#I am extremely city-fied these days

[liveandletrain]

@dhdrawings

I am absolutely fascinated about what might give that impression. Genuinely curious this is so cool.

I am actually a feral country child from the middle-of-nowhere rural texas, who grew up 30 minutes away from the town that my mailing address said I lived at, 45 minutes from the nearest Walmart, about the same distance from the county fairgrounds. (Where I won runner up best of show for my cinnamon rolls when I was 13-ish)

[urgardenandmine]

parker's lab buddy 🕷 - p. parker

hi y'all! this is my first like piece of work so i am extremely sorry if this is so shit but i hope it's good enough for y'all to at least read to past the time! hope y'all enjoy!

summary: peter parker is ready to start his senior year but will it be fun...? genre: fluff (ish?) pairing: m!reader x peter parker (the spider-man himself) word count: 1.4K

today was a nice, brisk autumn day in the simple city queens of the great state of new york. the weather was a nice 57F, with the sky being somewhat checkered with clouds that casted nice shade for the student of midtown high. one student in particular was walking down the cluttered halls of midtown high, who himself was mr. peter parker. peter let out a blissful sigh as he was making his way towards his next class. looking around, he saw some noticeable faces. 

one face was his own right hand man, ned leeds. he was dressed in brown cargo pants and the usual muted navy blue colored hoodie his lola had gifted him last christmas. his bag was half open, but it went unnoticed as he was trying to talk to betty bryant, the head host of midtown’s broadcasting show. peter zoomed in, staring at betty’s facial expressions which did not look good whatsoever. 

rushing over, he stood behind the pair, listening in to his best friend somewhat ruin his chances with they blonde.

“and y’know- vader wasn’t really a bad guy! just heavily misunderstood!” he exclaimed, almost buzzing as he continued to ramble on his all-time favorite sci-fi movie. the blonde mindlessly nodded, snapping out of her trance as she saw the brunette make his way towards his friend. she smiled, waving at him causing ned to turn. 

“hi peter!” betty chirped, smiling at him as he returned it. she then pulled out her phone, opening her recording app as she aimed it towards the other’s mouth.

“my sources say you dropped from the school’s decathlon, why is that?” she interrogated, practically shoving her gray cased phone into his rosy lips. peter’s eyes darted towards his best friend, who sheepishly laughed as he avoided the secret hero’s gaze. 

peter chuckled, shrugging as he gripped his backpack straps, his head moving away from the phone. 

“w-well, y’know, i got a new job helping my aunt may so i kinda couldn’t really do all the things i do.” he answered, cheering himself in his head from his well-composed response.

“what things?” she pushed, raising her left eyebrow. the sudden new question made the “jumpy” teen freeze. by the change in his body language, the blonde smiled. 

as he was about to answer, the halls were filled with a piercing call that caused many students to immediately disperse. betty huffed, putting her phone away as she stared at peter and ned, who had exchanged a small glance before she leaned into ned’s face. the boy jumped, his face somewhat turning red as she eyed them both.

“i’ll figure you two out eventually.” she whispered, before turning on her heel to catch up to her other friends. 

peter let out a small sigh of relief, glad that his cover wasn’t blown. collecting his thoughts, he then turned his attention to his friend as he punched the other boy’s shoulder gently. he was still getting used to his powers after having to fight off about one petty thief last night. ned winced, rubbing his right shoulder looking at his friend.

“sources? sources, ned!” peter whisper yelled, looking around the hall to make sure they were in the clear. ned sputtered, shrugging as he gripped his soft green backpack straps. this seemed to be a habit the boys shared when they were caught. it was an easy tell for them both considering one was literally spider-man.

“i was just talking about star wars! then she was asking me on you and it slipped, promise. i would never betray my-” he looked around carefully, “superhero best friend.” ned whispered happily, nudging him. peter rolled his dark brown orbs, smirking as he nudged his friend back.

“come on, we’re gonna be late for physics.” he reminded the other, both making their way to their first class of the school year. as they made their way down the hallway, peter’s hair then stood on end on his neck. his spidey sense began to tingle, alerting him to a new ‘danger” or “disturbance” in the force. looking behind him, peter saw a student he’s never seen before. as he eyed him, peter’s senses began to almost deafen him. shaking himself out of his own head, peter made his way to class with ned with one thought in his head…

was he really gonna have to fight on his first day of school?

⋆｡°✩

as the two walked into the lab classroom, the two took a deep breath and smiled at one another. the smell of chemicals, the sights of beakers and more practically excited the two. the two saw empty tables in the back, both making a beeline towards the back.

ned made his way inside, sitting on the left side. as peter was about to slip off his backpack, his good ‘ol buddy flash thompson immediately sat himself down onto the stool, setting his checker backpack onto the floor at his feet. peter stood there dazed, looking at his friend as thompson looked up at him. he stared at him, coughing into his fist as he chuckled.

“uh, parker? i know i’m great but you can’t copy me the first day of school.” he said, chuckling at flash’s own friend who was behind ned’s seat. flash exchanged a look with ned, who was left a bit in shock but not really surprised. behind ned, a small cough was let out. turning back, he made eye contact with a burly teen, who nodded his head to the left. ned nodded, slowly removing himself from the stool. ned and peter stood a bit annoyed, yet again, not really shocked that he would pull this on the first day of school. 

the bell rang again, signaling that class was in session. the class teacher, mr. roger harrington looked at the two and only standing boys.

“uh, boys? if you wouldn’t mind taking a seat?” he hinted, both aiming at the empty seats in class. the two nodded, both now somewhat embarrassed that their first day is now off to a great start. in the middle of the class, there was an empty seat one closer to the board, next to one student and in the back, there was an empty table. peter slowly made his way to the back table, not looking back. sitting down, he had seen that ned has made his way to the other table, accidentally separating the two. mr. harrington clapped his hands, smiling at all his students as he was ready to begin his lesson.

ned’s hand shot up, hoping to ask to sit next to his partner in crime, yet mr. harrington eyed him as he let out a soft sigh.

“now ned, you know once i start my lesson, i can’t stop for anything other than necessary questions and bathroom breaks.” he reminded him, causing ned to drop his hand. the tan boy looked behind his shoulder at the other, mouthing a small “sorry” as he smiled at him. peter shook his head, chuckling as he sat in the back and took out his notebook. looking down into his bag, his hair began to stand on end again. peter’s spidey senses shot into overdrive, making him shoot his head up. the oak door creaked opened and soon walked in the school principal. trailing behind was the same boy from earlier, with a black book bag on one shoulder. 

“oh! principal morita! what a pleasure it is to see you! happy first day of school!” mr. roger’s chirped. the principal smiled, waving “hi” to the students as he had one hand placed on his hip. stepping towards mr. harrington, morita had whispered softly about a new “transfer student.” 

the boy stood nearby the door, eyeing the two adults. while he was eyeing them, peter had his eyes on him. 

the other teenage boy seemed more calm than nervous. most kids would be at least somewhat jittery or shy, but not him. he didn’t budge at all. peter took in everything.

he noticed the boy’s skin color, the way his eye color had somewhat lightened due to the sunlight and fluorescent lights of the room. he also made a mental note on the boy’s hair color and his height. 

as he continued to stare and zone out, he was snapped out of it when he heard…

“why don’t you sit next to peter. peter, raise your hand please.” mr. harrington announced, causing the teenage hero to shake his head. peter turned red, seeing everyone’s eyes on him as he slowly raised his hand. the teacher extended his arm in parker’s direction, smiling at the new student as he trudged down the aisle. 

removing his book bag, he sat down on the stool. peter was practically laser focused on him, his hair still on end. his gut was telling him something was wrong.

sitting up right after retrieving his pencil pouch and notebook, the boy turned to the other and smiled softly. extending one hand to him, he spoke gently.

“nice to meet you peter, i’m [y/n].” 

peter didn’t smile, but darted between the hand that was towards him and his eyes. peter’s brain began to run a million scenarios in his hand and only one thought…

i guess he was going to fight on his first day of school.

⋆｡°✩

hope it was a good read! the spider man i went off of was the one you see above so everything written towards him in this piece is basically things i can get off of the actor.

i guess this is like a part by part story? i didn't wanna make it too long for my first one TT

if y'all notice any like weird continuity issues, i deeply apologize because this one takes place during the time of the first movie/vulture era and i barely remember the plot of it so i did my best

[constellationguy]

That Radio Show

Summary: In the absence of the radio demon listeners of hell find a new broadcast to enjoy

I know I haven’t updated in a while but I was really racking my brain for a good chapter four. Please let me know of any errors and if you enjoy it!

Chapter three

Chapter Four: A Princess Meets The King

“Ylsuoires erom esnesnon koot ew fi ffo retteb eb dirow eht t'ndluoW?”

As the song ended the sound of ocean waves was replaced by the sound of piano overlayed by static.

“Good afternoon by dear listeners,” you said with your usual electric static-y voice.

“It 12:00 pm here in Pentagram city, and thus it is peak listening hours for my lovely little station so I must make an announcement. I apologize, but your dear radio host will be taking the day off tomorrow.” You said keeping your voice level, since a confident tone tended to translate on the radio better because of the static.

“I know, I know, little old me doesn’t take days off often, but not to worry! I have the music lined up for tomorrow, all be it with a few adds here and there to replace some regular segments of chatter.”

“I am planning to take only one day of, but should things go ascue I will take an additional day off. So I hope to see you back on Wednesday, Thursday at the latest.”

“Of course I will still be here the rest of today so please call in, listen, and enjoy. And I will be making this announcement a couple more times today and posting on That Radio Show’s hellstagram page about my unfortunate absence. Well listeners, that’s it from me for now, our next song is another lovely request from Ms Velvet, coming up next is “Breezeblocks” by alt-J. Stay tuned!” With that the static ceased and the song started.

———————————————————————

Leaving your house was always a lengthy endeavor, you curse your skittish cautions nature as a doe. You stood beside your door, staring at yourself through the mirror while applying the last for your lipstick.

You wore a flowy white dress that allowed for full range of motion and milky pink dancing shoes, they were comfortable and are easy to run in should shit go down, with a bag in the same pink color.

Mentally you went through a check list.

Bag? Check.

Make up? Check.

Mirror? Check.

Wallet? Check.

Money? Check.

Pepper spray? Check.

And last but most important, your cane.

Your cane was the extremely modern microphone and microphone stand you used while broadcasting, it was heavy duty and was a good battering weapon should the need come, and it conducted electricity very well so it amplifies and complements your electric power splendidly.

With one last deep breath and check of your watch you left your home to catch a cab.

———————————————————————

Stepping out of the cab you were at the bottom of the hill, at the top, the Hazbin Hotel. Walking up the hill did little to calm your curiosity and anxieties. Now standing at the door, you brought out your mirror, making sure no makeup had smeared and your white hair was perfectly placed. Your red lipstick was the same as your well manicured nails and complemented your complexion, your teeth that were the same color as your milky pink shoes were sharp and perfectly straight. With one more deep breath to mask your nerves you closed your mirror with enough forced to break it, put it way and gave the front door a hearty nock. After a couple seconds of waiting you started to get fidgety, you brought your microphone closer to you, crossing your arms and looked at your nails, waiting for the door to open.

Hearing the door open made your face open in a sharp sinister smile. Before you could see who was at the door it was shut wish a slam. Needless to say you were surprised a bit offended, your ears twitched in annoyance, this spurred confidence in you. You knocked again.

This time you were tapping your foot and making eye contact with the door. Once the door opened again you stared back at the person opening it from behind the chain lock before they gave it another slam.

The normally even static that surrounded your presence raised and started to pop and tickle on your skin. You knocked agin.

“Dear I have little patience for your antics, and I have dry cleaning to pick up before 4:00 so I’d like this go faster than how it’s currently going,” you huffed, static and electricity threatening to attack the door.

The door opened again, slower, and more cautiously.

“Lovely,” you said with a sigh.

“Now I, would prefer a face to face conversation but if talking through a door is what is needed to talk to someone, so be it.”

Not giving you much room to breathe, the peach eyed person spoke up.

“What do you want,” the snippy person beyond the door barked out.

“Well dear, I have come to speak with Miss. Morningstar. I have come with business and expect to speak to someone about it.” You said gaining control over the static once again, twirling your cane.

“Oh, Vaggie! Is someone at the door?” Though muffled you could pick up someone talking from the other side of the door. This made your sharp smile return.

“No one important,” said the person turning around to meet the other person.

“No one important! Oh dear, does my presence strike a nerve?” You said teasingly but harsh. The person behind the door snapped their head towards you and their eye clearly showed anger.

“Let me see! Let me see!” Said the seemingly same cheery voice from earlier but now closer and more clearly. The door shut momentarily before opening wider with the absence of the chain lock. You made brief eye contact with the blond woman opening the door, then it again suddenly closed. This ticked you off.

“If I have come at an inopportune time, I can come back tomorrow but I wish not to waste any more of my time,” you said with static and electricity again surrounding you threateningly. Just as you were about to turn around and leave the door opened again, slower, timidity. The blond girl in front of you was bracing herself on the door, and the person who opened the door earlier was right behind her.

“Again, I am looking to speak with Miss. Morningstar. I have matters of business I need to speak to her about.” You said trying to keep your tone even and less annoyed.

“Oh! That’s me hi,” the blond woman said giving you a little wave.

“Lovely. I have come to inquire about your hotel here, you see your letter may have been charming but it left lots to the imagination. I wish to know more about you are planning to do with this hotel of yours.” You said finally retrieving a cooler demeanor.

“Oh! That I can do. But please explain to me really quickly, uh what letter,” Miss Morningstar said cautiously.

“Oh dear! Where are my manners, my mother would be rolling in her grave to know I haven’t introduced myself at the start of a conversation. I am the host of That Radio Show, you sent me a letter not to long ago-“

“OH YOUR THE PRINCESS OF RADIO,” the blond said excitedly cutting you off. You cringed a bit at the name.

“I do suppose some people call be that but that’s not my name, in fact I have no relation to hell’s king of radio, the radio demon. Hells I haven’t even been able to catch a broadcast. We shouldn’t even be compared. My name is Y/n, dear princess.”

“No need for all that formal stuff, just call me Charlie,” she said waving you off.

“Sure, now I would like to discuss related to our businesses. You see I would love to support you, hell I’d pay you to keep you as a sponsor, however I need to know more about your business. Tell me how exactly do you plan on redeeming sinners?” You said sharp grin returning to your face.

“We can discuss this inside, this might take a minute,” Charlie said cautiously.

“Very well then,” you said while walking past the girls and taking in the scenery.

The lobby was dark, red, and enveloping, with the exception of the bar, which was an erre green color and decorated intricately in bones.

“Now this is not what I was expecting, though I’m not sure what I expected exactly,” you said with a chuckle.

As you sat on the couch the girls sat across from you.

“So, tell me all about this place,” you said with a newly summoned pen and notepad in your hands.

“The whole goal is to rehabilitate sinners, to mold them into good people to be sent to heaven.” Charlie said with here bright smile.

“I’ve gotten that much, but how do you plan to do it? And what are the things that set that mold? What is a heaven bound sinner supposed to act like?” You hoped asking comprehensive questions would get you to learn about the meat and bones of this place.

“Well, we plan to teach our residents about heavenly values and try and implement it into everyday life. We have various bonding and self improvement activities throughout the day here.” Charlie seemed to light up at your questions and answered in a rushed voice. You jotted down as much as you could as she spoke but you weren’t too worried because your microphone was recording the conversation.

“I see, tell me, what activities do you do here, and how do they play a part in the development of your residents?” You said, duly noting that she didn’t answer your last question and she didn’t expand on “heavenly values”.

“Well…,” Charlie immediately sounded deflated.

“We hope that through our activities and daily effort the residents will start to change their path, and start their way on the path of riotousness,” you noticed she sounded unsure, way less confident than before.

“I am guessing there is not much more to this idea than that is there?” You said tossing your pen and notepad into the air letting them disappear midair.

“Uhm, well. We do already have a resident, a few staff members, and an overlord sponsor,” Charlie said meekly.

“Well I suppose there is not much to be expected when just starting out,” you said with a sigh.

“Well, I’ll just get to it. I wish to sponsor you, I don’t mean to have any steak to the money make here or drive your cause exactly, but I wish to support you. Letting guests stay here for free won’t generate money, and without money you can’t build on this place, you’ll be stuck with the shell that it is,” you said making eye contact with Charlie.

“Well, I’m not sure what you mean by that exactly,” Charlie said confused.

“In exchange for a room here I will pay you rent, utilities, anything you wish to charge for and I will continue to advertise your little hotel in my broadcasts. You see this hotel is closer to my office than my current home and truly, if redemption is possible down here of all places I wish to support that cause. I might just be getting sentimental, but I am sure every demon down here has family up there that they miss, that they hope everyday they won’t forget and if this place gives even a glimpse of hope they can see them again I want to give this place every chance it can get.” You said more serious than you thought.

“Wow really?! That means soooo much to me, thank you.” Charlie said excitedly, practically jumping in her chair.

“Before we have anything set in stone I would like to know of the residents here. Tell me about the staff and patrons of you could,” you said, smile becoming tought on your face.

“Okay! Obviously we have me, the owner. To my left is my girl friend Vaggie, she helps run and execute activities.,” she paused for a moment to scan her surroundings before pointing to the bar.

“Resting on the bar is Husker, our bar tender. We have a maid but she is probably running around catching bugs somewhere, she is short and is quick so look out for her. And last but not least is our sponsor Alastor, he-“ Charlie was cut off by a new voice suddenly speaking from behind you.

“Oh? You’re talking about me Charlie, only good things I hope.” The voice you heard was overlayed with static, just like yours, that didn’t seem good.

“Of course Alastor! We just got to you, I was just explaining the residents of the hotel to our, hopefully, new guest!” You could tell she was a little off put but still cheery. The person speaking behind you soon manifested beside Charlie, looking you straight in the eyes.

“This is Alastor, the radio demon, he is the host of the hotel,” said Charlie, in her usual upbeat way. Hearing that your face dropped and your ears stuck to your skull. All you could do was cover your mouth and mutter under your breath, “oohh, I fucked up.” You tried to gather your composure quickly.

“Huh, well. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you, now I wouldn’t be to sure about be being an official guest as of yet but I appreciate your enthusiasm dear,” you said trying to sound collected and to hide the usual static in your voice with your smile straining significantly.

“Alastor, this is THE princess of radio, she works as the host for That Radio Show! It’s the one playing all the time, it’s running right now. Isn’t that great!” Charlie said, obviously not noticing the tension in the room as it fell silent minus the gentle music coming from the radio on the bar.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! I’ve told you how I don’t exactly favor that name, and- you shouldn’t speak such high praise- my little broadcasts don’t even hold a candle to the radio demon’s, everyone with half a brain knows it,” you said talking a mile a minute.

Alastor looked at you inquisitively, his ever lasting smile darkening as he walked towards you.

“Well, it’s good to know the younger generation is still interested in good old radio. It’s good to finally put a face to the voice of the supposed princes,” Alastor said condescendingly while towering over you.

“You are a doe aren’t you? All the does I’ve seen down here have been so skittish they could barely leave their homes, good to see one is out in the world with such an important job,” he said with a hearty chuckle that you could tell was hiding something.

Alastor’s static was much stronger than yours, you could feel it tickle your skin from feet away, but him being this close to you was terrifying and you the static scratching and popping on your skin made it feel to real to move.

“I’ve never met another doe, let alone another deer, so I couldn’t confirm your sentiment,” you said trying to build your guard back up, your ears flinging to their normal position on your head.

“Well, you’re a curious thing, aren’t you? You will tell me your name won’t you? I’m starting to believe you’ll run away should I take my eyes off you! HA HA,” Alastor laughed in a way that made his words less serious but no where near a joke.

“It’s Y/n, I’m terribly grateful to finally meet my predecessor, I’m sure all of hell will be happy (or terrified) to hear of your return,” you said with a smile you tried to keep as relaxed as possible while holding out your hand for Alastor to shake.

Alastor stopped his theatrics for a moment staring down at you, you could tell the cogs in his head were turning and his response was on the tip of his tongue by the way the static surrounding him started to soften momentarily before it returned to normal and he took your hand.

“Alastor, quite a pleasure to meet you, quite a pleasure. It’s good to finally have some hearty competition again, I’ll be sure to catch one of your broadcasts when your are actually on the clock,” he said staring at you creepily, he held the handshake for what seemed to be forever.

“The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure of it, and there’s so need to do such a thing, I bet my little show wouldn’t be of interest to you,” you said earnestly as Alastor gave one last tight squeeze of your hand before letting go.

“Oh how humble of you dear, radio must have changed during my seven year sabbatical, you’d be the best place to start to learn about modern radio broadcasting and I’m sure there is much to know,” Alastor said with his condescending and sarcastic voice, the static was starting to get overwhelming and just as you were feeling to urge to run away Charlie spoke up again.

“Now that you’ve met everyone Y/n, what do you think? What are your thoughts about becoming a resident?” Charlie’s voice helped break the tension a bit but returning to the conversation before hand had felt like she took the air from your lungs.

“Well, this place is lovely and I am sure I want to support this place. I can give you a call tomorrow to set an amount I will pay you to keep your sponsor. And as for becoming a resident, I’m not so sure about that. I have no desire to step on anyone’s toes here and I will be working for most of the day, everyday, so I wouldn’t be able to be as close to everyone in the hotel as you aim to be so I’m truly not sure,” you said cautiously while standing up timidly and grabbing you microphone tightly.

“Oh well, no worries then. Let me just give you my business card so you can give me a call later, I’ll be right back with that,” Charlie said brightly as she walked out of your sight and Vaggie was soon to follow.

“Well dear, I’m sure Charlie will be absolutely thrilled of you joined and I’d personally be interested in knowing more about my little junior,” Alastor said with another chuckle, you couldn’t exactly place his tone though.

Soon enough not quickly enough, Charlie ran back to you and gave you her business card.

“Thank you for stopping by Y/n, I hope to hear from you soon,” she said brightly as she gave you a light hug and sent you on your way. As you left and went to pick up your previously mentioned dry cleaning all you could think was…

How the hell did life come to this.

[mars-da-volcanic-elemental]

In regards to these Ko-fi uploads…I need to be real for a moment. I don’t have a therapist right now so I’m venting it here so I can just get it out.

…*sighs* I’m not exactly good at moving. I hate change to the point where it worsens my fatigue into immobility or extremely limited mobility. Even if said change is good for me. I don’t exactly have a space where I can just hide and nest for awhile.

I’ve been suggested to go to a crisis center in case things worsen. It’s free walk in but-

It’s…not the cost. I’m moving on the 15th. A lot of my trauma stems from psych wards, hospitals, and crisis centers. I’m…not exactly the most willing because of that. But I appreciate the sentiment this person was looking out for my sake.

My housemate (who owns the place I’m currently residing) didn’t see me here in June. Which meant I needed to find a place to go. It’s fine. I knew this wasn’t home. But I was subconsciously hoping it would be one day. Despite my housemate making it clear a couple times that he didn’t see me here in June. When he said that, I realized this wasn’t home. I feel so displaced that…anywhere I go, I have that hope. So it hurts to be disappointed in that hope.

However, I did. But…it meant leaving where I am and back to the county where my abuser and ex-friend who SA’d me is. Not the same city. But still, my partner is in the vicinity I’m moving to. I trust them, and I know that if I’m not staying indefinitely at the place I’m couch surfing to, I’m not getting kicked to the curb.

She said she’ll ensure I have another location to stay safely that I won’t be on the streets again. Which I am grateful for.

I’m exhausted, I haven’t packed much but-…I might start tossing shit in the garbage at this point. …. There’s a lot of things I’d rather give away to better homes but I’m not certain anyone’s going to take them despite my situation. Plus these are things from people that no longer…are in my life. For various reasons.

I’d love to give them new homes…a lot of em are useful and cute mini plushies…because I don’t got a lot of space.

All this to say…if none of these get taken.. then they’ll be tossed. I hate to do that, but it is what it is.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

let me suffer for your entertainment.

... not in a sex way.

hello. did you enjoy my youtube livestreams back in the day? have you been having fun watching my slow descent into madness as I watch all of Gotham? boy, do I have an offer for you.

let me make this brief: I am in a bit of an alarming spot financially and could use a bit of extra revenue. I am also the unhappy owner of Gotham's two official tie-in novels and a webcam. do you see where I'm going with this?

for every dollar sent my way I will read one page of Jason Starr's Gotham prequel Dawn of Darkness for the very first time, live, with my own color commentary and frankly excessive opinions on this very stupid television show. there'll be a live chat, we'll have fun.

on the extremely off chance you little freaks send an excess of 320 dollars, thus surpassing the page count of Dawn of Darkness, I guess we'll simply proceed on to the midquel, City of Monsters, that bridges seasons two and three. somehow it is also exactly 320 pages, which feels weird but who am I to question a guy named Jason Starr.

(sorry for the quality on these pictures, a need to replace my phone is but one of my current financial woes.)

tl;dr: $1 = 1 page of a novel that will probably make my brain melt out my nose, read live for your enjoyment and then left on the internet forever for posterity (and anyone who can't make it live). first stream will probably be Friday, March 24 at ???? o'clock in the evening, eastern standard time.

donate to this truly malicious cause at my ko-fi or venmo me @ makz_marie, and thank you all in advance for whatever wicked generosity you find in your hearts.

[loving-jack-kelly]

Yo!! Hello!!! I am like 90% sure I've seen you post about dimension 20 before!!

I just got a dropout subscription and I'm thriving but I am looking for advice for where to start/go with the dnd-verse on it? I'm assuming that the separate campaigns are relatively stand-alone but I would love an opinion (or just input on what the actual chronology is lmao)

hehe sleeper phrase discovered i'm honored you came to me :)

so the first thing to know which you probably already do is that there is a main returning cast for some seasons, and then some campaigns are a different group with an occasional different dm. the Intrepid Heroes are Lou Wilson, Zac Oyama, Brian Murphy, Ally Beardsley, Siobhan Thompson, and Emily Axford with Brennan Lee Mulligan dming, so they play as that exact group multiple times. There's usually one or two of them in a non-main-cast campaign, too, including Brennan sometimes as a player when somebody else is dming.

So! In terms of watch order! I recommend starting with Fantasy High because it's the original campaign and also fantastic. There are currently two seasons, Fantasy High and Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, and they are both masterpieces. We're also getting Junior Year this winter which is extremely exciting for me personally because I Love Fantasy High lol. Fantasy High is a great starting point especially if you're new to dnd/dnd actual play shows (which you may not be so feel free to disregard this bit of advice lol) because multiple players are learning how to play in the first season, so there's plenty of opportunity to learn with them. It's also generally pretty light-hearted and funny, though it doesn't sacrifice story for comedy which I love. If you don't know, the concept of Fantasy High is that these young teenagers live in a world where everywhere else is a stereotypical fantasy world but their country is like. Classic high school Americana. It's silly, the characters are great, the storylines are great and only get better in Sophomore Year, it's an all around great time and great intro to D20!

I went right from Fantasy High to Unsleeping City, which is also fantastic (you'll notice a recurring theme here, I love every campaign I've watched so far lol). If you like the lighter parts of Fantasy High but want a little bit more tension, Unsleeping City is perfect. It's set in modern-day New York with a twist: there's a magical underside to the city. Lots of fantastic commentary on modern life in the storytelling that slaps, I won't spoil but it slaps, and also really wonderful characters! Unsleeping City also has two seasons, so you get to see the characters grow and change a lot over two full plotlines which is very fun!

If you like the more serious side of things, my personal favorite D20 campaign is A Crown of Candy. I watched this third and it made me cry hard enough at work that my boss asked if I was okay lol. The set-up is simple: fantasy world made of food, but make it Game of Thrones. It's intense, the stakes are high from episode one, it's incredibly character driven and everybody plays really, really interesting characters, and because of how high-stakes it is, every payoff is just insane. We all talk about Ally's poetic nat 20s and believe me, they exist, but Mr. Lou Wilson (love of my life) has a nat 20 near the end of A Crown of Candy that genuinely made me feel so crazy when it happened that I had to take a walk lol. Cannot recommend it enough, it's devastating and perfect.

A Starstruck Odyssey is really good again if you like the lighter end of thing but still want stakes and tension! The world is based of comics that Brenna's mom wrote which is really sweet, and it's a very different vibe because is sci-fi instead of pure fantasy, which is honestly really fun. Some of the characters are up there on my favorites list, shoutout to Skipper and Sundry Sydney!

In terms of the campaigns that aren't Intrepid Heroes, the first one I listened to was Misfits and Magic, which is a Harry Potter spoof dmed by Abria Ayangar, who's fantastic, and featuring Brennan as an utterly unhinged in the best way player. There's also Mice and Murder, which is a super great mystery with anthropomorphic animals that was shot on zoom over the first lockdown (a few seasons were so don't be shocked by that lol). I'm a bit more than halfway through A Court of Fey and Flowers which has been great so far, and I'm super looking forward to getting to The Ravening War, which is a prequel to A Crown of Candy, and Mentoplis, as well as the current season, Burrow's End. I have to watch Neverafter first though, which is the most recent Intrepid Heroes campaign.

Anyway! To summarize!

My advice is to start with Fantasy High and Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, and then pick which elements you liked best to decide what you want next! All of the campaigns that aren't explicitly linked are completely standalone, like I'm not missing anything important from the one's I've watched by not having watched some of the others, so don't worry too much about chronology or anything like that! The only ones that need to be watched in a specific order are the two with two seasons already, which are Fantasy High and Unsleeping City, but those are labelled quite clearly with season titles! Also if it's easier to keep track of, Dropout has the campaigns sorted into their own shows on the site so you don't have to choose seasons of D20, you can just choose A Crown of Candy.

PLEASE update me as you watch! I love love love talking D20 lol it's one of my favorite shows like ever!!

[four-bandaids]

i was tagged by my movie bestie @garethsedwards and i'm REALLY excited to Write About Movies! film hoe mode activated.

rules: post 10 of your favorite comfort movies then tag 10 people.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994): not my absolute favorite wong kar-wai, but definitely the one that feels most like home. i'm a city girl through and through, and deeply relate to the narrative's mournfulness over identity - its yearning to (re)gain a sense of personhood amid frayed connections and persistent loneliness. the feelings just fucking hit.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2001-2003): easiest answer for me to give, because these films made me a film hoe. it doesn't matter how many times i've watched the behind-the-scenes appendices for each movie - how much i've dispelled the ~fantasy for myself by reading up every factoid about production possible. for years, i return to middle-earth gladly.

SAW (2004): uh, this one is a comfort movie because i revisit it every single time i want to shut my brain off. the ending always gets me, man.

ZODIAC (2007): when i was a kid, i primarily watched crime dramas. but if i had to pick ONE to watch for the rest of my life, it would be this. like most of david fincher's movies, it's cut-and-dry until it's not - anticipatory without being unfulfillingly predictable. a simple kind of compelling. side note: it's also a film i show to my loved ones a ton.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012): maybe it's andrew garfield's aura, james horner's devastatingly emotive score, or peter parker's sheer earnestness. or maybe it's because marc webb directed all the my chemical romance music videos that raised me into the emo i am today. but i fucking love this movie and how it simply represents a very specific, nostalgic time in my life.

INTERSTELLAR (2014): sci-fi, my beloved! nolan, my other beloved! this is one of his most tender works - an emotional rollercoaster that starts and ends on the undeniable force that truly runs our universe - love. i'm left a puddle of jelly after every rewatch, and am thankful for it.

MISS STEVENS (2016): this is the timmy chalamet movie for me, although he's not the reason it's particularly comforting. rather, it talks about how being an adult after a certain age is daunting. whatever road maps that are left over from our more youthful years now seem smudged and the future is forever unclear. this film is about kindly and empathetically navigating that - the journey, not the destination - and i that, to me, is the very definition of being comforted.

FACES PLACES / VISAGES, VILLAGES (2017): part of agnes varda's sheer genius was always her ability to encapsulate snapshots of time while simultaneously creating timelessness in her films. she was always so viscerally present on the pulse point of whatever topic she wanted to unpack, and you feel held in each of her frames. faces places was the first of her movies for me, so it holds a special place in my heart.

UNICORN STORE (2017): every day i thank brie larson for making a film so unabashedly warm, sparkly, and vibrant. it's so healing for the inner child in me who felt forced to grow up too soon.

MIDSOMMAR (2019): this film is all about trauma and mental illness, which is extremely unnerving and confronting to watch. despite that, i experience such unadulterated catharsis whenever i put midsommar on. feeling seen and getting to unpack these issues safely within the confines of horror - that's everything to me.

tagging @satellitemp4 @zoewashburne @betharmon @riley-keoughs @whatelsecanwedonow @lovestream @buffystark @ellargent @dolanx @alechardison @captainbobbiedraper

[oneiriad]

Tagged by @honourablejester

Tag someone you want to get to know better! Or just check in with.

Favourite colour: A nice dark green. Or black as my cat :-)

Last song: "Roll to me" by Del Amitri. Which I am absolutely certain there was a fanvid of, but I can't remember the fandom and the Leverage one I can find does not feel right. *grumbles*

Last movie: I watched "The Blob" last weekend. Genuine 50s sci-fi horror. The effects were surprisingly decent, considering (fake, absolutely, but not breaking the suspension of disbelief), but the acting - honestly? I now want teenage Lille Per vs cosmic horrors, because that's the vibe I got. So 50s.

Currently watching: "The Legend of Vox Machina". It's okay. I'm never going to be in that fandom, but watching an episode every 2-3 days have been entertaining - once I got past the first two. If I hadn't been spoiled/osmosis'ed ahead of time, I would have gone no further, but once the plot starts happening it balances the alleged humour better - but honestly, as awful openings goes, it's right up there with "De udvalgte".

Other stuff I watched this year: Bit of this, bit of that. Good Omens, of course. A Korean Odyssey, where I enjoyed the side characters far more than the main couple. The Woman King, which felt incredibly US military movie, which I suppose is faif, as that's what it is. Wakanda Forever because Namor. Other things.

Shows I dropped this year: Not a show as such, but - I've finally dropped the MCU. As in I've stopped watching every movie in cinemas (honestly, I've mostly quit cinemas these days). I'll watch an individual movie if it interests me (*points to favourite angry merman*), but I doubt very many of them will.

Last book: "City of Bones" by Martha Wells. Which has a lot of the stuff you also see in her newest work - especially the non-human protagonist that does not fit in among his own kind. The novel itself is okay - post-apocalyptic high fantasy.

Currently reading: Since the publication of the last volume is finally within sight, I've started reading "Heaven Official's Blessing". So far so good, though the main character feels a bit bland. Also reading R.F. Kuang's "The Poppy War" and finding the parallels to Chinese history at once extremely heavy-handed and at the same time curiously - revisionist? Oh, it totally wasn't the fantasy!English they fought Opium Wars with, it was the fantasy!Japanese. But I'm only about 100 pages in. We'll see.

Tagging @calvinahobbes, @robininthelabyrinth, @kattahj and @daughterofscotland and anybody else who'd like to play

[lesbianoctoling]

🖊 🖊 thatcher and angel?

Meme

Thatcher -

The daughter of Toni Kensa and an Octoling. It's hard to tell that he's part inkling at first glance, but his ears give him away. He grew up not knowing who his father was and was raised as a soldier, but after discovering the secret through a magazine (without much proof, though) he came to the surface to become a nuisance and try to take over his father's company.

Thatcher is such a fun character for his premise alone. I want to write a short story about him one day. He actually hardly has any solid evidence of his heritage when he first comes to the surface other than 'we look alike and you vaguely mentioned your previous love life in a magazine interview once', but his father's reaction to him when they meet is enough. There's big daddy issues here.

He loves the surface though, and company aside Thatcher wants to become a fashion designer or something eventually. He also bothers Ava like, a lot. Ava and Callie were the ones to help him in the first place!

Thatcher's mom also kind of hates Toni Kensa too. I want to write Toni Kensa as an epic divorce man. I should honestly think about it all more one day, but it's really a story for another day.

Angel -

oh my god angel i can go on about her for literal hours and hours and hours . After I got a bit stuck writing WPW i kind of ended up focusing on her and her story. My poor little meow meow. My absolute garbage of a woman. I have a ton of human art of her too, because her human counterpart is similar but a little more grim and in a sci-fi universe. If I were to ever take my ocs out of Splatoon she's where I'd start with a unique universe, but I'm happy with her having two versions.

Trying to figure out what to say about her without spoiling story stuff I also want to share on day is a little hard - though a lot can be pieced together through some art too tbh.

Her morals are awful but she doesn't think so. Angel is an unreliable narrator, and why I want to write about her so bad one day. She's awful, but in a way where I can't really say where she stands on 'worst to least worse' of my villain ocs. She's willing to kill anyone in her way under the guise of making her world (The Deepsea Metro City) better, but she'd never ever hurt a child. She's consumed by this, but she thinks she's in the right. She hates the Telephone so much. So much.

But her plans for revenge take years. She's around 25 when her villain arc starts, and 37 during Octo Expansion (I think 42 at the start of Splatoon3). She's a chemist with the odd job of stealing memories and making mem cakes out of them. I haven't figured out how this makes sense yet, I have to research it, so this could change in the future. But her stealing memories is pretty important - about every test subject in Kamabo has gone through her for it.

Tartar has tried to sanitize her a few times but her body's tetrodotoxin combats it. He gave up and gave her her current job instead. She's experimented on herself with sanitization before, though, over the years - to try and see if it was possible to sanitize an octoling and keep their free will. This resulted in the scarring on half her body and sanitized eye. Sara was eventually the first successful attempt at this. i don't have a smart in universe scientific explanation for all of this but I want to do my research eventually to make sense of it. If ur a scientist and this doesn't make sense I am so sorry.

Post story is weird. She isn't forgiven for most of the damage she's done and I think it's important to point that out. I hesitate to say she gets 'redeemed'. I was actually originally going to kill her off, because I didn't know what to do with a villain like her without somehow saying her actions were ok. I decided not to, though, because not only had I become really attached to her, but it also felt extremely cruel - she's evil, sure, but she's also very very traumatized and a pretty sad woman. She can live, but has to forever live with the guilt of what she's done.

Oh and some of the people she's killed still want revenge on her years later so she has to deal with quite a few metaphorical bounties on her head.

i like to joke about it sometimes though because i am guilty of making her a little silly....

She has two girlfriends by Splat 3 (post story), Idunn who belongs to @herosplatling-replica and Rivera who belongs to @inkbwush . They're all a fucking mess and their family gets big and complicated because polyamory and found family does dat.

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Fenghuang

The past 3ish days have been spent in the city of Fenghuang 凤凰, literally, Phoenix Town, in Hunan province.

This town was established sometime in the 1700s and was generally a sleepy river town until recent years. The famous Chinese author Shen Congwen is from here and he wrote a famous novel called Border Towns set in this town in the 1920s about a Romeo and Juliet -esque romance. Shen Congwen is now considered to be one of the greatest Chinese modern authors, but during his life he was targeted by the Communist government because his novels were too “apolitical”. He was socially ostracized to the point where he attempted suicide. He later was “reeducated” and became a scholar of traditional culture working at a museum, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his novels in 1988 but died before the result was announced.

This town is famous nowadays for its architecture and for being the setting of this novel. It is an extremely popular tourist destination in Hunan province but relatively unknown within the rest of China and abroad. I only found out about it from a TikTok comparing it to the town in the Japanese animated film, Spirited Away, and thought it was pretty.

The old town here remains pretty much exactly as it did during the 1700s, which is pretty rare. It is built pretty much right up against the Tuojiang River with houses partially built on stilts overlooking the river. Its also known for the local indigenous Miao (also known abroad as Hmong) and Tujia culture. Nowadays it is a very touristy town. Each night the entire ancient town is lit with an enormous amount of lights and the river itself becomes the stage for a 3.5 hour continuous reenactment of Shen Congwen’s novel, complete with actors on floating stages reenacting key parts of the novel and light shows depicted on the walls, on the cliffs, and in the sky. The main characters of the novel, Cuicui (a 13 year old girl) and her grandfather run the local ferry in the book, so tourists can pay to ride around on a replica of this ferry to visit the various scenes being reenacted throughout the river. I did that on Thursday night and it was pretty cool even though I didn’t understand what was going on. I later found an English version of the novel online and read it and now it makes more sense.

Its also very popular here to rent traditional Miao/Hmong and Tujia clothing for the day and hire a professional photographer to go around and take photos with you. It is very picturesque here so it makes sense, I was just not prepared for the sheer quantity of people doing this. It was very hard to not end up in people’s photos.

Its also interesting that it is so trendy to dress up and do photoshoots wearing traditional ethnic clothing when only a few decades ago it was considered very shameful to be a part of the Miao/Hmong ethnic group. They were often referred to by offensive names such as ‘rude’ or ‘dirty’ people. Shen Congwen himself was part Miao but hid that fact until near his death. There are hundreds of ethnic groups in China, while the Han group is the largest and most culturally dominant, and even now ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang (western China) are persecuted and forced into ‘reeducation’ camps, but that is kind of a taboo topic in China. Its just interesting that both Shen Congwen and indigenous cultures are so celebrated here when historically they have been treated so poorly, and I wonder how much of it is genuine admiration and how much of it is just for the “fun” of it. I mean it is nice that culture is being celebrated but I wonder how authentic and genuine it all is, It all seems a bit Disney-fied to be honest.

Anyway, this town is beautiful but very hot and extremely touristy. I think I am the only foreigner I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been here, so its always a big production every time I try to buy something or go in a shop. Everyone has been really nice but I just feel bad inconveniencing people with my broken Chinese when everywhere is so crowded and busy.

I went around a few times really early in the morning and again while it was raining out and there was almost no one out so it was really nice to walk around then. Although it is truly beautiful here; most of the time I’ve been here I’ve been in my hotel room because between the tiny streets, the overwhelmingly enormous crowds, and the nearly 100 degree heat and humidity its all been a bit too much for me.

I’m leaving tomorrow and it will be my most complicated transportation feat yet because I have to take public transport to the train station, go to a different city, and from there get to the airport and fly across the country, all before 11am. Wish me luck. I’ll be in Lijiang, in the mountains near the Himalayas in southwest China. I’ll be there for a fairly long stint, nearly 2 weeks, and hopefully it won’t be as hot there.

Until next time,

[bekah-reading]

Okay- so I’m going to make some changes on my planned reading. Kingdom of the Wicked is one I am super enjoying BUT the slow pacing is killing me. I’m not used to slow books right now and I’m reading like 3 chapters a day from it cause it’s all I can do and I’m just not able to focus. So I’mma try something new.

I am reading

Just reading it slowly.

I’m taking off Daisy Jones and The Six even though I was enjoying it I just can’t focus and so I’m setting that one aside for now. It’s going back into my TBR Jar.

I tried to read Crescent City and I can’t, I just can’t. Sarah J Maas’s writing just isn’t for me, it’s terrible and I don’t like her writing or her stories. So I’m unhauling both Crescent City books. I tried I really did.

The books I’m still planning on picking up are

I really would like to re-read the Uglies series this year. And I want to read Hooked again.

I am definitely set on adding this to my reading

I know I was on the fence but it’s short and I bet it’s quicker paced and I need that.

I would like to read Les Miserables but I have to say I’m intimidated by it. But I did recently get gifted the first book in a trilogy that is a sci-fi retelling of Les Miserables. And I really want to get to it.

I also still have a ton of extreme horror and splatterpunk books, and those always tend to be on the faster paced side so I might supplement my reading with those.

I still am on that book buying ban- and so far I’ve been great. The only thing I’ve bought was Love, Theoretically and that was already planned.

[runekeepershymnal]

I don’t get nostalgic for a lot, but dang… 90s and early 00s animation programs. Like, not even necessarily a specific show, but there used to be these animation anthology shows at that time, which then became programming blocks.

There was a good chunk of time when a lot of us had no clue that the Japanese animation we were watching was from Japan. Like Voltron? Cartoons were cartoons were cartoons when you were in the single digits in the 80s and you had to physically change the channel yourself.

But there were two timeslots that were very dear to me: On Saturday mornings, the Sci Fi channel (long before it becamse Syfy) would air some anime movie or show (when I say show, I mean they’d pop the first VHS in a series in and air that, because that was all they had. I still don’t know what happens after the first bit of Record of Lodoss War).

But today, let’s start with the anime.

Among the things I first saw on the Sci Fi channel:

Akira. Yep. I mean, airing Akira at like 9 am on a Saturday was certainly a move, but I guess no one ever called them on it because it aired a bunch of times. Saturday morning body horror, baby.

Demon City Shinjuku. Again, another bold choice for 9 am on a Saturday, especially since this one always had the vibe that it could turn into hentai at any moment (this is one of those vibes that I only learned to identify later in life, in a “oh that’s why I felt vaguely suspicious” way.

Vampire Hunter D. I have to believe that this planted the seed for many dorks my age to become goths.

Lily C.A.T. (or was it L.I.L.Y. Cat?) Pretty straightforward Alien ripoff.

Tenchi Muyo In Love. Kinda hard to follow without context? Who are these people? What the fuck is Jurai? Why are all these women after that one specific dick? Thank you to all the Geocities and Angelfire pages who explained it to me.

Project A-ko. So… there are two women, one a freewheeling redhead and one an uptight bluehair, and for some reason they’re fighting over who gets to protect this extremely annoying blonde child.

I think Galaxy Express 999 might’ve been on there at some point?

Something involving police with tanks.

8-Man After, which was cool as fuck and I need to rewatch it.

Robot Carnival, one of the best fucking anthologies of all time, even though I distinctly remember some of it being problematic as fuck.

There was also zero information about what they would be playing. None. Like if you went to the channel that told you what was going to be on that day, and sat your happy ass down and waited for it to scroll around to the Sci Fi channel (a think you had to do because there was no manual scrolling), or looked it up in the actual physical little magazine that was the TV Guide, it would just say Saturday Anime with a two hour block. The selections were so unpredictable that it had the vibe of a substitute teacher just picking a tape at random. Sometimes it’d be the same movie or show multiple weeks in a row. There was a significant degree of only marginal fucks being given at best.

I so badly want to know how this block came about, because this was usually like, infomercial time. In fact, I think there might’ve been an hour long block of infomercials before and after. Like… who made this decision, that they would compete with actual Saturday Morning Cartoons kids blocks on network with whatever anime VHS they had kicking around at the time? Was this someone’s personal collection? Was this just what they happened to be able to get rights to? What the fuck happened to the rest of Record of Lodoss War?! Was volume two just always out of stock at Tower Records and FYE?

Eventually, Cartoon Network came along, with the Toonami block at first and then some things aired on Adult Swim, but I imagine that for a lot of people my age (so your parents… jesus, maybe some of your grandparents?) this was our first introduction to adult animation.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[sarasa-cat]

Ugh. Still feeling a bit sick -- today is another sick day for me -- but not even close to as bad as I was yesterday and last night. ugh. (I expect to be/assume I will be normal by tomorrow especially since today is a huge improvement).

🌃 

THINKING ABOUT 💕 💜  💕 NIGHT CITY 💕 💜  💕 

Nothing super intelligent to say here. More of how I find being V inside that world of extreme corporate hell and classist hell weirdly comforting. I mean, yeah, sure, there are many ways in which one can critique certain tropes in cyberpunk fiction in general and yes, all of that is true when putting on my aca style hat (lol-- which brings back hilarious memories of an english lit class I took as an undergrad on Sci Fi and all of the english major got on their epic high horses when shooting down cyberpunk fiction and I was all: you people are pampered coddled fools or wannabe bougies, but I digress, lolololol).

I just want COMFORT FOOD omfg cyberpunk as a genre, and especially Cyberpunk in video games and VERY MUCH CP2077 just delivers the perfect blend of street food and endless coffee stands ready to hand me a steaming hot paper cup o’joe. 

Cringe tropes aside, there is something about how the cyberpunk genre is very direct in being fully neon-lit “the city that never sleeps” urbancore (that’s 10000% who I am) and unapologetically dystopian that just makes me feel at home, thus comforted and acknowledged.

Also, fwiw, as much as I am epic 😍 heart eyes 🥰 over all of the gorgeous fashion shoots that cp2077 photomode modders share (all those images make my day every damn day since the fandom became a thing on tumblr, which was well before I even started playing bc I didn’t have anything powerful enough to run the game) -- as much as all of that is true -- I actually LOVE my unmodded PlayStation5 V and her epic randomness of street “fashion” -- just wearing whatever she has that fits her needs in the moment, especially early in the game when she had access to so little. I cannot even begin to explain the level of comfort food I find in that kind of randomness of what you see people wearing in dense urban areas. 

Ahhhhhhh.... Having so many feels. 

Okay guys. I really need to do fandom things again for my own mental health. 

The long winter/darkness season has begun. Time to get back to two of my fave fictional cities:  Nightcity from CP2077 and Midgar from FFVII. ;)

[bartholomaus]

Doriți mere din livezile CeAPeului nostru? Curate, frumoase!

Majoritatea substanțelor ce apar în poze erau extrem de toxice și au fost interzise de cca 20 ani în UE și SUA și în alte țări. Unele au fost interzise în România doar după intrarea României în UE. Ca rezultat, numărul animalelor sălbatice din Ro a crescut semnificativ. Păsări, reptile, mamifere mici și medii. În comunism nu vedeai o rață sau o lebădă pe lacurile din orașe. Și abia vedeai - dacă aveai noroc - câte una prin lacurile din câmpuri. La fel, nr de păsări răpitoare, de zi și noapte a crescut. Deoarece rozătoarele sau hoiturile cu care se hrănesc nu mai sunt infestate cu chimicale din agricultură. Poluarea chimică a apelor și pământului e azi mult mai mică decât în comunism. Deși a crescut poluarea cu deșeuri mari, în special plastic. Dar mult mai puțin toxică decât poluarea cu chimicale. Nu mai zic de calitatea alimentelor. Oricât urlă unii că „E”-uri, mâncarea de azi e de 1000 de ori mai puțin toxică decât cea din comunism. În comunism nu scria nimic pe etichete despre originea sau conținutul produsului. Dupa anii '90 etichetele sunau asa, o eticheta celebra la sucul Frucada: “Produs natural, colorat artificial si aromatizat sintetic”. Cam asa cu produsele curate... -- Am lucrat in agricultura socialista si pot confirma ca tot ce ati mentionat este adevarat. Din cauza asta exportam majoritatea produselor alimentare in URSS, cumparau ieftin dar nu controlau. Iar in prezent alimentele ar fi si mai putin toxice daca fermierii nu ar cere derogari de la prevederile europene care cer limitarea folosirii pesticidelor si mai putine controale de la APIA...daca veti citi cu atentie revendicarilor lor veti afla.... fermierii ăia de fac scandal acum , țipă și fiindcă vor derogări să folosească mai multe chimicale în agricultură, printre alte revendicari vor si derogari de la prevederile privind mediul: rotatia culturilor, lasarea unei suprafete ( 5%) in parloaga si limitarea folosirii pesticidelor... -- Cu aceasta ocazie au reaparut si pestii in Marea Neagra (apele Romaniei) si pescuitul a reinviat - ca nu cred ca vedeam pescarii aducand la mal calcani in 1989 si vanzandu-i la restaurantele dintre Eforii - lucru ce se intampla in fiecare seara de vara intre cele 2 statiuni. In 1998, in practica geografica de primavara, ma plimbam pe plaja din Sulina minunandu-ma de culoriile vii si ireale ale scoicilor (mov, portocaliu, verde). Profesorii ne-au explicat atunci ca scoicile sunt asa colorate de la poluarea apei marine, respectiv cantitatile mari de metale si substante chimice deversate, timp de ani, de industria romaneasca in mare. -- într-un an, erau foarte multe mere la "Aprozar". Multe și frumoase. Și zvonul era că au fost "refuzate la export", ceea ce era indicatorul de calitate (aproape) maximă în comunism. Entuziasmul a scăzut un pic când zvonul a devenit mai detaliat: refuzate pentru că aveau prea mult plumb. Normal, erau de pe lângă Baia Mare... --

un fenomen, și anume la varii insecticide și pesticide dăunătorii capătă rezistență, și te forțează să folosești cantități tot mai mari. Cel mai ușor de observat e la gândacii de colorado, în doar 2-3 generații deja vezi adaptarea nouă. Zeama bordeleză e renumită că ciupercile nu capătă rezistență, si oamenii folosesc soluția de 4% din negura timpului 🙂 doar că e scumpă, și e ușor spălată de ploaie. Acum că sunt mai multe alternative, ocazional schimbi insecticidul, și iarăși îi nenorocești. Plus că acum avem insecticide care-s mai specializate pe anumiți dăunători - pentru omizi la varză, pentru gândaci cu nasul lung care mâncă mugurii la măr, colorado, etc. Nu știu ce legătură are supraproducția, că dacă dai mai multe pesticide nu obții recoltă mai mare. Se mai întâmplă ca oamenii să nu înțeleagă dozajele, și să facă tratamente după ureche - în Moldova de exemplu, eu nu am văzut veci ca un agricultor să ducă mostră de pământ la laborator, și bagă "selitră" cum îi taie capul. Cu insecticidele de regulă respectă dozajele că sunt scumpe. -- ERAU LEGUME SI FRUCTE LA APROZAR? Erau ceva, dar chestii infecte, veștede, cartofi mici plini de pământ. Marfă fff proastă. Orășenii se aprovizionau majoritatea de la țărani, de la piețe. dar și acolo era marfă puțină, și deseori erau cozi enorme la ceapă, ardei, cartofi mai frumoși. -- Chimicalele aprobate în UE sunt de mii de ori mai ok decat otrăvurile de dinainte de anii 2000. Hai 1990... Dovada cea mai bună e că a reapărut după 2007 o faună bogată pe câmpurile din România, de la șerpi și arici, la șoimi și vulturi

[lordofwaffless]

15. Fiona

“C’mon, Stu, hurry your tiny little goat legs up!” Fiona called. They were walking down

the sidewalk downtown, passing small clothing boutiques and bookstores. The town of Basilton

was known for being full of folks with a literary bent; the library where Ezra worked was even

larger than the main library in Everin City, where Stu was from. (Ezra worked in the magic

history section; Marlowe had often commented that she thought she only worked there because

she was such an important part of magical history. Ezra had always shrugged her older sister off

and declined to respond.)

“Fiona, I’m walking as quickly as I can!” Stu actually was walking extremely quickly

(certainly faster than Wesley), but Fiona had all the advantages of being an air witch: all she had

to do to go quickly was step lightly and let the wind carry her along.

“Goddess fuck, can both of you slow down, please?”

Fiona chuckled. “There is no Goddess Fuck in our religion, Wesley, Our Lady’s name is

Endalyn!”

“My aunt’s name is Endalyn,” Stu chimed in. Fiona had slowed down somewhat at

Wesley’s request, and Stu had finally caught up to her. “They’re named after the Goddess, but I

don’t know why.”

Fiona stopped walking altogether. “Why do you refer to your nonbinary guardian as your

aunt? Do they prefer that, or-?”

“Mmm-hmm. I don’t know why that is, either,” Stu replied. “Just is.”

Wesley finally caught up to him. He doubled over, completely out of breath. “I- ha-

hate-,” he panted, before taking a deeper, shuddering breath. “I hate you both.”

Fiona kicked him lightly in the shin. “Noted. You’re such a little bitch, you know that?”

He lifted a hand off of his knee, gesturing, as he declared, “I am not a little bitch, you’re

just mean. And you use the wind to walk, which is bloody cheating, anyway, so-”

“Biiiiiiiitch. Bitch. Whiny little bitch baby.”

Stu tried to intervene. “Fiona-”

“Shut up, Stu. Wesley, you are a whiny little bitch baby.”

He straightened, having finally caught his breath. “If you weren’t so pretty I’d punch you

in the nose,” he said.

Stu decided he really ought to interrupt. “If you two are done abusing each other, can we

go?” He glanced between the two of them, bemused and concerned; both feelings which grew

when the two of them burst out laughing.

“It’s fine, Stu, neither of us means it,” Wesley explained. “If either of us were actually in

the mood to punch the other, we definitely wouldn’t be saying so; and she definitely would not

be calling me a bitch.”

Fiona was laughing too, a softer sound than the cackle Stu had grown to expect. “Mum

always gets so freaked out when we have an argument, she’s like, ‘You guys get so scarily polite

and I’m like what the hell happened? I haven’t had to tell them not to curse indoors in over an

hour!’ and it really freaks out Da, he refuses to leave the greenhouse when we’re in the middle of

an argument, he says he can’t get over the ‘please pass the butter knife, Wesley,’ and the ‘I hope

you have a lovely day, Fiona,’ he says it’s too ominous to bear,” she chuckled. She seemed

lighter, and softer, almost, outside of St. Baz’s; more like an ordinary mortal and less like a

terrifying whirlwind of destructive power.

“You live with both of your parents?” Stu asked, his eyes widening. “And they like each

other?”

“Yep. Well, generally. Mum and Da both live at home, though Da got a job offer back in

Verity and refused to go, which caused quite the row. Said the money wasn’t worth leaving us,

though Mother knows we could’ve used it.”

Wesley shook his head. “Honestly, Fi, Mother’s worse than Goddess fuck. You’d get

beaten in the temple for that one.”

“I think you should both stop cursing,” Stu whispered. Neither of the pair noticed.

“Who cares? Maybe I wasn’t cursing. Maybe I was simply pointing out that the Mother

Goddess is well aware my parents have more kids than means to provide.”

Wesley scoffed. “The fact that you used the Goddess as your excuse instead of trying to

claim you were talking about your mum says enough.”

“Oh, come off it, Wesley. You have no right to be on a high fucking horse and you know

it,” she responded. She started walking again. “C’mon, guys! Don’t be whiny little bitch babies,”

she called, already ten feet ahead. The two boys groaned, but more or less managed to keep up.

After another twenty minutes of walking, they were out on a path just entering the woods

by the fields that surrounded Basilton. Stu had never been around the farms in this direction; the

Veritable Forest was situated at the halfway point between Basilton and Verity, and it lay in the

opposite direction of the farms.

“So, your family lives on a farm?” Stu asked Fiona. He was skipping along in the chilly

country air. Although it was bright and sunny, it was still quite cold, and he found that skipping

warmed him up better than regular walking.

“Not really. It’s more of a fairytale cottage kind of place. There’s a garden, a babbling

Brooke-”

“Oh, you’ll love Brooke, Stewart. She’s the least ill-tempered water nymph I’ve ever

met,” Wesley chuckled.

“-And of course, the house itself. It’s kind of large by normal standards, four big

bedrooms with walk-in closets and actually nearly six bathrooms, but since there are ten of us-”

“There are ten of you?!”

“Including my parents, yes.”

“Are the twins still sleeping in your closet?” Wesley asked. The last time he’d visited the

cottage, the Witch twins, Fair and Starlight (they’d chosen their own names at the age of seven)

had been sleeping in loft beds in Fiona’s closet.

“Yep. Mum made me move my clothes into a wardrobe so they’d have space for all of

their shit.”

“Lovely. Just lovely. I’m sure that sucks balls, Fi.”

“I’m sure you suck balls, Wesley. I’m sure you suck an entire bag of-”

“Fiona Witch! That language is not appropriate, well, ever, but certainly not in front of,”

here Fiona’s mother, a seer who’d come round the bend at that moment, paused and gestured to

Stu, before leaning in and stage-whispering, “children!”

“Ma! It’s his balls Wesley’s sucking, I don’t see the point of-”

“Fiona!”

Wesley, trying not to burst out laughing, glared at her and chimed in with, “Yes, Fiona!”

“Oh shut up, Wesley-”

“-Hello, Wesley, dear, how have you been, I-”

“-Mum, he’s been a twat, is how he’s been-”

“I’ve been fine, actually-”

“No you haven’t, you liar-”

“Fiona, the kid-”

“He’s just a goat, not a child, he-”

“-he isn’t a kid, he’s-”

“Yes, alright, ok. Wesley, you and your friend must be freezing, let’s-”

“Why are you even-”

“Do you know what she-”

“Wesley, don’t you dare-”

“Fiona, be polite-”

“She said-”

“No, I-”

“Can everybody please just SHUT UP?!”

The three who’d been arguing in the woods turned to look at each other, shocked, before

turning their attention to the satyr sitting on the ground. Stu was rocking back and forth, his

hands firmly clamped around his ears, tears streaming down his face as he glared at his

boyfriend, his friend, and her mother.

Something, unfortunately, clicked in Fiona’s tactless and easily confused head. “Oh, wait, Stu, are you neurodivergent?” she asked, with all her usual lack of tact. Wesley elbowed her. “Ow, Wes, why-”

He glared. “That’s not the sort of question you ask when someone’s losing it,” he stage-whispered, “and besides that, it’s not like that actually matters right now.”

“How does that not- ow,” she held her side and grimaced.

Wesley sat across from Stu. “What’s wrong, love?”

Stu shook his head.

Wesley tried again. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Stu shook his head again. He was sobbing much harder than he’d been that morning.

Wesley had seen Stu cry plenty (more than plenty), but never quite this much. Goddess, I think

we triggered something, he thought, his invocation less a curse than an observation to an unseen

force.

“Wesley, we’re going to go,” Fiona whispered to him after a while. “Don’t get eaten.”

(There were no monsters in that part of the woods.) She and her mother walked the short distance

away to their home, which was just around the bend from where they’d paused.

The two boys sat across from each other for about half an hour in the cold. Stu had cried

himself out fairly quickly once the argument had ended, but he didn’t move from where he sat

curled up on the ground for quite some time.

“Wesley?” He asked, peeking over his knees at his boyfriend, who’d been watching two

robins fight over a bug.

Wesley turned to him. “Hmm?’

“Sit closer.”

Wesley was more than happy to oblige. He scooted over across the cold dirt, settling next

to Stu. Stu leaned into him, glad for the extra warmth. “My parents used to fight like that,” Stu

whispered. “Layers and layers of words, with the housekeeper butting in every few minutes to

remind them that I was there, but they wouldn’t listen and would keep shouting as if I were

invisible.”

Wesley rubbed Stu’s back with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his own knees. He

pressed a kiss to his forehead. “That’s awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Mmm-hmm. It was not fun.”

“I can imagine.”

They sat in silence for a while. Though it was still fairly early in the evening, the sun was

beginning to go down, and dusk was starting to fall around them.

“Wes?”

“Hmm?”

“Are your parents like that?”

Wesley sighed. “My parents don’t argue much; really, my parents don’t say much of

anything to each other at all. Or to me, for that matter.” He stared off into the distance,

exhaustion seeping from every bit of him. “At least, my dad doesn’t. My mother’s around a bit

more, but she’s not very focused.” He chuckled bitterly. “People always assume she’s the faery,

since she’s so graceful and detached and flighty. No one assumes it’s the balding middle school

teacher with glasses and a vintage bike obsession.”

They both turned at the sound of leaves crunching behind them, and found themselves

looking up at a shivering Fiona. She was wrapped in a cosy-looking pea coat, in a soft pink that

bordered on twee and clashed alarmingly with both her hair and the bright red scarf wrapped

around her neck. She looks like a valentine, Stu noted.

“You two ought to come inside. Mum’s promised to play nice, and Da’s in the

greenhouse, though he might come in in a bit,” she murmured. Her ears were turning red in the

chilly evening breeze. “The kids are working on their homework in the family room, so we’ll

have the big kitchen to ourselves.”

Wesley looked at Stu. “Do you want to go in, love?”

Stu nodded. He stood up, wobbling for a second, before steadying himself against a

suddenly upright Wesley. “Fiona has snacks, right?”

His friends chuckled. “Fiona has so many snacks,” she laughed, taking Stu’s free hand.

The three of them walked round the bend into the clearing where Fiona’s house was located.

Stu’s jaw dropped. While Myrtle’s garage had been full of faery lights, the clearing where

the Fallonson-Witch family lived was full of actual faeries. Pixies and wood sprites hovered

about the clearing, darting from tree to tree and landing on folks’s shoulders. The aforementioned

babbling Brooke was chattering merrily in her stream to a dryad who was hanging laundry from

his branches; in the flower garden, flower fae were tending to their blooms, and in the orchard,

wood nymphs and satyrs danced as they collected fruit that had fallen to the ground.

The entire scene glittered in various shades of pink and blue and gold. It looked homey,

like some strange, family-owned farm, but it also had the dream-like (or perhaps nightmarish,

Stu couldn't help but think) quality that one associated with dissociating. It all seemed too perfect

to be real.

“Where are we?” Stu asked, nearly certain that they’d somehow been transported into the

wild Fae lands at the heart of Everin.

Fiona didn’t bother with much of a reply. She gripped his hand more firmly and dragged

him towards the house, where, if nothing else, she could make sure he didn’t accidentally sell his

soul to one of the vampires who lived in the orchard or get eaten by wood sprites.

“Doesn’t matter. C’mon, Stewart, I can’t let you die in the woods, your aunts would

literally kill me.”

“Fiona-,” Wesley butt in, although her resulting glare shut him up immediately. It was

about a three minute walk at a brisk pace across the edge of the clearing to the house, and Fiona

dragged them along with her wind at the fastest pace she could manage. When they reached the

door, she opened it without even touching the handle and yanked the boys inside, slamming the

door shut behind her with the wind.

“Alright, boys, we’re indoors now. It’s safe enough here to ask whatever questions

you’ve got, Stu, but I would suggest we get to the kitchen first,” Fiona said, chucking off her

coat and shaking her hair. She unwound her scarf from her neck and draped it around Stu, who

was shivering.

“Well damn, Fi, I thought you were going to wrap your scarf around me,” Wesley said.

She whacked him lightly atop his head with her hat. “No, you absolute fucking twat.

Goddess, Wesley, let’s go sit by the fire if you’re cold.”

She grabbed both of the boys’ hands and dragged them away in the direction of the

kitchen, stopping to hurl an insult at Starlight in the hall before finally pausing in front of the

hearth in the family’s big kitchen. Fiona’s house, like Wesley’s, had multiple kitchens; the one

they were in currently was the family kitchen. (There was also the summer kitchen in the

courtyard, and the potion and spell kitchen was in the basement; because the house was

technically set into a hill, the basement was built a lot like Wesley’s front kitchen, with large

windows and a sliding glass door.)

She thrust Stu down in front of the fire, nearly throwing him in. (Just like Ezra, he

thought. Hmph.) “Sit down and get warm, Stu, while I take your stupid boyfriend to grab more

Firewood.”

Wesley poked her in the head. “You said let’s sit in front of the fire if I’m cold! I’m cold,

Fi, go get the wood yourself.”

“Wesley,” Fiona hissed at him, gesturing discreetly in an “I need to talk to you, you

moron” sort of way. “We should gather more firewood.”

Wesley cottoned on, not being as half as thick as he acted, but he shook his head.

“I want Wesley to sit down,” Stu said, not bothering to look up at them; he was staring

into the fire, watching the logs slowly turn to ash.

“Fine! Have it your way, you two, then! I will go get more firewood-,” they really were

running low in the kitchen, “-and you two can sit nice and cosy by the fire, and then when I get

back, we can eat and I can spring my news on the both of you without any proper warning and

you can choke on your food, since apparently that’s what you want! Lovely. Just bloody lovely,

you two,” and she stormed out of the house through the back door.

“She’s going to end up selling her soul to a vampire one of these days,” Wesley muttered.

“On purpose?”

“No.” Wes considered it for a moment. “Well, maybe. If the vampire were really cute,

she’d probably consider it.”

“Why do you think she’ll end up accidentally selling her soul to a vampire?” Stu asked.

He scratched the tip of his nose; it was itchy and warm from the heat of the fire.

Wesley turned to him. He reached over and pushed one of Stu’s long-ish brown curls

behind his gently pointed ears. “She’s too impulsive. She throws herself headlong into stupid

situations without much of a thought for the consequences, simply because she’s so damn

powerful that most of the consequences barely affect her at all. One of these days, though, she’s

going to tangle herself up in something she can’t cut or curse her way out of, and then where will

I be?” He turned back to the fire, his head resting on Stu’s shoulder. “She’s my oldest friend; I’ve

known her nearly since birth. I’m pretty sure her parents love me more than mine do. We fight a

lot, joking mostly, but she’s-”

He sighed. “She’s like a sister to me. More than a sister to me, she’s like my bloody

platonic soulmate or something. I’d be devastated if anything were to happen to her.”

Stu looked down at the head on his shoulder. “Have you told her that?” he asked, running

his hand through Wesley’s hair.

“I tell her every time she does something stupid! I used to just text it to her every

morning- ‘Good morning, Fiona, I love you, so please don’t accidentally kill yourself trying to

fight your English teacher,’ or whatever mess she had going on at the moment. I think she

thought I was joking. Honestly, I think she still thinks I’m joking.”

“Well, at any rate, she clearly cares about you,” Stu said. “I do think she would have

given you her scarf if I wasn’t so much smaller and cuter.”

Wesley pulled back. “Stewart! Are you seriously saying that I am not small and cute?”

Stu giggled. “You’re like, six foot five, Wes.”

He scoffed. “Ok, so I’m maybe not small, but I’m definitely pretty cute! I might not be

tiny little bunny rabbit cute like you,” he poked him in the nose, “but I’ve at least got to be

Flemish Giant rabbit cute, right?”

“Yes, Wesley, you are every bit as cute as a ginormous rabbit that could literally kill

someone. You are murder rabbit cute.”

“Ok, that is not what I meant.”

It was too late, though: the concept had stuck. Stu had stood up and was doing what

would probably be classified as an interpretive dance to the chant of “Murder rabbit, murder

rabbit!”

“Holy fuck. What have I just walked into?” questioned Fiona, standing in the doorway

with snow sitting stark against the red of her hair, holding a bundle of firewood. “I leave for

eight minutes and I come back to- What, exactly? What in the name of all that’s good and holy

and made of cheese is going on here?”

“It is called,” said Stu, standing upside down now. He tumbled to the ground and pointed

at her with one long, slender finger. “-interpretive dance.”

“You have caster’s fingers, Stewart.”

“You know, I’ve told him that, actually,” interrupted Wesley. “I told him so in class once

and he threw a pencil at me. He says it’s from piano.”

“Do you play piano, Stu?” asked Fiona.

Stu nodded. “Mmm-hmm. I’ve been playing since I was four. And that,” he turned to Wesley, “-is why my fingers are so long.”

Wesley scooped him into his lap and nuzzled his neck. “Sure. Definitely not because of a

shocking level of magical ability that you’re keeping from us.

Stu held up a finger, giggling. “I know one spell, Wesley. Would you like to see my one

spell, Wesley?”

`Fiona cackled. “I think we’d all like to see your ‘one spell’, Stu. C’mon, let’s have it.”

Stu pointed a finger at his shoe and stared at it very intently for a few moments. After a

second or two, the bright red rubber of his wellingtons turned green, and then faded back to red.

Fiona’s jaw dropped. “Really, Stewart? Your ‘one spell’ is a colour changing spell tested

in the practical exam of eleventh-year saint candidates, performed without an incantation or a

wand?” she scoffed. “You’ve just damned yourself irrevocably, Stewart, as A, you’ve clearly got

loads of innate magical ability, and B, I will never believe a word you say since your worldview

is clearly skewed if you think that that is going to convince me that you don’t have loads of

magical ability.”

Stu peered up at her in bemusement. Though he’d sat back down after his dance and was

now sitting on Wesley, Fiona had remained standing the entire time. “What’s the big deal?”

Fiona gaped at him. Wesley simply shook his head. “Colour spells alter the way the

human eye perceives light. You’re not actually changing the colour the way you would if you

were, say, dying a coat; depending on the spell, you’re either changing the entire wavelength of

the light, which is the simpler option, or you're modifying the eye itself to be able to perceive

the new colour. You’re forcing your brain to accept a reality that is not, in fact, real.”

“-hence why it’s so bloody difficult,” Fiona said, grateful for the explanation she hadn’t

been wholly sure how to give (she’d always excelled at the practical side of magic; Wesley was

the one who competed and won awards in the theoretics categories in Sport). She flopped down

on the hearth rug next to the boys. “Wesley. Go get snacks.”

“No.”

“Do it for your husband, Wesley. Be a good little housewife and get your husband some

snacks,” she grinned, knowing that Wesley’s want to please Stu would get her some snacks, even

if the precise wording of her supplication might get her hit in the head with hard fruit. “I cannot

believe you just threw an apple at me.”

“You should feel honoured that I didn’t throw a pineapple at your head, Fi. There’s one

right here, it’s not too late,” he pointed out, smirking.

“Guys, no fruit throwing,” Stu commanded, pouting at them from the cosiest spot at the

hearth. Wesley sat back down next to him with a plate of sandwiches from the basket Fiona’s

mum always kept full and a tin of biscuits. Stu turned to him. “Wes, are you going to eat?”

Wesley nodded. “I’ll have a sandwich or two.”

Fiona waggled her finger at him. “Have two, Wesley,” she mumbled through a mouthful

of jam and homemade bread.

“Fiona, that’s disgusting.”

She swallowed. “Whatever. Have two sandwiches. And some of those biscuits- my aunt

made them, and I know you like the lemon ones.”

Stu stared at her. “The mayor made these biscuits?”

Fiona nodded. “It’s the only thing she’s actually good at. She comes over every Sunday to

bake for us; brings Rafe, of course, who’s a fucking prat, but otherwise it’s fine, and we get

biscuits out of it, so-,” she trailed off, searching through the tin for something particularly sweet.

Wesley chuckled. “It gets pretty confusing since both Rafe and Fi’s brother Eric are the

‘son of Fallon’, and Fi’s dad refuses to call Rafe anything other than Fallonson.”

“Why grandma Fallon decided to name both of her children Fallon too, I will never

understand,” Fiona said as she crunched down on a raspberry chocolate walnut biscuit decisively.

“Ok, but anyway, Stu-”

“Fiona, be polite,” Wesley warned.

“I am always polite! Stu, what happened in the woods?”

Wesley shook his head. “That’s not polite.”

Stu laughed. “It’s fine, I’d rather she just ask me then try to manoeuvre around in search

of answers.” He turned to Fiona. “I have PTSD (weeeell the doctor said it might be C-PTSD,

actually), which was triggered by the yelling. As for your earlier question, I do have ADHD, so

yes, I am neurodivergent.” He crunched down on the apple Wesley had thrown thoughtfully. 

Wesley chucked a tomato slice at Fiona. “See? I told you it wasn’t relevant.”

Stu poked him. “I mean, it wasn’t really not relevant, Wes.”

“Actually, you said it didn’t matter at the moment, which was true,” she nibbled on her

third biscuit. (She’d decided to make him pay for the tomato later; at the moment, she needed

things from him.)

Wesley hummed. “Why are we here again?”

“To enjoy my delightful company? Because you always eat after long walks? To protect

whatever’s left of your little faerie boyfriend’s innocence?”

“Nothing. Literally, absolutely nothing,” Stu muttered.

“...that’s a very bitter take, Stewart.”

“Well, maybe he’s a bitter little person, Fiona, under the rosy cheeks and giggles. Why

are we really here?”

She sighed and ran a hand through her now-messy red hair. In moments like that, her

similarities to her best friend were unmistakable. “So, I was reading last night,” she began.

“As you tend to do,” Wesley said.

“-Right. I was flipping through a book my aunt gave me on blood rituals (kind of

concerning, actually), cross-referencing certain important bits with a book on historic incidents

of dumb fucks trying to intimidate casters with cadavers, cursed objects, whatever. You know,

dark magic shit that most of us would never touch.”

Stu’s eyes widened. “You think someone was trying to intimidate Aunty Ezra with the

remains of a blood ritual?”

“Pretty much. And not one of the fun ones where you try to summon a demon or

Whatever-”

“Fiona!” Wesley glared at her.

“-or one of the normal ones that even saints use, to tie specific doors to your bloodline or

whatever. One of the proper bad ones, where you cut the Magick out of someone or something

else to make yourself more powerful or ‘balance the universe’ or whatever bigoted crap you

believe in.”

Stu blinked. “Summoning demons isn’t one of the ‘bad ones?!’”

She grinned her feral grin at him. “Depends on who you’re summoning.”

Wesley chucked another tomato at her. “Goddess, Wesley, fucking quit it-”

“Fiona. No. We’re not summoning demons again.”

“Again?!” Stu gaped at them. “When- why- who even- what? What?!”

“You know- It’s- oh, whatever. So, anyway, I need you guys to help me summon a

demon,” she declared, pulling tomato seeds out of her hair.

“Fiona, I literally just said-”

Stu fainted.

Wesley stared at him before turning to his friend. “Oh my Goddess, Fiona, you just killed

my boyfriend.”

She poked Wesley in the head. “Wh- Hey!”

“Good. Go ahead and draw some of his blood,” she grinned.

“No, Fiona!” He glared at her. “You’re not stealing my boyfriend’s blood. How would we

have even done this during lunch?!”

“Eh, you know, we would have- Nevermind. Your blood is too weak, elfling, I need his,”

she explained, in a tone that suggested Wesley was a complete moron.

“Why would his be any stronger?” he questioned, half-ready to throw that pineapple at

her.

“Were you not paying attention just now? Your little Faerie boyfriend has more magic in

his pinkie than you have in both of your pinkies!”

“...that’s not saying much, Fiona. And anyway, he’s not a Faerie.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Right.” She glared at him. “You know precisely what I mean,

Wesley. Yes, you’re strong, but not strong enough, I’m sorry, Wesley, it’s just how it is!”

Wesley opened his mouth, and then shut it again. His face turned as silvery as the bowl

that sat on the counter. Finally, after a few frustrated moments of opening and closing his mouth

like a carp and running his hands through his hair, he spoke. “Alright, we can’t argue like this.

Not because we shouldn’t argue about this, because we definitely should, but because Stu is right

there and he’s been staring at us nervously for the past few minutes,” he murmured, his voice

low and cold.

Fiona rolled her eyes and turned to the satyr, who’d sat up and was now biting his nails as

he watched them. “Stewart, my mother’s a seer. Your aunt isn’t going to come back on her own.

You can believe me or not, but if you intend to ever do so, I would suggest believing me now

that we have something closer to the upper hand, rather than when it’s been several months, and

you’re living with Myrtle, and Edie and Ezra have disappeared entirely.”

Stu stared into the fire, his chin tucked into his knees. After a moment, he turned to her.

“So, summoning demons. How do we do that?”

She grinned. “You know, Stewart, I’m glad you asked."

[atlene-sims]

Y1: Summer - Davis

Islay Davis (left) and her wife Fenella Davis (right), adopted their son Blair Davis (bottom right) when he was only a toddler, and have cherished giving him a good life and education as he’s grown into an adult. They were distraught when Blair’s wife walked out on him for another man from Champs Les Sims, leaving Blair to raise their 2 year old son, Micheil Davis (bottom left). With nothing but heartbreak and reminders left for Blair in the city, Islay and Fenella moved the family out to Aspiration Point for a fresh start for Blair and Micheil, and maybe even an easy retirement for the two of them. Islay Davis: Age: Elder Aspiration: Knowledge/Family - Become a Prestidigitator Sexuality: Lesbian Zodiac: Virgo - 9/2/4/3/5 (Neat, Shy, Lazy, Serious) + Athletic sims, creative sims - Sci Fi and Paranormal Sims Interests: Environment, Food, Weather Hobby: Unknown Traits: Loves Heat, Brooding, Loves the Outdoors, Ambitious, Inappropriate Fenella Davis: Age: Elder Aspiration: Knowledge/ Romance - Become a Prestidigitator Sexuality: Lesbian Zodiac: Scorpio - 5/5/7/3/5 (Active, Serious) + Logical sims, Brown hair - Muscular sims Interests: Environment, Paranormal, Politics, Crime Hobby: Unknown Traits: Green Thumb, Kleptomaniac, Loser, Vegetarian, Unlucky. Blair Davis: Age: Adult Aspiration: Popularity/(none) - Become and Media Magnate Sexuality: Straight Zodiac: Cancer - 5/4/5/4/7 (Shy, Serious, Nice) + Charismatic sims, Red hair - Blonde hair Interests: Weather, Sports Hobby: Unknown Traits: Brave, Friendly, Green Thumb, Excitable, Daredevil

Micheil Davis: Age: Toddler Aspiration: Grow Up Zodiac: Libra - 2/6/4/6/7 (Messy, Outgoing, Lazy, Playful, Nice) Interests: Toys, School Hobby: Unknown Traits: Genius, Light Sleeper

I did decide to built the Davis family a house. Again, I am not a builder but it could be worse.

Islay and Fenella’s bedroom is on the bottom right (where we can see them cuddling in bed!) and Blair and Micheil will share the bedroom on the top right.

As soon as they’re all moved in, Islay and Fenella decided to take a little time for themselves.

Fenella was the only sim in the neighbourhood to roll a want for a job, so she took a position in the Science career as a Lab Glass Scrubber.

Islay immediately rolled the want to join her wife in the Science career, and got a job scrubbing glass too.

Blair got to know the new maid but may have come on a little too strong talking about his last relationship...

At work, Islay got a chance card. She decided to leave Dr. Finkelstein’s experiment alone.

He was extremely happy she hadn’t touched it and gave her a bonus that day.

Blair spent time teaching Micheil to talk. Despite his initial reluctance, Micheil did learn to talk by the end of the summer.

Islay climbed up the ladder of the Lab Science world, and pretty soon she was promoted to Test Subject.

While unclogging their toilet, Islay learned she actually quite likes Tinkering and repairing items around the house. A new hobby at this stage of her life, who would’ve thought?

With the help, and amusing faces, of all three of the grown ups in the house, little Micheil was finally potty trained.

Micheil moved on to banging on the xylophone instead.

Fenella also managed to land that promotion to Test Subject just a few days after Islay, and once again the wives were working together in the same job.