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#which will make saving most of our money harder lmao

chirpsythismorning · 11 months

Note

Do you think there's a possibility that they might straight-up cancel ST because of the strike?

Because of the strike? No.

The only way ST would end before it was supposed to, is if the world was literally ending, or Netflix took a huge hit somehow and lost all their investors or something? Even in that case I think they would go out with a bang and invest all of their money and resources into a final season of ST tbh lmao

This does make me think about how the WGA is not encouraging the public to unsubscribe to Netflix or other streamers (yet), as a way to support the strike. I think it could be in part leverage they are saving for later, because maybe that's something they can encourage people to do if the strike is going past like the 3+ month point? It's also been said that Netflix wants to up their prices again for their plans, but with the strike going on, many are speculating that it would be too much of a risk for them to increase prices rn. If they did, say in the summer at some point, that would be a great time for the writers to tell the public to unsubscribe, because the impact would be massive since so many are already unsubscribing anyways, writers getting paid horrendously could have the potential to be the final push for subscribers already ready to call it quits.

But it also could honestly be because they don't want to totally ruin the relationship with their employer, who ideally they still want to work for when this is all over. Hurting Netflix financially with intent, is where it might get into nasty territory for future collaborations together.

This is also why I think the production for ST all around is fairly quiet. They themselves cannot do too much bc they are SOOO tied to Netflix, quite frankly they are Netflix. There's a reason they're not posting pictures together out during the strike, there's a reason all of the million dollar actors are being pretty quiet. Because when filming inevitably starts back up again and ST5 is being promoted and released, they're going to be back to praising Netflix for all they do for them. And spoiling that relationship, by going too far, might make things, at the very least, awkward in the future, or at the worst, well I don't really want to think of hypotheticals for that.

I think all they could do at this time, is have the Duffer's themselves speak out in support of the strike, disclosing that they will not begin filming ST5 until a deal is made for the writers. And so they did that, and now all they can do is wait and stay pretty quiet hoping it goes well. THIS is why they're out here trying to hint at it subtely to get fans involved. In that context the byler sign is actually quite hilarious, bc it is potentially a big spoiler and therefore a fuck you to netflix, but bc it was posted on tumblr and no one really takes us seriously, it's gone under most of the audiences radar. Like I'm pretty sure there has been zero official reporting on it, whereas the Steve one did get that. Though that one was, again also from a writers account sneakily. So there is definitely this feeling that subtlety might be their only option rn.

Otherwise when it comes to the strike in general, we've got SAG AFTRA potentially joining in, which means now you've got actors striking. And then potentially even DGA joining. Directors are a lot harder to pin point in terms of their potential support, though in this day in age, I think they have a lot more in common with being exploited just like their writers/talent do. Not saying that plenty of high paid directors aren't in kahoots with studios, but also, the honest ones want a good environment for their productions and I doubt they would want everyone below the line hating them (and it being rightfully deserved).

Shawn Levy is a big name director, with both ST and Deadpool under his belt. It's likely he would support a directors strike, and others among him could as well. There's only been one DGA strike in our history and I guess it lasted like 3 hrs, bc that's how fast the studios were willing to make a deal to get the directors back... So directors have a lot of power to put a stop to this hold out by the studios. Not only that, but writers, actors and directors have never in our history had a strike all at one time. We'll have to wait and see.

For a rough timeline of what is to come:

May 17th: SAG agreed to allow its members to vote on a strike authorization. SAG represents 170,000 members roughly, so that's a lot of people in the industry making that choice to potentially stop filming to strike in order to fight for a fair deal themselves. Right now, it seems like there is a lot of support from SAG saying that they will be voting yes.

June 7th: SAG will begin negotiations with AMPTP.

June 30th: The current SAG contract with AMPTP will expire. If negotiations between the TV/Theatrical negotiating committee and the AMPTP are unsuccessful, the National Board may declare a strike. The current DGA contract is also set to expire that same day as the SAG. This would essentially be like May 1st with the writers strike all over again. If a deal isn't reached on June 30th, a strike could begin on July 1st.

It's possible a deal with the writers and studios could be reached before then, especially if they are preparing for the other two to strike and make deals as well. They might have no choice but to get their shit together sooner than later while that is happening.

But who knows. In a worst case scenario neither SAG nor the DGA would strike and it could go longer without more support. The support right now from the public is also good, but it will need to continue full force and not dwindle if we want to see things get resolved sooner than later.

Very cautiously optimistic rn, but prepared for anything to change.

#byler #stranger things #st writers #duffer brothers

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misterbitches · 3 years

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hi! this is long as shit i’m sorry. i hope it makes sense. i ahve adhd and like 5 million learning disorders so this is just word vomit cos there’s so many words in my brain. my b.

i’ve had such a tough day so thank you for replying and sharing! @yeedak

i was thinking about what i wrote and i meant to clarify that as well. some cases are fine for both parties and it’s not like you weren’t consenting and it seems like you were happy! same with my friend who was dating a 20 yr old. if they’re happy you know i’ll clown on ‘em but yea. so for anyone that sees these posts your relationship with your partner who is older or whatever. i’m some dumb girl on the internet okay. ill side eye older ppl tho

i think a lot of people feel the same way you do now (me included.) it feels really good at the time but alter we can see the dynamics playing out. i’m 29 now and i think aging is just such a huge process. it’s wild how you at 31 are a totally different person, right?

and the US racism is probably some of the worst ever in its iteration because of slavery which started from europe etc but USA is so fucking unique bc of columbus bringing slaves here and displacing indigenous peoples or hispanola and because america is so influential the way it views race, particularly with black people as objects, has so deeply permeated into the current historical psyche globally. it’s fascinating to track how necessary anti blackness is to the flourishing of america but also the world at this point. also want to point out how fuckign scary sinophobia is here especially for covid. one is a straight historical line (black ppl + the US) and the other had to be manufactured and to continue to exploit the non-white americans and keep antiblackness in tact.i could go on about this all day. the pain of this place is immense.yet as bad as it is here, this is still the only place i truly feel safe as a black person. because of the unique experience we have in america and through the diaspora especially because we are veyr much ocncentrated here. it would be nice to like move to norway and have some alleviation financially or get free healthcare it’s just not feasible if no one looks like me. it’s fucking tough.

i hope you don’t hate it here though and people treat you with respect. but as you know being a woman and jewish and an immigrant....shit is tough. the USA is a hellhole. :( america is so deeply tainted and desperately bad because it was founded on strife and blood and there’s no way to reverse that and what this country did in turn when it gained enough power and could capitalize off of the colonial forefathers. this is why we hsould all luv revolution!!!

HOWMEVERRRR

boy oh boy oh BOY OH BOYYYYYYYY. well wlecome to the world of BL lmao especially as an adult with some obviously deep perspective just given your background. it is a fucking mess and it’s a hard mess to like but it pulls you in. i approach it like i do with soap operas since these are essentially telenovelas, you know? just like the drama at a billion. but the tricky part of that is like....what parts of it do we understand for critiquing? because so many of the shows are so bad at being like good pieces of things to look at just production wise and story wise. but i feel like these shows ask us to take them seriously, so why shouldn’t we take the content seriously? and this is being primarily peddled to young girls.

i bring this up often but i read this thing about yaoi and the interest younger women/girls have in BL and its fascination with pederasty essentially. this component i think is key when we talk about who gets affected by these things the most. society in general is bad 4 girls bla bla we know lmao but in “more sexually conservative” societies it may be harder for these girls to feel safe even expressing normal emotions romantically and sexually and particularly with guys. some people hypothesized, and i think i agree with this hypothesis, that they can live through the casualness of BL. they don’t feel threatened because they can put themselves into the shoes of the other character. oftentimes, the more feminine or the younger. this was in conjunction with the age gap aspect (they say pederasty as well because there’s unethical age gaps that r gross and that is indeed what we would at least call a touch of sexual abuse if people dont feel like calling it an obsession with youth and power and uhhh young ppl and perhaps kids) where maybe girls could see themselves in these situations as the person being saved, loved, taken care of, and sadly also sexually active and penetrated.

i think that’s just one aspect of it but i do think there’s validity in who gravitates towards it. i cannot imagine seeing this stuff and not getting enough information as a young kid, i sure as fuck know i didn’t!, and seeing these things and you look at it with 0 critique because you’re young and you may have no interest in it or you simply cannot understand what is wrong. no one is teaching you these things and these shows confirm it. and it is wild how intrinsic patriarchy is to BL although in its existence it also can’t be in line with patriarchy given the nature of two [cis] men!

it begs the question about the replacement aspect. is it just so girls can put themselves in these characters shoes? if so then that means we believe that gender is so interchangeable within our relationships and interactions and that doesn’t seem right. there’s more to lgbtq+ than just existing; it’s finding ways to communicate, finding a family, safety, your people, being a free person. there’s a lot to gain and a lot a lot to lose. and a gay man is also not a woman because those are also two distinct experiences. especially in societies that have a more hidden aspect to sexuality (idk how to word this bc the BL industry would NEVER survive in america but in a way there’s a more “progressive” look at homosexuality but it’s still fucked up because we live in a Society, you know? at the same time look at what we are doing to trans kids. literally waging war so it’s bonkers how we all collectively have some real progress happening but at the same time not at all. the concept of ‘ladyboys’ and the frequency we see trans people in thai shows is wild and something that we absolutely do not see here in the US. still, none of these groups feel safe or are getting better material conditions in either place. we just show the ways we can try and tolerate oppression witout eliminating it imo)

to me it is clear: it’s money. which most things exist to make money so. but also who is the audience for these shows? and they have to market towards them. all that said all hope is not lost there are some decent shows. it’s just like regular media on TV though where it’s so fucking saturated as an industry that it’s literally sifting through garbage. and there are some days when you can handle the trash and others where it really fucking hurts to watch the violence, the rape, the manipulation, the violations, the stupid messaging. i have never seen more people trying to do mental gymnastics and seeing if things were “technically rape” than in teh BL fandom and that is so fucking sad.

i came into these shows at 28 with almost 0 clue of what as media BL was like esp as media that countries can use as soft power with the revenue. but i realize like...i’m 29 now and so many people don’t have a sizeable, though not huge, amount of life experience. and i wonder for people on the internet who are usually searching for something if they spend so much time on it like what a 15 year old girl thinks. what a 20 year old girl thinks.

it is incredibly problematic and so awful but there’s also some rewards. if you haven’t i would definitely watch i told sunsset about you which i don’t think i’m going to finish and i doubt i’ll watch the second installment (watch this be a lie) but when i say some fucking impeccable storytelling and art? phew. now that is a fucking piece of media that works. it takes from moonlight heavily and you can see like...the artistic dedication is there and the story makes its world and sets up its stakes extremely well.

i think because this is marketed towards much younger people too they know they dont have to try as hard. but they SHOULD because then you can have a fucking masterpiece like that. i think even this prolific gay thai filmmaker (who is like solidly against the government) who is so respected (and who i like a lot! if u wanna know i can tell u lmao but the films are very uhhhhhhhh “artsy”) would like i told sunset about you. i wish more people had budget like that and also just cared about the stories. it’s the fucking magic of art to figure out what you can do but there is very little incentive honestly. idk i am very pessimistic. there are days when it’s really a great pick me up and distraction but it is never a place i would love for to feel seen or heard but i’m more of the mind of i never trust the mainstream until they prove me wrong ;)

or i never trust the mainstream and i still buy into it anyway and then cry when i don’t like what i see adn i yell “BOO GET OFF THE STAGE!” when an old man won’t leave a teenager alone

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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games i have tried on project 64 in the three days i’ve had it working, in order:

kirby 64 - this is why i downloaded the emulator to begin with. kirby 64 is the ultimate feel-good game and i was really surprised at how easy it was. there are 6 planets with 4-5 stages each and each stage also has the requirement of collecting 3 crystal shards apiece. in just two hours i breezed through the first three planets and got almost every single collectible along with way with no do-overs

snowboard kids - not just a favorite of my brother and me but THEEE heavyweight champ as far as n64 racing games were concerned, even beating out mario kart 64. i also have snowboard kids 2, which improves upon the original in every possible way, but if i started playing that i would never have gone back to the original. it’s basically mario kart without brakes; you ride downhill, you can shoot other players with missiles, etc. it’s also a lot fucking harder than i remembered. i have no idea how we beat this at age 10 or whatever. it’s amazing that two decades and change later my muscle memory still tries to hit the c buttons when i’m holding a ps4 controller (i tried to get my gcn controller working, but i have a shitty adapter :/). i had more luck going back to the early courses and replaying them; they were easier than when i started, so i guess it’s kind of like riding a bike. i still haven’t gotten the gold on the last course though which means i have not unlocked the three hidden courses. they look really familiar so my brother and i must have gotten them, and if a couple of elementary school kids can do it, i can do it. no snowboard kids 2 until i finish the original :| and no save states either!!! however tempting it is. we didn’t have save states in 1997!!!! what’s funny about this game is that my brother’s favorite character to play as (spiky haired kid) and my favorite character to play as (girl wearing pink) are siblings in-game.

aerogauge - basically a rip-off f-zero except you can play in first person and your car can fly. this one aged VERY badly...my brother and i LOVED playing vs as kids because of the aforementioned first person flying cars and it’s definitely the reason we got so hooked on the gcn f-zero later in life, but playing solo against the AI is a form of self-punishment. also, i don’t remember how to boost and the game won’t tell me LMAO so i keep coming in last place. i may google up an instruction manual later and give it another try, but all the comments on that youtube video say it’s a notorious dumpster fire (something i never suspected as a kid) so maybe it’s just better with another real human being to play with :(

bomberman 64 second attack - this is another one that might be better with a second real human. my brother and i used to do the co-op with me as bomberman and him as pommy (a BLATANT kirby rip-off) but it’s another case of me not remembering all the controls and the game not explaining them very well. so far i’m finding it tedious that you have to move very far away from your bombs after planting them but i seem to remember the gameplay after the tutorial level being downright addicting. will have to come back later

dk64 - absolute CLASSIC that i really wanted to replay ever since i got my hands on the dk dlc of mario + rabbids. dk rap is exactly as charming as i remembered. the cutscenes are HILARIOUS and i keep getting surprised by things like the word butt, the word hell, voice acting, etc - thank you, rare. so the experience is wonderful but i got a little frustrated with the constant tutorials and i’m having a lot of trouble with the controls. the stick feels way too sensitive and i keep falling, the x and y axis are reversed from what i’m used to, etc. i think i just need more practice. my brother beat this as a kid but i never did

harvest moon 64 - my first harvest moon game EVER. we used to rent this all the time from our grocery store’s rental area (lol yes really the 90s were a Time) and my brother and i kept getting devastated when other people who rented it deleted our files, so finally my mom gave into begging and bought us our own copy (probably saved her a ton of money). this one is like. it’s harvest moon, high king of farm sims, but also i never have enough time or energy to get anything done, which also makes it a very realistic mental illness simulator. it is INCREDIBLY tedious to take things out of your pack and put them in the little harvest box and the music restarts itself every time you change areas. it’s still fun as hell but the quality of life improvements made in the gcn version and other games like stardew valley means when i am playing this i kind of just want to be playing those instead. it did not age well. and there’s so much missable stuff!!! it makes me feel like i need to be having a guide out 24/7 and i can’t just...get lost in the game. i forgot what i used to name all my animals and the farm etc (except obviously the horse was epona) so i went with scooby for the dog and aces for the farm name (not enough character for rainbow, smh). may or may not go back to that one.

anyway so far i am unsurprisingly spending most of my time on kirby and snowboard kids but i’m really looking forward to some other platformers i never finished as a kid like the banjo kazooie games, rocket robot on wheels, and FUCKING glover. i remember dying a LOT on that one :|

#personal #liz plays n64 #i feel like it'd be stupid to have a liveblog tag for each of these games separately so...#hopefully i won't have to go back and make new ones later.

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grimoire-of-seven · 4 years

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Because I’m an angsty bitch, could you do a head cannons from the seven with a terminally ill MC? Or at least really, really sick. Thanks! Love your writing 💕

PROMPT: “If Only We Could Have More Time…”

Rating: SFWWords: 600-700Characters: Demon Boys + MC / Gender-Neutral ReaderNotes: Hi! I tried not to make the situation all much worse by means of pressing too hard with the subject in a sense, but to end it with something both parties could cherish. I hope you will all enjoy it!~Oh! And this is written in their perspective.~

Lucifer

Shit..Shit..Shit..

F*ck..

Screwsaving face, the Avatar of Pride himself soon began sprinting through the palehallway, missing to register himself by the lobby as his eyes were fixated bythe red beaming light under the sign; emergency room.

It was imprudentto put his phone to silent at his meeting with the prince of Devildom. Heshould have known better not to… otherwise, he would have read your messagehalf an hour ago, their voice replaying in his mind as his feet quicken itspace.

“Heyumm.. Luci? I know itis a bad time to call you.. but umm.. I’ll be having my operation again in anhour according to the doctor. I hope you’ll take it easy with those meetings and take care!”

“I’msorry sir but you could not enter from this point on. I’m afraid you have towait at the waiting area.”

“But Ineed to see them! Are they already there?” The light-bringer tried to reasonwith the man in a white coat but to no avail. His fears only heightened whenthe doctor reminded him of the day’s operation and how it could grave it couldgo further..

“They do tend to get worse every cycle..”“Why?”“Because each infusion gets harder and the doctors say that Ishould expect that I’ll get weaker every moment.”“Then why place yourself in that situation..?”

Thosebitter words clung into the air as the embodiment of Pride could no longer holdhis composure as one of the nurses by the station assisted him to take a seat.With his fingers entwined together, letting his chin rest on it, his feetclearly indicate how uneased his spirit was as the sole continues to move upand down as though it were to pounce to the emergency room.

Lookingthrough his surroundings, there were also people under his shoes. Hands claspedtogether with their forehead close to it, mumbling under their breath as thoughthey are talking to…

God?

Prayingat every second spared before the judgment on the other door. And…

Should he do the same?

“Ma’amChase?”“Yes?”“Yourdaughter is doing fine now. The operation was a success thanks to Dr. Pomatter.”“Oh thankGod! Can I go see her now?”“Yes, ma’am!This way.”

Thank God?They are thanking… Father?

He hadresented any forms of communications within the Celestial Realm, only forming aprofessional relation to Simeon and Luke under Diavolo’s rule yet… why are histhoughts claiming otherwise?

No.Why should he ask for mercy?He is Lucifer.The eldest and the leader of his pack.A fallen angel to whom prowess never left, despite his glorytainted by the burning sulfur.Yet here he was, incapable to put Death far back on his drawingboard for picking his human for its next kill.Unable to take his human out of it…

Takinghis focus away from the mortals that surrounded the waiting area, thetelevision played a soap opera and with no remote to control its channels, itwas projecting a tragic scene with the woman dead on her lover’s arms.

What if their life would be cut shorter than it already is becauseof this operation?

Could he ever digest the thought that within those times they weretogether, he did not spend it wisely because…Because he let his pride in between? Because he considered hisreputation more than..

Closinghis eyes once more, taking in a series of deep breaths, he, the Avatar ofPride, has always seen the display of empathy as a visage of helplessness andit was their little exchange student that demonstrated it to him otherwise.

Nonetheless,with his human weak.. why should he too, present himself in the same conditionjust because of his worries?

It wouldnot be right.He doesnot want to see his human frown just so his face is.

Maybe there is something he could do.. He thought to himself. Ifhe could not bail his human out of the cold-lighted room, perhaps he could maketheir stay un-cold. Something that could make him see them smile again.

Lookingthrough the window as the room itself has proven itself unable to distract thedemon on his own thoughts drowning his own rationality, there was a signagebeaming with fluorescent lights that made him stand and read;

“Seven..Eleven..”“I wonderif there have any ice cream there..”

Mammon

For being the Avatar of Greed, he sure do brag about bein’ their little human’s first to ever make a pact with. He ain’t letting it pass on as just that.

Just to see his brothers sneer and hiss from mentioning it.

It’s like this bullet that could penetrate even to the thickest skull out there.

An accomplishment and for once, it was a pact he felt that wasn’t a curse. The witches should def. take down some notes from his human~

Yet…

He thought to himself…

There’s no one like his human.

Recalling how his human would ride along to every trouble he creates, every idea he makes, it was this exchange student who was only staying a year that somehow, taught him companionship. And…

He couldn’t take it out of his chest, that he, the Great Mammon, had failed them.He was their first demon to ever make a pact with yet he didn’t do much being one.Perhaps, thinking now, most of them did more than he.Showed more care. Provided more care.And all he did was to get himself out of troubles and the consequences of his actions.Correction: It’s his human that would bail him out… like a mom.

But then, was there anything he could do to being with?

“Dang.. How much am I going to pay you now?”

His human has never even once mentioned of this illness resulting to Death..Well, all diseases would lead to Death but not with this higher rate of going to Death.It‘s like a parade to Death with his human the star of the show.

“I knew I should have bought Boardwalk the moment I landed on it the first time round!”

Maybe he should be the one to blame here.Maybe he didn’t ask more. Known them better.To think even money could betray him because there’s no known cure yet for them.Just like what the doctor said.

“Rent revenue of 50 dollars plus a three houses, umm..”

“Mammon?”

…

“Mammoney?”

…

“MonMon!”

“Ya?” Clearing his headspace, the Great Demon of hell went straight to his Boardwalk card. Sure thing that the visit was expensive. He’s getting all the money from this human plus his property, that’s… for sure..

“Is there something wrong?” they asked, their eyes piercing and hoisting only the truth on the sea of lies, he had come up of saying; “For you not to be interested with mone–“

“I wish I could have known this sooner..”

“Mammon..”

“I could have not wasted your time too much with tossing you from one chaos to another.. and—“

“Mammon…” taking his hand with theirs to entwine with, their little cash-based board game folded in half as they inched closer;

“Why didn’t you ask me to make it go away?”

Did his voice just crack?

“Mammon..”

“I’m the first demon ya got to make a pact with. I got some witches and we might have been able to conjure some potion to get ya ou—“

“Because I just want to spend my time with you..

I do not want our time to be spent on looking for a cure when we could have so much more fun alone.”

Pause.

“Before meeting you, for a while, I was in your shoes too. Looking for a cure that was not there and I am glad that I snapped out of it meeting you.”

“Ummm…” the Avatar of Greed gulped down.

Did he just screw up?

“Because if it were not for you, I would not have enjoyed living. Having fun. Making troubles. I felt alive.”

For someone whose lifeline is in the near end… a demon, a particular avatar of Greed demon could only comprehend so little. Here was a human, frail and like the money he knows would soon be gone out of his pocket, talking of living life to the fullest with him..

Because of him…

“So.. are we still playin’ Monopoly or we’ll just snuggle ‘til the nurse bails you out of visitation hours?”

Leviathan

“What do you think we should play next?” Looking to his rightside, his little human was watching intently at the monitor of his laptop,completely ecstatic as he was able to defeat the final boss of the game. He wasable to manage to get through the final boss because of the UR armour pieceshis human was able to pick whenever he has to decide which crate he should openafter completing another level.

“Shall we go for.. Ruri-Chan Idol or A!3?”

“Whatever you decide on, Levi! As long as I’ll get to watch you.”

His eyes tried not to leave theirs but with his eyes inevitablytracing the cord from the IV down to their hands, injected for how long theycould have been admitted, playing video games became much more of a distractionfor him than it was for his human.

“Levi?”

“Y-y-yes?”

Making his eyes return to the person staring back at them, hecould definitely see a glistening spark as their lips curled, reaching theirears.

“Are you afraid of needles?”

Needles?Afraid of needles?Why would he be afraid of needles?

“Me? Afraid of needles? ROFL LMAO. The only thing I’m afraid of isnot having enough diamonds to purchase another UR Ruri-chan for the next event.”

It wasnot the needle that he was afraid of..But rather, on how swollen their hands are.It must have taken a lot from them..

“Then why are you looking at it like it’s some boss level at oneof your video games?”

Just as there were no room left to insert an excuse from hisinventory, he shifted his attention back to his folder of video-games that hewas able to install for offline playing purposes when he heard them laugh oncemore.

“Look at my hand, Levi! It looks like a balloon. I can’t move it..”

“Let me get the nurse then.”

“Why aren’t you saying ‘lol’ or ‘lmao’?”

Leviathan dead-panned looked at his human for quite some time, hiseyes fixated on theirs going to their hand and back again;

“You want me to lol when your hand looks like it weighs a ton?! Ifthis were an otome game, your intimacy with me would go down!”

“I am just kidding.. hahaha”

That laugh. That silly laugh that even a shut-in could not helpbut be flustered every time his ears are graced with it.

“I already rung the nurse station. Someone would come assist meanytime soo-“

“Good day, how could I be of assistance, sir?”

A woman dressed in all white looked at him before it was able todetect the cause of her call.

Her hands soon untangled the weave by his patient’s left hand, askingto keep their hand still as a ball of cotton soon veiled how the needle wasejected from…

And that was when he turned away from the scene and gave the nursesome space as he went through once more to his file of games..

Whichgame would best distract me?

He could always trust his video games.Video games has always shut him out of facing the outside world.Had always been his comfort blanket.But with him always in this comfort blanket, could he be truly there to supporthis human?

“You could look now, Levi!”

Why arethey smiling? What is there to smile? One hand told to be careful and anotherstuck on a board so it would not bend and have the needl—Maybe he is, sort of, afraid of the needle…Because of how it could be dangerous to them!

“How could you be so chill in all of this?”

“Because, I’m used to it?”

“But you see me with every boss level. Yes, I am used to gameshaving boss level but it is still different..”

“Well.. it was quite painful..”

Then whyare you so chill about it?Is this perhaps.. jealousy with how their human could handle things that ademon couldn’t?Him shutting in and them.. facing it?

“But today, I feel fine today.~”

“How come?” the Avatar of Envy looked once more to their hands,knowing how their left hand would soon be swollen too after a couple of IVs anddays..

“Because I have you.~”

Thishuman..

Sensing his cheeks go crimson red in heat, he tried concealing hisface with one hand, hearing once more that silly laugh, making him moreflustered. “Warn me next time when you’ll go cheesy, human.”

“How about this.. I’ll play a game and you will watch whileresting on my shoulders.”

“What will you be playing?”

“Do you have that game where the owner of a fast-food restaurantof chickens in a dating simulator?”

Satan

“Sorry, I’m late.”

Watching his human finish the last spoonful of their supper andpausing a video from their phone, it was prominent to his tone how angry he wasto himself. Mixed with frustration as his efforts of spending more time at thelibrary, looking at every bookcase for a book with a solution to theircondition, wasted as he found none.

Of all the spells and ancient writings, Devildom is provided with,none could enlighten the Avatar of Wrath on how he could just make theirillness non-existent which only added fuel to the fire considering how there isa book that could swap two entities to the other’s bodies but none about makinga mortal’s terminal illness gone.

“What were you listening to?”

Trying to put the subject or reason of his tardiness to rest bymeans of bringing up another conversation, right now, what the devil wants, isto turn his brain from overthinking off, and more on thinking about them.

“Oh! I was listening to a podcast with a holographic fanatic.”They beamed as though they had spent their time fruitful compared to his. “Youlook a bit tired..”

“A bit tired?”

Are hiseyebags prominent once more? He most definitely would not like to put his humanin worries or to even look tired.That he took from Lucifer.

“But still pretty charming.~”

“Now that is cheesy.”

Putting the food tray and the food container that looks similar tothose at the cafeteria away and near to the door, he saw his human shiftingmore towards their left, a clear invitation for him to be nearer, resulting toSatan putting his coat by the sofa readily available for a visitor.

“What was the podcast about?” He asked as he kept on shifting toattain that perfect and comfortable position to lie down next to them. The bedwas not relatively bad, much to his surprise.

“Just mundane stories that I just missed while being in here.”

If only asickness could tremble and run with his wrath, he would have done it in a snap.Why does sickness have to constrict someone from living?Especially them?

“I’d rather hear about you.~”

Surprised, his features were much more of confusion, somethingthat made his little human laugh and smile as though they were not in such confinedsituations.

“About me?”

“Mhmm!”

There itis again. Those kitty-like eyes.Those eyes that would make him fall for them once more.And make his cheeks flustered and in heat.

“What about me?”

“Anything. Childhood, fondest memories, life as a student..anything! I just want to hear more about you.”

“There is nothing to tell.”

“Eh?”

“Well, there is nothing interesting about me, darling.”

“Don’t say that!”

Hethought he was the Avatar of Wrath..But with his human angry at his reply..He could be dethroned with that title and just be the VP of being the Avatar ofGreed.

“You are interesting!”

“Darli—“

“You truly are! You are interesting to me.”

Interestingto me.

Sensing his ears getting hotter and hotter, he looked up by thepale ceiling, the fan spinning round and round when he felt an arm wrap aroundhis abdomen, warmth coursing through; “Pleeeeaase?”

“All right, all right. Maybe I could tell you how Asmodeus taughtme how to lie to save a kitty.”

“Yay!”

Asmodeus

“Asmo?”

Sensing his fingersentwined further to theirs, the Avatar of Lust fluttered his eyes open, seeingtheirs holding a reflection of himself making his body jerked itself to functionand boost up at once.

“You’re awake!”

How long was he asleep?

“Good morning, beautiful.~”

Beauty?Now now, little human..Let the Avatar of Lust handle the flirting.Although hearing their compliment was definitely more boosting than any reserved slot or timefor spas and saunas.

“How are you feeling,dear?”

Looking through his phone,it was already 4am by his lockscreen, garnering how the Beauty himself wouldalready have underbags on his eyes. But that is something a cold slice ofcucumber and sleep would cure. Unlike theirs, where the operation was rather concerning in regards of how their body would take it. How the body will heal and take in the changes..

“How long have you beenhere, Asmo?”

This human..When will they ever learn to answer before asking?

“Just an hour ago. Then Ifell asleep instantly.~”

Lies.He had been there for hours and perhaps a day?It had been so long since he moved from his seat from their operation and truthbe told..His buns.. his “ass”ets are kinda flat by now.Nevertheless..He would not miss being the first demon his human would see when they wake up.Never.

And to think he was out-waken by his human.

“Was there a nurse thatcame to visit me?”

“There was one that replacedyour IV and checked pressure while ago.”

Both eyes were soon by theIV with its fluid contents were nearly empty, something his lies however, couldnot cover.

“Wow.. Only a while ago withmy IV already up to be replaced? Asmodeus..”

Oops?

“Fine..I have been here formore than a while..”

Pouting their lips with theireyes gazing afar from his to the round décor by the wall, it was evident how hehad spent overnight beside them without any flinch or reconsidering even tomove from his seat before he could see his reflection once more on their eyes.

“You have dark circlesunder your eyes already.. Do you want to switch places? I will take a seat andyou will lie down on my bed?”

“You are not yet advised toeven sit up, darling.” The demon argued. “Dark circles could be remediedeasily.”

This human just woke up and their first concern is him?Or more specifically, his looks..Truth be told, the same could be said with him but They now come in second.His main priority is them.

“But..”

“No buts now, dear.”

Smiling seeing theirfeatures an upside down reaction to his, he nudged his seat closer to them, hesoon let his pressed his lips against their forehead before stroking a fewstrands of their hair that were, unfortunately, bit too sleek to his liking;

“Darling?”

“Hmm?”

“Want me to help you.. wash?”

“Asmo!”

Blushing at his suggestion,it was more of a concern rather than his usual evocative invitationsconsidering how several cords would hinder the progress, not to mention how thenurse would dutifully remind him of how their hand where it is injected to,should remain unmoved otherwise, blood will come out and ascend to the tube;

“I am quite serious.”

“Eh?!”

“I could wash my darlingbefore breakfast. What do you say?”

“Asmo…”

Finding this all amusing,it was quite difficult to put the talk into a more serious tone but with thenurse coming in an hour or two for their breakfast, it seems the Avatar of Lusthas to surrender it all;

“I could get a towel and abowl so you could work clean yourself while I will be in charge of cleaning anddrying it What were you thinking, silly?.”

“Oh..”

“It looks like someone ishaving a different idea. We could always do that.~”

“Asmo!”

Oh it is good to have them back.

Beelzebub

“Is this what they have inthe cafeteria?”

It was then, that even theAvatar of Gluttony found food unappetizing. They were looking rather bland andfrom the faces of the people eating, they seem to care more about filling inthe void there is at their guts rather than actually enjoying the food.

He would most certainly beable to tolerate it, especially when he sensed his tummy rumble when his palmrested on it but, for his human to also have the same experience?

It was a big no-no.

With an hour and a halfbefore the nurse or staff would give their meal for the noon, the Avatar ofGluttony followed his second brain to scout and find stores that sells betterfood.

Tastier food.

Just the thought of it hadhis stomach grumble as his nose then sniffed out, making several stops near thehospital’s vicinity, surprised with what mortals could do with simple and fewingredients that the demon presumes to be readily available.

Perhaps he should come around and know their delicacies more?He had always heard stories from them about some food that are spoken not tohis language despite being Gluttony himself.

With goodies in a largebag, truth be told, he was not accustomed to what his person would call “terminalillness”. It was a shock and the thought of it became overwhelming. His pacewere gradually slower as his mind could not erase their confession of theirailment, how they warned him, but did he listen?

He did.But he did not want to let it hinder them.And he will never let it be.

…

“That’s all for you?!”

At this point..

His eyes were fixated ontheirs, breaking its trance with the sound of the door shutting, making hiseyes travel lower down to their figure. They have been getting thinner thanthey were when they were introduced, having his rear colored with dark blues.

Perhaps, it reminded himtoo much of famine.. Seeing it onto the privileged’s eyes as they take what is supposed to be shared to others.

Taking the moment to settlewhat he had brought over by a small bedtable, his lips subconsciously drew asmile, refraining himself from making a comment or two about it.

“Why is that what you wouldalways say..”

With a giggle or two, therewas already a feast laid out on the table, making no room for the food providedby the facility, something he would just have to eat all to himself to trickthe staff, his eyes reflecting how swell they looked from sensing the newvarieties offered on their plate.

“Didn’t I mention we would have lunch together?”

“Yup. And I always get myusual hospital food.. But not anymore!~”

“Now hold on before diggingin..”

Munching the food away toreplenish the sense of famine within him, diverse yet complimenting flavors overwhelminghis tongue, it was obvious the Avatar of Gluttony could not help either to moanto compliment the divine food he just purchased or continue munching as thoughthey were alive and would run away.

“Umm.. Beel?”

“..Yes?”

Hearing them laugh ascrumbs went onto his shirt like a waterfall, his eyes fell too onto theirplate.

They have not even touched their plate..

“Could you help me slice upthis chicken?”

Is this why they are so thin?Because the food is rather inaccessible for a one-hand person?

“Of course.”

It took quite a while forBeelzebub to settle his fourth hamburger and mince to their favored sizes.

If that is the problem..Maybe he could offer them a solution instead.Him.

“Now say ahh..~”

“Beel!”

“Hmm?”

“I could do it on my own..”

“Not when I am holding yourfork, you couldn’t.~”

Belphegor

Violently shaking what heheld dearest onto his arms, not even a flinch or any movement came about totheir chest, making himself tremble, holding them closer to him.

It couldn’t be true.This is just a dream..He needs to wake up.

Belphegor could take on anyhardships there is, burden there is, but not facing the inevitable yet.. He wasnot ready yet.

And probably never will.

To an Avatar of Sloth,wasting time had been his forte, and to spend it efficiently.. is this what hisdream is communicating him with?

“Nnnn…”

“No.. no..no…”

“Nooo…”

Sensing his consciousnessseeping through, his body felt like being electrocuted by the door creaking anda stranger’s voice entering.

How long has he been passed out?

Usually, he could care lessabout such trivial matters but feeling like sleeping schedules and body clocksbut with someone’s life given with a countdown…

…

“Good evening. Is he your guardian?”

Turning his head to facethe voice, his vision soon could interpret the man as the hospital’s securitywith his record book at hand and a pen, his eyes for a moment, on Belphegor’sstate.

“Yes he is.”

There they are, sitting onthe sole chair provided for the guest with the metal rod or pole accompanying them,assisting the flow of the IV through their veins.

“Will he be stayingovernight?”

“He will be.”

“On it. Seems like he’s thepatient rather than you are. Ta-ta!”

“That’s not true…” Hemuttered, dark hues reappearing on his rear just as they were visible in hisdreams.

“Are you okay, Belphie? Youwere sleeptalking again..”

“I was?”

Shit.

“Just a random dream, Isuppose.”

By the looks of theirfeatures, it did not take too long for Belphegor to know how his response wasunpleasant.

So much for someone who just woke up..

“I just had a nightmare.The curse of sleeping too much.”

He dare not bring up hisown troubles. That would be insensitive nor does he wish to press an issueregarding their limited lifeline.. Truth be told, humans are mortal beings butwith an illness pressing them down towards the inevitable further…

“Would you like to tell meabout it?”

Tell them about it?

“It is just nothing..”

“You’re not really a goodliar, Belphie. How about we get to talk to it with a cup of coffee?”

Though the mattress wasrelatively comfortable and the pillows plump with the scent of theirs, like acertain paradise created for him, his body voluntarily get up and made them coffee.

“Don’t you think my habitsis just wasting your time?”

Crap.. What was he thinking?This is why he should have coffee first before even saying anything..Caffeine before making a mess out of himself.

“What do you mean?”

Too late. He dug himself deeper into this.

“Well..” his back facingthem as the kettle was settled down to two mugs, the powdered mix adding hue tothe pouring hot water; “I am the Avatar of Sloth and I tend to take naps moreoften.. sleep, you know… waste ti—“

“No.”

“No?”

“Because any time with youaround is time spent worthwhile.~”

Bewildered with howcheerful a mortal could be despite their lifeline drawing thinner by everyshift there is on the hands of their own clock?

“I do not understand..”

Parting his lips to gentlysway the heat away from the cup, their hands touch as they reached out for thecup, something with their heat warmer than a hot cup of coffee could provide…and it is rushing towards his cheeks;

“Because I get to hear yousnore.~”

Excuse me??Snore..Have his human mistaken him for Beelzebub?

“I do not snore!”

“You do! And yousleeptalk.~”

“That’s another thing!”

Giggles turning tolaughter, made it all the more embarrassing should he, indeed, does snore. Hishuman was someone who could not lie convincingly, at least for someone who istrained efficiently to sniff the BS out of his brothers;

“I do not snore..”

“Yes you do!” And theyproceeded to imitate it.. or make it looklike he does..?

“Okay, that’s enough..otherwise, I would make sure you get to sleep first before I do.”

“Noooooooo” and theyproceeded to sip their cold coffee, preparing themselves for the battle on ‘who gets to stay awake longer to witness the other fall asleep’.

_________________________________________________Updated masterlist here.

#obey me game #obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me headcanons #anon ask #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #satan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #mod shin-seul

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foxymoxynoona · 3 years

Note

FYI. I’m about to unload a whole story to you lol. But for some reason, I have had an urge to tell you why AMENDED is my absolute favorite story and why I relate to it.

Starting with Isabella. Me and her grew up very similar. My mother was a drug addict and alcoholic most of my life. After her and my father (who was also an addict) separated. Then came the same creepy boyfriends. But unlike Isabella, I had an older sister so that helped out a lot. My childhood wasn’t as bad as I remember because I spent most of it with my grandparents, who I fortunately still have to this day! I LOVE being with my grandparents! But it always sucked going home because of the constant fights with my mom and the uncomfortableness with her boyfriends. Of course, like Isabella’s mom. They were her top priority. Only one time did one try to touch me. I was 13-14? I’m not sure but I was in 8th grade. I told my mom right away and the only response I got was “Did he think it was me?” I still haven’t forgiven her for that. She made him apologize and he continued living in my house (Oh how much I wish I had a JK as a best friend during those times)

I moved out when I was 16 to live with my grandparents because we lost our house. My mom, sister, niece and nephew went to go live with my mothers parents (I am not close to those grandparents) And I went to go live with my favorite grandparents (My dad hasn’t been a constant part of my life for a while now) Everything was going great! I was going to school regularly and I also got my first job at the mall! Which is where I ended up meeting my first serious boyfriend.

Put it in short words, I had found my own Landon! He was sweet, charming, older. He worked in the food court restaurant, just a few stores away from my job! I was 17 and already dropped out of school and was working full time when we started officially dating. He was 20. Everything was going great but it was all moving so fast! About 3 months into our relationship he got an apartment and I moved in with him. The first few months were amazing. We had privacy, and a lot more time to spend together. What 17 year old didn’t love the idea of having their own apartment and living with their boyfriend?! I guess the age difference made it more easier to excuse his now ‘protective’ behavior.

By the time I was 18, I had met sooo many people, especially at work. I had more adult friends and occasionally they would ask me out to hang out with them and have girls night! He did not like that. He was so worried that while i was out with my friends he would call me every 30 minutes to make sure I was okay and to also ask what i was doing. Despite him going out almost every night with his brothers and friends to bars. Eventually It got to the point he never wanted me to go out at all and if i did, I wasn’t allowed back home. I was young so I stupidly let him have that control over me.

3 years later. We are still together. I turned 21 and couldn’t even go celebrate because I was pregnant. But I was happy. During those 3 years he had only become more and more mentally abusive. He was manipulative, insecure, possessive. And it took me to be pregnant with his child to finally acknowledge that. But i stayed because? I was pregnant. I didn’t want my child growing up without a father and I also didn’t want her to have parents that fought all the time because they hated each other.

Skip to after giving birth. I quickly learned he was not interested in playing the dad role. He would work and come home and play video games all night. We didn’t have anyone to watch the baby so i couldn’t work. He was not happy about that at all. After constant fights and learning he was spending his money on drugs and alcohol (despite always complaining about being broke because he had to support us), I realized I wasn’t in love anymore and told him I wanted to leave. It wasn’t a safe environment for my child and I had to grow up and realize it’s not just about me anymore but about my child. That night was the first and last time he every got physical with me. And I can proudly say that was the night I packed my bags, left and never looked back.

All that happened almost 2 years ago. I am now 23 and have a 2 year old. Things are different now and I feel like its in sync with amended’s current story line. All though I don’t have my Jk yet. I am dealing with the difficulties of letting my daughter have father time. The only reason he is in our lives is because I don’t want my child to hate me for keeping her away from him. I do get along with him, but only for my daughters sake. And because he knows this, he uses it to his advantage. Knows how to push my button and get inside my mind, especially with letting him come see her or letting her go visit him. He even has the crazy girlfriend who doesn’t like me! Lmao. I don’t let my child be alone with him though because I don’t trust him enough to watch over my child. He still wants to live that carefree life and loves being able to hand me back my child when it gets too much for him.

But that’s okay with me, because I will gladly take my child back. Right now, I’m getting my life back together slowly. But after reading your story, it has helped me realize my life isn’t over yet. I can still do things! When I am ready to meet someone, I definitely want to find someone like amended JK. Not the marriage and arrangement part lol but a man who wants to take care of me and my child and supports me and will have my back no matter what. Someone who can help me say no even when I feel like i can’t. To protect me from my Ex the way JK protects Isabella from Landon. I relate to this story so much, and I think you write it beautifully. I just wanted to say thank you for the words you write and for giving me an escape, especially when things have gotten a little too rough. It always so nice to relax and read one of your stores (:

I don’t mind if you answer this publicly or privately. I’m also sorry for the whole life story lol but I just couldn’t stop typing! I just wanted you to know how much your stories mean to me (:

Since you said I could, I’m going to answer this publicly. Because one thing I do see in reader response is often this big divide (not ALWAYS but often) between readers who have or have not been in abusive relationships, and readers who are or are not parents. And I think it’s actually really important and healthy and it was a reason I decided to post this story, because these are things that so completely change your mindset and outlook on life, but they can be really difficult to understand if you just don’t have that experience. I wanted to use Amended as an opportunity to make people stop and think and understand situations they (hopefully!) are not in themselves, or if they ARE in, have the opportunity to seeing someone grow through it and find love and security and happiness on the other side.

There are lots of my own experiences, doubts, struggles, and pains wrapped up in Isabella’s story too, though not necessarily 1:1. Sometimes they were situations or relationships I didn’t have much of a choice in (like with a bad dad), but other times they were things I could have and should have left earlier and I didn’t (like an abusive ex that I didn’t live with, didn’t have children with, separating should have been easy.) What I’ve taken away from it is that we are strong and adaptable and we go through life making the best we can and adapting to situations, and that can bite us in the ass sometimes when we adapt to situations that we should be adapting away from. But it can be so hard to do that! I think people forget too that love isn’t always logical but it can be a hell of a jail when you love someone who is hurting you. “Giving up” on someone to save yourself is really, really hard. Like couldn’t someone make the case that JK should haven’t to deal with Isabella being mean to him and should just leave? Where do you draw the line? It’s so hard!

I just want to say HUGE kudos to you. Your daughter is so lucky to have a mom who has not only done such incredible and difficult things at a young age, but that fact that you also make things harder for yourself (in having to still deal with your ex) to try and make things the best for her. Especially when you had a difficult home life... probably my love for Isabella shows already how much I love and admire you and your situation and all the women who have been in similar situations. You clearly had to grow up so so young and that sucks, that’s so unfair for you. I wish I could give you back more of the childhood and adolescent that were stolen from you.

You are helping me remember too why I like to write about moms. There is not as much media as there should be about moms where they are still the star of the story. When I had my son I realized with shock that to a lot of the world, my life is over as an individual now. That’s bullshit! The start of my son’s life story doesn’t mean the end of mine! It doesn’t mean I just become a side character in his story! It just means there’s a new sub-plot in the story of ME, and I can continue to reinvent and discover myself over and over for the rest of my life. We have to break free of this idea that mothers are nothing but mothers, and this idea that 30 or 40 or 50 are too late. Because the reality is sure, once you become a mom, sometimes the me stuff is on hold for a while in order to survive, and sometimes you’re mostly wrapped up in the mother role, and that’s totally fine. But it’s definitely not over. It’s never two late to get to “start” your story, or “restart” your story. I’ve found that often when I’m in the middle of things being hard it feels like the chance will never come, but it will, and it won’t be too late! It sounds like you are kicking ass for yourself and your daughter right now, and how incredible that she’ll grow up seeing that strength and resilience.

So thank you so so much for sharing your story. I always love hearing from you. 🥰

#amended #personal #mywriting #myao3

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Survey #353

“well i’m a creep / i’m a weirdo / what the hell am i doing here? / i don’t belong here”

If you won an all-expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world for a one week vacation, where would you choose to go? For just one week, um... maybe South Africa, actually. Two weeks would probably be more ideal, but I've learned via my friend who worked with the KMP for a year that it's very isolating and you're very disconnected from society (also from the Internet, haha), but regardless, I REALLY wanna see the meerkats. Especially with the heat and all, one week might actually be all right. How often do you get notifications on your favorite social media site? That would be Facebook, and it really depends on how much I share that day. Sometimes I barely touch it, and sometimes I share a billion things and get a few notifications of people reacting. What’s something you’re actively trying to forget/care less about, if anything? Hi, have I told you about my breakup? What was the last encounter you had with a bug? Ugh, the fucking house is having an ant problem. Apparently, it's happened before here this time of year, so a couple times a days I find one on my arm or something and crush it. What is something considered “childish” that you still like or enjoy doing? I'm certain some people would consider RP childish, given it's essentially "make believe," and that's one reason I don't tell people about it. Name a song that you have a strong emotional connection to. Why is that song so important to you? The #1 song would be "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. I've told why before and don't feel like doing it again. Is cannabis legal where you live? Nope, but it should be. How often do you walk your dog, if you have one? I don't have a dog. What is something you'd feel confident enough to give a presentation on? Me? Comfortable giving a presentation? Bitch please. Which CoVid vaccine did you receive, if any? I got Moderna. I wanted Pfizer, but supposedly they're the same thing, just different manufacterors. How do you feel you've made a difference in the world? I don't feel I have. But it's my goal in life to die feeling like I did. Do you eat any candies in a specific order? (ie: M&M's) I fucking read this as "candles" and was really confused. But anyway, yes, but not M&Ms; I only do that with candies that actually have unique tastes depending on color, like Skittles. What is one common childhood illness that you managed not to catch? I never got chickenpox. Is there an heirloom that has been passed down generations of your family? Probably, but I don't know about it. What is the most unique pet that you ever owned, or would like to? Hm. I'd say maybe a Chinese water dragon? People tend to not know what they are; they mistake them for iguanas all the time. Have you ever been in a bad car accident before? A bad one, no, but I've been in one, nevertheless. At the description of what happened though, the cop said we were extremely lucky we weren't flipped over. My mom's driving skill saved us. What is your favorite type of weather to experience? Snow! I like a steady pace of large flakes. Do you know your social security by heart? I don't, actually, but I did at one point. Now, I only know the last four digits. Would you move out your house if you could right now? Yes, even if we just moved here. Mom and I really, really don't like living in the suburbs. We miss being in the middle of nowhere. When is the last time you slept in someone else’s bed? Not since I last visited Sara's. Do you like being called baby? Not really. Like if it's from an s/o, it's all right, it's just really not my favorite. Have you ever slept in the same bed of the opposite sex? Yeah. When shopping at a grocery store, do you return the cart? I openly judge the fuck out of you if you don't. Do you think you would survive in the wilderness if you were abandoned there? I know I couldn't. Not in my shape. If you had a child at the age you’re at now, do you think you’d be a good parent? God, no. Do you eat your Oreos with milk? Yes. I strongly prefer them that way. Do you think French kissing is gross? I mean in concept I think it indisputably is, like even if you brush your tongue, it's still just... gross. But that doesn't mean I'm against it at all or won't do it when I love somebody. It's an "I accept you and your germs" thing, haha. Are you wearing make-up? What brand(s)? No. I pretty much never wear makeup anymore, even to take pictures. The last male you spoke to…is he attractive? That would be my psychiatrist, and I'm not attracted to him, no. He's like another dad to me. Have you ever had mice in your house? Back when we lived in the woods, we would have a minor mouse problem in the winter sometimes. I fucking hated it because my parents used the inhumane traps, save for one. I guess it was an affordability thing, idk. One or two got caught in that one, and I would let them go outside. Do you enjoy working with animals? It depends on what I'm doing. If I'm cleaning up after an animal, NO, because I seriously struggle with stomaching it. I canNOT touch vomit or feces, so that kinda eliminates a lot of options. Because of how physically weak I am along with hyperhidrosis, I also can't really exert myself much, so there ya go, more reasons I can't. I wish I could. Have you ever been in a tornado or hurricane? Plenty of hurricanes. If you're in a competition, are you in it to win it or just for the fun? The fun, experience, and growth. What's your favorite show on Comedy Central? I don't watch it. Which love story would you want your life to turn out like? I don't know, really. Do you usually go to sleep before or after the people you're living with? Before, at least usually. Are you into ripped jeans? Yes, though I don't wear jeans anymore. Have you ever been to any Disney parks? Yeah, Disney World in Florida. Which band has the best name, in your opinion? "Cradle of Filth" sounds pretty damn badass and unholy, I dig it. Do kids often knock on your door on Halloween? This will be our first year in this house during Halloween, so I really don't know if any will? I mean we live in a suitable neighborhood, so idk. Which one of your exes do you feel like you have the most chemistry with? Sara. Do you share the same political views as your parents? Dad, no. Mom, some. Have you ever done any internship? No. What's the last thing you got paid to do? Take pictures for someone. What's something your mother always says? "Drive like everyone else is stupid." It works though, haha. Always expect that someone you see might do something moronic and be prepared. For example, she is very adamant about us looking both ways when a light changes to green versus going immediately, and it's literally saved Mom's and my sister's lives. What's something your dad always says? To reach out to him if we ever need help with anything, and he'll do everything in his power to be there. What's your favorite thing to wear? Loose tank tops with loose-ish pj pants. What's your favorite day of the week? Nowadays, it's Fridays. Snake Discovery and The Dark Den both upload that day, haha. Do you have a favorite coloring book artist? Lisa Frank is the Wholesome Lead Bitch. Have you ever wanted to model? No. Have you ever seen someone have a seizure? Yeah, my sister. What's your favorite car? I am not NEARLY educated enough on cars to answer this. Why did you cry the last time you did? I'm seriously grieving Virginia. Her death has stricken me harder than any other I've experienced, even my own grandmother's. Who was the last person to piss you off? Probably someone on Facebook, but idr. Do you like winter? I love winter. Do you have a favorite flower? Yeah; I really like orchids. Dahlias are also gorgeous, and roses... Would you get a shamrock tattooed to your forehead for $5000? No. As great as that money sounds, tattoos are (relatively) permanent, and that would look pretty stupid imo. Are you very flexible? Not anymore. Who was the last person to tell you you looked nice? Probably Mom. Do you have the right time set on your microwave? Yeah. Do you have any old newspaper articles? Why? No. Do you have a flat screen tv or just a regular box? Flat screen. Do you like Tootsie Rolls? Ugh, no. Do you like Slim Jim’s? Oh fuuuuuuck yeah man. What color is your mousepad? Black. Do you get your eyebrows waxed? I used to, but now I just leave 'em be. Would you date someone that had a different religion from you? It would depend on the religion and the intensity. I could NOT date someone exceptionally religious. A common question: What are you listening to? Caleb Hyles and Halocene's cover of Radiohead's "Creep." Would you ever get a nature tattoo? Well, I want at least a meerkat tattoo, so. I'll probably get a snake somewhere, too. Where do your siblings work, if anywhere? My older sister is a mammographer, and my little sister is a children's social worker. Saving lives, then there's me lmao. Who do you generally talk to the most? Mom and Sara. Have you ever had a crush on someone of the same gender? Yeah, multiple times. Do you enjoy painting? Not really, no. I stress out about messing up. When, where, and why did a needle last pierce your skin? Around a week ago, left shoulder, to get my first Covid vaccine. Is there a person you talk to everyday with? Well, considering I live with my mother... I usually talk to Sara too, but a day sometimes passes where we don't. Does one of your parents ever complain to you about the other parent? Mom does that all the time about Dad. It's no shocker they're divorced. Dad's long since moved on and doesn't talk shit about her. Who was the last person you wished a “Happy Birthday” to? I actually don't remember... Someone on Facebook, I'm sure. Does your best friend have a job? Not right now, she's dealing with some wild health issues where it's much safer that she doesn't. When you move out your house (or if you already have moved out) do you plan on still visiting your parents' house? Well of course. I especially plan on visiting my mother at least once a week, either going to her place for dinner or her coming over to mine for the same. We're way too close for me to not see her. I'll still visit Dad, too. Do you usually take home leftovers if you eat out in a restaurant? It depends on what I had and if I know I'll eat it warmed up. What’s your favorite thing to have for breakfast? Cinnamon rolls. Why did you break your last promise? I barely EVER break promises, but this one I actually forgot I even made. ;_;

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''creep'' by radiohead

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obscuritory · 5 years

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The VHS preservation post is making the rounds again, so I wanted to answer a few more of the questions/responses!

@pizzahorse says:

Also laughing that 2000 tapes is only 37 tb lmao.

That’s the magic of video compression! Uncompressed video files are huge, so we decided to save uncompressed video only for unique tapes in our collection, like recordings of campus events. The quality on a lot of the VHSes is pretty marginal, so we’re saving everything else at a “mezzanine”-level quality that’s better than streaming quality but more lossy than uncompressed video.

The length of the tapes also varies a lot. Sometimes they’re three hours long. Sometimes they’re 15 minutes. It averages out to about one hour per tape.

@strangesequitur says:

I immediately googled “Of Snakes & Software” to find out just what the hell that is, but I found no answers.

According to our catalog, it’s about globalization and technological changes in India circa 1991.

@crazyndntrannyjewwithjointpain says:

i wanna do this with vhses of old gay experimental films and amateur movies by poc.

YES! These are the types of materials that are in danger. Our collections at the university tend to focus on educational and instructional material, so there’s a lot of videos like these that aren’t collected by institutions but are so important to their communities. There’s a lot of orphaned works out there, and although you might need to be cautious about how you make those videos accessible in case they’re personal or sensitive, it’s so important to make them accessible again.

@nepenthesophrosyne says:

This is wonderful, I hope y'all are allowed to do this with out of print movies as well.

We are! As long as they’re on VHS. There’s a few feature films (as they’re called in library terminology) that we’ve digitized too, but it’s overwhelmingly been educational and documentary films.

In theory, once there’s a consensus about DVD being obsolete, we might be able to do that too. But that’s a long way off, and there hasn’t even been a consensus about whether VHS was actually obsolete until recently. There’s also the issue of dealing with copy protection, which we don’t know if we’d be legally allowed to break it under Section 108( c ). That’s a problem for the future!

@4182flowerew says:

VHS isn’t dying, I have over 300 tapes in my personal collection. I do want to digitize them but only to save the money of buying them on DVD. I plan on digitizing them then saving them to flash drives with a list of everything on them on a piece of paper likely laminated. then I’m going to reuse those tapes. you can use a tape about 1,000 times on SLP before it starts to degrade then about 100 times on SP after that but as soon as it begins to degrade even in SP record one last session to it and remove the tab. and apply a sticker saying it’s dead. And even then you can only watch that last recording maybe 100 times before the magnetic coating completely disintegrates. At best after that, you can use it for recording audio because the video is shot.

Unfortunately, VHS really is a degrading, obsolete format. It’s a reality for a format that was mostly produced ~30 years ago.

There’s two problems. One is that the quality of the recordings and even the quality of the physical tape is deteriorating over time. VHSes are magnetic media, and that doesn’t last forever. And after decades, the plastic tape iteslf is starting to degrade. Across all the tapes I’ve interacted with, the ones in the best shape are professionally produced by major companies like PBS. When you start getting to the tapes that were manually dubbed or recorded off a TV, the image quality has gotten substantially worse over time to the point where many are unrecoverable. This is as good as they’ll get now.

The other issue is that there’s fewer and fewer ways to play them. We’ve stockpiled a ton of VHS players at the library because they’re no longer being manufactured. The equipment to digitize VHS tapes still exists, but there’s no telling how long companies will keep bothering to make it. For an example, time-base correctors are an important piece of hardware in our workflow that help correct the signal from a VHS player, and they’re already being discontinued.

It sounds like you have a setup where you actively use and re-record VHS tapes. That’s cool! It’s not the norm though, and most VHS tapes are old recordings that are getting worse every day. Every VHS ever made is going to deteriorate at some point.

Through either degrading quality or hardware obsolesce, it’s only going to get harder to VHS tapes them at acceptable quality unless we start digitizing them now.

@rustyrin says one thing that I really wanted to comment on:

More people should check out archive.org it is a great source for all old and public domain media. They even have a page to look at how websites looked like in the past.

The Internet Archive is an incredible resource, and one thing I want to emphasize by talking about our VHS project is that those materials all come from someone putting in the work. It’s easy to look at a bunch of old VHSes on YouTube or the Internet Archive and treat them like a naturally occurring resource, but everything up there has been digitized by someone who had to monitor the quality of the tape and possibly fix errors.

So remember to thank the folks who are doing archival work! <3

#preservation #video preservation #VHS

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thelocalshooter · 4 years

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The Local Shooter Vs. Kira

(LS) Goodmorning thank you being part of this great come up, and welcome, so Kira; do you mind telling us where you’re from and why it is that you do?

(K) Originally I’m from Mesa but I been all around, I initially got into making music by making beats. This was when I was living In Alexandria Virginia, I had a homie who had the same interests in music as me and we would try to create our own version of shit we were listening to. The homie actually put me on to a lot of legends in this scene We were barley walking into. Those artists consist of Lil Ugly Mane, Supasortahuman, and SpaceGhostPurrp, just to name a few. These influences really shaped the type of sounds I was using in my beats. I eventually started releasing my beats as $limKira just before I turned 18. I would promote myself on twitter a lot by posting little snippets of beats I was working on at that time. People would fuck with it and I was really social on my Twitter at that time always working making new connections, always sending out beats that type of shit, I happened to find myself in a group chat full of artists that were from a lot of different parts of the country and I just kept building from there. Eventually I turned 18 and made my way back home to Az were all this music shit for me really started and where I Progressed into becoming an artist of my own. FuccKira.

(LS) Being from Arizona how do you feel the music scene has changed in the last couple years? I know we’ve had prior interaction through Ace McCain but doing it back then I’m sure was a bit more different and definitely harder based off the fact people didn’t really have venue selections, or even ways to get music recorded, but now everyone is throwing shoes left and right! Do you think Arizona separates themselves within groups or? As far as being an east valley or west valley artist.

(K) Not too familiar with Ace McCain but I’m really close with Multiplexes out there, he pretty much took me under his wing when everything else didn’t pan out as planned, really good and genuine dude he is. But to be honest I feel like I haven’t been in Arizona in so long I can’t give an opinion on the current state of the music scene, I know when I was out there in 2017-2018 the group I was with would get shows at club red or it’d be a warehouse show and shit would be jumpin. Recording wasn’t really a problem for me cause we’d just record at a homies crib or wherever we were staying at, it’s all about the mixing lmao but a lot of bridges since then have been burned so for me now it’s really a matter of staying true and making good music. Don’t get me wrong although the Music scene in Arizona can get hectic, it is definitely full of talent no matter where your from within it or who you fuck with out there, and just for the record I have love for everyone out there It takes a lot to be an artist and to be a successful one at that and so it’s always respect from my side.

(LS) You’ve released many projects and have done a handful of shows, why do you think you’re still missing as an artist? Are you constantly elevating yourself to be greater or are you still trying to figure it out yourself?

(K) Facts, I have released many tracks but they’re not anything I would say I’m proud of and that’s why I’m missing as an artist because I’m still trying to figure out what music I love making. I haven't truly focused on only myself or my own progression with my music and that’s another reason why I feel I’m still missing as an artist, my confidence behind each track needs to be 100% in order for me to drop and feel good about it. That’s why most of my tracks are on private and I’ve only got 3 tracks on my SoundCloud currently . They need to be worth listening. I want people to hear my music and want the next track immediately. Shows are always fun and give people a way of seeing a face behind the music, my experience with shows has taught me it really brings a better connection with your audience/fanbase when your up there performing what they been bumping on their own time, that was a big favorite of mine out there was seeing the energy at each show. I remember waking up the next day after my first show with my whole body sore ready to schedule the next one. As far as the question goes I’m still trynna figure myself out as an artist, but progress is definitely being made. I’m always looking to make a better track than my last, so I would also say it’s a goal of mine to continue to exceed my own Expectations.

(LS) What the next move? You currently dropped “Voodoo” (https://soundcloud.com/fucckira/voodoo-prod-srry ) over 48 hours ago, now do you plan on doing any visuals or are you already back in the booth?

(K) A visual would be cool for the track, I might look into getting one made for it if the track continues to do well. Visuals are 2nd to my priority when it comes to what I’m trynna do right now. Actually releasing quality music is my main focus right now but like I said I’d be down to do a video, I actually know a couple people that can get that done. As far as any new music I do have a song ready to release prod. rose (my lil bro) , it’s wild my lil bro watched me do all this shit as a kid and now he’s making beats for other artists and myself. Deadass makes better beats than I ever did and he makes em off his phone lmaoo fuck a beat pad kids only 15 too. No doubt in my mind he’s gonna be successful. Lil dude is already building connections wit people on his own it’s only a matter of time.

K- Goals for me this year is to really gain and maintain a steady fan base. Thats something I’ve always strived for and wanted, I love when people give me feedback on how the songs make them feel, like I said energy is a big thing for me. I also would like to finally figure myself out as an artist and find my own sound I feel like I’m on my way there. Besides music I fuck with clothes heavy my homie Albert owns a brand out there called Macabre, fuckin ridiculous. I don’t own a single shirt that doesn’t say macabre. Anyway I would be down to do modeling for any upcoming clothing designers or any street wear brands. I’ve done it in the past for Garza out in AZ, (idk if your familiar) but it’s pretty cool would love more opportunities like that from other designers/brands.

(LS) With music being a main focus for you I’m sure it has a heavy impact on your life, when do you first remember falling in love with music? Was it a certain track? A certain time in your life?

K- I remember the first major thing I did for

music was use the money I had saved up for a

car to buy a new computer to make music on

because my laptop had completely died. Had to use my skate board to get everywhere until I turned 18 and got a car lmao. During this time in my life my parents trust in me was at 0 so I pretty much was secluded to my room most of the time making beats and getting high. Music was all I had when I felt I had nothing so I believe buying that computer was a pretty fuckin good decision. Just wish I coulda used Uber back then lmao

(LS) As an artist, do you find it difficult to work with other artist? Especially other local artist? Being that everyone in Arizona has their own sound, do you usually go out of state for collabs or how does that work?

K- working with other artist isn’t hard at all. I’m very straight forward when it comes to the music ima be working on. If I dont fuck with it I’ll tell you and try to find something I can get a hit with us both on. As far as Collabs go I don’t like doing them if I’m being honest. Reason being I just truly believe I’m better off on my own shit UNLESS the energy is right. If we in the Stu and everything is going right and the engineer knows what he’s doing and everythings organic then fuck yeah that’s a collab ima fuck with. Dont get me wrong I still got collabs on the way. matter of fact I have a few with some artist out of El Paso, TX

Chris Apex , Saybien and Jesse Commas just to name a few.

(LS) Are you looking to stay independent? Or to sign a deal one day? What’s your game plan as far as career wise? And why? Which do you think will help you more in the long run?

K- I wouldn’t be opposed to signing a deal one day but the freedom of being an independent artists is something that would be hard to give up. I’m really early in this scene as far as being an artist so for now I’m just focused on releasing quality music and gaining a loyal fan base. I feel if my supporters are behind me with every track I drop it’s bound to bring me more opportunities in the future.

(LS) Making music for over 5 years already, what’s are some tips or struggles you faced as an artist you’d like to let new up and coming artist know? Any motivation you can give knowing how hard the grind is?

K- lmao don’t join any groups. Stick to yourself. Be transparent and be consistent! Don’t be scared to be social either that’s how you build connections. When I first started I would send beats to MY favorite artists for ex. Supasortahuman was one of the first artist to follow me back and support my music by telling me through dm. That was wild to me because like I said previously he was an inspiration for me when I was barley starting making beats. For him to tell me he fucks with my music and he keeps up with me really gave me the motivation to keep making music and sending it out.You never know. Shouts out sortahuman too he still supporting the music I make as an artist.

(LS) Thank you again for being apart of this great come up and is there any last things you’d like to mention to the viewers? And links you wanna add where they can check out your music or even contact you? Much love Kira!

(K) Viewers can keep up with me through my social media’s!

Instagram.com/fucckira

Twitter.com/fucckira

Also my Music Links:

SoundCloud.com/fucckira

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/fucckira/1485190577

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0brnKNJ2UDC6e4dAOXU6YN?si=mx245oXGTEO6WtaBlRLK3Q

Thank you for the opportunity to let y’all know a little bit about me and what my goals are looking like this year. I appreciate all the love and support. More music coming soon!

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bigsnzstanacct · 4 years

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Dave

Lmao this shit is so weird don’t read it. I am choosing not to feel bad about it bc I wrote it a literal decade ago.

The sneezatoriums were erected, all across the world, shortly after 2025, when the mutation first appeared. At first, of course, it was only a few men that suffered from nasus magnificus, but the damage caused by those few thousands was more than sufficient to warrant the construction. The enlarged noses and lung capacity that marked nasus or simply The Sneeze Syndrome for short had at first been seen only among a few men, marked S-class for their ability to sneeze with such tremendous force that they blew away fences, small pets, plants, and even, in one well-documented case, a large door. But the disorder proved congenital. Between the S-classers reproducing and spreading the disorder to their sons along Y-chromosomes, and the high incidence of the mutation occurring elsewhere, by the year 2075, fully half of the male population suffered from the condition. Worse, the sneezes only grew in size. One particularly nasally-endowed young man had actually blown down several large trees in a forest after a particularly bad run in with a very fluffy white cat and a grandma far too eager to have her cat petted, and far too set-in-her-ways to accept the modern dangers of such behavior. Thankfully, his own father had been one of the first to teach his sons the techniques of sneeze-control that had become practically universal by 2112, and he managed to control the sneeze long enough to run to a nearby forest; otherwise, the damage could have been much more serious.

Nowadays, of course, nasus was simply a fact of growing up for young men. It was just a part of puberty, of “becoming a man”. One’s sneezes went from a young boy’s simple “achooo!” no more powerful than any standard sneeze from a woman, to a man’s mighty roar of a sneeze, and the attendant responsibility to control that sneeze and only direct it towards the proper circumstances, i.e., sneezatoriums. In fact, men with bigger and stronger sneezes were considered more masculine, not only because massive sneezes were a sex-linked trait, but because stronger sneezes were seen as contributions to society; the sneezatoriums, over the years, had also become generators for wind power. A town with a lot of big sneezers in it could provide a good deal of the city’s energy needs with sneeze-power alone, saving the town and the government lots of money. Thus big sneezes had become a point of pride among most cultures by 2112. Young men were taught techniques for controlling their nasal tickles and itches until the opportune moment, and shamed when they were unable to control their massive sneezes. However, great praise and even increased attentions from the opposite sex (as well as the same sex) resulted when a man had extremely powerful sneezes that he also controlled extremely well.

This brings us to the story of young David Herbert Crane. Dave was one of the most popular boys in school, not least because he was known as one of the biggest sneezers in his city. The local webnews broadcasting service had even done a story on his sneezes, which were of record-breaking power for a man of his age, and he looked forward to seeing how powerful his sneezes would grow, as usually a man’s sneeze power increased until around age 30. At just eighteen, he could outsneeze many grown men.

Of course, he hadn’t discovered this without accident. Bigger sneezes were harder to control, and when he was younger, Dave had accidentally blown around everything in a guest room in his uncle’s house with an uncontrolled sneeze, before he had even really begun sneeze training. Dave had felt so ashamed after that incident that he had practiced nose-control even harder than all the other boys his age. He was disciplined, focused, always fearful that he’d let another monster loose and ruin another room, or, as his sneezes got even bigger, and bigger, blow away fences, small trees, maybe even walls and cars. Motivated by his uncle’s destroyed guest room, Dave learned to control his nose with flawless skill, almost obsession. Even then, throughout his late teens, there were times when Dave nearly lost it while running to the nearest sneezatorium, squeezing his nose shut, praying that he could control his nose, barely holding off the colossal explosion until he could get into an empty cubicle in the sneezatorium and fire off sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, each one with enough power to blow down trees, uproot gardens and destroy classrooms. He was truly a super-sneezer. Even when he thought he had his sneezes under control, they had undergone sudden “growth spurts” in power, making them even more difficult to manage, even more impossible to stop.

Now, however, Dave’s control was flawless. He could hold off a sneeze for two days if he had to, although such behavior was highly discouraged, not just because of the danger of holding back already tremendous sneezes, but because of the money it lost the city. He would even get a little cocky with it, teasing the other boys about their ‘weak’ sneezes, or letting himself start the breath-hitching buildup to a big sneeze to intimidate or impress his peers, before suddenly and skillfully calming his nose down and continuing with whatever he was doing. It was even a party trick!

In fact, he was performing just such a party trick before class on this particular Tuesday afternoon. He was sitting in a desk towards the back of the room, as a very pretty girl, named Marianne, leaned over to him, and asked, very softly, “can you really do those great big sneezes? Or did they just put that on the web to fool me?”

“Can I?” he said rhetorically. “Baby, I can blow the house down.” And then at once, he launched into a build up. His eyes went unfocused. He felt the big sneeze welling up from his toes. His head started to tilt back, as his eyes fell half-closed. He sucked in a small breath, nothing big, and let it out. Then he sucked in a slightly bigger breath, and the paper on his desk wafted slightly. He started sucking in an even bigger breath, vocalizing slightly this time, “Heehhhhh… ahhhhh... ahhhHHHH… AHHHHHHH.” As his breaths got louder and louder, he started sucking in air to his lungs in much more massive quantities. His exhales began to disturb not only his own papers, but the ones on nearby desks. Marianne smiled as she felt her hair rise and fall with Dave’s biggest breath of all, which was starting to get loud, loud enough to be heard in the next classroom even. “AHHHHHHH…” his final exhale not only blew around any papers that his classmates didn’t bother to hold down with their hands, but also moved the desk ahead of him slightly, almost tipping it over… and then all at once, he completely stopped. His head tipped forward, and he hunched over. He gently massaged his nose, and took in shallow breaths through his mouth. He began to massage his nostrils, one after the other, more roughly, and then began to exhale softly through his mouth. After about thirty seconds of this, his head popped back up, and except for his slightly bleary eyes, no one could have guessed that just a few seconds ago, he was building up towards a sneeze that could power a computerminal for a month!

“Wow…” Marianne said flirtily.

Suddenly, the teacher from the next classroom over, a stern elderly man named Mr. Wallace, peeked his head into the door. “Is everything alright here?” He inquired, “I believe that I might have heard some sneezy breaths. I just want to remind all you young men that if you even feel slightest inkling that you might need to give the ol’ schnoz some room, you head right over to the sternatorium, no delay. Why, I remember in my day…”

“Thank you very much, Ezra,” said Mrs. Stevens, as she strode into the room, “but I believe I know exactly what was going on here, and all of our young men are well under control. Their noses, anyway.” She said, staring straight at Dave. She muttered under her breath, “Their hormones, I can’t vouch for.” As Ezra Wallace existed, Mrs. Stevens, who scrupulously avoided students calling her by her first name, Hilda, because she hated its antiquated, 21st century quality, rounded on her class. “Mr. Crane, I presume? You wouldn’t happen to be putting on exhibitions that jeopardize my classroom, would you?”

Dave casually shook his head no.

“Good, because if you were, I might have to refer your file to the district principals’ terminal, and they might even prevent you from playing in this Friday’s holoball game, and you wouldn’t want that, now would you? I thought not.”

As Mrs. Stevens harassed David, the student who had nearly been toppled by Dave’s little “exhibitions” fumed. His name was Eliot Stearns, and he was not a big sneezer. In fact, his sneezes were barely big enough to topple a few of the desks in the classroom, much less blow out a wall, like Dave’s sneezes probably would have done, if he’d let them out. He was still tall, attractive, smart. But he couldn’t sneeze to save his life, and all the girls knew it. Especially after Dave had exposed him earlier that year. He’d been on his way to the sternatorium before class after foolishly walking through the area of his neighborhood marked for bi-weekly lawn cuttings (everyone in a specific radius had to cut their lawn at a specific time and post very clearly on the neighborhood information terminal, or the NIT, when and where, so that those with poor nose control would be able to avoid the powerful sneeze-inducing effect of freshly-cut grass). Dave had strode up, fresh from rocking the sternatorium with a fit of ten earth-shattering sneezes that probably kicked up more wind than Eliot did in a month, and noticed Eliot, twitching his nose around and trying his best to hold back some very itchy sneezes. For whatever reason, Dave had been in a pissy mood that morning, and decided to have a little “fun” with Eliot.

“Hey, shrimp, where you headed?” Dave had asked, in a bullying manner.

Eliot hardly trusted himself to speak he felt so sneezy, so he just kept walking along. However, Dave kept moving into his path, slowing him down. Despite the fact that Eliot was obviously massaging his nose in such a way as to control his sneezy tickles, he tried to talk.

“I-I-I’m ohhhh… on my way to the sneehhh…. Sneezahhhhh… AHHHHH! Sneezatorium!” Eliot quickly and firmly clamped his right hand around his nose, doing his best to control the quickly forming sneezes. Opening his mouth had been a huge mistake; it had set off tickling vibrations all through his sinuses, and he felt the telltale signs of a long and messy sneezing fit.

“Oh, whatcha doing that for? You’ve got a tiny little sneeze, just let out here. It’s not like it’ll do any damage!”

“Juh… just let me through, jerk!” Eliot said through his stuffed up nose. He knew he could only control his sneezes for a few more seconds. Suddenly, he made a break for the sneezatorium, but for some inexplicable reason, Dave just grabbed him and held him up. A few of Dave’s friends (probably people who had gone to hear Dave rock the sneezatorium) had gathered around in a small crowd, and Dave spoke to them. “Hey everybody, you wanna see this kid sneeze? It won’t compare to mine, but look at him! He can’t even control those little sneezes. What would he do with great big monsters like mine, eh?” “Lemme… lemme… go…” Eliot tried to say, but suddenly he felt the sneezes grow too much for him. He was paralyzed by the gale-force gust he felt in his nose, so that even when Dave let him go, he was helpless to move. He started drawing in huge gusts that rustled the skirts of all the nearby girls and shook the leaves on the trees. His nostrils swelled until they were huge, round openings for his sneeze. He took in a few more huge breaths before

“ACCCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He sneezed a wet, explosive sneeze. He managed to turn his head away from the crowd, but everyone saw the sneeze nonetheless. It was big enough to kick up a nice sized breeze and uproot some grasses. It was still a very powerful sneeze, and Eliot felt several more on the way. But Dave was right; it was a far below-average sneeze, and certainly didn’t compare to Dave’s gargantuan blows.

“ACCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Eliot sneezed again, “ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! REEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” Those sneezes were slightly bigger, and as one girl accidentally walked in the way of the blow, she was hit by the huge gusting wind from Eliot’s disdended nostrils and nearly fell over. But the same sneeze from Dave probably would have blown her five feet away, if not farther. As it was, her clothes got rumpled and damp, but not wrecked, as even a normal-sized sneeze would have done. “Ugh!” she said as she walked by, “can’t you even control those tiny things?”

The whole group had laughed at Eliot then, both for his lack of control and for his weak sneezes. He had run to the sneezatorium then to blow out the last of his tickle, but the damage had been done. He’d been marked as a tiny sneezer with no control, and he’d been ridiculed ever since. And that was why he was constantly annoyed by Dave and his massive, manly a-choos. There was no way he could compete with sneezes like that. But he was going to get revenge. He’d show the world that even Dave Crane didn’t have the perfect control he boasted about. He was going to make Dave huff and puff and blow something down, so he’d be completely humiliated, and then people wouldn’t praise and adore him for those huge sneezes of his. They’d see that Dave was a freak of nature, just like they should!

***

Later that day, David was headed home, when he felt an itch well up in his nose. He knew he could easily control the itch, but he was moderately surprised at the fact that an itch was welling up so quickly. After all, he’d already visited the sternatorium twice that day. Dave knew he had mild allergies, but lately, he’d been getting tickles in his nose with a lot more frequency. He didn’t know if it was a new plant that had been introduced into the area or if he was just developing a new allergy, but he was secretly a little worried. He knew his sneezes tended to undergo sudden leaps in power, and he was afraid he was at the beginning of just such a leap. During his “leap” periods, his nose got much more itchy and harder to control. In fact, that sneeze he’d played with in class had left such a tickle in his nose that he ended up having to go to the sternatorium after class to let loose with a few of his super-powered sneezes. He made a mental note to stop his little ‘exhibitions’ or at least have a moratorium on them until he could figure out just how strong his sneezes were going to get this time. Dave had a fairly stable conception of how powerful his sneezes had been before the leap. Besides the measurements they took for the record, Dave had snuck out to the woods several times to let out a completely unrestrained sneeze, full-power. When he was sixteen, he could blow off branches, maybe knock down a smallish tree if he directed several consecutive sneezes as it. But after his last little nasal growth spurt, he could easily knock down a medium sized tree with one good sneeze, and he knew that by the end of this one, he’d probably have to stop letting the sneezes out, even in the woods; he didn’t want people noticing him leveling giant redwood trees with just one of his superhuman a-choos.

So, just as a precaution, Dave decided to make a nasal pre-emptive strike, and head to the sneezatorium to release just a few sneezes, to take the pressure off. The nearest sneezatorium was a large, cylinder-shaped building with an open run by the government. Upon entrance, men stepped on to one of several small platforms that lined a smaller cylinder at the center of the building. Once someone stepped on a platform, a holopanel would appear in front of them asking for their age, sneezer classification, and sneeze urgency level. There was also an optional input for sneezer ID. Most fathers purchased sneezer ID numbers for their sons on their fifteenth or sixteenth birthday; it was somewhat of a rite of passage. Sneezer ID numbers were used to keep track of the amount of power they generated for their city, and could be eligible for certificates of recognition and even some prizes if they contributed enough. Sneezer classifications were issued by the federal government and measured how strong an individual’s typical sneeze was, in order to make sure they entered a room with sufficient reinforcement to handle their sneezes without breaking. Sneeze urgency level was a feature added in 2095 to all sneezatoriums after a young man demolished a large part of a sneezatorium with a poorly controlled sneeze. If a man was struggling especially hard to keep a sneeze in, he could choose level 10 urgency, in which case he would be transported to a sneezer room immediately. If a man had a lower urgency level, he would wait until all men with higher urgency levels had been sorted into rooms before being carried by the moving platform into one of the many rooms lining the walls of the sneezatorium’s outer cylinder. These rooms were known as the “sneezer rooms” and it was here, and only here, that men were expected to release their sneezes. The rooms were powerfully reinforced with a super-tough plastic that could withstand even the mightiest sneeze. Once a man entered a sneezer room, he was expected, if at all possible, to hold back his sneeze until a large tube, connected to the underground power generator, could attach to the room (high urgency sneezers, of course, were not expected to wait for the generator tube, but were therefore unable to contribute to the wind power generator, or have any power counted towards their sneezer ID total). Men would sneeze into this tube (which was made of the same reinforced super-plastic as the rest of the room), and the wind power generated would be redirected into a wind turbine below ground, and converted to useable energy.

So, as Dave entered the sneezatorium, he followed the normal proceedures, entering his sneezer ID number (his father had purchased his at thirteen, unusually enough, because at thirteen Dave was already producing enough wind with each sneeze to contribute significantly to his totals), confidently putting his sneeze urgency level at 1, and waited for a room to become available for him. While he was waiting, several boys from his high school passed his platform, and waved enthusiastically, or gave him a thumbs up. Everyone was excited to see such a legendary sneezer at the sneezatorium. Dave smiled broadly; he thrived on the attention. Finally, the platform kicked into gear and carried him into a sneezer room. Before the tube had even attached, Dave was launching into an enormous, gasping buildup:

“ehhhh… hehhhhhhh… HEHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHHHHH… HIH! HIH! HIH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

He released his first colossal sneeze, straight into the tube. Anyone would be able to see that this was a far more powerful sneeze than the tiny ones a guy like Eliot would release. This was a sneeze stronger than many grown men. It was a true twister of a sneeze, and the recoil almost knocked Dave off his feet from the sheer force of it. But Dave knew he wasn’t anywhere near done. In fact, the next one felt ever stronger:

“hehhh…” he hitched, his nostrils flaring widely, “hehhhh… ehhhhh… gonnahhhhh… ahhhhh… b-b-b-beeeee aaaa… bihh… bihhhhhh.. biiiiiiggg… biiiiiiggg… ahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh…. oneahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh… HAHHHHHHHHHHH… HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” his head was bobbing up and down with each tickly inhale now. He mentioned how big the upcoming sneeze was, to no one in particular, because the sneeze that was brewing in his nose felt truly gigantic in strength. Had there been any furniture in the sneezer room, Dave’s enormous sneezey breaths would have sent it flying around the room, or, worse yet, hurtling towards his face. This was definitely a super-strength sneeze! “HAAHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! HAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

KAAAAAA-TTTTTCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

That sneeze was easily twice as big as the previous one. Silently, Dave thought to himself that if he had let that one loose in the classroom, it wouldn’t have just blown out a wall, it would have taken out half the classrooms in the hall! And he felt himself gearing up for a last sneeze that would put the other two to shame. “iiiggghhhhiieeee… AGGGGHHHHHHH… AGHHHHHHHHH… AAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH… AHHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH!

HHHHHHRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYY-SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

He sneezed, with the most titantic force he could muster, hoping to blow the itch so far out of his nose that he wouldn’t have to sneeze again for a week (and possibly to break another record), pressing the air out of his super-sized lungs, channeling the force through his body, blowing and blowing until all of the power in his lungs was spent.

That was a sneeze! Dave thought to himself, as his incredible burst of wind (and, he had to admit, quite a lot of spray), rushed down through the tube into the wind turbines beneath. Checking his nose for further tickles as he had learned as a boy, he felt confident that he didn’t have any more sneezes lurking in there. He was almost glad of this, because those three had taken the wind out of him, quite literally. Not for the first time, Dave thought about how big his sneezes had been lately. That triple, while not his best effort ever, was easily as powerful as the record breaker from the webnews shoot (but then, that hadn’t been his best ever either, though it was close). The last one probably moreso. And his nose hadn’t even felt especially tickly! Dave felt pretty sure then, that his nose was undergoing another spurt in power. And as excited as he felt, he also felt a tiny bit worried; how strong exactly were his sneezes going to get? He still had years of sneeze growth to go!

—-

Dave Crane was on top of the world. When he hit puberty, he thought he was a freak of nature for his colossal sneezes, which were even harder to control than the average boy’s sneeze. He’d had more close calls almost blowing away pets, plants, doors, fences, even other people, than he cared to count, not to mention that one mortifying time when he practically destroyed his uncle’s guest room. But those times were behind him now. Not only did he have those same massive sneezes well under control, but he was using them to ride the popularity wave to the top.

Normally, people just gossiped about the power of the boys’ sneezes, some boys bragging that they were stronger, others keeping quiet about it but occasionally waiting a little too long to go to the sternatorium on purpose, so they could flail about and act like they were worried about causing so much damage with their massive, man-sized sneezes. Dave didn’t have to do any such thing, mostly because if you listened hard enough, you could hear his sneezes through the sternatorium walls.

Dave was truly a super-sneezer, even among boys of his age. Sure, everybody had a big sneeze, infinitely larger than the powerless puffs of air people did at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But Dave had a BIG sneeze.

After visiting the sternatorium for a sneezy work-out (Dave worked on his abs, but they’d probably flat enough with just his incredible sneezes), Dave got on his hoverbike and headed home, careful to avoid the areas marked for grass-cutting. He remembered once, when he was a bit younger, he’d had one of his close calls when he forgot to avoid the grass-cutting areas. Freshly-cut grass was one of his worse triggers, as they were called. All young men went through yearly allergen testing, and older men did the test every five years. The test was held in a very sturdy special sternatorium; folks sometimes had to use transports that took almost fifteen minutes to get to a Testing Sternatorium. The Testers, as they were called, were staffed with plenty of doctors and plenty of protection, as testing often provoked almighty sneezes even from the weakest of noses, much less Dave’s monster honker (complete with his super-powered lungs, of course). The Testing Sternatoriums were often hours away, and every man had a scheduled visit that he could not miss, except in the event of illness that might contaminate the test results, so that the process could run smoothly. Dave remembered his testing session from just a few months before. It was actually a report from the testing session that led to his record-breaking TV appearance.

As he walked up to the building, Dave marveled at how strong its steel walls appeared, and he knew that that was only the outer layer of the building, which was further protected by special carbon polymers, advanced plastics, and sheet rock. The Testing Sternatorium nearest him was—luckily enough—a new model, designed to prevent some of the accidents that had occurred at other Testings, as the Doctor who greeted Dave explained.

“Yeah, there was one guy up in North Albans who had a great big sneeze, off the charts really. I mean, I’m not exactly a lightweight in the sneezing department myself,” the doctor hastened to add, “but this guy was one for the record books. Anyway, they lower in the grass, and he’s OK, does a few big sneezes but that’s all by-the-book. Then they try the cat dander and he’s fine, and the ragweed, and the pepper, of course. You know, he sneezes each time, and their big, I mean, they’re always big, but not, you know, volcanic, not like ‘oh, look out he’s gonna blow,’ you know, normal big sneezes. But then, they try the dog dander. And they’re doing an experiment right—now, why they thought they needed to experiment on this guy, I’ll never know, but hey—and so they show the guy a picture of the dog. Well, the guy must’ve had some sort of psychosomatic something going on, ‘cause even before they released the dander, his irritation levels spiked something fierce. And when they lower the dander, man… it sets him off. Bad.”

Even hearing about a sneeze for such an extended period of time was starting to make Dave’s own titan of a nose long for a good, hard, relieving sneeze, and Dave was glad that the Testing Sneezatoriums were famously efficient—he knew he could hold out for a while, but he was glad he’d be able to fire off in just a few minutes.”

“So the guy starts sucking in air, right? Crazy amounts, like, off the charts. Now, mind you, this is a twenty-nine year old guy, fully grown, in good shape… he’s firing off the biggest sneezes of his life anyway. But this time. Man. He just sucked it in and blasted em out. ‘KA-CHOOEY!” and all that, you know, real loud, insane decibel levels—you know OSHA’ll get you for stuff like that. Anyway, crazy noise levels, crazy wind velocity. And he just keeps going! And they’re getting faster. We’re at like, six or seven sneezes, right? And the building was only using standard Polymer One, plus inward-facing sneezers, right, not fully reinforced rooms. Well, the guy’s an allergic mess, he can’t see straight, much less aim his sneezes at the perfect center of a target, so he’s shootin’ ‘em like fire crackers all over the place. I mean, this is a full blown fit, we’re climbin’ towards nine, ten sneezes, and they’re fast, close together but they’re humongous, like, recording-breaking massive, right? I gotta tell you, I’ve looked at the numbers and I did a double take, I didn’t even really believe it…”

Now Dave’s nose was raring to go. He was really glad that the appointment was soon. Hell, he was even a little scared he wouldn’t be able to make it ‘til then without beginning control procedures. But he knew that he was already on file as a potential Class 2 sneezer, the designation for those who had the potential for truly superhuman explosions, given the right triggers; and so to start control procedures might bring… unnecessary attention. So Dave suffered in silence, not even daring to twitch his nose, while the Doctor—who obviously loved the sound of his own voice—droned on.

“And all of a sudden, they get even bigger! And closer together and he’s just screaming ‘em out and I can hardly blame him, that kind of pressure, it’s unbelievable. And they’re coming closer and closer together, he’s just arching back and letting fly, over and over and over, well, the polymer starts cracking. And mind you, he’s blasting all over the place, towards the ceilings, towards the floor, everywhere. And not everywhere is properly reinforced. And so as he gets toward fifteen, sixteen sneezes, they’re like, ‘SHUT IT OFF! SHUT OFF THE DANDER! SIR, PLEASE CONTROL YOUR SNEEZES,’ the whole routine. But I don’t know if the intercom isn’t working or the guy is just outta control, but he keeps blasting, full-force, just arch back, explode out and the walls can’t take it and soon the guy’s blasted a hole through the building. I wouldn’t think it was possible. Caused I don’t know how much damage, they’re still sorting it out in court whose fault it is, especially after the sneezer statue of ’09… the guy’s saying they dandered him too hard, the technicians are saying they told him to get control, but I gotta say, if MY sneeze were that big, I’d still be in training today, they wouldn’t even give me my sneezer-card, and I can promise you, I wouldn’t have this job!” Technicians, of course, had to have flawless control, as they spent large amounts of time around highly allergenic substances in large quantities, which could easily cause a disaster of tectonic proportions.

Dave, for his part, was longing just to give his nose one twitch, to reach his hand up for one quick squeeze to control the pressure… but he persevered, and kept his cool.

“Wow… sir…” Dave said, taking as much time between words as he dared, feeling the itch rise just a bit with each word, “that sounds like one big sneeze! Wh-what was the guy's name?”

“Eh... Geoffrey Wal-something, I don't remember. Anyway,” the doctor said, suddenly serious, “if I’m reading your numbers right…” He paused as he poured over the chart he had brought up on his holo-sheet by pressing a button on his belt as they turned the corner towards the Testing Room, “you’re headed in that direction. You practice your sneeze control good, young man. I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble for ‘Failure to Control Nasal Output,’ I don't want to see you on the evening news, standing over some building you blew down, like a fairy-tale wolf, alright? I'll huff and I'll puff... none of that young man.”

“Y-yeah, whatever” Dave snapped, praying that the doctor didn’t notice the quick catch in his breath. He was getting pissed. This was taking way too long, and he had to sneeze. Plus, the guy was doing these ridiculous infant-school jokes. Dave was a Last-Year in Final Form of his schooling. Big Bad Wolf jokes were so First-Year.

Finally, they arrived in the testing room. The Doctor showed David into the room, a clean, white room with a large vent above head from which allergens slowly drizzled, and of course, thick cotton-12 handkerchiefs, for the fashionable set. Dave knew he’d just have to let his sneezes fly; while he might carry handkerchiefs on dates and such, they were really just for show. He knew one of his small sneezes would rip a handkerchief to shreds in seconds.

Dave walked over to the full-body suit he was to wear during the testing. The suit used tiny sensors all over the body to measure any and all statistics pertinent to the testing. Dave hurried to slide the suit on. He didn’t want to look weak by sneezing before he was supposed to, but if he was going to avoid a big boom, they were going to have to start the testing soon.

“Alright.” He heard a voice from above, coming down from the loudspeaker next to the vent. “David Crane. Age 18 Sneezer Test. You will soon feel an itching sensation in your nose. The name of the trigger will not be revealed to you until after the test is over. Please do not attempt any sneeze control measures. Let the sneezes come naturally and unforced. Do not worry about volume or power, simply let the sneeze come freely and as powerfully as you need. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I do, can we get started so I can get back home?” said Dave, irritably. He was ready to get the test started, and sick of hearing the spiel he’d heard every year since he was a kid.

“Alright. The Allergen Test will now begin.”

—

Dave wasn’t sure exactly what they’d released first—they did the allergens in a random order each time—but it immediately increased the already-strong tickle in his nose threefold, and his breath began to hitch as they continued to release the sneezy substance: “hih! HEEEHH! HEEEEEHH!” The tickle was there, but the sneeze, which had seemed so close just a moment ago, was just out of reach. But the itch was maddening! Dave knew that one of his colossal sneezes would immediately make him feel ten times better, and since this was a safe place to do so, he planned on blasting it out full force. But he couldn’t… quite… get there…

“iihhhh… ihhh… igggghhhiiieee…” He stood for a moment, his face contorting as his nose twitched about, trying, desparately, to coax out the sneeze he so desperately longed for. He took in a big sniff, which almost seemed enough to fuel the sneeze: “Hah! HAHH! HHAAAAAHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” But just as his gasping intakes of air reached critical mass, the urge to sneeze died back down again.

“Damn!” He cursed out loud, before saying under his breath, “just… wanna… sneeze…” He knew the technicians were waiting to release the next trigger, waiting to see what would happen with this one, whether it would be strong enough to provoke a sneeze or not. But Dave just wanted them to hurry up so he could sneeze!

“Can you just do the next one naa…n-n-naaaa… now…. Ahhhh… ahhhhhhhh…” the sneeze came back, and Dave was hoping that he’d finally be able to sneeze it out: “ahhhhhh… AAAaaaaaggghhhhhh… AGGGHHhhhhhhhh… AGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH…”

But it disappeared again! “DAMN!” Dave cursed again, louder. “Why won’t ih… it… j-just cahhh.. ahhhh… come?” The pitch of his voice rose on every word as the ebb and flow of his sneezy tickle refused to leave him alone. His chest heaved in and out, the tight biometrics outfit revealing his strong pecs and hard abs working feverishly to accept the huge weight of air that was slowly but surely accumulating in his super-powered lungs. His eyes, watery, began to slowly close as he felt the itching, tickling sensation that washed over him from his feet to his head, centered in his incredible nose, grow once again… Oh, God, when he finally sneezed he knew it was going to be a monster…

“ehhhh… EHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” The tickle in his nose was gradually taking over. Dave steadied himself: he’d had this happen before. Usually when one of his sneezes got stuck, the problem wasn’t that the tickle was too small. The problem was that the sneeze was too big.

“AAHHHHHH… AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…” Finally, he knew, he’d be able to sneeze. Keeping himself braced for fear this one would knock him over, he nevertheless felt his back begin to arch uncontrollably as he sucked in three last enormous breaths in preparation… “AHHHH! AHHHH! AAAHHHHH!”

“RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAA-SSSSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Dave erupted, his body flying uncontrollably forward, his long, shaggy hair (quite the fashion in 2112), flinging forward as his whole torso bent into the power of his sneeze, the hot, sneezy air erupting from his nostrils at God-knows-how-fast speeds. It was a truly explosive sneeze, even for Dave. He felt his lungs straining to blast out all the sneezy air, and with it, the dreadful tickle that had plagued his nose. He blasted it out for what seemed like an eternity before the sneeze was finished. But as soon as he finished the first one, as he tried to take in a breath of air, his breath hitched again

“ahhh… oh, no… ehhhhhh… EHHHHHHH… EEEEHHHHHHHHH…” This one felt even bigger! And it was building quickly… “EEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH…EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The pitch and volume of his colossal inhales increased proportionally to their power, as he sucked in air again for another earth-shattering, tree-felling, fence-smashing tornado of a sneeze, “EEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This one turned out not to have quite as much wind power as the previous, but the volume was unbelieveable. He didn’t know that the sneeze exploding out of his nose could make such a ruckus, but he had no choice but to scream it out in pure release, so terribly did he need the burning, twisting sensation out of his nose. He worried that he might break the scientists’ instruments, especially if they were calibrated for an average teenager. When it came to sneezes, Dave Crane was no average teenager.

"Allergen check one completed. Prepare for allergen two."

—

As Dave headed towards home, after school, and after his terrific fit of sneezing in the sneezatorium, leaning his mind on the remembrance of sneezes past, Eliot was also heading home. He too had stopped by the sneezatorium on his way home; Eliot always took precaution, as his control of his sneezes was genuinely quite weak. It was hereditary; just as Dave’s dad was a champion sneezer in his youth, so Eliot’s father had the same wimpy sneeze Eliot had. So his father had barely learned nose control, always aware that his sneeze was simply not dangerous, except perhaps to unsecured paper items. And how could he pass on to his son what he barely knew himself?

Eliot made sure to check his HoloPad—a product of the Steven Jobs Memorial Technology Company, the nationalized techno-corp of Eliot’s nation—to see where the grass was being cut that day, so as to avoid it. Freshly cut grass set him off like none other. Most men had particular triggers like that, triggers that set them off more than the other allergens. For some men, it was particular flowers. For others, it was a particular breed of dog or cat. Whatever it was, when that scent hit his nose, even the most experienced and controlled sneezer would immediately head to the sneezeatorium, because a true monster was on its way. Except Eliot, of course. He’d run to the sneezatorium, certainly, because he didn’t want to embarrass himself. But even his biggest sneeze produced a blast like a strong gust of wind, not enough to knock down a small child, nothing like the tornadic blasts emitted by folks like Dave. How Eliot wished that he could produce monstrous sneezes like Dave’s! But he was a wimp in the sneeze department, as he was in most areas.

But he was a nice guy, which is more than he could say for Dave most of the time. And it would be hard not to let sneezes like Dave’s go to your head, to be in high school and blatantly out-sneezing college guys, even your dad’s colleagues! Sneezes like that could get you any girl you wanted, even cheerleaders (cheerleading technology had evolved surprisingly little since the ancient days of pom-poms and football fields, perhaps because centuries of technological advancement could provide little to improve the mini-skirt.)

It was these thoughts, and others like them, that succeeded in distracting Eliot from his HoloPad. And that lead, inevitably, to Eliot walking right past a veritable field of freshly cut grass.

His nose noticed it before he did. “H-hih! Hiiiihhh! Hiiihhhh! HIH! HIIIH!” His breath was already hitching; that’s what the grass did to him. It took his already sensitive nasal passages from sensitive to on fire in seconds. His breath hitching, Eliot tried to start sneeze controlling, trying to breathe gently through his mouth, controlling the tickle with his hands, but he knew that he’d have to run to the nearest Sternatorium, because he couldn’t hold back for long…

“hhh-huhhhh… huuuhhhhhh… iiiiigggghhhhiiee… iiiiggghhhhhh….”

---

Dave was still reminiscing about his colossal sneezes during his last test. He recalled how they’d sent allergen after allergen after him, and each time he’d let out a true monster of a sneeze. Heck, he was probably outsneezing grown men with a few of them. The worst of all had been when they lowered in the dog dander.

“Alright, sir, just a few more. We want to assure you that despite the strength of your sneezes, you should continue to produce them freely. This structure can withstand the force.”

Dave had almost smirked at that one. He hadn’t heard that one before. It was still an automated message, but it must be a pretty rare one. He hadn’t heard it mentioned before at any rate. For his part, Dave was enjoying the chance to let his sneezes out full tilt. Not that he held back at the ordinary sternatoriums, but there was just something… liberating about sneezing and sneezing and sneezing, as soon as you felt a tickle, not holding back even for a second, even coaxing a few of them out, and then really blowing for the rafters when you let out your sneezes, letting your lungs fill up with air like a bellows, and then sneezing it all out with all the wind and wetness the tickle in your nose demanded. If normal people sneezed from their chests, Dave sneezed from his toenails, each sneeze a full-body experience, feeling the sheer force of them rippling through his body. He gave a good hard sniff of enjoyment, feeling the incipient stirrings of yet another powerful sneeze.

“Prepare for the next allergen.”

He could tell when it was released. What was just a tickle suddenly tipped over the scale and became a sneeze. He could feel this one building, “hehhh… h-hehhh… heyyyyy-uhhh… heh… heehhhh-uhhhhhh… hhhheeeeeeeeeeeshhhhhh… hehhhhhhhhhhh… HHHHEEEEEEEHHH… HEHHHHHHH… HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY-SCCCCCHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He erupted monstrously. He blasted that hot, sneezy air out of his lungs at truly hurricane=like speeds. This was a long sneeze, perhaps due to the extra-large tickle he had felt, and the whole time he just blasted it out, almost shocked by the end to find that there was still air in his lungs to power the massive sneeze. And oddly enough, he felt another on its way.

This one scarecely required any buildup, just one great, “HHHAAAAAHHHH!” And he was off, with a tremendous, “YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH-SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” That one was even bigger than the last, and he still felt the huge tickle in his nose. He sucked in two great gusts of breath before blasting out two more sneezes, “AAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS-CHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Each sneeze bent him double. And oddly enough, he felt another one, even bigger than the previous four. This one would require some coaxing out.

As his nose twitched and seized and tingled, and his chest expanded out to accommodate all the air his lungs were sucking in, Dave couldn’t help but imagine letting out a sneeze like his in public! Imagine the men, trying to scream at him, “Dave! Don’t do it! Don’t let it out, man!” Imagine the women, fleeing the space in front of him, and yet… staying in close enough range to see it, to hear the noise, to find out what a truly cataclysmic sneeze sounded like, how a man’s man sneezed, with such force and power that they’d put the whispering gossip of girls to shame. And as if such thoughts could power his sneezes, Dave’s nose positively exploded with his next sneeze, “HHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR-CCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He folded back for one final sneeze, his chest heaving, his eyes watering, his nose tickling unmercifully, his whole body bending back to prepare for one last,

“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-SSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

And then he was done at last. He heard a technician’s voice come from the speakers in the walls.

“Sir, we usually just send messages for things like this, but I had to say somethin’. Man! Those were some sneezes! Sure are glad we reinforced the plastics on this place, boy howdy! That was a real firecracker there! We’ve got a few more to spray, but I think we’ve seen all we need! And, uh, make sure you come talk to me after we’re done here. I’ve got a cousin that does the holonews and I think he might just wanna see you, young man!” Dave knew it was probably wrong, but as he wiped his nose and gave an almighty sniff, he couldn’t help smirking a bit with pride at how powerfully he sneezed.

Dave Crane finally rounded the corner onto his block, mentally telling his hoverbike to stop as he glided into his driveway.

“Up.” He said out loud, and the hoverbike responded, elevating to the third floor of his home, where the hoverbike interfaced with the door to his room, which would only open, of course, for a hoverbike with the correct element signature—the last thing Dave needed was to wake up one morning and groggily walk out of his third-floor door with no hoverbike. Sure, the bike would probably be fast enough to catch him, but there was always the chance that it wouldn’t.

“And what a tragedy that would be, for the ground to injure the beautiful face of the most handsome, superior holoball playing, biggest sneezer in the Northeastern Federation.” Dave crowed to himself, mostly joking, as he slid into his room, and stepped off the bike.

“And don’t forget! The most conceited, superior show-off, biggest head on Planet Prime.”

Oh, god. Nancy was home.

“Naaaaance… I didn’t know you were coming home… it’s… great to see you?” Dave said, with an uncertain lilt to his voice. He jumped over to the far corner of his bed, the corner that faced the wardrobe Nance stood in front of (no doubt she’d be staring at herself in the mirror ‘til she’d heard the holobike).

“Yeah, yeah, and it’s great to see you too, little brother.” Nancy replied, “especially with such a warm welcome.”

“Aw, you know I’m kidding, Nance. It is good to see you,” Dave confessed, smiling brightly at her. Nancy was an astonishingly annoying older sister, bossy, conceited, always “cutting you down to size,” as she put it—and she was also probably one of his three best friends on Planet Prime, or any of the colony planets, for that matter.

“But ah… what are you doing in my room…?” Dave continued, glancing around to where he saw her suitcase parked in the corner… and was the biolum radiating a slightly blue-ish light, wasn’t it always yellow (which complimented Dave’s skin tone the best… not that he’d set it that way on purpose, but…) and did he see…

“Why the hell is your bra in my dresser?”

Nancy looked up at Dave with her most innocent eyes, her brightest smile, “Oh, Dave, didn’t Dad tell you? I’m moving back in for a while!”

Dave was running down the stairs faster than a datapad could uplink. “DAD?! WHAT THE…?!”

--- “haaahhhhhhhhh…. Haaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Eliot wasn't sure if he was panting from the sneeze brewing fitfully in his nose, or from the exertion of running. And once again, there was a crowded sternutorium, with a bunch of guys, old geezers, teens, even kids barely old enough to need the sternutorium, all calmly waiting their turn. And once again, Eliot was frantic.

“I… aahhhhhhhhhh… excuse…. I-I-I-I… iiaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…”

“Hey, guys, we got a loose cannon here! Outta control. Somebody let him up to the front, will yah?”

“Oh by the blue biome, that’s what’s-his-face, Al Stearns’ kid… you might as well just tell him to let it out where he’s standing, won’t be much different.”

Eliot was rubbing his nose frantically, barely keeping control, pressing against the underside of his nose with one hand, tapping at the bridge of his nose… doing anything that seemed like it helped at all… “N-n-n-no! Lehhhhhhh… leeeehhhhhhhhhhh… lemme though!” he managed.

“Calm down, calm down, kid,” a friendly voice said. Not the one who knew his dad. Who knew his family’s lame nosed curse. “Here, take my room, the platform’s ready.”

Blinking through allergic tears, Eliot tried to smile at the man, but all he could manage was a weak grimace before virtually leaping onto the platform, willing it to get to the sneezer room as soon as possible, just so he wouldn’t have to face the shame of blowing out a sneeze in front of everybody.

“, you know that kid’s lame sneezes are going on YOUR sneezer ID, right?”

“Oh, shut up, Tom, he clearly needed to sneeze bad, what did you want him to do embarrass himself…”

But it was already too late. Apparently the kind man’s sneezer room had been one towards the very top of the sternutorium, and as the platform ascended, Eliot’s control gave out: “haaaaaahhhhh…. Hahahhahahahhhhhhh… HAAAAAY-SHHHOOOOOOOAAYY!” he roared, more shout than force, however, as the puff of air blew fitfully from his nose, enough to make him stumble, but not enough to do anything to the plastic-reinforced sneezer rooms, not enough to even richochet down to the floor of the sternutorium, enough to be heard, enough so that everyone could look up and see he’d lost control… but not enough to do anything. He dragged himself into the sneezer room, blinking through tears he wasn’t sure were all allergies anymore.

“WWWWASSSSSSSHOOOOOOO!” He blew. “HAAAAWWWWWWWWSSSHHOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH! HIIIISSSHHH! HAAAASSSSSHHHHHAA! IIIISSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOIE!”

The sneezes came, hard and fast, one after the other, each blowing around in the empty room til the tube attached, spending their small force. Sure, it was enough to blow at Eliot’s clothes and whip up his hair. Sure, it would have thrown around plenty of papers, but… it was practically a kid sneeze. And if his dad’s sneeze was any indication, he didn’t have a much stronger sneeze to look forward to as an adult. He sighed, resigning himself to a small-sneeze fate, as the fit continued.

“ISSSSSSSHHHHOOOO! AAASSSSSSSSSHHHHHHOOOO! Hih… hih… hehhhhh… HAAAASSSSHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!”

#snz story #snz fic #OLD ASS fic #gigantic sneezes #this shit is so weird and embarrassing #but whatever I'm posting it so I have it somewhere #...and I might write more of it one day you can't stop me bye

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rockethorse · 5 years

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I know EA is nickle-and-diming the Sims community over EVERYTHING these days but one thing that stuck out to me recently as particularly egregious is the concept of the Seasons EP.

When Seasons was released as an EP for Sims 2, it really was revolutionary. The developers had tried to include basic weather functions (e.g. rain, lightning) as part of the game in the base pack, but couldn’t hammer out all the tweaks in time; so they expanded on it with more content, more weather types, temperature effects, Plantsims, NPCs (as annoying as the garden club can be), fishing, and of course, gardening/juicing/fish recipes, then released all of that as a separate expansion pack. It was IMO worth the money and remains one of the “must-have” EPs for TS2.

However.

I think, at this point in the Sims-game development lineup, EA is simply taking advantage of players’ expectations that weather and temperature effects etc. will always be an expansion and will always cost as much as an EP, because I believe weather effects should just be a core aspect of all Sims games moving forward and, if not included in base game, should be patched in later for free, like ocean swimming (TS3) or toddlers (TS4). I do not think simply “add weather to your game!” should be considered enough of a draw to warrant shelling out for an entire EP.

Gardening and fishing were both things that were introduced into TS2 in the Seasons expansion pack that have become part of the expected Sims base-game package. Both systems have been greatly built upon and improved from TS2 (and TS1 in the case of gardening) - there is no “get to dirt!” or “get to rod!” expansion pack that expects you to pay money for the privilege of harvestables or fishing. But I find it particularly frustrating that a life simulation game, which, even if they have been over-focusing on the “wacky” aspects of the game lately, is still at core about being able to replicate the real world, would put something as integral to that experience as WEATHER behind a paywall.

I'm not saying that just because something was introduced in a previous expansion pack means that it should be included in the next generation’s base game or else the devs are being lazy; that’s absurd. Every core game has to be programmed from the ground-up, even if you’re able to recycle some old assets, so it’s not like they can use TS2 weather in TS3 at all. Like, we’ve had pets since TS1, but I don’t expect pets to ever be included in a Sims basegame, because creating the pet system would be just as hard as creating the Sim system. What I’m saying is I don’t think weather effects are one of those aspects that’s too difficult to implement in base game, especially compared to when TS2 Seasons was released. It was already kind of strange that TS3 didn’t introduce weather in basegame given they’d tried so hard to ship weather with TS2. But I imagine the seamless world system made it a lot harder. When the much more streamlined TS4 was announced without any weather, it started to feel more deliberate. EA is taking advantage of the fact that it really WAS revolutionary to introduce it in TS2 and warranted it being its own expansion pack to continue to gatekeep weather effects into its own EP in future gens, even when that becomes easier and easier to implement into basegame. Basically, they’re taking advantage of people’s nostalgia for the TS2 Seasons EP and the good reputation it has/had to allow its fanbase to keep believing that Seasons EPs are SO difficult to produce that they HAVE to be an EP and are therefore worth that sweet sweet EP cash.

The other reason it works is that weather feels good to play with. It really does add another layer of interest, fun, and whimsical realism/immersion to the game. So a lot of Sims players are happy to shell out the money for a Seasons EP and get excited when one is announced because it FEELS like you’re getting a lot, because weather/seasons change the whole feel of the game. It can feel like you’re playing something totally new! But that’s a great deal for EA, because you FEEL like you’re getting a lot when you’re really not getting very much at all in terms of work/budget from them. It’s a little thing that makes a huge difference in the way a game feels, and EA successfully tricks its audience into thinking that impact on gameplay directly correlates with effort/time and therefore worth. Like, swimming, cooking, etc. are also difficult systems to implement but they are also integral to the Sims experience, and IMO, weather is the same way. (Because it’s a life simulator, but weather is DLC??)

That’s not to say that implementing weather in any Sims game is easy. Any new addition to the game takes a lot of collaborative work. I know that weather effects also require a lot of hard work to get finished by the time a base game ships, and I’m honestly not sure the way EA manages Sims game releases could support that any more - Seasons being an EP is probably just as much an excuse to rush the release of a half-finished base game as it is a way to sap more money from its players. But I also feel that the work would, in the long term, be much shorter if new Sims base games were constructed from the ground-up taking weather into consideration. Weather shouldn’t be excluded until you have to retrofit it into the existsing game core system, it should be incorporated into gameplay from the start. But again, that might delay production, so EA would never let that happen lmao. Spend more time/money on making a better game that will have greater playability/longevity and bring in more money over the long term? Why would they ever do that when they can just rush a half-finished game and make those big bucks in the short term? Lmao.

Also, “but I hate weather and I don’t want it in my game -” ideally TS5 or whatever would give you options to play without some or any weather effects. Then you can choose to play as if you didn’t have seasons at all without everyone else having to shell out EP-price for something as fundamental to the Sims game experience as gardening or fishing (or toddlers).

I don’t know what the point of writing this post was. I’m not trying to be negative about the newer Sims games or anything, and of course not the people who enjoy playing them. And I’m sure that the Seasons EPs ARE good and feel fun to play. I’m just questioning the motives behind why these mechanics are STILL, even two game gens after they were initially introduced, considered “EP-only” content and have not been incorporated into our expectations of base-game content, and the only answer I can come up with is “saving and/or gouging money”. I just feel like they know a significant portion of their playerbase aren’t familiar with other game titles and how DLC/paid content is released for them, so they don’t know that they should expect/demand better and basically just buy whatever EA sells them. Ka-ching for EA.

I guess I’m just old man angry at cloud because I miss the Maxis days, where EPs were “here’s everything we were psyched to try and get you before but didn’t have the time/budget/literal CD-ROM space to give it to you, so we really crammed it with as much content as we could manage to finish in time so that you really get the most for your money”, and not “here’s the bare minimum amount of content that we felt we could charge you full EP price for without inciting a riot”. But what else is new?

Basically EA is just cashing in on the idea that people will pay for an expansion pack now because it has been an expansion pack in the past, whether or not the content in that expansion pack still requires the same amount of effort/work/budget that originally required it to be an EP in the first place.

#this is just ridiculously long don't even read it #I forgot half of what I said even #I've just been watching a lot of Sims youtubers lately and they're all mostly focused on TS4 #and it's interesting hearing them talk about TS3 as 'their' Sims game #like the one they grew up with and moved on from #because for me that would be TS1 and then I guess TS2 but I still play TS2 #and hearing the way they talk about current EPs and just feeling kind of... bitter? on their behalf #because they're so impressed by the content that they get in EPs and I'm like. but this is barely even a quarter #of the new content you're SUPPOSED to get #but you don't KNOW that because you've just grown up with this expectation #and that's what EA is counting on lol

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numeronubisexualhawkeye · 5 years

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This One’s For You Steve Irwin

1818 words

(this is complete and utter nonsense but i had fun writing it lmao)

Clint wouldn’t lie and say he had been a little excited when Maria cleared them for this mission. At first he was going to pass it onto someone else or let Natasha handle it on her own this time. He had just come off a month long mission trying to take down an arms dealer in Benin, and was ready for some well deserved rest, but Maria knew how to reel him back in. At first she had just told him that it was in Australia, easy, would probably be up in a week, and he could stay in the country for however long he wanted until they called him back for another mission (the last part sounded too good to be true, but Clint had vacation days saved up and he would use them on the sunshine coast in a heartbeat).

That grabbed enough of his attention to ask just how “easy” this mission was supposed to be. When Maria told him that they had to discreetly take down someone who had been smuggling biological weapons through Australia Zoo, he actually laughed.

“Is the crime world so desperate they’re willing to smear Steve Irwin’s legacy for their evil plan?” he had asked.

Maria just shrugged. “I don’t know. But apparently, they’re doing a sloppy job, because Queensland Police have had multiple tips from staff and tourists reporting suspicious behavior.”

“Then why not let Queensland Police handle it?”

“Because it’s one of ours.” Maria said handing him the file with the mission report.

Clint vaguely remembered the face in the blurry security camera picture. Some cadet who had defected early into training, too tempted by the easy money of some crime lord one of his friends had been running with. Maybe this would be easy, Clint had trained him for a short while, and the young man, Jacob if he remembered correctly, was shrimpy, never ranked high in any of his physical tests. But apparently he was a good enough businessman to have a weapons deal running down under.

He accepted the mission, and three days later, he and Natasha boarded a painstakingly long twenty hour flight. When they finally got to their hotel, Clint sang the praises to every deity he could name off the top of his head.

“You gonna lounge around all day or are we gonna get to work?” Natasha said coyly, tossing a t-shirt on his head.

Clint had been spread out across the bed for several minutes while Natasha was coming out the bathroom from a shower. “Ugh, five more minutes. That flight was the devil.”

“This heat is about to be the devil. I can’t believe we have to stake out a zoo during Australia’s summer.” Natasha said as she brushed out her hair.

“Hey, look on the bright side, we can go to the Crocoseum when we’re done.”

“Hm, that's true.” Natasha laughed. “But seriously, let's get this over with. There's no way that skinny asshole can be that big of a problem.”

But as it turned out, that skinny asshole ended up being a complete problem. Since the calls had been coming in about suspicious behavior, security at the zoo had been tightened. They had to go in without weapons, which they most likely wouldn't have needed, but going in without at least a pistol made Clint feel naked in his khaki shorts and t shirt. The only sort of gear they took in was a radiation monitor that Natasha had smuggled in in her purse.

The tight security also made it that much harder to scope their target out without alerting any of the staff. Sure they were just moderately trained cops and staff, but Clint would have much rather preferred to not have their cover blown (that and he really wanted to see the croc feeding at four).

They didn't stay the entire day, only about two hours. It was crowded and with the security, all they could really do is scout out staff entrances and exists, and keep an eye out for Jacob's face in the crowd.

The second day was a bit more promising. In the crowded cafe, Natasha was able to pick up a reading on the radiation found in the weapon they were looking for.

“West side of the zoo,” she signed to him. He had his hearing aids in, but it was easier to talk about the mission this way.

“Oh goody, looks like we're going to Africa.” Clint signed back as he looked at the map to see where exactly they would be heading.

Once in the African enclosures of the zoo, the crowd had thinned out a little and the security was a little less dense. Clint walked with his arm around Natasha's shoulder, leaning a little too hard into their newlywed cover. But how could he not? The jovial energy of the zoo, the perfect weather, Natasha looking like an angel in her green sundress, ponytail, and New York Giants baseball cap she had nicked from him a few weeks back. It was painfully blissful, and here he was trying to chase down a defunct cadet instead of being able to fully enjoy it.

“I got it.” Natasha signed, walking out from under Clint's arm.

He sighed as the moment ended, duty was always calling. He followed her as she walked along the perimeter of the enclosure, passing rhinos and giraffes as he went. When she stopped and looked up, her gaze went inward to the animals.

“What the,” she started, “that can't be right.”

“What is it?” Clint asked.

Natasha didn't say anything, there was a security guard walking past them. Instead she passed him the monitor. The signal was strong alright, the blip on the radar binging like crazy. Clint looked in the direction the monitor was saying the radiation was strongest; the herd of rhinos.

“Wh-what?” Clint said perplexed.

Natasha nudged him in the ribs with her elbow, the guard passing them had turned around. She laced her fingers in his and faked a laugh, as if she was laughing at Clint's reaction to a bad joke she had just told. The guard turned and walked off.

“Let's go.” Natasha signed.

Back at the hotel, Clint finally blurted out his theory as to what was going on, “He's smuggling the weapons through the animals. Like some drug trafficking type shit.”

Natasha shook her head. “No that'd be too easy to find out. I doubt a rhino would be able to hold down an atomic bomb in its stomach for long.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Are you hinting at what I think you are?”

“It's so stupid it's almost amazing, isn't it?” Natasha said.

“Just to be sure, we are both thinking that the animals are the weapons right?”

“Yeah that's totally it.” Natasha answered. He couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

That night, they donned their catsuits and gear and headed back to the zoo. Clint felt like he was going to hell for breaking into the zoo. Australia Zoo of all zoos to run a weapons ring, and in the animals themselves? It was already bad enough that it was animal abuse, but the things this would do to Steve Irwin's legacy if it got out? Clint made a note to kick Jacob's ass a little harder when they caught him.

First they took out the security cameras and set off a distraction in the food court. “Sonic arrow should do well enough for a couple minutes right?” Clint signed to Natasha.

They made their way back to the African enclosures but the monitor indicated that wherever the radiation had been coming from had moved.

“Shit, we're too late.” Natasha said.

“No, look over there.” Clint pointed to a small spot of light across the large field. The shape of the truck was almost impossible to make out in the darkness, but someone had left the light on inside.

“We gotta hurry. I really don't wanna disappoint any of the Peta freaks at work.” Natasha said.

They jumped the fence and sprinted across the field, Clint a little wary of the animals around them, but they took a wide path to avoid spooking the herd. But by the time they were halfway across the field, the truck driver had caught sight of them and started the engine.

“Shit. Clint,” Natasha hissed beside him.

“I'm on it!” He whipped an arrow out his quiver and took aim at the truck's tires, but the driver braked in front of them, narrowly avoiding running them over. A man stepped out the driver’s side, Jacob.

“Ha! I guess I finally popped up on Shield’s radar.” he said, sounding impressed, “Guess my little operation is going better than I thought.”

“Dude, you’re using rhinos for some fucked up weapons experiments.” Natasha, irritation dripping from her voice, “That’s not very honorable.”

“And at Steve Irwin’s zoo? The hell’s the matter with you?” Clint followed.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Some jackass in Africa wants souped up baby rhinos, I’m gonna give him souped up baby rhi-” Jacob’s sentence was cut off by one of Clint’s trick shots piercing his shoulder and electrocuting him.

“G-d these guys just can’t pass up a chance to monologue.” he huffed.

Natasha went to apprehend Jacob while Clint went to the bed of the truck and found a baby rhino sedated in the bed. “Hey there fella,” he whispered, rubbing his hand along its side. “We’re gonna get you home to your mom safe and sound.”

The rest of the night went smoothly. They alerted zoo security, and told them about Jacob’s plan. Natasha assured them that all the animals sold through Jacob would be returned as soon as possible, she and Clint both knew it wouldn’t take much to get the young man to crack and tell where he had shipped the poor animals off to. When all was said and done, there was technically five days left in their mission, and Maria had said that Clint could spend however long he wanted in Australia until his next mission. The next morning at the hotel, Clint woke Natasha up early with soft kisses on her cheek.

“Good morning to you too.” she smiled. “Happy to see me?”

“Yes, but there’s also a croc feeding at noon, and I really wanna meet Terri Irwin.” Clint whispered.

Natasha rolled over and hit him in the head with her pillow. “G-d you only took this mission to come to Australia Zoo, didn’t you?”

“What? No. I took this mission to honor the late, great Steve Irwin, and go to Australia Zoo.”

Natasha laughed, and got out of bed. The rest of their stay was as sweet and simple as their newlywed cover had been, and for the time being, Clint couldn’t think of a better job in the world to have.

#k.txt #clintasha #fic tag #fluff

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jjpmoans · 5 years

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50 Questions Tag

Tagged by @prettywordsyouleft and @itsallabigmess bcs these two unnies really love me

1. What takes too much of your time?

Social media (yes that includes tumblr)

2. What makes your day better?

These days, Jinyoung. Lol okay so I am a very talkative one. So yeah, talking to someone will immediately makes me feel less stressful.

3. What’s the best thing that happened to you today?

Just now @itsallabigmess made an exception for me to write a GOT7 fic asdfghjkl I FEEL A LITTLE TOO OVER HAPPY

4. What fictional place would you like to go to?

I think almost all my friend would have guess this. Hogwarts. Because the food there seems to be endless and really, I’d love to try eating both drumsticks in my hand and I want to put an incantation to whoever tries to hold me from eating.

5. Are you good at giving advice?

Well, I think I am. Judging from how my whole family turned to me when they wanted to share their problems. Also when I gave advises, I always stresses this one thing “Listen to understand, don’t listen to reply” and that implies to me too. And honestly, I listen too much and sometimes when people just don’t want to change, I feel really annoyed BECAUSE WHAT IS THE POINT YOU WANTED MY ADVISE???? Okay I think I’m good. hahahhahhaha

6. Do you have any mental illness?

Horny 24/7 is that a mental illness? lmao no I’m not that bad but I think I need to get married. NOW.

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

Not yet. In my country, people describe sleep paralysis as you got crushed by some spirit (ghost to be exact) and yes it is scary and I hope I would never experience it.

8. What musician inspired you the most?

I’ve been thinking a lot and though I really want to say GOT7, I’d say EXO. Partly because I was there since early times, but also, the amount of success and loyalties they have received are really unbelievable. The secret of EXO’s and BTS’s popularity which leads them to win daesang in every award is their fans. And I really hope ahgase can be like them. I’d be lying if I say our fandom is really hardworking when it comes to award season. I’ve seen my friend bullshitting EXO and BTS bcs whenever any of them is nominated in the same award of GOT7, automatically, GOT7 will lose. And no joke, army and exol are really monsters during award season. And I hope us ahgase can be like that too. I know got7 said they didn’t mind but Jinyoung once said that he want to know how those groups can win daesang easily and he thought got7 need to work harder. smh I’m emo. sorry this got longer than it should.

9. Have you ever fallen in love?

I do. Hahahahhahaha yes I do.

10. What’s your dream date?

Well for me, just talking with each other is a date. I love to know small details because when I love someone, I just want to know everything about him. But okay a dream date? Amusement park. Yes you need to know which ride makes me scream like a girl and which makes me scream like a mad woman.

11. What do others notice about you?

I’m very talkative (that really shows lol). And I don’t know how to refuse when someone ask for a help or anything. I always tell myself to treat people the way I want to be treated.

And they said I’m too nice. Yeah I figured that too hahahahhaa

12. What is an annoying habit you have?

Refuse to listen when I’m angry. I feel annoyed because I know I’m wrong but I’m angry but I don’t want to hurt people. So I’ll say “Sorry, I’m very angry now but I know I’m wrong. Just, I’ll be okay later so we’ll talk later”

13. Do you still talk to your first love?

Yes and no. Our last conversation was he wanted to meet me. But ever since then, no other conversation.

14. How many ex’s do you have?

Can’t relate lol

15. How many songs are in your playlist?

Here’s the thing. I have a lot of playlists. Phone playlist, laptop playlist, joox playlist and youtube playlist. So I don’t know how many of them.

16. What instruments can you play?

Non existent.

17. Who do you have the most pictures of?

My phone? Now? Jinyoung smh this is all Tumblr’s fault lol.

18. Where would you like to go before you die?

Mecca. I’d like to die there if I can.

19. What is your zodiac?

Virgo. And please, someone, please help me calculate whatever thing it was (sun sign, moon sign and all) I never knew those things and it irks me when I don’t know it hahahahhaaa

20. Do you relate to it?

Well I did some research here, Virgo firstly is a virgin and yes I am. It says that virgo is very supportive of people in their lives and even strangers, that is me. I’m a critical thinker bcs I personally hate when something goes wrong. but lol hardworking, artists and remembers everything? Not even close. I’m a lazy ass, I draw a cow but it turned into a pig and I am hopeless with my memory.

But one Virgo thing about me, yes I am an overthinker hahahahhaa

21. What is happiness to you?

When my family reunited.

22. Are you going through anything right now?

Family problem. Mom just got heart attack, dad married another woman, brother on crisis with mom, sister just stabbed my back, aunt made everything worse. It’s been three months into 2019, every week, another family problem popped up. But we are trying, I tried to fix everything, another role which the smallest child has to take upon responsibility but I’m fine. Just, tiring.

23. What’s the worst decision you’ve ever made?

applied for the wrong scholarship and wasted an opportunity to fly to New Zealand for study.

24. What’s your favourite store?

Food stores. Any of them. ARE MY FAVOURITE ahhahahhaha

25. What’s your opinion on abortion?

Because I’m a muslim, I am against abortion. Here, in my country, abortion is done because it was done out of wedlock and they feel embarrassed. So, it irks me bcs if you can think to have sex, you can’t think that there is possibilities that you can get pregnant? And to kill your child bcs you wanted to cover it, is unacceptable. But again, it is personal choice.

26. Do you keep a bucket list?

I have a few but not enough to be a bucket.

27. Do you have a favourite album?

Honestly, if favourite means I have listened to all songs in that album, it’s EXO The War album.

28. What do you want for your birthday?

A freaking big plushie. I love to hug big plushies. But no one ever wanted to give me that for my birthday. And now, I’ve been searching for a big squirtle plushie or snorlax plushie (yes jackson and jaebum)

29. What are most people’s first impression of you?

okay this one lol they said I look scary and they thought I’d be the grumpy one. Well, if you meet me when I’m hungry, I have the tendency to be one.

30. What age do you seem according to most people?

I don’t know anymore. An aunt asked me “Are you the one who got married?” when it was my sister smh

31. Where do you keep your phone while you’re sleeping?

next to my pillow bcs I need to charge it.

32. what word do you say the most?

me? I say “shit” a lot lol

33. What’s the oldest age you would date?

well I would say I definitely date anyone as long as they are not the same age with my dad.

34. What’s the youngest age you would date?

idk I never thought on dating a younger one. But if I do, maybe 4 years younger bcs damn, if I make it 10 years, my date would be 12 when me here is 22.

35. What job/career do most people say would suit you?

something which requires me to talk a lot.

36. What’s your favourite music genre?

K-Pop.

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be?

South Korea. New Zealand. Anywhere but Malaysia lol.

38. What is your current favourite song?

Say you won’t let go - James Arthur

39. How long have you had this blog for?

I had this blog for a few years. But just becoming active just recently hmm I don’t know the exact date. But I know it started after I interacted with @prettywordsyouleft

40. What are you excited for?

Food. and sponsored vacation

41. Are you a better talker or listener?

A better talker. but also a pretty good listener

42. What is the last productive thing you did?

Last sunday, i climbed a 200m hill to get to the view point. It got me panting like a dying cow.

43. What do you want for Christmas?

While I don’t celebrate Christmas, I welcome gifts. Any gifts would be fine lol (make sure its food)

44. What class do you get the best grades in?

High school? Chemistry. College? Mathematic. Now? Nothing hahahahaha

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now?

5 and exhausted but tomorrow? 10 BECAUSE A JINYOUNG IS COMING

46. What can you see yourself doing in 10 years?

10 years I just hope that I am already working and saving money to go on vacations and can sponsor my family on vacations too.

47. When did you first get your heartbreak?

2009 when I discovered that dad has another wife. I was 12 and just got my exam result but dad wasn’t there. He was never present for any of my achievements in school. Turns out he has another child the same age as me and he puts her before me. Since I was born, I was always put second.

2011 when I liked a guy but he hated me awh teenagers. He said I’m too fat and how dare a fat girl like me tries to like him? He was my first love.

48. At what age do you want to get married?

When I am ready. I have a dream wedding, so I would work hard for it to happen.

49. What career did you want to have as a child?

Idk I always change it lol today i’ll say teacher and next day I’ll say ballerina. Yes I spent my whole school life giving different careers when teachers asked me.

50. What do you crave right now?

Food bcs I’m on diet and hell those food porns are getting on my nerves.

Phew it was a good time answering all these questions and it drains my energy lol. So for this, hmm I don’t know who to tag. But i’ll go with this one @sevenpeaches @riceeater22 @tuanyiems @kpopchangedme @kpopstories @starhibiki @ongsung @sehunsmybae (yes I always saw you) and everyone who want to do this! of course, you are not forced to do this

#jinyoungmoans join tagging game

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surveyjunkie · 5 years

Text

01. Do you consider yourself a goal-oriented person? Do you find it difficult to commit to doing things if there’s no achievable end goal? I think I am especially as I grow older - I set specific goals for myself and then make a plan of how I am going to achieve them. Right now the goal is to pay off my debt and save money for an apartment. It definitely is difficult to commit to things if there’s no end goal. 02. What’s a habit your friend or significant other has that you find annoying? My significant other smokes cigarettes which I find not only annoying but concerning. 03. Do you believe in the idea that everyone has a “purpose”? If so, what do you think your “purpose” is, or do you think you’ve even found it yet? I used to think that way but now it’s clear to me that some people are just a waste of space. 04. When was the last time you tried to talk someone out of doing something? Were you successful? If not, what ended up happening? I have had to talk my sister in law out of telling off our mother in law but it happened anyway. Lol.

05. Do you consider yourself an independent person? In what ways are you independent and in what ways could you be more so? Definitely not, I depend on Josh for a lot of things - mainly cleaning and cooking. My only claim to independence is the fact that I’ve been able to maintain a full time job and am relatively good with balancing finances. 06. Have you ever named a pet after a famous person? My last cat’s name was Winston, my brother named him after Winston Churchill. And my dog’s name is John Wayne (we call him JW), but that was already his name when I rescued him and I didn’t want to confuse him by changing it...I would never intentionally name an animal after a racist. 07. Do you feel uncomfortable going to the movies by yourself? I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, but it might be boring. 08. Do you like doing other things while watching TV, or do you dedicate your attention solely to what you’re watching? Unless it’s a show I’m absolutely invested in, I am guilty of being on my phone or laptop while the TV is on. But if we’re watching a movie together, I make it a point to put my phone away. 09. Have you ever sleepwalked? Nope. 10. When was the last time you mistook someone for someone else? At what point did you realize your mistake? I used to do that with my mom a lot as a child, and one time I could have sworn I saw my friend Emily while I was driving and I kept shouting her name and she turned around and went “Oh, I’m not Emily”....it was the most embarrassing thing ever! 11. Do you generally enjoy school? What aspects specifically do you enjoy? I really enjoyed middle school - especially 7th grade. I loved seeing my friends and I genuinely liked all of my teachers and was interested in the subjects. But the older I got the more I hated it. College was okay the first year then it started to get worse. I’m hoping I will enjoy grad school this year. 12. When thinking about your dream home, what do you think would be your favorite thing to shop for? Plants and decor, just filling my house with pretty things. 13. If you use Spotify, go here and list your top artists for the short term (past four weeks). Lana Del Rey, Fleetwood Mac, Taking Back Sunday, Dixie Chicks, Say Anything, The Spill Canvas, Sia, My Chemical Romance

14. Do you ever listen to those lo-fi hip hop/study music playlists on YouTube/Spotify? Yes I do. And I use them a lot for background music in my videos. 15. Have any particular national/global events had serious impacts on your values, life outlook, etc., whether they’ve directly affected you or not? Definitely 9/11. I was afraid to fly for the longest time after that, afraid of visiting big cities, and I admit that I developed a bit of xenophobia as a child (which I obviously grew out of) and it just caused me to have a much more cynical view of the world at such a young age. 16. Do you think you are capable of being attracted to someone based on looks alone, or must there be something else about them that attracts you? There has to be something else about them that attracts me. When I was single, I’d see guys I thought were really good looking but once I talked to them I immediately got turned off.

17. Are you likelier to work harder if you’re being paid? If not, what drives you to give your best effort? I wouldn’t work if I wasn’t being paid.

18. On social media, do most of your followers/people you follow tend to be of a certain gender? Do you purposefully surround yourself with one gender more than another? On Twitter, most of my followers are women because most people in the Sims Community are women. 19. Are you interesting in owning a home? What aspects of homeownership would you enjoy most? I would love to own a home in the near future. I would enjoy having a lower “rent” aka mortgage and being able to change anything I wanted and not having to deal with a landlord. 20. Does the fashion sense of a potential partner matter to you? Of course. I aint getting married to a dude who wears crocs. 21. If you had to give up every entertainment medium but one, which would you keep and why? My computer - it has everything I need. I can talk to people, watch shows, and most importantly it has all of my games. 22. Is there anything that you prefer to write down rather than type? I prefer having a physical planner where I write things down than having a planner on my phone. 23. If you download/torrent things, do you remember the first thing you ever torrented? Lmao I think it was a Nirvana or Weezer song off Limewire.

#survey #surveys

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tomshufflepuff · 6 years

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you literally said that someone calling someone else conservative is an insult. and you get so riled up when I call your beliefs a mental problem. most liberals tend to be hypocritical snowflakes. Trump has done more in his short time as president than Obama did in his 2 terms.

okay and? Lmao I didn’t say it was a mental disorder. It can be an insult in my opinion if it’s by match the actual 100% conservative that don’t believe in equal rights for everyone (don’t fight me on this lmao most conservatives don’t like the LGBTQ community and are very traditional and don’t support women’s rights). I got all “riled” up because what you said is bullshit and disgusting. And nah you’re not right about Trump doing more. If you mean saying more offensive things then yes you are correct. Sorry I don’t know how you can support someone who calls Africa a “shithole country” and insults the CONTINENT’s people, but welcomed white immigrants from Norway? (His wife is an immigrant and doesn’t have US citizenship just an fyi) and someone who categorizes Mexicans as rapists and blaming them for the drug and job problems in this country.Let’s look at what good things Obama did:1) He rescued the country from the Great Recession, cutting the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7% in 6 years2) He signed the Affordable Care Act which provides health insurance to over 20 million uninsured Americans3) Ordered for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden4) Passed the $787 billion America Recovery and Reinvestment Act to spur economic growth during the Great Recession5) Supported the LGBT community’s fight for marriage equality7) Commuted the sentences of nearly 1200 drug offenders to reverse “unjust and outdated prison sentences”8) Saved the U.S. auto industry9) Helped put the U.S. ontrack for energy independence by 202010) Began the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan 11) Signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals allowing as many as 5 million people living in the U.S. illegally to avoid deportation and receive work permits12) Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to re-regulate the financial sector13) Dropped the veteran homeless rate by 50 percent14) Reversed Bush-era torture policies15) Began the process of normalizing relations with Cuba16) Increased Department of Veteran Affairs funding17) Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act18) Boosted fuel efficiency standards for cars19) Improved school nutrition with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act20) Repealed the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (which is honestly one of my favorite things he’s done)21) Signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, making it a federal crime to assault anyone based on sexual or gender identification (something our country desperately needed)22) Helped negotiate the landmark Iran Nuclear Deal23) He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to combat pay discrimination against women (he a feminist lmao don’t fight me. Another thing he did that’s one of my favorites)24) Nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, making her the first Hispanic ever to serve as a justice25) Supported veterans through a $78 billion tuition assistance GI bill26) Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”27) Launched My Brother’s Keeper, a White House initiative designed to help young minorities achieve their full potential (again, he believes in equality FOR ALL)28) Expanded embryonic stem cell research leading to groundbreaking work in areas including spinal injury treatment and cancersooooo should I go on orrrrr 🤷‍♀️🤔And the things Trump has done for this country can be debated on if it’s actually good.He wants to be allies with Russian and North Korea. North Korea has gone back on MANY promises in the past to not attack using military weapons. Russia, well Putin was a spy and now he’s president and he’s involved with multiple dangerous people.He pulled out on the Paris Climate convention which says the US will not be participating with other major countries in trying to stop global warming. Oh and he said global warming isn’t real.He said his inauguration crowd was larger than Obama’s (lmao it wasn’t.)He accused Obama of wiretapping him, which Obama never did.He kinda confessed on Twitter that that Trump tower meeting with DJ jr. was to get “dirt” on Hilary. Keep in mind that he lied about it many times. He supports Roseanne Barr who is a known anti Jewish and a racist.He called Mexicans, “rapists” and said they were bringing drugs and crime into this country. Not knowing that there’s more white American citizens who have been prosecuted for rape. He blames immigrants on everything, including “stealing jobs”. No okay lmao first of all, no one is “stealing” any jobs. The employer is often going to hire the employee who is a better worker. So stop complaining like a little bitch saying a Mexican stoke your job and start working on becoming a harder and better worker. Plus another reason why more immigrants are being hired is because a lot of them don’t have much money after coming here from Mexico. And they are willing to work for anything to be able to have enough money to provide for their families. The American employer sees that and doesn’t give them a fare pay because they know the immigrant will work for anything. So they take advantage and lower the pay for that employee so they can keep the money for themselves.He also body shames women and treats them as if they were objects. He hates NATO because okay lesson time, NATO was put together because of the Soviet Union’s (Russia) rose to power during the Cold War and were taking over many nearby cities and torturing people. So some countries in Europe and and the Americas established NATO as an alliance to fight against the Soviet if they ever rise to power like that again. And you know why Trump pulled out of it? Because he’s friends with Putin and doesn’t want to be in an alliance against him.He also wants DACA gone because it protects immigrants. Not knowing that you can’t get a DACA if you have a criminal record of any kind.Says he loves all of the dreamers yet he’s very racist and unfair to the majority of the dreamers in this country (Latinos and Latinas).Promotes a “Space Force” lmao what even is that the next Star Wars movie.He wants abortion and birth control gone and his excuses is because of his religion (along with Mike Pence) and they wanna get rid of Planned Parenthood just because they give abortions. Planned Parenthood does get government funding, but that funding does not go to abortions, just basic medical help to new moms. My mom went to planned parenthood, she obviously didn’t get an abortion 😂And recently, Trump locks children in actual cages in support of Jeff Session’s “no tolerance policy” saying that if you come into this country illegally, they’re gonna rip your children away from you. Not only that, but they didn’t even bother to keep track of children in any way and many children are still separated from their parents. And Sessions quotes a bible verse while speaking about the policy. Yet Trump supporters who call themselves Christians ignore this one bible verse, “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself for you were foreigners in Egypt. For I am the LORD your GOD.” Hmmmm 🤔Also, there’s this thing called Separation of Church and State that was mentioned by one of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, going into detail about the First Amendment in the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise of the First Amendment. So he really shouldn’t use a bible verse to back up his shit. Along with Pence and Trump using their religious beliefs to cancel abortions.

But I do not agree with everything Obama did. He did do some, well not so good, well bad things too. So I do acknowledge that Obama isn’t all perfect. And I’m pointing out a lot of bad things Trump has done because those are the major key points. He hasn’t really done anything good for this country, or our allies. And he’s not a good leader by being racist and sexist.

#Obama is pretty cool #tom holland is not a conservative #tom holland supports the LGBTQ community #tom holland is a feminist #reminder he’s friends with laura and zendaya #aka two of the biggest lgbtq supporters and feminists #zendaya #laura harrier #tom holland #peter parker #tom holland likes Obama

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kaylabliss · 6 years

Text

Since I'm posting again...

I figure I'll post about why I've disappeared from Tumblr for about a million years. I missed all you people that I don't actually talk to but enjoy seeing posts from.

This year has been total shit. I don't know what my last "update" was, but I doubt anyone else will remember either.

I'm finally on ADHD medication (as of November), which has made a very slight difference in my ability to function. However, I'm thinking of asking for something different. I'm on Adderall XR, and I'm wondering if Vyvanse would be more helpful. It costs twice as much, but if it helps, it would be worth it.

Despite taking daily amphetamines, I've gained even more weight and I'm at my highest weight since pregnancy. (I'm not taking Adderall for weight loss, of course, but it would have been a really nice side effect. I have little to no appetite, but I still eat way too much because depression anxiety and laziness.)

In January, we found out Toys R Us was closing. My partner has been a supervisor there for ten years, so this was a pretty devastating blow for us. His last day was in April. Fortunately, he was only unemployed for about a month. In the week after TRU closed, he helped a local mom and pop toy store owner move some shelves that they'd bought from the TRU liquidation. That got his foot in the door, and now he's actually making more money there than he was at TRU.... To the tune of an extra $250 a week. Better yet, they love him. And his boss? Small world, he was my favorite patient at my old job. So we're going into this with me already knowing and liking his boss! And a fun bonus: when new movies come out, they rent out entire rows at the theater and all the employees and whoever they want to invite can go see it. Eric went to see Solo with them-- I've been trying to convince him to go out and do things with people for literally our entire relationship, so I was THRILLED about this. Also, the store sells mostly older collectibles, so when he saw what his toys were worth, he was psyched. He sold two of his old action figures this week for $400, and he gets 60% of that on consignment.

The salary increase and extra money is great, because in February, my car broke down. The transmission died, and as it was a POS 1996 Lexus, it would have cost four times what the car was worth to fix it. So we've been sharing a car, which has been difficult, but thankfully both our jobs close at 8 and we're right across the street from each other. While he was still at TRU, he was sometimes getting off around 10, which meant keeping my daughter out way too late. But now we can start saving for a down payment on a car, and actually afford car payments without having to live on ramen.

Also in February, his mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. This has been hard. Last week, she had her final surgery to remove the cancerous mass from her lung. She came home on Thursday and she's doing well. Aside from the anxiety over her diagnosis, this has been hard in about a dozen other ways. She had some moments where she was legitimately scared that she wouldn't get to see Shilo grow up, and this was made even harder when she lost her hair. She looked different, and Shilo acted scared of her. I don't know if she was having trouble recognizing her or what. And then to top it off, they've always been pretty well off financially and have always been able to help out their kids when needed-- including us. But there was a lot of things their insurance didn't pay for, and they had a $100 copay for each radiation treatment for six weeks. We haven't needed help with money, thankfully, but under normal circumstances they may have been able to help us get a new car. They also missed their granddaughter's graduation in Texas, which I know was disappointing. Eric's unemployment was actually helpful though, because he was able to stay home with Shilo for the greater part of his mom's chemo and radiation.

All that aside, there have been a lot of daily stressors and disappointments for me. I don't know how much I should really go into here, since someone could stumble into my blog.... Eh, I think I have it locked from public view, so.

One of the biggest things that bugged me was my mom. I didn't get to see her for Christmas because on Christmas eve, it was more important to her to go pass out coffee at a local men's shelter. (I know it sounds noble, but sometimes I wonder. She's wound up dating several of the men there.) I had to work on Christmas day. I didn't see her until the end of January at my niece's birthday party. She didn't bring Shilo's Christmas presents with her, because we had planned to do lunch before the party but neither of us felt well enough for it, so she decided not to bring the presents. I brought her and Lily's presents, because I knew it could be a while before we could get together, and it was already a month late. After that, she said several times she would come over with them. One day, she had told me she was going to be down the street at Walmart and would drop by... She actually called me from Walmart to ask me for diet advice.... And didn't come over when she was done.

In May, she finally just brought the presents to me at work, because she was at a dentist appointment in the same complex I work in. I didn't ACTUALLY see her until last week.

In all that time, she knew about all the crap I've been going through, and she hasn't checked on me one single time. In fact, the week after my car broke down, she called me to brag that she had traded in her perfectly good, brand new car for an even newer car. This was particularly infuriating to me, because I was busting my ass working overtime and working every single holiday and I was barely making rent (forget any chance of getting even a cheap functioning car), but she's on SSDI and is taking on this huge car payment for literally no reason.

Then, when we finally did get together and go to lunch, she spent the first fifteen minutes listing every celebrity who has ever @ her on Twitter (despite me saying repeatedly "I have no idea who that is" and showing zero interest in the discussion because c'mon), talked about herself the whole time, and didn't ask me any questions about how things are going. When I did manage to get a word in, it was about Shilo's behavior at school, and she took over the conversation again to tell me about this place where you can drop autistic kids off for a few hours (but they're not even a licensed childcare facility, which makes me nervous, and they don't list their prices on their website which means I can't afford them). They also have family classes and actives and whatever, but still, I'm sure I can't afford them.

One of the things that really hurt me though? She had been "too busy" to see us for nearly six months, but she had time to make a 400 mile round trip to the other end of the state to spend time with my high school roommate and her children... Two weekends in a row, including on Mother's Day weekend. But yeah, too fucking busy to see her own daughter and granddaughter. When I tried to confront her on it, she was really blasé about it and deflected the conversation.

And? She didn't tell me that she broke up with her boyfriend months ago, and was not living where I thought she was living. In fact, I'm pretty sure she straight up lied to me about it, because she sent me what appeared to be an accidental text about moving, and when I said "wait what, you're moving?" she said "oh yeah from one trailer to the other" (they were living in a trailer park where you can only stay six months due to the sewage system or something, so they bought two trailers so they could move to the second every six months).

It's all made me feel really alone. I miss my grandma, because she never would have treated me this way. My mom is the only "family" I have, and she has zero interest in being part of my life.

Anyway, done with that section.

Shilo has been very violent at school, to a point where we actually got TWO behavior referrals in one day (a slip explaining her behavior and consequences-- usually involves missing recess, having to eat lunch in the principal's office, and/or writing an apology letter). It's been frustrating, and I haven't been sure what to do since I work so much and have my own issues with executive function and lack the ability to keep a stable routine. I'm hoping next year will be better, and I'm going to get a behavior intervention plan added to her IEP so we can figure out WHY she acts this way instead of just trying to correct the behavior after it happens. They do try to circumvent the behavior, mostly using social stories before transitions and things, but I don't think it's working.

Another big thing is that I got my IUD removed, and while I'm pissed about having a real menstrual cycle again, I'm shocked at some of the effects the IUD had on me that I didn't even realize. It turns out it was really dampening my sex drive, and portions of my personality. Suddenly I was interested in sex again and attracted to anything that moves lmao. An increased sex drive is a bad thing for me though, which I won't go into here.... But in short, let's say that it's caused some hurt feelings due to rejection.

So yeah, that's most of it. If you actually read my wall of text and whining, thanks! You're a champ.

#personal #complaining

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