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huesohnobro · 2 years ago

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You Dont Love Her

Chapter 11: Fire

Content warnings: Actually in comparison this one is pretty tame, theres some anxiety and stuff, Wanda being crazy

“You know when you said we’d be stealing an aircraft, I didn't think you were serious.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, glaring playfully at you over a set of dark sunglasses. They hid her eyes and all of the emotion that they held, whether that be a frenzied sort of adrenaline or something softer, you wouldn’t know.

“We aren’t stealing anything, I’m cashing in a favor with someone who happens to owe me.”

Her hand gripped the steering wheel tightly, as if trying to indent her handprint into the smooth, soft leather; quite the mark to leave on your vehicle if she did.

You scoffed and crossed your arms, closing your eyes to give them a break from the endless expanse of green and brown that rushed by the windows.

“If all we needed was a favor then I could’ve just asked one of my contacts.”

“What like waiting for you to ki-“ You shot the spy a warning look before she could finish the word, instead electing to clear her throat before continuing on. “Like waiting for you to conduct your business would’ve been faster than just packing up and going to a meeting point?”

She had a point, not that you’d admit it. Farai took at least 4 hours to get back to you, and everyone else in your contact list was rather…. Hesitant.. to work with you after the incident at the gala.

Such was the cost of being a god, a meager price to pay in the grand scheme of things. Soon you wouldn’t have to bear the burdens of such costs, soon you would be able to take joy in things other than blood in mayhem, soon you would have your missing piece before you filled with blood and life and vigor.

Soon Nekali would be in your arms and you would once again know the joys of being mortal, and you would be unbothered by whatever pains and sorrows came with your mortality.

You wouldn’t need power or respect or sacrifices after tonight, all you would need is the woman who sat at your side and the woman who rested against the skin of your chest.

You took the crystal that hung from your neck between your fingers, gently holding it as a pleasant warmth grew within your sternum at the idea of a more peaceful existence with the two. Despite the desire within to allow yourself to rest with this warmth, to curl up and lie with it until the feeling becomes ingrained in your bones, reality required you to bury the feeling deep within yourself. You were thinking far too pleasantly about your near future, even with the developments between yourself and Natasha you were sure that some part of her wanted to see you behind bars.

You could worry about that later, you were sure that it wouldn’t be too hard to break yourself out of wherever they put you anyhow; for now you’d focus on the winding road ahead of you, the bright star in the morning sky, and how Natasha was practically trying to crush your gear shift in her grip. Placing your hand on top of hers, you rested your fingers over the gaps between her own, your thumb gently rubbing the side of her palm.

“If you don’t relax you’re going to fuck up my interior Araña, and I doubt you can afford to replace it.”

Her bewildered smirk made your heart flutter, the warmth from just a few minutes ago begging, screaming to work its way back into the cavern of your chest. The widow looked like fire made flesh in that moment, hair enkindled into a veritable blaze in the morning sun, skin thrumming with an ill tempered frenzy of nerves and adrenaline. Today, fire was neither dangerous, nor the doom of your lover,but rather something you desired to have pressed against you in the late hours of the night.

Today fire was not hell, today fire was hope and safety.

Fire was going to be the reason your favorite pair of shoes was fucking ruined. A two mile long tread through high grass, snagging branches, and patches of earthen clay and mud had you cringing out of regret with each step. Natasha was, of course, unbothered, she had practically existed in a pair of black combat boots with the cuffs of her pants tucked into them. Never again, never again would you let her plan retrievals or reconnaissance preparation or anything that in any sort of manner requires picking something up for a mission. It didn’t matter if those things would never happen again between the two of you, it didn’t matter that the woods offered beloved privacy and a sense of shelter through the close together trees and hanging moss. None of that mattered if this was something that she considered a casual affair: you would be damned to the infernal plane you habitually wander through if you made it into a casual affair for yourself.

You practically sighed in relief when the thick bunches and clusters of branches gave way to an open and spacious clearing, the next section of woods a far and distant sight compared to the bark and lichen that grew behind you. The teeming life of the woods that made itself known through chirping voices and the rustling of leaves was absent from the clearing, only grass and a metal behemoth lying within. The titanium and steel of the small military plane looked uncanny, a symbol of human bloodshed in a forest that deserves no such afflictions.

Natasha walked through the field with a practiced ease, seeking out the man you could only assume was the aforementioned contact. Hanging back from the conversation, you stared up at the craft that would soon be porting both you and the spy to your previously abandoned home: the only reason you weren’t teleporting there was well… you couldn’t risk harming Natasha like that. The very idea of bringing her along… the liquifying meat, the smell of charring bone… it was all too much, a suffocating concoction of smells and textures against your hands, the wet press of blood against clothing that would inevitably stain beyond repair during a final embrace, the gentle smile even as unbearable pain wracks through the system….

Not now, don’t think about that now. The muscles of your shoulders tensed up, the prehensile cord of your tail wrapping around your hips in an effort to stabilize your shaking.

Something else. Think about something else, anything else, the negotiation happening behind you, the way the grass brushed against your legs, the way that the clouds hung in the sky, anything at all please anything and everything at all would be better than this.

The dark glimmer of metal wings caught your eyes, a smooth expanse of welded together metal that held unknown mysteries inside.

When was the last time you had been on a plane, come to think of it… have you ever been on a plane?

To say that Natasha was stressed would be like saying it was snowing as a blizzard raged outside of your house, technically it was an accurate statement, however it failed to capture the magnitude of the event taking place. First there was hacking into the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe in order to act as surveillance and direct Helen where to go with the Cradle, which was fairly simple; next was coaching the geneticist on lifting off and setting the autopilot embedded in the stealth-craft to the pre disclosed coordinates; and then there was tampering with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security camera footage to ensure that it looked as though the good doctor was still in her laboratory. It wouldn’t have been anything particularly difficult had Natasha held access to quite literally anything other than a laptop that was bought the night before, and had S.H.I.E.L.D. not conscripted Stark to upgrade their cybersecurity and firewall systems in lieu of recent events.

Eventually the proverbial blizzard had calmed down to all but a flurry, two hours in the air filled with technological espionage having passed, leaving Natasha to enjoy the view of the sky painted in the windshield before her. It was quiet, the wings of the jet cutting through the sky in the same way that a too-hot knife cuts through butter. If Natasha didn’t know any better she would think that she was the only soul on the aircraft, the journey being nothing special or out of the ordinary compared to her usual trips.

Its a shame that Natasha did know better.

You weren’t necessarily the loudest person in the world, however your excessive time alone had given you certain… quirks.

You had a tendency to mutter to yourself, likely as a way to communicate with the woman who rested in limbo, the absence of such muttering was a bit jarring to say the least.

No, instead of a light conversational murmuring, Natasha’s ears picked up on jagged breaths and the incessant tapping of a sole against the metal floor.

Natasha slowly entered the hold, consciously unmasking her usually silent steps in order to alert you to her presence in an attempt to not escalate your panic. She wasn’t quite sure what was wrong, but she did know one general rule: dangerous people become even more so when erratic, especially when in small spaces. Your tail was wrapped around your waist, eye twitching as you gripped the crystal around your neck harder and harder with every bump of turbulence. It was a strange sight to behold, Natasha had never seen you show fear; to watch it be so clearly etched into your features was shocking. Hell, you had been so distracted by your panic that you had failed to notice the spy’s continued presence in the room until about 20 seconds after her entry.

Your posture straightened in an attempt at forced relaxation, your leg stilling itself and your hands planting themselves onto your thighs as your eyes met green ones.

Your tail betrayed you as the hull shook ever so slightly, tightening noticeably around your waist as though it were a living belt. Your teeth were clenched tightly, hands balled into fists, wary as Natasha took a seat next to you.

“Do you want a drink or something to relax?”

Your eyes flicked over to Natasha before focusing back on your shoes, the building pressure in your ears slowly becoming unbearable.

“I don’t really do alcohol anymore, so no thank you.”

“Good, we don’t have any in here,” the spy rested her back against the metal wall of the plane, feeling the slight rumble of the craft as she watched you. Nothing on your body was touching the plane if it didn’t have to, your hands on your lap, tail ever so slowly constricting yourself, your spine a figurative mile away from the wall. Natasha was almost positive that had you known a way to sit on the air rather than the bench you two rested on, you would’ve done so in a heartbeat.

“You’re going to break a rib- I take it you’re not a fan of flying?”

Your shoulders shrugged stiffly, the blue cord loosening just barely in response to her worry.

“So far, no, I’m not seeing what’s so great about it.”

“So far?”

“Before today I’ve never exactly flown before, I’ve never really needed to. I can’t particularly say I understand the appeal.”

Natasha chuckled at that, a soft smile growing despite herself.

“Well, most people who fly don’t have the power to teleport across continents.”

You hummed softly, looking back at the widow with eyes full of tempered anxiety.

“Most people are delusional then, it’s ludicrous to trust a glorified tin can as much as we are right now.”

Natasha had to agree, most people were delusional, just not in the ways you were thinking.

Walking into your old compound felt as though you were an archeologist walking into an ancient ruin. Cracked marble and tile, burn and splintered yet still polished wood, fallen soldiers and apostates, all littering the floor along side relics of past glories and triumphs. A veritable Pompeii of your endeavors, all sprinkled with a healthy coating of blood and gunpowder. As you toed through the rubble of your past, you couldn’t help but wonder if a volcanic ending to your efforts would’ve been preferable. It would’ve been easier, no doubt, you wouldn’t have to see the rings on hands, the worn pairs of boots, the peek of blue mottled skin from the corner of your eye.

It was a harsh reality, what your old home was giving you. You were not the savior you proposed yourself to be, were you? Your blood and flesh was never going to be a permanent salvation, despite your best efforts. It was all doomed from the start, mortal souls can only take so much, perhaps they were not meant to be holy in the way one such as yourself was.

Perhaps all of your endeavors would be doomed in the same way, ending with a faint scent of gunpowder and egregious burns.

“We’ve passed at least three rooms with enough space to hold the Cradle, where are you taking us?”

You looked back at Natasha with a raised eyebrow, gently thumbing at the crystal vessel chained around your neck. She didn’t seriously think that somewhere as filthy as the dormitories or common areas was good enough did she? No, in your mind there was only one place fit enough for your first love to take her beginning breaths and steps in, you were sure of it.

“Those rooms are subpar in nature, only members of the flock resided in such squalor. We’re headed towards somewhere far more important, as it is what someone who holds such high importance in my heart deserves,” the two of you stopped before a solid hardwood door, tall and dark and covered with intricate silver filigree; the handle was cold in your grip, lacking its usual pristine shine. “I would demand the same quality if it was you, perhaps just a touch lower, you have tried to kill me a couple of times after all.”

Your tone was teasing as you pushed the door open, a creaking echo shooting through the room. A high vaulted ceiling rested above you, engraved with intricate geometric designs and lettering; the walls were made of the same dark, filigreed material as the door, illuminated only by the sconces interspersed between pillars around the room; the floors were a rich marble, the shimmering onyx cracked with streaks of radiant white. It was vaguely haunting, a chill running down Natasha’s spine as the two of you entered; she didn’t understand why until she finally turned her eyes to the center of the room.

A circular table dominated the space, covered in ornate mosaics of what Natasha could only assume were crystal and colorful stones, shackles on four opposing ends, grooves on its surface still stained with gray and ruddy brown, all leading towards collection chambers embedded into the floor. Various tools and sharp implements hung from the side of the diabolic structure, glinting gun metal gray and pure silver in the warm light of the room.

It was vile, how calm you were about the idea of such a place being the only location worthy of your lovers.

It was a place of death, of despair, of horror and maniacal power trips and of manipulation; a chamber of false gods and the enamoration of those who followed them. Shadows came to life and revealed the dark creatures that lay within them in this room, boogeymen and demons drank from bowls of blood and the aroma of awe-struck terror within these walls, and yet you looked so satisfied with it.

It was a living mockery of a cathedral.

It was twisted, horrific even.

It was the essence of what you had become after all this time.

It was gorgeous.

“Dr Cho is going to hate this- how is it that it wasn’t destroyed in the raid?”

You shrugged, sitting upon the altar and running your fingers over its grooves.

“People tend not to destroy holy sites, they usually know better.”

Wanda had never truly noticed how quiet Avengers tower could get when everyone was away, there was no bickering to be heard in the living room, no thudding of fists against a sand filled leather bag, there was nothing but the sound of a laugh track to distract her from just how lonely she felt. The laughter and dialogue emanating from the screen felt dull, Wanda’s mind too preoccupied with worry to be sated by the serialized comfort of Bewitched. There was something missing, the absence of a warm caress of a hand against her cheek, the lack of the scent of vanilla and spices surrounding and overtaking her senses in the best way.

With the absence of such comforts came plenty of time to become lost in one’s own thoughts, ample opportunity to wander down the halls and corridors of anxiety and find oneself trapped in the shadows and whispers that echoed throughout. Such time and opportunity has been known to bring many a sane person towards conducting rather strange behaviors.

This is how Wanda found herself in Natasha’s office, at approximately 2:52 pm on a Sunday. All things considered, there was no real reason for the witch to enter the room, and certainly no reason to find herself seated in Natasha’s usual chair. The lack of lumbar support was something she would have to bring up with the spy at a later time, for now Wanda would just allow herself to sink into the well worn fabric of the desk chair.

Slowly but surely the minutes crawled by, the slow passage of time marked by the ticking of the clock on Natasha’s wall. The sound was like a metronome, steadfast and unwavering in its almost mechanical beat; Wanda couldn’t help but wonder if that ever bothered Natasha, if the steady click that filled the air ever reminded her of her days in the Red Room, surrounded by the sounds of training in both combat and dance.

She wondered if Natasha had ever felt like this… lonely, surrounded by things that reminded her of someone she cared for dearly, waiting for something, anything to change and give her a sign that something new or exciting was going to happen, or perhaps that her beloved was safe and sound.

Breathe in, tick.

Breathe out, tick.

Breathe in, look at the pictures and various files on the desk.

Breathe out, notice how happy she looks in that picture with Clint’s family… how at home she looks with Laura and the kids…

Breathe in-

The desktop computer flickered to life, the left corner of the screen showing grainy, pixelated footage of two figures in a hall. Scooting forward, Wanda squinted at the lettering in the corner to figure out where the footage was coming from.

N-P-828… It was no use, so Wanda elected to watch the footage. The hall looked familiar, rubble covering the carpet alongside blood, it was haunting, filled with an odd sense of deja-vu that Wanda couldn’t place.

Something was walking into the frame, something grey- no… blue. Blue in the shape of a person, clothed in a suit and followed by flaming red hair.

Wanda sat frozen as she watched the two walk across the screen, seemingly locked in conversation as they made their way across the hall.

In that moment Wanda knew what she had to do, the ticking of the clock matched her heart rate as she watched the screen, standing from the chair with red wisps surrounding her fingers.

She was going to save Natasha, and it would be the last thing you’d ever see.

#you dont love her #dark!reader #natasha romanoff x reader #wanda maximoff x natasha romanoff #anxiety #the beginning of the end #Y/n is so done with this shit

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babysizedfics · 4 years ago

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I see you mentioned dad and son origami? May we expand upon that?

we may indeed - just a note that this starts with origami but branches into general crafting

roman actually initiated the origami as a way of secretly getting patton to help with decorations for the garden wedding without even knowing that it was going to happen

because it's a lot of work to make hundreds of rainbow origami flowers and roman is a busy guy

patton is of course none the wiser and when roman suggests it he doesnt think twice about it because roman is always trying out new crafting ideas and he would love to be able to help with that

but yeah that backfired a bit when patton was (no offence) completely awful at it

he actually feels a little bit embarrassed about it because this has happened a few times before and it keeps happening everytime he tries a new type of craft

when roman got polymer clay and started making his own dolls patton wanted in on it because that looks so cool that you can design your own toys!

but he just couldn't get the hang of smoothing off the edges and he didn't realise that you need quite a solid understanding of human anatomy to be able to sculpt faces

roman is obviously supportive and he bakes pattons toy to set it and ... they both silently agree not to paint his one because it looks like an eldritch horror as it is, but no worries because roman made three in the time it took patton to make that one so patton is allowed to help paint roman's!

and after janus taught roman how to crochet patton actually asked roman to teach him too because he wanted to learn how to make scarves and hats and stuff for his family since winter was approaching (he was a bit reluctant to ask janus because of how badly the crafting attempts had gone in the past)

and as eager as patton was to give it a go, he couldnt help how frustrated he got whenever he dropped a stitch (which happened every few seconds) and how dejected he felt when he held the hat up and all it resembled was a very holey, warped, uneven shape of wool that wouldn't have stayed on anyones head - despite roman awkwardly insisting that it was perfect and holding it on his head with quite a desperate smile

so after all of these failed attempts pat has pretty much given up on crafting, his fingers aren't nimble enough, his touch isn't gentle enough, his brain isnt creative enough and he doesnt admit it but it makes him feel pretty useless

before he realises what he's doing he has set the oven to preheat and is taking out the baking equipment

he likes to bake when he's stuck in his head, the smells ground him and the repetitive tasks soothe him and someone almost always comes into the kitchen either to join in or to jsut sit on the counter and talk to patton as he bakes, complimenting the delicious smells

it's roman this time, and he's little too which really soothes the heaviness in pattons chest because he gets to be a dad for a bit and forget about feeling like he isnt good at anything

once the cupcakes have left the oven and theyre cool enough to decorate, patton asks ro if he wants to help but surprisingly the little prince refuses and says he just wants to watch his dad do it

its a bit surprising but patton doesnt force it and starts to ice them and as ro rambles about what he learned from the latest episode of his favourite cartoon the icing becomes more elaborate and intricate

by the time patton has finished there are two dozen cupcakes all decorated with beautfiful flowers and twirling vines and theres even some little woodland animals peeking through leaves and branches like a red squirrel and a hedgehog and a few rabbits (because he knows baby vee will squeal with excitement at seeing "buwwies" on the cakes)

and this doesnt even register with patton as a craft because this is just what he's always done, and crafts aren't meant to be eaten right? the baked goods are always gone within a few days, and he doesnt do it to be artistic like roman he does it because he loves the bright smiles on his family's faces when their birthday cakes are decorated with their favourite things

but roman is in awe 'wow dad these are so pretty!!'

patton shrugs and cchuckles 'theyre just cupcakes, sweetie'

'no theyre not' roman looks at him as if he's just said something really outlandish and frowns 'theyre not just cupcakes, theyre art'

and when patton looks back down at the cooling rack filled with bright colours it just really suddenly clicks in his head that, wow, he made these... with his hands which he thought were clumsy and talentless

he doesnt need to be good at crafting, people all have different skills. but it makes him so soft that he can actually claim to have some artistic skill because it's one way he really feels connected to his little prince

and roman is so proud of him he takes a bunch of photos of them and insists patton puts them in his scrapbook and patton does so with a smile and a warm, light feeling in his chest

#little/big concepts #cg patton #little roman #agedre roman #asks #anon #food tw #food mention

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gigilalaka · 4 years ago

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The Deage Troll Au. Update and Chapter 1

So, this was supposed to tell you all that want to read my still in progress deage au, that chapter 1 was out on my ao3 account. Well its not. I can’t get access to it on my pc and I’ve tried a couple of other methods as well. Now I’m just waiting for they guys and girls that run ao3 to find whats wrong. However I want people to at least read the first chapter so here it is. We will see what happends in the coming days but for now enjoy!

*for thought

‘for speak

Chapter 1 “ Good days gone bad”

Poppy looks out of one of her windows that she got installed barely 3 weeks ago, its soft rain that gos pit patter on them tonight and normaly she would hum to the soft sound but she can’t find the strengt nor heart to do it. Her mind is filled with worry and guilt over the small body thats currently sleeping in a small borrowed bed that Smidge had been so kind to give her. * What am I do to now?* the words keeps runing around her head as she hears a small whimper coming from the bed. She truns around to look at them and walks over with soft steps and just stops at bedside, the little thing looks like they are not haveing the best of dreams. She could not blame them, she bet shes haveing them tonight as well once she finally finds sleep herself.

She slowly stroke the little things face, tears silent runing out of both closed eyes. One out of lost another out worry the next out of fear. A small boyish voice filled with sadness and longing asking for the one person thats never going to be able to anwser back ‘ grandma, where are you?’ It breaks her heart just hearing it.

‘Oh Branch, I’m so so sorry. I should’t have brought that stupid flower to the bunker, we should’t have.’ she says as she looks at her boyfriend, now in a body of a 6 year old, his skin grey as dark ash, hair black as coal and a fearfull frown onpond his little sleeping face. It still amazed her how bad everything had gotten just within 5 days, and it all started when he asked her a favor of just getting some stuff from the deep forest. How she just wish she’d could stop her past self from taking that damn flower or just give it to the herbalist before she and Hickory went to visit him. Maybe then neither of them wouldn’t feel so bad like they do now.

‘I’m so so sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry’ she keeps saying, tears anew starts run out her eyes again, while her mind drifts back 5 days ago, where it all started.

‘So let me see if I get this right?’ Hickory begins while he helps his brother over a giant fallen log with a rope around him and Dickory, while said brother is cursing up and down and to the high heavens for gifting him with this damn body and how he wish he’d have moveing hair like the pops have. It would sure make this a lot faster! Poppy stops to look at the bounty hunter, the half open basked strapped on her and one on each bounty hunters backs moveing a little showing herbs, barks, flowers and berries, a small smile froming on her face when Hickory nearly let loose the rope thats currently the only thing thats keeping his brother from falling several feet down, again. The small yodleller looking at the other one with a glare. Dareing his little brother loose his grip again on the rope, or else theres going to be hell to pay.

‘Branch is missing or gone out of several herbs and a type of moss thats used for a variety of diffrent meds and skin tonics? And he ask you to get them for him while he fixses something down in the bunker thats gone badly out of whack?’ For the past 4 months, Hickory and Dickory has been residents of said bunker while they are here helping the pop trolls build up their villiage again. Its part of the deal they have with Delta on the amount of charity works they need to get done with the country trolls and for what they did Poppy and Branch. First they had to help fixing some the homes and buildings back in Lonesome Flats, before they were sent to what remaind of the Pop villiage to help fix things there as well. Though to be honest, untill more of the trees and plants recover some more, theres little they can fix. Many a troll are still living in the undergrund bunker the resident grump live and build up, till some of their home trees are ready to take them in again. Though said grump was getting a little antsy with all the other trolls hyper-go-lucky energy. And endless will to party hard and as loud as possible.

Both he and Dickory had been very supriesed and shocked on how one troll had build something this lagre by the age of 15, get it so well stocked and maintain all alone for well over a decade. It was not for nothing that the other pop trolls called him the most prepared troll of the Pop villiage. *Though to be honest, we should have figured that out with how he was so prepared for just about everything on the journey* Hickory thought while putting the rope in his basket, Dickory finally on safe ground. He’s very sure that if they meet another log like that again, his big bro is just gonna swallow his pride and ask the queen for a ride over instead. It was getting very tiring getting past these forsaken logs for the both of them.

‘Yep’ the queen say, the ‘p’ poping as she said it.’ The Ruby moss is the most improtent one along with the Silver Drop Rose. They are used for some very serious bruns tonics and blood loss meds that I think even the funk trolls have never seen. Branch said that even if we only get a few of each of them, it still be enough to treat several dozen patients, but it would really help him and the doctors to have a bundle or two of each instead. They only bloom for the brief period between these 2 weeks. The rainstrom season is coming soon and they are going to be washed away soon when the first storm hits. Oooh look some more Dede berries! Miss Flourens going to be so happy that we gotten some of them, they hard to find this time of the year. Now she wont have to worry so much about the flu season’ The berries looks nice where they are hanging from their bush, a rich maroon colour with what looks like a golden stripe going around the oval shaped fruit. Poppy takes out a few small clay jars to store them in from her basket. She notes that she’s running out of room to store things. She take out a book from the basket she’d taken with her in her hair, incase she found any other herbs she’s not sure about. One of the many useful gifts Branch have given her the past 2 years.

‘So why did you take us with you girly? You know how that boy of yours don’t like us very much’ Dickory asked, it was a bit of a understatment, Branch had been rageing mad at them when he found out the their lie. Had it not been for the fact that Poppy's other friends was holding him down, Dickory is very sure he and his bro would not be walking at all. Its a bit better now, but non of the yodeller brothers wants to overstep themself the frail peace they have right now. Though he still wounders what the less colour full troll meant with ‘ this is just like what happened almost 2 years ago!’. He did not like the sound of it, not at all.

‘Mostly to give you guys some breathing room really.’ Dickory gets back, the queen is still getting some of the last berries in the jar. Then give them to him for storage in his basket. ‘Also, I know for a fact that since your both bounty hunters you guys was the better choice to take on this little trip when it comes to protection. Which I know mister grumpy is not going argue against, beside I’d rather take you guy over the other one thats avaialble.’ * The less said about Creek the better off I am* Poppy thinks, not wanting to take that guru on this trip today, lately the purple troll was trying to get them alone very often and that scared her.

The three continue their journey, stoping every now and then for a breather or a brief lunch, when they come to a area that has the herbs they are looking for. Its not easy to get to them though. The roses blooms on a small cliff thats very close to a river that has some very sharp stones jutting out and the moss prefer to be on the ceilings in a cave that is home some nasty creeps and crawls that no sane troll would want crawling in their pants. However, when they took a break near a tree, they a get a glimps of a snow white petals that seems to shimer in the light behinde another tree and some bushes a little father ahead of them. Hickory and Dickory is not sure if it is safe to go there, but Poppy is insistent that they at least check it out.

They come onpond a small clearing with a pond near the middle of it, a single flower blooming from the north side of the pond. Its white as snow that shimer in the sun light, with what looks like golden, amethyst and royal coalbolt blue bands around the base of the pastals forming a lovely small pattern of rings together. Its shaped like a tulip, if a tulip had slightly longer pastals and curly torns that is. They can smell a faint hint of sweet yet lightly bitter smell coming for it.

‘Now what in blues hell is this? Poppy do you know what this flower is?’ Hickory ask as he looks at the plant. Its very nice to look at and would make a wounderfull gift to a loved one, but dose not go near it. Neither he nor Dickory knew if it was safe to go anywere near it. No doubt that something had to be wrong if only the flower was the only thing to bloom in that pond. He dose not get a anwser for a while, the queen busy with her herb book to see what they have stumblot onpond.

‘Thats very strange. Its not in the book.’ the pink troll say with a mumble. She looks at the two and ask ‘ are there any sticks or stones near bye that we can throw? We need to check that its not a pond lucker. Those things are rightout nasty to deal with and I rather like to keep my arms or legs intact.’ A shiver gos down her spine when she think what happened to the last party group that went out to gather stuff from the deepest part of the forest. From a 35 group to only 14 coming back, almost half of them missing limbs thanks only to dose things. Was it not for that 2 of them had realy good aim, more would have been lost.

‘I think a saw some over there by the river. Gimme a min’ Dickory say as he runs there to get some. When he comes back the three of them each choice a spot to hit, but noting happens. They to it a few more times, just to be sure but is just a normal pond. Relief settels in a bit, but they move slowly near the flower. Once they are near enough, Poppy takes a few minutes to look at it, than take out a pair of gloves, a sturdy looking glass jar and a small spade.

‘Don’t tell me your gonna take that flower with you?!’ Dickory almost shouts. ‘It can’t be safe if it is the only thing that living in this damn pond!’

‘I have to. This area is the closest to the villiage when it comes to get these types of herbs. The others can take weeks to go to and fro. Finding a plant that we know nothing about so close here, I have to take this to our herbalists to find out what it is. For all we know it might do more harm than good to this area’ Poppy anwser back, most of her focus on the plant, not knowing how true her words would become.

Once she got it in the jar, she looks at them and says ‘Its best we go now. We don’t need to be here any longer’ the hunters agree with both of them tur-

‘WAAAAAA’ a scream comes out of Branch traped yet again in another nightmare that he can’t wake up from, sending Poppy out of her thoughts and chair like a rocket crash and running to him. She hugs him while the trolling continue to scream his heart out, his fear clear as day, small fists hitting her chest every now and then. His not stoping and his sob aren’t getting better either.

*My poor poor Branch. Why do you have to suffer more of this?* rings in her head, well aware that her boyfriend haven’t had this kind of nightmare in a long time. It seems fate still wanted to give the troll some more grief. All she can do now is hold him tight, whisper sweet nothings and patt his back.

Slowly but surely Branch began to calm down, and slowly Poppy sings whatever her tried mind can come up with right now not careing if they fit with the song whats so ever.

Sweet baby mine don’t cry

The moons here to sing you a lullaby

And am here to sing with stars

Sweet baby mine don’t cry

We are all here to make you smile

She continues to sing as Branch slowly starts falling to a peacefull slumber, but Poppy know its not over yet. She lays him back to bed makeing sure not to wake him. Once she sure his going to sleep a bit more she drags herself to her own bed try to get some rest before Branch wakes with another scream.

#trolls #trolls world tour #deage au #branch #poppy #hickory

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years ago

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chapter 11.5 -- okay, 12, it’s chapter 12, fine, fine. I should stop trying to predict how long my chapters will be. I’m always wrong. the Fae AU keeps escaping all my predictions. it’s fine. it’s cool.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

It is not, as Apollo expects, the worst road trip he has ever been a part of. Trucy likes to sing along to the radio – she has a surprisingly good voice – which stops Clay from starting up his usual road trip tradition of bellowing out “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and seeing how much he can get through before someone slaps him. Trucy claimed shotgun, as “the woman with the magic map”, meaning Apollo is shunted to the back with Ema, who upends her bag on the floor to pull from it a jumbo-sized pack of Snackoos and offer a handful to him.

“None for us?” Clay asks, pouting in the rearview mirror.

“Backseat privileges,” Ema replies.

Trucy cranks the radio up as a familiar guitar riff begins.

If it’s extortion, it works; she and Clay have not finished the first verse, Trucy’s almost-operatic interpretation running up against Clay’s off-key warbling, before Ema is shoving the Snackoos up between their seats, offering a trade of chocolates for an end to the car-vibrating force of Guilty Love.

“Not a fan?” Clay asks.

Ema groans. So does Trucy. “Don’t get me started,” Ema says.

“Yeah, please don’t,” Trucy adds.

“He’s a pretentious fuckin’ diva who—”

Trucy begins yelling out the chorus to the song over the second verse emitting from the radio.

They are all still arguing – Ema berating Clay’s taste in music while Trucy moves into an attempt to sing My Boyfriend is the Prosecution’s Witness to the tune of Guilty Love and Apollo tries to turn the volatile atmosphere anywhere else – when the song ends. Trucy shushes everyone, violently, smacking Clay on the arm and then flailing back at Ema, and turns up the radio. A DJ is in the middle of saying something.

“—announced today on their social media. While fans are disappointed, no one can say that the break-up comes as a surprise, after the sentencing of guitarist Daryan Crescend for murder in July, and the three months of, ahem, radio silence that’s followed. And earlier this week, leader singer Klavier Gavin’s brother was indicted on a second count of murder – I can’t say I blame him for maybe wanting to duck out of the spotlight. Gavin’s brother was previously charged in April, for—”

Trucy changes the channel. A commercial for a local furniture outlet doesn’t help break the awkward spell fallen over them. “Yeah,” she says, after a full minute, during which time they discover their new channel is a country music channel. “No real surprise.”

“Brother and bandmate,” Clay says quietly. “Hell of a year.”

“Hell of a six months,” Apollo says. And he was there for all of it – he was there for more of it than Klavier ever was. Klavier wasn’t there in April, not when Kristoph fell, not when any of them could have had any idea what was ahead. How much magic would surround them.

“If my older sister had been convicted of murder, I was gonna crawl into the dirt and die,” Ema says, “so I’m with the fop on that one, actually.”

There is a worrying lack of hypotheticals in the second half of Ema’s scenario. No “would have”s. Like she was where Klavier is, but the trial had a different outcome, and the frozen expression on her face, her eyes gone blank, she looks like she has caught up with her own words. Said too much. Apollo doesn’t know much about her as a person, her life before failing the forensics exam, how it was that she knew Mr Wright, but he can sympathize with that fear of having given away too much, turned the conversation down a path that should stay blocked off.

“You have a sister?” Trucy asks, turning around in her seat. “You seemed kinda ‘only-child’ to me.’ “Yeah,” Ema says quietly. “Older sister. Her name’s Lana. We don’t… talk much.”

Apollo doesn’t know why the name feels like it strikes something in his brain, the way Ema’s did when she first introduced herself.

“Oh.” Trucy visibly wilts. “Sorry.”

Ema shrugs, slumping back against her seat, her arms folded. “It happens,” she says. Her eyes are glazed over, settled in Clay’s direction. Her mouth quirks in the beginnings of a smile. “She took me to the Space Museum once, not long after it first opened.” The wistful smile has grown a little larger. “Back when I didn’t know what kind of scientist I wanted to be, so I wanted to go everywhere, and she was like ‘Ema I’m not taking you to the fucking tar pits again, how about space?’, and—” She shakes her head. “Sorry. Your jacket got me thinking. Do you work there or something?”

And that is the question that Clay most likes to be asked, that or literally anything else ever about space, and that is the end of any of them getting a word in edgewise – but while Apollo’s heard it all before, Trucy has questions galore, and Ema sits forward, slowly losing the pretense of not being enraptured.

They have driven for over two hours by the time Trucy directs them to pull of the highway at an exit that tells them there is nothing for them that way but another 38 miles until Kurain Village. “Is that where the Fair Folk live?” Ema asks dryly, in her voice none of the nervousness that people tend to have. Apollo hasn’t spoken much with her about magic, doesn’t know what she thinks – but, well, she knows Phoenix. That’s clue enough that caution comes secondary.

“Not really,” Trucy says. “They just named it that. It’s part of our world. Sometimes some of the fae do show up and hang around, I think – Maya tried to convince Daddy to move out here, once, apparently, but he wouldn’t leave the office.”

“Who’s Maya?” Apollo asks. Sometimes he realizes how little he knows about Phoenix’s personal life, too.

“Daddy’s friend. She’s – wait, stop! Here! Turn down this road here!”

“This is not a road,” Clay says, hunching over the steering wheel. “This is some dirt, off the road, not even in the shape of a dirt road.”

The car groans as Clay turns it off of the asphalt into the dirt. Trucy pops open the door and stands, holding herself between the door and the car roof and turning her face to the sky and the no-longer-distant mountains looming above them. She says something, muffled, and points into the trees. “We’re close,” she says, ducking back inside the car. “Let’s park and go – we’re close.”

“Park right here?” Clay asks, raising a doubtful eyebrow.

“Barely anyone comes this way,” Trucy says. “Like, one bus, except I’m not even sure if this is on its route. It’s fine.”

“I’m more worried that this is some sort of sacred ground that we’re stomping on,” Clay says, but he turns the key and then smacks his head against the top of the wheel. “How much are we going to regret just walking out there?”

“Probably we won’t,” Trucy says. She flings the door open and jumps out, stretching her arms up into the air. “C’mon already!”

“So what are we doing now?” Ema asks, crumpling the Snackoos bag back into her bag and tumbling forth from the car like a liquid spilled. “Just walking into the woods until we find treasure or a bear?”

“We do have a map.” Trucy waves it at her. “But yes. That’s what we’re doing.” She lowers the page halfway to her side and then stops, tilting her head back. “I’ve been here before,” she says. “Grandpappy and I – sometime – sometime after my mom died.” She takes a few slow steps toward the treeline, her movements uneven, as in a daze. “It was just the two of us. And we came here, and we buried—” She spins around, eyes wide, looking at all and none of them. “We buried his grimoire.”

Without another word of warning, she dashes into the woods, sending them scrambling to catch up to her. It’s colder here than in the city, though Apollo didn’t think they went up too far in elevation. Leaves thickly coat the ground; do they hide rings of flowers beneath them or do those in their magic break through? They finally reach Trucy when she, focused on her map, walks straight into a tree and takes some time to properly reorient herself.

“Do you know why here, of all places?” Apollo asks. “Is it because of the mountains, and he was…?”

He stops. Does Trucy know what her grandfather was? Phoenix didn’t say. Of course he didn’t.

“He said this is where he landed,” Trucy replies, crunching a leaf beneath her foot. “He said he fell, and this is where he landed.”

“Was he—” Clay’s sense, that question that they all know they shouldn’t ask, that question that Apollo has asked again and again anyway, wars against curiosity, against more than wanting to know – needing to know, to understand what is Trucy’s family. “Was he, erm, one of – Them?”

He can’t even bring himself to offer up one of the epithets. This close to the mountains, Apollo isn’t sure that he could bring himself to speak of them plainly like he has learned to.

“Yeah,” Trucy says. “But I’m human. Don’t worry.” She flashes a grin, one of her usual grins, but it is tempered by the speed with which is vanishes from her face again, replaced by a frown of concentration. “I think we must be close, but not quite yet.”

“Hey, Trucy?” Ema asks. She pushes a branch out of the way and it snaps back to nearly strike Clay in the face. “Not to pry, but – if your grandfather was one of the Fair Folk, are you the changeling, or was it your mother?”

Trucy stops.

“Wait,” Ema says. “Not a changeling – that’s the fae child. The human kid, the one swapped out. Is there a word for that?”

“I don’t think so,” Trucy says. She hops over a log. “I don’t think there’s a name for people like that.”

She doesn’t answer the first question. Maybe she doesn’t know, either.

“When you say you buried it,” Apollo says, aware that there is nothing subtle about this lifeline he is throwing to pull her away from questions best left avoided (am I a child stolen away, raised by the fae? Did they take me from the life I should have had?), “have we come all this way to be foiled for want of a shovel?”

“Oh fuck,” Trucy says.

“Hey!” Ema barks, her sharp rebuke the manifestation of that urge Apollo feels to scold her for that. “Language, young missy!” She folds her arms across her chest, her glare a fond one. “Where did you learn that?”

“My daddy’s a card shark,” Trucy says, countering Ema with a smug grin of her own.

“I thought he was a piano player,” Clay says.

“Only because you’ve never heard him play,” Trucy replies. “Easy mistake to make.”

“Considering it was all magic that hid the map,” Ema says, with nary a pause to acclimate everyone to the idea of throwing the conversation back past that latest sharp turn, “wouldn’t it be magic to hide it again, logically speaking?”

“Where’s the logic here?” Clay asks. Ema snaps a twig off a bush and flicks it at him. “And I mean, if it’s just covered up with some illusion, couldn’t anyone stumble into it?”

“Maybe it takes the map, too,” Apollo says. “Or maybe only a Gramarye can unveil it.”

He steps up onto a tree stump, like the extra five inches can grant him some kind of special insight or a better view in the forest of brown. Then he is falling, the wood rot giving way beneath his foot, a sharp jolt running up his leg from the twist of his foot. “Shit!”

Trucy winces. “Ouch. Poor Polly. I—”

“Apollo,” Ema says, very seriously, but somewhat muffled by her hand over her mouth. “Move. Move right now.”

“What?” He sits up, dislodging his foot from the stump, and looks about himself. The forest floor of dead leaves has cleared, as though by a strong, concentrated wind, revealing browned dead grass encased by a perfect circle of blue flowers. “Oh. Oh shit.”

Without an ounce of grace, still on his hands and knees, he scrambles and rolls his way out of the faery ring. “So according to the map,” Trucy says, and above his head Apollo hears the flutter of the paper, “I think we found it.”

“Only a Gramarye, huh,” Clay says dryly.

“That was only supposition!”

“So who’s gonna stick their hand in a rotten tree stump?” Ema asks, producing a flashlight from her bag and shining the beam down into it. “I volunteer Trucy, because she’s wearing gloves, and is our Gramarye.”

Trucy kicks up the leaves on her approach, searching for hints of another ring around the stump, more than just Apollo’s that sits adjacent to it. “If I get bit by a squirrel and get rabies and die, it’s your fault,” she says, kneeling down next to the stump and brushing her hair back to peer down into it.

“Statistically, your chance of getting rabies from a squirrel is negligible,” Ema says. “That shouldn’t be your worry.”

“What should I worry about, then?” Trucy asks. “Can you bring the light a little closer?”

“Bats, racoons, foxes, feral cats and dogs, and right now, probably non-rabies Fair Folk curses, since we’re fucking around by a ring.”

“I’m still concerned about bears,” Clay says.

“I’m not,” Ema says. “I’ve already got my plan, which is to trip you into its path.”

“General ‘you’, or me, specifically?”

“You specifically. Nothing personal, though. I just know Trucy and Apollo better than you.”

“This is way heavier than I thought,” Trucy says, falling off-balance and dropping something dark and rectangular. “Oof! Okay. Okay. We got it!” She lifts it up onto her knees, a thick book with a black cover and a character emblazoned in flowing purple script on it. “I knew I remembered this.” Her voice is quieter as she opens the book and flips through the rough-edged pages. “Grandpappy’s grimoire.” She closes the cover again, reverently, and keeps it balanced on her legs as she turns back to the stump. “Light again, please. I thought I saw something else.” Trucy has her head nearly in the hole, which can’t help her with her light situation, and she sits back and plunges her hand in again. “Yep! This is a – a funny-looking magatama?”

She holds it up, the blue stone sparkling in the flashlight beam, but also seemingly with its own interior glow, and Apollo gasps.

Three sets of eyes turn to him.

“That’s a mitamah,” he says, and to his own ears he sounds like he’s choking, but he feels like he’s choking too, and maybe the others don’t notice but he doubts it. “That’s someone’s soul.”

Trucy drops it into the leaves.

“What?” Clay looks suspicious – Trucy looks horrified. “How do you know?”

(“There’s no reason to give away your soul,” Dhurke told them, sternly, the sternest he ever got. “Never.” And then they tried to argue, to come up with reasons, because of course they did, and he hugged them both close. “You’ll make great lawyers someday, always looking for reasons and other ways, but this one – promise me. Nahyuta. Apollo.” He prodded each of them in the chest. “Don’t let someone else get their hands on your soul.”)

“The tail of it is different.” Apollo picks it up, brushing off the dirt and leaf particles that cling to it, and points to the longer, squiggling protrusion that extends from the loop. It doesn’t fully connect like a magatama, either, more like a hook than a circle.

It feels warm in his hand, humming through his fingers and up into his ears. It reminds him of the office – familiar, but disturbing, because there is no reason that it should feel so familiar and comforting.

“Could it be your grandfather’s?” Ema asks.

“Wouldn’t that mean he’s still alive?” Clay asks. “Is that possible?”

“It couldn’t be,” Apollo says. If he stares at the mitamah he thinks he can see flecks of gold within the blue, like stars on a constellation chart. “The Fair Folk don’t have souls like we do. They can’t sell them or manifest them like this.”

“Is that why they want human souls?” Ema asks.

“How do you know?” Clay repeats.

Apollo’s heart has stoppered up his throat.

“It makes them stronger,” Trucy says softly. “When they buy names, or souls, it makes their magic stronger. But this – this can’t be that.” She hugs the grimoire up to her chest. “It can’t just be that.”

“Should we just… put it back?” Ema asks. “Someone’s probably looking for it, right?”

“It’s been seven years and no one has come before us,” Apollo says. The humming isn’t as steady now, seems more like a song, and familiar, damned familiar. “No, we can’t just leave her here.”

In the silence, even the song seems to stop. “What?” Apollo asks. Their three sets of eyes are on him again, even more piercing, Trucy’s wide and Clay’s narrowed and Ema’s narrowing too.

“‘Her’?” Ema repeats. “Why ‘her’?”

“I…” Apollo swallows his heart. “I don’t know, but I… I know?”

“I don’t think you should be holding that in your bare hands,” Clay says.

But the alternative seems to be dropping her in the dirt again, and Apollo’s fingers curl tighter around the stone. He can’t do that, either. Trucy unties her scarf from around her neck and silently passes it to him, letting him wrap the stone up in the red fabric and then cradle it close again. The song thrumming in his ears ceases. “I guess we should take it to Mr Wright and ask him if he knows what to do,” Ema says. “He’ll know what to do with it. Her?”

Trucy’s gaze is unfocused, her head slowly drifting away from the horizon back toward the stump. “Trucy?” Apollo asks. “Are you okay?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” she says. “Just buy up someone’s soul all for himself. He wouldn’t. There had to be some other reason. It wasn’t just power, there had to be a good reason.”

(“There’s no reason,” Dhurke said. “Never.”)

“He gave me magic, as a gift,” Trucy says. “He was a good man.” She looks up at Apollo, blinking her blue eyes furiously. “Wasn’t he?”

It takes them another forty-five minutes to stumble out of the woods and find Clay’s car again. Ema makes everyone nervous talking about the odds of them stumbling across a body decomposing in the undergrowth – “I have zero desire to ever get caught up in one of your murder investigations,” Clay says, picking up a branch from the bushes and brandishing it like a baseball bat – and bears. The two of them are at least doing a good job of filling the silence left by Trucy, uncomfortably quiet, walking in a trace. Apollo tugs her by the arm out of the way of trees. He could put the mitamah in his pocket but hasn’t, has kept it held close to his chest.

The story that Phoenix spun of the Gramaryes is gnawing at him. A woman, on the bad end of a deal with Magnifi – Apollo doesn’t want to think about the possibility.

(Trucy must be thinking about the possibility, mustn’t she?)

She crawls into the back seat of the car, depositing the grimoire in the middle, and Ema makes a mad dash for the front seat, leaving Apollo to sit on the other side of the grimoire, separated by it from Trucy. The only time she speaks is to call Phoenix and ask him if he is at the office – he is, because she directs Clay to go back to the office.

It is a long, quiet ride home, some subdued conversation between Ema and Clay about their fields of science rising over the country music still on the radio. Trucy taps Apollo’s hand and beckons him to hand her the mitamah. She takes off one of her gloves and weighs it in her hand with an ever-deepening frown until she wraps it back up and passes it back to Apollo.

Ema shouts “Yellow car!” and hits Clay on the shoulder. He hits her back and tells her that she needs to specify no punch-backs next time.

Phoenix is sitting on the floor leaning against the couch with two notebooks and a stack of papers spread out in front of him, the coffee table shoved to the side, a pencil in his mouth and another tucked behind his ear, when they stagger into the office. Apollo is mediating an argument about the merits of Eldoon’s for a late lunch – Ema does not want to brave it, while Clay wants nothing more than to do so. Phoenix does not look up.

“Hey, Daddy,” Trucy says wearily.

His head snaps up, dislodging the pencil behind his ear. “What’s wrong?”

“You always complain about your back hurting, and now look what you’re doing.” Trucy’s words sound forced through a smile. Phoenix’s frown deepens. He watches Trucy walk past him to deposit the grimoire on his desk.

“We went looking into the envelope you gave her the other day,” Apollo says. “The real last page.”

Phoenix doesn’t look back from Trucy right away. “A full expedition team, huh?” he asks, raising one eyebrow as he looks over Ema and Clay. “Who’s this?”

“Er, oh, yeah. I’m Clay Terran. Apollo’s roommate.” Clay points with his thumb at Apollo, even though they all know there is only one Apollo that they know. “You’re Mr Wright, yeah?” He doesn’t do a good job of feigning enthusiasm.

“I know that look,” Phoenix says, standing with a wince and an audible crack of some of his joints. “That’s the ‘I’ve heard about you and it’s nothing good’ look.” He lets Clay splutter for a full two seconds before he grins crookedly and adds, “That’s fair.” Almost immediately, his expression flattens out to something stern and almost entirely foreign. “Trucy,” he calls. “What’s wrong?”

“We found my grandfather’s grimoire,” she says, sitting on the desk and holding it up, only for it to slip from her hands and crash to the floor. “And Polly has the other thing that was with it.”

Apollo unwraps the mitamah.

Has he ever seen Phoenix surprised? The man spent seven years an unbeaten poker player, and this past half-year absolutely inscrutable to Apollo’s eyes. There is nothing controlled in his reaction; his mouth falls open and his eyes go wide, turning blue immediately and staying blue, horror apparent in how they linger on the mitamah. “Oh,” he breathes. “That is – yeah.”

He reaches forward with trembling hands and scoops up the scarf spread across Apollo’s hands. He holds it cradled close, too, his free hand cupped beneath the one holding it, prepared to catch the stone should it slip, but still not having touched it with bare skin. “So,” he says. “The ‘source’ of Magnifi’s magic – that grimoire, and this soul.”

“But,” Trucy says, “that…” She stops. She chews on the inside of her cheek. Mr Hat, the wisp, is visible, bobbing frenetically around her shoulders. “It’s…” Her shoulders slump. “Do you know what to do with that, Daddy? Is there a way to know what person a soul belongs to?”

“Not from looking only at the mitamah,” Phoenix answers. His eyes still hollow blue when he turns them back to Trucy. “I am not particularly familiar with mitamahs, honestly, but I’ll look into it and see what I can do to get it back to her.” He takes the stone in one hand and offers Trucy her scarf back. “If the fae who has possession of a soul is still alive, they can just give it back – not that many are willing to, mind – but since he’s dead – well.” He shakes his head. “Thank you, though. For helping Trucy, and bringing this back.”

It’s a firm end to the conversation, not that Apollo knows what more to ask about a soul. Ema, though, is frowning, her arms crossed, her mouth twisting like she is puzzling out something. “We were gonna go get noodles at Eldoon’s,” Apollo says. “If – if you wanted to come, Trucy.”

“Oh!” She looks surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be addressed. “Um.” Her heels bounce against the desk. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

Her hands, curled around the edge of the desk, shine red. Apollo doesn’t even need that to know she’s lying.

“We all agree she’s not okay, right?” Clay asks.

They were silent for a block down from the office, Ema not even complaining about losing the Eldoon’s battle. (Apollo was prepared to tell her that she didn’t have to come, but she had attached herself to them without a cursory protest.)

“Definitely not,” Ema says. “I guess she doesn’t want to believe that her grandfather was the double-dealing type of Folk – which, I’ve read the case file on his death, I’d believe that about him in a hot second. There’s nothing worse than a blackmailer like that. Also.” She plants herself firmly in the sidewalk. Apollo and Clay both bump into her. “None of us referred to the mitamah as ‘she’ or ‘her’, right? Like you were, Apollo.”

“None of us but Trucy even talked about it,” Apollo says. Clay nods. “Why?”

“Because Mr Wright did.” Ema’s forehead creases. “He said he would ‘get it back to her’. He wasn’t even touching it, was he?” Apollo shrugs. Ema shrugs too. “He knows something. More than he said.”

“He always does,” Apollo says.

They reach Eldoon’s, and Ema says that it’s weird to see the stand without a corpse attached. The look that Clay gives her makes her and Apollo both laugh. Once they have their noodles, they walk another few blocks to People Park and find a bench not far from where the noodle-stand crime scene once stood. Apollo has learned to be grateful for the mouthfuls of broth that taste of so much salt to sting. It feels a little more like safety, like salt across a doorway.

He starts to say what he’s thinking, that Trucy might be worried that the mitamah is her mother’s, or at least he is, but the words die on his tongue, shriveled by the salt. He doesn’t feel right to tell Clay and Ema about Trucy’s mother’s death, when he has no idea if Trucy knows or not. Phoenix has made him the guardian of family secrets that aren’t his and something about that feels wrong. Maybe necessary in some way, to understand the case, to understand what happened with Kristoph, but still wrong.

Instead, he helps Ema explain to Clay her earlier comments about Magnifi and blackmail. You can’t refuse, and we both know the reason why – Trucy can’t know he did that. She seemed to idolize him. What a hard way to fall.

He’ll text her tomorrow, Apollo decides. Check in, see how she’s doing.

(There’s probably someone else he should check in with, too, the events of this week all considered.)

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics #start your morning with some magic and gramarye fuckery wooooooooooo

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans In The Us

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-registered-democrats-and-republicans-in-the-us/

How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans In The Us

Wide Divides In Partisanship Persist By Race And Ethnicity

Some of the largest differences in partisanship continue to be seen across racial and ethnic groups.

The GOP continues to maintain an advantage in leaned party identification among white voters . By contrast, sizable majorities of black, Hispanic and Asian American voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Among black voters, 83% identify or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 10% who say they are Republican or lean toward the GOP.

The Democratic Party also holds a clear advantage over the GOP in leaned party identification among Hispanic voters , though the margin is not as large as among black voters.

Among English-speaking Asian American voters, 72% identify or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 17% who identify with or lean toward the GOP.

The balance of partisanship among white, black and Hispanic voters has been generally stable over the past decade. However, English-speaking Asian American voters have shifted toward the Democratic Party.

Second Party System: 18281854

The Second Party System operated from the late 1820s to the mid-1850s following the splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party. Two major parties dominated the political landscape: the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay, that grew from the National Republican Party; and the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. The Democrats supported the primacy of the Presidency over the other branches of government, and opposed both the Bank of the United States as well as modernizing programs that they felt would build up industry at the expense of the farmers.

The Whigs, on the other hand, advocated the primacy of Congress over the executive branch as well as policies of modernization and economic protectionism. Central political battles of this era were the Bank War and the Spoils system of federal patronage. The early 1850s saw the collapse of the Whig party, largely as a result of decline in its leadership and a major intra-party split over slavery as a result of the KansasâNebraska Act. In addition, the fading of old economic issues removed many of the unifying forces holding the party together.

Chart 1 And Table 2: Nationwide Party Registration Trends Since 2000

Since 2000, the nationwide proportion of registered Democratic and Republican voters in party registration states have both gone down, while the percentage of registered independents has steadily grown. The latter has nearly reached the nationwide percentage of registered Republicans, which has long been second nationally to the Democrats. Altogether, the combined number of registered Democrats and Republicans, which was 77% in October 2000, is now down to 69%, while the proportion of registered independents over the same period has increased from 22% to 28%.

Note: Based on active registered voters in states where the number of active and inactive registrants is listed. In the election-eve 2000, 2008, and 2016 entries, Independents include a comparatively small number of registered miscellaneous voters who do not fit into a particular category. Percentages do not add to 100 since the small percentage of registered third party voters is not included.

Democratic Edge In Party Identification Narrows Slightly

The balance of party identification among registered voters has remained fairly stable over the past quarter century. Still, there have been modest fluctuations: The new analysis, based on combined telephone surveys from 2018 and 2019, finds that the Democratic Partys advantage in party identification has narrowed since 2017.

Overall, 34% of registered voters identify as independent, compared with 33% who identify as Democrats and 29% who identify as Republicans. The share of registered voters who identify with the Republican Party is up 3 percentage points, from 26% in 2017, while there has been no change in the share who identify as Democrats. The share of voters who identify as independents is 3 points lower than it was in 2017.

When independents and those who dont align with either major party are included, 49% of all registered voters say they either identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party; slightly fewer say they identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party enjoyed a wider 8-point advantage in leaned party identification .

Democrats have held the edge in party identification among registered voters since 2004. The current balance of leaned party identification is similar to where it stood in 2016 when 48% of voters identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic and 44% identified with or leaned toward the GOP and in 2012 . See detailed tables.

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans; Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats; Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.

Voting In Primary And Caucus Elections

States choose a candidate to run for president through primary elections, caucuses, or both. Depending on your states voting rules, your states primary or caucus elections can be open, closed, or a combination of both. The type of primary or caucus your state holds can affect your voting eligibility:

During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.

During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.

Semi-open and semi-closed primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.

Political Party Strength In Us States

Political party strength in U.S. states is the level of representation of the various political parties in the United States in each statewide elective office providing legislators to the state and to the U.S. Congress and electing the executives at the state ” rel=”nofollow”>U.S. state governor) and national level.

Democrats Hold Sizable Advantage Among College

Over the past 25 years, theres been a fundamental shift in the relationship between level of educational attainment and partisanship. The Democratic Party has made significant gains among voters with a college degree or more education a group that leaned toward the GOP 25 years ago. At the same time, the GOP now runs about even with the Democratic Party among voters without a college degree after trailing among this group at the end of the George W. Bush administration. And the GOP has made clear gains in recent years among voters with the lowest level of formal education, those with no more than a high school diploma.

A majority of registered voters with at least a four-year college degree identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 37% associate with the GOP. The Democratic Partys advantage with more highly educated voters has grown over the past decade and is wider than it was in both 2016 and 2012. In 1994, a greater share of those with at least a college degree identified with or leaned toward the GOP than the Democratic Party .

Among voters who do not have a four-year college degree, 47% say they identify with or lean toward the GOP compared with 45% who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. The GOP has gradually made gains among non-college voters since an ebb for the standing of their party in 2007 and 2008.

For The First Time There Are Fewer Registered Republicans Than Independents

For the first time in history, there are more registered independents in the United States than there are registered Republicans.

It may not be for the reason you think, though.

New data from Ballot Access News, which tracks registrations in the 31 states that require voters to register by party, shows that independents account for 29.09 percent of voters in them, compared with 28.87 percent for Republicans. As recently as 2004, Republicans outpaced independents by nearly 10 percentage points.

There are still way more registered Democrats; 39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party.

This marks the first time since party registration began in the early 1900s that the number of registered independents in the United States has surpassed members of either major political party, according to Ballot Access News.

Heres the data going back to 2004:

But before anybody chalks this up as having to do with the current occupant of the White House, its worth parsing the trends.

While independents have surpassed Republicans, there actually hasnt been a huge drop in GOP party registration since President Trump took office. Since October 2016, GOP registration has dropped by half a percentage point. The number of registered Democrats declined by nearly a full point over the same span. Independents have benefited from both drops.

Religious Divides In Partisanship

Partisanship has become increasingly tied to religious identification over the past quarter century.

White evangelical Protestants have seen one of the largest moves toward the GOP over the past 25 years. In 1994, 61% of white evangelical Protestant voters leaned toward or identified with the Republican Party, while 31% leaned toward or identified with the Democratic Party. Today, the GOP has opened up an overwhelming 78% to 17% advantage in leaned partisanship among white evangelicals, making them the most solidly Republican major religious grouping in the country.

The GOP holds somewhat narrower advantages in leaned party identification among white non-evangelical Protestants and white Catholics . Both groups of voters have moved toward the Republican Party over time, though the shift has been more pronounced among white Catholics.

Hispanic Catholics stand out from their white counterparts in their association with the Democratic Party. Roughly two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. The partisan leanings of Hispanic Catholics have not changed much in recent years.

Among those who do not affiliate with an organized religion, 67% identify with or lean to the Democratic Party, compared with just 24% who identify or lean toward the GOP. Religiously unaffiliated voters have been trending steadily toward the Democratic Party over the past few decades and represent a growing share of all registered voters .

Will More Republicans Die From Covid Than Democrats

razelove | 509 opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.Influencer3 mo People lie, right and left. You’re looking not at a number comparing those immunized or not immunized against voter rolls, but asking two questions at random, what party do you affiliate with, and do you plan to get vaccinated.Either way, it’s a brain dead question. More people would die regardless. Let’s say that 45% between both parties is only 30% of Americans , that’s enough to fall short of the unknown number that we would need to reach for herd immunity, which to the best of my knowledge no country has reached yet to find that sweet spot.It will simply mutate more and more and recircle the globe again and again. Which honestly is fine by me. The panic and blow to the economy were worse than the virus. Maybe sars-cov-3 will be more exciting though. I was in panic mode until there were more concrete numbers a few months in with cov-2.You also have to figure that if a virus becomes too deadly it wipes itself out as the hosts for that virus die faster than they can transmit it, like ebola, some strains of flu or dysentery. I’m not too concerned as me and my family caught it already, and kind of figured on this sticking around like the flu. 0|0

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Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said on The Daily Beasts . Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:https://t.co/YpUvqBKxLx

Greg Sargent April 7, 2021

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

More stories from theweek.com

How Many Registered Republicans Are There

How Many Registered Republicans Are There. However, since then, the republican share of the registration has increased from 28.87% to 29.51%, whereas independent registration has declined from 29.09% to 28.38%. And there are roughly 42 million that is less than 170 million people.

According to gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be independents. In 2021, republicans will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 23 states. There are more than 300 million americans. Louisiana, for example, has more than 300,000 more registered democrats than registered republicans . In the coming days, we will take a look at north carolinaâs registered republicans and democrats, respectively.

At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabulâs airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

Americas Top 20 Ceos Donated To The Midterm Elections At Republicans And Democrats:

Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

John B. Hess, Hess Corp.Total: $877,600

Stephen Wynn, Wynn Resorts LimitedTotal: $797,467

James Rupert Murdoch, Twenty-First Century FoxTotal: $506,666

Stephen James Luczo, Seagate TechnologyTotal: $469,825

Steven Roth, Vornado Realty TrustTotal: $432,400

Leslie Herbert Wexner, L BrandsTotal: $359,700

Timothy C. Wentworth, Express Scripts HoldingTotal: $262,594

Mark J. Alles, Celgene CorporationTotal: $195,682

Ian C. Read, Pfizer Inc.Total: $181,833

Joel S. Marcus, Alexandria Real Estate EquitiesTotal: $175,400

David M. Zaslav, Discovery, Inc.Total: $143,600

Gregory Q. Brown, Motorola SolutionsTotal: $132,150

David A. Ricks, Eli LillyTotal: $128,020

David N. Farr, Emerson Electric Co.Total: $127,033

Leonard S. Schleifer, Regeneron PharmaceuticalsTotal: $125,000Worlds Best CEOs Rank: #576

A. Jayson Adair, Copart

Charles William Ergen, DISH Network Corporation Total: $119,900Party: $51,300 DEM; $53,600 GOP

Marc N. Casper, Thermo Fisher ScientificTotal: $118,100

Robert A. Iger, Walt DisneyTotal: $111,800

Fourth Party System: 18961932

The Fourth Party System, 1896 to 1932, consisted of the same interest groups as the Third Party System, but saw major shifts in the central issues of debate. This period also corresponded to the Progressive Era, and was dominated by the Republican Party. It began after the Republicans blamed the Democrats for the Panic of 1893, which later resulted in William McKinley‘s victory over William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election.

The central domestic issues changed to government regulation of railroads and large corporations ” rel=”nofollow”>trusts”), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women’s suffrage, and control of immigration. Most voting blocs continued unchanged, but some realignment took place, giving Republicans dominance in the industrial Northeast and new strength in the border states. Historians have long debated why no Labor Party emerged in the United States, in contrast to Western Europe.

Generational Divides In Partisanship

Generation continues to be a dividing line in American politics, with Millennials more likely than older generations to associate with the Democratic Party. However, over the past few years the Democratic Party has lost some ground among Millennials, even as it has improved its standing among the oldest cohort of adults, the Silent Generation. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have seen less change in their partisan preferences and remain closely divided between the two major parties.

Overall, 54% of Millennial registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party held a wider 59% t0 32% advantage among this group. However, the Democratic Partys standing with Millennials is about the same as it was at earlier points, including 2014.

Voters in the Silent Generation are now about equally likely to identify with or lean toward the GOP as the Democratic Party . This marks a change from 2017, when the GOP held a 52% to 43% advantage in leaned party identification among the oldest voters. Still, the partisan leanings of Silent voters have fluctuated over the past few decades, and there have been other moments where the two parties ran about even or the Democratic Party held a narrow advantage since 1994.

Across all generations, women remain more likely than men to associate with the Democratic Party.

About Those Voters Who Left The Gop This Year Things Have Now Normalized

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, some news organizations and pundits jumped onto the convenient narrative that large numbers of registered Republicans were suddenly leaving the party. But as others pointed out at the time, it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions.

It turned out that the hesitancy was well founded. As more states published updated voter registration numbers, it became apparent that the predicted flood of voters abandoning the GOP was, at best, no morethan a modest stream.

Although reports of the death of the Republican Party were greatly exaggerated , its true that the number of Republicans deciding to change their party affiliation was greater than normal at least briefly. Its possible they were spurred on by some combination of Donald Trumps loss, attempted subversion of the 2020 election and some GOP members support for the impeachment and removal of the former president.

But now, four months after the events of Jan. 6 and three months after Trumps second impeachment trial, the number of people changing their party affiliation in swing states has normalized, with relatively little overall shift.

Below is a look at the trends in some key areas.

Geographic Divisions In Partisanship

Voters living in urban counties and those living in rural counties have grown further apart in their partisan preferences over the last few decades.

Among voters living in urban counties, the Democratic Party holds a tw0-to-one advantage in leaned party identification . By contrast, 58% of voters living in rural counties identify with or lean toward the GOP; 35% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.

In 1999, the first year for which Pew Research Center surveys have county-level data, rural counties were about evenly divided in their partisanship. Since then, GOP affiliation among voters in rural counties has increased 13 points, with much of this movement occurring over the past 10 years or so. Voters in urban counties already tilted Democratic in 1999 ; still, the Democratic Partys standing among these voters has increased 9 points over the past two decades.

Voters in suburban counties are about evenly divided in their leaned party affiliation, as they have been for much of the past 20 years.

Across different regions of the country, voters living in urban counties are substantially more likely than those living in rural counties to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.

For example, 72% of voters in the Northeast who live in urban counties associate with the Democratic Party, compared with 49% of Northeastern voters who live in rural counties.

Now That The Fda Has Granted Full Approval To The Covid

There are more than 10 professors affiliated with the Democratic Party for every faculty member who is a registered Republican, according to a new study.

Mitchell Langbert, an associate professor of business management at Brooklyn College, reviewed the party affiliations of 8,688 tenure-track, Ph.D.-holding professors at 51 of the top 60 liberal arts colleges listed in U.S. News and World Reports 2017 rankings.

Nearly 60 percent of all faculty members were registered as either a Republican or a Democrat, and of that sample, there were 10.4 times as many Democrats as Republicans.

TOP STORIESMask debate moves from school boards to courtrooms

The political registration of full-time, Ph.D.-holding professors in top-tier liberal arts colleges is overwhelmingly Democratic, Mr. Langbert wrote in an article published by the National Association of Scholars. Indeed, faculty political affiliations at 39 percent of the colleges in my sample are Republican free having zero Republicans.

There are several shortcomings associated with political uniformity in higher education, Mr. Langbert continued, including biased research and diminished academic credibility.

Studies show that academic psychologists are more likely to study the attitudes and behaviors of conservatives than liberals. They are also more likely to view conservative beliefs as deviant.

There are a few colleges that stood out in Mr. Langberts sample.

Polling Data Shows Republican Party Affiliation Is Down As Independents Leaning Toward The Democratic Party Surge

Democrats have a nine-percentage-point affiliation advantage over Republicans at the moment.

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The GOP is losing its grip, according to the latest Gallup poll.

The number of Americans identifying as Republicans or as independents who lean toward the GOP dropped to 40% in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the number of Democrats or independents leaning toward the Democratic party hitting 49%. And that nine-percentage-point lead is the greatest Democratic advantage that Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012, when former President Barack Obama was re-elected.

Gallup routinely measures U.S. adults party identification and the political leanings of independents. The latest poll surveyed a random sample of 3,960 U.S. adults by phone between January and March of 2021. And while Democratic Party affiliation actually dropped by one point from the fourth quarter of 2020, to 30% where it has hovered for most of the past eight years the number of Americans identifying as independent rose to 44% from 38% last quarter. And this growing number of independents came at the expense of the Republican party, as 19% of independents said they lean Democrat, compared with 15% leaning Republican. Most of the remaining 11% of independents didnt swing either way.

And several events have happened during those three months that could position the Democratic Party more favorably in voters eyes, the Gallup report noted.

Opinion:

In Her New Book Congress And Us Veterans: From The Gi Bill To The Va Crisis Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack Evaluates How The Parties Legislate And Communicate Veterans’ Policies

More than 18 million veterans live in the United States today, according to the latest census, and with worldwide presence and ongoing wars, the military enlists 1.2 million active and 800,000 reserve military personnel across the branches. As a nation, we look up to those who serve. Its a uniting opinion, and 95% of Americans believe its the duty of government to support veterans when they return to the homefront.

The role of devising policies that benefit former soldiers now falls to Congress, and so the creation and communication of veterans policies, like most things in Washington, is subject to the realities of party politics. Republicans are viewed as the party of veterans, public opinion and voting data says so. But in her new book, Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack questions how that came to be, as her research shows that congressional Democrats, more often than not, are the ones working to enhance veteran benefits.

On a continuum of legislative behavior, we have one end populated by the dedicated workhorses who draft legislation, hammer out compromises, and get into the weeds of complicated policy questions, Cormack writes in her book. On the other end, there are show ponies that care more about pumping out media sound bites or trying to get the next viral video on YouTube.

“Moreover, there is a difference between Republican members of Congress expressing support for veterans benefits and actively legislating to accomplish it.”

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misscinnamonroll16 · 1 year ago

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brozone and the bunker part 2

so you go down the stairs into another foyer/entry way area. i wanted the space to look way too lived in and a bit crowded. branch had a lot of time down there and gathered several things. I'm sorry if I stop giving details about the pictures, I'm struggling to get this put together 😞

i know theyre just decorations but the spider webs fit the 'not much activity' space. then theres the hallway. i couldnt remember the order their rooms were in the drawing, just that branch was under floyd. so on the first floor we have clay and Floyd.

First clays room. I gave him lots of books bc I've read a lot of fanfics where he's a bookworm and likes dinosaurs so he got that too. Dinosaurs and books was all lil branch remembered about his brother. I also gave him a chess table to play his bros and himself. I added a bit of viva in there with perfume bottles on one of the nightstands. He has a desk and several knickknacks. And I feel like he would play basketball.

Floyd's room is a comfy space where you'd feel comfortable talking about your feelings and having a good cry. Leaning into the 2000s emo with posters, records/chs and pictures on the wall. He's got his makeup and nail polish. On his desk is a mirror for makeup and a notebook for journaling and songwriting. And he's got his guitar.

We go down the stairs again. I was struggling at this point to fill the space, I packed way too much clutter in the first two rooms. On the left we have Bruce and on the right we have JD (far) and branch (near). There's something funny about having the oldest and the youngest next to each other

I have to split this into another part bc I've had to transfer to my phone to do this with an image limit

@djmurphy @aerodominics @cow-boy000 @lululemongurl @sharks-n-bones

#brozone #trolls #trolls 3 #trolls band together #trolls clay #trolls john dory #trolls branch #trolls bruce #trolls floyd #trolls sims

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nat1leeart-blog · 8 years ago

Photo

28th March - Merz Barn Day Two Details are in my diary.

I ventured around the Merz Barn site and into the hills looking for interesting places to place and photograph my clay sculptures with the natural light and surroundings I had. I was also inspired a little by how Andy Goldsworthy places things. These are the photographs that I took using my digital camera. My clay sculptures are based on human fingers because I am currently painting/doing artwork of the human hand and so I thought i’d make the clay work relate to my studio practice. But out in nature, the clay fingers didn’t really resemble fingers to me anymore. I personally felt that they looked like the fungi/fungus that you see on the National Geographic documentaries that grow in rainforests such as the Amazon.

These pieces were originally and purposely placed to resemble spores of fungi seen in rainforest documentaries. I love how eerie they look.

I felt that the next place where I balanced one of my large clay fingers looked really cute and almost elf or fairy/faerie like. The single clay piece stood upon a little moss covered stump where branches used to grow. To me, it looked liked some kind of elf or fairy/faerie monument.

Using the same pieces once again, I went for a walk and came across a river of some kind.

(SOME MORE SHOTS FROM FAR AWAY)

For these pieces, I moved them close as I could to the actual riverbed bank before I had to move before the bank overflowed and created the stream/river.

This time, I carefully placed the pieces down to look like some kind of tribal or aztec offering table (I get random bursts of inspiration). I felt like the water connected with the pieces and they looked like some kind of offering to a god of water or spirits? Sticking with the idea that they were some kind of offering, I placed only 5 of the pieces in the correct order to resemble the fingers of a human hand. Surspringly as much as it is eerie, I think theres something pretty about how this piece looks, perhaps because it is by running water?

As many of you know, I get my inspiration from lots of places and a lot of it comes from games and TV shows. But in my mind for this place, I instantly thought: murder scene.

Because I am currently sketching and painting hands, I felt like I needed do something quirky and transportable for the Merz barn and so I chose to make finger tips. I also have in mind to make a tribal like necklace using the clay pieces as long as they have survived the kiln and the journey home from the Merz barn!

#pc2 #studiopractice2

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quasarsturncoat · 8 years ago

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QUINNE: -The woods are the usual place to be, and she's good at navigating them. Whatever the reason she's moving through them now, she's got an armful of books and a rather chilly demeanor. Not unlike usual, of course. She doesn't seem to be in any big hurry, in any case.-

SIRIUS: =There's soft thumps coming from the tree above, as Sirius starts climbing down. On the last branch, she hugs the trunk and slides down it like a ladder, dusting her hands off when she reaches the bottom.=

QUINNE: -she just stops in her tracks as soon as she picks up on the noise, floppy ears twitching a little. She doesn't bother looking up, just waiting for whoever or whatever it is to reach the ground first. And... It's her.-

QUINNE: -She stares, still just standing there.-

SIRIUS: =turns around holding a bunch of flowrs and oh...someone is there. The clear-nectar-someone from the day previously. Did she tell her her name? She doesnt quite remember=

SIRIUS: (oh hi)

SIRIUS: =points up at the tree and laughs a little= (just...looking at stuff up there hehe)

QUINNE: -her gaze sort of drifts to the bunch of flowers for a moment before snapping back to her face. She doesn't mean to look so judgemental... It's just how her face works. And her general demeanor.-

QUINNE: )) stuff ((

SIRIUS: (uh...) =SHE FEELS SHE MUST EXPLAIN=

SIRIUS: (these arent for...) =the heat is rising into her face= (for anyone)

SIRIUS: (ahaha)

SIRIUS: (these grow up on the canopy and i never noticed them before so i thought)

SIRIUS: ("oh how nice")

SIRIUS: ("maybe ruleus doesnt know these are up there too")

SIRIUS: ("i will ask him")

SIRIUS: (though i suppose that does mean these are for him)

SIRIUS: (but not in...)

SIRIUS: (that...sense)

SIRIUS: =thinking she should have perhaps fallen out of the tree instead=

QUINNE: ... )) Ruleus? ((

QUINNE: -she's not entirely oblivious to Sirius' distress, but she's kind of thinking that's just how she is. She does seem to have a lot of red that just kind of happens for her. It's cute.-

QUINNE: )) is that your quad mate? ((

SIRIUS: =her brain just goes fzzt! as she stares into the distance wishing she should compel herself to teleport into the sun=

SIRIUS: (n-no)

SIRIUS: (hhhhhhes only a friend of mine)

SIRIUS: (who does science and research and stuff)

SIRIUS: =she didn't say that crucial bit of information, whoops!=

QUINNE: )) on flowers (( -She still sounds sort of doubtful, or maybe just curious. It's hard to tell.-

SIRIUS: =WHYYY WHY THIS=

SIRIUS: (not just on flowers hhhhhhhhhh)

QUINNE: )) does he do research on perfume too? ((

QUINNE: )) you could give him some of that, too (( -She's offering out a little roll-on bottle of it, one with a clay exterior she molded and painted. The top of it has a face painted on.-

QUINNE: )) or don't ((

SIRIUS: =She's now confused more than anything=

SIRIUS: (oh...okay) =!=

SIRIUS: (sure) =carefully takes the bottle and studies it, holding it up to the light like she had with the other bottle the day before=

SIRIUS: (theres science in that)

SIRIUS: =more to herself= (i think...)(edited)

QUINNE: )) maybe (( -she really just gave it to her out of a kind of curiosity... Which is mostly goaded on by the feeling Sirius does have a crush on this Ruleus person. But it's interesting to try to figure things out.-

QUINNE: )) or maybe not ((

SIRIUS: (its a very cute bottle) =Her glow is dying down the less embarrassed she gets and she placed the flower (now wilted from the heat her hands produced) onto a patch of moss so she could examine the object more thoroughly. She hadnt seen this kind in any store, so she ran a finger carefully over the grooves.=

QUINNE: -oh, this wasn't exactly what she had been anticipating.- )) I made it ((

QUINNE: )) all of it ((

SIRIUS: =gasp!= (you did)

SIRIUS: (how)

QUINNE: )) the bottle is clay and paint and the perfume is oil based with ingredients derived from natural sources ((

QUINNE: )) like plants ((

QUINNE: )) and insects ((

SIRIUS: (wow...)

SIRIUS: (are you sure this is something you wanna give away) =?=

SIRIUS: She's turning it in her hands, admiring the swirls of color in the clay. She'll...lift the head to take a cursory sniff. Why does it feel like she's decapitating someone by doing this?=

QUINNE: -it's maybe intentionally that way...- )) no ((

QUINNE: )) I'm not sure of a lot of things ((

QUINNE: )) but I'm not just giving it to you ((

SIRIUS: (oh) =she means she's giving it to SCIENCE, right?=

SIRIUS: (then after the research is done i will return it to you personally)

SIRIUS: (in case you still want it back)

SIRIUS: =pulls her head back and recaps the bottle, smiling= (it smells as tasty as the bottle looks)(edited)

QUINNE: -with that nice sweet flowery smell, it at least gives a good impression- )) I probably won't want it back ((

QUINNE: )) I just want to see what you do with it ((

SIRIUS: (hehehe okay i will put it to good use)

SIRIUS: (ill have to think about for what cause though)

SIRIUS: (If i use it in a confined space my momll start bumping into things)

SIRIUS: (hmm)

SIRIUS: (maybe she should stay out of the labs until the research is done)

SIRIUS: =She has determined Quinne is very sweet.=

QUINNE: )) your mom uses her smell to move around ((

QUINNE: )) I know a little about that ((

SIRIUS: (mhmm)

SIRIUS: (she says its a latant ability everyone has since we were little)

SIRIUS; (but the older we get the less we use it which is why we forget)

SIRIUS: (we'll remember when we need it again)

QUINNE: )) like when you're lost underground in a cave system ((

QUINNE: )) with nothing but you and the infinite darkness and possibility ((

QUINNE: )) kind of like life ((

SIRIUS: =!! waoh. that's deep=

SIRIUS: (yes)

SIRIUS: (a lot like that) =!=

QUINNE: -nods... She understands- )) maybe loss of smell would lead to another possibility ((

QUINNE: )) maybe your mother could use a spell to develop a new ability beyond even that sense ((

QUINNE: )) or maybe not (((edited)

SIRIUS: =Shrugs= (i dont know for sure)

SIRIUS: (but she does say)

SIRIUS: ("make wise choices")

SIRIUS: (and always seems to know what i did before i tell her)

SIRIUS: (i asked aunt rose once and she said)

SIRIUS: ("call it intuition")

QUINNE: )) you're saying she has a power ((

QUINNE: )) I guess that's not that surprising ((

SIRIUS: (a power) =?=

SIRIUS: (i dont know if its a power...)

SIRIUS: (but if it is she doesnt talk about it)

July 25, 2016

QUINNE: )) everyone has powers, and most of them don't ((

QUINNE: )) mostly, she just sounds like a mom ((

QUINNE: )) mom powers are a thing in themselves ((

SIRIUS: (hehehe its gotta be a mom power then)

SIRIUS: (itd be a little weird if she could do something like that windy thing that doctor john can)

QUINNE: .......... )) do you think he might be one of the guardians ((

SIRIUS: (uh)

SIRIUS: (...'guardians') =?=

QUINNE: )) guardians of the watch towers of the east ((

SIRIUS: =nods sagely= (oh right)

SIRIUS: (the watchtowers..)

SIRIUS: =long pause as she THINKS=

SIRIUS: (actually im sorry, youve lost me)

SIRIUS: (i have no idea what youre talking about) =winces=

SIRIUS: (though)

SIRIUS: (i do want to know all about these guardians and their watchtowers) =Hopeful expression!=

QUINNE: )) it's terminology used in witchcraft ((

QUINNE: )) I wanted to see if you knew it ((

SIRIUS: =Shakes her head, apologetic, and starts to glow in embarrassment.= (hhhhhdshfdslfhdhs) =covers her FACE with her hands=

SIRIUS: (i dont im sorry)

SIRIUS: =no matter what the gaze is, Sirius still cant see it with her sight obscured like this..= SIRIUS: (but what does it mean)

QUINNE: )) the poles all have associated elements ((

QUINNE: )) for the east, it's air ((

QUINNE: )) south is fire, north is ground, west is water ((

SIRIUS: (oh)

SIRIUS: (and you asked if doctor john was a guardian of the east because)

SIRIUS: (wind)

SIRIUS; (i get it now)

QUINNE: )) now you understand ((

QUINNE: )) magick can be useful when you understand ((

SIRIUS: =her glow is dying down little by little. It's safe to come out. She lowers her hands=

SIRIUS: (hehehe yes)

SIRIUS: (you seem to know a lot about magic) =It must mean quinne understands A LOT of things=

QUINNE: )) it might be something I do a lot of ((

SIRIUS: =eyes widen in interest=

SIRIUS: (really)

SIRIUS: (what kind of magic do you do)

QUINNE: )) any kind that suits my purposes ((

QUINNE: )) it's an incredibly versatile craft ((

SIRIUS: (thats nice) =!= (i thought witches were experts in only one category) =That's what movies implied, anyway= SIRIUS: (is there a type of magic you like the most)

QUINNE: ... )) the type that uses scents and stones and homemade crafts (( QUINNE: )) so I guess mostly ground and air magick ((

SIRIUS: =star eyes=

SIRIUS: (incredible)

SIRIUS: (can you tell me more)

SIRIUS: (are you allowed to tell me more)

SIRIUS: (do you have a coven where youre sworn to secrecy)

SIRIUS: (youre not getting in trouble by talking to me about this, are you)

QUINNE: )) I dictate the rules ((

QUINNE: )) it's possible I could tell you more ((

QUINNE: )) but that depends ((

SIRIUS: (...)

SIRIUS: (....on) =? She ventured.=

QUINNE: )) your ability ((

QUINNE: -she considers for a moment, then offers out a vial of something golden-brown to her. Looks like yet another syrup.- )) this is an ingredient ((

QUINNE: )) the white witch can use it, if you can find him ((

SIRIUS: =what...ability? her glowing?? that sounds like a line from the human version of Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers.=

SIRIUS: (i will definitely try)

SIRIUS: =if anything, she'd think itd be Uncle Jake. hey had white majyyks, so he couuuuuld be a witch? gee.=

QUINNE: )) then maybe you'll succeed ((

QUINNE: )) or maybe not ((

QUINNE: )) we will see if intents align ((

SIRIUS: =inspects the bottle in her hands for any CLUES. sHIT, how she obtain a quest?! This came literally out of nowhere!=

SIRIUS: (where theres a will theres a way ahaha)

QUINNE: -eyeballs her... at least her attitude seems right for magick, but she's not going to say that yet-

QUINNE: )) I'm looking for something, too ((

SIRIUS: (you are)

SIRIUS: (what kind of thing)

SIRIUS: (is it something specific) = o: =

SIRIUS: =did she just...agree to another quest=

QUINNE: )) a ship ((

QUINNE: )) one that came here recently ((

SIRIUS: (oh) =!= SIRIUS: (well the union did)

SIRIUS: (but you probably already knew that)

SIRIUS: (do you know what it looks like)

QUINNE: )) no ((

SIRIUS: =still turning the bottle in her hands=

SIRIUS: (there one that's landed three days ago down eight landing zones that someone recently took to get a paint job)

SIRIUS: (its metallic cyan with neon orange racing stripes)

SIRIUS: (theres the green rocketship shaped ship that landed yesterday to deliver a shipment) =points in the distance. They can see the nose of it from even this far away=

QUINNE: )) it's full of notable figures and their offspring ((

SIRIUS: (that does sound a lot like the unbreakable union...)

SIRIUS: (theres people like the signless and disciple on board)

SIRIUS: (and it was home to orphaner dualscar once)

SIRIUS: (and aranea serket the famous autobiographer lived on it too)

SIRIUS: (she recorded all the adventures of the union and her crew)(edited)

QUINNE: )) yes that might be the one ((

SIRIUS: (what a coincidence) =Smiles!= (i live there sometimes)

SIRIUS: (were you looking for anyone in particular)

QUINNE: )) maybe ((

SIRIUS: (do you know what they look like)

QUINNE: )) maybe not ((

QUINNE: )) I only need to find the ship ((

SIRIUS: (in that case ill lead you right to it)

SIRIUS: = :D =

SIRIUS: (youll have to talk to the captain to get on board of course but you dont need to worry cause hes super nice)

QUINNE: )) interesting ((

QUINNE: )) I will find out ((

SIRIUS: =Sirius stored the bottle of perfume and the bottle of brown nectar in her sylladex then picked up her wilted flowers. Cant forget those!=

SIRIUS: (are you a fan or fam) =starts walking in the direction of the docks and beckons her to follow= (usually its one of the two)

QUINNE: )) neither one (( -she's following behind her at a leisurely pace-

SIRIUS: =She's...slowing down so her mile-long strides dont leave quinne in the dust.=

SIRIUS: (oooooh)

SIRIUS: (is it okay for me to ask you the reason)

QUINNE: )) you can ask ((

QUINNE: )) but I probably won't tell you (((edited)

SIRIUS: (hehehe okay)

SIRIUS: (just curious)

QUINNE: )) curiosity is good ((

QUINNE: )) you never know what can happen ((

QUINNE: )) it's better to be curious ((

SIRIUS: (then out of curiosity what is the reason for you want to visit the union)

SIRIUS: =joking= (is it the museum)

QUINNE: )) it has a museum? ((

SIRIUS: (it does)

SIRIUS: (most of its items were collected during the war)

SIRIUS: (the second one)

QUINNE: )) hmm ((

QUINNE: )) it could be a reason ((

SIRIUS: (theres some pretty neato things in there)

SIRIUS: (its basically a collection of donations so they kinda tell the story of the people that lived it)

QUINNE: )) it's probable some interesting ghosts cling to them ((

SIRIUS: (oh yeah definitely)

SIRIUS: (i heard my lusii talking about things when they thought i wasnt listening)

SIRIUS: (like)

SIRIUS: (people have...) =looks around to make sure they arent overheard=

SIRIUS: ((died))

SIRIUS: (on the ship before)

QUINNE: )) yes ((

QUINNE: )) I guess that isn't surprising, either ((

QUINNE: )) people seem to die most places ((

QUINNE: )) the circumstances might be unique, though ((

QUINNE: )) as unique as deaths can be ((

SIRIUS: (places where people die is a good place for ghosts to be as any) =beaming smile=

SIRIUS: (baldur taught me this)

QUINNE: )) Baldur ((

QUINNE: -she's looking at her now-

SIRIUS: (yes)

SIRIUS: (hes really into haunts and stuff and is practically an expert in all things ghost and supernatural related)

#plenilunarPalpi

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans In The Us

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-registered-democrats-and-republicans-in-the-us/

How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans In The Us

Wide Divides In Partisanship Persist By Race And Ethnicity

Some of the largest differences in partisanship continue to be seen across racial and ethnic groups.

The Democratic Party also holds a clear advantage over the GOP in leaned party identification among Hispanic voters , though the margin is not as large as among black voters.

Among English-speaking Asian American voters, 72% identify or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 17% who identify with or lean toward the GOP.

Second Party System: 18281854

Chart 1 And Table 2: Nationwide Party Registration Trends Since 2000

Democratic Edge In Party Identification Narrows Slightly

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

Voting In Primary And Caucus Elections

During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.

During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.

Semi-open and semi-closed primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.

Political Party Strength In Us States

Democrats Hold Sizable Advantage Among College

For The First Time There Are Fewer Registered Republicans Than Independents

For the first time in history, there are more registered independents in the United States than there are registered Republicans.

It may not be for the reason you think, though.

There are still way more registered Democrats; 39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party.

Heres the data going back to 2004:

But before anybody chalks this up as having to do with the current occupant of the White House, its worth parsing the trends.

Religious Divides In Partisanship

Partisanship has become increasingly tied to religious identification over the past quarter century.

Will More Republicans Die From Covid Than Democrats

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Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:https://t.co/YpUvqBKxLx

Greg Sargent April 7, 2021