#yes there are still a ton more gutters to clean

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

Recently I got rain barrels BUT even through several heavy rains they hadn't collected any water. Once I figured out that the spigot WAS in fact in the 'closed' position I figured the problem was probably in the gutters above, which tended not to actually direct water out the downspout and instead dribbled out the corners of the gutters themselves.

Called a gutter cleaning place and they never called back. I eventually discovered that 4-part adjustable ladders that fit in my car exist, bought one with a memorial day coupon, and today was finally the right combination of free time and decent weather to see what the deal was.

I set up my ladder (finally), brought up my trowel and my drain snake that I panic-bought during the pandemic along with a plunger when my sink clogged, and took about 2 inches of compost out of the gutters.

After I put everything away I went back outside to take a picture of my handiwork and it immediately started to sprinkle rain.

I FEEL SO ACCOMPLISHED RIGHT NOW

[bhujerban]

A Leaf of Faith pt. 3

Part 1, Part 2

“Um.”

Zelda jumps back, wide eyed at being caught snooping. The handsome employee (Link, her mind supplies) is looking at her.

“I—uh…”

  — — —

Zelda scrambles a little, adjusting so that she’s not half leaning on the trellis. Link is still eyeing her strangely.

“Did you lose something?” he asks.

“No…” She glances back at the hidden water tanks. It really is inefficient, and someone should really do something about it. She looks back at Link, who is still waiting for her to give a plausible explanation as to why she is standing in the garden beds and not on the trail like a normal person.

“It’s the irrigation system,” she says finally.

“What?”

“The irrigation!” She points to the hoses leading up to the water tanks. “I was looking at the irrigation system and noticed that the nozzles on the hoses for the plant beds aren’t evenly soaking the soil. They’re all dripping into the same spot, which seems to me like a waste of water.

“Then I looked at the tanks and really, I don’t think you have the best gutter system for these tanks because you’re probably losing a quarter of all the rainwater just from this transfer point alone. Honestly, it kind of looks like whoever designed this system just threw together what they had without a real idea of how to do it.”

Link just stares at her.

Zelda stares back.

He bursts into laughter.

“You—” Link is doubled over, his palms on his knees, still chuckling. “You’re standing in my garden display in your power suit and your high heels to criticize the irrigation system?”

Zelda glances down at her pumps. They are covered in dirt and the stiletto attached to her heel is half buried in the dirt. She totally forgot that she had them on. She winces a little, wiggling her feet to extract herself.

Link rushes over and offers her an arm to hold on to. She holds his arm as she steps back onto the trail, absently noting how sturdy his forearms are. Once she is safely on the gravel path, she releases his arm and turns to face him.

He’s looking at her with an amused smile, and suddenly she is struck by mortification. She was just caught snooping around the back of some plant store and her response is to criticize the irrigation? Her ears must be bright red.

“Oh Hylia, I am so sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me. I was just looking and got a bit carried away, I—”

Link cuts her off with a wave of his hand. “It’s okay, your heels helped aerate the soil,” he tells her. “And you’re right. The irrigation system is pretty inefficient because I did just throw together whatever I had without a real idea of how to do it.”

“You…”

He nods.

Apparently, it’s possible for more blood to rush to her face. “I’m very embarrassed,” she tells him.

He looks at her (probably glowing red) face. “I uh…I can see that.”

Link is kind enough to give her a moment to pull herself together without saying anything. She takes a breath and says, “I’m here to buy a houseplant.”

“Oh. Well these aren’t house—”

“Yes, I’ve realized that, thank you.” Zelda makes a determined beeline to the door. He follows. A quick glance back at Link reveals a small smile still on his face.

She stops in front of a reasonably sized plant with large, striped leaves. She can sense Link standing a few steps behind her, but she’s still too embarrassed to look at him, so she focuses on the plant instead.

“That one is a bit finicky, for a first plant.” Link’s voice comes from behind her. “It requires a ton of humidity and regular watering.”

Alright, so he’s going to help her. Zelda squares her shoulders a little. She can put the whole irrigation thing behind her. She turns around.

“I have a large, west facing window,” she says. “What do you suggest?”

He studies her and she resists the urge to fidget. Then he nods to himself and makes his way over to the one of the shelves. He pulls out a plant with dark green foliage and what looks like three white flowers. He sets it on the table in front of her, then goes to the succulent table and grabs a pot. He sets that in front of her too.

“This is a peace lily.” He points to the first pot. “The parts that looks like a white flower is actually a specialized leaf that protects the real flowers. They clean the air and don’t need a lot of light or maintenance.” He points to the second pot. “This is aloe vera. You might be familiar with its medicinal uses for cuts and burns. It’s a succulent that loves lots of sun and doesn’t need very much water.”

Zelda leans forward to look at the two plants. They’re very different, but they both appeal to her for their own reasons. She’s interested in the air cleaning qualities of the peace lily, but the medicinal use of the aloe vera is also fascinating. Which should she get? The peace lily or the aloe vera?

Part 4

[happys-crazy-queen22]

Heights

Gif credit @stilinski-ortiz-dolan

Requested on wattpad.

I hope you all enjoy.

Happy Reading Dollies.

Taglist: @ilovetaquitosmmmm. @twistnet. @baylishh. @myangelreyes. @nocturnalherb16

It was the perfect day to clean up outside after a crazy week of storms. The yard was a wreck and the house looked like a tree with all the leaves surrounding it, so you grabbed Taza and the rake. You put him to work on the yard and you would gather the leaves once he was done piling them up.

"You should get one of the guys to come clean the gutters, there's tons of leaves clogging it". You telling Taza.

"I'll do it. Those pussies won't get on a ladder. They're to scared". Taza laughed as he raked.

"Okay but I want them done before another big storm hits".

"Alright. They'll get done". Taza nodded.

That was two weeks ago and now the weather man said there would be another big storm the next day. Unfortunately Taza was with the club and you were by yourself, so you were going to do it. Getting the ladder out of the garage you put it up close to the house and started walking up it. You had to climb high since your arms were short and well you were a short person so it was harder than having daddy long arms aka Taza here to do it.

Sticking your hand into the darkness that was the gutter you pulled out a blob of yuck. It was gooey and black.

"Please don't find a dead animal. Please don't find a dead animal". You kept saying to yourself as you put your hand back into the gutter.

It took you a hour on one part of the gutter, beside cleaning it out you gagged and heaved. Squealing as you thought you felt a snake turned out to be a stick. Taza was seriously going to make this up to you.

Now you were on to the higher part of the house, you were close to the top of the ladder and you still couldn't reach the gutter so what did you do? Climbed on the roof of the house. Big mistake, huge.

Everything was going good until the wind started to pick up and it started to pick up fast. It knocked the ladder over and the trash bag flew off the roof. You were stuck. But it got worse when you looked down to the ground. Your head felt dizzy and you started to panic. The ground felt millions of miles away, scrabbling to the top of the roof you didn't want to be near the edge.

The inner drama queen wanted to cry and scream but the tough badass in you said to shimmy down the drain pipe but the cautious and not wanting to die said to call your husband.

"Hey babe, what's up"?

"Me"?

"What"? Taza chuckled on the other end of the phone.

"I'm up on the roof. I tried cleaning the gutters but the wind started up and the ladder fell over. Now I'm stuck".

"You crazy woman. I'll be there in a minute. Stay away from the edge". He said and then hung up. You sat with your knees to your chest waiting for your knight on a Harley to get you down.

Hearing the roar of motorcycles coming down your drive way made you smile. You couldn't wait to be on solid ground again.

"What the hell woman"? Taza asked with his arms open and pointing at the mess you were in.

"I'm sorry. Theres a storm coming and they say it's not good to have your gutters full of leaves".

"After you get down there will be no more news. It gets you in trouble".

"Fine, please just get me down".

"Why didn't you just jump"? Riz asked a very stupid question.

"Me, jump? First I'm afraid of heights and then I'd probably break a leg or something".

"Why get on the roof if you're afraid"?

"I wanted nice gutters". You yell with a sigh, Taza was not moving fast enough.

"Hey Y/N, arent you supposed to be under the house with your feet sticking out instead of on top of it"? Coco making a Wizard of Oz joke, making everyone laugh even Taza.

"I'll show you the wicked witch when I get down there. I'll get you and you're ugly friends too".

"What did we do"? Angel asked. Riz and Ez nodded in agreement.

"You laughed".

"I think you should keep her up there". Angel pulled out a smoke.

"I think you should shut up". You scooted towards the edge when Taza put up the ladder. He walked up the ladder holding out his hand for you to take. You held on to Taza as he brought you down, kissing his lips.

"Thank you. Thank you". You said between kisses. "My hero".

"It wasn't that bad". Coco and Angel both said.

"Well you're right. That's why I'm going to share it with you guys". You said sarcastically handing them gloves and the trash bag from the ground.

"Get on the roof and finish it like I asked Taza for you to do it in the first place".

"Really"?

"Really. Who's the wicked witch now, bitch"?

"Still you". Angel said going up the ladder.

"Yes I am. But at least I'm not cleaning the gutters. I wouldn't get that on your skin, you may need a tetanus shot afterwards". You say as Coco put his arm into the gutter.

"This fucking sucks". Angel groaned.

"Then you should have shut up and just helped me down. I would have hired someone to do it but no that big mouth of yours gets you in a whole lotta trouble". You say with your hands on your hips with a laugh.

Taza, Riz, Ez and you watched Coco and Angel argue about the gooey slush. It was quite a show.

"You're getting more on my side". Coco protested.

"Dude, just fucking shut up and get it done". Angel was mad, he stuck his hand into a part of the gutter and pulled back with a scream. Waving his hand around. Coco was trying to grab his hand to see what happened, Angel caught a mouse trap and it snapped on his fingers.

"Aaaaahhhh, I hate you". Angel growled pointing at you, you sat there with a smile.

"You love me and you know it". You say sly, Angel stuck out his tongue.

Coco was finishing up on the last part near a tree, when he grabbed something big. His eyes grew as he pulled it out. It was a mummified squirrel. He threw it to Angel to throw it away and of course Angel missed and it smacked him in the face.

You gasped covering your mouth, the guys laughed as Angel was about to kill Coco.

"I'm done. Fuck this shit". Angel climbed off the roof and hit the ground. He threw his kutte to Ez and started stripping his clothes at the front door of the house, going into take a shower.

You looked at Taza who had the biggest smile on his face. "I think he really does hate me now".

"It's okay. I'll get him to do something he hates then he'll forget all about hating you".

"Awe, you really are my hero". You leaned over and kissed him.

[frizz22]

Could you do a prompt where Agatha asks Hilda to be her second mother? Since, Prudence/Dorcas has Zelda? Kind of like a heart to heart moment? Thank you.

So, we don’t know a ton about this character, so I hope I got her voice right. Read on ao3

They were celebrating a new holiday, paying homage to their new goddess, Hecate. And though Agatha was happy to be free from the madness the god Pan inflicted on her, free of Blackwood’s influence, free and back with her sisters… she couldn’t help but watch her sisters practically prance around Zelda Spellman a bit sullenly. 

Yes, Zelda and Prudence had become very close during the hunt for Blackwood, during their desperate attempt to revive Dorcas, yes they were technically family by marriage—regardless of the fact that Zelda refused to be called by the Blackwood name. But their evident bond still hurt.

And then, well, the witch had saved Dorcas from being a living statue. As well as thrown her in the Cain Pit and called to Hecate to return her to them after Agatha had unknowingly slaughtered her in the bowels of the Academy. Saving someone’s life multiple times would lead to a closeness, Agatha supposed.

So, her sisters did have reasons for fawning over the witch and Zelda was the matronly type; after a fashion.

It wasn’t their fault Agatha had ruined any chance she had at the woman being her second mother as she was to her sisters.

Though one could argue it was the Dark Lord’s beetle that had her writing ‘Lady Blackwood is a bitch’ on the chalkboard, had her hysterically calling the poor woman by the name when it clearly upset her….

Yes, one could make that argument, but part of Agatha knew she’d have done something similar on her own anyway. It was just her nature, or so she’d been convinced, to be cruel, to find weakness and pick at it until it was raw and bleeding.

Which meant, she sighed dejectedly, she was here on the sidelines, watching Zelda laugh and chat with her sisters, even touching Prudence’s cheek in affection at some joke.

It wasn’t as though she thought Zelda would turn her away, no, the witch would be just as kind to her as she was to others. But the motherly type love she displayed towards her sisters wouldn’t be there, Agatha just knew, and the fact that the rejection wouldn’t be on purpose made it hurt all the more.  

A soft hand on her shoulder startled Agatha. Jumping, Agatha spun to find Hilda standing behind her.

Eyebrows raised, Hilda cocked her head in question but didn’t push, for which Agatha was immensely grateful. “Time for your potion, love.” She informed her gently, offering the small flask to her.

Grimacing a little, Agatha took the flask and slugged it back with a shudder. “Thank you, Sister Hilda.” The urge to connect with someone overwhelmed her and Agatha held onto the flask a beat longer than she normally did. “I don’t know where I’d be without your help. It’s your potions that brought me back and keep me sane.” She inclined her head in acknowledgment, offering the flask back, unable to think of anything else to keep Hilda there.  

Instead of taking the flask, Hilda’s warm hands engulfed hers. “Of course, love. But something else is bothering you.”

Heart clenching painfully at how easily affectionate Hilda was, Agatha bit her lip and unconsciously glanced over her shoulder to where her sisters were still talking to Zelda. “It’s nothing—"

“Oh, I know better than that.” Hilda cut in gently, leading Agatha away from the revelry and over to a bench in one of the side halls at the Academy. “Come now, my sweet, will you tell me what’s troubling you?”

Tears came unbidden to her eyes and were suddenly spilling over her cheeks. Horrified, Agatha made to stand and run, but Hilda caught her arm and pulled her into a tight hug.

Startled but filled with gratitude, Agatha sunk into the embrace and allowed Hilda to stroke her hair and murmur sweet comforts in her ear.

After a time, Agatha pulled back, scrubbing her cheeks clean of the evidence of her tears.

Hilda gave her a small smile and tucked a loose strand of her hair back. “Something is troubling you, darling, please let me help.”

Looking up, Agatha blinked at the affection and care in Hilda’s eyes. It was, almost, possibly, a motherly look. Breath stuttering at the thought, Agatha swallowed hard, wondering if she’d been looking for a mother in the wrong place all along.  

“I,” she sniffed and dropped her eyes to her lap. “I know I caused a lot of damage, while in Pan’s and then Blackwood’s thrall. I know my sisters still love me even if I can see them casting suspicious looks my way. I just, I feel I lost my family while I was gone and during that time… they found another.” Her gaze darted back towards the party even though it was out of sight.

A soft ‘oh’ sounded from Hilda and Agatha had trouble bringing her eyes back to the woman. Gentle fingers grasped her chin and brought her gaze to meet Hilda’s. “Oh, Agatha, love. They—"

Another tear slipped down Agatha’s cheek. “We always promised,” she whispered wretchedly, “when we were little, we always promised we’d find a mother and father together. Never leave anyone behind like we’d been left before. And now,” a hiccup escaped her. “And now Prudence and Dorcas found a mother, and she’s wonderful, but she’s not mine; won’t ever be, not after everything.” The words came tumbling out before she could stop them.  

She was embraced once more, and Agatha didn’t think twice of curling into the smaller witch’s arms.

When she finally disengaged once more, Agatha cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for, for being so,” she waved her hand, unsure if she should name it. Before Pan’s curse, she’d never been unsure, before his curse she’d never been unsure of her sisters.

But sitting there, being held and comforted by Hilda, it wasn’t hard to label and be sure of the feelings rising in her.

Twisting her hands, Agatha gathered her courage. “Sister Hilda?” The witch hummed and started to fuss with smoothing Agatha’s dress, straightening her jewelry and hair. And it was such a motherly gesture that it only emboldened Agatha further. “I know, I know you have your own family, your own kids in Sabrina and Ambrose… but I was wondering, hoping really, that you might, possibly, be,” she exhaled and turned away, suddenly unsure.

Hilda’s hand reached over and covered hers where they were still twisting in her lap. “If I might what, love?”

“If you’d be willing to act a mother to me.” She blurted out and then cringed, waiting for the rejection that was certain to come. While Hilda was endlessly kind and motherly, Agatha couldn’t think of why the witch would want some gutter orphan attaching itself to her.

A sniffle interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Baffled, Agatha brought her eyes up and found Hilda crying as well. “Oh, Agatha, darling, I’d love to. Oh, I never, I cannot believe, so honored…. Oh, yes dear, I’d love for you to be like a daughter to me.” She breathed, gathering Agatha into her arms once more.

Stunned, Agatha hesitantly wrapped her arms around Hilda, returning the hug for the first time. When Hilda tightened her hold on Agatha in response, she couldn’t help but hug the witch properly, pressing her face into her shoulder.

As they sat there, rocking and crying and laughing a little, Agatha couldn’t restrain the watery smile on her lips.

She’d always known if she wanted a family she’d have to find it; blood certainly never dictated her definition of kin.

But this, Agatha pulled back from the hug and cuddled into Hilda’s side, resting her head on the witch’s shoulder as they began to chat about any and everything, this was the first time she’d been found rather than having to do the finding. And Agatha didn’t mind in the least.

[keenregine]

Footsteps and kicking red zones

I swear to God, I couldn't find the perfect time to write. Not that I'm busy, but I'm just too pre occupied with slacking. When I'm at home, I literally don't do anything. I can lay in bed for one whole day and still feel tired. And I think, that is how you're suppose to feel if you do the same thing.

I left off at the day after Christmas. Being the super systematic person that I am, I believe, I have mentioned several times that I didn't plan my Paris itinerary in the most fashionable way. The night before, I searched for some nearby things-to-do. If I compare Paris into other places (as if I've been into tons of places, I used internet as a basis alright), actually there are so many sights to visit that are reasonably nearby to each other. Great convenience indeed. So, the first I did was a hop on-hop off city bus tour. It was promised, that in about an hour, you'll be able to see the best landmarks in Paris, with so much convenience. And my favorite thing in the world is convenience. lol

One of the most bad reviews about the city is the lack of cleanliness. There are literally rats running through the gutter, going into the drain where you can find Pennywise the clown trying to make friends with you. The walls are not cleaned well, graffiti pretty much everywhere. Garbage are scattered, what a sight. I realized just now, I rarely saw any street sweepers in there. Did I? Ahh yes, maybe they joined the strike too. The very next day prior starting the city bus tour, I decided to go near the Eiffel tower at the very earliest time I can manage which was at 0800H, Trocadero side. It was still dark that time, only very few people are awake, which I like. I took that advantage and just sat there, staring at the beauty with not a care in the world. Typical me.

One thing I love about tours, are the freaking rented audio guides. And pretty much every paid landmarks has one, mostly they' re paid separately for an acceptable value. For me, learning about the history of what you're seeing adds up about half of what makes the experience worthy. Unless, you're a history major specializing in French. Just by sitting on the bus chair, effortless, we traversed from the Eiffel tower, the antique looking streets that I cannot particularly remember (I searched one of those is Champ de Mars, right behind the Eiffel Tower, also a stunning sight if you want to see a different perspective of the ET, because most people go to Trocadero side for its accessibility, wow longest parenthesis ever), Hospital de Invalides, Opera Garnier (I learned lately that Vicki Belo and Hayden Kho rented this place for their wedding, what?! those rich bitches), Louvre Museum (Leonardo da Vinci, Eugene DelaCroix), Notre Dame, Musee d'Orsay (Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Paul Gaugauin), Champs Elysees (long line of street with various shops, restaurants and tons of people walking around, best place for Paris feels), Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Gallerie de la Fayette. For this occasion, since it is a bus tour, I decided not to hop off in each of every places. Instead, I created a plan where I come back to those places each and atleast spend some time on them individually. See, who has a plan now huh.

I avail two days of that bus tour, on the second day. At the end of the day. There was this river cruise via Seine River. When I arrived around 7pm-ish. The line was very long. I stay there for like 30 minutes at most. Then I couldn't take it anymore and walked away. I was not really feeling like cruising that time. Additionally, I have very little patience to things that doesn't interest me much. So instead, I walked around the city for a little while. It was freezing cold, and went to this restaurant nearby my place. It was called Carette, and boy little did I know. I was about to taste the best Croissant of my life. I'm not a bread person, I'm a big rice person. If I could emphasize more on that. Coffee mug was small but the quality of the taste, ugh. I think the vibes of the place adds up to the taste of the food. Went home after, then tons of Greek people are in there, drinking. They invited me of course, don't mind if I do. As a preview of the strong red wine on Christmas eve, the liquor this time was just as strong. But more cocktail-y. Aperol was the drink name, mixed with prosseco (which I haven't heard my entire life), soda water and a burst of orange (the fruit). I thought my drinking game was strong till I came in Europe, it was shattered. lol All I can manage was a bottle of beer, and a glass of champagne. I feel so weak, a bit. But not much of that was my concern actually. I was more into going places.

Two days of bus tour was over. The next day, I heard about this Louis Vuitton Foundation. At the same time, I wanted to try this electric scooter which I have seen and been interested in prior arriving in Paris. Two purpose at one time, awesome. To use the scooter, an app will be downloaded, depends on what you're mainly interested in. There are different types; Lime, dott, Tier, and Bird (powered by Uber). The payment will be linked into your credit card. Charging will be every minute, if I remember correctly it was about 40cents. A map will be shown where you can find parked scooters if in case you want to find the nearest one in you location. Red colors to the areas where it is prohibited to go. Legal parking areas if you need to end the ride. Not only electric scooters, there are also bicycles, motorcycle, and even luxury cars. I rented lime, due to my lack of proper research, much to my surprise the place was way far from my place and it was closed for some reason. What a lucky day. When I checked my phone and saw the map, it was all in red. Meaning I'm in the prohibited area. And by that, I will be charged a lot more extra for penalties and everything. The signal was really bad that time that I cannot park the scooter properly. The power of the scooter seem to be lowering down as well because it is running very slowly, that I need to kick for acceleration (a consequence in the red zone). I went around the place and saw this Jardin d'Acclimation. It is a mini amusement park with so little people. I kinda enjoyed the place, but I didn't stay for long. When I was finished, the scooter was still there, might as well use it again so I can go home the same way I went. What other choice do I have, right. Next stop, was the Louvre museum from outside, same thing it was closed. I walked around again near Place de la concorde, sat there shortly by the fountain like all people did while watching the birds. And I came by this Christmas village, it was a long stretch of ofc Christmas themed things here and there, with food, rides etc. There was a looot of people. I'm not kidding, Not a fan of too crowded places, too suffocating. Tried the beer de Noel, too sweet, like they poured sugar on those. And these sliced boiled potatoes drenched in some special kind of cheese. It was too heavy on the stomach, but I managed to consume all of it. Surprise surprise.

My shoulders are aching again for sitting too long. Goodbye for now. Don't know until when.

[the-firebird69]

and it is fun he remembers yes and did not say did not try and then now..oh hahahah it is like the orb and funny really funny the light bulb survived did not burst from teh trip or excess power supply and lit up the agdru jihads eye adn awakened him..the Kraken or Super 8.  and odd they ahd something else to toss there but it would work and they would all be dead it was quickly disabled by the emp as he predicted...lol.... and hilarious to some who figure it out after a time. and trump thinks he got it Zues Hera and we did.hahah lol the light hahaha is still on, and hahaha motel 8 not six lol and haahahha the light is still on and we see motel 8s are his hahah lol motley crew your on and bja your band metallica and of course van halen...we see.  we try it   all gllued or bolted down lol h ahahah damnit  hahaah aerosmith you are welcome we send passes and for a year, but we dont think ou should try. lol ok ok we wont steven tyler and really it si worth it to  try no. its vulgar lol ahhhaha. ok. ok we might by accident  no worries we fix it foryou its like epilepsy to rockers oh no fun ok. haha.  and gene you too one year andto the otherbands. we can yes transport we do that and have ellies college mate do it ugh..gross.  maithay oh the spelling ok oh...well your the college girl and for teachers...and oh ok teachers lol. man this blows you tards suck are out we ravageyou idiots soon and the light on his eye lol hahha damnf unny ghwb says now we party up in New Vegas adn have Islamic beer it is an Ogdru Jihadist party and costumes are welcome of the super 8 we sell them onliine ad trillons at the door and changing rooms were installed. tons of them all temp. and we seeyes . and of the demons from Hellboy and Hellboy costumes and more Legand costumes and make up and we have pro makup couners and hundreds upon hundreds of statoins..and huge dance competitions and likeness contests..a.nd free tix to areas of interest  and they all want in.  tons of people tons ride on kikker now and it is  a respected bike and his harlye is sought but woody has it lol woody haerlson and not great Hera ok ok it happened and at theat campgroudn and yuk this is gay sh  no no only an analogy woody and then homo cide..kill homos. and ok not bad.  i see.  lots of energy from him how abou tou let him alone ok guys.no the idiot brad says and will die shortly.  and oh. dead..yup.  by macs orders. and an odd noise prior ti taking him a slow low growl as brad did so many tmes near him and he would say hey whats up you sick...and brad wouls smileno.  sure you are ok youur sick and got real close aernt youo ok you look it..and brad would meow like a pussy cat.  a real one. does so now wont shut up either. and we hit you dingaling. hard flatten you.  he is superb at yelling will yell tonight nope. is out today. and the party is a Sith party ad Star Wars too...and it is huge.  and tower wear not much they get beat up badly fast too. cant survive it. and lots and lots of Star Blazers.  all for sale at the door tons buy and we setup thousands of check outs all over and haul tons in  and it is a massive crowd of it and the gear is new and relatively functional. most storm troopers are of soid plastic these are with a coatiing of carbon steel. and shine like madness. aare ool and deflect some blaster hits.  and it is on we see they sayand the Super 8 costue is houge for six footers or better and is anamatron.  can be used for lots of houselold chores lifting higu u cleaning gutters. and more. and we see you caahaha lol and funny.   and this is the deal we are upto it and tonight a special night Allah and Goddess Wife have brought thier Wicked Ale versions to the usa and yes they do drink there and lots a s you know all of you.  tons  and it is on you say Hera Zues we like it fun adn fast and in and done.  we use the Speed Museum tonight andmore to house the Darth Maul Lady Maul Darth Maul Darth Talon bikes and moer ours too Sasquatch and Female Sasquatch are modified harelys adn we use it too. tons of stuff you idiots say.  we are in shorlty. to um check. Thor Freya

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBj_QnrzVRw

[scarecrowandmrking]

FUN ON THE RANGE

  "Every person that has a gun should be trained in how to use it. And what does a person need with tons of bullets and high capacity mags anyway?"     "Most people hands shake when they shoot. Good luck with your handful of bullets in a life or death situation."     Nelly sat there seething, staring at the lap top  screen as actor Mark Pellegrino followed up  his line of reasoning with a long monolog about personal rights, strawmen and how people have every right to defend themselves with deadly force. She gritted her teeth, the beginning of a migraine causing her eyes to tear up. She knew from past experience this could go on all night. Mark was in fight mode, which she had always gotten the impression was also horny mode. Like the guy just wanted to fight with somebody than finish blowing off steam nutting in somebody somewhere. And honestly, she didn't know if she wanted to kiss him right now or punch him in the face.     "I'm a great shot," she wrote back, a curse leaving her lips as she angry typed so loud her cat, Jinx, woke up from his nap on the couch and fixed her with an evil eye.     "Prove it."     Nelly looked at the screen, perplexed.     ???     "I have a friend who owns a firing range close to where you live. Here's the deal. You seem like a bright young woman. Let me show you the error of your ways."     "Sure," Nelly told him. "But you're wrong."     "We'll see. You're a good egg."     Nelly snorted, trying to ignore the shiver that went through her as she imagined finally meeting the man she had been debating on Twitter for the past six years. She'd started debating him when she was just fourteen years old, but he'd blocked her when he'd found out how young she was. She'd fully expected that when she turned twenty he'd start to DM her or something, but instead things had just been same old, same old. Until now.     "When?"     "Soon."   Nelly used a couple of choice emogis, showing her displeasure at his vagueness. He enjoyed playing with her far too damn much.    "How does tonight sound?"     "I bet you can't hit the broad side of a barn, she wrote back."     He sent back a devil emogi with a HA after it.    "Mature."     "You started it. I just finished it."     "You haven't finished anything yet."     "I will. "     "Prove it, cowboy."     "Tonight." **********************************************************************************    Nelly dressed in a white blouse with a brown leather vest and a pair of tight jeans. She'd be damned if she was going shooting in some frilly dress and heels.    Maybe if Mark took her out again he'd see that side of her, but tonight she was determined to get out there and prove his ass wrong. She only needed one bullet to hit a target. Fuck him if he thought she needed thirty.     The doorbell rang, shocking Nelly out of her imagined win over her favorite debate buddy. She opened the door to find Mark standing there in a brown leather jacket, black zombie shirt and a pair of jeans. He was tall as hell, towering over her with a wide grin on his handsome face. She felt herself go wet at his nearness, pressing her legs together to pleasure herself a little as she stared up at him, speechless.     "Are you ready," he asked when she didn't invite him in or give him a hug. Or acknowledge his existence in any way.     "OK, sure," she said, letting him lead the way to his BMW waiting outside.      The ride to the firing range was passed by a real life version of the debates Mark and Nelly had had for so long on Twitter interspersed with him being more intimate and asking her questions about school and family. He was a quiet and thoughtful companion, seeming to hang on her every word and fully committing to answering her questions on everything from racial profiling to gun control. He had an imformed opinion on a lot of subjects, but Nelly quickly found herself squirming in her seat, eager to ask him about other things. Things like how hard he liked to be ridden and if he would fill her full of cum if she rode him right.     "You're pretty lost in thought over there," Mark said at one point, grinning at her in a way that made her face feel hot. "Anything you want to share?"   "Is this place far," Nelly asked, hoping her face didn't give away the fact that her pussy had thoroughly soaked the bottom of her pants. And he hadn't even touched her yet.     "Almost there."    They pulled up to a one story building with a fence around it. Mark quickly got out and unlocked the gate, parking the BMW in the middle of the deserted parking lot. A sign on the front of the building said Shooters Depot in huge red letters and beneath that a bulletin board covered in notices. The place appeared to be deserted.     Mark opened the car door for Nelly and she got out, letting him lead her around the back of the building where the range was. A she'd extended out from the back of the building across the property, several small wooden tables underneath it. The targets across the way were still visible because the lights had been left on.   "Are you ready?"    Nelly turned to find that Mark had placed a small leather bag on the table. He opened it, pulling out some noise canceling ear muffs and a 45. He waited for her to nod before he let her put the ear muffs on and take the gun from him.    She stared hard at the target, she let the world shrink down to what she was fixated on doing. Nelly fired one shot. Then two. Then three. All were head shots. Only one was a little off center.     "Oooh, you almost missed this one," Mark said , inspecting her handy work with a critical eye.     "I highly doubt anybody would survive that head shot. You're point is invalid."     "Let me show you what you're doing wrong."     Nelly rolled her eyes. "I'm not doing anything....OK. Sure. Whatever." Nelly extended her arms back out, fixating again on the target ahead of her. Only this time Mark put his arms on either side of hers, pressing himself tightly against her. She jumped a little, only making her brush back against him harder. He pressed against the railing, his body bending over hers and his chin on her shoulder.     "Look at the target," he told her, acting oblivious to the fact that he was in just the right position to yank her pants down and doggy fuck her over the railing.   "Keep your back straight and take a deep breath. Don't think about how long it takes. A planned shot is always better than a fast, sloppy one."     Nelly pulled the trigger. This time the next three shot were all on point. As she took the ear muffs off, she told herself it wasn't because of Mark. If anything he was more of a distraction to her shooting than anything else, her dripping pussy making it even harder to concentrate. Without meaning to, she felt herself rubbing back into him, feeling her ass rub against the hard bulge of his jeans. Mark moaned in her ear before suddenly attempting to pull away from her.     Nelly turned in his arms, taking his face in her hands and pulling his lips down on hers. His mouth was open as he devoured her with his clever, probing tongue. She cried out into his mouth, overwhelmed by the feel and taste and scent of him. He was everything she'd always fantasized he'd be. And so much more. She rubbed herself against him with a moan before taking his hand and plunging it down the front of her jeans. He flung her onto the table, pushing her back upon the hard wooden surface.     Her pussy lips parted and his fingers slid down the length of her hot length. Mark let out a deep, gutteral sound, crushing her against the table as three fingers plunged into her tight pussy and filled her up. He ripped open the front of her blouse with one hand, greedily sucking on a rose colored nipple as he vigorously worked her with his fingers. The jeans were soon scrunched up around her boots.    "You're so beautiful," he tells her, kissing his way down her body. "I've thought about you so many times. Like this. Wet and ready for me."     Nelly grabbed his blond head and held onto him tightly as he licked her outer lips. He played with her swollen clit, finding just the right rhythm of swirling his tongue around while he fucked her with his fingers. After about ten thrusts Nelly cried his name as she came hard upon his face, her cum squirting his face and into his mouth. Mark smiled up at her, licking her quivering pussy clean before straightening up again.     "Do you want me to be inside of you?" His hands traced the curves of her body, not in a rough, lustful way, but in a gentle lover's caress. He wasn't the warrior taking liberties with his conquest. He was a servant worshipping his beloved queen. Nelly could feel the power in him, the fight in him. And the fact that he was submitting all that to her, for her love and approval, turned her on more than anything any man had done for her before.     "Please," she whispered, still dazed from the climax he had brought her to. "I just want to belong to you."     Mark unzipped his pants and leaned over her, plunging himself balls deep in her pussy in one savage thrust. He had a wide cock, stretching her pussy in a way that made Nelly gasp for a second, relieved when he stopped for a minute, letting her get use to the size of him. When she was ready, he started off with gentle, slow thrusts, kissing her neck and breasts, telling her how good she felt and how tight her pussy was on his cock.   "Mark," Nelly moaned as a deep orgasm took her over beneath the combined sensations of his cock and his mouth. Mark placed his face over hers, watching her face as she came with a dark look of complete lust on his face. He growled, his pace quickening and making the whole table rock under them.    "Where do you want me to cum," he growled against her neck. "I'm so close."    "In my pussy," Nelly said between frenzied moans and pleas. She knew she was driving him crazy with her begging and her nails driving into his back, and she loved it.     "You want me to fill up that little pussy?"     "Yes."     Mark thrusted hard twice more before he paused to lay on top of her, his forehead presses to hers. "Fuck," he said as she felt the warmth of his spurts inside of her. She closed her eyes, lost in the feeling of having a pussy filled with warm cum. She wrapped her legs around him, making sure her pussy got every drop he had to give her.     "I'm sure you'll agree you would have a shaky hand in a life or death situation," Mark replied, his cock still buried inside her cum filled pussy.    "I'm a perfect shot. My hand never shakes. Never."     "Your whole body shakes for me."     "It most certainly does not," Nelly lied.     "Will I have to prove it to you?"     "Yep."

[belladonnaandulriched]

amped and wired, part two | chapter nine: any last words?

I thought about what Frankie had said before then and I couldn't help but wonder just how much of wealth stood there in Black Orchid. Between Mrs. Hamilton wanting to take me grocery shopping to just her wanting to spoil the absolute shit out of us to the fact the whole place was clean, classy, and ritzy even in a place so down to the ground like 'Swaygo. In fact, I took a second look at her outfit for the day: some fitted black leggings that looked to be made of that real nice lycra you'd see at a fabric place down in Syracuse. They looked brand new, too, like she didn't get them at no thrift shop here like I would do so. She had no pants or a skirt over them, so she wore those things out in the cold open.

She also wore this low plunging black blouse with this frilly shit underneath the collar. All black and classy looking, complete with the studded ring and bracelet on one hand.

Granted, I was a guy who liked his black clothes as much as the next poor fuck but they looked brand new with her, like she just bought them and they still had that new fabric smell. I even brought it up when Scott and I got together in the room downstairs again for our big stacks of pancakes: he and I both had the works on the top with butter and syrup.

“If there's a way down to New York City before Danny gets here, we have to find our way down there,” he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.

“You mean like a nest egg?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Scott, listen to me. There are many things I would do to put up a nest egg—but havin' nuthin' to explain the room upstairs is keepin' me back a bit.”

“They're just tryin' to help us, Joey,” he pointed out as he handed me a fork from the drainer.

“It's just kinda odd to me, though,” I insisted. “You know, when Lars was here—he told me about it, anyway—he said he had nuthin' to do here, and he told me it was a good thing when I showed up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What, he didn't tell you?”

“No. I didn't hear anything like that.”

“Huh.”

I led him to the same table where we played strip chess. Charlie, Frankie, and Lars were still in the kitchen getting their plates together, which left the two of us alone with each other. Scott took his seat next to me, right in the same spot next to me where Cindy sat before.

“How is it?” he asked me once I sloughed off a bite.

“You guys are good,” I said with my free hand over my mouth. Once I swallowed it down, I set that hand in my lap. “We're all at rock bottom but there's only one way out, though.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed with a raise of his coffee mug and a sip from there.

“So Lars had nothing to do here when he was here?” he echoed.

“None at all,” I said. “As far as I know anyways, so we just gotta take his word for it.”

“Huh. That's funny 'cause—” He stopped to clear his throat. “—when we first came here, Mrs. Hamilton pointed out the shelves to us to keep our comic books safe. There was already a shitload of books there.”

“Really?” I set my active hand on the top of the table and turned my head to him. “You guys are so well read, I would think some of those books in there would belong to you.”

“Maybe one or two from me and Charlie, but not at all. Those shelves were mostly filled when we showed up.”

I paused for a second.

“So why would Lars tell me he had nothing to do here when he had plenty,” I muttered myself.

“Good question,” he said with nothing more to add. “Really, Joey—good question.”

“Another thing I wanna know is why a buncha girls like them wanna spoil guys like us.”

“The same reason why I suggested a thing like a nest egg,” Scott pointed out. “Something to help us out while they're helpin' us. But exactly why they're so doting to us, though, if that's what you're asking? I can't say.”

The two of us fell back into silence so we could eat more of the pancakes, which were ridiculous... ly tasty. Light and fluffy and tasting of remorse and broken, spooked hearts. Scott and Charlie really wanted me to take them back, even after such an abrupt end to my tenure. I wasn't the kind of person to hold a grudge, and the pancakes were fantastic and they filled me up at a rather quick pace.

“Lemme say this,” Scott spoke out of the blue once he was done and took a paper napkin out of his jean pocket, “if Lars says anything that's even a little bit 'off', don't be afraid to tell me.”

“You?” I said after I took my last bite and leaned back in the chair. “What about Charlie and Frankie, too?”

“Absolutely, absolutely.” He took out another napkin from his pocket for me and I cleaned off a little bit of syrup on the corner of my mouth. “But come to me, though, because—I was the guy who suggested getting rid of you. And also because you and I are the ones talking about it, too.”

“So just k—” I pulled a Lars himself and let out a little burp. “—eep. Sorry.”

“'Salright. It's just good pancakes is all.”

“Anyways, just keep it between the two of us?”

“Yeah. If Frankie or Charlie ask about it, just say that Lars missed an opportunity while he was stayin' here.”

“So you want me to lie?”

“Yes, but also no. I mean, if you think about it, it is kind of the truth. It sounds like he was so distraught and checked out instead of pulling himself out of it that he missed an opportunity to stand on his own like you did, or the three of us.”

“This all sounds so unlike Lars, too, if I'm honest,” I confessed to him.

“Metallica was his band and he was betrayed by his friends,” he recalled, “and he also lost his wife. Lots of upheaval all at once—I'm guessin' it'd be hard for him to get his shit together. Says the guy who's having a hard time getting his shit together himself.” That last part of which he mumbled under his breath. I cleared my throat as I reached for my cup of coffee.

“You know when I got that phone call from Charlie the other night, I didn't know what to do except go out and take a walk.”

“And you found that girl laying on the sidewalk.”

“I found Maya layin' there.”

“When the studio burned down, it was just incessant—like the flood gates opened and shoved us down the hill ass over teakettle. A lot of upheaval on all our parts. And it's funny how it all came around again.”

“Exactly!” I stifled another one in my throat and then I took a sip of that rich beany coffee. Over the rim of the mug, I noticed him examining my stomach. I set one hand there. It wasn't my mom's cooking for sure, but it was the equivalent of receiving a hug from both Scott and Charlie. And a sincere one at that.

“Well, if you can find a way to fill your stomach and find a place to lay your head, I'd say you're good to go,” he said.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I took another sip of coffee. And then he cleared his throat.

“What I want to know is why you didn't take her to the hospital first when you found her there,” he continued.

“I was on foot,” I said, “I was on foot and it was gonna rain, too. Carryin' a dead body to the hospital in the pouring rain—that just sounds irritating, even from a poetic stand point.”

“It does!” he laughed. “I don't think Anvil's ever gone that far with something like that.” He took another sip of coffee himself.

“Now a rainy sidewalk, or a gutter, or sump'n like a cesspit,” I suggested as I held onto my mug with one hand, “that sounds better.”

“Lay down like a dead body on a rainy sidewalk,” he piped up again with both hands wrapped around the base of the coffee mug. “Down in the cesspit.” He nodded his head. “I can hear that. You really do have a shit ton to offer, Joey. Remember the promise I made?”

“You want me to have more credits on Anthrax's next record,” I recalled; I couldn't resist the fluttery feeling in my chest.

“Absolutely. It'll be for all us. For all us gentlemen.”

“For all kings,” I corrected him.

“That's even better! Consider it me thanking you for being with us and for putting it behind you. I'll do the same, too—I don't know what I was thinking, Joey. So—thank you.” And I couldn't help but wish for Mr. Lang to appear right there with a smile on his face and an assuring nod.

Scott then raised his mug towards me, and I did the same for a toast to the new record. When we would record such a beast of a record was beyond the both of us. But it was something Scott and I both wanted to do.

He and I took swigs of the coffee at the same time; I caught the sound of Frankie's laugh in the kitchen and the sound of Charlie saying something. It would just be kept between me and Scott, and yet I wanted to bring it up to them and maybe do some kind of convincing of sorts. There really was something about all of this that made no sense, like there was a missing piece to all of this, and I had no idea where to even begin with it. Something didn't add up. I might have been a dumb hick from the sticks left out in the cold, but I wasn't that dumb and I was feeling warm, too.

Lars' voice then floated down to my ears from that loft upstairs, or at least so I thought. Gwen's voice followed suit.

“I hope he gets his ass in here,” Scott admitted aloud; he set the mug down before him and folded his arms over the top of the table. He turned his head to the kitchen door. “His pancakes are gonna get cold.”

“If he doesn't eat 'em, I will,” I followed up with a wag of my finger.

“You're so skinny, though, Joey,” he remarked with a glance of my body.

“And?”

“Don't you wanna watch that figure of yours?” he quipped.

“My girlish figure?” I teased him.

“Your girlish figure, yeah.”

“Pancakes'll add to it, though, Scott,” I pointed out. “I am Italian, you know. We are what we eat.”

“Eh, I'm Jewish,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders. “We hold absolutely everything to where we're afraid of letting it go and we also don't care if it ain't salty or not.”

“Salty like a big ol' stick of butter?”

“Salty like a big stick of butter,” he echoed, “and also not.”

“What good is that, though?” I asked, slightly disgusted.

“Like I said, Joey,” he recalled. “We don't care—we literally don't give two fucks if it ain't salty, especially when toast is involved.”

“Toast?” I raised my eyebrows at him. “Nah, nah, nah, no, no, no. We're messin' with pasta. Or fried bread courtesy of the Indians, baby.”

“Now that sounds like something my mom'd make,” he said.

“What, fried bread?”

“Yeah. Fried bread next to matzo balls with a side o' oy vay.”

“Oy vay, not a danish?”

I turned my head to find Lars himself standing right in the doorway leading into the front room. His hair had been tousled off to one side and his pants were unbuttoned to where I could see the skin underneath his belly button. Gwen emerged from behind him with a beaming grin on her face and a little black leather corset lined with white lace; I took a second look to see they had gotten about halfway down the front of that lacing given the laces themselves dangled down to her smooth dark thighs.

“What's goin' on here?” Scott asked him with a gesture towards Gwen.

“We were going to have a moment together when—” Lars stifled a belch in his throat. “—she reminded me of the pancakes.”

“In here, Lars!” Frankie called out from the kitchen. Lars stumbled into the room and brushed past me. Scott and I then turned our heads to Gwen standing there with that partially undone corset.

“Fair Guinevere,” I remarked.

“Gorgeous Joe,” she retorted with a grin on her face. Lars returned about as fast as he went with a platter of pancakes.

“I'll be eating this while we're having fun,” he told her; he then turned to me. “So sit tight for a second.”

He left the room before I could tell him that it was just going to be me and Mrs. Hamilton doing the thing together. But then again, she was his ride back to my place.

Indeed, once Scott and I finished our cups of coffee, she moseyed back into the room to take me out to fill up my kitchen. It was just going to be me and her for the time being.

In a weird way, Mrs. Hamilton started to feel like a mom to me. She could never be my mom, for sure, but the way in which she treated me and, when I thought back to that moment in the sewers down in the City, I couldn't help but walk closer to her at one point when she was picking out fruit for me. And yet, she was taking care of me for the moment, I couldn't help but be more than drawn to her. She was only wearing leggings underneath her overcoat after all.

She called Lars “apple danish”, so figure I squirmed a little bit when she picked up a fresh apple off of the pile and took a whiff from the stem. The way a peach was shaped and the way she held a bunch of bananas by the main stem, and the latter went for a bunch of cherries, too. She was Big Mama, and she was Big Mama to me at the moment.

Moreover, she bought me so much fruit. She bought me a lot of food; and when we were checking out, I thought about all the food I had eaten over the last couple of days. I even looked down at my hips and thighs at one point and pictured myself growing fuller there if I kept at it for a week and didn't have anything more going on in that time being.

She was kind enough to drive me back to my place to help me put it all away, even though I was capable of doing it my own.

In the meantime, she said all of ten words to me, which was so odd considering her referring to herself as “Big Mama” towards me and Lars. After I put the cold stuff away, I turned to her there on the other side of the kitchen.

“Is there a reason why you're so quiet with me?” I asked her.

She turned to me with a small separate bunch of cherries in one hand and a bright look on her face.

“Because you're special,” she explained. “If you can spend moments of silence with someone, especially good long moments and stretches of time, it's a sign of comfort. I feel comfy here with you, Joey.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip at the sight of the cherries in that one hand. Right next to that was the bunch of apples there on the table.

“You feel comfy?” I asked her.

“Quite comfy.” She strode on over to me; I swore she had a bit of a swagger to her hips. She brought her face to mine. “Comfy and—soft. All soft and sweet. A beautiful boy like you.”

She held up the cherries to me: they were big and almost perfectly round, and that bright almost perfect shade of red.

“Care for one? If you eat these before I bring Lars back here, I'll turn those cherries into jelly for you.”

I thought about that nickname I gave to myself when I first arrived at the strip club, Jelly Bellardini.

“Jelly?” I took the cherries for myself, right by the stems.

“Jelly,” she repeated.

“Jelly Bellardini,” I said. “That's—my stripper name.”

“Oh, I'm teachin' you well, baby,” she said with a gentle pat on my belly. “Better eat up those cherries.”

She flashed me a wink before she doubled back out of there and out the door. I held the cherries in one hand and gazed on at their sheen for a moment before I lunged for the sink to wash them off. I then leaned back agains the edge of the counter and slowly put one by one into my mouth. Perfectly ripe and everything, and the best way to top off those pancakes. But then again, I couldn't eat the last three. I was feeling way too full. I set them down on the counter next to me and kept my hands on the edge, on either side of my hips so I could relax. I couldn't do it. I needed to rest.

But lucky for me, there was a knock on the door. I groaned in my throat as I made my way over to the front door and pulled it open. I recognized that crown of feathery hair atop that little head, and I recognized that little body that stayed beneath the middle of my chest. He was wrapped up in a big heavy dark overcoat and he looked like he had had several rough nights in a row.

“Danny! What're you doing here?”

Dan tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, but he never said anything. Instead, he reached to the side and took out something from behind the door frame. Something short and small like him, but with thick jet black disheveled hair and those big eyes that hit me sideways. Wrapped up in that overcoat that I remembered so well from that evening after the phone call. Her skin was washed out, way too washed out for me to think she was alive. But she was alive. Her eyes swept over me.

“The prototype,” he declared.

[tevotbegotnaught]

I grew up in a factory town:paper,turbines,cement,feed,cables and caskets. Whistles blew punctually as church bells, even in the deepest night. Plants slung their keening blades past our windows and echoing off the surrounding hills. Beneath each arc, men and women lived and worked. As a boy, I played and dreamed under my own protective warp.

Scully lived with his mom, a deputy sheriff and matron in the women’s prison. She worked long hours and lots of night shifts. When I went to his place before school, she was just getting home. She’d let me in, then shout up stairs to his third floor bedroom. A woman who wore a sidearm and regularly broke up fights between violent and sociopathic prisoners couldn’t get her sixteen year-old son out of bed most mornings. When she tired of yelling, I had to go wake him up for my ride or make the thirty-minute walk alone.

In Scully’s room, mostly a bed and pair of huge dressers, the only seats were a bean bag between the heavy pieces and a windowsill. I sat on the paneled sill and talked to him. Chemically, he needed nicotine to get moving. Emotionally, he was frustrated by the way she shouted at him. His mom, newly single, now a disciplinarian, his dad suddenly the good cop. Scully’s dad actually was a cop, a detective. He solved some tough cases and brought in some real evildoers. A big guy, he beat his son for any perceived weakness.

After his all his dad’s ass whippings, Scully didn’t fear fights. He stepped up. Between us, when tension built up, he just shoved me, hard. I learned to give it right back and we usually crashed to the ground. His attic bedroom had a drop ceiling, the kind with dozens of squishy panels in an aluminum grid. During a particularly exhausting grapple, our tangled arms shot up and through the supports, spilling three or four panels.

"Bitch, look what the fuck you did! Mom’s gonna fuckin’ kill me now."

The fallen panels crumpled under our weight. Thrown clear, a legal size manila envelope. Scully carefully unfolded the metal prongs and dumped it out on the bed.

"No...fuckin’...shit!"

There were nude Polaroids of a woman.

"Dam. That’s ‘Aunt Janie’! Dad always told me to call her aunt."

Under a paperclip, a sheaf of black-and-white 8x10s, his dad and a buxom woman walking on the street or dining out, all taken from oblique angles, surveillance-style.

We examined the Polaroids closely.

"That’s fuckin’ crazy. No wonder. Mom busted his ass, and good!"

Scully seemed impressed, by his father’s voyeurism and taste in women and his mother’s vituperation.

By the time I met Scully, his dad had moved out and was dating a much younger lady from the south end of town. They got a place together in a big development newly built on prime south-county farmland. Scully and his sister saw their dad weekends. He reported back about his new family and the suburban kids. It was different there-the same teen ennui and angst, but indulged with lots more money and unchecked by close-knit family or neighbors. I knew guys from that end of town, but my new neighborhood was revealing its own fascinating topography.

We usually bought weed from Mike down the street. Scully had the connection. I was third wheel. Eventually, I had to go myself. Mike lived with his grandmother in the top two floors of a big house. His bedroom, a teenage boy’s dream: top floor, skylight, tons of posters, black light, an electric guitar, and bitchin’ stereo system with tower speakers.

You entered from the alley, through their back yard and up a metal outer staircase to a landing. Just inside, a kitchen. His grandmother was usually cooking or watching TV. She was a Noman Rockwell, white folks’ gramma: hair bun, glasses on a chain, apron over full skirts. She also knew exactly what Mikey was selling to nervous teenagers lifting her snowman door knocker.

"Yesssss" she said, standing in the enveloping smell of hot skillets, grease and cabbage.

"Mike ‘ere?" I mumbled. Mike’s door behind, she breathed sharply through her nose and bared her teeth.

" Mike! Mikey!" Her voice harsh and directed into me. Jaw levering like a nutcracker on each word "Your...friend...is....here."

She blocked me. "What’s your name?"

"Chris"

"What?"

"Chris"

"You live around here?"

"Yes. I do..I"

Mike’s buddy Chauncey opened the 4th floor door and leaned out.

Gramma stepped back, turning, walking toward the stove. Back to us, she shouted into the bubbling pots "JUST GET YOUR REEFER, THEN. GO AHEAD."

and mocked my solicitude, "IS MIKE HEEEEERE?"

"MIKE AND ALL HIS FRIENDS. DAM YOU."

Chauncey blinked and nodded. I ran up the stairs behind him, closing the door. Downstairs, gramma loosed a winding, wordless scream.

"Don’t listen to her. She’s fucking crazy."

"Yeah. But, jeeez man..."

Upstairs, Mike lay under bed covers. He swiveled his head toward me, eyes sunken and rhuemy.

"Hey. Hey, man. You’re Scully’s friend. Yeah. Cool." He turned away, sighing. Chauncey looked in my eyes. "Lotta people been coming by who don’t even know Mike. It’s fucked, you know." Chauncey was a precocious 70’s teenager-openly gay, wise far beyond our geography and spoke hushed, confessionally.

"They want all different kind of shit. Mike doesn’t like it. He’s been shooting speed."

My face must have showed surprise at that non-sequitur

"I shoot him up." He said in tenderest voice.

"It’s easier and he trusts me. He just likes the airplanes, you know, when you shoot it."

Mike moaned. Bathed in the skylight, we were a Rembrandt. I just wanted to buy a bag and split.

"Chaunce, ask him what he wants." Mike shivered and the bed rattled.

Chauncey made the deal. "It’s fuckin’ killer. I took a couple hits like two hours ago. I’m still fuckin’ wasted." In gentler days, Scully and I would have hung out and partied with them. Scully calling Chauncey a "fucking faggot" and Chauncey spitting back "pizza face". We handed off and I prepared to cross the Scylla and Charbodis. Mike didn’t say goodbye.

I pushed the door until it juddered open. Gramma sat in the adjoining room, crocheted blanket over her legs, TV blaring. I thumb-wrestled with the deadbolt and let myself out, stepping fast down the stairs.

When I told Scully about it, he calculated. "She’s a fuckin’ trip. Mike’s fuckin’ stupid, too. Firing that shit? Better not fuckin’ get us busted". There were two or three police families on each block. After a year in the neighborhood, I was learning that. We needed purchases simple and low-key. Scully had law enforcement on his literal doorstep.

His step-mom had a couple sisters around our age. In a bizarre one-off, he ended up hooking up with one of them; incest minus the c’est. Through her, he found a new connect, Russ. No geriatric kneecappers or teen vampires with Russ. I can’t remember the first bag we got from him. In those days greenish Mexican was it for regular guys. Despite his "higher than median income" school district, Russ enthusiastically promoted that product as "oh-ox-ican". I looked that name up in my Funk and Wagnalls. It was oh-kay.

We got the second bag a week after Halloween. He called it "gold". It definitely looked different. Examined under the car’s dome light, the crushed leaves looked metallic bronze, possibly from an aerosol can. We went up to Scully’s room to twist one up. It was a school night and his mom was at work. Maybe "Houses of the Holy" was playing. That was always my choice at his place. Right away, the smell was funny: an overheated voltage transformer or plastic cutlery melting in a charcoal grill. We took a few hits and put it out.

The house lights went down.

First, the overture:

"tastes fuckin’ weird"

"Like plastic, right?"

"Not smoking that shit anymore"

"Fuck, no"

The show began:

I became an amoeba, gushy on the inside, cilia paddling madly outside. Sinking into the bed, through its frame and down, down. When I opened my eyes, Scully was unwrapping Hershey’s miniatures, flicking them in his mouth, digging for more. With both hands, he offered the candy bag.

"ere..."

My insides jiggled as I waved him off.

Shadows frayed and dissolved. The record played again. Dali’s clocks oozed.

Scully lifted something to his chest, mouth flared. Black lava poured out, disappearing below. Intermittent splattering. Gutteral sounds. Lips opening and closing, an aquarium fish feeding.

I bounced off the bed, high-tide stomach and pincushion eyes.

"You’re sick. Get you cleaned up."

Lava bearded Scully’s chin. Lips gobbing, he handed me the heavy, sloshing trash can. Laughter. I put it on the sill. Down steep steps. At bottom, a hairpin turn. Scully tumbles. I pick him up. Armpits and chest. Funhouse mirror walk. The bathroom. Damp air. Washcloths under the faucet. He pulls his shirt up from the waist, trapping both arms inside. I yank it off violently.

Somewhere below, a door slams. A woman’s voice:

"I’m home. Where are ya?"

Scully looks at me, eyes spilling glue.

"Mom’s home" His voice drops two octaves between words.

She calls out again.

He unfolds an index finger.

"Shhhhh"

The voice gets closer.

I lurch toward the doorway, his mom appears before I can get out.

"Scully’s sick" I say in my serious voice.

She looks at my face,

"You’re wasted"

and pushes past me.

Then she sees her son.

"HO-LEE HELL, WHAT DID YUZ DO?"

"Nothin`, mom" he says cheerfully.

I look away. She grunts, struggling to sit him down on the toilet. He speaks to her in singsong. Her windbreaker rustles. She’s alongside me. Turning my torso with her hands, pushing me down and pinning me to the paneled wall. I smell sweat, perfume and stale smoke. She’s barely five feet tall, but her mouth is level with mine.

"WHAT DID YUZ DO? WHAT’D YUZ TAKE?"

"We drank whiskey. A bottle."

"WHISKEY DOESN’T DO THAT. YUZ TOOK SOMETHING"

"No, we didn’t take..."

"YUZ TOOK SOMETHING. WHAT’D YUZ TAKE"

Her forearm grinds into my sternum. I squirm, then exhale. My body deflates and begins to slide down. She pulls me up.

"YOU KNOW YOU COULD DIE? YUZ BOTH COULD DIE. BOTH OF YUZ."

My lips open, cool air rushes inside-inverted speech.

"GO HOME. I OUGHTA TELL YOUR PARENTS. GOD…DAM…STUPID….KIDS"

She lifts her forearm off my chest and returns to bathroom. I’m very warm. My face, in particular. The steps to the first floor tilt into utter darkness. I guide myself down, palms out, shoulder height.

Outside, cold wind knifes through a deep cleft in my skull. My walk home, one block of paved alley. Each footfall jars my spine, reverberating through my aqueous body and into my gaping head. Step by step, tottering toward our back gate. From the yard, beyond a blinding porch light, I see my mother moving in the kitchen. When I open the door, my body worms away from her.

“Hi, honey. How are you?”

“I’m tired. Gonna go to bed.”

“Your voice sounds funny. You getting a cold? Come here. Let me check you for fever.”

My throat grips and I stride through the doorway.

“I’m just tired, mom. Gonna sleep. I need it"

“Ok, honey. Sleep tight.”

When I reach my room, nauseous and staggering, I fall on the bed. The ceiling light whirls while my body liquefies. As I float, wind howls, and the city calls its third shift to work.

[totallyrealhoroscopesdaily]

11/27/2017 Horoscope

Aries: You are all winners. You are all, also, losers. The rules were unclear, but apparently this simultaneous win/lose state is perfectly legal. The game pieces are scattered around the room. This is a mess, and you don’t even know where half this crap came from. The shadow people have made themselves scarce, leaving you to clean up, because they are incorporeal bastards.

Taurus: You walk down the streets. Tinap stays home. The glass you pass bubbles and warps, this has nothing to do with you. 

Gemini: You and Kcirederf buy some thread, black since they didn’t have green, and head home. Kcirederf drapes himself over the back of the couch, while you attempt to sew the new cushion down, so it doesn’t get stolen again. You did double check, the other cushions are sewed into the couch, you don’t know how it got taken the first time, but why tempt fate.

Cancer: You guys play around. There’s not much else to do, down here. Y’all are getting better at bocce ball, but you’ve also tried others. While also abandoning any and all rules. So you still suck, at all the games, but you suck more spectacularly and fabulously, so it’s almost a win. Ridali is overjoyed as usual.

Leo: You help Hazel clean out her gutters. It’s getting warmer, steadily. The foot is on the table nearby, calling helpful hints. You nearly fall at one point, because some bird nest partially dissolved and got stuck and yanking on it made you lose your balance for a hot second. Hazel offers you lemonade after you’re done. It’s the right amount of sour and sweet.

Virgo: Baxter brings you some of the broken pieces from your boxes of junk in the closet. You’re happy when you’re tinkering, he thought it would help. You don’t... you don’t know how to feel about it. You put the pieces on a side table and continue through the day in your fog.

Libra: You take pictures of your apartment and send them to the unidentifiable being. You tell them about what’s happened. It already knew, but it appreciates that you consider it someone to confide in. It only wants the best for you.

Scorpio: Oh, darling, it’s not your fault. They should come back, it’s irresponsible of them to just ditch you-! I’m not angry at you, I’m sorry. I just- This is an issue.

Sagittarius: Brittany, Harold, and Helen left. Bobby has a metric shit ton of questions about the door, none of which you have answers for. You basically repeat, “IDK MAN IT JST WASNT SUPPOSED TO OPEN”, ad infinitum. Eventually, Guy (yes, that is his name, it’s pronounced ‘Guh-ee’, but all one syllable) gets fed up with him, and snaps out that in this ass-fucking crazy town, if a door isn’t supposed to open, then you don’t open the fucking door, and if it opens itself like a douche, then you run for the hills. Guy then proceeds to offer to let you crash on his couch for a while, but you say you’ll risk it, you’re kinda attached to this house. He says it’s your funeral, and he’ll assume the attached thing isn’t literal. You reassure that it isn’t.

Capricorn: Pup ends up dragging Punchy in. He’s passed out and bleeding heavily. You tell her to throw him on the couch and get his shirt off. You run to fetch your first aid kit. You come back to her looking a step away from hyperventilation, and Fluffy trying to get at Punchy. You shoo Fluffy away, tell Pup to put her outside, then get started on stitching Punchy’s side back together. Pup nervously watches you, but she doesn’t know how to help and she’s distracting you, so you shoo her out as well. She doesn’t protest, which speaks volumes of her mindset.

Aquarius: You wake up. You have a feeling it’s much later than you’d normally start your day, but you don’t have a clock. Your stomach hurts, hunger crawls it’s way up your throat. You didn’t bring the other box back in with you. You open a new one, Cheerios. You eat very slowly. You feel gross, sweaty and smelling of sick. When you’ve had as much as you think is safe, you force yourself to stop. Your stomach protests both the food in it, and the withdrawal of more food. You get up. You don’t change your clothes, you should have done laundry yesterday. You try to follow your routine. You get to the gym and the owner takes one look at you and then drags you to the back. She makes you sit down, forces a bottle of water into your hand, and asks what the fuck happened to you. You go missing for a day, which worried her out of her damn mind since you haven’t missed a day in a while now, then come back in, late and looking like death. You tell her you got sick. She tsks at you and goes, “Oh honey...”. You say you needed a shower, she asks why you didn’t use you own. You said you don’t have one. Her brow furrows further, but she doesn’t comment. She helps wrestle you into a shower. You’re grateful. She tries to make you lie down, but you need to do things. She’s very obviously unhappy with you, but lets you go, says you better not come back in tonight, you need rest. You agree. You head straight to the old woman’s porch, and reassure her that you’re alive. Then you go back home. You lie down for the rest of the day, eating when you think it’s appropriate. You need to get a clock.

Pisces: You don’t like this, the trees are starting to be twisted by the wrong. Looks like burns, but acts like rot. Feels bad, all around. The usual sounds of the forest, the birds and bugs, are quiet. Fortify yourself, dear daughter, and walk on.

[crzcorgi]

One of a Kind

For Negan Smut Week!

Sentence Prompt: “You like to hold it”

I wrote something a bit different. This is not with Number 6

Negan x Reader

Y/N=your name

Warnings - Negan smutty goodness. Language. NSFW. Sexy aesthetic

1950 words- using the Keep reading feature

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I apologize if I forgot to tag you, Just let me know with a slap aside the head! And @#% Tumblr won’t tag everyone, I’m sorry!

    Shit! It was raining hard and I had the unfortunate luck to be heading out on a run. Rain in itself isn't bad, washes away any walker blood and guts your clothing might accumulate. But heavy rain made scavenging hard.

 I was heading out with Simon, Frank, Jake and one other dude, can't remember his fucking name. I was once again the lucky one, the only female in the group. They usually were somewhat respectful, and if they weren't, well, I wasn't afraid to use brute force. And they knew it.

 It always made me laugh when I think of how things are now, compared to what they were, before the end. I was a dancer, no, not a stripper, which is what most fuckers thought when I told them. Fuck, mind in the gutter. I was a ballerina, well, more like a ballet teacher. You know what they say, those that can’t, teach.

 Anyway, my point being that I am small, and even smaller with the lack of 3 balanced meals. But I'm squirrelly, as Simon calls it. And I know how use most any object as a weapon. Simon's Negan’s right hand man. Simon is also my boss, I guess you could say, and probably the only friend I have in the Sanctuary.

  And Negan. Negan is the man, the one who runs the whole show. The one who most are scared shitless of. But not me. Don't get me wrong, I do respect him for what he's done, is doing. It's not a job I would want. But he doesn't scare me. And I know that pisses him off.

 I try to steer clear of him, never take runs with him, follow his rules, anything so he won't notice me. I met him when I first came to the Sanctuary. Got the whole Negan treatment. Work for points or be my wife and live like a queen. He says wife, I say sex doll, potato, potato. Either way, no.thank.you.

 So that's why I'm on a run. It's either that or scrubbing toilets, hmm easy choice for me. Going on runs can be fun. You never know what you might come across. I've gotten some great stuff before. We aren't supposed to keep it for ourselves, it goes back to the Sanctuary to be sorted out. But I've pocketed a few items. What Negan doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

 So I'm standing in the Sanctuary lot, in the rain, waiting for everyone. I'm always on time, they're always late. Nice.

 “We don't need a fucking army for this run, it's just a fucking milk run, Simon!”

  Shit! It's Negan! What the hell Simon, he knows not to put me on runs with him. Goddamn!

  “Well, well, well! Dollface! Fancy meeting you and your fucking fine ass here!”

 “Negan.”

 “Is that all you've got to say? No, good morning sir? No, you are looking mighty fine sir, let’s fuck?”

 Jesus! I just glare at him, hoping the heat in my cheeks doesn't show. “And why do we have the pleasure of your company on this run, sir?”

 “Sir, I like your respect darling.” He moved closer to me, so close I could smell just how good he smelled. Ugh. He then proceeded to put his arm around me. “Take a page from this little lady men, re-fucking-spect, remember that!’

 I turned to stare at Simon, hoping he could feel my anger. He looked at me and shrugged. Bastard!

 I started for the van that Simon was driving, I always rode with him, when someone grabbed my arm. “You're riding with me doll.”

 I gasped, “uh, sir, I always ride with Simon.”

 “Well, change is fucking good, get in the truck doll.”

 I climbed into the truck, already a sense of dread in my bones. This is going to fucking suck.

 Negan opened the driver’s side door, swinging his beloved bat, Lucille into the truck first. “Help Lucille in doll?”

  I took the bat, careful not to touch her barbed wire covering. She was cleaned up from her last outing, but I could still see bits and pieces of a job well done.

 “Admiring my lady, doll? She is a fucking thing of beauty, no?”

 “She's something alright.” I smiled, looking out the window and dreading this run already.

 He started the truck up, radioing Simon to ask which way we were heading then stating we would follow.

 Thank the gods the place we were heading to was a short drive. We got in, got some great things, not a lot in quantity, but quality. We were soon back on the road, no walkers or other survivors to be found. A successful run.

 Well, I spoke too soon. Right after we started back to the Sanctuary, the truck sputtered to a stop. And unfortunately, we were the last to leave, the others had headed back before us.

 “Fuckity fucking fuck! Jesus!” Negan picked up the radio, yelling at Simon. No answer. “What the fuck?!” He started banging the radio.

 “They're too far out, sir, no reception. Once they realize we aren't coming, they'll come look for us. Until then, we’re stuck.” I sighed, picking at the wire on Lucille.

 “Well, well, this is certainly a fucking predicament we are in. Most cer-tain-ly!” Negan turned in his seat, staring over at me.

 “Soooo what do you suggest we do with our fucking time alone, darling?

 The way he said alone, my body started rebelling against what I knew was right.

 “I don't know, sir, sing some round robin songs? Maybe thumb wrestle?”

 I vaguely heard something that sounded like a groan come from him. “Ohh, ba-by, you are so fucking adorable!” He reached over to touch my cheek, but I caught his wrist before he made it.

 “Sir, please keep to your own side of the vehicle.” I looked back down at Lucille.

 “You like my Lucille, sweetheart? She seems to have taken a liking to you also. You like to hold it, doll?” I could just hear the smirk he was wearing.

 “I like weapons of all kinds, and yes, I do like Lucille. She has a nice feel to her, nice hold.”

 He started laughing a deep gruff laugh. “I see what you did there. You thought I meant, do you like holding Lucille. But doll, that wasn't,” He leaned over, taking a hold of my chin and forcing me to look at him. “what I meant. Are you being coy with me?”

 “Negan, sir, this isn't a good idea. You have your wives, I have my pride.” I'm not sure if I was trying to convince him, or me.

 “Oh baby girl, I'm not asking for a fucking commitment, just a little bit of fuckity fun! You are too cute! And making me fucking hard as steel” He reached down, palming himself through his pants.

 I glanced over, noticing just how large that bulge was. And then I threw all caution, and my self worth, to the wind.

 Crawling over the truck bench seat, I situated myself right next to him, my knees against his thigh.  I slowly removed my jacket, throwing it behind me. I then lifted my tee up and over my head, leaving me in just my purple lace bra.

 “Well, darling, this is a most pleasant outcome!” He reached out, grabbing a breast in each hand and squeezing. I let my head roll back, enjoying being touched in this way, it had been so long. A moan escaping from me.

 Negan moved his hand down, unbuttoning my jeans, slipping his long fingers down into my pants. He then leaned over whispering in my ear. “No panties doll? You ARE a dirty girl!”  His voice causing me to shiver.

 “Didn't have enough points to do my laundry.” I was able to rasp out.

 I rose up on my knees, shimmying out of my pants, almost falling over onto Negan in the process.

 “Woohoo, little bit anxious there doll!” He was unzipping his fly, pulling out his now totally erect, and quite thick, cock. “Don't worry baby girl, I'll make it fucking fit.” He sniggered. “Crawl on over sweetheart, show Daddy some fucking lovin’!”

 I went to straddle him, slamming my back into the steering wheel. “Motherfucking shit!!!”

 “Oh my my, such a nasty mouth on this one!” He laughed, but then repositioned the seat. “Better baby?”

 “Much, thank you.” I rubbed my back.

 I put my hands on his shoulders, steadying myself as I began to grind myself over his dick, lubing him up with my wetness.

 “By the sounds you're making, I'm guessing it's fucking been awhile for you, hmmm?”

 “Uh…yes… god yes.”

 “I gave you other options y/n, didn't I?”

 “Yes… but I…dont share sir.”

 Suddenly, he lifted me up, then slammed me back down, impaling me on his more than adequate cock. I couldn't help but scream, the fact that it had been forever, and the oh so pleasant/painful stretch and burn.

 “Ride me baby, ride me hard and fast like I fucking know you can.” Negan growled in my ear, sending his tongue in to explore.

 The cab soon became full of obscene sounds, smells and sights. Windows completely steamed over, causing it to feel like we were in a sauna. The sweat running off our overheated bodies, tickling on the way down.

 Our mouths were all over, biting, licking, little kisses, starting on our lips, moving onto cheeks, ears, necks, chests.

 Negan was sucking on one nipple, fingering the other. I was pumping myself, up and down, making figure eight movements with my hips. I knew I was nearing my release, so I reached down between our heated bodies, quickly circling my hardened nub.

 “Negan...oh…god…im gonna…” He grabbed my hand, replacing it with his own.

 “Ok baby, come.”

 As if on command, I came, screaming his name, among other barely intelligible curses. Negan withdrew, coming all-over my stomach.  I collapsed into his chest, shaking.

 “Feeling good doll?” He laughed. Placing his arms around me, he seemed to be hugging me closer.

 “That was nice.” Sighing, I took in his smell.

 Suddenly, the radio crackled to life.

 “Boss? Everything OK?”

 Negan sat up, letting his arms fall from around me. Grabbing the radio, he answered Simon. “Yeah, we’re OK, fucking truck, not so much.”

 “Okay, we’re heading back for ya.”

 “Shit doll, guess cuddling is out. Got to get fucking dressed”

 I crawled off of him, scooching back to my side. “Uh, Negan, do you have something I can use to clean up?”

 He laughed. “Use these.” He threw his boxers at me. “Now we can be fucking commando twins.”

 I wiped my stomach off, trying hard not to laugh. “Well, that was an interesting afternoon.”

 “Yes, it fucking was doll.”

 After we were both dressed, we just sat there waiting for the guys to come back.

 “I hope you don't think this was a one time thing doll.”

 “Negan, I'm not going to be one of many. It's not what I do, what I am. I have my pride.”

 Laughing, he said, “I wasn't asking you to be one of many, baby. You are definitely one of a kind, my kind.”

 What the fuck did that mean?

 I wanted to respond when Simon arrived. “Boss, you and y/n go get in the van, we’ll take care of this.”

 I climbed out of the truck, grabbing Lucille. Handing her to Negan, I glanced up into his face, to see if I could see something. “I'm not done with you yet.” He rubbed his fingers on my cheek.

Oh god, my life just got a whole lot more complicated.

[ecotone99]

[SP] The Carousel Troupe

Under the corrugated iron roof there are twenty men in vests, wearing soot and sweat and suit jackets and glasses. There they build things, tear them down sometimes even, the ground has grates for their spit and piss and, when there is an accident, blood. Together, begrudgingly, they work on a joined project, they have families to feed, a vacation coming up, they need this more than they can express. The project is a carousel. A big one. It has horses, lions leaping to catch the eagles who fly before them, bears bowing down for fish, roaring up at the clouds, a winding Chinese dragon with a seat at each one of the waves in its long python frame. There are gods on chariots, penguins, deer that have fur that changes colours with the season, unicorns with horns of ivory. Ivory is illegal in most parts of the world. Not here.

The workmen sit and spit and drink on the job. Great lengths of fired iron, writhing orange in the centre and white-hot on the outside, sharp with heat, pulled out of metal beasts with metal tools, flying above the floor and curving towards a conveyor belt that they would loop, semi-predictably, onto. Not before, of course, the person working the flaming snake jumps over it. It was a gross, ugly, dangerous, beer-drinking, piss-going, blood-pumping, fire wielding lottery. The winners got the pleasure of living, albeit with a scar, at the very least, to remind them of their time in the warehouse. These conditions were inhumane. Not here.

Up on the steel walkways the foreman would waltz around carefree, the odd spark flew his way, but he was mostly out of the danger. His position as foreman did not, however, grant him privileges to his own bathroom, so his pants would drop like flies, sometimes his fly would drop too, he was a big man. He would aim for the gutters, the grates, ‘guttersnipes’, he called his little game. That is what he would do, scream, “Guttersnipes!” and watch as the workers below scatter as if someone had announced a bombing or the death of a relative and they are compelled to run to the scene (or run away from it) without permission from the foreman. Plenty got hit with the foreman’s piss, plenty more than plenty, he would often only shout once his stream was in the air, and the sooty air meant the workers had a hard time seeing him, and he they. This, in most places, might make the news, maybe even at a reasonable hour depending on the day. Not here.

Then one day they all left, gone, poof. Moving on with their lives, new places, new people, a thousand stories of deaths and the defying of it collecting in a warehouse in the arse-end of nowhere. Leaks sprung in the ceiling, little holes in the paper-thin shield, and it filled up the grates of piss and blood and spit until they overflowed, it smelled for a while before the Winter rain diluted it, dissolved the smells or pulled them further away toward the rivers or sea.

In this time, many-a-teenager climbed in through broken roof or by cutting holes in the weak walls. Here they congregated to smoke and to drink themselves into stupor and silliness, presumably far away from society. A few more came in pairs, dipping behind stacks of wooden boxes and under the metal railings and the foreman’s platform and into debauchery. They would scream and moan and be unsure, the sound would stop at a footstep, sometime people would interrupt, they could hide for hours behind those wooden boxes, nobody ever checked.

It was behind those wooden boxes, stacked high up against a wall, that there appeared a winding trail of blood and the body of a girl, pale and cut up. Dead. She was screaming when she died, a tall man ran off into the darkness streaming red of his own as he did, he collapsed not far away in a field, a stab wound in his side. To this day that don’t know who killed who. One police officer joked to another, as they do joke in these awful situations, “Do we question the carousel?” Ah, but if they had. But if they had.

People came and went, fewer than before, and many were older people checking for younger people or crazy, twitching, poor men and women armed to the teeth with tiredness and sorrow. And those ‘crazy people’ did come, oh how they came! But never maliciously, just with desire for a bed of dirt, perhaps a carousel horse or Chinese dragon to listen to their deepest secrets, their many regrets, how they just wanted, just wanted, just wanted to stop. For that was how they said it, many of them, angrily, in a pique. “To sleep and wake up ten years ago, what a pleasure,” they would say behind their words, with the fear in their eyebrows, a scarcity or abundance of full-stops.

The police would come and ask them to leave, back to the streets, back to the alleyways, back to the wandering about at early morn till dusk, strategising their sleeping place, scurrying like rats through a sitting room, hopeful, terrified. Private property. Unused private property.

One day, a man came in, escorted by people in black shirts and pants, guns at their sides, eagle eyes sweeping over the area. They never spotted the scared old woman behind the boxes, lying on blood of a little girl and her killer.

“She’s beautiful!” said the man, he smiled wide, his teeth and craters where teeth once were on display like piano keys, “They’re beautiful.”

“Really?” said one of the armed escorts, “But it’s all banged up, I mean, look at the fuckin spider!” and laughed. The spider was missing six of its legs and half its eyes.

“This isn’t “banged-up”, this is time-worn. I’ll see that it gets all fixed.” Said the man with the big smile, doting, “Did they say it was a mover?”

The other armed escort piped up, “It’s just a showpiece sir, never made to spin.”

“It’ll spin.” He said, and continued in his beatific trance, “Oh, the canopy! It’s perfect! A Chameleon, elephants! Dolphins! Real ivory! Not illegal here! No, No, No!”

Then sun was bright in the eyes of the carousel animals as they were carried somewhere far away by a new metal beast, one they hadn’t seen before. The top blades spun like the fiery pillars that those men, the workers, would throw about the warehouse, and it flew, flew above fields and water, above houses and cliffs that drove themselves like a wedge deep into the water. Above mountains and little meadows, between caverns and glens, setting down where they would be set down, for they had no control, no freedom. The whole sky and no freedom.

The grass was pushed down as if by a heavy boot when they were brought to land again. It was a great carousel. The water rushed to all sides of the many-ton circle and escaped in one, long, diminishing tidal wave. “Where do you think we are?” said Chameleon

“Somewhere better, I hope. The other place was homey but dreadfully boring.” Said the unicorn, ivory horn casting a sword-blade shadow in the sun.

“Shit to shit, I say. Just being realistic.” Said the bear whose head was bent down to the ground, scanning the metal ground for fish

The animals debated that night, Unicorn and Bear being the two loudest voices. The men in black shirts and pants, no guns now, came to the carousel came after the sun had fell beneath the waves, they brought and screwdriver, a chisel, and a hammer. They moved to Unicorn and did a slow job on his horn, working for one whole torturous hour to rip it out of his head. Illegal here. How he screamed for that hour - and cried after. They couldn’t hear him. It rained that night, they were given no roof or embraces like they might have gotten from the odd person who slept on the dirt or metal, or one of the godly chariots that never had spun around, not even once. It was then that they had agreed, “Shit to shit.”

They were moved to a warehouse at dawn, a large crane-on-wheels rattled and grumbled and smoked a black smoke into the air as it carried them part of the way, calling three more for backup for the rest. The warehouse was clean, there was white clinical walls, yes, but it was warm, there was a roof, there was no blood on the wooden boxes near the corners, there was light from the windows undarkened by dust. There were toilet facilities, no fire-snakes, no foreman screaming “Guttersnipe,” like a mad-king from the speech-giving balcony of his great palace, from which he could watch and see, really see his power, and then, obligation to the body being primary, use his power. There was paperwork done here, signatures, not that the carousel troupe knew what that was. It looked organised, like those teenagers who would roll their sheets up, which were covered in numbers and letters and strange symbols, they called it maths, to smoke them. There was an artistry to it, it felt timeless, every generation had to do it. Or at the very least they should.

The days were long, they talked forever, when they ran out of things to talk about, which had happened a long, long time ago, they played little games. They would play something like chess, same idea anyway, one of the gods had come up with it, or was it the donkey? Spider was the best at it, he never lost. They would call out where they wished to move their pieces on the board, the board was in their heads, and they’d have two adjudicators that would remember the board as well in case either of the players forgot. They often joked that Spider had given up six of her legs and half her eyes for how good she was at the game, and she’d always say that she still had more eyes than anybody else, and still the same number of legs as the gods. As this was going on, the mystery men, the workers new, would tinker away and stare and plan and take their break sitting in the chariots or on the dragon, on the back of a galloping horse, a wolf, a great manticore.

The lights went off, everybody went home to their families and fireplaces and warm beds for the night. The side door of the warehouse opened again; light poured in from the next room over. A man came out, short, thin, with a big piano-key smile. He went over to Horse, whose plastic had been washed of its original chestnut colour and was now a pale as pinewood, his golden reins and wild reddish eyes had never lost their colour though, and so the contrast between he and his clothes grew, and he became more beautiful with time. “We shall run away together, my friend. Escape.” Said the man. Many a murmur of death was past about the carousel that night, Horse heard it all. His soul told him to run, his hooves, welded to the metal floor, his body, pierced with a great metal spear, told him otherwise.

Mr. Aubrey, with his piano-key teeth and midnight visits, was the foreman in this warehouse, factory, building. They couldn’t place what the building really was, not completely, it was too clinical to be a warehouse, not enough heavy machinery to be a factory. The words, as they so often are, were used interchangeably. The late-night visits persisted, the door would crack open, sending a line of yellow light across the clean ground from the room in which Mr. Aubrey liked to stay, and liked to, at night, amble happily out of. He would make his own little changes to Horse, he sparked little fires, shot blue licks of heat into his parts. Horse would scream, blood, if there were any, would curdle, the other plastic-metal animals, poked with spears as he was, would attempt to console him, he would try to listen. He would fail. The man opened up the side hatch of Horse, taking parts out putting new ones in, soldering glowing green and blue orbs that hung from springs and coils and plastic like bells on the leash of a cat. “There, there.” Said Mr. Aubrey, thinking him just plastic and reins, “I do my best not to leave a mark.”

Dragon saw the whole thing, he had two heads, each chasing each other’s tails like a winding ouroboros, yet he was one and could see out of both. “You are Horse no longer, I think.” He said, he had a wise voice, people listened, even if his tenor and his sentence did not match, “We’ll call you Lightning, or Sparks. For all the changes, you understand.”

During the day the workers worked, the foreman watched, at night the foreman snuck around, spoke to Lightning, or Sparks, or Horse, dragged ultraviolet fireworks from his insides, set him alight, and sealed him back up for the workers to come in the next day. This persisted, the need to run persisted, the night time visits, the working men lunching on the chariots and Manticore, on majestic beasts of old and myth, dropping crumbs and water bottles and little leaves of lettuce that flew wildly in the air as if in a hurricane. Until something changed. The other door opened, the one at the front of the warehouse, and in stumbled a man with white hair that sank down below his shoulders. He had on a spiral-patterned beanie that covered his eyebrows and coiled its way around his head. In his left hand there was the top of a bottle jutting out of the top of a brown paper bag. He sang, the words like they were water in his mouth, like waves, ethereal, unintelligible, somehow still soothing.

The new man was someone the carousel troupe had seen a million times before, a man who needed a place to sleep, away from the cold rain which now slapped with the force of hail on the roof. The man put his right hand out and felt the ground, looked absently for cover so that if someone was to enter, he might leave before them seeing, although it would be at least ten hours before a plan like that was possible on account of his loud steps and pronounced wobble. Mr. Aubrey’s door opened a crack, the light shone towards the drunk man’s foot, he didn’t notice, the door was pulled shut. They all silently hoped the police wouldn’t come, wouldn’t force this man out to freeze as they had seen them do before, if they had an inkling of what might happen next they might have prayed for the police, prayed for the man to freeze. Mr. Aubrey shot out of his door like a madman, wielding two large kitchen knives as deftly as any surgeon with scalpels. There was a coldness that ran through the plastic bodies of the troupe under the canopy of the carousel, the same feeling one might get when the see a waterfall at the end of the river they are sailing down. A coldness in the air that Aubrey breathed, a cold off-kilter manner to his half-sprint, half relaxed amble. Mr. Aubrey smiled his piano key smile and cut the man up slowly, letting him scream, but not too loud, letting him bleed, but not too much. He did have to clean it, after all. When the job was done, he put the body somewhere inside the door he always left and came back out to speak to and to change that beast he called Horse. “Mine, you’re my horse. Good horse. Tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came, the men seemed lighter, they had not brought lunchboxes in plastic and paper bags with them. “Ready to be done with this piece of shit?” one of the workers said to another

“Feel bad for those guys on the painting team, that’s gonna be one helluva job. And with Toothy lookin’ over your shoulder.” Said another

“We get to run?” asked Manticore

“Sounds like it.” Said Dragon

“Run where?” asked Chameleon

“Nowhere.” Said Horse, “Fucking nowhere.” He felt sick, his plastic frame and the metal spear growled and shook, he thought it angry with him for hating Mr. Aubrey. He longed for the smell of piss, and blood, and spit, or the fresh open air of the ride on that flying metal beast or the night outdoors in the rain. Anything. Not this factory with no stench, the warmth of new blood on the clinical white. “White, white, white, why is the whole thing white? Where’s the red, from last night, where the yellow and red? Where’s the feeling, the debauchery, the dipping behind the brown boxes, risk, pleasure, death? We’ve been around for too long, my friends. We’ve not changed. Surely, we must have seen small children turn to parents, turn to the police officers, the same ones we would swear at on entry to our domain, time and time again. How long has it been? Too long, I say. They bring us to life now, I say no, I say run, against the metal, against the spears. Fly, Eagle, phoenix, dragon, to the sun and moon our gods, fail and fly and run and die. Manticore, feed, kill, sprint, sweat. Chameleon, disappear, blend, terrify, confuse. My reins are plastic not leather, fake not real, I shall do no such thing as move for these puppet masters.”

The thousand bulbs stuck the canopy lit up, a jaunty circus tune came in and out of earshot menacingly, only one of the rotating speakers on the top was working. The rotation began slowly, the animals and mythical creatures began to dip, rise, dip, rise, dip, rise. Mr. Aubrey jumped on while it was moving, grasped the spear which was stuck through Horse’s chest. He bent his back so that his mouth was beside Horse’s ear, placed his hand on the side of the spear and twisted it. The spear began to dissolve into something other, it was mercurial, it slid down Aubrey’s suit jacket as he rode, it dripped off of Horse’s mane and his plastic skin and down onto the floor of the carousel. Lights flashed on and off, away and back, there was something in them, fire, new flame. The smoke came on first, then the canopy was ablaze, a thousand bulbs exploded, the glass shards spilled out around the troupe.

There was screaming from the other plastic creatures still skewered. Some breathed heavily, although they had no need to breath, other looked about regretting the fact that they had to die in such a place as this, one where you’re more likely to see a dead body that a friend. The sea-creatures screamed the loudest, for they saw it in the most colour, through the most vibrant lens. Where Horse saw an orange flame, the crustaceans and fish and sea-dwelling lizards saw ropes of colours none of the others could comprehend, terrifying colours, colours they had never seen before except at the front of the cigarettes and rolled up sheets those teenagers would roll and smoke. Horse could twist his neck as if it wasn’t plastic, as if had joints, tendons, muscles. Dragon saw Horse looking around, as Dragon sees everything.

His eyes opened as wide as is possible for a plastic dragon, “Go it, Lightning!” he screamed, “Go it, Sparks!”

Aubrey kicked Horse’s sides, his hooves tore away from the metal that was holding him down, bolts and nuts and sense going with him.

How fast he sprinted! How his legs kicked the air to dust behind him! Aubrey hung on barely, the golden reins were studded with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, false all but beautiful the same. Horse was unaware of how he got out of the factory, couldn’t even guess at where he was going, he just knew that his hooves were scraping grass and that he was running faster than any carousel ride would allow. What they had flown over, the cliffs, the glens, the voluptuous fields of golden wheat and grass greener now in the sunset. “Forward!” cried Mr. Aubrey, “Yes!”

Horse did go forward, straight forward to a cliff edge, slowing before he got there, tipping Aubrey over the edge when they arrived.

Horse ran for a bit more, sparks running off his hooves as they scraped away from rocky ground, his mane blowing in the evening wind, running unprotected by bolt or by spear, running with all the risk in the world. Right now, he could die, he could fall and break everything, he could lose himself and topple over cliff edge, die in any number of ways, and it was liberating. Now he need only pick one. His skin was hardening his fur beginning to stick together, to grey. There was a little dirt path nearby, he thought, he shall fly, like Dragon, “Go it, Lightning!” he has said. He ran to cliff above the path, neighed at the strange and tiny birds that littered the grass fields where he trotted. He reared up in the air, forelegs up high above where the cliff stopped, his head held nobly forward like a fighting ox. He froze, plastic, stone, he didn’t care. It wasn’t just his body freezing now but his mind. He smelled the fresh air one last time, the tinge of burn that followed on his run, and he knew his friends were there with him, just as free as him, all on the next leg of their adventure, as he was on his. If a horse could smile, then he was, if not, well, he tried, by God he tried.

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[jakeshoshspain]

WWOOFING!!

Our only main complaint about our WWOOFing experience was that it wasn’t long enough.

1) It was breath-takingly beautiful. The mountains were dramatic and mostly untouched, just sprinkled with tiny isolated ancient farm cottages a few miles up every other twist in the road. Then every 30-60 minutes you hit a tiny village packed tightly with a few dozen- a hundred or so traditional white houses and flower pots and hanging pork legs filling every crack. The town we stayed in was called Juviles (pronounced hugh-veal-ace, not jew-viles). It had a total population of 80 people, mostly of incredibly old people who have lived there for generations and generations and crazy cool ex-pats like our hosts.

2) Our hosts were awesome. Damian and Roki had just moved here from London, buying this large plot of land in the Sierra Nevada Mountains about a year ago. Damian still writes for some British publications but spends most of his time tending to his new land and many varieties of trees. Roki is a baker and makes incredible brick oven bread weekly, which she sells to all the people in the town and some in the neighboring towns. (It’s actually fascinating how she does it, the type she makes requires her to kneed the dough every 30 minutes for hours and hours: she starts at 7pm and finishes around 3am, then wakes up at 5 to start putting them in the oven.) Anyway, they were welcoming, made us feel right at home, easy to talk to, taught us a ton, and were always having fascinating conversations with us about all kinds of topics.

3) The work was really cool, kind of fun and often educational. The first few days solely consisted of nonstop olive picking, then we learned how to make soap, plant trees (with layers of different types of soil coverage), prune trees, distribute seeds, sow fields, feed chickens, etc. We had a large variety of jobs to keep things interesting, from cleaning out the chicken coop to deconstructing branches into different varieties of fire wood, to destroying a built-in brick/concrete section of their house they wanted to clear out.

4) BRUNO!! They had the best dog ever. She’s only a year old and has SO much energy. (Yes, she’s a female dog named Bruno, they didn’t check her gender before naming her so they decided she’s a progressive gender fluid dog.) She’d sprint laps around us as we worked and then periodically sprinted right into us to demand some pets and cuddles. By the end of the day she’d tire herself out so thoroughly she’d just come up to us and plop on our laps and pass out while I gave her some doggie massages. Day #2 of olive picking though she found some dead carcass to roll in and she literally smelled like death. That’s why Jake has his jacket over his nose in that picture.

So they had a beautiful house, built in the typical Andalucian mountain town style with incredibly thick white ceramic walls and Moorish tiles. Their property stretched about a football field or two down the mountain. The land has an impressive variety of old fruit, nut and olive trees Damian is working to resurrect and a ton more he’s begun planting. If I remember correctly he has apple trees, peaches, raspberries, pears, chili peppers, persimmon, pomegranates, apricots, lemons, tons of almonds, olives, I think green onions, tomatoes, radishes… honestly I can’t remember them all (the list goes on for a while). Then there’s a chicken coop with 5 or 6 chickens and two big fields we sowed and planted rye. They also have a fascinatingly intricate ancient irrigation system that they think was originally constructed maybe a thousand years ago! There’s a giant community water storage pool up hill from the town that’s connected through ceramic gutters to each household water storage pool. Each household is carefully allocated a specific amount of water; Damian explained there’s always intense commotion over people accusing others over taking more than their fair share, (it’s the town’s main source of drama). Apparently the mayor is taking advantage of her power and draining more of the pool than she’s allowed but no one wants to stand up to her because of her connections to other resources. Anyhow, they also have ceramic gutters branching from their personal water storage pool and stretching all throughout their property, which you can see in the first photo. (There’s also a water storage pool one of the photos, not theirs, just a neighbor’s that happened to be in the foreground of one of my drive-by snapshots of the sunset on the way home from olive picking.)

Anyway, the first few days of olives were pretty exciting. Most of the trees had been abandoned and in terrible shape the year before when Damian and Roki first moved in last year. So the amount of this year’s olive production after a year’s work of pruning and care was impressive. Really, I don’t think they were prepared for how productive their trees had become and tried to shove an harvest into only a few days. (They had an appointment to press the olives into olive oil on Wednesday, but waited until we got here on Sunday to start picking with us.) They had 2 big olive trees on a hill beside their patio, 5 or 6 mini ones I picked by hand nearby and 2 giant ones out into their property, slightly hanging off a mini-cliff and surrounded by stab-y bushes we got the first day. Then the second and third day we trekked out to this other patch of land they own a 20 minute drive down the mountain, which they haven’t really surveyed since they did some harvesting and a lot of pruning last year. There were at least 25 olive trees packed into this hilly thorny landscape, and most of them were filled with hundreds of big juicy, perfectly ripe olives. Then on the third day, Damian discovered a few more giant olive trees on the edge of his property that he didn’t even realize he had.

But it was also kind of exciting and fun to see how many olives were possible to pick in 3 days with 1 semi-experienced olive picker (who didn’t speak English) and 4 mostly first time olive-pickers. The more experienced olive picker was their friend Miguel who regularly joined us from his remote cottage a twisty 20-minute drive up the mountain from Juviles. The olive-picking technique we generally tried to use included positioning giant nets around the trees, and then using a few various methods to got the olives down. These included hand picking the lower branches, combing them off the branches just above our heads with a mini makeshift rake, and hitting the top branches really hard with a giant stick. I usually preferred the handpicking jobs while Jake enjoyed expressing all his inner anger whacking the top branches with all his might (it was as funny to watch as it sounds). Next, we’d pick out all the actual branches and leaves that also fell off during the whacking and raking before we’d pile the netted olives into a crate. But often this didn’t totally work according to plan because the olive trees were planted many years ago in places that don’t actually make any sense, like mid-steep hill and edges of mini cliffs. So you can imagine how creative we had to get positioning sufficient nets around those trees, with branches full of hundreds of juicy olives hanging over difficult to access ground. Also since it was Damian and Roki’s first year learning to prune olives trees, a lot of the branches were way too high up to reach, and many hung over giant painful weed bushes full of sharp burrs. Damian liked to declare, “No olive left behind!!” while Roki was more inclined to take a more laid-back let’s-just-get-what’s-reasonable, lets-not-hurt-ourselves tone (I think she was a little paranoid about over-working us).

I had a lot of fun though trying to make some ninja moves climbing high to reach and pull down some of the seemingly inaccessible branches. We picked olives from about 10am-5:30pm with a quick lunch break for 3 days. Whenever we closed our eyes all we could see was olives, olives, and olives. We filled their dozen or so crates so fast we had to borrow all of the neighbor’s crates, then use sacks and bags, getting creative about how we could even transport so many olives. In the end, we picked a total of 330 kilos of olives (727 lbs) which turned into 110 kilos (242 lbs) of olive oil. The oil was delicious, stronger and much more fragrant and flavorful than the olive oil I’m used to. They gave us some samples to take home so remind Jake and I to offer you some if you’re interested in trying it!

[ghosteddie]

The stuff you've posted about abuse has really helped me, do you mind talking about what happened?

Yeah so hello readmore. As you seem to already know, my inbox is open if you need anything else. I use the IM thing too.

I’m glad that my stuff is helping you, I won’t share everything but I’ll explain some of the different stuff I’ve endured. I know I felt like I was somehow alone and living the same life as everyone else at the time, like it was normal and nobody would understand. So I understand why you’d ask this.

We’ll start with childhood. The basic building blocks of how I lived as a kid are:

My mom would spoil my brother while degrading me for existing. He was perfect but I could never do anything right. I always feel like maybe I made this up, like it wasn’t that bad, but I vividly remember instances like standing in the middle of the store and asking for a t-shirt, getting a no, then watching her say yes to my brother for the same t-shirt. She ponied up a shit ton of dough to get him into football and soccer, but she wouldn’t let me go to my choir concerts even though it was REQUIRED for a grade in my class and took me out of soccer the second I got scouted for an advanced league. I wasn’t allowed to be good at anything and I wasn’t allowed to have nice things.

If I tried to figure myself out and express my identity, I was punished. A friend painted my nails at lunch at school one day in middle school, it was a pale color, you could barely see it. Another parent had bought it for their child, so I can’t imagine it was like Harlet Brand. There was nothing wrong with it, but when I came home she emptied out a bottle of nail polish remover and made me sit still as a statue and hit me if I moved. I had to sit there for almost a full 24 hours without peeing or eating or drinking water, I wasn’t allowed to move until the nail polish ate itself in the remover. I wasn’t even allowed to rub my fingers over the polish. I was always put in adult size XXXXL, t-shirts were three quarter length sleeved and went to my knees. If I didn’t disappear in it and it didn’t look like I was just a pile of clothes, it was too small. My friends would buy me things for my birthday out of pity but my mom always took everything away immediately, their mothers felt so bad and I never knew what to do about it. She didn’t even throw this stuff that I wasn’t allowed to have away or donate it; she reveled in keeping it in her room like a trophy. She liked me being able to see that the stuff that I wanted was still there but I couldn’t have it.

She shaved my head at every opportunity.

She beat me for just about every reason I can imagine that she could think of. My brother pissed her off? Beat me. She had a bad day at work? Beat me. I didn’t do enough for her? Beat me. I literally broke bones. I have scars to this day.

She used me as a slave. Even back as far as I can remember in like elementary school, I was the one in charge of cooking for everyone, I was in charge of cleaning up after everyone, and I did all of the laundry. There was not a chore that was not my responsibility.

She liked to tell me that I was going to grow up to be as big as her. That I would be as ugly as her. That I would be her. She’d tell me my life was worthless, that she brought me into this world and she could take me out of it. She’d tell me that I couldn’t do anything. I’ve always loved to sing, but if she ever heard a peep she would always berate me for it. She’d tell me I was terrible and a bother for having an interest. That I shouldn’t even be seen, let alone heard. My brother would join in on this. They’d laugh.

Nothing was ever allowed to be wrong with me either, which really fucks me up. I fell down the stairs and twisted my knee so hard it was purple and she told me to walk it off, then laughed and called me a sissy lala when I cried because it hurt. I broke my funny bone on her work property and the only reason we even know that is because even though she was laughing at my bleeding nose, chipped tooth, and steadily growing arm that was changing green and blue and purple and calling me a pansy for saying it hurt, her boss INSISTED she take me to the hospital.

She ripped my cast off by force less than a week later. Said I’d only use it for pity and I didn’t need it anyway.

The next step from there was total neglect. There’s a big story for me going to the children’s shelter, but she basically was just like whatever I don’t want him and then proceeded to not give a shit about trying to see me. She basically just washed her hands of me.

In my later teen years, after I’d been in the foster care system and started taking care of myself, she ended up back in my life. Things are going fuzzy, I don’t remember how. But, at this time:

She no longer beat me. In fact, she acted like it never happened and just didn’t acknowledge it at all. I think that is the most terrifying thing she’s ever done.

She would tell me a sob story about how her landlord was coming for x, y, or z and then ask me if I could come over to help her clean up. She’d tell me that her landlord would kick her out if they saw how much of a mess her house was and she’d say she had no idea what else to do. I would spend a whole week straight cleaning her house. She wouldn’t help at all.

But she would laugh at me in front of my friends. She’d offer to take us out to dinner and then tell stories about what a pathetic little sniveling child I was.

When a boyfriend cheated on me and tried to throw me down her stairs and started ripping the gutters off her home, she looked at me bleeding and sobbing on the floor and said I’d let go of the best thing that had ever happened to me. That nobody else would love me and whatever he had done couldn’t possibly be bad enough to warrant robbing HER of time with him.

Then there’s the monster ex:

I always want to say that things started out slow and escalated, but that’s a lie. The first thing he did that was abusive was manipulating me into thinking his ex was the devil. He had me thinking this girl was making him want to kill himself, and he constantly sent me after he like an attack dog. I know that she wasn’t doing anything wrong because I do eventually simmer down and try to talk things out and all it took was a few simple screencaps to show the monster ex was a damned liar. He admitted it too when called out and we eventually became friends? Like it was the weirdest mindfuck he’s ever pulled. He tried to make his ex kill herself, then sent me to make her want to kill herself, and then we were friends. I even woke up from a drunk night wearing HER pants once. I drew abs on the woman. I think this is why he has yet to actually send anyone my way to bitch me out. He always has people yell at people, but not me. Not once. Because he learned that sending people to yell at someone for something that never happened ALWAYS backfires.

The first err against me was after we’d moved in together. We were really happy, and I know he likes to play like he was never happy now that all is said and done, but that’s just more abuse. It’s his way of erasing his blame and making it look like he is some Super Pathetic Victim. He cheated. And he lied. To someone his ex knew too, more than once. It was a whole thing. Like he was laughing to my face and we were cuddling and I tied him to the heater and fucked him silly, but he still needed to have some pity to feed off of, so he made up some stuff. Which he admitted. But then kept doing. She kept falling for it. He would say stuff like he was going to steal my wallet in the middle of the night and run off to be Hummelberry in NY. I don’t even think he was really cheating because he liked the girl or because he wanted to cheat, he just wanted her to pity him to The Highest Extent.

Even just this far, there is obviously only one reason a person would stay with a person like that. And that reason is abuse. It’s fucking powerful.

He would ride my coattails whenever I’d do something online, and if people paid attention to me he had to push in too. He loved it when people loved us. Then he would start contolling the things I did. I cannot tell you how many times I admined a group and had to watch as he abused people in the group. He was so terrible. But I couldn’t say anything, I couldn’t stop him.

And he’d control who I could talk to, who I could write with in groups. He liked to ship wreck my ships. He’d already have like 5 ships with me and then he’d decide to make a 6th character and his FIRST move was always finding one of my character’s to ruin. He literally brought his abuse into character. He abused one of my rp characters in the same way he abuses me and the ENTIRE rp was SO uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until I started telling him to stop treating me like shit that things got really heated up. I never understood it and it drove me insane at the time, but he would abuse me and I would say he was abusing me and he would nod his head and tell me he understood. We’d have a heart to heart convo about how he was hurting me and how he could avoid doing that in the future. I’d ask him to remember to consider me as a human being all the time, he always forgot I wasn’t just a stepping stool. But we’d get to a good place and I’d think he understood. He would have expressed his heartfelt desire to do better and be a better person— but then he would go online and throw pity parties about how terrible I was.

He had a huge love of gaslighting or making shit up. He would post about me on his blog to get attention all the time, and talk to his friends about me. Just lie, right through his teeth. Nothing was too outrageous for him to go for. He had to villify me, and as far as I’m concerned that’s abuse too. It’s practically cyberbullying when it’s done in a tightknit community. He’s sent me anon hate, he’s sent my friends anon hate, and he’s sent anon hate to other blogs about me. He’s also signed hate to other blogs about me, even after I finally got him out of my life. He can’t breathe without using lies about me to host a pity party. That feels like abuse to me. His lies weren’t ever even all that good. He’d be as bad as to say “I want you all to give me money so I can spend it on me” and then say “I wanted to give HIM that money, not me! I’m a saint!” Like…. the original post is right there with the words “for myself” written right on it but okay?

My mind is really going fuzzy now, so I’ll leave a really short list that will cover like 1/1000th of his daily abuse. Some of the every day things included:

Making me out to be the bad guy if I ever asked for anything

Guilting me for telling him when he did things that hurt me

Telling me things like that I wasn’t worth being treated with common decency, right to my face, just because he was mad. 

He pushed and pulled with his attention and affection a lot. He was always very manipulative in the way that he would pay attention or talk to me and be super sweet and then flip it when he got what he wanted. 

He was also very manipulative in the way he would be sweet to me and then shit talk me behind my back. Kind of like how he we romantic with me while cheating behind my back. I’m poly. Bro. Literally all you had to do was respect me as the person you’re already dating and a s k.

Signing into my messengers, reading my private stuff, especially after we fought, so that he could see what I was saying to my friends. If I ever dared to ask for help from someone, or said a word about him that wasn’t sparkling, he would immediately start another fight. 

Calling me fat - I will never forget this. I literally said, “If I were this big, I would jump off the roof and kill myself, I 100% cannot handle that I am freaking out” and he replied, “Well, you’re that big.” I’ve had serious eating disorders since childhood, fucking asshole. I don’t care what excuse a person can come up with, there is none for that. Even if your worst enemy says, “I’ll kill myself if ___” you do NOT reply with, “well, ____” unless you’re ABSOLUTE garbage. He tries to claim that he was only with me because he thought I’d kill myself if he left, that making shit up is another abuse thing, but if he gave a shit about my mental health or if I killed myself…. why the fuck did he tell me I was fat right after I specifically said I would kill myself if I was fat??????? And he knows I’m not lying. It wasn’t a funny haha I’d kill myself lol xD xD like his are. He knows I only say that shit when it is  r e a l.

Admittedly taking his anger out on me, yelling at me just because someone else made him mad

He would constantly tell me that my style was wrong, or that the clothes I was wearing made me look too girly. He was always telling me that I needed to be different, downing on me until I felt bad and had to second guess everything. I never really cared how people saw me until he started making me feel like every time someone looks at me, all they see is a girl. He pushed that transphobic, sexist, YOU HAVE TO LOOK LIKE A MAN TO BE A MAN bullshit on me all of the time.

Telling me all of my interests were stupid

Acting out whenever he had to do something. Like we were moving out of Arizona and packing things up into the Uhaul, we were almost done, we just had the Christmas stuff. We were moving on and off too, really lazy, but we did also do everything at once. So he starts whipping me with words as fast as he can, trying to get me to just shut down because he’s attacking me. It doesn’t work, I ask him to get the xmas stuff in location a while I go to location b and get shit done and I shit you not, Miller-opher Kingle, Mr. I Listen To My Thousand Song Christmas Playlist All Year Round himself screams out, “I DON’T EVEN LIKE CHRISTMAS!!!!” in his attempt to get me to give into him.

Complaining whenever I wanted to talk about my interests or indulge in my interests

While also shoving every fart he made under my nose and demanding validation

Forcing me to watch stuff he was interested in and even picking fights if I said no but always acting like I wanted him to rip off an arm if I wanted to pick something. 

Invading my private space. He was fucking obsessed with climbing into my bed and it was the creepiest and most terrifying thing in the world. Nobody wants to share a bed with their abuser, and nobody should have to deal with their abuser clinging to their arm like a tumor. Nobody should be forced to allow themselves to be used to up their abuser’s state of being. 

LOUD ASS FUCK SKYPE CALLS WHILE I AM ASLEEP but oh, better yell at me because I wanted to listen to music while he was awake and he’s just too lazy to put the headphones from his neck to his ears so he can block me out

Refusing to clean, making me do it, yelling at me whenever I asked him to help out even a little

Refusing to cook, he would rather starve if I didn’t always cook for him

Refusing to work, especially when we were freelance writing. I’d give him like 500 words total and then take one 50,000 words myself and STILL have to do half of his when I finished mine

Using all of my shit, even when I told him not to, even when he said he wouldn’t. It feels like abuse because it’s like pissing all over my stuff, taking my stuff. A lot of my costume makeup he completely used.

The biggest thing though was that if I couldn’t give him something useful, I was useless. If I wasn’t blowing compliments up his ass 24/7, I was useless. If I wasn’t cooking and cleaning up after him, I was useless. If I wasn’t praising him and showering him in attention, I was useless. If I wasn’t being whored out to the internet to draw in more people to adore him, I was useless. If I was telling him he had to change, that he couldn’t keep abusing me, I was useless. What I wanted never mattered. If we got two bags of chips, he got one and three fourths and I got one fourth. If we got two things and promised to share 50/50, he’d still manipulate me into getting at LEAST half of my half. I could never just have an equal amount of anything. We’d go out and take 100 pics of him and 0 of me. Even when we went to Lady Gaga and I was DRESSED like Lady Gaga herself and I was stopped by fellow fans for pics with strangers, the one event that was quite literally The Me Event, and we got ZERO photos of me. that even after I spent six hours pouring myself into a skimpy ass costume that I made myself, and even after we drove hours and hours to get to the concert, even with it being my birthday present, zero photos of me. I’m the only person at that event that did not go home with a dozen and a half photos of me, I shit you not. What does it say that we BOTH valued me so little? If you feel what I just described in any way, you’re probably being abused.

[slipteeha]

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The last time a longbow was used in combat was by the famed Brit commando Jack Churchill who would bring one to combat in WW2. He got a proven kill in France in 1940 with it. Jack Churchill is also in a Official Our first christmas together 2021 sophia and william shirt hoodie, sweater Shirt picture of British soldiers storming Normandy coming out of an LCI. If you look close you can tell who he is because he’s CARRYING A CLAYMORE SWORD. Yes really. During one point that day to rally British soldiers he jumped up im the midst of German MG fire and began playing the bagpipes. The Germans didnt shoot him they later said because seeing him in his kilt playing bagpipes and ignoring the battle they thought he’d lost his mind. The British soldiers did rally because of that and they found that out because those Germans were captured, by the way. Jack Churchill survived the war.

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