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1americanconservative · 8 months

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@ScottFishman

Tucker is Outing Obama as Gay. But Everyone is Missing the Big Story. I’m Obama’s College Classmate. I’ve Been Trying to Warn America for 15 years! By Wayne Allyn Root I’m Barak Obama’s college classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I’m also the author of the #1 bestselling hardcover book in America in 2012, “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide.” I’ve always had Obama’s number. I understand what makes him tick. I understand his goals. First let’s get the “gay issue” out of the way. I’ve reported on both my radio and TV shows for 15 years that my wealthy, connected friends in Chicago have always said, “Obama frequented gay bath houses and gay clubs. Everyone in the know, knows Obama is gay.” Now that we’ve heard from Obama’s biographer that Obama wrote about his daily gay fantasies, I think it’s pretty clear my Chicago pals were right. Tucker Carlson is onto something! But gay is not the issue. The issue here is fraud. If Obama is in fact gay, then he was lying to the American people from day one. He portrayed himself as a happily married family man with a wife and two beautiful young daughters. That’s called fraud.

If America had known the truth in 2008, does anyone honestly think Obama would have been elected president? But all of this is small potatoes. This is not the big story. Why does any of this matter now? Because Joe Biden is a brain-dead puppet. This is the third term of Obama. The proof is we are all reliving the nightmare Obama economy. Great for Wall Street and billion-dollar multi-national corporations. But a disaster for the American middle class and Main Street. Second, Biden is fading fast – and everyone can see it. At the same time Biden’s cognitive health is in freefall, all of his corruption from the past is pouring out of the closet. Biden is finished. He is toast. He will never make it to 2024. Sometime this fall Biden will have a very public “episode” and be hospitalized. Soon thereafter he (or Jill) will announce he is stepping down for “health reasons.” Who will replace him? Either Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom. But whoever it is, Obama will be calling the shots from his nearby Washington DC mansion. That’s why this story matters. I’ve had Obama pegged from the first day. Obama is the ultimate “Manchurian Candidate.” Gay is unimportant. What matters is he was groomed to be president by the Deep State and communist, fascist, globalist enemies of the United States. What matters is Obama is a radical Marxist tyrant carrying out the destruction of America.

Obama was tame in his first two terms. He was “boiling the frog slowly.” But Trump ruined his plan. Now Obama is trying to destroy this country as fast as he can before Trump has a second chance to undo the damage. And at the same time, Obama is coordinating the attacks on Trump to either imprison him, kill him, or disqualify him. My guest on my show, “America’s Top Ten Countdown” on Real America’s Voice TV last week was former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich. Blago’s Governor’s mansion was raided by an early morning FBI Swat team. Sound familiar? I pointed out to “Blago” that Obama’s fingerprints were all over his frame job… and FBI SWAT raid… and long prison sentence. Obama set him up. Obama took away his freedom. I asked him to comment. Blago reported, “Obama set up the meeting that led to my arrest.” Do you get it now? It’s the exact same M.O. as what’s happening to President Trump. The same FBI raids, persecution, frame job. The same weaponization of government to destroy Obama’s political adversaries. I’ve always said the key to understanding Obama was his time at Columbia University.

First, there is the “Ghost of Columbia” mystery. I was a Pre Law, Political Science major. So was Obama. He had to be in all the same classes as me. But he was never in one class. I never met Obama, never saw him, never heard of him, never met anyone at Columbia who has. Obama got in, so why didn’t anyone ever see him? My educated guess is Obama was in the Soviet Union studying communism. Columbia had a “sister school” in Moscow. That would be the only real answer as to why Obama was rarely if ever seen at Columbia. He was being groomed way back then by the enemies of America. Secondly, at Columbia we learned a plan to destroy America called “Cloward Piven.” I’ll bet Obama spent two years in the Soviet Union at our “sister school” becoming the world’s expert. Look around. Everything happening in America today is Cloward Piven… The open borders bringing millions of foreigners into our country, changing our demographics forever. The explosion of welfare and bailouts. The Green New Deal. The destruction of our military. The end of the dollar as world reserve currency. The plans for pandemic lockdowns, climate change lockdowns and Central Bank Digital Currency.

The censorship, banning of dissent, and weaponization of government against conservatives and Christians. Defund the police. The vicious criminals let out without bail. Critical Race Theory and Transgender brainwashing. Persecution of PTA parents. Conservatives and Christians classified as “domestic terrorists.” The arrest of political opponents. 87,000 new IRS agents. It’s all about Cloward Piven and communist-level control. Sound familiar? It’s what Obama the “Manchurian Candidate” learned in the Soviet Union from the best. This man was groomed from day one by the communist and globalist enemies of America. He was sent to destroy us. Now he’s working behind the scenes to finish the job. He is the man who ordered the spying on Trump. The framing of Trump. Now he’s the man directing the nonstop government attacks against Trump. Just as he did to Blago. So, Obama being gay is the least of it. America is being destroyed. Obama is at the root of every evil thing happening.

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gallifreyanhotfive · 6 months

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My favorite quotes from each Doctor (TV only)

I'll have to do some for the EU too sometime.

One: "I don't make threats. But I do keep promises. And I promise you I shall cause you more trouble than you bargained for, if you don't return my property!"

Two (about his family): "Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they....they sleep in my mind and I forget."

Three: "Courage isn't a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway."

Four: "You see, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?"

Five: "Once a man fell asleep and dreamt he was a frog. When he woke up, he didn't know if he was a man who dreamt he was a frog, or a frog who was now dreaming he was a man."

Six: "This is a situation that requires tact and finesse. Fortunately, I am blessed with both!"

Seven (while fighting the Master): "If we fight like animals, we die like animals!"

Eight (god the fact I'm limiting this post to TV is killing me, really shot myself in the foot there): "You're tired of life but afraid of dying!"

Nine: "Just this once, everybody lives!"

Ten: "Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person."

Eleven: "Nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met someone who wasn't important."

Twelve: "This is not a war. I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine, and when I close my eyes....I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight....til it burns your hands. And you say this - no one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch."

Thirteen: "You're wrong about humans. They're not pathetic; they're magnificent. They live with their fears, doubts, guilts. They face them down every day. And they prevail. That's not weakness. That's strength. That's what humanity is."

Bonuses (crack edition) - if you recognize all of these please marry me

"Don't be lasagna."

"Yes, I made some cocoa and got engaged."

"These shoes! They fit perfectly."

"Kill yourself."

"An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid...Do you think you can manage that?"

"If I'm ever in need of advice from a psychotic potato dwarf, you'll be the first to know."

"I tolerate this century, but I don't like it."

"I always find violent exercise makes me hungry, don't you agree?"

"If I had crayons and half a can of Spam, I could build you from scratch!"

"I'm the Doctor; I'm worse than everybody's aunt!"

"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those doors, and believe me, they've tried."

"Self pity is all I have left!"

"Come to Daddy. I mean Mummy. I mean....I really need you right now!"

"An apple a day keeps the....Ah. No, never mind."

"It was the daisiest daisy I'd ever seen."

"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby!"

"In my time, I have been threatened by experts, and I don't rate you very highly at all."

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chiara-klara-claire · 1 year

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funny idioms

My personal selection of idioms collected here and there. my posts - resources masterpost | aesthetic idioms | words with cute literal meaning

Icelandic 🇮🇸

Ég borga bara með reiðufé 🐑💰 - I only pay with an angry sheep: Okay, but I don't have to like it

að taka einhvern í bakaríið 🥯 - to take someone to the bakery: used as a threat, often in sports, when your adversary is about to experience a heavy defeat.

Finnish 🇫🇮 @finnish-sayings

kissanristiäiset 🐱 - a cat’s christening: an unimportant event or holiday

nakki ja muusi 🍲 - in the year sausage and mashed potatoes: long ago

Ilma on kuin linnunmaitoa 🥛🐦- The weather is like bird’s milk: The weather is wonderful.

Hänella ei ole kaikki muumit laksossa - he/she doesn’t have all the moomins in the valley: they’re crazy

Norwegian 🇳🇴 @hazel3017

Nappe seg i løken 🧅 - Yank the onion: a man who masturbates

Høy på pæra 🍐- High on pears: someone who is arrogant (head gets so big it looks like a pear)

Det er helt Texas! : That’s completely Texas! That’s crazy!

Swedish 🇸🇪( @escapenorth-blog )

Den är paj 🥧 - It’s pie. “It doesn’t work.”

du är ute och cyklar! 🚲 - you’re out and riding your bike! “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Fårskalle 🐑 💀 - sheep skull ; hissen går inte gela vägen upp- the elevator doesn’t go all the way up: stupid

släng dig i väggen - throw yourself against a wall: take a hike 🌲

Danish 🇩🇰 @vikinglanguage

der er kommunister i lysthuset*- communists are in the funhouse: when someone has their period 🩸🏠

skide grønne grise 🐖 💩 - to shit green pigs: be extremely frightened 😰

gåsevin 🍷🦆– goose wine: Water

pølsetysker 🌭 🇩🇪 – sausage german: a very German German or just a way to call Germans you dislike

ikke helt appelsinfri* 🍊 - not entirely orange-free: drunk 🤠

at tale flydende svensk* 🗣🇸🇪 - to speak Swedish fluently / tale i den store hvide telefon**☎️- talk in the big white telefon / ringe til Ulrik** 📞 : to call Ulrik: to throw up 🤮

at skyde papegøjen 🦜🔫- to shoot the parrot: to have luck

Dutch 🇳🇱

Helaas Pindakaas 🥜 - too bad peanut butter (“peanut cheese”): too bad, which rhymes with pindakaas = 🇩🇪 Schade Marmelade: same as Dutch, but with jam

German 🇩🇪 this post by @for-the-love-of-wolves-studies and this @moami

einen Clown zum Frühstück essen/frühstücken 🤡 🍽️- eating a clown for breakfast: not behaving decently/having bad humor

bekannt wie ein bunter Hund 🐶 🌈 - known as a colorful dog: someone known all over town

fuchsteufelswild 🦊 - fox devil wild: super mad

einen Vogel haben 🐦 - to have a bird: to be crazy

Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift 🐷 - I think my pig whistles: I think I’m dreaming

die Gurkentruppe 🥒 - cucumber brigade: bunch of bunglers

Durch den Kakao ziehen 🍫- throw someone into chocolate: to make fun of somebody or something, to roast someone

die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen 🌭 - to play the offended liver sausage: being very resentful

Hans Wurst 🌭 - Hans Sausage: name to call a stupid person (both m/f)

jetzt haben wir den Salat 🥗 - now we have the salad: look at this disaster that we now have

jemanden hinwünschen, wo der Pfeffer wächst 🧂 - wish somebody would be where pepper grows: to want somebody to be as far away as possible

nah am Wasser gebaut 💧- built close to the water: someone that is easily moved to tears

italian 🇮🇹

Cascare dal pero 🍐 🌳 - fall from the pear tree - find out about something when you were supposed to know it

Far venire il latte alle ginocchia 🥛- make milk come from one’s knees: being a pain/ annoying,

Andare a rane** 🐸 - go (as) frogs: something like online connection is lagging

fare la figura del cioccolataio 🍫 - make a chocolatier’s impression: to make a fool of yourself, be responsible for embarrassing cockups

Che pizza! 🍕 - What a pizza!: “Nuts!”/ used Wien you are bored or annoyed at something

Essere alla frutta 🍎 🍌 - to be at [the moment of] fruit: when the situation is very bad (meals usually end with eating fruit), to emphasize this some people might say al caffè, al dolce ☕️ 🍰(coffee, dessert time)

Un limone 🍋- a lemon: a make out session

French 🇫🇷 this

Chanter en yaourt - sing in yogurt: singing in gibberish, random sounds pretending to sing in [English]

Poser un lapin 🐇 - to put a rabbit: To stand someone up

Avoir le cafard 🪳 - to have the cockroach: To be depressed

Tomber dans les pommes 🍎🍏 - To fall in the apples: To faint

Donner sa langue au chat 👅 🐈- to give one’s tongue to the cat: I have no idea/I give up. used to say you don’t know about something and are unable to give an answer.

Polish 🇵🇱 @pol-ski this post

można z konie kraść 🐎- you can steal horses with him: a trustworthy person

co ma piernik do wiatracka - what does gingerbread have to do with a windmill: it’s irrelevant

*: apparently not used much but wanted to include them cause they’re hilarious; **: maybe regional/use limited to an area

Thanks for contributions: @dasloddl (de), @tetsunabouquet (nl)

#idioms #funny idioms #food idioms #langblr #language blog #foreign languages #danish #Italian #German #Norwegian #Icelandic #finnish #mine #my lists #most are either animal or food

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balkanradfem · 1 year

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On agriculture, sustainability of cities, and monocrops.

So if you've lived in the countryside, or even seen a rural village on a map, you know how it's set up. There's a road, the area around the road is peppered with houses, and then behind every house, there's several fields growing grains, beans and potatoes. Most often, there's also a little vegetable garden in the back yard, and sometimes a few chickens, goats, or a sheep. Around the fields, there are forests, and every clearing in the forest is growing something, even if it's just grass that is set to be cut into hay.

It's clear where these people's food comes from, and how big of an area it takes to grow it. It's visible just by monitoring, that for one family it takes a field of wheat, potatoes, smaller area for beans, a vegetable garden, and corn or a similar grain for their animals. It makes sense, these people have inherited the land that can feed them, and they do it. The forests are used for firewood, but also replanted, there are new trees constantly planted, and only old, dangerous and rotten trees are felled.

And then you look at a city, and it doesn't make sense. The area is more densely populated, but there are no fields, no grains, no vegetable gardens, no chickens. So how do they eat?

The answer is – the fields are elsewhere. They're planted far from view. And the food is brought to the people, instead of grown where they live. Isn't that a bit inconvenient? The people in the city don't think so. They make a lot of money, and they can have food delivered to them. But what does it take to produce the food for a densely populated city? That's where we meet agriculture.

In order to produce massive amounts of food, enough to feed an entire city, you'll need a big amount of agricultural land. And, you'll need that food produced cheaply enough, so that when people buy it, there is some profit for you as well. So, you'll want to own a big area of land that is yours to do with as you please, and you'll need big machines, so you don't have to pay for human labour, and all of the profits go to you.

Now, the big machines that harvest food do not work like human hands do – they do not differentiate one plant from another. If you want a machine to harvest your field, your field has to grow 1 single type of crop. Otherwise, your harvest will be a mess, and it will take additional, expensive work to separate usable crops from waste. So, you create massive fields with only one type of plant growing on them.

I remember looking at big fields of wheat or corn, and thinking, neat! That's so much food growing! And it looks so clean and well grown! I don't have those thoughts anymore, sadly. The reality of a whole field growing only one type of plant, is now upsetting to me.

The thing with natural, wild fields is, they feed the wildlife. They have flowers that open even in the winter and early spring, and then continue to produce different types of flowers throughout the entire season, making sure bees have food all year long. They house different insects and good bacteria, they lure in birds, worms, ants, ladybugs, grasshoppers, butterflies, bumblebees, and all kinds of beneficial, lovely bugs. If there's a presence of water, you'll find frogs, dragonflies, and much more birds, who are there to feed on the insects and pick off the caterpillars. You might find a hedgehog, a snake, a turtle in there. All are coming because there are sources of life for them in that field, plants they can eat, or plants that bugs can eat, and bugs are then delicious resource to the animals. Bugs we consider pests, are also a great food resource for the birds and the animals, and their population is monitored and controlled by all of the other animals. Plants rarely get destroyed by pests, or they evolve to defend themselves, or to attract a predator who fends off of the pests.

Now, a field of let's say, only corn, doesn't do that. The corn is pollinated by wind, and the flowers of corn do not attract the bees. They do not serve as a home to many insects, and they do not make a good resource for the wildlife – until of course, they make the corn itself, which is then attractive to the birds. But they cannot sustain life for the entire year. There's only a short window when these crops can serve as source of food.

The area where corn will be planted, has to be tilled early in the winter or spring, making sure every life-giving plant in that area, is dead. Then, corn is planted, and then often weeded or sprayed with herbicide, if any other plant manages to grow inbetween. And they will grow, because no matter how hard you try to kill every weed, seeds are carried by the wind, by the birds, buried deep into the ground, some are capable of growing back from just one single piece of root. You cannot exterminate them, except, by herbicide. And that is what happens in monocultures – in order to fight nature to the point where you establish a monoculture, you have to distribute poison for plants.

After the monocrop is harvested, the field is left barren and void of life. There are no flowers, no food for bees, no hiding places for the insects to hibernate in. Some may hibernate deep in the soil, if they have not yet gotten poisoned, but most will not even bother, as there are no food sources in the area.

Have you noticed how wild fields do not get their soil depleted and poor at any time? Year after year, the wild plants are growing anew, never losing nutrients, never lacking food. And there's a reason for this – the wild plants are left to wither, dry, lay flat on the ground, and then decompose. The bugs, worms, bacteria and insects in the ground use them as a food source, and after going thru their digestive systems, it decomposes and becomes soil again. This way, all of the nutrients, minerals and food they took from the soil while growing, comes back around, creating fertile ground for a new season.

But monocrops do not do that. Once harvested, the soil remains depleted, the waste products of grains are usually extremely low in nutrients, there are no bugs to aid composting, the space remains empty of minerals and nutrition the plants have absorbed. So what do you do to keep growing? You have to buy the nutrients and physically distribute them all over the field, in order for the next year's crop to grow again. This almost ensures that you will have to do this again and again, and that your crops will only be able to feed on whatever you put there, and will only have the minerals you yourself have put in the soil. The soil itself becomes void of life, because it's those worms and insects and bacteria that are keeping the soil alive and healthy, they're creating an ecosystem where plants love to grow, where a healthy balance of nutrients and air and water and compost and roots is kept. Your field cannot do it. You have given the soil nothing to live off of. There is only a single crop, and it doesn't support any life in the soil. It doesn't feed the beneficial bacteria, bugs, or animals.

But you know what it does feed? The pests. There will always be some types of bugs evolved specifically to feed on your crop, and once you plant your crop over several kilometers, you have given them a perfect food source, and they will not restrain from multiplying rapidly, enjoying what you provided. Your monocrop will start getting eaten at a rapid rate, unless, you spray it with pesticide. So you do, you have to, there are no birds, predatory bugs, animals, or any other kind of natural pest control that would do the work for you or stop the pests from multiplying uncontrollably. You have to poison your monocrop in order to protect it from getting eaten away.

Wild plants are usually good at fending off diseases, because they will cross-pollinate, and some will contain disease-resistant genes that ensure that the next generation of plants will grow stronger. Your monocrop, is carefully planted so only ever one type of plant is growing, same type of seed, protected from cross-pollination, same dna. So when a disease hits, there will be no resistance. Your plants will all get infected. If it's a bit too hot, or too cold, or a disaster hits, or a new type of bacteria attacks, your plants have no way of defending themselves, or evolving into a stronger, more disease-resistant versions of themselves. You'll have to develop a different type of plant on your own, and rely on chemicals again, to stop the disease, to save your plants. This is actually the reason why bananas as we know them, are soon to be extinct, and a new variety is being developed to replace them – they've all grown sick, and there's nothing that can be done to save them, except developing a different variety that will hopefully, be resistant to that disease (but not to a new one, repeating the cycle again and again.)

So, once you've secured your giant fields of monocrops, convenient for your big machines to work and harvest, you've started to notice that you have to spray the chemicals on your fields to fertilize the soil, then to kill of weeds, then to kill off pests, then to fend off disease, and you're in fact, spending a lot of money on all these chemicals that you are now completely dependent upon. And what happens next is, these chemicals start getting more and more expensive. Maybe the seeds prices are getting higher too. And now, you're in a situation where you don't have many options. You cannot grow the same volume of food without monocrops, and you can't sustain your practice with ever-higher prices it takes to grow in this unnatural, diversity-eliminating way. In the older times, people learned to rotate their crops, allowing the land to grow some wild plants and recover from the intense use of agriculture, but now you can't afford to own land that you are not actively using for profit.

This is why agriculture is getting less and less productive, and why we keep needing new agricultural land to grow on, the soil is getting depleted, and land unusable. This also caused by the wind erosion and sun erosion. While the crops are not growing, the land is barren, tilled, and left exposed to the sun, which dries the top layer, since there are no plants covering it, and then the wind dries it even more, dissipates it into tiny particles, and turns it into dust. Without constant and consistent rain – which is rarely available, the soil gets turned into dust. This is a hard lesson learned by the 'dust bowl' example, where the agriculture combined with drought created soil erosion so intense, the people couldn't see in the times of storms due to the dust, and would often get lost in their own fields.

Soil erosion and wind erosion can be mitigated by growing 'cover crops', meaning plants are allowed to grow, or are specifically sown in the times of year where the main crop isn't growing, so the sun and the wind could not deplete the top layer of soil. The plants also help keep the soil alive with insects, worms and bacteria, and keep moisture in, more effectively than the barren land could. Another solution for gardeners is mulching, covering the soil with a layer of organic matter, it can be leaves, hay, straw, pine needles, wood bark, wood chips, anything that will decompose and create food for insects, generate a protective layers from the sun and the wind, and keeps moisture inside. In combination with this, it's important to not till the soil. Tilling exposes several layers of soil to the elements and disrupts or completely destroys the established ecosystem inside. No-till and no-dig methods are protective of the health in soil, specifically for smaller areas.

For large areas, what helps the soil stay safe and properly structured is allowing wild plants to grow, which have deep, resilient roots. You know when you grow a plant in a pot, and you pull it out, it holds the entirety of the soil together, just with the roots? That is what the wild plants are doing as well. The deeper their roots, the better structure and stability of the soil will be. Deep roots can draw the water from deep inside of the soil and keep the moisture level even in a drought. Big trees are also a factor in keeping the soil structured and safe, for example, if you keep trees on the riverbank, their roots will protect the soil from being carried away and depleted by the water. If you were to remove the trees, the water would erode the soil of the riverbanks. They also protect the soil from getting blown away by the wind.

There is a problem of decreased availability of water. We have now extracted so much water from our planet, it's getting harder to find water sources for our crops. And there are thousands of kilometers of these monocrops, making sure that no wild life species can live in that huge area that was once wilderness. This resulted in many species being threatened into extinction, if not already extinct. Bees cannot live on agricultural land, because there is no food. And all of these areas are not being used to feed the people in the cities, no. The majority of agricultural land isn't even used to grow the crops for human consumption. The plant products that the people eat is about 20-30% of all of the crops we grow. The rest is growing crops that feed the animals meant for human consumption. And these fields need to grow crops sometimes for years, until the animal is heavy enough to be used as a source of food. Reducing animal products could easily reduce the amount of monocrops we need to sustain our food sources, by big percentages. But, we're not trying to do that. Instead, the demand is steadily rising up.

Thinking of this makes me wonder if big cities are ultimately, unsustainable. Growing food to be harvested by human hands enables incredible diversity, fertilizing with compost, manure, bone powder, fish meal, and rich organic fertilizers that can be distributed over smaller areas easily. No till gardens can preserve all of the healthy bacteria, insects, worms and ecosystems in the soil. Using mulch and cover crops to protect the land from sun and wind erosion, and to keep the moisture in, can stop soil depletion in those areas, and feed and protect the wildlife and life in the soil. Animals can be used as pest control and as a method of fertilizing – if you leave chickens, pigs, or cows to graze an area and leave manure behind, they will bring fertility to the land. But, you would not be able to grow the amount of food that would feed an entire city, not without it requiring a vast amount of human labour, which would make the food expensive, and unavailable to the poorest citizens.

But, we can't get rid of cities, so we have to keep developing healthier and more soil-protecting ways to grow big amounts of food, in order to create sustainable, resilient and secure sources of food for people living in all kinds of areas. Encouraging people to change their habits and eat less beef, lamb, poultry and animal products would help significantly, since the amount of food that needs to be grown would reduce by a lot. Encouraging people to grow their own food, in rich and diversity-preserving ways, also helps cut carbon emissions by a lot, since this food no longer needs to be shipped and transported. Having people understand how their food is grown, what it takes to produce, and what is lost in the process, might inspire them to change their habits, and put more effort into reducing waste. Because even after destroying all that wildlife and diverse ecosystems – 20 to 30% of that food is simply thrown away. Food that people grow themselves is most often, never thrown away, because then it is a prized produce, something they worked hard on, something they treasure. In case of a spoiled produce, it gets composted right back into the soil, making the waste non-existent.

Home grown food is often at least somewhat affected by bugs and pests, and that is normal. It's a sign of the food being healthy, unpoisoned, and obviously a great food source, since the bugs are all for it. I've noticed home-gardeners, who understand how pests work, feel skeptical about the store-bought food, just because it being so pest free is in fact, unnatural. 'What did you do to it, so the bugs didn't want it?' opens up the answers of how far one needs to go to make the produce undesirable and uninteresting to bugs. You need to go as far as convince them that this is not a good food source anymore. And the bugs acknowledge it, and go find food elsewhere. And we often have no choice, but to buy that exact same food.

Food grown for selling in stores has proved to be less nutritious, grown merely for the visual appeal, storage and transportation, rather than taste. This is why, after eating store-bought produce, homegrown will taste infinitely better, sweeter, with more intense flavour and noticeably better nutrition.

What we'll need to do is spread awareness, learn about the cost of our food, and change our habits to make it less damaging on the planet. We can also try growing food. Make barren areas into wildlife again. Build ponds to attract birds, animals and bugs. We can try making diverse no-till gardens where all of the different varieties grow on top of each other, together with flowers and weeds and mushrooms. Make it a place for birds, ladybugs and bees to gather. Make it friendly to little mice, frogs, lizards and butterflies. We might just help save some of the dying species on this planet.

#monocrops #agriculture #unsustainable food growing #gardening #ecology #climate crisis #climate change #plant agriculture #animal agriculture

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ceruleanwhore · 10 months

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I was just listening to the OtGW soundtrack in the car and I realized that there’s stuff in the music that actually backs up my kinda crack theory that the Queen of the Clouds is actually the Beast, or at least is tied to the Beast somehow (if we’re going with the idea that the show is Dante’s Inferno, the Woodsman and Adelaide could represent two of the three beasts from the Dark Wood of Error while the cloud lady could be the third.) First, I just want to take a moment to introduce my theory since I haven’t posted about it before. Basically, a while ago, as I was thinking about the ending of the series and trying to figure out what Greg wished for and how he ended up going from the Queen of the Clouds to being in that daze under the Beast’s control, it occurred to me that maybe they were one and the same. Part of this comes from how information about the Beast is provided to the boys and, by extent, the audience. We start off with generic fear about a nameless, nondescript ‘beast’ but, in “Songs of the Dark Lantern”, we are told for the first time that the Beast tells lies and also that the main thing he does is turn children into trees that he harvests for oil to fuel his lamp. To me, this says that he can’t just sneak up behind a child and turn them into a tree but, rather, that he tells lies because he has to lure them in somehow and trick them into becoming the trees. Also, the Beast is known for his lies and we see the Cloud Queen showing Wirt to Greg and lying to him about how Wirt has already been claimed and is too far gone and there is no way for him to go home with Greg. The other main piece of evidence for my little theory here is what Greg is doing with the Beast at the end, how he’s acting, and what exactly he’s saying. He’s doing stuff like putting a teacup on a rock so the sun sets behind it, because he had been told to catch the sun in a cup, and the Beast praises him for this, using a soft tone of voice like a normal person would use with a child that really isn’t befitting of a ‘beast’ at all. And yet, after being shown to do a task that the Beast asked him to do and praised him for completing, Greg is still saying to Wirt that he “did it,” that he “beat the Beast.” Well, if he was even the tiniest bit grounded in reality, there would be no way in Hell he’d be saying that as he’s been going around serving the Beast himself while his physical condition gets significantly worse and he even starts coughing up leaves. This clearly indicates that Greg is out to lunch, mentally, and I think it strongly supports the idea that Greg does not know at all that it’s the Beast who’s having him do stuff like catch the sun in a cup or that it’s the Beast who’s praising him. What I think it is is that, in his head, this is all stuff he’s running around doing for the Cloud Queen in order to set up for or earn whatever his wish was and she’s the one he sees and hears and thinks he’s talking to. Now, as for how the soundtrack further supports this, I’d like to start with singing in the series. Most characters don’t sing at all and few have their own songs, but something that just became clear to me is that, like what Lin Manuel Miranda did in Hamilton, each character who really does sing their own songs gets their own signature style of music. For example, Jason Funderburker (the frog) gets that kind of bluesy sound like in the opening theme and the song “Over the Garden Wall” while Greg has that really upbeat kids’ music, like with “Potatoes and Molasses” and “Adelaide Parade.” More importantly, though, the only two characters in the whole thing who ever sing opera are the Beast and the Queen of the Clouds. Other bits include the part where Greg is ‘Greg’ to literally everyone except the Cloud Queen and the Beast, who both call him ‘Gregory.’ Additionally, there’s the scene at the start of the last episode when the Beast is talking to Greg and he says “Anything is possible if you set your mind to it, right?” which sticks out because we’ve never seen Greg say that to the Beast or even just around him, but he did just say it to the Cloud Queen not that long ago. This one’s a bit of a stretch but there’s also how the light reflects in Greg’s eyes both as he enters the dream and when he’s talking to the Queen of the Clouds which reminded me of the “you have beautiful eyes” part of the first episode when those wild, glowing eyes of the corrupted dog reflect in Greg’s own eyes. Moreover, the lyrics of “Everything is Nice and Fine All the Time” and “Forward Oneiroi” have some bits that sound kind of sinister, which doesn’t make sense if the Cloud Kingdom and their queen are actually just good and nice. Specifically, “Everything is Nice and Fine” has a couple mentions of lies, which is something that throughout the series really only comes up in the Unknown when it comes to the Beast or fear of him, and there’s one line that really sticks out to me of “Our songs are filled with love, the sweetest lie/And we can send them down to you with a little shove.” The cherubs in this Cloud Kingdom are literally coming out and saying that love, or maybe just their love, is a lie so their songs, including the one they’re singing about how everything is nice and fine all the time, are “filled with” a lie. Not to mention the line of “Lasso a cloud and make the flowers grow,” which is eerily reminiscent of the task Greg is given later on of “lowering the sun out of the sky and into this china cup” in how it’s such a whimsical yet surreal and impossible action. I’m also just going to put the lyrics to “Forward Oneiroi” here real quick so you can see them: Forward, cherubs, hear the song A child's wishes call us on Descend! Descend! 'Ere he 'scapes, for dreams Our winged wind hath made For only beneath the veil of sleep Can we Oneiroi act on men. The first thing I want to talk about here is the actual Oneiroi. From what I found, Oneiroi were lesser deities of dreams in some forms and areas of Hellenic paganism who were led by Morpheus, who tended to take a human shape in the dreams he visited. If the welcome wagon is all the Oneiroi who are addressed in the Cloud Queen’s song, then that means that she, as their leader, is the Morpheus figure, as in a powerful being who isn’t actually human but takes a human shape in dreams. Also, that second part of “Descend! Descend!/'Ere he 'scapes” sounds genuinely threatening. If the dream is so good and “everything is nice and fine all the time,” why would Greg ‘escape’? And now I’ll put in the lyrics to Beast’s part of Come Wayward Souls too because I want to compare these two songs: Come, wayward souls And wander through the darkness There is a light for the lost and the meek Sorrow and fear are easily forgotten When you submit to the soil of the earth Okay so where I’m going with this is that these songs feel very similar to me, both in tone and musicality as well as lyrical content. If you took “Forward Oneiroi” and swapped out the words “cherubs” and “Oneiroi” for “children” or “souls” and then just put it in a darker sounding minor key, I think it would feel about the same as “Come Wayward Souls” and I definitely could see that song being one of the Beast’s. I would also point out how the lyrics of both the Beast’s songs have this weirdly encouraging, light, hopeful tone, which makes sense given that he waits for kids to get lost and give up and then he comes in and scoops them up. In “Wayward Souls,” he says “There is a light for the lost and the meek/Sorrow and fear are easily forgotten/When you submit to the soil of the earth,” which yes, sounds kinda ominous with the part about submitting to the earth but, really, is putting light and hope out there. It’s saying that, if you just go with him and submit to the earth, there is a light for you, some beacon of hope, and you can forget the sorrow and fear you’re currently feeling. He does the same in “The Jolly Woodsman,” too: “When the fog of life surrounds you/When you think you've lost your way/Come with me and join the forest/Come with me and join the play.” Lastly, I want to compare the kids’ choir part of “Wayward Souls” and “Potatus et Molassus” to “Everything is Nice and Fine.” For reference, the full choir part is “Grow, tiny seed/You are called to the trees/Rise 'til your leaves fill the sky/Until your sighs fill the air in the night/Lift your mighty limbs/And give praise to the fire.” The first thing that sticks out is how much this choir of children who we know to be the souls in the edelwood trees are talking about reaching up to the sky with the branches of their trees, which reminds me of lines like “So hitch a ride into the sky,” “The softest clouds and rainbow skies ain’t gonna lie,” and “Everyone is sittin' pretty on top of the weather,” from “Everything is Nice and Fine.” I thought I’d already said it but I just looked back and apparently I didn’t say that, with the idea that the Cloud Queen is the Beast, there is also the idea that everyone we see in Cloud City is just the not-yet-sacrificed souls of the children in the edelwoods, and stuff like this kinda goes with that. Another thing I noticed that makes sense to me, though idk if it’ll make sense to everyone, is that “Potatoes and Molasses” is to “Potatus et Molassus” as “Everything is Nice and Fine” is to the children’s choir part in the Beast’s song. I would even go so far as to claim that the whole point of the “Potatus et Molassus” reprise is to draw attention to “Everything is Nice and Fine” and then call into question everything from the Cloud City stuff. I say this because, as I said previously, each character who sings their own designated songs has their own designated style and Everything is Nice and Fine is in a similar style to Greg’s own style (it’s a bit different though, so it’s not like they just used Greg’s style because it’s his dream or something) while “Potatus et Molassus” is in the same exact style as the “grow tiny seed” stuff, to the extent that the children’s choir is even used in that song. So, when I look at Greg in episodes 8 and 10, I think that what’s going on is that the Beast doesn’t just come up and talk to you as this ominous, scary shadow guy with antlers and weird eyes but, rather, he can be subtle and manipulative and do shit like get inside of your head and manipulate you. After all, Satan’s a liar and a conjurer too and, with the Inferno view of OtGW, the Beast is Satan. My bet is that, at the start of episode 10, Greg is aware enough to know that he’s no longer in his dream but he sees the Queen of the Clouds rather than the Beast and imagines that she’s there to guide him through whatever tasks he needs to do to get Wirt back and go home or whatever. Once there’s the tree starting to grow around him, I believe that, in his head, he succeeded and then was back home or maybe some other nice, cute, safe space like Cloud City with all the other souls. When he sings “Potatus et Molassus,” in whatever is going on in his head, he’s just having a good time wherever he is, singing “Potatoes and Molasses,” like how he and all those other children heard a lilting soprano instead of an ominous bass when the Beast sings. (Sorry this was so long btw)

#over the garden wall #otgw #over the garden wall meta #otgw meta #otgw greg #otgw wirt #the beast #otgw beast #otgw soundtrack #over the garden wall soundtrack #over the garden wall analysis #otgw analysis

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dalliansss · 4 months

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Turgon, tipsy, turns to Finrod. His vision is now in triples, and even though himself and his cousin are doing nothing but sitting with Glorfindel and Ecthelion (all of them in varying levels of drunkenness, really, not just tipsiness), still, Turgon's vision shows him three Finrod's, and he cannot help but think that right there is a disaster waiting to happen. Three. Finrods. Eru's withered balls. Not even Valinor can handle such a trainwreck waiting to happen. They started the drinking an hour after the Mingling. Just their usual. It is in the middle of a work week, and they can't really afford to be plastered, but Turgon knows Finrod will plaster himself anyway, and Ecthelion will have to fish his cousin from the nearest ditch, or rescue the nearest plant pot from Finrod's grasp.

"Wait," Turgon slurred. "Why do you know a lot about frogs?" He asks this as if this is the greatest mystery in Arda, and not the cryptic line in the Ainulindalë: all Music comes from Eru. "'S like....you've been...talking lot about frogs....why do you know all these things about frogs?"

The triple Finrods in his vision sway left to right.

"'Cause of Egg," Finrod says. "Cause my hanno asks all the things 'bout frogs....so I have to know lot about frogs. Frogs, you know. Ribbit ribbit." Then Finrod tips his head back and laughs uproariously.

Glorfindel laughs somewhere by Turgon's left. "Frogs are great," the second blond in the group supplies.

"You could eat them, you know," says Ecthelion. "Wonder if they taste good with potatoes."

"S like Finno," Turgon's words stumble one over the other. "Knows a lot about frogs. Maybe even more than Yavanna. And-- Ingoldo--know? Said exactly same thing. Because of Egg. He had to learn all this...trivia about frogs. What is it with frogs and Aikanár? Tell 'im-- tell 'im go be interested in penguins some time. Frogs. Tulkas's flea ridden beard. Frogs."

"We penguin waddle!" Finrod excitedly declares. In Turgon's vision, his cousin splits into four. Four! What was going on?!

"Wha's penguin waddle?" Ecthelion asks.

Finrod tries to stand. Tries. But his balance fails, and he topples sideways. Glorfindel squawks awkwardly and catches him. Both blonds giggle like no tomorrow, and Turgon finally goes cross-eyed, and he shuts his eyes. Ugh....now he's the one who needs a bucket....

#silmarillion #my drabs #finrod #turgon #ecthelion #glorfindel #alcohol #drinking #vanya menace group

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idv-sunsxin3 · 2 years

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Idk if requests are open for twisted wonderland but can you do the dorm leaders like malleus and leona with a s/o that acts like Froppy from mha? Bonus points if s/o also has the same frog quirk as her!! Thank you and have a nice dayyy

TWST Dorm Leaders with MHA Froppy-like! S/O

{Headcanons/Scenarios}

Gender Neutral! S/O

Note// I'll pretty much do all the dorm leaders despite that I was originally planning to just do Leona, Malleus, and Azul djfnnrn- But anyway, have a nice day,,, nwn

___

Probably have seen many twisted stuff before like anyone, but never expected his S/O to resemble as a frog,,,

Honestly finds you cute and endearing even thought he would be a bit disturbed whenever you touch things with your sticky tongue out of habit-

He still loves you, tho,,, ówò

Kindly and half-heartedly would tell you which object to not lift with your tongue once in a while-

If you don’t mind, he would actually take your quirk as an advantage and have you use it to molest Ace in doing the chores- 😅

Some Heartslabyul students would go to you whenever they want to calm Riddle down, or have you save them from his fearful wrath-

You’re pretty much the chill one in the relationship and an emotional support to Riddle,,, He often tries to stop himself from being raged whenever you’re around.

___

Ruggie tends to go to you when he needs to wake Leona up-

If you’re the mischievous type, you would stick your tongue in Leona’s cheek as a way to wake him up for his dismay- (which is effective hhhh)

When there’s a time after he stands up for a few hours to finally go to a class at least once, he would just straight away pick you up like a sack of potato and head to bed for cuddles and a nap-

You’ll either stop him from doing that by sticking your tongue to his cheek once again-

Would definitely lick and lightly bite your cheek in return-

But please- it would be so adorable if a small froggy gets cuddled by a floofy lion HDHDHDHWHW 🥺✨

___

Low-key weirded out by the frog sounds and the long tongue- but still tries to cover his shock by fixing his glasses occasionally.

Pretty much you two can stay in areas where water is near, so you both probably would hang out often underwater,,, thanks to the frog quirk, you can stay underwater for 4-7 hours at most like most frogs. At that point, you’ll have to resurface for air as you still can drown like a human-

It actually takes a long while for Azul to show you his octopus form,,, but he definitely won’t mind taking walks on the sand underwater, while holding your hand as you swim… Your company always soothes him smh,,, úwù

Definitely not me now thinking of the tweels singing “Kiss the Girl” but is also “Kiss the Frog” to make Azul kiss you while having a boat ride with you HAHAHA-

I’m also this close to think that Azul would probably make observations or study you since he have never met someone like you before,,,, (like, how can that tongue extend that long while also being able to fit into your mouth-) He’s pretty much fascinated by your abilities.

The octopus-froggy dynamic would be pretty eccentric,,, yet so wholesome,,,- (Like the octopus holding the froggy gently with his tentacles,,, ;u;💕)

___

When outside the dorm, Kalim would find a frog at rare times and the first thing he thinks about the frog is you-

Kalim would sometimes copy your frog-like behavior with innocent intentions,,, like making the frog noises to play along or stick his cute tongue out whenever you do, with a bright smile djjdjdjdjej,,,, 🥺

Would squish your cheeks since they look surprisingly squishable,,,, hhh

Pretty much holding and poking you out of occasional curiosity,,, such as holding your slightly bigger hands and play with it too-

Possibly the type of bf to encourage you to stick your tongue out and extend it to the longest as you can for him to see- the last times he saw that were so cool to him,,, X’D

___

Pretty much wouldn’t notice at first until you stick your tongue out and extend that SUPER LONG tongue-

Eyeballs literally going wide like plates-

Would faint if you ever catch a fly with your tongue and ate it right in front of him-

Lowkey loves how the end of your long hair has it into a huge bow cutely- makes him get a mental note to braid your hair for you too,,,-

Loves to boop your nose for some reason- even when he’s looking at you in the eye with a blank look or was seriously scolding a Pomefiore student that was in front of him few seconds ago,,,

Pretty much giving the excuse that there was “some dirt on your tiny, little nose of yours”-

___

Weeaboo alert-/ih

I imagine Idia thinking that you’re actually cute- as you seem to really came from a manga(exactly)-

Every dorm leader would be very impressed with your tongue’s strength, Idia would be the one who got very shock-

Most likely would use you as a shield or hide behind you as if you’re his bodyguard jdjdjdjdj-

He would let out a high-pitch scream whenever you pull him away from danger with your frog tongue-

You’ll do most of the talking for him, as he would be the one to cling on you or cuddle you the most hhhh- 🥺

___

He often has you around on his shoulders or around his neck- seems to often lose you by sight whenever there’s a big crowd,,,, 😔

I like to imagine that tall-short dynamic you both would have- it would be pretty cute,,,

Malleus would sometimes hold you in his arms carefully like a stuffed animal- or as if you’re really a frog-

Probably would call you “Beauty of the Pond”, instead of “Child of Man.”

He’s pretty curious about you, not only about your frog quirk but also about yourself- you just seem very interesting and comically endearing to get to know with,,,

I remembered something about frogs hibernating during winter- (if that’s even possible to be part of the frog quirk but-), Malleus would be pretty thoughtful and caring about the things you like and the things you don’t like. He would be willing to take care of you and watch over you as you hibernate.

___

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thehistoriangirl · 9 months

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The Tides Have Veiled [Five]

With this chapter, the first arc of the story is completed! :D So beware if this starts in 1 and ends like in 8/9 jkfjhdkjfjkf

I'm also playing around with a slightly different formatting for my fics, but it isn't like very obvious right?

Viktor x Fem!Reader----Gothic AU/Spooky Sea-----3K----SFW

> M A S T E R L I S T < ← Previous // Next →

Synopsis: Piltover the Old has an old lighthouse that looms over an abandoned port. From the house in the wailing cliff’s edge, the lighthouse owner watches that the beacon is being lighten up each time darkness arrives, so that monsters wouldn't dare to crawl inland, or so legends say. Both building are haunted, maybe even the man himself, by both past and present ghosts. Surprisingly, the keeper’s work is beyond turning on the beacon every night— but the rest is on you to discover.

Chapter Summary: Even when there's seemingly nothing left to lose, you find yourself fearing still. But all new beginning start with a slight flick of dismay.

Taglist: @local-mr-frog

The only sound echoing in the middle of the dining room was the clinking of the silverware against the dishes, and the occasional glass settled against the wooden surface of the table.

Your hair was still wet from the boiling bath Viktor coerced you to step inside as soon as your legs felt steady enough to climb toward the house, occasional drips falling from your shoulders toward the worn-out sweater that had been better days; the black wool loose from the knitted geometric pattern around the wrists, softened on the elbows.

You could almost picture it stretched in Viktor’s lean arms as he reclined against the desk, all those books you dusted off scattered over the surface, keen to his scanning gaze.

“I hope the meal is of your liking,” Viktor said, tearing you up from your sidetracked mind. “Not many people like fish.”

You were playing with the fork, hovering it against the mashed potatoes he had thrown in with whatever remnants of food he had in the pantry. "Not liking fish when your family is constituted by fishermen it's like sentencing yourself to starve," you replied despite the way talking about them make your heart sink into an unknown abyss within your chest that howled just like the cliff.

Viktor clutched his spoon, eyes filled with worry that not even the bright lamp hung above your heads could conceal.

“Thank you for the meal,” you said, trying to change the topic, for you didn’t wish his pity. “You didn’t have to. It’s truly delicious.” Even if your stomach couldn’t contain that much food right now, each spoonful and bite weighting as if you'd been fed lead.

He observed you, eyebrows slightly raised when you forced the mashed potatoes down—your worrying brain telling you that you hadn’t tasted anything ever since early morning, that it would be rude not to eat what he served you.

“You don’t have to finish everything,” Viktor muttered noncommittally. “Forcing yourself would only make you sick.”

One would think that you were used to forcing things into your life already. From following people that clearly didn't care about you; a life aboard a swaying, tiny fisher boat despite your aversion to deep water; an adult life bound as a perfect housewife to another human in exchange for money without the chance of second-guesses.

You looked at him, thinking the way he pictured you now. As a broken, unstable person that was about to jump off the cliff. If Viktor was rehearsing the gentlest way of firing you, your mind couldn’t blame him for it.

Because your aunt was right, you were too unlovable to find a shelter that would be willing to guard you.

“I think you should go sleep now,” Viktor said, settling the napkin from his legs back to the table. “It’s getting late.”

Your jaw tightened, and a strange dread settled in your heart when you thought about how in the upcoming morning, you would have to say goodbye to the old lighthouse.

The chair scraped the wooden floor with a horrible shriek, and you cringed for being so petty after all the kindness Viktor had shown you.

"Ah, yes. Of course." You nodded, forcing a smile. "Where can I borrow my raincoat?" you muttered, walking toward the living room without daring to see him when you felt his gaze burning at your back.

“I mean here,” Viktor said. “You shouldn’t go outside alone at this hour.”

Because you may truly jump this time, your brain told you. That was it, then. Your entire recollection of encounters with him will be reduced to that fatal misleading call from the hollow echo of the waves scrapping the rocks of the maritime abyss.

“And what about the lighthouse?” You bit the inside of your cheek. “It’s my job to keep watch.”

Viktor stood up, his cane thumping against the floor when he took a couple of steps closer to you. You blinked, looking from the corner of your eye at how his hand raised awkwardly only to fall back to the back of his chair before hovering in the air. “You’d been maintaining the power system, so I’d say the lighthouse can stay alone for one night.” He left the crinkled napkin atop his full glass of coffee with milk. “Allow me to lead the way.”

You returned to the familiar second floor, passing further down his office toward the end of the hallway that was flanked with closed doors and wide windows covered in dusty curtains Viktor had to change soon. From the drapes, golden light flooded in flicking pools against the red wood of the floors, the windows vibrating with the howl of the foghorn.

"I'm afraid I have no spare rooms presentable enough for a guest," Viktor said, opening the door of his bedroom at the far end of the hallway. "But I hope you can be comfortable enough here."

“Oh, no, no!” You looked at him, cheeks flushed from embarrassment. “I can’t take your room. Please, I would rest somewhere else.”

He observed your state with a slight smile, barely curving one side of his lips. “Take no mind. I have urgent work to do tonight anyway. You will be using it better than I can tonight.”

You squinted your eyes at him. “Is that a coaxing lie?” you had to ask, because how he could have already work piled up when he had just returned from Piltover?

Viktor shrugged. “There’s always something to do,” he answered with an amused smile. Barely an answer at all. “I will be in my studio.” Viktor gestured to the second door to the left, at the start of the hallway. “In case you need something.”

The bedroom was just how you left it, except for the towel hastily thrown in the bed—Viktor had been in a hurry to find where you had been, it seemed. You peeked at his figure as he hurriedly took the towel to put it under his arm. Crumpled bedsheets and the tossed duvet half-laid in the ground, the open curtain showing the ghostly tower of the lighthouse, white and red against the grey of the endless sky, the gargantuan eye watching over ink-black waves, and mossy cliffs.

“Thank you, Viktor.”

He didn't stay long to extend the awkwardness of both your presences inside a single room. Muttering an "It's nothing," Viktor walked away with you watching his reflection from the misted window, his white shirt contrasting against the darkness outside while you seemed to be absorbed by it.

Viktor closed the door with a soft click, and until then you allowed yourself to sit at the edge of the fluffy bed, your hands passing over the worn-out fabric of the bedsheets.

You didn’t wish to pry, but your eyes were drawn to the organic chaos inside the room. This room had been locked when you were cleaning the rest of the house, so papers were scattered over the desk, tucked in the bookshelves. All filled with Viktor’s cursive and tilted calligraphy—written with the inferior velocity of the hands while the brain concocted thoughts much faster.

The door of the closet was left ajar, your feet muffled against a carpet when you went to close it, not without smelling the essence of Viktor’s clothes as the air blew toward you when you swing the door closed.

At that moment, the entrance door creaked open, Viktor's face looking inside.

You jumped backward, almost tripping over a coffer filled with sweaters and shirts.

He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Eh, I’m… I’m sorry.” He extended a glass of water toward you. “I forgot to bring this the first time.”

Your nails scratched his fingers when you took the cold glass with a shaking hand. “Uh, thank you. Thank you, Viktor. You didn’t have to,” you said with a smile. “I could go for one myself.”

He opened the door enough for his body to slip inside, closing the door behind his back without getting you out of his golden gaze. For some reason, your heart started beating faster.

“Viktor?”

He rummaged through the pockets of his jacket, getting out your pink and orange shell. "I almost forgot to give you this. You left it in the lighthouse."

The shell was warm from his body proximity, soft and bright against your skin when he put it in your palm.

The ghost of a smile appeared. "I suppose it doesn't bring much luck to me, huh?" you commented. "Or perhaps it did until I forgot to carry it with me today."

Viktor didn’t say anything, instead placing an elegant hand over your shoulder, long fingers barely squeezing through your sweater. “Perhaps, if I carry it around enough, things will get better,” you added in a whisper.

He chuckled. "We shall see." Viktor stepped away, eyeing the door. "Miss, I would like to ask you to please refrain to get out of the room later tonight," he said suddenly, making you want to seek his gaze. Finding nothing more but a fleeting look from the corner of his eyes.

“Why?” It wasn’t like you would like to creep around his property when he wasn’t looking.

Viktor stood on the threshold of the bedroom, only looking back at you when he was about to close the door. "Do you remember what I told you when we met?"

You blinked, and he sighed.

“I’m not trying to scare you now,” Viktor said, his tone serious. You could imagine it reverberating in a fancy lecture inside Piltover’s university. “But you should consider my words tonight, at least.”

How all stories might have something of truth wrapped between them.

He left after that.

*~*~*~*

The foghorn startled you awake, in one of those flicking instances when slumber grew thin enough for sounds to filter from reality through the dreamlands. The cliff's screams vibrate in your window. Calling you back.

You sat in the dark room, the headrest solid against your shaky limbs, hands barely swiping away the beads of sweat clinging to your forehead.

When your fingers took the glass off the nightstand, your mind had already accepted that something was off. It was too light, and when you tilted it between your lips, there was no water left.

Viktor's words clung to you like a heavy coat when you slipped out of bed, thinking that rather than go to the kitchen, you could fill the water with a tap in the sink outside the bathroom. Or better, you could ask Viktor to accompany you all the way to the kitchen.

It didn't matter if you felt childish, voice trembling while asking. It was better than the heavy weight of expectation settled in your stomach when you opened the door, the orange light of the bulb above your head mixing with the one drawn with the oil lamps turned off all along the hallway.

You closed your eyes, a sigh relaxing your muscles when all the air was out of your body.

The wood was calm and silent tonight, forgotten the tantrum of early in the day. You thought the house had been amused by the sight of the conundrum, the most interesting thing that had happened in the vicinity in how long.

You stopped at the start of the hallway, where the stairs were sunk in a dim light from the landing below, the oil lamp flicking as if a window had been left open.

Viktor wasn’t in his studio. Or maybe he was, but asleep already. The door closed and the space beneath the wood and the floor tinted in black. You bit your lips anxiously, gripping the glass in a forceful grip.

You swallowed; tongue so dry it made you want to cough for the salty aftertaste clinging to it.

Tap water was it—nothing you weren't used to doing back with your grandparents.

Without thinking, you turned back toward your room, the corner of your eye still and covered in darkness. After a couple of steps, you heard a door closing downstairs, the same cry of rusty metal hinges protesting.

You looked back at the stairs, hoping to see Viktor appear after a night of hard study.

But then, doubt settled in your stomach, gluing your cold feet to the ground. What if he gets upset to see you disobeying the rules of his house? You were already being a nuance with how many things he had been doing for you, from feeding you to saving your life—

Stop, you begged your mind. Stop.

But your mind didn’t. My aunt is right. I’m a nuance. I understand why they wanted to exchange me away.

The light in the first oil lamp started flicking, the supply dying from being kept on all night. From bright yellow to sicken orange to, finally, red blinks.

Your nails got buried in your palm, steps go backward without turning your back to the stairs. The bathroom door was at an arm's distance, doorknob cold when you turned it in your palm, slipping inside so quickly you felt a cold breeze against your cheek.

The bathroom was divided into three parts, the first one with a sink, a mirror, and a cabinet filled with amber glass bottles with shampoo and lotions. You filled your glass there, waiting with your ear against the wood to hear any sound coming from the stairs.

When nothing happened and you felt your eyes weighting from sleep, you opened the door, welcoming the orange light of the lamps that would guide you back to the ajar door of the bedroom.

The stains caught your attention the first second you exited the bathroom. Coming from the stairs down the hallway, stopping in front of the bedroom. The brown outline of muddy feet.

Your heart sank, ironically picking up speed. The glass slipped from your grasp, water absorbing the mud marks closer to you, almost erasing them away.

"Viktor?" you said, knowing that it was impossible. It was impossible to gather mud like this so near the sea, here where everything was endless sand and broken shells.

Nobody answered. You didn't see messy chestnut hair coming from the office door, nor golden eyes squinted in sleepiness and confusion at the sound of broken glass.

A silly thought danced in your head. I should’ve brought the shell.

You returned to the bathroom, finding a cold, uncomfortable bed in the bathtub. The mosaic filtered its freezing temperature through your back, but you weren't shivering because of it.

You had to be seeing things. It was still a dream. You had sleepwalked, painting all sorts of fantasies into the real world. And yet you didn't move, you didn't look away from the tiny window until the grey and black of the sky faded into blue, where the light of the beacon died alongside the foghorn.

Until then, you slipped out of the bathroom with a sore back, peeking out the hallway that still had the oil lamps turned on.

Only that this time, the muddy prints were gone, leaving only the shards of your broken glass behind that prickled your skin when you picked them, walking toward Viktor's bedroom, empty and silent. The glass had opened light cuts on your fingerpads, as if to assure you that it hadn’t been a dream.

*~*~*~*

“Bad night?” Viktor said when you entered the living room. His voice made you jump, hands grabbing the stairs rail with so much force your fingers felt numb.

The coffee table in front of him was dirty with breadcrumbs, and two plates were left on top of each other in front of his untouched toast.

You quirked an eyebrow, wanting any excuse you could hold onto to forget that last night even happened. You didn’t have to return to this damn house at night anyway.

“Did you have visitors?” Who would come so early in the day? Were they still here? You removed awkwardly on your place, feeling your face hot if said visits get to catch you here with him, alone. It wouldn’t do good to his reputation if they were friends who came from the city.

Viktor reclined against the couch. "Your family is very insistent," he said nonchalantly, taking a sip of his beverage. You wanted to recoil into yourself, to become a speckle of dust and fly away unnoticed. "It's alright. After all, it was me who told your aunt I wanted her blessing," he commented, and you couldn't stop a smile from growing.

"Oh, Viktor. I'm so sorry," you started, making your way to pick up the dishes they had left behind. "I've abused your hospitality too much for my liking." You tilted your head. "I—I'll pay you. Please. I don't like to feel as if… as if I owe you something." To him and everyone.

He reclined his chin against his elbow, propelled between the cushions. The living room was slightly dark from the curtains covering the windows near the hearth despite being drawn already.

"Miss," Viktor breathed, his soft voice stopping you midway toward the kitchen, dishes, and cups balanced in your arms. "Please sit."

He’s going to fire me. He had enough of me. And could you blame him?

You sat there, your back stiffening as you felt tears of frustration prickle in your cheeks. The only noise flowing through the room was the distant roar of waves.

Viktor started stirring his coffee cup, movements so forceful the black liquid started pouring over the porcelain rim. His eyes kept you from squirming nervously, shining like twin suns in a clear sky.

“I ask you to please listen to all I have to say before answering—before you even decide to go away, even.”

What? How could you even fantasize to go away from this place that was everything left for you?

With growing fear, your nod was barely perceptible. But he was watching you so closely that he caught the gentle sway of your hair.

Your mind was sent overdrive, filled with a turbulent whirlpool of ideas. He's going to fire me. He knows I snuck out of the room last night. He's the one behind the footprints. He—

In the end, nothing could have ever prepared you for what came out his mouth right after calling your name in such a strange tone, you could try all your life to decipher, only to come out fruitless.

“I want you to marry me.”

#arcane viktor x reader #viktor arcane x reader #arcane viktor x you #arcane viktor fanfic #viktor arcane x you #viktor arcane fanfic #arcane x female reader #viktor x reader arcane

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ao3writers-pls-love-me · 2 years

Text

solangelo headcanons because talking is overrated

nico would be very into thriller and detective stuffs while will would be obsessed with stranger things and charlie's angels

the more nico spends time with will the more in sync and alike he is

*saw a cat* *both simultaneously raise hands and pull out cat treats*

will: "for real?!" nico: "for real?"

*taunting a monster* "your mama’s so hairy that when she went to see the new Star Wars movi-" "YEAH- and everyone thought Chewbacca was making a promotional appearance HA!"

"gods i wanna stuff a whole dragon in my stomach..." "..." "...and i want to eat this skrunkly little ham sandwich right here."

*nico looks at will* *will notices it and raises his eyebrows* *nico winks with both eyes* *will wiggles his fingers* *nico bites his tongue* *will makes witchy laughter* *nico sniffs his nose* "get a room." "stfu connor stoll."

small talks with nico and will feel awkward af, they prefer meaningful long conversations

silent is very important to them, to other campers it seems like they having beef but to nico and will that's true comfort

"hypothetically, what if i turned into a cat?" "then you would be the luckiest cat in the world." "oh-" "i would set this mortal realm on fire for you." "oh."

"remember when-" and they started sobbing violently

they would try to think abt how to compliment other demigods like clovis is such a attentive listener he slept through like half of my feelings or drew may seem a bit of an a-hole but she actually gave great skin care tips or lou turned an apple into a rat once and said 'that's similar to chocolate frogs in harry potter, try them out will!' and she was so funny i almost ate them fr

then they looked at percy and went nah that dude could devour a kiwi pizza and get poisoned instead

they often gave each other heart eyes

and nico would immediately get smack in the head by a camper because they were dueling

will would panic and then potato-shack nico to the infirmary right after

will claimed that nico really liked to sleep outside and thought it's romantic

minus the mosquito

they couldn't though because of harpies

but will would still help clearing out nico's cabin so that both of them could lay on the floor with much more opened space

nico felt like an idiot going along with it but lowkey appreciated having will there making dumb contented kekeke giggles because he thought nico like it

nico: you think i'm pretty?

will: w-what?

nico: do you think i'm pretty?

will: yeah..? i-i mean idk i guess you are? uh–sorry i mean yes–i mean very uh very pretty just um yeah so so–pretty like wow haha the most prettiest creature ever like woah

will: ...

will: i am so sorry

nico: no no don't be. that's really nice of you

will: ...

nico: thank you it's cute

will: ...gods are we like this right now?

nico: we're actually achieving relationship goals what can you have possibly meant?

will: well–alright i mean but are we doing it really–

nico: you're pretty too you know

will: w-woah wait

nico: you look so adorable right now i could cook you to medium rare

will: that's–

nico: you're so gorgeous i could slap your dad in the face because he created such a fine piece of work

will: o-oh

nico: you are absolutely beautiful oh my gods like i would happily snap the stolls legs just so you could be a little more self-aware of it will

will: nico i–you–goodness...

nico: ...

nico: dam you're right we are not having this at all. let's go outside and fight harpies and accidentally kiss and blame it on the adrenaline rush

will: chokes cutely

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whumpy-writings · 3 months

Text

Helpless

Febuwhump 2024 Day 1

The Dhampir Files Masterlist

CW: Non-con drugging, abusive parents (whumpees are adults), carewhumpers, reference to murder of parents

"You're an old man now, ya know that?" Cal leaned against the doorframe, smirking. Renn rolled his eyes.

"You're older than me."

"Exactly. Welcome to the old man club, where our favorite activity is napping and complaining loudly about the weather." Cal crossed the room and ruffled Renn's hair. Renn slapped his hand away playfully.

"But seriously, Renn. Happy Birthday."

"Thanks," Renn said. "I honestly can't believe I'm twenty. Part of me didn't think we'd live this long."

Cal sighed. "Wow, way to bring down the mood." He wrapped Renn in a hug. Renn closed his eyes and squeezed his brother back. They were dhampirs, half human and half vampire. They weren't supposed to exist. If the authorities ever discovered them, they would be executed. There had been several close calls over the years, but they had so far evaded detection.

"Boys! Dinner is ready," Silvie called from downstairs. She was the human housekeeper who had taken care of them for the past few years. Ever since things with their vampire parents had gone sour.

The two boys tromped downstairs. Renn breathed in the scent of rosemary roasted chicken. It was his favorite meal.

"It's smells delicious in here." Renn pulled out his chair and settled in, Cal in the chair across from him.

"I would hope so. I've been slaving away at the stove all day. There's mushroom soup, rosemary chicken, mashed potatoes, and a lemon cake for dessert." Silvie put a dish of butter on the table, removed her apron, and sat down.

Renn's mouth watered at the feast. He started to fill his plate. "Thank you, Silvie. Everything looks amazing."

"Anything for you, Renn. Happy birthday."

They talked and laughed as they ate. Renn drank the cup of blood Silvie had provided for him to wash down his dinner.

Silvie brought out the cake and she and Cal fussed over how best to arrange the twenty candles on top.

"Well make a wish," Cal said.

Renn stared at the flickering flames, contemplating. Then he blew out the candles. I wish for twenty more years just like this.

The cake was, of course, heavenly. Renn leaned back in his chair. "I pronounce this birthday feast a success." He got to his feet and started to gather the dirty dishes.

"Hey, I got those," Cal said as he swatted Renn's hand away. Renn let his brother have the dishes. Cal was at the sink when Renn noticed Silvie crying.

"What's wrong?" Renn pulled out a chair next to her, his brow pinched in concern. She looked at her lap and sniffled into a handkerchief.

"Oh, nothing. You boys are just both so grown up." Sylvie looked at him with a sad expression. "It feels like it went by so fast." She stroked his cheek. "I'll miss you."

"What do you mean?" Renn asked. "I'm not going anywhere."

Sylvie's eyes widened. "I mean . . . I'll miss the little boy you used to be."

Renn couldn't suppress his snort. "Really? I think I single-handedly gave you at least three-quarters of your grays."

Sylvie laughed. "You weren't that bad. I only got half from you, the other half came from your brother."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cal called from the sink. "I'm an angel."

"What about that time you brought an entire bucket of frogs into the house?" Renn asked.

Cal spun around. "It was freezing outside! I was trying to save them."

Sylvie chuckled. "I swear my heart almost gave out when I woke up to a frog on my pillow."

The rest of the evening passed quietly. Renn changed into his nightclothes and climbed into bed. It was early spring and he left the window cracked open to get the cool night breeze. The only sounds were the chirping of the crickets and the wind whooshing through the leaves. Renn, Cal, and Sylvie lived in a little house out in the country, far away from prying eyes. It hadn't always been that way. Renn shook off the memory. They were here now, that's what mattered. He was just about to put his candle out when there was a knock at his door.

"Come in."

Sylvie came in, a candle in one hand and a cup in the other.

"I brought you some tea," she said as she set the candle on the table. "I know how much you like the chamomile."

Renn sat up in bed and took the teacup. "Thanks. Does it have-"

"Yes, I put in two dollops of honey."

Renn grinned. "You're the best, Sylvie."

Renn took a sip of the tea. He sighed at the sweetness. Sylvie sat down on the edge of his bed.

"I love you, Renn. Please always remember that."

Renn's forehead creased. "I love you too. Are you alright? You've seemed sad today." He took another sip of his tea. He could feel a headache coming on.

"You've always been such a sweet boy. I asked them for more time, but they said it had to be now."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Renn asked. His vision blurred and his head pounded. He suddenly was so, so tired. Sylvie took the cup from him as he fell back against the pillows.

"I'm sorry," Sylvie said. Renn's eyes widened. She had drugged him. But why? He tried to move away from her but his limbs were as heavy as lead. Sylvie shifted his head into her lap. "Don't fight it. It's no use. Just relax, Renn." Renn's eyes drifted shut. He forced them open. He had to get away. He had to warn Cal. He attempted to yell but all that came out was a strangled sob. He was going to die. He had always thought he would burn to death. That someday the authorities would discover him and Cal and have them burned at the stake for being monstrosities. He had never thought it would be like this. Drugged by the woman who he loved as if she was his own mother.

"It's okay honey, it's okay," Sylvie soothed as she ran a hand through his hair. "You're just going to sleep for a little bit." Renn wanted to pull away from her, but he was completely helpless. The last thing he saw before the darkness claimed him was the tear sliding down Sylvie's face.

Renn floated in the darkness for what felt like eternity.

"He's more sensitive than Callum," a voice said. "She should have given him a smaller dose."

"She had no way of knowing that," another voice said. "He'll be fine. It'll just take a little longer to get through his system."

Renn whimpered. His head pounded and he had never felt so sore in his life. He blinked his eyes open. The light burned and he snapped them shut again with a groan.

"Ah, you're awake!"

"W-" Renn coughed. His tongue felt thick and a bout of dizziness washed over him. He tried again. "W-where am I?"

"You're home, my beautiful boy. You're finally home." That voice. Renn knew that voice. With enormous effort, he opened his eyes.

"Mother?"

"Yes baby, I'm here." She looked just like he remembered. Long black hair pulled back into a sensible bun, a no-nonsense gray dress, eyes that sparkled with what he had once thought was love. He knew better now.

"You had Sylvie drug me," he said.

His father spoke up. "I'm sorry about that, it must have been unpleasant. But you never would have come home otherwise."

"Of course not!" Renn yelled. His heart pounded and he was hit by the instinct to flee. He had never wanted to see them again. Not after he had seen them murder his human mother and Cal's human father in cold blood. "You killed them. You killed our parents right in front of us."

Father sighed. "For what it's worth, we didn't intend for you and Callum to see that. The only reason we eliminated them was to protect you two."

Renn let out a deep breath. "Why am I here? Where's Cal?" He tested his limbs and found he could barely move a finger.

"Callum's downstairs. We've already spoken with him," Mother said. "As for why you're here, you'll be helping us to push the boundaries of modern science. You and Callum are the first dhampirs to make it to maturity in generations. We know next to nothing on dhampir anatomy and physiology, so we'll be studying you two."

Renn's throat went dry. "You're going to dissect us?"

Father had the audacity to laugh. "Oh no, of course not. We're much more interested in how your bodies work than what they look like on the inside." That wasn't very reassuring.

"You're too special to waste on something as unrefined as dissection," Mother pitched in. Renn closed his eyes as tears burned. "You must be exhausted. Let's take you downstairs."

Renn couldn't fight back as his father picked him up and carried him to his fate.

Taglist: @dragonqueenslayer6 @whumpsday

#parent whumper #renn and cal #the dhampir files #abusive parent tw #noncon drugging tw #carewhumper #multiple whumpers #dhampir whump #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhumpday1

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matenrou-fan · 1 year

Text

Random hypmic characters with s/o who doesn't know how to cook + trying to teach you

I think I was posting too much Yandere content recently, so here some fluff

NB reader, comfort, fluff

Hifumi, Rio, Dice, Kuko, Ichiro

Hifumi

-Well, with him it's actually not that big problem, cause he's good in cooking, really good

-Of course he will try to teach you, starting with something simple

-You can choose what you wanted to try first - simple garnish for dinner or maybe bake a little cake together! He doesn't care what exactly you two would cook, the main thing that you cook together and he really loves it!

-If you not just don't know how to cook but also bad in this, he still doesn't mind, he can take cooking responsibility all to himself!

-Loves when you sit with him in the kitchen while he preparing dinner, you always cheer him up with only yours persistence

-"Here, here, say 'Ah~'" he get closer to the table where you sit with fork "I wanna hear you opinion, is this good?~ Hehe!"

-Compliments his cooking skill and you will be greeted with a whole feast of your favorite food in next day, as Hifumi happily jumping around the kitchen in his pink apron

-"Come on, come on! You need to eat before it gets cold..! " he takes you arm and lead you closer to table "Mm? What do you mean "isn't it too much?"?! Darling, when it's about you, I'm ready to show off all my skills..! "

Rio

-He's not disappointed or something, maybe a little surprised

-You should at least know how to cook something simple, otherwise how you will live?

-But on other hand, he loves to cook for you. Cooking for someone it's one of his favourite things, especially for you

-Will also try to teach you how to cook, but maybe his lessons will be a little bit useless cause you probably will not grill frogs and marinate cockroaches in your normal life

-But at least now you know more about plants and theirs effects on your body, how to make tea from herbs and everything like that

-"Here, get a little bit closer" Rio smiles, sitting next to his campfire with saucepan "I'm going to cook porridge, don't want to help me a little?"

-He loves to see that focused face of yours when you carefully listen to his explanations and watching his hands, trying to remember everything

-Oh and when you don't really get how to cut vegetables for salad in neat pieces, he would stand behind you, his arms around yours much smaller one, as he helps you to cut everything

-"Like this, okay? It's almost done now" he says, patting your head "We finish just in time for lunch. I'm sure it would be a great meal, as you helps me today, darling.."

Dice

-Honestly, he's not that good in this too

-How can he? He spend all his money in casino, and he don't have a house where he can cook, so most of the time he eats something normal is when Ramuda or Gentaro invite him to their houses or in cafe

-But he's still want to learn a little, especially if you want too

-Just don't get mad when your kitchen become a complete mess after yours attempts to cook something

-But actually Dice can be pretty serious and diligent, cutting potatoes with such gentleness, you can see he's stick out his tongue a little, too concentrated

-"Here!! What do you think?" he smile proudly, satisfied with his work "I'm sure it'll turns out good"

-You both bad in cooking but together it's feels more easy and fun, Dice even look like he's know a little more than you, helping you with some things

-"Hehe, next time we have to call Ramuda and Gentaro, they should see how good I can be at cooking, don't you think?" he giggles, eating greedy "But in the other hand.. I want to spend evenings like that only with you, darling. Can we cook something different next time? I already know what I want to try with you!"

Kuko

-Huh? What do you mean you didn't know how to cook?!

-Will scold you - it's one of the most important things in your life!

-He may be bratty and uncontrollable but he know that he should be able to clean his house, to cook something good, so he's great at household chores

-He will groan a little, acting like it's a huge pain in his ass, to teach you how to cook, you're not a baby!

-But honestly, he really like it, especially if you actually will pay attention to his words

-Just thought about him teaching you something, helping you.. it's make his heart flutter, as he feels that bond between you getting stronger

-He loves simple small things like that, cause they help you two get closer, you can feel that atmosphere change a little, as Kuko begin to be more caring and soft as you two cooking soup

-"See? This is how you should do it, understand?" he scoff tired but then smirks "I think you doing great, you can be a fast learner, ha!"

-Ask him to teach you something more and he will blush a little, but really happy that you wanted to learn something more

-"You pretty obedient, so I don't mind" as you two was trying your food he cross his arms, thinking. He then look at you with sharp but playful gaze, as if he was teasing you "Well, I think I should take care of you now so you will be a good partner after I marry you, huh?"

Ichiro

-He also a little surprised, absolutely immediately offering his help to you

-He always wants to help someone, and when this someone is you? Then he's ready to do his best!

-Inviting you to his house before dinner to teach you something simple like carry

-Jiro and Saburo would probably a little bit annoyed but Ichiro will just shush them

-For him you're as a family member, and he really hope you will get along with them as you all cooking together, he shows you how to cook rice

-He always cook for his brothers so he know so many cooking pro tips, and he's glad to tell you them

-"See? This way your rice will not turn out too sticky" he grin widely, patting your head "You know, you should have told me earlier, I would have already taught you so much things!"

-He really enjoy to help you, spending time with you in his place like that makes him feel as you an actual part of his family, and he wishes that you will be here more often

-He would ask if you need some help with some others household chores, maybe you want to know which washing machine mode is suitable for that clothes or this one? He can teach you everything, he's like a malewife, know everything you need

-"Well done!" he praised you and his brothers as you all siting together and eat "S/o, what you want to try next time? You know, you can visit me every evening, cooking with you is much funnier..."

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professional-termite · 11 days

Note

💕if you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog!

alrightt uh random facts lets go

i have several (over 10 now i think???) gallons of origami frogs

i have 2 cats, oscar the grouch and baked potato

ive been on tumblr for less than a year (feels insane saying that out loud it feels like ive been on here forever lmao)

#ask #ask game

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thesconesyard · 12 days

Note

random questions time !! (feel free to not answer any!!!!/srs /gen)

1: what's one movie that has the dumbest plot to man, but you love?

2: do you have any pets?

3: would you rather eat a rotten potato or drink spoiled milk?

4: is your bathroom themed? (same color rugs and shower curtain, etc ect)

5: if you eat snow cones, what flavor do you get?

6: okay this one is way weirder i think but from what ive seen you're a teacher (or of the sort) so is the library nice? i love school libraries and i just wanna know if it's all nice n stuff like could you take a nap there. rate it on a scale 1 - 10 (1= horrible i hate it here. 10= amazing i could live here forever)

Oooo!

1. Ok I really had to think of some dumber movies I like and I think I’m gonna go with Son in Law. Who doesn’t love Paulie Shore at his most weasel?

2. I don’t currently have any pets. Little and hubs have a fish tank with some fish and snails and some silly frogs, but I don’t really do anything with it besides look. My mom has a small dog who’s my best buddy though, and she did get him before hubs and I moved out, so he’s as close as I get to a pet.

3. Uhh… the potato I guess. Could maybe cut around the most rottenest parts.

4. I guess it’s kinda themed? Half of our towels and shower curtain are the same color, but beyond that not really.

5. Never really anywhere to get a snow cone, but I will usually get a blue raspberry slushie if I get one, so blue raspberry?

6. I am an educator! I teach reading groups and wrangle our playground. I would rate our library an 8. When my work twin was our librarian I would have given it a 10. But then we had a levy failure, a bumping process and covid. Our current librarian is doing her best to make it an inclusive space, but there are some things in the way of comfy furniture for the kids I think we had before that we’re lacking now. I hang out in our library a lot (the reading team office got moved there this year because space in our building is a hot commodity) but even before the reading program moved in the library workroom space, I still spent a lot of time in there. It’s a good place.

#slice of life #answering the asks #yay questions!!

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stormanbates · 2 years

Text

I've seen a lot of tumblr users that are on the spectrum put headcanons about Donnie being autistic on their blogs, so I decided to join in, since I have autism myself.

•Donnie is prone to headaches and the amount of tylenol he's taken in his lifetime is staggering.

•Sleep is difficult for him. Either he sleeps for 12 hours or he doesn't sleep for more than 2 hours a night. He's also a very heavy sleeper, and it takes forever to wake him up.

•Donnie is a picky eater. It's not taste, it's texture. For example: Potato chips=yes, mashed potatoes=eww. He can't stand food that's too smooth, or anything super spicy, but loves vinegary foods.

•Speaking of food, Donnie is more adventurous with new foods, as long as he knows what the ingredients are and cooking has helped with new foods.

•Donnie can memorize anything. He can watch a movie once, and memorize every line, even weeks later.

•Donnie often runs into walls because of lack of balance. He loves to spin around, though.

•Donnie won't even flinch if you break his arm, but will bawl like a baby if he gets a hangnail.

•Donnie loved baths as a kid, but hates showering as a teenager.

•His stims are: tapping his fingers on a table like he's playing the piano, clapping, raising his eyebrows, biting his lips, biting certain objects, standing on his tiptoes, darting his eyes all over the place, and bouncing while sitting.

•Donnie has issues with eye contact. His eyes will wander while you talk to him, but he assures that he's listening. To calm himself down while being lectured, he has to stare at Splinter's nose, rather than his eyes.

•As a tot, Donnie would hide under furniture, curl up, cover his ears and cry when his brother would get loud. Splinter had to drag him out and cuddle him to calm him down.

•Donnie also has anxiety, and often being overwhelmed makes the air around him seem like it's closing in on him.

•As a tot, he was sensitive to loud noises, bright lights and hates open spaces. As a teenager, he's only sensitive to loud noises.

•Donnie hates being touched, but will hug his brothers, April or his dad if he has to.

•Donnie is a huge crybaby, especially when he was a tot.

•Alone time is his best friend. Whenever he gets overwhelmed, he goes to his room to calm down.

•Donnie self soothes himself, but during missions, Leo has to be the one to calm him down.

•Donnie is extremely intelligent, but the stupidest things makes him laugh. He was reading medical journals at age 4, but videos of screaming frogs tickles his funny bone.

•Donnie has fidgeting toys and gets fixated on certain objects, protecting them and will get upset if anyone touches them.

•As a kid, he hated certain textures in clothing. He can, and will, strip naked if a tag itches or if a certain peice of clothing feels off.

•Donnie looked down often, trying not to step on any cracks, because he can feel it when they are not grooved. He can also feel certain colors, though it's hard to explain.

•Donnie has great hearing, he can hear conversations from across the lair, it scares his brothers.

•Donnie didn't speak as a kid, but is now a chatter box as a teen.

•Donnie made up a lot of imaginary friends, which is how he created SHELLDON.

•He enjoys ASMR and Mukbang videos, but can't stand listening to his family eat. His favorite catagory is soap cutting.

•Even though his other senses are heightened, he doesn't have the best sense of smell.

•Dee mimics people, not to make fun of others, but as a way to remember instructions.

•When pushed to far, Donnie will get aggressive, but then he cries when he's angry. Raph has to tell him to breath so he won't hyperventilate.

•Baby Mikey once got shoved by Donnie when he messed up his playing cards, to which Splinter immediately put him in his room to give him a time-out. Donnie felt it wasn't fair, but he learned to just keep his cards away from Mikey.

•Once old enough to read, Donnie read 3 grade levels above his age and could finish a book in a day. Reading was his escape.

•Leo, Raph and Mikey often felt like Donnie was a psychopath when they watched scary movies and he was the only one not scared.

•Being a first time father, Splinter often got flustered whenever his baby son was delayed while his other three were hitting milestones, such as eye contact, responding to their names, talking, or playing with certain toys.

•As a baby, Dee had acid reflux and Splinter spent many nights comforting a puky baby. Often Splinter would rush him to the bathroom to pat his son's back to get him to expel his stomach into the toilet.

•Donnie will info dump about a certain subject or he'll be silent for days.

•(Canon) Donnie can't sleep on his back, but will sleep on his stomach. It's because his shell is sensitive and he hates anything super soft.

•April has always been able to make Donnie feel better, which is why he's always with her.

#rottmnt #rottmnt turtle tots #headcanon #rise donnie #autism #autistic headcanon

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boygiwrites · 8 months

Text

Harley D. Dixon 8

An amazing edit inspired by this story! (Cred to Cora_Line99) Harley D. Dixon's Pinterest Board! Harley D. Dixon's Playlist!

📖Chapter List.

Author's Note. PSA!! I re-worked the last scene in the previous chapter! (It's just different dialogue and a lot of it was cut to fix the pacing.)

Anyway. Very excited to share this chapter! :)

We spend all day scavenging.

Apparently some people want to start heading to Fort Benning, but Rick wants to stock up before we even think about it. We can't really drive across half the state when we don't even got toilet paper, after all; let alone food or gas.

He leads us from town to town, stopping at random shops, houses, and doctor's offices along the way, in search of supplies. Everybody stays behind in the cars, keeping watch, while the men drag themselves into building after building, coming back more empty-handed each time. I can tell it's starting to weigh on Rick. The last thing anyone ate was that potato salad, and our water bottles are all pretty much empty. We're hungry, tired; miserable — A group made up of growling stomachs and parched mouths.

Ahead of us on the road, Rick honks once and sticks his arm out the driver's window, pointing to a small supermarket he wants to loot.

He takes a left turn, and we all follow him into the parking lot, ready to rinse and repeat.

Everybody parks in front of the store.

My Dad shuts the engine off.

"I'll be back in a bit." He gruffly tells me, pocketing the keys. "Be good. Don't go nowhere unless it's with Dale."

"Okay, Dad."

"And if a walker comes up to the truck, what're you gonna do?"

I sigh. "Scream real loud."

We've been having this exact exchange all day, every time he leaves. We don't talk about nothin' else.

We're not really on good terms, but we're not really arguing, neither.

I think we're at a truce.

That's what happens when two people really want to fight but are deciding not to.

He slowly nods.

Then he grabs his crossbow, hops out, and slams the door behind him.

I watch him re-group with the other men, and they walk off together for the fifteenth time today. It's a pretty dismal routine.

I pass the time waiting for them to come back by reading my book. Dad found it for me back at the book shop. I've been reading it all day. It's about a scruffy cartoon dog named Hairy Maclary, and back home, I used to have almost the entire collection. I think it's why he picked this one. Reading it gives me a familiar comfort that he can't give me right now. It even makes me forget about how hungry I am after a while.

Beside me on the middle seat, there's a pile of other things my Dad's scavenged so far.

On the bottom is an ocean-themed blanket, two pillows, and an armful of clothes that he found in a stranger's house. When we sifted through them, I found a pair of socks that fit me. I slipped them on underneath my new boots. I also found some black jean-shorts and a big, green shirt with a purple frog on it. Frogs are pretty cool. I shimmied them both on to replace my pyjamas. Dad found himself a new pair of steel-toe boots, grey jeans, and a button-up that he ripped the sleeves off. We kept the rest of the clothes as spares.

There's also a half-empty box of bullets, a hammer, craft scissors, and one battery, which took him all morning to accumulate.

My tummy gurgles as I turn the page.

Nobody's found any food yet.

If we could eat batteries or bullets, we wouldn't be so hungry right now, but that's not how it works.

Sighing, I continue re-reading Hairy Maclary for the fifth time today, savouring it by painstakingly studying each picture.

It wastes about ten minutes.

"Whatchu readin'?"

I jump.

Whipping my head to the right, I see Shane walking toward the truck. Oh, God. He just might be the last person I wanna talk to right now.

He reaches the open window and casually crosses his arms over it, but his cheerful demeanour doesn't rub off on me. I try to scoot backward, but the pile of clothes quickly gets in the way. He's standing way too close to me. If he leaned forward just a little, the brim of his cap would touch the side of my head. I don't like that. His military dog tag twinkles innocently in the sunlight. Walsh, it winks at me.

Randomly, I become aware of the fact that there's nobody else around. Something about that isn't right.

"What are you doin'?" I ask.

Don't he know my Dad will shoot him for talkin' to me?

"Oh, you know." He shrugs, smiling. "Thought I'd clock out for a bit, maybe take a lil' break. Nothin' crazy."

Uh... sure.

I don't think Rick would let anybody take a quick break. Not in the sorry state we're in right now. No way. I think he's out here in secret.

He nods toward my book. "So? Whatchu readin'?"

Silence.

"Looks good." He jokes. "I'm a lil' jealous, actually. Maybe once you're done, I'll have to borrow it off ya, huh?"

More silence.

I fold the book in my lap, shielding it from his eyes. I wish I could do the same to my entire body. I don't wanna be doin' this right now. It's like being in the CDC again, that awkward stand-off cloaked in darkness — Only this time, we're in broad daylight.

He clears his throat.

"Your, uh—? Your Dad find that for you?"

"I—"

This is makin' me mad, now. Don't he remember how angry my Dad got before? Does he wanna get shot?

He might be acting stupid, but I won't make the same mistake twice.

Shane is not my friend. Shane is a bastard cop, and I hate him, 'cause I hate bastard cops. I really, really hate bastard cops. Looking at him makes me angry. It makes me even angrier than lookin' at Rick made me, and Rick killed my Uncle Merle, but Shane — Shane ruined everything. He's the reason the car rides are silent now. He's the reason my Dad doesn't feel like the same person no more. He's the reason I couldn't just get belted and be done with it. He just had to walk in. Bastard cop.

He's supposed to save people, but I don't feel very saved.

I just feel angry.

"I ain't talkin' to you." I muster up the dirtiest, nastiest glare I got. "You're a cop. A bastard cop."

His eyes widen.

He wasn't expecting that.

"I'm—" His brows shoot up, and he lifts one hand in surrender. "Harley, I'm just a friend. I'm just here talkin' to you as a friend, okay?"

"You ain't my friend."

"Well, I like to think that you're my friend. And... friends worry 'bout each other, don't they?"

He's worried about me?

I see where this is going.

I don't wanna talk about what happened at the CDC.

"You ain't," I sneer, "My friend. How many times I gotta tell ya?"

I pretend to go back to reading my book, 'cause I want him to go away — just like I wanted him to go away when we were in the CDC. When he talks to me like this, Shane makes me feel like a wobbly tower of cards, ready to fall. He makes me feel like everything I ever knew was just a fairytale, or a straight up lie, like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. He makes me feel like I'm someone worth feeling sorry for; someone who needs saving.

Well, I don't need saving. He's just gonna have to go save someone else if he wants to do it so bad.

I've been staring at the same word for a whole minute, puffing angrily out my nostrils. I hold the book so tightly that the pages start to crinkle under my thumbs, stretching thin, thin, thin, until they're about to rip under the pressure.

Leave me alone, I wanna scream in his face.

"Can I ask you a question, Harley?"

I take a deep breath, glowering up at him through my bangs.

He glowers right back.

"Is your Daddy your friend?"

"Wh—?"

The page rips.

"'Cause I can tell you what friends don't do." He raises his brows, leaning closer. "I can tell you that friends don't pin ya down 'till you're crying, Harley. I can tell you friends don't shout; don't make ya feel scared. They don't whip ya with belts, Harley. Is that what you think friends do?"

I struggle to speak. I feel like I'm being accused of somethin' I didn't even do.

"I don't kn—"

"Yes, you do. Lemme ask you again." Shane cuts me off. "Your Dad. Is he your friend?"

Yes, is my immediate thought, and I'm— I'm angry again, 'cause this is exactly what I'm talkin' about when I say Shane makes me feel like everything is a confusing trick. I don't like this question. I don't like that he's even asking it. Yes, my Dad is my friend.

I'm overwhelmed with the sudden urge to defend everything he's ever done.

I open my mouth to answ—

"No." He answers for me — Sharp, like a scolding. "No, Harley. He is not your friend."

"Yeah, he is." I'm shocked. "He is my friend."

I love him. If Shane thinks he can just walk over here and start bad-mouthing my Dad, then he's wrong, 'cause it's not gonna work.

"No. He's not." Shane scolds again, but I refuse to listen to him. I'm reminded of my old teachers again. Whenever I was flunking a simple math question, they'd get angry at me, but they couldn't show it 'cause that's not very nice, so they'd settle for sighing and speaking to me very slowly, instead. That's what Shane does. "I know you think he's your friend. I know you think you love him. I'm not saying you don't, sweetheart, okay? I'm not saying that. I'm saying sometimes friends hurt us, Harley, and we need to have a good, hard think about whether or not we want 'em to keep hurtin' us."

"Well—? I—?"

I realize I don't have anything to say. I have a good, hard think about what he means, instead. A friend? A friend hurting me? I think he means my Dad. Yeah. My Dad's my friend and he hurts me, sometimes. It not that hard to understand. At least it wasn't, not until Shane came along and started lookin' at my Dad like he was some type of monster. The dead people, they're monsters, but not my Dad. I swear it's that simple.

"I don't wanna talk about this." I grumble, glaring down at Hairy Maclary as he chases a butterfly.

"Well, I think we gotta, Harley." Shane insists. "This is important. I'm tryna to help you here."

"I don't need your help."

"Why's that?" He asks patiently.

"Because I don't care 'bout any of that stuff." I'm hating all of this. "I ain't scared'a him."

"You see, I don't believe that." He squints. "I don't think you believe that, either."

I am not afraid. I just have to believe this.

"Yeah, I do." I argue.

"Harley—"

"Yeah, I do."

He gets frustrated, gripping the windowsill.

"'Dad, I'm scared'." He quotes. "That's what you said. That's what you said to him, Harley."

Oh. He heard that. Of course he heard that.

"Well, y-yeah, 'cause I was scared of the dark." I dismiss. "It didn't mean anything. Who cares?"

"You're scared—? You're scared of the dark? You're scared of the dark. Okay. Okay." He takes a step back, rubbing his hands down his face, collecting himself. He laughs but he's not finding anything about this funny. He grabs the window again, harder this time. "You really think I don't remember how you ran off in'a them woods and we all had to high-tail it after you, that night camp got over-run? How it was pitch-black, and you didn't even hesitate? You're not scared of the dark, Harley. Don't lie to me. I don't want my friends to lie to me."

"You're ain't my friend." I groan. "Sophia is my friend. Glenn is my friend. My Dad is my friend. Not you."

"You know what?" Shane gives the door a shake. "Why is that, I wonder? Why am I not your friend, but he is?"

Finally, a question that isn't confusing.

"Because he's my Dad, that's why."

I expect Shane to answer straight away, but he doesn't. He just stands there, raising his brows higher and higher with each second that passes. I frown at him, waiting for him to do something. Eventually, he just shrugs. "That's it?" He sasses me. "That's all you got?"

Well... Yeah.

He's my Dad. Is that not enough?

"He protects me." I'm quick to add. "He makes sure I'm safe. He cares about me. He does up my buttons."

"Anybody can do that." He scoffs. "I can do that."

"No. No, you can't."

"Gimme one good reason why."

"'Cause you're a—"

"And don't gimme any more of that bastard cop nonsense, 'cause I don't wanna hear it. Gimme something real." He makes a fist and beats his knuckles against his breast pocket. "Somethin' from in here. Somethin' from the heart, Harley. Somethin' you haven't heard anybody else say first."

Stumped for words, I try wracking my brain. He's a bastard cop. No, I can't say that.

"Come on." Shane pressures me. "Somethin'. Gimme somethin'."

I go through all the reasons I shouldn't want Shane as a friend.

He's mean? No, Shane isn't mean. I had fun catching frogs with him, and he was even gonna build me a tyre swing before we got forced out of the quarry. He constantly puts himself in danger to provide for the group. He looked after Carl and Lori when Rick couldn't. No. He's not mean, but my Dad doesn't want me to be friends with him. My Dad's word is law. That's a good reason. Yeah. I'll say that.

"It's not allowed." I tell him. "That's why."

"What does that mean?" Shane scoffs. "Do you even know, or is this just him speaking again?"

Oh. It is. I'm just recycling things I've heard before.

Why am I doin' that?

Whatever. I'll think of something else.

"Uh—" I struggle. "You-? You're—?"

I can't come up with anything.

Shane shrugs. "You don't have anythin' else for me?"

"You're—"

A bastard cop.

It all comes down to those three same words.

"You're-You're-You're—" Shane mocks me. "Come on, girl. Think."

I give up.

"I can't, okay?" I finally snap, and in one big huff of anger, I throw my book at his chest. He was right. I can't think of any reason why I should hate him. Not even one. All my thoughts are my Dad's thoughts, and when I try to create new ones, it's just a twisted mess of words and ideas that have never even come outta my own mouth before, only in through my ears. It's just a trick. It's impossible. "You win, okay? There's no reason for me to hate you. S'that what you wanna hear?"

"Finally." He chuckles, picking my book up off the ground. "Good. Good girl. That's what I'm talkin' about."

He holds it out to me.

I snatch it off him.

"I don't hate you." I grouch. "Never did. You win."

"Nah, I think you won." Shane rests his hip against the door with his arms crossed. "You learnt somethin' new just now."

"What?"

He looks like he's proud of me when he says, "How to think for yourself."

How to think for yourself.

What does that mean?

My Dad never taught me how to do that, I don't think. He's taught me everything else I know, like how to skin fish, use a compass, and do up my laces, but he hasn't taught me this. Shane taught me this. I guess I've graduated from learning how to catch frogs. This is a little trickier, but I think I understand. Thinking for myself is like a game — Say something Dad has never told me to say. I don't think I'm very good at it.

I must look a little unsure, 'cause he reassures me, "This is good. This is the first step of somethin' really good for you, okay?"

"Really?" I ask.

Shane seems to know a lot about this.

"Really." He smiles. "Now does this mean you're gonna drop that whole I-hate-your-guts act?"

"Oh. Um..."

I really want to hate Shane. It makes everything so much easier. If we're not friends, then that means I don't have to listen to him talk about what happened at the CDC, and I never wanna talk about that again. But I said it myself, just now. There is no good reason to hate him. He ain't mean, he ain't bad at protecting people, and he definitely doesn't hate me back. He wants to be my friend.

If I don't accept, I'll just be making myself look like an idiot.

I guess he tricked me into becoming friends. I don't know how he did that, but it worked.

"Fine. I'll be your friend." I give in, smiling lightly. It feels a little like admitting defeat, but also like breaking free of something I was stuck in. I don't like hating people. If Dad didn't do it first, I don't think would have ever hated Shane. "But on one condition."

I hold up a finger, putting on a serious face.

Shane smiles, "Shoot."

He's looking at me like no matter what I say right now, he's already gotten what he wants.

"My Dad can't know."

This is very important. I might not hate Shane, even if I am still annoyed with him, but my Dad hates him. He also hated Ronnie, and Ronnie ended up in a grassy ditch in the woods behind our house, with his face beaten to a lumpy, sticky pulp. I don't want that to happen to Shane.

"You know, you're a very smart girl, Harley." Shane lowers his voice. "That's right. Your Dad can't know."

I nervously pick at the skin on my lip. "I've never kept a secret from my Dad before."

"That's alright." Shane soothes. "That's good. That means you're a good person. I'm a good person, too. But this here is our secret now, okay?"

"So, we're friends now? You promise not to tell?"

"That's right." He says. "I promise. You know why?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I won't ever do anythin' to put you in danger, Harley. I want you to remember that."

He puts his hand on my shoulder.

I won't let anything happen to you.

That's somethin' Dads say to kids. That's something my Dad's said to me. But Shane's not my Dad. He's not anybody's Dad.

When we first arrived at the quarry, I remember thinking that Shane and Lori were Carl's parents. Whenever the other kids wanted to play with Carl, they would always go ask permission from them, just like they'd ask permission from Carol if they wanted to play with Sophia. They'd also hover around him all day, making sure he wasn't getting into trouble, and put him in time-out when he was.

Only parents are allowed to do those things.

I think Shane also thought he was Carl's Dad, 'cause when Rick returned and he wasn't allowed to do those things anymore, he seemed sad.

"Like... how you protected Carl?" I guess.

He gives me a squeeze before letting go.

"Yeah. A little like that."

"But why? Why do you wanna be friends so bad?"

He thinks about it for a minute.

Eventually, he settles on an answer.

"Because we both know it wasn't the dark you were afraid of, sweetheart." He tells me, sighing. "That's why."

I look down at my boots, embarrassed.

It wasn't the dark I was scared of. It was my Dad.

I guess Shane figured it out faster than I thought he would.

I hate that I can't lie to Shane like I can lie to myself. He must've been real good at interrogating people.

"Earlier, you asked me why I'm out here — Why I'm talking to you." Shane says now. I look up at him. "I'm doing it because no one else will. Not Rick. Not Lori. Not Glenn. Not Sophia. Not even your Dad. None of your other friends can help you the way I can, Harley, because they didn't see what happened in that room. They don't know, but I do. And that's very special to me, okay? It's special to me because it means I can help you. And I needed to make sure you were my friend before that can happen."

I start to frown. I do not want his help. That wasn't part of the deal.

Shane gives me a serious look, like he can tell what I want to say. "I know you don't want my help. I know you're angry. You're confused, and I get that. That's okay. But you need to understand that as your friend, I want what's best for you. And what's best for you, right now, is for you to realize that there is someone here who knows what you're going through. Someone who... just wants to help. Someone who's on your side."

I don't know how he plans on helping me. I don't wanna know, either. Cops puts people in jail. There's no jail anymore, but there is rope, and there are places to tie people up — Like shopping cart bays. Jim. I remember how he thrashed. I remember his screaming. I don't want Shane to get beaten, but I also don't want my Dad to get left. I have to choose one. I'm sick of choosing, but I have to. I know who I'm gonna pick.

"Shane, I know we're friends now, but my Dad is my number one friend." I really hope he understands. "Please don't do nothin'. Please don't help."

This makes Shane angry.

He licks his teeth; works his jaw.

I can tell he's already tryna puzzle out how he's gonna trick me into agreeing to this next.

"Please." I ask nicely. "We can still be friends. We can color together. I don't have my crayons no more, but I think Rick found some pencils, before. We can use those. I'll let you do my hair, too, if you want. We can even play tag. Just please don't take my Dad away."

When my Dad got taken away for killing Ronnie, I was sad almost every single day until he came back.

"I need him." I tell Shane. "I love him. Please don't help."

He just keeps giving me that angry look.

I recognize this look, I realize.

It's the look he gave my Dad at the CDC.

Blood-lust.

I realize I'm begging for the wrong thing.

Shane's not gonna take my Dad away.

He's gonna kill him, just like I thought. That's how he thinks he's gonna help.

"Wait." I frown. "I didn't mea—"

"What is going on here?"

I snap my mouth shut.

I look out the window. It's Dale, near the RV. He quirks one hairy eyebrow at us. I glance at Shane. I watch as he slowly re-directs that murderous look onto Dale, and I worry that something bad is going to happen. His veins pop out from his forearms as he grips the window.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Dale asks, disgusted. "Don't you realize what Daryl would do to you if he saw this?"

Shane's jaw muscle ticks.

"It's okay." I quickly intervene, holding up my book. "He was just askin' about my book."

It's true, he was.

At least, he was at first.

Dale ignores me.

"I'm sure he won't appreciate you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, I can tell you that much for free."

Wow. He's pretty brave for sticking up to Shane like that.

"Welp. I wasn't askin', Dale." Shane laughs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He shakes his head. He seems to think Dale's nothing more than a pesky little bug that he doesn't wanna deal with. He drops his hand. "You know what? I ain't doin' this. I got more important places to be."

He pushes himself off the truck.

"Nice shirt, kiddo." He mutters.

We watch him walk all the way back to the supermarket, one hand on his gun.

That didn't go so well.

As soon as Shane is back inside, Dale turns his suspicious eye on me. "What did he say to you?"

He wants to kill my Dad because he cares about me.

"Um. Nothin'."

"Are you sure?"

Aw, man. I don't like lying to Dale. He's so nice.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"Okay," He lilts. "As long as it's not anything me or your Dad should know about."

Oh, God.

"Nope."

I put on my most convincing smile, like I'm posing for a picture.

He eyeballs me for what feels like forever, trying to decide if he believes me or not. I don't think he does. I know I should tell him the truth, but I can't. If Dale tells my Dad that Shane wants to kill him, he's gonna ask how he knows. He's gonna have to tell him that I was talking to Shane, and that just means I'm gonna get belted again. I'm tryna forget all about that, not have it happen all over again.

Besides, Dad already knows Shane wants to kill him, and he's not gonna do anything to put our new friendship at risk, anyway.

It's fine for now.

After a while, Dale gets sick of studying me, and he nods.

"Well, how about you come read your book in the RV? It's getting pretty hot out here."

He's not wrong. It's hot today.

"Oh, did you got that fan working?" I ask hopefully.

Like I said, we've found just about everything except for food — Even a new table fan, thanks to T-Dog.

"Sure did." Dale smiles. "It's working like a charm. Come check it out."

I hop out of the truck and into the soupy, summer heat.

"Can you read my book to me?"

He ruffles my hair. "Sure thing."

"You gotta do a funny voice for Scarface Claw. He's the evil cat."

He laughs.

Dale's a little different than Shane.

He doesn't have to ask to be my friend.

An hour later, the RV door opens.

I lift my head, the cool breeze from the fan fluttering across my face. I watch Rick stumble inside. He's drenched in so much sweat that it looks like he just took a long, hot bath in his clothes. He steals a rag from the drying rack and smothers his face in it. The little fan whirrs politely.

"Any luck out there?" Dale shakes out his newspaper, peering at Rick over his spectacles.

Rick tweaks the faucet on, shoves his head underneath it, and licks up the five little drips that come trickling out, moaning.

Gross.

"Doesn't look like you struck gold in the water department." Dale deadpans. "Any food, at least?"

Rick slides onto the floor, panting heavily.

When he peeks one eye open to glance at me, I belatedly turn the fan towards him, and he sighs in bliss.

"I just need a minute."

I'm literally fanning Rick off. I'm not sure if that's funny or not.

The RV door opens again.

My Dad walks in with Morales, both of them glistening like cuts of oily pork. Dad dumps his crossbow against the wall and crouches in front of the table. He turns his face this way and that against the breeze of the fan, ruffling out his wet hair. He gives my knee two pat, pats, to thank me. I smile just the littlest bit. Morales slumps on the kitchen, huffing and puffing.

Dale laughs at this weirdly entertaining sight. "So? Talk to me, here. What'd we find?"

Rick nudges my Dad out the way to feel the fan better.

"Scoured everythin'," He gulps, wiping his dripping brow. "Top to bottom, left to right. Hell, we even broke open the damn registers, but nothin'. Not even a chocolate coin. Cans were busted all over the floor. Rats were shittin' in the rice. Glenn almost got bit. Shane disappeared for a while; said he got cornered in the break room. Full-scale disaster, is what I'm tryna say."

Shane disappeared, alright, I think, glancing at Dale to try gauge his thoughts.

He just shakes his head.

"I take it we're not considering rat-casserole, yet?" He asks.

"Nah. Trust me, we would'a." My Dad scoffs. "But the dead ones were already chewin' on 'em."

Ew.

I think I'd rather eat frog legs.

Morales gestures My turn now, so I pivot the fan onto him next.

"I don't see how we're gonna make it to Fort Benning the way things are," Rick says. "But we can't keep doin' this."

"What's the plan, then?"

"We do what Shane suggested." He shrugs, looking around for objections. There aren't any, so he makes a cutting gesture with his open palm. "We power our way through to Fort Benning — Straight shot. We wipe our assess with leaves. We eat whatever game Daryl can find. We boil river water. We sleep in the cars. I'on care. I'm not risking our lives for this anymore. It's not worth it."

"Fan's pretty worth it." Morales sighs wistfully.

Dad side-eyes him, as if to say, You serious?

"And when we run out of gas?" Dale chimes in again. "RV's only gonna make it three more days, tops. And I don't even want to look at the radiator hose. It's hanging on by a thread, and barely, at that."

"We siphon." Rick simply says. "We drive and we don't stop unless it's to siphon or sleep. That's how it's gotta be from now on."

Drive, siphon, sleep.

It don't sound fun or nothin', but it sure beats scavenge, scavenge, die.

"As for the hose," Rick rubs his sweaty, stubbly chin, before pointing at my Dad. "You're sittin' next to a mechanic. Daryl can do check-ups every few miles, and if somethin' really goes side-ways, we can just pull one from another car. There's a solution to every problem. Problems, I can handle. Full-scale disasters — Not so much. That's why I'm choosin' this. I believe we can do it."

This group is strong. It's like a glue that won't let up.

"As long as we don't gotta make more jerky." I mumble.

One by one, they all chuckle.

It's been a long day.

"Alright... Let's get a move on, then." Rick shakes his head tiredly as he stands back up again, against all odds, his smile a beacon.

The sun clips through the window like a golden floodlight, slowly sinking; slowly burning.

"We're runnin' outta daylight."

The fan continues to whirr like a happy kitten.

Author's Note.

Shane... the master manipulator!

That was one jam-packed conversation I had to get down, ahaha.

And Rick... I just love clowning on him every now and then. He's so corny and fun. The last scene in this chapter might be my favorite in the entire story so far, it's just so random and simple.

Please let me know what you thought about this chapter!!!

Sending love! :)

#the walking dead #twd fanfiction #twd #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon daughter #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon #daddy issues #rick grimes #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #angst #shane walsh

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