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#UPDATE I WENT AND CHECKED AND I APPARENTLY COMPLETELY FORGOT BOOK 3
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Anyone else remember Fablehaven? Those books were fucking batshit inSANE
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char-lotta · 3 years
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Forget me not (Part 1/3)
Pairing: Jake x MC
Words: 1,6k
Summary: Forgetting is hard but forgiving is harder.
Warnings: -
Chapters: 1, 2, 3
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Forget me not - part one
You looked on the screen without thought in your head. The download bar was moving so slowly, that you couldn’t even pin it to actually move. The quiet humming coming from the countless computers filled the dark room with only you in there. Although, you were used to be alone, since that was the way of living you had performed for years already. You were alone and empty. You wouldn’t describe yourself alive, just plainly existing.
Something interrupted your catatonic state of just being alive and it took you a while to realize what it was. You looked your phone which had dim light with simple text on the screen.
MC: Please, could we just talk? I miss you.
Those blue eyes of yours read the message again and again and something warm sparked inside of you. You quickly diminished it when you found yourself thinking of her, the subject what you had forbidden yourself for weeks now. You swiped the message away from your screen and turned the phone screen down on the table. She would eventually stop.
-_-_-_-_-
Few days later, you received another message. You unlocked your screen and looked those words written by someone, who you didn’t deserve, but still wanted to be with you. God knows why.
MC: Jake, I really need to talk to you.
Something ached in your heart when you closed the message again and you sighed heavily. Why couldn’t she just let go? You had explained to her that this was for her own protection, and the image of her hurt face was burned in your mind. You could almost hear the sobs if you closed your eyes now. She didn’t know that you saw her though, because you were too coward to tell her that straight and instead took care of that by sending a text to her, but you had watched her from afar. How lame of you, but what else could you expect from twisted image of a man as you were.
You couldn’t resist yourself and you opened a CCTV in one of your screens. It showed her at work, in her tiny cubicle, as you knew her working schedule. You promised yourself that just this one time, you would allow yourself to look at her: her long brown curls, the worried face of hers and your favorite part; her neck. Oh, how you missed to be close to her, bury your face in her neck and smell that enchanting scent of lilies in her skin and shampoo on her hair. You couldn’t see it on the blurry CCTV, but she had a small mole just below her ear, where you had drawn circles in your finger when she slept. She was beautiful, as always; those soft lips of hers and you could remember them to whisper you all kinds of sweet words at the morning dusk, when she thought you were asleep. I love you; she had said and all you wanted to do, was embrace her and never let go of her.
But you did.
She was biting her lip again, what she always did when she was nervous. And it was because of you, and you knew it. She looked so fucking sad when she held her phone in her lap, looking at the screen, hoping that you would answer to her. But you couldn’t, and it was completely your own fault. You closed the CCTV and let your mind drift again to that emptiness, what had been your loyal companion always.
-_-_-_-_-_-
You received the next message in the same night, but you weren’t asleep since you never slept. You had only these nightmares what would follow you from dream to dream and sometimes you saw them during the days too.
MC: Don’t you think that I can decide myself what is good for me?
MC: You promised me that you would always be there for me, but there you are; not answering any of my text or calls.
You clenched your fists and saw that she was writing again. No, she was not capable of deciding where she should put herself in danger or not. She let her emotions cloud her judgment, and you had warned her since the beginning of the mission to find Hannah, that there should not be emotions involved because they would just make things harder. She couldn’t see it, but you could. Your pursuers had been on your tails and they were getting closer and closer.
When they had sent you that image, something broke inside of you and you just knew, that this happiness of yours was short-term. You had promised to her that you would always be there, but she forgot the most important promise that you had made to her; you would always protect her. And that was the promise which you were keeping, and you could never forgive yourself if something happened to her. She was dragged in to this involuntary, she hadn’t asked for it. Why should you put your feelings towards her to be more important that her life was?
The message coming from that image that your pursuers had sent you couldn’t be any clearer; it showed her coming out of her apartment door. They knew who she was and where she lived and what she meant to you. In that moment you had realized that she already was in mortal danger and you had put her in this position just simply loving her. It had to be stopped and no one else couldn’t do that for you, so it had to be you. You were going to break her.
MC: I fucking hate you
MC: I loathe you
MC: How can you do this to me?
The texts were coming quickly now, and you could see that she was frustrated and angry. Her words I fucking hate you and I loathe you felt like daggers in your abdomen, but at the same time, you were satisfied. The anger of hers would help her cope losing you and moving on. She deserved someone who could be there for her without putting her at risk, although even the thought of her being with someone else killed you slowly. But this had to be done.
MC: I loved you and I would have given my life for you
MC: And you threw me away like I am garbage
MC: I don’t want to hear from you ever again
Good, you thought, you never will. And with that thought you muted your phone and returned to your computer.
-_-_-_-_--
It had been two months now from the last message of hers and four since you had last met. You could see the sun getting up between the curtains and you switched your screen to her workplace’s system, just for the check up on her, as you did every morning. You searched her name in the list of employees logged on, but you couldn’t find her. You frowned and checked again, but she wasn’t there. With a few buttons you had opened the CCTV and looked at her cubicle, but it was empty.
Where was she?
The cubicle looked plain, and you realized that her plants and pictures were missing too. Personally, you didn’t understand of the concept of having all kind of distracting things on your desk, but considering that she always bought a new plant for substitute of what she had involuntary killed, she seemed to love them. Confused, you rewind the security tape to last day and stopped when she was shown on the tape and looked closely. She had a box with her, and she was picking up all her personal things from her desk and when she was done, she left. You followed her via the cameras of the elevator.
Maybe she got promotion and had gotten herself a new room?
But no, she went with her stuff to the elevator and took the trip down and left the building.
“What the fuck” you muttered and switched to her apartment’s hallway camera. You zoomed in her apartments door and saw that there was apparently a small family moving in. There was no sight of her in the video and her apartment seemed empty. You felt your heartbeat rising and your palms turned sweaty. You tried to log on her phone and use the GPS to track her, but she had turned her phone off.
“FUCK!” you yelled and threw the coffee mug you had, into the wall. Where had she gone?
You logged on her social medias, but she had updated those months ago, so they weren’t helpful. You had promised to her that you wouldn’t read her messages, but she didn’t leave you a choice, you had to know where she was. You saw that she had discussed with her friends, but the topics were daily stuff and chit chat.
You opened up her emails, but they weren’t important, containing only work-related mails and some recommendations from HBO, which suggested that she needed to re-watch Game of Thrones sixtieth time this year. She knew that you would investigate those while looking for you and she was doing her best on covering her tracks.
Few flying coffee cups later and you were shouting from frustration. You breathed heavily and stared the monitors. You had taught her well, but that was the point, you had taught her. You had told her that when she was booking any tickets or making any travel plans, she wasn’t supposed to use her own email as a verification, but spam email you had created to her, which servers were located some tiny island on the Caribbean Sea. You typed the address on your browser, and there it was, ticket confirmation mail.
Thank you for booking your trip to Duskwood from us!
Here are some tips for your journey –
You tried to read the message, but your brains didn’t oblige with you and you just kept looking those letters what didn’t make any sense. No fucking way…
Why was she going to Duskwood?
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agapantoblu · 3 years
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In light of the recent Asshole Move of deliberately clogging AO3 pages with fics with thousands of tags, in reply to one fic non-maliciously posted with a thousand tags, as some sort of Strike Against AO3′s Tagging Policy, which does nothing but prove that a bunch of people don’t know how to use AO3′s tools, I took a nice trip down Memory Lane and went back to the website where I first discovered fanfic, at the ripe age of 11.
Welcome to the Italian fanfiction website, EFP. Buckle up, fandom elders. This is gonna send you places.
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First of all, look at that logo, with the little man reading. The graphic of this website was updated for spring one year and never again.
Might I underline one aspect, the site hosts a bunch of original works as well, to the point that Fanfiction has 12 categories (such as Movies, Comics, Animes, etc) whereas Original Stories has 20 (Thriller, Romance, Action, Adventure, and such). I don’t know what the point is, it was just very cool back when I was posting my edgy “Trilogy of Love and Violence” and told people at school that I was publishing stuff online.
I could spend a lifetime talking about the reader features on EFP. Because I want to focus on the Writer point of view, I will only tell you about
- the Comments Program,
in which you gained points for every comment you left (one point per comment, with bonus points if it was longer than 100 words, if it was the first comment to the story, if you commented on every chapter of a long fic, and so on). Every category of fanfiction (example, Original Romance or Twilight) had its own Top 20 Commenters of the section and you, the writer, felt like a God if they graced your story with their presence. They were the self-appointed Critics of their little niche of fandom. Their words could be your making or your undoing as, from the top of their pedestals, each one of them could sponsor a story: you’d see the ranking and under the name of the commenter you found a fic they chose to advertise to you as their very own candidate as Best of The Fandom; but also you could see every Top 20′s latest 5 comments and if your story had gotten a bad review from one of them?, for a little while, you were on the wall of Shame for everyone to see. I used to have nightmares about those bad reviews, alright?! Why did I think this was a good idea. I’m getting flashbacks from the trenches.
Oh, yes, because I didn’t mention: this website asked you to indicate with a tiny little flag whether your review was positive (green), neutral (white) or negative (red). Basically Like/Dislike on YouTube. You get more than 5 negative reviews you might as well take your work down and hang up you pen. You’re done. Over. Your career crashed and burned before even beginning. I took down stories for having 3 neutral comments. You don’t understand the pain I was going through.
I was Top 20 Commenters in a niche fandom of a book thrilogy. Today, 22/02/2021 I went to check and I’m still there. I’m ranked Third. The rush of power I felt is impossible to describe. I realise I used to be one of those people who got into Top 20 and then sponsored their own fic. 14 yo me was a ruthless businesswoman in New York who hated Christmas, before the Hallmark moment.
When it came to posting stories, though, EFP had the kind of economy the latest AO3 scandal people seem to want, so I’m here to tell you all, specifically:
You Don’t Want It.
Let’s take a closer look.
But first notice. If you hit the “Post New Work” button, this is what meets you at the gates of Hell.
- The list of forbidden content. I kid you not, there’s an whole ass list of things you cannot post, such as “dissertations, polls,” or “texts with too many grammar mistakes”. One entry just says “Illegal content”. What does that mean? What does that MEAN, EFP?!
Another one is this:
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“Fanfiction of the works of following authors [...] as they have indeed explicitly fobidden fanfiction of their works.” ANNE RICE IS RIGHT THERE, KIDDOS. It’s still there, at the time I chose to spend my quarantine day typing this.
The list is followed by the disclaimer: “By the act of posting, you are assuming all eventual legal responsibility, in particular in cases of violations of the law.”
PEOPLE ASKING ME “why is FF.net packed full of works with -I don’t own the characters! PLeAse Don’t sue ME-?” SEND ME STRAIGHT BACK TO THE FIRST TIME I READ THOSE WORDS AND PANICKED AND CLOSED OUT OF THE TAB WITHOUT POSTING BECAUSE WHAT IF I BROKE THE LAW AND THE POLICE SHOWED UP TO MY HOUSE?! It was an original story, that I wanted to post. It took me three days and showing my story to my dad asking him if he thought it’d count as illegal before I decided to post it.
If you had the galls, the guts, the strength of character required to hit “Yes, I agree and therefore take responsibility and therefore will go to jail and bring shame to my family and my cow if the police breaks into my home”, you got to the second part.
- You must fullfill 3 pages of required info before getting to the HTML page for the story itself. Aside from assigning fandom, you were to specify if your story was a crossover (if yes, with what) and if it was one chaptered. There, you had two different paths ahead of you:
if no, what’s the title of your first chapter?;
if yes, is it an 90-110 words Drabble, a 110-500 words Flash Fic or is it a >500 words One Shot? COUNT, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE CRYBABY, AND IF IT’S 110 WORDS EXACTLY YOU BETTER ADD ONE OR SHAVE ONE OFF BECAUSE SOMEONE IS GOING TO COME FOR YOUR THROAT OTHERWISE.
Writing in my teen days was a very stressful affair, I won’t lie.
You had a little mirror for your summary. 200 words, not one more, not one less, figure it out, little shit. And just so you know, there are 246 words (4 paragraphs) of rules about what you can or cannot write in your introduction: you cannot only write “Read and Find Out”, you cannot only write “Inspired by Song”, you cannot spoil important plot points of the story, you cannot use cuss words, you cannot use SMS shortenings, you can only use bold or italicised text to signal edits or victories in contests or spoilers. I thought spoilers were forbidden? I don’t know, I was too busy crying and re-reading my 50 words summaries ten times to bother with logistics.
- The Rating of fanfictions on EFP was in 4 categories marked with Traffic Lights Color System, like a basic BDSM etiquette. Green for General Audiences, the two middle grounds of Yellow for stories which dealt lightly with violent or sexual content and Orange for stories which openly treat violent or sexual content but not with graphic descriptions, which would place your story directly under the Red label for adults-only content. Speaking of red, be aware that Porn is forbidden but you can tag your story as PWP, I Don’t Know And At This Point I’m Too Afraid To Ask. One feature of EFP is, you have to indicate your age with your year of birth when you sign in, and if you don’t or if you’re underage you cannot access the Red Labelled Works. This way, if you’re a minor who lied about their age to get into a Red story, you got banned.
I have a word doc, last date of opening 2011, titled FICS FOR WHEN I’M EIGHTEEN in which I put all the Red Labelled fics I stumbled into with a promising summary back when I was still underage. I completely forgot about it and never got around to read those fics. I’m so amased by the Galaxy Brain of Teen Me.
- The Genre of your story was a required choice you had to make from pre-approved options. MAX 3. Is it a thriller, romace fantasy? Good, you still fit in. Is it a thriller, romance fantasy which is also Sad or Dark or Comedic or Demential (because that’s an option, what does that mean?!)? Well, my dear, one of them has to go because you’re All Out Of Genres. Fuck you and your grandma.
- The Pairing with a MAX of 3 options, it gave you the lovely choice between: Het (straight), Yaoi or Shonen-Ai (for homosexual relationships between FICTIONAL male characters, and depending on whether the work was respectively more or less explicit on the Homo part), Yuri or Shoujo-Ai (again, FICTIONAL but lesbians this time), Slash or FemSlash (for homosexual relationships between REAL LIFE people, which still squicks me out today but eh). Honorable mention to the last option: Crack Pairing because for some reason you should warn me that the pairing is Crack more than the gender of the people involved. Somewhat very progressive, in a way.
- AND HERE WE ARE, THE WARNING TAGS which are the basic reason as to why I chose to revive all my childhood insecurity traumas about the first time I posted under threat of public execution on the EFP interactive Forum. You have 2 different menus in which to choose 3 voices MAX for each:
- the first, Notes on the Story: you can pick between AU = Alternate Universe, Cross-over with the hyphen, Missing Moments which would be fill-in where the plot glossed over, Movieverse in case you were writing for a fandom that had a movie adaptation of the original work with slight differences from the original Canon (there’s some sadism in this), OOC = Out of Character, Otherverse which I never quite understood but apparently is to be used if there are several different adaptations of the original thing (I would suspect, Batman, which has comics and movies and animated versions would demand this warning. HOW you decide which is OTHER compared to WHAT, you cannot know), Collection, Translation, What if? (which pisses me off because EVERY FANFIC IS A WHAT IF, WHAT DOES THIS EVEN DO?!, WHAT AM I EVEN WARNING YOU FOR?!).
Lastly but possibly MOST IMPORTANTLY, in the Year of Someone’s Lord 2021, EFP still offers you the shiver of adrenaline that comes from tagging your work as either LEMON (story containing sexual intercourses) or LIME (story containing sexual elements which do not end up in the main intercourse). There’s so much potential lesbophobia in these definitions, but I’m going to skip over it and go straight to, MY, MY, THE CITRUS SCALE IS STILL A THING. I never thought I’d get to see it again.
- the second, Warning Tags, YES, STILL ONLY A MAX OF 3. This is the whole point of this entire madness post. This is why I am here. THIS. You only get 3 warnings, no more. If your dark fic is basically a “Dead Dove: Don’t Eat�� “Hydra Trash Party“ SUCKS TO BE YOUR READERS FANBASE BECAUSE FUCK THEM. It was, of course, common decency to hide all the warnings that you couldn’t fit in the official thing in your summary, because we weren’t downright animals back then, but EFP cared None about the rest.
THERE ARE ONLY 13 OPTIONS FROM WHICH TO PICK. IF YOUR STORY CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND NON-CON AND DELICATE TOPICS AND MPREG? GUESS YOUR READERS ARE ABOUT TO GET A SURPRISE IF YOU DON’T DECIDE TO WRITE IT AT THE TOP OF YOUR FIC IN BIG BOLD LETTERS AND HOPE THAT SOMEONE TAKES THE TIME TO READ YOUR AUTHOR’S NOTES. IF YOUR FIC CONTAINS KINKY STUFF, YOU LITERALLY CANNOT WARN YOUR READERS UNLESS THEY OPEN YOUR STORY AND YOU PUT IT AT THE TOP OF THE TEXT, FUCK EVERYONE ON THIS WEBSITE.
This is, humor aside, the reason as to why policing people’s tags is dumb. If no one had started adding to the problem, there would only be one fic that people could easily blacklist and never have to see again. That was it. A small tidbit of maturity could have saved us all the bother, but here we are.
I prefer a fic with ten thousand tags than a fic with too little tags which accidentally squicks or even triggers someone. Get your priorities in order, people, I’m serious as fuck now.
- If you got here, then congrats, you’re posting your fic on EFP, but let’s be honest: At What Cost?
TL;DR: Stop being Assholes with AO3. You don’t even know how easy you have it.
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steve0discusses · 3 years
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The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 7: More Philosopher Stones than their PC Farm Can Possibly Render
So last we left off, a bunch of weird stuff was happening. Mustang just set Envy on fire, Lust and Gluttony kind of walked up from stage left, and Ed and Hawkeye just broke out of bougie jail and barged through a chain link fence on some Jeep. Good thing Mustang is here to explain it all to us:
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(FYI I am so bad at spelling homunculus. I don’t even know which way is real anymore.)
What is incredible about this movie is just how much everyone else already knows, while Ed knows freaking nothing. Also, if you know about homunculi, then you know about sorcerer stones, and you’d know about...most of the things in Fullmetal Alchemist. Assuming that Mustang, who can look at a homunculus tattoo and be like “yep that’s a homunculus” doesn’t know anything else is kind of a big leap.
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This actor had fun. I legitimately enjoy the actor who plays Mustang, I really do.
Anyway, we do get a little bit more explanation at this point by going back to the part where Hughes dies and just...showing it a second time but with this extra  reveal:
(see Hughes die yet again under the cut because this movie did it not just once but twice)
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It’s at this point that Hughes turns to the phone and in his dying breath is like “It’s lab 5, go to the old POW camp, at lab 5” but not only did I think that the person on the line was the general (Because Hughes originally said it was the general) apparently now the person on the line is...Mustang? And that’s why Mustang knew about lab 5?
Like it’s...it’s just kind of confusing. I know this plot because I’ve seen the anime, but if you have not seen the anime beforehand or read the books, you’d be so freakin up a creek right now about why we saw this scene twice, and why it was completely different both times.
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To make things even more confusing, that whole Tucker side plot is so random, that not even our baddies know what is going on with that whole Tucker side plot.
Anyway we have to give Gluttony and Envy have to do something in order to make their presence make sense. Honestly Gluttony just needs to have a single line in this movie.
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Just everything is that same shiny neutral Phong. Look at all that Phong. Like other parts of this movie are passable, this was just so hilariously overlooked.
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And like I dunno if this was a teeth harness or not but damn. Damn that looks stupid from the back, hahaha. He kind of lumbers slowly after these 9 dudes (same extras we’ve seen everywhere else, ps—this is still just the same guys) and it’s not all that scary because like...they can easily outrun him. The only way you can die to Gluttony is if you trip and then take a nap for a little bit.
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Mustang gets hurt and it’s kind of funny how they shot it. It was actually rough to cap because they have to do so many tricks to not show us exactly what is happening, so they rely on sounds, on zooming in on people’s shocked expressions, because they Do Not Have The Budget to do more than this.
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I don’t remember if this happened in the anime, too. Like from this point forward everything is kind of like “can you spot the source material?” because it’s just become so jumbled at this point.
Ed, who as you can imagine is a bundle of emotions by default, suddenly gets really protective of his mean Dad although like...we’ve barely made Mustang seem like a Father. Hell, we’ve barely made Ed seem like a kid. Why would he get weird and conflicted now?
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Just the awkward teenage energy that only occasionally stems off of Ed is very unpredictable.
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This is a full grown man.
Finally, we make it to Lab Number Five, the correct one this time. It’s got an alchemy circle…
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It’s got a ceiling full of...zombie corpses, if you squint real good because I have to shrink all these images (Yes, they fit in the zombie corpses, but could not fit in the North or Father or Ling Yao or like anything Armstrong) It’s got everything that we need to put that nail into that Fullmetal Alchemist coffin, but ran out of time to fully explain or do.
It’s even got Al!
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Yep, this is happening now, this part of the show. Ed is just having a WILD TIME trying to keep up with it and so are we.
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So apparently Shou could just turn Al “off” this whole time. This explains why Al was just chilling under a blanket for 36 hours, but like...doesn’t really explain how Shou can do this or why he is bothering to do it right now.
But we need Shou because...well someone has to tell Ed what the plot is and what he should be doing at this very moment.
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(Winry is here too)
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So, with the threat of Winry getting shot in the head, Shou Tucker demands that Ed make it impossible to do any magic, because magic is very expensive and hard to animate. I could be wrong...but I’m pretty sure he also took off his right arm in the show at some point nearish to the end...I think? Forgive me, everything before 2020 is kind of a haze in my memory.
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PS him ripping his hand off with all these sparks everywhere gave me serious Star Wars prequel vibes that I can’t explain. Something about the CGI, something about this contrived mess was like “Ah, I’ve felt this insanity before...long ago in a simpler time” and it was kind of nostalgic for me.
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GOL LOOK AT THAT.
This Mickey Mouse glove just hot chilling on that sparking end. Hahaha I love it so much!
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Shou just...delivers one of the most important reveals, sending Ed on a bit of a spirit journey because the stones he’s wanted for so long are actually very bad.
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As you can imagine, because Ed likes to freak out, he has a big ass freak out, to top all freak outs. This actor spent like sooo much of his time just screaming at the ground. Which, I mean this is a shonen, so that checks out.
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I’m just letting you know in case you decide to watch this movie and you have some epilepsy issues--skip this part. Just skip it. I don’t personally have it, but like...they went kind of extra in this part.
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Now unlike the show, this movie has like...no apology for Dr Marcoh. Freakin stabbed him through the chest and was like “I don’t care if it means we can’t have the original FMA ending I freakin hate this guy” and you know...good on you, movie. Dr Marcoh was a really bad person. Thank you for not even attempting to justify this godawful man.
This crazy ass fanfiction movie.
Anyway, Shou directs Ed to look 10 feet up to get the rest of that juicy content. That Juicy FMA DLC that was within eye distance this entire time but youknow...cropped offscreen so it just didn’t exist.
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Can’t believe this wasn’t the FIRST THING you’d notice when coming into this room, since Ed has been hardwired for red stones for like 10+ years. But youknow.
Anyways, we’re getting a ton of visual elements from FMA, just checking off that check list here in the last 1/3 of the movie. But wait, it gets weirder.
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What I love about this is that Shou tells us all of this stuff because I guess Ed asked for Philosopher stones once, and even Shou is like...heyyy I figured it out! But like...hell would anyone even want to do this though?
Because that’s what happens when you have Shou freakin Tucker reveal the big master plan when he is not the big master. Like this explains nothing about Father, about Ed’s Dad, about the homunculi, about the corpses in the ceiling, like there’s just no explanation, other than just –“hey! Look at this atrocity I found just now!”
There is actually a horror element to that, where you don’t need to explain everything if you’re doing horror. If this were a horror movie, this would probably...be fine. You could have a fully explained movie by just saying “they turned POW camp people into rocks and now the zombies are here!” and that would be fine.
But it’s just...that isn’t this movie. I had so many expectations. And honestly...I expected way too much from 1.5 hours of content.
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So Shou pulls a gun on Ed, which makes sense. Ed is lookin to make stones, and if stones are made out of people—then it’s time to kill Ed. First thing that make sense in this movie, but I don’t know if it makes sense coming from Shou freakin Tucker who made it seem like he just wanted to kill Ed because Ed got him arrested that one time.
It may have been just the translation on my end but like...Shou’s reason for pulling a gun out here was a little nonsense. But Shou himself is already a little nonsense anyway.
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So we say goodbye, for the last time, being honest—he’s fully dead—he’s not coming back—to Shou Freakin Tucker. You were a mess Shou. I won’t miss you.
And if I forgot that this guy comes back, I fully apologize ahead of time, but I am 99% positive that I remembered that this guy never comes back.
(He might come back.)
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And then Lust is like “Hakuro why did you do that? Like what are you even doing???”
And everyone else is like “Oh, the General. Of course. Why didn’t I uhhh….see that coming?”
Because they had to condense a whole bunch of corrupt Generals for this movie into one character, and so I guess Hakuro took it for the team?
Also these guys are here.
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Just every single person standing in this room is pretty confused, as you can imagine. No one really expects to open up Volume 2 of FMA and it’s accidentally printed the last page of the entire series.
Anyway, that’s all for this 15 minutes (It was actually a little short 15 because there was ton of caps) I’m very tired because I did this workout routine with bro that was like 300 squats and I don’t know what day it is. I wrote “update blog” in my bullet journal (because it’s January, so I’m bullet journaling) so I’m just gonna do that because I want to use this green sparkly jelly pen and cross off all of today. Mm. Satisfying.
https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono
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harrys-reverie · 4 years
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Dog Years // Harry Styles O.U.
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Part 3: The Bookstore
a/n: hey everyone! welcome to part 3 of dog years. sorry it took so long on the update -- i just got back to college. i hope you enjoy this chapter!!! i personally consider it harry’s very subtle way of opening up to people (how i’d imagine it) as always like, SHARE, COMMENTS, feedback, all appreciated!!! xoo
STORY PAGE I PART ONE I PART TWO
To be fair I didn’t hear from Jeff or Harry for two whole days. I was starting to feel like they lowkey didn’t want me to be part of their ‘team’ anymore. I couldn’t be bothered even if they didn’t, because at the end of the day I worked for Eve, not them. But at the same time all I could do was sit and recollect about my night with all of them. Everything seemed to go so well, and i really thought they liked me. I liked them.
So since Eve figured my pay was now around the clock, if I wasn’t doing anything that I needed to do be doing something. It was just a bunch of menial tasks like picking up  garbage around the premises, scooping up vile dog shit and what not. Honestly, it kind of sucked. I rather be fetching candles and dropping them off to Harry.
But finally it was Sunday and it was my day off. A part of me wanted to go back to my nans house, stop in and say hi. Then I remembered Sunday’s were her brunch and bingo days and she went out with all her cute old lady friends. I was starting to feel extremely lonely.
So I was left to myself in my little cottage. It was pretty relaxing, but all the time cooped up in here was becoming boring and repetitive. And to think I had 4 months left of this. Just sitting in my bed scrolling through shopping sites putting tons of clothes in a cart I’d never get around to purchasing. Even being payed around the clock wasn’t enough to buy a whole new wardrobe.
So yes, I was starting to get a little antsy that I heard nothing from Harry or Jeff. I sneakily biked by Harry’s cottage multiple times to see if he was still there throughout the two days, and his car was still parked in the driveway each time. I hadn’t seen him even around the premises at all doing anything. Or anyone from his group for that matter. I tried to tell myself by the end of the first day that they were all just super hungover. I knew that was a stretch but it eased my mind. Then yesterday rolled around and I had no comforting excuses for why I hadn’t heard from them.
I expressed my worry to Eve and she insisted that they were probably just getting settled. Okay, I’ll take that. That’s got to be it, right?
As I continued to worry in my head about what may have gone wrong I reached for my phone. Nope, no messages. Fuck. This was quickly becoming a bad habit, constantly checking my phone. Bravely I pressed Jeff’s contact, hovering my thumb over the call option. Should I try to reach out? Eh. Sighing, I locked the phone and tossed it to my side. If they needed me, they would act on it. I didn’t want to be a nuisance and bother any of them.
Focusing my attention back on my laptop I popped open a new tab on my Safari browser. I began typing his name, enter and then search.
Instantly an endless amount of brand new and just days old articles displayed across my screen. Harry Styles this, Harry Styles that. There was one recurring theme throughout all of these article titles though, a girls name - Camille.
“Camille Rowe, ex lover of musician Harry Styles states that he’s ‘overly jealous and begged her to stay when they broke up!’ Oh no, poor H. Read more here.”
“Apparently Harry Styles is a Freak in the Sheets! Ex Girlfriend Camille Rowe recollects on her sex life with the pop star in her new book ’Truth Be Told.’”
“Feeling bad about getting cheated on? Don’t feel bad,Harry Styles has been in your shoes too...his ex girlfriend opens up about the mistakes she made that ultimately led to the lyrics of Harry’s sophomore album, Fine Line.”
I couldn’t help but let out a gasp, all this couldn’t be true, could it? I exited out of the tab quickly, afraid to go on and read more of those terrible headlines. I honestly felt bad if all that was true, and if Harry’s ex girlfriend really did that, then I could only imagine how he might be feeling.
I could tell Harry really valued his privacy, why else would he be out here in the middle of nowhere in complete hiding? I thought back to him telling me how he had a disdain for California, I was now beginning to think she had some sort of connection to it. Poor Harry. Almost instantly I was feeling guilty, like I invaded Harry’s privacy by seeing all of those headlines. Imagining what the whole world most think and know of him right now is extremely unsettling. To bring up how he has sex and his most vulnerable moments and just like everyone know about it, it’s beyond fucked up.
Ting.
The world has a funny way of working making connections sometimes. Deep down in my gut I had a feeling it’d be Harry or Jeff who left me a text, it just had to be. Before I even reached my phone I saw the capital H, I knew it was Harry. Of course, he was texting me now, after I saw all that and felt so fucking bad. If he was any other person I’d ask if he wanted to have a nice chat, bring over some ice cream and wine and help him relax.
I wasn’t slow to swipe up on the message and see what he wrote.
‘Hiiiii Colette. Hope you’re well, it’s Harry. Have a huge favor to ask you whenever you get the chance. X”
Hah, he’s acting me for a favor as if I’m not getting paid to help him with whatever he needs. He’s too nice. I didn’t hesitate to start typing back.
‘Hi, Harry! How are you? I’ve been just well! As for the favor...sure anything :)”
Not even five seconds later my phone was vibrating and ringing at the same time, Harry’s name flashing across the screen. Ah, so he’s one of those people who have to make phone calls for everything. My hands felt like jelly as I went to accept the call. Even though we had a great night, him not talking to me for a couple days made me rethink how great that night might’ve actually been. Maybe I was just super tipsy and thought it was amazing when it was just subpar.
“Hello?” I chimed, placing the phone to my ear.
His deep Americanized-British accent greeted me, “Morning Colette!” He sounded extra chirpy this morning.
“Harry! Haven’t heard from you in a while..” I replied nervously.
There was a small pause. “Sorry ‘bout that just keeping busy and what not. I meant to text but, I was so preoccupied I forgot. ‘M sorry, won’t pull something like that again.”
My heart felt like it was being squeezed, my intention was never to make him feel bad but I could sense that I did. I wondered how stressful it was on him always being so kind to everyone, literally everyone. At all times of the day.  I had a feeling that most of the time he was putting on an act when deep down he was just having real human problems that he had to keep tucked away.
“Don’t apologize,” I rushed. “It’s fine, seriously. What’s up?”
“A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” He joked. I could hear his soft chuckle from the other line. “Sunday’s.”
“The most relaxing day,” I noted, it was true.
“Relaxing enough where I feel like I should take some time and start a book.”
Oh, fuck. There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice anymore. I had a feeling I knew where all of this was heading, and I didn’t like it.
“Any day is a great day to start a book,” I suggested trying to hide my nerves. The universe really was one giant head fuck.
“Actually the favor I was going to ask you,” Harry drawled, a slight tinge of hesitation is his voice. “I really want this specific book.”
Yep, this was his heading right where I thought it would.
“Ooo which one?” I questioned excitedly, like I didn’t know. I was really hoping he’d take me by surprise and say that new Twilight book or something.
“It’s called Truth Be Told. Actually, bet it’s sold out everywhere. Can’t even Amazon fuckin’ Prime it.” He laughed. Maybe he was taking this a lot lighter than I thought...?
“Y’ know what. I don’t need it. Um, do you have any book recs?” Harry rushed.
“If you want that book I’ll go out in town and look for it, but if not I do have some recommendations,” I offered.
“Okay, how ‘bout this? I’ll lend you my car and could you get me that uh, Truth book or whatever and also, get me a book you recommend for me and I have one I recommend for you.”
“You trust me in your car? I just only started to learn to drive on the opposite side of the road,” I admitted with a smile, not like he could see it.
“If ya crash my car, I wouldn’t even try coming back...avoid the wrath of Harry Styles at all costs,” He countered.
“Uh-oh I’m scared,” I fake gasped.
“Hm, should be. I’m not like the papers say, ‘m actually a real diva.”
I was starting to really like this conversation.
“A lot of work, huh?”
“You think you can handle it?”
It’s like I could hear his smirk through the phone. This conversation went really, might I say flirtatious, really fast. I knew it was just his personality and I shouldn’t over think it. But if there is one thing I loved in life, it was a good flirt. And Harry, he was good at it.
I must have been zoned out for a moment because I heard Harry awkwardly clear his throat when I didn’t reply back to his flirtatious line.
“So ‘m gonna pick you up actually. We’ll go back to mine and then you can head off to get those books? Sound good?” He spoke into the line.
“Oh yeah, sure.”
“See ya soon.”
With a click, the call was finished. As much as I wanted to sit back and recollect on what the fuck went down in that call I knew I needed to get out of bed and make myself presentable. He didn’t give me an ETA so I assumed I didn’t have much time on the clock.
I ran to my overflowing duffle, with all the time on my hands I really needed to get around to unpacking it. Was it bad that I wanted to try to look a little more dressed up than just jeans and a tee?
Yep, it was probably bad because I shouldn’t care how I look in front of him.
“Ugh!” I exclaimed, rummaging through all the wrinkled clothing. I settled on black jeans and a black blouse. It looked a bit funeral-esque, I’m hoping it came off as chic. I’d look like a rag doll next to him anyway, the least I could do was try.
He really wanted to go and get his ex girlfriend’s book, huh? I don’t know why he’d want to do that to himself, either way I was going to play dumb as rocks when he gave me the list of the name and author of the book. It’s not entirely an act though, I just read a few headlines. Correction, I just google searched his name and scrolled throw a bunch of headlines about how you have sex and cry — how terrible that would sound if he knew it was true. I will be taking that one to the grave with me.
I swore not even 5 minutes had passed by and the purring of Harry’s engine was already echoing through my house. He was only up the hill after all, but he gave me absolutely zero time to fix myself up. I just had to suck it up and go out there with my frizzy hair and oily skin and tough it out.
But that wasn’t even my biggest concern, my biggest concern was the fact I, a shit driver in the first place, was now being trusted to drive Harry’s extremely fancy Range Rover to a book store of some sorts somewhere. As soon as we traded off the car my plan was to start Google mapping a place and praying that it was close. The quicker I’m in and out of that vehicle, the better.
My phone pinged.
Harry.
“Should’ve gone to the bathroom before I left. Can I come in for a quick wee? X”
I just couldn’t get a break, my bathroom was cluttered with skincare products and dirty clothes piling on the side. I ran to the bathroom swiping up the dirty clothes and tossing them in an empty drawer in the dresser. He’ll just have to excuse all my beauty products, I didn’t want to keep him waiting too long.
“Come in!!!” I texted him back.
The sound of a car door slam was almost instantly followed by a polite knock at my door. Although the cottages were spread far apart I rushed over to the door, not wanting him to stay outside too long, afraid he might get noticed.
I peered through the peephole and was blessed by the handsome looks of Harry. He was tapping his foot against the cobblestone, the hood of his Nike rain jacket pulled over his head completely, while his hair was covered by a black beanie. Even being so covered up he was still so good looking. I opened the door for him, allowing him inside.
“Hi there,” He grinned as I welcomed him in. I’d love to chat but ‘m actually bout to wee my pants. Give me a moment please.”
Harry then fast walked his way over to the bathroom, obviously familiar with the floor plan. He must’ve stayed in one of the smaller cottages before. The smell of his heavenly cologne suffocated the room instantly. I knew I’d still be smelling it lingering in the air even later on tonight.
All the rushing to get ready and let him in, I wasn’t even focused on my stomach which was knotting like crazy. It felt like it could explode from nerves at just any minute. I don’t remember ever feeling this nervous when I had to see him. Granted I’ve only seen him those two times, but I played it off so cool then. I think I was just working myself up over nothing right now.
I heard the sound of running water and momentarily the steps of his shoes making their way back over to me.
“Can we redo the greeting?” He questioned with a big smile.
“Ok..”
“No, ‘m actually just going to pop outside, knock again and everything,” Harry insisted seriously.
“I’ll pretend like you didn’t just rush to the bathroom like a toddler who hasn’t gone to the bathroom all day,” I agreed, going along with his little act.
“Great.”
Harry popped open the front door, shutting it behind him and going back into the hazy morning air, doing a quick spin before making contact with the door once again.
Knock.
I couldn’t help but giggle as I opened up the door for him the second time.
“Morning Colette, how are ya doing on this fine September morning?” Harry asked me extra cheerily, creeping in for a hug. I embraced him back, the scent of his cologne engulfing my senses once again.
“Doing just fine Mr. Styles. Could I offer you some tea?” I asked in a proper tone, putting on my best imitation of a British accent.
Harry rolled his eyes, breaking the act...”That’s the best you got? You’ve only bloody been staying in England for a whole month.”
“Is it that bad?” I asked appalled.
“Terrible.”
“Better luck next time.” I sighed jokingly.
“Don’t even try. I like your voice just how it is naturally, anyway,” He spoke honestly. The second it left his mouth he too looked taken aback at the compliment he had just thrown at me.
“Want to go get those books?” I suggested awkwardly, dismissing his compliment and changing the topic. Back to business.
Harry seemed surprised by how I brushed it off and maybe even a little embarrassed, his finger began fiddling with his bottom lip. I was starting to pick up that was a little thing he did when he was nervous.
“The books. How could I forget,” He replied dully.
“If i’m being honest I don’t even know where a book store is around here,” I huffed.
“I do,” He smirked.
“Well that’s no help considering I’m going by myself,” I rolled my eyes back at him playfully.
Harry was leaning his body weight on the wooden table by the entrance, a huge smirk painted on his face.
“Guess you’re outta luck then.”
“Would it be bad if I asked for you to come with and guide me?” I asked bravely. I was taking myself by surprise with how upfront I was being towards him. It was just so hard not to be when he was just so normal.
His face dropped a little. I couldn’t tell what sort of reaction he was feeling towards my question but he looked upset. I instantly regretted it because I know my request was about to be rejected.
“As much as I’d love to...” Harry began. “I can’t.”
“Stupid of me to ask,” I replied casually brushing it off. I wanted to change the topic.
“No, it’s not. Maybe I’m better off ordering books online, anyways.”
“I mean, I could still, go get it for you. Something to do.”
Harry brushed it off, shoving his hands in his sweat pockets. “Nope, don’t want you to anymore..the ratings weren’t even that good.”
Oh wow, Harry has some pettiness in him. I couldn’t blame him though. I think anybody else would feel the same way. I wanted to just reach out and tell him I knew why he wanted that book, and that it’s not even worth a bother. I really felt for him. I too had a bad ex, as we typically all do. I can’t say it was as bad as Harry’s past relationship, but mine was bad in it’s own unique way.
“Fuck it.” He mumbled before turning his gaze back towards me. “Let’s go get them books.”
I was surprised, “Really?”
“I hate to do this and act like a macho pop star  but ‘m really gonna have to go incognito. Can’t even step out the car with ya unfortunately, but I’ll drive us.”
My heart warmed at his offer, I knew he was probably going against what his strict hiding rules were in order to go through with this. If he was just driving a heavily tinted car though, was there still a way for paparazzi to notice him? I was excited, I think he could tell because he let out a small giggle, shaking his head.
“Let’s hit the road then!” I exclaimed.
“After you,” He grinned, holding the door open in front of me and leading me to his car.
_________________
The ride with Harry was going well. He had a incognito get up of sunglasses, a beanie and his hood up, making sure there was no way someone could detect it was him. His car smelled like fresh leather and mint, there was an abundance of chewing gum packets stashed in the front compartment of his car along with miscellaneous receipts. Lucky for the both of us, the roads were almost completely clear and there was no traffic heading into town.
Harry was just as attractive looking while driving as I thought he would be. To be fair there was something so enticing about having any guy drive all manly and taking control. But especially Harry driving was a beautiful sight to see. The background music of the radio was humming in the background as the two of us chatted along casually.
“How are you going to recommend me a book if you can’t even come in?” I questioned him.
He turned to me, “Who said I’m not coming in?”
“You did!”
“Might just be your lucky day then,” He smirked. “Do you have a good recommendation in mind for me? Shall we surprise one another?”
I nodded my head, “Sounds like a plan.”
“No soppy romantic books, please,” He scoffed.
“But those are my favorites!”
“Don’t care. I’ve probably read all the best of them anyways,” Harry argued back, a huge smirk painted on his face.
Deep down I knew already which book I was going to pick out for him if it was there. I didn’t care if it was a romantic one or not because I had a feeling he hadn’t read it yet and I had an ever greater feeling that he’d fall in love with it.
The two of us went back and forth chatting to each other another until we began to reach a cobblestone path that led to a small selection of shops. The plaza was secluded and had just a few small buildings overgrown with ivy unevenly placed amongst one another. I’d say there was a max of 5 or 6 cars in the whole parking lot. To be fair, we were pretty far out of town I’d say we had been driving for at least 20 minutes.
“You ready?” He questioned. I could tell there was a hint of nerves in his voice. He was awkwardly fiddling with his wallet and pushing his hood down. He was now just left with his oversized black beanies and sunglasses as his ‘disguise.’
“Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to,” I insisted earnestly. I didn’t want to push him to be in a situation that could get messy really quick.
“I’ll be fine here,” Harry reasoned, turning his gaze to the entrance of a little shop by the name of ‘Greg’s Books and More.’
“If anything goes bad, it wasn’t my fault!”
I didn’t want to be responsible for anything that might ensue, after all Harry was the one who insisted to walk in the shop with me. I had a good feeling that we’d be set though, there was literally nobody around and we were far from any major city with large amounts of people.
The two of us hopped out simultaneously shutting the car doors together. Walking side by side with him in the bright daylight made me more aware of the height difference between us, one I had barely ever noticed before. His single strides were equivalent to almost double mine and his shoulders were just a slight amount higher than my eye level.
“Good morning!” A sweet old man, short and stout greeted us from behind a counter of the shop. Harry and I both waved back.
“Morning sir, how are ya doing today?” Harry asked kindly, stopping short to stand and talk to the man.
“Just having a cuppa, enjoying the Sunday,” The man replied. “Let me know if you two kids have any questions.”
I shot the man another small smile before turning to Harry. “May the best book picker win?” I joked.
“You’ve got 10 minutes.”
“1...2..” I began counting down, but before I could even reach the number three, Harry was already rushing to the rows of books, an agenda already on his mind. He seemed so confident in what he was going to pick that I soon began to re think what I was going to choose for his book.
I hurriedly rushed to the other side of the bookstore, scanning the shelves with my eyes. The shop was small and I could hear Harry rummaging through shelves on the opppsite side. I had 10 minutes to find the book I had in mind, something I loved that I wanted to pass on to Harry.
The thought of trading off books to someone who a very intimate gesture, an invitation to be apart of another’s brain. I still couldn’t believe I was here right now with Harry Styles, a now friend, spending my Sunday out and about the town. I knew it was my day off but I knew when I arrived back to my cottage I’d want to inform Eve.
As my eyes panned over the endless covers and names of authors and titles a familiar bright blue and green cover popped up. Ah, I knew what this was. Before I had even fully removed it from the shelf, the yellow cursive script was already showing.
Love is a Mix Tape.
Given his career in music I knew right away this would be the perfect book for him. I had read it months ago, but the impact it left on me remained the same. A story not specifically circled around romance, but hints at the struggles of love and loss. It was funny and a joy to read.
I looked over the book making sure there were no imperfections, torn pages or bent covers. Luckily there was none, I angled it to my side hiding it just in case he’d pop out of of nowhere.
Walking up to the cash register there was no sign of him, he was probably still amongst the jungle of books so I took this as my invitation to check out.
“Hi,” I chirped to the old man who sat behind the desk, his glasses almost falling off his face as he read through the book in front of him.
“Hello there love, you all set?” He asked, walking over to the vintage-like cash register.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I put the book down between us already beginning to reach in my purse for my wallet. I really hoped Harry hasn’t read this one yet.
“Can I just give you money to cover both my book and the other customers? Like, pass it on..” I spoke handing the man almost triple the amount of my single book. He looked at me inquisitively and then began to smile.
“I’m sure that young man will appreciate it,” He smiles, a glimmer of knowingness in his eyes.  I knew the gesture was small and i knew money was not a problem for him but I had such an urge to just do it anyways.
I thanked the man as he wrapped up the book and placed it in a brown paper bag, graciously taking it from him. Harry was still amongst the jungle of shelves and I didn’t want to prowl or cause attention so I decided to wait outside the store. The air was fresh and crisp, the sound of chirping birds and whistling trees engulfed my senses. I’m almost sure Harry had reached his 10 minute mark, but I wasn’t going to rush him. I had a feeling it was a rare occurrence for him to be able to aimlessly shop around, crowd free.
“Ya ready?” His voice erupted behind me, the bell of the door pinging in the quiet air. I turned to face him, his paper bag tucked underneath his arm.
“Not really,” I joked, it wasn’t a complete lie though. I wouldn’t mind shopping around with him in little hideaways all day. Harry caught up to me and we began the short walk back to his car in quiet. As my hand began to reach the handle he quickly swooped in front of me, opening it himself. I looked at him with a stupid look on my face, in awe of a gentleman.
“Oh thanks,” I spoke sheepishly.
“My pleasure.”
I hopped in and moments later Harry was back in the drivers seat beside me pressing the car on and pumping up the heat.
“Thanks, by the way.” He gestured to the paper bag.
“Oh, not a problem at all! Random acts of kindness or whatever,” I brushed it off.
“Not used to someone covering the bill,” He admitted. “Not like that type of stuff matters to me.”
“Well don’t even worry about it.”
“I’ll get you back next time,” He noted.
Next time. So there’s going to be a next time? A next time of us going to the book store? A next time of us hanging out? A next time of what?
“Should we swap these books or what?” I questioned, changing the topic once again.
“So eager, huh?” Harry laughed.
“Well we’re just sitting here in a empty parking lot, you have any other suggestions?”
“You’re right,” He quipped. “Here you are then.”
The two of us exchanged the bags. He lifted it to his ear, shaking it as if it was a surprise gift and he was trying to guess what it could be.
“Just get on with it!” I exclaimed.
“Hush, hush.” He began opening it, very carefully, soon revealing the book I had chosen for him.
“Lucky for you, I’ve never read this. Thank you,” He seemed very grateful as he looked over the front cover, going back and forth between the pages quickly. “I’m excited.”
“Thank God,” I huffed. “I was nervous you’d have read it before.”
“Nope, never. You did good,” Harry compliments, his eyes falling back to my unopened bag in my hands. “Now it’s your turn.”
Oh, yeah.
“I hate when people watch me open stuff,” I admitted. My hand was toying with the bag as I looked at him nervously. I didn’t like people watching me because I was afraid that I wouldn’t give off the right reaction to whatever they may have given me. It was too much pressure, and especially Harry watching me so intently it made me nervous.
“Want me to turn away?” He offered earnestly. “I know people like that, my sister.”
“Maybe just like causally look out the car or whatever.”
Immediately he began fiddling with his windshield wipers, intently focusing on them as if they were some sort of puzzle. I wanted to tell him not to use them when it wasn’t raining and it’d damage the car, but I’m sure he knew that. I took that as my queue to quickly unpack-age the book, afraid he might cause damage.
When I opened it up it revealed not one but two books. The one on top made my heart sink, I recognized the title right away. It was his ex girlfriends book. Why would he give this one to me? Should I act like I know what it is and what it’s about? No. Play dumb. Underneath it though, was a book by the name of ‘Betting On The Muse’ by Charles Bakowski. Ah, poetry.
“You done yet slowpoke?” Harry interrupted  my thoughts, the two books sat between my lap.
“You can look,” I complied. “Are they both for me?”
“Yes,” He replied simply. “But, I have some stipulations.”
“This wasn’t a part of the deal.”
“I would like if you read the Bukowski book first. It’s poems, I want you to read them and guess which one is my favorite when you’re finished,” He instructed sweetly. Although there was direction in his tone, it came off so kind. “As for the other one..” He paused and then let out a huff.
“I don’t even want you to touch it,” He continued. “Don’t look it up, reviews, synopsis...anything.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I was confused but I didn’t want to let that on.
“One day, if I give you the ‘ok’ I want you to read it. If you want. You don’t have to listen to me by any means, but yeah,” He finished awkwardly.
“So just hold onto it?” I asked, holding up the Truth Be Told book. His eyes glimpsed down to it before quickly shooting back up to meet my gaze. The cover was what I was assuming to be her, his ex. Her hair was messy, lips full, topless with her arms covering her breasts in shades of black and white.
“Yeah, just hold on to it,” He stated.
“You’ve got my word,” I smiled. I could feel the tension in the car and I didn’t want it anymore. This was supposed to be a lighthearted excursion and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Great, well thank you for the books. I’ll start mine right away,” Harry began as he started the car once again. “You ready to take back off?”
I nodded watching him look over the book I had gotten him one last time. He smiled at it before turning to smile towards me. I smiled back. He then brought his hand to the radio, clicked a few things on his iPhone and then turned the notch up loudly. As he began to pull out of the cobblestone parking lot, the beautiful sound of his voice filled the car. This time it was in song.
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yakumtsaki · 4 years
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Alright you guys, sorry for the delay, I’ve had to restart this post 20 fucking times because my changes weren’t being saved in the draft and then I kept getting the ‘upload failed’ error. In case you don’t remember wtf is going on you might wanna re-read the last update (I certainly had to) which is apparently from JUNE 2018. Jfc I suck so hard. Now this was gonna be really long but tumblr wouldn’t post it so I’m breaking it up in 3 parts, part 2 to be posted tomorrow. For those that don’t feel like reading back, general recap of the last couple updates:
Jojo cheated on Wyatt with Max Flexor and my solution to that marital crisis was to adopt our first dog ever, a puppy hilariously named Maxx.
The puppy grew up to be an asshole and is constantly beating up the cats, who have turned into giant pussies (no pun intended) and are losing every fight to him despite the fact they’re named after Mortal Kombat characters. They’re a fucking disgrace to Alegra’s/Victor’s/Ronroneo’s memory and I haven’t settled on a cat heir yet because they both suck.
Jojo is perma miserable, I don’t even remember how much money away from his 100k LTW, and still not a werewolf despite my pathologically persistent attempts to make him friends with the wolf.
Fucking useless Wyatt didn’t get promoted while Komei was alive providing us with his 100 townie friends, we spent 20 updates befriending every rando that crossed our lot to secure his promotion, and then finally on the day he was supposed to become Captain Hero, Wyatt got, of course, fired and is now on track to take longer to complete his literal career based LTW than Komei took to get 6 pets on the top of their careers.
Absolutely everyone hates noogie addict Shajar, she got a Kylo Ren makeover, and we still don’t know what her sexual orientation is thanks to her ridiculous fitness/fatness turn ons and cleanliness turn off.
Golden child/10 nice points freakshow Cyneswith grew up, rolled romance with the most disturbing turn-ons/offs possible (grey hair/mechanical & charisma turn off) and the 20 simultaneous lovers LTW.
Wulf grew up into a kid, got an Amadeus makeover, is officially a Wyatt clone and the only member of this family I don’t completely hate yet.
Now I’d like to begin the first Union post in more than a year by requesting you do me a solid and lower your expectations for this thing as far down as humanly possible. Like really try to recreate the Jules Verne classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth” with your expectations here, because my brain is so fucking fried that there’s a 20% chance I randomly start citing sources at some point during this post. This grad school crap has seriously been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever. And speaking of bad trade deals, let’s get this update rolling with the man, the myth, the legend, the husband who managed to make Komei look like a dreamboat in comparison..
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..Wyatt fucking Union, née Monif. It’s been a long time, but I’m not gonna lie to you Wyatt, not nearly long enough. Looking good man, just one small question, where the fuck are your eyebrows?
-You àccidéntally deléted thém, imbécilé, et I cannôt exprèss my irritatiόn prόperly becausé I hàve non eyebrôws!
Did your selective French accent get thicker this past year or is it just me?
-It géts thickér whén je suis distrésséd, givé moi mon eyebrôws bàcc!!!
No can do, brother. Actually can do, but I think the Mona Lisa look is working for you, and more importantly I still hate you, so I’m just gonna hardcore ignore you for the rest of this post if that’s ok. Talk to me when you finally get promoted, aka never the way this shit is going.
-Non! NON! MON EYEBROWS!
It’s been lovely catching up.
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Jojό I mean Jojo, goddammit Wyatt, is spending most of his time building robots in the mausoleum (sweet hipster band name alert)..
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..giving financial advice in Shajar’s room (inb4 what’s the difference between the mausoleum and Shajar’s room)..
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..building evil snowmen alone in the middle of the night, like all mentally healthy middle aged men with 3 kids are wont to do..
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..and getting the piss harassed out of him by the cat ghosts in the bathroom (sweet hipster band name alert #2). How is this like the fourth time this happens in the exact same spot, will you just stop autonomously cleaning the bathroom after midnight? It’s obviously where the cats hang out, give it the fuck up already.
-I’m actively TRYING TO DIE you absolute moron, what does a guy have to do to get killed around here?
Yea can’t say that I blame you but not happening, you can commit suicide by Ghost Alegra after the kids fuck off to college, ok? I promise.
-Oh like you promised me being heir was a route worth pursuing??
Um obviously you too need to go back and re-read your own life story, because I spent the entirety of our “““cherished””” time together telling you heirship is a shitty gig at generation 2. And then to top it off you went and married Wyatt to ensure maximum shittiness, so there you go, fucking enjoy. God I am so sick of both of you losers and we’re only 5 pics in. Let’s check in with your spawn, I’m sure they can’t possibly be more annoying than their parents-
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-oh right, I forgot, this is the generation with 10/10/9 active points where the party never stops. Cyneswith are you somehow twerking to classical music?
-How else am I gonna attract all those hot senior citizens per my grey hair turn on and 20 lovers LTW?
Ok great yea I see how this is gonna go, you’re trying to entice people into voting you for heir based on how torturous playing this fucked up LTW is gonna be for me, well forget it, my readers are intellectuals and completely above such petty entertainment. (istg mofos, don’t even think about it, i already did Komei’s 5 pets career shit, i will burn this place to the ground if you saddle me with Cyneswith banging the elderly for 30 years)
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-No need to worry your stupid little head, I will beat Cyneswith for HEIR just like I beat her HAIR up daily! HAHA!
Shajar no offense but you’re a fucking war crime of a sim, nearly everyone who’s ever met you hates you including your parents, and the fact that you’re the alternative here is really not helping my situation in any way. Also how the fuck are you gonna be heir when the only thing you seem to be attracted to is giving noogies, you’re like one week away from college and I still don’t even know if you’re str8 or gay or bi or w/e the fuck you are. You have Jojo’s personality combined with..
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..yes exactly, DANIEL’S SOCIAL ABILITIES. I mean I was joking with the whole ‘Shajar’s the spawn of Satan’ thing, but this combo of traits was clearly drawn up in Hell’s boardroom.
ANYWAY. It’s a snowy Sunday morning, and anyone who has been a teen knows what that means:
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Time to go clubbing! Man I remember being like 15, waking up on a freezing Sunday morning and my mom making me a cup of hot chocolate before I drove off to the club. Those were the days.
-Uh, Shaj, when did you learn how to drive?
-Don’t be stupid, Cyneswith, people don’t need to ‘learn’ how to drive.
-They absolutely do, actually.
-Well what can I tell you, the dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
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-Here we are, safe and sound! Celebratory noogie!
-YOU RAN OVER 9 PEOPLE
-How many times to I have to explain this to you, Apartment Life townies are not people.
Can’t argue with that logic. Let’s just go in and find out what Shajar’s sexual orientation is once and for all so I can spend the rest of this update aggressively promoting Wulf’s candidacy.
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Now I consider ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ one of the dumbest sayings there is, but even I have to concede that this particular picture truly is worth a thousand words. Quick poll, what is more horrifying, Shajar’s literal Joker face or Cyneswith, whom I’ve never seen read a book ever, autonomously pulling one out in the middle of the dance floor, in what I can only assume is an attempt to attract old perverts with the schoolgirl routine?
And I know what some of you are thinking, you’re like ‘bro, you’re just reaching to make a bad joke bro, Cyneswith is just a sweet nice introvert and not like other girls, she doesn’t feel comfortable in the club’, well to that let me reply with another picture that is worth a thousand words:
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Yea that’s right, on the first minute of our first time out WE RUN INTO THAT ONE ELDER TOWNIE THAT HAS WRINKLE MAKE UP ON. GODDAMMIT CYNESWITH
Do you guys remember how Jojo was obsessed with Stephen Tinker as a teen? Are you seeing the connection here?? Those kids have literally inherited the worst possible traits from both their parents turned up to 11, it’s fucking unreal.  
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Right after I get over Wrinkle’s presence I turn around and what do I see, those 2, who have never had a non-noogie physical interaction, autonomously doing the family kiss thing. I didn’t even catch it on time because I was loling irl, we came out here so these assholes can find age-appropriate partners, and instead they’re kissing each other. Seems about right with this family, and clearly Striped Scarf’s dumb ass ships it.
-They look so much alike, it’s meant to be!
Yes, and they even share the same last name! Talk about written in the stars.
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Thankfully Abhijeet is here to save us from incest by perving on Cyneswith. GTFO ABHIJEET. Anyone like ‘bro townies just autonomously come to greet your sims on community lots regardless of age, stop calling them perverts’, see you in about 5 pics down.  
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I try to have Shajar chat up Striped Scarf and suffice it to say Shaj ~stole her heart~ and presumably put it on this stick to wave around.
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NO. CYNESWITH NO. I’m seriously having déjà vu of all the times I was like ‘NO. JOJO NO’, jfc.
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Shajar is unsurprisingly exhibiting no interest in socializing with anyone around her, instead she’s trying every activity this terribly lit place has to offer, and she looks demented while doing it:
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I’m feeling a primal urge to photoshop Darth Vader’s melted helmet on the bowling ball here, someone please remind me to do it for the heir vote photoshoot.
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-HA. SUCK IT DENISE JACQUET
That’s Denise Jacquet?! I can’t tell who anyone is for shit anymore. The default replacements are a scourge upon premade brands, I’m getting rid of them pronto. Speaking of scourges, where the hell is your sister?
-Who cares?
I wanna say ‘me’ but we both know that’s a lie.
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Oh ok, THERE SHE IS.
-So you see Cyneswith, just because something is technically ‘illegal’, doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong-
Yea yea fascinating stuff, now get out of the hot tub or I will fucking neuter you, I don’t know if a eunuch mod already exists for medieval games but I will make one if it doesn’t.
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Here, Cyneswith, drink some water, have a nice G-rated convo with your sister about violins and stop pissing me off. 
-First of all this is straight vodka.
Great.
-Secondly Shajar is talking about Mozart’s coprophilia.
-I sure am.
Amazing. Well, I guess it’s at times like these when you need to look inside your heart and truly ask yourself, what did you expect from Jojo’s children.
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ABHIJEET ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME DID YOU EVEN HEAR ME TALK ABOUT CASTRATION
-Ha, I went home and put on my most elderly-looking formal wear!
-I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave Ab <3
CYNESWITH SHUT UP. I can’t believe you people are actually making me miss Gunther’s teenage whoring, at least he kept it age appropriate.
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-Is some random lady pressing her breasts against my head?
She most certainly is, Shajar, because it is now crystal clear that this bowling alley doubles as the site of annual perv townie convention and we walked right into it-
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-and it’s also clear we have serious issues and are enjoying ourselves. Shaj I legit don’t know what to tell you, this is the first time you get along with someone right away and it just had to be the adult with the bad haircut and the flasher’s trench coat???
-You’re damn right it did.
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Alright then, I’m officially going to nope out of this situation, safe in the knowledge you’re a noogiesexual and nothing will actually happen with this freak, so I’ll focus on Cyneswith instead who is much more of a loose canon. 
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Here Cyn, talk to this guy, who I’m 90% sure is the same guy your father rejected in favor of stalking Stephen Tinker when he was your age.
-Ohhhh, he’s dreamy!
Omg really?? Halleluj-
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-oh never mind, you were of course referring to adult ass Brandon Lillard. I do like that our townies have recurring roles each generation, we should make rejecting Blondie a rite of passage in this family. We should also officially gtfo because this is happening:
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-Um, now that I’m looking at you in harsher lighting, it’s gonna be a no from me dawg. 
Oh, thank the fucking lord.
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-Let’s celebrate the fact we didn’t get hopelessly obsessed with any adults here by doing the traditional Dance of Normality!
-We beat Dad’s genes, we beat Dad’s genes!
-We’re normal!
Yes, and we’re definitely showing it. Can we please leave now so I can make sure I’ve uninstalled Inteenminator and turn off free will? 
-Nop! Venue change!
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-Got-out-of-the-car celebratory noogie!
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-Made-it-to-the-door celebratory noogie!
Shajar you unironically have a noogie addiction, I’m not kidding in the slightest, you need to see a doctor.
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Great, great, not another teen in sight and to top it off Denise followed us here to ensure maximum elder presence. I feel comfortable officially declaring this day a complete waste of time.
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God, the vintage pink dress and the pink alcohol combo is some straight up current era Taylor Swift nonsense. That’s it, we’re outta here, back home where no one is lurking, waiting to strike at us-
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-SOPHIE NOOOOOOOOOOOO💔💔💔💔💔
-The Lord is my shepherd.
NO HE ISN’T EVERYONE KNOWS YOU CAN’T HERD CATS PLEASE DON’T DIE
-Nop, I’m over it. Goodbye heathens, it’s been nice, hope you don’t find your paradise. 
UGH SOPHIE, my beloved Westboro lunatic, the last gangsta generation 1 cat we had.. I can’t believe you’re gone and all I’m left with is stupid Goro and D’vorah who can’t even beat up the fucking dog. This is truly painful.
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Yes, pets, I agree, Kaylynn is completely to blame for Sophie dying of old age. The time has now come to decide on a cat heir-
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-and since Goro ran away like a little bitch after Sophie’s death despite the fact he didn’t even like her, he’s automatically disqualified and will be going off to live on Melody and Daniel’s farm once returned to us. Congratulations to D’vorah I guess, on being the least terrible of two terrible options. 
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On the topic of terrible heir options, Cyn has non-stop wants to go on dates and have her first kiss and all that crap, and since our Sunday morning clubbing was a bust we invite over the matchmaker.
-Hello there young Union, I see your house has been upgraded since I was last here.
Oh right we haven’t required your services since Daniel was a teen and we lived in a trailer, well we are flush with cash now!
-Hopefully your payment reflects that.
It will!! Just please give us someone good, I can’t deal with single teen Cyn for one more second.
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-Oh my, what a beautiful BLANK PIECE OF PAPER.
WHAT!? NO THAT’S 5K IT’S JUST A SNOW GLITCH 
-What do I look like to you, a money thawing service?
Does such a service.. exist??
-It does not, so I have to go home and use a hairdryer on this!
Just come inside and we’ll give you non-frozen money!
-No, no, you’ll get what you paid for..
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-Have a magical time!
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...
.........
......................
Lakshmi this was so fucking evil that I almost want to age you down and see if you and Shajar hit it off. 
-As if, the whole neighborhood knows what you did to Komei.
Helped him achieve his insane 6-pets-career LTW?
-Turned him into a servant while your sim was lounging around all day!
Oh yea I did do that. But Wyatt was also a townie and he does literally nothing, Jojo is the servant now!
-Only because Wyatt is too fucking stupid to do things! Word has gotten out, no townie will ever marry in this family again unless they’re brain dead, so it’s Wyatts only for you from now on, sister!
Well this has been a complete fucking disaster. It was great seeing you again, Lakshmi, thanks for the dream date with the adult farting machine, 5k well-spent.
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Pretty sure it was you bro, and yes, how about we don’t do that again.
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Wyatt has brought over Amanda from work! (Aka Victoria’s only friend and subsequent lesbian lover, who is really pretty and is definitely getting married in at some point, preferably after the brown hair genes have been weakened so we can go back to being gingers.)  
-Wow Shajar, your grandmother, God rest her soul, mentioned you were her favorite and now I can see why! Loving the Kylo Ren look!
-Is someone being genuinely nice to me?! What is happening?
-Yes, please stop being nice to her, Amanda, we don’t want her getting used to it.
Jojo istg.
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-Cyneswith dear, tell Amanda all about how much money your grandmother left you so she can stop being nice to Shajar. 
-Soooo much money, Miss Amanda!
-Ah, what a polite child I’ve single-handedly raised.
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-Now, Cyneswith, you really need to get back on the dating scene so you have ample time to find the perfect spouse and continue our line, since you’re clearly the only one of my children that is remotely heir material. 
-Dad, Shajar and Wulf are right next to you.
-Oh they are? I’m wearing my special contact lenses that make those disappointments invisible to me, but even better, they need to hear this. Shajar is a noogiesexual and thus incapable of reproduction, and Wulf is not even a Union, I mean have you seen that kid? Wyatt reproduced by himself like the amoeba he is. Now, your grandmother-
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-YOU MENTIONED ME 3 TIMES AND HERE I AM
OH FUCK VICTORIA, deleting the default replacements gave you base game hair!!!!
-That’s the part you’re scared by, not my Beetlejuicesque entrance?
There’s literally nothing scarier than your ghost sporting this haircut for all eternity, I’m re-downloading that default immediately. 
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-Oh mom, so good to see you! Let me just hug my beloved child, Shijer-
-Shajar, dad.
-SHAJAR, let me hug Shajar, like I do all the time. 
-I’m glad to see you’re not picking favorites among your children like I did, the way I treated David-
-Daniel, mom.
-DANIEL, is the one thing I’ve truly been regretting in the afterlife. That and not skinning Marisa Bendett alive when I had the chance. 
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-Well, as you can see by Shajar’s totally normal and not at all shocked reaction to my hug, I am a wonderful, fair, and emotionally available father. 
(Bruh this freaked me out so much when it happened, I mean I KNOW it’s an animation glitch but I was convinced my sims had become sentient for a good while after)
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-Is your grandmother’s ghost still on the premises?
-Yup. 
-When will this nightmare end, paying attention to you is the worst. 
-Ok she’s gone.
-FINALLY. Now it’s back to the crypt for you, and don’t you dare go complain to her urn!
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-Ah, Stephen, Stephen, my life is crap and I can’t even🎵
And with the knowledge you have composed a theme song for Stephen Tinker, part 1 of the Union comeback update is concluded. Will Shajar’s sexual orientation reveal itself? Will Cyneswith find true love? Will Jojo become a werewolf? Will Wulf continue to be the only dignified member of this family? Will D’vorah have kittens? Will Wyatt do literally anything worth mentioning? Tune in for parts 2 & 3 to find out, unfollow button on the upper right corner for those who need it. 
49 notes · View notes
inkedcrystal · 6 years
Text
Update
If you saw my bullet journal’s mood tracker you would see nothing else but grey.
Hi, by the way. I am back. August was quite hectic if I would say so myself. My grandma got sick though; sick is not the right word. Let’s travel back in time, shall we?
Three years ago Gma got a pacemaker on her 83rd birthday and spent a few days on the ER. I had a minor surgery when I was little but I have never visited someone who I loved in the hospital.  I was worried and even though she was more than fine seeing her lying on a hospital bed connected to these machines that were monitoring her heartbeat and such made me sick. I was with her maybe twenty minutes or so and I could feel a huge wave of migraine approaching me.  The dim lights, the smell of chlorine and occasional coughs and beeping machines…I wanted to get out.
There were several other patients in better or worse condition than my Grandma. Ma told me that the night before she woke up to the nurses escorting a patient out, she later finds out the man who left the ER actually died. Something, deep inside me told me how lucky I was that my grandma was the one who stayed in the room but emotional side… Let’s face the fact; death is something that avoided me at my whole life. I was seventeen when I had to go to a funeral of my previous teacher. Never in my life before had to face the end of life if there’s an end to it. Now, talking with Gma in the ER where some stranger died a few hours previous… I wanted none of that. I wanted to get out, I wanted my granny to be better so we could go home and forgot this has actually happened.
Fast forwards to three years later. 1st of August; Grandma woke up feeling dizzy and light headed. It was nearly 2am. She woke up my grandpa telling him something wasn’t right. That’s where Hectic August started. High blood pressure, dizziness and numbness. Grandpa came into my room to wake me up when he went to fetch my mom. Here’s where the party starts. Mom was about to call the doctor but guess what? The doctor didn’t answer. After the third or fourth try Mom and I, but mostly me, run to the doctor who should be on the night shift right? Fortunately, we live like 3 minutes from the doctor’s office and me running like crazy I was there less than in a minute. Now, let me tell you about my experience with the arrogant butthead who calls himself a real doctor.
When I got to the building, it is locked. Like, there was I, standing in my PJ’s in the middle of the night in front of the fucking building while my grandma having a hard time at home and the doors won’t open. Apparently, you have to RING THE BELL. Okay, I did that. Soon my mum caught up and we waited 10 minutes for the doctor to walk down the stairs. (FYI: we are talking about a small, two-storey building.) He walked so slowly, I almost wanted to scream that he isn’t in a fucking prom movie to make a scene.
So when he opened the door and asked what the hell we are doing here. Mom started to explain the situation while trying to remain cool but when I saw the doctor’s arrogant expression on his face I lost it. I told him that we have an emergency, my grandma is old so he would be so kind and remove the stick from his ass and help us that would be phenomenal. He was having none of it. Tells me first I should have called 112 (our type of 911) and ask for help from them and if they think it’s serious they send out an ambulance and a doctor.
Now listen, maybe this is the right process to follow but the tone that the asshole used was infuriating. I stormed out of the building leaving Mom behind to handle that jackass and I called 112. The emergency line picked up after two minutes or so and the voice on the other side of the line asked how he can help me. I started with the basics; stated my name, described the situation and asked for help. But the owner of the voice was not helpful at all. He asked for my address and I told him. (FYI: I live in a street which name is easily mixed up with other three streets in my city.) He corrected me that the street I am living in doesn’t exist.
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?! The dispatcher guy is telling me that I don’t know the name of the street where I have been living for the past twenty-one years? Is he serious? I told him that he is probably wrong and there were no street name changes in the past thirty years so look up the right street and send a doctor or ambulance there.  My first 112 (911) dial went fantastic, and if I have to call them again…Don’t make me do it.
The ambulance came and before that, Dr Jackass Asshole decided to show up alongside his assistant who wasn’t less arrogant than the doc. They checked Gma and found nothing major (thank God), gave her some pills and instructions to follow then left. Fuck them.
Never in my life wanted to hit someone so bad. So that’s why I kick the wall so hard I bruised my toe and couldn’t stand on it for a week.
After that, every night we check on grandma. She is fine during the day but at night… We are all tired. Waking up at random time every single night is tiring. Our sleeping schedule is messed up and I am starting my last year at Uni in 4 days. I am worried, tired, grumpy and anxious.
Anyways, that is why the blog was kind of empty. However, I planned several posts for September. I am about to write a post about bullet journaling and keeping things in order, also planning on posting a review of a movie and a book. Moreover, since it’s September I challenged myself to shoot 8 mini photography project and hopefully, I will able the complete them by showing it.
Sorry for the rant. I know that there are several kind doctors and dispatchers out there. It was my luck to end up with these assholes.
I hope you had a better August than me. Also, it is officially back to school season and I cannot wait to go back to Uni!
Xxx
Esther // Inked Crystal
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redditnosleep · 6 years
Text
I Ran Into My High School Sweetheart Tonight At My 10-year Reunion…The One I Married?
by ImJustC0nfused
Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 |  Part 4 (Final)
A lot has happened over the past couple of days. The local police will be on their way here shortly (they said they were going to prep and deploy a team). I explained the full story to them over the phone, and they took a statement. This is sort of strange, but I got the impression that they were expecting my call. They asked all the right questions, and didn’t seem all that surprised..
Since this isn't exactly an emergency (i.e. crime in progress), I should have a bit of time to share the details. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that they're taking this seriously. I should have involved them sooner. I’m typing as fast as I can here. I'll hurry and explain the events that lead up to now.
After my last update at 3:00am the other morning, I was planning to take the kids and get out as quickly as possible. Without hesitating, I went straight for their room to grab them (they share a room). But, they weren’t there. How could that be?
I panicked, and by this point I was running room to room. I went back to mine and Stacy's room to check if Stacy was still there. She too was gone.
The kids were gone. Stacy was gone. Everybody was gone.
This was looking really bad. I should have taken them sooner. Why didn’t I take them and go as soon as I read the document?
She must have already been gone by the time I got up at 3:00am to look for the note. Did she ever even come to bed that night? How did I not notice?
I decided it would be safest for me to leave and spend the rest of the night in a hotel. I parked my car across the street in a small shopping plaza, and walked across to the hotel. I hoped that would give me a bit of cover if she went looking for my car.
I texted the number back the next morning
Me: I found the document, and I read it.
619-xxx-xxxx: That was my mother and I.
619-xxx-xxxx: Take the kids, get out now. If your wife suspects anything things are going to get bad.
Me: Stacy took them. I don't know where they went.
619-xxx-xxxx: What?
Me: I found the envelope on Monday. Stacy must have found it when I was asleep and took off.
619-xxx-xxxx: I told you to text me immediately once you had it.
619-xxx-xxxx: This is really bad. I need you to meet me now. There's a dirt road behind the theater (left side). Drive down it, and I'll be there waiting.
I met with her, and we talked. I’m positive she is the real Stacy. This was when I decided it was time to involve the police. I need to find my kids.
Stacy explained everything in person: She had a stalker in college (in California). The report from my previous post was in fact about her and her mother. Her mother was killed in the accident, but she survived (she was seriously injured though). After the accident she was put into the Witness Protection Program. Her new identity was "Beth." She had a new life and she was living somewhere completely under the radar. Things were going well. She was happy. Or, as happy as she could be, given the circumstances.
She was even on Facebook - though, she wasn't using her real name, nor was she using a real picture. And of course nobody knew it was actually her. She eventually became “friends” with several old classmates so she could stay somewhat in the loop on how everybody's lives were turning out. She said she was living vicariously through classmates who were dumb enough to accept a friend request from someone they didn't even know. It was a guilty pleasure. This was obviously against the rules of the Witness Protection Program, but she figured it was harmless as long as she just observed and always used fake information.
As our 10-year reunion approached, she saw a Facebook group created for our class that several prior classmates were joining. In a moment of weakness (or stupidity), she said she broke down and sent a friend request to me after seeing that I was in the group (up until then, she made it a point to never look me up for her safety and for mine). Anyway - I guess I was one of the people dumb enough to add someone I didn't know.
She checked out my profile, and was completely dumbfounded when she saw that I was married... to her. That was when she knew she had no choice but to get in contact with me. Even if it meant risking her own life and breaking every rule in the book when it came to the Program.
She had to do it soon, and it had to be in person. The reunion seemed like the perfect time and place.
Anyway, the reality is, she doesn't know who my wife is, and neither do I at this point. Nor do we know why she is doing this. Stacy suspects that it may be the same person that stalked her ~10 years ago, which is absolutely terrifying to me. How could I not notice? Did my actual memories of Stacy fade, only to be replaced with the memories of someone else, whom I was convinced was Stacy… making all of this possible?
Side note... I just got a text from Stacy, as I was typing this:
619-xxx-xxxx: Steven, I forgot to tell you one last piece. I'm outside the hotel you're staying at. Come outside for a sec and I'll explain.
Me: How did you know where I was staying?
JESUS WHAT IS HAPPENING. It's the police. They are banging on the door. But I'm the one that called them. This is crazy. Not sure what’s going on. It has to be a misunderstanding. Posting this now, just in case.
*UPDATE: * Hello, Reddit. This is Andrea... or as you probably know me, "Stacy," Steven’s wife. I've been following along myself. Gripping story, huh? That's all it'll ever be. A story.
Steven was the love of my life. We dated as freshmen in college, and I would have done anything for him. Even after Stacy was long gone and off in California not thinking about him, he still talked about her. I knew I'd never have him to myself. She left him! She didn’t want him. I was there for him. It wasn’t fair. He eventually broke up with me because he missed Stacy. He wanted to be with her. She didn’t even realize, nor did she care.
So, I did what any reasonable person would do in that situation. I became Stacy. You have no idea how easy it was. I found Stacy on Facebook. I went to California and I watched her every move. I laughed like she did. I talked like she did. I smelled like she did. After finally mastering all that was Stacy, I knew that still wouldn’t be enough. I went further.
With the right documents, a pretty smile, a bit of cash (and 19 times under the knife) I could have whatever my heart’s desire. America the beautiful.
The procedures were grueling. But in the end, God was it worth it.
I digress, back to today’s events. His laptop was open, so I went ahead and took the liberty of picking up where he left off. I had to finish the story so you wouldn't be left wondering what happened. That is, had the story not all been a “delusion.”
When I left the house that night after finding the note, I immediately contacted the local police. I have indeed been lurking, so I told the story just like he told it. I showed them pictures of “us” dating all of the way back to our high school years. Even I’m surprised how easy it was to sell his “delusions” as his concerned wife.
To them, his schizophrenia diagnosis was apparent. “We see it all the time,” they said. The story was incredulous. He was clearly a threat to me, and to our children.
I told them he would be calling, and I was right. All I had to do was set the stage.
As for Stacy (err.. Beth) well. Unlike the first time she went into hiding, this time she won’t be seen again. Steven is gone. I had him 304’d (involuntarily committed to a mental facility). Serves him right for choosing Stacy over me a second time. Either way…he'll now get the treatment he so desperately needs and deserves. Only the best for my Steven.
Anyway, the kids want to go out for ice cream. This is /u/ImJustC0nfused signing off. I guess things weren't so perfect, after all.
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danafraedrich · 5 years
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Using IngramSpark: My Experience and Mistakes
Fair warning, this is gonna be one of those long, dry, but very helpful tutorials, so settle in with a nice warm beverage—I’ve got my tea next to me—and maybe a snack. Oh, and there’s a coupon code later on to help you save some money. I’m only going to address setting up a printed book (not an e-book) today since printed books are way more work and it deserves its own dedicated blog entry. Okay, let’s get to this!
Why? ~ First things first, why do we care about IngramSpark? Isn’t Amazon enough? I mean, they kind of run the bookselling world, right? Well, not exactly. True, Amazon dominates the U.S. market, and it has a considerable share in the U.K. and Canada too, but they don’t have as huge a market share in other places. Meanwhile, IngramSpark is the sixth largest book distributor in the world. The whole world. You know that old adage don’t put all your eggs in one basket? Yeah, that kind of goes for bookselling too. Diversifying your distribution can really help you reach a broader audience. Reedsy has a great article that goes into more detail on this here, including a case for “going wide” vs. using Amazon’s KDP Select service. Anyhoodles, IngramSpark also works with a lot of independent bookstores. For instance, using IS was the only way I was able to get my books into Parnassus here in Nashville because a lot of independent bookstores won’t order from Amazon. Why would they when Amazon is putting a lot of them out of business? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Amazon and am a very happy Prime customer, but support your local bookstores!
Ahem. Moving on, I also find IngramSpark’s customer service to be more helpful than Amazon’s, which is really saying something because I also really like the customer service team at Amazon. I’ve had to contact them numerous times, and only once or twice have I not had my question answered or issue solved. IngramSpark is even more helpful than that. Whaaaaaat?! I know. And they’re super big proponents of helping indie authors succeed.
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend IngramSpark’s 5th birthday celebration this past summer and I learned so much in the short time I was there. In fact, that visit convinced me to move my books over. That and the fact that they offer hardcovers. So now that we’ve just established why IngramSpark is useful to us, let’s get to how to use them.
The Setup ~ This is a pretty standard process at first, very much like creating your Amazon Kindle Direct account, so we’re not going to spend too much time on it. You’ll need to choose the Create Account option on Ingram Spark’s website and follow the instructions. One of the things you’ll notice that’s different about IngramSpark, however, is that you have to enter a publisher. A lot of indie authors create their own publishing imprint for this. Here’s a great video on doing that from fellow indie author, Kristen Martin. After that, you’ll need to enter your banking information, tax information… you know all that stuff that comes with running your own business. Because that’s what you are as an indie author, a small business owner. Okay! So once your account is set up, the really tricky stuff begins.
Getting Your Titles In ~ There are several ways to do this, and I’ve been through them all (because I made mistakes*). The first method is to basically set everything up from scratch in IS just like you do with Amazon. Once your IngramSpark account is set up and you’re on your Dashboard page, click the “Add a new title” button and follow the instructions. One thing you’ll probably notice is that IngramSpark’s setup information is way more in depth than Amazon’s. Because Ingram distributes on such a broad basis, more types of categorization are required. You can click on the little (?) icons for further explanation of each field. You will need to buy a universal ISBN, which you can do as you go through the process. You get a discount by going through IngramSpark (it’s about $100 for one), so make sure you use the link they provide during the setup process.
I know a lot of authors like using Amazon for their printed books because you can do it for free. Except that lack of cost comes with a major restriction. The free ISBN Amazon gives you can only be used on Amazon, nowhere else. A universal ISBN, however, is just that—universal. Here in the U.S., you’ll purchase that from Bowker (the U.S. ISBN agency). If you’re in the U.K. or Canada or somewhere else, I’m not certain what you’ll use (feel free to let me know in the comments below 👇), but IS will tell you. You’ll also have to register with Bowker’s website, MyIdentifiers, to make your purchase, but once you’ve made your purchase that ISBN is yours!
I also highly recommend you use Ingram’s cover template tool so you (and your cover designer) know exactly what size to make the cover**. Remember, a printed book will vary in size depending on how many pages are in it, the trim size, paper tape, and other factors, so make sure you have it exactly right. Otherwise you’re going nowhere fast.
Right, so you’ve filled in all the fields, bought your ISBN, and have a correctly sized cover file waiting in the wings. Then you come to the setup fee. Excuse me? Yes, there’s a title setup fee, but not to worry! I have something to help with that.
Now, if you’re already signed up with IngramSpark/are subscribed to their newsletter, you already know about this awesome coupon code. In case the picture doesn’t show up for you or something, here’s the important text:
November is National Novel Writing Month and to celebrate the written word and writers everywhere, we're offering free title setup until March 31, 2019!… Upload your print or ebook for free with promo code NANO (all capital letters) until March 31, 2019! Code must be applied at time of upload.
IS runs these specials about twice a year, so I recommend subscribing to their newsletter. Now, your manuscript will also have to be sized correctly based on your chosen trim size, so make sure it is because last but not least, you have to upload your interior manuscript and cover files. It’ll take about a week for Ingram to check that these are sized correctly and look nice and all that other stuff. And if they aren’t, IngramSpark won’t do anything to fix them for you like Amazon does, so make doubly sure everything is the correct size.
Assuming everything is sized correctly and whatnot, your book will be move onto the next step. Ingram will email you letting you know you need to approve it. You’ll get to see a digital proof and whatnot, but be warned: updates after you approve your book cost money. It’s a $25 fee anytime you make an update to your book after you press the big scary Approve button. Then again, your book should be as close to perfect as possible when you publish and you should pay close attention during this process to ensure you’re using the correct files. So that change fee hopefully won’t be a bother. After approving your book, you just wait for IS to do their thing. Congratulations, you’ve set up a title from scratch in IngramSpark 🥳.
*Mistake No. 1 - Back when I set up Out of the Shadows, I didn’t purchase a universal ISBN for it, so when I started the process for setting up my books on IngramSpark, I had to do its set up the long way (e.g. what I just explained to you), which I admit has a very steep learning curve and makes you do twice the work. Not so with Into the Fire and Raven’s Cry. Whew!
**Mistake No. 2 - I did not use the cover template tool at first and wasted weeks not understanding why the cover I’d uploaded to Amazon (which they’d tweaked for me) wasn’t being accepted.
Onto the much easier method!
Title Transfer ~ This might feel like we’re going backwards, but stay with me because there’s a really good reason I recommend this method. Basically, you set up your printed book in Amazon first (it’s just way easier than IngramSpark’s from-scratch process) and then request that Ingram funnel your book from Amazon’s database to theirs.
Firstly, you’ll need to set up your printed book in Amazon and purchase one of those aforementioned universal ISBNs when you do. Again, you get a discount if you go through Amazon’s special link, which can be found during setup or on the U.S. support page for ISBNs here. If you’re in a different country, a quick Google search for “KDP universal ISBN” will probably get you a KDP support page that should help you. Use that link to save yourself some $$$!
Now, when I first did this, I used Raven’s Cry as my tester because it’s a standalone. I started doing the IngramSpark setup for it from scratch but got an error message when I entered the ISBN, so I emailed their customer service team for help. Enter the World’s Greatest Customer Service Rep. ever! She explained to me that I would have to do what’s called a Title Transfer, gave me the form, and provided me with detailed instructions for completing the process.
Just email IngramSpark’s customer service team to request this form and ask them for instructions to go with it. Once I’d emailed the form back to Ingram, they recommended I email Amazon to say IS would be doing this Title Transfer thingy. And I emailed Ingram again to let them know I’d done that thing once I’d let Amazon know. It was FYI-email mania! I was also advised that the TT process can take up to a month, but with all my (over?)communication, Raven’s Cry was transferred over within days.
When I did Into the Fire*** next, I decided to see how things went if I didn’t communicate very well. Long story short, it took a lot longer. Amazon had to email me for authorization to do the transfer, so then they had to do extra communication stuff between them and IS, and then I eventually followed up with IngramSpark. Yeah, way messier, so I recommend keeping everyone in the loop.
***Mistake No. 3 - Apparently, when I set up Into the Fire on Amazon, I did purchase a universal ISBN but then forgot I had and started to do a setup for it on IngramSpark before I knew about the Title Transfer, so now I have this unused ISBN hanging out in there for me. It’ll probably get assigned to the next book now that I know how that stuff works way better.
So that’s my tale, mistakes and all. Yes, IngramSpark is more work and more expensive than just using Amazon, but I truly believe it’s better to distribute your print books through them as well as the ‘Zon so more people can find your books throughout the world, you can get into more indie bookstores (and big ones too, but that’s another story), and have hardbacks if you want—this last one is something I’ve only begun to play with and haven’t made any solid decisions about. The issue is that POD hardbacks are very expensive, almost prohibitively so IMHO, so I haven’t quite figured out a way to make them worth it, but I’m working on a few ideas 😉. Why not tell me in the comments below how much you’d be willing to pay for a hardback? Or, if you have any questions about this process, drop them in there too.
If you made it this far, well done! You deserve a treat. Here’s me doing a happy dance to celebrate your stick-to-it-tive-ness!
Thanks for reading!
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The biggest update... to date.
Hi everyone!  I know it’s been a few weeks since my last official post, and that’s because everything has been so crazy with school. After finishing Musculoskeletal System - Superficial Back, we began upper limb with the most intense, smartest professor I’ve ever had: Dr. Buck. A former USA Olympic gymnast and now an anatomist with a PhD and Ford Mustang enthusiast, Dr. Buck is incredibly passionate about upper limb and was intent on drilling every detail about the brachial plexus and the pathways of every nerve, artery, and vein into our brains come test day. My tank group for dissection lab (in particular, 3/7 of us) spent an extra 6 hours or so after classes cleaning up our Susie (what we named our cadaver) to get a better dissection grade. It paid off though, since we were one of the only tanks who received full credit. (overachievers FTW!)  When Upper Limb finally ended (thank goodness I also passed that exam), we went straight into Lower Limb, no breaks or days off. I was starting to get burnt out with MSK, and my friends and I used this gif to sum up our feelings: 
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but, I finished the course strong with my best exam score on a written test yet. Yay!
In the midst of all the studying and dissecting shenanigans, I also had my first Standardized Patient encounter! It wasn’t graded, but it was an exercise to get us comfortable talking with a patient. We were told to wear white coat attire, (meaning, our white coats), and to go in and “have fun but be serious”. The interaction was completely recorded and we were able to receive feedback from our “patients” after our 10 minute history-taking session was complete. Mine wasn’t as embarrassing or painful to watch as others, since I think 2 years of ED scribing experience prepared me well enough to take a solid history from a patient. However, the cookie-cutter format our school wants us to memorize made me slightly nervous, and of course I screwed up a little bit. 
We were told to introduce ourselves and also ask the patient if they would like to be addressed as Mr/Mrs. Smith or if they preferred a different name. I had practiced that line maybe 100 times leading up to my SP encounter, but of course in my nerves, I forgot it completely. It was something I remembered only after my SP session ended, and I smacked myself in the forehead for it. Come ‘on, Liz! Get your head in the game! Good thing this wasn’t graded. 
We were also taught a mnemonic to remember what information to obtain from the patient while taking a detailed history:  O = onset L = location D = duration C = character  A = alleviating factors A = aggravating factors  A = associated sx  R = radiation T = timing  S = severity 
It’s very similar to the scribing format I learned, so getting all those points was easier for me than it was for others. I even had time to start asking about the past medical, social, and family history, so I’d like to think my patient interview went alright. (yay!)  I also had such a fun weekend. The lower limb exam was on Friday, so RVU granted us a 3-day weekend to just chill, catch up on sleep deprivation, and the like. :) I succeeded in making a friend group, and now almost every Friday, we go out and try different foods and just de-stress from the week. The first week was Indian food, then we had Pho. Last week we had Hawaiian, and this week we’re having Cantonese, followed by Korean BBQ, followed by Ramen. LOL. We have the next month’s dinners already planned. 
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But seriously though, I couldn’t be happier with the friends I’ve made while bonding over MSK. (haha). I’m more of a small friend group type, so of the large group, I have my close friends. We pretty much spent the entire weekend together. Saturday I drove 5 of us to Boulder where we experienced all the beauty of CU-Boulder’s campus as we drove by it, along with the infamous Pearl Street. Some festival was also going on right next to it, so we checked that out too and got some yummy food from the local food stands. We also explored a really neat bookstore on Pearl Street - it was full of nooks and crannies and not-so-secret passageways that just made the whole thing so much fun. 
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Also, here’s a picture of some of my friends: 
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From L to R: Hannah, Me, Shirley (next to Hannah), Diana, and Colin.  We so cute. :P 
On Sunday we were supposed to go hike a 14′er (14K elevation), but my ankle has been randomly hurting and I’m still wearing the AceWrap (going on 7 weeks now...hmm..) so instead, Shirley and Colin and I just went to the 16th Street Mall in Denver to window shop and check out downtown. The Taste of Colorado festival (what’s up with all these festivals, yo?) and some Anime convention thing were going on, so the street was pretty busy. But we checked out the Taste of CO festival, which was much like the Ventura County Fair, minus all the farm animals and rides. :P 
Monday morning we met at Shirley’s place for waffles and Indian tea, and Niaz came by so we could work on our Evidence Based Medicine qualifying exam. (We’re assigned to do a Capstone presentation later this year, but have to pass the qualifying exam before we can start working on the Capstone). It took 4 med students to finish the exam in 3.5 hours, which apparently is alright, since it took other individuals 6+ hours working alone... (the exam was open book and open note). After finishing the exam, we headed to another friend’s house (Amanda) for a Labor Day bbq. Though we only stayed an hour, it was enough socializing for me. And free food. :P Finally, Colin and I stayed at Shirley’s house afterwards and played a round of Spongebob Monopoly, and Shirley ordered sushi for dinner. (Don’t recommend, lol. But the drunken noodles were good). We called it a night and now here I am, updating my blog instead of showering for class. LOL. Guess I’ll go do that now. :)  Hope everyone at home is doing well! We’re starting Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms (MCM) today... which I might actually pull my hair out during... Biochem was not my favorite in undergrad, so we’ll see how I do the second time around. >< 
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lindoig · 7 years
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Days 18 to 22 (May 14 to 18)
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums.  Having inadvertently staged our own mini-celebration for Heather’s Mother’s Day last week, we forgot all about it this time until half the day had gone and messages started coming in from the kids. Notwithstanding, we tried hard to celebrate it again.  
We went to the Mindel Beach Market in the afternoon.  We arrived early because we had been advised that parking was a major issue, but it was pretty easy really.  We strolled around for a few hours and Heather bought a couple of small items.  It was reputed to have a wide selection of ethnic food outlets as well as some of the usual crafty stuff, but I didn’t feel that it quite lived up to its advertising. There were certainly lots of food outlets, but quite a few were simply replicating their neighbours and there was nothing really unusual at all.  Still, we indulged ourselves and what we had was quite tasty.  As the sun dropped toward the horizon, the crowds drifted from the Market down to the beach and at least a thousand or two ooh-ed and aah-ed and took thousands of photos as the light faded and the sea swallowed the burning globe. Actually, most people left before the sun was completely gone for some reason, leaving only a few hundred stalwart party people to dance the night away – and it looked like plenty of them had come well-prepared.  But once again……. what is with all the people standing in the water, or splashing and swimming, with all the crocodile (and poison box jelly-fish) warning signs about?
Next day, we went west – not on the recommendation of the Visitors Centre where such a direction seemed a little odd.  It was 100 or so kilometres to Dundee Beach, stopping a few times along the way to explore.  There was not a lot to see, but we sat under a shady tree and ate our sangers and had a cuppa overlooking the brand-new boat-ramp and the ancient Arafura Sea.  On the way back, we took a 50-odd kilometre detour north, up to the tip of the Cox Peninsula with Darwin on the horizon to the east.  It was getting late so we didn’t hang around there for long and retreated to a couple of coldies and the air conditioner in the caravan.
Quite a lot of the area we travelled through that day had been burned.  We have seen lots of fires as we have travelled in the NT.  During the Wet, the grass grows to more than three metres high (almost as high as a very tall elephant's eye) and there is a policy of fuel reduction burning up here.  People could easily get lost in the grass (a haven for all sorts of deadly snakes and other toothsome critters) so it is a very sensible policy in my view.  Actually, the grass is so dense, you probably couldn’t get far enough into it to get lost, but they have apparently have some big bushfires over the years and burning off reduces the risk of uncontrollable conflagrations.  For example, we were told that they burn the whole of Litchfield National Park every three years- one third each year and we saw plenty of fires there.  We have seen numerous very hot fires right up to the very edge of the road as well as extensive blackened areas, many where there are plenty of logs and dead trees still smoking and the raptors are circling looking for some freshly baked prey – or maybe just trying to find a place to roost without burning their tootsies.  We have not been inconvenienced at all by the fires.  There are ample signs warning of the risk of low visibility due to smoke, but despite seeing thick smoke in the distance, all we have experienced is a few wispy areas where the aroma of burning leaves is really lovely.  (Even when at home, we sometimes collect a few leaves and burn them of an evening just for the smell of the bush and we have enjoyed smelling that on a grander scale up here on lots of occasions.
Tuesday was FABULOUS.  When we were on Bruny Island in April, we shared a table at the Bowls Club with a couple whose daughter and SIL have a tourism business up here so I contacted them and said we were interested (even negotiated a ‘family discount’ on account of the ‘referral’ from Kelly’s Mum.)  The business is Adelaide River Tours, not to be confused with Adelaide River Cruises from whom they bought the business a couple of years ago. Very few people have heard of them and they are struggling a bit to get known, partly because the previous owner still operates and advertises his Jumping Croc Cruises that almost drown the airwaves up here.  He advertises very heavily and Kelly and Alex are still trying to gain market share. We think their all-day tours are hugely better than the hour-long Jumping Croc tours, but horses for courses.
We were picked up at the caravan park gate at 8.15 and eventually joined about 8 other people and were taken to Adelaide River where we boarded their boat and cruised up river for 30-40 kilometres.  We saw several crocodiles, one huge beast that investigated the boat quite closely for 10 minutes or so and we had to keep moving to avoid it getting too close.  We also saw one by the shore eating what I think was a large olive python – it was having some trouble getting it down.  Several of the crocs were relatively small, mainly 2-3 metres – and one cute little metre-long baby made a dash for the river right next to where I was in the boat.  He was out of the water and among the mangroves and we just made eye contact when he decided it was safer in the water – they can really run fast!!!  We had morning tea on the boat and lunch at the most amazing little private lease they have way up the river.  It is just 100 square metres or so, well out of the water, but set up with battery-operated fans, gas barbeques, tables and chairs, even a dunny they have set up.  A few of us went for short walks outside the leased area, but it was very hot and it was good to retreat to the relative cool of the shade in the shelter shed. They made us a barbecue, with lots of salads, fruit, cold drinks and a cuppa and we enjoyed an hour or so in the middle of nowhere.  Then back on board for more exploring and a coldie or two on Goat Island – a very rustic resort run by a grossly extroverted eccentric with a crazy sense of humour and a singing dog (he plays the harmonica and the dog barks along with him.) All very kitch – ultra-kitch really – but he has carved out a profitable business in the middle of the bush catering for tourists like us, runaways from Darwin’s Big Smoke and fishermen who get helicoptered in to the tiny pad hacked from the jungle behind the ‘motel’.
It was then a run for home, stopping once or twice to check out a sunbaking croc – one truly enormous reptile that stayed around long enough for us to all get plenty of pics – and then delivered back to the caravan at about 6.15.  It was a great day with interesting people – but only a few birds.
Wednesday seems a bit of a blur.  We went out around 10am to buy a new stabiliser leg for the van – the new one we had fitted before leaving home wouldn’t wind down, no matter how hard I hammered it.  I even pulled it completely apart and couldn’t get it to work.  Of course, the guy who sold us the new one gave ours one solid belt and it worked fine after then, so we are now carrying a spare stabiliser that will probably never get used.  I had to go to Medicare to sort out some issues we had in Alice Springs – and they were completely unhelpful, but we eventually resolved the issues ourselves (I hope).  We went to the ferry terminal to pay for a tour we had booked, did a little bit of grocery shopping and somehow it was then after 4.30 – and neither of us can figure out how the hours slipped away.  Maybe we had a nap during our travels but neither can remember that!  Darwin is a lot bigger (and a LOT more spread out) than I imagined so maybe we spend a few of those hours driving from one side of town to the other – but I think not.
Thursday was also a little bit lost to us – maybe we are getting the hang of this sort of lifestyle and an hour or three spent doing something we can’t recall next day is not a big deal.  I know we spent some time on our emails, paying bills, making phone calls and updating our blogs, and during the late afternoon, I went off on my own to the Botanical Gardens to try to spot some birds.  There were plenty there and I saw a few that we hadn’t seen before on this trip, but nothing quite new to us.  I didn’t see the pittas that they say are in the Gardens so that was a little disappointing – maybe I might need to make a return trip after next week and try to spot them allowing myself a bit more time to wander around. The gardens are quite extensive and definitely worth a visit.  They are divided into numerous ecological and geographical environments and I found them really interesting.
(Species count 143, including 16 new ticks since leaving home)
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yakumtsaki · 6 years
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There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just gonna come right out with it: welcome to the most morbid post in Union history. Half the family is getting wiped out in a single update and I don’t mean to point fingers, but it’s 100% Wyatt’s fault. I really need someone to blame so don’t dare try to take this away from me.
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Back to the present and not the corpse-filled near future, we actually have some money to spend on our spawn for the first time ever, so Shajar gets a non-completely-depressing room. No more eating from the cat bowl for our kids!
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..spoke too soon.
-Is it still there, is it still there??
-YES omg it just looked right at me! Vic! I’m scared!
-Don’t make eye contact with it you fool! Don’t you have any idea about how children work??
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After not getting promoted for an eon, Jojo is suddenly killing it, two promotions in a row!
-I know, I was starting to fear I’d be one of those geniuses who are only recognized after death- UGH, what is that obnoxious sound?
That’s your infant child screaming because it was abandoned on the cold hard floor the entire night.
-Oh ok, so standard parenting. For a minute I thought something was wrong.
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-There, there, you’re alright. Ok.. OK seriously, stop. God, have some dignity for once in your 12-hour life. Crying in public is so embarrassing.
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-NEEEEEEO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Yup. I’ve been so focused on feeding Victor and Alegra’s ancient asses from the bowl of life that I forgot Neo was an elder too, so he’s the first to go even though he’s way younger than them, great job @ me. Goodbye Neo 💔 You were such a good boy, our cat heir, and an integral part in achieving Komei’s life-ruining LTW. You will be sorely missed.
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..Apparently by your archenemy Victor most of all. Vicky casually walked off the lot the minute Neo died with no notifications about running away, only to return on his own shortly after. Wtf is going on in this house.
-I had to contemplate the futility of hate.. All this time wasted trying to kill each other and for what.. It's a sunrise and a sunset from a cradle to a casket.
Yea or this lot is already glitched as fuck and it’s only generation 2. Good times.
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I was very bummed out by Neo’s premature demise and not in the mood for another kid, but one peek at Jojo and Wyatt’s life bars convinced me to drop the mourning period and circle-of-life this bitch. They are extremely not getting any younger and who tf do I think I am? Someone who knows better than Mufasa?However since a) Jojo is nowhere near his 100k LTW and can’t be taking days off and b) and more importantly, I hate Wyatt, guess who’s carrying this time around!
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OH COME ON
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GODFUCKINGDAMMIT WYATT
-Huhu!
How the hell did this happen I DEMAND TO KNOW
-Check how your mods work in le futur, idiόt!
..well you got me there.
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Jo you are ON FIRE, 3/3! Maybe we can actually complete this 100k bullshit before you’re on death’s doorstep. It’s gonna be close tho, but you know, you just HAD to get knocked up again, so that’s on you.
-No, it’s on YOU.
No, it’s ON WYATT. Let’s just not point fingers and move on, ok? Everyone is equally to blame.
-NO THEY’RE NOT
I’VE MOVED ON I CAN’T HEAR YOU
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And now a section I like to call: What the entire fuck is happening. VICTORIA WHAT ARE YOU DOING
-What?? I love babies :)
I legit went back and checked, can you guess how many times Victoria autonomously interacted with any of her kids when they were babies/toddlers? If you had EXACTLY ONE TIME you win..nothing. There are no winners here.
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Oh. my. god. 
-Stop hogging her already, I wanna feed her too!
-WELL WAIT YOUR TURN DICK. No, not you, baby bobo booboo.. 
We’ve had our fair share of plot twists around here but this is truly some fucked up shit. In case you don’t get what the big deal is, enjoy this little trip down memory lane aka the Victoria-Komei-parenting-hall-of-fame. Either the ‘age mellows people out’ thing applies to sims too or they got personality transplants when I wasn’t looking. Disturbing.
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Of course SOME THINGS never change, no matter how life-ruining for all involved.
-Is this about my LTW, STILL? It’s been like 20 years, GET OVER IT
NEVER
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Whachu doing Vic?
-Updating my will to include Komei now that I suddenly love him. Of course someone has to get cut to make that happen..
Well goodbye Daniel I guess!
-..Who the fuck is Daniel?
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-I too am making preparations for when I leave this cruel world.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume they’re cat-related.
-NO, not everything is about cats! I have plenty of other interests and concerns. 
Name one.
-My beloved son! I’m making sure he takes care of my cats.
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Finally, this family’s excellence is starting to be recognized. It’s about time.
-Yea no, this is a recognition that you trainwrecks need all the help you can get.
UGH typical jealous hater bullshit, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.
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Ok, I’ve some idea what you’re talking about. Honestly what else has to happen for me to just. stop fucking throwing kid’s birthday parties? I’m pretty sure we’ve had..one that wasn’t a straight up disaster? God knows those glory days aren’t returning any time soon.
-I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m having a blast :D
Of course you are Gunther, you haven’t been sober since the third year of college.
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AND SOME PEOPLE ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THAT. ABSOLUTELY NOT. HALF ALIEN PROF ISTFG
-I’m legit fine with this :)
I legit don’t care, it’s not happening in our sacred home. Also BRIT IS RIGHT THERE JFC you’ve gotten stupid as shit.
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You guys seriously, what sins am I paying for, why can’t we have ONE NORMAL NON-INCESTUOUS PARTY. JUST ONE. Daniel heartfarting over his ex, ok, not that weird. Komei heartfarting over his daughter-in-law..getting weird. Gunther heartfarting over Half Alien Prof..reaching for the chlorine to bleach my eyes and then immediately drink.
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Nice, get in on that action Wyatt! We almost forgot about your long standing boner for your brother-in-law.
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Happy birthday, Shajar! You’re welcome for this amazing party, pay me back by not being ugly.
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..yea ok. You did your best with the tools you were given. And I mean the literal giant tools that are your parents. Hopefully Wyatt came through with his somewhat balanced personality???
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OH MAN. 10 playful, 9 active and 1 nice? Literally sporting Jigsaw’s personality. I mean darling Jojo has 3 nice points and is..how he is, can’t even imagine what Shajar is gonna grow up to be like, but it’s good to know we’re moving in the exact opposite direction than intended.
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-Enjoyed your kid’s birthday party, you cheating bastard? WELL PARTY’S OVER
-I may be a cheating bâtard-
-SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH YOUR SELECTIVE FRENCH ACCENT
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AW Neo’s ghost making its first appearance and trying to kill Wyatt, what a sweetheart. Welcome to the party!
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It was one for the history books! 
-How on earth did this party suck, I had an exceptional time.
Yea that’s because you weren’t there, it’s easy to have an exceptional time away from this family. Of course I have never personally experienced it but the mind does race.
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-AH at last, my article is published! Oh, editor’s pick too, ha, of course. No, wait, editor’s warning.. As requested by the legal department? Drama queens. “Horrifying views expressed.. Widely discredited.. Not endorsed in any way by this publication.. DERIVATIVE??!!” Well, I know what I’m doing this weekend.
Is it.. rewriting your article?
-Oh, I’ll rewrite it alright. IN BLOOD
Great. Speaking of blood-
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-Victor’s thirst for it is back with a vengeance. We went an entire 4 days without a cat fight and I was all like ‘woo new record’ but one thing has become clear since then:
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Victor didn’t go away to contemplate shit. He was waiting..plotting..training..and now the time has come for Victor 2: Reign of Blood.
-WHERE’S YOUR GOD NOW??
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Seems about right. Honestly Sophie is the wisest one among us because she got tfo just in time to miss THIS:
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Yea, unsurprisingly fucking Damien here is one vicious screamer. WHAT DO YOU WANT
-YOUR SOULS
Good luck finding any in this house.
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-Who’s my cute little spawn of satan? Who is? Come to grandma baby.
-ONE SMALL STEP FOR ME, ONE GIANT LEAP TOWARDS THE ANNIHILATION OF MANKIND
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Wyatt continues to do nothing of use all day and is not even getting promoted anymore due to his tragic lack of skill points. Somehow that led me to deciding he should be the one to get the genie wishes, I honestly dk wtf my problem is.
-Greetings, mortal etc etc. I’m gonna skip over the intro, you know the deal with the dealio, 3 wishes, let’s hit it.
-I was expectànt more of an Aladdin flair but c’est bien I guess..
-DON’T DARE MENTION THAT MOVIE TO ME YOU FRENCH ASSHOLE
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-Um, oui, your désir c’est my command..Huhu! 
-Is one of your wishes the return of your brain, because you should throw that in there.
-Non, non. C’est but one wish in mon coeur, Genié. To nevér, evér have to interact with my bébés but still have beaucoup of them.. In case you can’t tell, I am sim de famille!
-Ugh yea, that much is obvious.
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-Well, your wish is granted, mortal! Let me just flick your nose as hard as I can and we’re done here..
-Pourquoi?
-Oh no reason, just for my own pleasure. Buh-bye!
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-And with that, he turned into la fumée, mon cheri! Incrediblé!
-I hate my life.
That makes two of us. As in I hate your life too, my life is pretty good.
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KOMEI DO YOU MIND WITH YOUR DANGEROUS CURVES, Jojo has a grueling skilling schedule to keep up with.
-So this is it. Rock bottom. 
I mean, you wanted to be heir boo, you got it. It’s a dirty job.
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Finally one of the Mortal Kombat cats lives up to its name! GET FUCKED VICTOR
-K.O
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Well, we all saw that coming. Victor seriously, you’re like 50yo, don’t do this.
-I’m outta here for the fourth time bitches, and this time I’m not coming back! No man is an island but this cat is.
Ok, see you soon.
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Wyatt’s wish is definitely coming true, he has not touched Shajar a single time yet, autonomously or otherwise! What a guy.
-I HAVE NO USE FOR EARTHLY FATHERS, THE ONE I NEED AWAITS US ALL IN HELL
It’s gonna be a long fucking generation.
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-WYATT. WYATT YOU DAMN MORON WAKE UP
-Ugh Jojό, I told you, my magique protects me from all bébé interactiόn.
-DOES IT PROTECT YOUR TORSO FROM MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS
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It’s a girl! I’m like why stray from a proven formula, so I name her Cyneswith after another Crusader Kings character, who did not exist irl like Shajar but was still a fire emoji empress of Britannia. Welcome to the shitshow Cyneswith! No offense, it was great to meet you, but we have some important shit to do so..have fun on the floor?
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FUCKING FINALLY. It’s promotions only from now on boo! 
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..Which is more than I can say for some people. Wyatt seriously, can you move your useless ass up the ladder already so we can avoid having this freak in our house EVERY SINGLE DAY.
-The boy’s just following his heart ;)
Half Alien Prof you are by far the biggest pervert I’ve ever had in this game and Jojo spent his entire teenagehood trying to start a bdsm relationship with Stephen Tinker.
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Well, Victor predictably died off lot, which is so on brand for him I’m not even mad. An insufferable dick to the very end, he lived to eat and to start fights with every animal he ever came in contact with. He only ever really loved Victoria. I’m gonna miss him so much.
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Victor may have died, but that’s not going to stop the police department from trying to return him to us. Just remember that that place is under Wyatt’s supervision and it all makes sense.
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Can hardly wait, Professional Make-Up Cop.
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-I want to play a game, Alegra.
Man is someone gunning to be put up for adoption!
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-Papa’s birthday présent to you, Shajar, is us finally meeting! Breathe it in, mon favori, I’ll be seeing you again on your next anniversaire!
-Wyatt I swear to fucking god, I will stab you.
Can we get this going please, I’m in NO MOOD.
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Not bad at all! A pretty even mix of Wyatt/Jojo and I see you def did not get the Komei jaw, which is pretty much angels singing.
-Angels singing makes my eyes roll in the back of my skull. 
You make my eyes roll in the back of my skull.
-What?
What. I didn’t say anything. Love you Shaj!
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-One more for the road babe? After 50 years?
Yea. Just pretend everything that follows has a broken heart emoji before and after each word.
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I dress Vic up and have her wait for Death in the living room like a lady, none of those ‘dying in the bathroom in my underwear’ deaths, befitting people like Wyatt. However ideal the circumstances as far as death goes, my heart still broke in more pieces than cats Komei has petted.
-VICTORIA UNION
-Marisa? Is that you?
-NO, IT’S-wow cool armchair, where did you get-no, sorry, you’re dying and all, let me start over..
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-VICTORIA UNION, YOUR TIME HAS COME. I’M HERE TO COLLECT YOUR WRETCHED SOUL
-What? My soul is not wretched jerkoff, the fuck you talking about?
-THAT’S JUST A THING WE SAY BECAUSE IT SOUNDS COOL, PLEASE DON’T RUIN IT
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-HERE’S YOUR COMPLIMENTARY VIRGIN MARGARITA
-Virgin??? Oh god, I’m going to hell aren’t I?
-YOU WERE, BUT YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER MADE SOME CALLS ON YOUR BEHALF. WELCOME TO HEAVEN
-Yes, I can taste the alcohol in this! GOING GONE, BITCHES. LATES
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The stacks of simoleons DID NOT EASE MY PAIN. I do love that Daniel got the most final version of ‘and none for Gretchen Weiners, bye’ possible.
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Jojo is fucking devastated and immediately rolls the want to resurrect Vic. It’s bummy af, I’m not even gonna go for the obvious oedipal jokes, he was just crying for days and days and days..
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Komei, on the other hand, WAS NOT.
-Eh, I’ll be seeing her soon enough, why waste the tears.
Now that I think about it Komei has never cried about any of the cats either, I think he’s just the type of person who deals with grief by suppressing it. Whatever works.
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Jojo and Wyatt are always having these fashion talks whenever they’re eating which are hilarious because I can see Wyatt being into it, I mean he’s french, but in what world is fucking nerd Jojo interested in clothing. Not even that can cheer him up now 💔
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Fucking Florence, bringer of doom, returns Sophie to us and the moment she does:
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Tell me how am supposed to live without you, now that I've been loving you so long, how am I supposed to live without you, how am I supposed to carry on, when all that I've been living for.. is gone 💔
FUCK YOU FLORENCE
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Jfc the blows just won’t stop coming. LEAVE US ALONE WE’RE IN MOURNING
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Time for Cyneswith’s depressing ass birthday which I can’t give less of a fuck about, and apparently neither can Wyatt but then again he wouldn’t even if we weren’t ~back to black.
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Loving the hairstyle but it does look ridic on a toddler. Good for you for committing to your british aristocracy character tho, very Downton Abbey.
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Well the Komei jaw always knocks twice and apparently we let it in this time. Are you beautiful on the inside Cyneswith?
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OH. MY. FUCK. BYE. CYNESWITH YOU FUCKING FREAK
-Huhu! 
NO SHE GOT THE HUHU. GOD HELP US
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Cyneswith dramatically enters the toddler stage by immediately going into aspiration failure.. You can all guess where this is going.
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-KOMEI UNION YOUR TIME HAS COME. I’M HERE TO COLLECT YOUR-
-Yea yea whatever, are my cats waiting for me? If you say no I will literally kill myself.
-I DON’T THINK YOU’RE GRASPING THE CORE CONCEPT OF DEATH, BUT YES THEY ARE WAITING.
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-I’M OUT. TELL THE WOLF I LOVED HIM
KOMEI 💔 I’m sorry but we will not be delivering that message.
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Apparently Jojo and Komei legit bonded at some point?? I was expecting like a half-hearted sigh but instead we got sobbing-
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-and this sum that does not imply ‘least favorite kid’ AT ALL.
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Well you know how the old saying goes: nothing will ever replace your parents but a helicopter will come close. 
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Also in mourning: this breakdancer npc that randomly appeared on our lot and stayed stuck there for 2 days before I finally batboxed her into oblivion. This lot is fuuuucked y’all.
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And generation 1 is officially over. Rest in peace Komei and Victoria, legacy founders, horrible spouses and somehow even worse parents. You stuck it out and were fun to play till the very end. I’ll really miss you guys 💔
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