#moon factory coffee

[ayamebird]

久しぶりの MOON FACTORY COFFEE

免許更新の前にコーヒーとチーズケーキを

看板横のオリーブが少しずつ成長しているのもいい

[physalian]

When To Keep Your Writing Stiff (pt 7)

Part 6

Part 1

Gonna shoutout a specific fanfic, “Salvage” (ATLA) for writing that is even leaner than mine is, and mine has zero fat whatsoever. This was really good. I particularly like how some scenes were only 2 or 3 lines long as an example of what I’m going for here.

When I say “stiff” in the following examples I’m specifically talking about a lot of the same syntax, few similes and metaphors, few ‘said’ synonyms, very little, well, “life” in the prose. And this can be good in a few situations.

1. Your narrator is in shock

Shock doesn’t all look the same, but the kind of shock I mean is the one where the person is really quiet and un-emotive, they’re probably not speaking or reacting much to whatever catastrophe just happened and probably not responding to their name or anything spoken to them. Their body is pretty much going “uhhhhhhhhh factory reset!” when whatever it is, is too much to process.

A asks them a question. Once. Twice. B stares ahead. There’s a brown stain on the wall that looks like a thumb.

So if they’re narrating, they’re probably going to be giving the absolute bare minimum, need-to-know information and won’t be thinking about the best adjectives and adverbs. Especially if you normally write with fluffier prose, a jarring shift like this can really help sell the shock and dissociating of the character, something so traumatizing that it effects how the story is told.

2. Your narrator is depressed

Somewhere between New Moon’s 4 pages of just Months to show Bella did absolutely nothing in a depression rot and normal prose (though it was effective, particularly in the movie when they could draw out the words on the screen for longer and did the whole spin-around-her-depression-chair montage).

January came. It rained a lot.

They’ll probably either narrate very thinly, or listlessly. They might focus on a random detail and start going on a long ramble about that one detail that isn’t at all important, but it’s either all they can think about or all that can move them to feel anything in this moment, like:

On the bedside table, that coffee mug still sat there in a thin sheet of dust. What had been liquid now long since dry and gluey. It still sits there, collecting cat fur.

This might be the best place for sentences that all sound and flow exactly the same, but use it sparingly.

3. Your narrator is having a panic attack or trapped in a traumatic situation

Different from shock in that while they are physically capable of moving and interacting, they can’t let themselves describe what they’re seeing and feeling in grand detail. Maybe they’re moving through the horrific aftermath of a battle and all they can describe is the mud under their feet and how it squelches. Or they simply say that “there’s bodies everywhere” because looking too long or too hard at who those bodies belonged to is too much.

4. You’re writing something that has incredibly fast pacing

This post was inspired by a fic I just wrote that spanned about 5 months in about 18k words. Narrative was skipping days ahead between paragraphs at some point as my character was processing the end of an abusive relationship. It sped up and slowed down where necessary, but compared to its sequel that I also just finished (22k words across 7 days), I’d covered a whole month in about 2 sentences in the first one.

See nearly any part of Salvage (or my fics if you feel like it)

What happened in that month didn’t matter, only what was before and what’s different now and how this character realizes how their life is slowly changing, some things they never noticed that are suddenly right in their face or things that quietly slipped away.

—

TLDR; sometimes the lack of emotion and sensory details and frenetic, dynamic syntax is the point, that can sell the reader on the narrator’s mental state far better than picking the juiciest adverbs. If it’s so impactful to them that the physical telling of the story is changed, you’ve done your job.

[fatehbaz]

In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain [...]. Slavery and industrialization were tied by the various afterlives of slavery in the form of indentured and carceral labor that continued to enrich new emergent industrial powers [...]. Enslaved “free” African Americans predominately mined coal in the corporate use of black power or the new “industrial slavery,” [...]. The labor of the coffee - the carceral penance of the rock pile, “breaking rocks out here and keeping on the chain gang” (Nina Simone, Work Song, 1966), laying iron on the railroads - is the carceral future mobilized at plantation’s end (or the “nonevent” of emancipation). [...] [T]he racial circumscription of slavery predates and prepares the material ground for Europe and the Americas in terms of both nation and empire building - and continues to sustain it.

Text by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019.

---

When the Haitian Revolution erupted [...], slaveholding regimes around the world grew alarmed. In response to a series of slave rebellions in its own sugar colonies, especially in Jamaica, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the 1830s. [...] Importing indentured labor from Asia emerged as a potential way to maintain the British Empire’s sugar plantation system. In 1838 John Gladstone, father of future prime minister William E. Gladstone, arranged for the shipment of 396 South Asian workers, bound to five years of indentured labor, to his sugar estates in British Guiana. The experiment [...] inaugurated [...] "a new system of [...] [indentured servitude]," which would endure for nearly a century. [...] Desperate to regain power and authority after the war [and abolition of chattel slavery in the US], Louisiana’s wealthiest planters studied and learned from their Caribbean counterparts. [...] Thousands of Chinese workers landed in Louisiana between 1866 and 1870, recruited from the Caribbean, China and California. [...] When Congress debated excluding the Chinese from the United States in 1882, Rep. Horace F. Page of California argued that the United States could not allow the entry of “millions of cooly slaves and serfs.”

Text by: Moon-Ho Jung. "Making sugar, making 'coolies': Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations". The Conversation. 13 January 2022.

---

The durability and extensibility of plantations [...] have been tracked most especially in the contemporary United States’ prison archipelago and segregated urban areas [...], [including] “skewed life chances, limited access to health [...], premature death, incarceration [...]”. [...] [In labor arrangements there exists] a moral tie that indefinitely indebts the laborers to their master, [...] the main mechanisms reproducing the plantation system long after the abolition of slavery [...]. [G]enealogies of labor management […] have been traced […] linking different features of plantations to later economic enterprises, such as factories […] or diamond mines […] [,] chartered companies, free ports, dependencies, trusteeships [...].

Text by: Irene Peano, Marta Macedo, and Colette Le Petitcorps. "Introduction: Viewing Plantations at the Intersection of Political Ecologies and Multiple Space-Times". Global Plantations in the Modern World: Sovereignties, Ecologies, Afterlives (edited by Petitcrops, Macedo, and Peano). Published 2023.

---

Louis-Napoleon, still serving in the capacity of president of the [French] republic, threw his weight behind […] the exile of criminals as well as political dissidents. “It seems possible to me,” he declared near the end of 1850, “to render the punishment of hard labor more efficient, more moralizing, less expensive […], by using it to advance French colonization.” [...] Slavery had just been abolished in the French Empire [...]. If slavery were at an end, then the crucial question facing the colony was that of finding an alternative source of labor. During the period of the early penal colony we see this search for new slaves, not only in French Guiana, but also throughout [other European] colonies built on the plantation model.

Text by: Peter Redfield. Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana. 2000.

---

To control the desperate and the jobless, the authorities passed harsh new laws, a legislative program designed to quell disorder and ensure a pliant workforce for the factories. The Riot Act banned public disorder; the Combination Act made trade unions illegal; the Workhouse Act forced the poor to work; the Vagrancy Act turned joblessness into a crime. Eventually, over 220 offences could attract capital punishment - or, indeed, transportation. […] [C]onvict transportation - a system in which prisoners toiled without pay under military discipline - replicated many of the worst cruelties of slavery. […] Middle-class anti-slavery activists expressed little sympathy for Britain’s ragged and desperate, holding […] [them] responsible for their own misery. The men and women of London’s slums weren’t slaves. They were free individuals - and if they chose criminality, […] they brought their punishment on themselves. That was how Phillip [commander of the British First Fleet settlement in Australia] could decry chattel slavery while simultaneously relying on unfree labour from convicts. The experience of John Moseley, one of the eleven people of colour on the First Fleet, illustrates how, in the Australian settlement, a rhetoric of liberty accompanied a new kind of bondage. [Moseley was Black and had been a slave at a plantation in America before escaping to Britain, where he was charged with a crime and shipped to do convict labor in Australia.] […] The eventual commutation of a capital sentence to transportation meant that armed guards marched a black ex-slave, chained once more by the neck and ankles, to the Scarborough, on which he sailed to New South Wales. […] For John Moseley, the “free land” of New South Wales brought only a replication of that captivity he’d endured in Virginia. His experience was not unique. […] [T]hroughout the settlement, the old strode in, disguised as the new. [...] In the context of that widespread enthusiasm [in Australia] for the [American] South (the welcome extended to the Confederate ship Shenandoah in Melbourne in 1865 led one of its officers to conclude “the heart of colonial Britain was in our cause”), Queenslanders dreamed of building a “second Louisiana”. [...] The men did not merely adopt a lifestyle associated with New World slavery. They also relied on its techniques and its personnel. [...] Hope, for instance, acquired his sugar plants from the old slaver Thomas Scott. He hired supervisors from Jamaica and Barbados, looking for those with experience driving plantation slaves. [...] The Royal Navy’s Commander George Palmer described Lewin’s vessels as “fitted up precisely like an African slaver [...]".

Text by: Jeff Sparrow. “Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism.” The Conversation. 4 August 2022.

[methoughtsphantom]

DP x DC

not me thinking about imaginary scenarios of ten year old Tim Drake in the ghost zone (pariah’s castle)

where Tim thinks it’s strangely soothing that despite being the only one whose steps connect to the ground, there’s not that eerie silence that befell drake manor

strange blob creatures chitter softly and nip at his hair and swooshes and wisps of wind betray the presence of an invisible ghost

which after following he realizes it’s almost like he’s trailing after the black dark shadow that is batman again

which gives him the idea that, maybe, just this one time, he can play the part of robin

that in mind Tim makes out a game of sneaking to the side of ghosts that look like they’re brooding and if they can spot him he loses

most just grunt in response (very in character) while others fuss over him and ask questions which Tim uses to infodump

he also politely asks the ghost that always asks him how he’s doing to instead say the word “report”

(the ghost looks at him weirdly but humors him and besides the answer would be the same anyways)

Tim also(!!)

gets on the case of why the walls lack tangibility when he is the one leaning on them (he doesn’t live down the time he wanted to look cool only to fall through the wall)

hyperfixates on how gravity works in the ghost zone because he couldn’t do a skateboard trick he has pulled off many many times and he’s salty about it

tries to figure out where they are getting human food from (cause it’s hot enough to be homemade but also there’s no kitchen —so how could it be) (also he wants coffee)

finds out the dude that often gives him a side eye when he finds that Tim knows how to do something (math homework), is next in line for the throne and yet doesn’t have a single “mingle and talk people up” bone in his body. (despite it his networking is a solid 7/10)

gets a ghost horse to adopt him what

discovers pretty quickly that there are rooms to which he can’t phase through (a.k.a. he’s not allowed entry) to which he begrudgingly backs off even though that stands in his way of doing a very thorough layout™ of the place (robin would)

sulks over the lack of extreme sports in the place

(Danny takes him to the Far Frozen where they go tire sliding in the snow and where tim learns how to use a skateboard skate and also that ghost ice cream is just as good as normal ice cream)

sulks again cuz he caught a common cold

also because there’s no sun or moon poor Timmy’s already screwed sleep schedule gets more messed up to the point no one knows when or where he will fall asleep

(ghosts find him in the most unhinged of places with a signature purple cloak draped over him every. single. time.)

overall, be a menace

see-> the time he threatened to build ghost weapons he’d somehow memorized the blueprints of cause Danny wouldn’t let him visit the radium girls factory but yes the renaissance period

see-> that time he went through the whole ghost energy and how to work with it book section in the library and half an hour later had a prototype of a star wars laser beam made

(note: bribing only works for hot chocolate, not for letting him keep cool-looking guns)

just tim having the time of his life

clockwork being no help at all (the ghost loves being a cryptid)

and danny trying not to get attached while he progressively gets more concerned over this chaos child he emotionally adopted as his little brother

(to fit canon cause i want it to this would just be until Danny finds the dimension little Timmy is from, then they can safely yeet the child back to the moment he first went missing)

anyways before anyone knows it’s been three months

[awkwardgamergirl]

Best games for mental health&relax?

As someone who deals with anxiety and depression when I want to relax or am just feeling low and drained I’ll usually choose what others would consider “cozy games” because I don’t want any stress from shooters, strategy games, or anything that has a lot of stakes. I’ll do switch games for now since it’s my main console but I do have a 3ds, psvita, and my computer so I’ll make a list of those games later 💕

So my favorite games to relax to are:

~ stardew valley~ (you already knew this was coming) it’s just a really cute game with lots of options on how you can spend your time. You can farm, fish, forage, travel the mines, talk to the towns people, interact with love interests. There is just a lot to do in it and it has a really cozy small town cottagecore vibe that a lot of people find relaxing. Amazing replay value. I have like four different lives just so I can choose different farms, partners, things like that.

~ animal crossing~ (second most obvious answer) we all know animal crossing is a chill low stakes game that has a lot of similar elements I listed for stardew valley. You get to interact with cute little animals, decorate your house and character, forage, fish, find fossils, shop. It’s just a relaxing and positive game and is very popular for a reason. Idk about replay value because I really couldn’t imagine deleting my island tbh.

~ fashion dreamer~ if you like cute dress up type games this one is a decent lil game. It’s got lots of different styles for whatever your lil fashion heart desires and you basically walk around dressing up characters and they rate your outfits. It’s from the creators of style savvy and while it’s super cute I would wait for it to go on sale because it’s a bit overpriced imo. Style savvy is definitely the way to go if you have a ds/3ds. Still cute though. Don’t know about replay value because I’m fairly new to the game and haven’t come close to finishing or restarting anything.

~ unpacking~ this one is pretty cute and definitely a game that helps with anxiety. It’s a relaxed little puzzle game that unlocks parts of the story as you go along organizing each room to your home. You can try to solve the puzzles or you can just organize the furniture to your liking. Either way you want to play it’s super cute and relaxing and has some decent replay value after you complete it.

~calico~ super cute game where you run a cat cafe in a magical town with unique characters, little missions, and lots of cats you can pet and play with. There is magic, desserts, and you can ride giant cats like horses. Super soothing game. Character customization and decorating your cafe. The only drawback is it can get a bit glitchy but for the cuteness and the price I have no complaints. The music is really cute too. Not sure about replay value because my cafe is so cute I wouldn’t want to start over.

~coffee talk~ you run a coffee shop in the future and talk to all the incoming guests and learn their stories as you give them their coffee. This one is super relaxing and how I like to spend my evenings before bed if I want that extra cozy time to destress and relax. Cute art as well with different species and how they interact. I haven’t restarted yet but I’m sure there will be replay value with just how cozy and in depth the story is.

~rune factory 4 remastered~ this was originally a 3ds game they remastered for the switch and it’s so amazing that they did. One of my favorite 3ds games that is an offshoot of the harvest moon series with very pretty art, farming, cooking and crafting, romance, monster fighting, and just really fantastic story telling. Very cozy and hard not to get sucked into. Such a gorgeous game imo. Fantastic replay value.

~good pizza, great pizza~ you run a lil pizza shop and upgrade it to get better ingredients and equipment. Super cute chill game to pass the time and hard not to spend hours mindlessly making pizzas. Haven’t replayed it because I haven’t completed it but I imaging replaying it would be fun because you’re just making pizza and unlocking different ingredients. Relaxing game with cute art.

~monster prom~ cute game where you have to convince one of the monsters to go to prom with you. Funny writing, pretty art, and the ability to romance any gender while choosing your pronouns. It’s funny, the game play is question based, and it’s like little rounds of 15 mins and either you get them to go to prom or you get rejected. Then you get to try again. Replay value is obviously strong because I keep playing it no matter how often I’m rejected 🥲 being real though this game is funny, unique, and worth the price. I just have to beat the first one so I can try the second.

~what comes after~ you play as a character on a train of ghosts and you process the grief of passing to the afterlife and try to learn and console the other ghosts on the train who are passing. Pretty game that is mostly story based and worth a try. I haven’t finished this game so I’m not to sure on the replay value.

~little mouse’s encyclopedia~ a cute little game where you play as a little mouse exploring the outside and the dirt and you spend your time finding other little animals and bugs and plants and you read about them and what they are. Cute little educational game I purchased because I loved the art that ended up being super cute in the long run.

Honorable mentions:

- speed dating for ghosts (cute funny little game where you go on dates with ghosts. Short, sweet, and to the point. Decently priced for how quick you get through the game)

- cattails (you play as a cat that travels through its little territory you that you share with your other cat group. You gather little things, complete missions, scrap with rival cat gangs, and just walk around as a cat. Cute but a bit slow for my tastes.)

-rune factory 5 (don’t get me wrong, I love the fourth one and I’m sure the more I play this one I’ll learn to love it to. The gameplay is just set up a bit different and is a bit more similar to the harvest moon style than the fourth rune factory. The art is gorgeous though I was just hoping for more rune factory and less harvest moon when it came to the actual playing)

Games I’ve wanted and heard amazing things about:

The only reason I haven’t purchased and played these games yet is because games aren’t cheap and I need to finish the ones I’ve already purchased. That being said I’ve been looking at a lot of these for a long time and they are definitely going to make this list. I’m sure some of them would be ranked very high in the favorite games category as soon as I actually start playing them. Here’s the list:

* Spiritfairer

*Bear and breakfast

*Creepy tale

*Cozy grove

*Witchy life story

*Potion permit

*Hoa

*Littlewood

*Potion craft

*Gris

*When the past was around

*strange horticulture

*Lemon cake

*Wytchwood

*How to say goodbye

*Dreamlight valley

*Storyteller

*Cult of the lamb

*Little misfortune

*Night in the woods

* Sally face

And that’s it 🎉 sorry for such a long list but I wanted to include a bit of everything so you had lots to choose from. These are the games I play when I need a comfy happy place to go when life gets to be a bit too much to handle. I enjoyed making this list to be honest so there will most likely be more lists in the future. Maybe I’ll make a list of favorite otome games, anime/manga, kpop groups. Things like that. Anyway, hope you enjoy reading the list as I enjoyed making it 💖

[bettystonewell]

*Photo taken at the Buderim Ginger Factory, QLD, Australia

G'day! - I'm Beth. Mum of two, libran, bubbly, self-depreciating, sarcastic...

Five year old me daydreamed crossovers between Disney's Robin Hood and the TMNT - what can I say, it worked 😅 Now I'm hyper-fixated on SPN, writing Dean x reader fan fics, while trying to keep my head above the water and adult.

Send coffee (or beer)… stat…

MASTERLIST

Currently, I’ve only writen for Dean Winchester, but might consider more in the future. If you’d like to be tagged in anything, please let me know.

ONE SHOTS

Another Notch on His Belt

(x reader) Dean replaces intimacy with sex. (Dean’s POV) 18+ only 1.2k words

Must Love Dogs

(x reader) Dean picks up with the help of a canine friend. (Dean’s POV) 900 words

I Got You

(x reader) When you’re sick, Dean takes it upon himself to help. (Reader POV) 1.1k words

SHORT MULTI-CHAPS

What happened Last Night?

(x reader) A game of Never Have I Ever leads to more with Dean. (Reader POV) 18+ only 9.7k words (2 parts)

Snickerdoodles & Special Sauce

(x reader) Mrs Butters is interfering in more than just Dean’s underwear drawer. (multiple POV) 18+ only final word count unknown (3 parts)

LOOONG FICS/SERIES

To You I Belong

COMING 21/02**

Omegaverse - Soulmate AU - Pregnancy (x reader) Dean wasn’t looking for a mate, and last place he expects to find the one meant for him is on the job. But it’s not the monsters he hunts that you need rescuing from. It’s someone closer to you. (Dual POV) 18+ only final word count unknown (20 parts + timestamps)

** Dates are written with Australian time in mind. Chances are, if you’re outside Oceania/Asia, you’re looking at the day before.

Other fandoms I’ve loved over the years (read, never written for), include Arashi, InuYasha, Dragonball, Rorouni Kenshin, Full Metal Alchemist & Sailor Moon.

Thanks for stopping by ❤️

[uniquexusposts]

Her || Charles Leclerc

Main characters: Charles Leclerc x OC Genre: fanfiction, fluff  Story type: novel  Part: 11/? Word count: 3089 Co writer: @mistrose23

Story summary: Matilde Jørgensen, the new Scuderia Ferrari team principal, faced the nerve-wracking challenge of reviving the team's fortunes and aiming for a championship. Leading a historic team as a 'newbie' and separating her work and personal opinions posed a significant challenge. The big question: is she capable to do so?

Previous chapter

Chapter 9. Night Guards

The Ferrari Factory was cloaked in darkness as Matilde's car glided to a halt in the parking lot. The moon hung low in the sky, casting long shadows over the iconic factory campus.

With a sigh and a hint of exhaustion, she stepped out of her car. Nerves travelled through her body. After last weekend's situation, she wasn't sure if she wanted to continue her role at Ferrari. However, it didn't feel right to drop everything and leave after only five races. She grabbed her bag from the backseat and locked her car, walking towards the entrance. The factory grounds were quiet at this hour, devoid of the usual hustle and bustle that defined the daylight hours. The parking lot, which was typically teeming with cars and personnel, now held just a handful of vehicles.

Instead of entering the office building, she entered the factory building. She scanned her pass and got in. Matilde exchanged greetings with the guard, who was happy to see her. The man congratulated the woman on the win, and they shared a few words about the race weekend.

After a quick security check, she continued her way to the canteen. Matilde just started to get to know this building. She ran her hand through her hair and yawned. Even though she was still living in the American time zone, she was getting tired because of the darkness outside.

"You are a real warrior," Mario, the manager of the night shift, said when Matilde entered the canteen. The entire night crew looked at the team principal, who was standing in front of them. "I didn't receive a cancellation, but we didn't expect you to still show up for the night shift."

Matilde scanned every person in the room, waiting for their reaction. Would they react the same as the racetrack team? She didn't know it anymore, she didn't know who was genuine and who wasn't.

"You just had a race in America and you are already here," Angelo added, a mechanic.

Everyone looked surprised to see Matilde, but they looked grateful at the presence of the woman. They all were drinking tea or coffee, preparing for their long night at the factory.

A fragile smile came on Matilde's face. "When I say I will be there, I will be there," she said. "I'm still in the American time zone; I will be up all night anyway. Might spend it here as well."

"Well, in that case," Mario said and got up. He made his way to the fridge and took out a white box. "Unfortunately, we cannot pop the champagne now," he said and put the box on the table. "But we can celebrate it with cake." Mario opened the box.

Matilde looked at the cake, and her lips parted. Tears flowed into her eyes when she read the text on the cream. 'Congratulations on your first win!' She looked up and glanced at Mario and then at the team. "Guys..."

"Congratulations, Matilde!"

"Your first win will always be special. We sadly couldn't be in Miami to celebrate it with you, but we will celebrate it with you now," Mario proudly smiled. "It was a perfect weekend for the team, and we couldn't be more proud of everyone."

Appreciation, that was the thing she missed during the entire weekend. How come the track team didn't even bother to ask her to join the celebration, and the night team came up with a celebration themselves? "Thank you," Matilde said. "Thank you for all your hard work, we couldn't wish for a better weekend, and that is because of your dedication and work. Grazie a tutti," she widely smiled. "Grazie ragazzi."

The night team beamed with pride as Matilde expressed her gratitude. Their cheers and applause filled the canteen, breaking the silence of the late-night hour. It was a heartfelt celebration, a sign of the strong bond that existed between the night shift team and their team principal.

Matilde's eyes glistened with unshed tears as she looked around at her colleagues. These were the unsung heroes of Ferrari, the ones who toiled through the night to ensure that every detail of the F1 operation was flawless. And they cared about everyone within the team. These were the people who kept the operation going.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Matilde approached the cake. She took a knife and began cutting slices for everyone in the canteen. The cake, a symbol of their shared achievement, was quickly devoured as the team was insulted by this midnight treat.

"So, tell us, how was this weekend?" Mario asked curiously.

Matilde shared her experiences with the people. She told about the great teamwork, the problems that were quickly solved and how everything felt like they bonded. Matilde had shared before that things weren't going smoothly within the track team, but she proudly told how things changed this weekend. Due to her professionalism, she decided not to share the moment that broke her heart. It was something she had to deal with, she didn't want to ruin their view on the rest of the team.

"And the celebrations?" Angelo asked. "Huge dinner party?"

The team principal nodded. "Yup." Her eyes met the eyes of a mechanic who was also part of the track team, who was also picking up night shifts every now and then. "It was fun." Matilde was hoping that the mechanic wouldn't ruin her reputation within this crew.

A mechanic scoffed. "Fun for the team, yes."

Her hope sank. Matilde's face straightened, and she swallowed hard. She looked down and waited for the rest of his response.

"We had a fun dinner, indeed. Until something happened," the mechanic continued. Everyone looked at him while he looked at Matilde, who was clearly feeling uncomfortable. "It turned out that our people didn't even bother to invite Matilde to the celebration dinner."

Matilde felt a mixture of surprise and trepidation as the mechanic continued to speak. She had hoped that the incident wouldn't come to light during the night shift. As the mechanic's words hung in the air, there was a moment of tense silence. Matilde could feel the eyes of the night shift team on her, assessing her reaction.

"Yes, it is true," she began, her voice steady. "There was an incident at the celebratory dinner. It wasn't the way I had hoped the evening would go. But let's not dwell on that. What matters is that we had a fantastic race weekend, and the team's performance was exceptional." She shifted the focus away from the negative moment, choosing to highlight the success. It was a delicate balance between acknowledging the issue and steering the conversation toward more positive aspects.

"Why was she not invited?" A woman blurted towards the mechanic of the track team. "How dare you say that in front of her? This is straight-up bullying!"

The eyes of the mechanic shot up to the woman. "Hey, I am not saying this to make her feel more bad; I'm saying this because what happened was not classy from our side. I had heard that Matilde couldn't be there, multiple people asked where she was, and everyone said she couldn't be there. But that wasn't true, no one invited her. And I didn't know that," he defended himself, but also Matilde. Ever since he found out that no one had invited her on purpose, he felt extremely bad about it. "The team principal always joins the celebration dinner."

Eyes shot to Matilde, who looked hurt. "I was told no one was celebrating it because of the early flight the next morning," she replied. "I was with Red Bull because my best friend works at Red Bull, and it's my old team. And my flight was leaving in the late afternoon the next day. I wanted to celebrate it," she defended herself.

Silence fell in the canteen.

"But the champagne move... Legendary," the mechanic said. "How did you dare to do that?"

"What exactly did she do?" Mario asked. He looked at Matilde. "What did you do?"

The mechanic smirked. "At some point, we all got served a glass of champagne, telling us we got the compliments from our team principal."

"How did you know that they were there?" Angelo asked Matilde.

"Apparently, I was in the same restaurant," Matilde replied. "Leclerc texted me, asking where I was, and at that moment, I saw the entire team sitting in the back of the restaurant. I already downed two shots, and I had some champagne in my system, so I don't know what I was thinking."

Chuckles and giggles filled the canteen, causing Matilde to smile lightly. Did this mean that Matilde could feel relieved?

"This is a boss ass bitch move; I love it," a young woman said, who sat in the corner of the room. "As you should, Matilde. Show them how shitty they acted. Own it."

Angelo laughed. "I must say, it's not very professional, but I would absolutely do the same if I were you in that situation. Whoever thought that it was okay not to invite you, should get fired."

"Don't give her ideas," Mario said. He thought the situation was funny because of the reaction of Matilde, but he noticed the situation was hurting her and how she lost the trust in her team. When she entered the canteen, she reacted differently. Now he understood why. It was everything but classy for his colleagues to treat her like that. "It sounds like there was a misunderstanding, Matilde. Maybe the message got lost somewhere along the way."

The woman who had spoken up earlier took a deep breath and spoke again, her voice filled with empathy. "But that doesn't excuse the fact that we should have ensured you were included."

"It isn't your fault, Valentina," Matilde responded. "You weren't there."

"But it is our team; they are our colleagues."

"I really appreciate that. Miscommunications happen, and yeah, so be it. I will pick it up tomorrow. I was in my fault, they were in their fault, and we have to talk about it." She acted like it didn't bother her that much, but the fact that these people supported her more than the people she worked with on a daily base...

"I don't like those people anyway," the young woman said. "They all act like they are better than us; meanwhile, they are taking our credits."

"Don't mind Stella. She says what we are all thinking, but we keep it in front of us, and she doesn't," Angelo replied and looked disapprovingly at her.

Matilde politely smiled at the crew. She made eye contact with the mechanic, who stood up for her. She gave him a grateful nod, which he returned with a smile and a wink. "Anyway, thank you all for your concern, but it happened; it's in the past. Let's move forward," she said, hoping the moment would pass. "And this is told in confidence. So whatever is said here, stays here. Unless you think it is inappropriate, then you know where to find the board, and I will happily have a conversation about it." She realised she had lost the authority, she didn't like authority, but she was the team principal after all.

As the night shift began, Matilde felt a warmth in her heart that transcended the exhaustion of her long journey from Miami. She was there for them, and they were there for her.

Throughout the night, Matilde worked alongside her night shift team. They discussed strategies, reviewed data and ensured that every aspect of the past race and upcoming race was discussed. Matilde picked up some office tasks, preparing for the upcoming week with briefings and meetings.

* * *

The next day, the Ferrari office was bustling with activity. The race track team got back to work after their days off after the weekend. The team had gathered for a small inauguration ceremony, a celebration of Carlos and Charles' impressive performances during the previous race weekend in Miami. It was an opportunity to recognize their achievements and boost team morale.

As the team members gathered in the massive hall of the office, there was a palpable sense of excitement in the air. Colleagues chatted, sharing their pride in the team's success.

Charles and Carlos were standing in the room next to the hall, waiting for the ceremony to start.

"Matilde will be here, too, right?" Carlos asked Charles after not having spotted the team principal. She usually was present before everyone else was at the office.

"I don't know." A frown grew on Charles' forehead. "I saw on Instagram that she was in Denmark, for her mum's birthday or something. Perhaps she's still there."

"Weird," Carlos replied.

"But maybe she's on her way."

Finally, the double doors at the hall swung open. Charles and Carlos stepped into the room, greeted by applause and cheers from their colleagues. Their smiles radiated the joy of the moment. They waved at their team.

"Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends, today we gather to celebrate the remarkable achievements of our drivers: Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz!" The spokesperson of Ferrari took the task of leading this ceremony. "What a race, boys. Congratulations."

The room erupted in applause again, and Charles and Carlos exchanged smiles. However, when the ceremony continued, Charles and Carlos missed the presence of one person. Carlos was asked to say something about the weekend. It gave Charles the chance to scan the hall once again. There was still no sign of Matilde. It worried him. Did this have to do with Sunday? He still hadn't had the chance to speak with her about what had happened, as he felt extremely bad about it, but had she given up already? Charles thought about the situation a lot, and he wondered if he could have prevented it.

The sliding doors of the entrance opened. Charles' eyes shot to the person who had entered the building. He watched how she entered the building and went through security. It looked like she had no idea what was going on. The woman was wearing grey trousers and a blue, oversized button-up shirt, her hair in a low bun. She was carrying two bags and a coat. Once she entered the hall, she came to a halt. Her eyes scanned the hall.

A sense of guilt washed over Charles as their eyes met. He pursed his lips tightly, seeing the emotions written all over her face. Her expression changed from surprise to pain. Her face told stories. Then her face showed a clear message that she didn't want anyone's pity or sympathy. A few other people noticed Matilde's presence as well, being shocked to see her.

Matilde walked towards the podium, between all the people. Anger was playing a huge role in her emotions right now, but she had to ignore it and show who the team principal was. Her eyes met Galileo's, who was standing next to the podium. His eyes widened. Matilde ignored him and dumped her stuff on the ground, next to the podium. She stepped on the podium and stood next to Charles, wearing a professional smile, but her eyes showed a bitchy look. If you were standing close by, you would notice it.

Carlos ended this speech and looked at the spokesperson. His eyes fell on Matilde, who shared a smile. He smiled back, being relieved she indeed was on her way when they were waiting at the beginning.

The spokesperson looked at Matilde. "Well, once again: thank you all for being here," he said. "Matilde, good to have you here as well."

"I was not aware of this celebration," she mumbled under her breath, not knowing Charles heard her. Matilde looked at Galileo; she would have a word with him afterwards.

"Charles, we will go to you in a second, but first, a word from Matilde."

Charles handed the microphone over to the woman next to him.

A smile rested on her face. Over the weeks, she realised how good she became at acting and putting on fake smiles. "Of course, Carlos, outstanding work. It was a faultless race from your side, an almost faultless race on our side. We had an issue, but we managed to fix it in time, so I consider it a faultless race," she said and looked at Carlos. She moved her gaze to Charles. "Charles, your outstanding performances made us all proud. The way you fought with the Red Bulls and defended was just brilliant." Matilde turned to the people in front of the podium. "And you! Each and every one of you is also the reason why the team won. If you were at the track, at the factory or at home, because of you, we put out an amazing performance. It's not just about the victory, but also about the teamwork and determination of everyone. Well done, everyone. Keep up the good work." She handed the microphone to Charles.

"I agree with everything that Matilde just said," he said and chuckled. "We couldn't have done it without the dedication and hard work of every person in this room. This win is yours as much as it is ours."

The hall burst into applause again. Matilde joined in the clapping, showing that she was there for the team. Even though she had a lot of anger in her body, she recognised this moment of unity and celebration, a reminder of what they achieved together, and what they could achieve together in the future.

After the speeches, the team mingled, sharing stories and congratulations. Charles, Carlos and Matilde posed for photos with their colleagues, holding their trophies proudly. The first celebration of the season and as a team with a new team principal were enjoyed, suddenly there were no tensions left.

Matilde stepped down the stage and collected her stuff. It was not even nine hours after the end of the night shift; she wasn't even supposed to be here for another two hours. She walked away from the celebrations, and she wanted to leave the hall, until someone stopped her.

"We have a board meeting scheduled."

Another thing she wasn't aware of. Matilde smiled. "I will be there," she said. She was open to attending the meeting two hours before she was allowed to start working again. "After I have spoken to my assistant."

"Everyone is waiting for you."

"I will be there," she repeated, taking a second to make clear that she would be there. "After I have seen my assistant," she said, looking the man in the eyes, giving him a stern nod and walked away. 

Next chapter

[stormer-needs-coffee]

ruka how dare you hide this valuable info in your tags

share this information to the world

Also I would totally read a book about Thresher Funny Moon Adventures

You ever just like

Think about the sleep schedules of the Heroes?

Like I know for a fact that Furno is the mf to drink 15 red bulls, stay up all night and then proceed to spontaneously collapse at 1:27 PM when all the caffeine and shit wears off.

Like that's the only one I have nailed down so far feel free to add onto this post in the replies and reblogs

[wishingforatypewriter]

Day 1: Holiday (Cobra feat. Linzolt)

This was written for Day 1 of my little Four Seasons OC Challenge. This one centers on Cobra (aka Akiak) who is a founding member of the Triple Threat Triad, Zolt's closet friend, and Viper's older brother.

As soon as Cobra opened the door to his fourth-floor walkup, he was greeted with the rich, savory smell of meat roasting. He followed the scent to the kitchen, where Lusa was bending down to take an arctic hen out of the oven. 

“Let me get that, Luz,” he said, but by the time he grabbed a pair of tea towels, his fiancee had already moved the bird onto the cooling rack and started flipping the puffin-seal sausages on the stove.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her middle, hands coming to rest on the baby bump that was just beginning to show. “What happened to taking it easy, huh?” he asked. “The doctor said—”

“Is the doctor going to come here and cook for the Moon Festival?” Lusa replied. “We’ve got your friends tonight and my family tomorrow and your mother already asked if I could bring over some mooncakes and blueberry cookies.”

“You spoke to my mother?”

“One of us has to,” she replied with a pointed look. “And if I can’t promise her the whole family around the table this year, the least I can do is send some desserts. Now, release me. I have noodles to roll.”

Cobra left a lingering kiss on her cheek before letting her go. “At least let me help.” 

“Did you buy the good gin for the polar martinis?”

“Of course,” he said, gesturing towards the large paper bag on the counter. 

“Good. Now go have one for me and entertain your guests,” she said and then promptly shooed him and his gin out of her kitchen.

A few sips into what turned out to be a damn good polar martini, the doorbell rang, and Cobra buzzed in the first of their visitors. A minute later, Zolt and Meilin strolled in, bearing more top shelf liquor and Fire Nation sweets.

“Thanks for coming, guys,” Cobra said, taking the bottles of ice wine and bourbon from them. 

“Thanks for having us,” Meilin replied as Zolt helped her out of her long green coat with fur trim. It was perhaps too nice a coat for the factory girl persona she put on whenever Zolt brought her around, but there was no good way of telling her that without ruining the evening. 

“Think we can afford to cut our people a bonus for the holiday?” Zolt asked once they were settled on the couch. 

Cobra considered it for a moment, weighing the possibility against what he’d last seen in the accounting books. “Then we’d have to do the same thing for the Fire Festival and the Spring Equinox to prove we’re not biased.” 

Zolt shrugged. “We can probably swing it.” 

Cobra bit back a sigh at his friend's magical thinking. “Not unless we edge the Agni Kais out of sports betting, and even then—” 

“Enough triad talk. It's the holidays,” Lusa said as she entered the room, carrying a tray of appetizers. “And poor Meilin’s probably bored out of her mind.”

Cobra took the tray from her and set it down on the coffee table. Then he took her hand and guided her to take his seat on the couch. “You've been on your feet too long, my love.”

“But dessert—”

“I’ll finish it,” he said. 

Lusa gave her head an amused shake. “You have many talents, Akiak, but baking is not one of them.” 

“Don't worry,” Zolt told her. “I'll make sure he doesn't fuck it up.” 

Lusa sent Meilin a questioning look—‘can he actually bake?’—and received a nod and a little smile in return.

“Alright, fine,” she finally said, and leaned back against the couch, one hand on her stomach and started chatting up Meilin. 

“I can't believe you’re gonna be someone's dad soon and you still can't cook for shit,” Zolt said once they were in the kitchen, and he picked up right where Lusa left off.

“And I can't believe you haven't proposed to Meilin yet,” he replied without missing a beat. 

Zolt sighed. “That's not on the table. She wouldn’t want…”  He handed Cobra a bowl of wet ingredients. “Just fuck off and stir that.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the optimist between us?” Cobra asked. “All I’m saying is she might surprise you.”

[nevesmose]

Very unserious mirror universe of the doll AU expanding on a lil idea from a convo with @chemos-factories - Fulgrim is a normal dude apart from being a huge nerd obsessed with plate armour (bed covered in knight stuffies, suit of armour dakimakura, has made himself a chainmail weighted blanket, cosplays every possible armour-wearing character) who one day gets his dream job as a preservation specialist at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

(And you know what, he also lives in the exact same flat I used to, in one of those brick buildings on the left. Write what you know etc etc.)

Anyway he's introduced to the exhibit storage areas all glowing with happiness and sets to work on some task or another, enjoying finally being there but at the same time still very nervous so having to use every technique he has not to fall back into the self-sabotaging patterns of overthinking and perfectionism that have hurt him so many times in the past.

During a stressful moment he takes a break from his work intending to get some fresh air or a tea/coffee or something, but accidentally takes a wrong turning and ends up walking into a foreboding darkened storeroom with a single looming figure in the centre.

He turns on the light which brightens the room just enough for him to see that it's the tallest, ruggedest suit of plate armour he's ever seen perfectly set up for display. Most of the plates are dull grey hammered steel except for the armour's hands and lower arms which are silver-plated and covered in elaborate Renaissance engravings/decor.

He's so enraptured by the need to feel the delicate, intricately-constructed fingers of the gauntlets against his own hands that he completely ignores the numerous Haunted artefact!! Do not touch!! Containment only!! Never ever for public viewing!! notices all around it.

For some reason impossible to put into words he can feel the calming influence of the armour, as though its stoic protectiveness is being somehow shared with him.

And then one night, after spending far too many lunch breaks mooning over the silver-handed armour, he's suddenly awoken by a mysterious yet deafening CRASH CRASH CRASH of steel plates in the darkness just outside his bedroom...

[whisperthatruns]

Night Waitress

Reflected in the plate glass, the pies look like clouds drifting off my shoulder. I’m telling myself my face has character, not beauty. It’s my mother’s Slavic face. She washed the floor on hands and knees below the Black Madonna, praying to her god of sorrows and visions who’s not here tonight when I lay out the plates, small planets, the cups and moons of saucers. At this hour the men all look as if they’d never had mothers. They do not see me. I bring the cups. I bring the silver. There’s the man who leans over the jukebox nightly pressing the combinations of numbers. I would not stop him if he touched me, but it’s only songs of risky love he leans into. The cook sings with the jukebox, a moan and sizzle into the grill. On his forehead a tattooed cross furrows, diminished when he frowns. He sings words dragged up from the bottom of his lungs. I want a song that rolls through the night like a big Cadillac past factories to the refineries squatting on the bay, round and shiny as the coffee urn warming my palm. Sometimes when coffee cruises my mind visiting the most remote way stations, I think of my room as a calm arrival each book and lamp in its place. The calendar on my wall predicts no disaster only another white square waiting to be filled like the desire that fills jail cells, the cold arrest that makes me stare out the window or want to try every bar down the street. When I walk out of here in the morning my mouth is bitter with sleeplessness. Men surge to the factories and I’m too tired to look. Fingers grip lunch box handles, belt buckles gleam, wind riffles my uniform and it’s not romantic when the sun unlids the end of the avenue. I’m fading in the morning’s insinuations collecting in the crevices of the building, in wrinkles, in every fault of this frail machinery.

Lynda Hull (1954--1994), Collected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2006)

[wonderwomansupremacist]

I need a fanfic that feels like this:

But make it either Sapphic or Aromantic/Asexual.

And I have a few ideas for this fic but they are not required:

MC has insomnia. When they do sleep, they dream of the stars and cosmos

MC's love interest (if any) is either a woman, non-binary, agender, or gender void

The overall feeling of the fic is calm, fever dream-ish, reminds you of sleepless nights, kinda how Wonka and the Chocolate Factory felt or Jack and the Coocooclock Heart felt

The setting is almost always in either the evening, dusk, or js nighttime

The moon phases play a significant part in the MC's dreams/nightmares

Sexual themes can be added in, but it's not hard-core BDSM or rough fucking. More like slow and soft. Idk. Fluff ig ???

MC likes to drink coffee or tea a lot

Flowers and their meanings matter

Stars around scars

At least one genderfluid character, even if it's a side/background character

Very Alice in Wonderware type shit

MC may or may not be schizophrenic

I'm writing this between 1:20am. & 1:35 am. and I have classes in the morning. So exuse all of this, I'm high off of sleep deprivation and limited food consumption.

(Also the only reason I'm not writing this myself is bc I'm too much of a coward and I'm very self-conscious. Plus I don't believe I'm good at writing)

[lunamsubmersi]

this is possibly gonna get deleted later but im speculating on what video games the black phone gang would play

Vance would like retro games. Virtual pinball is a dead giveaway but I think other small arcade games like that would interest him too. like street fighter, that one zombie shooter that's in every arcade. He'd like resident evil. But secretly I think he also has a few cozy games. Like he and Bruce have a stardew farm he loves so dearly. He's also got the prettiest Animal Crossing island and insanely detailed perspective builds. He will not show you.

Bruce would have a pretty predictable selection, I feel. Stardew, Story of Seasons, Minecraft, etc. But he also plays stuff like Hades and Bayonetta! And he likes them a lot. When he starts playing Cult of the Lamb, everyone is really surprised. More so when his leadership style isn't gentle.

Finn is more of a multiplayer kinda guy. He plays with Robin and Gwen most days so his defaults are things they play together. He has a few he plays on his own like Mario or Yoshi's Island. He likes quieter games where there's no real stress (or death)

Robin is an fps and horror gamer most days. Unless he's playing with the others, you'll find him playing anything from Gears of War to Puppet Combo type stuff. He got into RE because of Vance and they only made it through 6 by complaining to each other about things they disliked with it.

Griffin is a cozy game boy. He's got an insanely pretty island on Animal Crossing. (not as good as Vance's but they have a secret agreement and he gives Griffin help if no one is around) He's played Potion Permit, Story of Seasons, Stardew, Rune Factory, etc. He's also the RPGMaker expert. And games like Spiritfarer and To The Moon are experiences he cherishes dearly.

Billy is also multi-genre. He plays anything that peaks his interest. He's the best at puzzle games though so he really likes Pictograph or Layton. Ace Attorney is another game he really enjoys. He also has the best time management in Pikmin.

Gwen will tell you she's a cozy gamer and she has the hours in ACNH and various other games to back it up. She played a lot of the same games Griffin did and they both learned to play For River together. Coffee Talk is a very special game to her. But she also could smoke you out in GTA and is more aggressive than even Vance when they all play Mario Kart. She's definitely completed a genocide run in Undertale.

[twoidiotwriters1]

Daughter of Olympus (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: Stressed out over the dumbest shit but hopefully I'll get my shit together this week -Danny Words: 3,325 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter / Next Chapter Listen to: 'Outsider' -by Blanco White

IX. I Handle It Like a Champ

Walter is so nervous when he asks me out that I don't have the heart to say no. It's a big deal for an Aphrodite to be someone's crush, like a milestone. Even if you don't like the person. Considering how out of place I've been feeling, this has me over the moon.

"Do you even know this guy?"

"We wouldn't be going on a date if I did," I shrug.

"That's not..." Percy looks at his mom. "That's not how it works, right?"

Sally chuckles. "Do you like him, Ara?"

"He's nice."

"Where is he taking you?"

"The mall that's five minutes away from the coffee shop where we got those raisin muffins," I'm not good with street names, so I always give directions like that.

Percy frowns. "You don't know the city."

"I never leave this place?"

"We always go out together!"

"We're always cutting things short because we run into monsters."

"Tell you what," Sally intervenes. "I'll drop her off on my way to work, and you pick her up, we can get burgers after."

Percy and I look at each other, I pout and he gives in. "I'll pick you up at five."

Someone's dragging her away from the factory, she inhales sharply and tries to regain her footing. "I'm up! I'm alive!" Ara coughs out. "Where's Jason?"

"Here," Piper grunts.

Ara moves out of Leo's grip, and since she's stronger than Piper, she grabs Jason and carries him as best as she can. "Can someone tell me why are we running?" She pants.

"The Cyclops are regenerating!"

Ara swears in ancient Greek. "I don't even get to kill a stupid Cyclops?"

They reach Festus and Ara pushes Jason up with Piper's help. She asks Leo for a plastic bag, grabs two fistfuls of snow, and puts them inside it. Ara climbs the dragon and faces Jason while Piper hugs the unconscious boy by the waist. Leo is wiring Festus as quickly as possible while Ara works on Jason's head injury. 

"Hang tight!" Leo yells.

Ara's back is pressed against Leo's, but she hooks her feet under Piper's legs just in case. The girl grabs her dino bag and seizes the bottle of nectar and a clean cloth, pouring the liquid on it and cleaning Jason's forehead, once again chanting under her breath.

The boy stirs in his sleep, but he doesn't wake up. Ara wraps his head in bandages, keeping the cloth pressed over the wound. Once that's done, she dries her hands on her own cloak and gives Piper the bag with ice. 

"Keep it on the bump, don't press too hard..." Ara leans on Leo and lets her head fall on his shoulder. "Thank the gods the children of Zeus have thick heads..."

I wait a whole hour before I conclude that this boy won't come. I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt, but then I see him with Karen and her friends at the arcade. I go away and call Percy—two hours earlier than he'd expected me to call—and he gets there in less than twenty minutes. 

"Where is he?" Is the first thing he asks. His face is kind of scary.

I shrug. "No idea. Can we leave now?"

Percy's eyes get darker. "That jerk didn't show up?"

I avoid his gaze, really hating the conversation. "He came with Karen—"

"Who's Karen?"

"I guess she's my bully..."

I have to force Percy to sit down because he's ready to go and beat Walter's infant butt, and tell Karen a thing or two about what he thinks of people like her.

"I realized something," I say after a while.

"That you shouldn't date boys?"

I laugh. "No. That Karen's sad girl. And Walter really dumb. Imagine her convincing Walter to play a prank on me, and then wasting their weekend to get me down, but it doesn't work."

"Darn right," he pauses. "But uh... why didn't it work?"

I shrug. "Karen never smiles unless she's making fun of someone."

"So... you have it better," he replies, understanding my point.

"Probably," I smile. "You get me."

"Are you sure you're okay, though?"

"Oh, I was doing him a favor," I roll my eyes. "He could've been the first boy in our grade to have a girlfriend... though maybe he will, he's been with Karen this whole time..."

"Karen is not as cool as you," Percy claims, although he's never met her. "He'll live to regret it."

I'm thinking I'm already living to regret this moment. Maybe what the other cabin ten campers said to me isn't true, I'm not supposed to date whoever crosses my path, I must wait for the real deal.

"Whatever. I'm hungry," I get up.

"Let's go for those burgers and surprise Mom," he replies, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and ruffling my hair.

Percy gave the stink eye to all of my classmates for the rest of the school year, Walter would constantly wet his clothes on accident when trying to drink from the school's water fountains, but Percy always denied having something to do with it.

"You know, Ara," Leo says. "I know I'm hella good-looking, but this is the first time I make a girl faint—"

She sits up straight. "It was the blessing, they knock me out as soon as I'm done using them."

"You mean it's happened before?"

Ara yawns. "Yeah, but Aphrodite's didn't drain me like this..."

Piper grins. "But you looked really cool while fighting that Cyclops lady, so it must've been worth it, right?"

"Don't flatter me, feed me!" She groans. "I'm still growing, you know?"

Leo chuckles and pulls something out of his belt. "Here you go, doll, the Hephaestus's special."

He hands her a sandwich and Ara eats it quickly, not even questioning where that thing was a minute ago. "You guys will get me killed." Piper looks uncomfortable with her joke, and Ara feels guilty right away. "I'm joking. I just—"

"Cyclops!" Jason wakes up with a start.

"Whoa, sleepyhead..." Piper tightens her grip around him.

"Good morning!" Ara fixes his bandages. "You've been in a coma for a week—"

"What!?" Jason chokes.

Leo cackles, but Piper scolds her. "Don't do that, he's disoriented!"

Ara grins sheepishly, looking like her ten-year-old self for a brief moment. "It's all good, man. You went away just a second."

"D-Detroit," Jason glances around. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo glances at him over Ara's shoulder. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

Jason tells them about his dreams. 

"An exchange?" Piper inquires. "What does that mean?"

The boy has half an idea. "Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—" Ara's eyesight gets blurry again, and her throat closes up. "Ara?" Jason holds her in place. "What's wrong?"

If he's a Roman demigod that was sent to a Greek camp, then Percy... Ara looks up and shouts to the sky in ancient Greek: "AM I A JOKE TO YOU?" She grabs her dino bag and buries her face in it to muffle her screams.

Jason stares at her in alarm. "Guys, I think I broke Ara..."

The girl pulls herself together at lightspeed. She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. "It's fine. I'm great."

"You know something we don't," Piper presses. "Ara, just tell us..."

"Like you're telling us stuff?" She snaps.

Piper's face loses a bit of color. Ara immediately regrets it, she shouldn't be rude to them. She'll sob if she stays angry, so she closes her eyes and lifts a hand to prevent Piper from replying.

"We can't do anything to stop it."

"Stop what?" Jason asks. 

Ara scowls at the clouds. "The exchange. We have other problems. Monsters don't stay dead, the solstice is approaching, and we don't know where Hera is—or Juno, whatever the Hades you wanna call her."

Ara switches to Italian because it's the one language she knows that the others don't. "Stia succedendo tutto di nuovo! Tutto in un unico viaggio: qual è il prossimo? La chimera e il leone di Nemea?"

"Yeah, she's definitely broken," Leo glances at her with a frown. "Ara, why don't you go back to sleep?"

That only sets her off more. "So the memories can harass me in my sleep? Where were we, Hypnos? Right! My brother's a hero and I'm a worm!"

"Ara," Piper speaks firmly. "Calm down."

Ara stops. She's throwing a tantrum and it's not helping. The girl pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I'm sorry... I just... I should sleep."

"My back is all yours," Leo offers playfully.

"Can I give it back?"

"You're so rude," he says, though he sounds delighted to be back on the receiving end of her taunting.

"I'm very rude." She thinks grumpily. "Leave while you still can."

The first time I meet Apollo, he knocks my self-preservation out of the park. 

"Ara Jackson," he smiles brightly at me. "How's the new life going? You happy being New York's finest?"

"Do you have companions like your sister?" I blurt out, eyes wide in awe.

Apollo smirks. "Yeah, but mine are not, er... not maidens, exactly."

"What are they?"

He sighs dreamily. "Muses."

Apollo and Aphrodite share a few traits: Passion and a disposition to fall in love with just about anyone whom they may find impressive. 

"Can I be your muse?"

"Alright!" Percy pushes me into the bus.

Nico Di Angelo—one of the two demigods we rescued—and I are bouncing off the walls of the chariot bus. We're talking everyone's ears off to the point Apollo has to kindly ask us to chill so Thalia can hear his directions. We crash-land on camp anyway. 

"Goodbye, little muse," Apollo ruffles my hair, then pauses. He looks... eery.

"Lord Apollo?" I speak shyly.

He blinks like snapping out of a daydream. "I should get going..." He hesitates, then shakes his head. "Oh, whatever. See ya!"

Ara gets woken up the moment Festus lands. She stretches, feeling much better than a couple of hours ago. "Where are we?"

"Chicago," Jason jumps off the dragon and offers to help her. She moves his hand towards Piper and hops off landing next to him. "We're following some venti."

"I'll take a caramel latte," she mumbles sleepily.

Leo chuckles. "You know, I like you way better when your sense of humor's on. Is the quest helping you blow off some steam?"

Ara glances at him with a scowl. "Maybe. Fighting monsters helps—good thing they're not staying dead, I can kill them all I want."

She knows she shouldn't say that. Ara's the Fates's favorite fool, or maybe this is Apollo's twisted way of showing her support. Here are a bunch of traumatizing events for your soap opera! You're very welcome, muse!

Piper's ankle is hurting again, so Ara gets to work, but she's no healer. Piper shivers from the cold so Ara takes off her cloak and puts it around the girl's shoulders. 

"No, that's your stamp of power, isn't it?" The girl frowns.

"This is my stamp of power," Ara shows Piper her compass. "The cloak helps when there are demigods who need to know who's in charge, mostly just for show, but it's warm. Use it." She gestures at Nico's aviator jacket, pretty dirty, but still intact. "I'll survive."

Piper arranges the cloak around her shoulders, and it's obvious that she feels weird about it. Festus malfunctions briefly but Leo tells them the dragon is okay, he glances at Ara and there is no emotion apparent on his face, but the message is clear. Shut up. I got this.

Ara's good at turning a blind eye, living with Percy gave her enough practice.

Percy and Thalia go to relate our quest to Chiron and Mr. D—and I am, as usual, left behind.

Nico's watching the orientation film, which I'm pretty sure no one has seen in decades, and I'm left to do whatever I want, so I look for Lily. She's with the Stolls, they're trying to get a hold of her knives, but she forgets all about them as soon as she sees me.

"Benedetti gli dei!" The girl holds onto my shoulders. "How did it go?"

I tell her about Annabeth's disappearance, and I feel so guilty that I burst into tears. Travis and Connor drop Lily's daggers to join the conversation. "I-I'm sorry!" Between sobs, I manage to explain we have a new camper but his older sister joined the hunters.

Travis is in shock. "Who abandons their sibling like that?"

"Are the new kids okay?" Lily asks worryingly. Her behavior is weird, I just told her Annabeth is missing and she's asking me about the new kids?

I clean my nose with the back of my hand. "Percy saved us." Lily punches my shoulder and I start crying again. "Can't you tell I'm in pain already!"

"That's for not following orders!" She scolds me. "You snuck away the second you were left unsupervised!"

"But I'm okay!"

"If you had stuck together, then Annabeth—"

"Let's not go there," Connor intervenes.

"What's going on?" Beckendorf's voice only makes me cry louder. "What did you guys do?" He scolds my friends.

"We didn't do that!" Travis points at Lily. "It was Saggio!"

She stomps her foot impatiently. "Ara put herself in danger and she's having a meltdown over it! ¡Incosciente!"

Beckendorf kneels to be face-to-face with me. "Wanna go to the forges, Birdy?"

I sniff. "I'll bring my teddy." 

Ara's second time creeping into a sewer is not as fun as the first, she tells the others about her adventure with Percy and Annabeth recovering Hermes's staff.

Leo whistles lowly. "You are like a Barbie doll. Lots of jobs, looks..."

"My best friend calls me 'Queen Barbie'—Queen B, most of the time," Ara laughs dryly. "So you're not the first to bring up the resemblance..."

"May I interest you in a Ken?"

"Jason's not really my type," she replies.

The blond boy and Piper chortle, but Leo scoffs. "Was talking 'bout me..."

"You're not a Ken," Ara snorts. "You're like..." She hates bringing people down, but in this case, it's better if she does. "An elf on the shelf. You've seen those?"

"Jeez! Shoot me point blank in the head already..."

"Keep up the flirting and I might."

After Piper falls asleep, Ara studies her compass: The needle never points north, not that she would even know where the north is, the symbols on the object make no sense. Percy suggested once that maybe it points in the direction she needs to go, but it's always swinging from one side to another, not really settling on anything.

Jason's voice catches her attention. "This fire stuff you can do... is it true?"

"Yeah, well..." Leo makes a small ball of fire appear on his hand. Ara reaches out and keeps her hand hovering over the flames. When she does this, Leo's gaze softens.

"That is so cool," Jason says, reminding the boy he's not alone with Ara. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Leo closes his fist. "Didn't want to look like a freak."

"I have lightning and wind powers," Jason frowns. "Piper can turn beautiful and charm people into giving her BMWs," he looks at Ara and grins. "Ara's like a jack in the box. You never know what she'll do next. Pretty spooky. No offense."

"None taken," she sighs.

"You're no more a freak than we are, Leo. And, hey, maybe you can fly, too. Like jump off a building and yell, 'Flame on!'"

"If I did that, you would see a flaming kid falling to his death, and I would be yelling something a little stronger than 'Flame on!'" He shakes his head. "Trust me, Hephaestus Cabin doesn't see fire powers as cool. Nyssa told me they're super rare. When a demigod like me comes around, bad things happen. Really bad."

"Maybe it's the other way around," Jason shrugs. "Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that's when they're needed most. That's the reason why Ara's here, 'cause she has an advantage we don't."

She'd never thought of it that way, which is silly, because it makes sense. It doesn't have to be their fault, maybe they're the solution... like Percy was in his prophecy. 

Leo moves the empty paper plates away. "Maybe. But I'm telling you... it's not always a gift."

"You're talking about your mom, aren't you? The night she died." Leo remains silent, so Jason continues. "Leo, her death wasn't your fault. Whatever happened that night—it wasn't because you could summon fire. This Dirt Woman, whoever she is, has been trying to ruin you for years, mess up your confidence, take away everything you care about. She's trying to make you feel like a failure. You're not. You're important."

"That's what she said," Leo's voice comes out with so much hurt, Ara's heart tightens. "She said I was meant to do something important—something that would make or break that big prophecy about the seven demigods. That's what scares me. I don't know if I'm up to it."

Ara lets out a dry laugh. The boys look at her. "Sorry, I just... I never thought I wasn't good enough until I got my wish granted. It's like, you reach the top, everyone's staring, and—How am I supposed to act now?"

"And you can't admit that you're scared," Jason nods, he doesn't know why, but he relates to what she's saying. "Because—"

"You did that to yourself," Ara completes.

"No," Jason's eyes twinkle with understanding. "They make it look that way, so you don't quit."

"They?" Leo asks, lost in the conversation.

Ara words it differently so Leo understands what they mean. 

"You're given a bronze dragon, you know what's in it and how it works, you look after it, fix it to make it better... But sometimes it malfunctions, cause he was already kinda rusty when you got it—you didn't build it from scratch, but everyone acts like you did, they make you feel like it's your fault it's not perfect."

"Hmm," she can almost see the gears in Leo's head turning. "So we can't be good enough for ourselves... because we're carrying other people's mistakes? That what you're saying?"

"Guess so," Ara sighs. "Not only the mistakes, I mean, the children of Olympus have a legacy I gotta live up to, when I don't raise the bar, I'm doing a bad job. So like... thinking you're not up to it just because you haven't done anything different than other demigods before you, that's normal. It's good, motivates you."

"Is there a less awful way to be motivated?" Leo pouts.

Ara ponders this. "I guess you... keep tabs on your progress? You survived our encounter with the Cyclops, which gave you knowledge you didn't have two days ago. Just keep going, practice is what you do if what you want is experience. Your father told me I would be worthy of my power only after I got it, 'cause I would work hard to keep it..." Jason's looking at her funny. "What?"

"You're a good leader when you're not freaking out," he smiles. "Annabeth wasn't sure you'd be... I mean, I probably shouldn't tell you this—"

"It's fine, I've heard it before," Ara hugs her legs. "I get angry when I don't get what I want when I want it, but I'm working on it... No more freakouts starting today."

"I'm not sure you can promise—"

"I'm an Aphrodite, I can control myself," she brushes it off. "If I say I'll keep it together, I will. We're all confused here, that ought to keep me focused. Trust me."

"I trust you," Jason replies.

They stay silent for a moment, then Leo talks. "You ever wonder about the other three demigods? I mean... if we're four of the ones from the Great Prophecy, who are the others? Where are they?"

"I'm not one of you," Ara states confidently.

Jason frowns. "Why not?"

An expression of concern crosses her face before she replies."They wouldn't count me in knowing I'm forced to come."

"Okay, doesn't make sense to me, but let's say there are four demigods left," Leo rolls his eyes. "Where are they?"

"I don't know," Jason replies. "I guess the other four will show up when the time is right. Who knows? Maybe they're on some other quest right now."

 "I bet their sewer is nicer than ours," Leo grumbles.

"Percy and Annabeth will be two of them," Ara admits quietly.

"What makes you say that?"

"You can't have one without the other," she feels like crying again. "And one of them has already been taken."

Next Chapter ->

Taglist.

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[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

WTNV quick rundown - 148 - The Broadcaster

Featuring the voice of James Urbaniak as Leonard Burton.

Read the rest here!

The opposite of war is not peace. It is tedium. Greetings from Night Vale.

Leonard is our radio host for today. He tells us about his morning routine and how he almost died by being runover by the Men and their truck of crates. This is apparently a daily occurance and every time he almost gets hit he feels himself getting hit and dying and yet does not.

He says that they are having a parade to celebrate the end of the Blood/Space War which hasn't technically ended yet to them but also kind of has. He says that everyone in NV except for himself is gone and talks fondly if cryptically of Cecil as an intern that was supposed to replace him but can't because he doesn't exist here.

An emissary of the Blood/Space War appears and heads towards the radio station. She reveals herself to be The General and explains to Leonard how she has been winning the war through time travel. She says that it was a mistake to do this because now NV is empty and on the verge of not even existing. She plans to set it all right and bring NV back, but that will result in Leonard dying as she should have.

Leonard does not accept his death but is also powerless to stop The General as she disappears to fix her mistakes. He says however that death will not stop him from broadcasting no matter what even as he starts to hear Cecil's voice again.

Weather: “Subspace” by RAQIA

Leonard does not own a car and lives two miles from work.

He frequently misquotes sayings in French.

He enjoys describing vague shapeless things like death, love and wind as tangible things. He also describes Cecil in this way; 'He is a line of leafless mesquite trees. He is a glass factory. He is golf ball-sized hail. He has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes. He wears tight clothing and has never once worked with modeling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors in dark hallways.'

Leonard died (run over by the truck) in November 1983.

Leonard also had disdain for the moon, which appears broken to him too and then suddenly whole.

Apparently Albert Einstein also experienced time differently but only when it came to songwriting meaning he owned music from many different times.

Stay tuned next for grackles hatching from long-dormant eggs. And anything else I wish to describe, real or not, for you do not hear me anyway. And until tomorrow, "See ya, Night Vale. See ya."

Proverb: Ask your doctor about dogs. Have a long conversation about how good dogs are. Show each other pictures of dogs.

[softsnzstuff]

Just wanted to do a little Moon Knight drabble because I was missing my best boy. Have a teeny tiny Steven x reader ficlet. 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 ~KB

****

Iced coffee is definitely superior, you think to yourself as you sipped your hazelnut latte. You tapped your phones screen to check the time again.

8:53 am. Steven wasn’t usually late for your museum coffee dates before work, but today seemed to be an outlier.

As if on cue, your phone lit up with a photo of Steven sheepishly looking at the camera. You’d insisted on a contact photo and caught him off guard. You swiped your phone unlocked to answer.

“Hey Steven, you almost here?”

“I’m so sorry sweetheart. I’m going to have to reschedule. I’m a bit under the weather this morning.”

There was some coughing on the other end of the line that made your heart drop.

“Aww I’m sorry. Not coming into work I take it?”

“No I snff I called out today… hhh ii’hDSH!”

“Bless you! Can I come over? Keep you company?”

“No no you don’t have to do that,” he began, “don’t let me spoil your day off.”

Always too polite for his own good.

“Alright well… get some rest yeah?” You ask.

“I will I promise.” He says. “Love you! Laters gators.”

You smile to yourself, “After a while crocodile.” And end the call.

Well you’re already at the coffee shop. There’s no way you’re going to leave without bringing Steven a hot tea. You know a nice chamomile with honey and lemon is his go-to ‘sick drink’. Dates back to his childhood.

Once you’ve acquired a tea to-go, you hop on the bus and wait the four stops to get to Steven’s flat. You make your way up to his floor and knock on the door. It’s still only 9:27 so you’re hoping he didn’t fall asleep that fast.

Your loving boyfriend opens the door a few moments later. He’s in his pajama pants and his coziest jumper, hair disheveled in a way you find utterly adorable.

His usual healthy glow is replaced by flushed cheeks and a pink nose. He’s shocked to see you in a way that makes him resemble a lost baby duckling. You’ve been dating for months now and he’s still shocked that you care this much about him. Your heart melts at the sight of him.

“Hey sweetie,” you give him a sympathetic smile and run a hand through his hair, “I brought you a tea.”

He looks beyond grateful in a way only Steven Grant could.

“Aww you’re an absolute dream, darling. You didn’t have to do that. But I’m so thankful that you did.”

He takes the tea from you and you lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek but he turns away.

“No - you don’t want this. I feel like a yucky germ factory.” He frowns.

You can’t help but chuckle. “Yucky germ factory?”

He smiles and blushes, but the giggle makes him cough. He turns around facing away from you and brings his arm up to his mouth.

“e’hKTshew! snfsnff h’idSHiew!”

You rub a hand up and down his back, closing the door behind you with your foot.

“Bless you!”

“SNF ugh I’b sorry!” He sniffles, “Didn’t want you to have to see m’be all disgusti’g…”

“You’re not disgusting baby, just sick. And I’m not leaving so how about we get you back in bed and I’ll make you some soup?”

He smiles and nods, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” You say, and this time he lets you kiss him.

Regardless of the circumstances, you’re overjoyed that you get to spend your day off with your best boy.