#so i guess its time to learn blender literally.

[skeletood]

Pouring one out for myself cause im forcing myself to learn a new animation software

[yuyulie]

Feel free to ignore everyone but I've just been looking at some of the things I made over the years and its so many things I gave up on lmao 😭😭 I see a bunch of things online, go and recreate them in MD/Blender and most of the time they either don't work in game or the textures look like shit 💀💀 so if anyone wants to see them, check down below 👇🏽👇🏽

Had to go in the whatsapp chat archives with my irl to find this BUT THIS WAS MY FIRST MESH from back in sept 2022 apparently? I was soooooooo proud of myself this took me literally like a week bc of the weights and then the textures and I used the fuck outta this top in my game, every sim of mine was wearing it 🙂‍↕️ lmao but i took a break from the sims in jan '23 bc of my internship and when I came back I was like "OMG this looks like SHIT???

I'll be honest I don't remember ever opening this in game 😭 but apparently this top was like 20k~ polys??? Crazy times

NGL i feel bad abt deleting the first top since i made it for a tiktok cc process vid and people asked me when i was planning on releasing and i was like yea soon 😊 then never did shjdbhjdbfds

THE SANDALS WERE MY FIRST EVER PAIR OF SHOES but the straps would disappear when i made the sims feet bigger 😭 but its fine now i (kinda) learned how to make (very simple) shoes now so maybe ill post some soon 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽

The hat was cute but in cas my sims would get the question mark when i put it on them i don't know why?? and the bikini belt thing was just meh so i got rid of it

The first top was also my favorite for awhile but the weights were kinda weird, everything else also had the same problems and honestly im glad they did bc they were all ugly af, SUPER high poly and just looked like caca in game thank god i deleted them (there were more things i made in between this and the next pic im abt to show but i don't have any pics soooo)

This hello kitty necklaces I was so proud of and I made SO MANY SWATCHES (18!!!) but bc i always rush to finish everything before getting in game, when i finally checked them they looked real nice im ngl BUT the morphing was sooo bad on small beads😭😭 they looked even worse on the masc frames RIP

I don't have the ref I used for this anymore but it was a really cute bonnet, mine just looked like a crumbled piece of paper plus its from last year so I didn't know how to retopologize or how to sculpt in Blender

This was supposed to come out with one of the simblreen gifts but again I didn't like the morphs but I did use the base of the cross for my other cross necklaces so i guess not completely useless 🤞🏽🤞🏽

Still proud of the lighter but I don't know what I was going for 😪

The mp3 was so fun to make but the weights were kinda weird and I didn't know how to fix them 🙄 (I did ended up using the earphones for the folasade collection 👌🏽)

Both were supposed to come out in the denim set BUT the more I looked at the pants the less I liked them and the skirt I just felt like it didn't belong with the jeans I did release?? its a cute skirt but I haven't felt like releasing it so 🚶🏽‍♀️🚶🏽‍♀️

I made this back when I wasn't mindful of where tops should stop/where the bottom part starts if u don't want any clipping to happen (looking at the heroine top since it also had the same issue but I realised wayyy too late so couldn't go back and fix it LMAO) still its a cute top and I feel like I could fix it in sculpt mode now??? idk

Very high poly 😭

PINKPANTHERESS MY LOVE ♥♥♥ ( I made this around the time I started the follower set so I just kinda forgot abt it, maybe one day I'll go back n finish it)

I think this was the original idea I had for heroine top? I gave up on it bc I just knew the buttons were gonna morph horribly since they sit right on the chest (also i never realised how similar it was to the tiktok top lol)

Ok after this, all the pics are from stuff that was supposed to be on the follower set but this was the original mesh for the dee top and I had to remake it since I couldn't find tops with sleeves of that size to transfer weights from 😭😪 (if that makes sense)

THIS JUST DID NOT LOOK LIKE THE REF 💀💀💀 plus the 'flower' is soooooo bad 😭 sorry to whoever added this pic to the pinterest board I flopped so hard 😖

I just thought the quality of the textures was poor so I didn't even wanna put it up for download 💔 the jean quality I could definitely do better but the sheep patch/stitch(??idk) I couldn't find a clear high quality pic so yea 😪

i LOVED this one but kept having so many problems with it, first the dress was flying off the sim in cas, fixed that then the weights started acting up it was problem after problem lmao maybe one day ill sit down and take a look at it again

Cute skirt but the transparent/lace part would clip a lot

the pants would clip out of the skirt when sims walked and i was very confused since i obviously deleted parts of the jeans that aren't visible but that didn't work so idk

I also loved this headband but it was kinda hard to find a hair that would fit without clipping, if i ever find one I would definitely put it up for download 👆🏽👆🏽

It looks alright in sims4studio (i guess) but in game the textures were kinda blurry

CUTE but i forgot that buttons on the chest have shitty weights/uv's🤐

Thats all for now, I made so many other things but most of the time I just delete them bc i don't have the ability to make them work in game 😞plus I can't stand having files on my pc that im not using bc otherwise they r just taking up space 🤞🏽

[moldwood]

no i appreciate the rambling!!! thank u for the recommendations :) for some reason i tend to struggle more with free tutorials, i think because i feel less pressure to finish them whereas with paid ones im like ok i spent real actual money on this i should probably make sure im not wasting it lmao. but i will probably check out that first one you linked for sure since that was one of the ones i was already looking at!! ngl i use blender so infrequently that i feel like i always forget Literally Everything about how to use it every time i go back to it so beginner friendly is probably a good thing lmao.

tbh im not expecting to get too much into texturing & stuff yet since i mostly just want basic face models to use for consistency when drawing my ocs from different angles... but like. i say that, but then that means i might as well do full body models & rig them so i can also use them to get proportions & poses more accurate... and if i want to have references for different expressions i should probably also learn how to rig faces... & if im gonna do all that i might as well texture them too. and i guess add like clothes, and hair thats not just a solid unmoving chunk lmao. for some reason textures just scare me tho lmao wdym you took a 3d thing and cut it up into a flat image. like i get it in theory but my brain Does Not Like It.

BUT i think topology is definitely a big thing i want to focus on. its definitely something i struggle with... mostly bc i havent really looked into how to do it properly yet. i have an old model that ive been chipping away at every so often for like. idk a few years? (i really, really dont use blender often lmao) and im still struggling to get the topology on the face to look good. honestly i should probably just restart it but i dont wanna :( but i did get one of those bundles with retopoflow a while back!! i just havent actually checked it out yet lmao. also that chart should definitely come in handy bc the head/neck connection is one of the parts thats been giving me trouble on the model i mentioned, i have one spot on it thats just connected weird no matter how much i try to fix it so hopefully i can reference that to figure something out.

anyway sorry i guess its my turn to ramble now but thank you for the recs!! i will definitely be looking into them :)

i think because i feel less pressure to finish them whereas with paid ones i'm like ok i spent real actual money on this i should probably make sure i'm not wasting it lmao

felt!!!! the consequences make it something you Gotta do. and fellllt at the whole second paragraph, i was like "wellllll i'm just going to learn to model simple stuff to make the buildings in a comic i'm working on to make doing backgrounds easier :)" and that was a lie. it was a lie it was a huge lie. learning is my favorite pastime it was never going to just be simple building blocks.

for some reason textures just scare me tho lmao wdym you took a 3d thing and cut it up into a flat image. like i get it in theory but my brain Does Not Like It.

the course does cover this and setting up seams on your model to unwrap from in a way that makes it very understandable luckily! my only complaint is that blender's painting system is camera oriented instead of vertex oriented like sculpting is. but as long as you keep rotating your model around and fixing things and making use of the mask tool to get sharper edges, it's not too bad

and @ paragraph 3 y e a those bundles come with so many addons that i'm like. well i Gotta get it. and then i do not touch them because i'm doing so many sculpts that i don't do anything with once i get to the hair stage 😭 i'm just too lazy for hairrr. but i think retopoflow does make understanding retopology a Bit easier once you know how to use it since it automates some things that are finnicky in blender like relaxing the topology to make the quads more even. one thing flycat does in a few videos is skip the sculpt completely and just do the low poly from scratch just using subdividing once or twice?? there were a lot of little topology tricks i picked up from this one. restarting the topology on your model might not be a bad idea just to refresh on how you did it before, but i know there's some built in stuff in blender now like drawing edges and mayyybe faces from the annotate tool?? and that makes it a lot easier. it's all just finding the motivation to finish the project, which i struggle with too 🥲 you and me buddy we got this.

[whumpbug]

It's late at night but I love your ocs so it's time to ask the randomest most nonsensical question ever. If you choose to answer it I hope you have lots of fun. Ahem

How would your ocs each react to either learning that they've actually been a robot their whole life or waking up one day and finding that their consciousness has been placed into a robot's body? I imagine Gene would have the worst mental breakdown known to man

OHNMY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD THIS IS SO SO SO FUN

i think i'm going to go with they wake up and are suddenly just. in a robot's body. (morri style. android humanoid robot) because that sounds the most traumatic to me (-｡-;)

OK ONTO THE POST:

✮⋆˙

simon:

oh simon. he's too unbothered for his own good.

i think he'd wake up and just notice something is off and then realize. yknow. theres like screens in his eyes and he can literally feel metal inside of him. he would be like "...okay. i guess."

i feel like he'd be half convinced he's dreaming or hallucinating, and tell archie about it (who would be ecstatic. we'll get to that in a second.) and ultimately, once he realizes its real, he'd just kinda. be okay with it.

he'd be a little concerned about maintenance-- he knows the human body, not this new robot one, but i'm sure he'd figure something out. as long as he is still able to do his job (both in the literal sense-- his med classes and residency, and in the sense of taking care of archie) he doesn't care all that much.

archie:

oh boy. he would be SO excited.

archie is a huge nerd. he LOVESS techy sci-fi stuff, so if he woke up and he was a whole ass ROBOT???? that's a dream come true for him. he'd be in utter bliss.

of course he'd tell simon right away. simon would probably panic more than he would for his own scenario because HOW is he supposed to prevent archie from dying now. like i said, he knows human bodies, not whatever the hell is going on now.

archie would still be THRILLED. he would test out all sorts of things and play with his mechanics and just. nerd out. i hope he gets to experience being a robot one day, for his sake

gene:

i think gene would die. i think he'd actually just experience so much discomfort that he would die. yknow how sims can die from too much of a certain emotion? gene would die from shock and HORROR.

gene very much dislikes machines. the whole idea of something Big and Moving and being made of metal DEEPLY unsettles him. if HE became the big moving metal thing? oh god. someone get this man OUT of here

gene would never leave his house he'd basically just become a hermit for the rest of his life. he'd be so DISGUSTED. UGH he would hate it so much anon how could you do this to him /j /lh

cassidy:

cassidy is an even mix between archie and simon. he would be excited by it and think its cool, but he wouldn't dwell on it too long. he has work to do after all! as long as he can still follow montana's orders, he's fine. if hes more durable now? awesome!

i do think that gene would be a little scared of him. gene would get over it quicker because its cassidy and they are "Friends" and gene can't fathom just shutting cassidy out

OH and cassidy would immediately try to figure out how he can put a gun in his finger. he would think that is SO cool. i genuinely believe he would become boothill from honkai starrail (i say as i have hardly even played the game) but if you don't know who that is look him up and you'll understand.

✮⋆˙

thank you SO much for the silly question anon! this was so fun to think about i love putting my guys in the Situation Blender

[ks-archives]

Ito Jakuchu and Taking the Long Route

Every so often, I find myself wanting to get back into doing 3D art again. It's not that I've lost interest in the arts or process, but whenever I do find the drive, I find the task to be a little grueling. It's a lot of work. I've missed out on several innovations in Blender, let alone all the new techniques to utilize the new tools we've been given. I got overwhelmed, and frankly, I thought I could never catch up to the art that everyone else was making. Progress was the only thing worth noting, and I wanted it immediately. It was in this weird stasis that I recalled the life of Itō Jakuchū that I learned through the book "The World of Itō Jakuchū".

This is one of those books whose cover just screams at you to pay attention to it, and it captured my attention immediately. Filled with the life stories and paintings of the woodblock painter Itō Jakuchū, I was immediately enamored. Especially by his paintings and how dense with detail his artworks are. I honestly got inspired to take up a brush and make my own art. Then I suddenly got hit with the idea that “oh, this will take me a while. Why can’t I just be like him?” I was completely demotivated because I thought of how long this process of learning would take. I was completely stopped in my tracks until I read the passage:

"The literal meaning of the Japanese title of this series—Doshoku sai-e—is simply “pictures of animals and plants that have been drawn in color.” Started around 1758, the series took Jakucht about ten years to complete and consisted of thirty scrolls.

It was then I realized that OH, I could become like him. When I read these stories, I made the foolish assumption that it only took him around 3 years to complete his works of art, not realizing how long the process of completing all his scrolls actually took. 10 years! That's 3 paintings a year! And he was still learning through all of that time, copying others' paintings in order to hone his craft and allow himself to master them.

I guess the truth of the matter is that there aren't any shortcuts I could take to get good, to get better at my craft. As much as shortcuts are used in art to hasten the completion of a painting—an artist may use blobs to approximate large crowds—it still takes time to completely accomplish these. It's not enough to allow myself the time to create my art, but to also bestow upon myself the kindness and environment that would allow for these types of projects to be accomplished. I will not let the microwave generation in me win. I pressure myself too much to complete things to its fullest, for no other purpose but to just feel accomplished immediately. But that's not how this works, creativity is complex and requires patience. I need to remember that taking the time to hone a craft isn't wasting time but rather a part of the process.

TIME TO GET BACK INTO BLENDER LESGOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[reveema]

I'm Starting to Figure out Living Better.

It took 31 years to figure out "oh yeah just go back to school and learn stuff". I guess I hated school as a kid so much (not to mention the buckets of childhood traumas, thanks mom and stepdad) that I couldn't even see potential for anything in my life.

I'm in school right now, a local community college, for a videography course. Multiple courses to get a certificate, which is not a degree but its something. I have a friend who works for a production company and I'm fairly certain I could get a job with them, whatever it might be.

So I'm taking the courses, and they're fun. They are the literal first in-person courses I've taken since 2011, when I was barely 20. And those were literally just the pre-req classes for english and math, all for me to take a programming course after, and give up 3 weeks in. Ugh.

But what makes me so happy is that not only are the projects interesting, I actually accomplish them. Not only do i accomplish them, I'm getting multiple ideas for videos, doing all the extra work like doing a storyboard (which was so hard at first until my teacher was like "you dont have to be good at drawing"). We have our final project right now and I'm shooting it today, but i also have a different idea for it that I wanna do just because.

This sort of enthusiasm hasn't been present for me like, ever. The only time I enjoy stuff, its entertainment. I put myself down way too hard whenever I tried to create stuff before. Drawing, gave up Web design, gave up Blender, gave up.

And more "boring" jobs just felt like a chore to learn, like I took a class for medical coding but it all felt like being back at high school again. Worksheets on worksheets, all online so I had no one to help or push me along. I think being in a classroom and having creative assignments being given by actual teachers, in person (And have been so nice and helpful), has helped me so much.

My teachers have been so good, not only in instructing but in making me feel like I can accomplish this stuff. They never make me feel dumb for not understanding something. When I finished the first major project, I remember feeling so bad about it, and I told my teacher "I think this is bad, I did a bad job, i dont want ppl to see it" and he said "I understand how you feel, but you have to understand that you're a beginner, and so is everyone else. You can't expect to be good right out the gate. We all critique each-others work together, and its not to put eachother down, its to give valid criticism so that we can get better."

And that one little speech he told me broke a lifetimes worth of negative attitude. I was so changed, I told him I'd like to be first or 2nd to present my video, because I wanted to know what I did wrong. And after the video was over, all my classmates told me "I don't know why you were worried, that was great!" They all still gave me their criticism, and so did my teacher. And we did that for everyone. It was such a respectful and kind atmosphere.

Someones gonna read this and go "Revima, that is literally a normal educational space." To which I'd say "I'm sure you're correct but I have *issues*."

[adultswim2021]

Metalocalypse #27: “Dethwedding” | April 1, 2008 - 1:15AM | S02E07

Hey it’s been a little while since we got to watch Metalocalypse. In this one, Pickles brother Seth invites Dethklok to his wedding, which already advertises the fact that the wedding “features” Dethklok. His video invitation is hilarious. Seth is dressed in his Sunday best set against serene backdrops while he brags about his sobriety. Pickles is mortified to the point of despondency. The other band members just think it’s very, very funny. 

The tribunal explains what American weddings are during one of their meetings. These scenes can be a pointless reminder that there is such a thing as the tribunal, and it also lends a false sense of gravity to the plot of each episode. It also serves what might be an accidental function of supplying future-proof context; let’s say there comes a day when the once-standard American wedding becomes an obsolete curiosity.

Or, let’s say this episode is being shown to a species of aliens who have no idea what a wedding is. You know the type of aliens I’m talking about: the kind that mock our god, oppressively holding up the Holy Bible and remarking “HUMAN PROPAGANDA”.* Just by satirically describing what a wedding is brings all those weirdos up to speed, even though it seems gratuitous. The tribunal actually declare that they will not intervene. Why would they? Dethklok’s just going to a wedding, for fuck’s sake. 

*I am actually making a very specific reference to a circa-early-2000s episode of The Outer Limits, where a robot does this. I don’t know the title of the episode, but Heather Graham is in it. 

Things are tense between Pickles and his brother. Seth immediately starts drinking again. He has scumbag friends who suck. Seth constantly asks for money. Dethklok perform a song with a little music video accompaniment (for us watching on television at least) featuring a married couple decaying and then eventually mutating into one another, getting all Cronenbergy. Dethklock get Seth a blender, which is just an item on his wedding gift registry. When Seth chews out Pickles for cheaping out, Pickles beats his brother up. Later, he feels bad, so he installs Seth as the head of Dethklok Australia, whose leader was recently assassinated by the Revengencers. Over the closing credits we see Seth thriving in his new position at the absolute expense of Sydney, Australia, which is practically in ruins while he surveys his land, doing a big smile like a tyrant would. 

This one is very good. Metalocalypse’s misanthropic sense of humor really shines. The show will often show spectacular examples of gore and mayhem, but nothing is treated with grim incapability like family is...treated. With. Fuck. You know what the whole not ending your sentence with a preposition thing is lame and bad. It’s not that I’m bad at writing. I’m taking a stand.

The show has been taken down from HBOMax since the last time I watched it. It’s currently streaming on Adult Swim. At a glance it seems like it’s streaming in its entirety. It may or may not require a cable log-in. Actually, I’ll check in a private browser. Hang on. Okay. I did it. It played! It’s also on DVD, which is nice, but my copy’s digipak has shattered disc hubs so the discs are not fully secure in the box. Not good. Is there a way to fix this? Wait. Let me google it myself. Okay. Huh. I found something called “adhesive-backed spider DVD/CD disc hubs” that literally might be the exact thing I’m looking for. Wow. Well, you learn something extremely important like that every day, don’t you?

EPHEMERA CORNER

Robert Zunes In (2007)*

Remember when I was asking about the Robert Osbourne host intros? I’m guessing these are what that wiki was talking about! Either whoever wrote that got confused (these were taken from a ZUNE that Adult Swim gave away I guess with select episodes of select shows loaded onto them), or they repurposed some of those intros for the April Fools stunt. Neat! Thank you Kon for finding this and showing me them. Thank you.

*JOKE STOLEN FROM LONDON ARBUCKLE BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ASK IF I COULD USE IT

[paneerlajwanti]

please rant about your characters

i often think about how i came to create my characters. we call them original characters, but this originality, what makes it one of a kind? arent we all just blenders and mosaics of what we want and who we could be? of the people we loved and the places we found home? its in there. its all just lives woven together to form a being.

a heart too big that wants to be loved, or a heart that just pumps blood pretty regularly. palms with lines taking you some place, ornate rings on a finger that probably mean something, or hands that are just waiting to be held.

i think about how seemingly trivial details like a spiral bound notebook, reruns of an old show, an abandoned gmail account, a broken earring, and a shared waffle, and a beautiful nightmare could be the first domino to create these characters in my head who (obviously live rent free) let me love more, let me learn more, let me accept myself more, and understand myself more. its wonderful.

actual rant below. its going to be a long one. sorry. you dont have to read if you dont want to.

_____________________________________________________________

im just using this as an opportunity to actually do something about these characters, because a google doc scares me. i will actually rant about them here. that above was like the summary and abstract that you find on a back cover of a book that convinces you to buy the book and now this is the part where you read and are like confused about the iq of the author because how can someone yearn so hard but also have like half a braincell. hmm lets begin. god bless. xoxo.

ahaana & ashok:

author's note: well they are my first two characters were created as pure coping mechanism, i swear to god. its insane about how stupid how they came to be. ahaana and ashok (along with my online friends and fandom) were the only things that helped me get through 2017-19. they're like pretty close to my heart. i don't actually end up writing much, i don't need to, but in my head, im like a three year old in a play area. im in a doll house. ahaana and ashok are having the time of their lives with the kitchen set and they're playing doctor doctor. i don't need to write about them. i find comfort when im in that zone with them. that's cool.

description, stories and character studies:

ahaana is passionate, determined, and she is tough. she adapts to what life throws at her and it only makes her kind. she's my baddie. i loved how i fell in love with her character over the years, or her personality. she's my strongest babygirl. she dances. she is powerful with her speech. ahaana is my type. i shall not elaborate.

ashok, on the other hand, little shit, was literally created only to love ahaana. like ahaana was my first character ever. and then poof ashok popped up. i didn't even deal with him for months. for like the longest time, his designated role and duties were literally hashtag love ahaana. but oh oh oh my god, the way i projected on this lil shit. creating ashok has been the most healing thing ever. i was able to find comfort in myself when i thought of ashok. whenever i went story mode, ashok is whom i identify with, the character i root for and the person i relate to. he's precious. ashok is me. ashok is the character i project on.

ashika & lover boi (advait):

author's note: the second two characters were half loosely based on this insane beautiful/ish nightmare i had over a year ago. i woke up at 4:45 AM and had to rush to the phone and record it or talk to someone about it before it all flew away. it actually was insane. and i think its the only dream i have so much memory of. even now. i remember sending @cynicalities and @dragonwillow twenty two minute voicenotes talking about it. i do realize this is all an unintentional alliteration. i didn't choose their names to begin from the same letter lmaoo, but i guess i do have a story for choosing every name and its pretty sweet.

description, stories and character studies:

ashika feels like home. the kind of person who you would end up talking to on your bus ride home. im just gonna give you vibes. crayon drawings on the fridge magnet. a cup of hot chocolate and a hug from a friend. she loves to create ashika is the kind of person i want to be.

advait is the person whom i would fall in love with.

dakshayani & ratna:

author's note: they're pretty sweet. i don't do much about them, i just open their closets (pun intended) and add in some trauma and shake the box for better results. i don't choose the tragic backstory for them, the thug life writes itself lmaooo. theyre my regular rivals to enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers. its set in a fictional universe a few centuries ago. because swords and stuff. i got my priorities sorted like that hehehehe.

description, stories and character studies:

eh theyre pretty cool sword wise. earthy and water tones. i created them for pure indulgent purposes. and angst.

my characters are like dabbas i can put in my unresolved stuff on, or are like characters i possess to figure myself out, or are just like my guinea pigs to shower all my love onto. they're my characters. i put pieces of myself into creating them. i find long lost pieces of myself in them. its a long journey. it feels like coming back home.

[canmom]

it's a bit of a pipe dream to think i would be well known one day, but i would hate to become known as a 'british animator' or 'british writer' whose work reflected on the vibrant culture of this shithole of a dead empire. if my work doesn't say on some level "this country is an unmitigated evil in the world and all its institutions and traditions must be violently overthrown" I'm doing something wrong! this seems to be true of e.g. most of the interesting british comics writers. being british should be seen as an unfortunate fact about my background, like, 'oh this explains a lot about how depressing her work is' lmao

anyway this makes me kind of think... obviously i am into a lot of japanese animation and games, and i certainly don't want to make some silly claim that every anime creator i like is some badass radical because that's obviously not true, but also like, promoting an image of 'cool japan' is a literal policy of their seemingly eternal far right government and i don't really want to enable that! i would hate to sort of shackle someone to a nationalist project they don't uphold in appreciative critical writing.

a couple weeks ago i saw an fairly big name webgen animator on an animator discord expressing resentment about being held up as an up and coming filipino animator when, in his eyes, he had seen no support from his country and taught himself everything through the internet. he saw his community as international web animators. and while i don't want to be idealistic, his attitude appealed to me. i feel much more comfortable thinking of myself as a creature of the internet, with all the flaws that entails... i can't really remember a time where i didn't spend much more time reading and talking to people in other countries (mostly Americans, but also a lot of people from other European countries on the old Blender forums) and i guess that played a huge part in my particular path of 'socialisation'.

one thing I've found quite striking since getting more involved in the like, 'indie animator subculture' is that there the balance of countries ppl are from is much more south american and southeast asian, much less USian, than most online communities I've been in, which is honestly a p welcome change. it's a bit of a cliché but i do feel like the internet really is demonstrating its potential to create certain kinds of international connections not mediated through mass media localisation in the way of the last hundred years of capitalism, and as much as corporate near-monopoly media production - The Industry - still dominates the landscape in so many ways, it's still really exciting to see what sort of art movements are going to grow in this ecosystem...

but of course, i realise this feeling of being part of a cosmopolitan international culture or w/e is such a class thing. the UK, by virtue of its place in the world economy and the last few centuries of colonial plunder gets both the most modern comms infrastructure and the benefits of its language being widely considered the path to wealth and privilege, a structure which perpetuates itself long after the period of direct rule... especially since its immediate successor as "top dog empire" also uses English. the people i talk to are either from other rich countries, or often the comparatively well-off people of colonised countries who are coming to speak to me in my language rather than the other way round. there's not much i can immediately do about the distribution of power in this situation, but i don't want to have illusions about it. and if i can figure out the right, sustainable means of motivation, it would be really good to learn to visit the non-English-speaking parts of the web.

what is to be done about all this? idk. just mulling this one over. i very much admire someone like @anarcha-catgirlism who seems to pick up languages as easy as breathing out of an intrinsic love of it (i'm sure she finds it harder than it looks from the outside lol), but I've never had that facility and comfort with language learning the way i did with, say, maths.

it's very hard to figure out how to get a proper habit of practice going the way i have with drawing and animation lately. what happens is, i think one day, oh no, not done this in a while, let's make an effort to get back into practicing kanji, knock a couple hundred off my wanikani queue, and then it won't occur to me to do it again for like, weeks. other languages I've tried i have fared even worse; at best i get a period of hyperfocus and then it collapses, or the excuses for language classes you get in british schools. i don't know how to summon the determination that keeps me coming back to draw even when I'm unsatisfied with my skills. I'm certain it's possible to learn languages even with unmedicated 'adhd', but i haven't figured out the trick of it and continue to be an embarrassing monoglot...

anyway, enough moping. time to draw.

[darkestwolfx]

Weather or Not - Re-Review #37

That is the question.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

FAB One flying towards what looks to me like the most precarious tower ever built in the middle of a desert. Yeah, that could only be the property of one person as well, and I’m not talking about Lemaire - whose probably still dressed early for Halloween.

No, I’m talking about Langstrom bloody Fischler. I don’t care if he has a middle name, because that is now it, okay?

“Thanks to your financial support, we have spared no expense to quickly make this dream reality!”

Okay, okay, so one; why did these people give him money?

And two; note the use of the words expense and quickly... let me guess, no safety protocols? No test runs? Yeah, he’s already said it all in a sentence, damn idiot.

“Um... what’s happening?”

Bet you’re regretting giving him your money now, ey?

“Well it’s all rather technical. Needn’t bother you with the details. What is happening!”

Yeah... this man never knows. Risk to us all. So basically he’s created an army of weather drones! Yay!

And of course FAB One ends up flying right into the unexpected.

I love how Lady Penelope doesn’t say an outright no to this suggestion of Parker’s;

“hI could halways set the dog hon ‘er.”

It’s only for the briefest of seconds, but of course John has a reading corner. Of course he does.

“Fischler, he has good intentions, but you know what a mess he makes of things.”

“Boy do I ever.”

“Mr Fischler, this is International Rescue. How is everything there.”

“Oh fine, fine, how are you?”

I seem to remember every conversation with Fischler starting a little something like this and ending with disaster all the same.

“Do you need assistance?”

“No! This control tower can take anything. I designed it after all.”

Yeah, I love how John still decides to send his brother’s out after that sentence. Fischler designed it... well then we better go and take a look, I’ll bet anything he thought something along those lines (and maybe briefly about leaving the man to his own devices, but hey, these guys have consciences. Learn the world please, Fischler).

“I’m just glad Scott’s way with Alan. Fischler wouldn’t like what he’d have to say.”

Would that be a well aimed punch? Which has to be censored out to make it universal viewing? Yeah, I bet it would have been. Easiest solution, remove Scott from the episode. I mean, I wonder more if Rasmus Hardiker just wasn’t available for that date, or if they wanted to not feature him (for the reasons I’ve previously stated. Still, I would have liked to see that punch.

“It appears you have made some weather making drones.”

“Completely with a zippy looking paint job.”

Oh God... I feel exactly what Brains does here.

“Well... you can’t expect everything to go right first time, can you?”

“Yes, actually, you can.”

Virgil is clearly in charge with Scott away, giving all the orders and the like.

“’ang hon, M’lady.”

“’anging hon, Parker.”

I love that. I love, love that interaction.

Sherbet growling at the drone was so in character for him.

“Right then, you hovergrown blender, that will be henough hof that!”

Yeah! Too right you are, Parker!

“I recently installed some electric charge nullifiers on all of the Thunderbirds.”

Oh, did you have a premonition, Brains? Or did you just think that might come in useful at some point? Good thing he’d recently installed them or this episode might have been over very speedily.

“By best estimate is between 2 and 22.”

“Ok... I guess we’ll let you know.”

It’s a little like playing a game of chase with these weather drones, isn’t it?

“Parker, will these gyrations go on much longer?”

“Not hone the hengine gives hout.”

“Ah, well then, carry on.”

Yes, don’t let the engine stop you, Parker.

“’old hon to you mutt, M’Lady!”

Another of the greatest lines I think we will ever hear Parker say.

“One of these, four of those...”

I wonder if Gordon shops like that... it would certainly explain his stack of treats.”

“Did you see that? She almost hit us! Reckless flying, that’s what that is!”

Um, no, Fischler, I think it was deliberate flying.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to save you!”

“Well nobody asked you to! But it never stops you lot, does it? Because if you couldn’t flit about in your shiny airplanes and ‘rescue’ someone, well you’d all be out of a job, wouldn’t you? With your weird outfits-”

“Much better.”

Don’t worry, Virgil, I would have put him on mute too.

“Last time I checked, Thunderbird Shadow doesn’t have weapons.”

“Then I’ll improvise. That was fun!”

I don’t think you’re meant to be having fun, Kayo. This is meant to be a serious rescue. Just chase the weather drones away please.

Yeah, don’t worry about Gordon, he’ll just hang... for a while.

“Hey guys! Its a long way down without a parachute!”

I know falling wasn’t much of a good option, but I don’t think sitting on a Thunderbird is that much of a better one.

“Open the door, open the door, open the door.”

“Oh, you call this a rescue? What were you, born in a tent?”

I don’t even understand this man.

“I may have a plan.”

“Well I hope it’s a quick one! This tower’s going down any minute.”

“Don’t leave us hanging, Brains.”

Literally, in Gordon’s case. Funny, not funny, of course.

“I just with we could make those drones fly in a straight line. It would be much easier to pick them off.”

“Kayo, we do rescues. We’re not trained as fighter pilots.”

“It’s on my to do list.”

Oh my gosh, TAG, stop it! I mean, this is a universal rated show, and yet you’ve given Kayo and absolute obsession with violence. I mean, when she’s contributing from the Island, you occasionally give her some sense, but when she’s out in the field (like every time), you set her off arguing with someone (Scott,Virgil, John, Brains) about why International Rescue isn’t International Violence. Come on, you can have badass characters without the need for all of that. Literally, it just annoys me and makes me ignore the entire scene - we’ve heard it before, it’s nothing new and likely we’ll hear it again. I mean, I could give you a list, but I’ll be kind and refrain.

“Gordon, where are you?”

“Oh, just hanging out.”

One of the greatest ends to a rescue, in my opinion - and the sort of humour we need pitted against Kayo’s stone cold desire for picking fights.

“All in a day’s work.”

Quite agree with you, Parker. And Lady Penelope skipping the opera is just great!”

“I shall soon embark on a new and even more amazing endeavor.”

“Yeah, maybe a career in fireworks.”

Waay to go, Gordon. You just had to inspire the man!

“I am not afraid of the unknown, the untested, the unorthadox.”

“The unwise...”

“The unnecessary...”

“The unstable...”

“The unethical.”

I think things usually go in threes, but I will accept the fourth here. Fischler deserves it in my opinion.

Challenge for us all: can anyone else think of anymore ‘un’ words we can use to describe Fischer?

[vands38]

things i wish someone told me about coeliac disease (UK edition)

apparently some doctors are still not telling coeliacs what they actually need to know so here’s some fun facts --

*coeliac disease is likely to go undiagnosed if you don’t have digestive symptoms. for a lot of folks, their first symptoms are odd things like weight loss, bloating, mouth ulcers etc that take ages for doctors to correctly diagnose as coeliac disease. I know someone whose only sign was tingling in her fingers (nerve problems are a Thing sometimes). I don’t wanna freak folks out but check this list of symptoms and if you’re worried, ask your doc for a blood test to check for coeliac disease. I went in and out of my docs for years with various symptoms (mostly from the anaemia) and no one caught it until I was finally having noticeable digestive trouble.

* coeliac disease an autoimmune disease. not an allergy. not an intolerance. when you eat gluten, your gut just screams NOPE and throws everything out of there.

* this means if you keep eating gluten you will have serious long-term health problems because your gut can't absorb shit 

* as I mentioned, anaemia is one of these associated health problems. a lot of people have this at diagnosis b/c your gut hasn’t been absorbing the nutrients it needs. it leaves you very weak and tired, and the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. 

* long-term anaemia / malnutrition causes so many fucking health problems I can't list them all. basically, if your body sucks, there's a good chance it's a side-effect of your coeliac disease going undiagnosed. I got shitty joints and a shitty heart and shitty bones and godknowswhatelse and every time my doc is like "hey, guess what? it’s coeliac disease!"

* you know what a common side effect is? LACTOSE INTOLERANCE. this is because, once again, your gut hates you from all that gluten you've been killing it with, so it starts to muck around and kick out other things too. but good news! most of the time this is reversible!!! lay off any lactose for a couple of months, reintroduce it to your diet slowly, and you -- like me -- might be a-ok 

*some folks with coeliac disease can’t digest oats either as they contain a similar protein. I found that I was kinda squiffy with them at first but as soon as my gut had calmed down I was a-ok with GF oats (this is good b/c 99% of good GF biscuits are made with oat flour, RIP to everyone that can’t eat them)

* so... your bones are probably fucked. if you were diagnosed early and your doctors are on it, you might be okay but for a lot of people it means osteopenia, and further down the line, osteoporosis (meaning it's v easy to break bones). you need to be eating, like, double the regular amount of calcium every day. most people are put on calcium tablets with combined vitamin D (to help absorb the calcium) but even on top of that, you need to be getting a lot in your diet. If you're still lactose intolerant then switch to lacto-free versions of dairy products or eat tofu like there's no tomorrow. It's super important that you get enough.

* relatedly, bone health!!! You should be doing MODERATE impact exercises like jogging to strengthen the bones but nothing high-impact like tennis. load-bearing exercises are good too. here’s some examples (in detail) given to me by the rheumatology dept

* people have different sensitivity levels. in the UK, certified gluten-free products have to be 20 parts per million or less, but in the US this is 100! marmite lives somewhere between these two and can cause some coeliacs to have a reaction. please be aware when you eat international gluten-free foods that they might have more parts per million than your body is used to

* because you're super sensitive to gluten, not only do you need to check the bold allergens on the ingredients, but the small print too. it might say "made in a factory that handles gluten" or "may contain traces of gluten" and that’s a no-go

* similarly, be careful in restaurants. Apparently it's still perfectly legal for restaurants to say a dish is "gluten free" and then put your nice GF bread in the same fucking toaster as regular bread and have you shitting your pants for days. Just because the ingredients are GF doesn't mean they're cooking it in an allergen-conscious manner. If its not a Coeliac UK certified restaurant, always ask about their methods. Is that milkshake made in a GF blender? Is your fry-up cooked in a separate pan? The first time I got glutened after my diagnosis it was because my GF naan bread shared a tray with a regular one. A lot of places won't even fucking think about this stuff.

* if you're in a gluten-eating household, you've got a big expense coming up. you need to buy a GF toaster at the very least and I would recommend also a separate baking tray (because pizzas, garlic breads etc stick to that shit like no tomorrow) and a saucepan (or anything else that regularly contains pasta/noodles/etc). You'll also need a separate bread knife and board. Separate butter. Separate strainer if you're the type to drain your pasta. Line anything suspicious (e.g.your sandwich toaster, a communal baking tray) with baking parchment. Don’t use bare rungs in your oven or hob. And buy separate spreads and condiments, unless your household is very well trained in not dipping their crumb-covered knives into those things. I've even got separate plates, kitchen utensils, and cutlery. It seems extreme but I haven't had a cross-contamination incident since. Just think: has gluten touched this? And if so, do your best to minimise the risk.

* living GF is expensive long-term too. GF bread costs twice as much as regular bread. Restaurants often charge extra for GF alternatives. I had to switch from having toast in the morning to cereal because it's much more reasonably priced. I eat more fruit than I ever have before just because GF snacks cost so much. I used to have breakfast bars lol say goodbye to that shit unless you wanna be broke

* things I didn't realise I couldn't eat: crisps (a lot of your standard crisps are made with ??? production methods), candied nuts (most of these are made in factories that handle gluten), soy sauce, strawberry laces and a whole bunch of fave sweets (contain wheat starch to bind them - check this list for safe sweets), marmite (you can buy a GF yeast extract that is only 50% worse than the original)

*good food you actually can eat: most cadburys but not most nestle, GF beer which tastes exactly the same, schar pretzels are actually the shit, so are their BBQ pringles and those little chocolate bars with hazelnuts, Morrisons free from frozen mini hash browns will cure your depression, M&S do these bacon tortilla rolls which... OH BOY. Quiche alternatives are pretty damn good but I've yet to find a pizza that doesn't make me want to cry.

*speaking of supermarkets... Morrisons stock a good range of stuff and tend to have everything in one aisle, M&S have many yummy (and expensive) treats, Sainsbury's has good own brand things including bread, Tesco's are fairly decent and stock a lot of baking things, ASDA are the king of GF cake, if you're still lacto-free then Waitrose sell LF cheese including halloumi, and check your your local hippy food store because I found the best goddamn bread in mine (Incredible Bakery Company - you are £4.50 a loaf but I have no regrets)

*party risks: if there's a BBQ, insist that your things go first or have a separate BBQ, or, if worse comes to worse, just eat cold snacks. (Beware of sausages! Many aren't GF!) If its a chip and dip situation, either everything has to be GF (easily done) or have your own dip. BUFFETS ARE LITERALLY OUR WORST NIGHTMARE. the amount of coeliacs I know that have been glutened at one are INSANE. even if those tasty treats are labelled 'gluten free' they've probably be contaminated. everything at a goddamn buffet is contaminated. Dinner party? Well meaning friends will want to cook for you but unless their kitchen is set up as above, it's safer to bring your own food -- if you're very lucky, you will have friends who take the time to learn about allergens and will clean every item in their kitchen before cooking and serving an entire GF meal. these friends are to be treasured -- nay, worshipped.

*fast food. there’s no good way to put this but you’re never having that guilty pleasure 2am burger again. mcdonalds fries are miraculously GF though. (a lot of takeaways recycle oil so even if the ingredients are GF it’s often not safe but mcdonalds always use a separate fryer for chips). indian takeaway is great as most dishes don’t contain gluten. on the flip side, you’ll only be able to have about 5 items on the chinese menu (soy sauce is in everything, yo) so be prepared to learn those 5 items by heart. dominoes do Coeliac UK certified GF pizza!!! (buuuuut not during covid). chains like pizza express have got our back and will even serve you GF doughballs

*coeliac UK are your best friend! most of the things I’ve mentioned are described in detail on their website. they also have a barcode scanner app that will tell you if foods are safe, and they have a restaurant guide, and useful things like translation guides for when you go abroad. 

That's all I've got right now but hmu with any questions or corrections. Take care of yourself, folks. <3

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc II: Watt Outta Hell (12)

Chapter 12: We Meet Underworld Justice. Meaty, Crispy Underworld Justice

           One of the nice things about the First Circle is that since it’s for lesser sinners, they don’t punish you nearly as bad as they would in some of the other places. Take the poles F-Bomb and I found ourselves tied to, for instance. They had adjustable seating and a massage option, which I eagerly took advantage of. Real nice, considering the hall of condemnation we now found ourselves in looked like every heavy metal album cover ever made. But the weirdest thing of all was it reminded me of church, somehow. The whole place was just a very long , dark, edgy hallway covered in stained (though with what, I never found out) glass windows with a pulpit at the very end. Raposa settled her rear into this pulpit, while F-Bomb and I were put down in front of it, a pair of sinners put down before the Lord. Behind us, rows upon rows of underworld denizens were crying for our blood in every tongue imaginable. Though if our punishment was church, I did have one advantage: Miss Princess couldn’t make this place duller than Father McAllister’s sermons if she tried (thanks to that guy, I know more about cubits then I will ever care -or need- to know).

           Unfortunately, it was special moments when the luck of the Tostigs tended to bail on me, and being tied to a stake in front of a pulpit, with a grape juice swilling devil princess looking into your soul was one of them.

Having sucked the last ounce of delicious liquid from her sippy pouch, she raised the thing as if to make a toast, somehow hushing up everyone in the hall.

“Alright losers, listen up! These horrible souls have committed one of the greatest sins of the zeroth circle: Parking in the handicapped space without actually being handicapped!”

Once more, the crowd booed us.

“But believe it or not, I’m feeling generous today, so I’m gonna let these NERDS pick their own poison!” She turned to us (though more to me, since F-Bomb was still moping over sailor Woon’s betrayal) “Listen, kid, you have two options, you can either have the usual punishment we give people like you-“

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Pulling out your bones, pulverizing them in a blender, and feeding them to the homeless as protein shakes.”

I don’t know what my expression was at the time, but whatever it was, it made the Hell Princess smirk, revealing her rows of serrated teeth.

“Or, you can get a surprise punishment, as suggested by our live studio audience!” She gestured to the crowd, who proceeded to roar with applause.

I turned to my friend, hoping for guidance.

F-Bomb sighed “Just go for the forkin’ surprise. Half those forkin’ ballots are usually just plain forkin’  ‘torture’ ‘cause nobody here knows how to be forkin’ origional, anyway.”

I nodded in agreement “Yeah. Surprise us.”

“In that case… Stensa, bring me the SKULL OF HORRIFICALLY UNSPEAKABLE CONDEMNATION OF ETERNAL DARKNESS!!!!”

The crowd roared as really bad wedding music began playing, followed by a devil that looked like a very ugly, hairless dog sauntering down the aisle with a skull in its paws. At least, I assumed they were paws. They looked like they’d been sharpened until they were pointy hand-spikes. When he reached the pulpit, I saw the head of the skull had been hollowed out, its’ noggin filled with folded pieces of paper. Raposa reached into this fishing her hand around in a way that reminded me all too much of the times Grandpa took me to bingo night.

“And the punishment is…” The music mercifully stopped, replaced by a drumroll that made my heart race.  

Silence. Raposa squinted at the paper, trying to read it.

“W-Were-“

“Werebacon.” The creature that called itself Stensa replied “It says Werebacon. Sorry the handwriting’s bad, but it’s kinda hard to do when you’ve only got stumps.” He showed them off.

For a brief moment, the crowd was no longer on F-Bomb, now staring down the helpless little devil.

“Stensa,” Raposa called, gesturing with a finger “Come here please.”

Shaking, the pathetic dog-thing stepped up to the podium. “Yes, your Unholiness- accckkk!”

The crowd watched in awe as Raposa chocked the demon using only a single hand. Some even took out their cameras to commemorate the event (or just get a spot on ‘Underworld’s Funniest Home Videos’).

“Stensaaa…,” Raposa began, her voice sounding way too much like A-Hole for it to be anything good “What did I tell you about putting joke requests in the SKULL OF HORRIFICALLY UNSPEAKABLE CONDEMNATION OF ETERNAL DARKNESS!!!???”

Stensa tried to eke out an answer, but by that point his eyes had rolled back so far I could see where they attached to the skull.

Then Raposa’s face changed. It became all sharp and pointed, like it was made of glass shards. Poor Larry was being shaken around like a rubber chicken in an earthquake. “You do not put joke answers in the SKULL OF HORRIFICALLY UNSPEAKABLE CONDEMNATION OF ETERNAL DARKNESS! I THOUGHT we went over this already! Also, don’t call me ‘Your Unholiness’ my name is Raposa, you moron!”

With one final snap of what I assumed was Larry’s neck bones, the dread princess tossed his body to the floor so hard it cracked on the tiles. But you want to know what he really crazy part was? Larry got up again, head still dangling limply from his neck, like it was nothing, and said

“I was going to say it wasn’t a joke answer. Werebacon’s a real thing. Bacon bitten by werewolves, I think. They sell it at Wegmart for 2.99 a pound.”

“AND HOW WOULD I KNOW THIS IS TRUE?!” Demanded the Hell Princess.

Larry shrugged “It’s called going to Wegmart? Dumba$$.”

And that’s how we got a fifteen minute recess while Raposa went to check this stuff out. Since everyone went outside, taking bets on whether she would actually find the werebacon or not, that meant it was just F-Bomb and I in the hall. All was quiet, save for the soft rumbling of my stake, which I’d set to ‘massage’.

Then, out of nowhere “Well, now forkin’ what?”

I looked around to see where the voice had come from.

I shrugged, or tried to.  “Well, who knows, if those anime you’ve made me watch has taught me anything, maybe we’ll unlock some secret superpower to save our butts at the last minute.”

F-Bomb smiled a bit at that.

“Well, at least you’ve been learning, Watter-chan.”

“And as a matter of fact, I think I feel a new power coming in…NOW!”

A great force surged through me before coming out as a weak toot from my behind.

Just like that, F-Bomb got all sullen again.

“Whelp. We are FORKED.”

“But you can bet your toe claws we aren’t going down without a fight!”

.   .   .

As if on cue, in walked Raposa and her posse of subjects. In her hand she carried a reusable shopping bag made of flayed human skin.

“Hey guys, guess who just brought home the bacon?!”

“Uhh…you did?”

The Hell Princess smiled at me, flashing her serrated teeth. “If that was you trying to be funny, then you failed miserably and you should feel bad.” She took out the the demonic delicacy. “Now, prepare to DIE!”

“But we’re already-“

“It’s an expression, nerd! And just for that, prepare to ULTRA die!”

“What’s that even-“

“Turd,” F-Bomb hissed “please just shut the fork up for one forkin’ second. I’m not exactly in the mood to get SUPER MEGA ULTRA killed.”

           From there, Raposa and company wasted no time. With the press of a button the whole place rumbled, the ground beneath F-Bomb and I sinking lower and lower until we were stuck in the bottom of a funnel-like pit, kind of like the ones where Romans fed their prisoners to lions. On the rim of the pit, glareing down at us fierce, the crowd was going crazy, chanting “EAT THEM! EAT THEM! EAT THEM!” while punk rock with a lot of brass in it blared loud enough to make my ears explode. For some reason, this reminded me of the time my parents took me roller skating. Maybe it was the flashing strobe lights.

           Moments later Raposa stood on the edge of the pit, wearing a black and white referee shirt and carrying a microphone in one hand. “Hellspawn and gentledemons!” She clamored, her voice so loud even at the bottom of the lit I could hear it clearly. “Are you itching for a fight?”

She paused, just long enough for the crowd to holler their all too enthusiastic response.

“’Cause boy do we have about tonight! On the left side of the arena we have the dastardly duo, the irredeemable of irredeemables, Mr. WEENIE AND WEENIE HUT JR!”

Cue the crowd booing and throwing Dora the Explorer DVD box sets at our heads.

“And on the other side, the greatest breakfast meat in this underworld, this continent, I daresay even this universe… WEREBAAAACCCCOOOONNNNN!”

She threw it, still in the package, into the pit, where it hit the ground with a hearty SLAP!

The crowd, as expected, went so nuts they literally started turning into peanuts, which the other demons tore apart and began eating. Despite having not eaten in a few days, I wasn’t really jealous of them. If communion at church taught me anything, it was that drinking a guy’s blood and eating his flesh was a very overrated experience.

“Hey!” I screamed, trying to buy us time “C-couldn’t you at least cook it first? I don’t want to die by raw bacon!”

Amazingly, Raposa somehow heard me over everything else that was going on. “Oh, we’ll cook it alright… in unhallowed moonlight!”

           A disco ball the size of the Hell Princess’ ego was lowered into the arena, its’ sparling light nearly blinding me. Slowly, but them more quickly, I could see the bacon begin to change. Something on the inside pushed and shoved against its’ plastic prison, struggling to get out, like a bag of popcorn in the microwave. And if microwave popcorn has taught me anything, it’s that once the package explodes, things go downhill fast. (Then again, this was at a time when I thought you didn’t take popcorn bags out of the plastic before microwaving them.)

“Couldn’t you at least untie us?!” I pleaded, giving my best puppy dog eyes.

“Suck it, NERD!”

And wouldn’t you know it, that was it! You see, I’ve always been a twig my whole life, and with the competition and being cast in the woods and all, I didn’t exactly have the time to eat stuff. So all it took was one suck of my guts and I slipped out of my ropes. Followed up with a slash of the old toe claws,  F-Bomb was free, too. Meanwhile, the package had swollen  tall as I was and still the werebacon couldn’t escape.

“Oh, screw it!” Hollered Raposa. With one well-placed toss, a pair of the sharpest scissors I’ve ever seen sliced right through the plastic packaging, sticking in the Earth with a Tong! From there, the werebacon burst out, looking furry and crispy and horribly overcooked.

“So, uh, any ideas?” I asked F-Bomb.

“Well, we could always run for our lives.”

I shrugged. It was as good an idea as any.

[prorevenge]

Loud, messy, and generally annoying roommate learns his lesson

So I had a roommate over this last summer, as we subleased an apartment in my hometown from a friend of my roommate's who was traveling for the summer. It worked out perfectly, because he was able to give us a cheap enough rent that I could work a factory job in town and still save enough money to put towards tuition for the next year of college.

Now for a little backstory. This friend of mine, we'll call him "Alex", for privacy. I don't like the guy, but I'll still respect his privacy. I use the term "friend" fairly loosely, as we come from a small town (about 5,000 people), so everyone knew everyone, and Alex and I graduated together. We never hung out together outside of the classes and extracurriculars we had together, but I had never had any issues with the guy before this.

So, fast forward to the first week of living together. All was ok at first, some minor annoyances, but nothing major. However as time went on, things started to pile up. Literally, and figuratively. It started with some minor annoyances. We're both guitarists, and would occasionally play together. I'd been playing consistently for about a decade at this point, he'd been playing on and off for a few years. However, when we started living together, he started playing more, probably motivated by seeing how much I played. Nice, right?

Well the biggest problem with this was that he worked the 3rd shift at the same factory (midnight-7am) and I worked the first shift (7am-3:30). So he would play his guitar in his room (right next to mine) at all hours of the night while I was trying to sleep. His typical routine was to crash as soon as he got home, sleep until 3 or 4, (usually he was awake by the time I got home, but not always) make himself food, and then divide the time between then to either play video games with his friends online, or play guitar. Loudly. I typically tried to be in bed by 9, but was almost always woken up either by his guitar, him screaming loudly during a League match, or him clambering loudly around the apartment to get ready for work. I swear it sounded like he was wrestling Macho Man Randy Savage himself in the living room and kitchen at 11:30 at night every night. On top of all of this, he would have his girlfriend over occasionally, as well as other girls I'm assuming he had met on Tinder (as I saw him swiping through occasionally). And the walls between our rooms were very, very thin. I had many conversations with him to try and explain that the noise was bothering me, but he responded with "Sorry dude, just get carried away sometimes. Have you tried headphones?" (yes, that's an exact quote, and yes I had tried headphones, but to no avail. They were too uncomfortable to sleep in). I was exhausted at work every day, relying on the Monster they sold in the break room every day to get me through (so yes, I do blame him for my current addiction to monster). So like I said, things started to pile up, figuratively in that regard, and it was getting old.

On the literal side of things, Alex was a slob, and his things would LITERALLY start to pile up. He'd leave his change of clothes in the living room when he'd change before work and wouldn't pick them up for a week at a time. His room started to smell, and soon, so did he. I don't think I saw him take out the trash in his room once, and I would constantly have to enter his den of despair to retrieve dirty dishes, as he liked to eat in his room while watching anime or playing League, and just leave the dishes on his nightstand. I also started noticing food items going missing from the fridge. Again, I approached him about it, and again, was given an apology and a promise to clean up. But that promise remained unfulfilled. The last straw finally came around mid June.

At work, there are small lockers that employee's can use to store their things. They aren't assigned, so it's a first come first serve basis. You write your name on a sticker and put it on an empty locker, and you are responsible for getting a lock for the locker. I got a simple padlock with a combination, and took the last available locker, recently vacated as one of the employee's got moved to a different assembly department within the factory. I gave Alex the combination and told him he could share it with me so long as he didn't mess with my stuff. Things in there started to pile up as well. Mainly work gloves and safety glasses, as he would put them in there at the end of his shift, and then forget and just get new ones. Our factory handed out gloves and safety glasses for free, so I'm sure he never thought anything of it.

This was just another minor annoyance until one day I left my wallet in my storage locker, and didn't realize until the next day, as I was on my way to work and stopped for gas, and didn't have my card to pay for it. No biggie, this has happened before. I get to work, and as I'm walking in, Alex is walking out. After my shift, I grab my wallet and go to get gas when I notice there's $60 in cash missing from my wallet. I know this because it was money I had set aside to go to a concert later that summer (the last Warped Tour, bittersweet, I know). I went home and confronted him about this when he woke me up clambering around in the kitchen again, and he denied it (of course), even though he's the only one with the combination to my lock. So I decided I was done. Over the next week, I tried to think of a plan, and had a eureka moment when my boss asked me to switch to second shift for a few weeks while another coworker from that shift was taking advantage her years of accumulated vacation days. Perfect.

Finally, ON TO THE REVENGE.

I started with small, reasonable things, like not washing the dishes, hiding the few that were mine in my room, and washing them and putting them away as I used them. The apartment had its own washer and dryer, but the guy we were renting from took his laundry supplies with him, asking him to use our own. Fine by me, I had bought the detergent and dryer sheets anyways. I promptly moved those back into my room as well, and started only doing my own laundry. At work, I had made a new friend who agreed to let me stow my wallet, keys, and phone in his locker during the work day, as I was now temporarily on second shift and my things were usually gone by the time he came in for his shift. Alex's laundry started to pile up. By the look (and smell) of it, he was rewearing clothes several times without washing them. I have no idea what he started using for dishes, I can only hope he wasn't eating off of the gross used ones. He never came and talked to me, and I'm not sure if it was out of laziness or if it was because he knew he didn't have a leg to stand on. But sadly, the smell just kept getting worse, and my efforts seemed to just accelerate his degradation into grossness. But I still had one more card to play.

See, the best thing for me about moving to second shift was that I would now come home at midnight and be able to sleep peacefully while he was gone. When he came home at 7, I would be waking up to start my day. And start my day, I did. First thing I did was make myself some breakfast. Usually a nice fruit smoothie in the blender, the loudest appliance in the kitchen. I would then go into my room, crank up the volume on my amp and jam out to some music, singing along to Mayday Parade, All Time Low, Sum 41, and a myriad of other bands I was listening to at the time in preparation for Warped Tour. I'm not a bad singer by any means, but I'm no Jason Lancaster. I would also occasionally invite my then-girlfriend over during that time, and we were, by no means, quiet. This seemed to be the last straw for Alex now. He stopped me one afternoon before I left for work, and asked me to keep it down while he slept, as it made it hard for him to focus and stay awake at work.

I responded in my most fake-sincere voice, "Sorry dude, I guess I just get carried away. Wanna borrow my headphones?" After a few more days of noise, I think he got the memo. He bought his own laundry detergent and dish soap, and slowly worked his way through the massive pile of shit in his cesspool of a room. By the time I switched back to first shift, he was the quietest, and most considerate roommate ever. However, the smell didn't leave the room, and I was concerned, so I called the friend we were renting from to ask if he had a carpet shampooer I could use to get the smell out. It was at this point the friend told me that this wasn't the first time this had happened, and apparently Alex had rented the apartment the previous summer as well, and the friend came home to find it filthy. Lucky for Alex, the person he was sharing the apartment with left to go back to school early for a university job orientation, and the friend came home to find Alex trying to clean the last of the apartment, blaming the smell and the messiness on the roommate who had left. The friend started to put it together and thanked me for letting him know, and that he would take care of the smell when he got back, but I insisted.

The Pièce De Résistance came when I sacrificed a couple hours of sleep to go into work while he was on the assembly line, grab his phone (which he kept unlocked) from the locker that still had my padlock on it, and found very incriminating text messages from the various other girls he had probably brought back to the apartment. I screenshotted them, send them to myself, and then deleted the evidence that could trace back to me. When I got home, I sent them all to his girlfriend, another girl I had graduated high school with, and that I was ACTUALLY friends with. I also sent screenshots to his "Tinderella's", who's numbers were in the screenshots of the texts under the contact names. And that was the end of that.

Alex was no longer allowed to stay at that friends apartment, but hopefully I taught him to respect his roommates. Because after sharing an apartment with him, with my own separate bedroom, I can't imagine having to share a dorm with him. As for his girlfriend, she dumped him immediately, and Alex spent less and less time at our apartment for that last month, probably going to his Tinder girls' places instead. In retrospect, I should have found a way to mess with his Tinder to stop him from getting matches, but I'm not sure what I could have done, and I think I made the poor guy suffer enough.

Anyways, sorry for the length, I'm not the best at condensing stories. I have a few other, more juicy revenge stories I'd be happy to post another day, I just had to deal with a roommate conflict earlier today (I'm an RA) and it reminded me of this situation. So I hope you enjoyed!

(source) story by (/u/LeoDGTV)

[aww-writing-no]

For Winterhawk Week, Day 3

Ao3 Link

Bond: 

Clint looked up from the cash register at Strike Bean Delta when he heard the door open and a cacophony of voices filled the small shop. Things had been quiet this morning, but with the new recruits arriving at Camp Lehigh today he hadn’t expected it to stay that way for long. 

Sometimes Clint hated being right. 

A whole pack of rowdy young men in army fatigues jostled for space as they stared at the menu above Clint’s head. He was about to roll his eyes at their ridiculous posturing when he laid eyes on one of them and felt a sharp pang of - something. 

There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. Grey-blue eyes and brown hair cropped army regulation short, he looked the same as half the kids who came through here for training. Yet Clint felt an immediate bond. Not lust. Definitely not lust, but more like… an old, comfortable friendship. Which was ridiculous because they’d never met before. 

When grey-blue eyes came up to the counter to place his order - medium dark-roast with extra room for cream - he paused, hand in the air and blinking slowly as he went to hand Clint his money. He shook his head slightly before asking, “Have we met?” 

Clint took the money and counted back his change before replying, “I don’t think so”. 

He seemed as confused as Clint, but didn’t press it, walking away to let Clint take the next order. On his way out he stuffed a five dollar bill in the tip jar, which seemed to indicate something, though Clint had no idea what it could be. 

Like many of the new recruits, grey-blue eyes became a regular over the next few months. Strike Bean Delta was the closest coffeeshop to the base, and got a steady stream of business from army folk who quickly tired of whatever institutional swill they served in the mess hall. 

With time Clint learned his name was James, but he went by Bucky of all things. He learned that he was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and had enlisted with his best friend Steve. He had big plans for when he got out of the army, most of which involved going to school and getting some kind of advanced science degree. He took his coffee with a frankly obscene amount of cream and sugar, and had a penchant for apricot cheese danishes. 

Basically, he was nothing like Clint. 

Clint took his coffee black, and often straight from the pot when he wasn’t working. He wasn’t a big fan of pastry, possibly because only ate them when they were stale - two days old and unfit to sell to customers, even at a discount. Technically he was supposed to throw them out, but he wasn’t about to go wasting food that was still edible. 

Clint had dropped out of high school at sixteen and immediately started doing whatever it took to keep food on the table. You know, when he managed to find a place that actually had a table. He was living on the street and had started getting into some real shady shit when he’d been approached by a guy who did outreach for a youth shelter. Somehow between Nick and Phil and the other counselors at SHIELD (Shelter for Homeless something or other - Clint could never remember the full name) they managed to help him get his life back on track. They weren’t good tracks. They were rusty and uneven and usually full of giant splinters, but they were his tracks all the same. 

When Bucky told him he’d been assigned to a unit and would be shipping out the next day, Clint told him to stay safe and impulsively scrawled his phone number on the side of Bucky’s cup. Bucky stuffed a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar on his way out. 

Clint got a text from an unfamiliar number a couple weeks later. It had a picture of the most dilapidated coffeemaker Clint had ever seen, and looked like it had been set up on a stack of crates in some kind of tent. The text read “I’d kill for a cold brew right now. -Bucky”.  

Clint laughed and sent back a picture of the fruit danishes in the display case. 

“Fuck, I’d kill for those too,” was the reply. 

They’d been texting on and off for close to a year - mostly idle chatter and pictures of deserts and humvees (Bucky) or coffee and dogs (Clint) - when Clint woke up screaming in the middle of the night, feeling like his arm was on fire. 

“What’s going on with your arm?” Natasha asked him later that day. 

Clint shook out his arm for what felt like the millionth time, wishing the pins and needles feeling would go away. He really didn’t want to drop a pot of hot coffee on himself today. It wouldn’t be the first time, but he tried not to make a habit out of it. “I probably just slept on it wrong,” he told her. 

Weeks later, his arm was still giving him problems. 

“Go see a doctor; you probably have a pinched nerve,” Natasha told him. 

“A doctor? Who can afford that?” he asked. Health insurance was for people with Real Jobs. He worked at a coffee shop. Besides, he was more worried about the fact he’d sent Bucky a picture of the cutest samoyed he’d ever seen and Bucky still hadn’t responded. One time he’d sent back a picture of one of the bomb sniffer dogs, and Clint still wasn’t over the cuteness of the german shepherd in its little vest and goggles. Clint wasn’t too proud to admit he was hoping for a reprise. 

When Bucky stepped into Strike Bean Delta almost six months later, Clint wouldn’t have recognised him if he hadn’t felt that sharp pang of something when he walked in the door. 

Bucky was wearing civvies, long hair tied up in a messy half-bun, and a lot more shadows under his eyes than when he’d left. Most notably, though, was the distinct lack of a left arm. 

Clint’s own arm went numb at the sight, and the blender he was holding fell to the ground with a loud crash. Strawberry-banana smoothie coated his shoes and oozed slowly across the floor. 

“Aww, smoothie, no,” he whined, and a wet towel hit him in the face, courtesy of Natasha. 

Cleaning up the smoothie gave him plenty of time to try to sort through his feelings, because he was having a lot of them. Like, a LOT of them. By the time he finished cleaning up his mess, his feelings still weren’t sorted, but Bucky was sitting awkwardly at one of the tables with a coffee in front of him. 

“Talk to him,” Natasha said, forcing a plate with an apricot cheese danish into his hands. “Don’t drop it,” she added a second later. 

“But Nat,” he whined, sneaking a glance at Bucky who was staring into his coffee like it held the secrets of the universe. 

“Talk. To. Him,” she repeated, turning Clint around by the shoulders and giving him a literal shove in the right direction. 

“Uhh, I’m glad you’re back,” Clint said, sliding the plate in front of Bucky and taking the seat across from him. He nodded at the missing arm. “I’m guessing that’s why I stopped getting pictures of cute dogs in uniform?” 

Bucky looked surprised, then let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Doctors tend to frown on having animals in the ICU,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d be interested in pictures of cups of jello.” 

Clint smiled, nervousness relaxing into a feeling of ease he seldom felt with other people. He rubbed his left arm unconsciously, telling Bucky, “You’d be surprised.” 

That got another laugh out of him and Bucky’s shoulders relaxed as he reached over to take a bite out of the danish. “Oh man, I’ve wanted this for so long” he said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes briefly. “You do not know how many nights I dreamed about coming back here just to eat one of these things.” 

Clint remembered all the times he’d had an unexpected pastry craving over the past few months and thought that maybe he did. 

“Who are you?” he asked abruptly. As soon as the words left his mouth Clint realized how crazy he must sound, but judging by the look Bucky leveled at him, he knew exactly what Clint was asking. 

Bucky took another bite out of the danish and chewed slowly, looking Clint over as if he didn’t know quite what to do with him. “I suppose I could ask you the same question,” he drawled as he finished chewing. “Who’s the mysterious barista that keeps showing up in my dreams?” 

“You dream about me?” Clint asked. 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

Clint shook his head. “No, not really. I just get these… I dunno, feelings? I don’t know how to explain it. I’m pretty sure I felt when you lost your arm.” 

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Bucky said, clearly startled. “That’s- that’s so messed up. I’m really sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” Clint said with a shrug. It wasn’t like he had any control over it - like either of them had any control over whatever the heck this was. “Still doesn’t answer my question, though.” 

“Last week I dreamt you lost your keys. You thought you’d dropped them on the subway and you had to have the neighbor let you in,” he told Clint, eyes seemingly focused somewhere past Clint’s left ear. “Last month I dreamt you were at a gun range, except you were hitting the targets using a bow and arrows. Last year when I was deployed I dreamt about you making coffee more times than I could count. One time you were making it while wearing a crocodile costume. I thought I was just missing home, but now? I don’t know.” 

Clint put his head in his hands as Bucky continued to stare off into space. He should probably be getting back to work soon, but this was too weird for words. He’d definitely done all of those things in real life. “It wasn’t a crocodile costume,” he said finally, at a loss for anything better to say. “It was Abigail the Alligator, the mascot for the sporting goods shop I buy my arrows from. They booked a coffee service for a special event, and they offered me a bonus for wearing the costume.”

Bond, Part II: Here

[taexual]

HOLIC - 4 | jb x reader

Strangers, united by their big dreams, try to learn to live together and lift each other up to reach their goals without losing themselves or their relationship on the way to the top.

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: strong language

words: 1.9k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

          prev / next

You were beyond outraged that Jaebum was enough of a child about this to actually break your bed just so he’d win the bet. You truly considered breaking his neck in revenge – especially after he dared to ask for your help – but instead of that, you glared at him and walked back to your room, deciding that the best kind of revenge would be to somehow fix the damage he’s done and win the bet despite his attempts to sabotage your hard work.

However, the side board he had broken was hanging off its hinges and it only took you a moment to conclude that you couldn’t actually fix this unless you had proper industrial glue. Upon closer inspection, however, you realized that not even the strongest adhesive would have helped you fix this properly – Jaebum had even managed to break a piece of the wood off, so the sideboard was now about five centimeters shorter than it should have been and, thus, you could no longer attach it to the baseboard.

Gritting your teeth together, you understood that you’d have to pay money to replace it and there was nothing that you wanted more than to rip the broken board off and just hit Jaebum right on the—okay, violence wasn’t the answer. He’d acted like a child but that didn’t mean that you had to act like one, too.

And yet you couldn’t help but be petty as you purposefully turned off all the lights in the apartment – Jaebum kept tripping whenever he walked out to get himself a glass of water – and, after grabbing your laptop, sat down in the kitchen. Every time Jaebum walked past you, you refused to look up at him and, he had to admit, the way your laptop screen illuminated your face really made you look vicious. He almost regretted breaking your bed.

Then, four hours later, he strolled into the kitchen again, yawning and stretching – this time you refused to admire the way his body looked – as he stopped next to the kitchen island, watching you for a moment.

“Guess I won the bet then,” he announced, not mentioning that it literally took him five hours to finish assembling his bed and it was now two in the morning. “Are you going to ignore me? What are you doing?”

“Looking up knives.”

Jaebum opened his mouth to speak but he wasn’t sure if you were serious or just annoyed with him. He admitted that it could’ve also been both.

His hesitation didn’t go unnoticed by you, though.

“You stink,” you spoke again, even though you couldn’t really smell him. You just needed to express your pent-up aggression with words. “Go take a shower.”

Jaebum grinned. “Alright. I’ll go do that. And then I’ll get a fantastic night’s sleep on my brand new bed.”

You told him to fuck off under your breath but the echo of his laughter as he walked towards the bathroom let you know that he still heard you.

Suddenly frustrated again, you leaned back in your chair and glanced into his room through the gap he had left in the door. His bed had indeed been built. He even put the mattress on and had the sheets ready.

An idea hit you then.

Jaebum had literally broken your bed because he was childish like that. You may not have wanted to drop to his level, but sometimes, certain sacrifices had to be made.

Taking your phone and your laptop with you, – just to be sure he wouldn’t break your other valuable stuff while you were doing this, – you sneaked into his room, your bravery fueled by the sound of the shower running in the bathroom; you knew he wasn’t going to catch you. Then, you placed your electronics under the blanket, crawled under it as well, and spread out in the very middle of his bed.

This was your bed now. Jaebum could sleep on the mattress – or on the broken bed frame – in your room. Call it revenge.

Naturally, when Jaebum returned to his room thirty minutes later, he had no idea you were there since you were lying flat against the mattress. He calmly changed into new clothes – all while you stayed with your head under the blanket so you wouldn’t have to watch – and, after tossing the blanket aside, he took a leap back, yelping in shock as his back hit the wall.

“Jesus—fuck! Shit!” swear words spilled from his lips as you continued to lay peacefully in the middle of the bed, trying to act as if you were completely unbothered even though his reaction certainly made you want to giggle. You perservered, though. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I’m sleeping,” you shot back in a purposefully quiet tone. “This is my bed.”

“No, it isn’t,” Jaebum replied matter-of-factly. “I built this.”

“Technically, you broke the bed frame that I built,” you responded. “It’s only fair I take this one. You can sleep on the mattress in my room.”

“That’s now how this works!” he insisted, although, a small part in his mind recognized that you were right. He would have done the exact same thing had your roles been switched.

“It is now,” you countered. “I’m sleeping here.”

“No—what the fuck?” he continued to protest even though, at this point, it was clear that you weren’t going to budge. “You can’t just sleep in my room.”

He made this too easy for you as you countered, without missing a beat, “you can’t just break people’s beds.”

“Really?” Jaebum retorted. “This is how we’re going to do this? What are we, twelve?”

“You tell me,” you said, snuggling your face into the pillow to tease him further. “You’re the one who broke—”

“Alright, I got it!” he shouted defeatedly, and you heard footsteps which had to mean that he was walking closer to the door. You were so close to winning. “Just for the record, I’m not giving up. You might sleep here tonight but it’s a one-time thing.”

“I’m staying here until you fix my bed,” you said. “If it takes you one night, then I’ll gladly leave tomorrow.”

Groaning instead of replying, Jaebum slammed the door of his bedroom shut and headed to your room. You could hear the floor tiles creak as he walked around, probably trying to decide what to do with the broken bed frame that occupied half of the room, and the mattress that occupied the other half.

Smiling a little to yourself, you opened your eyes and took in Jaebum’s room, even though you couldn’t see anything due to the darkness. You didn’t really want to see anything specific, you just glanced at the few details that differentiated Jaebum’s room from yours – like the soft light on his wireless router blinking on the floor in the corner of the room – simply to prove to yourself that you had just defeated him in however petty of an argument the two of you had had.

You may have technically lost the bet, but taking over Jaebum’s bed was certainly a winning move.

You had a free day on Monday because the gallery you worked in wasn’t open today, so, after falling asleep at three last night, you expected to stay in bed until midday at the very least. That was not what happened at all, however, and less than five hours after you had fallen asleep, you were woken up by a jarring noise coming from the kitchen.

At first, you tried to ignore it, flipping to your other side and even covering your head with the blanket, but the sound didn’t seem to stop and the more you anticipated its ending, the louder it seemed to get. It was starting to feel as if someone was drilling a hole inside of your brain.

Groaning, you tossed the blanket off of yourself and got out of the bed, throwing the door of the room open.

Right as you glanced at the source of the noise – both of the blenders you had were whirring loudly on the counter in the kitchen – you also noticed Jaebum’s wide smile.

“Morning!” he called out, his smile widening when he saw your sour features.

“What the hell are you doing?!” you yelled, your voice rough with irritation.

“I’m off for a run. I always run before work on Monday mornings,” he said, stepping around the kitchen island to reveal the athletic attire he was wearing. Actually, it was the same outfit he had slept with since he couldn’t exactly change into anything else, but he was still gloating. “I need a smoothie before I go.”

“Why the two blenders, then?” you asked even though you knew very well why he was using two blenders. This was clearly his payback for you kicking him out of his bed last night.

“I didn’t know which one was mine,” he explained, an expression of exactly zero remorse decorating his face. “We have identical ones, you see, so I just figured I’d turn them both on at the same time and check if I can tell them apart.”

“You fucking asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, still smiling. “Did it wake you up?”

“Fuck you, Jaebum.”

You could hear his laughter as you turned around and you had to talk yourself out of hurling the first thing you saw at him. Powering through it, you walked back to his bedroom, slamming the door shut.

Grumpy and irritated, you sat down on the bed. You listened to him keep the blenders going for another few minutes – no doubt wanting to ensure you didn’t go back to sleep – and then prepared to wait until he got out of the apartment so you could leave the room. However, it was the door of this room that Jaebum opened in a few minutes instead.

“I came for my sneakers,” he explained and then headed for one of the boxes at the far end of the room. You debated throwing the contents of it out of the window when he left. “You can go back to sleep, I won’t disturb you anymore.”

“Fuck off, asshole,” you shot back, swear words becoming your sword and your shield of armor whenever you were angry.

Jaebum didn’t feel offended by your words in the slightest, though. If anything, he found your comments endearing.

“Alright,” he said, sneakers in hand. “I’m going now. I should be back in about forty-five minutes unless it’s impossible to jog here with all the puddles from yesterday’s rain.”

“I hope you fall into the biggest one,” you said, your ill-humored wish amusing him further. “Hopefully you know how to swim.”

“Don’t worry if I don’t. I’ll be sure to give you a call so you can come save me,” he teased, giving you a wink. “A little lifeguard roleplay, hmm?”

His wink had already made you livid but the last comment is what got you to stand up from the bed and glare at him.

“Get out before I start throwing things,” you threatened, meaning every word.

Your whole overreaction entertained him to no end – that, and the fact that there weren’t many heavy things you could have thrown – and he laughed one more time before finally leaving the room.

A few minutes later, you finally heard the apartment door close; Jaebum had left.

He was truly testing your patience today but he had started a war by waking you up this morning and there was no way you were going to go down easy now. Childish or not, this was a game that two could play.

             chapter directory

[marvelhead17]

Miracle (Original Female Character x Cable)

Chapter 18

Summary: “How did you fix it?” he asked. “Ask Ellen the Teenage Warhead,” Wade shrugged as he stood up, “As for baby Hitler he ended up having a diaper change, funny story I was actually going to call Cable since he was so keen on killing Russel, I thought this would be like taking candy from a baby, if that means replacing it with a bullet that is,”

Warnings to cover the whole fic: Graphic depictions of violence, use of weapons, mild to strong language, mentions of rape, mentions of pregnancy and miscarriage, referenced torture and psychological abuse/manipulation, nightmares and night terrors, sexual humour, sexual content.

Word count: 2k

Morning

Nathan bolted from his bed and leaned over his toilet, nearly hitting his head on the edge of it, before throwing up the contents of his stomach from last night. He clutched at his stomach and threw up a second time, the acid burned his throat terribly, and then he flushed the contents away and held his pounding head in both hands.

Fuck, how much did I drink last night?

He shook his head and stared at his reflection in the blue-tinted toilet water, he scoffed as he noticed the aging lines and silver flecks in his hair that made him look considerably older.

“Have we learned our lesson?” He turned to see Hayden standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

“And what lesson would that be?” he retorted.

“Knowing your limits, and knowing when your friends are trying to help you,”

His eyes suddenly widened, “Did I- that woman, did she-”

“You passed out from being so intoxicated, so she tried to steal your wallet and I kicked her skinny ass out to the curb, literally,”

“Thanks for that, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” he rubbed his temples in attempt to soothe his aching head.

“You’re not old you know that right?” He looked up at her. “Not only was the man a disgusting pervert, but he was also a drunk dumbass, I wouldn’t take anything he said seriously,”

                      Nathan just shook his head and made an attempt to stand up; she leaned down to help him up.

“I mean it, you’re not old. Not Senior Citizen old anyway,” he stood on his feet, “plus you’ve kicked more ass in your life than that guy ever could, and you’re still kicking ass like you’re twenty.” She gave a small smile. “If anything the whole silver fox look works for you, like George Clooney-”

“Who?” He frowned.

“Um, well never mind who he is. Point is: even if you are old, you’re not so old that you haven’t got a chance with women in this time. You’ve just got to work out who wants you for your money and who wants you for, well you.”

“It wasn’t just what that creep said, my ex- she, Chet is closer to her age, so I guess it just triggered my insecurities,”

“Insecurities? You?” she scoffed in disbelief.

“Hey, everyone has something about them that makes them insecure, it’s human nature,”

“Well that’s her loss,” she smiled. “Any woman would be lucky to have you.” He looked away from her and smiled to himself. “C’mon, we’re getting some solids in you, now. Otherwise your hangover is really going to be a bitch.” She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him out his room to the kitchen.

                                                          * * *

  She took the blender and put it into its place before grabbing a few items from the fridge and then placing them around. “I know you’re really into this protein shake stuff, but is it really that good?” she asked as she cracked some eggs and let the insides fall into the jug.

“If you have the right stuff, yeah,” he said from behind the counter, watching.

“Well, all I know is that these things help with a hangover, whether they’re any good together or not is going to be your call,” she shrugged and threw the peeled bananas into the jug next.

“And what about the prick, he was pretty wasted when I saw him last,”

“Wade? He was practically sober by the time we made it home,” she threw in the watermelon, blueberries and added plain crackers.

“What the hell are you putting in there anyway?” he cocked his head.

“I’m calling it: ‘Instant regret’,” she put the lid on and blended the things together, it turned purple from the blueberries and watermelon, and then she poured it into one of his shake bottles. “Drink,” She put it in front of him.

  “You sure it’s not going to kill me?” he raised a brow as he sniffed it.

“We’ll have to find out, just drink,” she tilted the bottle as he held it hesitantly to his lips, he slurped the drink down and frowned, “You need to finish it,” she tilted it more and he swallowed the thick sludge.

“Jesus,” he coughed and closed his eyes. “That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had in my life,”

“You’re welcome,” she smiled and washed the bottle and jug, he touched his temple and felt the throbbing begin to slow, his body felt like it wasn’t as sluggish anymore. She turned around, “So it worked huh?” she smirked.

“Lucky for you, or I’d have kicked your ass,”

“I’d like to see you try,” she crossed her arms and gave him a playful smile.

“Speaking of asses,” Wade interrupted unexpectedly, “You two need to get yours over there, some shit is going down, again,” he left the room and they looked at each other before following him.

                                                       * * *

  “So the plan is to stop the shipment of the drugs from the warehouse to the harbour, they have a lot of high tech whatchamacallits and doo-hickeys that they can used against us so we have to be careful,” Wade said as he made doodles in crayon on a large piece of paper.

“You mean you have to be careful,” Hayden corrected, “And since when is X-Force a drug busting unit?”

“Since the drugs contain shit that is causing latent mutant genes to come out of people,”

“More mutants, so what’s the problem then?”

“The problem dear Haydes, is the fact that it’s coming out too quickly and causing the people to die almost immediately after taking the shit,”

“Well that’s cleared it up, when do we leave?”

“Now,” Wade said, “We take this route here, you and Cable will enter from behind,” Wade stifled a giggle rather poorly at his own joke, “Dom and I will come at the entrance,” this time he couldn’t hold his laughter back.

“Enough with the double entendre ass-hat, we have shit to do,” Nathan grumbled.

“Woo, alright, alright. So the goal is to not let anyone escape, even if you have to kill them, otherwise all their buddies get the news and they move elsewhere, it took months for me to find these guys. They have a huge shipment to send out from their warehouse this afternoon, if we stop them today then it’s all over with,”

                                                    * * *

  “Alright, Dom and I are heading in, what’s it looking like back there?” Deadpool said in their earpieces.

“Not a soul in sight, everyone must be inside,” Cable informed.

“They’re fresh tracks from a sixteen-wheeler, the warehouse is large enough to hide it away, they must have a lot of product to ship out,” Hades added, her violet eyes taking in the surroundings.

“They have a passcode for entry; Dom’s working on it,”

“Got it,”

“Lady Luck does it once again,”

“Wait, I think we need to go inside too,” Hades said.

“We’ll be fine, and besides you guys are fall back for if the bad guys try to run,” Deadpool assured.

“I can see about forty bodies in there, there might be more that I’m not seeing yet, it’s too many for two people,”

“Relax Jonesy, I have Lady Luck here,”

“Fine,” she sighed irritably. “C’mon,” she gestured to Cable and he begrudgingly followed as they moved closer to the back entrance.

“How can you tell how many people are inside?” he asked her quietly, his cyborg eye glowing orange as he looked at her.

“I’ll simplify my answer to being basically superior to normal humans, being superhuman in a sense,” she shrugged and then turned her attention back to the door, “Can we just focus on the mission?”

“Alright,” he nodded in saying this.

  As they settled down the doors opened and gunshots were heard firing throughout the warehouse, at least half of the men that Hades had said would be inside were running out and to motorbikes that were parked nearby, she stood up and yelled at Deadpool through the earpiece.

“I told you so!” she raised her handgun from its holster and fired shots at some of the men and they fell to the ground, Cable followed and shot a small group into the bushes with his gun.

“Just, don’t let them get away!” Deadpool yelled back.

“Should’ve disarmed their bikes while we were here,” Hades remarked to Cable irritably as the five motorbikes that were parked drove away, they had been fighting off the men who had returned from being blasted away by Cable’s gun.

“Hey asshole, they’re getting away on bikes,” Cable said as he shot one of the motorbikes closest in the wheel with his handgun, causing it to crash violently enough for the rider to be killed instantly against a nearby cement wall.

                        “I’ll get them, you handle the pricks coming out now,” Hades nodded to Cable who only frowned but then nodded, she turned on her heels and started off at a jog before gaining incredible speed as she sped away as a glowing violet blur.

He stared in fascination at her agility, the motorbikes were fast but she caught up with them somehow, he watched as she knocked three of the guys down with strong punches before the fourth realised and sped up even faster.

“Focus, Old Man! Now is not the time to be bird-watching,” Deadpool said as a he shot a criminal down that was about to hit Cable with a crowbar.

“Shut up, you used tampon,” he grumbled before shooting three guys down within seconds of each other.

“I may or may not have turned those guys into roadkill,” Hades said over the earpiece, Cable could hear her breathing slightly quicker than normal, as if she had a brief jog. “I’m on my way back.”

  “Well I think that went pretty well,” Deadpool said proudly as he stood on a pile of dead bleeding thugs. “Captain Morgan, anyone, no? Alright then, let’s go home.”

“Anybody want a ride?” Hades asked with a smirk as she pulled up on one of the motorbikes and parked herself, her hair blew in the light breeze that had been coming in.

“Looks fun, but Dopinder would be so disappointed if at least two of us don’t take a ride with him, right Dom?” Wade said as he removed his mask.

“Oh yeah, of course,” she nodded at Wade, he put two fingers in his mouth whistled loudly and Dopinder came around the corner in his yellow cab, “See ya guys back home,” she saluted as they both climbed in and the cab sped away.

  “What the hell was that about?” Nathan asked as he turned to Hayden.

“Wade is full of shit, it could be anything,” she shrugged, “Guess you need a ride, unless you want to attempt hitch-hiking in your full glory tin man state,” she gestured to his metal half.

“I’m driving,” he said in a grumble as more of a statement than a suggestion.

“Fine,” she climbed off for him to settle himself in the front half of the seat, then she sat behind him, he felt his throat growing dry and coughed. “Is something wrong?” she cocked her head to the side near his.

“Not at all,” he swallowed lightly while shaking his head.

“Dammit, there’s no way I’m getting a grip back here, you don’t mind do you?” she asked as she placed her hands on his hips and gripped them lightly, he froze briefly but then shook his head.

“Better hold on tighter, I like to ride fast,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t waver; she nodded and wrapped her arms around his waist, practically hugging his back into her chest.

He revved the engine and drove out the gates as the sun lowered itself over the horizon, he felt his heart racing from the contact and from rush of air as they sped off on the motorbike.

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>> Chapter 19 <<