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eusuntgratie · 2 years

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I’m shocked that no one has written a fic to this. Eddie purposely putting on his tightest white sweater to show off his body to buck at the dinner scene right in front of bucks girlfriend cause he wants to get a reaction from buck. Why has no one done the slutty Eddie fic? Can you do it?

I can indeed, nonnie 😘 I did get feelings all over this because I can’t help it. We’re hand waving canon a bit here; Eddie’s already in therapy so he’s well enough to be a little slutty without that being catastrophic for both of them. Hope you like it!

read on ao3

Buck has to make himself pause on the doorstep, to wait, to knock like a friend coming over for dinner instead of letting himself in like someone who used to half live here. He takes a second to gather himself before raising his hand to knock. Tells himself it will be fine. Eddie invited them over, and while it’s no secret that he’s not Taylor’s biggest fan, it has to mean something, right? That tonight’s dinner is some kind of olive branch?

Eddie swings open the door and smiles, and something is just a little off, just a hair to the right of his actual smile. He files that away, makes a mental note to get him alone and make sure he’s okay, but his train of thought is derailed when he notices what Eddie’s wearing. Buck’s pretty sure he’s seen the full spectrum of his wardrobe, but this shirt is definitely new. Eddie’s wearing a white henley that’s clinging to his arms and his chest and is it really that fucking see-through or is he just losing his mind? He drags his gaze up from the vicinity of his chest to find Eddie smirking at him.

“Hey, man,” he says, eyes passing over him. “Come on in. Taylor.” He nods at her in greeting and she gives him one of her fake news smiles. Eddie says he needs ten minutes, but won’t let Buck come help, so he joins Chris in the living room, and catches up on everything he’s missed in the last week while Taylor perches awkwardly on the couch. It’s jarring to see her here, in the Diaz house. He keeps forgetting she’s there as he laughs with Chris, getting the full update about school and trying to subtly ask about Eddie. Chris keeps glancing at her, and Buck’s starting to realize he’s not going to get much of anything out of his boys while Taylor is here.

Eddie leans into the doorway to tell them dinner’s ready and Buck’s brain blue screens. He’s beautiful. Of course Eddie is beautiful, Buck knows that, but he’s just- it’s arresting. He looks tired still, but lighter. He’s back in therapy, by choice this time, and Buck knows he’s still struggling but he just looks- lighter. He looks more him than maybe he ever has with the new haircut that’s been slowly driving Buck crazy. The neckline of his thin white shirt keeps drawing Buck’s eye to his collarbones, the notch at the base of his neck. Buck shakes his head to clear it and beams back at Eddie.

“Can’t wait!”

He nearly trips over the coffee table when Eddie turns around. His jeans are tight, and Buck can’t quite keep himself from staring at his ass as he trails into the kitchen to grab the last plate of food.

Dinner is…nice. He’s so happy to be here with his boys, ribbing Eddie with Chris and complimenting Eddie on his cooking.

“I can’t believe you learned to cook, man. This is so good. I’m coming over every day I’m off, m’kay?”

Eddie laughs and flashes him a warm smile.

“Sure, Buck.”

Taylor makes an odd noise and Buck turns to look at her. He keeps forgetting she’s here. She looks so out of place in this house. She’s pushing her food around on her plate, hair and makeup perfectly done, sitting on the very edge of her chair, like she’s hoping for a work emergency to give her an excuse to bolt. When her phone rings twenty minutes later, she’s snapping it up and apologizing and heading out the door before it even stops.

“I’ll call an Uber, okay? I’m so sorry, Eddie! Thank you for dinner!” she calls back to them.

Eddie looks at her full plate and then right at Buck and smiles at him. Like he knows she doesn’t just not fit here, but that despite all his efforts she doesn’t quite fit with him either.

“You like your food,” Eddie says, sounding cocky.

Buck smiles around a mouthful of bread and veggies.

“It’s so good, Eddie, holy shit. I mean- sorry, Chris.” They both laugh, and Eddie smiles at him like he’s thinking something he won’t say out loud yet.

Buck helps Eddie clear the table after they eat. He’s got an honest to god plate of decorated cupcakes ready, and Buck thinks his heart might melt into the floor. He stops Eddie with a hand on his arm when he moves to carry the plate out. “Hey. Are you okay? I mean, really. When we got here you looked kinda - off.”

Eddie smiles at him, the real one that reaches his eyes, and leans into Buck’s space just enough for him to notice.

“Yeah, Buck. I’m good now.”

Buck was excited for the cupcakes, but finds himself hardly able to eat when he’s faced with Eddie in that goddamn shirt, licking icing off the side of his hand. He wants to trail his tongue over the little triangle of Eddie’s chest revealed by his shirt where the top button is undone. He wants to undo the rest, strip him out of his clothes, drive him crazy with his mouth. Show him how good he can make him feel.

Buck tries to focus on Chris, but his eyes and his mind won’t stop wandering back to Eddie. After they clean up and Buck plays a couple rounds of Chris’s new game with him, he helps Eddie finish the dishes.

“You want me to stay tonight?”

Eddie knows what’s behind that question. Are you still having nightmares? I want to be here for you. Help you. Be with both of you.

He smiles and leans against the counter, and Buck can’t quite keep his gaze from trailing down the length of his body before he drags it back up.

“No,” he says, sounding final, and Buck feels his chest tighten, worried that Eddie will shove him back out, that they’ll move backwards in this weird dance they’ve been doing for way too long. “Not tonight. Go home, Buck.”

Buck stutters out an, “uh, okay” and tries to keep the hurt off his face.

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

Eddie’s expression is so soft and warm, Buck feels like he had to have missed something. “Break up with her.”

“What?”

“You aren’t happy, Buck. You don’t love her. She has to know that you don’t. You deserve to be happy. And uh- maybe… maybe I do too.”

“Eddie.”

He just smiles. “Go on, tell Chris goodnight. We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Eddie.”

He bites his lip.

“You cooked for me.”

“You think I did it for her?”

“Then why did you invite her here?”

“To show you what you won’t look at. To make sure I was right.”

Buck means to bite it back, but “you wear that shirt for me, too?” slips out of his mouth before he can stop it.

Eddie looks down at the ground by his feet, then looks up at Buck.

“Maybe. You like it? It’s new.”

“I do,” Buck breathes, frozen where he’s standing.

“Go home, Buck. We’ll talk later. Yeah?”

“Yeah, I- yeah. Thanks, Eddie.”

read on ao3

#buddie #buddie fic #grace writes #eddie's slutty white henley

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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No “wine-ing”: a season of ice and fire

A lot of you dropped very kind messages about my well being and I’m happy to say that my recovery from Covid is firmly on track and I’m close to full strength again. My exhaustion and tiredness has thankfully been ebbing away. I’m back running my daily 5 km before I start my work day and cycling to get back to full fitness.

So I managed to escape Paris before the travel lockdown and curfew was imposed before April 26. I’m a country girl at heart and I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable in big cities. I love Paris but I also get tired of it quite easily. So I headed to the chateau vineyard where I thought I could complete my recovery from my Covid illness and work remotely (the work never stops) without too many distractions.

Unfortunately - or fortunately as I prefer to see it - I was mud deep in trying to rescue our wine harvest for 2021 as frost struck over a few nights that left us reeling, and left much of the country’s wine growing region devastated. No region of France was spared as French wine producers fought valiantly over several nights to stop the frost from letting the buds finally come out to sprout. Wine makers fought with everything they could think of, and in the end resorted to fire to keep the temperature warm enough for the vines to survive the cold snap. It was a spectacular sight all across the horizons of many French wine growing regions including ours.

I’m just thankful to be there at the right place and the right time to help out.

I enjoy coming down to our chateau vineyard as it’s a welcome contrast to the busy city life of Paris. I just couldn’t wait to get dressed up (or dress down?) in tatty old clothing, rolling up my sleeves, and getting my hands dirty with any physical chores to do around the vineyard. I always have this urge to make myself useful instead being stuck behind a desk, bored to death in Zoom call meetings. I was looking forward to running and cycling in the open country air to bust a gut or two.

Mostly though I was looking forward to enjoying home cooked country food, be in the fun company of my two Anglo-Norwegian cousins and their French families, and together we’d be preening over the first shoots of the forthcoming wine harvest for 2021.

It is always an emotional moment at this time of year when we see in the vineyards the glistening tears of the vines (‘les pleurs’) that tell us that the new vintage is underway. As the temperatures rise so does the sap in the vines and where the pruners have trimmed the end of the branch, we see this beautiful sight that reassures us – telling us whatever happens, nature continues. The baby buds are beginning to come out timidly but soon the stark branches of the vines will be green again as these fragile leaves unfurl in the spring sunlight.

Back in 2020 many vintners (winemakers), not just in our region but across the whole of France, were unsure what 2021 would bring. Would 2021 be a challenging vintage or an easy one full of sunshine? With the growing season starting so early, the first hurdle - and one of the most crucial - is the fear of late frost. It seems to be more and more of a problem in recent years, this late frost burying any new growth like a fast moving avalanche. For many vintners they have 2017 written into their hearts in painful tears when frost devastated any hope for a healthy harvest and for some even brought financial ruin.

For me - at the time - it was a rude introduction to the vicissitudes of the wine making business by two wine loving cousins co-owning and co-managing an old family owned French vineyard. Family fortunes rise and fall according to the harvest. All the blood, tears, and sweat poured into running an efficient high yielding grape vineyard comes to naught when you realise that you are not the master, nature is.

The risk of frost has increased in recent years due to global warming, which does not just warm but makes the climate more erratic and temperatures more extreme. Good news for the moderately temperate climate for our wine making region where hotter drier summers have produced a string of good recent vintages (2015, 2016, 2018, 2020). But the negative side of this is that frosts have become more common right up until the end of the usual cycle – last year it was on 6th May.

Except this year, 2021, now looked like 2017 because of the devastation of continued frost on the vines. In talking to the French family of my cousin’s French wife, who have faithfully made wine for a few generations they ruefully pointed out past bad frosts. Apparently 1956 was legendary with a very cold winter frost some minus 20 °C following a warm period when the sap rose from the roots into the vine foot and branches. It killed the vines. The last disastrous late spring frost before 2017 was 1991. It seems to be striking significantly every two years now and a every year to a degree. Who would have expected the devastation again this year, 2021 some forty years on.

This year, particularly around April 7th and 8th, brought despair to vignerons right across France from Champagne to Cognac, Burgundy to Bordeaux as thousands of vineyards’ new growth was obliterated by frost (resulting in zero yield for harvest 2021). There may be some new growth and some secondary budding but this is a repeat of 2017 (if not worse) and few were able to harvest any grapes worth speaking of.

My cousins had been in contact with friends and other peers who are wine makers in other regions (friendships are built at trade shows overseas and other association events) and in totality the picture appeared bleaker than previous years. The scourge of frost had been catastrophic. Around half of the vines in Burgundy have been damaged, according to local producers. Some vineyard owning friends in the Inter Rhône region told us that the whole of the Rhône has been hit dramatically and that some plots are affected 100%.

According to the CNIV, the official French council for wine appellation, the frost has affected 80% of French vineyards. We already know that we will have a very low harvest in 2021. Nearly all French wine growers have just suffered a dark week in April.

It’s not just wine growers but fruit farmers too. It’s been like winter coming in spring. Below-freezing temperatures in the Drome and Ardèche regions of central southern France have led to fruit farmers losing up to 90 percent of their kiwi, apricot, apple, and peach harvest. Even in Bordeaux the severity of the frost damaged the growth on fruit trees such as apricots, peaches and nectarines, and field-crops such as rapeseed and sugar beet.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. How does one protect the vines from frost?

There have been a variety of ways vineyard owners have been dealing with the problem of frost. There’s no one size fits all and the solutions are often handicapped by the size of one’s vineyards, financial resources, and manpower.

Two solutions in fighting frost have been aeolian wind turbines and air fans. It takes the warmer air from higher up, and pushes it to the ground. These machines can raise temperatures by up to 2C. The problem is that some of these wind turbines and air fans are permanently set so they can only be set in one direction whilst others one can wheel around to move the air and stop frost settling. Both are very expensive solutions and the cost may outweigh the gain.

Air heaters are another solution. No less expensive though. One of our vineyard owning neighbours wanted to use paraffin fuelled heaters. But he said he would have needed 4,500 paraffin-fuelled heaters to cover all his 15 hectares at a cost of nearly €50,000 for the two worst nights, and even then growers it would protect only the vines for his finest wines.

Some of the vineyards also launched helicopters to fly above their vineyards, a method that can help to prevent frost by encouraging warm air to circulate. In effect they push the cold air around so that it does not sink down to the ground causing its damage. I was all for this solution as I’m an ex-army helicopter combat pilot and so I felt my old training could be put to use in civilian helicopters. But we ruled this out once we did the maths. At about 1600€-2000€ per hour one can only fly from 6am but this is the coldest time when the sun comes up. At best the helicopter’s range of effectiveness was a mere 10 hectares. So you don’t get more bang for your buck. But that didn’t stop some vineyards that we knew doing exactly that. These were corporate owned vineyards who tend to be well heeled and can afford to spare no expense.

There are less expensive solutions but are more costly in terms of manpower.

Some vineyards used water sprinklers, allowing a fine coating hitting sub-zero temperatures as the ice acts like a mini-igloo and protect it from outside colder temperatures.

Conversely, vineyard owners hit upon another relatively low cost solution of using candles. They usually last 12 hours and so in effect can be used for the two crucial nights of severe frost. We calculated that at 10€ a candle you would need 300 for one hectare alone. Of course the chief problem is that they need to be lit by hand and hope the wind was kind.

For the biodynamic wine producers they fell back on organic solutions. They sprayed their vines with a spray composed of pectins from apples which is supposed to lower the temperature around the vines. More common and perhaps more effective was spraying vines with Valerian to give the vines some added fortification to survive themselves.

By far the most common response by vineyard owners to combat the frost was to burn fires by burning hay bales amongst the vines. The smoke causes a blanket which heats up the atmosphere. In the old days I was told they actually burned rubber tyres! For it to have any chance of being effective you have to be aware of wine direction and make sure the bales are in the right places. It also helps if your neighbours do the same.

Speaking for our chateau vineyard, we had to make tough decisions to see how our chateau vineyard could combat the frost and minimise the damage to the future harvest. Although I own a small financial investment stake in the vineyard I have always deferred to my two cousins who actually run the vineyard with their married partners on a day to day basis. It’s their life long passion and I’m happy to play a small part in getting my hands (literally) dirty in building something from the soil up and for purely selfish reasons, just love being so close to nature itself. The fact that the French family of one my cousin’s wife - they actually owned the land and were reputable wine makers for generations - added invaluable weight to the wisdom of any decision making we had to do.

We sat around the kitchen table and talked through our options whilst nursing a glass of wine from a past vintage. My cousins and their kids especially thought I was a weirdo - they’re probably right! It’s not that I enjoy it (the mud, sweat and lack of sleep etc) but it was the challenge that really got me energised. If it’s a forlorn battle against the odds that’s when I really come alive. So I was quite jolly and full of vim whilst those around me were bleary eyed and groaning for bed and a hot shower as we were out in the fields in the dead of night. We ran it like a military operation - thanks to me ha! - I put everyone on detail and even the small kids saluted and got to work on their task. We made sure we had hot soup and beers constantly on tap for our staff and workers to take a food break and take a breather. Not that they needed motivating. Every one of our staff and also volunteers worked bravely to limit the damage.

So in the end we fell upon a series of actions which indeed many of our immediate wine making neighbours also followed suit. We sprayed, we watered, we burned. We tried everything to save our vines from further damage from frost.

We concocted an organic solution that had thyme, oregano, and wild sariette to which we added valerian and meadowsweet and a dash of yarrow and horsetail as well as honey; all of which help the whole organic solution to work. In effect this helps the vine to prepare for ice, by changing the composition of the sap a little, by enriching it with sugar. The infusion is then sprayed onto the vines at least 24 hours before the first freeze is forecast. The solution only works if the temperatures stay just below freezing but no lower, at around -2C or -1C maximum. With this solution on the plants, we could increase temperatures by 1-2 degrees. If it drops even lower, to around -5C, as we had in 2019, it’s not enough. It might save some plants, but not all.

We soon followed with watering the vines using our irrigation system we had on hand. It was labouriously time consuming.

When it was clear that this wasn’t going to work out because of the severe temperature drop we fell on fire as the saving solution.

It was all hands on deck as we also roped in some volunteers to help us start small controlled fires amongst our vines. We burned straw bales and piles of wood in very large jerry cans to save what we could. The aim was to create a blanket of smoke so that when the sun came up it didn't burn the vines because of the humidity. One vineyard neighbour of ours actually used a flame thrower and lit more than 700 small fires but had to start all over again because the fires didn’t last one night.

This was our experience too. We had a lot of hectares to cover and so little man power and so we just worked around the clock until we were able to light fires and keep an eye on them should they go out. We ran between the selected vines to make sure the fires remained lit throughout the night starting around 2am to 6am. I don’t think any of us had more than a few hours sleep over a crucial 48 hour window. We took turns to cook for everyone and made sure everyone was well fed on home cooking as well as hot showers and adequately winter clothed. I’m used to being sweaty and getting by on little sleep from my army days but it’s a measure of how far I’ve succumbed to civilian life that even I found it a little hard going.

I’m not very good at lighting fires as I tend to over compensate on the fuel lighter and I feared that I would burn the whole vineyard down by trying to start a small controlled fire. I got singed here and there but nothing to complain about. Others were just marvellous in their work ethic and shared bonhomie as we tried to save our vineyard. One person on our staff did get singed with flames and in his case we rushed him to hospital with minor third degree burns. We all felt like roasted chestnuts standing between the small fires. But what a spectacular sight the landscape was with all these lighted fires. This wasn’t just our vineyard but all across the landscape of neighbouring vineyards. It looked as if the whole region was on fire. It was quite hypnotising to look at. As to its effects, it’s harder to discern. I do know that even cities of Lyon and Bordeaux had a layer of smog that was visible to others from far away.

Looking back it was both exhausting and exhilarating to experience such a time. It’s the kind of rite of passage that either breaks you or makes you. For us it certainly brought us all together more tightly than before. With our neighbours too there was a collective sense of togetherness and rather than act selfishly or just worry about our own fortunes, neighbours lent a hand towards each other in terms of equipment, expertise, or voluntary labour.

Perhaps the more wealthy chateau vineyards’ expensive techniques were able to save their best vineyards but most who could afford creating smoke blankets from burning hay bales – they were no match for the frost with temperatures down to minus 5 in some areas. Hopefully insurance had been taken out, which involves a substantial expenditure each year. We are fortunate to have insurance and the damage done to our vineyard has been mitigated to some extent. But I do know for instance that many are not insured against the effects of frost because of the cost of the coverage and many French wine producers were already struggling financially.

It was reported that many chateau vineyards in lesser known areas (Castillon, Bourg, Blaye, Côtes de Franc, Graves, Satellites of St Emilion) who could not afford these payments and who played ‘Russian roulette’, this year lost for perhaps for the last time. For them it’s personally heart breaking. For French wine making it’s a cultural tragedy. It’s hard enough for small independent vineyards (often run by families or young couples with a dream) to survive - the economies of scale as well as being aggressively overshadowed by the high volume output and superior marketing power of wealthy corporate owned vineyards - but never really expected nature, or vicissitudes of global warming, to make it that much more harder to make wine.

Unlike Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone valley, in the Champagne region, we heard that not many Champagne wine producers didn’t even bother fighting the frost because they thought it would have done little good. One of the reasons why so few people engaged in frost protection in Champagne is these wine makers have as their biggest buffer against frost is their Individual Reserve (RI). In case appellation requirements are not met in the vineyard, they can draw from it.

Indeed with sales still stagnating and small yield expectations, growers may have to dip in the RI because frost season is not over till after the Saintes Glaces, a period in the middle of May after which frost generally doesn't appear. But not every vineyard can do that.

To their credit, perhaps recognising the commercial and cultural role French wine has in daily life and international prestige, the French government had agreed to step in to help. President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a picture of a candle-lit vineyard and promised that help was on the way, “À vous, agriculteurs qui, partout en France, avez lutté sans relâche, nuit après nuit, pour protéger les fruits de votre travail, je veux vous dire notre soutien plein et entier dans ce combat. Tenez bon ! Nous sommes à vos côtés et le resterons.” (“To you, farmers who, throughout France, have fought tirelessly, night after night, to protect the fruits of your labour, I want to give you our full support in this fight. Hold on tight! We are by your side and will remain so." )

To that end President Macron has declared an "agricultural disaster" and Prime Minister Jean Castex has promised that the government will provide emergency relief to those who were affected. He has also removed the limit on the amount of financial compensation that can be provided. It said it would help the smaller independent vineyards and co-operatives with tax breaks as well as pushing banks and insurance companies to help out. It’s unclear if any of this will come to pass or indeed what effect it might have in the short and long term. We shall see.

It’s been estimated that at least a third of French wine production worth nearly € 2 billion (£ 1.7 billion) in sales will be lost this year. It's another blow for France's wine industry whatever assistance is given. The French wine industry has already been dealing with the knock-on effects of the Covid pandemic, with decreases in restaurant orders due to the country's series of lockdowns. Independent producers have been hit hard by the cancellation of wine fairs due to Covid. Then there have been the effects of the tariffs that former President Donald Trump imposed as a result of assorted disputes between the administration and the European Union. In late 2019, Trump hit French wine with a retaliatory 25% import duty, a cost increase that the Economist says contributed to a 14% drop in French wine exports in 2020. Last month in March, the United States and the EU announced a four-month suspension of the tariffs.

But that doesn't necessarily help winegrowers right now - especially since a significant percentage of this year's crop may already be lost. Tradition has it that it is well into May before vine growers can sleep easy without worrying about the risk of further frost damage.

Even though we did our best to save our vines we couldn’t save all of them and even had decide which ones to forgo even trying because we lacked manpower and resources at such short notice. I heard someone amongst ourselves say losing the vines that one has cultivated so lovingly was like the loss of a family member. It may seem puerile, but that is close to what many feel. Perhaps only winegrowers can understand this sentiment, but they have found themselves out in the vines in the morning with tears in their eyes. I’m not one for sentiment and displays of emotion but even I was a little moved to see the heart break in tear filled eyes of some of the older generation who have for decades given their sweat and tears to tilling the soil. We did our best to console one another and remarkably in that crucible we experienced together we all became closer.

What is clear is the tradition of wine - beyond national politics and international trade disputes - is under long term threat from something much more existential. There is a saying amongst the older generation of wine makers in our fertile wine making region who say, ‘wine history is climate history’. Wine making is about the vines, the ‘terroir’ (a French way of saying the earth or the soil), but also the climate. Nature is very much the master and wine makers are but humble servants of the soil. For those who don’t believe in climate change or think it’s overly dramatised by scientists or worse, a hoax, then I would say wake up and smell the coffee. Climate change is real as any wine producer or arable farmer will tell you. Wine can make you do or say many things, but it won’t ever make you tell a wilful lie.

The French wife of my cousin, whose family the vineyard had been for several generations, told us that the wine harvest time used to span her grandfather’s birthday - September 28 - but now, the bustle of harvest is over and cleaned up in time for his birthday party - that’s two to three weeks earlier than when her grandfather used to make the wine. As she memorably put it, things are “bien cramées” (really screwed up).

All of this means that wine producers will have to change their ways as the climate changes. All the measures taken to combat frost were in reality delaying tactics to fight a losing battle with the climate. The wine industry, not just in France but around the world, needs to evolve if it is to face up to increasing climate challenges. This might include planting more weather-resistant vines that flower later, and are therefore less vulnerable to late frosts and cold snaps.

Wine, in France, is built into the fabric of the culture. The many variety of grapes across the wine growing regions indigenously grow and adapt to the precise climate conditions of the region for centuries. Winemakers know the growth stages intimately: the look of the vines before they bud; the look of the vines as they mature over long seasons; and the fat, sugary, fragrant curve of the grapes when they’re ready to be made into wine.

That harvest point is crucial. Too long on the vine and the grapes have too much sugar in them, meaning the wine will be more alcoholic—not the subtle feel most winemakers in the region care for. Too long, and the acids that give wine some of its feel in the mouth may disintegrate. Not long enough, and they might not have developed the right balance of fragrant chemicals that give the wine its characteristic flavours.

Winemakers keep careful track of harvest dates, with some regions have records stretching back to the Middle Ages. In the 1800s, scientists and historians realised that those careful records could be used to keep track of how the climate in different parts of Europe has changed over time.

Grape harvest date records are the longest records of phenology in Europe. There are hundreds of years of records of what the summer temp was like, and we can use them like a thermometer.

Grape harvest dates reflect the temperature the grapes have felt over the course of the growing season, from about April until they’re picked. If the spring and summer are hot, the grapes mature faster and need to be picked sooner. If they're cool, the opposite is true.

Climate historians started to pull together ancient information from other sources, too. They matched up the patterns in the grape harvest data with records made from tree rings and the length of glaciers in the Alps. They used records like those to figure out that much of central Europe warmed up during the Medieval Warm Period, from around 900 to 1300. It had cooled down during the Little Ice Age, from about the 15th to the 19th centuries.

The historians saw that over the past few hundred years, temperatures wobbled around, skewing warm for short stretches and cooling down in others. But overall, climate rocked up and down around a fairly consistent average value - until recently.

Wine is first and foremost an agricultural product. The grapes used to make it are grown and harvested with intent to be fermented. This means that wine production is vulnerable to the effects of climate change from the tangible health of vines to the taste and quality of the finished bottling they create. So for this reason, all winemakers see themselves as being on the front line to see what happens with the weather, with the climate. The fluctuations we have today are more significant than any time before.

If you don’t believe any of this or think wine producers are exaggerating the dangers, then taste your wine the next time you open a bottle. The chances are it has a high alcohol content. This is no accident. Because of the changes in temperature world wide, the alcohol content of wines has bumped up from about 12% in the 1970s to about 14% today. Of course that number varies from region to region and is also due to the wine maker’s preference. But a large part of it is because grapes are maturing faster in the heat. The more sugar they accumulate, the more of it is converted to alcohol during the winemaking process.

Warming has also caused the boundaries of viable growing area to swell. Typically, successful vineyards have been found between 30 and 50 degrees latitude. But as global average temperatures continue to climb, the most ideal areas to plant are moving farther from the equator. Now, areas as far up as the island of Föhr and Stargarder Land in Mecklenburg, at the tip-top of Germany, are legally permitted to produce table wines. Belgium, whose vinous history has been overshadowed by its beer culture, quadrupled production between 2006 and 2018; it’s forecasted to become a champion, alongside Finland, Sweden and other boreal climes. Shockingly, even England has also successfully entered the modern fine wine scene.

With better wine from regions we know and new wine from previously uncharted areas, it may appear the wine world is becoming better off. In truth, however, this is a thin silver lining to ever-worsening viticultural challenges.

If the growing season becomes too hot, fruit will push through its life cycle too quickly and characteristics like tannins and anthocyanins, the compounds responsible for giving grape skins their colour, won’t develop properly. Muted acid and increased alcohol levels are also possible and often undesirable.

Variations between daytime and nighttime temperatures are in jeopardy as well. In warmer growing regions, that difference can be crucial to achieving freshness and encouraging certain flavour and aroma development.

Intense heat or too much direct sunlight can lead to dried fruit notes or create flabby and dull wines. Fruit that’s left too long on the vine can be damaged from sunburn or may simply shrivel. Vines may just shut down to protect themselves.

This is already happening in some places. Wine growers in northern Italy have already seen sunburnt crops with increasing frequency. The summer of 2019 in Southern Australia was the hottest since national records began in 1910, and it ushered in an 8% loss of white wine varieties, with Chardonnay dropping 12% to its lowest yield in the past five years. Growers in Priorat, Spain, reported devastating vine damage, scorched leaves and desiccated grapes when temperatures shot up to a record 107.6˚F.

Climate change is complicated, however, and, even though temperature is the most influential factor in overall growth and productivity of wine grapes, there’s more than rising mercury to think about.

Winter, and all of its prescriptions, is one of those other things. We typically talk about warming, yet, freezes during the winter or extreme frost in the spring don’t go away. They may become less frequent, but potentially more severe. A decrease in regular winter frosts may also encourage the spread of pests and insect-borne diseases that would normally die off during cold seasons.

Moisture is pivotal. Too much rain approaching or during harvest can lead to watery grapes and a weak vintage. Similar to mild winters, damp, soggy and humid conditions open the door to a variety of pests, fungi, mildew and disease pressures.

All of these intricacies and others work in conjunction with temperature to dictate what vines can successfully grow where and for how long—and all are increasingly unpredictable or totally upended in the face of climate change.

The people who grow, make and sell wine are tuned in to these nuances.

A greater number of producers are rethinking canopy management, vine trellising or pruning techniques, developing cover crops and extensive shading methods, increasing vineyard biodiversity and finding ways to reuse water.

Still, there are some challenges that cannot be overcome.

In the future, I expect growers to struggle with maintaining varieties in certain regions without major interventions. If they don’t make major changes, wine producers will see declining yields - already seen in Europe - and declining quality as the varieties become increasingly mismatched to the climate.

Producers have begun grafting new rootstocks and experimenting with different grapes. In South Africa, Vinpro, aided tests of drought-resistant varieties including Assyrtico and Marselan, for example. Australian producers have tried Italian grapes like Fiano, Vermentino and Nero d’Avola that thrive in warmer settings.

In Old World regions, where grapes and blends may be prescribed by law, the idea of swapping plantings is monumental.

Bordeaux is one such place, and, at a 2019 General Assembly meeting, it finally relented. The Union of Bordeaux AOC and Bordeaux Supérieur winemakers unanimously approved a list of seven “varieties of interest for adapting to climate change”: Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan, Touriga Nacional, Alvarinho, Liliorila and Petit Manseng.

The approval of these new plantings signals just how committed the region is to preserving the future of fine wine.

Each of the various tactics being implemented worldwide take lots of time, tests and research. Some experienced wine producers think it would take about 21 years to change course because of how long it takes to plant vines, grow grapes, and then create and age a wine; finding sustainable farming practices for a plot takes trial and error.

Further, the methods being devised now may not be applicable down the road. Though there are several models in use to try and predict changes, they are attempting to track a nonlinear problem that’s dependent on a range of forthcoming scenarios.

Basically, the only thing we do know for certain is that it will get warmer, and that we may be able to anticipate that heat before it hits us.We have to be asking what we can do now to preserve the integrity of the grapes and vineyards we work with and look for where our opportunities are to continue making wine. The one line that works for everyone is to cut carbon emissions, that is the emergency action that needs to be taken.

We’re all starting to see this and we’re all affected. We know we can’t turn it backwards, and we’re not even sure we can slow it down. But we have to try.

Think on all this the next time you take a sip of wine.

#wine #vineyard #frost #climate change #environment #economic disaster #harvest #france #bordeaux #bourgogne #champagne #weather #wine business #personal #personal pics #family

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misiwrites · 3 years

Text

Beyblade Week Day 3

for the third @beybladeweek2021 oneshot set in the 4kingdoms-verse, i have a silly little story from the west. takes place at some random point before the beginning of the main fic.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Fashion / Flowers / Autumn

“Underplates… napkins… saucers… and the cup handles to the right.”

Mathilda places each piece of the set with meticulous care. After the cups and cutlery are in place, she arranges the jam and cream dish on the tray, and then, of course, the centrepiece of the table, the golden cake stand for the treats.

“Handmade by Sir Olivier!”

She giddily sets the macarons and finger sandwiches on the stand. Then a freshly brewed pot of black tea from the kitchen, and everything is ready to go. Her butterfly heart flutters with nervous excitement as she carefully lifts the heavy tray and slowly makes her way out of the servants’ quarters. She has to focus on each and every step to avoid making any silly mistakes that could end up in a tea-stained catastrophe.

It’s a lovely day in early Harvestmoon. Pleasant and still, perfect for having tea outside – not something that could be said about most days in the Country of West, usually so drizzly and grey.

Whatever the weather, Mathilda never grows tired of the beauty of the Tiger Maple Palace, and although acting as a maid isn’t exactly part of the royal page’s routine and the tray is so heavy that it leaves her arms sore, it’s an honour to be asked to serve afternoon tea to her favourite guests at the palace, Lady Chen Mao and her handmaid Julia from the mansion on Kuí.

She finds them under a canopy of branches of blazing orange and yellow, hunched over some papers and magazines on the patio floor. Mao’s holy beast companion, Galux, is having a nap on its designated cushion a few feet away.

“But there are so many different types of zan zi… Oh, look, the tea has arrived!”

Mao is stunning as always. The wide sleeves of her blue-and-orange ruqun dress billow along as she jumps to her feet; she wears her rose colour hair on two long braids today, their shape resembles chains of traditional Western paper lanterns, and Mathilda has no doubt that the style is in accordance with the latest trends of high fashion in this kingdom. The handmaid, Julia, is more composed than Mao and rises to her feet with more dignity, politely nodding at Mathilda who approaches them with the tray.

“Good afternoon, Lady Mao, Miss Fernández,” Mathilda greets them, her cheeks slightly flushed. Relief washes over her as she successfully lands the tray on the garden table. No casualties this time, and the tea is still hot.

“Hi, Matty! Is it okay if I call you Matty? It was Julia’s idea.” Like a robin, Mao soars over to the table, then quickly turns to face her handmaid. “Jules, bring the papers here so we can keep planning while eating.”

When Mao is distracted instructing Julia, Mathilda hurries over to pull a chair out for her. “Um, um, feel free to call me as you wish, milady.”

“Aren’t you one considerate sweetheart, Matty! And how lovely the tea looks! Are these macarons by Olivier again? He’s such a weirdo – I’ve never heard of a knight who’s also a cook before, not to mention a damn pastry chef! Sword in one hand, a rolling pin in the other, how reassuring.”

Mathilda says nothing; hearing Mao talk about her master in such a manner always makes her ears burn, but she can’t not admire her audacious nature all the same. That boyish edge in Mao’s behaviour must have rubbed off on her from her older brother, the Duke of Kuí, whom Mathilda has always found nothing short of intimidating.

As Julia joins Mao, Mathilda can see that the papers she has brought along include several volumes of fashion-related magazines and what look like blueprints for a fashion design project of some sort. She tries not to snoop too much, not wanting to cross her boundaries as an outsider, but she hasn’t even finished pouring the two cups full when Mao is already deliberately pulling her into the conversation.

“So about the zan zi – I was thinking I’d want it to follow the flower theme, but I don’t really want there to be too much gold… you know… and a chai would be a bit meh… Matty, what kind of hair ornaments do you like?”

“Me? Oh…” Mathilda, who always wears her hair short and simple, racks her brain for an answer of any substance. “Well, um… um... Oh, I went to the Tianguan market square earlier this week, and there was a stall with wonderful flower zan zi from the East… made of fabric… The vendor said that they were created to commemorate the Seiryuu-ou’s late mother… They looked very lovely.”

“From the East? That’s an amazing idea!” Mao darts a triumphant look at Julia across the table. “That’s really unique! You should go check them out with Matty.”

“Of course, milady.”

“But tea comes first, obviously.”

Mathilda ends up spending a long while with the other girls in the garden, leafing through the magazines and following along in curious silence as they (mainly Mao, although she clearly holds Julia’s opinions about fashion in high regard) build their design piece by piece, element by element, carefully considering each detail to complement the big picture. Mao is sketching the design on paper herself as they go, and it’s obvious to Mathilda that she’s quite used to doing this kind of thing.

“Lady Mao,” she asks after a while, “are you perhaps planning to launch your own fashion line? A whole catalogue? You are very good at design.”

“Wow, thank you! You know, that’s actually an amazing idea!” Mao claps her hands together in excitement, her golden eyes positively sparkling at Mathilda. “Let’s make a whole line! This lotus daxiushan can be the first one. Oh, oh, Jules, we need to do the hair next!”

“Glad you brought that up, milady, I actually have several styles bookmarked that I thought you might like.” Julia whips out a HoloPad, and soon the mid-air above the tea set is filled with an array of images of the most intricate braidwork that Mathilda has ever seen, so fantastical that it’s hard to believe that these are photos of real people’s hair. (Perhaps they are not.)

“Oh my cats. Jules, you are the best.”

Mathilda chuckles in content and delight, her hands nested in her lap. These two girls are so entertaining and so eccentric, she never knew the nobles could be this fun. She enjoys their company so much – perhaps a bit too much, even, for someone in her position...

But, for now, she decides to simply go with the flow and worry about it later.

* * * * * *

“Mao, what is this?”

“Shhh! Stop talking, you’re ruining the image! Stay totally still. Be like... what was the word again? Esoteric! You need to look esoteric, Rei-nii.”

Rei has no idea how a person is supposed to look esoteric, especially when he’s forced to stand still while posing in whatever unnatural stances Mao keeps coming up with, currently holding what he thinks is some sort of traditional brass instrument but the name of which he has no idea about.

The only reason he even agreed to a fashion photoshoot was that it’s Mao’s birthday and he wanted to please his childhood friend – but he wasn’t aware that in doing so, he agreed to a day-long session of acting as a doll designed by Mao and her handmaid, in a studio that they have somehow managed to build inside one of the pavilions of Tiger Maple, complete with several landscape backdrops.

It’s not that the clothes Mao is making him wear are bad; in fact, this outfit of a burgundy yichang dress and a dark blue daxiushang robe with a serpent-like lotus pattern adorning the broad yet lightweight sleeves feel rather comfortable in comparison to his usual formal robes that have an unnecessary abundance of coating, thanks to whoever in the past decided that the number of layers was a status symbol and therefore imposing a life sentence of drowning in a sea of layered silk upon the Byakko-ou... but the uncomfortably tight lace braids winding around his skull to form an enormous rosette of hair in the back of his head are a bit too much, as are the flower hairpins that nest above his temples and create a drooping curtain of red and white petals to frame his face; and, after several hours have already gone by, his arms and feet are beginning to hurt from standing still while holding whatever prop items the girls are sticking in his hands, from parasols to flutes and swords and whatever this newest addition is. He’s not used to standing around this much in his monotonous everyday life.

And even worse, Rei has already seen that Mao has an entire catalogue of self-made fashion concepts waiting that she wants to take pictures of him in.

The smallest of sighs escapes Rei’s lips. This doesn’t feel appropriate for his status. Incredible but true, he wishes he was instead having tea with Olivier right now.

“Stay still!” Mao immediately condemns him, “And stop looking so bored! You need to look more dramatic. You’re the king, Rei-nii, act more like it.”

What a long, long day this would end up being.

#my writing #4kingdoms stuff #LetItRip2021

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itsstrawberrymochi · 3 years

Note

KNY matchup info

Personality: ENTP

Three words: Loud,Aggressive, Competitive

Sexuality: Bisexual

Birthday: 07/24

Favorite color: White and pink

Description: I’m light skin, 5’11 (almost 6’0) with brown eyes and medium length curly brown hair. My hobbies are cooking,baking,cheerleading, and makeup. I like Barbie dolls, makeup, fashion, and anything expensive and beautiful. I love wearing out of the box and eccentric clothes and hate to look plain and boring. Fun fact about me is that I once ran a 5 mile fundraiser event in pink stiletto heels, it was a dare from my cheer squad.

Your energy= ✨ immaculate ✨ here’s your matchup

Congratulations you are a:

Demon hunter!

Breathing style: Breath of stars

Fun fact about the breathing style: Like your personality this breathing style is rather loud and aggressive, this breathing style is extremely destructive and catastrophic. The breathing style is a direct branch off of sun breathing so it is apart of the main 6 breathing styles. Learning this breathing style is extremely difficult and requires hours of strenuous training however once mastered all the tiresome training is worth it. When in action the breathing style is described to be breathing-taking, many cool colors like blue and green explode in the sky when it is used.

Are you a hasira?: Yes

Who is your tsuguko or mentor: Your tsuguko is Tanjiro Kamado

Lover: Uzui ( Status: married)

Family: Sanemi and Genya Shinazugawa ( Brothers)

Who you are most close with/bsf: Mitsuri Kanroji

What people think of you: People think you are alluring

Description for your nichirin sword: The blade of the sword is black, the hilt is in the shape of a star, and the handle is dark blue

Description of your haori: You wear a regular haori with this design

Design done by: Adobe stock

A good character trait: You have a special type of blood

Headcanons

Contray to popular belief Uzui does not use the word flamboyant for everything and anything. He’s a man of taste so if Uzui calls you flamboyant best believe he means it and not just saying it for the sake of saying it, that being said the very first time he met you, you were fighting a demon he was going to help but it was clear you didn’t need it, he watched as you skillfully slayed the demon he loved everything about you to your night sky inspired makeup, your haori, your beauty and your breathing style you were all quite flamboyant in his eyes. When you were done slaying the demon he asked you to do his makeup because he loved yours

Modern au

Uzui spoils the crap out of you, he buys you the most expensive name-brand clothing, buys you expensive perfume, real diamonds and takes you to expensive restaurants for dates

#anime #knylifeevent #mochis100followersevent

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dfroza · 3 years

Text

earth will travail with birth pangs

and Judgment will come.

but our Creator has promised to return here to restore the peace. True life and Love.

even to form a new earth since a curse befell the earth on which we now dwell. this planet had all of its seams torn open during the global Flood thousands of years ago. and we have experienced catastrophes ever since.

but while we’re here it is still a beautiful garden to tend. everything grows from a seed. and we have to keep trusting in the eternal healing.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 7th chapter of the book of Revelation:

After this vision, I saw four heavenly messengers standing at the four corners of the earth. They were holding back the four winds so that the earth would not be overcome by violent, rushing winds blowing over the land or over the sea or blowing down any tree. Then I saw a fifth messenger, coming up with the sun as it was rising in the east, carrying the seal of the living God. He called with a great and loud voice to the four messengers who had authority to harm the earth and its seas.

Fifth Messenger: Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we seal the servants of our God with a mark of ownership on their foreheads.

Then I heard that 144,000 would receive the seal, that is 12,000 from every tribe of Israel: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.

After I heard about these who would be sealed, I looked and saw a huge crowd of people, which no one could even begin to count, representing every nation and tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and waving palm branches. They cried out with one loud voice.

Crowd: Salvation comes only from our God, who sits upon the throne, and from the Lamb.

All the heavenly messengers stood up, encircling the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell prostrate before the throne and worshiped God.

Heavenly Messengers, Elders, and Living Creatures: Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom

And thanksgiving and honor

And power and might

Be to our God on and on throughout all the ages. Amen.

One of the Elders (to me): Who are these people clothed in white robes, and where have they come from?

John: Sir, surely you know the answer to your own questions.

One of the Elders: These are coming from the time of great suffering and affliction. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, cleansing them pure white.

Responding out of a heart filled with praise, they congregate before the throne of God

and constantly worship Him day and night in His temple.

The One seated on the throne will always live among them.

They will never be hungry or thirsty again.

The sun or blazing heat will never scorch them,

Because the Lamb who stands at the center of the throne is their shepherd and they are His sheep,

and He will lead them to the water of life.

And God will dry every tear from their eyes.

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 7 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 24th chapter of the book of Ezekiel that continues with Judgment:

The word of the Eternal came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day.

Eternal One: Son of man, remember this date. Write it down. The Babylonian king laid siege to Jerusalem today. Tell this rebellious crowd a parable. Here is what the Eternal Lord has to say:

Put the cooking pot on the fire;

put it on and fill it with water.

Put the finest cuts of meat into it—legs and brisket;

fill it with the best bones.

Pick out the best from the flock,

stack wood beneath the pot,

Bring it to a rolling boil,

and cook what’s in the pot.

Woe to this city polluted with blood—

that pot thickly corroded, whose filth is impossible to clean!

Empty the pot one piece at a time;

don’t bother choosing one or the other!

The blood she shed is still polluting the city.

She poured it out on bare rock

Instead of into the ground

to be absorbed by the dust where blood belongs.

I have spilled her blood on bare rock

so that it may not be covered,

knowing My anger would be ignited and My revenge accomplished.

That’s why I, the Eternal Lord, speak out:

Woe to this city polluted with blood;

I will stack the wood Myself—

Stack it high beneath the pot

to feed the fire.

Mix spices and seasoning into the boiling brew

and cook the meat and then burn the bones.

Set the empty pot on the coals

until it grows so hot its metal begins to glow,

its filth melts inside, and no trace of corrosion remains.

But she has thwarted My efforts!

Her massive corrosion remains when the fire should have cleansed her.

Jerusalem, I tried to cleanse your lewd impurity, but you would not stay pure. Because of this, you will not be clean again until after you have suffered the full punishment of My wrath. I, the Eternal One, have spoken. Your day of judgment has arrived, and I will act. I will not be easy on you; I will not feel sorry for you; I will not regret My actions. You will be judged by what you have done and get only what you deserve.

So said the Eternal Lord.

The word of the Eternal came to me regarding my wife.

Eternal One: Son of man, in the blink of an eye, I am going to take away the delight of your eyes. Do not weep or grieve or shed a tear. Any groaning must be inward and silent, but do not grieve for the dead. Dress as you always dress: with a turban on your head and sandals on your feet. Don’t do any of the things mourners do. Don’t eat the food others bring to comfort you or cover your upper lip.

It happened as such: I preached to the people in the morning, and that evening, my wife passed away. The next morning, I did exactly as I had been instructed to do.

People: Tell us what all of this has to do with us. Why are you acting this way?

Ezekiel: The word of the Eternal came to me with a message for the people of Israel: “Look! I will desecrate My sanctuary—the magnificent house in which you take pride, the desire of your eyes, your complete delight—and all of the children you left behind in Jerusalem will be put to the sword and slaughtered.” You will do exactly as I have done in hiding your grief: You will not eat the food others bring to comfort you or cover your upper lips. You will dress as you always dress: with turbans on your heads and sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or grieve. God tells me, “Instead, you will rot away from within because of your wickedness and moan among yourselves. In this way, Ezekiel will be a living example for you. You must do exactly as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Eternal Lord.”

Eternal One: As for you, son of man, on the day I seize their fortress—the joyous aspect of their pride, the desire of their eyes, their complete delight—and all of their children, a fugitive will escape from the destruction and will come to you in Babylon with news of what happened. The day you learn of My judgment, your mouth will be opened, and your silence will be broken. Then you will be able to converse with the fugitive. You will be a living example to them, and they will know that I am the Eternal One.

The Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 24 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Tuesday, november 2 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that deals with anger:

We must humble ourselves and renounce anger, for the "wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). Therefore “let go of anger and forsake outrage, for indignation leads to evil within the heart, and evildoers will be cut off” (Psalm 37:8-9). After all, before the eyes of heaven, who are we to take offense at others? Is not all our self-justified outrage a symptom of pride and arrogance? Despite all our sins and the times we have disobeyed the LORD we still ask, "Bless us, our Father; let your light shine upon us with favor..." And yet when we get slightly upset at a friend do we restrain from showing him a shining face, or worse, harden our heart?

Know the spiritual principle: As we are to others, so we are to ourselves: middah keneged middah ("like for like"); as we judge others, so we put ourselves before the bar of divine judgment, measure for measure (Matt. 7:1-2). Forgiveness means asking of ourselves what we are asking of God, and the same is true of love. When Yeshua taught us to “forgive us as we forgive,” He taught that our forgiveness (of others) is a measure of our own understanding of the forgiveness (of God). Conversely, demanding perfection from others means appealing to God to judge of our lives... Friends, we should focus on the Eternal; we should believe the blessed promise of God; we should anticipate the great Coming Day of ultimate healing - and then our hearts may be quieted. Remember that nothing happens on its own; everything comes from above, and this too will keep you from outrage and bitterness... Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

11.1.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

November 2, 2021

The Counting God

“Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?” (Job 31:4)

God is surely the Great Mathematician. All the intricacies of structure and process of His mighty cosmos are, at least in principle, capable of being described mathematically, and the goal of science is to do just that. This precise intelligibility of the universe clearly points to a marvelous intelligence as its Creator.

God even “telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names” (Psalm 147:4). Astronomers estimate that at least 10 trillion trillion stars exist in the heavens, and God has counted and identified each one! And that is not all: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered,” Jesus said (Matthew 10:30). From the most massive star to the tiniest hair, God has counted each component of His creation.

Such countings are far beyond human capabilities, for “the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured” (Jeremiah 33:22). But God has also created “an innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22) and has promised that the redeemed will include “a great multitude, which no man could number” (Revelation 7:9).

No wonder David exclaimed, “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered” (Psalm 40:5).

Perhaps the most wonderful of all God’s counting activities is that implied in Job’s rhetorical question: “Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?” If He has numbered the hairs on our heads, we can be certain He numbers our steps along the way and guides them all. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23). HMM

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themuzzleofnemesis · 4 years

Text

Documents of Evil-Third Period; Terminal Phase

The Muzzle of Nemesis, documents of evil part 1

“The State of Affairs”

The great war that began as a result of the assassination of the Asmodean prince was gradually wrapped up after the revolt that occurred in Holy Levianta in the year 983. However, at the same time it made obvious the decline of the USE (Union State of Evillious), and around the time Nemesis was released from prison in year 985, each country in Evillious was starting to take its own individual measures.

In year 986, Gammon Octo, the leader of the Tasan Party in Elphegort, gave Nemesis the position of vice-leader. There were voices in opposition of making a political novice such as herself the vice-leader, but ultimately she was promoted through Gammon’s own will and the backing of the public.

Nemesis, who had killed the reviled Gallerian Marlon, was seen as a hero by the people. Gammon figured that they needed her popularity to take back the Tasan Party’s influence.

Nemesis was promoted to the new head of the Tasan party by Gammon’s disappearance in the year 989. That same year, the Tasan party achieved majority control of Elphegort. Nemesis then proceeded to press on with changing Elphegort into the military regime that Gammon had originally conceived.

That same year, former Dark Star Bureau director Hanma Baldured died in Elphegort’s Yatski Village.

Needed for this militarization was an enormous amount of funds and public support. On the one hand the Tasan administration deepened its relationship with the Yarera Zusco Conglomerate, while on the other it began to suppress the foreign-bound Freezis Conglomerate. This “anti-Freezis” policy wound up gathering the support of Elphegort ultranationalists.

As the militarization of the country progressed, its relationship with its neighboring nations worsened. Lucifenia and Marlon in particular would frequently voice criticism of Elphegort’s military regime. One cause of that being that both countries had a deep connection to the Freezis Conglomerate.

Meanwhile, the countries of Asmodean and Beelzenia, whose relationships with Lucifenia were bad due to conditions before the great war, supported Elphegort’s policies. These three countries, having already joined in alliance, developed an even friendly relationship under the banner of opposing Lucifenia. Asmodean especially was collapsing into an economic crisis due to events from before the great war, and so even from within the country there were more and more voices clamoring to merge with Elphegort.

In the year 991, Elphegort proposed an annexation of Asmodean under the pretext of guardianship. The Asmodean government put the matter of whether they would take the merger or remain independent to a public vote. The government had naturally envisioned that independence votes would take the lead, but contrary to their expectations, annexation won by a thin margin. They had misread the lack of faith that the people of their country had towards their government.

In 992, Asmodean merged with Elphegort. The former Asmodean government proposed changing the country name to “Elphegort Asmodean”, but the Tasan party refused. The new country name was decided as “Tasan Elphegort”.

In 993, Tasan Elphegort finally declared war on Lucifenia. They were excommunicated from the USE, but as the USE’s structure had already become largely ineffectual Tasan Elphegort made no move to rescind their invasion force. That same year Beelzenia also declared war on Lucifenia.

In response to this, Marlon and Holy Levianta that headed the USE military planned a full-scale siege of Tasan Elphegort. The neutral power, the United States of Maistia, announced its intent to provide aid to the USE allied nations. And due to Jakoku declaring war on Maistia, the coals of flame were spread across the entire world.

In 995, the Republic of Lucifenia fell to Tasan Elphegort. But Tasan Elphegort’s steady advance stopped there, and the USE side gradually came to hold the advantage.

In 998, the Tasan party began research into a new weapon “Punishment” to defeat their unfavorable position in the war. They fired the prototype on a forest in their own country. One of its developers who witnessed its power was said to have murmured, “Now we are all sons of bitches”.

The second prototype was to be aimed at the United States of Maistia. But the test failed, and the location that “Punishment” actually landed on was Jakoku, far removed from its target. Due to this Jakoku’s southern island of Onigashima suffered catastrophic destruction.

Fearing the existence of “Punishment”, Maistia’s president Tarot dispatched a special task force led by Bruno Zero. They launched an assault on Tasan headquarters, but the mission ended in failure.

In 999, the USE army surrounded Tasan Elphegort. They called for a complete surrender. But the next day—a sum total of 108 “Punishments” were launched at the entire world from Tasan Elphegort.

“Organizations/Important Figures”

The Freezis Conglomerate

Commander Muspell Freezis dies in year 985. His son Surtr inherits his position. By this time the once affluent Freezis Conglomerate is on the road to decline. This is further accelerated by their oppression by the Tasan Party, and by the time Tasan Elphegort invades Lucifenia their branches in other countries have already been closed down, leaving only their headquarters in Marlon. However, their actual circumstances aside, the prestige they had to their name was going strong even during the great war.

The Yarera Zusco Conglomerate

They supported Tasan Elphegort right up until the world was destroyed. However, company head Gusuma Yarera had initially refused to provide the Tasan party aid. This was because his little sister and niece had died during the incident with the S.S. Titanis. Gusuma would often voice his hatred towards the perpetrator Nemesis to his underlings. But aside from his personal feelings, he was also a natural-born businessman, and a patriot. Ultimately he prioritized his organization’s profits and his country’s prosperity.

Gusuma’s younger adopted brother Jorm died during the Leviantan revolt the following year in 984. Publicly it was a suicide, but it’s not clear if that was really the case. There are rumors that he was poisoned by Gusuma.

Gammon Octo

He suddenly went missing in year 989. It was made public soon afterwards that he’d died in the Millennium Tree Forest. However, in truth that wasn’t the case. He had lived on in “Evils Theater”. Gammon had been captured by the theater’s “residents”, and afterwards came to work as their “gardener” in exchange for staying his execution. There, he came to learn many “truths” about the world. But in the end he was caught up in the “Punishment” that Nemesis fired at the forest.

Restaurant “Graveyard”

A suspicious restaurant that was shut down by some conspiring on Gallerian’s part.

The owner Lich and the cook Eater temporarily became members of PN afterwards, but after Gallerian’s death they apparently wound up becoming residents of “Evils Theater”.

After the girl who worked as Waiter was released from prison, she went missing. Some witnesses claimed to have seen her with a woman wearing a kimono in the Millennium Tree Forest, but the truth is uncertain.

Hel Jaakko

Originally a member of PN. After leaving the Dark Star Bureau, she quietly lived in Holy Levianta with her family.

In 998 she was suddenly reunited with her old friend Bruno. Realizing the danger posed to the world, she spurred on her aged body and resolved to give Bruno her assistance.

Feng Li

Originally a member of PN. After leaving Gallerian he returned to his home country. There he met the girl of his dreams (a human) and had two children with her. He fled with his family to Levianta due to the political instability in said home country. At first he tried to discourage his old friend Hel from taking such reckless action, but ultimately he joined in on the assault against the Tasan party with her.

directory------next>>

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illogicallyinclined · 4 years

Note

Sometimes I forget that Thomas isn’t this middle aged older dad guy and he’s around the same age as them

Coach Thomas is trying his best, but he is 34 years old and a Giant GD Meme

he has a moderately successful YouTube channel where he used to post videos of his teammates on the Florida Panthers; now-a-days, he mostly just talks about the contemporary NHL and breaks down phenomenally catastrophic plays each week

he also got pretty popular on Vine before it perished – more hockey stuff, some impressions, and surprising fans in public – but he hasn’t branched out into TikTok too heavily

he has?? a lot of money??? (because he was an NHL player for four years, and now he’s a coach for one of the most quickly rising teams of the NCAA), but his apartment is also filled with furniture off of Craigslist because his mother taught him how to remain Frugal

he has an extremely ugly vase – a gift from his older brother when he got signed by the Florida Panthers. he’s not 100% certain that it wasn’t meant to be a prank, but he keeps it in his living room regardless, and his team roasts him about it Constantly

cooking??? buying actual groceries??? What Does Any of That Even Mean??? (joan: you were in the NHL – how are you even alive)

Thomas never really went to college. i mean, he got a degree in biochem by attending courses over the summers and doing work online, but he never really got to live the “college experience” (so to speak) because of how busy he was in the NHL

also worth noting: a lot of the teammates from his first year in the NHL have either retired or are close to retiring, so he brings them around to talk to the Aces sometimes. one recurring guest is Leo, who Thomas absolutely adores

#coach thomas #hockey au #hockey hcs

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whoperlokian-bendingismagic · 3 years

Text

New Short Story

Distance is a funny thing. Or rather, perception of distance is a funny thing. Human brains can really truly understand distances of up to about ten miles. Anything longer than that and it’s just math. Driving down a road, if you have 240 miles left and you’re going eighty miles per hour, you have three hours of driving left. You don’t really know what that means, though. It’s just ticking on a clock, and going from landmark to landmark, if there even are landmarks to use. The human mind is always approximating, always recalculating sensory inputs based on past experience It only knows what it’s been designed to know.

Never trust your own mind if you have instruments. Instruments first. If there’s no instruments then don’t trust your two-second gut. Trust your two-minute gut.

I grew up in the Eastern Urban Complex. The night sky was nothingness, a velvety black backdrop to a million lights and and towering buildings stretching up and over.

My parents saved up for a vacation. A proper one outside of the urban complex, not just a trip to a different borough where you didn’t have to do the cooking or cleaning for a week. We went when I was 10. We took a train that had no windows. Passengers who had never lived outside the city experienced agoraphobia and severe confusion. It was better to entertain everybody with screens, caused less panic. The train was luxurious. The chair was comfortable, we were served delicious food by pretty ladies in tidy uniforms and gleaming smiles, their hats perched just so over their immaculate hair.

We took the train out of the city and all the way to the end of the line. If you asked me how many miles we traveled on the train ride, I would have told you about fifty. I looked up how far the trip actually was years later. It was more like seven hundred miles.

Distance is relative. Distance is perception and perception is false. Check your instruments, check them again. If the numbers seem wrong to you check the backups. It’s probably you that’s wrong, though.

As I stepped out of the station, I found the world too big, too open, and I suddenly felt too small. There were people there to help us get acclimated. Focus on ourselves, then let our senses explore this alien experience of openness, of distance, of the desert. We got into a car and were driven out towards the mountains. We couldn’t see the mountains from the train station, but that was what my parents told me. We were driving towards the mountains. I’d never seen mountains in person. I’d looked at pictures in a book, though. I’d heard they were big. When we crested a hill and could suddenly see the mountains, I shrieked. They were coming right up on us and we were going to crash into them.

My parents shushed me, but the driver chuckled and said that was a pretty typical response. Of course, we didn’t crash into the mountains, they were still miles away, and as we got closer, the slopes became gentler, smoother as we got closer, and the road climbed up through a canyon between two peaks. The trees changed. The Eastern Urban Complex has trees in its thousands of pocket parks between buildings, shady trees with broad green leaves that turn golden and orange and red in the fall. The trees here had needles. Very little grew beneath the trees, and the dirt felt more like dust than anything.

We finally got out of the car at a retreat. There were a series of buildings situated around a bigger building. THey were all built out of logs. My mom told me the smaller buildings were called cabins, and the bigger one was called a lodge. I had read about cabins before but didn’t think they looked quite like that.

Perception and reality are often at odds. Instrumentation distills reality into digestible pieces of information we can use to modify our perception to match reality. The instrument says I’ve been “here” for two days, but that feels wrong too. I don’t have any backups to cross-check, though.

There were other children my age there that I played with, trails to hike, a forest to explore and rocks to climb. I don’t remember a lot of details from my time there. I couldn’t tell you the color of the sheets on the cozy bed. I couldn’t tell you what meals we ate, or the names of the children I played with. There’s a distinct smell, one of dust and pine trees that’s locked in my mind, though, and there’s my first sight of the true night sky.

My parents let me stay up late, and we would go out and look at the night sky. It was practically littered with stars, big and small. I’d never thought of the sky as an object before. I thought that maybe if I got a good 50-foot ladder, I could climb to the top of that and touch the stars from there.

Examine your thoughts. Why are you thinking what you’re thinking? What’s the basis? Answer these questions honestly to yourself and to others, it can save your life, your crew, and your mission.

That experience planted something deep in me and I strove to find a way to touch the sky. A 50-foot ladder is hard to come by, but if you really want to touch the sky, you need a fusion drive. The best way to get a fusion drive is to join the Naval Scientific Exploration Team, NSET, pronounced “enset” for short.

I poured myself into my studies. I had never been a slack student, but with a distinct goal in mind I became great. I studied general spaceship engineering and navigation. NSET only takes the best and brightest, so I fought to prove that I was good enough.

There was an experiment, or demonstration done on every NSET cadet after they were accepted. We were asked a series of “true or false” questions with only a second to answer each one. “An object released in Earth’s atmosphere will fall to the ground”, “Magnets attract opposite poles”, “A ball thrown will approximate a circular trajectory”, Easy, true, true, false.

“The earth revolves around the sun” false. “Orbiting objects experience gravity” false. “The world is flat” true. We all knew the correct answers to those more difficult questions, but without time to think, we grabbed for the convenient, intuitive answer. Answers that are convenient or intuitive are not by definition correct. They are, however, easy to fall prey to, because they fit so neatly into a caveman view of the world.

Cavemen have never traveled through space, though. Cavemen have never traveled at a million kilometers an hour, or measured distances in light-minutes. Cavemen were never one mistake away from their entire support environment vanishing in a cloud of twisted metal and shattered ceramic. Cavemen never watched their friends desperately fight against nothing and be pulled apart from each other by first order kinematic equations, enacted ignoring losses due to air resistance or friction. At NSET academy, we watched tapes collected from black boxes from early manned explorations deep into the solar system. I can’t sleep sometimes thinking about the panic and terror flooding those people as they were ripped from their venting ship and out into space.

So we had it drilled into our heads that we were unreliable, that trusting our gut could be catastrophic. The first practical exercise in the NSET training program is called “the egg”. It’s a sensory deprivation tank. You feel weightless, with no light, no ambient temperature, no sound. It starts by feeling liberating. The mind is free to wander, to contemplate anything. People outside NSET use sensory deprivation tanks as a meditation aid or a brain-booster, but they get to control when they leave. The Egg isn’t something you pay for, or do to enhance your mind, or leave whenever you want. It’s a test and a demonstration. Some people lose it hard. They get transferred to a different branch of the Navy, or optioned to leave with no shame or dishonor, just getting admitted to NSET is an easy way to join a private spacer corp. NSET isn’t for everybody, and if you can’t handle The Egg, then nobody wants you on their NSET crew.

I didn’t fail The Egg, but I can understand why people do. When all the senses you rely on to provide information don’t have any information to provide, you start losing the more esoteric senses supported by the main five. First, you lose your sense of form as your body dissolves into the nothingness surrounding you. Next, you lose your sense of space entirely, if you don’t have a being, a shape, then how can you know anything to be anywhere? Without space, you lose time. Some people, particularly those living with mental conditions like ADHD or depression can already have a loose grasp of time, but even the most neurotypical hard-ass king of punctuality starts losing their sense of time.

Then, The Egg opens. The light is disorienting, sounds are suddenly back, and you have a shape, a form, a place, there are things happening, which means that time works again. Then comes the question: “How long were you in there?”. Nobody answers that one correctly.

Two days can’t be right. The oxygen and battery indicators haven’t even gone down to 75 percent.

You should not trust your intuition, your internal senses to make decisions for the entire space ship. That is the constant lesson at NSET training. There are tips and mental exercises to help with some of the shortcomings our minds have, but our instruments are always the key. We go back into The Egg on a routine basis, and now that we know what’s coming for us in the prolonged sensory deprivation, we can react. Focus on your breathing, your heartrate, your fingers and toes. Move periodically to pull yourself back into awareness of your body. The heart is not a good clock, but it’s better than no clock. Count your pulse to use it as a rudimentary timepiece. Don’t go with your initial gut feeling. Instead, if everything else is going wrong, think about the information you have available for two minutes and then check your gut. If you’re only given a second to answer, you think the sun goes around the earth, but with two minutes you’ll know that the earth moves around the sun.

Everybody is trained in every function of the ship. There are specializations, but we aren’t running routine trade routes to Mars or microgravity mining operations. NSET’s goals are to travel to the great beyond, past the Oort cloud and set courses to new solar systems. The ships have the latest technology, the best drives, and the best crews.

I’m ostensibly a navigator, helping track progress and plot courses as we travel further than any human ever has. However, if need be, I can pilot the ship, rebuild the reactor, maintain environmental controls and life support, and repair damage to the ship’s hull.

With new drive technology and a different goal in mind, we surpassed the limit of Voyager 1 as the farthest human-made object from earth in just eighteen months.

The time doesn’t make sense, the O2 and electric readings don’t make sense, checking trajectories. Which way am I headed?

The sun is nothing but the brightest star now, out of millions visible to my naked eye. My repair mission timer is reading three days now. The ship is long gone, I don’t know how I got separated but I did. I’ve been using every trick in the book, but staying out here is almost worse than The Egg. Three days doesn’t make any sense. I had O2 and suit systems batteries good for a five hour repair shift. I started using my heartbeat as a timer, I counted to 3600 beats, an hour, and the gauges haven’t moved, not since I left the ship.

I’m not cold, but that’s not surprising. The one-second gut reaction is that I should be solid ice by now, but space doesn’t work like that. Heat transfer occurs through three mechanisms: convection, conduction, and radiation. Convection requires a moving fluid, and conduction requires a contact with a surface at a different temperature. The void of space requires neither. The suit is designed to minimize radiation heat loss, so I’m keeping a level temperature, especially now that I’m not exerting myself. I’ll be warm for a long time after I die out here.

I do have to keep myself moving, minimally at least. If I stay still for too long, I can feel myself becoming the universe. My arms and legs melt out from me and start spinning outward and outward. My chest becomes so bright and before I know it I am the universe, I have no form, I have no volume or dimension and I become the galaxy around me, until my suit beeps, or an itch develops on my skin and I snap back into myself, and now the repair mission timer reads four days. Oxygen at 75%, battery at 75%.

In calculus, when the teacher was repeating subjects to the rest of the class that I already understood, I would contemplate infinity. Calculus deals often with infinity and zero, and I would contemplate just how large infinity was. I would try to fit it into the room with me. Over there, in a corner, there’s a tiny speck. That speck contains all human knowledge. I make it just a little bit larger and add another infinity inside the infinite volume of the room. I add all the functions that have a derivative, the speck grows infinitessimally. I add all the functions for which no symbolic integral exists, the speck grows less. This whole vast room is everything we don’t know and do know and even then it’s merely vast, not infinite. Now I’m experiencing just how wrong I was. Infinity stretches out from me in all directions and I cannot see all of it. The stars slowly rotate around me and maybe if I had a really good fifty-foot ladder I could climb up that and touch them.

I’m traveling at close to a million kilometers every hour, every 3600 heartbeats, more or less. I may as well be going nowhere. The stars aren’t changing, nothing is changing. I’m only going a million kilometers an hour compared to earth. There are all kinds of things that I’m traveling slower than, or I’m in lockstep with. Motion is relative, distance is relative. I don’t have instruments that can tell me where I’m headed or how quickly, or if anything is coming.

Day five, and I remember that I haven’t had a drink of water since before I left. Two hours before I left I took final hydration, then I peed before getting in the suit because I hate peeing in the suit. I haven’t peed either, I haven’t felt the need. Haven’t taken a shit. Haven’t felt the need.

I flex my fingers and toes. Then I roll my head and smile and frown and squint and stick my tongue out. I say a few words, mostly to practice words.

The word “planet” is ancient greek for “traveler”. Technically, then, everybody on the ship is a planet, the ship itself is a planet, and I’ve somehow become a planet all my own. I’d have to call myself a rocky planet. I have a crust, and underneath that I’m liquid, and all my heat comes from the core of me. I haven’t eaten food in five days, either. No food, no water, oxygen at 75%, battery at 75%.

It took me a while to notice the dark spot in the sky. The void of stars, where there was nothingness. There hadn’t been nothingness there before but now there is. Day five and a half, another star just vanished behind the penumbra. A rogue planet, it must be. I’m traveling so fast compared to earth, I’m probably still going pretty fast compared to this rogue planet as well. I’m on a pretty direct approach with this black nothingness. Not a black hole, there’s no accretion disc, there’s no gravitational lensing, just black. A dark planet just as lost as I am. I wonder if I set foot on it, will it drain all my heat through my feet and leave me a frozen husk in an instant? Will I be alive for long on this?

Strangely, I will be the first NSET crewmate to make physical contact with a planet not of our solar system.

I’m getting closer to the planet, I can feel something happening, a tug leading me to the planet. Two-second gut reaction is that I’m caught in the planet’s gravity. Two-minute gut reaction is that I won’t really feel the gravity until I’ve got something resisting me. I’m in freefall, but without an atmosphere there’s nothing to perceive the pull of gravity.

So why am I feeling this pulling force?

Just under half of my vision is complete void. In my slow spin I can see the stars in half the field of view, and the rest is simply blackness. I don’t have enough light to tell if anything is rushing up on me. I can’t tell how close the ground is now of this pitch-black planet.

Then, impact as my body touches the surface. Not feather-light and gentle, but not so hard it hurts. And then, I sink, and the cold rushes into my suit, and the blackness consumes me and I feel nothing once again.

#short story #original writing #I was originally inspired by the episode of Voltron where the paladins lose their lions and are left drifting in space #I listened to a lot of dark ambient while writing this too #It felt good to write a short story and finish it #It's been a while #if you've made it this far please reblog!#Likes don't spread it around #writeblr #sci-fi #science fiction #the expanse

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konohagakurekakashi · 4 years

Text

Rinne-Whoops (Who Died and Brought you Back out)

Thread continued from here.

All things considered Kakashi thought that the Yamanaka Clan Head was taking the whole, “living-dead” situation and his half-assed theories rather well, if the flicker within the man’s narrowed, emerald hues and the incredulous bowing of his brows could be considered as such. At this point in time Kakashi was opting for a “glass half-full” standpoint, seeing as he has yet to be carted off to the Hidden Leaf’s Performance and Psychological Evaluation Unit or at the very least, the tent that now served its function. At the Yamanaka’s cautious query the Copy-nin managed a hum dipped in a confirmative tone and a nod of his head; his calloused digits releasing the curtains to settle back within the nadirs of his pockets.

“Hai…I’m sure. Should death occasioned the sudden dullness of my senses however, I made a Raitōn clone to cover my…or should I say our…tracks...” After amending his sentence, his stare found the slumbering lump on the Futōn once more, before said gaze flickered up at the creak of cedar, the sliding doors giving way to reveal a sheepish Ino.

Kakashi appreciated the way the kunōichi warned them both of her presence, before physically ‘alerting’ them, despite being off the clock and within her own home. Her clever foresight (while wholly unaware of the seriousness of the situation) a tell of how much the girl has matured since her Chūnin Exam match against Sakura. ‘Kami was that really so long ago?’ Somehow Kakashi felt ancient despite only being in his twenties, another confirmative hum leaving his throat at Inōichi’s pointed glance, before following it up with a friendly eye-crinkle for Ino’s benefit.

Should he be honest Kakashi doubted that he would be able to stomach tea or the awkward small talk that usually followed it (especially if the tea-sipping event would only involve Tsubaki-san; a retired Kunōichi he’s only ever greeted over a tinned-tomato shelf and her daughter) but Kakashi already breached their doorstep with enough trouble to incite a civil war upon the upcoming war against S-ranked terrorists; he couldn’t very well deject Inōichi’s words and hospitality after requesting his help--not when the tea leaves were already steeped. Kakashi liked to believe that he had some sense of decorum, regardless of what his kids believed.

Plus the glimmer of disappointment evident within Ino’s teal gaze once it was clear that her father would not be joining them, was nothing sort of a B-rank Genjutsu and really, Kakashi did NOT want to add to /that/--Notwithstanding the fact that thinking about his Raitōn clone flared his worry anew. Maa, he supposed that it was a good thing that it was still active and has yet to be dispelled. ‘Glass Half-full mentality and all that’. As soon as the door slid shut once more, Kakashi exhaled through his nose, fingers twitching within his pockets.

“Iie…Your loyalty was never in question, Inōichi-san.” He knew from both the Sandaime, Yondaime and Godaime’s affirmations that few were as loyal as those who formed part of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio; but with the Godaime indisposed and the winds of change tugging at the Hashirama branches, Kakashi just didn’t want to risk putting them in a position where they would have to put old allegiances, before new ones. He didn’t want to force them into a position where a warmonger might brand them traitor for doing a good, solid thing. Yet, Kakashi didn’t voice this. Instead he gifted the elder Yamanaka with the same lazy eye-crinkle he awarded his daughter but a few beats prior. He had no other choice. “…I know you’ll do whatever you can to help sensei…So Gambatte ne...Inoichi-san.” Kakashi then ambled towards the study door without any further input, closing the study door behind him with an audible ‘click’.

He would just have to have faith that Shikaku would manage to ward off Danzo’s ‘grabbing motions’ for the Hokage hat and win Tsunade-sama more recovery time via his infamous logic and hereditary Nara deadpan. ‘Glass half-full. Glass half-full’. Incongruously so, his positive mantra shrivelled and died (a quick, embarrassing death) as soon as the Hatake stepped over the threshold into Tsubaki’s kitchen, the vortex of scents and the intensity of her welcoming grin giving the Jōnin pause; afore the matriarch lunged at him with a speed that could rival one of Gai’s whirlwind kicks, then warm hands tightened to haul him into the direction of an expertly set table; a flurry of questions (all involving girlfriends and future, marriage prospects) accompanying each tug at his elbow. ‘Glass half-full? Glass half-full? What Hogwash.’

Viewpoint ☼ skippety ☼ skip ☼ skip ☼

Within the Akimichi compound, Akimichi Chōza was in the midst of simmering a mixture of flour and cooking fat in the hopes of making a thick roux, one of the main ingredients for his clan’s yellow, curry pills. The house was quiet, save for the steady bubble of the lard and the creak of the floorboards each time he moved or adjusted his weight. The lack of bustle was due to the fact that Chōji and Shikaku’s kid were having dinner with Kurenai and his dear wife was still out with her friends from the Haha Rengōgun; the ladies opting in taking turns since the Pein Attack™ to scrunch up and serve meals for those confined to the make-shift, tent barracks. Chōza didn’t mind the stillness while he was working however, the calm from his usually brash household affording him the ability to reflect. Bulky, calloused fingers coiled about a handful of beet chips, whilst the other hand focussed on stirring the roux, swift crunches joining the creak of wood and the bubble-gurgle of fat.

Like most Shinobi of his rank, the Clan Head’s thoughts wandered towards the Fire Capital and like all of the other Jōnin said thought was followed by a deep, weary sigh. He had the utmost faith in Shikaku and would gladly walk into an active volcano to be roasted like a seasoned, pork belly, if the action was penned in one of the Nara’s strategies for the betterment of the Leaf. But the Akimichi also knew Danzō and was one of the few present outside of Tsunade-sama’s tent when the war-hawk started to cajole the other members in the Go-Ikenban into leaving for the Daimyō’s palace.

The Elder’s hunger for the title of ‘Fire Shadow’ was as infamous as the gluttony of a goldfish and with the title finally within his reach (more so than ever before, at least) Chōza believed that the old shinobi would do absolutely everything within his power to finally clasp onto the hat for real—the wishes of the Jōnin and Clan Council be /damned/ (and oh how they refuted the idea of another timeworn Hokage, even the Hūyga, who usually tended to supplement the decisions of the advisors).

The roux was soon joined by Tonkatsu, soy and a dash of honey, afore the Akimichi paused to grab another fist full of chips. One of the mauve crisps escaped his hold and plopped onto the floor, causing the man to ‘tsk’, disappointed and shake his head, his red mane swaying at the action. “Yare…Yare, making me bend my knees like this. You really don’t deserve to be eaten, I don’t care how good you look, I should just throw you out of the window…”

Chōza was about to pluck the escapee from beside his feet when the tinge of warm, candle-wax suddenly oozed above the spoor of curry; effectively grabbing the Akimichi’s attention. He shifted, beady hues travelling about the length of his kitchen until his stare settled on the faint glow of orange within the shadow of his wife’s fruit bowl (an anniversary gift from the in-laws). There, only detectable to the one the message was intended for, pulsed Kanji in the unmistakable hand of his teammate and oldest friend. Speak of the devil and he will appear—or in this instance, his Fūin.

急

Still within Capital. Danzō declared official Rokudaime Candidate. Root agent sent ahead. Something amiss in Konoha. Require status report asap.

急

At the confirmation of his earlier, grave musings the clan head cursed, twisting around to remove the roux from the stove and to switch the appliance off. Without a constant heat-source, the curry would be ruined; but alas, it would appear they had bigger fish to fry and Chōza really didn’t want to add a blazing forest fire to the ever growing list of catastrophes that Konoha seemed to be a steady beacon for. The Akimichi then proceeded to stalk out of his kitchen, crushing the ‘escapee-chip’ underneath his heel and not bothering with concealing the message that was already starting to fade. Taking the Engawa steps two at a time, Chōza then power-walked into the direction of the Nara Forest, hoping that Inōichi would be home and that he or Tsubaki wouldn’t mind the impromptu visit. Damn Nara, how he hated being the bearer of bad news.

Two metres and twelve steps over the forest boundary, Chōza glimpsed the approaching figures of his son and Shikamaru, the first waving what seemed to be a milk-bun back and forth. “Eh, Tou-san? Konbanwa!! Why are you walking so fast, are you trying to lose weight again?” The Elder Akimichi ignored the seemingly innocent query to pin both boys, iie, /Shinobi/ with a leaden stare, effectively halting their strides.

“Chōji, Shikamaru, I’m on my way to the Yamanaka Compound. Chinatsu-san is not home yet, so I need you both to go to Godaime-sama’s tent. Tell Shizune-san that we’ve received word from the capital. No one should be allowed into the tent, Tsunade-sama’s guard is not to be rotated and anyone trying to gain entry into the tent, especially Anbu, should be detained until either Shikaku or Ibiki can question them. Understood?” To their credit and with a sliver of pride eddying within Chōza’s chest, neither of the boys dared to ask further questions, merrily nodding their heads in the affirmative, before setting off in the direction they ambled from once more.

Chōza watched the boys go for a moment longer, troubled orbs almost staring through their retreating forms, until the cry of a Sparrowhawk overhead pulled him from his reverie and reminded him of his task. He so wished that they didn’t have to see the terrors of war, but really, Chōza surmised that sixteen, care-free years were all a Shinobi and a Shinobi parent could ask for; demanding more would be akin to testing the fates…still. Another, bone-weary sigh followed afore the 15th Akimichi Clan Head started forwards once more. Bearer of bad news indeed.

@senjutsunade @minaa-munch

#konohagakurekakashi #Hatake Kakashi [The Scarecrow]#Namikaze Minato [Flake-sensei]#Senju Tsunade [Godaime Sake-sama]#Aka Sleeping Beauty #AU Verse: Rinne-whoops #Reincarnation AU #This is about the best I can do with fluids leaking out of my eyes and nose-thus I haven't beta-read it.#I'm just happy that I finally replied #Despite completely disregarding Minato's mindscape--That's your baby ne CI #Minaa-munch #Senjutsunade #Honourable Mention: Ino-shika-cho #Timeline: Kaka-Sensei/Part II

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