to hear it!

The age of information has brought a new dimension, one we have never had available before. If you haven’t realized it yet, she told me, IT’S TIME!

This time, we have the ability to UNITE World Wide!. And we will. And we are.

I can feel the soul of every warrior who ever lived and died at the hands of The Elite. All of them. They’re all here.

Some already know it, most don’t, but you all will. The universe will not let you rest until you accept the responsibility of fixing what we have ALWAYS allowed them to do to us.

The Elite aren’t exactly like us in case you haven’t noticed. There is an empty, void, hole in all of “them”.

The world really is an US vs THEM situation.

You may believe “we are all one” and some spiritual awakening is on the horizon, but please, know this: There are TWO different SPECIES living together here on earth. Humans. And Half Breeds.

And no, they are not shape shifting reptilians. In all ways they are identical to us, except for one thing.

They don’t have a soul!

When they die, they are dead. That’s it. No more. They are manufactured.

These soulless shells i’m talking about are The Elite. And they know what they are. Predators. Nasty, sick, twisted, Predators.

There is another group of people who also suffer an impairment of their soul but they have no idea anything is even wrong with them.

At least they have a soul, even if it has been shut right off. As long as it’s there, all hope is not lost.

It’s imperative if we want to experience any kind of freedom again, we begin working together. All men. All for One Cause. One World United.

United, we can move forward into a new Age of Enlightenment.

United, we can be free from all the pain that’s been our lives here on planet Earth.

It will not be easy. But nothing good ever is. Just be certain, if we continue to fall for the tactics that keep us divided, once again, we will fall short. Divide and Conquer will defeat us like it has before in past lives.

The Elite have slowly divided the entire world into divisions so small, they feel confident that it’s just not possible for us to lay aside our differences or seek a new perspective on our beliefs.

I’m hoping that deep down inside though, you feel it! You’ve always felt it. You probably didn’t understand that feeling was your other half calling out to you. And your home. Eden. In all ways possible, they both need you now, more than ever.

For some of us, the connection to our other half is starting to be established once more. I’ll explain why later.

It’s the ones caught deep in this web of lies I worry about though. The ones with the soul affliction.

Things on Eden have taken a very long time to fully recover from the Annunaki Invasion.

The reason is the soul affliction that has taken hold here on Earth lately, has nearly crippled the population on Eden.

The half of the human that’s born and exists on Eden, that’s attached to the people on Earth commonly referred to as Sheeple, (people who can’t see anything at all wrong with how the world operates) are basically handicapped.

They don’t contribute to the workforce, in fact, they take away from it, as they require constant care and supervision.

Despite all that has changed since humans came into existence, the soul still continues to develop properly and in unison with its Counterpart on Eden.

The changes to the minds of the humans on Earth however, somehow have caused the autism -like affliction of the mind running rampant on Eden.

So I’m here on a mission. I’m here to wake you up to what you used to be, to what you are.

And what you need to be, if we ever want to free ourselves from this nightmare we’ve all been tricked into living.

I guess tricked isn’t the best choice of words either. They didn’t trick us, they genetically modified us is what they did.

And what I’m about to tell you now, is where things get intense.

What you think you know about the history of earth and its many different inhabitants, are all lies. And it’s the job of the church, to protect those lies.

And the reward from protecting those lies, goes to the enforcers of the lie. The Illuminati. The Freemasons. The Elite.

Their reward is your life of servitude! And every man, woman and child belongs to them whether you admit it, or not.

Because the elite know they are soulless shells of what we are, they hate us.

Once I explain what they are lying about, and how far they’ve gone to protect the lie, you’ll understand just how much hate for us they hold.

The only other things that interest them are material riches and the thrill of feeling somehow superior as they treat us like garbage in a ruthless pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.

And we allow it because deep down we feel like our souls will live on regardless.

But that was the old way. Soon you will realize how, like me, you’ve avoided the trap and reincarnated here, over and over again.

Until we get this done, we will continue stuck in this loop, doomed to watch history repeat itself again and again.

And I’m going to tell you why.

There was an invasion on Eden, and they lost. The Centaurians are peaceful scientists, not warriors.

The Annunaki, a race of soulless creatures from the far corner of The Universe developed by The Six Headed Beast had come seeking knowledge.

They required technology to save the atmosphere of the planet they came from, Nibiru.

But Eden refused to help them. They were not in the business of cooperating with any of the soulless abominations created by The Six Headed Beast.

And the Annunaki replied in force. In the process of taking what they came for, they also discovered the location of Earth.

They left Eden in near ruins, and made off with some very sensitive, essential information about all life, and about Planet Earth in particular.

The Annunaki first arrived on planet Earth during a cleansing period.

Once all of the different species were properly sampled and classified, or if circumstances required it, the scientists in charge would initiate a cleansing. The eradication of the old, to usher in the new.

The idea being to repeat the same process with new varieties of plants and animals, as they were developed and created on Eden.

This particular ice-age was also to repair a structural issue with the drainage system. A series of massive trenches and gullies were needed and the only thing powerful enough to dig them were migrating glaciers.

The humans all relocated to Africa during that time, moved by ships sent from Eden.

Unfortunately this relocation turned out to be the very thing that gave full advantage to the Annunaki.

The Annunaki were quite pleased with initial test samples they took. This planet was rich with monoatomic gold just as the stolen information from Eden had stated.

The information from Eden provided them with the formula used to create, or repair, an atmosphere. Monoatomic gold is the key ingredient. And they needed a lot.

The next thing the Annunaki did was set in motion a chain of events which accelerated the melting process.

There was a large area though where life was thriving. Here The Annunaki found a creature they hoped could be used as workers for the massive job of mining the Earth. They had discovered humans.

However, these creatures were quite different than anything The Annunaki had ever encountered. They seemed intelligent enough, but they were impossible to deal with.

Nothing, not fear, not pain, not even watching their friends die would sway them to what The Annunaki wanted them to do.

It was almost like these humans had one purpose and couldn’t do anything else even if they wanted.

But it was love for their home and an outright refusal to damage, destroy, alter, or manipulate the Earth at The Annunaki’s request that kept them from conforming.

The Annunaki even tried, unsuccessfully, claiming they were the ones who created the humans.

However, at that time The Annunaki were unaware of the connection the humans had to their other half back on Eden. The humans knew exactly who had arrived.

The Annunaki were in fact, very intelligent creatures however. A series of genetic manipulations performed on the male humans would solve the problem, or so it was believed.

One by one, the male humans were captured and injected with a DNA upgrade that would eventually change the fate of the inhabitants of The Garden of Eden. It would just be a matter of time.

The Annunaki, having completed the genetic tampering, prepared to leave. They needed to give the melting process of the ice covered planet time to do its thing.

A small team was assembled and would remain on Earth to manage and maintain the breeding process of the humans.

This task was put into the hands of a top scientist named Enki.

Enki was a powerful member of the upper echelon of Annunaki hierarchy.

He was very interested in studying the progress on the rate of change in these creatures.

The Annunaki had an amazing gift bestowed by The Six Headed Beast which created them. They had the power to shape shift, or transform into whatever they needed to be. So they took on human form.

Enki stood among the humans and watched as the other Annunaki boarded their ship and left Earth.

At that point the changes to the human mind had not taken over yet, and as the ship left, a legend was born about the ones who came from the sky in black clouds that burned in the sky.

And in telling this legend, the first of the changes began to materialize in the hearts and minds of the recently injected men, as fear crept in and filled them with a brand new perspective on life.

This new emotion clashed heavily with the very limited emotional database humans had been living with up to this point.

It only took a few generations of reproduction for Enki to realize something had gone wrong though.

By this stage there should have been significant changes in the way this creatures mind worked. But the change was minimal at best.

These creatures were learning to simply adapt, and somehow they retained the sense of self worth they had always enjoyed.

Frustrated, Enki began a series of experiments on his modified humans. What he discovered, shocked, and amazed him

In ways he could not understand, it appeared this creature was in fact, two creatures.

Enki began to decipher a series of files that were part of his spoils of war from the invasion of Eden. And what he learned, he could not believe.

These creatures had something called a soul. Something he had never heard of. Something that made these creatures immortal. As far as Enki knew, only The Six Headed Beast was immortal. More than anything, he wanted that! In fact, Enki became obsessed with the idea of living forever.

So obsessed, he entirely forgot why he had attempted to change the humans in the first place.

All that mattered was finding a way to implant or replicate one of these souls into himself.

Experiment after experiment failed. And as these further modified humans got released back among the others, the more damaged the integrity of the humans became.

After several more generations, significant changes could be seen.

So much so that they began to change in their physical appearance over time, not only mentally as the modification was initially supposed to be.

The most significant change was the colour of some of the creatures skin. There seemed to be several distinct skin tones and physical attributes appearing.

Though Enki had yet to discover the secret of the soul, he was forced to turn his attention back to creating a workforce for the mining operation.

He was rather impressed with one particular group that stood out from the others. It appeared this group was going to be the dominant one.

This dominant version of a human had changed almost entirely in colour.

It began with deep dark brown skin like they all had in the beginning.

But now it had transformed to become pale and light coloured, very much like Enki himself.

Up till this point Enki and his crew had lived unnoticed among the humans. But it was time for a change.

It was now about 190,000 Earth years since the Annunaki had left in their flying spaceship leaving Enki and his crew behind.

Enki and his kind lived to be about 360,000 years old in Earth terms. Which meant if he was going to complete the actual mission he was here for, he would have to find success soon. His age was creeping up on him.

The ice sheets that had once covered the Earth had been greatly diminished by this time. And the redistribution of the humans could begin.

Enki had sent for The Annunaki to return. The first mission was to gather all the humans of each kind based on their skin colour.

Then, each “race” was strategically dispersed around the world to the locations that were no longer inhospitable.

There were 4 distinct races based solely on skin tone. Dark brown, light brown, yellow, and white.

The first three races were relocated in their entirety and kept together. The white race however was divided into three groups.

[olivialapointe-blog1]

Blog Post Three: Social Media Log and Experiment

Over a 24-hour time period, I ran a log for my social media use. I started the log at 8 p.m. last week on Wednesday. I decided to start it at night because this is when I am usually most likely to use my social media. I noticed I seemed to use Facebook the most out of snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. When the morning started the following day, I immediately went on my phone and checked all three different social medias. I seemed to use all of these social media accounts just to pass the time when I got bored or had free time. Surprisingly, I spent little time actually communicating with people through social media, but I just scrolled through the platforms for entertainment. I was not very happy with how much social media I used, but I think I was more self-conscious of how much I was on it than I would have been if I wasn’t doing this experiment. I think I got a lot more out of my cleanse than I did in tracking social media use. Because I was challenged not to do something, I took it more seriously and wanted to succeed. But with tracking my social media use, I was more self-conscious in actually using it as much as I would have liked. Below, I will further explain the social media cleanse I took on and how it impacted me.

Set-up: I decided to run this experiment over the course of multiple days throughout the week. I chose to run my social media cleanse in the evening of each night where I was prone to go on my phone more often. I enjoy entertaining myself and having time fly at night before bed. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how I would spend my time if I didn’t have this chance to be on my phone. I also wanted to increase the amounts of time that I would not use social media each day. I started with 2 and ½ hours and eventually got it up to an extreme jump of 14 hours. I then returned back to a simple 2 hours to see how that would change. The following tracks when and for how long I did the social media cleanse each day:

Social Media Cleanse

No Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Snapchat

Monday: no social media 10-12:30 a.m. 2.5 Hours

Tuesday: no social media 9:30-12:30 3 Hours

Wednesday: no social media 9-12:30 3.5 Hours

Thursday: 9-11 p.m. 14 hours (1 hour Use for classwork in social media class for BIS 315)

Friday: 9:00-11 a.m. 2 hours

The following includes the details of what occurred each day:

Monday: it wasn’t too hard to stay off my phone. I think I kept looking at it more-so to watch as the time passed, but I kept busy by watching Netflix for a bit and also talking on the phone with family as well. I also purposely worked on my homework later at night. This actually helped to keep my mind off of social media and focus on work.

Tuesday: Tonight was a little harder for some reason. I did stay up later than expected to work on more homework. I try to get ahead of schoolwork, so I don’t have to do it on the weekend. I felt myself looking at my phone more often and I accidentally clicked on Instagram, but immediately clicked off without seeing anything once I remembered I was doing the cleanse. I again did my schoolwork and didn’t focus on calls. I got a lot done and I felt very accomplished.

Wednesday: Today was also another easy day in not using social media. It seemed to go by a lot slower, but I was able to keep busy with watching my Netflix show and doing homework. I think disconnecting from my phone helps me to keep more focus on my tasks and not so concerned about what other people are doing. I do enjoy being entertained, but luckily, my show got interesting and I could decompress and focus on catching up on that.

Thursday: Today I took the entire day to not be on social media. It was a bit of a different day, but I feel the cleanse was still valid. I only had one real class today, so I had plenty of time to use social media before the class, but dedicated my time to doing schoolwork again. My motivation to get the work done before the weekend helped a lot to keep me off my phone. I also had to drive home for 2 and ½ hours, so that kept me off my phone for a bit. I also kept busy visiting with family and friends when I got home for the night, so that was really helpful. I think I need to focus on the genuine time with family anyways, so that was a nice change. I was a little tempted to look at phone when I was with friends, and occasionally swiped through my selection of apps, but never actually went on them. I’m just used to the habit. I’m really surprised that this extreme change of 14 hour cleanse, as opposed to 2 or 3 hours, didn’t seem to be that much worse. If I continue to keep myself productive or spend quality time with friends, then I think I can manage to keep of social media when I really don’t need to be on it.

Friday: Today I resulted back to 2 hours of not being on social media. It was a nice breather and I think this was super easy to do after the 14 hour cleanse. Time seemed to go by faster and I was able to visit with family. When we don’t do a lot and sit around in the morning at my house, I am normally tempted to sit on my phone and scroll. But this time I had a lot of catching up to do with family. Again, spending time with family and being unplugged from social media was a game changer. I think I will for sure keep this in mind in the future.

Conclusion: I think the smaller amounts of time off social media was harder to accomplish then the longer periods. Purposely keeping busy was easier to keep my mind off of it. This technically was a normal week that I would typically have. I think the fact that I was able to dedicate this time to when I would most likely have the chance to use my phone helped to make this more challenging. But since I was also up for the challenge, I was less likely to use my phone. This experiment was very interesting, and I would like to take more time to not focus on social media in the evening time. I normally spend lots of time looking at it to unwind and relax before heading to bed, but I used this time to be more productive. I also think overall, this could help me be more productive, especially how I was on Thursday. I want to spend my time more wisely, and this experiment helped to make me more self-conscious of what I do in my spare time.

[agustdef]

Here & Now - Chapter 1

Pairing: Yoongi x OC

Genre: Fluff; Chill romance

Word Count: 1,963

Warning: None.

Banner Marker: @dee-ehn​

Author’s Note: This is my first time posting fanfic so I hope it’s alright. I’m going to try and update at least once a week. 

"Kendall!" The shrill voice barely registered through the music blasting through my ears. Pausing the track I pushed off my headphones and turned around. I was met with my friend, Matthew, glaring me down.

"Can I help you?"

He rolled his eyes, plopping onto the couch next to my work station.

"You've been ignoring emails, calls, and texts all day. You know those time-sensitive ones that need responses asap."

"Oh calm down, I still have ti..." My voice trailed off when I glanced at the clock on the wall. Four thirty flashed at I'd realized eight hours had passed since I'd come in, instead of the three I'd thought it to be.

"You would think that Ana bringing you the breakfast you ordered and then the lunch from the meeting we had would tip you off. Sometimes you worry me, Kendall. Your brain still working?" Matthew was clearly amused.

My mouth opened and closed, not one comeback surfacing. If I was honest he wasn't wrong, per se. Often when focused on a task it felt like my brain refused to function beyond that. Nothing else mattered and it would last for hours, or days like it did that one time where production deadlines were pushed up from a week out to four days. It didn't help that my sense of time regardless of what I was doing.

"Shut up. Just tell me why you're here."

Matthew being the jerk he is just continued to smile at me, languishing in my annoyed state. He enjoyed rendering my speechless way too much. I think it was because it was the only time he could win against me.

When minutes passed and silence became too much I grabbed a crumpled wrapper from my desk and launched it at his face. His arms waved about in a panicked manner as if he hadn't watched the trash sail through the air and into his face.

"Chop, chop I have things to do."

Picking up the wrapper he launched it back at me, missing by a foot. He seemed less than pleased, but didn't grab anything else to complete his retaliation.

"As I was saying," he huffed, "you've not answered anything all day. There's some stuff double checking sessions, post-production information, two tracks you need to look over, some requests. Oh and obviously that thing from Hals."

"I dare you to call her that to her face."

"What? No. We're not close and that would be weird." His cheeks turned red and he glanced everywhere but at me.

It was so cute. "Your crush is showing."

"I don't have a crush. She's not my type." He scoffed.

It was my turn to scoff and to roll my eyes. I had no clue why he always used that as an excuse. "It's perfectly healthy to acknowledge that even though you are not attracted to female and femme people that they are attractive. Don't know why you weirdos fail to understand you can appreciate a person's beauty without having a thing for them."

Matthew groaned, throwing himself back against the couch. No doubt he was tired of having that conversation with me, but I needed him to get it together. Nothing about being flustered about someone's level of attractiveness meant that you were something you weren't.

Another dramatic sigh from him and he sat up again. "Anyways... you should get those out of the way and then go home. Seeing as I know you have a full day for both your jobs tomorrow. And because you're only here working on your own stuff and not for a client."

Arguments presented themselves in my head, but none of the came out. I was in no mood to back and forth with him all day. Plus, he wasn't wrong yet again. I'd finished working on a song for an upcoming album an hour after I arrived and had only been emptying my head of all the beats locked in there. They tended to be like plot bunnies and those rarely left my head unless I gave them some attention.

"Better idea. I go home and answer the emails." He went to interrupt me, but I held up a finger. "With the promise of getting it all done by seven thirty and sending you images of my empty inbox. As well as the sent box."

For a second he stared me down, eyes narrowed. You could see the gears turning in his head and it almost looked like he'd say no.

"Okay. Go straight home and get it done. I will let myself in if none of that is done and will micromanage the whole process."

He stood and so did I, move in for a hug.

"And stop blocking Marcus when he annoys you. He, your agent, shouldn't have to send me to tell you this stuff," he said as he pulled away.

"Will do."

With one parting glare he left the studio, leaving me to myself. For a moment I just stood there, tired washing over me as I finally realized how long I'd been awake. The night was spent pumping out a scene that had come just as REM sleep was hitting and I'd only gotten about an hour and a half before coming in. I'd knock out the moment I got home if I had my way, but I had stuff to do. So much stuff.

Taking a deep breath I pushed a stray braid behind my ear and got to work cleaning up. Most of the stuff was sitting piled neatly together, so I shoved it into the trash can. Once the bag was tied and next to my door I replaced it and gathered my other stuff. I'd left my laptop at home, so I just shoved my notebooks into my bag along with my chargers. After sending myself everything and saving it in a million different locations I shut it all done and left.

A few people were heading out with me, the workday finishing for everyone. We all nodded in greeting, but thankfully no one stopped to chat. By the time I reached the exit the Uber I ordered awaited me outside and I hopped in. The universe had to love me because besides a greeting my college-age driver didn't say a word to me.

On the ride home I skimmed my emails via phone and noticed that a lot of them weren't even that pressing. Most were just quick things that I could answer right then and there. And of course there was the email from Halsey, but I already knew what it had to say and I didn't have the information she needed with me. As I sifted through the emails about wanting to work with me I saw one that was interesting, but before I could open it we came to a stop.

Glancing up I noticed we were at my building and got out with a quick bye. Walking in I waved at the woman at the security desk and ran to the elevator whose doors were closing quickly. I just barely slid through, hurting my hip a little from it hitting it.

"Shit."

Rubbing it only irritated the area and I was sure I'd have a light bruise by morning. Why I continued to try and squeeze my hips through things knowing that there wasn't enough room I was unsure. One day I would learn. Though probably not.

By the time I reached the inside of my apartment the throbbing had dulled a bit, but increased in frequency. Reaching down to take off my shoes at the door was no, so I had to kick them haphazardly onto the rack.

As I assumed I felt the urge to face plant onto my couch or bed upon entry, but I fought it off. I needed to eat and handle the emails, but I'd drift the moment my fingers stopped typing. So, I rushed to the bathroom, stripped and hopped into the shower. The scorching heat put some pep into me and made me forget all about those articles that said overtly hot showers were bad for you.

Fifteen minutes later I emerged refreshed and with wet braids. Putting on my shower cap was an option but my box braids were almost done for and I couldn't be bothered to try and protect them.

Once I was dry and dressed in a too big shirt and cotton booty shorts I moved to my studio. For a second I thought about working on the track I started at the office, but I knew that I'd spend all my time doing that and only that. It almost sent me out of the studio and took the office I had set up in the spare room, but I needed a lesson in self-control.

Booting everything up I absentmindedly fiddled with the rubix cube I kept on the desk, but never actually tried to solve. After a few seconds, the silence got to me.

"Alexa."

The device glowed from where it was placed on a shelf in the corner.

"Play Always and Forever playlist."

Several seconds later she complied and HyunA's Cause I'm God Girl came on. A smile formed as I hummed along to the song. It was one of my favorites by her. Working with her was still on my goal board and it felt so close and yet so far.

Finally, my computer was ready to go, so I logged in and ignored the call that the icon for my software put out. There was one mission and one mission only. The same urge came when I logged in and saw the copy of the chapter I'd finished sitting in my inbox, but I ignored that as well.

"Focus ya weirdo."

I sped through the rest of the easier emails and forwarded the ones that requested me to work with them to Marcus with a yay or nay. It was technically his job to look and then show me the options, but I preferred to see them myself first.

When I reached Halsey email I almost rolled my eyes, a small laugh at her overly sweet wording. Though cute it made me question if I was being buttered up for something, since she tended to do that when she knew I wouldn't agree or that I was on the fence.

By the time I'd sent her over the tracks similar to what she was looking for, some files of vocals she'd done when I worked with her before and my schedule for the next month my speakers went through two other songs and was playing BTS' Baepsae.

Everything else was taken care of, which left the email I'd seen while in the car. Its subject line was normal, giving nothing away but something about it just felt different. Opening it up the difference jumped out immediately. Korean filled the screen and for a moment my brain shut down. After a deep breath, my eyes scanned the text, slowly decoding what it said. I tripped here and there, because even after ten years of learning it sometimes words were forgotten.

At the end I felt like I'd read the entire thing wrong, my chest was moving rapidly and I didn't know if I should be excited or if this was some cruel joke. Once the Korean stopped English started, all of it relaying what I'd just read. I frantically read until the completion, looking for the words that had sent me into a tizzy and there they were.

Our artist and producer SUGA/Min Yoongi would like it very much if you consider his offer to work together.

J-Hope finished out Baepsae just as I slumped in my chair.

"Holy shit." 

[signutai]

Surprised kiss and Eyelashes/Glasses for the kiss prompts !!

[sunlaozu]

KAGEHINA NEIGHBOR AU WHERE THEY COMMUNICATE VIA WIFI NETWORK NAMES AND THE OTHER NEIGHBORS ARE LIKE "DUDES JUST START DATING ALREADY"

Entirely based on this post. This is also a gift of appreciation (and a very truly belated birthday one) for you, Sage!

They were new in town when Shouyou was handed the task to set up the wifi.

The first few days in their new house were spent on cleaning, unpacking and tidying, and this went on for Shouyou until their wireless router had been discovered broken in the midst of unpacking. A new one had to be bought immediately on spot, his father decided, and Shouyou’s opportunity to explore arose when his father appointed him to be in charge.

And without wasting a breath, Shouyou took this as a chance to map through the town he so very wanted to explore.

His legs are pedaling the gears of his bike through the streets with much fervor, and the wind slaps against his skin, through his hair, in his ears, and he’s desperate, eager to unfold all the pieces of the place where it’s already breathing to him a sense of contentment within one take of its air.

The town is small, near the countryside and from what he’s gathered through the car trip on their way to their new neighborhood, it’s bursting with ocean of colors and floral scents which had all been a delightful welcome. There are more cherry trees than he’s ever counted, more spring flowers, and he feels the ache to tread through the tall sunflower fields when he sees them sitting by the bank of warm lakes.

Here, Shouyou could already tell there’s a promise to a fulfilling life for all the things it possess which Tokyo lacks.

Their neighbors are kind. They presented them with a fresh fruit basket as a warm welcome, and they helped Shouyou in his task earlier too when he asked them for directions on shops to purchase wifi accessories from. It’s only after many pauses in his track as he gets lost in discovering wonders of the small town and getting acquainted with the shop workers assisting him, Shouyou does finally manage to buy the much needed router.

But it also takes Shouyou plugging the router into a socket to realize he has no idea what he’s doing.

As it turns out, his small drops of knowledge in setting up the connection hadn’t been enough for him to carry through. Luckily, he has an internet service on his phone and it works well enough for him to do research on establishing the network, but when he feels his brain cells crumpling under the pressure of mind-consuming work later on, he ends up calling for his father who’d give him a guide.

It goes on until the night, until he becomes very sure of his closely approaching death at this point, but eventually, he gets there.

And then, something happens before the wee hours of an evening.

Shouyou’s sacrificed what little sleep he had for this one moment: on the screen, their connection– ‘Little giant’ as he names it– has finally appeared under the list of available networks.

Like a switch, his body instantly slumps against his chair. His triumph have soaked him in waves of relief pleasantly, but the rapture feeling is outweighed by the lack of rest when he feels it immediately chipping away at his consciousness. He decides to call it the night, eyelids growing heavy, and moves his mouse to close the dock on his laptop.

But then he witnesses a sudden change of name as one of the other networks, with some fancy lock beside it, goes from ‘Setter Soul’ to ‘I’m using little giant to torrent volleyball’.

Suddenly, Shouyou doesn't feel as tired. He shoots up from his seat, grows a pair of wide eyes and makes a sound quite close to, if not, an inhuman squawk.

He isn’t sure what to do. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s flushing with shock, anger, but mostly confusion, and so, it’s entirely out of an impulse when he tries to connect to the other network but gets horrified to see a password is required for him to enter.

Oh, yes. He nearly forgets. The fancy lock means that it's a private connection. That jerk.

Then he’s furiously typing the next second, having his own network’s name changed to ‘How did you get that lock?!’ because he can’t think of another way to reach out to this person, so he desperately hopes that they’d see.

And they definitely do see, all right. ‘Find out yourself.’ The response files in with a glare of mockery in its words.

Shouyou grits his teeth, had to fling himself onto his bed for a moment first so he could scream, right into his pillow, without waking up his family.

‘You’re an asshole.’

‘And your taste in music sucks.’

‘Are you snooping around my iTunes?!’

‘D'espairsRay? Their music is giving me despair, all right.’

What comes afterwards had been a furious flurry of banters and threats. Insults thrown back and forth, buttons pushed and pressed repeatedly that it eventually reaches to the point where someone (who surprisingly notices them) has to step in and dismantle the aggressive tension. The ruckus does die down, but only for a while. Unlike Asshole (as Shouyou decides on their name) the newcomer is much more helpful and incredibly kind enough to help him secure his connection.

Shouyou shouts in glee once he manages to achieve the private connection. Even more so, Asshole hasn’t said anything since the newcomer pops in to help but Shouyou feels the need to say something, to poke at him, because with the advent of the lock, the asshole should have been kicked out.

‘Hah, suck on my secured internet!’ He grins smugly, saving the new change for a name.

Asshole replies, ‘Doesn’t change that your music still sucks.’

They fight again.

Even if Shouyou manages to make his family’s network private, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’d signal the end to his interaction with Asshole.

In fact, he only hopes that with his newly acquired skills, his life could be spared for a little longer in the future if he were to set up a router again; Shouyou doesn’t think he’d last if he has to deal with another asshole bursting into his life because his soul is already withering into ashes and that was just one he had to deal with and their constant presence.

But despite all this and the animosity they harbored for each other, they keep talking.

It’s unclear why they’re still talking when all they’ve done is point jabs at each other. Shouyou knows he should probably stop responding to them, but he’s never one to overlook when someone is picking a fight with him, and he's definitely not the kind to back down either, so truthfully, Shouyou does play some part of fault in here.

There’s never a fight when the two are talking, but then their fights soon become more playful, less intense, and before he knows it, it’d lead them to an occasional small, mindless talk, and— and it’s- well, it’s weird. It’s weird enough that they’re communicating through the network names, and it’s even weirder when he considers the possibility of having his family and his neighbors read their drifting, fleeting conversation.

Or… their neighbors? Shouyou finds himself startled at this waking realization. Asshole has to be a neighbor of his after all for their networks to within each other’s range. There’s no way someone isn’t a neighbor if they popped up in their list, it doesn’t make any sense otherwise.

“Great. I’m neighbors with an asshole.” Shouyou says, sulkily, as he stuffs his face into the pillow. Yet, surprisingly, he somehow feels less disappointed with the revelation than he thought he would have.

And so, this peculiarity they share continues and it has gone on for a good month now. Shouyou is currently in his post-graduation, and he still has yet to receive any of the acceptance letters from the universities he’s applied to so, he’s been making use of his free time doing various things, and chatting with Asshole become among these things.

From the looks of it, Asshole seems to be in the same shoe as him, because he’s fast, highly responsive, though there are times it takes a while for them to reply, it makes Shouyou wonder in the briefest moment if they’re around his age and whether they’re a postgraduate like he was too.

One day, he wakes up on a sunny morning nestled into the crook of his pillow, to Asshole’s new network name when he checks his phone. 

'Are you awake?' The name reads, and it’s a question, and it’s something odd, so out of blue because they never ask him this, never did check in on him. Until now, that is. He knows that it’s Asshole too because he’s checked the list, their only other neighboring networks (Cat Town, Thunder, Blueville, and the one that’s stepped in to stop them fighting before- Mountain Valley) haven’t changed their names at all since the start of thei strange routine.

Shouyou kicks the bed sheets off of him. He pads towards his laptop to switch it on, and when he hears it whirring to life, he goes on to day with some hot tea from the kitchen, but not before he could type out a new handle for his family’s network to let his presence be known.

‘I am now!’

‘Finally. You slept for way too long.’

‘Aww, were you waiting for me?’

‘I bet you sleep like a log.’

Oh boy, Shouyou rolls his eyes, and sets his cup down onto the desk with a little more force than necessary. Now, just when he thinks how Asshole might be nice to him this time, they don’t and go back to square one, but he sets that aside for now in favor of shooting them back a furious reply.

“Brother!” Natsu announces her presence as she peeks her head into his room. “We’re going to the grocery store, and mom says that she wants you to come too!”

“Mm, okay.” Shouyou drones in reply.

“Now.” Natsu adds, and like that, she’s gone from the doorway.

He sighs, looking at his laptop then onto his unfinished drink. ‘I have to go,’ He types in a rush, putting his laptop to sleep, but he forgets to confirm the change when Natsu calls for him again from downstairs.

It takes a while, because his parents has winded up bringing them on a tour around the town after they finish their groceries.

When they finally return home in early evening, Shouyou feels a little drained, but the tiredness gets replaced by a mild surprise when he comes back to read ‘I’m sorry.’ on the display of his screen. He’s confused, isn’t entirely sure why the other is apologizing, but when he sees his unchanged network name since the morning, everything clicks in place.

He quickly sends an apology for his sudden disappearance, all the while trying to ignore how solemn the ‘I’m sorry’ has sounded in his head and the plummeting feeling in his chest.

Asshole, Shouyou muses, turns out to be not much of an asshole after all.

Well, in a way, they still are one since they haven’t stopped calling him a dumbass. But other than that, the condescending impression Shouyou had of them at first turns out to be a kind of misconception. Asshole speaks in a tone that settles for something less than arrogance, something more than a little straightforward, and to put it simply they’re brutally blunt with their words, even when they don’t know it, and Shouyou isn’t afraid at all to call him out.

Even on the rare occasions when the two are sharing a conversation on a topic pertaining to some depth in their lives, Asshole is being blunt.

Their responses are short too, often- no, usually, and it’s short enough that Shouyou doesn’t need to keep changing his network name to urge Asshole to continue (something that they do for him) after he’s done reading their text. It’s the little things like these that’s altered his view on Asshole because clearly, they didn’t mind how Shouyou is always brimming with a head full of words and even catered to him with a few words like ‘Wow.’ or ‘Cool.’

‘You talk too much.’ The words flash through his laptop screen after Shouyou finishes his storytelling of his ‘the most epic super fun incredible forest adventure’ when he was a kid, but Shouyou knows that there’s no bite to those words; it’s just Asshole punctuating their thoughts in such a way that makes it seem so much like they’re stating a fact.

He’s aware that the man- or woman- or whoever- on the other side won’t see him but that doesn’t stop him from sticking out his tongue at the screen as he retorts. ‘And you talk too little!’

There’s no reply for a little while, but as soon as one comes in, Shouyou knows he’s in for a night of longer banters than the usual.

Their neighboring networks joins in their conversations sometimes, but it happens once in a while.

Mountain Valley is nice as ever, and Thunder gives Shouyou the vibe of a well-respected awesome upperclassman. Blueville, on the other hand, while there’s something about them that doesn’t feel quite right, they could be fun to talk to as well.

At first, it was hard to keep a track on who’s saying which, and there was the one time everything has spiraled down into a big mess of garbage dump because no one knew who was who that they all ended up changing their network names back to what it originally is. Then from that point onward, whenever they have conversation in groups, they have a mutual agreement on leaving the first initial of their network handles at the start of their message.

Shouyou thinks it’s pretty cool, especially how they’re all neighbors, living in the same area, and how they don’t mind this strange thing they’re doing, and he briefly wonders if he gets to meet them all properly in person one day.

But there’s one neighbor who never joins them until the day they seemingly had enough.

This time, it’s only Asshole and Shouyou engaging in a conversation, and they’re talking about their favorite sports which coincidentally is volleyball and they’re quick to passionately talk about it when Cat Town barges in with their newly set name, ‘Oi, communicate like normal people.’

‘Huh?’ Asshole says, and Shouyou copies them.

It takes a while for Cat Town’s name to change again. ’Don’t you guys have social medias?’ and then another, ‘Or phone numbers?’ and Shouyou sits there, feeling an imaginal rock thrown at the side of his head at the existence of given options.

Shouyou embarrassedly types, ‘I… didn’t think of that.’

‘Me neither.’ Asshole types too.

‘Oh my god, you both are idiots.’

Shouyou has to exchange his number with Asshole’s pretty quick afterwards before anyone else gets the chance to see them and jot them down— although Shouyou has a feeling that no one would even be bothered with them at this point. Cat Town’s interruption could stand to be a testament to that. Soon enough, Shouyou’s network name goes back to being Little Giant, and as for Asshole, Setter Soul.

Chatting through phone turns out to be far, far more convenient than using the network name, and Shouyou couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of exchanging phone numbers before.

But then… things begin to get even weirder from there.

Asshole turns out to be a man and he turns out to have a name as well after all.

His name is Kageyama Tobio, he is a postgraduate like Shouyou and he’s a bit younger than him. The name is pretty cute, fitting even. There’s a kind of charm to it that resonates well with Kageyama’s character: awkward, somehow dorky, and it’s totally different than the first impression of a douchebag vibe which Kageyama had given him.

Now that they have some privacy to themselves, it’s more bearable as well. There’s more room for them to talk about themselves, they can talk about anything they want, but they’re alone, and the thought of this makes Shouyou's stomach squirm. Their conversations are sheltered now from the outside world; no outsiders to prey on the words they’d send to each other, no Mountain Valley or Cat Town to dance into their conversation freely, and as nice as it is to have their own privacy, Shouyou finds it would still take some time for him to get used to these new changes, and he does get used to it within a week's time.

And one day, Kageyama accidentally sends him something.

Kageyama sends him a picture. Only, it isn’t any picture, it’s the one where Shouyou finally gets to see the face of the man behind the screen who he’s been talking to. Although the possibility it isn’t Kageyama still stands since there isn’t any kind of caption attached to the picture sent, but Shouyou is pretty sure that it’s him.

The man in picture is understandably and impossibly attractive; short black hair with bangs tapered to a v-shape, a nose slotting from a high bridge into a perfect size of a mold, dark eyes and a pair of unfairly tempting lips.

‘Is that you?’ Shouyou asks.

‘Oh. Yes, it’s me.’ Kageyama texts him a bit later and Shouyou’s heart flutters at the confirmation, ‘Sorry. Sent it by accident.’

A beautiful and most gracious accident the world has to offer, Shouyou thinks and nearly smacks himself in the face at the thought.

He spends the next few moments on (definitely not) breathlessly fawning over Kageyama then. He squints at one point later, thinking that he might have seen this face somewhere before… which would make sense, he supposes. Kageyama is his neighbor after all, so he’s bound to have seen him at least once or twice.

Turning onto his back on his bed, Shouyou turns the camera on his phone to his face. He shifts around on his mattress, determined to find the perfect spot and the perfect angle for a selfie, and when he does find it, he snaps a picture of himself with a peace sign thrown up and a big bright smile peering into his phone screen.

Shouyou sends the picture to Kageyama, but only after he’s mustered enough courage.

He receives a text sometime later, and Shouyou’s face has grown thousands of shades darker than the hot red surface of the sun, stars in his chest dancing and bursting with bright lights as he reads the newly received text from Kageyama.

‘Cute.’ Kageyama says.

‘I know! I am!’ Shouyou returns the message with an emoji of a tongue sticking out to the side. It’s then an idea strikes him.

He wonders, what if they were to meet up? Meet properly for their first time, get to know each other more, and it’s not as if they live far, they’re neighbors, so it seems like a good option and a convenience for them to try.

But then Shouyou begins to mull over the details should they decide to meet. On one hand, it’s nice to finally see Kageyama face-to-face, but then he thinks about his attractive face, then some more thousands of other thoughts that could go terribly, horribly wrong.

“What if I make a fool out of myself?” He thinks aloud, shuddering at the worst scenarios playing in his head.

There’s a part of his mind that’s waging war with his doubts, whispering to him the chances of it being one among millions of things that could go great too, that it could be the best opportunity he’d miss out on, and so, he decides to give it a try.

With firecrackers lighting the sparks off his skin, he finally sends Kageyama the question in mind and puts his phone back down on his desk after.

He waits for the reply, but then two minutes passes by, five, fifteen, and by the thirtieth, he begins to panic and thinks he’s said the wrong thing, but he also tries to rationalize himself, that Kageyama is probably busy, and it’s not the first time he doesn’t reply within thirty minutes, so he decides to put his mind on something else. But then his phone sings an alarm, notifying him of an incoming text.

‘Sure. When?’ He reads on the screen.

He stares at the text, dumbfounded. Then, in the next second, he finds himself catching up in his sheer excitement Kageyama’s agreement has brought him that he dives back under his sheets to rejoice.

‘Let's meet up tomorrow!’

‘... Tomorrow?’

‘I mean…’ He pauses on typing, biting his lips to think of a reason. ‘We’re neighbors, aren’t we?’

‘Oh, yeah. Tomorrow then. Where?’

‘Great! Let's meet around three in the afternoon, yeah? We could just… stand outside the house and look for each other?’

‘Sure.’

They’re going to meet each other. Their first meeting. Their very first meeting. After two to three months of talking, they would meet. They’re going to meet up, and then– and then- talk? Shouyou doesn’t know what they will do once they run into each other but he figures a little trip around the town wouldn’t hurt.

He starts rolling around in his bed, grinning so widely through the entire time it starts to hurt his cheeks. It takes him five more minutes to recompose himself, click open his phone and fervently expressing his joy by flooding Kageyama’s inbox with dozens of emojis, finally ending his spree with a good night text.

‘Night. See you tomorrow.’ Kageyama replies, and it’s to this and the low humming pleasant sound within the room Shouyou has fallen asleep to.

Shouyou goes out for his daily run in the early morning. He admits, he is quite eager to meet Kageyama later on, but he’s been feeling nervous too since he wakes up which had been way too early, and it's worse that he doesn’t feel as ready as he did last night for their meeting. So, he figures that he’d run a little more around the neighborhood would do him a good favour.

He starts his routine with a few simple stretches before dashing through the sidewalk with every mighty kick off the ground. He does this, picking up his pace every few meters, until the familiar ache begins to settle in his legs, until his nerves dissipates, replaced by the good burn of jogging. And by the time he feels completely flushed of his nervousness, he decides to put an end to his routine there and jog back— but then, a voice speaks to him out of nowhere, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

“You’re even shorter than I imagined.”

Shouyou squeaks in surprise. He completely stills to a stop, his head turning ever so slowly to the side and sees- then nearly chokes when he’s met by the face he spends staring on his phone for a while the previous night.

Kageyama in person, is much more handsome than the Kageyama in picture. The first thing he notices, are the eyes. In the picture, Kageyama’s eyes had been dark, pitch black, but it might have been the bad lighting because here, under the ray of sun where it’s hitting his eyes, Shouyou could see their colors threaded in all hues of grays and blues.

The second thing he notices is that Kageyama is tall. He stands at least a head taller than him, much to his annoyance, and he’s wearing what looks to be a sportswear.

“You–?” Shouyou gapes, definitely quietly reeling over how he’s meeting Kageyama earlier than their promised time. “Y-you– oh, um, er, you run too?” He dumbly asks.

Kageyama blinks, somehow glaring. “I always run at this time.” He says, muttering, and then, Shouyou gawks, no longer shaken but shocked by the fact how they have never bumped into each other on their run.

“That’s funny, because I always run at this time too!” Shouyou says, and Kageyama looks surprised himself at this too.

“Oh.” He tells, growing quiet, and Shouyou can’t help but be amused at how well Kageyama’s way of texting has reflected him within just a few seconds into their meeting in person.

“So, uh.” Shouyou starts. They’ve already met each other now, and it sounds awkward to have them leave things as they are now only to get back together at later time. Heaving a deep breath, he points a thumb to another direction and gathers up his courage to ask, “Wanna go for a run together?”

But Kageyama doesn’t even wait for him, much less sparing him a glance as he suddenly runs past him with a breeze. “If you can catch up to me, that is, dumbass.”

“Wait… Huh?” Shouyou says dumbly for the second time, the gears in his head still wheeling until it clicks. “What the– hey! That’s totally cheating!” He shouts, and doesn’t think twice to chase after him, his laughter twinkling in the air.

It’s no secret that the two had a whole rocky start at first, but somehow, they still managed to get along. Then somehow, somewhere along the way, they end up developing feelings for each other, and well— here they are.

‘Hey, guys! We're dating now!’ Shouyou changes his network name for the first time in a while, to tell their neighbors slash network name friends of some great news.

‘Finally!’ Mountain Valley says a moment later.

‘Yeah, we knew.’ Thunder follows, although their words ends up feeding both Shouyou and Tobio confusion.

But overall, their neighbors responded to their news with a glee and that's enough to make them happy.

After all, it too was from here where their connection had begin, where the connection had been the weakest but grown to be strong in time. So, it's only fair to let the ones who'd been there at the start to know where they are now, too.

[chatting-leaves]

Thursday September 20th: Part 1 of 2

Genre: Personal. Very thinly veiled fiction.

The last time September 20th was on a Thursday, I woke up feeling very optimistic. That morning was to be the first morning of a new job assignment I had taken from a small staffing agency, my first work in nearly three months. Eight months earlier, my wife and I had moved to the northern suburbs of Boston, her home, after she had complained of feelings of homesickness and ennui and she felt she had nothing to lose by going back home. While in theory neither she - or even myself, who had been out of work prior - had nothing to lose, in practice we had everything to lose.

On that morning, I awoke in the guest bedroom of her grandparents house, our residence since we had moved as a means of having some place to stay at the outset. Instead, our lives had become what I would refer to as a “sadistic game of Wack-a-Mole” in which our employment statuses varied - first I had a contract position, then she finally got a relevant job four months after our arrival, then my position expired - and kept us from getting a place of our own. When this job arrived, I was told that it was a “sure thing” by the woman at the hiring agency; that while it was at the outset for only one month, there was “a very, very good chance” that it would become a permanent position and that my new employer, a semiconductor startup, was “a very strong operation that liked [my] background.” Over the ensuing eight months, we had become a bit more cynical, a little more than a bit chubbier, and a lot more worn down from having had little privacy for most of our first year of marriage and we were wanting to get a place of our own. After a shower and breakfast, I packed some snacks and a lunch and made my way out the door, walking down our residential street with signs for the upcoming elections littering our street, a byproduct of sorts of toxic political culture. Amidst the signs before reaching the main road came another form of litter echoing an alarming trend, discarded syringes and needle covers left by those abusing injectable drugs such as heroin. At the main road, I waited for a bus into Boston and upon boarding then weaved through an assortment of working class areas that could be seen by some more exclusionary types as the epitome of the stereotype of the “Townie”: rarely traveled, insular, working class, yet also a bit elitist in terms of town status and their defence of local sports teams. This commute is something I had done too many times to count when I had previously worked and on other days when I had taken a day off to ward off cabin fever and to try to have some semblance of the life we had left prior in a compact, accessible neighborhood of Washington, DC where everything I needed was either within walking distance or accessible by copious amounts of transit. We worked out way into Boston, eventually reaching the notorious highway of Route 1, through the twists of the post-industrial Chelsea before what some called Boston’s “other Green Monster”, the Tobin Bridge. At that time, it was a hunk of vaguely green metal pockmarked with copious amounts of rust where we sat stopped as the morning rush meandered its way through the toll booths to be waved through en route to our eventual arrival. After that point, I went through a similarly meandering journey via subway - Green Line to the historical Park Street, then Red Line to the bustling South Station, then a transfer to a confused mode known as the Silver Line, a mode often derided as a “bus that acts like a train” which would bring me to the front door of the building where I was to work. In my two weeks of waiting for this job, a period which my start date had been postponed twice as I was originally to have started the Thursday prior, I had never made the decision to do a dry run to see how this commute would have worked out and once the bus dropped me off I was a bit in shock at the scale of where I was working. I had known that it was in a relatively isolated of the South Boston Waterfront - or the “Seaport District” in modern marketing lingo - but the mass of the buildings once used as warehouses seemed a bit stunning as I tried to find exactly where to go in the linear maze I had fallen upon.

Having a few minutes to kill before my shift, I made my way to a restroom to give a final check of how I looked to make sure I made an excellent first impression. While the email I had received stated that business casual was the code, I decided to side with a pair of suit pants and a nice sweater I owned with a green and red argyle pattern. This choice was giving deference to the weather that morning, unseasonably cool and a harbinger of the coming autumn set to start officially the next day. I then made it upstairs to find an office full of people mainly in t-shirts and jeans, typical for a technology startup but I always liked being one better as to set a good example. After asking for the woman who was to be my boss, Kathryn, I was given the terse word that she was in a meeting and that I should wait a few minutes. Once she returned, someone spoke with her and then brought her my way. Without given any sort of greeting or salutations, Kathryn went immediately to business.

“Can you put together those three chairs?,” Kathryn said gesturing to three unopened boxes. “I’ll give you 30 minutes to an hour to do so. The sooner you finish these, the better because we need these chairs.” I responded affirmatively but withheld the truth - that I had never put office furniture together in my life and that the job description furnished to me had mentioned nothing of the sort. I will gladly say that I am a team player and will go above and beyond the call of duty, the description had been given had a lot of phone calls, emails, editing correspondence such as press releases, nothing of the sort about light furniture assembly. Not wanting to show weakness or failure, I spent the better part of the next hour trying to put together said chairs and succeeded in doing so. After finishing, Kathryn barked another order at me.

“Can you make some construction paper footballs for the football watch party on Sunday?” I had been told at the outset that the entire office had a Fantasy Football league and that they often had day-long watch parties during the NFL season. This Sunday made things convenient as the Patriots were playing in the night game, viewed nationwide and one of a handful of games each week seen all around the world. As with furniture assembly, arts and crafts was never one of my strong points yet once again I did what I needed to do even if it was well outside my job description. While doing my best to get these assembled, both via creation and by writing the names of employees and other guests on them, I started to feel some doubts about the job as twice they had given me duties well beyond what I had prepared myself for; in fact, in assembling the furniture I had started to sweat as I obviously had not dressed for such a task. When done, Kathryn directed me to a computer and left a copy of their corporate compliance handbook with some notes attached.

“We’ve had to update our policy on bringing dogs into the office. Can you edit this in? Here’s your login,” she said while also giving me a piece of paper with a username - my name, last name heavily mangled - and temporary password. After helping myself to some complimentary pretzels and a soda, a hallmark of a startup leaving free food and drink for their employees, I tried to log in only to find the username the had created for me did not work and after multiple tries brought the matter to Kathryn who claimed that she would have it sorted out during my lunch later that day. Logging me into a guest account, I made all the edits that I had been given as well as doing some general copy editing as there were some typographical and grammatical errors lingering in the bowels of that handbook. At around 12:30, two-and-a-half hours into a six-and-a-half hour shift, I was given a request.

“Can you go to lunch?,” Kathryn asked.

“It’s a little early to take my lunch, I was going to hold off until I was completely done working on this,” I responded, knowing that I liked to take my lunch closer to the mid-point of my shift to break up the day easier.

“I really want you to take it now,” Kathryn fired back.

“Okay. I brought a lunch in with me which I put in the fridge. Let me just go get it since I don’t need anything else,” I continued.

“I really need you to leave for lunch. There’s an Au Bon Pain two buildings over. I’m sure you can get there, eat, and get back in a half hour. Your work can wait,” Kathryn insisted.

Under protest, I relented and took the walk over to Au Bon Pain, a bakery cafe with the typical assortment of salads, sandwiches, baked goods, and the like. While walking, I realized that “two buildings over” was a good five minute walk given the massive scale of each building and upon arriving I discovered that this literally was the only viable lunch spot for a pretty large community of workers as there were no other establishments open at that time. Not being a fan of salad and not wanting to hold up the line, I ended up deciding on a container of lobster macaroni and cheese from a small self-serve bar and a baguette as it was the easiest option to get, eat, and run back. This lunch set me back about $10, not much to the established people there but for someone who had not worked in three months was a relatively large sum as by that point I was not even getting unemployment due to a conflict that surfaced right before taking this job. As I ate, I wondered if my being forced out of the office had a ulterior motive to it such as ending the assignment; a prior non-temporary job I had did this to set up a meeting to let me go due to having less resources to support my position than originally thought. “Surely a job would not let someone go after only two hours,” I thought as I finished my lunch and made a mad dash back to to the office. Upon returning, I found a slip of paper with my fixed username and a temporary password. Once again, it did not work and once again Kathryn put me back on a guest account to finish editing the handbook then to add some more names to a mailing list they maintained. By 2:30 that afternoon, I had exhausted all of the work I was given only to find that she was in a meeting and the only advice given to me was to “wait for her”. For the next half hour, I sat and waited while trying to not play with my charging phone, my fear being that had I done so it would be used as just cause to end the assignment. Upon Kathryn’s return, she came with news.

“I think they fixed your username,” she said. Once again, I tried only to find that the username in the system still did not exist. After a couple of minutes, she ended up relenting.

“You can go home now if you want,” she offered. “We really don’t have anything else left here and we can just start fresh on Monday.” Going into this, both she and the agency knew that I had a standing commitment that required I not work on the 21st - we had plans to go to Vermont for our first anniversary.

“Are you sure I’ll be here on Monday,” I asked.

“Yes. As much as today seemed rocky we really will need the help starting next week,” Kathryn concluded. I went to get most of my stuff but I felt confident to leave my lunch - a package of frozen pizza bites - in the freezer for the weekend. After that, I went to catch a bus home, about an hour later reaching my front door before the afternoon rush intensified. As optimistic as my departure that day was, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something might be slightly awry given what had transpired. While packing my clothes for the imminent vacation, I wondered what would happen when the agency inevitably called to see how my first day was and mulled giving them a preemptive all to get it over and done with.

Little did I know what was set to transpire.

[sevenpabosandabunchoffans]

The Meaning of Family | From Friends to Spouses {Part 5}

Characters: Min Yoongi, Original Characters, Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon, Jung Hoseok, Jeon Jungkook, Kim Taehyung, Park Jimin, Jennie Kim

Words: 2589

Genre: College Student!Yoongi, Parents!Namjin

Warnings: fluffy Jimin and Jennie, mentions of premature labor and birth

Summary: “Do Yoongi and Sophia get married?”; Yoongi and Sophia take the next step in their relationship, but not without a few bumps along the way; Time Period - the end of Yoongi and Sophia’s first year of college, third trimester of the pregnancy (ranging from 30-34 weeks specifically); Ages: Jin - 36, Namjoon - 35, Yoongi - 19, Sophia - 19, Hoseok - 18, Jimin - 16, Taehyung - 16, Jennie - 15, Jungkook - 14, Sammie - not even a day old

A/N: Sorry I’ve been MIA! I’m not sure how many people saw the post, but my sister went into premature labor Monday morning (she’s only 35 weeks), so I spent two days at the hospital, and then she came home yesterday morning after they slowed down the labor enough that her contractions were practically nonexistent. Although she called earlier while Sammie and I were hanging out trying to get a hold of my mom because her contractions had started up again and she was going back to the hospital. I’m still waiting on an update from that. But I will definitely be on for a long time now with the comeback approaching! Please send me any and all asks so we can fangirl together!!

Previous Part

Yoongi walked into his parents’ house after getting off work. Since finals week had just finished for him, he worked nearly all day at the music store, getting off just in time for pizza night with his family. As he entered the residence, he saw one of his younger brothers pouting on the couch. “What’s with you?” He asked Jimin.

Jimin just grumbled in response, Yoongi only catching ‘doesn’t love me’ and ‘cuddles’. As he entered the kitchen and saw Jennie helping Sophia put together some gift bags while Jin decorated cupcakes, he understood what Jimin was pouting over. “Hey, Yoongi~” Jin greeted without looking up from the task at hand. “Your dad should be home with the pizza soon.”

Yoongi nodded in response before making his way to Sophia, pressing his lips to hers. “How’s it coming?” They were currently preparing for the baby shower that would be taking place the next day. Sophia’s favorite animal was a giraffe and her favorite color was purple, so that was what she decided on as the theme for both the shower and nursery. Jin decided to take over completely once the theme was decided, working alongside Sophia’s mother to plan out the shower, only he was going to the extremes trying to make it perfect for his unborn granddaughter.

“I don’t know what’s more stressful, this shower or finals week next week.” Sophia answered honestly, and Yoongi rubbed her back.

“Well, don’t get too stressed.”

“Aww, you two are so cute!” Jennie squealed before yelling towards her boyfriend. “Why can’t you be like that?!”

“You’re the one who’s refusing cuddles!” Jimin’s voice replied, and the 15-year-old girl rolled her eyes.

“Do you think this looks like a giraffe?” Jin asked, holding up the cupcake that he had been working on for the past 10 minutes alone so the younger people in the room could see it.

“Oh my gosh, it’s amazing!” Sophia gushed over the dessert. “I love it, it looks great!”

“It looks delicious too.” Yoongi said, subtly licking his lips as he looked at the sweet.

“Don’t even think about it, Yoongi~” Jin told his oldest son. “These are for tomorrow.” Jin set the cupcake down and started decorating the rest of them, Jennie soon abandoning them to give in to Jimin’s whines.

The baby shower went smoothly, much to both Sophia and Jin’s relief, and Sophia navigated her finals week with minor stress. It was when she started working full time at the preschool that things began to get rough. Having to work the majority of the day around a bunch of hyper, screaming young children would be stressful for anyone, but it was especially hard on Sophia as she was approaching her 34th week of pregnancy. She was feeling sleep deprived, sore, and overall just ready for the pregnancy to be over with. Yoongi was also beginning to feel exhausted over having to walk on eggshells around Sophia, which seemed moot because they ended up having small arguments almost every night after they each got home from work. Thankfully those were all solved very quickly, and they would still end the night cuddling in bed as they fell asleep.

It was early June at the preschool when Jin noticed something off about Sophia. She was pouring water into cups for when the kids would wake up for snack time while Jin was distributing banana slices along paper towels at each of the children’s seats when she suddenly groaned quietly and grabbed her stomach. “You okay?” Jin was immediately worried for his soon to be daughter in law.

Sophia nodded as she grimaced. “Yeah, I’m just pregnant.” Jin mentally commended her for keeping things lighthearted, but his concern didn’t drop any as he went back to setting out the snacks. Especially when she would do the same thing every so often for the rest of the afternoon.

It was after all the kids had left for the day and the two of them were going through the lock up routine that the concern peaked. Sophia cried out as Jin was logging out of the computer in the office, making him immediately run into the main room where Sophia had lowered herself into a chair and was clutching her stomach. He rushed over to her and crouched in front of her, taking her hand. “I think we need to get you to the hospital.”

Sophia looked at him wide eyed, the pain she was feeling evident in her gaze. “But Yoongi-“

“I’ll call Yoongi on the way, don’t worry.” He helped her out of the chair and led her out to his car.

Yoongi was taking his 15-minute break in the employee breakroom when his phone began to ring. He answered as soon as he saw it was his dad but was unable to get a greeting out before his heart was dropping. “I think Sophia might be in labor so we’re on our way to the hospital.”

Yoongi silently panicked for a few seconds before saying the most prominent thought in his head. “But she’s only 34 weeks.”

“I know,” Jin sighed. “Hopefully she’s not in labor. We’re almost at the hospital, I’ll text you what room she gets put in.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.” Yoongi quickly went to his boss’ office and convinced him to let him leave early so he could rush to the hospital.

Over at the Kim house, Jimin and Jennie were sitting on the couch, her sitting in his lap as they shared small kisses and quiet giggles, thanks to being kicked out of his and Taehyung’s bedroom after Taehyung claimed their “sickening coupleyness” was distracting him from his homework. They both looked up as the front door opened, Namjoon entering the house with a concerned look on his face. “Hey, dad, what movie are we watching tonight?”

“None~” Jimin’s eyes furrowed as Namjoon went to the hallway to tell the other three teenagers in the house to get ready to go. Jimin was left confused until Namjoon came back into the living room and finally explained what was going on. “They think Sophia went into preterm labor so we’re all going to the hospital.

It was just Yoongi and Sophia in the hospital room, as her mother hadn’t arrived yet and Jin went to the waiting room to be able to update everyone on what was going on when they finally arrived. “So, she’s really in labor?” Yoongi asked, internally panicking as he was worrying over the safety of his fiancée and their baby.

The doctor nodded. “If she had come in just an hour earlier, we probably would have had enough time to put a stop to it, but she’s already dilated too much that we’ll need to proceed with it.”

A nurse came up, filling a syringe with some sort of drug as Sophia turned to look at Yoongi. “We don’t even have a name picked out yet.”

Yoongi squeezed her hand, which he had not let go of since arriving at the hospital and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “We’ll have one by the time she gets here.”

“Okay,” they both looked at the doctor, “we’re about to inject you with some magnesium sulfate to slow your labor down and a steroid to help your baby develop a little quicker to help her when she does come out. Our hope is that your water will stay intact for another 24 hours so we can give you another dose.” Sophia nodded and closed her eyes while tightening her grip on Yoongi as they gave her the shots, she had never been a big fan of needles. “Now, we’re going to transport you to UAMS in Little Rock.”

Eventually the two families were outside, coordinating who was going to ride in which car, including Yoongi who hadn’t been allowed to ride in the ambulance to Little Rock with Sophia. “It’ll be okay, Yoongi.” Namjoon assured his oldest son. “You can ride with Sophia’s family, they’ll probably get to the hospital first. I’ll take the twins with me and we’ll get pizza for everyone to have a late dinner when we get there.”

“And I’ll go by y’all’s apartment with Hoseok and Jungkook to get whatever you guys need from there.” Jin offered, and Yoongi didn’t hesitate in giving his dad a key to their place. “We’ll see you there!” Jin called out as Yoongi ran off to Sophia’s mother’s car, which pulled out of the hospital parking lot only a few minutes later.

“I’m guessing we’ll need a couple of more pizzas than normal.” Namjoon commented as the Kim family separated into their two cars.

“Would you mind taking me home before you leave?” Jennie asked. “I would love to stay with you guys, but I’m sure my foster parents want me back.” Namjoon told her that of course they would take her home as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

The rest of Friday night and all through Saturday was spent with everyone in that hospital feeling restless. Sophia’s mother stayed in the room with her and Yoongi while everyone else settled down in the waiting room. There was a family room specifically for sleeping one floor up from where they were, so they all took turns sleeping in there, making sure there was always a few people in the waiting room in case Sophia’s mother came out with updates. Yoongi refused to leave Sophia’s side the entire time. If someone looked at them, they probably would have thought their hands were glued together. If she needed help to adjust to a more comfortable position, he was immediately up on his feet helping her. Whenever she wanted some of the ice chips she was permitted to consume, he was there with the spoon to her mouth before she could even ask. Every time a nurse came in to check on her, the first thing out of his mouth would be asking how things looked and if their daughter was still okay. At one point, a contraction hit Sophia while he was in the bathroom, and after that Sophia’s mother had to practically force him to go to the bathroom when he needed to because he was too scared to leave Sophia’s side for even a single second.

It was around lunch time on Saturday when Sophia and Yoongi finally began to discuss baby names. After nearly an hour of discussion and no name, they decided to enlist the help of their family. Sophia’s mother went out to the waiting room to retrieve the lunches for her and Yoongi that Jin and Namjoon had purchased, and at that point she asked Jungkook if she could borrow his hat. “Yoongi and Sophia have decided to ask us for our suggestions for the baby’s name,” she explained as she wrote down something on a slip of paper and placed it in the cap, “so all of you write down a name you like, both first and middle, and place it in here for them to look over.”

It was nearing the 24-hour mark after her shots when Hoseok sat down next to Namjoon. “I have my advising appointment to schedule my classes at UACCM Monday, do you think I’ll still be able to make it, or should I go ahead and reschedule it?”

Namjoon was quick to shake his head. “You can still go to your appointment.” Namjoon assured him as Jin’s phone buzzed. “Even if she’s still in labor then, we’re not gonna force you to stay here if you have to go somewhere.”

Jin jumped up and yelled out to get everyone’s attention. “Her water just broke~” The nurse had been preparing to give her the second dose of magnesium sulfate and the steroid when her water broke, meaning her labor would begin to progress much more quickly. “They’re just waiting for her to dilate to a 10 so she can start pushing.”

From that moment on, no one in the waiting room dared to speak or leave for any reason, waiting for the text to come that said the little girl had been born. A couple of hours after her water broke, Sophia was screaming as she tried to bring a new life into the world. Yoongi was holding her hand, not caring that it felt like she was crushing his bones as he whispered praises to her and continuously splayed kisses on her face. It was just past midnight when a small cry was heard in the room, and the nurses immediately rushed the baby out of the birthing room and into the NICU unit to stabilize her. “Is my baby okay?” were the first words out of Sophia’s mouth when a nurse came back into the room.

“The doctors are getting her in an incubator now.” The nurse told the couple before attempting to help Sophia out of the bed. “Let’s get you into the shower and cleaned up.”

Sophia shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen my baby.”

“We need to get you cleaned up.” The nurse insisted.

“It’s okay, Soph,” Yoongi comforted her, rubbing her back and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just take a shower and they’ll bring her in here.”

It was about 45 minutes after Jin received the text that the baby had been born when Sophia’s mother came to the waiting room. Everyone immediately stood up, ready to ask questions, but she was already speaking before anyone could open their mouths. “4 pounds and 15 oz, 12 inches long.” She shared the baby’s size first. “And she’s fine. The doctors said she’s already breathing well on her own, but that she’ll need to stay in an incubator in the NICU for a few weeks before she can come home, but she’s still completely fine.” Everyone felt relief rush through them as soon as it was confirmed that the newest addition to the family was okay.

“When can we see her?” Taehyung was quick to ask, having been the most excited to be an uncle due to how much he loved kids.

“Right now, they just want the grandparents to meet her, and then you guys can come in pairs.” Sophia’s mom answered. “They don’t want to overcrowd the room.”

Taehyung pouted, but understood and stepped back as Jin and Namjoon followed her back into the room. They entered it to see Sophia sitting on the edge of the bed, hair still damp from her shower, with Yoongi behind her, wiping tears away as he looked down at the small baby in the incubator in front of them. A nurse had opened one of the panels on the side so that Sophia could slip her hand in and the 19-year-old mother was lightly stroking her newborn’s hand as she smiled down at him.

“She’s so tiny~” Jin whispered breathlessly, feeling his own tears forming as his eyes fell on his granddaughter for the first time.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Dads?” Yoongi asked without removing his gaze from the infant in the room.

“Just like her mother~” Namjoon replied, and Sophia was too mesmerized by her daughter to even feign embarrassment at the compliment. “Did you finally decide on a name?”

The couple shared a look and smiled at each other before Sophia looked up. “Samantha Rose~”

“That’s beautiful.” Jin complimented the name choice, wondering which of the family had suggested it as he moved closer to the incubator and looked down at Samantha. “Hi there, Sammie~”

Next Part

[gaiatheorist]

Careful what you wish for.

Earlier in the year, I was unreasonably excited that more than one hedgehog was visiting my garden to noisily snuffle and snaffle up the food scraps that I’m still throwing out. “If there’s ‘one of each’, I might have BABY hedgehogs!”

Maybe I should have ‘wished for’ the winning lottery numbers, and bought a ticket instead? There’s currently a small hedgehog in my house, I think I last heard it mooching and snuffling down the side of my desk. I’m not ‘allowed’ to keep it, I jokingly messaged my son to ask if I could, and he responded “Mum, I’m not your Mum, don’t ask me that!”, we’re as bad as each other.

I’d used up all of my fully-functional hours of screen-time typing up my ‘impact statement’ for my PIP tribunal. (The advocate said he would do it ‘for’ me, but I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him, I have reported his conduct to my MP’s secretary, if he’s reneging on actions promised to me, he’s probably doing it to more-vulnerable people as well. I have food in my cupboards, and, through a bit of wrangling with one of my utility providers, I’m able to leave the electric heater on a low setting, some people won’t have had the luxury of being able to pre-plan their poverty-response.) It was a bit difficult to suppress my irritation with him, I was part-way through composing the email to the MP’s team when he emailed me the form he should have sent in September, the one I’ve been chasing in earnest for a week now. I responded that I was in the middle of something, but would print and post the form as soon as I’d completed the task I was on. *Ping* Not two minutes after he’d sent the email I’d already replied to, a text-message “Check your email, please.” *Suppressed scream, check YOUR email, I’ve already replied.* 

I’d done my mandatory work-search on the horrible ‘Universal JobMatch’ website, because I’m paranoid that if the computer systems check, and I haven’t logged on there, I’ll be sanctioned. There were a couple of semi-suitable jobs, but I didn’t apply for them, because they were both expired. One of them expired in May, and I had a very tinfoil-hat moment about that being a test, to see if I was actually looking at the adverts, so I noted in my ‘activity history’ that I’d viewed the vacancies, and that they were expired. I’d missed a call from the lettings agents while I was in the bath, and called them back. “The landlord wants to send someone to fix your heating Friday or Saturday, can you be in?” 

“I have an appointment at 10am on Friday, I can be back here for 11? Saturday’s better, I’m free all day.” (She’d said Friday OR Saturday, but the first plumber said it was a two-day job...)   

“Oh, I’ll have to speak to he landlord, then, I’ll phone you back when I have.” She didn’t phone back, and there’s every chance I’m going to end up having to cancel my counselling appointment on Friday morning, because I NEED the heating working.

Between emailing my MP’s office, NOT snapping at the dodgy advocate, and typing up the long and laborious table of everything that’s wrong with me, I’d gone out to the back doorstep for a cigarette. (Yes, I know, Mums, no more tobacco once I’ve finished this pouch.) There it was, about half-past-noon, a little hedgehog ran past my doorstep, and then stopped, trembling and hyper-ventilating on my back lawn. Hedgehogs are nocturnal, and I knew I’d seen something online about what to do with daylight-hedgehogs. I couldn’t remember if there was some illness or something making them behave abnormally, so the FIRST thing my brain decided was that it was almost certainly a zombie-hedgehog. (Which reminds me, I still haven’t watched yesterday’s The Walking Dead.) That’s what my brain does, it thinks up the most ludicrous and least likely scenario first, and then works backwards, not always logically, how I manage to get my trousers on the right way around in the morning is a minor miracle. 

I messaged Creepy Carpet Tile Man “Oi, Terry Nutkins, there’s a hedgehog in my garden in daylight, do I move it, or leave it?” The original ‘move it’ idea had been to shift it under the bushes where the other hedgehogs bugger off to at dawn, and hope it found its way ‘home’. (Mad image of hedgehog-Mum shouting at Kevin the teenager-hedgehog for staying out all day...) My cognition was already slipping at that point, I’d had a run of really poor sleep, with the additional stress of the PIP-thing, and the unreliable advocate. What I should have done is Google-searched (other search engines are available) for the daylight-hedgehog article. Instead, I’d messaged a wildlife buff, and now I’m worrying I might have upset him, because he’s missing the ends of some of his fingers, and the ‘Nutkins’ reference might have made him think I was mocking his infirmity. Welcome to my head. 

Creepy Carpet Tile Man didn’t respond until early evening, and I didn’t fancy the conscience-grief of just leaving the hedgehog there, and finding it toes-up, or disembowelled by a cat the next day. I put a towel down inside a box, and chucked some pate in. (I might have brain damage, but I’m not daft enough to give a hedgehog bread and milk.) I picked the hedgehog up, brought it into the house, and put it in the box. It didn’t ball-up, or try to escape, the un-hedgehog behaviour was concerning, I fully expected to be putting a cold hedgehog in my general waste bin, but I couldn’t not-try.  (Yes, it probably does have fleas, and yes, it does have ticks, I can see them.) Back to the laptop, to continue with the impact statement, because the advocate has absolutely no idea what he’s dealing with, and keeps telling me I have a ‘really strong case’, when he knows diddly-squat about me. Thinking on, I’d better read back through the whole thing, I clearly wasn’t firing on all cylinders, because I was messing about with a hedgehog.

The hedgehog warmed up a bit, and ate some of the pate, then it warmed up a bit more, and started exploring the box. I didn’t get my hopes up too high, and I’ve given myself a stonking upset stomach by eating the crust from a chicken pasty, to give the hoglet the meat. (No lactose, I checked.) I also gave it some kebab meat I’d found in the back of the freezer, and a saucer of chicken stew, with a banana, it went mad for the kebab meat and chicken, but doesn’t seem interested in the banana. 

I messaged my son a series of photos of the hoglet, unfortunately, he was in lectures, so couldn’t immediately respond to his probably-insane mother to ask her what on earth she thought she was going to do with a hedgehog. (He did say it’s not up to him whether I keep it... I’m not keeping it, it’s a wild animal, it’s not a pet.) Creepy Carpet Tile Man replied that I should give the hedgehog dog-food, and not let it out until it weighed 500g. I pointed out that, not having a dog, I had no dog-food, but that the little beast was very active, and chowing down on the ‘clean’ (ish) meat I’d been able to find. 

I spent a few hours yesterday evening watching the adorable little creature scamper around my living room. At one point it climbed into a shelving unit that I’ve now blocked off, so it doesn’t try to eat my Yankee Candles. It’s obviously quite a young one, because it was biting my toes. Bear with me, I’m not suggesting that adult hedgehogs would be repelled by my hooves, it was the soft-mouthed ‘play’ bite that young animals do to attract the attention of their parents or litter-mates, the grab-and-tug. Hedgehog, I’ve brought you indoors, and given you food, shelter, and warmth, but if you think I’m going to hand-feed you, because you’re impossibly cute, you’re wrong, there’s food over there, you can smell it, go and forage.  

I woke up at 4am, reasonably optimistic that the hedgehog would still be alive, and it was. I could hear it scuttling about behind the sofa before it poked its cute snout out, and snaffled some more kebab-meat. It really is adorable, but I’m not getting attached to it. I’m limiting my ‘interaction’ with it, I’m not talking to it, or handling it any more than I absolutely have to, because it needs to know that humans aren’t all trustworthy. It mustn’t ‘get used to’ my voice, or to being handled, and there were a couple of ‘Aw!’ moments this morning, when I saw it ‘behaving like a hedgehog.’ (Yes, it was a tad frustrating trying catch a prickly thing with claws and teeth before it ran off under a cupboard, but running and hiding is how hedgehogs survive.) I put it to ‘bed’ a couple of hours ago, after noticing it had curled up in a ball in front of the heater, tired-toddler style. I’ll buy some cat-food today, and probably phone a rescue centre tomorrow, I have lots of horrible paperwork I need to do while my eyes are still functional, it’s OK in a box covered in a towel for now.

So, I sort-of wished for a baby hedgehog, and now there’s one in a box in my living room. What I’m concentrating on now is ‘wishing’ that I can articulate my disabilities, and the impacts they have on me well enough to show the PIP tribunal panel that I really am struggling, and need help. That’s a pricklier issue than the one asleep in that box over there.    

[renaroo]

Day 9 Ache: Pain in the Aft

Disclaimer: Transformers and related properties belong to Hasbro Warnings: Canon-typical language and violence Pairings: ChromiaxWindblade Rating: T Synopsis: Chromia finds herself taken the proverbial and literal bullet for Windblade within ten minutes of their reunion, but she can’t help but feel like it’s exactly the way things are supposed to be. ChromiaxWindblade. Sapphic September: Ache

A/N: I missed posting this on the right day the first time around so let’s doooo this. 

The terms of Chromia’s release for her crimes against Cybertron had been all but nonnegotiable. She was to hunt down the threat that had nearly destroyed the planet as well as the feeble peace between the Council of Worlds and, more importantly by Chromia’s estimates, been directly responsible for the loss of the only mech Chromia had felt her fealty toward.

Traveling by space cruiser, particularly one as small and ramshackle as what Starscream had sent her off in, was not luxurious and it was not good for peace of mind. But it was unassuming, even in the face of increased tensions between organics and nonorganic life. Which gave her cover in ways she hadn’t been looking for before.

She charged occasionally but Chromia mostly spent her time at the helm, even if autopilot was perfectly acceptable between the long trips from planet to planet.

Even though she, like any normal nonorganic, was offline while charging on a berth, it were the moments just after she came back online that she tried with everything in her to avoid. Those moments where it would take just a second too long for the world to reboot around her, and for Chromia to remember where she was and what she doing. What she was doing it for.

More than anything, she hated those moments, because it was in the flickering of those moments that she most easily forgot that Windblade was gone. That the cityspeaker under her protection had died on her watch. And that it was her fault.

Everything… Everything had been her fault.

The guilt never left Chromia, but those foul moments of being hit with the reminder of what pained her, what caused the aches which transcended through her, that Chromia hated the most.

For every second that she wasn’t miserable, that she allowed herself to be off objective, Chromia felt the ache grow larger in her spark. It felt as though she was letting Windblade and her sacrifice slowly numb her from its sharp pain. And she hated it.

Following up on her latest lead, Chromia found herself within the territory of the Black Block Consortia. Dangerous for any inorganic, to be sure, but for a Cybertronian it was a death sentence. Which made it not much different than the exile and banishment which Chromia was already suffering through.

She faced the new world with her shield raised and a set look on her face. Like most of the times she landed, she received many looks, but the further she got into the darker sides of marketplaces and the back allies littered with debris and scum, the less she stood out as a mechanical life. Especially with the newly added scrapes and dents that had been gained since she first started her hunt.

Asking around took a few hours, middling information would have cost an arm and a leg if not for the high expense associated with trade goods, something Chromia had learned quite well over the cycles.

Even then, though, news of Liege Maximo was difficult to decipher, especially in the rare instance where the ones spilling the information were actually aware enough of who they were informing Chromia of.

The fact that her quest was sending her further and further into Consortia territory was troubling enough to Chromia that she had made a log of it to be sent out with her usual transmissions. It was unlikely that any sort of alliance that could be gained between their enemies would leave Cybertron and the Council in a better place.

It also meant she was keeping an eye out for spies from the other side.

Chromia tried to keep herself alert for anything that could happen, but she knew from experience that it was a nearly impossible task.

And even then, heading back to her ship mostly empty handed, she could not have been prepared to see another Cybertronian vessel beside her own.

She stopped, uncertain and suspicious at first, then began to look for the obvious suspects. Enemies from her past, perhaps rogue Cybertronians in league with Liege Maximo, ravagers who were going to pick apart her ship for any goods as soon as they cracked the security codes on it.

She hated all the options, so she readied her shield and spear, quietly pushing forward to sidestep around her ship and catch whoever was on the other side when—

The one thing she couldn’t have expected met her.

Windblade’s perfect frame was leaned over, examining the ship’s lock and trying to determine how long it had been there judging by the clock projected for her. She held a thin finger to her lips and frowned at the information. Her wings raised and fell with a dissatisfied vent and she straightened up to full figure, hands on her hips and a soft glow from her optics.

Everything was perfect. Everything about her that had always been so meticulous, so perfect, was still in place. She looked the same as she had the day before everything on Cybertron had gone straight to the Pits.

Diplomat, spiritual leader, cityspeaker, and more — all the things that Windblade had been from the moment Chromia had been assigned to her protection to the moment that she was no more exuded from her even at the distance that Chromia was at then and there.

Chromia’s brain module all but recycled. She couldn’t possibly believe what her own optics were seeing.

Everyone knew that Windblade died protecting Cybertron. Everyone mourned her loss. The ceremonies were still ongoing even when Chromia still sat in her cell, listening to the offer for her tentative freedom from the Mistress of Flame and Starscream.

The Windblade that Chromia swore to lay her life down for and then missed her chance was long gone, spark extinguished, body a shell.

And yet she stood at Chromia’s ship, looking up and around curiously, looking like she had a fresh touchup of paint.

“Windblade,” Chromia finally breathed, dropping her shield and spear in shock.

Hearing her name, Windblade turned to where Chromia had hidden herself almost immediately and then stepped forward. Her bright blue eyes seemingly lit up as she continued walking toward her former bodyguard. “Chromia! It’s you! I had hoped that you still had the ship that Starscream told me you had, but I wasn’t certain—“

“By Primus,” Chromia vented, shook to the spark. “You’re… Windblade!”

She hesitated, looking unsure, and tilted her head. “Chromia? Are you… You look… awful, are you alright?”

“I’m…” Chromia was many things, but articulate at the moment was not one of them. She gaped at the sight of Windblade, at the sense of her, at the static of her EMF field. At all of it that was so impossibly truly Windblade.

And it made her ache at every corner, every wire and fiber of her being. In ways that she hadn’t ached since the first time after Windblade’s reported death that she had managed to charge herself on a berth.

“See! I told you! Mechs!”

It was the worst sound in the world, the sound of a snivelly bottom feeding organic and, just as Chromia had suspected in the moments leading up to it, they had managed to find and bring an entire small army of the misshapen messes that were the Black Block Consortia’s civil officers. With plasma guns that were already set to charge.

“Cybertronians! You are in Consortia territory! Your sentence for trespassing is certain death!” was snarled out just before one took aim and began to fire.

Chromia was ready to take a hit but the moment she saw the arc of the gun she realized that it wasn’t her that was being fired at. After all, her beaten up, bruised frame and peeling paint masked her far easier among other inorganic life than Windblade’s pristine paint and wide, pure eyes and highly visible transformation kibble.

There was almost no disguising jet wings.

“WINDBLADE!” Chromia cried out, diving in front of the oncoming blast without shield or spear in hand. She cursed herself for dropping them in her earlier shock.

The blast connected with Chromia’s lower half and she was blown from the course of her fall into Windblade who, of all things, caught Chromia and landed with her softly on the ground.

“Chromia, why!? I can fly!” Windblade reminded her, as if it were news.

“It’s my job to protect you,” Chromia gritted out in pain.

“You’re foolish,” Windblade replied before getting back to her feet and looking determinedly at the attacking organics. She altered the position of her wings, turning her turbines toward them and then, to Chromia’s surprise, unleashed a bellowing blast of wind from the rotation of her turbines, sucking in the air and debris from behind her and launching it at the force of a small cyclone out at the attackers. It was enough force that the organics pulled back for cover.

Which gave them the time they needed.

“Alright,” Windblade said, bending down and pulling Chromia into her much dandier arms. “We’ll take my ship then.”

“You’re alive,” Chromia stated, mystified and spark bursting with untold emotion.

“And you got shot in the aft,” Windblade countered, looking down even as she boarded the ship. “Chromia… you don’t have to protect me, you’re not my bodyguard. A bot who comes back from the dead usually can get pretty good at protecting herself.”

“Who’s the fool now?” Chromia asked, flinching as she was sat down in the seat beside Windblade’s pilot’s chair. The burns to her aft from the laser fire were fairly painful, but there was far too much more important things happening in the moment. “I didn’t jump in front of a gun to protect my cityspeaker. I jumped in front of it to protect you. Just you Windblade… because losing you already destroyed everything that made what I was fighting for out here feel utterly worthless.”

“Hold on until we’re in orbit,” Windblade said. “I can jump us an we’ll be out of danger. Then we’ll discuss feelings.”

“Frag discussion!” Chromia announced, leaning over the armrest of her chair even as they blasted through the atmosphere of the planet. “I don’t need to discuss feelings, feelings are the only things that have been on my brain more than your death since the moment I started this journey!”

Windblade pulled a displeased face as she jumped the ship. “Well, that’s depressing.”

“It’s the furthest thing from it,” Chromia said, not caring about her injury as she got up and closed the gap between them. She took hold of Windblade’s hands in her own, dancing fingers across her palms before lacing their fingers together and holding tight. Windblade was stunned, looking at Chromia in disbelief. “You’re alive. I stopped having my wildest dreams of this day happening again because it was too painful to think of how I’d never actually see you again despite them. And here you are, back and alive and looking for me. Me? As if I deserve it. As if anything could make me less deserving of you. Windblade, I love you. I loved you before I knew I could love in that way. And from the moment we left Caminus my absolute greatest fear was in losing you. It happened and I died with you. But you’re here. You’re here and I love—“

“Oh, you pain in my aft,” Windblade choked out, dropping to the floor on her knees as well and pulling Chromia into tight, gripping hug by the neck. “I’ve always loved you, too. And not only that, but you deserve every bit of my spark and more — you are a flawed creature jus like me, Chromia. Your wrath and my pride have cost us all the things we believed we desired. And now I just am so glad to have finally found you that the only thing I want to do now is make sure we never forget to say what we really mean to each other again.”

Chromia tightened her hug in return, squeezing her eyes shut happily. “I can do that,” she muttered against Windblade. “I can do that.”

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/attraction-marketing/how-to-build-demand-around-your-brand/

How to Build Demand Around Your Brand

In any given week, how many sales emails do you get from companies you’ve never heard of, toting solutions to problems you may not even have? If you’re anything like me, it’s A LOT. (Praise be unto the spam folder.) The frustrating thing about sales pitches is that they’re often packed with catchy phrases and misleading statistics to convince you that you #NEED their product or service. But oftentimes, you aren’t even in the market for what they’re selling or aren’t yet in a position to buy. The result? A waste of two people’s time and a cluttered inbox. No bueno.

To quote the cheesiest sales line of all time:

There’s got to be a better way!

(Spoiler alert: There is.)

  Rather than waste your efforts fruitlessly chasing random leads online, focus on attracting your ideal customers or clients to you. This seems like an obvious statement, but knowing where to start is easier said than done. Building a magnetic brand with a strong following takes time, but with these steps, you can position yourself in the market to attract your biggest brand fans without pushy sales tactics.

EXAMPLE A:

  Remember how Kelis’s milkshake brought all the boys to the yard?

Notice how the lyrics DON’T say, “My cold email sequence brings all the boys to the yard.” or, “Door-to-door solicitation brings all the boys to the yard.” Nope. It was her milkshake that had them dropping by in droves. (Well, that and probably a few more sinister things… but you get the idea.) With a killer product or service and a strong brand identity, clients WILL come to you.

  Let’s walk through the process together…

  Set yourself apart.

It’s tempting to look at successful entrepreneurs in your space and mimic what they’re doing, but that isn’t how you build an authentic brand. The best brands are the ones with a strong identity – even if that identity isn’t for everyone. The same way that not every client is a good fit for you, you won’t be the right solution for some. THAT’S OKAY. By honing in on your most natural gifts, you can do your best work without sacrificing your sense of self. After all, your brand is a reflection of your unique personality and skills. So, show it off and attract the perfect clients for your individual biz style.

Be easy to find.

The internet is absolutely swarming with businesses selling their products and services. To convince people to buy yours instead of the thousands of other options out there, you’ll need to get in front of the right audience. Gaining visibility online may seem like a daunting task, but there are plenty of ways to increase brand awareness (many of which are totally free!). From blogging (to provide value and up your SEO ranking) to social media marketing, advertisements, community outreach, and more – your audience is just waiting to find you. Make it easier on them by using targeted content and advertisements to reach your desired clientele.

  Get ’em in the feels.

Even if you’re spouting out super valuable intel, it won’t make the impact you’re hoping for unless it prompts an emotional response. Emotion is the #1 driver of brand loyalty, so make your audience feel something. Whether you’re exciting them, tugging at their heartstrings, or motivating them with powerful messaging, it’s crucial that your audience feels emotionally attached to your voice. Remember: behind every brand is a person or group of people. Don’t be afraid to show humanity in your business. The more YOU that can be seen and heard, the better results you’ll see.

  Provide real value.

When it comes to creating valuable content, there’s more to it than providing great information and prompting an emotional response. The best content out there doesn’t stop at interesting or helpful; it positions you as an expert, someone your readers can trust and rely on. So if you’re planning to put out a blog on your go-to method for creating a content calendar, take it one step further and create a free downloadable template to walk your readers through the process step-by-step. Value comes in many forms, so don’t be afraid to do a little handholding whenever possible. Your audience will thank you!

  Get known for something.

One of the biggest problems that many solo/entrepreneurs face is that they try to do too much or be too many things. It’s great to be a Jack-of-all-trades, but it’s better to kick booty and take names at what you do best. When you carve out your specific niche and build your biz around your greatest strengths, you’ll be most useful and get your highest praise from clients. By focusing on specific services that you rock the house at, you’ll hone your skills with every new project and position yourself as an industry pro in no time. And guess what that means? PREMIUM PRICING, BABY!

  Create In-Demand products/packages.

With such fierce competition out there on the world wide web, it isn’t enough to offer a run-of-the-mill service. Take me for example… Rather than market myself as a regular ol’ brand strategist, I took it a step further and found an unmet niche. I asked myself, how can I provide the most value? What can I do to give my clients the best possible understanding of their brand moving forward? From there, I developed my Brand Archetype Quiz and labeled myself a Psychology-Driven Brand Strategist. My point is: don’t stop at ordinary. Find or create demand around your services by thinking outside the box and offering a product or service unlike anyone else’s. (I know you got this, you trendsetter, you!)

  Give it away!

I’ve found that one of the very best ways to attract your ideal clients is by giving away freebies that spark their interest. Whether it’s a downloadable eBook or PDF in exchange for an email opt-in, a sponsored contest on social media, or just stellar advice on a regular, reliable schedule – give your audience something to remember you by. Free downloads and contests are an excellent way to build your email list with relevant leads without spending too much of your hard-earned cash. When it comes to building trust, you’ll need to give your time away rather than throw around money. Develop relationships with your clients (and prospective clients) online. Engage with them on social media. Send them emails. Show them some love! The more they learn about you and your expertise, the more likely they are to think of you when their next project comes up, refer you to a friend, or reach out to YOU for help instead of Google.

  Automate your hustle.

We just talked about giving away your time… and if you were thinking, “GIRL, what are you, crazy? I don’t have any time to give!” I hear you. I know how difficult it is to juggle all of the various tasks involved in running a business and still manage to maintain a relationship with your audience (or the other humans in your household, for that matter). But the good news is, there are SO many systems out there to make your work life easier and clear up time in that hectic schedule of yours. A while back, I wrote about 5 systems I use that make it look like I’m on a 24/7 grind, but there are thousands more where these came from.

In addition to saving you an insane amount of time, automated systems also boost your credibility by making you look like a total pro. Think about it… would you rather have to email someone to schedule an appointment or just book a timeslot online? Would you rather manually onboard your clients in an hour-long Skype call or get the basic questions out of the way with an interactive form? Customized automations create a better experience for both you and your client. Plus, let’s be honest. NOBODY wants to log into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. a million times a day to post when they could throw the content into an auto-scheduler and hit the beach instead! Give yourself the gift of time.

  Generate leads on autopilot.

Those automated systems I was telling you about? They’ll be your new BFF when it comes to attracting and nurturing leads. By releasing targeted content out there into the web, you’re enticing readers to click, read, download, or share… but the funnel doesn’t stop there! Let’s say you just published a new blog on managing invoices and expenses. Rather than post it and call it a day, you create a free downloadable finance worksheet and boost the post on Facebook to a select audience. Someone clicks. They read. When they go to download your free worksheet, that’s your chance to capture their email address. They opt-in, and BOOM! Immediately, you’re emailing them a warm welcome! Once they’ve subscribed to your emails, you can enter them into an entire sequence to educate them on your services and convince them to buy… and you won’t have to lift a finger!

(Pin for later!)

  Selling isn’t about chasing, it’s about being found.

  While you may have had to chase down clients at the very beginning of your business, it isn’t a sustainable process for acquiring customers. It’s too much time, money, and effort that could be better spent on other things. Frankly, it can be exhausting and lead to a pretty severe burnout. It may seem difficult now and it won’t happen overnight, but by giving your audience the best possible experience and GIVING AWAY value, you’ll become more and more visible each day.

  Whew, that was a lot.

Let’s recap, shall we?

  Distinguish your brand with your unique personality. Don’t be afraid to stand out! Your individual strengths and style will guide you to your perfect audience. Come out, come out, wherever you are! Don’t hide away in the shadows of the ‘net. Put yourself out there with regular content, targeted advertising, and community/industry involvement. Take an emotional approach. Share stories. Foster a meaningful company culture. Show your clients that you can take them to that place they’re dreaming of. Offer more value than the next guy. While you may be writing about the same things or touting the same services, you can up your value with helpful guides, videos, and worksheets. Carve out YOUR spot in the game. Choose a few of your favorite services; the ones that give you the most joy and that you’re best at, and focus on those. With expertise comes moolah and praise. (And who doesn’t love money and kind words?) Meet a special need. Your business is no place to be vague. Find a way to include a unique niche or solution into your services. Your perfect clients will be THRILLED to see that you specialize in exactly what they’ve been looking for. Spend time ON and WITH your audience. Offer free goodies to generate leads and add value for your prospective clients… but don’t stop there. Foster a meaningful relationship by engaging with your audience regularly. Leave some things to the robots. There’s a reason why robots are stealing our jobs (only half kidding) – there just aren’t enough hours in the day to manually do all of the things we need to do to scale and maintain our businesses. Get by with a little help from your electronic friends. Trust me, you’ll be happy you did. Nurture the heck out of your leads. With automated systems in place, it’s easy to keep the conversation going and offer real-time solutions, even as you sleep. #WIN

With these steps as your guiding priorities, you’ll see a more genuine interest in your brand, better-suited leads, and boundless growth potential. The most important thing is that you remember who you are, what you’re worth, and how you can help. With the right combination of confidence and clarity, you can finally stop chasing leads and let your clients do the discovering.

Get the workbook to start building demand around *YOUR* brand today!

Download the workbook now!

The post How to Build Demand Around Your Brand appeared first on Kaye Putnam | Psychology Driven Brand Strategist.

Read more: kayeputnam.com

[ctheinnovator]

How to Slide in your DMs

What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

If the first thing you do is log into your favorite social media app, I can tell you right now that you’re doing life wrong.

No fear here, though. I’ll be sharing the keys to making your daily experiences far more fulfilling!

First you will need to know what DMs I’m referring to — your Daily Morning routine.

Sliding into your Daily Morning routine is an art that anyone can do easily.

Don’t get me wrong, it is perfectly fine and preferred to stimulate your thoughts in the morning. However, social media channels do not offer the mental stimulants to propel you into your best mindset at the beginning of the day. This can be seen in how digital personalities of today take time to announce when they need to go on a social media “cleanse”.

Why do we call it a “cleanse” in the first place?

Stating that a cleanse needs to occur affirms that you have been polluting your conscious with media and information that does not serve you well. Similar to how an athlete may have to detox after a long off season of leisure, it is probable that your daily social media binge has become your offseason from living out your social media dreams in reality.

Are you ready to awake from your visual vacation and return to living a fulfilled life?

The next step towards living your best, authentic life begins with knowing how to slide into your Daily Morning by knowing how to organize your mental.

Life is a journey that, if given the needed attention, can transform into anything you want it to be.

Organizing your mental requires dedicated attention daily.

Unconsciously surfing through blogs and images of warped realities ultimately plays with and blurs your thought process rather than nurturing and developing your thought process.

So, knowing this, where and how do we approach our days in a more thoughtful way with the intention of living better, healthy, and conscious lives?

There are 3 simple steps you can incorporate into your every morning that will guide you towards rapid mental growth and self awareness.

That is, if you commit to these steps daily.

Drink a tall glass of cool water

Write 3 pages of thoughts into your physical journal

Type 1 page of intentions into your digital journal

That’s it!

Now, don’t let the simplicity of this list fool you. These are essential keys that, if you begin today, you will see results and improvements in your mood by the 3rd day.

1. DAILY MORNING HYDRATION WITH WATER

As humans, water is our source of vitality. The Earth’s most important resource. It is only right that we give ourselves the gift of vitality and the world’s most precious resource each morning.

It is both refreshingly easy and sustainable to maintain. Drinking water in the morning immediately rehydrates the body. To think you’ve gone all night without a drop of new hydration.

Many people head to the kitchen to fix their first cup of coffee as their first beverage of the day. That’s no problem. However, before guzzling down your first coffee of the day, drink a full cup of water. Although coffee is a great source for antioxidants, it is also a dehydrating beverage. This can be offset by hydrating yourself with water.

So, let’s begin to live our best lives by giving ourselves the best.

Start with water. Water jump starts your metabolism, fights sickness, fuels your brain and increases your alertness! All these benefits sound far more sustainable than your morning scroll.

After all, water has been around far longer than your favorite app.

2. DAILY MORNING MENTAL CLARITY WITH YOUR PHYSICAL JOURNAL

The concept of writing in the morning is not a new phenomena. There’s no wrong way of going about this practice. Ideally, you should complete at least 3 pages in your journal or diary.

If you don’t have one already, invest in a handheld journal or diary that you can easily access each morning.

What you place into these pages, are for you and you only. Simply accomplish this from of sharing by dumping any and every thing that crosses your mind as you are writing. There does not need to be a proper form. Often times, I find myself writing a short note on how I am grateful for a new day of life. Then this short note may transform into a long form reflection, collection of sketches, or ideas and plans for the day.

There are so many benefits to completing this routine. You will without a doubt see results by the second consecutive day of doing this will your undivided attention.

So, once your alarm wakes you. Get your glass of water. Then reach for your journal and pen or pencil — — watch your mind come alive.

The act of putting pen to paper activates your centering energy and clears your mind.You begin to discover and develop your inner creativity.

We are all creative human beings.

By writing in the morning, you silence your inner critic. Your inner critic often times reveals its self when you are scrolling on your digital timeline. Your biggest enemy begins to compare your current state to the photos you see. More times than not, these photos we see on instagram are not accurate representations of reality. People only post their best life moments online. To take things a step further, many photos are staged. So instead of paying attention to “influencers” with your precious morning time, spend some time influencing your own inner critic into becoming aware of your natural creativity and authentic power.

As time goes on, you will begin to feel yourself come up with better ideas. You will ask deep questions of yourself and the world around you.

There’s more than likely a great chance that you have not written anything in depth or deeply meaningful in a while.

The most important key to remember with this step is to do it with pen and paper.

There’s a reason the written word is the most influential form of communication.

3. DAILY MORNING AWARENESS AND INTENTION WITH YOUR DIGITAL JOURNAL

Last but not least. Share and document some of your thoughts by typing them out.

Similar to the previous step of morning pages, this has no specific form that is required to complete the task.

One way of developing an easy transition to typing each morning after writing is to type what your just wrote! As mentioned earlier, this typed version of your writing remains for you and your eyes only.

However, if you find that there are some thoughts that your would like to flesh out further and you are considering adding to your blog this is a great place to allow this to happen.

Taking the next step of typing out your thoughts in a digital format can help you gain further understanding of what you may have been trying to communicate via free hand. As you type in a digital format in an authentic way, you will gain an improved awareness of your voice and how your voice communicates itself through multiple mediums. Ultimately, you will build on your confidence and before you know it, you’ll be feeling more empowered at the start of your days.

These steps towards daily mental clarity and awareness are tried and true. Expressive writing has been seen to be helpful for those struggling with conflict or dealing with stressful and traumatic experiences. Expressive writing has also been known to help drive you towards understanding your life purpose(s).

As human beings in this world we are meant to achieve feats beyond our wildest dreams. Many people have said it before: “Anything is possible!”

To truly believe and live this statement, you must become comfortable with the “anything” that crosses your mind each morning.

Lean into these morning thoughts and come to understand them.

Lean into these morning thoughts and you will come to love them.

Lean into these morning thoughts and you will come to understand yourself

Lean into these morning thoughts and you will come to love yourself.

Lean into these morning thoughts and you’ll be glad to have spent the beginning of your day clearing your mind, decreasing your anxiety, developing better ideas, and being in control of your attention.

Who needs to follow an influencer when you’re the best influencer for yourself?

Honor your ability to take a “cleanse” everyday by investing in your right to expression.