#which sure is a weird term for something i so vividly remember playing for hour after hour in the evenings in 5th grade!

[lambergeier]

truly can’t believe the entire internet used to be about playing little games. it was about having adobe flash and playing little games on nick.com

#spent just a few hours trying to find the old wild thornberrys wildlife rescue game tonight #turns out that game is officially 'lost media' #which sure is a weird term for something i so vividly remember playing for hour after hour in the evenings in 5th grade! #truly sometimes the ephemerality of internet media is not only bad but profoundly disorienting #there used to be so many WEBSITES on the internet

[inventors-fair]

Insert The Clash Reference - New Year’s Revolution Commentary

I will be the first to admit this was not one of my stronger contests. As I alluded to in the initial post, I had intended to run something else entirely, but articulating what I wanted people to give me proved entirely fruitless despite around 8 hours of concentrated sentence-construction. So, thus, with the deadline looming, I audibled into something else entirely that I put no prior thought in. I think this showed itself somewhat in the submissions, as people seemed to take different lessons from the same post, and I sincerely apologise for any misgivings due to my poor communication of my intentions.

That said, y’all ran in some real delightful directions with this one. I definitely did not expect to see most of the twists on Rebels-as-a-concept that you decided to bring to the table, and seeing everyone’s little takes on how Rebels could be done was an absolute delight. Thank you all wholeheartedly for your submissions this week.

With all that out of the way, a cut!

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter​ - Double Agent

Thrilled to see that tumblr user an-anarchist-shapeshifter has partaken in the political unrest contest, though I am slightly bewildered that you were not the one to submit the sole Rebellious Shapeshifter of the crowd. Regardless, the card you actually submitted: Absolutely lovely saboteur effect. Leaving the card draw as optional is an incredibly clever choice, as it can allow you more flexibility to choose between adding to your own hand and decreasing theirs in less than ideal scenarios, while still allowing you to generate nauseating amounts of card advantage when everything lines up. Absolutely delicious mechanic to fit on a four mana 2/3, so excellent work there. My main sticking point for this particular rogue element is its use of skulk. See, I played standard back when Shadows of Innistrad was released, and I still vividly remember how skulk played out in practical terms: Namely, 1 power skulk creatures were essentially unblockable, 2 power ones were Difficult, but Manageable, and 3+ power ones had an extra line of flavor text. Skulk as an evasion mechanic is very narrow and I don't think I have ever found it particularly fun, playing with or against it, and that sour taste has yet to leave me even after all these years. That said, I will commend you for selecting the only vaguely interesting Skulk Number. If you gave this menace instead I think it would play out very similarly, while also avoiding any and all unforeseen Ancient Judge Grudges that may still be lying around. An otherwise delightful card somewhat marred by a slightly unfortunate mechanic choice.

@demimonde-semigoddess​ - Jabberhouse Hand

This card is delightful and I very much wish it existed, but unfortunately, as I am currently judging the Rebel Contest and not the Cards I Like Contest, I cannot fully endorse this card, as I am having quite a bit of difficulty figuring out where the Goblin bit ends and the Rebel bit begins. Plinking people? That's just standard Boggart Shenanigans. Milling everyone? A lil weird for Goblins but I'm not sure it exactly screams "I'm a Rebel!" either. Caring about things what cost 2 or less? No idea. I just can't really tell why this particular Goblin has selected Rebellion as a profession rather than Roguery, aside possibly from the flavor text association with Grenzo, which is itself tenuous as he himself is also a Goblin Rogue. Could I envision a set where Grenzo tries to upend the monarchists from his dungeon-throne, and acquires the Rebel typing while doing so? Sure. But I'm just not confident I'm getting that entirely from this card, unfortunately. Like I said though, love it mechanically, just not sure it was the ideal execution for this contest.

@dimestoretajic​ - Backroom Recruiter

Let the workers unite! It is rather unfortunate that their union contracts only extend to the end of combat, rather than end of turn, as that will almost certainly result in unintentional union-member casualties, when your Union Bear becomes a 4/4 and becomes blocked by another 2/2 and emerges triumphant, only to lose its coveted toughness and die to the very damage it previously powered through at combat's end. Fix that tiny little thing, though, and this is genuinely one of my favorite mechanics submitted this week. Absolutely in love with the idea of recruiting all my creatures into The Union. Although I will say I'm not totally thrilled with the concept of the union counters, I can definitely understand why you would feel motivated to include them on your singular submission for this week, as this definitely strikes me as a mechanic best demonstrated with friends. All in all, you almost made the cut, and this entire card is extremely endearing, but the mistaken timing on the toughness buff just barely took you out of contention.

@foxgirlbeans​ - Spartacus, Boisterous Rebel

Finally! Some consensus on the identity of Spartacus: It's this guy. Thrilled we've finally worked that one out. Goofs about impassioned acts of solidarity aside, this is an absolutely fascinating card that I would absolutely love to play at a table with, like, 4+ people but would loathe to encounter against a single opponent. I will get into more detail about that criticism in a second, but first, I'd like to address a templating concern. First, the regenerate. Magic the Gathering has not seen a new use of the regenerate mechanic in approximately seven years. As of late, they've all but replaced that mechanic with temporarily granting indestructible, which by and large is going to accomplish the exact same thing as regeneration without a large amount of the associated rules headaches (Speaking as a former Rules Advisor Who Judged Some Local Tournaments, regenerate does A Lot Of Things and people have a very easy time forgetting about most of them.) This is rather fortunately a simple thing to address: As stated, you could pretty easily swap that regeneration shield for temporary indestructibility and be entirely above board.

Slightly larger problem: The permanence of the control-changing ability. Red/white doesn't generally get to steal things from people, even if winning a die roll is required to do so. Additionally, in one-on-one games of Magic, having a creature out which incentivises you to spend all your time attempting to steal other people's creatures with coinflip odds seems potentially frustrating for everyone involved, as, if you win the flips, your opponent has a bad time, and if you lose the flips, you have a bad time. I think the single simplest fix for both of these issues would be to have the control change only last until the end of the new controller's next turn. That way, they're guaranteed at least one attack with their newfound ally, but there is significantly decreased chance of permanent estrangement. All in all, I'd love to play this with a larger table, but it very much needs a bit more iterating before I can really endorse it for use in any other format. Clever idea though.

@helloijustreadyourpost​ - Brazen Bruiser

I am slightly concerned about this mechanic, as I am a bit afraid that the range of benefits you can grant to someone who succeeds in being Defiant is much smaller than is desirable. As is, I'm worried that this mechanic, in spite of the attack trigger, will actually cause people to not want to attack quite as much, for fear of enabling an opposing Rebel's Defiance. Flavor is great, and the card itself is pretty well executed, and very solidly within the range of Effects That You Can Get Away With, don't get me wrong, but I'm just inclined to believe that it won't quite have the kind of effect on a game you were looking for, unfortunately.

@hypexion​ - Angel of Revolution

Very bold of you to submit an Angel of Revolution that does not need to turn even a meager 90 degrees to attack. Trigonometry aside, this card is perfectly reasonable, and the mechanic seems like a delightful addition to the Rebel arsenal, especially considering how... interesting some of the additional creature type choices get for some of these things (looking at you, Trenching Steed). Not much more to say, honestly. Good mechanic, solid card, maybe could have used a bit more of a flavor anchoring to really allow it to rise above the competition.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ - Deep-Cover Agent

The aforementioned Rebellious Shapeshifter, not to be confused with any tumblr users that might be present. The flavor here is pretty immaculate honestly, but I'm not sold on how much that second ability is doing. Putting this at uncommon was definitely a wise choice, but even then, having access to a repeatable pump spell and also a repeatable shrink feels a bit excessive, when either one of those by itself would make combat in complex boardstates borderline nightmarish. If you just picked one (probably the one that encourages you to use the first ability, honestly) I think I'd be a bit higher on this card than I am, but as is I think it still just does a little too much for a little to little.

@izzet-always-r-versus-u​ - Voice of the Masses

Adding "reference to a cycle of Urza's Saga Angels" to my list of Things I Very Much Wasn't Expecting this week. Nor was Rebels-As-A-Group-Of-Heretics, honestly, and I'm kind of down for that? That's a cool idea, thank you for sharing it with me. I think my main concern with the card itself is the tax ability. I know decks full of legends are generally pretty niche, but they still very much do exist, and that's a pretty steep bill to add to an entire supertype/deck archetype, especially given how aggressively costed the actual body is. I know they're not a fan of the establishment but I do feel that making things cost 1 extra would have more than sufficed here. Regardless, this is I think a relatively small gripe strung from the worlds tiniest violin.

@reaperfromtheabyss​ - Aimless Renegade

A rebel without a cause! Absolutely delightful. Tragically, this was yet another victim of I Can Only Pick Six Winners. Though I do think that a stronger flavor/setting leaning would've pushed this a bit further above the competition. Also, not to nitpick, but it should "attack each combat." rather than each turn. That's about it honestly. Great card! Lovely concept. Just not quite enough steam for me to exalt it further.

@snugz​ - Amphin Frostmage

You alluded to the possibility that this could end up just kind of being an evasion ability in your submission text, and, well, yeah. This mechanic, in any sufficient quantity, will be Pretty Much Skulk, But More Words. Like, if you get down more than two of these I'm not sure many non-desperate individuals would dare block your Rebellious Salamanders at that point, as that would mean getting their creature locked down for nearly the next half-century. It certainly is an interesting concept, and I'm thrilled to see you've brought the Amphin into this of all things, definitely a novel source of rebellion. But yeah, this can pretty much be boiled down to Evasion, But More Verbose, and I'm not sure that's gonna play out as the best use of textbox space in the world. Perhaps something more akin to afflict, where you have a set payoff for getting blocked, if only to save on text space? I'm not sure honestly.

@squeezyboi​ - Simic Dismissers

Absolutely in love with the concept of this card, and the idea that maybe some of the Simic's experiments aren't quite as enthused with their outcomes. Mechanically, as well, I think this is quite delightful, letting you profit off of any excessive accrued counters that your evolve or adapt creatures may have generated. The only thing that really put this behind the Defiant Gateless for me is that I'm not sure what broader implications it could have. Like, yes, these are rebellious Simic victims, but what else are rebels doing on Ravnica? I'm sure one could conjure a cycle of guild-"aligned" Rebels in similar fashion to this, but I just don't see it being as cohesive as other entries, which is I think the main thing that brought it out of contention for me. All that aside, lovely stuff here.

@wolkemesser​ - Defiant Aesthete

Rebellious Lorwyn Elf who wants to protect those that the ruling Elf class deem undesirable? Oh absolutely. Your flavor direction here is honestly immaculate. Mechanically, though, I'm a bit less impressed. Anti-ward is definitely an interesting direction to take things, though I'm not confident it will play quite as well as its more traditional counterpart, as it relies more on the owner of the Thing People Want To Kill not leaving up enough mana rather than the person doing the killing having enough mana, which means that the Defiant in question is pretty much gonna survive whatever gets thrown at it so long as its owner is sufficiently motivated to allow it to do so, which feels like it would be rather frustrating to play against, especially in quantity. Regardless, the flavor is absolutely lovely, the enters the battlefield ability is quite nice, and I appreciate that you reached out with a new mechanic this week, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

@yd12k​ - Farmstead Rallier

Fantastic flavor, love that, and the flavor text itself is absolutely stellar. Largest strike against this for me, honestly, is that the Rebel bit feels real tangential to the whole experience. Like, this card? Great. Fantastic Peasant Tribal experience. In the context of this contest? I think you may have been slightly better served submitting something that demonstrated the utility of these Rebel tokens which you alluded to in your submission text, more of a Rebel Payoff than a Rebel which might incidentally generate More Rebels. All that said, it is still definitely a very lovely card, I'm just not confident it was the best demonstration of the concepts in your set in relation to the prompt.

That’s all from me for this week, barring me continuing to ride this inexplicable wave of executive function through some backlog commentary. (Again, I sincerely apologise for that, my brain is filled with bees and everything is difficult) but yes. Thank you all for participating!

- @starch255​

#mtg #magic the gathering #Inventor's Fair #custom Magic card #Rebel Contest #commentary

[willow-salix]

FabFiveFeb Alan!

Finally got this bugger edited, so here it is, my offering for Alan week of @gumnut-logic​ FabFiveFeb. Once again I’ve written what my daughter plotted with a few of my own tweaks thrown in.

“Is there really nothing else to do around here?” Alan whispered to Selene, jolting her awake from the sleepy doze she was enjoying stretched out on a sun lounger. “How can you just lay around here all day?”

“Like you don’t do the same every day at home?” she grumbled, stretching out in an effort to wake up. She'd never admit it, but she was getting a bit bored with having nothing to do, hence the impromptu nap time. 

“That’s different, I’ve got things there to do.”

“You mean you have technology?” Selene grinned evilly. “Whereas here it’s-”

“Like I’ve gone back in time to 2015 and the graphics suck, " he groaned. 

“Come on, it’s not that bad, don’t you like the peace and quiet?” Selene’s family home was indeed very quiet, set apart from the other houses on the street, it backed out into a small but flower filled garden that held nothing but the sun loungers they were currently occupying, the picnic table their drinks were on, a slightly rusted BBQ, some yoga mats and a bird bath in the shape of a frog on a lily pad.

Alan looked towards Selene's cool, but rather weird, younger brother who was currently doing some kind of yoga crossed with Tai Chi that seemed to have a little of that 1970’s disco type of dancing thrown in for good measure.

“Adam, help me,” he begged, trying to invoke the bro code. 

“Chill out, little dude, it’s all good," Adam said, his sleepy tone the perfect accompaniment to his snail like movements. 

“Nothing about this is good,” Alan huffed, feeling dismissed and beyond frustrated. He was seriously regretting offering to go with her for a visit under the mistaken belief that time spent away from his brothers with his cool sister-in-law would be awesome. But no, he’d been stuck there for three days and they’d done nothing but talk about boring things that he couldn’t really join in with because he didn’t share the same memories that they did and watch TV in the evenings. The only positive thing was the quality of the food on offer.

“How did you grow up like this and not die of boredom?”

“We made our own fun, we’d read, draw, do arts and crafts, go on days out and-”

“Days out? Where did you go?” Alan jumped on that information like John on a double cheeseburger after a month in space.

Selene thought about it for a moment or two. “The seaside?” she offered. "That was always our favourite place to go and somewhere we always looked forward to, a rare treat really."

“The beach? Yes! Can we go?” he gave her his best pleading puppy eyes and she was, as he well knew, powerless to resist.

“Well…” she dithered, caught between spending time in her family home with her mum as it came up to what would have been her parents 30th wedding anniversary and the need to do more than sit around and mope, especially if that moping meant that her littlest love had a crap time.  “Ad’s, are you up for a road trip to Southend?”

Her brother paused in his Night Fevering to look at her. He seemed to think about it for far longer than was necessary before nodding. 

“I could go for that. Wanna take my car?”

                  ***

“I’m never getting in a car with your brother again,” Alan shuddered, still looking a little stressed out by the whole experience.

“Yet you’ll get in a jet with Scott?”

“Scott goes faster than 25 mph and he knows what road signs are,” Alan explained in the same tone that John adopted whenever he was explaining to her why she actually needed an investment portfolio. 

“Road signs are all part of the conspiracy, man, they just want you to follow blindly and never question where they are sending you.”

“To the beach, they were sending us to the beach,” Alan continued to bitch. Selene couldn’t blame him, two hours in a car with her brother's sitar music, cloud of vape smoke and tendency to lose track of their destination was enough to make anyone a little antsy. Maybe now he'd stop complaining when she took too long to fly them to her flat. 

They left the car park and headed towards the seafront. Thankfully, with it being a weekday and term time, there weren't too many people about. As always the sea was a dirty grey colour, nothing like the clear blue they were used to on the island and Selene could tell that Alan was looking at it with thinly veiled disgust.

Southend had been promoted to a historic seaside town back in 2038 and hadn’t changed since. The lights of the out of date arcades still flashed in welcome, drawing Alan’s attention almost immediately, the little beach huts still offered deck chair rental and the amusement park with its clanking, clunking kiddy rides and its ancient roller-coaster still drew some crowds. 

“See that there?” she pointed out towards the sea. “That’s still the longest pleasure pier in the world.”

“Pleasure Pier? Did you have to make that sound so dirty?” Alan groaned.

“Sorry, but that’s what it’s called, there are different classifications and one that has no purpose but for leisure activities like this one, is known as a pleasure pier.”

“I didn't know that, but it still doesn’t make it any better,” he muttered as she slipped one arm through his and the other through Adam’s to tow them across the road.

The air was filled with a mixture of freshly fried donuts, fish and chips and the unmistakable scent of the sea and Selene was immediately hungry.

“It’s been such a long time since I’ve been here,” she sighed happily, relaxing into the atmosphere of what had once been one of her favourite places in the world. She could vividly remember how exciting it had been to hear the announcement that they were going to the seaside for the day. That meant an afternoon spent playing on the beach, splashing in the sea, eating dinner out of a paper tray with a little wooden fork and, if you were really lucky, a trip around the sealife center and a floaty helium filled balloon to take home with you.

Looking out down the length of the beach she easily conjured up images of childhood days gone by, seeing her father chasing Adam down the beach as he attempted to make a break for freedom or tried to eat a clump of seaweed while her mother screeched at Rufus to run faster and catch him.

Maybe coming here had been a good idea in other ways too, she pondered. Her mother tended to favour being miserable if it was an option, and often when it wasn't, and had been mooching around the house sighing like she was a Victorian ghost haunting the place. She’d gone out to visit friends for the day, leaving them alone and that had been when Alan had seized his chance. And Selene for one was glad he had, he was always good at sensing when she was in need of cheering up and this time had been no exception.

“Can we start at the arcades?” Alan asked, looking more excited than he had in days. Who was she to disappoint him?

“Sure, lead the way!”

        ***

Two hours later and Selene had finally dragged her brothers away from the bleepy, shiny, flashy machines and back into the fresh air. Alan, it transpired, was almost as good on a claw machine as John and she was now lugging along a whole new family of stuffed toys, all slightly moth eaten and smelling a little suspect but cute nonetheless.

“I’m hungry,” Alan announced.

“Good call, little dude.” Adam, surprising Alan no end, had joined in rather enthusiastically at the arcade, being more active and alert than he’d ever seen him before, displaying a competitive streak that rivaled a Tracy's. But, now that the excitement of gaming had died down, he was back to his chilled and slightly lethargic self.

“Fancy some donuts?” Selene suggested.

“Sis…” Adam drawled. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Selene giggled, shoving the stuffed toys into her brother’s arms as she headed to the donut stalls. “I'll get them, you two meet me on the beach.”

Her arms now free of their burden Selene quickly ordered three dozen of the delectable little morsels, something the English called Dinky Donuts, small little ring donuts, freshly fried and drenched in a sprinkling of sugar. Knowing that they’d need them she bought some drinks too and took her bounty back to the boys, proudly displaying her prize.

“I got them!” she yodeled, but no excited sounds were heard in return. “What’s up?” she asked, nudging Alan as she reached his side.

“What the heck is this?”

“The beach, duh. What else could it be?"

He scuffed a toe into the stones at his feet. “This is not a beach, this is all stones. Where's the sand?”

“It’s a pebble beach, most of the British coast is,” she shrugged.

“It’s wrong.”

“If you say so,” she wasn’t in the mood to argue or defend the virtue of their beaches, she had hot donuts to eat. 

“This is not a beach, there’s no surfers, no sand, no lifeguards, no nothing.”

“This is England, we take things at a more chilled pace,” she soothed, dumping a bag on each of the boys' laps.

She took her own and opened it, inhaling the rich scent. Oooh yeah, that hit the spot. She reached in to pluck one out, studying it from all angles, marveling at it's perfection. She lifted it to her mouth prepared for the taste explosion that was about to assault her mouth in the very best of ways…

“Sel!” A sharp Alan elbow embedded itself in her side, making her drop the donut. She watched in horror as it hit the pebbles and rolled away.

“You had better have a good reason for making me sacrifice a donut,” she warned him.

“Over there!” 

Selene turned, following the direction in which Alan was pointing. 

“What? I don’t see anything?” All she saw was the relatively empty beach, nothing but a few seagulls pecking around hopefully, one coming close enough to snag her lost donut, racing off in triumph with it in its mouth. 

“Them,” he pointed again.

“Them? What about them?” The them in question turned out to be a small group of school age boys, the oldest no more than ten years old. They were all holding a number of balloons from the pier, which were bobbing along above their heads and looked perfectly innocent. “They’re just having a day out, could be an inset day or something at school.”

“No, look what that one's holding,” Alan insisted, nodding towards the oldest looking boy who was carrying a small box with holes in it.

Selene squinted closer. “Is that an animal box?” She was amazed that Alan had even noticed such a thing, she hadn’t looked twice at the boys, just seeing a happy group of friends at the seaside on a rare day off school. Alan always seemed like he was paying little attention to anything, more absorbed in his games or phone, but here was the undeniable proof that he was just as good as his brothers and had inherited their danger seeking sense.

“Looks that way,” Alan agreed. 

“It could be innocent,” Selene argued lamely. “Maybe they are just taking their pet on a day out too?"

“Sure, that’s what it’ll be,” Alan said, rolling his eyes. 

“Honestly, it’s something I’d do,” she retorted, feeling the need to defend herself and her wish to believe that there was good in everyone.

“We’ll keep an eye on them,” Alan decided, finally reaching into his own bag for a donut.

As was usually the case, Selene was easily distracted by talking to her brother and just enjoying the novelty of being in a different place to one she was used to. She’d finally grown accustomed to hearing the sound of the ocean at all times of the day and night after so long in a city where traffic was the only ambient noise. b

But here the sound was different to the island, here the waves lapped gently over the pebbles rather than crashing against rocks and she was surprised that she could tell the difference. 

She’d worried, when Alan had suggested going out, that this little beach from her childhood which stood out so bright and shiny in her memories, would look pale and dull in reality. Life was often that way, your memories and imagination creating a perfect picture that was rarely obtainable in the real world and she didn't want her memories tainted by the truth. Thankfully she had been worried over nothing and was finding it just as charming as she had remembered it to be.

“Not bad are they?” she asked, turning to Alan to see how he was enjoying his donut feast but the space next to her was empty.

“Allie?” she called, looking around like he might suddenly pop out of nowhere. Surely she hadn't ignored him for too long? 

“Alan!” she yelled, trying again. He was a big boy now, an adult in his own right, but she got just as panicked when she lost Scott, which was actually easier if you could believe that. Alan was usually happy to hang near her and chill, Scott was always dashing off to look at something or other and would just vanish into the ether without a second thought. 

“Ad’s, have you seen Alan?”

“Yeah, little dude, cool shirt, strange hair.”

“Thanks for that lovely description. I meant did you see where he went?”

Adam nodded, pointing further down the beach to where the small group of school boys stood, Alan beside them, waving his arms violently, clearly yelling at them though she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Shit!” Selene was up in a second, grabbing Adam's arm and towing him along in the process, forcing him to abandon his stuffed animal squad to the mercy of the seagulls as they barreled down the beach after Alan. 

"Al," she panted, finally catching up, "what…doing?" 

In answer the small box that the boy had been carrying was thrust into her hands, a disgruntled rustling noise along with a manic scrabbling, coming from inside. 

"Oi! Give that back!" a boy yelled, his piggy nose turned up to the sky in indignation. "We 'ad ta catch that thing ourselves. Ain't no way you're gonna snatch it."

"You're not getting it back," Alan insisted, his arms folded as he firmly stood his ground. 

Selene passed the box on to Adam who was standing there doing absolutely nothing to help, his attention on the balloons floating above them. Once her hands were free she immediately flanked her little brother, knowing that he wouldn't be doing this without a very good reason. 

"What's going on?" she demanded to know, her hands on her hips. "What are you boys up to?" 

"This idiot won't give us it back," the oldest boy and apparently the mouthpiece of the little hoodlum brigade, continued to yell. Selene had seen boys like him before, usually ones with overly aggressive parents that taught their kids that you got what you wanted in life by being obnoxious, rude and threatening. Well not on her watch and apparently not on Alan's either. 

"You're right , I won't," Alan agreed. "Because that is a living creature that you were about to tie to a bunch of balloons."

"Weren't doin' nothin' of the sort. Yer lyin'." 

"You were what?" Selene hissed, her attention fully engaged now that there was the potential for injury of an animal. "You were going to send an innocent animal into the sky on the end of some balloons?" 

"Nah, we weren't," the little bully boy continued to argue, elbowing one of his friends when they opened their mouth to speak. 

"We ain't doing nothin' wrong, were we lads? Nothin' at all. Just a little experiment for school, jus' like teacher said."

"Experiment? What kind of experiment?" Selene asked, narrowing her eyes in warning. 

"Why should we tell you?" the mouthy one sneered. "You ain't nothin'."

"We were just seeing if he could reach space, like. Teacher said that people would send monkeys up in rockets a hundred years ago," another boy piped up, sounding pleased with himself. "Figured we'd try the same out ta sea like a note in a bottle."

"You are so not doing that!" Selene yelped. 

"Yeah, 'ow you gonna stop us?" 

"You wanna say that to the police?" Alan threatened. 

"Police? Yeah righ', like yer gonna jus' call up the police like they actually care. An' then wot, 'ave em come running on the say so of a nobody? Fer this? I don't think so, mate. They don't give a crap."

"Listen up you little shit," Selene started, rapidly losing patience. "You're not getting that…Whatever that is-" 

"Rat," one of the kids helpfully offered. 

"Rat," Selene continued with a little shudder of horror at the fact that they had gone to all the trouble of capturing a dirty rat off the street just to do something cruel to it. "You're not getting it back and you're not going to hurt it. What's wrong with you all?" 

"He's been to space," Adam suddenly piped up, like he was only just catching up to the conversation but still missing the main point, pointing at Alan helpfully. 

"Space, yeah right," another of the boys, a weedy looking string bean that had previously been hiding near the back of the pack, looking at Alan judgingly. None of the boys looked particularly bothered by their threats or the fact that Selene was practically spitting, she was so angry. 

"Al," she demanded, determined to win the little shits respect. "Show them that clip you took last Saturday, the one on your board."

"We can all board, you ain't nothing special," the mouthpiece sneered, not impressed in the slightest. 

Alan pulled out his phone, fiddled with it for a second then showed them the screen where a video was playing, taken from his vlogging drone as he boogied around outside Five on his astroboard. The dark heavens were clearly visible all around him while the earth spun quietly below, and there, if you looked closely, was John, in the background, sitting on the outside of the gravity ring, clearly doing all the work while Alan filmed for Brandon’s channel. The Alan on screen zoomed in a loop the loop, the drone following, the camera angle changing to show Three securely docked to Five.

“That actually is space!” one kid gasped.

“And that’s...that’s…” another stuttered.

“Thunderbird THREE!” someone screamed in excitement.

“Still think I’m a nobody that the police won’t listen to?” Alan asked casually as he pocketed his phone. "Maybe I should skip the police and go straight to the GDF? What do you think, Sel?" 

"Yep, sounds like a plan to me. They take animal cruelty very seriously, you know."

The ring leader visibly deflated before their eyes, but he valiantly tried to hold on to his ‘couldn’t give a shit’ attitude.

“So you know some people, what’s that got ta do with anythin’? You ain’t the boss here.”

“Knock it off, Wendle, it’s over,” one boy ordered, rolling his eyes.

"Wendle?" Alan mouthed to Selene who shrugged in return. Never had a kid looked less like a Wendle in the entire world. 

“Yeah, I never wanted to do this in the first place,” another joined in. 

The first one to have spoken walked away, followed by another, then the other that had spoken. Others trailing after them until the small group had dispersed as if it had never existed, all of them hurrying off down the beach with calls for getting donuts or having to head home.

Wendle managed to stand his ground for less than a minute before he gave in.

“Keep the stupid rat then!” he yelled, taking off after his friends.

Adam, being Adam, waved goodbye like it was the most normal thing in the world, still holding the rat filled box.

Alan let out the breath he’d been holding, visibly shaking, either from anger or adrenaline. He had never been one for confrontation no matter what form it took or who it involved.

“You did good, babe,” Selene praised, giving him a hug.

“Yeah, good, little dude,” Adam agreed, “here, have this, I insist,” he handed him the box with the rat in it like it was some great prize.

“Erm, thanks,” Alan said, gingerly accepting the box of rat, which rustled as the creature inside shifted around. He held the box for a second, looking completely bemused and a little disgusted, suddenly having a very real feeling of compassion for John when he walked in on Selene and Scott doing something weird. 

“What are we going to do with the rat?” he finally asked Selene, who was the only one there since Adam had wandered off to rescue the stuffed animals they had abandoned, snatching up Alan’s dropped bag of donuts and picking one out to munch on.

“I don’t know,” Selene admitted, “I guess we should take it somewhere to release it. Not around here though, maybe back at Mum’s.”

“I guess,” Alan reluctantly agreed, not liking the idea of sitting in a car with a wild rat in a box. 

Since they had gained another tag along, even if it was in a box, they decided to cut the day short, knowing they couldn't drag the rat around with them all day. It had clearly suffered enough, what with being caught and stuffed in a box and having survived a narrow brush with death. It would be better for them to take it straight home and let it go in the relative safety of the garden before it got even more stressed out. 

"I'll drive," Selene insisted, leaving Alan to hold the rat in the back seats, Adam calling shotgun so he could 'pick the tunes, man'. 

With Selene in the driving seat it was a far shorter, not to mention less frustrating, journey back to Casa de Tempest. 

To Selene's intense relief their mother was still out when they got back. She would have pitched a fit if she'd seen them releasing a rat into her garden, she'd never go out there again. 

Adam wandered off the second they got home, muttering something about a tofu log, leaving them alone to release the beast. 

"You can do the honours," Selene smiled, nodding at the box he still held. "Since you were the one to perform the daring rescue. Seriously, you did good today, sweetheart, but I'm really starting to think that I need to stop taking a Tracy with me whenever I go places, you're all the same, nothing but trouble."

Alan blushed at the praise, as always finding it slightly uncomfortable to be the center of attention in such a way, but still happy to get the validation that he'd done the right thing. With so many big brothers who had all been there and done that before he had a lot to live up to and often felt like he couldn't quite match up to them. 

Taking the box over to the bushes near the fence where Selene had indicated, he opened the flaps and stepped back to give the little guy some room. 

The rat didn't move at first, staying inside the box, obviously scared by its experiences. They stayed quiet, giving it time to make up its mind. Finally they saw the box wobble as the rat made its tentative way out. 

"Shit!" Selene yelped, launching herself off her seat so fast Alan barely saw her move. 

"Sel, what are you…doing," he finished, stunned to see her hit the ground, the rat cradled protectively against her chest. 

"Help me up," she wheezed and he did as she bid, helping her to her feet as her hands were occupied. 

"What's wrong? Why did you catch it?" 

"Allie, look," she carefully opened her hands, just a little. A small, pink nose poked out, followed by a pure white snout, a grey face and perfect pink petal ears. 

"Is that…?"

"A domestic rat, yes. This was either someone's pet or it's come from a store. We can't let him go, he'll never survive in the wild."

"Wow, he's so cute. Can I hold him? He won't bite me will he?" 

"I don't know, he seems tame enough but he's had a fright today so I can't promise anything." She carefully placed the rat in Alan's outstretched hands. 

The rat, far from looking terrified, seemed to be perfectly fine now it was out of the box. It sat down on its haunches and began to wash its face with its little paws, one grey, one white. 

"Aww, he's great," Alan cooed, cupping the rat in one hand so he could stroke it gently with the other. "I've always wanted a pet."

Selene sighed, knowing exactly what was coming next, there was no escaping it, it was going to happen… 

"Can I keep him?" 

    ***

"We gotta move fast," Selene instructed. "I've got the cage and the bedding. Have you got the food?"

"Yep," Alan held up the bag with the food, treats and water bottle they had purchased on their way home. The rat was curled up in his new travel bag, which was hanging from Alan's shoulder. 

"Right, we make a break for it, we go straight to your room, don't look back no matter what happens and avoid John and Scott at all costs. Got it?" 

"Got it," he nodded, grinning happily. 

"They're gonna kill me," she sighed, not that there was much she could do about it. "OK, let's go!" 

They raced up the back stairs from the hangars, straight to the upper floors of the villa where the bedrooms were situated, bypassing the more populated communal areas and managing to avoid any and all Tracys. 

They dived into Alan's room, Selene struggling a little, burdened as she was with a three storey cage. Alan cleared a space on his desk and took the cage from her. 

While Alan set up the cage, filling it with fresh bedding and tasty foods, Selene made herself at home on Alan's bed, the rat happily perched on her chest, enjoying an ear fondle. 

"I didn't know you were back," a voice called from the hallway, accompanied by the sound of footsteps. 

Selene and Alan both jumped, their heads turning guilty towards the door they had neglected to shut where a suspicious looking spaceman stood. 

"Hey, gorgeous husband of mine, I've missed you!" Selene chirped, trying to divert his attention as she quickly grabbed the rat and stuffed it in the pocket of the hoodie she'd stolen from Adam. 

John gave her a look that said he'd seen everything.

"What's that?" 

"What's what?" she answered, trying to look innocent. 

"That tail sticking out of your pocket."

"Tail? What tail?" she poked the tail gently back inside.

"Why does Alan have a cage on his desk that he's trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to hide by standing in front of it?" 

"To put Gordon in?" 

One sleek ginger eyebrow rose and they both knew they were wasting their time. They were well and truly busted. 

Alan held out his hand and Selene passed over the rat, who was none the worse for its impromptu expedition into the depths of her pocket. It sat quietly in his hands, happily nibbling on a piece of cereal bar that had already been occupying his hiding place. 

"Where did that come from?" John's foot tapped out a rhythm as he waited for them to spill the beans, leaning against the door frame, his arms folded. 

"Have I told you how hot you look when you're all grumpy and intense like this?" Selene tried. 

"Where did you get the rat?" he repeated ignoring her blatant attempts at distraction. 

"The beach," Alan admitted, caving immediately under the big bro gaze. 

"The beach?" 

"Yep," Alan looked at Selene for backup, cradling the rat who didn't seem to care about any of the drama he was causing. 

"Some boys had him in a box and they were going to tie it to some balloons and let it go but Alan spotted them and stopped them," she explained. 

John glanced at the rat, who was looking very adorable and fat. 

Ever the master of managing her husband, Selene got to her feet and crossed the room to wrap her arms around John's middle. 

"Alan was great, he sprung into action before I even knew what was going on. He rescued him, and really, isn't that what International Rescue does? Rescue people?" 

"That's not a person, that's a rat," John argued, but she could tell he was weakening. 

"Did I mention that I missed you?" she grinned, standing on tiptoes to place a little kiss on his chin. 

John's sigh of surrender was epic. 

"I'm banning you from ever leaving the house again with any of my brothers. What next, a dolphin with Gordon? 

"No, don't be silly. We couldn't bring a dolphin home in my car."

John rolled his eyes ignoring his wife to face his brother. 

"Does that thing have a name?" 

"Yep," Alan answered, grinning proudly as he moved closer, holding the rat out for inspection. 

"John, meet Fuzz Aldrin."

#alan tracy #selene tempest #adam tempest #John Tracy #fabfivefeb #seaside #day out #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirdsarego #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction

[polkahotness]

SHORTAKI WEEK DAY 2

 FFN // AO3                        

                              Flinch

I'd never seen anybody go so hard on Arnold. And that's coming from someone who has literally bullied him since the dawn of time.

It all started when we decided to take the bus out of town to visit this record store that Arnold was dying to visit. It was new and located a couple of towns over—'The Record Skip.' It was a dumb name in my opinion and considering the size of the town it was located in, I didn't exactly anticipate business to be booming enough that it would stay open for much longer.

Thus, initiated our fun little trip.

Arnold was determined to get this one particular jazz album that he'd been hunting for online and at every thrift shop, music store, anywhere that you could possibly imagine. Personally, I thought it seemed like a lot of unnecessary work for a giant disc that was way larger than it needed to be when there are CDs or, dare I say it, streaming services that could play you the same music without lugging around ten pounds worth of equipment to do so.

But to Arnold, the records were just his… thing. Rhonda would call it an 'aesthetic' but in reality, he was just a big jazz nerd who liked the way that a record, "made the sounds of each instrument pop." He claimed that when listening to an old record on his fancy phonograph or whatever you call it, was like "being in the room of a jazz concert. You can feel the energy even if it was recorded years, decades ago."

Naturally, I laughed in his face, but I respect his love for the way the music feels and sounds. I remember when we first started dating our sophomore year, we would spend hours in his room with the lights down low as he played various vinyls while explaining the greats to me and the reasons why jazz music was his happy place.

Sometimes I think it's because it helps him stay close to his grandparents who, unfortunately, aren't around any longer to influence his eclectic tastes. Both Stella and Miles seem to understand why this mission of finding some specific LP was important, but me, his 17-year-old girlfriend who much preferred the music app on her phone, well I just couldn't quite wrap my head around the significance.

"So, how did you find this shop anyway?" I asked him as we jostled on the bus down the road towards the town I'd never heard of. "This city is like… the smallest dot on a map I've ever heard of."

"It isn't that small of a town, Helga," Arnold insisted before offering a small shrug of his shoulders. "I stopped here once one the way back from visiting Arnie a few years ago," he explained, and I rolled my eyes at the mention of his zany cousin.

"Right. Arnie. Talk about someone living in po-dunk nowhere," I commented, though Arnold didn't seem to react.

His attention was focused outside the glass of the window as he watched our bus slowly travel its way into the town Arnold was eager to visit. Once the sign for the town passed us by, I could feel Arnold's grip of my hand tighten slightly and I couldn't help but smile at the involuntary action.

He was excited.

That made me excited.

Even if it was just for some dumb record.

When the bus lurched forward at its stop, both Arnold and I stood up as he began rushing off down the aisle. He could hardly contain his excitement for the possibility of finding whatever long-awaited album he'd been searching for.

Me?

I was just interested in seeing what this album was in the first place.

Up until now, he had refused to tell me—said it was stupid and that I would laugh at him. While he wasn't exactly wrong because the chances of me laughing were pretty high, it didn't mean that I didn't care. I wanted him to be happy even if it was because of something that I found weird and dumb. My opinion didn't matter. This was his thing and as the loving, perfect, gorgeous, and incredibly supportive girlfriend that I had had the honor of being for nearly two years now, I was prepared to follow that footballhead into the depths of hell if it meant he'd wear that dopey grin of his for even one minute.

'The Record Skip' wasn't too far down the road from where our bus had stopped, and Arnold practically skipped his way down the sidewalk towards the small building with a giant record hanging above the door that read the name of the shop. It didn't seem all that busy and my suspicions were correct when we entered the store to find a lone cashier who looked bored to tears and a single customer perusing the endless rows of albums.

As my eyes scanned the bins filled to the brim with records of all varieties and in no particular order, I watched Arnold begin to sort through them feverishly. Wanting to help, I stood beside him and looked over his shoulder while quietly saying, "You know Hair Boy, if you told me what you were looking for, I might be able to help you find it."

"No thanks," Arnold replied automatically as a frown grew on my face. "If it's here, I want to be the one to find it. If that makes any sense."

Pulling away from peeking over his shoulder, I chuckled to myself with a lone shake of my head. "It doesn't, you know," I told him with amusement. "Make any sense, that is. I mean, look around!" I exclaimed while gesturing at the small store we had found ourselves in. "There must be hundreds of records in here and without my help, we could be here until closing time. And from the looks of 'Moody McGee' over there—" I pointed to the cashier tapping away on her phone without a care in the world, "—I just don't think they'd be all that stoked at such a proposition."

My words gave Arnold food for thought as he paused in his sifting through the records to consider my observation. He knew that I had a point and after a moment of silent contemplation, Arnold breathed a heavy sigh of defeat. "Fine," he said softly before twisting minimally to look over in my direction with a stern expression painted on his features. "But if I tell you, you have to promise not to laugh, okay?"

Once again rolling my eyes at his inane paranoia, I agreed to his terms and conditions. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, Arnoldo. Now what is it that we're looking for, huh?"

Arnold took a heavy breath as if to prepare himself for some big dark secret he'd been harboring. The dramatics of his lead-up to the important and somehow embarrassing tidbit threw me off once it was finally off his chest. "It's this Dino Spumoni record. It's… It's really, really rare because it was a live recording from one of his shows when he was still singing with Martin and Lewis in the Lounge."

I stared at him with my mouth ajar as though in shock, which I quickly wiped off and swapped the expression for a skeptical glare instead. "That's it? That's the big mysterious record you've been hunting for? Dino Spumoni?" I soon rolled my eyes while letting out a scoff. "Cripes, Arnold! Didn't your grandparents own basically every single one of his stinkin' albums? I'll bet it's up in some closet somewhere in a box, all dusty and—"

"Well, it's not, Helga," he interrupted me, and my mouth instinctively zipped itself shut at the sudden ferocity in Arnold's tone. When his wave of agitation passed, he soon apologized and explained. "I'm sorry, it's just…" He opened his mouth to let words pass through his lips, though only air escaped. As he scrunched his brows inward, he seemingly tried to conjure just what it was he had hoped to already have said and been done with.

"It's just…what, Arnold?" I pushed gently and Arnold sighed before turning back towards the rows of records he began sifting through once again.

Quietly, he resumed speaking. "When Grandma died… Grandpa didn't take it too well." He glanced over his shoulder at me before returning his attention to the records he thumbed through, while muttering, "You remember that."

"Sure," I answered while walking away from him to walk around the end of the row and to the side directly opposite of Arnold. My hope was that from where I stood across the way, I could secretly peek over at him while pretending to look through records. "That was freshman year, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was," Arnold confirmed while holding an album up and turning it around to scan over the song listings before replacing it back to the slot he'd found it in. "Grandpa died our sophomore year."

"I remember," which I had—very vividly, in fact. It had been a really tough beginning of high school for the poor kid, and as much as I hated to admit it, their deaths were a large part of what brought the two of us even closer together. I hadn't been able to help myself from checking in on him and stopping by randomly to see how he was doing. Soon I was staying for dinner and helping move belongings and sorting through boxes.

It wasn't long after that Arnold and I began officially dating.

I always imagined how his Grandpa would have teased us; his grandma continuing to call me 'Eleanor' and maybe giving Arnold a new title of his own as an upgrade of sorts. It never had felt the same since they'd passed, but so was the nature of life—and Phil and Gertie had lived a couple of pretty amazing ones.

"Right when we first started sorting through things," Arnold continued on; effectively dragging me out of my thoughts and back to the conversation we were currently having. "I found this old Dino Spumoni record—one that I hadn't seen or listened to before. It was shoved all the way in the corner of my grandparent's closet, and we were all baffled as to why it had been hiding back there."

"So, naturally, we pulled it out and I began looking over the cover—memorizing it to the smallest wrinkle and shallowest scratch," he laughed at this as though ashamed of openly telling another person about what he'd done. "And one day, as I was pulling out the record to play it, it sort of… got caught on something? I yanked at it to try and wiggle it out of the slot, but when it got free, it slipped from my fingers and—"

"It shattered, didn't it?" I answered for him as he nodded slowly.

"Smashed," Arnold uttered with a shake of his head and a humorless smirk. "Just like the name of his song."

"And that's why we're on this hunt? To replace the record that you accidently broke?" I shrugged my shoulders while moving to the next column of miscellaneous albums. "I mean, I get it. It was your grandparents, but by replacing it, you're just honoring some other random person's copy, you know?"

"That's true," he agreed, though his tone suggested otherwise. "It isn't all about the record itself, though. After it fell and broken and I had been angry for a significant amount of time, I picked up the slipcover of the album and looked over it like I had before—memorizing every indentation and faded color that made the cover art. But this time, I ventured to look inside the slot to where the record used to lie."

A long pause followed as Arnold probably waited for me to beg for more. I was happy to oblige because I really was curious now. "And?" I pressed him.

Arnold shifted over to his next column of records and flipped with ease while glancing at each album that he passed. "There was a note shoved in the back corner. That's what the record had gotten stuck on. And since it hadn't been touched in who knows how long…" his voice trailed off as though verbally giving me a blank to fill in for him.

"It's no wonder you hadn't found it before," I finalized as he went on to tell me more about the note without my prompting.

"The note was a letter. It was dated from the 50s and it was addressed to my Grandma… from Grandpa… after their very first date."

My mind tried to imagine Gertie as a young woman and Phil as some young man; the two of them no different than Arnold and myself, but for a few years. I shook off the vision I couldn't make and said, "Well, are you going to tell me what it said, or what?"

Ignoring my sarcasm, Arnold recalled the letter as though he had recited it countless times before. "Gertie—I had a swell time with you at the lounge, tonight. Here's a cut from that performance, courtesy of Dino himself. Maybe on our next date I'll take you to meet him, as long as you don't go running off with him. He'd better not touch my gal." The both of us laughed as he ended the letter and offered a shrug. "Then he just signed it, 'yours, Phil.'"

"Your grandparents really were something," I noted while sorting through my pile; Arnold moving from the row he was in to the next one over and started going through more albums. Just beside him, the only other customer in the entire store also carefully inspected record after record—also a man on a mission.

It was clear that finding this record wasn't because he missed the music or wanted it for some kind of collection he had. Arnold was looking for this record because it was made from the very night in which his grandparents had shared their very first date. Unlike some of the zany stories told by both Phil and Gertie respectively about such a date, that letter had given Arnold tangible proof of their love story.

Finding that record meant completing the album Arnold had probably stashed away beside his bed so he could look at it the way he used to look at that old picture of his parents. Not like I knew that or anything. I didn't watch him from the skylight sometimes when it was really dark out because there was a new moon and he was distracted which meant I could hide in the shadows of the rooftop above him.

But that was beside the point.

I had to find that album. I wanted to give that back to Arnold—return to my beloved that which was lost with two of the most important people in his life. My sweet, poor, footballheaded darling. How I longed to take away the pain clouding his heart. How I desired to wave a magic wand and turn back time so he could reunite with his grandparents once again. If only I could find that album. If only I could be the hero and bring to him the one thing that would set off the familiar glimmer I longed to see from beneath his emerald green eyes.

If only… If only… If only …If—

"Hey! Give that back!"

Arnold's voice echoed through the shop, and I blinked myself back to reality to look over in the direction of where my familiar footballhead was glaring up at the other customer who was the size of a linebacker. In their hand was an album—one that I could see from where I stood had that of Dino Spumoni's face on it.

It was the album.

"No way, little dude," the stranger insisted while holding the album away from Arnold's desperate grasping. "Do you know how much this puppy is worth?"

"But I had it first," he expressed, his tone growing more distressed with each word and fling of his arm toward what the man held away from him. "You took it out of my hand."

"Yeah, so that I couldhave it," the man's voice was smug; arrogant. This dude thought he could just get away with taking something because he could.

As nice as Arnold was and as harsh as he could be when pushed, he didn't seem to phase the giant stranger who towered over him. "Please," Arnold began to plead, "You don't know what this album means to me…"

"And you don't know what it's gonna mean to my wallet," the man countered.

That was all that I needed to butt my way in to their dispute and place myself directly between this douche-nugget and Arnold. This imbecile thought that he was going to walk away with this album after swiping it out of Arnold's hands because he was some 'big, strong, tough guy?' He was clearly looking for a sweet, sweet kiss from my fists.

"Hey. Iron Giant," I addressed him while shooting a confident glare up in his direction. "How about you leave my friend alone here and I'll let you mosey on home without your eyes so swollen shut that you end up running into every single trash can, pole, and sign that you encounter?" My long-winded threat didn't strike fear in the man's eyes, though I could tell he was surprised at my sudden involvement.

With a somewhat awkward chuckle, the man shifted his gaze between Arnold and me. "Are you really threatening me? Over some stupid record?"

"Are you really so stupid that you think I won't punch your lights out faster than you can say 'I'm sorry for being a literal ass?'" I retorted as I tightened my fists at my side in preparation for my next move.

Arnold wasn't having it though.

"Helga, stop," He demanded in a harsher tone than I'd anticipated. The sudden change in his demeanor threw me off guard, and I stepped aside to look at him as he moved to the forefront to stare up at our selfish stranger.

"Listen," Arnold began firmly without so much as a stutter or waver in his voice. "I found that album first. Fair and square. It was in my hand and you will give it back to me."

This amused the man and he took a lone step in to further intimidate and loom over Arnold and me. In a low growl, he said, "Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do about it… kid?"

My eyes shot over to Arnold who didn't even flinch at the words the man spat in his face. With an intensity I hadn't seen in Arnold in a long time, he narrowed his eyes and matched the stranger's tone to say in return, "What will we do?" He repeated before turning to look at me and silently tell me the next step in his plan. Fully understanding what it was I had to do, Arnold faced the stranger again and simply stated, "We're going to take it back."

With that, as the stranger was distracted and utterly confused, I reached out to snatch the album from his grubby hands. "C'mon, Shortman!" I hollered as Arnold and I turned around to begin running away from the angry man we left behind.

"Hey! Get back here!" he demanded, but we didn't listen. The man may have been dumb, but he certainly wasn't dumb enough to follow after the two of us and cause a scene. Not only did this cashier not care, but we were just teenagers. Surely the dude didn't want to get into a huge fight with a couple of kids.

After we paid for the record and it was safely in a bag that Arnold carried with pride at his side, we slowly walked down the sidewalk in pursuit of the bus stop. Evening was approaching and the sun had just begun to slowly sink into the horizon; the sky morphing into bright hues of oranges and pinks that swirled together like paint on a canvas. Once we made it to the bus stop, we took a seat on the bench to wait while Arnold pulled out the album and gave it a look-over.

"I can't believe we found it," He mused while staring at the cover with a smile.

"Technically you found it," I corrected him before smirking and leaning back into the bench we sat on. "And what I can't believe is you, Hair Boy."

Arnold carefully placed the album back in the plastic bag before turning to look at me with a raised brow. "What can't you believe?"

"That guy was huge, Arnold," the words came out in shock as though the memory of him was even bigger than he had been in reality. "I'm surprised you had the guts to stand up to him like that. You didn't even flinch."

"You were the one threatening to start a fight, Helga, not him. Why would I flinch?" he soon countered, and I shrugged my shoulders.

"He seemed pretty antagonistic to me. He could have socked you right there, but you just…. Stood there." I said with a smirk. "But me? That's not really how I work, you know that. I was ready to pick a fight. And If he ended up giving me two black eyes, he would have at least gotten one and it would have been worth it, too. You were walking away with that album if it was the last thing I did, today."

"At least it didn't come to that," Arnold said while reaching out to lace his hand with mine and offered a light squeeze. "I think our plan worked just fine."

"You're telling me. For once you and your giant head were the brains of the operation," I offered, and Arnold shook his head in amusement.

"It can't always be you, you know," he soon replied with a twinkle in his eye; the hint of a tease with a half-smile that I could hardly resist. "I can be clever and witty too."

"You have your grandparents to thank for that," I told him earnestly; the glimmer in his gaze dulling as he soaked in what I was saying. "I think that Gertie and Phil would be proud of you for holding your ground and getting that album back. I'll bet it was something they would have done."

"Grandpa definitely would have," Arnold agreed with a nod and a smile at the thought. I could tell that he was thinking of either a memory or trying to imagine him doing such a thing. He was lost in the thought for a moment before letting out a chuckle and adding, "Grandma would have gone a much, much more dramatic route, though."

"You're probably right about that, footballhead."

Together we sat, hand in hand, on the bench as we waited for the bus to arrive. With each new conversation and laugh that we shared, I relished the future the two of us would surely have. If today had proven anything, it was that Arnold and I worked best in tandem with each other; just like another couple we knew.

And when we reached Sunset Arms again and headed up for Arnold's room, the first thing he did was put on that record; the music filling the air to transport us back to that legendary couple's very first date. Like them, Arnold and I would have many a story to tell our grandchildren one day, and maybe someday, they too would go on a mission to find some missing relic of our love and fight to get it.

My only hope was that, like Arnold, they too wouldn't flinch at the opportunity.

#shortakiweek #shortaki week #shortaki #heyarnold #hey arnold #day 2 #flinch #writing prompts #fanfiction #fanfic

[jebentnietalleen]

half the lies you tell are true (i’m gonna find a piece of you) 

chapter 2: lucas

 His palms are sweaty as he hangs up the phone. Still, that didn’t go as bad as he thought it would go. He still can’t believe that he has been such a dumbass, why did he have to say ‘Eliott’ to his mom? It only got him into more trouble than he was ready to face.

It’s so awful that he can’t even begin to comprehend how he is going to get himself out of this goddamn mess.

The truth of the matter is, his mom was not surprised when he mentioned Eliott. There is no way in hell that he would ever be upfront about this towards him, but he has always had a weak spot for Eliott, ever since he walked into his life 3 years ago like a breath of fresh air. The day they met Eliott, shortly after he transferred to their school, was the day their friend group gained an extra member that they didn’t even know was missing before then. It might sound sappy, but that is how it felt; it felt as if Eliott was supposed to have been there all along.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: Lucas is terrible at keeping secrets. A lack of poker face means that he needs to have an outlet at all times, and when it comes to Eliott, his outlet has always been his mom, in a way.

He couldn’t very well tell any of the boys the truth, they knew Eliott too well and it was a far too fragile subject to be truthful about. 

Not only because he was afraid that they wouldn’t understand or maybe slip up and let his feelings shine through when they talked with Eliott, but also because, for the better part of their friendship, Eliott has had a girlfriend.

Lucas doesn’t have all that much experience when it comes to falling in love, but going after someone who has a girlfriend is a big no-no, even he knows that.

Sure, Eliott eventually broke up with Lucille for good, but by the time that happened, they were already such good friends that Lucas was sure that all the tactile gestures and lingering looks were just Eliott’s way of conveying his friendship.

Eliott has always been touchy feely with his friends, and was just such a kind soul in general, which makes it hard to decipher his moves.

The thing that always stopped him from being honest to his friends, was his own imagination. In his mind, he could hold entire conversations with them about Eliott. But it always ended the same: he would say that he has feelings for Eliott, and his friends would look at him like he had grown a second head.

‘Eliott?’ they’d say, ‘But he is just… your friend. You know that, right? I mean, he is friendly with everybody. It’s Eliott!’

They’d probably say it with a look of pity in their eyes to boot.

So, he never told them. Instead, in a moment of weakness, he confided in his mother.

Yes, it was weird, yes, it was silly, but truth be told, him and his mom have a really good relationship. He didn’t even mean to tell her, honestly, it just slipped out.

Thinking back on it, he can still vividly recall how it all went down. Lucas had just come home from an amazing night with Eliott, right after he met him. A night that wasn’t even planned at all.

The original plan had been to hang out at Maria’s place with Chloé and his friends. As if the fact that Chloé was super into him wasn’t stressful enough, he also was in charge of getting them all beer for a pre-drink that evening. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any money.

The rest of the gang had just riffed on him, making jokes and expecting him to come up with a solution as they walked away from school. It wasn’t until Eliott and Lucas were alone at the bus stop that he noticed that Eliott had become quiet.

‘Still no money from your dad?’ he had asked, and all he could do was shake his head. That was enough for Eliott to offer to help out and bring beer from his place, since Eliott was coming to the party with them anyway.

What followed was a night he will probably always remember. They got distracted as soon as they entered Eliott’s apartment, when Lucas noticed the drawings on the wall. Knowing that Eliott saw himself as a raccoon was somehow the most endearing thing ever, yet not surprising, once he got to know him better. Eliott offered him a beer before they had to leave, Lucas pulled out some weed, and before they knew it, hours had past and they were drunk and stoned, side by side on the couch.

Maybe it was the alcohol and weed that lit his nerve endings on fire, maybe it was the lighting that caused the atmosphere to change into something a little bit more charged, or maybe the sight of Eliott blowing smoke rings really was the final straw, but suddenly, he couldn’t stop staring at him. At Eliott. Sprawled out and relaxed against his couch, his neck exposed and his eyes hooded; he had never looked more beautiful.

When he thinks back on those early stages of their friendship, he knows that this is the night that changed things for him.

Right from the start, something about Eliott made Lucas feel brave, it made him feel like he could just be himself. That night, he played the piano for the first time in years, and sure, he felt nervous, but it also just felt right. Seeing Eliott’s reaction afterward made him feel good about himself, and that was a feeling that frankly had been missing for far too long.

Eventually, Eliott more or less had to kick him out because he was meeting up with Lucille, and he texted Chloé to tell her he couldn’t make it. Needless to say, she was not amused, and a few days later he was finally mustered up the courage to be semi-honest with her and tell her that it wasn’t going to work out between them. He might not have been ready to come out of the closet just yet, but leading her on while he could feel himself fall for Eliott was just plain cruel, he couldn’t do that to her. In the end, it was the best decision he would have made. Now, at least Chloé and him are still friendly with each other, which is for the best seeing as Yann would not be amused if his girlfriend – yes, slightly weird for Lucas, but they really fit well together - and one of his best friends were on bad terms.

He didn’t expect his mom to be awake when he got home that night, but she sometimes got restless in the middle of the night. She could tell something was up, and actually made a joke about how he looked like he was in love. At that point, Lucas was drunk and stoned, and way too tired to come up with a lie. So, he told the truth. Or at least, a version of the truth.

He told her that he had met the most beautiful person he had ever seen, a few weeks ago, and that he only just began to realize that he might like them as more than a friend, yet it wasn’t an option to do anything about it, because they were spoken for.

She had looked as if she was devastated on his behalf, and told him that she hoped things would change.

To his mom’s credit, she never really pried all that much when it came to the person in question. She hadn’t even asked him why he used the word ‘person’ and not ‘girl’, and he never explained it to her. A part of him knew that there was a good possibility that she had guessed what was going on.

It’s not as if he never told her stories about Eliott, from there on out. He did, and lots of them. She knew that Eliott is his best friend, and that they are very close, but never asked about it further.

When he came out, it didn’t take his mom long to ask him if the crush he had been harboring all these years was on a boy, and if it was on a boy she knew about. There was no point in lying about it. This time, he told her the complete truth.

Funnily enough, she didn’t seem surprised to find out it was Eliott all along. Which is how he came to realize that he was less good at hiding his feelings than he thought he was.

Once she knew about it, though, it didn’t change anything. She still didn’t ask him questions about the developments in their friendship, or lack thereof. It seemed as if she had accepted the fact that they simply were best friends now, despite of his crush, just as he had accepted that himself.

Every once in a while, though, she heard a story about him and Eliott goofing around, and he’d see a certain look in her eyes, a look that said, I hope these two crazy kids work it out in the end.

The thing is, he wasn’t lying when he told Eliott just now that he was getting tired of his family prying into his love life. It was annoying, it was invasive, and it was a constant reminder that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t find anybody else who he wants to be with. Not in the long run, anyway.

So maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to blurt out: ‘I am seeing somebody, actually, and he would be delighted to meet you all when we got to Spain,’ right after his aunt Lydia had asked him how it was possible that such a lovely, handsome guy just like himself was still single, but that’s exactly was happened.

He figured it was a better response than saying: ‘Well, actually, I plan to hook up with a lot of hot dudes in Spain, so I don’t want to be tied down before the trip’, but looking back on it, maybe that would have been a better reaction.

If he had thought about it for more than 5 seconds, he could have predicted that Lydia would talk to his mom about it, and his mom would, naturally, talk to him about it, but apparently his braincells had left the building for the day.

Once he got home that evening, he started to wonder how long it would take before his mom would call him up, and began to think of a game plane. Frankly, every single thought he came up with seemed too unrealistic: his mom would never buy the fact that he was in a secret relationship with someone he never even mentioned to her before, they were way too close for that. It felt like he had no other choice than to tell her that Eliott and him had finally come to their senses and have started to date.

The way her voice changed from somewhat frustrated and just a tiny bit angry to soft and gentle, let him know that she was happy for him, with all of her heart. It ached, a bit, knowing that the reason she was so glad wasn’t real.

The thing he is very grateful about right now, though, is Eliott’s patience, because he honestly doesn’t know if he would have said ‘yes’ if Eliott had asked Lucas to do this for him, even if it was just for one night. He’s glad that he was able to explain that it wouldn’t have to go any further than that, he would never ask Eliott to go with him on a vacation where they would have to pretend to be together for a whole week. The thought alone makes his heart beat faster, and not in a good way. They could never pull it off for that long, plus it was unreasonable to expect Eliott to go that far for him.

This dinner, though, this dinner could actually work.

His phone buzzes and Lucas stops pacing his room, raking a hand through his hair, a habit of his he can’t seem to kick.

It’s Eliott, wanting to know if they will tell their friends about this little adventure. On the one hand, he really wants to be open and honest about this to everybody, mostly because he has a feeling that people will be able to tell that he is hiding something. On the other hand, it’s embarrassing enough as it is that he had to ask Eliott to do this, he really doesn’t think any of their friends would ever let him forget about this if they found out, they’d torture him for all of eternity.

He texts him back: Let’s not make this a big deal, it’s only for one night, right? No need to cause chaos. Besides, Basile would be so jealous, you know he wants you all to himself. We wouldn’t want to upset the poor guy.

A few seconds later, Eliott responds: Agreed, best to spare his feelings.

Lucas smirks at his screen, as reality sets in. They are really doing this.

#skam france #elu fic #my fic #also posted on ao3

[mercymorns]

i love your writing, it's so detailed and full of tension and just. amazing! do you have any tips for writing as vividly as you do? or just, writing tips in general?

thank you so much!!! i have a few tips, i’ve actually been trying to make a list of tips for myself to look back on when i’m feeling stuck, so if this is wordy it’s bc it’s half copied from my own personal notes

1. i think building tension comes down to having a grasp of characterization and pacing. for the characterization bit, you kind of have to play fill in the blanks and both conceptualize and remove the thing that would cause a resolution your characters would be satisfied with. think of the characters in terms of what they want, what their expectations are, and what is either stopping or helping them. if the conflict is between two (or more) characters, know WHY that conflict affects them both so much and what are the key pressure points that can provoke either of them into taking action? i like creating a clear “break” in scenes, where someone hits one of those intentionally or not. the characters don’t expect the drama of the scene in the “before” of that break, so let the mood shift and scene change. i also find that tension v commonly is left in the things that go unsaid, and while they’re unsaid you as the writer have to know where they are in order to make sure you’re being as clear as possible.

2. I studied play/screenwriting so I’m hardwired to see scenes from the inside out, so I’ll usually envision what I want a scene to look like and then fill in the details after writing that. it also helps me remember that everyone is onstage so to speak all the time, and their reactions to what happens to the other characters matters. in terms of dialogue, i like to pay attention to how tv shows i like handle dialogue. shows are on tight schedules. a good show only tells you what you need to know to move the plot forward or give you insight into a character because it only has so many minutes to get info across, and so dialogue gets economized. try to cut down on extra stuff that doesn’t add anything because it waters down the actual important lines. we’ve all gotta have some filler to get from scene to scene, but have idle conversation be things that give you more info about the circumstances, the characters, their relationship, etc. really this tip is just: make every word count, bc if it doesn’t matter, why write it.

3. i love using poetic devices in prose!! use it!! don’t be afraid!! but seriously sentence flow is so important. you have to make sure everything reads smoothly, and if you think your sentences might be clunky, try saying them out loud and following the punctuation and flow. obviously you don’t need to do this all the time, but if you’re struggling to train your ear to hear sentences melodically i really suggest it. i really connected the dots by taking a shakespeare class in school but like, you don’t need to go out of your way to do that. i don’t mean to sound pretentious with that one, but reading any type of poetry out loud is helpful, i suggest shakes as a springboard just bc it’s also telling a linear narrative and because it goes along with number 2, shakes has 10 syllables per line to cram as much detail as possible in so Everything Is Important, almost everything means something fuck that tumblr post about the blue curtains being blue. if someone is taking time to tell you they’re blue it means something! or it should!

4. another thing i picked up studying theatre, but using kinesthetics is an easy way to add a LOT of detail quickly. like, when you’ve gotten done crying your eyes feel that weird like, hollowed out but very heavy way, or when you’re tense and it feels like if anyone touches you you WILL burst into flame...we know what all that feels like, so it gets right in the head of the character. it also lets you convey a lot without having to outright say your character is sad or tense or w/e, and lets you find ways to cut down on dialogue or find a pause to slow yourself down pacing wise and take inventory of how your character is feeling before continuing a conversation.

5. my last for rn is more about overall plot structure, after i’ve said my peace and exposed you all to my psychological trauma and have to go back and edit into something coherent i think really clinically about what order things should go in, what things need to happen to set something up or give closure, and language. if i write a line that i think is important or a gut punch i mentally check it off as something i might want to repeat in the doc later. and if i’ve brought up an idea that’s important, i make sure i don’t leave loose ends and resolve that conflict by the end of the piece. basically edit while keeping the whole doc in mind to keep things tied together and get that emotional impact.

i hope any of this is helpful!!! i can talk about editing a lot more tbh, i love editing which is so weird to say, but i know everyone else in the world hates it and i’ve gotten two hours of sleep so i’m gonna tune out for rn

#writing #writing notes #ask #sorry this took so long to get back to i’ve been packing my apartment and then...s3 happened

[altraes]

Tagged by @avenger-hawk @renamon15 and @koukenkage . Thank you :)

Rules: Answer the 11 questions you were asked, write 11 questions and tag 11 people.

(this is going to be long, sorry)

Questions by avenger-hawk:

1. What’s your favourite book? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Siddartha by Hermann Hesse. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

2. What’s your dream job? Becoming a sustainable and/or preservation architect. Want to be able to make artworks and write preferably fiction (and fanfiction XD) on the side.

3. Favourite and least favourite food? Favorite: Apples. least favorite: bitter pickles

4. What’s the thing you like the most about yourself? These days, nothing really.

5. And what’s the thing you hate the most about yourself? Ah, many things. I’m under-confident and indecisive. I mostly make decisions based on my feelings rather than logic and practicality, which is not smart at all but I can’t help it. I’m reluctant and wary of change. I am slow and absent-minded. Etc etc

6. If you could go back in time what era or moment in time (both general and in your life) would you choose? @renamon15 same. I’d like to go back to my childhood and live life with the mindset I’ve gained till now.

7. If you had the chance to get to know one thing that has been hidden so far, what would that be? (like are aliens real? or conspiracies or gods or whatever lol) All the mysteries that comprise the deep sea. Not helpful for me in any way but I’ve always been intrigued by it and find it surprising how little we know.

8. How many languages do you speak? Is there a language you’d like to know? Four (not completely fluent in speaking two of these). I’d love to learn French, Japanese and Russian.

9. What’s your favourite music genre/artist/artists? These days I only listen to indie music, soft rock, jazzhop, asian-traditional fused with modern. I listen to the occasional song too. And I don’t have particular favorite artists or bands etc, it really depends on the songs/music and my mood.

10. What’s your favourite word? I don’t know ^^’ I don’t really think about this, mostly because it changes with my mood too.

11. What’s your favourite quote? “When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change” by Aang in The Legend of Korra. (there are many others but that’s the first one that came to mind.)

 Questions by renamon15:

1. Is there a song that describes you, or song you can relate to? Stay in the Dark by Lambert. I’m not sure if it describes me or it’s something that I relate to, but I find it soothing.

2. Your first pet? (If you didn’t have a pet, did you wish to have one?) It was a goldfish named Poly, lol. I want to have a sassy/curious cat and a chill af dog.

4. Is there something you liked in the past, but you regret it now? I used to read more in the past, nowadays I don’t read as much, which I regret.

5. Is there something bad/embarrassing that happened to you, but you laugh about it today? Uh, I forgot to lock the door when I was showering and my mom walked in on me ^///^’. THANKFULLY IT WASN’T MY DAD OR ANYONE ELSE. It still makes me cringe to this day. I’m often absent-minded so ^^’

6. One guilty pleasure? I like to stay up very late. I really try not to, but it’s when I’m most productive in terms of writing and drawing.

7.How do you reward yourself after accomplishing something big/important? Any among these things: have ice-cream, watch a movie or anime/TV show, take a walk if it’s a nice day. Start a book (if I have the time).

9. One dream you can’t forget (like one that was really scary or pleasant, or one that for some other reason stayed engraved in your head)? It’s disturbing that I sometimes see nightmares as if I’m watching horror movies. I see people I’ve never seen/met before and places I’ve never been to. I see creatures and events that flit by one scene after the other in quick succession. They’re terrifying and very vivid. I usually wake up screaming and with sleep paralysis. Till now I’ve seen three of such distinctly horrific dreams and have even written them down, but I don’t think I will post them anywhere. (I think I watch too much horror movies lol.)

10. Favorite game from your childhood? Hide and seek :)

11. If you could be possessed by someone, dead or alive, or even fictional, who would you like to be possessed by? No one? I find the idea of possession kind of weird. Also, idk why anyone would want to possess me lol.

 Questions by koukenkage:

1. What did you want to become as a grown up when you were a child? A vet. That changed when I learnt I would have to see sick animals all the time and I realised I wouldn’t be able to handle it ^^’

2. Is there a big dream that you had to give up to achieve your goals? Do you regret it? I don’t think I’ve given up any big dream. Right now I’m doing what I enjoy so I’m satisfied.

3. Is there a book/a movie that you’ve loved but couldn’t read or watch again? Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. I had a love-hate relationship with this book. It’s about racism faced by African Americans in America, and of course, I sympathize. However, the book is too serious and intense - it’s stressful. Of course, I suppose it’s supposed to impart such feelings, but still. The best thing about it, however, is her writing style: it’s one of the most unique I’ve come across - a blend of imagery, script and poetry along with dialogues between various photographs and artworks. It’s really an inspiration. But yes, would never read again, sorz Claudia.

4. If you could be someone else for 24 hours, who would that be? Can I be a happy eight-year-old kid thank you.

5. You can get your dream job in exchange for ten years of your life, do you accept? Nope. Time and youth is precious, I’d rather work and study the ten years to get my dream job. In the ten years lost, I feel like I’d miss out on a lot of things.

6. A meteorite is to destroy the earth in 24h, what do you do for dinner tonight? Be home with my family but they’re across the globe so this question stresses me D:

7. You can revive one human being, no matter how long ago they died, who do you choose? Someone of your family? Siddhārtha Gautama? Homer? Shakespeare? Jesus christ? Be wild (or not). Van Gogh. So that he’d get to see how much his art inspires people now. Poor guy was depressed most of his life and his art career was unsuccessful. I’m sure there are lots of artists/writers/activists etc whose works and deeds became appreciated only posthumously. Let them see that they touched people’s lives.

8. You can make one thing disappear from existence, what do you choose? (It has to be something concrete, not a concept, like the flue is okay, but not the concept of disease.) Mosquitoes lol

9. You wake up in the body of Quasimodo, what is your first thought? If we’re really talking about first thoughts then: I AM IN PARIS FFFF I WANT TO TOUR EVERYWHERE.

10. You are going on an adventure of unknown nature, but you are allowed to choose a fictional character to accompany you, who are you going to choose and why? Shisui. Because he’s intelligent and strong so my potato brain and unathletic body can rely on him ^^’. He’s also wonderfully optimistic and has a good sense of humor so he’d make the journey fun too.

11. You fall deeply in love with someone, then realize that this person has done something horrible that goes against all your principles, and you know that you’ll think of it every time you see them. What do you do? I wouldn’t be able to look at them the same way, but I’d be willing to give them a second chance for redemption (everyone deserves this I think). If even that doesn’t work out, sorry. It would have to end. This is all in theory, of course.

My questions:

1. When you’re most depressed, what do you do/think about to cheer yourself up?

2. What are some things you’ve touched that grant you immediate comfort/happiness? (i know, it’s a weird qt, lel)

3. What is one quality in someone that you’ve found really admirable and why?

4. What is one profession you’d like to practice instead of the one you’re working towards/working in?

5. One wondrous/disturbing/interesting memory or imagery from your childhood that you remember vividly.

6. Early bird or night owl?

7. If you could teleport, where would you choose to go first?

8. One good gesture you did today?

9. One thing you’ve regretted doing in the past and can’t get over it even now?

10. One superpower you’d like to have and why?

11. What’s the last book/movie/show/play etc you indulged in that strongly affected you (as in emotionally or made you reflective)?

Tagging: @avenger-hawk @renamon15 @koukenkage (please, only if you want to ofc) @tsukiko-hibiki @littleunknowncrow @konohagakureship (also if you want to)

and anyone else who’d want to do this :)

#personal #tagged #non-naruto #this was long #sorry #but interesting #finally got some time to do this

[blandwriting]

It's been a long pause, where have I been? Mostly procrastinating at knowing how to be a functioning adult. Despite my flaws, characteristically I'm still very much the same. Major Depressive Disorder, a term to prescribe me antidepressants at a low yet effective amount to keep my anxiety at bay. Effexor XR, Side effects include loss of appetite, drowsiness, blurred vision, fatigue, dry mouth, nausea, sweaty palms, leg tremors, insomnia; I guess the cure and the ailment are one in the same. I'm functioning now at a rate where I feel almost numb enough to feel sufficed by my less than mediocre existence. Thirty years old, greying hair and pubes, a long list of non established idea's that never got off the ground. Financial freedom.... We just reinstated a credit card due to the pandemic taking away our wage and making us less than satisfactory to pay for our fancy Meriton apartment in Mascot. Paces ahead but still trailing behind. I always find myself romanticising life.... Looking for the hidden posies in the mess. No wonder my outlook had degraded to catatonic self destructive seeking missile. I was hit by a car and rolled up onto the dash.... fell to the ground miraculously leaving unscathed only bruised and badly shaken... although the longing for greater injuries if not death was the only thing I could fixate on. Why was I so depressed... why was I so unnerved at my miraculous and somewhat outstanding ability to survive a car driving directly into my right leg without so much as even breaking a bone? I flew over the top of the bonnet and rolled down onto the wet and unforgiving bitumen with nothing more than a manic episode. It opened up a huge sinkhole.... the medication was the only thing stopping me from taking my own life. I cared for nothing. I've had a lot of sobering moments in my short by well worn life. But sitting across from my doctor with tear stained cheeks, quivering bottom lip and shaking hands, I'd spent the last three days just scream crying every moment I had left with my swelling thoughts of self harm and suicide. I simply no longer wished to live.... My doctor worried expression painted across her face sat there and listened to me, as my emotions heightened and I cried out that I was fine... everyone said I was fine... so if I'm fine then why do I no longer want to live... Something has to change... I'm exhausted.... I simply no longer wish to exist, I am meaningless and broken I'm discarded and used, People whom only benefit from myself keep me around I am not loved, I never had been unconditionally loved. She sat there mouth agape... "Krystal..." I looked up to her, With what I can only imagine would have been one of the most pained looks I've ever given another person... " You're not going to kill yourself are you?..." she said furrowing her brows at me with a downturned expression, I looked to the right with my lips pressed into a straight line, rubbing the edge of my thumb nails to the underside of my thumbs, swapping them back and forth, as I looked to my left avoiding eye contact but ruminating on how I felt... softly I let out " I don't know anymore". She reached her hand across the table and asked for my left arm as my right was rendered useless by the bruising. I handed her my hand, hers warm the warmest hand I've felt in a long time, " If you kill yourself Krystal I'll be very angry with you, It will hurt everyone you love, You make me laugh everytime you come in, there are so many other choices".

In that moment I looked at her, I knew I couldn't do it, I'd been held accountable. My heart swollen she wrote me a prescription and I'd left that office with a follow up appointment booked, before I walked out of her room I asked her for a hug, In that moment I felt loved, truly loved with an unbiased heart, She literally didn't have to at all, but I just so needed a hug without answers without question, I just needed that in that moment. To feel loved.

This is the thing, loved. A feeling every human being on the face of the planet longs for a feeling of complete and total acceptance. That is all I've ever been looking for, to feel accepted. I grew up in an unconventional yet familiar family story, My mother freshly 18 two weeks out of the legal boom gates, and my Father turned 22 an hour and fourteen minutes after I was born, It was the typical Australian 1991 period, Still heavily influenced by Christianity, My mum was placed in a separate wing from the other mothers who were Married or accounted for, She and dad were on-again off-again young lovers with a fiery relationship built on jealousy drama and pure attraction, I came into the world on a Monday, it was Mercury retrograde, need I say more. Mum didn't have a lot of money or a stable household at that time, she was living in-between homes, Momentarily we lived in the garage out the back of her mothers house, a red back spider infested ex photography studio and teenager hangout spot, They had a tumultuous relationship themselves, That's the difficulty with family scars, My father from memory lived in a share house with friends, he and his parent's also from a not so forgiving background, both of my parents were dragged up I wouldn't really say either had the golden childhood either of them really deserved, two seperate sides of two different coins, but both resulting in the universal fate of their meeting and my existence. It wasn't long and without shock before my parent's broke up. My dad wasn't ready for fatherhood, he was still drinking and fighting and doing whatever he wanted to do, and mum a young mother had taken on the role of responsibility with a bit more of a stiff upper lip, Rightfully so. He and she were again on and off again for the most of my formidable years, I remember my mum writing notes on a phone pad, back when corded phones were a thing and you were stuck in one place, She'd write his name with hearts and little doodles, I also remember her agonising cries when they'd broken up. It wasn't unusual for Mum to drop me at dad's and for he to leave me with his latest fling and I'd give them hell while he went out stalking down Mum wherever she was. I remember the arguments and my dad's alcohol induced rages towards mum. He showing up to our cottage at random hours banging on the doors and window's to be let in, I remember being dragged out of bed at 2-3-4 am to be placed in a cold Torana to drive around because he was in a violent frenzy smashing every valuable mum had collected on her very small wage she was earning working at a pub to support us, to give me all she could. He'd come in and ruin everything, our tables our chairs the television he'd smash her beds up throw the kitchen around smash the dining tables and chairs, a violent and unstoppable force, and then just like a hurricane he would dissipate and we would rebuild; I don't know how my mother did it, that man didn't even pay the child support he was owing, how do I know this as an adult I went into my centrelink history and saw all of the unpaid arrears.... funny that.

Due to my home life being so far from average or normal I really focused on my imagination, I was plagued with nightmares and an extreme amount of anxiety.... But we didn't really know or talk about mental health in children back then... So I just played with our cats and dogs, singing on the swing alone or annoying our Landlord who owned a sign writing shop out the front, I'd collect snails or grab my dog and escape to the hair salon out on the main road our cottage was behind. The creativity really appealed to me, it gave me an escape from an otherwise crippling existence even for a small child, I was so loved and my mum did everything she could to prove that so, but I just felt so conditional.... I think even as a small child below the age of five I knew that my mothers life would be different if I didn't exist... At school there were rumours around about my family so obviously the children were biased based upon their parents opinions even as early as preschool mum and I faced adversity... I was an outcast from a poor family going to a Lutheran preschool in an affluent area, my mum showing up in a Commodore to drop me off, young and beautiful, I found it difficult to make friends, although I had one best friend but she ended out going to the adjoining Primary school and I were to be moved to the state school three doors down from our cottage.

When I started at my primary school there was 27 students from year 1 to year 7, there were Three educators, Miss S was year 1 - 3, Mrs B was mathematics and science and the Principal Mr F educated year 4-7. I'd made some friends but I was a little off-beat and bossy and a real stickler for the rules so I was always telling on everyone, I wasn't overly athletic or smart, I was more interested in writing or talking or reading than really doing any actual school work. I remember vividly being in trouble for talking while we were doing maths which I still very much struggle with today.... But I ended out being put in time out and I sat there and thought I'd counted to a thousand... because I was entirely bored.... Miss S walked past and I told her " Miss S I counted to a thousand". She looked down at me and said " No you didn't, You silly girl you don't know how to... now be quiet". I'm still cut about that... Mole.

There were many times in those years I was subjected to questionable people and activities many in which I know for sure, No child of mine is ever having sleepovers at their friends houses.... and I mean it. I was socially under developed and preferred the company of adults to children... I didn't fit in with kids my age and the ones I was socialised with were little sicko's with weird parents...

Surprisingly my parent's got back together when I was around age 7 or 8... My dad was working overseas and for some reason mum and he decided to get married by this point my mum had my first younger brother and She and Dad got married...... even that day was a flop for my poor Mum... he ended out going on a four day drinking binge with his friends and mum was left to clean up the mess of the wedding after party and retire home alone. Romantic right?.... I love and adore each one of my four younger brothers and I am so thankful for their existence they’re all individually wonderful and loving and kind i just find it difficult to sometimes sit there and think about how different my mum’s life could have been... had none of us existed.... although I am grateful sometimes for existence I just wish that my dad had dealt with his demons and maybe had gotten some help, flash forward a few years and dad ended up in rehab for six weeks during that time he’d seen mental health professionals but nothing came from it... he just decided to not take his Zoloft because “he hates feeling happy” He for some reason needs aggression which for me is something I just cannot simply understand, now as an adult I recognise my parents have their own issues their own histories and past just as we all do, but it’s one of those things where when I was younger and learning about the world my perception wasn’t of that but only of a lack of unconditional love, now as an adult I’ll do upmost anything to prevent being like my father, so when offered the help I took it... there weren’t other options in that moment for me to be functioning... I just hope I made the right choice.

As a teenager I experienced the usual laziness,  my household was filled with children and crying and new borns the precession of another brother came closely after the first was born and mum was dealing with a “hyperactive” toddler and a newborn and myself now a pre-teen.... I’d moved school’s by this point but realistically speaking and I’ll cut it fairly short, I never really fit in with anyone or anything.... Without being academically gifted or Athletically gifted... my value wasn’t highly ranked... I spent most of my lunch breaks playing Chinese checkers in the library or reading books, I loved books and Encyclopedia’s, hyper-fixating on certain topics and being drawn to the mystics and paranormal.. I would spend hours pouring over pages within books my Aunties had gifted me for Birthday’s or Christmas’s. I feel like my time filled within that school was also darkened by my own inability to behave like a “normal person” I don’t know if at the age of ten I was acutely aware at all about my inability to fit in... all i know is getting choked out at lunch time and ran away from wasn’t the best...

I’ll continue the story later.

[speaknowslut13]

Hi honey bunches!

I really appreciate that! I’ve always kind of thought no kids/no marriage, and then I went through an identity crisis and finally came to terms with my sexuality in my early 20s and then I was like “yeah definitely no” haha. So many people are like “you’ll definitely change your mind” and I find it rather obnoxious. And while I’m pretty sure I don’t want biological children, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about becoming a foster parent, and would love to get to a place in my life where I could do that.

Feel free to talk about the complicated family situation if you want! (Or not, totally no pressure, but I definitely understand having a complicated family.) my parents also did a courthouse wedding and I honestly love their wedding photos, they’re so cute! Do you have any pictures of your dress that you can/want to share?

Gosh that sounds awful! I’m glad you were okay though. Out of my sibling/cousins (there’s 5 of us and all pretty close!) I’m actually the only one who *hasn’t* been in a major wreck. I still vividly remember getting a phone call from my sister after she rolled her pickup (she was thankfully okay, somehow walked away without a scratch even though the car was totaled, and this happened like one week after she’d gotten her drivers license.) but on to happier things!

I love that though, I think it’s so important to actually *like* your partner haha. What kind of video games do you like to play? And what’s your go to movie for movie night? And that’s literally the sweetest thing that you do his nails and makeup 🥺 how are things with the pandemic in your area?

Panic! puts on a great show, I saw them in Seattle during their death of a bachelor tour in 2017 and it was so much fun. I hope you get the chance to go! Who else is on your concert bucket list?

Omggg okay I will have to add Rijeka to my list of stops 👀 if everything goes according to plan, I want to do a road trip down the Croatian coast starting in Zagreb and ending up in Dubrovnik. My birthday is mid august, so it would be end of august to be a birthday trip! I love Munich, it’s only a couple hours from me by train so I’ve been there several times since I moved here! Because of travel restrictions, I haven’t been able to visit some of the places like Dachau yet, but I really want to. That history is heavy but so so important.

I adore the PNW, and I was originally planning on moving to Oregon for grad school before I ended up in Europe haha. I have a lot of good friends in that area and I can’t wait to be able to visit them in again! Where in Canada would you like to end up? The polar express thing sounds soso cool, honestly might book a seat for myself hahaha.

I think a lot of writing poetry is just accepting that a lot of it is going to be bad and then going from there haha. Like one of my professors told me, it’s always easier to work with something than it is with nothing so I have years and pages worth of bad poems and then some that I’ve turned into really good ones. Ohhh those all sound really interesting! I especially like the idea of a paranormal mystery. Do you have a particular tag that you post your writing under?

That sounds like an excellent weekend! What kind of project? And do you have your own pool or do you go somewhere? What a crazy coincidence for us to be paired together!! I actually didn’t start marching until college, my high school wasn’t big enough to have a marching band, just a pep band, and then I got involved with the music program for fun when I started college and ended up marching my sophomore through senior years. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work!! I can definitely understand how that could cause burn out. Mono sounds horrendous in the best case scenario, let alone what you were dealing with. Oh the EMT thing sounds like a cool program though!

Hahahaha yeah my sister is an amazing singer but it just missed me. I do perform well in the shower, when I’m out hiking in the woods, or alone in the car. Well I think you’d do well even without knowing everything single instrument ahdjshs i believe in you! ✨

Hope your week is off to a great start! 💖 Drew

Let's get the family stuff out of the way. Chase and I met in September of 2013, got engaged in January of 2014, and then married February of 2014. His brother was not pleased with that. There was a massive fight and its the only time I've seen Chase really truly angry. They were living together at the time and when we told him we decided to get engaged and that I was essentially moving in he flipped out. He was also drunk that night. We were excited, our parents were excited for us. We hadn't planned on getting married until May of 2015 but that didn't matter. He said some pretty horrendous things to Chase and then to my face. So Chase kind of snapped. After that, Chase wasn't sure he wanted to tell his family about the ceremony. He didn't want to rock the boat any more than he already did. My BIL moved out quickly after that fight. Chase and I always planned on having a ceremony with everyone later. That never worked out. Its something we regret, not inviting his parents. His Dad passed in 2016 after I found out I was pregnant. So he'll never get to have that. Even though we all moved past that, in that last year things have gotten tense between them again. I try not to get involved. My BIL eventually apologized and we all got really close especially when my FIL got sick. Even though we've both forgiven him, I don't know if Chase will ever really forget the hurt that situation caused me and him. It didn't stop us though. We knew our minds. We're both Taurus signs. So there really was no stopping us.

We didn't mean to get married on Valentines day. I had just been fired from Express for the stupidest reason, partly because of my relationship. We just decided on a Monday to get married that following Friday. When we went to get the license, that's when we realized it was going to be Valentines Day. We laughed pretty hard about it. We still do. I joke that because I always had such a rough time on Valentines Day, the universe made up for it.

Even though we jumped head first into commitment, we waited on expanding our family. And it wasn't an easy journey for us. Now, its a completely unrealistic option for me to carry another pregnancy. So, if we ever change our minds about having another kid, we'll adopt. I grew up with a messy extended family and so my tolerance for the behavior I've seen of late is non existent. I don't need that negativity. I don't have enough spoons! So, we keep our head down and mow our own lawn, so to speak.

I will make a post of pictures under my tag themodren . All of my personal posts are under that tag because I reblog a lot. However, the story excerpt is also under the tag brownandgreenandgold because it corrresponds to a poem I wrote. I'll put that one up for you too. Some of my other tags are: renreacts , folklorethemusical , and relativelyricalanalysis . I've started these tags hoping to follow up on them with more content but I haven't yet. You can find them all under themodren though. I'm trying to talk myself into sharing more.

Chase was really into WOW. I prefer games that are RPG in nature. I've played Castle Crashers, Baulder's gate, Torchlight, and currently Portal. I like Pokemon. Chase really grew up around video games. I didn't. He's so good at them. He's great at figuring out how things work whereas I'm the player that spins in circles.

I'd like to move to Vancouver or anywhere around that area. It looks so pretty.

The EMT program was amazing and I had a real knack for it. I was originally going to go pre-med. I wanted to be a Doctor. But I was thrown some curve balls and ended up in a Fashion Design program that no longer exists. Didn't finish that one either because I got pregnant and my postpartum period is where my autoimmune disease really jumped out. If I thought I could handle it, I'd go back and finish the nursing program I was going to go through, too. Or ideally I'd just go do pre-med again. Unfortunately I don't think that's in the cards. I'm still struggling to get my body under control and stress has a tendency to deplete my spoons quickly. The pandemic really hit me hard because I wanted to help but couldn't.

I try to focus on the good in my life. I try to remember to honor my limitations. I tell my husband that I feel like a ten cylinder engine that's being forced to only use four. It can be frustrating. So I laugh at myself and try to focus on other things. Like the recent succulent collection I've started. I might have a problem. We have a pool in our backyard. It was out of order until recently. I'm enjoying it a lot since that last few years I haven't been able to. Despite my struggles, my life is incredibly blessed. I always feel weird talking about the pain and disappointments of my life because I feel ungrateful.

The pandemic feels stale here. I'm sure the numbers are going down because there are so many people being vaccinated now, but unfortunately there is still too large a number of vaccine resistant or hesitant people. That frustrates me. Both my husband and I are vaccinated now, but we still wear our masks. We also avoid interacting with others outside our circle because our daughter hasn't been vaccinated yet. Hopefully come September that will change. Our state lifted mask mandates too soon, I think. We're a mostly republican state. I wish that didn't matter but it does. People are starting to act like the virus isn't still an issue even though it definitely is. Its been especially rough on my kid. She's been in virtual preschool for a year. She goes back in person in August, which I'm very nervous about. She has an IEP for speech therapy, so she needs to go, otherwise I'd find another solution. She doesn't get to go out much either. Its been tough on her. Her safety is of utmost importance though. I've heard too many horror stories of mom's acting like this virus isn't just as potentially life altering for children as it is for adults. At the beginning, parents were even hosting "covid parties" so all their kids would catch the virus. Horrified would be an understatement in describing my reaction to those articles.

The project is a memorial for my grandma. She passed recently. Its okay. She was old and we were expecting it.

Chase and I will watch things that we've wanted to watch for awhile. I haven't seen all the Marvel movies yet and there are a slew of older movies he's seen that he wants me to see. So, we typically pick something we haven't seen.

Lorde announced music today! So once she starts touring, I'd like to see her. Honestly, I'd like to see Twenty One Pilots. Halsey is another. I like Halsey. My best friend likes Marianas Trench, so it'd be fun to see them with her. If N'Sync ever toured again, I'd go see it. I would have loved to see Prince in concert. There's just so many different musicians I like that I'd love to see.

Are things getting any better where you're at, Drew? I hope your week goes well!

#inthaf anon #themodrenreplies

[ecotone99]

[AA] Bang! You're Dead

So, I don't know how to explain this, but I have this gift.

Well, gift if probably using it the wrong way, it's a gift, a curse, an odd thing that happens to me. I've never met anyone like me that has a gift like this, and I don't know if anyone else like me even exists.

Sure, you see it in the movies, on the TV, people that can do extraordinary things with stuff around them, people that claim to have “powers” and they can control matter with their mind, mind over matter, Indian Swamis doing cool things, Monks that can go into hibernation so that their heart beats only a single time every minute.

But that's just parlour tricks, this trick I have, that I can do, this “Gift” if you will, well, it's a bit different.

Let me take you back a few years to my childhood, so about 1996, I was 6 years old.

We were down at the local park, playing, Mum and Dad were having a BBQ with Tommy's parents, Tommy, my best mate since basically birth. Our parents went to high school together, and they had been friends since about Year 7. So a good solid long time.

Anyway, me and Tommy were playing cops and robbers, running around the park, like kids do, pointing our finger guns at each other, yelling “Bang!” and pretending to fall down dead, standard kid stuff.

Anyway, this is where it gets weird, Tommy was hiding behind a tree, and I had him cornered, so in standard cop style, I stood the other side of the tree, pointing my finger gun at him, I told him he had until the count of three to come out from behind the tree.

“One...” I said, “Two....” I said, “Three!” and then I shouted “Bang!”

It was loud, I'm not gonna lie. Extremely loud.

A chunk of the tree just blew right off, right next to Tommy's head.

Screaming we both ran back to our parents, we had no idea what was happening, parents were running, screaming, not sure what the fuck was going on.

We didn't either, we ran to the car with people yelling and running around the park, something about “Another Port Arthur”

As I was to later find out, only a few weeks before this all happened, allegedly a bloke named Martin Bryant ran rampant in the town of Port Arthur Tasmania and killed 35 people, so this was all still fresh in everyone's minds.

You hear the terms now, “Active Shooter” and stuff like that, but in this case, the Police found no one, nobody, however they did pull a .45 Magnum round out of the tree, just millimetres from where Tommy's head had been.

The thing that was strange, in the police report I found many years later, was that the bullet had no rifling down it, none, it had just appeared in the tree, or appeared from somewhere, and there was no powder or evidence of any explosive residue on the bullet, nor any on the tree, and the report said that the round was like it had been fired from point blank range, within about 5 metres of the tree.

So essentially, right where I was standing....

Of course, this was ridiculous, I didn't have a gun, of course I didn't, I was 6 years old. No 6 year old has a gun. Well, no 6 year old in 1996 Australia anyway, you hear about kids in America these days getting access, and I'm sure they did back then as well, but not me, not then, not there.

Anyway, I remember being about 16 when I read that report, I'd been cleaning out the shed for Dad, he'd just bought himself a new car, and we needed to make some room, so we were turfing a whole heap of stuff to the tip to make room.

They'd thought about hiring a skip, but it was easier to just use me as free labour to load up the Ute, so here I was, left to my own devices, loading up the ute and going down to the tip with the old man to throw out all manner of useless shit that had built up over the decades.

That night, the thought occurred to me, but I didn't have a chance to test it, so the next day I skipped school and went off down to the river.

I remember that day as vividly as any, well, more vividly, in fact, more than my first kiss, the first time I got a blowy, the first time I actually got lucky, better than any of those memories.

There was a Galah in a tree, and I though “A .22 would knock that sucker right off his perch” so I pretended to hold a rifle and pointed it at him, I mouthed the word “Bang”, and there was a crack, just like a.22 going off, and POOF, the Galah was fucked. Straight out of the tree and in front of me, a perfect hole blown in him.

“Well fuck...” I thought, I saw a rabbit on the opposite bank of the river, I thought a three-O would make short work of him, so thinking of an old WWII Three-O like the Breaker had, from that movie we watched in history class, I took sight at the Rabbit and....

Mush. Pure rabbit splatter. All over the other bank.

I heard some panicked voices, so I made myself scarce, there was a couple of teenagers, maybe 19-20, quickly running out of the trees on the other side of the creek. Now keeping in mind, up until this point in my life, I had never had a malicious bone in my body. But something changed.

I quickly lined up the bloke in my “Sights” and blew the side of his head clean off, next was the girl, I put one right through her back, straight through the heart.

I quickly made haste, we weren't that far out of town, in fact, “Out of Town” was pushing it, there was a fab shop only about 500m away on the other side of the trees, surely they had heard the gunshots.

And just as that thought entered my mind I heard the sirens, first one, then two, then maybe half a dozen. Looked like every cop in town was on their way down here. With that I fucking legged it, adrenaline making me fucking move hardcore.

I ran around a corner and straight into a Divvy van that was pulling up, the cops grabbed me and threw me in the back, “You'll be right mate” I heard one of them say to me as he then pulled out his gun and sprinted off down the way I'd come.

They didn't suspect a thing, still don't.

I lay there in the back of the Divvy van, catching my breath.

Holy fuck.

Ho-ly fuuuuuck....

I'd just killed two people, blown them away. They were, no more.

Then it hit me, I was the one that nearly killed Tommy that day, it was a strange awakening, I could have killed my best mate

Now, I know what you are thinking, “Magical bullets” that “Magically appear from thin air”, but, like swallowing a bit of string and it coming out your arsehole tied together, I shit you not.

I couldn't tell anyone about this, not a fucking chance.

So when the cops got back to me, I told them nothing, I told them I heard the gunshots while I was down there skipping school, fucking around, and when I saw the two through the trees, I simply saw them get hit, and from there I legged it.

The police never found the shooter, ballistics came back negative, same results as before. Nothing, inconclusive. But this time there was a lot less evidence, as the bullets were mangled beyond any hope of anything ever being found on them.

That was 20 years ago now, now, here, in 2026, this is what I do.

I kill people. And I'm fucking good at it.

In, out, through any metal detector, any checkpoint, any body search, any X-Ray Machine, no matter how tight your security, if I can walk in, past whatever you set up, then I'm there, and I'm deadly.

Sometimes I have a bit of fun with it, I'll go over the top. Sometimes the client specifically requests it. I have studied up on this over the years, ballistics, trajectories, firearms, I know what does what with what, and what can cause the best effect I'm aiming for.

But it still makes me chuckle when someone is dispatched with a .50 Browning Machine Gun Round from an Anti-Materiel rifle in a shopping centre, the kind of thing that you'd think someone would see, but no, no one ever sees it.

Sometimes I have to be inconspicuous, so I'll be browsing the kids section playing with the toy guns, I'll pretend to aim it around the store, same kind of thing your average person does picking up a toy gun. But all I have to do is think about the real world equal, and that's what effect I have.

But tonight, this was my biggest night yet.

I'd been contacted, as per normal, through the usual channels on the dark web, paid in advance in Bitcoin, fully, people trusted me now. All the items had been arranged and delivered as per my requirements, and I'd went out and bought myself a snazzy new suit for the occasion.

But tonight was my biggest job yet, my target was the biggest one I'd ever had. Which came with it the biggest payout I'd ever received.

For tonight I was killing the President of the United States.

I'll backtrack a bit, you likely know this guy, in fact, you do know him. President Donald Trump, the “Accidental President” as some call him.

Back in 2021 when war broke out with China, and with the sitting President dead of a heart attack, what was his name....I can't fucking remember, the Vice President was only in office for about 6 months before being impeached, at this critical time, the public was decisively unhappy with the government, so the Congress made the call to have a Mid-Term election to elect a new president.

Donald decided to run again, and on the wave of the same rhetoric that got him in the first time, it was a landslide.

Now, if you thought he was a terrible president during peacetime, that man can lead during a war. No matter what your opinions of the man, he made decisions. He was decisive, he was energetic, and he didn't care about the cost. He would win.

The war was over in a pretty short order, sure, the Chinese managed to wipe out Guam, they were the ones who decided to go nuclear. However unknown to anyone at this time, the US had a number of “Communications Satellites” in orbit, that, yes, while functioning as correct, full blown Communications Satellites, some of them for civilian carriers, they had actually strategically placed a number of Nuclear Weapons on orbital platforms.

Within hours of Guam being obliterated, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Tianjin were obliterated. Gone, reduced to ashes.

The US retaliation was swift and shore, and this brought the Chinese to the table, just like it did with Japan in 1945.

One of the biggest reasons was that with the heavy reliance of both Military's on satellites, and the fact the US had managed to hide a “Substantial Number” of nuclear devices in orbit, the Chinese were legitimately scared, they couldn't blow every damn satellite out of the sky “just in case”

So the surrender was swift and sure. Job Done.

Coming off the back of that, his re-election was ensured, and that brought us to tonight.

The opening premiere of “Donald Trump: The Accidental President”, and POTUS himself was in attendance.

So I did the usual thing, pretended I was a member of the visual effects team that helped make the movie, and I'd won the lottery we had amongst the crew to get into the event and meet POTUS, no one suspected a thing.

Of course, security was tight, as you'd expect. Being in the same room was the only way to get away with this one, the Secret Service guys had pulled out all the stops here, they had body scanners going, full X-Ray Machines you had to walk through, plus the metal detectors and the wands, dogs to sniff you out.

Of course, I breezed through it all with no hassles.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the movie was shithouse, it was a two and a half hour absolute wank fest of shit that clearly was made for propaganda over anything else. I've seen better TV on my morning cartoons! Hey, don't give me shit, a grown man can still enjoy cartoons!

Anyway, my opportunity approached, for this time I'd decided I wanted to be sure, I wouldn't get a second shot at this. So Dirty Harry style I was going with a .45

POTUS stood up and made his now iconic move for a Job Done, he mimed a finger gun, pointed it at the crowd, mimicked the old cowboy of firing it off and blowing the smoke away.

The whole crowd pointed back and him and....

That was it.

Job done.

People running, screaming, terrified they were pouring out the cinema, me along with them, feigning panic at the sudden shock of it all.

The secret service guys were all guns out, trying to see the shooter.

We ran panicked into the street, most of us running for blocks.

When I saw my chance I slowed down to a jog, then a walk, and then started strolling down some back streets.

Eventually I found a little hole in the wall pub, bar, whatever the fuck they call them here.

I pop in and order a beer, sweet, they have Great Northern here, but at fucking $16 a bottle. Fucking hell, as an Aussie it's hard to get Aussie beer anywhere but Australia, and you pay through the fucking nose for it.

Anyway, I pop out my phone, head onto Reddit. Already on the front page, and it's only been half an hour. I think that's a new record for me.

I smile to myself as I drink my beer, then I get a ping.

I flick open my Proton Mail, then drop my phone.

Picking it back up I read the message again, then again, then another time to be sure.

The words on the screen blinking at me, it's from another Proton Mail account, so untraceable really.

No subject, the body simply reading:

“We know who you are, we want to talk. We want your services for revenge. Good work by the way.”

I lock my phone, slip it into my pocket, finish my beer and walk out into the night. This has never happened before, and I need some time to digest this.....

submitted by /u/Rumbuck_274 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/32ZCSH0

#Blogger #Story

[missenden]

1.7.12 8:05pm

Half the year has gone already ??? What ??? How ???

This has probably been the best few months I’ve had in a long while. Granted, they weren’t without their difficulty, but I think there were less meltdowns and bad periods than usual? It can be hard to tell in hindsight, but I’m happy anyway. It’s been a good time and I’m sad to see the semester end…

There are so many things to cover – gonna list them out here so I don’t forget to write about anything. Uni (academics and new friends), piano, fic, boxing, quitting SYO, what else? I think that’s it for now.

I haven’t updated for legit like 3 months so this is probably going to take fkn forever. But here goes. So uni has been a bit of a rollercoaster – my first midsems for econ (maths and micro) were god awful. I didn’t think it was possible to do as badly as I did in maths, a solid 4/25 and barely a pass in micro with 15/25. It hit me hard – I wasn’t super confident going into them, but no-one expects to do quite that badly, and to be honest I’m used to working hard and getting the results. I probably should’ve seen it coming. The practice tests weren’t going great and I was probably too confident going in. But yeah. It was a real reality check. Are you as smart as you think, Alyssa? Never. So after about a week of just crying and being real upset at Don (the shittiest lecturer I think I’ve ever had; he wouldn’t give me marks because he was ‘too annoyed’ that I’d gotten so many things wrong previously’, laughs at people in class, tells people to quit their jobs to study for maths…yeah. I know I’ll probably look back on this and laugh at how trivial it is, but man during semester it was annoying.) life had to move on and I had to move on with it. Julia came to Sydney in the midsemester break which was pretty great (it was real nice to hang out with her again and relax!) and then I began to work my ass off for my law assignments before starting to prep for the next econ midsems.

To be honest, I pretty much gave up 2-3 weeks of my life working for law and econ…but it’s not like I didn’t really enjoy it. I really enjoyed working with Tom and then eventually with Soo as well on the contracts assignment, even with the long hours cooped up in my room, poring over casebooks and PDF judgments online (control F has never been more useful I think). There was something about being so absorbed into the knowledge and being so dedicated to something that was just so great – most people would hate it, but I’m glad I don’t. Even working on CCP wasn’t terrible ! Those assignments worked out great; 25/30 for contracts (the top mark was 26), and 16.5/20 for CCP (I think I might have been close to topping!). I never thought I’d see the day where I did that well in law, and that those marks would ever be better than econ lol. But I was mostly glad that everything worked out the way it did – I think it would’ve killed me if I hadn’t done well after so much work. Anyway, hopefully those results can save me from the horror of exams…I’m glad I have at least something of a buffer.

And econ…econ was something special. I have never worked on anything as hard as I did for that maths exam, and to an extent the micro paper as well. All I did was eat, sleep, mandi and study for a two week period – I’m very lucky that I was living in college and that my friends were always around me, because otherwise I probably could’ve become a real hermit. I think it was about then that I really started to fall in love with the maths a little bit lol. There’s this satisfaction that I got out of it that I’d never gotten before. But yeah. After two crazy weeks, I did the papers and scored damn well – went from 16% in maths to 84%, and 60 in micro to 75. By some insane coincidence I’m now exactly on a pass for maths – hopefully it’s enough to carry me into honours next year. I was just so desperate to prove to myself and everyone around me that I could do this, and that I wasn’t an idiot. And I’m glad I did – it’s one hell of a story to tell at job interviews at any rate. But that feeling of success when I first got the maths mark back was absolutely phenomenal. I remember it really vividly – I was waiting out on the street waiting for uber eats when Connor texted the group chat saying that maths marks were up. My nerves were astronomical, but when I saw that number…man. That feeling was something else. All the hard work had been well worth it just for that moment. The feeling is absolutely amazing; I just hope that I’ll be able to experience it again when the exam marks come back.

So yeah – that’s the academics. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. Hopefully I can deliver in exams too, and get through with decent looking grades.

There was another great outcome of the second set of midsems – I met this amazing group of friends who do economics at uni. They’re all so welcoming and wonderful and genuine !! I just wish I could’ve met them sooner. For most of the semester since then, I’ve been seeing them every now and again which has been really great – hopefully I can get closer to them next sem. I even got invited to their end of semester stuff – Wednesday night was really great <3 They are all so great. Fingers crossed I can keep hanging out with them.

Along with this group has come some boy stuff lol. Which I’m just so bad at dealing with it’s almost funny. So basically, I think this guy is probably/maybe/I think keen, and I thought I was too, but honestly now I don’t know. Part of it is remnants of all the Lynden stuff – I can’t shake this feeling that getting into a relationship means giving up my independence and losing a part of myself. And then I think the other part is I don’t know if he’s quite the right guy – it sounds shallow, but appearance is definitely a factor, and then also idk I’m worried that if things go pear shaped I won’t be able to be friends with everyone anymore. Idk, I’m just not sure. Tom keeps laughing at my indecision but honestly it’s so bad lol. And I don’t know why I keep pushing people away – is it a self defence mechanism or something? It’s very unhelpful lol and only serves to make things difficult. I haven’t quite worked this one out, but hopefully I will at some point?

On to the next thing – piano. So I’ve been playing casually all semester and really enjoying it! I think not having the pressure to play super well all the time and to just have fun is really great, but is also a little restrictive in terms of progress. At the moment I’m playing a lot of music from the movie Amelie and also Goodbye Lenin, as well as some Studio Ghibli stuff. For some reason it feels a lot better than playing violin, which I haven’t been doing too much of lately – I think a break is probably a good thing, but it also feels sad to let it go. I haven’t even applied for AYO this year, which just feels so strange. Also, I quit SYO – weirdly they never emailed me back or anything, and that doesn’t feel great, but yeah. Idk. It feels like I’m just letting go of so many things in my life which is strange – I’m so used to being committed to a million and one things, and it’s weird to just enjoy doing stuff for the sake of it how most people do, in the way of hobbies. It’ll definitely take some time to adjust to it, but hopefully I’ll get there at some point.

But actually, one thing I have picked up this semester is boxing, and it’s been bloody great. I struggled so much last year to let go of karate and try something new, but somehow I’ve managed to do it this year and I honestly feel as if I’m learning so much. Learning boxing has been a radically different experience to karate – the environment is much more full on, fast paced and intense, which to be honest is a good thing for me I think. My fitness has improved markedly, I’m more toned and feel good. The only thing I wished was a bit better is that individuals don’t get all that much attention, but you can’t win everything I suppose. But hell, I’m really enjoying it – might even be doing a fight in October, though the prospect is a little nerve-wracking. Will probably be doing a kata competition in August as well for karate, so that’ll be interesting !

This semester has really been great. I feel so much more settled in Sydney, my friendships feel much more secure and I finally feel like things are falling into place. I know I take a long time to settle in to places, but I really didn’t anticipate it taking this long lol, but I’m glad that it’s happening at all. It’s nice to feel like some kind of equilibrium has been hit, and that it’s a bit different but a bit the same as what it is at home. Also, it’s great to not be constantly missing home all the time – of course I miss family, friends and Perth itself, but it’s no longer at the front of my mind constantly and stressing me out. Not really looking forward to all the changes that next semester will bring though; everyone is going on exchange and Hintze 3 is going to be weirdly different after the break. And man the bloody room drama – at least Jesse is moving up, but I wish Charlotte was too, but also there was the whole beef with Will and blergh it’s just been annoying.

Speaking of that drama – one of the changes this sem is that I’m not as close to Will as I was before. We kinda grew apart, in part from me getting tired of having him hover all the time wanting to talk about Perth and music, and I don’t think he’s all too happy about it – he apparently things ‘I’ve changed’. But like what else is to be expected? People change and grow up, and normally friendships change to reflect that…I’m not really sure what to do about it. I’m just glad that he won’t be moving to Hintze. The whole room drama just felt very childish…

I think that’s it from me for the moment – Jesse’s just wandered in asking me to chill. Kathryn’s leaving tomorrow so should probably go hang out – things are going to be so weird next sem without her and everyone else ! But yeah. Will try and update soon.