#seriously the black gunk was disgusting

[crsinclair]

So fun fact: there's mold growing in my closet!

I figured out Thanksgiving Day (Nov 24th for non-MERICAN's) that something was up because for several days my nose had been, uh, leaking black gunk. Yeah, gross. I know. At first I thought I was due to my one day outside and I caught something on the wind, but the more days that passed and I still had the black stuff coming out, I grew concerned, did a Google check...

And since it wasn't coming from my mouth (thus not my lungs), that ruled out TB and lung disease, AND I hadn't been near any fires or smoke, that left: MOLD EXPOSURE.

I'm already sick and struggling to keep from fainting at a moment's notice, so I told my roomies, we got to a doctor who was pretty much useless, and when I got home I was relocated to another room (unfortunately upstairs). All of my clothes, blankets, pillows, and various linens have been washed, and once that was finally done the ACTUAL hunt for the mold began.

It was found only 2 days ago! I was beginning to think the black gunk was a fever dream of some sort, but no, it's there - it was hiding behind some things on the floor in my closet. Dunno how it got there - either a leak in the roof and it dripped through the walls to the floor, or some water in my bathroom traveled under the tiles and over to my closet. Regardless, now we have to rip out the carpet and try to figure out how deep/far it goes.

And to the things better, last night I FINALLY was able to get my PS5 set up again so I can play vidi games, right? Well, as a precaution I was wiping everything down with disinfectant wipes because everything had been in my room.

The wipes were coming away black.

Not dark grey, not brown. Black.

We're gonna have to wash every surface of that room because mold spores have settled on everything. I went in there yesterday because I had left the remote for the TV and immediately started coughing - gave up on the remote very quickly because fuck that noise.

I'm hoping that I can save my art books - one of my roomies says I can put them under UV lights and kill the mold? I just have so many books and some of them I stored in my closet...

Anyway, that's an update from meeee, how're y'all doing? 🙃

[happi-tree]

On The Style and Effectiveness of 1-A Hero Costumes - Part 2/5

Part 2 of this post!

NAVIGATION

Part 1 2 3 4 5

INGENIUM / IIDA TENYA

It’s armor time!!! Behold a man. 

What I don’t like:

The costume seems too bulky for a Quirk and fighting style that optimize speed. And while it’s true that cars are pretty bulky but still go fast, it’s equally true that certain types of cars are designed to go faster. The current design reminds me most of a semi or a big SUV, but if the costume was more streamlined along the lines of racecars or sports cars, it would help take off the extra weight that the bulk provides, leaving Iida lighter and more streamlined - therefore, faster. 

Some examples of slimmer armor include Go Go Tomago’s from Big Hero 6 and Jim Lake Jr.’s from Trollhunters. And while I get that his body type inherently lends itself to being tank-like, lightening up on the bulk would probably be great for him.

The exhaust pipes out of his back confuse me. They bring some car energy, which is entirely welcome, but they likely hinder balance and motion, which is bad. They leave him looking a little unbalanced, and since so much of his strength and his fighting ability focuses on his lower body, having excess superficial material protruding out of the sides like that doesn’t seem to lend him any favors. And even while it looks cool, it just seems like it would be uncomfortable? Especially since a lot of runners - Iida included - like having full range of their arms to help propel them forward. The pipes might get in the way of that.

Here’s what I like:

The overall aesthetic. I love how this look both makes sense with Iida’s Quirk and personality and plays with elements of his older brother’s costume. It simultaneously puts across some knightly vibes - which is genius, considering how chivalrous and rule-following Iida typically is - and also calls to mind Transformers and cars with the emphasis on the engines and some of the more mecha elements.

The support! Armor is such an easy way to protect yourself while also getting some serious style points. His most essential areas are covered - neck, chest, arms, and legs - which is especially important considering that Iida’s legs are integral to his Quirk and his fighting style. The helmet is also a really good choice, considering this boy is essentially a human car. He looks a bit intimidating wearing it, which is good for fighting Villains, I suppose. Class dad is protected.

And a misc. note:

You know how after Iida’s special Recipro Burst move, he has to wait awhile while his engines cool back down? I think it would be really neat if he implemented some cooling technology into his Hero suit (similarly to Todoroki’s temperature-regulating gear). Theoretically, if he could find something that worked a bit like coolant for his engines, he would have a much quicker reaction time - and speed is the main facet of his Quirk, so it would probably help a lot!

Overall: Very good at providing protection while having a bomb-ass aesthetic. Not quite so good at being built for speed.

I CANNOT STOP TWINKLING / AOYAMA YUUGA 

On the other side of the armored spectrum… we have this kid!

What I don’t like:

*Edna Mode voice* NO CAPE! Why do I not like the cape? Capes can snag on stuff very easily and it would be an easy thing for Villains to target and use to unbalance Aoyama. Longer capes are especially susceptible to getting trapped under rubble, torn up, or covered in gunk from the environment (which is not the Look he seems to like). I feel like a shorter cape would get a similar message across while minimizing the potential dangers that a long cape poses. Of course, Aoyama can be trained via experience to utilize his costume effectively with the full-length cape, but when his life and the lives of others are on the line, I’d rather not take that chance.

The shades. I get that they’re iconic, but they’re taking rose colored glasses a bit too seriously. 110% will fall off his face and also messes with the princely Vibe the rest of his costume provides. I do like their Elton John energy, though.

Not a bad thing, but I just want to know how his belt works.

Here’s what I like:

The overall aesthetic. I love how the costume’s obvious “princely knight” vibe reflects so much of Aoyama’s character. 

The support here is also really good! Working the belt into the theme of his costume so seamlessly is very innovative and I love that for him. Getting the knee pads and shoulder pauldrons to match his central laser both adds to the uniqueness of the outfit and also pushes that royalty theme since they look very similar to inset gems. 

The color scheme. Purple, silver, gold, and black look very classy and regal together, and I appreciate how the royal purple ties back into the concept of European royalty, which is very in-character for this boy. His pantaloon-looking things??? Neato.

Overall: Eh, okay. Ditch the glasses and shorten the cape. Superb, you funky lil knight light.

CREATI / YAOYOROZU MOMO

Here we are! I’m finally taking a crack at one of the most highly debated hero costumes in the entire show, and like a good portion of people, I’m gonna be extremely salty about it. Yaomomo doesn’t deserve this - none of the girls deserve this. These are my thoughts:

What I don’t like:

The absolute lack of support. For any aspect of her. Nothing about this costume is protective (other than maybe the partial high collar). Her most vulnerable areas are exposed, and while it makes sense for easy Quirk usage, it does not make sense for a girl who’s fighting homicidal maniacs on the front lines. The most glaring area in need of support is obviously her chest, as nothing substantial is holding her bust in place. However, so much could be done to work with the benefits of Creation and against its weaknesses that is not being done in this costume. I’ve seen quite a few redesigns that include a sports bra with a front zip closure, which is worlds better. With the show being set in the future, having a slightly mechanized costume with the ability to retract certain pieces at the press of a button would be useful and likely doable considering Yuuei’s own Support department. Gloves would probably be a good idea to give Yaoyorozu a better grip on harder-to-handle Created objects, such as heavy metal machinery. 

The over-sexualization is, obviously, disgusting. Nothing about this costume says “Hero.” What it does say, in-universe, is that someone had the absolute gall to approve and send this outfit to a 15-year-old girl about to be thrown headfirst into training for an extremely dangerous profession. It says that giving a person in their freshman year of high school an overly sexualized outfit meant for combat training is okay (it isn’t, for reasons I can’t even begin to explain). This more closely resembles an outfit for a lingerie or swimsuit model than it does for any type of superhero, which alone should be enough to warrant some serious changes - especially, as I have stated, since the girl is only 15!

The overall aesthetic. There is no aesthetic reading for this costume other than “sexy”, which, as I explained above, is very problematic. Sure, the exposed skin makes sense for her Quirk, since she needs access to skin in order to produce items with Creation, but nothing about this outfit denotes anything about her personality. Yaoyorozu Momo is a gentle girl who has been shown to have self-esteem issues from early on in the show, and just knowing that makes me wonder if she feels uncomfortable wearing this. If she’s totally comfortable in this look, good for her! But comfort in our clothing factors so much into our mental states, which translates directly to our physical performance - it’s the same reason why having clothes that fit you and your style well make you feel more confident and more content. And especially if Yaoyorozu wasn’t quite expecting the amount of skin revealed when her costume was given to her, it could likely have added on to her self-esteem issues as seen early in the school year.

The skintight fit of what amounts to a glorified bathing suit is not conducive or acceptable whatsoever. With such a powerful Quirk, Yaoyorozu needs all the protective material she can get - which, as I said in Uraraka’s analysis, is quite simply not possible to fit under that bodycon fabric. Some padding at the very least would work wonders, and bulletproof material would serve her even better. 

Once again, heels are not good for any kind of running or fighting! At least it’s a block heel, which is marginally more stable than, say, a stiletto, but still.

The literal bookshelf on her ass. It makes no sense to put it there - it’s an inconvenient place (what if she needs to sit down?) and it looks incredibly awkward to move around with. Besides, there’s absolutely nothing stopping that book from falling at the slightest jostle. At least give her a proper holster or implement it into a toolbelt like some of the boys have. 

What’s with the belt? Can it hold emergency supplies? Or is it just there to make it seem like she’s wearing more than a deep v one-piece? I’m at a loss here.

Here’s what I like:

The color scheme. Deep red, white, and pale yellow look good on her! The color ratios are also pretty good in my opinion. Unfortunately, this is the only good thing I can say about her getup.

And to round us out, some misc. notes:

I feel like the book could be done away with entirely and replaced with something digital. This universe is set multiple centuries into the future, and I think something like a holographic data set would look slick, enable for faster search time for whatever info Yaoyorozu would need, and eliminate the bulk problem completely. At the very least, there could be a smartwatch-type gauntlet to pull up info with a larger screen to enable easy reading. Really, the lack of support for Yaoyorozu’s look is devastating because she could go so many directions in creating an outfit that works with her Quirk’s strengths and against its weaknesses.

Overall: Awful, a disgrace, and a disservice to one of the coolest, kindest characters in the class. I would kill for her to get the outfit she deserves.

INVISIBLE GIRL / HAGAKURE TOORU

Wow, look! Two travesties in a row! One more and I get a bingo!

Hagakure, I love you so much, and I am so, so sorry that the yahoos over at the Support company thought that this was a good idea.

What I don’t like:

Uh. The fact that there isn’t a costume. There is literally no in-universe rationalization for this. Surely, they have the technology. Just look at Lemillion! Togata Mirio’s Quirk is literally phasing through materials (including his own clothing) and they made him his own non-phaseable costume by weaving his own DNA into the fabric! Even if they don’t have the technology (they do), I know that Hatsume and probably the rest of the Support students would immediately jump on the chance of creating a fabric with the ability to switch between visible and invisible modes. 

Once again, the sexualization of minor Hero students continues to disturb me. Who in their right mind thinks it’s okay to send a naked teenager out into a live battlefield just because she’s less likely to be noticed that way? This line of thought surely doesn’t account for stray bullets or falling debris, nor does it account for this poor girl’s peace of mind. She should be focused on getting the job done and saving people, not worrying about how it’s too cold for her to work properly or how there’s nothing between her body and a loaded gun except for the air between them.

The gloves and shoes seem like they’re kinda. Missing the point of contributing to a stealth Hero costume? Yes, they’re good so that Hagakure can be easily recognized among her allies, but does she just have to stow them wherever when she needs to go fully invisible and hope she can find them once the mission’s over? Plus, Hagakure will always, at the very bare minimum, need something to protect the soles of her feet. Walking barefoot just for everyday civilian stuff would cause a lot of problems, but Heroes likely have a lot of broken glass, broken nails, debris, and other nasty things on the streets where they fight. Tetanus is not fun to have. 

Here’s what I like:

The gloves are a nice color, I guess?

Some misc. notes:

I gotta say, I’ve seen SO many good takes on outfit redesigns for Hagakure (same with Yaoyorozu) and the fandom collectively has some wonderful ideas on how to go about creating a costume for her. Personally, I think it would be cool if she had a full-body suit that could change between visible and invisible modes - that way, she would be easy to identify in head counts and it would likely be easier to see places where she could be injured after a fight. At the very, very least they could pull a Lemillion and have her outfit infused with something from her own DNA so it can disappear as she does while leaving her at least covered.

Overall: So, so bad. Please give this girl a suit. I’m tired. 

TLDR Part 2:

Great Costumes: 

Good: Iida

Okay: Aoyama

Questionable: 

Bad: 

The Absolute Worst: Yaoyorozu, Hagakure

[shewhohangsoutincemeteries]

little things

Rocket Raccoon x Gender-Neutral Reader

Requested by: @bluemarsuniverse​

Summary: rocket talks to quill about the reader, confused as to why they do all those little things for him.

Characters: rocket raccoon, reader, baby groot, peter quill, mentions of other guardians

Warnings: adult language, fluff

Word Count: 2,047

CHECK OUT MY FANFIC DEDICATED BLOG

You were half-lost in inconsequential thought when you felt an insistent tug on the hem of your jeans. You smiled down at Groot, standing carefully and stretching your arms out above you. You groaned contentedly as you did, feeling a kink in the middle of your back ease.

It was your own fault that you were stiff; you’d been curled up in one of the cockpit seats since breakfast, shooting the shit with Quill and Rocket on a long-haul flight to a planet called Sakaar in the hopes of picking up some new work. Apparently, it was mostly junkers, but word had it the big wigs on the planet hired contractors pretty often. A couple of hours curled up in that chair, one leg thrown over the armrest… well, it would probably make anyone sore. Still, you’d had fun, as you always did. The three of you had just been talking about nothing in particular… although, truthfully, you’d spent most of the time just listening to the two of them squabble as you watched them fly the ship.

Rocket glanced your way as he heard your groan, his eyebrow quirked. It might have been concern, but maybe he was just exasperated. Or annoyed – you had technically interrupted him. You offered him a small, cheery smile and he rolled his eyes, a smile of his own touching at the edge of his mouth. You bent down to scoop Groot up off the floor when he took hold of your pantleg again.

“I’m gonna go and get lunch started,” you explained quietly as Groot grinned up at you, his tiny hand tangling in your hair as you placed him on your shoulder. “Try not to insult each other too much while I’m gone. I wouldn’t want to miss a good one.”

Quill turned his head to give you a crooked smirk in response. “All my insults are good ones.”

“Oh, please,” you shot back. “Half your references are so old and obscure even I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about half the time.”

His jaw dropped in offense, and you laughed. You were about ten years younger than Quill, and he took every single one of those years as some kind of personal offense. So, of course, you tended to play it up.

Rocket scoffed, shaking his head at the two of you. “You both make no sense.”

“I don’t know how you put up with us, Rock.” you said with a wink, and he smirked despite himself, ducking his head. “I’m gonna try making that spicy thing you liked again. I’ll bring up some for the two of you when it’s done.”

“You don’t even like spicy food.” Rocket pointed out and you shrugged the shoulder Groot wasn’t sitting on.

“Yeah, but you do.”

Rocket watched you leave, his brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”

Quill adjusted the controls in front of him, settling comfortably back into his seat. “Get what?”

“Why Y/N… does that.”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

Rocket rubbed at one of his eyes with his paw, shaking his head. “Just, that—”

***

You sidestepped a wrench as it clattered across the floor, a smirk playing on your lips. This was exactly why you never went around barefoot; steel-capped boots were pretty much a must on the Milano. Rocket’s head was in an open panel, his paw buried in his toolbox and his back to you. “You wanna watch where you’re throwing those things, man?”

He spoke without looking up, sarcasm lacing his tone. “Why do that when you can just watch where you’re walkin’?”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “You’re seriously a charmer, Rocket.”

“You know it, doll.” he replied without looking up.

“How’s it coming?”

Rocket huffed, turning to dig deeper into his tool chest. His fur was mussed, sticking up around one ear – a sure sign he’d been at this for a while. Whenever he was frustrated, he’d tug at that spot of fur absently. “Would be fine if I could find the damn plasma—”

“You mean this?” you bent down to pick up the tool from where it was half-hidden under a crate. You held it up pointedly until he turned around, surprise lighting on his features. “Is this what you were looking for?”

“I—yeah?” Rocket said, his tone softer than before. You handed it to him, leaning back against the crate. “Since when do you know anything about tools?”

“I looked it up a while ago. Taught myself.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

You shrugged, leaning back against the crate. “So, I could help you.”

***

“This is disgustin’!” Rocket snarled, clawing at his fur irritably. He, like the rest of the crew, was covered in thick, dark purple goo. It was viscous and sticky; it was the remainder of some seriously disgusting alien pods that you’d all been contracted to destroy. They were a pest species popular on the black market; they could do some serious damage to a planet if left unchecked.

You’d found them in a cavern about thirty miles outside a small city, hanging from the ceiling in nets. You’d dealt with the smugglers and Quill had opened fire on the closest net. It had exploded, leaving you all retching and covered in the goop.

“Why the hell did we take this job?”

“For about thirty thousand units,” you said dryly, rubbing a towel through your soaking hair.

Quill had called “Captain’s Rights” and claimed the first shower, so you’d filled a bucket with steaming water and lugged it to your bunk. You’d stripped out of your mission gear and spent twenty minutes scrubbing the gunk off your skin. It had taken half a bottle of body wash and you’d ruined your loofah before you’d even gotten a chance at the shower.

It had taken another fifteen minutes and a lot of shampoo to finally remove the goo from the locks it had gotten caught in. Drax was in there now, and while Gamora and Quill were getting the ship back in the air again, Rocket was left in the cargo bay, furious over his condition. He’d been standing behind Drax when the first pod had exploded, so he’d been spared most of the goop, but it still clung to sections of his fur stubbornly.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t enough.” he grumbled, cursing as the goo glued his paw to the fur of his neck. He grunted as he pulled it free, taking a little fur with him. You hid a small, amused smirk as he did. “This shit is never comin’ off.”

“This might help,” you suggested, setting a fresh bucket of hot water and a cup down next to him. You held out your now half-empty bottle of shampoo. “And so will this.”

He raised an eyebrow at you, and you shrugged. “It’s all I had. You might just have to deal with smelling like vanilla and grapefruit for a little while. Sorry. But it’s probably a good thing, because that gunk really stinks.”

Rocket snickered despite himself, shaking his head as he took the bottle from you. “Fine.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave you an exasperated look, and you smiled, sitting cross-legged on the floor. You watched him struggle with the cap for a moment, the goop on his paws sticking to the plastic. “Dude… do you want a hand?”

His ears rose in surprise before they lowered back against his skull again, his expression turning apprehensive. You held up your hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, it took me almost half an hour to scrub that shit off, and I’m not covered in fur. You wanna do it yourself, by all means. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

You made move to stand, and he groaned dramatically in annoyance. He didn’t say anything, he just held out the bottle petulantly. You smiled softly, taking it from him. You could feel his eyes on you, wary, as you filled the cup with hot water and squirted shampoo into your palm. “Relax, Rocket. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He huffed a sigh, his shoulders lowering slowly. He held out an arm, letting you gently take hold of his wrist. “I know.”

***

“Groot! Set your ass down, would ya?”

You paused in the corridor as you heard Rocket bark irritably. Stepping into the doorway of their shared bunk, you watched in amusement as Groot terrorized his surrogate father. The raccoon was curled up in his hammock with his back to you – you’d relieved him at about three a.m. to take your turn ‘piloting’. Mostly, you just had to make sure the autopilot stayed on course and that nothing unexpected came your way. That was about six hours ago, and by the looks of things, he hadn’t actually gotten much in the way of sleep yet.

Groot on the other hand, was in high spirits, bouncing around the room and chattering excitedly. Rocket groaned, shoving a pillow over his head.

Rolling your eyes at the two of them, you whistled, catching the Flora Colossus’ attention. He immediately ran towards you, vines clinging to your leg. You saw Rocket’s ear perk up under the pillow at the sound as you let Groot clamber enthusiastically up your arm. “C’mon, sprout. Leave your Rocket alone and I’ll make breakfast.”

Rocket rolled over, his head peeking out from under the pillow. He watched you through one lazily opened eye, his fur mussed. “What’re you doin’?”

You tickled Groot’s belly with your fingertip, grinning tiredly as he giggled. You spoke through a yawn. “Distracting the child so you can get some sleep.”

“But you’re tired.”

“Not as tired as you,” you shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ll just take a nap later. This is what coffee’s for, anyway.”

Rocket gave you a small, weary smile. “You’re a doll.”

“And that right there is why I do it,” you teased with a smile of your own. You reached up to stroke the soft fur of his ear, and he sighed, settling back into the hammock. His eyes closed slowly, his lips curving softly. “’Night, Rock.”

“Night.”

***

“—that thing they do.”

Quill sniggered, shaking his head and setting the ship to autopilot before standing. “You really are thick, man.”

Rocket raised a brow, offended, following after him as he headed for the ladder down to the ship’s main quarters. The scent of warm spices already teased at his nose. “What’re you talkin’ about, humie?”

“C’mon, Ranger Rick. Is it really that hard to figure out?” Quill asked over his shoulder. He sighed when he caught Rocket just staring at him blankly. “They do it because they like you. It really can’t be that much of a shock.”

Rocket stopped, his cheeks warming under his fur. “You—you’re just—I—”

Quill turned to grin down at him as he reached the kitchen. “You seriously didn’t know? Oh, man, this is going to be fun.”

You looked up from the stove, ladling curry into a bowl. “What’s going to be fun?”

Quill winked at you, accepting the bowl from you as he stepped past you to sit at the table beside Gamora. She rolled her eyes at him, a light smirk curving her lips as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You’ll see.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, amused. You turned to Rocket, who still hovered in the doorway. Groot had run over to him as soon as he’d seen him and was now perched happily on his shoulder. “You didn’t have to come down, I would’ve brought it up to you.”

Rocket ducked his head, glancing at Quill briefly before shrugging. He rubbed at the back of his head bashfully. “’s fine. We, uh… we figured we could all eat together.”

You grinned, taking a seat and patting the space beside you. “Great. If the curry doesn’t blow your head off this time, I give up.”

He snickered, sitting up next to you. Groot ran out onto the table, set on bothering Drax while he tried to eat. You lightly touched a finger at the edge of Rocket’s ear, smirking as it flicked forward in reaction. He swiped at your hand with his paw, cheeks warming once more.

.

.

.

tags: @lovely-dreamer19​ @spacesuitsforemergency @wittyforachange​ @wefracturedmotivation​ @january-echoes​ @glossyloner​ @capitalnineteen​ @dragon-chica​

[love-fireflysong]

Day 19: Domestic

Fandom: Tales of Phantasia  Character(s): Chester Burklight, Arche Klein  Words: 1309  Rating: General (minor swearing) Author’s Notes: It’s more Tales! Yay! Tried something different here, cause it’s not often I try to write dialogue between two people who absolutely love to tear the shit out of each other verbally, but still obviously really like and respect each other. I’ve noticed when reading other stories about them talking, that they tend to come across as them hating each other, just using the worst insults ever, with a sudden shift to ‘oh shit, I think I’m in love with you actually’. So I tried to find a nice middle ground but I don’t really know if I hit it.

“I seriously cannot believe that you’ve over a hundred years old, and you still can’t cook for shit.”

From where she was standing next to Chester in their kitchen, Arche poked him none to gently in his side, laughing at the way he squirmed to get away. “And I can’t believe that you’re still a rude little ass who insults his elders like this.”

Chester rubbed his side with a glare. “What elders? I don’t see anyone like that here. All I see is a pink abomination who acts like a six year-old.”

“Hey! I am a mature older woman, with years of knowledge and life experience behind me.”

He couldn’t help the snort that came out as he looked at her incredulously. “Mature? You? I’m definitely more mature then you are, and you’re like six times my age!”

Arche narrowed her eyes. “I’ll show you mature.” She abruptly pounced on him, tugging at both of his cheeks as she dragged Chester down to her level. He didn’t take anytime in returning the gesture in retaliation, and soon the both of them were standing in the kitchen and tugging at each others faces as they continued to insult each other.

“How is this proving you’re more mature?”

“You’re fighting back aren’t ya? That means you’re nothing but a child!”

“Child?! You’re the one that managed to burn the potato stew to the pot!”

“Not my fault you have crappy cookware!”

“Not my fault you’re a crappy cook!”

“Bastard!”

“Shrew!”

Neither is quite sure who let’s go first, but before they know it, they’re both glaring at the other, cheeks bright red from the constant pinching as Arche is now grabbing onto the sleeves of Chester’s shirt and he’s holding firmly onto her upper arms. They hold the the glare for as long as they can, but soon enough the both of them break down laughing, foreheads pressed together, and their grip on the other the only thing keeping them from collapsing to the floor in their giggles.

Soon enough, that too tapers off and the two of them are left standing in the middle of the kitchen, wide smiles on their faces. She’s been missing this banter between them even more then she thought she would over the last hundred years, and if anyone has learned to make every moment count, it’s her. So, taking advantage of the moment in question, Arche steals a quick, but firm, kiss. One that Chester barely manages to return before she’s let go of his shirt and turns back to the pot of what was supposed to be potato stew. But instead of chunks of white potatoes, carrots, and onions in a rich, brown, pork sauce, all that was in there was misshapen lumps of charcoal in a black, viscous sludge that had managed to burn to the edges of the cast iron cooking pot. She could only groan in dismay and make an exaggerated pout at the sight.

"I really thought I had it this time too...”

With his own groan, this one in grim acceptance of his fate, Chester grabbed at the pot and extinguished the flame from the stove. “And this is why I’m the one who cooks in this relationship. I cook, you clean. And then I clean up after you.”

Arche stuck her tongue out over her shoulder, but grabbed her broom and made to follow Chester outside. “Maybe it’s still salvageable, or edible. I mean, it can’t be a complete loss can it?”

When he reaches the door that lead to the outside of the the house, he turned to face her with a look of disbelief and disgust. “I say this with full offense intended, but I would have a better chance of survival fighting Dhaos alone and naked, then eating this crud.” Arche made to smack him in his ass with the handle of her broom, but he was already outside dumping the black concoction into the hole that had been so-loving dubbed ‘Arche’s Cooking Pot’ when she had first tried making a quiche  a few weeks back. She debated on smacking Chester with the broom anyway, but decided that it might send him into the hole too and she wasn’t nearly that mean. Or angry. 

“You think a Fire Ball would help to burn some of the gunk off?”

The snort that Chester made was so sudden, that he almost dropped the pot into the hole with the stew. A good thing he didn’t, he had a strange feeling that the combination of Arche’s ‘cooking’ failures would manage to eat through the cast iron pot almost instantly. “I think a Fire Ball would help to destroy our only cooking pot we have left.”

She frowned, knowing that he was right but didn’t want to admit it. She watched in silence instead as he scraped out as much of the charred food as he was able to before sighing. Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t a whole lot that her magic was gonna be able to do for them here. So she turned to go back inside and see what they could manage for supper with any ingredients they still had leftover.

“Hey, Arche.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder a little hesitant and distrustful. It was never a good thing when Chester let his voice get that soft and thoughtful. Usually meant he was thinking about Ami, or that he was thought he was being too harsh with her. She didn’t like soft, caring Chester nearly as much as hot-headed, brash Chester. Soft Chester had his time and place to be sure, but Annoying Chester was much more fun to deal with. Annoying Chester she likes. She really likes him a lot, actually.

“Yeah...?”

“I think we still have some rice left over from when we did hashed beef a couple of nights ago. Go see if Cress and Mint have any tofu. I’ll make some Mabo Curry tonight.”

Arche winced. Ami it was. “Sure. No problem.”

She hears Chester sigh and braces herself for whatever is coming next. “And see if their willing to let you have some fruit too.” Apparently it was a two-fer tonight. Just her luck. Man, she really messed up on that potato stew.

“You gonna have enough time to make both the curry and a fruit dish?”

“Nope. That’s why your in charge of the dessert.”

Arche scoffs and tries to defuse the tense atmosphere building. She can’t salvage supper, but she can try to salvage this at least. They can have that talk later tonight. “Thought you said I was a shitty cook.”

He turns his head to look over his shoulder at her, still scrapping methodically away at the pot, though he’s almost done at this point. “You are. The worst cook I have ever met. Pretty sure you’re gonna poison me one day.” He see’s her open her mouth to rebuke or argue or something and cuts her off. “That being said, unless you’ve somehow gotten worse over the past hundred years, I do remember you being at least half-decent at those fruit desserts.”

She mentally pats her back in victory and can’t help the grin that comes to her face. “Oh, just you wait. I’ve gotten even better. I’m gonna knock your boots off with my fruit cake! You’re gonna regret ever calling me an awful cook.” Arche hooks her leg over her broom and fly’s towards the house where Cress and Mint are staying, but manages to overhear Chester’s next sentence as he practically yells it out to her.

“I’m already regretting asking you to help in the first place.”

With a wave of her hand, she sends a small Stone Blast towards Chester over the pit and laughs at his startled swear and the finger he sends up to her in retaliation.

[toastedphantom]

A new project

Last month I found some guy on Ebay selling old electronics. Most notably: keyboards. Mechanical ones. The good stuff.

So I thought I’d order myself one of his very cheap Cherry G80-1800′s.

After waiting an unnecessarily long time because the original package got lost on it’s way here and getting a replacement sent it finally arrived.

And boy was it filthy...

I am disgusted but unsurprised. I took it to our garage because really didn’t want to have all that grime in our home.

Just look at this. One of the cleaner parts of the board:

A sticker on the back said something about 2011 so the board itself is at least that old.

A quick glance at the PCB revealed the board to actually be a G99-1611BAU. Which means.. something I guess... Probably has something to do with it being used as a POS (like a cash register) system keyboard and thus having a built in chip card reader.

I cleaned it as wellas I could but to get all the gunk out I’d need a different brush which I currently don’t so yeah..

105 washed and dried keycaps later..

Everyone is here!

It’s GMK branded but still an original Cherry board.

Currently, I’m typing on the keyboard and it is very different from my usual one (a Bloody B975 with LK Libra Orange switches).

As seen from the photos above it uses Cherry MX Black switches for the usual keys and an MX Linear Grey switch for the spacebar. Many consider them to be the worst Cherry MX switch but for me that’s still MX Brown. The Black’s have an actuation force of 60g (or 2.1 wizards of oz) and bottom out at 80g (or 0.012 rocks) while the Grey one actuates at 80g and bottoms out at probably 100g. So yeah they’re stiff. Also they’re a bit scratchy so I might lube them at some point.

The caps are lasered PBT which doesn’t yellow over time unlike the case. They’re medium thick, the legends are very sharp for lasered caps and mostly in great condition. Even the spacebar is PBT which is quite rare. Only the E, A and Enter keys show any real signs of wear, the rest have some very slight shine to them if at all.

Now onto the case. Frankly, it’s shit. It’s made of thin ABS, held together by plastic clips and flexes more than a bodybuilder at the beach. Also there’s no mounting plate that usually adds a bit of structural integrity to the whole thing.

Seriously, Cherry make some of the most reliable and consistent switches on the planet but their cases are made of boogers, cardboard and good faith. On a 75€/$ board that is absolutely unacceptable. On a 12.50€/$ one including shipping it’s less of an issue, but still.

The layout is the real highlight though. It moves the nav-cluster above the numpad and then shifts the whole thing over and the arrow keys down a bit. The result is a space saving keyboard that is just a tiny bit shorter than a TKL but still retains the full functionality of a numpad. I love it. 

ISO-DE can go fuck itself though.

[b-beeprichie]

Eddie Is Spider-Man pt 2 ????

Title: Killer Clowns From Outer Space

Paring: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier

A/N: this is a drabble i found in my notes from awhile back, it’s connected to this one. there’s no real rhyme or reason i wrote this, i just really love marvel and the idea of eddie being spider-man??? anyway a couple ppl wanna see it, so here ya go. should i turn this into a series of some sort?? it’s un-beta’d and all that jazz, but at least it’s not hiding in my notes anymore! sorry for all the mistakes!

Warnings: Blood, Evil Toddler Clowns

Since teaming up with the Avengers became a somewhat regular thing, Eddie's discovered that bad guys come in all different shapes and sizes.

There's the usual petty theft criminals that Eddie honestly misses at times like these.

Why can't anyone simply rob a bank these days?

Or commit a mugging?

There are plenty of old ladies with oversized purses just begging to be snatched from unsuspecting liver spotted hands, it’s a real travesty.

Instead now everyone has mutant powers, the technology to blow Eddie through a building, or both. The bad guys are growing more advanced, more dangerous. Including these nasty, drooling, toddler sized clowns.

They wreak havoc throughout downtown, massive heads with extendable jaws, snapping viciously at anything that comes within reach.

Eddie will never look at the circus the same way again. "Guys?" Eddie called out to the nearby Avengers. "I don't know how much longer I can hold these things off, they’re chewing through my web like it's cotton candy and they have no respect for dental hygiene." Eddie bundled another group of clowns together, sticking them to any and every surface. They’re fast, even Captain America is having trouble keeping up with them, snatching one off his back and smacking it into a wall with his shield were it landed with a disgusting splat.

Oh yeah, they exploded into blood red slime, this was literally the stuff from nightmares. "I-I don't know w-where they're coming from." Cap said in frustration, only stuttering when things were going down hill.

From the way one of the clowns was currently trying it’s best to chew its way through Georgie's metal arm, things were going downhill fast.

Who knew they would need all hands on deck for small army of clowns.  

At least Hulk was enjoying himself, stomping viciously on the  redheaded critters, flinging slime every which direction with giant green fist. It never failed to surprise Eddie that the massive green Hulk in front of him, who was having far too much fun literally stomping demonic toddler clowns to death, was Mike Hanson. The same man who sat in a lab with him pouring over different scientific formulas. Eddie's life is so so weird. He's in the middle of rescuing a family trapped inside a car when a boot clad figure dressed in red drops down on the hood.

"Spidey, you didn't tell me Ronald McDonald had kids! You know morally, morally I can't hurt kids." Deadpool jumped off the car, katanas pulled out of their sheaths. "But I think I can make an exception for these squirmy clown fucks."

Things end very quickly after that, child sized body parts go flying as the herd of clowns Eddie had previously contained broke free and swarmed the remaining Avengers. It's a bloody massacre, Eddie's jaw is dropped in both shock and amazement as Richie sliced unnaturally fast through clowns starting burst after burst of exploding clown slime. By the time Richie is finished every clown is dead except for the one Captain America managed to capture.

The entire team is covered in thick blood red gunk. Including the family inside the car, windshield wipers starting up almost comically except for the fact it was smearing clown slime out the way. The kids inside are going to need therapy for the intense phobia of clowns they're most likely to develop after this.

"Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck yeah! Did you SEE the shit." Richie grinns behind his mask and walks over to Eddie.

Eddie is covered in clown slime, he can feel it clinging to his suit, thick and gelatinous. He wants to throw up, oh god he's actually going to throw up. Life's hard when you're both a hypochondriac AND a superhero, this has happened more times than Eddie would like to admit. Some things didn’t go away with the bite, and his fear of germs and questionable substances is one of them. He’s working on it.

Eddie lifts the bottom of his mask, just enough so he's not blowing chunks inside the suit. The thought alone makes him gag even more, choking on the smell. He's taking the world's longest shower after this, and a nice long walk or two through one of Stanley's decontamination chambers. "Oh no, Spaghetti!" There's a gloved hand on his back rubbing gentle circles low on his spine, a little too low. "Are you seriously trying to cop a feel right now!" Eddie yelps, spitting the remaining bile out and swatting away Richies wandering hands. Only it's too late, when Eddie stands up to pull his mask back down the rest of the Avengers are standing around with various expressions of what the fuck. "Come on Spidey you know I can't keep my hands off you, have you seen you." "I'm literally vomiting!!" Captain America coughs loudly, and when Eddie looks over Iron man is standing next to him with his face plate drawn up. "Deadpool." Bill said sternly, which was much nicer that what Stan follows up with. "What is he doing here." Stan said pointedly.

It’s ridiculous how sassy and disappointed a red and gold metal suit can look. "Uhhh..." Eddie started, honestly not sure how to answer that question. What was Richie doing here?

"You didn't tell them about us?! This is no way for me to meet your dads! Look at them!" Richie gestured vaguely in the teams direction.

"Wait, you guys are together?" Hawkeye pointed between the both of them. Eddie wanted to die, he was covered in clown slime and sweat, everything smelled like vomit, he needed to shower, and now the Avengers thought he was dating a wanted criminal. "No!" Eddie shouted both hands up in defense. "I don't even know this guy!" Richie gasped dramatically, and okay that was a lie. "I mean I know him! But not like that, he's been following me! But we're NOT together!" Eddie turned towards Deadpool. "And they're not my dads, we're the same age! Except for Captain, hes old enough to be all our dads, but he's not our dad!" "He's been following you." Black Widow chose to speak up, all of the Avengers taking a defensive stance.

Richie takes a step back, sticking his katanas back into place. "Well this little family meeting has been nice and all but I gotta blow this popsicle stand. I hate clowns you know, very terrifying. This whole ordeal has been very traumatic for me and that’s really saying something, I've been through a lot." A large hand palmed the top of Eddie's head, and for moment his heart stops thinking Richie would pull off his mask. Instead Richie kissed the top of his head, making Eddie flush and shove away from him.

Richie laughs in response, running off into the slowly forming crowd.

"Should I go get him?" Ben questioned, crossbow aimed and ready to fire at what Eddie believes to be Richie’s ass.

Bill held up his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, a sign to both hold off and express frustration.

"No, b-but you." He pointed at Eddie. "We need to have a serious conversation later, you're going to tell us everything."

Eddie whined but nodded.

Fucking Deadpool.

Fucking killer clowns.

[imagine-loki]

The Shadow Of Your Heart

TITLE: The Shadow Of Your Heart

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 7 (of 10)

AUTHOR: FadingCoast

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you are Sigyn who saves Loki from torture.

RATING: Mature.

NOTES/WARNINGS: Sexual innuendos (no explicit sex) / blood / violence / torture.

Loki and Sigyn have known eachother since childhood. Tired of waiting, she gets engaged to another man, but Loki won’t accept it, and tricks Sigyn into marrying him instead. Will they get through married life, children and Ragnarok (sort of)?

Chapter warnings: Mentions of blood and torture, again. I should mention that english isn’t my first language, and I often struggle with synonyms and rephrasing ideas. Writing this chapter was hard because of that: my head was sure of what I wanted to portray, but words failed me a few times. So, I apologize if, at times, it is a little redundant.

Recommended song: Heavy In Your Arms - Florence and the Machine.

Also on Ao3

.-

Ch. 7: Are you strong enough to stand protecting both your heart and mine?

Breathe.

Inhale– A wave of pain stopped his chest from moving.

He had to be reminded on how to get air inside his lungs. It hurt. The peeled skin left his flesh exposed, with each intake his burns ripped open all over again. Blood trickled down his shoulders and his chest, his lower back punctured of the rocks underneath. His hair was sticking to his forehead, matted with blood and sweat.

Breathe.

He tried again, this time slower. The pain was a little more bearable, but it still made his muscles scream in agony. He pulled at the chains in his wrists, the metal digging into his forearms served as a distraction from the pain in his torso. He gulped the air down greedily, keeping it in his lungs for as long as he could before breathing out slowly.

Loki kept his eyes shut, it made no difference in the pitch black cave. He braced himself, now that he was awake, he would feel every bit of the dripping poison in his bare body. Every spell he had tried to use to block it had been useless: the venom would find a way.

It would burn his skin, it would expose his flesh, it would make him bleed, it would make him scream until his throat was sore, it would leave smoking traces and an acrid smell of burnt meat. The next drops would melt into his muscles, turning them into a gelatinous gunk, until it would reach the bone. His shoulder blades had already suffered, he had spent the last of his energy trying to heal the wound and cover the exposed bone. That’s when he had passed out.

“Loki?”

He heard a small whisper in the back of his head. Sigyn, he thought. He had been so drained of his magic, that he had stopped trying to reach for her.

“Loki, please…”

He heard again and blinked his eyes open. A faint light was flooding the cave and he gasped, surprised. He regretted it immediately, as the wounds in his chest reopened.

“Shit.” Loki was screaming now, but it was short lived. Soon, a cool sensation against his flesh soothed the pain a bit. And he realized.

“The Hel are you doing here? How did you find me?” He said hoarsely, staring at his wife. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Yet here I am.” Sigyn said with a quivering voice. “As how I found you, remember we’re bound together. There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t find you.”

Loki took in the picture in front of him: Sigyn’s skin was gastly white, her eyes bloodshot and swollen, with purple rings around them, her hair was a braided mess. Her robe was torn and dirty, with stains that he recognized as dry blood. Her trousers were ripped, showing several skid marks on her knee and leg. Her hands had been burnt, and they were shaking as they tended to his wounds. Suddenly, breathing became a lot easier.

“Here.” Sigyn said, offering Loki some water. After a couple of gulps, he felt better. “Not too much, I don’t want you throwing up on top of everything.” Loki just stared at her as she cleaned his face of the blood and the dirt before allowing him to drink a bit more.

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” Loki said softly. Sigyn cupped his face as gently as she could and kissed his chapped lips. Somehow, he managed to smile.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.” Sigyn said, pressing her forehead on his.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve been falling in and out of consciousness.” Loki shuffled uncomfortably, but in his position, there was only so much he could do. “How did you make the poison stop? I tried everything.”

“I didn’t make it stop.” Sigyn pointed to a circular bowl floating several inches above his head. “It will take a while to be full, but I do need you to get better before it does. I cannot drain it with magic.”

Loki nodded in understanding. “The handcuffs?”

“Sealed with a spell. In fact, those things are restraining your magic, not the poison.” As she spoke, Sigyn fed Loki small bits of fruit and chocolate.

Loki took a deep breath. It still hurt, but at least it didn’t feel like he was being skinned alive. Sigyn put her hand in the middle of his chest, making it glow gold. Loki could feel the soft tingle of magic surging through him. At first he resisted, as he didn’t want to wear her out, but she insisted. He managed to heal his wrists at last.

“Why doesn’t this work on the other wounds?”

“That’s snake venom. Skadi provided the snake. It must be cleansed before you can heal those wounds. Unfortunately, I can’t do it here. It requires a lot more than the satchel of herbs I managed to steal.” Sigyn helped Loki to get more comfortable against the rocks, using her cape.

“What now?” Loki said in a low voice.

“Now we try and figure something out, I guess.” Sigyn sat down between Loki’s legs, trying to clean his wounds as gently as she could. “You will get out of here, I promise.”

The bowl above them started shaking slightly. Sigyn looked at it and stood up in a rush. With one wordless look, Loki knew what was coming. He tried to brace himself, but sheer fear was breaking all his will.

Sigyn held the bowl. “Are you ready?”

Loki just nodded, pressing his teeth together and taking a deep breath. When Sigyn removed the bowl, it took a few seconds for the venom to drip onto Loki. He did a tremendous effort not to scream, but it was useless. His skin was still swollen and his muscles were still sore, this new wave of torture was way more than he could endure. Howling, he pulled at the shackles with such force that the whole cavern shook.

Sigyn tried to walk with the bowl full of venom as fast as she could to the back of the cave, trying her best to block Loki out, but some of the pain slipped right through. She could feel the burns in his back and the metal in his wrists. When the cavern shook, she stumbled a bit, causing the poison to slosh on her fingers. She nearly dropped the basin, but at least she was far enough so she could empty it.

She ran back, using her magic to put it again above Loki and stop the venom.

His skin was smoking and he was breathing heavily. Ignoring the pain on her hands, Sigyn hurried to clean Loki’s reopened wounds. The soothing magic allowed Loki to breathe normally again.

“Thanks.” He rasped. Sigyn resumed her position in between his legs, allowing him to drink a bit. “Your hands–”

“They will be fine.” She said, soaking her hands in the cold water. The burns closed half way through, but at least they didn’t hurt anymore. Then, she went back to cleaning Loki’s chest.

He stared at her, noticing the way she was clenching her jaw. “You know you shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t do that.” She said, still concentrated in her work. “Don’t even try, cause no matter what you say, I am not abandoning you.”

Loki saw the tears welling up in her eyes. “You deserve so much more than this.”

“Told you not to do that.” Her voice broke. “I’ve lost everything in the past few weeks, I’m not about to lose you too.” Tears were falling down her face when she looked at him. Loki opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “And stop apologizing.”

.-

A loud crashing sound stirred Loki from his unconsciousness. In came the pain, and he screamed. Sigyn rushed back to his side and started fumbling with the satchel of herbs. In the brief pause the venom gave him, Loki noticed Sigyn’s hands were severely burnt. He puffed, trying not to scream again.

“The bowl broke, the poison wore it down and it started slipping through the cracks.” She explained briefly, holding a cup to Loki’s mouth with shaking hands.

He clenched his jaw. “What-?” Sigyn took advantage of the yell he gave to force half the liquid into his mouth. Loki felt the effect like boulder to the head. “You’re trying to numb me out.”

“Please, Loki, just drink.” Sigyn urged him and he complied begrudgingly, until he had drunk it all.

“You’re up to something.” Loki said, trying to fight the spell and the infusion. “What are you going to do?” He said groggily.

“I’m going to get you out of here.” Sigyn whispered before kissing him.

.-

Sneaking through the palace was never hard.

Sneaking to Odin and Frigga’s room, well, that was something new to her.

Sigyn thought about barging through the windows and demand they released Loki, it would suit her anger, but it could end up with her in the dungeons if someone saw her.

Instead, she managed to avoid the guards right to their chambers door and waited until the King and Queen were alone.

“Your majesties.” Sigyn said, breaking the heavy silence in the room. She had been in those chambers before, while the twins were being tutored by Frigga. Everything seemed exactly the same, as if the events that destroyed her family meant absolutely nothing to them.

“Sigyn.” Frigga gasped, startled. Odin came from the adjacent room and stared at her. “Where are you? Are you well?” The queen added: she had noticed it was just an illusion.

“Define well.” Sigyn said with disgust. “I am back in Asgard, I’ve come to bargain for my husband’s life.”

“I might take you more seriously if you chose to come yourself.” Odin crossed his arms on his chest.

“So you can have me flogged and thrown in the dungeons?” Sigyn smirked. “Hel, no.”

“We won’t do any of it.” Frigga stated, giving Odin a hard look. He just nodded and sat down.

Sigyn’s projection dissolved at the same time the real Sigyn opened the door. Frigga ran to her and hugged her to her chest, apologizing over and over again.

“I have been so worried! I had nightmares thinking you could’ve been killed trying to find Loki–”

“I did find him.” Sigyn said, completely unmoved by Frigga’s words and actions. A few apologies wouldn’t do, not after everything they had gone through.

“How?” Odin enquired, but Sigyn didn’t answer.

Frigga took Sigyn’s hands, and recognized the wounds. “That’s snake poison.” She muttered. Holding Sigyn’s wrist, she mouthed a short spell, the bright golden thread that bound Loki and Sigyn flickered against the burnt skin.

“How? When? How did you convince him?” Frigga said, absolutely confused.

Sigyn rolled her eyes. “It was his idea, and we got bound right after we got married.” She said, snatching her hand back from the queen’s grasp. “But of course that’s how low you’d think of him. He’s not even your son, is he?”

Odin shifted uncomfortably on his chair, while Frigga just retreated. “What makes you say that?”

Sigyn displayed her glowing wrist. “We’re bound. I can feel the glamouring spell inside of him.”

“Does he know?” Frigga muttered, while tears filled her eyes.

“No… I just noticed cause he’s been nearly depleted of his magic.”

“And we’ll all keep it that way.” Odin said menacingly.

“So many things are clear right now. Why you have always favored Thor, why you didn’t do anything when Nanna killed our sons, why you chose to punish him like this… Is he even an asgardian?”

“No, he’s not.” To Sigyn’s surprise, this time Frigga was the one talking.

“Silence, woman!” Odin warned, but Frigga chose to ignore him.

“For the Norns’ sake, Odin! We chose to adopt him after you found him in Jötunheim! We chose to raise him, and for what?” Frigga said, her voice was quivering, but she would not falter in front of the king this time. “To give him a life? A family? To be one of us for as long as you deemed necessary and then take it all away?”

“Jötunheim? He’s a frost giant?” Sigyn asked.

“Yes.” Frigga said, while still staring at the king. “Bring my son back home.”

“He’s not your son!”

“I choose for him to be my son, then!”

Odin mulled over what Frigga said, but Sigyn knew he wouldn’t give in so easily. “His punishment isn’t over yet. He still broke the ancient laws, he took justice into his own hands and murdered an innocent life that cannot be replaced.”

“If it’s a life you want, then take mine and end our misery.” Sigyn said.

Both king and queen looked at her. “Are you offering your life to save his?”

“If that is punishment enough for you, then yes.” She stood very still, her whole body was shaking, but she wouldn’t let them see.

“You’d still give your life for him, after knowing his true heritage? Why?”

Sigyn stared at Odin in disbelief, how could she start to explain what Odin was too small and simpleminded to see?

“Because I love him.” It was a really simple answer. “Because both of us are stuck in this half life. Loki in that cave, me a prisoner on this rock. I gave up my only chance of helping him by coming back here. If my life is going to give him his life back, then I’ll do it.”

“Let us assume that I consent to your request. Your terms?” Odin said.

“As I said, give Loki his life back. At least one of us will have a second chance.”

.-

Finally the imagine is in the story! Feedback is always appreciated as we’re nearing the end of this fic.

[supernatural-firstwatch]

Season 8 Episode 6: Southern Comfort

- URGH! People underneath cars always make me nervous in SPN. And that right there is why! Woman just... somehow kicked the supports holding the car up and it crashed right on top of the guy! I’m pretty sure that’s not usually something a person can do... and now she’s running him over... Riiiiiight....

- Well Dean. You really don’t see how much of a hypocrite you’re being. And I’m sorry, but stop holding it over Sam’s head that he decided to stop hunting for a year! Over the past seasons, Sam lost Dean to Hell, then got addicted to demon blood, then had to dodge Lucifer’s disgusting little grabby hands, then had to regain control of his body from Lucifer, then spent OVER A YEAR (so about 120-180 years) locked in a cage with Lucifer and Michael, then spent the next few months with a wall in his head while memories of the cage pounded in his skull, THEN spent almost a year dealing with hallucinations of Hell and Lucifer and having to inflict himself pain to banish the hallucinations, then nearly died from lack of sleep because Lucifer wouldn’t shut the fuck up, and then he literally lost everyone who he ever loved and was totally, 100% alone for the first time in his life. SO YES! THE BOY FUCKING NEEDED A YEAR OFF!!! I’M SORRY YOU WERE STUCK IN PURGATORY, DEAN! IT SUCKS ALL SORTS OF ASS! BUT FOR FUCK’S SAKE YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DONE MUCH BETTER IN SAM’S SHOES! Because the last time HE died, you fucking MADE A DEAL WITH A DEMON! And you still had Bobby with you when that happened!

- “Because Sam, Kevin’s in the wind, okay? You’re sulking around like a eunuch in a whorehouse, and I can’t help but ask myself when is decapitation not my thing?” That’s nice, Dean.

- OMG GARTH! STOP! PLEASE STOP! HAHAHAH!!! “Texas Ranger, Garth? Seriously? We’re in Missouri.” LOL! Sam: “Hold up. Are you the new Bobby?” Dean: *to Sam* “You shut your mouth.” Garth: “Yes.” Dean: *to Garth* You shut your mouth.

- EW GARTH!!! YOU JUST PUT THE GREEN GUNK IN YOUR MOUTH! AND LICKED IT! Just to check if it was ectoplasm. That’s so gross. OMG Garth nearly losing it at the hospital when the widow says “Bits and pieces.” 

- Oh Dean, always with the food. So, Dean neatly avoiding the subject of how he got out of Purgatory, which Sam is highly interested in hearing. And Garth was a dentist? And his first gank was the tooth fairy?? Is the tooth fairy a bad monster? I mean, are there good monsters in SPN? And Garth changing the subject to the food. And thank you for the informative discussion about the Civil War. Because that’s not giant foreshadowing. 

- OH SHIT! THE SON’S GOT BLACK GOOP COMING OUT OF HIS EARS! OH SHIT! IS IT ONE OF THOSE THINGS THE BOYS RAN INTO WITH RUFUS AND SAMUEL Sr. BACK WITH EVE??? WOAH! NO!!!! IT’S A CIVIL WAR SOLDIER!!!! 

- HAHAHAHA!!! “So , first the mom goes “natural born killer,” and now the son? Well, what do we got-- a ghost with an oedipus complex?” *Sam looks at Dean with raised eyebrows* “I don’t know what that means.” LOL! No, you clearly don’t Dean, seeing as you used that term incorrectly.

- AWH DEAN!!! “That’s not how you wear it.” (about bobby’s hat). He said the same thing when Garth said “Balls.”

- Awh, poor Amelia. She lost her hubby in Afghanistan :( I find it amazing that Dean has no desire or curiosity about her. 

- Dean... Ok, Garth has to stop using all of Bobby’s mannerisms cause he’s not Bobby. And man, Dean could really use Bobby right about now to knock him upside the head. There it is! Garth finally crossed that line. “You’re not Bobby, okay? You’re never gonna be Bobby, so stop!” Awh, Garth, yah, Bobby was deeply ingrained in the hunting community, but he was practically a father to Sam and Dean, and that’s just a different bond. 

- Of course Garth would take part of Civil War re-enactments. That’s... very fitting for his character. LOOOL!!!! SAM!!!! “Burn a confederate soldier’s bones in a town full of rednecks? Suuuure!!!” 

- Why are you going to say something? Give the ghost time to show up to fuck you up? OMG DEAN! “We won.” Well, except that there’s like 17 minutes left to the episode so clearly this wasn’t it.

- Oh shit! Is it the car keys or the inhaler that’s carrying the ghost? 

- OMG!!! I wonder how many takes they had to do for “Tell me what happened after you shot the sheriff.” Awh, man. Another deputy is going to the hospital! NOT GOOD! OH SHIT! Dean’s got the penny now!!! Well, Sam and Dean are about to have it out. That’s what that cut string was that Sam found on the floor.

- There we go. “You should have looked for me when I was in Purgatory.” “Come on, Dean. I know it’s not you in there pulling the strings.” “Shut up! You never even wanted this life. Always blamed me for pulling you back into it.” “That’s not true.” “Really? Cause everything you’ve ever done since you climbed into my ride has been to deceive me.” “What do you want me to say? That I’ve made mistakes? I’ve made mistakes, Dean.” “Mistakes? Well, let’s go through some of Sammy’s greatest hits. Drinking demon blood, check. Being in cahoots with Ruby. Not telling me that you lost your soul. Or how about running around with Samuel for a whole year, letting me think that you were dead while you were doing all kinds of crazy. Those aren’t mistakes, Sam. Those are choices!” “All right. You said it. We’ve both played a little fast and loose. Yeah, I might have lied, but I never once betrayed you. I never once left you to die. And for what, a girl? You left me to die for a girl?!” (hum, you did leave him for dead, while he was in the cage. convenient you forget that. also, how was he supposed to let you know he didn’t have a soul when, you know, he didn’t have a soul).

Ooooo~!!! “Benny’s been more of a brother to me this past year than you’ve ever been!” Sam’s face when Dean says that!  

- Garth is a pure soul with no beef to pick with anyone. Look at that cinnamon roll picking up that penny with no problemo. And he said the line correctly, with the anger and everything. “Stop being an idjit! With Bobby gone, you and Sam are all each other has.” AND HE SAID BALLS RIGHT, TOO! Except that no one can replace Bobby :( :(

Awh, Sam and Amelia got actually close because they started to talk about Dean and Don. And YAH SAM!!! Finally put a stop to Dean being high and mighty and just constantly putting him down. And hello foreshadowing! “I might just be that hunter that ices Benny.” “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” “Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.” I’m guessing Dean is going to have to pick between Sam and Benny, or something. 

[savvyscrivener]

Get to know me~!

I was tagged by @supermeatchan, though I’m sticking this on my writeblr rather than my main. 

Age: 26

Birthplace: Oregon

Current Time: 6:14 PM 

Drink you last had: Yorkshire black tea, milk and two sugars. 

Favourite song: Right now? Hm. I’m really digging “Old Pine” by Ben Howard right now, but there are so many I love that it changes like, daily. 

Grossest Memory: (trigger warning for blood and pus?) So my mother is an OB/GYN, which can lead to some interesting answers of “So what did you do at work today?” over the dinner table, but the most vivid memory is one that happened over Christmas when I was in eighth or ninth grade. My uncle (my mom’s younger half brother) had come over for the holiday and had some sort of growth or cyst on his back that he asked my mom to take a look at. She went “Yeah, that doesn’t look great, come down to the office and I’ll drain it for you.” Standard doctor-parent. Except it sort of turned into a family trip--she asked the kids if any of us wanted to come along and watch something gross and we went along. I think she even called her best friend and business partner and was like “hey, I’m going to have to drain this thing, you wanna watch, since it’s super disgusting and funny?” (Doctors, man. Clearly skewed sense of humor.) 

Anyway, long story short, it got sliced into and drained, pus, blood, nasty gunk--kind of like when you’ve got a bad zit and finally pop it, except like, the size of a quarter. Blood and pus shot about two feet into the air at one point. Deeply disgusting. Deeply satisfying. 

Horror, yes or no: hell no.

In love: No. Really would like to be. 

Jealous of people: Yeah, with a distressing and depressing frequency. 

Love by first sight or should I walk by again: On occasion, but not always, and not necessarily “conventionally.” 

Middle name: Lee, named for my grandfather and uncle. 

Siblings: Two younger sisters! 

One wish: I wish I was financially stable enough from a job that I enjoy that I could travel as much as I liked and set aside enough to go back to school. 

Song I last sang: Sang along with “Red is the Rose” by The High Kings earlier today. 

Time I woke up: six-ish, then back to bed, then nine-thirty-ish. 

Underwear colour: gray atm 

Vacation destination: Everywhere. Though a tad more seriously, Saint Michel in Normandy. 

Worst habit: I self-isolate when I get depressed and I know I shouldn’t. 

Favourite food: Probably chocolate. Or fruits. Cherries and strawberries and peaches and watermelon... 

Zodiac sign: Virgo sun (Aquarius moon and Gemini rising) 

Tagging... @authorisada @englishobservations @eeva-writes @writinginthetwilight @i-am-drizzle @dewinthedawn @sansas-shield-maiden

[bdstation]

Sep. 

Guest Room

This is what a long weekend with the full Hyman crew looks like. Dad outlasted both the boys. Maybe that’s because he got to spend the weekend at the drafting table.

The weekend started off chill. We drove almost all the way across the city before realizing we’d left the drawings at the house. Critical mistake. So by the time we got to Healdsburg, the right thing to do was really just have a glass of wine and then head over to the Michilen starred dinner Dad had booked for us.

Old Healdsburg meets new Healdsburg. The rooftop bar had a full garden and gorgeous view of the rolling hills. Jim had forgotten his sunglasses and the waiter quickly offered him a selection of them. The toilets were heated. 4 hours later we had eaten and drank away the pre design charette jitters.

And those jitters weren’t for not. The problem with having an architect over to your house is that they see everything. Every outlet without a plate. Every whole that needs patching. Every door that’s missing. Or window without a screen. Shiny paint instead of mat. Entire walls that aren’t touching the ceiling. Cords running to nowhere. Places where the wood is rotting and ceiling is likely leaking...ok so a lot of this is unique to Bonny Doon Station but you get the point.

Jim and I already have a new normal. I’d covered the floor of bedroom 2 with a tarp because after pulling the carpet up I realized we had a small bit of asbestos tile under there + about an inch of dirt and who knows what else. The original plan was to get someone in there to do the official California asbestos removal but the guy never showed so we opted for option 2: seal it up. I put on a hazmat suit and gas mask. Got the shop vac out. And sucked up all the dirt and dust and rat pellets. Then we covered the floor with the cheapest vinyl home depot sells, duct taped it to the wall so no asbestos particles could come out and carpeted the damn thing. Throw in a wall clean + paint job + incense and boom - new room!

Throughout the weekend there was a bit of scope creep. Like when Dad decided we needed to fix the leaking toilet. It started out with a simple Home depot run and inner toilet replacement parts but quickly escalated to needing a sawza.

The other addition that was desperately needed was Kelly’s organizational skills. While I was using the kitchen cupboards to store our growing arsenal of cleaning supplies and tools, Jim was determined to have everything on the table where he could see them. Kelly solved the problem with propper racks and buckets and vuajla! We have structure to the chaos. Also. This woman hustles. I got out painted and out cleaned by her all weekend!

My highlight was the drawings Dad did. We had a temporary drafting table set up on saw horses that got the job done. By the end of the weekend Dad had drawn the existing floor plan...which actually doesn’t look so bad on paper, the pumphouse site...if only we had clean water coming out of the well, and a vision for what the house wants to be. A little visioning certainly helps keep the momentum up.

There were also great breaks for beer. Like the live music we caught at my favorite brewery...until Bruce tried to bit some lady and got us kicked out. And you can always count on a weekend ending at Mcrostie to seal the deal.

We left absolutely wrecked. I had to take the next week off of everything. Slept 11 hours a night the next 4 days. And then it was time to turn it back around and head back up!

This time with our first friends Rowin and Vick + baby Frankie sleepover. That’s how you know you’re really making progress! It was nice having Frankie to slow us down a bit. With the four of us we got through a serious daddy long leg / cob web / wasp nest (inside...seriously) clean out + painted the biggest and tallest wall in the house. Plus we hung some shower curtains up where doors should be and had the electrician ground the box that was waiting to kill us all. The biggest improvement was Jim’s demanding we put custom window screens in. I thought the $500 was a huge waste of money and was I wrong. Holy shit. No more wasps in the house! Screens are amazing.

Thank god for the wineries. There is nothing better than getting after it all day, taking a shower (with your mouth closed so you don’t get ecoli) and then bouncing over to yet another gorgeous vineyard with your crew for a lightly chilled pinot noir.

It was all I need to head into this week guns blazing. I got my spreadsheet out and began the GC hunt. Researched about 10 of them, emailed 8, interviewed 4 and we are on our way to a shortlist. My current panic attack is the $700 - $2000 a square foot quote they are all giving me which is making this whole idea seem totally unrealistic.

On the other hand, things are starting to come together. The money in escrow for electrical is now spent and requirements checked off the list. We’ve got drawings for the pumphouse with the surveyor coming out to mark property boundaries and concrete contractor coming to give us quote.

Even the well situation is becoming more interesting. On the plus side the water geologist reviewed historical drill sites and suspects we may have alternative well sites. Next step is to test soil. Also we likely have a spring under the big grass bump in the paddock...which Jim thinks he can drill out with an Ore?  Water is the new gold. The down side is we can’t dredge the well because there is an oak tree root clogging it...which Jim thinks he can cut out with a log cutter thing that goes 25 ft down. If Jim keeps all 10 fingers and toes by the end of this project I’ll consider it a win. The saga continues.

My biggest take away this week is the more we can do ourselves throughout this whole process the more fun we are going to have. I’m also getting more practice with ambiguity and trying not to react to every high and low because its all constantly changing.

The biggest moment of joy I had was feeling so happy to see Jim totally in his element. I’ve never seen him wanting to learn like he’s wanting to right now. This project brings out what I love best about him. His independent spirit, I can do anything confidence, and eternal optimism. I’d buy this house again just to give space and time to nurture that.

This is Dad’s “what the shit!?” face. I think the bathroom was thinking the same thing. Within an hour or two Dad had ripped out the bathroom toilet, vanity, sinc, shower and flooring.

To be fair - I thought this bathroom was fully condemned. It was seriously disgusting. I wouldn’t even go in there. The floor was covered in mud, the toilet didn’t work, the shower was falling off the wall and covered in mold and backed up drain gunk. The walls were painted gray with a layer of sparkle that sort of looked like nail polish glitter. Sink and vanity were holding on by a thread.

As is typically with this house - things below the surface were a bit wonky as well. The shower drain wasn’t the standard distance from the wall so the previous owner cut out the bottom of the floor and slid the shower tray under the wall. The result? Rotted through floor boards. Those puppies had to be totally ripped out.  

So the job of the weekend? About 15 trips to Home Depot. Power tools. Plumbing. Floorboards. New vinyl. New toilet. Strapping the water heater to the wall (safety?). Painting (3 coats to cover the glitter). New shower. New sinc. New vanity. And voila. Bathroom #2 is online.

But not without a little scope creep. To be fair weren’t supposed to replace the shower this weekend but who could resist. The real scope creep is when Dad had me pull the piece of wood off the ceiling in the hallway to reveal some good old black mold where a leak in the roof clearly rotted all the way through. Lovely.

[bonnydoonstation]

This is Dad’s “what the shit!?” face. I think the bathroom was thinking the same thing. Within an hour or two Dad had ripped out the bathroom toilet, vanity, sinc, shower and flooring. 

To be fair - I thought this bathroom was fully condemned. It was seriously disgusting. I wouldn’t even go in there. The floor was covered in mud, the toilet didn’t work, the shower was falling off the wall and covered in mold and backed up drain gunk. The walls were painted gray with a layer of sparkle that sort of looked like nail polish glitter. Sink and vanity were holding on by a thread.

As is typically with this house - things below the surface were a bit wonky as well. The shower drain wasn’t the standard distance from the wall so the previous owner cut out the bottom of the floor and slid the shower tray under the wall. The result? Rotted through floor boards. Those puppies had to be totally ripped out.   

So the job of the weekend? About 15 trips to Home Depot. Power tools. Plumbing. Floorboards. New vinyl. New toilet. Strapping the water heater to the wall (safety?). Painting (3 coats to cover the glitter). New shower. New sinc. New vanity. And voila. Bathroom #2 is online. 

But not without a little scope creep. To be fair weren’t supposed to replace the shower this weekend but who could resist. The real scope creep is when Dad had me pull the piece of wood off the ceiling in the hallway to reveal some good old black mold where a leak in the roof clearly rotted all the way through. Lovely. 

Weekend Roundup 

Before 

During 

After

[rutisup-blog]

Mendocino Magic - Day 2

I wake up at some point in the morning…Is it 9 AM? It doesn’t really matter. There’s people up and at it in the camp-site, and I’m just laying naked in my cozy blue sleeping bag–feeling lazy. Jonny is up, and I can hear that people are cooking something or another–awesome. I could just lay here a little longer…

Eventually I have to get up. I slip out of my nest and put on my outer-space t-shirt and my blue Billabong trunks. Everyone is getting ready to go down to the reservoir and do some floating. I’m pondering if I should drop some acid. Nicole, Chris, and Dimitri are going to do it. I mull it over in my mind…If I can get some more people to do it I can.

Jonny wants help making the punch, so I oblige him. We don’t have a can opener to open the cans of pineapple, so he just takes a knife and stabs the cans, dragging the knife through the lid–that’s one way to do it. The pineapples are really chunky–it’s basically all pulp–so we have to spoon them into the small opening in the container.

This container is a clear 2 gallon container, pretty much twice as large as a ‘gallon of milk’. The opening isn’t much bigger either. This is a slow process–sloppy pulp is getting everywhere. I roll up a pink paper plate and shove it in the opening, using it as a make-shift funnel. I have someone ‘stuff my pink taco’ full of the pulp, and we get it all in there. It keeps getting jammed up with pulp and overflowing. I discover I need to grasp the shaft of the funnel and violently shake it up and down to force all the gunk through that pink hole–the sexual innuendo of it all is making me laugh, taking my mind off how gross this is. Then we dump in two handles of Captain Morgan’s and look at this revolting drink. It just looks gross. We still need to put coconut juice in there, but at that point someone else starts helping and I slip away and leave them to deal with that shit.

It was like how I imagine it would be working at a sausage factory. You wouldn’t want to eat it if you saw how it was made. Pretty much the same deal when we make jungle juice at our halloween parties.

I have some liquid acid left still, and I had planted to seed with some people yesterday. I ask who wants some, and get some ok maybes from Rachel and Liv. Chris(sy) is down, and Nick is a maybe. I make a breakfast sandwich out of cheese, bread, and some bacon Jonny cooked up. Fuck, is it ever nice to camp with people that love to be organized. I find the marshmellows, placing the bag of them on that burgundy colored bench I’m sitting on. The fire from last night is still kind of warm, although long extinguished. I pull out four marshmellows and put them on the bench, and then bust out the liquid acid.  I put a drop on each one of the marshmellows and hand them out, but the girls want to wait. Chris(sy) and I cheers the marshmellows and chow down. They’re sweet AF.

“I’ll set a timer” says Chris(sy), already tapping away at his digital watch. The race against the clock has begun. I want to hustle to get down there. I start getting all of the shit I need together in my CamelBak, also trying to encourage the girls to take the acid. They’re wishy-washy, better let them make their own decision.

The pond beside our campsite, rich with lily pads

I slackline a bit and then 35 minutes in I am feeling a little tingly–ah here we go. The sense of urgency to get moving kicks in, and we rally the troops. We all starting walking down to the reservoir as a huge crew, someone pulling a cart of stuff. I’ve just got my tripper kit with me…My CamelBak with some beef jerky in it, a sweater, pants, sunglasses. What else does a man need? I start walking down, and then there’s this huge ass hill to get up to the reservoir–aaahhh shit.

I lend my muscles to help, and I grab onto the cooler and team carry it up with Dimitri. Fuck, it’s a total bitch to do, but we make some fun of it. We trade sides a few times. We zig zag up this damn hill with it, taking a few breaks. We finally get up that bitch, and then Nick comes in and wants to help. He subs out Dimitri, and then we set up a kind of makeshift camp by Cannonball Camp, where there are some other people camping.

It’s less than ideal, so I talk to the boys.

“I’m going on a recon mission, whose with me?” “I’m Down.” says Nick “Yeah dude. Let’s do it” Chimes in Dimitri.

So the three of us start walking around the lake. We’re doing a recon team schtick, using radio call-signs and all. Nick is Golden Eagle, I’m Red Beaver, and Dimitri is White Russian. We find site ‘Alpha’…not great. Then next we discover ‘Site W’ on account of all the woods…Super steep, but we check it out anyways. At any rate, we’re having a fucking blast. White Russian is on two tabs, I’m on one drop, and Nick is just a little buzzed off of a PBR Tall Boy. We’ve all got a frosty PBR in our hands, and we’re using it to gauge the time. We don’t want to run out during our loop. We find a desirable site near the end of our route, and then we return to base-camp to say where we are moving. The whole convoy picks up and starts to move, but I decide to put some stuff in a cargo tube and float it over–Ojibwe Express style. I kick for probably 25 minutes to transport it, Nickel and C-dog coming with me.

C-dog does the backwards octopus to propel himself, I just kick underwater, and Nickel like jumps up on her tube and kicks wildly with her legs, splashing water everywhere. We all have our own method. We’re taking our time, moving ever-slowly across the reservoir. In the time it took us to get over there, we find out that the group has been invited over to this sweet rock even further across the bay, so we have to move again. I’ve got this Simpsons jelly donut floatie that I’m trying to inflate with my lungs. Every time I feel like I’m getting a good rhythm going some flies land on my shoulder and I have to swat them off. I get frustrated and give up, just walking over to the rock area. I find Liv and Rachel hanging out on a rock just overlooking the water. Liv has a purple flower in her hair, and it looks beautiful. The girls get me a purple flower and we put it in my beard.

It really is a beautiful moment. It’s me, Liv, and Rachel, and I think Chris(sy) as well has joined up later after transporting the cooler. We wave hello to the people that invited us, and they come to talk to us. It’s this petite little Quebecois girl wearing a Batman bikini, and her fairly athletic hippie boyfriend. They live on some land adjacent to this, doing ‘agriculture’, and living in a Yurt type thing that looks like a garlic clove. I mean, clearly they’re growing weed.

Jonny looks like a king, laughing in a huge lazy-boy floatie down there in the reservoir, cup of rum punch in his hand. He’s literally got the floaty for the cooler tied to his floaty–he is the bar. There’s a flotilla of about 10 people in tubes all tied together, and Jonny is trying to get a drink out of that collapsible container full of punch. It looks as disgusting as before, and after seeing him try to handle that flexible container, I can’t help but notice that it looks like a stomach full of bile. He’s loving that stomach juice. Everyone’s having a great time down there.

We chat with the strangers about their fairy tale lives for a bit more, a bunch of working stiffs on their long weekend turnin’ up for the weekend trying to relate to these free spirits. They tell us the realities of their situation, their extremely blue eyes just mesmerizing us.

“It’s cool, but if the wind picks up, we usually stay in town. It’s no joke, if a tree falls over, you’re done” Says the dude, his crystal gemstone sitting low on his chest, suspended around his neck with a hemp string. “Ah…” We say collectively. It’s a little too surreal a moment for us–you know with all the acid, their unconventional lives and the too blue to handle eyes. “Well, we’re headed out, it was great to meet you guys”.

We watch the two free spirits leave, that little Quebecois mouse shrinking off into the distance with her yellow and black batman bikini. So long, gov’na. “Were those people even real? They were too perfect to be real” remarks someone.

Five minutes later this strange Filipino chick rolls up and passive-aggressively tells us–with emphasis on the aggressive–“This is our private campsite, and we were promised it would be our own little private area”

Ah shit. “Oh…we didn’t know. Someone invited us over here”. “OK well this is our campsite and we were promised it would be private” she’s saying. “Ok yeah, well we will move”.

I wonder if those free spirits were even real…this surly chick sure as fuck didn’t think so. It’s kind of awkward, not the shit you wanna deal with while tripping. But no worries, we got a bunch of homies in the water. I take my time and get my shit, and then we walk back over to the new old site, the shady one. I try for like 20 minutes to blow up this inflatable jelly donut, but fail. All these bugs keep landing on my shoulder once again, and then I am with Alison and Brittany who are doing girl talk and I just can’t take it anymore. The tube is only a 1/4 inflated, but I run into the water and try to fill the tube up while swimming. I look ridiculous.

I come in hot like a sea otter, swimming into the middle of the flotilla. I try to grab a glass of punch from Jonny, but he protests a bit. “I don’t have any more cups” he says. “What about this empty one you have right here?” I say, pointing at a clean glass sitting pretty in a cupholder beside the cooler

“That’s for the ice”. “Seriously?” “OK, blow up that floaty and I’ll give you a punch”.

So I try in vain for a while, it’s just hard when you’re swimming. There’s a vacant premium floaty, looking all firm and buoyant. It belong to C-dog, but he seems to have abandoned it for the moment. I hijack his floaty and use it as a base to try and blow it up my floaty. I float over to Jonny, and that pedigree chum was true to his word.

“Stomach juice me” I say. King Jonny takes that coveted chalice out of the cup holder, and throw a little ice in. “You’ve gotta pour it yourself, but here you go, handing me the stomach. “It’s too pulpy to use the valve, you’ve got to take the cap off.

So there I am balancing on a tube with a 2 gallon collapsible plastic stomach of juice between both arms, and the cup held between both of my feet like a vise. I’m doing some sort of yoga pose here trying to get a drink. It’s a precarious move, and I’m able to pour/squeeze the juice out into the cup. All of my efforts pay off, this stomach juice is delicious.

I get a few sips of that sweet nectar, but then C-dog comes back to reclaim his tube and threatens to flip me if I don’t get out.

“I know you can’t flip me, I’ve got the stomach juice hostage!” I chortle. Jonny shoots me a concerned look and says “He’s right”.

Chris is there treading water beside the tube, and I still haven’t even managed to blow up my jelly donut tube. I’m laughing uncontrollably. Chris is getting frustrated.

“Dude, don’t mess with me, I’m like a sea otter. I’m gonna flip your ass”. “Just lemme blow it up and you can have you tube back”.

I can’t stop laughing, which is kind of a blocker when you’re trying to blow up a fucking tube with your lungs. I’m not making much headway on the floaty and C-dog is getting all frustrated.

“At least hand the punch over so someone else can drink it as well”. It seems a reasonable request, I’ve been having fun at this now for about 10 minutes. So I hand the hostage stomach and my cup of juice over to someone so they can drink it, and I promptly get flipped. I deserved that.

Treading water again, and the tube isn’t getting inflated quickly at all. I eventually have Steve help me blow it up, and he does it in like three breaths. Incredible. “I give a lot of blowjobs” he says gayly and laughs. This guy is awesome.

So there I am, floating around and tied into the flotilla with my jelly donut floaty. We keep drifting into the reeds, and people need to kick. This eventually gets a little tiring, and it’s just me Steve and Chris(sy) doing the work. We start to run out of booze and get bored of this, so I untie from the flotilla, tired of pulling ten people. The girls say ok whatever, we don’t need you boys anyways. They promptly float into the reeds across the reservoir. We all laugh at them a bit. I kick back to shore and hang out a bit. The girls eventually come back, and we walk with them.

I walk with Rachel, and I take off my Birks. Nothing better than walking barefoot while tripping. I do feel some pain when I’m walking on the rocks, but my feet are kind of hobo feet at this point anyways. I try to convince Rachel to de-shoe as well, but no dice. We walk down and then we see King Jonny yelling directions at us.

“DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK” he keeps repeating, pointing his arms in a windmill motion towards the F-350 parked at the base of the path. He looks like he’s directing traffic–ok let’s be real, he is.

This is working like a well oiled machine–I’m impressed he has the wherewithal do this after all that stomach juice. I’ve ended up carrying the big yellow floatie Jonny was on. After we all deflate those shits and pack them in, we finally make it back to the camp–hooray.

I hit the slackline, and I’m fucking killing it. I jump in my hammock and just lay there, looking up into the branches. It’s beautiful. I sway back and forth a bit. I eat some jerky and the flavor is just so intense–wow. I hop out in search of some strawberries–they’re the best when you trip. I end up grabbing another beer and I’m just drinking and making that transition from trippin’ to drunk. It’s like 3:30 PM. The sun is out and it’s beautiful so I say “Hey I’m gonna go lay in the sun up on the path”. “We could grill up there” says Jonny.

I helped Jonny move the charcoal grill over and I throw my sarong down on the ground and grab some sun while Jonny gets the grill going–we’re starving. We set the beer pong table up, and slowly people start to come up and hang out. Jonny and I play Dimitri and Brittany, and it’s a decent game.

I’m making the joke about the punch looking like stomach juice, and it seems to catch on. We name the stomach ‘Joe’ and it’s now Joe’s Juice or Joe’s Stomach Juice. That shit is fucking GOOD. I can’t stop sipping it. It’s become a good luck talisman now, as I squeeze the sides of it to release a fresh tropical breeze of pineapple aroma before each shot for luck–my version of blowing on your dice.

It was a shame when you had to switch from the stomach juice to some of that Colorado piss water whenever they sunk a ball. We continue playing, and beat out Nickel and C-dog as well. It was close, but we got them. I’m kind of faded at this point, and we get off the table. Chrissy, Rachel, Nick and Olivia are set up on another blanket beside the Sarong, just laying out now. I come and join them, getting some sun.

I’m staring directly up, and there’s a beautiful set of branches just full of young maple leaves above me. Beside us is a manzanita tree. Two pretty different trees, existing together. I love maple trees, but maybe it’s because I’m Canadian. Everyone is looking at these lizards camouflaged in the tree. It’s trippy as fuck, It takes me a while to find them. You need to wait for them to move, and they do a quick move and then freeze. Wow, pretty cool. I’m laying next to Liv starting up at a canopy of maple leaves and talking about keeping a journal and life in general. I’m saying how I’m going to journal this…That it’ll be a 15 pager (way more than that right now).

Posted up like a mailbox on the trail

Rachel is wearing like all black and has this hat on, and we get her to tuck her pony tail through the back. She looks like a lunch-lady. We’ve got a hat heavy crew, and I like it. I read the back of her hat, and I have to do a double-take. It says ‘J. Galt’ and then an address.

“Hey, who’s John Galt?” “What” “Like, who’s John Galt? Why is the sky blue” I say trying to make an obvious reference.

No one really gets it.

“Is that an Atlas Shrugged reference?” Says Chris. “Yeah dude, that hat says, J. Galt. That’s definitely an Atlas Shrugged reference” I say excitedly.

No one else understands or has read the book, but I nevertheless think it’s mad cool that someone has made John Galt branded clothing. C-dog and I proceed to get into a philosophical debate about Atlas Shrugged. “It’s anti-capitalist” says C-dog “No man, it IS capitalism, it’s fighting communism” I retort.

We don’t have much more to say of it, but then 10 minutes later C-dog says “I think you might be right man, I’m thinking about it more, and I think I had it wrong. The book is capitalist”. What a strange turn of events that was, although only C-dog and I could enjoy it.

Jonny is sitting in a little ultralight camping chair beside the grill, and a lot of smoke is starting to come out of it. He’s staring intently at the grill through his sunglasses, but he hasn’t really moved much. He’s sweating profusely–really soaking up the sun. “Is his leg hair burning?” someone chimes in. His left leg is close to the grill, and some of his leg hair has definitely singed off. I cock my head to the side and see that he is actually asleep behind the sunglasses. This motherfucker passed out in the middle of the party, but no one even noticed. He’s supposed to be watching the chicken. Suddenly the smoke coming out of the grill is much more alarming than before.

“Jonny?” I say. He’s dead to the world. I start laughing “Guys check it out, I think Jonny passed out”. We all start checking it out and he’s still asleep. Someone opens up the grill to check on the chicken and it’s all getting pretty burnt. Rachel moves the grill away from him and she takes over and starts cooking. She really looks like a lunch lady now with the baseball cap on, leaning over the smoky grill.

Quickly this turns into something hilarious, everyone camping with us wants to check it out. I figure he will wake up at any moment now, but this mother fucker is still KO’ed! So we do what anyone else would do. We pose and do a group picture with him sleeping at the front! We keep it a secret, he still doesn’t know we have this absolutely hilarious ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ inspired pic with him.

We cook the chicken and eat a little bit, and then like ten minutes later we see Jonny wakes up, but he plays it cool. He just snaps into it and a few seconds later starts bobbing his head to the beat, feeling like no one even noticed his little nap. We let him keep thinking that.

“Whatup Jonny” “Just chillin” “Yeeeeahh have some more of that stomach juice” I say.

So he’s drinking a little more and looking fine, but still waking up a bit from his stupor. A few minutes later he has a bit of a start and says “Where’s the fuckin chicken?” in a panic. We’ve completely removed the grill and served the chicken at this point. Everyone starts laughing and we’re like “Ohhhh Busted!” We tell him how we found him looking like Bernie passed out infront of the burning chicken and just let him be.

Chef Jonny serving up some Zzzz’s

Jonny has another drink, and he’s right back in the saddle. Something flipped with him after that. It’s like he turned into an old British street merchant. “We’ve got the coals, let’s cook all the meat he says”. Suddenly, we’ve got 15 hot dogs on the grill, hamburgers, basically anything he could get on that little 6″ by 12″ charcoal grill.

“Wanna hot dog? This one’s perfect” he says in his Sheffield British accent, pushing a nearly burnt to a crisp dog onto someone. He’s quite the salesman. “Hotdogs? Hotdog? He says, that British accent really sending it home. This guy wasn’t going to waste any food.

There’s some more beer pong, and ultimately most of the meat Jonny cooks ends up in a big metal bowl, aptly referred to as “the bucket of meat”. I give him some grief about cooking all the meat when it’s only 5:00 PM. “You won’t be complaining tonight when you’re drunk and there’s all this meat” he says. He’s probably right.

Some of the girls float the idea of going to catch the sunset up at the reservoir. I’m feeling so lazy, but it just sounds like too good an idea to pass up. Slowly, slowly, people get their shit together–pole pole. The sun is still fairly high, but in about an hour it will probably dip behind those Mendocino mountains. We start to rally.

The whole crew gets it together, and we set off as the sun starts to get a little low. We bring two full bottles of Jamieson with us, passing those two bottles around amongst the group of 15, taking straight pulls. I’m feeling impressed, proud even. It’s not every day you get to go camping with this many people and have everyone down to drink straight Jamieson out of the bottle.

We start to walk up the windy path up the hill to the reservoir, passing that abandoned pumping station. There’s this beautiful Madrone tree on the way up there. There’s a steep AF way to run up the hill, or a windy path. It’s time for a race. Rachel and Olivia start running up the windy way, while Chris, some other boys, and I run up the steep hill alongside a big neglected pipe. We beat them by a landslide.

I look up over the hill into the campgrounds. There’s all these tires that have weed plants growing in them. “Come in overwatch” says Nick in a radio voice, causing White Russian and me to laugh. That was the call-sign for the big eagle we saw flying over the campsite from this same spot. “He’s our eye in sky” says one of my fellow Recon Team Charlies.

It’s decided that this floating dock should serve the best purpose to enjoy the sunlight. Nick and I use a chain attached to it to pull it ashore. “Un, Dos, Tres” says Nick as we time our efforts to pull that thing ashore. We do a few iterations of this and decide that this was ‘good enough’. The whole crew jumps on the dock, and the front part of it sinks in the water a bit. It’s a nice cozy vibe, and we’re all sitting around drinking Jamieson.

This is just way too cozy for Jonny. He’s just a complete hooligan right now. He has a bottle of Jamieson in one hand, and he’s at the end of the dock jumping from one foot to the other, shaking the dock in the water. The old dock is partly submerged in the water as he does this. He’s either trying to sink it or get everyone wet, no one is sure. “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” Chrissy says to Jonny whenever he tries to open his mouth. She’s had just about enough of his shit today. I’m ambivalent, and C-dog is totally loving it, egging him on an enabling his behavior.

squad

Chris(sy) has his DSLR, and sets up a timer photo to capture us all chilling on the dock. It’s the golden hour of the day, the sunlight just perfect for portrait photography. We all look great.

The sun goes down and Jonny tries to push the dock away. Everyone gets spooked and jumps off. He kind of ruined the moment there, I could have chilled on the dock for a little while now. Oh well. We all head down the hill, ending up near the common cooking area.

It’s twilight, and there’s some groups of people in the outdoor cooking area hanging out, some dogs roam around playing with each other off-leash. Some people are playing cornhole, and our group just sidles up beside it, and the people playing kind of just kill their game, trying to get us to take over. They either have had enough of the game, or enough of being near us. I think it’s the latter.

I lay on this huge hammock made of white tarp stretched between two huge wooden pieces. It’s suspended between two trees. It’s like 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. Several of us are laying in this big hammock, watching all the different dogs play with each other. Nick’s dog Ukiah is facing off with the other dogs, who are trying to intimidate her, but that dog has some steely resolve, completely unfazed by the bigger dogs. “WHAT NOW, WHAT NOW BITCH. WHAT NOW. HUH? WHAT NOW.” I could imagine Ukiah saying to the other dog. Body language speaks louder than words.

Jonny isn’t finished his chaos, He wants to rock the boat–literally. He’s going nuts on the hammock, making it swing wildly left to right. He’s all excited and saying unintelligible British things as he rocks the hammock back and forth. Some people roll off, wanting nothing to do with this. I remain on, and he gets in a bit of a war with Rachel. They’re on opposite sides of the hammock, trying to swing the other one off. Rachel falls off, but has resolve and jumps back on to try to dethrone the king. I’m still laying on the hammock chillin–I don’t mind a little movement.

The rumble begins, and Jonny ends up tumbling off, doing a big dramatic roll onto the ground. All that commotion makes the dogs go CRAZY! They’re all running around in circles, barking like mad. Our group really just rolled in here like a fucking hurricane. With all that pineapple rum, we’re a fucking tropical storm that’s for sure.

After that debacle, everyone walks back to the campsite, but I hang back for a few minutes just to do a comparison of what the campsite is like when we’re not terrorizing everyone. It was pretty calm. Yep, case closed. We’re obnoxious assholes, and I don’t mind one bit.

We get back to the campsite, and Dimitry has his ankle all propped up with some ice. It turns out on the walk back he was dancing, and rolled his ankle RealReal bad. It was swole as fuck.

The camp-fire is raging, and we all sit around drinking and shooting the shit. We’re all a little exhausted from our full day. Rumor around camp is that a live music show will go on at 11:30 PM. A pretty cocky start time, but we’ll allow it. We make smores and drink around the fire until we hear the music fire up across the pond. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it’s happening.

Most of the group moseys back over, bringing the Jamieson and a 30-rack of Coors. The music is being played in this cool raised wooden area, providing a little dancefloor and stage in the woods–hell yeah. The first act is kind of reminisecent of Crystal Castles, and not bad. Then a second fellow riffs on his electric guitar about having “fridge magnets that don’t stick, so I hold ’em up with tape”. He also had a song about “Where the white things roam” as a sort of ode to gentrification.

It’s almost 1 AM now, and they’re going to stop the music. The last guy that comes on stage is just fucking horrible, so that was our cue to leave. The whole squad does an about-face and walks outta there, feeling somewhat bad about leaving in the middle of the set, but ultimately relieved to be out of there.

The fire is still going, and poor Dimitry is still there hanging out, icing his ankle. We have some more drinks around the fire, running out of battery eventually on the speaker. Slowly, slowly–pole pole–people begin to retire. At some point it’s just C-dog and I.

The stars are so incredible tonight, as they were the night before. Chris and I go out to the grass clearing beside our camp-site, bringing out chairs to just stargaze. I’ve got some of the ‘Thai crack’ menthol inhaler, the Thai herbal version of Vicks.

We don’t last long sitting, and we’re quickly laying down and staring at the cosmos. The sky looks milky with stars, you can see the Milky Way a bit. I’m shining my laser into the sky to try to find constellations. There’s too many stars for me to even identify constellations. So beautiful

I pass out soon after that.

Mendocino Magic – Day 2 was originally published on RUT-IS-UP

[batwynn]

What Our Dead Teach (p1)

[dothewrite]

pieces, number five

You’re knocked back and forth against the tidal waves of loss and redemption. Your back is bleeding from the harsh scrapes against the ragged concrete behind you- vandalized and long abandoned, this is the only place the authorities don’t look.

This is your home, and it’s empty without you.

It’s mediocre graffiti,  you supposed you wouldn’t mind so much if it were beautiful and multi-coloured, but it’s just filled with cuss words and poorly sprayed slurs against harsh marks where people have spat or carved their initials into. This wall is where you place your mat against, every night.

Sometimes, when you feel like you have the strength, you gaze out into the pedestrian walk from your small corner. You’re careful not to be noticed, only the tip of your head peering past the sharp corner of the underground tube you live in. It’s been awhile since you’ve watched how the other side lives. On the quiet nights without rain or thunder, and when the roaring hum of passing cars has faded, you can sometimes remember the days when you had everything.

Well, not everything. You’ve never had everything. Just more than what you have now.

The sting of memory of lashes against your thighs, the venom dripping from carefully thought out words, the impassive expressions of loved ones walking past. You lived well, ate well. You house was large and beautiful, and your friends all great and magnificent.

You think that in that case, you have more now.

How far have you fallen? You like to think of it as a spectrum, rather than a meter. Even though the air is putrid, the clanging of stray cans and rotten leftovers flung over the edge of the railing into your abode, even though it’s been a week since you’ve had a shower, you can still breathe at night. Your eyes are drier than they have ever been in your years of life, a smile more ready to split your face than it had when you rustled around in satin sheets. Puppies in the park make you laugh, lovers with soft kisses make you smile, and the brilliance of the sunset makes your breath catch.

You’ve only ever used to look down. Now that you’re almost constantly sitting on the floor you’d become so acquainted with, you’ve started to notice the sky.

There’s no way for you to feel full, to feel happiness. But this is better than agony, you think. This dull, throbbing pain that’s the only thing that keeps you company on cold nights. Everyone’s thrown you away, like a phone after use, like a whore after cash has been stuffed in between her soiled breasts. Nobody wants to look at you now, and you’ve nothing left for others to take away anymore. All those people who claimed to love you, whom you grew up with and joked about inappropriate politics with- all gone. Your parents, split up, happy, without each other. Without you.

Your fingers have so much crusted dirt underneath them that they’re almost the colour of the darkening evening. You’re glad, for small graces, like the fact that you’ve never looked up at the pavement to see anyone you know. (Not that they’d look down into a place like this.) You don’t know how you’d react, if they’d ever recognize you, if they ever caught you living a life without them. You still remember their lying faces, their crying faces, until this day. It’s what you dream about when your mind has been exhausted of all pessimism.

You don’t believe in happiness, and you most certainly don’t believe in love. Urine, you think, is still thicker than blood. Water, is even more fickle. Covenant, womb, it’s all the same.

You believe only what you can experience, and for now, exhaustion will do.

There’s a toe that nudges you, and a hushed whisper that sounds vaguely insistent. It’s been a long time since you’ve woken up to someone, but you’ve been on alert for the police long enough that it’s only a split second until you scramble into wakefulness.

Your eyes are still bleary, splotches of white in your sleep-filled vision, but you recoil and lift a hand up defensively all the same. Two pairs of owlishly focused eyes watch you right back, watching your hand form jerky patterns mid-air as you try to keep yourself steady.

The one with the weird monochrome hair speaks first, his voice a rusty harshness, the sound of a sandstorm.

“You’ve only got that blanket underneath you?”

“Bo-” the other interrupts, his voice a silky, deep contrast, “you can’t just say shit like that, man.”

Owl-hair blinks at you and smiles a little sheepishly. “Sorry.”

It surprises you, how actually apologetic he sounds. The only ‘sorry’s you’ve ever heard are the ones where someone bumps into you on the street before they turn and see your face, or the ones that throw empty cartons onto you by accident when you’re sitting down, and they offer you a muffled apology that sounds like an excuse. Nobody ever apologises to you and mean it. Not even your own family.

You shake your head in slow response, and awkwardly push yourself to your feet. Sparing a quick glance outside at the sky, you note that it’s an unnatural light purple with fades of blue, and the thought that these boys hanging around a park at probably five in the morning might be dangerous.

Yet, instead, the one with the black hair splits into a wide smile. “Want somewhere warm to stay instead?”

“No.”

Time and days have passed beyond your observation, hours and minutes merely blending into the blur that are years and months- the only thing that matters is the number of times the trash collection comes to your park every other morning. Time isn’t necessary for survival, and it’s shown in how your voice cracks and shatters against brittle obsidian.

“Wow,” they both laugh a little, “been a long time since you spoke, huh?”

You stare them down.

“Who the fuck are you? Go hire a whore if you want someone to warm your bed tonight.”

The black haired one grins even wider, and owl-hair leans backwards dramatically and covers his mouth with a hand. “Savage!”

No, you weren’t savage. You were surviving, and one doesn’t simply do that without fending off horny fuckers in the middle of the night. Some of the patrons of this park are usually high, or disgusting, and even though you’re not exactly of the highest caliber yourself, you still have standards. You can’t control what life you’re leading, but you sure as hell can control who gets to piss you off first thing in the morning.

“Don’t talk to the homeless,” you snarl, “living in the city one-o-one. Fuck off.”

The taller, black haired one takes a step forwards and throws an arm in front of his friend. You mimic is step, only backwards, and pressing the curve of your spine into the shape of the dilapidated wall behind you. Your bedframe, you’ve taken to calling it with incredible bitterness.

“We just want to help. No strings attached. We were just passing by and you looked like you needed some life breathed back into you.”

There are a few seconds of silence where it’s a stalemate stare between the three of you, but you break it when you realize you can’t hold your breath for much longer.

“Don’t pick up strays either,” you sigh. It’s a coarse, rough sound that grates against your own nerves. “Don’t do shit you can’t follow up on. Seriously, just leave me alone.”

“No,” the answer comes firm and instant, owl-hair pushes the arm down in front of him and grabs yours in a swift moment. You’re frozen in place- his friend’s frozen too, in mild horror, but all you can see are those devilish, golden eyes that seem more earnest than a young baby’s. “You look like a good person. Y’know, underneath all that gunk. I- we,” he corrects quickly with a glance at his friend, “we just want to help. You. Maybe make a new friend, kinda?”

“With the homeless,” you find yourself repeating, blankly. These kids must be high as fuck.

“No,” the black haired one chimes in, shaking his head with renewed enthusiasm, “with you.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I am homeless.”

“You don’t act like it,” owl-hair replies. He doesn’t flinch when your arm twitches, or when your eyes widen, or when your lips tighten in affront. “You even sleep kinda differently, with your stuff all neat and tidy and everything.”

Okay, now it’s getting a bit ridiculous and more than a little off topic. You weren’t going to share your sleeping habits with a stranger, no matter how homeless.

“Look, man, dude, whatever,” you snatch your hand out from his grip, “I’m not a pet project. I’ll sleep wherever the hell I want to, so you just hop off home, alright?”

“No!” This time it’s a shout, and it echoes brutally around all three of you in this wasted, filthy tunnel, and your hands fly to your ears in reflex. “Please? You’re not a project, we just-” He stammers, struggles, and you watch him with a distressing mixture of mistrust and curiousity and you know for a fact that you haven’t been shown kindness in so long that it’s starting to make you weak. “-We just like you. You seem okay, and we really want to help you. As a human. No strings attached, we just wanna know your story and everything.”

“Gonna raise me too?”

“If we have to,” those eyes are boring into your very soul, and even when you look away, you’re met with another pair. They’re less brilliant, more sly, but they’re more molten than solid and it feels like you’re drowning and drowning and drowning. “Be our roommate. Just, hang out, help us out with some stuff.”

“Wanna work at a coffee shop?” Black-hair intones smoothly, resting a careful hand on your muddy shoulder. It impresses you slightly, that he doesn’t even glance at the dirt that’s about to come off on his fingers.

There’s nothing to do but laugh. Laugh until your sides hurt, laugh until you’re crying, laugh until you finish laughing and they’re still there, with the same expressions on their faces.

You think that this absolutely has to be a dream- shit like this doesn’t happen to fucking hobos, people don’t just fall from heaven when you’re sleeping to pick you back up into society. This just doesn’t happen.

“You have a deal,” you hear yourself say, and it sounds like the ringing of a funeral toll.

You’re so weak, so very weak, and seeing their excited faces, you know that it’s going to crush you. They’re going to toss you aside when they’re done, when you’ve finally managed to love them in your own, useless little way, because they’re the sort of people you’ve only dreamed about having as friends. More than friends. Soulmates. You don’t deserve them, standing in torn trousers caked in mud and week old leftovers. Your clothes are hanging off your frame of skin and bones, and your hair is so matted against your skull that you can’t even brush your fingers through your fringe.

You’re going to end up more shattered than before, when they leave you. Because everything leaves. Sooner or later, you’re going to be all alone again, in a ditch, wishing for cancer because at least you’ll only need to keep living for three more months.

They wait for you to make a move to gather your things, but you stride ahead of them. There’s nothing by you that you’d want with you, not even the clothes on your very back. Grasping both your hands in each of theirs, the three of you walk through the park, painting an extremely strange picture. Tinted in the purple of dawn and highlighted with the dull expanse of filth, you look like the picture of salvation personified.

“Welcome home,” they tell you with ear splitting grins when you all tumble out of the elevator. Your new home is seventeen stories higher than your padding, framed by your bedroom wall, and the door handle you’re too afraid to touch.

They share a glance that you manage to catch between furious tears, and with two arms, they open it wide for you to take the first step inside.

This is how angels fall, you think to yourself. In the face of glory and kindness, the landing doesn’t even hurt when you fall from the heavens.

You take it. It’s the only thing you know to do- and if you’re going to fall and tumble from your dreams, you’re going to get as high as you possibly can. It’s the view, you see. And you do. Their smiles are like liquid gold, and haggard and utterly shattered by life, you just can’t goddamn help but smile right back.

[unionleaks]

Entry 1

My name is Cade Driscoll and I’ve been abducted by aliens.  I know how that sounds, but I’m writing this one a tablet that has a holographic interface keyboard, so if you’ve found this then I hope you realize this isn’t an ipad or android device.  I got this from an actual alien.  

Anyway, I’m here for the long haul, and this tablet is how I’m going to stay sane. I think I should write like I’m having a conversation with someone, because I’m seriously lacking in conversation and or interaction with anything else living.  I’ve only really talked to about three other humans, and while none of them spoke English, all of them made quite the effort to kick the snot out of me with varying degrees of success.  

Alternately I’ve talked to two aliens, both of whom spoke amazing English, and neither of whom has tried to hurt me.  One them even patched me up and gave me this tablet.  Shout out to Dr. Sunshine, you’re the first good thing to happen to me in what I’m guessing is about three months.  With all that out of the way, I guess I should get to the “talking.”  

Okay, so I was in a park, drinking alone, which is as sad as it sounds.  In my defense I was distraught.  I’d just moved out to L.A. to be with my “actress” girl friend to find that she’d not quite gotten around to breaking up with me.

Seeing as how I had enough money to buy whiskey, but nowhere near enough to buy a ticket home, or my old apartment, it seemed like a good enough idea at the time. The scene is me, whiskey, no bag, in a sketchy park, sitting on a bench, in the middle of the night in a town that I had no business being in.  What could go wrong?  

Just as I started to actually cry I was overcome with the urge to shout at the sky, describing my plight with a fantastic amount of slurring and cursing. With gusto, passion, and a legendary fart, I stood up, pointed at the sky, took a deep breath, and was blinded by white light.  

I screamed, like you do when you are blinded by sudden bright lights, and dropped my whiskey, which is a shame, because the more I think about it, the more I really think I deserve some whiskey.  Then I began to float upwards, which earned a second scream, this one slightly higher pitched.  I tried to move, but no matter how I squirmed, I continued to ascend through the light.  

Then, just as I was beginning to adjust to my surroundings, the light accelerated me up.  Despite the gentleness of my floating, even I, not a physicist or any other kind of scientist, could tell my velocity was unsafe.  In movies, everyone always tells you not to look down.  

I should have taken that sage advice.  I looked down, saw the L.A. skyline below me, knew I would die if the light dropped me, and fainted.  You know, like you do when you realize you’re being abducted by aliens.  

I awoke to the cell I now sit in.  It’s about seven feet cubed, concrete as near as I can tell, painted navy blue, with a single light bulb on the ceiling, a cot with a surprisingly warm blanket, a sink, a silver toilet that is very cold, and a sliding door that is the only entrance and exit.  I should hate it, yes, but it’s the only place I’ve received food or had to run or fight in.  

As the least sucky place on this space station, I don’t quite want to smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer.  On a positive note: there’s gravity, which is nice, and now I’ve got a writing tablet. Play Jefferson’s theme song here.

Anyway, so I woke up here, alone, and as near as I can tell, three months ago. On the cot there was a tray with a glass of water and a blue bowl of sweet smelling, green gunk that I’ve come to call nutrisoup, neither of which I consumed.  I set the water on the sink, and the bowl on the cot, going for the metal tray.  

For a long time that I could not measure I stood just to the side of the door with the tray held like I would swing at the first person who entered to grab me.  Of course, my captors, seeing me posed like that, did not come near me, but it was a long time before I myself came upon that conclusion.  

That was a harrowing moment.  I didn’t really know where I was or what had happened, or anything, really.  I knew I was in alone, in trouble, and there wasn’t much I could do about it, so I settled for hoping for the best.  

Over the sink there had been a mirror, so I put down the tray and looked at my reflection.  No scars. My hair was still blonde and still there.  Both eyes. I didn’t even have any teeth missing, which was actually new.  I’d gotten in a brawl without dental, lost one of my molars.  

My clothes had been replaced with a blue jumpsuit that matched the walls and black boots.  The cloth felt soft on the inside, but the outside felt like leather, and in each forearm there a black, square metal stud.  I touched the stud on my left hand, and felt it vibrate all the way through my arm to the other side.  

The next step, it seemed, was obvious.  I looked for a way to get out of the jumpsuit.  With the mirror’s aid I confirmed that there was no zipper, front or back.  No buttons either.  It was like it had been poured onto me.  It wasn’t entirely flattering at that.  

I got thirsty, so I drank the water.  Mistake.  The world spun, the walls turned purple, then lost all color, and I collapsed.  

Woke up Day 2.  I didn’t know that, still can’t prove it, but it’s my best guess.  Woke up on the cot.  Metal tray with a bowl of nutrisoup and a glass of water on the floor.  Hours go by and my brain plays with the different scenarios it can envision.  They all end poorly for me.  

My stomach growls.  Nutrisoup was starting to look good.  The water hadn’t killed me, so I tentatively took a sip of soup.  It tastes like pure caramel, but has the texture of poorly juiced kale.  It goes down easily enough, but sits heavy in your guts.  

My stomach roars, so I gulp the soup down, avoiding the water.  An idea occurs in the minutes afterward.  It would have been a stupid idea, if it hadn’t worked. Preemptively embarrassed for either outcome, I touch the door, and… it opened.  It had been unlocked.  

Joy like you wouldn’t believe floods through me as I come face to face with a long, unmarked hallway and another door, hopefully unlocked too, on the other side.  I sprinted down the hallway, and a piece of the wall swung out like a bat for my abdomen.

I spun over the bar, colliding with the floor, face up, chest screaming in pain from having the air knocked out of it.  The bar tilts up, and then slams down on my forehead.  I go out like a light.  

Day 3 was no easier.  I avoided the bars, only to get dropped into a pit.  The pit squishes me, and I black out again.  

Day 4 I eat my soup and get to the end of the hallway.  The door reveals another hallway, this one shorter, but occupied by a pool.  Suspicious, but seeing no alternative, I jump in.  About halfway through, an alarm blares, and immediately after an electric current was applied to the water.  

My muscles seized.  Every nerve screamed a dark chorus of agony.  My vision goes black.  

Day 5 was a rough one.  I supposed that I am the victim of a serial killer and illuminati member with access to a sadistic underground complex, really great doctors, and psychedelic water. A lot of self-pity and even more tears.

Day 6 I woke up with hate in my heart.  I get through the obstacle hallway and observe the pool.  The electric shock goes off at regular thirty second intervals.  I manage to swim through and pull myself out on the other side, but my left foot was shocked.  

It moves, but I don’t have any feeling in the offending toes.  The numbness slows me down, makes it so I limp a bit, but I’m in the third hallway.  Careful examination revealed swinging poles in the ceiling and odd, person sized divots in the walls.  The poles are dodged with careful movements, but far more terrifying were the walls.  

They would routinely shoot out towards the divots if you got close.  I flirted with getting past one a few times, but the walls would sense it, and shoot out.  Nothing had killed me so far, even though it should have, so I gambled, and stepped into the divot.  

The wall stopped just short, leaving me feeling like I was standing up in a coffin, until the wall retracted, so I ran out onto the other side of the obstacle.  That was when I finally got the end of the hallway.  It opened to a small room with a table, and two chairs, though one of them was occupied.  

The alien who was waiting for me can best be described as a humanoid spider. She had two legs, each with way too many joints, and each had four clawed toes like compass points. I found myself preoccupied with her six arms.  Two were holding a tablet, much like the one I’m writing on now, while another two fiddled with something behind her back, then the final two were engaged in separate tasks: one squeezed what was unmistakably a stress ball and the final gestured for me to approach.  

In retrospect, perhaps I should have been angry.  After all, what I had been through up to only that point could be reasonably defined as kidnapping and torture.  The sight of a genuine alien however, a genuine alien, left me somewhat in awe.  

This wasn’t a government conspiracy or a grainy photograph or anything like that. She sighed, a feminine voice coming from behind her mandibles, “Hello, my name is not pronounceable in your language, so you may call me Pit Master Clicks.  I’m in charge of you.”  

I don’t remember the exact name of the scientist I’d been listening to, but what he’d said had stuck with me.  He suggested that we were reasonably sure that other forms of life may have come into being, but if they did they were very far away.  If something was advanced enough to visit us on earth, it was because they were probably advanced beyond war, starvation, and all the other things which too often define the human experience.  Something that advanced would probably look at us, spit in disgust, and then pass us by.  

It was such a striking image that it had stuck with me and the idea sounded true enough, so I’d latched onto it.  So when I was face to face with this Pit Master Clicks, I only had one question, “Why?”  

All eight of her eyes rolled, and she sighed condescendingly.  “I don’t know why we took you specifically. That’s between you and my superiors. What’s between me and you is rather simple.”  

I nodded sheepishly, so she continued, “Your planet is filled with some of the most devious, violent and unwholesome creatures the Union has even encountered.  You will fight for our amusement.”  

“Oh,” I licked my lips, trying to choose the best words, “shit.”  

“Yeah,” she shrugged, “Pretty much.”  

“Union?” I asked hopefully, queuing up my questions.  

“Union of Planets dear,” she glanced over at her tablet, chuckled girlishly, and then refocused on me, “You’re going to fight for our amusement.”

“I don’t want to fight anybody,” I said slowly, “Can you, like, drop me off back home?”  

“I couldn’t care less what you want,” Clicks said like she was feeding a child candy, “Your parents are dead.  Your girlfriend estranged your friends and then she broke up with you. Your bank account is closed. Nobody knew or cared if you were in L.A. You.  Are.  Going. To.  Fight.  For. Our.  Amusement.”  

“Shit,” was all I could manage.  

“Now you’re getting it,” she nodded, and brought out the thing she’d been fiddling with.  

It was a neon green Remmington 870 shotgun with pump-action.  She showed me the butt of the rifle, where my initials had been carved into it.  “Just like my dad’s…” I muttered, “I sold that.”  

“We’ve scanned your brain and seen approximations of all your memories,” she set the gun on the table and pushed it towards me, “although some modifications and improvements have been made.  This one is non-lethal, unless we want it to be lethal, and cannot be shot at me or any other Union representative.”  

I took the gun, staring at it at arm’s length.  I’d always hated it from the moment I’d actually shot it.  The room we were in rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, and Clicks sighed happily.  “The pit is waiting.”  

She gestured behind me, and the door opened.  I stepped through into a giant, circular arena.  The floor was sand, tightly packed and wet so it gave a little with each step.  All around me were grandstands filled with aliens like Clicks, but also frog things and lizard people, and even a few beings that looked human, but their skin shone like stars.  

After doing a full turn to look at the arena, I looked up.  There was a glass dome, and beyond it, the infinite blackness of space, peppered with stars, and the familiar blue orb of earth, about the size of a basketball in the distance.  My stomach twisted, and my bowels threatened open rebellion.  

Then, the door behind me opened again, and a human walked out, but he didn’t have a shotgun.  “Is that a samurai sword?” I asked, pointing to the naked blade.  

His face twitched, and he growled, “Ka-ta-na desuyo.”  

And with that, I’m just about down for one night.  My hands hurt and I’m not going anywhere.  I’ll pick this back up when I can