#i just log in every maybe 3 hours. block 20 of them. end up with a net gain of +30 followers in the time it took me to do that

[cozylittleartblog]

God I wish I had your bots. There's so many of them but at least I wouldn't be forced to look at boobs every time I go to block them.

'nonnie i'm sorry to tell you the boobs have also found me now

[robinsarm]

Heya!! Can I get some sleepy Quentin headcanons? I'm on a "monster befriends human" kick, so maybe something involving that? You said you needed ideas, so here ya go?

Sleepy Quentin, huh, @chaoticlovingdreamer? I think I can scrounge up a couple >:3

I assume that a lot of people see Quentin as a pill or caffeine fiend, especially while he lived in the real world. But what I think some people forget is that he also has ADD/ADHD as stated by his movie. Do you understand what lack of medication and exhaustion does to a person with ADHD? It's not fun, I'll say that much.

When Quentin is really hitting the bottom of his energy tank he gets more and more distant from everyone else. He'll stop talking, start sitting further away from the fire, and intrusive/depressing thoughts start to riddle his mind. Since a healthy dose of sleep isn't on the menu for Quentin usually, he'll start to cope with his exhaustion in other ways; other ways that aren't healthy and can be left up to the imagination for now.

Some of the survivors that have been there the longest have learned to spot these signs from Quentin before he begins "coping". They'll immediately get up and take him for walks or bring him back to the fire and in front of 20+ other sets of eyes. Claudette, Ace, Meg, and Laurie are usually the nicest and manage to cheer him up faster than anyone else. Steve, in recent years, has also grown to notice and make sure his teammate is okay.

Have you ever seen the joke of someone getting hit in the head on a cartoon and they fall flat on their face, knocked out? Visualize that, and realize Quentin does that on a regular basis just without the hitting part. Like someone with narcolepsy, when Quentin’s brain and body are tired of being awake, he’s out like a light; heaven forbid he’s standing near anything sharp when this happens. From time to time, Quentin will just suddenly fold like a GMOD player hit their kill key. There’s no waking him up for a while after that. So far, it’s never happened in a trial; who knows why, Quentin is just grateful for that much. 

When Quentin is tired and actually decides that he’d rather sleep then Collapse™, he will pass out just about anywhere. On the logs, in the bushes, up a tree (won’t do that anymore because he’s prone to falling out of said trees), on someone. Quentin has no shame when it comes to finding a place to rest his head for a minute and the others, for the most part, are fully understanding.  

Sleepy Quentin can also be confused with what Drunk Quentin would look like, only in his movements, however. I’d compare it to those really yanking pulls that Boiled Over can do in-game that just send the killer 5 meters to the left. Yeah...Quentin will do that a lot when he’s really tired. It’s normal to see him firmly planted on the ground when he’s extra tired just so he doesn’t fall into something or someone. (He took out a game of Blackjack that Ace and Bill were playing and felt incredibly bad afterwards) If Quentin can help it, he won’t move when he’s on the very verge of passing out. 

Not so much headcanons but two scenarios I’d like to imagine have happened to Quentin:

I.

Quentin doesn’t sleep due to Freddy’s constant torment that he resumes every time the survivor falls asleep. But Quentin isn’t the only one Freddy torments. It’s been known that Freddy will hop from person to person if Quentin goes for too long without sleeping. However, the killer once made the mistake of pulling the same shit on the Legion which earned him a proper beating from the four teens afterwards. Because of this, the Legion made sure that the Nightmare can’t enter Ormond unless he’s in a trial. 

(I have a personal headcanon that killers can ask the Entity to block a different killer from entering their realm if given proper reasoning, and that’s how I’d see the Legion being able to keep Freddy out of Ormond)

Quentin, by an odd string of occurrences, ends up at Ormond and gets to talking to the killers - since they’re in a good mood. One of them brings up how shitty Quentin looks and actually offers if he’d want to sleep there for a bit. Quentin, taken slightly off guard, shrugs the invitation off, explaining Freddy would just show up and start attacking him again. The Legion, ever so boastful, counters with their story and clue him in on the fact that the Nightmare can’t enter the realm outside of a trial. Quentin’s not buying it but the killers insist just to prove themselves right, eventually having to hold the boy at knife-point to get him to stay and sleep. After a three hour, uninterrupted nap, Quentin wakes up and realizes they were telling the truth.

Regardless, Quentin doesn’t trust the Legion. However, if he’s feeling exceptionally tired and has a few 100k bloodpoints lying around, Quentin will pay the Legion to let him sleep for a few hours, undisturbed. They’re happy to take his money and he’s happy to sleep off his exhaustion.

Still, Quentin does sleep at the fire on occasion; he does only because of the fact Freddy wants him. If Freddy can’t get to Quentin, he’ll start tormenting and hurting his friends. Since Quentin doesn’t want that, he keeps his trips to Ormond few and far between. 

II.

There’s one killer Quentin never thought in his life he’d manage to “befriend” outside of trials. Slinger is a fat no; the man is still a hard-ass to everyone other than Zarina. The Yamaoka family keep to themselves and kill anything on sight. The original four are apathetic towards everyone. Michael, Freddy, Ghostface, Pinhead, Nemesis, Pyramidhead - all psychopathic monstrosities that earned their own circle in hell. I could go on.

No, of all the killers to actually show any sort of compassion (or just lack of hostility) towards Quentin was the Demogorgon. 

It started during a horribly unfortunate trial on Azarov’s. Felix and Yun-Jin were long since dead, leaving only Quentin and Feng to do the last two generators. The thing was, Feng seemed to be trying her absolute hardest to screw Quentin over every time the killer got close. She ran in front of him while they were both running from the killer, she blocked pallets, blocked windows, if the killer got close she immediately hid behind anything large enough. Sure she apologized at the beginning of the trial, but those quickly trailed off. Quentin just wasn’t in the mood for it. So, when he went down for his third and final time due to Feng’s not-so-subtle body blocking, Demo surprised both of them by not picking up the boy immediately. Instead, the killer hunted down Feng (for all of 20 seconds) and threw her onto a hook immediately, not leaving her until she was dead and gone. Quentin had the foresight to bring Unbreakable before entering the trial, so, by the time Feng had reached second stage, he was up and running. 

Even though hatch was visible before Feng died Quentin couldn’t find the damn thing to, literally, save his life. As he ran back into the territory where the killer was last, Quentin’s hope began to dwindle more and more as he heard and saw nothing. Demo, seeming to appear out of thin air, found him first and shred-tackled him into the dirt. On his back, Quentin thought he was going to be mori’d for sure, but then something...worse happened. The killer regurgitated Feng’s med kit onto his chest then stepped off and away from Quentin. Quentin didn’t know whether to thank the killer or puke himself. The amount of slime and saliva that drenched his clothing and neck had him pressing his mouth shut tight. What the hell is this killer doing? was the only thought in Quentin’s mind as he pealed the kit from his chest. 

Quentin didn’t believe that Demo could sit on his haunches like a dog before that trial, but he does now. 

The killer only watched as Quentin used the non-soaked medical supplies on himself until he was fully healed. Afterwards, the killer rose and started walking towards the killer shack. When Demo realized Quentin wasn’t following, it turned back, pathed behind the survivor, and herded him towards the decrepit building. Quentin had seen a lot when it came to weird shit, but this experience was quickly climbing the list. Rounding the far corner of the shack, Quentin found the hatch humming where it usually was. He turned and saw the Demogorgon, not trying to stop him but lying down like it was ready to take a nap. 

Quentin pointed to the hatch with his free hand. “I can have that?” The killer, not understanding human speech, looked down at the hatch then back up to Quentin. The survivor figured that was good of an answer as any, thanked the killer with a shaky voice, and hopped into the backdoor exit. 

Ever since that trial, Quentin has had this weird relationship with the Demogorgon. It’s fully based off the killer’s mood at the time, but for the most part, the pair seem to respect one another at the very least. Some trials, Demo will slaughter everyone mercilessly; others, the killer attacks everyone but Quentin. The survivor hasn’t found any rhyme or reason to the killer’s decision on how to treat him that day, but he’s grateful for the break when they come. 

[keltonwrites]

I'm not sure if that's a good thing

“Well you’re definitely the first.” This past week, we screened-in the eastern facing porch on the side of the cabin. The porch slopes to the South, with the brick-on-dirt floor crumbling in that direction as well until it reaches uneven slabs of stone acting as steps down to the “yard” below. A mixed material retaining wall wraps beneath the steps to the south facing garage, holding up one corner of the narrow deck on the front of the house. The deck, in the heat of a high altitude summer, droops off the house like it’s daydreaming about the winter snow’s embrace. It’s safe to sit on, though I would not recommend leaning on the railing.

The side porch takes the brunt of the wind. Our wooden rocking chairs have been rocked some 20 feet into the yard more than once in the two months we lived here. In the myriad of threats we heard about the weather, most people included the wind. We all know how I feel about this ongoing weather intimidation tactic. I asked, “what speed are the gusts?” “Oh, they get up to 70 miles per hour on some days.” This was the first quantifiable piece of weather information someone had offered — an actual number we could react to with data and our historical personal experiences of various weather events. And our reaction was: uhhhh…. OK???? Look, I get it. No one’s preaching the skin benefits of -20 degree wind gusts at 70 mph, building snow drifts against your house in the span of minutes that Cooper could die in. I am not going to pretend that’s pleasant. But 70 mph? Any wind I’ve driven faster than does not intimidate me. I used to rally the horses at 12 years old in winds over 70mph to get them in the barn before the latest tornado whipped through. I helped shutter the resort in the BVI as the Category 5 hurricane rolled in. Even in Topanga, 70 mile per hour gusts were not uncommon in Santa Ana events. We had our single pane windows shatter more than once from debris in the wind. We taped cardboard up and went to sleep. That “70 mph” was all I needed to hear to confirm our next project: we were going to build a catio for these cats, and we were going to do it on the pre-existing porch structure to save time and money. We spent a week framing out the structure. We had to carve into the logs of the house to embed the wood supports for the framing.

And from there, every piece of wood was custom carved and cut to fit around the existing timber supports. The existing porch was so wildly uneven that there are gaps between each piece of old wood and the new framing. Our plan is to mix all the wood chips from the project with mortar/chinking and stuff the gaps — a good solution for the log cabin look. We built a plywood pony wall up to 28 inches from the interior of the porch, which gives a height of ~4-5ft from the exterior ground below. It’s capped with a 2x6” railing for even the fluffiest of cats to find a perch. The exterior will be wrapped with corrugated metal that we’ll quick-age to match the metal that wraps the bottom of the cabin. On the interior of the porch, we’ll use shiplap to hide the framing.

The screens themselves can withstand winds up to 120 mph, but to-be-determined if they can hold the weight of a growing maniac cat who has already tried to climb them. In the event the screens succumb to cat (or wind or snow or neighbor judgment) we’ll reinforce with metal mesh. We’re going to maintain this screen porch regardless of what the screen is. We had the pleasure of running into one of our more industrious neighbors the other day, and Ben asked him, “hey we’re building a screen porch. Is this a terrible idea?” He laughed. “Well you’re definitely the first.” But he liked it. Great way to diminish wind into the house. Simple way to regulate the temperature with massive south-facing windows. And indeed a practical outdoor safe haven for cats in predator territory. Just because you’re the first doesn’t mean you’re foolish — just foolhardy. There’s plenty of that here. This town has the typical mountain town’s truncated version of a colonizers’ history: “established 1881.” But it was plenty established prior to that by the Uncompahgre Band of the Ute Nation, removed by the U.S. Army on September 7, 1881, nearly 140 years ago. The government relocated the Uncompahgre Ute People to Utah, and one year after the Ute were forcibly removed from their ancestral land, San Miguel County split off from Ouray County and was made its own political subdivision in the newly-formed State of Colorado. In 1879, the ore-laden valley already had 50 people living in it, with a new narrow gauge railway only 2 miles away. By 1885, it was a town of 200 people. There was a hotel, a couple saloons, a pool hall. Winters were treacherous; the valley was and is prone to avalanches. But where there’s gold, there’s gumption. The power needed to run the stamp mill to process ore drove innovation. Timber was scarce at such high elevations, so a wood powered steam mill wouldn’t cut it. But the San Miguel River just a few miles down from the mine looked promising. Thus began the development and construction of the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant. It was a hit. In fact, it was so successful that the Ames Plant led to the adoption of alternating currents at Niagara Falls and eventually to being adopted worldwide as a viable power solution. The plant remains, but the gold rush obviously didn’t. By 1940, the U.S. Census declared this little town I call home as tied for the lowest population in the country: 2 people. By 1960, it was one of four incorporated towns in the U.S. with no residents. But the joke was on the Census — the town’s single resident was just out of town the day the census came through. 1960 population: 1. By 1980 the population grew to 38, 69 in 1990, and about 180 now. (Plus 51 dogs according to the town’s website.) With modern amenities, it’s easier to be here. Studded snow tires, satellite internet, solar panels, instant coffee. No matter the hardships, there’s the reality of the present. In the 1880s, as the town boomed, the Ouray Times declared, “it will be at no distant day a far more pretentious town than it is now.” That day hasn’t exactly arrived, but I guess it depends on what you consider pretentious. I don’t think the town claims any airs of excellence beyond what’s true. In fact, the town hardly claims anything at all. There’s no sign indicating it’s even here. There’s just the old side and the new side. The new side, the Eastern half, was drawn out in the early 1990s, some 100 years later, and is separated from the Old Town by an avalanche zone—preserved open space for hiking in the summer, preserved open space for surviving in the winter. The town forbids short-term rentals, no one has a fence, dogs roam free, and all the houses have that cabin look to them. A boulder nests in a grove near a trailhead in the center of town with a plaque paying respect to the Utes who called this valley home. There’s no industry here. No businesses allowed. If you want a $7 latte, you can drive the 14 miles required to get it, assuming there’s not an avalanche blocking your path. You can, however, buy a pink lemonade in a

solo cup at the permanent lemonade stand run by the local feral child mafia. Crystals (rocks) can be purchased for an additional cost. We bought one, hoping to buy favor at the same time. The town plan has a few guiding principles, and it’s all in the name of preservation. We must preserve: 1 - the quiet atmosphere 2 - the rustic character 3 - the natural setting

And finally: 4 - protect the health and wellbeing of the people here No snowmobiles, no ATVs, no drones. In fact, the only sign of the outside world here are the passers-through. When you take the dirt road through town to the end, you enter National Forest, and you can hike over the pass saddle at nearly 12,000 feet before descending down the other side into Silverton. The pass road climbs rutted through an aspen forest before scaling across a scree field and then lurching over to the other side. Every day, it seems like 30 or so Texans and Arizonans in lifted and loud Jeeps with unused mods climb over this mountain in the comfort of their air conditioning, simply to drive down the other side. You could hike it, ride it, run it, and ski it, but they don’t. They rev their engines, kicking up dust in a town of feral children and roaming dogs, staring at us instead of waving. I’ve lived here for two months and look how salty I am. I’ll fit in yet. But today, there is a temperature that whispers of perfect trails and the dwindling of ogglers driving 35 in a 15. It’s already snowed in the mountains we see from our kitchen. Today, like a dedication to the Septembers of our youth, you can feel a chill in the air. A temperature akin to pencils and sweaters and reinventing yourself. A temperature that doesn’t exactly sing “screen porch” but could if you had the right slippers on. That’s what I did this morning: put my slippers on and sat there in the cool mountain morning air, thinking about the cemetery behind our house, about the Ute tribe, about the miners, about the mailman who died on Christmas in 1875 on the pass, about the 5 people who died in avalanches here just last year, about the people in their cars on their phones driving through, and all the people who’s very first question to us was, “so are you gonna live here part-time or full-time?” Maybe it will be a hard place to live. But at least we’ll have a screen porch.

Every week I'm writing about moving to log cabin in a small town at 10,000 feet. Subscribe here for free: tinyletter.com/keltonwrites

[charminglyantiquated]

Heyyy, I'm recently obsessing over tallships and was wondering what kind of jobs most people actually do on board? Does everyone do a bit of everything or are some people dedicated to maintenance and others to helping sailing and etc? How much time do you spend working a day and does everyone work all at once or is there a night shift? Sorry for the volume of the question but I'm really interested in this rn

Hi! This got pretty long, so it’s under a cut!

Generally everyone does pre- and post-season maintenance: sanding, painting, varnishing, oiling, cleaning, and all the other work that goes into keeping the ship looking nice, plus any other projects that need working on. Once the sailing season proper begins, the crew has more specific roles, which can vary by ship. In short yes - there are some positions that mostly deal with actually sailing and some (which not every boat has) that mostly maintain certain things (rigging, engine), with overlap depending on how the boat is run, what it does, and the size of the crew and ship. In general, the breakdown of positions/tasks is:

messmate: cook’s assistant and assistant deckhand (so only available on ships out for days at a time, which need ship’s cooks). typically this means meal prep, dishwashing, cleaning the galley, making snacks/coffee/salads/other small dishes, and setting tables, plus on-deck work like helping to tack sails and other odd jobs. entry-level position, since anyone can wash dishes and in the meantime you can shadow the deckhands and learn more sailing-specific things.

deckhand: the manual labor of sailing the boat. washing the deck, hauling, setting, and tending the sails, coiling lines, helping passengers board and disembark, rowing passengers to and from the ship in small boats, raising and dropping the anchor, standing watch, training new deckhands, time at the helm when on deliveries. can be an entry-level position, especially on ships that mostly do day-sails rather than overnights, but deckhands can also be highly skilled.

first mate (and second/third mate maybe??? I have only worked on ships with a first mate lol): in charge immediately following the captain. all the work of a deckhand plus additional responsibilities, among them training new deckhands, radio operation, driving the yaul boat, time at the helm, etc.

ship’s cook: fairly self explanatory. cooking three meals a day for the passengers and crew. because this is a lot of work, it’s almost always supplemented by a messmate. the cook (at least the ones I worked with) washed pots and pans themselves, in addition to cooking, and lit the woodstove early in the morning/tended it throughout the day.

engineer: also self-explanatory. dealing with the boat’s diesel engine and marine systems. not every boat employs an engineer; on the ones I’ve worked on, the captain and mate are usually the ones taking care of the engine.

bosun: care of everything above deck - maintaining and repairing the traditional rigging and sails. like above, not every boat employs one; often the captain, mate, and deckhands do this work.

captain: I mean. you know what a captain does. makes the decisions, charts the course, gives the orders, makes every important call.

How much time do you work a day? This also varies by boat; I’ll break down a typical day on some boats I’ve worked on below. I should say, though that, on windjammers particularly (the ships that go out for days at a time) the days seem extremely long mostly because you live entirely on board - there’s no strict work/home divide, it’s all the same, so although you’re responsible for passenger’s welfare the entire day you’re not doing hard physical labor for all 17 hours you’re awake - there’s time for meals, and usually a bit of downtime.

Unless you’re on deliveries (taking a boat from point A to point B without passengers), there’s no overnight shift, just a rotating overnight anchor watch. The majority of the work, like raising the sails, is time-sensitive rather than ongoing, so the crew generally keeps the same schedule.

on the windjammer I started on, as a messmate - turn to at 6:30 to make coffee, breakfast prep, cleaning breakfast dishes, lunch prep, cleaning lunch dishes, two hours or so of free time, making an afternoon snack, dinner prep, dinner dishes, clean the galley, and then I was off-duty by ~8:30 depending on how long that took. usually about 1 day off a week (trips were anywhere from 3-6 days long, and the day off was usually between trips. passengers would disembark around 10am, the whole ship would be cleaned inside and out until about 2pm, and then you had until 11pm the next night)

on the same windjammer as a deckhand - turn to at 6:30 to wash the deck and polish brass, raise anchor, set sails, hang out on deck tending sails while we were under way, striking sails and dropping anchor mid-afternoon, some days rowing passengers to shore and back), usually done with deckhand work by dinnertime. night watch shifts. the deckhands rotated who had ‘duty’, which was all the smaller chores - raising and lowering flags, lighting and stowing lanterns, cleaning the head, standing first watch, tending the little wood stove at night in the fall. if you were on duty then you were up at 6am, and off watch at 11am, every three days. also about 1 day off a week (if you were on duty, you had to be on board at 5pm the next night, to help the next round of passengers board, show them around the boat, tell them about safety features, etc).

deckhand on a day sailor (ship taking multiple small trips a day) - turn to at 9:30 to get the boat ready for the day - washing the deck, raising flags, cleaning the heads, etc. 4 2-hour sails with 30 min between each - usually about 10 minutes of getting ready for the next sail and 20 min to eat a snack, get more water, etc. Last sail ends at 8 and by 8:30 - 9 the boat is put to bed (sails furled, another deck wash, all that. With a crew that knows what they’re doing I’ve had nights where we were done by 8:15). On average 4 days of work, 3 days off, usually in a block.

deckhand on a different day sailor- turn to at 11am, maintenance until 2, getting the boat ready for a sail for another hour or two, then either and afternoon and sunset sail or just a sunset sail, then putting the boat to bed, done by 9ish? (I can’t remember exactly lol but around there, I think). Days off rotated, so I was off every third day.

deckhand during a delivery (taking the boat point A to point B, with no passengers). Time doesn’t matter. You have a watch group (usually 1/3 of the crew) and a watch schedule - I have experienced 4 hours on, 8 hours off, and 2 hours on, 4 hours off. When you’re on watch you’re at the helm, keeping the ship on course, changing the sails to best use the wind, logging position and other info. When you’re not on watch you have free time (although sometimes each watch group cooks a meal a day, and if there’s an urgent situation you’re expected to be on deck and helping immediately).

As ever, this is subjective, based on my own experiences, but I hope this helps!

[sub4bondage86]

(Stories found on Slaveboys - amupfurit)

I sit here writing this wearing white Adidas trackie bottoms, white McKenzie T-Shirt, Air Max Cap and Lacoste trainers, smoking, with a chastity cage on and a large black butt plug lodged firmly up my ass.. Ned-Slave Well, where do I start? I’m Dan, 20 years old from Glasgow in Scotland, kinda tall at 6ft, got dark hair and eyes and a great body, if I do say so myself! I was considered a bit of a scally, or Ned as they’re called in Scotland, always walking about with trackies, Lacoste trainers and a fag in my mouth. I got on well with my pals, all lads, proper lads, we got wrecked every weekend and ended up doing shit that really wasn’t cool; vandalism, happy slapping, etc. Sex talk didn’t really come up in day to day conversation with the lads, sometimes our pack leader, Jamie, would tell us of the bitches he had taken over the week and the others would all act impressed and cheer him on whereas I just smiled and lit up a fag or kept myself distracted to not look like the pussy I was... I’ve been into kink for a while now, looking on various websites to get my kicks out of other ‘slaves’ being used and abused, thinking to myself how great it would be to be put in bondage, even for just a little while. From my mid-teens I found myself looking less and less at girl porn, and more at guy porn, but I had fooled around with girls in the past and have had my fair share of pussy mostly just to keep the guys impressed and to stop the torrent of abuse the other guys who seemed to never get any action got. I had convinced myself I wasn’t ‘gay’ but I knew that I needed to be dominated by another man. I had looked and tried to get hard at Femdom stuff, but it just wasn’t for me, I couldn’t see me being used by a woman and from what I had seen most of them seemed pretty desperate, but I guess I didn’t look too hard cause I knew deep down that only a man could make me feel the way I needed to feel! It was my secret taboo and no one could find out, regularly deleting all my history and cookies, making sure there was no way my older brother Cameron could see, even if he did manage to log on as me. Cameron was not only my older brother, but my guardian as our parents had left some time ago, and despite being in and out of homes, Cameron took me in as soon as he could and we set up home together, 2 brothers having a great lads time in Glasgow. The house really was the party central in town, with mine’s and Cammie’s pals coming round most weekends for a good ol’ booze up. One weekend, a good few months ago Cameron was away at his girlfriend’s house, so I took this as prime time to have a major wank session while browsing the internet, trying to find a master or someone kinky to go on cam with. I’d told all my pals I was away with Cammie for the weekend, so had from Friday morning til Monday night to myself and man, was I looking forward to it! I finished work at the builders at 3 and went straight back to the house, sat down at the computer with a bottle of beer and a pack of fags to see me through the night. I found a website and quickly made a profile to see what it had on it. Wow. It was awesome. I didn’t realise there were as many guys out there into the same stuff. Some of it was pretty wierd for me though, guys pissing on each other and stuff like that I could never find a turn on. I read some of the forum messages, and man was there some horny stuff. I quickly had a look to see who was online and messaged a guy quite local to me in Glasgow... “Awryte man, nice pics, wud luv 2 get sum action wi u!” I clicked Send, and for some reason I was nervous. It was the fucking internet! He didn’t know anything about me apart from what was on my bare profile, age and location! Why the hell was I nervous. I got a reply quickly. “Boy, you will call me Sir from now on, I am not ‘man’ or ‘m8’, I am Master and you will treat me accordingly. Now boy, do you have a way for us to chat like MSN? If so, I want you to send me your user name immediately.” I got an instant boner when I read that, this hot sounding 25 year old with great pictures was telling me to send my MSN username to him. I lit up a fag and had a quick look around the site before another message popped up “Boy, I don’t take time wasters lying down, either message me your MSN now or never contact me again”. I kinda laughed but thought what the hell and sent him my e-mail address and waited. Just after I put out my first smoke I was messaged on MSN by ‘Master T’: “So boy, why haven’t I seen you on here before?” I explained to him I was new to this and was having a look around to see what I was interested in and maybe have a wank over cam. I explained that I was straight but was curious to find out more about this lifestyle and so far I was pretty turned on. “Very good, a newbie boi for me to break in! U look good boi...” I shat myself, how the hell did he know what I looked like? I started looking around me to see if there was someone looking or any hidden cameras like on the TV shows. I messages him back “LOL man, how the hell u know if I look good? “BOI, U will address me as Sir or master, and Mr Ford, I know everything” By now I was freaked out, he knew apparently what I looked like, but hell.. He knew my surname! I lost the horn and was shaking a little, wondering how this pervert had found out my sir name without me telling it to him. “Sir how do you know my surname? Please tell me or I’ll block you and that’s it!” There was no reply for a good 5 minutes, I was sweating and was swithering on blocking him and hoping it was a really good bluff! He replied and I just about jumped out my seat... Not only did he know who I was, but he had access to all the lads and my pals! “Facebook boi!” Shit what an idiot I had been, I had given him my real e-mail address which I used for everything, Insta, Twitter, facebook! Everything! I didn’t reply, I was shitting myself, what if this guy was going to out me in one go to all my pals? What if he was going to harass me or contact my brother!

“Well boi, get on cam, I want to see my new boi live! Don’t worry, if you please your new master, no one will ever find out. Trust me boy, Im not an old perv, I’ll show you my cam too.” Somehow, this eased my nerves a little. This guy probably didn’t want to be found out either and what the hell, if he did try anything I would just get the police involved. I clicked the send camera button and within a few seconds he sent his and my, oh my, he was stunning. He was muscled, with blonde hair and great blue eyes, he had a cool tribal tattoo similar to mine on his arm and both his nipples were shining with the little silver rings hanging through them. I got hard again and told him he was amazing looking. He looked like an Abercrombie model, only with a wild streak! “Good boi, now, tell ur master what you are into!” I told him I had been looking around the site and loved the look of cages and collars, even the handcuffs and masks looked horny. I explained I wasn't into getting fucked and I wouldn’t suck another dude’s dick for anything. I lit up another fag and told him a bit more about me and asked him what he liked and what he has done in the past. “Boi, I love getting wee ned fuckers like you all chained up and doing things to them beyond their wildest imaginations. Do you have any gear boi?” I asked what gear was, to me it was dope, but how wrong I was... He asked if I had any toys, anal toys! Any handcuffs or tape? I explained I really was new to this and only had handcuffs on once before, and that was after being in a fight on Argyle Street! I was still hard as a rock, sitting here like a faggot looking at this hot guy talking to me about dildos and things called butt plugs. He told me he had to go for an hour, but to research about kink and hopefully open my mind to the things he was going to do to me. I was wanking slightly and he said not wank or touch my cock before he came back. I said OK and started doing my homework for this amazing guy! I started looking around the site some more, reading the forums and trying to find out more about this new found fetish of mine. I read about loads of positions, different gear that guys use and looked at more photos of guys chained up with their cracks’ stuffed with dildos and these plug things. I googled most of the gear and found some sites that sold stuff and man, I didn’t realise there was so much and so many sites that sold them, it was amazing. I found it hard not to touch my dick which was tenting up through my trackie bottoms but just kept lighting up fag after fag to keep my mind (and hands) off my cock. Messenger popped up again, “Well boi Dan, how’s the research coming along?” “Hi Sir, Done loadsa lookin aboot n its aw fuckin horny stuff. Here, u got ne of it?” Master T replied instantly, “More than you could ever realise boi, and you are going to get to try it all out! Now get back on cam!” I quickly turned the camera on as I lit up another fag, shit, I only had 5 left, I wasn’t going to be able to make it through the night chatting to this stud with 5 fags! “Boi, smoke that cig quick, inhale each and every drag well, stand up, then strip. In that order. Go!” I puffed as quick as I could pulled the smokey goodness into my lungs, stubbed it out, stood up and stripped quicker than I ever had before. Fuck, what the hell was I doing? Stripping to another bro on a webcam, it seemed so fucking wierd but man I was as horny as hell and with my dick pointing straight up, I quickly realised he knew I was horny too. I typed to him, still standing, leaning over the keyboard, “ Like wot u see man” then quickly changed man to Sir! before hitting enter. “Yes boi, but it will be better to see you in real life. When are you free for me to train you up real good?” I asked him how he meant by train and he referred me to some of the pictures on the site and on another site while explaining that soon, very soon, I would be his trained cock slave. Reading what he said and looking at the pictures only made me hornier and my twitching cock gave it away. “We’ll need to get that greedy cock locked away too boi, can’t have my boys wanking without Sir’s direct permission...” I laughed out loud thinking it was a joke and Master T clearly saw this on cam. “That was NOT a joke boi, I have a CB-6000 waiting for you and you WILL be locked up until I say otherwise. Kneel down.” In my complete ignorance I asked what a CB-6000 thing was and kneeled on the floor in-front of the computer. I was still horny as hell even although this guy had managed to find out everything about me in not such a long period of time and have me do what he wants without him actually forcing me to. He replied saying I must not have done my homework well enough and not to worry cause I would be having it on very soon! He asked once again when I was free to come over. I quickly said, stupidly, that I was free all weekend.

“Excellent boi, I will be training you!” I started rubbing my dick again, hoping he wouldn’t see. Man I was horny, but I was nervous as hell about talking about this training. Over the past few hours I had learned so much and truly realised how much it got me horny. “Leave your dick alone boi, you will be punished! What’s your phone number?” I read his comment and instantly let go of my dick, this guy really did have power over me, and he didn’t even need to remind me that he could out me instantly if he wanted, but it didn’t bother me. I wanted, for some stupid fucking reason to let this guy tell me what to do and make me do it. “Eh sir, I dunno if I wanna give oot ma number the now” “OK boi, thats fine, who do you want me to tell that ur a little bitch to a man first?” I got nervous again and changed my mind, its only a number, I could change it if things got wierd and I wanted to call it off. I sent him my mobile number and started staring at my phone, excited and nervous about him calling or texting me. “Good boi! Now, I am going to phone you, you are going to pick up and we are going to discuss what time you are to meet me and what I want you do to beforehand.” “Awrite sir, no bother!” The phone rang and despite me knowing it was coming I just about jumped up with the fright, my heart was racing as I went to pick it up “Private Number”. “Good boi” His voice was gruff but soothing at the same time. “Now, while on cam, stand up and turn around, bend over and spread your crack for me to see whats now mine!” I didn’t say a word but did exactly as he wanted. He told me again I was a good boi, this pleased me more than I expected and was still hard as a rock. He told me what to do before meeting him and we talked about where I was in relation to him in Glasgow. Turned out he was only 5 minutes by car away from the centre so I could meet him in town and go back to his with him. “Boi, I want you to go to a sex shop and buy the following items, a large butt plug, lubricant, and a vibrating cock ring” “Yes Sir” I replied, thinking where the nearest sex shop was. He hung up and told me on messenger to turn off my cam and get going, and that he would text me further details. I lit up another fag as the first text came through: put your trackies back on, make sure u r as neddy as possible and get going. I finished my fag and replied Yes Sir, just leaving the house. I went on google after I got dressed and found a gay sex shop not too far from me and the city centre and found out how to go there. I was nervous, yet horny as hell. I left the house, wearing my tracksuit, a white cap, reebok classics, with only my fags, lighter, phone, keys and wallet on me... I walked round to the city centre, took ten minutes and started having second thoughts, man this guy could fuck me or make me suck his dick, eugh! I was into the domination, but wasn’t so keen on getting my arse violated. I made my way to the sex shop, looking all around me to make sure there was no cunt I new about before entering the shop. I was blushing and just about jumped out my skin when the shop helper offered me some help. “Eh, erm, aye man, just gettin some stuff for me n ma burd tae use! She’s into this kinky stuff like!” He sniggered, and clearly new my ‘burd’ was a man. I was red as a post box and started getting hard, I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but my bulge was clear through my CKs and white trackie bottoms. I pointed out a plug, and a cock ring with a vibrating egg attached and got some lube. He packed it all and I paid in cash to be discreet as possible. I walked out the shed as coy as possible with my cap pulled down and face down so not to be seen. I looked at the bag, SHIT! There was a muscled man’s silhouette on the bag! I had to walk with this bag, trying to keep with to side streets to try and avoid people. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket, a text... “Now boi I assume you have made your purchases, I wont be meeting you in town so head to Central Station and get the train to Bridgeton, but first, stop in the toilet and remove your pants and dispose of them. If they are on when you get here, you will be punished. Text me back when they’re off.”

Holy fuck! This guy was serious and I didn’t seem to have a chance to meet him before going to his, plus I had to walk along one of the busiest streets to get the train. I was going to get on at another stop closer to me, but realised there was no bogs and nowhere to take off my knickers. I started walking briskly towards the station with my head hung low and lit up a fag. Shit, last one! I nipped into a wee shop on the way and got some, fuck there was some wee neds in the shop doing the same thing. I waited behind them in the queue while they bought their cigs and then got mine, not before one of them pointed at my bag and started laughing and telling his mates what it was. I was so embarrassed, even the shop keeper was sniggering as he handed me over my 40 fags and change. I left the shop and headed to the station, lighting up yet another fag en route to calm my nerves. When I got to the station I saw the train was leaving in 6 minutes, so quickly went to the toilets, locked myself in a cubicle and took my pants off. I thought about putting them in my bag for later, but realised I might be caught by Master T and though otherwise. I walked out the toilet and dumped my underwear in a bin before jumping on the train just before it pulled away. My phone buzzed again, this time a picture message. It was him, Master T, completely naked with handcuffs in his hand, the message read, Im just leaving for the station, you better get on a train soon. I replied instantly, just on the train Sir, be there in 5 mins. I started getting hard again, the train was busy and I had to stand, fuck! I was aware of people staring at me, my bag and now, my raging hard-on poking up through my nylon trackies. Nervous as I was, thinking of this meeting with a guy I barely knew for my first male-male experience was turning me on so much! The train announcer came over the tannoy: Next Stop, Bridgeton. My stop. My stomach was churning, my head was spinning and I was bright red with embarrassment but I knew I couldn’t turn back now, he would probably be waiting for me at the train as I got off. The next two minutes seemed to take an age to go by, then finally, the train stopped and I was at Bridgeton. For those of you who don’t know, Bridgeton isn’t the nicest part of Glasgow, its full of other neds like me, but harder, with teeth missing and shit like that, I wasn’t too comfortable with getting off with this hard on and bag in hand, but I did as I needed and stepped out into the cold air. I looked around and fortunately there was no one around, including Master T. I text him saying that I had arrived and asked what he was wearing to help me identify him. I never got a text back for a couple of minutes, I started worrying that he wasn’t going to come and I would have to make my embarrassing journey back to my house, underwear-less and horny. Then, a blue Audi RS4 pulled up beside me and I saw him for the first time in the flesh, he rolled the window down and shouted, get in the back boi, now!

I opened the door and climbed in, sitting opposite him in the back of the car. It smelled of smoke, leather and male musk, “Hi boi, glad to see you didn’t ditch on me like the other fuckwits I have had try it with me.” I laughed nevously, “Yeah man, eh, Sir! Nice motor!” He reminded me that I was to call him Sir, or Master T all times and I would be punished if I didn’t. I was still horny as hell, but worried about my fate. This guy could kill me for all he wanted and there would be little anyone could find out, I had deleted all my history. My mind was racing but deep down I knew he was all right. The guy was stunning, even better in real life. I kept staring at his face as he told me the journey was short, but he wanted to examine me before we went to his place so we were going to a deserted industrial area for him to check me out. He threw back a pair of handcuffs, proper police ones with the black plastic mould in the middle so they couldn’t be moved. “Put them on, tight!” I did as he said and was now trapped in his car with my hands cuffed between the seatbelt strap. I couldn’t get out if I wanted, not that I did. This was the horniest thing I had ever done. We drove in silence for 10 minutes, I wanted to ask him so many questions but he had told me not to speak without permission. Finally we pulled up outside a warehouse and he leaned back to undo my cuffs after pulled my trackies down over my knees. “Good lad, you followed my orders, my, my your a big boy!” I laughed again, trying to hide my embarrassment. He ordered me out the car, and told me to recuff behind me back, with my trackies lying at my ankles. I hobbled out and stood there in all my glory half naked. He revved the engine and moved the car off, I panicked and started hobbling towards the moving car, falling flat on my face, with no hands to stop my fall. I picked myself up, glad to see the car had stopped and saw him laughing at my trip. Master T climbed out the car with a cigarette behind his ear. “Thanks for the toys and smokes boi, all mine now!”. I spoke up, “Can a have a smoke please Sir?” “ I told you not to speak without permission boi! But as you are new to this and you asked so politely, you may” He pulled out my smokes and put one in his mouth and one in mine before lighting them both. I didn’t have free hands, so had to dangle my cig in my mouth while he walked around me checking me out, occasionally slapping my ass and feeling my abs. I was quite uncomfortable with him touching me, but my dick was more than happy. After he had thoroughly checked my body out he stepped back and nodded, taking a deep drag of his fag. “You’ll do boi!”. I felt so degraded and used, and I had a niggling feeling this was only the start. I finished dragging on my fag and spat it out. He commanded me back to the back of the car and opened the boot, “Get it, now!”. I stammered, “eh, whit?!!” Smack! He had hit slapped me hard on the side of my face. I was stunned, I must have started weeping. “Fucking pussy, get in the boot”. I whimpered, “Yes Sir” and tried to throw my self into the boot, which luckily for me had a blanket to land on. He grabbed my legs and tucked them in, “It’s only going to be a 5 minute drive boi, stop greeting and get a grip, you’re about to have the best weekend of your life, and so am I!” I felt comforted by his words and pulled myself together as the boot lid shut, the engine started and I lay there as the car was pulling away. I was scared, but excited. I had the biggest boner I had ever had and I was looking forward to jerking off when I got the chance, with my hands cuffed still behind my back it wasn’t possible and with it being so dark and confined I couldn’t manoeuvre them to my front to have a fondle. For the duration of the journey I just kept quiet lying in the boot, not quite sure what to think. I was awestruck by his attitude, demeanour and sheer manliness. After what seemed like a good hour (probably only 15 minutes), the car stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. We were here, wherever here was. The boot was flung open and Master T lifted me out the boot. He quickly slung a blindfold over my face before I got a chance to take in my surroundings, which seemed like a generic housing estate. He grabbed my cock and started walking me to what I assumed was his house. I was strangely at ease for a man to be holding my cock, nay; I was aroused even more by it. I heard a door open and I carefully stepped up into the room.

“Welcome to my humble abode boi” Master said “Now, kneel down and open your mouth.” I did as he said as he closed the door, and I heard multiple locks turning. I opened my mouth and felt something hard, like a small tennis ball being shoved in my gob and something being strapped behind my neck. After some fiddling, Master stepped away and I tried to push the ball out my mouth with my tongue with no avail, it must have been one of the ball gags I had seen on the site, man, I grew even more horny! Then I felt something cold round my neck, “Boi, you will wear this for the duration of the weekend, and even longer if I feel it needs to be worn in public.” I heard a lock and realised I had been collared. I was now owned. “Kneel down boi”. I knelt there with a metal collar round my neck, a rubber ball gag planted firmly in my mouth, a leather blindfold on and my hands cuffed behind my back. I was as hard as a rock, but nervous to find out what was going to happen next. “Now boi, I am going to get you ready for a weekend of servitude, and fun before I release you back to your home comforts” Master T was laying out his plan, “ I don’t expect to be questioned and I don’t ever want to hear No as your first answer to any question I may ask you, of course when your gagged like that I don’t suppose you will be the conversation starter anyway.” He laughed. Master T whipped off my blindfold, the light hurt my eyes a little, but I was delighted to see him in his masculine form towering over me like a god! “Follow me boi” I went to stand up to follow him up the staircase in front, but Master T barked back “I did not give you permission to stand up slut, crawl!” I quickly jumped back down onto all 4s and struggled to ascend the stairs behind him with my hands cuffed. I must have looked some sight! Master T opened the door to the bathroom and pointed for me to go in, he instructed me to get in the bath, face up and to close my eyes. Once again, the leather blindfold was applied. Shit this was horny! Shit, is he going to drown me? I panicked and jumped up, only to be pushed back down by Master. “ Fuck sake boi, stay still, I’m not gonna kill ya! Relax, and trust me”. His manly, calm demeanour eased me a little and I sunk back into the bath. I felt his touch on my arms and the right cuff was removed. It was then clipped to the bar on the left side of the bath. “Be right back boi”. I was now cuffed to the bath unable to see or speak, and my boner was still raging. I must be sick. "Don't dare touch your cock!" I heard Master leave the room and listened some extensive fumbling around in the room next door, what the fuck was he doing in there?! I didn't touch my cock incase I got too excited and shot my load, which given my predicament wouldn't have been a good move. Finally, Master came back, I could smell cigarette smoke, damn I needed a fag! I heard metal knocking together, just lightly, and then my right arm was cuffed to the right side of the bath. Totally unable to move now! “Right boi, slave prep stage 1 begins” Master laughed, then blew some smoke in my direction. Aghh, this was torture; the smoke, the suspense, my raging boner not being touched! I felt something cold being squirted on my pubic area; I didn’t have a lot of pubes to begin with as I trimmed them down, but I knew what was coming… I was 100% right in my thoughts, he was shaving my pubes and dick, slowly and carefully, making sure there wasn’t a stray hair in sight. Laughing and coughing occasionally, he paused, presumably to take a drag from his fag and to admire his handy work. What a god!

With my pubes now as bald as the day I was born, I felt more and more horny. Damn, this guy was good! He leaned over and whispered, “we’re not done yet boi”! He lifted my blindfold and once again I could see his face, beautiful – God this guy is turning me into a right faggot. He took out both my diamond earrings, and my gold chain and bracelet; “Slaves don’t need these embellishments” apparently, “you’ll get them back when I release you”. “What do you think boi?” I strained to look down and I was truly bald, he really did take his time and make a good job. I mumbled “Amazing Sir!” and nodded. I was drooling by this stage and pretty thirsty, I was having a great time but wanted out of the cold bath soon to get a drink, a fag and a comfy seat. “Now boi, I’m gonna flip you over and do the back side”. Shit, why would he want my arse shaved?! I didn’t wanted fucked, well… I wanted to know get fucked, but it was taking it to a new level. I didn’t have a choice, so no point in protesting. He uncuffed my right arm at the bath side, and attached it to the left bar, then uncuffed the left cuff and attached it to the right side; this guy’s a pro, not letting my free at any point, whilst flipping me onto me knees face down. Once again, the shaving crème was applied and the razor was dragged across my bare arse and arse crack, slowly and carefully as before. I didn’t have much hair but he wanted to be sure, clearly! “We’re done boi, you look like a good wee slave” Master T chortled, “Best get you washed down and cleaned up before we move on to stage 2!” With that, he uncuffed my right arm and attached the cuffs together, then did the same with the left, double security! He turned me round just before I fell on my face and proceeded to take out my ball gag. Finally! My jaw was aching! “Well boi, how do you feel?” “Good Sir, cheers! I am so fuckin horny right now! I’m dying for a fag as well, Jeez Master, that was amazi…” He cut my verbal diarrhoea of whith a swift slap on the face “Shut up boi, your mumbling away like you’ve just discovered speech, but I am glad your having fun. Now, you thirsty?” “Aye Sir, im parched with drooling so much, please can I have a drink n a fag?” “Very well boi, I’ll get you a drink and we can have a smoke when we’re downstairs” He put my blindfold on, and there was silence, then I heard a zipper open “Open your mouth boi, I’ve got you a drink” He then started pissing straight in my mouth, I was black affronted, I didn’t know what to do. Pissing? In my mouth? I started to choke. “Swallow boy, you’ll be supping the rest out the tub if you don’t. I swallowed, trying not to gag, taking as much in my throat as possible without having to taste it. He laughed as I coughed a little, but shit, he was pissing like a stallion. He finally finished by showering me down with his piss. He rubbed it into my bald pubic area and grunted “That’s you washed down, and watered, lets get you cleaned up!”

I was totally turned off by this, my cock finally subsided and I was speechless. How could someone piss on me? Master T totally freaked me out, but he didn’t seem to think anything of it! Are people into this? What the fuck?! “What’s the matter lad, not like golden showers?” He laughed “Stay still til I clean you up”. He started the shower, shit it was cold! It soon warmed up and Master T rubbed me down. I still had my T-Shirt on, my favourite McKenzie one, it was now pissed on and soaked. Fuck. Master T turned off the shower and helped me stand up. “Now boi, I am going to un-cuff you, I don’t want any funny business or you’ll be drinking your meals from now on!” “Yes Sir” I mumbled, shivering with the cold air. I now resented even coming, how disgusting was that?! “Out the tub, come on slut, easy does it” Sir guided me over the tub. “Stand still whilst I dry you off”. I heard the sound of metal on metal again and I felt my right leg, then left leg be cuffed with a sharp click. “Not sure I could trust you to not run away before I take off your handcuffs, so these leg irons wlll reduce you to a hobble.” He uncuffed both sets of handcuffs holding my arms together and whipped off my T-Shirt “Fuckin nice body boi, felt good earlier but it looks great all covered in Goosebumps” He said as he rubbed the towel over them. I was proud of my body, with doing manual labour I had developed strong core muscles and good pair of strong arms; still, nothing like his amazing god-like physique. Following my rough towelling off, he clicked a pair of metal cuffs back on, damn they felt sexy. My libido returned a little, hey that experience wasn't that bad. “Right boi, stage 2 is coming soon, lets get that blindfold off you and go down stairs” He said as he pointed to the floor, obviously I was to crawl again. I crawled behind Master T down the stairs and into his living room. It was really nice, but had a definite man’s touch; big telly, awesome sound system and all the gadgets you could think of. He must be quite well moneyed I thought. “Right ya cheeky little cunt, sit on the floor at my feet til I catch up on Sky Sports News, I don’t wanna hear a sound out u, so here” He handed me an ashtray and a pack of fags, “Smoke away all u like but don’t fucking dare touch your dick” I sat in front of him with my back to the chair, he put his muscular legs over my shoulders pinning my in place. After watching the match highlights and us both having a good share of smokes, he said to me that it was now time for stage 2, and I was going to enjoy what was coming next. I was already boned watching the footie highlights with him, but after saying that I was rock solid. “Stay there, be right back cunt boi”

Master T came back a couple of minutes later as I finished off another smoke, wearing nothing but a pair of army camo fand boots, damn his body was amazing, I must have dropped my jaw as I saw him. “Haha boi, like what you see?” He said getting even closer. His nipple rings glistened in the light, highlighting his perfect torso, I was so aroused. “Crawl over here bitch” he beckoned as he sat down on the sofa across the room, “Lick my fucking boots clean” I don’t know what came over me but I went for them like a hungry dog, slurping and licking them all over, left then right foot then back again. “Nice work boi, I see you like my boots. C’mon upstairs”. He jogged up the stairs in front of me crawling, trying to keep pace, I tripped over on the stairs planting my face on the carpet “Ah ya fucker” I yelped. Slap. He leaned down, “I said, don’t say a fucking word earlier and I meant it, speak when spoken to, hurry up”. His verbal abuse just got me hornier, my dick was just about hitting off the stairs as I crawled to the top. I crawled after him into a room next to the bathroom where I had been shaved bald earlier, this was definitely not a bedroom, it was like a medieval torture room. Metal chains, a sling, numerous whips and paddles, wow. There were evil looking metal stocks and things I had no idea what they did, this was too horny. What kind of weirdo was I turning into, getting off on all this stuff I had only glimpsed at online?! “Right boi, stage 2 begins. Over here” He bellowed in a deep, sexy voice, pointing at the stocks. I crawled over to him standing at the stocks and looked into his eyes, for even a hint of what was coming next. “Stay” he said as he walked over, took a key out and locked the door. They key was returned to his pocked and he came back to me. “I’m going to unlock you and get you dressed in my favourite gear, seen as you have been so compliant.” I took this as a compliment and smiled, favourite gear? I wonder…

Master T reached down and unlocked my handcuffs and leg irons with care and speed, he reminded me not to say a word and do as I was “fucking told, or else”. I was completely at ease now, despite still being in a compromised situation, but I trusted him. His demeanour and attitude was so manly and powerful, yet it seemed he cared for me. He went over to a closet in the corner and rummaged around for what was presumably his favourite gear. After some time, apparently ensuring he got the right image, he shouted for me to close my eyes before being presented with my outfit. I closed my eyes and waited with baited breath for my outfit. “Right boi, open your eyes” Master whispered in my ear. I opened my eyes and saw some horny stuff… Firstly there was a leather upper body cross harness with a shiny metal cock ring, like I had seen online that afternoon, then a pair of leather shorts, then a chain with a clip on each end and finally a rubber gas mask. Jeez, if I wasn’t hard already, I was rock solid now. ”Lets get you dressed, slut” Sir said. Firstly my arms were lifted up, and the harness slid over and tightened. Then, Master grabbed my cock and slid the cock ring over to the base and popped my balls through. Master told me to lie on my back, then lifted my legs to slid on the shorts, “Boi, these aren’t any normal shorts, these are chastity shorts, just to make sure you don’t get off when I’m not looking”. He tightened them and added some padlocks. Total lockdown! “Right now boi, lets get you restrained for some training”… Master T led me behind the metal stocks and opened them up “You know what to do”. I put my wrists and neck in the recessions in the metal, the ‘lid’ was brought down and a big metal padlock was added. My legs were then restrained with cold metal shackles. Now it was complete and total lockdown, I wasn’t going anywhere. After stepping back to admire his work, Master T came back over to me and smiled “Want a fag?” He kneeled down on one knee in front of me and lit up a cigarette, blowing the smoke on my face, gawd did I want a smoke! He smoked most of it, teasing my by holding the filter near my mouth but not close enough for me to get a toke. Finally I got a good hit and exhaled. Nice. “It’s getting late boy, I had better get on before its time to lock you up for the night! Hows ur ass like a good ramming?” Master T enquired “Fuck off, you’re not fucking touching my ass” I stupidly blurted out. “Firstly, If I want to fuck you, I will. Secondly, don’t dare speak unless spoken to. Thirdly, you were doing so well, I guess I’ll need to punish you for refusing to accept whats coming to you”. Master T said calmly. “I am now going to have to whip your ass, which unfortunately means pulling down these chastity shorts, luckly there is no moving for you!” He unlocked the padlocks and pulled the shorts down with a sharp tug, my naked, bald ass free in the air. “Count em out slut, or we’ll see how long you last in that cage over there without a fag and only my piss for liquid!” WHACK! It took me a second to get what he meant to count them out “One, Master” WHACK “Two, Master” WHACK “Three Master”. This went on up to 15, by this point my ass was in agony and likely bright red. I was sobbing slightly, “Shut up pussy, that’s nothing” He said. What did he mean that was nothing, it was fucking torture and I couldn’t move to caress my butt.

“Right boi, that is enough for now” Master T said, “Now, lets have some fun, eh?!” Fun sounded good, anything to let me forget about the throbbing pain coming from my ass. Master T then moved to in front of me, ripped off a piece of silver duct tap & whapped it on my gob before I had a chance to protest. He repeated the strips of tape a few times over my mouth and down below my chin until he was confident I was going to be silenced. He then placed the S10 gas mask on my face and tightened the elastic straps behind my head. What a strange, horny sensation! The sound of my own breath through the mask was exciting me, my cock was rock hard swaying between my spread legs. Despite kneeling down on the floor with my legs locked down and my arms and head locked in a stockade, I was very comfortable and felt quite at home here. “Slut, now you are gagged and locked up, I want one nod for yes and 2 shakes for no, got it?” Nod. “Good boi, now, have you ever had anything up your hole?” I presumed he meant my ass-hole. Shake, shake. “Hehe, nice, did you expect to come here and get anything up your hole?” Shake shake. “Well boi, I am not going to fuck your tight little scally hole with my monster cock, I’ll rip you in half… We had better leave my cock out of there for now, agree?” Nod!! “Thought you might ‘say’ that”, haha! Well, the good news is I wont fuck you with my dick, infact tonight, I won’t even make you suck my dick, but you will be sleeping with a butt plug in, do you know what that is?” Nod. I knew exactly what they were, and I didn’t like the look of them. “Eager, I see boi!” Master T laughed as he walked towards his toy chest. After some rummaging around he came back with a handful of black rubber plugs in different sizes and shapes, some even had things hanging off them. Wow, what the hell was I doing here?! “Right boi, new game, I have the a 14cm plug in one hand and a 16.5cm plug in the other hand. I am going to shuffle then behind my back and the one you pick goes up your ass until breakfast tomorrow, ok?” Slow Nod. I saw they both had a wide girth but the larger one was less tapered at the base. “I’m going with your thumbs up to whichever hand you want” Nod. He then shuffled the plugs behind his back and asked the question, “Left, or Right?” I put up my left thumb. “Well boi… you’ve picked…

(Sadly it wasn't finished......if anyone wants to.....)

[secretgamergirl]

The Workification of Games

I like games. Quite a bit. Play them constantly. Used to review them for a living. I make them. I’m perpetually tempted to maybe stream them for a new living. But there’s so many times where I look at the stack of new games I haven’t started in on, or ones I’m presently in the middle of, and I just start groaning, because there’s this whole sense of obligation and drudgery and that’s not actually fun, so I avoid playing them. And we kinda need to talk about that.

We’ve had games that are secretly jobs for as long as we’ve had games that aren’t designed to be played in a single sitting, really. At the dawn of time, there was just arcade games. Classic arcade games had no real sense of progress to them. There’s a sense of ADVANCEMENT. You can get better at playing Centipede, and clear more boards, and see more palette swaps, but there’s no real end goal to it, and when you step away from the machine, you know you’re starting over from the beginning the next time you play. The only way there can be any sort of obligation is if you have some personal challenge you set for yourself, like getting to the top of the high score chart at your local arcade maybe. And that’s not something that takes constant effort, that’s just having one really good game one day.

Then later, we got relatively long-form console games. Super Mario Bros. has 32 levels. There’s an implicit goal that you need to plow through all 32 of those levels and save the princess. But still, like the personal high score challenge, any given time you sit down, either you complete the game, or you don’t. Next time you’re starting fresh. You’re taking that challenge on your own terms, whenever you want to, and while learning the game is kind of a thing, there’s no sense that you’re falling behind if you take a break for a while.

Later still, we got the first wave of games that are meant to take more than a sitting. Dragon Quest, Zelda, Metroid, Ultima. There’s still some end goal you’re working towards, but now the expectation is you aren’t just going to sit down and make it or not. You’re going to play the game a while, have some sense you’ve made some progress by gathering stuff or leveling up or whatever, get your password/save the game, and come back to keep chipping away. And hey, at the time, that was novel and cool and kinda made you feel good that you’re always advancing instead of starting from scratch.

RPGs then became kind of a thing. They got longer and more involved. There was a stretch where basically, every 5 years, the amount of time you had to sink into a single RPG to see the ending doubled, until they turned into these 80+ hour Commitments. It isn’t “today I think I’m going to sit down and play Xenogears before dinner.” It’s “this month I’m going to spend like 4 hours between getting home and making dinner playing Xenogears, should be finished by the 30th or so.” And hey, whoops! That’s a job now! In my own personal experience, that was literally a job. I spent some time reviewing games professionally. I was being paid by the article, and seeing the game through before reviewing it was a policy at that outlet, so, yeah. I had to sit down with these big 80 hour epics and slog through them, getting in as many hours as I could each day, just like some people had to go stand behind a counter flipping hamburgers or sit at a desk making phone calls. A full on job.

Now granted, at the time, it was mainly just RPGs that did that, and most people didn’t literally play them for a living. So OK you have your one big PROJECT of a game to slowly chip through and then everything else you’re playing is relatively light. Only relatively though, because hey, RPGs were the first genre to really get LONG, and took it to the greatest extremes, but damn near ALL games in the mid-90s could be counted on to have some main story-progression mode too long to be played in a single sitting, with save files to maintain your progress. And that PROGRESSION creep never went away. Super Mario Odyssey has somewhere around 1000 moons for you to go find before you can say you’re done. That’s a pretty sizeable commitment to plug away at.

And really, even around the late 90s, things were getting pretty bad. Game production started really picking up steam, so it went from “hey like 5 really great games came out this year” to “wow, there are 5 games coming out this month alone I want to play” and all of them are some sort of time commitment. So if that’s how you spend your time, not only is this game you’re playing making the demand that you sink 20-100 hours into it, there’s a stack of games piling up behind it and more on the way. You need to stay on the daily grind or you’ll fall behind and the unplayed stack is going to start getting taller. Gotta keep your head down and work towards that ending if you want to stay on top of new releases and not skip anything.

And then MMOs happened. WOW are those ever obligating! You’re not just buying a game, you’re paying for a subscription. And that means, really, any time you’re NOT spending playing the game, well that’s just throwing your money away. And the games want you to stay subscribed, so they have every incentive to keep you from ever feeling like you’re done, but still want you to feel like you’re getting somewhere. So we’ve got the slow slow grind of leveling up, like once every couple hours you sit there. And the long long quest chains. And the random loot drop based stuff to stall you out and buy more time to add more long quest chains. And oh, the SOCIAL obligations! You’ll have more fun and make more progress if you have a group! But everyone has other obligations in life, so this six hour block from 8 to 2 AM every night, you simply have to be logged in. Can’t do this raid without our best healer. It’s literally a job, but you pay for the privilege!

And that mindset spread. And people started actually researching howto take advantage of human psychology to make everyone feel even more obligated. Gotta have that PLAYER RETENTION. If you aren’t being incentivized to log in every day (here’s your daily log-in bonus!) you might drift away and start something else. You’re not going to stick around for any DLC or in-game purchases or whatever, where people make the real money. Better make it feel like you’re punished if you don’t maintain some minimum daily commitment, really.

And again. This started with RPGs, but it’s just everywhere now. Even games that should be light breezy things, where you just sit down for an hour, play a match, and you’re done, those come with daily log-in rewards and experience bars and stuff you need to unlock just as a matter of course. Can’t just sit down and shoot robots for an hour to relax, you have to be MAKING PROGRESS and working towards unlocking stuff. Gotta be a job. Gotta make it a commitment.

It’s awful. It’s draining. It keeps you from ever really relaxing and having fun, and developers have no real incentive at all to stop doing it, so it’s on us to start identifying it and saying no, and highlighting the games that don’t suck you in like that and you can just have fun.

The one game lately that devours the most of my time right now is Risk of Rain 2. Risk of Rain 2 is pretty damn great. There’s SOME sense of “there is progress still to be made here!” in the form of achievements/challenges left for me to tick off. A LITTLE of that is good, arguably. It rationalizes me playing it still if I can’t fully shake that weird urge to be “productive” with my leisure time, rather than “wasting it” on a game where I’m not advancing or unlocking anything, but the fundamental structure of it is this very arcade-y, somewhat rogue-adjacent game.

If I sit down and play Risk of Rain 2 for an hour, I’m not pushing any sort of progress bar up one damn bit. I’m just in the moment, playing me a quick run. I might have some goal I’m trying to hit with that run. Some little side challenge for an achievement, but whether I actually pull that off is really just going to come down to luck, and I know this probably isn’t going to be the run where I do it. If I do, cool. If I don’t, I’m still having this really intense frenetic little hour here where there’s the excitement of whether I’m going to do great or die quick and start from the beginning again. It’s like the old arcade experience. All I’m working towards is mastery so I can have some bragging rights, but really, I’m going to be as “far into finishing the game” after today’s little session as I was yesterday. Or a week ago. I’d say “or a month before that” but nah there was a big recent patch and I unlocked Acrid that day. Still, it’s just a fun, for its own sake, non-obligatory time. And I can play it with friends if I want to. But nobody falls behind if I play without them in any sense, just, hey, I have company to talk to tonight while I run around shooting space lizards.

And maybe Risk of Rain 2 is not your thing. You like slower paced games, maybe an old school feel? Well then might I suggest you look into the wide wonderful world of randomizers? Whatever your favorite game was 20-30 years ago, odds are surprisingly good that some entrepreneuring hacker in the last 3 years or so has gone and made either a quick little downloadable program, or a website, where you can take that old game, scramble it around, and get a fresh little remixed experience out of it. And this is all an offshoot from the speedrunning community too, so even i that game of yours used to be a big 20+ hour commitment the first time around, NOW there’s randomizer settings to trim out the fat and turn it into something where you’re basically guaranteed to be able to finish the whole thing in like 2-4 hours tops. If this is your first introduction to the concept, here, have a random let’s play to give you an idea how these things go. You get this nice mix of the comfortable and familiar, while still doing something new and exciting for the first time. There’s really no sense of long term obligation since it’s a single sitting thing. And if you finish or you feel stuck, cool, flush that ROM, generate a new one, and you can do it again.

There’s also something just very freeing about just going back to some old game that at one point DID have a big ol’ progress bar to fill up, but you did it and now you can play it without any real goal anymore. The Saints Row games are particularly great for this, because they have a little option to go replay old missions you’ve already done, and a lot of customizability options. So just, hey, load your old save up, give your character a fancy new makeover, switch to a wackier voice, and replay whatever part of the game you remember most fondly. Or crank the radio and drive around exploring the city. Whatever. Relax and enjoy it, it’s a game. It’s fun and relaxing.

As for everything else? All those JOBS you’ve accidentally installed on your hard drive or on your phone or on a shelf in a nice little row of cases? You need to think, really think. “Is this something I’m really enthused about the idea of PLAYING, or is this something I’m looking forward to being DONE WITH?” I mean, not all games that are jobs are miserable and unrewarding. I will crack open an Etrian Odyssey or something like a lobster and suck the meat out of every leg, drawing those maps and finishing those floors in such rough shape I barely make it back to town and have a good time doing it, and that’s fine. But I am SURE right this minute there’s at least one game that you’re playing because you want the closure of saying”hey, I played all the way through Metal Zone 6. Credits rolled.” Or there’s that one where you’re just logging in every day to “do your dailies.” Or some awful thing on your phone where you’re waiting for your action points to fill back up because there’s an Event going this weekend and it’s your only chance for that gacha pull that’ll give you the big boobed princess in her winter vacation alt costume or whatever.

And those are all terrible reasons to be playing a game! Screw it! Quit that soul sucking job! Uninstall it, take it off your mind, enjoy all the extra free time you just opened by doing something you actually enjoy! Real life doesn’t have some completion percentage and if it did, 100%ing every damn game in the world wouldn’t count towards 100%. Those things are just randomly generated side content that don’t count for progression. Which.... OK this is honestly the worst metaphor I could possibly be using, but the point is, games should be fun, not jobs. Don’t work jobs for no reason. That’s just an awful thing to do.

[petri808]

Mirror’s of the Soul

Hau’oli la Hanau!  Happy Birthday!  @dark0angel13  Hawaii misses you ;)

Based on the folklore of a “dog-man” in Hawaii called the Kaupe.  Spun to be a werewolf AU lol, but with a twist.  The Kaupe was used in the DC tv show Legends of Tomorrow.  It was pointed out to me that Lucy’s character reminded them of character from Witcher 3 as well lol.

~~~~~ Nalu AU one-shot

Lucy had heard the wild rumors of the dog-man of Nu’uanu Valley, but she chalked it up to Hawaiian folklore.  These islands were full of such supernatural tales, and as a transplanted college student, seemed more like ghost stories intended to keep children from misbehaving.  She hadn’t heard of any actual werewolves confirmed in the last few centuries, and this was probably not a real case.  As far as she was concerned, superstitious hocus-pocus wasn’t going to keep her from hiking in the valley.  It’s lush rainforests, waterfalls, or Pali cliff overlooks were stunning, especially near sunset or sunrise.  A slice of nature surrounded by a growing metropolis.  

While the professor droned on at the front of the lecture hall, one of her closest friends slides into the seat next to her.

“You’re late Natsu,” she whispers, “class started 20 minutes ago.”

“Did I miss much?” the young man retorts.  Lucy shakes her head.  “Then I’m not late at all,” he grins back.

She rolls her eyes but can’t help a chuckle from escaping.  “Got any plans this weekend?”

“Tomorrow yeah,” he shifts in his seat, “but should be free Sunday.”

“How about you take me on a Dave ‘N Busters date Sunday so I can kick your ass at RD again.”

“You’re on!”

The next morning, Lucy awakens to perfect outdoor weather.  Balmy breezes lightly shifting her curtains and blue skies as far as the eye could see.  It seemed her roommate hadn’t made it back to their dorm in the night, probably staying the weekend with her boyfriend off campus.  Lucy sighs, and turns on her bed facing the window, maybe one day she’ll be able to do the same.  Yeah sure, Hell might freeze over before Natsu saw her in that way.  He was the best of friend that any could be, but no matter how many times she threw subtle hints or flirted with him, it all seemed to go right over his head.  Oh well, the times they spent together sufficed, but for now the valley was calling her name.

Not only did she like simply being surrounded by the peace and tranquility the forest could provide, it also served as a perfect, distraction free place to write her stories. Notebook, extra pens, fully charged laptop, trusty outdoor blanket, lunch, and ready to go, she ascends the Lulumahu Falls trail.  It was only a 2-mile hike round trip, but unlike some of the other trails in the area, this one cut through a bamboo grove and wasn’t one of the official paths.  As such, traffic tended to be lighter with fellow hikers opting for the maintained trails instead.

She reaches the end of the line and finds a shady area with large flat boulders to sit on.  Thank goodness for the recent sunny weather.  The trail had been mud-free, humidity was lower, and the air was crisp.  Lucy takes out her laptop, balancing it on her thighs and gets to work, letting the sounds of the forest send her into a rhythm.  Her words flowed forth like the gentle burbling of the nearby stream of the same namesake.  Hands gliding across the keyboard like the chirping birds around her.  Every now and again there was a crackle of a falling branch, or footsteps of a fellow nature seeker, but she paid these no mind, her characters keeping her enthralled.

It was great when ideas came to her so easily.  The infamous writers block plagued her from time to time, but not today, and it wasn’t until the light was growing dim that she realized how long she’d been in the writing zone.  Oh crap!  It may still be warm for fall, but the sun also set quicker in these later months.  She checks the time on her phone and guestimates another hour tops before she needed to get out of there.  Alright, this chapter was almost finished, she could make it!

She didn’t make it.

And by the time she’d stumbled into what she assumed was the Kaniakapupu Ruins, it was dark, cell phone coverage was nil, and it was growing a bit chilly.  Thank goodness for her blanket!  Lucy had two options, keep trying to find her way out through unmarked trails and risk getting more lost, or staying put until morning.  The clear skies were in her favor and the bright harvest moon chased away some of the darkness.  She groans and finds a decent rock to plop onto, guess she’ll just hunker down for the night.  

About a half mile away, deeper into the Nu’uanu valley, something catches the scent of the lone female, but that wasn’t good, for he recognized the scent.  ‘What is she doing here and on this night of all nights?!’  He came here to hide during this phase of the month, an ancient calling against his bloodline to guard the heiau of Kaheiki.  Legend has it, his ancestor had impregnated a human female shortly before being killed by a chief from the island of Hawaii, and to atone for that progenitor’s misdeed’s, a descendant was born as a Kaupe every hundred years or so to guard the heiau of the priest that helped to stop it’s rampage.

A thousand years later, it was Natsu’s bad luck that this curse fell upon his generation and with puberty came the confirmation.  He tried consulting the most knowledgeable kahuna’s and priests he could find in the hopes of breaking the curse, but they all told him the same thing, this was his ancestors atonement and only the gods could see fit to change that.  Yeah, well his family had been punished enough for something they hadn’t even done.  It wasn’t fair in this modern era to keep suffering like this.  All he wanted to do was settle down some day like a normal person, but who would want a freak like him?

Natsu’s worries were confirmed the moment he crept up to the ruins and sees Lucy sitting on a rock all bundled up.  With his keener eye sight, he can see her hiking back pack near her feet and puts two and two together that she must have gotten lost.  He could only imagine how cold she must be with nothing more than a light blanket to stay warm with.  At least his fur helped with that, but it was still another 10 more hours before the sun will rise.  Natsu paces as he weighs his options.  Great, so what should he do?  He couldn’t leave her all alone.  But if he made his presence known it might scare the wits out of her.  

He fails to realize that Lucy is now staring in his direction.  It was strange at first the mixed scent of Natsu and canine.  She couldn’t see him through the darkness but knew he was out there somewhere, but putting the clues together and it wasn’t a total shock.  Lucy groans internally at the irony.  The man had been keeping a secret, though she was no better.

“Natsu,” she lets out an exasperated exhale and stands up.  “You might as well come out I know you’re there.”  

That was impossible!  How could Lucy know that he was there in the first place, and second, he wasn’t some random person!  He hears her sigh.  

“Natsu, I can pick up on your scent, now please just come out.”

With a lot of trepidation, he steps beyond the tree line into the clearing.  “Lucy… but how??”

“Just come closer,” she sits back on her rock, “we both have a lot of explaining to do.”

Okay things were getting a little weird, and considering he was the werewolf, to think this was all really strange was… Weird!  No one outside of his family had ever seen him in this form because he’d done well to stay completely hidden from humans, and even though clearly this woman knew it was him, Natsu was still hesitant to let Lucy see him for what he was.  It was also a bit unnerving how unfazed she seemed to be.  He finds a fallen log about 10 feet away from her and sits down on the edge of it.  If he needed to take off again, it would only take mere seconds to do so.

Lucy adjusts the blanket around her body, then props her head with her hand against her knee.  “I assume you are confused?”  Natsu nods.  “Back home, my family hails from a long line of hunters…. Creature hunters.”  She tips her head, “I remember my mom telling me how my great, great, grandfather immigrated to America to establish a line of Heartfilia’s in the new world.  I think it’s silly and I moved here to get away from it all because I didn’t want to continue the tradition.”  An exasperated sigh escapes her lips.  “How ironic that I run into one so easily.”

“That still doesn’t make sense.  How did you know it was me?”

She taps her nose.  “I can track.  Look I know it seems strange, and it’s not normal for a human to do that so easily.  How do I explain it…  Somewhere in my family line, an ancestor was imbued with a few abilities.  I can’t see in the dark, which is why I’m stuck here, but an enhanced olfactory system allows me to detect scents, especially inhuman ones.”

“And, what do creature hunters do exactly?” his voice filled with an air of hesitancy.

“In the old days, they hunted to kill.”

Natsu tenses up and leans back, “should I leave?”

Lucy just waves her hand, “I came here to Hawaii to get away from that life.  Just wanted to be normal, ya know, but it seems I can’t run away from it either.”  She shivers as a breeze funnels through the clearing.

“Are you cold Lucy?  I’m sorry I don’t have a jacket or anything and I can’t leave the area till morning.”

“Why not?  In fact,” she pats the area next to her, “come closer and tell me your story.  It’s only fair since I shared mine.”

“I--I really don’t like anyone seeing me like this, you’re the first outside of my family to.”

“I’m not gonna hurt you and I don’t care what you look like.  I know you’re still you.”  Natsu shakes his head.  “Suit yourself.”  Lucy stands up, gathers the blanket around her and trudges over.

“Wait, what are you doing!” Natsu scrambles to his feet, tripping, and falling backwards over the log with a thud.

She rushes over to help him up, “Are you okay?!”

He rubs the back of his head, “I’ve got a hard head,” he winces, “more my pride that got hurt.”

Lucy chuckles, “see,” she pulls him to his feet, “should’a just stayed still.”

After getting him to come back to the rock with her, Lucy pulls her feet into a cross-legged position. “Alright, now spill.”

With a deep exhale, Natsu lets the words flow.  Everything he knows about his family, the curse, and what it’s like to be a Kaupe….  

All the while Lucy sits quietly not wanting to interrupt him.  She’d heard other tales of werewolves, old legends and such, including the idea of a curse causing the transformation.  Though this was the first time she’d heard of a curse carrying on through a bloodline before.  Guess, there is a first time for everything.  The tale he told was heartrending.  Their family’s ancestor may have been cursed because of a cold-blooded killer nature, but the man sitting next to her was nothing like that.  Natsu would give you the shirt off his back if you were in need and he always made her feel safe, especially at night.  If only there was a way to break the curse.    

Having determined for herself what kind of soul lay behind his Olivine hues, the longer she stared at him, it occurred to her that Natsu… wasn’t that bad looking in this condition.  Hawaii didn’t have wolves so did that make him more of a Weredog?  Not that she truly knew what a werewolf or weredog was supposed to look like since old tales differed on appearance.  Some depicted them as more human with canine features, others as more canine-like and barely human anymore.  Almost all of the stories described large fangs and claws dripping with blood, no ability to discern right from wrong or with any human consciousness left.  Boy were they wrong in this case!  Natsu was fully aware of himself and more scared than she was.  

His human fangs did look a bit longer than normal, his eyes still green but more canine-esque, with claws on his fingers and toes.  Tufts of fur covered the parts of his body that she could see, but he wore a t-shirt and baggy pants, so it wasn’t much.  A tail was definitely coming out of his lower back with pointy ears growing through his pink head hair.  Lucy tips her head, those ears were really cute!  She wondered what he would do if she rubbed them…

“Ahem.  Are you even paying attention anymore?!”

“Huh?”  Lucy shakes her head.  “Sorry,” her face flushes and she’s glad it’s too dark to see it.  “Curiosity and all.”

“I can’t let you touch them, so don’t even think about it.”

“Touch what?”

Natsu rolls his eyes, “my ears that you’ve been staring at for a solid 5 minutes.”

“Oh, why not,” she pouts.

“Because they are sensitive.”  Okay that was a semi-lie.  They were sensitive but rubbing them made him feel good in a provocative manner.  “So, as I was saying, we have no idea how to break the curse, no one in the family ever knows who in the next generations will become the next one, but it usually happens when the current Kaupe is close to death.”

“Is this why you’ve never tried to make a move on me?”

Well that was blunt!  “Um, I guess, yeah…” he scratches his head, “wh-what makes you think I would have?”

Lucy shrugs her shoulders a little sad by his response, “wishful thinking, I guess.  Anyways, don’t worry, your secret is safe with me Natsu.”

“Y-you know Lucy,” he averts his eyes to the ground, “if I had… asked… what would you have answered?”

“Yes,” she turns his chin back and smiles, “I do like you, if that wasn’t already obvious.”  Chuckling, “I just figured you only saw me as a friend.”

He takes a leap, “what about now, even after knowing this about me?”

“Hmm,” Lucy leans against him, resting her head on his furry shoulder, “the huntress and the werewolf,” she chuckles, “it sounds like a movie plot, but,” she looks up and smiles, “yeah, I’d still like to be your leading lady.”

[tiredtofupng]

Day 1

I finally started today. It was all online. I drove to my parent’s office in my old Toyota Prius, loudly singing to the same album I’ve been listening to for months. They said to go there because the internet connection in my room is bad, and I can pretend like I’m “driving to school.” I thought it was a good idea because I felt so congested in my own house to the point where I’d get severe migraines. I didn’t feel anything on my way there; maybe I was a tad nervous but it was all online anyway? Who cares. 

I finally got everything set up, and when I started using the Internet, I began to stress out. The WiFi was so shitty; I kept getting kicked in and out of my Zoom class every 20 seconds. I panicked, texted one of my only friend classmates about the issue, and tried to figure out the issue. According to a website, the Internet speed at that time was 0.24 Mbps, which was highly infuriating. I was luckily able to log into the XFINITY wifi hotspot to get secure WiFi (not sponsored), and it ran enough for me to get into class.

I completely zoned out for the first two blocks. Something about cells, their membranes, microfilaments? I struggled on the practice questions because I ended up staring at my screen and playing Celeste or daydreaming. I thought about the relationships in my life, 

For lunch, I watched some YouTube documentary style video of Chris Hansen being such a huge Internet Fraud. It was fascinating. After that, I was able to pay attention to most of the lecture. It was about body fluids osmosis, tonicity, etc. My eyelids were starting to get very heavy after an hour, but I tried to stay up by retrying that dumb golden 3C-side level and doodling a little bit. Finally, class finished, and we were supposed to take a quiz at 2:30 on surveymonkey. Yep, that happened. It took them a long time, which frustrated me, because I was excited to go outside and meet my friends at 3:30. 

My friends and I met downtown at a park that was super close to this popular soft serve place. It was so... relaxing. I got to lay down on the ground, breathe in the fresh air (through my mask), and just hang out. It was so great; I needed it. I loved chatting with all my friends, licking the ice cream drippings from the edge of my cone. Fresh air helps a lot.

And I’m home now. I don’t feel extremely stressed. I feel relaxed. I know it’s a long journey ahead of me, and it’s something I have to do. My emotions tend to be a complete whirlwind at times, spiraling out of control. So hang on tight, this is honestly just for future me. Hope you’re doing great. Is COVID over yet? I hope so, I want to leave this dumb house. Anyway, later

[damnitaddie]

In The Streets

“All the street lights, glowing, happen to be Just like moments, passing, in front of me So I hopped in the cab and I paid my fare See I know my destination, but I’m just not there…”

  It’s been so long since I’ve updated this site that I don’t even know what to say, looks like the last time I updated the site was in late March. In that time, I’ve changed jobs, I changed schools, and things are happening.

After leaving AT&T and drifting aimlessly for a while, I got hired at Spectrum. At first, I treated Spectrum like a bullshit job that I didn’t care about. I think it was mostly because of the entry pay. But after a decent raise and then a shift differential, I had found a place that I wanted to stay until I graduated from nursing school. However, they changed my schedule to a point where going to school during the day wasn’t going to be feasible.

At the same time that they announced the scheduling changes for the whole center, I had just completed my healthcare basics coursework, lab time, and clinical rotations. I sat for the written and skills test and earned my CNA, or as Kentucky calls it – State Registered Nurse Aide.

With that in mind, it seemed like a sign that if nursing was my focus and I wanted to be about that life, there was no better time than the present to jump in head first. Don’t talk about it, be about it. So I started applying. I went to an open interview event at Norton Healthcare and sat down with a nurse manager. I went on to have an interview at Audubon Hospital and then another at Norton Hospital. I had also applied at Jewish and Kindred. I accepted an interview at Jewish and was offered the job the next day. I accepted and proceeded to do the onboarding requirements. Before orientation could begin, I got a call back from Norton offering me a job at the downtown hospital. Because it had been my goal to work at Norton, I accepted this job and backed out of the position at Jewish with as much poise and grace as possible.

During this same time period, I ran afoul of the chair of the nursing program at JCTC, after calling out the school on Twitter. An issue had arisen when our teacher allowed people to leave early. Because the course had federal requirements for logged hours, this was a big no-no. On this fateful night, my teacher’s boss walked in at 7:30 pm. I was there, along with two other students, but the other 20 or so students were long gone. So, they forced all of us to make up those hours. Even the three of us who were still there.

It was implied that I had broken the school’s social media policy. However, when I asked what section of the policy, knowing full well that the policy only applied to staff and faculty, they pivoted to possibly not accepting me into the ADN program due to my posts. In my mind, they’d already decided not to accept me, so I told them there were plenty of nursing schools in this town and someone would take my money.

And so, that’s the story of how I ended up at Galen, basically a year further away from graduating than I would have been if I’d just started there from the beginning. But it’s been good. I think it’s a good, albeit expensive, program and the degree carries name recognition for being a quality school.

Since starting at Norton as a PCA — Patient Care Associate — I’ve learned a ton of things and I feel like I’m already ahead of many of my classmates, many of them who are decades younger and have never worked in healthcare. In only a couple months, I know how to do things that they may not learn for months or even years. In January, we’ll begin our clinical rotations for school, doing hands-on work, most likely in long-term care facilities or nursing homes.

At the same time, I’ll be shifting gears at Norton, hanging up my grey scrubs for green, as a Nurse Apprentice, having been accepted into SNAP, which is the Student Nurse Apprenticeship Program. The first federally recognized program of it’s type, it gives me the ability to continue to build my clinical skills, often working nearly at scope along side a registered nurse. Being already familiar with Norton’s Systems, policies, and operating standards, I’m excited to be able to do more hands-on work than I’m legally allowed to do currently. My participation will run parallel to school, wrapping up at graduation time, just in time to take the NCLEX.

School and work has become my personality, largely because I have time for nothing else. I think everyone gets this false impression that because I “only” work 3 days a week that I’ve got so much time, but I’m working 12 hour shifts, from 7pm to 7am, and then often going straight to campus. On days when I don’t work and don’t have school, I often sleep 12-18 hours just trying to get back to baseline.

I say all this as a way of getting to the point, I’ve been missing everything. Family events, my kid’s sporting events, spending time with my girlfriend, and generally being a living breathing human being. If you ask me when we’re going to hang out, I’m likely to reply, “When you show up at the hospital, at Galen, or in my bedroom.”

Beyond all that, nothing else has changed. I wish I could say that I was becoming a better version of myself, less obsessed, more focused on the future than the past, and all that — but I don’t want to lie to you. I’m still carrying all my torches and they’re lit like the beacons of Minas Tirith.

In June, in the gap between Spectrum and Norton, Nicole and I took a trip to Washington D.C. for an event put on by American Nurses Association to lobby legislators on Capitol Hill. I had never been to the district and it was a fairly exciting proposition. There was a certain level of anxiety in it though, as Laurel lives in the area. I didn’t have any intention of seeking her out or really making contact with her, but she remains in my thoughts even now.

Nicole, knowing my feelings and being Nicole, had tried to contact Laurel a couple times. These were ostensibly friendly and Nicole’s way of letting Laurel know I still had feelings for her. I’ll never know what actually happened there, because neither party would share the contents of those interactions, but suffice to say, they were received poorly by Laurel. Never the less, Nicole was adamant that I needed to see her while we were in town. I was vehemently opposed to this idea and we debated it through most of West and Non-West Virginia.

No matter my protests, we ended up at the bar where Laurel spends most of her time that night. Earlier in the day, she had posted on Facebook a sort of open invitation to area trans folk to come out for drinks. As we, at the time, were Facebook friends — I would assume this would apply to me. This ties into the concept of assumptions. And, if we’re being honest, I knew there was a 90% chance she’d not want to see me.

So, there we are, standing on the sidewalk out front. I can actually see Laurel through the windows and I start to hyperventilate, replete with tachycardia. A full fledged anxiety attack. I plead with Nicole to leave, like let’s not do this, this is going to end poorly, etc, etc, etc. She declines.

We end up going into the upstairs portion of the bar and we have a few drinks. With a bit of liquid courage and social lubrication flowing, I send Laurel a message telling her that I’m upstairs, asking if she’d like to come up and say hi. This way I don’t crash her gathering, and she can save face in front of her friends.

So we wait, and we wait, and wait some more. Drinking more and more as we go, having befriended the bartender. A nice guy that had moved from Texas to D.C., a previous EMS technician and Army medic. Nicole and him both had the same role and rank in the military. We chatted about this and that, until finally I had waited long enough and was going to be so bold as to venture downstairs. I’ll never forget what happened next, because in 39 years on this rock, I’ve never seen someone react so poorly to seeing me. Not even the transphobe at AT&T who turned on her heel out of the women’s room having seen me…

At the bottom of the steps, I came around the corner and basically ran right into Laurel. We were maybe three feet apart. The closest we’d been since she drove away from our home in April of 2017. You always hear that trope about the blood running out of someone’s face, but I’d never seen it in reality, until now. Paler than pale. So white she was nearly transparent.

We have just lost cabin pressure.

The whole exchange lasted less than two minutes. Aside from asking me what I was doing there, she really couldn’t seem to get words past her teeth. Which, if you’ve met Laurel, you’d know is a pretty impressive feat. I finally said that I would make it easy and just go.

I spent the rest of the night and the trip in a state wavering between sadness and disbelief. I wasn’t shocked and if anything, I expected worse. I knew that there was nothing there, that the well had run dry long ago, but I still had to lean over the edge and peer into the void. By morning, she had blocked me on every social media platform.

In the afternoon, her bestie was messaging me accusing me of ill intent that I didn’t have. I told her basically that I could put my feelings in a bottle on a shelf, but they never seem to stay there for long. Even now, five months later, I’m still thinking about that fateful night. Running it through my head, replaying the horrible look she gave me. Of course, with Thanksgiving upon us, the memory of my mistakes weigh upon me heavily.

I’m working on erasing you, I just don’t have the proper tools. I get hammered, forget that you exist There’s no way that I’m forgetting this.

You’re the shit and I’m knee-deep in it.

Other than that, everything is great!

In The Streets was originally published on TransVentures

[purplesurveys]

686

1. What previews did you see at the last movie you saw in theaters? I don’t even remember dude. I do remember the last movie I saw in the cinema was Knives Out, but we were too late to see the previews and arrived exactly when the movie started. The movie I saw before that wasssssss Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but that was so long ago I definitely don’t remember the previews that showed beforehand – or if there were any, at all. 2. Have you ever washed your hair with mayonnaise? Ok I love mayonnaise, but that shit goes in my mouth and not anywhere else in my body lmao. 3. How many things are you a fan of on Facebook? I stupidly liked so many pages when I was 14 and new to Facebook...it must be in the hundreds. I think I still like most of them, but I’m just too lazy to unlike each of them. 4. Do you have more friends on Myspace or Facebook? Facebook is a sure winner here because I don’t even have a Myspace.

5. What generation iPod do you have? I don’t know...it’s an iPod from 2008, though. The really thin one that comes with games, and the screen is already colored. 

6. What celebrities share your birthday? James McAvoy and Queen Elizabeth II are the biggest names I think. I Googled to confirm anyway and it turns out I share a birthday with Iggy Pop too. Pretty diverse group lmao. 7. What's your first and last name spelled backwards? Nybor, and that’s all you’re getting now. 8. What song is playing at the moment? No song, just two electric fans whirring loudly here in the first floor, and my sister watching a playthrough of some game she’s into on YouTube. 9. Do you clench your teeth when you're angry? Ugh no. I hate the feeling/texture/sound of grinding my teeth. I find it a little disturbing and I wince when I hear someone doing it in their sleep :/ 10. Have you ever been to a movie that sold out? Yeah, Killing of A Sacred Deer was surprisingly sold out when we watched it. Then again we were in the part of the city where people are more likely to watch films like that, so maybe it’s not that surprising after all. Other movies I remember being sold out was the entire Twilight Saga HAHAHA. I went to 4/5 midnight screenings and the cinema was packed every time.

11. Have you ever been to a midnight movie? ^ Just mentioned it. 12. It's 2010; are you gonna say oh-ten, twenty ten, or two thousand ten? I always say twenty-ten. 13. How many of your classes change next quarter? Next semester? I graduate next semester...hopefully. This virus is really ruining my life plans for 2020, especially as a graduating student who was expecting to graduate by June and get a job by like, September. 14. Do you believe in the paranormal? Only ghosts. 15. How old are the shoes you're wearing? I’m barefoot at the moment. I haven’t been outside in a WHILE, so I haven’t had to wear shoes in a while as well. 16. What's your state's weather usually like this time of year? The Philippines is a relatively tiny country so our weather from the northernmost to southernmost tips are uniform. That being said, March to June is our summer season so the *country’s weather is very humid and excruciatingly hot for now. Temperature usually plays around 34-37C, but the heat index can reach 42C. 17. Do you get those leg cramps in the middle of the night? I used to get them quite often as a kid - it would wake me up at 4 AM and I’d usually be crying by the end; I couldn’t scream because I never wanted to wake everyone up, so I’d just cry until it was over. 18. What movie last made you too scared to go to sleep? Midsommar didn’t make me too scared to sleep, but for a short time it made me terrified of flowers and the color white. 19. Do you have a Twitter account? Sure. 20. Did Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded? Oh he won it? That’s pretty cool. I dunno enough about his presidency other than he seems to be ~hipper than all the other US presidents and is generally more well-loved, but I don’t want to make a stand so hastily. 21. Is your cell phone a qwerty (full keyboard) or no? Yeah, touchscreen qwerty. 22. What was the last website you logged onto (besides the one you're on)? WWE Network!!! Just today they announced that they were gonna give free access to the Network, which means thousands of hours’ worth of pay-per-views, shows, and documentaries. I made a WWE account just for it and I’ve already downed two documentaries this morning. 23. What's your home page? It’s a Google Chrome extension called Momentum. I’m too lazy to describe the features so I’ll just show you what it looks like when I open Chrome/a new tab.

24. Put a line from the song you're listening to right now: I’m not listening to a song rn but I do have everything i wanted by Billie Eilish stuck in my head for a few minutes now. A lyric goes: I had a dream / I got everything I wanted / Not what you’d think / And if I’m being honest, it might’ve been a nightmare / To anyone who might care.

25. Music artists you listen to: Are they a little or a lot older than you? They’re typically close to my age, like maybe 4-10 years older than me. The oldest artist I listen to is probably Beyoncé? 26. What always has to be in the refrigerator? For us, eggs. 27. What was your favorite movie of 2009? The Proposal. 28. What do you want for Christmas? That’s sort of a long way from now, dude. By that time I’d have grown a bit and will probably ask for a vacuum cleaner lmaaaaao. 29. If you could go to three places in the world right now: UPTC, Feliz, and a Starbucks. I just want to be out of my actual village – I don’t even want to go anywhere far after this. 30. How many days until your birthday? I was too lazy to do math but Google says it’s 28 days away. 31. Who are you crushing on right now? (Famous or not, it's your call.) Gabie, Kristen Stewart, and Lee Joo Youngggggg. 32. Do you squish bugs or put them in a glass and let them outside? I squish them especially if they’re being annoying, soz. 33. Do you have split ends? I recently got my hair done, so no.

34. Isn't it ridiculous that movie theaters sell hot dogs and nachos? It is pretty stupid considering they’re messy food and you’ll have to eat them in a really dark room. Where I’m from they allow any kind of food in the theatres, so we aren’t restricted to hotdogs and nachos. My go-to food is Potato Corner french fries, since they’re easy to pick up and would never have a strong smell, or make a noise or a mess. 35. What school subject do you absolutely fail at? I don’t think I ever got past an 85 in chemistry in high school. 36. When you're on a laptop, do you hook up a mouse or use the touchpad? I have a touchpad. I’ve never owned a mouse. 37. When's the next day(s) off you'll get at school? Literally right now until April 14th. It’s a lockdown, dude. 38. If you're learning a language, what year are you in? I’m not. My curriculum doesn’t require me to take language electives. I did take Spanish and Korean in Duolingo in the past out of boredom/curiosity, though. I lasted a few levels into Spanish because of its similarities with Filipino, but they have like a million verb tenses and that’s when it got too much for me. Korean was pretty difficult right from the start. 39. Do you think you're done growing or will you grow a couple more inches? Nah, this is it I think. 40. What's your mom's mom's name? Agnes. 41. Do you replace "and" with an ampersand (&)? No, it looks so informal to me. 42. What do you usually get at school for lunch? I don’t have a usual lunch; it depends on what we have at home, because I typically just bring food from home to school. 43. Have you ever encountered a creepy neighbor? I don’t think so. If I did, my brain probably blocked the memory already. 44. How many texts can your phone's inbox hold before it's too full? As far as I know it doesn’t have a limit and just depends on my phone’s overall capacity.   45. Do you like the foam soap or the liquidy soap? I use a liquidy one, so I’ll go with that. 46. Do you like the automatic sinks or the ones with hot and cold handles? Lmao, first of all our country’s not even rich enough for this question. We just have a basic sink. We get whatever temperature is available and we need to turn a knob to have the water running. 47. What day did/does your birthday fall on this year? It’ll fall on a Tuesday, which suckssss because it’s a weekday and I have weekly Tuesday meetings for this semester. It’s also the first week out of the coronavirus lockdown, and I doubt people will even be paying attention to birthdays by then. 48. Do you tend to lean towards bright colors or more subtle colors? Subtle ones. 49. Do you use British spelling even though you're not British? No. 50. Name the farthest/weirdest/most unique place you've ever been: Farthest: Bali, Indonesia Weirdest: There was this park in Palawan that just didn’t fit with the city’s atmosphere at all lmao. Let me look it up... Baker’s Hill. It had tons of vibrantly-colored figurines, decorations peppered with cheesy pick-up lines, and Valentine’s decor (hearts, streamers, etc) spread all over the place. I couldn’t understand what it was supposed to be and it was a surreal experience overall lol. Most unique: Sagada. It didn’t feel like I was in the Philippines for the 3 days I was there.

[beardyallen]

Well, that went quickly...

What day is it? I’m starting to lose track of how long I’ve been here...

Well, it’s been a week since my last post, and it seems that a lot must have happened, but honestly I feel like I’ve just been cranking through a bunch of comic books.

But I do know that Friday and Saturday involved a good deal excitement, so I guess we had might as well pick up pretty much where we left off!

Last Friday was Orientation for ICB, which meant getting all of the 35-40 instructors, 10 staff members, and the 6-8 people in charge of this program together in a room to introduce us to...basically what we’d been doing all that week. Also, aside from a couple study-abroad-undergrads and my officemate and me, everyone there had probably already heard the spiel.

It was scheduled from 5p-6p with a buffett afterwards, but a bunch of the Communications people from my floor were going out to eat (again?) afterwards, so I made plans with NR. She wanted to try this Mexican restaurant in what I’ll describe as the “international district” of Beijing. Most everything around us when we got there looked like it belonged in literally every metropolitan area in the world. Every major brand you can imagine had a store. Multiple. Too many...

But the Mexican restaurant we visited is owned and managed by a Mexican expat, apparently. He even stopped by our table to ask how the food was, and let me tell you: that quesadilla was the BOMB!!! And the margarita was pretty good (not as good as MHO’C’s, though!). By the time we finished up dinner, it was kind of late, so we wondered around the shopping center, found a bookstore. You know: the usual.

Fun fact: when a store or restaurant wants to indicate to their patrons that they are getting ready to close, they play smooth jazz and turn the lights down. Like for real. Had their not been windows open to the pavilion outside with it’s hundreds of light displays, I would have been seriously concerned when the lights in the place just went out and Kenny G popped up on the speakers.

We entertained the idea of finding the cinema nearby to see Alita Battle Angel, but during the 15 minutes that we spent wondering around in search of the complex, it seemed to elude us. Plus it was getting close to that time when the subway shuts down, and I wasn’t exactly hankering for a taxi ride this early in my stay....if at all.

The next morning, I got up early to meet back up with NR at the National Museum near the Forbidden City. Now, for the most part, the stairs I get don’t bother me. But I will say, if you’re going to stair at the pasty white guy with a hard-to-describe-its-color-accurately-beard, maybe don’t do it when you’re going 15 mph on a bike, facing in the wrong direction! *sigh.....Some people’s kids...

But what really bothered me, especially at the time, was the father-of-three who straight-up filmed me on his phone from 5 feet away for a solid 6 minutes, three hallways, and two escalators! I get it, I’m funny looking. But I really think I a picture would have done just fine...

One of the things that bothered me the most about that experience was that (a) he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, (b) his daughters seemed rather embarrassed, (c) he filmed me with the screen aimed at me so I could watch myself on his phone, (d) there was text on the screen, and (e) it went on for a solid 6 minutes.

In hindsight, I was wearing sunglasses and a hat, in a subway system, in the morning, heading to the center of Beijing. Maybe he thought I was a celebrity? I had spoken to a Communications graduate student the other day who happens to be black, and he told me the story of how a citizen here pull out their phone with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on it, and gestured to him as it to ask if it were him...even though SLJ is for sure at 70 years old and this kid is no more than 35. And he looks 25. #smh

Anyway, after dealing with whatever the hell that was, I got to visit the museum! They, for whatever reason, were not allowing people to bring their charging blocks into the museum (external battery that you can use to charge your cell phone and other devices on-the-go), but more surprising to me was just how many people carried one with them! At least, it was surprising until I took a moment to think about it. As I’ve mentioned before, basically every payment made in Beijing is through WeChat, which needs internet access, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. You also really can’t navigate through the city with some sort of Maps app; there are just too many bus routes, train routes, terminals and stops to keep logged in your head.

As far as the museum itself goes, the gifts to China from foreign governments exhibit and the Ancient China exhibit themselves took most of the day. Also, no surprise: the gift that took up the most floor space was given by a U.S. President. I also got a refresher in 8th Grade Social Studies. Too many small countries to remember all of them, and that space made me feel somewhat moronic.

The Ancient China exhibit was exceptional, though. They broke up the last, oh...750,000 years of human-ish life in China into 8-10 separate eras, the first few cataloguing the life and evolution of Homo erectus pekinensis into Homo sapien, while the latter eras were segregated dynastically. I’ve never seen the progression of human evolution laid out in such detail! The rock tools became better rock tools, then pottery and paper, stamps, buildings and so much more! There were even ceremonial helmets that would put the Juggernaut to shame!

It was strange, though, to have all of this knowledge just beyond my fingertips both literally and figuratively. The literal sense isn’t too shocking, as I’ve been to a museum before and know not to touch the pieces, but to have placards written in a language that would take years to learn was frustrating. Fortunately, NR has a never-ending supply of patience, and she translated much of the text. She even quizzed me on several of the characters. I’ve worked out how to write “rock” for sure.

After the museum, we wondered over to a nearby mall that, honestly, puts the Mall of America to shame. No joke. This place was huge! It just kept going and going and going! There was a particular alley that has all of the “exotic foods” that you might see on The Amazing Race, which I haven’t tried yet but intend to, but the rest is mostly-outdoor shopping center. Our reason for being there was to find food (we had been in the museum for a bit over 7 hours), and then sit our fine asses down in a movie theater to watch Alita.

We found a restaurant that served food traditionally found where NR grew up. It was exceptional. And the beer just made it better. :P

The movie experience was something else entirely. I’ve gotten used to watching television and movies with subtitles so that, when people decide to talk to me, I can follow along with both bits. Or if people are just talking near me while I’m watching television, I don’t have to rewind the show. That helped a lot; the movie was still spoken in English, but there were Chinese subtitles. I recognized the Chinese character for “1″ frequently enough, but that was about it.

The movie itself was way more than I expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that one of the primary characters is played by Christoph Waltz. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely consider it.

Also, additional fun fact: I’m thinking that most (if not all) showings of major motion pictures here are in 3D. *shrug* Side note: we’re going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow and I’M SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!!

After the movie, we wandered back to the subway station and parted ways mid-subway-ride to head home. The next day I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and sipping some beer in the 3rd Floor Lounge. All day. It was blissful.

This workweek has consisted of four main things: teaching responsibilities, a bit of dissertation work, trying out another one of the cafeterias on campus, and reading comic books. Oh, and beer. But that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There’s a convenience store on the other side of the building in front of the Guest House that has cans of beer. You can buy them individual for 3 yuan, or roughly 45 cents. I won’t lie to you: I bought 12 of them and it didn’t cost me more than 6 bucks. And it’s really not bad, and even more convenient than the liquor store I lived by in Denver.

Anyway, as I said, I’m going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow, then to “W-Town” (originally Watertown...so glad they shortened it...) in northern Beijing, which sits at the base of part of the Great Wall. More than 20 people from ICB will be heading up to their on Saturday, so I imagine one of them will take pictures. Probably ML or S. So you’ll have those to look forward to since you know I won’t be taking any!

Oh!!! I almost forgot the biggest thing that happened this week! Actually, it might be the biggest news of my entire stay!!!

I did laundry.

And I washed my slippers. I’m not convinced that they’ve stopped smelling, but I’m holding out hope that I’ve finally figured out how to resolve an issue that I know humanity has been seriously struggling with for decades. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, people, I swear!

Anyway, time to finish this beer, read a bit more of Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves (WE FINALLY FIND OUT ABOUT SABETHA!!!!), and head to bed. Big couple of days ahead...

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

P.S. I bet you thought I was gonna forget! After class on Wednesday, I worked out how to make a phone call from here to the States to wish my Mom a Happy BIrthday. Caught her at work, and we got to chat for a good long while. It really put a nice cap on my evening, and it seemed it gave her a good start to her day. Anyway, I hope you had a great evening, found something nice at C&B and enjoyed that glass of wine you mentioned! Love you!!

[babblingfishes]

Another FroodPad Update

(I’m sending an email instead of tagging people about this one because the majority of you guys have changed urls.)

For anyone who used the original FroodPad (PiratenPad) teamsite for fic writing, the host is taking down the site next month.

As before with the Mozilla alternative, I have backups of most of the text.

Here’s what I do not have:

Backups of locked pads

Chat logs

Authors / authorship colors

Time slider histories

If you want any of those, you’ll need to grab them yourself asap! If you’ve forgotten a password, the quickest way to grab my attention is to let me know via the tumblr messager (or my Discord, if you have it) and I can help you.

As for the actual text of the pads, I have these saved! I can send them to you whenever you like. Under the cut is a VERY lengthy list of the pad titles I have backups of. I can also do a text search if you need.

!!HEY GUYS -- WRITER PROFILES *Goat scream* 2SPOOKY 2c Stories 365 days of Rabbit No! A Very Frood Pad Christmas An attempt to organize chaos And the Band Plays On Annie got her gun Ask Walter Kids BADLY SINNING BRAINTHUNDERING Best Ship Around Broken little pieces CC 4 editing Care Cat!Steve. Don't ask. Cat's sehr whichtig grad portfolio stuff Catori's Little Pad ^^ Cheeroko: ES Drabbles And Possible Story Cheeroko: Elder Scrolls Brainstorming Cheeroko: Fanficing Fanfics since ... Today? Cheeroko: Has Started Yet Another AU Cheeroko: Rabbit Appreciation Pad (Aka, SPG Pad) Cheeroko: Walter Manor Cheeroko: What Should I call this? [{Original Fic}] Cheeroko: You Know What? I'm Just Going To Use This Pad For My Gender Stuff Christmas List Come keep French Company! Please? Configuration (new-new CC and biocore planning) Counter Nonsense Crazy Community Fanfiction Crazy Community Fanfiction II Crazy SPG Collab Thing 2.0 DANGER 5 SOLVE THE GREATEST CRIME OF ALL Derelict (spoilers yo) Derelict 23 and other stuff Derelict Chapter 20 Derelict Chapter 24 Derelict Chapter 25 Derelict Chapter 25 for real this time Derelict Dragon Dreads Derelict Take 73 Derpy-Nuns Don't come here unless Fish is whining at you Don't look Dr. Babblefish's Quest to Only Become Moderately More Insane Dragon Lurve Elephants and Nachos Everyone Writing Everything FRANKENPAPPY Fantastic Mister Vox Fish Does Terrible Things Fish Fanfictions Salgexicon Now Fish and Serif attempt a role play thing. Fish and its monospaced text Fish has an F in evil Fish is Sailing a Ship Fish is a terrible person. Fish is just rambling Fish writes things about other fandoms Fish's Awkward Nonfandom Headcanons Fish's Lupin Drabbles Fish's Magical Tragical Guide to Not Writing Mary Sues Fish's OC Boat Fish's Originalish Pad Fish's Plots and Characters French Rambles French Writes Stony French is a Poet Froodpad Rules and Instructions Further proof we're all insane Futureverse G-Mans and Watering Cans GW2 Cav stuff Ghost! Ghostfacers! Hangout pad Happy Little Family Happy Little Family Notes Here ye go, Redacted Heyo, Achgfd Homestead-Ch.1 How to be nice in RP I blame everyone but me I figure at this rate I should just make a Weird SPG Dreams pad I have no idea what im working on I never tire, I serve I- I- I- LOVE ROBBIE DARREN IT IS A SMUT POWERED BLANKET MY GOOT SAR Ice Cream and Knit Bow Ties Imma figure this thing out by posting prompt responses Improb In Which Pappy Dies In Which Reed Becomes a Robot In Which Steve Drops Bass In Which There is an Abandoned Lab In which robots become metaphors for Autism Spectrum stuff Laying Down The Law Here MATURE REPLY MBG Tumblr Planning   MERRY HOLIDAYMAS YOU WEIRDOS! MWFGOH Notes MY FRIEND MATT WHERE YOU AT May B. we Feta get outta here May B. we Feta get outta here pt2 Muppet Baby Giraffe Fics Myth fanfiction maybe??? NOBODY PANIC (MICHAEL GOT THE D) Neoma's Writes Not Actually a Funeral Not!Derelict Nuns could use help writing a comedy piece for English Nuns does a research paper on GAY GODS Nuns fools around with a hero's journey Nuns hunts for the Holy Grail (and a good essay grade) OC ADVENTURE!! OFF Musingses OOPS Oedipus Script Old Money On the wings of steam One of the Fanmily Original stuff is harder than we anticipated PSILENCE WILL FALL Pappy Pad 2 Pappy Rabbit Old (Still needed though!) Pen & Kari's Pad of Fairytale Badassery Philosophy Notes Pokemanz SPG Post-Derelict Headcanons Princey and Leeland's Walter People Pad Princey definitely isn't using this pad for homework anymore Princey is the best right Leilani right Princey tries Original Stuff Princey wanted to write OC stuff too Princey's self-indulgent stuff Princeyfic (An Accident of the Smallest Kind final chapter) Princeyfic: An Accident of the Smallest Kind Princeyfic: Basically nothing but a mermaid OC Princeyfic: Canoe Catastrophe Pronz Psi does homework and other stuff Psi does homework occasionally Psi gets his shit together Psi is in pain. Also class. Psi jacks Cat's characters Psi plans the Derelict!Verse RP blog early because he's bored Psi reads Marsupial Psi takes out dysphoria on The Spine Psi tries for "canon" SPG Psi writes Cabin Pressure stuff Psi writes a thing about an author Psi's Headcanon Psi's Kazooland OCs??? Psi's class notes Psi's class notes and HatchWorth stuff Psilent's Hatchworth Feels Psilent's Pscribblings Psilent's Pstuff Psunny's Muppet Babby Stuff Public pad 2: 2 public 2 pad Pun and Psi Make a Porno Punny: Ask Index Punny: Broken little pieces Punny: Crack Fic ideas Punny: Ficlets Punny: HLF Th teen years Punny: Happy Little Family Punny: Justice Giraffes Punny: Major fics Punny: Rainbow! The Spine Punny: Trying to figure out how the hell Super spg works RABBIT NO RABBIT NO 2: electric boogaloo Rabbit writes fanfic Relish's Ramblings Reverse Pre Mid Life Crisis 3000 Rex and Captain. Rover! SICK ROBOTS. (Princey and Leeland) SIMNANIGANS SO I may have discovered aquabats and it may have given me some muse SPG/Avengers cross over collab-fic SS kills a lot of young women SS: Aftertheendverse SS: Aggressively writes happy fanfiction SS: Amnesia Home Pad SS: Amnesia Revisions SS: Amnesia!Spine Headcanoning SS: Ancient Mariner SS: Angsty Poetry xP SS: Annie/V SS: Dragon!Steve SS: Genderbends because of reasons SS: Just our positronic electronic harmonic SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve's dick) SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve) #2 SS: More Spine/OC junk SS: Okay actually writing Amnesia now SS: Poems by Peter VI SS: Possible Natalia 'Verse SS: Private Party SS: Ratchet and pumpkin SS: Spine/OC SS: Spine/OC #2 SS: Spine/OC #3 SS: The Only Constant SS: The Way Home SS: hoamwork Satyr Adventure script Secret Santa (Sign-ups closed, Santas have been assigned!) Serif needs to kill something apparently Serif's Dump Pad Serif's Dump Pad 2 Seth only starts things and never finishes them Sewing Stitches SisterofaFish's Pad So much craft poisoning Something Wicked This Way Comes Space-Opera Spoons' Stuff Goes Here Stalking Information Steve has Joined Your Party! THIS IS WHERE THE PARTIES AT TIME TO SCARE THE BABIES Tango's Reason Why The Case of the Quest of the Missing Coffee The Mythos Mythos The Rake This is a public pad because Fish is bored This is utter crap Thunder Charge Title! Too Many Thoughts Untitled 180 Untitled 217 Untitled 314 Untitled 322 Untitled 323 Untitled 324 Verse Fable...or something like that WE GON WRITE FLUFF WE LAV U HRUP WRITER PROFILES We write Mirrormask fics now. Mirrormask is cool. Well look what the cat dragged back in World Building You know what, ignore Nuns a surprise in every pad and no one was ever happy the end awkward monsters/spg campfire song song cat used to write hannafic class notes copper conduction 3: REVELATIONS copper conduction p. 4 death lullaby ye everybody look down fear and loathing in san diego half-baked hatchworth stuff hesitantly works on new chapter how rabbit got his groove back 2 i leik ur silileh lteile hat incdrop - frisk incwrites it's sort of like hellraiser except not lemarchand's fic oh heck there's a plot one time ruffy wrote angst original sexy awesomeness possibly part of Two Birds One Stone possibly not psi is the batman psi's original story (caution may contain robots) ((totally contains robots)) psi's presentation that's due in six hours ruffy's writing a thing schoolwork and such (go away) shit so many fics so little time so much writers block sometimes i doubt your commitment to sparkle motion the end. the fucking crying game the future doesn't love you the wit and wisdom of spg woo lets write pirates woo

[lindoig7]

Monday to Friday, 12-16 October

Monday

A home-day today, with quite a few hours working on our photos, blogs and odd jobs around the van.  I went for a longish walk around the local area in the afternoon, but it was quite windy and I saw very few birds.

Tuesday

We started out with some rather nebulous ideas of where we might go but settled on Cabbage Tree Creek for a start.  It is only 20-odd km from here and it hosts the southernmost stand of palms anywhere in Australia with about 100 mature Cabbage Tree palms. The next nearest palms are at Eden in NSW, about 190 km away if you can get a Crow to fly that far in a straight line.  Not sure where you would find such a Crow anyway - we only have Ravens in part of Victoria.

There is a short walk there, about 800 metres and we walked it in both directions.  The whole area was alive with birdsong, but the only birds we saw were a few Grey Fantails near the parking area.  Quite a few of the calls were quite unfamiliar to me, but the sneaky little critters simply wouldn’t come out of the canopy so we could see them. There were quite a few Grey-headed Flying Foxes in the area and despite hearing them almost constantly, we never saw one!  It is quite frustrating knowing that there is so much close by to look, hearing plenty, but being unable to find anything at all.

We decided to head for Cann River and explore a little of the Monaro Highway, but waylaid ourselves when we saw an alternative route to Club Terrace – the quaint place we had driven through on the way home after our exhausting Old Growth Forest Walk a week or so ago.  The route was as interesting as we remembered it and we came across a couple of foresters trying to remove a bit more of the tree that had caused us a bit of concern on our way through last trip. Someone had cut a section out of it, but the section was barely large enough to get our car through and the foresters were trying to remove another section to make passage easier.  From what they said, the tree was too big for their chain saws to cut though so they were waiting on another crew with better gear to assist in dragging the log off the road.  We told them about the other place we had been unable to get through last time so they said they would remove that one too once they had resolved the current problem.  There were lots of other places where the road was partly blocked too, so they would probably have at least a day’s work to do before they even got near the other blockage we reported.

We did another walk further north – yet another Rainforest Walk, this one not quite as wet and soggy as the previous ones. (Would you believe it is referred to as a DRY rainforest?  What is dry rain – snow, hail?  But it still ends up being wet!)  Again, lots of birdsong, but we only saw a couple of Yellow-faced Honeyeaters.  But along the road, we saw quite a few kangaroos, wallabies, a dingo, lots of rabbits, and even another lyrebird.  We called in at a place called the Ada Camping Reserve on the Ada River and there were quite a few King (and Queen?) Parrots there.

We drove almost up to Bendoc again and cut across to the Bonang Road and thence back to Orbost.  By the time we got back, it was well after dark to we just bought fish and chips in town and ate in the warmth of our cosy cubbyhouse.

I took quite a lot of photos during the day, but once again, they are all overexposed and slightly out of focus.  I think I will have to have my camera checked by an expert – I have been very unhappy with the results throughout this trip.

Wednesday

Not a lot happened today.  We spent quite a bit of time on photos and blogs, FB and emails, crocheting, backing up our devices, etc., etc., but not much else.

I went for a local walk in the afternoon looking for birds but saw very little.  It was warm and windy and I think the birds must all have been sheltering out of sight from me.

Thursday

A much bigger day today!  Nearly 400 km bigger.  We fuelled up in Orbost and were on the road by 9am, heading to Bruthen and thence to Omeo. We had 3 false starts, having to return to the caravan for things we either forgot or belatedly decided we should take with us, but then it was pretty straight-forward.

The road north is quite scenic and we stopped a couple of times to photograph flowers.  Of course, every time we stop, it is not just for a quick pic – we always see something nearby so take a pic of that – and that points us on to something next to it that makes us look a bit further and in no time at all, half an hour has gone, sometimes an hour!

We eventually reached Swift’s Creek, an interesting little place that is the start of an alternative, more scenic, route to Omeo. There was very little traffic on that road and it was quite an interesting drive.  Three kilometres from Omeo, we came across a place called Oriental Claims.  Apparently, this area was extensively mined by the Chinese during the Gold Rush and a huge area has been dug over and effectively landscaped in a rather radical fashion.  The whole area is riddled with diggings, unmarked shafts, dykes made from the rocks brought to the surface during the mining operations.  There are incredible cliffs all around, extensively eroded as a result of the sluicing methods they used to extract more than $50 Million in alluvial gold.  It is an amazing place with a couple of tracks through it and warnings not to stray from the path for fear of falling down a hidden shaft, or getting buried under a falling cliff or collapsing mine.  It is becoming a bit overgrown but the environmental carnage must have been horrific a hundred years ago.  The mine was actually closed in 1904 as a result of the environmental damage at a time when the environment didn’t attract more than a handful of votes.  It is apparently a favourite birders’ haunt and we did see quite a few birds along our 2 km or so walk.  Definitely worth a visit – or another one sometime.

Omeo was not as quaint as I recalled it when we camped there a couple of times with our old caravan 20 years or more ago.  It is a bit busier than I remember, but we have only been there in mid-winter before so maybe this is normal out of the snow season.

We returned to Bruthen along the main road and there was a small bushfire along the road verge about 10 clicks short of Swift’s Creek and although everything around it was very green, we thought we should report it – but there was nobody to report it to in town so we couldn’t do much about it.  I reckon it was pretty safe with all the green around and there were plenty of cars heading north past it that could have reported it in Omeo – if there was anyone to report it to there!

As we drove home, we were watching some rather dramatic cloud build-up that looked very stormy and we just got inside the van when the thunder roared and the rain descended.  It didn’t last more than half an hour or so, but the thunder was very loud and shook the caravan and everything in it.  It was really a lot of fun – I just love the excitement of thunderstorms.

Friday

We stayed around the van again most of the day. It rained on and off all night and the paths were wet and soggy.  We went up to the Supermarket for a few essentials and called in at the Information Centre where Heather found out about a few more local walks and drives we might do.

I went birding again, without a lot of enthral again, but I always enjoy just wandering and looking in case I see something of great or greater interest.  We also watched a movie during the afternoon – a rare treat for us in a way and a break from whatever else we are doing.

Our HWS is still misbehaving and we experimented around trying to get it working again, but eventually gave up and decided to leave it until it was lighter in the morning.  It is frustrating because we packed up and took the van to Bairnsdale a week ago to get it fixed, but it is still not operating properly (or at all at present!)

We cooked another fabulous paella for dinner and managed to eat nearly half of it – so there is a lot left over.  I just love eating up leftovers – very often with embellishments that make it even better.  The other day, Heather combined a few small leftover items, added some herbs and seasoning and made a fantastically delicious lunch – very creative and absolutely yum!  Outstanding!

[the-reclusive-wordsmith]

The Golden Hour

CHAPTER 4: STOP THE INVESTIGATION !

“911, What is your emergency?”, asked the operator.

An old gruff voice answered, “Be advised, a house has caught fire on 21B North Street. I don’t know if there are still civilians inside the building, but I’m afraid the fire is spreading out to the neighbouring houses as well. Please call in the M.C.D. and inform the V.S.F.D. immediately.”

“Can I have your name along with some ID ple...?”

“Time is of the essence now, Officer. Hurry.”

The call was disconnected from the other end. But there was something very strange about this call. Call Operator, Officer Tao hurried upstairs to the Major Crimes Division to inform about this strange call-in to his superiors.

.

.

.

“Tao? Is everything okay? You look ... a bit exhausted.”, asked Lieutenant Howard.

A panting Tao said, “The elevators were not working. I had to take the stairs, and climb sixteen floors, Sir...”

“And... ?”

“We have an emergency, Sir. A 911 call came in about a few minutes ago regarding a house on fire. I’ve informed the V.S.F.D. but...”

“How long have you been working here in the police department, Tao?, asked a male voice from across the room in a scornful way.

“Er... just a day short of 3 weeks, Sir.”

“Then, maybe you should go back to the Academy and learn about the divisions in the V.S.P.D. once again, because clearly you don’t seem to...”

Lt. Howard turned to the voice and reassuringly said, “It’s okay, Louis. I have it from here.”

Then, turning back to Tao, Lt. Howard continued, “Tao, what the good Detective Sykes here wants to say is that we’re the Major Crimes Division. We don’t respond to fire emergencies. The ground patrolling units and the V.S.F.D. looks into it first.”

“Yes Sir...”

Tao threw a glance at Detective Sykes and continued, while still trying to catch his breath, “I know about the divisions, Sir. But this 911 caller seemed strange. He asked for the Major Crimes Division right away. Usually 911 callers are in distress and they don’t speak in such details. This caller, however, knew exactly what to say. It felt as if he spoke our lingo, as if he were one of us. He had given the address of the burning house before I even asked for it and hung up when I was about to ask for his ID, like he knew that I was going to ask for it at that specific moment. It felt strange, so, I thought I should bring this to your attention...”

“Lieutenant, I think we should really focus on our ongoing open cases, and let the V.S.F.D. handle this one. This is probably some fool trying to mess with the Police Department. That thing that kids do nowadays... What do you call those things now...”, Sykes said scratching his bald head.

“A prank?”, guessed Tao.

“Yes, that... whatever that is.”, said Sykes in a dismissive way.

“Detective Sykes, I know you’ve been in this department even before I was born, and your services have always been seen under the brightest of lights...”

“Oh, I know exactly how the higher-ups think of me, Lieutenant! I mean... they promoted you from the analytics department of the CIA, to head our division! Analytics, really? No disrespect to you, but I’ve been in this division since its inception. I haven’t missed a day of work. I have been in more active shooter situations than you can even think of. Being an analyst, I think you’re better suited to a desk job than running the Major Crimes Division! Sir.”

“Detective. You’ve made your point. We can have this conversation later. And if you are so keen in knowing why I was transferred and made your commanding officer, then you should know, that it was because while working with the CIA, I was able to prevent a major terrorist attack on the Virginia State Police Department. None of you even had one blink of information about this. I was an undercover agent on this mission for almost seven months. This place and the rank that you hold so close to your heart now, would have been in rubbles, had my team and I not deferred this terrorist attack. While I don’t expect gratitude from you, for what it is worth, I still value your opinions with the highest regard.”

“Sir, the V.S.F.D. have taken control of the fire. They are asking for an update.”, Tao meekly informed trying to cut through the intimidating atmosphere.

“Tell them that we are on our way, Officer. ETA 5 mins. Ask them to tape the scene and not let anyone leave.”, instructed Lt. Howard.

Tao nodded and went off to make the necessary arrangements.

“Louis. I am sure you will proceed with the open investigations, while I quickly go check what this fire is all about?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I will.”, said Sykes with a heavy voice. He did feel a bit ashamed for losing his calm and questioning Lt. Howard’s worthiness. But there are always other jobs to do in a police department, so personal feelings could wait.

.

.

.

Major Crimes had arrived at the scene. Lt. Howard took Tao with him too, just in case, if he could identify the voice of the mysterious 911 caller.

“Go and speak to the witnesses. Let me know if you can recognize anyone’s voice from the 911 call. And tell a few patrol officers to move the media reporters to one side. I don’t want this scene getting tampered with, in any way.”, the Lieutenant firmly instructed.

“Roger that, Sir. C.S.U. is inside the house, waiting to fill you in. Fire Chief Mason is by his truck with his men.”

“Kalen? He is here? What is the C.S.U. doing here? Why wasn’t I informed about this?”

“Sorry Sir, I only got to know about it just now from Patrol Officer Hayes.”

“All right. Do as I have instructed. SITREP in 10. I’ll be inside the house.”

“Yes, Sir!” 

.

.

.

“What are you doing here, Kalen?”, asked a confused Lt. Howard once he had found Officer Kalen inside the main living room gathering some samples.

“Bad news, Sir. C.S.U. has found three bodies. A white male in his mid 40′s and two Latinos in their mid 20′s perhaps. The burns are extensive on the two Latino bodies while the third one, the white male, had a knife dug into his chest. No cash or ID have been found on the bodies. Looking at their build and clothes, I can only make a guess that our white guy here is a businessman perhaps? I cannot say much about the Latinos, though. Their bodies have burnt beyond recognition. We’ve collected blood and tissue samples from the bodies and sent the knife to F.I.D. for fingerprinting. This house belongs to a Sam Reading as per the neighbours’ statements. But nobody saw him go in or out of his house during the incident. They say he lives alone and hardly had any visitors. He is not picking up his calls either. Two patrol officers have gone around the block to look for him. Time of death on the Latinos is uncertain but ...”

“But?...”

“But, the white male’s body is still very warm. I’d say he was killed maybe an hour before we arrived here. The V.S.F.D. personnel have found brake fluid in the garage, which is perhaps the cause of the fire, based off of our preliminary checks.” 

“Hold up, hold up, hold up.”, said a baffled Lt. Howard. “This is too much to process at one go. First of all tell me WHO CALLED YOU HERE? Major Crimes did not, because clearly, as you can see I am out of the information loop here. And as far as I know, we’re the ones who call you to a crime scene and not the other way round!”

“We received an anonymous tip about three possible dead bodies inside this house. We thought someone is joking with us because the C.S.U. has never received anonymous tips ever. Nevertheless, we sent a small team to check the authenticity of the call in case it turned out to be true after one of our office staff members, saw a news report being aired on Channel 19 regarding a burning house. When our investigatory team got here, they spotted two burnt bodies in the garage and they called it in.”

“ ‘Another’ anonymous tip? A Channel 19 news report? What the heck is going on?”

“Yes, we got a call from an old man on our office landline. He had a really gruff voice, so I am assuming he is old. I dialed back the number from which we had received the call, but it ended up on a public telephone booth. But, what do you mean by ‘another’ tip?”

“Wait, wait... Tell me something, was it the only channel showing that news at that time?”

 “Why, yes. Now that you mention, I remember going through different channels, back at the office, on the TV, because I was bored and I don’t think any other news channel at that time was flashing this news. They were the first ones to the scene, maybe. But how could you possibly know that...?”

“I think I’m sensing a pattern here. Earlier this night, the Major Crimes Division received an anonymous call from a gruff voice, possibly the same old man who had called you guys up, and informed us regarding this same burning building. I obviously did not call you guys in because I did not expect this to be a crime scene then.”

“Well, as much as all of this sounds interesting, we’re on the clock, Lieutenant. What are my orders for now? Because we need to wrap up the crime scene before it gets any more contaminated.”

“All right. Send all the blood samples, tissue samples, every piece of furniture from the garage and the rooms, articles, utensils ... WHATEVER you’ve found here, into forensics. There is more to this case than it meets the eye now. I need a fingerprint check on that knife. Get the bodies to the morgue asap and ask Dr. Morales to personally handle this and begin a post mortem analysis with Priority Level 1. I need to know every small detail that you find. Log everything into the evidences database and match the fingerprints with our existing database. And, ah yes! Send that anonymous call recording that you had received, to my office, urgently.”

“Priority Level 1? But isn’t that for cases with...?”

“You asked for my orders, Officer Kalen. I have given them, and I expect them to be followed by the letter.”

“On it, Sir.” 

.

.

.

“Where’s Tao now? I asked him for a SITREP every 10 minutes!” “Tao? TAO!”, called out Lt. Howard. 

“I’m here, Sir! Hang on a minute, please.”, replied Tao in urgency.

Officer Tao was talking to the witnesses. All they could say was that they had heard a loud bang, that had woken them up. None saw anyone going in or out of the house. Tao, also did not have much luck with identifying the 911 caller.

“Tao. Get me the news reporters, now.”

“But, Sir? They are gone...”

“Gone?! What the heck? Why?”

“You asked for them to be removed from the scene. So I sent them away.”, said Tao innocently.

“Arghh. NO!”, stomped Lt. Howard.

“Is everything all right, sir? What did C.S.U. Officer Kalen say?”

“I’ll let you know as and when required, Tao. For now arrange a meeting tomorrow in my office. I want every news reporter from every news channel who were here covering the burning building news.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And congratulations, Tao.”

“Thank you, Sir. But umm, may I ask what am I being congratulated for?”

Lt. Howard smiled and said, “I am promoting you to the post of a probationary detective at Major Crimes. Till this case is solved, I will be expecting your services for our division. I am sure we can find another Call Operator Officer to fill in your spot for the time being.”

Tao was happy. But work-formality did not let him express his smile or his gratitude. He tried to keep a poker face.

“At ease, Detective Tao. You can smile now, tough boy!”

The Lieutenant’s gesture was warm and comforting to Tao. He let out a small smile and nodded in approval to Lt. Howard’s advice. Tao felt he was no longer one of the push-arounds. He was a Detective, now.

“I must warn you though, Detective Sykes may not like you very much... specially you making Detective in just 3 weeks when he has been at this job for 40 odd years now!”, said Lt. Howard with a laugh. “Oh poor Louis! He is going to be so mad at this.”

Tao finally broke into a grin and said, “Detective Sykes and I will get along just fine, Sir. He is way too old to...” 

The Lieutenant’s phone rang up. He glanced at his cellphone screen to check who was calling him at this ungodly hour. It better not be Detective Sykes! Now was not the best time to tell him that he had promoted a 3 week old Call Operator Officer to a probationary detective at Major Crimes!

But, it was not Sykes. The smile disappeared from Lt. Howard’s face as he stared hard at his phone. Lt. Howard seemed to know the number, but he could not recall whose it was. Sensing that something was up, Tao brought back his serious face.

“Lieutenant? Can I be of some help?”, asked Tao.

“It’s okay, Tao. I got this. Excuse me.”, said Lt. Howard in a deep voice.

Lt. Howard took himself away from the crowd and picked up the call, “Hello?”

The voice on the other end of the call asked, “Am I speaking to Major Crimes chief-in-charge, Lieutenant Charles Howard?”

“Yes. This is Lieutenant Howard. How may I be of assistance?”

“This is Special Agent-in-Charge Tracy Beck from the CIA. I have been asked to inform you to stop your ongoing investigation regarding a burning house on 21B North Street with immediate effect and hand over all the evidences along with the dead bodies to the CIA Headquarters in Langley. Special Agent Sanchez will be coordinating with you for the smooth transfer of this investigation to us.”

Lt. Howard was indignant. Did the CIA just vulture off his investigation? None of this made sense. Since when did the CIA bother about arson and murders? Something big was up. He could feel it.

“Listen, Ms. Beck, or whoever you are, I was with the CIA before joining the V.S.P.D. I know your methods, and I am not falling for it. Back then, the Special Agent-in-Charge was Jack Vincent. Where is he? I want to have a word with him. You can’t just ask me to stop my investigation! This case falls under my jurisdiction.”

“Not anymore, Lieutenant. We have reason to believe that this burning building is a part of our ongoing mission, details of which are highly classified. You do not have the clearance to know anything more about it...”

“Classified CIA Mission? What bullshit is this? I want to speak to your commanding officer or superior, now. I am not handing over this case without knowing more about what is going on...”

“I AM THE SUPERIOR HERE, HOWARD! My badge ID is 78320. Make sure you don’t piss your pants when you run a background check on me, assuming that you even have the clearance to do that in the first place! And understand this, that the CIA does not act on threats of a simple cop. We act on orders of the Military and the Department of Defense. I have passed the information down the chain of command. I want you to follow them as I have instructed. If you fail to do so, I’ll be compelled to put you under the investigation of Internal Affairs. Think what that’ll do to your career. There are only two moves here, Lieutenant. I hope you pick the right one.”

“You know what? You can kiss my ass, lady...”

That was the end of the conversation. The call was hung up from the other end.

Lt. Howard was perspiring with anger. He could not let this thing slip. He had to know more about what was going on. 

He called out to Tao. Tao came running to him. Little did Tao know that he was going to be entrusted with a very big mission.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Are you ready for your first undercover mission, Tao?”

Tao was not expecting this so soon. He could not gather a definitive answer.

“Ye...No...Mayb...? I don’t know, Sir!”

“Good. This uncertainty is good to some extent. It keeps you more vigilant.”

“It does?”

“Yes.”

Exhaling a deep breath, Tao asked, “What is my mission, Sir?”

“You’re going to infiltrate the CIA Headquarters and steal something.”, replied Lt. Howard with a straight face. This was no joke.

Tao’s eyes widened and his skin turned pale with every word, as Lt. Howard proceeded to explain the plan to him. Surely, something big was going on. And 3 week old, newly inducted probationary detective Tao was right in the middle of it. 

Chapter 5: https://the-reclusive-wordsmith.tumblr.com/post/613132841527771137/the-golden-hour

[cocoa-dragon]

Bear with me

My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas with as much festivity as most families do. Sure, there might be a tree with presents underneath, scrawled with “From Santa” in my mother’s handwriting. But Christmas food? The procedure there is a little harder to follow. I think we ate turkey one year? Wait, do people even eat turkey for Christmas? Poultry can be so divisive. People have strong opinions on birds—how to roast them, which parts are even worth eating, are they even real birds (in the case of chickens), etc. But cookies? No human in their right mind would pass up a warm cookie. Especially ones with crisp, caramelized edges, and tender, buttery centers. Did I mention the chocolate yet? These cookies are thoroughly chocolate-chunked¹.

If we’re being honest, I like the holidays because they’re an excuse for baking. I mean people there are gingerbread houses to lay down the foundation for, and cheesecakes to be creamed. There are bûche de noëls to be rolled, and puddings to be simmered. In the weeks before Christmas, I love poring over food magazines and peering into the windows of bakeries, as they put out their most extravagant creations. I’ll accrue recipes, create shopping lists, monitor prices of appliances on Amazon. But though every year I dream of assembling a roulade or blowtorching crème brûlée, I’ll always end up mass producing cookies.

If you’re like me, I like instant gratification. I believe in apples that are cold and crunchy, straight from the refrigerator. I believe the fluffiest eggs are scrambled in two minutes over a hot pan. I also believe in dessert. But, I am not a very brave baker. When I set out to bake, there’s so much uncertainty because I have no idea how things will turn out. Sure, batters can be licked, but they’re not a real indication of how something will taste. As I bake a cake, I’ll often have plans to finish something, but always end up walking back and forth in front of the oven, watching its top crackle and rise. I wish I could reach in and try a caramelized corner but as my mother reminds me whenever she catches my hand on the oven, curiosity kills the cake.

So, these cookies. I don’t want to keep you from them any longer. Go and take a stick of butter out of the fridge right now. If you don’t have a sister who is a fiend for salted butter on toast, go to the store and buy some salted butter right now. Maybe, double it. It’s very hard to taste these cookies, and not dream of more. It might be cold outside, and you might be considering hibernation, but trust me. If the world’s miscellaneous woodland creatures tasted these cookies, I think they would rethink hibernation too.

¹ Although feel free to add more chocolate. There is no such thing as too much chocolate. The limit does not exist.

Hungry, hungry bear drawn by my lovely sister, Floria Tsui.

Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies

Adapted from “Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes” by Alison Roman

Makes approximately 20 cookies

Alison’s original recipe doesn’t include weights, but I’ve included weight and volume below. If you have a kitchen scale, I recommend using it here. Baking is already a mysterious process, and measuring cups are notoriously unreliable creatures.

Another note before we begin: don’t skimp on the ingredients. Baking is magical, but it will not make bad ingredients taste good. Use high-fat European butter. Plúgra or Kerrygold do the job nicely. Use fresh local eggs if you can find them. And use the best chocolate you can find. I buy large blocks of Callebaut’s 53% sweetened from Whole Foods and chip away at it judiciously. Valrhona and Scharffen Berger are good too, but I’ve never been able to get my hands on them in my corner of the universe. No matter what you do, don’t use chocolate chips. Not only would you lose the texture of chocolate flecks, but also taste as most chocolate chips don’t even taste like chocolate. They’re filled with stabilizers and other dubious things to make them look so cute.

Ingredients:

255 grams salted butter (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons)

100 grams of granulated sugar (½ cup)

55 grams of light brown sugar (¼ cup)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

300 grams all-purpose flour

6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

1 large egg, beaten

Demerara sugar

Flaky sea salt

Directions:

Thirty minutes before baking:

Take out the butter and egg and leave them out on a sunny counter. You want the butter to soften just enough so you can cut it into ½ inch pieces. The colder the butter is, the easier your dough will come together. Also, room-temperature eggs are good for baking. Don’t ask me why. They just are.

If you’re really impatient:

Pour boiling water into a tall glass and let stand for two minutes. Then pour out the water, and place it over the butter. After a few minutes, the butter should be soft enough to dice. While you’re waiting fill a bowl with warm water (not warm!), and let your egg float in it.

These cookies require you to work quickly. If your dough is falling apart, it’s probably because your ingredients are too warm. Don’t let this scare you though. Since these are quick to throw together, this means that cookies will arrive in your mouth significantly sooner.

1. Using an electric mixer on medium high, beat the butter, both sugars, and vanilla till its fluffy, about three to five minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then switch the mixer to low, and add the flour gradually, followed by the chocolate chunks. When you add the chunks, you can sift it first to remove chocolate dust. I never do because it seems fussy and why would you ever subtract chocolate? Beat until just blended.

2. Layout a large piece of plastic wrap, and place half the dough on it. Knead it briefly before shaping the dough into a log shape. Fold the plastic over so that it covers the dough as you’re rolling. This will not only keep your hands clean but also stop the log from melting apart in your hands. The log should be between 2 to 2 ¼ inches in diameter. Pack the dough tightly—part of what makes shortbread so good is the tender crumb. Repeat with rest of dough.

3. Chill both logs until totally firm, about 2 hours in the fridge, or ten minutes in the freezer. If you can stand waiting longer, let the logs chill in the fridge for a day (or up to three though I’m not responsible for what happens after). You can read about what happens while it’s in the fridge here. Basically, the flavors become richer, more pronounced, toffee-like. If you don’t want twenty cookies on your hands, the dough can be stashed in the freezer for a very long time. My family thought ten cookies would be enough to last us through the holidays so we stashed the second log in the freezer. The next day, we took it out, anxiously waiting for it to defrost. 

4. When you’re ready to bake them, preheat the oven to 350℉. Line a rimmed baking sheet (or two) with parchment paper. Lining your pans will mean less dishes and your cookies won’t stick to the pan. While you’re waiting, brush the outside of the logs with beaten egg. Sprinkle demerara sugar onto a surface, and roll the logs until they are thoroughly coated. This is what gives them those crunchy, caramelized edges.

5. Using a serrated knife, slice each log into ½-inch thick rounds. If you hit a chocolate chunk, keep going. It will be okay. If your rounds fall apart a bit, press them back together. It will be okay. If they’re crumbling, press them back into a log and put them in the freezer. It will be okay after its cold again. Sprinkle each round with flaky sea salt. If you’ve never tried this before, you’re in for a surprise. Salt brings out depth, making things taste more like itself. It makes chocolate taste more like chocolate. Place each round on baking sheet about an inch apart since they don’t spread much.

6. Bake for six minutes, then turn the pan. This allows the cookies to be more evenly baked, since the back of the oven is always hotter than the front. After rotating, bake for another six to nine minutes. The cookies are done when the edges are just beginning to brown, and when the air smells rich and divine. Let cool slightly before transferring to wire rack and/or your mouth.

P.S. If you’re into chocolate chip theory, read David Leite’s quest to find the perfect one here. If you haven’t heard his interview with Flour Hour yet, take out a stick of butter and start listening to it. It’s a conversation on finding the contours of one’s body, on the love contained in chocolate cake, and on the weight of family and history contained by what’s on the dinner table.

[amorphousalien]

So, not that literally anyone cares, but here's the deal with that person that was harassing me all week. Waay back in the good ol days of mid 2015 (sarcasm, fuck 2015)- I was experiencing a lot of really intense, frequent Rick shifts that were making me near catatonically depressed and dissociated. After seeing the season 2 finale, they just got worse. So I opted to unfollow all the r/n/m blogs I was following, stay out of the tags, stop looking canonmates, etc pretty much everything but actually taking Rick off my kinlist because I wasn't coping with it well and I needed to take a break. I even put on several pages of my blog that I did not want /anyone/ kin from ric/kandmorty contacting me because at the time it was basically a trigger. Then I start getting messages fromsomeome kin with M/orty, asking to talk to me, compare memories, etc. I told them I didn't want to talk to anyone, that it was triggering, etc. I accidentally posted one of their asks publically instead of privately, because mobile sux, and wound up getting a slew of TERRIFYING messages from them saying shit like "How could you do this to me?? I trusted you!! You exposed us!! How could you do this why would you do this to us?? I'm going to have to delete my tumblr because of you, how could you do this, we trusted you!" I panicked, deleted the ask, apologized profusely, and was generally successfully guilt tripped into allowing this person to continue messaging me and probing me for information about my Rick kintype. For maybe 6 months, they continued talking to me. I would ignore them for as long as I could, but eventually caved and replied to them out of boredom or fear, or they'd send me a slew of guilt trippy messages apologizing for bothering me, saying they were such an awful person, they always did this, everyone hates them etc etc etc. After 6 months, I was accepted to Job Corps and told them I was leaving for school and would have no internet access until I graduated. About four months into school l, my parents bought me a phone and were paying for my service. I logged back into tumblr to find about twenty "Hey"s and "Hi"s and "Oh my god I'm so sorry I know you hate me I just don't know what to do I'm so awful I'm sorry for bothering you"s in my messages from them. I told them I was in school and wouldn't have time to message them very often. I wanted them to just leave me alone, but I didn't want to be outright mean and they weren't taking the hint that I didn't want to talk to them. Or maybe they were and that's why they'd send me that guilt trippy bullshit every few weeks. And unfortunately I was an anxious wreck having just escaped multiple physically, memtally, emotionally, and sexually abusive relationships at this point. So I was easily manipulated and desperate for friendship. Which they knew. I'd mentioned it briefly and had vented about it multiple times on my kin blog. Anywho. I came back from school after about 6 months. Tumblr had dome some weird update and I couldn't log into my account anymore (except from my ipad where I was still logged in). I remade my account and directed everyone to my new kin blog (this one). I'd kinda forgotten about them at this point, but when I remade my blog they started messaging me again. I was pretty worn down and still pretty desperate for friends. I was recovering from the depressive Rick shifts and started talking to them more and more about our canons, and eventually decided we were canonmates. By the time we'd 'known' each other for about a year, they'd mentioned to me multiple times that they were living in an abusive situation and needed to get out. Three things about that last sentence. 1. *Known: Our entire relationship was one of us (mostly them) messaging the other every few days, or even every couple of weeks, to say "Hey"-"Hi"-"How are you"-"Fine, you?"-"I'm ok" and then maybe they'd complain (extremely vaguely) about something going on at home. 2. Everything they said about their abuse was extremely vague. The most detail I could ever get was that the house they were living in was not being maintained and there was never any food. Which they blamed on their parents despite being a 20 year old adult. 3. I'd spent hours trying to give them help getting out. I looked up resource centers in their area, homeless shelters, disability, food stamps, offered to write their resume for them, etc etc etc. I was practically offering to do everything for them to get them on their feet, and they shot down my advice every single time. Around 11 months into our friendship, they told me they couldn't take being there anymore and they were going to run away. They didn't know where they were going, didn't care, kept talking about being homeless and living on the streets to get away from where they were now. So I told them to come to Colorado (where I live) so I could at least offer help in person. November of 2016, they bought a bus ticket and came to Colorado. I picked them up and took them to my apartment (a three bedroom townhouse I shared with three roommates. They were all upstairs, I lived in a sectioned off half-room behind the living room). At the time, I was working 40 hours a week at a thrift store making about 9$/h. This job was not only tearing my already chronically ill body apart, but was also causing weekly psychotic episodes and mental breakdowns. I was 3000$ in debt with my roommates. My rent was 400$/month and I was making maybe 700$/month. Even so. I was using all of my spare money feeding them, buying them a tracphone and service, toiletries, clothes, etc etc Despite how much I was spending on them, they were still asking for more food, expensive food, cigarettes, alcohol, and weed. And if I didn't say yes, they'd spiral into depressive episodes, hiding either in my room, the living room, or the bathroom, and cry. And then ask again twenty minutes later. Over. And over again. Until I said yes. They talked 24/7. Literally. 24/7. From the SECOND I came home from work til I went to bed. And frequently came into my room multiple times throughout the night to ask for cigarettes and weed. Despite the fact that I had to wake up at 6am for work. It got to the point where, despite being in constant physical pain and despite the mental break downs, I was volunteering for overtime at work every single day to afford to keep them fed and to just fucking avoid their non stop talking and guilt tripping. And this was not non stop conversing. It was non stop THEM talking. I didn't exist. I could not get a word in. They didn't expect me to reply except for an occasional "Isn't that funny/weird?" or "Do you ever do that that??". I basically clocked out mentally any time I was home. I wasn't a person to them. I was just expected to listen quietly to their thousand and one stories. I already made posts back when this started about what happened while they lived with me, so I'm not gonna go into any more detail. I don't remember most of it anyways. It was such an incredibly stressful point in my life, I developed a new alter in my system. I was rarely fronting. It was so bad, the alter that /never/ fronts, had to take over to deal with what was happening. This person has been stalking me from the second they found my blog, and five months after I kicked them out and blocked them, they're still stalking me. I had to install an ip tracker on my blog. They were checking my blog damn near 20 times a day and sending me 10 or more messages every day. I barely posted half of what I got. I was even so desperate as to text their mom to beg for help. I wanted this to end before it started. I never wanted to know them. I want nothing to do with them. I don't want to be dealing with this. I am an asocial agoraphobic shut-in. I don't want any part of this. I don't care what happens to them. I don't care what happens to Rain or Darcy or the 'KuroNekoClan'. All I was is for this to be over. I want to be left alone. I want to finish repressing everything about them. I want them to completely disappear from my memory. I have never hated nor been so terrified of someone as I am in regards to this person. I'm gonna go back to radio silence on this blog for a few more days just to be sure they're not still checking it. Everyone can still PM and I'll still reply to asks, but I'm not gonna be posting on here til I feel safe.