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wizkiddx · 4 years ago

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anti-valentine

very late on this and really no excuse apart from poor time management but here's a little blurb... and happy bday ellie, ty for helping me with all the practical shit and ranting abt school bcos your v funny <3 @multiholland

tomholland x reader

warnings: just alotta fluff and a clumsy tom - v briefly described burn

If there was anything pointless and overly consumerised day you hated with a passion…. It was valentines. The whole thing was just so stupid, the one day a person would be forced by society to buy the cheapest but still acceptable roses from the nearest 24 hour supermarket - because of course, it’d be last minute. Trawling through the aisles of overpriced candy selection boxes to find one which didn’t contain your partners pet hate filling, showing you just how much they knew you. It was grim. Vile even. It was created by rich business men right at the top of the economy, to make them richer.

And it’s not because you were single and sour.

Well, yes, admittedly the years prior to your current boyfriend your anger at the occasion could be blamed on the fact you were painfully single. But now? Now you had a doting boy who , for a reasons beyond your own understanding, thought you were the most amazing thing to ever grace the earth. He loved the little things, the soft morning kiss to wake you up - hoping to make the awakening as painfree as possible. He loved how, after a long stint apart with him on a work project, you’d near refuse to go anywhere - always favouring lazy Sundays everyday, not letting him far from your sight. He loved how unbelievable stubborn or pouty you’d get when he attempted to escape to play golf-more often than not you had your tactics to keep him with you… if you know what I mean ;)

He loved you so completely, even if on occasion, your stubborn-ness could be frustrating as hell.

Because he wanted to treat you like a princess; he wanted to get you all the cliche gifts; he wanted to have to book a table weeks in advance just so he’d get somewhere good today. And after much deliberation with you, Tom had decided to completely ignore all your wishes - just once.

You woke with a deep groan, rolling over in chase of comfort from your boyfriend and yet received nothing more than an empty thud- where your arm that was supposed to land onto of his broad chest instead flopped down onto cold sheets. Normally, Tom would either lie in bed and wait (well sometimes wake you up himself) unless he had one of his ridiculously early morning shoots. You were fairly certain he wasn’t working today though, it was a Sunday and even in the glamorous world of film - everyone still liked their lazy Sundays.

So slowly creeping your eyes open, you found the room just as you were suspicious of. His side of the bed was empty and in fact the whole room was completely empty of your boyfriend. It had you huffing, Sundays were not designed for early mornings and they certainly weren’t designed for productivity either. Taking your loneliness as a stimulus to face the cold February air, you swung your legs over the bed - shivering when your bare feet landed on the cold floorboards.

Grabbing your dressing down and tying it tight round your otherwise slightly skimpy satin pyjamas you made it half way down the stairs before Tom yelled through the house, clearly having noticed the stairs creak.

“Y/N GO BACK TO BED!” You froze on the stairs, furrowing your eyebrows sarkily. Who the hell was he to tell you that you couldn’t move round your own home.

“What the-“

“No your ruing it!!! Go back upstairs!!!” His face looked like that of an upset puppy, once you had rounded the corner to see him trying to juggle two different frying pans on the stove and the oven timer going off. Yes he was a very capable 24 year old man, in so many ways one of the most talented humans around. Except, of course, cooking without causing chaos. It wasn’t even that he couldn’t cook, on the contrary… he was actually pretty decent and enjoyed experimenting with new meals but he was so hopelessly messy. God knows how he managed to dirty 20 different utensils making a single korma. But if anyone could do it - it was Tom.

“What are you doing?” The was a glint in your eye, Tom knew you took joy out of seeing him struggle. And right now, he knew for a fact the bacon was burning under the grill , while you were distracting him.

“Just go upstairs! I got I-FUCK!” The expletive included not because Tom thought that was the language of love, rather he’d just gone in while trying to pull out the tray of bacon from the grill and whacked the top of his palm against the burning hot heating implement. It stung like a bitch and his hand involuntarily retracted from the oven, the whole thing causing him to drop the tray back on to the oven shelves with an impressive clank. Instantly you ran over and whilst he was doubled over clutching his wrist you flicked the oven off and closed the door, then lurching over to turn the cold tap on . With a swift pull of him toward the sink, you ran you hand down his arm to prise them away from his chest and guided them to under the stream of cold water. Hissing, Tom’s body slowly started to untense, as the cold water steadily started to numb his hand.

“You are an idiot.” Mumbling under your breath, you were also stifling your laughter incredibly hard, knowing he would be hating one you for the shame.

“I was trying to be nice” He sulked, keeping his gaze locked downward on his slightly reddened hand, completely avoiding your eye line. To be fair to him, you felt pretty guilty - the only reason this all happened was he was trying to send you back upstairs. Then again, it was completely his fault for trying to do the whole valentines day thing, he knew your thoughts towards it. So, with caressing hands you pushed a curl back that had dropped down the front of his forehead.

“I appreciate it… but I’d still love you if you completely forgot about this stupid consumerist con.” Your soft tone made his chocolate brown eyes flick up, showing an intimate yet truthful look that not many people were privy to see.

“I was trying to change your mind stupid.” He countered, leaning his body so it bumped into you slightly, even if he was slightly moody, still appreciating the contact. With a chuckle you shook your head instead of replying, waiting for his hand to numb completely under the icy water before turning the tap off. Gently, you wrapped his hand in kitchen towel, knowing he was watching your every move intently.

“As sexy as burning your hand on the grill is…:” Smirking up at him, Tom pouted at you before continuing “all I need is you… as cringe as it sounds… you and me is all I ever need.”

“Even on valentines?”

“Especially on valentines.”

#tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n

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webcricket · 8 years ago

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It Happened Like This

Characters: CastielXReader ft. Sam and Dean Winchester

Word Count: 4521

Summary: Castiel hears the haunted tale of how the reader and the Winchesters first met. Everyone involved remembers the story a little bit differently. Tiny bit of angst with heaping helpings of fluff and humor.

A/N: This fic is a mostly factual semi-autobiographical account turned reader insert of an experience I had in college with a spirit. Some details have been altered for entertainment purposes and to protect the identities of those involved. I mean, obviously Castiel is my boyfriend and I personally know Sam and Dean Winchester because they are real people, so that part is definitely true. I blame this fic on @willowing-love who took the bait first and asked for my real-life ghost story.

Forehead resting on the cold glass of the Impala’s window, you watched the landscape fly by at 90 miles an hour – an uninterrupted blur of autumn leaves and harvested fields. Not so long ago this was your favorite time of year – nothing but crisp dewy nights, pumpkin spice everything, chunky sweaters and cozy socks with nature tucking herself to bed for the season beneath a warm-hued mantle of ruddy and golden pigments.

An unruly wisp of hair broke loose at your temple in the brisk breeze from Dean’s cracked window. It tickled your eyes and you swatted at it absent-mindedly, reverie uninterrupted as you plodded farther back into the memory of a simpler time. Not so long ago the beauty of the world shone to you in unblemished innocence. Now you understood the literal lie of the land, her sinister underbelly exposed. Now your days and nights teemed with the supernatural. Fall in particular, culminating with Halloween, or Samhain, or All Hallows’ Eve, or whatever the villain of the week wanted to call it, seemed to parade out more than its fair share of monsters, and not the adorable candy seeking variety.

Sighing, your breath misted the window. You traced the outline of a jack-o’-lantern in the fog, erasing the grinning visage with another lungful of exhaled air. You never imagined this would be your life.

A calloused fingertip gently swept the errant lock of hair from your eyes, securing it behind your ear. “What are you thinking about?” Castiel asked from beside you, astutely concerned your wakeful quietude meant something weighed heavy on your mind.

You turned from the window, focusing to meet his inquisitive blue gaze. “Just, you know, autumn…the colors…it’s really beautiful out there, isn’t it?” you softly murmured, uttering the sentiment aloud to remind yourself of nature’s splendor, to convince yourself the beauty of creation still existed despite the ever-present danger lurking below the placid guise.

Cas brushed a thumb across your cheek, eyes glinting with affection as he studied your features and ignored the passing scenery. He nodded after a moment, agreeing, “Yes, absolutely breathtaking.”

“You didn’t even look,” you blushed at the compliment, fingers delving beneath his coat to tease at his ribcage in retaliation for perpetually being so sweet. A small smile danced across your rose-tinted features as his ticklish vessel squirmed. You also never imagined falling in love with an angel.

“I did look,” he countered in a strained squeaking tone. Clutching at your wrists and wriggling away from your delightful assault, he reflected your smile, aspect softening with a tenderness reserved only for you. “I just didn’t have to look very far to see the beauty of my father’s creation.” Sliding an arm around your shoulders, he pulled you to his chest and gave you a comforting squeeze as you nestled against him.

Your regard settled on Sam and Dean bickering in the front seat about where to stop for dinner. Dean, unsurprisingly, favored a dive bar a few miles off the interstate for their amazing nachos. Sam craved real food over the neon orange faux-cheese and lukewarm beer that, at this point, probably coursed copious and congealed through his brother’s veins.

Any second now Dean would peer back at you via the rear view mirror, vibrant green eyes pleading for your vote of support in the matter. Sam would then swing a lanky arm over the back of the seat, twisting around to face you, begging you with a quirk of the brow to, for the love of Chuck, please be reasonable in your choice. Lightly giggling to yourself in anticipation, burrowing deeper into the angel’s embrace, your thoughts again drifted inexorably to the past. You never imagined these two men would become your surrogate big brothers either.

You weren’t born into hunting like Sam and Dean. Nor did you suffer some mortal wrong or tragic loss on account of something supernatural that spurred you on a hell-bent lifelong crusade seeking vengeance. You enjoyed a happy childhood, fortunate enough to possess a generally supportive family with a stable home life. There were a few awkward years between middle and high school where your hair, body, and personality were seemingly at odds with the entire planet, or gravity. Hard to say which, really; but you got through it all by utilizing the usual rebellious self-dramatizing tried and true teenage tactics. Then away you went to college, proclaiming independence by setting off for the hallowed halls of an institution several cushioning states from your roots. After a couple of unexpected bumps in the road going by the name of Sam and Dean, you graduated with a piece of paper designating you as an official English and Psychology duel major with a Russian Lit minor. The gravitas of these words in delicate black script on eggshell finish parchment, tastefully framed in gleaming cherry wood beneath frosted glass, imparted you with an enormous sense of self-importance. That is, until reality sunk in.

You became a hunter because, to your chagrin, you discovered upon exiting the cushioning bubble of academia that you were qualified to do precisely nothing in particular and very few employers offer paying positions for this interesting and generally useless skill set. Drudge work for minimum wage, or worse, the coveted unpaid internships people fall over one another to pursue, numbed your wits and barely paid the bills. You longed for excitement, adventure, and escape from the daily grind of squeaking by and getting nowhere fast. Hunting was the backup plan you stumbled into when the student loan lenders came calling. You chose to be a hunter. You chose this life.

“You’re awfully quiet back there,” Dean spoke up, he and Sam evidently having resolved the dinner plan without your input. “You good?”

“Living the dream,” you muttered.

Cas squinted fretfully down at your melancholy mien.

Sam flicked the radio off, exchanging a worried glance with his brother.

They all three knew your mind and mood were apt to wander on occasion into the disconcerting and anxiety-riddled land of the what ifs? You wouldn’t trade your relationship with the angel or the brothers for anything in the world, but that didn’t dissuade regret about everything else from rearing her ugly head and casting a malicious sneer upon you every now and then.

There was only one sure fire way to pull you out of a funk that didn’t involve a malted chocolate milkshake or a certain special angel’s worshipful ministrations of sensuously directed grace. And although well-stocked with a staggering variety of spell ingredients, the Impala’s trunk wasn’t equipped with the requisite fixings for even a paltry-by-comparison vanilla milkshake. And Dean strictly, and quite unreasonably you thought, forbade any and all angelic affection exceeding a rating of PG-13 to occur within 25 yards of the Impala or his physical person.

“Hey Cas, did Y/N ever tell you how we met?” Sam mused, implementing step one – the suggestion to share – of the story-telling distraction method for uplifting your spirits.

The angel looped a finger under your chin and tilted your aspect upward, answering, “Only in passing, but I would like to hear the details.”

“Maybe some other time,” you whined, shaking free of Cas’ caress to bury your face in the crook of his arm, preferring to wallow in woe a while longer.

Cas obligingly cuddled you closer.

“Aw, come on. A ghost story is perfect for Halloween night,” Dean stubbornly protested, whacking the steering wheel for emphasis.

“I’m sure Dean can tell it better than me,” you mumbled into the fabric of the angel’s trench.

The elder Winchester peeked back in the rear view mirror, catching Cas’ concerned gaze. Employing step two – spreading misinformation as a means of provocation – Dean snorted and smirked, “You’re probably right. And it’s my favorite kind of story too. Sammy and I swooping in to rescue the damsel in distress.”

“Hold up there, prince charming!” you huffed, extricating yourself from the angel’s hug to kick Dean’s seat. “That’s not what happened. I saved your asses.”

Dean feigned a wounded pout, muttering, “Yeah, right. Not how I remember it, princess.”

“I recall it being more of a group effort,” Sam goaded, seamlessly transitioning to step three – dangling the bait for you to set the record straight.

“Well, it’s my story,” you reproached, swallowing the bait – hook, line, and sinker, “and this is how it happened.” You began, “It was a dark and stormy Thursday night-”

“I thought it was a sunny Friday afternoon?” Dean quipped.

“Context!” you snapped. “I did have a life of my own before you two flannel flaunting interlopers showed up on my doorstep.”

“I’m pretty sure it was raining on our drive there,” Sam reminded Dean.

“When isn’t it raining?” Dean lamented, flicking on the windshield wipers as droplets coincidentally started to pellet the glass.

You sighed audibly, continuing from the top, “It was a dark and stormy Thursday night...”

Lightning illuminated the room, flashing blinding white through the oversized window panes overlooking the rain drenched courtyard. One, two, three, the thunder rumbled in retort, shaking the stone foundation of the historical building converted into a women’s dorm. The lamp on your desk flickered. “Not again,” you mumbled, closing your book – a disinteresting text on the statistics of psychology. You peered up at the ceiling in exasperation. Bam! Just as you expected. Light and noise in unison heralding pitch black as the power failed – a blazing slice of nature’s raw fury targeting the metal railing on the peak of the building and blowing every fuse in the place as it travelled the old wiring in frenetic search of the ground. You’d begun to think the college housing department had overstated the charming quirks of living in the historically rooted building – part of the original campus and used as a temporary Union hospital and soldier’s barracks during the Civil War. The lobby of the building even boasted a creepy collection of sepia-toned photographs – one with soldiers’ lifeless bodies laid out on the front lawn, another of the pile of amputated bullet and shrapnel battered limbs in the basement. This was the third time in as many weeks that a storm knocked out the power, and being alone in a site steeped in suffering and death, with the obligatory ghost stories attached to such locations, was more than a little unnerving.

“Battlefield towns are a massive pain in the ass,” Dean interrupted, whacking his brother on the arm. “Remember what Bobby used to say about them?”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed sentimentally, “he called them a hunter’s worst freaking nightmare. How do you salt and burn a body when pieces of it are scattered everywhere?”

“You don’t.” Dean let go of the steering wheel to mime an explosion.

“Anyway,” you went on, clearing your throat.

You slid carefully off the bed, blindly rummaging through your roommate’s top dresser drawer for the contraband candle and lighter she kept in there. You lit the stubborn wax-covered wick, singing the pad of your thumb with the lighter. Sucking your stinging finger, you studied the now strange shapes of furniture in the corners of the room from the safety of the yellow ring of light. You reassured yourself that your roommates would return any minute from band practice. They wouldn’t dally, not tonight, you had plans to go into town together for a late dinner and dessert at that quaint diner on Main.

Knock, knock, knock, “Campus security!”

“Shit!” you hissed, jumping out of your skin in fright, dousing the flame between your fingertips to minimize the smell of smoke. “Coming!” Scrambling, you cracked the nearest window and hid the candle on the ledge.

“No can-” the guard faltered when you swung open the door “-les allowed. Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to put out your candle.”

You batted your lashes as if to ask, ‘What candle?’

He looked behind you into the blackness, apologizing, “Sorry, from outside it looked like-”

“Maybe it was next door?” you offered helpfully.

“Rebel,” Sam coughed teasingly.

You ignored him.

With security routed, you huddled on the floor beside the door, back to the wall, listening to the thinning patter of rain on the window glass. The thunder, answering the fading electric glow of the clouds, was almost too distant to hear now.

Tap, tap, tap.

You stared up at the door, waiting for the guard to announce himself, relieved this time you had nothing to hide. No words followed.

Tap, tap, tap. Again. Maybe your roommates had forgotten their keys.

You stood, grabbing the knob of the heavy wooden door and cracking it open to peer into the hall. No one was there. A cold breeze rushed over your skin, sending a shiver down your spine and making your hair stand on end. The window in the room behind, left open in your haste to hide the candle, slammed shut. The startled cry rising in your throat died as you heard the voices of your roommates on the stair landing below. ‘A trick of the wind,’ you told yourself, taking a deep breath.

“That one girl, what was her name?” Dean pondered aloud. “Mandy? Yeah, Mandy. She was hot.”

“Yes, Mandy,” you confirmed with a punctuating eye roll.

Your roommates, Mandy and Jen, crashed after you all returned from the diner. They were leaving early with the rest of the marching band for an away game the next morning. Too hyped on adrenaline from the night’s events and sugar from the most fantastic chocolate malt milkshake you’d ever drunk to sleep, you wasted a few hours playing computer games.

“Sims, you were playing Sims,” Sam remembered with a smirk. “It was running on your computer when I borrowed it for research. They all drowned in the pool after you removed the ladder.”

“You borrowed my computer?” you griped.

“Yep, when we broke into your room on that Friday when the sun was shining,” Dean supplied, glowering at Sam. “It’s also possible I borrowed half a bag of pretzel rods.”

“Seriously?” you scorned.

“I’ll buy you a bag at the next Gas-N-Sip and we’ll call it even.”

It was nearing 3AM when you finally crawled into bed. This time of night always made you uneasy on account of a story you heard as a kid about the 3AM being the witching hour – when supernatural forces are at their most sinister and powerful. You superstitiously endeavored not to look at the red digital numbers of the clock and pulled the covers taunt.

Tap, tap, tap.

The strange almost-knocking scuff upon the door roused you as you hovered at the brink of unconsciousness.

Tap, tap, tap.

Jen, her bed closest to the door, seemed to hear it too, mumbling in her sleep and rolling over.

Tap, tap, tap.

A bone penetrating chill seizing your frame, you pulled the comforter up to your neck.

The floor creaked. Specifically, the wood plank in front of the door creaked – the plank on the inside side. The one that only creaked like that when someone crossed the threshold and stepped into the room.

You got the distinct impression there was a presence walking toward you. Paralyzed by terror, you couldn’t look. You didn’t hear the door open, you reasoned. No one could be there. You were imagining things.

Mandy joined in Jen’s restlessness as whatever it was moved past her bed.

You held your breath, eyes squeezed tight, repeating the mantra that this wasn’t real. You were only dreaming. Any second now you would wake up gasping in a clammy sweat from this nightmare. Any second now. Any. Your eyes opened in slits. Second. Your gasping throat was immediately assailed by a mass of ethereal energy. Now. It stole the very air from your lungs as you tried desperately to scream – to cry out and wake your slumbering roommates. And then, in a blink, it was over – the room silent save for your rapidly pounding heart.

The angel’s fingers sought and wove through yours, soothing the flood of fear the memory unleashed.

You trudged through your classes in a preoccupied haze the next morning, thoughts turning again and again to the terrifying episode. Surely it was a nightmare, but you couldn’t shake how real it felt. Returning to your room for lunch, focus no farther the ground between your feet as you walked up to the dorm, you ran smack into the chiseled torso of an extremely tall man wearing an electrician’s uniform with handsome hazel eyes.

“Woah, hey, hi. Sorry,” he apologized, dropping his duffle of tools to stoop to help you retrieve several fallen books. “Let me.”

“That was me,” Sam piped up to inform Cas.

You gestured at the man’s shirt, asking, “You here about the power outages?”

“Yeah.” The man stacked the books, glancing over his shoulder at the building and back at you. “Hey, you live there, right?”

You accepted the books proffered in his arms, nodding.

“You notice any strange noises, cold spots, funny smells?” another man in a matching uniform inquired as he approached.

“Dean?” Cas suggested, stealing the elder Winchesters thunder.

You gaped at the new freckle-faced arrival for a moment and contemplated his odd question. You supposed fizzing or burning wires might account for the peculiar query, but something seemed off about him. About both of them. Your gaze fell to the partially opened duffle bag at your feet, taking note of the decidedly non-traditional collection of electrician’s tools contained therein – a large quantity of rock salt, an iron crowbar, chains of varying size and length, and what looked alarmingly like the barrel of a sawed off shotgun. You peered around the empty courtyard, feeling vulnerable, reflexively stepping backward. “Um, nope, just, you know, the power outages and what not.”

“Oh, see, she must think we’re looking for ghosts.” The man with the freckles laughed, gesturing a thumb toward the dorm, trying to diffuse your nerves.

“Right, cause this place was a hospital,” the hazel-eyed man added. “Didn’t a bunch of soldiers die here, or something?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s all there in the lobby,” you stuttered, waving at the dorm. “I’m, uh, I have to, I think I forgot something at the library.” You spun and fled, cutting a beeline across the grass without looking back.

“Were we really that scary?” Sam pivoted to ask.

“Were?” You arched a brow. “You guys still scare the crap out of me on a regular basis!”

You found yourself on the third floor of the library, wandering a maze of special collections with no goal other than killing time. You ran your fingers lightly across the dusty spines of rows upon rows of first edition books. Something about books always had a way of settling your anxiety. An unseen force compelled you to turn down an aisle where a thin faded sky blue tome with no title written on the spine drew your attention. You slipped it from the shelf, flipping it over in your hands to view the cover. The image imprinted there caused your breath to hitch – it was a person lying in bed with a malevolent scowling creature perched upon their chest. Fingers trembling, you opened to the first page, whispering the title aloud, ‘The Terror that Comes in the Night.’ Knees weak, you sank to the floor. You had no idea how you came to find this book, a tome that promised to reveal an explanation for what had happened to you last night.

“That was probably Clotho’s work,” Cas stated matter-of-factly.

“What?” you turned to him in surprise.

“One of the sisters of fate, Clotho,” Cas repeated. “Surely it was she who led you to the book. She’s always been fond of words as a means to direct fate. It’s an obsession of hers.”

You smiled at the angel, never having guessed he would unveil new significance to your story.

You read the book front to back, sprawled out there on the scratchy carpet of the library. The supernatural creature who visited you was known in folklore as an Old Hag. It could be controlled and sent by a witch to take vengeance on foes, or simply be a restless spirit, a human soul transfigured by agony and grief, doomed to spread misery until such time as it was destroyed. Since you were fairly certain you hadn’t enraged any witches, you guessed your problem was the latter. Either way, the lore contended this creature would plague you until you defeated it, or it killed you. Naïve and overconfident in your abilities, you figured destroying it couldn’t be any harder than getting a passing grade in organic chemistry.

You made your way back to your room as evening descended on the campus. Pushing open the door you shouted a greeting to your roommates, “Hey guys, how-” You remembered with a sinking feeling that they were gone, cheering on the football team, and not expected back until morning. You nervously flicked on the overhead light – and every other light in the room. A firm knock at the door disrupted your luminous fortifications. “Who is it?” you asked through the closed door.

“The, uh, electricians,” someone replied uncertainly. “Do you have a minute?”

‘Right, electricians,’ you thought, ‘or not.’ Your eyes darted around the room, landing on Jen’s can of pepper spray she carried when running. You grabbed the can, notched the chain of the door, and cracked it an inch, bristling, “Who the hell are you guys?”

The toe of a boot braced against the door to prevent you from closing it, “Y/N, listen, we’re not axe-murdering kidnappers or whatever you think we are, we just want to help.”

You peeked through the crack, it was the tall man speaking. “Well start with telling me who you are and how you know my name.”

“College directory, Myspace, that weird little developmental psych professor that teaches your 8AM class and pets himself while he lectures, take your pick,” the green-eyed man grumbled. “We don’t have time for the full explanation. I’m Dean. This is my brother Sam. We hunt bad things and your life is in danger and not from us.”

“I know,” you murmured.

“You do?” Sam asked.

“I kind of figured the luminescent apparition that tried to strangle me last night wasn’t exactly Casper the friendly ghost.” You unlatched the door to allow them to enter. “How did you know?”

“We ganked the witch that sicced this thing on you last week.” Dean brushed past you. “Her name was Lily Donaghue, you know her?”

“Ganked? Witch?” you gaped in disbelief, not recognizing the name.

“He means we killed her,” Sam clarified. “Her dying declaration was a curse upon you.”

“And you have no idea how many Y/N Y/L/Ns exist in this country,” Dean lamented.

“What did I do to her?” Head reeling, you sat on the edge of Jen’s bed to steady yourself. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Hell if we know.” Dean shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe it was for something you were going to do in the future. She specialized in destiny spells.”

“So,” you spoke up after letting their explanation sink in, “what do we do?”

“You,” Dean emphasized the word, “well you just try to stay alive, sweetheart, and we’ll worry about the rest.”

“You took it all in stride,” Dean reminisced. “I never told you that, most people freak out when you tell them an evil creature is stalking their soul.”

“Well, at the time I assumed you were professionals and knew what you were doing,” you sassed. “Had I known then what I know now-”

They expected you to fall asleep. You rolled over in bed to look at the wall. They expected you to fall asleep in your bed which, for some bizarre reason you did not think to inquire about, was surrounded by salt while they watched and waited. Like that was happening! You flipped over again. The clock read 2:59AM. You shivered involuntarily when the numbers flashed to 3:00.

Tap, tap, tap.

You heard Sam and Dean shift to readiness.

Tap, tap, tap.

The firing pin of a gun cocked.

Creak went the wooden plank.

The shotgun blasted a round of rock salt.

Sam groaned as he was thrown against the wall and pinned there, flaying his long limbs uselessly and clutching at his neck.

“Dammit!” Dean cursed as the iron crowbar he held defied gravity to clatter to the ceiling. Further curses damned up in his throat as he was tossed choking to the floor like a rag doll by the evil creature who had come for you.

You sat up, throwing aside your comforter, willing yourself to look at the hideous thing, its features distorted in agony, jaw open in a perpetual scream, its clawed limb pointed toward you as your fingers fumbled to retrieve the little blue tome from beneath your pillow. You flipped to the final page of the text and began to read in desperation as the creature simultaneously squeezed the air from your lungs, “Malo a nos libera sed tentationem in nos inducas-”

“The Lord’s Prayer,” Cas noted. “In Vulgate and backward.”

You nodded.

The book was correct – the hag shuddered and flickered, growing weaker with each word you uttered. When you reached the final line, you ran out of breath. Squeaking, tongue a useless dry lump writhing against your teeth, lungs empty and collapsed, your vision dimmed at the edges as unconsciousness loomed. The last sight you registered before passing out were Sam’s hazel eyes, brightening as the creature’s energy sapped enough to free his throat.

“Caelis in es qui noster pater!” Sam roared out, having caught on halfway through that you were reciting the Lord’s Prayer backward, and surmising you had a good reason to be doing so.

Dean released the steering wheel to mime another explosion, the hag’s demise.

“Like I said, group effort,” Sam restated.

“You forgot my favorite part,” Dean smirked, twinkling eyes catching yours in the rear view mirror. “The happy ending.”

“I didn’t forget, Dean,” you objected, “I blessedly don’t remember.”

Cas held up two fingers to your temple, earnestly saying, “I can help you to remember.”

“No!” You yelped, grabbing his wrist and twisting it away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Why? What happened after the creature was destroyed?” Cas looked to Sam and Dean for the answer.

Dean’s smirk deepened.

Sam chuckled, “Dean, uh, had to-”

“-give Y/N the kiss of life,” Dean finished.

The angel’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Mouth to mouth,” Sam elucidated. “CPR.”

“Oh.” Cas subtly scowled at the back of Dean’s head. “I see.”

You pecked a quick kiss on the jealous angel’s stubbly cheek.

Cas looked at you, blue eyes shining with love, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “I can understand why she wouldn’t want to remember that.”

Dean grumbled something unintelligible under his breath.

Sam laughed airily.

Forgetting about the what ifs of life, you dove back into the angel’s warm embrace, humming contentment. Saving people, hunting things, the meaningful relationships cemented along the way – you never dared to hope you could be so lucky.

#castiel x reader #castiel x you #castiel fluff #castiel reader insert #castiel x y/n #cas x reader #cas x you #spn reader insert #spn x reader #supernatural x reader #castiel oneshot #castiel fanfic #castielxreader #castielxyou #castiel imagine #you x castiel #reader x castiel #cricket writes cas

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garmmy · 8 years ago

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appmon afterthoughts

appmon is finally over! it’s been a great journey. ;v; i drop shows easily when watching them week by week so i prefer binge-watching them at once, so appmon is the first show of this length that i managed to watch as it aired all the way through! (i dropped off somewhere in neovamdemon’s arc when trying to keep up with xros wars, haha. i did go back and finish it after that though!)

my personal preference of seasons: frontier > adventure > *appmon* > savers > 02 > hunters > tamers > tri > xros wars (as usual i still love all the seasons!! this is just if i had to rank them. i won’t deny that the 7 death generals arc was a bit of a drag for me though..)

here are my (LONG and incoherent) thoughts after watching the series, spoilers under the cut.

characters: - gosh i love the main cast so much!! ;v; i’m also glad that the appmon get a fair amount of characterisation and focus too (though still not as much as their human buddies), i feel there are times when digimon gives focus to the humans but in turn sacrifice some of the focus that their monster partners get. - i live for character interactions, so while i’m glad that haru/eri/astra interact with each other a lot, it’s a bit disappointing to see how little interaction rei and yuujin get with eri and astra. :( and hackmon never really interacts with the others much, or at all..i like hackmon, but it’d be nice to see him talk to someone other than rei for once. - i love the character growth in this season so much ;; possibly just behind frontier. eri and astra’s growth wasn’t as overt possibly due to how they express their personalities, but they throw a lot of it about the ‘filler’ eps and it all comes together really nicely. haru gets visibly stronger and more confident throughout the show, and rei’s change in reaction to his applidrive’s “are you alone?” question alone says so much. - on that note, i LOVE how they handled yuujin’s question (would you give your life up for a friend). in the end, it’s not those flashy scenes where you take a fatal hit for someone, but yuujin giving his life up not just to save humanity, but more importantly to save haru from having to shoulder the heavy burden of actually making the choice to kill yuujin. i thought that was a really powerful scene and it really got to me. - (shipping) haru and rei...i don’t care if it’s romantic or platonic or whatever i just love seeing them interact so, so much. people who know i like other pairs like seliph/ares, aichi/kai, etc...it’s the same pattern, nice pure boy gets the brooding edgy jerk to open up. i am a predictable person lol

story: - there are a lot of fillers. (but what is a digimon season without fillers?) i like fillers myself (probably why i like hunters when many people hate it), but i read the wtw comment threads every week and you get tons of complaints every time it hits a filler ep, and i can somewhat understand their frustration. appmon can be a drag to watch if you’re the kind who hates fillers. (i don’t deny a few fillers like the maripero ep did bore me though) - appmon does handle the main plot progression better than hunters though, despite the still whack pacing, and the fillers still tend to have nice character bits/growth. i love hunters but i won’t defend its absolute disregard for plot then trying to cram everything in at the last minute haha. still there are a number of unanswered questions..while i do agree that not all questions necessarily need answering, they can still provide deeper insight to characters. - personally, i liked how they kept the lightheartedness of the story while touching on salient AI-related issues. but while they bring up some very interesting issues, i don’t feel like they addressed them satisfactorily (at least from my pov)? leviathan’s aim with the humanity applification plan was to eradicate problems like conflict, disease, and human error from humanity, which is in a way even backed up by haru’s grandpa, who mentions “being data is great! without a physical body, one has no need to worry about injuries or sickness”, coming from someone who died in part because of sickness. you can see where the protags are coming from, but they never really address these ‘benefits’ of the humanity applification plan and how the benefits of not going through with the plan would outweigh the benefits of going through. - app-fusion might work well as a game mechanic, but i think it only serves to detract from the story in the anime, at least the way it is right now. for two series whose evolution is centred around fusion, xros wars handles fusion much better, utilising more creativity in both using and fusing the ‘fodder digimon’. appmon just tends to forget its fodder appmon exist. i personally think that appmon would be better off if its app-fusions were treated as simple evolutions instead (that’s pretty much how they treat the buddy appmon anyway; globemon is pretty much treated as ‘evolved gatchmon’, rather than an actual fusion of dogatchmon and timemon), that way you don’t get the nagging feeling that the fusion fodder appmon are just..fodder. - speaking of app-fusion, i have to say i personally prefer the more emotion-driven evolutions from the earlier seasons, rather than the evolutions achieved by getting the correct chip as we see in appmon. it makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but in context of the anime it feels..less impactful, i guess? i just always love seeing the bonds between the humans and their partners get tested, and become even stronger. - on an unrelated note, i find it funny that the show has a subplot involving two computer genius brothers and the cicada 3301 thing, mainly because i have a FDD story centered around the same idea (that i don’t make progress on at all. it probably looks like an appmon ripoff now but i don’t care haha)

designs: - i love the standard grade main appmon designs, they’re all so cute ;w; they have this distinct style in mind and i think they pulled it off well. (i’ve warmed up to musimon’s design A LOT from when he was first revealed, but i do still think it could be slightly less cluttered) - the ultimate grades are PERFECT, they’re some of my favourite digimon designs and possibly one of my favourite ‘group’ of designs out of protagonist digimon!! (possibly only bested by the frontier beast spirits and maybe the savers ultimates/tamers adults? haha) i just...yes. they’re amazing. i love them so so SO much - i’m not a fan of the direction they took with the god grades (maybe because i love the ultimate grades too much lol). all the gold didn’t sit too well with me either, maybe because we already had so much gold in xros wars? i do think they make great ‘final forms’ for the protagonist mons, but personally i still greatly prefer all their other forms to their god forms. i’m a bit more partial to hadesmon than the others because i LOVE jesmon, but hm...hadesmon still looks a lot more gaudy..like jesmon’s gaudy little brother. hahaha - i think the level system is a nice simplification from digimon. hopefully this means we can see appmon in future digimon games..they would be easier to implement than xw digimon anyway, haha;;

animation: - like many others i was skeptical about the making of higher-grade appmon 3DCG at first, though it eventually grew on me. the fights between 3DCG appmon were nicely done, but seeing the difference in animation between the 2D characters and 3DCG appmon was jarring, especially in shots where they’re together, mostly because of the framerate..the 3DCG appmon are animated on 1s? while the humans are animated on 3s like normal anime, it’s a big difference. thankfully most 3DCG fights don’t bring in the humans much. - the models/3D animation are still pretty well done! and i appreciate that they didn’t render them cel-shaded like what most anime do with 3D models (i remember translating the appmon interview mentioning why they did this, before appmon started airing; i was skeptical but now i can see what they were going for and i think it turned out well!) - after watching appmon i think 3DCG is a nice move for toei though, because we all know toei’s animation quality...could be better? hahaha. but i find toei’s weakness isn’t so much layout/choreography, but more of sometimes poorly-drawn frames, bad timing, or too little inbetweens, some of which are solved with 3DCG. you can especially see the contrast with digimon tri’s fight scenes; highly detailed digimon like jesmon for example would’ve benefited greatly from 3DCG, i know how painful it is to translate all of its details to 2D animation but as you can see it results in quite a number of not-as-nicely drawn frames. - special mention to charismon because i really like how he was modeled/rigged. those eyes!! can you imagine duskmon in 3D doing that and with those creepy sound effects too. - i’m not a huge fan of the palettes used in the AR-fields..(i didn’t like how the digiquartz was depicted that much either, and their depictions are quite similar so yeah) i can definitely see the effect they’re going for, but it felt more ‘kiddy alien-ish’ than ‘digital’ to me.

music: - i found the music quite ok (i liked DiVE!! and BE MY LIGHT though!), but i guess it didn’t match up to my personal tastes as much :x sadly appmon might be the lowest of the digimon seasons when it comes to music for me, i liked that endings are back! but the songs themselves didn’t captivate me as much as the previous seasons’ ending songs did. - on that note i’m glad they put in an insert song though! i guess i’m just really big on insert songs in digimon because as a kid i printed out the lyrics to brave heart and the other evo songs and loved singing along when they played in the show. lol - i remember complaining about this when the first episode aired, and my opinion still hasn’t changed 52 eps in. i CANNOT stand the applidrive voice at all hahaha (and the speed-up effect they use when app-linking/fusing) - the character songs are cute!! i’m personally really glad they decided to make them :) - the background music was pretty nice and had some memorable tracks..i’m not quite sure how i’d compare it to the rest? i liked all the soundtracks so far, though xros wars’ and frontier’s osts stood out especially for me.

#garm ramble

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jmsebastian · 8 years ago

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Rewards: How Breath of the Wild Fails at Incentives

I will admit up front that some of the things I don’t like about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild aren’t issues with the game itself. There is something inherently unrewarding to me about open world games that, naturally, this title shares with other games of its style. That isn’t completely the fault of the game’s design, nor the implementation of the tropes that go along with open world games. Open world games just aren’t really very interesting. For all there is to see and do, the understanding that nearly all of it is inconsequential makes the incentive to go uncover it disappear. While Breath of the Wild offers a lot more in the moment to moment action than other similar titles, it still suffers from this basic flaw. Because it’s a Zelda title, that flaw is both more pronounced and more problematic.

Just to get this out of the way, the game is too big. The common concept of value with regard to video games is amount of content, which can roughly translate into how much total time a player might spend playing. Open world games take this simplistic formula to the extreme, cramming in more side quests, collectibles, and places to visit than are required to reach the end game in an effort to make players feel that the money they spent was worth it. In a game with no story or particular goal in mind, say, Minecraft, for example, more often does translate into more. The larger your world, the more players can uncover as they go about experiencing the world. When you have a game like Breath of the Wild, which has a fairly concise and urgent story it wants to tell, there’s no way to make such a huge world fit into that story. There is also the issue of diminishing returns. With so many things to explore and find, the value of each find begins to drop. Finding a piece of opal can only be exciting so many times before the player either doesn’t need anything from them or no longer remembers what they can be used for. There’s an underlying lack of payoff in a world overflowing with stuff.

There are three major types of rewards the player receives for exploring the overworld: towers, shrines and collectibles. In terms of incentives, towers provide a reasonable reward to encourage players to find and activate them. They allow Link to obtain more detailed information on the map about the region the tower resides in, for one. They also give the player a good view of the surrounding area and provide platforms from which one can parasail Link down into otherwise difficult to reach areas. As an added benefit, they allow for fast travel between areas. Most of the towers are easy to get to and scale, but a few have environmental challenges that must be overcome in order to activate them. Even without the map information being filled in, the ability to fast travel or glide to nearby areas makes towers valuable. There is one major problem with fast travel being tied to towers, however, which is that it isn’t exclusive to them, sadly cutting off their usefulness by as much as a third for many of them.

(If you want to fill all that in, you’re going to be climbing a lot of towers.)

The second reward for exploration are the shrines. The shrines are self contained puzzle palaces that test the player’s skill with particular items, concepts, or combat. Shrines unlock fast travel similar to towers, but the main draw of the shrines is that they contain unique items that can be retrieved as well as Spirit Orbs. Spirit Orbs allow Link to gain heart containers or increase his stamina meter by trading in four orbs for each heart or stamina increase. The shrines are where the reward system, so ingrained, in Breath of the Wild really breaks down. Shrines always have a Spirit Orb as their main collectible. Unfortunately, since you need four orbs at a time to upgrade Link, there have to be a lot of shrines to guarantee enough orbs to satisfactorily increase Link’s abilities. This results in the player spending the majority of their time in the game’s overworld looking for shrines.

(Get ready to collect tons of these.)

Knowing what the reward to each shrine is going to be before entering really mutes the excitement of discovering a new one. Nintendo tried to mitigate this somewhat by including treasure chests in the shrines that have unique items, but rarely is the item good enough to justify spending the time figuring out how to access them. The puzzles that would normally make up a dungeon in a Zelda game are instead isolated and sterile. Many are enjoyable, but none last longer than a few minutes. In a weird twist, many of the shrines don’t even feature puzzles, but rather force the player to square off against a robot opponent. These tests of strength are all the same, just scaled up or down in difficulty. It feels as though they were added just in case players never engaged enemies in the overworld (which is something you can pretty much get away with if you want to).

What’s most frustrating about the way the shrines are implemented is that there is an obvious solution to making them more meaningful, one that was pioneered in the very first Zelda game. When you discover a hidden cave in The Legend of Zelda, you don’t know what you’re going to find, but no matter what it is, it’s useful. Some caves contain rupees, useful for buying items while doubling as bow ammunition. Other caves contain NPCs who convey important clues to progression. Some hold heart containers. The dungeons you traverse all have a special item that can be used to make progress somewhere else in the game, like the ladder or flute. Heck, the first cave in the game holds your main weapon, which is possible to miss or ignore. Breath of the Wild could have followed a similar design philosophy, where one shrine might offer you a very good and unique weapon, whereas another might offer a heart container or stamina increase. Not knowing exactly what was hidden inside, yet knowing it would be worth the effort, would have given shrines real purpose and remained somewhat mysterious. Since there is a hard limit on how many heart containers and how much stamina Link can have, it would have meant greatly reducing the number of shrines, certainly, but more care could have been placed on the shrines themselves. They could have been made bigger, more elaborate and interesting. Combined uses of the runes could have been explored more fully. They could have implemented the strengths of more traditional dungeons without forcing players into the hard progression sequences that made A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time so limiting.

The third reward that weaves its way into practically every aspect of the game is consumable items. Nearly everything in Breath of the Wild acts as a consumable. Fruit, arrows, monster parts, rupees, the Spirit Orbs, even weapons. Consumables are a tricky thing to get right in games. Drop too many of them and a game can become a cake walk. Drop too few and players will get frustrated that they can’t simply get something they need in order to allow them to make progress. Breath of the Wild actually manages to find a middle ground with this, but in a way that takes away the point of looking for items in the first place. The issue at hand is that all items must be replaceable. There are a few exceptions to this, such as the Master Sword (which is the only weapon that can’t break), but everything else either goes away when you use it or breaks down with use.

Since so much of the game has a shelf life, it can’t very well give out items that players would find too valuable to use. During my playthrough, I found myself hanging onto weapons that were a bit better than the usual stock I could get by defeating local enemies. That, of course, put a crunch on my inventory space, which forced me into decisions on which weapons to keep and which to use more often or discard. This was an interesting proposal at first, until I realized that none of the weapons were really worth worrying about as the amount of damage I could do didn’t increase or decrease dramatically enough to make much difference. So long as I wasn’t running around using a tree branch as my main weapon, I’d be able to take care of the overworld enemies just fine. This realization really sucked out the desire for me to fight enemies for more weapons, or scour the shrines for chests that might contain better weapons. Once I received the Master Sword, I forgot about other weapons almost entirely.

(Whatever it is, I don’t need it.)

The Master Sword, itself, is an interesting case, as it stands in such stark contrast to the way the rest of the weapons in the game work. Obviously, Nintendo couldn’t let the Master Sword be destroyed. All it would take is an absent minded player whacking away at some rocks and watching the most iconic piece of the Zelda mythos splinter into pieces before they got angry calls. Instead, they placed an arbitrary use limit on it so that it would power down for a while, similar to the way the special abilities earned from the beating the Divine Beasts work. This was a very poor compromise to make. While getting the Master Sword isn’t a herculean feat by any stretch, there should be some real reward for going through the effort of getting it. Sure, having a strong, unbreakable weapon might have made the game a bit too easy, but the amount of time spent in the game needed to get the Master Sword would have made this a trivial concern. Players who found the weapon too powerful could always opt not to sue it. The result is the inclusion of a weapon that has no practical purpose, which feels underwhelming at best, and a bit of a broken promise at worst.

The consumable nature of the game also means that Breath of the Wild has to assume that players might not have any items that weren’t forced upon them. To Nintendo’s credit, they did manage to get a lot of positives out of this dilemma. While the puzzles that litter the game aren’t very deep or involved, there are often a few ways to solve them. This was a necessity, of course, since players could very easily have gotten stuck at various points without having the right equipment and not knowing what to look for to solve the problem they were facing. Part of the joy of this game was in examining the tools at your disposal, then figuring out how you might combine them to achieve your goal. This is great for a little while, but soon gets repetitive, as it almost always boils down to using one of your four major runes: the Remote Bomb, Cryonis, Magnesis, or Stasis. Since the game couldn’t count on players having particular equipment at any given time, puzzles revolve either around things placed in the environment itself, or utilizing one of the four abilities granted to them by the Runes that the story guides you toward finding. Any less obvious methods for solving puzzles are done either because a player feels particularly playful or the puzzles are so straightforward that they become boring to solve using the intended method.

So what we’re left with in Breath of the Wild is a huge world filled to the brim with content that simply doesn’t matter. Very little in the game matters, ultimately. So little, in fact, that nearly everything past the introduction sequence can be skipped entirely. While there are a minimum number of bosses that need to be fought to beat the game, you can do so simply by storming Hyrule Castle and boss rushing them all at once. Sure, it’s a real challenge to do that without considerable familiarity with some of the more intricate combat mechanics, but once competence has been achieved, it’s hard to justify spending any time doing anything but going straight to the end game once players know it can be done.

(To be fair, the flurry rush is a pretty satisfying move.)

The upside to the majority of Breath of the Wild being made up of filler is that it has spawned a pretty fervent speedrunning community. Zelda games are no strangers to speedrunning, but the enthusiasm with which Breath of the Wild has been met by speedrunners makes me think some of that has to do with the fact that the game, on its own, doesn’t have much to offer. Instead, many players have taken to exploring the game on their own terms, trying to shortcut their way to the end as fast as possible in the hopes that such an experience would provide the reward the game, itself, could not provide.

I had hope that the story of the game would be enough to tie it all together, or at least give me a reason to care about why I was playing. Sadly, the implementation of the story is, perhaps, its greatest downfall. There isn’t much story to speak of, but in contrast with every other title in the series, Nintendo felt compelled to give this story voice. It would be easy to criticize the English language actors for the game’s cringe-worthy bad voice work, but the material is just as dreadful. Every spoken line is a cliche, and when it’s combined with the obvious fake voices being put on to match the characters, the whole thing feels disingenuous. Perhaps it’s a bit of an unfair criticism, but since there were no other language options to choose from, I had no choice but to skip over the cutscenes in order to spare myself hearing the labored work of the actors.

Along the same letdown, I was surprised by the lack of memorable music in the game. For a series with so many iconic themes at its disposal, Breath of the Wild contains none of them. That alone wouldn’t matter, as one can hear the Ocarina of Time score only so many times before it loses its magic. Upon finishing the game, only one tune remains in my mind: the horse stable melody. Part of the problem is that the score is adaptive. There’s a piece that plays when Link comes in close proximity to an enemy, there is a different song that plays in towns or when rock monsters form from the earth. None of them feel like themes, though, nor do they behave much like themes since they fit so many different places and situations. The music feels consumable much in the way weapons do. As such, the score is utterly forgettable and would have played just as well entirely without one.

While my overall impression of the game is unfavorable, it would be dishonest not to mention that while I was playing the game, I had fun. Moment to moment, there was quite a bit to keep me occupied. It was nice to see the return of Lynels to the franchise, for instance. The environments, devoid of meaningful content as they might be, were enjoyable to look at, walk around in, be in. There was a distinctive and enjoyable art style that worked in many ways the way the Wind Waker’s aesthetics did. Being a cross platform game between the Nintendo Switch and Wii U meant sacrifices had to be made, but those limitations only made the overall look of the world better. Sure, the Wii U version frequently had frame drops in the single digits, but those still shots looked great. There’s something incredibly charming about Breath of the Wild that makes me recognize that in spite of its deeply rooted flaws, it’s a pretty good game. Like Super Mario 64 before it, Nintendo proved that personality can be 9/10ths of a game. While I do think Breath of the Wild will see a similar retroactive re-evaluation along the lines of Skyward Sword, I certainly can’t begrudge anyone who loves the game now and forever. I sure enjoyed it while I was playing.

#legend of zelda #breath of the wild #nintendo #zelda #video games

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ntrending · 7 years ago

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Small farmers are mixing old equipment with new tech

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/small-farmers-are-mixing-old-equipment-with-new-tech/

Small farmers are mixing old equipment with new tech

Before Leo Sanchez will talk about his farm, he has to ask: “Do you like the website?” The owner of Lazy Millennial Farms designed it himself. It took a Squarespace subscription and two months of intermittent work to get things up and running.

“I like it,” I say. The leafy greens—lovingly raised and carefully Instagrammed—look great. Online registration and payment for the farm’s CSA, which guarantees customers a share of the seasonal produce, makes the whole thing easy. And instead of simply clicking “confirm,” the newsletter subscription button reads “KALE YEAH.”

Satisfied with my response, Sanchez is ready to get down to business. The 26-year-old farmer launches into an animated description of the density of his lettuce beds; the value of veganics, a nascent method of cultivating plants without animal-based fertilizers; and the ceaseless, indefatigable weeds, which will happily crowd out Sanchez’s crops if he doesn’t kill them first.

Besides the name, there’s a lot about Sanchez and his Salinas, California farm that seems unusual. At about an acre, it’s small—smaller than some people’s backyards. The national average farm size is around 440 acres. At 26, Sanchez is a young proprietor. Since the 1980s, the average age of farmers has risen in every USDA Agricultural Census. Currently, it hovers around 58 years old. And Sanchez’s constant tinkering with everything from seeding techniques out in the field to the promotion and sale of his produce online is evidence of an experimental approach, not dictated by the confines of conventional, large-scale agriculture.

While farming is often difficult for both the body and mind, Sanchez says he and many of his fellow young farmers (roughly defined as farmers under 35) are motivated by a desire to set a new standard for agriculture. Many of them are starting small with the hope of refining their climate-conscious practices and slowly working to scale them over time. To do this, young farmers are employing a bevy of technologies, some new and some… not so new.

In 2017, venture capitalists and others invested approximately $1.5 billion dollars in the “ag tech” industry, according to TechCrunch. Areas of focus included artificial intelligence, which could increase automation and lower costs on large-scale farms, as well as “biologicals,” or natural supplements to crop production, which international conglomerates like Monsanto hope will provide environmentally-friendly alternatives to its heavy-duty chemical products like Roundup.

But many of these products aren’t within reach for small-scale farmers like Sanchez. Those with just a few acres have to think a little more creatively to get the job done.

Lindsey Lusher Shute is the executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition, an organization she helped to establish upstate New York in 2010. With chapters now in nearly 30 states (including the District of Columbia), the coalition seeks to connect new farmers to training, land, and jobs. It also advances a policy platform, which encompasses things like helping young farmers navigate student loans. She says that the young farmers she knows are guided by their love of agriculture—and aided by their technology savvy. To find inexpensive and appropriately-sized tools, they collaborate, innovate, and retrofit whatever’s available to them.

Retrofit what already exists

Many farmers look to the history books for solid if somewhat forgotten advice. Lusher Shute and her husband own a Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor, which looks more like a neon pedal boat than farm equipment. But they’ve turned their machine, which was constructed sometime between 1948 and 1955, into an electric vehicle. “We see a lot of this hybrid[ization]—of taking the best from previous generations of farming,” she says.

Retrofitting allows small-scale farmers to buy something relatively cheap at an estate sale or on eBay and turn it into a modern tool. In the case of the Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor, it was less expensive than a new machine, and with a bit of work, its owners made it totally silent and emission-free.

Sometimes the old stuff just works better, or more efficiently. Lusher Shute says she recently watched an Instagram video of young farmers using a horse to help them tend to their fields instead of a modern—or refurbished—tractor. “They’re not doing it because they want to go back 100 years,” she says. “They’re doing it because they understand the challenges we’re facing here in 2018.”

Mix old and new

For his part, Sanchez says he recently made two very different investments at Lazy Millennial Farms. Sanchez, who receives financial help from his family and a Salinas-area farm incubator called ALBA, was able to purchase a wheel hoe. The hand-operated tool, which plucks weeds and agitates soils, dates back to at least 1701. It’s still manually operated, but Sanchez hopes the partial automation will reduce the amount of time tasks like weeding currently require.

The tried-and-true wheel hoe stands in stark contrast to Sanchez’s other gadget: a propane-powered flame weeder. As you’d imagine, the gizmo, which entered into public domain only in 1997, uses heat and fire to kill weeds as they sprout.

Taken together, tools as varied as the wheel hoe and Squarespace, promise to make farming a little bit easier—or at least a little more accessible. “They’re not recent technologies, because conventional farmers use it, but [they’re] recent technologies for the scale of farming that I’m doing this at,” Sanchez says. “Now there’s more people investing… and making farming way more effective for small farmers.”

Build it yourself

Farmers have a long history of refurbishment, tinkering, and invention. Look no further than founding farmer Thomas Jefferson, who is credited, among other things, with inventing the moldboard plow, which turned over soil with little resistance compared to other plows of its era. But the future of agricultural technology is about to change, according to many experts. The hope is that farmers will change with it.

Dennis Donohue is the former mayor of Salinas, California, the town two hours south of San Francisco where Lazy Millennial Farms was founded. He currently works with the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology, which brings together farmers, business people, engineers, and others to address problems from managing regional drought conditions to the implementation of cutting-edge robotics.

“The reality is, the farm of the future is going to be different—different skills and tools required,” Donohue says. Right now, many farmers rely on tractors, which they maintain and operate themselves. This requires resourcefulness and know how, but it’s fundamentally different than operating a remote-controlled tractor from a screen in an office, as Donohue predicts many farmers one day will. He sees software designers, engineers, and P.h.D. scientists as increasingly essential components of a coming agricultural revolution.

Lusher Shute says they’re already getting started. “One time, we lost an entire greenhouse full of plants,” she recalls. The farmer couple was renting land, which is common among first-generation farmers just starting out. The lease came with certain restrictions, including the inability to erect new structures on the site. So they leased a second parcel of land elsewhere to keep a greenhouse. But on a hot day, “the thermostat got out of whack and we lost a bunch of seedlings,” she says.

Lusher Shute and her husband couldn’t recoup their losses, but they found a way to prevent history repeating. With the help of Farm Hack, an organization dedicated to open source modifications of agricultural tools, they designed a system that delivered a text message whenever the temperature of the greenhouse went into the danger zone. It didn’t fix all their problems—their greenhouse crops have also been stricken by blight—but it was a step in the right direction.

Written By Eleanor Cummins

#Technology

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