#lets not go back to begging and lets drive ourselves to the dirt working hard

[imblocking-you]

Kulelat na nga ako sa klase binibigyan ko pa sarili ko ng rason para hindi magtagumpay amp dapat I try harder than this, precisely because of this. Ano na itsura ko sa prof ko niyan? Tanga? Tamad? Mabilis sumuko? Hindi kayang makipagsabayan? I gotta prove that I'm better than this

[daryls-dixon-antoni]

Chapter 22.) First Time Again

After Mason went to bed, Rick, Daryl and the stranger Daryl brought with him are sat in the front room, Daryl is eating and I have my head laid on his shoulder.

"You were right," the stranger named Morgan says to Rick. "It wasn't over."

Rick nods, "We should talk more tomorrow." He starts walking to Morgan. "Listen... I don't take chances anymore."

"And you shouldn't."

I glance up at Daryl who looks at me, "Sorry I didn't say bye."

He shrugs, "Didn't expect you to." After a moment of silence Daryl asks, "Don't ya got watch duty?"

I shake my head, "Sasha said she'd cover me so I can spend time with you... is that okay."

"It's okay."

I'm stood outside while Daryl is working on his bike. Rick comes out the door.

"So, is he okay with it?" Daryl asks.

"It was pretty much his idea. He gets it." they're talking about Morgan living in one of the unfinished houses instead of with the rest of our group.

"It's got a bed and a bath, but it's still a cage, you know?"

I frown as Rick responds, "He gets it. He told me what happened out there with the trucks."

Daryl stands up, "He tell you about those guys he met? The Ws?"

"Like that walker we saw, yeah. We need more watch points. And I'm gonna tell Deanna we don't need to go looking for people anymore." Daryl stays quiet. "You feel different about it?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Well, people out there, they got to take care of themselves, just like us. I'm gonna get him out. Shouldn't leave him in there any longer than we have to."

I walk away, not saying anything. They both have heard my opinion on both subjects, more than once. I go find Sev, who asks how I'm feeling.

"Like if I throw up any more, I'll pass out."

Sev shakes their head, "You tell Daryl yet?"

"No, don't know if I'm going to until I know I'll keep it, y'know? I just... it's not a good time."

"Will it ever be a good time, in this world I mean?"

I scoff, "Right. Well I'm still going to wait."

They nod, "Alright."

We are asked to go to a community meeting, Rick and Morgan saw something that everyone needs to be aware of.

I'm standing next to Sev and Daryl who is sitting in a window sill as a new guy, darker skinned with dreads tied back in to a ponytail; his name is Heath, speaks. "My team; we saw it early on, back when we were on one of those first scouts, finding out what was around here. There was a camp at the bottom. The people, they must have blocked the exits with one of those trucks back when everything started to go bad. They didn't make it. They were all roamers. Maybe a dozen of them."

"No one's been back since?" Maggie asks from her place sitting on the couch next to Glenn.

Heath shrugs, "DC, every town worth scavenging are all in the other direction. And I never really felt like having a picnic next to the camp that ate itself."

"So all the while the walkers have been drawn by the sound," Michonne observes, "and they're making more sound and they're drawing more in."

"And here we are," says Rick. "Now what I'm proposing, I know it sounds risky, but walkers are already slipping through the exits. One of the trucks keeping the walkers in could go off the edge any day now. Maybe after one more hard rain. That exit sends them east. All of them. Right at us. This isn't about if it gives, it's when. It's gonna happen. That's why we have to do this soon."

"This is-" Carol says, her voice slightly shaky. "I don't even have another word for it. This is terrifying. All of it. But it doesn't sound like there's any other way."

"Maybe there is," Carter a man around Carol's age speaks up. "I mean, couldn't we just build up the weak spots? I-I could draw up plans. I-I worked on the wall with Reg. Construction crew- we can try and make it safe."

"Even if we could, the sound of those walkers is drawing more and more every day," contradicts Rick. "Building up the exits won't change that."

Deanna, with her back to the room speaks up, "We're gonna do what Rick says, the plan he's laid out."

"I told you all," Rick continues. "We're gonna have Daryl leading them away."

I clear my throat loudly, reminding Rick of our earlier argument, one ending with me getting a spot on the back of Daryl's bike. "And Anne." Rick corrects.

I nod at him as Sasha says, "Me, too. I'll take a car, ride next to them. Can't just be them. I'll keep 'em coming, Daryl and Anne keeps 'em from getting sloppy."

"I'll go with her," Abraham says, "It's a long way to white-knuckle it solo."

"We'll have two teams," Rick continues. "One on each side of the forest helping manage this thing. We're gonna have a few people on watch from now on. Rosita, Sev, Spencer, and Holly. So they're out."

"Anne should stay behind and help with watch," Sev speaks up.

I shoot them a glare, the earlier argument between Rick and them versus Daryl and me still fresh in my mind.

"We've already argued that enough, Daryl's fine with me shooting while he drives, it's safer than him trying to drive and shoot that damned crossbow at the same time." I speak up, icily.

"Ooh, trouble in paradise," Glenn teases, and I shoot him a glare, to which he smirks.

"Shut it, Glenn. My point being, it's decided, I'll pick my watch shifts back up once we're done with all this."

"Exactly," Rick agrees. "And we need all the people we can get, so who's in?"

"Me," Michonne says.

After some whispered words between Glenn and Maggie, Glenn says, "I'm in."

"I'd like to help as well," Father Gabriel offers.

"No," Rick says, flatly. "Who else? We need more."

Carter speaks up, "There's got to be another play. We can't just control that many."

"I said it before," Rick states, "walkers herd up. They'll follow a path if something's drawing them. That's how we can get 'em all at once."

"So, what? We're supposed to just take your word for it? We're all supposed to just fall in line behind you after..."

"After what?"

"After you wave a gun around screaming, pointing it at people. After you shoot a man in the face. After you-"

"Enough!" Deanna snaps.

"I'll do it," Heath volunteers.

"Me, too." A short haired woman offers.

"Whatever you need," Tobin says, "I'm in."

"Now who else?" Deanna asks.

"I'll go." Nickolas offers, and I roll my eyes. "We have to do this. I need to help."

"You sure you can handle it" Rick asks.

"You need people."

"We'll make this work. We'll keep this place safe. Keep our families safe. We will."

"The plan," Carter says. "Go through it again."

"Man, he just said it." Snaps Daryl.

"Every part again. The exact plan."

We're outside, and Rick points on a map, "Marshall and Redding. We force them west here."

"How?" Deanna asks.

"We block it off so they can only go one way, west, away from the community.

Carter speaks up and I close my eyes, the man is seriously getting on my nerves. "Block it off with what?"

"Cars. We'll use the RVs, some of the bigger trucks, park them end to end." Rick replies.

"We'll be drawing them away," adds Michonne. "They're gonna keep moving."

"Yeah, but that many?" Counters Carter. "Just bouncing off some sedans? And then when they start slipping through and the ones that walk away start distracting the rest and you stop drawing them away?"

"Man's got a point," Heath says.

"We got plates," responds Eugene. "The big-ass metal ones from the construction site. We can use them to fortify the whip wall. It'd help disperse the force of impact and direct the walkers clean. Like a pool table. Eight ball, corner pocket-"

Carter interrupts him, "That's an army out there. And what happens when this doesn't hold? And they push on through. The curve in this hillside is gonna send them right back east. Right back here. You seriously want to risk that?"

"No," Rick says, "So you need to help us to make it hold."

"These walls, you built them." Morgan says, "So you've already done the impossible."

"Carter," Deanna says, softly. "Please."

As we build up the plates, getting ready for the biggest run of our lives, I'm digging near Rick and hear Daryl say as he brings a bucket of dirt to Rick, "Hey, what you said before about us needing to take care of ourselves? Going out, finding more people, that is taking care of ourselves." He starts going the other direction, ready to bring more dirt. "Your call, though."

"I don't think you should be on the bike with Daryl. Or going at all." I look at Sev, who's digging next to me.

I sigh heavily, "I can't stand by and just wait it out. I refuse to be the person at home waiting on the man to get back, hoping he's not dead."

"But you can't be putting yourself in high stress situations. That's just tempting fait."

I interrupt them, "Things'll happen the way their supposed to. But I'd be more stressed waiting at home, then next to Daryl on that bike."

They nod, "Alright, but if Daryl knew, he wouldn't let you go."

"Daryl is my ..." I pause, unsure what to call him. "Person, but he's not my boss. I'm allowed to do what I feel is best for me."

"Okay."

We all hear the twigs snapping, and we all get up, I stand next to Daryl who has his Crossbow at the ready, I have my pistol. The dead start coming from the trees.

"Carter, heads up." Rick says, as he keeps an arm out for us, his original group to hold back.

"Hey," Rick says. "Use your shovels. The guns will draw more."

"Help us," Carter begs.

"You can do this," Rick reassures them. "You need to, all of you."

I watch as the people of Alexandria grapple with the dead.

I see Morgan move forward and I follow his lead immediately pulling out my pocket knife and holstering my pistol as I run to the dead to help the citizens of Alexandria.

"Morgan, don't!" I hear Rick yell, but I can see Glenn, Michonne, Sev, Daryl and now even Rick stepping forward to help.

We take out the dead no problem, there isn't a lot of them after all.

There's a short stare down between an angry Rick and an angrier Morgan after the dead are taken care of. Morgan says, "You said you don't take chances anymore." No one else says anything.

Rick, Morgan, Daryl and I are walking past the pantry when we hear a crash from inside, and we start towards the door. When we open it we see Carter pointing his gun at Eugene, and Rick asks, What the hell is going on? What are you doing?"

"I'm taking this place back from you."

"That's what you were talking about in here?" Rick asks, the rest of the room, the ones still in the gun portion of the pantry.

"That's what he was talking about," says Spencer.

"See, I would have-" Rick looks back at Carter. "I would have set up some lookouts. That would have been the smart thing. You know, if I happened to" Rick takes the gun from Carter and drops him to the ground, clicking the bullet into place inside the gun as he aims it at the now kneeling Carter. "You really think you're gonna take this community from us? From Glenn? From Michonne? From Daryl? From Anne? From me? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

"It was just me," whispers Carter.

"What?" Rick asks.

"It was- it was just me. Just- just kill me."

I grab hold of Daryl's arm, he glances at me before looking to Rick and saying his name.

"I'm good. I'm good," He uncocks the gun and hands it to Daryl. "You can try to work with us. You can try to survive. Would you do that?"

We're standing in the area where it'll be up to Daryl, Sasha Abraham and I to keep the dead moving.

"All right," Rick explains. "This is the finish line. When we make it to green, we fall back. The ditches and ridges will keep them on the road. We head home, but Daryl, Anne, Sasha, and Abraham take them the rest of the way, 20 miles more. All right, let's go."

We hit an equipment shop where the dead are banging on the inside, Rick speaks, "We're gonna take 'em right past here. All that noise could distract them. We'll clear it on our way back tonight. We don't want any surprises tomorrow"

We're on the top of a ledge, overlooking the site where all the Dead are held up, "I know this sounds insane, but this is an insane world. We have to come for them before they come for us. It's that simple." I nod, Daryl and I exchange looks.

"This is where it all starts tomorrow. Tobin gets in the truck, opens the exit and we're off. He hops out, catches up with his team at red staying on the west side of the road. Daryl and Anne get on Daryl's bike-" Rick is cut off by a rumbling sound as we all watch one of the semi's keeping the dead at bay starts falling.

"You see that?" I hear Sasha ask as the Semi completely falls with a loud metalic groan.

"It's open! We got to do this now!" We all start running into action. "We're doing this now!" Rick runs and points at Tobin, "Tobin's group, get moving, go!"

"No," Carter says. "Rick, we're not ready."

"Sasha!" Rick is ignoring Tobin. "Abraham!"

Abraham nods, "Damn straight, we'll do it live."

"You meet Daryl and Anne at red."

I look at Daryl, he is standing strong with hid crossbow out and at the ready. He nods to me as Sasha and Abe begin getting into the red vehicle designated for the run.

"Let them take them through the gauntlet,"

"Yeah, we meet at red." Sasha says.

"Go!"

Glenn rushes over, "Rick, I'll hit the tractor place."

"Okay, who else?" Rick asks.

Glenn turns to Heath, "We got to take them out or they'll distract the horde."

Nickolas runs over to Glenn, "I'm here, let me help."

"No," Glenn responds.

"I'm here!"

"Do everything I say."

"I will."

"Rick, this was supposed to be a dry run," Carter repeats, panic obvious in his voice.

Rick again ignores him, "Daryl, Anne; get ready."

I nod as Daryl yells, "They're coming."

"Rick, we haven't even gone through the whole plan." Carter yells.

"You want to go back, go back. We're finishing this." He turns to Tobin, "Tobin, you hit it on my signal. They're heading for home. We don't have a choice. Get ready to hit the flares."

Daryl and I exchange looks as we both are aiming at the oncoming dead.

"Now!" The flares are shot up.

"Tobin, hit the truck!" I hear Rick's yell, as both Daryl and I start shooting the dead as we retreat to get on his bike. I get on only a little awkwardly after him after he starts the bike up.

We hear Rick over the Radio, "You all have your assignments. You know where to rendezvous. Daryl and Anne lead them out. Sasha and Abraham join them at the bottom of the hill. Glenn, you hit us when you take care of the walkers at the tractor place. That's the one thing we gotta get ahead of. Everybody keep your heads. Just keep up."

Daryl is driving at a slow enough pace, the dead are able to keep up fairly easily.

"We're at red at the bottom of the hill." I hear Sasha from over the radio.

Daryl takes the radio and responds, "All right, here comes the parade."

I hear over the radio Rick ask, "Glenn, you there yet?"

Glenn's response comes almost immediately, "Almost. We'll have it handled before they get here. And we'll meet you at yellow."

"Copy that," Rick's reponse can be heard.

I glance back, the heard is huge, biggest I've probably seen yet, but we're safe. We have this.

"It's huge," I say loud enough for Daryl to hear over all the snarling and the roar of his bike.

"Yeah," is his response.

"Glenn, you have to hurry. The noise could distract the herd right off the road. Talk to me." Rick's voice is heard once more.

"We're here." Glenn's response has me let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"You okay?" Daryl calls back to me.

"Yeah, just relieved Glenn's got his part down." I yell back.

As we make it to the corner we're leading them around, we see the flares start going off behind the plates we put up.

"Here we go!" I yell to Daryl. "Hope this works."

"It will!" Daryl yells back.

As we turn we slow down even more, Daryl basically walking the bike as we go. My stomach is in knots, anxiety wrapping threw me as the dead seem to hit off the walls loudly.

"It's working!" I yell to Daryl. He just nods, keeping his attention on keeping the bike up right even with our slow pace.

"What the hell?" I mutter as when I look back I see Abraham getting out of the car.

"What?" Daryl calls back.

"Abe just got out of the car! He's, he's now getting back in the car... he's fucking insane. And Sev didn't want me going, but at least I wouldn't pull that kind of shit!"

I see Daryl shake his head, and I can't help but chuckle.

I hear the screaming, and I glance back just as I hear Rick over the radio say, "Tobin, they're breaking off."

Tobin responds, "What do you want us to do?"

"Fire your guns and draw them back."

The distant screaming can stops and we hear Tobin over radio, "It's working. The gunfire is bringing them back on the road." We hear the gunfire continue until Rick says.

"You got them, Tobin."

"Copy that. What was that screaming?"

"That was Carter. He got bit right in the face. I stopped him."

"Good," I yell so that Daryl can hear, he merely grunts.

"We're hitting the mark that means only 20 miles more."

"Yeah," Daryl nods, sounding uninterested.

The sound of a distant horn can be heard, and my stomach clenches painfully.

"Daryl!" I yell, the horn...

"I hear it!" Is his response.

"You hear where it sounds like it's coming from."

"Alexandria."

My heart sinks, his agreeing means I'm not crazy.

[gnusnoteunuchs]

2001 Mazda Tribute FWD V6

Its lines are identical to the Escape; my confusion is understandable.

What is it?

When I first saw this Tribute I thought "the poor thing looks like a bootleg Ford Escape," and then ate my words as soon as I found that the Tribute and Escape are in fact exactly the same car. Every time I try to say Mazda Tribute, I almost say Ford Escape instead. Both the Tribute and Escape were the product of a collaboration between Ford and Mazda in the early 2000s, a marriage that also produced the Ford Probe, and resulted from a collective desire from both manufacturers to make a modern and relevant crossover compact SUV. Did it work? I don't know.

The Tribute ends up being a "crossover" not because of its looks or its styling; it really isn't just a jumped up hatchback like many modern crossovers are; rather, it used a Mazda floorpan design along with a powertrain developed jointly with Ford to make a monocoque SUV with a transverse engine and transaxle. Why did they do that? I don't know.

Doesn’t it look sportier than its Ford cousin? I hope it does; it’s a Mazda.

What is it like? The Tribute isn't a very big SUV, but it has the boxy lines of its larger siblings like the contemporary Ford Explorer. Unlike the Explorer, it uses a lighter monocoque chassis that belies its road car origins; though all SUVs are ultimately made to cheat CAFE regulations by being built as light trucks, the Tribute has very little truck-ishness about it. Like other early 2000s SUVs and crossovers, the Tribute doesn't put much effort into looking good; as this was still a time when the Utility in Sport Utility Vehicle really mattered, it was more than acceptable to have it be boxy and businesslike, as opposed to the heavily stylized crossovers of today. The "Sport" comes through in the plastic lower body panels and more aggressive-looking headlights and grille that the Escape forwent, in favor of familiar blocky Ford styling. Mazda had a reputation to uphold with the Tribute, after all. Did it succeed? I don't know. Another crucial difference the Tribute has against its bigger brother the Explorer is its suspension; the Explorer is a good stodgy old body-on-frame truck with a live rear axle, while the Tribute has fully independent suspension, front and rear; in the rear this was likely done so as to maximise parts commonality between the front wheel drive and all wheel drive variants; the only difference between the two on the rear end is the fact that one has got a propeller shaft and differential under and the other hasn't; all of the actual suspension linkages are common with both. It's not the cute, low-slung multilink suspension of the Civic though; the Tribute has a unitized long-travel multilink suspension with nice big coil springs that is installed as a single unit onto the monocoque body. This means that unlike some crossovers, the Tribute really does have an actual SUV suspension. Jeep purists will scoff and say that anything without two live axles and multiple Panhard rods or Watts linkages aren't real offroaders but they forget the caveat here: the Tribute isn't an off roader. It really isn't. It's built on a sedan platform with a transverse engine and 4WD as an option. It's a road car that happes to have some SUV components. So, unlike a Jeep, the Tribute isn't going to be a great offroader. However, with its 200hp V6 and light monocoque body, it'll be great on roads, won't it? Or it'll at least be comfortable on roads, right? You'll see.

It’s cute that you can see exactly where the driveshaft and differential would go.

The Tribute is reasonably spacious inside, and has front bucket seats separated by a center console for ample cupholding and CD storage space. The front seats have integrated headrests that were made for people with shorter spines than myself; I found myself worried about the car's ability to prevent me from snapping my neck in a forward collision. Strangely, it has a column shifter, but a console parking brake, which I found a disorienting combination. My old third-generation Dodge Caravan Sport had a column shifter, but a pedal parking brake that left a huge amount of open space free between the front seats; the Tribute was given the truck-style shifter but then doesn't have the free space it might if it had a pedal parking brake. I sincerely do not understand why Mazda/Ford did this, but as with all cars, you get used to it. At least it isn't as confusing as the Kia Niro, that has a console shifter but a pedal parking brake. The Tribute is pretty easy to get into because of its high stance and its trunk is generously sized, and the one I drove had an aftermarket CD/DVD player that made it a little easier to work the stereo. The seats are comfortable enough, and the upright sitting position and big steering wheel, as well as good visibility, make it easy to drive. Overall, the Tribute functions as a pretty decent crossover, from the days when "crossover" either meant whatever the Aztek/Rendezvous were supposed to be, or meant monocoque, front wheel drive small SUV.

How does it drive? It drives...like an SUV. The monocoque design that does away with a heavy chassis frame doesn't really make it any lighter, and the steering wheel is loose at all speeds, but the power assist makes two-finger driving a possibility. The vague steering wheel is complemented by the loose suspension that soaks up all kinds of bumps; the Tribute actually seems happy on rough, little-maintained roads, as its soft springs and long-travel suspension eat up even the deepest potholes. The jerkiness of rough roads is little diminished, but there is much less bouncing and worryingly heavy thumping than lighter cars like my Civic experience. The soft, high suspension of the Tribute naturally lends it to not want to corner; the rollover risk sticker on the visor says everything you need to know. Body roll happens and the car doesn't really seem to want to keep its grip, but let's be honest with ourselves; nobody who buys an SUV is interested in cornering. The Tribute's one saving grace is its fully independent suspension, which is probably less likely to make emergency maneuvers result in a rollover than a larger or more specialized SUV's live beam axles. Emergency maneuvers might indeed be necessary; the brakes are decent, but can't shake the fact that the car is quite heavy, and between the weight and the rear drums, heavy braking on downhills could quite likely lead to brake fade. Fortunately, the overdrive lockout is an easy to reach toggle button that makes engine braking easier. The Tribute I reviewed came with the 3.0L Duratec V6, developing 203hp. The V6's extra 50 hp over the I4 option doesn't seem like it matters too much though, except for high-tourque applications like towing and off-roading where the car is stuck in first all the time. The somewhat apathetic transmission eats up the engine's revs and prevents the car from really accelerating too hard; putting your foot down results in the throaty V6 roar and...marginal acceleration. I think getting the I4 version with the 5-speed manual would actually be quicker than the 4-speed auto with V6 engine. But again, remember the car we're talking about; this isn't a sporty grand tourer or an offroader begging for boulders; it's a road-going light SUV. Handling isn't really a concern, acceleration is neither expected nor provided, and power is useful insofar as it makes you better able to haul whatever you need, when you need to. The Tribute gets decent city gas mileage, quoted at about 23mpg, and the later hybrid version probably does even better. This isn't great, and highway gas mileage is actually quite bad, but for in-town trips, it's certainly good enough, especially considering how much space you have.

Look how much higher its floor is off the ground than that Passat. Easy to load.

Who is it for? I spent the entire time i drove the Tribute wondering who Mazda sold it to when it was new. It isn't made to be an offroader, but it's still tall, top-heavy, and hefty. It doesn't get amazing gas mileage, partly due to its big, slow-revving V6, but its mileage also could be a lot worse. It doesn't really accelerate, largely due to its transmission, but also partly because of its weight; but the engine offers a good deal of torque which probably makes the Tribute pretty good at towing if it really had to. It has a lot of space inside, but the floor is extremely high off the ground, which is both good and bad for ease of loading. The Tribute is basically a taller minivan with less space and worse handling. Who the hell is this car for? It's for workers and old folks. Think about it; the elderly don't care so much about handling and braking, since they don't drive too fast, and they do enjoy having seats that are high off the ground and easy to get into and out of. They certainly enjoy having lots of space for...whatever it is they do, and having a V6 option harkens back to the old days of high-displacement, slow engines that were the hallmark of true American cars. On the other hand, the Tribute has a lot of space, it's pretty efficient, has more than enough torque for light towing and hauling, and its tall suspension lets it handle dirt roads better than a normal car might; throw in the all wheel drive option and I'm certain the Tribute would shrug off any dirt road short of a rocky fire road. This makes the Tribute/Escape an appealing option for both fleet service and for individual use for contractors, utility workers, and other salt-of-the-earth types who need a light truck but want it to be comfortable and have an enclosed cargo area and four seats. The zero-effort driving style and good in-city mileage make the Tribute a reasonable choice for anybody who prioritizes space and comfort over performance. The Tribute/Escape isn't a bad SUV; on the contrary, it's a fine example of what SUVs truly are when you peel off the aggressive branding. Maybe that doesn't mean it's a good car, but for a lot of people, it's definitely good enough.

[emeraldwaves]

Title: Silent Screams Rating: M Word Count:  1,695 Read on AO3 Summary:   When Cloud is lost in a white haze, it's Zack's voice that keeps him connected to reality.

Full fic under the the cut!! @youaremynewdream read this ahead of time and it’s based on the prompt  "Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always."

So many things are hazy. The world is coated in white smoke and bright lights, his body heavy and aching. The pain is hot and throbbing, coursing through his blood. If he could move his hands, he'd want to scratch his nails down his arms and rip his skin off; peel it away piece by piece, if only to get relief from this pressure. This poison will surely kill him; it's too much for his body.

He's always known he wouldn't make it. His body isn't compatible. He's bound to die. He wants to. At least it would make him lighter, euphoric when the heat and throbbing pain is gone.

But no, somehow he is alive, hanging by some sound in the far distance.

"I got you..."

The sound is a voice. It's one he is so familiar with, one he's heard in so many different ways. It's in the distance of the white haze.

"...-ght Cloud?"

It fades in and out, like a distant memory, hidden in the deepest recess of his mind.

"Cloud!"

Who... why is it impossible to place? It makes him feel so warm, so comfortable, like a blanket of words wrapping around his skin, fighting off the angry heat.

"I got you buddy. I promise."

 Zack.

Cloud wants to scream his name, is desperate to. He wants to cut through the haze with his voice and tell Zack to escape on his own. However, the words get lost in his throat; they can't break through the invisible barrier blocking his throat. He can hear Zack so clearly, the only ounce of clarity he has in his white world of pain.

Nothing is clear but Zack.

But why? And why is Zack here? Or a better question is perhaps why is Cloud with Zack? He needs to run if he's capable. There's no reason for Zack to take Cloud with him. Knowing Zack it's probably because he feels the need to be a hero, embarrassing idiot. He's already Cloud's hero without having to rescue him. He still wishes he could be as cool as Zack, not that he ever will be; he'll never escape this lifeless state.

A hand is on his shoulder. "Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always."

No. Cloud thinks, and through his white haze he sees Zack's bright blue eyes and spiky dark hair. Why?

He's useless. Utterly useless. Always has been, always will be. He couldn't even rescue Tifa. No, Cloud is incapable of doing anything remotely useful, so there's no reason for Zack to save him.

But he still does. He's Zack, and being a hero is what he does best.

There are times when Cloud is directly pressed against Zack's back. He's carrying him. He can smell his musky scent, hear the way his boots drag heavily against the ground. Everything around him is so Zack, Cloud can't deny the obvious. He wants to beg Zack to put him down and run. Run away.

"Hey..." Cloud hears Zack's voice, can make out his face among the darker backdrop. Everything still looks so white, but he can see the smile on Zack's pale face. His eyes shimmer with loneliness, and Cloud wants to reach his hand out and touch Zack somewhere, anywhere, just so he knows Cloud is with him and he knows he's not alone.

"...Do you remember when we first met? I know, I know, you can't answer me..."

 I want to!

"...and who knows if you can even hear me when you're like this."

 I can hear you!

Zack laughs and the sound is heavenly, so soothing for the pain collecting in his veins. "I probably should stop talking to you, you probably want rest-"

 Please, don't stop. Never stop.

Zack's voice is the only thing keeping him alive.

"But I also am kind of tired right now, and I don't want to fall asleep so I'm going to talk to you. Anyway, the first time we met... man, that mountain was damn cold wasn't it?" Zack laughs again, running his fingers through his messy black hair. "But we handled ourselves better than all of them, us country boys! Do you remember?"

Cloud does, but he has a confession, one he doesn't know how to make. He met Zack a few times before, once in the hallways at Shinra... another time when Zack gave a motivational speech to his squad. He'd seen him around plenty of times, but it wasn't until that particular mission they'd actually talked.

"Kinda silly, but I always thought you were cute, even back then. You looked so beautiful... your blond hair so bright against the white snow."

Cloud wishes he could push him for being so damn embarrassing.

Zack starts talking to him every night, or what Cloud perceives to be every night. It's a little darker when he talks more intimately like this, though the white is constantly threatening to take over his vision. Cloud fights it; fights it to hear Zack's voice.

"You know, I wanted to take you on a date somewhere cool, but you always got so sick whenever you had to travel on moving vehicles, so I didn't want to risk it."

 You should've, I would've survived.

He laughs sadly. "You always looked so miserable. And I wanted you to enjoy our private dates. Hell, I'm probably making you sicker, driving you around like this."

Cloud does wonder where exactly they're going. It's impossible for him to see, but he trusts Zack, relies on him. He won't let anything happen to them.

"You know sometimes when we're just sitting here, me and you, I wanna kiss ya! But then I think that'd probably be weird."

 Do it.

"I mean... I know it's nothing we haven't done before, but with you barely being conscious it feels, uh, a little awkward..."

 No, do it, please!

Cloud remembers his first kiss with Zack. Together, they had hid down a corridor in the hallways of Shinra. He recalls how rough his hands were, but they were so gentle when they pulled Cloud's cheeks forward, slotting their lips together perfectly. Cloud had kept his eyes open for a moment before realizing they probably should be shut. Zack's lips had caressed his own, and he hadn't meant to let Zack do all the work, but he had been mesmerized by it.

"But then again who knows! Maybe true love’s kiss will break you from this spell!" He laughs so loud at that, his smile pulling across his cheeks. Cloud almost believes his smile will be enough to clear the fog away.

"I do, y'know," he shrugs. "Love you, I mean. I don't know if I ever told you."

He hasn't, but Cloud knows. He knows from the way Zack moves inside of him, and keeps his blue eyes locked on Cloud's when they kiss and make love. Zack is gentle and loving, a tease too sometimes; he loves pulling beautiful sounds from Cloud's lips. He's so kind and generous, how could Cloud not know.

 I love you too...

And this is how it goes; Zack speaks and Cloud attempts to think as loud as he can, in hopes that Zack might hear him...

The truck rumbles, and he can see Zack's face, but he's having a difficult time hearing his voice. Why? Why can he only hear the sounds of the truck as it rolls over the dirt? There are shouts when the truck comes to a screeching halt, and though Cloud can still only see a vast whiteness, he can sense something is wrong.

Zack's back is the last thing he sees after everything stops moving. His back is rest against something hard, and he sees Zack running away. He tries to scream because he knows; there is no way Zack will come back alive.

Finally, he raises his hand, reaching, hoping to grasp at any part of Zack to stop him, but Zack's already turned around. Far away. He's gone.

The color starts to return to Cloud's world when he hears the massive amount of gunshots. The sky opens up to cry, and he actually feels the water on his skin. His limbs are heavy, his legs incapable of moving.

 Zack!

He has to see him, he has to.

He pulls his body towards Zack's bleeding form. The red is so bright, soaking into the ground, mingling with the water flowing onto the ground. Of course he can see colors so clearly now, a cruel miracle.

"Zack..." he grunts, his voice hoarse and quiet. He glances down at Zack's face, watching his chest rise and fall sporadically with his labored breathing. Water soaks his hair, droplets falling onto Zack's chest, spreading the blood across his shirt.

"Cloud..." he breathes, his hand rising to cup his cheek. He wants to tell him to save his strength, but Cloud can see the bullet wounds. There are far too many.

He's dying.

 "Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always."

So much for 'always'... There are so many things he has to say! Zack can't die yet, not like this. He wants to know his story, how he got them this far. He has to thank him for rescuing him! He has to tell him he loves him too...

"You have to live... for both of us."

But how? He tries to listen to every world Zack says, absorb every word his voice speaks; the voice which kept him alive.

"I..." He hates how much his voice hurts, as though he hasn't spoken in decades. He's never been great with words though, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

"My honor... my dreams..." He holds out the handle of his sword, Angeal's sword. Cloud knows all about it, Zack's most treasured item.

He can't let him down. Not now. Not after everything Zack has done for him.

Wrapping his hands around the handle of the heavy sword, Cloud bites his lip with determination. He will live. He will. After all Zack's done, how could he not? He has to live for both of them.

"I'm your... living legacy."

Zack's breath stops silently. His world goes white once again.

And Cloud screams.

[paladin-of-deneir]

The Day It All Fell Apart

    I had never really wanted to join up with an army of any sort. Never, as a child, had I dreamed of becoming a soldier. But this was different. My love, Marie Lovell, convinced me to join with this militia, said they needed a new drummer after what happened to the last one. So, I decided to join one of the units. Marie was the piper in said unit, and she introduced me to some of the other soldiers. Including one of her friends, a guy named Ham Young-Man. An absurd name, I know. People made fun of him for it. Or I’m sure they would’ve if not for his height. He was maybe the third most intimidating soldier in that unit. But he had a good heart. Never wanted to leave another man behind. In the seven months after I joined, we of course took pride in wiping out several groups of monsters, big and small. Then one day, we bit off more than we could chew.

    It was mid-day when we received orders to destroy a hobgoblin outpost. We thought nothing of it, made our preparations, and began marching to the outpost. When we first arrived, we managed to take them by surprise. We cut through them like a farmer through a field of wheat. Their dwindling numbers forced them into a retreat. Or… so we thought. Instead of us driving them back, they were instead leading us right into a trap. All of a sudden, ogres, must have been half a dozen of them, crashed into the back of the army. I watched in horror as friend after friend was mowed down, crushed, and shot. Then, something ran into me, and I fell hard onto the dirt. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was Marie calling my name. Then… nothing.

    By the time I woke, the full moon hung high in the night sky. My vision was blurred as I pulled myself from the dirt. My ears rang, as well. All I could truly tell was that my head really fucking hurt. As I stood, slowly, painfully, I began to realize that I could hear someone. I couldn’t make it out at first, and in my haze, calling out to the voice seemed like a good idea. It hurt as the noise left my throat, and my voice sounded just as bad to match. The ringing in my ears started to abate, and my vision started to clear. I only caught a quick glimpse of the battlefield before Ham hugged me. He held me close, with tears in his eyes. As he held me there, my head against his chestplate, I finally noticed. The blood. It was everywhere. My clothing, my hair, my hands, his armor. “H-Ham? What’s going on…?” He didn’t answer. “Ham?” No answer, just tears. I managed to pull myself free of his grip, and I finally saw the battlefield in full in the moon’s pale light. And my heart went cold.

    Everyone else was dead. Everyone. Their bodies were strewn about everywhere. Some of them were intact; the arrows and blood the only indication of their deaths. Others… I’d rather not describe what was left. The shock kept me rooted in place until a thought hit me. I ran, as fast as I could, into the field of dead. I looked everywhere until I found her. And when I did, I wished I hadn’t looked. Marie lay there, most certainly dead. There was a slash across her chest, and a stab wound in her gut. Her blood soaked the grass and the dirt, and her face was cold and lifeless. I fell to my knees, overcome with emotion. My heart hurt, and my eyes were filled with tears. I started weeping uncontrollably, my hands clenched into fists. I cried so hard I was coughing like a sick man. I held her cold, lifeless hand as my tears hit the dirt. I begged her to come back. As if that were possible. Ham came over and put his hand on my shoulder, and I just cried harder.

   “I’m sorry. I…” He didn’t finish his sentence. I didn’t blame him. I knew he meant what he said, but I couldn’t find my voice though the tears. I cried for nearly an hour, Ham kneeling next to me, saying “I’m sorry” intermittently. After that time, I found that I couldn’t cry anymore even if I wanted to. I was out of tears to give. I was out of sadness, out of grief. I was just… empty. I just… stared at Marie’s lifeless body, at the blood that stained her shirt.

    By now, dark clouds had rolled over, and rain poured from the sky. The field was dark, save for where Ham aimed his lantern. As he held it on Marie’s body, I saw a glint. I looked closer, and found that it was Marie’s necklace. A colorful crystal heart with a gold accent on a silver chain. I carefully took it from around her neck, and put it around my own. Something to always remember her by.

    It doesn’t matter the immediate aftermath. Let’s just say Ham and I found ourselves back in Waterdeep. We gathered our things from the unit’s barracks. I also looked around Marie’s room, taking a shortbow and some arrows, and the music box she had shown me a few days ago. Then, Ham and I left. We couldn’t bring ourselves to leave the other and go our separate ways, so we stuck together. After the massacre, our relationship changed. Changed from a normal friendship to a sort of brother-sister relationship. We cared for each other, comforted each other after the massacre. We were there for each other like siblings would be. But… at the same time… I hate him. When I look at him, I'm reminded of that awful day. Of our friends, of Marie.

    I do myself no favors, though. Wearing that necklace, keeping the music box, writing that song. I've retreated inward since I lost her. For a while, not a day passed where I didn't consider joining Marie. A dagger across my throat is all it would've taken. But I always stopped myself, telling myself that Marie would want me to live on. Even so, I hardly talk to people, and even when I do, I'm really hesitant. To most people, I likely come off as really shy. I just… can't bring myself to make any new friends. Certainly no new lovers. Never.

    Blake... I know she means well, that she cares. She's my sister, after all. But... she's away too much. The Harpers apparently don't see fit to give her any sort of break, not even if her sister did just expierence something traumatic and life-changing. That's fine, though. Not like we'd talk much either way.

    Recently, Ham managed to convince me to do some more work. He and I signed on to escort a merchant to a city called Clovershire. So far, everything seems to be going fine. Something tells me it won't last.

So this is where I’m starting here on Tumblr. The backstory for Olivia Carmine, a human bard I was playing for a while before... certain events happened. I like this story, even though it might be one of the darker things I’ve ever written.

A quick note: Ham Young-Man is my friend’s character. Yes the name is stupid. Moving on.

Enjoy!

[aiimaginesbts]

Halloween Special 7 | Secret Tunnel

Jungkook and Reader

Genre: Horror

Word count: 1,963 words

A/N: The basic idea for this story is from one of the ghost stories from one of my high schools.

A week-long Halloween Special, also for Bangtan Bookclub’s October Supernatural Challenge!

[1] Late Night Shower (Seokjin) [2] Extra Passenger (Yoongi) [3] Regional Photos (Hoseok) [4] Found Me (Namjoon) [5] Visiting Granny (Jimin) [6] A Long Drive (Taehyung) [7] Secret Tunnel (Jungkook)

Disclaimer/Copyright

"Are you serious?" The incredulousness in my response spoke volumes even without looking up from the notebook I was writing in. I had known Jungkook forever and I loved him to bits, but he was so gullible that it exhausted me at times.

His pout might have been adorable if I hadn't had the urge to smack his silliness away. "Aw, come on, you never know."

"It's obviously just a made up story that seniors pass down to innocent juniors like you," I said, putting down the pen in my grip as I turned to face him.

"Still, don't you think it's weird? There's just no way for all these clocks to stop at the same time."

To his delight, the statement caused a crease to form between my eyebrows as I considered it despite myself. Of course the fact that each and every one of the clocks in the school had stopped at the same exact time hadn't escaped my notice. Even if they all used the same batteries that had been inserted at the exact same moment, it was just impossible for all of them to stop right down to the same second at the same time. However, it wasn't something that kept me up at night; after wondering about it for a while, I'd moved past the mystery and forgotten about it. Sighing, I conceded the point.

"Still, what does that have to do with this secret tunnel?"

"Everything! Haven't you been listening to me?" Jungkook threw his arms in the air in frustration.

"Not really, no," I laid the truth down on him without hesitation, picking up my pen again, but he grabbed my hand before he lost my attention.

"The reason why the clocks stopped is in that tunnel," he said with an air of secrecy, but it just made me roll my eyes.

"I think they're just messing with you, Jungkook."

His incessant whining combined with the stamping of his feet reminded me of an annoying, overlarge baby. "Come on! If it isn't there, then that's that. But there's no harm in checking it out for ourselves!"

"I consider being caught by the school guard in the middle of the night as harmful, Jungkook," I grumbled a few hours later.

"Relax, no one will come in." Jungkook reassured me as he unscrewed the grill in front of him as swiftly as he could while remaining silent. Moonlight shone generously through the windows lining near the ceiling of the school's main hall, but unless someone opened the door, Jungkook and I would remain unseen.

"How did you manage to unlock this place, anyway?" Curiosity begged me to ask while I directed the beam of the flashlight over his shoulder from behind. His crouched position with one hand working the screws while the other held the grill in place so it wouldn't crash to the floor made it hard for him to hold his own flashlight up.

"I was helping a teacher move some chairs around earlier and didn't lock up when I left." The explanation was simple and anticlimactic, but at that moment the grill gave way without having anything to hold it up, and my interest was piqued again.

He set it down with a soft clang and got on his hands and knees to crawl in. "I'll go first," he confirmed before switching his flashlight on and putting it into his mouth. I nodded, watching him inch into the hole which barely fit him, then jammed my own light into my mouth and followed suit. As expected, the air was heavy with dust and I could immediately feel my nose getting irritated, but I tried my best to ignore it.

"Hey, come forth just a little more." Jungkook's sudden instruction was surprising. Did he stop so he could take out the flashlight from inside his mouth and talk? Before I could put any more thought into it, I could see the floor of the narrow channel disappear in front of me. Tilting my head up, I saw him grinning with his hand outstretched towards me.

Taking it in my own, I let him help me out and into the larger tunnel. It was a relief to have room to stand up, but it was even darker here with no moonlight coming from the hall. I could see that the path led somewhere, but I couldn't make out much past Jungkook. Still, I looked around the place. It would have been pitch black if not for our flashlights but I could see dirt all around us, from our feet to the uneven ceiling above our heads, making up the tunnel. There weren't any skulls or suspicious bones lying around, which was a huge relief to me. "Looks like this isn't just an ordinary air vent, after all."

Jungkook grinned triumphantly at my reluctant admittance. "See, I told you there's a tunnel here!"

Scoffing at his childishness, I said, "Whatever. Are we going to go on or not?"

At my prompting, he turned and walked away, but not before flashing me one last smirk. Although I could walk properly now, the tunnel was hardly wide enough to fit two people walking side by side, so I remained behind Jungkook, letting him lead the way.

I had no idea how long we trudged through the dry, musty space in silence, but the lack of excitement and monotonous gentle decline as we sank further into the Earth must have made it seem longer than it really was. However, after a while, I could sense a gradual but increasing change. The hairs at the back of my neck stood up on end, goosebumps covered my cool skin as the temperature noticeably dipped and the air grew inexplicably heavier.

"Jungko—oof!"

Just when my unease grew enough for me to voice my concern, Jungkook suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing me to crash into his back. I managed to avoid falling back on my behind by grabbing fists of his shirt, but I was a little indignant about his lack of concern over my almost mishap. Peeking over his right arm, I found that his gaze was transfixed on the sight before him.

We had reached a dead end. Packed dirt and stones prevented us from going any further. However, upon closer look, I saw wooden planks between the Earth, stretching from the floor to the ceiling of the tunnel. Now that I thought about it, the obstacle was packed too tightly and orderly for it to have been caused by a collapse. This was a constructed barrier, meant to keep people out.

If I felt unsettled before, it was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. The deathly silence was even more pronounced when my rapid heartbeat thundered in my ears, skin prickling with mysterious static, my body filled with unknown dread; a sense of foreboding.

"Jungkook, we should leave."

"Yeah." For once, he didn't argue, but simply swiveled on the spot and urged me to return where we came from. It wasn't difficult to make our way back as the tunnel was one way with no branches off the sides. Which was a good thing, as I could hardly think of anything other than escaping this place, racing forward with Jungkook behind me, hardly noticing the ascend back to the surface.

At last, after scrambling through the vent, I crawled back into the hall. Fresh air greeted my lungs like a cherished old friend, and I could hear Jungkook gulping down copious amounts of it himself. If I was in my right mind, I would have scolded him for dragging me into this but I was too spooked as it was, so we returned home with nothing more than a 'good night'.

Even though I managed to attend school the following day, I wasn't surprised that Jungkook didn't. However, when he didn't turn up the next day, and the next, I became more and more worried. It didn't help that I kept seeing dark shadows dart just out of the corners of my eyes, but nothing else had happened to me. At least, not yet.

There it was again. I swiftly whipped my head around to look, but it was useless to try to catch a glimpse of the elusive shadow. It was too fast for me to see, but every time it happened made me question myself. Was I seeing things?

"Where did you go?"

I jumped at the croaking voice, turning around to see the old gardener sitting on a wooden bench. Feeling a little foolish, I looked around but there was no one else in the vicinity, so I took his offer to sit next to him on the other end of the bench.

"So where did you go, young lady?" He repeated the question.

I glanced at him. He seemed lucid and as far as I could tell, sane. At first I was confused, but his shrewd gaze sent me a jolt of understanding. Hesitantly, I told him, "That tunnel in the main hall."

"Hmm, that one, eh," he hummed, stroking the wispy ends of his white beard. "Where are the others who went with you?"

When I asked, "How did you know I was with someone else?" His answer was, "You don't seem to be the type to go to such places alone," which was fair, and accurate.

"He's at home," I said with a sigh. "Only after I called a million times did he send me a message saying he's not feeling well."

"That's to be expected," he chuckled, and I glared at him. This was no laughing matter. Jungkook being too sick to answer my calls right after going into that place, with me seeing things... it had to be the reason. "How far did you go?"

Startled by the question, I answered it without even thinking. "Until we hit the dead end."

"That far..." He stared straight ahead, his expression thoughtful. "You didn't try too get through?"

"No!" My insistence came out louder than I intended, but I didn't care. I was definitely too scared to do anything but flee at that point then, and I was sure that Jungkook didn't try anything either.

My adamant statement was apparently enough to satisfy the old man, and he smiled. "That's good. You friend will get better once it is convinced that neither of you will try to break in."

"It?"

Now looking at me again, he asked, "Could it be that you don't know what is in that tunnel?" Mutely, I shook my head. "I only heard that it had something to do with all the clocks in school stopping at the same time."

"Ah, that's right," the gardener recalled the detail. "Well, I suppose they did stop, probably when she breathed her last breath."

"Who did?"

"The girl taking care of the contents in the tunnel," he answered. "The one who is watching you and your friend now." At my panic-stricken expression, he reassured me, "Don't worry. If you don't touch what is not yours, she will eventually leave you alone."

"As for what she is guarding," he groaned as he pushed himself up on his feet. "It's better if you don't know."

Before he could walk away, I called out the question that I'd been wondering since I sat down. "How did you know where we went?"

"I didn't know where exactly, but this is not the first time I've seen someone scared out of their wits like you before. This school used to be a military camp, and you kids could never stop yourselves from digging up things that are best left buried."

With that, he walked away, leaving me to wonder just how many secrets this place held.

[mariequitecontrarie]

Summer Stock

Summary: It’s the final day of the Gold family’s visit to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Belle doesn’t want to leave the corn maze. Rating: T Word Count: 2,300 A/N: My contribution to @rumbellesummervacation and my 50th Rumbelle fic! Yay! Enjoy the fluff, campers. Thanks to @magnoliatattoo for reading it over and @rowofstars for being awesome.

{On AO3}

“Isn’t this fun?” Belle asked cheerfully, blowing a curly tendril of hair out of her eyes.

His wife beamed like the sun, and Rumplestiltskin smothered a frustrated sigh. She was glowing with excitement and a fine sheen of sweat as she led him through the five-acre corn maze at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm in Ronks, Pennsylvania, located deep in the heart of the Amish countryside.

“Fun,” he agreed with a curt nod, angling his way through the rows of corn. Belle was having such a good time he didn’t have the heart to disagree, but two-year-old Gideon was a sweaty weight on his back, their sturdy toddler growing heavier with each step in the backpack baby carrier. The two-hour mark had come and gone and his three-hundred-year-old back was whining in complaint. Why were they wandering through a damn field, anyway? Fields were for working, not gallivanting, but after making Belle wait so long to see the world, he was loathe to spoil even an ounce of her enjoyment. He glanced at his watch and trudged onward.

Beneath their feet, the hard-packed dirt was strewn with hay and corn husks and a dusty smell mingled in the humid air. They wove through the twisting rows of corn, pulling random stalks to the side in tight spots. Before long, they came to another fork in the long, arduous path.

“Which way?” Belle squinted in both directions, weighing the options. “I think left.”

“Then left we shall go.” He motioned for Belle to walk ahead of him.

They meandered in silence for a while, then ran into another dead end.  This time it was Rumple who made the choice. “Right?”

Belle tilted her head in his direction. “You’re not having fun, are you?”

He peered up at the sky, now strewn with pink and grey clouds as dusk approached. “Me? I’m having a wonderful time,” he lied. “But we’ve been walking in here for quite a while now. What do you say we use the map and steer ourselves to the finish line?” He met her eyes hopefully.

“And allow ourselves to be bested by a corn maze?” She crossed her arms over her chest with a playful glare. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Rumple?”

“I left it behind at the farmer’s market,” he replied, patting his trim stomach. He shot her a mock leer and framed her hips between his palms, digging his fingers into her flesh. “But I could reclaim it again in our room back at the bed and breakfast.”

Belle giggled and swatted at his wandering hands. Earlier today, they had examined every nook and cranny of the Bird-In-Hand country market, stuffing themselves with Amish-made delights and sipping freshly squeezed lemonade. They had perused aisles of baskets and crafts, admired stacks of homegrown fruits and vegetables, and tasted jewel-toned jams and jellies while Gideon pointed at kittens and puppies and gnawed on a bright red licorice whip that rivaled him for height. Rumple had even presented her with a shining crimson rose, its stem still dripping with dew.

“Is this a real bloom, or a person in disguise?” she’d teased, eyes glittering with amusement. The past was truly behind them, and on a beautiful, sunny day with the two people she loved most in the world at her side, Belle could even reflect on Gaston without guilt.

She smiled at the flushed face and glazed eyes of their two-year-old slung over Rumple’s back. Their boy had been a trooper during the trip, toddling around farms, pointing at the sleek, Amish buggies drawn by horses, and trying new foods from sticky, molasses-laced Shoofly Pie to orange-flavored milk, but even the energetic, affable toddler had reached his limit. Gideon had long since grown bored with the maze and had given up on begging his parents to chase him through the thick rows of corn. “Up Dada, up!” he had insisted, and promptly snuggled against Rumple’s back and popped his thumb into his mouth.

Gideon rubbed chubby fists over his eyes, fighting the pull of sleep, and Belle ran a comforting hand over his chestnut curls, urging him to succumb to exhaustion. At last he closed his eyes, his long thick lashes forming crescents against his flushed cheeks. “Someone’s asleep,” she said quietly.

“What an excellent idea. Aren’t you tired yet?” Rumple prodded.

“Another half hour,” Belle murmured. She was tired, but she didn’t want to admit it to Rumple, who never seemed to run short on energy. After a long day of sightseeing and keeping pace with Gideon, her feet ached and soaking in a bathtub and sinking into the king size feather bed with her husband sounded like heaven. But sleep could wait. It was Labor Day weekend and the last afternoon of their trip before they began the long drive back to Storybrooke, and she wanted to savor every moment before summer drifted away.

She’d fallen in love with Lancaster County; the clean, crisp smells of horses and hay and kettle corn filled the air, reminding her of an endless carnival. Gorgeous displays of black-eyed Susans dotted the countryside and a few elm trees had begun to switch colors, heralding the arrival of fall. The Plain people, with their modest dress and kapps and brimmed hats and simple ways fascinated her, and she vowed to add a section on the Amish to the Storybrooke Library as soon as they were home.

As they continued through the maze, the cheers and chatter of other people became muted, and the high rows of corn prevented them from seeing anyone else. With Gideon fast asleep, for the first time since she and Rumple had lived together at the Dark Castle, it felt like they were the only two people in the world and she was loving every moment. Yes, she could get used to this peacefulness.

“We could head over to that used bookstore we saw on the way here,” Rumple coaxed. “Thousands of titles, it promised.”

Belle hesitated—books were her greatest weakness—but stubbornness won out.

“Nice try.” She shook her head and when they came to another dead end, turned to the right. “Let’s finish the maze, please? It will give us a sense of accomplishment.”

“We have a giant beanstalk crop back home,” Rumple pointed out with a cheeky grin. “If it’s accomplishment you desire, I’m sure the Princeling’s dwarf team would carve a path through it so you could get lost every day.”

“Aha! You do miss Storybrooke.” Belle grinned in triumph. “I knew it! Two weeks away from home is too long for you.”

He harrumphed. “I do not miss that backwater hamlet one bit.”

“At least people drive cars there,” she said, laughing at his stricken expression.

Rumple thought about the Amish buggies and smirked as they rounded another corner in the interminable maze. Since spying the plain black contraptions, precocious Gideon had taken to calling their Cadillac a buggy and wanted to know why it wasn’t pulled by a horse. “We have a car here.”

“There’s electricity back home, too,” Belle said with a sly smile. “Think you could give it up?”

“The bed and breakfast where we’re staying has electricity,” he countered. “Otherwise, I hear no noise, no congestion off the main drag, no telephones ringing, and most of all, no Charmings banging on my shop door for help. There is one problem though. The names of these towns. Blue Ball? Intercourse? And I thought Storybrooke was ridiculous.”

Belle snickered; the Amish did have a curious taste for double entendre.

“You seem very at home here in the country,” Belle considered, admiring his loose blue jeans, half-buttoned blue linen shirt, and sneakers. Pleased he shared her love of Lancaster County’s quiet, rolling hills, she smiled at the memory of a barn cat winding its way through Rumple’s legs and rubbing against his ankle this morning on the porch at the inn. He’d gathered twice as many eggs as she had in the chicken coop and filled pails of frothy, creamy milk faster than any of her father’s servants who had worked in the barns in Avonlea.

Then again, he was accustomed to this.

Hundreds of years earlier, before he’d become the Dark One, her husband had lived a life not dissimilar to the Amish. He’d kept a simple home and labored in hard, honest work, spinning wool in exchange for food and supplies. She felt a pang of guilt and wondered if he missed being a spinner. She knew he didn’t miss the powerlessness, but perhaps he missed his craft? In the two years since Gideon had been born, they’d had one wistful conversation about starting over in the Enchanted Forest, but nothing had ever come of it.

“When we go home, Rumple, you should start spinning again,” she suggested. “You’re so talented.”

“I’ve been meaning to try, but with Gideon we’re so busy.” Rumple dipped his head, his eyes clouding and his brow furrowed. “Do you think you would have liked me as a simple sheep farmer and spinner, Belle?” he asked, giving voice to her thoughts. “If I hadn’t been…”

She laid a seductive hand on his chest, fingers mapping the outline of one pectoral muscle. “The most powerful sorcerer in all the realms?” she whispered.

“Yes.” He made a choking noise as she tweaked a nipple. When Belle touched him, he felt anything but powerful. “If you don’t stop that, you’re going to find yourself on your back in the dirt, my lady,” he threatened, inhaling a sharp breath as her hands drifted over his ribcage.

It wasn’t the life of a spinner he missed; rather, it was solitude he craved. The only reason he liked vacations at all was for Belle’s sake; she wanted to see the world, and he longed to show it to her. Deep down, he wished for their drafty old castle in the snowy mountains, just he and Belle and Gideon, plus any other children the gods saw fit to bless them with. He would spin in the great hall and she would read to their babies. His happy vision darkened—perhaps Belle’s memories of their life in the Dark Castle weren’t as fond for her as they were for him.

At his back, Gideon gave another sleepy sigh and snuggled closer.

As for the maze, he was more than ready to be done with it. “Let’s go this way.” Rumple crooked a finger, eager to get to the end before nightfall. He grimaced at Belle’s towering red sandals, the only ridiculous part of her otherwise sensible shorts and t-shirt. “Your feet must ache in those shoes.”

“Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “These heels are two inches shorter than what I usually wear.”

“Turn here.” Rumple cupped her elbow and steered her around another corner.

Belle dug in her heels around the next bend. “Are you using magic to rush to the finish?”

He glanced at the family passing on their right. Freckle-faced twins around Henry’s age gave him a strange look, then pummeled each other and raced by. “Magic doesn’t work here,” he reminded her through gritted teeth when the kids disappeared around the next curve.

“You are, aren’t you?” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Rumple, it’s only a corn maze.”

“Exactly.” He nodded at the unused map still clutched in her hand, dismayed and slightly hurt that she didn’t believe him. He tapped a stalk of corn. “This is supposed to be fun. So why is it so important we do it your way?”

Her face fell. “I never thought of it like that.”

Alarm pricked at him. Something was wrong, and it had nothing to do with the ridiculous corn. “Belle, what is it? Talk to me.”

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “It’s silly. I’m sorry for being bossy. We can go now.”

“It’s obvious something is troubling you, sweetheart.” He reached for her hand and squeezed. “We’re so much better at sharing how we feel now. Worlds away from where we used to be. I’ll tell you what’s on my mind if you tell me what’s on yours, ok?”

“Deal,” she said with a shaky smile.

He nodded in encouragement and waited for her to speak.

“It’s just…you don’t need me, Rumple. You never have…” Her voice was small and weary and his heart clenched in his chest. “You need hardly any sleep, and between you and Gideon I feel like I barely keep up, like you’re always stopping and slowing down for my sake. I guess I wanted to prove I could outlast even you on the final day of our trip and get us through the maze without any help.” Her sigh sounded like defeat.  “See? You’re smiling. I told you it was stupid. Now what was it you wanted to say?”

He couldn’t stop the grin plastered across his face if he tried. “I’m exhausted. Our son is exhausted. May we please quit for the day?”

“Really?!” she squealed, clapping her hands.

She sounded so happy he was dead on his feet that he laughed.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, pulling her into his arms in the middle of the maze. People scooted around them, giving them questioning stares and rolling their eyes, but he couldn’t have cared less. “I do need you. I need you every single day of my life.”

“Me too.” Moisture gathered in her sapphire eyes. “And Rumple—spinner, Dark One, or pawnbroker, I would have loved you no matter who you were or who you choose to be. I always will.”

“See, that’s why I need you,” he said, wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs.  

“Is that all you need?” she asked, pressing her cheek to his chest.

“Well, no.” He paused. “I also need another one of those apple dumplings from the market before we leave town.”

She laughed and raised a white flag, signaling for a guide to help them out of the maze. “I think that can be arranged.”

[americanstandard-blog1]

feeling weird in sheetz

america i have given you all and now i’m nothing

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out

some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must lead

i’m with you in Rockland where you’re madder than i am. i’m with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange. i’m with you in Rockland where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter. i’m with you in Rockland where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio

do i contradict myself? very well, then. i contradict myself. i am large; i contain multitudes

i bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass i love, if you want me again look for me under your boot-soles

all lines from famous poems that at one point in time i believed i understood. i felt them. i was sure of it

i remember explaining to someone who had never smoked marijuana that you can’t feel a feeling until you’ve felt it. preconceived notions are not feelings. there’s more than a fine line of difference

now i feel these lines

i call out to my gods and i beg them for help. do they have any advice pertaining to navigational techniques while journeying through an existential crisis?

my brain contains no gps

i call out to the gods of the multiverse. morrison, you seemed to rather enjoy your existential journey. what is that like? grant or jim, i’d enjoy hearing from you both. feel free to chime in, please

the neuroscientist on the other end of the phone told me i had a maserati brain that was running on a ford fiesta engine. so i hopped in my 2003 subaru outback with the gas light on and i left like a thief in the night. friends, apartment, job, countless memories, five years, almost to the day. down the drain, all left in the dust of my 2003 subaru outback with the gas light on and a flat front right tire. eye and eye i’ll see ya when i see ya

is that a suitable so long, philadelphia note?

it’s a cold evening in january. the date is unknown. i am chain smoking cigarettes on my ride home from philadelphia

i have been chain smoking cigarettes on this exact ride for the better part of five years now

the fine line of difference now is that i am certain that when i get home i am going to check myself into the psyche ward

instead, i drive to the office of the mother of my childhood best friend

she used to make these oreos covered in vanilla frosting and sprinkles when we were younger

they don’t sound like anything special but two decades later, in the rock bottom moment of my life, in a moment where i literally cannot even begin to imagine the ability to think or see straight, my mouth is watering thinking about how much i loved those cookies

she is hooking me up to a foreign looking machine that reminds me of the one they hooked eleven up to in stranger things

i don’t think a machine can fix OCD, but i’ll give it a try. life’s about taking risks, you know

i tell her how every morning i wake up and write three positive thoughts to start off my day but the bad ones still manage to find a way in

i explain to her that i have exhausted every single fiber of my being trying to become a more stable individual

that in the past month i have filled three entire journals front to back, yet still i find myself here

how every weekend when i come home i write out a list and i burn it while i’m driving up the turnpike

i tell her how i feel like i’m just too far gone to ever come back

she looks at me and says “wes, you are so much more than too far gone… but you can come back”

i’m not sure if i believe her but anyone who has ever tasted her cookies when they were younger knows that this woman knows what she’s fucking doing

i think about kurt vonnegut

did he ever experience a moment like this? he must have

i was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all

and i asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep

of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are “it might have been”

you don’t pull one liners like that out of your ass. i’m certain he’s experienced plenty of moments like this

oh great uncle kurt, where are you now in your infinite wisdom?

i don’t want to be turned into a pillar of salt

i think about you

you who’s hearing imaginary voices through the bare concrete walls of the dorm room. let me be your voice of reason. my voice says i’ll love you forever. can you hear it?

you who’s lying somewhere six feet deep 3,000 miles away. i remember when we were children. a bond is for life and i’m still here

you the young children of the father who was more concerned with artificially speeding up his heart beat than the heart beats of his loved ones

you the guardian angel knocking on the door in the middle of the night, who despite previous intentions, unknowingly saves a life

you the therapist who’s office looks something more like a shrine to the almighty, who tells patients they must confess their sins, who tells confused individuals they must seek penance for their unholy thoughts and actions

you who’s lying unconscious in a parking lot. your eyes will open soon you just don’t know it yet

you the ex-girlfriend calling the ex-boyfriend at 4 a.m. years later to tell him that you finally got your revenge. you walked right up and popped him straight in the jaw. it’s true, life is a full circle

you with golden hair and rounded glasses who’s very sorry but she has other plans. you said there’s no such thing as a healthy mind and that really helped me. i’m sorry it’s just so hard to be friends with someone who has a smile like that

you the friend turned enemy who can’t seem to look those they’ve wronged in the eyes when passing one another in a crowded movie theater. i remember you crying over her on the edge of the bed when we were kids. i feel your pain my brother. do you want to know the secret answer to your endeavors? love is a dog from hell page 92 lines 52 through 61. but, i know you know that

you getting fucked on the basement floor while she pretends to sleep on the couch. you deserve so much more than that and anyone who has ever met you knows that. i owe you more than you can ever imagine

you who pretends to get off on mental instability within herself and others. i know there’s a fire burning in there. you try to dim it with alcohol but it will catch if you just let it

you whose face is bloody and mangled after falling off that god forsaken machine. can we please just be 15 again? you can wait until your mother falls asleep and steal her car and we will feel strange and watch movies

you who’s working in a factory dreaming just dreaming of better days in california. none of them can even remember their dreams. your father wasn’t going to mcdonald’s at 3 a.m. but you can go wherever you want

i am with all of you in Rockland where we must feel strange. we are here because we have bluebirds in our hearts but we let them out

we contradict ourselves but that’s ok

i am underneath your boot-soles and you under mine

after all

i and i is you and me

[eddiejpoplar]

Exploring the Southern Border in a 2017 Ram Power Wagon: Arizona to the Gulf of Mexico

Arizona dissolves into yellow plains as we push through New Mexico and into Texas, stopping in El Paso just long enough for a meal. We’re never more than 30 miles from the border, and our hours have caught a cadence of gas stations, hole-in-the-wall food joints, and roadside motels. The Ram Power Wagon shows the marks of our miles, dusty and pinstriped, splattered with a thousand desert bugs. The perfect wanderer, inside and out, its plush leather seats comfortable, its bare vinyl floors up to the task of enduring the sand and grit we track in. We eat and aim for Big Bend National Park, some eight hours from Texas’ western-most city. It’s a long ride down I-10. Another reminder of how gargantuan our country is, of the impossible scope of us.

The daylight left us hours ago by the time we find Highway 90, and the sky’s spattered from horizon to horizon with stars, so many that my familiar constellations are lost in the wash. We drive for long hours, nothing in our high beams but two yellow lines and a few hundred hare.

The morning shows us what we were missing by staring at the stars. The landscape has changed. Just outside of Presidio, the Rio Grande is a green and living ribbon twisting its way through the Texan bedrock. Life clings to the banks. You smell it long before you see the river proper—the delicious aroma of water and the sweet perfume of wild and thriving desert trees. Mesquite and juniper hang on the cool morning air and come singing through our open windows. The land goes wild, the river slicing through deep gorges, taking the border with it. At Santa Elena Canyon, the rock faces that separate the U.S. from Mexico are 1,500 feet high.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area, there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

Jennette Jurado has been a park ranger at Big Bend for 11 years, and though she’s a Michigan native, it’s clear from the way her voice swells when she talks about the place that she thinks of this as home. Her eyes are bright and smiling as she tells us that there are two parks here. Between Big Bend and Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, the park service manages 245 miles of the international border.

Both are part of the largest Border Patrol sector in the South, one that covers some 510 miles of border and blankets 135,000 square miles, including 118 counties in both Texas and Oklahoma. Despite its size, it’s the quiet-est sector for illegal alien crossings. In 2016, the area saw 6,366 apprehensions, less than half of the next busiest sector, Yuma. Agents apprehended a total of 415,816 individuals attempting to enter the country illegally last year, and though that’s a staggering figure, the agency says the number is a long way from the high-traffic era. Between 1980 and 2008, apprehensions averaged 1.1 million individuals per year.

Jurado says that in her 11 years at the park, she’s never personally seen or interacted with anyone trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. through Big Bend. When I ask if she feels safe here, she offers a smile and laughs. She tells us she routinely heads out to hike in the park alone and has never had a problem. The biggest danger is the environment, she says, because hikers routinely underestimate just how much water they need.

There is no physical barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose, and when we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area,” she says, “there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

The cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon split the United States and Mexico at Big Bend. They’re breathtaking, taller than the Empire State Building, flagpole and all.

She has a hard time keeping the pride out of her voice. And later as we wander the 50-mile dirt road that hugs the Rio Grande, we understand why. This is a place to be proud of. The Chisos Mountains are stunning, rising 2,000 feet up from the desert plain like a fortress on our horizon. Ocotillo plants wave their alien, spiny arms at the sun as we pass. We see horses, wild or near to it, their flanks shining amber in the sunlight. Even in early spring, it is impossibly hot. Sweat wells and evaporates on your skin the second you step outside, leaving a thin and coarse trail of salt behind. There is no manmade barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose. When we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

The sun is setting by the time we make the eastern end of Big Bend, the sky dimming to navy as the light fades. Eager stars flicker behind those old mountains, and a cool wind picks up. After the bake of the day it’s almost cold, and we find ourselves grabbing our jackets as we point the truck toward Laredo.

When we arrive the next day, we find an entire economy hanging on the border. The Laredo Port of Entry is the busiest land port in the Western Hemisphere. Forty percent of America’s trade with Mexico comes across its bridges.

We meet with Port Director Gregory Alvarez and Assistant Port Director Alberto Flores on a busy morning.

“NAFTA is really occurring in Laredo,” Flores says. “You see that raw material coming from Canada, transiting through the U.S., going to Mexico, then you see some of that raw material coming back as a complete product.”

Flores is a Laredo native. He speaks quickly, his dark brown eyes ready with a sharp and mischievous joke if the moment presents itself.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. … we beg Them to scan the Ram, but the agents say no. “We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there.”

Alvarez is tall but soft spoken, his words considered and precise. He pronounces the Spanish names of towns to the south with a fluent flourish. He’s been port director here since late 2015. The port’s activity forces Border Patrol to walk a hard line between border security and trade facilitation.

A Customs and Border Protection helicopter runs a drill outside our hotel in Laredo, Texas.

“You’ve got that dual mandate of economic security and everything that entails,” he says, “and national security and everything that entails.”

Alvarez isn’t shy about the drug traffic that continues to come across the border at ports of entry.

“Without getting too detailed on specific seizures and arrests, we have a lot,” Alvarez says. “You have large interdictions, and you have them often on World Trade Bridge.”

He says 1,000 pounds is pretty average for a marijuana seizure.

Local news reports are full of headlines about what the Port of Laredo has seized in the past year: $800,000 worth of heroin in March and $5.6 million in cocaine in February. Alvarez is proud of the work his agents are doing, but he’s not naive.

Agents will inspect auto parts on their way north from factories in Mexico.

“We recognize that it’s just not a problem we’re going to seize our way out of,” he says. “It’s got to be a much more sophisticated approach.”

I ask if Alvarez cautions his agents about crossing the border. There were restrictions in 2007 and 2008 but not now, he says. Many of his agents have family on the southern side of the border and regularly travel to Mexico to visit.

Alvarez says he knows the violence spun out of control with the cartels, and when it did it spurred a massive response from American law enforcement that continues to this day. Customs and Border Protection is now the largest, most well-funded law enforcement agency in the country with an annual budget of more than $13.56 billion, and it enjoys a breadth of function unlike any other organization in the U.S. government, with oversight of 44 other agencies.

“It’s bad for business if you’re a drug organization.”

That budget has afforded the Port of Laredo some impressive tools. Flores takes us on a tour of the facility, pointing out the various enforcement layers, from cameras focused on license plates and faces to the massive yellow radiation detectors.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. The imaging is impossibly detailed. You can count individual ceramic tiles and pallets hidden behind the sheet steel of a boxcar. You can count the lug nuts on pickups headed north from sister plants in Mexico. And you can see contraband. Bales of marijuana hidden in lead-lined crates. People lying in pickup beds.

Later, at a similar scanner for semis, we beg to scan the Ram. The agents say no.

“We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there,” the agent manning the display says, his deadpan delivery betrayed by the smile that leaps to his lips.

North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck, and China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. So says Texas resident Rusty Monsees.

After the miles we’ve covered, Brownsville shows up quickly. The land quits being a desert, trading the brown plains for flat, humid Gulf marshlands. That’s where we meet Rusty Monsees. He’s a man who can’t decide where his tall tale ends and reality begins. He’s 69, his face and scalp a patchwork of skin cancer craters. Gifts from a lifetime under the Texan sun. He smokes like the world’s running out of Pall Mall menthols. Says his family has owned a spit of land up against the border here since the 1940s.

Monsees has had a clear view of Border Patrol’s efforts over the years. It’s a strange sight. The border here spends much of its time on private land, well beyond the levee that protects the town from storm surges, upon which the border fence rests. In some places, that’s more than a mile from the international line.

There are gaps where people and vehicles come and go through the fence, and though a Border Patrol agent watches the traffic from his vehicle, he doesn’t stop or question anyone while we’re there. It’s easy to understand Monsees’ frustration.

There’s no way that the Border Patrol can get down here and adequately enforce it,” he says.

It’s harder to follow his logic. It wanders in and out of conspiracy theories. He tells us he’s seen uniformed ISIS soldiers streaming across the border, complete with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. He says he’s buried 150 of his own dogs over the years, all killed by Mexican coyotes moving people and drugs across the border. He says North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck and that China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. He says he once saw a U-Haul in Matamoros packed with the decaying corpses of children slain by a cartel for their organs.

Living on the Edge: Rusty Monsees hosted a militia camp on his property a few years back. The group disbanded, and at least two of “Rusty’s Rangers” wound up in federal prison over gun offenses.

He moves so fast, jumping from apparent fallacy to fallacy, it’s impossible to mine the truth from the slurry of lies that churn from his lips. It would be tempting to write him off entirely, but he thoroughly believes the things he’s afraid of. He believes them even if there’s nothing there, and he’s not some insane panhandler. He’s a land owner. A voter.

He says something that rings clear and true just as a Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe rattles past us, stirring up a haze of grit from the dry levee road. Monsees lifts a hand in greeting.

“If [the Mexicans] would sincerely work with the local officials,” he says, “because they want this stopped, too. Their people are being killed. They want their people to have a decent wage. … What they’re saying is this: Give us an equal standing, and we can take care of our own politicians if you give us a reason and help to do it.”

A Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe inches its way down the beach in Las Palomas Wildlife Area outside Browns from Performance Junk Blogger 6 http://ift.tt/2idK0u2 via IFTTT

[jesusvasser]

Exploring the Southern Border in a 2017 Ram Power Wagon: Arizona to the Gulf of Mexico

Arizona dissolves into yellow plains as we push through New Mexico and into Texas, stopping in El Paso just long enough for a meal. We’re never more than 30 miles from the border, and our hours have caught a cadence of gas stations, hole-in-the-wall food joints, and roadside motels. The Ram Power Wagon shows the marks of our miles, dusty and pinstriped, splattered with a thousand desert bugs. The perfect wanderer, inside and out, its plush leather seats comfortable, its bare vinyl floors up to the task of enduring the sand and grit we track in. We eat and aim for Big Bend National Park, some eight hours from Texas’ western-most city. It’s a long ride down I-10. Another reminder of how gargantuan our country is, of the impossible scope of us.

The daylight left us hours ago by the time we find Highway 90, and the sky’s spattered from horizon to horizon with stars, so many that my familiar constellations are lost in the wash. We drive for long hours, nothing in our high beams but two yellow lines and a few hundred hare.

The morning shows us what we were missing by staring at the stars. The landscape has changed. Just outside of Presidio, the Rio Grande is a green and living ribbon twisting its way through the Texan bedrock. Life clings to the banks. You smell it long before you see the river proper—the delicious aroma of water and the sweet perfume of wild and thriving desert trees. Mesquite and juniper hang on the cool morning air and come singing through our open windows. The land goes wild, the river slicing through deep gorges, taking the border with it. At Santa Elena Canyon, the rock faces that separate the U.S. from Mexico are 1,500 feet high.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area, there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

Jennette Jurado has been a park ranger at Big Bend for 11 years, and though she’s a Michigan native, it’s clear from the way her voice swells when she talks about the place that she thinks of this as home. Her eyes are bright and smiling as she tells us that there are two parks here. Between Big Bend and Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, the park service manages 245 miles of the international border.

Both are part of the largest Border Patrol sector in the South, one that covers some 510 miles of border and blankets 135,000 square miles, including 118 counties in both Texas and Oklahoma. Despite its size, it’s the quiet-est sector for illegal alien crossings. In 2016, the area saw 6,366 apprehensions, less than half of the next busiest sector, Yuma. Agents apprehended a total of 415,816 individuals attempting to enter the country illegally last year, and though that’s a staggering figure, the agency says the number is a long way from the high-traffic era. Between 1980 and 2008, apprehensions averaged 1.1 million individuals per year.

Jurado says that in her 11 years at the park, she’s never personally seen or interacted with anyone trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. through Big Bend. When I ask if she feels safe here, she offers a smile and laughs. She tells us she routinely heads out to hike in the park alone and has never had a problem. The biggest danger is the environment, she says, because hikers routinely underestimate just how much water they need.

There is no physical barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose, and when we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area,” she says, “there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

The cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon split the United States and Mexico at Big Bend. They’re breathtaking, taller than the Empire State Building, flagpole and all.

She has a hard time keeping the pride out of her voice. And later as we wander the 50-mile dirt road that hugs the Rio Grande, we understand why. This is a place to be proud of. The Chisos Mountains are stunning, rising 2,000 feet up from the desert plain like a fortress on our horizon. Ocotillo plants wave their alien, spiny arms at the sun as we pass. We see horses, wild or near to it, their flanks shining amber in the sunlight. Even in early spring, it is impossibly hot. Sweat wells and evaporates on your skin the second you step outside, leaving a thin and coarse trail of salt behind. There is no manmade barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose. When we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

The sun is setting by the time we make the eastern end of Big Bend, the sky dimming to navy as the light fades. Eager stars flicker behind those old mountains, and a cool wind picks up. After the bake of the day it’s almost cold, and we find ourselves grabbing our jackets as we point the truck toward Laredo.

When we arrive the next day, we find an entire economy hanging on the border. The Laredo Port of Entry is the busiest land port in the Western Hemisphere. Forty percent of America’s trade with Mexico comes across its bridges.

We meet with Port Director Gregory Alvarez and Assistant Port Director Alberto Flores on a busy morning.

“NAFTA is really occurring in Laredo,” Flores says. “You see that raw material coming from Canada, transiting through the U.S., going to Mexico, then you see some of that raw material coming back as a complete product.”

Flores is a Laredo native. He speaks quickly, his dark brown eyes ready with a sharp and mischievous joke if the moment presents itself.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. … we beg Them to scan the Ram, but the agents say no. “We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there.”

Alvarez is tall but soft spoken, his words considered and precise. He pronounces the Spanish names of towns to the south with a fluent flourish. He’s been port director here since late 2015. The port’s activity forces Border Patrol to walk a hard line between border security and trade facilitation.

A Customs and Border Protection helicopter runs a drill outside our hotel in Laredo, Texas.

“You’ve got that dual mandate of economic security and everything that entails,” he says, “and national security and everything that entails.”

Alvarez isn’t shy about the drug traffic that continues to come across the border at ports of entry.

“Without getting too detailed on specific seizures and arrests, we have a lot,” Alvarez says. “You have large interdictions, and you have them often on World Trade Bridge.”

He says 1,000 pounds is pretty average for a marijuana seizure.

Local news reports are full of headlines about what the Port of Laredo has seized in the past year: $800,000 worth of heroin in March and $5.6 million in cocaine in February. Alvarez is proud of the work his agents are doing, but he’s not naive.

Agents will inspect auto parts on their way north from factories in Mexico.

“We recognize that it’s just not a problem we’re going to seize our way out of,” he says. “It’s got to be a much more sophisticated approach.”

I ask if Alvarez cautions his agents about crossing the border. There were restrictions in 2007 and 2008 but not now, he says. Many of his agents have family on the southern side of the border and regularly travel to Mexico to visit.

Alvarez says he knows the violence spun out of control with the cartels, and when it did it spurred a massive response from American law enforcement that continues to this day. Customs and Border Protection is now the largest, most well-funded law enforcement agency in the country with an annual budget of more than $13.56 billion, and it enjoys a breadth of function unlike any other organization in the U.S. government, with oversight of 44 other agencies.

“It’s bad for business if you’re a drug organization.”

That budget has afforded the Port of Laredo some impressive tools. Flores takes us on a tour of the facility, pointing out the various enforcement layers, from cameras focused on license plates and faces to the massive yellow radiation detectors.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. The imaging is impossibly detailed. You can count individual ceramic tiles and pallets hidden behind the sheet steel of a boxcar. You can count the lug nuts on pickups headed north from sister plants in Mexico. And you can see contraband. Bales of marijuana hidden in lead-lined crates. People lying in pickup beds.

Later, at a similar scanner for semis, we beg to scan the Ram. The agents say no.

“We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there,” the agent manning the display says, his deadpan delivery betrayed by the smile that leaps to his lips.

North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck, and China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. So says Texas resident Rusty Monsees.

After the miles we’ve covered, Brownsville shows up quickly. The land quits being a desert, trading the brown plains for flat, humid Gulf marshlands. That’s where we meet Rusty Monsees. He’s a man who can’t decide where his tall tale ends and reality begins. He’s 69, his face and scalp a patchwork of skin cancer craters. Gifts from a lifetime under the Texan sun. He smokes like the world’s running out of Pall Mall menthols. Says his family has owned a spit of land up against the border here since the 1940s.

Monsees has had a clear view of Border Patrol’s efforts over the years. It’s a strange sight. The border here spends much of its time on private land, well beyond the levee that protects the town from storm surges, upon which the border fence rests. In some places, that’s more than a mile from the international line.

There are gaps where people and vehicles come and go through the fence, and though a Border Patrol agent watches the traffic from his vehicle, he doesn’t stop or question anyone while we’re there. It’s easy to understand Monsees’ frustration.

There’s no way that the Border Patrol can get down here and adequately enforce it,” he says.

It’s harder to follow his logic. It wanders in and out of conspiracy theories. He tells us he’s seen uniformed ISIS soldiers streaming across the border, complete with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. He says he’s buried 150 of his own dogs over the years, all killed by Mexican coyotes moving people and drugs across the border. He says North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck and that China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. He says he once saw a U-Haul in Matamoros packed with the decaying corpses of children slain by a cartel for their organs.

Living on the Edge: Rusty Monsees hosted a militia camp on his property a few years back. The group disbanded, and at least two of “Rusty’s Rangers” wound up in federal prison over gun offenses.

He moves so fast, jumping from apparent fallacy to fallacy, it’s impossible to mine the truth from the slurry of lies that churn from his lips. It would be tempting to write him off entirely, but he thoroughly believes the things he’s afraid of. He believes them even if there’s nothing there, and he’s not some insane panhandler. He’s a land owner. A voter.

He says something that rings clear and true just as a Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe rattles past us, stirring up a haze of grit from the dry levee road. Monsees lifts a hand in greeting.

“If [the Mexicans] would sincerely work with the local officials,” he says, “because they want this stopped, too. Their people are being killed. They want their people to have a decent wage. … What they’re saying is this: Give us an equal standing, and we can take care of our own politicians if you give us a reason and help to do it.”

A Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe inches its way down the beach in Las Palomas Wildlife Area outside Browns from Performance Junk WP Feed 4 http://ift.tt/2idK0u2 via IFTTT

[jonathanbelloblog]

Exploring the Southern Border in a 2017 Ram Power Wagon: Arizona to the Gulf of Mexico

Arizona dissolves into yellow plains as we push through New Mexico and into Texas, stopping in El Paso just long enough for a meal. We’re never more than 30 miles from the border, and our hours have caught a cadence of gas stations, hole-in-the-wall food joints, and roadside motels. The Ram Power Wagon shows the marks of our miles, dusty and pinstriped, splattered with a thousand desert bugs. The perfect wanderer, inside and out, its plush leather seats comfortable, its bare vinyl floors up to the task of enduring the sand and grit we track in. We eat and aim for Big Bend National Park, some eight hours from Texas’ western-most city. It’s a long ride down I-10. Another reminder of how gargantuan our country is, of the impossible scope of us.

The daylight left us hours ago by the time we find Highway 90, and the sky’s spattered from horizon to horizon with stars, so many that my familiar constellations are lost in the wash. We drive for long hours, nothing in our high beams but two yellow lines and a few hundred hare.

The morning shows us what we were missing by staring at the stars. The landscape has changed. Just outside of Presidio, the Rio Grande is a green and living ribbon twisting its way through the Texan bedrock. Life clings to the banks. You smell it long before you see the river proper—the delicious aroma of water and the sweet perfume of wild and thriving desert trees. Mesquite and juniper hang on the cool morning air and come singing through our open windows. The land goes wild, the river slicing through deep gorges, taking the border with it. At Santa Elena Canyon, the rock faces that separate the U.S. from Mexico are 1,500 feet high.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area, there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

Jennette Jurado has been a park ranger at Big Bend for 11 years, and though she’s a Michigan native, it’s clear from the way her voice swells when she talks about the place that she thinks of this as home. Her eyes are bright and smiling as she tells us that there are two parks here. Between Big Bend and Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, the park service manages 245 miles of the international border.

Both are part of the largest Border Patrol sector in the South, one that covers some 510 miles of border and blankets 135,000 square miles, including 118 counties in both Texas and Oklahoma. Despite its size, it’s the quiet-est sector for illegal alien crossings. In 2016, the area saw 6,366 apprehensions, less than half of the next busiest sector, Yuma. Agents apprehended a total of 415,816 individuals attempting to enter the country illegally last year, and though that’s a staggering figure, the agency says the number is a long way from the high-traffic era. Between 1980 and 2008, apprehensions averaged 1.1 million individuals per year.

Jurado says that in her 11 years at the park, she’s never personally seen or interacted with anyone trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. through Big Bend. When I ask if she feels safe here, she offers a smile and laughs. She tells us she routinely heads out to hike in the park alone and has never had a problem. The biggest danger is the environment, she says, because hikers routinely underestimate just how much water they need.

There is no physical barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose, and when we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

“When you factor in the mountain ranges and a pretty remote and rugged desert area,” she says, “there’s not a lot of water for wildlife, let alone humans.”

The cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon split the United States and Mexico at Big Bend. They’re breathtaking, taller than the Empire State Building, flagpole and all.

She has a hard time keeping the pride out of her voice. And later as we wander the 50-mile dirt road that hugs the Rio Grande, we understand why. This is a place to be proud of. The Chisos Mountains are stunning, rising 2,000 feet up from the desert plain like a fortress on our horizon. Ocotillo plants wave their alien, spiny arms at the sun as we pass. We see horses, wild or near to it, their flanks shining amber in the sunlight. Even in early spring, it is impossibly hot. Sweat wells and evaporates on your skin the second you step outside, leaving a thin and coarse trail of salt behind. There is no manmade barrier between the two countries here. The land serves that purpose. When we look across the Rio Grande, all we see is another few hundred miles of empty desert, the back door to Mexico’s Cañon de Santa Elena national park.

The sun is setting by the time we make the eastern end of Big Bend, the sky dimming to navy as the light fades. Eager stars flicker behind those old mountains, and a cool wind picks up. After the bake of the day it’s almost cold, and we find ourselves grabbing our jackets as we point the truck toward Laredo.

When we arrive the next day, we find an entire economy hanging on the border. The Laredo Port of Entry is the busiest land port in the Western Hemisphere. Forty percent of America’s trade with Mexico comes across its bridges.

We meet with Port Director Gregory Alvarez and Assistant Port Director Alberto Flores on a busy morning.

“NAFTA is really occurring in Laredo,” Flores says. “You see that raw material coming from Canada, transiting through the U.S., going to Mexico, then you see some of that raw material coming back as a complete product.”

Flores is a Laredo native. He speaks quickly, his dark brown eyes ready with a sharp and mischievous joke if the moment presents itself.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. … we beg Them to scan the Ram, but the agents say no. “We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there.”

Alvarez is tall but soft spoken, his words considered and precise. He pronounces the Spanish names of towns to the south with a fluent flourish. He’s been port director here since late 2015. The port’s activity forces Border Patrol to walk a hard line between border security and trade facilitation.

A Customs and Border Protection helicopter runs a drill outside our hotel in Laredo, Texas.

“You’ve got that dual mandate of economic security and everything that entails,” he says, “and national security and everything that entails.”

Alvarez isn’t shy about the drug traffic that continues to come across the border at ports of entry.

“Without getting too detailed on specific seizures and arrests, we have a lot,” Alvarez says. “You have large interdictions, and you have them often on World Trade Bridge.”

He says 1,000 pounds is pretty average for a marijuana seizure.

Local news reports are full of headlines about what the Port of Laredo has seized in the past year: $800,000 worth of heroin in March and $5.6 million in cocaine in February. Alvarez is proud of the work his agents are doing, but he’s not naive.

Agents will inspect auto parts on their way north from factories in Mexico.

“We recognize that it’s just not a problem we’re going to seize our way out of,” he says. “It’s got to be a much more sophisticated approach.”

I ask if Alvarez cautions his agents about crossing the border. There were restrictions in 2007 and 2008 but not now, he says. Many of his agents have family on the southern side of the border and regularly travel to Mexico to visit.

Alvarez says he knows the violence spun out of control with the cartels, and when it did it spurred a massive response from American law enforcement that continues to this day. Customs and Border Protection is now the largest, most well-funded law enforcement agency in the country with an annual budget of more than $13.56 billion, and it enjoys a breadth of function unlike any other organization in the U.S. government, with oversight of 44 other agencies.

“It’s bad for business if you’re a drug organization.”

That budget has afforded the Port of Laredo some impressive tools. Flores takes us on a tour of the facility, pointing out the various enforcement layers, from cameras focused on license plates and faces to the massive yellow radiation detectors.

Every train car coming into the U.S. gets an X-ray scan. The imaging is impossibly detailed. You can count individual ceramic tiles and pallets hidden behind the sheet steel of a boxcar. You can count the lug nuts on pickups headed north from sister plants in Mexico. And you can see contraband. Bales of marijuana hidden in lead-lined crates. People lying in pickup beds.

Later, at a similar scanner for semis, we beg to scan the Ram. The agents say no.

“We’d hate to find something you didn’t know was there,” the agent manning the display says, his deadpan delivery betrayed by the smile that leaps to his lips.

North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck, and China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. So says Texas resident Rusty Monsees.

After the miles we’ve covered, Brownsville shows up quickly. The land quits being a desert, trading the brown plains for flat, humid Gulf marshlands. That’s where we meet Rusty Monsees. He’s a man who can’t decide where his tall tale ends and reality begins. He’s 69, his face and scalp a patchwork of skin cancer craters. Gifts from a lifetime under the Texan sun. He smokes like the world’s running out of Pall Mall menthols. Says his family has owned a spit of land up against the border here since the 1940s.

Monsees has had a clear view of Border Patrol’s efforts over the years. It’s a strange sight. The border here spends much of its time on private land, well beyond the levee that protects the town from storm surges, upon which the border fence rests. In some places, that’s more than a mile from the international line.

There are gaps where people and vehicles come and go through the fence, and though a Border Patrol agent watches the traffic from his vehicle, he doesn’t stop or question anyone while we’re there. It’s easy to understand Monsees’ frustration.

There’s no way that the Border Patrol can get down here and adequately enforce it,” he says.

It’s harder to follow his logic. It wanders in and out of conspiracy theories. He tells us he’s seen uniformed ISIS soldiers streaming across the border, complete with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. He says he’s buried 150 of his own dogs over the years, all killed by Mexican coyotes moving people and drugs across the border. He says North Korea sails cargo ships off the coast of California with intercontinental ballistic missiles hidden below deck and that China is stockpiling weapons in Mexico. He says he once saw a U-Haul in Matamoros packed with the decaying corpses of children slain by a cartel for their organs.

Living on the Edge: Rusty Monsees hosted a militia camp on his property a few years back. The group disbanded, and at least two of “Rusty’s Rangers” wound up in federal prison over gun offenses.

He moves so fast, jumping from apparent fallacy to fallacy, it’s impossible to mine the truth from the slurry of lies that churn from his lips. It would be tempting to write him off entirely, but he thoroughly believes the things he’s afraid of. He believes them even if there’s nothing there, and he’s not some insane panhandler. He’s a land owner. A voter.

He says something that rings clear and true just as a Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe rattles past us, stirring up a haze of grit from the dry levee road. Monsees lifts a hand in greeting.

“If [the Mexicans] would sincerely work with the local officials,” he says, “because they want this stopped, too. Their people are being killed. They want their people to have a decent wage. … What they’re saying is this: Give us an equal standing, and we can take care of our own politicians if you give us a reason and help to do it.”

A Border Patrol Chevy Tahoe inches its way down the beach in Las Palomas Wildlife Area outside Browns from Performance Junk Blogger Feed 4 http://ift.tt/2idK0u2 via IFTTT

[jadeshannonmccann]

Hey there babies,

HAPPY HUMP DAY! I hope you’re all doing well and slaying your daily goals. A few of you over on my Snapchat have requested this post as a result of me begging for some immediate skin remedies a few weeks ago and trying some new products. But ultimately what I decided to do was to go back to the products that were my holy grail in adolescence. And now, I’ve deciding to share them with you.

The reasons behind why I love and care for these products varies but mainly, they work and I can afford them. Not only can I afford them, I can afford to use and replace them- which is most important. It’s all well and good ‘treating ourselves’ to a skin care routine. The hard part arises when it works and we love it but can’t afford it again. These top products I’ve chosen (and definitely am using, by the way, not by sponsorship or collaboration but just because I like them) are available in ANY supermarket or pharmacy and can be bought for under 15 euro. Yes, you read that right.

I also want to state that what works for me might not work for you. And although I am certified in beauty and am well aware of the routine things should be done and how certain ingredient affect your skin blah, blah, blah… Sometimes I just enjoy convenience and immediate results. I work three jobs and am always on the go and these products fit that- FOR NOW. This skin routine isn’t perfect and I do not claim it to be. But for the moment, it’s keeping my skin absolutely lit. And that’s good enough for me. Now, as the weather changes and as my diet might (probably will, let’s be real), my skin will, too. And that’s alright. I’ll get back on track or find something else. But for now, this is what I have to share.

Clean & Clear Blackhead Eraser Facial Scrub

I used to use this scrub when I was a really young teenager and to be honest, up until recently had just completely forgotten about it. But as you Snapchat fam know, I’ve been bangin’ on about my pores for ages. I’ve been trying everything to shift really stubborn blackheads around my nose and cheek area and it has been driving me demented. And I did not consider this product out of passion or nostalgia. I was strollin’ through Tesco and there was a sale. Yep.

Its consistency is a bit like toothpaste. It exfoliates in quite a subtle way and doesn’t hurt or tear my skin- ever. But it is effective. A lot of people think, and I used to think, that in order to exfoliate your skin you have to really scrub it and leave it raw. This actually doesn’t help at all. You’re not supposed to move your skin while scrubbing it, you’re supposed to keep a flat surface. A more subtle scrub is the best option. And I find that this scrub does that for me. It also lifts blackheads- FOR REAL. And it leaves a great squeeky shine, too. I just keep this bottle in my shower and use it when I can. It is perfectly fine to use daily- it says so on the bottle. But I have other products that I’ll list below that tie me over. I use this scrub about three times a week and worth noting: I started to see results after just one use. I paid less that 5euro for this product and it does last a good while. Each use requires a pea-sized amount of product and the bottle is 150ml- PLENTY! Definitely recommend!

Alternatively, you could try the Clean & Clear Blackhead Clearing Daily Scrub at this link. I’ve also included a picture of the Clean & Clear 60 Second Shower Mask because I have heard brilliant things and do believe it is worth trying along side this product- you can find out more about this product here. And alternatively again, I have included a picture of the Garnier (Skin Active) Blackhead Eliminating Scrub– which I have not tried but if for any reason you cannot use Clean & Clear, this could be a go-to for you. Click here for more info on that product.

Johnson’s Makeup Be Gone Refreshing Wipes (for Combination Skin)

There are pros and cons to this product, I will be honest. The main con being that each packet of wipes alone cost almost five euro. Which, let’s face it, is expensive for face wipes when you can pick some up in Penneys for A LOT less. BUT, lemme argue a case here. The product is worth it. That’s my case. There is moisture LOCKED in to each individual wipe and they smell delicious. They leave my skin not only squeeky clean but super moist- without contributing to oily skin. I use the the wipes for combination skin mainly because my skin can be any way on any given day. But also, I feel like they have the best balance. For some reason, whenever I use products that are designed for sensitive skin, I have a bit of a reaction. So for me, combination skin is the best option. But of course, that varies from person to person.

Along with using these products, I have completely minimized my makeup wear. I really try not to wear makeup on my skin at all now. I allow myself about two days a week with foundation and the rest of the time, I’m fresh faced with a bit of brow product and mascara. So, I carry these wipes in my bag. I use them morning, mid-day and night. Basically, whenever I think of it. They have a decent amount of moisture in them and are SO satin so you can literally see the dirt lift- even if there is nothing on your face! I love that because it really makes me feel like the wipes are working deep into my skin rather than just at a surface level. And the best part- there is NO ALCOHOL in these wipes. Which is super, super important. To find out about the effects that alcohol based products have on your skin- click here. ANYWAY, although these wipes are a bit pricey, I do think that they are definitely worth it. If you’d like to find out more about this product, click here. I picked mine up in Dunnes Stores but you can definitely find them in any good supermarket or pharmacy.

Simple Kind To Skin Hydrating Moisturizer

Holy grail! This is probably my favorite product out of this list. Basically because not only did it surprise me, it rescued me. For the last few months I was using a Benefit moisturizer that I did find really good I have to say, but it was more of a night cream as it was just too heavy and thick for my skin. It took ages to absorb and left my hands a bit sticky. But this product (for a fraction of the price) is everything I’ve ever wanted. Again, I used it as a teenager but had completely forgotten about it and came across it in a supermarket sale, decided to give it a second bash. At the time, I was with my cousin who swore that it was like satin on the skin and was really effective. I took a leap of faith and went out on a limb spending a whopping 3 EURO in the sale at the time and have not looked back since. It is really light on the skin and can be used both morning and night (which is so convenient), it really locks in moisture and leaves a gorgeous dewy glow WITHOUT looking oily or feeling greasy. It has a really subtle scent that is gorgeous but not too strong- which I think is really important in a moisturizer. There’s nothing worse than accidentally putting a strongly perfumed moisturizer on your lips, licking you lips and realizing that this might be how it ends. This product is the perfect balance and I cannot recommend it enough. I basically just massage this product into my face using my ring fingers in upward circular motions both in the morning before I leave the house (can be used before makeup application) and at night before I go to bed. This product can be bought in any good supermarket or pharmacy. Click here to find out more!

Although I do not use the cleanser, I have heard brilliant things so have included a picture as a recommendation for a sister product. If you’d like to find out more about the sister cleanser, click here.

And last but not least, my favorite lip product at the moment…

Maybelline Dr. Rescue Baby Lips in Menthol

  If I’m being 100% completely honest, I actually bought this product a decent while back and did not realize or appreciate that I was sitting on absolute gold. I think I picked it up because I’d seen a pretty picture of it on Pinterest or something ridiculous and just forgotten all about it. I bought it in my local pharmacy for something like 2 or 3 euro. So, it was totally affordable. And, is TOTALLY WORTH IT.

I personally love the menthol flavor because it tingles my lips and kind of makes them feel that little bit more plump because of that. But the reason I love this product goes beyond tingly lips. It is full of moisture. It has changed the dry lip game. It literally makes my lips feel like silk. And I understand that this product isn’t exactly considered skin care, as such, but with the lack of makeup lately I’ve been wearing a balm rather than heavy product on my lips and I’ve been really trying to focus on rehabilitating my skin rather than drawing out of it all the time and expecting it to run on empty. It’s like a little promise I’ve made to myself. Mainly because I was sick of dreading up close no makeup photos or snapchatting on my makeup days off. I would definitely consider this lip balm a treatment. It does say on the label that it is a medical balm and focuses on bringing lips up to a healthy standard. It also just looks really cute! It leaves a really decent, non-greasy shine on the lip and does not look cakey or thick. I keep this product in my bag and just use it all day long. I even pop it on before bed and let it work some magic while I sleep. If you’d like to know more about this product click here. Alternatively, I would use Vaseline- which cannot be doubted or questioned in life, EVER.

What I really love about these products is that they are affordable and accessible and can be used by any skin type or age group. In my opinion, they’re almost universal and they really don’t put you out of pocket to try. I find that the hardest thing about finding the right products these days- a lot of them are just not affordable or realistically priced and are almost impossible to keep a constant supply of them. So, give it a bash. What have you got to lose?

Anyway guys & gals, as requested, that is my current, affordable skin routine. Please do drop a comment and let me know if you have used any of these products or anything similar. If you go ahead and try any of them- let me know how you get on! Even if you hate them and think I’m wrong- lemme know what your alternative products are. All I’ve done with this whole skin experience is go back to basics with skin care. Instead of trying really expensive and crazy products, like I have been doing since I left these ones behind, I just decided to try these again. For the price range that they are at, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose. A few weeks ago, my skin was rough and dehydrated. I had fine lines and really dark circles and freckles, I also had a yellow tone to my face. Today, my skin tone is more even, my dark circles have reduced and my fine lines are gone. I will admit that in addition to using these products, I have been drinking water with lemon slices in it (as an anti-oxidant) and exercising regularly. It’s really important to note that because more than anything, your skin reflects your health on the inside. Your skin is you largest organ is a complete mirror of your diet. So just to note that sometimes, rather than a new skin routine, a new diet or multivitamin is required.

If you have any questions about any of these products or anything else about my current skincare routine please do not hesitate to get in touch! And if you’d like to join in on daily vlogs, daily posts and so much more ultra-fun times, just click on the links below. Thank you for reading!

Until next time,

J X

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  MY CURRENT SKIN ROUTINE- Affordable, Accessible & EFFECTIVE Hey there babies, HAPPY HUMP DAY! I hope you're all doing well and slaying your daily goals.