#which was a nice way to spend a day off from archaeology

[lea-andres]

Okay, this took all afternoon to write, but let me tell you about Patience's little friends who are just rotting my brain right now.

So, Patience gets to travel with Team Cerberus to actual archaeological dig sites for the first time when she's 7. On that first trip ever, they went to two countries: Chun-Nan (which Dinah's specifically trained in), and Shamar (Brutus's area of expertise!)

So, in Chun Nan, they had to take a brief detour for Dinah to speak to some government officials. So Dinah told Patience that while she was doing the boring adult paperwork stuff the BugBear should go and make some friends, and shoved her in the direction of the nearest kid: a Panda Bear about Patience's age named Jasmine! (They go by Jas for short!)

One of Jas's parents was one of the government officials Dinah had to speak with, and the other is a CEO to a huge company (still deciding what exactly the parents do LOL), so Jas is very wealthy and very lonely due to their parents always working. They usually amuse themselves with fashion, snacks, music... The finest things really. Jas is always dressed gorgeously and has about half a thousand snacks hidden on their person somewhere.

Anyway, Jas was thrilled to have a friend (or at least a kid their age they could hold hostage and talk to for a while LOL), and they snatched Patience up immediately and dragged her around town, introducing her to the highlights, getting her to try a whole bunch of food, and even setting her up with a nice silk kimono like theirs. "Beautiful people should wear beautiful things." Jas insists to Patience whenever they can talk her into letting them give her a makeover. (They've insisted from day one that Patience is very pretty... Which comes back to bite them in the ass later but we'll get back to that. LOL)

Patience BEGGED Jas to join them at the dig site. Which Jas, really wanting to spend more time with their new friend, agreed to do. They were NOT wild about the danger and the traps and the death defying thrills, but they LOVED seeing and learning about the artifacts that were dug up. They all also learned very quickly about Jas that they can determine what a piece of jewelry's made out of at just a glance. The kid knows their gemstones! (Jas and Jewel bond over this when they eventually meet LOL)

Patience and Jas traded contact information when it was time for Team Cerberus to move on, and they then went to Shamar!

There weren't any kids there that time during the boring government officials chat, unfortunately. But as they were driving to where their camp would be, they'd picked up a stowaway. A little scorpion girl about Patience's age named Sahara had overheard that the group were archaeologists, and snuck into one of their equipment crates so she could see a real life dig site. Sahara was caught almost immediately, but it was too hot for someone to drive her back into town and then drive all the way back, so they let her stay... But they were taking her straight home and telling her parents the second the sun started to set and things started cooling down.

Unlike Jas, Sahara LOVED the thrill and the danger of digging through ancient tombs. She and Patience almost got killed in about 5 traps because they were just so excited about the adventure LOL. The brain cells fly out the window whenever those two get together

But nightfall came, and they took Sahara home, where they learned two things about her:

1. Sahara's #4 of 7 kids. She gets lost in the shuffle sometimes, usually intentionally orchestrated by her so she can sneak off and cause trouble.

2. Her parents, Scorch and Oasis, are those parents that if their kid brings a friend home, they're adopting the friend as one of their kids. Aggressively. Especially Oasis, her love is the biggest and most aggressive of the two parents.

So Scorch and Oasis snatched up Patience on sight. 😂 They also stole Patience's address from Sahara later on so they could write letters to Bark and Jewel (they're the kinds of parents who want to know their child's friends' parents.) So Bark and Jewel were a little shocked to get these letters out of nowhere, but it's fine, the parents are all friends now. Oasis and Bark swap recipes, and Jewel answers as many of Scorch's questions about Sonic as she can (he's a huge fan LOL) Bark and Jewel rest a little easier whenever their daughter is in Shamar now, knowing that the sweetest scorpions ever are looking after their baby girl like she's one of their own. 🥺

Patience introduced Jas and Sahara as quickly as she possibly could, and was very pleased when they became friends too! Jas keeps Patience and Sahara from getting themselves killed doing something stupid, and they're always reaching out to Jas to include them in things, which always pleases them. Oasis is very frustrated with Jas's parents being absent from their life, and keeps threatening she's gonna keep Jas next time they come over. (Jas occasionally takes trips to visit Patience and/or Sahara when they get older, because again: loaded and unsupervised.)

Once the three are all college aged, they end up studying archaeology at Spagonia University together, and being roommates (oh my God they were roommates), and THAT'S when Jas finally catches feelings for Patience. 😂 Sahara, who saw this coming since she was first introduced to Jas, takes great joy in setting up outings for the three of them to go on and then bailing at the last second so Jas and Patience are alone. 😂 (No interest in romance herself, but Sahara thinks they'd be a cute pair and is trying to help Jas out)

Unfortunately, Patience inherited her mother's cluelessness. She has yet to realize what's going with them. Everyone took the opportunity to tease Jewel. Except for Bark, he's just very angry at Jas for pursuing Patience romantically (no legitimate reasoning, perfection personified could pursue Patience romantically and Bark would find a reason to hate them LMAO)

I'm still working on them, but yeah. Jas the Panda and Sahara the Scorpion, my beloveds. 😍😍😍 Thanks @mightourge for your help!!!

[umichenginabroad]

Sorrento Reflections: An Unforgettable Summer

Ciao!

I wanted to spend some time reflecting on my time in Sorrento. After spending two and a half months here (crazy!) I wanted to leave with some of my favorites as well as advice for those studying abroad so this blog post is going to be long. 

A Summary of My Favorites From My Time in Italy

Places in Sorrento: Raki for Gelato, Dodeca for groceries, A’Marenna for sandwiches, Nunu's Not Just Kebabs for non-Italian food

Gelato: Dark Chocolate or Salted Caramel from Raki, Crema Veneziana from Gelateria Gallonetto in Venice

Foods: Pizza Fritta, Margherita Pizza, Gnocchi alla Sorrentina, Cuoppa

Cities I Visited: Ischia, Venice, Naples, Rome

Museums: Museo Archaeological Natzionale di Napoli, Capitoline Museums in Rome, Basilica di San Clemente in Rome

Archaeological Sites: Herculaneum, Pompeii, Roman Forum

Some of my favorite photos from my time abroad

I have so much advice regarding studying abroad that I wanted to mention below. Some of these are more Sorrento specific, but I think they can be applied to any program.

Say YES to things! I wouldn’t have gotten to have so many cool experiences if I’d said no or talked myself out of things. While boundaries are very important, take advantage of all the things you have access to while abroad. 

Don’t be Afraid to Explore on Your Own! It can be intimidating, but sometimes solo exploration was more fun for me. There are so many places I wouldn’t have seen if I’d tried to wait or follow a group and I have no regrets about the day trips I did on my own. Be safe and share your location with a friend. 

Ask Your Professors/Staff for Advice! The professors and staff are super passionate about Southern Italy and also super knowledgeable, the vast majority of them were born and raised in the Sorrento area. I wouldn’t have considered trying Pizza Fritta without my Religions of the Classical Antiquity professor suggesting it, which was one of my favorite things in Italy. 

Try ALL the Foods! As my one professor said, “Food and street food are the foundation of Neapolitan culture” so you have to try them while you’re here! It’s a really great way to explore local culture while also being super delicious. This goes for places outside of Naples/Sorrento but is especially true in Naples.

Take Time to Relax! While I definitely suggest getting out and exploring, it was also nice to just relax some days and stick around town or in the dorms. There are nice gardens you can sit in, streets to wander around, and absolutely stunning views of Vesuvius. It’s also exhausting to travel long distances every weekend.

Explore Beyond Instagram! While Instagram and TikTok are great for getting ideas about places to see, I highly recommend trying to explore more off the beaten path places as they’re often less crowded but just as interesting and pretty. I often used google maps to find places to eat and check for tourist traps. 

Plan, but Don’t Over-Plan! I personally find that the only way to actually see everything that you want to see is to plan ahead. Have ideas of what places you want to visit but don’t hyperplan out every detail to allow for spontaneity. Definitely get boat or train tickets ahead of time and entry tickets to popular monuments like the Colosseum or museums to save time. 

Explore Locally! While it’s tempting to be lured by far away cities, there is so much to see and do just around Naples and Sorrento. I really enjoyed getting to know Naples a little better and exploring all the archaeology sites around Mount Vesuvius. The only real regret I have is not trying to explore more of Naples and the Campania region.

Save Money by Cooking and Eating Street Food! I think the easiest way to save money for traveling is to cool your own meals. I found that I could get really good food at the grocery store often for around €50 a week and I cooked all my meals during the week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). To not break the bank when eating out, try street food and takeaway meals as they’re often less than 10 euros a meal. I’ve gotten street food for less than 5 euros and it was so good plus it’s what the locals eat.

More of my favorite photos from studying abroad.

The best piece of advice I have is to study abroad! I seriously can’t explain just how much fun I’ve had and how many memories I’ve made that will last a lifetime. I‘ve not only gotten more confident in my ability to travel and navigate alone, but I’ve really learned so much about both American and Neapolitan culture. I think that this study abroad experience helped put my own life and experiences into perspective and I got to know myself better. Although it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, I’m sad about leaving Sorrento and Naples behind. I'm definitely considering studying abroad again, or at least looking for a job that allows for international travel.

Thanks for reading my blog posts!

Ciao!!!!

Reganne Watts

Aerospace Engineering

Engineering in Sorrento, Italy

[mormakil]

Isle of Man 13/07/18

[perperam]

since the one thing that’s getting me through midterms season rn is the hysterical nature of a gotham city sirens apartment au I randomly conjured up at like 4am the other day, here are some misc headcannons from it:

harley's doing a dual med school & phd program in psychiatry and specializing in trauma response research, pam’s finishing up her botanical biochemistry phd, and selina’s honestly just vibing

no really, every time the other girls ask selina what she’s doing or how she got the money to buy them a certain gift she just shrugs and says a different occupation each time making them purposefully outlandish (“no really, I got this when I was a chef’s assistant in France,” “oh that one? this little trinket I got when I was consulting on an archaeological dig the other week, mhm,” “I just purchased build a bear workshop, so that’s why I could afford these diamonds for all of us”)

harley has adhd and you can’t change my mind

on that note, she just does flips and handstands and shit at random and it’s always so distracting to pam because she needs to study but anytime harley’s abs flash they obliterate any thoughts pam had in her head

they actually got a gymnastics beam installed into the corner of their living room by the door to pam’s lab

bruce hasn’t dropped out of med school (yet) and him and harley are best buds in class because they both love to tear the shit out of old (and frankly racist & sexist) doctors/medical theories

bruce is awkward and bad at socializing and harley is one of the most popular girls in the program and they are a funky lil duo

in fact the first time selina introduces bruce to the rest of the girls harley and bruce are just like “wait a fuckin’ minute now—” [insert spiderman clone meme] also I drew this one so here it is

pam has a garden on their balcony and she spends hours there

she also is the most chill person on the planet. harley could literally fall from the roof and pass by her lab window on the way down and pam would just sigh deeply and take the elevator down to collect her gf

harley and selina have the absolute most inside jokes and also are like annoying sisters to one another

“reeeeed tell kyle that she needs to eat more than just piz—” “quinn shut the fuck up or I’m going to beat your ass” “I’d like to see you try—” [clattering noises and then someone falling onto the hardwood]

barbara might as well live at their apartment, she’s literally over every single day

they have movie nights constantly (it’s a nice way to avoid doing work)

pam might be quiet but she will roast the living shit out of you if provoked (which is more often than she would like)

when bruce drops out and takes over wayne techn and starts adopting these random kids he drops them off at the apartment even though all the girls (except harley) are like dude really

yeah harley just becomes the best aunt

anyway enjoy this personal reference doc to myself for my future sketches

[red-cape-morgana]

Fiat Lux

Everyone sees the girl of steel as an almighty, indestructible being. But before being a hero, she is a person, and this implies some quirks. Some fears as well.

Chapter 1

(Ao3)

“Oh here you are!”

Kara opened her eyes to see a not so happy Alex standing in front of her, decked out in her biker attire. Which of course, considering the rebellious side of her sister’s personality, was mostly black leather.

She had not even taken the time to store her helmet properly, and was just waving it in Kara’s direction, in a sort of accusatory way.

Okay, it means that she was either in a hurry or stressed. This isn't good for me. And right now it looks more like she is ready to knock me out, Kara thinks with a bit of apprehension.

Sure, she is a kryptonian under a yellow sun, and this helmet would not hurt her in any way. But she would feel the wack, and Kara also worries of what the people nearby would think of the whole scene.

“Hello Alex” she said with fake enthusiasm, “You arrive just at the right time. I was about to go to Noonan for some caramel mocha. Wanna tag along? It’s all on me”.

Humans say that the way to one’s heart is through one’s stomach. This should work, right?

Alex passed her hand through her hair, trying to diminish the mess made by her helmet. Kara is almost sure she heard her mumble something along the line of “I am too old and not paid enough for this…”, before she sat down on the bench to be at eye level with the blonde.

“Listen” the redhead started, after having gathered her thoughts.

“I understand that it’s spring, and the weather is nice, and all that. We all got through that incredibly gloomy winter. But can you just stop disappearing every few hours?”.

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose before adding.

“I know that since Lena and you are dating, It’s unlikely it will get you in trouble. But Nia and I are done with your coworkers calling randomly to ask where you can be at the moment. At least, she has some ground to work from, while I’m completely in the dark of what you’re currently working on at work. I swear one day I’ll end up saying you’ve finally followed your true passion, and are digging some dinosaur fossil in the Andes”.

“Hey! Dinosaurs are fascinating creatures. And I’m sure Lena wouldn’t be opposed to one article, she loves sciences so she should…”

“Kara, this is beyond the point!” Alex interrupted her, clearly not in the mood for some sort of archaeological brainstorming.

At least, Kara had the good sense to appear a bit guilty after seeing her sister fuming expression.

She knew that she was running a bit late on her break, but why was everyone making a big deal out of it? It’s not like she had been abducted (again), or like there was an alien wreaking havoc downtown (again as well).

“Relax, I am just recharging Alex. Everything is fine.” Kara had been peacefully basking in the sunlight as soon as the delivery guy had reached CatCo building with her inhuman order of potstickers and lemonade.

The weather had been incredible the last couple of days, and all the more tempting when she was trapped at her desk, glaring at her computer screen in hope it would get her articles written faster. So, when Lena had said she would spend the rest of the week working from L-Corp, having to meet with some investors for her last est healthcare invention, Kara had seized her chance. There was a small park two blocks away from her workplace, and she intended to get the most out of it.

At least before her sister came looking for her.

I have the feeling that I may end up in trouble after all. I am sure she will dutifully report all that too Lena. those two have been getting along too well lately, now...

“Earth to Kara! Did you even hear a word of what I said?”.

The redhead had snapped her out of her daydreaming by jamming a finger in her side, clearly getting more annoyed by the minute.

“Hey! No need to resort to violence” Kara said while massaging the sensitive spot on her side that Alex had targeted. “And yes, I’ve heard you just fine. I don’t know why you are all making a fuss about it, I was just recharging a bit in the sun…”

"You blew out your power?!" Alex hissed, interrupting the blonde.

She looked around them to make sure that no one could hear them, before scooting over closer to her sister, taking her hands in hers.

“What happened?”Alex asked, searching Kara’s face for any trace of bruises, signs of concussion. “We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at the DEO. Did someone use kryptonite on you? Those radiations are harder to pick up on but we…”

“Alex. As much as I love seeing you be the protective sister, I promise I’m fine.” Kara chimed in, clearly willing to stop the scientific monologue that was about to unfold.

If she was still the most prone of the two to rambling, the redhead wasn’t that far behind.

“I just wanted to recharge my shoes while there is still sun outside” Kara said, a grin slowly stretching her lips.

“You wanted to recharge what now?” Alex asked, looking completely dumbfounded.

And right at this moment, she shows her her brand new shoes. Pointing down at them, like an over excited kid.

"They glow in the dark, Alex!" Kara says, before getting up from the bench she was perched on, to go in the shade of the tree nearby.

“It was the last pair in my size with that design. And honestly who can say no to phosphorescent accessories? They make every single day a bit more … bright!” She added, laughing at her own joke.

Indeed the soles and laces of shoes start to faintly glow this unmistakable phosphorescent green color. But what really caught Alex’s attention, was the House of El’s sigil, painted big on the sides of both sneakers.

It is said that this day director Danvers took a day off (probably to go to Kelly for some well deserved therapy).

______________________________________________________________

After having witnessed Alex’s face going through something Kara would describe as similar to a stroke, and then suffering her endless ranting about how she was still a kid, that she should focus on her actual job and some more, she finally returned to her desk.

In her opinion, her sister was overreacting. Sure Kara had been a bit late, but she needed that time off to relax and finally finish her articles. And maybe she had been going out on more errands lately, but a reporter was supposed to be on the field to get some exclusivity, right? The fact that all this slime out would recharge her shoes and ensure they would glow when Kara got back home was just a perk.

Kara bought those shoes for two main reasons.

The first one is that comfort comes before style when you are a reporter. She can walk miles a day when out for a scoop, or when she needs to meet with her sources. And if her super powers prevent her from getting any blisters, they don't save her from discomfort (and workdays are already long enough as they are, she'd like to be able to walk without wincing thank you).

The second reason is that they protect her from the dark. Her passage through the fandom zone had been years ago, sure, but she was only a child back then, and darkness still unsettles her. She doesn't draw the curtains completely shut at night, she keeps her door slightly ajar, ... Anything to not be in the dark. She needs to be able to see things around her, to ground herself and to know she isn't still lost in this endless/timeless zone of the universe.

One last perk? Kids love these shoes and Kara is delighted to see them smile when they see her shoes glowing. Adults would never admit it, but the super see them smile softly to themselves when she passes by.

[cosplayingwitch]

A Study in Dirt and Stars

September 30 Day Writing Challenge

Prompt: cloud/star gazing

Part one of the five part as-yet-unnamed series. (If you think of a name, let me know in the comments!) Each part will take place a good amount of time apart from each other.

Summary Star Wars AU with fem!reader and Poe Dameron as best friends/roommates (more?) and grad students- reader in archaeology, Poe in history/library science. In this part, the two get stuck when Poe’s old truck breaks down and they have to wait for a tow truck.

Triggers none, unless you have an issue with waiting for tow trucks or dirt/dust. Oh, they do swear too.

Tags: @make-me-imagine

Other tags: light angst, two idiots in love, mutual pining, would this count as angst?

The sound of shovels clanging together startled you out of your focus. You’d been reading up on bioarchaological research methods- something so boring most would fall asleep even thinking about it. You, however, find the whole thing fascinating, enough to dedicate your life to it. That sound was the announcement by your students that the day was done. Normally you’d have let them know this, but in that focus you’d lost track of time.

You shout “Nice work today everyone! Same time tomorrow!” even though you didn’t even notice their actual work. Hey, as long as they didn’t fuck anything up enough that it can’t be fixed, no one would ever know. 

The university held a field school for archaeology students every year, mostly upper level bachelors students and the occasional early masters students. Given your status as almost graduating from the masters program, you were easily chosen by your favorite professor to GA the class. Which meant, per your professor, you’d be the one in charge for day-to-day goings on. But if you succeeded at this, it’d be a great addition to your work experiences. Very helpful for getting a job in this field.

Which leads you to look around, seeing that your slightly early dismissal was taken advantage of by the students- they left the equipment strewn about the site without regard for how long it would take you to clean up after them. They’d be in for definite trouble in the morning, you’d make sure of it.

You heard the sound of truck tires coming down the dirt lane that was the only access point for your site. You look up to see your friend coming to pick you up. With your car in the shop- all that dust was not good for the engine- he was your only choice if you were to get to and from work.

“Hey there, Indiana. Discover the ark of the covenant yet?” shouted Poe from the driver's seat. 

“Not yet. Did you manage to run out of books in the library yet?” you shout back.

It was always like this between you two. You’d been friends since your freshman year when you took intro to anthropology together. For him, it was a gen-ed class; for you, it was the start of your career path. He was a history major, now working on his masters, like you. He had managed to get a job in the university’s library, though he would probably describe it like he had gotten a job at the Smithsonian. But joking between the two of you was more natural than having normal conversations. One year, he decided to get you a hat for your birthday, one that was suspiciously like that worn by the movie archaeologist. From then on, he called you Indiana instead of your name as an inside joke between the two of you.

You wouldn’t ever tell him- but you kind of liked it.

“Can’t leave quite yet, Mr Librarian. The students left this place a mess, and if Professor Solo decides to pop by the site in the morning with it looking like this I’d lose all hope of ever getting a job.”

“So? I can help! As long as these aren’t some kind of state-of-the-art technology shovels.” he teased. You could tell, he just wanted to get home. And even with the both of you working together, this could take a while.

About two hours later, once everything was packed up for the night, Poe went to start the truck so you could get home to your shared apartment (who better to be roommates with than your best friend?). And it wouldn’t start. He tried again, and again. Nothing. I guess even momentary exposure to this dust could mess with an engine, you thought. Or maybe his twenty year old truck had just finally kicked the bucket. You’d teased him about that truck for a while now, always joking about it someday just giving up and leaving him stranded somewhere. 

Of course, you’d always imagine yourself as coming to his rescue, not being stranded with him. 

“I guess you were right about it up and dying someday.” admitted Poe. “So are we walking or what?”

“It is getting dark, but it will take forever to walk back to the university. We could call a tow truck? Sit around waiting until it gets here?” you suggest. “It gets so beautiful out here. Without as much light pollution, the stars really shine bright.”

Poe was never one to turn down an activity that involved astronomy. That was his ‘secret’ hobby. He told you once that his dream when he was a child was to travel among the stars, but with that not accessible to him, the best he could do was study those who made the advancements in astronomy. 

The tow truck would take at least an hour, the lady from the dispatch center told you. It was the bad luck of location and calling on a busy night. You didn’t mind, it was more time to spend with your best friend.

“It’d probably be more comfortable to lay in the back than in the dirt.” suggested Poe. You knew that wasn’t the only reason he suggested it. He also hated getting dirty, so the idea of laying directly in recently disturbed dirt had to be unthinkable to him. (This was another thing you teased him about often.) However, this time he did have a slight point. If anything, it would probably stretch your back out more than the ground could.

With both of you perched on the end of the truck bed, you watched the stars together. Poe pointed out the various constellations. Even though you knew most of them already, you let him continue because you knew how happy it made him. Not much of a sacrifice to keep your best friend/roommate, you thought. You zoned out while he started rattling off facts about famous astronomers. He’d be the one to know all this- astronomy+history would always mean Poe would know about it.

You thought about how nice this was. The two of you laying back, talking, nowhere to be until the morning. You could get used to this.

Every so often, you’d chime in with a fact about the mythology behind the names of the constellation. Poe assumed you knew these from your anthropology classes during your undergrad. Truth was, you’d learned them for him. That way you had something to add to the conversation when he was discussing astronomy, which was frequently.

It was inevitable that the tow truck did eventually show up, and your night of stargazing would end. It never seemed like two hours had gone by with just you and Poe laying there together. And just like that, your evening together was over.

When you eventually get back to your apartment, it’s past midnight and all you want to do is take a shower to get all the dust, dirt, and sweat off of you from that hell of a day you had yesterday. “Maybe I’ll call Professor Solo in the morning, see if he can take over for the day.” You think. After all, shouldn’t he be teaching his own class?

And maybe, if by some miracle your car was ready to be picked up before noon, you could return the favor by driving your boyfriend best friend to work.

You stop yourself in your tracks. God. Did I just think what I thought I did? 

Yeah. After a day like that, your brain had to be at least a little scrambled, right?

At least you didn’t say it out loud. Poe would never stop teasing you about that.

When the two of you got home after midnight, Poe was beyond exhausted. Luckily, he wasn’t scheduled to work until after noon tomorrow. Or, with it being after midnight, would that be today?

Whatever. I just need sleep, Poe thought.

But he couldn’t sleep that night. (Morning? Every time Poe thought about that it made his head hurt.) He was too wrapped up in thinking about the night you just spent stargazing together. Just laying there, talking, sharing space facts and constellation myths.

He just couldn’t get past the relationship the two of you had. No pressure, no one constantly asking when they’d get together already. Just two grad students, hanging out and having a good time together.

Maybe, Poe thought, he could even be glad his car broke down while picking up his girlfriend best friend from work.

Wait, Poe though. Not my girlfriend, my best friend. I’m not ruining our friendship because I had one thought about her that way. Besides, he continued, who knows if she’d even like me that way.

Poe did fall asleep a little while after that, but not before sending in a request to his boss for a sick day. There was no way he’d get enough sleep to go to work tomorrow.

Author Note- I appreciate any comments/likes/reblogs if you would! Also, this is my first fan fiction published on Tumblr, so please be nice (and leave constructive criticism if you have any). I’ll probably also post this to Archive of Our Own at some point, but for now it’s only on Tumblr.

I have to say, I do enjoy writing for my two idiots here. Next chapter/part will be published on 9/10, so come back for that if you like this. And if you really like this, message me to be tagged in the next part.

[butternuggets-blog]

OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER

@baldwin-montclair @adowobsessed @sylverdeclermont @nicki-mac-me @thereadersmuse @kynthiamoon @adowbaldwin @profoundme444 @beautifulsoulsublime @lady-lazarus-declermont

Part Eleven

Summary: Baldwin de Clermont manages to upset an ancient hag. He wakes up.. different.

'Would you like to go on a date?'

Baldwin experienced the longest half-second of his life. His palms started sweating. Had he read the situation correctly?

'I'd love to!' Liv beamed down the phone. Baldwin let out the shaky breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and started grinning from ear to ear.

'How about Thursday evening, after work? I'll come pick you up from the shop?'

'That sounds great'

'Dress warm'

'Ooh, ok'

________________________________________________________________

Thursday

Ysabeau caught her eldest fixing his hair in the hallway mirror and smiled quietly to herself. She knew that look. Baldwin must be a bundle of nerves; the last time he had had a date was with Eva Jaeger in 1959.

Ysabeau melted into the shadows and watched silently as Baldwin stepped out the front door.

'Whoever they are,' said Marthe, as she came around the corner, 'Let's hope they don't break his heart too badly'

'Mm'

Baldwin was grating and prickly under normal circumstances. Baldwin after a difficult break up was intolerable. Back in '59, he had managed to whip Matthew into such a state of incandescent fury that Gallowglass had been forced to sit on his uncle until his blood rage calmed down.

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot, as Voltaire once said. Reason told Ysabeau that Baldwin was going to do something or say something that would end with him being kicked to the curb by yet another woman, or, even more likely, he would end things himself because he no longer found her charming, witty, talented, useful...but she had faith in him, too, that perhaps one day he might meet his equal-opposite, and finally settle.

She hoped.

________________________________________________________________

The open-air skating rink had been there since the town’s construction. It stood in the middle of a field on the edge of town, a lake encircled by trees. Parking spaces and a restaurant had sprung up over the decades; although it was the off-season, there were a few couples and small families lingering on the ice.

Baldwin parked the Tesla as close as he could, and they walked hand in hand down the short gravel path to the skate booth.

'I told you, I haven't been skating in years; I'm going to be hopeless! Don't blame me if I accidentally chop off your toes' said Liv, as she braced against Baldwin in order to push her foot into the ice skate.

'You also said that you wanted to get back into it, so don't be so infantile' Baldwin teased. Liv gasped in mock outrage and slapped him playfully on the arm.

They started out strong, pulling each other along without too much difficulty. Then Liv brought her foot down awkwardly and it slipped out from under her, sending her sprawling. Baldwin tried to grab her by the arm, which he did, but the motion made him lose his balance and they both ended up on the ice.

Two and a half hours later, and Baldwin could feel a spiderweb of bruises forming on his legs and bottom. But it was worth it; Liv hadn’t stopped smiling, and at one point after a particularly spectacular crash, she’d even laughed so hard she’d gotten slightly teary-eyed and smudged her mascara.

Night fell. The fairy lights woven through the trees came on, and the gentle chime of a dinner bell announced that the restaurant was open.

‘Shall we?’ Baldwin offered Liv his arm; she took it.

‘We shall’

________________________________________________________________

‘So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ said Liv, as they started in on their meal, ‘Baldwin Montclair, bank manager-’

‘-Investment banker-’

‘-Corporate desk jockey-’ Liv smiled into her wine as Baldwin glared across at her. ‘No close friends, and a large family you’d rather not talk about except for your niece and nephew.’

‘And you,’ Baldwin pointed a fork at Liv, ‘Livinia Preston, business owner and amateur florist-’

‘Mm-hm’

‘-no siblings, parents retired from owning a vast restaurant chain specialising in seafood. One cousin whom you’re extremely close to, and an aunt who is currently on an archaeological dig somewhere in the Middle East.’

‘Got it in one’ Liv smiled at Baldwin, stared at him, then smiled again, ‘We’re an odd pair, aren’t we?’

‘Well nobody’s perfect’

________________________________________________________________

They talked over dinner, then over desert, then over coffee and after-dinner mints, watching the stars shining down through the transparent curved glass ceiling of the restaurant. Finally, it was time for Baldwin to drive them both back home.

‘I had a really nice time tonight’ said Liv, as she stood in the doorway of her shop. The floor above it contained her flat; she hadn’t invited Baldwin to follow her upstairs and he was loathe to pressure her into it. He would have hated himself.

‘So did I’ Baldwin waited until she had the front door open, then handed her the doggie bag full of leftovers that she had requested from the restaurant. She smiled, then fidgeted nervously with the ribbon on the box.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before but I was really having such a nice time that I didn’t want to ruin it and now I’m babbling.’

She took a breath to steady her nerves.

‘I’m afraid I won’t be here for the next few weeks. I’m spending the holidays with my parents and I won’t be back in the country until Jan 1st’

Baldwin nodded.

‘Then I’ll see you when you get back; no need to worry’

He reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

‘You have my number if you get lonely, or you just want to chat, and I’ll be here when you get back’

‘Thanks’ Liv leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Baldwin blinked, breath catching in his throat. The warmth of the kiss seared itself into his memory.

‘Good night’ said Liv, and she slipped away into the darkness.

Baldwin drove home, beaming the whole way.

[onemuseleft]

Okay, okay, but. BUT. can we also get Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei Blind Date AU?

Okay but: (this got way out of control, sorry)

So Shen Wei doesn’t exactly socialize with his coworkers, per se, but he does attend department meetings and he’s on a couple of committees and there are events meant to foster teamwork and comaraderie. Shen Wei attends exactly as many as he needs to in order to maintain his cover as an awkward but harmless introvert who has few interests outside his research. It’s more than he’d like. 

Anyway, there’s Professor Jiang Yue in the History Department. She’s brilliant, well-respected, and knows more about the history of Dragon City than anyone else in Haixing. She’s one of the few people who doesn’t think his research is entirely hypothetical and often likes to pop by and discuss something she’d recently translated that supports his theories that there may have been “mutants” in history. She’s also terrifyingly outgoing, finds Shen Wei’s deliberate stubborness and not-so-deliberate awkwardness endearing, and has decided he needs a wife. 

Or a husband. She’s open-minded.

Jiang Yue tries to hook him up with two grad students from her department (he declines for ethical reasons, even though they don’t work for him, which he suspects was a test), a young professor from the Literature department, her sister-in-law and a young woman she met at the market. 

This all occurs over a period of about ten days.

In semi-desperation Shen Wei tells her he’s not interested in women, which she takes to mean he is interested in men, but which Shen Wei had meant to mean he wasn’t interested in anyone.

Look, he’s never been good at this sort of conversation, all right? No one’s ever tried to fix him up before. 

Once she’s narrowed down the list of applicants to available young men, Jiang Yue appears to get a little more discerning. At the very least she spaces them out a little further.

(”Men are harder to come by,” she tells him much, much later. “You have to be more discerning. Also I had a bitch of a time pinning down your type.”)

She did, in fact, pin down his type, he just didn’t know it at the time.

Jiang Yue’s new husband is a police officer.

“I met someone at a fundraiser last night,” she says. “He’s very handsome, but the downside is that he knows it. Cleans up quite nice, but he mentioned he had a motorcycle so clearly he’s not afraid of a little excitement. And he had lips that I would have attached myself to were I not a happily married woman.” 

Shen Wei had ducked his head and smiled and agreed that sounded very nice, but he wasn’t interested.

Kunlun’s face had lingered in his mind’s eye; dark, knowing eyes and pink, plump lips that would press against Shen Wei’s own until he could lose himself in their kiss. He’d made up an excuse to leave early and spent the rest of the night unable to ground himself in the present. He’d given up, eventually, let himself fall into the memories in a way he usually won’t allow. He closes his eyes and remembers the way Kunlun would run his tongue over his lower lip when he was thinking about something, the way his lips would be pink and swollen from Shen Wei’s kisses, the way his mouth moved when he called Shen Wei baobei and Xiao Wei. (The way those lips looked wrapped around Shen Wei’s cock, eyes gazing up at him with a wicked glint in them as he made Shen Wei shudder and come apart beneath him). The way they felt in the dry mountain air, soft and just a little chapped as Kunlun brushed them over Shen Wei’s temple - the last kiss before the Hallows separated them for a hundred lifetimes.

He’s a little more brusque than he really needs to be the next time she mentions a potential date but he can’t bring himself to regret it.

There is a brief cooling-off period in which Shen Wei thinks he has communicated his lack of romantic interests quite clearly and she has decided to respect that and back off. 

He hasn’t communicated shit, it turns out she just thinks he’s not quite over an ex and is giving him some room to breathe. She’s right, of course.

“We’re having a little dinner party,” Jiang Yue says one day while they’re allegedly meeting for the efficiency committe, but really everyone is just gossiping about some rumors that the Chancellor is going to make them start submitting online lesson plans. Shen Wei wants to be outraged but he doesn’t even know how that would work. He makes a mental note to ask Li Qian. “We just bought our new house and we’re having some friends over. You should come!”

He’s flattered for half a second and then remembers who he’s dealing with. “Who are you trying to fix me up with?”

It’s the same cop. Apparently he’s friends with her husband even though they don’t work in the same department anymore. “He got promoted a couple years ago, but they still talk and hang out sometimes. He was at the wedding, apparently, but I was so nervous I don’t remember anything but staring into my husband’s eyes.” She smiled a little dreamily, then added, “That and my mother-in-law getting drunk and passing out in the photographer’s lap.”

He does not go to dinner.

She mentions a young man from the bookstore, and spends a few days dropping hints about Professor Chan in the archaeology department (he has a boyfriend, Shen Wei’s met him) before the cop comes up again.

She’s never been this persistent, usually taking his refusals as a challenge to do better next time. Shen Wei is wavering. If he says yes and it’s awful then maybe she’ll stop.

And it will be awful. Shen Wei feels faithless even contemplating it.

“He’s a department chief,” Jiang Yue says in a tempting voice one afternoon toward the end of the semester. “Apparently the youngest ever. He took down a bunch of Triad bosses a few years ago and saved a bunch of people’s lives and now he’s, like, the second most powerful person in the DCPD.”

That jiggles something at the back of Shen Wei’s mind. “What’s his name?” he asks. It’s been several years since he worked with the SID, and he never had any close associates with the main DCPD but something about what she’s saying rings a distant bell.

“His name is Zhao Yunlan,” she says, excited that he’s shown some sort of interest. “I told him about you and he said I could give you his number if you were interested-”

“Absolutely not,” Shen Wei says in a dull roar.

He spends five minutes apologizing and then pretends to have a headache that he can blame his rudeness on.

Jiang Yue lets the whole thing drop after that, not just her attempts to fix him up with Zhao Yunlan, but the match-making in general. 

He feels bad about not feeling bad about it.

Everything goes back to normal though, aside from the matchmaking, so he’s reasonable certain she isn’t upset with him.

And then a few months go by and she mentions her husband is coming to pick her up for dinner. It’s getting late and it’s fairly dark out, even with the streetlights, so he offers to walk with her. Jiang Li is waiting for them on the sidewalk and he gives his wife a quick kiss, and holds his hand out to Shen Wei. “Professor! It’s been a long time. How are you?”

Shen Wei’s not great at chit-chat, but he taks Jiang Li’s hand and says something.

He’ll never remember what, because at that moment he happened to look over Jiang Li’s shoulder, and saw Kunlun.

Kunlun.

He can’t move, he can’t think, he can barely breathe. His eyes are locked onto the man leaning against the Jiangs’ car and he can’t tear them away. He’s positive if he looks away, Kunlun will vanish like a soap bubble, or turn into another person entirely

It has to be someone else. A trick of the light, his mind playing games with him. A similarity, a distant descendant whose blood ran true, a coincidence.

He stares until his eyes burn, but Kunlun remains.

He’s as beautiful as Shen Wei remembers.

Kunlun is dressed in modern clothes: heavy black leather boots, tight fitting denim pants that do nothing to disguise his lean calves and muscular thighs. He’s wearing a grey shirt beneath a black leather motorcycle jacket. His hair is short, in the modern fashion, brushed forward so it almost falls over his eyes, and his beard is little more than scruff, a carefully groomed five o’clock shadow.

He’s sucking on a candy, the same kind he gave Shen Wei that first night. The same candy that belonged to the scrap of paper Shen Wei carried in the pendant over his heart.

He’s too far away for Shen Wei to see his eyes. 

And then Kunlun looks up at him.

And smiles politely, with no sign of recognition.

And looks back down at his phone.

The Jiangs leave but not before Jiang Yue leans in and whispers “I told you he was gorgeous, didn’t I?” and laughs in a friendly way at his stunned expression.

After they leave, Shen Wei stands there, watching the car vanish from sight, Kunlun, his Kunlun, vanishing with it, gone as soon as he was found again.

His Kunlun, who is, apparently, Zhao Yunlan, the son of a monster. Somehow. Reincarnation, or - the lollipops, the gun, baobei. Shen Wei has long entertained the idea that Kunlun had been familiar with the modern day, possibly a time traveler - the Hallows were near-infinite in their power, when used properly and combined. Perhaps Kunlan had always been Zhao Yunlan. Perhaps he looked at Shen Wei with eyes devoid of recognition because… Because this was the man who would become Kunlun, but wasn’t yet the man Shen Wei loved.

“Fuck,” Shen Wei said, softly but with great feeling, and went to send Jiang Yue an email asking her for that date after all.

[extemporaneousmusings]

2020 reflections below

To be honest, 2020 has been the best year I’ve had since 2016. Obviously on a global scale it has been absolutely devastating, and there are aspects of my life that were significantly impacted by the pandemic—I had to leave Greece suddenly in March, several months earlier than anticipated, and in doing so lost some crucial time that I was supposed to have spent with the physical materials of my dissertation—but on a personal level this year has been the most stable and comfortable I’ve been since my accident in 2017. I was not dealing with a massive physical or mental health crisis, or the immediate aftermaths of either of those things, and that is something I do not take lightly.

I spent the first 3 months of the year hiking across Greece, basically. It was really tough—I was pretty depressed, although my meds had just been boosted so I was feeling better than I had in fall of 2019, and obviously missing Ian and Macy was not an easy thing to sit with—but I did it! I had literally planned my entire life for the past 5 years around this time in Greece, and even though we didn’t completely finish the program and the scheduled trips, I still accomplished what I set out to do: I was able to do the hikes and got to explore the country that I love. After my accident, my sole goal was to be able to get my ankle to a place where I could do the program. It was really fucking hard, and there’s still so much more work I can do on my ankle (which is a source of deep resentment for me, something I’m working on) but at the end of the day, I got myself to a place where I could, with some difficulty, do this really physically strenuous thing that had been such a major goal of mine for years. I got to travel the Greek countryside and see hundreds of archaeological sites in a way that is basically impossible unless you’re doing it with the American School. Mentally I was not as present as I would have liked to be, which is something I think I’ll always regret, but I gave it all I had, mentally and physically. Even if I am hazy on a lot of the details, I’ll remember the exultant physical sensations of reaching a peak and taking in the view below, the sweet succulent taste of oranges in the height of their season, plucked straight off the tree, searching every museum for my pots, pushing myself physically to the limit every day but still being able to wake up and do it again the next, trying regional cuisine from across the country, and the camaraderie that all of us built together on that bus and on those hikes. And of course, the saving grace and defining point of the school year for me was spending time with Ev. He already was one of my best friends, so the opportunity to go on this adventure together was so exciting, but he really kept me sane, made me laugh with his stupid fucking jokes, stayed in the back of the pack with me when I was having especially bad ankle days, and our companionship brought me so much joy and support. It’s very likely that we’ll never live in the same place together again, and I will always cherish the time we had together this past year.

My life since returning to Cincy in March has been very stable and consistent. Except for having to TA on campus on Friday’s during the fall, we’ve both just been at home. E’s been out of a job the whole time, but we are very lucky that (bc Cincy is so affordable) just my grad student salary has been able to financially support us. Money is tight, all my savings are gone after Macy’s surgery in July, but we are very lucky to have support systems to rely upon should we need to (fingers crossed we won’t), and that for now, just my income alone can pay all of the bills so that Ian does not have to be on the front lines at the bar, physically interacting with everyone who is still comfortable and selfish enough to be out partying during a global pandemic.

The biggest joy for me of this year was getting to spend 8 beautiful months with Macy. We had her for 3 months before I left for Greece last September, but I feel so blessed to have had more time with the three of us as a family this year, and to spend so much uninterrupted time with her because we were just in the apartment all of the time. I’ve written what seems like a lot about losing her, so I’m not really going to dwell on it, but despite her death I am still so happy to have had the time with her that I did, and to have loved and been so loved in return. I’m hopeful that I can build a relationship with Lulu like I had with Macy, and that as she settles in and settles down, and becomes secure in this new home, that our new family of three can thrive. Another element to this is the fact that basically our only physical socialization with friends came from going on dog walks, mainly with S&D. Since March we’ve seen them almost weekly and it’s been such a good routine and way to see them safely. We’ll all be getting more of a workout with Lulu, though. She’s much more intense about walks than Macy was.

When I first got back from Greece, I needed to just luxuriate in being home, and shortly after that I fell into the hockey rabbit hole. Which has been lovely, truly! I had been feeling a bit stagnant fandom wise, and it was so nice to have a whole new world opened to me, and to see a bunch of my mutuals all going through the process simultaneously was so fun. I still haven’t written anything, and I’m definitely not as involved as a lot of people, but I’ve never been someone who is super funny in quippy posts or makes a lot of connections quickly. But I’ve really been enjoying it, and I’m hoping that in 2021 I’ll be able to post some fic and make some more friends. My ephemeral relationships with people on tumblr have been important to me for many years, but I definitely have appreciated it the most this past year. Tumblr is a really big part of my life, and I love interacting with people/when people interact with my personal posts. It’s nice to have found a little pocket of the internet where I am safe and comfortable and around people I genuinely like.

Getting into hockey did divert my attention from my mental health, and the ways it was impacting my work, for a solid two months, though. I very much used it as a crutch to avoid some bigger issues that needed my focus, which I was diverting to think about big men fucking each other. In August I started seeing a therapist again. We had worked together briefly after my manic episode, because my old therapist had gotten a new job so she took me on for like a month before I left for Greece, and working with her again has been so helpful. I am so fortunate to have healthcare through grad school that makes going to therapy extremely affordable. It’s seriously been a saving grace for me. By working on my mental health consistently I have brought myself to a better, more stable and comfortable place than I’ve been in in years, and I feel empowered to continue on this path to keep accumulating skills and mental fortitude to help me in the future.

As a result of my consistent work on my mental heath, I’ve also been able to develop a much better, healthier relationship with work/my research more specifically. This summer I was in a place where I felt like it was impossible for me to write my proposal, let alone an actual dissertation, but I did write my proposal! And I’ve been building up routines and stamina and now feel like I actually can get this PhD. Which is great. I know it’s not going to be easy, and that I have a lot of difficulty ahead of me still, but I feel very confident in my ideas, and I am so much better equipped to handle things than before.

So yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. For 2021, I want to just keep going in the path that I’ve been forging for myself. The next things I’ll be focusing on are more intentionally working with my ankle, to try and alleviate the somewhat antagonistic relationship I have with it, and to feel more physically capable. I think that re-integrating yoga into my life will be big here, it’s been really helpful for me before, but I’ve let it slip, and then we’ll see what else I can do to help with this. I also want to continue to reinforce a work routine that suits me and maintain/adjust it when I (almost certainly) make the move back to Athens in September. And finally, I really want to post some TK/Patty fic! I have some ideas, some word docs, some (imo) well-selected lyrics for titles, and I just need to dig in a little more and try and unclench my mental knot of perfectionism, as I’ve been learning to ease it with regards to work stuff.

[congacoal61]

Central Asia Encompassed

The least explored of Central Asia’s 5 Stans, Turkmenistan stays a land of thriller. Visit the Russian Bazaar, the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa and see the country’s magnificent Akhal-Teke horses. Reinstate the wow issue with a circuit of Ashgabat’s new city that includes rows and rows of marble buildings and gold monuments. Explore the centre of the nation with its unique “Gates of Hell” – the Darvaza Gas Crater. And step again into layers of history on the sprawling silk street settlement of Merv. Join our small group excursions to Turkmenistan and go where few travellers have gone before. As local tour firm, we offer finest price with rich experiences. We shall be glad to create the best vacationer program to Turkmenistan for you! Just fill within the form so we may know all of your preferences and necessities for the trip. Our travel specialist will contact you as quickly as possible and will offer you one of the best choices. We have just put together a listing of unimaginable travel locations and distinctive places of the world that might be incredibly fascinating for many individuals. All the destinations are briefly reviewed in a type of an interactive video presentation. But the tourism is a multi-dollar industry these days, so many companies and private guides try to current new, fresh and unconventional places to have a vacation or an lively trip. Meet-and-greet at Ashgabat International Airport and transfer to our lodge of choice . I even have led tours in over a hundred nations over the last 14 years of working for Adventures Abroad on all the continents except for Antarctica. Commissioned by first Turkmen president, Saparmurat Niyazov, the most important mosque in Central Asia is a feat of spectacular engineering. Some of our tour leaders who've led these excursions. Get extra value with all-inclusive trips that includes top-rated eating places and resorts. Then we'll proceed to Bukhara where we we keep for the night time. Rise and shine for a visit to the only World Heritage Site in Kyrgystan – Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain, also referred to as Solomon's Throne. For centuries Silk Road travellers have sought out the mountain's caves and their petroglyphs in the perception that they would be blessed with longevity. Visit the National Historical & Archaeological Museum Complex. Turkmenistan, The Land Of Weird I’ll admit that before we started to plan this journey, I would have failed all of the above. Turkmenistan is unlikely to feature on many travelers’ bucket lists. It has no world-famous sights and its visa regime makes journey bureaucratic and expensive. While this amazing 12th-century sight is one of the high sightseeing attractions in Turkmenistan, it isn't totally known what it truly is. Many people consider this is a mausoleum, but others suppose it may be a throne room. The Forbes ranking and the capital of cultureSibiu was located on the eighth place in rating of one of the best cities to stay in Europe made by Forbes journal. Citizens of Suceava are wanting to spend time outdoors – sitting on squares or in parks. Maybe you possibly can attempt your luck at taking half in chess or backgammon at certainly one of them with locals. Located on the river bank the Throne Tower was built on the end of the 14th century. The fort partially burned two centuries later after which was rebuilt. After other damages, it went into ruin and then lastly it was reconstructed in some components in the 20th century. A white line on the walls separate the unique fragments from the 20th-century ones. This is as a end result of Ashgabat, a metropolis of perhaps 600,000 folks, is the capital of Turkmenistan, one of many final holdouts of totalitarianism in the world. Turkmenistan Airlines presents home flights to Dashogus - 6 flights per day, Mary - 3 flights per day, Turkmenabat - 5 flights per day and Turkmenbashi - three flights per day, Balkanabat. Location is correct next to the Presidential Palace, so close to everything. Continental restaurant on the top flooring has nice views, it is attainable to snap photographs of many buildings not allowed on the ground, whereas the Turkish restaurant has high quality food at cheap costs. The membership and dance floor gets packed Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night time after around 11 pm. "It is beautiful," mentioned the person, Kaka, and then kissed the fingertips of his proper hand with a smack. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — On summer time afternoons, as temperatures turn out to be stifling within the Kara Kum desert, the capital of Turkmenistan typically falls quiet. The resort is an attraction in its personal right- the experience right here is analogous to any luxurious lodge in Asia. Expect to return across lots of international workers, and girls of doubtful persuasion at the lodge bar. Tours » Central Karakum Desert & Merv In 2003 the widely respected former mufti of the country, Nasrullah Ibn Ibadullah, was changed, secretly tried, and sentenced in 2004 to 22 years in jail. While the 1995 census indicated that ethnic Russians comprised virtually 7 p.c of the population, subsequent emigration to Russia and elsewhere has reduced considerably this proportion. The latter is positioned at the foothills of the Eastern Kopetdag mountain range and is loaded with historical monuments. En route we will relaxation at the ruins of Abiverd medieval fortress in Kaahka and 15c mosque in Annau. We attain Ashgabat within the late afternoon with the the rest of the day left to relaxation, sit by the pool or discover the city by yourself. A journey exterior of city takes you to the ruins of the traditional metropolis of Nisa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was once the center of the Parthian Kingdom. In April, authorities summoned a Jehovah's Witness to a gathering with the Chairman of the Council on Religious Affairs, who accused her of hosting a prayer assembly at her family home. She was launched in change for signing an announcement that the cost was incorrect and that she wouldn't host such meetings in the future. The Government additionally controls and restricts access to Islamic schooling. The President specified that future annual classes of spiritual college students would be limited to between 15 to twenty students a year. Myoko Lodging To re-create the soft water widespread in Japan, the Changchun tub has Japanese-made tools to take away the minerals. "Shampoo does not lather properly" in China's exhausting water, mentioned Masamori Suzuki, a director at Gokurakuyu. "Getting a massage from a whirlpool bath feels good," said one satisfied customer in a web-based publish. Guest House Bunk is a bright and clean pension style guesthouse located close to the Akakan Resort ski lifts. Run by the friendly Sasahana-san, it is an ideal alternative for households with a snow play area right alongside that is simply supervised. Enjoy the ambience of the lounge/dining area in entrance of a log fireplace with picture home windows over forest and snowy fields. Red Warehouse in Akakura Onsen, Myoko is a family ski lodge with communal self contained amenities right in the heart of the ski village. The lodge is friendly Australian ski club style but with a Japanese twist. Red Warehouse household ski lodge enjoys a suberb ski in, location in Akakura Onsen, Myoko Kogen, just off the main street. It’s a very short walk to eating places, shuttle buses and ski schools/rentals yet solely less than 3 minutes walk/ski to the ski lifts. Staff lodging in Yuzawa consists of self-contained four or six individual apartments ten minutes' walk from Gala. Each house has it's own bathroom and kitchen, though most employees reap the advantages of a meal plan which is out there via Gala. A grocery store and ironmongery store are a brief walk from the accommodation, and the city has a chemist and a convenience store amongst other issues. After the coaching interval, as soon as you have transferred to your house for the remainder of the season, you'll stay in workers accommodation. Australian Museums And Galleries Affiliation Amaga National Convention They're the single most important group of cuneiform textual content ever found, and have formed the foundations of contemporary study of Assyria. This scholar-king's library contained an unparalleled quantity and vary of data. The Ashurbanipal Library Project is making the Library freely obtainable, and researching what this assortment is, and the way and why it was assembled. The collection grew following excavations on the Assyrian sites of Nimrud and Nineveh, which produced giant numbers of stone bas-reliefs together with the well-known Lion Hunt scenes. This battle emphasizes the divide between the Sunni and Shiʿa branches of Islam; Husayn led a resistance in opposition to what the Shiʿa Muslims believed was the Umayyads’ illegitimate rule. The focus of this painting is Husayn’s half brother, ʿAbbas, mounted on a white horse as he stabs a member of Yazid’s military. Individual episodes related to the agonies suffered by Husayn and his companions main as much as and through the battle are illustrated in smaller-scale vignettes on the left. The hereafter is shown on the proper, with Husayn and his companions in heaven above and their opponents in hell under. As collaborative artists, the Lubbesmeyers discover the essential parts of their environment, as translated from literal photographs that live in their minds. Through their inventive process, the twins distill these literal photographs into color and texture. If you have any questions about our identification service, please e mail the department advance of your visit so a member of workers can advise. The Department of the Middle East provides an object identification service. TheHigh Desert Museumis positioned simply 5 minutes south of Bend, Oregon on Hwy 97 and includes a Museum store and café. Open every single day besides the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Get a close-up of native wildlife, corresponding to an otter, burrowing owl, porcupine and badger. Turkmenistan The data doesn't often determine you instantly, but it can provide you a more personalised net experience. Click on the different class headings to search out out more and alter our default settings. However, you want to know that blocking some kinds of cookies might impression your expertise on the location and the companies we're in a place to supply. Russian is given the standing of "the language of interethnical communication." In 1990 nearly half the inhabitants earned wages under the official poverty line, which was 100 rubles per thirty days at that time. Only 3.four percent of the inhabitants obtained more than 300 rubles a month in 1990. In the three years after the onset of inflation in 1991, real wages dropped by forty seven.6 %, which caused a decline in the usual of residing for most residents. In 1990 Turkmen was declared the official language of the nation, and the transition from Russian to Turkmen was to be accomplished by January 1, 1996. However, given the ethnic diversity of the nation and the lack of up to date technical vocabulary in the Turkmen language, Russian continues to be generally used by many people, including Turkmen, in urban areas. In May 1992, it was introduced that Turkmenistan would change to a Latin based mostly, Turkish modified script. Geologists set it on hearth in 1971 to try to cease the spread of methane, and it has been on hearth ever since. It is an attractive sight that ought to positively be in your bucket list of places to go. However as it's in Turkmenistan, it is quite hard to entry as it is quite difficult to obtain a visa.The Turkmen authorities does hope it's going to turn into a preferred tourist attraction and it has the potential. It is strongly really helpful that you apply for a Turkmenistan visa earlier than travelling to Turkmenistan. Festivals & Holidays In Turkmeistan Some public holidays mirror Turkmenistan’s cultural milieu, while others centre on national occasions. Like many international locations within the region, Turkmenistan celebrates the spring festival of Nōrūz. The Islamic holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are likewise observed as public holidays. A day of remembrance is held on October 6 to pay respects to the victims of the devastating 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat. Each spring, greater than 200 cherry trees on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are in full bloom. To have fun, the backyard hosts the weekend-long Cherry Blossom Festival, known by its Japanese name Sakura Matsuri. During the pageant, visitors enjoy scores of events celebrating Japanese tradition including J-pop live shows, traditional Japanese music and dance, taiko drumming, martial arts, bonsai-pruning workshops, tea ceremonies and manga artwork. National Museum of History, which contains a sizeable number of reveals representing 50,000 years of Turkmenistan’s historical past. Another museum, housed within the gold-domed Palace of Knowledge, celebrates and glorifies Niyazov. The city is full of marble edifices and golden statues, most of which had been erected throughout Niyazov’s presidency. Crazy for kites, Bali paints the sky in the course of the month of July with the annual three-day Kite Festival. Biggest is best when it comes to the kite flying competitions in Indonesia. Inquire essential information on occasions in Turkmenistan, such as finding the best occasion and pageant deals previous to leaving Indonesia. It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without the crystal ball drop in Times Square. In typical years, throngs collect in the surrounding streets to watch the performances and countdown to midnight, however the NYC event that ushered in 2021 was mostly a digital one. There is even one that has the former president, Saparmurat Niyazov using a horse, looking nearly heroic. Presently, the nation is pretty isolated from different nations and, tourism activities were minimal even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike much of the rest of the world, Bali rings within the new yr in silence. Nyepi begins three days earlier than the New Year with a cleansing ritual, adopted by a fascinating exorcism ceremony. Travelogues from Remote Lands is an online journey magazine that includes news, views, and critiques on the world of journey in Asia. Now more than ever discerning travelers need a sense of area and a feeling that where they're is really unique. In this Distance by Design issue, we look to the future of travel in the coming year, focusing on wellbeing, open areas, islands, wildlife, and private jet travel. The Means To Open A Present Shop In Your Lodge If you need a peek at Uzbek luxurious, look no further than the Tosh-Hovli Palace, which was built in the first half of the 19th century. Wander via elaborately adorned courtyards linked by labyrinthian corridors. You could spend about half a day shopping in Hanoi for silk objects like scarves, silk clothes, wall hangings, luggage and so on. If you have publish trip lodging booked with us, additionally, you will need to arrange excursions to further discover Ashgabat. You may seek the guidance of your Turkmen leader on what to book and what to do for your post tour days at an extra expense. Otherwise, you will not be allowed to depart your resort and not using a information in Ashgabat. Take a 40-minute drive to Merv, also called Margiana or Margush, and enjoy some time to explore Turkmenistan's most recognised web site. This is a giant, uncharasmatic lodge with rooms that are a bit shabby, but a good price range choice all the same. Located subsequent to the American embassy and might be your best mixture of price and quality. Yildiz lodge has a wonderful bar and restaurant on the top ground. In the primary ground, the Museum houses displays of silver jewellery for ladies and horses, and replicas of the golden bull- and wolf-head sculptures from Altyn Depe. Cable car, opened in 2006, climbing as much as 1290 meters, offering spectacular views over town with the desert in the background. Eating Places & Cafes Dining options include streetside stalls and cafes, non-public eating places, chaikhanas and, best of all, personal properties. You'll discover a variety of Russian and European beer . From a fresh pot, the primary cup of tea is usually poured away after which a piala of tea is poured out and returned twice into the pot to brew the tea. Kaimak Pure sweet cream, skimmed from fresh milk that has sat in a single day. A wickedly tasty breakfast item, that's wonderful with honey. Central Asians are keen on dried fruits and nuts, notably apricots and apricot stones, which when cracked open have a pith that tastes like pistachios. At any time of year you may discover delicious walnuts, peanuts, raisins and almonds, plus great jams (sea-buckthorn jam is an actual treat) and wonderful mountain honey . Wilbur and Salvador were our butlers who had been amazing. Additionally, we had a great time with the Recreation team. In Turkmenistan, Backed Meals Comes With Strings Hooked Up This research report has been ready utilizing the confirmed WMStrategy's methodology, including a blend of qualitative and quantitative data. The info comes from official sources and insights from market specialists , gathered by semi-structured interviews. For this explicit report, more than 10 market expert interviews have been carried out with consultants from the main market companies (producers, distributors, retailers, suppliers, and so on.). The full listing of interviewed experts and an in depth methodology can be found upon request. Turkmenistan’s economic system stays one of the most repressed in the Index. In some circumstances, if residents do not handle to buy their monthly allotment earlier than the tip of the month, they had been no longer eligible for that month’s allotment. In Ashgabat, observers have lately reported shoppers being pressured to buy undesirable goods that they may not be ready to afford, corresponding to costly rice or bottled water, at elevated prices to be allowed buy staples similar to cooking oil on the subsidized value. Browse 273 turkmenistan market inventory photos and images obtainable, or seek for kyrgyzstan to find extra great inventory photos and photos. Republic of Turkmenistan is situated in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, between Iran and Kazakhstan. The country's natural assets are petroleum, natural fuel, coal, sulfur, and salt. These financial complexity rankings use 6 digit exports categorized based on the HS96 classification. We think about solely international locations with inhabitants of at least 1 million and exports of at least $1 billion, and products with world commerce over $500 million. To discover completely different rankings and vary these parameters visit the customized rankings part. The high export alternatives for Turkmenistan according to the relatedness index, are Crude Petroleum (0.067), Gold (0.054), Insect Resins (0.052), Other Oily Seeds (0.05), and Other Nuts (0.05). Turkmenistan Adventure Tours, Journeys & Journey Carry the name and handle of your hotel in Turkmen to indicate to drivers to return back. In addition you need to pay an additional tax for the government sponsored fuel costs, relying on the distance of your travel in Turkmenistan. Khoja Alem Baba is located near the city of Kaka, about a hundred thirty km south east of Ashgabat. Travelers ought to be prepared for journey restrictions to be enforce with little or no advance notice. Embassy Ashgabat for added data on these new measures. The constructing reminds me of Dubai’s Burj al-Arab; not only is it the fanciest resort on the town, it’s additionally one of Ashgabat’s iconic, futuristic buildings. This UFO-like construction from Soviet instances looks like it just landed throughout from Ak-Altyn resort once I look via the window the primary morning in Ashgabat. As we’re not keen on performing animals, we’re satisfied with seeing this cool construction from the surface. This isn't just any guide, you see, but the Book of the Soul, aka Turkmenbashi’s autobiography and ponderings. Every evening at 20.00 hrs, the quilt opens and a recording from the book is performed. My first thought on seeing Ashgabat was how much it reminded me of Astana . 搬家 , futuristic structure, lit up in each colour of the rainbow at night. If you're male, try to not walk with a female companion - police might think of this of walking with a prostitute and might simply arrest you. A "tourism tax" of US$ 2 per day was introduced in August 2017 and count on it to be added to your lodge bill. Not many Turkmens could have a primary understanding of English, even in the capital metropolis. Turkmenistan has no much less than one every day prepare between main cities within the country. Tickets cannot be purchased online and trains fill up fast so make sure to get one prematurely. Train classes are typical for the ex-Soviet Union however most of soviet trains have been changed with modern Chinese air-conditioned cars. Flights are subsidised, and due to gas costs, extraordinarily cheap. Central Asia It is the one former Soviet republic to have a constantly constructive trade steadiness because the collapse of the Soviet Union. Turkmenistan has a crucial shortage of industrial capacity to process its agricultural merchandise and natural assets, a state of affairs that has deteriorated considerably since 1991. Turkmenistan's 2006 oil production dropped by 0.5 million tons in 2005 to 9 million tons. With the 2006 harvest of 850,000 tons, Turkmenistan is the second largest cotton producer within the former Soviet Union after Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan was largely made up of nomadic tribes when it received its independence, and the nation continues to revere horses. It has a nationwide vacation in honor of them and horses and riders carry out daring tricks in year-round reveals across the country, as under. And the capital city, Ashgabat, was noted by the Guinness Book of World Records as the house of the most white marble-clad buildings in the world. A picture taken on May 3, 2014, reveals individuals visiting "The Gateway to Hell," an enormous burning gas crater within the coronary heart of Turkmenistan's Karakum desert. He follows within the footsteps of the country's first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who named the month of January after himself, constructed a $50 million theme park and told people to look after their teeth by chewing on bones. A 69-foot gold leaf statue of Berdymukhamedov riding a horse was unveiled in the capital metropolis of Ashgabat in 2016 — called "The Protector." The country doesn't allow many individuals in, and its president is a fan of exhibiting off by way of picture ops and gold statues. I Stayed In Turkmenistan In A Hotel Run By Secret Police It is very straightforward to search out suitable accommodation in Ashgabat at an inexpensive price. You can get pleasure from a cushty keep for as cheap as $10. If you may be fortunate, then you may get lodging at a less expensive fee. You can get a transit visa — however that’ll solely provide you with three to five days within the nation . Travelling from Iran and must guide a resort room in Ashgabat or different cities Turkmenistan? Open supply journey information to Turkmenistan, that includes up-to-date info on sights, resorts, eating places, nightlife, journey suggestions and more. It being unclear if our room was bugged, as many hotels, cafés and public places in Ashgabat are, I determined to maintain my counsel as to my first impressions. Eating out is likely one of the many pleasures of visiting Turkmenistan. After a protracted day on the seashore, you'll be absolutely rested and may enjoy a enjoyable evening out in Aruba. Dance the night time away at certainly one of our electrifying nightclubs. When the good and cozy Aruban solar sets, the cool evening breezes carry the sounds of laughter, dance, and Caribbean rhythms. No longer a Sofitel however still one of the best hotels in Ashgabat. Location is right subsequent to the Presidential Palace, so near all of the city’s primary sights.

[365days365movies]

February 15, 2021: Call Me by Your Name (Part 2)

I’m back! OK, now, where were we? Ah, yes, the inevitable first kiss! Let us continue. First part of the Recap is right here!

Recap (2/2)

So, about that kiss. Oliver indulges that (and some similarly forward moves by Elio), but does note that they can’t embrace those feelings any further. However, that’s not really going to stop much, it would seem.

See, they drive back, and some family members are over at the Professor’s place, arguing about something. This is accompanied by a spontaneous nosebleed of Elio’s, which he’s apparently prone to, and he runs into the house to get some ice. He’s followed by Oliver, who gives him a foot massage to calm him down. Not helping with the whole “we can’t be together” thing, Oliver, my Lord.

After this Chiara and Marzia come over, and the group go to a local pool which is...VERY green. Like, concerningly so. But anyway, Elio returns home, where his mother asks if she like Oliver (and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mean as a friend), and she notes that Oliver likes him in return. Damn, progressive mom for the 1980s, but that may also be because she’s French, to be fair.

For the rest of the day, Elio waits around for Oliver, and when he does return home, he chooses not to talk with Elio, who labels him a “traitor.” Time for the falling out phase of their relationship, before their relationship truly begins.

The next night, Elio goes on a date with Marzia, and the two have sex, which Elio seems to enjoy quite a bit. It’s weirdly charming, also? Not sure how to explain that, you’ve gotta watch it. It just has this very real nuance to it that I appreciate. But afterwards, Elio writes a message to Oliver, whom he’s tired of getting the silent treatment from.

However, the next day, the Professor and Oliver are looking at new images from their archaeological site, and the entire conversation is VERY obviously laced with homoerotic dialogue and innuendo, which the Professor seems to be TOTALLY aware of, for the record. Elio finds that Oliver’s left a note for him, telling him that they’ll meet at midnight.

But before midnight, Elio and Marzia have a little rendezvous once again, if you know what I mean. This is followed by a visit from a relative (not sure the relation, didn’t catch that, sorry), and his male partner. Which, yeah, is neat to see. Looks like the Perlmans are quite progressive, especially given the time period. Honestly, that’s a welcome break from Brokeback Mountain.

But, uh, here’s the thing...it’s midnight now. And Elio and Oliver hve been checking their watches for the entire day. And, uh...let’s just say that the sequence is detailed in its elicitness. This movie’s rated R for a reason, after all. Well, eventually, anyway. It’s awkward at first, and takes them a bit to, uh, get started. And when they get started...they get STARTED.

But during the process, Oliver asks that they swap names. In other words:

Call me by your name, and I’ll call you by mine.

OK...but why? I guess we’ll eventually find that out. But it’s definitely an interesting request. Anyway, the next morning comes, after a night of guys bein’ dudes. That Vine reference comes from my girlfriend. Say hello, girlfriend.

She says hi. That next day, the two go biking, they go swimming in a lake, and things seem...tense. Smething about what had happened last night is eating away at Elio, and Oliver asks if he’s going to hold it against him. Looks like it’s Elio’s turn to provide the silent treatment for...whatever reason. The GF seems to think that somebody didn’t, uh...finish, and their interaction seems to confirm that.

However, they get past these initial awkwardness, and head into town to do errands together, where Oliver reveals that he’s happy the previous night happened, and that he was worried that he’d mess Elio up, psychologically and emotionally. But it doesn’t seem the case, and they start to actively embrace their relationship. 

 But things aren’t...perfect for Elio, from a sexual standpoint. Whatever happened the previous night may have him feeling a bit unsatisfied. Enter...the peach. Possibly literally.

Yeah, so Elio picks this peach, and is initially about to eat it, going straight for the pit. And then, the peach goes away from the mouth...downwards...into the pants. And can I just say..that’s gonna be SO sticky. And, uh, not in the sexual way, I mean LITERALLY that’s gotta be so sticky. Also, do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants. Quote from the GF, that one.

Later on, Oliver finds the fruit and chides him about it. Elio asks whether he’s sick. And I say, no. You’re 17. Lot of hormones in there at 17. I mean, did I ever give the sexy eyes to a drupe at any point in my teenage years? I mean no, admittedly I did not. But, y’know, it’s 17. He’s still figuring shit out.

Anyway, stupid jokes aside, this chiding kinda FUCKS Elio up for a sec, as he’s legitimately ashamed of that action. Oliver comforts him, and the two have a heart-to-heart about what little time they actually have left. Oliver admits that he didn’t act on his feelings earlier because he was afraid of it being perceived as a form of molestation. And...yeah, fair, even I pointed that out earlier.

The next morning, who should show up but Marzia, who has heard from him at all in three days! WHOOF. She’s understandably heartbroken, as she’s trying to understand their relationship, and Elio’s COMPLETELY cut her off of that. Which, fuckin’ OW. Kids. Accidental cruelty runs par with the course sometimes.

Time grows short for the two, and Elio’s folks encourage him to go on a small trip with Oliver to the city of Bergamo. They’re DEFNITELY aware of their relationship, and super-supportive. And that’s honestly pretty goddamn sweet, I think. Elio goes on the trip, and they have a legit vacation together in a very nice locale.

The two go out one night, and Elio vomits for...some reason, I’m not entirely sure why. But it is enforcing my beliefs that Chalamet is just a sickly Victorian boy slowly dying of consumption, who was somehow transported into the future I WILL PROVE THIS THEORY IF IT KILLS HIM. BY THE CONSUMPTION

Well, the two spend three days together, and then...it’s over. Oliver leaves to go back home to the USA, and they say goodbye at the train station. And Elio’s kind of...broken. He calls his mom to pick him up, and she agrees. On the way home, he breaks down in the car, clearly heartbroken by the departure of Oliver.

When they get back to their village, Marzia greets him, and says that she understands how he feels, and that she forgives him. I like Marzia a lot, honestly. The two agree to be friends for life. It’s very sweet.

But sadly, it’s inevitably little comfort for Elio, who’s deep deep DEEEEEEP in depression over a love departed too soon. His father talks to him, and notes that the two had a nice friendship. However, it’s quite quickly revealed that he understands exactly what their relationship was in full. In fact, it’s implied that he had a relationship VERY much like Elio had in his youth. And this speech that he gives...FUCK ME, man I DREAM of eing a father this understanding and supportive! Hopefullly one day I can be, but I don’t think it’ll measure up to this.

Summer turns to fall turns to winter, and Hannukah is here! Oliver calls the house, and Elio answers the phone. However, while the initial greeting is happy, it’s quickly tempered by another set of news: Oliver’s engaged. To a woman with whom he;s been in an off-and-on relationship for 3 years.

And I was ALL SET to be pissed off by YET MORE INFIDELITY...but it seems like they might have been off at the time, so I’ll let this one slide with HOPEFUL THOUGHTS THAT OLIVER WASN’T CHEATING ON HER. Anyway, Elio whispers his own name into the phone, to which Oliver responds with his name, acknowledging and affirming their summer love. They get off the phone and Elio stares into the fireplace and cries, remembering the love they felt for each other.

And that...is Call Me By Your Name. Also, I want to note that he’s staring into the fireplace over the ENTIRE CREDIT SEQUENCE, followed by his smile and staring directly into the camera. Goddamn, people, I get it! I get why you all love Chalamet so goddamn much, he’s amazing. But, of course...I’ll get to that in the Review. See you there!

[hklnvgl]

evening swallow

Ronan Lynch was searching for a very specific place.

He needed it to be large enough, and humid enough, and accessible enough, and secluded enough. He needed it to be special, because he was planning on spending a lot of time there.

Ideally, it would’ve been the Barns.

The problem was that the Barns were his home, and where most of his dad’s dreams were still stored, and where most of his dreams were going to be stored. It held memories and grief and he wanted to keep it private. He also wanted to keep it safe, for when Matthew came to visit.

So. Not the Barns.

Somewhere else, then.

Just a piece of land on sale—he’d buy it, and plant his seeds, and grow his crops, and employ a few people to keep it running when he missed the Barns and decided to go back for a bit. Harvest everything, then sell it. There, profit. See, Declan? You don’t need a high school diploma to run a business.

Gansey had been delighted when he’d told him about his plans. That had almost made Ronan reconsider the whole thing, but Gansey had been surprisingly supportive. He’d even offered to come with him to speak to the realtors, which had actually helped because those people were complete assholes who didn’t know the first thing about soil.

“Don’t despair,” Gansey had told him, as Ronan watched how his instant noodles turned around in Gansey’s microwave, feeling quite desperate. “We haven’t tried every single place in the area—we’ll find it, you’ll see.”

But Ronan had the nagging feeling that Gansey only wanted to keep looking forever, because that way Ronan would not stay cooped up in the Barns for days on end.  Ronan also knew that Gansey secretly loved that he was staying with him, as if they were back in high school.

Ronan actually suspected Gansey was going through a middle life crisis or something, even though they were both still twenty-one. Gansey had always been old, anyway. Or maybe it was Ronan who’d aged him prematurely.

They ate their noodles, and Gansey put on an obscure documentary that Ronan paid absolutely no mind to. Until Gansey clapped his hands and told Ronan they were going out.

“Fuck off,” Ronan answered, because Gansey’s idea of going out could mean very different things and he was not mentally ready to spend his evening at the archaeological exhibition of some natural history museum.

“No, you have to come with me. Wearing something over your underwear, if possible.”

“I don’t have to do shit.” Chainsaw agreed with a screech, even though she was still upset with him because they’d left her behind for their latest real estate hunt. Mostly because it had involved a helicopter, but Chainsaw was petty like that.

“But, Ronan. Listen. Have I told you about Jane?”

“Only a fuck-billion times. The prettiest girl in that coffee shop. The cleverest soul in the city. I get it, Dick. She’s probably a great fuck. I just don’t want to be there for that,” he said, taking advantage of Chainsaw’s returned good mood to pet her head.

“Ronan. She’s not—It’s not like that!”

Gansey’s blush was worth every text he’d sent Ronan telling him about her, after Ronan had hung up on him the moment she was mentioned.

“Really.” He raised an eyebrow. “So why do I know about whatever fuckery is going on with her hair so extensively?”

“Listen. She’ll be going to this café tonight. She reads poetry there, usually, so—”

Ronan had to stop him there. “No fucking way.”

“But it’s a really nice place and—”

Gansey looked constipated enough for both of them, thank you.

“I’m not going to some alternative joint with Edison bulbs to listen to your girlfriend read about her inner turmoil. No fucking way,” he repeated, for emphasis, because apparently having a crush made Gansey hard of hearing.

“But she might be able to help us with our search!”

Ronan laughed. “How? Does she work in real estate when she’s not busy being a hipster?”

“What? She’s not a hipster!” Why did Gansey look so scandalized, anyway? “She actually doesn’t like labels, as she pointed out very, um, emphatically, the night we met. That’s another story, anyway. What I was going to say is that she comes from a family of psychics, and—”

“What. The fuck.”

[keep reading]

[crownedmango]

Hi, guess who's got a Ghostbusters OC?

Uh so here's an info dump on him, have fun.

He'll get a proper ref eventually I swear-

Name: Avery Hays

Age: 34

Height: 6'0"

Weight: ~160 lbs.

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Homosexual

Status: Poly relationship [Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz]

Occupation: Full-Fledged Ghostbuster

Avery Hays has doctorates in Archaeology and Parapsychology. He studies any haunted artifacts the team finds while out on the job and writes as much information as he can about the item's origins, what it does, and how to contain it. Avery also allows himself to be possessed by ghosts in order to have better communication and understanding with them, he can control most of what's going on during possession, but that doesn't mean it doesn't always take a turn for the worse. Avery's father dabbled in witchcraft and taught Avery quite a bit about it when he was a child.

Avery's jumpsuit is the same as the rest of the teams, his proton pack however is more adjusted to one similar to the pack the Rookie wears in the video game. [in the RGB universe his jumpsuit is red with blue accents and his proton pack is the same as everyone elses]. His casual wear is usually a leather jacket and red shirt, a spiked choker, and torn skinny jeans with boots. His formal wear is a baby blue button up he tucks into a nice pair of black dress pants, boots included. His face usually has bandaids and patches covering cuts, scrapes and breaks due to his line of work.

Avery joined the team during the start of it's formation. He had been staying at the Sedgwick hotel due to reports and rumors of haunted items that resided there, while studying there, the "Slimer incident" occurred and he couldn't help but get too excited over the sight of a successfully captured entity. A few days later Avery had walked into the building for an interview and was hired on.

Avery goes on jobs just as much as the rest of the crew. He tends to be front and center when in a ghost fight, and will take the most damage from it, hence the scars and burns across his torso and arms. Avery is the type to run ahead into danger, and take risks, leading the charge into ghost infested territories and excitingly shooting them down, however it is noted that in high importance/dangerous situations Avery is more willing to sit back and plan things out.

When Avery isn't catching ghosts or doing research, he's gossiping with Janine, Fighting with Peter, or helping the others with their work. He's best described to be a "rebellious teenager" with a "chaotic grunge" aesthetic, so his hobbies consist of the usual: setting fires in parking lots, stealing shopping carts and pushing friends down hills in them, going out to smoke sessions, going into abandoned places and trespassing, and being a general disaster... Y'know, that kinda deal.

Avery loves his friends/co-workers to bits, and has a different way of showing it to each of them. Egon and Ray are the loves of his life, and he'll always buy them things like candy and toys when he can, Egon he'll spend time watching silently as he works or go mushroom collecting with, and Ray he'll talk with about whatever special interests they've recently gotten into. Peter and him fight and get snarky with each other a lot, but they don't hate each other, and Avery will get him some sort of alcohol as a gift (though he denies it everytime). Winston is his favorite person to talk literature with, they'll trade and lend each other books, and Avery, despite not being too into sports, is always willing to go with Winston to a baseball game. Janine he'll constantly gossip with, and always bring her some coffee and/or lunch whenever he can. Louis is someone he doesn't interact with a lot (mostly because Louis gets really nervous/scared around him) but he'll always try and assist him when he can. Rookie is someone he instantly tried to take under his wing when they first applied, and would check in on him whenever he could to make sure they were okay.

Avery loves driving the Ecto-1, yet the others tend to make sure they get in the front seat before him due to his tendency to drive a bit too fast and recklessly. Lives off energy drinks and cigarettes. A sucker for anything sweet and salty. He loves the mood slime, it's color for one reason, the other- well, we won't get into that. He heavily dislikes smaller ghosts, they always lead them on a wild goose chase. His biggest pet peeve is being touched by people he doesn't know or like. Artifacts getting damaged ticks him off to no end (if it needs to be destroyed for safety reasons that's fine).

Avery's strong link to the spirit world due to his constant possessions leads him to take on an abnormal form related to it. His teeth become sharper, his eyes go blank and have a strong glow around them, his nails grow long and sharp, he gains a spirit's inhumane strength and levitation. Avery cannot control himself during this, and may over exert his mortal body as well as hurt anyone in his way during this state. A simple process to tell what's affecting Avery during this state is to look at the color of the glow around his abnormal eyes: If green it's a normal crossover of the spirit world taking over, if pink he's been covered in negative mood slime, if red he's gotten too aggravated and an aggressive spirit link is active, and if blue he's gone into a depressive state and a mournful spirit link is active. The only way of getting Avery out of this state without just letting the connection break over-time is to shoot at him with a modified proton stream, which will cause his body harm... Where do you think the burn on his shoulder came from?

[tonystarkbingo]

TSB MIV Week 17 Roundup!

We have only TWO MONTHS LEFT for this round of TSB!

Title: When We Break With Tradtions - Chapter 1: A New Path Collaborator: J_Gun_i (Fighting_for_Creativity) Card Number: 4004 Link: AO3 Square Filled: T5 - Fatigue Ship: Ironhusbands, (pre)M'Baku/Rhodey/Tony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Spiritual Man M'Baku, Established Rhodey/Tony, Meddling Shuri, panic attack (?), strong opinion against outsiders (at first), kinda soulmates. Summary: M'Baku was approached by Princess Shuri who had an unusual request. Agreeing to it, M'Baku found soon out that he set things into motion, he'd never have dreamed of. But what can he do when souls are bound to be together. Also, no one is safe from a meddling Princess Shuri. Word Count: 8625

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Title: a moment in between Collaborator: ohjustpeachy Card Number: 4017 Link: AO3 Square Filled: S5 - Fears appear in reality Ship: IronHusbands Rating: Gen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst Summary: Those few blissful seconds right before he regains complete consciousness sometimes feel like all he has left. Then, of course, the realization hits, and Rhodey feels the loss all over again, hears the words anew every time. Complete paralysis. Tonight is one of those nights. Or, Rhodey wakes from a nightmare and Tony does what he can. Word Count: 1203

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Title: Rumor Has It Collaborator: Faustess Card Number: 4059 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Holding Hands Ship: IronHusbands; Pepper/Steve Rating: Gen Major Tags: Implied (not actual) Infidelity Summary: Rhodey wakes up to find Tony reading aloud to Pepper and Steve about his (supposed) wild, playboy lifestyle and their respective roles in it. Jim Rhodes is not caffeinated enough for this kind of hilarity. Word Count: 1319

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Title: m the Edge (Screaming My Name) Collaborator: ralsbecket Card Number: 4056 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - Free Space Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Major character death, angst/tragedy, canon-typical violence Summary: They’d gotten there too late. Everyone used to joke with Steve about him being the Man Out of Time, and today of all days the reminder is just a sharp slap to the face. Maybe he needs a slap to the face, Steve thinks briefly, because then at least he would feel something. Word Count: 5128

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Title: a lifetime’s a short time (when love never ends) Collaborator: deehellcat Card Number: 4028 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - whump Ship: Pepperony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Canonical Character Death, Dementia, Grief, Aging, Avengers Endgame compliant, with all that implies, I'm Sorry, Implied Suicidal Actions Summary: Years have taken a lot from Pepper, and in the waning of her life, even her memories begin to fall away. Word Count: 2101

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Title: Along Collaborator: periwinklepromise Card Number: 4053 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A1 - Lip Sync/Karaoke Ship: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanova Rating: Teen Major Tags: none Summary: “Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Maria grumbles. Natasha gives a slim smile. “Because I asked you to.” Word Count: 388

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Title: That’s Fiancé Badass Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Image (IM3 - Tony Handcuffed by his captors) Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Mob AU, Fluff, BAMF Tony Summary: Steve Rogers was many things. Patient was not one of them. This usually seemed to be less of a problem where his beloved Tony was concerned, but tonight his patience was wearing thin. He had plans. And Tony was late for them. When his phone rang, 20 minutes past the hour, he did his best not to let his irritation show. He really did try. “Anthony,” he answered in a levelled but commanding voice. “You better have a very good reason for being late tonight of all nights, my love.” Word Count: 1880

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Title: At the End of the Day Collaborator: Politzania Card Number: 4007 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - Writing Format: Past Tense Ship: Stony Rating: Gen Major Tags:  domestic fluff, established relationship, sleep deprived!Tony Summary:  Steve helps Tony get undressed after a long day, gently fending off his overtures along the way. Word Count: 416

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Title: i am the horizon that you ride towards - Chapter 1 Collaborator: deathsweetqueen Card Number: 4066 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R4 - Kink: Alpha/Beta/Omega Society Ship: Stony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: major character death, rape, underage content. Warnings for this Chapter: forced marriage Summary: Tony’s mother and father die when he is sixteen. He doesn’t mourn his father, but when he sees his mother’s still, gaunt face, the dark colour of her skin washed out, there are tears in his eyes that falls, running down his face in rivers, matting in the collar of his jerkin. “Come,” Obadiah says, coldly, his hand landing on Tony’s shoulder. Tony cringes, but follows, mostly because he has no other choice – Obadiah, as his father’s second-in-command, had made his feelings clear; he had no intention of caring for his dead liege lord’s omega son, not when he could get to business and begin making alliances with Tony as the thing to be sold to some stranger like a horse. Word Count: 4664

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Title: My Favourite Day Dream Collaborator: startrekkingaroundasgard Card Number: 4048 Link: Tumblr  Square Filled: T5 - arranged marriage Ship: Stony, Natasha/Reader Rating: Teen Major Tags: mentions of homophobia Summary: Forced to marry as young nobles, both Anthony and the reader had to abandon the people they truly loved for status and reputation. When Sir Steven and his trusty assassin Natasha agree to spend a few nights at their estate, the pair have the chance to see their loves again. However, around Steven, Anthony is a blabbering mess and Natasha is still angry that the reader chose to marry for duty over running away with her. Can they find their happiness or will they waste their second chance? Word Count: 1581

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Title: Iron Man + Avengers A Collaborator: rebelmeg Card Number: 4034 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: T5 - framed Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: cross stitch Summary: Cross stitch of tiny Iron Man flying around an arc reactor blue Avengers A

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Title: In Victory, and in Defeat Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - free space Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: marriage proposal, fluff and angst Summary: The Battle of New York seems all but lost. Until it isn't. And Tony can't risk saving the world without knowing the answer to a very important question first. Word Count: 2146

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Title: soothing Collaborator: ohjustpeachy Card Number: 4017 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: A1 - writing format: drabble Ship: Stony Rating: Gen Major Tags: fluff, drabble Summary: Steve realizes that the arc reactor has a sound. Word Count: 100

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Title: untitled Collaborator: Nicnac Card Number: 4048 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: S2 - Riri Williams Ship: Tony Stark & Riri Williams Rating: Gen Major Tags: none Summary: Ironheart moldboard Word Count: N/A

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Title: Bowling for Platypuses Collaborator: newnewyorker93 Card Number: 4042 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: A5 - Dark Alleys Ship: IronBros Rating: Gen Major Tags: Moodboard Summary: A moodboard for rebelmeg’s and my yet-to-be-actually-written fic in which Rhodey out-pranks Tony at a glow-in-the-dark bowling alley using an intriguing fact of platypus biology. Word Count: N/A

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Title: Skinmage Collaborator: 27dragons Card Number: 4027 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R5 - AU: Urban Fantasy Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: AU: Urban Fantasy, Tattoos, Magic, Pre-relationship Summary: The magic for making pictures move was relatively well-documented, though it was a difficult and costly process. But getting marks on the skin to react -- that was infinitely harder, complicated by the living cells of the canvas and compounded by the changeability of the shape.There was archaeological evidence of past civilizations that had dabbled in it, usually reserved for especially high-ranking leaders. But those cultures had jealously guarded those secrets, and to the best of Tony’s knowledge, no one had ever managed to actually replicate the art. Word Count: 1027

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Title: A nice day for self-discoveries Collaborator: Gottalovev Card Number: 4077 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A1 - Kink: Figging Ship: Stony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Slight BDSM (hair pulling, exploring power dynamics, talk of kink, talks of figging-but do not get your hopes up, I didn't tag it for honesty), blow job, hand job. Summary: Tony gets the wrong idea when he sees what Steve bought at the grocery store. (It leads to sex anyway). Word Count: 3772

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Title: Stanley Cups Before Wedding Rings Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R3 - Arena Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: N/A Summary: Steve Rogers and his team just won the most coveted trophy in hockey. And yet, that's still not the best part of his night. Word Count: 2040

[an-american-teen-against-crime]

Hi! So I’m conducting kind of a survey/study? Can you rank the games in order from best to worst in your eyes? A simple list will suffice

AHH sorry this took me so long to finally do haha but I finally got it done! (this was. extremely difficult . I struggle) (also sorry some of my notes got kinda long so you can just skip ‘em if you wanna)

1. TRN- it has to be. My list has changed so much over the years and SPY was actually here once, but I’ve realized that this is the one that has stuck at the top throughout the years. It’s just SO. GOOD. from the music, plot, characters, hardy boys, setting, mystery, AUGH it’s amazing

2. SHA- I know this one is quite controversial in the fandom (chores.) but this had always been one of the top for me. It reminds me of my childhood (rip) and I just adore every single setting in this game- the atmosphere is wonderful. I just really adore the plot as well as the Dirk and Francis storyline, as well as the old west feeling (still not over the cliff dwellings or Dry Creek). THIS GAME MAKES ME V HAPPY

3. MHM- this was tough, but this was not only my first game but also it still holds up for me. It’s super old but I just adore the setting and gameplay, the spooks are top shelf and I just adore the feeling of this game from it’s puzzles and storyline. 

4. GTH- I have for sure played this game way too often, but I love it. The vibes in this game are TOP NOTCH, and I will never forget my first playthrough of this game. The story, the charACTERS, setting, music, is all so good. The puzzles tho are a bit of a draw back but I still love this game. 

5. SPY- I felt weird about have two “newer” games in my top five, but I genuinely love this game. It’s moved down since I’ve realized I kinda dislike the puzzles, but the spy aesthetic and the story of Nancy’s mom PLUS the Revenant/Colony Operation is SO INTERESTING to me. Not to mention this game has a unique story structure in the fact that Nancy solving the mystery is actually helping the bad guys which is really unique. I feel like this game also characterizes Nancy really well which I adore. 

6. CUR- So I actually thought this would be much lower on my list because I played this when I was much older than the other ones, so it has less nostalgia for me, but it still has some. (plus a lot of the game was spoiled for me before I played it because I watched a walkthrough of it. Dumb middle school Cambria WHY DID YOU DO THAT) The plot structure and just...the puzzles and how the whole game fits together is so amazing and the music/atmosphere/aesthetic is just SO AWESOME. Genuinely a spooky game and I adore it for that.

7. FIN- I adore this game, the plot, the timer/three days, the characters, setting, everything is awesome. I feel it’s pretty unique to the series which makes it even more special and its just SO GOOD. Plus it has Nick Falcone who is one of the best characters of all time. 

8. DDI- the atmosphere, THE MYSTERY, the whole setting it’s all just. wonderful. I love BEING in this game, and I feel like it’s one of those mysteries that really represents the series as a whole. 

9. TRT- Just like DDI I feel like this game really is a really good representation of these games as a series. It has everything that makes a good Nancy Drew game and it’s atmosphere is wonderful. I also love the history and while it’s way more treasure hunt like than mystery it does have good mystery elements and it’s a very cozy game.

10. SSH- I am shocked this game is so high, and I actually didn’t like it that much on my first playthrough. This is a game that gets better the more you play it because you uncover so much more- I love the museum and all the history, the social commentary, and the mystery IS SO INTERESTING. Like everything with Henrik trying to stop Sinclair and like you know there’s someone bad out there doing this stuff but you’re not sure who, and there’s all this information you uncover AHH. I know some don’t like the phone convos but I feel like tracking down all the different pieces opens up Nancy’s world so much and it makes it feel real. Also just the idea that you have to track them all down is so cool to me. Also the ending is freaky and gives me anxiety to this day.

11. SEA- this game makes me so happy, I adore Iceland, the setting, the story, the ship, the characters, ALL FABULOUS! Some of the puzzles are annoying but that’s a trend for the later games.

12. STFD- it shouldn’t be so high on the list probably but the mystery and plot line is always really fun for me. The whole premise, locations and iconic moments in this game are so special to me. I love just being in the game, it’s so simplistic. Plus, Dwayne Powers.

 13. WAC- this is the game I always fall back on to play. It’s further down simply because the puzzles are a little annoying at times, but the setting is great and I adore the school feeling of this game. It just always has been a game that has stuck out in my mind ever since it came out.

14. CLK- clk is so nostalgic for me, I literally don’t care about the time travel bit because it reminds me so much of reading the books. I love the town, the mystery, and it’s one of those games I can just relax in. You can spend hourS in this game and seriously do nothing but fish, deliver telegrams and play golf. Maybe a game of bard bounce in there too. 

15. SAW- I used to feel medium about this game, but as of my most recent replay, I’ve found I LOVE it. The setting is so freaky and I actually enjoy most of the puzzles. It just has this weird off feeling to it where you’re constantly being told everything is fine when everything is definitely not fine. I honestly wanna make a separate post just for this game, I have so many feelings on it haha.

16. DED- I love the feeling of this game, from it’s Tesla theme, to it’s puzzles, and also it’s a murder mystery which is super interesting. The mystery and gameplay is so fun for me, honestly not sure why.

17. CRY- I love this game’s atmosphere so so much, and a lot of the puzzles are really fun. The whole legend of the skull is fascinating and it has a great spooky vibe to it. However I feel like the plot is a bit weak and I am still salty Nancy doesn’t help Henry more. But also it has Henry Bolet.

18. TMB- I love Egyptology, I love archaeology, and this game is super fun to me for those reasons. the whole idea of the curse is spoopy and the puzzles are pretty cool too. I love both Dylan and Jamilla so that bumps this game up as well. 

19. VEN- I have wanted to go to Venice ever since I played this game, I feel it does a perfect job of making you feel like you’re really there. I love the whole spy aspects, and while some of the puzzles are EXTREMELY annoying it’s a really exciting game.

20. DOG- The vibe of this game is off the charts, I love the history and the mystery is kinda weird but leads you to a treasure hunt which is pretty interesting. I love the puzzles in this game and while the characters are kinda annoying I feel like this game is just so grounded and interesting. 

21. CAP- some stuff in this game is kinda dumb (PUZZLES. WHO PUT THEM THERE I NEED TO KNOW)  but the whole fairytale vibe is great, and I love the fact that Nancy is trying to track down a cryptid. I also kind of hate the culprit motivation, but it is what it is.

22. ICE- this is actually a pretty well put together game, I like the location, and the mystery is nice. It’s one of those that I really question the whole idea of why Nancy is solving the puzzles? Like I get it that she’s trying to get into the needle it’s just...sorta convoluted. Also some of the puzzles are really annoying in this game haha.

23. LIE- pains me to put this game so low on the list, but I freaking hate the puzzles in this game. I like the museum puzzles, and that’s IT. The set has no. reason. to have that weird of puzzles. This is one of those games that would have been better with the treatment of having more practical puzzles like the older games. Anyways, I still love the setting, the characters, and the fact that it’s in Greece, in a museum and has a play about a greek myth makes me really enjoy this game. Plus, I do like the whole villain plot and the ending you start feeling really trapped and freaked out which is exciting. 

24. ASH- I get why people love this game, I really do, but for some reason I always drag my feet to play it. It still is super interesting though from the mystery, characters, bad guy plan, and it has a good classic mystery vibe. I think I just have to be in the right mood to play it.

25. TOT- I actually do enjoy playing this game but the puzzles/chores can be really annoying, and I feel there needs to be more mystery. However I actually do enjoy the setting a lot and there’s something special about it to me. Plus I like to look at the clouds. :3

26. DAN- I like that it reminds me of Paris because it got that vibe, the history and locations are very cool, and I really enjoy being in the game. However the mystery is ditched for Nancy trying to solve the Noisette stuff which is annoying and weird and I feel like this game is a bit unfocused which bugs me. Plus I can’t remember a single puzzle right now other than that horrible wall clock puzzle.

27. MED- Yes, this game is a hot mess and I’m still upset about Sonny, but I actually really enjoy the location and puzzles of this game, it’s just really fun to be in. Also the reality tv show concept is fun. Wish the sheep were alive though.

28. HAU- I like a lot about this game but at the same time it feels very...small? Idk. I just feel like the whole game is Nancy running around on the moors solving random puzzles she just finds in the hopes of finding Matt. It’s weird. I do like the vibe tho and Fiona is a bit freaky. Plus, sheep.

29. CAR- peoplearegoingtomurdermeIwillbethenextjake listen I for some reason feel just meh about this game, idk if it’s just Joy, the location, or WHAT but for some reason it’s mostly meh for me. There’s bits that are fun and I always liked it when I was younger but for some reason it doesn’t do it for me. But I can get why people really like it! 

30. SCK: The vibes are great, the ending is v exciting, and I feel like the school is very creepy and the diner is a solid location. The whole mystery of how Jake was blackmailing everyone and the drug plotline is super interesting to me and while the disk switching drives me NUTS I really like pulling this one out just to feel like I’m in the 90s.

31. CRE- I think this game is fun and has some iconic bits to it, along with the fact I could spend hours at Big Island Mike’s Immersion Excursions, buT the fact is the mystery is freaking weird and I don’t like bugs. But we did get Big Island Mike. 

32. MID- Listen, this game is a good video game, but it’s a bad Nancy Drew game. I liked my first playthrough of this game, I really did, but theres just so many problems with it and it’s so upsetting to see what’s become of the series. You can tell that it wasn’t made by the same people and it doesn’t have the classic ND charm. There are a lot of plotholes and random stuff like the Hardy’s personalities in this game don’t make sense. However there are a lot of stuff that it enjoyable about this game and I will still replay it. It’s just kinda sad.

33. SCK Remastered: Lower than the OG because Beech is dumb and they changed the ending. Also some of the old magic is gone, and all the characters are way less likeable. However it did explain some stuff about Jake so there is that. 

34. RAN- It’s still fun at times and I like the location but the puzzles will be a thorn in my side till the day I die. Also the mystery is just meh. And it needed more characters, that’s just a fact. 

I guarantee that this will probably change by the time we are done with this playthrough, but until then this is my listing. I think it’s really a testament to the games though that there is no game I consider unplayable. SCK could be that game but I am willing to do the disk switching lol.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Imhotep

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

The Mummy movies are a lot of fun. Who could hate a young, charming Brendan Fraser having the time of his life fighting mummies and raiding tombs? Clearly this was a sign of a long, happy, trouble-free career for the man!

Oh, I’ve gone and made myself sad… let’s just cut right to it and talk about Imhotep.

Imhotep is the villain of the first two films of the series, and he really helps set the tone. Things get a lot less funny and a lot more darker whenever he’s on the scene, changing the tone from “fun, goofy Indiana Jones-esque romp” to a more overtly horror tone. This makes sense, seeing as he’s a soul-sucking undead monster based on one of the classic Universal monsters… but that’s really a very surface-level look at Imhotep. You see, unlike Ahmanet, the previous mummy covered on here, Imhotep has a real personality and motivations beyond being a simple villain hellbent on domination. In fact, Imhotep doesn’t want to conquer the world at all. He has a very simple, even sweet goal that makes him instantly relatable and tragic: all he wants is the woman he loves.

Actor: Arnold Vosloo plays Imhotep to perfection. He hits all the right villain notes whenever the scene calls for it: he can be scary, intimidating, badass, hammy, emotional, and even sexy. The last one’s a given when you spend a lot of the movie either shirtless or wearing a revealing robe, you know? I’m guessing one of the reasons the third movie failed so hard is because he wasn’t there to bring his own brand of awesomeness to the table, though I wouldn’t know because I’ve never watched the third film and like to pretend everything in the franchise ended happily after the first two films and there was nothing but Scorpion King spin-offs until the end of time.

Motivation/Goals: Imhotep is such an odd villain. Despite being a very powerful mystical being who could bring the world to its knees if he wished it, Imhotep is motivated solely by love. All he really wants is to be reunited with his lover Anck-Su-Namun, and he goes to great lengths to achieve this goal, lengths that do put him beyond the pale but also add a layer of tragedy to him.

The second film has him awakened by a cult to try and steal a supernatural army from Dwayne “The Scorpion King” Johnson, which ends up leading to him becoming far less sympathetic and a lot more cliche in terms of goals, though the romantic and sympathetic qualities are there still. They’re just now forced to share screentime with character traits that Imhotep didn’t really have in the first film, and while they don’t ruin him by any means and they help play into his ultimate tragedy, it just feels kind of sad they made Imhotep return and use him for a “take over the world” plot when his first outing had him really stand out as a villain in a big-budget action movie that didn’t have such a trite motive.

Personality: Imhotep is a pretty nice and friendly guy, for an ancient mummy. In the first film especially, he’s awful open about his plans to Beni and even keeps his word to him, and just in general he’s rather affable… unless, of course, you get in his way, in which case he will kill you without hesitation. He ends up dropping a lot of his more affable personality in the second film, which does come to bite him in the ass. It’s honestly pretty sad, because all that really ends up making him a villain is the manner in which he goes about his goals. Obviously bringing his loved one back would be a grim affair no matter what, but he goes way too far, with his desire to be with the woman he loves driving him to disturbing lengths to be back with her. In fact, the fact that he is such a loving man really plays into his ultimate tragedy, as he continuously suffers for love and in the end his suffering is rendered moot. Maybe villains who can’t comprehend love are better off after all.

Final Fate: In The Mummy Returns, Imhotep is clinging to a ledge and begs for his lover Anck-Su-Namun to save him. Instead, she flees, and Imhotep sees a similar situation happening with Rick and Evy; it ends exactly as you’d expect a dangerous situation with a protagonist couple to end in a cheesy adventure film. Imhotep looks to them with a look filled with jealousy and respect, and then lets go of the ledge, falling into the underworld. It’s a rather depressing and tragic fate that really highlights that for all the evil he did, Imhotep really only wanted to be with the woman he loved, and after all the pain and suffering he endured trying to make that happen, it ended up being all for nothing. It also ends up being ironic and karmic; throughout the film, he shows a lack of empathy for those serving under him, so it ends up being fitting the only person he cares about genuinely would leave him in his time of need.

Best Scene: Imhotep’s giant sandstorm from the first movie. It has become an iconic signature scene of the trilogy for a reason, after all.

Best Quote: So I didn’t exactly find a great quote from Imhotep himself on Wikiquote (my usual source), but I did find a quote from Arnold Vosloo himself that I think sums up Imhotep quite nicely:

“I’m so thankful that all that stuff made it to the screen, because a lot of the time studio executives say that there’s no time, or ask why we should feel sympathy for this bad guy. I joke that I’m the romantic lead in the movie, I just happened to pick the wrong girl. Imhotep is kind of the tragic villain, I guess, and a lot of people have come up to me and said I was hating you, but then I reach a point when I was feeling sorry for you too. It's those different facets that help explain why this film is such a success."

Final Thoughts & Score: For such a bunch of silly adventure films, they sure did go hard when it came to giving us a fantastic villain. Imhotep is, to be fair, not the most complex character in the world; I think being in a film like The Mummy kind of necessitates you being rather simple. But much like the movies he inhabits, he takes his simple concept and runs with it, elevating it into being something greater.

I love how he’s a villain not motivated by power, greed, or ambition, but a desperate desire to be with the person he loves most. In these sort of Indiana Jones-esque archaeological adventure films, you kind of expect to have the main villain or villains being motivated by greed, or power, or something to that effect, but here those motivations are relegated to side villains and our big bad is simply someone who really wants the girl he lived and died for in his arms again. It adds a layer of tragedy to Imhotep, which is only exacerbated in the sequel and then comes to his ultimate conclusion with his final death.

I think Imhotep really shines where a mummy like Princess Ahmanet ultimately failed: he has a clear, defined personality as well as a more relatable goal than “destroy the world.” As much as I enjoyed Princess Ahmanet from the reboot, my wife was right to point out in her guest spot on Psycho Analysis that her personality boils down to being ambitious and graceful, and not much else. Imhotep, on the other hand, shows a lot of emotion, even to his final look to Rick and Evy, which says so much without a single word being uttered. Ahmanet never really got moments like that, but that’s because she was stuck in a movie with an attention whore like Tom Cruise; Imhotep is in a movie with certified nice guy Brendan Fraser, so of course he’s gonna get his fair share of development.

IMHO Imhotep deserves nothing less than a 9/10. He’s the perfect villain for the cheesy fun of the first two Mummy movies, but he’s also something more, something richer than these movies deserved, and is emblematic of what made those movies so special and beloved: how, despite their flaws, there was just some magic there that allowed the films to rise above their simplistic popcorn action reimaginings of a classic monster movie to become something that even decades after the fact people still love and cherish to this day. The only thing holding him back from a perfect ten is the fact that the second film doesn’t do him quite as much justice; I have to say, the whole “world domination” thing looks better on an ambitious royal like Ahmanet than it does on a tragic romantic like Imhotep. Still, there’s no denying that Imhotep is a cool, fun villain for some cool, fun movies.