#I hope everyone is having fun prepping for future days or creating!!!

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Historical Fashion Challenge 2025

Day 4: Tudor Era (featuring the 6 wives of Henry VIII)

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[nebraska-is-a-myth]

c!Eret season 2 recap

I wanted to make an official recap of everything that c!Erret has done this season (post-november 16th) so here it is! Some of this is taken from the official wiki, but most of it is just from memory because the Eret dream smp fan wiki is lacking. Feel free to send any asks or questions if you have them.  

These Events are in chronological order

Given back the throne

Exactly 21 days after being dethroned by dream, in a surprise turn of events Dream re-crowns Eret as the king of the dream smp after realising that george was put in too much danger being a figurehead, especially after being killed by technoblade on his first day as king. However after this embarrassment on George's behalf, this creates newly formed enemies of Eret and the monarchy. To better defend themselves, Eret gathers their close allies HBomb (Who had taken residence in Erets castle) and CaptainPuffy and officially knights them. She gives them both blocks of Diamond named ‘onwards’ which is Erets name in latain.

Adoption of fundy

After the death of Wilbur, Eret realised that there was no one there to take care of Fundy anmore, and wanted to step up and provide a good support system for Fundy. Eret proposed to Fundy that she officially adopt him and even created a document of adoption for Fundy and Eret to sign. However, because Ph1lza was now technically Fundys legal guardian, the document also needed Phils signature for the adoption to go through. Phil was skeptical having never met eret before, but eventually gave the okay for the adoption to happen. Because of miscommunication, the adoption is still in process after a conflict arose between fundy and phil, so they have been unable to unanimously leaglise the adoption. Eret did make a joke that this would benefit him at getting back at dream after the dethroning because of the wedding between fundy and dream that was still to happen, however because the wedding technically isn't cannon (according to dream, although someone has yet to inform fundy lol) this was still just a joke. 

The Mexical l’manburg/El Rapids conflict

In an attempt to put Mexican l’manburg on the map and have people recognize it as an independent state, quackity led a movement in retaliation to regain the crown and restore George as the king. With this plan a small section of the path to Erets castle was blown up and Karl lost one of his cannon lives in the explosion in an attempt to frame Eret. Quackity tried to bring this information to Dream to have Eret dethroned again, but after seeing how George was treated under the monarchy, and accounts from both Eret and Puffy that these allegations were false, he refused and blew up Mexican L’manburg.

Stood against ranboo in his decision to choose his own side

When Ranboo became visibly upset after the explosion of the community house, Eret was one of the main opposers of Ranboo’s idea to not choose sides and just let whatever happens on doomsday, happen. In an effort to be redeemed, Eret pushed hard to help build the resistance and planned to fight to save l’manburg from being destroyed. They even offered up one of their fortresses as a headquarters for the group. 

Position on Doomsday

Was asked to join niki and fundy on their revenge story against l’manburg, and even though he agreed to this, he was undecided if the people on the revenge list needed to be taught any lesson.

However, on the morning of doomsday, fundy and niki came to Eret with an invitation to join them in sabotaging the resistance and letting l’manburg burn to the ground because of the safety it failed to give them. Even though Eret accepted this invitation, she disagreed heavily with the list of ‘people that needed to be taught a lesson’ that fundy and niki had created. 

First signs of redemption

Tommy's relationship grew with eret in the doomsday war, trusting Eret to help them

Before doomsday had officially commenced, it was just Eret and Tommy talking war prep before the others arrived. This was a major turning point for Eret as this is the first sign of trust Tommy had officially shown to Eret since the betrayal all those months ago. When Tommy died he even entrusted Eret to pick up his stuff and return it to him during the battle against the withers. 

Relationship with technoblade

A good note to make is that Technoblade and Eret are actually on quite good terms, and Techno even refrained from killing him in the doomsday battle. Which was quite a surprising thing to see since Technoblade knew of Erets status as king. ( This isn't that important to the plot, I just find it interesting to note)

Ghostburs resurrection

In the aftermath of doomsday, Ghostbur revealed to eret and quackity that he wanted to be brought back to life. Eret then revealed he had been reading ancient texts similar to what philza was reading and promised to help ghostbur be revived as wilbur. And in return Wilbur would change the L’manbur anthem to ‘also Eret’ instead of ‘fuck eret’. Eret then constructed a shrine full of things attributing to aliveburs life as well as things he thought would help make ghostbur feel safe. Unfortunately this did not go as planned and were confronted by shlatt instead of alivebur. After learning that the resurrection may need a totem of undying, Philza, ranboo and Eret traveled to technos cabin to retrieve a map that would lead them to a woodland mansion. However, its only after they travel all the way to technic cabin that philza brings up the fact that eret is king and refuses to let her on the property. Thinking that this would be the end of their journey and philza would resurrect Wilbur without them, in a desperate attempt to gain their trust, Eret removes his glasses and crown in front of both Eret and ranboo. This is only the second time Eret has ever willingly revealed their eyes to another member of the server (the other being tommy, who did not react well). Philza and ranboo remain calm while in front of Eret but when Eret turns to leave after philza continues to deny their help, the two make fun of Erets Eyes, proceeding to call him a freak. Ranboo also makes a comment on how it is now easy to maintain eye contact with Eret without their sunglasses, although the reasons for this have not been confirmed. 

Eret, feeling insulted, went back to Dream SMP to find a totem on his own and reflected on his own views on government. He deeply regretted betraying his friends in the original war, and felt bad that he earned his crown through this betrayal. At the same time, his position as king let him do things to make things better, and he tried very hard not to order people around. Wilbur inspired Eret's own reign through his strong leadership, and Eret always felt as though Wilbur could spark hope in a way he never could. That was why he worked so hard to bring him back, and built a historical museum and helped his people. Eventually Ranboo and Phil called back, and they went off to find a totem together.

The finale

In the finale of the second season, Eret waves Tubbo and Tommy off from at the end of the path. Eret voices his support for Tommy and Tommy responds by saying that Eret “will always be the true king.” Officially redeeming Eret for his action of the first l’manburg war. When the group goes to help the clingy duo, Eret is the first one to run to protect them and stays in the back of the group to make sure they are safe. Later on in a moment of self reflection, they realise that their relationship with dream was purely manipulation and reiterates the regret they feel for betraying their friends. Eret also states how much she misses Wilbur and wants to go ahead with the revival, despite knowing that Wilbur does not want to be brought back to life. In a moment of vulnerability they state that “I need him.” and reiterates how important Wilbur was to Eret, even after all the hatred and sadness they bestowed onto each other. 

In the future Eret hopes to create a safe place for everyone in the smp, free from Dreams rule. 

[neo-shitty]

TEASER — CHECKMATE (OT8, SKZ)

checkmate — an ot8 stray kids mafia!au

description. in which a group of friends play a realistic game of mafia where it’s all fun in games until one of them goes missing.

pairings. han jisung x female!reader, bang chan x byun taehee (oc), seo changbin x jeon saeyeon (oc)

genre. mystery, thriller. 

warnings. swearing, character deaths (nothing too graphic)

word count. 19k

tags and other notes. i finished writing this fic way back in november but i was torn between chopping this fic into chapters (the way it was written) or posting it the way it appears in my google docs (as one long ass file). i have finally reached the decision (with the help of a few people from kpopscape, ily) to settle with the latter.

i hope you’ll enjoy reading this as much as i had enjoyed conceptualizing it in the shower 2 months ago.

tags: @skzflix , i’m not sure if you remember me talking about a jisung fic a few months ago (or if you even remember me at all) but here it is. finally free from my google docs.

let me know if anyone wants to be tagged when i finally drop this. :)

to be posted on. january 23, 00:00 KST.

about checkmate. Here are a few things you need to know about this AU before proceeding: Stray Kids and the three other characters (you and the two other OCs) are in one big friend group and are in the same graduating class. And because they’re all from the same batch, I’ve aged down Chan and Lee Know to ‘99. Hence, the ‘99s are Chan, Minho, Changbin and Taehee (OC), the ‘00s are Hyunjin, Jisung, Felix, Seungmin and you, and the ‘01s are Jeongin and Saeyeon.

High school had always seemed like a grey area in life. Maybe it was because of the sweet mix of innocence and corruption in the minds of everyone you got to interact with that made it seem like it was neutral. The halls were littered with people with various upbringings and influences of their own. No one was either good or bad yet—there was no way to tell which among you would make it in life or not. Just a bunch of angsty young adults torn between being worried with what the future held and making the most of the present.

In high school, people were bound to make friends that either lasted until graduation or the remainder of their respective lifetimes. There was no way to tell where their lots belonged but sometimes they wished it belonged in the latter. It had only been you and the two other girls until the eight boys took you under their wing in sophomore year—an unspoken rule the boys had with people who sat at the back row along with them. 

2 school years and a shit ton of bickering later, you were all inseparable whenever together. God help the teachers that had all 11 of you in the same class together throughout high school. Thankfully, this academic year, it only happened once a week and all you could do was wish your homeroom teacher well.

The crew met at lunch everyday, another unspoken rule that was never decided but followed throughout the entirety of your high school days. It was impressive how two whole lunch tables were vacated the day Hyunjin cracked a height joke to Changbin which sparked a food fight in the middle of junior year. After that day, the whole gang set out to search for a new spot to eat lunch because according to Chan, staying together weighed more than eating conveniently at the cafeteria. Some of the kids disagreed with it but no one ever bothered to be vocal about it. 

And this is how you all ended up eating lunch on the bleachers of the school gym for the remaining two years of high school.

Eating in the gym meant that you didn’t have to compete with the voices of the preps from the other table or the lunch lady whose patience had worn thin from the lunch rush. Which also meant that you didn’t have to keep your voices down whenever you played Mafia. The game never failed to be entertaining despite being played for roughly two years now. Anyone in the crew could even say they’d improved their own deducing skills as they cracked down the Mafia more easily with every round played.

All of you except Jisung anyway, who either got voted out of suspicion for being the Mafia or being killed by the Mafia themselves. 

So when Lee Minho walks into the gym one day with a tempting offer in hand, Jisung is the first to say yes.

The hoverboard Minho is riding halts right by the bleachers before he picks it up. The other boys stop their game of basketball and gather round. Hoverboard in one hand and flyer in the other, he raises it up for everyone to see.

“What do you guys think?” he asks, watching everyone’s eyes skim over the flyer he’d picked up from the school bulletin board.

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“I think it’s pretty stupid.”

The voices come in unison, creating a rift in the decision of the crew in an instant. A bubble of laughter escapes out of one person's lips and the others follow. Jisung stands up from his seat on the bleachers, eyeing the smirking purple haired boy who was staring right back at him.

When the laughter dies down he finally speaks, “Do you have a problem?”

“What’s the point?” Seungmin answers, “You always lose anyway.”

Laughter fills the empty hall again, echoing off the walls in a seemingly mocking way that makes Jisung ball his fists. Chan purses his lips in annoyance, tracing the creases on his forehead before standing up to stall the fight threatening to happen at any given moment.

You watch as the tension between the two 00’s intensifies. When you catch a glimpse of Chan’s stressed face, you take it upon yourself to reign Jisung down. “Jisung, just sit down please.”

“Oh,” he turns to you, eyes wide in disbelief, “so you’re siding with them too? Fine.”

You wanted to argue but it’d only cause more ruckus. At least, even when he had his back turned to you, Jisung obliged to sit down. You let out a sigh and leave him alone.

Chan jumps down from the bleachers before taking the flyer from Minho, “If it isn’t clear to any of you yet, the flyer offers the most realistic Mafia game ever. All free. We just need to give them our names, show up at the address and we play.”

“Seems sketchy,” Taehee remarks.

“You doubt everything,” Changbin rebuts, to which the girl just shrugs.

Jeongin jumps down from the bleachers, taking the flyer from Chan to read it for himself. He turns to the awaiting crowd before him, “What could go wrong? It was posted on the school bulletin board after all.” Chan points in agreement before turning to see the reactions of the rest of the people there.

“It’s just a game of Mafia,” Felix finally says, “and we’re graduating so we might not get this opportunity again.”

Jisung finally turns around and faces everyone else, “I know right. I feel like this is going to be the best idea ever.”

[gumnut-logic]

Callisto (Full Prologue)

Prologue Part One - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4 | Bit 5 Part Two - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3

When I first started this story, I was of two minds whether to put all of the prologue at the front or scatter it throughout the fic. I started with 700-odd words of it and drove into the body.

It fast became obvious that I really needed to build a lot more into the prologue as the OCs were empty shells and I needed to explain the story behind them and why Jeff is so determined.

So at the end of Part Two, I stopped and went back. This is the result. Nearly 5000 words of Jeff Tracy landing on Mars. It can stand as its own story, but it definitely leads into the planned events for the novel, Callisto. Either way I hope you enjoy it. Be aware that the first 500 words or so may be familiar as they were part of the original version. Don’t worry, the rest is new.

Of course, many, many thanks to @tsarinatorment​ @scribbles97​ and @janetm74​ for all the amazing support and help with this fic. Plus @onereyofstarlight​ my go to science officer on this voyage. You guys are absolutely amazing and I couldn’t have done this without you ::massive group hug::

Now this is done, I can finally go back to writing the novel chronologically. I have to say that this is going to be one hell of a ride.

No warnings needed.

-o-o-o-

2033

 “Another boy?”

Jeff grinned. “Yeah. Another one.” He couldn’t help but stare at the photo that had landed on his screen as a good luck token from Earth.

He did of course, know about Lucille going into labour the night before and it was for that reason he hadn’t had the sleep he probably should have pre-history making Mars landing. But honestly, to get this signal from that little blue planet a good eight months away…his heart swelled…his beautiful baby boy had a shock of red hair that screamed their Irish ancestry down through the hundreds of years since their family had left the old world.

Lucille sat holding him, looking tired but ever so proud. Her dark hair was tied back and the sparkle in her eyes brought a lump into his throat. Her mother, pink hair and all, sat beside his wife holding his two eldest boys on her lap. Scott had his hand on Virgil’s arm as the now second youngest reached over towards his baby brother, a frown of concentration on his face.

“He’s beautiful.”

Jeff startled a little. Berry was breaking regs and leaning over the back of Jeff’s pilot couch, her straps unfastened. The cockpit was pretty snug in the lander, most of the room taken up with safety equipment and interfaces, leaving little for the padded personnel support.

He shot an eyebrow in her direction and she smiled a dare back at him. The astrogeologist wasn’t one for breaking the rules, she just liked to taunt him a little.

Ju, in contrast, was checking her harness was secure a second time. “Creating your own crew, Tracy?” Her auburn eyes smirked at him. “Aiming to replace us?”

He grinned. “Could be.” Dare he mention that his four-year-old eldest could already name all the controls in this cockpit? His grin widened. “But we can’t replace the first person to set foot on Mars, now can we?”

Berry snorted, a little abashed. But it was, after all, her part to play once they made touchdown. The words had been rehearsed, the order of exit decided. For very specific reasons, the first human on Mars was going to be Kate Berrenger.

Berry had worked her ass off to make this mission a reality. Her specialisation onboard was astrogeologist, but honestly it was far more. The woman was talent on legs. It was she who had designed much of the equipment they were deploying on the surface, she who had hunted and gathered the funding, she who had put in the sweat and tears to make this work. And Ju wasn’t far behind. The two of them were quite a powerhouse pair. Jeff considered himself and Lee lucky to have been chosen for this mission. Of course, he’d known Berry for a very long time, worked with her for most of it, but it wasn’t a given that the team that had helped populate the moon would also be the first on Mars.

“Given how many life support pods we’re dragging down there, I bet your boys could drop by in about thirty years or less.”

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, Berry?” The thought was tantalising. Not to put pressure on any future careers – Lucy would kill him – but he would hope that at least one out of three might follow in his footsteps.

Maybe?

He turned around and opened his mouth, only to be interrupted. “Major Tracy, tell your team to secure. Two minutes to separation.” Sinclair was his usual grumpy, nervous self.

“Roger that, Orbiter Control.”

He glared at Berry and the redhead bit her lip with a smile, green eyes dancing, before sitting back and strapping herself in preparation for the sequence.

She didn’t stop smiling though.

“So watcha gonna name him?” Lee prodded him with his eyebrows from beside Jeff.

A last glance at the photo before he returned to separation prep, fingers tight in his gloves. “Are you going to remember this one?” An eye in the engineer’s direction.

“Sure.”

Running his fingers over the controls, Jeff ran through pre-flight. “Name my eldest.”

Lee grunted, his eyes darting away. “Not important right now.” A flick of a switch. “I’m green across the board.”

“A-ok.” Jeff ran through the last sequence of checks…and ran them again…for luck. “Orbiter Control, we are green for separation.”

“Roger that, Cornerstone. Separation in sixty seconds on my mark.” A breath. “Mark.” Another pause. “Good luck.”

And the countdown began.

Jeff ran his eyes over everything again. The great ship that had journeyed so far from home was preparing to split in half. The lander at the top of the vessel was to pull away from the orbiter and its massive propulsion engines to begin the historic descent to the Martian surface. Eight months in space, so much preparation time and so many sacrifices before that, had all led to this moment.

History in the making.

His eyes combed the readouts watching like a hawk. The computer had control, but computers could only do so much.

Still green across the board.

Quiet, his fingers touched the screen where the photo had been. “John Glenn Tracy.” A breath. “His name is John.”

Displays shifted as the countdown hit zero and machinery grunted. The Cornerstone drifted apart from its propulsion module and floated free far above the red of the Martian surface.

Jeff eyed his instrumentation and sent a prayer to his family back home.

Today was an important day.

-o-o-o-

Lee watched Jeff side-on as he clicked his helmet into place. Taylor was a realist and he knew he wouldn’t be here without the crazy pilot.

It was Jeff’s drive that had gotten them this far. It was like riding a rollercoaster of determination and outright luck. From the Airforce, through space training and their sojourns on Alfie, Lee had tied himself to the man’s coat tails and hadn’t looked back.

God, it had been fun.

Jeff Tracy was a tsunami that crashed through everything and took everyone with him.

And Lee went willingly.

When they had been chosen for this mission it was a dream come true.

The countdown dropped to zero and machinery clunked as the lander separated smoothly from the orbiter. She drifted momentarily before the computer engaged thrusters to push her gently out of orbital alignment.

“We are five by five for atmospheric entry.” The words he uttered were almost rote after so many practise simulations back on Earth.

Atmospheric entry on Mars was considerably different to entry on Earth. Terran atmosphere was more like soup in comparison to the barely-there Martian atmosphere. Still made for a warm entry though, friction was friction after all.

“Trajectory achieved.” Jeff’s voice was confident and firm. As always.

Lee eyed the computer readouts, mentally ticking off procedure as the lander dipped into the outer reaches of the atmosphere and shifted to its entry interface.

Forces wrapped themselves around Lee and his body responded. After so many months of weightlessness, this was going to be a challenge.

“Ready for deceleration burn.”

The landing module sported early entrance stage retro thrusters designed to slow the vehicle to reduce the friction on the spacecraft’s skin. A new innovation that had proven essential in many return trips to the moon in preparation for the creation of a habitable dome on the satellite.

And here they were attempting to do something similar on Mars.

Cornerstone shook as her thrusters engaged exactly on time.

The craft roared.

Lee revelled in it.

“Three minutes to subsonic.”

“I really hate this bit.” It was barely heard above the commotion.

Lee snorted to himself. Ju was an astronaut in every sense, but she had a thing regarding atmospheric entry and the microscopic bits they could be exploded into if something went wrong.

“We are on track, Ju. Not a thing to worry about.” His voice reassurance itself, Jeff could sell the moon cheese if he so felt like it.

“Orbiter to Cornerstone. Tracy, we have a problem.”

Lee blinked. Sinclair’s voice was ominous.

“Orbiter, detail?”

“Cornerstone, weather has kicked up on the landing site. We have a developing dust storm. Looks to be a big one.”

“Orbiter, we are fixed for descent. Please advise severity.” Jeff’s tone was frustrated and Lee couldn’t help but echo it.

Data landed in Lee’s console and while Jeff continued to monitor their descent, Lee examined the situation. “We have a category five dust storm developing over the landing site. Orbiter is right, she looks like she could actually do some damage.”

Mars dust storms were generally all gust and no guts. The air density and pressure forced storms that were dramatic to look at, but generally little more than a windy day on planet Earth. This one, however... “It’s an anomaly.”

Jeff’s eyes darted from his console to Lee’s, grey eyes assessing the data. “Ju, your opinion?” They had to make the decision fast. Altering their trajectory now was possible, but fuel was precious. Any extra used now narrowed their safety margin for later.

The meteorologist’s fingers darted over her board. “Unusual strength, I agree.” Lee glanced in her direction as she frowned. “But Cornerstone should be able to handle it.”

“‘Should’ is not a good enough assumption, Zhang.” Jeff was frowning. The lander’s retros cut out as they reached a safe enough velocity to manoeuvre and Jeff’s hands curled around the yoke.

Lee’s finger darted over his board and brought up the outside cameras.

The red planet stretched out before them, her slightly blue tinted atmosphere contrasting against the rust of her surface.

That surface was churning.

Ju was outraged. “How the hell did that develop in the time it took us to separate from Orbiter? She was as calm as a sleeping baby!”

“I don’t care about then, I need now. Zhang, recommendation!”

The woman grunted. “I say go. If you think you can handle it. It is well within Cornerstone’s specs. Your decision, Major.”

Jeff’s lips thinned, his eyes darting across the readouts. A moment and he hit the comms switch. “Orbiter, we are go for landing. We’ve come this far, might as well go all the way.”

“Tracy, are you sure?”

“Humanity never got anywhere taking it easy.” He glanced at Lee. “Hold onto something.”

Cornerstone began her turn, orientating her nose to the sky so her retros could lower her safely to the Martian surface.

Or in Jeff Tracy terms, ‘spinning so she could park her ass’.

As if reading Lee’s mind, the glint in Jeff’s eyes was something to both be wary of and to celebrate.

Out of the four of them, Jeff was the most reckless, the most daring. But as he was the pilot, it sometimes called for it. Jeff had already saved them from becoming just another crater on Earth’s moon by pulling the most unconventional manoeuvre ever seen on the satellite when a landing thruster misfired on approach. The craft had shot off on a completely unpredicted vector that would have ploughed them into moon dust...if Jeff hadn’t reacted as fast as he did. He flipped the craft with its remaining three thrusters and, shedding the majority of their velocity in an energy dump that had Lee’s stomach on the outside, planted their craft like a sack of potatoes.

They had landed roughly, but they had landed alive and Lee was still amazed his friend had been able to do that.

So, if they were going down in a cloud of red dust, Lee was quite happy to have Jeff at the controls.

Not to say that Lee himself wasn’t handy with a spacecraft. He had his own experience to be proud of. He flew, but his realm was more the mechanical. He was here as back up and maintenance.

For those times the Tracy fix wasn’t quite enough.

A sigh. He eyed the billowing clouds below as they rapidly approached. They were history in the making. Whatever happened here today would be taught in schools for decades to come.

He had faith in Jeff. They would land, Berry would take those first important steps on a new planet, say the rehearsed words, and join Neil Armstrong in the halls of fame.

But first they had to get there.

-o-o-o-

Jeff swallowed as the cloud of dust loomed beneath the lander. Numbers scrolled across his console. The computer should be able to handle most of it. Its programming was solid. Lucy had made sure of it.

The thought of his beautiful wife...little Johnny.

Dust swelled and wrapped around their craft and visibility became...bad.

Cornerstone shuddered.

Mars dust was a bastard of a thing. Ever so fine and carrying a tiny electric charge that on occasion interfered with instruments.

This was one of those occasions.

“We have blackout on three primary sensors.” Damn. Two others flickered, the screen fritzing a moment.

His fingers darted over controls in an attempt to compensate for the data loss.

Lee was muttering beside him and stabbing at his board. “Rerouting to back-ups.”

Their screens flickered and cleared somewhat.

Numbers plummeted.

Beyond the blinding dust the digital readout that marked the surface of the planet approached.

Far too fast.

Retros crucial to start the landing sequence did not fire.

Shit.

It took seconds for him to compensate and move to manual, but that was enough for the craft to fall many more metres so, when he did manually trigger the burn, they were lower than they should be.

Cornerstone roared as he pushed more energy into braking.

“Lee, we need primary thrust or we are so much pancake!” Her four landing thrusters were not slowing them enough. The math in his head was churning out a fatal result and their history-making attempt was fast turning into a shitfest. “I need that power now.”

“You have it.” Short and sharp as Lee’s hands darted over his console.

On Jeff’s board the main thruster icon lit up.

It wasn’t meant to be used this way. The main thruster was for launching. It was far more powerful than they needed to land. But if he didn’t slow Cornerstone, she was going to take on a big red rock and lose.

The computer ran calculations and spat numbers out at him.

“Firing main thruster.” The icon flashed, Cornerstone roared and g-forces wrapped around all of them and squeezed.

No one said anything for the second of burn that slowed their descent ever so rapidly. Everything shook, the ship’s superstructure groaning.

Jeff’s eyes tracked their velocity, counting down as the surface of the planet rushed towards them. Visually they couldn’t see it. Virtually it looked ready to slap them in the face.

But the main thruster compensated, slowing the craft just enough for the landing rockets to do their job.

Jeff killed the big one and concentrated on the landers to take the last of their speed.

Cornerstone slowed. Five hundred metres. Four hundred metres. Three hundred metres. Two hundred metres. One hundred metres. Landing struts deployed. Fifty. Thirty. Twe-

The whole ship slammed to a stop, its structure groaning and tilting for a second before righting itself. Alarms began shrieking, red lights flashing all over his board.

What the hell?!

The readout had them stalled nineteen metres ‘above’ the virtual surface. Virtual was obviously not lining up with actual.

Another metallic groan and the ship tilted slightly again. This time it stayed tilted. No doubt a landing strut had taken the brunt and folded.

One red light screamed at him more than the others.

Beside him, Lee confirmed his fears. “We have a fuel leak.”

Shit!

He was unstrapping himself even as the craft groaned again. Something sparked not far away. Lee was a split second behind, listing the reason for the malfunction. The exterior hull, and the mangled landing strut responsible.

A rupture in the external hull. Hell.

Jeff undocked a diagnostic pad and slapped it on his belt.

Martian gravity made itself known. So many months without its native pull, Jeff’s body protested the sudden movement, but they didn’t have time. Precious fuel was escaping.

He hit the ladder leading out of the cockpit at a run, feet locking around the struts and his hands pushing him down. The whole sensation of gravity, but only a third of Earth’s was baffling. His body caught between expectations and stumbling along the way. Ultimately, he partly fell his way down through the access ports, hands grabbing at the railings barely preventing him from colliding with each deck.

Cornerstone’s fuel tanks were attached to her four landers, with a fifth fueling her main launcher.

It was number three that was the problem.

His boots hit decking and he scrambled for the airlock. Beside him Lee had a toolkit and they both barrelled through the door sealing it behind them.

The pumps cycled and the pressure dropped, their suits shifting with the change, and then the elevator was lowering them to the ground.

As the doors opened, they were faced with a wall of swirling dust.

Jeff did his best to ignore it but it fast became a problem. The maintenance tab in his hand was directing him to climb ladders up the side of the vehicle, but he could barely see the tablet, much less the ladders themselves through the red dust.

“Stick close, Lee. I’d hate to lose you in this.”

“Right behind you, Jeff. Wouldna want to lose you either.”

It was simple, but reassuring nonetheless. Fumbling, he found the landing strut. It was skewed in a way that even in the thick swirling haze, he could see was far from the right angle for correct support.

Hooking a foot into the lowest rung, he snagged his friend and urged him up the ladder ahead. If anyone was going to save their asses in this situation, it was Lee.

If Jeff could land it, chances were Lee could fix it. The man could jimmy two sticks and a rubberband into whatever was needed. Hell, he’d done almost exactly that on the moon at least twice.

This was just another challenge. Jeff had landed them, no matter how roughly. Now Lee would be able to fix it.

Jeff clung to that maxim.

But the question wasn’t about skill, it was more about whether or not they were going to damn well be able to see what they needed to see in order to do what needed doing.

Red obscured everything. The speed it was all flying past spoke to his earth senses of gale force winds, but the pressure on his suit was little more than a windy day.

Not enough to affect the spacecraft.

Mars was obviously educating them early that this was not Earth. Not in any way shape or form.

Their clamber up the strut was partly a blind one, but they made it to the damaged side of the craft. Through a mixture of touch and virtual readout, it became clear that the outer hull had buckled, forcing the inner hull into the fuel tank. Most of it had held, but there was a small microfracture and the pressure differences were bubbling solid state fuel into gas at a rate that, if it didn’t deplete the tank, would likely cause an explosion that would solve all their problems with a history-making finality.

Jeff climbed up beside Lee as he fumbled at his tool kit. The tank was dislodged off its mounts, something they would need to remedy later, but it was still inset from the hull.

Jeff put his body in position to block the main flow of the dust and wind, jamming himself up against the still warm hull of his ship.

A little less dust swirled over the bubbling crack and Lee didn’t hesitate. Before Jeff could blink, gell bondtape landed smoothly over the area, the engineer sealing it with an electronic nudge from a set-wand. The electricity lined molecules up like soldiers and locked them in place bonding them to whatever the tape was adhered to. They had used the same stuff on Alfie two years ago when one of their habitats had tried to make one with the lack of lunar atmosphere.

An extremely simple solution for a very dangerous problem.

His heart, still adrenalin-fueled, refused to believe the danger was over.

As if reading Jeff’s thoughts, Lee smirked at him through the haze. “Never leave home without it.” A sigh as he ran a gloved hand over the seal. “This should hold for the short term. Once we are sure the strut is stabilised, I’ll give it a good going over. Hopefully, we can lose this storm in the process.”

Jeff would have liked to claim it couldn’t blow forever, but both of them knew Mars storms could be unpredictable and last for months if they so chose to.

Lee ran a scanner over the strut’s connection to the launcher. How the hell the engineer could see the readouts, Jeff didn’t know.

For all future excursions to the Red Planet, Jeff was going to recommend helmet based heads-up displays.

“She’s safe for now. A little bent, but she isn’t going to fall over. Hopefully, once we get out some of the heavy lifting equipment we can bend her back into shape if we need to.” Lee stood up. “Hull patching is going to be an ass, though.”

Jeff’s lips thinned and he dropped a hand onto his friend’s shoulder. “One thing at a time. We’ve got this, Lee.”

Lee grunted. “How the hell do you keep spinning the optimism, Jeff?”

A snort. “What? You’d prefer doom and gloom?” He shuffled back towards the ladder. “That’s it, Lee, we’re never leaving this god forsaken rock. Welcome to your new home.” He raised up his hands and as if the gods declared him some kind of Moses for that very moment, the dust clouds parted as if they were a red sea of sand. Sol, so much smaller this far away, poked its weak light through the hazy atmosphere and lit up the bare red rocks of their temporary home. While on one side, the billowing wall of dust storm swirled on its way, on the other red mountains rose up to a weak blue-red sky.

Lee shifted down beside him. “You know, I figured you had an agreement with the gods of physics, but isn’t this a little ridiculous?”

Jeff was too captivated with the view to respond.

Cornerstone was on the plateau they had been simulating for months on end. She stood tall and proud, if a little crooked and pinker than her promo shots.

“We made it.” The words fell from his lips.

Lee clung to the ladder beside him. “Yeah, that we did.”

Sunlight flickered weakly in the atmosphere and a gust of wind dragged more dust across the view.

Jeff shifted. “We better get inside before that mess starts up again. Take advantage of being able to see where we are going.”

Lee didn’t respond immediately, his eyes combing the jagged horizon. “Thanks, Jeff.”

A frown. “For what?”

“Getting us here.”

“It was a group effort, Lee, you know that. Couldn’t have done it without the team. Couldn’t have done it without you. Hell, you just patched a hole that could have blown us up.”

Lee grunted.

“Are you guys going to hang outside all day, or do we have to guess the sitrep?” Berry’s tone was tight.

“Roger, Berrenger. Situation secure. On our way back in.”

It wasn’t until they reached the elevator that he realised exactly what had happened.

And who he was.

By the doors, protected by the shadow of the lowered module was a single footprint that hadn’t been blown away by the wind.

“Aw, hell.”

Lee, as always, stepped up beside him. “Yeah. I guess that makes you the first man to walk on Mars.”

-o-o-o-

Ju was furious. “It was Kate’s right to be the first!”

The vacs in the airlock had sucked everything off their suits to the point Lee was surprised his hair wasn’t standing on end despite the helmet.

As it was, his hackles were somewhere near orbit as they stood in the conference room that doubled as a mess. “And what exactly do you think we were supposed to do? The ship was going to explode.” It was simple to Lee. Sure, he was all for equality, it was a given, but they would’ve been all equally dead if he and Jeff hadn’t done what they did.

“You didn’t give us a chance!”

“I’m the engineer here, Zhang. There wasn’t time! The decision was made and we are alive because of it.”

“Then why weren’t you first, Taylor? Why the hell was Tracy even out there? He’s not the engineer!”

Beside Lee, Jeff straightened. “Standard procedure, Zhang. We work in pairs. If you think I was going to let Lee go out in that on his own, you’ve been serving while wearing a blindfold.”

The short, dark-haired woman stepped up to the Major, her eyes fiery. “It was Kate’s place in history and you stole it!”

Lee flared. “We did what was necessary! This was not a publicity grab, for Christ’s sake! It didn’t even occur to us until we were returning. It was about saving our lives, Zhang. How can you possibly think it was anything else?”

“Because it always is.” She waved a hand at Jeff. “Always the hotshot. Always the first. Always the hero. Do you ever think, Tracy? Do you ever think about those you barrel past?”

Jeff glared down at the meteorologist. “I will not apologise for my achievements, Zhang. This was an honest to god accident.”

“Due to decisions made by you.”

“What the hell, Zhang?!” Lee pushed forward. That was taking it too far.

“We should never have tried to land in that dust storm. We should have waited it out.”

“You said we could take it!”

“But it wasn’t my decision, was it?” Her tone was a positive hiss at Jeff.

“Screw you, Zhang-“

“Taylor!”

“Jeff-“

The man was still the damn tall walking wall when he wanted to be. “Lee, stop.” He glared at Ju. “I will not apologise for my command decisions either, Zhang. What was done, is done.” His stance softened as he turned to Berry.

She had been ominously quiet the entire time.

Jeff sighed. “I’m sorry, Kate.”

The red-haired astrogeologist straightened away from the bulkhead, her arms still folded across her chest. Lee had always liked Berry. She had her head on much straighter than Ju ever did.

Ju was like a terrier with a bone.

The bone variety today was definitely Jeff-flavoured.

But there was only kindness in Berry’s eyes as she looked up at the Major. “This sucks, Jeff, it really does.” She looked down a moment. “But it is what it is and I guess it was what it was meant to be.” A shrug. “I suppose I’ll have to settle for third on Mars. Still pretty momentous, I think.”

“Kate, it doesn’t have to be that way.” Jeff took a step towards her. “It’s not official. It was a stupid repair. We can do the ceremonial step onto the planet anyway. No one has to know.”

Her head tilted to one side. “So, the ship miraculously healed itself?”

“Berry-“

She closed the gap between them, placing a hand on his arm. “Jeff, honestly, it’s not what is important here. You took the first step. We still have plenty of others that need to be taken. My ego can keep.”

Zhang flared again. “Kate, this was for women-“

“Ju, enough. It doesn’t matter! Humans have just landed on Mars, for god’s sake. I would have thought we would be a little less worried about the gender of the person taking the first step and more worried about the fact we did it without blowing up.”

“It was supposed to be you.” Ju wilted in defeat under Berry’s glare.

“Well, it was Jeff, and I think he is no less deserving than any of us.”

Jeff’s voice was quiet. “Are you sure, Kate?” The use of her first name was a rarity for the major, there was a friendship between those two almost as long as the one between Jeff and Lee. Hell, if Jeff hadn’t met Lee’s sister, Lucy, the engineer wondered what might have eventuated in that department.

Not that he had ever had to worry about that. Jeff was a complete sop for Lucy. His sis had the man wrapped around her little finger.

If that made Lee feel just that touch more protective of the crazy pilot, then so be it.

Kate straightened, her shoulders strong. “I’m sure.” Then her lips curled up a little. “Besides, my lines were so much more elegant than ‘Stick close, Lee. I’d hate to lose you in this.’”

Jeff snorted and shrugged. “If I’m going to make history gotta make sure my best friend is with me.”

Zhang made a disgusted sound and stormed out of the room.

Shoulders dropping, Jeff sighed. “Guess I need to work on my phrasing.”

But Lee was too wrapped in the moment, a little too proud and grateful to care. “She’ll live.”

The grunt from Jeff reminded Lee that they still had months to share living quarters with the fiery Ju.

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.” Berry squeezed Jeff’s arm before reaching out to Lee as well. “Thank you, both of you, for getting us down safely. We’re on Mars, guys. Let the party begin.”

The smile in her eyes was honest and ever so heartening.

-o-o-o-

Next

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

The Call of the Wild Woman

Just some fluff featuring the green-haired goddess of NXT. 

Pairing: Shotzi Blackheart x OFC

Word count: 2,412

Content advisory: brief sexual references, language

The first time I met Shotzi, I instantly liked her. We shook hands and she gave me this smile that made me feel like I was having a great day, even though there hadn’t been anything exceptional about it to that point. I was a little overwhelmed with all the people I was meeting, trying to get a sense of their look, their personality, their character, but I knew from our introduction that I was going to remember her for years, even if I never saw her again. 

Of course, Shotzi’s a memorable person. Tall, tattooed, pierced and sporting that incredible acid green hair, it would be hard not to remember her. But I felt like I’d remember her vivacious eyes and confident smile just as much as the things that made her stand out from a mile away. My whole first day getting led around the performance center, I found my eyes drawn back to her whenever she appeared. 

I had just been moved to NXT to take over as their chief makeup artist. I’d been working on Raw for close to a year when the position opened up and I’d been so excited and nervous about whether I’d get the job that I felt as if I’d barely slept for two months. My boyfriend and I actually broke up while I was waiting to hear back and I hardly noticed. We’d been struggling since his work had moved him out of state, and things had just sort of ended like a wave washing over a sandcastle. I wasn’t bitter but I was lonely. And that, along with my desire to show that I could run a team in high pressure situations, meant that I threw myself headlong into the new job. I tried to keep some time to see friends but work seemed more rewarding. 

By the time I’d been there a few months, my circle of friends was largely made up of coworkers. There were always birthdays or barbecues or other things going on, and it was fun to be able to dish about work without having to explain a lot of background detail. I was enjoying myself. But, yeah, I was definitely lonely. 

I dropped a couple of hints here and there that I wouldn’t mind being fixed up with any single male friends and a couple of the women made suggestions. A couple of the men did too. But none of it went anywhere. I was too busy and too awkward to make a first move and if any of the suggested bachelors ever thought to check me out on social media, it never resulted in a phone call. 

Shotzi was always one of my favorite models. I loved transforming her from the natural beauty she was to the wild child who appeared on tv every week. And while we’d talk about work, she also had the greatest gifts as a storyteller, and the crazy stories to complement her skills. She’d been raised around bikers and conservative immigrants at the same time. She’d worked as a late night host for a horror movie tv broadcast before she became a wrestler. It was like she’d been born to perform and had found a way to do so while still being herself. 

I found myself sitting at home, always alone, watching the silly and shocking horror movies she’d recommend to me, or tracking down music by bands she’d mention or whose shirts she’d wear. When she’d worked on tv, she’d developed a loyal following of teenage boys and girls who used to do everything from message her begging her to go out with them to sending her love letters and poetry to showing up outside the station in the hopes of meeting her. It sounded both creepy and sad but I sympathized a little with her starry-eyed fans. She was a kind of dazzling whirlwind of a person and, indeed, I was dazzled by her. 

One day, I’d showed up at work after a particularly inauspicious Tinder date. The guy had picked me up for what was supposed to be coffee and a walk but had insisted that we stop by his friend’s place so he could get some pot. The three of us shared a joint and I assumed we were about to leave when another joint appeared. Being a lightweight, I declined but the two of them proceeded to smoke it themselves. Then the friend’s roommate came home from band practice. She pulled out her bong and that was getting passed around while she played us the hour-long piece of meandering prog that they’d created that day. All three of them seemed really entranced by what they could hear in the music, which I was pretty certain they were imagining. 

About an hour later, my date and his friend started playing video games. I quietly tried to suggest that we leave and at least grab that coffee because I was clinging to the hope that maybe the guy, who was way cuter than I’d counted on, might have some redeeming qualities. He assured me we could leave in a minute. He and his friend were completely absorbed in their game, while the roommate randomly started telling me about how her mother had given birth to her at a Grateful Dead concert in the eighties, after following the band on tour for years. She didn’t seem to care much if I responded and would focus entirely on her phone every minute she wasn’t speaking. 

Eventually, the roommate had begun to complain loudly that she was hungry and the guys agreed that we should order pizza. I handed over some money and advised them that I was a vegetarian, only to be surprised by a pizza that arrived looking like it had been fished out of a trash can, topped with pepperoni and cheese. I knew the place they’d ordered from and some quick math in my head made it clear that I had paid for basically all the pizza. They assured me that I could just pull the pepperoni off. 

I was about to leave but my date insisted that we could head out in a few minutes to find me something I might actually want to eat. He was cute enough that I‘d agreed to stay just a little longer. A few more guys showed up to buy pot. Then friends of the roommate‘s had shown up with beer and put the stereo on so loud I thought the ceiling might cave in. I ended up leaving at eleven without even saying goodbye. When I got home, I realized that I‘d lost my house keys and had to ask a neighbor to help me break into my apartment.

I told this story to my coworkers to a chorus of loud “nos'' and peals of laughter. Others shared some bad date stories but this one did seem pretty dire. Everyone commiserated and it did make me feel better, like the night hadn’t been a total washout because I had a good story to tell and, as a couple of the girls pointed out, dates I had in the future were likely to seem pretty good in comparison. 

“You should have taken some of the pot!” Shotzi exclaimed to a round of agreement. 

“I wish I’d thought of that.”

It was a few days later that I was prepping Shotzi’s makeup and I noticed that she was a bit quieter than usual. She wasn’t unfriendly but there was something off. 

“You ok?” I asked quietly, sweeping my brush out to give her the perfect cat’s eye flip. 

“Yeah, I’m great.”

She didn’t sound great, or at least not in the enthusiastic way she usually did. I felt my neck getting tense as I tried to lead the conversation for the first time, knowing I wasn’t nearly as good at it as she was. I didn’t want to push her to tell me what was on her mind and at the same time, I felt like my forced smalltalk was probably grating on her nerves. I wanted to be entertaining but I lacked the stories and the flair. 

Finally, when I announced that I was finished, she stood up just a few inches from me. I expected her to tell me to wish her luck, which I always did, but she didn’t move, her bright eyes focused on mine. 

“Do you want to go out some time this weekend?” She asked. 

“Like, hang out? Sure.”

She shook her head. “No. Do you want to go on a date with me?”

I sucked in a sharp breath, not knowing quite what to say. I fell back on the default. “Um, I don’t actually date women.”

“Oh.” She looked sad for the first time and a little surprised. “I’m sorry, I read some singles wrong. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“Not at all. I mean, it’s no big deal. I just… you’re gorgeous. I’m just not…”

“It’s fine,” she insisted, extending a hand as if to pat my arm but withdrawing it before she did. “Please, forget I ever said anything.”

Of course, I couldn’t forget that. In fact, I couldn’t even get it out of my head. I’d always dated men. I’d known women who were bisexual and lesbian but none of them had ever expressed an interest in me and I hadn’t found myself attracted to them. But Shotzi was attractive. She was stunning. And the more I thought about that first reaction I’d had to her, the more it seemed similar to the way I’d reacted to men I’d been involved with in the past. I just hadn’t noticed the similarity because she was a woman and I wasn’t into women. 

But maybe I was into one woman. 

She stayed friendly with me, although she didn’t linger as long in the makeup chair regaling me with tales of her rock ‘n’ roll childhood or films that had made her who she was. I hadn’t even realized that she had been lingering before. I just thought we’d been having great conversations. We had been having great conversations. Had I been sending the wrong signals?

I knew that I had marveled at how beautiful and unique she was. I’d gushed, really. But I’d been so floored by her that I felt like I had to let off some steam in the form of compliments or I’d never be able to focus on anything else. That didn’t change after the “asking me out” incident. The fact that I couldn’t release any of my thoughts made it harder to think about anything. I’d see her and I’d spend ten minutes feeling like kind of an idiot, then half an hour thinking about her chatoyant eyes, about the perfect heart shape of her face, or her full lips. 

It was a few weeks later that I caught myself staring at her from the safety of the shadows while she prepared to go out for a match. I’d often stared at her body and I figured that it was because she had the kind of body that every woman wanted to have: perfect curves, toned limbs, smooth skin… Looking at her in that moment, though, I wasn’t so sure about my motives. Was I wishing that I had those taut thighs or was I wishing that I knew what it felt like to drag my lips along them, to feel her shudder at the sensation of my breath on her sensitive flesh? 

Her match was thrilling, as her matches almost always were. She was whipping around the place looking completely out of control, although we all knew she wasn’t. The more danger she put herself in, the more she seemed to glow with internal electricity. It was no wonder that the company was already treating her like a star. You’d have to be dead not to get drawn in by her. But it occurred to me as I watched her that I was more drawn in than others. 

When I saw her come backstage, I retreated to my makeup room and counted down what felt like enough time to allow her to unwind, shower and change before I made my way over to the locker room. 

“Hi there,” I greeted her, a little shyly. 

She glanced up and gave me a big smile while she patted her hair dry. 

“Hey you.”

“So, if the offer is still open, I’d like to say yes.”

She arched her elegant brows and gave me a coy smile. “Now what offer would that be?”

“If you still want to, then, yes, I would like to go on a date with you.”

“Interesting,” she drawled. “What brought about this change of heart?”

“You did.”

She bats her eyes and points theatrically at her chest. “Moi?”

I couldn’t help but smile. The light in her eyes told me she was happy but she still wanted to make me work for it a little. Fair enough.

“Ever since I met you, I’ve found all these things- movies, music, all sorts of stuff- that I just never thought of checking out because I either didn’t know about them or because I just never thought I’d be into them. And the more I think about it, the more I think that I might have made a lot of decisions about what I like just because it was what I saw everyone else doing.”

“Well that’s cool, but I’m not a movie or a book.”

“No. You’re this incredibly cool, funny, exciting, sexy person who I love being around and who has me thinking about all sorts of things I hadn’t considered.”

“Ok. How would you feel about a midnight picnic at an old shack I found near the river?” She grinned. 

“Will you hold my hand if I get scared?”

“I promise.”

I gave a little laugh and stepped closer to her, cupping her cheek in one of my hands and marvelling at how perfectly it fit there. Unable to resist the temptation, I leaned in and pressed my lips softly against hers. And immediately, a delightful shiver ran through every part of my body. 

When we separated, she gave me an almost coquettish smile and laced her arm through mine, steering us out of the locker. 

“You know,” I mused, “you don’t seem really surprised by this.”

“I’m not,” she responded with a wink. “I knew you’d come around.”

[all-of-the-above]

With studies comes stress

If you’re currently at school, sixth form, or like myself, university, you’ll understand the level of overwhelming stress I’m on about. Even those of you who work could relate to this post when you have deadlines and tasks to be done. When studying you may feel…

a)     Stressed

b)    Tired

c)     Fed-up

d)    Bored

e)    Upset

f)      Panicked

g)     Frustrated

h)    All of the above?

Yeah, well me too. We study during the years we are supposed to have the most fun, we are stressed, drained and overwhelmed with all the exams, reading, assignments and deadlines. Studying can be something which takes the joy out of our lives, so it’s something we need to control, to have boundaries with, in order to achieve that work-life balance.

Being consistent with studying is so important, it reduces stress at exam season, and makes for a better outcome in the end. Something I’ve found to help is creating plans and to-do lists. By doing this I don’t overwhelm myself by looking too far ahead, plus I know what I need to do and by when, allowing me to focus on the present task and to achieve a sense of satisfaction by crossing it off once it’s done. Something else is ensuring your not taking on too much at one given time, don’t create a plan with too much work, don’t forget to keep spare time, time to do the things you love, to relax and have a break. You may have a tonne of things you need to get done there’s no doubt, I completely understand, but don’t allow yourself to get to the point where you’ve overworked yourself so much that you lose all motivation to do anything at all. I’ve been there, done that. This only sets you back and causes more stress because now you don’t even have the effort to get the bare minimum done. This is why taking breaks is more than important, limit your study time and ensure you take your mind away from the books more than once. If you can, get some fresh air, even if its for 15 minutes, that’s better than nothing at all, it helps clear the mind and will allow you to focus better. Sitting in one place, within those four walls can feel so stressful, we need to escape, move to a different room on your breaks, meditate, exercise in some way to get your body moving, watch some tv and distract your mind. Allow yourself some down time, take care of your mind and body, allow yourself to refresh and recharge to be able to keep going and keep succeeding like you know you can.

Over time I’ve come to learn methods that work for me, it’s about trial and error, effort and persistence and once you get there, it will make everything much easier. It won’t happen overnight, but if you’re willing to do some research, try new things and make sure you are taking care of yourself, you will figure it out one way or another. Plans work to help calm my mind from overthinking, to-do lists stop my anxiety from making me panic about everything I need to get done, working alone helps me focus better and get my work done on time so I don’t stress. And that’s all okay. You don’t need to be doing what everyone else is doing. If you can’t sit with your friends 24/7 and study, that’s not a problem, you need to put your needs first and recognise what works for you so you can achieve what you need to, whether or not it’s what your friends do. You don’t have to follow the crowd and not prep for your assignments until two days before. That’s too much stress, unless that’s how you work, do what you need to do. Be prepared, know how much time certain tasks may take you and understand how it can affect you so then you can prepare in time and reduce your anxiety towards it. This is what I keep saying, understand your abilities, your needs, your strengths and your weaknesses. This allows you to plan better, to pick assignments that work best for you, and it makes you feel more in control, thus less overwhelmed.

Making lists might work well for you, or a timetable, using certain colours and styling techniques with your notes may help, flashcards for exams, or quizlets. Not everything works for everyone, and that’s alright, but keep going. Try what you can, do what you can until you realise what actually works best, what aligns in your mind and helps you succeed. I don’t want to list out ways to study, everyone is different, but if you are able to recognise and understand techniques that work or don’t work, that’s truly such improvement already.

I’m currently coming to the end of my first year in university, but it’s not been how anyone would expect your first year to go. I’ve studied from home, attended online classes and been on campus only a handful of times. Minimal socialising, no parties, no clubs, no library dates, no studying in the café, nothing. First year in a pandemic has led to a completely different experience than what I’ve ever hoped for, in all honesty worse than I expected and ideally not what I wanted, yet there’s been some upsides. Studying from home has meant I’ve been able to focus well and get into the swing of uni studying life, I’ve watched lectures at my own pace and felt I’ve had time to do what’s needed. This is a way of studying that works for me, and although next year will be different, I’ve learnt what’s good for me and it’s something I can keep up and continuously put into practise, even if it means not sitting on campus 24/7, that’s okay, I study in my own way and I won’t let the opinions of others influence and effect my grades. So, take some time now to reflect, look back on this time we’ve all spent apart, look at how studying has gone, the bad and good and asses what works and doesn’t work for you. Try not to confuse the lack of socialising for bad grades, it’s affected us all, but you need to focus on studying in particular. Is it a need to study with others, or to have a balance with seeing people and studying alone? Reflect to help your future self. A better understanding of ourselves will mean reducing our overwhelmed state of mind because we will know how to prevent it, to manage it. It’s okay if you’ve been struggling, so many of us have, it’s been a hard experience to go through yet look at where we are, how far we’ve come. Care for your mind and body in as many ways as you can, take a day off, you’re allowed to do that. Don’t test your limits to breaking point. Only you know your capabilities and taking time to look back on things, assessing things will help you see clearer what they truly are. Understanding your abilities and setting boundaries is a form of self-care and self-love, so do it, do it for your benefit, continue putting your needs first, make your mental health a priority, and nurture your mind.

Remember, feeling stressed is normal, feeling anxious and overwhelmed is natural, but also remember how important you are, and your health is. Prevent long-term damage by taking action on your present needs.

[toku-explained]

The New Swordsman of Void

Heroes' Odyssey: Zero explains how two years after Tiga defeated Gatanothor at R'ly3h, Camaerram Darramb and Hudra revived, then the battle between the dark giants and light giants, and Tiga reappearing as Tiga Dark. Battling Darranb, Tiga absorbs his power to become Tiga Tornado and defeat him, struggling with Hudra, he manages thanks to Iruma to absorb his power and evolve to Tiga Blast and defeat him. Battling Camaerra, he evolves to Mult-type to protect Rena, but Camaerra becomes Demonthor. Defeated, Tiga is granted power by the remains of the fallen giants of Light, and as Glitter Tiga defeats Demonthor. Afterwards, Zero, Z and Tiga see us off.

Saber: Storious now has the books for Storious, Legeiel, Zooous as well as Omni Force, now having the power of 4 of the Five First, needing one more. Tassel promises Luna they'll meet Touma soon, but he needs a moment. Desast questions what Storious is planning. After a celebration at Northern Base, Tassel appears there. Ren wonders where Desast is. Hearing Storious intends to end the story, Desast intends to stop him so his own fun can continue, transforming into the new Falchion to battle Storious. Tassel explains to Tiuma about his past, Touma's future, the Tome and Wonder World. Viktor was an explorer, trying to find the source of all knowledge, he and 4 friends hoped to bring about a world free from things like disease and suffering. One day, Luna's ancestor appeared to him, granting him the Tome and creating Wonder World from it. He brought his friends there, and they all discussed how this was the start of achieving their goal, but then Storious, Legeiel and Zooous were seduced by it's power, each tearing out a page which became their Alter Books and made them the Megiddo. Storious, battling Desast, makes clear he's been working toward this from the very beginning. War broke out, and "Sophia" split the Tome into many pieces, ending her own existence, but the war continued, Viktor and the First Master Logos dividing the remains of the Tome between them and going their separate ways. Storious goes on about the beauty of endings, and how he's seen Legeiel, Zooous and Izaak's, and now, via Charybdis, it's Desast's turn. Touma questions why Tassel didn't use his power to end the fight, but Tassel explains he cannot affect their world as a result.p of receiving power, as Mei goes right through him. Desast finishes Charybdis, but it's like him and revives. Tassel has only been able to watch for 2000 years. He found hope when Luna appeared and chose Touma, but Izaak manipulated Kurayami 's visions to bring about the events of 15 years ago. Touma will receive power when he meets Luna again, but he will then fade from this world, no one is happy with this. Storious goads Desast by threatening Ren, leaving him open to an attack from Charybdis that partly consumes Desast's book, Desast defeats Charybdis and flees. Touma says he'll see Luna, but will change his fate and stay with everyone. Tassel decides it's time to fetch Luna, while Touma seeks Ren. Charybdis, at Storious' becking, begins moving places into Wonder World. Ren asks Touma why he's so strong, then asks if he will disappear, Touma swears not to, then heads off, Desast then appears to Ren, holding his own damaged book. Charybdis tears apart dimensional walls as Ogami and Daishinji arrive, Charybdis fights them as Storious enters Wonder World. Touma arrives, the 3 Swordsmen all dual wield to defeat it. Desast tells Ren to fight him or die, as Tassel returns home to find Luna gone, and Storious arrives.

Zenkaiger: There's spooky times afoot at the elementary school, Magine jobs the kids to investigate, followed by Kaito and Vroon. Zyuran suspects Tojitendo, but Yatsude isn't so sure. Flint and others trip over invisible objects, Zox spots the culprit, Tomei World (with some The Invisible Man designs) and starts fighting, the Zenkaigers have to come help before reaching the school, Gaon uses Zyuran as a shield, getting Zyuran and Zox's siblings turned invisible. Boccowaus doesn't care much for the plan until Gege supports it, but Barashitara and Ijirude both see this as his mood improving. Magine is upset about the fact it's likely the mysterious happenings are caused by Tojitendo, feeling the kids will be disappointed it's not a real haunting, but they decide to use Zyuran's current state to give the kids something to investigate. Zyuran causes chaos in town heading for the school, as does Tomei World, Twokaiser battles him. Magine is furious about having to disappoint the kids again. Tomei World makes the Kudakks invisible, allowing them to overpower Zox, when the Zenkaigers arrive. Magine is terrifying here. Zenkaiser uses Sun Vulcan for a Sun Vulcan Ball with Vroon and Gaon on the Kudakks, while Magine and Zyuran smash Tomei World. The Tojiru Gear flies up to the previously invisible Kudaitest, which becomes Dai Tomei World. Due to a number of invisible structures ZenkaiOh ZyuraGaon struggles, and then Zyuran is made invisible again, making Zenkaiser visible. ZenkaiOh VrooMagine takes over, joined by Twokai-Oh Riki. Zyuran splits from Gaon to attack invisibly, Dai Tomei World removes his own bandages to also be invisible. Magine's magic allows them to see him to hit him. They find the kids, who have still managed to see spooky activity in the school, Zyuran managed to do it before turning visible, but sees a real ghost while the others head to school. Stacey doesn't know what he wants anymore.

Spectre + Blades: The 2 remaining followers of Danton are determined to capture "Léon" to achieve perfect evolution, turns out they have at least 4 of "Kanon" all desperate to find him, a hooded guy watches. The real Kanon arrives from Ganma World, aiming to protect Makoto, who is doing his healer thing still. Mei and Ribtaro spot one of the Kanon clones still desperately seeking Makoto. At Daitenkuu Takeru talks with Kanon, turns out it was her who called Takeru last time, wanting to help her sisters and protect Makoto. Desast smells Kanon. The Kanon runs away from Mei and Rintaro, who find our Kanon, and all 3 run into Desast trying to make this one his sister. Kanon wants to protect her sisters, but also keep them from Makoto, believing learning of them will just hurt him more. Blades fights Desast as the followers arrive with the other Kanons, transforming into a Ganma Superior like Igor, and a Ganma Ultima Ebony. Kanon for the first time becomes Kamen Rider Kanon Spectre. Afterca bit of fighting the Ultima decides to just absorb the 3 Kanons, which sets Desast off on him, then grabs and absorbs the last, evolving I to an Evolude form, Desast leaves while Kanon is upset about failing to protect her siblings. They defeat her, intending to use her as bait, when Makoto arrives, promising to save her and her sisters, and says Danton's dream is dead. Rintaro saves Kanon, and Makoto hands him the Book Spectre Gekikou Senki, which Tassel gave him and told him what was going on. Blades use it, powers largely based on Deep Spectre, fighting with Spectre and Kanon Spectre. Blades fights the superior, the siblings the Ultima. After a moment Spectre uses Sin Spectre, pulling the other Kanons free, then lends Blades the Deep Slasher for a finisher, while brother and sister defeat the Ultima. Makoto accepts the other Kanons as his family, and Takeru and Touma arrive, Rintaro envious of the family they have but is accepted by Touma and Mei. There's still this hooded guy to worry about though.

Dogengers Nice Buddy: Before we start, a note on the AHK member's new forms. Yabai Kamen, Uzagi, Nectaris and Maid Shitsuji are all referred to as just being "new", possibly indicating their status as permanent updates. Shuraomaru's is referred to as "Cinkonka" meaning requiem, Gulf is Mode: Saber, Gallia is Mode: Judgment. Great Z attempts to block an attack with the Affect System, but realises he doesn't have the Affect System control headset, fortunately his father has retrieved it controlling the Affects as Riku fights. The Heroes unite, and the last drone teleports everyone elsewhere, then shorts out and starts to fail. Great Z receives power from the heroic lineage from Great A to himself, becoming Great 2, the Buddy pairs roll call, Metal stands to one side, everyone preps for the explosion on Ohgaman saying Dogengers, but it doesn't come until "Nice Buddy". Fukuokaliber faces Nectaris, Yamashiron splits against Uzagi, Aoiron and Daidairon restraining the shadow body, Kitaqman and El Brave face the Marou Kaijin, Kitaqman Metal battles Shuraomaru, inspired by his brother's memory, while Rookie and Ohgaman battle Yabai Kamen and Maid Shitsuji. Great 2 defeats Karamis, Yamashiron and Fukuokaliber Nice Buddy Buster their opponents, Kitaqman dual wields while El Brave physically fights the Marou Kaijin, Metal and Shuraomaru have a single stroke battle. Ohgaman throws Rookie his Buddy Buster, leading Rookie and Yabai Kamen to have a Dual Wielding duel. Ohgaman defeats Maid Shitsuji, at which point Shaberryman shows up with a gold necktie trying to explain himself, it has a reaction with the Golden Seal power in his combat form (which I think he hasn't worn until now thus season) and turns it into a giant vehicle thing with him chained to it. The Dogengers use Nice Buddy Buster alongside Great 2's finisher to defeat it and Yabai Kamen. We end as we began, a note of the Dogengers becoming celebrated for defeating Yabai Kamen, who had to make a public apology again. Hanagata tells Great 2 it's time to start his story, he already has plans with Ex which he seems not too enthused by, the Dogengers come and greet him afterwards.

[julio777]

Week 5 and 6 (Kahoot and quizziz)

In my (Bringing technological innovative) class in week 5 and 6 i have been introduced to educational technologies tools Kahoot,Quiziz.As a future teacher this will be helpful to me but most importantly this will be helpful in this lockdown period.These tools will facilitate both teachers and students work.I hope that you will make use of these tools,this is the main objective of this blog

What is “Kahoot!”?

Kahoot! is a game-based learning and trivia platform. What makes Kahoot! so great is that it has uses beyond the classroom; it can be used in offices and social settings, making it a hit for all ages. This means that some parents may be familiar with Kahoot! as well. Kahoot! can be used from any device (through the website or the app), making learning fun and inclusive in all contexts for all ages. Teachers can create multiple choice games related to class content that students can play as a class by entering the game code on their app or device. Kahoot! offers a multitude of other forms of games related to class content that can make learning fun.

Why Use “Kahoot!”?

Kahoot! offers many benefits in the classroom. Because of its flexibility, Kahoot! can be used in various subjects — even physical education. Kahoot! is a great way to keep students engaged because it focuses on social learning and makes it fun. It’s also simple to use because it works on any device and players don’t have to create an account. Most importantly, it’s free for teachers and students.

If you’re looking for a new way to reinforce class content or keep your students engaged, Kahoot! is the solution you’re looking for. Using Kahoot! will make your students enjoy coming to class and is sure to boost the morale during those trying times of the semester, such as exam prep. Whenever students use educational technology, it’s important to teach and emphasize digital citizenship. Monitoring software like LearnSafe re-enforces these lessons and assures a safe learning environment.

What is Quizizz?

How is it useful?

Quizizz allows you to conduct student-paced formative assessments in a fun and engaging way for students of all ages.

Student-paced: Questions appear on each student's screen, so they can answer questions at their own pace, and review their answers at the end.

BYOD: Can be played by students using any kind of device with a browser, including PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

Thousands of public quizzes: Amazing teachers around the world create thousands of great questions on Quizizz every day! This community effort generates great content that everyone can use.

Quiz Editor: The Quizizz editor is the most awesome quiz editor in the world!

Quiz Customization: Teachers have multiple options to customize their quiz session to toggle the level of competition, speed, and other factors.

Quizizz uses the same technique as kahoot, but it still has slight variances. Kahoot is only used for real-time formative evaluation, testing, questionnaires, and discussions in the classroom. Quizizz lists two different application modes. One is to form a formative evaluation in real-time in the classroom, and the other is to be arranged by the teacher to the student as an extracurricular assignment.

Quizizz can be used in any teaching and learning areas, a teacher can use Quizizz to link students' engagement of study in every class.

In this lock down period These educational technologies tools will be very useful.It is the ideal time to try Kahoot and Quizizz.Stay safe,we have all materials needed to work at home #Kahoot,Quizziz

Hope that you enjoy reading my blog

[reflectionsforalostsoul]

One

I don’t know what to say. What do you say when you feel like the world is ending? There are a million ways that life feels over. The pandemic. Climate change. Pollution. Lack of resources. Misinformation. Lack of values. Lack of morals. The list could stretch on. 

I am not a scientist. I am just someone who started their existential crisis a few years ago, who now suspects that many others are caught up in their own crisis as well. How did I get there? That isn’t something I am ready to talk about, but I can tell you that I think it started for me the way it would start for most people. I lost my faith in humanity. 

I had always been an optimist. Someone who always had hope for the future. I saw the good in people, but then again, don’t we all at some point? Yet life experience slowly erodes that youthful naivety that some of us are naturally imbibed with, and perhaps it was only a matter of time before that slipped away. It was like I had been stumbling around for years in some kind of haze that I can only liken to drug induced euphoria. And then they pulled out the rug and I was on my ass sober. 

My perception grew sharper, and I tried to tune things out the way I had before but found myself unable to. I was noticing the people around me in ways I never had before. 

Social media made me sick as I scrolled through my feed. Everyone carefully wording the things they shared to cast them in a positive light. The desperation for attention… Sharing countless memes to let the world know, Yeah, I’m funny. I’m a catch. You should know this. Everyone needs to make it known that they say what’s on their mind, consequences be damned. I mean, maybe they are blocking dear old Grandma from their stories, but everyone else is going to know exactly why you have a problem. 

Maybe I am explaining it wrong. Let me just tell you exactly what I think.

People complain about the pandemic’s effect on mental health. Everyone feels cut off. Disconnected. But I’ve been feeling that way all along. I think people have been unaware of the great disconnection we are all experiencing and are just now realizing when confronted with social distancing alone we are all feeling. 

Maybe it is just me. Maybe it is just my age. My Mother told me one day I would have a family and disappear into it. She said when you have kids that slowly life becomes more about them than anything else, and friendships fall by the wayside. This was told to me when I asked her why her friends didn’t visit anymore. I didn’t believe her. I was just a child and there was nothing more important to me than my friendships. The thought that my best friends wouldn’t always be a part of my life was ludicrous.  I vowed to prove her wrong. That would not be my life. 

My Mother had a funny way of doing that. I always knew she was an intelligent woman, but there were so many pearls like this that she shared with me throughout my childhood that would make me react in disbelief. So many times she was right, and now it’s too late to say it to her… But let me digress.

That’s not my life, you might say. My friends still come around. They still call. We have a great relationship! I am happy for you then. But I am not talking to you. I am talking to those people who are curating their online profiles with a fine tooth comb in an attempt to get recognition. Bad self esteem is easier to handle when you get positive reacts to a selfie. Anxieties about parenthood are easier to handle when you share an inspirational quote about how you need your children more than they need you. Your marriage isn’t so toxic when people are fawning over pictures of your special anniversary dinner together and saying things like, “You guys are so lucky,” or, “Look how happy they are!” Maybe things aren’t as bad as you think they are. Everyone else sees how happy you two are together. As a matter of fact, people constantly say how happy your entire family looks. Maybe you are focusing on the negative too much. You’ve gotta work on that. You have to be less negative. So, you share some more inspirational bullshit to your friends and family online. You take lots of selfies and caption them that you are loving your life or that you are #blessed. 

It makes you feel a bit better. The tightness in your chest lessens a bit when your friends and family hit that like button. They wish they had your life. You are lucky. You are grateful. 

I feel bad for the children though.

They will never experience what life was like before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every old person says this. Things were better in my day. It is almost a cliche. Unfortunately most people tend to view the past through a nostalgia filter. My Mom didn’t do that. She constantly told my siblings and I how lucky we were to be around for such a wonderful period of human history. She marveled at video games and happily played them with us. She was jealous of us getting to experience what she called the Golden Era of Disney. She made sure we appreciated the time we were alive in. I am aware of my children’s luckiness too. They have a world of information at their fingertips. Pictures and videos can happen at the touch of a phone screen ready to preserve all those precious memories. That’s nice. It really is. I would have died for a video camera in my childhood. Plus, they are living through meme culture. Such hilarity. So many funny vloggers. So many silly trends… What a time to be alive!

My kids do not ride the school bus though. They are considered car riders. The week they are with me I drop them off at school and the week they spend with their Dad his Mother drops them off. My kids get sad about this sometimes. The thought of riding the bus with their friends seemed like an adventure. They had heard funny stories from friends and even from their family. They wanted to experience it. So, I made it happen. 

Those young bright eyes were wide with excitement as they waited for the school bus. They had had to get up way earlier that morning since a bus route takes much longer than me driving them directly, but they didn’t mind. They were hopeful. Their morning held so many possibilities. Their joy at the novelty of it all made my chest swell with happiness. It lessened my nervousness about it. Yes, bus rides could be fun, but there is always potential for harassment or bullying. That morning I pushed my anxiety aside and focused on the moment, tried to live in it with them. We laughed as we said goodbye that morning. I could feel the excitement. For a moment I was transported back to my own childhood and that flood of adrenaline on the first day of school. I couldn’t wait for them to come home and tell me all about it. 

That afternoon I picked them up from school. There wasn’t enough time for them to ride in the afternoon, not with homework and dinner prep. So, I waited in the car rider line at the school drumming my fingers on the steering wheel in anticipation. I kind of expected happy little hops towards my car when they came out the door, but when I saw them it was a bit more reserved. They looked sleepy and ready to put their long day behind them. I was kind of surprised, but it happens like that sometimes. School can be exhausting. 

Immediately they relaxed when getting in the car, sinking down with exhaustion. I turned on the music and we drove. They said they were tired from getting up so early. I had forgotten about that. So, I asked the question I had been waiting all day to ask, “Well?”

They both gave me a shrug. I was confused. I expected to hear stories of them chatting with friends. Not the disinterested attitude they were displaying. It took the whole ride home to figure it out. Apparently they didn’t do much talking with their friends because everyone has a cell phone nowadays and there were sixty little faces glued to their phone screens the entire time. My children were feeling disappointment but also jealousy. They wanted phones too and didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to have one yet. This wasn’t how I had expected the day to go. I sensed opportunity in that moment. Those pearls of wisdom my Mother gave me in my childhood? I was determined to do the same. Our car rides were where we had our most serious conversations because there are no distractions to the kids. It is one of the only times I have their undivided attention, so I spoke. 

“Babies? I am really sorry for how the bus ride turned out. It wasn’t what you were expecting, and I know that you’re feeling frustrated, but this just shows why you don’t need a phone yet. You’ve just seen it yourselves.” My son looked angry at my words. He has been asking for a phone for several years and I sometimes wonder if he feels embarrassment at not having one like all of his other friends. I continued before I could be interrupted and lose my train of thought. 

“My childhood has lots of happy memories. When I am sad sometimes I think back to other happy times in my life and it helps me to get through the day. I have so many memories with friends and family that I treasure-”

“But if I had a phone I could record those memories,” my daughter interrupted angrily from the back seat. 

“You are missing my point, let me finish,” I admonished her. “Lots of people are missing out on good times and fun because of their phones. You all don’t see it that way but it’s the truth. People get addicted to their phones, and not just children. Adults are addicted too. They miss out on everything happening around them. When I go to visit Grandma I always feel frustrated because she isn’t paying any attention to me, her face is buried in her phone. Apps that you would use are MADE to be addictive. There are studies about this. You get a rush of dopamine, your happiness chemical, when you get things like reacts from your friends. People are becoming so dependent on it that they are creating any true happiness in their lives. They are slaves to their phones. It isn’t just social media, phone games are made the same way. They pay people big bucks to manufacture games in a way that leaves you coming back for more, over and over. It is how they make money. People pay to speed up the reward systems in these games, and it is like being manipulated.”

“I wouldn’t get addicted,” my son muttered angrily beside me. 

“That’s what everyone thinks, but it happens slowly. You know how we do family dinner? Do you ever see me on my phone?”

“No,” they replied in unison. 

“Exactly. I think it is the pinnacle of rude behavior to sit down to dinner and ignore everyone around you because you are playing on your phone. That isn’t how you create good memories. When you have a bad time you think back on the good times, right?”

“Yeah,” replied my son.

“And those good times involve your friends and family, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When you are going through something hard you are going to look back on times where you felt joy, or when you shared laughs with your friends over something funny that happened. You will never think back to hours spent on a video game, especially a phone game.”

“But I have had fun playing online with my friends! You’re wrong,” my son quickly pointed out. 

“Yes, I can see some good memories happening in those instances, but for the most part you are playing alone. Those good times are few and far between. You might have had a laugh over something happening on the game, but how long will you hold that memory dear?”

What I should have said before we arrived home, and maybe it didn’t occur to me to say at the time, I love looking back on experiences with people where we had deep conversations. Where we were discussing important things. Where our young minds were filled with the wonder of infinite possibilities. Do I hear my children having conversations like that? I do not. There is hardly any depth. Before you say that this is me being old and being disconnected from the youth, let me say that I am not the only one who had deep conversations with their friends in childhood. You cannot say that you never pondered the meaning of life and what your role in it was. 

Are children not having as many of these conversations because we are not teaching them that skill? Or are they more guarded because there are so many more ways to experience bullying these days? Do they feel unsafe to open up? I know that I am making mistakes as a parent myself. My son told me that he wanted to be a famous youtuber one day, and I couldn’t stop myself from showing that I was unimpressed with his aspiration. I asked my son why he no longer wanted to be a writer and said matter of factly that it was a terrible idea. I shut a door between us before it had even fully opened. I didn’t mean to, and have apologized, but I know that I will never get it back. How can he open up to me when I disregarded something so important to him? I didn’t mean to do it, and I regret it. 

It wasn’t just the job itself though, it was my motherly instincts. 

My children have not had to deal with online abuse yet. They have never been bullied in that way. They simply cannot fathom how nasty people can be when cloaked in anonymity. How many online influencers have killed themselves in the past year? Several that I have read about. 

Eventually my son did ask why I had a problem with it, and I finally got to explain a little. I mentioned the nastiness of online comments, the suicides, and the depression that these people struggle with. My son assured me that he could just ignore nasty comments. I’m not so sure. 

My son is definitely funny. He talks to himself while playing video games frequently and I can hear him from the other room. I am constantly chuckling at his antics and sound effects. Do I think people could appreciate his videos? Definitely. I love his commentary. Do I think people will be jerks to him anyway? Yep. That’s what people do. It is their outlet for their hate and rage in life. People take it out on others online, because when you act like a jerk online there are rarely any lasting consequences. Maybe a temporary ban or mute, but then these online bullies very often have multiple accounts so that they can continue their bad behavior unimpeded. 

I try to reflect on my motives often. I find myself wondering about others motives all of the time, so I try to scrutinize myself in the same way. Because another big problem that I notice in life is that people are not searching for introspection and very often do not understand their own motivations. People lie to themselves constantly, and if there is one thing I am sure of it is this, if you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust anybody?

Am I being a terrible parent at this moment? I definitely feel I screwed up in my response to his aspiration that he shared with me. Is this me being overprotective and stopping him from pursuing his passions? How much damage have I done by my initial response? I want my child to feel he can talk to me, and I just made a common parent blunder. Every generation of children feels that parents just don’t understand. I want to do better. 

Fame is fleeting and leaves you under the microscope of public scrutiny. I would never want that for myself, and cannot imagine my son dealing with those pressures. Way too much importance is placed upon external validation. Yes, it’s nice to have but I think it is much better to validate yourself. Don’t get me wrong, my Mother validated me constantly. She made me feel so intelligent, so witty, and so wise. I think she was the greatest for this, but it is necessary to validate one’s self as well. When you are dependent entirely on other people’s praise and all of your self worth comes from the attention of others you are destroying your own resilience. Sure, people preach self love constantly these days, but I don’t see it working too well in most cases. People are bashed for being prideful, or maybe they were prideful about the wrong things. Why are you so focused on loving yourself at any weight? Don’t you know that skinny shaming is a thing? Don’t you know that your outside is irrelevant? What matters is on the inside! Insert eyeroll. These aren’t my thoughts, but just an example. Everyone has an opinion and the internet gives them a place to share it. There will always be someone who is critical of your view. Preach self love all you want, but it is still so hard to come by. 

Have I helped equip my children with resilience or self love? They seem to struggle with it. Have I praised them enough? Do I feel that they are mentally strong? Not as strong as I would like, but I fear the ways they could attain mental strength. I have experienced a lot of rough times in my life. I have overcome adversity. I have been at the bottom and drug myself back to the top. Is that the only way to build mental strength or resilience? Through pain? Everyone struggles in life. Will my children’s struggles help them to grow to be strong people or will it leave them a broken person constantly questioning their own validity? 

No one knows the future. How do we know that our methods are right? We can only proceed based on our own life experiences and knowledge. It is so terrifying not to know what the future holds. What seemingly inconsequential things did you say or do that will reverberate through your child’s life and affect them in ways you cannot begin to imagine? Hindsight is easy. Staring into the unknown future is much harder. It is incredibly difficult to face. Every single person is capable of causing untold amounts of ripples that expand into society and spread throughout the word. 

Do you ever think about your own ripples? 

Some people are aware of it and try to send out good ones. They try to pay it forward whenever conceivable. Maybe they pay for the person behind them’s meal in line at a drive through restaurant. Maybe they bring donuts for their coworkers. Maybe they stop and help people alongside the road who need help changing a tire. There is plenty of good still in this world. It isn’t all bad. But are we as a society focusing enough on the bad ripples? The bad energy we are sending out into the world?

So few seem to care these days. Humanity as a whole is selfish. It isn’t your fault, that is our nature. It is how we survive. But deep down how many times have you made an exception for yourself because you are special, you are you? The pandemic has really opened my eyes to people’s inherent selfishness. How dare you try to inconvenience me by requiring me to wear a face mask? I don’t care that it is mandated, and that you are simply doing your job, I am going to harass and abuse you! You may not be in support of wearing a mask on a personal level, but I don’t care about that. I am not going to live my life in fear like all of you sheeple. So, be prepared, I will hit you. I will spit on you. I will shoot you. Seems dramatic, right? But this has happened over and over again in this past year. 

I want to ask where is the humanity, but I am beginning to fear that this IS humanity. 

So often I struggle with wondering, is humanity worth saving? If this is the end-times do we deserve another chance? What makes us redeemable? The only answer that I can come up with is love. We are redeemable because of love. Maybe you have a better answer than me. Love is the only thing that I can come up with at this moment, and even that is hard to hold on to. I feel myself spiral and losing faith in humanity on a daily basis almost, and I have to make a conscious effort to remember the good things. Those loving moments that we are capable of. 

The animals that we rescue. The children that we pray for. The couples who still love each other after many trials or years. The art inspired by it, or the music. Love is a universal feeling. It can unite us, though we face the ever present danger of hate dividing us. I am so past hating stuff. I can tell you that I intensely dislike our former president, but do I wish his death like I have seen others do? I do not. I think we have a world full of damaged people searching for meaning, and there is no manual. We are all trying our best and are making decisions based on our own life experiences. What is right to you is wrong to someone else. It doesn’t mean anyone is wrong. It is just perspective. There is no other way to view it that I am aware of. We all have different perspectives, our own personal narratives of events. That is just what humanity does. We are not a collective consciousness. So many people try to make things black and white, when really there are nothing but varying shades of grey. Had I lived your life and been through the things you have been through I might feel very differently. This is just my opinion on the matter, based upon my own life experiences. I don’t hate you for feeling differently than me. I just get sad sometimes that we struggle to find common ground. I want us to succeed. I want humanity to persevere. 

How do I explain everything that is on my mind lately without making you feel it is endless rambling? I know this started with a list of things that make it feel like the world is ending, and I could go on forever. Do I drone on and on, or should I find some semblance of structure? I do not mean to be a bore, but there is so much to address. Is this a diary? Is this to my children? I am unsure. Maybe it is just for me. Maybe I just need to find the words that can make a difference. I don’t know about you but for quite a while now I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that time is running out and there is something I must do. I hope that by trying to organize my thoughts I can figure out what it is. 

[annoying-lucy]

Evan Evagora did an AMA involving the Star Trek Shitposting Facebook Group - the questions and answers below were copy/pasted direct from the collated master post. Evan is a member of the group, who participates under an unknown pseudonym.

———————————————

AMA Master Post!

Thanks so much to Evan Evagora for taking time out of his day for our AMA earlier. To make the questions and answers easier for ya'll to find, here they all are together below.

Q: How does my love of cats compare to Elnor?

A: Im actually more of a dog person, there was a scene that had Elnor and spot 2 unite briefly but unfortunately it didn’t leave the editing room

Q: How familiar was I with Star Trek before and did I have to do research?

A: I grew up with TNG, I’d have to say either worf, Guinan or Q are my favourite characters. And I was given episodes to watch that were to help with information before filming Picard

Q: How was I prepped to deal with the crazy fans?

A: I got told to join Star Trek shitposting 😉. Not but in all seriousness, it was Jonathan Frakes who gave me advice on entering the world of fandom from the other side and he said it’s been nothing short of a pleasure

Q: So if Hugh had survived would they have made out?

A: what happens on the cube stays on the cube

Q: My favourite moment of s1

A: getting to slice that romulans head off

Q: How did I hear about Star Trek shitposting?

A: most of the crew is either a part of the group or knows about, one of the amazing hair and make up ladies got me into I think my first or second day

Q: If I had to be Tuvixed with someone excluding elnor?

A: mirror verse Elnor, nah worf to be honest

Q: What is something I’d like to do in season 2

A: Id like to see Elnor and spot 2 together

Q: How am I passing my time woth quarantine?

A: ama for the gronp! Nah I’ve just been reading, writing and also the contact I’m having with the fans too has really helped a lot

Q: If I had to quarantine with any of my costars who would it be and why

A: I’d go with hardy treadaway he’s got the nicest place

Q: What am I hoping to see in Elnor’s future

A: Inner peace, contentment and possibly shorter hair?

Q: Am I intimidated by working on a show with such a big fan base?

A: no I grew up with Star Trek, you’re really in a bubble of filming when you’re making the show, it all didn’t really hit home until the first trailer at San Diego

Q: Would I consider playing Elnor as non binary

A: I’ve seen a lot of debate and discussion about not only my character but others in the series, if there is something that connects you with a character on this show and it resonates with you, even if it’s shown, not shown or hinted at I’m all for it. I am not for the constant belittlement, bullying and criticism of not only the characters on the show but also other fans. It really does break my heart reading comments where people aren’t welcoming of one another, because that is the whole reason why Trek has bought so many together and by spewing these disgusting cruel words out your not only showing the world you don’t understand the meaning behind the show, you also are destroying the thing that makes us all love it

Q: Is there Australia on romulas

A: yeah they have a down under I’m sure of it. No the accent can easily be explained with, Elnor left romulas at a young age, moved to a planet with different species and languages spoken so that influenced his accent

Q: Have I seen Elnor fan fiction and art?

A: yeah some of it has been really amazing! And some others have been...creative

Q: How excited am I to make home movies with my action figures?

A: my plan is to buy everyone’s, make them record audio and then film shit using the dolls and their voices

Q: Are you playing animal crossing?

A: I’ve preordered it because they’ve sold out here in aus, but in playing civ 6 to pass time and Mario party

Q: Did I get to try Romulan ale?

A: no I wish, I’m kind of hoping for a scene next year where Elnor gets drunk for the first time

Q: What character did I wish would appear in our show?

A: one word, one letter Q

Q: What’s my background have I been acting long?

A: Picard was my third acting gig, and the first project to release, so I have got some experience acting and I have previous work but it has either just aired or is going to next year

Q: Please my friend choose a charity you would like us to donate to

A: food bank

Q: Favourite ninja turtle

A: it’s always been Raph and always will be

Q: Do I know much about Elnors background

A: I know things that haven’t been mentioned yet, but also given his character is new and season 1 just finished, hopefully some of those things are explored

Q: How would o feel about the fan theory that Spock is my father

A: I mean, I’m not really sure, I can always shoot Ethan a message and ask him what he thinks too

Q: Which classic episode trope would I like to see?

A: mirror universe

Q: Can we look forward to more ninja representation?

A: is Elnor not enough? ☹️

Q: Were there any particular characters I drew inspiration from, any elves?

A: there’s a particular group of people I think Elnor might have been inspired from. Can I just say how cool it would be if Elnor is just cosplaying as an elf because Picard left him a copy of Lotr when he was young

Q: Would I be open to exploring Elnors sexuality in s2 and what would it be?

A: I am totally open for that, and as for Elnors sexuality, I’m not sure he’s only 17 he’s just left his planet and gone off on an adventure where he openly knew the success may lead in his death or others he hasn’t had time to figure himself out so seeing his sexuality explored would be amazing

Q: What stories did you hear about working on precious trek series from the OG actors?

A; So we found out Michael Dorn used to muddle his lines up because he was normally the last close up of the day. They used to put bets on to see how many takes he’d have to do. All I must add in very fun spirits nothing ever malicious or mean

Q: My long term career goals

A: id like to keep pursuing more roles I’m acting, I’m a big writer and have some projects I’m looking at getting created but right now I’d say I’m just here to learn and grow

Q: What do I write?

A: right now I’m working on three screenplays and two pilots most of the stuff I’ve written is just sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be used

Q: Ever fried an egg, buttered and vegemite'd some toast and eaten it like a sandwich?

A: what I just read, scared the crap out of me, I love vegemite but the most I’ll do is add cheese to it

Q: What is one of my favourite stories about s1

A: Jeri Ryan and I had a scene together in the borg cube (what a queen she made!) it was shooting at night and I think it was the final shot of the day, we couldn’t keep a straight face and just laughed through about fifteen takes

Q: Are you a big fan of fandom besides Trek?

A: Star Wars, lotr, the magician series Raymond e feist, a song of fire and ice series, avatar last air bender and legend of Korra (would love to play zuko) and of course Batman (fav Jason Todd as the hood)

Q: Could I see myself playing Elnor for six or seven years?

A: as long as there’s a good story that myself and fans will enjoy, but if it didn’t meet my expectations no. And also hopefully the writers and creators would want to

Q: My top TNG eps are in no particular order

I borg, all good things, tapestry, the measure of a man and all good things

I’ll also add I borg especially because it’s just cool seeing where Hugh began and how he ended up

Q: How did I land the role of Elnor?

A: I was on a break from filming Fantasy Island (a movie based off the old tv show) and I was home for pilot season which is when they cast for shows, I had two weeks of daily auditions before I was due to fly back and start filming again, two days before I was meant to leave I got an audition for Picard, the script had a code name and Elnors name was Kbar on it, but I was told it was Star Trek. I went into the room and thought I didn’t do a very good job, then I flew to film and two days later I was told I’ve made a list of people being considered, after a few more auditions and a couple of phone calls from producers and everything I found myself on a plane to LA five weeks later

Q: Have I made friends among the cast?

A: no, we tried really hard to become friends, but unfortunately we ended up becoming a family instead. Everything we say in interviews about us getting along is all true and not fake. I’m the newest to acting out of everyone so I was kind of of shocked to find out that how close we all are isn’t necessarily how it will be when I shoot other projects, so I think we just got lucky or they casted really well

Q: Have the Picard people seen your memes?

A: yes I’ve shown them the memes from the page, I’ve shown everyone including Patrick we find most of them funny (some shocking)

Not shocking in a bad way

Unexpected I should say

Q: How do I feel about the ears?

A: I wore them so much they came up in my dreams, but they were the easiest thing to apply onto me

Q: Which non tng character would I like to see return?

A: I wouldn’t mind seeing the doctor

Q: The most relatable Star Trek character?

A: Look for me growing up it was Wesley, i just picked anyone who was the young one. And I grew up with my sisters and was always being told I’m either wrong, an idiot or just to shut up

Q: Did I have previous martial arts experience before the show?

A: I have a background in boxing which helps when it comes to movement, reflexes and just all around fitness for stunts. I didn’t have any sword fighting experience before we began training for the show however

Q: How do you think being raised by an order of women affected Elnor?

A: I think it gave him a healthy understanding of not only the strength and resilience of women but I think he understands not only gender equality but just equality in general and I think that’s directly to do with growing up in a sect of all female warrior nuns

Q: What is a type of meme you would like to see more of in the group?

A: I love all the memes in the group, I hardly like any of them now incase someone figures out who I am though ahahah

Q: Favorite recent memes?

A: See my comment below

[mrtelevoid]

Terminator: Dark Fate isn’t a terrible movie. Of the attempts to recapture Judgement Day glory in the Terminator franchise, this is easily the most watchable. The new cast is charming, the new Terminator designs feel like something of a Lovecraftian evolution from from the classic T1000 design, and the filmmakers make a sincere attempt to shift the frachise’s focus away from the John and Sarah Conner.  All the Terminator movies are fun for those who enjoy weed + big budget science fiction extravaganzas, but Dark Fate gave me the most of the old time Cameron vibes we’re all chasing.

Unfortunately, it’s still not very good. It’s failure is the same as in all the other sequels. They’re not creating a new story or expanding the universe. They’re looking for new ways to tell the same time traveling robot story over and over again. I may have had a better time with this one than with Genisys or Salvation, but it still left me thinking the same thing they all do. It shouldn’t be hard to make a good Terminator movie.

Spoilers after the cut...

Undeniably, Dark Fate’s darkest fuck-up was the killing of John Connor by a T-Arnold who hadn’t heard of Skynet’s destruction. Humanity’s much-hyped savior is cruelly brushed aside early in the film like he’s a scream queen whose star had gotten too big for the sequel. It the kind of cheap trope which ultimately makes the final product feel cheap. Something you’d hope this franchise would be above, but your expectations may be too high considering this entry’s subtitle.

Regardless, John Connor’s dark fate essentially takes the piss out of everything, right off the bat. A shocking moment which adds nothing to the story, and sabotages what they got right. Neither charming performances from Gabriel Luna, Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes or the dual nostalgia bomb of Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton back is enough to wash the bad taste of a dead kid away. Which is too bad. Dark Fate really feels like an early draft of a great Terminator movie. Establishing that Connor isn’t the savior of this new apocalypse is smart, but they should have found a less jarring way to shift the focus.

Here’s how I would have done it: Show us a John Connor who grew up in a world without Skynet. Maybe he made peace with the reality he wasn’t going to be a military leader, even while his mom never stopped apocalypse prepping. John settled down with a family in the suburbs and got fat + happy. His relationship with Sarah is strained, but he’s trying because he knows what she’s been through. Open on a non CGI’d Eddie Furlong playing John as a fortysomething schlub inviting his mom to a family gathering.  His son or daughter happens to be dating this nice girl named Dani. When the gathering is interrupted by a Rev-9 and a cyborg from the future named Grace saves them, everyone is shocked to discover Dani is actually the target of the future’s wrath this time. John could even die at this point, perhaps heroically sacrificing himself to save the team. It would be sad, but it wouldn’t be such a gut punch.

I don’t know. Hopefully the next attempt to reboot the franchise moves past all this time travel bullshit anyway. Don’t overthink it. Show us a not-so-distant future society at the moment the machines turn against them. Most importantly, do it from the perspective of someone who isn’t humanity’s savior.  Just show us what the apocalypse will be like for the rest of us, give us lots of Terminator-flavored battle scenes. This is what people what to see from this franchise, and it’ll probably do a lot better than all the weird science bullshit they’ve come up with thus far.

[badsext]

idk if you're still taking requests but i'd love some more robert/klaus smut bc i think i've read all there is up to date lol, was thinking something hella dirty with a the reader being british, also bonus if it ends with someone else walking in on them ;)))

Kitchen Heat: Robert Sheehan x Female Reader

Thanks for the request, anon!  Requests and comments make me so happy! I hope you enjoy!

Words: ~1800

Warnings: It’s pretty smutty :)

After years of culinary school and working as a sous chef in some of the top restaurants in the UK, you decided to move to Los Angeles to open your own restaurant.  The concept: classic British comfort foods updated to suit the health conscious and eclectic millennial palate.  You had recently been graced with a glowing four star write up in Food and Wine magazine which created quite a buzz.  It also drew the attention of your celebrity obsession, Robert Sheehan.  You’d been a devoted fan ever since Misfits.

The first time he came in the place was jammed!  Your staff struggled to keep up with the demand, but you didn’t want to turn anyone away.  The host seated Robert and his friends at a table far enough away from the kitchen to be considered a good table, but close enough that you had sight lines through the narrow kitchen window.  You observed him talking and gesturing enthusiastically with his friends, imagining what he might be saying about your food.  Whatever it was, he looked pleased and your heart swelled with excitement.

That’s when Kim, the waitress came back into the kitchen saying, “Robert wants to meet the chef.” You nearly had to pick yourself off the floor at the news. 

“Tell them I’ll see them straight away,” you said, imitating confidence.  You ran back to the loo to put yourself together.  Working in a busy kitchen has a way of making you look like you’ve been running a marathon through a food fight.  You took off your apron, restyled your bun and applied a bit of powder to manage the shine.  You looked in the mirror and smiled sarcastically at your reflection.  This was about as good as it was going to get without a shower and a change of clothes.  You bravely walked out to the dining room for Roberts critique.

He smiled and got up from the table when he saw you.  He started clapping and his friends joined.  It was surreal.  The blush heated your cheeks.  You took a little bow in response. 

“Y/N, this food is…I can’t describe it…In tastes like the past and the future.  It’s delicious.  I love it.,” he said, gesturing wildly with his hands. 

You laughed. “Wow, thank you, Robert…I don’t know what to say.“  You really didn’t.

You sat down for a few minutes to chat with the group.  Kim brought you a glass of wine, turned away from Robert, her eyes wide, mouthing the words ‘oh my god.’ You tried so desperately to act casual at first until you actually did feel at ease with your new friends.  Robert was so warm and kind.  He had so many questions.  You tried to learn about his current project but he kept bringing the conversation back to the restaurant and the food.  He was really enthusiastic. 

You soon realized that you were needed back in the kitchen, so you excused yourself and went back to your frazzled kitchen staff.  Your memory of those moments with Robert would be etched into your brain forever.  Now it was back to reality, whisking and chopping, searing and garnishing tall, savory dishes long into the night.

A few weeks later Robert returned to the restaurant.  He was alone this time. It was odd seeing a celebrity dining alone.  He ordered the beef wellington and a glass of red.  He was reading something.  A script maybe?  Kim came back to tell you that he had tipped her a hundred bucks, said he wanted to camp out at the table for the rest of the night.  "I think he’s waiting for you,” she said gently digging her elbow into your ribs.

Your heart started pumping at double speed.  Maybe he was interested in you. God knows you had been fantasizing about him for nearly a decade.  After meeting the real Robert, maybe those fantasies weren’t so crazy after all.  It looked like he was actually a fan of yours.  That realization lit a spark in you as you swaggered out into the dining room and up to Robert’s table, sliding into the booth across from him.  “Hello, Robert.”

He dropped his script, clearly flustered. “Y/N, you surprised me!”

“You came back.”

“Well, the food is amazing and I think I’ve got a thing for the chef,” he said with a shy smile.

“A thing, you say? Let’s explore that, shall we?” You looked down at your watch.  "The restaurant closes in twenty minutes.  I could give you a private tour of the kitchen, then we can hit the pub or something."   

"Yes! I like this plan,” he said grinning. 

You spent the next twenty minutes in a daze of growing anticipation.  You made stupid little mistakes trying to manage the final clean up and prep for the next day.  The cooks and sous chef were headed for the pub.  They asked if you’d be joining them. You mumbled something noncommittal and focused on pulling yourself together.  You were now just seconds away from being alone with Robert.

“Everyone’s gone.  Come with me,” you said, grabbing his hand, surprising yourself with your boldness.  The touch of his skin sent electricity to your brain and back down to the heat between your legs.

The overhead lights were off and pilot light from the stove cast a gentle glow when you entered the kitchen.  Robert stepped in close to you, still holding your hand.  "I’ve had everything on your menu.  His head tilted slightly and his gorgeous green eyes looked deeper into yours.  “Is there something else I can try?”

You smiled, acknowledging the innuendo, but decided it would be more fun to tease him. “I’ve got a new desert I’m working on.  It’s a bit like classic trifle, but I’ve added an American twist.  You went over to the walk-in and returned with your latest experiment.  Robert leaned forward curiously, tucking a wayward curl behind his ear.  He watched intently while you assembled the sponge cake, fresh berries, and cream.  "Let’s see if you can guess the secret ingredient.”  You dipped a strawberry in the cream and slowly brought it up to his lips.  He opened his mouth and devoured it sensually, closing his eyes then moaned softly and exhaled. God, everything this man does is erotic, you thought as you watched him swallow the desert.  You inched closer until your lips were a few centimeters from his. “Bourbon,” you whispered. “It’s the secret ingredient.”

“I didn’t have a chance to guess,” he laughed. You studied his long, curly lashes as he blinked. In what felt like slow motion, his lips finally met yours.  You drew a suddenly necessary breath in through your nose, wondering if this was real.  He slid his hands up around the back of your neck and gently slid his tongue into your mouth.  You tasted the lingering sweetness from the strawberry and creme as your tongue mingled with his.  You hooked your arms around his waist. He pressed his body to yours.  Even through your double breasted, heat resistant chef’s coat you could feel his stiff cock pressed against you.

His hands slid down to the buttons of your coat.  He managed the first few, then became frustrated. He pulled away from the kiss with an audible wet smack.  “So may buttons,” he lamented with furrowed brows.  You giggled and finished the job, removing the coat.  Your clingy T-shirt was damp with sweat.  You cringed for a second, worried that would kill the mood, but quite the opposite happened.  Robert was intoxicated by your scent.  He kissed your damp neck, peeled the T-shirt up over your head, then removed his own.  His smooth chest and lean muscles took your breath away. 

You thought for a second about the fact that this was happening in your kitchen.  You were about to break every rule in the book, but that just excited you more.  Besides, you’d sanitize the whole goddam place in the morning anyway. 

You hooked your index finger into Robert’s ridiculously low waistband.  You heard the anticipation in his breath.  He grabbed your wrist, and turned your hand over in his so he could softly kiss your palm.  “Not yet,” he said.  You started walking toward the empty stainless steel prep table, looking back at him over your shoulder.  He grabbed your hips and positioned himself behind you, answering your non verbal question.  Then he kissed your back and shoulder blades as you unclasped your bra.  His wet kisses sent shudders down your spine.  He cupped your breasts and gently pinched your nipples while grinding his cock against the small of your back. 

Your pussy was already soaked when you both started feverishly wrestling with your pants.  You kicked off your shoes and Robert took care of the rest.  You stood before him naked but for your socks.  He gave you a boost up onto the table, your knees spread apart.  You leaned forward placing both palms down in front of you.  Robert’s hands grabbed two handfuls of your ripe ass.  You whimpered when he ran his fingers up and down your wet slit, then gasped when he eased them inside you.

You were about to get off on his fingers alone when he slowly pulled them out and replaced them with his mouth.  His lips and tongue explored every part of you from your clit to your asshole and back again. He made swirling rhythmic motions that made you twitch and moan until you came like an earthquake.

Rob guided you down off the table until your feet were back on the ground and gently bent you over. Then he slid his cock inside you, bucking his hips until he was as deep as it would go.  He grabbed your hips and began grinding and thrusting.  Your nipples grazed against the cold stainless steel table with every movement, adding to your pleasure.  Just as you were rounding the corner to your second orgasm the lights flicked on.  You shrieked.  

“Oh shit!”  Kim screamed and shielded her eyes with her hand like you do in the bright sun.  You and Rob tried to cover up the best you could, using your hands as fig leaves. Kim laughed nervously.  “Well, you two…keep calm, carry on,” she mumbled and turned to go, forgetting why she came back in the first place.  “My phone”…she reached awkwardly for the object on the counter… “forgot my phone.”  Then she bolted for the door.  As soon as she was gone you both burst out laughing.

“Y/N, I don’t mean to sound forward, but would you like to come over to my place?”  

You laughed and nodded.  "That sounds lovely, Rob.”

Want more?

@moorehollandplz @helena-way07 @turtlease @zohrayoung @vices-brendon @fangirl110603 @addan-anye @wow4stories @clockworkchild @isabellagiron@lilim13 @becka1703 @this-bitch-actually @ineffablecrowley666 @tootsie-noodels @ohyoubringmejoy @yeetskeetbuddy @klaushollandyoung

[fairestevies]

home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling | evie x doug

A few sweet moments in the months leading up to graduation, including Evie’s fashion business, “starter castle,” and Doug’s new band.

February

Evie sighed as she hung up the gowns she was working on for the night. She loved making dresses for everyone, but it was beginning to get a little overwhelming with graduation only a few months away. Not only was she focused on the gowns, but she still had a couple exams to study for, and had to figure out how to bring some of the other VKs over to Auradon. Needless to say, she was exhausted by the end of each day.

She flopped onto her bed, looking gloomily at Mal’s side of the room. It had been pretty empty recently, with Mal being just as busy as Evie. Being a lady of the court was no joke- she usually had a meeting of some sort every day, in different parts of Auradon. She hadn’t used her spell book once since the whole cotillion incident, and Evie was proud of that. Not to mention, Mal was getting to spend a lot of time with Ben.

Evie pulled out her notebook and added another thing to her to-do list: Talk to Doug about the proposal

Ben was planning to propose to Mal after graduation and asked Evie and Doug to be a part of the musical arrangements. Evie smiled to herself, she was so happy for her friends. Mal was going to love it.

She reached over to put her sketchbook back on her desk, but a few scraps of paper fell out. She knew exactly what they were before she even opened them. Her name was written neatly across each folded piece of paper, which she kept inside her notebook for whenever she needed to be cheered up. They were her notes from Doug, ranging from poems to inside jokes to silly stick figure drawings.

Evie smiled sadly as she opened up one of the poems. Along with Evie being busy with her business and school, Doug had been practicing late with the marching band most nights.

Evie turned to look at her clock- 9:55. Doug was usually finished around 10, so she should have a chance to talk to him as he walked back to the dorms. For now, she turned back to the poem she held in her hand. This was one of her favorites, but they were all really good. Not many people knew it, but Doug was super talented. He had a way with words, could play almost any instrument, ace a chemistry test in his sleep, and was the perfect business partner (and boyfriend, of course).

Just as she finished reading the note, her phone rang.

“Hi!” Evie chimed, as she answered Doug’s call.

“Hey Eve,” Doug smirked from the other end. “What’s up?”

Evie told him all about the dresses she was working on, and how she had crunched most of the numbers, which of course he offered to help with. Doug told her about his practice and the routine they were working on for the upcoming family events and graduation ceremonies. They liked to talk things out like this, as the other often had good ideas of what could be added or amended.

“I’m back in my room now, so I’m gonna go shower,” Doug explained. “I’ll come by tomorrow, and we can work on Evie’s4Hearts stuff?”

Evie agreed, chewing on her lip as they said goodnight. She got up and changed into her pajamas before laying back down on her bed. She couldn’t fall asleep yet, as she knew what was going to happen next.

A few moments passed before she heard a knock on the door. She answered to see a squeaky clean Doug with a smile on his face.

“You know it doesn’t count as a surprise if you come to kiss me goodnight every night?” Evie teased, gesturing for Doug to come in.

“Oh, so you want me to stop?” Doug teased back, grabbing her hand as he walked in and pulling her close.

Evie shook her head before hugging him back and burying her head in his chest, “Of course not.”

Doug smiled as he kissed the top of her head, something he could only do when she wasn’t wearing her usual heeled boots. They stayed like that for a minute, winding down after a long day.

Doug had noticed how Evie had been a little more down than usual. He sensed it had something to do with the talk of graduation starting to rise, but he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of, however, was that he was going to be there when she needed him. His nightly visits were his way of making sure she knew this.

Evie finally looked up and pressed her lips to his. “You should probably go before Fairy Godmother catches you out past curfew,” she mumbled.

Doug sighed and kissed her back one last time. “Goodnight Evie,” he said as he started to move towards the door.

“Night,” she followed, closing the door behind him.

She turned back towards her bed, noticing a new folded piece of paper on the floor, her name written across the front in the same familiar handwriting.

She rolled her eyes, and her smile widened as she picked it up.

She felt so lucky.  __________________________________________________________________

March

Evie sat upright on her bed as Doug strummed his guitar from her desk chair. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him, so focused on the notes. Ben had wanted them to take the song that he performed for Mal when he was spelled and slow it down for the proposal. Doug had been working on the arrangement for a while, and he was playing it for Evie’s approval before he taught it to the band.

“It’s perfect,” she admitted as he strummed the last note. “Doug, you’re so talented. MIT (Magical Institute Training) is so lucky to have you as their Drum Major.”

Evie’s smile fell slightly after she spoke. Graduation was approaching faster each day, and everything was changing so fast. Jay and Doug were heading off to separate colleges, Mal and Ben were embarking on a tour of the kingdom, and Lonnie was going to play R.O.A.R. as a professional, but thankfully Carlos and Jane would still be attending Auradon Prep.

Evie wasn’t exactly sure what her future was going to look like. She and Doug had spoken about this a little, but she didn’t really have a place to go. She wasn’t sure if she had enough money to buy a castle yet, but she wanted to stay in Auradon and continue working on Evie’s4Hearts and getting more VKs into Auradon Prep. She saw college as a possibility in her future, but for now, her top priority was getting kids off the Isle.

“And Auradon is lucky to have you as their number one fashion designer,” Doug added, moving to sit next to her.

Evie nodded, her smile back in full effect. “And the number one council member in support of the VK initiative.”

Doug smirked, “And you called me talented?” He threw his arm over her shoulder as they both giggled. “I was gonna wait and tell you next weekend.... but I have a surprise.”

Evie turned to look at him, curiosity dazzling in her eyes.

“I know you’ve been worried about having a place to stay next year, but I looked over the numbers again and Evie, I think we can make it work. I found this one place that I think could be really great-“

Evie cut him off with a kiss. “Thank you,” She exclaimed, hugging him tightly.

Doug pulled her over towards the computer, and as he typed, pictures of Evie’s perfect “starter castle” filled the screen. She stood behind him, arms hugging his chest and chin resting on his shoulder as they looked through the pictures, smiling and imagining the purposes for each room.

“I can’t believe it!” Evie cheered, standing up and twirling around her room. “I’m finally gonna have my own castle!”

Doug spun around and grabbed his guitar, strumming some notes and creating a silly “Evie’s getting a castle” song. They both laughed and continued to mess around until they heard a “Knock it off!” come from the hall. 

They felt so alive.

__________________________________________________________________

April

“Okay so that’s 6 new dresses,” Evie spoke aloud as she scribbled the orders furiously in her notebook. With much of her money going towards a castle, her and Doug had been putting in extra work with Evie’s4Hearts to make up for it. 

Doug stood by the clothing rack, tagging her recent creations with one hand and calculating the numbers in the other.

“Eve, you still have a month,” he reminded her, hoping to alleviate some of her stress.

“I know, I know,” she responded, even though a month really wasn’t that much time. She moved away too quickly, accidentally knocking her notebook onto the floor, sketches flying everywhere.

Evie let out a frustrated groan as she started to gather her sketches, Doug rushing over to help. She sighed and sat on the floor, back against her bed. “Maybe I need to take a lunch break...”

Doug smirked and sat on the floor next to her. “I think that might be helpful.”

She finally let out a small laugh and looked over at him, “When did our lives get so crazy? I swear just the other day our biggest responsibility was studying for Chemistry!”

Doug laughed. “It has always been crazy since you, Mal, Jay, and Carlos arrived to liven things up,” he joked. “Plus, you’ve always been crazy about your sketches,” he added, pulling one out from the pile he had in his hands.

“That turned out to be a pretty nice dress, huh?” She smirked, admiring her old design.

Doug nodded, “But this one has always been my favorite.” He pulled a sketch of Evie’s cotillion dress out of the pile.

She chuckled, her cheeks blushing when she remembered how much fun they had dancing that night. “Making it short was the perfect call considering the amount of water that ended up on the boat!”

They continued to reminisce over some of Evie’s old designs until Doug pulled out one of the poems he’d written. He smiled to himself, knowing she kept them in her sketchbook.

“Now we can admire your work,” she beamed, picking up her favorite one.

“Oh, it’s really nothing-“

“Doug come on, this is really good,” she urged as he looked over it. “Have you ever... have you ever thought about writing songs?”

Doug pondered her question for a second. “Not really, but a few of us were thinking about starting a band this summer, you know, to stay in practice before we head off to school...”

Evie’s eyes widened. “Doug that’s amazing!” She exclaimed, searching for more poems. “Here, take some of these. I know you could turn them into great songs!”

Doug couldn’t help but smile as Evie rambled on about what the band’s look should be. She was so excited to be able to support him in something, just as he had supported her these past few years. He took her hand and continued to listen, reading over the poems. Sure, they were some of his best work, but it’s who inspired them that really mattered.  

He felt so loved.

__________________________________________________________________

May

“Wow, all that castle for such a small price!” Evie exclaimed as she faced her new purchase.

“And it’s not that far from MIT,” Doug added, taking the “For Sale” sign out of the yard and joining her to admire the starter castle.

“Now I know why it was your favorite,” Evie teased grabbing his arm. “But it is perfect, really.”

“I think Dizzy will like it too.”

Evie beamed just thinking about having Dizzy and other VKs staying with her here in only a few months, not to mention how excited she was for Dizzy to meet her friends at Auradon Prep, including Doug. “Oh, she’ll love it.”

Evie honestly couldn’t believe she was here, about to graduate Auradon Prep and now the owner of her own castle in Auradon. She had dreamed of this ever since she was little, although, at that point, she expected to marry a prince to get her there.

“I’m so proud of you.”

Evie looked at Doug, snapping out of her own thoughts and processing his words.

“I love- it!“ she started before catching herself, laughing off the word she almost said. “Let me show you my favorite part!”

Doug allowed himself to be dragged through the side door by Evie. There was a wing on the side of her new home with glass walls, letting in so much natural light.

“It’s the perfect new spot for Evie’s4Hearts,” she marveled, admiring the space.

“I can’t wait to see what you create in here,” Doug gushed, walking up to her from behind to put his hands on her shoulders and give them a squeeze.

Evie blushed, turning around to face him. “I can’t thank you enough for believing in me,” she blurted, almost unaware of the words that had come out of her ruby red lips.

“You don’t have to,” Doug soothed, pulling her close. “I’m your biggest fan!”

Evie giggled. “Mal might argue with you on that one,” she teased, “but I’m your biggest fan.”

Doug kissed her quick as they swayed in the middle of her new fashion studio. Evie’s friends would be arriving soon to check the place out, but for now, they enjoyed the peace and quiet that they knew wouldn’t last long in this house.

Evie was so excited, looking around the room and the halls beyond it. She could see the new VKs running through the halls, full of excitement and energy from trying ice cream for the first time. She could see Doug coming to visit for one of their movie nights, the two of them snuggled up on the couch.  She could see Carlos and Jane coming over to share what’s new at Auradon Prep. She could see Jay coming to visit after one of his tourney games, and Mal coming over for girl time when she needed a break from being Queen. She could see this room full of her designs and creations that were still to come.  

She knew this place was going to be special, but she didn’t know it would be where she would have to wake Doug from a spell with true love’s kiss later this summer, or where he would play her his first song from the poems he’d written in just a few weeks. She didn’t know it would be where they came to celebrate after Doug’s band’s first show, or where she received a school acceptance letter a few years down the line.

Although her starter castle allowed her to stay and make many new memories in Auradon, she knew it wasn’t just the house that made her feel at home, and for that, she was grateful.

They were home.

[barefootdancinghospital]

“The world might be ending.

* * *

There’s a commonly replicated piece of anarchist folk art that means a lot to me. I don’t know who drew it. It’s a drawing of a tree with a circle-A superimposed. The text of it reads “even if the world was to end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today.”

I grew up into anarchy around this piece of art. It was silkscreened as patches and posters and visible on the backs of hoodies and the walls of collective houses. It was graffitied through stencils and it was photocopied in the back of zines. It’s a paraphrasing of a quote misattributed to Martin Luther (the original protestant Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, Jr., although plenty of people misattribute the quote to him as well). The original quote is something like “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” The earliest reference to it anyone can seem to find is from the German Confessing Church, a Christian movement within Nazi Germany that sought to challenge Nazi power. The quote was used to inspire hope, to inspire people to action.

That’s something I can get behind.

* * *

There’s this book that means a lot to me, On the Beach, by Nevil Shute. I’ve never read it. I can’t bring myself to. I think about it quite often, regardless.

The novel describes a nuclear war destined to kill all life on earth, and it describes the last days of people living in Australia waiting for the inevitable death of all things. It describes how they live their lives, how they find meaning during the apocalypse. It’s a book about how to live without hope. It’s a book of resignation.

It’s too much for me, I think, at least right now.

* * *

The world might be ending.

A lot of people will argue with me about that. They will correctly point out that for large numbers of people all over the world, especially in the parts of the world long ravaged by Western imperialism, the world has been ending for a long time. They will correctly point out that the world itself isn’t going anywhere, that change is constant, and even if what is left behind by climate catastrophe and war is a scorched desert, it’s probable that life will continue. Human life, non-human animal life, and plant life will all, in some form or another, survive all of this.

People will argue, correctly once more, that most every generation has believed that the world was ending. The machine gun slaughter of World War I, the genocide of World War II, the Doomsday Clock of the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, those all must have felt like the apocalypse. For entire peoples, they were. Yet here some of us are today, alive.

None of those arguments detract from the fact that it sure feels like the world is ending.

Mountains are blown up for coal to pump poison into the air, pipelines clearcut the last vestiges of the wild to help us pump more poison into the air. Oceans are swallowing islands, hundred-year storms happen every year, and it feels like every day we break new climate records.  A sense of urgency about coming disaster is fueling a rise of “I got mine, fuck you” nationalism, and climate scientists are being ignored to an unconscionable degree.

The world is ending.

It’s always ending, but it’s ending a lot right now. For me and the people I’m close to, it’s ending more dramatically than it was when I was born thirty-seven years ago.

That’s fucking paralyzing.

The news is full of extinction and fascism and death and death and death.

And we’re expected to get up in the morning and go to work.

* * *

For awhile, I coped by means of a cycle of denial and panic. The potential apocalypse was, basically, too-much-problem. I couldn’t wrap my head around it or its ramifications, so I acted like it wasn’t happening. Until, of course, some horrible event or reminder of the apocalypse broke over a certain threshold and sent me spiraling into despair. Then numbness took over once more and the cycle began again.

That didn’t do me much good.

About a year ago, I decided to embrace  four different, often contradictory, priorities for my life. I run my decisions past all of them and try to keep them in balance.

Act like we’re about to die. Act like we might not die right away. Act like we might have a chance to stop this. Act like everything will be okay.

Act like we’re about to die

Every breath we take is the last breath we take. You Only Live Once. Smoke em if you got em. Do As Thou Wilt. Memento Mori. Our culture is full of euphemisms and clever sayings that focus around one simple idea: we’re mortal, so we might as well try to make the most of the time we have.

Embracing hedonism has a lot to recommend it these days. It’s completely possible that the majority of us won’t be alive ten or twenty years from now. It’s completely possible, although a lot less likely, that a lot of us won’t be alive in a year.

I used to think, when I was younger, that I was a terrible hedonist. As a survivor of sexual and psychological assault and abuse, I’ve never had much luck with drug use or casual sex. But fucking and getting wasted, while perfectly worthwhile pastimes, aren’t the only ways to live in the moment. Hedonism is about the pursuit of pleasure and joy. The trick is to find out what gives you pleasure and joy.

For myself, this has meant giving myself permission to pursue music, to sing even though I’m not trained, to play piano and harp. To travel, to wander. To seek beautiful moments and accept that they might be fleeting. I’ll rudely paraphrase the host of the rather wholesome podcast Ologies, Alie Ward, and say “we might die so cut your bangs and tell your crush you like them.”

My hedonism is a cautious one. I’m not looking to take up smoking or other addictions. I’m not trying to live like there’s a guarantee of no tomorrow, just a solid chance of no tomorrow. Frankly, this would be true regardless of the current crisis, but it feels especially important to me just now.

Act like we might not die right away

Preppers have a bad reputation for a good reason. The people stockpiling ammunition and food in doomsday bunkers by-and-large don’t have anyone else’s best interests at heart. Still, being prepared for a slow apocalypse, or dramatic interruptions in the status quo, makes more and more sense to more and more of us.

Preparing for the apocalypse is going to look different to every person and every community. For some people it will mean stockpiling necessities. For other people, securing the means to grow food.

One thing I’ve learned from my friends who study community resilience and disaster relief, however, is that the most important resource to shore up on isn’t a tangible one. It’s not bullets, it’s not rice, it’s not even land or water. It’s connections with other people. The most effective means of survival in crisis is to create community disaster plans. To practice mutual aid. To build networks of resilience.

Every apocalypse movie has it all backwards when the plucky gang of survivors holes up in a cabin and fends off the ravaging chaotic hordes. The movies have it backwards because the ravaging hordes are, in the roughest possible sense, the ones doing survival right. They’re doing it collectively. Obviously, I’m not advocating we wear the skulls of our enemies and cower at the feet of warlords (though wearing the skulls of would-be warlords has its appeal). I’m advocating staying open to opportunity and building collective power.

There are infinite reasons not to count on holing up in a cabin with your six friends as an apocalypse plan, but I’ll give you two of them. First, because living a worthwhile and long life as a human animal requires connections with a diverse collection of people with diverse collections of skills, ideas, and backgrounds. It’s all fun and games in your cabin until your appendix bursts and none of you are surgeons—or you’re the only surgeon. Likewise, small groups of people who tend to agree with one another are subject to the dangers of groupthink and the echo chamber effect, which will limit your ability to intelligently meet challenges that face you.

Second, because by removing yourself from society, you’re removing your ability to shape the changes that society will go through during crisis. If you go hide in the woods with your stockpile and your buddies, and fascists take over, guess what? It’s kind of your fucking fault. Because you weren’t at the meeting when everyone decided whether to be egalitarians or fascists. And guess what? Now that rampaging horde is at your doorstep, and they want your ammo and your antibiotics, and they’re going to get it one way or the other. Fascism is always best stamped out when it starts. It’s never safe to ignore it. Not now, not during any Mad Max future.

Tangible resources do matter, of course. Any likely scenario that prepping is good for won’t be so dramatic as an utter restructuring or collapse of society. It might mean food shortages, power outages, water contamination. It never hurts to keep nonperishable food, backup sources of power, and water filtration systems around for yourself and your neighbors.

Still, this is a terrible basket to put all your eggs into. You probably shouldn’t live out your days, whether they’re your last ones or not, over-preparing for something that may or may not come to pass.

Act like we might have a chance to stop this

We can and we should stop the worst excesses of climate catastrophe. We can and should stop fascism by whatever means necessary. Throwing up our hands and walking away from the problem is no solution.

It’s hard to remember that we have agency. Unless we were raised ultra-rich, we’ve had the concept of political and economic agency stripped from us at every turn. We’ve been told there are two ways to effect change: vote for politicians or vote with our dollars. Politicians in western democracies are likely incapable of changing things as dramatically as they need to be changed, and they certainly won’t bother trying unless we motivate them to do so in fairly dramatic ways. As for economic agency, there is a small handful of men with more wealth—and therefore power—than the rest of us combined.

We’ve been told we cannot take matters into our own hands, politically or economically. We’re not allowed to have a revolution. We’re not allowed to redistribute the wealth of the elite.

You’ll be shocked to know that I don’t put a lot of stock in what we are and aren’t allowed to do.

Still, even if we give ourselves permission to undertake it, revolution feels like an insurmountable challenge. We’ve got, optimistically, ten years to completely overhaul the economic system of the planet. It can be done. It has to be done. Yet it feels like it won’t be done.

We’re all running the cost/benefit analysis of acting directly. We all have different “fuck it” points—the point beyond which we can no longer prioritize our immediate wellbeing but instead must act regardless of the outcome. In the meantime, we’re waiting until it seems like we can act and actually have a chance of winning.

All over the world, even in some Western countries, people are no longer waiting. They’re  acting. We need to be helping them, supporting them with words and actions, while we get ready to act here as well.

The revolution needs mediators and facilitators, medics and brawlers. It needs hackers and propagandists and it needs financiers and smugglers and thieves. It needs scouts and coordinators and it needs musicians and it needs people invested in the system to turn traitor. It needs lawyers and scientists and bookkeepers and copyeditors and cooks and it needs almost everyone, almost every skill.

One thing it doesn’t need, though, is managers. The people who claim to know how to run a revolution don’t know how to run a revolution or they would have done it by now. The authoritarian urge, to decide what the revolution should and shouldn’t look like, how people should and shouldn’t express their rage and reclaim their agency, will fail us every time. Authoritarian communism is the death of any revolution. Authoritarian liberalism is the death of any revolution. Even the more dogmatic anarchists will get in the way if given a chance. The revolution cannot be branded. Despite Hollywood representations of rebellions, they don’t work as well under a single banner. They are diverse, or they are not revolutions.

The revolution cannot be controlled by a vanguard of activists; if it is, it will fail. The revolution must be controlled by its participants, because only then will we learn how to claim agency over our own lives and futures.

We have a chance to stop this.

I forget that sometimes, but I shouldn’t.

Still, I can’t count on hope alone, or the days when hope fails me would lay me low.

Act like everything will be okay

All the times the world has come close to ending before, it hasn’t. It’s ended for some people, some cultures. Civilizations have collapsed. Ecosystems have radically shifted. Species have gone extinct—including the species of humans before homo sapiens. Colonization was an apocalypse. Some people survived those apocalypses, but plenty more didn’t.

Still, the world is still here and we’re still here.

Capitalism is a sturdy beast, quite adept at adaptation. Marx was wrong about a lot of things, and one of those things was the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism under the weight of its own contradictions. With or without capitalism, the society we live in might stagger on. We might curb the worst excesses of climate catastrophe through economic change or wild feats of geoengineering.

I won’t bet on it, but I won’t bet entirely against it either.

As much as I need to live like I might die tomorrow, I need to live like I might see a hundred years on this odd green and blue planet. Unless things change, I’m not burning every bridge. I’m trying to maintain a career. If I was certain to die under a fascist regime by 2021, there wouldn’t be much point in writing novels: they take too long to write, publish, and reach their audience. I get some joy from the writing itself, sure, but I get more joy from putting my art in front of people, of letting it influence the cultural landscape. With novel writing in particular, that takes time. That takes there being a future. I want there to be a future. Almost desperately. Not enough to bank on it completely.

I’m keeping some small portion of my time and resources invested in the potential for there to be a future is important for my mental health, because it keeps me invested in maintaining that health.

* * *

The world might end tomorrow, and it might not. If we can help it, at all, we shouldn’t let it end. We still ought to act like it might.

We ought to figure out what trees we would plant either way.

If you appreciate my writing and want to help me do more of it, please consider supporting me via Patreon.

“

[bryonysimcox]

Spring has Sprung and Life Continues: Week 11, Spain

Another week spent in the Catalunyan countryside as coronavirus lockdown continues. Here are my reflections on the arrival of spring, broad beans, ecological economics and the launch of ‘The Hundred Miler’.

This last week has seen the welcome face of April - signalling that spring is certainly here along with the arrival of Easter. It’s a time associated with new life, new starts, sunny days and longer nights. Even though we remain in full lockdown here in Spain, it feels as though we can draw upon the changing season as a source of assurance.

The week started with something rather special. I finally got to drive Suzi!

When we first bought the van in Summer 2019, I was still only 24, and it was really expensive to get me insured on it. There seems to be a transition point for insurers at age 25, so George and I had always agreed that after my birthday at Christmas, we’d get me on the insurance. But we never got around to it, partly because of the additional expense, and partly because it wasn’t a huge priority, until the start of March. And then of course, we were in Valencia and the lockdown hit, so we had nowhere to drive to even once I was insured!

My first drive here in Catalunya was pretty fun, even though it was just a trip to the supermarket. Because we’re in lockdown, the roads are super quiet which has been great, and the roads around the cottage aren’t tarmaced, so I could do some offroading as well. I’ve since driven a couple more times to and from the supermarket, and it’s so nice to be behind the wheel again. I haven’t driven since we owned our last van, Casper, back in Sydney!

(Images, left to right) My first time driving Suzi the HiAce, and a throwback to driving our last van Casper.

On the topic of Sydney, I have been doing some serious reminiscing. It’s almost coming to exactly a year since George and I flew back to the UK from Australia, and anniversaries always tend to bring on waves of nostalgia. It’s mad to think that a year ago, we didn’t own a van, not least have a clue about where we’d be living in the van! And of course, there’s no way I’d have imagined that we would be stuck amid a pandemic-induced global lockdown. Oh, to have the gift of foresight... 

The year that ensued after we left our friends, jobs, and security blanket of Sydney was an absolute rollercoaster. We naively aimed to have the van built and prepped in a matter of months, and when the van-build rolled over towards Christmas 2019, I felt like an absolute failure for not having finished it sooner. And yet now, upon reflection, I guess it’s not such a bad achievement to have managed to buy and build Suzi the HiAce, both of us get jobs in Manchester and move into a flat there, launch our documentary channel ‘Broaden’ and set off for Europe all in a year.

We can all benefit from a bit of self-reflection to put progress into perspective.

(video) Broaden’s latest video; an overview of who we are and what we’re about. It’s helped me to reframe some of the successes of this last year.

I feel like a stuck record, but food is a wonderful experience which punctuates the repetitive days of lockdown. Last week I wrote about calçots, a deliciously sweet spring onion special to this region and eaten with Romesco sauce. This week, it’s all about broad beans. The garden here is full of them, so I’ve been tasked with picking and podding. Most of them are fat enough to be podded, and are even better if you go the extra mile by blanching them and removing their skins. The smaller ones can be eaten as they are, and make for a lovely crunchy stir-fry ingredient too.

Preparing broad beans can be time-consuming, but also a wonderfully cathartic activity. My granny in Scotland used to have plenty of these beans in her garden, and I remember summer days spent picking and podding with my mum. We’ve stored plenty here in the freezer but have also kept some fresh and I am continually finding ways to incorporate them into our meals. A quick call to my well-resourced mum also resulted in her sending pages and pages photographed from Jane Grigson’s vegetable book: not only with plenty of recipes but incredibly detailed descriptions of the vegetable’s history and qualities too.

(images) Beautiful fresh veggies from the market were a highlight of the week, as well as picking these broad beans straight from the garden. The bowl on the right is what was distilled from podding four huge bags’ worth.

The resurgence in cooking and baking whilst in lockdown is inspiring, but I’ve been thinking about how it affects our supply chains as well.

Just this morning on BBC News I saw an article about dairy farmers having to throw away vast amounts of milk as cafes, hotels and restaurants remain shut, and another article about how there’s been an insane increase in demand for flour, as everyone takes to home baking. Many mills are now working around the clock to meet the demand in the UK and I was especially interested to read that even if there’s enough flour that there’s a shortage of packaging, because usually only 4% of flour produced goes into the smaller bags that we see on supermarket shelves.

Coronavirus has triggered so many changes in how we live and how we behave, that it's wreaking havoc on supply chains like this, and of course, the economy. That said, whilst the negative effects are hard to deny, scientists, economists and ecologists alike are suggesting that we should leverage the situation as an opportunity to reflect on how we all live, and how we might return to ‘normal’ life without just returning to business as usual. I agree: this is a unique opportunity to reassess production and consumption, how we assign value to things, and the economic and political models that we use to govern our world.

The connection between global lockdown, coronavirus, climate change and our economy has really got me thinking.

I recently read an incredible article by ecological economist Simon Mair in Singularity Hub which looked at this relationship. The article pulled together disparate strands that have been on my mind for a while, each related to various books which I’ve been reading, and which I can now see are interconnected. Simon suggests that the Covid-19 crisis could be a chance to “expand our economic imagination”. He explains that coronavirus, like climate change, demands a type of downscaling, counter to the ‘wartime economy’ mentality and massive upscaling of production. 

“If we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood”, says Simon.

The article is full of gems, and Simon explores things such as our current addition to economic growth and productivity, the transfer of healthcare and labour goods out of the market and into the hands of the state, and the social forms that could come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy. It answers some of the questions posed by George Monbiot in ‘How Did We Get Into This Mess?’, echoes some of the radical economic theories proposed by Kate Raworth in ‘Doughnut Economics’, and parallels ideas of democratic market socialism put forward by ‘How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century’ by Erik Olin Wright which I’m currently reading. Simon’s article has really got me so fired up, in fact, that I’m working on an idea for a new video which explores the topic, so watch this space.

(images) Three fantastic books which I highly recommend.

On the subject of videos, Broaden has been one of the only things keeping us sane! I am eternally grateful to have a creative outlet in times like these, and one which involves a collaborative partnership with George too. Whilst we aren’t able to explore places in the van, or capture footage for new films as we’d love to be doing right now, we are at least able to edit from the cottage and work on promoting the content that we are already releasing.

It feels so tricky to get the right tone when releasing videos during a global pandemic.

We are both conscious of remaining sensitive to the severity of the health crisis, whilst balancing that with the reality that life goes on, and that people still want to see pictures, watch videos and read articles that engage with other topics too. As Broaden, George and I obviously made the decision to launch our documentary ‘The Hundred Miler’ during this time, and I hope that people see it as a celebration of running, the natural world, and human resilience, and perhaps even an escape from the daily news of the virus, rather than something insensitive or badly-timed.

(video) Trailer for ‘The Hundred Miler’

‘The Hundred Miler’ comes out this Saturday 11th April, and we have been overwhelmed by the response already. People have really got behind the project, helping to share it on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and widen its potential reach. George has been making this film for well over three years, so it feels like an immense milestone to finally have it shown to the world. I don’t think I know many people who hold themselves to such high standards as George, and so to have so many positive messages and people planning to tune in for the live premier on Saturday is the best affirmation of all his hard work that I could wish for. It has been a pleasure to see him create this documentary, and also to have been involved in the production and final stages of its creation.

The Hundred Miler is a film about three Australian guys, taking on the biggest race of their lives; UTMB.

‘Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc’ is renowned in the trail-running world, as one of the most challenging and scenic ultra marathons. The Hundred Miler is an attempt to bring this story to the masses, and we hope that it appeals to non-runners and runners alike, for its underlying themes of companionship, commitment and strength. It premiers live on YouTube at 10am in the UK, which is 7pm in Australia on 11.4.20, and after that the video will be available to watch as a normal video. You can find BTS footage and more information about the film on our Instagram here, details of the launch on the Facebook event here, and the link for the video itself here. You can also subscribe to Broaden’s YouTube channel and set a reminder for when the film goes live.

(video) ‘The Hundred Miler’ which goes live on Sat 11th April.

 It goes without saying: I am really missing the open road and living in a van. And I’m not immune to fear of the future either. But as the days and weeks pass, we learn to adapt to changing circumstances and continue to find hope among them. In a way, it helps to know we are all in the same boat, facing a topsy-turvy life full of roadblocks and revelations. Thanks for tuning in to read my weekly ramblings and I hope you’re all keeping as well as you can be. Until next week!

[thxvvxtchx-x]

Before I even begin this one, I’m going to say - don’t stress. Casting your first spell can be one of the most intimidating things when you’re first starting out on your path. The issue, I think, is that when we see spells or rituals in pop culture it can seem to be this massive thing. Perfect rhyming words, uncommon herbs with fancy names, 1700 candles that have been anointed by a High Priestess with sigils carved into them. However, like the rest of your path, performing your first spell doesn’t have to be spot on the first time, and believe me, it won’t. 

You will forget things. I did, and that’s okay.

You might find it odd. Again, totally fine! 

You might even decide half way through that you’re not happy with the way you thought you were going to perform the spell, or the way the books said to do it isn’t really your jam. 

All of the above is 100% okay.

To perform your spells, you don’t need the biggest crystal ball,  strangest sounding essential oils or an assortment of expensive tools. Use what you have at your disposal and what you feel comfortable working with. 

By the end of this post, I aim to get you feeling more confident in taking those first steps or giving it another go. 

Let’s start with the prep work. And yes, most spells will take some prep work. Of course, you can go for it on a whim when the fancy takes you, however, if you’re feeling like this is something you want to do, check in with your emotions first. What is it that is making you want to do the spell? Successful spells require a clear mind and calm. If you are angry, sad, overly excited, etc, it can throw the spell off balance. 

You’re going to need a pen and paper. Come up with a clear and concise statement in your mind that sums up EXACTLY what you want your spell to achieve. It is so important to make sure that your wording explains the purposes clearly. 

Think of a spell like a genie - if you don’t make the wish exactly as you want the results, the genie can find loopholes and you may not get the desired result. 

REMEMBER - MAGICK TAKES THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. By this, I mean that Magick will find and follow the easiest route it can to bring what you have called out for into your life. 

For example, if you want to do a spell to bring in more money and it’s very vague, it leaves a lot of leeway. You could do the spell, and within 2 days to get a call from your manager that you’re getting a pay rise! FAB! However, you get 1p for more an hour. You’re bringing in more money, but 8p a day probably isn’t going to make much of a difference. You were thinking a little more than that right? 

When my friend and I do spells together, if we’re trying to draw in something, we always state that it harms none. We’re not Wiccan, but, we don’t want anyone to get hurt just so we can draw in a bit more dolla. Ya know? You can also add this in as well! 

You will also want to make a list of anything you want to use to enhance your spell. 

If you want to get really particular, you can research the best day to perform the spell you want to do and set a date with yourself to complete it. 

Assuming you’re ready to move forward straight away, you’ll want to gather everything you need and set the tone. If it is accessible to you, feel free to light some candles, dim the lights, put on whatever music on gets you calm and feeling magickal. Don’t feel like you need to be listening to a fantasy theme either. Although magickal, if listening to Lo-fi hip hop, trap or metal gets you in the zone, go with that. 

Your next step is going to be calling in the corners (also called Casting a circle). From here on out, it gets a little bit more experimental for you. I and many, many good books and give you a fantastic explanation of how to do this, however, as I’ve said above, eventually, you will find a way to make it personal and comfortable for you. The purpose of this step is to create a protective barrier around where you’re going to be making magick and to work with the assistance of the elements in your work. 

Starting with the east corner (this is how I’ve always learned but some also start with the north) work your way around clockwise calling in each of the elements. (Moving clockwise is associated with drawing thing in.) You can use your finger, athame or wand to draw this energetic circle or if it's more comfortable for you, you can visualize it in your mind. This is something I do personally and even like to visualize the element in action as I call in that quarter. For example, at each corner, I will picture the most incredible version of that element I can think of. For water, I picture a waterfall and lagoon, for fire, a volcano and so on. 

Tip - If you only have a small area you can do this, you only need to visualize the circle big enough for you to be able to sit comfortably in which any bits you’d gathered together. It doesn’t need to be a whole room. 

Element and correspondences: 

Air - East - Yellow - Feather/ incense -  Sylphid

Fire - South - Red - Candle flame - Salamander

Water - West - Blue - Water - Undines

Earth - North - green - Salt/ crystals - Gnomes

Note - Casting a circle in this way isn’t everyone's jam. However, it is a great starting point and habit to get into, which as I said can be adjusted to suit the person casting in the future. Check out my post of casting a circle for full details on the above step.

When you feel a connection to each of the elements and your circle, physically or mentally drawn in complete take 3 deep, cleansing breaths to calm your mind and release any tension you might be holding. Giving yourself some time to the center is super helpful when performing spells, especially if you're new to it. 

Now, you’re ready to start your spell. Try and follow this as you’ve planned it, however, please don’t stress if you realize you forgot something and have to step out of the circle to grab it. You can use your wand, athame, fingers or visualization to create a vertical “cut” in the circle to step through, sealing it behind you if you need to step out and repeat this to step back in. It’s incredibly important that if something doesn’t go quite as you expected it to, that you’re not hard on yourself about it. Not only is this just good practice for your own personal self-care, but it will also help you keep you in that centered and steady-state of mind that is key for performing Magick. 

Once you’ve completed your spell, close the circle by releasing the corners, picture each of the elements freely moving away from you. Going anti-clockwise(anti-clockwise if associated with releasing/banishing), thanking any spirits, elemental, ancestors even just the universe. It’s always good to send a little thanks out into the universe. 

Before tidying away your things (if you have time to do so before) write down how you felt the spell went, how it made you feel, what you might do differently next time, what (if) you learned anything. If you’re in a position where you have to get you to spell things tidied away as quickly as possible so no one sees’s do this first, but then make time for writing. It’s just easier when it’s all super fresh in your mind. 

And there you have it, your spell is complete. The energy of the spell will continue to manifest itself and do its thing and all you need to do is take some time each day after the spell to focus on what it is you’re trying to draw in/ banish/ whatever it was. 

I Hope you’ve found something useful in this post. I had loads of fun writing it for you. 

Blessings, 

Ro x