#'ve got a bit of work to do so i can finish the quarter off strong

[silverselfshippingchaos]

oh hey it's been a few days since I made a personal post

[squid--inc--writes]

purgatory

so, I decided to finally finish writing that piece from a really fucked up dream I had. this probably doesn`t cover a quarter of it, but I enjoyed it, and its the first solid writing piece I`ve had in 2 years, so I`m proud.

@schwarzekatzen @wettthepottterheadss4120

warning: gore, gross descriptions, vague psychological bullshit, bullying, violence, etc.

word count:  2281

summary: you follow Trith (not mentioned in the story) on her first round to meet some of the residents within this particular realm of purgatory. Because, frankly, who else can?

My eyes open to a hollow ceiling, peering right into an attic where a familiar rocking hair rocks away. Not a care in the world about how it's up there. That would be Granny Gin. Don't know her real name, but still. She's there. Dead as ever, and knitting away. Sometimes I sleep in long enough that her scarf reaches the floor.

Standing up, groggy, I make my way to do my rounds. Someone's got to make sure the dead don't panic. The first round doesn't have to be me all dressed up. Not like they care about the smell. At least I don't think they do. Can the dead smell? I don't know. At Kirby's request, I started keeping a journal so he can remember what last happened and get one step closer to getting out of here. I also want to help everyone else out of purgatory, so this is why I'm writing this. Brand spanking new. Right up on a blank page. Yep.

So, I guess my next ghastly figure is Heidi. She stands in the bathroom all day. Touching up her makeup, not changing a thing. Aside from the usual changes extended stays can cause. I think she starved to death. Couldn't tell you. She's standing there, takes a glance at me in the mirror, nods, then tries another colour of lipstick. She's been here a while, so that means three eyes, each one a distinct colour of red, blue or yellow. She also has glowing skin, and her legs are becoming more horse like. Maybe her puzzle would be solved by getting her life a little STABLE. Hah. Get it? Why would I write down my laugh?

Whatever, I'm not going to erase anything or cross it out. The thoughts of the living might help, even abstractly.

The next is the hallway. Bert walks along, holding a gas can thing. Y'know, an old timey thing they used to gas bugs? I'm not sure, I can't recall ever needing an exterminator.

He tips his hat to mean, "hey there, lil' lady. Didn't the landlord tell ya to keep out of the building for the next day or so? Don't worry. I'll wait to do my work until you get out. I'll just let 'im know I'll be a bit late starting."

I nod, "thank you." Sometimes it's easier to play along. I feel he's been a tad testy, so I try not to agitate him. Usually I can pass by just fine. Maybe he had anger issues. Try and work his puzzle out like that. Ironically, he resembles a cockroach by now. He doesn't have hands, but the rigid limbs that should have been his hands were made of a hardened skin. It chipped away from his bones like it knew it wasn't supposed to look like that. I rarely look him in the face, both because he looks… interesting, but also because it tends to aggravate him. Maybe it's the way I look at him. He's yelled at me for being a large bug before, not always a roach. I just don't want to get hit again. Maybe I shouldn't help him.

Next up, Theodore and Teddy. They have the same name, and they yell at each other from across the hall. They each have their own rooms. Sometimes they switch rooms. They seem to be connected at this point, literally. They have long strings of flesh swinging from between their bodies. At one point, they got cut, and you see everything pouring out. They acknowledge it in their recent arguments, getting mad at the other for not making enough of an effort to keep it all in. Theodore usually doesn't have a jaw anymore, since it melted down, combined with his clothes. I can't check on Mindy anymore thanks to them. I don't think I want to.

However, I think the problem revolves around they're communication. But that's an obvious point. Maybe they need to accept their own responsibility for their misfortunes.

Mindy… last time I saw her, she had dolls connecting to her through thousands of strands of veins, and nerves, and all other sorts of things. They aren't all made of plastic anymore, last time I saw her.

Theodore says to me, as if his chin wasn't sitting where his stomach would be, "hello dear. How are you today?"

"I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you and Teddy today?"

Teddy snorts from the other room, dusting off an old hat, and placing it on his head, "I'm fine. Perfectly."

Theodore rolled his eyes, "we're as well as ever. Just a lovers' quarrel."

Teddy got offended, ripping the hat off, "oh, NOW we're lovers?"

I nod, and quickly leave before they start trying to pull their guts to their respective sides, and spitting insults. It never ends well.

Next up, Patty and Simone, standing on the stairs. They are actually quite friendly with each other. Patty asking Simone about her husband, Simone asking how Patty's been, after her being widowed and all. They swap recipes regularly. Patty very much seems like she killed her husband. And some of the recipes they swap sound as if Simone is trying to kill her husband. If what she says is true, he deserves it. God do I hope it's not.

Simone has morphed into the railing at this point, spine jutting from bloodless flesh so she can lean on the staircase. I feel the one they used to talk at was a lot lower, considering Simone is almost nine feet in the air. Patty, however, seems to be turning to a bone statue. Her legs can no longer move, not that she moved much to begin with. Wait, no, this time she seems to be turning to ice. Her legs are quite transparent, but there's a layer of frost surrounding her feet. They never used to acknowledge me, but Simone seems to have spread to the stairs, and she'll scold me for walking too roughly. Patty gives me the most judgmental look. I think if they could move on from husband's they'd probably be home free. But that is what their lives revolved around for so long, so I'm not sure that could be easy.

Once I sneak down the stairs without slipping, or getting yelled at, it's into the kitchen I go. Sid is at the fridge constantly stuffing his face. Somehow, he's a part of the fridge. Everything drops out of his stomach back into the fridge, into a pile of slop. Like something a pig would eat. If he's particularly frantic, he'll tear chunks out of himself. I don't think they can feel it when they hurt themselves. Not unless they're supposed to…

I have no clues as to how Sid can save his puzzle. He doesn't tend to talk. I'm not sure he has vocal cords anymore. He barely has eyes.

Moving from the kitchen is the parlor. I'm not sure how this place works, so I'm not sure this is in the right place. Either way, the parlor has about seven people in here. Kirby plays checkers with Daniel, Maud watches TV with Lainey, Paula and Shess pick on Lily. 

Paula and Shess would probably be gone if they could stop, and just sincerely apologize. I'm not sure Lily is really a person though, because she's never changed once. I think she kind of looks like a mannequin, but moving. She's meant to play a part, being small, and easy to pick on. Shess shattered her arms at one point, and now just has gooey, bloody stumps with bone shards sticking out that she uses to punch lily with, and her head is being engulfed by her own skin, but her eyes seemed to have multiplied, hair having started to attach and grow off of the eyes. Like the world's grossest ice-cream cone. Paula, on the other hand, started turning into blades. Her fingernails are long and sharp, her arms have started to thin at the edges, and splinter into more blades, even her nose resembles a knife. I passed her once, her hair brushed my cheek, and I had a long cut from my temple to my chin. That wasn't fun. I can't talk to either of them. They're always caught up in bloodlust.

Lainey and Maud try to ignore Shess and Paula as much as possible. They are actually aware of their surroundings. I don't think they need my help out, because they've been fading lately, so maybe they're ready to pass on. They generally talk about the movie they're watching. Sometimes they get new snacks from an unknown source. Usually they just coo at each other about how much they love each other, and what signs to look for to find each other again. They told me that Purgatory allows you the chance to return to when you died, the chance to fade completely, or to join the better place in whatever you believed in. Purgatory is for learning lessons. They both believe in reincarnation, and fully believe they'll still love each other, no matter the timeline. It's one of the nicer conversations.

Daniel and Kirby are next up. Daniel has no idea what's going on ever. His skin seems to be made from webs, and these small black creatures weave over him all the time, anytime something starts breaking down. Which happens at every move.  Daniel seems actually peaceful here. Maybe he needs to take a stand. Especially with Kirby always cheating. He doesn't even do it subtly, he straight up takes pieces, and places them where they shouldn't be. Daniel would probably tear all his 'skin' off at this point if he tried to do something.

Kirby, however, seems to increasingly be made of greasy Hawaiian print shirts. Yes, you are made of shirts. I almost slip when I pass your table because it's not, like, slightly caked on grease, it's literally dripping, and doesn't spread past a three foot radius. Maybe if you apologized for Dan, it would help. How's that sound?

Okay, three more rooms, then I start getting ready. So, I leave the other side of the parlor, head into the hall, and head to the basement. Shimi is down here. They're just a long, skinny eel at this point. With multiple heads that bite at Shimi's main body. I'm not even sure when Shimi showed up, and I've never seen much else, so I'm not sure they can leave. I don't try to go into the water. Too scared. It's undefinably deep. Some places you can see the ground, others are holes, others are so obfuscated by flesh that has yet to melt down and turn into water. I'm sure Shimi's been here for thousands of years.

Heading back upstairs, I check on the, what I can only assume, ballroom. It's huge, and usually has a few dancing couples. This room changes a lot, and has the least mutated people in it. I remember I helped one couple realize the intense emotion they couldn't move on from was rage, at the fact that they had cheated on each other. They both felt wronged, but they were both no better than each other. The puzzle they solved involved them no longer dancing together, and finding new partners. Today it stood completely empty. Not unusual, but still. The room always unnerves me.

Next up, I like to call the nook. It's not quite in the library, but it's very cozy right outside it.

A rough, sweet voice says, "what took you so long?"

I smile at Ronnie. She's very nice. I think she is, maybe was, actually my age when she died. We're both around seventeen. She however has skin made from literal porcelain, although that does mean when she moves too much, her body starts leaking blood, like from her eyes and joints . Her hair is nearly laid around her head, a warm auburn. And I don't mean that figuratively. It literally feels the way a room with plenty of blankets and a fireplace would feel like. The nook doesn't have a fireplace, it just has Ronnie.

She rasps out, "well, are we going to have a nap? You're my favourite snuggle buddy, and I can't have one without you."

I'm pretty sure she can't leave because she's trapped in her childhood. She's told me about all her dolls, and toys. I think her house might have burned down, and she wouldn't leave them behind. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get her to leave.

I give her a closed mouth smile, and step forward, "yeah, I can help you take a nap."

I wind up cuddling up to her. And, I think I won't write much until after I get ready. Too tired. Need to wake up more.

When I'm finally up, I look up to see the hollow attic. No floor at all. Grandmother Gin rocking away in her rocking chair, completely unaware of the lack of floor.im not sure if that's actually her name. Sometimes I get up so late that her blanket actually gets in my way trying to get up. At least I don't usually get dressed up to do my first round. I don't think the dead care about when the living stink. They don't seem to care about much. I do. Speaking of stink, I am doing this for my pal Kirby. Try to keep a record and write down everything that happens. Maybe I can help him, and some of the others, out of here. That's why I'm writing this. Right here. Blank page. Well, not blank anymore. But, hey, first page, first to go.

[edmund-valks]

What Lies Beneath... the Barn

“Wait, if you can think of that, why do you need me?”

Ilandreline brushed dark hair back from her sweat-slicked brow, carefully pouring molten metal into gear molds.  “Because I can only do the calculations, not the actual magic.  Also I would prefer to be able to validate it before I get my friends sucked into terrifying cosmic voids.”

She was really glad for this setup, even more glad that nobody seemed to notice she’d built a basement into the barn using a disintegrating arcanodrill while they’d been off engaging in weird things like “commerce”, whatever that meant.  Not that she didn’t know what the word meant, but.  Is my internal dialogue supposed to be this bad?  No, it’s not.  Maybe you’re not as smart as you hoped.  Fair.

“Anyway,” she said aloud, setting the fresh gears to quench, “you’re the only one I know who even cares about my planar work, much less understands how to use it in this fashion.  You already made it better, remember?  That second letter of yours?”  She spared a glance for the other elf, trying to gauge her reaction.

Perched on a corner of her workbench, the diminutive ren’dorei was… blushing?  Either that or suffocating; her cheeks were flushed a soft violet rather than her whole face, so presumably it wasn’t asphyxiation.  “Well, I mean, anyone could have if they-”

“If you finish that sentence I’m going to hit you with a wrench.”

She stopped so fast her teeth clacked.

The Fence Macabre’s resident -- whether they knew it or liked it -- engineer continued.  “If anyone could do it, then I’m a fool for not having done it myself, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t just call me a fool.  And second of all, no, they couldn’t have, so stop trying to downplay your work.  You’re smart about this stuff and you’ve got a unique perspective.  You’re a valuable colleague and I’d love for you to be a co-author when I publish this theory.”

More colour rushed to her cheeks, making Sentua look something like a blueberry.  Poor thing!  Whatever the ren’dorei had done to themselves, it had really screwed them out of any fashion choices they may have liked beforehand.  Red and gold just… didn’t… with that complexion.

“I… would like to be published with you, thank you.  Are you sure- Wait, of course you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it, right?”  She took several deep breaths.  “Sorry.”

Ila shook her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  You about studied up, ready to try out the first one?”

“Um.  Let me take one more look at the diagram and re-check the math.  Then I’ll go over the runes again.”

“Sure thing, take your time.  I got a bunch of these brass bastards to make anyway.”  Anyone from the Fence who wasn’t her was unlikely to have any idea why she was making multiple copies of something that was already built.  That was probably for the best.  Nobody else really seemed to appreciate the old grandfather clock the way she did.

While she worked, her visitor did exactly as she’d said she would, tracing the structure they’d slowly developed using extraplanar theoretics combined with several known nexus points.  If they’d had access to a superior medium (who wasn’t also wholeheartedly opposed to their purpose), maybe they would have been able to determine if it was going to work without having to craft a prototype.  But what would be the fun in that?

Well, it would certainly involve less child endangerment.

Hey!  That’s not fair, she’s an adult!

...In human years, yes.  How old is she?  Twenty?

Twenty-three?  Give or take a year.

This is wildly irresponsible parenting!

I’m not her parent!

Good point.  It’s really irresponsible of them to let her hang out with someone like us.

No kidding!  What are they thinking!

“Okay, I’m getting started now.  Try to keep quiet and stay over there.  I’m… not sure what this is going to look like when I get it going.”

That made two of them.  Ilandreline very casually moved behind a thickly armoured panel she used in case one of her iron molds exploded.  “Righto, let ‘er rip, Senny!”

Despite her youth, she sure looked like she knew what she was doing.  Having grown up around an assortment of arcane manipulators (as well as normal manipulators), Ila could usually follow spellwork as it happened.  She was utter rubbish at it herself, but that was why she’d done theoretical work.  That way she never had to prove anything except on paper.

The interweaving runic designs began flaring to life, unexpectedly nightblue with pinpricks of starlight within them.  A brief peek without her goggles in place confirmed that wasn’t a trick of the lenses, it was the Real Deal.  Since she had no idea what it meant, if anything, the sin’dorei kept waiting and watching.

A subaural thrum filled the air, slowly building intensity.  Sentua seemed unbothered, continuing to do… whatever a wizard did during a lengthy ritual.  Concentrate or something.  The vibration became more sensible until it started to feel like her teeth were going to rattle from her skull.  Then it stopped and things got weird.

When your family was exiled due to a misunderstanding involving the regular sacrifice over centuries of sentient beings to dark powers, you grew up with a different baseline for weirdness from others.  As a result, this wasn’t the weirdest thing Ila had ever seen, but it was certainly up there.  She pulled her goggles off to see with the tainted vision that same “misunderstanding” had gifted her.

Portals were opening and clothing, like mouths made of eyes, evaporating as soon as they formed.  A loop made of itself (what?) turned outside-in until they disappeared inside it.  Eyes of darkness flared against the backdrop of interminable void within one of the gaping portal-maws and she felt uncomfortably seen.  Maybe I messed up the math after all.

A crackle of power flared through the starlight rune-circles, drawing constellations like the antipodal counterpart of what she’d seen in drawings from Ulduar.  This was a place she recognized, but not in a way she’d experienced it before.  There was the old, familiar whisperings, comforting as ever, slipping over and through her being with their gentle rubberiness.  The sensation of being watched, as always, and knowing what was heard wasn’t her own thoughts; just another day looking at what the authorities of Silvermoon had called “the wrong side of things” when they’d been exiled a couple hundred years back.

The ache in her jaw was new, though.  And… getting worse.  Something was affecting the pressure in the room.  Maybe I should open the door up to the barn, help equalize it?  Ilandreline tried to move but her body wouldn’t respond right.  She tried to talk but nothing came out.  The air felt like molasses, though, and it started to… ooze… into her open mouth in one of the more unpleasant sensations she’d ever encountered.

This is definitely bad, this is going to keep increasing until we pop like overfed ticks.  It wasn’t a comforting thought.  She’d die like she’d lived, though: making bad decisions with dangerously undertested experiments.  Her jaw was being forced wider and wider, until it felt like it was going to pop out of its socket.  Then something did pop and there was a roar like an entire storm’s worth of thunder if it was packed into a giant’s sneeze.

Wetness -- blood?  Probably! -- trickled from her ears, but she could close her mouth again.  She did so, gingerly, rubbing at it.  “Faoh,” she mumbled, unable to make real words quite yet.  Her brain didn’t want to form them, her mouth couldn’t.  She blinked far too often for several minutes before recovering enough to replace the tinted lenses through which she typically viewed the world.

Sentua was still standing, looking… mostly normal.  Maybe slightly dazed; half catatonic?  No more than that, maybe only a quarter.  But she was also grinning like the cat who’d eaten a smaller, weaker cat to gain its feline prowess.

“Ah wubna!” she said in triumph.

“Fwah?” was Ila’s response as she stuck her little finger into an ear, trying to pry loose the inability to understand.  It came back covered in what was definitely blood, possibly with a little extra something she didn’t want to think about too closely.

The ren’dorei worked her jaw a bit, then tried again.  “I did it!”  The words formed right that time, managing to get through the sticky haze in Ila’s ears.  “I don’t know if it worked, but it went off just like we expected it to.”

“Hleva nuhs!”  Frowning, she slapped herself once, then a second time, harder.  Wiggling her jaw from side to side, she formed the words very deliberately.  “Ve...ry… nice.”  Moving over to where the first pocket watch -- more staggered, really, as if she was quite drunk -- Ilandreline examined it.  It looked right.

She turned it just so, opened a back panel to look into the mirrored surface there, checking behind her.  And sure enough, just as she’d hoped, there was the leering grin of a lurking specter, axe poised and with a hungry look in its eyes.  “Hey, fella!  Good to see you again.  We made you portable.”  She laughed, gave a wink that the cursed entity could never see.  “Look out, world!  The Fence Macabre has portable curse detectors now!”

Her new partner came to look over her shoulder and practically jumped out of her skin.  Sentua glanced hurriedly back to the real world then into the gleaming silvered expanse.  “This… this is what you were trying to do?”

“Absolutely!”

“But… why?”

Ilandreline just stared for a moment.  She didn’t understand why people kept asking that.  It was clearly a great idea.  “Because why wouldn’t you want to be able to see what kind of horrific spirits are lurking in an area?  This is a much more portable form of the curse, one that can be replicated multiple times using the demiplanar transpositionalities we derived, augmented through a series of linking and magnifying matrices.  So long as I keep at least half of the original gears in the grandfather clock, I can use the rest to create portable horror viewers!”

Sentua stared at her for rather a long time.  It got awkward.  Eventually she shrugged, though, which was probably for the best.  “Well, as long as you’re happy and it works, I guess that’s good enough for me!  I think I’m gonna go home and sleep, though, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, absolutely.  Get your rest, that was probably pretty draining.”  She grinned, squeezed the young elf in a one-armed hug.  “And be proud!  You did great.”

“Thanks!  I… don’t know if replicating a curse into multiple other objects was what I thought I’d be doing, but at least it confirmed our theories.”  She grinned weakly, then stumbled off to the designated teleportation corner, keying one of her completion-tokens to zap her back home.

Ilandreline kept turning the pocket watch over, chuckling.  It didn’t tell time worth a damn, but she didn’t care about that.  It had worked.  And she was going to be published again for that work, damn it, preferably somewhere that would absolutely irritate her parents to no end.

Truly, she was living her best life, and it was all thanks to the Fence.

[carrietrekkie]

Let´s start with something simple.

First, thank you all for your likes and reblogs! I´m so happy you like my little story!

Here comes Part 3 of the “Pilot Story”, but there is more to come!

Part 1  Thunderstorm

Part 2 Dream, Nightmare or something else

Enjoy it!

Here I am, wearing some black sports clothes, between those folks, all dressed up in those sophisticated blue uniforms and I felt how everyone was looking at me.

“So, you say, what you want and.”

“I know.” I squinted at my companion. “The magic box will prepare it.” I must have seen it a thousand times, but to do it know by myself, that was more than worn. “It is only.” I let my head hang down before I moved aside. Behind my back a little jam had formed and probably the only reason no one starts to grouse were, that Captain Pike stands next to me

“That was not a good Idea.” I looked around. “I guess I want to get out of here.” Beside me another Alien steps towards the replicator and orders something, I couldn´t even pronounce and I was totally sure, I won´t see it. So I just went off, runs against someone and only my decency kept me from cry out.

“Excuse me Linus.” Pike was right behind me, puts on arm around my waist and guided me out of the mess hall.

“Okay, take a deep breath.” He turned me around, placed his hands upon my shoulders and watched me in my eyes. “This was Linus, a Saurian, a nice guy and the one by the replicator was Tok´mer, but why he eats that, I do not understand.” He grinded. “Or what he is eating.”

I, on the other hand, was just starring at him, committed not completely lose my composure.

“Let´s take a few steps.”  He placed a hand in my back and so softly forced me to go with him, as he started to move. “I have another idea.”

 Pike guided me through a jumble of corridors, into a turbolift and this one took us to his Ready Room. Without any resistance I endured that all. Whatever it was that was happened to me, now it slowly demanded it´s tribute. I was tired and done in. Every part of my body felt like I was gone through a hard fight and the headache didn´t want to get better. Pike pulled me to the couch and as he sat down, I followed him and sunk in the padding.

“Let´s start with something simple.” Again he smiled so outrageously nice at me. “Coffee?”

„Yes, sounds good.“ I watched him, as he picked up two cups and then came back to me.

“Listen, I know, that´s a hell of a lot to take.” He turned towards me. “And I wish, I could gave you all time of the world to get yourself together but I fear time is on our shoulders and god knows what else.”

“I´m sorry. It is only.” I closed my eyes and now a tear runs down my cheek, so long I could have avoided it, but now. I sunk back in the pillows. “I fear, I´m not only a time traveler.“ I cross eyed at him. „I guess, I am from another reality.“

„How do you mean that?“

“You still know for sure, that I told you, I knew you and all that here?” I make a gesture that included the whole room.

“Vividly.” He leaned forward to grab one cup than he placed it in my hands.

“For me that leaves only one conclusion and just for the case I´m wrong, please don´t laugh at me, otherwise I crawl in a hole and stay there forever.”

“I would never do that.”

I believed him and so I told him the theory I got in my mind for the last two days.

“I´ve been ripped out from my life, where your life is only a fiction, a very good one, well thought through but yet pure imagination. I know what happens in the future because I´ve seen it, till a time more than two hundred years ahead but strangely I started to forget it and I can do nothing to prevent it. I have no idea how this could be possible, but I´m here, so somehow it is possible.” I sighed. “So I come from another reality and from another time plus I´m losing my memories.”

I imagined that he was actually a little impressed by my execution because he took a moment before he talked again.

“What lead you to that conclusion?”

“If you like, I´m a nerd.” I penetrated myself to a smile. “Is this term still used?”

Okay, with a closer look everyone here was a nerd, so maybe they called it normal.

“I think nerds never die out.” He was twitching his eyebrows. “Probably I am also one.”

“You?”

„Of course but don´t tell anyone.“

I sip some coffee, it was bitter, he added no milk and I decided not to tell him but something in my face must revealed me because he stud up to and came back with a little milk jug, than he picked his cup.

“What else is going on in your mind?”

“I could never go back home.” I shrugged my mouth a little.

“We do not know that yet, I got my best people on it and they not used to give up.”  He smiled again.

„I hope your right.“

But as I looked at him now, I could see in his eyes that he didn´t quite believed himself. His following comment emphasized this even more.

“If we didn´t can bring you back, and I say expressly if, I´m sure we found something, that you can do here.” He holds his hand up. „But again, we don´t give up.“    

„I know.“ I tried to smile a bit. „I should stopping thinking so much about this.“

“You should try to get some rest.” He stood up and walked through his desk, activating the comm. “Ensign Tilly to the ready room.” Pike looked at me, that I took as an opportunity to join him. “Silvia Tilly, I think you will like her. She gets you to your quarters.”

“I get my own quarters?” That didn´t felt very good, it sounds more like, found your way with it, you stay here.

“There you get some rest, get some time on your own.” He raised one eyebrow. “Unless you will go back to sick bay?”

“No, please not. I have the feeling, the lady-doctor sees me a bit as her trail rabbit.”

The doorbell got his reply to that. A few seconds later a redhead walked in, I knew her too and I got the feeling, that this day at least will get a good ending.

*****

Again I passed out for nearly 24 hours. Tilly´s explanations and her lightspeed guiding tour through the ship finished me off and I still wondered how I get in the bed in the quarters.

Wait, wrong. My bed, in my quarters.

It didn´t get better the more often I said this to myself. The guard that started following me anytime I left this room didn´t helped either.

“Captains Order.“

That was all the very quiet man said to me before he or one of his colleagues keep my company.  I was so happy this morning, when I left the quarters to took part in a briefing, that Commander Nhan stands before my doors.  

She engaged me in a nicely conversation and we made our way through the ship. She guided me into the ready room where Pike and his officers awaited me.

I took a set on the briefing table and started waiting for the things that are to come.

“Are you feeling better?” Pike looked at me.

„I work on it.” I tipped against my forehead. “It still hurts, when I try to remember anything. Dr. Pollard get me something stronger, maybe it helps this time.”

„Okay.“ He coughed and the room felt silent. “We all know, why we are here.” A brief look flitted to me, I catched it and nodded a little.

“Hey everyone.“ I smiled at the crew members that where all looking at me so I hoped I could tell my story accident free. “My name is Cathrin Zimmer and I´m born on in the year 1986, October 31 if you want it exactly.”  

“Whacked up.” That comes from Tillys place and she immediately clenched her lips together. “Sorry.”

“On my way home the weather turns, a horrible thunderstorm started and the next time I saw clear, I was hear.” I spread my arms. “From 2019 to 2257.”

“Did you do anything to produce these jump?” Burnham started tipping on a tablet.

“Not that I know of.” But I think again. “No, everything was like always. I drove home from a visit at my brother and his children. The only difference was that I got his car, he needed the trailer hitch on mine.” A few asking views. „A device to transport big things.“ I must smile a little. „I actually thought, you all have to explain me thinks.”

“I´m sure that will start soon.“ The man, who introduced himself as Lieutenant Spock turned to me. “So you guess you are from another reality?“

„I don´t know, maybe?”  I shrugged with my shoulders. “I mean, it cannot be that everything developed like some Science Fiction author has come up with.”

“Improbable.” He starts to search something too.

“That phenomenon that brings you here, we call the Red Angel. It is sometimes accompanied with the appearance of some signals, those we could limited analyze till yet.” Pike leans towards me. “What we knew is that there are temporal components but that seems not to be all.”

“Furthermore they take us to places where great changes or catastrophes are taking place.” Saru, the first officer reported the word. „Like on my home world Kaminar.“

„I hope it was something good?“

“Time will tell.” He nodded at me.  

Though Pike gained my access to the computer, but I barely got time to learn more than the names of the core crew.

“So, why did it send this time someone from another time and reality to us?” Lieutenant Commander Stamets smiled at me, it was a little hard for me to replied it. “Oh no worry, we find it out. We always do.”

“Thank you.” Somehow I created a small smile.  

I looked at the man that didn´t said a word now. Ash Tyler, but so far as I knew he should be on Qo´noS. I wonder if anyone would tell me, how he get here again.

„So the Red Angel?“ I pressed my lips together, trying not to giggle. „Is that an official name?“

“You don´t like it?” Spocks gaze bored into mine, that maybe should scared me, but it doesn´t. “Well, I don´t dislike it.” I twitched with my nose. „It sounds just very spiritually for a huddle of scientist or a Vulcan.” I could see a lightly surprised look on Spocks face, that makes Stamets giggle.

“I knew, I like you.” His warm view flited to me. „After that even a little bit more.”

Pike giggled too and Burnham twisted her eyes.

“I don´t want to insult anybody.” I tried an apologetic look at Spock. “But blame it on the medication I just can imagine some form, sitting on a cloud, playing harp and wearing a red dress instead of something white.” Now Tilly chortled and even Saru seemed amused. I squinted at Pike. „Sorry Captain.“ I could saw how he hardly tries to get himself together but then reminds somehow that he is the captain.

“So you don´t believe in angels?”

“My grandmother always said, there are more things between earth and space than for us to understand.”

“It doesn´t have to be called heaven?” Between Michaels brows a lightly line was shown.

“My grandmother was been religious but she was not naive.” I smiled a bit. “In her bookshelf you could found the Bible next to every book of Stephen Hawing, but her faith gets her to World War Two, the times that followed and kept her sane the years my grandfather was missing.” I looked at the picture on the screen. “I believe in angels, but I never imagine them like that.”

“Did you see the angel?“ Another question from Michael.

„No, I haven´t. I just remembered those red light and the next thing I know is, that I stumbled out of my car in your shuttle bay.”

 “Excuse me, but you didn´t appear to be afraid of this situation.” Now Tyler opens his mouth. It was our first personal meeting, okay I seen him before.

“Why should I?”

“The whole situation. A strange place filled up with strange people.” He looked at me, for me it sounds like he descripted his one situation. I swallowed a little and as I spoke again, I could hear my voice tremble a bit.

“It´s not that, that I have no fear but now, here in this room, nobody is helped when I broke down.” I looked at him and could see that he regretted his question. “It is enough that it happened every night when I try to fall asleep.”

And with this few words my good mood pops away like a soap bubble and strangely took everyone´s with it.

“Okay.” Pike clap his hands together. “Let us take a break from here.”

“Aye Sir.” The officers stand up and leaved the ready room.

Tilly steps towards me. “Hey, wanna get some coffee and cake, I´m done with my shift in an hour.”

“Thanks Silvia.” I smiled at her. “I meet you at the mess hall or me and my guide.”

“Great!” She left and I was alone with Pike, we both ware sitting still on that great table. It seemed a lighting had burned it long ago and I start moving my fingers over that scar.

“I hoped they got better news for you.” He smiled at me.

“It´s okay.” I lifted my right shoulder a little. “Maybe someday.” Or never. That thought made me sad.

“Cathrin listen.” He tipped on my arm and I took my view from the table up to him. “It´s only a few days and we just scratched the surface and to make matters even worse, we had to deal with so much things that got high priority from Starfleet.”

“Captain.” I cut him off. “You don´t have explain yourself to me, I understand that, really.”  He shortly placed his hand upon mine.

“We will find a way and until that.” He get up, offers me a hand and I took it. With lightness he pulled me up from the chair, than he leaded me to that door the others had used. It opened up and I followed him through it. I felt my eyes getting big as I recognized where I stand. I was on the bridge, the screen shows the space, so clear like I had never seen it before. And for the first time until days my heart gets a little bit lighter. Everyone smiled at me, Burnham winks briefly and I returned it. I felt a gentle touch on my arm and turned towards it. Captain Pike looked at me, something in his eyes that just let my smile, than he joined me.

“Welcome on Discovery.”

[starboyholland]

Study Buddy

Requested: nope! Rating: PG this all fluff, super mild cursing Summary: You get to feel a bit run down because of school and Tom is right there to help and take care of you in any way he can.

///

You had taken far too many ibuprofen for your headache, your head was still pounding and your eyes were sore, actually now that you thought about it, everything was sore. Your back hurt from hunching at your computer all day, your legs ached from the lack of movement and your heart hurt from how miserable you were trying to get through all of your finals.

You knew you could have it much worse, but for some reason, you found yourself unable to get motivated to finish your classes. You knew you were close to the end, but you were just so done with working so hard for your grades.

You heard a pair of feet pad down the stairs behind you with in a familiar pattern. “How’s it goin’ darling?” Tom asked, he’d been doing his best to help you out but there really wasn’t much he could do to help.

You surely didn’t mind his arms that were now wrapping around your middle, his stomach pressed to the back of the chair you sat at.

“It’s okay, I guess, I just don’t have any good thoughts left to write about these topics,” you said, closing your eyes and leaning your head back onto the shoulder of your supportive partner.

“I’m positive that isn’t true, you’re the absolute smartest person I know, and I’ve met RDJ,” Tom joked lightly. You were too tired to laugh at his joke fully and settled for a smile, your eyes still closed, crinkling slightly as your cheeks raised.

“I’m sorry, love, am I just distracting you?”

You shook your head. “No, I’d have to be doing something for you to interrupt me,” you scoffed. Overly tired and drained mentally from working through the quarter.

“It’ll be alright, these aren’t due for another week, right?” You shook your head again. “No, that was the other essay final, I got that done last night, this is due in,” you paused for a second to think, Tom’s hands wandering up to massage your shoulders. “Maybe two weeks, I think.”

Tom hummed in acknowledgment. “So what I’m hearing is that,” he kissed your neck. “You could take a break for a while, and come upstairs and let me massage out these knots in your back,” he teased, his thumb pressing firmly into a spot you knew held a lot of tension. You hummed as his hands worked tenderly on your back.

“No, I’ve got to get this done, I don’t want this dumb class hanging over my head anymore,” you knew that Tom already knew how you felt in the subject, this wasn’t the first time the two of you had had this chat. “Just an hour?” He pleaded. You shook your head. “Trust me I wish-”

“Forty-five minuets.”

“Tom-”

“Thirty minutes? YN please,”

You sighed, nodding your head in acceptance. “Okay, 30 minuets, and then I’ll-”

You yawned, breaking your sentence in two. “Then I’ll get back to work,” you said, mostly to yourself.

“Good, alright, love, up with you, I’ve got you for a whole thirty minuets and we’ve got to make the most of that, now don’t we?”

You smiled, getting up and following Tom, who’d grabbed your hand in his and intertwined your fingers, to the kitchen.

“Alright, love, you need to eat,” he said, opening up the various cupboards and storage spaces in your kitchen, allowing you to view your options.

“Alright, I’ll just heat this up, it’ll be quick,” Tom watched you remove the extra layers of plastic and cellophane from a carton of microwaveable rice.

“’S'not a proper meal, but alright. Tonight it will have to do,” Tom said with a smile, kissing your cheek and once again wrapping his hands around your waist, following you around, trying not to trip over your feet as he walked so close to you.

“’Ve gotta make the most of the time I have t’ be with ya, you’ve been working all day, smarty pants,” he said quietly as you opened the microwave, deposited the plastic carton and closed it again, pressing the buttons to make it work properly.

“Sorry, I know you just got back not too long ago and we were going to be spending this time doing exciting things, you don’t have t’ stay inside with me all the time while I work, y'know, I don’t want you to have to be cooped up because I am,” you explained, realizing that Tom had probably wanted a more exciting break from touring than what you had offered.

“You know I love doing anything with you, even when it’s school work, and even when it makes you stressed,” he teased, kissing your head.

“I love you,” you said, the two of you still stood in front of the microwave, when it beeped, you removed your rice and grabbed a spoon, Tom still clinging yo you tightly. “Alright, it’s an eating in bed kind of night, so let’s go!” Tom said, his voice crescendoing a bit as he suddenly scoped you up into his arms, you almost dropping your food as you shrieked in surprise.

Tom carried you to bed and gently set you down, the television already on and displaying Netflix.

“Alright, I have to capitalize on our time together, so you, get comfy and pick something brainless to watch- nothing too intellectual, you’ve gotta rest your brain!” Tom said and kissed your head again several times, crawling into bed beside you.

The two of you adjusted so that you were both comfortable, you tried to avoid curling up into Tom, the combination of his rhythmic breathing and the warm food you’d just begun to consume would put you to sleep, you were no stranger to Tom’s strategies.

“No, Tom’s I can’t-” you yawned again. “I can’t go to sleep, ’ve gotta work more, you reasoned, flipping through the options on the screen before settling on an episode of a sitcom you’d already seen a million times before.

"YN, you’re going to work yourself halfway to death, you always make me take breaks, so let me return the favor,”

“That’s different,” you retorted weakly and Tom chuckled. “How is it any different?”

“I love you,” he added. “Please let me take care of you,” you reluctantly agreed, finally allowing yourself to rest, curling happily into the arms of your lover.

Suddenly, your breathing slowed slightly and your eyelids felt heavier than ever.

“My sleepy, smart girl,” Tom mused when he thought you’d fallen asleep. “My thoughtful, caring, wonderful, patient boy,” you replied quietly, your head on his chest.

“Let yourself rest up, okay? I promise we can go back to looking at school tomorrow,” you nodded, finally giving in and falling asleep.

You woke up to the sounds of an automated laughing track from the television mounted in front of the bed you shared with Tom on the wall, and Tom’s light snoring beneath you. You knew Tom had probably fallen asleep shortly after you had, it was still the middle of the night and all you wants to do was make some progress on your assignment, after resting for a bit you felt more ready to work on everything you had left to do.

You rolled over slowly and carefully, trying your hardest not to disturb your boyfriend’s sleep.

You reached over to the floor next to your side of the bed, where you knew your laptop was sitting.

You lifted it up to sit on your lap and opened the lid, logging in and beginning to work again, this time making progress. You looked at the time and realized that it was later than you’d thought, the clock now showed A.M. Rather than P.M.

You were nearly finished when you felt the boy next to you stir, your fingers faltered and ceased to fly across the keyboard, trying to make it easier the boy for go back to sleep.

“Babe, you need sleep, okay? It isn’t good for you to be working yourself this hard,” Tom said quietly, his voice sounding the way it did every morning, raspy and low.

“I know, I know, sorry I’ll go out to the couch so you can go back to sleep,” you began to move to follow through on your words when Tom reached out and grabbed your wrist to stop your movement.

“No, YN, don’t go, okay? I’ll stay up with you.” You began to protest when he cut off any words you might have said with “what are we working on now, darling?”

You could tell how tired he was and as much as you wanted to go back to bed with him you just wanted this work to be over, you knew you’d sleep better after it was over.

You were close to being finished, anyway. Just one more supportive argument for your thesis and a conclusion to your essay and you would be finished.

You hummed in appreciation when Tom sat up in bed next to you and pulled your body close to his so half of your body rested on his chest. “ It’s that essay, ’s'almost done, though, really you can go back to sleep-” Tom wrapped a hand around the side of your head and tilted it to allow himself easier access to kissing the side of your head. You closed your eyes for a second, allowing him to just hold you for the moment.

“No, princess, I’ll rest when you rest, you’ve been workin’ so hard,” he cooed gently and you remembered how much Tom had really helped you through the quarter, as always, he’d been so supportive and helped as much as he could. “It’s been so much work, princess, I’m so damn proud of you and how much you’ve put into these classes, all ‘f my friends are s'sick of hearing about you and your school from me but I don’t even care because I just like to brag about you, my sweet, genius girl.”

He planted another kiss to your head and you didn’t know how to express your thanks at his sentiment fully, especially in the state of tiredness you were in, settling for, “couldn’t ’ve done it without you, seriously,” he shook his head.

“You know I’ll never believe that. So how’s the essay looking? Want me to proof read anything?” You nodded, “I’ve just gotta write a bit more and then it’s all yours,” He nodded, waiting patiently for you to finish, you flipped between your draft and tabs pulled up on the Internet for information, as well as a previous draft of your paper so you could fix any mistakes there were before.

Your fingers flew across the keys. After another few minuets of this, it was finished. You sighed in relief, resting fully back onto Tom’s body.

“You all done, darlin’?”

You nodded, “would you mind reading this over for me? Doesn’t have to be tonight but-”

Tom gently lifted the laptop from your hands before you could finish and scrolled to the top of your paper. “Hey, love, why don’t you at least rest a little while I work my magic,” he joked.

“Really, why don’t I move the laptop here and you can lay down, yeah?”

You didn’t have the will power to fight him, and laid down across his lap. Tom kept one hand on the laptop, scrolling through your paper thoughtfully, and one hand on your head, gently stroking your hair away from your forehead and trying to move as little as possible. At one point, he turned to compliment your paper, you never failed to amaze him with how well your work came out, but instead he just murmured, “my sweet, smart girl,” when he noticed your breathing had slowed. You’d fallen asleep.

Tom didn’t mind sleeping sitting up at this point if it meant you got more rest.

He finished reviewing your paper and clicked save twice, just to be sure. He shut the lid of the laptop and pushed it to the side where it would be less likely to be bothered by any movement.

“Goodnight, my smart girl,” he said and leaned down, kissing your head. This caused you to stir awake. “Is it any good?” You questioned, half joking.

“It was all amazing, I saved it twice,” he replied simply. “Oh, so I’ll just submit it tonight and be done-”

“YN, you need to just go to bed.” He stated firmly, and you shook your head.

“Tom, if I don’t do this here, I’ll just walk out and do it on the other computer and it’ll take longer.”

He sighed, opening the laptop and handing it to you.

The computer light glowed on. Your fingers once again traipsed across the keys.

“Annnd, submitted,” you exclaimed, yawning again.

“’M so proud of you, genius, now do you think we can go to bed?” Tom teased. You nodded, “yeah, I think that might be good,” you laughed. Tom smiled to himself, the room was dark again, besides from the light that filtered in through your window. “Now, I get you all to myself,” Tom said, laughing down and pulling you into his chest. “Thank you,” you said quietly, leaning over to kiss your boyfriend. “For what? You know I love taking care of m'girl and reading your assignments for school, makes me smarter,” he said and squeezed you tighter for a second before letting go.

Finally, at long last, both of you were relaxed and could fall asleep for the rest of the night in each other’s arms.

[ninja-scenarios]

Orochimaru One Shot: autophagy

Happy >Birthday, baby <3 - 10/27/2017

Warning: dark themes, character death

“Damn!”

The clash from a broken syringe echoed through the room. The injected skin of the boy turned purple and reminded vigorously of poison. The pale, bound arms tried to struggle, the chewed off fingertips dug into the metal table while the involuntary patient tried to let out a scream which ended in a hoarse cry.

Orochimaru let out an annoyed sigh and allowed his tired eyes to rest for a second while Kabuto came running to silence the boy. The expectations had been very high this time. He had thought that this would be the cure, the end of sleepless nights and weeks he had spent in the lab hissing at his subordinates. Rustling up a live organism with the same disease had been difficult enough.

He needed to get away from this failure. Leaving the struggling boy behind, he pushed the heavy doors open and left the lab. The dying light that shone through two bullseye-shaped windows illuminated the back of his head and refrained this way from stinging his eyes while the troubled man moved forwards. The dark creepy hallways seemed harmless next to the snake-like scientist.

He moved past the prisoners who hurriedly scurried into the back of their cells as soon as they saw the black haired man walk by. Orochimaru couldn´t care less if they feared him. Fear meant respect, recognition. The distance to his destination grew smaller and smaller. Which each step he shed a piece of his grudge because of the incident in the lab.

As soon as the heavy door opened, Orochimaru´s shoulders slacked off as he felt the stress melt away from his mind and body. His gaze was already focused on the young woman stirring in the sheets, his sharp pupils dilating. It seemed like the girl roused from a half-sleep full of tumultuous dreams. She let out a whine that was muffled by a face mask and her movements were constricted by a straitjacket. Orochimaru approached her and sat down next to her on the bed.

“Good morning~.”

He was completely changed. His voice spoke in a warm, soft tone. He released her from the restrains and gathered her up in his arms with a soft glance. As he did, the fabric uncovered the bite marks and gnawed off skin of her fingers and arms. The girl protested silently and rubbed her eyes with cramped movements. Her arms and hands tingled from being held in one place for so long and she started to sob.

“Shhh, darling.” Orochimaru cooed while he rocked the girl in his arms. She continued to sob which he hushed with a quick kiss to her badly bitten lips. The young woman squirmed a little but relaxed after a few moments, sinking into his hug. Whether it was from tiredness or affection didn´t matter.

“Good girl.” Orochimaru let a smile pull at his lips while he held her tight and ravished in her presence. With her next to him he felt at ease. She was his precious little secret.

His long fingers combed through her hair while his eyes darted over her features. Did her condition improve? Aggravate? Did the side effects of her countless medication start to show? So many things he had to worry about. His nails peeled some caked blood away from her chin. He despised dirt.

“I will order someone to draw you a hot bath. Would that be good?”

While Orochimaru held the young woman, her regular breathing slowed down until she seemed to nap against his shoulder.

“Yes, go to sleep. I´ll be visiting you again tomorrow.”

And with that, he put the ties back on and kissed her goodbye, letting sleep take her back into its safe arms. He felt just as bound as her as he walked back into the lab to experiment for what would be another sleepless night.

She was his dark little secret, waiting for him in the most hidden place of his hideout. With every day her disease affected her brain further, at this point she would try to eat up her fingers and hands if no one kept her restrained. Even so, he would do everything in his might to keep his precious girl alive and well.

The weeks rolled by without any further improvement. Just when the formula was almost finished completely, they were faced with bitter setbacks that slowed down completion.

Another failed attempt. Orochimaru wiped the sweat off his forehead. The bright light of the neon tube blinded him as he leaned his head back to take a deep breath. He needed to see her. Now.

The heavy door opened with a creak and Orochimaru rushed in.

“Good morning, my dear.”

The familiar rustling of sheets failed to appear. A little worried, the tall man sat down on the bedside and pulled down the sheets to reveal the young woman sleeping.

“Wake up, darling, it´s morning.” His amused voice hid the worry that rose with every second.

She didn´t open her eyes, only scrunched her eyebrows together instead. Orochimaru pulled the blanket down further and took off her straitjacket as well as her face mask in a hurry and scooped her up in his arms. She still continued to sleep as he brushed the side of her face.

“Are you not happy to see me?” Something in his voice broke, while his eyes scanned her body to find a reason for this unusual behaviour. He unconsciously held her tighter, waiting for her to open her eyes, which she didn´t.

He felt strange. His heart beat like the one of a scared bird while his eyes darted over her fragile body. It had to be the medicine. In order to keep her safe in this room, the drugs helped her stay asleep most of the day. Usually it wasn´t a problem to wake up when Orochimaru visited her, but right now that seemed to be the case.

The medicine had been Kabuto´s idea. Orochimaru´s eyes narrowed in anger as he set the young woman back on the bed and put the blanket on her.

In a minute he was back in the lab. A metal table flipped over and in the next second, Kabuto was pinned to the wall by his master that had grabbed him by the collar.

“You said the drugs wouldn´t hurt her.”

Instead of fear, a smirk tugged at the assistant´s lips. “I´m sorry, my lord. I tested the medicine on several patients before and I can assure you that it worked perfectly.”

The grip around his throat tightened as sharp yellow eyes stared daggers into a pair of glasses. He had never talked to Kabuto like this. Her condition had to really get to him.

“Do something.” It came out in a low hiss, fangs baring while snake-like eyes shone with threat. After these words, Orochimaru released the hold on his assistant and walked into his quarters to get some sleep.

After two weeks, they finally found the formula. It was already too late. As Orochimaru removed the seals to get into the room, a strange apprehension let him freeze to the spot.

Her head peeked out from under the sheets. Her body didn´t seem to move and also her chest didn´t rise up nor down. Orochimaru slowly walked to her bed and sat down, holding her in his arms for what would be the last time. He had to blink to see clearly, stroking over her head for what felt like hours. The wet feeling on his cheeks was new. She was dead. And the last bit of his humanity had died with her.

After the black haired man left the room, he returned to his lab. Kabuto looked up from some paperwork, eyes fixed on his master´s expression. Why was he back so soon?

“Get someone to take care of her body.”

The words didn´t fail to bring a smirk onto the assistant´s lips. As he was about to walk out of the lab, when his master´s voice stopped him.

“Kabuto. Close the files about the whole project. We will focus on our main goal again.”

Kabuto nodded, seemingly pleased with the orders. He opened the door and stepped out, being just about to close the door.

“That was what you wanted, wasn´t it?”

Orochimaru´s words had him freeze to the spot at once. The fear vanished from him after a few seconds however. If Orochimaru wanted to kill him, he would already be dead. Just how had he found out about this?

The black haired man watched his assistant walk out of the door and turned to the messy desk. Soon there wouldn´t be any trace left of the work they had accomplished down here. It would be like the woman never existed in the first place. Kabuto must´ve thought his master was wasting too much time on this pointless project. It was quite amusing how far his assistant went to direct Orochimaru to the right channels, even though his raspy laughter got betrayed by just the smallest sting in his heart.

[residentgrandpa]

EVOLVE 93 Live Review.

MATCH RATINGS: -Cedric/Yehi 3.5 -Yehi/??? NR -Henry/Kincaid 3.75 -Drake/Theory 2.75 -Freelance 4-way 3 -DJZ/Darby 3.75 -TrollBoyz/Workhorsemen 2.25 -ZSJ/Lee 4+ -Riddle/Tracy 4.25 -The venue was great. Plentiful free parking, air conditioning (on a 90+ degree day), plenty of concessions (including good, cheap pizza), alcohol, clean and spacious bathrooms. Zero complaints about that building. A comfortable fan experience if I've ever had one.

-Zack Sabre Jr. is the most naturally over babyface the Evolve roster has. The ovation he received from the Summit crowd was loud and sustained, different from the reactions received by Keith Lee and Riddle. It's not easy to describe, but ZSJ got everybody on their feet the most of anybody, while guys like Lee and Riddle received louder chants from the audience. Then again, "Ooh, Zack Sabre, Jr." is always a hit among the live crowd.

-DJZ and Darby Allin had one of the most fun, succinct matches I have seen in a hot minute. Both are criminally underrated and linger in that "we'll do anything to put on a good match" territory -- including Darby diving from the corner post to a seated DJZ on the floor. Nuts! These two need more bookings elsewhere. I'd love to see Darby in AAW -- maybe a rematch of this one?

-Matthew Riddle is the best wrestler in the world when it comes to fan interaction. He is second to none in this regard. I could write a fucking novel about the ways he has gone above and beyond for me, including naming his finishing move after me. Yes, he has a move called "The Derek," and he uses it to close matches. Exclusively. Nobody has kicked out of it yet. (That I have a finish named after me, that I gave to a wrestler who is my favorite, that is protected to this degree -- that Matt even points at the move's rightful owner before he hits it... come on. What the fuck is even going on?)

-I felt the Freelance showcase was a little rushed, like the guys were trying hard to impress, which led to a little sloppiness. Matt Knicks slipped off the top rope and nearly ended himself right in front of me. I didn't need to see that. Beyond that, this was a fun match that got the crowd going. Lots of "Free-lance Wrest-ling" chants. I saw people buying Stevie Fierce shirts and Freelance merch, and honestly, isn't that what it's all about?

-I laughed at the antics of the #TrollBoyz, but they looked extremely... how do I say this? Checked out? They're clearly unhappy in Evolve, and they wear it on their faces. Maybe run the next Evolve show in the Knights of Columbus in Hamilton, ON and these guys will perk up a bit, I don't know. Beyond the Yehi squash, the tag title match was my least favorite of the evening.

-Seeing Cedric Alexander was a treat, but something about his appearance felt a little off. Maybe it was because it was for the live audience only, maybe it was because it opened the show. The match was one of the best of the night, but people were still filing into the building and a number of them missed this match. I think offering an exclusive match at the start of the show, when you open doors only a half-hour early, is a bit silly. Open doors at 7, do the show at 8. What's difficult about that? Gives people more time to give you their money.

-Fred Yehi is a treasure. An over-the-top nice person and a heck of a wrestler to boot. Big personality. Fred needs more bookings.

-Anthony Henry is a bona fide star in the making, and the match he got out of Jason Kincaid was wonderful. I phrase it like that because Kincaid's style of offense is so much lighter and he can't take that huge beating you like to see out of a guy. But he meshed extremely well with Henry here, and this match really helped shape the beginning of the show for me. I think I liked this more than Cedric/Fred.

-If I never have to see Jarek 1:20 ever again, that will be too soon. I got up to take a leak and talk to Shigehiro Irie during his segment.

-I was not impressed by James Drake and his high-waisted trunks. Austin Theory is jacked beyond belief at like, 19 years old, and I'm afraid to see what he's going to look like when he's my age (for numerous reasons). I just wasn't a fan of this match. Priscilla Kelly is always nice to have around, but she didn't add much to this one. Not a bad match, don't get me wrong, but it didn't burn down the house.

-It was fancy seeing Dominic Garrini in Evolve as Stokely Hathaway's enforcer. I think if they play up that angle -- that he is Stokely's protection from guys like Riddle -- that would be for the best. Dom more than looks the part, and he kills it in the ring, so this was a good call. Love me some Dom.

-ZSJ and Keith Lee was some hot soup, though! I went four stars-plus on that, because I'm a sap who does star ratings, quarter-star ratings and all that other stupid Meltzer-like stuff. Lee dominated throughout the 18 minutes, flattening Zack with chops and elbow strikes, with Zack selling like a bastard. The finish was a bit rushed, and I honestly wanted to see Zack win by blunt force as opposed to a lucky flash pin, but I'm also an idiot. (Yes, Derek, ZSJ winning via five straight penalty kicks is great business!) Good pacing, much different from the match that followed.

-Apparently to the viewer at home, Keith Lee's consistent attention he gave the guys seated right behind me played into the match, and led to Lee getting pinned at the end. From a live viewership perspective, this flowed completely organically. I thought Keith was legitimately upset with these legitimate jerks behind me, so he kept staring over at my side of the arena. But he kept doing it. It was weird, a bit, just how distracted by these guys he was, at one point jawing at them that what he was about to do to Zack was because of them. Brilliant move that it tied into the rest of the match, but again, from my perspective seated in the front row, I thought it was just crowd interaction.

-My match of the night was Bro vs. Sauce in anything goes. There were restrictions they had to work around here, due to the building -- for example, they couldn't use the crowd chairs the way they wanted, and they couldn't do anything with tables since they were plastic. They wanted to do more but what they delivered was nevertheless creative and inspired and left fans wanting more. There were some funky-looking spots in this one, don't get me wrong. A Bro-buster on the apron, a tombstone on an open folding chair, and a Van Daminator from Riddle to Tracy, but using Riddle's knee. A respectable blow off match. Now, leave it at that. Don't pull an Ego/Darby and keep it going.

-Chicago crowd was hot all night. The draw was great. I would say there were maybe 250 there? Maybe 300? I am bad with numbers, but I had joked about the potential for a bad draw going into this show, and Evolve well surpassed my wildest dreams. I give them credit. They delivered on their promises and I don't think anybody went home unhappy. A return date should be announced sometime in the next calendar year. I think the Detroit/Chicago loop is lucrative and will work well in Evolve's current show rotation.

-Finally, I just wanted to say I got zero beef with Gabe or anybody. I respect the booker man and I had a nice chat with him after the show last night. I was hesitant to approach him, because of the whole "Derek trolls people online sometimes with his criticisms" thing, but fuck it, we're just people. And Gabe is a nice enough guy to me, has always been decent to me. WWN and Evolve get a lot of trash, but personally speaking, I still dig them and they will have a customer in me going forward. (There is no Bullet Club-style finger gun to my head as I say this.)

Fun night. I'm still beaming. Check out a show if you can.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The Four Seasons, The Beginning.

Hey. What’s up? How’s your day? My day is fine, I guess. I wrote a story I thought I did terribly with and it got over 100 notes in less than 12 hours. So, since everybody seemed to like that first one, which you should probably read before reading this one, so here it is, I decided to write an origins story. Now, keep in mind that Norse mythology is full of weird and questionable birth and creation stories, so if this seems weird know that it was on purpose. Also, a little bit of education about the Norse creation myth in here. I love teaching people about myths oooooh. *repressed giggle of delight*

Anyways, I hope its just the right amount of weird.

Tip Jar

Warnings: This is supposed to be a Norse mythology birth/creation story, so there’s death, blood, wolves, some gross things, and some moments that just make you go, “Huh?” 2,391 words

Abstract: How the four seasons came to be. A continuation of the Sanders Sides Norse mythology/seasons au, and part of the actual Norse creation myth as told by me, but the story is bent a bit.

“You can read the little book if you promise not to tell any of the gods. We’ve managed to keep this from them for thousands of years and it is still hilarious. They have no idea who we are,”

“I still say we have no reason to...”

“Shut up Winter. Nobody asked you,”

“Also, it’s super embarrassing. We can’t tell them,”

“And the way we were born is more embarrassing than being licked into existence by a cow? Seriously Autumn, I still don’t understand you,”

“Whatever, Summer. When Spring gets back for the night I’m totally setting him on you, and go ahead and read it, human. I didn’t go through all the trouble to track down a mortal competent enough to write it for nothing,”

“They have a name, Autumn!”

“Oh, go to Hel and ask the dead if I give a damn. Even they know that I don’t,”

In the beginning, there was Muspelheim, the primordial fire, and Niflheim, the first ice. Between them was Ginnungagap, the absolute nothingness.

Over countless years, the ice and fire came to meet in the nothingness and there came into existence a giant named Ymir.

Odin, Vili, and Ve were sons of one of the first gods, who was descended from the first god, and the first god was licked out of the ice of Niflheim by a primordial cow, and was called Buri.

Buri’s grandsons Odin, Vili, and Ve, killed the giant Ymir in a battle that lasted for days. Once he was dead, they set to work making a world from his remains.

The giant’s body became the Earth, and his blood poured out and became the oceans, lakes, and rivers. The gods formed mountains from his bones, and rocks and pebbles from his teeth. His skull was lifted above the earth and became the sky.

During this time, the world tree Yggdrasil continued to grow to connect all things. It placed one of it’s roots in the newly formed Earth that the gods were creating. The tree knew all things, and it knows that where there is a beginning there is an end, and where there is an end there is a beginning, and so it dropped a piece of itself into the newly formed world.

The cutting of the tree fell down, down a mountain and was taken away by a torrent of blood as the newly dead giant was still settling, and his blood was still flowing out in torrents.

The cutting took hold of the barren ground and took root in defiance against the river. It soaked in the water at a frightening speed and grew so quickly that it made cracking noises as it grew.

It grew into a hundred foot tall ash tree with four parts to it. One quarter of the top was barren without leaves, another was covered in baby leaves, green and small. Another part of the tree was covered in full, dark green leaves, and the one next to it was yellow and brown.

Soon, the moon Mani was chased into the sky by the wolf Hati and fled for his life across the night sky. As soon as he went over the horizon, his sister Sol, the sun, was chased into the sky by the wolf Skoll.

As soon as her light fell upon the barren landscape, the tree lit up, mimicking her light. A pair of hands punched through the bark of the tree and clawed and pulled and pounded with such urgency and force that within a minute of appearing, a man fell out of the tree, fully formed.

As he gasped and breathed in his first air and wiped the sap from his eyes, the hole closed behind him. He looked down to see that he was clothed, and was confused by this. The newly born god then looked to the sky, which still dripping slowly with blood, and the sun lighting it up, and he knew what he was.

He picked himself up and took a few shaky steps, and then he walked and then ran, and in his wake sprung up fully formed bushes, flowers, and grass. He ran across the land and touched the dead trees formed from the giant Ymir’s hair, and they immediately sprung into full green leaves.

The young god took hold of the wind like it was the string of a kite and followed it across the land. He fell and tumbled and ran, and his hearty deep laugh echoed across the land, heating the air and bringing warm rain.

When Odin and his kinsmen returned to check on the world they had created, they were astonished. They had expected it to take centuries for life to begin, but there were live trees, and crops, and plants and animals of every type covering the landscape, and it stayed like this for several years.

Every night, Summer returned to the ash tree. He grew tired and lonely, but saw the gods as beneath him. They only ever thought of themselves. He forgot in his years of waiting why he had gone to the ash tree in the first place.

One day as he returned, the moon was straight overhead when he heard a crack. Summer jumped and looked back at the tree he spent every night sleeping against. There was a crack appearing below the yellow section of the tree.

Two hands wedged their way through the crack from the inside and pulled. With a mighty jerk the tree was torn open, and out fell an exhausted man dressed in brown and black.

Summer ran to him and lifted the stranger’s head as the hole in the tree closed behind him.

“Why do you look like me? Who are you?” he demanded.

“I was just born and already you are interrogating me,” the new god said, already tired. “You know who I am. The tree told you so,”

Summer remembered and groaned. “No. I do not want to stop this! You will have to catch me!”

Summer ran off into the night, and despite how new and confused he was, Fall knew his purpose and chased his brother off into the darkness.

Just as the dawn began to break, Autumn caught up with summer and tackled him. He got the sticky tree sap stuck all over the other god as they wrestled on the ground. Despite how angry Summer was, he couldn’t help laughing. Fighting with him was fun, and they were now covered in grass and dirt, but neither of them particularly cared.

Then suddenly Autumn pulled his older brother behind a bush and said to be quiet. Summer peeked through the bush and saw several Aesir gods, Odin among them, gathered around a tree.

“What are those?” Fall asked, nervous. “You are more than a day old. What are they?”

“They are the Aesir gods of Asgard,” Summer whispered. “They don’t have to see us unless we want them to, do not worry. But what are they doing?”

The gods were carving at two old tree logs that had washed up on the ocean shore. They were becoming more and more person shaped.

“They’re making people out of trees,” Autumn noted.

“We came out of a tree,” Summer said.

“Yes, I know that. You are really obvious. Are we sure I am the one that was born last night?”

Summer rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop your talking and just go do your job. You caught me fair and square,”

Autumn didn’t have to be told twice. He took a slow careful walk along the earth, slowly starting the trees on their way to resting. With his touch, grass began dying. Animals began scurrying to store food for a later day.

Summer ran the winds like a current, letting himself be swept along with them like a moving tide. Autumn walked in the wind, taking it slowly and painting cold into it like an artist with a brush.

In time, the world was covered in red and yellow and brown. There was a cold nip in the air, and it stayed like that. For years, the world felt like it was on the edge of something. Something that wouldn’t come.

Summer soon realized he couldn’t stand the cold. He began building a long hall, and during the nights when he slept, his brother continued to work on the house. The younger one seemed to never sleep, or if he did it was short and fitful, like his dreams were laced with nightmares. So, he worked.

One night they were sitting by the tree. Fall was cleaning a skin and his brother was sharpening a knife.

“When do you suppose the others will come through?” Summer asked.

Just them, they heard a crinkling. Then a pop. Then a flick, and Autumn got hit in the face with a piece of tree bark. When they both looked over, they noticed that for a while someone had been systematically picking off small bits of bark and throwing them away. They stared dumbstruck for a minute until the hole was big enough for the person inside to neatly step through.

The new season straightened out his sap covered clothes and took in a deep breath. “Oh, that is better. It was difficult to breathe in there. So this is the world. Fascinating,”

“I can’t stand you already,” Fall said.

“I realize I just came out, but I do believe from what I know that your statement could be considered rude,”

“Just do your job. I don’t care,” Autumn said in a huff.

“Very well. Will you help me?”

Fall stood up and started walking away. Winter followed him, asking about how he was supposed to clean all of the sap of of himself. Summer sighed and continued sharpening his knife. He was going to get so bored over the next few months. He found himself vaguely wondering what was going to happen to the humans.

The humans were just fine, it turned out. As Autumn caused all of the leaves to finish falling and went home, and Winter tried his hand at making snowflakes, they adapted and learned to stay warm.

Winter grew fond of the humans as he went through the world, sometimes quickly and sometimes slow. He threw his creations to the winds and watched them swirl and cover the ground with white. The humans seemed so smart, and they appreciated the beauty of the snow while also hating it. It was a beautiful paradox and he loved it.

Every night Winter came back to their home and gave his apologies to his brothers, because he didn’t have the power to stop this. None of them were ever alone for too long anymore, but they had no way to make the world ready for Summer.

Summer had originally thought that he could just make the world warm again, but that didn’t happen. The first time he had come out of the tree he had simply willed the warmth and life to come, but now that didn’t work. He had been without the warmth of the sun for so long. Fall went outside sometimes and enjoyed the cold and admired Winter’s handiwork (though he’d never admit he liked it) but Summer just couldn’t. He fell into a deep sadness that was difficult to hide from the others.

After a couple years of this, Winter was preparing to leave at dawn and Fall was seeing him off. Summer came out to watch the sun rise in a dim hope it would be warm. Then, they heard a crack.

They all looked at their tree. Their huge ash tree that they had all come out of. It was cracking. There was light coming out of the cracks.

In a burst of light, the tree fell apart. Splinters, branches, and bits of bark flew everywhere. They all covered their heads as everything fell around them in a shower of ash tree.

When they looked up, there was a face nearly identical to their own, smiling with the sweet dawn bursting up behind him.

He was tired and new and confused, and he stumbled forward into Winter’s arms and leaned there, getting sap all over his older brother.

“Hi,” he mumbled through his tiredness, “sorry I’m late,”

Summer laughed for the first time since he had run from Fall almost nine years before and pulled the new season into his arms with a dramatic and crushing hug.

Winter smiled despite himself as he wiped the tree sap off of his neck and even the edge of Autumn’s mouth twitched upward a little. Spring was here. They were all here. They were all home.

Once Spring had woken up and washed off, he got to work right away. He ran through the world like an excited child, making flowers pop out of the snow and calling all of the animals to wake up.

He loved the humans and thought they were adorable. He often invisibly watched their children playing and laughed right along with him.

He warmed the breeze and brought rain and flowers wherever he stepped. The grass came back to life in a lively way, and the trees grew flowers and tiny green buds that quickly grew into leaves.

And one morning, to his delight, Summer was woken up by the youngest of them who eagerly pulled him outside. Soon the summer sun beat down on the earth and warm breezes cut through the nights.

And every year it has followed this way, with the seasons switching off the same way they always did.

“Hello! I’m back! Oh, is there a mortal here? How exciting!”

“Oh, he’s baaack. Hey Spring! Summer wants to ask you about your flowers!”

“Autumn , no. I didn’t think you’d actually...”

“Oh, he does? Come on!”

“I’m gonna go watch this. It should be fun,”

“So, Winter? You all came out of a tree?”

“Yes we did. But then again, so did humans,”

“And you don’t tell the gods any of this because watching them frustrated is fun for you?”

“Well, that is the reason the others give. Fall claims he is embarrassed, but I don’t believe that is the real reason,”

“Then what’s the real reason?”

“Nobody knows. He never tells us anything. It’s quite annoying,”

[lily-the-skele]

First Date pt. 2

Here’s part two of @underopenskies and my rp.

[pt 1] [pt 3] [pt 4]

“Accidents happen indeed,” Vera chuckled.

Adam chuckled, having little to no doubt his mother probably planned it, and stepped closer to Lily. “‘m alright, Miss Lily. Jus’ had t’ go chase some wild geese, y’know how ‘t goes.” He winks. Still, he slips the belt down, and offers it to her. “Jus’ put it around ya middle, Miss Lily. It’ll help keep m’ shirt from getting caught on stuff.”

Lily’s smile just widened. “Thank you, Adam!” She took the belt from Adam and slipped it around her waist but she found she was having some difficulty with the belt buckle. She stuck out her tongue in concentration as she fiddled with the buckle clumsily. She had never worn a belt before. Maybe Adam should do the gentlemanly thing and help her.  

Adam watched her struggle for only a moment, before carefully kneeling down and reaching out. “Here, sweetheart.” His fingers gently brushed over hers, and took the ends of the belt in his. “Lemme show ya how it works. Ya see this bit here? Ya thread it through the metal bit, an’ pull it as tight as ya want it t’ be. When ya find a good tightness, ya slip this here lil’ metal spike through these lil hole punches here, n’ then loop the loose bits o’ belt through th’ rest o’ the metal part.” He explained, showing her visibly as he walked through it. “N’ that’s how ya do a belt.” There was no mocking in his voice either. Not a lot of people who wore dresses all the time used belts- and Adam wasn’t going to laugh at the little lady anyways.

Vera just smiled knowingly.

Lily listened to Adam intently, nodding every now and then. She felt her soul flutter in her chest and she followed his instructions, his hands still touching hers. The tiny skeleton made a small noise of triumph when she finally got the hang of it. “Th-thank you,” she murmured softly before giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

“It’s no problem, sweetheart,” the larger skeleton smiled down to her with a warm grin. He shifted faintly and blushed as she pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, his fingers trailing up to brush the spot. Goodness.

Vera just grinned wider. “Now that that’s all settled, why don’t ya both run along n’ have some fun? But not too much now- don’t want to make me a grandma twice over again, do we?”

Adam straightened and sputtered.

Vera might have been worse than Gigi. It was likely the two should never, ever meet. Ever.

Lily chuckled nervously, trying not to get flustered again. “Y-yes ma’am.” She quickly tugged on Adam’s hand. “C-c’mon and show me around the ranch! I’m dying to see the calves!” She had and excited sparkle in her eye lights.

Adam laughed softly, chasing away the flush from his cheeks as he glanced to the sky and chuckled, before sighing. His mother was a pest- but he loved her. One he composed himself, he gave Lily a bright smile, and took her fingers gently in his. “Tha’s right- i did say i’d show ya th’ calves. C’mon, Miss Lily! They’re down this way.” He guided her carefully down the stairs, heading off towards one of the barns. Bo, his mare, began to follow them as well.

Lily was practically hopping up and down in excitement. “A-and you said I could feed them too!” Her petite hand was engulfed in Adam’s and she skipped down the stairs humming some obscure tune.

“I see Bo wants to come with us!” She giggled when she spotted the mare following them.

“Ah, tha’s right, I did say that!” He grinned. “Well, we c'n make up a bottle while we’re out there. I’ll show ya how t’ do it, ‘n you can feed one o’ the little ones.” He gives her a bright grin, and rubs his thumb gently over her knuckles as she skips down the stairs after him. He doesn’t bother letting go of her hand, even if he has to stoop a little bit to hold it comfortably for her. “Th’ milk smells like vanilla cupcakes! Doesn’t taste like it though.”

He glances back and chuckles, seeing the large mare plodding after them dutifully. “She usually follows close. I’ll remove her tack when we get t’ th’ barn. She likes t’ keep an eye on me.”

Lily beamed up at Adam, her soul aflutter as they continued to hold hands. Would this be considered a date? She’d have to consult her guide when she got home. She gave a small gasp as if offended and exclaimed, “How can something smell like cupcakes and not taste like them?” Truly this was a travesty.

Adam laughed at her seemingly offended exclaimed words. “Sweetheart, calf milk smells super yummy, but it’s a lie. Th’ babies love it, but it sure don’ taste good t’ us. You can try it if ya want, but it isn’t gonna taste good, sweetheart.” As they drew near to the barn, the sounds of bellowing filled the air, fussy and grumpy calves making a ruckus as they bounced around their stalls.

Lily made a look of disgust. “Bleh no thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” No way was she going to taste something so deceiving. She’ll stick to the real thing thank you very much.

She let out a tiny gasp when she heard the calves from inside the barn. “Aww don’t worry babies, we’ve come to feed you!” she exclaimed as if the calves could understand her. She is too precious for this world.

He stuck his tongue out at her teasingly. “Probably a wise thing, sweetheart. Calf milk’s not for skeletons t’ drink anyways.”

Her gasp made him smile wider, and he laughed softly. “Most o’ them ‘ve already been fed, but we’ve got a couple young’ns that could do with ‘n extra bottle t’ help ‘m grow.” He releases her fingers to go into a side room in the barn, leaving the wide door open for her to follow. Inside the room were massive bags stacked tall, floor to ceiling- the room, like he said, smelled like vanilla cupcakes. One of the bags was open by a tall and deep sink, where a massive rack of two quart bottles and massive rubber nipples sat.

He glanced back at her and gave her a cheeky grin as he kicked a stool over to the tall sink and counter set for her to step up to. “Ready t’ learn how t’ make a calf bottle, sweetheart?”

Lily felt a little disappointed when Adam let go of her hand but she quickly followed after him, excited to feed the calves. “Oh, they’re just like me then! Gigi told me I was the tiniest baby bones she ever saw. Maybe I could have used the extra milk too.” She raised a brow bone at Adam before climbing onto the stool. “Yep, I’m ready!” She exclaimed, bouncing in place.

He gave her an amused but sheepish smile. “Ha- my brothers n’ I were actually pretty small too, believe it or not. Well, relatively. We were born prematurely- Ma was too small t’ carry all three o’ us to term. Drank lots o’ milk though- n’, well, i kinda grew pretty big. Thomas stayed small though.”

Adam turned and plucked two bottles from the racks. He set one in front of her, and one in front of himself, before carefully rolling up his sleeves. He focused on the bottles, eyes intent to make sure he didn’t make a mistake. He didn’t do the bottles often- but he was good at them when he did them.

“Alright- so, ya’ see th’ open bag? There’s a scoop in th’ bag. Ya wanna put one scoop o th’ mix into ya bottle, n’ one into mine too.” He instructed gently, as he reached out to turn on the sink. He turned on the hot water, and left it running over his wrist, waiting for the temperature to change. “We’ll flip th’ nipple inside out too, but i dunno ‘f ya c’n do that. Th’ nipples are hard t’ do. ‘A a hard rubber t’ flip, n’ flippin’ nipples takes practice. You’re welcome t’ try though! If ya can’t, ‘s no big problem though.”

Lily’s eyes sparkled as she listened to Adam talk about his baby bone days. She’d have to ask Vera to see pictures. She watched Adam and instantly copied him by rolling up her own sleeves. She glanced over at the bag he was referring to and nodded. “Okay!” She followed his instructions, pouring a scoop of the mix into her bottle and then his. Lily tried to repeat what Adam had said about the bottle nipples, but ended up just blowing a raspberry. My goodness that was a tongue twister.

The raspberry drew a concerned look, until he realized she’d tried to copy what he’d said. “‘S not a tongue twister, sweetheart. Least, not an intentional one. Jus’ flippin’ nipples. ‘S pretty simple t’ say.” He chuckles.

When the water starts to steam over his bones, he turns the cold on as well. “Ya wanna make the water about lukewarm. Too hot, n’ ya can scald their lil’ throats. Too cold, n’ ya can’ cool their body temps off n’ make ‘m sick.” Once he had it at about lukewarm, Adam left it running, and reached out for one of the nipples.

He grasped it around the rim, turning so she could see, and turned the rim, and the rim alone, inside out so it covered the top of the nipple. It would fold back down over the rim of the bottle, making the seal to keep the milk in. He did it with relative looking ease. “Tha’s how ya flip th’ nipple, sweetheart.”

Lily huffed softly and gave Adam a raspberry. She listened intently to Adam’s instructions, nodding every now and then. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to–she chuckled inwardly to herself–flip the nipple like Adam showed her. It did look a tad difficult. Of course she was just a city skeleton and had never done anything like this before in her entire life. But either way, she enjoyed listening to Adam’s lilting voice as he spoke.

The raspberry prompted him to stick his tongue out playfully right back at her.

Once the nipple had been flipped, he took his bottle and slipped it under the tap. He filled it about a quarter of the way, before putting his palm over the end, and lifting it up. “From here, we just gotta shake it.” He grins to her. “Kinda like a big ol’ milkshake.”

He cups the bottle by both ends, and vigorously shakes it, mixing the powder efficiently into the water as he does so. It takes a good thirty seconds of shaking, but soon there is a thick and creamy liquid in the bottle, and he stuffs it back under the tap to finish filling up.

He glances back to her and grins, before reaching out and taking the flipped nipple, and easing it onto the now full bottle. He reverses it over the top with practiced ease, and then rinses off his hands and the sides of the bottle to remove any leaked residues. “An’ that, Miss lily, ‘s now ya make a calf bottle. ‘S pretty easy. Kinda hard on th’ arms when ya makin’ thirty to forty of them at a time, though.”

“Wowie that’s a lot of bottles,” she breathed out in awe. She felt she had a decent understanding of what to do and she placed her bottle under the running water. She nearly lost her balance when it began to fill up, pulling it back when it was a quarter full. She went to cover the opening with her hand only to find out it was too small. She frowned while wiggling her tiny fingers. “Aww I can’t do it,” she muttered, pouting.

“Aww, don’ fret, sweetheart. ‘S alright- I don’ mind shakin’ it for ya. I’d feel bad if ya hurt yourself tryin’ ta shake it anyways. Ya got lil’ hands- they’re cute hands, too, Miss Lily.” He set his bottle to the side, and offered his hands out to take the one she had.

Lily blushed at the compliment and handed the bottle over to Adam. “Th-thanks,” she murmured bashfully. He was always so sweet to her, never talking down to her or making her feel useless. It was a nice change of pace for once.

“‘S no problem, Miss Lily, no problem at all.” Adam got the bottle shaken for her, and then handed it back for her to fill. In the meantime, he motioned for the nipple. “Here ya are, sweetheart. Jus’ fill it ‘t th’ top, n’ then ya can slip th’ nipple on. Did ya want me t’ flip tha’ for ya?” He didn’t want to presume- if she wanted to try, she could. If she didn’t, he would go ahead and get it flipped ahead of time for her while the bottle was filling up.

Lily took the bottle, filling it up the rest of the way, and then handed it back to Adam. She glanced at the nipple and shook her head. “N-no, you can flip it.” She didn’t want to make herself look any more helpless.

Adam chuckled, and flipped the nipple easily, before simply fixing the nipple to the bottle for her, and handing it over, all ready and set for feeding to the calling calves out in the main part of the barn. “Here, sweetheart. Ya ready t’ feed th’ calves?”

She beamed up at Adam, bottle in hand. “I am so ready!” She did a little wiggle of excitement but stopped when she realized something. “But first I need help down from this stool…” She said sheepishly.

He laughed, and gently offered out his hand to her. “Of course, Miss Lily. ‘S only proper t’ help a lady down from a high step, after all. I won’ let ya fall, i promise. Jus take m’ hand, n’ i’ll help ya down.”

Lily shifted the bottle under one arm and she placed her free hand in Adam’s. “I trust you.” This was probably going to be a common occurrence in their relationship.

Adam helped her down smoothly, using one hand to stabilize her, and the other hand to carefully help her off the stool. Once she was on flat ground, he brought her knuckles up to his mouth, and kissed them smoothly. “I know ya do, sweetheart, n’ I’m glad ya do. I trust ya too.” He straightened, and fetched his bottle off of the counter, shutting off the water while he was at it. “Ready t’ go feed th’ calves?”

“Thank you, Ada–” Lily let out a squeak when Adam kissed her hand, her skull once again turning a bright shade of pink. For a moment she couldn’t find her voice but she finally managed to reply, “U-uh huh I’m ready.” She hesitated before reaching her hand up for Adam’s.

Adam took her fingers in his, a wide smile on his face, before leading her back out to the main part of the barn. He guided her down one of the rows of stalls, and brought her to one that had a pair of calves that were small, coming up to about her hips. They were a dark red in color, and seemed eager to greet the two skeletons at the gate

“Twin Brahman calves,” He hums. “Real small babies. Their momma didn’t take either o’ them, so we took ‘m. They’re… mmm… Almost a month old now?”

Lily smiled back at Adam, her soul fluttering in her chest when he took her hand in his. If she had it her way, she’d hold Adam’s hand 24/7. There was a little skip to her step as Adam led her through the barn. She glanced up at the larger skeleton and wondered if she would look good in a cowboy hat. Her thoughts were interrupted when she caught sight of the cutest little calves she had ever laid her eyes on.

“O-omigosh they’re so cute!” She slowly reached a hand out to them to let them sniff it. “Don’t worry little calves, we’ll take care of you!”

The calves bumped their noses against her fingers, and rough tongues flicked out, prodding curiously at her before trying to suckle hungrily at her fingers.

Cute just like you, Adam mused to himself. “Careful, Miss Lily. They might nip ya with their teeth- they only got bottom ones, but baby teeth ‘r sharp teeth, n’ they won’t mean t’ do it. They’re jus’ trying t’ suck on ya fingers.”

Lily squealed before pulling her hand away. “Ahh that tickled!” She looked at her hand now covered in spit. “Haha gross.” She laughed as she wiped her hand off on the borrowed shirt. “Silly calves, my fingers aren’t a bottle! Here you go.” She lifted the bottle with both hands and offered it to one of the calves.

He laughed as she covered his shirt in calf slobber, and leaned over to guide the second calf over to him with one of his fingers. He held the bottle down and out, and the calf latched on eagerly, hungrily guzzling at the bottle. The one that she was feeding also latched on, little tail flicking happily as it began to nurse.

“Th’ babies like ya, Miss Lily!”

Lily giggled as she watched the little calf suckle on the bottle. “That’s right, drink up so you can grow up to be big and strong!” She encouraged it. “Wowie, they sure were hungry!” Her smile grew and she beamed up at Adam. “Heehee do you think they think I’m their momma?”

“They might, sweetheart, they might.” He laughed.

The calves shifted and butted against the bottles, releasing the nipples just long enough to let air flood the bottle and balance out the pressure, before resuming drinking.

“Right now they’re probably jus’ hungry.” He smiles. “N’ right, ya got food, so anyone with food ‘s automatically Ma’ to them.”

Lily chuckled as she watched the calves drink. “It would be fun to be momma to a bunch of calves. Do you ever name them?” She glanced up at Adam curiously.

“Ah… No, we don’ name them usually, Miss Lily.” He adjusted the bottle, carefully angling it so the calf didn’t suck air, and motioned for her to do the same, before tilting his head. “All o’ our cows are range run. We have some we milk, n’ stuff, but those are a different kind n’ kept separate. These are beef cows, Miss Lily. Getting attached isn’t usually a good idea, n’ namin’ ‘m usually means we get attached.”

Beef cows meant they would grow up, have babies, and eventually be eaten. He didn’t really want to come out and say that bluntly though.

Lily adjusted the bottle as Adam had shown her, her expression growing more and more upset as she listened to him. “O-oh I see…” She became extremely quiet after that, just concentrating on feeding the calf. The occasional little sniffle could be heard coming from her.

It would appear that without bluntly saying it, she seemed to understand what he had inferred. “I didn’t mean t’ upset you, Miss Lily.” He said softly, leaning out his fingers to gently rub the calf’s ear as it suckled. “Ranchin’ ‘s… not for th’ faint o’ heart, sweetheart.” He wasn’t really sure what to say beyond that. A rancher’s job wasn’t a pretty one. A lot of them got flack for it, and his wasn’t much better. “M’ sorry.” Lily rubbed at her sockets.

“I-I know you didn’t mean to…” She couldn’t help the tears that kept forming. “I sh-should have known better…” There was a heavy ache in her chest that wouldn’t seem to go away. “I-I’ll be fine…” She looked away from Adam not wanting him to see how badly this was affecting her. She didn’t want to make him feel any more guilty than she already had.

She didn’t need to look at him for him to know. Tears and the hitch in her voice was enough for him to know. He swallowed, and fell silent, guilt bubbling in his middle.

When the bottles were empty, Adam gently pulled it from the calves mouth, and waited for Lily to do the same. When she did, he dropped down onto one knee, and gently turned her to look at him. He reached up, gently using his thumbs to wipe her tears away.

“It’s alright t’ be upset with me over it, Miss Lily. ‘S not somethin’ a lot o’ city folk like to think about.” Not a lot liked to think about where their meat came from- or the work that went into preparing it. Lily probably never considered where the meat came from either. He sighed softly, and dabbled her tears away gently. “I didn’t want t’ lie to you though, n’ tell ya we named ‘m when we don’t, ‘cause lyin’s a bad habit t’ have, sweetheart. So I’m sorry. ‘S okay t’ be upset.”

Lily couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and they began to flow freely down her face. “I-hic-don’t want to be upset with you!” She balled her shirt up in her fists, the bottle discarded on the ground. “I-it’s my fault I’m upset!” She desperately wanted the ground to open and swallow her up at that moment.

He felt like utter trash for making her cry. “‘S not your fault you’re upset, sweetheart. It’s just how things are. You’re a gentle lil’ lady, n’ tha’s not a bad thing. Ranching is rough, n’ the stuff that goes on here ‘s rough. I… probably shouldn’t have hinted at wha’ happens… I jus’ don’ know what t’ say t’ make this better, Miss Lily.”

He shifted, and gently tugged her closer, looping his arms around her and tucking her to his chest. One hand cradled the back of her skull, stroking gently over the bow she wore, and he rumbled soothingly to her. His other hand gently rubbed her back, trying to offer the crying woman what comfort he could. Adam wasn’t sure what to say to offer her the comfort she needed. The only thing he could say is that the cows lived good lives there at their ranch before being sent to auction- and Adam was not sure she’d find that any more comforting.

Lily immediately latched onto Adam when he pulled her into a hug and buried her face in his chest. Her body shook as she continued to cry but she slowly began to calm down from Adam’s comforting touch. Eventually her crying died down to small hiccuping. “I-I need to stop living in my own little fantasy world a-and just grow up…” suddenly came her muffled voice.

Adam felt bad about making her cry- this hadn’t been his intention at all. He hadn’t brought her out here to make her cry, or make her think about things- he’d brought her out here to meet his family and have fun. He held her while she cried though, and soothed her softly, rumbling quietly to try and help as best he could.

When her muffled voice came from where her tears were dampening his shirt, he leaned back just enough to glance down at her. “… Growin’ up is apart of life, sweetheart. Some grow up later than others. When you’re ready, you’ll decide when you want to.” His fingers stroke the back of her skull soothingly, and she hums quietly. “The real world is a harsh place,” A literal eat or be eaten world, “but… I find it isn’t as bad a world since you’re here now, Miss Lily.”

Lily sniffled and nodded at Adam’s words, but kept her gaze locked on his chest. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face, embarrassed from making a scene. She knew how things worked. They had taught her that in school, but she still  couldn’t handle it when brought face to face with it.

Her grip tightened on Adam’s shirt as she fought back another wave of tears. She couldn’t stand crying in front of other people. Especially in front of someone she really liked, like Adam. “I–um… th-thank you…”

He leaned back and swiped her tears away gently. Even if she wouldn’t look at him, he gave her a faint smile, brows still furrowed sadly. “Would you like t’ go see th’ horses, sweetheart?” he questioned softly, thumbs gently coaxing the tears off her cheeks and trying to keep more from joining them, while offering her a distraction from the problem of the calves.

Speaking of horses- Bo, feeling forgotten, reached out to mush her soft nose against the back of Lily’s skull, rasping a soft tongue over the back of it to remind her that she wasn’t alone, before snorting softly.

Lily’s skull was a light shade of pink as Adam continued to wipe away the tears from her sockets. She found the gentle touch comforting and soon any trace she had been crying was gone.

At the mention of horses, Lily perked up a little and looked up at Adam. “M'okay…” her voice was still a little shaky but it looked like she would be okay.

She let out a squeal when she suddenly felt something big and wet against the back of her skull. She practically launched herself at Adam, throwing her arms around him. “Bo! No, bad horse!” She cried looking back at the mare, a hint of laughter in her voice.

Adam couldn’t stop the sheepish laughter as Lily launched at him and coiled around his neck. He patted her back gently, rocking slightly on his heels to brace himself. “Lil’ miss Bo feels left out, i think.” He looked relieved, however, that she seemed to be feeling better.

Bo leaned her nose out again and snuffled Lily once more, big nose mushing gently against her head and puffing air against her again. The big black and white mare snorted again, and nickered softly, glad to have attention once more.

Lily let out another squeal and began to laugh as she tried to squirm away from Bo’s nose. “Aaah no that tickles! Adam save me!” Lily pat Bo’s nose her laughter dying down to giggles. “You’re such a good horse, Bo.” She leaned over to nuzzle the mare.

Adam laughed as Lily was nuzzled by Bo, and nuzzled the horse back in turn. The big mare made a happy sounding noise, and snuffled against her as Adam shifted. “Bo likes ya, Miss Lily.” he chuckles. He nuzzles the top of her head, and then carefully stands up behind her. “I gotta go put th’ bottles int’ th’ sink t’ wash later,” he hums. “Y’ wanna keep Bo company while i do that?”

Lily blushed a bright pink when Adam nuzzled her head. “W-well I like Bo too. She’s a good horse and she knows how to cheer people up.” She giggled as Bo snuffled against her, messing up her bow. She glanced up at Adam and nodded. “Okay, don’t take too long or we’ll miss you, right Bo?” She pat the mare affectionately.

The mare nuzzled Lily again, and bumped her nose right up against Adam’s face, knocking his hat slightly out of place.

“I think tha’ means yes.” He laughed softly, and fixed his hat. “Bo’s a good girl- she’s a sweetie too. N’ she’ll keep us company when we go see th’ horses.” He straightened, collected the bottles, and padded back into the bottle making room.

Adam wasn’t gone for very long- just a minute or so where he filled up the sink with hot water to soak the bottles- and he came back out drying his hands on a towel. “Alright!” He beams. “I think i did mention maybe seein’ about findin’ a horse tha’ you could ride, Miss Lily, n’ then teachin’ ya how t’ ride.”

Lily laughed in delight as she rewarded Bo with more pats. “She’s the best horse around!”

Her face lit up and she exclaimed, “Really? Oh wowie this is gonna be great!” She hopped up and down in excitement.

Her excitement made him grin in delight, and he padded closer with a smile. “That she is. Bo’s a good girl~ N’ we’re gonna go see if we can find one t’ fit well with you for when ya visit.” He offered her his hand with a smile, and left the mare to follow them as she would.

She smiled so wide you’d think her cheeks might fall off. “Okay! C’mon Bo, let’s go!” She took Adam’s hand, sparing a quick glance back at the calves as they left the barn.

The calves were back to playing in the stall, headbutting each other and romping to their hearts content. They were young and sweet, and unknowing of what lay ahead of them- so they simply played and headbutted each other, striving to knock each other off their feet and bleat their victory.

Adam’s fingers were gentle on hers, and he guided her towards the horse barn with Bo following not far behind them. “So, Miss Lily, d’ya know if you wanna ride on a gelding or a mare? They’ve got different temperaments. Mares c’n be feisty sometimes if ya’ don’ give them th’ proper attention- geldings are a bit more mellow, but require more motivation t’ get movin’ when ya want them t’ do somethin’ sometimes.” He hums softly.

Lily chewed on her thumb as she pondered her decision. She glanced over at Bo; she and the mare seemed to get along perfectly. “Hmm, I think I’ll go with a mare,” she replied, looking back at Adam. “I think I can provide the attention they need. Right, Bo?” She giggled.

The horse bumped Lily affectionately with her nose, and chuffed softly. Her tongue flicked out again, and she licked Lily’s skull, before bouncing away and preceding them into the barn. The ground shook under her heavy, playful bounces.

Adam kept Lily steady as Bo bounced past them, a thousand plus pounds of equine prancing past them like a frolicking foal.“A mare then.” he laughed softly. “We’ll start ya on somethin’ small then. We’ve got a couple o’ smaller mares- a thoroughbred is fast, but fairly easy t’ handle.”

Lily squealed and laughed. “Ahh Bo, no, you’re getting horse slobber on me!” She wiped her skull and continued to laugh as she watched the mare bounce away. It was quite a sight to see such a large horse bounce like that. She braced herself against Adam, her attention back on him. “Okie dokie.”

As Bo bounced off into the barn, Adam laughed, and leaned down to gently brush the slobber off of Lily’s skull. He took a moment to fix her bow with gentle fingers, and gave her a warm smile, eyes half lidding for a moment as she braced herself against him. She was so tiny against him- he wanted to take her into his arms and just hold her forever.

“Heh… Alright, Miss Lily. Sorry about Bo- she sometimes forgets she’s not a foal anymore n’ tries t’ frolic like one, n’ there’s a lot o’ animal to go bouncing across the ground near ya. Y’ alright? She didn’t knock ya too much off balance, did she?”

Lily just found herself staring at Adam as if mesmerized as he fixed her bow. She gulped nervously before replying bashfully, “Oh um I-I’m alright as long as you’re there to keep me from falling down.”

Oh gosh, oh gosh the dating manual says this would be the perfect time to kiss! Oooh but what–what if he doesn’t like me like that…? Lily’s mind was going a mile a minute as she continued to cling to Adam. To be honest she had never been in a situation like this.

“I’m not gonna let ya fall, sweetheart, never ever.” Aww hell, he had no chance, did he? As she clung to him, his hands shifted to gently support her. Shit, shit, shit, damn- he shouldn’t be doing this. He had better manners this- but… well shit. He’d kissed a lady before, and, well… all the signs seemed similar. It might not have been the perfect moment- but sometimes perfect moments didn’t get set up exactly.

One of his hands slips down from fixing her bow, and cradles the back of her skull. Nerves nearly make his hands shake, but he forces a calm, and fakes a bit of confidence. Confidence, as he’d learned, was key sometimes. Adam tilts her skull up gently, and then leans down more to her height even if it’s awkward as hell, before tenderly kissing her. He keeps it chaste and sweet, lips closed at first to gauge how she’d react to him kissing her.

Lily watched Adam closely, her sockets widening when his hand cradled the back of her skull. O-oh gosh is he… is he…? Her soul fluttered wildly in her chest and she balled his shirt up in her fists. Oh my gosh he is! This is it, Lily, don’t mess this up! Trembling slightly, she closed her sockets as he leaned in. And just like that he was kissing her. She thought her soul would burst out of her chest and she pressed up against him. She opened her mouth, making a small needy noise, hoping Adam would get the hint and deepen the kiss. This is just like one of Gigi’s romance novels!

With permission granted to deepen it, he tilted her skull up gently, his mouth parting to gently deepen the kiss. His hand cupped her skull tenderly, hand shifting and coming up to cradle her jaw as well. His teeth scraped along her lip gently, before his lips were covering them, careful to keep from nicking her with the sharp surfaces. He got the hint indeed. A soft rumble bubbled up his chest as his free hand slid down to her lower back, gently holding her lower back.

Lily shivered and pressed herself up against Adam. Her skull was growing hot and it felt as if her legs would give out at any moment. The feel of his sharp teeth scraping against her lips, or lack thereof, just sent a jolt of exhilaration down her spine. Her small tongue emerged to shyly poke at Adam’s as she squirmed, wanting more. A-are we really making out out in the open? Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh. What if someone sees us??

His tongue slid out to brush against her own, the blue flesh warm and hot. He tasted slightly minty and cool, a little bit like the tea she had given him as well, which showed that he had been drinking it regularly. His weight shifted, and he settled onto one knee, back blocking anyone from seeing them.

If anyone looked out, they could simply just be talking. He cradled her close, holding her flush to his chest as he rumbled with a pleased sound. His hand didn’t wander down her back- he kept enough control to keep his hand on her borrowed shirt and respectful of her private areas.

What Lily might have been forgetting was the fact that Adam was built like a barn and just about as broad- she wasn’t visible on the other side of him. The only one staring at them was Bo.

The taste of Adam’s tongue made Lily dizzy and her breath came out in short gasps. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess and her legs felt like jelly, Adam now the only thing keeping her upright.

She pulled back just long enough to stammer out what she hoped was a full sentence; but when she realized she was just spouting gibberish she dove back in. Words were pretty silly at this point anyway. Lily glanced over to see Bo just staring at them and she let out a muffled squeak. Oh wait, why was she freaking out? Bo was just a horse. Probably didn’t even know what they were doing.

The brief string of gibberish made him laugh softly, and he took the moment to catch his breath, before delving right back in to kissing her gently and tenderly. He didn’t have a problem holding her weight against him, or keeping her upright- no, Lily was a very light, and holding her wasn’t an issue.

His mouth worked gently against hers, teeth scraping gently along her own as he deepened the kiss, and gently slid his tongue in, gently running it along he teeth and teasing her, coaxing her to venture forth and explore him too.

Bo simply watched, curious, and snorted lightly as she observed the duo.

The kiss seemed to get more and more intense with each passing moment and Lily was beginning to feel light headed. Her tongue ventured forth, timidly delving into Adam’s mouth, his heady taste making her feel drunk and giddy.

She made a small noise in the back of her throat, clenching more tightly at Adam’s shirt. She felt like she just might lose her mind. Her dating manual stated that this kind of kissing always led to more intimate acts and suddenly Lily felt like she couldn’t get enough air. The petite skeleton let out a muffled whimper.

The muffled whimper was his cue to ease back a bit- as was a shift of something in his jeans, reacting to her responses without his desire for it to. If he wasn’t careful she’d find something much more intimidating pressing against her- and that, he knew, would probably terrify her. Adam’s tongue brushed gently to hers, and he lathed it with his own a few times before drawing back gently so they both could get some air. He still held her close, however, and took a moment to catch his breath, mentally willing his body to calm itself. Down boy, down.

“Haaa…” He smiled, flush crawling up his face.

Lily’s breath came out in small pants as Adam pulled away, a thin line of drool sliding down her chin. She stared half dazed up at him, her tongue peeking out from her mouth. “W-wowie…” she said in a small breathless voice. “Th-that was–wow…” She still held onto Adam for support as she recovered from their intense make-out session.

[backslashn]

In the Abyss

I've just finished Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. So here's a few thoughts:

I really enjoyed it up until the final couple of levels.

The controls took a little getting used to at first, but I quickly became accustomed to ASDX(WJ) for tank-like first-person movement with my left hand, while my right-hand stayed on the mouse for interactions. I avoided using the interaction mode icons for the most part (except for combat), and instead used right-click to look and right-drag to pick up/talk to/use. Got into the swing of things by the end of the first hour.

It was interesting to note that the default controls in Thief: The Dark Project--S to walk, W to run, X to walk backwards, right click to use a highlighted item--that always seemed weird to someone used to WASD have their legacy in this game.

I really liked exploring. Having the map only reveal areas I've been to, and even then only geometry, but allowing me to add my own notes to the map for things important to me… I felt much more involved in discovering the layout of the dungeon and in keeping track of quests than with the current paradigm in (for example) Horizon: Zero Dawn, where icons are shown on the map for everything you've discovered (whether still relevant or not) and for anything you've been told about or half-revealed by climbing a Tall-Neck. Actively being involved in the cartography makes it much more valuable.

Because the game has no quest logs or conversation logs, I kept notes manually on a pad of paper as I played, roughly one page per level, crossing off tasks as I did them. This was fine at a desk, but wouldn't work half so well if I was sitting on a sofa.

Some NPCs allow you to repeat their conversation trees ad infitum; others will never repeat important information they've said. Taking accurate notes as you play is essential to completing the game without resorting to the hint book or walkthroughs. I summarized heavily in my notes, and in a couple of cases this led to me omitting words that turned out to be crucial. Thankfully I had walkthroughs to fall back on when this happened.

Jumping in this game is terrible. The platforming puzzles start on the very first level, but it wasn't until the last few hours of the game that I felt I'd got the knack of it, and could jump over chasms successfully most of the time. The trick is not to jump while walking or running (except for really long jumps); but to press S (or W) then immediately press J and hold it for a quarter of a second. But always save before a hazardous jump just in case.

Despite the awkwardness of the controls for jumping, it is great that it is possible. There's so much more room for exploration in a level when it can have unexpected paths in the third dimension.

Being able to throw objects with physical simulation (they even bounce off the walls and the floor) would have been very novel in 1992. But with one exception in a side quest, it is never important in the game.

On the other hand, the physical simulation for missile weapons and projectile spells is awful. Having to lead my shots is just terrible when the enemies don't move with any inertia. Trying to hit anything that isn't standing still is tough. This, together with the short view distance and the need to carry around ammunition meant I didn't bother with missile weapons or spells in the end.

The lack of a functioning economy in the game is great. It frees my from my packrat tendencies whereby I feel compelled in most RPGs to carry as much shite as I can in order to sell it back to a merchant. Typically doing this means I accumulate way more currency than I actually need, but I still feel compelled regardless. But the weirdness and opaqueness of the bartering system in Underworld means I quickly couldn't be bothered. And there was very rarely anything I wanted available to barter anyway.

Persistence of the world state is great. I had to keep my inventory down to essentials due to weight, so it was very helpful being able to drop the I-don't-need-this-right-now-but-it-looks-important items in familiar places and come back to them later. Also the fact that monsters didn't respawn made the backtracking much less tedious.

There are still a few too many mazes in the level design. You know how much I love mazes.

Update: additional thoughts on magic:

The magic system is neat. There are 25 magic runes, and spells are made up of two or three of these runes. To ready a spell, you open your rune bag, select the runes for it (e.g. V, K, and C runes for the VAS KAL CORP spell), which puts the runes onto the little shelf below the viewport. Then to cast the spell at any time, you just click on the prepared runes, consuming mana according to the strength of the spell.

The available spells are grouped into eight circles, and you can't cast spells from higher circles until you have leveled up enough.

In addition to that, you start the game with only a few of the rune stones, and have to find others in the underworld in order to be able to cast additional spells. Each new rune opens up several additional spells.

The spells are a proto-linguistic system (as in all Ultima games since 5), where each rune's name has a specific meaning. So when I finally found the F (FLAM) rune, it opened up a number of fire-based spells (fireball, resist fire, wall of flame) that had previously been impossible.

The V (VAS) rune means "great", and is a key part of many higher level spells. Rather than just finding this rune at random in the dungeon, there's actually a side quest with a puzzle to solve to obtain it.

There are a number of spells that aren't listed in the manual that you can discover--either by trial and error (and the meanings in the rune names means this won't be just random) or by being told about them by NPCs or reading about them in scattered notes.

It's a bit frustrating to only have one prepared spell at a single time though. Can't easily cast fireball and heal in the middle of a fight without fumbling through the rune bag while dodging enemy attacks.

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[apsbicepstraining]

What 6 Top Trainers REALLY Eat Every Day

After a tough practise class, numerous parties find themselves crawling toward the nearest generator of food and hoovering up anything in sight.

But imagine doing that wearying workout class two, three or four more hours in one day. That’s what your favorite teachers and trainers do to help keep you motivated. Not only do they have to show you proper moves, but they also sweat( and even tolerate) alongside “youve got to” induce you to give it everything you’ve got, just like they do.

Of course, it takes a lot of food to fuel all of that activity. HuffPost Lifestyle expected ruler trainers from five major gyms and shop utilization studios what they feed to make sure they’re bringing their -Agame to work.

There were a lot of similarities among all six of the teaches, including a focus on whole nutrients, protein and healthy paunches from seeds, fish and olive oil. And while they mainly dine a nutrient-dense nutrition, they’re also very comfortable plowing themselves to alcohol, chocolate and( gasp !) broiled goods and sweetened treats.

Adam Friedman

Fitness Institute Expert at Gold’s Gym, Los Angeles

Adam Friedman

Adam Friedman, Gold’s Gym Fitness Institute Expert.

On a usual daylight, Friedman studies six buyers for seminars of 60 to 90 instants at a time. After his workday is over, he launches into his own 90 -minute exercise program that includes kettlebell fluctuating seizes, Bulgarian split squattings and other tough, exotic-sounding workouts that few people “ve heard quite a bit about”, but was likely to Google subsequently.

It’s a jam-packed, highly active workday, which is why Friedman stops to ingest no fewer than seven banquets. All are 100 percent organic and include high-quality proteins like grass-finished meat, wild-caught fish and lots of paunch to improve stabilize his blood sugar.

Breakfast : Friedman wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to ruminate and sip hot water with organic lemon juice and matcha green tea for its antioxidant belongings. Then for breakfast, it’s two whole eggs and six egg whites cooked in grass-fed butter, together with two cups of spinach and one medium yam. His nutritional augments include fish oils, a multivitamin, zinc, CoQ1 0 and a probiotic.

Morning snacks : One apple with one teaspoon of organic sunflower seed butter. A few hours later, Friedman chews a second morning snack of organic coconut yogurt mingled with one scoop of grass-fed whey protein pulverize, some sprouted walnuts and two teaspoons of organic cacao nibs.

Lunch : Homemade turkey meatloaf, a half-cup of roasted veggies and one medium yam.

Afternoon snack : Like the morning, this snack is broken up in two: The first is one cup of homemade chia seed dessert, and the second largest is another dish of his organic coconut yogurt combination from earlier in the day.

Dinner : Wild-caught salmon with romaine lettuce and two teaspoons of sprouted hummus.

Charlee Atkins

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulBody | @soulcycle #soulcycle

A photo posted by charlee (@ charleeatkins) on Apr 5, 2015 at 9:24 am PDT

This body was brought to you by chocolate microchip muffins. No, severely. While Atkins snack a lot of good-for-you whole meat like oatmeal, fish, quinoa and yogurt, a chocolate chip muffin from Whole Foods is also a vital part of her pre-class procedure. Coffee also facilitates pump up her vitality, and after it’s all over she goes out to eat at a eatery in New York City’s NoLiTa neighborhood, where she might get a little “wastey-face” and then come home requiring snacks( managers, they’re just like us !).

Can we hang with you after class, satisfy?

Breakfast : To start her daylight, Atkins loads up on carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal, into which she throws concepts like cinnamons, raisins, granola, agave and almond milk. She too sees sure to booze two to three glasses of ocean and one cup of yerba matte.

Morning Snacks : One iced coffee about 45 times before her first class. Then this is where the chocolate chip muffin comes in: Atkins will dine half of it about 30 times before class so that the sugar hurry peaks right as the session starts. To recuperate, it’s SmartWater for the electrolytes.

Then she’ll eat a second morning snack before her second class of the working day: another iced coffee for vigour, then either approximately half a Quest protein bar or Greek yogurt( Fage, 2 percent ), two hard simmered eggs or watermelon and cantaloupe. Then it’s time for the second largest half of that chocolate chip muffin from earlier in the day.

Lunch : For lunch, Atkins has two go-to moves: an egg sandwich or avocado toast with a fried egg on top. She buys either from The Elk on Charles Street. The protein part of the lunch is critical to recovery, she says.

Afternoon snack : Either fresh fruit, yogurt and granola or some cashews.

Dinner : Atkins isn’t a fan of cook and affection going out to eat. A usual dinner for her is rice or quinoa, fish or beans and potatoes or yams. She also loves sweetened considers, but merely takes a few gnaws of dessert.

Evening Snack : She can explain it best: “If I choose to go out for beverages with friends and get a little wastey-face( but not too wastey-face) and come home and want snacky-poos, I’ll opt for more fruit or yogurt.”

Akin Akman

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulCycle

Akin Akman, senior teach at SoulCycle.

Not simply had Akman taught five SoulCycle classes( four of those back-to-back !) on the working day we caught up with him, but the superman likewise completed a bootcamp class and a boxing hearing for his own fitness. We don’t know how he does it all, but his diet, which is high in protein and fatty, commits us a clue.

“I believe in devouring everything in moderation with the exception of no deep-fried nutrients, ” said Akman. And as for all the other employs classes he takes in addition to schooling his own, Akman says he does it all for us, the students.

“Although I learn so many categorizes a era, I like to train outside of my class by taking Barry’s Bootcamp categories, working out with my friend and tutor Andy Speer at Soho Strength Lab, and mingling it up with other types of exercisings, ” he said. “I like to stay at the top of my tournament so that I can push my students to become stronger, faster jocks themselves.”

Breakfast : After his 6:30 a.m. bootcamp class, Akman travels for a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.

Morning Snack : After his first located of SoulCycle classes, he boozes coconut liquid for its potassium and low-grade natural carbohydrate content.

Lunch : After his third SoulCycle class, Akman gobbles a grilled chicken sandwich and a line-up salad.

Afternoon snack : Then it’s epoch for boxing with his friend and coach Eric Rakofsky. Afterward, he eats an acai container with almond butter and bananas. Akman calls this his “favorite snack” and dines it almost daily.

Dinner : After his final create of SoulCycle classes at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m ., he goes all out with Japanese nutrient: salmon teriyaki, rice, miso soup and sushi.

Caroline Ficksman

DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager, Los Angeles

DavidBartonGym

Caroline Ficksman, DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager.

Ficksman was on her day off when she caught up with us, which entails the L-Abased trainer hadn’t taught any years or done any one-on-one education. Instead, she focused on her own fitness: working on her shoulders with high-pitched rep, low-weight resistance utilization. Here’s what she chewed:

Breakfast : Three hard-boiled steamed egg whites, one yolk and a quarter of an avocado.

Morning snack : A banana almond butter macro prohibit. She affection them because they’re vegan, have no soy and use brown rice syrup and coconut sugar for sweeteners. She likewise dined three times right before her shoulder workout to give her a little more vigor to “kill” her hoist. To recover, she boozes a protein shake.

Lunch : Ficksman chews a salad with either a Sweet Earth veggie burger or chicken on top.

Snack : Raw almonds.

Dinner : Baked salmon with salsa, grilled asparagus and some broiled sweet potato.

Joey Gonzalez

CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp, West Hollywood

Barry’s Bootcamp

Joey Gonzalez, chief operating officer of Barry’s Bootcamp.

Like Ficksman, Gonzalez was also having an “off-day, ” explaining that he plainly took a Barry’s Bootcamp class as a student but modified it by hop-skip the treadmill parcel and spending the entire hour-long class on the flooring doing fighting utilizations with weights. Uhh … sounds like an on-day to merely someones, sir, but you do you.

Gonzalez started his period at 5:30 a.m. with Francesca, his four-month age-old daughter. His profession in the wee hours of the morning is exclusively to play with her. Then he left for a full epoch of rallies, the bootcamp class and on-site visits to see a new studio stretch in West Hollywood and his own under-construction residence. Gonzalez amply admits that if it weren’t for his spouse Jonathan Rollo, founder and cook of a healthy salad series, he wouldn’t gobble as well as he ordinarily does.

“Today was an ill-planned era and I ingest exclusively out of convenience, ” says Gonzalez. “Having a husband who returns residence healthy meals from his restaurant, Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop, is my saving grace.”

Breakfast : Coffee, liquid and an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich on an English muffin from Greenleaf.

Lunch : Salad with quinoa, almonds, chicken, arugula and kale.

Afternoon Snack : A Simply PB Protein shake from Barry’s Fuel Bar

Dinner : Salad with chicken, tomatoes, carrots, peppers and onions.

Holly Rilinger

Master Flywheel Instructor, New York City

Abbey Drucker

Holly Rilinger, Master Flywheel Instructor

The day Rilinger catered HuffPost Lifestyle with her meat journal, she educated two Flywheel spin classifies back to back and a high-intensity interval train class( that’s HIIT to you) and then took another HIIT class as a student.

The full date of activity leaves her seem “invigorated but exhausted” by the end. To facilitate fuel her barrage, Rilinger focuses principally on unprocessed, natural foods that help keep her strong and strong.

Breakfast : Coffee with almond milk and blackberries — emphasis on the coffee.

“I don’t like dining too much before my gyration categories and NEED my coffee, ” she wrote.

Morning snack : A light-green smoothie with hemp protein, almond butter and almond milk mixed in. Then a small chicken salad from The Juice Shop in New York City for “quick and easy” fuel after learning those first two classes.

Lunch : A big-hearted bit of grilled chicken with broccoli, chickpeas, lettuce and sweetened potato. At this part, she’s too schooled her HIIT class and she’s famished.

Afternoon snack : Grilled vegetables and the other protein shake.

Dinner : Grilled hem steak, spinach, brussels sprouts and two tequilas with soda. “Tequila is just about all I drink, ” Rilinger says.

Evening snack : For something sweet to terminate her era, Rilinger indulges in dark chocolate and chamomile tea or coconut ice cream.

The lesson from these upper-class exercising coaches? Food plays an important role in both fueling you and helping you regain after a exercising. Don’t skip banquets on daytimes you work out, and make sure you have a healthy snack to nosh on, like eggs or seeds, after you’re done sweating it out.

The post What 6 Top Trainers REALLY Eat Every Day appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2iKPD6p via IFTTT

[apsbicepstraining]

What 6 Top Trainers REALLY Eat Every Day

After a tough practise class, numerous parties find themselves crawling toward the nearest generator of food and hoovering up anything in sight.

But imagine doing that wearying workout class two, three or four more hours in one day. That’s what your favorite teachers and trainers do to help keep you motivated. Not only do they have to show you proper moves, but they also sweat( and even tolerate) alongside “youve got to” induce you to give it everything you’ve got, just like they do.

Of course, it takes a lot of food to fuel all of that activity. HuffPost Lifestyle expected ruler trainers from five major gyms and shop utilization studios what they feed to make sure they’re bringing their -Agame to work.

There were a lot of similarities among all six of the teaches, including a focus on whole nutrients, protein and healthy paunches from seeds, fish and olive oil. And while they mainly dine a nutrient-dense nutrition, they’re also very comfortable plowing themselves to alcohol, chocolate and( gasp !) broiled goods and sweetened treats.

Adam Friedman

Fitness Institute Expert at Gold’s Gym, Los Angeles

Adam Friedman

Adam Friedman, Gold’s Gym Fitness Institute Expert.

On a usual daylight, Friedman studies six buyers for seminars of 60 to 90 instants at a time. After his workday is over, he launches into his own 90 -minute exercise program that includes kettlebell fluctuating seizes, Bulgarian split squattings and other tough, exotic-sounding workouts that few people “ve heard quite a bit about”, but was likely to Google subsequently.

It’s a jam-packed, highly active workday, which is why Friedman stops to ingest no fewer than seven banquets. All are 100 percent organic and include high-quality proteins like grass-finished meat, wild-caught fish and lots of paunch to improve stabilize his blood sugar.

Breakfast : Friedman wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to ruminate and sip hot water with organic lemon juice and matcha green tea for its antioxidant belongings. Then for breakfast, it’s two whole eggs and six egg whites cooked in grass-fed butter, together with two cups of spinach and one medium yam. His nutritional augments include fish oils, a multivitamin, zinc, CoQ1 0 and a probiotic.

Morning snacks : One apple with one teaspoon of organic sunflower seed butter. A few hours later, Friedman chews a second morning snack of organic coconut yogurt mingled with one scoop of grass-fed whey protein pulverize, some sprouted walnuts and two teaspoons of organic cacao nibs.

Lunch : Homemade turkey meatloaf, a half-cup of roasted veggies and one medium yam.

Afternoon snack : Like the morning, this snack is broken up in two: The first is one cup of homemade chia seed dessert, and the second largest is another dish of his organic coconut yogurt combination from earlier in the day.

Dinner : Wild-caught salmon with romaine lettuce and two teaspoons of sprouted hummus.

Charlee Atkins

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulBody | @soulcycle #soulcycle

A photo posted by charlee (@ charleeatkins) on Apr 5, 2015 at 9:24 am PDT

This body was brought to you by chocolate microchip muffins. No, severely. While Atkins snack a lot of good-for-you whole meat like oatmeal, fish, quinoa and yogurt, a chocolate chip muffin from Whole Foods is also a vital part of her pre-class procedure. Coffee also facilitates pump up her vitality, and after it’s all over she goes out to eat at a eatery in New York City’s NoLiTa neighborhood, where she might get a little “wastey-face” and then come home requiring snacks( managers, they’re just like us !).

Can we hang with you after class, satisfy?

Breakfast : To start her daylight, Atkins loads up on carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal, into which she throws concepts like cinnamons, raisins, granola, agave and almond milk. She too sees sure to booze two to three glasses of ocean and one cup of yerba matte.

Morning Snacks : One iced coffee about 45 times before her first class. Then this is where the chocolate chip muffin comes in: Atkins will dine half of it about 30 times before class so that the sugar hurry peaks right as the session starts. To recuperate, it’s SmartWater for the electrolytes.

Then she’ll eat a second morning snack before her second class of the working day: another iced coffee for vigour, then either approximately half a Quest protein bar or Greek yogurt( Fage, 2 percent ), two hard simmered eggs or watermelon and cantaloupe. Then it’s time for the second largest half of that chocolate chip muffin from earlier in the day.

Lunch : For lunch, Atkins has two go-to moves: an egg sandwich or avocado toast with a fried egg on top. She buys either from The Elk on Charles Street. The protein part of the lunch is critical to recovery, she says.

Afternoon snack : Either fresh fruit, yogurt and granola or some cashews.

Dinner : Atkins isn’t a fan of cook and affection going out to eat. A usual dinner for her is rice or quinoa, fish or beans and potatoes or yams. She also loves sweetened considers, but merely takes a few gnaws of dessert.

Evening Snack : She can explain it best: “If I choose to go out for beverages with friends and get a little wastey-face( but not too wastey-face) and come home and want snacky-poos, I’ll opt for more fruit or yogurt.”

Akin Akman

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulCycle

Akin Akman, senior teach at SoulCycle.

Not simply had Akman taught five SoulCycle classes( four of those back-to-back !) on the working day we caught up with him, but the superman likewise completed a bootcamp class and a boxing hearing for his own fitness. We don’t know how he does it all, but his diet, which is high in protein and fatty, commits us a clue.

“I believe in devouring everything in moderation with the exception of no deep-fried nutrients, ” said Akman. And as for all the other employs classes he takes in addition to schooling his own, Akman says he does it all for us, the students.

“Although I learn so many categorizes a era, I like to train outside of my class by taking Barry’s Bootcamp categories, working out with my friend and tutor Andy Speer at Soho Strength Lab, and mingling it up with other types of exercisings, ” he said. “I like to stay at the top of my tournament so that I can push my students to become stronger, faster jocks themselves.”

Breakfast : After his 6:30 a.m. bootcamp class, Akman travels for a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.

Morning Snack : After his first located of SoulCycle classes, he boozes coconut liquid for its potassium and low-grade natural carbohydrate content.

Lunch : After his third SoulCycle class, Akman gobbles a grilled chicken sandwich and a line-up salad.

Afternoon snack : Then it’s epoch for boxing with his friend and coach Eric Rakofsky. Afterward, he eats an acai container with almond butter and bananas. Akman calls this his “favorite snack” and dines it almost daily.

Dinner : After his final create of SoulCycle classes at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m ., he goes all out with Japanese nutrient: salmon teriyaki, rice, miso soup and sushi.

Caroline Ficksman

DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager, Los Angeles

DavidBartonGym

Caroline Ficksman, DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager.

Ficksman was on her day off when she caught up with us, which entails the L-Abased trainer hadn’t taught any years or done any one-on-one education. Instead, she focused on her own fitness: working on her shoulders with high-pitched rep, low-weight resistance utilization. Here’s what she chewed:

Breakfast : Three hard-boiled steamed egg whites, one yolk and a quarter of an avocado.

Morning snack : A banana almond butter macro prohibit. She affection them because they’re vegan, have no soy and use brown rice syrup and coconut sugar for sweeteners. She likewise dined three times right before her shoulder workout to give her a little more vigor to “kill” her hoist. To recover, she boozes a protein shake.

Lunch : Ficksman chews a salad with either a Sweet Earth veggie burger or chicken on top.

Snack : Raw almonds.

Dinner : Baked salmon with salsa, grilled asparagus and some broiled sweet potato.

Joey Gonzalez

CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp, West Hollywood

Barry’s Bootcamp

Joey Gonzalez, chief operating officer of Barry’s Bootcamp.

Like Ficksman, Gonzalez was also having an “off-day, ” explaining that he plainly took a Barry’s Bootcamp class as a student but modified it by hop-skip the treadmill parcel and spending the entire hour-long class on the flooring doing fighting utilizations with weights. Uhh … sounds like an on-day to merely someones, sir, but you do you.

Gonzalez started his period at 5:30 a.m. with Francesca, his four-month age-old daughter. His profession in the wee hours of the morning is exclusively to play with her. Then he left for a full epoch of rallies, the bootcamp class and on-site visits to see a new studio stretch in West Hollywood and his own under-construction residence. Gonzalez amply admits that if it weren’t for his spouse Jonathan Rollo, founder and cook of a healthy salad series, he wouldn’t gobble as well as he ordinarily does.

“Today was an ill-planned era and I ingest exclusively out of convenience, ” says Gonzalez. “Having a husband who returns residence healthy meals from his restaurant, Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop, is my saving grace.”

Breakfast : Coffee, liquid and an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich on an English muffin from Greenleaf.

Lunch : Salad with quinoa, almonds, chicken, arugula and kale.

Afternoon Snack : A Simply PB Protein shake from Barry’s Fuel Bar

Dinner : Salad with chicken, tomatoes, carrots, peppers and onions.

Holly Rilinger

Master Flywheel Instructor, New York City

Abbey Drucker

Holly Rilinger, Master Flywheel Instructor

The day Rilinger catered HuffPost Lifestyle with her meat journal, she educated two Flywheel spin classifies back to back and a high-intensity interval train class( that’s HIIT to you) and then took another HIIT class as a student.

The full date of activity leaves her seem “invigorated but exhausted” by the end. To facilitate fuel her barrage, Rilinger focuses principally on unprocessed, natural foods that help keep her strong and strong.

Breakfast : Coffee with almond milk and blackberries — emphasis on the coffee.

“I don’t like dining too much before my gyration categories and NEED my coffee, ” she wrote.

Morning snack : A light-green smoothie with hemp protein, almond butter and almond milk mixed in. Then a small chicken salad from The Juice Shop in New York City for “quick and easy” fuel after learning those first two classes.

Lunch : A big-hearted bit of grilled chicken with broccoli, chickpeas, lettuce and sweetened potato. At this part, she’s too schooled her HIIT class and she’s famished.

Afternoon snack : Grilled vegetables and the other protein shake.

Dinner : Grilled hem steak, spinach, brussels sprouts and two tequilas with soda. “Tequila is just about all I drink, ” Rilinger says.

Evening snack : For something sweet to terminate her era, Rilinger indulges in dark chocolate and chamomile tea or coconut ice cream.

The lesson from these upper-class exercising coaches? Food plays an important role in both fueling you and helping you regain after a exercising. Don’t skip banquets on daytimes you work out, and make sure you have a healthy snack to nosh on, like eggs or seeds, after you’re done sweating it out.

The post What 6 Top Trainers REALLY Eat Every Day appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2iKPD6p via IFTTT

[apsbicepstraining]

What 6 Top Trainers REALLY Eat Every Day

After a tough practise class, numerous parties find themselves crawling toward the nearest generator of food and hoovering up anything in sight.

But imagine doing that wearying workout class two, three or four more hours in one day. That’s what your favorite teachers and trainers do to help keep you motivated. Not only do they have to show you proper moves, but they also sweat( and even tolerate) alongside “youve got to” induce you to give it everything you’ve got, just like they do.

Of course, it takes a lot of food to fuel all of that activity. HuffPost Lifestyle expected ruler trainers from five major gyms and shop utilization studios what they feed to make sure they’re bringing their -Agame to work.

There were a lot of similarities among all six of the teaches, including a focus on whole nutrients, protein and healthy paunches from seeds, fish and olive oil. And while they mainly dine a nutrient-dense nutrition, they’re also very comfortable plowing themselves to alcohol, chocolate and( gasp !) broiled goods and sweetened treats.

Adam Friedman

Fitness Institute Expert at Gold’s Gym, Los Angeles

Adam Friedman

Adam Friedman, Gold’s Gym Fitness Institute Expert.

On a usual daylight, Friedman studies six buyers for seminars of 60 to 90 instants at a time. After his workday is over, he launches into his own 90 -minute exercise program that includes kettlebell fluctuating seizes, Bulgarian split squattings and other tough, exotic-sounding workouts that few people “ve heard quite a bit about”, but was likely to Google subsequently.

It’s a jam-packed, highly active workday, which is why Friedman stops to ingest no fewer than seven banquets. All are 100 percent organic and include high-quality proteins like grass-finished meat, wild-caught fish and lots of paunch to improve stabilize his blood sugar.

Breakfast : Friedman wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to ruminate and sip hot water with organic lemon juice and matcha green tea for its antioxidant belongings. Then for breakfast, it’s two whole eggs and six egg whites cooked in grass-fed butter, together with two cups of spinach and one medium yam. His nutritional augments include fish oils, a multivitamin, zinc, CoQ1 0 and a probiotic.

Morning snacks : One apple with one teaspoon of organic sunflower seed butter. A few hours later, Friedman chews a second morning snack of organic coconut yogurt mingled with one scoop of grass-fed whey protein pulverize, some sprouted walnuts and two teaspoons of organic cacao nibs.

Lunch : Homemade turkey meatloaf, a half-cup of roasted veggies and one medium yam.

Afternoon snack : Like the morning, this snack is broken up in two: The first is one cup of homemade chia seed dessert, and the second largest is another dish of his organic coconut yogurt combination from earlier in the day.

Dinner : Wild-caught salmon with romaine lettuce and two teaspoons of sprouted hummus.

Charlee Atkins

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulBody | @soulcycle #soulcycle

A photo posted by charlee (@ charleeatkins) on Apr 5, 2015 at 9:24 am PDT

This body was brought to you by chocolate microchip muffins. No, severely. While Atkins snack a lot of good-for-you whole meat like oatmeal, fish, quinoa and yogurt, a chocolate chip muffin from Whole Foods is also a vital part of her pre-class procedure. Coffee also facilitates pump up her vitality, and after it’s all over she goes out to eat at a eatery in New York City’s NoLiTa neighborhood, where she might get a little “wastey-face” and then come home requiring snacks( managers, they’re just like us !).

Can we hang with you after class, satisfy?

Breakfast : To start her daylight, Atkins loads up on carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal, into which she throws concepts like cinnamons, raisins, granola, agave and almond milk. She too sees sure to booze two to three glasses of ocean and one cup of yerba matte.

Morning Snacks : One iced coffee about 45 times before her first class. Then this is where the chocolate chip muffin comes in: Atkins will dine half of it about 30 times before class so that the sugar hurry peaks right as the session starts. To recuperate, it’s SmartWater for the electrolytes.

Then she’ll eat a second morning snack before her second class of the working day: another iced coffee for vigour, then either approximately half a Quest protein bar or Greek yogurt( Fage, 2 percent ), two hard simmered eggs or watermelon and cantaloupe. Then it’s time for the second largest half of that chocolate chip muffin from earlier in the day.

Lunch : For lunch, Atkins has two go-to moves: an egg sandwich or avocado toast with a fried egg on top. She buys either from The Elk on Charles Street. The protein part of the lunch is critical to recovery, she says.

Afternoon snack : Either fresh fruit, yogurt and granola or some cashews.

Dinner : Atkins isn’t a fan of cook and affection going out to eat. A usual dinner for her is rice or quinoa, fish or beans and potatoes or yams. She also loves sweetened considers, but merely takes a few gnaws of dessert.

Evening Snack : She can explain it best: “If I choose to go out for beverages with friends and get a little wastey-face( but not too wastey-face) and come home and want snacky-poos, I’ll opt for more fruit or yogurt.”

Akin Akman

Senior Instructor at SoulCycle, New York City

SoulCycle

Akin Akman, senior teach at SoulCycle.

Not simply had Akman taught five SoulCycle classes( four of those back-to-back !) on the working day we caught up with him, but the superman likewise completed a bootcamp class and a boxing hearing for his own fitness. We don’t know how he does it all, but his diet, which is high in protein and fatty, commits us a clue.

“I believe in devouring everything in moderation with the exception of no deep-fried nutrients, ” said Akman. And as for all the other employs classes he takes in addition to schooling his own, Akman says he does it all for us, the students.

“Although I learn so many categorizes a era, I like to train outside of my class by taking Barry’s Bootcamp categories, working out with my friend and tutor Andy Speer at Soho Strength Lab, and mingling it up with other types of exercisings, ” he said. “I like to stay at the top of my tournament so that I can push my students to become stronger, faster jocks themselves.”

Breakfast : After his 6:30 a.m. bootcamp class, Akman travels for a bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.

Morning Snack : After his first located of SoulCycle classes, he boozes coconut liquid for its potassium and low-grade natural carbohydrate content.

Lunch : After his third SoulCycle class, Akman gobbles a grilled chicken sandwich and a line-up salad.

Afternoon snack : Then it’s epoch for boxing with his friend and coach Eric Rakofsky. Afterward, he eats an acai container with almond butter and bananas. Akman calls this his “favorite snack” and dines it almost daily.

Dinner : After his final create of SoulCycle classes at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m ., he goes all out with Japanese nutrient: salmon teriyaki, rice, miso soup and sushi.

Caroline Ficksman

DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager, Los Angeles

DavidBartonGym

Caroline Ficksman, DavidBartonGym Century City Training Manager.

Ficksman was on her day off when she caught up with us, which entails the L-Abased trainer hadn’t taught any years or done any one-on-one education. Instead, she focused on her own fitness: working on her shoulders with high-pitched rep, low-weight resistance utilization. Here’s what she chewed:

Breakfast : Three hard-boiled steamed egg whites, one yolk and a quarter of an avocado.

Morning snack : A banana almond butter macro prohibit. She affection them because they’re vegan, have no soy and use brown rice syrup and coconut sugar for sweeteners. She likewise dined three times right before her shoulder workout to give her a little more vigor to “kill” her hoist. To recover, she boozes a protein shake.

Lunch : Ficksman chews a salad with either a Sweet Earth veggie burger or chicken on top.

Snack : Raw almonds.

Dinner : Baked salmon with salsa, grilled asparagus and some broiled sweet potato.

Joey Gonzalez

CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp, West Hollywood

Barry’s Bootcamp

Joey Gonzalez, chief operating officer of Barry’s Bootcamp.

Like Ficksman, Gonzalez was also having an “off-day, ” explaining that he plainly took a Barry’s Bootcamp class as a student but modified it by hop-skip the treadmill parcel and spending the entire hour-long class on the flooring doing fighting utilizations with weights. Uhh … sounds like an on-day to merely someones, sir, but you do you.

Gonzalez started his period at 5:30 a.m. with Francesca, his four-month age-old daughter. His profession in the wee hours of the morning is exclusively to play with her. Then he left for a full epoch of rallies, the bootcamp class and on-site visits to see a new studio stretch in West Hollywood and his own under-construction residence. Gonzalez amply admits that if it weren’t for his spouse Jonathan Rollo, founder and cook of a healthy salad series, he wouldn’t gobble as well as he ordinarily does.

“Today was an ill-planned era and I ingest exclusively out of convenience, ” says Gonzalez. “Having a husband who returns residence healthy meals from his restaurant, Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop, is my saving grace.”

Breakfast : Coffee, liquid and an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich on an English muffin from Greenleaf.

Lunch : Salad with quinoa, almonds, chicken, arugula and kale.

Afternoon Snack : A Simply PB Protein shake from Barry’s Fuel Bar

Dinner : Salad with chicken, tomatoes, carrots, peppers and onions.

Holly Rilinger

Master Flywheel Instructor, New York City

Abbey Drucker

Holly Rilinger, Master Flywheel Instructor

The day Rilinger catered HuffPost Lifestyle with her meat journal, she educated two Flywheel spin classifies back to back and a high-intensity interval train class( that’s HIIT to you) and then took another HIIT class as a student.

The full date of activity leaves her seem “invigorated but exhausted” by the end. To facilitate fuel her barrage, Rilinger focuses principally on unprocessed, natural foods that help keep her strong and strong.

Breakfast : Coffee with almond milk and blackberries — emphasis on the coffee.

“I don’t like dining too much before my gyration categories and NEED my coffee, ” she wrote.

Morning snack : A light-green smoothie with hemp protein, almond butter and almond milk mixed in. Then a small chicken salad from The Juice Shop in New York City for “quick and easy” fuel after learning those first two classes.

Lunch : A big-hearted bit of grilled chicken with broccoli, chickpeas, lettuce and sweetened potato. At this part, she’s too schooled her HIIT class and she’s famished.

Afternoon snack : Grilled vegetables and the other protein shake.

Dinner : Grilled hem steak, spinach, brussels sprouts and two tequilas with soda. “Tequila is just about all I drink, ” Rilinger says.

Evening snack : For something sweet to terminate her era, Rilinger indulges in dark chocolate and chamomile tea or coconut ice cream.

The lesson from these upper-class exercising coaches? Food plays an important role in both fueling you and helping you regain after a exercising. Don’t skip banquets on daytimes you work out, and make sure you have a healthy snack to nosh on, like eggs or seeds, after you’re done sweating it out.

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