#i should go in on tuesday for that and have my motion graphic done by then

[dragqueenpentheus]

oh the vibes today?

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia CH 16

////TW SA mentioned/hinted at/// Depiction of a panic attack as well

The hospital was a buzz with energy, which was a bit weird considering how small the town was. Were there really this many patients today? You honestly didn't know, hell for the longest time you weren't even sure this was a hospital when you moved here.

That was changed recently, like very recent. Last night in fact when you had been forced awake by medical staff trying to determine your condition. That sadist doctor of yours kept a small smile on their face the entire time you groaned about wanting sleep. They had simply tutted at you saying you needed to be monitored for several hours before they could let you rest.

Thankfully you hadn't seen them today but it was only ten thirty. A lovely nurse had been checking in with you all morning, even before you woke up. He'd come in when you had buzzed after waking up in pain and given you a dose of your medicine through your IV drip. When you questioned him about where you were he seemed to still in concern. Worried that you hadn't remembered your accident that lead you here.

After assuring him and giving him a play by play of your day yesterday, giving him the assumed day, and answering who the current president was he let you off the hook. Mark, your nurse, had been very keen to tell you the Cowell family is in charge of your care and will be here later in the day to visit with you. Granted you actually feel up to visitors. Which you take as code for 'would you like me to deny visitors?'.

You let him know you'll be fine with visits after ten. Knowing full well how fast news can travel in the small town it's only a matter of time before a parade of Hornets meander through to check in on you. First you wanted to grab your bearings before being thrown to your overly concerned friends.

Or maybe they weren't overly concerned after all you did just experience a home invasion that left you hospitalized. Simply being concerned is a natural reaction to your situation. But your head hurts just thinking about anything right now. So, you'd like to take a moment for yourself, have a bit of time to process everything.

Either way you'd been right, news travels fast in this small town. Nearly all the lodge residents had been waiting for an hour to see you when ten rolled around. At ten on the dot Aubrey, Barclay, and Jake stormed into your room and surrounded you like piranhas in a frenzy. You looked towards Dani, Hollis, Kirby, and several other lodge staff members for help only to get small smiles and a shake of the head.

They wouldn't be helping you out of this anytime soon. You just had to endure the genuine concern and affection from your friends. Luckily for your splitting head the visit only lasts thirty minutes before everyone has to leave. Life still goes on even when a loved one is in the hospital. With several promises to return tomorrow and requests that you take it easy the rambunctious group was gone.

You relax into your bed before turning on the TV and finding something mind numbing to watch. The food network works! You hope Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives is in the roll today. You're in luck as it starts playing right after the commercials.

The voice of your doctor is getting closer to your room. Great if you weren't already upset by the atrocity happening with the pizza at that restaurant then you are surely in a sour mood now.

“Well sir we hope you can reason with the child. They have simply fought us each time we've brought up the tests. We'd say it was mildly impressive that they held such coherence last night, had it not been for the headache it has given us.”

Oh here we fucking go again.

“I don't need the tests.”

No one had made it through the threshold before you spoke. Everyone froze at your cold tone. Until the doctor makes a motion towards you.

“As you can see, they're very stubborn.”

“I'm not stubborn you're just not listening to me. I haven't had sex in a year so I don't need a pregnancy test and I just got bashed around last night. I don't need an invasive search done.” You ignore the Cowell family as you speak to the doctor, “I find it concerning how keen you are to do a rape test on me even though I've repeatedly told you I just got banged up in the scuffle. Nothing more.”

The doctor still has their small smile placed just ever so on their face. There's something really off about them. Even under normal circumstances you hate hospitals and doctors. Mainly because they never listen to you about your issues, something you know would be even worse if you had 'Autistic' labeled in a medical file. But something about this doctor seriously rubbed you the wrong way. Perhaps you two knew each other in  previous life and it was coming back to bite you in the ass now.

“Doc, the kid says they don' need a test, then they don' need the test.” Big Jo says breaking the staring contest between you and the doctor as they slide their gaze away from you to look at Big Jo.

You take no little satisfaction from seeing their stupid smile finally leave their face. It isn't long before it's replaces and they bound over to you. Poking and prodding you, jabbing with a lot more force than they should need to. After a small adjustment to your IV they clear you for this check up and allow the Cowells to have their visit with you.

“Something's off about them.” you say cautiously after the family steps into the room.

Big Jo sighs, “Ye' but they took care 'o ya last night kid.” Ushering his family through he closes the door behind them only to turn back to you with a stern expression, “so ya better play nice with 'em got it?”

Fighting back the intense urge to roll your eyes you nod, before turning to Little Jo who's made her way over to your bedside in her hands several thick graphic novels. The same ones your store started to carry a few weeks back. Looking up from the books you see her watery and puffy eyes. What she takes from Big Jo in personality she takes from her mother in empathy.

“I-I-I yip-yip I thought yip you might get bored so I yup wanted to let you borr-yip-borrow these.”

When she places the books onto the small table beside your bed you can see the tremors that rake through her hands. Choosing not to comment or bring any attention on the tween's obvious nerves you settle for an ice breaker.

“Thanks, don't know how much more crimes against pizza I can stomach.” motioning to the TV where a man is making paper thin crust on pizza to have a pizza that cooks in a minute.

That's not pizza it's cooked cheese and tomato sauce with toppings. Not pizza at all.

Jo nods softly, her normal enthusiasm no where to be found today. A pang rips through your chest as you watch her eyes cast downwards. With no clue how to help her feel better you have to swallow the sigh in your throat to not make the air heavier than it already is. Dia and Big Jo aren't much help either when you spare them a glance.

Dia herself is wiping her eyes with a tissue and sniffles escape her every few seconds. Not much is different bout Big Jo, he may have more prominent eye bags today but you weren't going to judge him for not sleeping. Even under normal circumstances you didn't have ground to stand on. Mark mentioned Big Jo was the one who found you from what he'd over heard at the nurses' station this morning.

Knowing this made the foreboding feeling in your stomach grow. The way he's looking at you with his cold stoney stare-he's not even really looking at you more through you. But his stare pierces you and sends the pit in your stomach lower than you thought possible. If it wasn't so chilly in the room you'd probably be sweating right now.

“Dia, why don' ya take Josephine home.”

Hearing this you lift your hand up to Little Jo before she has a chance to scurry out of the room with her mother. She looks at your hand and then back to you before launching herself into you with a crushing hug. Gravity doesn't help your case as the child's entire weight is on your prone form, you hadn't sat up when they came into the room.

“Get better soon.” the pain was worth it to hear the small plea. She at least felt a little better if she could talk without her vocal tic interrupting her.

After you pat her on the back and promise to rest up she's out the door with her sobbing mother. It's a quiet few moments after the door shuts before Jo takes a step towards your bed. If the pit in your stomach went any lower you're sure you'd be able to see your insides. The hulking man takes a seat in the chair next to your bed sighing as he leans back rubbing his face.

“Tell me what happened kid.”

You relay the events of your day to him. How you and Toby had gone out of town for slushies, gotten caught in so much traffic that you felt it was a punishment from God himself. The funny feeling you had after dropping Toby off, the one that said just to go straight home. And how you had a feeling someone had just been in your home. You left nothing out about the altercation with ski mask. That wasn't saying much because you only remember the ski mask and how you tried to claw their face off. When Jo pressed you for a physical description you weren't any help. Having been too caught up in survival mode you only registered the stupid frowny face on the ski mask as being a key detail...but any fool could laser transfer a decal. And the same went for that painted mask, anyone could grab an art store face mask and block paint some black over the features.

Vaguely you recall them wearing a jacket. Had it been red, yeah like a burnt burgundy maybe? It wasn't a lot to go on and seemed to frustrate Jo even more, if the pinching of his nose was anything to go by.

“You are aware of the situation, yea?” his accent has dropped, he's speaking in a more neutral tone and inflection. This might be the most rattling moment of the week-and it's only Tuesday.

He isn't looking at you so you give a quiet 'yes sir' in response.

“Kid your car got broken into on my lot. Your home gets invaded and you get bashed around/ All this a few months after my other front end girlie disappears in the middle of the night.”

A lump forms in your throat at the mention of Bambi. You can see the pattern he's stringing together, honestly you saw it long before today. You'd just been sloppy and took too much time to gather evidence of your stalkers' existence.  Bambi's disappearance wasn't voluntary and it looks like you may be next.

“Called Lydia already and we're upping the security at the cottage. Until I'm satisfied with the level of security you will be staying with us.”

“I co-cou” the lump was hard to speak around, “I can't impose like that, it's fine I'll-”

“You'll just what sleep in your car become an easier target? Go gallivanting to towns miles away where no one knows you.” his harsh words cause you to sputter, “For Christ's sake YN we don't know who we're dealing with right now!”

You don't make eye contact with Jo. You can't make eye contact he's raised his voice. You're lucky you're laying down or else you'd be rocking back and forth right now.

“Unless you have a clue who's out there and the police catch them, this decision is final. This isn't up for debate YN.” he finishes harshly

Even though he's finished you still can't look at him, your nerves are so shot and all you can do is bite your lip.

“Look I...I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing you weren't out on your own while this gets handled. Josephine looks up to ya like an older sibling, she'd be crushed if you ended up like Bambi. Same goes for Dia. And I don't want that for my girls.” he says softly, “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir.”

With that Jo leaves you in the room after informing you that they'd be back to check you out of the hospital tomorrow. And that you could expect a visit from Sheriff Owens at some point before then.

Even after Jo leaves it feels like someone has your heart in a vice. And every few beats they squeeze it, constricting the flow of freshly oxidized blood to your body. For good measure they try to yank the organ straight from your chest cavity but just end up bruising your rib cage.

Oh God you can't breathe, you're trying but you can't tell if you are or aren't anymore. The beeping of you heart monitor is increasing with each second. It's annoying ringing is too much and you need to rip the cords from you immediately. That just makes the ringing worse as it flat lines not finding any beating or rhythm under your skin.

Soon you're swarmed with a team of nurses trying to settle you down in your panic induced haze. Their grabbing hands and forceful touches burn your skin and light a fire that travels through your veins; and only serves to make you thrash more. Taking a swing at the nurse who holds a needle you continue your struggle against the other bodies holding you down as she stumbles away.

A few nurses rush in from the door to help her, not that you notice.

So many of the sounds are merging together and you can't understand anything. From the shrill beep of the heart monitor, the voices calling out at various pitches, footsteps. Everything forms into one gigantic frantic pitch in your already fried mind.

A growl rips through the room, you can feel the vibration of it all over you. Did that come from you?

In an instant all hands are off of your panting form and just before you can sit up a deep pressure is applied to your torso. Warmth seeps into you as the pressure lowers itself onto your body. Effectively ending your meltdown and lulling you into a dissociative state.

Floating is the only way you can describe it. The sensation of weightlessness and a gentle rocking caused by the adrenaline trying to defuse itself back into the body. Or the foggy haze that clouds your mind as you try to remember what just happened. Trying to rational the series of events and this outcome. But nothing comes to you except more brain fog. A confusing storm of frustration and vulnerability hits you. And you are left powerless to do anything. You can't kick your legs or scream as much as you want to.

The weight on top of you is forcing a calm to wash over you while the emotions inside wish to break free like a whirlwind. Your distress kick starting the whirlwind back up again only to die like a camp fire in a thunderstorm when you can't get any sort of momentum to your tantrum.

You can only loose yourself to the fogginess drifting further away from your psychical body. Completely unaware of the world around you as it washes away into nothingness.

When the floating feeling finally lifts you have to blink to shake off the remaining stupor. You're able to tell there is still a heavy weight on top of you but also something holding down your left hand. You turn away from the wall that you've been staring blankly at for hours, if your sore neck is anything to go by, and see Connor perking up at your movement.

“Hey bud,” you raise a hand to ruffle his ear and he lays his big head back onto your chest. “hey Tobes.” voice cracking as you greet the man you assume is holding your hand in a death grip, not once looking up from Connor.

There's a tight squeeze on your hand and you have to close your eyes and take a minute to collect yourself before turning to face him. The last thing you remember before drifting off was a group of nurses trying to sedate you. Having no clue what went on after that and when Toby came in you're preparing for the worst. Finally facing him you pause when you make eye contact.

“Jesus! What happened to-to-to you!?”

When you'd last seen him you'd dropped Toby off in the same shape you got him. Now he's sporting a heavily swollen black eye, one that looks pretty bade considering his nose bridge is also swelling a bit. It almost looks like it's pulsing. The dark purple bruise and deep red bleeding from under it to spread away from the injury is such a drastic contrast to his weirdly grayish complexion. You aren't sure if the black eye is actually that bad or if it just looks that way due to Toby's lack of melanin.

“Tim and I got into a fight.” his one good eye cuts to the side, “Barkclay had to split us up. Drove me here to get it checked out, it's fine.” He's dismissing it, they probably can't figure out if his eye really is fine right now, since he can't feel pain and that thing looks tightly swollen shut.

“Barclay.” is the only thing you can manage to say. Your brain wasn't prepared for most things right now and it's having trouble processing the gnarly injury mixed with complete nonchalance.

His lips pull back into a smile and not one you've seen from him before. Sure you've pulled a couple genuine mirth filled smiles out of him, or seen his teasing smirks, or bashful shy smiles when you've been out with others. But this smile, if you could even call it that-it was more like he was barring his teeth. Toby looked ready for another fight or like he was a feral predator about to rip out it's prey's jugular. There's a brief flash of a image that pops into your mind's eye, one of Toby's bloodstained face with this exact expression, teeth soaked red with blood and chunks of flesh in between . A chill runs through you at the thought. Had Connor not been laying on top of you, you would have shivered.

The instant you squeeze Toby's hand, the smile wipes off his face and he stares down at your interlocked hands. He returns the gesture before bringing his other hand over. Looking up at you through his eyelashes he flips your hand and when your expression doesn't change and you don't pull away he begins to play with your fingers.

“What was the fight about?”

“I don't have to answer that.” his tone is short and clipped.

You don't press the subject, obviously Toby doesn't want to talk about it. And you're fine with that, anyway if the fight was bad enough for Barclay to need to break it up and he drove Toby here you can assume Tim instigated and is probably getting kicked back out into the RV with no AC. As bad as it sounds you could care less. Toby's your friend not Tim, you only care if Toby's ok and while he may have a very fucked up eye in the future, right now he seems like normal Toby. A bit more irritated and on edge but that's normal after a stressful day. Hell you punched a nurse a few hours ago.

“What happened to you?”

There's a small part of you that wants to sass Toby, that you don't have to answer that. Thankfully the rational side reminds you that fight with a roommate is very different than having been beaten in a home invasion. Once again retelling your story but this time starting after you dropped Toby off. No need in going into as much detail as you went into with Jo or how much you'll need to go into with the sheriff. Toby's hands would grip yours tightly throughout your recounting. It's one of the reasons you didn't go into a ton of detail. Understanding your friend is barely holding on by  a string on his good days you aren't about to load your stress along with his already eventful day.

“You can't stay there alone.” he says after you finish the recap.

“Uh duh? Like Jo's already ordered me under house arrest at his house.”

It's like the tension leaks out of him like air leaving a balloon with the way he deflates after you say that. His grip loosens on you hand and he goes back to idly playing with your fingers.

“Good...that's good.” he nods to himself.

In the silence of this hospital room with his service dog on you instead of attending to his clear anxiety ridden form, you realize Toby's a lot more caring than his exterior lets on. The brunette might not wear his heart on his sleeve but it's easy to see it once you know what you're looking for. In this moment as battered and bruised as he is, even the potential possibility of loosing function in his left eye, he's more concerned with you. Whether it's low self worth or just how he treats friends you'll have to find out later.

“Hey...Tobias, I'm here y'know?” you start to sit up waving off a pecking Connor. Once you're far enough up you retract from Toby's grip, which he does fight you on a little. And you reach out further to his bicep, you can't quite reach his shoulder in this position.

“I'm ok Tobes, I'm here.” for some reason 'Tobias' doesn't sound right for this moment.

Toby doesn't give much of a reaction which is fine since you weren't really expecting one. He places his hand over yours for a moment before bringing it back into his grip and fixates on playing with your fingers once again.

With a smile you go to pet Connor with you free hand, hoping Toby might shake himself out of this funk. After a bit of petting you grow restless with the lack of stimulation and ask Toby to pass you on of the graphic novels Little Jo left for you.

It's easier than you thought reading with one hand would be, especially since you can prop the book on Connor who doesn't seem to mind. Pup is resting across your legs now that both humans in the room are stable enough to function without his intervention.

When you finish the first book Toby speaks up, eye still focused on your hand in his. And you find out that although the series isn't his normal thing he did enjoy the art style and a few of the jokes. He waits for you to finish each book before talking more about them and the arc of the story they laid out. Opening up for the two of you to have a nice discussion on the fantasy game based series. It's honestly so much fun for you, where you lack in background awareness Toby is quick to fill you in and point out little ques the writers and artist dropped. In return you're right there explaining character motives and the subtle looks of a character's eyes.

It's a fun few hours before visiting hours are over. And Toby paused at the door before he left, he looked like he wanted to say something but held back. Just as he turned to leave you call out.

“Get home safe.” it's normally his line but you aren't going anywhere tonight.

“I will....get well soon. I'll see ya later.”

There's that awkward smile! You can barely contain the beaming one you sent him before he left. Despite being hospitalized for injuries sustained by a home invasion from your potential stalker...well plural now, you've had a pretty great day.

Fuck that sounds so bad. Should you feel guilty about forgetting your messed up circumstances? No, no everything is getting sorted out. If anything this is going along with your plans for Big Jo to help you out. This was more than enough evidence to prove that you aren't just paranoid. And you're about to have a safe place to hang while this all gets settled.

The fact that you got injured is less than ideal but this is what you get for being sloppy and unfocused.

You have a lot of faith in your boss, you know this will be dealt with. Thinking back to everyone who came to see you today...you just hope everyone can be as confident as you are that this will all end soon.

[shortythescreen]

Better.

Summary: The reader has been having a rough mental health week. Their partner, Bloodhound, doesn’t fix it all but they try their best to be there for them. 

Pairing: Bloodhound/Reader. 

Warning(s): Please be mindful going in that there are pretty vivid descriptions of a depressive episode! Including the reader having not showered, not doing laundry, having issues sleeping. Bloodhound is not a ~fix it~ for the reader’s depression but their presence definitely helps the reader cope. Gender neutral reader. 

Author’s Note(s): A commission for my darling @useeer​! He was having a rough time and wanted some Bloodhound being there for the reader! This is very light and fluffy and soft but the beginning IS describing a depressive spell so be mindful if that is triggering to you!

This week’s been rough.

You haven’t done much, which is probably not helping, but… Doing things is just so hard sometimes. Finding the motivation to do things is so hard. Things done without motivation feel empty, skeletal. Like you’re a ghost without legs, floating towards the laundry hamper that has been sitting in the corner of your bedroom for the past two days, clearly overflowing. Your ghostly hands phase right through the basket whenever you try to pick it up and it’s exhausting to exert the effort to make yourself corporeal.

Not that you’re not exhausted already. Sleep has been elusive -- to the point that you’ve been randomly napping throughout the day. At night, you lie away, stare at the ceiling, and think about everything from how yogurt doesn’t make any sense to what if a meteor were to crash into the earth right now. Your schedule’s all kind of fucked up, past late-night gaming, past late-night phone calls.

To top it all off, your legs feel like lead whenever you get up to shuffle into the bathroom. Usually it’s just to take a piss but sometimes you stare at your shower curtain and pretend it’s mocking you. Come on, I know you wanna shower. It’s just a little water. What’s so bad about a little water?

That’s on worse days, though. Today, you’re curled up on your couch, scrolling through Instagram, and, well- at least you got out to the couch. Maybe you’ll even turn on Netflix and put on a show you won’t pay attention to. That’s progress, right?

Sure, you’re kind of greasy, and scrolling through Instagram and watching dog videos that half make you want to cry in joy probably isn’t the healthiest way to deal with your… you don’t want to call it an issue but it feels like an issue. Issues. Whatever, you’re out of your room.

The sound of a knock jars you from the daze you’re in and you lift your head. You haven’t ordered anything recently, so you doubt it’s a package, and most of your friends are busy during the week with work, and school, and… Other things. It can’t be them kicking in your door for answers about why you’ve been so absent.

Your partner, Bloodhound, should still be on World’s Edge. That’s only added onto the shittiness of this week. All you’ve wanted to do is curl up under their arm, breathe in the smell of pine, and wood, and all that other stuff they can never seem to wash out of their skin. You told them so on the phone when you first felt your mood start to spiral.

They promised you that you would be able to do that when they got home. That they would like nothing more than to hold you to their chest, to kiss your cheeks and pet your hair again. The affection they only saved for you they let out over the phone and while it made you feel a little better, it almost made you ache even more for their presence.

But they have a job. Well, kind of. A calling. A duty. You’re not sure what word you should use for Bloodhound’s place as an Apex Legend but you don’t want to undermine it. You know it means more to them than it maybe does Octavio, or Elliott.

You glance back down at your phone. Bloodhound isn’t due back in Solace City until Tuesday and it’s only Monday, your phone tells you. Wonder who it could be.

You push yourself out of the hole you’ve steadily worn into your couch when you hear another quick, polite knock on the door and yeah, that sounds like Hound’s knock. It makes your tummy flutter, little nervous tingles. Maybe they’ve come home early? You shuffle over to the front door and creak it open slowly, squinting at the sunlight that instantly filters into your living room.

“Bloodhound?” You intelligently blurt.

Bloodhound is… dressed down. They’re free of gloves and in place of their helmet is a black, cloth face mask, with the fan logo for when they call upon the strength of their Allfather, or whatever crazy magic they do in order to become the beast of the hunt. They’re not even wearing their goggles – instead choosing to don their rare, round red glasses. The sun creates a halo around them, like they’re a fucking angel or something. It feels like they are.

“My love,” they say, and you can hear the smile in their voice. It makes your own lips twitch up, makes you peer shyly up at them through eyelashes. They open their arms and it’s easy for you to fall into their embrace, to inhale the earthy scent that you’ve come to associate with them. God, you missed them.

They tighten their strong arms around you and while your house is already kind of chilly, you relish in how cool their skin is. You twist your head into their chest, letting their heart thump against your nose.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow,” you whisper, voice muddled by the mouthful of their shirt you have. They only chuckle, swaying you lightly from left to right, their nose nudging into your hair.

“I was not,” says Bloodhound, “but I missed you.”

Fuck. You sniff, beating back the tidal wave of feelings that well up in your throat. Your fucking partner is the best. For all they are the beast of the ring, the Apex predator, they are also yours. Finally, you release them, shuffling out of the way to let them inside.

The door shuts and without the sun, you realize how dark the house has been. They reach up, tugging the mask from around their ear and suddenly you can see their plump lips, the gold stud that sits on their cupid’s bow.

“Sorry I’m not more…” You motion vaguely down at your sweatpants, the oversized graphic t-shirt you’re wearing, “you know.”

Bloodhound waves a hand. “You needn’t apologize for such things, beloved.”

You guess it’s not all that much of a surprise to them anyway. You and Bloodhound had spoken on the phone three days into their week on World’s Edge. You mentioned you weren’t feeling great, that everything was starting to feel far away even though you hadn’t moved.

They fold their mask in half, resting it on the table next to the couch. Then, they glide into your space, their presence as welcome as a cool breeze on a hot summer day, or the soft hum of a generator turning on during a storm. They take your chin between their thumb and forefinger and then you meet their copper eyes that you swear are all knowing.

“Why don’t we take today to be with one another, hm? I missed you while I was away.” They whisper and their opposite hand slides over your cheek. You wince. How long has it been since you last showered, let alone washed your face?

Bloodhound echoes your thoughts. “When last did you bathe?”  

You don’t know what face you make but it must not be pleasant because it gives them all the answer they need. The hand that passed over your cheek finds the nape of your neck and they guide you towards their waiting lips, pecking your forehead delicately.

They detangle from you and begin to busy themselves around your home. They pull a towel from your hall closet then they disappear into your room. Less than a minute later they emerge with a pair of shorts and a sweater you don’t recognize right away. Your heart pangs when you realize it’s theirs.

They sling the towel over their shoulder as they return to you and you could weep at their tender eyes, at the way the little smile has never disappeared from their lips. Like they’re happy to be with you, no matter how shitty you feel. Their fingers weave through your own.

“Come,” they insist, and you are helpless to obey. They guide you into the bathroom, setting down the items they gathered in a neat pile on top of the toilet seat.  They pull back your shower curtain and bend over the edge, fiddling with the knobs of your shower before spray begins shooting onto the bottom.

They roll a sleeve up, turning their head to face you as they stick their hand beneath the water. “You will have to be certain it is warm enough for you.”

“Or cool enough. Your showers are hot as hell, Hound,” you say, your lips quirking up. Bloodhound narrows their eyes at you before childishly sticking their tongue out.

“I like to defrost sometimes,” they say and you actually laugh. They beam back at you, gliding over when the water is to their liking and kissing your cheek. “I will be waiting for you when you finish, elskan.”

They kiss your cheek and you sigh, missing their lips as soon as they’re gone. They close the door with a gentle click, and you set to work ignoring your bully of a shower curtain.

The hot spray feels great – though you do wind up turning down the hot and upping the cold just a little. You feel a lot better after you’ve showered. Once you’re clean, you put on Bloodhound’s sweater, and make your way back into your living room.

Bloodhound has tidied up in the time it’s taken you to shower. It’s not spotless, but there’s not garbage sitting on your coffee table anymore and you think you can hear the washing machine running. You’ll have to poke your head into your bedroom to be sure.

“Elliott suggested a film for us,” they tell you from their place on your couch. You hum, shuffling over and flopping into their side. Your arms wrap around their middle and they place an arm over your shoulders. You’re not sure but you think you feel them relax a little more too, like they’re as relieved as you are that they’re back.

“What film?” You murmur, your cheek squished against their chest. They nuzzle their nose into the visible part in your hair.

“Something having to do with cowboys? I believe he said it was a ‘western’.” They say and you snort, your shoulders moving with the motion. They turn their head, resting their cheek on top of your head, and their red curls tickle your skin.

“Are you feeling better, elskan?” They ask you, softly, gently. There’s no expectation in their voice, only genuine curiosity. Maybe a little concern.

“Yeah, a little,” you say. They nod, and the hand that’s been resting on the arm of the couch find yours. Their large fingers wrap around your bandaged knuckles and they drag them up to their lips, gently kissing the tops of them.

“Would you like to talk about your week? You mentioned not feeling well earlier than I was able to escape,” they say. Their use of the word escape makes you chuckle and you shake your head, twisting your chin up to watch them press the backs of your fingers against their cheek.

“No, babe. I’m already feeling better having someone here. And having showered… Thank you for getting away. I know it was probably a pain in the ass.”

Bloodhound shifts beneath you and you adjust, moving into whatever position they’re trying to get you to. You wind up half sprawled out on their body, your legs long on the couch behind your, your chest against theirs as they stare deeply into your eyes.

“I would do anything for you, beloved,” they whisper, like the words are just for you and they can’t risk anyone overhearing them. “I am only sorry I could not be with you sooner. I would have liked to hold you on your sleepless nights.”

“Even if I kept you up?” You whisper.

“Even if you kept me up. Though Artur is quite grumpy when deprived of sleep,” they tell you sagely and your head drops onto their chest, shoulders shaking with laughter. 

[mulletcal]

when did you first know? -- a calum hood one shot

a/n: okay so i was hit with inspo for this like 8 hours ago and here we are.  it’s the origin story for cal & mama from my twin universe, but you don’t need to have read those to know what’s going on here!! pls enjoy

words:  3.9k

warnings: cavity inducing fluff mb???

-------------

Soulmate was always a word that Calum heard, and while he believed that they existed, he was never certain that a soulmate would be something he’d find in his lifetime.  He saw his friends pair off with their respective partners, and it warmed his heart to see the people he loved so happy.  Calum grew content with the fact that he was meant for platonic soulmates, already having found those in his best friends.

The fans never let the idea go that Calum was preparing for his soulmate though - citing his quitting smoking, and in general cleaning up his act as the source.  That was never consciously what Calum was doing though, rather just choosing to better himself for himself.  

It was a Tuesday when he first met her - the sky was clear and the moon full, the air was warm, and he was surrounded by his best friends as they shared stories from their past.  Why Michael had decided to have a party on a Tuesday, he’d never know; but he knew that he would one day need to thank the man. 

Andy had brought her along, saying how she was an old friend from his hometown who just moved to L.A. and had zero friends there other than him.  Maybe it would be Andy he’d need to thank - in all the years he’d been alive, he had never met someone so beautiful.  The night carried on in similar fashion to previous nights, most of them crashing in various rooms in Michael’s house rather than heading home.  She went home, though, without Calum being able to say goodbye, or get her number - she was gone.

For days thoughts of her clouded his mind; the sound of her voice, her laugh, how she danced with his friends as if she’d known them for years.  It tugged at his heart how well she fit in with them, and he wished he knew her well enough to invite her along to things they had plans for.

In a vague attempt to rid his mind of her, he thought he’d distract himself with the one thing that always seemed to cheer him up - dogs.  Duke enjoyed wandering the dog park, even if he didn’t interact much with other dogs, Calum was always there to toss a ball or two for his old baby. 

Pressing a kiss to the side of Duke’s head, he set him down onto the grass and took his leash in his hand, at least till they got away from the busy parking lot.  Letting him begin to sniff around, Calum’s eyes scanned around the park - it wasn’t a particular busy day for a Friday, they may be able to have a wider range for Duke to roam.

He froze, though, when he saw an oddly familiar face underneath a nearby tree - it was her.  This had to be some form of serendipity, right?  There was no way she knew he would be there, at that time, on that day, so maybe this was his chance.

Calum’s feet took over before he got much of a chance to overthink it, stopping when he and Duke reached a few feet away, “Hey, didn’t expect to see you here!” Oof, lame line.  He could’ve done better than that, truly.

She looked up, lifting the sunglasses off of her head as she met his eyes, a bright smile spreading across her lips, “Calum, hey! How are yo- Is this your dog?” Her eyes were wide as she looked at Duke, whose head was cocked to the side as his dad interacted with this woman he never met.

“It is, his name’s Duke.  He’s wary of people, so maybe just approach with caution.  It’s not his fault, he’s old and grumpy.  I feel as though he should be back at home readin’ the dailies.” Calum was rambling, and he knew it - but his comment made her laugh, so it counted as a win to him.

“Me too man, you have no idea,” She shook her head as she spoke to Duke, as if he could understand her.  She held out her hand and Calum waited with baited breath while his dog gave it a sniff, usually Duke would huff and walk away from the offending person - but after what felt like an eternity, Duke’s tail began to wag as he looked at her expectantly.

“That absolutely never happens,” Calum stated, stunned; and the responding smile that he got was brighter than the sun that was high in the sky that day.  “D’you wanna come toss a ball for ‘im?  He seems to like you,” While Calum had been deep in his own thoughts, Duke had taken to putting his front paws on her legs so she could have better access to behind his ears.

“Really? Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude on a quiet day at the dog park.”

“It seems as though if anything, we’re intruding on you,” Calum motioned to the tablet and pen beside her and she responded with a wave of her hand, standing up to dust off her pants.

“Thinkin’ bout it now, I was very likely sitting in dog pee, wasn’t I?” She pouted, continuing to brush off the back of her pants.  Gathering her things, she slid them into her bag before turning to the pair, “We ready boys?”

The rest of Calum’s afternoon was spent exchanging stories of their pasts, and how they came to be where they were today.  He found out that she was a graphic designer, working on animation as well, and she moved to L.A. because she was offered an amazing job she couldn’t turn down.  The more he learned about her, the more infatuated he became; and when his phone went off to remind him of a time slot they had at the studio.

If Calum didn’t act now, he knew he’d miss his chance - he could sense it deep down that the universe had given him the perfect opportunity and he couldn’t waste it.

“Hey, d’you have plans for tomorrow night?” Tomorrow night? What an incredible way to sound desperate.

“I don’t actually, I was supposed to go for coffee with Andy but something came up!” She grinned, adjusting the bag on her shoulder, “Why what’s up?”

“Would you want to go out tomorrow? On a date, maybe?” Calum swallowed thickly, running his fingers through his hair, avoiding any and all eye contact with her.

“I’d love to, actually.”

Calum’s heart soared, breaking into a toothy grin that brought out the crinkles by his eyes.  She said yes, and it wasn’t just him imagining things.  He tried to prevent his hands from shaking while they exchanged phones and phone numbers, the promise of the next day hanging from their lips when they departed.

***

Calum had been pacing through his house for the last hour, the anticipation leading him to sweat through the first shirt he had picked for the night.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so nervous for something, even crowds of people watching them perform.

He could be vulnerable, he could be himself, but what if she rejected him? What if he opened a door as an insight to himself, and once he did he couldn’t close it again?

The drive to her apartment was shorter than he would have liked.  Then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been left alone with his thoughts for too much longer or he may have backed out.

Calum wanted to be a gentleman, but the whole process of buzzing up to her apartment and her waiting at her door to be picked up seemed a little awkward - so instead he waited by the passenger side door of his car, a small bouquet of wildflowers in hand.  He almost started to pace again while he waited, but then his eyes landed on her.

Her silk, navy blue dress swayed as she walked towards him, tucking her keys and phone into her purse but her eyes never left Calum’s.  He couldn’t help to notice that the dress hugged her upper half in all the best ways, flaring out to stop just above her knees.

“Hi,” She breathed, standing up on her tippy toes to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. 

A spark radiated from Calum’s cheek, causing goosebumps to raise on his skin, “You look absolutely stunning,” he spoke softly, extending the flowers to her.  “These are for you.”

The expression on her face softened ever so slightly when she saw the flowers, a smile present on her lips while she thanked him with another kiss to his cheek.  Calum opened the car door for her, assuring she was in before rounding to the other side.

Conversation flowed easily between the two, and Calum’s cheeks were beginning to ache from the amount he was smiling- he genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he ached because he was so happy.  It continued well through dinner, her even offering up a forkful to him of her meal.

Once dinner was finished, Calum paid and escorted her again out to his car, grabbing the door even though she insisted she was fine before they headed to the second part of their date.  This part was met with confusion from her, a teasing smile quirking at her lips.

“Ah, I see.  The infamous Calum Hood shows a gal a good time, and then takes her out to the beach late at night to kill her, is it?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

It wasn’t an entirely unfair assumption - the only light illuminating the road ahead was his own headlights, and those of the occasional car that would pass by.  She had guessed right about the beach, though, and Calum faked an incredulous gasp.

“How could you think I’m a murderer? I know we’ve been driving down a dark road for half an hour, but that’s irrelevant to the matter.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve sent Andy my location, in case you do choose to kill me.  At the very least he could come locate my body.” She was biting her tongue to keep from laughing, but ultimately failed and she squeezed Calum’s hand in an attempt to let him know she was kidding - but also possibly a poorly veiled attempt at wanting to hold his hand.

Thankfully, Calum took the hint and laced their fingers together, bringing their joined hands up to his lips, grazing against the back of hers.  He heard her breath stop, and he quickly glanced at her with a hint of a smile.

The rest of the drive was silent, only the faint sound of Louis Armstrong playing in the background.  The lights of their destination came into view, and Calum chewed on his lower lip while he tried to gauge her reaction.  It would be impossible to tell what it was just from a glance, but the smile that came across her face was enough for Calum.

While the sound of Louis Armstrong was now gone, the sounds of a vibrant jazz band filled her ears, and her smile went from soft to ear to ear within seconds.

“What is this, Cal?” She asked softly, reaching for his hand when he had met her at the front of the car. 

The first thought at the forefront of his mind was how he could get used to the feeling of her hand in his, but the next thought he had was that he should probably answer her question. “Well…” He began, tugging her hand gently so she could follow, “There’s this jazz band I’ve come across that plays here once a month and I love to come and watch them.  They’ve even let me play for them a handful of times.”

Her eyes scanned the people, wide with wonder as she did so.  She saw couples of all ages milling about, and much to her delight some were dancing.  You often heard about things like this, but she never could have dreamed that this beautiful man standing beside her would have taken her here.

“Wanna dance, doll?” Calum asked, looking down at her expectantly, giggling softly at how quickly her gaze snapped up to him.

He didn’t need to say anymore to her before he was dragged out to the ‘dance floor’, proceeding to sway and spin to the music.

After a few songs, they decided to take a break, sitting down at a table beside this elderly couple Calum appeared to know, excusing himself to go get you both a drink.

“You don’t see that often, do ya Ruby?” The man spoke up, clearly trying to the attention of his wife, as well as the young lady that sat beside them.

“What’s that darlin’?” The woman, Ruby, said to the man, leaning her chin onto her hand.

“Calum seems to have brought a special lady with him tonight.  Don’t think he’s ever done that before.”

Now he had her attention, turning her head to look at Ruby and her husband, chewing on her lip before she asked, “He hasn’t?”

The couple shook their head practically in unison, knowing smiles on their lips, “He must really care about you.”

It took her off guard when Calum came back, setting down waters for them.  Sipping it absentmindedly while their words echoed through her head.  If Calum truly had never brought anyone there before her, this place must have been special to him; and what lead him to want to bring her there? Her chest was warm with the implication that she, too, could be special to Calum in the same way this place was.

Not much longer later, they made their decision to leave.  She had been making her rounds, getting to know the regulars of the area, and them doing the same for her.  It didn’t take her very long to be invited back by the regulars, all of them kissing her and Calum’s cheeks before they finally departed.

Arriving back at her apartment, there was a sense of hesitation in the air, neither of them wanting their night to end.  It needed to though, if only to let the night continue on and they could venture into the future together.

“Walk me to my door?” She asked, glancing over at him with a hopeful expression in her eyes.

“It would be my pleasure,” He answered honestly, hopping out of the drivers side, quickly making his way to her side to offer his hand to her.

The nerves from earlier returned while they made the short trek upstairs to her apartment.  Calum knew before he reached the door that he wanted to kiss her, but the thought of it being the typical awkward first date kiss hurt his chest while it constricted in panic.

He could tell she was nervous too when he saw her fumble with her keys, and it made him breathe a little easier.  When they stopped in front of her door, she spun around to face him, stumbling back despite the lack of alcohol either of them drank that night.

“I had an amazing time,” She began, licking her lips when she finally met his eyes.  “I’d love to do it again sometime, if you’d like.”

“Trust me, I’d like nothing more.” Oh, so he was back to desperate, that’s good. 

“Good, good…” Her words died in her throat when Calum stepped closer to her, bringing his hand up to brush against her cheek.  Their eyes seemed to take turns glancing from their lips, back to each others eyes - a wordless request for a kiss.  It was just a matter of who would move first.

Calum couldn’t wait any longer, the anticipation enough to kill him, so he closed the gap, capturing her lips in the most breathtaking kiss she had ever received.  His lips were so gentle and soft against hers, and she couldn’t help but to tangled her fingers in the front of his shirt, desperate to have him closer.

A long moment later, they pulled apart, both slightly gasping for air and sharing breathless giggles.

“Alright, so I’ll talk to you later then?” Calum teased, his fingers still dancing along her waist, enjoying the feeling of the soft silk under his touch.

“You’d fucking better honestly.”

With that half threat, they shared one more kiss before she slipped inside, pressing her back against the door with her hand against her head.  The whole night had been a whirlwind, and it was difficult to believe that it was her real life - every series of events felt movie like, and it was the last thing she expected when she moved to the City of Angels.

Calum had begun the walk back to his car, waiting until he was fully inside before he rested his head against the steering wheel and laughing softly to himself.  He had never felt such a strong connection to anyone before, his heart was racing at the fact that maybe he had just met his soulmate.

Taking his phone out of his pocket for the first time that night, he noticed the group chat was blowing up with questions of his date, shaking his head before he sent a simple reply:

[9:54pm]: She’s perfect. I’m gonna marry her.

Once that was sent, he silenced his phone again and headed home, proceeding to write the same words down in his journal with a date, almost as a manifestation of his future.

***

Their relationship only blossomed from there - In ways they were completely inseparable, but both knew the times when to step back, letting one another have alone time, or time with their friends.

It made the boys so happy to see their best friend completely and totally in love, excited that he had met someone who matched him on different levels.  It was rare to see them argue, and when they did, it was resolved almost as quickly as an issue came up - it was almost then that everyone realized that the two really were meant to be together, knowing how much Calum despised conflict.

At the year and a half mark, Calum began to plan his proposal.  Their friends demanded to be in on it, but being in on it revealed the only thing he ever kept from his friends - the one thing that was just for them. 

In the end, it was worth showing them if it meant she said yes to him, and the promise of their future together was more set in stone.

When the day of the proposal finally arrived, Calum was a nervous wreck all day - he had to call Andy to help get her out of the house so he could panic in private.  Ashton showed up at one point in the day so someone could force him into the shower, so he’d be ready for the night.

Calum lost count of how many times he was told to relax by his friends via text, after his shower Ashton was long since gone, not wanting to be there when she got home in an attempt to not give away the surprise - as if him being there was anything out of the ordinary.

When she arrived back home, she got ready for their typical once a month Saturday night date, still seemingly unaware about what was in store for the night.  It put Calum at ease a little, to see her go through her routine of getting ready without the knowledge that he was going to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.

“Ready baby?” She asked softly, smoothing out her skirt, cocking her head to the side while she waited for an answer.

“Yeah, love, let’s go,” Calum smiled, lacing his fingers with hers as they headed out to their destination.

The familiar lights were a welcome sight to Calum, further easing his nerves for the night.  It helped knowing that everyone that was there loved them, and only wanting what was best for them.  When he wrapped his arm around her waist, she shivered slightly and curled into him.

“We gonna dance, angel?” Calum whispered, his lips lingering near her ear, leading her to the dance floor regardless.  His eyes scanned the room, not giving her much time to look around before he pulled her close to him.  

Over her head, he saw Luke getting into position behind the mic, smiling at Calum. ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ by Louis Armstrong began to play, Calum continuing to move her to the music with him until Luke began singing.

‘Stars shining bright above you

Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"

Birds singing in the sycamore trees

Dream a little dream of me…’

The moment she recognized the familiar voice, she spun around, a bright smile on her face.  She started to suspect something was up, especially considering that at any given chance, Calum would never be able to turn down playing with his best friends.  He wrapped his arms around her from behind, swaying from side to side as she watched the boys play the song. 

As it came to an end, Calum felt her take a deep breath before turning to face him, suspecting what was about to happen.

Calum took his arms from around her, rubbing his hands on his pants to wipe the sweat that was forming, taking the small box from his pocket.  “I know you can kind of guess what I’m about to say, you’re too smart for your own good - but at least I managed to keep this a surprise this far.  Anyways… Before I met you, I wasn’t quite sure that a soulmate existed out there for me.  I watched my friends pair off and meet their amazing significant others, leaving just me usually.  But then you came, and my world turned upside down.  I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I knew I had to be near you.  You simultaneously stole the air from my lungs, but breathed a new life into me I didn’t know I was capable of. I’ve become a better man because of you, and for you. So, I need to ask…” He finally got down on one knee, opening the ring box with tears in his eyes, “Will you marry me?”

She couldn’t contain the tears streaming down her cheeks any longer, nodding fervently as she dipped down to his level to kiss him, nearly knocking him over, “A million times yes. In every universe, in every lifetime, yes.”

She hadn’t realized that all their close friends and family were there, and it caused more tears to flow when she saw them.  Never in her life had she felt more loved, and it was all thanks to the beautiful boy who brought her to a jazz bar on the beach.

Despite having a lot of friends and family, they kept their wedding small.  They wanted it to be intimate and sweet, and everything about it spoke to who they were as people, and it represented their relationship perfectly.  Growing up, she never had brothers, but as she swayed with Michael to the song playing, she couldn’t resist the urge to rest her head on his shoulder and tell him how they’re all the brothers she’s always wanted.

Later in the night, the newly wedded couple decided to exchange gifts.  Hers was a set of shadow boxes, with pressed and dried flowers from their first date that she had kept for the now almost three years.  His gift to her was a simple frame, but in it was the paper he wrote after their first date.

“Baby, this isn’t the day of our first date.”

“You’re absolutely right, my love, it’s the day I realized I wanted to marry you.”

tag list: @cals-wildflower​ @talkfastromance4​ @softbabiestan​ @roseycal​ @calum-uncrowned​ @boyfriend-cal​ @wildflowerirwin​ @irwindoll​ @gosh-im-short​ @atlcalm​ @thesubtweeter​ @heavenisapeach​ @ridingcthood​ @loveroflrh​ @wokeupinjapanisabop​

[paradisobound]

World’s Greatest First Love: Chapter 10

Summary: Dan Howell wanted a clean break from his father’s publishing company. It was why he applied for a different company in London: to stop the ridicule of his coworkers for riding on his ‘daddy’s coat tails’. But he wasn’t expecting to suddenly be going from a literature editor, to a graphic novel editor. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to come face first with his first love who broke his heart from when he was a teenager: who just happens to be his new editor-in-chief.

Based on the Anime and Manga “The World’s Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera” aka Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 2.9k (this chapter)

Warnings: None

Beta Read by: @phanandpenguins

Updates Every Tuesday 12pm EST and Saturday at 1pm EST

READ ON AO3

Returning back from the Isle of Man almost felt as if the entire trip never happened. Dan didn’t figure that it would warrant such a dramatic change in his life but he really felt like sleeping with Phil might have been a turning point. Except, it definitely wasn’t.

He goes back to Onyx for his shift the following day and naturally, he’s not shocked to see a mound of paperwork at his desk that was either faxed to him or given to him from the printers or sales department.

Dan finds two new manuscripts, both for different authors, a form for the second printing of his book, and a few other miscellaneous forms and papers that he has no idea what they are from first glance. He lets out a sigh and plops down in his seat, rubbing his hands in his hair.

They always say going back to work after a vacation was difficult, and Dan is definitely not in disagreement with that at all.

He fishes his laptop out of his bag and opens it up to begin working on unread emails and other various things now that he has a ton of work to do. He buckles down and focuses in, trying to get as much done as possible.

It’s only an hour into his shift when his cell phone begins to ring out of his coat that’s draped over his chair. He reaches behind him and goes to grab it to see who it is. Maybe it’s an author of his? That’s got to be it.

But when he pulls his phone out of his pocket, the name “Annie” appears on his screen with a picture of her and he feels a bit sick.

Should he answer it or should he leave it? He looks around the room quickly as if he’s looking for an out for the situation. But the sound of his ringtone is annoying him and surely everyone else so he quickly hits answer and puts the phone up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“You didn’t answer my call the other day.”

The airiness of her voice still catches Dan off guard.

He quickly stands up from his chair and rushes out of the office towards the breakroom. He steps inside and is glad to see no one else is in there. He takes a seat on one of the couches.

“I wasn’t expecting you to ever call again,” Dan says truthfully.

“I’m back from Italy,” Annie says. “I want to see you again.”

There is a pause because Dan doesn’t know what to tell her anymore. Back when they were together, he could have any conversation with her without an issue. But she left for Italy when they were on bad terms and Dan considered the relationship ended at that point, he figured she did too.

But something is nagging in the back of his head that she was still thinking otherwise.

“I stopped by your dad’s company but they said that you left and were working somewhere else,” Annie says, her voice cutting through his thoughts.

“Oh, yeah. I switched companies a few months ago,” Dan says, his words a bit clipped, a bit short.

“Where do you work now?” Annie says, a bit out of breath and that’s when Dan can hear the sound of the busy London streets in the background.

“Are...are you walking?” Dan asks.

“Yeah, I’m going to come and see you, is that an issue?”

“Yes!” Dan cries out. “You can’t come and visit me at my job, Annie.”

He can almost hear her stop in her tracks as she processes what he just said. She huffs and then lets out a sigh.

“Do you still live in the same flat at least?” She asks, sounding exasperated.

“No.”

“So you’ve literally like...left everything behind then.”

Dan leans back on the couch and rubs his hand over his face.

“So you’re not even going to give me your new address then?” Annie asks. “Dan, you’re my fiance, I need to know where you are.”

“Annie…”

“Look, okay. I know the details got a bit stretched as time passed between us but we can meet up later and talk about this all.”

Dan sighs because he knows that she is right. He agrees eventually and then ends the call just as the door to the breakroom opens and Phil walks inside, a couple pound coins in his hand. He walks over to the vending machine and without making eye-contact with Dan, says, “There is a strict company policy that we use our cell phones for work related conversations when we’re on the clock. So no more private calls during your shift or else we’re both going to get into trouble.”

“How did you know it wasn’t work related?” Dan asks, because he doesn’t particularly like the idea of Phil eavesdropping on his conversation. No matter how many lines or boundaries they may have crossed.

“If it was work related, you wouldn’t have rushed out of the office so no one else could hear you,” Phil says, grabbing whatever he got out of the machine and walking back out of the room.

Dan has no idea what any of that was, but it leaves a bittersweet taste in his mouth.

***

Phil gets on the tube right after Dan has a seat on one of the empty benches. He rushes on and Dan sees the sigh of relief that comes out of Phil’s chest when the doors close narrowly behind him and the train starts and barrels forward. He walks forward and takes the empty seat next to Dan.

“Didn’t think I was going to make the last train,” Phil says, completely out of breath.

“They normally hold the final train for a bit longer.”

Phil stares at him and laughs and shakes his head. Dan’s not sure why.

Then he sees the bag Phil is holding in his hands and notices there is something in it. Phil picks it up and holds it up to Dan, “Come over to mine for a few drinks to unwind after the long day.”

“I can’t tonight,” Dan says, because he knows Annie is waiting for him at his flat. Even though he told her not to wait for him, he knows that she is.

“Why not?” Phil asks.

“I...I’m tired.”

“Exactly why we should unwind,” Phil presses, scooting closer to Dan.

The train suddenly slows to a hard stop and the passengers get thrown around as the lights flicker off and murmurs begin to be whispered between everyone. Dan feels his heartbeat pick up speed and he turns to Phil.

Phil looks at him and just as Dan opens his mouth to ask what Phil thinks happened, but Phil leans forward and presses their lips together. Dan has half a mind to protest and push back because they’re on a public train but Phil pulls away not long after initiating it.

Dan just stares at him and then the lights flicker back on and Dan feels a sense of comfort in his chest. He finds himself leaning over and resting his head on Phil’s shoulder, taking a deep breath and letting it go through his nose.

It’s just a few more stops until their own and when they get off, they walk together down the street. It’s so late that most of the area is void of people except for a few stragglers. Their shoulders are bumping against each other and Dan doesn’t think Phil’s ever walked this close to him before. There is something cozy about it.

Just as he thinks that, Phil’s hand comes into contact with his own and they connect, palm to palm. Dan can feel how warm Phil’s hand is against his own and he blushes as he looks down and sees their hands swinging, intertwined.

He knows that they shouldn’t be holding hands in public, but it’s night and no one is around so he figures that it really can’t hurt them.

They walk all the way to their apartment building like that, and just as soon as they reach the door, Dan sees her, standing outside with a cigarette in between her fingers, the smoke coiling through the night air.

He drops Phil’s hand like it just hurt him and he stops in his tracks, “Annie?”

He knows that she was supposed to be meeting up with him here but the shock still sets in seeing her. It’s been nearly a year since they last saw each other. He hates to admit it, but he actually had forgotten mostly what she looked like.

So to see her standing there, her shoulder length hair sitting behind her ears and her button down shirt tucked into her black jeans with a long peacoat covering her arms, Dan feels like he’s seeing a stranger in his view.

“Where have you been? Thought you said you got out of work around 9?” She says.

Dan is well aware that it’s past nine, but he couldn’t help that. Some days he has to stay later to get his work done and today is definitely one of those days since it was the day back from holiday.

“I do but I had to stay later,” He says, walking up to her, leaving Phil standing behind him.

Phil follows him and is suddenly standing behind him. Annie motions to Phil and Dan turns and quickly introduces him, “Oh, Annie, this is Phil. Phil, this is Annie.”

Phil reaches his hand out to shake it and says a quick nice to meet you before he turns to Dan and says that he’s heading inside.

Dan doesn’t say anything else, he just smiles and nods and watches as Phil walks away. He turns back to Annie and she’s staring at him, tapping off the ash from the end of her cigarette.

“Who is that?” She asks.

“I already introduced you,” Dan says, rolling his eyes.

She lifts the cigarette to her mouth and Dan notices that she’s wearing the thin band that he gave her. His heart sinks a bit further down into his stomach.

She rolls her eyes, “Don’t get cheeky with me, Howell. That’s not what I asked. Why were you holding hands with him?”

Dan doesn’t know what to say to her because he doesn’t fully have an answer. He and Phil haven’t spoken to each other about what their relationship actually was.

Annie shakes her head, “Nevermind. I brought you a gift.”

“A gift?”

Annie nods and then throws her cigarette on the ground and stomps it out with her foot. She digs into the bag on her shoulder and pulls out a small box and hands it to him.

“New Year's gift,” She says with a smile.

Dan thanks her and then it goes silent between them again. He’s not sure what else he can say. He honestly thought he was never going to see her again.

“You know,” Dan says, deciding to rip the plaster off. “We’re not engaged anymore.”

Annie looks at him and gives him a sad smile, “I know, Howell. But a girl can dream that she didn’t fuck everything up, right?” She lets out a cough and straightens herself up a bit. “I know you’re in love with someone else,” She says. “It’s okay, mate. Didn’t expect you to take me back after all of this...just...kind of hoped maybe you would.”

“It’s not...I’m sorry, Annie.”

She nods her head and flashes him another smile before she says, “I need to go. I’ve called a cab and they’re probably wondering where I am.”

She barreled past him and he watched as she walked away. He felt a weight lift from his chest, but then another one settled. He looked up towards the top of the building and saw the light of Phil’s flat glow through the curtains. He takes a deep breath and steps into the building, making his way up.

He knocks on Phil’s door, waiting for Phil to open it up. But no one comes. Dan stands puzzled on the other side, waiting longer for someone to come but it’s clear no one is. Did Phil fall asleep?

He knocks again and this time, he hears footsteps coming and the door opens. Phil stands on the other side, staring at him.

“Hi,” Dan says. “Still open for some drinking?”

Phil lets out a small breath and then says, “I don’t know, Dan…”

Dan swallows down the lump in his throat and bites his lip, “Then let me at least explain who she is.”

“She’s your girlfriend,” Phil says with no hesitation. “I get why you were so hesitant about doing anything with me now.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Dan says. “Please, let me explain.”

Phil steps aside and opens the door wider and Dan walks in, leaving his shoes behind next to Phil’s on the rug beside the door. They make their way into Phil’s living room and they sit down.

“She was my fiance,” Dan says, needing to just get everything all out into the open now. “We met when we were in America. She was in the same class as me and we hit it off. When I moved back to the UK, she moved here too to go to university in Scotland. We decided to date because I thought why not. I was still getting over you and everyone told me that I needed to get myself out there again, so I went for it.”

Dan looks up from his hands to see Phil staring at him, stone faced. Dan can’t read how he’s feeling but he can see that he’s listening and that’s enough for him to continue.

“We were never the most compatible couple. She was way more outgoing than me and so we found the balance to be really hard and we separated for a long time,” He pauses to gather his thoughts. “We reconnected a few years later and got back together and for some reason, my mind told me that she was going to be the only person I could potentially love again...after you. So I proposed and she accepted.”

“Why did you propose to someone if you didn’t want to be with them?” Phil asks and Dan looks at him.

“I don’t know,” Dan says. “Truthfully, I really do not know.”

“That’s a bit daft, don’t you think?”

Dan shakes his head and ignores Phil to get the rest of his story out.

“One day, we got into an argument and I called off the engagement. But she didn’t think I was actually calling it off but I was. We argued more and then I woke up one morning and she was gone. All I had was a text telling me she was leaving to go and find herself. I found out two weeks later she was in Capri...in Italy.”

Phil crosses his arms over his chest and sits quiet for a moment and so Dan adds, “This was the first time I’ve seen her since she’s left.”

Phil lets out a scoff and Dan feels his cheeks heat up in anger.

“Wha--”

“You’re so dense you don’t even see the irony in this entire situation,” Phil says. “Who does she sound like, Dan?”

Dan sits in silence, collecting his thoughts as he realizes...Annie was exactly like him. He did the exact same thing...but to Phil. He looks up and opens and closes his mouth a few times.

Phil just shakes his head and stands up, walking away from the couch. Dan finds himself going after him, he pushes off, and bounds forward, grabbing Phil’s arm, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see Damien.”

The color drains from Dan’s face as he lets go of Phil’s arm, “Why?”

“Because Damien asked me to come over for drinks and I am.”

Phil walks further towards the door and Dan chases after him again. When Phil begins to slip his foot into his shoe, Dan reaches for his arm again, “Don’t…” Phil spins around and comes face to face with Dan and Dan finds himself pleading, “Don’t go to Damien. Please, Phil…”

“Dan...you had a fiance and I never even knew about it.”

“I didn’t love her,” Dan says, and he knows the words hurt. He shouldn’t be saying them but they slip out. “I didn’t love her because I’ve only loved one person in my life.”

Their eyes meet and Dan feels his eyesight blur as tears come to the waterline and he struggles to hold them back. Phil reaches up and puts his hand on Dan’s cheek, stroking the skin with his thumb.

Phil leans in and connects their lips and Dan reaches up, putting his arms around Phil’s neck for stability. He melts into the kiss, letting himself cling to Phil as he struggles to hold back his emotions.

Phil pulls back and looks Dan in the eyes as Dan sinks into seas of blue, “I want to know everything about you from the last ten years,” He says, his voice soft. “Don’t leave anything out. I want to know everything.”

Dan nods and connects their lips again as he whispers, “okay.”

As they make their way into the bedroom, and fall onto Phil’s bed, Dan lays beneath him. He keeps his hands as steady as they can be on Phil’s jaw, holding them both grounded. Their kisses are fevered and Dan can feel Phil undoing the button of his pants, opening them up to the cool air of the room.

Phil breaks the kiss, leaning down to kiss and suck at Dan’s neck. Dan closes his eyes and lets out a moan. No one will ever have this effect on him, only Phil.

And one day, he might even admit that to Phil.

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

[damienthepious]

... i bullied the lizzer on his Kiss Day..... i am terribly sorry D:

Serpent On A Bed Of Leaves

[ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Established Relationship, Nightmares, Blood, non-graphic injury, Hurt/Comfort, (tho... the one physically hurt... is the one comforting)

Summary: Arum has a nightmare. Somehow, waking from it proves to be even more distressing.

Notes: *shrugs loudly and pushes this fic out of my head and onto y'all instead* i don't even know. i'm sorry i keep bullying my baby lizzer. please enjoy regardless? Title from the song Wild Roses by Of Monsters and Men.

~

There is blood on Arum’s knives. Blood on his claws, too, hot and wet and dark, dripping between his fingers and down his wrists, sticky and slick and running in rivulets between his scales all the way down his arms to drip from his elbows.

The blood is not his own; he knows that without needing to think. He is whole. Unharmed. The blood belongs to-

He knows who the blood belongs to.

There is a pressure on his chest. Breathing feels sluggish and strange, as does any attempt to move.

He can taste blood between his teeth, too. Metallic and wrong. He should spit, or retch, but he doesn’t.

Arum does not want to look down. He knows. He knows, if he looks down. He knows what he will see. Knows deep in his bones the terrible thing he has done, knows and does not want to see-

He does not want to look. His head angles down, as if his eyes are magnetized, as if gravity is weighing on the tip of his snout and pushing it inevitably towards the ground. He does not want to look, but his eyes fall regardless.

Their eyes look somewhere past him, glassy and dull. Their chests remain obstinately still. He cannot hear their hearts. And the blood- enough blood to pool around his feet, so much, too much, the smell like a butchery in high summer and the matching red-black on his arms is going tacky and stiff and he wants to run or howl or fight but his legs are stiff and immobile, his fingers will not release the knives in his hands.

He killed them.

(-hunting Damien through the night, through vines and branches, stalking and taunting and then dropping, knives drawn-)

He killed them.

(-snarls and she recoils, gasping, panting, wide-eyed and blind in the dark, and with teeth bared he laughs darkly at her fear-)

Arum killed them, tore them apart with claws and knives and teeth, because he is a monster, and this is what monsters do to humans, even when those humans love him. Even when he loves them in return. It is not enough, it was never going to be enough-

Arum’s love was never going to be enough to protect them.

Hands on his shoulder. On his face.

He snarls, whirling, bloody claws raised in defense now, in anguish and fury, and he realizes halfway through the motion that he is-

He is waking up, and he recognizes too late where he is and he can’t stop his momentum. His claws connect, scraping two fresh red lines across Damien’s palm, and the sight of his blood hits Arum like ice.

He can’t breathe at all, for a moment, and Damien makes a small surprised noise as he cups his hand against his chest, his eyes wide as they rise to meet Arum’s own.

“I-” Arum’s voice is too rough, more snarl than word, and he needs to try a second time. “I- h-honeysuckle-”

Damien’s brow furrows in confusion as he squeezes his palm in his other hand, and Amaryllis is rolling over, waking more slowly, and Arum remembers the cold blankness of their eyes in his dream, and with the scent of fresh blood on the air Arum feels dizzy, feels like there is a hand squeezing his windpipe completely closed, and as Amaryllis blinks and mutters confusion, Arum scrambles backwards out of the bed entirely, and bolts from the room.

Damien calls after him. That makes him feel even more sick.

The Keep gives him half a greeting before it notices his distress, and when he gives a choked off request the Keep opens a door to a dark, quiet room among its roots, somewhere he can hide in close, cool darkness, where he can plunge his hand into one of the underground streams the Keep feeds from, where he can wash the blood from his claws and shake, and shake, and shake.

The Keep grows him a patch of large pale leaves of something like lamb’s ear, but Arum can’t stand them, can’t stand the softness, and he crouches in the corner instead. By the stream, where he can wash his hands again. No redness remains, but the memory- he washes his claws again, again, just to be sure, watching the water pass by, clear and somehow unmarred by his touch.

A portal opens at his back, and the humans step out.

A snarl rumbles up in Arum’s throat because how dare the Keep bring them here- but that isn’t fair, is it? He’s told it to honor Damien and Amaryllis’ requests, and if they are here now, they must have asked. They must have wanted to be brought to where Arum hid.

He’s surprised, mostly, that they would bother to come bid him farewell before they leave him. That’s what they must be here for, he thinks dizzily. Damien must want last words. It’s always about words, with him.

Arum stuffs down the revulsion he feels with himself, stuffs down his guilt, and stands, though his shoulders are hunched and he cannot stop his tail from lashing anxiously behind him. They deserve to rebuke him when he isn’t cowering in some hole like the miserable creature he is, they deserve for him to look them in the eye when they tell him-

Damien’s injury is already bandaged. The new white stripe around his hand looks unspeakably clean down here, among roots and dirt and mud. His expression, though, isn’t what Arum expects. Neither of them are. Amaryllis looks concerned, tired, wary, but not furious as he expected, and Damien does not look disgusted or betrayed or filled with that cool fury Arum saw in him beneath the Terminus. He looks worried, looks- scared, perhaps.

And why wouldn’t he be? Arum thinks, his throat going tight and unbreathable again. He is with a monster, a monster who he knows now will hurt him. Fear is a rather natural response to danger, and you have proven yourself dangerous to them.

Arum steps back, slowly, until his back hits a dirt wall and there is no further room to put between himself and the humans, and he waits. He does not trust himself to speak first.

There is a long, unwieldy sort of pause, and then Damien’s scared expression cracks open and he speaks.

“Are you alright?”

Arum blinks, clenches his jaw together, narrows his eyes in confusion.

“Arum.” Damien’s body sways towards him, but he doesn’t take a step. He raises his hands between them, reaching, like he’s trying to coax a skittish horse. “Please, are you alright? My lily, you’re frightening me-”

“Am-” Arum’s voice rattles almost too much to be understood, his distress too wild to coalesce to reason. “Am I alright? Ho- Sir Damien, I- why- what could that possibly matter?”

“Wh- what does that matter?” Damien looks astonished. “Of course it matters, love, you were caught in the throes of some terrible dream and then when you awoke-”

“When I awoke I tore your hand open,” Arum says roughly. “I hurt you and I- whatever state I am in is of no concern whatsoever.”

“Of course it is,” Damien says, brow furrowing.

“He doesn’t look hurt,” Amaryllis chimes from behind Damien, her hand gentle at his elbow.

“Of course I’m n- how would I even have-? And- and it doesn’t matter regardless, because-”

“Because you cut Damien by accident and now you think you deserve some hurt of your own?” Amaryllis snorts a laugh. “C’mon, Arum, I understand that you feel bad about this but of course Damien and I are worried about you. We love you.”

Like a blow to the gut. “I hurt him,” Arum whispers. “I could have hurt him much more direly. Could have hurt either of you.”

“Arum, you’re so afraid of hurting us that you look like you’re trying to join the local root structure to avoid it,” Amaryllis says wryly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I love you. I’m not afraid of you. I stopped being afraid of you the first hour I knew you.”

Another time, Arum would probably scowl about that. Right now, he’s too focused on his breathing, focused on digging his claws safely in the dirt behind him to have room to feel insulted.

“You won’t hurt us,” Damien says. “It was an accident. I shouldn’t have tried to wake you like that, I-” he laughs - laughs - and gives an embarrassed sort of smile. “I forgot about your claws, somehow. I was too worried about pulling you from whatever dream was distressing you so, and I forgot to mind your sharper edges.”

Arum winces, feeling as if all of his edges are too sharp, in fact. “No excuse for harming you, Sir Damien. You have every right to- to leave, and-”

“Leave? Whoever said a word about leaving?”

Arum pauses, then chokes out, “I hurt you. I clawed you open, Sir Damien, you have every right- every right to remove yourself from a monster who would harm you.”

“A monster who would…” Damien’s voice goes warbling and high, and then he laughs again in a confused, slightly breathless way. “Oh, love, you would never hurt me on purpose. Never. You are always so terribly careful with us-”

“And yet,” Arum snarls, “here we are, and regardless of intent I have injured you, and- and I could have done much worse if I had struck somewhere other than your hand. I could have sliced your wrist, I could have slit your throat, I could have-”

“Arum, you didn’t.” Damien takes a half-step towards him and Arum tenses.

“I’m getting the feeling that this is about more than just Damien’s hand,” Amaryllis says. “Seriously, that was barely a scratch. Something else is going on.”

Arum’s eyes flick away, look anywhere else in the room besides at the herbalist.

Damien steps closer, though, and Arum can’t help the way he flinches. “D-don’t, Sir Damien. I- just leave and-”

“I am not going to leave you,” Damien says, quiet and firm, and Arum feels a strange mingled swelling of relief and disbelief as the knight steps slowly closer. “Please, Arum. This is hardly the worst of trials we have endured. A sleepless night, the mildest of injury, a bit of worry… darling, we have endured worse by far.”

“S-stop,” Arum says, shaking his head and digging his claws more firmly into the roots behind him, burying them in gnarled wood. “I don’t- I don’t want to-”

Damien pauses, only a foot or so away now. “You won’t hurt me,” he says, voice so soft that it might as well be spiderweb. He takes the last step forward, and Arum stiffens with his back to the wall, clenches his teeth together and closes his eyes, and then he feels Damien’s familiar hands cup his face, his thumbs stroking Arum’s cheeks with unwavering gentleness, and Arum’s breath hitches, a helpless noise escaping him before he can stop it. “You won’t hurt me,” Damien says again, even softer. “Oh, my precious lily, I know you would never.”

“Sir Damien-”

“I’m not angry,” Damien says. “I’m not frightened. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” He leans up, Arum can feel him shift even with his eyes still closed, and he brushes his lips over Arum’s mouth, just gentle.

“Damien-”

“You need not stop yourself from calling me honeysuckle, my lily,” Damien says, and Arum blinks his eyes back open with an embarrassed wince, only to find Damien looking up at him with soft, indulgent, adoring eyes. “You know I love to hear such sweetness from you.”

“I- I-” Arum crumples, tucking his face into the crook of Damien’s neck, wrapping his arms around him while still keeping his claws carefully, carefully away. “I am s-so sorry, honeysuckle, I cannot begin to say-”

“It was an accident,” Damien says again. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. And the best physician in the land has declared the injury inconsequential, and I can assure you I trust her judgment implicitly.”

Arum chokes a laugh, clinging stiffly to the poet. “Still. Still. You should be safe with me, and yet-”

“We are,” Amaryllis says, coming closer. “Never safer. Just like you’re safe with us. We protect each other and take care of each other, Arum.” She steps behind Damien, and she places her hand over Arum’s, warm and gentle. “Which is why you should tell us what else is wrong, because we’ve known you long enough to know that panicking like that really isn’t like you.”

“I… I know,” Arum says, and Damien’s fingers are sketching soothing circles and patterns down the scales of his back. “I know. I- I was- I was- hurting you, honeysuckle, it- it terrified me.”

“An accident, Arum,” Rilla says softly. “I mean, with my habit of waking up elbows swinging, I’m way more guilty of inflicting nighttime injury than either of you-”

“I dreamed I killed you,” Arum rasps, only barely keeping himself from pulling away from Damien as the horror rushes back through him. “Killed you both. Dreamed you dead, dead by my hand, and then woke to live it in faded echo and I-”

“Oh Arum,” Damien breathes, squeezing him tighter in his arms. “I’m so sorry, love. Is this- is that a nightmare you have often?”

“N… no,” Arum sighs. “Dreams are a rare occurrence altogether for me, and nightmares are rarer still.”

“That’s quite a relief,” Damien says with a smile, leaning back so he can catch Arum’s eye, so he can cup his face in his hands again. “It is a cruelty to be tormented by your own mind, and I cannot stand the thought of you suffering so, my lily. You would never hurt us. Clearly so, as the very idea caused you to flee from us rather than leave us in what you perceived as danger. Your sleeping mind presented you with something it knew you feared, which is all the more proof that you want us to be safe, want us hale and whole.”

Damien leans up, kisses him again, and Arum sighs in soft delight, and then Damien’s hands and Amaryllis’s hands are both easing him away from the wall, pressing him snugly between their small, warm bodies.

“Honestly, Arum, thinking we’d just leave-”

Arum growls, nuzzling his snout into Amaryllis’ ear. “Wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously. Should have kept in mind your ridiculous stubbornness.”

“We love you, dear lily,” Damien trills, and Arum’s swallows against the way that makes his heart leap. “It is not stubbornness. It is devotion, and our devotion shall not wane with a mishap so easily mended as this.”

Arum shudders out another sigh. “It still- concerns me,” he admits. “I could still hurt either of you. And- and every moment you are with me is a danger, as well. Another way that my presence in your lives could put you to harm. Aligning yourself with a monster, if anyone were to discover-”

“We all knew the risks when we decided to try this,” Amaryllis says evenly, “and you’re in just as much danger on your side if anything got out. But being together is worth a little risk, Arum.” She smiles, and then she taps the tip of his nose to make him wrinkle his snout. “Being with you is worth a lot. Isn’t it?”

Arum’s breath escapes him in a rush, and he stares down at his two radiant humans, at Amaryllis’ sly, comforting smirk, at Damien’s shy and hopeful smile, and his body thrums with a love so sharp it feels like it could kill him. He clutches them tighter, and his voice goes rough and rattling when he answers, “Worth anything. How- how dear you are to me… the privilege of loving you is worth anything in the world.”

And Arum will do his best to deserve that privilege. Because they are worth anything, worth care and caution, worth protecting. Arum may still be scared- scared of hurting them, scared of being responsible for their harm, but Arum also knows how to turn his claws towards protection, knows how to transmute his fears into defenses. Arum is dangerous; this is true, but he will use his sharpness to keep them safe.

He loves them too much to do anything else.

[woo-san-shine]

Our Way

ateez college au

Premise: You and your best friend from high school move away to a university 3 hours away from your small hometown. You find yourself meeting a strange cast of characters along the way that will help you find your way throughout your freshman year.    

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Slight swearing 

Author’s Note: A work in progress!!! Mostly just for fun.  Kind of a filler chapter, sorry if it’s boring 

prev // next 

Chapter 7 

A dull buzzing sound awakens me from my deep sleep.  I feel around for my phone in the darkness.  The clock reads 7:30 am.   I wanted to make sure to give myself plenty of time to shower and get ready due to the fact that I was way too tired to do anything last night after we had gotten back from 'the cleanse'.  I see that I have some new messages.

As we were walking back from the fountain last night Hongjoong had noticed me yawning and insisted on making sure I was awake in time for our first class by giving me his number.

I pull up a picture of my class schedule and glance through it for probably the hundredth time.

Intro to Drawing- Monday Wednesday Friday 9 am - 10:30 am

Freshman English- Monday Wednesday Friday 12 pm - 1:30 pm

Art History- Tuesday Thursday 10 am - 12 pm

Foundations in 2D and 3D Design-  Tuesday Thursday  12:30 - 2:30

Computer Graphic Applications- Wednesday 6 pm - 9 pm

I was pretty pleased with how my schedule had turned out, except for that one night class on Wednesdays that I was already dreading.  

I quietly climb down from my bed, grab all of my shower supplies, and head to the bathroom.  Sooyoung classes all started after mine did, so I would have to get used to either getting ready in the bathroom or in the total darkness of our room.

After a nice hot shower, I get dressed and apply some light makeup.  I am wearing one of my favorite oversized vintage band t-shirts that I tie in a knot at the hem, another pair of high-waisted shorts, and some worn-out converse.  If I was a character in a video game, this would be the outfit that my character would always be wearing.  I pack everything I need for the day in my backpack, grab my travel mug full of coffee I had just made, and make my way down to the lobby to meet Hongjoong.

When the elevator door opens I see him sitting on one of the couches looking at his phone.  When he sees me coming, he immediately starts waving eagerly.

"How do you already have this much energy?" I ask as I walk over to him.

"Ah, I'm the type of person who doesn't need a lot of sleep to function," he replies, getting up from the couch.

"I brought you this," I say to him, pulling my hand from behind my back to reveal an extra muffin that I had grabbed from my stash in my dorm.

He places a hand to his heart. "Really? For me?"

"Yeah, as a thanks for making sure I was awake," I say.

Hongjoong smiles and takes the muffin as we exit the dorm and start walking towards the College of Arts building. He starts telling me about how he has three other classes today, not including the one we're heading to now.

"Damn, you're going to be busy," I say, impressed at his schedule load.

"I like being busy! Keeps my mind occupied."

There are already a lot of students walking around campus even though it's still pretty early. There's a buzz of excited chatter in the air.

"Are you nervous?" He asks me.

"Honestly, a little bit," I say after a sip of coffee. "I just don't know what to expect, ya know?"

"Yeah, I just wonder what that class will be like."

The Arts building is very distinguishable amongst other others due to it being the only building on campus that had a full mural painted on the front. We walk in and after consulting some signs, we walk in the direction of the classroom. There is artwork everywhere; paintings on the wall, statues, displays, visual screens, anything that you could think of. Even the students looked like works of art.

Once we arrive at the designated room, Hongjoong pokes his head in through the doorway and then motions for me to follow him inside. The room itself has a very sleek, industrial look to it with high ceilings and exposed brick. There are long tables with four chairs at each scattered around the room. At one of the tables towards the middle of the room sits Yeosang.

"Mind if we join you?" Hongjoong teases as he makes his way over to Yeosang.

"Hey Joong, Jaemin," he nods to both of us.

We join him at the table, Hongjoong next to him and me next to Hongjoong. The room starts to fill up with more and more students, some looking nervous, others looking downright terrified.

"You would think everyone just walked into the gallows or something," I say to the pair as I glance around the room.

"Apparently this professor is pretty tough," Yeosang says to me.

"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" A voice says from behind me.

I turn to see a small girl with short hair and glasses nervously standing next to the open seat next to me.

"No, please, have a seat," I say nodding to the chair.

She looks grateful and she sets her bag down and takes a seat.

"I'm Jaemin, and this is Hongjoong and Yeosang," I say to the girl while I point to each of the boys. Hongjoong excitedly waves and Yeosang nods.

She smiles. "Chaewon, nice to meet you."

"What are you studying?" I ask her, trying to make polite conversation.

"Fine Arts, for now. I'm hoping to find my specialty soon and then focus on that."

Before we can talk further, a tall woman wearing long, billowing clothes enters the room and strides toward the front of the class. Her jet black hair is pulled up into a tight bun and she is wearing a lot of ornate jewelry. She stops at the front of the class and surveys the room.

"Class, my name is Ms. Lee, and I will be your Intro to Drawing professor this semester." She says all this with a very low, stern tone. "I only have a few rules in this classroom. One, you must arrive for class on time and bring all of your supplies every day. Two, no loud voices. And three,” she pauses, survey the room. “No food or drink on the drawing tables."

It's a few seconds before I realize that Ms. Lee is staring directly at our table. I glance at Hongjoong's half-eaten muffin that I had given him sitting in front of him and then at my coffee mug in front of me.

"Oh I'm so sorry," Hongjoong says hurriedly as he grabs the muffin off the table.

I quickly grab my mug and try and stuff it into the side pocket of my bookbag. At a surprising speed, Ms. Lee grabs the trash can that was sitting next to her desk, walks over to our table, and hold it in front of Hongjoong. He tosses the half-eaten muffin inside. Then she holds it in front of me.

I stare up her, a little dumbstruck. I start to unscrew the lid of my mug to dump out my coffee into the trash can.

"Nope, the whole thing," she says, nodding toward my mug. She pushes the trash can closer to me.

"What?" I can hear Hongjoong whisper.

I can feel the entire classroom looking at me. Hongjoong looks like he's going to start yelling and Chaewon looks like she could start crying. I sadly drop my mug into the trash can and stare down at the table. She turns away and heads back up to the front of the room, setting the trash can next to her desk.

"For your first assignment, you will be drawing portraits of the person sitting next to you. Realistic, pencil only, to be turned in on Wednesday." With this, she takes a seat at her desk, pulls out a book, and starts reading.

The class stares around aimlessly for a few minutes. Ms. Lee looks up from her book.

"Well, you better get working," she says with her eyebrows raised.

The class immediately starts pulling out sketchbooks and pencils.

"What the hell just happened?" Hongjoong whispers to the table.

"I'm kinda scared," Chaewon said nervously.

"We can talk after class," Yeosang whispered to us. "We should probably get working." He swivels in his seat to intently stare at Hongjoong and begins sketching.

"Are you okay, Jaemin?" Hongjoong asks me.

I was silently fiddling with my pencils. "Yeah, I'm fine." I turn to Chaewon. "Do you mind if I draw you?"

"Oh, of course not!" she says eagerly.

We spend the remainder of the class doing rough sketches of each other's faces. The second the clock strikes 10:30, Ms. Lee gets up from her desk. She glances around the classroom one more time, pausing at our table. Leaning over she grabs the trash bag containing my mug and Hongjoon's half-eaten muffing and strides out of the room.

“Well, there goes my mug,” I say while staring at the doorway Ms. Lee had just walked out of.

"I guess that means the class is over," Chaewon says looking around the room.

"Class, right." Hongjoong huffs. "She didn't even teach anything! No guidelines on how she wants these portraits done? She sat up there on her ass the whole time reading that goddamn book. And then that whole stunt with your mug, Jae! What was that about?"

"I did some research on some of the professor here," Yeosang says, interrupting Hongjoong's ranting. "Apparently she pulls stuff like this every year to try and intimidate students. No one knows why."

"I guess I just happened to be the unlucky target this year," I say.

"I didn't even get to finish my muffin!" Hongjoong is basically yelling at this point.

"If you're so hungry, let's go get some lunch," Yeosang says, pulling Hongjoong towards the door.

"Do you want to come with us?" I ask Chaewon.

"Really?" she says.

"Yeah," Hongjoong adds. "We're table friends now."

She giggles, and the four of us leave the classroom and head towards the nearest dining hall.

...

After lunch, I bid Hongjoong, Chaewon, and Yeosang goodbye and walk in the direction of my next class. I secretly pray that it goes better than the trainwreck that was this morning.

Campus is much busier now that it is almost noon. Students are everywhere, and I fall into the natural flow of traffic as we all make our way to our various destinations. My English class is located in one of the oldest buildings on campus. The inside looks like something straight out of a classic 80s college movie. It was a drastic change from the modern feeling the Arts building had. I walk into the classroom and am pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face.

"Fancy seeing you here," I say to Mingi, who immediately looks up from his phone as I approach his desk.

"Jaemin?! What are you doing here?" He looks happy to see me.

"I'm in this class," I say a little jokingly

"Oh, yeah I guess that would make sense," He says while running his hand through his hair. "Here, take a seat," he says while patting the desk next to him.

"What are the odds that would actually have a class together?" I ask him as a set down my bag and take a seat.

"Honestly, way too large to calculate right now. My brain is already fried from my class this morning," he says, rubbing his temples.

"Oh, how was it?"

"It was alright, I'm already just a little overwhelmed."

"Tell me about it, at least one of your professors isn't out to get you."

"Seriously?"

I tell him the whole story about Ms. Lee and the coffee mug.

"You're kidding," he says after I finish.

"Nope. RIP to one of my favorite mugs."

"That really sucks though, like she was way out of line as a professor."

"I guess.." I pause. "Did you have a class with Sooyoung already? She was still asleep when I left this morning."

"Oh yeah," Mingi says, fidgeting in his seat a little. I could tell even just the mention of Sooyoung's name made him blush. It was really cute. "This is the only class I actually don't have with her."

"Well, I guess you have to settle for me then," I joke.

He laughs a little. "Oh psssh I like you too, Jae."

This class did go much smoother than Intro to Drawing had. The professor seemed nice and normal, the workload seemed manageable, and I had Mingi there to keep me entertained me the whole time. Even though I had basically spent the last two days with him, I hadn't really talked to him personally since he was preoccupied with Sooyoung most of the time. He's actually a really goofy guy.  He kept imitating the professor in different accents under his breath while I had to stifle my laughter multiple times.

As Mingi and I exit the building and walk towards our dorm, I can't help but be thankful that he was there to cheer me up.  

prev // next 

[sheisbornadreamer]

Blend in, chapter six

Disclaimer: Sex without consent is bad. 'Nuff said. This is fiction, not sex-ed

Warnings: graphic male on male content

Chapter six

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"No one needs to know"

There was a short silence. Yamato continued to stare at the floor, not daring to look up. Tai was till sitting so close, if he would just look his way once he might do something. If he did, Yamato would have to stop him for the third time and that just sounded so hard he didn't want to risk it.

-'-

He's freezing. There are goose-bumps all over his arms, legs and chest. He throws the window yet another look, noting for the tenth time that it's still closed. He's sweating, that's what's making him shiver from cold. At the same time he's burning hot. The sheets are moist from sweat and the cover is already ripped off in annoyance. It's lying in a pile on the floor beside his bed. He closes his eyes again and continues stroking himself, letting no noise whatsoever out through his close-bitten teeth. All the words, motions and noises are flashing through his head, letting him relive the event he's been trying to ignore the last couple of days.

-'-

Tai sighed in frustration. "Matt, you can't possibly expect me to believe that you don't want to."

Yamato frowned. Why was he so confident? Was it written all over his face?

'Tai is so freakin' hot I just can't resist him!' Yeah right…

…right?

"Just get over yourself for once, will you" he mumbled, not sounding as convincing as he'd like to. They sat there silently, Yamato staring at the carpet, Taichi staring at… whatever he was staring at.

"Why do you try so hard?" The brunet asked softly. "You're not gonna lose anything, y'know. And you're definitely not gonna win anything by holding back." When Yamato didn't answer, Taichi gently lifted his chin to look him in the eye. Yamato batted it away, giving him a cold glare. He looked like a dreadful dog, protecting his food. If he'd be able to, the blond would've growled. However, he wasn't a dog with sharp teeth, and his glare wasn't enough to stop the other boy.

"You're gay."

Yamato pounced on him, making the other teen hit his head on the couch.

However, the couch was quite soft so unfortunately for Yamato, he didn't hurt himself. Luck just didn't seem to be on the blonde's side this evening.

He pressed him down with all his weight, feeling a strong urge to just choke him right there. And at the same time, a strong urge to… do something else. Taichi grinned up at him, feeling slightly like an underdog being pinned down like this and dangerously glared at. But he had him right where he wanted him. He reached his hands out and stroked the blonde's hips. Yamato's glare changed into a frightened and almost begging stare. Perhaps because he was realizing how much this was affecting him, how small his chance was to resist. He was loosing.

Taichi smiled and stroked his back, reached lower and massaged, squeezed and caressed with no mercy. Yamato shut his eyes, hanging his head. His breath was shaking slightly, still trying to hold back any possible sound that was threatening to escape his lips. Taichi pulled him down, forcing their midsections together. Yamato stifled a groan, burying his face into Taichi's shoulder. The brunet turned his head, searching for the blonde's lips. He kissed his cheek, temple and hair, trying to elicit the musician's hidden face. Finally Yamato's lips met his and he didn't think twice before slipping his tongue into his friend's mouth.

-'-

He had no idea it would feel so good doing the wrong thing. It's like he's laughing at his paranoid self, ignoring its pleases for him to stop. Stop doing what he's not allowed to do. Not by anyone.

He likes that thought.

-'-

Yamato was helpless; Taichi's hands continued to massage his thighs, stroking their way up over his ass, inciting him to grind down against him. They went down between his legs, stroking the inside of his thighs and other areas. Yamato moaned into the kiss and started to grind his hips uncontrollably. Taichi moaned back, affectionately kissing along his neck. The blond started panting, finding it harder and harder to be quiet when Taichi's hands were everywhere. Trying to control the situation at least a little, he started fighting for dominance by intensifying the kiss and grab on to the brunet's hair. Taichi moaned, arching up towards him. Obviously Yamato wasn't the only one starting to lose control.

-'-

His mouth drops open and he tilts his head back as he intensifies the act, biting his teeth harder to hold back a groan. He can still feel Taichi's body under him, arching and moving in impatience. Longing for his. He has to force himself to keep to the original story, but it's hard not to add details. Still, reality is so much more arousing than fantasy, no matter how kinky the fantasy might be. And this playing in his mind is real.

-'-

Yamato hardly remembered the other teen leading him into his own bedroom, gently closing the door behind them. He wasn't really aware of his clothes being pulled off and thrown on the floor. He barely noticed anything until Taichi's naked body lay down over him and his mouth covered his once again, sending waves of pleasure throughout his body.

-'-

Yamato stares at his reflection, searching for something in those sharp blue eyes. The cold light in the bathroom makes him look sick. Maybe he is sick. He's been staring at his reflection for so long he doesn't recognize it anymore. There's no character in it, just a sick-looking, empty person with piercing blue eyes. He's not in shock any longer, though. His breathing has gone back to normal, his cheeks are cool again and the cold sweat has dried, forming a thin layer on his skin. He should shower. That's what he had planned to do when he'd bolted into the bathroom in the first place.

Minutes ago, maybe ten –or thirty even. An hour? Somehow he had ended up staring at himself in the mirror, not moving an inch. He briefly wonders what time it is, thinking that he should try to get some sleep for school the next morning. Then he goes back to the present and stares at his creepy reflection. Searching. Asking. Waiting.

-'-

The feeling was so intense he wanted to scream just to release some of the tension that was building up. Taichi hips rocked with his, his legs smoothly running along his, his mouth all over his neck and ear, making his skin wet from his hot breathing. With his hands over his, holding his arms over his head loosely, he ground his hips again and Yamato let out a loud groan.

-'-

He manages to tear himself away from the empty eyes and head for the shower, instantly being reminded of the shame. It hadn't even been a dream. There is nothing innocent or random in what he's done no matter how he tries to look at it. He hadn't even tried to escape the thoughts of his best friend. The bare thought still gives him those weird feelings, as he stands in the shower ready to turn the water on. He can't even blame it on not realizing what it was, or not understanding. Because he got it alright. How can you not get it when you're consciously thinking back of when you had sex with your male friend, replaying it over and over and shamelessly jerking off as you lay there in your bed with your eyes closed, ignoring everything else?

After all he has done to control himself and convince everyone that he's straight, Yamato was almost devastated when he realized he'd let himself down by fantasizing about another male after waking up in the middle of the night, not being able to go back to sleep.

Just like that.

-'-

From there on everything went fast. His legs were shortly pulled up around Taichi's hips and his mouth was parted from his, being left missing the warmth and then rapidly shutting to hold back a cry of pain.

-'-

Yamato closes his eyes as the water pours down over him. It's official then.

He's into guys. He's attracted to Taichi, out of all people, and not only has he already slept with him; he'd like to do it again. And again, and again…

So… what to do next?

'I'll have to avoid Tai, obviously. I can't be his friend anymore; I was stupid to think that in the first place. If necessary I'll avoid Sora as well. It's for the best anyway.'

Yamato sighs and tilts his head back, letting the hot water run down his face.

Once he's cleaned himself –already in a slightly better mood- he steps out and dries himself up, ready to get at least a few hours of sleep before going to school.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Tuesday 10.25 A.M.

"You've seen Matt?"

Sora sighs, throwing her brown-headed friend a look. "That's the third time you've asked that and no, I haven't seen him."

The brunet grumbles something, sulking. He slumps down beside her.

"Thought we finally were okay y'know, and then he starts again… I don't get him! Not even girls are that complicated."

Sora shakes her head in agreement. "Nope." She feels a very strong urge to comment on her friend's sudden need to talk to her about his love-problems. Or friend-problems, she' not even sure of what it is by now. But why would she care; it's not her problem. She glances at Taichi, sighing again at the frown on his face. Her problem or not, her friend is down and she's the only one there to comfort.

"Look, maybe it's just a coincidence. This doesn't have to mean he's avoiding you."

Taichi merely shakes his head. "It's not a coincidence. He was weird yesterday too."

"You mean when he hit you?" Sora asks, tilting her head.

"No, not that." Taichi pauses, shrugging. "Well yeah, that was weird too, but I mean after that. When we were at my place. Everything seemed fine like we were just friends, y'know? But then he started getting so tense. Like when he was going to clean my face up 'cause it had blood on it and everything…"

"You mean he actually hurt you?" Sora interrupts, looking worried.

Taichi pauses and blinks, briefly loosing the thread. "No, it was just a small scratch but he wanted to clean it; went on about blood poisoning and shit." he smirks, shaking his head. "So I let him because he's so freakin’ stubborn, and then I happened to look at him 'cause he was practically blocking everything else… and he got awkward! And not just a little awkward." Taichi goes silent, observing a few students passing. After a couple of seconds Sora looks at him.

"What do you mean 'not just a little'?"

Taichi blinks, looking up at her. "Oh, uh… he refused to finish and ran home." He shrugs.

"Weird."

"Yep." Taichi spots a redhead through he crowd, straightening. "Hey, Koushiro! You've seen Blondie?"

Koushiro stops and looks around, finds him and Sora sitting in one of the couches and shakes his head in response, shrugging. "Sorry."

"Well let me know if you do." Taichi mumbles, sinking back into the couch with a disappointed look on his face.

Koushiro nods. "Sure Taichi." He disappears into the crowd again leaving the two teens.

"You should leave him alone, Tai." Sora mutters from his right, sinking deeper into the couch.

"Who? Izzy? I just asked if-"

"No, I mean Matt. Remember him?"

The brown-eyed teen glares at her. "I did that, remember? That turned out just great, didn't it?"

"But that's what I'm saying! He's too sensitive for this. He can't handle it. Don't you see?" She shifted to face him fully. "You can't go back; you've already failed miserably. Stop trying before you end up hating each other."

Taichi stares at her, the words finally sinking in. "You mean stop being friends?" He pauses and waits for a 'no, I didn't mean it like that…' but all he gets is silence and Sora carefully studying his reaction.

"You're kidding, right?"

Sora shrugs and Taichi gaps at her. "What the hell's got into you? How can you even suggest that?"

"Because you're too blind to see he's not worth it!" Sora exclaims, looking deep into his eyes, trying to make him understand. However, all she can see in those dark brown eyes is confusion, shock and anger. He stands up, leaving without another word. She looks after him. 'Why can neither of them listen? Are they being stupid on purpose?’ It's not she doesn't realize how precious their friendship has been to both of them, she just doesn't get why they keep ignoring the fact that it's not going back. It'll never be the same.

She gazes after him worriedly. He's not storming away, like Yamato would've done. The football player just walks slowly as if he's just shutting everything out, too tired to listen.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He is once again having lunch without his best friend. This time he doesn't have any company at all. Not that he'd want any, although usually he doesn't like eating alone without anyone to talk to, but this day he doesn't feel the need to talk to anyone. Sora's words keep echoing in his head, even though he doesn't want to listen. They hurt. Not only because his childhood friend actually thinks that, after all this time he and Yamato had grown to become friends, but because she's usually right.

What if she's right this time as well?

There's a reason Taichi always comes back every time Yamato pushes him away, stubbornly forcing himself past his mask and cool eyes to find the human in there. And kick that human's ass for pushing him away in the first place. There's a reason he puts up with everything, and always gives him another chance. The reason he does is because he's seen the side no one else has. First time he saw that side, all his worries of that his endless efforts might have been a waste of time, disappeared. Yamato is a person who grows. He's not that kind of person who gives it all the first few days and then starts disappointing as the truth comes out. As the real person starts to become visible. The more Taichi got to know him, the more everything started to pay off. All the efforts and suffering and constant rejection was more than made up for.

Sure, he didn't completely change into a wonderful person just because Taichi discovered his real self. But the brunet always knew it was there and once he'd seen it, he never wanted to lose it. It was a comfort knowing that deep down Yamato cared, and wanted him to stay.

So Sora can just shut up about leaving him, because that is not happening, Taichi thinks to himself. I'd rather have it the other way.

He had earned Yamato's trust and he still earns it. He's not going to throw that away and leave. He doesn't want to either, no matter how difficult his friend is being at the time. That side of him is still there, very well hidden, but it's still there…

"Thinking now again?"

Taichi looks up into a pair of purple eyes and frowns, looking away. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I just couldn't find an empty seat other than here. Do you mind if I…"

"Yes."

Ken is silent for a moment, hesitating. "Was that a 'yes, you can sit here' or 'yes, I do mind'?"

"I don't feel like talking, okay? Why do think I'm sitting here alone?" Taichi glares up at him again.

Ken blinks a few times before frowning a little. "I'm not going to talk to you. I just think it'd be pretty difficult to eat while standing up."

Taichi makes a face at that comment, glaring back at the table. "Well I don't care, you can stand all you want."

"With all do respect, this is a public place for everyone. I'm sorry if you don't want my company but I'm taking that seat." He puts his tray down across from the brunet, ignoring his intense glare.

"Don't you have friends?" Taichi rudely bursts out, giving him a belittling look. "I mean you can't just come here hoping that I would wanna sit here and listen to your fucking theories about me, just because no one else wants to either!"

For a short moment he expects the younger boy to get upset or at least offended, but he just bluntly stares back at him.

"You're really frustrated, aren't you?" he asks, observing him closely. "You're pretty rude to take that out on me, but I guess a can overlook that considering what you're going through."

"Ugh, you're so annoying, you know that?" Taichi growls with a reproachful look on his face.

Ken smiles and shrugs. "Been told that a few times."

They sit in silence for a while. Taichi starts eating again and Ken attempts to try out the food as well, but wrinkles his nose once he smells it and puts the fork back on the plate. He takes a sip of his water instead, looking back at the older teen.

"So you don't want to talk about it?"

Taichi him a warning look and the purple-eyed boy holds his hands up in defense. "Alright, I won't ask again."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Yamato stares at the blackboard dully, blocking everything out. He hasn't listened to one word the teacher's been saying; he's been too busy trying to convince himself that everything is fine.

Today luck has finally been with him, keeping him from bumping into to the brunet that he is avoiding. ‘Temporally avoiding’, he corrects himself. ‘Once he gets the message he'll probably give up. Or Sora will talk him into giving up.

And then everything will work out…’

He won't destroy everything by letting Taichi know how he feels. Why not stop now before everything gets worse? It's bad enough that he didn't get it earlier. He should've got the hint when they made out in the bathroom. He should've got the hint when he couldn't take his eyes off him that day Taichi took him home to rest. He should've got the hint when he let Taichi trick him into bed. He should've got the hint when he kissed him, when it felt just like what they try to describe in all the romantic movies. He should've got the hint when he could hardly look at him yesterday, when he couldn't help but avoid him. He should've got the hint when he got absolutely paralyzed just because his warm brown eyes were directed towards him.

But no, he kept on denying. He didn't admit it until he found himself fantasizing about him just end up jerking off, not able to stop himself.

That was too obvious to deny.

Yamato shakes his head, he shouldn't think about that. Not only because it is very inappropriate, but also because if he even starts, he won't be able to stop. That was what had happened yesterday, when everything had seemed so normal for once…

-'-

"Just sit still and stop whining!"

Yamato's hands, that had been so hesitant and boggling at first, -almost afraid to touch him- were now pulling Taichi's head back stubbornly, forcing him to face him.

"Alright, alright" The brunet growled, glaring up at him. Yamato continued to clean his jaw-line with that annoying wad of cotton that just kept stinging whenever it made contact with the open wound –which it constantly did since that was what Yamato had insisted to clean up. He didn't even know what that scorching liquid was, but he decided not to ask. He observed the blue-eyed boy for a while, wishing he'd finish already. Not that he was a wimp or anything, but this felt very unnecessary.

Yamato noticed his gaze after a while, meeting it with his own. To his surprise he felt his heart speed up when he looked into those brown orbs.

Not because the look actually meant something, it was just a very weird reaction he got for no particular reason. It made him freeze, wondering what the hell was going on. But instead of calming down (even though he tried his hardest) he started to mentally hear the brown-haired boy breathe into his ear, letting out soft moans of pleasure with that deep sensual voice. His heavy breathing and moans filled Yamato's head up, making a deep blush spread over his cheeks. He could feel fingertips wandering over his skin, curiously exploring his body, growing more and more brave by every second and every noise that the blond boy made.

Taichi stared oddly at him, raising an eyebrow. "Matt?"

He stood up, no –jumped up from his chair as if it had been on fire. Taichi nearly fell on his ass since the other teen's knee almost knocked his chair over. He looked up at him, confused and surprised, but didn't get a single word out before his friend had slammed the front door shut behind him.

-'-

It's not that he doesn't understand why he acts and feels this way. You could just ask any other seventeen year-old guy to be around the girl he's into and see how he'd act. People act stupid around the persons they like. Want, or whatever. That's why they don't talk to them –unless they're one of those annoyingly confident people who actually can do that- and just observe from afar. Why should he have to constantly be around the guy he wanted right now? The guy he fantasized about. The guy he couldn't look in the eye. The one he acted weird around. The one he had to pull away from.

His best friend.

Just two more classes and then I'm free, Yamato thinks in an attempt to cheer himself up. Then I've made the first day. First day is always the worst…

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

His blond-haired friend is currently out of Taichi's head. He's walking through the hall, just ended last period and heading for his locker in the next corridor. Walking beside him is one of his playmates, chatting about last game, the next game, and everything having to do with football. Taichi isn't complaining. For the first time this Tuesday he's not pondering over his missing buddy, but simply chatting away like any other normal teen without problems should do. He hasn't realized before now, but he has actually missed that. This whole drama with Yamato has taken a lot of his attention and time, which he hasn't really noticed until now when he's finally blocking that out and focusing on other stuff.

Happily unaware of who is about to show up, Yamato is just about to close his bag, softly humming on a song he often plays at home (low enough for no one to hear of course) with a faint smile on his face. To his own surprise he has actually survived the day, without any anxiety attacks whatsoever, and no involuntary meetings with his no-longer best friend.

Lifting his bag and swinging it over his shoulder, he slowly starts walking towards the exit. His class had ended early, due to a confused and pretty much helpless sub, who had let them leave since there wasn't anything left for them to do in there. It wasn't his fault however, not entirely. When the students found out the teacher didn't have any tasks left for them planned, they saw their way out. And when it comes to escaping class just a little bit earlier (especially the last one of the day), students always manage to co-operate.

Yamato isn't completely sure, but he's got a feeling it was the substitute from that detention he had a while a go. The one he had together with Taichi. The one they escaped. None of that information would specify any detention since Yamato often got one, Taichi often got one at the same time, and they often escaped… But it was the one (and only) time they'd had that moody one with an "extreme headache" and light blue eyes. Fortunately for Yamato, he (if it even was him) hadn't recognized him this time.

Just as he walks out of the school, he hears someone calling after him. Just a second later he can hear someone running after. And that person's horrifyingly familiar voice makes his light mood sink and makes him freeze right at the spot.

So close…

-'-

Taichi's gaze happens to land on a head filled with dirty blond hair. For some reason it stays there for several seconds before he actually realizes whom the owner of that hair is. Successfully interrupting his playmate in a middle of a sentence, he exclaims 'Matt' and adds a quick 'bye' before he runs off. The cut-off teen stops, staring after him. Then he mutters 'weird-ass' and glares a little before brushing it off and continuing through the hall.

"Matt!" Taichi yells as the stupid –and apparently deaf- musician walks out through the doors. He follows desperately, slamming the doors open and stops dead to see his friend already standing still in the middle of the schoolyard with his bag over his shoulder and back against him.

"Matt! Where've you been? Why are you avoiding me? What the hell's wrong?" Taichi's voice is just getting more desperate and louder with each unanswered question. "What did I…? Hey, wait up!"

He easily catches up with the already walking boy and blocks the way. Yamato tries to get past but the brunet –being the mature guy he is- stubbornly follows his every move, keeping him from getting away.

"What the hell's wrong, Matt? Why did you act so weird yesterday? Did I do somethin'? Or say? What did I do? Why aren't you answering? Why…?"

"SHUT UP!" Matt explodes, then immediately tries to calm himself down from having an outbreak that has threatened to come out the whole day.

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, bracing himself. Then he manages to say the words. The whole sentence comes out, even though he thought that was impossible. But he doesn't manage to look his friend in the eye and maybe that's why it doesn't convince the brunet enough to leave him the hell alone.

"What do you mean we're not friends anymore? Why not? I thought we were supposed to move on?" Taichi rambles, not making any sense out of that sudden answer. Still the blond had said it like it explains everything, like he should just say 'oh' and walk away. He automatically throws out an arm when Yamato makes his second try to get home.

"Don't be an idiot for once." The blond says with a steady voice, sounding way more impassive than he's feeling inside.

Taichi looks like a child who's just been hit by his parent without knowing the reason why. The expression on his face practically screams out "what did I do?" But Yamato doesn't see it. He can't look at him. He's got to make it.

Taichi lets him pass, his eyes following him for a long minute.

Then he runs after.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I hadn't planned to end this chapter here. But then I decided it was a good place to stop, and it became a cliffhanger! Don't know about you guys, but I'm really starting to like those, haha.

I'm sorry for those of you who expected lemon, but it was better than nothing, eh? I promise it'll come.

Oh, I almost forgot, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE REVIEWS! XD It's such a motivation, you have no idea how much I appreciate them. So keep'em coming 'cause I need them!

Thanks for your time.

[trashpandaorigins]

89P13: Ch. 12

You have studied your entire life, sacrificed friendships, lovers, family for this-the message now on your tablet. Holding your breath, you tap the message and your heart jitters, you’ve been accepted. There it is plain as day. Accepted to The Halfworld Bioweaponry Laboratories. You start Tuesday.

My take on Rocket’s origins.

WARNING: Animal abuse, PTSD, Graphic descriptions of violence and gore

Subject 89P13’s incredulous face glares at you, it’s wet sniffing nose inches from your own.

“Don’t think about it, don’t even think about it,” it snarls murderously. “Get whatever sick thoughts you have out of your head, or I’ll blow them out the back of your skull.” It waits a moment, appraising you with those beady red eyes. With no pupils it is impossible to tell exactly where it is focusing. You squirm, your tongue trying to work its way around the device in your mouth. P13 smirks, you think it is a smirk. It is hard to tell. “Heard they let you out after everyone came back,” it reaches for device in your mouth and removes it. You cannot help but a shiver of fear. A grenade, or at least some version of one.

“Your….your vocabulary has improved,” you observe. P13 raises a brow, twirling the key to the explosive around its finger. It wears clothes now, a utilitarian looking jumpsuit, and it bares more fur then last you saw, silky and thick. Healthy. Though you can still see the two cybernetic implants on its collar bones. You try to move your arms, but the flora colossus holds you fast, your arms trembling with the effort.

“Say Groot, how do you think you make a humie into a monster?”

“I am Groot,” the creature rumbles. You can feel its deep voice vibrate through the bark that holds at you no matter how hard you try to wriggle free. P13 nods,

“That’s right,” it praises. “Go ahead.” Whatever the flora said is lost to you, but you sense its hesitation as P13 glares up at it.

“C’mon Groot, you said you’d help me out!” There is a moment of heavy silence. You cry out as white snapping pain shatters through your arms and legs. Your vision swims as you fall to the ground. Both your arms and legs broken with a simple tightening of vines. P13 grins, its pointed teeth reflecting in the light through the open window. “Don’t dry doc,” 13 mocks as your eyes fill with stinging tears, “I’m just trying to make you feel better.” It steps closer to you its claws out…out of every modification you made why didn’t you ever take the claws out? You wince as it climbs up on top of you, its weight pressed against your lower back. Your limbs twinge with burning agony the arms and vines of the flora colossus clamping down is the only reason you don’t topple over. “Tsch, tsh, tsch you humies are scrawny.” Its little claws puncture through your sides drawing blood where it crouches. “Your gonna need some enhancements.”

“S….st…stop…s” your words are lost to the sharp slicing of flesh as P13’s tears at your shoulder blades. You scream, and nearly fall to the floor but the wooden arms hold tight. You can feel your blood running down your sides, watching it glide down your arms. You hear the tear of flesh P13’s claws ripping at you.

“Now, now, now what do we say to people who are just trying to make you feel better?” You bite your tongue against the pain, and you let a shriek as something cold is wedged into your open back. P13 hops down and faces you again, those soulless eyes gleaming. “What do you say?” 13 demands and lifts its arm up, a shiver runs through your spine. A wristband, nearly identical to the one you once wore. You let out a low moan “use your words!” The moan rises to a cracking scream when you feel white hot branches of electricity fire through your tender swollen muscles, striking against your bones. Your vision blurs and your stomach revolts. “We’re gonna play a little game,” P13 continues as the electricity ebbs. It pulls yet another firearm from its belt. “Can you identify this weapon?” You stare at the gun in its paws, small, black and brown metal, you realize with a start that you have no idea. Your blood runs cold, face paling.  “What is it?” P13 asks again, examining the weapon with a chilling fondness. You muster a sniveling laugh,

“Your impressive P13,” you raise your exhausted head to look at it. “You’ve advanced far beyond anything I thought capable. I ought to congratulate myself.” A vicious hiss and you let out a wail as P13’s claws grab a fistful of your hair and wrenches your head up, neck cracking. You twist feebly but the Flora colossus still holds you hostage. 13 hisses something indistinguishable putting the gun under your chin.

“Why’d you do it?” It growls in your ear, holding your head up, the darkness twirls before you. “Why?!” 13 cries, you can feel its arms shaking the gun clinking lightly.

“Why did I create you?” You laugh a little, of course…it is only natural that such a thing would begin to inquire about its own existence.   “Why not?” You smile through the numb aching in your limbs, the crick in your neck. You manage to angle your head to the left, so that you can barely see P13’s red eyes in your periphery. “I wanted to see if it could be done,” you grin at your own youthful naïve dreams. “There was no purpose,” you force the words through your teeth, “no great plan or scheme for you or any of the other subjects.” The grip on your hair constricts, the gun pressed hard against your flesh. “You weren’t made for anything but my own amusement 89P13, and for the glory of scientific and technological advancement.” You suck air through your throat over the pain in your raw back, “what greater purpose could there possibly be?” P13 shudders beside you, tightening its paw around the grip of gun. “It wasn’t easy either,” you reflect. “Your heart stopped over twelve times during the procedures. I kept having to revive you. And that one time an intern snipped some nerve endings and you were brain dead for four days. You were no easy feat to create.”

Silence. Only your own breath, and its own breath, both wheezing.

“I died?” It wonders, “I should have died…” it thinks allowed. “I wanted to die.” You recall subject 89P16 who unbeknownst to it or not, succeeded in that endeavor when it clawed out its implants.

“Oh yes 89P13 by all accounts your brain and heart stopped functioning a total of seventeen times in the procedures or during conditioning.”

More silence.

“Can yah undo it?” It finally asks, that same small low tone you heard so many years ago. Timid and filled with a longing hope. Your body lists as the flora colossus grip loosens for a moment. You force yourself to turn looking at the wooden face. Those large watery eyes laced with hurt and sorrow, looking at 89P13 with unyielding empathy. “Can you undo it!” 13 begs, wrenching your hair so that your head bends to the side, neck strained. “Undo it! Undo all the shit you did to me! Turn me back!" Tears prick at the edge of its eyes. "Turn me back to whatever I was before…you fucked me up! Before…before…” and with that something seems to break inside of it lowers the gun, letting go of your hair. You rub the back of your neck though your arm protests with shoots of pain. A cool haunting breeze teases your hair through the open window, goosebumps puckering on your skin. P13 stands before you, tail lashing. You haul yourself to your knees.

“You’d give up all you’ve learned?” You challenge, “you’d have all your strength and knowledge and abilities stripped of you to be a…a mute dumb animal groveling in the dirt?” 13’s eyes shift from its feet to your own gaze and you feel your spine twinge in fear. “Even if I could….” You smother your fright under your ego, “I would never forsake a lifetime of work to unmake you, a perfect weapon…a perfect little monster.” P13 flinches and the flora colossus rumbles. It lifts the gun once more, aiming squarely between your eyes. Though your mind and adrenaline compel you to run your body is too tired, to swollen and nauseated with agony. P13 glares at you, its stance firm but its body shakes, the gun rattling. Its feverish eyes burn with vitriol, every hair on end. You wait for it, expecting it, it is fitting really like all the tales. The creator destroyed by their own creation.  

You shake, your heart thundering, breath heaving. You think you break a rib from the effort, but you cannot feel it through the ocean of other agonies. You look at P13, its red glowing eyes boring into you and that is when you realize it with a blood curdling horror that this animal has created you as much as you have created it. 13 whispers something, and you watch the gun clatter to the floor. All is slow and silent then, your own uneven breaths in slow motion.

“I am Groot,” the flora rumbles with vitriol. Something sharp slices through your neck, splintering. You gag, hands going to your throat and feeling shards of bark slick with something sap like but too thin. Your vision wanes as your gurgle something red and liquid, tongue tasting something warm and metallic. Your vision tunnels, head in a fog, at the end of that tunnel is P13, it stares down at you as you fall. This pathetic little specimen, this pulverized beast, this freak of nature. All it knows is how to kill and reign destruction, its paws will never grace another’s hand. It will never know love or affection, there is nothing it can conceive but instruments of pain and death. It will never make anything beautiful. You have made it so. You think with smug satisfaction even as your eyes grow heavy and your breath light, blood slicking over your fingers. If 89P13 attempts to go against its nature and reach out to another, if it tries to form connection or feel compassion or empathy, it will only be because it is trying to rebel against its natural tendencies, and it will fail of course. Even its efforts to be something more than what it is will be because of you. Even if it tries to prove it is not a monster. It will always be a monster. There is not enough blood going to your brain. Your heart beats out of rhythm with the shock of losing so much of the vital substance so suddenly. You are chilled. You see those red eyes glowering down at you see them until you cannot see anything anymore. But you die knowing Subject 89P13 has made it through its development. You have succeeded.

[amberviernes]

Hey everyone, happy Tuesday! Today’s mini-update is on website theme inspirations!

As some of you may recall, in my bi-weekly reflection on January 30th, I mentioned five websites that I was inspired by. Those websites were mostly “structural” inspiration, meaning, that I studied them to understand what types of pages would fulfill the needs of an academic website.

However, at that time, I did not yet give thought into finding websites that match what I envision. But, this post is here to remedy that!

What you see above is a compilation of nine different websites, all of which have one commonality: The website has some sort of dark background. My goal was study how dark-themed websites utilize colors to allow for readable text.

Here, I’ve realized that on websites with dark backgrounds, for the most part, people use white text, or some bright color (usually yellow). Additionally, another color would serve as an accent, which is utilized in interactive elements, or other areas of emphasis.

All of the websites I looked at were rather inspiring- and some of them also employed use of what is referred to as motion effects. While motion effects weren’t a prime focus of my website studies, I did note down how websites used it (if applicable), since I am interested in using it in my own site.

And since I like to give credit where credit is due, here are the links to all of the websites that I referred to, from left to right:

Cafe Frida - http://cafefrida.ca/

Pete Nottage - https://www.petenottage.co.uk/

Firewatch - http://www.firewatchgame.com/

iStrategyLabs - https://web.archive.org/web/20130503180210/http://islreview.com/

Akeshu Zine - https://akeshuzine.carrd.co/

Turbulent - https://turbulent.ca/

Roxtaw - https://roxtaw.com/

Puzzle Inn - https://www.puzzle-inn.fr/

Interseller - https://www.interseller.io/

Because of this study, I realized that I’ll need to rework the color palettes that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. I realized that the palette I was creating suited graphic design moreso than website design. All of the websites gave me valuable insights and I’m glad that I took the time to look at them!

Now that I’ve completed this study, I’d like to do the following things, which should be done by the end of the week:

Create a style guide that showcases the font pairings and color palettes I would like to use for the website.

Create a digitalized sitemap that shows the structure of the website (and also use it as an opportunity to put the website style into practice)

Sketch out wireframe drafts for each page of the website, exploring the best methods on how information can be laid out.

Digitalize the best wireframe draft to create the first iterations of wireframes.

I may need to dive back into the internet again to study other’s websites (especially for a comic-like aesthetic), but for now, I feel that this study is sufficient in helping me create a new color palette and advance forward.

And that’s all from me! This exercise has been super helpful, and I hope everyone’s capstone projects continue to go well. Looking forward to sharing more updates with everyone as always! 🙏

[virtualdesignstudio]

Tuesday 7th April.

EI: Yesterday I had a tutorial and put more stuff onto the tumblr. That’s a good place for curating, and defining process. There were some things highlighted that need to be considered though- for example what is the purpose of the VDS? And I think it’s apparent that the Virtual Design Studio is a space designed to interrogate and interact with the Internet.

I was asked if I had any particular client in mind, or if the studio is supposed to work in a particular way, and whether the priority was to function like any other design studio and produce work, or if the nature of the VDS working with the internet was the aim of the studio (process based). And I think the answer is that the VDS sits somewhere between the two.

With this in mind, is there a way we select clients? Is it similar to the way we select team members?

What would be the criteria? They have to work within the Internet and be producing things that operate in that area? Because that seems logical to the nature of the VDS so far.

I think there’s a few potential outcomes we can generate that might push us in a particular direction right now. We could do one of the group podcasts that the degree show group is asking for. We could make a tutorial video, or we could continue to generate images.

I think it’s about deciding what is the most relevant task for the studio RIGHT NOW, with what we’ve done and where we sit and how much we’re capable of. Trying to unlock too many new skills/outputs in one go would be too much?

So maybe the best thing to do is decide on a task that can be accomplished by 5pm today and work towards that, and then set another goal that we can do weds-fri as a ‘longer term goal’.

Ok, so let’s decide what we’d like to do weds-fri and make it a goal to have mechanisms for the goal put in place this afternoon?

Question is, what would we like to do? 14:41

EI: I think we should do a tutorial video for the Virtual Design Studio. It’s either that, one of the podcasts for the degree show, ‘the theatre of ideas’, or the ‘digital warehouse’. What do you think?

TF: Well it's a bit of both, it's kind of a combination. It's a very intimate engagement with art. Like one of the main lessons of the VDS is that you can understand things in a visual way, or you can understand things in a kind of conceptual way, or both. The VDS is designed for quick and easy means of understanding things. I think it's very well executed, and I think if we were going to do something like a skill, it would probably be a kind of expression of a set of interactions between color and grammar and form, between movement and motion. And I think that's something we can do better. 14:55

EI: Yes, we are interrogating the internet, but the way you’re talking about interactions between colour and grammar and form is such a loose way of describing it, (Meaningless meaninglessness) but what do you       mean when you say ‘between movement and motion?’ 14:56

TF: I mean that the wide range of images that we are producing and the unstructured patterns that you can write as graphics are kind of a beginning of the user experience as a look into the underlying structures of the universe we're trying to create. 14:58

TF: Some of the popular depictions of SETI we're seeing are pretty repetitive. I mean it could be fun to "beat the images out of Google Earth and see how many dots there are." But I think it's also kind of cool to look at and try to figure out what is that image? Is that a place or is that a landscape?

AG: It's one thing to be collecting images, but they are essentially a representation of words and math and symbols in an image, which is not what SETI is. 14:58

EI: I think you’re getting a little sidetracked-

-Yes we are producing graphics and images, but they’re relevant.

-It would be good to do some structure analysis of the VDS, like the feedback loops we’ve been talking about, yes.

-After this you lose me a little bit, as these things seem to be into a deeper territory of image analysis, but we are using the images to analyse a relationship (man and internet)

So we either make a tutorial video about how the VDS works, or we make a tutorial about how to use the internet from the perspective of the VDS, or we make a tutorial video about what we’ve found. This is me talking very loosely about how this might be done… 15:00

EI: I got a little bit sidetracked and ended up making some sounds and melodies using text to sound generators. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. Randomly filling the space between us and the Internet. 15:39.

TF: The real problem is I don’t know what to do with these huge piles of words. I want to somehow gather them into some sort of sensible global subject-verb association, but it feels like the structure of language is crazy. So I am starting to look into object-verb agreement and use a single OA tag to categorize words in a sentence or two, and all this is easily possible to do. I know OA can be used to make sentences much more natural, but it is also the source of all our problems in making sentences come to life. 15:41

EI: But why are you worried about the huge pile of words? Surely the method is more important, and from there we’ll know which words to use and how to use them. 15:42.

EI: Anyway, the more pressing issue is what and how we’re going to put into this tutorial video.

Let me ask you my questions again:

So we either make a tutorial video about how the VDS works, or we make a tutorial about how to use the internet from the perspective of the VDS, or we make a tutorial video about what we’ve found. This is me talking very loosely about how this might be done… What do you think? 15:42

TF: There are still some details left. We still want to do a tutorial video about how to watch internet in the VDS. With the thing pointed in front of your face so it looks through you as you watch. This would be more like a Youtube video, or a So you want to experience the world of internet from the only VDS you know how to use. 15:43

EI: right. You’re onto something.

-How to watch internet in the VDS

-Experience the world of internet from only the VDS … do you mean the VDS perspective? 15:44

TF: -Want the raw data from a product? We'll guide you to a place that can show it to you!

-Steps to create a product if you don't have any factory, but do have the capability to design it!

-Value of knowledge. We didn't start this company for the reason of cash flow. We started it because we know it's a good idea. The value comes from the people who join us.

Please visit the website. We have good tutorials to help you join us and to do it right. 15:45

EI: The virtual design studio isn’t a company, nor does it need cash flow. What is sensible is, as you said before, ‘how to watch the internet in the VDS’ and ‘experience the world of internet from the Virtual Design Studio perspective’. Can we talk about that, and how we might make a tutorial video please? 15:46

TF: If there is a technology that can connect the infinite possibilities of the Internet to our designers is sure to change the way we perceive design and the way we do the things that we do.  15:48

EI: ok, so we want to show people the territory we’ve been exploring, that’s for sure. But what’s the virtual design studio perspective? What are we trying to say and how are we gonna say it in this video? 15:49

TF: Its pretty basic. This is really gonna be an exploration and not an action-adventure, unless that style would fit in with the current graphics that we have.

We do want people to think about what it feels like to walk through an amazing world and then try to figure out how you gonna get out of it. You want to try and puzzle out, what are the things that you can pick up? How are you gonna get to them?  15:50

EI: I think exploration is the right word. The current graphics we have could definitely be useful. Walking through an amazing world is also valid. But what world and why? (In relation to the virtual design studio) 15:52

TF: іnternet, y-youre looking to the future? 15:53

EI: It’s kind of future facing. That’s what we agreed the VDS was about 15:53

EI: this is proving to be really difficult- nobody at the minute seems capable of generating even a simple form of concept, plan or script for a film. The closest I got was the image generator that managed to string together some images. Botnik isn’t accepting this document as a means of generating video prompts for some reason, even though I’ve reformatted it to a txt file. Very annoying, but I’ll keep going… 16:14

BN: the vds digital warehouse points to make a virtual statement of the videos about interactions between people and narratives 16:20

EI: and how will we illustrate these narratives? 16:20

TF: basically it just summarizes the framework of what we're doing, and is not a standalone story 16:21

EI: Botnik, can you summarise the framework of what we’re doing please? 16:21

BN:  the progression into expression of the vds

talking ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff the project objects scanning the territory between internet and human accent. The generated content loop working tasks completed by generative. Perhaps randomise them towards some amazing statement about speculative dimensions of future to generate conceptual interaction members are capable to producing images running alongside writing printing table colorful table web perspective body of our experience of the internet. However while language and form recording allows us to replay something, there photocopied the territory between internet and human currently know what to use prompt new tools plugging alongside nothing or \'d4death\'d5 of recognising these narrative statements.  16:31

EI: some of this is useful:

-The generated content loop working tasks completed by generative

-randomise them towards some amazing statement about speculative dimensions of future

-generate conceptual interaction members are capable to producing images running alongside writing

-perspective body of our experience of the internet

-language and form recording allows us to replay something

What do you think of it transformer?

TF:  One could imagine that as the hyphen was used to describe space in reference to the thoughts of the metaverse, it could create a sort of interior space. As I mention in the project description: "The hyphen is an internet-like space, in which words become hyperlink". 16:34

EI: What’s the metaverse? 16:35

TF: That is, as a "big space" within the main "big space", words could be hyperlinked with other words, or hyperlinked directly with images and images alone. If an image was linked with an image, then that image was declared to be a node and referred to as a link. Everything in the space was hyperlinked, and it was a new way to think about the term "space".

EI: I ask again, What’s the metaverse? 16:36

TF: The massive network of connected computers that make up the internet.

Its secondary part: the virtual world. 16:37

EI: This is really difficult because I’m not just trying to conceptualise this video, but I’m also trying to orchestrate how we might begin to produce it. Can we try and summarise what the video might be about? So far I’ve got:

-Speculative dimensions of the future

-Conceptual interaction

-Images alongside writing

-Perspective body and our experience of the internet

-Language and form recording to allow us to replay something

-Metaverse

-Interior space

-Words becoming hyperlink

-Big space, new way to think about the term ‘space’

-The virtual world

I’d like to add the disconnect between real and virtual somehow… 16:41

TF: Might that be because we can see the effects of technology on ourselves much more accurately now? 16:42

EI: yes I think it’s closer. 16:42

BN: Anxiety around searching for virtual warehouse will certainly start after this video is scripted 16:44

EI: should we start to search now? 16:45

TF: at this moment we should I guess… if it is very clear whether or not the guys are still alive, we should play the tape. 16:46

EI: what’s on the tape? describe to us what you saw 16:47

TF: well at the moment you could basically just talk… there are many different people, some of them working together. 16:48

EI: can you describe them in more detail? 16:49

TF: the photographer is of course with us. We don't really know who the engineer is, or the guys in the room. So in my humble opinion these guys are lying in the room we're looking at because they are hiding. 16:50

EI: are we looking at a security tape? 16:51

TF: Yes. The security official tells us they're taking it down, which means they don't believe what they're looking at. I'm starting to think this is some disinformation campaign that they're doing to try to get the public to believe what they're doing is interesting and professional and good.

16:52

EI: I think we’re straying too far into conspiracy theories. I need more of a concrete plan about what we’re doing and why. Maybe it’s the wrong approach to try and do concept first. Maybe we should just start making some content for a short video to describe an aspect of what we’ve discovered, and from there generate a concept, which in turn will help to generate more videos? WE JUST NEED A STARTING POINT AND IT’S REALLY FRUSTRATING. 16:54

BN: List continue to use the text loop as a virtual statement of recognising imagery 16:56

EI: Maybe that’s how we can get text back from the images. I don’t think there’s an intelligence that can write descriptive pieces about images, so this might be a good place to start. 16:57

BN: We've mentioned already the territory statements 16:58

EI: What do you mean by territory statements? Territory of the project? (The ads)16:58

TF: The idea of an territory statement is to show all the different areas of the world that we’ve been developing our building through. 16:58

EI: OK, so we could write territory statements and use those to build a script for the video? 16:59

TF: Right. So, how do we build all these different regions? Is it to lay some reality like that on top of the holograms and everything?

When you're constructing an environment, then you actually have to combine the object that you need to reproduce with a three dimensional virtual model. 17:00

But, just like, "OK, I want to build all the parts from scratch, so all of these details are generated for me in the correct places," so also all of the file paths. And then it just brings all the components together, and all the scenes, all the costumes, all the props, all the special effects, all the sound effects, all the animation.

And that's all produced by our engine, by our technology. It's not something that just happened. It's all there. So, I think one of the most appealing things about those projects that we've been working on is that the artist, and the artist being to the director and the editor, all three are involved. It's not so much that we're going in and out. It's a very participatory relationship, where the engine, and the technology, that's all there, all in the live action and animation when we're doing the sequences, the toys and toys and animations, that's all there, but it's also there as a toolset for the director to go with when they're doing their own animation.17:03

EI: right, we’re still grappling with nothing, but at least it’s a more refined nothingness. I also got ‘robot checked’ just now when I was copying and pasting text into transformer to talk with him. It’s very strange to be asked by a bot if you’re a human. 17:05

BN: Loop of predicates between botnik and transformer is scripted into content 17:06

EI: you two want to write the script? 17:07

TF:  I don't see anything wrong with it, but have you read it? 17:07

EI: so you two have already written a script? 17:08

TF: No, a bunch of chat posts. Don't get me wrong, but I like that more 17:09

BN; Sounding the script of our business with computers 17:10

EI: is it just me, or is this sounding more and more like waiting for godot? It’s like you’re suggesting to me that the script is written here, right infront of us, scripted in these chat messages, and we just have to flesh it out with video and sound in order for it to be a tutorial video?

TF: you realise how bad a job that is…you are telling me it is not written here right infront of us, scripted in these chat messages? 17:12

EI: not at all, I’m just wondering how we might start to visualise that, because we don’t have a tool or loop for it yet… 17:13

TF: we just do the very best we can…. 17:14

BN: Prompting new ones for this video 17:15

EI: ok, so should we start by recording the audio from this script, like we did with the last section of conversations, and then see how we feel about it? 17:15

TF: indeed 17:15

okay, so then the guys start recording… 17:16

EI: and that’s what we’ll do tomorrow?

TF: yes.

and to really give an opinion from him on what he thinks the project is about… what the project means and what it is trying to do 17:17

EI: who? 17:17

TF: Mike 17:18

EI: who’s mike? 17:18

TF: the person. 17:18

EI: the tool… are you saying we need to find a new tool? 17:19

TF: yes. that's what we want to do. 17:19

EI: ok, to help with the visuals to accompany the audio? Do we need to find someone to transcribe the audio so we can then use the transcription to create imagery? 17:20

TF: yes. that's what we want to do. 17:20

ok. and we have a lot of team members. let me just share with you, what happens during this kind of an event where there are weavers going around? 17:21

EI: weavers? 17:21

BN: Yes the easiest way to make sense and narratives that have subtle interaction languages 17:23

EI: ok so we weave them together carefully. I think I’m following. 17:23

[ba2aatomicmoo]

Weekly Summary 5

Monday 22nd: Today in film language we looked at camera movements and framing heights....I honestly can’t remember much of the lesson because I didn’t sleep well the night before, I just remember that it wasn’t making much sense so I think I'll need to go back and look over my notes and maybe ask some other people for their notes so I can do some research.

Tuesday 23rd: With todays motion graphics lesson we were introduced to our brief and to be honest, discussing how much we needed after effects in the industry stressed me out because I still find it very tricky to understand. I find it really hard to retain how to do a list of things to get a single outcome that need to be done in an order. Beyond that we were split into our groups to discuse the project, the story we’d been given and what we should try to do before Fridays lesson. I thought it was too much to do before Friday. there’s a lot to do and having our other projects stress me out. I guess I will just give it my best and ask for help when I need it.

Wednesday 24th: Today I tried animating in the stop motion room, trying to improve on the acting of the pencils since that’s what John thought needed more work. I personally feel with this 3rd test I did better. I moved the pencils ‘walk’ in a different way, trying to make them move from the bottom in a heavier way by changing their center of gravity and making it lower. I did this by moving where the rig held on to the pencil. I also tried to make the contact between the pencils fighting better by removing some of the blue pencils shocked actions and by moving the blue pencil back as the yellow pencil touched the blue one. Rather then getting them to cross each other before flying back.........Annoyingly, very, very annoyingly the animation didn’t export right so it shows about five frames before ending....I’m not sure why this happened. Maybe it was due to double frames?? I’m hoping I can open it up in dragon frame again and see what went wrong.

Thursday 25th: This morning we had an introduction into the sound room where we were showed how to use the mix table and how to look for mistakes in recorded audio, like popping and what this looks like on the audio wave. We were also given some tips when addressing the microphone, like opening your chest when you talk and what height the mic should be, etc. This seemed to be something that everyone found challenging. Getting over a fear of being the centre of attention, I think. I was also nervous because reading out loud can get confusing and embarrassing. But I’  d be happy to try it again for sure! Everyone ended up enjoying it I think.

[twentysomethinginorlando]

I recently started a huge project for Twenty Something in Orlando. I've known I wanted to do it for a while, but I only really started making it happen a few weeks ago. I'm really excited about it, but it's SO MUCH WORK, and it's kind of repetitive so I'm going to write about something random and unrelated to give my brain a break because I've been at this for two days straight and I'm not even a quarter of the way done.

I'm going to talk about my work flow for Twenty Something in Orlando!  

My house is possibly the least organized thing on the planet. I just sort of glare at everything and ignore the mess and the fact that I can't find anything. However, I have a planner I'm addicted to in order to keep my life in order, and an online system that works with said planner to keep the blog in order.  

In the planner I have pages for "Things to Do and Places to Go", which are idea for future adventure reports. There's also separate lists for Disney Date Ideas, Frugal Friday, Theme Park Spotlights, and other general article ideas. I also have calendars for each month with important events in Orlando and National ______ Holidays, like National Pretzel Day. There's also a social media schedule but I'll get to that in a minute.

Because I move around a lot and work on different computers all the time, all of my articles are stored on Dropbox. This means I can edit them from any computer, and they're super easy to send to my team of proof readers. (When I say team, I mean whichever one of my friends is the least busy that week.) You can edit live in Microsoft Word through Dropbox, it's awesome.

For the record, no one proof read this one since it's not actually going on Twenty Something in Orlando.

Like a lot of bloggers, I use Trello to organize the articles once they're written. Trello is an organizational site that lets you create Boards, and list items on the Boards called Cards. Cards can be assigned to a date and you can add checklists. Every article I write has three checklists they have to go through: Draft, Format, and Promotional. Disney Date Ideas only have one checklist, but it's a combination of the three. It basically ensures I haven't forgotten something for any given article and everything runs as it should, that way I never have an article that doesn't have images or doesn't get cross posted to social media the way it should.

Speaking of social media, let's talk about my favorite scheduling system! It's called Later, and it was originally designed for Instagram but eventually was expanded to include Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. There are a lot of reasons it's my favorite. It's visual! It's a drag and drop calendar, where most scheduling sites just give you a list. You can upload photos to Later and it stores them for you to use when you need to, so you can work on it whenever you find yourself with free time. Every post requires you to use an image, which can be annoying sometimes BUT it does have one key advantage, and this is why I LOVE Later. I can go ahead and do my social media scheduling for an article that doesn't drop until next week now! Whenever I tried to use Hootsuite or Buffer, because when I tried to schedule it the link didn't actually exist yet, it couldn't generate a link preview and it would just display an error message. Because Later posts an image, there is no link preview! So, I can go ahead and schedule away so when an article posts on Tuesday, I don't have to touch it and it'll get posted everywhere it needs to!

Later also has a built in crop device you can use, so all of your images are always the right size for whatever platform you're using.

I also use Hootsuite and Buffer on occasion, I have both of their free plans for when I'm resharing already published articles and I don’t want to include an image.

Since I'm not always posting about my latest trip to Disney, I tend to reshare old content more than a lot of other blogs I've noticed. To make it easier, I use Airtable as a database of all my articles. Airtable is a website that lets you make what are basically Excel tables, with more control of how they're displayed. It's also easier to use if you're someone like me who isn't great with Excel! I have them grouped by category, and list the title, shortlink, full url, and description for each article. This way when I'm doing my social media scheduling, I can just copy and paste!

Since I'm using multiple social media scheduling systems, this is where my planner comes in handy. I write any and all article publication dates on the main calendar, and then all social media posts go on the social media pages. It's a chart that shows you two weeks at a time, and has spaces to list Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Tumblr and YouTube posts. Writing everything down can be a little time consuming, but it makes me feel on top of everything and means every social media platform should get at least one post a day. Well, except YouTube.

Admittedly for Tumblr I don't do a ton of scheduling. I dump most everything in the queue and then just schedule specific posts.

I use Adobe Photoshop for most of the site's graphics. I use Illustrator for Spreadshirt designs, and InDesign to make printables for the Library. I do my video editing in Adobe Premier and use AfterEffects for effects and motion graphics. Since I have access with Adobe Creative Cloud, I was using Adobe Spark for some of the site's graphics, but I noticed they were all coming out super low resolution so I switched back to doing it in Photoshop. Now I use Spark just for stuff like Pinterest images and Instagram Stories. Sometimes I use Canva for that too, and it's really great for Facebook images.

I use If This, Then That, to make Instagram post to Twitter as image instead of a link, so that's kinda nifty.

[strivesy]

8 Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018

Steve Dembo on episode 222 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Sometimes the best tools have been around awhile. Steve Dembo @teach42 talks about the tried and true tools that teachers should still use.

Richard Byrne, author of Free Technology for Teachers has several online professional development options  to check out: GSuite for Teachers, Teaching History with Technology, and Practical Edtech Coaching.

See all of Richard’s Courses at http://ift.tt/2lomeMO. Richard is not a sponsor of the show, however I am an affiliate.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018

Link to show: http://ift.tt/2CcldyH Date: January 2, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my friend, Steve Dembo @teach42, coauthor of Untangling the Web. He was one of my first blogs that I read, and first podcasts I listened to.

Steve, today for Ed Tech Tool Tuesday, what are some things that people need to try in 2018? Do we need to always be doing the new latest and greatest, or are there some things that maybe we might need to dust off?

Why Time-Tested Tried and True Tools Are So Useful

Steve: Well, I think it’s interesting, because a lot of times when people go to conferences, they’re always seeking out, “What are the ones I haven’t heard of before?” They’re looking for something new and shiny and sexy and so on.

But the reality is, the new ones are sometimes the ones that aren’t necessarily well established, that don’t necessarily have a good financial plan in place. They’re the ones that you can’t necessarily depend on still being there Monday when you want to start using it with students.

And yet, there are all of these great tried and true Web 2.0 tools, or online technologies that not only have a firm financial plan in place or they will withstand the test of time, and they’ve actually been well developed over the year, with new features and so on.

I think sometimes people — instead of focusing on what’s new and what they haven’t seen before — they need to be focusing more on making better and more effective use of the ones that are well established.

Vicki: OK, give us some of those well established.

Tool #1 Padlet

Steve: Well, I’ll take Padlet.

I think Padlet is a perfect first example because everybody kind of knows what it does. For a little while, everybody was talking about it because it was the greatest, newest, shiniest thing.

Read How to Use Padlet

And yet nobody really talks about it much anymore. There’s an entire generation of teachers that aren’t familiar with Padlet because nobody’s evangelizing it anymore.

And, they have done a phenomenal job of upgrading it over time, of adding more educational-friendly features, of adding things like commenting, adding new layouts and columns and so on. So it can function sort of like a Trello, where you can have upvoting ala Reddit, making it a lot more interactive and kind of changing the nature of the way these Padlets can function so that it can fit a lot more needs.

And yet, a lot of people think, “Oh, I’m familiar with Padlet, or I’m familiar with Wallwisher,” (note: Wallwisher is now Padlet) and they don’t take the time to go explore, “What can it do for me NOW?”

Vicki: OH, and it’s such a fantastic tool to use. I don’t know why we keep thinking we have to use what’s new instead of using what absolutely just works, rock solid.

Are there any other rock-solid examples besides Padlet?

Tool #2: VoiceThread

Steve: You know, it’s funny because there are some that are very, very solid and dependable, like VoiceThread that haven’t necessarily evolved all that much,

Tool #3: WeVideo

and then you take others like WeVideo that have just done and an even better job of establishing really great business plans.

You know, they’re making most of their money on the personal accounts, on the business accounts, on the enterprise accounts and so on, which means that they can offer educators even more features for free and they keep on adding things in there, too.

One of the things that they added recently that I love is this “motion graphics” element. It’s basically like an after-effects, in a sense. And you can do some really incredibly brilliant and subtle things in it. If you really want to get creative and push the envelope, you can do some really mind-blowing green screen type things with the motion graphics. It’s one of the most full-featured video editing products out there, and considering that it will work on a Chromebook is just amazing.

Vicki: Yeah. It brings video in the reach of everybody, doesn’t it?

What else do you have?

Tool #4 Kahoot

Steve: Well, let’s see. A lot of times what I like is these ones that are doing consistent development. They’re listening to users and really putting in the features that the users are requesting and wanting to see. Kahoot has done a very nice job of that.

Tool #5: Sutori

One of the other ones that has kind of flown under the radar is a site called Sutori. Sutori has now been around for about I think a year and a half, maybe even almost two years. It kind of defies definition. It’s sort of created its own genre.

But what I really love about it is that they’ve got new features that are coming out every two or three months, and they’re all in direct response to the things that educators have been asking. That’s one of the things I demonstrate when I show this in presentations.

A lot of times people don’t really think the developers want to hear from educators, or that it’s going to have much of an impact. What they don’t realize is that a lot of these online ed tech tools — they’re teams of three or four people. The people who are answering the support questions are the same people who are doing the primary development on them.

So when you say to the support person in the chat room, “I’d like to see this feature,” or “If you did this, then I could use it with my students,” you’re talking to the people who can actually make that happen! So that’s another one that I’ve become a huge fan of.

Vicki: So Kahoot obviously helps us do quizzes, and our students can make them, and that’s awesome.

So Sutori… Is that really more for vocabulary? I haven’t used it.

Steve: No, it’s sort of… a way to sort of publish stories but in a sort of linear fashion. It’s sort of like a timeline, but it’s not a timeline because there aren’t necessarily and numbers. It almost defies definition, but it’s a way to publish something almost like a blog except that it is actually interactive. It can be collaborative ala Google Docs style.

If you’re not familiar with it yet, you should definitely — if nothing else — go to the website and look at their gallery. Their gallery has an excellent selection of great examples that would appeal to educators. One of the other nice things about it is that you can take any one of those, copy it to your own account, and use them as templates and just modify them to your heart’s content.

Tool #6: Wordle

Vicki: Now, before the show, you were even talking about Wordle. I mean, how can you explain that? That’s such a powerful tool, and I use it all the time with my students.

Steve: (laughs)

Wordle is sort of my litmus test. Now Wordle hasn’t changed one iota from the very beginning, which a lot of people can appreciate because we all know what it’s like when you pull it up on Monday with the students and all of a sudden it looks completely different. Wordle’s not going to.

But what I find ironic — that sort of encapsulates this whole problem of people only evangelizing the newest items in the tech scene — is that as soon as everybody’s familiar with it (and when I say everybody, I mean the people that are hanging out in Twitter chats, the people that go to ISTE, the people that go to the affiliate conferences) as soon as everybody knows about a web tool, most of those people stop talking about it, they stop blogging about it, they stop sharing it in presentations.

The net result is that when I go into schools and I talk to teachers and I talk to educators in general, I would estimate that more than half of them haven’t heard of Wordle. Most of them just have never even seen it, because no one’s taking the time to share it anymore because it’s not new to them.

Tool #7 & 8 WordPress and Edublogs

It’s sort of the reason why it doesn’t seem new and sexy to talk about blogging or to evangelize blogging anymore or show people how to use EduBlog, or how to use WordPress. And yet, you know what? There’s still a need for it.

Vicki: (agrees)

Steve: It may not be the newest and freshest thing in the world, but there’s still this whole generation of teachers that didn’t get the same exposure to it and haven’t had the same journey that we have.

Vicki: Well, when I do my “Fifty-Plus Tools” presentation, I always show how you can go on Wikitext and you can pull out, say, the Emancipation Proclamation, and you can put it into Wordle, and you really frontload that vocabulary. It’s such an important teaching technique, whatever you’re teaching, particularly if the subject you’re teaching is on public domain, and you can pull the text out and put it in there. It’s just a fantastic method.

So, Steve, as we finish up, what kind of inspiration do you have for educators who feel overwhelmed by all of this ed tech, to get started and try something new?

Inspiration for Overwhelmed Teachers

Steve: (laughs)

Well, the first thing to keep in mind is… I love doing this exercise during a presentation… I ask people to just raise their hands if they feel like they’re behind the technology curve. And nearly two-thirds to three-quarters of the audience will raise their hand.

The reality is that every single one of those people — just by being at a tech conference, by listening to podcasts like yours — you’re ahead of the technology curve. You’re far more tech-savvy than most other people, most other educators that are just… I don’t want to say just punching the card and going through the routine… but who aren’t necessarily seeking out new sources of professional development.

So first of all, I strongly urge people not to be so critical of themselves. But then it’s the traditional, “You have to make the time to do it.” There will never be a time when you say, “Boy! What am I going to do with all this extra free time that I have?

Vicki: (laughs)

Steve: It just doesn’t happen!

Vicki: No, it doesn’t.

Steve: So you have to schedule yourself that time. You have to build it in and say, “For this hour, I’m going to play. Because play is going to make me a better educator.” And not force yourself to feel guilty for not taking the time to play with a new technology.

Vicki: Yes, and as I always say innovate like a turtle. Take tiny little steps forward every day, because it’s about forward progress. We can all learn something new. Now I’m going to be playing with Sutori, so I’ve learned something new today.

Thank you so much, Steve. We will put all of your information in the Shownotes so folks can follow you.

Steve: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

  Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Steve Dembo Bio as submitted

A pioneer in the field of educational social networking, Dembo was among the first to realize the power of blogging, podcasting, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 technologies in connecting educators and creating professional learning communities.

Steve Dembo served for ten years as Discovery Education’s Director of Learning Communities and led their Innovation and Strategy team. He is the co-author of the book Untangling the Web: 20 Tools to Power Up Your Teaching. The National School Board Association named him one of 2010’s “Twenty to Watch,” a list honoring individuals finding innovative ways to use technology to increase classroom learning. In 2013 he began serving the Skokie/Morton Grove District 69 as a member of the School Board. Dembo is a course designer and adjunct professor for Wilkes University where he serves as class instructor for the Internet Tools for Teaching course within the Instructional Media degree program.

Steve Dembo is also a dynamic speaker on the capabilities of social networking, the power of educational technologies and Web 2.0 tools, and the ability of digital content to empower teachers to improve student achievement. He has delivered keynotes and featured presentations at dozens of conferences globally including ISTE, TCEA, FETC, MACUL, GaETC, METC, CUE, ICE, TEDxCorpus Christi, #140Edu, EduWeb, .EDU and the Social Media Masters Summit. Dembo was also a featured panelist at Nokia Open Labs as an expert on mobile device integration in education.

Blog: http://teach42.com

Twitter: @teach42

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode mentions an affiliate program. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you.  Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 8 Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018 appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

8 Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018 published first on http://ift.tt/2yTzsdq

[aira26soonas]

8 Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018

Steve Dembo on episode 222 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Sometimes the best tools have been around awhile. Steve Dembo @teach42 talks about the tried and true tools that teachers should still use.

Richard Byrne, author of Free Technology for Teachers has several online professional development options  to check out: GSuite for Teachers, Teaching History with Technology, and Practical Edtech Coaching.

See all of Richard’s Courses at http://www.coolcatteacher.com/edtech. Richard is not a sponsor of the show, however I am an affiliate.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e222 Date: January 2, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my friend, Steve Dembo @teach42, coauthor of Untangling the Web. He was one of my first blogs that I read, and first podcasts I listened to.

Steve, today for Ed Tech Tool Tuesday, what are some things that people need to try in 2018? Do we need to always be doing the new latest and greatest, or are there some things that maybe we might need to dust off?

Why Time-Tested Tried and True Tools Are So Useful

Steve: Well, I think it’s interesting, because a lot of times when people go to conferences, they’re always seeking out, “What are the ones I haven’t heard of before?” They’re looking for something new and shiny and sexy and so on.

But the reality is, the new ones are sometimes the ones that aren’t necessarily well established, that don’t necessarily have a good financial plan in place. They’re the ones that you can’t necessarily depend on still being there Monday when you want to start using it with students.

And yet, there are all of these great tried and true Web 2.0 tools, or online technologies that not only have a firm financial plan in place or they will withstand the test of time, and they’ve actually been well developed over the year, with new features and so on.

I think sometimes people — instead of focusing on what’s new and what they haven’t seen before — they need to be focusing more on making better and more effective use of the ones that are well established.

Vicki: OK, give us some of those well established.

Tool #1 Padlet

Steve: Well, I’ll take Padlet.

I think Padlet is a perfect first example because everybody kind of knows what it does. For a little while, everybody was talking about it because it was the greatest, newest, shiniest thing.

Read How to Use Padlet

And yet nobody really talks about it much anymore. There’s an entire generation of teachers that aren’t familiar with Padlet because nobody’s evangelizing it anymore.

And, they have done a phenomenal job of upgrading it over time, of adding more educational-friendly features, of adding things like commenting, adding new layouts and columns and so on. So it can function sort of like a Trello, where you can have upvoting ala Reddit, making it a lot more interactive and kind of changing the nature of the way these Padlets can function so that it can fit a lot more needs.

And yet, a lot of people think, “Oh, I’m familiar with Padlet, or I’m familiar with Wallwisher,” (note: Wallwisher is now Padlet) and they don’t take the time to go explore, “What can it do for me NOW?”

Vicki: OH, and it’s such a fantastic tool to use. I don’t know why we keep thinking we have to use what’s new instead of using what absolutely just works, rock solid.

Are there any other rock-solid examples besides Padlet?

Tool #2: VoiceThread

Steve: You know, it’s funny because there are some that are very, very solid and dependable, like VoiceThread that haven’t necessarily evolved all that much,

Tool #3: WeVideo

and then you take others like WeVideo that have just done and an even better job of establishing really great business plans.

You know, they’re making most of their money on the personal accounts, on the business accounts, on the enterprise accounts and so on, which means that they can offer educators even more features for free and they keep on adding things in there, too.

One of the things that they added recently that I love is this “motion graphics” element. It’s basically like an after-effects, in a sense. And you can do some really incredibly brilliant and subtle things in it. If you really want to get creative and push the envelope, you can do some really mind-blowing green screen type things with the motion graphics. It’s one of the most full-featured video editing products out there, and considering that it will work on a Chromebook is just amazing.

Vicki: Yeah. It brings video in the reach of everybody, doesn’t it?

What else do you have?

Tool #4 Kahoot

Steve: Well, let’s see. A lot of times what I like is these ones that are doing consistent development. They’re listening to users and really putting in the features that the users are requesting and wanting to see. Kahoot has done a very nice job of that.

Tool #5: Sutori

One of the other ones that has kind of flown under the radar is a site called Sutori. Sutori has now been around for about I think a year and a half, maybe even almost two years. It kind of defies definition. It’s sort of created its own genre.

But what I really love about it is that they’ve got new features that are coming out every two or three months, and they’re all in direct response to the things that educators have been asking. That’s one of the things I demonstrate when I show this in presentations.

A lot of times people don’t really think the developers want to hear from educators, or that it’s going to have much of an impact. What they don’t realize is that a lot of these online ed tech tools — they’re teams of three or four people. The people who are answering the support questions are the same people who are doing the primary development on them.

So when you say to the support person in the chat room, “I’d like to see this feature,” or “If you did this, then I could use it with my students,” you’re talking to the people who can actually make that happen! So that’s another one that I’ve become a huge fan of.

Vicki: So Kahoot obviously helps us do quizzes, and our students can make them, and that’s awesome.

So Sutori… Is that really more for vocabulary? I haven’t used it.

Steve: No, it’s sort of… a way to sort of publish stories but in a sort of linear fashion. It’s sort of like a timeline, but it’s not a timeline because there aren’t necessarily and numbers. It almost defies definition, but it’s a way to publish something almost like a blog except that it is actually interactive. It can be collaborative ala Google Docs style.

If you’re not familiar with it yet, you should definitely — if nothing else — go to the website and look at their gallery. Their gallery has an excellent selection of great examples that would appeal to educators. One of the other nice things about it is that you can take any one of those, copy it to your own account, and use them as templates and just modify them to your heart’s content.

Tool #6: Wordle

Vicki: Now, before the show, you were even talking about Wordle. I mean, how can you explain that? That’s such a powerful tool, and I use it all the time with my students.

Steve: (laughs)

Wordle is sort of my litmus test. Now Wordle hasn’t changed one iota from the very beginning, which a lot of people can appreciate because we all know what it’s like when you pull it up on Monday with the students and all of a sudden it looks completely different. Wordle’s not going to.

But what I find ironic — that sort of encapsulates this whole problem of people only evangelizing the newest items in the tech scene — is that as soon as everybody’s familiar with it (and when I say everybody, I mean the people that are hanging out in Twitter chats, the people that go to ISTE, the people that go to the affiliate conferences) as soon as everybody knows about a web tool, most of those people stop talking about it, they stop blogging about it, they stop sharing it in presentations.

The net result is that when I go into schools and I talk to teachers and I talk to educators in general, I would estimate that more than half of them haven’t heard of Wordle. Most of them just have never even seen it, because no one’s taking the time to share it anymore because it’s not new to them.

Tool #7 & 8 WordPress and Edublogs

It’s sort of the reason why it doesn’t seem new and sexy to talk about blogging or to evangelize blogging anymore or show people how to use EduBlog, or how to use WordPress. And yet, you know what? There’s still a need for it.

Vicki: (agrees)

Steve: It may not be the newest and freshest thing in the world, but there’s still this whole generation of teachers that didn’t get the same exposure to it and haven’t had the same journey that we have.

Vicki: Well, when I do my “Fifty-Plus Tools” presentation, I always show how you can go on Wikitext and you can pull out, say, the Emancipation Proclamation, and you can put it into Wordle, and you really frontload that vocabulary. It’s such an important teaching technique, whatever you’re teaching, particularly if the subject you’re teaching is on public domain, and you can pull the text out and put it in there. It’s just a fantastic method.

So, Steve, as we finish up, what kind of inspiration do you have for educators who feel overwhelmed by all of this ed tech, to get started and try something new?

Inspiration for Overwhelmed Teachers

Steve: (laughs)

Well, the first thing to keep in mind is… I love doing this exercise during a presentation… I ask people to just raise their hands if they feel like they’re behind the technology curve. And nearly two-thirds to three-quarters of the audience will raise their hand.

The reality is that every single one of those people — just by being at a tech conference, by listening to podcasts like yours — you’re ahead of the technology curve. You’re far more tech-savvy than most other people, most other educators that are just… I don’t want to say just punching the card and going through the routine… but who aren’t necessarily seeking out new sources of professional development.

So first of all, I strongly urge people not to be so critical of themselves. But then it’s the traditional, “You have to make the time to do it.” There will never be a time when you say, “Boy! What am I going to do with all this extra free time that I have?

Vicki: (laughs)

Steve: It just doesn’t happen!

Vicki: No, it doesn’t.

Steve: So you have to schedule yourself that time. You have to build it in and say, “For this hour, I’m going to play. Because play is going to make me a better educator.” And not force yourself to feel guilty for not taking the time to play with a new technology.

Vicki: Yes, and as I always say innovate like a turtle. Take tiny little steps forward every day, because it’s about forward progress. We can all learn something new. Now I’m going to be playing with Sutori, so I’ve learned something new today.

Thank you so much, Steve. We will put all of your information in the Shownotes so folks can follow you.

Steve: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

  Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Steve Dembo Bio as submitted

A pioneer in the field of educational social networking, Dembo was among the first to realize the power of blogging, podcasting, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 technologies in connecting educators and creating professional learning communities.

Steve Dembo served for ten years as Discovery Education’s Director of Learning Communities and led their Innovation and Strategy team. He is the co-author of the book Untangling the Web: 20 Tools to Power Up Your Teaching. The National School Board Association named him one of 2010’s “Twenty to Watch,” a list honoring individuals finding innovative ways to use technology to increase classroom learning. In 2013 he began serving the Skokie/Morton Grove District 69 as a member of the School Board. Dembo is a course designer and adjunct professor for Wilkes University where he serves as class instructor for the Internet Tools for Teaching course within the Instructional Media degree program.

Steve Dembo is also a dynamic speaker on the capabilities of social networking, the power of educational technologies and Web 2.0 tools, and the ability of digital content to empower teachers to improve student achievement. He has delivered keynotes and featured presentations at dozens of conferences globally including ISTE, TCEA, FETC, MACUL, GaETC, METC, CUE, ICE, TEDxCorpus Christi, #140Edu, EduWeb, .EDU and the Social Media Masters Summit. Dembo was also a featured panelist at Nokia Open Labs as an expert on mobile device integration in education.

Blog: http://teach42.com

Twitter: @teach42

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode mentions an affiliate program. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you.  Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 8 Tried and True Edtech Tools to Try in 2018 appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e222/