#it's not a continuity error if there's a several hour time gap | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maxlearnmicrolearningplatform · 3 months ago

Text

Forgetting Curve Explained: Combatting Memory Decay with Microlearning

It's human nature to forget things. Whether it's the name of a person you just met, a date you've been told several times, the location of your keys, or critical information, forgetting is an inevitable part of life. While forgetting may be a minor inconvenience in everyday life, in the workplace, it can be costly. The consequences of forgetting important information at work can be severe, leading to productivity loss, mistakes, lapses, accidents, loss of business, and even legal issues. The financial and reputational impacts of such occurrences can be significant, making it crucial to understand the mechanisms behind forgetting and how to combat it.

One of the most influential figures in the study of memory and forgetting is Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist who, in the late 19th century, conducted pioneering research on memory and learning. Ebbinghaus is best known for his discovery of the "Forgetting Curve," which quantifies the rate at which information is forgotten over time. His work laid the foundation for modern memory research and has significant implications for how we approach learning and training, especially in the workplace.

The Discovery of the Forgetting Curve

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve is a graphical representation of how quickly we lose information after learning it. Through his experiments, Ebbinghaus found that the steepest decline in memory retention occurs immediately after learning, with approximately 70% of information being forgotten within 24 hours if no attempt is made to retain it. The curve then gradually levels off, indicating that the rate of forgetting slows down over time, but still continues unless further action is taken to reinforce the memory.

This finding was revolutionary because it provided the first quantitative measure of the natural process of forgetting, which has profound implications for education, training, and information retention in all areas of life. The curve demonstrates that the initial hours and days after learning are critical for memory retention. Without reinforcement, newly acquired knowledge is likely to fade, leading to significant knowledge gaps over time.

The Cost of Forgetting in the Workplace

In the workplace, the consequences of forgetting can be particularly severe. Imagine an employee who forgets critical safety procedures or fails to recall key steps in a complex process. The results could range from minor errors to major accidents, legal liabilities, and significant financial losses. In industries where compliance is essential, forgetting important regulations or procedures can lead to fines, legal actions, and a damaged reputation.

Moreover, the loss of productivity due to forgotten information is a hidden but substantial cost. Employees who struggle to recall training content may take longer to complete tasks, require more supervision, and make more mistakes. This not only affects individual performance but can also hinder team efficiency and overall business performance.

Microlearning: A Solution to Combat the Forgetting Curve

Given the critical nature of information retention in the workplace, it is essential to find effective strategies to combat the Forgetting Curve. One of the most powerful tools in this regard is microlearning. Microlearning is an educational strategy that delivers content in small, focused segments, typically ranging from 2 to 10 minutes in length. This approach aligns perfectly with the natural limitations of human memory and provides an effective way to reinforce learning over time.

1. Spaced Repetition:Microlearning can be structured to incorporate spaced repetition, a technique that Ebbinghaus himself identified as effective in combating forgetting. Spaced repetition involves presenting information repeatedly at increasing intervals, which has been shown to significantly enhance long-term memory retention. By delivering microlearning modules over a series of days or weeks, spaced repetition helps ensure that learners revisit and reinforce key concepts, effectively flattening the Forgetting Curve.

2. Engagement and Interactivity:Microlearning often incorporates interactive elements, such as quizzes, scenarios, and simulations, which engage learners and encourage active participation. This active engagement is critical for memory retention, as it transforms passive learning into a more dynamic process. When learners interact with the content, they are more likely to process and internalize the information, making it easier to recall later.

3. Contextual Learning:Microlearning can be tailored to deliver information in context, providing learners with real-world examples and scenarios that are directly relevant to their roles. By aligning the learning content with practical applications, microlearning helps bridge the gap between theory and practice, making it easier for learners to remember and apply the information in their daily work. This contextual approach not only enhances memory retention but also improves job performance.

4. Accessibility and Flexibility:Microlearning content is typically accessible on multiple devices, allowing learners to engage with the material whenever and wherever they choose. This flexibility makes it easier to integrate learning into the flow of work, reinforcing information at the moment of need. For example, an employee can quickly review a microlearning module on safety procedures before starting a task, ensuring that critical information is fresh in their mind. This just-in-time approach helps prevent the forgetting of essential knowledge.

5. Continuous Learning Culture:By delivering content in small, manageable chunks, microlearning fosters a culture of continuous learning. Instead of overwhelming employees with lengthy training sessions, microlearning encourages regular, ongoing engagement with educational material. This continuous exposure to learning content helps counteract the natural tendency to forget, leading to better long-term retention and a more knowledgeable workforce.

The Future of Learning: Integrating Microlearning with Other Strategies

While microlearning is highly effective in combating the Forgetting Curve, it is most powerful when integrated with other learning and development strategies. For example, combining microlearning with mentorship programs, collaborative learning, and on-the-job training can create a comprehensive learning ecosystem that supports continuous knowledge reinforcement.

Moreover, leveraging data and analytics to track learning progress and memory retention can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of microlearning initiatives. By analyzing learner performance and engagement, organizations can identify knowledge gaps and tailor microlearning content to address specific needs, further enhancing the impact of training programs.

Conclusion

Forgetting is a natural part of human memory, but it can have serious consequences in the workplace. Understanding the mechanisms behind the Forgetting Curve and implementing strategies to combat it is crucial for maintaining a competent and productive workforce. Microlearning offers a powerful solution by delivering content in small, focused segments that align with the natural limitations of human memory. By incorporating techniques like spaced repetition, engagement, and contextual learning, microlearning effectively flattens the Forgetting Curve, ensuring that critical information is retained and applied in the workplace. As organizations continue to navigate the challenges of information retention and employee training, microlearning will play an increasingly important role in building a knowledgeable, efficient, and resilient workforce.

0 notes

daytonicuconsulting · 1 year ago

Text

ICU Rounding Culture: What Needs to Change and How We Can Help

One of the biggest barriers to improving ICU patient care is a lack of interdisciplinary collaboration, especially when it comes to ICU rounding.

In theory, rounding should give clinicians the opportunity to review and discuss each patient’s care, and then come together to ensure that care is a reflection of best practices and the patient’s wishes.

It should promote effective communication and collaboration, allowing clinicians to work collectively to make more comprehensive and well-informed decisions, while helping teams to identify risks, improve patient safety, prevent errors or inconsistencies, and promptly implement necessary interventions.

Moreover, it should also enhance continuity of care by ensuring every member of the ICU team is on the same page about how each patient is to be treated, allowing for a seamless transition between shifts, and reducing the incidence of misunderstandings or misinterpretations.

Ideally, ICU rounding should also empower patients and their families by involving them in the decision-making process, enhancing their understanding of the care being provided, and giving them the opportunity to ask questions and voice concerns.

This all helps to promote a more patient-centered approach, while building trust, and enhancing the experience, quality of care, and outcomes of patients in the ICU.

But unfortunately, when it comes to ICU rounding, this is not how things usually play out.

The sad reality is, like so many other aspects of ICU culture, rounding routines can be hard to redirect, and this can create dire consequences for clinicians, patients, and the ICUs where they’re treated.

So, if you’re looking to improve ICU patient care by reevaluating your rounding processes, then you should definitely keep reading.

Because in this article, I’m going to explain what needs to change when it comes to ICU rounding culture, and how I and my team can help you to implement those changes.

ICU Rounding Culture: What Needs to Change

Participating in ICU rounding practices is one of the most important aspects of our consulting.

Observing ICU teams during this process allows us to assess how familiar clinicians are with evidence-based practices like delirium management and early mobility in the ICU, and the level of collaboration between clinicians.

At the same time, this also gives us the opportunity to jump in when we feel it’s necessary to address knowledge gaps and opportunities for application of the ABCDEF Bundle.

This allows us to ensure clinicians are following evidence-based practices, and that they understand the importance of these protocols, and how to implement them.

But unfortunately, we continue to find that, in general, the prevailing ICU culture has not normalized a rounding process that instinctively involves the ABCDEF Bundle.

With that in mind, below I’ve detailed several things that need to change when it comes to ICU rounding culture, so you can identify gaps and learn about tools that can help guide your team’s progress.

Not Taking Enough Time

When it comes to ICU rounding, a common issue I’ve seen is that some teams do not allow themselves enough time to conduct thorough rounds.

On the other hand, I’ve sat in on much more comprehensive rounding processes where they make a point of spending a significant amount of time on each patient.

These kinds of ICUs tend to be more on the academic side of things, where medical students or residents present, and attending doctors take time to teach and discuss things at length, often spending several hours completing their rounds.

But a lot of ICU teams are just trying to get through their patients as quickly as they can. Shockingly, sometimes they spend no more than 30 minutes on the entire process for 20 or more patients.

This kind of assembly line approach is not good for patients, as it does not provide enough time to discuss the many concerns related to critical illness, consider the humanity of each patient, or take a comprehensive look at each patient’s care.

Moreover, this also makes it pretty easy to overlook life-threatening issues, along with opportunities to educate and develop your team.

Ideally, the process should include all the key disciplines of your ICU team, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and/or occupational therapists, dietitians, social workers, family members, and anyone else who is involved in the care of your patients.

The presenter should walk the team through all of the details related to each patient, including their name, age, why they were admitted to the hospital, the course of events that brought them to this point, their current condition, and what can be done to improve their care.

This requires careful consideration of several different aspects, including things that many ICU teams tend to overlook, like whether the patient is suffering from delirium, along with their CAM and RASS scores, level of sedation, level of mobility, and any barriers to mobility that they might be experiencing.

Then, once all of this has been discussed, the team can work together to determine if anything can be done to improve the patient’s care and implement any necessary interventions.

Lack of Collaboration

Lack of collaboration between clinicians is one of the biggest problems with ICU rounding culture.

It’s easy to skim through presentations quickly and try to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. But it’s much more beneficial to build an environment that allows clinicians of each discipline to have a fair opportunity to provide suggestions and offer their expertise.

That being said, multidisciplinary rounds can actually be a lot different from interdisciplinaryrounds, which allow for true collaboration.

Interdisciplinary rounds happen when collaboration is warmly welcomed and proposals from colleagues are sincerely discussed, valued, and taken seriously.

But unfortunately, this is not how things tend to go when it comes to ICU rounding.

More likely, what will happen is something like this: A progressive physical therapist will be brave enough to suggest mobilizing a patient, but members of the ICU team, who don’t understand the ABCDEF Bundle, will respond by saying something like, “They’re still intubated, so we can’t,” or “They’re still sedated and they were too agitated during the last SAT this morning.”

But a team that truly understands the ABCDEF Bundle will use its rounds as an opportunity to bring each discipline together to develop plans on how to keep each patient as awake, mobile, and free of delirium and ICU-acquired weakness as possible.

For example, if a nurse reports that a patient has been sedated, a pharmacist may ask, “Is there an indication for sedation?”

And if the nurse responds by saying, “When we tried to turn it off, the patient became agitated and we turned it back on,” this provides an opportunity for a physician to ask, “Does the patient have delirium? And how can we turn the sedation off?”

Then, when a physical therapist says, “Let’s get the family to the bedside, and I would love to help you turn the sedation off and get the patient up,” the team will be much less likely to be hesitant about this suggestion, as they’ll understand the evidence, and how that approach can benefit them, the patient, and the ICU as a whole.

This method of ICU rounding encourages discussion and makes it more likely that clinicians will accept each colleague’s contribution to that conversation, and remain open to their suggestions, allowing everyone to be on the same page, and the load of patient care to be shared.

In addition, this allows ICU teams to make decisions regarding sedation, delirium, and mobility based on evidence, rather than culture and fear.

With that in mind, we make a point of always having a seasoned respiratory therapist and physical therapist with us while we’re on-site, because not only can they offer their expertise on these practices, and how to improve the rounding process, but this also helps us to reinforce the interdisciplinary approach and remind clinicians of the importance of all this.

We also make sure to train whomever is leading the rounds to create an environment that facilitates this kind of discussion, and provide them with a toolkit to ensure every member of the ICU team is prompted to follow this systematic approach to rounds.

At this point, it’s also important to mention that there is significant evidence to show the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration during the rounding process.

For example, one study, which looked at the impact of allowing pharmacists to participate in multidisciplinary rounds, found a long list of potential benefits of this kind of collaborative approach.

The study found that allowing a pharmacist to perform daily sedation management for patients “resulted in fewer hours of patient exposure to continuous sedation, with an overall 46% reduction in continuous infusions of sedatives and reductions in both ICU and total hospital LOS, resulting in estimated savings of $1.2 million in direct hospital costs and $183,216 in drug costs.”

In addition, it found that allowing pharmacists to collaborate with ICU teams using the practices outlined in the ABCDEF Bundle offered “improvements in several outcomes, including mean ventilator days per patient, ICU LOS, and mortality.”

Not Digging Deep Enough

Another issue with ICU rounding culture is that teams may not dig deep enough to actually understand the barriers and needs of each patient.

This happens mainly due to a lack of understanding of evidence-based practices like delirium management and early mobility in the ICU, along with communication breakdown between clinicians, which is exacerbated by poor rounding practices, such as imposing strict time limitations.

For example, a nurse may report, “The patient was agitated and failed their SAT,” which means that sedation was resumed. But oftentimes, this is as far as the conversation will go, and the rest of the team will accept sedation as essential for that patient and something to address later on when it’s time to think about extubation.

However, a team that understands the ABCDEF Bundle will dive much deeper, and a colleague might ask questions like, “Why was the patient agitated? Were they in pain? How are they communicating? Do they have delirium? And was their family present during that awakening trial?”

Then, if the nurse confirms, “They’re CAM positive,” the physician can use that as an opportunity to help educate their team, and encourage them to make delirium, agitation, sedation, and mobility a priority.

At this point, a physician on this type of team might say something like, “This is acute brain failure. Sedation is likely causing, exacerbating, and prolonging their delirium. And for every one day of delirium, there is a 10 percent increased risk of death. This patient needs to have sedation turned off, and be mobilized, with their family present, while having their sleep prioritized.”

They can then ask the physical and/or occupational therapists to accompany the RN and RT to help with the awakening trial and promptly mobilize the patient with the goal of turning off the sedation.

This may also prompt the physician to join their team at the bedside during the awakening trial and help assess causes of agitation, such as pain, fear, or delirium.

These kinds of moments during rounds can be the difference between a patient being awake, mobile, communicative, and thriving, or continuing down the path of sedation, immobility, and the many complications that follow.

In any case, doctors need to have a deep understanding of delirium, ICU-acquired weakness, post-ICU syndrome, early mobility, sedation management, and the ABCDEF Bundle.

This expertise will help them orchestrate masterful collaboration for their teams by diving deep into the evidence, while considering the humanity and best interests of each patient.

Failing to Involve Family

I am also a strong proponent of involving patients’ family members in the rounding process.

But in my experience, ICU clinicians can have strong reservations about having families present during rounds. It seems to go against their culture, makes them feel uncomfortable, and even vulnerable to have families involved in the rounding process.

Much of this stems from a lack of understanding of the role and value of the family as key players in a patient’s survival in and outside of the ICU.

But the truth is, involving patients’ families in the rounding process offers many benefits, including:

Improved communication: Involving family members in ICU rounding facilitates open and transparent communication between healthcare providers and the patient’s loved ones, allowing for discussions about the patient’s condition, treatment plan, and progress. Their involvement promotes a better understanding of the situation, reducing anxiety, and helping to manage expectations.

Enhanced patient-centered care: Family members can provide valuable insights into the patient’s medical history, preferences, and values, and their presence during rounding ensures that the care plan aligns with the patient’s individual needs and wishes.

Emotional support: The ICU can be an overwhelming and stressful environment for both patients and their families, but allowing family members to participate in rounding offers emotional support and can alleviate anxiety and foster a sense of trust in the care being provided.

Shared decision-making: Inclusion of family members in rounding promotes shared decision-making, and involving the patient, their family, and the medical team can lead to more informed choices and increased satisfaction with the care provided.

Education and empowerment: ICU rounding provides an opportunity for family members to learn about the patient’s condition, prognosis, and ongoing care needs. It allows them to ask questions, seek clarification, and receive education about the patient’s treatment and post-ICU care.

Continuity of care: Involving family members in ICU rounding promotes continuity of care, as they become familiar with the patient’s care plan, which can be helpful when transitioning from the ICU to other healthcare settings or when managing care at home.

How We Can Help You Improve Your Rounding Process

When we work with your ICU team, we start by encouraging everyone to participate in our series of webinars, so they can better understand the why and how of the evidence-based practices in the ABCDEF Bundle.

Then, once we arrive on-site, the first step is to simply observe your current rounding process.

This allows us to see who is present during rounds, who is presenting, what kind of order or systematic approach is being used, which aspects of patients’ status and care are discussed, and how the team makes decisions.

After assessing all these aspects, we’ll work with your team to make your rounding process more succinct, thorough, and efficient, while ensuring delirium management, pain management, sedation, RASS, communication, family engagement, and early mobility in the ICU are included in the discussion.

The goal is to help your team have the understanding, tools, and team dynamics to apply the principles of the ABCDEF Bundle to your rounding process using a collaborative approach that optimizes each discipline’s expertise to ensure the best patient outcomes.

By the end of our training, each team member will understand why keeping patients awake and mobile is so important, along with how to go about doing this in the safest way.

What’s more, they will know how to discuss concerns and barriers during rounds and work together to develop a plan to overcome the unique challenges of each patient with the goal of giving patients the absolute best chance to walk out of the hospital doors, discharge home, and resume their normal lives.

Each team member will also learn the importance of a collaborative approach, and the value of each discipline’s contribution, while being equipped with a systematic method, based on the principles of the ABCDEF Bundle, which allows them to work with their team to provide the best possible care for each patient.

As part of that process, we also provide clinicians with a rounding tool, similar to the ICU rounding sheet shown below, which comes from the University of Colorado ICU and is actually based on the evidence-based practices we espouse.

This ICU rounding sheet will help to ensure that what we teach is not forgotten, and will go on to become a standardized part of the rounding process followed in your ICU.

Evidence shows that using this kind of tool can provide a multitude of benefits for any intensive care unit.

For example, one observational study found that implementing this kind of tool “can result in improvements in engagement of nursing staff and in overall communication.”

Another study looked at whether time allocation issues in the ICU could be solved by using a rounding tool, and it found that the use of these tools “potentially mitigates disproportionate time allocation and communication breakdowns during rounds,” with one tool “almost completely eliminating such effects.”

All things considered, ensuring that clinicians use this kind of ICU rounding sheet is integral to the improvement of the ICU rounding process, as it reinforces the importance of considering these aspects of patients’ care, and makes the implementation of this process more sustainable.

What’s more, once it becomes standard practice, and part of your ICU culture, clinicians will appreciate the benefits it provides to your team, your patients, and your ICU as a whole.

Do you want to improve the rounding process in your ICU? We are here to help! Let’s discuss your team’s needs. Contact us here.

#ICU care #icu patient #icu rounding sheet #icu advancements

0 notes

psychogirlfriendandsupervillain · 3 years ago

Text

Leading Question

One shot (ish)

Benny Watts x Reader*

(* Reader wears a skirt, has hair long enough to pull (like anything longer than a buzzcut) and a vagina, so anyone who identifies with that: it’s free real estate. I am considering writing a copy that is fully gender-neutral, so if anyone wants that let me know (although I’m likely to do it anyway).)

Content/warning tags: NSFW, 18+, Smut (but it’s the slowest pacing smut, talking slow-burn but they’re both already in the bed, no joke), fluff?, friends to lovers, mention of alcohol, swearing, oral (male receiving), making out, heavy petting, really a whole lotta kissing, porn with no plot?, the porn is the plot, foreplay more like half the fucking play, hair pulling kink, mention of knife kink, sex, plotted during a figurative and literal fever, edited during a figurative and literal heat wave, we love it here.

Summary: Benny half-confesses to his attraction to the reader during a night at the bar and reader takes his clumsily put question and turns it into a homerun.

Word Count: 7k (this is what happens when you give me THAT and then take it away)

A/N: Entirely self-indulgent piece of smut thought out during two hours at 4 AM (and then throughout the rest of the day) the day after watching Fork, because I was frustrated and Benny is hot, whoopsie.

@go-catch-a-chickn showed some interest in what I was writing, but I bet you regret that now! Nonetheless, here’s your tag, have fun!

I’m open to criticism, just shoot me a message or an ask. Let me know if I’ve got errors or missed a warning.

--------

You and Benny were friends since high school. Not because you also played chess, but because you had been making out with your boyfriend in the back of the library and Benny had come looking for a chess book that was on the shelf you were leaning on. You two paused, moved to the side so that he could pull out the book and then he was on his way.

A few days later Benny was in the cafeteria and came up a few cents short, when a voice next to him told the woman at the register that they would pay for his meal as well as their own. He looked over at you as the cashier added your things to the total and you smiled.

“Now you have money over for other things.”

It continued like that for the rest of both of your high school stays. You would catch him in the corridor and strike up conversations before heading off for you next class. When your relationship with your boyfriend ended (mutually, it should be said; he was interested in another girl, you felt the spark wasn’t there anymore), you told Benny after he asked why you looked a little glum. He was supportive but didn’t bring it up again.

Now the two of you are sat at a bar counter, a bottle in front of each of you, as the day is winding down. You meet up like this between his tournaments and whatever else is going on your lives, touchdowns in the well-known amidst it all. The buzz of patrons has calmed down and outside the curtained windows the street is black, broken up by spots of the streetlights.

“Do you-“ Benny stops. He’s half turned towards you, left hand around his beer on the counter, legs facing you, but his eyes are currently at the bottles lined up against the back wall where the bartender is pouring a drink for someone down the line.

You put down your bottle after a sip, resting your hand on it just like he is. Benny starts again.

“What do you do when your dick tells you to sleep with your friend, but your brain tells you it’s not a good idea?” He’s still not looking at you. It’s almost a hypothetical, almost a thought about someone else.

You shrug, taking a last sip before turning forward.

“I don’t know, I follow what my pussy says.” With that you get up and put money on the counter to close your tab, seeing Benny jump in the corner of your eye at your answer. You’re pulling on your coat as you start for the door, slow enough that he’ll catch up no problem.

“Wait.” He’s at your side in no time. “I’ll walk you to your place.” Even in the slight shade of his hat you can see that he’s a bit flustered.

“You sure?” Benny nods. “Otherwise I could walk you to yours. It’s farther.” You push up the inner set of doors and Benny follows you into the dark airlock entryway.

“Why would you want to walk where it’s farther?” He asks behind you, a frown audible in his voice, and you hold up your hand to signal for him to wait as you push up the second set of doors.

The air rushes against you and the hum of a road somewhere off campus reaches your ears. There’s no one on the walk path running between fields of grass and lines of trees. It’s still too early for the streets to be filled with people getting home from the bars, too late for any overtime workers dragging their feet.

“Honestly?” You turn to Benny, who’s standing with his coat still unbuttoned and arms hanging at his sides, like he isn’t sure what to do with them. “Because I’m hoping to get invited up, and if I’m going to get fucked, I want to be in your bed, surrounded by the scent of you.”

It takes a second. Then he’s a little bit closer. Not that he was far away before, but he’s close enough that when he leans a little forward you don’t have to take a step to close the gap. Your lips run against his, soft and slow, with the slight scratch of his mustache against your skin, warm cotton and leather so close now, and then you step back, absentmindedly swiping your tongue over your own lips to chase his taste. His eyes flicker between your eyes and your lips.

“Your place or mine?” Benny’s voice is a little rough; maybe it’s the drinking, maybe it’s the kiss.

“Again, yours.” You quirk your lip and reach to catch Benny’s hand, warm in yours. Pulling him into motion you start walking in the direction of his apartment, shoes echoing against the asphalt.

“I’m not sure I will make it that far.” He sounds a bit tortured, and you laugh, squeezing his hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you make it. And if you don’t, I’ll help you clean up and wait for you.”

Benny makes a noise.

“Tell me about Open Sicilian.” You look forward at the empty road as you walk.

“What?” He looks at you.

“To distract you, explain Open Sicilian to me.” He has explained that particular tactic to you several times before, not that it necessarily stuck too well.

“That’s not going to help!” Benny throws head back with a frustrated laugh. The sound makes your stomach flutter. “You’re going to make me tell you about chess, and then ask questions, to keep me distracted? Like you showing sincere interest in it isn’t going to just make it harder to focus.” He shakes his head, looking out over the empty street. “You’re gonna kill me.”

You would have gotten there quicker if Benny hadn’t stopped at every tree, stone wall, and doorway to push you against it and kiss you. He even sat down on a bench when you were halfway and pulled you down into his lap. You let yourself be pulled down but wouldn’t go along with his attempts to make you straddle him, despite his hand on your inner thigh through your skirt and his insistent, chasing kisses.

As you reach the building you let go off Benny’s hand so he can punch in the code for the door. He leads you up the hollow stairwell to his door, noisily unlocks it and lets you in before him.

It’s a short hallway with doors leading off to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, lit by some cool light falling in from the open doorway to the kitchen. There are hooks for jackets with a pile of shoes beneath it to one side, and a table holding a phone and newspapers further in.

The lock clicks behind you and Benny turns around, dropping his keys back down in his coat pocket. Just as he faces you, you push him back against the door. Shock flashes in his eyes and his lips part but when you place your against his he quickly responds, pushing back against you, his tongue running against your bottom lip, inviting you to taste it. It’s with difficulty that you pull back.

“Okay, I lied.” You admit as you get onto your knees, looking back up at him. “Can I?”

Benny’s breaths are unsteady, and you have to ask him to repeat it before you can clearly hear him consent.

You hum, pushing aside his leather coat to hold his hips back against the door, pulling his belt out from its loops so you can undo the buckle. Benny closes his eyes and groans as you let the belt with his knife still attached fall back against his legs and undo his button and zipper.

“Don’t be too loud, you don’t want the neighbors to hear you, do you? Even solid wood doors are thinner than walls.” You wink up at him and he repeats the sound, head leaning back against the door and hips pushing forward. If you didn’t believe Benny before, you definitely would now, as you feel how hard he is through the barriers of fabric. He’s solid and warm against your hands.

Pushing his jeans down, you move his boxers carefully until you can pull them down as well. Precum is leaking down the underside of his erect cock and his hips push forward again, impatiently this time. You circle your hand around him, the other resting against his hip so that maybe he’ll stay in place, not having the patience to start stroking before you take him in your mouth.

The sound Benny makes when your lips close around his cock is far too loud and not loud enough. His breathing audibly speeds up, encouraging you to run your tongue along the underside each time you pull back. Sucking down his cock, you match your movements with those of your hand, creating just the perfect rhythm that has his hips pushing against your other hand. You look up at him, meeting his eyes as you circle his tip with your tongue and he pinches his eyes closed, turning his head back up and cutting off the whine escaping his throat. You swallow around him, and the whine comes back, ending in a high pitch. You do it again. His hand pushes lightly against your shoulder, and you pull off him, sitting back and licking your lips as he meets your eyes.

“I don’t want to finish before we’ve even started.” His words are low, his hand falling back against the side of his coat. You shift your legs on the floor.

“Shame, I want you to.” You smile and bite your lip. “I told you I’d help clean you up and wait after. I’m in no rush.” Benny’s hips jerk forward again.

“Fuck” His eyes flutter shut.

“Can I?” You wait for the sound of his yes before you lick a line from the base to the head, reveling in how little he is holding back this time. Pushing his hips back a little rougher against the door to keep him in his place you earn a moan of your name which has your stomach fluttering and head spinning. One of his hands rest on your shoulder again but isn’t pushing away this time. He lets you decide the speed, albeit with the occasional jerk of his hips as he hisses and braces against the door.

“Fuck, I’-” You feel Benny tensing and look up to see him looking down on you, breathing heavily and clenching his jaw. “Fuck” He slams his head back against the door, hips pushing him further in, and you can feel the vibrations emitting from his chest all the way in the back of your throat as he releases into your mouth. You swallow it down, catching the whimper Benny makes at the feeling it gives his cock.

When you get to your feet, Benny head is hanging so the brim of his hat casts his face in shadow and he’s leaning so heavily against the door you’re not sure he’ll be standing much longer. His breathing is loud in the quiet apartment, and you can’t help the pride growing in the back of your mind. Still breathing heavily, Benny finally lifts his head enough to look at you. You meet his eyes and swipe your tongue over your lips.

His eyes flicker down to follow the movement and he groans, slumping back against the door. You smile triumphantly.

“Let’s get your clothes back on and then I’ll get water.” You help Benny get his pants back on, refastening the buckle. He’s not standing entirely stable, but enough that you can slide his coat down his arms and hang it up, followed by his hat, before you sit him down on a stool right by the door. Having hung up your own coat and switched on the lights you gesture to the kitchen door. “Do you mind?” Benny shakes his head, blond hair falling in his eyes.

You fill two glasses from the tap, throwing a glance at your watch, before returning to him. Handing one to Benny you drink the other, both of you listening to him regaining control over his breathing while you empty the glasses. As you take your last sip you place both on the hallway table and toe off your shoes.

“Want to move out of the hallway?” You hold your hand out to Benny and he’s standing before you’ve had a chance to blink.

You get precisely two steps into Benny’s bedroom before he’s kissing you again. His tongue runs softly against yours, contrasting with the scratch of his beard. He won’t even let you move forward, blocking you with his body until his hands have found their place on your hips, and even then standing stronger than you’d expect from how he looked a minute ago.

Every kiss he chases after you, when you move to the side so does he, when your tongue touches his lips his tongue comes to greet it. It’s overwhelming and intoxicating, his body heat rising and seeping through his button up and your shirt, the warm scent of leather still lingering in the air around him.

Then Benny moves backwards, pulling you with him three quick steps, refusing to let your lips part for even a second, and lets you fall on top of him on his bed.

You pull back, insisting despite his protests. He managed to switch some light on before getting lost in you, letting you full appreciate the shine in his dark eyes when he looks up at you as you brush blond strands out of his eyes. Flittering over you above him, they keep coming back to meet yours, a playful smile on his lips. You lean back down and let him capture your lips again, his hands splaying one on your back, one running up and down your side. Chasing his smile you kiss the corners of his mouth, dipping your tongue in to meet his. It’s like you’ll never run out of places to taste him.

Straightening back up and moving so you’re straddling him, you undo the first buttons of your shirt, but Benny’s hands stop yours, taking over their work with slow precision. He pulls you back down so he can continue kissing you even if it makes it harder for him to get the buttons undone, not that that seems his top priority. Sitting up and sliding the fabric down your arms Benny throws it in some corner of the room, pulling you closer against him by your hips.

“Easy, tiger.” You hum against his lips and Benny laughs a little, shifting further back on the bed and letting you both fall back against the mattress again, arms wrapped securely around your waist.

His necklaces are cool against your skin, but his hands are on fire. They run over your back and sides, up one down the other, and leave nothing but further fires under your skin. Even his rings don’t feel cold as Benny brushes his fingers up your arm to cup your head, tongue skimming your lip but withdrawing whenever you try to catch it.

Pulling back for the first time, Benny looks up at you with a mischievous smile.

“If I had known telling you I like you would lead to this, I would’ve told you already five years ago.”

Not that you’d really been open to anything at that time. Five years ago, and the five that followed, you had been entirely focused on your academics, and the only person you really hung out with had been Benny. He brought his chess books and sat with you in the library while you read up for exams. You’d chat about everything while trying to cram every bit of knowledge into your tired brains. That really only slowed down once you graduated, the hyper-focus on reading every book and spending hours writing notes over bad coffee.

“Do you want to like” You look up at the head pillows laying vertically to your bodies, and Benny starts laughing, luring you into doing the same. “move up?”

“Sure” He lets go of you so you can both get higher on the bed, but the second you’re close enough Benny pulls you back over him. “Better?”

“Much, thank you.” You smile and lean down halfway. Amused you watch Benny push up to meet you, hungry lips convincing you to push him back down into the mattress.

You can’t help the occasional shifting of your hips against his, underwear pushing against the friction of jeans below your skirt. His hands skim the hem of it, but never ventures below it, favoring to run up to your hips and draw you closer.

Running his hands up your back to hold you against him, Benny rolls you over onto your back. Settling between your legs, he braces one arm above you while the other cups the side of your head, lifting just enough for your lips to reach his.

“You know, for later, we’re still on your bed.” You remind him before kissing the corner of his mouth. Benny’s lips quirk and he follows you back down against the pillow.

“I know.” He runs his nose along the side of your neck, the chains around his sliding against your skin. Warm cotton and leather surround you, and this might actually be heaven.

Pushing back a bit Benny reaches up to undo his green button up but stops when you give him a look.

“Isn’t it my turn now?”

Benny lets go off the button and shows his hands, dropping them to your hips as you reach up, undoing the first button before pulling him down by his collar. His smile meets yours, and it only gets bigger for every button, as the release of each is met with the same celebration.

When there are no more buttons to open you slide the fabric out from his pants and down his bare arms. Holding the shirt out in one hand you look at Benny, whose eyes are locked on yours, his lips kiss-bruised.

“Does this have to be folded on a chair” You tilt your head. “or can I just throw it?”

“Throw it.” His eyes sparkle, his voice hitting a little lower and sending vibrations where your body is touching his.

The green fabric flutters to rest at the far end corner of the bed in your peripheral vision. You weren’t really looking where you were throwing.

“It didn’t even get off the bed.” You speak very seriously, as if it was a grave matter, but you’re absorbed by Benny, whose eyes are as stuck in yours as yours are in his. “If you want it off, you’ll have to throw it yourself.”

His arms shift above you, and without moving away from you or breaking eye contact Benny kicks the shirt, sending it tumbling of the edge with a soft thud as it hits the floor. You push your hips up against his, the hilt of the knife at his belt pressing against the inside of your thigh. Benny’s hips thrust back against yours and he lowers down to brush his lips against yours before devouring you again. Your thighs slide against his bare skin, and he reaches back to hook them further over his hips, swiping his tongue along yours. When Benny pulls back slightly the sound he makes fills the room, bouncing off the walls. The end of it mixes with the sigh of his name pulled from your lips as he dips the tip of his tongue into the corner of your mouth.

“Think we’ll wake the neighbors?” You lift off the bed to chase after him, not giving him a chance to reply, pushing him over onto his back. His hips shift against yours as he settles into the mattress.

“The walls are thicker than the door.” He looks up at you straddling him, his lips quirking up into a smile, blond hair falling over his eyes again. Satisfied with his answer you lower your body back down over his, occupying his mouth with yours again.

From slow, insistent kisses where Benny’s tongue runs against yours, you move to kiss the corners of his lips, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his forehead, and his eyelids as he closes his eyes. Continuing down his chin, alternatingly placing kisses on either side of his neck, and one at the dip at the base of his throat, passing over his chains, you shift back to trail down the right side of his chest. As your lips touch between navel and the top of his jeans, brushing along the fabric, Benny touches the side of your head.

“Don’t you dare do it again.” His tone is light and teasing, with just an edge of breathlessness and seriousness.

You move up to kiss his left hip and his hand falls back onto the mattress.

“I won’t.”

You trail back up Benny’s irregularly moving chest, out his right upper arm, and lift his hand. Pressing two more soft kisses to his inner forearm, you place one in the middle of his palm and one to the tip of each finger, before beginning again at his sternum and doing the same to his left arm.

Raising back up you push Benny’s hair from his eyes, inviting the light to dance with the sparks already in them.

“Benny Watts, you are a drug.” You smile a little breathlessly and shake your head down at him. The corners of Benny’s mouth start to raise, and he quickly swipes his tongue up to pull down his upper lip and bites down on his lower.

His attempts fail and when you kiss Benny, he’s beaming, a satisfied sound emitting from the chest pressed against yours. His heartbeats translate through your ribcage and your sentiment is repeated in your mind with a flutter in your stomach.

Ringed hands shift from your hips to your back to hold you closer against him. Somehow, you’ve forgotten Benny’s knife because you can’t even feel it at this point. You only feel the friction of his body against your, the pull of his lips.

“You should be in prison.” His tongue swipes into your mouth at that, stalling your continuation with a dizzying taste. “You should be in jail, and I should be in the same cell with you.” The vibrations of Benny’s laugh and twist of his lips reach your senses at the same time as the push of his hips. Combined they’re enough to make you say his name against his lips, repeating it when he does it again.

Lifting off the mattress Benny’s hands holds your hips down against his as he sits up, lips running down the side of your neck when they slip from yours. The scratches against your skin turn into fire running through your veins, out into your arms and fingertips as you run them over his bare shoulders, along the chains around his neck. You barely hear the sound of your name slip from his tongue against the crook of your shoulder, before Benny turns to make you fall first back into the mattress.

Benny’s hands run from your hips to the hem of your skirt, warm fingers tracing bare skin. You lift your hips against his and he pulls back, but only after sucking your lip into his mouth, swiping it with his tongue.

“Want me to get it off?”

“It’s mostly in the way at this point.” Having gotten his answer, Benny eases the skirt down, letting you lift your hips and moving so he’s not in the way. When it’s all the way off he throws the fabric the same way as your shirt, or maybe the opposite. You can’t remember.

Leaning back over you Benny brushes his lips against yours, meeting you when you arch up against him, then lets himself kiss you fully again. His hips push yours down into the mattress before he pulls them back up towards him. You roll back against him, crossing your legs behind Benny’s back, and he hisses against your lips. The sound of you saying his name causes the grind of his hips to stutter, restart, a low sound resonating in his chest, sending its aftershocks through your body as his hands squeeze your thighs a little harder.

One moves to skim the inside of your knee, hot fingers with warm rings running over equally heated skin. When it reaches the junction of your thigh and hip it slides up along the edge of your underwear and then drops beside your side to support his weight as Benny brings his other hand to hover between your legs and pulls away from your lips.

“Can I?” His dark eyes shimmer.

“Yes.” Since you can’t hear your own voice over the increased speed of your heartbeat you repeat it twice, catching the way Benny’s tongue darts out over his bottom lip as his eyes flicker down.

He runs his knuckles down the slick, wet fabric. You think you hear a breathed-out curse but are distracted when fingertips retrace the same path with just enough pressure to make your hips roll against them. The feeling is dizzying, your breathing skips. Benny’s dark eyes flick back up to yours. Then he does it again, sending sparks where the pads of his fingers almost touch you. Your eyes almost flutter at the way he looks at you when your breathing stops again to become what might have been a curse, or his name, or the curse of his name. The last one in particular feels likely as the sound twists and grows louder, and Benny’s eyes are locked on yours.

Pressing back into his bed you roll your hips against his, his hands planted back on either side of you as he lowers back down to press starved kisses to your mouth. Hips lift off yours, only to change their mind and push back down, accompanied by a curse against the corner of your lips. When Benny’s bottom lip slides against yours, you pull it into your mouth and lightly push down your teeth into it. His left arm buckles as you swallow the sound of his groan.

With little effort you coax Benny onto his back. He willingly falls down onto the pillow, rings sliding against your back as he tries to entice you into press against him. His fingers trail down, skimming along the edge of your underwear until they reach the front, barely touching the waistband, eyes flicking up to yours.

You give permission before Benny even has a chance to open his mouth.

The pads of his fingers push past the fabric, running softly your body until your breathing hitches as they lightly slip over your clit. You resist the urge to close your legs around his hand but can’t help the way your breathing audibly increases when it moves further down. Bare skin slides against your wet folds, stroking up and down; the movement slow and deliberate, and far too good for you hold it out for much longer.

You make a sound.

“Explain Closed Sicilian to me.” Your voice is strained, and you are trying very hard to not focus on every slight change in pressure Benny is subjecting you to right now. Another noise slips out and you bury your face against his chest, rolling your hips involuntarily against his hand. “Please, please explain it to me.”

“Now?” Benny’s other hand pushes against your hip.

“If you don’t, I’m going to come, and I’ve waited this long so I’d rather you didn’t do that before you’re actually inside me.” You lift your head to look up at him, quickly adding “Then again, you talking about that is just going to make it worse, so maybe don’t.” You did not need his eyes lighting up and his confidence going thrice its size because he was talking about something he really, really liked. That was bound to make your situation become much better and much worse really quick.

Benny looks like he’s about to protest before making a face and withdrawing his hand.

“Alright, fine.” He rolls you onto your back and kisses you hard, raising his hips as much as possible but keeping you down with his chest.

Letting you up to breathe Benny’s hands go to his belt, pulling it fully out of the loops this time. He catches the handle off his knife as it slides off the leather and off-handedly places it down on your stomach so he can roll the leather around his hand.

You must have done something as the sheath fell flat or as your eyes shifted up and back down again because Benny’s eyes flick from the belt in his hands to your eyes and then he smiles.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for knives too.” He teases.

“Listen” You’re a little too breathless for any type of denying being at all believable and it’s visible in Benny’s eyes how little he would actually believe you if you tried. “Messing with that takes practice and discussions, so let’s put a pin in that. I like seeing you get off, let’s leave it at that for now.”

He tilts his head like ‘fair enough’, finishes rolling up his belt and puts both that and the knife out of view to your left.

You reach up to brush Benny’s hair to the side where it’s over his eyes again, letting your fingers linger just above his ear. There’s something very recognizable about the slight way his eyes move at the gesture.

“Do you- like having your hair pulled?” You ask tentatively, and when Benny doesn’t answer right away you continue “You don’t have to say yes.”

It takes a second longer, and you start to pull your hand away before he shifts his eyes away and rolls his shoulders.

“So what if I do?” Benny glances back at you.

“I’ll tell you what” You smile encouraging, guiding the topic to focus on yourself instead to make him more comfortable. “you’d be in good hands; I like it both ways.” Benny visibly relaxes but you don’t move your hand back, favoring to slide it along his jaw to stop below his lower lip.

Softly tilting his head down, you give the slightest pressure. He follows down to peck your lips before drawing back to meet look at you again, hands rubbing reassuringly over your thighs. The pad of your thumb rests against Benny’s bottom lip, and you tilt your head, trying to read out the thoughts that form and disperse behind his eyes. The corner of his lip quirks up and he dips his head down to catch the finger in his mouth. The flat of his tongue maps your fingerprint, a teasing glint in his eyes.

You make a noise, shooting him a glare as he looks far too smug when you pull your hand back to press it against his back instead. The expression doesn’t leave his lips when you push his side to get him down, as a matter of fact he looks offensively at home against his pillow, shuffling further into it before beaming up at you again. Unable to stop yourself you scoff, trying to look annoyed but failing spectacularly.

“Think you’re ready to go again, if you want to?” You look at your watch, pinching the face of the clock to keep it so you can read the time. “It’s been an hour.”

“You still have your watch on?” Benny reaches up to pull your arm down so he can look at it.

You laugh.

“Well, you didn’t take it off me.” You let him turn your hand over, undoing the watch and looking at it for a second before handing it to you. Leaning over him you put it on the empty nightstand to your left.

“I’m so glad you’ve got two nightstands.” You hum, leaning back to resettle over his hips.

Thinking for a second, Benny makes a face, a mixture between a frown and scrunching up his face.

“It doesn’t make sense to only have one nightstand.” He states, eyes flicking back to yours. Smiling at his answer you bend down to peck his lips.

“That’s what I like about you, Benny Watts. Things can’t just be for you; they have to make sense.” Continuing in the same light tone you add “I might even go as far as to say I love you.”

“Woah, you’re just gonna show your hand like that?” Benny mimics shock, before smiling, his hands rubbing your hips reassuringly. “Throw the whole game?” You snort a little, moving your eyes to the wall, schooling your expression to be serious.

“As if you didn’t show your hand back at the bar.” You tilt your head exaggerated, pretend thought. “And earlier, now that you mention it.”

“I said liked.” Just like you, Benny is pressing his lips together to prevent himself from laughing, and even then, a smile cracks through.

“I’ll give you that, you did say like.”

Benny pulls you down, kissing you with a smile. Letting yourself sink into it you push down against him, swallowing the sound he makes and feeling his heart beating through his chest. His hands pull your hips closer to his to repeat the motion. His breathing increases as you do it infinitely slower this time, feeling you press against him, although you can’t say you are doing any better.

“Ready?” You laugh breathlessly and Benny groans, pushing his head back into the pillows.

“I was ready half an hour ago.”

“Well, good sex takes preparation. And this is going to be good.” Straightening up you putting the base of your hand on Benny’s chest, holding your index in front of his face to shush him. “No, no, it’s going to be, because I’ll make it so.”

Instead of arguing, with sparkling eyes Benny favors to bend his head forward and close his mouth around your finger, sucking while you talk. His tongue swirls around the digit and the corner of his lips quirk up when you make a sound, mind drifting before you catch it.

“Asshole.” Benny’s eyes light up mischievously at that, and when you pull your hand back, he raises his eyebrows.

“Oh you wan-?”

You cut him off.

“Shut up.” The bed shakes with Benny’s laughter, and you roll your eyes, shaking your head at him. He’s really having too much fun.

When his laughter calms down, Benny looks at you for a second before sitting up.

“Come on”

He nudges you sideways until you get the hint and get off him, letting him get off the bed. Benny offers his hand to pull you up after him. When you’re both on your feet he turns back and in one quick motion rips off the covers, throwing the corner to the middle so the bed is folded half-open diagonally but not all the way down.

You’re just letting your underwear drop onto the floor when Benny turns back around, and he catches up with you in the time it takes you to blink. He holds his hand out again, pulling you with him backwards.

Jut before his legs hit the bed Benny sidesteps, pulling you down first onto the bed and following, catching himself on his arm so he doesn’t fall directly on top of you.

Settling between your legs, Benny tilts his head with a cheeky smile.

“Comfortable now?”

You make a show of settling into the pillow, trying to divert his attention from the way you pull air deep into your lungs. It’s in the pillow, the sheets, the air vibrating around you with tension, but most of all it’s above you, radiating from him. The warm, slightly sweet, smell of clean cotton shirts pulled from the tumbler, a bed slept in until well past noon, and sun-heated leather in the first days of summer.

“Yes.” You smile up at him.

“Good.” Benny lowers down over you and presses his lips to yours, tongue running over your lip once before slipping into your mouth. You hum while he pulls protection from a drawer of one of the nightstands above your field of vision and pulls it on.

Fingers skim lightly over the wetness gathered between your legs, and then Benny pushes into you. It sends lightning through your stomach, sliding slowly, almost torturously, against sensitive nerve endings. His breath is slow and controlled, albeit a bit wavering. Solid warmth spreads from his body into yours and your body clenches involuntarily around him when he stills, breath warming the side of your neck. Your hands run up his sides to find purchase.

“You’re gonna mark me?” You ask the ceiling and Benny shifts, running his nose against your throat and giving you chills.

“You want me to?” His hips pull back slightly, and you close your eyes at the slow drag of his cock against your inner walls. As Benny pushes back in, one hand disappears from beside you, moving your hand from his back to his hair. Sparks dance up your spine when he thrusts a little quicker, igniting you both like a match against a striking surface. Benny makes a sound in the back of his throat before kissing you again.

Carding your fingers through his hair near his scalp you pull lightly. The way his hips jerk forward has you arching against him, moan mixing with his. Tension builds in your stomach and if the room was hot before it is blazing now. Benny presses against you, overwhelming and perfect, filling you. Your hips lift off the bed to meet his, legs crossed behind his back to pull him closer. The drag of his abdomen against you in just the right place has you whining against his lips. His next thrust is faster, causing your body to clench down, approaching the edge fast.

“I’ve waited this long to fuck a master; you better not make this be over quick.” Your hips arch against his despite your breathless words.

“You call an hour and a half quick?” Benny asks in disbelief, but the roll of his hips slows to delightfully slow, burning pulls. He closes his eyes, breathing becomes deliberately slowed. “I’m not going to last long no matter how slow I go.”

“That’s okay, neither am I.” You quirk the corner of your lip as Benny opens his eyes again and pull him back down to your lips. Trying to starve of your orgasm you focus on tasting every corner of his mouth. It seems to have the opposite effect on Benny, as he whines and his hips stutter. One of his arms buckle and you pull your hand free to direct his to your hair before going back to his.

The first slow drag releases a satisfied noise from you, and the slight sting of the next sends a thrill down your body, connecting with where Benny’s cock pushes into you. He slides his tongue against yours, pulling your head close to his.

“Fuck” The word falls from both of your mouths as your fingers pulls the blond strands they’re tangled in, and Benny’s hips jerk forward. You push your hand against his lower back to push him down, deeper, and he pulls your hips up with his free hand, grinding against you. His eyes glitter with pride when you arch, pressing your head into the pillow, mouth falling open.

Unsatisfied, Benny slows even further, changing thrusts for slow grinds, watching you trying to make a sound with a smile, heels pressing into his lower back. Your eyes flutter, trying desperately to stay open, pleasure coursing through you in unrelenting waves. Meeting his eyes, you jerk your hand a little harder in Benny’s hair, and the sound he produces almost has you falling.

His hand pushes between your bodies as he moves faster again. The pleasure is hot and fast, and as Benny pulls your lips to his it explodes, fire shooting through your veins in search of oxygen and shaking your entire body. He swallows the cries of his name falling from your lips, but then his hips stutter and slipping from your lips he repays the praise. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s so fucking hot.

Benny drops his head in the crook of your neck, weakly trying to hold himself up. Your chest pushes against his until both your accelerated breathing reaches the same rhythm. There is pleasant ache starting to make itself known, one you’re sure you’ll be feeling tomorrow, and perhaps the day after that.

Softly you push Benny over and he lets himself be rolled onto his back, still inside you. Head landing on the pillow he takes a few more breaths before his eyes pop open. When they meet yours there is a content smile on his lips, with only a hint of unsedated hunger still visible in his dark eyes. He reaches forward to meet your smiling kiss and lets you pull off him and roll onto the mattress beside him.

After a few seconds of just the sound for your breathing your voice comes alive again.

“I hope we didn’t wake anyone.”

Benny starts laughing, breathlessly and beautifully, and you scrunch your nose playfully at him.

“I hope we did.” He looks at you, eyes brilliant, and adds in a more serious tone. “I think they’re all asleep so they can get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow.”

You reach over and pull your watch from the nightstand.

“Two isn’t a reasonable hour to be up?” Benny snorts a laugh at your fake naiveté as you settle back into the bed.

There’s a few more seconds of silence before he talks again.

“I still only made you come once.” Benny looks at you, eyes flicking down to your lips and back up; the hunger more than unsated now.

“That’s okay” You smile teasingly. “I wouldn’t expect you to, you did all the hard work.”

Benny doesn’t find an answer to that, but you have a feeling neither of you think two is very late at all.

#I fucking called the watch thing I'm so proud!#I'm glad the internet agrees that Benny has both bi and switch energy #benny watts #benny watts x reader #the queen's gambit

789 notes · View notes

cheeringyouon · 3 years ago

Text

How I Take Notes!

Hello friends, hope everyone is doing well and staying safe! With the new semester starting in a little under two months, I thought it would be a good time to make a post on notetaking. Notetaking is one of my absolute favorite ways to learn material that I’m being taught in class. I am a very visual and kinesthetic learner, so the action of writing something down, and being able to look back at something is extremely beneficial to me. I have always despised reading through textbook chapters multiple times, so taking notes in a way that I like makes the learning process more enjoyable to me as well. Although my note taking process may seem intensive and unnecessary to some, this is how I have managed to get by so far.

1. Finding a notetaking style and tool:

There are several different notetaking styles that can be utilized. The two most common ones are either the outline method, or the Cornell notetaking method. I have always followed a version of the outline method- the Cornell method never caught my attention. There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles, but here is a general overview of what each looks like.

Apart from choosing the way you want to take notes, it’s helpful to choose what you want to use to take your notes. I prefer taking notes in notebooks, that I organize by class. I did try taking digital notes once the pandemic hit, but I realized that I despised having to look at a screen in order to study after spending hours watching lecture recordings. I will be going back to taking more detailed notes on paper, but will continue to use digital notes during lectures.

2. Picking a color scheme:

This is something that is based on personal taste, there is absolutely no need to pick a color scheme. Like I said, I am a visual learner, so using a few colors helps me divide the content in my notes and points out key information. I also like to use colors to differentiate between main and subheadings as it helps me keep my notes organized. I used to use a different pen color for literally every line (see image on the left below), but now I realize that it looks like rainbow throw up- I have now become more streamlined in my color choosing process LOL

3. Taking the notes:

In high school, I used to sit in class with my all my pens in my giant pencil bag and make my colorful notes during the lectures. This was doable for me since high school teachers tend to give their lectures at a slower pace so that it is easy for everyone in the room to grasp. However, once I got to university, that became extremely difficult since professors tend to speed through the material in order to cover all the topics.

With that transition, I realized that there were two ways I could go about this:

1. Take time before class to take lecture notes and then add in any details on the side during the lecture. This does help in being more prepared for lectures, but it is time consuming, and requires a tad more motivation to get started. This was especially useful for classes like OCHEM, where the professor would give tips and tricks to understand the numerous reaction mechanisms. For me, having the notes prewritten made it easier to follow along, and understand what he was describing.

2. Take “messy” notes in class and then take time after class to redo my notes in a way that I found useful. If a class is very slide-based, I also will just type out any additional details onto the slides, and then review them after class. This is usually what I do- take messy or scribbled notes on my laptop during class, and then take time after class to take more detailed notes.

For certain classes, the professor may not cover all the details necessary to be successful in the class (these to me are the ABSOLUTE worst kind of prof). In this case, I maintain a separate notebook where I would take notes from the textbook. This would help me fill in any missing gaps from class, and also give me another chance to look through the material.

After taking my notes, I go back through them, and highlight key words/vocabulary to make it easier to see when I review them in time for exams.

4. Using the notes:

Taking the notes, sometimes doing it twice, is extremely time consuming, so it’s important that you put them to good use. I generally only use my notes when I am trying to study for my exams. I find that with the amount of detail I put into my notes, I don’t have to reference textbooks or slides very often.

I also use my notes to make what I call “One-page reviews.” This was a technique that my high school bio teacher had us use in order to prep for or class exams. The idea behind this is to organize the topics and concepts you learned in a unit on a single sheet of paper. This helps keep every key information on one sheet, and helps you connect the dots between concepts as well.

By doing this before every single unit test/class test, it will also make it significantly easier when it comes around to studying for finals- you already have detailed review sheets prepared!

So yeah! This is a rough overview of my notetaking process. I may have skipped over some details, since a lot of this is up to personal preference. No single method works for everyone- it's all a matter of trial and error to see what works best for you. If you have any questions or want me to clarify anything at all, feel free to reach out! I hope this helps 😊

309 notes · View notes

causeimhappinesss · 3 years ago

Text

Like Adam & Eve (Chris Redfield x Sherry Birkin)

Pairing: Chris Redfield x Sherry Birkin

Warnings: age gap + smut + wrap your biscuit, please

Request:

Disclaimer: I’m french and even if I’m learning English for ten fucking years, it’s not perfect and I’m sorry if there are spelling or grammar mistakes. If English is your native language (or if you’re bilingual), I would really appreciate it if you could help me by correcting my errors. Just don’t be too harsh, please. :)

****

He was beautiful. So handsome. Tall. Muscular. In his early 40s. Intelligent. Open-minded. Honest. Brave. Selfless. All this despite his impulsiveness.

She had known him for years. Since 1998, after the events of Raccoon City and Rockfort Island, when she was under government protection. On several occasions, Leon and Claire had come to visit her; him with them. She was only 12 years old at the time. He was already 25. He saw her as a scared little girl. A child to defend from this cruel world, from her past with her parents... In 1998, the attraction she had developed towards him was only innocent, of course. With no ulterior motives.

The years passed and the number of meetings multiplied. The more she became a woman, the more she wanted to attract his attention, joking with him, telling him about her boyfriends to spark off some kind of jealousy deep in him. She voluntarily wore clothes that emphasized her feminine attributes, although she didn’t have JLO's curves...

For four years, their paths didn’t cross again, until June 2013. President Benford's death, Simmons' betrayal... But there he was. They hadn't been teammates because they didn't share the same mission, but the same conflict had brought them together. Once again, she had not been able to enjoy his presence, to savor it, except on the plane back to the United States.

Sitting between him and Jake, she chatted with Chris Redfield, Wesker's archenemy, her former godfather and her late father's best friend. She was talking to him, her eyes sparkly, her lagoon-colored doe eyes riveted on him, while a smile stretched her rosy lips. Her features, still somewhat juvenile, despite her 27 years, gave her a baby face. She was beautiful. Radiant. In spite of all that she had lived; horrors. He also had his fill of BOWs. Together, they were making up for the time and she even caught herself, almost innocently, sliding her hand over his bicep as she reassured him. Redfield was still not out of his mental breakdown. It had been going on for months and getting back on track was proving difficult.

"Would you like to drink a beer, one day?" she asked in a honeyed voice.

"Oh... I don't know, I'm exhausted..."

Yet his answer didn't make her face fade. The young blonde needed more.

"Oh, come on, Chris! Please, it's been ages since we've spoken... When's the next time? When there will be another bioterrorist attack?"she sighed with a pout.

"Well... Okay, but only once. I have a lot of work to do, you know."

A smile triumphed on Sherry's face as she simply nodded and thanked him. The brown hair man took advantage of it to go towards the toilets of the private jet and at the moment he disappeared in this cabin, Jake patted the shoulder of the blonde. A malicious smile stretched the fine lips of the redhead, clearly amused by the situation. He wasn’t blind.

"You devour him with your eyes, Birkin... What are you waitin’ for to ‘sweet-talk’?"

"I... He's not interested..." she stammered, embarrassed. These simple words reminded her of the day when Redfield had pushed her away, indirectly, without her knowledge. Jill and him were talking, in Claire’s garden, because she had organized a party where all her friends, fighting the bioterrorism, had been invited. It was a mistake. She just wanted to get some fresh air... A bad mistake.

It was hot. Way too hot inside. Sweat was clinging to her skin and even her glass of iced water, after the two glasses of alcohol she'd ingested, wasn't helping to bring her body temperature down. The summer of 2009 was proving to be more overwhelming than she had anticipated. The hubbub in the room was giving her a headache. Leon already seemed to be completely drunk and Claire was chaperoning him. Meanwhile, Sheva and Barry were talking to each other. There were also other agents she only barely knew. Discreetly, she fled the house and, immediately, her body tingled with the coolness of the night. It was pleasant.

Once again, she brought her glass to her lips and the cold liquid flowed down her throat. As she listened to the song of the crickets, whispers made their way to her ear canals. Curiosity overcame her and she moved towards the two voices; a woman and a man. She pressed herself against one of the walls, silent, and recognized who the voices belonged to: Jill and Chris.

"Don't you see how she's looking at you? Chris! You're blind!"

"Jill... Seriously, I think you're fretting over nothing. Sherry sees me as a big brother and I see her as a little sister or a cousin."

A sigh escaped the brunette's lips.

"I'm not fretting. There are looks that don't deceive... Look, I'm not jealous, but I'm telling you what I see. Put up barriers before she takes it as... An invitation."

"All right, if it makes you happy."

Heartbroken, hands shaking, stomach clenched, throat knotted, the little blonde went back inside and no one seemed to have noticed her short absence. She sat down on the sofa, next to Claire, putting back on her mask... The mask of a happy person. The man she had been interested in for eleven year saw her as a little girl, a sister.

What were you thinking, Sherry? He's been with Jill for ages, she's gorgeous, she has the look of a real woman... She's full of qualities. She's not a Birkin! her conscience shouted.

The barriers he put in place? He hadn't seen her in years. Four years, to be exact. It was extreme, and even though Jill had told him it was too much, he'd felt it was the right thing to do, if his girlfriend's assumptions turned out to be true. And while Chris had tried to reassure Jill, when they were still together, he was reassuring himself at first. He had observed her chest and her bottom, on several occasions, during a few seconds. He had almost drowned in her cerulean eyes too. It had become so difficult not to look at her.

Now, Chris, needed to be alone. Only two minutes and the bathroom would prove to be the perfect excuse. Now, in front of the stall mirror, he watched his reflection. Droplets of blood adorned a part of his right cheek. His blue eyes looked tired, lost.

You accept once and you make her understand that there will never be anything between you... Right?

There had to be. He couldn’t allow himself to build a relationship with a woman he had known as a child, it would be indecent and would call into question his image, his values. He was afraid of looking like an old pig, of proving Valentine right, even though they had broken up in November 2012. All these thoughts provoked profusions of sweat, that he tried to mop up with his back hand. When he closed his eyes, for a moment, the features of the beautiful Birkin came back to his face like a slap. Her angelic eyes, her superb smile, her cleavage, her butt... A bump formed inside his boxer, and his eyes widened.

It is tiredness, nothing else... he reassured himself.

And, in a vain hope, he imagined his grandmother in atrocious underwear, until his erection disappeared. Once sure of himself, he left the toilets, went towards Sherry and whispered: "we’ll agree on the place and the hour for the beerby message, tomorrow" and he moved away to find Leon, in full discussion with Helena.

Move away... Move away... Move away...

Sherry had done everything to make him come to her house, to drink the beer. She had tried to put on clothes that would highlight her, a simple skirt that didn’t reveal too much and a simple crop top with straps. He had arrived with five minutes of advance and quickly, the beer had been consumed. She hadn’t left him time to speak, to express his desire to break off all ties, to explain her there would never be anything between them, that she started up a movie. A comedy focused on sex, a strategic way to relax the atmosphere that was getting heavier. Indeed, the more she stayed by his side, the more she dreamed of letting her graceful fingers run over the protruding muscles of the man, from his arms, to his torso, passing over his thighs that she dreamed of straddling until the orgasm. She often dreamed of him, of what he made her, his dick inside her. From minute to minute, discrete, she approached him, by light movements, in natural although calculated appearance... Her ass was close to him, to the crotch of the B.S.A.A’s Captain.

He, Chris, had understood the stratagem. However, impossible to emit the least remark. Every time he opened his lips, he was unable to... hurt her. He knew if he said what was in his mind, he would hurt the young woman. Not to help, his cock was so close to Birkin's tender buttocks and her jasmine scent intoxicated him. She nibbled on her lower, wet, luscious, lower lip; a call to kiss. A new erection showed up and he was quite happy that the covers above them prevented the blonde from noticing it.

He tried his best to be focused on the movie, until a sex scene appeared on the screen. Embarrassed by this scene combined with his proximity to the blonde, he cleared his throat and looked away at Sherry's coffee table. Her crystalline laughter attracted his attention and he gazed at her. His cock continued to tense; it was becoming disturbing. The desire was growing and he was struggling. An internal struggle he wasn’t winning.

"Chris! Don't be embarrassed, it's only a movie and then... Well... I think it's funny how they make some positions look simple!" she said while batting her eyelashes. If she didn’t know yet the power that she possessed, it didn’t change the fact he wanted to devour her. To jump on her. Kiss her.

"That's because you haven't found the right partner..." he whispered.

He couldn't help it. It was the truth and... And what? His brain wasn’t running smoothly anymore. If only someone could shake him, slap him, to bring him back to his goals.

"Oh yeah? Explain to me..."

The blonde turned around and in her swiveling, her buttocks rubbed against his hard cock. The way she had rubbed herself wasn’t accidental, far from it, it was guessable. And he guessed she had felt his erection. A smile stretched Sherry’s lips who slid a hand on the thigh of the soldier, so close to his erect member. The blonde's eyes sparkled with excitement as she leaned over him. Chris gulped with difficulty. He dreamed to stroke her breast, to sink into her, to show her he was right.

"Show me, then." she added, of a suave voice.

She was the one who initiated the kiss by pressing her lips against his. With this last lost control, he let his hands wander on her beautiful body. His thick and calloused hands sought her chest, under her crop-top, whereas she wasn’t wearing a bra. He quickly removed the garment and tossed it somewhere in the living room. As he kissed Sherry, he titillated her breasts, her erected nipples. Soon, their lips pulled apart and he licked her nipples, drawing sighs of pleasure from his partner.

He no longer cared about what was right or wrong. If she was too young or not. If he had known her as a kid or not. It didn't matter.

Meanwhile, Sherry took off Redfield's shirt, slid her phalanges between each line of his abs, before attacking his belt. Once rid of this one, she opened the button of his jeans, then took his zipper down. She didn’t seek to get rid immediately of his pants. Instead, she stroked his hard cock through his boxers for a few moments, which made Chris sigh. Finally, she freed his cock from this confined place to admire it, her mouth watering. It was very thick, probably 7,4inches (19 centimeters) long, completely hard, veiny, with a pink head. Some pre-cum covered the tip. With a false look of innocence, she ran her fingers over his balls, on his cock, to the head, then placed kisses on it.

"Sherry..." breathed Chris, his eyes half-closed, watching her. She looked up at him and licked his cock. Again and again. After titillating him, she took him her mouth, her perfect lips wrapped around his member, moving back and forth with wet noises. She insisted on the most sensitive places, in particular on the tip, while she massaged his balls. Her heart beat was off the charts, following the example of that of his sexual partner.

She did everything to please him, to receive his compliments and when the first ones came, such as "nice girl", "oooh... perfect...", her heart swelled with joy. When he asked her to stop, she complied, moved her thong to the side and came to rub her wet intimacy against Redfield's penis as he grunted with excitement... With anticipation... She was having fun rubbing his head at her vagina entrance. She was torturing him.

"Chris... Tell me you want me..."

"Sherry..."

"Please. Say it. I want you so much... If I could make you my God, I would..." she squeaked without stopping her movements.

"Goodness, yes! I want you Sherry! I want you like I haven't wanted a woman like that in so long!"

That's all it took for the blonde to impale herself on Redfield's cock, not waiting for him to finger her. It was a waste of time in an unexpected situation she never thought she'd ever succeed to provoke. There she was, straddling his cock, with delicious moans. Sometimes, she threw back her head, sometimes she lowered her eyes on their sexes, watching this huge cock moving inside her, stretching her in the most pleasant way.

Chris couldn't believe it. It was as if he was a spectator... As if he was possessed... Yet he was heaving a great time and his thrusts joined Sherry's movements to help her. His hands had found their way on Birkin’s milky hips. Then, he made her roll and lie down on the sofa. He got rid of his pants and his boxer, just like her thong and the skirt. He penetrated her again in a grunt, folded the thighs of the blonde against herself and pounded in her of brutal pushes. Fast. A pleasant revenge for having provoked him... To have made him leave the right way.

She was Eve. He was Adam. The forbidden fruit? Her pink pussy, martyred by his cock.

The blonde moaned and she didn't need to play with her clit to get off. Chris was naturally gifted, as she had imagined in all her dreams since she was a teenager. He was hitting the right angle, the G-spot. It felt so good that she couldn't say anything except let her vocal cords do the talking... Just her luck that her downstairs neighbor had gone on vacation!

"God... Chris... Keep going... Like this...!"

He didn't stop, he let the pleasure continue to climb, until they were close to orgasm. He closed his eyes as her vaginal walls pulsed around him, like a soft vise around his cock, a sign that her orgasm was hitting her hard. She was cheering him. Struck by his own orgasm, Chris grunted and let his seed paint the blonde's walls. His cock throbbed after the four hot spurts of cum. With a sigh, he pulled out and opened his eyes again. His cum was flowing out of her still convulsing pussy in the most erotic way possible. Gradually he caught his breath and let Birkin's legs fall back. The latter was smiling, her face and chest pink.

My God, what have I done...?he thought.

Yet he didn’t escape like a thief.

No, instead, they often slept together. If he tried not to have any attachment, he couldn’t help but stay always longer than he should, whether it was in Sherry's bed, in her shower, or inside her. The more time he spent, the more addicted he became to her, like a drug. It was worse than meth. He couldn't get off it. Little by little, he was falling. No, in fact, he was falling in love with the one he had always denied himself.

Asleep, Sherry was sleeping naked, stuck against him, their legs intertwined, under the moonlight that filtered into the room. She hadn’t closed the shutters. One of her hands were flattened against one of his biceps. He contemplated her curves and her angel face. Tenderly, his fingers slid along the spine of his partner. He didn’t manage to sleep, torn between his duty and his desires.

He had obviously spoken about it to Claire who... Didn't see any harm in it. In fact, really open-minded, his young sister had advised him to start a relationship with Sherry, if he liked the blonde.

"You deserve that! Nobody can judge you when you bleed to save the world every day!" she had whispered while hugging him.

Did he love Sherry? Yes, he recognized the same signs as he had for Jill a decade earlier when he realized he was madly in love. Today, his heart claimed Sherry. Deep down, he knew she was waiting for this, she would accept to start a relationship with him, she was dying for it and if it frightened him a few weeks earlier, now the idea warmed his heart. In a tender gesture, he placed a kiss on Sherry's forehead, whose eyes fluttered as she awoke from her sleep. Slowly, her eyes opened and locked with Redfield's.

"What is it Chris...?"

"I'm sorry I hurt you so much..." he whispered in a husky voice.

The woman's eyebrows furrowed, and she straightened in the middle of the bed, inviting him to continue.

"All these years I knew you wanted me and I acted like I didn't know anything about it, pushed you away as much as possible and... Even though my heart was taken, I regret it. Sherry... I..."

He straightened up in turn and his thick hands framed Sherry's face.

"What I mean is... I love you. I'm a loser when it comes to love confessions, but it's been said."

The blonde burst out laughing then stole a soft kiss from him.

"All that matters now is that we're together. Okay?"

In the end, yes, that was all he cared about. Chris knew he had to think of himself and that meant loving Sherry without any remorse.

***

My AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetrayedWriter/profile

#chris redfield imagine #chris redfield #chris redfield one shot #resident evil fanfic #chris redfield x sherry birkin #chris redfield fanfic #RE8 #RE8 village #RE6 #chris redfield x reader

37 notes · View notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years ago

Text

Today in Tolkien - January 13th

On January 13th the Fellowship battle an attack from the warg-pack just before morning, and walk to Moria all day (it’s about 20 miles, or 32km, and this is coming after two nights of little sleep, an attempt to climb a mountain, and walking all of the previous day - the hobbits are tougher than Aragorn gave them credit for in Bree!). They reach the Moria-gate at evening, ponder the mystery of how to open the gate, are attacked by the Watcher in the Water, enter Moria, and begin to be followed by Gollum.

Of all the things the movies cut, I’m surprised they cut the attack by the warg-pack, since it’s very Hollywood-friendly. I suppose they simply didn’t have space. The hobbits don’t fight in this one, but everyone else is very impressive:

Through the throat of one huge leader Aragorn passed his sword with a thrust; with a great sweep Boromir hewed the head off another. Beside them Gimli stood with with his stout legs apart, wielding his dwarf-axe. The bow of Legolas was singing.

In the wavering firelight Gandalf seemed suddenly to grow: he rose up, a great menacing shape like the monument of some ancient king of stone set upon a hill. Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to meet the wolves. They gave back before him. High on the air he tossed the burning brand. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning; and his voice rolled like thunder.

“Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan in ngaurhoth!” he cried.

There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a leaf and bloom of blinding flame. The fire leapt from tree-top to tree-top. The whole hill was crowned with dazzlibg light. The swords and knives of the defenders shone and flickered. The last arrow of Legolas kindled in the air as it flew, and plunged burning into the heart of a great wolf-chieftain. All the others fled.

In the morning there are no wolf-corpses. This seems like a departure from The Hobbit, where the wargs are real, physical wolves - just evil talking ones. The wargs that attacked the Fellowship are some kind of evil spirit, likely similar to the wolves of Sauron at Tol-in-Gaurhoth at the first age. Are they very minor maiar? They don’t seem powerful enough for that. Are they the dead spirits of men and elves given wolf-shape? Sauron is called the Necromancer.

This is the point where Boromir clearly starts to be unhappy about the journey and the Fellowship, and he remains that way through Lothlórien and after.

“I do not know which to hope,” said Boromir grimly: “that Gandalf will find what he seeks, or that coming to the cliff we shall find the gates lost for ever. All choices seem ill, and to be caught between wolves and the wall the likeliest chance. Lead on!”

The Fellowship reach the lake created by the Watcher in the Water at sunset.

The day was drawing to its end, and cold stars were glinting in the sky high above the sunset, when the Company, with all the speed they could, climbed up the slopes and reached the side of the lake.

They walk around the lake’s shore, cross a creek, and come to the base of a cliff where the doors are. Gandalf seems to be at a bit of a loss, “standing between the two trees [holly trees that mark the borders of Hollin] gazing at the blank wall of the cliff as if he would bore a hole into it with his eyes.” He only thinks of the signs on the doors when prompted by Gimli, and then he says words that make the ithildin symbols and writings become visible. He says ithildin “sleeps until it is touched by one who speaks words now long forgotten in Middle-earth. It is long since I heard them, and I thought deeply before I could recall them to my mind.”

I think Tolkien made a small error here in having the doors say “Moria” (a name given to it by the elves after it was abandoned and dangerous) instead of “Khazad-dum” (the dwarves’ name for it when they had a kingdom there).

I can translate bits of Gandalf’s attempts at pass-words. (Fortunately the doors don’t block you if you get it wrong three times.) In Annon edhellen, edhro hi ammen! Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen! the first phrase means “Gate of the elves, open...” but I don’t have a meaning for “ammen” (which also occurs in Gandalf’s naur an edraith ammen spell for setting wood/trees on fire). Based on cadence and my gut, I would guess that the second phrase is a repetition of the first in a different dialect or language.

As we know, Gandalf figures out the password is “Mellon” (friend), the Watcher in the Watee attacks Frodo, the Fellowship escapes into the mines, and the gates are destroyed. After climbing up a wide stairway in Moria, they stop for dinner.

They continue walking for several hours inside Moria on the night of the 13th-14th. And it is a very unsettling journey:

There were in many places holes and pitfalls, and dark wells beside the path in which their passing feet echoed. There were fissures and chasms in the walls and floor, and every now and then a crack would open right before their feet. The widest was more than seven feet across, and it was long before Pippin could summon enough courage to leap over the dreadful gap. [Yipes! Sympathy for Pippin - I’d balk at jumping across a seven-foot-wide chasm in the dark, and I’m not four feet tall.]

A short time after this Frodo hears Gollum following the Fellowship.

#tolkien #the lord of the rings #today in tolkien #gandalf #elvish #sauron #boromir

47 notes · View notes

addictedtostorytelling · 3 years ago

Note

So I was re-reading through your s8 meta (you are SO GOOD at laying out everything) and are we really supposed to believe 5 months passed between Dead Doll and A La Cart? Like, it doesn't take that long for a broken arm to heal, to say nothing of the facial cuts? Was this another date continuity error? Also, was anyone else disappointed we didn't get a Sara-recovering-in-hospital scene like, oh, every other injured CSI ever? Thanks for all your incredible insights, it's been a blast to read!

hi, anon!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you enjoy my meta.

re: your question:

the short answer is that the date isn't so much an error as sara's facial wounds on that date are an error.

her broken arm still being broken at that point is actually fairly realistic, though.

longer answer after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

up front: the in-universe date for episode 08x02 "a la cart" does not appear to be an error in itself, as it both fits with the typical csi episode dating conventions in general and fits with the overall timeline for csi s8 specifically.

traditionally, on csi, there is supposed to be a four-ish month time gap between the end of one season and the beginning of the next, mirroring the real-life network television summer hiatus.

the purpose of this gap is to keep the internal chronology of the csiverse roughly on track with the chronology of the real world (so that episodes that are supposedly taking place in february within the universe of the show for the most part also air in february in real life, for example).

most often, this time gap takes place between the season finale of one season and the season premiere of the next; however, in some cases, as with episodes 07x24 "living doll" and 08x01 "dead doll" and episodes 08x17 "for gedda" and 09x01 "for warrick," which are cliffhanger-and-resolution pairs, the gap is pushed back to take place between the first episode of the new season and the second episode of the new season instead.

in some cases, this time gap, whether it occurs in the premiere or in episode #2, makes internal sense within the universe of the show—like with the one between s4 and s5, when it is implied that sara spends a significant portion of her summer away from the lab, following her near-dui, so that she can attend her peap sessions and get her head on straight—but in others it requires some significant suspension of disbelief—such as is the case with the gap between s3 and s4, which makes the logistics of grissom's ear surgery, recovery, and subsequent return to work weird af*.

* basically, it makes it seem as if he doesn't return to work for a full four months after what is in all likelihood an outpatient procedure that in real life would take only a week to recover from at most.

while episode 08x02 "a la cart" does seem to fall into the "this time gap requires some suspension of disbelief to fully accept" category, the time gap itself does nevertheless fit with typical csi episode dating conventions, as it preserves the traditional four-month gap between s7 and s8 (or technically in this case between episodes 08x01 and 08x02).

the in-universe date for episode 08x02 "a la cart" itself also specifically fits within the overall timeline for s8.

as stated, episodes 07x24 "living doll" and 08x01 "dead doll" are functionally a single episode, taking place over the course of several hours between the night of 05.17.07 and the afternoon of 05.18.07.

the events of episode 08x02 "a la cart" then supposedly take place four months and sixteen days later, on 10.04.07.

from there, episode 08x03 "go to hell" takes place between 10.09.07 and 10.11.07.

episode 08x04 "the case of the cross-dressing carp" takes place on 10.17.07 (when grissom and sara get engaged).

and episode 08x05 "the chick chop flick shop" takes place on approximately 10.31.07.

given that the in-universe date for episode 08x02 "a la cart" both adheres to typical csi chronological conventions AND fits within the timeline for the rest of the season, it doesn't appear to be aberrant.

that said, even though the episode itself isn't chronologically "out of place," it does still present some not insignificant problems for us when we consider the implications of its internal date.

in some ways, the idea that sara is away from the lab (and grissom away with her, for the most part) for over four months seems very viable, but in others, it's difficult to accept.

on the one hand, it does make sense that after enduring such intense physical and psychological trauma—severe dehydration; broken bones; shock; severe sunburn; numerous abrasions and lacerations to the face, hands, and arms; possibly internal injuries and organ damage; etc.; to say nothing of the ptsd—sara would not return to work for several months, and particularly not as her job is one that requires lots of stamina and dexterity to fulfill.

however, on the other hand, if over four months really do elapse between those two episodes, then sara should, by all accounts, be much farther along in her physical recovery process when she returns to the lab than what we're shown, specifically in terms of her facial injuries.

as i talk about here:

the fact that she still has cuts on her face in episode 08x02 “a la cart” presents a continuity error, as most superficial abrasions and lacerations—even those which require sutures—tend to heal within a couple of weeks or a month or two at most; however, it does make sense that her arm would still be casted, as fractures often take three to six months to completely heal in adults, and she broke her arm in two places.

moreover, one would think that there would have been more discussion about her and grissom's relationship by their coworkers in the time while they were away from work than what little there seems to have been*.

* are we really to believe that in over four months of knowing about grissom and sara's romance, nick and greg have never discussed the subject with each other and compared notes prior to the events of episode 08x02 "a la cart"? if so, it seems odd that they haven't.

so.

we really have two options when it comes to how to regard this ambiguous evidence, neither one of them wholly satisfactory in itself:

option #1: if we ignore the fact that sara's facial wounds should already be healed and that nick and greg probably already should have gossiped about grissom and sara's relationship a long time prior this point, then we can accept the idea that sara does indeed spend 4+ months away from work (as does grissom, who is her caretaker) between may and october 2007. the pros to this option are that it allows us to adhere to the internal dating of the episode, thereby preserving the timeline for the rest of the season as is, AND that it allows us to imagine grissom and sara basically spending ⅓ of a year holed up in their condo together, with grissom tending to sara while she heals. the cons of this option are that it requires us to ignore the severity of sara's injuries as we see them depicted on-screen AND that it makes her coworkers' reactions to the news of her imminent return to work seem a little ~wonky~ (given how much time has already passed since she's been away).

option #2: however, if we ignore the internal canonical dating of the episode 08x02 "a la cart," then we can imagine that its events take place in much closer proximity to the events of episode 08x01 "dead doll," with perhaps only six weeks or so elapsing between the two points instead of over four months. (we could probably place the events of episode 08x02 "a la cart" sometime in early to mid-july.) the pros to this option are that the compression of the timeline makes the severity of sara's injuries seem more realistic in context AND erases some of the weirdness of how her coworkers react to her coming back to the lab. the cons to this option are that it throws off the entire timeline for the rest of the season—we'd basically just be moving the time gap from between episodes 08x01 "dead doll" and 08x02 "a la cart" to be between episodes 08x02 "a la cart" and 08x03 "go to hell" instead, and considering that sara's injuries persist through the events of episode 08x03 "go to hell" anyway, we'd essentially be right back at the place we'd started from there with the problem of how unrealistic it is for her face to still be cut and bruised all the way into october—AND that it would cut down on how much alone time we give grissom and sara together in the wake of her abduction.

given that neither option is completely airtight, i think it's really a matter of personal preference as to the one you subscribe to.

for me, i tend to go with option #1, just because that's the one that preserves canon and doesn't fuck up the timeline for the rest of s8—but that's just a matter of personal preference for me.

ymmv.

as for the issue of us not getting a sara hospital scene, i've never personally felt too shortchanged in that regard (just because i like imagining how it might've gone down in fic), but i certainly wouldn't have complained had we gotten one, either.

god knows billy and jorja would've slayed it.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: production #season 8 #08x02 #let's talk shop #csiverse

6 notes · View notes

gcsolutions · 3 years ago

Text

Hypercare via LMS, the solution for Employee Development in BFSI

Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) industry is fast growing worldwide due to the rising per capita income, introduction of new products, innovation in technology, expanding distribution, networking, and increasing customer awareness of financial products.

The customer base for this sector is highly tech-savvy, short on time and always looking around for competent and personalized services. To meet customer requirements, there is a need to establish a productive workplace which is free of human errors, security threats and brings premium banking & financial products or services. Hence, BFSI sector need to build a strong & highly skilled team of professionals to remain innovative and quickly adjust to the external changes.

Business Challenges in BFSI sector

The Global reports confirm a dismally low employee engagement of just 33% and as per survey reports, an employee turnover rate of 24% in the BFSI industry – one of the highest among all industry sectors.

The industry leaders have tried to control attrition, but the steps have not resulted fruits. So, attrition is going to stay, and we need to find ways to reduce the impact of attrition. One way to reduce the impact of attrition to smoothen up the onboarding process which can help to speed up new employee become proficient quickly and the loss of productive hours and business performance is reduced to minimum.

Let us look at two important issues that need attention

Faster Onboarding

Huge customer base using banking & finance services as per their individual requirements and to handle them in an effective and efficient manner, there is a need to have a set of skilled professionals. Thus, arises the requirement of faster onboarding of the skilled set of workforces which includes agents, distribution partners and the workforce working in their respective branches.

Upskilling & Training Workforce

The rate at which BFSI sector is transforming, there is really urge to upskill the workforce. Post COVID19 situation, banks and other financial institutions have looked to make most of their processes online. For example, the opening of the accounts and completing KYC formalities have gone digital. Employees need to be trained to deal with the online customers and help the customer have a seamless experience.

The Role of a Training & Learning Platform

The higher aim of learning is not only acquiring skills but changing behavior. By transferring the right knowledge and skills, it is possibly change the behavior of employees and stakeholders which is necessary for business continuity and competence. Let’s talk about the role of a LMS in Banking in managing the training and learning process at the organization level.

The learning management system comes with several features that can create learning journeys more appropriate for an individual. The LXP variant of LMS brings AI driven suggestion engine, place for learners to find skills-based learning. The Learning Performance Platform variant integrates with your business processes and tools to get data on your business goals and performs skill gap analysis. Combined the features of these learning management systems provides the right environment for the employee to remain engaged, upskill and perform as per the intended KPIs.

Once new workforce has been hired, comes the Hypercare phase which starts right at the onboarding phase. Hypercare basically means an elevated level of support for the new hires to ensure the seamless adoption of a new system.

Commenting on the need of Hypercare through a BFSI LMS, Bharat Jain, AVP – Learning Technology, G-Cube shared “Post onboarding, hypercare is essential to ensure learners stay focused with regular training interventions as well as daily sales huddles. LMS brings various ways of training need identifications and automation to conduct daily huddles.”

Therefore, Hypercare phase helps in developing culture of continuous learning where the employee gets the necessary support and guidance to perform well, feel confident and grow personally while adding value to the organization.

If you want to see how it works, try demo of a Learning Management System which is built in consultation with BFSI industry experts.

2 notes · View notes

dreamer213 · 3 years ago

Text

Broken machines: Lights The Dark

Chapter 1 Lovely Day

Italicized: Narration

Bold: Inner Thoughts

Staring at the foot of Pyrrha Nikos I am broken and helpless. I can not move, I can not hear anything, half of my body has been torn off and is laying a foot away from the rest of me, and my vision is fading.

My systems, my strength, even my voice are…failing.

EVERYTHING IS FAILING! ITS SO DARK! I CANT SEE ANYTHING! I CANT GET UP! MY LEGS! I CANT MOVE! I CANT! I CANT! GENERAL! DAD! ANYONE! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!

This is horrible. I feel like I still being crushed. I feel-I feel… Scared? It this what scared feels like? Or is it….. death? Am I dying? No no NO! That can’t be it! This can’t be it! I just made my first friends, I just entered my first Vytal Festival Tournament, I just started really living my life it can’t just end. Not here not like this……….Daddy please help me.

…..I….I don’t want to die.

I DON’T WANNA DIE!!!!!!

At that moment Penny’s eyes shot open as she wakes from her nightmare. She sits up in a state of pure distress, taking short panicked breaths, her pajamas and hair are disheveled and the cable in her back ,the connector for her power station, has become loose from its socket from her violent shaking. She looks down at the blanket covering the lower half of her body, with a shaky hand Penny pulls back the covers to reveal not the broken and mangled pair from her nightmare but a set of perfectly attached, full intact, pale and freckle dusted legs. This sight calms her and pulls Penny full out of her daze, she pulls the cable out then flops down on the bed, her eyes glow softly.

Systems Overview:

Optics: Fully Functional

Hearing: Fully Functional

Nerves: Fully Functional

Weapons Systems: Fully Functional

Temperature Gauge: Fully Functional

Power Storage: Fully Functional………………

All Systems Are Functioning And Full Operational.

Penny: Pffft, It was just another dream. That marks two weeks and four days between this dream and the last dream, five weeks and two days from the one before that and two months from very the first. I’ll have to inform the General about this if it continues.

She shakes her head in dismissal

….No that would be useless. Informing him will result in me being sent to the lab for some diagnostic tests and a few scans. And since my systems aren’t showing any signs of error it’ll just be waste of time and resources. And we can’t afford to waste more of ether. Not now (Sighs).

She reaches into the drawer of her nightstand and pulls out a book and pen, she makes a few quick notes then return the items to their place, gets up, and begins her preparations for day ahead. She brushes her teeth, changes into her work clothes, tidies up her hair, puts on and securing her rocket boots, grabs her backpack, then heads down stairs. Right after turning back around for one last mirror check before she goes.

She arrives down stairs to see her Dad setting up the table with two plates of breakfast and two mugs, one filled with coffee, the other strawberry milk. As he finishes up Pietro spots Penny making her way towards him. He smiles brightly, his little girl is up bright and early again today.

Pietro: Good Morning, Sunshine of mine.

Penny: Good morning Dad.

Pietro: How are you doing this morning?

Penny: I am functioning optimally and all my systems and programs are running correctly.

Pietro: What about the “dreams” ? Are you still having them?

Penny: N-no I have not. (Hiccup)

Pietro: Uh Huh. Now Penny you know that I love you ,and you know I will always be there whenever you need me. But I can’t help you when you need me if you don’t tell me.

Penny: But there isn’t anything you can do about this. This isn’t an error or virus or anything to do with my specs or my hardware, there’s nothing wrong with me for you to fix.

Pietro: Not everything is matter fixing broken parts, sometimes it’s more a matter understanding emotions and talking about hardships. I’d be happy to help you with both whenever you want.

Penny: Thank you Dad but I do not think that will be of any significant help with this problem. And with the increase of my responsibilities, the rise in overall military activity and “ the project” I cannot add another issue to my daily routine. So please let’s just leave this problem be, just for little while.

Pietro: I understand I wouldn’t bother you about anymore. Now come here eat your breakfast, the foods getting cold.

Penny: Dad I don’t need to eat.

Pietro: But you can eat and makes you happy, isn’t that a good enough reason for doing it.

Penny: Okay, okay but I only have ten minutes and fifty three seconds to spare. If I stay any longer I’ll be running behind schedule.

Pietro: Well we can’t have that now can we? Better sit down and eat while you can!

Penny quickly takes a seat in front of her plate. She looks at her meal, two sunny side up eggs two pieces of welled spiced sausage and white toast cut into two triangles. She takes a deep inhale, picks up her fork, and takes her first bite. The eggs have warm welcoming taste as the yolk isn’t too runny and the whites are just the right amount of chewy. The sausage is tender and juicy, the rich meat flavor with a of spicy kick makes hard to stop from eating too fast. And rounding up the plate the wonderful toast has come out just right today, not too soft nor too burnt with a generous amount of butter on top. A pure blanket of soft crunchy buttery goodness. But once the food all gone the only way to finish up a proper breakfast is with a morning beverage. For today that morning beverage is cold and sweet strawberry milk. A creamy and sweet way to put some sugar and vitamin D into your morning.

It’s nothing special really, just a simple everyday meal but for Penny ,someone so new to the practice of eating and enjoying food, it is a moment of pure and utter bliss.~

Penny: Delicious as always, thanks Dad.

Penny gets up and turns to leave.

Pietro: Wait! Aren’t you forget something?

Penny: The dishes?

Pietro: No.

Pietro goes over to her, spreads his arms out, and gestures to her.

Penny: Oh!

Penny leans down and warps her arms around him. She stays like this just long enough to soak in her father’s warmth, he give her a kiss on the head as she pulls away.

Pietro: I love you Sweetheart.

Penny: I love you too Dad. I’ll be home before 10 pm.

Penny walks to the door gives her dad a quick wave and is out the door. Once on the streets she clicks the heels of her rocket boots to active them then takes off into the sky to begin her daily responsibilities.

7:30 AM to 12:00 PM Patrol Mantle’s streets

After a quick aerial scan of streets below Penny lands a starts to survey the area, everything seems to be in order store owners are opening their shop doors, groups of children are walking to school, the buses transporting the mine and factory workers, though noticeably less full then usual, are running according to the schedule, and the late night patrons of Sammy’s Pub are finally heading home from another night of intoxication. Mr. Calves, a man known for being a destructive alcoholic, is slumped against the building and losing consciousness fast.

Penny: Mr. Calves please leave this area and return to your home immediately. The owner of this establishment has already stated several times that you can no longer loiter here after business hours and has asked to have you trespassed if you refuse.

Claves looks at Penny with disgust as he shakily stands up. He downs the remaining liquid in his bottle, he then swings the empty bottle at Penny’s head! Once the bottle is within inches of her face Penny grips him by his forearm, applying just enough pressure to stopping him in his tracks. While holding him steadily Penny calmly takes the bottle from his hand and gingerly places it on ground, straights up Calves’s clothes, then looks up and makes eye contact.

Penny: I repeat please leave the area and return home. Or I will have you trespassed and will have to take you to the near military station.

Calves finally takes the hit and skiddes away. As he leaves Penny turns her attention back towards the streets just in time to see a group of small children heading to school. A little boy with light blue hair and a little gap in his teeth notices her while walking with his friends.

“Hey it’s Ms. Penny!” he shouts, this grabs the attention of the other children as they all turn their heads at the mention of the friendly neighborhood protector.

Soon there was swarm of little hands waving wildly and a chorus of “Hi Ms. Penny” “Good Morning Ms. Protector” and “ Hi Ms. Hero” can be heard from blocks away as the parents tried their hardest to get their awestruck children to keep on their way with little success. Penny smiled brightly and waved back at them, this had become her favorite part of her morning patrols since she was tasked with the role of Mantle’s Protector. After a month or so of handling both the Grimm and crime in Mantle the people had began to recognize her as somewhat of a neighborhood hero. Although they would not approach her often most adults would wave to her as she passes by them during patrols. The children would look at her with fascination and wonder asking all sorts of questions like how she flew, why was she was so strong, and if she could give them a ride on her back while she fled around! And the elder, especially the older woman, would treat her like one would a sweet child, telling her not to stay out too late, reminding her to wear thicker clothes when it got cold, and would give her small treats like candies, small cookies, and leftover baked goods whenever they had the chance.

This is what gives her work so much meaning. The comfort and happiness she saw in their eyes, that’s what Penny was protecting, that’s what she’d repeat to herself whenever things got difficult. As long as the people, her people, were safe she could handle whatever role or new responsibility the higher ups decide to throw at her. As long as she could fight they could smile and as long they could smile she could fight.

“RING” “RING” “RING”

Penny’s scroll rings, a loud blaring alarm, it’s a status update from the security officers in charge of the surveillance drones there are two on going altercation happening sixteen blocks away, a small fire twelve blocks east, One large Grimm at the southern most edge that’s proving to be a problem for the morning squadron, and a small pack of Grimm making their way towards one of mines due southeast. In summary a normal morning in Mantle.

Penny: And like clockwork my morning peace has comes to an end. If I help with the fire first and handle the altercations a few blocks ahead then fly max speed across town to get to the Grimm I should be able to cut off the pack just before they reach the mine.

She puts her scroll away and turns to take off but not before giving the crowd one more wave as she clicks her heels and twirls as she jets up into the air. She then does a very showy wink and peace sign for the crowd and flys off.

1:00pm to 4:00 pm Training With Military Huntsman

After cutting off and taking down the pack of Grimm Penny heads to the military training center to add the other hunters as they hon their skills in biweekly training sessions. Now most days Penny will just set the facilities to train the specific skills each team needs to work on for both group and individual training. But Penny will join in if a session requires another person or if she is specifically requested. Today is Team FNKI’s turn and they’ve requested that Penny train with them, though it was more like Neon begged for two full hours to have Penny join them so she could play with Penny’s “pretty light swords”.

Once the boys are all set with their individualized training, Neon and Penny are left at the center for a 1 vs 1 sparing match. Neon playful circles Penny rainbow trailing behind her. She smiles coley ,twirling her her nunchucks and her tail, as though she doesn’t have a care in the world.

Neon: you ready to dance Penny? Cause I’ve been dying to see if those cute swords of yours are more then just a light show.

Penny: I can assure you Neon Katt my swords are indeed military grade weapons, the lights are an indicator of the connection between them and my systems so I may use them freely. They are also optimal for fighting in the dark and at night.

Neon: And you just ruined the joke killjoy. So if you’re done talking I’m just gonna beat cha with my chucks, ‘Kay.

Neon changes her stance then charges at Penny, she swings her chucks wildly at Penny trying to land a hit. Penny dodges her rapid attacks for a bit but that soon fails as Neon only grows more fierce with each swing. Neon closing in she’s just about to landing a hit but when she brings down her chucks something blocks her, she loses her balance and is pushed back. Once she regains her composure she see Penny with one of her swords in hand and smile on her face. Penny looks at her for a second then let’s go of her blade letting it flow upward to above her head. Once’s it there she releases the rest of her arsenal, the blades fanning out around her like a peacock’s tail creating a beautiful but deadly display. Penny raises her hand to Neon and gestures for her to make a move.

Game on.

The girls continue their sparing for the duration of the session, when the time almost up the door to the training room is swung open. The elegant Winter Schnee enters the room with a loud bang, grabbing everyone’s attention and stopping them dead in their tracks.

Winter: Team FNKI Your session is over please clear out so the next group may enter.

With that the boys grab their things and start head towards the door while Neon stands there sulking.

Neon: Aww man, But I wanted to play some more.

Flynt: Kitty no it’s time to go, say goodbye to your friend.

Neon: Ugggh, fine..

Neon begins to leave, looking upset and defeated she skates to the door but right as she’s about to leave she perks up and skates back to Penny.

Neon: You have your scroll on you?

Penny: Yes.

Neon: Gimme it like Now!

Penny hands Neon her scroll, Neon starts fiddling with the scroll until she finds the app she’s looking for then starts typing. Once she’s done she hands the scroll back to Penny.

Neon: If you’re ever bored or want tickets to our next concert hit me up ‘Kay.

Penny: Okay?

Neon: Awesome, and don’t worry about calling too late I’m a real night owl.

Flynt: KITTY!

Neon: OKAY! Bye Penny Pop, later Winter Wonder. See you losers in few days!

Neon rolls out of the room while Flynt looks back apologetically before leaving with the rest of his team. Penny and Winter are left standing in the room in an awkward silence.

Winter: Penny, go change the settings for the room to my presets.

Penny: Right away Ma’am

Winter: And Penny.

Penny: Yes Ma’am?

Winter: Don’t get distracted. We don’t have time for distribution.

Penny: Yes of course Ma’am.

Penny leaves the room and heads to the control room to change the settings. Once she’s finished she call a co-worker to take over as she grabs her things and leaves for her next task.

5:00 pm to 8:00 pm Filling Out Reports At The Military Outpost

After a quick flight from the training center Penny heads to the nears Military Outpost or Military Station to fill out reports on petrols, arrests, Grimm sightings and kills, and any oddity or security issues she might have noticed in between her commutes are the cities. Basically everything that needs to go on record throughout the day was to written and submitted at this time.

This was is the part of the day Penny dislike the most. After hours of detaining criminal, fighting Grimm, training with military huntsman, and keeping the community safe sitting at a computer, in an uncomfortable chair and typing everything out for hours on end was truly mental draining. Recounting an entire day down to the mundane details, filling out arrest form after arrest form, document after document is just so soul sucking and horrible. But this what she and every military member had to do when their work day comes to an end in order to keep the system running.

Penny walks in to the station she shows her identification to the front desk assistant, she is then given a usb, and boozed into the main building. Once she’s in she looks for the nears open computer, once she finds it she sits down, logs in to the system, inserts the usb, and gets to work.

After two hours of typing away Penny’s close to finishing her work a bit earlier the usual when Chief Stones, the man in charge of the station, comes running towards her with a phone in hand.

Stones: Poledina, I just got off the phone with the southwest shipping facility. They need some extra security on today’s shipment transfer and they asked for you specifically, so get down there.

Penny: Yes Sir.

Stones: And don’t forget to come back and finish your reports once you’re done.

Penny: ………Yes Sir.

After saving her work and removing the usb Penny grabs her things, heads outside and straight to the sky. After a near hour or so of flying Penny spots the facility coming up on the horizon. She’s getting closer when suddenly a truck comes zooming past her at an intense speed. It’s the shipping truck! But why is it going so fast? Where was the security detail that was supposed to be escorting them? And why is it going off the normal route? Penny stops and gets ready to jet off after the truck when-

“ HELP! SOMEBODY HELP US!”

That’s when Penny turn back and sees smoke. The truck could wait someone was in danger and she was the only one there to help. She flys towards the screaming only to find it’s the security detail! The vans been thrown on it’s side and a fires broke out. The guards have made out of the vehicle but most are injured some are unconscious the strongest of them is waving Penny down with one arm while keeping a wound close with the other.

Penny: Penny Poledina Mantle Main Security, What happened here?

Long: Seth Long Transport Security, there was a breach at the facility it turned out false alarm but once we got back they’d already set off smoke bombs in loading dock and ran off with the truck. We tried catch up with them but I think they saw it coming they set off some sort of trap and blow us off the road. Our van got flipped 5 of my men were injured 3 are out cold there was nothing we could.

Penny: We need to get you and your men to a medic right now-

Long: WAIT! There’s 1 man still in that van, he was driving when we gave chase and got stuck when we crashed. He’s names Tony, please you gotta save him.

Penny looks at the man for a moment, the desperation and fear clear in his eyes, she rips a piece off her skirt and uses it to dress Long’s wound then heads for the van. It doesn’t take her long to spot Tony, he has multiple injuries, has breathed in a lot of smoke, and is losing consciousness. Penny pulls out one of her swords and cuts him out the seatbelt. Once he’s free she gently picks him up and jets up and out of the van. When they’re back on solid ground she sets Tony down next to Long, Long gingerly pats Tony’s head and mouths “thank you” to Penny before his strength finally gives and he passes out. Penny pulls out her scroll and calls for medical attention, in the meantime she does everything she can to keep the men stable until help arrives.

It takes a few hours for everything to get cleared up but soon everything has documented and everyone in need of medical attention has either been seen or sent to the hospital for a few nights stay. With that Penny quickly heads back to the station to wraps up her reports for the day then heads home. It’s one thirty in the morning, it been a very long day and all Penny can think about is getting home, taking off her boots, getting out of her now dirty work clothes, and getting some sleep. Before she knows it she’s standing at her front door, she grabs her keys and quietly opens the door trying her hardest not to make too much noise so she doesn’t wake her dad, only to find him waiting for her at the table with a warm plate of chicken and rice with tomato soup. Penny smiles at him and heads to table for a nice late dinner and some family time. Once dishes are done and Dad’s gone off to bed Penny goes to her room, she takes off her boots, grabs some clean pajamas and heads to her bathroom she then washes off the day’s dirty and grime, puts on her pjs and heads to her bed. Once she’s in her bed she plugs herself into her power station, tucks herself with her nice warm blankets, snuggle her head into her pillow, and falls into a hard earned and well deserved night sleep.

#penny polendina #broken machines #rwby #rwby fanfiction #cute #this girl deserves a day off and jar of Nutella #pietro polendina #fanfic

17 notes · View notes

warriorgays · 4 years ago

Text

Justified Timeline

I posted this on tumblr a few years ago, but it was as a link to my Dreamwidth journal, which I’ve since gotten rid of. Don’t know how active the fandom is nowadays, but I was talking to some people about how I live for making fandom timelines and I thought might as well make this one accessible again. It goes all the way through the last season and marks characters’ deaths, so here be spoilers:

SEASON ONE

1.1 “Fire in the Hole”

March 3, 2010

Episode occurs over 7 days (with a 2-day break between Miami and Lexington)

1.2 “Riverbrook”

(begins 3 days later)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Tim has been at the Lexington office for 9 months

Rachel is wearing a wedding ring

1.4, “Long in the Tooth”

(begins at least 8 days later)

Episode occurs over 1 day

1.5, “The Lord of War and Thunder”

(begins at least three weeks later)

Episode occurs over 2 days

1.6, “The Collection”

(begins at least 1 day later)

Episode occurs over 4 days

1.7, “Blind Spot”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 2 days

1.8, “Blowback”

(at least one week passes)

Episode occurs over 3 days (possibly with a break of several days in between)

1.9, “Hatless”

(at least 2 day pass)

Episode occurs over 3 days

1.10, “The Hammer”

Note: Raylan takes a week off from work. It is not clear whether the week is between 1.8 and 1.9, or between 1.9 and 1.10.

Episode occurs over 4 days

1.11, “Veterans”

(at least 2 days pass)

Episode occurs over 3 days

1.12, “Fathers and Sons”

(first scene begins the same night as 1.11; the second begins at least one day later)

Excluding the first night, 3 days pass, with at least one day’s break in between

1.13, “Bulletville”

(begins the same night as 1.12)

Episode occurs over 3 days

Death of Bo Crowder

SEASON ONE occurs over 89 concrete days total; HOWEVER, the pacing of the episodes is much looser than in later seasons, and is entirely possible that the season took up to 4 months in the narrative

SEASON TWO

2.1, “The Moonshine War”

(begins the same day as 1.13)

After the initial scenes, Raylan spends at least a week under investigation

Episode occurs over 8 days

2.2, “The Life Inside”

(first scene begins the same night as 2.1)

Two days later, a short scene with Mags and Loretta

At least two days later, narrative picks up with Raylan again

Episode occurs over 4 days

2.3, “The I of the Storm”

(several days pass)

Episode occurs over 3 days (with a one-day break after the first day)

2.4, “For Blood or Money”

(several days pass)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Rachel is not wearing a wedding ring in this episode, and her nephew implies she’s single

2.5, “Cottonmouth”

(four days later)

Episode occurs over 2 days

2.6, “Blaze of Glory”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 2 days, possibly with a gap in between

2.7, “Save My Love”

(starts the next day)

Episode occurs over 2 days

2.8, “The Spoil”

(at least two days pass)

Episode occurs over 1 day

2.9, “Brother’s Keeper”

(starts same day as 2.8)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Death of Coover Bennett

2.10, “Debts and Accounts”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 1 day

2.11, “Full Commitment”

(starts same day as 2.10)

Episode occurs over 3 days (ends at 2am of the third day)

Death of Helen Givens

2.12, “Reckoning”

(starts same day as 2.11)

Episode occurs over 4 or 5 days, with a gap in the middle

2.13, “Bloody Harlan”

(starts 2 days following 2.12)

Winona tells Raylan that she’s pregnant

Episode occurs over 1 day

SEASON TWO occurs over 45 days; however, there are several episodes that seem to imply that a week or more has passed, without giving any concrete evidence, so it’s possible that the season occurs over 2 and a half months

SEASON THREE

3.1, “The Gunfighter”

(starts same day as 2.13)

Evening of day 1

(three full weeks pass)

Episode occurs over 3 days following

3.2, “Cut Ties”

(at least one day passes)

Winona states that she is 6 weeks pregnant

Episode occurs over 1 day

3.3, “Harlan Roulette”

(starts one day following 3.2)

Episode occurs over 3 days

3.4, “The Devil You Know”

(2 days pass)

Episode occurs over 1 day

Death of Devil

3.5, “Thick As Mud”

(starts late the same night as 3.4)

Winona is 7 weeks pregnant

Episode occurs over 1 day

Winona leaves Raylan

3.6, “When The Guns Come Out”

(starts the following day)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Note: 95% of the action takes place on one day. The second to last scene takes place at night, on a different day (Raylan is wearing a different shirt). I assumed it was the very next night, but Art says that Charlie “went home on Tuesday,” and Raylan replies “I saw him Tuesday,” which could imply that several days have passed.

3.7, “The Man Behind the Curtain”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Opens late in the evening, lasts until the following night

3.8, “Watching the Detectives”

(starts late the same night as 3.7)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Opens late at night, lasts until the following night

Death of Gary Hawkins

3.9, “Loose Ends”

(first short scene begins late the same night as 3.8)

Episode occurs over 4 days

3.10, “Guy Walks Into a Bar”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 3 days

Limehouse states that it is late autumn

3.11, “Measures”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 1 day

3.12, “Coalition”

(starts the same day as 3.11)

Episode (theoretically) occurs over 1 day

The timing of this day is absolutely an error. Judging by the filming--every scene in sunlight, every character wearing the same clothes, and some dialogue cues--it only occurs over one day. However, there is no physical way for everything to happen within a single day, and in “Measures,” Raylan and Art clearly return to the office at the end of a shift, although the next episode continues virtually uninterrupted.

Raylan also states that Dickie Bennett was released from prison “a week ago Wednesday,” while the pace and filming of the narrative implies he was only released the day before if not that very morning.

Death of Tom Bergen

3.13, “Slaughterhouse”

(starts late the same night as 3.12)

Episode occurs over 3 days

note: based on context clues, Winona is about 11 weeks pregnant

SEASON THREE occurs over 52-60 days

SEASON FOUR

4.1, “Hole in the Wall”

(begins 5-8 weeks after 3.13)

Episode occurs over 2 days

4.2, “Where’s Waldo”

(starts the next day)

Episode occurs over 1 day

Art turned 56 the week prior

Art has been in Lexington for 22 years

Rachel has left her husband; presuming she was not married in 2.4, when her nephew joked about finding her a husband, this means her marriage lasted for a maximum of three months. It is also possible that her nephew’s line was a one-off joke and that the writers only later decided that they wanted Rachel to be married.

4.3, “Truth and Consequences”

(starts the same evening as 4.2)

Episode occurs over 2 days

4.4, “This Bird Has Flown”

(starts the same evening as 4.3)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Death of Bill St. Cyr

4.5, “Kin”

(first short scene is the same night as 4.5; second scene begins the following day)

Episode occurs over 2 days

4.6, “Foot Chase”

(first short scene is the same night as 4.5; second scene begins the following day)

Episode occurs over 2 days

4.7, “Money Trap”

First scene is a flashback to 6 days prior, when Raylan handed over Jody

Narrative picks up again the day after 4.6

Episode occurs over 2 days

Nelson’s birthday

4.8, “Outlaw”

(starts the same morning as 4.7 ends)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Death of Arlo Givens

4.9, “The Hatchet Tour”

(starts 2 days later)

Episode occurs over 1 day

4.10, “Get Drew”

(starts the same night as 4.9)

Episode occurs over 2 days

4.11, “Decoy”

(starts the same day as 4.10)

Episode occurs over 1 day

4.12, “Peace of Mind”

(at least one day passes)

Winona knows she’s carrying a girl; would imply she’s 18-20 weeks pregnant

Episode occurs over 1 day, except for final scene (which occurs the day after)

Death of Colton Rhodes

4.13, “Ghosts”

(starts the day of the previous scene)

Episode occurs over 2 days

SEASON FOUR occurs over 14 days total

SEASON FIVE

5.1, “A Murder of Crowes”

(starts minimum 6 months after 4.13)

Episode occurs over 4 days

Death of Sammy Tonin

Note: Willa has been born

5.2, “The Kids Aren’t All Right”

(starts the day following 5.1)

Episode occurs over 2 days

5.3, “Good Intentions”

(starts the same day as 5.2)

Episode occurs over 3 days

5.4, “Over the Mountain”

(starts just before dawn the day following 5.3)

Episode occurs over 2 days

5.5, “Shot All to Hell”

(starts at least one day following 5.4)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Deaths of Nick Mooney and Jean Baptiste

David Vasquez states that Art is about 8 months from retirement

5.6, “Kill the Messenger”

(starts at least one day following 5.5)

Episode occurs over 2 days

5.7, “Raw Deal”

(starts at least one day following 4.6)

Episode occurs over 2 days

(discrepancy: Boyd + co. arrive in Mexico, which is at least a 2 day trip by car, while the rest of the characters are still experiencing 1 day)

Death of Johnny Crowder

5.8, “Whistle Past the Graveyard”

(starts the morning following 5.7)

Episode occurs over 1 day

5.9, “Wrong Roads”

(starts the day following 5.8)

Episode occurs over 3 days

There’s a bit of blurriness; Boyd, Darryl, and Jimmy arrive in Harlan long before the second group, and it’s not clear if their trip was meant to take one day or two. If it’s meant to be the same day, though, that means Raylan received a physical copy of a Mexican murder investigation within 24 hours of the murder being discovered, which seems unlikely. I’ve recorded it as two days.

Death of Hot Rod Dunham

5.10, “Weight”

(first short scene begins the same night as 5.9; second scene begins the following day)

Episode occurs over 1 day

Death of Danny Crowe

5.11, “The Toll”

(starts the day after 5.10)

Episode occurs over 2 days

5.12, “Starvation”

(starts the day after 5.11)

Episode occurs over 3 days

Rachel says that the case against Grady Hale was one of the first one she worked, as a 21-year-old deputy. That would make her 35 in season 5 (younger than the original pilot script), and would indicate she’s been in the Lexington office for fourteen years, although it’s possible she transferred out and back in the interim.

5.13, “Restitution”

(starts the same night as 5.12)

Main plot occurs over 2 days

Once the Crowe situation is resolved, there’s at least three days of additional scenes--Raylan seeing Art, Ava being released from prison, etc. However, it’s possible that these scenes take place over a longer amount of time. I’ve recorded it as a possible week in the final count.

SEASON FIVE occurs over 32-39 days total

SEASON 6

6.1, “Fate’s Right Hand”

Raylan states it has been 4 weeks since the Mexican police seized Boyd’s truck; if his timeline matches up with mine, this would mean two weeks has passed since the season 5 finale

Episode occurs over 4 days

Arlo’s grave lists 2013 as his year of death

6.2, “Cash Game”

(starts the following day)

Episode occurs over 1 day

Raylan says Willa is 9 months old; this means that either there is a 13-month gap between seasons 4 and 5 (unlikely, based on the general plot and Ava’s imprisonment storyline in particular) or there is a continuity error.

6.3, “Noblesse Oblige”

(starts the following day)

Episode occurs over 1 day

6.4, “The Trash and the Snake”

(starts the following day)

Episode occurs over 1 day

6.5, “Sounding”

(starts late the same night as 6.4)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Some detectives mention that it is the start of bear season, which would make it somewhere between October-December.

6.6, “Alive Day”

(starts late the same night as 6.5)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Zachariah references Boyd’s season-two time in the mine as being “a couple years back”

Death of Choo Choo

6.7, “The Hunt”

(starts late the same night as 6.6)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Winona says that she took an Uber from the airport; Uber has been located in Kentucky since the spring of 2014.

Boyd says that he has been saving a bottle of bourbon from 1995 for “damn near 20 years.” I’d say this confirms that the show is supposed to be nearabouts 2015, although it can’t be narrowed down much further. He also says it’s the first day of wild hog hunting season, which doesn’t officially exist in Kentucky.

6.8, “Dark as a Dungeon”

(at least one day passes)

Episode occurs over 3 days

Raylan says that Arlo died “last year,” which would conclusively date this season as taking place in 2014.

Death of Ty Walker

6.9, “Burned”

(starts the same day as 6.8)

Episode occurs over 2 days

6.10, “Trust”

(starts the same night as 6.9)

Episode occurs over 2 days

6.11, “Fugitive Number One”

(starts the day after 6.10)

Episode occurs over 1 day

Deaths of Carl Lennon, Mike Cosmatopolis, and Katherine Hale

6.12, “Collateral”

(first scene occurs the same night; the episode then begins the day following 6.11)

Episode occurs over 2 days

Raylan’s cousin Mary from the hills has died at some point since season 4

Death of Zachariah Randolph

6.13, “The Promise”

(starts the same evening as 6.12 ends)

Main plot occurs over 2 days; it’s unclear how much time passes between Raylan shooting Boon and leaving Kentucky, but it was probably at least two additional days

Death of Avery Markham

EPILOGUE: Takes place 4 years later. Rachel sends Raylan mail from the Seattle Marshal’s Office. Ava is living in Lebec, CA with her son, who is probably about three and a half.

SEASON SIX (excluding the epilogue) takes place over 21 days

Based on this timeline, I can say, pretty conclusively, that Justified takes place from March 2010 to the late fall or winter of 2014. This fits with almost all of the time-specific references made in the final season, as well as my season-by-season timeline notes. In a few places there is a slight discrepancy, in which a single episode’s plotting implies that things take place over a shorter amount of time than suggested by the overarching seasonal timeline, but it’s rarely more than a few days at a time, and I’m confident this timeline is accurate within a few months.

There are only two significant errors in continuity. The first is Willa’s age. As noted, if Willa is nine months old in season 6, then that leaves at least 7 months unaccounted for, either in between seasons 4 and 5, or over season 5. Between seasons 4 and 5, Ava is in prison and hasn’t even been assigned a judge for her court date; 13 months is much too long for that to be true, at least without it being worthy of mentioning. And while it’s possible that season 5 takes place over a slightly longer period than I have listed, it’s very tightly plotted, and again, I doubt I would overlook 7 months’ worth of progression.

The other error is a very similar problem--Loretta’s age. She is explicitly stated to be 14 years old in her first appearance. In season 5, when her plot involves her having a boyfriend, she can reasonably be assumed (both due to the timeline and the context) to be 15 or recently-turned 16. In Season 6, which only took place about two months later, she is living on her own, in Harlan, and is presumed to be 18--unless she’s supposed to be an emancipated minor, which would be characteristic, but which is not actually mentioned or implied in-text. Kaitlyn Dever, who played Loretta, was in fact 14 years old when she started filming and 18 when she finished filming, but the series covers a shorter amount of time than real life does, and Loretta should only be, at most, 17 in the finale, if not still 16. This is clearly a narrative choice, however. Willa’s age has relatively little impact on the plot, and is most likely a small slip up. Loretta obviously can’t be living in Harlan and poised to run a weed empire if she’s still a teenage foster child, so I believe the writers deliberately waved away the issue in order to fit Loretta into the final season. Which I think we can all forgive, because she’s a fucking badass.

#justified #justified timeline

80 notes · View notes

mattchase82 · 3 years ago

Text

Cry of a Lost Soul

This unusual narrative recounts the revelations of a lost soul to a former acquaintance. It is a powerful record of the steps which led a young woman to lose her soul in Hell for all eternity.

Although it has several times been printed with imprimatur, this in itself does not guarantee the authenticity of the story.

An imprimatur merely indicates that the subject matter is free from error in faith and morals.

Is it true?

Obviously, it cannot be "guaranteed" because the only evidence is that of the girl herself.

It certainly may be true and its instructional qualities would pertain even if the story itself were not true.

In the July apparition at Fatima a vision of a Hell of fire was given to the three little children, and significantly, its existence was confirmed by the great public miracle on October 13th.

Yet Hell is little spoken of in the pulpits. Because of this, the special intervention of Heaven, may, as at Fatima, be necessary to restore this sobering doctrine to its important place in Christian dogma.

It is well to remember that the Hell spoken of here is the Hell which has a significant place in Catholic doctrine, the Hell described vividly by Christ Himself, the Hell seen in all its livid horror by the children at Fatima on July 13th, 1917.

The names of persons and places are omitted because of the nature of the Article.

Clara and Annette, both single Catholics in their early twenties, worked adjacent to each other as employees of a commercial firm in Germany. Although they were never very close friends, they shared a courteous mutual regard which led to an exchange of ideas and, eventually, of confidences. Clara professed herself openly religious, and felt it her duty to instruct and admonish Annette when the latter appeared excessively casual or superficial in religious matters.

In due course, Annette married and left the firm. The year was 1937. Clara spent the autumn of that year on holiday at Lake Garda. About the middle of September she received a letter from her mother. "Annette . . . is dead. She was the victim of an auto accident and was buried yesterday at Wald-Friedhof."

Clara was frightened since she knew her friend was not very religious. Was she prepared to appear before God? Dying suddenly, what had happened to her?

The next day she attended Mass, received Holy Communion, and prayed fervently for her friend. The following night, at ten minutes after midnight, the vision took place. . .

"Clara, do not pray for me! I am in hell. If I tell you this and speak at length about it, do not think it is because of our friendship. We here do not love anyone. I do this as under constraint. In truth, I should like to see you to come to this state where I must remain forever."

"Perhaps that angers you, but here we all think that way. Our wills are hardened in evil - in what you call evil. Even when we do something 'good', as I do now, opening your eyes about hell, it is not because of a good intention."

"Do you still remember our first meeting four years ago at. . .? You were then 23 and had been there already half a year. Because I was a beginner, you gave me some helpful advice. Then I praised your love of your neighbor. Ridiculous! Your help was mere coquetry. Here we do not acknowledge any good - in anybody."

"Do you remember what I told you about my youth? Now I am painfully compelled to fill in some of the gaps."

"According to the plan of my parents, I should not have existed. A misfortune brought about my conception. My two sisters were 14 and 15 when I was born."

"Would that I had never existed! Would that I could now annihilate myself! Escape these tortures! No pleasure would equal that with which I would abandon my existence, as a garment of ashes which is lost in nothingness. But I must continue to exist as I chose to make myself - as a ruined person."

"When father and mother, still young, left the country for the city, they had lost touch with the Church and were keeping company with irreligious people. They had met at a dance, and after a year and a half of companionship they 'had' to get married."

"As a result of the nuptial ceremony, so much holy water remained on them that my mother attended Sunday Mass a couple of times a year. But she never taught me to pray. Instead, she was completely taken up with the daily cares of life, although our situation was not bad."

"I refer to prayer, Mass, religious instruction, holy water, church with a very strong repugnance. I hate all that, as I hate those who go to church, and in general every human being and everything."

"From a great many things do we receive torture. Every knowledge received at the hour of death, every remembrance of things lived or known is for us, a piercing flame. In each remembrance, good and bad, we see the way in which was present - the grace we despised or ignored. What a torture is this! We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do not walk. Chained, with howling and gnashing of teeth, we look appalled at our ruined life, hating and suffering. Do you hear? We here drink hatred like water. Above all we hate God. With reluctance do I force myself to make you understand."

"The blessed in heaven must love God because they see Him without veil, in all His dazzling beauty. That makes their bliss indescribable. We know this and the knowledge makes us furious. Men on earth, who know God from nature and from revelation, can love Him, but they are not compelled to do so. The believer - I say this with gnashing of teeth - who contemplates Christ on the cross, with arms extended, will end by loving Him."

"But he whom God approaches only in the final storm, as punisher, as just avenger, because he was rejected by Him, such a person cannot but hate Him with all the strength of his wicked will. We died with willful resolve to be separated from God. Do you now understand why hell lasts forever! It is because our wills were fixed for eternity at the moment of death. We had made our final choice. Our obstinacy will never leave us. Under compulsion, I must add that God is merciful even towards us. I affirm many things against my will and must choke the torrent of abuses I should like to vomit out."

"God was merciful to us by not allowing our wicked wills to exhaust themselves on earth, as we should have been prepared to do. This would have increased our faults and our pains. He caused us to die before our time, as in my case, or had other mitigating circumstances intervene. Now He shows Himself merciful towards us by not compelling a closer approach than that afforded in this remote inferno. Every step bringing us closer to God would cause us a greater pain than that which a step closer to a burning furnace would cause you."

"You were scared when once, during a walk, I told you that my father, a few days before my first Communion, had told me: 'My little Annette, the main thing is your beautiful white dress, all the rest is just make-believe.' Because of your concern, I was almost ashamed. Now I sneer at it."

"The important thing is that we were not allowed to receive Communion until the age of 12. By then I was already absorbed in worldly amusements and found it easy to set aside, without scruple, the things of religion. Thus, I attached no great importance to my first Communion. We are furious that many children go to Communion at the age of seven. We do all we can to make people believe that children have insufficient knowledge at that age. They must first commit some mortal sins. Then the white Particle will not do so much damage to our cause as when faith, hope, and charity - oh, these things! - received in Baptism, are still alive in their hearts."

"Marta K - and you induced me to enter "The Association of the Young Ladies." The games were amusing. As you know, I immediately took a directive part. I liked it. I also like the picnics. I even let myself be induced to go to confession and communion sometimes."

"Once you warned me, 'Anne, if you do not pray, you go to perdition.' I used to pray very little indeed, and even this unwillingly. You were then only too right. All those who burn in hell did not pray or did not pray enough."

"Prayer is the first step towards God. And it is the decisive step. Especially prayer to her who is the Mother of Christ, whose name we never pronounce. Devotion to her rescues from the devil numberless souls whom sin would infallibly give to him."

"I continue my story, consumed with rage and only because I have to. To pray is the easiest thing man can do on earth. And God has tied up the salvation of each one exactly to this very easy thing."

"To him who prays with perseverance little by little God gives so much light, so much strength, that even the most debased sinner will at the end come back to salvation. During the last years of my life I did not pray any more, so I lacked those graces without which nobody can be saved. Here we no longer receive graces. Moreover, should we receive them we would cynically refuse them. All the fluctuations of earthly existence have ceased in the other life. For years I was living far away from God. For, in the last call of grace I decided against God."

"I never believed in the influence of the devil. And now I affirm that he has strong influence on the persons who are in the condition in which I was then. Only many prayers, others and mine own, united with sacrifices and penances, could have snatched me from his grip. And even this only little by little. If there are only few externally obsessed, there are very many internally possessed. The devil cannot steal the free will from those who give themselves to his influence. But in punishment of their, so to speak, methodical apostasy from God, He allows the devil to nest in them."

"I hate the devil too. And yet I am pleased about him, because he tries to ruin all of you; he and his satellites, the fallen with him at the beginning of time. There are millions of them. They roam around the earth, as thick as a swarm of flies, and you do not even notice it. It is not reserved to us damned to tempt you; but to the fallen spirits. In truth every time they drag down here to hell a human soul their own torture is increased. But what does one not do for hatred?"

"Deep down I was rebelling against God. You did not understand it; you thought me still a Catholic. I wanted, in fact, to be called one; I even used to pay my ecclesiastical dues. Maybe your answers were right sometimes. On me they made no impression, since you must not be right. Because of these counterfeited relationships between the two of us, our separation on the occasion of my marriage was of no consequence to me. Before the wedding I went to confession and communion once more. It was a precept. My husband and I thought alike on this point. Why not comply with this formality? So we complied with this, as with the other formalities."

"Our married life, in general, was spent in great harmony. We were of the same idea in everything. In this too, that we did not want the burden of children. In truth, my husband would have like to have one; no more, of course. In the end I succeeded in dissuading him even from this desire. Dresses, luxurious furniture, places of entertainment, picnics and trips by car and similar things were more important for me... It was a year of pleasure on earth, the one that passed from my marriage to my sudden death. Internally, of course, I was never happy, although externally at ease. There was always something indeterminate inside that gnawed at me."

"Unexpectedly I had an inheritance from my Aunt, Lotte. My husband succeeded in increasing his wages to a considerable figure. And so I was able to furnish our new home in an attractive way. Religion did not show its light but from afar off, pale, feeble and uncertain."

"I used to give free vent to my ill humor about some mediaeval representations of hell in cemeteries or elsewhere, in which the devil is roasting souls in red burning coals, while his companions with long tails drag new victims to him. Clara! One can be mistaken in depicting hell, but never can one exaggerate."

"I tell you: the fire of which the Bible speaks, does not mean the torment of the conscience. Fire is fire! What He said: 'Away from Me, you accursed one, into eternal fire', is to be understood literally. Literally! How can the spirit be touched by material fire, you will ask. How can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger on the flame? In fact the soul does not burn; and yet what torture all the individual feels!"

"Our greatest torture consists in the certain knowledge that we shall never see God. How can this torture us so much, since on earth we are so indifferent? As long as the knife lies on the table, it leaves you cold. You see how keen it is, but you do not feel it. Plunge the knife into the flesh and you will start screaming for pain. Now we feel the loss of God. The lost Catholics suffer more than those of other religions, because they, mostly, received and despised more graces and more light. He who knew more suffers more cruelly than he who knew less. He who sinned out of malice suffers more keenly than he who sinned out of weakness. But nobody suffers more than he deserves. Oh, if that were not true, I should have a motive to hate!"

"My death happened this way . . ."

"A week ago - I am speaking according to your reckoning, because according to pain, I could very well say that it is already ten years that I am burning in hell - a week ago, then, my husband and I, on a Sunday went on a picnic, the last one for me. The day was glorious. I felt very well. A sinister sense of pleasure that was with me all the day long, invaded me. When lo, suddenly, during the return, my husband was dazzled by a car that was coming full speed. He lost control."

"Jesus, used frequently by some people of German language - escaped from my lips with a shivering. Not as a prayer, but as a shout. A lacerating pain took hold of the whole of me. (In comparison with the present only a trifle). Then I lost consciousness. Strange! That morning this thought had come to me in an inexplicable way: 'You could go to Mass once more', It seemed like the last call of Love."

"Clear and resolute, my 'NO' cut off that train of thought. You will know already what happened after my death. The lot of my husband and that of my mother, what happened to my corpse and the proceedings of my funeral are known to me through some natural knowledge we have here. What happens on earth we know only obscurely. But we know what touches us closely. I see also where you are living."

"I myself awoke from the darkness suddenly, in the instant of my passing. I saw myself as flooded by a dazzling light. It was in the same place where my dead body was lying. It was like a theater, when suddenly the lights in the hall are put out, the curtains are rent aside and an unexpected scene, horrible illuminated, appears. The scene of my life."

"My soul showed herself to me as in a mirror; all the graces despised from my youth until my last NO to God. I felt myself like an assassin, to whom his dead victim is shown during his trial at court - Should I repent? Never! - Should I feel ashamed? Never!"

"However, I could not even stand before the eyes of God, rejected by me. There was only one thing for me: flight! As Cain fled from the dead body of Abel, so my soul rushed from the sight of horror."

"This was the particular judgment: the invisible Judge said: 'Away from Me'. Then my soul, as a yellow brimstone shadow, fell headlong into the place of eternal torture."

YOU CAN READ THE WHOLE UNEDITED VERSION HERE

http://sicutincaelo.org/b08_hell.html

#catholicism #traditional catholic #catholic #catholic faith #heaven and hell #perdition #inferno #paradise lost #lostsoul #be warned #satan #lucifer #christian faith #christianity #the evil within #wickedness #completely unprepared #i was unprepared

3 notes · View notes

causeimhappinesss · 5 years ago

Text

Fading innocence - Thomas Shelby

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x reader

Warnings: age gap, smut, loss of virginty

Request : Hiii i'm the one that requested the tommy x christian reader, i was thinking if maybe you could write the moment where he takes her virginity, what does the family think about her, her telling him (before they start to date) that she wants to create a family with her future husband and have at least 2 kids or more because she wants them to have eachother's back always, and his reaction to it too♡♡♡♡ thank you so much♡♡♡♡

Disclaimer: I’m french and even if I’m learning English for a long time, it’s not perfect and I’m sorry if there are spelling or grammar mistakes. I haven’t written in English for almost a year. If English is your native language (or if you’re bilingual), I would really appreciate it if you could help me by correcting my errors. Just don’t be too harsh, please. :)

***

Living in a wealthy family had advantages and disadvantages, it was undeniable. First, you couldn't date someone who didn't belong to your rank. Second, you were brought up in a very Catholic family and therefore, no sex before marriage. Oh God, no! Your father would have wanted your head on a stake, that's for sure! Third, your education made you very polite.

This is surely what had pleased Thomas Shelby the day you met him. As a politician, he was often called upon to meet so-called "high society people", other politicians and their families. So he had been invited for a weekend to a deputy's house. Drinking good French wine, playing golf, riding horses on your father's huge property, talking business and politics; it was the schedule. He planned to stick to it without causing any problems. To tell the truth, he appreciated your father, he was a very nice man who shared his vision of things in the political world, although he thought he too... Catholic, for his taste.

You stood in front of him, magnificent, breathtaking in this white dress that highlighted your purity and your curves, without ever falling into vulgarity. Beautiful women, he had seen them. He had even slept with a large number of them. Yet none, except Grace, had done this to him. You took his breath away.

He spied on you, in your every move. Your long doe eyelashes adorned your eyes with a color he judged sumptuous by its nuances. That doe look, what made him weak every time you spoke to him. "Mr. Shelby, what do you prefer in politics? "," Thomas, what are your next projects for the most disadvantaged populations? "," Tommy, could you teach me how to ride a horse, correctly? " 72 hours of pure delight where he became close to you. People had to be blind not to see this alchemy.

It was also long conversations between the two of you, he discovered that you liked to read, sometimes you wrote, you liked arts in general, and that you dreamed of starting your own family with several children. A dream of a little girl your never abandoned. Tommy could only find it respectable, even if part of him thought it was too… Classic? He had known women wilder than that, more free-spirited and yet your love of family and innocent side attracted him.

"I want my children to always have each other's back, it's so important in a family," it didn't surprise Tommy. The latter could only smile.

"A closely-knit family ? It's not easy, it's very rare, you know. I love my family, but sometimes, protecting each other is not as easy as you think. There's always a vicious guy to screw everything up. The perfect family doesn’t exist."

And after that, you tried to argue again and despite your youth, your lack of experience in life, you were doing pretty well.

The tall, violent and enigmatic Thomas Shelby couldn't take his eyes off you. You were so beautiful that it became painful. His heart was racing. His hands were shaking at times. In the evening, in his bed, he imagined your sweet face as he stroked his cock. You became his obsession. You were almost perfect. Almost. Why "almost"? You were so young, so... Devoted to God. Quite his opposite. Tommy was already 40 years old, and you just celebrated your 21st birthday. You liked to pray before each meal, especially in the evening, and you went to church each Sunday.

He thought he had no chance with you. And yet that didn't stop him from organizing weekends like this more and more often. Sometimes, your family was staying with him and sometimes, you family was telling him to stay. Of course, your father noticed something, even if he said nothing. In reality, he was waiting for Tommy to behave like a man and confess things to him. Your father hoped Tommy would ask you to marry him. This alliance would be a nice thing in terms of politics and it made him feel good about not having to force his daughter to marry a man she absolutely wouldn't love.

On your side, you often thought about this man. You thought he was attractive, enigmatic and you liked this harsh, icy side that he displayed with the others, while he was soft with you. You did everything to be in the same room as him, to find a topic for discussion and you loved when he taught you concrete things of real life. Your mother didn’t always see this as a good thing, she wanted to preserve you, a little Catholic from a good family, who had to be protected from obscenity. You were so innocent that you had no idea what happened when two adults kissed in a bed… You knew that they ended up naked, that there was a link between the female sex and the male sex, but it ended there. Likewise, the conception of a child was still unclear to you. For good reason, you didn’t went to school where children and adolescents share their new knowledges. And you only befriended with girls from wealthy and Catholic families, your mother watched your companies, so you couldn't know.

One evening, when you were at home and Tommy was sleeping in your parents' manor, you were dying of heat. Despite the window open in your room, the chest exposed with just your little nightie and a leg over your blanket, you turned in all directions. The moonlight allowed you to see everything in your room and your own body. You kept thinking of "Mr. Shelby" ... You were constantly looking for contact with him, so when he was nearby, you deliberately let your clothes rub against his when you walked near him, or you would slide your knee against his, if he sat next to you. You missed his touch. Imagining him putting his hands on your waist, your heartbeat increased and a sigh crossed the barrier of your lips. You stir in your bed again, until you felt your nipples rub against the blanket. With your nipples erected, your back shaken by pleasant chills, you sighed again. It was so nice. By mechanism, you did it again. It was so nice. Why did this friction do you so much good? Why did you want to start over? You felt a heat spread in your lower-abdomen. Without realizing it, your pelvis began to wave against the covers, which you pulled up between your thighs. Soon, the fabric rubbed obscenely against your intimacy despite your panties. It was so good that many sighs of desire and pleasure crossed the barrier of your lips. Soon, you repeated the name "Tommy" like a mantra.

In the middle of the night, Tommy felt the need to drink a glass of water. That’s why he got out of bed, put on a pant he buttoned up, and an undershirt. However, to go down to the kitchen, he had to walk near your room. Your sighs, which became weak moans, attracted his attention. He stopped, frowning, he was surprised. He thought he was dreaming. How did such an innocent little thing produce these sinful sounds? He pressed his ear to the door and he felt the excitement build up inside of him. He was used to this kind of noise, but what excited him was the fact it came out of your mouth. He felt his erection grow when she distinguished said his name. He slid his hand over his stretched cock, unable to resist the urge to join you in your bed, regardless of what it might cause. After all, Thomas Shelby does what he wants.

He discreetly opened the door of your room and closed it in silence, so you wouldn’t panic. Thanks to the moonlight, he saw you, the blanket between your thighs, your white nightie pulled up to the top of your thighs, your nipples up and you, rubbing against your blanket. Eyes closed, focused on your pleasure, a pout on your face because you tried to better, you couldn't see him. Discreetly, he came closer, then just as he let his hands go on your thighs, he murmured: "I'm here, love".

You jumped slightly and then your cheeks flushed with shame, embarrassment. You pushed his hands so warm, callused, so pleasant on your silky skin.

"I-I ... Tommy, you’re n-not allowed to be here ... Oh ... Oh my God! " You felt so ashamed that you felt tears coming to your eyes. What have you done? You realized you had just done something wrong, you had sinned. And the fact that Shelby was there, the man you were in love with, made it worse.

Seeming to perceive distress in your body language, Tommy grabbed your face between his hands and kissed every part of your face, whispering "It doesn't matter, it's human." He refused to let you regret, to let you feel dirty for the most human thing. In his eyes, sex should not be seen as something degrading, shameful. But it wasn’t easy to make you understand this, a little Catholic virgin. Meanwhile, as he continued to have a hard-on, he felt the need to act and to cum inside of you. How hard it was not to jump on you!

"Look at me." He ordered.

One simple sentence, and you executed. He looked deep into yours eyes as he stroked your cheeks.

"You’ve done nothing wrong.", he tried to reassure you. How you loved him so much! You drank his words, you believed him on words and your eyes stopped getting wet, the shame dissipated. And yet, you felt your intimacy so wet that it became embarrassing, the fabric of your white panties perfectly matched the shapes of your labia, as it became transparent. Without doing anything, it was impossible not to smell that odor... The smell of desire, of sex. The cheeks still peonies, you gestured in the hope that the fabric would let your sex breathe better ; it was effectless. You don't take your nightie down. Your nipples remained erect and, when he squinted his eyes, he wondered if you were as wise as you let him pretend, because he saw your pink nipples show through the fabric. An almost transparent white nightie. Without realizing it, one of his hands slid over his crotch. He holds back a sigh of distress. Never had he been so excited and even less, unable to do anything.

His gaze fell on your swollen mouth, then he pressed his lips against yours. Against all expectations, you responded to his kiss. You lacked of experience, but you learned very quickly. Tommy was leading the dance between your tongues and soon his body covered yours. He slipped between your thighs where his cock was trying somehow to free itself from his clothes, while his pants rubbed against your wet intimacy. His hands slipped under your nightie and caressed your breasts. Tenderly. With passion. With desire. He took off your nightie and then covered your chest with wet kisses, until he let his tongue do the rest of the work. He went down to your panties, which he removed with his teeth. He had a perfect view of your intimacy, almost devoid of hair, to his amazement. He got a perfect view of the object of his desires.

"Tommy... We can't... It's wrong... Religion forbids me to do this kind of thing before marriage..." you meowed when you were as desperate as he was, even if you didn't know exactly what your body was asking for.

"I will marry you, Y/N." Your eyes widened at the revelation as your heartbeat quickened again.

Tommy was sincere. He was a man of words. You would become his wife soon and he knew your father wouldn’t say no if he asked for your hand. That was all it took for you to be transported to the gates of the pleasures of the flesh. The man released his penis from his pants and then from his briefs, which restrained him. The sight of his sex, long, thick, hard, provoked in you an immense wave of heat. Without knowing why, you felt the urge to lick his reddened glans with an intense excitement. So you listened to you body and leaned over his sex to place many kisses there and then lick the wet tip, covered with pre-cum. Tommy had never been so hard, actually it was even painful. Soon, he needed to slip his cock into your pussy! But he was patient, he wanted to be gentle for your first time. You would be the angel who would heal him from his wounds, for sure.

He let you experiment on your own, then he made you fall on your back, slid your legs over his shoulders, to start devouring your labia. Just your sweet smell made him salivate. He kissed, licked as much as he could. Never had he lingered so much on a woman's intimacy. He knew at this time, no one would hear you, because your parents' room was too far away to hear such sinful noises and everyone was sleeping.

When he was finished, he straightened up and rubbed his cock against your clitoris, your labia and then the vagina entrance. The fact that he would be the first (and probably the last) excited him even more. Finally, he penetrated you with a groan as you moaned. You were so excited that you didn't feel any pain. He waited a few moments for you to adapt to his presence, then he began the first back and forth movements, under your innocent moans. It was so good that you didn’t know where to turn, the moans gushed out of your mouth without you being able to contain them and you grabbed Tommy's arms so he wouldn’t stop. You never wanted it to stop. The more it continued, faster, stronger, with certain angles, the better it was. You could no longer think for yourself. Your animal instinct controlled your body. You just knew it was what you wanted: Tommy, deep inside you. For his part, Tommy couldn't help but growl, it was so... Delicious. Ecstasy without having reached orgasm yet. He didn't think of anything either. The bed creaked and pounded on the wall with his movements, but he didn't care. God knows he was refraining from fucking you with more savagery! He preferred to stay on basics for the moment, in the missionary position. Sometimes, he watched his cock come out of your vagina and pussy lips engorged with blood, reddened by the act. He saw Evil dirtying Purity; this vision gave him more pleasure.

The pleasure increased more and more. Orgasm was approaching. When the supreme pleasure swept over you, you no longer saw anything, you couldn’t hear yourself screaming in pleasure, to the point where Tommy had no choice but to put his hand over your mouth. His increasingly irregular movements as he moaned testified to one thing: he was also reaching the seventh heaven. His hands were encrusted on your hips, you would have marks. He emptied his seed inside of you, while your pussy contracted around him. A few seconds later, he pulled out and watched his sperm leak out of your vagina to stain your sheets. The sight made him smile, you were full of his cum and with all that amount, he suspected that you could get pregnant. Usually, he didn't cum inside, but with you .. The question hadn't arisen.

You could throw your panties in a trash can, the maid who would do the laundry would have no doubts about what you had done and warn your mother. Anyway, if you were going to keep it a secret, it was fucked up. Your sheets were filled with his seed and with that, your parents will know pretty soon that Tommy Shelby will have taken your virginity.

Tommy slept with you that night. The next morning, he engaged in a serious discussion with your father to ask him for your hand, something he accepted. So much the better because a few minutes later, your mother's screams rang out throughout the manor... She had just discovered that her daughter was no longer innocent.

Three months after losing your virginity, you became a Shelby. You had a sumptuous marriage, perhaps even more incredible than Grace, because this time, the two families got along pretty well. Mistrust was on the side of the Shelby family, they thought this story waq rather strange, it was going quite quicky… Linda complained to you, she didn't know how you could have fallen into Tommy's arms , “the poison of this family ", according to her, since she left Arthur. Ada was adorable. The rest of the family wasn't a problem, frankly, they liked to make fun of you but always kindly because they knew they would be dealing with Tommy. As for Polly, she did everything in her power to guess your intentions until she finally liked you. She liked your innocent side, you wouldn’t create problems and you were Catholic, so you were "perfect", according to her. She was the one who told you that you were going to have a baby boy.

Nine months after losing your virginity, you gave birth to a wonderful baby boy, as Polly predicted.

Subsequently, you had two more children, another boy and a girl. And in view of your young age, but also of your sexual activity with Thomas, the latter had no doubt about the possibility of the arrival of several other children… This didn’t change his love for his two eldest children, Ruby and Charles.

***

I hope you like your imagine, little anon ♡ (you asked me a lot of things, so I focused on the virginity and I hope it’s okay. Don’t hesitate to give me your feedback)

#peaky blinders #imagine peaky blinders #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby x reader #imagines tommy shelby #imagines peaky blinders #tommy shelby x you

340 notes · View notes