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revolution-john · 4 years ago

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My Childhood Trauma PTSD as Triggered by the Following Movie Montage

by BENJAMIN DREVLOW

That scene in American History X. You know the one. Or maybe it was Higher Learning, I always get those confused. That curb stomp scene always reminding me of the time I tripped and face-planted in the barn while corralling bull calves, to get castrated, my two front teeth chomping down on all that jagged concrete and manure, it adds a different flavor to the recurring nightmare I have, though in my case, usually nothing to do with race relations. I wonder if everybody else who watched that movie also missed the whole point of it. Except the Curb Stomp. Everybody remembers where they were when their stoner friend with big ideas about ending racism across the world made them watch the movie with the Curb Stomp.

Mel Gibson getting drawn and quartered in Braveheart. You may take our lives, but you will never take… our… FREE-DOM!

Mel Gibson ripping his shoulder out of its socket in Lethal Weapon.

Mel Gibson torturing the shit out of Jesus, then blaming the women and Jews for everything, including his drunk-driving and plummeting career options.

Fuck pretty much any Mel Gibson movie. Except maybe that one with him and James Gardner and Jody Foster and all their comedy hijinks. It’s the gambler one but not The Gambler. But now that I think about it, isn’t Jody Foster a big Mel Gibson apologist? So I guess fuck that movie too.

Any movie where somebody gets shot or stabbed or thumbed in the eyeball or has one or both of their eyeballs squeezed or ripped out, which always reminds me of that time I got elbowed right below my eye but also on the eyeball and it literally pushed in my eyeball a millimeter and I still get double vision to this day whenever I line up a shot playing pool or line up a screw to hang a photo on the wall or sometimes re-hang the toilet paper dispenser next to the toilet. I’d been playing pickup basketball and my buddy who was like four inches taller than me elbowed me on a rebound and like I say I went down and lay there on my back and then all the blood started pooling in my eye socket and I couldn’t see anything and my friend couldn’t see my eyeball and he kept hissing through his teeth grossed out by it but then telling me it would okay and the whole time lying there thinking I’m thinking about my eyeball I’m thinking of the scene in Any Given Sunday where the guy’s eyeball is just lying there on the football field. I’m thinking of that closeup all the way to the hospital when they unwrap the mummy gauze from around my head and the ER doctor breathes a sigh of relief after peeling off all the dried blood to reveal that I needed fifteen stitches and I’d broken my orbital bone, but I still had my eye.

Any movie where somebody’s sitting there reading a book before bed, watching TV, gossiping with girlfriends, when the camera pulls back only to zoom back in on the dark night window behind them—cue the string section.

If I had to choose one, I’m thinking of that one zombie movie, something 28 Days something but not the one about Sandra Bullock finding love with Viggo in rehab. It’s not even about the zombies. It’s about the dark night window, not to be confused with the Dark Knight window, sorry that was a shitty pun for no good reason whatsoever, but also maybe not completely random with the guy from 28 Days also having played the scarecrow in Batman Begins where he sprays people with a drug and makes them see their worst fears, which never really did it for me, at least not like the secluded house with the zombies lurking around. I grew up in a big old farmhouse out in the barrens of northern Wisconsin. Lots of windows, no shades. In so many ways I grew up in the dark. It wasn’t the zombies I worried about. It was the methheads. Which, sure, I guess if you’re getting technical about it, same thing, fine, you win, I’m scared of zombies.

The Zapruder film, but as replayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s fever dream of a conspiracy theory. The magic bullet, back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left. How it gets stuck in my head, JFK’s exploding head replaced with my brother’s exploding head, sometimes my own, except unlike my brother and JFK, my head’s still mostly intact. Back and to the left, back and to the left. Sometimes I think about that too with that one Seinfeld episode with Keith Hernandez and the magic loogie, but usually the loogie gets replaced with a bullet and Kramer’s head gets replaced with my brother, mine, back and to the left.

The sound of the gun shots in the final scene of that Tom Hanks movie where he plays himself again, a good guy, a family guy, a sly sense of humor, but this time a mob hitman with a strained relationship with his oldest son. The look on Tom Hanks’ face walking back to the house from the ocean—having survived it all, the hit that his old mob boss Paul Newman had put out on him for putting a hit on his old mob boss’s son as played by James Bond who also played Ted Hughes in that movie about Sylvia Plath killing herself. But this is past all that, it’s the happy ending. They’re on beach somewhere, white sand, somebody’s house that Tom Hanks and his kid are going to live in now. The silence before and after. Jude Law! It’s Jude Law’s face, his eye all fucked up, how did it happen, I don’t really remember the specifics but I remember the specifics. Bang, bang, bang. I think it might’ve had something to do with Jude Law being a photographer, like one of those where you pose with your kid or something or say you get promoted to head CEO or godfather of the family. Smile. Click, click, except in this case with a gun.

The gunshot at the end of American Beauty, pretty much the same thing, different movie. Chris Cooper confusing Kevin Spacey as gay but before Kevin Spacey actually came out as gay and a sexual predator. Not that the latter necessarily had anything to do with the former. Neither in the movie nor real life, well not really, but sorta. You get the point.

Jared Leto as Angel Face getting his face smashed in by Ed Norton as Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden’s split personality in Fight Club. Not so much Jared Leto, but the wet mushy sounds of it. That part on the audio commentary where Chuck Palahniuk and David Fincher defend the violence of the movie, Fincher pointing out that he was not glorifying violence, he was making it realistic. That’s what it sounds like to punch your opponent into the concrete, Fincher says and Palahniuk laughs and agrees. Don’t worry I’m not going to make any puns about the first rule of fight club.

That part of that one weird depressing Robin Williams’s movie where Robin Williams’s kids get killed in a car accident while backing out of the driveway on the way to school. The one where Robin Williams later on gets plowed over by a truck going the wrong way while Robin Williams is out trying to help another couple who’d been injured in a different car accident, but before all that his wife kills herself because she can’t take it and then Robin Williams goes to the suicide afterlife to save her. But then there’s fucking Cuba Gooding Jr. who—spoiler alert—turns out to be the ghost/angel of his dead son who then explains to Robin Williams that his wife/Cuba’s mother can’t be saved because she killed herself. It doesn’t matter that she had a pretty fucking good reason too, she’s still stuck face down floating around in that black swamp of bodies of everybody else’s killed themselves and nobody’s getting to heaven. That shit really messed me up—not the car accidents, but the afterlife for selfish losers like me who kill themselves. And/or my brother.

The bulging vein in Tom Cruise’s head from Magnolia. Respect the Cock and Tame the Pussy, Respect the Cock and Tame the Pussy. I think probably my therapist would have some thoughts about all this, and some questions. Questions and thoughts.

That one version of A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Past undoes his robe to show off the alien children living under his robe.

I got the worst set of blue balls you could imagine while taking my best friend’s girlfriend to Baz Lurman’s remake of Romeo and Juliet. That Romeo and Juliet. I missed most of it, I kept having to go to the bathroom to masturbate in agony and to no avail. Leo and Claire Danes are hot and heavy on an acid trip, and every time my best friend’s girlfriend reaches for a handful of popcorn she makes sure to wipe the butter off on the inside of my upper thigh. This is what I get for being the good guy of falling on the grenade for my best friend, the grenade in this case being Shakespeare and my best friend’s hatred of literature.

Mark Wahlberg’s flaccid rotten dick in Boogie Nights.

The Secret of the Crying Game but not in a transphobic way. No, it’s the smallness of it what got me back when I watched it as a teenager. The tenderness. The growing tent in my pants at its sudden appearance on the screen. Maybe you don’t believe me but I was a naïve podunk kid from off the farm. I didn’t have cable. I didn’t have access to the internet. His/her (now their) secret opened up a lot of questions for me. I often dream of dressing up in drag and someone sucking my little bitty dick and if that makes me a little bit gay or maybe bi or what’s it called, body dysmorphic. I mean I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s the new millennium, we’re all a bit sexually confused aren’t we?

This one porno my friends and I watched at somebody’s uncle’s cabin up in the U.P. for a three-on-three basketball tournament. The Snapping Pussy. The sound her vagina made, like somebody really dramatic at clicking their tongue and slurping a half-empty malt the same time. The scene of us boys all sitting there with our boners watching a porn and wanting to masturbate but not because we were all boys and we were afraid we’d be gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a little bit gay.

There was this made-for-TV movie, me six years old and home alone while my big brother, supposed who’d to’ve been baby-sitting me, the only time he ever babysat me that I can remember, maybe because his one time—that time—he didn’t actually babysit me. He went out to a party, while I watched the made-for-tv movie about some kid who’d watched his mother get murdered, and then goes mute, keeps drawing these pictures of Peter Pan and Captain Hook. The kid’s grandfather, one of those big hooks, like the one in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but this was long before that, though I’m not sure it was before the book. Did you know that there was a book I Know What You Did Last Summer? I mean this isn’t about the book or the movie, this is about that kid whose grandfather had molested his daughter for years and then as an adult gutted her with a fishhook and then how he’d then come back to finish the job with his mute grandkid, I don’t know how this movie ever got green-lighted (green-lit?) for TV, but then it’s weird to even think about those made-for-tv movies and if they actually existed or if I’m just making this whole thing up, but then my brother, we had a walk-in basement at the time, this being before I’d accidently burned that house down with two space heaters stolen from the barn, before my brother’d killed himself, he’d come back late, or probably it was only eight or nine, but I was young and alone out in the woods where we lived, and he’d come back through the basement, which was attached to the family room, where I’d been watching and then all of a sudden that kid on TV was being stocked by his granddad with a fish hook and the door to the basement was opening, and for god knows why I’d turned off all the lights to watch the scary movie by myself, and it turns out it was just my brother who’d go on to kill himself in like a year, maybe six months, and he was just playing a little prank on me, or maybe he’d just come through the basement for some reason, he was always hanging out down there and tinkering around with things, but in my mind, I can remember that exact look on his face, that smirk, even in the dark, the light from the television in a blacked-out room, a blacked out house, reflecting off those pop-bottle glasses of his, the shiny too-big-for-his-face silver frames. My mother always tells me I should try to remember the happy times I had with my brother, and honestly, I can’t, I can only remember that smirk, those glasses, the handle turning a moment before he appeared.

Any and all sequels where it turns out that the dead character didn’t actually die at all, or maybe it’s magic, or maybe there’s time travel.

Any happy ending ever.

Every ending in my worst nightmares involves everyone I’ve ever loved or hated, their faces turning to snake faces. Snakeheads, snake arms, snake butts. Snakes snakes snakes. They slip out of their clothes and come up from under my bed, slither under my covers. They bite me, they kiss me, poison me, they consume me whole and regurgitate my bones. That’s how they always end. Me dead and abandoned.

That scene in the first Indiana Jones with Indiana Jones and getting trapped in the cave with all the snakes. I hate snakes. All my worst nightmares turn to snakes. Fuck snakes. This all might have something to do with my undersized penis. If you want to go down that path. The Secret of My Crying Game.

Has Mel Gibson ever made a movie with snakes? I don’t know, you tell me, but fuck that movie if he did. Mel Gibson is snakey enough on his own.

BENJAMIN DREVLOW is the author of Bend With the Knees and Other Love Advice from My Father, which won the 2006 Many Voices Project, and the author of Ina-Baby: A Love Story in Reverse, which was released by Cowboy Jamboree Books in 2019. Buy his books here. He is currently at work on a novel, a novella, and a collection of story-poems. He serves as the Managing Editor of BULL Magazine (@BULL_magazine_) and is a lecturer at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia.

#benjamin drevlow

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loveafterthefact · 4 years ago

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Love After the Fact Chapter 68: Let’s Take a Walk

Lance and Keith spend a day together, enjoying Keith's birth quintant.

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Keith wakes up alone, which he doesn’t like because he’s been spoiled. Ears swiveling, he can hear Lance puttering about in the main room. Sighing, the Galra snuggles back into the blankets, not quite willing to surrender his current comfort.

A weight settles next to him. “Hey, beloved. Good morning.”

Keith’s eyes flutter back open, eyeing his spouse and the small pile in his lap. “Good morning. What’s all that?”

“Well, your mother told me that today is the quintant of your birth.”

“Oh. I kind of... forgot?”

“She said you might have. But rest assured, I will never forget. Get used to getting presents.”

“Are those the things you bought from Vrek and Ilun? Not much of a present if I know what it is.” It’s a tease, but judging by the quirk of a starlit eyebrow, it’s taken as a challenge.

“Oh, I think you’ll be delighted.” Smirking a little, Lance sits on the edge of the hanging bed, pushing it back and forth with his leg in a slow, swinging motion. “You are frustratingly indifferent to superficial things, so if you show interest in anything, I'm going to notice.”

Lance sets the pelts and the boxes in front of Keith, smiling. He runs a gentle hand through the young Galra’s hair. The Galra gazes up at his mate, endeared by his efforts. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now open your presents! I never get to give you presents!”

“I don’t know that you’ve ever tried to give me presents,” Keith murmurs, lifting the smaller box.

“Yes, because you never take an interest.”

“Not in anything you can get on Altea. It’s harder for me to get things from my own planet- Oh.” Keith’s eyes light up at the loose stones, amber, already polished. “Lance, these are beautiful.”

“I know you probably wanted finished pieces, but I figured we could give them to Vetroneius. Have them make something special for you. There’s plenty there.”

“You didn’t give the hunters enough for this while they were in town. How did you-” Keith’s amethyst eyes narrow, watching Lance squirm with guilt. “Did you trade all of your jewelry?”

“Everything I brought with me, except my belly button piece and my crown. But you’re right. You have so little from home, and I should have done something about that a long time ago.”

“I could have done something about it, too.” Keith smiles. “But thank you. I wonder if Vetroneius could make me some clothes in indigo. It would look nice with these, and be more like what nobility wears here.”

“I think that sounds wonderful. You’re a Prince of Altea, but you’re also Galra, and we shouldn’t ignore that. We should celebrate it. Now.” Lance claps his hands together, sets them on the other box. “This is the special present. For your birth quintant, which you didn’t tell me about. Because you’re the worst. But you’re also mine, and I love you, so I hope you like it.”

Keith chuckles, always charmed by Lance’s cheerful sense of humor. He opens the box. It’s a gold hair comb, an elegant, arcing spray of gold leaves, flowers, and tendrils adorned with small pieces of amber. “Oh, Lance. This is for me?”

“Yes, of course. You asked for it, remember? Well not this specifically, but when Ilun showed it to me… I thought you’d like it. And I wanted you to have something nice from home.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” Keith brushes a loose lock of hair over his shoulder, trying not to show how moved he is, even as his throat tightens a bit. “I don’t even know what to say.”

He’s never had something like this. Everything he was given after Shiro brought him into the city were necessities: clothes, tools, weapons, armor- all the things a Galra needs to live on Daibazaal. Everything Vetroneius and their team make for him always feel impersonal. But this comb… Lance chose this from among many items because he thought Keith would like it.

And he does. It’s gorgeous, it’s something from home, and Lance chose it for him.

“You really like it?” the Altean asks, licking his lips nervously.

Keith pulls him into an embrace, touched. “I love it. Thank you.”

“You are so welcome, beloved.” Lance squeezes him tight, but then draws away. Far too soon, which Lance picks up on. He settles in a bit more, letting Keith climb into his lap.

“You should get me presents from home more often,” Keith murmurs. “I’m going to have Thace send some more vakalt pelts if any come in with a party. For our kit,” he explains. “Vakalt pelts are so soft and hold warmth very well. And they’re oddly good at holding scents, so we can make them smell like us. It’ll make our kit feel safer when they’re first born, especially if you and I have to work separately.”

“Of course. We’ll have to figure out a way to send currency of some kind.”

“He’ll just get them for us, and we’ll owe him a favor or two. Reciprocity is what keeps our society moving. I’m sure you’re charmed by the rural atmosphere, but the truth is so many of our resources, including medicine, electric heat, comms devices, and stuff like that, are given to the military. We’re left with nothing more than what you’ve seen.”

“Your resources are spread quite thin, huh?”

“Not thin. Uneven. It frustrates Lotor to no end. He hasn’t mentioned it to you I don’t think, but his relationship with his father is strained because of it.” Keith rests his head on Lance’s shoulder, admiring his gifts, running the soft fur of the pelts beneath his fingers. Lance does the same, mimicking Keith’s motions, working his scent into the fur.

“Hm, a progressive young adult not getting along with their father? I never would have thought- Come here.”

The Altean wraps an arm around Keith’s still slender waist, kisses him soundly. Keith purrs, wraps his tail around Lance’s ankle as Lance licks into his mouth.

“Lance, we-” Keith lets Lance kiss past his words. “We have stuff to do.”

“We actually don't- Hm. I just have the most beautiful spouse ever, and I love him an awful lot. I just can’t help myself.” Lance’s blue and pink eyes look him up and down, Keith suddenly anxious beneath his gaze.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just- You’re different. I see it quite suddenly now.” Lance reaches up, brushes hair out of Keith’s eyes. “Taller, broader shoulders, like you said. Still quiet… But a more confident kind of quiet.”

“Do you like it?” Keith murmurs, pressing their brows together, letting his eyes flutter closed.

“You’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect. You'll always be perfect.” Lance brushes a thumb over Keith’s cheek. “Now come on. Get moving, before I keep you here all day.”

“I have concerns about your impulse control.”

“Oh, Ancients, me too. Go take your bath while I cook breakfast.” Lance kisses his cheek, flits outside.

Keith smiles, resting his head on his knees, tail thumping against the bed. He spies BleepBloop running after Lance, no doubt hoping for an offering. A buzzing sound fills Keith’s ears. His datapad. A glance reveals it’s his mother, probably calling to congratulate him on his birth quintant. Keith licks his lips, glances after Lance, declines the call. He doesn’t want to speak to his mother right now. The words he needs to say to her are ugly, and will be unpleasant for them both. Now isn’t the time.

“I want to go foraging,” Keith declares later, pushing away his bowl. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course!” Lance leaps up, heading outside to clean the bowls with sand the way Keith showed him last night. “Will you show me some things?”

“Sure. come on.”

Lance is not difficult to entertain. It’s one of the things Keith loves most about him. The Altean prince finds pleasure in the simplest things. Hence, they spend the morning wandering about the forest, Lance exploring, Keith enjoying being back on his home turf.

“What’s this?”

“A lichen.”

“What’s it do?”

“Grow?”

“Worst field trip ever, beloved.” Lance giggles, nose wrinkling with the playful quip.

“Uh… I used to put it around my garden to keep bugs away?”

“Amazing!” Lance squeals, gazing delighted at a clump of bright blue lichen clinging to a branch. Keith shakes his head, biting his lip against a smile of his own as he bends down to harvest some herbs from a log.

They spend most of the quintant in the forest. Keith shows him the trees and the shrubs, what plants he used to make medicine when he felt sick, or when his bones hurt, or when he was injured and got an infection. Keith shows Lance how to dig for yaro root at the lake's edge, and harvest nuts and fruits from the trees. He shows him how to find insects to roast on a fire, and how to eat them. He shows him how to make fire.

“I never expected to see my Altean mate sitting on the bare ground, eating a ten-legged terror.”

Lance rips off another crunchy leg, leaving only three attached to a lumpy bug body. “It tastes good. I’ve never eaten a bug before.”

“Tourist.” Keith munches on his own terrors. He’s trying to store up some extra nutrients before his season, in the hopes it might increase his chances of a successful pregnancy. He doesn’t trust his body in the slightest. It demands more than it should already.

“You okay?” Lance asks as they finish up, nibbling on the last of his fruit.

“I’m just thinking?”

“About?”

“Lots of things.” Keith glances up, watching BleepBloop leap through the trees. “My kittenhood.”

“Any good memories?”

“TreeTrunks teaching me how to hunt bugs. That was good.”

“TreeTrunks?”

“BleepBloop’s mom. She died when my dad did, but she helped raise me, in a weird way.” Keith slips his hand into Lance’s. “I learned to hear what she heard, see what she saw. Watching her, I learned what sounds to be afraid of and what sounds meant food. I owe my life to her.”

“Maybe BleepBloop can teach our kids some skills too, huh? We should bring them back here. You can teach them about where they come from.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we should. I think they'd love it out here.”

Later in the day, Keith takes Lance out of the forest, back onto the tundra. They make a campfire under the stars, cook fish and vegetables on sticks. As the typical cold of sunset begins to bite, Lance bundles up in their cloaks with BleepBloop in his lap, watching Keith kick dirt on the fire. Once Keith determines that he's not going to burn down the tundra, he snuggles into Lance's cloak bundle, purring softly. It seems Lance is never going to get over that; he loves hearing that sound, knowing it means Keith is happy.

They sit in the black night, and Keith turns his eyes to the sky.

“I was born on this quintant two centaphoebs ago. I would have remembered it now.”

“How?”

“Look up.”

Lance looks up, expecting to see stars, and instead seeing a huge expanse of pitch black blocking them out. “Mom says that on the day I was born, the moons were new at the same time. That only happens once every centaphoeb. Down here, planetside, quintants all tend to bleed together. Birth quintants tend to be forgotten. But once every cetaphoeb, I know exactly how old I am.”

Lance stares up at the vast blackness. It’s frightening, almost, gazing at nothing where there should be stars. He hadn’t noticed the increasing darkness. He’s spent most nights huddled in their bed, fighting off the biting cold of Daibazaani nights. "Ancients."

“It was scary… Last time it happened. I was all alone, and it was so dark. When the moons are both new, none of the lizards glow, and the gleam blossoms close, so there was literally no light. I couldn’t even see. My eyes are stronger now, because I’m older, but back then… It was like I was blind.”

“That must have been awful.” Lance finds Keith’s cold-bitten hand, squeezes it tight.

“Yeah. I was still really small. Way smaller than I am now, even. I was the perfect snack for a lot of forest predators. Gintars in particular were always coming around trying to sniff me out.”

“And what’s a gintar?”

“A gintar is an eight-legged serpent with weirdly soft, wrinkly skin. Like they should have hair, but don’t.”

“That sounds… so gross.”

“Creepy and gross. All the legs are like, just behind their weird triangle heads and then they’re just tail.”

“Nasty! Ew! Why does that exist?”

“I have no idea. I wish they didn’t.” Keith sighs, staring up at the distinct blackness that commemorates his birth. “Twenty decaphoebs. Two centaphoebs. I can’t believe it.”

“You’re so old,” Lance teases. “I’m married to an old man.”

“Shut up!” Keith jabs an elbow into his mate, laughing. “I’m not that much older!”

“About thirteen phoebs. So no, not that much older. Old enough for me to tease you.” Lance shivers. “It’s freezing out here.”

“Is that your way of saying you’re ready to go in?”

“Kind of? Yes. The sky is creepy. Awesome, but a little disturbing.”

“Agreed. You should make a light for us so we can get back,” Keith whispers, just a touch closer to Lance’s ear than necessary.

“O-Okay.” Lance makes a werelight in record time, a pale light in the black of the hovering abyss. The Altean beams, scales glowing in the dark, Keith’s amber-gleaming eyes shining back. “There you are.”

“Here we are,” Keith murmurs, smiling, tipping their foreheads together. “Thank you for today. It’s been… forever since my birth was celebrated. I’m glad I got to share it with you.”

“Me too, beloved.” Lance’s smile is one of the sweetest Keith’s ever beheld. The Altean lays a hand against his cheek, and Keith leans into it with a sigh, purring with affection.

Walking back, arms around each other, cloaks over their shoulders, the two laugh and carry on, tripping over each other’s feet before tumbling into bed. Lance makes a playful quip, kissing Keith’s cheek. Keith teases back. They laugh, fingers in hair, in fur, tracing over skin and scales. Lips on lips. For Keith, it’s the beginning of another decaphoeb. For them both, it’s the beginning of everything.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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whirlybirbs · 5 years ago

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⋆ —-- CARHOP COOL, 2.

summary: you see steve at family video. it prompts some reflection, some questions, and some good ol’ memories of your time at hawkins high. you try to stay frosty but it’s hard when steve harrington is being so nice. pairing: steve harrington x reader, post season three word count: 1.7k a/n: here it is, folks! part two! we have a beach, a movie, and a lotta tension.

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It’s weird.

He’s weird.

Steve Harrington is weird and he’s changed and you’re not really sure how you feel about it.

As you pull into the parking lot of the Family Video in your beat-up, slate grey Civic Hatchback, you catch a glimpse of the high school legend in question through the front window.

He looks the same as he always has. Tall, doe-eyed, good hair...

Stupidly good looking.

Steve was a mythic figure in grade school. High school just... elevated things. It was like Senior Year came and a throne was vacated just for him -- he was the king of Hawkins High and everyone knew it.

Then, Nancy Wheeler dumped him for Jonathan Byers and everything changed.

His title of Prom King was snatched by the grubby, freckled claws of Tommy H. with Carol on his arm that fateful night, then Billy Hargrove walked on and booted him from captain of the basketball team, and then he was rejected by, like, every college he applied to -- or so rumor had it.

(Jenny Larson had told you all about it during the spring production of Oklahoma!... She was obsessed with him. It was like she’d opened his mail or something. You wouldn’t put it past her. She had crazy eyes. You and Robin were always a little freaked out by her. Eugh.)

And, so, Steve Harrington and his mighty hair faded into the yearbook pages of Hawkins Class of ‘85 as a fallen king.

And now, here he is: selling VHS’s alongside his best friend who was also your best friend.

(You wonder if that makes him your best-friend-by-proxy? You’d rather not think about it. Best friends don’t launch spit-balls at the back of each other’s heads during Spanish finals and laugh about it and never let it go. Best friends also don’t point and laugh at that DIY perm you did sophomore year, no matter how bad -- best friends, like Robin, help you slather your hair in conditioner and relaxers while you sob in your upstairs bathroom at your fried mane. So, no, Steve Harrington is not your best-friend-by-proxy.)

Narrowing your eyes, you drum your fingers on the steering wheel and snap your gum.

God, you really don’t want to go in there.

But, then again, you wonder what you have to lose. What, the approval of some washed-up cool-kid? Screw him. He’s dumb anyways. He’s... all hair.

Literally.

Cutting the engine (and subsequently the Donna Summer track playing on your radio), you haul open the door and decide to get this whole thing over with.

The bell above your head chimes as you walk into the Family Video and Steve Harrington promptly chokes on his can of New Coke upon realizing it’s you.

It goes up his nose.

Quickly, he tries to rebound.

“Hey! Hi!” he chirps in an uncharacteristically excited tone, “Welcome, uh, to Family Video!”

You freeze in the doorway and squint.

Steve’s been having some thoughts.

Wild, he knows, but Robin had keyed into how spaced out he’d been since he’d seen you the other night down at Roll-o’s and had decidedly not let it go -- “Just like you never let her whole perm thing go, Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington!” -- in a well-aimed play of well-deserved vengeance.

For the last three nights, he’s been beating himself up over the sudden realization that he’s got cold feet -- and even Henderson noticed it.

But, seriously? Could you blame him? He was a grade-A asshole for most of high school and now he’s a huge loser (self-proclaimed, despite both Robin and Dustin’s protests) and you’re super cool. You’re all frosty poise and pastel rollerblades.

And here he is, working part-time at Family Video, spending the rest of his summer indoors.

Steve Harrington, pale loser.

Not to mention, you had a lot of friends in high school -- maybe not swearing loyalty to any one group, but you fleeted around and blended in and you got along so well with everyone. Everyone knew it was you and Robin Buckley against the world.

Compare that to his own dumb ass and he’s the world’s saddest pale loser.

At least he has Robin. And you do, too.

Which is why you’re here. In Family Video.

Staring at him.

You pull your sunglasses down your nose, furrow your brow and speak slowly.

“Are you... okay?”

Steve plants his palm on the counter, a sudden flare of nerves lighting his chest on fire as he card a hand through his hair and smiles with the gusto of a man living by the motto fake-it-til-you-make-it. “Me? Yeah -- yeah, I’m good. How’re you? What’s up?”

You push your sunglasses up, snap your gum and shove your hands in the pockets of your jean shorts. Frosty.

“Looking for Robin,” you say curtly, shrugging a bit, “Is she around? She called -- we’re catching a movie after her shift.”

Steve deflates a bit. No invite. Understandable, but ouch. “Uh, yeah, she’s out back with Keith organizing the rental returns.”

You pull a face.

Steve sees it. He narrows his eyes, lips upturning a bit in curiosity. The expression on your face isn’t so frosty as you toe the carpet with your skate shoes and eye the display of comedies.

“What?”

“Hm?” you blink back at him, eyes wide, “What?”

“That look,” he says, leaning forward onto his elbows, “What was that for?”

It takes you a second to realize that Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington is trying to make conversation with you. He’s really trying.

You push your sunglasses back over your hair and move to eye around him. When you speak, it’s quiet.

“Y’know. Keith.”

Steve’s brows raise and he blinks fast. “Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s -- uh...”

He pulls his bottom lip in and waves a hand, searching for the words.

(They’re evading him because he’s seriously not looking to make himself look like more of an asshole.)

“Creepy?” you offer, turning over a copy of Revenge of the Nerds, “Mad creepy. I’m sure Robin is, like, two seconds from emptying a can of pepper spray in his face.”

“Does she carry pepper spray?”

You shrug. “It’s Robin --”

“-- Yeah, good point.”

“I mean, she could carry a taser --”

“-- And I wouldn’t ask a single question.”

... It’s not weird. Whatever this is isn’t weird.

The laugh you both share is short and quiet but it’s genuine and before the moment can bleed into something like non-verbal peace treaty between warring high school personalities, the girl in question bursts from the back with a big ol’ smile.

“Would y’ look at that!” she claps, “My two best friends! Talking!”

You toss her a wide grin, dropping your sunglasses back down to your nose and as she glides over the counter and leaps into the same handshake you’ve shared since the seventh grade.

Steve watches with a lopsided smirk. Goofballs. It’s cute.

“You ready for Phenomena?” Robin asks, waving her fingers and cooing like a ghost, “OooOOOooh! Bugs! Psychic powers! Horror!”

“Uh, try drive-in popcorn!” you snort, swatting her hands away, “Took you long enough. I’m starving.”

“You guys are seeing Phenomena?” Steve asks, drumming his fingers on the counter, “I heard it’s good --”

A light bulb bursts above Robin Buckley’s head and you swear you saw it, it was that bright.

“Steve!”

“Robin!” he says with a faux amount of excitement.

“Y-You should come!”

You blink.

Steve blinks at you.

Then at Robin.

Guilt flies across his face. He realizes he’s making you uncomfortable. From the way you tense up and look at Robin, he can tell you’re totally not into that idea.

So, he sputters.

“Uh... I dunno, Rob, I gotta close --”

You decide, in that moment, that Steve Harrington has changed and sure it’s weird but... you’re weird, too. And maybe he wasn’t so... terrible. I mean, he was still stupidly good looking -- and that’s why you’re so tense. Because the one thing you’d believed for all those years is being flipped upside down and you’re about to willingly spending time with The Steve Harrington.

“Why not?” you ask slowly, surprising everyone in the room, even yourself, “It’d be fun. Keith can close up.”

Steve jaw drops. “... Wait, seriously?”

Robin’s whole face lights up.

She blinks between you both.

You’re glad your sunglasses are on. You try to stay frosty. Can’t let the cool-kid know you have feelings.

“Yeah,” you say, trying to keep your tone even, “I mean -- if you’re gonna launch a spitball at the back of my head during it, don’t even bother, but...”

Steve’s face falls.

You see the real guilt there. It shocks you.

“Listen,” he raises his hands, “I was a dick --”

Robin quirks a brow. “A mega-dick, Harrington.”

“Right, a mega-dick. You... You don’t have to invite me. It’s cool. I get it. I’m, uh...” his words falter off, lost as he drops his gaze and pulls his lips tightly together, “I get it.”

There’s a pause.

And then you sigh.

“Stop looking like a kicked puppy and just get into my car, Steve.”

Brown eyes light up so bright it’s like you’re smiling at the sun.

“Seriously?”

You start for the door with a grin. “Did I stutter?”

Robin peels into victorious laughter as Steve scrambles faster than light, hucking his vest across the room and leaping over the counter -- he’s grinning as he does, pushing you and Robin out the door before Keith can protest from the back room.

You all pile into your Hatchback and the laughter that’s shared isn’t forced.

For the first time in a week, Steve Harrington hasn’t felt so weird.

For the first time in years, you’ve felt like you’ve peaked.

#CARHOP COOL #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #joe keery imagine #stranger things imagine #steve harrington reader insert #steve harrington x oc

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victorlimadelta · 4 years ago

Note

Pidge will find drawings leading to her lion's hangar, where in the cockpit, she will find a heliotrope and emerald encrusted silver link necklace, an alien looking purple flower, and a note. "Yes, I like you. - K"

Keith is such a good artist. Yeah, they all might have teased him a little bit for it while they were on their weird space road trip, but the scavenger hunt intents of his little notes were clear. And if she saves these, well, who could blame her? They’re going to get tagged up by her bedside, right there with the fairy lights and the posters from the Voltron show and the other bits of space paper she can’t quite seem to let go of.

Once she gets to her Lion, she’s... kind of impressed. You’d think she would have been pinged to it somehow if someone snuck into Green, either from the big cat herself or from some Castle alarm system. Must mean she trusts whoever the intruder was, if she’s like this, no shield up, mouth open and inviting her up the ramp. With something that feels like sparkles in her chest, she runs up the incline, headed right for the pilot’s seat.

Which is already taken, apparently? By two flowers, a little box, and a note. The plants don’t even make her sneeze--and that reflex takes her by surprise, she hasn’t had plant allergies since she unlocked Green’s plant cannon on Olkarion. Can she look up what these are? Her PADD is connected to the ship’s library, so it’s as easy as taking a picture to know where they’re from. The one with the spray of small blossoms is heliotrope, from Earth--Pidge texts her mom a picture to show her, asks what it means, because if there’s one thing she learned from a botanist as a parent, it’s that everything means something to someone. The other is from... Griezian Sur. Holy crow, that’s the planet the Green Lion is meant to train on. He went all the way to the Karthulian System to get her one flower for Christmas? Not to mention how dangerous it is there, with the muldoks...

The box is making her curiosity spike. Inside is--uh. Pidge draws it out gently, and it shimmers in her hand, a silver and green glittering string in her fingers. A necklace, she realizes, set in with flecks of stone. One is transparent, a light green with hints of blue--emerald. The other, an opaque green with spots of red--chalcedony? Bloodstone. Heliotrope, just in case she didn’t get it the first time around. It’s short enough that she has to unfasten and re-fasten it to get it around her neck, but that also means it stays out of her way nicely. Doesn’t drape into her field of vision. Not too heavy. Or gaudy, either. It makes her feel... pretty. Like she deserves an ornament like this.

The note’s simple enough, on the same sketchbook paper of Keith’s scavenger hunt hints, traced out in red draft pencil in his unmistakeable handwriting. Yes, I like you. - K ... Okay, this one’s not getting taped up like the rest of them. Pidge holds it in her hands; her thumbprints smudge the pencil marks. Well. She’ll ruin it like this, won’t she. Instead, the little piece of paper gets propped up on Green’s dash, right where her video comms come through. Is this in response to her gift from yesterday? Something else entirely? She tries to message Keith and just gets his standard away auto-response.

That’s okay. She needs to send Christmas greetings to her family, anyway. And if she’s a little flushed, she’ll blame it on getting into the adult eggnog.

#lunarburnt #α answer #kidge /

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backroadtales · 4 years ago

Text

NEW TALE : “WRESTLING”

While sitting in a steel folding chair, a man admires the quietness of the empty sports arena he is currently sitting in. The man’s name is Keith, and Keith has never sat in the middle of an empty stadium before. He is overcome with an almost eerie feeling, as he looks around at the vacant 18,000 seats that surround him. Growing up, he visited this arena many times to see his favourite sports teams and music performers, but never before to see a professional wrestling show. Keith sits up in his seat, as the calmness of his surroundings is starting to make him feel restless. He takes out his cell phone to check his emails, while the distant sound of power tool operation begins to echo throughout the stadium. He still has a few hours to wait before the show is scheduled to begin, which is fine for him, as he wanted to be early in order to get a good seat, and also, he is now starting to notice he enjoys the calm ambiance of the desolate seventh row. Besides the power tools that can be heard throughout this massive facility, the arena is near silent, and Keith thinks about what a difference there is, between the quietness of this room now, and the chaotic atmosphere that will take over once the fireworks signal the beginning of the show. In a few hours, the rows and rows of seating will start to fill with eager spectators, and the stadium will become alive with anticipation, energy, and excitement. Keith admires the wrestling ring that stands out, almost with pride, among the dimly-lit seating arrangement. As he looks back down at his cell phone, he suddenly hears a loud scream coming from somewhere backstage, quickly followed by a loud smashing noise. Now feeling cautious, but at the same time curious, he ponders about how the noises, to him, sounded like some sort of accident; how the scream sounded like a man almost screaming for help, and how the smashing noises that followed sounded almost like steel colliding with concrete. Keith thinks to himself; he is at a wrestling show, so the sounds must have just been wrestler’s staging a scene, or workers having some sort of issue while setting up for the evenings event. Whatever it was, no other interruptions follow; all Keith can hear is the echo of the power tools in the distance, and the quiet ambiance that grasps the arena.

Two wrestlers are fiercely competing in the backstage area of an arena. On this night, the two wrestlers, Ally Cat and Jay Jupiter, are not only competing for pride and glory, but also for retribution. Jay Jupiter is currently falling along the white brick wall that surrounds the arena’s boiler room, trying to grab onto anything he possibly can to pull himself up. His right leg has just been smashed with a steel folding chair at the hands of Ally Cat, and now Jupiter is barely able to put pressure on his right knee. Jupiter stumbles trying to grab onto the metal piping that runs horizontally along the wall of this dimly lit basement. The wrestling match these two wrestlers are taking part in has no rules and no disqualifications; a match where anything goes; a match that takes place exclusively in the boiler room of the arena. Jay Jupiter knows his knee is hurt, but he has to respond immediately or else he could be in danger of losing the match. Jupiter grabs a broomstick leaning up against the wall, and with the broom in hand, he turns to attack Ally Cat. In the split second that he turns to strike Ally Cat, Jupiter himself is struck in the forehead with a steel folding chair. Cat predicted Jupiter’s attack, and beat him to the punch. The impact from the steel chair shot sends Jupiter backwards against the wall, falling into and knocking over a mop bucket filled with water. Cat drops the steel chair and catches his breath as he leans against the wall; he too has taken some punishment in this match. He only got a hold of the steel chair seconds earlier, after pulling himself up off the floor from being head-locked and thrown backwards five feet by Jupiter. Ally Cat notices he now has a sharp pain in the middle of his back; he pushes himself off the wall and stumbles farther into the depths of the boiler room. Cat has to make an effort to see what’s around him, as this area is almost pitch black; the only illumination coming from the east side of the room above the boiler tanks, where a long rectangular light hangs by two wires from the ceiling. He needs to find good weapons, and fast, as Jupiter, although still suffering from the steel chair attack, very rarely quits and will continue to fight as long as Cat allows him to do so. Cat goes over to the boiler tanks and finds a fire extinguisher attached to the wall behind one of the tanks. He grabs the fire extinguisher, knowing he can use it to either hit or spray Jupiter, and makes his way back towards his opponent, who’s right knee remains planted on the concrete floor. Jupiter is trying to balance on his left leg, but he is having a tough time doing so. As Jupiter stumbles forward in an attempt to get use out of both his legs, Cat sees his opportunity, and uses the fire extinguisher to blast Jupiter with a thick white cloud of extinguisher spray. The spray comes out of the device like rushing water cascading over a steep waterfall. Cat holds the trigger and sprays for at least a couple seconds, as Jupiter desperately tries to cover his face and get away, but Ally Cat is too quick on the draw. Jupiter stumbles around like a drunkard while enduring the blast from the fire extinguisher. Cat drops the fire extinguisher to the concrete floor, now realizing he has a choice. He can continue to attack Jupiter, or he can choose the safe choice; exit the boiler room through the exit door that sits to the left of the boiler tanks, and win the match. The winner of this contest is determined by one very specific stipulation; whoever is able to escape from the boiler room first, wins. Cat decides to go this route while he still has a chance. With Jupiter still trying to stand up straight after having endured the chair shot and the extinguisher blast, Cat sees he is closest to the exit door and begins to head towards it. He walks backwards while keeping his eyes on Jupiter, as Cat doesn’t want to risk being tackled from behind before reaching the concrete steps that lead out of this dark abyss. Cat tells himself to walk faster; he urges himself to not waste any time. He wants to move quicker, but he can’t take his attention away from Jupiter. At this point, Jupiter has realized that Cat is moving closer towards the exit, and starts to head that way himself, using every bit of energy he has left to push forward. Cat notices Jupiter heading his way, and as his heart begins to race he thinks about attacking Jupiter in order to buy himself some more getaway time, although the risk of being countered and beaten down himself is likely. He urges himself to hurry as he begins to second guess making a run for the exit.

Cat decides to make a run for it. He is not going to risk being beaten and losing the match he so desperately wanted, when he has the energy left to outrun Jupiter to the exit door. Cat has been wanting, and asking for, this match for weeks. He wanted Jay Jupiter in a no disqualification match. He wanted him in a boiler room match, where there are no rules and anything goes. Jupiter made things personal, when weeks prior, he interfered in a match Ally Cat was competing in. That match was for the professional wrestling heavyweight championship, and Jupiter attacked Ally’s opponent over a long standing feud. Cat was obviously frustrated, because Jupiter attacked his opponent in the middle of their match, resulting in a disqualification against Cat, which meant Cat’s opponent retained his title. Having lost his title shot, and now furious, Cat went to ringside, grabbed a steel chair, and jumped back into the ring. As Jupiter was exhausting himself kicking and punching the air out of his victim, Cat struck him in the back with the chair; the sound of the impact echoed throughout the stadium. Cat had hit him with a strong chair shot, but he did not get the results he had hoped for. After absorbing the blow, Jupiter simply starred forward with a vengeful look in his eyes, as the pain from the chair shot ran through his chest and down his back. Jupiter did not fall down or cry in agony; he slowly turned his body and locked onto the eyes of Ally Cat. Cat was frozen in place, dumbfounded that Jupiter had accepted the steel chair shot so easily. Cat only had a second to react, but he was half a second too late. Jupiter grabbed Cat by the throat, extending his arm straight to throw Cat off balance. Jupiter tightened the grip on the throat, and then proceeded to lift Cat off the ground, leaving his one hand on Cat’s throat and using the other to guide Cat’s body upwards into the air. Jay Jupiter showed off his impressive strength to the thousands of fans as he balanced Ally Cat above his head. With Cat being held in mid-air, everyone in the area assumed that a finishing move choke slam would be the end result, but this time that was not the case. Jupiter, keeping Cat hoisted in the air, ran towards the ring ropes, and as he arrived at the edge of the ring, launched Cat forward and over the ropes, sending the wrestler flying backwards and down onto a ringside announcers table. Cat crashed through the table, bringing everything the table was holding down on top of him. He suffered a concussion and multiple bruised ribs. He felt humiliated, as he not only lost his title match due to actions that were out of his control, but he was then manhandled and tossed ten feet through the air onto a table. Cat asked for the boiler room match because he didn’t want an ordinary wrestling match, he wanted revenge. He wanted to assault and beat down Jupiter. He wanted a match with no rules or disqualifications because he wanted to destroy Jupiter. Ally Cat is now finding that he himself is barely surviving this boiler room fight, and he knows has done enough damage to Jupiter to make his point, so he decides to make a run for it. The exit door is now the goal, as it is the only way out of this hell. Cat got what he wanted, and now he decides its time to end the match and leave the winner while he still can.

Cat bolts towards the exit. He can feel Jupiter struggling to run up behind him. He briefly looks back and sees Jupiter stumble. Cat gets a rush of adrenaline. He bursts up the steps and slams into the exit door, pushing the mechanism and opening the door all in one motion. Having exited the boiler room, Cat raises his arms in victory. He is the first man to exit the boiler room and therefore he wins the match. Cat breathes a sigh of relief, but the feeling of relief only lasts for a brief second. As he lowers his arms, he turns to the referee of the match. The referee has been stationed on the outside of the boiler room door for the duration of this match, as he only needs to be present on the outside of the room in order to announce the winner, when whoever leaves the boiler room first does so. Cat looks over at the referee with a look of confusion, as he doesn’t understand why the referee has not grabbed his arm and raised it to signify his victor. In fact, when Cat looks over at the referee, the referee himself looks confused. The referee doesn’t seem to understand why Ally Cat is proclaiming victory. Cat, now with his arms lowered to his side, continues to stare at the referee, who then looks back at Cat, throws his hands into the air, and loudly asks, “What!?”. Cat’s eyes light up, and while looking right back into the referee’s eyes, responds with an even more confused sounding, “What?”. Just as Cat opens his mouth to speak further, frustrated over the referee’s behavior, he is struck in the side of his head by the large fist of Jay Jupiter. Jupiter, having made his way out of the boiler room after regaining some much needed energy, continues to connect with heavy punches as Cat struggles to protect himself following the initial head shot. After landing a few more punches, Jupiter see’s an opening, and knees Cat in his previously injured ribs. Cat lets out a gasp of air and falls to the ground from the pain. For a brief moment, a thought enters Cat’s mind. He is thinking about how this match is supposed to be over, and how something doesn’t seem right. Another knee striking Cat’s ribs ends the pondering, causing him to cry out in agony as he again falls down to the floor. He starts to panic. He wonders why the match is still going on, and why he was not announced the winner of the match when he exited the boiler room. He wonders why the referee looked at him so confused, and why Jupiter continues to hit him so hard. The wrestler’s agreed prior to this night that Ally Cat would be the victor of the match. That’s the script; that’s the planned outcome. Why is everyone else continuing like the match is still going on; like Cat hadn’t yet won. He had won. The first man to leave the boiler room is the victor, and that is what he did. Cat wonders what the hell is going on. Suddenly, through all the physical pain and confusion, Cat hears the sound of glass being smashed. Still laying on the ground clenching his injured ribs, he looks over and sees the blurry image of Jupiter holding a crowbar. Jupiter has found this crowbar in the backstage area, and he has just smashed a window with it in a fit of rage. Cat watches, almost in slow motion, as blood drips out of Jupiter’s hand, down along the silver crowbar and onto the concrete floor below. The next thing Cat sees is the look Jupiter has in his eyes. Not just a look of rage; but a look of pure animal intensity. Cat now realizes something is definitely not right. The referee has not stopped the match; he just continues to look on and stand in his position. Even the camera man and woman, who have been following the wrestlers’ every move during the match covering the action, are continuing on like everything is normal. They don’t look away from their cameras at Cat, or at all, and with seemingly no reaction or emotion, continue to film the events transpiring. Everybody else seems to be thinking what’s going on is business as usual, and as Cat again looks up at Jupiter, he realizes what is about to happen. Cat is one of the most popular wrestlers on the companies roster, but it hasn’t been an easy road leading up to his current success as a professional athlete. He has been beaten and bruised throughout his young adult life, and street fighting is something he is no stranger to. Cat notices the look Jupiter has in his eyes. Cat has seen that look before. Jupiter is not acting. Jupiter is going to seriously hurt him, and Cat only has one thing on his mind at this moment in time. He needs to run. Ally Cat pushes himself off the ground and away from the approaching Jupiter. He doesn’t have time to ask everyone why; it is time to go. Cat turns and tries to run the opposite way of Jupiter. The cameramen continue to follow Cat’s every move, keeping up alongside him and pointing their camera’s down on him as he struggles to get away. The referee stands diligently, seemingly ready to make the proper call when necessary. Cat is exhausted, but he is able to take hold of his last bit of energy, and begins to stumble further away, hoping to get to a safe distance in order to figure out what to do next. Maybe he will run into his boss, or the police, and they can help separate him from Jupiter. Just as he starts to get his legs moving; just as he starts to think that he can make it to safety, it unfortunately is too late. Jupiter rushes up behind Cat and strikes him in the back of the head with the crowbar. Cat never saw the strike coming.

Keith is still sitting in the arena, but now the entire seating arrangement has filled, as over 18,000 fans anticipate the opening theme song and fireworks signaling the beginning of tonight’s show. Some of the fans here are very passionate about wrestling, while some are just here to see a good show, but there is no doubt that all of them are here on this night to see action and entertainment. Excitement and tension continues to fill the air. There is only minutes to go until the arena goes dark, the theme music begins, and the drama of the nights unfolds. Screams and cheers echo throughout the stadium, as Keith decides it’s time for him to stop sitting in his seat glued to his cell phone; it’s time to stand up and become a part of the audience. As he brings himself up on two feet, he has one last thing let on his mind before he turns all his attention to the show. He again wonders what it was he heard earlier in terms of the loud scream and the metal smashing off the floor. He assures himself it was probably just an accident caused by event workers conducting routine maintenance for the show, but he can’t forget how the scream he heard just didn’t sound normal. It didn’t sound like a painful, ‘I just smashed my toe off the couch leg’, scream. Keith remembers how it sounded like a man almost screaming for help. Not knowing what else to think of this occurrence, he looks down at his phone and begins to close all the apps he has opened. Once the last app is cleared away, his home screen picture is all that remains displayed. Keith’s cell phone background is a picture of Ally Cat. He hopes to see Ally Cat in action tonight, as Cat is the only wrestler Keith has any real interest in seeing.

Halfway through the show, Keith takes a second to look around at the audience members that surround him. Tonight’s show has been action-packed and entertaining, and he feels glad that he decided to come, as he wasn’t sure if he would enjoy himself. It seems almost everyone in the audience is having a good time, and the only thing Keith now wishes is to see Ally Cat perform. Four seats over from Keith, a 22 year old woman sits with her legs crossed as she looks down at her phone, scrolling through the many Tumblr profiles she follows. She is eagerly waiting for the show to be over, as she has no interest whatsoever in professional wrestling, and is only at the event because her fiancé is a huge fan. Suddenly, almost all of the eighteen thousand fans jump to their feet cheering, as the theme song starts for the most popular wrestler in the industry. The wrestler’s entrance music blasts throughout the arena, barely being heard over the thousands yelling and screaming. The woman remains seated, refusing to look up from her smartphone, hoping this wrestler’s entrance means the nearing of the end of the show. She could not be more unimpressed with the sport, or this night’s event, and now, just her luck, the group of teenage boys jumping up and down beside her are spilling popcorn everywhere. As some of the popcorn falls into her arms, cascading over top her smartphone and onto the floor, the woman’s patience has officially run out. She shoots her head over to the teenager closest to her, popcorn still flying out of his hands, and she yells, “Hey! Watch it!” The teenage boy, now seeing he has spilled popcorn on this woman, stops dead in his tracks. Realizing how mad she is, he looks at her and says “Sorry! It’s just..It’s Badass Buchanan!!”. Almost immediately she snaps back at him, “Professional Wrestling is f**king fake!”

#newtale #wrestling #backroadtales

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nexthecryptid · 5 years ago

Text

This is Home Ch. 4

Summary:

A pack called the Galra are up to something, and it’s somehow tied to the disappearances of creatures, and the increase of demonic activity. Keith had somehow stumbled into the danger when he found his mother, making the choice to stay away from his friends to keep them safe. But in the end it didn’t even matter. They’ve got targets on their heads, and the Galra are slowly closing in on his home town Arus. He isn’t sure how to face his friends… Two years was a long time to be gone. … There are rumors that are floating around VLD University, crazy ones. While some of them Lance could tell was him or his friends, there are others that were… inexplicable. To make matters worse, he’s having dreams again, dreams about someone who just vanished. It felt like he was being haunted. Lance didn’t know he was going to have other things to worry about until the ghost revealed himself.

…

Prefer to read it on A03? Read it Here!

First . Previous . Next

A/N: I'd like to give a warning to readers that at the beginning of this chapter is a little graphic. It contains fire and graphic burns so please read carefully.

If you are uncomfortable and would like to skip it, please start reading after "He was too late".

Keith is having a nightmare. He finds that the house he had went to first is on fire, and then later finds that all of his friends had been inside and had been caught in it. He wakes up after hearing one of his friends call out for him.

...

It was too late. They were too late.

He stared in horror at the house in front of them, engulfed in flames as the smoke blanketed neighboring buildings, blocking the light of the moon. The glow of the fire lit up the night instead, flickering ashes floating through the air as if they were fireflies. He didn’t wait for the car to come to a full stop before getting out, swinging the door open violently and stumbling over his feet onto the street. The heat felt like a smack as he rushed to the sidewalk, wanting nothing more than to rush inside but he hesitated. Fear stopped him.

Fear of finding out what he had lost.

Things were collapsing inside, the glass shattering from the heat and spraying the yard with shards. Instinctively he took a step back, covering his face to avoid getting hit. He thought he heard something then, someone calling out, someone screaming. He couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside or not, but it didn’t matter. That was the only thing he needed.

There was a chance. A chance that they were still alive.

He barreled through the door, hissing when he felt the flames lick at his arms. He didn’t waste time though, quickly rushing around the debris to find something. To find nothing. To find anything. He could hear people shouting, the sirens blaring closer and closer as he continued his search. But they still sounded too far away, and time wasn’t on anyone’s side.

He froze as he came across what he had been hoping against, a sense of numbness slowly creeping through his body.. His eyes spotted them through the smoke, through the flames, widening with realization, widening with fear. Only… it was much worse than he had imagined.

There were bodies. Not a body. Bodies. No… Corpses... Six. There were six… All huddled together, all burned beyond recognition. But he knew who they were…

He flinched when one of them moved, their bodies moving in such an impossible and gruesome way. He could feel bile at the back of his throat as he watched pieces of them fall off, could smell the scent of burnt human skin. They were slowly crumbling, but they continued to move despite the pained sounds coming from them. He clenched his jaw, watching their head turn to him, watching their arm reach out for him.

“Keith…”

Hearing the voice, hearing his voice, felt as if all the air was sucked from his lungs, his desperate cries going unheard as he reached out desperately for him. Their fingers brushed, and in an instant his cries were drowned by a pained wail.

Keith could only watch as his friend crumbled, falling back towards the others until their pained screams died out under the roar of the flames. He stumbled back, numb from shock, and stared. Stared until reality hit him. His emotions ripped through his throat with enough force to make his body tremble and collapse with the building.

He was too late.

…

Keith felt himself startle awake, hissing when his knee knocked into the dashboard in front of him. He growled in annoyance as he gently rubbed the pain away, sitting back and sighing a bit. They were still in the car, sunlight flickering through the trees inside. He did his best to stretch in the cramped space of the passenger seat, already feeling the way his body berated him for sleeping the way he did. He rubbed at his neck a few times before letting his hand fall back into his lap, sitting back and taking a quick look around. He needed to distract himself, the image still fresh in his mind as he frowned at the unwanted nightmare.

“Are you alright?” Krolia asked.

“M’ Fine. Where are we?” He asked, not really in the mood to talk about it.

“We’re just about to pull onto the university grounds. I was unsure when you had wanted to take over, but I figured you could use the rest and was going to wait till we got there before waking you.” She explained.

He took a look out the window again, this time recognizing the buildings they were passing. It felt odd. While everything seemed familiar and unchanged, he couldn’t help but feel like he was seeing everything for the first time again. The further they went in, the more he remembered, the more he recognized. He shifted slightly, the thought of actually being in the city making him antsy.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I just direct you?” He asked.

“Not at all.” She said softly, and she seemed to know what exactly he was thinking. If he got out of the car, he didn’t think he’d be able to hold himself from running. Worse if he actually took over driving. With Krolia at the wheel though, his impatience couldn’t lead to any reckless actions.

He thought back to his nightmare for a second, desperation filling his gut as Krolia slowed to a stop at the light.

...

“This is it.” Keith said, looking up to a small white house, wind chimes hanging from the porch’s roof. There was a distinct smell to the house, plants grown and placed specifically in the yard to ward off anything unwelcomed, small symbols carved into their pots as well as the fence that bordered around it. While these details were hidden from any passerby, Keith knew they were there, had even helped set some of them up. The house itself blended in well with the others, and wasn’t isolated. It was also just down the street from the main campus’ main buildings.

Meaning it would be hard to attack without witnesses.

When he stepped out of the car, he took a deep breath, humming at the comforting scents that mingled through the air. He had no doubt that some of the flowers had already begun to act, feeling himself relax almost immediately. He took a moment to stretch, hearing and feeling the satisfying pops and cracks that came from his bones. Krolia had done the same, taking a look around the property before stepping onto the sidewalk. Keith motioned her to follow him as he started walking up the path, noting the cars that were parked in the driveway.

“Is this your home?” She asked, looking around curiously at some of the plants.

“No. We’ll probably head there last, depending on where everyone might be. Shiro is probably working right now, so there wouldn’t be a point to go there now.” He explained, pausing at the steps to watch her.

“I see. So is this-”

Before Krolia could take a guess at whose house they were at, the door had been thrown open, the noise of the door smacking the wall startling both shifters. He let out a yell when they slammed into him, stumbling a bit before finding his balance and kept the both of them from falling down the steps. The smell of chamomile and lemon hit his nose, vanilla lingering from inside the home, and he sighed, unable to hold the smile as he wrapped his arms around her. He knew for a fact that it was her, a pang of guilt hitting him when he felt the other shake. Small sniffles could be heard, and her grip only tightened.

“Hey Allura.” He said softly, rubbing her back a bit.

“Don’t you ‘Hey Allura’ me!” She snapped, roughly pulling away to glare at him.

“I’m sorry…”

“You better be! Do you have any idea of how worried we were? How scared? Does Shiro know you’re back? Please tell me he does, or so help me Keith!” She spat, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

“I haven’t seen him yet.” He admitted.

“Keith!”

“I can explain! We-”

“You have a lot of explaining to do!” She snapped once again, making him wince when she jabbed his chest with her finger.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated.

“I know. But Gods Keith... I’m glad that you’re back.” She said, the relief evident in her voice. He offered an apologetic smile, Allura smiling back with a sigh, shaking her head a bit. Her hair had been cut shorter, bangs being swooped to the side and the length falling just above her shoulders and curling around her cheeks. She looked more mature if possible, her posture never losing her confidence. But he could tell not much else has changed, based on the mother-like reaction he got.

“She is just as you described her.” Krolia chuckled, gaining both of their attention. Allura raised a brow, glancing at Keith before stepping forward. She cleared her throat before holding a hand out.

“My name’s Allura. Though I suppose you already knew that.” She said, smiling politely.

“Yes. Keith has spoken of you all on several occasions. My name is Krolia. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Krolia is my mother.” He added. Allura looked conflicted then, her hand retreating a bit and nodding.

“I see. I’m beginning to understand why you’ve been gone for so long. But, I’m sensing that there is something more to it then reuniting with your mother.” She mused, looking to Keith for confirmation.

“Yeah. There’s a lot more Allura. That’s why we came to you first. But I’d feel better if we had the others here.” He explained, crossing his arms.

“I have… several questions I’d like to ask. But seeing as you’re anxious to see the rest of our friends, I’ll wait until then. I can imagine that it will be easier for you to give us all an explanation at the same time rather than repeating yourself as well.”

“I think with the situation we’ve got on our hands, it’ll be better if they knew what we were too. I think… I think we should tell them.” Keith suggested quickly.

Keith knew he sounded crazy then, knew the suggestion came off as unordinary coming from him. Out of Shiro, Allura, and himself, he had been against the very idea the most. To Keith, the less people who knew he was a shifter, the better. It wasn’t because he couldn’t trust his friends or thought they would let the information slip, he had total confidence that they would keep their secrets. He just didn’t know how they would react to it. And that part scared him, no matter how much Allura and Shiro had assured him that everything would be fine. In the end, they had agreed to keep their own abilities a secret as well, not wanting Keith to be suspected or make him uncomfortable. But now… With the Galra on his mind, he was willing to face whatever reaction they would have, even if it meant they would be uncomfortable or even scared of them.

“Well… I certainly was not expecting... that. But it does make me more concerned about the situation at hand. Let me grab my things.” She said, turning on her heel and quickly entering her house.

“While you go and find your friends, I believe it will be best if I take a look around to scout the area. I’d also like to make certain that we weren’t followed and contact the others.” Krolia said quietly.

“Alright… Just… Be careful.”

“You as well.”

…

“Where are we going first?” Keith asked, Allura driving them towards campus.

“We’re on our way to the school’s library. Pidge said that they would be there to get some work done, and Shiro is currently having a meeting in one of the nearby buildings. The others haven’t responded yet, so we’ll go and get those two first.” She explained.

Keith’s knee started bouncing, anxiety pooling in his gut at the information. He had to remind himself that his friends could be working, or maybe busy with their own school work. They could stop by their places to see them and everything would be fine, everyone would be fine. It was funny how before they had made it to the city, he had been tempted to turn back. But now all he wanted to do was get everything over with and see all of them again.

He caught Allura looking at him through the mirror, an almost amused smile on her face and he quickly went back to glaring out the window. She could tell what he was thinking.

When they finally got to the library, Keith had practically jumped out of the car, waiting as patiently as he could for Allura to join him. He looked at the large building in front of him, growing antsy as he tried to think where Pidge would most likely be. They were probably going to spend a while hunting their friend down, so Keith just wanted to get started already. Before he could even go in though, Allura quickly grabbed his arm and laughed.

“Still impatient as ever! I’ve already messaged Pidge to meet us out front, so relax.” She teased.

He only huffed in response, crossing his arms as he turned to watch the door. It only made her laugh. He relaxed though, waiting until he could spot a familiar mop of hair. He nearly missed when Pidge came out though, not expecting them to have a completely different look. He blinked a few times, a smirk forming quickly when the two of them made eye contact.

“No fucking way!” Pidge yelled, not wasting a second before running over. He was prepared this time, catching the other in his arms and pulling them in tight. The familiar smell of old books and coffee clung to them, a hint of oil and wiring mingling in, telling him that they had been working on something recently. It was definitely Pidge.

“Did you get shorter while I was gone?!” He teased, grinning when Pidge returned the hug.

“I got taller, asshole!” They laughed, pulling back and quickly wiping tears from their eyes.

“Taller? I don’t see it.” He shot back, ruffling their hair a bit. It wasn’t the mop of hair that he had grown accustomed to, now cut in an undercut fashion with hair that spiked out. It suited them more than the one they had gotten to match their brother, though they still had the glasses. And even though he had teased them, Pidge had definitely gotten taller, and he could tell they had grown stronger too.

“Where have you been?! We all thought you had died or something!” They snapped, quickly punching his arm. It hadn’t hurt, but he said ‘ow’ anyway, rubbing his arm.

“Yeah… I’m sorry about that.” He said, putting all jokes aside.

“You fucking better be! I looked everywhere I could for you! I couldn’t find you, I couldn’t even find a trace! I thought… I thought you had disappeared like my Dad had. Like Matt!” They started sobbing, glaring at him through tears. He could see the circles under their eyes, dark and noticeable even under the glasses.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated softly, guilt eating away at him.

He frowned when Pidge just kept rubbing at their eyes, their glasses falling when they pushed them too far out. He quickly caught it, handing it to Allura before pulling Pidge back into a hug, rubbing their back. They clung to him then, Keith letting them cry for as long as they needed.

“I’m so glad you’re back.” They murmured eventually, pulling back and using their shirt to clean their face.

“Me too.”

“You better not be going anywhere either. I will kick your ass if you leave again.” They threatened.

“I won’t. I promise.” He laughed, ruffling their hair again. This time they swatted his hand away.

“Here.” Allura held their glasses out, Pidge squinting a bit as they took it from her.

“Thanks. ‘Llura’” They mumbled, cleaning the lenses before putting them on. They blinked a few times, adjusting them a bit before looking to their hands in disgust.

“Yeah, please don’t touch me with your snot hands.” Keith teased.

“I will if you don’t shut up. I’m still mad at you.” They huffed, but Keith could see them smiling.

“Hold on. You can use this.” Allura pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer out from her purse, squeezing some into Pidge’s hands.

“How are you always prepared?”

…

“Shiro says he’s getting out of the meeting now.” Allura informed, the conversation they had been in dying down. Keith felt their eyes on him, the pressure enough to kill him as his nerves began to buzz. He took a deep breath then, feeling someone place a hand on his shoulder to give him a comforting squeeze.

“Okay… You guys… You guys stay here.” He cursed inwardly over how shaky his voice was.

“Are you gonna be alright?” Allura asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Yeah. Just… going to go face my brother who I’ve never contacted once in the last two years to let him know where I’ve been…” He forced out, the laugh so awkward it made him cringe.

“Worst case scenario is that he’ll kill you.” Pidge offered, and Keith immediately turned to glare at them.

“Technically Shiro does have first dibs on taking your life. He is your brother after all. Though to be fair, we all agreed to end your life together and then revive you. I’m sure I could find a way to do so without going into the dark arts.” Allura added. He blanched. Pidge cackled but had no idea that Allura probably could.

“You guys are the worst.” He mumbled.

“Go!” They both yelled and he grumbled, quickly walking away.

He looked up to the building Allura had said that Shiro had been in, nibbling his lip as he tried to work himself up to actually go inside. Theoretically, he didn’t have to go in, he could just wait outside the door in hopes it would be the one he took. But realistically, Shiro might go out through a completely different door depending on what Allura said to him, so he could miss him and it would only frustrate him. But his nerves were starting to get to him, the thoughts of unpredictable reactions rushing through his mind and freezing him in place. This was only one of the two hardests reunions he was going to have today, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle it, let alone both. What was he going to say? A simple ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t feel enough when he said it to Allura and Pidge, so it definitely wouldn’t feel enough now. What was he going to do? What should he do? What-

“Keith?” The voice was quiet, but the desperation in his voice was so loud. He swallowed and turned toward the voice, already feeling tears well in his eyes. Like Pidge, the smell of old books and coffee had stuck to him, but there was a hint of pine and fallen leaves, something so very Shiro. There was another smell that mingled with his and it threw him off, but he had doubt that it was Shiro, and he could worry about that later.

Shiro stared in disbelief, mouth hanging open as eyes studied what he was seeing in front of him. He looked older, dark circles nearly hidden by the glasses he was wearing. His hair still had the weird patch of white in the front, but he could see more whites growing into the rest of his hair. He looked a bit thinner, but not enough to concern him too much. But it was enough to add to the guilt that consumed him. The look of relief that washed over Shiro’s face made it feel like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders, tears already pouring out as he moved closer. Keith couldn’t stand still anymore, rushing over to meet him, the hug crushing.

“I’m so sorry Shiro.” He whispered, afraid of the sobs that would escape if he spoke any louder.

“I know Keith.”

…

Keith quickly composed himself as they headed back towards the library, running a hand through his hair a couple of times as well as rubbing at his eyes a bit. He heard Shiro snort and shot a glare at him before walking faster. Shiro stuck close though, not letting Keith stray too far. He couldn’t blame him, and he knew the rest of his friends would probably be like that after they had gathered. He was sure the only reason Allura and Pidge had stuck behind was because they had already slipped some way of tracking him onto his being without him noticing.

He shivered.

“Why did you wait so long before coming back?” Shiro asked, his voice quiet. He glanced back at him, feeling himself shrink a bit with the sad look that Shiro had on his face.

“I thought it would be for the best. But I was wrong.” He admitted.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I will. I’m going to tell you all what happened and what’s going on and why I came back. And what I am.” He assured, pausing to look Shiro in the eye. As he expected, Shiro was caught off guard, but instead of saying anything, he nodded. They started walking again, something uncomfortable twisting in his gut.

“Hey look! You’re still alive!” Pidge yelled, hopping up as they walked up.

“Ha ha.” He huffed, crossing his arms.

“I still haven’t gotten a response from Adam, Hunk or Lance.” Allura said, frowning a bit as she checked her phone again.

Lance. He felt his chest tightened.

“They probably don’t have any service right now.” Shiro mumbled, pulling his own phone out.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked.

“Adam texted me earlier saying that he and the others would be going into the forest. They’re probably still there.” Keith could hear the concern that laced itself into Shiro’s voice, making his hair rise. The article that he read a few nights ago came to mind.

“I understand that they enjoy hiking, but with the rumours that have been circulating, I would think they would try to avoid it.” Allura looked worried, her frown only deepening.

“I think the only reason they’ve gone is because of what happened the other night with Lance.” Pidge cut in, and realization dawned on Allura and Shiro, the three of them exchanging a look that he couldn’t interpret.

Lance. What happened with Lance? His chest tightened again.

He would have asked about it, but the fact that their friends were still in the forest, maybe, made him anxious. Someone from the Galra was able to find pictures of them. Hell, maybe they had even taken them. And it just so happened that there were strange phenomenons happening in the forest around the same time? The only reasonable explanation in his mind was that maybe someone from the Galra pack was there, using it as a way to hide, but also doing just enough to keep most of the humans away. Which meant his friends could be in serious danger.

Which meant Lance could be in danger.

“We have to find them and get them out of there. Now.” Keith said urgently, quickly walking to the car. The others quickly followed, Allura unlocking the car before they piled in.

“Keith-”

“I’ll explain everything later on. But we need to go now!” He felt bad for raising his voice out of frustration, but Allura seemed to understand.

“Okay. We’ll find them Keith. Don’t worry.” She said reassuringly.

…

He was extremely worried.

The place Allura had taken them was the same place the others had also gone, Hunk’s car parked under the shade of the trees at the start of the parking lot. It was easy to miss, the street being a one way and the trees blocking any driver’s view of the vehicle. If it weren’t for the fact that Allura had planned to park where they were, they would have missed it. She pulled in next to them, frowning a bit as she got out. Her frown grew puzzled as she inspected the car further, bringing her arms up to indicate that she was thinking.

“What is it?” He asked, coming up next to her.

“Can you smell anything from their car?” She whispered, glancing behind them as Pidge and Shiro got out of the other side of her car.

Keith raised a brow, but took a second to actually smell the area. He could smell the different scents from the forest, his friends that were present, Allura’s car as it cooled down. His eyebrows knitted together then. He could smell water. But there weren't any rivers or ponds nearby, and it hadn’t rained either. Strangely though, it was coming from the car, as if a large amount of water had been dumped on it to wash all other smells away. But the car was completely dry, and so was the asphalt it was parked on. He tried to find anything else, but found nothing and it was troubling.

“Just water. I can’t pick up anything else.” He mumbled, crossing his arms.

“What’s wrong?” Pidge asked, walking up and peering into the car. He shot a look to Shiro, tapping his nose to see if maybe he could pick anything up.

“Nothing. I was just checking to see if they had left anything behind.” Allura lied, curling a finger around her hair nervously.

“Pidge, why don’t you stay behind in case they come back.” Shiro suggested.

“Sure. I’ve got a lot of equipment in my bag so I’d feel better staying with them anyway. I could probably use my laptop to contact you if they do come back while you’re still looking. Let me see your phones?” They asked, Shiro handed his phone over, Keith doing the same. Pidge looked to Allura expectantly.

“I’ll actually be staying behind with you so you won’t be on your own.” She said, and Pidge nodded.

“Alright. Let me get these setup then.” They went back into the car, starting to pull out their laptop to do what Keith called ‘their’ magic.

“There’s magic around the car. It’s like a cloak, almost as if the person who did this was expecting someone to go looking for them.” Allura whispered to him and Shiro once Pidge were out of earshot. Keith gritted his teeth.

“We’ll be quick. Contact us immediately if anyone shows up or if anything happens.” It wasn’t a request, and Allura knew it.

“I will.”

“Okay. I’ve connected your phones to my laptop. I’ve also plugged in my own signal booster into your phones, so you should be able to get my messages and send them while in there.” Pidge called, hopping out of the car and handing their phones back.

“Thanks Pidge. We’ll let you know if we find them.” Shiro promised.

“You two stay safe.”

“We will.”

…

#roy writes #roy writes a klance fic #klance #klance fic #keith x lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #keith vld #lance vld #vld #netflix voltron #Voltron legendary defender #voltron #lance x keith

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bestgraffitiremovalproductsepwa0 · 4 years ago

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Which Is The Best Removal Graffiti Company?

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Table of ContentsWhat Do Removal Graffiti Services Include?How Much Does It Cost To Have A Graffiti Removal Cost?What Do I Need To Know To Hire A Graffiti Removal Service?What Is The Best Cost Of Graffiti Removal App?

( courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Just across Newtown Creek in Long Island City stood a deserted commercial site that lots of thought about the world's biggest treasury of graffiti art. Tragically demolished in 2013, the world-famous 5 Pointz included twelve factory buildings varying in height from a single story to 5 floorings.

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5 Pointz grew so famous that travelers from worldwide travelled to Long Island City to photograph the remarkable examples of graffiti art that embellished its lots of exterior walls, however the well-known complex would not have a long life and would die a tragic death. (courtesy of Jules Antonio/Flickr) Located at 4546 Davis Street, the structures, which were constructed in 1892, once housed a water meter factory, but the water meter plant was long by the early 1970s when designer Jerry Wolkoff bought the deserted factory and rented space inside to industrial companies.

Quickly, aerosol artists began to cover the exterior walls with their colorful and imaginative murals. At first called the Phun Factory, the structure was renamed "5 Pointz" in 2002 when graffiti artist Jonathan Cohen started curating the exterior murals. The murals' fame spread and Cohen even conceived strategies to turn the big complex into a museum of graffiti art.

The tags at 5 Points (thanks to Wikimedia Commons) While Five Pointz popularity was spreading out around the globe, Long Island City was likewise changing. Due to its distance to Manhattan, the location started to become a magnet for high-rise residential towers and Wolkoff became progressively knowledgeable about his site's multi-million dollar realty worth.

On August 21, 2013, the New York City City Planning Commission all authorized Wolkoff's strategies to construct condominiums on the property, while the New York City City Landmarks Conservation Commission declined the artists' landmark status appeal for the complex (removal graffiti). A firestorm of protest developed worldwide after Wolkoff's triumph as artists and art enthusiasts set in motion to save the now-famous complex.

The night of November 19, 2013 was an awful night in the history of regional art. In the middle of the night, the designer had the well-known murals whitewashed, regardless of an injunction submitted by 5 Pointz proprietors and a well-attended rally on November 16th to petition signatures to avoid its demolition.

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The covered graffiti in 2014 (by means of Google Maps) Prior to the whitewashing (thanks to Wally Gobetz/Flickr) On February 3, 2014, artists sprayed "Art Murder" in large letters on the side of the building. Later on the artists draped a large" Gentrification In Development" banner around the building, however their most significant and most effective demonstration would soon come.

The brand-new development in location of Five Pointz (through Google Maps) In 2017, it appeared that Wolkoff had won and the artists had lost, however a few of the aggrieved artists submitted a federal suit the same year declaring that their rights as artists had been violated under the controversial 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which mentioned that artists had to get ninety days observe prior to the destruction of their art.

Initially, the opportunities of the artists' triumph appeared bad. During most of the legal procedures, the artists' case appeared weak, as the defense lawyer pointed out that the artists themselves had frequently painted over each other's work, in addition to casting doubt on the expediency of eliminating graffiti setups without harming them.

The judge granted twenty-one artist plaintiffs the shocking amount of over six million dollars in damages. The destruction of the Five Pointz complex was a dark day in the history of New York City art, not to point out in the lives of the artists whose works were damaged, yet some great came out of the terrible loss of art - removal graffiti.

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Perhaps in the future will serve as the legal basis for safeguarding other pieces of threatened street art. (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

You can report graffiti done within the previous 7 days or repeatedly at the exact same location. Officers from your local authorities precinct will respond when they are not dealing with emergency scenarios. You can likewise ask for that the responding officers issue a cops report for insurance coverage or other functions. If you ask for a police report, Best graffiti removal nyc Service you can not stay anonymous and you should be readily available to fulfill the reacting law enforcement officer.

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Discussing 5Pointz is still emotional for Jonathan Cohen, better understood by his tag name, Meres One. Nearly 5 years have passed since his distinctive graffiti, and the work of lots of his fellow artists, were whitewashed from an enormous storage facility in Queens under the cover of night on Nov - removal graffiti.

Cohen recalled after the graffiti capital he had actually called 5Pointz was eliminated. With the owner's consent, artists from around the globe had painted on the five-story, blocklong building in Long Island City for more than 12 years, changing it into a location stop and de facto graffiti museum loaded with 200,000 square feet of art work.

Cohen relocated to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, right after 5Pointz vanished. The removal of the art work was rapidly challenged in court. In February, 21 5Pointz artists won a key triumph and a $6. 7 million award however the case stays under appeal." I did a great deal of strolling around soul searching, admired the townhouses, the churches, the stained glass," Mr.

Eventually, motivation struck. In fact, it is a stained-glass inspired piece crafted by Mr. Cohen that is the first work visitors see when walking into a Manhattan hotel that houses a new museum that concurrently admires the creative soul of 5Pointz and to the history of Lower Manhattan.

The museum, which fills the stairwell of a new hotel, will showcase 20 artists, all of whom painted at 5Pointz. It is implied to be a vertical love letter to the Lower East Side and the Bowery, including what Ms. Flageul referred to as faces, locations, words and minutes. Each painting narrates, she said. removal graffiti.

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All of the artists utilized aerosol paint." It was very important for us, also on an academic point, to showcase all the different styles and embrace all of it," Ms. Flageul stated. Mr. Cohen's stained-glass piece, for example, features his signature wild-style lettering. Beginning next month, visitors can sign in at the front desk of the hotel, CitizenM New york city Bowery, take the elevator to the 20th floor and head towards the stairwell.

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Mr. Mestre's piece is a graffiti-inspired discussion of a quote from the artist Keith Haring: "Art lives through the eyes of the individual taking a look at it." Farther down the stairwell the wall pops with work by Never Pleased, who rappelled with a harness and rope to develop his 5Pointz art. One piece functions Ms.

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Cohen on a rooftop at 5Pointz. "It's type of like signifying us being a little happy once again," Ms. Flageul stated. "Because now we have a house here and we have the ability to, you understand, come back and share a passion for aerosol art." The irreversible installation, which will open Thursday for an event party and to other visitors in October, was funded by the hotel.

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sunnybimbo · 7 years ago

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and some more shunkeith parenthood au because i have no self-control and the idea haunted me for like four days now.

Find it on AO3 here.

The thermometer beeped, and Keith had to take a moment to steel himself before he looked at the reading.

Only to release a hissed breath as the numbers blinked back at him. Serena had a mild fever, and it was only Keith at home to take care of her. Both Shiro and Hunk had been invited on a conference— and Keith had, of course, been invited to come too, but he adamantly refused to leave Serena with a sitter.

"Shiro is the better pilot of the two of us." He'd said. "Plus, he has the whole... smiling thing."

Hunk had quirked a brow at him, in the way the Keith knew he found what had been said funny, but didn't want to smile at it because he was being serious.

"We'll be fine." He promised, like an idiot. "Call me when you land."

He wasn't upset at his decision. Thank god it was him, and not some teenager taking care of a sick baby. He was already kind of panicking internally, though he desperately tried not to let Serena notice. Shiro always told him that babies were sensitive to emotions, and he didn't need her upset on top of being sick with a fever.

He'd first noticed something was wrong when she refused to eat a bottle. He'd thought she'd felt a little warm then, but he blamed it on the air conditioner and had taken her onesie off to exchange for some looser pajamas.

He'd noticed something was wrong when she started crying and wouldn't stop.

That had been hours ago, and Keith would be lying if he said he wasn't worried. Actually— he was downright terrified.

Outside of a window in the kitchen that Hunk decorated with bright yellow curtains and flower pots filled with synthetic plants that had encouraging reminders on them instead of something actually made of chlorophyll, snowflakes frosted against the windowsill and bathed the entire glass in a foreboding blue.

The entire time, Keith had been trying to phone for the doctor, Shiro, or Hunk. Hell, he even tried Lance or Pidge, to see if they could pick him up some medicine or something, but his service was completely nonexistent. That last thing had been a crap plan anyway, though, with how much snow was piling outside of the doors.

It would be hell to shovel away, but that was the last thing on his mind.

There was no way he'd be able to trudge through the snow banks with a sick baby. No matter how tight he'd bundle her, she'd probably be frozen stiff by the time he even got to the hospital. But he stored that thought in the very back of his mind, just in case.

He also couldn't just leave her in the home by herself while he ran out to get help— either to the drugstore or to kidnap a pediatrician. That was much too dangerous.

So, instead, he scrounged the house for as many baby books as he could find. Shiro had stocked up on them as soon as they first mentioned adopting, and Hunk had finished the collection off with whatever books he'd found at both the local pawn shop, off of friends, and even while browsing online.

Keith had gladly let all of those purchases fall on their laps instead of his. He focused more on the furniture, the setup of her room; baby-proofing the house. Those were solid things he could touch to keep his hands busy instead of wringing them nervously or biting his fingernails (a habit both Hunk and Shiro, respectively, had picked up after a while).

He didn't dare grab Serena and drag her all over the house. There were drafts that could be deadly. And the bookcase was especially wobbly ever since the wood had warped underneath it. They'd never gotten that fixed yet, and he didn't need her to be crushed on top of having a fever.

So he made sure to take one book at a time and jog back to the nursery, scouring the pages for whatever he needed. Inevitably, the pages spoke back to him nothing to help his situation, and he threw it on the ground with the rest until a pile of cracked spines and crumpled pages claimed the corner as its own.

Serena was fussing in her crib, gripping at the curve of her ear, and Keith's heart sunk. If she had an ear infection, he absolutely couldn't just let it sit.

---

About an hour later, after shining a flashlight down her ear canal and trudging through every single page of every single baby book they owned, Keith found himself pacing up and down the hall, cradling her against the curve of his shoulder as he tried to calm her enough to go to sleep.

It was the middle of the night— but it had been the middle of the night when this mess had first started. Her tiny fists clung to his shirts, wrinkling the fabric so much that she could probably tear a hole in it if she tried hard enough. It was Shiro's shirt, actually.

The information swirled around his head in a mish-mash of advice sprinkled with the same phrase, 'Always take your little one to the doctor if you're not sure what to do.'

That gnawed at his gut until it felt raw, and he started reading every book all over again, until he came up with a plan.

In one moment of desperation, he checked his phone again. And there, in the corner of the screen— flickering in and out like heaven's gate was opening and closing right in front of him— were the bars of his cellular service.

He jerked forward, startling Serena so much that her cries warbled and fell quiet for just one moment before they started again, and flew through his contacts until the letter 'L' popped out at him.

The phone didn't ring for the first few seconds, and Keith squeezed the phone so tight against his grip he was sure the glass would crack.

Then, like a miracle, it rang exactly three times before he connected to the other side, and the rustle of clothing could be heard. A distracted laugh sounded in the background, and Keith spoke before the receiver could even begin to greet him.

"Serena is sick with a fever, and she won't stop crying. She might have an ear infection, but I have no clue at this point— and our front door and garage are snowed in."

Then, he took a breath, and realized that his voice had been shaking. Tears burned hot against the corner of his eyes, like bitter acid, and he could say that, until this moment in time, he'd never felt so useless before.

"Slow down, cowboy." He heard Lance say, who had obviously been startled by the sudden spiel as he shushed the commotion around him. The noise that Keith had immediately tuned out in the background clicked off, and that made Keith realize the time.

"Were you in the middle of a movie with Pidge?"

"Don't worry about that." Lance waved him off, and he sounded further away. Probably put him on speaker. "You said your little chickadee was sick? How bad was the fever?"

"Mild. It might be higher by now, but I don't know."

Lance tsked, but it was more distracted than irritated. He could hear the clack of a keyboard in the distance, and he squinted his eyes at his coverage. It was holding at one bar for now, and he sent a quick prayer up to whoever was listening that it would hold for as long as he needed.

"Pidge, this desk is disgusting." He heard Lance say, and Pidge, who sounded much closer to the phone than him, blew a raspberry in his general direction. Keith knew it was her, too, because she did that snorting laugh afterwards that she only had when she was mildly drunk.

"Alright, Bad Hair Day." Lance said, addressing Keith. "Here's what you have to do."

---

The bathroom tile was freezing against his toes, and he muttered a curse as he kicked the fluffy, white carpet over to the tub to stand on while he waited for the water to warm up before he flipped on the showerhead.

"Humidity." Lance had told him. "She's probably congested, right? All of that pressure is hurting her head. Don't worry about the fever unless it gets higher."

He'd also suggested that, if it did start getting higher, he take a lukewarm bath with her, and Keith made sure to stick the thermometer close by as he waited for the steam to fill the room.

Serena had calmed a bit after his phone call, and had dissolved to whimpering, throaty mewls that made Keith's heart ache in his chest. Lance had also said her lungs sounded fine, after listening to her cry for the five minutes it took for him to find the right information on Pidge's computer and get it to load up. Keith was just glad that she'd had an internet connection at all.

They promised that, as soon as the storm stopped and they clawed one of their cars from the snow, they would be over with medicine and anything he needed.

He just had to last until morning. The snow plows would sweep by his house early, probably before the sun had begun to rise. Just a few more hours.

He clung to that with all his might, and steeled himself. Just a few more hours.

---

The water ran cold under his fingers, and the thick fog of steam that had built up had begun to dissipate and turn just as icy as the bathroom was before he'd entered.

Serena, who had finally— finally stopped crying and began to doze, snuffled against his shoulder. He could tell by the way her feet kicked against his thighs that she would soon be crying again as her nose stuffed up, and Keith shushed her as best he could.

He'd also been half-asleep, and the only reason he had noticed the temperature change is because he'd left one of his hands under the spray— just for this reason.

Where else could he get steam, though? The kitchen sink, maybe, but he would have to upend Serena over the water to let it swirl around her, and he could guarantee that she wouldn't like that one bit.

He was so tired.

Keith dug his fingers into his forehead, raking them down to wipe the sluggishness from his brain.

Serena kicked once more, and Keith curled around her even tighter.

Then, all at once, it hit him. They had a humidifier in the garage somewhere, that Hunk had fixed up and been meaning to give to Lance for months now. Apparently the steam was wonderful for the skin, but he'd just never gotten around to picking it up, and Hunk had stored it in the back corner, behind a dozen boxes of old knick-knacks that they'd never unpacked after moving from their old, ratty apartments.

He had one more shot.

---

Something Keith had learned forever ago— probably before he'd ever been born— was that things never came easy. They took work, or they were too good to be true.

He had been proved wrong many times, but the most noticeable were the most recent. He met Shiro first, forever ago. And then he met the rest of their friends, and then he met Hunk. And that friendship— that kindness and love that he'd been shown from all of them and given as much as he could in return— came so easily to him with those people that it was almost natural.

And then, tonight, as the snow clung to the windows like cold demons trying to break in and ruin the happy little family he'd worked so hard to keep and cherish, he found the humidifier. Sitting right in plain sight, on top of a shelf and exactly two feet from a puddle of water that had leaked in through the window and froze on the garage floor.

It had been so easy to find. Completely undamaged.

In working order.

Keith almost cried again that night.

He plopped down again, in the guest bathroom with Serena because it was the smallest room in their house, and would hold all the steam she needed for as long as it took to soak through the towels he stuffed under the door.

In one arm, he had her nestled in the crook of his elbow, swaddled in soft like a queen would be bathed in silk. With his free hand, he filled the tiny little machine with as much water as it could hold, and watched as it puffed a few test shots of air to clear the filter. Then, a dull hum filled the room, as the water began to heat.

He crawled into the corner, sitting cross-legged so that she could rest comfortably in the space it created. She blearily blinked up at him, tired and sickly, and almost pleading.

Keith tucked the tips of her ears into the tiny cap that covered the soft tufts of hair on her head, and leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead.

His phone was half-charged where it was shoved under his thigh, and he checked the time. Almost five in the morning.

The steam filled the tiny room quickly, blurring his vision with wisps of white and burning faint tickles of heat against his skin.

First, Serena fell asleep. And then, as Keith leaned his head back and let his eyes drift shut, the rumble of a snow plow clearing its way through the streets of his neighborhood.

#shunkeith #sheithunk #shunkeith parenthood au #voltron #gotta love it #jam writes

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littlemisssquiggles · 7 years ago

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Voltron Musings: The Future of Klance. An Interpretation of Future Bonding Moments I’d like see for Lance and Keith As Told By A Klance Shipper. #003

Bonding Moment #003: Planet KLANCE. It’s basically Escape From the Blue Lagoon...but with Klance!

Remember that really, really old classic movie where these two kids (cousins to be exact) got stranded on an island and had to live off the land and fend for themselves?

Picture that...but with Lance and Keith being tossed into a dire scenario where they’re basically left for dead; forced only to work together and depend on each other after their lions crash land on an uninhabited planet leaving them stranded together with limited power, food supplies and no way to get in contact with the castle or the other paladins.

What can I say, I really enjoyed that moment in S3 where Lance and Keith were separated from the team and had to lean on each other to get out.

Can I get more of that in an entire episode dedicated just to these two bonding?

I don’t even care if it gets suggestively romantic and ship-py . ...Okay, I lie. Even I can’t say that with a straight face. I do care but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. I just want an entire episode dedicated to these two red vs blue knuckleheads interacting and getting to know each other on a more intimate level. It’s just them alone. No other paladins.

I’ll take Keith hallucinating about Shiro before running away and getting his ass into trouble only for Lance to save him initiating bonding moment number three within that episode alone. But that’s it. I only want to see these two mostly in the episode.

The other paladins can show up in the end to save them especially if you toss in Lance and Keith being stranded together on a uninhabited planet with a Galra soldier sent to kill them.

Make it better, let Keith be injured or falls devastatingly ill after being poisoned by one of the strange floras or faunas on the island.

Throw in Keith saving Lance from being the one to be poisoned by pushing him of the way to shield him from the toxic bite/sting/spray-whatever; stir in Lance being forced to care for a very sick Keith; too sick to even walk.

Maybe a side effect of the poison is loss of mobility and sight so Lance has to carry Keith and be his eyes.

There only source of communication is a broken mini walkie-talkie type which every now and again allows Lance to communicate with the team who are looking for him. Lance also receives information from Coran on the way the planet works and he helps him to keep Keith’s symptoms at bay.

But when Keith goes critical, entering the final stage of the poison, Lance is begrudgingly forced to leave him behind secured in a cave to venture out on his own to find some kind of plant that’s the antidote to the poison. I want this to be a Klance bonding episode but it’d be cool if it’s also a Lance centered episode emphasizing on his development and resilience under pressure. Lance vs Nature: the ultimate trial of the Blue Paladin as he battles the elements to help keep his friend alive. Alright...so I realize this is less Escape from the Blue Lagoon when I originally started off but I’m digging this concept too.

Give me one Klance episode coupled with a healthy serving of Lance character development. I want it to be an episodic broth purely about survival mixed in with relatable lessons in friendship and trust. Hold the other paladins please or you can sprinkle just a little bit of them here and there for additional plot flavours however at its core I want this broth to be all about the red vs blue duo. Add a perilous scenario where our duo are trapped together on an unknown planet, WITHOUT their lions (yeah I changed my mind, let them NOT have their lions with them as a means of increasing the chances of their survival and thus, intensifying the essence of how much Lance and Keith need to work together), completely stranded from the rest of the team with nothing but a broken short-circuiting communicator as their only source of contact with the outside. Stir in some tension between our duo caused earlier in the episode based around the topic of what would happen if Lance were in charge and Lance’s misunderstanding about him thinking that Keith doubted his ability to lead. Stir in some anger and frustration on Lance’s part about Keith not having his back or thinking he would make a good leader. Stir in the team going on a solo mission, somehow not needing their lions. Maybe they were trying to recruit some inhabitants for the battle against Zarkon who wouldn’t trust them unless the sent two of their paladins (Lance and Keith) without their lions. This however turns out to be a huge trap and we’ll have our first taste of action here. Chop some Lance trying to prove himself moments and acting reckless only to wind up being the cause of him and Keith being separated and stranded in the first place.

Add a dash of suggestively intimate moments where Lance is forced to care for a very unwell Keith who has been left unable to care for himself after sustaining an injury or would from one of the inhabiting creatures of the planet they’re marooned on.

We can even toss in a moment where Keith, under the effects of injury starts having strong hallucinations about ‘dying’. Because of this, Keith starts giving Lance the same pep talk that Shiro gave him in S2. Y’know should anything happen to him, Keith, with Shiro still being gone (since Kuron is a clone), the team will need another new Red Paladin and Keith decides to pass the torch onto Lance. Lance of course laughs this off as a joke but...it would be cool to see this parallel done with him.

Stir in some adventure montages where Lance learns to live off the land and utilize his surroundings in order to keep both him and Keith alive until the other paladins can track them down.

Add one last tablespoon of action where a Galra/enemy solider discovers the location of the missing blue and red Paladins of Voltron and Lance has an epic showdown with said solider as he fights to defend his friend, really highlighting how much he has improved as a fighter since season one.

Mix this all together. Allow it to simmer and here we’ll have a delicious Klance episode about survival and friendship that you can serve to Voltron plans on a Skulltrite silver platter.

I doubt we’ll get an episode like that since the relationship between Lance and Keith has progressed passed the stage where they don’t seem to pick as much fights with each another anymore. A good sign of their development but...y’know me, there is always room for more moments.

I’d still love an entire episode where it’s all about them and growing their friendship/trust in each other. Now that I think about it, we haven’t had an episode like this at all. We’ve had episodes dedicated to Lance bonding with other paladins like Pidge (S2 Episode with the Galra mall), Hunk (S2 episode with the merpeople), Shiro (S2 episode where they rescued Slav and Shiro first called Lance the team’s sharpshooter) and even Allura (S3 when they switched lions)! But none really with Keith. Some might argue that the episode form S1 with the infamous ‘We had a bonding moment. I cradled you in my arms’ line was a Klance centric episode. I see where you’re going for. Yes we’ve had many Klance moments but not an entire episode about them. Not really.

Where is my Klance centered bonding episode? If we can get a Klance focused episode and have it done something like this; I’d be a very happy camper. And so will many Klance shippers, would you agree?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #klance #keith and lance #voltron musings #voltron shipping #voltron ships

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unsurprisinglysleepdeprived · 8 years ago

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Voltron LD AU!: Baby Adults

This is just something I was thinking about a little while ago because VLD has taken over my mind and I was bored. I was kind of wondering about what it would be like if the Shiro, Allura, and Coran all of a sudden turned into infants. And as Pidge and Hunk and Keith are freaking the hell out because their leaders are now babies, Lance is all "Don't 'bout it guys! I got this!"

I think we all need some silly fluff after what happened in the last episode of Season 2. I don't know when this would take place but you can decide.

Seriously, think about it: They're on some kind of planet inhabited with carnivorous plants that spray their prey's bodies with a chemical that turns them into their baby selves. And just barely the team recover the babies before they get eaten and head back to the castle with the lions.

From what we know from Episode 2 from Season 1, during their mental exercises, Lance has a big family so he must be pretty experienced on how to take care of babies. Keith is an only child, Pidge is the youngest in her family, and, let's assume Hunk is also an only child since we don't know if he has any siblings. Pidge and Keith aren't all that comfortable around people and Hunk might only know how to take care of young children, not infants. So they're all a nervous wreck...

Lance, on the other hand, is looking at everyone like "Dafuq?" and none of them can understand how he can be so calm like this. Like Lance would admit he's upset too but not all that much for some reason. Since he's the one with more experience, Lance bumps himself to Temporary Leader (much to everyone's dismay). But it's only until they find a way to revert the babies back to their normal selves.

After trying to find some kind of cure and communicating with their allies they learn that the chemicals won't wear off until a couple of days. As the team decides on what their next step should be, Lance steps forward saying that while they're waiting for the chemicals to wear off Lance wants to teach them how to take care of the Adult Babies (since the scanners say that they are still adults but in baby form).

Hunk, Pidge, and Keith are freaking out and don't really trust Lance at first but decide it's for the best. As they prepare themselves for what may be one of their most difficult/weirdest mission, they learn new things about themselves and each other.

Holding/Cradling/Soothing

Lance show them how to properly hold a baby for different situations.

Hunk: He's a natural cushion! The babies love how comfortable he is! He's a little nervous at first but he gets the hang of it. He even decides to make little funny faces to them!

Pidge: Oh, man, Pidge. She's really nervous, rambling on and on about what she might do wrong but Lance calms her down. Guiding her arms in a way so she and the baby are both comfortable. She's still shaking until she looks at the baby; so calm and quiet but content. She smiles as she wonders if this is what it was like for her parents. The babies really like the beat of her now calm, happy heart; it's soothing.

Keith: He really wants to back away! He wants to make a break for the door but he knows Lance will not let that be. More than likely, Lance would tease him about how out of anything Keith would've been afraid of, it had to be a baby! Lance is acting the opposite of what Keith is thinking and understands. Taking it slow and steady, Lance puts the baby in his arms the same way he did with Pidge, giving him tips on how to hold the baby upright. He's thinking he won't like the feeling of something small and squishy squirming in his arms but later, after a few minutes, Keith finds it alright. Even smiling a bit. The babies love this. His smile.

I think that will be all I'm writing for tonight. I have other ideas about how Lance will teach the team on how to take care of Baby Shiro, Baby Allura, and Baby Coran! If you like to think of this as shipping fuel for you, go right ahead! I don't mind! Just make sure not to give me crap about this and that and other stupid shit, okay?

Personally, I'm a Pidgance/FlirtyRobot shipper but I am determined to look through the other ships in the team. I also wanted to give Lance a chance to really shine in a way that he is familiar with and surprise the team. Y'know, feel all warm and fuzzy inside. =w= *maybe a side of Langst at one point, I don't know yet.* And I'm the only who think of that one Noragami episode when Yato takes care of a baby and Yukine is all "How would anyone let YOU near their baby?!" and Yato shows him how to hold the baby properly? 'Cause I do!

As for how the babies look (they're only a few months old, maybe 6 months?) :

Shiro: Fuzzy, short, black hair. Medium tan (in the first episode he has a tan and now he's pale from barely any exposure to natural light)No scar. GIANT PUPPY EYES AND CHUBBY CHEEKS. As for his robot arm, maybe it turned normal or something? Or it turned into rubber? idk -.- Jiggly things amuse him so much! (Jello and food goo) Hard to put to sleep because he's a curious baby but he's a deep sleeper.

Allura: ALSO GIANT PUPPY EYES. Soft, short, curly hair. Bouncy limbs! :3 Fidgety and a fussy eater. Hyper as hell! She's still pretty damn strong for a baby! Really hard to get her to sleep but as long as the mice are with her then it's easier. (Lance wants the mice to take baths first.)

Coran: HELL THEY ALL HAVE GIANT PUPPY EYES. Cooperative eater but blows raspberries with his mouth full. He often tries to stand his feet but only falls on his bum and gets all upset! XD Fairly easy to put to sleep. Just make sure to lightly brush his...uh...head moustache?

Well, that'll be all for today! Now if you will excuse me, I'm going sleep like a baby myself tonight!

Goodnight!

#voltron legendary defender #voltron babies #awkward pidge #awkward hunk #awkward keith #papa Lance #baby shiro #baby allura #baby coran

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heyitscmei · 8 years ago

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Say it Again

Characters: Keith, Shiro Pairing(s): Shiro/Keith Warnings: potential minor spoilers for s2 (but probably not) Notes: Sheith Week Unlimited - Day 3: One Last Time, can be read as a post-war future fic or earth au

Read on AO3 Summary: “Say it again?” Shiro asks, flopping onto their couch and draping himself across Keith’s lap. Keith smiles fondly down at him, placing his book aside in favour of running fingers through that tuft of hair.

“Say what again?” Keith asks, feigning innocence.

“You know what.” Keith smiles, brushing Shiro’s hair back before leaning down to capture Shiro’s mouth in a kiss.

Shiro’s watching him the first time he says it, listening intently. Keith pauses to see how the words taste in his mouth. To feel the way they roll off his tongue. It’s a combination he’s not used to.

It’s a combination he could get used to.

“I like the way it sounds,” Shiro says, grinning.

“You’re also biased,” Keith points out.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact that I like it when you say it.”

“You’re sappy.”

“Mhm,” Shiro hums, pressing himself against Keith’s back and looping strong arms around him. “Say it again?”

“Last time,” Keith says, rolling his eyes, but he repeats it, if only to see the absolute sheer delight on Shiro’s face when he does.

The next time Shiro asks him to say it, they’re folding laundry. The bed is a mess of hangers and shirts and unpaired socks and Shiro, because Shiro is just lying there being tremendously unhelpful.

“Baby, fold the pants,” Keith demands, though his tone is much too warm to sound stern.

“Can I hear you say it again first?”

“Only one more time, but I’ll say it after I can see the bed again,” Keith offers.

“Deal.” Shiro folds the pants and helps pair the socks, but not before lobbing a few balled up socks at Keith lovingly, telling him that, like the socks, they make a perfect pair. It’s incredibly lame and sappy, but Keith laughs anyways.

Naturally, he retaliates by tossing them back at Shiro until Shiro opens up the drawer where their socks belong. Then they compete to see who can get the most pairs in.

When the bed is clear again, save for rumpled sheets that neither of them cared enough to correct, Keith rewards Shiro with a kiss, whispering the words Shiro loves to hear against soft lips.

He smiles into the next kiss Shiro presses to his mouth.

Keith straightens from where he’s been hunched over their garden. Or at least, the start of what’s going to be their garden. The stretch feels nice after bending over dirt and arranging plants for so long, empty pots set aside for future use.

He’s contemplating the best places to put each pot in their new home once they’ve got soil and seeds, pulling dirty gardening gloves off slim fingers, when Shiro comes out and presses a cold water bottle into sweaty hands.

“It’s looking a lot brighter out here,” he comments, admiring the vibrant flower petals and rich green leaves, roots nestled neatly in rich soil.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees. “How’s the garden in the back coming along?”

“Just about done,” Shiro responds with a smile. “It was worth it.”

Keith nods at that. He wipes a sweaty palm against Shiro’s shoulder playfully and laughs at Shiro’s exaggerated mock disgust before twisting the bottle cap and taking a long drink, reveling in the cold feel of it rushing through his dry mouth.

“Can I see it?”

“Of course you can,” Shiro says. “It’s your garden too.”

“I’m just giving you a chance to fix anything up before you try to impress me,” Keith teases.

“And what if I do manage to impress you?” Shiro asks playfully. “Do I get to hear you say it again?”

“Again?”

“One more time.”

“You never get tired of hearing it, do you?” Keith asks, shaking his head in fond amusement.

“From you? Never.”

He’s quite proud of Shiro’s work and rewards him with those words again as he crouches to carve their names into the wood framing their garden.

He turns when Shiro crouches next to him, watching the slow, soft smile that spreads across Shiro’s face as he traces a metal finger over the letters.

It’s brighter than the flowers, blindingly radiant in its unabashed delight.

Keith can’t help but smile too, especially when, later on, Keith turns the hose away from the garden and onto Shiro, spraying him and starting an impromptu water war in their backyard.

They’re rearranging their books, trying to force some semblance of organization into their bookshelves, - “Are we arranging these by genre or alphabetically?” - when Shiro asks him next.

Keith’s arranging the science fiction together and reciting the alphabet in his mind over and then again. He’s got old books, worn and loved, and new books tucked into the crook of his arm, placing each one carefully in it’s new place.

Shiro, on the floor surrounded by old, nostalgic fantasy books that Keith remembers he used to love, makes him lose track of the alphabet when he asks, “Will you tell me again when we’re done?”

“Sure, but this is the last time,” Keith says. “Same as always?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, grinning in a way that reminds Keith of princes in fairy tales and storybook heroes. “Or you could say it differently. How do you feel about old-timey speech? You could sound like a prince in one of these books.” Shiro gestures largely to the mess of paperbacks and hardcovers scattered across the floor.

“You’ll have to wait and see, your royal highness,” Keith says teasingly. “These books aren’t sorting themselves.”

“Where’s the castle staff when you need them?” He hears Shiro jokingly grumble from the floor.

“I’ll kiss all your paper cuts later,” Keith promises.

He does, though there aren’t many of them. It doesn’t stop him from kissing at each of Shiro’s fingertips. And when he says those words again, knelt in front of where Shiro sits, in his best impression of old-timey speech, he takes pride in the full-bodied laugh it pulls out of the other man. He laughs too, and let’s Shiro pull him down into his arms on the floor.

“That was awful,” Shiro gasps.

“I don’t know…” Keith grins. “I think I did a pretty good job of sweeping you off your feet.”

“Even though we’re both on the floor?”

“We’re not on our feet.”

“I see your point,” Shiro concedes. “Consider me swept.”

The following kiss is sweeter than the cooling hot chocolate that sits next to the books they left abandoned on the coffee table, only partially reread.

Keith is reading, waiting for Shiro to finish washing the dishes because it’s his turn to. He doesn’t look up from his book when Shiro enters the living room, but he doesn’t do get much more reading done because soon there are slightly damp fingers brushing hair away from his face

“Say it again?” Shiro asks, flopping onto their couch and draping himself across Keith’s lap. Keith smiles fondly down at him, placing his book aside in favour of running fingers through that tuft of hair.

“Say what again?” Keith asks, feigning innocence.

“You know what.” Keith smiles, brushing Shiro’s hair back before leaning down to capture Shiro’s mouth in a kiss.

“I don’t think I recall. You might have to remind me.”

“Five words at the least,” Shiro prompts, “Two of them are your name.”

“My name?”

“Keith.”

“It looks like you already know it, though,” Keith says impishly.

“One last time.”

“One last time?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“You’re not dying on me that easily, Flyboy,” Keith says, hand drifting down Shiro’s cheek to the curve of his jaw. He traces his thumb along Shiro’s bottom lip.

“Gotcha,” Shiro says. He feels Shiro kiss at the tip of his thumb and feels tender fondness warming him from the inside out.

“Alright, last time,” Keith murmurs, giving Shiro a false stern look.

“Alright,” Shiro agrees with a small nod, smiling up at him brightly. Keith can’t really tell if this will actually be the last time. He recalls the last handful of times also being the ‘last time’.

He doesn’t think it’s the last time and he doesn’t actually mind if it’s not.

How could he mind, when Shiro always smiles at him like that? When such simple words make him so incredibly happy?

He can’t. He doesn’t.

He’d keep saying it as many times as Shiro wants if it means Shiro will always smile like that, because Keith knows there’s something almost devastatingly beautiful about Shiro’s smile.

“My name is Keith,” Keith says, looking directly into warm grey eyes. “Keith Shirogane.”

#sheithweekunlimited #voltron #sheith #shiro #keith #cmei writes #idk what happened here suddenly it was all fluff

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foresthillsirisgardens-blog · 7 years ago

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Neonicotinoids: What home gardeners need to know The pesticides work on an array of insects — including the good guys.

There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about a group of chemicals known as "neonicotinoids." These pesticides affect the central nervous systems of insects, and are a suspected link to colony collapse disorder in domesticated honeybees as well as the rapid decline of many wild pollinator species.

About 85 percent of Earth's flowering plants rely on pollination by bees and other pollinators, according to the Xerces Society, a nonprofit that protects wildlife through invertebrate conservation. Bees also pollinate more than 30 percent of all plants that produce foods and beverages consumed by humans around the world.

"Neonicotinoids are one of the most serious causes of downward negative pressure on pollinators," according to Keith Delaplane, a professor of entomology and director of the Honey Bee Program at the University of Georgia. In fact, he rates neonicotinoids as the second-leading cause of decline in the nation's honeybees, reserving the top spot for the parasitic varroa destructor mite.

What are neonicotinoids?

"Neonicotinoids are a broad-spectrum pesticide that get their name from their basic chemistry, because it is close to that of nicotine," said Delaplane, emphasizing that "neonics," as they are often called, are not the same as nicotine. The neonicotinoid family includes specific pesticides such as acetamaprid, imidacloprid, dinotefuran, clothianidin and thiamethoxam. They gained popularity in agricultural and commercial ornamental production because they are effective against a wide range of insect pests, and are considered less hazardous to humans and other vertebrates than many insecticides.

"The hallmark of neonicotinoids is that they are systemic," Delaplane added. That means they travel throughout a plant via its vascular system and distribute the chemical to all parts of the plant tissue 24/7, including its nectar and pollen.

"Neonicotinoids just hammer insects," Delaplane said. While there are many target insects, such as whitefly, Japanese beetles, emerald ash borer and others, neonicotinoids are used in general to control sucking and chewing insects and beetles. But some of the insects they "hammer" are important pollinators such as honeybees, bumblebees and solitary bees.

How neonicotinoids became a cause of concern

In a 2014 report, David Smitley — a professor of entomology at Michigan State University who works with horticulture industries on solving insect pest problems — included neonics in a timeline tracing the decline of honeybees.

According to Smitley, honeybee decline began in the 1950s and sharply increased when parasitic mites were introduced into the United States around 1987. The neonicotinoid class of pesticides were introduced in 1994, but the rate of honeybee decline, while continuing, did not immediately get worse.

A turning point for neonicotinoid awareness occurred in June 2013, when 50,000 bees died in the parking lot of a Target store in Wilsonville, Oregon, near the Xerces Society headquarters. Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society, said he confirmed the bees died from being sprayed with an insecticide that contained the neonicotinoid dinotefuran. He claimed the label instructions weren't followed.

In 2014, a Harvard School of Public Health study linked low doses of neonicotinoids to colony collapse disorder. Additional studies produced mixed results regarding pesticides' impact on bee declines, and also pointed to other factors such as the varroa mite and insufficient food sources.

Citrus plants, like this lemon tree, can contain high levels of imidacloprid residue. (Photo: Larisa Blinova/Shutterstock)

In 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a "preliminary risk assessment" warning that bee colonies could be in danger from imidacloprid, a pesticide the agency had approved 22 years earlier. In hives exposed to more than 25 parts per billion of imidacloprid, the EPA reported a higher chance of "decreases in pollinators as well as less honey produced." A few months later, a study in the journal Nature reported that bees who frequent neonicotinoid-treated crops have suffered worse population declines than species who forage on other plants.

And while domesticated honeybees tend to get more attention, an array of wild native bees may also be at risk from neonics. In a 2017 study, for example, researchers found thiamethoxam dramatically reduces egg-laying by queen bumblebees, which were 26 percent less likely to lay eggs after being exposed to it.

As lead researcher Nigel Raine told the Guardian, this could have a disastrous effect on the formation of new bumblebee colonies — and thus on bumblebee populations overall. "A reduction this big in the ability of queens to start new colonies significantly increases the chances that wild populations could go extinct," said Raine, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

As dangerous as neonics can be for bees, some species do seem to have natural defenses against certain types of the insecticide. In one study, researchers from the University of Exeter, Rothamsted Research and Bayer AG — a multinational corporation that produces neonicotinoids — reported that enzymes in honeybees and bumblebees buffer them against thiacloprid, a neonic that's less toxic to bees than others, like imidacloprid. This may shed light on new ways to protect bees from the insecticides, the study's authors say, although more research will be needed.

How do pollinators absorb neonicotinoids?

Bees can absorb neonics in several ways, such as by drinking nectar or transferring pollen. Another is a process called guttation, or the act of a plant sweating.

Corn, for example, sweats during the night. Bees can obtain water from guttation droplets, especially during dry weather.

Aphids, one of the real targets of neonicotinoids, insert their needle-like mouthparts into plant tissue and suck plant juice all day long rather than imbibing guttation droplets. The neonicotinoids are also in the sweet excrement, or honey dew, from the aphids, which honeybees collect. So it's possible for the honeybees to absorb neonicotinoids indirectly from a treated plant without ever visiting that plant.

A graphic from the EPA explaining pollinator-related label requirements for pesticides. (Image: EPA)

How are neonicotinoids applied?

The most common form of applying neonicotinoids to agricultural crops is to treat seeds before they are sown rather than treating plants. The goal is to eliminate application issues such as drift that can cause collateral damage.

That doesn't always work out as planned, Delaplane said. There was a case in the Midwest, he pointed out, involving spring planting of neonicotinoid-coated corn seed. As the seed was being poured into the hoppers and run through the planters, insecticide-coated dust was released into the air.

There was so much dust that it formed a pink cloud, which drifted off-target onto nearby bee hives. Manufacturers have since tried to improve the formulation to prevent airborne drift, Delaplane said.

Also in 2014, Michigan State University conducted specific research about the use of neonicotinoids and made recommendations about their use for greenhouse growers that produce flowering annuals. In 2013, the EPA produced a strengthened bee advisory label. The agency required registrants of commercial pesticides that could be harmful to pollinators to include the label on packaging beginning in 2014.

A gardening center in a Home Depot store. (Photo: RustyClark/Flickr)

Neonicotinoids in the retail trade

Perhaps the best way for home gardeners to know whether ornamental plants they purchase at retail garden centers or big box stores have been treated with neonicotinoids is to ask the staff or look at the plant labels. Smitley's PowerPoint, for example, points out that Home Depot, one of the large retail chains that controls a lion's share of the flower and nursery market, is requiring a label in each pot of plants treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide. (Home Depot did not respond to a request for information for this story, but the company has announced plans to phase out the use of neonics on its plants "by the end of 2018.")

Lowe's, another major retail home garden plant source, is working with growers and suppliers of live plants to eliminate the use of neonics on plants that attract bees and other pollinators. It has pledged to phase out the pesticides by 2019, and to make brochures and fact sheets about pollinator health available in stores.

"Lowe's is also encouraging growers to use biological pest control methods when practical," said Steve Salazar, manager of Lowe's corporate communications. Neither seeds nor seedlings at Lowe's stores are treated with neonicotinoids, he added.

In the meantime, "Lowe's will be tagging plants and nursery products with information highlighting bee health and encouraging customers to be mindful of pollinator health when using pesticides," Salazar said.

Broad-spectrum insecticides are not necessary to grow a successful garden. (Photo: Parker Knight/Flickr)

What can home gardeners do?

Because neonicotinoids have been in the news, the public eye has been focused on plants at garden centers. Smitley says warnings about these plants harming pollinators have been exaggerated. In fact, he believes that purchasing flowering annuals, perennials and trees is beneficial for bees and other insects. "The discovery of neonicotinoid insecticide in the leaves and flowers of some garden center plants should not stop [home gardeners] from buying and planting flowers, because the benefit to bees far outweighs the potential risk," Smitley wrote in a 2014 paper.

Home gardens are not a primary food source for most bees, and even if neonics are present in some plants from retail centers, those plants will not necessarily harm bees, according to Smitley. Here are some reasons why:

Many bedding flowers — such as petunias, impatiens and marigolds — are not typically treated with neonicotinoids.

Many trees and shrubs (including all types of conifers) are pollinated by wind, and therefore not visited by bees.

Perennial flowers, roses, flowering shrubs and flowering trees will only have neonics in their pollen and nectar for the first year or two after they are planted. However, these plants will be a valuable resource for bees and other pollinators for many years to come.

Bees feed on a large variety of flowering plants within a mile of their colony home. The presence of a neonicotinoid in one plant will be diluted when the bees feed on untreated plants.

Flowers in flats should be completely safe to bees.

Still, Smitley said in the paper that homeowners can take steps to help ensure bee safety with purchased perennial flowers and flowering trees.

These steps include:

Removing the flowers in their first year in your garden or plant trees after they have finished flowering.

Avoid spraying plants in your garden with insecticides, and never spray the flowers.

If holes that insects chew in leaves become unsightly, bee-friendly insecticides include products containing Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.) and horticultural oils and soaps, according to Smitley's paper. B.t. can be used any time for caterpillars, and soaps and oils are safe to bees if sprayed early in the morning before bees are present. Be careful not to exceed the application rate on the product label, because at higher concentrations soaps and oils can cause plant injury.

Safe for humans

Neonicotinoids should not pose any threat to humans if they are used according the product label and stored in places not accessible to children. They have a low toxicity for all mammals, said Delaplane.

In fact, according to Smitley, the most widely used neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, is less toxic to people than caffeine, and about twice as toxic as ibuprofen.

Smitley offered a calculation that puts the toxicity of neonicotinoids for humans into perspective. Based on the required studies with laboratory rats, he has concluded that once garden-center products containing imidacloprid are mixed into a bucket of water for use as a drench around the base of a tree, the toxicity of that solution to people is about the same as the toxicity of wine

.https://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/neonicotinoids-what-home-gardeners-need-to-know

#How Neonicotinoids Kill Bees

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gossipnetwork-blog · 7 years ago

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Medical Pot, Marijuana: Best Hope to Fight Opioid Epidemic

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/medical-pot-marijuana-best-hope-to-fight-opioid-epidemic/

Medical Pot, Marijuana: Best Hope to Fight Opioid Epidemic

Last year, a pharmaceutical company called Insys Therapeutics gave half a million dollars to the campaign to stop marijuana legalization in Arizona. The Phoenix-based company’s flagship product is a prescription opioid spray made from fentanyl, an incredibly addictive and deadly drug estimated to be 50 times stronger than heroin. Cannabis, Insys knew, could disrupt the $24 billion market for painkillers and cost them business. After all, cannabis is now being used to treat many of the problems for which opioids are prescribed: back pain, arthritis, basically any kind of chronic discomfort. And there are some pretty convincing reasons why someone in pain might choose cannabis over opioids: Opioids are physically addictive, and can kill you. Cannabis has never killed anyone, and the withdrawal is mostly psychological.

Insys’s cash injection seems to have worked – of the five states with adult-use cannabis legalization on the ballot in 2016, Arizona is the only place where it didn’t pass. This, of course, is the root of the opioid crisis: pharmaceutical companies care more about profit than they do about human health. These companies are powerful, and they have been funding the anti-pot lobby for a long time. Still, in the face of opposition from entrenched interests and the federal government, a growing chorus of experts is calling for us to look into the possibility that legal cannabis could replace opioids in many circumstances, saving hundreds of thousands of lives over the course of the next decade.

The pain-relieving properties of cannabis are no longer hypothetical or anecdotal. At the beginning of the year, the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering released a landmark report determining that there is conclusive evidence that cannabis is effective in treating chronic pain. What’s even more promising is that early research indicates that the plant not only could play a role in treating pain, but additionally could be effective in treating addiction itself – meaning marijuana could actually be used as a so-called “exit drug” to help wean people off of pills or heroin.

“We’re not just saying opioids make you feel good and so does cannabis, and now you’re addicted to cannabis. There are direct reasons why this could actually help people get off of opioids,” says Jeff Chen, director of UCLA’s new Cannabis Research Initiative. “If there is a chronic pain component, the cannabis can address the chronic pain component. We also find opioid addicts have a lot of neurological inflammation, which we believe is driving the addictive cycle. We see in preliminary studies that cannabinoids can reduce neurological inflammation, so cannabis could be directly addressing the inflammation in the brain that’s leading to opioid dependency.”

The theory that cannabinoids could decrease cravings for opioids is further supported by a small 2015 study published in the journal Neurotherapeutics, which found that the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD was effective in reducing the desire for heroin among addicts, and remained effective for an entire week after being administered. Similar effects have long been observed in animal studies.

Cannabis, in fact, may be exactly the kind of opioid replacement that politicians and pharmaceutical executives claim to be searching for.

“I will be pushing the concept of non-addictive painkillers very, very hard,” President Trump said in October, when declaring opioid abuse a national public health emergency. The CEO of Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, recently referred to the possibility of a drug that helps with pain but isn’t physically addictive as the “Holy Grail.”

And yet the federal government maintains that the marijuana plant and its constituent compounds have no medical potential whatsoever. Perhaps that’s because painkiller-producing pharmaceutical companies and their affiliated non-profits spent over $880 million nationwide on lobbying and political donations between 2006 and 2015. As Patrick Radden Keefe recently pointed out in the New Yorker, that’s eight times the amount spent by the gun lobby in the same decade.

But already, many Americans seem to be replacing their pills with pot. A survey of pain patients in Michigan, published in 2016 in the journal of the American Pain Society, found medical cannabis use was associated with a 64 percent decrease in opioid use. A 2016 study published in the health policy journal Health Affairs found that states with medical marijuana saw a drop in Medicare prescriptions and spending for conditions that are commonly treated with cannabis, including chronic pain, glaucoma, seizures and sleep disorders. And a 21-month study of 66 chronic pain patients using prescription opioids in New Mexico found that those enrolled in the state’s medical cannabis program were 17 times more likely to quit opioids than those who were not.

Medical marijuana – like plants shown growing here in Quincey, Massachusetts – could mean the end of the opioid epidemic. Adam Glanzman/The New York Times/Redux

At the same time, opioid-related deaths and overdose treatment admissions appear to be declining by nearly 25 percent in states where patients have access to legal marijuana. That number comes primarily from a 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and has been supported by additional data from the American Journal of Public Health, the American Academy of Nursing, and the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

However, more research is sorely needed. Stanford professor and drug policy expert Keith Humphreys described the studies concerning cannabis legalization and the decrease in opioid-related deaths and hospital admissions as falling victim to a form of logical error known as ecological fallacy. “It’s correlation, not causation,” he told me, because you cannot use statistical information about entire populations to understand individual behavior.

And researchers are eager for more solid evidence. The Cannabis Research Initiative at UCLA is working on establishing one of the first studies that will directly administer cannabis to patients addicted to opioids, potentially providing a much more comprehensive understanding of how this all works. Chen, the initiative director, says he has scientists, clinics and a study design all lined up, but funding has been a struggle. “You’re forced to go an extra ten miles with zero gas in the tank when it comes to cannabis research,” he says. Between the lack of support from the federal government and pharmaceutical companies, Chen says he is “pretty much dependent on philanthropy.”

Of course, if pharmaceutical companies thought they could make money off of marijuana, they would back legalization and help fund the UCLA study – but pot is just too difficult to patent and control. So the only kinds of cannabis that pharmaceutical companies are willing to look into are lab-created synthetic cannabinoids. These are easier to push through the FDA approval process and easier to patent, but are widely understood to be less effective than products made from the plant itself. Once again, helping patients is not as important as turning a profit.

Back in Arizona, Insys Therapeutics continues to pump out its addictive opioid spray, and possession of any amount of marijuana is still a felony. For allegedly stretching the truth and putting profits before patient safety, Insys is facing several lawsuits as well as a Congressional investigation. But the company is still open for business. A few weeks ago, Insys received DEA approval to start selling a new drug.

This one isn’t an opioid, though. It’s a synthetic form of cannabis.

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researcherblr-blog · 8 years ago

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Next Generation of GMOs Escapes Regulation

Twenty years ago, proponents of genetic engineering promised that GMO foods would increase yields, reduce pesticides, produce nutritious foods and help feed the world. Today, those promises have fallen far short as the majority of GMO crops are engineered to withstand sprays of Roundup herbicide, which is increasingly documented as a risk to human health.

Now, new genetic engineering technologies such as synthetic biology and gene editing are being hailed with the same promises of revolutionizing food production, medicine, fuels, textiles and other areas.

But a closer look at this next generation or "GMOs 2.0" technologies reveals possibly even greater risks than existing GMO technology with possible human health risks and negative impacts on farming communities worldwide, among other unintended consequences. And while products developed using current genetic engineering methods are regulated by the U.S. government, GMOs 2.0 products are entering the market with few or no regulations.

Synthetic Biology: Extreme Genetic Engineering

While traditional genetic engineering involves inserting genes from one species into another, GMOs 2.0 technologies like synthetic biology aim to create life from scratch with computer-synthesized DNA.

"Genetic engineering has moved on from the first generation GMO crops," said Jim Thomas, program director at the ETC Group, a non-profit advocacy group that tracks the new GMO technologies. "There are different ways to genetically engineer an organism by creating synthetic DNA or editing DNA."

The ETC Group describes synthetic biology or "extreme genetic engineering" as "the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in the natural world and also the redesigning of existing biological systems to perform specific tasks."

"Synthetic biology is about synthesizing genetic sequences, designing them increasingly from scratch as if they were parts to put together in a particular way to get a predicted outcome," Thomas said.

The synthetic biology process involves altering the DNA of microorganisms such as algae, bacteria and yeast so they produce compounds like flavors and fragrances that previously have been extracted from plants. Scientists and software engineers are altering the DNA of existing microorganisms and designing new ones.

Synthetic biology companies are producing a wide range of compounds for food, pharmaceutical, fuel and industrial use. Evolva has created a synthetic biology form of vanillin, an alternative to natural vanilla extract. Perfect Day has engineered yeast cells to produce proteins similar to those found in cow's milk with the aim of producing vegan milk. Impossible Foods engineered heme, a molecule that makes meat sizzle and look pink for the company's meatless Impossible Burger. According to the ETC Group, there are some 350 synthetic biology products on the market or in development.

The claimed benefits of synthetic biology products such as flavors and fragrances are that they can be produced in greater and more consistent quantities and at lower prices than crop-based plant materials that are subject to climate conditions, crop failures and transportation logistics.

CRISPR Gene Editing

Another GMOs 2.0 technology is a gene editing method called CRISPR. This enables scientists to edit parts of the genome by removing, adding or altering sections of the DNA. The aim is to activate or deactivate genes to produce a desired effect. Proponents say CRISPR has the potential to treat illnesses that have a genetic basis such as cancer, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis B or high cholesterol.

GMO seed companies are using CRISPR to develop new plant varieties. Cibus used the technique to develop an herbicide tolerant canola. Pioneer Hi-Bred is developing waxy corn hybrids with high starch content for food and non-food uses.Monsanto recently announced it was licensing the CRISPR technology to develop new seed varieties.

Proponents say CRISPR is "the simplest, most versatile and precise method of genetic manipulation."

"It's a lot more precise in that it targets a specific gene in the genome where it exists while genetic engineering involves inserting a gene at random in the genome, which could disrupt the functioning of other genes," said Jim Orf, professor emeritus, plant breeding and genetics at the University of Minnesota.

But Thomas said scientists are seeing unintended effects using CRISPR. In fact he said "some scientists are intentionally not using CRISPR because of off-target effects." Orf also admitted that the technology is not "100 percent foolproof." Dr. J. Keith Joung of Massachusetts General Hospital said there is growing evidence that CRISPR might alter regions of the genome other than the intended ones.

Technology Risks

Causing unintended consequences is one of the problems with current genetic engineering methods, and these could be even worse with GMOs 2.0 technologies, particularly synthetic biology.

"You're not just adding one gene with all the implications of that. Here you are dealing with stretches of DNA that are invented on a computer. The level of novelty and the depth of intervention are much more significant."

Synthetic biology techniques could create secondary metabolites or molecules or different levels of compounds that could have negative impacts.

An underlying problem with the techniques is that they are based on an outdated premise of how biology and nature function.

"One of the dangers with synthetic biology is that it pretends that life is a linear, predictable system that you can engineer as if you can re-engineer a car or computer and that DNA is just a code," Thomas said, "But all those metaphors are falling apart in the biological sciences."

There are also social concerns. Companies like Evolva that make synthetic biology flavors like vanillin are hurting the market for natural vanilla produced by farming communities in Madagascar.

"These companies are trying to disrupt those markets and take that value," Thomas said. "If you can produce vanillin, then you will start affecting the supply chains and livelihoods of vanilla farmers."

Natural and Non-GMO Claims

Another problem is that some synthetic biology and gene editing companies are claiming that their products are natural or even non-GMO. Cibus calls its gene-edited canola "non-transgenic." Synthetic biology companies say that even though the production organism they create is a GMO, they claim the final ingredient is non-GMO.

"They'll argue that the (GMO) production organism is a just a processing aid," Thomas said. "That's a bit like saying a cow is a processing aid for making milk."

The Non-GMO Project also disagrees.

"There is a growing attempt on the part of biotechnology companies to claim that new types of genetic engineering, such as gene editing and synthetic biology, are not actually genetic engineering," said Megan Westgate, executive director of The Non-GMO Project. "To bring clarity in the face of this misleading trend, the Non-GMO Project has explicitly included these technologies in our Standard and cannot be used in a Non-GMO Project Verified product."

On the organic side, the National Organic Standards Board has proposed redefining genetic engineering in the National Organic Program to include GMOs 2.0 technologies, but the new definition hasn't yet been formally adopted.

No Regulation

There is virtually no regulation of GMOs 2.0 techniques in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't consider gene-edited crops such as Cibus's canola and Pioneer's waxy corn as falling under the agency's regulations for genetically engineered crops.

But Orf said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is deciding how GMOs 2.0 crops should be regulated. "They're reviewing their process to see if these crops should be regulated on a case-by-case basis or in a general way. These are different technologies doing things in a different way than transgenics."

Synthetic biology manufacturers are claiming their products such as vanillin are the same as the natural compounds and consider them to be "generally recognized as safe" or GRAS.

"Some companies are going to the Food and Drug Administration and saying 'we would like this to be GRAS' and the FDA is doing that," Thomas said.

Can GMOs 2.0 products be tested to detect their presence as current GMOs are?

"At this point, they are not developed, but they are developable," Thomas said.

"The companies will say their products can't be tested because they are the same as natural compounds. But if you talk with testing labs, they say they could develop a test. It is inevitable that tests will be developed because you have certifiers like the Non-GMO Project saying you can't use synthetic biology products."

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the-blog-claw · 8 years ago

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A chunk of iceberg the size of Delaware is in the process of breaking off from West Antarctica. With all the ice melting around the world the above photo might not be too much of an exaggeration.

“If an asteroid was headed toward the earth and the impact would wipe out all life as we know it. Would you want to know? If yes keep reading, if no carry on with Kardashians ”

Abrupt Global Warming

The world is experiencing abrupt climate change at a rate unprecedented in the history of the planet. Most main stream climate scientists push out the worst cast scenario until the end of the century. Some are more courageous about the truth and estimate that we could see devastating global average temperature increases within the next decade. Guy McPherson, professor emeritus from the university of Arizona, calculates a conservative 8.6 Celsius in the next decade (read about it here). Sam Carana of Arctic News postulates an even faster trend by exponentially factoring the dozens of self reinforcing environmental heating feed back loops. According to Sam we may see an overall global temperature increase of 10 C by 2021.

Phew… it’s getting hot out there in the world. What does this mean for you and me? Well it might be a good idea to invest in companies that make air conditioners. The planet is heating so fast, we may have a real challenge growing grains at scale. Ain’t gonna be enough food to go around.

The ability to grow and store grains at scale allowed civilization to flourish. This also gave great power and authority to those who controlled the food.

How did we get in this Predicament?

We did not get here by accident. We burned vast amounts of fossil fuels since the start of the industrial revolution in 1760. Add up all the emissions from factories, car exhaust, airplanes, industrial agriculture, factory animals for food, deforestation, and overall oil consumption and wallah over the course of 250 years we arrive at 410 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now add in methane, another green house gas, released from the Arctic and you have the equivalent of 600 parts per million in carbon dioxide. Now were cooking with gas! In 1989 the UN environment program warned we had 10 years to bring our carbon dioxide habit under control. Needless to say we missed the target.

I blame the greed of all Big Money (Bankers, military Big-Pharma Big-Agri Big-Oil industrial complex) for the mess were in and the general public for giving away their power. In our defense T.V. was a helluva distraction!

I would be curious to know how much profit Big Oil and their Saudi buddies enjoyed between 1989 and 2000. I bet you these darn oil tycoons were finally able to buy that silver colored Rolls Royce they did not own yet. Because it sucks when you only have a black, white, red, blue, yellow, and purple RR but not in silver. I sleep better at night knowing the mega rich elite are able to buy more material things at the cost of grinding the environment into dust. In 2016 a staggering 35 billion barrels of oil or 96 mbpd was consumed by all nations. That is 42 gallons per barrel. Damn its like were eating and drinking the stuff like it’s going out of style. Coming soon to a watering hole near you, Mobil, Exxon Lite, and Texas Crude on tap. None of the calories of those thick viscocity refineries.

Civilized Heat Engine

According to the research of Peter Garrett, “atmospheric physicist in the US, who has shown that changes in global population and standard of living are correlated to variations in energy efficiency. This discovery halves the number of variables needed to make emissions forecasts and therefore should considerably improve climate predictions, he claims.”

In the words of Edwin Cartlidge,” Timothy Garrett of the University of Utah in the US believes that much of this uncertainty can be eliminated by considering humanity as if it were a heat engine (arXiv:0811.1855). Garrett’s model heat engine consists of an entity and its environment, with the two separated by a step in potential energy that enables energy to be transferred between the two. Some fraction of this transferred energy is converted into work, with the rest released beyond the environment in the form of waste heat, as required by the second law of thermodynamics.”

What does this mean? It means Tim Garrett is one smart mofo. Well I think it means that humanity as a collective heats the planet from the residual effect of everyday activity. The progressive nature of industrialized civilization is to consume, expand, and grow. These days emerging nations see all the cool stuff we have in the West and boom they want it too. They gotta own iphones, new cars, designer jeans and all kinds of stuff you don’t need that are found on Amazon. It’s a jungle out there or it used to be, now it’s a shopping mall or new housing complex. Burn baby burn. Buy. Consume. Waste. Shop for more useless stuff.

Many scientists say were in the midst of the 6th Mass Extinction. “Yeah that’s great and everything, but will we still be able to buy a six-pack and watch the game on Sunday?”

This lifestyle of getting more and more stuff is driving 150 to 200 species a day to extinction according to a study done by the UN back in 2010. Those numbers are from 7 years ago. What are the odds they have increased in 7 years? With mankind’s track record lately I would say very good and for the plants, insects, and animals very bad. We were put in charge of a literal paradise, bet it will take a long time before the Creator let’s the kids rule the planet without a little more supervision. Free will has it’s growing pains.

Connecting the Dots

Red or Blue pill? W.W.N.D. What would Neo do?

I have noticed for about the last 5 years that airplanes have been spraying the skies full of chemicals that morph into vast amounts of cloud cover. These aerosol chemical cocktails are known to include aluminum, barium, strontium, lead, mercury, plus other toxic metals your mom warned you about. Day in and day out the upper atmosphere is saturated with heavy metal nano particulates that eventually make their way into the air column we breathe and into the entire web of life, rain water, and drinking water. The United States owns over 100 weather modification patents. It does not take a genius to observe what is happening above. If the general public would pull their heads out of the sand for long enough they would see the lion about to pounce them. These climate engineering programs have fancy little politically correct names like stratospheric aerosol injection, solar radiation management, and carbon dioxide removal.

Elephant in the room most don’t notice

What kind of emissions test did this airplane pass?

Funky looking cloud cover, looks dare I say artiificial.

I don’t the FAA allows crossing flight paths.

Not natural?

Does this look like trajectory of flight headed to Vegas?

The contrail is going more north/south than east/west.

If you think the photos above look natural then you are asleep at the wheel. Wake up, take the red pill (the blue pill got you tripping) and use your critical thinking lens to filter thru the bullshit programming and check your reality.

David Keith, a famous climate engineer from Harvard, recently went public with a so called geoengineering experiment planned for 2018. The test involves releasing some weather balloons into the upper atmosphere. The balloons are going to disperse reflective particles into the upper troposphere and then measure how much the sun light is dimmed or reflected. The Harvard geo-nerds hope to someday implement some type of aerosol injection or other climate intervention method to combat global warming. The projected costs are only like $10 billion annually but what about the cost to human health and the environment. The human and environmental price is far beyond any arbitrary economic cost. The power structure is attempting to introduce large scale climate engineering into the public domain like it has not already been happening. David Keith has already stated on the record, the goal is to inject 20 millions tons of aluminum into the atmosphere annually. Its a wonder that 1 in 3 seniors in the U.S. dies with alzheimer or dementia.

Dane Wigington of Geoengineering Watch has posted the results of multiple rainwater tests and the results are quite conclusive. The powers that be are saturating the entire web of life with heavy metal particulates.

Here’s where I connect the dots…

I believe climate engineering, a form of geoengineering is used by the military industrial complex to stall and delay abrupt climate change and/or global warming. The predicament we are in cannot be fixed with climate intervention. In fact climate engineering is accelerating extreme weather events, destroying the ozone layer, and decimating the environment. Also if the powers that be magically stopped spraying aerosols and burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the earth would most likely rapidly increase by 3 C global average temperature from eliminating the dimming effect in a matter of days or weeks. We are damned if we do and damned if don’t. Civilization is a heat engine in itself no matter what form of energy is consumed. The only thing we can do is to keep the party going until the lights go out. The shadow elite behind the scenes pulling the levers of commerce and society are desperate to fix a predicament created by their own unbridled greed. The unfortunate pickle we are in will not be solved by the same technological insanity that landed us here. Maybe we should try not doing anything and let mother nature respond. Less is more. Because the doing in the name of industrialized civilization has bitten us in the ass. We need to stop acting like infinite growth on a finite planet is sustainable. At the rate we are going I imagine things will get very ugly sooner than later.

The best solution I can think of is to take the lead from the Native Americans who were stripped of this great nation that they did not care to own but shared with mother earth. Perhaps our demise was set in motion the very moment civilization decided it was entitled to own mother nature. We should have partnered with the living planet instead of raping, pillaging, and plundering her life force. A common philosophy among Native Americans is to take only what you need for survival and don’t waste anything. We thought they were savages but look what we have done to our mother. How many resources have we extorted and wasted? Civilization in the end is quite obviously the savage. I wish I could tell you that we can fix this mess. Do we really deserve to live on a paradise like earth? Maybe we are getting what we deserve. After all, you can’t poop in your nest day after day and not get poop on your feathers. We are constantly fouling the air, dirtying the water, polluting, and destroying the entire environment.

“Life is about learning lessons. What have you learned in this lifetime? I have learned that it is truly important to live in harmony with all of the Creator’s beautiful creations. When I hurt others I hurt myself. I don’t want to hurt anymore and I am sure you don’t either.”

by Jason Holtzclaw

Abrupt Climate Disaster "If an asteroid was headed toward the earth and the impact would wipe out all life as we know it.

#abrupt climate change #Climate Engineering

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