#yard runners

[tj-crochets]

I have new neighbors and today they were out in their yard (the youngest kid saw a cool bug) and their little dog was offleash so I got to meet neighbor dog! Neighbor dog is my new favorite

[platinummice]

I went to the store today, one way there one way back and saw it exactly five dogs with collars at 4 different roadkills just fuckin,,,,, chowin down,,,, hope whoever the fuck is just letting their dogs run rampant get fuckin rabies

[bevanne46]

Come See All the Quilts and Fabric Items I have been posting about at the Driveway Quilt Sale. It will be like a Garage Sale Only Better

Saturday, Aug 17, 2024 (Sale Day as the All Marysville Garage Sale)

9:00 am - 4:00 pm

78th Pl NE, Marysville 98270

by the Cedarcrest Golf Course

Find Quilts, Pillows, Pillowcases, Tableware, Wall Hangings, Stuffed Animals, Pet Beds, Baby Items and other Handcrafted Items.

Also find: Fabric, Notions, Patterns, Craft Books, Crafting Items & Storage Items

There will also be Non-Crafting Items here, just like a regular Garage Sale

Items like: Gardening Items, Tools, Housewares, Bedding, Puzzles and more.

Something for Everyone!!

Other homes in our area will be having sales also so you can shop from various Sales!

64th Dr NE, Marysville

74th St NE Marysville

[lovelyreviews1]

The Chicken Coop Company

Are you looking for a chicken coop but not sure which one is best nor are you sure on the kind you are wanting?

 Check out the Chicken Coop Company, they have quite a few different kinds and styles. They have coops with runs for 6+ chicken, a coop for 4+ chickens, and a coop for 10+ chickens.

It takes about 1-2 hours putting these coops together once you receive it and on the website there are useful tips on what to do to make the coops last longer.

They also carry, shirts, aprons, socks, tote bag, and chicken print products which are cool.

[espace--positif]

Mornings With Him

A collection of husband!Zayne x F!Reader domestic headcanons [Love and Deepspace]

Summary: Mornings are always better shared. Especially with the love of your life. A collection of fluffy snapshots of mornings spent with husband!Zayne. Pairing: Zayne x F!Reader WC: ~2.1K Content tags: Established relationship, Domestic fluff, Fluff, Romance, Mild suggestiveness Read on AO3 // My Masterlist

Ever since you married the love of your life and began living together, your mornings have changed for the better. But things haven’t always been so smooth, on account of a few differences in your lifestyle that made themselves glaringly obvious early on.

For one, Zayne is a morning person, and you’re regrettably not. Not to the extent that he is, anyway. You don’t ever clash on this, but it’s caused some… unforeseen difficulties in the past, especially for your husband.

He’s always been the type of person to be ready a full hour before he has to leave, whereas you’re more likely to be rushing out the door exactly on the dot, if not later. On top of that, he’s also a morning runner. So when he would try to quietly sneak out of bed to begin his rigorous routine every morning and you’d sleepily cling to him, coaxing him back to the warmth of your shared bed with an almost 100% success rate, to the point where he started regularly missing his morning runs, he figured something had to change.

His solution? He’d find a way for the two of you to spend your mornings together, outside of bed.

Thus, he carefully crafts a shared routine for the both of you, easing you into his way of life while easing himself out of the constancy of his own diligence, little by little.

One early morning, as Zayne woefully pulls himself away from your iron grip, he decides to venture towards the kitchen on a mission. He brews two large cups of coffee and returns to your shared bedroom, where he finds you sprawled on his side of the bed, trying to soak up any residual warmth. You lift your gaze, meeting his with sleepy eyes, and he instantly recognizes the look on your face - his betrayal will not be forgiven nor forgotten, especially this early in the morning when you’re less than agreeable on most things. Well, on all things, really.

He sits at the edge of the bed and silently offers a cup — your favorite cup — and you glare for a while before sitting up and grabbing it. It warms your hands, and you start to think about forgiving him for abandoning his duties as your personal heater.

Over the next week, Zayne gradually adds more layers to your shared routine, carving out a space for you in his little tasks. You’ve become less and less insistent on dragging him back to bed by force, knowing that you’ll be rewarded with a delicious coffee delivered straight to you within a few minutes of his departure. Once his peace offering is well received, he wraps your robe around you and takes you by the hand, leading you to sit by the patio window to enjoy your coffee - in the warmer months, you often sit on the porch — and only then does he take the opportunity to complete his run.

There, while listening to birdsong and being caressed by the gentle breeze, you’re thankful for the brief moment of tranquil solitude. Besides, you know that your husband will be back like clockwork, right as you’ve had your last sip. The corners of your lips inevitably tug upwards every time you see him rounding the bend, jogging back to you. It’s as if you’re seeing him for the first time all over again. You stand to meet him halfway through your yard, and he gently kisses your forehead. You wrap your arms around his warm chest, and his embrace feels as comforting as it has ever felt.

You wash your face and brush your teeth while he showers, and vice versa, both of you relishing in the proximity and safety of each others’ presence even while doing something as mundane as getting ready. While you complete the final touches of your routine in the mirror, Zayne works on a simple breakfast. You’ve never been a breakfast person, but after much insistence and lecturing about how it’s the most important meal of the day, you end up caving, graciously accepting anything he offers you in the morning. His prowess at cooking helps too, of course.

Once you’re ready, you sit across from each other at the dining table, where a helping of sometimes egg and toast, sometimes waffles, sometimes fancy greek yogurt, sits waiting for you. There’s often no need for very many words as you share breakfast together. Both of you sit in the solace of each other’s company for a while, comfortable silence occasionally truncated by a comment of yours on how good the food is, or a comment of his on the weather forecast. Eventually, your renewed energy causes conversation to naturally take off, and you end up rambling about mundanities while he listens attentively, as though it’s the most riveting thing in the world.

By the time you’re set to leave, your morning has already brightened, your smile shining brighter than the sun as you offer to tighten your husband’s tie, a ritual he never refuses even though his tie is already in perfect condition. He returns your beaming smile, and finds that his morning has brightened too, more than he ever could have imagined. For a moment, Zayne blissfully contemplates how he would gladly upend his entire mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights, all at once, in exchange for this view.

Not all mornings are so predictable. In fact, some morning are simply a continuation of a long, long night…

Zayne almost thinks his eyes are deceiving him when he sees your hunched-over form lit up by dancing blue light from the TV screen. When he awoke at four in the morning to an empty and cold bed, he assumed that you fell asleep in front of the lawyer drama you were so captivated with, but he didn’t imagine that you’d still be watching.

He gingerly comes down the steps, socks muffling his movement, and you’re so caught up in your show that you don’t hear him coming. He stands there, amused and baffled all at once, taking in the sight of you. Here sits his wife, normally a pinnacle of responsibility, huddled in a blanket with nothing but her face poking out, eyes bleary with tiredness, but burning with fervent focus at whatever ridiculous plotline is surely unfolding before her. He lets out an incredulous chuckle. The TV volume is almost too low to hear and you’re busy squinting at the subtitles; you’re considerate even in your most unreasonable moments.

“Honey,” he says, breaking the almost-silence.

You slowly turn to face him, a serious expression etched on your face.

“I think Jacob’s gonna cheat… with Anna-Maria,” you say gravely, as if the world hangs in balance.

He makes a mental note never to leave you to your own devices in front of these shows, even if you swear up and down you’ll only watch one more episode before you join him in bed. But for now, he figures you’ll need proper closure on whether Jacob truly plans to cheat on his wife with his legal assistant, and though he’s loath to admit, he’s curious himself, as Jacob always struck him as an honest enough man.

So he plops down next to you, reserving his lecture on your late-night escapade for another time. You unfurl yourself from your blanket-cocoon, wrap the blanket around you both, and snuggle up against him, thankful for the added warmth on this chilly winter morning.

You watch two and a half more episodes together, in which the Jacob storyline wraps up neatly with a bow on top - he was majorly guilty, of course. Zayne turns the TV off when all is said and done, and you sit in silence, processing the somewhat unsatisfying end to the plotline.

“Don’t you think he got off too easy?” you look up with half-lidded eyes and ask Zayne with genuine curiosity. At this point, the show has become entirely too real in your sleepy mind, and you seem to suddenly have a big problems with the gaps in realism. “His wife immediately went to ‘let’s try couples therapy’ and not ‘you’re an asshole and I’m divorcing you.’ She even put some of the blame on herself!”

Zayne can’t help but smile at how serious yet unserious you look right now - it’s frankly adorable.

“Well, Jacob seems to have something called plot armor, so that helped to lessen his sentence.”

You chortle at the clever wordplay, lightly tapping your husband on the chest. Lazily reaching over to pick up your phone, you check the time and let out a groan.

“Oh no. It’s almost six.”

“It sure is,” Zayne replies with a resigned smile.

“And now I’ve kept you up too,” you whine. “Ugh, I’m sorry. We should go get ready.”

But just as you’re about to drag yourself away from him, Zayne pulls you back into his chest.

“Call in.” It’s more of a gentle command than a suggestion.

You contemplate his words for a while, and he hopes that the warm comfort he feels right now, your body against snugly glued to his, will entice you to stay right where you are as much as it’s enticing him.

“I do have a lot of sick days saved up…” you ponder out loud. “Okay, fine, but under one condition.”

Zayne tilts his head at you inquisitively. Conditional capitulation being one of your specialties, he presumes you’re going to drag him through another one of these dramas that you enjoy so much, and that he’s grown to enjoy as well since meeting you (though he would never admit it).

“You call in too,” you say with a mischievous smile. “I stole two whole hours of your beauty sleep, and a certain someone once told me that any less than 8 hours is unhealthy. So let’s just stay right here and nap all day.”

Zayne leans over and plants a gentle kiss on your lips. You have a knack for saying exactly what he wants to hear — yet another one of your specialties.

“Deal.”

Even when you’re on vacation, hundreds of miles away from any and all possible responsibilities, Zayne doesn’t seem to have an off button. He’s up at seven thirty in the morning, and despite your countless nagging about how that’s too early, he’ll insist that it’s far later than his usual, and that it’s perfectly reasonable.

He’s seemingly impervious to jet lag - he’ll tell you all about how good sleep hygiene and optimal nap times contribute to mitigate its effects, though you’re convinced your husband must have some kind of genetic or occupational advantage over you.

Your mornings together begin almost two generous hours after he’s begun his own routine. His 6AM runs are replaced with what he calls a leisurely maintenance routine at the hotel gym. Then, he comes back upstairs to quietly shower off while you’re still dozing, but not before scouting the hotel buffet. This is a very crucial part of his plan for the two of you.

Zayne is thoughtful enough to let you sleep in on vacation, completing the rest of his morning routine as silently as possible, knowing how much you both need the time off. However, once his shower is completed, your time is up. By 9AM, the curtains are flying open, room service is already on the way with coffee, and he’s crawling into the bed you’ve now appropriated as your own, gently but firmly coaxing you awake as you try to cover your eyes in vain. You settle for gluing yourself to his body and using him as a makeshift shield against the bright sun filtering through the window.

“Mmh… ‘s too early,” you mumble into his chest. He smells of hotel soap, and hotel soap has never smelled so good.

“It’s nine in the morning, dear. You’ll stay jet lagged the whole time if we don’t fix that schedule of yours.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah - you’ve heard it all before. But staying right there, on soft plush covers, cuddling with your husband in the morning sun sounds like an awfully good deal in exchange for a little bit of jet lag.

“And the buffet closes at 10:30.”

He never tires of the way your entire body perks up at the magic word. You look up at him, blinking remnants of sleep away, and repeat his words, as if they’re too good to be true.

“Buffet?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s the pastry situation?”

Your suddenly stern face and steadfast determination sends a low rumble of laughter through his chest.

“Full spread. Salty and savoury. Heated on demand.”

You gulp.

“And eggs?”

“However you want them. Unlimited toppings and fillings.”

You practically shove him off and commando-roll out of the queen bed, scurrying around the room to start getting ready. Normally your not-so-gracious dismount from your impromptu cuddle session would’ve earned you a cheeky comment, but as he watches you discard your robe on the bathroom floor, then saunter over to your open luggage to find your “buffet-primed clothes”, as you like to call them, your bare curves basking in the sunlight, he finds that he doesn’t mind your enthusiasm at all.

Thank you for reading! I’ve been thinking about domestic Zayne nonstop so of course I had to write about it. He’s so husband-material coded it’s not even funny. I might write something like this again in the future if I think of more scenarios! 💜

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

So I’m in a deeply red incredibly conservative state.  I ran a pride month 5k awhile back. The usual group of 3 protestors with an incredibly loud bullhorn showed up to yell at us about how trans people are mutilating themselves and AIDS is God’s judgement and we’re a menace to children etc. etc. etc. But they were vastly outnumbered by runners and volunteers. One of the first race announcements was that they hadn’t ordered enough T-shirts for the amount of people who ended up running, and would have to reorder, so anyone who wanted another race T-shirt should sign up now.

We’re all used to the protestors by now, they show up everywhere. We just ignore them. Interacting with them just encourages them.

I hadn’t realized how early the race date was this year compared to previous years and hadn’t prepared as much, and there were a lot of hills; not to mention there was some confusion as to the race route which resulted in the announcer referring to it post-run as a “4-mile 5k” (they are supposed to be about 3.5 miles. One guy ended up in an entirely different district of the city from where the race route was and still finished first.) I ended up walking a lot of the race, but I finished it, and did do a fair bit of running.

I had top surgery a few years ago but I’ve only gotten comfortable running shirtless this year as body fat redistribution happened. I had been trying to decide if I wanted to run shirtless or not before the protestors showed up and started yelling, then I was like ah. I will run past the transphobes shirtless like a human middle finger. And that is what I did. was wearing delightfully garish rainbow shorts I found at a thrift store and my pink triangle necklace.

Some Americorps volunteers were directing runners at one of the more confusing junctions, I high fived one and panted that I had just joined Conservation Corps. The sound of angry bullhorn shouting faded almost immediately behind us, and there were rainbow flags hanging in several of the yards we ran past throughout the route.

As in previous years, a lot of tough incredibly fit beautiful older people, mostly women, breezed past me during the race. One jogged up even with me with an encouraging “what would you do for a klondike bar!” I wasn’t sure how to reply to this and didn’t have the breath to express that I did not want anything thick or creamy at that moment, but what did come out was “you did remind me that there’s beer at the finish line.” Another lady who walked and jogged near me for awhile near the middle-latter half of the race talked a bit and complained that one of the volunteers organizing the race hadn’t set up the “water” table with fireball shots that she did for some other races and we just got a regular water and gatorade station!

Coming back to the finish line I was handed a flag and ran past long rows of cheering people. Around the corner the protestors were still lurking, but were mostly silent now. Apparently they had gotten worn out by just standing there and not running. As I passed the bullhorn guy shook himself out of his torpor enough to give a halfhearted “is it a man? is it a woman? who knows anymore?” I passed him and the sound of cheering, and then the 80s music (I remember Blondie and ABBA) they were blasting closer to the finish line.

Once most of the runners were back there was a fun run for the kids. A couple of the older ones had also run the 5k (I just know the protestors were awful to the poor guys ughh) but all of them made a lap around the parking lot and got handed medals. All of the adult volunteers and participants spread out around the middle of the parking lot so that there was someone cheering and waving flags for the kids along every step of the route.

There were free snacks, water and beer courtesy of our sponsor [brand redacted]. There was also non-alcoholic “beer”, which I thought was nice to see, I’d been thinking there was a heavily alcoholic element to a lot of local queer events. I drank a lot of water and ate some food before getting a free beer, which still hit me pretty hard after the run. While I was hovering around the refreshment table a big handsome butch came up next to me and I noticed a faded tattoo on her arm of a chain, each link a different color of the rainbow.

I went to put something down in my car just as the protestors were starting to leave, and realized that they were moving on a course that overlapped with mine as I walked to my car. I decided I wasn’t going to stop or veer out of their way and just see what they did. As I got closer they seemed to be talking about how we had definitely totally noticed that they were leaving (no one had.) They noticed me coming towards them and suddenly got quiet, avoided eye contact and skittered out of my way. Ha.

I stumbled into the nearby fundraiser to cool down and sober up in the air conditioning before I left. They were playing girl in red, rupaul, that girls/girls/boys song by Panic! at the disco, and that Taylor Swift song “You need to calm down” that some people on this site complained was cringe. The lady next to me sang along to “shade never made anybody less gay.” I bought a baseball hat.

It’s easy, I think especially if you’re very online and not very active in your local community, to start feeling like there’s no queer community in your area and we’re outnumbered by people who hate us. Unless you live in the middle of Westoboro Baptist territory that’s generally not true. I cannot stress enough how incredibly conservative and red my area is. We’ve got like 3 very loud people with nothing better to do who bother us at every event, and large amounts of people across all demographics who show up in support. I’ve been thinking about this post by @headspace-hotel about not being able to find stuff online and this is a slightly different thing but yeah. If you don’t know what there is in your area, you don’t know what you’re looking for or where to find it when searching online. If you search “is there queer stuff happening near me” google is going to shrug and recommend you Products And Services that it can Sell You. When I moved back home after spending some time in a much more blue state (but which had much less of a sense of community--I think it’s the way we band together down here when we know just what the stakes are) I felt like I was going to be the only trans person in the state, then someone mentioned to me that there was a local private facebook group for trans people to share personal posts and resources with many hundreds of members. There are more of us that aren’t on facebook. The Facebook group, though, introduced me to many more resources I hadn't known were in my area.

Get outside. Find some sort of local queer event and ask around. There will be other queer people. There is very likely something you’re interested in already happening or people who would love to work with you to start it if not. Even if you’re in a very red very rural state, you’re not alone, and chill or neutrally polite people vastly outnumber the few assholes, it’s just that the assholes are very loud and especially if you’ve been marinating in overwhelmingly toxic online environments it can feel like they’re everywhere. They’re not. Don’t give them that power.

The current legal landscape is terrifying and needs a lot of work but it doesn't reflect lived experiences. Get outside, find your local community, show up to in-person events if at all possible, it’s so encouraging.

[hauntedhowlett-writes]

DON’T YOU EVER GROW UP

CHARACTERS: Joel Miller & Sarah Miller

RATING: none | WORD COUNT: 900

SUMMARY: Joel experiences many emotions as Sarah reaches the childhood milestone of getting her “big girl” bed.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is me, projecting my own experience onto my favorite character because I’m a fic writer and that’s what I do. Divider by @/saradika-graphics and beta read by @murder-wife 💕

LINKS: support for palestine 🇵🇸

Joel wipes the sweat beading along his hairline with the back of his hand. He stares at the new bed frame, his mind not reconciling how much bigger than her convertible crib it is. It's just a twin, white wood that matches her dresser and her bookcase stuffed with children's books of all shapes and sizes, but it seeing it take up so much space feels jarring.

"Little help?" Tommy calls from the hallway. Joel shakes his head to clear his thoughts before joining his brother, who holds one end of a mattress teetering on the stairs. Together they bring it the rest of the way into Sarah's room, settling it on the frame.

"Thanks for the help," Joel says, patting Tommy's shoulder. "I owe ya one."

"Don't sweat it. I know the little miss was dyin' for her new big girl bed."

There it is, the phrase that makes Joel's heart clench in his chest. Sarah's barreling towards five years old, shedding some of the baby roundness in her cheeks and no longer saying certain words incorrectly, the way toddlers tend to do. She gets up every morning for preschool and eats her cereal all by herself and comes home in the afternoon to tell Joel about her day, legs kicking against the chair while she shows him her art because she's not quite tall enough to reach the floor. Joel looks around the room again, remembering the rocking chair in the corner that was the first piece of her childhood to retire, followed by the changing table with its pile of diapers. He thinks about how small she'd been, how light her tiny body was on his chest and for a moment he misses it so fiercely his eyes burn with the threat of tears.

"I need a beer," Tommy says, leaving the room. Joel takes the opportunity to press his fingers to his eyes, willing the wave of emotion to subside before joining his brother in the kitchen.

They share a couple beers before Tommy checks his watch, announcing that he should leave. On the way out the door, they pass the dismantled crib and Tommy taps it with his hand.

"You want me to drop that off for donation?" he asks. Joel looks at the chipped white wood, rubs a thumb over a dent in the veneer.

"No, that's alright. I'll take care of it," he replies. Tommy shrugs and Joel walks him out to his truck parked in the drive way, waving him off. When Tommy disappears from view, he heads next door to Connie's house.

He knocks on the front door and waits, the sound of tiny feet against wood growing louder, making his smile grow wider. The door opens, Sarah's sweet face peeking through the crack allowed by the chain lock.

"Password?" she asks, tone as serious as a four year old can muster. Joel crouches down to look her in the eye.

"Pizza for dinner," he says. She squeals in excitement and jumps away from the door just as Connie unlocks it. His daughter sits on the worn carpet runner to pull on her shoes while Joel asks how she behaved.

"She was an angel as always," Connie assures him. "Wait right here, we made cookies earlier and I want to send y'all home with some."

Connie disappears down the hall and Sarah darts after her. When they return, his daughter is balancing a foil wrapped plate in both hands, tongue peeking out of her mouth in concentration.

"Thanks again, Con. I'll be 'round Sunday to help Dan with the yard," Joel promises. Connie waves a hand at him.

"Don't you worry about it, you know it ain't a big deal to watch her. You got a good egg on your hands."

Back at home, Joel calls in an order for pizza that he shares with Sarah. He lets her take sips of his Coke to wash it down, her brown eyes wide with excitement at getting to drink soda with dinner. After a bath, pajamas, and a minor argument over brushing her teeth, Sarah enters her room for the first time that evening and sees her new bed.

"Wow!" she exclaims, clambering onto the mattress. She stands, jumping excitedly and Joel wraps an arm around her middle, placing her back on the ground.

"Remember how that song goes? The monkey falls off and bumps his head?" Joel asks, knocking his knuckles against the top of her head as she giggles. "No jumpin'. Come on, let's get your sheets on."

Together, though the bulk of the effort falls on Joel, they get her bed ready. Purple sheets with a cream colored quilt decorated with purple butterflies, a set that she spotted in the store that Joel went back to purchase on his own. She crawls between the sheets and settles her head on the pillow, ready for her stories. Joel reads three books of her choosing and shuts down her argument for a fourth, seeing that she can barely keep her eyes open any longer. He plugs in her pink butterfly nightlight and kisses her forehead.

"Goodnight, baby girl," he whispers.

"'M not a baby, I'm a big girl now," Sarah replies in her sleepy voice. Her eyes have already drifted shut before he can respond and he stands there for a moment, watching her with a lump in his throat.

Sarah may be getting bigger, but she'll always be his baby. Of that, Joel is certain.

Thank you for reading! For more of my writing visit:

All masterlists

Joel Miller masterlist

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This home in Indianapolis, IN was restored in 1960 with an interesting aesthetic. 4bds, 3ba, 2,680 sq ft, $675k.

I love the flooring on the porch.

Enter the large hall with wainscoting and new railings. Love the runner on the stairs.

Since the home was renovated back in 1960, I have to say that they chose a very timeless look. This sitting room has an unusual location in the home and is open to the kitchen. I like the dark walls, but I'm wondering if this is supposed to be the dining room.

Nice guest 1/2 bath on the main floor.

The kitchen is very attractive. That table looks like an elongated desk- so interesting.

Wine fridge and espresso coffee area.

This open kitchen/family room is the only dining space, so I would definitely say that the other sitting room is the dining room.

Off the dining room is a beautiful sunroom/conservatory.

The bedrooms, on the upper level, aren't overly large, but they're very beautifully decorated and get lots of natural light.

Lovely renovated bath.

This bedroom has its own en-suite. Beautiful tile in the shower.

On the 3rd level there's a finished attic.

Beautiful yard with a built-in hot tub and patio.

Lovely garden has a pond with a footbridge. 5,227 sq ft lot

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/925-N-Beville-Ave-Indianapolis-IN-46201/1077004_zpid/?

[mediumgayitalian]

part two

———

Getting outrun for seven miles by an eight year old is a uniquely humbling experience. Compactly humiliating, coincidentally, is being outrun by an eight year old while dragging along a bouquet large enough that it cannot be adequately contained with two hands and must therefore be carried between two people.

Lee is having something of an afternoon.

“It starts in seven minutes!” shouts Will, at least twelve solid yards ahead of them and running backwards. He does not appear even to be sweating. “Hurry!”

“Could not be hurrying more if I tried,” Lee wheezes.

(It’s not that Lee isn’t a good runner. He is. It’s that Will is freakishly fast, because he has dimples when he smiles and has endeared himself to the dryads, who have been teaching him how to sprint like the hopped up little Energizer Bunny he is. Michael has been calling him Soda Boy for ages, on account of how he so closely resembles a can of pop that has been vigorously shaken, which he hates. Remembering it brings Lee some peace.)

“Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”

Clamping his mouth shut in a desperate attempt to preserve energy, Lee surges forward. Michael matches him, having to run significantly faster to keep up with his long legs. Their panting forms a discordant melody of despair. Poetic.

When they stumble through the door, chests heaving, Lee considers collapsing to the ground and weeping for joy. He will never run again. If a monster chases him, he will simply fight or accept his fate. He has reached his quota.

But, for perhaps the first time in his life, there is no time for dramatics. The lobby is devoid of the massive crowds it held earlier, shadows eerie in their absence, and only the final tail end of a line shuffles through the stage doors.

Despite his internal vow, Lee sprints forward to catch up with them.

“Hold it,” says a man in a venue volunteer! vest, holding up a hand. He glances at them, resting his gaze on Will’s messy hair, Michael’s scuffed shoes, Lee’s wrinkled shirt, and pausing for quite a while on the giant bouquet. The narrowed eyes and thinned lips are familiar. Lee stiffens.

“Go on in,” the man says to the middle aged couple in front of them, who’s crease-free jackets read ‘Dance Mom’ and ‘Prop Team Dad’ respectively. He shoos them inside, complimenting the honest-to-Apollo corsage in the woman’s hand, chortling along to the man’s joke. The laughter drops from his face the second the couple is guided through the doors, and the man turns back to the three of them.

“The show,” he says, nose upturned, “has begun. I can’t let anyone else in lest they cause any…disturbances.”

“The show starts on three minutes and forty-seven seconds!” Will protests, sticking his watch in the man’s face. Completely oblivious to his murderous look, he continues, “Forty-six seconds! Forty-five! Time’s-a-tickin’, let us in!”

The man bares his teeth in a smile. “Regrettably, you are too late. You’ll have to wait for the intermission.”

Will blinks at him. He looks at Lee, at the doors, then back at the man.

“But…we’re on time. And if we come back later, we’ll miss my sister’s dance!”

The man shrugs. “This will be a valuable lesson, then.” He purses his lips, glancing again at the bouquet. “Perhaps be more prepared, next time.”

Will turns back to Lee and Michael, crestfallen. He swipes quickly under his eyes, squeezing his thumb into fists, but the tears well up anyway. “We’re going to miss it?”

Michael snarls. In one quick move he shoves the massive bouquet entirely into Lee’s arms, yanks Will by the shoulders to stand behind him, and gets right in the man’s face.

“You listen here, you slimy ratbag, you had no fuckin’ trouble letting those last scragglers in so you better clean up your act quick before I —”

A loud crashing noise makes them all jump, interrupting him. Nearly crushing the flowers, Lee whips towards the source of the sound. One of the competition banners has been yanked down, metal frame collapsing on the tile floor. Fastening screws rattle to a slow stop beside it.

“What the —”

Another banner crashes to the floor. This time, the little hands that tore it down are a touch too slow to dart away, a blonde head not quick enough to duck behind a corner.

“Hey!” the man shouts. Shoving Michael aside, and moving quicker than Lee can think to stop him, he sprints towards the corner Will disappeared behind. “Get back here! You can’t do that!”

Lee curses, trying to manoeuvre the flowers to see and run at the same time. Michael runs ahead of him, on the man’s heels, chanting shit shit shit shit under his breath. Lee’s brain takes the initiative to alternate, chanting fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck every time he takes a breath.

They’re going to get kicked out for sure. Diana is going to kill them and it’s going to be justified, because Lee is going to have to live with the noble look he knows Cass will have on when she realises they’re not there to watch. The shakey, practiced smile she’ll slap over the disappointment in her dark eyes.

Shit shit shit shit indeed.

“Lee! Michael! Over here!” whispers a voice. Lee whirls around to face it — boy does he ever feel like a puppet on a stick right now — and, for the second time in as many minutes, feels his head pound at the disorienting frenzy of emotions that bubble up when he sees his baby brother’s face. Will stands half inside a doorway Lee hadn’t noticed on the way in, tucked in the shadow of a corner.

He is fast, holy shit.

“What the hell are you doing,” hisses Michael.

“Getting us inside! Hurry up!”

Lee doesn’t need further prompting, clock ticking in his brain. Gods, how long do they have left? Thirty seconds? Less?

“Most big theatres have sideline entrances,” Will explains after Michael helps shove the giant bouquet through the tiny door. He guides them, upright to their hunching, down a tight corridor. “They’re for performers to pop up in the audience without being seen. Mama and I race each other to find ‘em when she did shows.”

Lee had forgotten, for a moment, how much of his life Will has spent in and out of theatres, bars, stages. Naomi Solace has been growing more and more famous since…half of his life, at least. Lee remembers hearing about her four years ago, when she’d done a smaller show in Queens. A friend of his had gone.

Michael reaches out and tugs the mostly-undone ponytail he’d wrestled Will’s hair into that morning. “Good job, kid.”

He grins over his shoulder. “Thanks.”

They stumble into the darkened audience in the nick of time. The second Lee steps out of the cramped little corridor, dragging the stupid flowers (he is, in fact, regretting his choices at this point in time; when he has a free moment he will add this to the list of reasons he will be kicking his past self’s ass if the Hephaestus cabin successfully recreates DeLorean time machine) along with him, the stage lights come on. An announcer’s voice calls out, “Entry 109, Competitive Open Solo: Cass Hasapi.”

“Fuck,” Michael mutters. A quaint family of four gasps. He sneers at them. “Fuck, you see Diana?”

“No, is she maybe —”

“I think that’s her hair —”

“That person is way too tall, what are you —”

“I swear to the gods, I am going to kill you both,” whispers a beautifully familiar voice, and then Lee is being dragged. “Sit the hell down and shut the hell up. Will, baby, c’mere.”

Will climbs happily over the two empty seats, settling onto Diana’s lap and curling under her chin. He sticks his tongue out when Lee and Michael follow in behind him, struggling with the bouquet, muttering about favouritism.

“I’ve literally known you for six times longer than you’ve known him,” Michael mutters, sticking his tongue out right back. A grandmother with a severe bob whirls back and hushes him.

“Yeah, I’ve had all that time to get tired of your bullshit. Shut up.”

Before Michael can retort — Lee is sure he has an eloquent and devastating response, Lee has been helping him practice — soft piano drifts out from the speakers. A light turns on, pointed at the stage.

All four of them snap their mouths shut.

In the centre of the stage, Cass stands, poised. Her back is turned to the audience, arms extended above her and tilted to the right, as if reaching for the setting sun. Her hair, braided loosely back, brushes the edge of her thickly draping purple costume. Her knees are bent and locked and one bare foot sticks out like she’s trying to balance herself, like she’s mid fall.

A gravelly, male voice sings lowly along to the piano. How do you know which time might be the last? She moves along the dip of his voice, dragging her limbs through the rigid air. What I would give just to see you again? She moves with a swooping twist of her heels, twisting at the waist. Under the heat of the stage lights, her face contorts, forehead deeply wrinkled, mouth parted, breathing quickly. I’d walk to the depths of a world down below and demand to get back what some circumstance stole. She holds herself with such tension that Lee finds his own shoulders hiking up to his ears. Her chest moves rapidly, hands shaking, knees buckling. His breath goes stale in his lungs.

When the chorus starts, hard and heavy and sudden, I turned back one last time just to prove you were there, Cass hits the floor. He gasps with the rest of the audience, clutching the plush armrest, but it’s intentional, part of the dance. ‘Cause the last ray of sun made Eurydice cold. Collapsed on the floor, limbs bent, dress askew, she crawls, begging, towards the audience. Did she know? Did she know? Did she know? Did she know?

Cass does not move gracefully. She moves like a beached, gasping siren dragging herself back to the depths, like someone climbing out of a pit. Every movement looks heavy and painful. She looks at the audience and Lee is surging forward before he can stop himself, breath hitching, brain screaming: help her! help her! help her!

If I knew how it’d feel back then, I wouldn’t take another step.

Her body twists again, hair escaping her loose braid and sticking to her neck, her forehead. She claws at her throat like she’s suffocating, eyes accusing everyone watching like they’re holding her under. Each movement of her arms swell and sway on the beat, bare feet slapping the ground with every hit of the kettle drum. If you can see me it’s all in your head, but it feels real to me now, it felt real to me then.

Everything ends.

The piano fades out, the drums hit their last beat. All that’s left is the wretched guitar, taught like strings snapping, taught like the tense pull of her suspended muscles.

But I opened the door and went down the stairs; I turned back one last time to prove you were there.

As the last word fades, she drops. Not slowly, not evenly, but like whatever was holding her up crumbled to dust. Like she was shot. Her purple dress pools out around her like dark Hyacinth. She lays completely, entirely still.

The lights cut. The air in the audience goes heavy.

They come back on and no one says a word. Lee realises, as it drips onto his hands, that he is crying. Diana is, too, tear tracks too fresh to dry on her face, and Will is leaned forward so far he sways precariously. Michael’s hands are pressed harshly to his eyes.

Trancelike, Lee stands. All eyes snap, abruptly, towards him, but he ignores them. He looks straight across the rows of chairs and locks eyes with his sister, upright now, heaving, standing hesitant. She looks at him, and then beside him at Michael, and then at Will in Diana’s lap. They scramble quickly up next to him, and without any of them saying anything, they begin to cheer.

Cass’s face lights up.

With permission, much of the audience claps. No one stands as they do and as they continue hooting and hollering the claps fade quickly, replaced with stares and murmurs, but Cass still stands there, beaming, looking away and looking back like she can’t believe they’re there. That someone is there, that someone watched her, her, from beginning to end. A hand tugs on his sleeve.

“Can I sonic?” Will asks, raising his voice to be heard.

“Level four,” Lee allows.

He needs no further permission, grinning. He lets out a piercing whistle that makes everyone around them shout in alarm and Lee’s ears ring. But Cass laughs, loud and bright, so it’s worth it, and when Will looks at him in question he nods. The second whistle is definitely beyond a level four, but Lee doesn’t care. Cass looks the happiest he’s seen in a long time.

———

None of them care too much about staying for the other performances. But Cass has two more dances with her studio classes, spread out as they are, so Lee remains doomed to two hours of an aching ass and performances that come nowhere near Cass’s masterpiece. Will seems intrigued, though, by some of the pieces, so he grits his teeth and bares it. Besides, the rolled eyes he shares with Diana and Michael every time someone does something exceedingly cliche or tries and fails at depth (someone, often, being one of Cass’s teammates, shocker) makes it somewhat worth it.

By the time the judges call the last entry, though, Lee is ready to book it out of there.

The lights come back on and pop music plays through the speakers as dancers, in track suits over their costumes, congregate on the stage. Lee stands and stretches, letting Will stand on his shoulders and jump off into Michael’s arms to get some of his energy out. (And, also, ‘cause tossing a small child between them is fun. Diana jogs into the aisle so they can throw farther, but they all decide against it when a security guard glances over.)

After what feels like eight million years, the judges finally lumber over to the stage. The building voices hush as they climb the steps, standing in front of the gathered studios with cabled mics and stacks of foreboding envelopes.

“Welcome, dancers and families,” starts one judge.

She blabs on for several minutes about what an honour it was to judge and how wonderful everyone was. Blah, blah, blah. Lee spaces out about the time Diana’s eyes glaze over, and he looks instead to the gathered stage, observing. There are five different studios that he can see, each with about forty to fifty dancers. Mostly young women. They sit tangled together, legs on legs, arms around shoulders, feet tucked under thighs. Cass, he notices, sits on her own, at the very back of the stage. She sits straight-backed and proud, though. Chin lifted, braid resting over her shoulder.

Impossible to miss.

Two of her group dances win Diamond (Diana explains to them that this is Very Good. She thinks). Most others do not get this honour. Lee notices especially the older couple to their left looking quite sour. The glee he feels is indescribable.

“The winner for our open solo, for all age groups, was actually unanimous. It’s been a while since that happened!”

A girl near the front of the stage, who Lee recognises as the one to make a cruel joke about Cass’ mother, preens. Her solo was boring as hell. He’s not sure what she’s so smug about.

“With a score of 97.6, congratulations to Entry 109, Cass Hasapi!”

The four of them scream like lunatics.

They don’t even wait for scattered applause. Each one of them clambers up on the pristine chairs, covering them with scuff marks, and yell at the top of their lungs, jumping and cheering like chimps in a cage. Cass goes red, but she can’t hide her smile as she stands and accepts her award, grinning over at them. Michael holds up his camera and snaps a photo of her, pink-cheeked and wild-haired, glowing.

———

“Cass!”

Will sees her before the rest of them, sprinting towards the changeroom doors at top speeds and leaping up into her arms. She catches him easily, spinning them both around, pressing a thousand kisses to his hair and face.

“Hello, my darling! Hello hello hello!” Every word is punctuations with a kiss, or rather a press of her wide smile to anywhere she can reach. In seconds his cheeks are stained with her lipstick. “Oh, it has been weeks, darling boy, I missed you!”

Will clings to her sweater, face buried in the crook of her neck. She holds him just as tightly.

(Will has seen Cass more than Lee, in the past few months. He knows she’s made a few sudden trips to camp. But he also knows that she was the first one to welcome him into camp, the day his mother dropped him off, and when he was claimed she was the first to bring him home. She loves to tote him around, too, to have him trail after her for cabin inspections, holding the clipboard, or paint his nails when she’s bored. He misses her something fierce in the winters. She holds on tightly when she comes back home.)

Squeezing him one last time, she turns to the rest of them. Despite her wide smile, her mascara runs.

“You came,” she says, voice wobbling.

Michael clears his throat. “No shit.”

His voice wobbles, too.

“Come here, you goober.”

He’s the next to cling to her, inserting himself under her arm. She presses a kiss to his temple and he pinches her ribs, complaining, getting louder when she digs a knuckle into his hair. Diana jogs up and separates them, as she always does, flicking Michael on the forehead and pressing a kiss to her sister’s cheek.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers, squeezing her hand.

Cass’s tears spill over again. “Thank you.”

Lee clears his throat. He feels, suddenly, like a doofus, holding a bouquet of flowers the size of him, but Cass looks at them and grins again, chuckling.

“You sell your kidney for that or what?”

Lee snorts. “No, we exchanged Will. This is a clone.”

“Did not!”

Lee blows a raspberry. “Did too. Clone.”

“I’m not a clone! I’m me!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Ya-huh!”

“Alright,” Cass interrupts, rolling her eyes fondly. She kisses the tip of Will’s nose again and sets him down, turning towards Lee, hands outstretched dramatically. “Hand me my dues.”

Because she is, at the core of her, a true daughter of Apollo, even though the amount of poise and grace that bleeds from her at any given time contradicts almost directly with the guy who beams Pocketful of Sunshine directly into their brains at five in the morning every single day without fail, she kneels with a flourish. Because Lee is, at the core of him, also a child of Apollo, he goes unquestioningly along with the bit, pulling out one of the flowers to knight her before resting the entire bouquet in her arms. She has to hold it with both hands.

“You guys are ridiculous,” she says, grinning.

“They are ridiculous,” Diana stresses. “Dumbasses were damn near late getting this for you. They already had flowers, mind you. They’re just dumb.”

Will holds up his hand with his watch. “I kept us from being late!”

Diana squishes his cheek. “Thank you, sweetpea. You’re already smarter than your brothers combined.”

“Stick out your tongue again and I’ll grab it, you little snitch,” Lee warns.

Will, darting to hide behind Diana, does not heed his warning. Because he’s a little shit. bc

The walk out of the building in a gaggle of movement. As other dancers and their families walk by, glowering at Cass’ flowers and at Cass in general, Lee makes a point to catch their eyes. To smirk. To let them know, without saying a word — you were wrong. Of course you were wrong. Look at how she’s better than your bitter ass without even trying.

It warms him inside, truly.

“I’m thinking,” Diana says, walking back to the car, “that we stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. On Michael’s dollar. Will, look real excited so Michael can’t say no.”

“I am excited,” Will says, turning to face him, “so that’s real easy.”

Michael sighs. He taps his foot on the pavement, glaring. He sighs again. “You’re getting s plain cone and that’s that. You understand me?”

Will takes that as code for ‘begin negotiating’. Diana joins him, the two of them chasing Michael to the car, yelling about Blizzards and sundaes. Cass falls into step next to Lee, adjusting the flowers.

“So,” she says, shooting him a small smile.

“So,” he intones.

“Diana told me you snuck the boys out of camp.”

“…Yes.”

“Organised the whole trip, basically.”

“It wasn’t hard. I just told Michael to pack his shit and he listened, for once. So.”

“Lee.” She waits for him to open the trunk, letting him stuff the ridiculous flowers inside before facing him, grabbing his hands and squeezing. “Thank you.”

“I don’t —”

He swallows past the lump in his throat. How can he say it? How can he tell her about being fourteen and older than half the unclaimed kids in Hermes, still reeling over camp as a whole, and the fear that had dissipated from his chest when she stood in front of camp and said, firmly, he’s ours? About the hours she spent listening to him ramble about Pokémon, learning the game for him, mailing him cards she finds around? About the letters she sends him every week without fail, even though she’s swamped with her own shit, because she remembers the night he cried, months and years of being weird and lonely and unlike anyone else he knew? How can he explain the bubbling in his chest, the ache for her, because of her?

“Of course, Cass.”

She opens her arms and he falls into them, forehead on her shoulder, arms tight around her waist. She grips around his back, pressing a kiss to his hair. His throat is dry, choking back the thickness of his tears.

“I love you.”

“Love you too, Lee.”

[kedreeva]

Well, Monday night, SOMEONE went on an unauthorized adventure.

We got home from going to see The Mummy (1999) at our local big screen, and it was just about hitting twilight. Bug was outside (big girl!! she's been outside for most of the day for the last few days) with Earl, so I went in and closed up Earl, then closed up Artemis' pen of birds, and then Bug and I walked down to close up the barn pen's door. We walked back around and I ducked into the barn to do a quick night check of the barn birds and the quarantine birds and the quail, something that takes less than 2 minutes, and when I got back outside.... no Bug.

Now, Bug often comes outside with me at night to lock up the other birds. We go from pen to pen together. She even hops up onto the fence runners up top and flies from one to the next, and across the alley, and often when she comes down, she'll fly up to the front side yard and then run back for the hell of it, or takes a right instead of a left and ends up out by the compost heap, so I walked both places calling her, expecting to see her pop her head up and come back like always.

But.... no Bug.

So I go inside, and get Sark, and we both start looking. Did she get spooked? Did she jump up someplace? I once searched for Beep for an hour on the ground, only to look up and find out she'd just been silently watching me from above. But after almost 2 hours of searching... no Bug.

Well, it was pouring down rain, and wherever Bug had gone, she was not talking back to us, and she certainly wasn't coming when called, so we gave up and came inside. I called the local PD to let them know one of my birds had escaped and despite looking for her, we had to stop because of the storm, but left my number in case anyone called. I stressed all night, dozing on and off. I got up around 1am to do another lap of the yard and see if I could hear her, now that the frog symphony was over and the rain had stopped, but no luck.

At 5am, I went out again, and parked myself in my car on the phone with my Australian friend, to await dawn. I figured, if she'd gone up to roost, then when it got light, she'd come down. Sark came out around 5:45 and parked himself out in the field by our firepit in case she went that way. Eventually I got up and walked up and down the street, since people were leaving for work, and I stopped a few cars and asked them to keep an eye out.

As I was walking back to the house, down our long drive, I spotted her on the barn roof just as my phone began to ring. Sark had seen her fly down from one of the 60ft tall oaks on the edge of our property. He got her some peanuts, and I called her down

She acted like nothing happened. Just like hey guys what's up?

So, no more outside time at night, unless she's in a pen! Which.... considering my day today, she may be outside full time soon!

[artbyblastweave]

Herofy Norman Osborn (in a way that’s not just “Iron Man in a different costume”)

So this speech, from the wrap-up of one of the Dark Avengers Seige tie-ins, is one that's stuck with me:

The man-at least as written by Bendis- wants to be Amanda Waller very, very badly. He's not.

So, to the extent that Dark Avengers wasn't already doing this, you take this dynamic and you play it for tragic tension rather than framing it as a foregone conclusion that Osborn is going to explode. You take a man who's witnessing every stanford-style superhuman mass casualty event that otherwise gets lost in the churn of continuity and from this you produce a guy who's actually, sincerely trying to get this under control, for whom that has always been the long-term project of his entire corporation, all the way back to before Spider-Man was a glimmer in anyone's eye. Lex Luthor if his abstract antagonism towards Superman's "potential threat" wasn't just transparent cope.

In an inversion of the company's role in the Ultimate Universe, where they were one of the front-runners attempting to reproduce the Super Soldier Serum, Oscorp is the anticape company. Oscorp is the company that builds power inhibitors, a major bankroller of Damage Control, the company that sinks resources into bespoke "cures" for cut-and-dry examples of deleterious x-gene mutations, like that guy who makes everyone within a hundred yards melt. Of course, the problem is that you can't put the genie back in the bottle; you can't sit at a distance from the scrum and just quietly attempt to contain it without becoming part of it. Every Oscorp facility becomes a battlefield between X-men and extremists like Stryker and Trask; research on how to contain or mitigate superhuman abilities gets swiped by disgruntled scientists and used in the opposite direction to create even more superhumans. There's nothing you can do that won't get assimilated into of the game. The goblin persona is a late development- generated from a combination of ambient exposure to research materials in the lab, and the raw stress of sliding over the event horizon into the cape game despite his best efforts- a little voice telling you that the only way you're going to get this under control is to fight fire with fire, just start cutting deals, getting the worst monsters on leashes, blowing them up if they don't cooperate...

[gottalovetumbler]

𝓓𝓪𝔂 2

𝓓𝓪𝔂 3

ᵏʳᵘᵉᵍᵉʳ ˣ ʳᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ

Info: fem!reader, lots of cussing/complaining,

𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚕 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚝𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚐𝚞𝚢𝚜 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎!! 𝙸𝚖𝚖𝚊 𝚍𝚎𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚛𝚞𝚗 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝 😅

——— 2nd encounter ———

The most painful experience you ever encountered had to be when you broke your tailbone in 7th grade. The runner up though, that had to be whatever the hell happened last night.

Waking up was filled with groans of pain. Your finger was still sore, not throbbing anymore luckily, but it did end up bruising pretty badly. Your nose also had a slight pain to it when you scrunched it. So as long as you avoided moving your nose and middle finger you’ll be a-ok. (I imagine the injured finger on the left hand but if you left handed then it’ll be on your right hand. Main point is that it’s not on your dominant hand!)

After finishing your morning routine, peeing, you double check your calendar and sure enough, yard duty. Whoop-whoop :|. It would have already been a struggle without your injury so it’ll be almost impossible with it but you’ll figure something out so you don’t get yelled at.

It’s only about 9 am when you finally get your ass out to the “yard” The “yard” being all the grass and ground on the base. Yard duty typically consists of weed pulling, leave raking, etc, anything to make the place look presentable. All the leaves have already fallen and been raked up seeing as autumn started about a month ago. And the weeds are long gone/dead due to the freeze earlier in the week so you weren’t quite sure what to do. Walking around you take note of all the spring/summer supplies still laying out. That’s what leads to your decision on what you’d fill your time doing, clean up. Hopefully with it being a simpler task your finger will be left alone to heal. Oh how wrong you were.

It’s been a good 4 hours full of struggle and tears. You were doing ok till you tried to roll up what you thought was just one hose but ended up being five knotted together. Frustration caused angry to bubble and tears to prick, the catalyst though, was something straight from a cartoon. Some genius decided to leave a black rake lying on the ground behind the shed hidden by its shadow. As you lugged the 5 hoses to their hooks you failed to notice said rake and stepped on it causing it to snap up and smack you in your already hurting nose.

With a gasp you drop the hoses and cup your nose, tears flowing freely now. An ‘ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!’ is followed by said rake being flung across the small section of grass the tool shed sat on. Defeated, tired, and still embarrassed over last night you just crouch into a ball and wait for the pain to subside. What’s probably only 30 seconds feels like 30minutes as you just huddle there feeling sorry for yourself.

Your pity party is interrupted by a dull thud that belongs to the rake, you just lobbed, being set against the shed. Teary eyed you look to the person who set it there, just to be met with what seems to be a masked man.

‘Who are you?’

‘ꪻꫝꫀ ꪑꪖꪀ ꪗꪮꪊ ꪖꪶꪑꪮᦓꪻ ꫝﺃꪻ ᭙ﺃꪻꫝ ꪖ ᥅ꪖᛕꫀ.’

Yours eyes dart to the side before landing back where you assume his are.

‘.…….what?’

‘ꪗꪮꪊ ꪖꪶꪑꪮᦓꪻ ꫝﺃꪻ ꪑꫀ ᭙ﺃꪻꫝ ꪖ ᥅ꪖᛕꫀ.’

Your heart speeds up as you realize you can’t understand a word he’s saying. He has some sort of accent you’ve never heard before and the sheet of mesh infront of his face makes it impossible to even attempt to understand what he’s saying. Several minutes pass while you just stare at each other. You’re looking at him with growing horror and confusion as you try to think of what he could be asking you. He’s watching you, no, he’s studying you. He watches how you rub your nose delicately while trying to hold eye contact with him but failing due to his face covering.

‘ᦔꪮ ꪗꪮꪊ ᭙ꪖꪀꪻ ᦓꪮꪑꫀ ꫝꫀꪶᜣ ᭙ﺃꪻꫝ,’ he gestures to the hoses splayed around you, ‘ᜣꪊꪻꪻﺃꪀᧁ ꪻꫝꫀᦓꫀ away?’

‘Oh yea sorry!,’ jumping to your feet you begin shoving them back into your arms, ‘I’ll get them cleaned up right away, sorry!’

Figuring you misheard him, he tries again. ‘No,’ you freeze and look at him, atleast you understand that, ‘I’ll ꫝꫀꪶᜣ ꪗꪮꪊ put them away, ꪮᛕꪖꪗ?’

‘Oh ok,’ you place them ones in your arms back down, ‘if you insist.’ Before he can reply you walk away, confused why a masked man demanded he do the work but you aren’t going to question someone wanting to do your job.

And that’s how you unknowingly left a man convicted of murder to finish your yard work.

——— Fin. ———

[somewhere-at-the-burrow]

hiii how do you personally shift to your drs? love ur account <3

thank you so much <3 I just realized that I never fully answered this question on my account! as with every shifting routine, it works differently for different people, but these are the things that I use every time I attempt to shift (and the things that work for me!!)

𝕸𝖞 𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖊

[ throughout the day / in the evening ]

── in the beginning of my journey, my shifting process was always very extensive (& probably unnecessary!), and it usually was a whole day ordeal. I only shifted (or attempted) 1/2x a week, so this definitely wasn't an everyday thing. I just found that making myself comfortable was very helpful, and it eventually became a permanent part of my routine!

── a long time ago, there were people talking about meditation and its use in shifting, so I began to take meditation seriously to help with my attention span and learning how to ease my mind quicker.

── this became an everyday habit, not just on shifting days! I love meditation so much, and I can honestly say that without all my months of practice it would've been a lot more difficult for me to focus on visualization/the void state.

(and this is coming from a girlie with diagnosed adhd! meditation seriously changed my journey, not to sound cliche!)

── on the days I am seeking motivation, I love to create ambient environments that are like my intended reality. THIS WAS GAMECHANGER FOR ME!! when I was shifting to the maze runner (my first desired reality), I would put on Glade ambience (or sometimes meditate and try to imagine the sounds myself) and just sit outside or do yard work.

── for my hogwarts shifters... when I was preparing to shift and begin school in my weasley reality, I created a study space, put on Hogwarts library ambience, and completed some assignments for online Hogwarts (hogwartsishere.com I LOVE THAT WEBSITE SO MUCH). for me, when I spend moments in the day pretending I am in my desired reality, that is the purest form of visualization and I always feel so motivated!!

── this is definitely not required at all, but it is so fun and if anyone needs realistic ambience recommendations I have so many saved (and I am working on making my own personalized to me)!

𝕸𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖉

[ night & morning method ]

── hypnagogia is my go-to way to try and shift! some nights, I am able to focus and let my body fall asleep while falling into this void-like state, but it usually takes around 2 hours and it is a PAIN

── recently, I have discovered that by utilizing WBTB and the early morning sleepiness, I can shift so much faster ! usually I set an alarm for the early morning (3am-5am), and when I do this in the morning I dedicate it to a day-off and I don't do it every day!

── I do this exercise where I try to imagine what my stream of thoughts would be like if I was in my DR. I usually break up these thoughts with breathing exercises (I use the box breathing technique and it makes my body fall into the hypnagogic state the fastest!)

── these thoughts include, "today I have to do____" or "last night ____ happened" etc. it always took me a while in the beginning to get into the right "headspace", so sometimes I would take moments out of my day to spend a couple of minutes meditating and connecting with my dr-self (if that makes sense??)

── after a while, I always am in this trance / void of DR thoughts, and sometimes I even have lucid dreams with this method!

── the next thing I always do is "rebuild" my senses to the location I want to wake up in my desired reality. this always gets scarily vivid very quickly for me. it scared me awake multiple times in the beginning of my shifting journey! the excitement is so unmatched when you can physically feel your surroundings change and you know that all this effort is working!!

── I usually always know I shift when my eyes open, but sometimes I fall asleep mid-visualization and I shift. this is always such a surprise for me, though, because something about naturally waking up vs. opening your eyes is kind of scary. in my maze runner reality, I jolted awake in a cold metal elevator and that disorientation was unreal. I also had a Neverland reality where I woke up laying on a beach with waves washing over me, and it was so unexpected I thought I was dying. I had fallen asleep mid method, so those are always the craziest experiences!

── nothing ever beats the thrill and realization of fully shifting though! I still freak out every time I shift, even though I have been doing it for 4ish years now! BEST FEELING EVER

── even though my shifting method is a long process, it is really the only thing that consistently works for me & most days I have fun with it! learning to appreciate and be mindful of each step on my journey has helped me grow so much (and I am definitely still learning!)

note: typing this out, I realized how unspecific I might have been with my actual method, but it is pretty identical to any hypnagogia/five senses method! I am definitely not an expert on all of the methods/affirmations out there─ as I usually just do what feels right and what makes me feel the most connected to my desired reality!

thank you for reading <3

[deatherella]

Deatherella does DOTY 2024 - Round 4

Here's the items I did up for Round 4. I made recolors, conversions, and a few new meshes. Most of the furnishings are IKEA based items since Steve-O's parents went shopping at their local IKEA store to furnish his study.

Let's start with recolors, shall we. Recolors on several Maxis poster meshes (Surf's Up and Yummers for my Tummers), the BV travel poster, and Veranka's Otter Be a Star painting.

Various rugs. Only one is in my entry. I had other ones to put in there and forgot to place them. There are square, runner, Maxis PS, Maxis Bull's Eye, 3x4, and 3x5 rugs

Sailfindragon's Santiago blinds recolored with IKEA's banana print fabric. I think I got the meshes at Affinity Sims so my link for her goes to her MTS profile.

I did a few 4to2 conversions. LightningBolt's Sega Genesis and game cartridges. It doesn't have a controller - the one in my previews and entry pics is from @2fingerswhiskey.  Peeled Orange from Surely-Sims. Floppy disks from Carabiner's Computer Lab set.

New stuff !!!! IKEA HALLSTA. Straight off the cover of their 1985 catalog. HALLSTA is actually a sofa cover, not a sofa. But I made it a sofa since I am not talented at bending faces around enough to make it a slipcover. It comes with recolors in 13pumpkin's IKEA pallette. In my downloads folder, there is an .rar with the seamless fabrics if you'd like to use them on your own creations.

IKEA Tarnaby chair. I made this from the Karlstad chair since they were a lot alike. Only one texture from the IKEA ad for it.

Chia Pets !!!! Can't get more '80s than that. One for putting on your surfaces and one for sprucing up your yard - flamingo move over, chia pet is here!

Now your teens can be the cool kids in the hood with their very own (deco) Sony Dynamite 8-track player. I made this mesh from scratch and it turned out fairly well. Little more poly than it should have for a 1-tile object but I didn't want it to look all boxy. Recolors in all Sony's colors for it - yellow, blue, red, white, black. Let's not forget those 8-track cassettes. I made these with a model from turbosquid. I deleted all the parts that wouldn't show in our games and it comes in rather low poly. There are three 8-track cassette meshes - one laying straight, a slanted one, and two together. "Deatherella_8TrackCassette" is the master for all of them. Lots of 80's bands' albums recolors.

Download ALL Round 4 items ! If you'd like to pick and choose from the items, you can find all in the Round 4 folder. Hope you have as much fun using these as I did making them.

[gtbutterfly]

hide - gt one shot

hey, so I tried writing a one shot in an hour. I want to write more one shots like this in the future, so feel free to let me know whet you think of this one and what I can improve. criticism is appreciated.

______________________________________________________________

It had just begun and I was already out of breath. We were frantically running around looking for places to hide. We were in a forest during early fall on a cool night, all the leaves were on the ground, crunching under our feet. I ended up hiding in a bush, next to a friend of mine. I didn’t know where anyone else hid. It was dark outside, so no matter where, it should have been hard to find them, at least, for most humans. Soon, almost thirty seconds had passed. We couldn’t quite hear the footsteps in the distance, but we could feel them in the ground.  The vibrations were like feeling the face of the drum when it’s hit. They buzzed through our bones as the source of them got closer. Soon, we could hear the creature's footsteps thumping as they hit the ground. My friend was nervous, he had his hands over his mouth to cover the sound of his heavy breathing, which didn’t work very well. His breathing got louder and faster as we heard a scream in the distance. It just claimed its first victim. Then, the vibrations and footsteps got closer and closer. I could barely see the outline of the creature, standing as tall as the trees, their eyes scanning the ground and glimmering in the moonlight. I ran. I started sprinting as fast as I could from the bush, not wanting my partner's breathing to give me away. 

“Hey!” he yelled at me, shocked at my fleeing. I heard them scream as they were caught moments later, but I didn’t dare look back to witness their fate; I kept running and running, trying to distance myself from the large being.

I kept running until I got to a ditch in the ground. I got down on my stomach to hide from the entity that was chasing me. As I looked up from where I was at the naked trees above me. Someone else was hiding in them, sitting on a thick branch and clinging to the trunk. My guess is that they thought since the creature would be looking on the ground, it would be smart to hide up high. Unfortunately for them, it followed the direction I ran in. The white highlights of its eyes were visible from the dozens of yards away where they were standing, and glaring straight at the person in the tree with no emotion at all. The person in the tree panicked as it started to move towards them. They tried to climb down so they could run, going down branch from branch, but they grabbed one that was too weak to hold them. They let out a blood-curdling scream as they fell. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see them hit the ground, but they never did. I never heard the sound of bones cracking, or they’re body hitting the ground, or their groans of pain. I opened my eyes. The creature caught her. She was in their hand, shaking but unhurt, as it looked down at her. I quietly got up and started running again the the creature was preoccupied. I counted the number of victims that the entity had claimed. The only people left were me, and some other person. I happened to run into them while sprinting through the forest. After we both processed the pain of the impact, they whispered.

“What are you doing here? This is my hiding spot,” They asked,

“I’m trying to avoid them, we’re the only two left,” I whispered back,

“Well go somewhere else,” they said, “I don’t need you attracting them to me,” Just then, the entity was heard stepping towards us. I looked behind me to see it smiling, practically a couple of steps away from us with its size. “Damnit!”

We both started running as fast as we could, the creature basically seconds away from grabbing us off the ground. Unfortunately, the person I was running aside from had always been a faster runner than me, and I had been running this whole time, so I was already tired. It looked like I was a goner, about to be snatched up by the creature at any second. But then, the other person tripped on the root of a tree. I immediately passed them and heard their yelling from behind me as they were picked up by the entity. I was the last survivor. The winner. All I had to do was get home-

THUD! “Owww!”

I rolled my foot on a rock and fell to the ground. I skinned my arms trying to stop myself from falling. Slowly, the entity stood over me. I started breathing heavily as its white eyes glared at me from above. My arms ached in pain as I held them. It got on its knees, staring at me with its large eyes. It opened its mouth…

“Oh my goodness, are you ok? Your arms look like they need to be bandaged,” the giant said, looking worriedly at me. They helped me up with their index finger. 

 “I fine, big guy, just some scraps,” I said, dusting myself off. “That was a pretty good game. You really good at hide and seek,”

“I didn’t go too far again, did I” they asked, embarrassed,

“Of course not, you did great,” I said. Then, there was a muffled voice coming from the giant’s pocket;

“Hey, is the game over? Can we come out?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, of course,” The giant pulled their “victims” out of their pocket and gently placed them on the ground with his palm. 

“Bro, why did you run away like that at the bush?” The person I was hiding with earlier asked me.

“Your breathing gave us away,” I said,

“Would you have done that if we were really being chased by a giant monster?” he asked,

“Well, probably if I'm being honest.”

“Scew you,” He said, turning away from me. The girl that fell out of the tree looked up at the giant.

“Thanks for catching me back there, I’m not good with climbing trees,” She said,

“No problem, anytime,” the giant said, smiling at her. The last person besides me to get caught scoffed,

“Why do you always have to be it when we play games like this?” They asked the giant. “Uh, because I’d be really easy to find?” the giant shrugged,

“Fine, let's go again, and have you be one of the hiders this time, just to make sure.” they crossed their arms.

“Nah, it's getting late, let's go home.” one of my friends said. 

“Yeah,” said someone else.

“Need me to carry you guys?” the giant asked us. We all nodded. So they picked us all up again, and we went home.