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himbowelsh · 4 years

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kisses meant to distract the other person from whatever they were intently doing + Webgott ! This is what I mean Liebgott fights dirty and will use any leverage he possesses to get his way

he absolutely does. setting this in my single dad web au, just because i can.

Webster’s office is at the back of the house --- a very generous word for a very little room, probably meant as a closet or mudroom before being hijacked for its unconventional purpose. Everything about Webster’s “personalised writing space”, from the shark action figures (“scale models, Joe,”) lined up along the wall, to the dictionaries and scientific texts overflowing from the overburdened bookshelf, gives it a feeling of disorganized clutter, the kind of scatter-brainedness that only Webster in full writing mode can achieve. His desk is covered with coffee mugs, emptied or half-forgotten. Notebooks litter the floor, inviting someone to trip over them. Spare papers, covered in illegible scribbles, have been taped to the wall; sometimes Webster spends hours just staring at them, highlighting a few lines or scratching out others; when he tears a paper down, it gets balled up and tossed to the back of the room. A new one is eager to take its place. The ancient carpet covering the creaky oak floor hasn’t been vacuumed in years; the curtains haven’t been cleaned, even though Webster keeps them pulled back most of the time, anyways. He liked being able to look out the giant bay windows in the direction of the sea. It “gives him inspiration”, apparently. Joe’s tempted to point out that they live in suburbia, and can’t even smell the tide from their backyard, but Webster wouldn’t listen if he tried.

It’s the one room Joe isn’t allowed to clean. He keeps the rest of the house vengefully spotless, but Webster’s office is his own space.

“We can’t bother him when he’s in there,” Jane told him very seriously, a few weeks after Joe moved in. She led him past Web’s closed door with a finger pressed to her lips, and proceeded to make a can of chicken noodle soup like she’d been cooking all her life.

Joe knows Web well enough. He’s not a neglectful father, by any means — he looks at Jane like she hangs the moon in the sky, and when the kid wants his attention, he has it — but they clearly had their dynamic down before Joe ever moved in. Web’s a great father, but no housekeeper. Jane learned from childhood to clean the kitchen, pick up the dirty laundry, wash the dishes, and throw together simple dinners when her dad was too caught up in work. She never rebelled against the responsibility. It was just something she did — she took care of Web the same way he took care of her, bandaging her scraped knees, helping her with homework, and braiding her hair before school in the mornings.

Joe came into the house, and he took over certain jobs which had already been allotted. Suddenly he was the official hair braider, official vacuumer and dinner-maker. Jane still kept up with her chores, Web with his work, but the house was neat and looked after. So, in a lot of ways, were the people who lived there.

Here’s the thing about Web: he needs to be looked after. He doesn’t want it — there’s a reason he gets Christmas cards from his rich parents, instead of visiting them in person — but he needs it. Coming from the right person, he even enjoys it… and this is a task Joe’s happy to take over from Jane, who’s too young to be worrying about looking after her Dad. Joe’s got different methods; he’s got different motives. It’s not long before he figures out exactly how to approach Web in the right way, to keep that stubborn, independent streak of his from flaring up. He learns very quickly how to take care of him.

“Hey,” he says softly, leaning against Webster’s office doorframe. “It’s late.”

Rain thrums against the windowpanes like a heartbeat, filling the room and drowning out the rhythm of Webster’s keyboard. He’s got his glasses on — the ones he only uses for midnight writing, and insists he doesn’t need otherwise — and a day’s worth of scruff shadowing his face. Still in that day’s clothes, with his belt discarded and top buttons of his shirt undone, he’s become an afterthought to himself. The only thing that matters tonight are the words on the page… and he’s been putting them there for hours.

“I know… I know.”

Joe knows, too, when Webster’s rhythm starts slowing down — when he loses his steam. There’s no point writing after that, because he’ll never be satisfied with what he puts out. It just means more time spent revising later, sometimes deleting whole chunks of work that took him hours, because it’s “shit, utter shit, it sounds like someone wrote it while half asleep because I was”. Webster in his zone can work wonders. Webster sliding out of his zone, into the grip of exhaustion, needs to be stopped for his own good.

Webster sighs, running a hand over his jaw. He slumps further over his desk, blinking blearily at the screen. Whatever he sees doesn’t inspire him at all, but he taps out a few more words anyways, almost on impulse. When Joe takes a further step into the room, Webster doesn’t notice.

“I’ll be done in a minute… I just have to close out this chapter, we’re talking about the Shark Attacks of 1916…”

“You know that case like the back of your hand.” It’s not like he’s going to forget the facts if he leaves it to rest overnight. Joe takes another step, and the floor creaks beneath his weight. Webster looks up, like he’s surprised to see him there.

“I know, I just…” He sighs again. “I know. Gotta finish, though.”

It’s nearly one in the morning. Webster’s movements are sluggish, his writing even moreso. Joe knows a recipe for ridiculousness when he sees it. Better he save them both the trouble. “You’re exhausted,” he declares, bracing himself against Web’s cluttered oak desk. When Webster pulls his gaze away, returning to the glare of the computer screen, Joe reaches out and catches his fingers in dark, thick curls. “Come on, Web. It can wait.”

“It really can’t.”

“You need to rest.”

“I need to finish —“

Joe’s had it. He crosses the desk in a quick, fluid movement, spinning Webster’s chair towards him. Before Webster even knows what’s happening, Joe’s caught him. Their mouths fit together like puzzle pieces sliding into place; Webster’s lips part to greet him, though that could just as well be a gasp. The noise he makes is definitely surprised, one hand coming up to cup Joe’s face just to steady himself. He’s not in any danger; Joe’s not letting him fall anyway. He keeps their lips locked, a slow and easy rhythm between them, as he sidles up against Web and straddles one knee.

Webster goes spaghetti-limbed; as he moves back, Joe guides him. Thank god his writing chair is unequivocally the comfiest in the house, otherwise their position would be awkward. As it is, Joe presses Webster back against the leather cushioning without an ounce of guilt. One hand on each side of his head, he braces himself, nibbling at Webster’s lower lip while steadily grinding into his knee. Webster moans.

When Joe pulls back, he’s satisfied by the sight of his boyfriend, cheeks flushed a deep red, eyes open wide. Who the hell could think about writing after that?

“You alright, Web?” he mutters, failing to bite back a smirk.

“You,” says Webster. “You. Play dirty.”

“We been together long enough now,” Joe chuckles. “You know how filthy I can get.”

He leans in to kiss the shell of his ear, and Webster’s back arches.

“Close your mouth, Web,” Joe says without looking, and hears a clink of teeth. “Now…” He mouths the words into his ear, lips still flushed and wet. “I’m telling you. It’s time for bed. You gonna argue with me any more?”

Webster exhales hard through his nose and murmurs something that’s more profanity than complaint.

“Good.” Joe seals the deal with a kiss to his temple, and springs deftly off of his boyfriend’s lap. Sure enough, Webster looks like he’s just been struck by lightning. He can’t find his feet fast enough.

“Filthy,” he mutters, as Joe shuts the light in his office off for him. “Absolutely — roll in the sewer — fall into a dumpster —“

“Got some interesting ideas there, Web. We’ll try ‘em next time.” Joe tucks an atm around his waist, reeling him in. The night is perfect. Thunder rumbles in the distance, drowning out any sound they make; Jane is comfortably asleep in her room; and in the darkness, Joe and Webster are free to do whatever they like.

Maybe bed can wait a little while longer.

#webgott #single dad web au #david webster #joseph liebgot #my writing

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tiggy51 · 4 years

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What Did You Expect?

Atlantic Monthly Magazine

There is a great deal you have every right to expect at this moment of crisis, and no reason at all to believe that Donald Trump or his White House will provide it.

You cannot expect this White House to tell the truth about Trump’s health. His doctors have lied about the president’s weight and height. They have never offered an adequate explanation of his sudden, unscheduled visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center a year ago. Even the fact that a close aide to the president had tested positive for the coronavirus was kept from the public until Bloomberg broke the news.

Read: Now what?

You cannot expect the White House to produce any orderly plan for the execution of Trump’s public duties, even to the very limited extent that Trump executed public duties in the first place. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 6 of this year. Johnson formally deputed Foreign Minister Dominic Raab to preside over the government during his own incapacity. But the pattern in the Trump administration has been that the president will not and cannot do the job himself, and that he vengefully strikes down anyone who tries to do the job for him.

Trump fired his most successful chief of staff, John Kelly, for trying to force him to work. Kelly’s successor, Mick Mulvaney, survived by enabling Trump “to act as he chooses—a recognition that trying to control Trump is a futile approach,” as Politico’s Nancy Cook put it. Likewise, Vice President Mike Pence had better be awfully circumspect about filling the role that the Constitution and its Twenty-Fifth Amendment assign him. Trump will be watching. So long as Trump is conscious, he will not allow it; should he lose consciousness, he will retaliate when and if he recovers.

You cannot expect the White House to exhibit any regard for the health of others. The president knowingly exposed his wife, his adult children, his staff, his donors, and his supporters in the Cleveland debate hall. He refused and forbade the most basic safety precautions in the close quarters of the West Wing and on Air Force One, except for testing, which was intended to protect him personally. On Tuesday, Trump was on the debate stage mocking former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing face masks; as the positive tests came in, he did not bother to inform Biden or his team that Trump had exposed him to the coronavirus. Until we know the date of Trump’s last negative COVID-19 test, we can only guess at the number of people he exposed. By sticking to an aggressive travel schedule with in-person gatherings while eschewing even minimal safeguards, Trump has carried the risk of disease across the country.

Read: White House, Petri dish

You cannot expect Trump to gain any wisdom, empathy, or compassion for others. Throughout the pandemic, Trump has disdained the hardships suffered by sick and dying Americans, by their families and neighbors, by those who have lost jobs and homes. When NBC’s Peter Alexander asked Trump on March 20 what the president would say to Americans feeling fear because of the disease, he upbraided Alexander: “I’d say you are a terrible reporter.” When Republican Senator Mitt Romney self-isolated because he had been exposed to COVID-19 by the negligent selfishness of Senator Rand Paul, Trump sarcastically said to reporters, “Oh, that’s too bad.” It’s a consistent pattern for Trump; on October 2, 2016, four years ago to the day of Trump’s COVID-positive acknowledgment, Trump cruelly pantomimed onstage Hillary Clinton’s campaign-season bout of pneumonia.

What you can expect is a lot of victimhood and self-pity. Trump and those around him have always demanded for themselves the decencies that they refuse others. They will get them, too. Trump’s opponents will express concern and good wishes—and if they do not, Trump’s allies will complain that those opponents are allowing politics to overwhelm human feeling. It was only three days ago that Trump on a debate stage dismissed Biden’s dead son, Beau, and falsely claimed that Biden’s surviving son, Hunter, had been dishonorably discharged from the military.* The next day, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., appeared on Glenn Beck’s show to describe Hunter as a “crackhead.” Now, though, we will hear a lot about how people are not being respectful enough to a president in his time of illness.

Trump has all his life posed a moral puzzle: What is due in the way of kindness and sympathy to people who have no kindness and sympathy for anyone else? Should we repay horrifying cruelty in equal measure? Then we reduce ourselves to their level. But if we return indecency with the decency due any other person in need, don’t we encourage appalling behavior? Don’t we prove to them that they belong to some unique bracket of humanity, entitled to kick others when they are writhing on the floor, and then to claim mercy when their own crimes and cruelties cast them upon the floor themselves?

Americans are dead who might have been alive if Trump had met the challenge of COVID-19 with care and responsibility—or if somebody else, literally almost anybody else, had been president instead. Millions are out of work, in danger of losing their homes, living in fear. Tens of millions of young people have suffered disruption to their education, which will follow them through life. The pandemic was not Trump’s fault, but at every turn, he made things worse than they had to be—because at every turn, he cared only for himself, never for the country. And now he will care only for himself again.

Trump should never have been allowed anywhere near any public office. Wish him well, but recognize that his deformed spirit will never be well—and that nothing can be well for the country under his leadership.

* This article previously misstated that Trump claimed Hunter Biden had been dishonorably discharged from the Army. In fact, Trump's false claim at the debate did not specify a branch of the military.

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sanerontheinside · 7 years

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y’all, i dunno... I thought I posted this shit before but I guess not anyway at some point I probably mentioned writing fanfic about my friend group from college I can’t find that particular post tho which is probably for the better but I’m also an idiot who’s gonna post it now under a cut for, idk, shits and giggles.

also, icky ricky is, legit, what they named the bathtub. he’s not a real actual person. that doesn’t change the fact that the spider who lived in Sangini’s room was Ricky’s pet.

the worst part of this is none of the names have been changed yet and Alex=saner so spoiler alert I die real fast. blink and you’ll miss it.

When the girls moved into their apartment that year, they joked about the bathroom looking like a murder scene. And it did: they assumed it was just rust staining the bathtub, and anyway their apartment complex had been on the short end of the list for renovations last year. Meredith was the first to move in. By the time the others had arrived she’d caulked and cleaned the bathroom, and given it a fresh coat of paint. All the while, as she was there alone, she kept hearing odd stirrings in the apartment - was it infested with mice as well? But she wasn't the type to get creeped out by murder scenes and odd noises in empty apartments, and decided the neighbours were doing the stirring. It was more logical than the reality, really.

It was when all four girls had finally settled in that things got a little bizarre. Everything seemed pretty alright at first. Noises were blamed on the neighbours. The bathroom - well, for all its faults, it was largely in working condition. But the lighter sleepers could tell you that apart from the drunk neighbours upstairs and the apartment assistant next door throwing loud-ass parties, the scuffling got louder at night. And it moved around. And sometimes - sometimes - the toilet flushed itself.

Sometimes it flushed itself during the day, too. Not that this wasn't a thing toilets did, as their friends assured them. It wasn't something you could call Housing about. Eventually you got used to it.

The bathtub, too, was something of a mystery. It happened that a couple weeks into the semester, it stopped draining. The girls called Housing Services, who sent a lady to give it a onceover. The lady assessed the situation, attempted to fix it, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The next day another guy came, but the tub, probably deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble, was by then draining just fine. It periodically had bouts of stagnation thereafter, but they didn’t seem to last very long.

Nobody thought much of the scuffling, or the random flushing, or the moody bathtub, or of the neighbours (nobody ever thinks much of their neighbours anyway) until the day that - until the night that - until the morning that Sangini blearily wandered out of her shared room with Khushbu and over to the refrigerator. The apartment upstairs was alive with staggering horses freshly drunk from some frat bar, the apartment next door had a spectacularly destructive sound system - so far as headaches go, a real menace. Not to say, sensitive heads, belonging to Comp-Sci majors who code by night, sleep by day, write essays by the crimson-gold of sundown. And so: at four in the morning a rather disoriented CompSci major with a pulsing head and a late-night gnawing stomach shuffled over to the refrigerator, stood in front of its dimmed light for a moment, staring at the packed inside, and reached over for the milk.

Her hand stopped a little short of it. She considered the situation, wondering just what was so odd about it. Sangini turned to the living room carefully and peered across it at the half-curtained window with a perplexed look on her face, then looked back at the refrigerator.

If there was no one in the living room, why had the refrigerator door been wide open? She hadn't opened it. In fact, if not for the little bit of light that snaked its way out of the the vegetables and boxes and eggs and bottles and things, she would probably have tripped halfway across the hall.

"Meredith?" She was certain that she'd left Khushbu asleep in the room, and aware that Meredith generally clocked out at ten or eleven and revived at five for a morning jog. "Neha?" Also unlikely. Two in the morning - maybe. But, four?

Whoever it was, they'd been here moments ago, since the refrigerator light was still on. Sangini shuddered, shook her head, and decided she'd opened the door herself. Milk, cereal, bowl, crunch.

Thump.

Okay - Sangini didn't have anything to do with that thump. She paused over her next spoonful, slowly raised her head, and peered into the darkness. "Uh, hello?" she asked the room at large. There was no answer.

Light. Yes - light would be nice. Right now it was dark outside and the blueish moon was doing its best to round the corners of the Richardson Apartments, but the complexes were packed together with the occasional tree in between, and the moon wasn't getting anywhere - the struggle was too damn real. Sangini cautiously walked over to the door, hit the light switch with a lightning jab, poised defensively at the rest of the seemingly empty living room. But there was no one there.

Sufficiently creeped out, she picked up her bowl and spoon and withdrew the heck from the living room. Whatever was digging through their packed refrigerator, it could have at it. Would be nice if some of the food in there got unloaded.

The next day was largely uneventful, in terms of scuffles. Khushbu had a co-op, and a moderately heavy day of classes. Sangini, as usual, slept in, then headed off to class herself. Neha shared certain classes with Khushbu and preferred to study at the library. Meredith, after her morning jog, also came back to the apartment only briefly. And Sangini happily forgot about the creepy thing.

Nature took its revenge on the close-packed campus in the winter, triumphed in spring, waxed vengefully hot in the summer, celebrated its victory over Rutgers humans anew in autumn. Now, after spring break, the weather was a bit more cheerful, and the ice was gradually receding as Nature entered its refractory period after pounding the natives with cold, wet, slushy dirty squelchiness, and decided it liked nice weather after all. It was the perfect week to celebrate Neha's birthday, and that evening the group got together at Henry's, the diner on Livi.

At least three separate conversations meandered all over the table of approximately ten people. Neha ordered a caramel coffee straight away, and set about weighing the vegetarian options on the menu - a limited number, but a pretty decent selection. Neha Sikka - not Sangini's apartment mate - was doing sugar shots in the corner by the window next to Ian, who was encouraging her. Sangini and Ben and Kriti were warring over pasta choices. Alex suggested coffee flavours and dessert choices, and punched Ben in the shoulder whenever he said something she didn’t like. Sanjana and Ashwini pored over the menu in search of something they hadn't tried yet. Bethann looked for someone with whom to split the Bruschetta, and was trying to convince Khushbu at the moment. Pooja, who lived on Cook-Doug and whom they almost never saw, joined them about twenty minutes into the meal. Aditya ordered quickly and went back to discussing comics and computers with Ben. Jeff ‘the Ninja-Crow’ presided silently by the windows.

Eventually Alex started talking about that time she couldn’t fall asleep for half the night, heard something clanging in the suite that sounded a lot like the heater was broken. She’d come out and found Sam cutting up a kiwi over the sinks. Sangini instantly remembered the creepy thing.

“Guys-guys-guys-guys!” she hissed excitedly down the table.

Ben answered with his predictable ‘What!’ [-do you want from my life-, unspoken], Alex immediately devoted her attention entirely to her salmon, Neha and Kriti were busily splitting and sharing their dishes. Really, trying to get everyone’s attention was more than a bit like herding cats. “Guys, I think there was someone in our apartment last night. At, like, four in the morning.”

“Ben, did you sleep there?” Alex asked quietly.

“No.”

“Did Matt sleep there?”

Sangini shook her head. “Nobody slept over.”

Alex wasn’t giving up. “Jeff, did you come in through the window?”

“Nope.”

Alex shrugged. “Honestly, your bathroom flushes itself, your bathtub plays games with you, and you think there is someone in your apartment at four in the morning. Maybe it’s haunted.” Not that she believed in ghosts. Although, she seemed to entertain the idea of friendly, mischievous spirit-gremlin-type thingies.

“Yeah!” Ben half-shouted, and returned to his previous conversation.

Sangini persisted: “No, but I’m serious, I’m pretty sure I heard breathing in the living room. And the fridge was open before I got to it. Alex? Come stay with us?”

“Overnight? I can’t, I have a long day tomorrow. But I can go back with you guys.”

Alex wasn’t particularly afraid of ghosts, and it was nice to think that if there was a ghost, she could beat it up and scare it back to the Netherworld. Almost in jest, she took the precaution of enlisting Khushbu’s help, however.

But when they all got back to Richardson, they opened the door to a pretty bizarre sight.

He'd been coming out of the bathroom - they could still hear the toilet flushing - and hadn't had enough time to duck into Meredith's room. Sangini had immediately pushed Alex to the head of the crowd, between herself and the intruder.

"Uh," he said. "Uh, hi," he thought to add.

"And who are you, exactly?" Ben supplied, as Alex still seemed to be running through swear words un her head so that she didn't say them aloud.

“Nobody,” he mumbled.

“Got a name?” Alex drawled, having finally hit on the part of her brain that didn't require a censor.

"Uh," he said, "yeah. Rick. Name's Ricky."

"Ricky," Ben repeated flatly. He nodded. "So, what’re you - how did you get in?" The man just stared back.

"Were you here last night?" Sangini called out finally.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, the guys let me live here last year, I sorta don't have a place to go, so -"

It was the first coherent sentence he'd spoken, and it got away from him by the end, but at least he spoke. Alex walked forward to a chair - Ricky shrank back as she did so.

"So you've been living here since last year?" Ben asked, as everyone followed Alex's example and filed into the room.

"Yeah. I lost my job, and, uh - well I used to be a plumber here, so..."

"What, have you been living in walls?" Neha asked in disbelief. Snark popped out of her when she was nervous or worried.

"Under the couch. Sometimes the beds. Depends."

They all jumped as the buzzer rattled in the ensuing silence. "Somebody has to let Ashwini in," Khushbu said quietly.

"Uh, should we?" Jeff asked.

"Would it change anything?" Neha pointed out. "We're all freaked out anyway."

So Khushbu ran out to let Ashwini into Richardson. Ashwini pointed out, in a timely fashion, that Khushbu was looking more worried than usual, which of course only flustered Khushbu more. Ashwini was finally getting around to asking her what was wrong as they walked through the door. She stopped dead at the sight of Ricky, who was grinning a somewhat nauseated grin. The poor guy honestly looked terrified.

“What the hell?” Ashwini stuttered out a breathy, nervous laugh.

“‘Shweens! This is Ricky. Ricky, this is ‘Shwini.” Sangini made the introductions, for all the world like this sort of thing happened every day.

‘Shwini, as usual, didn't miss a beat. “I thought you named your tub that.”

There was an awkward pause. Ricky, thankfully, didn't notice. And anyway, Alex immediately distracted him with a very enthusiastic - “Hey, you gotta show me how you hide!”

Ricky blinked. “Uh, okay.”

Alex was suddenly excited and jumped up. “Seriously, there's no space here, I want to know how you do it.”

Ricky stared at her looking a little shelled, said “okay” again, and turned around and walked back down the hall into Sangini’s room. Alex darted after him, grinning madly, while everyone else tried to explain - badly - what the heck that was about to Shwini.

By the time Alex got to the room, though, she’d nearly lost Ricky in the dark. He hadn’t turned on the lights, not in the hall and not in the room, and Alex pretty much blocked the better part of the dim light from the hall.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Ricky asked, awkward as before. “I mean like… not everybody wants to go through walls ‘n stuff.”

Alex laughed. “You kidding? I’ve always wanted to walk through walls.”

Ricky brightened. “Oh, yeah? Cool. This way, here - see? This part of the wall kinda feels funny, like it’s buzzing, yeah?” He ducked over to the window at the head of Sangini’s bed and put his hand beside the frame.

Alex pressed her hand against the cinderblock gently. “Yeah, sure. So you just… go through?”

Ricky nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay then.”

Ashwini was not to be distracted, and not really one to be unnecessarily polite. “So who was that creepy dude?”

Ben perked up from across the room. “Who, me?”

“No, Jeffrey,” Ashwini deadpanned back at him. “Why is there a creepy guy in Sangini’s room?”

“He’s the creepy bathtub,” Ian clarified, though it offered absolutely no clarity.

“Come on, guys, I’m serious!”

Ben shrugged. “Hey, where’s Alex?”

“Alex?” Sangini turned and called down the hall. “You guys coming back?”

Alex wandered out of the room, looking pretty cheerful. “Nah, Ricky bailed. Said he saw a guy coming over whom he didn’t like.”

Someone buzzed the door again. “Oh, I think that’s Matt!” Sangini exclaimed, completely missing the sudden hush as she twisted around and booked it for the door.

Alex snickered. “No situational awareness, that one,” she sighed, as the door shut.

“Yeah!” Ben shouted, and went back to playing Cards Against Humanity against Aditya, Pooja, and both Nehas.

personally, the highlight of my night that year was the ddos attack on Rutgers, probably the first of three, which was eventually determined to be caused by bots based in Russia, and why they picked RuTGeRs UniVerSIty of all places is still a fucking mystery my dudes.

Then they lost the Internet.

Alex had been relaxing, quietly writing her fiction, discussing something with Ben. The conversation could have been mildly disturbing for the uninitiated.

The moment the Internet blipped out, she scowled and asked what was going on.

"Apparently a disgruntled student has launched a DDoS attack," Jeff remarked flatly.

"Wait, for real? Shit," Alex muttered. "Dunno about disgruntled students, but this clown is disgruntling me and my not-yet-downloaded thermo hw and practice problems."

“Yeah - meanwhile, you’re writing fiction,” Ben smirked. Instead of hitting him for pointing out the obvious, though, Alex shrugged.

"Yeah - no, guys, that may not be true," Sangini interjected quickly.

"Well if it is true, if I fail this midterm, and if I find this joker, I will tear out his throat in a most disgruntled manner," Alex said lightly, as if commenting on the weather.

Aditya had been keeping tabs on emails from the university's tech office and soon discovered a Twitter account that claimed to be the hacker.

#also saner is an idiot in general do not be surprised she craved the sweet release from thermogoddamnics and all of jr yr Engineering core #slightly murderous fic writing bean #and... yeah so... nobody liked sangini's boyfriend but she's the one who 'suggested' i write this fic (suggested MORE LIKE INSISTED)#which is maybe why she'll never get to see it lol? one would hope.#will i spare anyone from death by Matt in this fic hmm.... yeah sure #Aditya and Khushbu #also Pooja 'cause she'd be the first to leave #and probably Meredith because by the time she got back not only would everybody dead be extra dead but the mess would probably be cleaned up #Ben dies upon his personal request #Jeff.... ok Jeff would survive the zombie apocalypse tbh #original fic #lol #apparently

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vengefulcooking · 3 years

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I just realised, I do have a small piece of cooking-related advice for you all, and this is coming from a place of being a physical mess and disaster the second I was left to fend for myself.

Utensils.

We all mess up sometimes; you carry food in a carrier and just forget to take it out later and suddenly you've got a mess of a container. Sometimes, if you're like I was, it may get waay out of hand. I had a liquid container in first year, and one day I filled it with milk. I walked all over the place and forgot to have it. I got home in the evening. Completely forgot about it in my bag, discovered it a few days later. There's no way milk has lasted that long. I take it out of the bag and attempt to clean it out. This thing has been at the bottom of my bag for so long, it won't open. It's early in the semester, I'm only beginning to know my roommate. I'd have to go to the common room to wash out this mess. I'm terrified. I decide to let sleeping dogs lie instead.

It's a ticking time bomb (naturally). Eight months pass. (Eight MONTHS) It's time to leave. I've had a lovely first year, first time living on my own and everything, there are ups, there are downright failures, but it's time to go home now. Every item in my room needs to be taken out and packed away (and possibly, come to the notice of my family).

Including one really old, steel container that is tightly slammed shut.

I either embarrass myself in front a roommate I was now comfortable with, or family I hadn't seen in a year (and who thought, not without reason!, that I was a bit on the immature side).

I explain stuff to roommate. This has been shut so tight for two terms now, I can't get it to open. There WAS something in it, so be mentally prepared for that. Can you help me?

(There should be special perks for people who agree to that when they have no need to. There should be special perks for my roommate.)

We open it. It nearly knocks the both of us out. It's horrible. No amount of cleaning can seem to get the remains of it out (the milk was curdled and solid and stuck to the walls, and naturally, reeked).

I panicked, and with the end of April drawing closer and closer, I binned the entire stainless steel bottle eventually.

Now, most of us will not have such extreme experiences! However, you will still occasionally forget about food and such. I was on a train last week to see family (the same, and you'll be pleased to know they were very impressed with my progress, this hear a few years later. A happy, vengeful success story! (for explanation on that, see my URL)). I spent the Friday travelling and was with them till Sunday, and we didn't have a free moment. I carried some food for the train, but after we met we went out to eat and I didn't end up finishing my packed box.

I only found out about the tiffin boxes on Tuesday. They've been shut since Friday. Whoops.

However! I now have a few tricks to avert disaster!

Starch water! That's right, the very same, the remnants of boiling pasta or potatoes, the milky white starch water that remains once the carbs have been boiled. Starch water is a great disinfectant and cleaner, and if you regularly use a vessel to boil pasta (or potatoes), you might notice your vessel is sparkly clean and very shiny. That's the pasta water's doing! It's also a disinfectant though, so it keeps them clean looking and also germ-free (to an extent, of course).

I filled up the boxes with pasta water and left them overnight, and that was enough. They're shiny and clean, all the food smell's gone, they're ready for a rinse (and soap because.) and ready to be back in use. No binning needed this time.

So yeah, LPT: you can use leftover starch water from boiling potatoes or pasta as a disinfecting cleaner for your dishes! They'll be clean and also shiny!

#LPT #life tips #cooking #and cleaning #(it's as important)#how to #vengeful cooking #food #vengeful food admin #pasta #adulting #also don't worry about a thing and take your time with it!#not a vengefully cooked dish #tw food #milk #tw spoiled food mention #I really should say that. It was NOT pretty

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