#THIS TOOK ME A SOLID 4 HOURS IN TOTAL TO DO

[hedgehog-moss]

Here are 7 little facts about my donkey and how his summer is going :)

1. I received an anon the other day asking if Pirou was still a working donkey who carries my firewood for me, and the answer is yes. I've been cutting some branches from the big cherry tree that fell down the other day, and Pirlouit has been valiantly carrying them to the woodshed—fun fact, for this activity he likes to wear his ears like this:

Probably because this T position is reminiscent of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, which is how Pirlouit perceives himself as he carries heavy logs for me. He's willing, but his martyrdom should be acknowledged.

Here's Poldine acknowledging it with a nose kiss, because Poldine.

I stopped so they could have their little chat.

2. Pirou has been chatting with a lot of new friends lately—we met these horses on a walk and he was so happy to stop and touch noses with them while making equid noises. Llamas are good with the nose-touching but their llama noises are just less interesting to Pirlouit. He had such interested ears here! "Finally a serious grown-up conversation"

We also met this goose during the same walk and Pirlouit was a lot less eager to go say hi to her. The goose was yelling threats at us and we prudently stayed away, and Pirou was clearly thinking "this bird is doing a better job at protecting her home from intruders than Pandolf ever could" (it's true, Pan assumes intruders are friends until proven otherwise)

3. You'll notice that there are houses in this pic! Our walks got longer and longer until one day we went all the way to the village (it took 1 hour 20min at Pirlouit's leisurely pace). I was so proud of him. I've been trying to convince my friends to go to the village on donkeyback (this requires two people, because you can ride Pirlouit but you can't tell him where to go unless there's someone holding his rope and leading the way)—my friends were reluctant because they still sort of perceive Pirou as the feral animal terrified of everything that he was when I got him. They know he's made a lot of progress but going to town on donkeyback still seemed foolhardy.

So we've been riding Pirlouit in the woods, in familiar environments, and we also went to town with him but without riding him. He was amazingly calm and brave! There's a river that cuts the village in two and the first time we went, we stopped before the bridge, since it's pretty narrow and cars would have to drive very close to Pirlouit, we didn't want to risk it. We just went to say hi to the librarian who lives on the right side of the river, but since Pirlouit was very serene, we did cross the bridge the second time.

He did not care at all about cars driving very close to him (he had one familiar human on either side of him and the drivers were very considerate and went slowly), which emboldened us to stop for a drink on the terrace of the coffeeshop on main street (< also a narrow street with cars driving by quite close to Pirlouit). There was just no problem at all, Pirou let total strangers rub his forehead and was more interested in iced tea than main street traffic.

It was a hot day and we gave him all the ice cubes from our drinks and he chewed them enthusiastically.

4. We made a stop at the pharmacy on our way home because we had another 1 hour 20min walk ahead and I had a blister, and the pharmacist noticed my donkey parked outside his shop and in a determined tone he said, "I want to try something." He took one of the donkey milk soaps from the overpriced-Provence-soaps-for-tourists display and opened the door and offered it for Pirlouit to sniff.

... I'm not sure what he was expecting—for my donkey to go "ohhh this smells like Mother's milk and aloe vera 🥺"—but unfortunately nothing happened.

(4. bis—Sorry, this 4th fact was anticlimactic.)

5. Pirlouit is now the proud owner of a surcingle. Not for equestrian vaulting and not for his log-carrying job because I don't know if it would be solid enough for the weight of a bag full of logs, but I'd like to tie bags or baskets to it to take Pirlouit grocery shopping, now that I know he's okay with going to town :) He even seems to enjoy the adventure, and the attention he gets from children.

And actually I shouldn't write off equestrian vaulting because Pirou is also remarkably chill with weird things happening on his back. I used to be very careful to climb on his back in a quick & fluid way so he wouldn't spook (because he used to! a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil used to spook him!) but now that my friends are riding him I can confirm we've reached a point where you can climb on Pirlouit's back in any way you want and he'll just be like "...... sure"

6. I almost forgot to mention that Pirou turned 15 last month, according to his ID papers :) Donkeys have a longer life expectancy than horses, they can live 30-40 years on average so he's still a young lad really. Happy 15th birthday Pirlouit :)

7. I wanted to conclude with a nice aesthetic pic of Pirou's shadow on the road during all those walks, like I did with Poldine, but unfortunately donkey shadows do not have the chic je-ne-sais-quoi of llama shadows. Pirlouit looks like a hammerhead shark wearing a tiny fez and that's not his fault.

[tinyorangepotato]

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[kcrossvine-art]

Heya folks n friends! Today on our LotR cooking series, we're going to be making something inspired by Mrs. Maggot, wife of Farmer Maggot. Originally we were going to do a cream of mushroom soup, but the idea of adding meat as a cheeky lil joke on their last names was too good to pass up. In my mind meat goes better with thin soups than creamy ones.

And thus Mrs. Maggots Meat 'N Mush Stew was born.

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to Mrs. Maggots Meat 'N Mush Stew?” YOU MIGHT ASKFor the stew portion itself we're going to be using a hearty base, aiming for a layering of flavors. If you feel comfortable making a roux, feel free to do so, but I did not due to energy levels and thus the flour in this recipe is only used for searing the meat before its added to the pot.

Cubed beef

Flour

Peanut oil

Beef stock

Dried porcini mushrooms

Carrots, chopped

Onion, diced

Garlic, crushed

Scallion, chopped

Bay leaf

Salt and pepper

Ground red pepper

Cumin

Zatarins gumbo file

For the other mushrooms, were going to cook them separate and throw them in at the end (but they'll have friends to keep them company!!).

Cremini mushrooms, sliced

Half an onion

Carrots

Garlic

Salt and pepper

Thyme

Olive oil

This took about 4 hours in total. If you have a slow cooker itd probably be easier to use that, but as is isn't too bad either. I mostly worked on commission stuff in the kitchen in-between stirring. "The best food is the one you don't have to make, the second best food is the one you don't have to think while making."

AND, “what does Mrs. Maggots Meat 'N Mush Stew taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASK

HOT HOT HOT

Tastes like walking from the cold into the cramped but cozy bar your friend works at

Meat was so tender and juicy, melts in your mouth. Makes you cry

It wanst actually carmelization but the onions had a hint of tasting caramelized

Mushrooms- a strong umami flavor with a bit of smokeyness

Once you get that Perfect level of gumbo file, it just makes every other element stick out more

Like an energy booster for the ingredients

A spotlight on the bay leaf, and oils, and spices

. If you don't want to use beef, feel free to use vegetable stock instead and replace the cubes with strips of king oyster mushrooms. Exclude the flour but still cook them in the pan. . this isnt officially part of the recipe since im not sure itd be 'on theme', but feel free to start your rice cooker around the 3 hour mark so you can have some hot rice ready for serving as filler.

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When I was looking through food and food mentions in LotR, Mrs.Maggot just stook out to me. 'Queen amongst farmers wives' is both really sweet and a fuckin killer description. What a legend. I wanted to do something based on her and our two options were either beer, bacon or raw mushrooms. Beer while very appealing is also not something you can whip up in a day, while raw mushrooms have a chance of killing my beloved readers. I don't want to talk about me and bacons sordid past.

And so as praise to this funky farmer women, may you add this stew to your collection of potpie, lasagna, and roast recipes.

Did i mention i started my first grease fire when making this? Yeah. Don't cover any empty greased pan even if your intent is to keep water from splashing into it.

Anyway, this recipe is a solid 10/10 (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) The partner has already made me pledge to cook it again hehehe

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Ingredients:

2 lbs cubed beef

A little bit of flour to 'tumble' the meat in, in a bowl

Peanut oil to sear the beef, as needed

3 kilograms beef stock

28g dried porcini mushrooms

4 carrots, chopped

1 white onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 scallion branch, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Ground red pepper to taste

Cumin to taste

3 bay leafs

A pinch of Zatarins gumbo file

Ingredients… . . TWO:

1 lb cremini mushrooms

Half of a white onion, diced

1 carrot, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Salt, pepper, and thyme to taste

Olive oil as needed to pan-fry

Method:

Put the porcini mushrooms into a bowl, add enough warm water to cover. Give them roughly 20 minutes, or until softened and the waters turned color.

Cut the carrots, onion, and garlic.

Get a large pot with a lid, pour in your stock (or water and bouillon cubes). Pour in the porcinis and the mushroom water. Turn the burner to medium-high.

Add your bay leaves, carrots, onion, and garlic to the pot. Add extra salt if you'd like.

Tenderize and cut your beef into roughly 1 inch cubes.

In a small bowl, pour a handful of flour along with pepper, cumin, and ground red pepper. Mix until combined.

Lightly toss each cube of beef in the mixture, get a little coverage on each side.

Heat a frying pan to medium heat and add peanut oil. If using an electric stovetop it will take time to heat up.

Add some of your beef cubes to the pan, don't overcrowd it. Flip to check sides are a light brown with dark brown edges, its good for some pink/red to poke through.

Add beef cubes to the pot when done, careful of splashing.

Keep doing this in batches until all beef cubes are added. 

 Once the pot has reached a simmer, turn the heat down a few notches and cover.

Set a timer for 4 hours. Taste test every so often. Aim to stir the pot every 10-15 minutes.

(You can do steps 14-21 immediately or optionally wait a bit)

 Rinse and dry your cremini mushrooms.

Slice them vertically. Cut the carrots, onion, and garlic.

In a frying pan on medium-low heat, add olive oil, carrots, and onion. Keep the vegetables moving! When they start to change texture, add your cremini mushrooms.

Bring the pan up to medium heat. 

Once your mushrooms have cooked off the liquid inside, theyll start turning a deeper brown. Add the garlic. Keep! the! vegetables! Moving!

If the pan gets overcrowded, take some out and set it aside in a bowl. Smaller batches.

This process took roughly 15 minutes, but youll know its done once everything has a nice sear on it and the garlic is brown but not burnt. Add salt, pepper, and thyme to taste.

Set everything aside in a bowl.

Once the 4 hours are up the meat should be cooked all the way through and tender enough to pull apart. Strain the bay leaves out. Cut and add scallions. Add the bowl with cremini mushrooms.

Add a pinch of gumbo file to start, stir and taste test.

[strniohoeee]

Revenant

Pairings: Matt Sturniolo x Female Reader(y/n) its friends to lover-ish, feelings are expressed but they are both just friends!

Synopsis: In which y/n is suffering 7 months after her tragic accident, but something’s not right with her, and Matt can feel it. Thats when things start to get a little weird🤔

Warnings: There’s no warnings! It is a spooky imagine just in time for Halloween, but nothing crazy! I suppose ⚠️supernatural and ghosts?⚠️

Songs- Magic Hour- Jhené Aiko

Remember- Jhené Aiko

Stay ready-Jhené Aiko

It’s been a solid 7 months since the accident. 7 months since my life was forever altered. The memory of it all is so fuzzy yet so vivid and painful. I was left feeling empty and wondering for 7 months.

I remember the days leading up to the event, I remember the exact moments before it happened, but I can’t remember anything after that. Why was I struggling so badly? It had been a beautiful sunny day in Boston, and Matt had texted me telling me that his brothers and himself were going on a hike to enjoy the weather, and had asked me to join. I agreed and immediately hopped into my car, rolling down the windows and letting the nice breeze blow through my body. Grasping my face and twirling my hair around its fingers as I drove down the main road. I had Magic Hour by Jhené Aiko blaring just completely embracing how amazing my life currently was. That was until it wasn’t. I turned a corner, and immediately everything went black. The immediate tenebrosity was all I could feel, engulfing me in all its glory grabbing at my body trying to swallow me whole. I fought that I remember I fought, clawing my way out of nothingness, feening and scratching pleading to be let out.

All of a sudden I awoke completely confused and angry at the tons of bright lights and beeping sounds as my vision began to clear up. Was I dead?

I awoke after two weeks of being in a coma. I had suffered blunt force trauma to my head. That pain I immediately felt: they had shaved a portion of the side of my head to remove the bleeding in my brain, and that pain I was feeling as I was coming to my senses. My leg had been broken and 4 of my ribs were fractured and had punctured my right lung. That agony I felt as I tried to breathe.

When I fully came to my senses my room was flooded with people….who were these people?

“She’s awake” said one boy who was sitting directly ahead of me. All I could do was furrow my brows, why is he so familiar?

Everyone else had looked my way with red swollen eyes and a sad face. Who am I?

An older woman and older man had immediately called for a nurse

“y/n you had me so scared I thought I lost you” the blonde hair boy said. I’ve seen him before. Who is he? Who am I?

All I could do was look at them confused, really fucking confused.

The nurse had came in immediately taking my vitals

“How are you feeling y/n?” The doctor asked looking at me

“Who?” Was all I could say, as I looked around everyone’s face dropped filling with hurt and concern

“It’s all right you were in a really bad car accident two weeks ago, and your memory will be really bad for a while but with the help of your friends and their parents you should know exactly who you are shortly.” The doctor had said giving me a small smile

Who am I?

In a coma for two weeks? I’ve been stuck in total darkness for far longer….Who am I?

My severe accident was 7 months ago, and I was still struggling to this day trying to remember things and be my true self. Oftentimes Nick would bring up a memory we both shared, and it took some explaining before I could truly remember the exact memory. And when I did remember it was a faint memory almost like it wasn’t mine?

The boys showed me nothing but patience with helping me, after all I did suffer from a traumatic brain injury. The doctor had told them and myself that I may never be the same again. But I gave them hope when I would bring up a memory, or laugh at our inside jokes or even remember a memory either of them had brought up without needing an explanation. But that never lasted long. This feels wrong.

About a month ago I was cleared to travel. The triplets were so sweet staying in Boston for 6 months to make sure I made a full recovery when they could’ve left me to go back to LA. They only left for LA if absolutely necessary, and even then Mary Lou and Jimmy would watch over and make sure I was always okay. It was greatly appreciated but I felt so bad being a burden to their parents when I was just their friend.

We had just arrived in LA, and everything felt so new to me like I’ve never seen California before. But I kept that to myself acting like I’ve been excited for this for the past 4 months when in reality I have no idea why we’re in LA. Matt had been extra careful with me sitting with me on the plane and in the Uber to their house. I greatly appreciated him being so kind to me, but I felt this hurt and pain everytime he was near me trying to help me. This would result in me staring at him trying to read his face, and understand this weird feeling I got with him. There were these faint blurry memories of us, but it feels weird and I can’t really see them, but when I think back to them I’m filled with anxiety and hurt. I never let them know this though I painted a pretty good picture of being my old self…..but who am I?

Upon entering the triplets house I felt strange. I felt weird like this was not where I was supposed to be, but given my injury I brushed that feeling off. I walked into the living room as Nick, Chris and Matt brought the rest of everything in. Instantly I felt a weird sensation causing my back to straight and goose bumps to form all over my body. Almost instantly I heard “upstairs” faintly in my ear. I jumped a little bit and looked around. Matt took notice to this

“Hey are you alright?” He asked, looking at me a little confused. This caused Nick and Chris to turn back and look at me as well.

“Yeah I’m fine I’m just taking this all in. So glad I’m able to be back here with you guys….I didn’t think I would make it” I responded giving a weak smile

“Y/n were so fucking glad you’re feeling better we missed you so much” Chris said running over and engulfing me in a hug. This made me giggle

“CHRIS STOP put me down” I told him laughing loudly. He put me down laughing himself. I walked over to my bag and picked it up heading upstairs when Matt stopped me

“Y/n where are you going? You sleep with Chris” Matt said looking at me a little confused.

Why didn’t I remember that?? I just smiled at him “oh I know I just want to see your podcast room. I remember it wasn’t finished when I was last in LA” I told him. He just gave me a half smile and nodded.

I walked upstairs to the podcast room and immediately the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I felt like I was being watched. I looked around the room, and of course there was nothing there, but why did I remember this room so vividly? I was drawn to the blue seat for some reason, and once again as I sat down I felt shivers up my spine like someone was behind me. God my brain is so fucked from this accident.

Matt’s POV

“Dude something’s not right. Our podcast room has been done since before she went back to Boston.” I said to Nick and Chris

“Matt she suffered blunt force trauma to the head her brain will not remember some of these things. Just how she barely remembers very blatant core memories we’ve all shared with her” Chris told me grabbing a Pepsi out of the fridge

“Yeah Matt it’s slowly coming back to her maybe while she’s up there she’ll remember” Nick told me leaning against the sink

“No guys something’s off that’s not y/n” I said, shaking my head rubbing my eyes and letting out a sigh.

“I promise you she will be okay,” Chris told me, giving me a nod. All I could do was give a half smile and nod my head

Y/N POV

I’ve been napping in Chris’ room for about an hour when I started having a vivid dream of Matt and I.

Matt and I were in the kitchen as I was cooking something for him and his brothers. Him and I both crying laughing at some corny ass joke he said.

“Matt you’re so fucking stupid” I responded holding my stomach and wiping my eye trying to calm myself down

“Dude like why in the fuck would Chris say some shit like that to a girl” he said trying to calm down his laughing after he just made fun of Chris.

“Hey how much sauce do you want on your pasta” I asked him getting ready to put it on a plate for him

“Oh actually I’m going on a date tonight, so I won’t be eating” he said blushing a little bit

There’s that pang of anxiety and hurt in my stomach. Those are the memories

I immediately jumped out of my sleep gripping the side of my head that had been operating on. I just got a sharp stabbing pain and all I could do was squint my eyes shut and whisper “fuck” lowly. I decided to get up and head to the kitchen to eat something and take Advil. When I got up it was about 7pm, and I walked into the kitchen to a box of pizza with a note on the side that said

We went to film a car video and do some stuff at the warehouse! We didn’t want to wake you so we got you some pizza. See you later it read

I just sighed and opened the box taking a slice and grabbing some water and an Advil. I decided to go back to Chris' room and watch tv till I eventually fell asleep again.

2 AM Matt’s POV

I had been sitting on the couch scrolling on tik tok when I heard something drop in the kitchen. Instantly my head shot up to see nobody there. I decided to walk over to the kitchen to see what had dropped, and it happened to be an empty Pepsi can Chris left on the counter. Weird but not weird enough for me to get scared. That is until the kitchen sink turned on and off within 5 seconds. I just stared at it, and told myself I’m just tired and to go to bed. As I turned around to go upstairs Y/N was standing right behind me

“Holy fuck you scared me” I told her clutching my heart

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you” she said walking over to the kitchen table and taking a seat. She was off….very off

“It’s alright I scared myself a bit I thought I was seeing shit” I told her taking a seat across from her

“You weren’t see things” she told me avoiding eye contact

“Did you see it too?” I asked looking down at my phone as a notification went off

“I did it” she said now looking into my eyes

“I may be tired but I’m not fucking stupid. You didn’t do that I was looking right at the sink” I told her rolling my eyes

“I’m not sure who I am” was all she said as she looked at me once again

“Dude you’re really fucking scaring me, so if Nick or Chris put you up to this to freak me out then they won” I told her getting up to grab a water bottle

“You know she was right. I’m up there standing by the gum ball machine” she told me back looking down at her painted nails. Confusion plastered on my face until I remembered

Earlier today we did a podcast with Padi, a woman who’s able to speak with the dead. She had told us there was a female energy standing by our gumball machine watching us, but that she didn’t know who she was or how she got there. I wasn’t buying it at all. It's so easy to tell someone there’s a ghost in their house and make them believe it, but now I was getting a little concerned.

“Y/N I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I think you need sleep” I told her getting ready to get up

“I’m not Y/N” she said furrowing her brows. Looking hurt

“Well then who are you” I asked her playing into this stupid game Nick and Chris probably made her do.

“Revenant” was all she said looking right through me. I went to speak but she cut me off.

“It’s what you become when you’ve been trapped for so long” she said giving me a weak smile

“I’m not following along, and this needs to stop you’re not revenant you’re Y/N” I told her getting frustrated

“You know something: she really likes you, and you hurt her. She kept feeling this awful hurt and anxiety anytime you were near her because she couldn’t remember these memories, but when I’m with her I see those memories clearly. These are not my memories, and when I’m out of her body tomorrow she won’t remember a single thing” Y/N said to me

“I’m confused” I told her getting a little stressed out

“These things I’m seeing right now these aren’t my memories these are hers, but when I’m in her I see the memories vividly” she repeats again taking a sip of my water

“How can you see memories that are hers, but she can’t see these memories” I asked genuinely confused

“I’m not too sure. I feel as one when I’m with her” she told me shrugging her shoulders

“ I think you should bring Padi back, she might be able to help us” was all she said before she blinked and a very confused Y/N was staring back at me.

“When did I come out here?” She asked looking around very confused

“The joke is over Y/N I’m not scared go back to Chris’ room and go to sleep I’m not feeding into this bullshit” I told her getting up and slamming the chair to the table

“Matt? I’m confused why are you upset with me” she asked with a sad look on her face

I just scoffed at her and went up to my room

Some time had passed a good two weeks, and weird things kept happening to me Y/N had kept her distance except at night when she would come to me in the kitchen as “revenant” and tell me things about my Y/N

I decided to call Padi and tell her I’m experiencing some weird issues to see if she could come back and help us figure out this Revenant/ Y/N issue.

Third Person POV

Matt had gathered Chris, Nick and Y/N to the podcast room after Padi had set her stuff up.

They all sat down, all very confused.

“Okay so Matt what’s the issue” Padi had asked smiling at the young boy

“Well about two weeks ago Y/N had come to me in the kitchen claiming her name was Revenant and that she was the ghost from this room inside Y/Ns body. At first I thought it was some sick joke between the three of them, but when Y/N wouldn’t speak to me during the day but then “revenant” would speak to me at night I was confused.” Matt had told the older woman

“Matt what the fuck is reallt going on” Chris and Nick both said

“Listen Matt whatever this bullshit is pertaining to me is fucked up and has to stop” Y/N said

“I agree so let’s see what Padi has to say about all this to really make sure yall aren’t in on some weird joke” I told them

Padis eyebrows raised and she immediately had something to say

“She’s here with us” Padi said looking around

“This is fucking crazy” Chris said rolling his eyes

“Yeah I fucking agree” Nick said a little annoyed and scared

“She’s saying her name is Revenant which means Ghost because that’s how she’s been living her life for some time now” Padi said

“Guys this is fucking insane” Y/N said laughing at how stupid we all looked

“She’s saying she had an instant connection with Y/N because in her body she was able to see these memories that Y/N couldn’t remember. Is this correct?” Padi asked us

“I mean I can remember, but it takes some convincing” Y/N said

“You heard something that night when you came up here. You heard “upstairs” in your ear” Padi told Y/N. The color immediately drained from her face

“That explains why you said you wanted to see the podcast room. Our podcast room had already been done before we went to Boston, and you had even filmed a mock podcast with us in here” Matt said looking at Y/N

“My brain was scrambled from the injury” was all Y/N said

“You heard it and you sat in that chair when you felt something standing behind you” Padi told her

“I mean I did, but I’m not following along” Y/N said now sitting up and closer to the table

“Y/N you can’t remember many things because these memories aren’t yours. You’re fighting for something that never happened. You had feelings but you couldn’t remember” Padi said

“Every times I’m near Matt I feel hurt and anxiety, but I could never see our memories” Y/N said glancing over to Matt

“Revenant says she gave you a dream showing you when that hurt happened” Padi said looking over at Y/N who now was trying to avoid eye contact with everyone

“She says she showed you the day you and Matt were in the kitchen laughing about a joke he made about Chris, and when you went to offer him food he told you he had a date. She describes how you felt hurt and like all those times you showed Matt how you truly felt it went over your head. She tells me you really like the kid and that’s why you’re sending anxiety and hurt” paid had told Y/N. At this point Y/N was looking down in embarrassment and Matt felt a blush creep up on his cheeks.

“She did show me that dream, but that’s not my memory I don’t remember that” Y/N said finally looking up at everyone confused as ever

Padi looks at Y/N in a questioning way, and then almost instantly has a light bulb moment.

“Would you let Revenant take over and talk for you” Padi asks, Y/N just slightly nods and looks down. Instantly her head snaps back up and looks around.

“I love doing that” Revenant said

“In her body what do you see” Padi asks

“I actually can not believe this is happening” Nick said shocked

“Shut the fuck up” Matt and Chris both said

“In her body I see everything. Every single memory is clear as day and this unconditional love for Matt, and this brotherly bond with Nick and Chris. This is why I like taking over her body, so I can chat with Matt because she won’t she’s scared, and when I talk to him I feel at peace” Revenant said who was actually Y/N?? Man who knows what’s going on right now

“I think I know what’s going on here” Padi said, smiling brightly. “Nick ask her a very specific question, maybe a memory that you’ve told her but in the past she couldn’t remember” Padi said looking at Nick, he nods and looks over at Y/N

“Do you remember last summer you came over, and you were balling your eyes out? Last time I asked you this was 3 months ago, and you told me you couldn’t remember, and I had to fill you in and then you did say you remembered, but I know you didn’t. Do you remember now what you were crying about?” Nick had asked looking at Y/N, instantly her eyes lit up and she nodded her head

“Oh this is embarrassing. I ran into your arms crying because I told you Matt would never see me the way I saw him, and all he did was rub it in my face how many dates he went on, and no matter how much I would do for him he just didn’t like me back” she said almost wanting to cover her mouth after

“Holy shit” Nick said looking back at Padi

She nodded and asked the same of Matt. Matt then said “Do you remember when you came back from that date, and I was being really mean to you and telling you that I hoped the relationship wouldn’t work out” Matt had asked

“Yeah I do, and once again I ran to Nick sobbing into his arms and asking him why you hated me so much” she said, eyes getting glossy as she looked down.

“Well I never meant that I was actually super jealous of the guy and so really wanted to go out with you instead of that loser” Matt replied back to her, her cheeks got so read and she flashed a big smile

“Well if it makes you feel any better I actually got stood up, but was too embarrassed to come home, so I stood out for an extra hour” Y/N said to Matt. But instantly everyone’s head perched up

“WAIT!” The three boys said in unison.

“What do you mean I, you just swud I? But you’re a fucking ghost” Chris said freaked out, and to this Y/N shrugged her shoulders and looked at Padi

“Well you see what happens is when two people are losing their lives and their souls are trying to get back to their bodies, sometimes the wrong soul attaches to the wrong body. This would explain why Y/N was never able to fully recover or remember anything that happened, and why she felt so attached to this podcast room” Padi said waiting for the boys to catch on

“So??” They all said

“Well you see while Y/N was in her coma her soul was fighting to get back to her body, but instead another dying soul ended up attaching itself to her body, and well Y/N actual soul came back to a second place she calls home which is this house! Although this was 7 months of her being here, to her ghost it would feel like eternity. And after a while you start to realize you’re probably dead therefore giving herself the name Revenant which is another fancy word for ghost ” Padi said to the four stunned people

“Now there is a way to get Y/N back to her actual body, and set that random soul inside of her free; because that soul probably doesn’t have its real body to go back to” she adds

“Well what do we have to do” they all asked

“Mmm you’re not going to like this idea and it may never work which means you’ll be stuck with a random soul who doesn’t know you, and Y/N will truly be dead forever” Padi said. They all looked at each other thinking of what to say

Matt started “I think we’ll…..”

To be continued

Pt. 1 this is kinda based on Layla by Colleen Hoover<3

HIIII everyone this was my first imagine after not writing for like 6 years, so please be nice to me🥹❤️

I love writing so much, and I hope yall enjoyed this I know it was a long read😙😙

[tarnishedxknight]

{out of dalmasca} Well... I'm finally home. I got home around 2:30PM. Saturday. For a same-day procedure scheduled for 4:30PM Friday that should have taken from check-in to discharge about 4-5 hours.

Yeeeeeeeah...

It. Was. An absolute nightmare. I'll briefly summarize below a cut for anyone who wants the dirt and to hear my harrowing tale of woe, lol, but long story short, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and I never want to go back to that hospital ever again, heh. Which.. is sad. I was born in that hospital. My mother was a nurse there for the majority of her career. She loved that hospital. My life was saved there when I was two and sick with JRA, and my dad's was saved when he was in his 60s and he got a rare blood infection. But this experience? -47/10 would not recommend. But it's done, the actual surgery went well, now I just have to heal up. =)

Okay, so. What happened was... someone who should've had a 2-hour surgery before me to have their appendix removed ended up having a cancerous tumor there that nobody expected. It was really in there good and wrapped around important things, and the surgery took 8 hours to safely remove it. So my appt. time was 4:30PM, I was told to get there at 2PM, I got there at 1:45PM... and I didn't have surgery until 11:45PM. It was a total fiasco of everything that could possibly go wrong... going wrong.

Machines broke down or malfunctioned. They did a random maintenance of the computer system so none of the nurse could log into their little mobile kiosk accounts. I had two different bed issues. One took three nurses to figure out how to lock it so it didn't move around (the table I was having surgery on), and the other bed (my post-op recovery bed) the nurse backed so far up that it got hiked up onto a drawer of a shelving unit behind it and then wouldn't raise or lower. When she figured this out, she closed the drawer, causing the bed to painfully and suddenly drop like 8 inches to the floor with me in it. My check-in nurse disappeared and they couldn't find him for a solid hour and I had to get another one and restart the whole process. Another forgot to take an IV port out of an elderly patient who had been next to me and let him go home with it, only to have to walk him through removing it over the phone later. None of this instilled confidence.

They put me in a room after surgery because "it's late now," and the phone didn't work in the room. Neither did the TV. That's okay because I couldn't see anything anyway AND I had no cell phone because my dad took them, because they told him he'd be coming back in a couple hours to take me home and then... just kidding. So I sat in one room for 8 hours before surgery, and then sat in another post-surgery for 13 hours. With. Nothing to do (except they did have a passable portable tv in the first room, which I'll get to in a second). Unable to see or make calls. And I had none of my meds that prevent other serious medical issues while sleep so......... I couldn't sleep. I had to fight to stay away or risk things going wrong in other ways. Dear gods, the boredom and stress.

I was put in a room with a terminally ill cancer patient who wanted to chat and tell me in gory detail everything about her illness. That... was not what I needed right just then. Then, she kept like... I would push the call button (once I found out where it was because nobody told me), and because I was hidden in the back and she was by the door, they would just ask her what she wanted, she'd get help to do this that or whatever, and then they'd leave again without even talking to me.

Just outside our room was the man who had the appendix out. He was shrieking, crying, and moaning all night long because he was in pain, and they couldn't give him anything for it because his blood pressure had bottomed out. It was like something out of a horror movie, except real, to listen to the sounds of agony this poor man was making. Extremely upsetting. I cried twice just because I had a visceral human response to the sounds he was making. Another reason why I got no sleep.

I am supposed to be on a low fat diet, at least until I heal. Also, when you have GE surgery, the last thing you want is to drink caustic acid. So what do they bring me for breakfast? Orange juice, raw pineapple, and tart strawberries (I could feel them all burning on the way down, I was in agony), and then scrambled eggs with melted cheese, fried breakfast sausages, and fried potatoes. Like. What the actual fuck. And coffee. I detest coffee. When I asked for tea I got looked at funny and told they couldn't give that to me. Apparently hot tea is a burn risk, but hot coffee is fine. Yeah, okay, sure. Tell that to that woman who sued McDonalds for burning her own lap. I couldn't eat the potatoes, they were so dry I was afraid of choking on them, it was ridiculous. But I ate and drank as much as I could because, all told during this process, I had gone 17.5 hours without water, and about 21 hours without food.

The reason they kept me overnight was because my surgeon just left afterward. He didn't talk to me, didn't give discharge orders, didn't say anything, he just left. Then, as of like 6AM when they called him, he didn't answer, until around 12PM when they gave up and called another doctor, who basically said yeah I'm busy I'll get to it when I get to it. Hence me not being released until 2PM.

And the pain is..... omg intense. Debilitating. Not at all what was described to me as what to expect. And I'm no wuss, I've been in and out of hospitals since I was two, I have 10 piercings, I had all four wisdom teeth extracted and was eating pizza later that same day lol, and I have a very high pain threshold, so for me to say the pain is A Lot™ is.... yeah. This is hell. I am in hell. XD

But I am home now and I just need to somehow get through the next few days until the pain gets better and my life gets more normal. My sleep schedule is all messed up and the pain is distracting, so I'm not sure when I'm going to be on to write. Over the next 3 days or so, I'll do what I can, when I can. If I feel like it's comforting and therapeutic, I will. If not, I won't.

BUT... the one ray of light in this hellish process was that in the room I was in for 8 hours the first time, they had a TV, and even though everything was blurry without my glasses, I found a channel playing movies. I got to watch the classic Ghostbusters II, which I love, and then they had back to back Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Got all the way through them, and then they moved me 10 minutes before IM2 ended, which was... rude. I've already seen it but still. That's so annoying. XD

The funny thing was, the night before surgery I was so anxious I couldn't sleep, so I was on my phone watching and listening to random videos and music. I found my favorite music video of Tony Stark/Iron Man that I hadn't seen in a long time, and it was weird for me to click on it because lately I haven't been writing him and I felt a bit detached from the character. So I thought it was funny that I randomly watched that the night before, and then I'm in the hospital watching Iron Man movies on their TV, haha. Needless to say, my muse for Tony is now through the roof, so... that's going to be a thing for a while.

Weirdly enough, watching Tony going through all the medical stuff with his reactor, and watching him battle his own anxiety and neuroticism, was strangely comforting to me sitting hours on end in a hospital awaiting surgery having one panic attack after another. I know, it makes no sense, you'd really think it'd make me more nervous, or that it would exacerbate my anxiety, but you'd be wrong. Neurodivergence ftw, heh. XD

Anyway, I'm home, I'm hurting, but I'm okay. And actually, despite everything going wrong, my actual surgery apparently went "perfect textbook" well. So that's the most important thing. I may be lurking for a couple days unless I get better sleep and my pain gets to a level where I can do more with my brain than just sit here and think.... ow. XD I'll see how I feel in the next few days and if I need to extend my hiatus from my regular rp schedule further, I'll let everyone know.

[gimmedamemes]

i dont think im gonna watch HSMTMTS season 4 :(

I cannot watch this. Maybe I’m a debby downer. Maybe I’m a negative nancy. Maybe I’m expecting too much realism from a TV show. However, no show has made me feel so  offended by the treatment of one character more than this one. 

My poor boy EJ was completely and totally DISCARDED by EVERYONE in the last season. He was juggling so many things such as college, his friends, his dad, and his girlfriend, and all he wanted was to enjoy his last summer as a kid by spending it with people he felt he could be the most comfortable around. 

Instead of that, however, he is suddenly and without warning pushed into being the director of a musical that he did not know anything about, while also being the pseudo-camp counselor because apparently, investing more than one adult into a summer camp is worth it to the Camp Shallow Lake owners. And yet, no one seems to acknowledge how unfair this is, not even EJ himself. 

All he does is push through and do his absolute BEST to make it happen. However, because he can’t adapt to this new role flawlessly and balance everything perfectly, to his fellow campers who are not dealing with anything of that nature (no, Carlos’ inability to climb a rock wall doesn’t count) he becomes a bad friend, a bad cousin, and a bad boyfriend. 

And due to the fact that he was too busy while running a show that he had no business running, to devote every second to his girlfriend, the final straw in their relationship is Gina’s discovery of a letter that was not her business at all. Perhaps his reason for hiding it was because of her reacting the way she did. We’ll never know, because EJ’s feelings were never given a first thought, much less a second and he was never able to explain. 

And thus, in the last half hour of the final episode, we get Ricky and Gina, who have decided that they’re each other’s one true love based on.... what again? Oh yeah, some chocolates she thought he gave her. And some other stuff too, I suppose, but that’s all it took for some to decide that they were a valid ship. 

Ricky who was HOPELESSLY devoted to another girl for 2 seasons straight, whose whole reason for being in the drama club was for her, for whose primary interactions with Gina were either because of her or about her, suddenly decides that Gina is the one he’s looking for ONLY after driving to said summer camp on a whim because his other girlfriend was discovered to be the saboteur we all knew she was. Shockingly (but, maybe not to some), Gina reciprocates. In the last few minutes of the last episode, Ricky and Gina kiss, not even 12 hours after Gina breaks it off with EJ for good. 

Now, what’s my problem with this? It’s so sloppy and unrealistic. Now, the show itself is unrealistic and as a theater kid myself, I can tell you that for sure. Our sets aren’t anywhere near as elaborate, we don’t have a strong supporting ensemble cast and overall, the whole concept of any school club having that much devotion is a serious stretch. But it’s done well. Or it was. N

Rini was a couple we were somewhat rooting for from the start. Portwell we grew to love because of the slow burn and the slow reveal of the couple’s true feelings for one another. Now, we are expected to believe that 2 seasons of solid Portwell build up (as well as the first half of season 3 before they began having problems) is just calmly thrown away and for what? For Rina? A subplot/sub-ship that was made possible by under 10 scenes together? Ricky, who was so devoted to Nini and promised never to let her go again and Gina who wasn’t able to give her obviously overburdened boyfriend any grace? That’s the ship that we’re supposed to root for?

I don’t think so. It was sloppy and badly done and it made no sense whatsoever. If they had to end the Portwell relationship, for whatever reason, I don't know, perhaps they didn’t want to encourage a sophomore-senior relationship or going to college while dating someone in high school. They could’ve easily done what they did with Ricky and Nini, and break them up on amicable terms because a relationship with someone in high school and someone in college just doesn’t work. 

They had no reason to abuse EJ’s character and ruin some of his relationships, before never talking about him again, while Ricky swoops in and takes his girlfriend AGAIN. It was so unnecessary and at this point it's repetitive. Because everytime there’s a season that starts off with 2 characters being madly in love, we all know it goes. 

So I don’t know how much I'll be watching.

(lol i just wanted to get this out of my system after watching the season 4 trailer)

[kaiwewi]

*quiet chanting*

Guilty conscience, guilty conscience, guilty conscience

*quiet chanting* yes, yes, yes 😘

Guilty Conscience #10

[Masterlist: Renegade Rescue Squad] [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9]

Synopsis: Villain is finally reunited with two of his friends. Henchman in particular is overjoyed to see him.

tw: blood

"Villain!"

The scream travelled down the dimly lit hallway.

He jerked to his feet and barely had the time to turn and brace himself before Henchman’s broad chest slammed into him and two beefy arms crushed him in a hug.

Henchman was warm and solid and... there. For him. To take him home. Fresh tears welled up in his eyes, but it was okay. If anyone was to comment on that, he’d blame it on Henchman squeezing the air out of him like a man trying to deflate an air bed.

He wheezed, and Henchman gave him one last squeeze, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then released him.

“Oopsie. Got a bit excited there,” Henchman made to pull away, yet immediately began fussing instead. “I’m just so glad you texted. Ohmigosh, we were so worried – you know what people say about Other Villain – and then you didn’t write back anymore and it’s been hours and none of our messages went through and we just—”

Before he got the chance to apologise or tell Henchman what had happened or simply say hello, Henchman had grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back by an arm’s length.

“Oh shoot, is that blood? It totally is, isn't it? Are you bleeding?”

Then Henchman’s hands were on him again, frantically patting down his blood-smeared shirt, prodding his chest in search for a wound, then his shoulders and upper arms. But there was nothing to be found and Henchman’s frown deepened, half obscured by a silver mask. “I can’t find any injuries. Sweetie, talk to me. Are you hurt?”

Not hurt, no. Though perhaps hurting...

He should explain. He wanted to explain. But he didn’t trust himself to keep from pathetically bawling his eyes out the moment he opened his mouth, so he merely shook his head.

Watching the relief flood Henchman’s face well-nigh broke his heart. They leaned against each other, forehead to forehead, with one of Henchman’s massive hands coming up to cradle his neck. Henchman's breath carried the scent of mint-flavoured bubble gum.

“Shorty, you can’t scare me like that. For a moment there, I honestly thought—”

“Oi,” Harper barked. She'd come to a stand beside them. “It’s not his blood. The boy’s fine. We all know you missed him, it’s cute. Now get your paws off him already.” She jerked her head towards the bench and its occupant. “We’ve got ourselves an actual patient here.”

Henchman stepped aside, cheeks flushed, and Harper squeezed into the empty space between them, lest they should decide to hug again. (He really wanted to hug again.)

Harper gave him a pat on the back in greeting and accepted a small smile and a mumbled “Hey Harpy” in return, though she waved off his attempts to thank them both for coming.

She was right of course – the little hero had to take priority.

Everyone’s eyes settled on the kid, who sat huddled into the jacket he’d wrapped around their small frame earlier when he’d taken their pulse and their hand had been so awfully cold in his. The hero was watching them warily and didn’t seem to appreciate the sudden attention any more than he appreciated the lack of Henchman’s warm embrace.

Harper gave the kid a once-over. “I’d sure love an explanation for… whatever this is,” she said, and although she was addressing him, her gaze focused on the hero’s face; or more precisely, on the mask (white, emblazoned with a silver snake curled around a tiny red cross) sitting slightly askew and generally ill-fitting on the hero’s face.

“Yeah,” Henchman chimed in, “what's a kid doing in a place like this? And why are they wearing your mask?” The little hero stiffened in their seat as Henchman took a step forward and towered over them. “Wait a sec… that’s the rookie hero! The one with the glimmering, flickering cape-thingy made of light that looks like rainbow-coloured angel wings.”

The little hero nodded meekly and avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Maybe they were scared, or perhaps merely shy.

“It’s my fault,” he blurted, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d meant that as a reply to any of the questions. Somehow, it was and wasn’t an answer to each of them. He cleared his throat, feeling absurdly exposed without the extra layers of fabric that were the mask he wouldn’t normally wear around his friends anyway. “They got caught and injured and lost their mask... because I screwed up.”

Harper sneered. “So you thought it wise to give them yours and show them your face.”

Well, what else was he supposed to do? His mask and his jacket had been the only thing he’d had to offer. The only olive branch to extend. Repeatedly promising the hero he wouldn’t hurt them wasn't going to magically make his words believable. All he could do, was to make the poor thing as comfortable as possible while he practised what he’d preached: getting them out of here, seeing them to a safe place, and removing the power suppressor.

Protecting the hero’s identity had seemed a good start.

A peace offering.

He shrugged. “No need to hide my face when they’ve already seen the picture on my phone…”

“Ah yes.” Harper hummed, in a vaguely disapproving tone. “The group picture. Showed them all our faces. Excellent job. Well done.” She turned to the hero and shook her head, wryly amused. “Can you believe it? That brat is supposed to be the boss of me...”

He flashed her his best apologetic smile. “Love you too, Harps?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She scoffed. With a snap of her fingers, both her and Henchman’s masks simply flickered out of existence. “That’s what they all say…”

[Part 11]

[mercnotfound]

~ I Think I'm Okay ~

Music Producer!Ellie Williams x OC

I Think I’m Okay {Part 2}

Music Producer!Ellie Williams x OC

Word count; 1.994k

[Ellie is a successful music producer who is in a slump, carving her way through a hundred and one different highs to try and find her next hit, until she meets her.]

“So let me get this straight, some random girl almost knocked your door down at 3am because she was hiding from her ex?”

“Yes.” Ellie paused with her glass of water halfway to her mouth, eyes widening, “Hey wait- do you think she was casing my apartment? Did I fall for a fucking casing scam? Jesse, am I an idiot?”

“Nah, no way.” Jesse leaned back in his chair and frowned. “I mean, surely not, right?”

“Listening to you two talk is like trying to watch the first cavemen light a fire.”

Ellie turned and saw Dina grinning from where she stood behind the mic in the recording booth, her voice muffled but still audible while the door was propped open. She raised her middle finger at her, before slamming the glass of water onto the table and rubbing her face with both hands.

“What if I get robbed?” She murmured.

“It’s fine, you’ll be fine.” Jesse patted her shoulder but his voice didn’t sound totally convinced. “Let’s just get to work.”

Ellie nodded and leaned over to push the door to the booth shut, then slipped on her headphones and flicked through the notebook Jesse had handed to her earlier.

“So this is for Stargazer?” She asked.

Jesse hummed, leaning over to point at the page Ellie had landed on.

“Right here, this is where I want to add Dinas vocals. Client said he wants the instrumental to be really thick so I’m hoping this’ll help.”

Ellie nodded and looked back up at Dina, giving her a thumbs up and hitting a couple buttons on the deck. That morning, after fighting her way out of bed in the middle of a come-down and running on an interrupted 4 hours of sleep, she’d opened her phone to see an email from someone who had been waiting on an updated demo, one that Ellie had promised would be sent over that night. To sum it up, the guy had grown sick of her excuses, called her a burnt out one-hit-wonder and vowed to never work with her again amidst a cacophony of colourful language. It had felt like somewhat of a wake-up call, and now she was determined to do something useful today.

By the end of their session, she’d successfully coached Dina through all the recordings they needed and even strung up a chord progression she’d been delaying for weeks; it wasn’t perfect, but definitely a solid start, and Jesses satisfied grin as they walked out the studio almost felt like a hit by itself- almost. 

“Wanna hit a bar? It is a Friday afterall and I feel like we deserve it.” Jesse swung his arm around Dinas shoulders and raised his eyebrows at Ellie, who pretended to mull it over for a second before nodding.

“Sure, why not” Absolutely yes-fucking-please.

They went to their usual place, The Tipsy Bison, where Ellie met Dina for the first time after her and Jesse had just had one of their breakups; Dina had kissed Ellie and Jesse had almost broken her nose - they were 19 at the time.

“God, remember when we turned twenty-one and started using our real IDs here?” Dina laughed, “I mean, Seths face-”

“Fucking priceless.” Ellie added.

“Poor guy actually thought he was insane when the whole bar got in on it and pretended we’d never been there before. Great times man.” Jesse chuckled and strode through the doors, walking straight up to the bar. Dina and Ellie followed, ordering their drinks.

Ellies mouth felt dry, she was craving something, but the alcohol would carry her over for now. She swallowed, her freckled throat bobbing as she raised her glass from the sticky bar and tried to drink it without looking like a madwoman. She glanced around, Dina and Jesses conversation fading into the blur of bar sounds as she eyed a throng of people gathered by the jukebox dancing.

“Y’wanna dance?” She asked Dina.

“Fuck yeah!”

Ellie took Dinas hand and began leading her to the group, releasing it once they got close enough and merging with the crowd. This was where Dina belonged, Ellie had seen it from the first moment she lay eyes on her five years ago, her eyes shut and dark hair swinging as her skin shone with sweat- she was the kind of girl who commanded attention, Ellie had liked that, which is why she’d let Dina kiss her.

“Hey, you’re Ellie Williams, right?” Ellie looked to her right to see a girl standing smiling at her expectantly.

“Yeah, that’s me.” She eyed the girl up and down, smirking a little. “And who’s asking?” She felt a little heat flicker in her gut as the girl went visibly red.

“I-I’m Lorna, I’ve heard your stuff, I’m… a big fan, actually.”

“Oh yeah? How come I’ve never seen you before? You from out of town?”

The girl nodded. “Yep, just visiting some friends at the minute. Your studio is around here, right?”

Ellie whistled lowly, the sound barely audible with the noise around. “You really are a fan, huh?”

The girl blushed harder, the heat intensified. “Yeah, s’a block or so down. You wanna… come see it?”

Ellie was pushing her luck, but hey, she was stressed at the minute, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d brought a girl back to the studio and fucked her on the deck.

“Yes, please.”

***

She waited outside the bar, leaning back against the wall and smoking a cig - the girl said she needed to tell her friends, Ellie told her to be quick. The night air was chilly and fought to get inside her leather jacket, hit the exposed skin under her ripped baggy jeans, to bring her teeth together in a clatter but Ellie sort of liked it, liked feeling human for a moment even as she pulled her jacket tighter around her.

She dropped the cig to the floor and stomped it out with her boot, pausing as she heard a strange sound coming from the alley behind her.

“The fuck?” She muttered, peering around the corner and squinting to see in the dark. She heard another noise, something like muttering, before a sensor-light suddenly flickered on and temporarily blinded her. 

There was a girl slumped against the back wall of the bar, and another girl with her, seemingly trying to pull her away from the wall but didn’t seem to be having much luck.

“Hey, you okay there?” Ellie called out. The more aware looking girl of the two snapped her head towards Ellie and- fuck, that curly hair.

“Shit, I thought you were a guy.” That voice. “Will you help me, please? I need to get her home.”

Ellie swallowed, stepping closer and realising it was exactly who she thought it was, glowing under the flickering orange light.

“It’s you.” Ellie said.

The girl looked up again, frowning at Ellie for a second before seemingly catching on, her mouth falling open into an ‘O’.

“And it’s you. You look different when you’re not half asleep and half-baked.” She smiled, Ellie watched how it creased the sides of her mouth and raised her cheeks into peaches.

“You look different when you’re not breaking into my apartment at 3am.”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t break in.” Then she turned back to the other girl, who Ellie could now see had her eyes shut. “Will you help? I called a cab, it should be here soon I just need to get her to the street.”

“Sure.” Ellie swung one of the girls arms over her shoulders and pulled her gently off the wall, grunting a little at the dead weight but supporting her steadily. She ducked under the other arm and took the rest of the weight, struggling a little more than Ellie.

“What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you ‘girl who woke me up at 3am’” Ellie tried to add some strength to her voice behind the joke, but it came out meek and she felt her face go red.

“Been talking about me?” The other girl grinned. Ellie shrugged.

“I’m Ellie.”

“I’m Rain.” She finally responded after a moment of studying Ellies face, her gaze returning to the floor and allowing Ellie to breathe again.

“S’pretty, I like it.” She muttered.

They walked the half-conscious girl to the path just as her cab pulled up, and managed to manouvre her into it without too much trouble.

“You gonna be okay getting her home, Rain?” Ellie scratched her nose, fighting to keep her gaze on Rains face on the opposite side of the car. 

Rain bit her lip, resting her chin on the roof of the car.

“I really don’t mind.” Ellie added.

“If you’re sure-”

“I’m sure.”

Rain nodded and disappeared into the car. Ellie glanced back at the bar, seeing the girl she’d been talking to emerge from the front doors and look around, trying to spot Ellie. She hesitated, forearm resting on the open car door as she watched the girl frown and pull out her phone.

“Ellie?”

“Yeah,” She replied, matching the other girls frown as she felt something in her stomach pulling her backwards into the car. “Just coming.”

***

“You’re actually the fucking best, thanks Ellie.” 

Ellie grinned, looking down and kicking at the pavement.

“Just doing my civic duty.”

“Well…” Rain sighed, leaning back against the now shut front door to her friends house (where they’d just spent almost twenty minutes trying to get the girl upstairs and in her bed). “What you did the other night wasn’t just your 'civic duty'… I know it was a really weird situation, but you helped, and I’m really grateful, so, thank you.”

Ellie shrugged in response, finally looking up and looking at the other girl straight in the face.

“It’s okay, really, just don’t tell TMZ you caught me with coke on my nose and we’ll call it even.” She smirked, cocking her head to the side.

“TMZ? Are you famous or something?” Rain laughed

“I mean… sorta?” Ellie leaned on the gate opposite Rain, sliding her hands into the pockets. “I’m a music producer.”

Rains eyes widened. “No fucking way? That’s so cool Ellie.”

Ellie grinned, “Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” Rain nodded, then checked her phone and sighed. “I should go…” She walked up to Ellie, who stiffened a little at the proximity - she could smell her perfume and it was making her dizzy. “You know the little cafe on West?” Ellie nodded. “I work there, come see me.” Then, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Ellie on the cheek, before pushing the gate open and walking away. Ellie stumbled, then caught the gate before it swang back on her and stood watching Rain leave, frowning at the feeling in her stomach. 

That night, she went home, ignoring the itching on her skin as she walked past the residue from last night on the coffee table and collapsed into bed, eyes tired but fixed on the clock in her room. 3am came, no knock, she didn’t know why she was disappointed. She got back up and went to the fridge, stared into it for a second, shut it, went to sit on the couch and pushed her hand into her boxers, then pulled it back out with a frustrated sigh. Ellie contemplated getting on her knees and licking the white dust off the table with her tongue; she had no shame, she’d done it before, anything to get rid of that itch, but the dust couldn’t talk and to be honest- all she really wanted, for some unknown fucking reason, was Rains voice.

It was gonna be a long-ass night.

[taglist! @gold-dustwomxn @robinismywifee ]

[itwasthisorthemilitary]

March 1, 2024

Day 1 in La Colorada, Los Santos!

Yesterday Dena and I flawlessly travelled to Los Santos by ourselves and it was very straightforward. We're staying with Stephanie until Sunday to get to experience life with an active volunteer. Stephanie has been at this site for exactly a year now but because of the consolidation period last year her experience is a little wonky. Last November all active Peace Corps members in Panama were gathered up to a central location to wait out country wide protests against a new mine. Consolidation is one step before evacuation because both the US and Panama would like to avoid having to evacuate members. For 38 days 81 active volunteers were sequestered because the protests were leading to road closures and food shortages. Really cool that the protest was successful in closing the mine down.

We arrived in town yesterday and it's HOT and dry and very dead. About 106⁰F today and everything is dead. The journey from Los Mortales took us about 4 hours total. This community has about 2000 people, 5 times the size of the community I currently live in. The primary concern of this community has been solid waste management and combatting burning piles of trash.

Stephanie's community guide showed us how he is boiling sugar cane juice to make miel de caña (sugar cane honey). He has to boil the jugo de caña for 8 hours in that big vat. He also gave us fresh pressed sugar cane and ginger juice (gaurapo). Then at one point he handed me a 6 day old puppy so I was a happy gal.

Otherwise we've just been observing her routines as a volunteer living alone in a community. She has two dogs and really feels that they give her companionship and protection and she works with a travel vet who stops in her town to give them vaccines and check-ups. It's been nice to just relax and not have classes or five kids screaming my name. But I do still hope that when I get placed for my site it's closer to the mountains. Stephanie hosts an English club for kids who wanted to improve their English over the summer break so today we helped her prepare for the end of club party, as regular school will begin again on Monday. We made chocolate chip cookies in a frying pan for the kids. Loving the sleepover and getting to know Dena better but know I'll be happy to return to Los Mortales on Sunday.

P.S. supposedly Los Santos is the only region with Spider Monkeys but I haven't seen any yet.

[ne0ngenisis]

Let's talk about my BABIES

(in order of acquisition)

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Number One! ThinkPad T440p! (Not actually named)

This was a bit of an impulse purchase, as all of my laptops have been in the last threeish months. I knew of the trans girl stereotype of ThinkPads and Linux, and I wanted that. Especially because my laptop at the time was a crappy HP Stream (pictured underneath the ThinkPad) that couldn't run Windows without crashing constantly.

So I did some research and found out that this was the last model with socketed processors, and just kinda went for it! It arrived in much better condition than the pics suggested so I imagine the seller picked the wrong laptop out of the pile, but I'm not complaining.

It truly was nothing special when it was new, but I've upgraded it quite a bit since then! A 2C/4T 2.4GHz i3-4000M to a 4c/8t 3.7GHz i7-4800MQ, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD! It took me about five hours to install and configure Arch Linux on here, and that was with the guidance of friends who are a lot nerdier than me and I actually cried like, twice, out of frustration... BUT, it's been a solid performer ever since.

It cost me about $170 after everything I've done to it, but I still need to replace the screen on it with a 1080p IPS model, because the 768p TN panel is now literally the worst laptop screen I own. Apple seriously had better ones 12 years before this.

---

Number two! 12" iBook G3/500, "Baby"

Baby features in my current profile banner, as it's the laptop I carry around with me all the time to write on the go. The battery life is still pretty fantastic for its age, and it's super cute and small (the same depth as my ThinkPad not including the thicc battery, but about 2" narrower due to 4:3 aspect ratio).

I also picked this one up on a whim, because I was taken by an Apple hyperfixation, and also the image of a coffee shop hipster writing on an iBook. This one isn't a clamshell, love it or hate it, but I love it.

It's the very earliest model from 2001, with a 500MHz G3, 64MB of built-in RAM, and a CD-ROM drive. The original 10GB hard drive was missing so I went through the painstaking process of digging down to where it belongs and installing a 40GB IDE laptop drive I LITERALLY found in the trash.

I also spent $17 on a pair of working batteries and ended up with one that lasts for a good 4.5 hours when all you're doing is word processing, which I was and generally still do. Very close to factory battery life. I also spent about $16 on a charger because I didn't have one yet.

At first, I put Mac OS 9.2.2 on here, because it didn't have enough RAM for OS X as far as I could tell. Once I got the RAM upgrade (now 576MB, 64MB built-in + 512MB module), I installed OSX Tiger on here as well.

It's got some old OS9 games like Diablo II, Quake, Warcraft II, and I actually still own a physical copy of Riven on CD, so those all work on there. And I'm also using it to write, of course. However! It could not run Halo: Combat Evolved. Which led me to more purchases, lmao. I have considered doing a logic board swap to a faster CPU but that would be a daunting task...

It ended up costing me about $90, after the laptop, ram upgrade, charger, and working batteries.

---

Number three! 14" iBook G4/1.07, "Ghost"

Ghost is a funny one. Also driven by impulse, in this case, to have an old Mac laptop that could play Halo. I actually received it on the same day as the next one on this list. This is a 2004 1.07GHz 14" iBook G4 with 256MB of built-in RAM and a 256MB module for a total of 512MB, and a combo drive, I believe. This one actually came with a 1GB module in it, and an Airport card, but I swapped some parts around to make my G4 PowerBook more usable.

It was incredibly cursed, including weird freezing and crashes, refusing to install updates and to mount USB devices, and then it just stopped seeing the hard drive all together. I took it apart twice, once to take the hard drive out to discover it was the original 40GB Apple branded hard drive, and another to put it back in once it started booting in my PowerBook G4 (number 4 on the list), and all the cursedness went away somehow!

I still named it Ghost in honor of the cursedness.

I don't have a good battery for it at this time. Right now the only working 14" iBook battery I have (which I paid like $35 for) lasts about an hour, and the 12" battery I have in there now dies at a seemingly random percentage around 60% because the battery isn't reporting its capacity correctly. I did design and order a 3D printed adapter bracket thing so maybe I can stop using fucking masking tape to hold the battery in. It may become more used than my 12" once I get the battery, entirely due to the larger screen and faster processor.

I did have to replace the F12 key, because the original one was missing. This was made a lot easier by having the PowerBook G4 which we'll go over next. Now it's like an accent escape key for a fancy mechanical keyboard, or a gold tooth!

This one actually cost me the least out of all of them, at $69, including the battery I'm not even using, and it came with a second charger, which is good! Though, I guess with the 3D printed battery adapter you can up that price to $80. Or lower it to $44 if the battery doesn't count!

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Number four! 15" PowerBook G4/1.33G, "Alice"

Alice was purchased just days later than my iBook G4, but showed up on the same day. And boy, she was a basket case. I have named her Alice because of "Al" being the elemental symbol for Aluminum, as she's a 2004 Aluminum PowerBook G4, with a 1.33GHz processor and 1.5GB of RAM. It originally came with 512MB of RAM in two modules, but I put in a 512MB stick I found in the trash, plus the 1GB module and the Airport card from the iBook G4 to make it a more usable laptop in the modern day.

The problems were immediate when I got it plugged in for the first time, as there was seemingly no display, until I noticed the dark screen started to change colors. There was a picture... there was just no backlight. To my surprise, the sketchy looking aftermarket battery actually worked fine still, and it was good for about 3.5 hours of use.

Getting it hooked up to an external display, I started to notice that the trackpad button didn't work either. It's a good thing these parts were cheap.

I actually tried fixing the backlight inverter myself, as the issue was there was a coil that had detached itself from the board. My jank soldering work lasted about 15 minutes before it made a buzzing sound and one of the little wire stubs came detached from the side of the coil. RIP.

A week or so later, the backlight inverter and trackpad cable show up, and me being able to actually use the laptop properly shows even more problems. It won't sleep when it's plugged in. But only when it's plugged in. I can't get into the boot picker. Five of the keys on the keyboard also don't work. As it turns out, all of these problems are keyboard problems, and that fixed all of them.

Basket case-ness is different from cursedness. I knew what parts needed replacing on the PowerBook. The iBook just misbehaved until it suddenly stopped misbehaving.

It cost me about $95, including the laptop itself, the backlight inverter board, trackpad ribbon cable, and a glorious (pure sex to type on) new-old stock keyboard.

---

Number Five! Late 06 15" MacBook Pro, 2.16GHz C2D, "Dolores"

My MacBook Pro. As with the others, it was an impulse purchase, though it's required the most extreme repairs of any of these laptops so far. It's a Late 2006 15" model, with a Core 2 Duo T7400, and pre-upgraded to the maximum of 3GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD. It came with all sorts of goodies, including an 85-watt MagSafe charger, copies of iWork and iLife 2009, the original recovery DVDs for 10.4.8 Tiger, and a hard copy of OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. What it did not include was a battery.

Initially I tried booting it up from nothing, and it would get stuck on a white or blue screen sometime after the Apple logo disappeared, and the same would happen when I put the Snow Leopard DVD into the drive. When I put the Tiger DVDs in, it would install the OS fine, but the resulting install wouldn't boot either. And then I noticed the artifacting.

I knew that this was a possibility with basically any model of pre-unibody MacBook Pro. All of them have graphics issues, though the '07 and '08 models have it a lot worse than the '06 models. I end up complaining about this on a Discord server, and another queer nerd tells me that the boot failure is probably because of the GPU being marginal, and since it's an ATI Radeon GPU instead of an Nvidia GPU, a reflow might help it.

So... I take it apart for the second time that day, after the first time to repaste the CPU, Northbridge, and GPU, and I bathe the GPU in 350°C air from my rework station for about 6 minutes, letting the board rest for 20 minutes before I reapply thermal paste again and reassemble it. Now it boots into MacOS fine. I installed Snow Leopard and updated to Lion, and it's been fine since, though the 32-bit EFI firmware has caused some issues with attempts to get Linux working on the damn thing, though I'm told the GPU could just be playing nice with MacOS but still not good enough to work in Linux.

I tried getting a battery off of eBay, a cheap replacement battery, but it only half works. It powers the laptop, but it won't show up in the OS to show any percentage or capacity, and it won't charge either. So I bought a single-use battery. I'm trying to message the seller and get my money back right now.

It has cost me about $74 including the cost of the crappy essentially single use battery. I'll probably get an actually good one from OWC eventually, because I want to be able to use this laptop as a daily at some point.

---

Well, that's it! For now. I also have my eyes set on a mid 2009 white MacBook but that will be a later kind of thing. Not right now, while there's still work to be done on my other laptops.

[amndstuckinwonderland]

Emerge From Water - 04

Chapter 4

Summary + Chapter list:

Waking up, Harry checked the time and decided that it was too early to go anywhere so he continued reading through the books and finally finished the files. Today he needed to go to Gringotts to speak to Ironclaw about Sirius Black.

The day went by easily and without issues, first Harry ate and strolled the Alley for a bit, going into shops while feeling giddy over hiding a snake in his newly bought shoulder bag. Turns out snakes are quite sassy, and had ended up naming her Lily. She rather liked it.

“Green One, we should go to the short people now so you can finalise your business and we can cuddle up and sleep.” Harry soon realised that his snake was rather lazy, but at least the commentary was interesting. Harry conceded to Lily’s point and went to Gringotts.

Waiting for his turn, Harry observed the bank, it was quite imposing. In a few minutes, it was Harry’s turn, “I’d like to speak with Craftblade and Ironclaw, please and thank you.” The Goblin looked Harry over, before yelling for another Goblin to escort Harry to Craftblade’s office and to call Ironclaw.

Harry was taken to the room filled with weapons hanging on the walls and an intimidating desk where Craftblade sat. “How can I help you today, Mr Potter?” Harry then went along and explained that he was here to visit the vaults under his name as well as to give the memories for Sirius’ case.

As he mentioned Sirius, Ironclaw arrived. “Mr Potter, sit down so I can begin the memory extraction.” The Goblin said, leaving no room to refuse. Harry nodded and sat down on the chair parallel to Craftblade. The extraction took a minute and Ironclaw left after securing the memories into Potion Vials.

Before Craftblade took Harry to visit the vaults, Harry asked, “The files mentioned a few of my heirlooms being missing, that weren’t in one of the family properties, how do I get them back?” At the question, the Goblin looked confused before he sneered, “Just recite, ‘I, Lord Potter and Heir Black recall all items owned by me to be returned’.” 

Harry nodded, assuming it was like one of those warding enchantments and binds that were attached to all assets Harry owns per the file's details. And in a few seconds, a blank parchment paper and an ugly-coloured cloak appeared. Harry recognised both items, the parchment was a map his Dad made with the password of ‘I Solemnly Swear That I’m Up To No Good’. The cloak on the hand had the Potter Family Magic reacting quite strongly as Harry picked it up, once again lamenting that it would have been pretty if it was a solid colour like green.

Then suddenly, the cloak changed its colour to an emerald green. Gently wearing the cloak, Harry turned invisible, the cloak was the famed Cloak of Invisibility given to Ignotus Peverell by Death himself, or so the file claims it to be.

Harry delicately folded the Cloak and placed it into his bag, before following Craftblade into his vaults. The entire ordeal took over two hours and Harry was emotionally drained. He had visited a total of six vaults, five for the Potter Family and the last for the Black Heirship.

When Harry asked why there were multiple vaults, Craftblade had replied that there were his trust vaults, one for each family, then the main Potter vault, then one dedicated to portraits, one to cursed heirlooms and then the last was books and trinkets that the Ministry and ICW, International Confederation of Wixen, had banned over the years. Harry was looking forward to looking into that.

So Harry spent a good chunk of the day roaming through the vaults, truthfully, Harry had spent most of it stalling to avoid going into the portrait vault. “Did my parents’ have portraits commissioned?” Harry tried to keep the hopefulness to a minimum but couldn’t help it. 

The Goblin stared at Harry for a second before replying, “No, unfortunately, due to the circumstances at the time and the fact that most Wixen do not have their portraits painted until they're in their late fifties.” Harry took the answer for what it was and tried not to feel too bitter at never meeting his parents, even if it was a shade of their true personality.

Harry walked out of the bank with multiple books and heirlooms the family kept as well as journals he found written by his parents with their friends, or so Harry assumed. That night, after Harry settled himself by rearranging his entire trunk much too many times, he went to sleep both excited and a cauldron worth of anticipation for the Will reading.

The next day Harry woke up in a mix of emotions, he was not only finding out about a GodFather but also given the option to stay with him, despite Harry being an adult in the eyes of Wixen Laws. 

Harry got up and changed into formal robes he bought the day prior, he had only purchased a few to last him for a week. The robes were a gorgeous emerald green, underneath Harry wore simple black slacks and a button-up white shirt. Slipping on a pair of dragonhide boots, Harry shrunk his trunk and checked out of the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry was the first to arrive at Gringotts, granted he wanted to see exactly who would be participating. Second to arrive was a stern-looking woman who brought along three people, two of them in similar uniforms that he recognized as Official Auror Robes, but before Harry could even greet Lady, one of the men hoarsely spoke, “Harry?” 

Harry’s eyes snapped to the man the Aurors’ escorted with cuffs on his wrist. “Sirius?” Harry abruptly stopped, “Merry meet Lady Bones, Aurors.” He greeted, lightly brushing a kiss to the Department Head of Magical Law Enforcement’s hand, “Gringotts has graciously provided a private room for us to wait in.”

With that being said, Harry followed an escort Goblin to a private room. Once settled, Harry politely had the Aurors move to the back after they introduced themselves as Aurors Shaklebolt and Graves. They had seated Sirius onto the couches and Harry, much to the concern of the others in the room, had swiftly sat down next to him.

Sirius looked groggy, except once he glanced at Harry, his eyes watered as if he was about to sob, hence Harry grabbed his hand and squeezed, “I know you’re innocent, just brave through this, and we can talk privately.” That calmed the man significantly. Harry had noticed that his GodFather was rather pale and malnourished, and he felt his heart constrict in sympathy.

Harry knew it was a smart idea to read the books on Azkaban, hence he silently and single handedly removed a box of chocolate as well as warm milk from his shoulder bag, but was careful not to wake Lily up from her sleep. Then he fed them to Sirius, who curled himself onto Harry, hoping it would bring any form of comfort. 

The entire room was filled with quiet tension as Lady Longbottom arrived, both Harry and Lady Bones had gotten up to greet her. The two Ladies made idle small talk whilst Harry rejoined Sirius on the couch. Now, there was only Remus, Professor Snape and Dumbledore left to arrive, and ten minutes to start the Reading itself.

Just as Harry thought of the werewolf, Remus walked in, he immediately zeroed onto Harry and Sirius, but as per decorum and social rules, greeted everyone before sitting near Harry and Sirius, yet he did not speak, too shaken up to answer, it was only then Harry realised that it was two days after the full moon and Remus would still be recovering.

Sirius tried to reach out for Remus’ hand yet stopped himself, “Moony.” He rasped, that was all it took for Remus to reach out to hold Sirius’ slightly chocolatey hand. Before he could say anything, Bloodclaw walked into the room with Ironclaw trailing behind him. 

Though, prior to the Goblins arriving Professor Snape walked into the room, and he silently went to greet everyone before sitting down in the furthest corner from Harry and Sirius.

Then came in the Goblins, ten minutes after them came in a horribly dressed wizard. When Harry heard Dumbledore’s fashion sense was bad, he thought of mismatched robes and dress shirts, not ugly bright yellow stars on deep purple. Harry had to calm himself, or else he would have set blaze those disgusting robes. 

“Harry! My boy, you must get away from him!” Dumbledore said with a certain edge to his voice, but rather than Harry showing an outburst, he calmly replied, “Have we met before? Because I do not recall giving you permission to refer to me by my given name.” Such is life when you leave a child to be neglected by bitter relatives, those children end up holding grudges and anger which even Hell is afraid of.

Despite reeling internally, Harry caught Lady Bones’ eyebrows twitching in irritation, she looked rather displeased by the information. “Now Harry, I am your Magical Guardian, and I require respect-” Harry quickly cut him off, “I have never met you in my life, hence you have failed as a Guardian, second of all I am an emancipated Lord, you have no control whatsoever upon me.”

The temperature dropped in the room, due to Dumbledore’s late arrival, the rest of the people in the room had already witnessed Harry’s Lordship and Heir Rings. The Headmaster looked flustered, and rightfully so, he had never planned for the Will to be read, yet since it was happening, he needed to do damage control.

Thankfully, the Goblins didn’t allow for any unnecessary chatter as they squished Dumbledore’s attempts to talk to Harry. He was quite glad he had informed the Goblins of his desire of not wanting to speak with Albus Dumbledore until he reached Hogwarts. 

Craftblade, once everyone had stopped speaking, opened a box filled with a shimmery sphere and placed it onto the desk in the middle of the room. 

“I still do not think we should burden a child to hear their parents’ last words.” Dumbledore said in a gentle tone yet mentally he was seething, how dare the child speak against him. Surprisingly, before Harry could say anything, Lady Longbottom intervened. “We should hurry up, none of us have time for delayed matters that should have been resolved ages ago.”

Harry caught the stern Lady’s eyes and slightly inclined his head as a thanks and received a sharp nod in return. Then Craftblade tapped the sphere twice and a voice played out of it;

“I, Jameson Fleamont Potter, revoke all previous wills whilst under no effects of any spells, potions or runes, so mote it be.

I, Lily Rosaline Potter nee Evans, revoke all previous wills whilst under no effects of any spells, potions or runes, so mote it be.”

Harry swallowed a sob at hearing his parents' voices, unconsciously he curled towards Sirius who pulled him to his chest tightly.

“Hi, if this is playing that means I have died during the time I and my family were in hiding, Lilyflower if you’re there, please do not blame yourself for not saving me or for any reason I died. I leave everything to you until it is to be given to my son and Heir on the day he accepts the Heirship.

If both my Wife and I are to perish during the war, then I leave my greatest treasure to my dearest friend, Sirius Black-Lupin. Besides my son, I give Sirius the Potter Family Summer Home in Athens, where we spent our best days. And he is to be given the contents of vault 408.

To Remus Black-Lupin, I leave you the contents of vault 409, and I sincerely hope you do not reign Harry and Sirius away from pranks rather help plan them like you did with us during our Hogwarts time.

To Peter Pettigrew, if proven to not be disloyal and betray us as our Secret Keeper; then, I leave you the contents of vault 410. 

To Neville Longbottom, my Godson, I leave you vault 411, in hopes that you’ll find the picture and stories of your Parents and I infinite amusement. Lily has also placed all kinds of trinkets and things for you.

To Severus Snape, I ask for forgiveness for the torment I caused during our school years as you did not deserve that treatment.”

The will continued through Lily’s version, except she left things for things for Mary Macdonald, Marlene Mckinnon and Alice Fortescue. She too, left a small note for Professor Snape, and to Harry’s surprise it looked like the Professor was about to cry.

“In order of Guardianship of our son, first he should go to Sirius Black-Lupin as his right of being both Harry’s GodFather as well as BloodAdopt Father. Then to Remus Black-Lupin, if either are not able to provide Guardianship, then Harry is to go to Alice and Frank Longbottom. Should they too be unable to care for Harry, then Harry should be raised by one of the Potter family’s house elves. Under no circumstances should be given to Petunia Dursley nee Evans.” 

The air crackled with heavy Magic caused by Harry’s emotional turmoil, someone had sealed the will to make sure Harry would end up at the Dursley, and he had a very good guess on who exactly it was. Harry almost lost his temper if not for Remus suddenly hugging Harry and Sirius, which wasn’t a good idea as it caused both of them to flinch and jerk back.

Sirius in a panic pulled Harry closer and raised his hand in fright at hearing Harry whimper, but seeing as it was Remus both of them slowly relaxed into the embrace. The hug was cut short as Lady Longbottom quickly asked, “Why wasn’t the Will read before?” It was a question Harry had as well so he softly slipped out of the hug to turn to the Goblins. “I’ve been wondering so as well.”

Craftblade then answered with a bloodthirsty grin and Harry noticed how Dumbledore’s face lost all colour, “Due to pressure from the Ministry, Gringotts was strongly asked to not read the Will unless asked by the Heir.”

The admission caused disgruntled expressions to appear on most of the faces, but not to lack of care, Madam Bones quickly approached Harry, “Lord Potter, I would like you to come with me for a bit to clear up everything with Lord Black at the DMLE office.”

Yet, before Harry could reply, Dumbledore inserted himself into the conversation, “Well, Amelia, I must recommend myself to be present in the meeting.” As if Albus was going to leave his pawns out of his reach any longer. “HeadMaster Dumbledore,” Said Remus harshly, “My GodSon, Husband and I will be leaving with Madam Bones after collecting everything from Gringotts and where Harry is staying.”

Dumbledore lost his infuriating twinkling from his eyes, “Remus, my boy, you can not -” Albus didn’t have time to finish his sentence as Craftblade forcefully expelled him from the room. It shocked the occupants in the room, but they regained composure. 

Then, Lady Longbottom spoke, “Lord Potter, Lord Black, I will be sending letters regarding the Healers in Europe, I hope they are useful.” She said sombrely, with a slightly haunted look in her eyes before bidding them goodbye.

Seeing as no uninvited guest remained and everything was collected, Harry mentally gave himself a pat on the back for bringing his truck and shoulder bag with him. Then, Madam Bones brought Harry and his possibly new family to the DMLE. They were escorted to Madam Bones’ office and were seated. The next hour passed by through paperwork and having the Minister call an emergency Wizengamot meeting for the next day.

[huygenscaustics]

How to become an experimental physicist

Top tips from a recent graduate! I'm still learning, so this will be a growing/changing post! I might think these tips are wrong as time goes on, so I'll strikethrough them so you can watch the changes, like a scientific notebook!

1. Keep inspired! If you're anything like me, there are times where you'll hate doing physics problems or dread going to the lab to "attempt" to solder new parts for your experiment, or going through purchasing orders. So read, or watch, or listen to physics! It doesn't have to be papers, you may not have the brain energy for that, plus, there are all those confusing words, and it's all so specific! Especially when you are transitioning from high school to undergrad, you don't need to have already worked out your specific interests. You don't need to go from "ooh Newton's Laws!" to "Indistinguishable telecom band photons from a single erbium ion in the solid state" (random paper I saw). It's totally unreasonable!! Others may say they do, but good for them I guess it's not where you start! Popular science book? Perfect!! Cosmos tv show? Beautiful! Isaac Asimov's Understanding Physics? I CANNOT recommend it enough! Heck, it doesn't even need to be Physics! Interested in neuroscience for some reason? The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean is a fun one! This is so helpful in so many ways, no matter what it is. You're brain is building connections, and they are getting stronger, day by day!

When I started to "hate" Physics, I took a break. I felt awful about it, but I did it anyway. No, I do not mean I stopped research, after all I have a visa to support, but I just had to stop judging myself for not caring enough. But I started to pick up books. Biology, neuroscience, history of education, corruption. Whatever I was interested in. Let yourself love learning. I moved into Physics biographies like Feynman's "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", wanting to hear about their stories. I wanted to read sci fi again, so I picked up Asimov's "The Earth Is Room Enough". Soon I'll reread Understanding Physics, maybe.

The key is to never let your love of learning be smothered by the capitalistic tendencies of society.

2. Don't compare yourself with others. We all go at different paces and live in very different circumstances. We all think differently. So do what you want!

3. Keep your finger on the pulse. Somehow, even if it's just in the background, have streams of Physics news info flowing into your brain space. Physics is rapidly evolving. What's popular is often changing. That determines funding, which in term determines your academic freedom. When you end up making your discoveries, you'll want to know what else is happening around the world. Personally, I'm listening to the Physics World Weekly Podcast. Along with that is the Physics World Stories Podcast. While folding laundry. Or on a commute.

4. Use libraries. Libraries give me the space to encounter many different topics, all placed side by side physically in space. You can walk by a book that catches your eye, flip through it, and discover something that matters to you. Maybe it'll lead to some inspiration in research.

If you are lucky enough to have a physics (or physical sciences or engineering) library that you can access, USE it. You can even be like me, just sit down and listen to music or a podcast or work, and then take a stroll through the aisles for fun.

5. Use university spaces. Often, even if you don't yet have access to a university, they have public hours. How great is that!! Sometimes you can even stroll through the corridors, reading posters on the walls (that's what they're there for). There'll be notification boards too, different ones for different departments and building spaces.

6. Keep an eye out for names. University names and professor and grad student names. Even departments and group names. Building names! It may help you in the future, connect the dots for different research topics. Maybe it'll even give you a chance to...

7. Email people! Especially if it's just for curiosities sake. If you would like to share something with a professor of a topic, that's a way to do it. If you have a question about research, it's a good way to connect. They'll likely appreciate it!

8. To reach a professor about something >semi urgent, add the group admin if there is one.

Ok that's all for now! Cheerio

[fruitless-vain]

So the Christmas write up!

This was shams first time in a new house (meant to have him visit sooner but time just vanished on that one) so I sent Jack and Yo in so Yoshi could get her excited wiggles out and I had Sham sniff the yard and street to get a feel for things before entering. He had no problems passing through the doorway! He was a quite nervous and hesitant of the environment, kept him leashed and let him just lead me around the house getting all the sniffs and watching things. After 5 minutes he was taking treats again, 15ish minutes he was mostly okay with the environment and just a bit jumpy if something made a startling sound. Despite the stress of a new place he was pretty well immediately interested in new people, loose wiggly body and a happy loose wagging tail to go and sniff them after watching them shuffle about for a couple seconds. He has met all these people before once or twice for short brief visits so no one was a total stranger.

His manners were awesome, after watching Yoshi settle he quickly followed her lead and would lay down on a popped hip but still alert and observing everything. I’d say at 30 minutes in he was fully capable of feeling relaxed. He had a few moments of whining/ pacing which he does at home when he can’t figure out how to settle/ feels conflicted but after some luring and refocusing his noggin they resolved quickly. While eating dinner he was really good, disengaging from the smells on his own and after watching Yoshi tuck/settle he laid down near her and settled for the entire meal.

He got a little wired 4 hours in where he was just overtired and couldn’t sort out that sleeping was an okay option. That just presented itself as a bit more mouthy play energy which he redirected to his toy easily. An hour later he figured out how to take a nap and was fine the rest of the evening.

He even managed to keep himself relatively calm with the excitement of people opening gifts. He left his down a few times to go sniff stuff but easily redirected back and wasn’t getting ramped up at all. We also did some recalls which he was extremely peppy and receptive to!

Yoshi I got no notes for she was perfect she’s been there done that. Got her wiggles out in the beginning, held her down for the full duration of opening gifts aside from one moment when I dropped something so she went to get it. In the middle of all that noisy excitement was when she did a BP alert, she was wiggling away playing with something I’d given her and just dead stopped in the middle, turned with her nose sniffing away in the air and gave me that lock-on stare (target acquired, alert activate) and did the appropriate paw alert. She did DPT which I did have to re-cue to keep her focused with everyone having fun behind her. I ended up releasing her early because it shifted in to a migraine and there’s really not much she can do for that. She retrieved my phone quite well (this is something she can take a bit to do/ I sometimes have to help her with my foot) just took two tries for her to get a solid grip to lift it up. Perfect dinner manners, held her tuck under the chair for the whole duration except for one intelligent disobedience to alert, took the tuck cue again to re-settle after the alert easily. I dropped an entire sugar cookie almost on her head which shattered in to 1000 crumbs which she perfectly ignored. I gave her some sugar cookie for that one. And then it was just fun training for her which she was very focused for, had lots of fun finding Jack amongst the chaos, etc. She dug herself a little bed in a pile of pillows and took a nap, and that was that.

They were both definitely on their best behaviour the entire night!

[queenlua]

oh i guess i can also throw out a bitchy video game review: sam barlow’s Immortality

to get the good stuff out of the way: this was obviously made with extremely high production values & attention to quality.  i am not a Film Person TM, at all, but i can sense there's a lot of pastiche and loving homages to various works of cinema woven through the three fake films in this game, and i trust they are executing extremely well on that sort of thing.  the acting is all solid-to-excellent.  and the ideas that are being played with—The Archivist's Gaze TM, the unreliability of memory *even when the record seems clear*, the strange experience of exploring stuff in the nonlinear grabby-hands way that fans of a thing often do—that was all cool.  there were a few moments where what i was witnessing was so uncomfortable i was wincing, and it was a huge relief to hear "cut!" shouted at the end of scene—which, of course, led to the constant back-and-forth wondering of "is this real or is this fake," which carried ever-greater weight as the game went on

but, and unfortunately this is a HUGE "but", while the method of presentation is novel, its version of totally-radical-nonlinearity means it's possible to have game experiences that just don't "click," and don't add up to much.  in particular, i managed to get to "the ending" without getting... any of the *other* hidden scenes that give context/grounding/etc for that ending?  which, sure, *might* be the point; if you hit an unlucky path maybe you're just supposed to go back and replay stuff until that ending makes sense.  (i would argue that's an awful lot of patience to demand from someone who's already sat through ~4-6hours of often-somewhat-tedious footage, but eh, i did also play the entire Chronopolis sequence in Chrono Cross so whatever, i sucked it up.)  but due to how the interface works, if you did miss something, there's no way to tell what you missed, what you might even be looking for, where the "blank spaces" are, etc, so you just.... are reduced to random clicking, for several hours, trying to unlock the new thingy.

it doesn't help that the quality of the writing, imo, drops off sharply once we're dealing with said secret scenes.  prior to that, the film clips are all full of rich/interesting context and nuance that's genuinely a pleasure to decipher, and... then it just turns into long monologues about immortal beings, which is normally My Shit TM, but it's precisely the kind of My Shit TM that is godawful in this format.  lil bit too on-the-nose and schlocky compared to what came before.

the game's also strangely buggy, which meant it took ages to figure out how to even *unlock* hidden scenes in the first place, and even then it was kind of a struggle.  (and then when i googled wtf i was missing, it was like "why aren't you playing with a controller, that's the right way to do it" well bitch keyboard is a supported interface so i thought it'd be ok???)

i'd be less annoyed if this thing hadn't gotten unanimous uncaveated adulation from The Sorts Of Interactive Ficiton People i tend to follow, and whose judgment i usually vibe a lot with, which gives me a kind of emperor-has-no-clothes feel.  like is everyone just afraid of saying anything mean about Sam Barlow or something.  every single one of you can't be film nerds right.  like it's COOL and i definitely see how it could be someone's kind of thing, but the execution is definitely wobbly!

[ghostonly]

FTM Top Surgery Q&A - Installment #4

4-Week Post-Op Recovery and Progress

Welcome to installment #4! If you're new here, I'm currently working on a Q&A / Series combo where I outline my experience with FTM top surgery as a large, disabled guy with ADHD and low income. I'll also answer any questions sent in to me. Currently, I haven't received any questions. If you have any now or when you're done reading this post, feel free to send them to me. I'll be taking questions all the way until May of 2023, when the series should be wrapping up.

If you want to know more about the series, check out the announcement here or visit the installment masterlist here.

If you haven't read the previous installments, I recommend you do, as I'll be introducing terminology there that will be used in this installment.

In this installment, I'll be covering the healing and recovery progress of weeks 3 and 4. This will include the removal of stitches, incision tape, and drains as well as scar care and so on.

Under the cut, there are photos showing the surgical site before it's completely healed. If you're sensitive to scars, injury, blood, or other things that go along with surgery, please continue with caution or let me know you'd like a copy of my commentary without the images.

Various Removals

On day 1 of week 3, I had my 2-week follow-up. This was a very exciting appointment, because it meant getting the rest of the shit attached to me removed!

Tbh, while I was excited to have that over with, I was pretty scared of it hurting and, honestly, with good reason. I'm not going to sugar coat this.

Stitch Removal

The first thing to be removed were the non-dissolvable stitches. There were two on the inside ends of my incisions (I think to hold the ends of the drains tubes in place) and a bunch around the outside of my nipples.

The stitches being removed hurt pretty bad. Someone tugging at plastic stitching that's wound under your skin does not feel great. This is the first time I've had stitches at an age where I remember them, so I didn't know what to expect. I think my expectations were pretty accurate though. The pains were sharp and uh... spicy, you could say.

Incision Tape Removal

So, the stitches coming out didn't feel great. However, the incision tape removal was the worst. Straight up, this was the most painful part of the entire surgery process.

The skin under where I used to have breasts is extremely fragile. Firstly because I probably have EDS, so my skin is wimpy and fragile anyway. Secondly because that fragility in combination with having had large boobs that sweat and chafe meant that that crease of skin was constantly getting damaged from being too dry or too moist combined with friction. It's like raw, underdeveloped skin covered in crepe paper, to paint a vivid picture.

The adhesive on the incision tape is extremely sticky and extremely strong. It's basically glue. I was already tensed up from having the pain of the stitch removal, and then they had to take the tape off.

We can assume each incision is roughly 10 inches long. With no pain meds, no numbing, no anesthetic, I had to sit there for a solid 30 seconds straight while a nurse on either side of me pulled the tape off. I don't know if I've ever sworn that many times for that long of a time in my life.

I would not feel remiss comparing it to torture. They took off at least the top layer of skin (not to the point that it was raw underneath, but it generally hurts to have any amount of skin removed from a layer beneath it if its not totally dead, you feel me?), and in many speck-sized spots, it came off to the raw level. And I just had to sit there and let them.

My chest felt raw and sore for hours after. If you get a prescription for something strong like oxycodone-acetaminophine, save one. Take it a couple of hours before you're scheduled to get your incision tape off. I doubt it will prevent it from hurting like a bitch, but it might do a little something.

-9999/10, would not recommend

Drain Removal

Directly after the tape, it was time for them to remove the drains. You can imagine how I felt about that, having just gone through a straight minute or so of various tortures.

"It's not going to hurt."

Okay, like I haven't heard that before.

It didn't hurt.

I didn't even feel it to be honest. She told me to take a deep breath on the count of 3 and then they both pulled one of the drains out. If there was any sensation at all, I didn't notice it - probably because I was still focused on the burning across the surface of my chest. And the relief was immediate. Like, if we ignore the terrible tape pain, the drains coming out immediately had me feeling better.

Movement and Pain Changes in Week 3

Week 3 was amazing. Started out shitty with the tape removal, but getting all the extra crap off of me made everything so much more comfortable.

Week 3 is when I started to get back to a feeling of Normal in terms of movement and pain. I still occasionally got twinges in my nipples from reaching too far, but I got back to an almost normal range of motion, was able to start sleeping on my sides without the drains causing pain, and resume most of the activity I was doing before surgery (please note this is only because I am not a very active person. Please don't go to the gym or something at week 3 lol)

Chest Upkeep

After everything came off, a new bit of upkeep was added to my routine: bacitracin. On top of using Vaseline gauze on my nipples, I then had to start applying bacitracin (an antibacterial ointment) to my incision 3-5 times a day. It sounds like a lot and like it would be hard to remember but, I actually didn't have a hard time remembering. I didn't count how many times per day I did it, but it was easy to remember to do it repeatedly. Every time the bacitracin dried out/fully absorbed (into either my skin or the bra I was wearing) my chest felt a bit more stiff and uncomfortable. Applying more moistened everything again and made it feel better.

They didn't tell me to, but I found it was also helpful to apply some of the ointment on top of the nipple gauze. Because the gauze is just one layer of meshy material, the ointment goes right through it pretty much, so you can moisturize your nipples and also protect them from bacteria without having to remove the gauze. (There's not necessarily a reason not to remove the Vaseline gauze. I just didn't want to mess with it more than necessary.)

The addition of the ointment on the gauze also helped to kind of re-adhere it to my chest since every few hours is enough time for the edges to dry out and start to come up a bit with any movement that leads to bra/chest friction.

Binder Usage

Because the pain went down so dramatically with the drains gone, the idea of wearing the binder for 6 weeks, as the doctor wanted, became a much more tolerable idea. The pressure and stability is nice most of the time.

However, as much as I wanted to avoid unnecessary swelling that could occur if I don't wear the binder as long as instructed, at the beginning of week 4, I stopped wearing it.

The reason why is because of the construction of the binder. So, you know how it's made up of long, narrow panels that are heavily stitched together? Well, the stitching between the panels began to loosen from use, leaving a gap of a few millimeters between the two panels on one of my half-binders. When pulled across my chest, the panels not being directly next to each other led to higher tension at the center where the panels were separated which, in turn, led to painful imprints right across my nipples and incisions. Not only did this hurt a lot, it seemed like it could cause problems with healing.

So, week 4 being the week where I began to actually feel pretty close to normal, I just said fuck it and stopped wearing it.

Chest Protection Without the Binder

I didn't want to just go from all to nothing. My chest still felt a bit uh... operated on. That is to say, accidental chafing, scratching, or interference with foreign objects scared me still.

So, while I stopped wearing the binder, I did keep wearing my flat-fronted sports bras, which was also good for keeping the gooey bacitracin ointment from getting on my blankets and clothes.

Movement and Pain Changes in Week 4

With the binder out of the picture, everything became even nicer. My range of motion was almost entirely back to normal. Lifting my arms fully up was still a bit too much tension on the ends of my incisions, but they can almost get there.

The twinges in my nipples had stopped by this point. However, the feeling was slowly returning to the incision/scar area. This felt a bit bruise like and didn't feel super nice to touch a bunch, but wasn't much of a bother.

Everyday Changes

Without the binder on, I could wear t-shirts without it being noticeable that there was anything under them anymore, which was super nice!

I went to the grocery store for the first time after surgery and it was unbelievable being able to walk around and focus on things other than my chest, which has been my biggest source of dysphoria.

Scar Healing Progress

Week 3 - 5/11, 5/14, 5/17

Week 4 - 5/20, 5/22, 5/24

Questions for the Future

There are a few things I'm wondering about that I won't be able to find out until some more time has passed.

Do wrinkles near the scar go away?

I assume most of the small wrinkles will smooth out a bit over time. However, I am a little bit concerned about this one (perspective from my POV, looking down):

The wrinkle in the middle of this picture is pretty raised because there was a wider piece of skin above the stitches than below. I wonder if my body will figure out how to shrink that down or if it will look like this forever. I guess we'll see!

Will my nipples become cold sensitive again?

I've been wondering, also, if my nipples will become sensitive to cold again and harden/raise from that, or if they'll remain in this kind of in-between state where they're not flat but they're not hard either. At the moment, they're a bit raised but also totally squishy lol. It's a bit weird, but not a bad thing I suppose

Will this shape be grounds for a revision?

And, finally, something I will probably get an answer to at my 6-week follow-up: is the pointed shape at the back end of my left incision grounds for a revision?

You can see this very clearly in the front-facing picture in the last set. Perhaps not enough fat was taken out there and the skin wasn't cut and pulled tight enough before stitching, so it sticks out weirdly. I'm not really a fan. If it was just an appearance thing, it would be bothersome enough, but I can also feel it and bump into it when moving my left arm. I'm kind of hoping I can get that fixed, as much as I don't relish another operation any time soon.

Here's what it looks like from my POV with my arm down:

Well, that's it for weeks 3 and 4!

I'll leave u with another flat and happy selfie from after my shower the other day

As always, thanks for reading and here's a link back to the masterlist.

[mylifeincinema]

My Best of 2022: Non-2022 Films

My Best of 2022 is a series of annual lists in which I pick the best of the best from 2022, all leading up to my official picks for My Top 10 Films of 2022.

Only a handful of these even belong on any sort of ‘best of’ list. But, as I only saw somewhere like 20 first-time non-2022 films, here we are. Oh well...

1. Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)

A staggering cinematic achievement. How not one second of this three-hour film is anything less than enrapturing is a true testament to the power of humanity in film. All aspects work together beautifully, here, to bring a refreshing, heartfelt, emotionally cathartic story of mourning and the connection between life and art. The source material lays a rock-solid foundation upon which Ryûsuke Hamaguchi & Co. build a quietly compelling piece of cinema. With the Academy’s love for this, I really see no logical reason how Hidetoshi Nishijima wasn’t nominated in the Lead Actor category over Javier Bardem, he was magnificent.

2. The Raid: Redemption (Gareth Evans, 2011)

Oh… damn… badass action flick is badass. How the hell did I not see this sooner?!?

3. The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965)

I’ve long loved Rounders, so its really strange it took me this long to see this one. McQueen is solid, but Robinson steals the show. Jewison’s direction sets a fantastic pace. And then there’s Ann-Margaret… yikes!

4. Cyrano (Joe Wright, 2021) 

That “Wherever I Fall” sequence, though... That scene tore my heart right out of my chest. Wow.

The rest of this is quite phenomenal, as well. Dinklage’s performance was stellar, and despite his singing voice not being the strongest (especially when paired against Haley Bennett’s), his numbers made for emotionally overwhelming pieces. On the technical side, this was an all-around feast, boasting production design, costumes, cinematography - not to mention the abundance of music not singled out - that were nothing short of beautiful.

5. Kodachrome (Mark Raso, 2018)

Holy shit… Elizabeth Olsen is so effortlessly gorgeous, here. Damn. The beginning features a giant, don’t-fucking-do-it move on Sudeikis’ part when he gives the venue security guard attitude for telling him he needs to have his pass on, and that seriously annoyed me, so the fact that I ended up liking his character at all throughout the rest of the film is some solid character work on his part. Ed Harris was unsurprisingly solid. Overall not the best, most original or insightful film of its kind, but the cast is really good and living in both the live music world and the photography world as I do, there was a bunch here for me to like. Especially Elizabeth Olsen, though. Seriously… Damn.

6. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)

James Stewart really is one of my all-time favorite actors. He’s just always so damn good. I also love me some Lubitsch, yet for some reason I have so many blind spots with him. Anyway, I know we live in completely different times, but even looking through the scope of the time, that ending seemed a bit forced. Still a delightful film overall, but she must’ve been really desperate to let the shit he pulled go.

7. Timecrimes (Nacho Vigalondo, 2008)

A cool, little contained time travel thriller. I’d almost rented this dozens of times back when I worked at Blockbuster Video, but never pulled the trigger. It’s weird and twisty and surely ridden in plot-holes, but damn was it an enjoyable ride.

8. Red Rocket (Sean Baker, 2021)

I was surprised by how much I actually ended up liking this despite totally despising our lead character. There’s a white-trash charm to it, I guess? Or, at the very least, a clear sense of authenticity that pulls you into the film effectively. I’m still not a fan of Baker’s tendency to use non-professional actors, though. It’s distracting in the wrong way.

9. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar, 2021)

I don’t really have a lot to say about this one. Cruz was magnificent, and more than earned that Oscar nod, but other than that I had trouble getting emotionally invested, and was therefore left cold by the end.

10. The King’s Man (Matthew Vaughn, 2021)

It has its moments, and Ralph Fiennes is awesome, but mostly it left me wanting for more. The first of these movies was so wonderfully over-the-top that the few scenes that come near that level, here, just don’t quite satisfy.

Enjoy!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

Next Up: Assorted (Animated Feature, Foreign Film, Editing, Screenplay, Etc.)

More of My Best of 2022...