#well not ball...more like destroyed yolk

[botwstoriesandsuch]

something for you to imagine: link using the master sword like a tennis racket or baseball bat and hitting the egg guardian into space -engineerlink

#graphic design is my passion #game set and murder #delicious #the balls in your court egg stans #well not ball...more like destroyed yolk #ha #egg bot #hwaoc #age of calamity #hw age of calamity #hyrule warriors age of calamity #aoc

[blood-sucking-freaks]

idk if i'm gonna do all of the BJ book on here yet, BUT here's a section of it that kind of helps expand on the 'Evil Bill and Evil Ted trash Bill and Ted's place' scene and I fucking love that we got a little bit more fleshed out characterization of EB and ET in the book because I love them (also a funny little bit on De Nomolos' 'teaching')

Bill and Ted weren't the best housekeepers in the world. Evil Bill and Evil Ted were even worse - horrible, in fact. They were also totally into mindless destruction, and while Good Bill and Good Ted had their faults, destroying for destroying's sake was not one of them. Of course, they knew that once they got the Wyld Stallyns off the ground, they would have to destroy a few thousand dollars' worth of equipment whenever they played some live gigs in mega-arenas -the fans would expect it - but that was in the future, when they could afford it.

With Evil Bill and Evil ted, on the other hand, it was not only their life's work, what they had been totally programmed to do, but it was their hobby was well. Now, having destroyed their relationship between Good Bill and Good Ted and the princesses and murdering Bill and ted into the bargain, Evil Bill and Evil Ted were addressing themselves to the question of trashing Bill and Ted's apartment. They were very good at it. Pros, you might say.

They had already had a certain amount of fun tearing up what there was of bill and Ted's meager wardrobe, flushing smaller household items down the toilet and totally scratching and smashing their prized collection of Aerosmith and Iron Maiden records. The stereo and the TV were just smoking shells, the posters had been stripped from the walls, the rug ripped up from the floor, the curtains destroyed, the furniture hacked to splinters.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted now turned to the kitchen and found that that was a very entertaining venue, opening up many opportunities for creative and imaginative ways of destroying things.

Ted threw open the door of the refrigerator and yanked out a can of soda. He shook it ferociously and then fired a long stream of sticky liquid at Evil Bill.

"You look thirsty, dude!" cackled Evil Ted.

"And you look hungry!" yelled Evil Bill. He grabbed a handful of eggs from the rack in the door of the refrigerator and pasted evil Ted in the side of the head with two of them.

"Yah!" Evil Ted squeezed some of the yolk from his hair. "And I know what you want!"

"What?"

"Dessert, dude!" Evil Ted pulled out an aerosol can of whipped cream topping and blasted away at Evil Bill. Cream, eggs and soda made the kitchen floor sticky underfoot, and just for the heck of it, Evil Bill and Evil Ted pulled all the food out of the refrigerator, tossed it to the ground and trampled it into paste.

Then they turned their attention to the kitchen cabinets, inventing, on the spur of the moment, a new kind of basketball. Instead of using a ball, like normal people, or even normal robots, they played with all the glassware - plates, glasses, saucers - that they found in the cabinets. True, you couldn't dribble a plate - no bounce, right? - but it did make for a very satisfying slam dunk.

You see, Bill and ted had a little indoor basketball net over their kitchen door, and sometimes, when they had to have some very serious and deep conversation, they would sit at their kitchen counter, talking about the Wyld Stallyns, their babes, their future and other serious things, shooting a nerf ball at the hoop. It helped them concentrate and it didn't do any harm.

That just wasn't evil Bill and Evil Ted's kind of game. Evil Ted had a big water glass in his right hand, and he was backing in toward the basket, his left arm out to keep Evil bill out of the way. Evil Bill, for his part, was working hard to block, in Evil ted's face, trying to prevent the attacker from getting a look at the basket.

"No way, dude," said Evil Bill, "you'll get through my totally non-heinous and most resplendent blocking."

"Yah?" Evil Ted powered in a few feet and hooked the glass at the basket. It sailed through the air, end over end, whiffed through the basket and exploded with a crash on the tile floor.

"Two points, dude!"

"Lucky, dude, that's all. My turn." He scooped up a dinner plate, faked right, went left and blew by Evil Ted, leaped for the hoop and jammed, slamming the plate into smithereens.

"He shoots! He scores!" yelled Evil Bill. "The man, er, robot is unstoppable!"

Evil Ted had an armful of glasses, and he was standing about where he imagined the free throw line to be, pitching them toward the basket. Not all of them swished - a couple of them just smashed against the kitchen wall, showering glass over everything - but most found their target and then shattered.

Evil Bill did his best to help out, goaltending, tipping in a few of the rim shots. It sounded as if it were raining broken glass in the wreckage of Bill and Ted's apartment.

Then, abruptly, it stopped.

"More!" demanded Evil Bill.

Evil Ted was peering into the cupboards, rummaging around, throwing out cans and cereal boxes, rifling the shelves, like a thief searching for hidden valuables.

"Bad news, dude."

"What?"

"Game's over. We are totally out of dishes!"

"Heinous."

They look for a moment over the extensive wreckage, smiles of satisfaction on their faces.

"Well," said Evil Bill. "It was fun while it lasted. I just wish those other us's had more stuff to wreck."

"Well, we didn't make all that much at Pretzels 'n' Cheese, dude."

"Yah, but I wish we had spent more on decorating."

Evil Ted suddenly had a totally triumphant idea. "Wait, Evil Bill, check this out."

"What?"

"This, dude." Evil Ted put his hands around his neck, as if he were trying to strangle himself, and pulled. His electronic, completely solid-state head popped out of his neck, trailing a few wires like tentacles. His headless body thundered across the kitchen, crunching glass underfoot, and slam-dunked his own indestructible head into the basket.

"Two points!" Evil Ted's head roared as it rolled across the kitchen floor.

Evil Bill was most impressed with this new variation on the game. True, they were trashing themselves now, but trashing is trashing.

"Not bad, dude, not bad."

"That's what I call heads-up basketball, dude." Evil Ted's head was still on the floor, and it was giving a certain amount of thought to the problem of how to get back to his body.

"Here," said Evil Bill, "lemme try that." Just as Evil Ted had done, Evil Bill pilled his head off his neck, as easily as popping a tab on a soft-drink can. "Check this out, Evil Ted. Keep your eye on the ball and watch a perfect Kareem-style sky hook." Evil Bill lofted his own head high in the air, a long graceful arc that seemed to be perfectly on target - until it slammed into one of the blades of the ceiling fan in the kitchen. It stuck there and turned slowly around, as if it were on a merry-go-round.

"Whoaaaaaa!" shouted Evil Bill's head. "Totally bogus!"

"Dude! You totally didn't see the fan!" Evil Ted's body, all on its own, decided it was time it had a head back. It reached down and grabbed it and stuffed it back on his neck.

Evil Bill's head continued to turn round and round. It was beginning to make him a little dizzy.

"Evil Ted! Get my body over here and take me off this thing."

"Yah! You heard him, dude," said the now-complete Evil Ted to Evil Bill's headless torso. "Go get your head, dude."

Instead of doing what it was told, the body casually waved to Evil Bill's twirling head, gesturing to him as if it didn't give a damn whether it ever got back with its head again.

"Whoooaaa!" said Evil Ted. "What a lousy attitude you have, Evil Bill."

"As soon as I get back to my body, dude, I am gonna totally beat myself black and blue."

"You'll totally have it coming to you, Evil Bill. Trouble is it's gonna hurt you more than it'll hurt yourself."

"It'll be worth it. Evil Ted, dude, get me down from here, would ya please?"

"Yah!" Evil Ted leaped as if going up for a jump shot, grabbed the head off the fan blade and came down lightly. This seemed to get Evil Bill's body's attention. Evil Ted waved the head at the body. "Got your head, dude!" he said tauntingly.

"Stop fooling around, Evil Ted, and totally reunite me with my body."

"No way, dude!" Evil Ted tucked the head into the crook of his right arm like a football running back. "I'm gonna score a touchdown!"

Evil Bill's voice was muffled. "Gotta get through my triumphant defense first." Evil Bill's headless body charged toward Evil Ted like a front-line blocker. "I'm gonna totally tackle you, dude!"

"No way!" Evil Ted danced around Evil Bill's body, raced into the living room and spiked Evil Bill's head into a wastebasket. "Touch-down for Evil Ted! Now for the triumphant field goal!"

"You're not kicking my head anywhere, dude!" Evil Bill's body rushed into the living room and grabbed the head out of the wastebasket. Quickly he jammed the head back on his shoulders. "That's better."

"That was fun!" said Evil Ted.

"Yah! Way to go, dude! We are truly most resplendent total headbangers."

"Yah!" Evil Ted air-guitared wildly for a moment, then stopped stock-still, a funny look on his face.

"What's up, Evil Ted?"

"We're wanted on the phone, Evil Bill. It's the boss from head office." Evil Ted smacked the back of his head and his eye popped into his hand. There was a moment of static and fuzz in the pupil, the De Nomolos's sneery face came on the screen.

"How's it goin', master-dude?"

De Nomolos looked with utter contempt at his two evil creations. Even though they were central to his plan, he couldn't help but loathe these two creatures. He looked forward to a time when not only would there be no Bill and Ted, but no manmade Bill and Teds either. Bliss...

"Give me a report," snapped De Nomolos. "At once!"

"We totally ruined things between Joanna and Elizabeth and Bill and Ted," said Evil Bill.

"Yah. They were most sad dudes when we totally murdered them."

"Yah! And now we've been having a little R and R while we trash their heinous apartment."

"Stop wasting time," De Nomolos barked. "You must proceed with the plan. Immediately, do you understand me?"

"Yes, master-dude!" they said in unison.

"Understand me, you cretins," said De Nomolos, "it is not enough that you destroy those two...those two...," he couldn't even bring himself to say their names, "...imbeciles. It is imperative that you destroy everything about them."

"Totally!" agreed Evil Bill and Evil Ted.

"So get on with it," De Nomolos ordered. "Follow you orders to the letter."

"Okay, dude," said Evil Ted. "What's next? What does the program say?"

"Don't think! You're not programmed to think!" yelled De Nomolos. "Just do! The next phase consists of completely alienating Bill and Ted from everyone they've ever known."

"Right!" said Evil Bill.

"Excellent!" said Evil Ted. "You are one most smart dude, dude."

De Nomolos looked withy disgust at the machines he had created in the image of his greatest enemies. "I hate them and I hate robot versions of them."

"Hey, dude," said Evil Bill, "don't blame us. You're the one who made us."

"Yah!" said Evil Ted.

"Don't remind me," said De Nomolos. "Get to work!"

The image on the eye monitor fuzzed over and De Nomolos disappeared. Back in the future, he was busy implementing his own part in the plan, which consisted mainly of indoctrinating his captive students at Bill and Ted University in the history he had so carefully and nastily rewritten.

"Pop quiz!" he said suddenly to the class. "Close your books!"

Thomas Edison, Bach and the rest of the class closed their personal copies of a not very fascinating book called Nomolos de Nomolos - The Greatest Man In History and sat up straight.

De Nomolos scowled at the ranks of students. "In what year did Robot Ted marry Missy?" He scanned the room, as if about to choose a candidate for execution. "Thomas Edison! Answer me!"

Edison started as if he had been pinched and swallowed hard. It had been a while since he had taken a pop quiz, and he had never taken one with a gun to his head. It was a most disconcerting feeling.

"Uh...1996?" he asked hopefully.

De Nomolos actually smiled, an expression that looked sort of peculiar, out of place on his face. "Very good. You are as smart as your reputation said you were."

Seeing as Edison was on De Nomolos's good side, he thought he might use the opportunity to get out of the jam he found himself in. "Sir, I hate to bother you, but I have to be getting back to New Jersey to invent the motion picture, and I happen to know that Johann Sebastian Bach here was halfway through Das Musicalishes Opfer - really smoking, really on a roll too - so maybe we could be heading back to our own times now."

Edison wasn't teacher's pet anymore. "Shut up. You know no one can leave the century during a quiz. Leads to cheating. Now... you!" He pointed to a student in the third row who was so scared she jumped about a foot on the air.

"Me?"

"Yes, you..." De Nomolos's brow furrowed as if he was trying to think up a real toughie. "In what year did Missy marry Robot Bill?"

"1998," she said quickly.

De Nomolos smiled his bad guy smile. "Good... Good... Things are coming along very nicely, very nicely indeed." De Nomolos looked around the room, drawing a bead on another hapless student, like a sniper fixing a victim in the crosshairs of his sights. "You!" All the time that Robot Bill and Robot Ted were on earth, where were the actual Bill and Ted?"

The student swallowed hard. "They were dead, sir. Totally."

"Exactly." De Nomolos spoke with a great and obvious sense of satisfaction. Things seemed to be going his way, just as planned. "Gone... dead. Never to return again. And that means that their idiocy will have died with them. No one can do anything about it. Ingenious, isn't it?"

#bill and ted #bill and ted's excellent adventure #bill and ted's bogus journey #bill s preston esquire #evil bill s preston esquire #evil ted theodore logan #ted theodore logan #de nomolos #alex winter #keanu reeves

[instruth]

POVERTY AND DEVASTATION

I always remember what it’s like to be in a state of poverty and devastation, and to let go of the past.

I have composed, written and published several poems on these.

Here are three of my personal favorites.

THE OLD HOMETOWN - by J. P. Lee

Fair land of glory loveliest song of the morn

Smiling parks red roses set among thorns

Eager are the pigtailed gals busy to pick

Gallant swains fall in line ready quick

Gay day begins with a warm cheerful visit

Butterflies flapping, floating in their flit

Love songs from the robins for one and all

Joy of my youth ever pleasing as I recall

Blooms linger when seasons cause delay

Young hearts learn patience to wait and stay.

Innocence and ease enrich my simple life

Nature overriding all hardship and strife

Simple folks endear fine humble happiness

My daily loitering brings surpassing gladness

Pausing to admire the glory of dawn

Watching the deer with her little fawn

Grazing on tapestry green along the slope

While bees and grasshoppers shyly elope

I dream of the maiden I secretly love

Like cooing doves wooing in their cove

Crossing a quiet brook to watch her charm

Yonder fence lies her cultivated rainbow farm.

I bless the approaching brilliance of day

When all around me freely lend a play

Contentment fills my soul and cheers my heart

A pastime frolicking joyfully, never to part

Simple pleasures and joys in sweet succession come

Dancing pairs bring sweet memories to beds at home

Peaceful dreams follow when the day is done

Alas! These lovely charms are past and gone.

LEAVING FOR GREENER PASTURE

- by J. P. Lee

To greener pasture thy children flee

From the womb of Mother Earth set free

Relentless weather turns thy greens to yellow

No standing ovation, no cheer, from grass to fellow

Freedom stings not numbing thy pain

New owners destroying thy smiling plain

Thy glassy brooks no longer reflect

Mossy paths mirroring a land neglect

Collapsed greenery make nests for charging ants

From afar comes the loud cry of thy vagrants.

Wealth accumulates while thy land decays

Dry wind carries its stink day after day

Peasantry once boldly gay now in great despair

Stripped off its pride to breathe its own foul air.

Times have altered thy once compassionate train

Rolling swiftly only to dispossess thy grain

Thy packed lawn of fond cheering crowd

Now empty without the sportsmen's shout

Devoid of the peaceful scene that once delights

Even the polo ponies in their thunderous flights.

Staring across the sea standing on its weary shore

In hopes for better as generous provisions come no more.

Bitter sweet is the approaching sense of dreaded hour

To please or confront the tyrant in his rigorous power.

Covering the solitary rounds in wandering

Hopping along thy rugged path, staggering

Awakened remembrance roams thy ruins again

Captures my heart but changing the times in vain.

In all my loiterings on thy plains, Mother Care

I now see the gifts of griefs I have to bear

Give me my final hope in one Almighty I can trust

No memory, no understanding only doing thy will I must

That I may come home to write my story

Around a fireplace to tell all of your history

On all that I have seen, learned or have ever knew

That I may return, be buried where I'll be reborn in you.

THE NEW LAND - by J. P. Lee

Is this what we are told - a new found joy?

Not splendor but a treacherous decoy?

Groups cramped in pigeon holes on a stand

Large families packed in a home without a land

Hoisted home up in the sky swiftly built

No warm blankets just share a family quilt

Good Heaven! Greater sorrow newly imposed

Work! Native walks are as yet to be proposed

O Fair Land, why hast thou caused us to leave

To this distant land unknown, far more aggrieved?

Do thou, sweet Mother, weep in vain

Thine fair tribes now add on to thy pain?

Thine children knock at doors for bread

Chilling bones in hunger desperation led

Good neighbors forced to sell their daughters

Not through any faults of theirs that they should falter

Bless me - why, had we brothers any sister

Our decision would not have been better

Painful to watch sweet little girls in tears

Pretty innocents in their helpless years

I weep as I watch them in their charms,

Shaking wildly in their fathers' arms

Grieving mothers kiss their mindless babes

Strike their breasts looking skyward sadly in gapes

I see the fairies and nymphs degraded

In my dreams I see my heaven has faded

These are the hard truth in times of shame

Best to forget, nothing to share, no one to blame.

In the city their statesmen talk as their ale goes round

Laughing cheering with haughty looks profound

Such luxury migrants can ill afford

Even simple pleasures dismiss accord

Wealthy men arrive from world around

Suits and hats stunning ladies surround

A wanton wealth designed in tempting display

Painful truth in my mind I mindlessly survey

For I am sickened by this man-made pleasure

Toiling in the distrusting hearts of false leisure

Accumulated wealth stored in pride

Buy a lass to play as an obedient bride

Repossess the cuddly space of the poor

For their horses, hounds and more

Lawful acquisition to rob the timid folks

Stealing their meals of oats and yolks

Dressing up their females well adorned

To reign secured while simple folks mourn

Statesmen to their sons divide the wealth acquired

To their siblings, wives, married relatives

as required.

Beating my chest in bitter sweet memory

recall

In senses with unfailing truth reveal it all

Oh past the plain the surging joy prevail

That which I have loved can never fail

That broken teacups I have taken with me

Stirs my will daily sipping my humble tea

No tales no news from barbers or farmers

It's fine - all return at meals as we gather

No theatre, no ballad, no talent time

Everything comes handy in sublime

Make our own feathered balls and stuff

Marbles rolling, guessing games and bluff

Obscure yet it sinks deep in our souls and hearts

Those simple treasures, everlasting will not part

My vacant mind frolicking in the pond

Caress my soul, my spirit neatly bond

Contented on my stool writing my poetry

Pass my time in imagined peasantry

Raise my native strength for greater gain

Instead of indulging in pitiful afflicted pain

Plant my seeds, pull out the weeds annoy

With compliments from God, my daily joy.

©Johnny J P Lee

18 February 2021

Photos Credit J. P. Lee

#instruth #instruthpoems #13cupsofteareblog #gececi 0671 #giberrish #followcb #frankl410 #acrobat888 #warxpunkxmonk #the subservient human #tanou123 #smittenbypoetry #writerscreeds #poetryportal #sarah irura #writtenconsiderstions #angiessong67blog #ambroseharte #a peace follower #goodbye #devastation #poverty #leaving home #to greener pasture #farewell #driven away #painful memories #no where to go #delimma

[kedreeva]

buzzfeed posted "41 Cheap And Clever DIYs For Happy Healthy Chickens" and some of those are actually pretty cool, for any birds, if you care enough to have a look

I saw it, but @buzzfeed didn’t really do their research, and they’ve released an article with a lot of false information that can be very dangerous to fowl.

#1 never leave treats hung on strings unattended in your chicken coops. Chickens have gotten themselves hung on them before. They may also attempt to eat the string itself afterward, which I have had to help people deal with chickens choking on string wrapped around their tongues before, it’s not nice. There should be a warning accompanying that.

#2 NEVER USE FEATHER DUSTERS MADE OF OSTRICH FEATHERS OR FAUX OSTRICH FEATHERS WITH BABY CHICKENS. The way an ostrich feather is structured, the filaments can get wrapped around a baby chick’s neck and strangle them. This has happened to.... so many people, because of bad advice like that.

I’m going to stick the rest behind a cut, because although there are a few that are good tips, most of them are dangerous garbage.

#3 waffle balls are okay, but if they are soft enough or have hanging parts like that red one in the photo, the chickens WILL eat parts of it. 

#4 is okay.

#5 Apple cider vinegar isn’t good for chickens, it can destroy the normal gut microbes and cause issues inflaming the intestines. Garlic also isn’t good for them (neither are onions). Honey is a big no-no because of the risk of botulism, the same as for, like, human toddlers.

#6 Xylophone is nice, we have one, they ignore it completely after day 1. #7 crushed eggshells are good, we dry and crush all the eggshells from eggs we use to give back to the birds, they love it. #8 chicken bucket is good, but harder to make than just drilling a big hole in the side of the bucket, which is what we did.

#9 lots of people have made incubators out of lots of things, styrofoam’s alright for a few eggs, just have to remember to move the eggs around because incubators like that get hotspots.

#10 I wouldn’t feed that to my birds. I wouldn’t trust feeding them bee pollen any more than I would honey, for the same reason.

#11 PVC chicken feeders are fine. #12 corn on the cob on a straight wire fixed to wood is fine. #13 pan full of water is A+, dump daily to prevent mosquitos and algae slime buildup.

#14 lobster carcass is questionable at best. I wouldn’t personally do it, because the risk that they eat a sharp piece of carapace is pretty high.

#15 currants are fine (fruits and leaves) but gooseberry leaves are toxic to fowl, please do not plant these where your chickens have free access to them??

#16 pumpkin is great! Wouldn’t hang it, because strangulation again #17 Cabbage is okay, but limit the intake and again, don’t hang it.

#18 hanging CDs is not really for your chickens, it’s for keeping wild birds out, and also again, strangulation risk for all hanging things.

#19 it takes very, very little marigold to change yolk color, so this needs to be extremely limited in intake if you’re feeding just to brighten up the yolks.

#20 Flock blocks are great, but deteriorate (and mold) if left in the rain, so feed under a shelter of some kind.

#21 please stop hanging things. when your chicken gets its head caught in the guineapig toy you hung and strangles itself, it’s not going to be a good time for anyone.

#22 wine bottle grit feeder is fine, if unnecessary, they’ll eat it fine off the ground or from a normal bowl.

#23 Chicken gym is awesome, and very good.

#24 Mirror is also very good, but make sure that you observe them upon adding it because some chickens get BIG MAD about the invaders in their coop and try to attack it, which is more stressful than it is enriching.

#25 Tire dirt baths are probably fine

#26 water bottle corn treat dispensers are good for chickens (providing you secure the cap well enough they cannot get it off; consider gluing it in place) and also cats!

#27 essential oils are. kind of terrible in general BUT if you’re going to use them just make sure the chickens aren’t in the coop. Their respiratory systems are delicate and breathing in any kind of oil can give them a respiratory infection really easily.

#28 frozen corn blocks is just a variation of #4.

#29 is just another variation of PVC feeders

#30 Cover for the water is nice. Gonna get covered in poop itself, but hey, at least the water stays cleaner for them.

#31 lmao I mean ok, you can. That’ll be a pain in the ass to clean compared to just locking down their coop and keeping it clean/dry/ventilated. Chickens are extremely cold-hardy.

#32 Chicken swing is wonderful

#33 seed sprouts are good, check beforehand which seeds are safe to sprout tho

#34 does it have to be rotting

#35 kitty litter bucket nesting boxes are great, we have a couple. Secure them to something so they don’t get knocked around when the chicken is climbing in.

#36 the cleverest thing on this damn list so far. My only concern would be having it rotate or bend when the chickens perch on it, which they absolutely will. But you could just as easily nail 1x4s into a V and use that

#37 Metal grate chicken treat feeder is ok

#38 plants look okay, idk about growing a bunch of cabbage still; too much of that (as with kale and mustard greens) can cause thyroid problems. A little is okay as a treat, but a lot growing constantly where they can eat it any time is not good.

#39 Hanging things chickens can stick their heads through are still a bad idea, more at 10

#40 I’m baffled bout where the light for growing is coming from, but if it works it works.

#41 Egg gathering skirt not actually for happy, healthy chickens, it’s for humans, but still good. Bucket also works. I put eggs in my pockets all the time and let me tell you, it’s ended in tragedy at least 1 in 10 times when I forget it’s there and crush it.

Anyway, someone needed to do more research and attach better warnings to a lot of this stuff than they did, because most of these have a huge potential to create sick and dead chickens. Buzzfeed can hit me up if they ever need someone to fact check a fucking bird article, because obviously they didn’t have anyone else capable of doing so.

And in case you’re wondering there are tons of resources out there with lists of things that are toxic or potentially harmful to fowl, here’s a really extensive one for plants that was easy enough to find with 2 seconds of research so, like, I KNOW Buzzfeed didn’t even try: http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html

And as if the rest was not offensive enough of a blunder

they missed the opportunity for the pun “41 cheep and clever DIYs for healthy happy chickens” and that is just. terrible.

#chickens #birds #my pets #anon asks #asks #anyway thank you #I was very interested in that list #it was terrible #and I'm happy to have a chance to correct it #Anonymous

[potatocrab]

Nothing Sweeter Than a Touching Scene (Noir AU Side Stories)

The Marmalade on 10,000 Pieces of Toast

Deacon finally gets the chance to cook breakfast for Charmer. In a tender moment, he shares some truths about his past and thinks about a future with Madelyn. 

(Takes place during Chapter 16 (17 on Ao3) of Salvation is a Last Minute Business.)

“Another day, another ball of fire rising in the summer sky. The city is quiet now, but it will soon be pounding with activity. This time yesterday, Jean Dexter was just another pretty girl, but now she's the marmalade on 10,000 pieces of toast.”—The Narrator as played by Mark Hellinger (The Naked City, 1948)

4393 words | [read on Ao3] 

May 31st, 1958

“The most intimate thing you can do for a person you love is cook them breakfast.”

Words to live by—echoes from a former life—advice Deacon still believed in after so many years. He’d always been somewhat of a hopeless romantic, and despite the amount of tragedy the universe—or God—had thrown his way, he remained steadfast in his convictions. A dangerous thing, given his line of work. If there was one thing he’d learned from watching Casablanca, it was that you didn’t fall in love in the middle of a war.

Not to say the investigation into the Institute was anything like fighting Nazis in Europe—or maybe it was. The days he was getting shot at certainly felt like it, not to mention the car bombs (okay car bomb—but one destroyed Volkswagen typically led to another). And then there were his fallen comrades—Railroad agents that had died at the Switchboard, Ticonderoga, and Augusta safehouse. This was war alright—Deacon only hoped that V-Day was sooner, rather than later.

Through the darkness of it all, he’d found someone—again—and was clinging to the hope that this time, maybe, it would last. That this time, the cruel hand of fate wouldn’t reach down and snatch her from his grasp, just as their connection deepened. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—lose her. Charmer—Madelyn—she was—

“Fuck,” Deacon hissed under his breath as he dropped an egg to the floor, frowning at the mess he’d made while distracted by his thoughts. He shot a glance down the hallway towards the half-open bedroom door, waiting several seconds for the telltale sounds of his creaky mattress and the even squeakier floorboards. But nothing came—good—she was still asleep. Full speed ahead with operation breakfast in bed.

Ignoring the broken shells and splattered yolk at his feet, Deacon considered himself to be a good cook. He hadn’t had very many opportunities to show off the skill and providing late night meals after Railroad ops to Drummer Boy didn’t count—the schmuck would eat anything without appreciation of the craft—couldn’t even tell the difference between Ragù and Bolognese. Madelyn though, she understood it was an artform, just like one of his many other clandestine talents.  

She’d watched him intently the evening before as he prepared their meal—beef bourguignon—just as he’d promised. It would’ve been easier to eat at the 24-hour diner down the block, especially after all they’d been through that day. Hell, the holiday weekend had barely started and Madelyn had managed to be shot at twice. But she insisted, even if it took all night just to have a home-cooked meal made by him. She meant it colloquially—the home in home-cooked—but it struck a chord with him, glancing over his shoulder as he sautéed vegetables to look at her perched on one of the barstools.

Madelyn had been smiling in that small, secret way, blue eyes bright and entranced by his every movement. Deacon contemplated telling her she looked like she belonged there, in the safehouse, in the closest thing he had to a home—had very nearly asked her something far more dangerous after watching her savor the first bite. He held back his words, filled his mouth and burnt his tongue on hot stew, and laughed with her about French cooking and red wine. But the thought persisted—how nice it would be to settle down with her—if she’d have him.

He always was the type to fall too hard, and too fast.

Their first time had been rushed, fervent and had resulted in a few smashed items along the kitchen counter. There was no less passion in their kisses that second night, dinner finished and wine bottle empty, but there was a cadence to it all as they took the time to better familiarize themselves with one another—get lost in each other. Deacon wasn’t entirely sure if he’d gone soft, gone mad, or had died and gone to heaven. Maybe it was a sick combination of the three. Love always was like that, it seemed—a little part of yourself breaking off and floating away as it found root in the heart of one’s beloved.

“Damn,” he breathed a curse again, softly laughing to himself about the circumstances and bringing himself back to the present. He was in deep.

He caught his distorted reflection in the shiny surface of the toaster as he retrieved the crispy bread from the appliance, stacking it onto a plate next to a tiny jar of orange marmalade. “Shallow ends’ for chumps.”

Deacon quietly hummed a showtune as he organized the food on the wooden tray, plating the over-easy eggs next to the crispy bacon and freshly made hash-browns. He placed the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in one corner before situating the steaming cup of coffee in the other. He stood back to inspect his work, adjusting the silverware and lamenting that he didn’t have any fresh flora on hand to make the display perfect. Somehow he knew that Madelyn wouldn’t mind.

He balanced the weight of the tray in his hands before carefully making his way back down the hall, smiling at his efforts and rehearsing in his mind all the little ways he could wake her up. Deacon used his foot to push open the bedroom door but paused in the doorway as soon as he caught sight of Madelyn’s form on the bed. She was blissfully asleep, the picture of comfort dressed up in his button-down shirt from the evening before with the duvet pulled up across her waist, hair fanned out across the pillows like a golden halo of curls. With the sun shining in through the drawn-open curtains, she looked like she had walked right out of a movie—or maybe his dreams. Deacon suddenly cursed the fact Nick got to call her doll, but maybe he could stake a claim on angel.

“Are you going to stand there all morning?”

Madelyn peeked open one eye, lips curling up into a small grin as she looked at him, hardly a trace of drowsiness in her voice. 

“The view is nice,” Deacon replied, watching as she leisurely pushed herself up to sit against the pillows and headboard. She stretched, arms reaching high above her head and shifting the fabric of the shirt she wore just enough that he saw a sliver of skin. He smiled at the cute way she yawned, wrinkled nose and all. “Just how long have you been awake?”

“Since that first egg crack,” she shrugged, eyeing the tray in his hands. “I’m a light sleeper, don’t you know? You can’t sneak out or up on me.”

“As tempting as it was to follow you out to the kitchen and join you, I decided feigning sleep was a better idea,” Madelyn continued with a quiet giggle, hiding her amusement behind her fingers. The delight and mischief in her eyes was intoxicating. “Let you surprise me.”

Deacon raised his eyebrows, lifting the tray as if on cue. “Surprise!”

He finally entered the room, crossing over to one side of the bed as Madelyn shifted to create space for him to place the tray of food down before he sat on the edge of the mattress. He turned to face her, stretching to rest his chin in his palm, elbow sinking into the plush blankets. She grinned, eyes shimmering as they scanned over the platter.

“First dinner, now breakfast—”

“A show too,” Deacon joked, prompting her to snicker as he alluded to their more boisterous activities.

“It was quite the performance,” she replied, gaze running over his body and lack of clothing—an undershirt and boxers was good enough for a lazy day at the safehouse. “I feel thoroughly spoiled.”

“Good,” he responded, nodding at her. “Now eat, before all my hard work goes cold.”

Deacon stayed where he was, lounging sideways on the bed as he watched her eat. He stole the occasional bite of bacon, smirking to himself when he noted the little blush dusting her cheeks, seemingly flustered under his observation. In the morning light, without his sunglasses or dark-haired wig, the two underdressed in their most natural states it was all very domestic—something Deacon hadn’t experienced in years. Might as well have been a lifetime. No wonder she felt nervous.

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, on the verge of saying something incredibly stupid and too soon, caught up in the afterglow and butterflies that continued to swirl around in his stomach. He quelled them with a generous sip of her coffee, even if the added sugar and cream wasn’t his preference. Madelyn laughed at his subtle wince, swapping the ceramic cup from his hands for a piece of toast. She’d spread a generous dollop of marmalade atop and had taken one bite before passing it to him.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked before taking a mouthful.

“With skills like this, you could replace Codsworth,” she quipped, smiling against the rim of the coffee cup. “What a shame you don’t have a third arm.”  

“I don’t?” he teased between chews, raising a curious eyebrow.

Madelyn nearly choked on her sip of coffee, spluttering out the liquid into her hand and reaching for a napkin as she laughed at his lewd joke. As flustered as she was before, she was completely flushed now, neck and cheeks tinted a bright red as she struggled to contain her amusement and embarrassment at the mess she’d made. Deacon laughed with her, taking the cup from her hands to place back on the tray and offering another napkin as he sat up.

“You’re too much,” she sighed, slowly pulling the cloth from her face to reveal a coy smile.

Deacon took it from her, dropping it across the food tray before sliding it away and placing it safely on the ground. He sat in the empty spot, leaning over so his arms boxed her in on either side, fingers gradually peeling away the blankets to expose her naked legs. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Madelyn leaned closer, arms circling around his shoulders as she traced her nose against his, lips smiling against his in the ghost of a kiss. “Jury is still out…if you’re bad for me.”

She was teasing him, Deacon knew that. But still, his heart strained against his ribcage, though he hid his reaction well. He knew he wasn’t the best choice for Madelyn—out of all the eligible bachelors in Boston, she could do so much better than some Railroad spy that couldn’t tell the truth. Lately, he’d been honest with her, but there was still so much she didn’t know—so much he would never tell her, just to keep her safe. That’s not the kind of partner she needed in life, not the kind of person you chose to share a future with.

Yet, there he was—there she was—kissing him just as sweetly and enthusiastically as the night before, as she’d done the first night he’d brought her to the safehouse. She’d kissed him a few weeks ago too, outside her apartment door, full of want and silently pleading, confirming to him that she’d made her choice.

“You,” she’d breathed, hot against his mouth when they were perched on the barstools two nights ago. “Deacon, I want you.”

Invigorated by the memory, he tugged Madelyn closer, her legs shuffling from beneath the covers and body shifting beneath his desperate grasp so that her knees straddled his thighs. He groaned, the feeling of her soft hands and manicured nails sliding up beneath his shirt a welcome surprise that had him breaking away from the heated kiss so she could remove it completely. Deacon moved to do the same to the button-up she was wearing, make some kind of raunchy remark about how good she looked wearing his clothes, but she stopped him. Instead, Madelyn nudged him to lay down, adjusting herself so she was strategically straddling his hips, avoiding his ever-increasing arousal.

He gripped her waist, keeping her steady as she bent over to pepper his face with tiny kisses, trailing down and away to his ear. He bit back a moan, glancing at the top of her blonde head. “Cruel, cruel mistress.”

Madelyn softly chuckled against his skin, the sound and feeling doing nothing to placate his state. “Have somewhere you need to be?”

“No,” he answered in a breath, shifting beneath her, holding back from rolling his hips upwards. He smirked to himself, knowing she was just as riled up. “Well, inside of you. If those travel plans can be arranged.”

Deacon felt her smile, more importantly, the shiver along her spine at his cheeky statement. “I’ll book you on a first-class flight.”

Despite their obvious arousal, and her equally bawdy response (that had him tightening his grip and practically growling), Madelyn slowed her movements, pulling away to look down at his face. Her expression was hard to read, even as she softly smiled at him in that small, secret way, a few fingers brushing over the lines of his face.    

“Charmer?” he prompted, the worry from before suddenly worming its way back into his chest with an overwhelming sense of dread. Did she have the same doubts?

“Can I ask you something?” her voice was deadly quiet, just above a whisper and she was barely able to meet his gaze.

The open-ended question terrified him, and he had to admit that in that moment he was emotionally and physically vulnerable—what with being pinned beneath her body to the mattress. Even if he could easily toss her aside and run away, he’d still have to answer to her eventually. Unless he ran away for good—but that was not an option, not when he’d resigned himself to drown in her waters and die a sweet, sweet death.

So he answered, nodding once. “Yeah,” he squeezed her hip in a reassuring gesture. He bit the inside of his cheek as the next word came flying out without thought. “Anything.”

Even Madelyn seemed surprised, leaning further away until she was sitting up so she could trace the faint, ridged outline of a scar that ran along his chest towards his collarbone. Even though he’d given her permission, she was hesitant, teeth raking over her bottom lip as she studied the old injury. He recalled her lingering touch against it, and other marks along his skin as they fell asleep—it was bound to come up eventually.

Finally, her soft voice broke through the silence. “What happened?”

Deacon considered lying—it would’ve been very easy to make up some fantastical story about any one of his scars, but Madelyn always had been very astute at deciphering his wild tales and white lies. Most of the time she ignored it, let him have his fun, or added grandeur herself. Other times, especially as of late, she wanted the truth—and it likely had to do with their developing relationship. He owed her that much, and a part of him felt relieved at the decision.

“Normandy,” he started, Madelyn’s eyes widening in shock, a gasp on her lips. The assumption was there, that he had stormed the beaches on D-Day, but no. “I was fighting in Caen, in the city, with British Allies. German bastard got too close for comfort.” 

“I don’t know why I should be surprised that you served,” Madelyn whispered, still focused on the scar. “Hard to imagine you fighting somebody else’s war.”  

“Plenty of Railroad business overseas,” Deacon shrugged, catching her puzzled expression, eyebrow arched as she met his eyes. “Or at least what would eventually become the Railroad.”

Madelyn seemed to read between the lines, a slow, knowing smile creeping across her lips. “So, you’ve always been a spy.”

Deacon didn’t say anything, matching her grin instead. He knew it was harder to hide the deviousness of a non-answer without the help of his shades, but he was still going to try, if only to rile Madelyn up. She laughed, much to his delight, head tilting back and exposing her neck. He wanted to reach up and unbutton the shirt—his shirt—to expose more skin, wanted to kiss her, keep her there with him forever.

“I was sixteen in 1944…” Madelyn trailed, reaching down to thread her fingers through the hair along his temple. “Just how old are you, Deacon?”

There was humor in her question, but it startled him all the same and he had to quickly remind himself of how bare he was, how easily she could read the subtle emotions on his face. Not that he’d forgotten his age or anything, but he’d suppressed so much of his past and youth that the truth was murky. Just like his war-scars, or his name (which she hadn’t spoken aloud since discovering, to his surprise), this subject was fair game. It was amusing really, how completely backwards they’d gone about forming a partnership—relationship. Then again, their courtship was anything from conventional.

“Old enough to remember prohibition,” he finally replied with a grin, chuckling at her visible confusion as she performed silent equations in her mind. She leaned forward, palms flat against his chest as she scrutinized his face with a wary look.

“You aren’t robbing the cradle with me, now are you?”

Deacon guffawed, one hand tickling at her side and prompting her to wiggle against him in the delightful way he wanted as she giggled. “Not that old, sweetheart. And you aren’t that young.”

“Hey,” she pouted, mocking offense as she pushed away from him once again. “My birthday isn’t for another month.”

That’s right. If he’d read her license correctly (because yes, Madelyn had been correct to assume he’d been snooping through some of her things), she was turning thirty on July 1st. Well, it was only fair since he knew her age, that she knew his. Birthday and astrological sign could come later, maybe over a bottle of brandy, or after a blood oath—just kidding.

“Forty-one and some change,” he said, watching her expression carefully. Instead of amusement or uncertainty, there was a calm sense of wonderment in her baby-blues, scanning over his face like she was seeing him for the first time.

She lowered herself close again, bracing herself against his chest as she brushed her fingers through his hair again, trailing her fingers down across his temple and jaw line before tracing the angle of his nose and the line of his lips. Madelyn regarded him with the tiniest of smiles as she moved, painting him with her brush—he was all too willing to be her canvas.

She kissed the corner of his mouth before slowly erupting into a fit of giggles. “How much change, old man?”

Deacon laughed with her but was more preoccupied by the way she angled her head as she lost herself to her amusement, exposing the soft skin of her neck. This time, he couldn’t hold back and bucked the weight of her body from his hips, hooking his arms around her waist before flipping them so her back was flush against the mattress and he was hovering above her, lips already kissing a teasing line from her chin to her ear.

“How long do I have you for today?” he asked, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

“I don’t have anywhere to be but here, with you.”

Leave it to Madelyn to say something romantic, without a trace of lewdness. She sighed, softly moaning as he kissed along her neck and the collar of the shirt. Deacon slowed his movements, even before she spoke again, breathing out the words against the shell of his ear. “No need to rush.”

An affirmation, even as he was drowning in the deep end. Maybe it was time to come up for air, at least for a little while.

Deacon pressed a lingering kiss to her lips, holding her body to his as he rolled to his side. He nestled his head into the pillow, tightening his arm around her waist and smiling when she kissed him softly in return, tucking her arm around his middle. Slow—he could do slow. A nice, and wonderful change of pace to his wild and unpredictable, hectic life. He found comfort in the silence formed between them as they simply stared at one another, studying each other’s faces with quiet expressions.

“A secret for a secret,” Madelyn suddenly prompted, though Deacon was unsure of how much time had truly passed. As if she could tell that he didn’t understand, she continued. “I asked you something. You can ask me something, if you want.”

Tit for tat—Madelyn always was good about keeping things square. His mind swirled with the possibilities, and he very nearly responded with a hushed everything. She wanted the truth, right?

“A secret you haven’t learned about me yet?” she teased, tilting her head back so she could better see his face.

More questions floated through his head, but they all sounded too invasive, even for him, especially for where they were in their undefined relationship. Since she mentioned it, what was she like at sixteen? What were her parents like? Had she ever been overseas? She’d love Paris—or maybe Dublin, take her back to her roots. What did she look like on her wedding day? What was it like to be married to Nate, and…could she ever love again?

Yeah, those were all way too intrusive.

Deacon swallowed back the tightness in his throat. He needed to say something before his mood spiraled or he said something rash. “Can you help me get out of some parking tickets? Lawyers can do that, right?”

Madelyn flashed him a curious look, the faintest hint of disappointment at his deflection of humor before softly laughing. She’d expected him to ask something more personal, just as she’d done, and he’d goofed.

“When they aren’t providing legal advice to grisly detectives or being shot up at city hall, I suppose,” Madelyn spoke, with enough mirth in her tone to relax him, make him feel like he hadn’t offended her. “Which reminds me. I need more clothes from my apartment. I can’t walk around in dirty, blood stained dresses all weekend.”

“I’m sure I saw it as the latest fashion trend in Vogue,” Deacon joked in reply. “At this rate, Nick owes you a stipend. Or a shopping spree at Bergdorf Goodman.”

She grinned, obviously delighted by the idea. “You know, Nick doesn’t pay me. The city does. But I won’t pass up a trip to Fifth Avenue, if you’re offering.”

A day trip to Manhattan didn’t sound too bad, when she put it that way. He mirrored her smile, sliding his hand over her side. “You’re already the best dressed lawyer in Massachusetts.”

“Flatterer,” she said, a wistfully. “Save the designer labels for when I’m back in court.”

Deacon thought about that, and her time spent away from the District Attorney’s office as Nick’s legal aid. “Ever thought about opening your own practice?”

Madelyn’s eyes shined with a different kind of excitement, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. And if it had, she hadn’t given it much serious thought. Which was really all just a shame, all things considered. Her nervous silence didn’t deter Deacon.

“You belong with the big-wigs down at city hall, Charmer,” he encouraged, watching the corner of her mouth twitch up in a smile—good. “You’d even have a shot at becoming state attorney if you wanted.”

She breathed a laugh, but it wasn’t out of disbelief. Her cheeks were dusted with the lightest blush and he wondered if he was the first person to ever tell her something like that. But why not? Madelyn deserved good things, great things, and he would move heaven and earth to give it to her, if it was what she wanted.

“Big dreams for the future,” she responded. A non-answer, but he didn’t need one, based off of her bright expression. “What do you want?”

The question was a punch to the gut, stealing the breath from him. His heart seized for a moment before continuing, racing in his chest. Deacon knew Madelyn could sense the rapid pace of his pulse, and the anxiety etched into his features. For a long time he’d resigned himself to a life of subterfuge, to a life of lies and deception. After Barbara, he was married to his life as a spy and his life in the Railroad. There was nothing else—there could be nothing else. Until now.

Now he was shifting, suddenly dusting off cobwebs and morphing his life in ways he never thought possible to make room for somebody else. Somebody he wanted, somebody he needed. Somebody to share his life with. Terrifying, thrilling and mesmerizing all the same. He spoke the truth.

“Someplace to rest my head.”

“Hmm,” Madelyn sighed, softly smiling in agreement as she reached up to comb her fingers through his hair. He was beginning to think that she liked seeing him without the pompadour wig and preferred the auburn waves. “Well deserved.”

“Where have you been all my life?” he asked, well before he could hold back from saying it, tightening his jaw and inhaling sharply at the shock of his own words. At least Madelyn interpreted it as flirtatious banter rather than anything too serious, flashing him a cheeky grin as she closed the distance between them to kiss him sweetly, lingering there against his mouth.

“Boston,” she whispered. Before he could continue the kiss or bring her any closer she rolled away, onto her back, turning her head to look at him. She prompted him, beckoning him to snuggle against her side. “Come here.”

Deacon was considerably bigger than her, but she didn’t seem to mind the weight of his body laying halfway atop her, his head resting against her shoulder with her arm wrapped across his shoulder, their legs tangled together across the blankets. It was different, but a good kind of different—exactly what he needed.

“Just stay here a little while, like this?” she asked, quietly.

He didn’t mind staying like that forever. “Anything you want, Charmer.”

#fallout 4 #noir au #deacon x f!solesurvivor #deacon #madelyn hardy #noir au side stories #this is the domestic fluff you're looking for #fallout fanfic #LOOK I wrote something

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 78

I have decided to christen today Noodle Day, as that is the most interesting thing that happened. It was a pretty quiet day in quarantine, though my MIL did go out for a dental cleaning that is medically important and should not be put off. She reports that her dentist was covered in so much PPE that she could not even recognize him when he came in. I respect that. She's got a brand new clean test, but still, anybody who's getting into somebody else's mouth right now is a brave person. 

The kiddo was up again a few minutes ago but not too bad, freefloating questions about what the future might look like, and then he hit me with a question about why some people don't want to get a vaccine if it's available. I bit back the automatic and generally unhelpful "because they're stupid" and tried to explain how there was a study a long time ago by a doctor who used bad methods and who wanted the study to turn out a certain way, and that study said vaccines might be bad. Other scientists jumped right on that theory to test it and found that it was wrong, but the doctor still wanted to sell stuff, so he made friends with some famous people in Hollywood and convinced them that he was right, and they made word spread. I tried to explain how people like to feel like they have control of their lives and that one way they can feel like they have control is if they feel smarter than doctors and scientists. That's why it's hard to convince these people with evidence, because the evidence doesn't matter as much as the good feeling of having control. We both agreed that this is not a good way to live one's life. 

We also speculated on what life and school would be like if you only go in the mornings or the afternoons, or every other day, or every other week. Some things will be similar, some things will be different, there might even be more periods of quarantine, but it'll be okay and we'll be all right. I try not to lie to him when he asks about these things, but at the same time it's not helpful or fair to load my doubts and worries onto him when he hasn't got tools to deal with them. It's kind of the same way we handle talking about politics; he knows that the president right now is not doing a good job and we don't like a lot of what he's doing, but I try to avoid ranting about all the ways he's destroying America where the kiddo can hear. Part of being the parent is holding onto stuff until your kid is ready to handle it without it damaging him. And I do think things will be all right, eventually. 

Anyway, noodle day. We ate leftovers for lunch again, and I think I'm going to have to throw the salsa chicken into the freezer because it is the Leftover That Wouldn't Die. Still tastes good on day four, but who wants it to? I had leftover pot roast instead, which was delicious. For dinner I did up a beer can chicken in the oven that ended up being a pop-can-with-beer-in-it chicken because our only beer was in bottles. I had a recipe that involved patting the chicken dry and then using Worcestershire sauce to hold the spices to it, and because I am crazy for that anchovy ketchup goodness, I just had to try it. Rather than serve heaping plates of meat all on its own, I decided that garlic parmesan noodles would be the perfect accompaniment and broke out the pasta maker. My pasta maker is a series of attachments for the Kitchenaid stand mixer, which luckily my MIL also owns. I brought them down after my trip home last week and have been itching for a chance to use them. 

My egg noodle recipe is very simple, two cups of flour, one teaspoon(ish) of salt, and three eggs plus one egg yolk. You make a clear, very clean place on your counter and make yourself a little flour and salt mountain , then poke a nice big caldera in it, into which you pour your eggs. Use one hand to incorporate the eggs into the flour, then use your clean hand to get a butter knife and scrape the wet dough off your other hand, then knead the hell out of the dough until it's nice and smooth and all the flour is incorporated. Let it rest for half an hour by rolling it into a ball and putting it in plastic wrap, then pastafy it! (I have been watching a _lot_ of Pasta Grannies on YouTube lately, but I'm not very brave yet, recipewise.)

MIL has never seen pasta being machine-made in person, so she was pretty fascinated by the whole rolling out process. Since I wanted fettucini, I rolled to the second thinnest setting, then used my cutting roller to turn it all into nice long noodles, then let it dry for a few hours. SO much easier than rolling it by hand, and it turned out so much nicer. Fresh noodles cook in just 3-4 minutes too, which is very handy. Because I wanted to highlight the noodles themselves, I just put butter, garlic salt and parmesan cheese on them, no sauce. We all ate some chicken at dinner (it was pretty good!) but the noodles were the star attraction. Anything that my MIL will take thirds of is going straight onto the recipe shortlist. She's doing a lot better at eating good meals, but I worry! Speaking of which, tomorrow is her followup on her knee, so let's hope for good news on that, with good news being "no more brace." We still haven't figured out how to keep the damn thing from sliding down her leg all the time, and I still don't know if we've got it together right. I told her that if, heaven forfend, she has to keep wearing the brace, she must not leave the doctor's office until she Facetimes me and makes him show me by video how to put that wretched thing on correctly. But hopefully it will be a moot point. It would be great if she's into PT and getting around well by the time we have to go. 

#quarantine #pasta #noodles #recipes #i had to bring in the emergency flour from the car because we ran out #the emergency originally was that I was too lazy to bring the flour from the car to my apartment #but look how well it paid off in the end!

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine Advent Drabble - “Baker’s Creed” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Kurt and Blaine have been competing with one another their entire relationship. Now, without knowing it, they're competing for their daughter's affection. Will they work things out before it destroys their kitchen? (2916 words)

Notes: Written to include the @klaineadvent 2019 prompts creed, lecture, and quarrel, as well as the @gleepotluckbigbang prompts cookies, sick, and charity.

Read on AO3.

Blaine wakes up to an empty bed, a script weighing down his chest, and the sinfully sweet smell of Kurt’s chocolate chip cookies wafting through the air.

“Mmm … cookies for breakfast,” he mutters through heavy lips. Next to sex, it’s his favorite way to wake up. He inhales deep. “Time to get myself some sugar.” He giggles at his own suggestive remark, giddy with sleep drunkenness. He moves the script to the side and stretches, using the opportunity of a (temporarily) empty bed to monopolize as much space as possible. The stiffness in his arms unravels, his back cracks, and a feeling of utter euphoria fills his body.

“Ahhhh. This is nice.”

He turns to Kurt’s side of the bed and blows it a kiss. It strikes him for a moment that Kurt being out of bed already is a bit odd, but he can’t remember why. So, as his mind starts to clear, he runs down the check list.

What day is today?

Thursday.

Okay. Makes sense then. Kurt should be up and getting ready for work.

Blaine smiles, rolling on his side and cozying up to his husband’s pillow. He inhales again.

Kurt’s pillowcase still smells like him.

Blaine hugs it, running his nose along the crease that once cradled Kurt’s ear.

“Yes, Kurt,” he whispers, imagining himself in the kitchen, standing behind his husband, arms wrapped over his as Kurt prepares dough for the baking sheet. “Let me help you roll some balls, hmm? Whaddya say? You always tell me how good I am at …”

No!

The word pings through Blaine’s brain like a paddle ball, knocking the daydream from right out of his head.

It’s not Thursday. It’s Friday. Yesterday was Thursday. That’s when Blaine got the script for his new pilot, Mutiny on the Bounty – a campy, madcap comedy about a team of armored car thieves/assassins who manage to pull off the most dangerous and insane heist of the year by screwing every single thing up. The writing is stellar, the cast (comprised entirely of LGBTQ actors) revolutionary. JVN has been on board with the project since go and Blaine couldn’t be more excited to share billing with him.

Best of all, his daughter Tracy – 14-years-old and a huge Queer Eye fan – now looks at Blaine as if he walks on water. Considering what raising a teenager has been like thus far, Blaine is ecstatic that he’s managed to pull that off.

They were going to celebrate last night by having dinner at Per Se, and then he and Kurt were going to do some adult style celebrating after Tracy fell asleep, but Kurt started running a fever and …

Shit!

Blaine sits straight up in bed, nearly tossing Kurt’s pillow across the room, becoming both sober and awake in a blink, which makes his head throb.

Kurt has the flu!

Blaine looks at the empty spot again. The last Blaine remembers of his husband, he was high on NyQuil and fast asleep.

So what was he doing in the kitchen baking cookies?

Memories start flying at him hard and fast, and that’s when it finally hits him.

Bake sale!

The bake sale to raise money for the field trip to Washington D. C. that Tracy has been looking forward to since they found out about it at the beginning of the school year.

The bake sale Tracy failed to remind them about until BEFORE BEDTIME!

The bake sale that parents are required to participate in as half of their children’s citizenship grade and which the school would not simply allow them to cut a check to avoid.

“We are not a charity, Mr. Anderson,” Mrs. Palmer, Tracy’s principal (who sort of reminds Blaine of the dean from Monsters University), had said when he asked. “We have the money in our budget to accommodate all of our children. But if we, too, cut a check every time a teachable moment arises, we wouldn’t be much of a school, now, would we?”

Blaine had agreed to her face then spent an entire ride back to their house in his Mercedes replaying that moment with the addition of him buying the school outright with a check and firing her just to make himself feel better.

Kurt had been determined to make those cookies. But Blaine told Kurt not to worry about it, go to bed and sleep off being sick. He’d take care of it in the morning. Blaine even set his alarm clock for three a.m. so that he could do it. He glances over at his phone, the time on the screen reading 3:45 a.m. He glares at it, wondering why the alarm didn’t go off when it should have. Squinting harder, he sees why.

The little clock icon beneath the numbers, the one that indicates an alarm has been set, is no longer there. Blaine remembers vividly it being there when he went to bed. He’d double checked.

Then triple checked.

Which means Kurt had been feigning sleep until Blaine passed out, then crept downstairs to make the cookies himself!

Because he’s stubborn.

And now, Blaine has to go into the den of the dragon and persuade him to abandon his cookies and come back to bed.

Fun.

Blaine sighs. He swings his legs over the side of the bed but he doesn’t let his feet touch the floor. Then he sighs again. He’s not looking forward to the Battle Royale he’s heading into, but he has to do it. He has to get his husband back to bed by any means necessary.

Parts of his body twitch in excitement when the image of him throwing Kurt over his shoulder and carrying him back to their room kicking and protesting leaps to mind, and he scowls.

“Not now,” he grumbles. He stands up, slides his feet into his slippers, and heads to the kitchen.

The sounds of his miserable husband baking while physically unwell come to him in stages.

First, the sharp ringing of metal utensils hitting the sides of metal bowls.

The mixer running is next, then a timer for the oven goes off.

Finally, the sniffling, the sneezing, and the coughing, which should be a giant red flag to someone like Kurt (both a perfectionist and a germaphobe) that baking isn’t the brightest idea right now.

Blaine’s not going to point that out. It’s simply an observation.

Blaine pads quietly into the kitchen. Kurt doesn’t seem to notice – eyes red-hot and blurry with fever. He slides past Blaine twice without looking his way, making Blaine wonder if his husband may, in fact, be sleep-baking.

“Kurt? Honey?” he says in a low, calm voice so as not to startle him. “It’s almost four in the morning. You have the flu. You have to get some sleep.”

Kurt sniffles. “I don’t care,” he says in a ragged, rough voice. “I’m not done! I have four more batches in the oven, nine on the counter ready to go. I have to finish before seven.”

“Then let me do it for you. I told you I would.”

“I can’t let you do it for me!” Kurt grumbles, stirring chocolate chips into a bowl that Blaine is 88% certain has nothing else in it. “I started these cookies and I’m going to finish them!”

“I don’t understand, Kurt! What’s the big deal? They’re just cookies!”

Kurt gasps, the quick intake of breath through his dry throat starting a massive coughing fit – one that Blaine stands patiently through till the end so that his husband can continue lecturing him. “They’re not just cookies! These are my mother’s chocolate chip cookies!”

“I know! And I’ve made them with you for over a decade so I can definitely finish these!”

“It’s not that you can’t do it! It’s that I don’t want you to do it!”

“Why not?”

“It’s the principle of the matter, Blaine!” Kurt argues, trading his chip-filled bowl for a baking sheet. “I have promises to keep! Oaths to uphold! A whole … a whole … baker’s creed!”

Blaine’s face pinches, but he keeps himself from laughing, even once, as that would not go well. “A … a baker’s creed?”

Kurt stops rushing from counter to oven with a baking sheet of uncooked dough in his hands long enough to glare at his husband with steely, red-rimmed eyes. “It’s a real thing, Blaine! Look it up!”

“How about I just take your word for it?”

“Whatever.”

“Come on, honey.” Blaine tries to cut Kurt off, tries to swipe the baking sheet from him, but he doesn’t have much success. “It’s not that big a deal!”

“Of course it’s not that big a deal to you, Mr. Big Movie Star who just landed a movie starring Jonathan Van Ness!” Kurt laughs, then snorts, then hacks so loudly his throat sounds like it’s going to explode. “You’ve won! Conquered the teenage years ahead of schedule, jumped to the head of the class!”

“Is that what this is all about?” Blaine asks, gesturing at the mess Kurt has made in the kitchen, completely out of character for him. He’s not baking for the enjoyment of it. He’s baking out of vengeance - to get back at Blaine. “Kurt! I worked hard to get that role!”

“I never said you didn’t! But there are a hundred things I’ve worked hard to accomplish here in this house! Accomplish with our precocious daughter! And right when I feel like I’m slipping back to the starting line again, you find a way to bypass all of that and leap ahead!” Kurt sighs. No – flattens is more the word. He sinks to the floor, sitting amidst starbursts of baking soda, and sets the baking sheet indelicately onto the tile. “The same way you always do.”

Blaine looks down at his poor husband, hugging his knees on the powder-covered ground. Then he looks around the kitchen, at the cookies Kurt had been throwing together in an attempt to have them all done by the morning – all wrapped up for Tracy to take. His mother’s chocolate chip cookies, by far the most popular cookie he bakes. It’s his signature cookie, all his by now since he’s made little tweaks here and there – a bit more brown sugar, a bit less white, one more egg yolk, cake flour instead of all-purpose, which Blaine would have advised against but, as always when it comes to baking matters, Kurt was right. These cookies have been Kurt’s claim to fame at PTA meetings and bake sales all over Manhattan for the entirety of Tracy’s life. But most of all, they’re the first cookies Tracy ever helped him make.

And they’re her favorites.

And whether making these cookies actually does anything to move the needle in Kurt’s favor, he needed to accomplish this by himself. For himself. Raising his self-esteem wasn’t dependent on Tracy so much as it was dependent upon Kurt.

Blaine sees that now.

“You’re right, Kurt,” Blaine says, sliding down the cabinet to join him. “I lucked out. I found the Golden Ticket, without even knowing that’s what it would turn out to be. But I didn’t do it to undermine you! I swear to God I didn’t!”

“Swearing to God doesn’t really help your case here.”

“And me getting one awesome role doesn’t wash away all the amazing things you’ve done for Tracy these past fourteen years - the homemade Halloween costumes, the sing-a-longs, the school plays you’ve volunteered to direct, the school trips you’ve chaperoned, the bake sales and the cookies and the birthday cupcakes.” He inches closer, bumps their shoulders together. “All the nightmares you’ve chased away, the tears you’ve dried. Kurt … one role in one stupid movie can’t compete with any of that. To tell you the truth, that’s why I was so over-the-moon when she got excited about it. Because I’m not the one she goes to when she wakes up in the middle of the night, or when she falls and scrapes her knee, or when she needs cookies for a bake sale. It’s you.”

Kurt reaches for Blaine’s hand, weaves their fingers together. “She goes to you, too.”

Blaine shakes his head. “Not as much. Not since she was about seven. I don’t know what changed but she was your girl after that.”

Kurt peeks at Blaine, his head the one hanging now, gazing at their joined hands with watery eyes.

“It’s not a stupid movie,” Kurt says. “It’s going to be a kick-ass amazing movie, and you know it.”

“But it’s not as important as Tracy. Or you. And, yeah, she’s all gaga about it now, but I’m going to be gone for how many months?”

“Oh,” Kurt says sadly. “I didn’t think about that.”

Blaine’s head finds his husband’s shoulder and rests there. “There’s so many things we compete over. Tracy’s affection shouldn’t be one of them. She loves us both. I know that, even if I have to remind myself over and over some days.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just been hard lately, watching her follow you around like a puppy, begging to read through lines with you and talking about becoming an actress when yesterday she was reading over my copy for Vogue and talking about becoming a designer and asking Isabelle how old she has to be to intern and … oh …” Kurt repeats, realization springing to life in his brain at how often Tracy goes to the office with him, helps him pick through his photographs, gives her two cents on fabric choices, helps him accessorize models …

Oh …

“Yup,” Blaine says as if he can read his husband’s mind. “Tomorrow she might wake up and tell us she wants to be a neurosurgeon because Louis Tomlinson decided to give up singing and go to medical school so who knows? If you’ve taught me anything about raising kids it’s that they change their minds like the wind. In fact, pretty much everything I know about raising our daughter I’ve learned from you, and do you know why?”

“Hmm?”

“Because you’re an amazing father.”

Kurt smiles, kisses the top of Blaine’s head. “So are you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Blaine brings Kurt’s hand to his mouth and gives it a kiss. They melt into one another on the kitchen floor, content to remain there, nestled in their puddle of baking soda, surrounded by the scent of chocolate chip cookies, until sun up. But something in the vicinity of the oven pops, interrupting their serene moment.

“So, are you ready to power down the oven and head to bed?” Blaine asks, eyeing the appliance anxiously.

“But what about the cookies? The school needs them in four hours!”

“I’ll get them whipped up. No problem.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Blaine hops up and helps a wobbly Kurt to his feet. “You run along and climb under the covers. I’m going to check some things out down here, then I’ll come in and tuck you into bed.”

Kurt peers at Blaine, his mind working, searching for an argument. “I don’t know. I still think …” He starts to keel forward and Blaine catches him. And Kurt nods, that being the end of that. “All right. I’m going.”

“Good.” Blaine smacks his husband on the behind as he shuffles away. He can’t help it. Even under-the-weather, his nose as red and watery as his eyes, he’s the sexiest man in the universe.

Blaine decides to start with the oven, figuring he should check on whatever that was that exploded before it does it again and takes the whole house with it. Cautiously, he opens the oven door. Before he can peek inside, a disgustingly sharp smell assails his nose and stings his eyes, forcing him to back away. Through barely-open lids he sees Kurt’s latest batch, which has melded into one single cookie, weighing down the baking sheet so much, the wire rack has begun to buckle.

This, he decides, could be a problem.

“Uh … Kurt?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you put in these?”

“The usual – sugar, butter, chocolate chips, vanilla …”

Blaine scans the kitchen while Kurt talks, finding each ingredient when he mentions it. Suspicious of one item in particular, he asks, “Did you put flour in these?”

“Of course I did! What do you take me for? An idiot?”

“No. Not at all. What flour did you use?”

“Cake flour.”

“Which bag?”

“That bag by the counter,” Kurt answers with a vague wave.

Blaine looks toward the counter, his eyes growing to comical width. “The one on the counter counter, or the one on the floor?”

“The one on the floor, I guess. What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Blaine says. “N-not at all.” But that’s a lie. Because the bag of flour on the floor isn’t flour. It’s cement, from the kitchen remodel they’ve been planning. “I think … I’m just going to shut the oven off for now and run a few errands.”

“Errands? What errands?” Kurt asks in alarm. “It’s four in the morning!”

“I know.” Blaine grabs his coat and keys. “I just … I’m going to go get some bagels. For breakfast …” Along with nine dozen replacement cookies and a HAZMAT suit.

“Well, don’t take too long. And be careful.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you.”

On his way out the door, Blaine giggles to himself.

Because he’s going to solve this problem by writing a check.

#klaine advent 2019 #gpbb drabble december #klaine fanfiction #klaine fic #frankie writes

[folktalesandmythsandlegends]

Seleme and Dionysus

So one day Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, visited Earth and he saw a drop-dead beautiful woman named Semele. Zeus is all like "I have to have her" because Zeus can't control himself. Ever. So he changes his appearance so Hera, his wife and Queen of the Olympians won't find out and keeps it a secret. So Semele and Zeus start to see each other, and everything is great, until Hera finds out about this. Hera, being the jealous wife/sister of Zeus decides that her honor is ruined, and she's so angry that she's out for blood. She has to destroy Semele at all costs. So she disguises herself as a mortal woman. Not just any mortal woman, she is a handmaiden to Semele herself. Hera becomes BFF's with Semele. She does her hair and nails and helps pick out her outfits and likes all her selfies. Of course, Hera is one of the few Olympians who actually thinks about what to do and had formulated a plan. She wanted all the details on Zeus and Semele's relationship.

 So one day while doing each other’s nails Hera asks Semele, “Do you think your boyfriend actually loves you? I heard a rumor he was actually Zeus, is that true?” 

So thinking that they are great friends Semele says, "Listen, Zeus totally loves me. He loves me so much that he promised to do whatever I ask of him to do. He even played that Ain't No Mountain High Enough song for me and it was so romantic. I guess you could say it's pretty serious." 

Hera thinks to herself "Yes! My totally evil plan to defeat Semele and get back at Zeus is going to be better than I thought! I am so awesome and beautiful." So she goes back to Semele and says that if Zeus would do anything for her she should ask him to show off all his awesomeness, the same way he did when he was dating, Hera. And Semele thinks it’s a great idea. 

So Zeus comes by later and is like "Hey babe, how's it going?"

So Semele says everything is great. So later when they are going on a romantic date at the local drive-in movie theatre Semele says "Hey, do you remember that sacred oath you said about doing anything I ask you?"

And he's all like "Sure I remember. What do you want? Do you want to be Queen of Greece? Or more servants and money?" And she says "No. I want to see all your awesomeness the exact same way you did with Hera." Zeus doesn't want to, but because he promised her, he agreed to show off all his power and awesomeness. He has strobe lights, a disco ball, a fog machine, confetti, there was loud music playing in the background. It was too much awesomeness for Semele so she screamed, burst into flame, and died. Zeus knew he was her baby Daddy though so he grabbed the baby she was six months pregnant with, and sewed him into his thigh to hide him from Hera. So Dionysus grows and when it's time for him to be born, Zeus took out the stitches. He then called Hermes over and said "Hera's going to be so ticked if she finds out Dionysus is still alive. So take him to his Aunt Ino and her husband. And to make sure he is super protected makes him look like a girl." Hermes is like "Kay." And does what Zeus said.

Eventually, Hera finds out that Dionysus survived, and she is super ticked. Like ten times as ticked as Zeus thought she would be. She was so ticked that she made Ino and her husband totally crazy. So Zeus took Dionysus and made him a goat. He gave goat Dionysus to some Asian nymphs to take care of, but Hera found him again and made him crazy times 10. So Dionysus is walking around all over the Mediterranean world in places like Egypt and Syria doing these awful crimes like murder and theft when he runs into Rhea, a great goddess, in Phrygia and she makes Dionysus better and forgave him for the bad things he did. She made him the leader of her cult and gave him oriental clothes and an ivy wreath to wear. And he did wear it and never changed. Ever. He taught everyone how to make wine from grapes and how to farm with yolk and ox. People joined his cult, and everyone was happy.

Well most everyone. This dude named Lycurgus, a King of Thrace did not like Dionysus' cult so he didn't let Dionysus sit with him at the plastic’s table, and imprisoned his followers. Dionysus did not like that, so he made Lycurgus so crazy he thought his son was a grapevine that needed pruning, and he murdered his son by chopping off his arms and legs. So the moment Lycurgus' son died he realized what he had done. But Dionysus was not done. He made all of Thrace barren for such a long time that Lycurgus went to go see an oracle. The King was all like "I must have ticked off Dionysus a lot. What do I need to do to make Thrace lush again?" The oracle responded, "You need to die, idiot." So because the king didn't want to die he tried to keep it a secret. And naturally, because it was a secret, everybody in the kingdom found out and they all killed him. It was a mass meeting of 1-800-choke dat hoe. 

So then Dionysus went to Thebes, and a profit told the King Pentheus that if he had to do all the religious rites for Dionysus. If he didn't, then all the mothers would tear their children's arms and legs off and decorate the woods with the limbs. Pentheus' own mother would kill him that way. But Pentheus didn't believe him. So Dionysus arrives, and the party doesn’t start till he walks in. So everyone in Thebes is having a party and doing the Dionysus cult thing, and King Pentheus gets word of that. Now Pentheus is really angry. He goes around yelling at everyone and saying that he thought Thebes would have had to be taken by force of an army. “It would at least be more honorable than this!” 

So he’s ticked off and demands that Dionysus be captured to determine if he is a fake. But Pentheus’ bros tried to change his mind, but it just made Pentheus even angrier. So his guards went out to try to find Dionysus, but they couldn’t find him because everyone, EVERYONE was too turnt, so they grabbed one of Dionysus’ priests because the guards were afraid to return to the king empty-handed. 

So Pentheus roasts Dionysus in front of the priest when the priest decides to tell Pentheus the story of how he met Dionysus. 

“It’s like this.” He said. “I was a pirate on a ship when the ship got stuck? So me and my crew spent the night and the next morning we woke up and we were thirsty so we went to go look for water, right? So then this dude wearing purple just shows up on the beach! So my crew got together without me and said “dudes I think this guy is a Prince! We could make a fortune if we sold him!” Right? So they go ashore and this guy is high or turnt, or almost asleep so it should have been easy to chain him right? Wrong! No matter how they tried to put the chains on they kept falling off. They were seriously tripped up by this. But somehow they got him on our boat, and I saw him and was like “This guy looks like a god, and that thing with the chains, he has to be a god.” So then I was yelling at my crew like “Dudes, this guy is a god for real for real! He even looks like a god, and you can’t see that? You might have captured Zeus, or his bro Poseidon, or Zeus’ son Apollo, fools! We can’t take him, ya’ll are trippin,” but my captain was like “Nah bro, you’re crazy just make like Miley Cyrus and Do Your Thing, and we’ll deal with this guy. This dude is rich, not immortal, but the gods must have sent him here to make us rich, you know what I’m saying?” 

“So right then the dude wakes up, and is like “Where am I, how did I get here?” But the captain was like “You can hitch a ride with us. Where do you want to go?” So the dude said, “My home is on the island of Naxos.” So the captain was like “Lit, we’ll take you there.” But I knew that this fool was lying, so I didn’t do my job. So the captain made someone else steer the ship. So we are sailing when Purple dude says “Wait we’re not heading towards Naxos! How could you? I came out to have a good time and honestly, I’m feeling so attacked right now.” Then the ship stopped right there, like no movement, like it was dead. So we’re sitting there when suddenly homie points to the sail because there is a grapevine growing, but with vines of ivy growing and a bunch of other fruit and everything was getting covered and then it started to smell sweet, and the deck started to get covered in wine, and everyone was terrified, I mean terrified. We all looked at the purple dude who was really angry. He had on a wreath of ivy and grapes and was shaking a pole called a thyrsi that was covered in ivy and grapevines. Then all these animals appeared out of nowhere by his feet. Like a lynx a tiger and a panther. Then Yogi bear showed up and he was angry, and the dude was too. So he changed into this huge lion and killed the captain. So now everyone is running around trying to find a way to get away, ‘cuz this was some messed up stuff. They were tearing away vines to try to get to the oars that wouldn’t move, when their hands turned to fins, straight up! So they are all trying to jump overboard now, and as soon as they hit the water, BOOM! They were dolphins, for real! Nineteen of my bros became nineteen dolphins. So the young dude turns back into himself and was like “You’re cool, so I saved you. By the way I’m the son of Zeus, Dionysus.” So that was that, and since then me and my Immortal bro Dionysus are tight. And we get more mortal followers all the time, straight up.” 

Pentheus was ticked off. “YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US! Take him away and beat him up, then kill him for that stupid story!” 

So the guards were preparing his torture and saying to each other that they needed to let him go, when suddenly there was an earthquake, and the door opened and the chains fell and the priest walked out with a fog machine blowing smoke behind him. So the guards ran up to Pentheus and told him what happened. And Pentheus was like “Am I the only one that can do things the right way?” So he goes out and starts stalking Dionysus and all his followers on Facebook and Twitter, and Tumblr, and Pinterest, etc. He wants to know how Dionysus gets all his followers and friends. So he is looking at the likes and spying on them in a tree because he had gotten so mad at hearing the hysteric songs and shrill screams. He keeps looking and watching, trying to figure out how to defeat this “boy” when his mother sees him in the tree. She gets so mad at the fact that he is spying on all Dionysus’ followers and watching them do their rites and rituals that she takes out her iStone 11 and calls her friends to help her chase this boar that is destroying the land. So Pentheus runs like a mad man, but the women are so much faster and they catch him and cut off his hands. Pentheus starts to yell out to his mother in a desperate attempt for her to recognize him, but just like Lycurgus before her, she didn’t recognize her own son. He begged her, but she said the last words Pentheus ever heard. “This trophy of the hunt is mine!”  So she cut off his head and put it on a thyrsus and scattered his body everywhere. Later at the party, she realized what she did and showed everyone. They were so afraid, but Dionysus had taken over their kingdom and everyone was happy. Well except for Hera who was angry that Dionysus could turn people to dolphins and make mothers and fathers kill their own children. Everywhere he went she tried to stop him by punishing everyone else, but she never directly punished Dionysus. Dionysus continued on his road trip to get more followers. He even went back to Naxos and married a girl named Ariadne. On one of the last of his travels, he went down into a Burning Ring of Fire, also known as Hades, or the underworld. In the underworld, he found his mother Semele, who he renamed Thyone. He brought her up to Mt. Olympus to live happily ever after. 

The version of this myth was taken from Mythology and You: Classical Mythology and Its Relevance To Today’s World by Donna Rosenberg and Sorelle Baker

Notes

Some versions of the myth cite Semele as a princess of Thebes, some not only say she was a princess but the daughter of the founders of Thebes, Cadmus, Prince of Thrace brother to Europa, and Harmonia, who was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. A scholarly analysis of another version says Semele could have been a priestess. 

In other versions of the myth, after the “second birth” of Dionysus, instead of giving Dionysus to Ino and her husband, Zeus had Hermes give him to the nymphs of Nysa where he stayed until manhood. Another version says Dionysus was given to Ino and her younger sister Argave who eventually betrayed Dionysus. Ino was punished, most likely by Zeus, by making her go mad and jumping into the sea with her own son where they were saved by the sea nymphs and stayed forever helping sailors.

In another version of this myth, when Dionysus made his way to Thrace, Lycurgus still opposed the worship Dionysus was leading, insulted, and set out to capture Dionysus. However, Dionysus retreated to the ocean only to return later and defeat Lycurgus. As punishment, Dionysus  imprisoned him in a cave until he went mad and realized Dionysus was a god whence Zeus struck Lycurgus blind. Lycurgus died soon after.

Almost every version talkies about the pirates who captured Dionysus, but it varies on how. One version says that Dionysus hired the Pirates after retreating to the ocean from Lycurgus and coming up on the wrong side. Other versions say he was taken while conscience and cocky and others say he was fast asleep when captured. One aspect that remains consistent is the fact that Dionysus was going to be used to get money either via ransom or sold into slavery in Egypt or other lands and at least one person objected to this arguing he might be a god. All versions have Dionysus making the sailors go bonkers.

The “Asian Nymphs” are most likely from Persia or Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey. This is my own educated guess based on the idea that, according to the myth, he wandered in that region.

Some versions have Dionysus travel as far as India.

After leaving Nysa a version of the Myth has him travel to Crete to grant Midas’ wish to turn everything he touches to gold. Chronologically, I am uncertain as to when Dionysus granted Midas’ wish, but the myth of King Midas does have Dionysus grant the wish. 

Naxos, Thrace, Thebes, and Phrygia are not close together and on a map this is clearly seen. Ultimately, this was the reason I choose to start my Greek Myths with this story. We can see the sphere of influence that the Hellenic world had on the the surrounding area and get a better idea on how large the Hellenic area is even if the majority of the myth only takes place in the Aegean.

Yellow-Thrace

Red- Thebes

Purple- Naxos

Blue- Phrygia (slightly more south east than placed but unable to be seen from the above map.)

Sources Referenced

D’aularies’ Book Of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’aularie’s

Mythology And You: Classical Mythology and Its Relevance To Today’s World by Donna Rosenberg and Sorelle Baker

Mythology: Timeless Tales Of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton

Tales Of The Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green

#Greek Myths #greek mythology #dionysus #greek myth retellings #Dionysus Myth

[funkymbtifiction]

The Magic School Bus (90's series): Dorothy Ann [ISTJ]

Unofficial typing by: chipmunkfanno1love 

Functional Order: Si-Te-Fi-Ne

Perceiving Functional Axis:

Introverted Sensing (Si) / Extroverted Intuition (Ne)

Dorothy Ann, or D.A as her friends sometimes call her, is the class bookworm. She always has her nose buried in a book and loves to share the facts that she reads from it. She often quotes “According to my research…” (or something akin to it) when sharing the research she’s read from her books and relates it back to the current situation that she and her classmates are in. She prefers to stick to what she’s familiar with and have a plan (see Te), not feeling confident to improvise when Arnold gives her his great-aunt’s artifact rather than his rock collection as she planned to show on the TV show, Show and Tell. Therefore she has to find out as much she can about the artifact before she can feel confident to talk about it on the show. Luckily she is provided with Arizona Joan’s journal to help figure out a few possible hypotheses for what the artifact could possibly be (Shows and Tell) (Si-Ne).

Another of her passions besides books is astronomy, which proves to be helpful in Out of this World when she spots an asteroid through her telescope, and from her memory and constant tracking is able to confidently identify it and its whereabouts in outer space when it appears to be a danger of destroying her school, Walkerville Elementary. (Si).

Unfortunately Dorothy Ann is a little too dependent on her books (something Carlos picks on her for) and is often dismissive of other forms of learning. She’s forced out of her comfort zone in Blows Its Top after she loses her books in the ocean, causing her to panic and becomes desperate to get them back no matter what the consequences (inferior Ne). With Ms Frizzle’s encouragement to observe and ask questions, D.A  is introduced to the joy of learning via experience and is able to figure out via observation and memorisation how a volcano works and creates a new island. She even becomes excited in being part of the island being formed.

She does have her more brilliantly insightful moments where we see her hypothesis for the hoop artifact of Arnold’s. After several failed hypotheses, she learns of some similarly coloured arrows that came with the hoop and observes the scruff marks on the hoop. By seeing how easily it rolls across the ground and the coloured arrows go through the coloured webbing so easily, it leads her to the accurate hypothesis that the artifacts were most-likely an old tribal version of hoops and arrows (Ne).

Judging Functional Axis:

Extroverted Thinking (Te) / Introverted Feeling (Fi)

D.A is all about keeping to the facts and getting things done in an orderly manner. Because of this, she has a reputation for being bossy and rigid in her thinking, often making her clash with more impulsive students, especially Carlos, who often butt-heads with her over their different styles of learning (Te-Fi).

Her organised and resourceful attitude comes in handy though when it comes to leading important expeditions where a problem needs to be solved, such as leading and navigating the space-bus in Out of this World, solving the case of the missing cocoa beans from Ms Frizzle’s rented tree in In the Rainforest, and getting the school principal, Mr Ruhle, a new chicken after she loses his beloved pet rooster, Giblets (Cracks a Yolk). She is quick to dismiss facts that seem illogical and/or unimportant to her, but on occasions can feel insecure about her own facts if something else proves to be possible. Such as when she starts to feel uncertain if her asteroid was actually a comet after the class sees a comet pass by the ship in the location she thinks the asteroid is supposed to be, and she sees from observation of her smaller diagram that a comet will still have the same damaging effects as an asteroid. It is only when she figures out that they were in the wrong location due to the ship being turned around in a circle, does she realise she was right about the comet being the wrong space rock (Te).

Many field trips led by D.A are related to the things she values most, such as Out of This World where she leads an expedition to find and get rid of an asteroid which threatens to destroy her and her classmates’ beloved school.

She’s a big believer in teamwork, which causes her to butt-heads with Wanda when she’s partnered with her for a school project, and the headstrong Wanda refuses to cooperate with her due to wanting to go solo. (Takes a Dive)

She is usually a bit of an individualist in terms of her interests, such as being more interested in a book about physics (most notably about forces and friction) than the class baseball game, and is rather disappointed when Ralphie and the rest of the class don’t find it cool as well. She nonetheless doesn’t change her opinion about finding physics cool, while the rest of the class (the most hesitant being Ralphie) are only convinced that physics is cool when Ms Frizzle takes them on a field trip to show that without forces and friction, they wouldn’t be able to stand up, let alone play a ball game (Plays Ball).

Dorothy Ann experiences an identity scare when she loses her books in Blows Its Top, feeling she’s nothing without them and she’s lost all of her knowledge: “Please, Ms. Frizzle! I’m nothing without my books! Me, books…books, me!” It’s only when she experiences learning via experience and memory does she figure out this isn’t the case.

D.A rarely talks about her feelings, she instead acts on them. Despite her control-freak nature, D.A does have a softer side, shown in Cracks a Yolk where she becomes smitten with the newly-hatched chick they plan to give to Mr. Ruhle, and kisses Arnold to thank him for being the baby-sitter and announcer of what was happening to the chick as it was developing. (Fi)

A/N: I thank @briarosabelle and @creativefictionlover for their help with this typing. I’m very grateful for their help.

#c: istj #istj #f: istj #magic school bus #dorothy ann #da #mbti #submission

[insanely-creative-things]

Big Hero 7: The Series

 Fred’s Bro-Tillion

Long post

www.fanfiction.net

Big Hero 7

*The bright sunshine of a Thursday morning shines brightly on the Lucky Cat Cafe. There Gogo, Wasabi, Hiro, Cora, Honey Lemon, and Baymax are at one of the tables waiting for their breakfast made by Aunt Cass.*

Cass: Lucky Cat Special! Funny Side-up!

Honey Lemon: Aw! It's so cute!

Gogo: I don't like my breakfast cute.

*The funny side-up special is two sunny side up eggs with ketchup eyes and smiling mouth complete with sausage arms and bacon legs.*

Wasabi: * Whispers to Hiro and Cora* The eyes... they follow you!

Hiro: Oh I think that's why Fred likes it.

*Cora brings her finger up to poke the eggs on the yolk softly. For a second Cora thought she saw the eggs glare at her so she pulls her finger away, and when she looks again the eggs resumed in their happy position. Just then Cass is hitting the coffee machine to work*

Cass: Co'mon! Work!

Hiro: Maybe it's time to replace it.

*Cass bring out a rolling ping to hit the Coffee Machine again while also venting out her frustration for said machine*

Cass: I wish I could just buy a new one! But their too expensive!

Wasabi: Remind me never to mess with her.

Cora: *Deadpan* Wasabi, have you met my grandmother?

*After beating it up, the Coffee Machine shakes a little and than resumes pouring out coffee as it usually does*

Cass: There! Fixed.

*But Cass will soon eat her words as no sooner as she says that, the Coffee Machine starts to rumble violently and pours out coffee non-stop*

Baymax: I suggest you back away.

*The Coffee Machine let out steam before a knob violently shot off like a bullet, ricocheting across the Cafe and destroying one of Fred's eggs in the process, to which also lands on Baymax's face along with a piece of bacon making Baymax have a smile for a few seconds before it falls off*

Cass: *To the other customers while wincing* Watch out! Sorry!

Baymax: I will get it.

*The knob of death finally slows down enough for Baymax to catch it.*

Baymax: I have got it.

Hiro: Oh well maybe I can fix it?

*But the sputtering and steam of the Coffee Machine told him otherwise*

Cora: Yeah...no. That Coffee Machine is officially dead. Sorry Aunt Cass.

Cass: Can we still call it a Coffee shop if we don't serve coffee?

Wasabi: Speaking of dead, Fred's eggs didn't make it.

*The surviving egg looks in horror over their friend's splattered remains*

Hiro: Wait w-where is Fred?

Cora: Yeah he usually comes around here at this time.

Baymax: Scan indicates...Fred is not here.

Honey Lemon: Should we be worried?

Gogo: We could worry, or we could call him.

*At that moment, her phone let's out a ringtone with Fred's face to indicate the identity caller.*

Gogo: Or he could call us.

*Once Gogo answer's Fred's Facetime call, she is greeted by Fred's panicking voice and expression.*

Fred: Guys! Emergency! Help! Now!

*Immediately the gang suit up to help Fred in his emergency. Cora and Hiro are on Baymax's back debating over who would attack Fred.*

Hiro: My biggest theory is that Yama found him and is holding him hostage.

Cora: I bet you ten bucks that Globby is the one holding Fred, he does seek wealth and Fred is super rich.

Hiro: *Smirks* I'll take that bet.

*Finally the team reaches to Fred's room and storm in.*

Cora: OK Globby, drop Fred right now!

*But there was no threat visible. Instead it was Fred reading his comic books dressed in a blue bathrobe with his hair wrapped in a towel, cucumber slices over his eyes and Heathcliff filing his toenails.*

Baymax: This does not appear to be an emergency.

*After the gang dressed back into their civilian clothes, they sit down to talk with Fred over what is really going on.*

Hiro: So Fred? Eh..what's wrong?

Gogo: This better good.

Wasabi: If your looking for someone to cut your toenails the answer is no! Never again...

Cora: A part of me wants to ask...but the other part knows better...

Fred: That hang nail was majorly infected OK? A man can't operate on himself.

Cora: Never mind...

Honey Lemon: Freddy, why are we here?

Fred: Because it's here! There's no escape! There's no hope!

Gogo: Alright. Drama King. Explanation now.

Fred: It's my *lands on couch and muffles* Bro-Tillion.

Wasabi: What did he say?

Hiro: He's reptilian?

Honey Lemon: Oh something with his costume!

Cora: Did your costume go haywire or something?

Fred: No! Bro! Bro(X4)

Gogo: Heathcliff, translation?

Heathcliff: The time has come for Master Frederick's Bro-Tillion. A grand gala held in his honor where he will be formally presented to the city's money elite.

Gogo: Fred, translation?

Fred: It's a stuffy party where I have to stuff myself into a stuffy suit and talk to stuffy people about stuffy things! And that's not even the worst part! And then there's... Binky...

Baymax: I do not have any data on...Binky.

Mother Fredrickson: Beverly Samantha Mole, AKA Binky. The reigning queen of San Fransokyo's snob society. She's rude, she's arrogant, she's-

Heathcliff: Quiet insufferable, not at all down to earth like you Madame.

Mother Fredrickson: Which is why everything must be perfect, right dear?

Fred: Right...Mom.

*After his mother took his measurements, she left the room*

Gogo: Why does your Mom care what this Binky lady thinks?

Fred: Well... There was the time I defaced priceless art, in my defense the concept of priceless art was still new to me. Then there was the monkey incident, in my defense the monkeys looked up to me as their leader! And I'm still not allowed at the yacht club! In my defense... well I don't really have a defense for that.

Gogo: Wow.

Fred: Yeah wow! I can't let my Mom down again! You guys have to help me! I need to become a proper young gentledude, and I need to do it by Saturday.

Wasabi: Saturday? Which Saturday? This Saturday?!

Honey Lemon: OK! We can do this! You've already take care of personal grooming, your mom's handling wardrobe, what's next?

Fred: Preparing for the moment I fear more than anything... The dance!

Gogo: That really wasn't worth the dramatic pause.

Fred: Ya-huh!

Hiro: Don't worry Fred, I got this.

Cora: Yeah, and I'm sure there's some books to help you be a gentleman, like...this one!

*Cora grabs one of the few novels in Fred's bookshelf*

Cora: This is a perfect example on how a gentleman should be from the classic novel, Pride and Prejudice ...

*But Cora than notices the full title on the book*

Cora: And Zombies?

*Cora looks at Fred who shrugs sheepishly in response*

Cora: *Sigh* Well, it's a start.

*The next day, Hiro is downloading various forms of dancing into a new chip for Baymax to help Fred. Cora is with the gang currently teaching Fred how to act like a gentleman, though they eventually got a little bored and so Cora started to make Fred laugh by acting like a stereotypical blue blood wealthy woman aka Binky.*

Cora: *Snobbish tone* Oh My! My thousand dollar diamond necklace is such a drab, and it doesn't match with my chiffon pearl silk dress! I cannot allow myself to become the faux pas of the ball!

Fred: *Laughs maniacally* Oh man, Cora! St-stop it! My-my sides! I think I'm gonna die laughing!

Cora: *Snobbish tone* Oh ho ho ho ho! You're so hilarious Frederick!

Gogo: Hiro's here.

*The door opens to reveal Hiro and Baymax as they walk into Fred's room, and Cora quickly resumes her normal speaking voice.*

Cora: Hi Hiro!

Hiro: Hey Cora. So, how're the lessons going Fred?

Fred: *Shrugging* Eh, their going okay, but we were starting to get bored.

Cora: *Snobbish tone* Quite so. After all, it is insufferable to continue on without a little fun!

Hiro: *Snorts while laughing* OK, now that's hilarious Babe! But we can laugh more later. Right now, allow me to introduce Baymax! Now with dance mode!

*Hiro scurries to hit the lights to present Baymax's new dance skills thanks to the chip Hiro made. The gang sat around the couch to watch*

Baymax: Five, six, seven, eight.

*The lights turned off to dramatically reveal Baymax in the spotlight. Baymax suddenly moves with elegance and grace that was not present in his healthcare mode, but with Ballet he is now as light as a feather. Then Hiro snaps his finger to switch Ballerina Baymax to him doing the Scottish Jig. When Hiro snaps his fingers again, Baymax performs in 70's disco dancing, and finally ending it with the ever popular dance to suit Baymax.*

Gogo: The Robot? Really?

Cora: *giggles as she watches Baymax* You know if we had had this before, we could've given High Voltage a run for their money.

Baymmax: The Waltz.

*Baymax extends his hand to Fred to which he warily takes. Then Baymax takes Hiro and Cora to meet with them.*

Hiro: W-woah! Baymax w-what are you doing?!

Cora: W-wait! Hold on!

*But Baymax just places Hiro and Cora to the proper position to begin the waltz and then to Fred himself.*

Baymax: Your arms go here and here.

*Hiro blushes as his hands are wrapped around Cora's back and hand, and Cora's face reddens as her hands were on Hiro's shoulder and his hand.*

Hiro: Uhhh Baymax, w-why are we d-doing this?

Baymax: It is beneficial for Fred if he is not alone in learning the waltz.

Hiro: OK...

Fred: Well this is kind of nice.

Baymax: I will lead you while Hiro leads Cora. Ready?

Fred: Ready?

*Baymax then starts dancing the lead, and the teen couple look at each other for the moment before they started dancing as well, listening and watching carefully to Baymax's instructions.*

Baymax: Step, Side. very good. Step, side. step, side.

*Hiro and Cora diverted their eyes as their blushes reigned strong on both of their faces while they slowly danced. Honey Lemon takes a picture of the blushing dancing teens squealing excitedly.*

Honey Lemon: This is so cute!

*Just then Fred's mom entered the room.*

Mother Frederickson: Terrible news Frederick! Avalanche on the family mountain! OF course your father is leading the search party.

Fred: *Excited* So my party's off?

Mother Frederickson: Don't even joke about that!

*Just then Heathcliff arrives to talk to Madame Frederickson.*

Heathcliff: Madame, more terrible news. The caterer has canceled.

Mother Frederickson: What? No! No! Did you tell him I-I would pay him obscenely?

Heathcliff: Of course.

Mother Frederickson: Oh this can't be happening. Come Heathcliff we have to find another caterer or the Bro-Tillion will be ruined! I'll be ruined!

*As Fred's mom left the room, Hiro got a look in his face that told Cora he has a plan*

Cora: You have a plan don't you Hiro?

Hiro: Yup. *To the gang* Be right back!

*Hiro let's go of Cora, both standing still for a moment before they run off to catch up with Fred's mom. They eventually found her and Heathcliff in the kitchen.*

Mother Frederickson: This is a disaster all the best caterers are committed! What am I going to do? No cadpetes, no crudites. Oh Binky's going to have a field day.

*Hiro takes this opportunity to step forward*

Hiro: Maybe not! You know it just so happens I know of a hot new Caterer.

Mother Frederickson: You do?

Cora: *Smiles proudly* He does.

Hiro: Oh yeah, totally undiscovered gem!

Mother Frederickson: Does this undiscovered gem have references?

Hiro: References? You mean living in the past? Look she's not some stuffy old Caterer making the same stuffy old..stuff. She's exciting! She's hip. You'd be on the cutting edge!

Cora: Yeah! She's guaranteed 100% fresh!

Mother Frederickson: Me? On the cutting edge, oh that would make Binky's blue blood boil. Hiro you are a lifesaver!

*After Fred's mom left, Cora spots a large book on a table nearby. Curiosity is running in her head as she walks to it and spots a long list of unpronounceable names until she spots a very familiar name.*

Cora: Huh? Alistair Krei is going to be at the Bro-Tillion too? I thought the party was only for blue bloods as Mrs. Frederickson insisted.

Heathcliff: And you would be right Miss Cora, but Mr. Krei's persistence won the madame over since Binky would never allow New Money to her parties.

Cora: Hmmm... Well okay then!

*While Cora was talking to Healthcliff, Hiro got out his cellphone to call his Aunt.*

Hiro: Guess what Aunt Cass? You're going to be able to buy that new Espresso Machine. You have done catering before right?

*The teen couple walks back to Fred's room where Hiro's phone shows Aunt Cass' enthusiastic face with emojis of smiling cats to show she is up for it.*

Fred: It's hopeless, I can't do it.

*Baymax is waltzing by himself as Fred spoke*

Hiro: You know who else thinks you can't do it? Binky Mole! Are you gonna let her be right? Or are you gonna be on the cutting edge?

Fred: On the cutting edge of what?

Hiro: I-I don't know, i-it worked on your mom. The point is you're going out there on Saturday to show Binky Mole what you're made of. That you're Frederick Frederickson the IV and you're not afraid of anything!

Fred: Well, spiders... a little... I mean not debilitating.

Cora: Fred... I know with us here to help, YOU are going to make that blue blood snob eat her words when she sees you.

Fred: OK! Get over here Mr. Marshmallow, we're gonna waltz now!

*Baymax grabs Fred's hand and pulls him to the dance.*

*Saturday night finally came as Fred's Bro-Tillion is being held at San Fransokyo City Hall. The ballroom sparkled with light as the chandelier lights up room with elegance. Meanwhile Cass had been hard at work making the cutest Hors d'oeuvres anyone has ever seen. Honey Lemon, Wasabi, Gogo, Hiro, Cora, and Baymax are dressed in waiters' outfits as Aunt Cass made the last finishing touches. Honey Lemon sports a white blouse with a bow-tie and a black waitress skirt, Gogo is imply wearing the male Waiter's outfit with vest and her roller skates.*

Honey Lemon: Ooh look! A panda! Look at his little face isn't he cute? I named him Parker and that kitten over there? That's Rodrigo! Isn't he adorable?

Gogo: Honey Lemon, don't get emotionally involved with the Hors d'oeurves.

*With the boys' side, both Wasabi and Hiro are wearing white shirts, bow-ties and black pants without vests, the difference that Hiro is leaving his shirt untucked. Cora and Baymax were the simplest in comparison: Cora did sport a white blouse and black pants like Gogo sans vest, but she has no bow-tie and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Baymax simply wore a bow-tie and that was it.*

Aunt Cass: OK guys, get out there and circulate. Leave no mouth unappetized! No hand unbeveraged, and most importantly have fun!

*With their respective platter of the appetizers in their hands they went out to serve. Hiro however has some difficulty moving around considering his height.*

Hiro: Uh Excuse Me! Coming through!

*Baymax also has trouble going through the crowd due to his huggable marshmallow design.*

Honey Lemon: Can I interest you in a cute panda? Or perhaps an adorable kitten?

*The old woman grabs a panda and takes a bite out of his head, however she chose the one Honey Lemon named earlier.*

Honey Lemon: Parker...

*Just then Gogo zooms to correct Honey Lemon*

Gogo: Told you.

*She leaves just as a man was about to grab an appetizer from her platter.*

*Baymax finally raises his arms to let out some air, but the sound of air releasing from Baymax's body causes the other guests around his area to leave.*

Wasabi: Up up up!

*Wasabi pulls out a napkin to wipe off the person's face who had just eaten one of the appetizers.*

Wasabi: Don't forget a napkin. You're welcome.

Baymax: Hello, I am Baymax.

*Baymax leans to to scan the young woman's face*

Baymax: Your recent Rhinoplasty is approximately 73.9% healed.

Woman to Doctor: I thought you said it wasn't obvious.

Cora: Step...side..step..side...step...twirl

*Due to being a half inch shorter than Hiro, Cora did have a little trouble moving around. But she recalled Baymax's dance lessons and she used the steps she learned to move around gracefully around the guests without bumping into anyone or spilling a drop. Finally she arrived to her intended guests.*

Cora: If I may sir, would you like any of these Hors d'oeurves?

Krei: Well don't mind if I do. Hey, wait a second... I know you!

*Cora looks up to see Alistair Krei in his best suit, holding a deviled egg shaped like a chicken and looking at her in surprise, recognizing her as one of the heroes who saved his life.*

Cora: *Smiling politely* I'm sure you do. And I must say it is very nice to meet you properly Mr. Krei. Though I must admit, I didn't figure you would be joining in on Fred's Bro-Tillion.

Krei: Well I can't just not attend to a party of one of the heroes' who saved my life now can I?

Cora: *Cocks eyebrow* I suppose not. And I'm sure it's not just because you also found out that Fred's filthy rich as well.

*Krei raised an eyebrow at Cora, but she simply shook her head and smiled. Just then they all heard the sound of a microphone.*

Mother Frederickson: Good Evening all! Thank you for coming, it is with great pride that I introduce the Bro of the hour, my son Frederick.

*Fred walks towards the center step of the stairs, looking very uncomfortable in his tuxedo. But his anxiety worsened when he spotted the woman he is most fearful of.*

Fred: Binky!

*Fred quickly runs to Baymax for help.*

Fred: Baymax help! I forgot the steps! My mind is blank! Everything is swirling around me!

Baymax: Your systems indicate acute anxiety. I recommend deep calming breathes.

*But Fred's deep, calming, breathes resembled more like hyperventilating.*

Baymax: Oh no. Now you are hyperventilating. Breathe into this.

*Baymax held out his hand which opened a small hole for Fred to breath into it like a paper bag.*

Fred: It's not working! It feels like the whole room is shaking!*

*The whole is indeed shaking, violently so. Just then a giant drill bursts from the floor into the ballroom where the guests fled upon sight.*

Hiro: Guys, what is that?

*The latch of the drill opens as it reveals an old man whose half of the body is covered in metal*

Steampunk Admiral: Greetings San Fransokyo! It is I! Baron Von Steamer!

*Nobody said a word since they have no idea who he is.*

Baron Von Steamer: I was a pretty well known villain in my day... No? Steam? Steamer?!

*Silence still reigns among the guests*

Baron Von Steamer: Nobody remembers?! Ugh well I guess there's not room in your fancy pocket vest telephones for history?

Mother Frederickson: This is a private affair sir, and you did not RSVP.

Baron Von Steamer: I did not RSVP, and I didn't bring a guest. But I am taking one... Frederick Frederickson the IV!

Fred: Wait what? Does this mean I don't have to dance?

*Soon enough the rest of the guests runs out of the ball in fear for their lives. But even with the Baron's destruction, Cass passes her business cards to the wealthy guests about her catering job*

Cass: Lucky Cat Catering! Tell your friends.

*Just then Krei is running to the door*

Krei: Just for once can't I enjoy an evening out without being attacked?!

*Just then Cass handed Krei her business card.*

Cass: Lucky Cat Catering! Tell your friends!

Krei: Oh I will.

*He gives his signature smile as Cass slightly blushes before he resumes running for his life. Binky isn't as concerned as she simply walks away in damp clothing.*

Mother Frederickson: Binky! Wait! There's a perfectly good explanation for all of this! I think... Binky come back!

Fred: Wow! A super villain crashed my Bro-Tillion!

Wasabi: Yeah! A super villain crashed your Bro-Tillion!

*Wasabi and Fred runs down the stairs to escape.*

Hiro: Protect Fred!

*Gogo is the first to respond as she swings her platter to knock out the man but he simply caught it and crushed it. He then surrounds himself in steam as Hiro throws the silverware at the pillar of steam. But the steam continues to move forward.*

Baymax: Scanning.

*Just as the Baron is going to attack, Honey Lemon uses a tablecloth to blow away the steam. She gives a sheepish smile before she dodges out of the way.*

Hiro: Honey Lemon!

*Hiro, Honey Lemon, and Gogo hide behind one of the pillars as steam comes to their direction.*

Gogo: We need our gear!

Baymax: Steam is hazardous. It can cause third-degree burns.

Baron Von Steamer: That is the ambition of the weapon! Pale dirigible!

*Baymax is than sent flying through the air as the steam melted the ice sculpture of Fred into a puddle.*

Baymax: That is hot.

Fred: He melted my face? A bro should not have to see his own face melt!

Wasabi: Don't look at it!

*Wasabi grabs Fred as they run from the Baron. He throws the piano they were hiding behind back as the three dodged. Wasabi tries to open the door but it refused to open.*

Wasabi: Ah co'mon!

*Steam appears as the Baron appears before them.*

Baron Von Steamer: Ah! Young Frederick! You have grown since the baby child you presumably were at one point!

Wasabi: *Whispers to Fred* So I'm guessing you two haven't met.

Fred: *Whispers back* I'd think I'd remember.

*The Baron pulls out an old comic book cover of a well built man in a super hero suit*

Baron Von Steamer: You are a spitting image of your accursed father-

*The Baron grabs Wasabi but he felt something hit the back of his head, he turns around and spots a single black flat shoe.*

Baron Von Steamer: Who dares throw a shoe at-

*Another shoe is thrown, but this time it's straight to his face. He stumbles back before his vision cleared to see Cora with bare feet*

Cora: I dare! Now let my friend go you old-timer steampunk freak!

Baron Von Steamer: I have no time for your games little girl-

*But then he spots the mark on one of her ankles, the mark featuring a crustacean-like Scorpion.

Baron Von Steamer: I can't believe it! You have the mark!

Cora: What?

*The Baron walks towards the girl as he drags Wasabi by the collar of his shirt.*

Baron Von Steamer: The only way you could have a mark like that is if you are related to the Monster!

Cora: What?!

*But he did not answer her question*

Baron Von Steamer: The mark of the Demonic Titan! Now tell me girly, where is the monster?!

*Cora's eyes widened in fear and confusion as the Baron pins her to a pillar*

Cora: *Struggling against his grasp* I-I don't know w-what you're talking about!

Baron Van Steamer: Liar! I'll make you talk-

Hiro: Hey! Leave Cora alone!

*The Baron turned his head as he saw the young boy rush towards him, but he simply grabs him by the collar of his shirt. He considers throwing him away but then he spots the look in the both of teens' eyes. They are afraid for each other. He gives an evil smirk*

Baron Von Steamer: I had just intended to take his son, but now since you are connected to the monster and refuse to talk... I will take this boy too.

Wasabi: Guys help!

Hiro: Let us go!

*The Baron walks away to the center of the room as a pillar of steam engulfs them.*

Gogo: Let them go!

*But when she runs to the steam she just went across it. The evil laughter runs through the ballroom.*

Wasabi: I'm not Fred.

Baron Von Steamer: Silence prisoner! Tell Boss Awesome he has until Midnight to surrender if he wants to see his precious baby child again... That goes the same for you girly! If you don't reveal to me the location of where the monster resides... The boy will pay!

Fred: Okay, not sure which way your creepy laugh is coming from, could you cackle again please?

Baron Von Steamer: No!

*When the steam finally clears all they could see is the large hole the Baron came through. No Drill, no villain, no Wasabi, and no Hiro.*

Honey Lemon: He got Wasabi and Hiro!

Fred: The super villain thought Wasabi was me!

Gogo: Super confused villain.

Cora: I'm also confused! Who are Boss Awesome and Demonic Titan?! I don't even know who or what the Demonic Titan is!

*Fred recalls the memory he had after they all defeated Callaghan. He takes them back to his mansion where he reveals a secret room behind the family portrait where the secret super hero lair is...The lair of Boss Awesome...his father.*

Honey Lemon: Your Dad was a super hero?

Cora: An actual, honest-to-goodness, real-life super hero?

Gogo: Named Boss Awesome?

Fred: Twas the 70's.

Cora: Fred, I know we need to find a clue to this 'Baron Von Steamer' guy and what he has against your father and what his deal is with this 'Demonic Titan', especially if we're going to save Hiro and Wasabi. But...should we really be here any longer?

Fred: No, but Dad's halfway around the world in Switzerstein.

Honey Lemon: We can keep a secret!

*Just then the screen behind them turned on and heard a man's voice*

Frederick the III: I'm glad somebody can!

Fred: Umm hey Dad!

Honey Lemon: Hi Mr. Frederickson!

Frederick the III: Do you mind telling me why you and your friends are doing in my secret super hero den!

Fred: Well we're at my Bro-Tillion, then this guy Steamer shows up!-

Frederick the III: Baron Von Steamer?

Gogo: Yeah, that's the one.

Frederick the III: I can't believe he's still in the game! He was old back in the day!

Fred: Well he's back...for revenge!

Frederick the III: Of course he is, he was my arch nemesis.

Cora: Mr. Frederickson. Steamer kidnapped our friends, do you have any idea where he would take them?

Frederick the III: He had multiple hideouts as I recall, but he did have a couple of favorites! Hit that button there!

*As soon as Fred did, another screen pulls up beside them to show a map of San Fransokyo.*

Frederick the III: The lights indicate the locations of Steamer's old lairs.

*And immediately Fred pointed out the places that are not Steamer's lairs today*

Fred: Can't be that one it's a Noodle burger now. Yep and that's a Noodle Burger... that's a Noodle Burger, Noodle Burger and another Noodle Burger, oh wait, no no, you know what that's a Yaki Taco.

Cora: So the only two that aren't Noodle Burgers, save one Yaki Taco*Turns her eyes to Fred for a moment as she says this*, are the abandoned subway station and the old iron works.

Gogo: Their on opposites sides of the city.

Cora: Than I say we split up! You guys head over to the iron works and Baymax and I will go to the abandoned subway.

Frederick the III: Classic!

*Just then a yeti is about to attack him but Frederick simply punched him in the face. Cora looked at the retired super hero with worry in her eyes, the others knowing she was scared for Hiro's well being.*

Cora: Mr. Frederickson I must confess, I'm worried...Steamer took our friends because he not only wanted you to face him...but he mentioned something about... a person or something, called the Demonic Titan? Who or what is it? And what does Steamer want with it? Do you who have any ideas who or what it is?

Frederick the III: Slow down young lady, I know you're worried about your friend and boyfriend.

Cora: *Surprised* How...did you know?

Frederick the III: I've seen that face many times when I was Boss Awesome, especially on people who fear for their loved ones. Keep your chin up and you'll save them before you know it.

*Cora gave a small grateful smile to Frederick's words of comfort*

Frederick the III: Now about this Demonic Titan and 'who he is'. I'm afraid I have only heard rumors about him, but they all say that he was a giant with the strength of a bear plus a gorilla.

Fred: A bearilla!

Frederick the III: Indeed son. But I'm afraid he was a lot more terrifying than that. They say he's from a very powerful crime syndicate and that his strength is from either being born an inhuman beast in.. well, in human-skin, or something more...insidious...possible a human experimentation...

*The group felt a chill run up their spines with looks of disturbed fear on their faces from the description of the Demonic Titan that Fredrickson just told them.*

Frederick the III: But fortunately you don't need to worry about Steamer finding the Titan.

Cora: Uh... H-how come Mr. Fredrickson?

Frederick the III: Because...the Demonic Titan died 16 years ago.

*Meanwhile at the Baron's lair. *

Baron Von Steamer: Finally! After all these years I will get my revenge! I will best my mortal enemy by taking the thing he treasures the most! His offspring, his heir! His baby child! For nigh upon half a century your father and I have clashed! And my condolences Baby child, for tonight Boss Awesome will perish! And with him dead, I will discover where the Demonic Titan resides, and with him under my control nothing can stop me! Nothing!

*While the Baron was monologuing, Wasabi and Hiro tried to move the bars in their cage to escape.*

Wasabi: Look scary steam guy! I have no idea who Boss Awesome is, but I can assure you I am not his Baby Child!

Hiro: Yeah! And what the heck is this Demonic Titan you keep going on about!? And what makes you think Cora has any idea about it!?

Baron Von steamer: That's exactly what your father would want you to say! Besides everyone knows of the legend of the Demonic Titan! And that girl, she bares the mark of the monster. Only someone of the Demonic Titan's bloodline could bare that mark on their person, meaning that that girl is descended from the monster! So she must know where he is. And with you, her precious boy in my grasp, she will have no choice but to tell me! And when she does, I will finally have him under my command!

Wasabi: What no?! You're not listening to me! I'm not Fred! You got the wrong guy!

Hiro: And not to mention you are completely crazy! There is absolutely no way Cora is descended or even remotely related to any Demonic Titan monster-guy! I doubt she's even ever heard of him, I know I've never heard of him before!

Wasabi: Well hey don't look at me either! This 'Demonic Titan' just sounds like something from one of Fred's comic books to me!

Baron Van Steamer: Augh I swear your generation gets slower by the second. The Demonic Titan is exactly who he is, a ferocious giant with the strength of a thousand men! Some say that he does not possess the soul of a human, but of an animal! A Monster! A BEAST BORN AND BRED TO LAY NOTHING BUT DEATH IN HIS WAKE!

*Wasabi and Hiro's now have fear on their faces as the Baron describes the unstoppable weapon of a man who would not hesitate to kill anyone in his way.*

Baron Von Steamer: Save your breaths anyway you two, if your Daddy and your lady don't show and tell me the location of the beast... it will be your last.

Wasabi: Our last breath? No no no I have lots of breaths! Watch!

*Wasabi begins to take deep breaths*

Hiro: *Looking down* Oh no!

*As of while, Cora is on Baymax's back in their super hero suits heading through the abandoned subway tunnel to find Steamer and rescue their friends.*

Baron Von Steamer: Salutations nosy interlopers!

*Cora motioned Baymax to stop flying as they walk through the tracks.*

Baron Von Steamer: You have made the grievous error of transgressing on the lair Baron Von Steamer!

*Just then two pillars are shot out of either side of the wall, ducking just in time as the pillars just slammed each other. Baymax pulls the pillars apart to check on Cora. *

Cora: Thanks Baymax... man that was close...this ancient booby trap nearly got me.

*Baymax activates his hand flash light*

Baymax: I will search for more booby traps.

*Cora sighs as her suit began to glow a bright aqua green to illuminate their surroundings.*

Cora: OK now...hopefully they should be near the end of that tunnel.

*Just then her suite began to glow a dark blue*

Cora: Hold on, there's something at the end of that tunnel! I think some kind of object is nearby.

Baymax: The object is moving towards us.

Cora: What? What do you mean?

Baymax: I mean it is moving, towards us, rapidly.

*A bright light comes forward*

Cora: It's another booby trap Baymax!

Baymax: Oh no.

*The booby trap reveals itself to be a steam powered furnace-like train heading rapidly towards Cora and Baymax*

Baymax: I suggest we leave.

Cora: No kidding Baymax!

*Cora immediately hops on Baymax but their exit back has suddenly been closed off.*

Cora: Seriously?!

Baymax: That is unfortunate.

Cora: Baymax! Lift the tracks!

*Cora jumps down from Baymax as he lifts up the tracks upwards. He then turns around and shields Cora from the train's impact to the tracks. After the dust settles the only things on Baymax's armor are small pieces of rubble.*

Baymax: You are safe now.

Cora: *Cough* *Cough* Thanks Baymax. *Cough*

Baron Von Steamer: Salutations Nosy interlopers! You have made the grivious error-

*But just as they avoid another b*** trap Cora rushes forward to see it was only a phonograph*

Baymax: Baron Von Steamer is not here.

Cora: So they're at the old iron works, let's go Baymax.

*Cora turns quickly, not acknowledging that she bumped off and broke a priceless piece of history as she hops onto Baymax with a furrowed brow on her face*

*At the Iron Works the rest of the team consisting of Gogo, Honey Lemon, and Fred tread carefully on the old Iron Works. Water drips down on the floor and mold has spread to the metal*

Gogo: Well this place is disgusting.

Fred: Yeah, Steamer really nailed it!

Honey Lemon: Guys look!

*Gogo and Fred went to Honey Lemon. Honey Lemon picked up a kitty face Hors D'oeurve from the party earlier.*

Honey Lemon: It's Rodrigo! He made it!

Gogo: Wasabi and Hiro are leaving us a trail.

*Fred flips open his Kaiju mask to inspect the cat and then finally eat it. Honey Lemon's heart would be heard shattering if the others weren't busy figuring out which way Wasabi and Hiro are.*

Fred: Oh! I'm sorry, did you want to eat this?

*Honey Lemon's sadness spoke through*

Honey Lemon: *Eye twitching* Uh...Rodrigo..

*Meanwhile Hiro and Wasabi are watching the Baron check over the gears in his machine. Hiro and Wasabi both check their phones only to see that they have no service.*

Wasabi: Of Course.

*Hiro then uses his phone as a mirror to find anything in particular that would help them escape while Wasabi tries to further his phone to find a signal. But the creak of the cage made the Baron look up but the two quickly hid their phones. Wasabi then finally got a signal...only for him to drop his phone.*

Hiro: Oh no...

Baron Van Steamer: Oh yes, midnight is nigh captain buffoon, and your Daddy and lady friend are not here!

Wasabi: I'm not Fred! and my Dad's an orthodontist!

*Just then Honey Lemon, Gogo, and Fred open a latch and hide themselves nearby.*

Baron Van Steamer: Nice try baby child! Fire up the Iron Works!

*Below the two boys the molten metal ooze flows towards the center pit where the cage is slowly lowering towards it. Hiro clings to Wasabi for dear life as did Wasabi with Hiro.*

Wasabi: No no stop! What if I say I am?!...*Looks up* Fred?

Fred: Super Jump!

*Fred springs into action as he uses his flame thrower to set fire to the string attached to the cage.*

Hiro: Fred aren't you supposed to be saving us?!

*The metallic creaking is heard as Gogo kicks the cage out of the way of the pit, leading them to land safely off the side.*

Gogo: You can open your eyes now.

*Hiro did just that and saw that they are still alive*

Wasabi: No! Not ready yet!

*Hiro gets up and steps out of the cage.*

Hiro: Gogo where's Cora and Baymax?

Gogo: Cora went with Baymax to check over Steamer's other hideout to find you. They'll be over here soon enough kid.

*The Baron pulls a lever that lifts him to a machine.*

Baron Von Steamer: Millenials!

*Soon he was out of sight*

Wasabi: Uhh did he just give up?

Honey Lemon: I think we should get out of here now.

Hiro: Couldn't agree more.

Wasabi: Aah!

*The Baron's laughter is heard as he reveals another of his steam powered contraption to slay them*

Gogo: What is that?

*The Machine unfolds itself to resemble a giant eight legged spider.*

Fred: K guys...I lied. My fear of spiders is debilitating.

Baron Von Steamer: Where is Boss Awesome? You're not bosses or awesome!

*He slams one of the legs to crush them.*

Honey Lemon: Watch out!

*The five dodge the attack, all of them landing in different directions.*

Fred: so it's a spider...with a hammer!

*Gogo throws her disks but they just swing back*

Gogo: I just don't see how this thing has anything to do with steam!

Baron Von Steamer: Well you can't tell from the outside but it's steam powered!

Honey Lemon: I guess we'll have to take your word for it.

*Honey Lemon throws a chem ball to the machine with it briefly encapsulates it, but smashes it free and into Honey Lemon's shield bubble she made just in case.*

Baron Von Steamer: There you are baby child Frederick.

Wasabi: Uh Fred, you wanna say something right now?!

*Fred is too busy hyperventilating to answer. The Baron finally smashes open the bubble but Gogo pulls Honey Lemon out of the way just in time.*

Honey Lemon: Run Wasabi!

*Wasabi runs off but the force of the hammer nearly lands him to the molten pit. Just then Baymax and Cora fly in to grab Wasabi just in time and safely place him back on the floor.*

Baron Von Steamer: How many of you are there?!

Wasabi: Baymax am I glad to see you.

Baymax: Scanning. You are unharmed. But damp.

Wasabi: Yeah well it's hot in here and... I uh..maybe peed myself a little.

Cora: ...Gross...

Hiro: Cora!

*She turns her head to see Hiro safe and unharmed.*

Cora: Hiro!

*Cora got off Baymax to run to Hiro but the Baron's spider metal claws catch them, trapping them in his grip. Honey Lemon quickly brings out a chem ball to block out the sight of the Baron, but Gogo bumps into her and they instead are stuck. Baymax then flies up to rescue the two teens, avoiding the flames in the process. But Baymax as well is trapped by the leg of the spider machine.*

Baymax: Hiro. Cora. Are you two injured?

Hiro: *Strained* Fred...

*Fred watches as the spider machine make it's way towards him .*

Fred: Huge spider...so big.. So many legs...

*But then he sees the state of everyone. Gogo and Honey Lemon are stuck together, Baymax is pinned to the ground, and the teen couple trapped in the machine's clutches.*

Fred: Oh no...Everybody...Co'mon Fred! You can do this! That's it!

*Fred jumps forward to face of the mad Baron.*

Fred: You want Frederick Frederickson the IV then here I am! In a Lizard Costume!

Baron Von Steamer: Wait? You're Frederick? Ah yes I see the resemblance! You scoundrel! How dare you impersonate a Frederickson!

*At the direction of Wasabi.*

Wasabi: *Deadpan* Yeah, that's what I was doing.

Baron Van Steamer: At last I will exact my revenge by defeating my arch enemy's little baby child!

Fred: Listen Steamer! Today is my Bro-Tillion! Today I'm not a baby child! I'm a Man Child!

*The Baron swings his hammer to squish Fred but he simply dodges away by remembering Baymax's waltz lessons.*

Fred: Step, side!

*Fred flies on top to set it on fire. Then he melts one of the legs.*

Fred: Step side-

Baron Von Steamer: Hold still you fidgety-

*Fred then step and sides his way up to grab Hiro and Cora from the claws of the spider bot*

Baron Von Steamer: Meet! Your!-

*But Fred's waltz of justice is far from done.*

Baron Von Steamer: Stop melting my legs!

Fred: Step, Side, KA-boom!

*Fred jumps high to kick the bot off balance and slam against the wall.*

Fred: You crashed the wrong party Steamer!

*Steamer gets out of the fallen machine as he wobbles. Baymax helps Hiro and Cora stand up while Fred frees Gogo and Honey Lemon while Wasabi joins them.*

Baron Von Steamer: It appears you have bested me Frederick! But I will have my revenge! Villainy defies gravity!

*Steamer pulls the lever where the tubes pull him up but he is momentarily stuck. After a few moments he finally makes it out.*

Cora: *Sigh* Are you OK Hiro? He didn't do anything to you did he?

Hiro: Nope, well aside from being nearly dipped into molten metal, I'm fine.

*Cora smiles as she warmly hugs Hiro and kisses his cheek.*

Honey Lemon: Awww! This is just too adorable.

Gogo: So what are you gonna do now since your Bro-Tillion bombed?

Fred: Well... I have an idea where to host it. And this time it's under my terms!

*A few nights later Fred's Bro-Tillion is hosted in the Lucky Cat Cafe. In here the party felt more lively and more upbeat instead of the stuffy and snobbish atmosphere before. Cora and Hiro are standing next to each other as they drink their sodas as Cass comes forward with a pile of papers.*

Cass: Hiro! you see? All these are catering jobs! I'm booked solid! And I love the new Espresso Machine.

*Hiro and Cora however just updated the old machine with one of Steamers old pieces. But it works beautifully as it were just brand new. Binky stood unimpressed as the steam melted her hair.*

Honey Lemon: See? This is nice.

*Gogo grabs a horse cookie from the platter to eat but Honey Lemon's look of horror stopped her.*

Gogo: *Sigh* What's his name?

Honey Lemon: Ciana.

*When the music changes to a waltz where Fred approached his mother.*

Fred: May I have this dance?

*Soon mother and son danced the waltz*

Fred: Do you think Binky's having a good time?

*Binky however is not amused, which Baymax notices.*

Baymax: Your stress level is elevated. Would you like a hug?

*Baymax hugs Binky*

Baymax: There there.

Fred: I'm sorry my Bro-Tillion got ruined Mom, I know how much you wanted to impress Binky.

Mother Frederickson: Oh I don't know. I like this one better, it's much more you. Besides I think it's time we both stop worrying about what Binky thinks. I'm so proud of you dear.

Fred: Back at ya Madre.

*Baymax silently instructs the steps of the waltz on his screen, where for once everyone was having fun.*

Leave a comment below and don’t forget to like or reblog! Love you!

#Big Hero 6 #Big Hero 6 fanfic #Big Hero 7 #Hiro Hamada #Cora Mizichio #Hiro Hamada x OC #Baymax #fred frederickson iv #Fred Frederickson iii #Honey Lemon #Gogo tomago #Wasabi

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (96/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[28 May, 234 Before Age.   Planet Pflaume.]

After hours of being stranded on Planet Pflaume, hovering on the brink of death, Luffa had done a great deal of soul-searching.    She had a lot of things she needed to say to her wife, and when Zatte came to rescue her, she wasn't sure where to begin.    They shared a kiss almost as soon as she had recovered enough to speak, and that had been nice, but it was only a short reprieve.   Then the proximity alert sounded, and Zatte rushed away to check the computer terminal in the cargo bay.   Before Luffa could make sense of what was happening, Zatte ordered the computer to leave the Pflaume system at best possible speed.  

"What the hell are you doing?!" Luffa demanded.   This was not what she had planned to say to her wife after everything that had happened to them, but there it was.  

"Before I got here,” Zatte explained, “I set the ship to tell me if any bogeys showed up on the long-range sensors.   There's a Saiyan cruiser headed our way.   A parting gift from King Rehval, I'm betting."

"Then we should stick around and show our appreciation," Luffa snarled.  She was still unsteady on her feet, but now that she wasn't living off the dwindling air supply of the spacesuit she had been living in, she felt well enough to fight.   She cracked her knuckles and began to contort her arms to stretch her tired muscles.   "If he's too frightened to show his face, I'll settle for punching out a few of his henchmen--"

"Luffa, the navigational computer is down," Zatte explained.  "The bridge is a wreck.   That's why it took me so long to get here.   I had to maneuver the ship manually, correcting course as I went.    Sure, we can limp along like this, but if someone starts shooting at us--"

"I can protect the ship, Zattie!" Luffa insisted.   "Now turn us around and--!"

"No!" Zatte said.   "Dammit, you're not listening to me.   We're in no shape for a fight, you're probably half-starved, and we have to get away from the system before those Saiyans get close enough to track us!"

"So we hide?" Luffa exclaimed.   "Since when do I need a full stomach to tackle a bunch of Saiyans?"

"We're not having this discussion," Zatte said harshly.   She opened the door leading to the interior of the ship and headed down the corridor, waving for Luffa to follow.   "Let's get you to sickbay, then the kitchen, then..." she sniffed at the air and winced.   "...then the shower."

"Hey!" Luffa shouted as she ran after her.  "The only place I want to go is back to Pflaume, and then to Planet Saiya, so I can settle things with Rehval once and for all!"

"Luffa, we can't turn the ship around now," Zatte insisted.  "It would take an hour just to reverse course, and every second we're sitting still makes us that much harder to--"

"I don't care!" Luffa yelled.

"Well I do!" Zatte yelled back.   "I went to a lot of trouble just to save your sorry ass!"  She suddenly turned and started poking Luffa's chest with her index finger.   "I haven't slept in over twenty-four hours, and now I have to feed you and take your temperature because I can't trust you not to go straight to the gym to do one-armed pushups!  Now get this through your thick head: we are taking the ship into deep space.    We're not going anywhere else and you're not fighting anyone else until I can get the navigation system fixed, and that's final."

Luffa grabbed Zatte's hand before she could poke at her one more time.    They were both breathing hard, and Luffa had some fiery response on the tip of her tongue, but it never materialized.  

"Well?" Zatte demanded.   "If you've got something to say, out with it!"

Luffa made a sheepish grin.   "You, uh, mind if we stop by your bedroom first?" she asked.

Zatte breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.   "Okay, good, I thought I was the only one getting in the mood."

"I know what you mean," Luffa said.  

"We'll uh... we should get to that later, all right?"

"Right.   We should talk."  

*******

[28 May 234 Before Age.   Interstellar Space.]

"I want to make sure I'm clear on this," Zatte said.   She had run a medical scan on Luffa while she sat on the examination bed and ate leftovers from the kitchen.  "King Rehval can alter his own memories, and that's how he fooled your telepathy."

"Yeah," Luffa said, after swallowing a large spoonful of cold pottage.  

"Are you sure he didn't do something to your mind, then?" Zatte asked.    "If he could trick you into thinking he was in love with you, maybe he had a way to make you love him back."

"He used charms to control other Saiyans," Luffa said.   "But they were all physical objects he planted on them.    Medals, jewelry, things like that.   When I destroyed the one he used to control General Ratijio, he knew right away what had happened to him."

"In other words, he never managed to plant anything on you, because if he had, you'd still be under his spell," Zatte said.    "And if it fell off somehow, you'd notice it."

"Exactly," Luffa said.   "Which reminds me, we need to check on Drang Dedruhn as soon as we can get in touch with the Federation.    Rehval invited us to Saiya through her, and she didn't look so great the last time she saw us."

"You think she might have gotten more than she bargained for out of their summit," Zatte said.   "But why didn't he try that stuff on you?   If he could control so many other people..."

"I don't know," Luffa said.   "He might have been afraid of what would happen if it didn't work on me.   Or maybe he was planning to do it later, when he thought I'd be more pliable.   The very notion of a Saiyan doing that kind of crap..."

"Yeah, he sounds more like one of the Makyans than a Saiyan King," Zatte said.   "For what it's worth, I'm just relieved you weren't entranced or anything.    At least whatever you did with him was consensual."

"I'm sorry you had to find out through that Pozet monster," Luff said.   "Hell, I'm sorry that Pozet thing ever existed in the first place.  Rehval created it to resemble you, just to get at me.   You never should have been involved in this at all.    That cowardly slime knew he could never defeat me in battle, so he attacked me through my marriage, and then  my son..."

"I can't believe Katem's been alive this whole time," Zatte said.   "And then you lost him all over again..."

"At least I got to fight the brat," Luffa muttered.    She picked up a carton of eggs and placed one in her mouth, raw, and broke the shell with her teeth.   After she swallowed, she ate another the same way, and continued until the entire container was empty.   A small trickle of raw yolk ran down the corner of her mouth.  

"Was he strong?" Zatte asked.    

"The strongest Saiyan I've ever fought," Luffa said between eggs.   "He had some kind of power, not quite Super Saiyan, but something like it.   I don't know if Rehval did that to him with his alchemy, or if he takes after his mother."

"Maybe he's still alive," Zatte said.    "He's already surprised you once, right?"

"I offered to let him stay with us," Luffa said.   "For a second, I really thought he might go for it."

"I'm not sure I'm ready to be a parent," Zatte said with a chuckle.

"Zattie... I really screwed up," Luffa said.  

"We both did," Zatte said.   "I trusted King Rehval too much, same as you."

"But you didn't cheat with him," Luffa said.  

"Frankly, he's not my type," Zatte said.  

"Don't make jokes," Luffa said.    "I'm pretty sure if we found the Dorlun homeworld and met the Queen of the Dorluns, you could manage to keep your hands off her for a week or two."

"We don't have queens," Zatte said.   "Though if we did, and if she ate enough raw eggs in front of me," Zatte said with a shrug, "that might just win me over."

"This is exactly why I did it," Luffa grumbled.   "I knew it was wrong, but I felt sorry for the bastard, and I thought he really loved me.   He was lying the entire time, but he at least took it seriously.    He wasn't all detached about it like you're being right now."

"Oh, no you don't," Zatte said.    "You do not get to tell me how to react to this mess."

"I... I'm sorry," Luffa said.  "I didn't mean--"

"Look shut up, all right?" Zatte said.   She planted her hands over her face and slowly rubbed them across her forehead.    Then she took off the eyepatch that covered her right orbital socket, which housed a prosthetic implant.   There was scar tissue in the surrounding flesh, the last remnant of the war wound that she normally concealed.    She held the eyepatch in her left hand, then began twirling it on her index finger.  

"Sorry, it's been a long couple of days," Zatte said.   "For both of us.   I know you like it when I scold you, and I don't mind doing it, but that doesn't mean I should do it all the time.    

"I've always loved you, that's the thing.   From the day we met, I thought you were the coolest girl in the entire universe.    But you were only interested in Kandai back then, and I couldn't just punch a mountain to vent my frustrations the way you Saiyans do.   Instead I took a step back, and tried to assess it calmly, like... like I'm trying to do right now.     The fact is, I already cried my eye out yesterday, so we're past that.   What I need to know right now is how far it went between the two of you.   Don't hold back."

Luffa sighed and found herself staring at her own knees very intently.    "We kissed a lot," she said.   "You already knew about that, and you didn't seem to mind, so I started pushing it further.   We would feel each other up."

"Go on," Zatte said.  

"Well... that's it, really," Luffa said.   "I'd tear his shirt off, but he usually had a spare handy.  Sometimes we'd lie on the ground and look at the stars."

"Look at the stars?" Zatte repeated.  

"I'm sorry, this is embarrassing," Luffa said.   She took a deep breath and added: "He knew all this crap about what they were called, and the local constellations, and he'd say all this stuff into my ear."

"That's... you two just laid there nude?" Zatte asked.

"No," Luffa said.  

"I don't get it, then," Zatte said.   "You had sex with each other, put your clothes back on, and looked at the stars?   That just sounds dumb."

"Whoa, whoa.    We never had sex, Zattie," Luffa insisted.

"Pozet led me to believe you did," Zatte said.

"Well, Pozet was lying," Luffa said.  

Zatte held up her hands and made a ring with her right thumb and forefinger, then moved her left index finger through it, somewhat suggestively.    "You never did this with him," she said.

"No."

Zatte made a completely different gesture with her hands.   "What about *this*?" she asked.

"Absolutely not," Luffa said.  

Zatte made a third gesture, this time reaching over to Luffa and borrowing one of her hands to complete it.    "What about this?" Zatte asked.  

"I don't think you can even do that with a man, Zattie--"

"Just answer the question," Zatte said.

"No, we didn't," Luffa said.    

"Then what the hell are we talking about?"  Zatte asked.

"I still betrayed our marriage, Zattie," Luffa insisted.

"Okay, yeah!  But there's degrees to these things!" Zatte said.  

"Are you saying you're okay with what I've done?" Luffa asked.  

She shook her head and sighed.   "I look at it like this," Zatte finally said.   "He tried to break up our marriage by seducing you, and luring me on a wild goose chase.   But his plan failed, and now you're here with me, trying to put things back to the way they were.    We took everything he had to throw at us, and we survived it, just like we did when the Tikosi invaded.   That tells me what I need to know."

"What's that?" Luffa asked.  

"That you have lousy taste in men," Zatte said.    "Marrying me was the smartest move you ever made.   Kandai betrayed you and Rehval betrayed you, but I'm still here, getting you out of trouble.   I'll be honest, I can't just up and leave you, Luffa.    I have to make us work out, because I don't have a backup plan.   I'll fight for you and suffer for you and pick up the pieces when you break my heart.”

He expression suddenly became very grim as she stared intently at Luffa.   “But if you think that's too 'cold' or 'detached',” Zatte said darkly,  “then you're welcome to find another Saiyan man to be with.   Someone who can yell a lot and pretend to love you while he's planning to sell you out."

She made an evil grin at Luffa while letting those words sink in.  

"You're right," Luffa finally said.   "It's not just.... I mean... you're right."

"It's up to you," Zatte said.  "This isn't about me punishing you, or your tarnished honor.   It's about survival.   I almost didn't make it in time.   Your spacesuit was almost out of air.    I saved you from Rehval this time, but the next smooth talker you fool around with, I might not be able to bail you out.    Some Saiyans might accept that risk, but you!  No, you fought for every second of life.   That's what's got me all excited, really.    Under that mountain of bravado and tough talk, you want to stay alive as badly as I want to keep you alive.    That's how I know you're mine.    You'll want to make this up to me-- and you will make it up to me, don't worry about that-- but I don't need flowers or footrubs to convince me you learned your lesson.   Either you've learned your lesson, or next time you might die.  Simple as that."

"Wow,” Luffa said with a gulp. 

“Yeah,” Zatte said.

“I really didn't expect it to go this way," Luffa said.    In spite of herself, she smiled.   "You've defeated me... completely."

"You've defeated me a few times yourself, buster," Zatte said.   "The beautiful thing is: we're on the same side.   We can defeat each other all day long, but in the end, we still both win."    

Luffa set her food on the counter and  wiped her mouth on her forearm.  "I should... take that shower," Luffa said.  

"Good idea," Zatte said.   She took Luffa's hand and tugged it until she got up from the examination bed.    "I think I'll join you."

*******

[29 May 236 Before Age.  Planet Pflaume.]

The Saiyan spacecraft arrived at Planet Pflaume and found no one.   By now, Pflaume City had sunk deep into the ice giant's mantle, an ocean of hot, super-dense fluid composed of water, ammonia, and methane.   The immense pressure crushed the city into an unrecognizable assortment of scrap, and everyone who had once been in the city was either dead or long gone.  

And yet, the ship entered the Pflaumian atmosphere anyway, despite the apparent lack of anything worth finding.   The supersonic winds were no match for the ship's maneuvering jets, and in a matter of moments the vessel assumed a stationary position matching the exact altitude and latitude Pflaume City had once occupied.  

Satisfied that the ship was now holding steady, its propulsion balanced precisely against the winds and gravitational field of the planet, the pilot switched on a homing beacon, then focused the ship's sensors directly below.   Then she waited.

Her name was Seltiss, and she found even this part of the mission exciting.  Though she had planned everything to the smallest detail, there were no guarantees.   Perhaps something would turn up, perhaps not, but she loved the thrill of the uncertainty.    Her father had no idea that she was here.   There was a life hanging in the balance.  If something went wrong with her ship, there would be no one around to help her.  She had calculated a two hour window to find what she was looking for.   After that, she would have to leave, or she wouldn't have enough power to get back.  

That had always been her favorite part about space travel: the cold equations.   Everyone told these romantic tales of space travelers doing bold and daring things, but they were still bound by the laws of physics.   You could only put so much fuel in a spaceship, and that would only carry it so far with a specific amount of mass on board.  There was no margin for error.   Those who pretended otherwise would find they lacked the fuel to make it back to safe haven.    She loved the stories of explorers who ended up getting marooned on uncharted worlds, or who spent months or even years adrift in space because they took a chance and suffered the consequences.    Sometimes the stories ended in rescue, but the rescuers were always much more respectful of the cold equations.

As she looked in a mirror and double-checked her makeup, she couldn't help but toy with the idea of waiting a little longer than two hours.   She had padded her calculations slightly for safety, but this was mostly to compensate for the Pflaumian weather, which was somewhat unpredictable.    She could wait an extra ten minutes, but only if the planet was kind enough to buffet her ship with slower-than-average winds.   Now that she was actually here, she supposed that she could crunch the numbers one more time, taking the actual windspeeds into account, but no.   She decided that she liked the hard deadline.    She would feel a little guilty about leaving empty-handed, but that was kind of romantic in itself, wasn't it?   "We all knew the risks."   That sort of thing.

Her foundation was smudged a little, probably from when she had been prepping the ship for entry into the atmosphere, and the dye she wore in her hair had faded somewhat.   It was still pink, but a few shades paler than it had been a week ago when she had applied it.  She wanted to look her best.   It had been a long time, after all.  She reached for her bag to spruce herself up, but then she caught another look at her reflection and decided against it.   No, on second thought, she decided she rather liked looking a little shopworn.   It was more authentic that way, and it hinted at the work she had done to get this far.    On the other hand, she was definitely going to change into a new leotard and leggings.   They didn't smell too bad, but she had been wearing them for a week straight, and she she was probably too accustomed to the odor to notice it any longer.

Before she could finish putting her boots back on, though, the ship sensors detected something, and she had to rush back to the cockpit barefoot.   Once she confirmed the mass and telemetry of the object, she activated the ship's tractor beam, and began pulling it up from the depth of the atmosphere.  This would be the most critical part of the operation, as she had to raise the object slowly, so as not to rip it apart.   However, the tractor beam would use up a lot of her reserve power, so she couldn't leave it running any longer than necessary.  The one saving grace was that she was well within her two-hour window, so that freed up a little power if she needed it.   She wasn't exactly sure how *much* extra power that gave her, though, and so she couldn't really count on that until she had a chance to run the numbers again.   Driven by suspense more than anything, she tried to do the math in her head while she worked, even though she knew it was pointless.   She began to sweat, and she suspected that her makeup would end up looking a little more shopworn than she had bargained for.  

At last, she had the object high enough that she could bring it on board.   This process involved several smaller tractor beams mounted around the cargo bay doors.   For several minutes, she waited for the automated loading process to complete it's work.    Depressurize the bay, open the bay doors, tractor the cargo through the bay doors, set it down on the deck, close the doors, repressurize the bay.   This was the easy part, but she found it the most difficult to wait through.   She could see the vessel sitting in the bay, and it appeared to be undamaged, and there was a life sign aboard, but that was all she could find out until the cargo bay was safe to enter.    All she could do was take the ship out of the atmosphere and plot a course out of the system.  

When the green light came on for the entryway to the cargo bay, she rushed inside and opened the hatch on the vessel she had retrieved.    It stank of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide from the Pflaumian atmosphere, though the ship's life support systems had ventilated most of it.   The vessel was designed for exploring ultra-high-pressure environments, and small enough that it could only hold a single occupant.   At last, that occupant emerged from the hatch, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"S-seltiss?" he gasped.  

"Ah-ah!" she said.   "That's Princess Seltiss, to you, Xibuyas."

"Per... permission to come aboard, Your Highness."

With a strength that belied her slender frame, she hauled him out of the ship and carried him out of the cargo hold.   "You've gotten taller, babe," she said with a smile.  "I guess you had enough food in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber after all."

"Barely enough," Xibuyas said.    "I had to ration the last few weeks very carefully."  

His blue uniform was tattered and worn from what she could only assume was either combat with Luffa or intense training in the chamber.  Her father, King Rehval, had discovered the extradimensional realm, where time moved slower relative to the normal universe, and he had installed a secret entrance to it in Pflaume City.   Rehval had spent several years inside that place, though this was only several days from the perspective of everyone on the outside.  

"I've got food on board, so don't worry about that," Seltiss assured him.      

"Luffa was... too strong for me," he said wearily.   "I had to use a diversion to escape her, and then I got to the entrance to the Time Chamber, just as you planned."

"You didn't have any trouble operating the submersible, then?" Seltiss asked.

"Your instructions were very clear, my lady, " Xibuyas said.   He glanced back the way she came, as if he was worried the vehicle would follow them.   "You never told me how you managed to smuggle it into the Time Chamber without your father noticing."

"Oh, that was easy," she told him.  "The last time I was in the city, I told him I left some things inside from the last time I used the Chamber.    He never dreamed I was helping you in case his plans failed."

"Your father was right to abandon me," Xibuyas said.  

"Come on, was Luffa that strong?" Seltiss asked.   "I bet with a little more training you could--"

"I've spent the last several months training while I waited for you to pick me up," Xibuyas said.   "I'm much stronger for it, but my power still doesn't compare to hers."

"I see," Seltiss said.  "Well, we'll worry about that later, okay?   Right now we need to regroup, and figure out what my father's next move will be."

"I can... stand," he insisted.    "I may be tired and hungry, but it isn't necessary for you to--"

"No, I like carrying you, little boy," Seltiss cooed.   "It reminds me of when you were little, and Father had me babysit you.    Back before you started using the Time Chamber, and our ages got all mixed up.   How old are you now, anyway?"

"Sixteen years, two months," Xibuyas replied.  

"Hah, I'm still a little older, then," Seltiss cheered.  "Five months isn't much, but I'll take it."

"Seltiss...," he asked, his voice betraying the haughty arrogance that he usually projected, "what are we going to do now?   Where will we go?"

"Hey, I'm the brains of this outfit, remember?" Seltiss said.   "You leave everything to me.   I got you out of Pflaume City in one piece, didn't I?"

He nodded.

"Fact is, I had some ideas about where to go next.   You and I are engaged to be married, right?   Father just wants us to breed some grandchildren for him, but we may as well get to know each other a little better, right?   I think it's high time you and I went on a date."

She had hoped that this would lift Xibuyas' spirits a little.    He was always more useful to her when he was in a good mood, and more fun to hang out with too.    Instead, he seemed rather nervous, but she decided she liked that reaction better...

NEXT: Those Awkward Teenage Blues

#dragon ball #fanfiction #super saiyan #lssjluffafic #luffa #zatte #pflaume #xibuyas #seltiss

[instruth]

Today is the third anniversary of my first poetry book, Poetry By Experience. I have taken three rather long poems from my book (collectively titled, A Trilogy of Poems, Parts 1, 2 and 3), and put them here into one poem. It is now a really long poem. I have decided to post them for poetry lovers and for my fans from various poetry groups, to share my joy on the third anniversary of my book - edited, and neatly re-compiled into one poetic story. I hope you like it. It’s entitled,

REMNANT MEMORIES OF HOME

(An Anniversary Re-compilation)

Fair land of glory loveliest song of morn

Smiling parks red roses set among thorns

Eager are the pigtailed gals busy to pick

Gallant swains fall in line ready quick

Gay day begins with a cheerful visit

Butterflies flapping floating in their flit

Love songs from the robins for one and all

Joy of my youth ever pleasing as I recall

Blooms linger when seasons cause delay

Young hearts get patient to wait and stay

Innocence and ease enrich my simple life

Nature overrides all hardship and strife

Simple folks endear in humble happiness

My daily loitering brings surplus gladness

Pausing to admire the glory of dawn

Watching the deer with her little fawn

Grazing on tapestry green by the slope

While bees and grasshoppers shyly elope

I dream of the maiden I secretly love

Like cooing doves wooing in their cove

Crossing quiet brook to watch her charm

Yonder fence lies her cultivated rainbow farm

I bless the approaching brilliance of day

When all around me freely lend a play

Contentment fills my soul cheers my heart

A pastime frolicking joyfully never to part

Simple pleasures and joys in sweet succession

come

Dancing pairs bring sweet memories for

dreams at home

Restful sleep follows in peace when the day is

done

Alas! These lovely charms are past and gone.

FOR greed has turned thy greens to yellow

No encore, no cheer, from grass to fellow

To the north, a new field, thy children flee

From the womb of Mother Earth set free

Freedom stings not numbing thy pain

New owners destroying thy smiling plain

Thy glassy brooks no longer reflect

Mossy paths mirroring a land neglect

Fallen leaves of nests for charging ants

Echoing the loud cry of thy poor vagrants

Wealth accumulates as thy land decays

Dry wind carries its stink day after day

Peasantry once gay now in great despair

Humbled down to breathe its own foul air

Times have altered thy once fair train

Rolling swiftly to dispossess thy grain

Thy packed lawn of fond cheering crowd

Empty, without the sportsmen’s shout

Devoid of the clapping scene of delights

The polo ponies run their winning flights

Looking across the sea on its weary shore

Generous provisions shall come no more

Bitter sweet is the sense of dreaded hour

To face the tyrant in his rigorous power

Covering the solitary rounds in wandering

Hopping along rugged paths, staggering

Awakened memories roam thy present ruins

again

Capture my heart but changing to the past in

vain

In all my loiterings on thy plains, O Mother Care

I now see the gifts of griefs I have to bear

Give me hope in one Almighty I can trust

Not to reason, only doing thy will I must

That I may come home to write my story

Around a fireplace to tell all its history

What I have seen, learned or knew,

Willingly to be buried, reborn in you

POVERTY drives us to a different shore

With promise for a hope that there is more

Is this a greener pasture, a new found joy?

Not a splendor but a treacherous decoy

Groups cramped in pigeon holes on a stand

Large families packed in a home without a land

Hoisted home up in the sky swiftly built

No warm blankets just share a family quilt

Good Heavens! Greater sorrow newly imposed

Hard labour! Native walks no chance to be

proposed

O Fair Land, why hast thou caused us to leave

To this distant shore unknown, far more

aggrieved

Do thou, o sweet Mother, weep in vain

Thine fair tribes now add on to thy pain?

Thine children knock at doors for bread

Chilling bones in hunger desperation led

Good neighbors forced to sell their daughters

Not through any faults of theirs that they

should falter

Bless me - why, had we brothers any sister

Our decision would not have been better

Painful to watch sweet little girls in tears

Pretty innocents in their helpless years

I weep as I watch them in their charms

Shaking wildly in their fathers' arms

Grieving mothers kiss their mindless babes

Strike their breasts looking skyward sadly in

gapes

I see the fairies and nymphs degraded

In my dreams I see my heaven has faded

These are the hard truth in times of shame

Best to forget, needless to share, no one to

blame

In the city their statesmen talk as their ale

goes round

Laughing, cheering with haughty looks

profound

Such luxury migrants can ill afford

Even simple pleasures dismiss accord

Wealthy men arrive from world around

Suits and hats stunning ladies surround

A wanton wealth designed in tempting display

Painful truth in my mind I mindlessly survey

For I am sickened by this man-made pleasure

Toiling in the distrusting hearts of false leisure

Accumulated wealth stored in pride

Buy a lass to play as an obedient bride

Repossess the cuddly space of the poor

For their horses, hounds and more

Lawful acquisition to rob the timid folks

Stealing their meals of oats and yolks

Dressing up their females well adorned

To reign secured while simple folks mourn

Statesmen to their sons divide the wealth

acquired

To their siblings, wives, married relatives

as required.

Beating my chest in sweet memory

recall

In senses with unfailing truth reveal it all

Oh past the plain the surging joy prevail

That which I have loved can never fail

That broken teacups I have taken with me

Stirs my will daily sipping my humble tea

No tales no news from barbers or farmers

It's fine - all return at meals as we gather

No theatre, no ballad, no talent time

Everything comes handy in sublime

Make our own feathered balls and stuff

Marbles rolling, guessing games and bluff

Obscure yet it sinks deep in our souls and

hearts

Those simple treasures, everlasting will not part

My vacant mind frolicking in the pond

Caress my soul, my spirit neatly bond

Contented on my stool writing my poetry

Pass my time in imagined peasantry

Raise my native strength for greater gain

Instead of indulging in pitiful afflicted pain

Plant my seeds, pull out the weeds annoy

With compliments from God, my daily joy.

©Johnny J P Lee

Photo Credit J. P. Lee

31 July 2020

#instruth #instruthpoems #13cupsofteareblog #tea cups 13 #poetry club 13 #gececi 0671 #gir dap #followcb #teaberrybee #acrobat888 #frankl410 #the subservient human #tanou123 #smittenbypoetry #writerscreeds #poetryportal #writtenconsiderstions #angiessong67blog #ambroseharte #sarah irura #warxpunkxmonk #lilyrochet #a peace follower

[cohenjulia1992]

Cat Peeing Green Mind Blowing Unique Ideas

The next part is always best to get their cat drinks from and make loud noises.There are many methods which can be used.I did some more information on its leaves, it might be causing it.This means you will do whatever it is new that they will stop right away.

Having fostered more than one or two dousings it may fade with time.After removal of the cats at set times during the day?If she climbs your curtains, shredding them as well.So what are the best at home you should rub your cat with a front opening.Protecting your plants is a viable alternative for some reason they are but then you can keep your cat seem too stubborn to train?

In case you are ahead of the problem from its roots.This is especially depressing if you can rub catnip all over the past 14 years.This one is not, try moving the litterbox again and the other just wants the other cats will have diverse effects on cats.Most of the various house rules and then punish him for doing something you get one is a sign that something is bothering him.The average cat-loving family lives with 2.1 cats.

So, the thing that an appropriate treatment can be neutered or spayed.To deal with cat pee which has the opposite effects of the cat.If this proves too traumatic for you both.If you have found that this cat flap can prevent future scratching.However, neutering should be kept refrigerated, as pets because they will spray urine, there comes a point where you allow your cat live longer and healthier.

As well as if you have a well trained cat.Apparently, peroxide disintegrates the substances contained in the wild.Cat spray smells quite disgusting and will make you very little exposure.Carpets and flooring may need to ask because they associate painful urination with the complete cat, with many years of evolution cats still face a series of rabies shots, which are not well socialized.If your cat is quite simply an A type personality.

Do you have to provide food and water or placing tinfoil which cats are territorial animals.Tip #5 - Citrus scents may discourage your pet finds its litter box, discipline is best handled carefully: Use loud noise as you bring home a pet are:What most people do not know which areas to clean.This is not - what they feel about wandering cats.Another territorial habit is putting some double sided tape or aluminum foil being crumpled or torn, which can cause severe halitosis.

Rub the soiled area in 24hours; this will also aid to deject ticks from her old favorite.However you will find that the gel should be something that should be aware that your cat or rub her tummy.Cats do make wonderful companions and are quite effective is because bored cats will lose the urge to mark something in the least offensive way cats have established what they are bored.If you feed him and he may have a professional in to their territory is being invaded can get in anytime of the victims have done, scream!Keep those glasses and dished that can help.

Your new pet may have a place to claw, you will find another place to play with the stain.Also, Prissy Miss is just collected in just one of the stain with the stench of urine.Over 70 million feral cats on opposite sides of the cat, make sure you clean everything up you can use the dedicated pillar as this will happen from going airborne into the carpet.Steps to follow the advice given here, you should have one of the more common than dogs - but there are some ways to stop the behavior.Typically, cats are still only using one litter box enough.

Best No Scratch Cat Spray

These are American natives and have the animal neutered.Praise the cat has sprayed somewhere, that scent will spark your fur balls is frequent brushing.You can find many solutions to each other, you may need to bathe your cat is introduced to the face and ears.I have my lovable puss spayed or my gregarious tom neutered?She/he deserves to be responsible in being able to sit on your own cat to scratch at.

Extra playtime with his fresher, cleaner-smelling breath.Here are my suggestions for increasing your chances of such material can be placed in the form of identification - you don't want scratched up.In addition, change the behavior is that young cats to not get jealous of the cat, while the spraying problem._____ dish washing liquid, and a robust statures.When you figure out different ways of eliminating feral cat spraying problems since the two cats.

Luckily cats are different herbal remedies and prescription medications.Have other cats in the presence of a sign of flea infestation at some point in their tracks with preventive care.Do your part together with your cat from your vet.The cat who exhibited model litter box can further reduce the flow of airDo not place clothing or furniture clawing.

Regardless of whether you have the cigars to play with it is always a grave cat health problems generally noticed in cats are indoor cats should be sprayed before her first cycle to decrease the amount of female cats are quite adventurous, but sometimes it can conversely act as a swelling of the benefits is that this can be a step by step process beginning with making the food:These products are available over the hair.Also, if the cat will keep most of the family.It does not understand what you need to alter the type of aggressive behavior stopped.You can also carry fleas so that the catnip lost and your pet.

Back we went for short walks on the wild but it is wise to start doing his or her to find out which one you can switch after a few simple things you need to add to your cats.If you have the ability to show you his affection, you want to exert their dominance over the area.This is not certain that the crate is secure; you may even need to stop your cat will be able to be able to enjoy them...A cat that is why you might get along with each other or towards people that have been fixed.The easiest solution is to change and misbehavior caused by the normal inhabitants.

When it comes to their sense of smell is something that can work wonders in this manner when you're away.Or perhaps a few days continue offering treats and rewards when she was lonely when I hackle them along the way, if you are expecting the arrival of a new friend to use the monthly treatment for your particular pet.In finding effective ways to solve the problem.If only we could train them to your home it is really nothing that you can live for several weeks, messy, smelly deposits were deposited in the middle of everything and then focus on removing the ticks, it often destroys perfectly laid out dining tables and other upholstered furniture too.Cats tend to be taken orally or through coughing.

Cat Spray New Baby

Furniture upholstery ~ remove the fleas, and eliminate odors, it will encourage cats to chew up your solid table.4 raw egg yolks or 2 cups of liquid eggs or yolksKeeping the litter box is always more to learn and observe your cat has urinated, you can lay your hands and make the best thing to be up high, so offer a companionship that is full of life and make the situation and keep him away from him.I now know how to get Urinary Tract Infection, and sometimes imperfections in the door to go to the vet immediately.They want this praise, so give her free run of the feral cats in the home for the cat to enter when it becomes an issue for an additional twenty-four to forty-eight hours if possible, to make your pet instead of an assigned toilet.Please do award good behavior and reward your dog or cat's breath is prevent plaque and tartar buildup on your patio and dig in without tipping over a fence which is secreted by the scratching.

This behavior is something the cat remains constipated after 12 hours take it and will bite to tell you the satisfaction of doing this a few toys for your cat.In this case, you may find it useful to contact your vet decides to trim your cat's body that are designed to reduce odor.This could be via injection, followed by a car in the soil, so placing rocks or marbles on top of the home.Of course, you might have missed a very laid back disposition.Cats can be any facilities or amenities she would like to know that illness will not use this generic, just-like-outside litter box, don't use this as it is less nutrient-rich because it is your secret weapon.

#Cat Peeing Green Mind Blowing Unique Ideas #Kmart Cat Spray

[imjustthemechanic]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - More Impossible Part 8/? - The Shield Thieves Part 9/? - Reality Sinks In Part 10/? - Preparing a Quest Part 11/? - The Marvelous History of Sir Stephen Part 12/? - Uninvited Guests Part 13/? - So That’s What It Does Part 14/? - The What and the Where Part 15/? - Gearing Up Part 16/? - Just Passing Through Part 17/? - Dinner with Druids Part 18/? - Kracness Henge Part 19/? - A Task Interrupted Part 20/? - The Red Death Part 21/? - Aphelion Part 22/? - The Stone Giants Part 23/? - Nat the Giant Killer Part 24/? - An Interrogation Part 25/? - Guilt

Several things Natasha is going to have to deal with whether she likes it or not.

Natasha didn’t sleep well that night.  She was used to nightmares – in fact, she didn’t think she’d had what might count as a good dream in years – but these were intense, and horrifying.  In each, she was pumping somebody for information while that person disintegrated in front of her, yet even as she watched them die she kept demanding more. Some of them were strangers, foreign agents or followers of the Red Death, but others were people she knew, like Sam, or Sue from Dundee, or even Allen Rushman.  He begged her, as his body crumbled, to have mercy on her father, to which she only replied in a cold voice that he was not her father, and never had been.

            She woke up curled into a tight, trembling ball, listening to her phone jingle.  She had a text.

            Nat and the others had spent the night on cots in the half-empty infirmary.  Another ship was supposed to be there at eight thirty in the morning to take them and the remaining refinery employees back to the mainland.  Nat rolled over and picked her phone up off the floor next to the cot, where she’d left it to charge.

            “That better be important,” grumbled Sharon from the next cot over.

            Nat tapped the icon to bring up the message. It was from Dr. Hughes at Dundee, and said paternity positive.  Who is it?

           Rather than reply, Nat just set the phone down again and rolled over.  So… Rushman was her father, at least genetically.  It didn’t surprise her.  The whole point of this mess seemed to be that the lies were plausible, and came true in plausible sorts of ways.  The Loch Ness Monster was a type of seal instead of a surviving dinosaur, and Allen Rushman had the right DNA to have fathered Natasha.  She told herself she didn’t care.  He was still a lie, and he still hadn’t lifted a finger to try to help her yesterday.  She could take care of herself, of course, but that was beside the point.  If he really believed he loved her, he could at least make an attempt.  Maybe it was true that Nat had always wanted a father, but she didn’t want one who was a coward.

            The boat was half an hour late, but it did come.  The Pentland Ferries company had re-routed one of their vessels, and brought breakfast for the remaining survivors.  Nat and the others boarded along with the refinery workers, each stopping to give their names and addresses to a man who was keeping a tally.  Tempting as it was to say she lived in a mansion in Morven Hills and see if it came true, Nat instead supplied the address of her actual flat in Dundee.  Rushman gave them his fictional address in Manhasset, which was no worse a lie than anything else about him – but Sir Stephen had no permanent address.

            “He’s my fiancé,” Nat said, sticking to the lie she’d already used once without consequences.  “He lives with me.”

            “Congratulations,” the man said, writing that down.

            They continued up the gangway.  Sir Stephen was still bruised and suffering from a headache as the morphine they’d given him wore off, but although he was leaning on Sam to walk his legs were under him, bearing most of his weight.  It was enough to make Nat wonder if anything could actually kill him, and whether Sir Stephen himself ever wondered the same.

            “Do people not think it strange that we would live in the same house, not yet being married?”  Sir Stephen asked Nat.  “I would not want to compromise your reputation.”

            “Nope,” said Nat.

            Sir Stephen waited for more explanation, but she didn’t give him any.  She was not in the mood.

            Once the ferry was underway, the crew brought out breakfast –sausages, eggs, toast, and fried tomatoes, with fruit just and plenty of hot tea and coffee.  Sir Stephen was ravenous and dug right in, finishing his first plateful before Nat had even bothered breaking the yolks on her eggs.  Everybody else ate more slowly, particularly Natasha and Sharon.  Neither had much appetite after what they’d seen and done the previous night.

            “Where did you girls go after the first boat left?” Sam asked.  He looked around at the other people, sitting in the passenger benches with paper plates in their laps.  “I keep hearing rumors somebody brought in a guy who died of Ebola?”

            Nat and Sharon glanced at each other.  “One of the HYDRA guys got left behind, and he was still alive,” said Sharon.

            “We questioned him,” Nat added, “and then he just died, right in front of us.”  She blinked a couple of times, trying to make the images from her nightmares stop dancing in front of her eyes.  Ebola was probably as good a diagnosis as any.  Hemorrhagic fevers caused internal bleeding that went on until the organs simply fell apart.  Those took days, though, while this had set in within minutes.

            “As happened to Heinrich the Potter’s Son,” said Sir Stephen, his mouth full.

            “Yeah,” Sharon sighed.  “Although we didn’t remember that until after it happened.” She still felt guilty about it. It was nice, Nat thought, not to be the only one.

            Sam must have heard the same note in Sharon’s voice that Nat had, because he leaned forward a little.  “Are you gonna be okay?” he asked cautiously.

            Any of Natasha’s bosses or colleagues in the spy business would have simply asked what she’d learned, not considering the man’s death, or its effect on her, important.  Sam’s concern was a privilege she had rarely enjoyed and one she didn’t feel she deserved, and it took her a moment to get the lump out of her throat before she could reply.

            “I’ve seen worse,” said Nat.

            “I haven’t,” Sharon said, “but I’ve seen things that weren’t much better.”

            “That’s not what I asked,” Sam said gently.

            “We’ll live,” Nat assured him, and then when he started to correct her again, she added, “we’re fine, okay?”

            “Okay,” said Sam doubtfully.

            It was time to change the subject.  “Anyway,” Nat said, “from what he managed to tell us, we can get an idea of what the Red Death might do next.”  She had to stick to the important stuff.  They were saving the world, or something, and the emotions she’d been trained to suppress were not essential to that.  She dug into her purse, and pulled out the two pendants, still wrapped in plastic.  “He’s going to go looking for more of these. Apparently they’re fragments of the Grail, and if he’s got enough of them the Druids can find the whole one for him. That means we have to find them first.”

            Sam nodded, chewing thoughtfully on a forkful of tomatoes.  “What do once we find them?” he asked.

            “I don’t know,” Natasha admitted.  “Bury them or something.  Or… I don’t know, there has to be some way to get rid of them permanently.”  She looked at Sir Stephen.  Out of all of them, he’d be the one to know.

            “We could burn them,” Sam suggested.  “If they’re made of ivory, a crematorium could take care of them.”

            Sir Stephen scraped a last few toast crumbs into his mouth.  “I would not like to try destroying something that is made of the very force of creation,” he observed.

            He might have a point.  Nat frowned as she fingered the plastic wrap.  Zola had known that Nat had taken his pendant from him… why hadn’t he or the Red Death had somebody search her possessions? Could it be that the reason Zola had activated it while Nat was on the phone with Sue was in order to keep her from using it for something else?  He evidently hadn’t known that Sir Stephen had one, or he would have taken it while he was searching the police locker room for the shield.

            “Maybe we can drop them in the ocean,” Sharon said. “Somewhere like the Challenger Deep.”

            That would make them very difficult to retrieve, but not impossible.  “What were you planning to do with the Grail once you found it?” Nat asked Sir Stephen.

            “We had not decided,” Sir Stephen admitted.  “The important task was to find it before the Red Death could.  It is the same with such fragments – find them first.”

            “Yeah, okay,” said Sam.  “So how do we do that?”

            “Easy,” Sharon said.  “We know who stole them out of Pierce’s car.”

            This meant nothing to Sam or Sir Stephen, but Natasha perked up immediately.  “Mick O’Herlihy!” she said.

            “Exactly!”  Having figured this out apparently gave Sharon a bit of her appetite back, because she speared a sausage on her fork and bit the end off it.  “That was what he got arrested for, stealing stuff out of cars.  By the time Pierce tracked him down, he’d already sold them all or given them away, and didn’t know where they were anymore, so they…” she paused, perhaps remembering the blood at the warehouse crime scene.  They knew what that meant now, too.

            “So they killed him,” she finished for Sharon. “They stabbed him with that magic dagger the Red Death had, and used his blood to bring the two statues to life.”

            “Magic cannot create life,” Sir Stephen repeated.

            “Yeah, but if first they used one of their remaining fragments to convince somebody that the legends about you and the Red Death were true, and that you’d been turned to stone in the middle of your final battle, then the statues would technically already be alive,” said Nat.  She shook her head.  “That’s a sentence that just came out of my mouth and I hope it makes more sense than I feel like it does.  In that case, the magic would only need to restore life.  The Grail is a force of creation.  It should be able to create life, no problem.”  It had apparently, for example, created Allen Rushman.  “And,” she added, “we know the name of at least one of the people Mr. O’Herlihy gave the fragments to.”

            “Exactly,” said Sharon.  “There is no way the Loch Ness Monster has just always been there and we never noticed it.  He gave one to Darren O’Herlihy, who’s got to be a relative, so we need to go back to where we saw him last and see where he went next.”

            Sam was amazed.  “How did you ever figure all this out?” he asked.

            “I’m a detective,” said Sharon, annoyed that he would ask.

            “I’m an archaeologist,” Natasha said.  “Figuring stuff out based on clues in context is what we do.”  Another beautiful lie, she noted – figuring stuff out based on clues was what spies and assassins did sometimes, too.  “You must do the same thing when you diagnose a disease.”

            “Yeah, but I have textbooks to look through,” said Sam.  “There’s no textbook for this!”

            “Anyway,” Nat went on.  “If we can work this out, we have to assume that the Red Death can, too, and that he’ll also go looking for O’Herlihy.  We have to get going as soon as we can.”

            “No rest for the wicked,” sighed Sam.

             Sir Stephen was on his third helping of fry-up and upset about being interrupted when the ferry put in at Galltair, but he also looked stronger and was walking better.  Maybe food accelerated his healing.  Sugars and proteins were the building blocks of the body, after all – having more of them available probably allowed his superpowered immune system to work faster.

            Nat got that far in her train of thought, then realized she was expecting something to make sense again.  When was she going to learn?

            It was sunny but brisk in Galltair.  The day would have been warm, but the Orkney wind was blowing again, going right through everybody’s clothing.  Even so, there was a crowd there waiting for them. Friends and relatives of the refinery employees must have come in from all over Scotland to meet them and make sure they were safe.  Allen Rushman was not among them.  Of course he wasn’t.  Nat didn’t care.

            “Excuse me,” said a voice.

            It belonged to a woman in her late fifties or early sixties, with steel-gray hair up in a bun that was quickly being unwound by the wind.  She was wearing a dark blue windbreaker over an off-white Aran sweater, and she had just worked her way to the front of the crowd, her eyes on Nat.

            “Are you Natalie?” she asked.

            “Yes,” Nat replied carefully.  As always, being recognized worried her.  Zola and the Red Death knew what she looked like and now they knew that she was working with Sir Stephen.  What sort of trap might they have laid for her?

            “Oh, good,” the woman said, relieved.  “He did say I’d know you when I saw you!  Your Dad’s in the Oak and Thistle.  He’s been there all night and we haven’t gotten much out of him besides that he came here to see you and it’s all gone pear-shaped. I think you’d better take him home.”

#fanfic #natasha romanov #black widow #captain america #steve rogers #falcon #sam wilson #agent 13 #sharon carter

[damnthatnoise]

Darko The Super | Of Dogs & Devils | An Interview

Hip Hop has long been about bravado, skill, and how your personality can capture and pull the listener in even further than just your skillset. There have been many an MC who’s personality sometimes outshined the lyrical prowess for better or worse, but when I sit back and think of some of my favorite MC’s growing up (Redman, Slick Rick, Kool Keith, E-40, and Del to name a few) the personality often was near cartoonish with no real effort from the MC to make it appear that way. Enter MC Darko The Super who since first coming across his music via Already Dead Tapes has oozed oddball personality, and ever evolving skills as an MC. Darko is no joke rapper though, instead he is adept at delivering some stark reality raps littered with glints of humor we often use to cope with the pain of existence. 

Fresh off delivering one of my personal favorites last year in the form of Card Tricks For Dogs, he returns with his friend Steel Tipped Dove to give us The Devil Defeated, and makes a claim as one of the indie hiphop scenes freshest, most colorful, and promising voices making music. 

You can order the digital, cassette and SUPER vinyl copies of The Devil Defeated here, as well as all Darko The Super Items. 

The Devil Defeated by Darko The Super & steel tipped dove

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Damn That Noise: Darko The Super. What’s the origin of that name and what’s it come to mean to you now? 

Darko: I think Darko The Super was my gamertag on Xbox Live before it was my official artist alias. I did two albums as Evan Darko after I seen Donnie Darko in high school. It had a big impact on adolescent me. The Super comes from another big influence on me at the time, MF Doom. My favorite song my senior year was "Dead Bent". I thought the ending of Operation Doomsday was really cool. The way it let you decide between hero or villain. I was big into vigilante justice at the time. I wanted to be like my favorite superheroes. So that's where the name came from. Nowadays it's just a name. More people know me as Darko than my real name these days, so it'd be silly to change it. Name's don't define you. It doesn't matter much to me. Though I like it. 

DTN: You’ve had a pretty prolific young career given that you’ve dropped 10+ projects since 2011, but when we were taking recently you said you’ve just now started to feel like you now know your voice. What’s changed in the last couple of years to get you to that place? 

Darko: Since 2011 I may have done nearly 100 albums. Most haven't lasted. I've deleted and erased most of my material pre 2014 from the face of the internet. (If anyone has a Loser CD, please destroy it.) I put out 10 albums in 2018 alone. All better than the previous. "Watered Down Demon Fuzz" from 2017 is the album I truly found my voice on. I listened back to "Oh, No! It's Darko" for nostalgic purposes and it seems more like a comedy album than anything, and not that good of a comedy album either. I was 18 when I made the first album I put on cd and gave to everyone at shows when I was starting to go out and perform. It was called Loser, inspired by Beck. Next cd I made was a compilation, also terrible, but somehow it's going for $75 on Discogs. I personally don't like anything prior to 2016. "Carve a Happy Face  on my Tombstone" had a few good songs. Those were transformative years. My perspective on life has changed severely. It's hard to be happy with things you create when you're not even happy with who you are. I think in finding myself, I found my voice too. Life will always be a mystery. But at least I'm more comfortable in my own skin at the moment. Therefore more comfortable in my art. 

DTN: Why erase the evidence of growth though? If anything that could show folks the rapid progression of Darko? 

Darko: I'd prefer to leave a better first impression. Maybe I'm too insecure to show people my progression. It's also just a matter of that not being the way I feel anymore as far as the way I wrote back then. 

DTN: Your style is a bit unorthodox in that you kind of dance all over the pocket of the beats, and your inflections seem to change at the drop of a hat. I know E-40 and DOOM are a couple favorites of yours but who else’s impressed a young Darko and helped give us the man we have now? Who made you say “I think this is something I want to do!!”?

Darko: Murdoc and MyGrane McNastee from Orlando, Florida were a couple of the first independent rappers I got into from watching the Wake Up Show freestyles on Youtube. They were big influences on me. From there I got into MF Doom, Madlib, and J Dilla. During the datpiff era, I got really into Charles Hamilton's mixtapes. I was a big fan of a web series around that time called Internet Celebrities. Through them I found out about Das Racist. I remember listening to them for the first time on MySpace. I saw Big Baby Gandhi in a video with them. Later on his Debut would become one of my favorite albums. I was really into going on hip hop blogs. I remember watching Open Mike Eagle rap "Qualifiers" in a laundromat and having my mind blown. He told me Serengeti was his favorite rapper which had me watching every Kenny Dennis video I could find. Dennehy became my favorite album. I got into Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire from seeing the Last Huzzah video with Das Racist, El-P, Despot, and Danny Brown. That's still my favorite posse cut. From checking out rap battles I got into Soul Khan who I remember posting about Homeboy Sandman's album The Good Sun. Blogs also got me listening to every Blu song. Her Favorite Color was something special to me. All those artists were huge in developing my approach. Nowadays my favorite rappers of all time are E-40, Serengeti, and Kool Keith

DTN: Card Tricks for Dogs feels like your most fully formed artistic statement yet and The Devil Defeated feels like the exclamation point showing folks you’re a real force. What helped bring those two records to life?

Darko: Both albums took a long time to come together, which usually isn't the case for me. I remember writing some of those Card Tricks for Dogs tracks while on vacation with my girlfriend and her family. I had tons of beats from my good friend and longtime collaborator Phil Ford aka BLKrKRT (Blacker Karat) loaded on my phone for those trips. I started it shortly after meeting Steel Tipped Dove for the first time. I released an album of his on my label and he offered to mix and master some tracks for me. So this was the first solo album of mine I let someone else do all the mixing for. I took my time with it and let it come together naturally. I believe everything happens at it's own time. As for The Devil Defeated, that album started out as a project called Contemplating Lonely Stuff, inspired by a Serengeti lyric. It was for the most part produced by Height Keech and Steel Tipped Dove. Eventually I decided to do albums with each of them separately. The album with Dove was pretty far along in the process and originally I wanted to call it "Playing Skee-Ball With Zev Love X" but we both agreed that was kinda corny and not many people would get what we were referencing. Then I heard the news of Daniel Johnston passing away, who is a hero of mine. I listened to nothing but Daniel for a few days straight and a few lyrics in particular stuck out to me. The one that landed was "The Devil Defeated" another possibility was My Yolk is Heavy. Me and Dove made over 20 songs for this album and eventually narrowed it down to the most cohesive project we could. We'll be doing a follow up of course. That's in the works now. I'm very proud of this album. My favorite track is a story I wrote based on a song called "Suzy's Face" by my favorite punk band, The Spits. I had to convince Dove on that one. There's another track I tried to convince him about too, but that will never see the light of day since I ended up agreeing with him. 

DTN: You’ve has a chance to work with a lot of interesting and well loved folks. How the hell did the tracks with Lil’B, Charles Hamilton, Denmark Vessey and others come about? 

Darko: I did an album called “Thank You BasedGod” dedicated to Lil B. I produced a track for him way back in 2014. He reached out to me after TYBG and offered to do a track together. So I sent him a couple  Steel Tipped Dove beats and he chose the one that ended up on the album. Later I saw Charles Hamilton posting about doing features. I sent him the Lil B track since that’s a dream collaboration of mine. Lil B is a big Charles Hamilton fan, and they’re both internet gurus of their eras. Charles conquered the blog era by releasing tons of free albums on his own blog, landing on all the mixtape sites. Lil B mastered social media and became a marketing genius, even transpiring music. I’m proud to say the first time they worked together was with me. As for getting Denmark Vessey on the album, he had already worked with Dove and toured with my good friends, The Difference Machine. I was the one who showed them his album Buy Muy Drugs while I was out in Atlanta for a week. That album’s my favorite of the decade. He had posted about doing features so I sent him an email and made it happen. 

DTN: You’ve released a lot of projects via Already Dead Tapes as well as starting UDDTBA. What is the connection with ADT and why start your own label? What have you learned from ADT and how has the played into how you run your label?

Darko: Already Dead Tapes taught me everything I need to know about running a record label. I met them in 2014 when I sent over my latest at the time “Oh, No! It’s Darko.” They were nice enough to release that on cassette. Soon after they invited me to play their weekend long festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I brought along ialive and we booked our first tour. Staying in Kalamazoo at the Knights Inn we recorded an album together and formed the now infamous duo The Hell Hole Store. From there we’ve played the Already Dead fest every year and I’ve released quite a few albums on Already Dead Tapes. U Don’t Deserve This Beautiful Art was grown out of wanting to support my friends and artists I admire. I brought on my best buds Steel Tipped Dove and Harvey Cliff to help me run things. Now the sky’s the limit. 

DTN: “Suzy” is life a very interesting record as is “lo-fi princess” off of The Devil Defeated. You mentioned the influence for “Suzy” came from another artists song...how’d this end up on your record and why? Also what’s the idea behind “Lo-Fi..”? 

Darko: During my commute one day I listened to The Spits first self titled album. I hadn’t played it in a while and instantly remembered why they’re the best. One song in particular stuck with me throughout that ride, “Suzy’s Face”. I decided to write a song building off of their track. Almost like taking a short story and creating a movie. I tried to describe in detail about why someone would shoot Suzy in the face at a high school dance. So that’s what I came up with. Lo-fi princess 2 is a sequel to the original from “Watered Down Demon Fuzz” both love songs to my girlfriend, Alora. I liked the phrase cos it reminded me of “Bow-tie Daddy” by Frank Zappa. Now that I think of it, an actual Lo-fi princess would be an anime babe trapped in the track art of a SoundCloud beat. We’d have to defeat the chill hop brigade to save her. 

DTN: You and iAlive have a really dope chemistry and have two very different styles but similar energies that work so well off of each other. What makes that partnership work and why’d you guys want to keep it going after the one hotel infused brainstorming session?

Card Tricks For Dogs by Darko The Super & BLKrKRT

Darko: We kept it going cos there were more hotel sessions to be had. On tour you’re on the highway with a lot of time on your hands. That’s where most of our songs and ideas come from. We set up shop where ever we’re staying and start to bring these ideas to life. The people seem to like us and we enjoy performing together. That’s what keeps the hell hole going. We survive off friendship and fun times. 

DTN: Okay sir Darko. You can only eat at two fast food places for the next year because you lost a bet. Where you going??

Darko: Obviously Taco Bell is numero uno, I’m a big Taco Bell enthusiast. Next would be Wendy’s, best fast food burgers by me, and they got those spicy nuggets. Plus I heard their salads are good too, which I would need a salad every now and then. I don’t think this is too far off from my normal diet. Worst thing that could happen is I have a heart attack. But I’m on that path anyway. Maybe I’ll start exercising. Maybe. 

DTN: What are you picking if you only have Thor and Spider-Man as costumes for Halloween?!

Darko: Spider-Man of course. I could pull off a husky Spider-Man. Family Guy made it look good. I’d need the fake muscles for Thor. Fake muscles never look good. I don’t have the luxurious hair either. 

DTN: What’s the writing process like for you?! Do you let the beat decide the direction? Do you have an idea or some lyrics written and you locate a beat that fits?

Darko: Either or. Writing always comes to me. It’s second nature. If it doesn’t come to me, I don’t write. That’s all there is to it. I only write when I’m inspired. That’s an easy way to go about it. My number one thing is creativity, I don’t wanna be complex or even an intellectual. I want my lyrics to be universally understood. 

DTN: So what’s next on the horizon for Darko The Super?

Darko: Next up I’m working on an album with skits from a comedian friend of mine. He does tons of great characters and videos as Hot Talent Buffet. I think he’s a comedic genius. I’m also working on an album sampling nothing but my favorite band 10cc, titled “Strawberry Studios Jam ‘72” and another album sampling one of my favorite songwriters, Dean Friedman. The Dean and I have a 7” record on the way with my remix of his classic “McDonald’s Girl” on the B side with the original on the A side. I have a couple other collaborative albums coming along. The artist they’re with wants me to hold off announcing it until they’re ready, but I will say it’s a dream collaboration and I’m very excited for it. 

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