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jamaiskookie · 3 years

Note

i would like more soundcloud rapper yoongi x idol y/n please it’s so cute

v-live alert! -myg

pairing: idol! y/n x soundcloud rapper! yoongi

wc; 2.9k

a/n: lots of you asked, and so you shall receive. ps, i wrote this really rushed but i kinda love it. lmk what you think, love you guys <3

[V LIVE] Surprise LIVE!

the v-live notification. or, more accurately, the sound of war. alternatively, you dance around your studio on a livestream and yoongi has a mental breakdown.

masterlist PREV

“i miss you too!“ you say, replying to one of the first comments that pop up on the live.

you probably should’ve showered before going live... and you probably should’ve changed out of sweats.

whatever.

it’s not like your fans haven’t seen this before.

half of your pre-debut pictures are just downright disgusting.

the number of viewers on the top of your phone begins to climb up to the thousands, increasing every half a second.

it always amazes you how many people show up to your lives. sometimes you wonder if your fans genuinely have nothing better to do. how do they always show up so fast?

the comments begin to flood with greetings and exclamations of ‘oh my god i’m so early!11!1’ and the multicoloured heart pop up on your screen, building up an impressive stream of likes.

“where am i?“ you read through the comments and look around, as if you forgot where you were. “in the studio.“ you grin when the comments flood with questions asking if dreamcloud is getting new music.

you can’t answer, of course, but it’s fun to see. you squint at your phone, which is propped on an elaborate setup that you spent the past twenty minutes preparing.

(three books on one eyeshadow palette and a selfie stick gingerly placed on a small stool)

((you pray to every deity out there that it won’t fall))

“i was just bored,“ you shrug, speaking to the screen. “so i decided to come on here and talk to you guys. how have you been?“ you ask.

hundreds of comments answer.

“i’m alright“

“i’m good!“

most of them contain some form of sappy declaration like ‘my day is much better now that you’re here!’ it makes you smile. how cute.

the v-live notification.

or, more accurately, the sound of war.

that cursed, terrible ding! haunts yoongi’s darkest and most terrifying nightmares. the sheer amount of panic that rushes through his veins when he hears that godforsaken noise, god.

the number of lives he’s missed- yoongi can’t even bear to think about it.

so maybe it was a blessing in disguise that yoongi put his phone on do not disturb so he didn’t have to hear that disgusting sound. instead, he found out the news via a gorilla’s screech.

“Y/N’S LIVE RIGHT NOW STARTED FOURTY SECONDS AGO HURRY UP YOONGI GET YOUR ASS UP AND STOP STUDYI-“ jimin yells from his room down the hall.

yoongi almost falls out of his chair scrambling to get to his phone. it’s not like he was really studying anyways- more like using his pencils to tap out a cool-sounding beat on his desk out of boredom.

watching your live > passing his music theory class.

priorities.

with shaky hands, he grabs at his phone, slumping onto the floor and he sees the familiar blue icon with the notification popped up on the screen.

[V LIVE] Surprise LIVE! Y/N: let’s chat <3

an unnatural squeak that slightly resembles the sound a mouse slips out of yoongi’s mouth.

even when he was a baby starrie and was glued to his phone at all times, he’s never been this early to a live. he unlocks his phone, cursing his momentary clumsiness. he clicks into the live, smiling when your beaming face blasts up on his screen.

you haven’t gone live in so long- it’s nice to see your face again.

“- how have you been?“

“good.“ yoongi types out in the comment box, mumbling the words as he’s typing. “way better now that you’re live.“ sometimes yoongi cringes at himself when he types these things. i mean, who could possibly guess that min yoongi, resident scary-emo-couldslapyouintheface bad boy socially un-responsible simped over a k-pop idol?

he can already see his reputation go down the drain.

he also wonders what it says about himself that he’s a 20-something college student who’s life practically revolves around you, an idol who’s just about a year younger than him.

but dreamcloud is a part of his identity now. he identifies as a starrie no matter what. you know how the old saying goes-

once you stan, you can’t unstan. or something like that, he’s honestly not sure.

you tuck your head onto your hand, diligently trying to keep up with all the comment. with a gasp, you nod at something. “oh, you’re right, user yoonalova98!” - that’s another thing special about you. whenever you read out comments, you also read out the username of whoever wrote it.

you explained in one interview- that it’s cooler to give credit and talk to your fans as if you’re just chatting as friend. saying the username feels like you’re saying their names.

what kind of lucky fan would get their comment read aloud by Y/N?

ugh.

yoongi blinks when he remembers that technically, he’s sort of part of this group of elite, recognised fans.

his twitter stan account got almost five thousand more followers after Y/N replied to his selca. the post itself has tons and tons of likes and retweets.

insane, that Y/N- Y/N herself- knows of his existence. Y/N- the love of his life, has seen his FACE. she commented three HEART emojis below a selfie that he took.

if he thinks about it too much, he’ll start feeling faint again.

“our anniversary is coming up soon! i can’t believe it’s been three years already. time does pass by when you’re having fun.“ you say. yoongi thinks that it’s rather ironic that you would forget your anniversary, when yoongi’s had a calendar countdown to January 14th since the beginning of september.

“ahh,“ you say, leaning in closer to the screen. “from user lialiarach, ‘did you watch jisoo unnie’s acting debut’ - i did! we all watched it and cheered her on during the premiere!“

jisoo’s new drama is good. it’s a fantasy-horror blend, and he, jimin, namjoon and jin finished all 16 episodes in two days when streaming hit Netflix.

your head tilts and you smile. “song recommendations?” you wonder aloud, and yoongi scrambles to get a pen and notepad out. you don’t do ‘y/n’s listening parties’ as much anymore, but your taste in music is impeccable and he collects all the songs in a playlist.

it’s called ‘wedding tunes’ (jimin named it, not him, yoongi swears)

everytime he tries to change it back, it somehow switches back to wedding tunes the next day.

it’s disturbing how good jimin is at this kind of stuff. hopefully yoongi won’t have to bail him out of jail one day.

“okay!“ you say, pulling your laptop open. you hum as you scroll through some page that yoongi can’t see- and he anxiously waits for the first song to be played with twitchy hands and a strong grip on his pen.

the first bar plays out and yoongi’s already in love.

“this is,“ you say over the music, double checking just to make sure. “don’t need your love by NCT...“ you squint. god knows there are too many NCT members. “dream! NCT dream featuring HRVY.“

“NCT dream...“ yoongi mumbles to himself, writing the song down on the notepad.

“you know,“ you say over the music, spinning in your chair and nodding to the beat. “i’ve only met the NCT guys a couple times at music shows and such but they’re all so nice. i can’t remember all their names, but i’m decently familiar with their faces. how do they even have 23 members? how does it all work??“

you dance around the studio, singing along nonsensical lyrics that don’t make sense but sort of fit the rhythm of the song (??)

“don’t need your loo-ooove-!!! dum dum duhhhh duhros noya!!!” yoongi stifles a laugh. there’s a reason why you constantly forget lyrics on stage.

which is quite ironic, actually, because half the time you’re forgetting the lyrics to a song you wrote yourself.

afterwards, you play all the hidden gems- and yoongi’s proud to say he’s familiar with quite a few of them.

airplane by j-hope (a youtube star turned successful rapper-vocalist-dancer)

sweet night by v (the internet’s resident eye-candy)

and then you continue to scroll through your laptop, biting your lip and murmuring quietly to yourself. you glance once back at your phone screen.

okay, listen.

yoongi knows that he’s delusional, okay?

but everytime you look straight in the screen it’s almost like you’re looking directly at the camera it’s almost like you’re staring into his soul. which makes zero sense, but it still makes his heart skip a beat.

let him dream, please

“what am i scrolling through?“ you say, reciting a question from the chat. “soundcloud, user chachachae.“

soundcloud?

oh.

that’s pretty cool.

he didn’t know you had a soundcloud account!

you usually post all your covers and random shorts to instagram or another one of your personal blogs.

for a moment, yoongi indulges himself by wondering if you’d ever listened to his music. his soundcloud account is linked in his twitter bio, after all...

but he shakes those thoughts away as fast as they came. he doesn’t need to entertain himself with such silly thoughts.

“ooh, this one’s good!“ you say, clicking onto something.

still with you by JAYKAY (pffftt haihdkahjd) starts playing and you lean back, humming along. yoongi knows this one too!! now he’s 3 for 3!! he and you do share a similar taste in music, so maybe it does make sense.

even though you’re actually main vocalist and lead dancer, you do listen to a lot of rap music. but the music you make is nothing like the old school hip hop tracks that yoongi is partial to.

the music you make- how can he explain it?

sweet like honey with a little bit of tang.

like barbecue honey!!!!

ok that was a bad analogy.

all of his favourite dreamcloud tracks are written by you- cloud nine, up in the sky, are u still here, quicksand- the list goes on and on and on.

it’s like listening to your voice solves anything he goes against. bad day? dreamcloud. something to celebrate? blast your debut song. in need of a party song? easy fix. he gets aux cord rights? (granted, this doesn’t happen very often, since seokjin insists that his music taste is superior to his friends.) but anyways, y/n can fix it.

listening to your voice feels comforting. it invokes something in him that he honestly cannot explain with words. you’re his inspiration. not just in music- but in life. he admires how you’re able to smile through anything, how you take responsibility for your own actions.

he admires your kind heart, which offers generosity and forgiveness to even the most underserving people.

he admires your passion, for music, for your members, for the smallest things. he admires how you’ll love everyone and anyone.

even though he’s never really met you, he feels like he knows you. he wishes he could, anyways. he wants to thank the person who’s gotten him through such bad days.

yoongi curses himself again for being so delusional.

he keeps telling himself that he can’t get so attached. then he’ll end up like one of those creepy fans who are convinced their idols actually like them.

blech.

“okay, next song!“ you exclaim cheerfully. “i really like this one, guys. he’s this soundcloud star. he makes really cool music.“ yoongi readies his pen. if this person really is a soundcloud star, then there’s a high chance yoongi knows of him. a smaller chance that he actually knows the guy personally; either online or from real life.

you press the space bar almost obnoxiously, like you’re about to reveal something grand. you look into the camera, and you lock eyes with yoongi- through that cursed, horrible screen.

the first note plays and yoongi thinks that it sounds... oddly familiar, actually. for a moment, he sighs in disappointment. this one doesn’t sound as great as the previous few songs. almost like it’s incomplete, imperfect. something about it bugs him at the very bottom of his gut.

jimin figures it out before he does.

“AHHHHHHHHH YOONGI!!! OH MY GOD-!!!! YOONGI ARE YOU SEEING THIS? YOONGI!! HYUNG!“ yoongi grumbles, wondering what the hell jimin is screeching about now.

“oh, for fuck’s sake,“ he mumbles. the difference between him and jimin is the way they express their emotions. while yoongi bottles it all up, choosing to deal with things alone and slump around, jimin has no other choice but to scream things out. it’s a wonder they’re such good friends, really. “what is it now?“ yoongi mutters to himself.

“yeah yeah, a gentle breeze- “ and then it hits him. all at once.

“holy fucking shit.“ he whispers to himself, slumping down on the floor. he can barely hear what you say next.

“this song is called people by agust d. he goes by the name suga on social media-!“ yoongi falls down, gasping for air. “i’m a fan,“ you remark casually. “mr. suga producer-nim!! i’m your fan! please continue to make good music!“ you chuckle. “what am i doing right now? he probably isn’t even watching.“ you stare innocently at the phone camera, as if you don’t even know that you’re changing someone’s life right now.

out of his peripheral vision, he can see jimin rushing into the room, crouching next to him and placing a hand on his back, murmuring something yoongi can’t hear through the sound of his sobs.

huh. when did he even start crying?

“he makes rap and really cool hip hop music. you guys should give him a listen. his lyrics are really meaningful, too.“ you nod along, reciting the lyrics word for word- even though you really can’t rap.

“what kind of person am I? am I a good person? or a bad person? many of ways to judge just a person. everyone will live on, everyone will love, everyone will fade away“ you headbang along to the beat.

yoongi slides down the wall inch by inch. he wonders if he’ll faint or vomit first.

other people seem to make fun of people like him- people who find solace in idols, in music. that’s partially why he doesn’t like disclosing the fact that he’s a diehard fan of an idol girl group.

but in hindsight, that’s so stupid. who gives two fucks about his interests? hell, yoongi’s been depressed half his life. and if a group of girls who sing songs and perform make him feel better, what’s so wrong with that?

jimin’s voice is a little clearer now, and so is yours. you’re singing along to the lyrics- the lyrics that he wrote. the lyrics that he spent hours agonising over, wondering whether his shortcomings and anxiety in his life were worth posting on the internet for his measly following to see.

wondering if the music he made had any impact at all, if one day he might see his dream come true, to see his music being played in public. wondering if anyone might hear his songs and think that it helped them get over a bad day. just like you have for him.

yoongi’s sobs wrack through his body, tears flowing freely on his face. he’s crying hard. ugly crying, like a baby throwing a temper tantrum. his cries echo through the room. if he could see himself right now...

well, he doesn’t want to think about it. he’s sure it’s not a pretty view.

jimin looks over him, smiling proudly. his eyes are glassy, and he tucks yoongi’s head in his chest, putting his arms around him and embracing him.

yoongi’s shoulders shake. if it was any other day, he would usher jimin out the room. he hates it when people see him being vulnerable. even his own family hasn’t seen him cry that much.

but right now, he can’t bring himself to do anything but cry. other people may ask why this is such a big deal, why someone emotionally constipated like min yoongi would cry like this for such a small matter.

this, he doesn’t know how to explain either.

all he can think about is how much it means to him. that someone he admires so much is now, in turn, saying his music- no, his life- is good. nothing much else. but just knowing that you’ve listened to his work, that you know of his alter ego’s name...

his crying sounds grow larger.

jimin pets at his hair. “shh,” he murmurs. “it’s okay.” jimin’s voice also grows a little shaky. he tears up, but continues to comfort the crying boy in his arms. “you did it, hyung. it’s okay. you made it. you did it. why are you crying? this is good news! this is so great! i’m proud of you, we’re all so proud of you.”

yoongi tries to speak; it doesn’t go very well. but when he tries again, he manages to choke something out.

“i did it.“ he says, before burying his face back into jimin’s hug. the two boys sit on the ground, crying together. an hour passes, then two.

slowly, yoongi drifts off to bed on the ground, the melody of his own song blended with sound of your voice echoing in his head.

my ordinary became your special, my special became your ordinary. so what? what if you just brush by? what if you get hurt? sometimes you might get hurt again, sometimes you might shed tears. so what? so what if you live like that?

~ people by agust d

tags; @jksbbyfacebunny @extremeobsessions101 @dwcljh @stonyiscanon @bishuthot @s0seo @cecedrake2217

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thepropertylovers · 3 years

Text

The Most Magical Day

PJ made my 30th birthday the most special one I’ve ever had. I filmed the whole thing so I could always remember it (though what I filmed doesn’t quite capture the magic and love I felt that day), so if you want to see how we spent the day in video form, you can click here and watch yesterday’s vlog. In the meantime, if you’re in a blog reading mood, here are some photos from my birthday:

We stayed at Holiday House the night before, so PJ sent me home that morning to get ready for some sort of surprise he had planned that afternoon. I will admit, it felt strange being home by myself on my birthday while my family was at Holiday House; the silence was a little too loud, but I knew PJ must have had something pretty special up his sleeve.

I walked in the front door to find this waiting for me on the dining room table:

There were flowers, money, and a note with instructions on it to watch a portion of a new show he found on The Magnolia Network called Growing Floret. I was texting him during all of this, per his instructions, letting him know when I had completed each task. It was all so exciting and thoughtful. My heart was racing. I couldn’t believe he had planned all of this.

“Standby”.

How cute is he? He then texted me a link to a video he made where he explains the big gift on the table and why it means so much to him, and why he is giving it to me for my birthday. Naturally, I cried like a baby. To find out why it’s so special, you can watch the vlog because he explains it better than I ever could.

How did I get so lucky?

After that, I hopped in the shower and got ready. I then waited in the living room until 12:30p, and right on the dot, the doorbell rang. I expected it to be PJ all dressed up to take me somewhere, but I was even more surprised when my mom opened the door!

For some reason it didn’t click what was going on, and I ridiculously told her it was such a coincidence that she happened to stop by while I was there! How did she know I was home?! (facepalm). I then put two and two together and realized SHE was the surprise! She grabbed the money on the table and said “Let’s go to lunch!”. So off we went to my favorite Italian restaurant in town, where we had appetizers and drank wine in the middle of the afternoon (something I’ve never done before!) and ate pasta and chocolate molten cake.

I haven’t eaten with my mom, alone, in an actual restaurant, in years. This was also only the second time I’ve eaten inside a restaurant in over a year (we took the kids to see their aunt a few weeks back at a place she works at and ate inside when it was slow, just to feel a resemblance of normalcy again, and it completely made our entire week).

It was funny: five minutes after sitting down, she said to me, “I want you to take a deep breath, and clear your mind. I can tell you have a million things going through your head right now but I want you to try and be present in this moment.”

And she was right. I was thinking about PJ and the kids; I was wondering what they would eat for lunch or if little sis would have an accident in her big girl panties; I was thinking of all of the emails I had to reply to that had come in in the last few hours. We have been going, going, going, for so long now that I don’t think I remembered how to just be, which I felt sad about right after she said it because when would I get the chance to be alone with my mom at a nice restaurant again? If this last year has taught us all anything, it’s that life is extremely short and nothing is permanent and every moment with a loved one should be cherished.

So I turned my phone over and let it all go for an hour or two. And it felt nice. Everything else outside of that restaurant would work itself out and be okay whenever we were finished eating. Sometimes it just takes some of your mom’s advice to remember that.

After lunch, we walked around downtown for a bit, sat on a park bench and took a selfie (at my mom’s request, which she is still trying to perfect).

We went back home and she gave me a few birthday presents, which I was not expecting! Remember when I wrote about this book? She knew how much I loved it and gave me a copy! She also ordered me a caftan because she knows how much I’ve been loving them lately, especially out at Holiday House, and she found the most perfect white linen one with short sleeves that I’ve already been living in the last few days.

Isn’t it so nice when you receive gifts you genuinely love, from people you love?

After that, she left and I stayed home for about an hour or so to get some work done in the peace and quiet, which, again, I didn’t love as much as I thought I would. We’re so used to noise and little feet and even littler feet (with our dogs and cat) running around, that I’ve gotten used to that just being a part of life’s sounds and it felt strange not hearing my family around me. Maybe one day I’ll be able to enjoy the silence more, but I’m in no rush. I quite like the beautiful chaos of being a family of five right now.

I came back to Holiday House and gave my family the biggest hugs. PJ was doing some yard work, so I put dinner in the oven and relaxed on the couch for a bit with little sis (also something I don’t get to do enough). I was somewhat out of sorts from all the food and the cake and the glass of wine (all too much too soon!), so it felt good to lay down with her for a while as she tried to guess my age. Every time I asked her how old she thought I was, she would just answer “happy birthday!” 😂.

We ate dinner and then PJ had me take a walk for a bit for one last surprise. I was honestly so flabbergasted that all of this was happening that I didn’t know what to expect. As I’ve gotten older, birthdays and celebrating them have meant less and less to me. Not because I don’t like getting older, I actually love it and was so excited to turn 30, but because there’s been a big mental shift for me last few years, really since having the kids.

I don’t so much love the attention on myself anymore, and would rather focus that energy on them (especially because they require so much of our energy right now). Does that make sense? I know I won’t always feel like this, but since we’re technically still new to parenthood (just under 2 years!), I think I’m feeling what every new parent does, and it feels right to me at this time.

I came back in from occupying myself to find streamers and balloons and Bossa Nova music playing and a big cake and cookies all over the house! It was magical. And the kids were yelling HAPPY BIRTHDAY as loud as they could and it was the cutest thing ever. How did PJ do all of this in such a short amount of time? The world will never know, but I know how much it meant to me and how I will never forget that day. And it was all because of him.

Though I didn’t know what to expect, somehow my 30th birthday was exactly how I would have always wanted it. And even though we spent it in a in-the-middle-of-a-renovation trailer, in the middle of a pandemic (for the second year), it was still everything I could have imagined and so much more, and it was all thanks to PJ. I can confidently say, 11 years in, I’ve never been more in love with my husband, for reasons far greater than a birthday celebration, but that day was a solid reminder of how blessed I am with PJ.

To quote Virginia Woolfe, he is, “in every way, all that anyone could be”. He is the love of my life, and I feel very, very happy right now.

By the end of the night, we were all Alyster: tired and full. Full of gratitude and full of love and full of cake and full of life.

Thanks for coming along with us, friends. And thank you, PJ, for the most magical day. xoxo

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viking-raider · 4 years

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A Year Late - Chapter One

Summary: The world has over. Months later, 9 people are traveling the U.S, Canada and Mexico just trying to survive the eaters...zombies, the people effected by the disease that ended the world. But, the important question is: Can they survive?

Pairing: Henry Cavill/OFC

Word Count: 5,087

Rating: PG-13 - Apocalypse AU, Zombies, Language, Violence, Blood, Gore, Survival, Weapons, Death, Angst, Pain and more

Inspiration: I don’t know. I’ve never watched anything like the Walking Dead or anything, I have seen I am Legend, though. But, it just sorta came to me, once upon a time, and here it is. This is also a third revision of the story, so if you find it elsewhere, that’s me, being weird and recycling some of my stories for new muses. lmao

Author’s Note: Tell me what you think!

Tag List: @jennylovelyheart, @peakygroupie, @jessevans, @rosie-loves-things, @ohjules, @mary-ann84, @omgkatinka, @the-freak-cassie-131, @heelsamizayn, @agniavateira, @cap-barnes, @romyr4, @michelehansel, @katiebriggs004-blog, @badassbaker, @mrsaugustwalker, @authentic-bish-face, @rizeandvibe, @severuined, @supernaturalvikingwhore, @bellastellaluna, @wondersofdreaming, @thisisntmyrightera, @laurenmw815, @winchwm, @royallylazy, @sofiebstar, @worldicreate, @agniavateira, @fantasygirlsuniverse, @witches-of-discovery-a, @xuxszx, @ayamenimthiriel, @keiva1000, @klaine-92, @itsreigns, @constip8merm8, @scorpionchild81, @seb-owns-these-tatas, @mylifefallingupthestairs, @onlyhenrys, @luclittlepond

'The world as you know it is over.' There was a long deafening pause. 'A catastrophic catastrophe as swept over the nation, no ladies and gentlemen, the world. The end of the world is here and it has claimed the human race. This is Ron Sidwald signing off for the last time...ever, for Channel 12 news, November 5, 2019. God be with you all.'

Static and hissing is all that's left from the 6 month old news cast that still ran in random intervals all over the now nothing but dust, rust and abandoned desert that was once the flourishing United States of America. The world population of 7 billion as been reduced drastically to an unknown number ranging in the possible 3,000s. But, that was just a wishful thought of the ones that were still alive and unaffected by the disease that claimed their people and perfect life they had, though, they didn't know how perfect it was.

Until it was gone.

A rock sailed through the air, disappeared in the glare of the unforgiving sun and clinked into a rusty old Folgers coffee can that tipped and rolled around on its round rim bottom, then righted itself and settled back onto the dusty ground. "Woo!" A shout was hollered from the top of a modified, faded yellow, school bus. "Rock in one. Beat that, Tank!" "Oh, fuck you, Toombs. That was just a lucky shot." Tank grumbled, jumping off the top of the bus and picking up the rocks he and Toombs had been tossing into the coffee can to pass the time. "Hey yo, Link! When does Sy, Zero and Trix get back from wherever the hell they're going too?"

The beefy, over tanned Hispanic shrugged his shoulders as he cleaned his AK-47; his two Glock 18C extended clip, automatics were already cleaned and reloaded in his shoulder holsters. Link never said much, but he was good shit when it came to using his guns and getting the job done. Those qualities were the reason Sy and Zero valued him so much in these times. "Where'd they go?" Toombs asked, sitting back in the fold up lawn chair on the top of the bus, pulling on his sun goggles. "To that city we saw on the map on the way here." Link answered, pushing bullets into a new clip for the AK. "Are you fucking serious?" Tank boomed. "That shit was like seven miles from here and its almost sun down!"

Link shrugged again, putting the clip into the gun. Throwing the rocks down to the ground, Tank shoved his way into the bus, took the radio off the dashboard and held down the button on it so hard the hot, black plastic around it, cracked. "Sexy 'n' Sleek to Fuck You, over." he called and released the button to wait for Trix's response. There was a bit of static, before it came in. "This is Fuck You, come in, Sexy 'n' Sleek." static. "Over." "What the hell are you guys doing, going to a city seven miles out of zone!" Tank chewed Trix out. "We need to get supplies and we can't.." static. "..so Sy and Zero decided to come. We'll be back in no time. We just got here, over." Trix answered. "Let me talk to Sy." Tank growled. There was no answer. "Fucking over!" he barked. "Sy, isn't in range at the moment, here's Zero. Over." Trix replied. Tank leaned over, rested his hand against the hot dashboard and hung his head. "I don't want to talk to Zero." he sighed to himself, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the side of his arm. "Zero here, over." Zero's annoyed voice came in. "What's up, Tanker?" "Why the hell didn't you and Sy tell us you were going into the city for supplies, this fucking close to sun down?" Tank asked, his anger controlled. Pissing Zero off wouldn't get anyone, anywhere. "We told Link and that's what matters." Zero answered. "He has his orders, now stay off the fucking line. Over and out." Throwing the radio receiver, Tank rattled back off the bus and climbed back up into the roof. "What's up, T?" Toombs asked as Tank dropped down into a plastic deck chair next to him. "Nothing." Tank growled. "They'll be back in a bit. Link's left in charge till then." "Okay." Toombs shrugged, indifferent by it all.

Sy thumbed the smooth wood of her English longbow, other than the five guys she rode with, it was her best friend, just like the 50 thin bobtail arrows in the quiver she made and had strapped to her back. In case she ran out of arrows, she had two EAA Witness Match Semi Automatic Pistols, one in a left shoulder holster and one in her back waistband, along with a 5'' Gerber paraframe II knife in her right combat boot. She looked over at Zero, who was walking on the other side of the street from her, she looked him over. Dirty and torn cameos. Military FAMAS strapped in front of him, index finger at the ready above it, his two extended clip and automatic Tarurus PT92s in their holsters and bumping against his thighs in the rhythm of his walk, and his long knife in its holder across his back. Zero was Sy's brother, he was 2 years older than her and the only one she hadn't lost at the end of the world. Sighing heavily, she shifted her gaze from Zero to Trix, or the little twerp as she called him. Wasn't more than 18, about 6 foot and a buck forty. Skittish as hell, slow in the head and annoying like a horse fly. But, he was good with technical things like the engine to the bus, the radios and other things like that. He didn't look right, right now with a S2 sub-machine gun in a shoulder strap around his neck, hand gripping the handle like life and love needed it, 12in hunting knife poking out of his timberland and the 2 LD Jungle knives she let him use held to his scrawny right thigh. The only thing that looked right on him was the military radio backpack slung over his shoulders, so they could stay in contact with Link, Toombs and Tank at the bus, in base camp. Made Sy sad to see someone Trix's age having to do shit like this just to fucking survive. "I don't think we're going to make it back by dark." Zero's voice called, bringing Sy out of her daze, just to sigh heavy again and pull off her Tan colored Military goggles from around her head. "Should find shelter then." She said, popping out the black lenses of the goggles and replace them with clear ones, then put them back around her head and over her eyes. She looked up at the sun, "Only got about 2 hours til we're in the dark." Zero nodded agreeing with her, rubbing his dirty, sweaty and gritty face. He kicked a rock in front of him down the street and looked at Sy with a raised eyebrow. "Trix." Sy called to the kid. "Take a seat, watch the street, and remember what your mother did, and didn't, teach you." she told him, pulling the bow between her back and quiver, then pulled out the pistol from her shoulder holster. "Look all ways when near a street, yell when someone comes, and shoot when you need too." Trix recited it to her like a bible verse, in a sense it had become one for them all. "Good boy." Zero smiled, patting Trix on the head as he sat down on curb. Zero quickly made his way over to Sy, they stood close to each other and talked about their possible options for a safe shelter to use for the night. "Could go back two blocks and use the store." Sy suggested. "We already cleared it." "Yeah, the first two levels. Not the basement, cellar and attic." Zero shook his head. Sy nodded, exhaling a stressed breath. "Okay, down a half block around the corner and see what pops up." she held her fist out to him. Zero touched his fist to hers in agreement with the plan and they headed down. "Behave, twerp." Sy threw over her shoulder as she and Zero went down the street.

Trix waved her away and popped a stick of gum in his mouth, looking down the street the way they came, then around the corner of the wall on the other side of him and down at Sy and Zero as they disappeared. "Hate being alone." he mumbled to himself, fingering his gun.

In nervousness, Trix started to whistle low and rock back and forth, side to side. Timing his movement and whistling with how he looked down the three sections of road. The streets were dimming and gray, it was getting cold and Trix was starting to loose his nerve. Zero and Sy hadn't returned yet, but he didn't hear any gunfire either. So, they were probably still scoping out wherever they were scoping out and not getting eaten by anything that lurked in the abandoned buildings. He hoped anyway. Whipping his head to the the left, Trix saw three figures moving down the road where he, Sy and Zero had come from. It couldn't have been the others because Link had orders that if they didn't return by morning, he was to take Toombs and Tank to the next planned area and if any of them survived would make their way there to meet them. Getting up and hiding behind the corner of the building, his gun pointed at the moving figures, his heart pounding. "It's too early yet for Eaters." he whispered to himself, trying to calm himself. He looked up the road where Sy and Zero went. He knew that he couldn't run up that way without them seeing him and he couldn't yell for them either because he was sure they'd hear him before Zero and Sy would, and get to him before the three tore him apart. Trix looked back to the three figures, they were closer now. So, backing up down the wall a good length, he turned and ran to an ally, ran down that ally and as he passed through the other side, he collided with Zero. "Trix, get the fuck off me." Zero growled, shoving the teen off him and getting up. "What are you runnin' from, twerp?" Sy asked, helping him up. "There's three figures coming up the road. It's not the T's or Link and it's too early for the Eaters." Trix panted. "It's never to early for the Eaters." Sy said, pulling night vision goggles out of Zero's pack and replacing her goggles with them and switching them on. "Come on." she whispered going up to the edge of the street and peeking around the corner at the three figures. "It's okay, Trix. You're right. It's not dark enough for the eaters to come out yet. Not unless you woke them up." Zero assured him. "I was whistling." Trix shook. Zero shook his head, coming up behind Sy and pressed his finger to his lips. Trix nodded and zipped his lips. Sy scoped out the three figures coming up the street towards them. They're movements were unsure, like they were lost. One tall, one close to that and one an inch or two shorter. "Wish I had Tank's sniper scope." she whispered to Zero. "At least then I could see their faces...wait. They've stopped, there's activity behind them." "What is it?" Zero demanded quietly. "Those three aren't Eaters, Z." she said, pulling the Night Vision up away from her eyes and looking back at her brother. "How do you know?" "Because the 6 things behind them are." she told him, pulling out her bow. "We have to help them."

Zero nodded, pulling his FAMAS against his shoulder and looked back at Trix and nodded at him. Trix nodded at Zero and readied himself. "Go, Sy." Zero whispered, patting Sy on the back. Sy ran out from the corner to the middle of the street and down a few step, where she stopped. Pulling a thin bobtail arrow out of her quiver, placing it in the bow and pulling the sting on the bow back, aiming carefully between the two tallest figures, who she could now see were three guys. A smirk pulled on her lips seeing their scared faces, then let go of the arrow. The arrow whizzed through the air, creating a breeze in the longish hair of the second tallest as it went between them and struck one of the Eaters through the right eye, shattering the back of its skull and dropping it completely dead to the ground. When that Eater dropped, Zero and Trix came out as Sy ran to the three guys being tracked by the Eaters. "You need to move, now!" she snapped at them, pulling back another arrow as a second Eater got closer. "Go!" she yelled at them, taking out the Eater. The three guys ran to where Zero and Trix were and hid behind them. "Sy, get back here!" Zero yelled at his sister, shooting down two Eaters. Sy shot another Eater, than turned and ran back to the group. As she slid to a stop next to them, Trix let loose with his sub-machine gun. "Take them back to the building." he yelled over the gunfire. "Come on." Sy said, pushing the three guys back to the building that she and Zero cleared. She pushed them inside. Putting her bow away and pulling out her shoulder gun again, she held the door with one hand and the gun with the other, watching the door for Trix, Zero and anything else that wanted in. "It's fucking dark in here." one of the guys complained. "Here." Sy shrugged her pack off, never looking away from the door. "There's heavy duty glow sticks in there. Only break open two, that's all you need to see." she instructed them. The sound of them rummaging through her pack, then ripping open the foil packaging of the glow sticks and the creaks and pops of the sticks filled the sheet rock walled room. A neon green glow came to life in the room, then the shuffling sounds of the men sitting down with heavy and uneasy sighs. Zero and Trix came charging in, slamming the door shut and pushing everything they could in front of it. When they felt it was safe, Sy, Zero and Trix pointed their guns at the three men sitting on the floor in front of them. The three struggled up, their hands up and palms out and backing up. "Whoa, chill." The tallest spoke. "Yeah." A second tallest of the men added in.

The third stayed quiet, but frightened looking. "Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing out here? and are you infected?" Zero interrogated them. "I'm-I'm.." The second tallest stuttered. "Henry, from London. We got trapped here, when all the shit hit and as far as any of us know, we're not infected." "And you two are?" Zero asked, pointing his AK at them. "I'm Joey, I'm also from England." The quiet one answered. "And I'm Armie, I'm from here in the U.S." The other answered. "He's bleeding." Trix said, pointing to Henry. "On his side." Sy walked up to him, pulled open his tattered black plaid button down and looked over the gash on his side. She looked back at Zero and shook her head. "It's not anything to worry about Eater wise. Just a wound." she said, stepping away from him. "What the fuck is an 'Eater'?" Joey frowned. "Those things that were going to attack you, before we came in." Zero told them, putting the safety on his AK and sitting back against the pile in front the door. He checked the clip and a bunch of other stuff, Trix did the same as Henry, Joey and Armie sat back down. Sy dug in her pack and pulled out some items. She stood up and went over to Henry and motioned for him to follow her. "You want him to follow you?" Joey protested. "Yeah, unless he wants that wound on his side to get anymore infected, if it isn't already, and if the blood isn't covered up and controlled the Eaters will sniff it out." Sy snapped at him. “No doubt, why they found you.” "I don't trust you." Joey snapped back. Sy growled, dropping her head back. She set the medical supplies aside and unloaded all her weapons, her bow, quiver, clips and guns. "There." she showed him, arms out and turning. "Knife, in you boot." Trix added. "I might need it." she glared at him. "I'm not Cat Woman." Joey, Armie and Henry exchanged looks with each other. "Fine, bleed and/or get sick and die, for all I care. What's one more to add to the loss." Sy rolled her eyes going past him. Henry stopped her, grabbing her by the arm. "I trust you." he whispered. Sy sighed softly, grabbed the medical supplies again and led him to a little kitchen, away from all the others in the place. She laid the supplies down on a counter island and pointed to a chair for Henry to sit in. "Take your shirt off too, please." she told him, pulling a chair up in front of him. Henry nodded and hung the shirt up on the back of the chair. He watched Sy lean close to him and look over his wound, touching it carefully. "So, how long you guys been out here?" he asked, trying to break the silence. "Me, my brother Zero and Trix, the kid, along with our other three guys Toombs, Tank and Link have been here since before it happened. All of us, but Link were born in the US. Link was born in Mexico." she told him, leaning back and grabbing a closed bottle of water and a pad of gauze. Popping open the water and wetting the pad, she wiped and pressed it to his wound making him hiss and bite his bottom lip.

"Sorry." "It's okay." Henry groaned. "This wound is sorta old. Its hardened over some and its got puss inside of it." She told him, dropping the wet pad to the floor. "I have to open and drain it." Henry's eyes went wide as she told him she'd have to cut his wound. "If there was another way, I'd do it. But there's not. If the puss sits there any longer, the more it'll enter your blood stream and make you really sick." She tried to explain it to him as lightly as possible. Henry gulped and nodded his head slowly, "Okay." he whispered. "What do I do?" "I need you to lay down." she told him, getting up, pushing the chair back as she did. Henry rubbed his face, looking at the floor. "Here, wait." Sy stopped him as he started to lay down. She left the kitchen and came back with a brown blanket. She laid it out, took off her black and red hoodie, folded it up and laid it down on the blanket too as a pillow. "There, make it a little more comfy." she smiled at him. Henry smiled at her and laid down on his back, his head supported by her rolled up hoodie. Sy brought the medical supplies down to floor level as she sat cross legged beside him, she pulled her knife from her boot and flipped it open, she poured iodine on the black blade and laid it on fresh gauze. "Go you have any painkillers?" Henry asked, meeting her eyes. Sy pressed her lips together and shook her head at him. "No, sorry." she apologized, pouring more iodine on another piece of gauze and wiping around the wound, but she paused. "But, you know what." she said, her eyes far off. "Trix! Come here and bring your bag." she called out to the kid. Trix came rushing in, gripping his bag by a strap. "Yeah, Sy. Got it right here." He tripped over himself to give it to her and watched like a caught sheep as she dug through it and pulled out a 12oz bottle of Tennessee whiskey. "Here, down some of this." she opened the bottle and held it to Henry's lips, letting him gulp down a fourth of it. "Okay. I'll let you have the rest when I'm done." she told him, putting the cap back on the bottle and setting it aside. "Thanks you, Trix. You can get lost now." Trix nodded, taking his bag back to the front room. "Thanks." Henry replied, when Trix was gone. "Anytime." Sy answered, picking up her knife. "You want something to bite or you good?" she asked him. "Is it gunna hurt?" Henry asked looking her in the eyes. His blue orbs looked worried and scared beyond belief. "I was just throwing it out there." Sy answered, trying to be encouraging and soothing. Henry squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head back to her hoodie. "Just go." he told her. "Okay." she nodded, then pressed the tip of the knife to the wound.

Henry growled deep in his throat, his hand shooting out and gripping Sy's knee and squeezing his eyes shut tighter as she cut open the length of his wound. Sy dropped the knife as thick white puss oozed out of the cut, she picked up a package of iodine and ripped it open with her teeth. "Big pain." she warned him and squeezed the stinging brown liquid out of the package to his oozing wound. Henry howled in agony as the iodine soaked into the cut. Joey, Trix, Armie and Zero leaned in the doorway of the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about. Sy ignored them, wiping away the puss and pressing it out as much as she could and letting Henry squeeze her leg as much as he need too. "Is he gunna be okay?" Armie asked, concerned. "Yeah, I'm sure of it." Sy answered, still pushing puss out of the wound and pouring more iodine on it. "I need to keep an eye on it to make sure it heals right." "That means they have to stay with us." Trix whined. "Yeah, just like you had too, when we found your dumb ass." Sy mocked back. "Go radio Link and tell them the situation." she barked out the order. "And the rest of you, beat it or your next." she threatened. Not needing farther threats the group at the door was gone to find something else to do. "I don't want to be a burden." Henry panted. "Shut up and breathe." Sy ordered, opening the wound a bit deeper. Henry groaned as the knife cut deeper into his side and gripping her knee even tighter, but Sy never registered it. "There. I'm gunna let it ooze a bit longer, then I'll bandage it up. I don't want you moving. So just lay there, you need something let me know, got it?" "Got it." Henry answered, still panting. "But, tell me something." "Anything." "Okay then, two somethings." Sy smiled at him, cleaning off her knife. "What is it?" "One, what's your name and two, how do you know what you're doing?" "One, My name is Sy and two, I'm a medic." A frown washed over her face. "Well, I was before the whole end of the world thing. I was 3 months shy of becoming a doctor." "Sy. What's that short for?" he asked, looking at her. "Nothing. It's my full name. My parents weren't very clear minded, when they had me." she laughed. Henry chuckled and Sy patted Henry on the shoulder, packed away the medical supplies, then sat back against the counter island facing Henry and closed her eyes. It was going to be another long night, the Eaters or the people that had been affected by the disease that swept over the world, turning many into flesh eating, night walking maniacs, where coming out in stronger and bigger numbers every night. But luckily they seemed to be spread out from each other, though God only knows how long that'll last. It only took three days, three days, for the world to end and tip upside down. The brown, cloudless and sunny sky was utterly unforgiving in the day time. It was so hot in the day you could fry an egg the sidewalk and so cold at night, you couldn't wet your lips without running the chance of them freezing together. Chapstick, sun block and sun glasses were your best amigo in the day and a thick blanket, more Chapstick and another human body were your partner at night. Yeah, Sy, Zero, Trix, Link, Toombs and Tank had it all down to a pretty good and fine science. They had their faults, nothing out of the usual though. Only being some of the last surviving people on the planet over run with Zombies, supplies were few and in between, like toilet paper, a bar of soap or even a washer machine. But things could be improvised for that. They always sold out the ammo stores and aisles when they could, got what good food they could use, water was a hard thing to get right, but thanks to Trix, they had a system of making damn sure it was clean enough to drink and cook with. They raided hospitals for medical supplies when needed, clothing stores for new shoes and whatever else they needed to cover themselves. It was by no means a simple life, or an easy one. But, they all knew that it could be worse, and as long as they had each other, they'd be able to get through it virtually unhurt. Sy jerked awake, hearing a startled gasp from in front of her. Sitting up, putting a hand on her shoulder gun and reaching into the side pouch of her cameo pants, she pulled out a glow stick and broke it, illuminating the kitchen in a blue glow as she shook it for extra strength. It was Henry, sitting up on his elbows, sweating heavily and staring, frightened, at the small kitchen window behind her. Glancing at her watch, it was 3.03am. She set the glow stick between them and rested her hand on his tense shoulder. She could hear the Eaters now, running and screeching passed the window and around the building. It was a sound that kept her awake many of the first nights, haunted her dreams for weeks after, and finally, just recently, she got use to it. But, obviously Henry hadn't gotten to that point yet. "It's okay." she whispered to him, wiping sweat from his temple. "They can't get in." "You sure?" Henry asked, never tearing his eyes from the window. "Yeah, the window is too small, the door is blocked and Zero's watching it. The windows on the third floor are too high for them to reach." Sy assured him. She ran her fingers through his short curly brown hair, smiling as it spiked slightly from him sweating. "Just lay back down, I won't let anything happen to you. I promise." Henry laid back, breathing slowly in and out through his mouth. He stared at the ceiling, his stomach rumbled angrily. Sy frowned hearing it and watching him press his hand to his stomach, closing his eyes. She shifted to get up and he grabbed her by the wrist, looking at her from the corners of his eyes. "I'm just going to get my bag, okay. I won't be more than like twelve feet from you." she told him, tenderly. Henry's hand slowly let go of her waist and Sy stood up, edged around him and went into the other room where the others where at. "Everything okay?" Zero asked. He was sitting on turned over paint bucket in front of the door, his FAMAS loaded and ready to go if anything happened, across his lap. "Yeah, just need my bag. Got a growling tummy in there and by the sound of how pissed it is, he hasn't eaten in a bit." Sy replied, picking up her bag, where she dropped it last. "Yeah, Trix gave those two some food and water, he was gunna give some to you two, but you were already asleep and I told him to leave you." Zero answered, watching the shadows outside zoom by. Sy sighed, standing next to Zero, facing away from the shadows. There was an uneasy pause and silence between them, words for their thoughts didn't have to be said out loud anymore, because they'd been said so many times before. "Go and get some food in that boy's belly, Sy." Zero said softly, looking down at his safety. "We'll talk about it later." Nodding and patting him on the shoulder, she took her pack back into the kitchen and sat back down in her spot beside Henry, who looked at her with a gulp. Sy smiled at him, digging in her bag and pulling out a medium sized brown package and a dark green spoon and handed it to him. "What is this?" Henry frowned taking the items. "Um, I think, that's chili and beans. I got...uh, meatloaf with gravy and Pork Chow Mein, if ya wanna switch." she told him, holding up two other medium sized packages. "Okay, but, what the hell is this?" he asked, shaking the package at her. "Oh! They're MREs." Sy answered, grabbing another spoon for herself. "Meals Ready to Eat. It's U.S military food. They have a shelf life of 25 years, so they're good stuff for us." Henry grimaced at the MRE and spoon in his hand, but his stomach was telling him to rip that shit open and devour it. Setting the spoon down and ripping open the package, he looked in at the gooey mess in it and looked up at Sy still a bit grossed out. Sy offered him a smile, as she ate the Chow Mein with her fingers. Shrugging, Henry picked his spoon back up and dug into the food. It wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, he was actually sorta impressed by it.

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all-good-things-dot-dot-dot · 4 years

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All Good Things… Skip Leg Day Sometimes.

#Blog #Bloggerstribe #AllGoodThings… 7th June 2020

Hello, Chaps and Chapettes and welcome to the only Sunday when you’ll find me writing one of these. “What a lazy so and so you are likely to become for doing so, Scaramouche,” I hear you cry. Bear with me and I’ll explain why, on this occasion, it is quite alright to give yourself a regular rest day.

(Photo: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6qw7ns )

Technically, I’m almost writing this on the 8th June, with ten minutes to go before tomorrow, as I woke up late (2 PM!), had a late-night singing karaoke online with friends from the Brony community and spent a lot of my day chilling, catching up with my mum at a social distance, eating a delicious dinner (my flatmate made shakshuka for the first time) and watching Jurassic Park for the first time. Today has been nice. No responsibilities, no work, no worries!

You might think it was a wasted day. I didn’t write anything until now, I did a little bit of hoovering but in the grand scheme of things that’s hardly a task unless you make it particularly difficult. However, I call it one of the most productive days this week, more so than yesterday when I spent three extra hours doing some overtime for my paying career. The reason I feel it was such a good day is that it gave me a chance to rest, to recuperate, and to build some ideas for what I wanted out of the week ahead. It even allowed me to play to write this blog, while I was still going to take a day off from it.

You see, you can tire yourself out no matter what profession, hobby or interest you enjoy. You can be doing stocks, shares, legal work, building models, playing computer games, writing, painting, traveling, physical training, the list is endless and yet they all require periods of rest. If you don’t, you risk burning yourself out or creating a negative atmosphere for the thing. You do not want that as it will cause you to disassociate and move on from it or even give up completely and become depressed.

Think back on the things you’ve done in the past, in childhood, at school, or as an adult at work or at home. Were there any times when you were looking forward to something, only to go to town on it for a few days or a week, month or more, and then find it slowly lost its appeal? That is because you put so much energy into the start of the project that you burnt it out completely, thus making any problems become roadblocks rather than challenges to overcome. Rather than your idea being a steady slope to the top, it is a mountain. You can level it off again, but you need to do one important thing, and it comes full circle to what I said at the start.

(Photo: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/5-life-lessons-we-learned-from-the-land-before-time )

You need to rest.

The rest will give you many benefits. It will allow you to recharge your batteries, it will let you reinvigorate your passion for the thing you are working on and it will let you come up with new approaches to improving it. The places where most people come up with great ideas and solutions to problems they face are usually when they have to stop and take a moment away. Two particular places are in our bathrooms, well, not solely our bathrooms. You do not have strangers lining up to use your lavatory in order to get a brainwave on the next big invention. However, it has been suggested that many innovators have had their eureka moments in the shower or while sitting on the loo. This is because they have to take themselves away from the forced thinking they were doing at a desk or in an office.

So, if you find yourself flagging, losing the will to do something, or simply getting bored, do yourself a favor. You don’t need to go sit on the toilet if you don’t need it for, ahem, other business, but giving yourself a well-deserved bath can do wonders. Don’t have a bath? A shower can be equally as therapeutic or you can go and meditate if you feel your cleanliness levels are still satisfactory. There’s no secret technique to meditation that must be taught to you by a guru or monk over decades in a monastery, it’s a very simple thing to do.

First, sit down. Somewhere comfortable preferably. Doing that? Good. Now… do nothing. That’s it. It’s that easy. Really! Okay, so there are a few other things you can do, such as take a few deep breaths to regulate your breathing and closing your eyes, but you can meditate with eyes open too. Stare at a wall or let yourself look around if you get stiff but don’t look at anything that will make you worry or feel like you’re not doing anything. Give yourself a time limit so that you know you don’t have to do it forever, otherwise just sit, drift and let your mind ease itself into that comfy chair…

Think of it as training for a boxing match. You could go through a full training montage like Rocky, punch bags, jog up and down the marble stairs of a courthouse, learn how to float like a butterfly, AND sting like a murder hornet or whatever those scary-looking things are. However, you get to the big match, you’re facing your opponent and the bell rings. The crowd is cheering, cameras flashing like a silent lightning storm, you go for your first punch… and it’s lame. Twenty seconds in, your opponent has won and you’re exhausted. Why? Because you spent so much time training that you didn’t give your body or mind a chance to rest and prepare for the fight. Training is important but only as important as the time spent recovering and healing for the next task.

(Photo: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/10/rocky-in-numbers--creed-sylvester-stallone )

Now, I know nothing about boxing. Earnestly, I know nothing about anything, I’m one human who has had thirty-plus years on an Earth which is four-billion, five-hundred and forty-million years old. I can only offer shavings of what experience I’ve been told, ignored, and discovered is in fact important after all. This, I think, tops the bill, as it helps every other thing you want to achieve.

So my question to you is this, what haven’t you picked up, done or enjoyed in a while? Do you think, after a period of rest, you might have more enthusiasm for it? There’s only one way to find out…

… And that is to chill out.

All good things, Love, Scaramouche. x

#blog #blogging #rest #relax #leg day #just skip it #all good things

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ohsupernaturall · 6 years

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LAB RATS (A NALEY FANFICTION) PROLOGUE

I will try to dedicate every chapter to either an account or a person I like, because we all need to share the love. My first tribute goes to @lozkelly , we don’t know each other, but as I browsed the naley tag, hers was the first post and when I opened the blog, it was so much fun. So there we go. Please note that if you are tagged, I am not asking you to read. I just want to give you a random I love you (and/or) your account

Prologue

Nathan and Haley couldn’t remember a moment in their lives where they weren’t in love, and everyone in tree hill was aware of that. They had gone through every life stage together, starting with waddles in the sandpit at three years of age, until seventeen as he put a ring on her finger when she happily accepted to be his wife. But it was indeed an off match, for all their love, they couldn’t be more different. Nathan was star athlete of tree hill high school, leading the basketball ravens to victory in the state championship. On the other hand, Haley James Scott was the school valedictorian, who tutored students for the joy of it.

In this sense, they balanced each other out, and they evened the others’ extremities. Haley has gotten into cheerleading; realizing it was actually quite the strenuous activity rather than mindless girls waving around pompoms, and Nathan would occasionally pay more attention in class, not that he didn’t have his own private tutor whenever he needed.

Standing right below the hoop in the school gym; his own grounds, it was a win-or-lose moment; if he scored that basket they win the championship. And then there she was, Haley with a proud smile that beat the taunting of his opponent Damien West

“You got nothing, Scott, nothing!”

Nathan looked at Damien with a cocky smile, drawing strength from Haley, he threw the ball, without looking; his faith that the world will make it worth it, for him and his girl, was prominent. The cheers were deafening, and Nathan didn’t need to look, to know that he had made the shot, when Haley crashed right into him.

He lifted her off the ground, into his strong arms, her breath tickled his ear as she screamed over the crowd “you did it, babe!!!”

“We did it!” he rejoiced, repeatedly kissing her shoulder, before he was hauled away by his teammates. Haley patted his back playfully as he was lifted on their shoulders, the whole gym cheering his name, and she joined right along.

The celebration lasted long enough, with Nathan high-fiving everyone in sight, receiving the trophy and stealing Haley’s hugs and kisses; those were his favorite. Then it was time to go home. Their little apartment was warm and cozy, not very luxurious, but it brought them together at night and that was what mattered.

It might have not been like that, Nathan was rich, coming from an incredibly wealthy family of three… actually technically four, before his sister had passed, he had cried in Haley’s arms night after night when it happened; the chauffer was taking the fourteen year old to ballet practice, then the next thing they knew, the car had exploded, the monstrosity of the accident was investigated for a long time before declared a cold case, ,many people ruled it to be payback for Dan Scott’s antics, their father, for many people had beef with him. Still, the fact that the kids paid for it, made Haley’s blood boil. Dan was remorseful for a month or so, but then he managed to bounce back as if nothing had ever happened,

Nathan on the other hand, was never the same; they used to play together all the time, along with Haley of course. As a matter of fact, it was her who had blandly declared that he and Haley had a crush on each other.

Of course almost hitting puberty and going through the awkward phases of; acne and hormonal urges for him, braces and frizzy hair for her, reluctance to see each other again, and a desire to kill his sister were there. Nathan and Haley have been best friends since they were three years old, and the notion of their relationship not working out would mean the friendship over. But why wouldn’t it work? They loved each other, more than life itself, always have ever since they met, a deep understanding ran through them and even their friends thought it hard to believe that someone would find their soul mate at such a young age.

So, one summer night as raindrops hit the road, he timidly whispered those three words “I love you” and Haley’s entire face lit up, she jumped in his arms and crashed her lips to his. Overcome with relief and joy, he had entrapped her arms under his, wrapping both arms around her and lifted her up, spinning in circles as the rain poured over their heads. It was then that they knew, forever was together.

When he had told his dad of his plans to marry Haley, Dan was appalled, for she didn’t come from money or status. Hurtful words were thrown around and as soon as his father had said “gold-digging whore”, Nathan stormed out of there, after he threw a punch to the old man’s face. Haley’s parents had welcomed him for the two and a half weeks it took to find a place of his own, also a small job in food service and a night shift at his uncle’s garage made emancipation easy, especially when drug addicted mother was added to the list, Nathan felt bad about it, he loves his mom, but she had fallen through a downward spiral ever since her daughter had died, especially when Nathan needed her most.

Their wedding was simple and special, Haley didn’t even have a wedding dress, and her mother’s wouldn’t fit, so she wore a little white sundress with slippers, and Nathan got dressed in one of the suits he wore for the fancy events his dad threw. Being poor may not be easy, but being with the person you love was worth it all, even those nights when electricity would shut off after they don’t pay the bills; and they would sit up all night playing checkers by candlelight, and the nights when he worked until he couldn’t even move, Haley would come back from her shift as a waitress and remove his shoes and overalls when she finds him collapsed on the couch from exhaustion.

As soon as they entered through the front door, Nathan grabbed her arms, spinning her around, so she would land in his arms; Haley sighed, content, as she nestled into his warm strong body. His hand snuck under her cheerleading top, calloused fingers running across bare stomach. Haley bit her lips, eyes fluttering and body tingling, she leaned the back of her head against his chest, pulling his other hand to her lips and planting soft butterfly kisses where his pulse is.

“Oh, Nathan!” she moaned, as he leaned down and brushed his lips against her jaw line; over a beauty mark, finally reaching her ear and nibbling on the lobe “I love you”

“I love you too, Haley James Scott” he whispered huskily, his kisses moving to the nape of her neck and then down her back, all the way till he was kneeling, planting a lingering kiss on the “23” tattoo she had gotten for him; his jersey number.

Weak in the knees, Haley shakily turned around, Nathan’s kissing never stopping, planting them all around her waist, she scratched his back and head, folding in half over his shoulder. Smoothly, she took off the basketball jersey, as he stood up once more, pulling her with him, her feet lifted off the ground, Haley wrapped her legs and arms around him, so tight, that you would think they were conjoined. Nathan moved them both to the shower.

Haley’s breath hitched, watching the steady stream of water run down Nathan’s sculpted chest and chiseled abs, he poured some shampoo in his hand, massaging her scalp as she kissed his chest, right by his heart, once and again. He moved his shampoo covered hands down her face, leaving a trail of bubbles on her cheeks, making her look up into his sky blue eyes.

“My man played so well tonight” she said.

“Yeah, he did, didn’t he?” Nathan winked at her and she playfully smacked him.

“Babe, be serious. The scouts couldn’t keep their eyes off you. I saw one talking to Whitey”

He shrugged “That could mean a lot of thi…”

“And I might have eavesdropped and heard them say you were a shoo-in for a full scholarship ride to Duke” she interjected, eyes wide innocently.

“Are you serious?”

Haley nodded, squealing with joy, as he hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet.

“What would you do without me?” she teased.

“Die!” he said, kissing her passionately “never leave me”

“I am not going anywhere” she whispered sincerely “always and forever”

“Always and forever”

They spent the next few minutes scrubbing loofahs over each other’s bodies, on every curve, their heart warm and content. In his arms, Nathan held a woman who loved him in spite of all his flaws, who loved the worst in him before the best. He reached out and wrapped a towel around her body, after doing the same for himself, Nathan picked her up, one arm below her knees and the other right under her shoulder blades, and headed to their tiny room.

He dropped her gently on the bed, allowing her towel clad body to bounce on the mattress, and then positioned himself on top of her. Nathan rested his head down her chest, when he felt her tense up.

“Nathan” whispered Haley “did you hear that?”

“What? I didn’t hear anything”

Then sounds of shuffling came from outside once again, and Nathan sat up.

“Do you hear it now?” she asked.

“Mmhmm”

“Should I call 911?” she fearfully whispered to Nathan who was hastily putting on a pair of shorts.

“No, just wait here”

“Nathan!” she warned; her heart in her throat, making to grab his hand “Please!! Just don’t!”

“It is okay” he whispered, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go.

The sounds from outside were coming closer, and Nathan hoped with his heart that it was the neighbor’s cat, it had broken into their house many times before, still, he took one look at Haley behind him and felt his heart hammering against his ribcage, cautiously, he made to grab the baseball bat in the closet. His hands were just twisting the doorknob, when a force sent him sprawling to the ground. Haley screamed at the top of her voice, pulling the towel closer to her body, their bedroom door had flown off its hinges, and in its place stood three masked men armed in machine guns.

“Shut up!” one of them growled, pointing his gun at her.

“Wait! Wait!” panicked Nathan, his eyes fixed on Haley “we don’t have money but take whatever you want, okay, just don’t touch h…”

Sharp pain exploded across his face, as the back of the gun collided with his nose, sending blood splattering in its wake, and Nathan saw stars; his hands went to cover the injury which momentarily hazed his vision.

Haley’s cry of agony was stopped dead in her throat half-way when their guns were once again raised in their faces “Please” she whimpered.

Her plea fell on deaf ears as another one said “get the girl”

Fear gripped Nathan’s heart like a vice, but it was drowned by fury surging through his bloodstream and he growled “No!”

Gone was all the horror of getting shot, Haley being taken away was all he could see. Nathan jumped up and tackled the man coming closer to Haley in great speed, not even shielded with his bat, which was thrown aside upon impact. Nathan had gotten in three punches to the man’s face, when the other two men ganged up on him, their kicks and punches echoed around the small room, all Nathan could do was curl up in a ball and accept the agonizing onslaught, grunting with every blow.

“Stop it” Haley cried in rage, jumping off the bed and on one of the men’s back, he yelped in pain when she caught his ear between her teeth, biting hard, the man threw her off like a weightless doll. Haley’s head rammed into the nightstand and she fell unconscious, crimson blood seeping from her fanned out hair, on her

“Haley” his voice barely came out in an agonized raspy whisper, choking on blood, as his vision began darkening. Before he completely submitted into the abyss, one of the men made a grab for Haley’s limp form, disregarding her dignity and lifted her over his shoulder.

One thing Nathan knew for sure, he has failed at protecting his wife.

#naley #one tree hill #oth #nathan scott #haley james scott #bethany joy lenz #joy lenz #james lafferty #lozkelly #nathan and haley

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evils--reign · 6 years

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usually, i’ll start with “words cannot explain” when it comes to how much and why i hate e.mma s.wan – but i’m going to try and put it all down in to words anyway so you’ll have to bear with me if it starts to get a little incoherent. i get incredibly worked up about this particular character to the point where i sometimes have to just stop and breathe for thirty seconds. this isn’t to say i have anything against the people who write her as a muse, and i’ll touch on this at some point as well. please just, DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ARE AN E.MMA S.WAN STAN because i won’t give a shit if you come at me in her defence or to call me out on my hate. i’m publicly announcing that i hate her, there is nothing to call me out on.

THE ADOPTION

ok so i’m going to start with the thing that pisses me off the most about emma swan. this is literally the reason why i hate her, it’s what started my hatred for her and it will always be why i hate her. she gave henry up for a closed adoption, she gave away every right she had to henry as her son but when the adoptive mother of her son tells her to leave, she doesn’t. even if he wasn’t happy there, emma has no right to disregard regina’s wishes because regina is his mother, not emma. but she does. she completely ignores the adoptive parent’s wishes. yes, regina can’t dictate where emma decides to spend her time, but she can dictate how that time is spent and it was not to be spent with her son. despite it being obvious that regina didn’t want her around henry, she didn’t dissuade him from skipping school or seeking her out in order to spend time with her. regina, as henry’s adoptive mother, has every right afforded to biological parents. please see the below, taken from HERE and the passage regarding the permanent nature of adoption –

upon finalization of the adoption, the adoptive parents obtain the same rights and responsibilities with respect to the child that biological parents typically have, and the parental relationship is not subject to revocation. after a period specified by each state’s law, the adoption proceeding cannot be reopened, absent fraud or significant procedural irregularity; incompatibility or the second thoughts of any party cannot serve as the basis of reopening the proceeding.

emma had literally no rights to henry whatsoever. none. zilch. but she completely fucking ignores that, despite not believing in henry’s curse at all. she had no reason to stay because she should not!!! have been allowed!!! near henry!!! without the consent!!!! of his guardian!!!! but no, instead she somehow gets a job as a police officer, without any qualifications whatsoever, despite the fact that she breaks more laws than a career fucking criminal. you can’t argue that she stayed in storybrooke to make sure that henry was safe with regina because that’s not her fucking job. if she really was worried, she should have called the police, or filed a complaint, have regina legally investigated and yes, it wouldn’t have worked so well in a town that doesn’t technically exist but that is not the fucking point???

but that’s not even???? the worst part???? i mean yes, the worst part is the fact that apparently this show doesn’t give a shit about the rights of an adoptive parent over the bond between a biological parent and the child they gave up because there is literally no respect given to regina as the woman who raised henry, but emma tried to kidnap henry once, and succeeded a second time. don’t fight with me on this okay, it’s a fucking fact. when henry snuck in to the back of emma’s car as she was about to leave storybrooke, emma was fully prepared to keep on driving. that’s fucking kidnapping. she was taking a child away from his legal guardian without getting permission from said legal guardian or even advising her. not once did emma get her legal rights back as henry’s mother, not!!!! fucking!!!! once!!!! the only reason henry could stay with emma in the charming’s loft is because regina allowed it. because she knew he would just hate her even more for forcing him to stay with her so she agreed to let him go back with david. but then emma took him to new york. she took him out of storybrooke, out of the state, without regina’s knowledge. regina, who is his mother despite everyone thinking otherwise. regina, who loves henry more than anything. that!!!! is!!!! kidnapping!!!!

honestly, i think the only reason regina hasn’t pushed her rights as henry’s adoptive mother is because she knows henry wouldn’t like it, and she just wants henry to be happy. i’m not writing that bullshit ok. if a henry ever wants to confront the bs he put regina through, hit me the fuck up because that kid was an asshole to his mother.

THE SAVIOR

ok but not once has emma done anything remotely deserving of the praise that comes with being the savior since breaking the curse in season one???? she didn’t defeat cora, she didn’t defeat pan, she didn’t defeat zelena, she didn’t defeat ingrid???? i mean, i haven’t seen much of season five and i’ve seen like none of season six but from what i’ve been told, she hasn’t done shit in those seasons either???? but she still gets all the credit???? she still gets away with pulling shit no one **coughreginacough** would get away with???? no one talks about her time as the dark swan???? no one holds her accountable for trying to kill merida???? for controlling rumplestiltskin???? for hurting henry via violet’s heart???? no, that’s all something that can easily be disregarded because it’s not nearly as bad as what regina’s done. iT’S STILL BAD???? you can’t praise one person and vilify another for kind of the same reasons????

THE CHARACTER

look. it just pisses me off how much she can get away with like. where does she get off taking everyone ( including a twelve/thirteen year old kid???? ) to the actual underworld to save some asshole pirate no one but her gave a shit about???? where does she get off reuniting regina and henry and then deciding ( aGAIN WITHOUT CONSULTING REGINA, HENRY’S LEGAL MOTHER ) to take him back to new york???? her behaviour towards regina is primarily why i hate her so much and i have no problem admitting that yes, maybe i am bias. but it isn’t without reason???? not one version of her is even remotely acceptable in my book, nothing about her as a character itself is redeemable???? there is no real character development???? her character doesn’t advance in her actions or her personality or her morals at all throughout the show???? her arch’s aren’t even relevant to her character at all???? they’re just leeways to introducing another character or storyline???? there was no reason for lily to have known emma as kids, nothing about that was relevant to either character, it was just a way of bringing lily to storybrooke???? we could have removed emma as a character all the way back at the start of season two and it wouldn’t have affected the story???? at the most, it would have been the best thing that could have happened to the show????

CANON VS ROLEPLAY

ok, i am obviously not going to like emma in any capacity. i won’t act as if i do, i won’t sugarcoat regina’s responses, but just because i hate emma’s character in canon, that doesn’t mean i have to hate her in roleplay. if you can change my opinion, that’s great. good on you! but i won’t hold back on regina calling emma out on her bullshit. that is not how i write regina. if you want to deviate and you want to rewrite the whole fucking mess that is once upon a time, i am more than happy to work with you in creating a better version, a what should have been rather than a what if. but i won’t apologise for hating the foundations of emma swan just because you write her and you love her. i love regina. i write regina. i don’t stand for anti-regina bullshit on my blog or on my dash so if my anti-emma hate is a problem for you, that’s fine. don’t follow me. don’t write with me. but don’t ever make me feel bad for hating what is, in my opinion, one of the worst characters ever created. because i won’t feel bad. i feel fine.

anyway, the whole point of this post was to explain why i hated emma swan. now i’m going to summarise how much.

i hate her more than i hate mushrooms. and i really fucking hate mushrooms.

#misc * out of character . procrastination at it’s finest #misc * psa . important post alert !!#reposting this from the original.#but casual reminder.#i'm in a mood today wow.#anti emma swan

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evils--crown · 7 years

Text

usually, i’ll start with “words cannot explain” when it comes to how much and why i hate e.mma s.wan -- but i’m going to try and put it all down in to words anyway so you’ll have to bear with me if it starts to get a little incoherent. i get incredibly worked up about this particular character to the point where i sometimes have to just stop and breathe for thirty seconds. this isn’t to say i have anything against the people who write her as a muse, and i’ll touch on this at some point as well. please just, don’t read this if you are an e.mma s.wan stan because i won’t give a shit if you come at me in her defence or to call me out on my hate. i’m publicly announcing that i hate her, there is nothing to call me out on.

THE ADOPTION

ok so i’m going to start with the thing that pisses me off the most about emma swan. this is literally the reason why i hate her, it’s what started my hatred for her and it will always be why i hate her. she gave henry up for a closed adoption, she gave away every right she had to henry as her son but when the adoptive mother of her son tells her to leave, she doesn’t. even if regina was mistreating henry, even if he wasn’t happy there, emma has no right to disregard regina’s wishes because regina is his mother, not emma. but she does. she completely ignores the adoptive parent’s wishes. yes, regina can’t dictate where emma decides to spend her time, but she can dictate how that time is spent and it was not to be spent with her son. despite it being obvious that regina didn’t want her around henry, she didn’t dissuade him from skipping school or seeking her out in order to spend time with her. regina, as henry’s adoptive mother, has every right afforded to biological parents. please see the below, taken from here and the passage regarding the permanent nature of adoption --

Upon finalization of the adoption, the adoptive parents obtain the same rights and responsibilities with respect to the child that biological parents typically have, and the parental relationship is not subject to revocation. After a period specified by each state’s law, the adoption proceeding cannot be reopened, absent fraud or significant procedural irregularity; incompatibility or the second thoughts of any party cannot serve as the basis of reopening the proceeding.

THE SAVIOR

THE CHARACTER

CANON VS ROLEPLAY

anyway, the whole point of this post was to explain why i hated emma swan. now i’m going to summarise how much.

i hate her more than i hate mushrooms. and i really fucking hate mushrooms. mushrooms can go die. and so can emma swan. that’s all.

#* ( ooc ) ; is this real life ? ( out of character )#anti emma swan //#anti once upon a time //#anti ouat //#character call out //#&&. i feel like i've probably forgotten some points.#but i got the main things out of my system.#i'm going to try and be productive now.#she says despite having been promising productivity all day.

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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Game 41: Eamon: The Beginner’s Cave (1979)

This is pretty dope for the time, to be honest.

I’m tackling Eamon today, which presents something slightly different from my usual fare. On the surface it looks like a text adventure, but when you dig into it a little bit it’s very obviously a CRPG. More than that, though, it’s a tool for users to create their own games, very possibly the first one that was ever made available to a wide audience. Certainly it’s the first one I’ve encountered on the blog (unless you count the Wander programming language used to create games like Castle and Aldebaran III, but that could hardly be described as widely available).

If the number of games available for Eamon are anything to go by, it certainly had some measure of popularity. The Eamon Adventurer’s Guild – which is still posting updates in 2020, surprisingly – has a list of over 250 games available, which beggars a real question for a project like mine. How many of these games am I going to play? My gut instinct is to defiantly shout ALL OF THEM whenever the question comes up, so that’s a possibility. But being more realistic, I’m going to play it by ear as I plan out each year. For 1979 I have two Eamon adventures lined up: Beginner’s Cave and Lair of the Minotaur. 1980 jumps up to ten, and by 1984 there are a whopping 41. I’ll stick with it for as long as it seems feasible, and for as long as I’m enjoying the games.

But let’s take a step back and look at how Eamon came about. The details are a little hazy, because the game’s creator Donald Brown has spent the last 30 years not wanting to talk about it. What we do know is that Brown was a university student around the time that his father purchased an Apple II circa 1978. He was fascinated by the machine, as well as two other interests that seem so common to the CRPG creators of the era: Dungeons & Dragons, and the Society for Creative Anachronism. With the encouragement of his friends, Brown combined these interests to create Eamon, and distribute it out of his local shop, the Computer Emporium. From the beginning Brown made Eamon public domain, and it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t making any money from it: he was selling the game and its scenarios for the price of the media they were stored on. Later, in the mid-80s, Brown had a stab at a commercial version of Eamon with the SwordThrust line, but that apparently failed and Brown has had little to do with Eamon ever since. Others have maintained the community in his stead, and the entire library of games is still available today.

There’s some debate about exactly when Eamon first debuted. Most sources will cite 1980, but Jimmy Maher over at the Digital Antiquarian has done some pretty convincing detective work that suggests a date of 1979 is more likely. It’s pretty hard to dispute, so I’m going with 1979.

At this point I should probably get to the point and talk about what Eamon is, and what it does that’s inspired a community spanning close to half a century. I can’t really get into the technical specifics, which are well beyond my expertise, but I can speak to what it offers that no CRPG before it has done: an ongoing “campaign”. One of D&D’s most compelling features is its persistence, the ability to take your character from one adventure to the next and to have him or her gain in power (hopefully) or suffer setbacks along the way. Certainly games had emulated the “gain in power” aspect, and persistent characters were a thing going back to the PLATO days, but you were always stuck inside the same game, the same dungeon. Eamon expanded that to include a potentially endless number of scenarios, and gave users the tools to create their own scenarios as well. Not a bad deal for the price of a few floppy disks.

Eamon’s original release was on the Apple II, but it was later ported to the PC, and an Eamon Deluxe was created in the late 90s for MS-DOS. It was even made playable in a browser in 2017. I’m going to be playing the Apple II version, of course, and I won’t be checking out any of the other ports right now.

Before getting into the game I took a look at the documentation that’s out there, at least for players. (I didn’t want to get into the manuals for creating scenarios, because as much as I’d like to try it I don’t have the time to get sucked into something like that.) It covers the game’s systems in some detail, as well as giving a little bit of backstory: “Far away, at the dead center of the Milky Way, is the planet of Eamon. It doesn’t orbit any suns – all of the suns orbit it. The shifting pulls of all these great bodies bring strange forces to bear upon this planet; twisting light, tides, even the laws of science itself!” So that’s the basic framework for adventures within Eamon, although I’ve no doubt that there’ll be scenarios out there that make no sense within that framework. The player is supposedly a citizen of the planet Eamon, a free person out to seek their fortune.

The core of Eamon is the “Main Hall” of the Guild of Free Adventurers, which is contained on the main game disk. Here you create your characters, equip them, and save them between adventures. My first experience with the game was a rather ignominious one. The game begins as you enter the hall. There are many men and women guzzling beer, and a desk with a sign that says “register here or else!” I opted to join the beer drinkers first, and got a sword in the back for my troubles.

I mean, do I really want to associate with these people?

I’m not sure what the point of that was, but I suppose Donald Brown wanted to send a message to Eamon players to follow the rules. Or maybe he just thought it was amusing, who knows.

If you go to the desk, a burly Irishman – which already puts a dent in the planet Eamon set-up if we’re being honest – asks for your name. Here you can retrieve a character you’ve created before, or put in a new name to create a new character. If the character’s new, you get to choose whether you’re Male or Female, and then you get given your statistics.

This is done by a “tall man of possible elvish descent”, who tells you what your scores are in Hardiness, Agility and Charisma. He also gives you a book of instructions, which you can opt to read or totally ignore.

The three stats range between 3 and 24, generally landing in the mid-teens. Or at least, they’re supposed to be between 3 and 24; on the first version of the game that I downloaded I was getting stats in the 30s and 40s. Almost every version of Eamon that I found had the same problem. I suspect that the game had been cracked somewhere along the way, and for whatever reason that was the version that’s become widespread on the net. The version from the Eamon Adventurer’s Guild works correctly though, so if you’re looking to play the game that’s the place to get it from. The browser version also works correctly.

Hardiness is the equivalent of hit points. It also determines how much weight you can carry, although I can’t say that I ever ran into any encumbrance problems during The Beginner’s Cave.

Agility measures how often a character lands a hit in combat. It can apparently be useful for avoiding traps and other hazards, but again this didn’t come into play in this adventure.

Charisma is used to determine how characters will react to you, whether certain NPCs will be hostile or friendly. It also has an effect on the prices in shops, which is a thing that fantasy CRPGs like to do a lot that is in no way applicable in real life. No matter how lovable and charming I might be, ain’t nothing changing the price of that jar of Vegemite.

After that, the elf-like man gives you a Vulcan-like hand gesture, and you can enter the Main Hall proper. From here you get six options: go on an adventure, buy weapons, buy spells, deposit your gold in a bank, look at your stats, or save and quit. Going on an adventure without weapons would be foolish, and the spells are too expensive for a beginning adventurer, so visiting the weapons shop is the best first option.

Temporarily leaving the universe sounds pretty good right about now.

Eamon splits weapons into five categories: axes, bows, clubs, spears and swords. The game is very up-front with its internal systems, and gives you your base chance to hit with each weapon: beginning adventurers are good with clubs (20%), okay with spears (10%) and axes (5%), average with swords (0%) and bad with bows (-10%). This seems like a fair approximation to me for what weapons would be easiest for a novice to pick up and use without training.

Armour has only three categories, leather, chain and plate. Wearing armour reduces the damage you take when hit, but it also reduces your own chances to hit when attacking. Shields work much the same way.

You begin with 200 gold pieces. This was generally enough to buy one weapon, a suit of armour (usually leather, although with a high enough Charisma I could sometimes afford chain) and a shield.

My character just before his ill-fated adventure.

All of the above is done through menus, and is pretty self-explanatory, but the game does try to liven things up a bit by giving the various shopkeepers some personality. The weapons shop is run by Marcos Cavielli, a pretty heavy italian stereotype. The wizard who sells magic is an old grump called Hokas Tokas. The banker is called Shylock, which I’ll assume is a Shakespeare reference and leave it at that. It’s a valiant attempt, and it’s somewhat charming the first time you go through the process, but after a while it becomes a little tiresome reading the same dialogue over again.

When it’s time to adventure, the game asks you for the scenario disk. For The Beginner’s Cave, you just leave the main disk in and continue.

I couldn’t bear not to add an apostrophe.

The Beginner’s Cave is the first Eamon scenario, and the manual helpfully explains that it was set up by “The Warlord” as a service to all Free Adventurers, as a way for them to test their skills in a mildly dangerous setting. How thoughtful! As we’ll see, it makes very little sense with the adventure as described below.

The adventure began when I apparently stole a horse and rode it to the cave, where I was inspected by the local knight marshal. If you have no weapons he will turn you away, and he also won’t let you in if your stats are higher than those of a beginning adventurer. Like the sign on the cave says, this one is strictly for beginner’s only.

Doesn’t the guy care that I nicked some poor bugger’s horse?

Movement and commands are done in the usual adventure game manner: NESW for North, East, South and West. The game has a parser that generally behaves like an adventure game, but the commands are limited. In fact, if you type a command that the game doesn’t recognise it gives you a list of every command in the game. Apparently these can change depending on your scenario, For The Beginner’s Cave, it’s mostly basic stuff like GET, DROP, LOOK, EXAMINE, READ, OPEN, etc.

The entrance to the cave led to a passage heading south that then opened into a huge chamber with torches lining the walls. The entire dungeon is filled with lit torches, so there’s no need to worry about light sources. A tunnel headed south, and there were chambers to the east and west.

I started by exploring the east chamber, where I met a smelly old hermit. Also in the room was a bottle, which I took. The hermit, perhaps incensed that I was nabbing his personal belongings, attacked me.

The hermit was hostile this time, but in other games he’s been friendlier and decided to follow me around and help me fight various monsters. As I mentioned above, this is dependent on my Charisma. It also depends on the NPC’s Friendliness rating. The manual says that the Hermit has a Friendliness of 50%, which means that without modifiers he will be friendly half the time. This is modified by the player’s Charisma score minus 10, then multiplied by 2. A character with a Charisma of 5 would subtract 10 for a result of -5, then multiplying by two come up with a modifier of -10, which would reduce the Hermit’s Friendliness to 40%. If the player had a Charisma of 15, the Hermit’s Friendliness would be raised to 60%. Some characters and monsters have a Friendliness of 0, and will be hostile regardless of the player’s Charisma.

Obviously this time the roll hadn’t gone my way, because the hermit was attacking me. We exchanged blows for a few rounds, until he fumbled and dropped his axe. I picked it up, and without a weapon he wasn’t able to defend himself, so I beat the hermit to death without fear of reprisal. After the fight I examined the bottle and learned that it was a healing potion. I’d only been struck once byt the hermit, so I decided to save it for later.

Beating an unarmed hermit to death. Hey, he started it!

The chamber to the west had some treasure in the form of a pile of diamonds, but it was guarded by a trio of giant rats (each a different colour so that the parser can differentiate them). I struck the black rat, killing it, and the other two fled out of the room.

The ability to land a blow in combat is a percentage based on your Agility score multiplied by two, modified by your skill with the weapon you’re using and the complexity of that specific weapon. My character had an Agility of 16, which is doubled for a base score of 32. He was using a mace, for which he had a skill of 20%, but its complexity was -10%, so his chance to hit each round was 42%. If he’d been wearing armour it would have been further reduced, but for this game I didn’t buy any.

Your weapon skills increase through use. Basically, for every blow you strike, the chance of missing is your chance of increasing the skill. My character above would have a 58% chance of increasing his score with clubs every time he hits. This raises your skill in that weapon by 2% each time, which increases the chance to hit but makes the chance to learn a little lower. It’s a pretty solid system, and I could even see someone building a decent tabletop RPG out of it. Unfortunately, in practice it boils down to typing ATTACK BLACK RAT over and over again until you win or die. The math works, but it’s still a system that doesn’t give the player a lot of options.

I should also note that once you’re on an adventure you can’t look at your stats, and you have no idea how much Hardiness you have left. The combat descriptions give you a general idea of how your character is feeling, but you never know exactly how close you are to dying. It does provide a certain level of uncertainty that I appreciate (and I’ve done similar things when running tabletop D&D), but it would be nice to be able to check how my weapon skills are advancing.

With the black rat dead I scooped up the diamonds, and fought the two remaining rats in the main chamber. Sometimes when a creature fumbles its weapon can break, and in the screen shot below you can see the absurd situation of a giant rat killing itself by breaking its own teeth.

Actually, I’ve smashed a tooth out on the concrete before and it was bloody awful, so this tracks.

I headed south, into a long passage lined with cells, six in all. In the first one I explored was a human warrior armed with a sword and shield. His shield had a sticker on it that said “Hi! I’m Heinrich!” Sometimes Heinrich will help you out, but once again the random numbers were against me, because Heinrich was hostile. I won the following battle, but by the end I was “knocking on death’s door”, so I drank the healing potion to regain some Hardiness.

In the other cells I found a gorilla guarding some gold pieces, and a mimic disguised as a chest. The gorilla fumbled and broke its weapon, so I was able to kill it without it fighting back. The mimic was disguised, as I said, but there was no way to find that out without first opening the chest. This caused it to grab me with its tentacles, and I had no choice but to fight back. I killed it with my first blow, and found a gold ring hidden beneath its corpse.

Further south I came to an intersection. One path led to a library, where I found a glowing book. I took it with me and left. (You can read the book, but this results in you being transformed into a fish and dying of asphyxiation. A typically arbitrary adventure game death, with no way of figuring out beforehand that this might happen.)

The tunnel east led to a flight of stairs heading down. The tunnel continued east until emerging in a small bay surrounded by cliffs. There was a pirate here, guarding a pile of jewels, and at my approach he muttered a word that caused his ornate sword to blaze with green fire. I probably should have fled at this point, seeing as I was quite badly wounded, but I decided to fight anyway.

Yarr, it be Trollsfire it be.

After the first swing the pirate fled. I took his jewels and pursued him along the tunnel, killing him with my first stroke. Now that he was dead I could claim his magic sword, called Trollsfire. Unfortunately, I used the wrong command when trying to wield the sword. I should have typed READY TROLLSFIRE, but instead I typed WIELD TROLLSFIRE. The game interpreted this as me activating the sword while it was on my person but not in my hand, and burning myself to death. Whoops.

Dumb ways to die, So many dumb ways to die.

Despite dying I’d covered everything that Beginner’s Cave had to offer, or so I thought. While I was doing some preliminary reading for this post I discovered that there’s a secret passage leading to another area. I promptly stopped reading and sent another character into the cave, and began searching. I found the secret passage in the tunnel just south of the cells, where the walls are described as “very broken and rough”. I suppose that’s a hint, but it doesn’t come across as one when you’re not actually thinking about secret tunnels.

You can go east here without finding the tunnel first. If I’d been using my usual adventure game method I’d have stumbled across it for sure.

At the end of the passage I found a temple, being presided over by a mad priest of some sort. Also here, presumably as a captive, was Cynthia “Duke Luxom’s not-too bright daughter”. This was the first I was hearing of any of this, but I duly killed the priest and allowed Cynthia to follow me. I also took some rare spices before I left the temple.

“An insane look on his face” covers most of the priests I’ve met.

Whenever you return to town, you sell all of your treasures to Sam Slicker, the local buyer of such things. I also got an extra reward for rescuing Cynthia, which kid of irks me to be honest. If I’d been told about her beforehand I’d have been much more inclined to start searching around for secret tunnels. As it was I thought I was done after killing the pirate, because there was no indication that there was anything else to do. And that’s not even mentioning the apparent set-up of “the Warlord” creating the cave for adventurers to train, which seems an unlikely place for an evil priest to be holding the duke’s daughter captive.

The reward you get for Cynthia is based on your own Charisma, which certainly says something about how much Duke Luxom value’s his daughter.

I can’t say that this is a great start for Eamon, if I’m being honest. I like the idea of a CRPG with an adventure game parser, and I love the idea of being able to take my characters from adventure to adventure. Beginner’s Cave is a little too simplistic, though. There’s really nothing to do inside it but fight. Sure, there are friendly characters, but you can’t actually interact with them. Either they attack you or they follow you; they don’t react to any of your other actions. I’m also aware that fighting is pretty much all you do in loads of other CRPGs, but that works when the combat has some tactical depth. Eamon doesn’t, at least in its first scenario, and it suffers from that.

I suspect this will change in further adventures, particularly because of Eamon’s spell system. The game has four spells: Blast, Heal, Speed and Power. Blast hits the target with a magic arrow. Heal restores your Hardiness. Speed doubles your Agility for a time. Power is an odd one, in that its effect changes from scenario to scenario. It’s justified in-game as a “call to the gods”. It’s the only spell that’s cheap enough for a starting character to afford, so I bought it and tried to use it in the Beginner’s Cave. When I cast it I heard a sonic boom in the distance, but when I explored I didn’t notice any changes to the dungeon. Casting it in battle didn’t seem to do anything either, although in the final room it caused the rare spices to disappear. I’ll write more about the spell system when I cover The Lair of the Minotaur, because I’ll actually be able to afford some of the spells before going in.

RADNESS INDEX:

Story & Setting: There is a story to Beginner’s Cave, but the game doesn’t clue you in until you stumble upon it. If it had mentioned the duke’s daughter and the evil priest at the beginning it might have scored a little higher here. As for the setting the caves don’t really make a lot of sense. The setup with a warlord maintaining them to train adventurers almost works in a fantasy D&D-logic sort of way, but it’s harder to see how an evil priest got in there, or why it opens into a pirate’s cove. Rating: 1 out of 7.

Characters & Monsters: I appreciate that the game goes to some extra effort to give its shopkeepers personality, even if they are more than a little stereotypical. The monsters don’t offer much in the way of tactical variation, but they make up for that a little bit with some descriptive prose. The characters that you can befriend and fight alongside are a nice touch as well, although genuine interaction with them is very limited. Rating: 2 out of 7.

Aesthetics: This is effectively a text adventure in terms of visuals, with no sound beyond the very occasional beep from the speakers. Still, the descriptions of the rooms and characters are better then those in the vast majority of adventure games on home computers from this era. Rating: 2 out of 7.

Combat: This is among the least complex combat systems I’ve encountered in a CRPG. Possibly the magic system would mitigate this, but it’s pretty much inaccessible in the Beginner’s Cave scenario. Rating: 1 out of 7.

Mechanics: Despite the lack of options in combat, the math behind it is solid, and I do like how your abilities improve through use. The parser works, although it is extremely basic. I never had problems finding the right command in a situation (aside from accidentally killing myself), but that’s because the numbers of commands available are very limited by the standards of parser-based games. Or maybe not. It could be that adventure games of the era are just as limited, but hide it by not giving you the full list of commands available. Either way, I feel like Eamon loses that illusion of flexibility by putting the commands right out in the open. It’s a simple game that does what it does pretty well, but at least in this scenario it’s not trying to do all that much. Rating: 3 out of 7.

Challenge: I only died twice in the half-dozen times I played through this adventure: once when I read the book, and once when I accidentally burned myself to death with Trollsfire. For all the battles I fought in the cave, I never lost one of them, and the game was really rather easy. Of course, that is its intention: it’s a beginner’s dungeon designed to give an Eamon novice some extra experience and a feel for the game. It succeeds at that, but as a game in its own right I’d still say that it rates as trivially easy. Rating: 1 out of 7.

Fun: I like a short game, but this one was too short, and not at all challenging. I didn’t hate it, it’s just inconsequential. Although the secret passage and the unmentioned kidnapping of Cynthia did irk me slightly. Rating: 2 out of 7.

Bonus Points: 2. I’m giving this game both bonus points for its historical significance and the potential it gives for better adventures in the future. I really like what it’s trying to do, it just doesn’t quite get there with its first scenario.

The above categories total 12, which doubled (and given the bonus points) gives a RADNESS Index of 26. That puts it equal 27th, and equal 11th out of 17 CRPGs. It’s equal on points with Moria, which has the opposite problem, in that it’s empty and far too long. Otherwise it’s sitting just below Akalabeth, which was impressive but fundamentally flawed, and above a whole bunch of CRPGs that I didn’t much care for. Right on the dividing line between games I liked and games I didn’t get much enjoyment out of seems about right. I suspect that future scenarios for Eamon will do better.

NEXT: Next on my list is Futurewar which is a PLATO game that seems to be part CRPG and part primitive 3D shooter. I’m tempted to kick it off my list because I just don’t want to get stuck on a months-long mainframe game again, but it does have stats and experience points and levels, so… I guess I have to at least check it out. If I do get into it for any great length of time, I’ll alternate posts between playing Futurewar and progressing through the other games on the list.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-41-eamon-the-beginners-cave-1979/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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jillmckenzie1 · 6 years

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My Personal Emergency Evacuation

About a month ago, my hometown caught on fire. I exaggerate you not that Basalt, Colorado is beyond blessed to still be standing (and may all the Lake Christine firefighters have a special place in heaven for their tireless efforts).

Credit: Robert Parker, Lake Christine

It’s a rather surreal feeling to hear that some of your dearest friends are evacuating their homes in a place that you spent your entire childhood. It’s nearly impossible to not transplant yourself into such a scenario, and it was in this state of empathy that I had a very cathartic realization about my past attachment, and current detachment, from things.

For many years, I used possessions to feel something. I was in a toxic marriage in which I felt anything but loved. Physical touch was a distant part of our relationship. My ex-husband was more concerned about asserting his dominance over me than participating in a symbiotic partnership. But, money, we had money. So, buying things felt good. I could run my fingers over those things and know that they were real. I could put on new clothes and get compliments for those things being new.

My love language is “words of affirmation,” so on a very basic level, I needed those compliments. They were my life jacket in an abyss of deep, dark waters. As a single person, I spent the last three years in constant introspection around what it means to love and to be loved, both for humanity and for myself. I’ve come to a stark realization about the weight that I naturally put on words. I do not take them lightly. If you tell me something, I believe it to the core of my being, and while I’m terrible at accepting compliments, there is something about a compliment that tattoos itself into the soft spaces of my soul. So, words, yes, they are my kryptonite.

Hear me, future significant other. Don’t buy me flowers. They die (seriously, still evaluating how flowers are a sound financial investment). But, tell me I’m smart and pretty, and I’ll be wrapped around your finger.

Some backstory. I spent my 20’s as a high school English teacher and varsity basketball coach, which is (sadly) a rather thankless job. I cannot articulate in enough words what this career did for my personal growth, and I have endless respect for those who are committed to this work, but I was dying. I loved every single kid that ever graced my classroom (okay, there are a couple that I might use a different verb to describe), but even amidst that love, I was becoming a hollow version of myself. So, somewhere on the brink of 30-years-old, I realized that I needed to make choices to initiate change or succumb to living – and eventually dying – inside of my emptiness.

Professionally, I felt like I was living in a vacuum. Personally, I felt like I was living in a prison.

Ultimately, I gained the confidence to leave both the unfulfilling career and marriage (in that order). But, I held on to my love for things through both separations. Because, things give your fingers something to feel when your body is aching to believe that you are not the only person on the planet wallowing in heartbreak.

To be honest, it’s been almost like an out-of-body experience to witness both my obsession with and separation from materialism.

I would argue that I subconsciously learned my way into this state, and that I have also subconsciously learned my way out. I grew up blessed to have access to all the things I ever really wanted, but I only moderately cared about acquiring more stuff. If anything, my obsessions stopped at getting the Jordan XI’s in pink snakeskin and the Adidas Copa Mundials.

When I met my (now) ex-husband, he repeatedly told me how I didn’t have enough style, that he would never want to be with someone who wasn’t into fashion. Yes, that should have been my first clue to abort. But, abort I did not. In my insecurity, I repeatedly believed that my worth was attached to those words. So, I tried endlessly to do enough to obtain this arbitrary status, never really understanding when the finish line would arrive, if at all. But, in the pursuit, I acquired things. So. Many. Things. And, without even realizing it, there I was, sitting in my stuff. Stuff that was making me feel worthy of being loved.

When I found myself living alone again, I slowly started to feel suffocated by my things. The more confident I became in my ability to stand alone, the less I needed a closet full of clothes to masque my lack of confidence.

When I moved from Boise to Sun Valley last winter, I naturally left all of my furniture behind, but I can still pinpoint a very strong connection to certain things to which I attached the pronoun “my.” When I made the decision to move into the Airstream, I became less interested in those things. And, three months into living in the Airstream, I now notice an

Credit: Robert Parker, Basalt, Colorado

even deeper lack of interest. In the process of my initial downsize, I distinctly remember wanting to keep all of my clothes and justifying a reason for nearly every piece of apparel. Yet, I currently wear the same outfits on repeat every week (and, quite frankly, I give zero fucks). Don’t get me wrong, I’m a total snob when it comes to my technical gear, and I really do have a reason for nearly every item that I own in that regard, but when it comes to my everyday life, give me ten pairs of black high-waisted lululemon leggings, some tank tops, and a couple hoodies, and I’m golden.

Fast forward a few more months to the end of July, and when I heard that the Lake Christine Fire was endangering so many people and so many places that I love, I instinctively thought about what so many of my friends were going through who still call this place home. I wondered what it would be like for someone to have a finite amount of time to gather his or her most important material things, load them in the car, and evacuate to safety.

Then, it hit me. This is my current state of existence. I have managed to narrow down the most important things I own into the backseat of my Yukon (hello, snowboard gear) and 100 square feet of an aluminum travel trailer. Yes, I did it out of choice and without danger looming in the background. And, yes, I humbly admit that I had ample time to

Credit: Robert Parker, Lake Christine

evaluate these decisions. In no way can I begin to resonate with the fear that one would feel in a scenario defined by the words “emergency evacuation,” and I’ve had enough conversations with my hometown friends to realize that the terror is truly incomprehensible.

But, nonetheless, here I am. On the other side of my own relative emergency evacuation. Stripped down. With a closet that is probably one-sixteenth the size of my closet from five years ago. And more joy than I thought could possibly fit inside of one human heart.

What I was able to take away from this small sliver of consciousness was my detachment from something, or some things, that used to numb my reality. I had allowed myself to get to a place where I looked in the mirror only to see a shell of my own skin. Then, one morning I woke up to the most authentic version of my being. At some undefined moment. Without any premeditated goal. Unbeknownst to myself. Somewhere along the way, I had changed. Again. Or, back. And, the momentary self-awareness to my transformation allowed my spirit to exhale. My clenched hands relaxed. My shoulders softened. I realized that I could lose everything and feel like nothing less of a human. I, Stephanie Leigh Kemp, didn’t need any of that stuff anymore.

Things. They can be replaced. I love what I have and am lucky to have it, but I am detached from it carrying significant worth.

Extraordinary life experiences. Deep human connections. Honest words spoken from truthful tongues. These are the epicenter of the world that I want to create for myself.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/my-personal-emergency-evacuation/

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