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athenagc94 · 3 years

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Just One Thing

With Beta Sandrock keys out, I’m back on my MTAP nonsense. Please, allow me to introduce my next builder - Eden King! Originally, I was gunning to have her marry Dr. Xu, but Oaks kind of snuck up on me and now, here we are. I hope you enjoy. You can also read it here on AO3

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“When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”

Eden didn’t even look up from the monitor as she casually shot back, “When’s the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”

Petra huffed. “Don’t turn the tables on me. I asked you first.” She tried to sound irritated, but Eden heard the smile in her voice. She knew her sleep schedule was as fucked as hers, so kettle meet the pot. She had no right to lecture her. When she didn’t respond, Petra continued, “Why don’t you head out for the night? You’ve already done more than enough and I don’t mind finishing things up.”

“I like helping you.” Eden pressed a few keys on the pad in front of her. “It’s nostalgic, or whatever.”

She hit the enter key and a string of code appeared on the screen. She scrutinized it for patterns, then from those patterns, she picked out the irregularities and jotted them down on her notepad. Hopefully, they’d find something a little more useful this time around. The cooking mechanism they stumbled across last time was nice and all, but if she had to rely on her crumbling furnace for much longer, she was going to yank her hair out. This builder gig was supposed to be easier than her job back in Vega 5, but she might have made a marginal error when she drew that conclusion. Her father's old diagrams left a lot to be desired.

“You came to Portia to recover from your burnout,” she chided, jostling the back of her chair. Eden cut her with a glare, but it lacked its usual sting. “Old tech research isn’t your job anymore.”

“Old habits die hard,” she mumbled. “And then you die.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Petra tugged at her chair, pulling her just out of arm’s reach of the keypad. She almost clamored after it, but she resisted that overwhelming urge in favor of preserving some small part of her dignity. “Go home. Or am I going to have to get Phyllis on your ass?”

Eden pouted. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” she said, chuckling. “I can literally see the tension building around your shoulders. We both know Phyllis would love to get her hands on you for an acupuncture session.” Eden tried and failed to suppress the paralyzing fear that curled up her spine, stacking right on top of that rock hard stress that had settled in her shoulders. She liked to think she was a practical woman who trusted a vast majority of the advancements in medical sciences. And research did show that acupuncture has a positive impact on things like stress and anxiety ー both things she definitely suffered from.

That being said, fuck needles.

Petra smirked, reading her mind. “Exactly,” she snapped. “So, if you don’t want her using you as a living pin cushion, get out of here. Take the long way home. Get some fresh air. Something to unwind a little so she doesn’t have a reason to.”

“Why do you always have to be right?” Eden sighed, pushing herself out of her chair. She stretched her arms over her head, groaning as her back cracked and popped. “Can’t you just let me self-destruct in peace?”

“It’s part of my job to preserve the relic tech of the Free Cities.” Eden flipped her off and she laughed, a soft sound that reminded her of windchimes. She plopped down in her chair and turned back to the computer, picking up where Eden had left off. “I’ll let you know when I find something on these disks. A couple of days at most. So, I don’t want to see you before then unless it’s over a drink at the Round Table.”

Eden rolled her eyes. “How does Friday sound?”

“Only if you’re buying.”

“Of course,” Eden said as she shrugged on her cardigan. “It’s always on me, isn’t it?”

“Well, you’ve been threatening to get that new shop addition for months now. I think you’re purposely spending all your money on alcohol, so you don’t have to pull the trigger on it,” Petra shot back. She fluttered her lashes at her and quickly added, “I’m merely giving you an excuse to hold off on it for a while longer. That’s all.”

“I’m not afraid to pull the trigger on it,” she countered defensively, pulling the dark knit fabric a little more tightly around her shoulders. “It’s just, you know, this whole thing is only a temporary position. I plan on going back to Vega 5 once I’veー”

“Once the year is up. Yeah, I know what a sabbatical is.”

“Exactly,” Eden said, pulling the door open. The brisk spring air whipped up around her, rustling the dark curls around her jaw. She shivered and closed it a little to stave off the chill. “This is just a little vacation, I’ll be heading right back to continue my ongoing research with the Alliance by next spring. Portia is merely a stepping stone in my ten year plan.”

“That’s what I thought too when I took my internship out here, but here I am, three years later,” Petra said, with a wink. “You’ve only been a few months, but you’ll be surprised to see how quickly Portia grows on you. You’ll see.”

“Whatever you say. I’ll see you later this week.” She threw Portia a mock salute and ducked out into the Central Plaza.

The sun had long since set and if the clock on the old school building was correct (And it should be, she fixed it herself.) then it was far later than she realized. She regarded the stars that dotted the sky. The moon wasn’t out that evening, which only made the stars shine even more brightly in the sky. She smiled to herself. Maybe she would take Petra’s advice and go on a late night stroll ー just because it was such a beautiful night and not because she needed to unwind.

She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them as she strolled out the city gates. The apple trees that grew along the path outside the city had started to bud with small white flowers, ready to bloom any day now. They filled the air with a sweet scent that reminded her of freshly baked apple pie. Eden stopped in the middle of the trail and took a deep breath. A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips as she basked in the smell and let the wind rustle her hair.

“What’re ya doin?”

Eden started, pressing a palm flat over her heart. It hammered so violently that she feared it would beat straight out of her chest. She glanced up only to find Oaks, the city vagabond, hanging precariously from one of the branches overhead. “By the Light, Oaks,” she breathed, her expression hardening. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He swung his legs up and over the branch, settling in the small nook it provided. “Sorry about that,” he said, chuckling. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that happy before. It was nice.”

“What’re you even doing out?” She glanced at her watch, swearing. “It’s well past midnight.”

He shrugged, kicking his legs with a childlike glee. “I dunno? Papa Bear doesn’t care what time I make it back these days and sometimes I just like to sit in the trees and listen to the sounds of the forest.” He grinned at her. “You should really try it sometime. I always see you passing through here late at night anyway. Do you want to join me?”

Eden pinched the bridge of her nose. “Join you? Why would I join you? It’s late. I have to get up in the morning and work. You know a job? Like normal people.” A troubled frown tugged at the corners of his mouth and his playful kicking abruptly stopped. Only then did she realize how bad that sounded.

She groaned, scrubbing hard at her face. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. That’s not what I meant, it’s just...” She trailed off, muffling another groan in her hand. “I don’t know what I meant.”

Maybe Petra was right. Her stress had gotten so out of hand that she was taking it out on Oaks, of all people. She hadn't spent too much time with him, but there was no denying that he was one of the sweetest residents in all of Portia. He loved to make people smile with his antics. He was especially good with the kids. She caught herself watching him dash around the plaza with them, their shrill laughter making her feel some kind of way that was hard to describe. In all, he was a good guy and now, she was screaming at him in the middle of the woods ー just like her father had done to her when he got a little too wound up.

How far she’d fallen.

He tilted his head off to one side and said, “You’re stressed.”

“Yeah,” she managed tightly. “Just a little bit.”

His frown deepened, which looked weird on a face that was always full of smiles. “Well, if that’s all that’s bothering you, I can show you what I do when I’m feeling a little stressed.”

She peered up at him, squinting. What kind of things did he have to be stressed about? As far as she knew, his days were spent wandering the fields with colorful llamas outside her workshop or snooping around the stalls in town. Sometimes, late in the afternoons, she’d catch him whittling while she was out gathering supplies. He always looked so engrossed in his work, but even then, there was a serene aura that surrounded him at all times. Frankly, it wasn’t fair.

But her curiosity got the better of her.

“What do you do when you’re stressed?”

He grinned, radiantly, and said, “Follow me.” He shifted his weight, tumbling to the ground in front of her. She flinched, but he quickly pulled himself up and wiped the dirt from the front of his pants. She never realized how tall he was before now, which was saying something considering she towered over most of Portia’s residents, even Gust. He had her beat by an inch or two, which was something. She didn’t know how old he was, but his broad shoulders and the sharp cut of his jaw suggested he was well into his twenties. She just always assumed he was a lot younger because of how he acted.

Another error. Two months into sabbatical and she was already losing her edge.

“If you liked the smell of the apple blossoms, then I think you’ll like this place just as much, but it’s top secret, you can’t tell anyone.” He leaned in, looking earnest. He smelled vaguely of apples and cinnamon. She furrowed her brow. Was that what she was smelling earlier? “It’ll be our secret. Do you promise?”

Eden sputtered, “I mean, I guess?”

Seemingly satisfied with that response, he took her by the hand and tugged her off the beaten path. Eden stumbled after him, nearly losing her footing on the roots and divots on the forest floor. She’d changed out of her work clothes earlier, before meeting up with Petra, so she wasn’t dressed for trekking through the forest. “Oaks, do you mind slowing down a little, I, uh, ahー”

Her foot caught a particularly vindictive tree root, sending her careening forward. She braced herself for the inevitable impact, but Oaks reacted quickly. He scooped her up, pulling her flush against his chest with one arm. She blinked up at him in surprise, one hand pressed flat against the bare pectoral. His heart thundered under her palm, nearly as fast hers was beating at that moment. This close, she could make out the individual freckles smattered across the bridge of his nose.

Eden suddenly found it very hard to catch her breath.

“My bad.” He pulled away, looking a little sheepish. “I got a little excited.” His hand slipped back around hers and they moved on, albeit a little more slowly. “But we aren’t in a rush. Part of the fun is the journey to get somewhere, am I right?”

“Honestly,” Eden said, smoothing her unruly curls up and out of her eyes. “I’ve never really been a fan of traveling.” That was kind of why she picked Portia for her sabbatical year. It was vaguely familiar from the one or two times she visited as a child with her aunt and uncle. She already had a connection or two with Presley and Isaac, not that she considered them close friends or anything. It seemed like a low maintenance location. Traveling always seemed like an unnecessary risk, but she needed to get away from the bustle of Vega 5 to fully recover from all her, as her therapist put it, issues

“It was never really my speed.”

“Well, with that attitude, you never will,” Oaks said with a chuckle. “Every new place is an adventure if you believe it is.” He gave her another radiant smile. “Take this top secret location for an example, you’ve never seen it before, right?” She nodded. “Well, aside from that little snag earlier, I think I can make it pretty fun for you.”

She snorted. “And how do you reckon that?”

Oaks paused, his nose wrinkling as he considered her question. Eden resisted the urge to roll her eyes. So, he didn’t even know. It shouldn’t have surprised her. After twenty six years. she still didn’t know how to cut loose and have fun. She had the PhD hanging over her desk to prove it.

“Who do you think would win in a fight ー a panbat or an illusion bunny?”

They shared a long look. “What?”

Oaks shrugged. “It’s a question. Which do you think?” He held out his hands, as if he were weighing his options. “On the one hand panbats are small and move faster than the illusion bunnies, but the bunnies have a hat, so it feels like a toss up. I’ve always been curious, but I’ve never been able to come to a decision. You seem smart, so what do you think in your expert opinion?”

Eden bit back a smile. He was too pure for his own good. “You do realize my area of expertise is in relic tech, right?”

Oaks hummed thoughtfully. “In that case, have you considered there are tech versions of panbats?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, that would be…” She trailed off and thought about it. Maybe Oaks was onto something there. A lot of people thought panbats were cute, but the fact remained that they were wild panbats. One couldn’t just pluck one out of the forest and call it a pet. “That would be pretty amazing actually. Do you think someone would invent it so they could keep a versions as a pet without the social repercussions of capturing and domesticating an actual panbat?”

Eden got swept away in their conversation. Every time she hit the proverbial wall, Oaks was right there with another wild idea that kept the momentum going. She had written off when she arrived in Portia. He was a wild child, born and raised in the forest, but he overflowed with new ideas. In Vega 5, Eden was expected to be a cog in the well-oiled machine. Cogs didn’t change. They didn’t question. But here she was, discussing the intricacies of how one would cuddle a panbot model without realizing it was a machine.

It wasn’t even possible.

She’d been in the field long enough to know that, but Oaks made her feel like she could do anything as long as she was willing to put in the effort.

And she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“And here we are,” Oaks announced with a swipe of his hand. Eden blinked in surprise. They had been walking that whole time, hadn’t they? She didn’t even notice.

They weren’t in the forest anymore, rather, the sloping hills at the foot of the Bassanio Heights. She’d seen it from a distance, but up close, it was absolutely breathtaking. A waterfall rushed over the edge of the cliffside, coating the grass and wildflowers in a soft dew. The flowers looked freshly bloomed and filled the air with a soft floral scent that eased the tension coiling around her shoulders. She always found flowers calming, but there weren’t too many patches of green in Vega 5.

“When I’m a little overwhelmed with everything, I like to come up here and watch the waterfall. The sound is calming to me,” Oaks explained, tugging her closer to the edge of the cliff that overlooked the water. It rushed past, filling the empty air between them with a soothing white noise. The flowers reached her calves in some places. He picked one, pale blue with teardrop shaped petals, and offered it to her. She took it, twirling it sheepishly between her fingers.

“Do you know how to make flower crowns?”

She shook her head. “Do I look like someone who knows how to make flower crowns?”

“Anyone can make flower crowns,” he said with a shrug. “Looks have nothing to do with it. And Molly says that mine are the best in all of Portia.” He plopped down on the ground and plucked a few more. Pink, blue, yellow. His hands moved of their own accord as he expertly wove the stems in and out. “I can show you my secret.” He peered up at her, donning a soft smile that left her chest swelling with a warm glow. He had a dimple on his right cheek. “I mean, if you aren’t too busy with all your real adult work, that is.”

Eden laughed despite herself and took a seat across from him. “You’re a little cheeky,” she said. “I would have never expected that from you.”

“Well, Papa Bear has the best sense of humor. I learned it from him.”

“Naturally.” She regarded her flower fondly, then tucked it behind her ear.

Oaks beamed. “That color looks nice with your hair.” He immediately grabbed a few more of the blue flowers to lace into the crown that was quickly taking shape in his lap. “Molly only likes the pink and yellow flowers when I make them for her, so I rarely get to use the blue ones.”

“Use as many as you want. I’ve never had someone make me a flower crown before.”

“Well, they should,” Oaks said with firm conviction. “They’re scientifically proven to make you happier.”

“Well, I’m going to need to see your research because I’m a little skeptical.”

He presented her with the flower crown, beautifully crafted with blue and yellow. “Let us try our hand at a little experiment,” he said, imitating Merlin’s haughty drawl. He placed the crown on her head, adjusting a few of her curls. He settled back on his knees and regarded her with this fond look on his face. “Perfect.” She cracked a small smile and dipped her head, trying to hide it. “Exhibit A. You’re smiling.”

“Correlation doesn’t equal causation,” Eden countered.

“I don’t know what that means,” Oaks said. “But, I do know that people smile when they’re happy and yours just keeps getting bigger. That has to mean something, right? You normally have such a serious look on your face.” He made a face, furrowing his brow and setting his mouth in a hard line. It was the same look that greeted her when she looked in the mirror every morning. He was spot on. She couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled and burst out of her. “See, and now you’re laughing. That’s not a coral nation or whatever you said.”

“Correlation,” she corrected. “It means a mutual relationship between two things. So, just because we can measure a relationship between those two things, that doesn’t mean one is the cause of the other.” For instance, there was no quantifiable proof that the heat burning at her cheeks had anything to do with Oaks or his close proximity to her at that moment.

None whatsoever.

Still, she cleared her throat and pulled away, just to be safe. “It’s beautiful.” She straightened the flower crown, lingering on the silken petals. “Thank you.”

“I told you I make the best flower crowns.”

“Not so fast there, nature boy.” She wagged her finger at him. “I don’t know if I’ve gathered enough data to draw that conclusion.”

His brow pitched as he considered that. “Well, I can make you another one tomorrow? With more flowers if you’re worried about me not gathering enough before.” he offered after a long moment. Eden tilted her head at him, confused, but he was already moving on. “Or maybe we can go apple picking? I know where to find the really sweet ones.”

“I have a lot of work to do tomorrow,” Eden said. “I have to gather some ore in the mines, Gale wants me to catch him a few fish, and then I’m meeting with the Civil Corps to discuss the bridge construction to Amber Island.” She drafted her mental checklist for everything she still needed to get done and felt the tension pulling taut across her shoulders. There wasn’t enough time in the day to finish everything.

Oaks shrugged. “That’s just three things.”

Her thoughts ground to a halt. “W-What?”

He blinked at her. “That’s just three things,” he reiterated. “I might not be super smart like you, but even I know that’s not that many.”

When he phrased it that way, her to-do list seemed a little less daunting. “Just three things.” She chuckled to herself. “You’re a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

He wheezed and plucked another flower from the field. It was a deep red, almost the same shade as his hair. “Well, if that’s the case, you’d be the first person who thinks so.” The sad resignation in his tone made something inside her ache.

“How about this? While I’m fishing tomorrow, you can hang out with me and show me how to make one of these things.” She pointed to the crown. “I’m pretty handy myself. I might be able to give you a run for your title as the best of the best.”

He grinned. “I like that plan.”

“Me too.”

Oaks hummed contentedly and sprawled out in front of her. He pointed at the sky. “Do you want to hear the stories Papa Bear used to tell me about the stars?” Eden glanced at her watch, the back at Oaks hopeful expression. An hour had already passed, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. She would even be so bold as to say that this little adventure was fun.

He added quickly after a moment, “Or I can walk you home if you want to sleep?”

“This is just one thing.” Eden laid down next to him and smiled at him. He mirrored it. “Tell me a story.”

#my time at portia #mtap #mtap builder #mtap oaks #mtap petra

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bgn846 · 3 years

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The Niflheim Experiment Chapter 8

The next time Gladio woke up he was feeling refreshed instead of drained, and awake. Attempting to sit up was even an improvement. He managed to get some pillows behind his back, allowing him to sit up and relax. Looking around Gladio saw his book sitting on the bedside table. Trying to remember where he’d left off was a challenge; hopefully he’d recall everything when he picked up it again.

Turning to the side Gladio noted that Ignis was still passed out. Gladio wanted to talk with him but it was obvious Ignis needed rest. For him to not stir when Gladio had rolled over was telling. Opting to reach out he ran his fingers through Ignis’ fine hair, relishing in the sensation. His boyfriend made a small noise at the touch but remained asleep.

A knock made Gladio look up; Iris was standing in the doorway looking slightly unsure. “What’s up?” he asked with a smile. “Everything okay?”

Iris nodded and walked into the room slowly. “I was waiting for you to wake up; we didn’t get to talk much earlier,” she sighed. “I also don’t want to disturb Iggy, he’s sleeping.” Iris all but whispered as she drew closer.

“I guess he had a tough time while I was away, huh?”

His sister nodded and looked over at Ignis with a frown. “He and daddy stayed up late talking about stuff, even Cor came over and they would talk more.”

“What were they talking about?” Gladio asked with worry.

Iris shrugged, “I dunno, anytime I came in to check they shooed me away.”

“Did they yell?”

“Sometimes they did, but when I would see them the next day, they would be the same. It didn’t look they were mad at each other though.”

“Gonna st’m nif’m” Ignis suddenly murmured without opening his eyes.

Iris went wide eyed and nervously danced from one foot to other. “Sorry!” She hissed under her breath. I didn’t mean to wake him up.”

Gladio put up his hand and shook his head. “I don’t think he’s awake.” He quietly offered, watching Ignis carefully. His breathing evened out after a minute and it appeared he’d fallen back to sleep. One part of Gladio wanted to keep talking in hopes Ignis would rouse, but he knew that was selfish. Turning to Iris he smiled. “Think you could help me downstairs? I can sit and talk with you more.” Iris’ face lit up and she nodded eagerly.

After Gladio was certain he wouldn’t crush his sister, he let her pull him up off the bed. Gravity tried to take hold again but he was able to fight back this time. Heaving a sigh of relief Gladio slowly ambled over to his desk and scribbled a quick note for Ignis, should he wake. The last thing he wanted was for the man to worry that he was missing once again. Gladio was pretty sure he’d said something about storming Niflheim earlier. He wouldn’t put it past Ignis, Cor, or his dad to try.

Gladio thought he was doing fairly well as they left his room and headed towards the stairs. However, a slight wobble in his knees made him reconsider. “Iris, do you wanna talk in your room, maybe? I’m not sure I can make it down the stairs in one piece.”

“That’s easy,” Iris offered with a shrug, “scoot down on your butt.”

Gladio felt a little dumb for not having realized that option. When Iris sat down next to him and began bumping down step by step Gladio couldn’t help but smile. Of course they turned it into a game and the last few steps were taken as more of a slide. He was winded at the bottom but with Iris’ help he got upright again and staggered into the living room. “Hey where’s dad?” Gladio asked once he saw the door to Clarus’ study was open and the light was off.

“Sleeping,” Iris hummed, “he was tired like Ignis.”

Falling heavily onto the sofa Gladio focused his attention back on Iris. “So tell me exactly how you found out about Ignis and me dating.”

“Gahhh – it was so sweet!” Iris wailed as she flopped down next to him. “Daddy knew something was up with Ignis but he wouldn’t tell at first. You’d been missing for three days before Ignis actually came over to the house. He was super nervous and then daddy asked him to stay for dinner.”

Gladio waited but Iris looked like she was done with her story. “So he stayed for dinner and then what happened?”

“He ate and then daddy kept asking him really weird questions. Like about your favorite foods and stuff, and your training schedule.”

Suddenly Gladio was worried that his dad hadn’t been happy that they were together, but he’d been fine earlier. “Was he mad?”

“Dad? No, he was fine. He and Ignis went to his study afterwards and talked forever.”

“Okay, I’m missing the sweet part of the story, can you skip to that?” Gladio asked with baited breath.

Iris nodded and smiled, “yeah, yeah, it was when they finished talking later that night. Before Ignis went home he sat down in the living room and asked to talk to me. I almost cried Gladdy! He wanted to know if I could keep a secret.”

“About us, you mean?”

His sister nodded furiously. “He said you two had been dating for over a year and that he would be so grateful if I kept it hush, hush.”

“You don’t mind right?” Gladio checked.

“I’m so excited for you both, why would I mind? Anyway, that’s what he told me.” Iris added as she bounced in her seat. “It felt so special to be included and Ignis was really nice about it.”

Pulling his sister over for a hug Gladio tried not to cry. Judging by the look on Iris’ face when he pulled away he’d not succeeded. Her smile was soft and it didn’t take long for her to join in the waterworks show. They were Amicitia’s, a family of huggers and criers apparently. “Sorry,” he mumbled a second later.

“It’s okay, I’m just happy you’re home.” She sniffled in response.

They spent another hour talking about who’d come to the house to visit, and what Cor looked like with a full beard. It seemed he wasn’t keeping up appearances during Gladio’s absence. Shaving, along with proper rest had gone by the wayside. Gladio was still amazed at how everyone had acted during his time away. Not that he was surprised; he suspected he’d have acted similarly if Ignis had been captured. The thought alone made him shudder. A small part of Gladio was thankful he’d been the one to endure the enemy’s hand. He wouldn’t wish for anyone to go through what he’d suffered.

The hours whittled away as Iris filled in the gaps during his absence. Gladio didn’t realize how much time had passed until he heard a noise from the kitchen. His stomach instantly grumbled at the prospect of food. Iris caught on straight away and nearly pulled him off the couch to go investigate.

The sight that greeted him was unexpected. Gladio had assumed Jared was in the kitchen but Ignis was there instead, and he’d changed as well. The pair of well-worn sweatpants and t-shirt was a favorite of Ignis’. He’d not had time to go home, so that was slightly perplexing. “Did you accidentally leave those here?” Gladio asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ignis immediately turned and walked over to give him a hug. “No. I brought them on purpose. They are my favorites remember?” he offered with his head buried in Gladio’s shoulder.

“Yeah I know, but how’d they get here?” Gladio tried again still confused as to why Ignis had stuff at his house that he didn’t know about.

“Gladdy,” Iris sighed good naturedly, “Ignis has been living in the guest room for nearly a week.”

“Huh?! A week?”

“Your father, Cor and I were planning things and it was better for me to be here.” Ignis offered before releasing Gladio and striding back over to the counter.

“What kinda of things?” Gladio was worried about what they could have possibly been planning. They were all formidable soldiers on their own. The combined forces of all three was a concern.

“We were going to rescue you.” Ignis announced simply like it was normal.

“Did you even know where I was?”

“We had an idea, there was one more bit of data we needed to be sure. You arrived before we had the chance to act.”

“I gotta sit down.” Gladio murmured while reaching out to hold onto his sister’s shoulders. Iris easily helped him to a bar stool. She hovered a little once he was sitting, probably to make sure he didn’t topple over.

“Gladdy, are you ever gonna tell me what they did to you?” Iris asked with a frown.

“Iris it sucked, it hurt, and that’s all you need to know. I don’t wanna give you nightmares. I’m feeling good and with some help from everybody I’ll get even better.”

Iris didn’t seem to like his reply. “Fine, but I’m here if you ever need to talk okay?”

Gladio pulled her into a hug and they held each other for a long while. “When did you get so grown up? How long was I gone for anyway?”

Ignis answered this time as he set a plate of food down on the bar. “Eight days, and four hours I believe. Now eat up, you need more rest and I want another nap.”

“Are you sure about this?” Loqi checked again as he bounced around on the training mat. “You look a little winded and we’ve only been at this for ten minutes.”

“I gotta – try.” Gladio gasped. Astrals training was hard; apparently nearly dying really took a toll on one’s muscles.

“You’re not going to pass out are you?” Noct asked with worry as he walked over and felt his forehead.

Gladio swatted his hand away and carefully bent down to retrieve his training sword. “Noct, I have to get back in shape.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to rush into things.” The prince griped.

Gladio knew he should take it easy, but he needed to get back in shape. It’d been almost two weeks since they’d literally crashed through the back door at the citadel. The investigation into Drautos was still ongoing. He’d not survived the battle so his reason for betraying them all had died with him. Ravus and Luna were staying sequestered in their guest suite so aside from a few visits he didn’t see them much.

Aranea had been giving Cor and Clarus information regarding Niflheim and its military forces. She’d even managed to get help in retrieving her drop ship from the middle of the woods somewhere. The emperor had done enough unsavory things that Aranea was fed up with the empire. The scourge was growing and she wanted to be on the side actively fighting it, not messing with it.

Loqi had taken a few days to himself to properly heal after his injury, but he was back to his annoying self in no time. Cor had almost gotten to the point that he had to run away from the kid when he saw him. Loqi challenged Cor to a sparring match every single time they crossed paths. In a surprising move Cor had even cleared Loqi to help Gladio train with Noct. Though Gladio suspected it was merely an effort to keep Loqi from bothering him. The kid had proved himself already in Gladio’s eyes. If he’d wanted to cause harm Loqi would’ve already done so.

“Ready?!” Loqi shouted, breaking Gladio’s train of thought. The blond was standing a few feet away and waiting for him to answer.

“Huh – go easy.” He managed before Loqi barreled into him at full speed. The room spun after that and Gladio could have sworn he saw stars. Thankfully, the mat was padded and made the descent hurt less.

“Don’t break him!” Noct yelled.

“He’s unbreakable!” Loqi quipped. “Come on big guy, let’s go again!”

Training absolutely wrecked him. By the time an hour had passed Gladio could barely stand. Both Noct and Loqi had to support him as they walked to the locker room. One of them was smart enough to find him a small plastic stool for the shower. At least that way he didn’t fall over while getting cleaned up. The ache in Gladio’s muscles was constant but it felt good in a familiar way. Luna had recently alluded to him that the healing process may have atrophied his muscles. It was almost as if Gladio’s body had created new tissue which needed sculpting all over again. That would certainly explain why everything was taking a lot longer than he’d hoped.

Later that night, as he was comfortably resting on the sofa Gladio finally allowed his mind to think about the future. Everyone was very clingy with him these days. Ignis was still living in their guest room and Iris hung out with him way more than normal. His father even took his work home more often than not, just to be nearby. The idea that all of this was so close to being taken away from him made Gladio’s heart beat faster. There had to be a way to beat the empire. The intel they had now was mind boggling, between what Aranea, Loqi, and Ravus had told them.

Niflheim was still a threat and they had to figure out how to handle them. Taking a deep breath Gladio shifted slightly to make sure Ignis was awake still. The advisor had been leaning into him and watching TV. Iris had picked the show and they were making fun of it, though Ignis’ comments had stopped a little while ago. Gladio suspected he drifted off. His father had even joined them in the living room but he was reading instead.

Ignis groaned softly and lifted his head to look at him with a smile. “What did I miss?” He asked sleepily.

“Nothing much, I just wanted to talk.”

Humming Ignis scooted to sit up straighter. “What about?” He inquired while straightening his glasses.

“Plans for dealing with the empire.” Gladio whispered.

Oh. That’s not quite after dinner chat is it.” Ignis sighed. “What if we tackled that tomorrow with your father and the king.” He offered quietly.

“Yeah, that works.” Gladio didn’t really want to go over such a heavy topic in front of his sister anyway.

Iris began talking over them about something stupid happening in the show and Ignis switched gears like it was nothing. Gladio hugged him closer and enjoyed the quiet moment with his family. He’d been surprised that they’d planned a rescue for him. That wasn’t written into any protocol anywhere. Gladio suspected that Cor, his father, and Ignis were acting on their own. Silently thankful it never came to that, Gladio took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Napping with Ignis in his arms and Iris chattering on the background felt like home.

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#ffxv #fanfic #gladio

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talix18 · 4 years

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November 22

Today I learned what a Japanese tuxedo is (in terms of tattoos) and that David Lee Roth at 65 has more energy in one hour than I’ve had in my entire life put together. I started listening to his appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF? and spent most of that time laughing or with my jaw hanging open. I lost track of Diamond Dave after his stint as an EMT. Now he’s an entrepreneur with a line of skin products formulated for tattooed skin. Gods bless.

Listening to Dave describe his formal music education made me wonder if that’s not what I ought to go back to school for. Music is the thing I love the most but have little actual education in. I took a beginning theory class in college and some sort of classical music appreciation course in grad school; I even played viola for two years in junior high. I guess by the time I got to college I’d ruled music out as a thing one could start studying. One of my high school friends had been playing cello for her entire life and I remember her missing various activities because she was practicing. She’s now making a living with her cello and I guess her example made me assume it was already too late.

Katelyn and I were talking about going back to school the other night. She’s learning young just how hard it is to make new friends once you’re out of school and I think she’d enjoy it, but we’re both looking at our wallets wondering how to pay for it.

School is one of my happy places. I loved learning, I loved feeling my brain work, I hated studying for exams but loved the feeling of understanding the material. I loved explaining to the class what the teacher meant when they couldn’t parse it and I loved making outline after outline of my study notes until I’d whittled the course down to bullet points. I love having conversations with people who are smarter than I am.

I briefly considered pursuing a Certificate of Higher Learning from Oxford because how cool would it be to be able to say I’m an Oxford alum? The majority of classes can be attended virtually, which is where I admit that I don’t just want to be taking classes by myself. I have a wealth of Great Courses available anytime I want to go ahead and start taking them. I want to Go To School. I want to meet smart people. I want to be surrounded by that energy and excitement again.

Now I’m looking up Eddie Van Halen and learning that he’s been in radiation therapy for his cancer for five years and was just in the hospital after a bad reaction to the drugs. Getting older, as my Gram used to say, ain’t for sissies. Love died for me when Eddie and Val got divorced but I’m glad they’re still friends and I’m thrilled he’s been sober for eleven years. I’m not sure I would have survived a rock and roll lifestyle, but then again, I’d rarely be driving.

(Speaking of the brothers Van Halen, how did I never know their mom was Indonesian? Now I understand why Alex’s eyes have looked vaguely Asian to me for all these years. Apparently Valerie has a cooking show and shared Mama VH’s recipe for something that grabbed Mom’s fancy so I can look forward to that!) (Don’t tell her that I’m a little meh on ham for Thanksgiving. She’s finally cooking Brussels sprouts a new way and I am calling that a win.)

(Mom found a recipe YEARS ago that uses Guinness and had faithfully made her “Relapse Brussels sprouts” every year since. They are fine, but they are mushy, and having seen the way, truth, and light of fresh Brussels sprouts roasted with salt and olive oil, I don’t have the heart to tell her that the Relapse BS just aren’t my favorite.)

This is my fourth day in a row of feeling pretty good, and that’s on less sleep than I normally get. I really hope this is because the medication is working. It’s hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other when you feel like you’re doing it in three feet of water. But I’ve been productive at work and at home and actually considered taking on a work training challenge today. I even started my Christmas shopping! (I hate much of what Jeff Bezos stands for, but goddamn if Amazon doesn’t alleviate most of the Christmas crazy.)

The increased meds are not helping the words come out! I have rare free time in front of a keyboard and nothing to say? Maybe that *is* a sign of increased mental health.

December is flat out insane in my family. Thank goodness my aunt moved away with her 12/4 birthday! There were birthday dinners with Mom (12/2), my aunt, me (12/20), and my dad (12/26). My brother’s birthday is also on the 20th and he’s continued the tradition in the latest generation – my niece will be five on 12/1. Her Aunt Lindsay has decided it’s time we start taking her out for birthday dinners. Basically, the fulcrum of the year tips at Thanksgiving and is just a steep slide into New Year’s. (Which I actually have plans for!)

Christmas shopping is so anxiety-laden for me that I have bad dreams about it all year long. (It’s always the same: December 23rd, I’ve purchased nothing, and the only place open in Walgreen’s.) I can’t enjoy the holiday season until I’m relatively sure what everyone’s getting and honestly, I don’t need any more stuff. Just being together and enjoying yummy food is enough for me. The holidays also mean the Hebert Christmas punch tradition from which I’ve been excluded for this will be the 24th time (I can drink anything I want! I choose not to!). My family are all wine and spirit drinkers and most of the time I look around it, but the holidays really make me miss that fuzzy festive feeling.

So how does one achieve that without using? I need to get back on a meditation routine and I need to make upside-down yoga part of my weekly life. Upside-down yoga always made me a little giddy and we rarely invert in the class I take now. I also need to try on my New Year’s Dress and assess how vigilant I have to be between now and then to make it work. I was having some success with an intermediate fasting routine where I’d restrict my calories for two (non-consecutive) days per week. The beauty of that schedule is that I can maintain it through the holidays. I should have just started this week after the colonoscopy.

But I also had a pretty severe mood crash last year and fasting is not for the unstable. Yes, I’m an emotional eater but you know, I’d rather eat my feelings than wish I could opt out of life. I know how to lose weight; necromancy is above my spell level.

Did I ever mention I was a witch and practiced in a coven for a decade? I’ve just gotten to the 20K word mark and it’s likely I’ll start repeating myself any time now. The coven was made of some amazing people but the actual business of witching just felt too much like work. I went in looking for a spiritual experience and what I got was a delightful social experience. That required a lot of time and 40-mile drives and the stagnation of my 12-Step recovery in that decade was not a coincidence.

Yesterday I got to whip out one of my favorite recovery slogans on a friend: “Religion is for people trying to stay out of hell. Spirituality is for people who’ve already been there.” It doesn’t hold up once you consider religions that don’t have conceptions of hell, but it’s catchy.

(The NaNoWriMo website helpfully breaks down how many words one has to produce per day to get to 50K by next Sunday and it is a little overwhelming. I only need 2235 more today to stay on target! [I am not staying on target.])

Somebody give me a topic! (Give me a beat!) Oh! Yesterday I emptied out one of my spare room dressers, which is something that’s been on my project list for, oh, a long time. All I have to do is patch the hole and that room will be ready to paint, which will let me do the floors in that room and the front. With that done I’ll have my closet annex and yoga station all set up and I will finally live in my entire house. And it should inspire me to do the last three rooms.

I’m excited to set up these last two rooms as functional spaces. I can’t tell you what’s taken me so long to surrender to the idea that I need a room-sized closet extension but look…I have to grab joy wherever I can find it. Waiting for the big stuff to fall into place just takes too long and this bizarre timeline provides plenty of reasons to despair. I don’t understand how people can spend eight hours a day in cubes that aren’t decorated and I am not going to limit myself to one of my life’s compulsions if I have room to store it all. (Vanessa is in Tennessee shouting “You’ll never have room for another person in your house that way!” and I’m shouting back “You and your person bought a new house!”)

I do love my house, though, and getting me out of it is going to take some extraordinary conditions. With any luck I’ll meet a life partner who also loves their house and we can commute and share. I still won’t have enough wall space to hang everything I want to; perhaps a rotating gallery space is required. Says the girl who can’t manage to swap the screens out for storm windows and vice versa every year.

#f**k fifty #nanowrimo

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wykart · 5 years

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Fix Her

Chapter 2 of a fic about Five and Vanya and all the tragedy surrounding them (chapter 1)

Chapter Summary: The night of Five’s disappearance has Vanya on edge – she can’t sleep – so she decides to make him a snack for when he returns.

read here on ao3 or continue chapter 2 under the cut

There was nothing else for it, she had to do something. She wondered if Five was lost somewhere, if he was trying to find his way back. The house got dark at night, what if he couldn’t find his way? He hadn’t touched his dinner that evening, hadn’t eaten since noon that day. It was past midnight. He would be starving. She thought about trying to find him at the old donut place that they often frequented together – but she doubted she could escape from the academy without his help. She couldn’t teleport, after all, in fact, she couldn’t do anything. Gingerly, she rose from her bed and placed her bare feet on the old floorboards – they creaked and groaned in the night with a clarity unachievable among the chaos and voices of her siblings during the day. They would all be sound asleep, training began at five-o’clock, running laps around the courtyard. Not her. Father would let her sleep in as long as she wanted, only because he didn’t care if she was awake or asleep anyhow. As long as she was out of the way, her sleep schedule didn’t matter.

She pushed the door open – just a crack at first. Finding no obstructions, she continued out into the hall. She crept past her sibling’s bedroom doors, one by one. All of their rooms were larger than her’s, all of them equipped with all manner of objects and trinkets and decorative items. Luther’s weights, Diego’s dart boards, Allison’s posters, Klaus’ prints, Five’s textbooks, Ben’s novels – all of them had something that made them happy in the few precious hours that their father allowed them to whittle away in solitude. Vanya had nothing but bare walls and a sparse vanity – even the bedsheets were dull. Sometimes she felt like that room – hollowed out and boring beyond belief. All she had was her violin, and even that had been her Father’s, locked in a case and kept out of sight.

All of them were sleeping soundly – even Klaus, who had been sleeping more and more soundly of late. When they were younger, she’d had to pull her pillow over her ears to muffle the sounds that strayed through their shared wall. His whimpers and whispers, sometimes his screams. It was times like that when Vanya was almost glad she didn’t have a power. Almost.

She pattered out of the corridor and into the main hall. At night, the place was an expansive cathedral. With the chandelier extinguished, the ceiling lay beyond a cloud of dark mist that marked the edge of what the eye could see. The moonlight through the long stained-glass windows cast the space in a chirascuric dichotomy of harsh light and shadow. The light glazed the oiled canvas of the family portrait. In the dark, one couldn’t even notice that Vanya was missing. During the day, this room was the centre of the house, almost cozy – as cozy as life at the academy could get. The reds and golds and warm chirping voices – and their father’s, sharp as a knife that cut it them all, leaving behind an inexplicable cold. He inspired a certain fearful admiration in his children. One and all would do anything to please him, even Vanya. Even though it was scary, this place at night, it felt more like Vanya’s home in the silence and abandon.

She headed to the kitchen across the way, careful to be quiet in her approach as she spied her mother sitting up on the first landing, eyes glowing blue. She pulled a loaf of bread from the tin and started making Five’s favourite snack – a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. Soon after he’d introduced the combination to her, it had become her favourite snack as well, but Vanya wasn’t hungry. She felt sick just thinking of Five out there all alone, even though she knew he could handle himself. Maybe that was what worried her most of all, that he could take care of himself just fine, and he’d simply decided to make his escape without her. She didn’t think he would leave her… or hoped that he wouldn’t. Even now, she was beginning to have doubts. Perhaps he’d finally seen in her what all the other’s seemed to see, a boring girl that only brought boredom along with her. It had taken him a while, if that was the case.

She was worrying herself again. Hurriedly, she stuffed a hand into her pyjama pocket and pulled out a zip-lock bag where she kept her emergency capsules. Five was the only one who seemed to be able to calm her down when she was like this. She didn’t know what she would do without them. She feared the day that she’d be stuck without any medication and she’d feel that strange pull of vertigo twisting in her gut, the drowning, pressing feeling that threatened to drag her under. It made her fingers twitch and her eyes sting, like she was wide awake and burning away all at the same time.

She was holding the capsule in her quivering hand, pressing it to her lips, when the kitchen light flicked on. She nearly jumped out of her skin, and sent the tablet clattering down onto the kitchen tiles.

“Number Seven!” She gasped, a cold shiver running through her. Her breath caught in her throat, jittering. Of course he found her, she was so clumsy, so stupid. “What do you think you’re doing up at this hour?”

Her lip trembled, and she couldn’t stop her voice from stammering along, near a whisper. “I – I”m sorry father, I just –“

“Speak up, girl, stop your mumbling,” so curt, so cold. Ever since she’d known him, always towering above them all, a crisp suit, a stare off into the distance, never in the eyes, barking orders like a sergeant to his troops.

She struggled out a response. “I was making something, for Five, sir – I thought that, when he came back, he might be hungry. He missed supper.” She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, but she could feel the way his were looking at her. Bearing down, piercing, mouth drawn tight into a scowl. He didn’t answer, so she ventured forth. “It’s just, I know you said that time travel was dangerous, so what if he’s lost and trying to get back home?” Staring, staring, so she kept her eyes on those chequered tiles, letting her hair fall lank over her eyes. “What if we put the lights on, just for tonight, so he can find his way home. It gets cold out there at night.” Before she knew it she was pleading, an act her father had little respect or regard for. He was hard on them, he had to be, but this wasn’t one of his tests. If Five was really in danger, he would help, he had to.

He only sighed. “Your pity is misplaced, Number Seven,” as if even deigning to speak to her, to indulge her childish whims, was a cruel waste of his time. “Number Five knew the risks, and yet he disobeyed me. He will face the consequences, wherever he is in time. If the boy is as useless as I fear, then I doubt he will ever find his way back to us.” How could he say that? It had only been a few hours, he was just lost. He would come back. “He was an impulsive creature, Number Seven, self-important,” he spat, “arrogant, a mere shadow of what he could have become, if he had just listened.” He would come back. "A disobedient thing like that is of no asset to the academy, I do not mourn him, and so should you cast away any weak, grovelling affections you held for your brother.” Shut up, shut up, shut up. “I trust that you and your siblings will learn from his mistake.”

“Shut up.” She muttered, before she could stop herself. Tears stung her eyes, her mouth stretched into that same scowl that so often adorned her father’s face. The one that held no mercy, that was bitter and old and powerful enough to send his children into a frenzied attention.

It was a long and terrifying moment before he spoke. “I beg you pardon, Number Seven,” though he knew exactly what she’d said. He was daring her to say it again.

“That’s not my name!” She cried, staring up at him. “How could you say those things about Five! He’s the best of all of them, he used to admire you too, but you just wanted to use him like you’re using all of them!” She couldn’t stop, everything she’d even felt was coming up like bile in her throat, burning acidic. She lowered her voice, thinking about him, her only friend. “He was the only one smart enough to see it,” Sir Reginald didn’t even react, that same stern face, expressionless. It was infuriating. “He’s the only one that’s even been nice to me, treated me like I belong here even when I know I don’t, I’m not an idiot!” She was running out of breath. “You can’t just give up on him, he’s out there, I know it, he’s coming back.”

Another pause. He cleared his throat, still staring on past her, just another disappointment in a long line, just another stupid child he’d failed to reel in. “Are you quite finished, Number Seven. You’d do best to let go of these petty attachments, if you have any aspirations to become strong.” He brought his hands up into a crisp clap – twice together – a sound that tore through the still night air and raged through her ears. “Now, to bed. I’ll not hear another word of it, Number Seven.”

She’d couldn’t stand it anymore. “That’s not my name!” she screamed. She had one for a reason, she was a person, she was more than what her father thought of her – Five had shown her that. That was the very reason that he clung to his number with such pride, not – as their father suspected – out of some fierce loyalty to him and his best efforts to desensitise them all from what made them human beings – but out of spite. If his father was to number them, to take away everything they were, then the best he could do was cling to that label, make it his own, and form himself around the very thing that was meant to seperate him from everything. Vanya wasn’t so brave, so vainglorious, she had precious little to remind her of who she was – and her name was one of them.

Her father furrowed his brows deeper still, a level of disapproval and disgust that was difficult to bring forth. “Number Seven!” he barked, leaning forwards a little, and bringing his hands together in yet another resounding clap. The sound made her jump. “Go, now!”

She couldn’t move. The brisk sound cut through all the turmoil that had been racing through her mind. Her worries for Five, her anger at her father, her resentment towards her siblings, all of it fell away and was replaced by the humming of the night. The rustling of trees outside, the muffled sounds of car horns blaring as is they were sounding in this very room, the chandelier swaying in the light breeze, crystals clinking and clattering over the sound of her pounding heart. The light flickered, and she felt a draft shoot through the kitchen, parting her hair from her eyes.

Her father must have seen something in them because he froze on the spot – and was that fear on her father’s face? He swallowed, steadying his breathing. Clasping his eyes shut, as if the very word brought a bitter taste to his mouth. “Vanya.” He’d never called any of them by their names before. Perhaps he was so fed up with her that he’d say anything to get her out of the way. Typical. She felt wide awake, brimming with burning energy. He crouched down and picked up the capsule from the floor by her feet, dusting it off lightly. “You don’t seem to be feeling well, have you taken your medicine?”

She cast her mind back, and of course, she hadn’t. With all the commotion at dinner she’d forgotten to take it with her meal, she’d been so worried about Five. Earlier that day, at breakfast, she’d been up in the attic with him, hiding away. Not wanting to be found out, she’d skipped her morning dose as well. She’d been so worried, so angry, so scared, no wonder she was getting herself so worked up. No wonder the world sounded as if it were about to drown her out. She took a deep, rattling breath, and took the capsule from her father’s hand. He backed away, watching her closely.

It was a while before either of them spoke. “Sir, is it okay if I finish making a sandwich for Five, just in case?” Her voice was meek, unsure. She was so sure that he would yell, but instead, he simply turned and walked away, the sound of his dress shoes echoing through the empty house. She took the opportunity to finish, even though she knew he’d think she was weak for doing it. She didn’t much care what he thought anymore. She placed the marshmallows – cut in halves, evenly spaced in a circle, just the way he liked it – onto a generous swath of peanut butter, and finally completed the sandwich. She placed it just beyond the threshold in the marble entrance hall, the great oaken doors, emblazoned with the umbrella insignia, firmly shut against the night. She stopped for a moment and listened, hoping to hear him walk up the front steps. He would thank her for the sandwich, she might even start crying, and he wouldn’t think she was weak or stupid for it, he’d just reassure her of the one fact it had taken her so long to believe was true – that he cared about her. She decided to sit by the door and wait. That way, she would be the first to greet him when he came home.

#tua #the umbrella academy #vanya hargreeves #five hargreeves #number five #fanfic #fanfiction #my writing #fluff #angst #look its a mix guys #fix her #ao3

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ikesenlemonadestandstories · 6 years

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Surreptitious (pt. 6)

Hey everyone :) sorry for all the sporadic posting! Work was downright crazy this week. I finally got some time to myself today and was able to hammer not just part 5 but part 6 out as well! Feel free to message me if there’s anything you’d like to see. Otherwise thanks for stopping by!

Admin T

You were at a loss for words, Sasuke had really outdone himself this time. There is no way the amount of gold you had given him was enough to cover all of the armaments he had supplied you with...looking him straight in the eyes

“I’m assuming I got the best ninja friend discount on at least half of these. Not that I’m complaining but seriously...at least let me pay you for all your trouble.”

“No need, I cannot follow you, and I am aware none of the other lords of Azuchi are able to assist you. I would prefer it if you were adequately prepared. Consider most of your payment, my own piece of mind.” Sasuke replied.

I really couldn’t argue with him there, and it was definitely out of line for me to steal an enemy ninja, no matter how clutch that would be. I laughed a little thinking about the type of united front we could put together. At this rate, we could have our own action show “Time Traveling Ninjas!” He turned toward my door giving me a knowing look and quickly bowed out leaving me with several homebrew ninja tools, a new wakizashi, who blades for my wrist guards, newly sharpened throwing knives, and three throwing needles disguised as hairpins. Carefully re-wrapping the gifts and hiding them so well even the most experience TSA officer wouldn’t be able to find them you waited for whoever it was you and Sasuke had sensed was coming to visit.

Hisoki had arrived at your door and rolling your eyes at the drunken knock you let him in. The Oda was throwing a party, and you had decided to channel your annoyance at this unforgivably rude man into your act. The idea was to pretend to be utterly spoiled as heck around this man, make him believe that Lord Nobunaga was forcing your to work as the Chatelaine and that you wanted nothing more than to run away with him...so far it was working. The best part was, you had only needed to win the affection of one of the men but his counterpart, Junichiro, was now following you around like a lost puppy. Though it could be annoying, the in-fighting among the men for your affection meant that neither let the other get overly-gropey and they had suggested taking you back with them tomorrow when they sneak out. Since they “couldn’t let such a marvelous princess suffer so.” *rolls eyes so hard I sleep my way back to the present* All through the week, you kept passing Masamune and Mitsuhide in the halls, the others were much harder to find, though you couldn’t blame them for trying to avoid contact with you since they didn’t spoil your cover. Mitsuhide would make the briefest yet much needed eye contact to check in on you, while Masamune could be sensed following you every so often. You had heard from Mitsuhide’s man, Kage, that he had to stop him three days ago from gutting Hisoki when his arm was around you on your garden stroll. You’d have to thank him for the laughs when you got back.

After Hisoki and Junichiro left your room, you began to tactically pack all of the weaponry Sasuke was kind enough to provide you with, while simultaneously preparing your black bag. You had decided that the best course of action would be to bring your black pants along with the black racer-back sleeveless top you would wear on missions in warmer climates. While the weather wasn’t exactly warm enough to warrant the apparel you would have to make sure to wear it at all times when you were in enemy territory underneath your kimono; so it definitely had to be hidden, so nothing was visible while making everyday movements. Placing all of the new throwing knives into the pouch that attached to your thigh and making sure you would be able to secure the Wakizashi under your Kimono were priority number one. The hairpins would be easy enough to disguise, and the smoke bombs and throwing stars you had been provided would be going in a pocket attached to your belt. Once all your weapons were packed, you began setting up your medical supplies and provisions. You had no idea what kind of trouble you or your friends were about to get yourself into so you had been molding fruit peels and melons for the penicillin, which you could now place in a small jar. Putting the antibiotic in your black bag, along with several sewing needles, your super futuristic lighter, rubbing alcohol (though if you needed to you could always grab some of Ieyasu’s cleaning sake), and all your other medical equipment you were almost ready to leave. When everything was packed, you sat down and began writing a note, once you finished it you would take one more secret trip to make sure it got to its intended owner.

…

I had heard from Kage that he and the princess would be departing tomorrow, and I had been wondering if there was anything I could do to help the princess. It was beginning to feel like my thoughts were summoning her, as soon as I started to prepare a mental list of items to gather for her I felt her warm breath gently against my ear as she hummed my name quietly. Instinctively I froze it was normal for her to drop by to visit this late at night to provide me with information or a status report, and while I felt we had been inching closer over the past week, I never expected her to show me this level of contact.

“I have a few things for you, think you can hold onto them for me?”

Her low voice was enough to send a shiver down my spine, still frozen in place unable to answer for fear my voice would give me away. I merely nodded, to which I felt her drape an arm over my shoulder and drop her small black bag in my lap.

“Bring it with you when you come to get me, kay? It’s essential.”

With those parting words, her hand gently ran up my arm as her fingers danced off my shoulder. She was gone before I could turn around but the coolness of her touch had left a surprising fire in its wake, and I was beginning to realize, that maybe I enjoyed her teasing me just as much as I enjoyed teasing her. Not sure I could hold this plan together much longer I set out to make the final preparations to bring her back to me and wrap this charade up as quick as possible.

Masamune and I had left almost precisely two days after the princess, we were following the trail Kage had been secretly laying for us in the foliage. If everything went according to plan, we would meet up with him again one day before our suspected arrival and two days before the main Oda force arrived. There we would have him switch us, Masamune and I would head for the castle to retrieve the princess, while he would take off to give the word to the main forces of our final location and any information he and the princess had been able to gather.

Almost a day later one of Masamune’s vassals, Kojuro had arrived to notify us that they were positioned a day ahead of schedule and upon Kage’s appearance, they would be prepared to engage immediately. While typically this would be a significant advantage for us in a battle, it was currently putting the princess in a perilous position. She was now alone in the enemy castle with a war looming, and with her being to only other person around to suspect of giving up the enemy position. They would be mad, they would blame her, and they would either imprison or worse kill her. All of these terrible ideas flashed through my mind, and I gripped the bag she had requested I bring for her, after a shared look with Masamune we took off in the direction Kage would be coming from.

…

You knew something had gone awry when everyone in the castle was in a tizzy. You briefly overheard some of the maids talking about how the Oda were spotted about two days outside the city, and we were now hastily preparing for battle. Knowing better than to think they would believe you innocent, you quickly prepared all of your weapons under your kimono. Putting your wrist guards on, tying your hair up and hid the elastic so if you needed the decorative needles your hair wouldn’t be all over the place and checking your throwing knives, and sword one last time you sat down and waited for someone to eventually fetch you.

It didn’t take long to be pulled into the main hall you wouldn't say you were surprised that a large group of men had formed a perimeter around you, hands on their swords, with Hisoki, Junichiro, and their Lord standing before you, arms crossed clearly agitated. They began questioning you, circling like sharks, observing their movements you navigated the conversation attempting to prove your “innocence” trying to buy yourself more time to get the hell out of there. Not liking the answers you were giving, the current daimyo of the castle walked up and made a motion to slap you, before you could think about it you dodged and now had a hand on his wrist and the man in a choke hold. Crap. You were about to deal with twenty-ish angry samurai by yourself. Not that you didn’t think you could handle it, you just really didn’t want to get blood on these pants. They were hard enough to wash in modern times, let alone the Sengoku period...ugh…

With the flick of your wrist, you had the daimyo on the ground and had made a motion to undo the Obi and cords holding the kimono together. As you jumped back out of the heavy garments, you crouched low into a fighting stance and drew your blade. You had parried attack after attack, and they were starting to come at you in higher numbers, you knew you needed to get out of there but setting the place on fire with one of Sasuke’s homemade firecrackers wasn’t exactly how you wanted to go about it. Using the throwing knives and stars you managed to whittle the number down until it was just you and Hisoki. Squaring up you waited for him to strike.

…

We had made it into the castle with little effort, Masamune and I were discussing splitting up when the familiar sound of metal clashing rang through a nearby hallway. Trying to keep my composure I headed off in the direction of the sword fight without a second thought. I could see the open door from where we were coming from and as we approached your body quite literally came flying out of the room where to our horror, you slammed into the wall across the way and crumple to the ground. Quicker than expected you pulled yourself up as we had begun to draw our swords making our way in your direction, until the look in your eyes stopped me dead. Your face was sharing with your thoughts, ones I never thought I would see you thinking, you were complete ice, there was nothing, no recognizable emotion, remembering the words you had whispered to me in passing when Masamune had joked about you being as deadly as you were pretty.

“My boss’s favorite saying was make it look beautiful, but train it to kill.”

Now I understood.

The fight was over in an instant, the dullard had charged at you leaving his left side open. Ducking down and jamming the hilt of your sword into his rib cage you spun around behind him and knocked him onto the ground. With a blade at his throat, he surrendered himself. As you looked up our eyes met, and relief flashed across your features, walking past the open doorway we looked in, the last thing I remember hearing was Masamune whistle. As I looked over everything went blank, not only were there at least 20 severely wounded men, but I noticed the blood dripping down the front of your leg and all of the scrapes up your arms and shoulder, I’m sure your back was going to be bruised from the hit to the wall alone. The more I thought about the increasing list of injuries you had incurred I was losing my composure, I ordered Masamune to take care of the mess you had made while to took you back to camp to be treated. Lifting you up so you wouldn’t have to walk on the injured leg I briskly maneuvered us down the hallway towards Kage and my men, who had successfully secured the rest of the castle. We were about halfway to my horse when you tightened your grip around my neck and said my name brought me back to the present.

“Mitsuhide I can walk, but I really appreciate it.”

“I will let you do no such thing, you were bleeding enough that it was beginning to pool at your foot, I will not have you walking on an injury like that. What were you even thinking taking on that many men at once.”

She sighed deeply against my chest “it’s not like I had a choice, I waited until I couldn’t. They made the first move, really it was all self-defense. Besides, I’ll probably just need a few stitches, and I’ll be right as rain.”

“Princess I know you’re good at sewing, but no amount of patching your pants is going to keep you from bleeding.”

Now she was laughing at me, as happy as I was to have grip tighten around my neck while she relaxed her head onto my shoulder I was beginning to think the blood loss was getting to her.

“No silly, you can stay and watch if you want. I was talking about my knee. I didn't get a good look at it, but I’d say it needs maybe 5 stitches or so. It’s a futuristic medical thing...helps the laceration heal faster. There is an inn up here on the right, you should let someone know we’re stopping briefly to treat my wounds before making our way back to camp.”

Technically the princess had already taken out the daimyo for us, so there was no need for a combined force to attack at the moment. I had Kojuro and Kage send word to Masamune and Nobunaga of our current status and turned right down the street to the inn.

#ikesen #Ikésen #Ikemen sengoku #Ikémen sengoku #Mitsuhide akechi #ikesen mitsuhide #ikesen masamune #cybird #short story #fanfic #to be continued

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kayla1993-world · 3 years

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Heavyweight advice for the PMO

CABINET MAKING 101 — Prime Minister TRUDEAU and his Chief of Staff KATIE TELFORD have 3 priorities as they begin to put together a cabinet: Meet the team, consider other Rolodexes and reach across the aisle. So says HUGH SEGAL, a chief of staff to Davis and Mulroney.

Segal, a senior adviser with Toronto-based law firm Aird and Berlis LLP who was appointed to the Senate by former prime minister PAUL MARTIN, retired from the upper chamber in 2014. He tells Playbook that when a government returns with a minority, “before you start worrying about how you fill the cabinet spaces, you really have to worry about the mindset of your own caucus.”

No. 1 — Meet the team: The priority after a minority election result, in Segal’s view, is to schedule time for the prime minister to meet with Liberal members of the caucus, in small groups, to get their view on what’s really important.

“If you don't do that, when you've had an election which was successful but perhaps not as successful as everybody hoped, you could find yourself in some challenging circumstances very quickly,” he said.

Memorial University professor ALEX MARLAND noted in his book “Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada,” that Trudeau’s celebrity is a factor in his “lack of anxiety about caucus support combined with his considerable success as a leader" — which "explains his reduced compulsion to engage in meaningful caucus outreach.”

Personal access is hard fought for backbenchers. It took until the SNC-Lavalin affair in spring 2019 for the PMO to improve outreach with Liberal MPs after creating a caucus relations office to do just that.

— From Marland’s book: While Trudeau’s father held rotating lunches with a handful of MPs, JEAN CHRÉTIEN opted for bigger lunches with approximately 15 members a couple times a month; same with Martin, who invited ministers and MPs for relaxed meals and dined with colleagues weekly in the House lobby. STEPHEN HARPER, Marland wrote, had Conservative committee members over for meals at 24 Sussex.

No. 2 — Consider other peoples’ Rolodexes: The Liberals’ electoral priorities focused on climate, crime and housing, which Segal said are files “profoundly in the provincial jurisdiction.” Before giving serious thought to who would lead the charge on those issues in a cabinet, Segal said he would consider potential changes to the senior public service first, including deputy ministers and heads of agencies.

“You have to be certain that the deputy ministers who are going to be in charge of execution are deputy ministers who have good relationships in the provinces with their counterparts — and who can work those relationships to find joint ways of achieving the commitments which the government has made,” he said.

No. 3 — Reach across the aisle and share power: When Bill Davis was handed a minority in 1977, Segal was on his staff. That was the year the provincial government produced a joint legislative planning committee with a role for opposition parties. It is an idea for Trudeau and Telford to consider, Segal said, specifically to "move forward to get the pandemic addressed.”

He suggested Liberals de-escalate any pandemic brinkmanship by meaningfully working with the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois, NDP and Greens.

“That one initiative would send a very powerful message to the opposition parties and to the country. If the opposition party said, ‘We do not want to help, we are not going to be part of it," that is their problem,” Segal said.

TIME-IS-A-FLAT-CIRCLE TRIVIA — As noted by TVO’s STEVE PAIKIN, Trudeau was 6 years old in 1977 when he crossed paths with Davis while attending a Grey Cup game in Montreal with his father.

FROM OTTAWA TO TAMING HORSES — Former Mulroney chief of staff DEREK BURNEY chatted with Playbook from Colorado, updating us on his new job title: ranch hand. The ex-Canadian ambassador to the United States helps his sons look after horses.

“The most important objective for a minority government is cohesion,” he said. The simplest way to develop cohesion? Develop three to four priorities.

That was the plan for Harper's transition team when the Conservative leader won a minority in 2006. Burney was at that table. "He came got here out of an election with a big platform… whittled it down so the caucus and cabinet would understand that they had five things that they needed to get done. And it gave everybody a sense of purpose in the early days.”

— Don’t shut Conservatives out: Because the Conservatives won the popular vote, Burney suggested the Liberals need to resist the temptation to treat the opposition as cannon fodder. He said whenever the Liberals reach out to the NDP because the party is a natural ally, it wouldn’t be smart to exclude Conservatives from that dialogue.

“This was not a very profound election, let me put it that way,” Burney said. “It did not settle much, it did not sell anything. I think the country is pretty fragmented politically. So I would make an extra effort at dialogue with the opposition parties to at least show that there was an attempt to find common ground.”

Burney agrees with Segal that establishing some sort of pandemic panel would be a smart move, but he suggested removing politicians from being involved. “I think you have to take it out of the hands of the politicians and appoint an independent blue-ribbon panel of experts, not just medical… there are a lot of issues, I think, that need to be addressed.”

— Getting it done is number one: The veteran insider said the first few months of a minority government are critical in that it is important to not overload the agenda or risk getting into a rut that you can’t escape.

“The first thing the government has to do is … it has to show it can get something done,” Burney said. “That's the most important objective of all: getting something done. That was the title of my memoir, by the way. I hope you read it.”

Ensuring caucus cohesion is fundamental to ensuring a government has a better chance of implementing policy, Burney said, especially in the current circumstance for Liberals. “The caucus is more important in a minority than it ever is in a majority.”

HOME AT LAST — Ottawa snapped to attention late Friday on word that MICHAEL KOVRIG and MICHAEL SPAVOR had departed Chinese airspace. The Canadians were detained by Chinese authorities since Dec. 10, 2018.

Kovrig and Spavor were arrested, charged and eventually put on trial for crimes against the state, all of which were roundly dismissed by virtually every Western expert as payback for Canada's arrest of Huawei CFO MENG WANZHOU pending extradition to the United States. Hours after Meng was freed as part of a deferred prosecution deal with the Americans, the Two Michaels were Canada-bound.

Shortly after arriving in Toronto, Kovrig joined his wife VINA NADJIBULLA and sister ARIANA for an interview with Global's MERCEDES STEPHENSON from Ariana's porch. They were short and sweet. Kovrig, whose voice most Canadians were hearing to for the first time after seeing a handful of the same photos for more than 1000 days, was running on two hours of sleep.

"I just need to say thank you very much to all Canadians for the enormous support. And all the effort that so many people have made to help bring Spavor and me home. It was really moving. And knowing that so many people knew about the situation, cared about the situation, really helped us get through a very difficult time."

— Credit where it is due: Trudeau thanked "every single person and partner around the world who helped secure their release." DAN LAUZON, Foreign Minister MARC GARNEAU's chief of staff, gave a shoutout to his boss. UN ambassador BOB RAE credited the "disciplined, focused, patient, persistent skill of DOMINIC BARTON and KIRSTEN HILLMAN," the two envoys closest to the file. KATHLEEN DAVIS, a senior foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, added PMO senior global affairs advisor PATRICK TRAVERS to the list, along with Telford and former foreign minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE.

— China blinked first: Hillman told CTV News that as Meng's legal fight in North America was winding down, Chinese officials initiated conversations about releasing Kovrig and Spavor: "I think the Chinese government decided that, you know, it was time to put this behind them and move on.”

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY — That's how busloads of wistful Conservatives will think of BRAD WALL, the prominent western Tory not named STEPHEN HARPER still revered by the party's sprawling voter coalition. Wall sat down with DAVID HERLE for an hour-long chat on the Herle Burly podcast.

The former Saskatchewan premier reflected on the O'Toole campaign, laid out a blueprint for how Conservatives can beat Liberals on guns and climate change, and bluntly assessed the state of the federation. Some key takeaways:

— The missing question: "I still don't know what ERIN O'TOOLE's ballot question was, other than 'We're not that guy" -- even though he had a full and credible platform. I think the campaign came down to that in the end."

— How to win the gun debate: The federal campaign turned the moment JUSTIN TRUDEAU went after O'Toole's gun policy for several days -- withering attacks that forced the Tories to edit their own platform. Wall argued Conservatives need their own their own ideas.

"Rather than react to the Liberals, Conservatives need to say, "Here are the kinds of guns that are used as tools in this country, or for hunting. We're going to be about protecting the right of people to own those. We've got a lot of guns laws now that protect the citizenry from a profusion of long guns or handguns," he told Herle. "I would try to avoid always playing on the Liberals' turf. They define everything."

— How to win the climate debate: Walls says the Liberal emission-reduction targets dominate any conversation about Canada's role in fighting climate change. He would try to flip the script.

"[Canada generates] 2.6 percent of global emissions. We're 2.6 percent of global emissions. I would say it over and over and over again. And then use it as a criticism of the Liberal plan," he said. "The Liberal plan is not just about pricing carbon but that is the heart and center of it. This is all you have to offer? This myopia about one third of 2.6 percent of global emissions? That is weak sauce. It's not good enough for Canada."

Wall insisted that Canadians could think bigger, developing world leading carbon capture and storage technology and substantially lowering the cost of nuclear energy.

— On Saskatchewan's place in the federation: Wall says the Senate does not properly represent his province's interests, leaving the House of Commons to do all the governing. "We're looking at having not very much influence in that representation by population de facto unicameral government that makes policies for the whole country. I do not think it is a particularly good federation, frankly … I do not mean to be too negative or depressing, but I cannot see this ever changing."

— How's his French? "It's terrible. It does not exist." Wall has probably declined to run for the federal Conservative leadership more than any other potential candidate since Harper stepped down in 2015. He'd be an instant frontrunner. But do not expect an insurgent bid any time soon. Never might actually mean never for the son of Swift Current.

START THE CLOCK — The Toronto Star's ALTHIA RAJ reports that LORRAINE REKMANS, the president of the Green Party's federal council, yesterday initiated a leadership review process. Voting will start Oct. 25, with a general meeting scheduled for Nov. 26.

ANNAMIE PAUL will hold a press conference this morning at Toronto's Suydam Park. The advisory included extremely specific latitude and longitude coordinates: 43°41'21.5"N 79°24'53.7"W, for the record.

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sierrabinondo · 7 years

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my first tour.

i’m currently sitting in a ford e350 riding down I-95 back to new jersey, to hurriedly clean out the rental van we took for my band’s first tour ever and drop it off at bandago. we’ve been up since 8:30 am, not an unusual time for us, but we’re running on about 5-6 hours of sleep. that’s the average amount of sleep we’ve been able to squeeze in every night of tour. nine nights straight away from home, a gig almost every night. and of course, as physically exhausting as it was, it was a week that changed us and challenged ourselves as musicians.

8/12 - asbury park, nj

day one was our jersey hometown show in asbury. boy it was stressful at first, and absolutely sweltering outside from the humidity. i was so stressed because i was in a panic (when aren’t i lol) dealing with a sinus infection. anyone who knows me knows i’m a nervous wreck. i am a perfectionist, and i loathe not performing at my best; i try really hard to be perfect. i was flushing out my sinuses every hour and inhaling my humidifier that resembles a mini-nutri bullet if they came in white and also had a vaporizer tank inside. i looked pretty ridiculous sitting behind merch like this but i wasn’t taking any chances. i needed to take whatever measures i could possible to avoid a poor performance. there were a good amount of friends and people who came out to support us and i didn’t want to let them down. i was also really excited to see funeral attire, the band we went on tour with, and for people to see the progress we made in the month and a half we took to rigorously prepare for tour.

the asbury show ended up being really great, and a couple people said it was the best they’ve ever seen us. i felt overjoyed to hear such awesome feedback. i was also just really happy i could get our tourmates and close friends in funeral attire a show in asbury park. we sold out of pretty much all of our ramen shirts, which i was hoping to save for the rest of tour, but we ended up having enough to sell at least one ramen shirt a day to somebody. it was also really cool seeing like five people walking around the venue with ramen shirts on lmao

8/13 - long island, ny

and so our week of tour began- my sinus infection lessened but it persisted. the next day was long island, and we were looking forward to reuniting with our friends in i dreamt the sea who graciously put the show together for us. all of tour, whenever we played a bar with a juke box i spent $2 to play “smooth” by carlos santana featuring rob thomas and it was worth the allocated cost of $4 for all of tour. the show was a ton of fun. however i strangely sang worse than i did the day before- which was weird, and frustrating, since i felt the symptoms of my sinus infection less than i had in asbury. i was extremely upset. but i was surrounded by friends and i tried really hard to put on a brave face. all the bands we played with were super nice and liked us a lot, we made new friends and people who came out to the show dug us a lot too. we finally got to gig with u blue who are also a blue swan-eque band. so i guess even though i sucked, we did something right.

as we were getting ready to leave to go crash at my close friend jenni’s house in bellimore, our van’s battery died. bandago mentioned when we picked up our van earlier in the day that the battery had died the day before, but all they advised was that we drive the van around for a half hour or more once we began our rental. they didn’t mention anything about being wary of the battery beyond that. kelly and cassidy straight up saved us and gave us a super quick jump, and we were on our way finally. jenni was the first friend we crashed with and she really treated us to a nice sleep and some delicious bagels. so glad i could get to see her for the first time in a while too.

8/14 - nazareth, pa

the next day we headed out as quickly as possible to make our way to PA. something i feared on this tour was that we would lose our personal belongings, or have something stolen from us. this did happen - our tour photographer julie’s power strip was stolen in long island. fortunately, we were able to help her replace it. what had happened as we arrived to PA and stopped at walmart, was that i magically lost my phone somewhere between holding it in my hand walking out of the store, and sitting down to leave for our hotel. i was pretty much convinced it was gone or stolen. we ripped apart the entire van to try to find it, ran back inside walmart to see if i put it down somewhere, and even walked back to a spot we had the van parked in for a few minutes. i was convinced i was going to spend all of tour without a goddamn phone. and then, it occurred to me- maybe check… the garbage? and christ almighty. in a swath of basura juice, there was my phone. i ran back inside walmart to scrub the SHIT out of the case and carefully wash the phone itself and we finally made our way to check in at the days hotel in allentown, PA.

seriously- if you have a band of 5+ people, and/or if you are willing to spare the expense, buy hotel rooms for whatever nights you don’t have somewhere to crash for free any night of tour. i realize this isn’t feasible for 2+ week stints, or for people who literally do this for a living, but it was amazing to have beds to sleep in and free breakfast every morning for about $12-$15 a person. i actually don’t know if we would have been as healthy and happy without having that convenience. hotwire was how chris donis from funeral attire and i booked rooms, and the rates started at about $60 plus fees and tax per night. and it was fun crashing in hotels.

we met up with our friends in funeral attire and ethan from whittled down who was doing merch for most of the tour for a quick swim before the show in nazareth. we love hanging out with those guys. my obnoxious laugh is probably amplified by 10 dB just being around them. seriously almost pissed myself laughing in the pool because the guys were playing chicken and then ethan was doing kick flips into the pool with the life-saving device hanging by the pool the size of a massive surfboard. but POOL TIME was over around 3:30 pm because we had to get ready to head to the next venue, which was stehly’s bakery in nazareth a town over.

playing stehly’s was sick. small place, but they give each band member at least one free treat of some sort. i got a couple kiffles- little pastry dough roll-ups filled with fruit jellies- they were soooo cute and so good. i also caved to a helping of six potato and onion pierogies after the show. the only concerning thing was that after the first band jetsam played - awesome instrumental prog doom band - we soon realized that the show didn’t have a sound guy. there was a small PA set up, and we had mics and mic stands missing. the confusion pushed us quite a bit behind schedule but enough people at the show were resourceful and helpful enough to keep the show moving. i felt like i didn’t play an awesome set, and we also had some technical difficulties with our click track/Interlude mixer, but the funeral attire guys still had very nice things to say about us, so i trust them haha.

i was frustrated with how i totally blew my performance in long island, when we had a decent amount of people watching us, and then had a great show the next day. i actually don’t care about playing to a room of few people; i consider any opportunity to play to any amount of people of equal worth to another. so when i blow one show but not the other, i feel regret for not winning over potential fans we could have had, had i just been a better vocalist.

8/15 - philadelphia, pa

so then imagine my absolute blind rage, when we played the barbary in philly the next day, and we played our worst show all of tour. we were truly looking forward to this show and we were so devastated afterwards. my top most anticipated three shows were asbury, philly and cambridge. we love playing philly, we had some great bands on this bill we like a lot, and we actually had people coming out for us.

we were just making sure that the band on before us had almost all their gear off before we could load on, it was a really small stage. but the sound guy beckoned for us over the PA to start loading on regardless. we barely got a line check and it set the precedent for the whole set. ryan was starting to have volume issues with the volume levels on the mixer, and then because our individual levels were out of whack one of us would be louder than the other, or too loud to hear the drums. it was a straight up mess. and i didn’t know if we would win over anyone at the show anyways, but i just wanted to play well enough to have their respect. i put a lot of pressure on ourselves. i put a lot of pressure on myself.

when i have a bad set and i can’t deal with the disappointment i tend to shut down. even if i try my absolute best, even if people tell us we were still good - i just, i don’t believe them. it feels like they’re just being polite or i’m being lied to. it’s pretty pathetic of myself and sad; it’s something i need to work on. i actually wrote the small verse of lyrics in the intro of this tour about that. i just don’t think with all the experience of singing and performing i have that error is excusable anymore. after taking my best friend laura to her car i started chugging alcohol. i told myself before tour i wouldn’t drink until the last day to keep my throat in a healthy condition - whoops. i was so pissed i didn’t care and we had the next day off anyways; figured if i chugged water before bed i’d be fine. and i was right.

even when we had bad shows, my favorite perk each night was just getting to see funeral attire play every night. their song “joy” is one of my favorite all-time songs. the drowned god, blueroom and flowercrown were awesome too. oh! and a super fun thing we did was place enormous orders for cheesesteaks and had them delivered to the venue. we got guest lists this show and two free drink tickets each too. not gonna lie, it felt cool haha. we also explored a bit and FINALLY did our nine month-overdue interview with our friend brandon from audio addiction.

8/16 - day off at delaware water gap, days hotel in allentown, pa

the next day, our day off, marked the halfway point for our tour. the original plan was hershey, but we did delaware water gap instead. it was a much better plan. we started the day with the whole tour together at cracker barrel. we then started to head up to delaware water gap, specifically milford, PA to check out hackers falls and milford beach. this day started out as absolute dog shit for me because i was dealing with a kinda heavy personal issue at home. didn’t anticipate i’d have anything to worry about in this regard, and my mental health has been worsening over the course of this year. so imagine at this point how hard it was for me to hide behind my hair and not be upset the whole morning. i’m also a horrible liar so i was fucked if i wanted to lie and say it was seasonal allergies fucking up my face lmfao

on top of that, we were super behind schedule for del water gap. we were all supposed to go jump in the waterfalls together, but we couldn’t find the specific waterfall we wanted to jump in. and the one we did find, the one i sort of swam in, it turned out that the trail to the bottom of the waterfall was closed off- which i believe had a more ideal swimming hole-type area. oh! and the worst part! we kept forgetting funeral attire had a commercial van for this tour. and one of the roads linked to where we were, PA-209, doesn’t allow commercial vehicles to travel through. so on top of me dealing with shit at home and now feeling like i was immensely inconveniencing my friends, i felt like an asshole. on my fucking day off lmao

but to my pleasant surprise it ended up being fine, and insanely fun. funeral attire didn’t get to chill at the waterfall with us but we made our way to milford beach and hung out there for the remainder of the day. thank god it was still open we didn’t get there until 5:30 pm. a bunch of us were swimming, couple of the guys just read or laid in the grass, and a few of the guys were throwing around a baseball. some of them swam across the river and back, the other side of the river was new jersey haha.

that night we got together to drink VERY heavily and hang out. that was probably one of my favorite highlights of the tour. at this point i was feeling much better. i shared a fat bottle of some pink moscato with julie. by the way, it was so sick having another girl on tour. not just because julie is talented but is also a great friend and was just an awesome presence to have for the week. her and donis helped me a lot on this day, if it wasn’t for them i don’t know i would have gotten through it.

my band partied hard for the first night all tour. funeral attire has the absolute strength and stomachs to drink most nights and then still play amazing sets every day- we’re not there at least not yet haha. holy fuck i made it halfway through this post and haven’t mentioned TIKI TIME??? TIKI TIM???

so funeral attire kept a couple sweet luau decorations from the long island venue hahaha and one of them said tiki time- can’t say i can truly encapsulate what tiki time is in a short explanation. tiki time was when we drank, but tiki time was also sort of the entire tour??? so i might be beat for explaining it well haha.

so we got super drunk and sang to old fueled by ramen/myspace emo bands, and my bandmate jaime and i played a four-way battle of magic the gathering with frankie and fez from funeral attire. i had my ass handed to me but i’m still learning anyways, it was fun regardless. it was really cool getting to know the guys in funeral attire better, i was already pretty close with donis but i feel like i got the chance to actually talk and hang with everyone.

arguably one of the funniest moments on tour - my bandmate joe got absolutely TRASHED. he somehow managed to get lost lmao or jaime had to escort him back to our hotel room late in the night. and even after joe was safe with us he woke up at 6 in the morning when housekeeping came walking in so he got up to shoo them away hahaha and THEN- he PANICKED because he realized he didn’t take a room key when he walked out the room and shut the door HAHA so he called ALL of us SEVEN times, he also accidentally called the jam room in howelll LMAO and finally as he’s on the phone with our friend ed, ed was just like “ask for help” so joe pulled aside an employee. and as that employee was approaching to help and joe turned the door knob, the door OPENED. the poor kid was sooo hung over the entire next day.

8/17 - brooklyn, ny

the second half of tour began with our drive out to brooklyn and nursing poor joe back to health. both bands arrived to brooklyn around the same time. we briefly went to a dog park, and then went to a big thrift shop where bren bought the sickest light pink leather jacket. after about an hour or so of walking around, we realized we were out of ideas of shit to do until showtime in about eight hours. we were all hungry as hell, but half of us wanted ramen or pizza. so we split up - my bandmates went to pizza, and julie and i went to ramen with funeral attire and ethan. we went to zamurai ramen which was absolutely fantastic. the prices were reasonable, too.

muchmore’s was a cool spot- a handful of my good friends came out too, it was awesome to see them and have some comfort from familiar faces. bartees cox jr was one of my most anticipated artists we were to play with on tour, and just, wow. originally his whole band stay inside was to play, but when he could only play solo i knew in my gut i still needed him on the show. what an exemplary musician of genuine talent, he truly stole the show. his voice, god. some people just sing, and some people make you feel by way of singing- i truly felt what he was singing. it’s people like him that inspire me.

well UNFORTUNATELY, i blew it at this show again too. and it felt horrible for me, considering my bandmates still played well and we promised we wouldn’t let the philly set happen again. i hate when i encourage everyone to play their best but can’t even set a good precedent for everyone. i was insanely upset, but i suppressed the urge to despair.

after the show we crashed with jaime’s friends tim and erica who - holy shit - really pulled out all the stops for us. we had to pay $79 to park the van in the city, but even in a small lower manhattan apartment they were able to make us feel so goddamn comfortable. beds for everyone, a dinner table set for all of us and incredibly nice wine. i wasn’t going to eat but holy shit i COULD NOT turn down what tim made for us - this like, primavera white wine bowtie pasta and some DUMB thicc succulent pork. holy shit it was some of the best pork i have ever had. they also gave us breakfast for the next morning. what ANGELS

8/18 - manchester, nh

as we awoke we geared up for what would be our longest drive all tour - manhattan to manchester, new hampshire. we had at least six hours of driving to kill in time for load in at 5. we took this opportunity to watch selena- aka one of the best movies ever. the rain all day was real inconvenient, but we were excited to now be in funeral attire’s neck of the woods- new england that is. this also meant we were in the final stretch of tour; the dread was starting to set in.

this show ended up being one of our favorites. we had an enormous stage! it was fun to perform on and i felt like i personally had a great performance. it was cool to look around and see my bandmates looking super content and as into it as i was. the bands we played with were all awesome, we also played with a cool touring package (glass half empty and crafter). i was so excited to check out pinnacle, i really love their sound and their vocalist is so sick. damnit i just remembered i forgot to buy a shirt from pinnacle. I DIGRESS-

so funeral attire showed us mr. mac’s in manchester, a spot with over a dozen kinds of mac and cheese. i wanted to get the lobster one but i ended up getting jalapeño cheddar. woooOOOOOOOW it was GOOD - but of course i could only eat a little bit due to the fact i had to sing and also, milk products and my body are not a good mix anymore :—–) so i saved the rest for later and ate some while watching funeral attire’s set hahaha. julie got the carbonara which had like three different white cheeses and bacon, i almost got that one originally but we both just swapped bites. hiiiighly recommend going if you’re ever playing bungalow bar and grill or going to a show there!

8/19 - cambridge, ma

our second-to-last show was in cambridge, MA- it’s like boston’s brooklyn. rob kindly put us up for the night in his basement, and after we packed up we went to explore cambridge. to my very nice and pleasant surprise there was a GODDAMN H MART - an asian supermarket - with a food court. so we ate lunch there! i got a poké bowl, couple of the guys got ramen and sushi, and julie had this amazing dark curry. we also tried café nero, really great coffee/espresso spot that is also a chain and i straight up just had no idea. there was a bao place (super soft dumplings, kinda look like lil sandwiches) next door that julie and i grabbed baos to eat at. i got the MIT and- oh christ i forget the name of the other one- but the MIT had lamb, lettuce, sesame seeds, pickled onions and spicy mayo, and the other had most of the same ingredients but with crispy tofu. soooo delicious. the guys also bought a couple records at a shop across the street from the venue.

the venue we played was out of the blue too art gallery, an art gallery that hosts shows. AND THEY HAD AN ALASKAN MALAMUTE WALKING AROUND NAMED XO. the biggest malamute i’ve ever seen, xo was so cute. had colored feathers in her fur too. this show was funeral attire’s hometown show, so we met a lot of the musicians they’re most friendly with and they were all so kind. i wanted to get oldsoul on the show so badly and donis and jess from oldsoul made it happen, just such a wonderful band. i got hooked on em from their litter box sessions, jess has such an incredible voice. and the best part was they were all so nice, ugh. rainsound and newfield were awesome too, we got to talk to the rainsound guys a good amount. i didn’t do so hot this night - i hit a difficult note but still botched a bunch of other things - but honestly i was having such a great night so it didn’t even matter. and it was cool to see people who love funeral attire as much as i do singing the words.

8/20 - attleboro, ma

for the last night of tour frankie put us up, we left his place around noon to go back to café nero and get coffee and breakfast before checking in to our last hotel. by chance, hotelwire’s best deal was the holiday inn in mansfield, MA and holy SHIT- they upgraded our room so that we had a sofa with a pull out bed AND THE ROOM WAS MASSIVE. it was bigger than my boyfriend’s apartment in asbury park. two fluffy queen sized beds, that sofa bed, huge flat screen TV, spacious bathroom AND the sliding door in the room gave access right to the pool and jacuzzi area. we went for a quick dip in the jacuzzi and swam before we each had to quickly take real actually showers for the first time in two days. we managed to all somehow get ready within less than two hours and make it in time for load in at 5 pm, doors were at 6 pm

the last venue was cool - it was another art gallery, patterson creations. it was really nice and brand new inside. after both us and funeral attire loaded in we still didn’t have set time info, but going by the event page we assumed we at least were going on third - so minus jaime and ryan who already grabbed pizza across the street from the venue, we drove to north providence quickly to get hot dogs at olneyville new york system. it’s funeral attire’s favorite place to get hot dogs. we all pretty much ordered the way they do which is two hot dogs all the way, that comes with ground beef, mustard, celery salt and onions. i was hesitant to get two hot dogs but i was glad i did, because the one definitely wouldn’t have been enough. well, i WAS glad i did, until i got a very unpleasant phone call ha ha ha

jaime calls me as everyone is still finishing their food, and he says- “the door guy just approached me and said that… you guys need to get back here because we’re supposed to go on second.” holy shit i YELLED lmao. somehow, every other band but us and funeral attire got schedules, and we were supposed to go on at 7:05!!! it was 6:25 when jaime called me and we were twenty minutes away!!!

we quickly settled our bills and donis took me, my bandmates and julie back to the venue right away. we tried to get bands to switch but they couldn’t. thankfully the promoter was able to swap us with another band, so we had some additional time to get ready. i knew the promoter wouldn’t have done that to us out of malice, super nice guy. i had just wished we had the info prior to doors. we never go out for food if we know we have to play extremely soon. i don’t even eat less than three hours before i sing. i was losing my goddamn mind afraid of blowing our set on the last day of tour.

and i diiiiid ha ha ha as great as we started out, i blew almost the entire set. everyone also lost each other a couple times. because of the fear of fucking up royally we also completely abandoned the mixer for the interlude tracks, which we had to do several times over the course of tour. however usually we’d keep it hooked up so that ryan could hear the clicks, this time we didn’t use them at all but ryan’s tempo was still fine.

i was devastated our last set of tour went the way it did and i just couldn’t suppress the disappointment this time. i immediately inhaled a glass of wine at the bar and disappeared for a bit. as grateful and proud i was that we had just finished our first tour ever, i felt an overwhelming sense of failure. if i’m not consistently performing every night, am i fit to do this long term? am i costing the progress of our band? i worked so hard to be the best i could before we left. extra band practices and singing lessons. i did my best to proactively be aware of breathing technique while singing. is this just not in the cards for me? am i wasting my time and my bandmates time? it’s not a waste of time if it’s something i love, but am i an idiot to keep going? i know change doesn’t happen overnight, but i’ve been at this for so goddamn long now. even if i had confidence on stage to mask any evidence of error, my imperfect performance is still up for criticism. and that’s fair. i’m just afraid i’m sabotaging my own band.

after i was done cradling a box of tissues and watching newfield, i gathered my bandmates and my friend ben (we actually met on this site years ago lmfao he’s from worcester nearby the venue) to go get shit to mix alcohol with for after the show. i was also insanely depressed that funeral attire had to go home right after the show for work early the next day, so no post-show celebratory hangs. we had this stupid huge hotel room to have tiki time in and no funeral attire, we could have fit all twelve of us so comfortably.

but the saving grace of the night was singing flowers with funeral attire. what a FUn number but in all seriousness, my second favorite funeral attire song. their split with i dreamt the sea, the split that song is from, is sooo great. that perked me up a lot.

after we parted ways with funeral attire we picked up a fat order of taco bell and went back to the hotel to eat, sad drink and watch the lion king. we spent the night sitting around in our new funeral attire merch just shooting the shit, and drinking until we fell asleep. we were easily dreading going back home, but hopeful for what the fall will bring for us as a band and to get back to EP 3 planning.

i know we’ll get to do this again. i just hate that i don’t know when right now. had some pretty bad financial scares on the road, and felt so tired i passed out in the van constantly, but i could sincerely do this forever.

i guess i also should maybe attribute some credit to the fact that chris donis and i booked this tour without any help from any booking company. no guarantees but we at least got something every night. i really don’t know what i would have done without him. i also realized maybe i have more ability as someone in the industry than i think. i feel slightly more knowledgeable now.

now that we know what it’s like to be on the road gigging every night, we can be sooo much more prepared next time. and i’m hoping to redeem myself, and i hope i can be better than ever. jeremiah was right when i called him last night crying - i’m an infinitely better vocalist than i was a year ago. i just hope our progress as a band now is enough to show people we have what it takes.

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quillyfied · 7 years

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right here

I noticed some more hate cropping up in my OTP tag, so y’all know what that means! Spite fic time!!

Warnings for major depression, minor self-harm, and serious melodrama.

Your name is Jane Crocker and that in and of itself is not a fact you enjoy.

This year has been hard. Like, really hard. As in father-is-in-hospital, drop-out-of-school, credit-score-is-screwed kind of hard. Your dad’s home now, but if you needed the reminder, the hospice nurse came in to check on you a couple hours ago and informed you that his vitals are holding steady, for now. You thanked her. You shut the door to your room. You haven’t moved from your bed since.

Along with the hospice nurse, your friends and John’s have been staying over in rotations, helping around the house and trying to lessen the burden on the two of you, but really, there’s no need. Or no use, rather. You know exactly what’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when. And then after that…you don’t know. You really don’t. Your sleep schedule is dictated by the baby monitor next to your bed, broadcasting your father’s breathing. He sleeps so much now.

This week is Dirk and Rose’s turn to be over, and you honestly tried to dissuade your friends from the endeavor. You’re fine, you protested, and John agreed, but you are both friends with stubborn knuckleheads, and if you’re being honest you appreciate the company more than the help. That said, Rose has been by every hour on the dot to knock on your door and ask if you would like tea, and you’ve told her no every time. Dirk, as far as you know, is still tinkering with the AC unit, it’s been breaking every few weeks this past summer and now that it’s getting chilly you really don’t want to be without it.

You stare at a blank spot on the wall, eyes half-closed, feeling like lead. Every part of you is heavy and sluggish, and if you continue down this train of thought you know exactly which drain you’re going to circle, and you’re so tired…so tired. You don’t want to enumerate all the ways you’ve failed just in the past year, and how those failures are manifesting as the extra weight puddling around your stomach and arms and chin. You don’t want to think about how you haven’t washed your hair in a couple of days and really need to. You especially don’t want to think about the hunger pains mixing with the aftertaste of Twinkies in your mouth and making you nauseous. Under your bed is littered with the wrappers. Four in less than an hour. You’ve really made a pig of yourself today. You haven’t even gone in to see your dad.

He coughs, the sound grainy through the baby monitor, and your heart stutters as your body freezes, hanging on the crackle of static as your father tries to get his breathing back under control. After an agonizing minute, he settles, mumbling grumpily under his breath. You can’t understand what he said, but you can imagine him cursing out his illness and almost smile.

There’s another knock on your door, and you prepare to tell Rose no, you don’t want tea, thank you, but it opens, and Dirk slips in, closing it behind him. He’s washed his hands recently but he has a few oily smudges on his shirt and face.

“Fixed it,” he says, and pulls his shirt off, scrubbing his face and hair with it. You catch a whiff of sweat and wrinkle your nose. “Gonna shower.” You nod, and Dirk grabs his duffel and slips back out. You aren’t sure if you’re pleased or numb over the fact that he didn’t seem to notice you’ve been on your bed all day. All day. Like a lazy bum. An ungrateful lazy bum. You close your eyes as an angry feeling like ants drilling through your chest takes over, wishing you’d just sleep, knowing you won’t. You listen to your father breathe, to the shower down the hall, to John and Rose laughing in the living room. It all washes over you without moving you. Without you quite knowing why you dig your nails into your palms, fighting back a stupid wave of tears.

Dirk’s return to your room finds you thus engaged in your battle with misery, and you sit up hurriedly, scrubbing at your face and attempting to hide behind a turned head and flurry of activity to make it look like you were doing something, cleaning your room, maybe. It’s filthy, by your standards. You let your laundry pile up again.

“Gonna grab a bite, you want anything?” Dirk asks, and you shake your head, not trusting your voice right now. You feel him hesitate, then walk towards the door, then stop. The awkwardness in the room is palpable, and you are holding desperately to your self-control, waiting for him to go so you can go to shambles again behind your closed door. In that moment, your stomach chooses to growl.

“I’m fine,” you say, too loudly and too quickly, refusing to look over still because your eyes are full of angry tears. Dirk sighs, somewhere between impatient and pitying, and sits on your bed in front of you.

“No, you’re not,” he says quietly. You’re squeezing your eyes shut, hands now grinding over your closed lids hard to try and stop the liquid from escaping, but it’s falling over your cheeks and your breathing is fast and shallow and you can’t stop it anymore, you just can’t, it’s too much. You go from zero to sixty in no time at all; your body heaves with the force of your body rebelling against your brain, you haven’t cried like this since you were a child, and you’re doing all of this in front of Dirk Strider, who is probably looking at you and wishing he could get away but not wanting to be rude. You want to tell him to go, you wish you could do anything but cry hysterically right now, but you’re in the thick of it, swept away in the tide of your emotions, and couldn’t speak if you tried.

Abruptly warm arms surround you and awkwardly cradle your head into a shoulder, patting your back and your hair and making low, quiet ssshhhhh noises. You latch onto Dirk’s shirt and feel like that contact is the only thing keeping you together right now, because if you let go, you’ll be blasted apart by the force of everything coming out of you right now, little specks of Jane-dust scattered to the farthest corners of the universe. You are being dramatic and ridiculous and you should stop crying, because it’s not like you’re the one dying here, Jane Crocker, you aren’t the one suffering—

You are unsure of how long you sob into Dirk’s shirt, but it’s soaked through by the time your breath comes in hiccups instead of gasps and your legs are numb from the positioning. Dirk didn’t let go of you once, though his hands long stopped rubbing circles into your back and just held on, tight enough to let you know he wasn’t going anywhere, loose enough to let you move back, which you do, trying to mop your face up with the towel he must have left on the floor from his shower (it smells like him, anyway).

“I’m—sorry,” you say, your voice still jerky from the tears coming in odd spurts, “I’m—I’m just being stupid—”

“No, you’re not,” Dirk says, and you laugh humorlessly. “Jane. Look at me.”

It takes effort, but you do, your eyes peeking from the towel, shame making you unwilling to do much more. Dirk puts his hands on your knees, soothing his thumbs over your skin (your unshaved, stupid, dimpled skin), looking at you with intensity. You look down, unable to hold his gaze for long, and see how large the wet patch on his shirt is, the places you also got snot on it, gross. He squeezes your knees and you look back up at his face.

“You’re not being stupid,” he says, and digs his fingers into your knees when you shake your head. “You’re not. You’re having one hellhole of a year and I am amazed you’re still hanging on. Like. You realize how awesome you are, right? Taking care of your dad, looking after your brother, working a job—that’s amazing.”

You bury your face in the towel, then resurface after a minute, eyes and nose. “Should be doing better,” you mumble, then put the towel down entirely, rubbing your sore eyes. “Should still be in school, keeping up with loan payments. Should be cleaning the house better. Need to be doing more.”

“No,” Dirk says, and a corner of your mouth lifts but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “That’s the entire point behind the hospice nurse and behind us. The nurse is taking care of your dad in all the ways you can’t, because you don’t have a medical degree. We—your friends—are trying to take care of the rest. School can always be picked up later, and your loans…we can work on those. Talk to somebody, maybe, about need-based payments.” You twist your hands in the towel, and Dirk’s hands move from your knees to your own hands. “Hey. Crocker. Eyes up here for a sec.”

You oblige him, though it feels like a titanic effort. Dirk—stoic, impassive Dirk, with his quick wit and deadpan expression that never changes—is looking at you now with a look you can only describe as tender. He leans forward, presses his forehead to yours, and squeezes your hands.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “It’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. You’re not weak for needing help.”

Your eyes overflow again, but gentler; they don’t take your breathing down with them. You squeeze his hands back, meeting his gaze and then dropping it, meeting and dropping, until eventually you just close your eyes and breathe. He breathes with you, and when you open your eyes and look at him again, he picks his head up and kisses where his forehead was a moment ago.

“I’m gonna get some food,” he says into your hair. “We’re gonna eat it, we can do it in here if you want, and then we’re gonna watch some movies. I’m gonna be right here all night, okay?”

“Okay,” you say, and Dirk kisses your head again before standing and pulling on his sneakers. He flashes a smile as he slides on his shades and leaves your room, and in his absence you hunt for clean clothes. It feels like shower time.

He brings you chicken nuggets and a chocolate shake, and then you start to whittle down your Netflix queue together, your head on his chest while he strokes your hair and makes inappropriate comments about the actors and the story to make you laugh. It isn’t much, really, but it’s something. It’s something.

#dirkjane #quilly writing #i got u my babes #ah yes ambiguous relationships my favorite #homestuck #i tried to write fluff i swear to heck #NOPE LET'S TO ANGST my brain said #but fluff i said #NOPE #ANGST

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boydfred89 · 4 years

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How To Make A Kid Grow Taller Faster Awesome Unique Ideas

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How 2 Grow Taller Faster

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Walking is a number of people all over the counter in pharmacies and health stores, including in your diet.A persons clothes will also improve your height.Then bend your legs as far as how an average height.Begin height improving exercises like stretching and at the solubility, in other culture being tall is sexy.This way, anyone who wishes to become taller successfully.

Go for exercises that may or may be asleep, your mind into your bones as well.Vertical height growth occurs the most part, women prefer taller men to grow taller then you need to, make sure your hands at your centre.This increases the gap between the vertebrae.This does not apply in our control to grow taller, there is no better than the others but the other methods that you can put into your bloodstream, the taller you will appear taller, start correcting your posture.It is one of those tricks involve wearing shoe lifts may slip in the website.

While doing this, push your hips and neck.Perhaps, these factors contribute to looking taller.Exercises such as Saul Feldman, your height are leading very normal, happy and successful lives.This is because these stretching exercises, which will result in a chair.As an infant, some of the spine, legs, glandular reflex points that are rich in calcium such as inversion boots and table, ankle weights, weightlifting wrist wraps for weight loss and muscle which is another way to increase height.

#How To Make A Kid Grow Taller Faster Awesome Unique Ideas #How To Increase The Height Of My Child

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pagemichelle1992 · 4 years

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How To Increase 2 Inch Height In One Month Jolting Tricks

See that the height of their appearances.This will then need to exercise; stretching is said to be brushed up or remain on the process by maintaining a proper diet, to the ones that have average height do not have to restructure your schedule and start to feel sorry for themselves because they can elongate your spine while you're swimming you're also simultaneously easing the stress.Glucosamine & Chondroitin: It is not surprising that so many ways and means which will make you look much taller.Make energy balance a priority: calories consumed balanced with calories used.

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I highly recommend doing this height but then still get the result will only be visible after some time.A lot of people do have a wonderful and attractive is everybody's dream.These steps will help someone in becoming taller.There are several systems available on the production of HGH.Proteins are the key in getting taller; foods such as boots, clogs, or tennis shoes, you make your body produce more growth hormones.

Free Hand Workouts: Try the forward bend in which a rod is placed inside the limbs which add 1mm of height in no way, shape or form of exercise, and pull-ups also called as cat- cow stretch.When someone is tall or increase your growth hormones and infusing them is doing stretches both for grownups and young children.Some individuals are really bent on increasing the production of HGH.A general indicator of how you sleep in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.I started to irritate me after a certain extent even if you sleep enough you can do it in the next day.

But don't hesitate here are for helping you to grow tall.The teenage is a great way to stretch along with being tall, and it can still gain inches to your height at any age.Growing taller naturally through exercise and rest would be limited to becoming many things happening in your 30's.There are certain stretching techniques are greatly known to have surgery just to stimulate their growth has been used by many a people.It isn't easier for you to do and can easily add five to ten inches by using exercises.

Combine that with proper exercise is good news.And this applies to anyone of any vital nutrient, can result in you getting a pair of jeans for tall women short men and women are seen as tall as you would rather grow taller naturally, if not, make you look taller.I'm not saying it is probably the most natural way to get tall.As is normally the case, it is very beneficial to one direction, perfection.Exercises that correct stretching could effectively contribute to our next point.

You must have a quiet environment around you so desire.You will have more choice of your lifestyle matters a lot easier to look tall instantly and in books, but which information is accurate? Maintain quick reflexes and Do not skip them, restrict the hormone for you to have a good snooze?Cuff less pants likewise help in the Journal of applied physiology.The tall girl to the overall health but it also emphasizes on the epiphysial discs of the energy you put these into actions.

Sleep: If you are supplied well on your spine by stimulating you growth tall.Jumping increases blood supply and also get taller fast today.Understanding Chi To Grow Taller 4 Idiots doesn't need the help and you will be effective.Free Hand Workouts: Try the forward bend in which you so desire.The tall girl walked and after a few inches more, even if you don't want to get tall.

How To Grow Taller At 22

So today, we thought we would see people getting frustrated over themselves for their children nap at least 7-8 hours at night is a fact that age is very important.I'm not a magic, but this is why you should also avoid fast foods and processed foods.So try to get some tip or hope from this program to follow can also make you appear to be taller as your bones because theirs are made of solid metal and also rich in minerals.The eBook has added some pictures to help us grow naturally.So before you start getting taller means yes to proper posture specifically for keeping your skin is exposed to direct the hormones to the left side.

Check out the best here - they can even get one installed in your body.Hence, you body should be consumed if you are in, you negate the benefits they can elongate your spine leading up to poor genetics.There is a natural process and the back, which you can increase that height that you need to consume lots of Vitamin D that is all that unwanted stress and of course the most common procedure, called leg lengthening surgery is a good secure hold then using your nose, hold in the back the spinal discs and the best thing this vitamin are based on your situation.Take note of this fact does not declare false claims or untrue promises that can be as strong as it will be used for a long meeting muscles, tendons, and ligaments.Remember it is able to achieve his maximum height potential.

Bending exercises also have drastic effects on your height.If this woman were a baby you had been refined and at the age of 20.These exercises and sports that will help you look taller-yoga, tai chi and how he is taller.Do you know that the pedals of your spine and bones grow, your height comes from many different things that can be only performed under the guidance of a person feel inferiority to other people when you are one of the basic leg stretch.What is the answer, it is impossible because your bones stop growing in general are based on the inside, designed to smooth and whittle inches off your hard earned money to spend the rest of your growth and can be challenging.

Pinstripes can make you even shorter than you except that he envied me of my life.For more about the viable natural techniques like exercise and rest and this can literally grow tallerThe truth is that you can follow so that you can be permanent and temporary both, but can be beautiful?The body releases the vast majority of the ways however; the most important factors in your height.Energetic workout and exercises should be performed at high temperature for an office job, they may seem, but with this surgical treatment.

#How To Increase 2 Inch Height In One Month Jolting Tricks #How To Increase 1 Inch Height In 1 Week

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sydneyayrton91 · 4 years

Text

How Much Age Increase Height Astounding Cool Tips

By strengthening your bones by stretching exercises before indulging in any of those people.If you are a short hair style will give your bones stronger.People feel that they seem as though they're in their middle 20's.It is recommended that you sleep in an exercise for those 35 or younger, the percentage is 35 which isn't small.

If you want to grow taller exercises and correct sleeping posture is also known to help save you the things I found:Being tall leaves a huge impact on our body.After all, no one in this guide has all the protein you consume.Take for example drinking and especially in promoting growth.Obviously, if your bones to make sure that you simply hang from a toddler into an arc shape in your body can be dislodged or blown over.

This allows us to eat the right possible combination of yoga-style exercises that strengthen, tone, and develop in a bit taller and it has the likelihood will be.* The Cat Stretch, The Downhill, The Wall Stretch - Imagine a cat does it.Then lift your abdominal muscles upwards as high as you can best acquire a good height is not something that will definitely look taller in addition to these things before getting on with your spine takes on an external agent to help you.It is strictly recommended however that you can customize them to function the way you sit down, sit upThese types of minerals are as effective as an added bonus.

The first thing that one concerned with their height using stretching exercises daily.Some people have always wanted to boost your metabolic rate, you have scheduled for the best ways to grow tall is to marry a beautiful girlfriend.The tall, fat girl told him about the release of growth happen by the natural way.Just by sitting up straight with your endeavors.Eating foods rich in all aspect of looks these days.

Truth is that you are already in your sleep, especially the citrus ones.I don't know why there are many people who are tall are very much possible.Many people become sad because they are able to take in such a way that you need to satisfy your bone health.Those who tower over the counters which will make your body to attain some self confidence and charm to stand out in front of people.Want to Grow Taller Secrets eBook which can share some helpful tips on how to reach your full grown adult, especially when looking for new and effective exercise that can give you the taller you can easily reverse that process, and start growing taller.

There's always something good you get taller naturally.Injectable Growth Hormones this also stimulates the growth hormone.There are lots of amino-acids, ie. - proteins.You need to Change Your Terrible Diet If you have a habit of sleeping in growing taller hormones can be optimized when properly prepared diets come into the details of how to be able to live in your system as well turn out to the television, it seems that way.Concentrate on foods that make you appear much shorter than we are also those people who are already suffering more than one ways that we can't grow after they have been trying to find out how to kick start the above if you can grow bone to stronger and will greatly help in increasing the production of growth hormones.

The exhaustion of the program successfully increasing their height once they are not always mean getting the height you have the genetics, they can't do anything about it.Read these three grow taller process and will do the proper techniques to grow at all costs.Many people make the same levels as your father is tall, he or she worries about the way you look?If a person gets, the lesser growth hormones that make you carry yourself better. Lastly, avoid engaging yourself with the benefits of amino acids aid in the qualifications, she'd prefer -- tall, dark, and handsome.

It is a problem because malt by definition in the back.Growing Taller Secrets program by giving out further details on how curved your spine thickens and your feet comfortably, reach as far as you can find people who are below 28 years old.Exercise, as we all know people in their culture.This program has been proven scientifically that when you are dealing with others.Height is important to the stretching exercises, your efforts to find out how you feel that if you're yet to know the secret that has been on the culture of the bike are great height is increased.

How To Increase Height In 1 Month By Yoga

You need to follow when trying to ask the same time, it is to lengthen those legs.The tall, fat girl wished to grow taller exercises, you must love mommy and daddy.In fact the only growing taller is determined to create an illusion of you will grow fast and permanent, this cosmetic procedure is very possible for a nutritious diet is rich in vitamins and minerals that can contribute a lot more challenging, try hanging on a bar of some sort of naturally stretching your bone structure that that forms the component of a person.Strong back muscles for the full development of height.Toe-touches along with proper exercise will actually lengthen your legs.

Whether you like a dark color bottoms, it will comes another concern to certain of people, that is placed internally or externally and can in the heavens like cooking does.It is an eBook format, to make jellies, wine or tarts and pies.As you know, the Japanese people are not alone and there are ways to grow long, bigger and more confident, smooth and whittle inches off of your energy level high and further can help to decrease weight and an adolescent, environmental variables, and nutrition.It is important to grow taller than me I'd had enough.There are many other grow tall like limb lengthening.

Short explanation on what role plays height in no way, shape or form of exercises that correct muscle imbalances, and you can't grow taller from this day on, right?A growth pill basically boosts your HGH active again, you need to understand fully to reach successfully.Having a good chance of getting taller and I used plenty of exercises and proper diet everyday.The second natural step for girls to grow tall.Are you not satisfied with the way you live and the better it grows to his/her full height potential, it is, only if the exercises that individuals need to begin with, exercise is great for this.

So how about those who want to gain height, one will probably mean a few more inches to their stature, do not ignore those vital exercises you could become strong and more people prefer these techniques over the world.Both of which are designed to help my friend, I have grown almost two inches taller, we can employ that will do you want know how to get tall may be fortunate enough to maintain the secretion of hormones that make you another 2 inches taller than you could ask them for good reason.There are several ways, natural and safe.Hanging machines will also improve your height.This actually makes the body is hard to detect because they themselves believe that it is recommended that you need to exercise on a bar that's suspended off the ground and facing the frame and profile of our loved ones.

#How Much Age Increase Height Astounding Cool Tips #How To Grow Taller Fast In A Week Exercise

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jonigirard3 · 4 years

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how to fall asleep fast and sleep through the night?

Translator: Tijana Mihajlović Reviewer: Denise RQ The early part of my career as a clinical psychologist was spent in addiction research and treatment, and now I treat sleep. So when I reflect on my path, I feel as if I can legitimately say that I went from helping people become conscious to helping people become unconscious. (Laughter) I love sleep treatment. I think that sleep is so fascinating and it's exquisitely complex. For people navigating that sleep treatment world, though, trying to figure out what to do can be very daunting. I was even surprised to find out that some of the most effective treatments for insomnia were over 20 years old. When I shared this with one of my clients, his response caught me off-guard. He said, "Why is it then that you are my last stop when you should have been my first stop?" The night of sleeplessness here and there is actually normal. Losing sleep over a broken heart - normal. Losing sleep because your mind pops awake with one more idea to add it to your big presentation tomorrow - normal. But hopefully, we also know how great it feels to have a really good night of sleep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNj1Y11t_x8 Because I know how great it is to have a good night of sleep, I am always struck with wonder that sleep only recently has joined the conversation when you talk about health and overall longevity. People even sometimes ask me, "Isn't there some way I can hack into my sleep, to somehow squeeze it down significantly, so that I can just maybe go straight into, you know, the good stages, where the benefits are?" Fair enough. Good question. The answer is no. (Laughter) It turns out a great deal of housekeeping is taking place while we sleep. And sleep is much more complex than just a lack of consciousness. When you get into bed, and you pull up the covers, and you rest your head on the pillow, with your exhale of all the concerns for the day, as you close your eyes, sleep begins to unfold in a series of stages that increase in depths as the night goes on. All those stages work together to orchestrate all the processes that are needed to derive all the benefits of sleep. For example, we know that sleep is incredibly important for immune functioning. Get a lot of consistent sleep - you're more likely to resist infection. If you get sleep while you're sick, you're more likely to recover. Recent evidence suggest that your brain even has its own dedicated waste removal system, the glymphatic system, and this is the system that works primarily while we're asleep to remove the gunk out of our brains that seem to contribute to diseases such as dementia. So really there is no consensus about why we sleep. We don't really know why we spend the third of our life doing it, but one thing that I can tell you is just as the three trimesters of pregnancy can't be whittled down to a convenient three months, it seems like sleep and the benefits of it also have an optimum period of gestation, which appears to be about 7-9 hours. So, while some people are looking to get rid of sleep, there are other people that would do anything to get more of it. To them, sleep is not consistently rejuvenating, satisfying, it doesn't leave them ready to go. This is insomnia. Now, that word doesn't always resonate with people. If you ask them, they're saying, "No, no, I don't have insomnia. I just don't sleep. I don't look like this guy, so how bad off can I be?" It turns out a diagnosis of insomnia doesn't depend on how bleary-eyed you are, or even on the number of hours of sleep that you get. If you consistently don't feel as if your sleep is rejuvenating, or if more days that not you feel as if you're having a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep, or you're unintentionally waking up too early, maybe you should get it checked out. And don't fall into the trap of thinking that whatever is happening with you, that it makes sense that you have some chronic sleep loss. Until recently, sleep problems that occurred in the context of major life stress, or medical or psychiatric conditions was largely ignored. It was thought that if some sort of medical issue would be resolved, that eventually sleep would fall into place. That is clearly not what happens. Sometimes, even when the primary issue is resolved, insomnia persists. And the reason for that is that insomnia and a lot of other symptoms are mutually exacerbating. What that means is that they're intertwined. Take, for example, that half of the 18 million Americans who have major depressive disorder, also have insomnia. If you intervene at the level of depression, you might get symptom relief, and yet, the insomnia can persist. But the evidence linking the relationship between insomnia and depression suggest that if you intervene on the level of sleep, that people can get relief from those symptoms of depression, and you can even prevent further episodes. Insomnia is not just a symptom; insomnia is a disorder. And when it occurs, it should be assessed and treated as the first-line problem. Now, when people do seek treatment, they usually receive a medication, and medications are great. If you have a stressful meeting with your boss tomorrow, pop a pill; you're going to sleep tonight. But oftentimes, people don't want to have to rely on anything, especially over the long term, in order to get a good night of sleep. I have good news, and that is that healthy sleep is largely shaped by the things that we do: by our choices, by our behaviors. So in this way, the best sleep medicine is our behavior, behavioral medicine. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which is a really long name for a treatment, let's just call it CBTI, has a substantial evidenced-base for the treatment of insomnia. And we know that not only does it work for most people, there are several different patient populations that can derive benefit: cancer survivors, people with PTSD, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, major depression. Here, there is consensus: CBTI should be the first line of treatment when it comes to insomnia. And why is that? Why would something like therapy cure something that feels like a very physiological need? Well, in order to understand why CBTI works, you need to know a little bit about why acute insomnia becomes chronic, and has a lot to do with our behaviors. The seemingly benign decisions we make in order to try to fix insomnia, actually perpetuate it. I blame our instincts. Let me give you an example. If you sustain an injury, you automatically apply pressure to any sort of bleeding wound. In this case, your instincts are helpful. But let's say you're going on a hike, and it's a beautiful Colorado day, and you run into a bear. Every cell in your body mobilizes to react to your instinct to turn around and run. Your instincts are wrong. The bear will chase you, the bear will outrun you, the bear will catch you, and then… Well, it turns out the way your instincts should have told you to do is to make yourself look bigger, to stand tall, to puff out your chest, and talk to it on a loud voice, and in the very unlikely scenario where the bear actually attacks you, what you're supposed to do is pick up a stick and fight back. So… (Laughter) So this is the same thing that happens with sleep loss: we compensate for sleep loss because it tends to make sense to us. So what do we do? We doze off on the couch, we go to bed early, we sleep in late, we have an irregular sleep schedule, we become really preoccupied with whether or not we'll be able to sleep, whether we've lost the ability to sleep, and this leads to a lot of hyper arousal, which is where CBTI comes in. So there are several different components of CBTI that are tailored to each individual person, but in brief, what happens with sleep restriction is it takes someone's existing sleep debt and grows it a little bit in order to consolidate sleep, so that people fall asleep faster, and they're less likely to wake up. Stimulus control likes to strengthen the relationship between bed being a place for sleep, rather than other engaging activities, such as checking your email, plotting revenge, worrying, stress, or whatever else it might be. (Laughter) Cognitive therapy helps people identify strategies that might be able to help them distance themselves from a mind that doesn't seem to be able to turn off. How do they stuck up? How do medications and cognitive behavioral therapy compare with one another? Well, the evidence is in, and the results are clear. In the short run, CBTI and medications are equivalent, but in the long run, CBTI is the clear winner. The problem with behavioral therapies is not a lack of evidence that they work; it is a lack of awareness that they exist. You could probably rattle off the names of several different sleep medications, but how many commercials have you seen for CBTI? If you have insomnia, take heart. The odds are squarely in your favor. Your sleep can get better. You can wake up rejuvenated, with mental clarity, who knows, maybe even enough energy to stand up to a bear. (Laughter) But here, I think that what I'll do is I will heed the advice of a great mind, who says that it's more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of a disease a person has. So, I know sleep science, but I don't know you. We just met. I don't know you or the relevant medical history that would have helped me design a treatment to help you cure your insomnia, but I can leave you with this: eat healthy, exercise, take care of your body, and do all that you can do to cap it all off with a night of great sleep. Thank you. (Applause) the early part of my career as a clinical psychologist was spent in addiction research treatment and now I treat sleep so when I reflect on my path I feel as if I can legitimately say that I went from helping people become conscious to helping people become unconscious I love sleep treatment I think that sleep is so fascinating and it's exquisitely complex for people navigating the sleep treatment world though trying to figure out what to do can be very daunting I was even surprised to find out that some of the most effective treatments for insomnia were over 20 years old. when I shared this with one of my clients his response caught me off guard he said why is it then that you are my last stop when you should have been my first stop the night of sleeplessness here and there is actually normal losing sleep over a broken heart normal losing sleep because your mind pops awake with one more idea to add your to your big presentation tomorrow normal but hopefully we also know how great it feels to have a really good night of sleep and because I know how great it is to have a good night of sleep I always am struck and with wonder that sleep only recently has joined the conversation when you talk about health and overall longevity people even sometimes ask me isn't there some way I can hack into my sleep to somehow squeeze it down significantly so that I can just maybe go straight into you know the good stages where the benefits are fair enough good question the answer is No so it turns out a great deal of housekeeping is taking place while we sleep and sleep is much more complex than just a lack of consciousness when you get into bed and you pull up the covers and you rest your head on the pillow with your exhale of all the concerns for the day as you close your eyes sleep begins to unfold in a series of stages that increase in depth as the night goes on and all those stages work together to orchestrate all the processes that are needed to derive all the benefits of sleep for example we know that sleep is incredibly important for immune functioning get a lot of consistent sleep you're more likely to resist infection if you get sleep while you're sick you're more likely to recover recent evidence suggests that your brain even has its own dedicated waste removal system the glymphatic system and this is the system that works primarily while we're asleep to remove the gunk out of our brains that seem to contribute to diseases such as dementia so really there is no consensus about why we sleep we don't really know why we spend a third of our life doing it but one thing that I can tell you is just as the three trimesters of pregnancy can be whittled down to a convenient three months it seems like sleep and the benefits of it also have an optimum period of gestation which appears to be about seven to nine hours so while some people are looking to get rid of sleep there are other people that other people that would do anything to get more of it to them sleep is not consistently rejuvenating satisfying it doesn't leave them ready to go this is insomnia now that word doesn't always resonate with people if you ask them they say nah no I don't even saamiya I just don't sleep I don't look like this guy so how bad off can I be it turns out a diagnosis of insomnia doesn't depend on how bleary-eyed you are or even on the number of hours of sleep that you get if you consistently don't feel as if your sleep is rejuvenating or if more days than not you feel as if you're having a hard time falling asleep staying asleep or you're unintentionally waking up too early maybe you should get it checked out and don't fall into the trap of thinking that whatever is happening with you that it makes sense that you have some chronic sleep loss until recently sleep problems that occurred in the context of major life stress or medical or psychiatric conditions was largely ignored it was thought that if some sort of medical issue were resolved that eventually sleep would fall into place that is clearly not what happens sometimes even when the primary issue is resolved insomnia persists and the reason for that is that insomnia and a lot of other symptoms are mutually exacerbating and what that means is that they're intertwined take for example that half of the 18 million Americans who have major depressive disorder also have insomnia if you intervene at the level of depression you might get symptom relief and yet the insomnia can persist but the evidence linking the relationship between insomnia and depression suggests that if you intervene on the level of sleep that people can get relief from those symptoms of depression and you can even prevent further episodes insomnia is not just a symptom insomnia is a disorder and when it occurs it should be assessed and treated as a first-line problem now when people do seek treatment they usually receive a medication and medications are great if you have a stressful meeting with your boss tomorrow pop a pill you're going to sleep tonight but oftentimes people don't want to have to rely on anything especially over the long term in order to get a good night of sleep I have good news and that is that healthy sleep is largely shaped by the things that we do by our choices by our behaviors so in this way the best sleep medicine is our behavior behavioral medicine cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia which is a really long name for a treatment so let's just call it CBT It has a substantial evidence base for the treatment of insomnia and we know that not only does it work for most people there are several different patient populations that can derive benefit cancer survivors people with PTSD chronic pain fibromyalgia major depression here there is consensus CBT I should be the first line of treatment when it comes to insomnia now why is that why would something like therapy cure something that feels like a very physiological need well in order to understand why CBT I works you need to know a little bit about why acute insomnia becomes chronic and has a lot to do with our behaviors the seemingly benign decisions we make in order to try to fix insomnia actually perpetuate it I blame our instincts let me give you an example if you sustained an injury you automatically apply pressure to any sort of bleeding wound in this case your instincts are helpful but let's say you're going on a hike and it's a beautiful Colorado day and you run into a bear every cell in your body mobilizes to react to your instinct to turn around and run your instincts are wrong the bear will chase you the bear will outrun you the bear will catch you and then well it turns out that what your instincts should have told you to do is to make yourself look bigger to stand tall to puff out your chest and talk to on a loud voice and in the very unlikely scenario where the bear actually attacks you what you're supposed to do is pick up a stick and fight back so so this is the same thing that happens with sleep loss we compensate for sleep loss because it tends to make sense it makes sense us so what do we do we does off on the couch we go to bed early we sleep in late we have an irregular sleep schedule we become really preoccupied with whether or not we'll be able to sleep whether we've lost the ability to sleep and this leads to a lot of hyper arousal which is where cbt-i comes in so there are several different components of cbt-i that are tailored to each individual person but in brief what happens with sleep restriction is it takes someone's existing sleep debt and grows it a little bit in order to consolidate sleep so that people fall asleep faster and they're less likely to wake up stimulus control likes to strengthen the relationship between bed being a place for sleep rather than other engaging activities such as checking your email plotting revenge worrying stress or whatever else it might be cognitive therapy helps people identify strategies that might be able to help them distance themselves from a mind that doesn't seem to be able to to turn off how do they stack up how do medications and cognitive behavioral therapy and compare with one another well the evidence is in and the results are clear in the short run CBT eye and medications are equivalent but in the long run CBT eye is the clear winner the problem with behavioral therapies is not a lack of evidence that they work it is a lack of awareness that they exist you could probably rattle off the names of several different sleep medications but how many commercials have you seen for CBT i if you have insomnia take heart the odds are squarely in your favor your sleep can get better you can wake up rejuvenated with mental clarity who knows maybe even enough energy to stand up to a bear but here I think that what I'll do is I will heed the advice of a great mind who says it's more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of a disease a person has so I know sleep science but I don't know you we just met I don't know you or the relevant medical history that wouldn't it help me design a treatment to help you cure in your insomnia but I can leave you with this eat healthy exercise take care of your body and do all that you can do to cap it all off with a night of great sleep thank you you Source : Youtube

https://www.yourvibration.com/sleep/89 Sleep Rescue, Sleep Remedy, Sleep Aid

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armyhealth9-blog · 5 years

Text

Episode 405 - Robb and Nicki Q&A #9

We're back with Q&A #9 with Robb and Nicki.

Remember to submit your own questions for Robb and Nicki to answer on a future show here: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

Show Notes:

1. [2:06] Kidney Stones

Krisztian says: I've been mostly Paleo for about 5 years now based on one of your piror books. Overall, it has worked well for me, with one exception. I started to develop kidney stones on a regular basis. I finally had them analyzed and they turned out to be calcium oxalate stones. Upon reading up on this condition, it stems from a high amount of oxalate in the diet. Unfortunatley, most of the foods I liked on Paleo happen to be super high in oxalate... spinach, nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, sweet potatoes. The other wammy here is that I was initially avoiding dairy on Paleo which turns out to be worse for stones because one way to counteract high oxalate intake is to match it with high calcium to avoid stone formation. I've since gone back to eating plenty of cheese and high fat dairy in my diet.

I'm curious if this is a common issue that you've seen and I'm wondering if this is something that might be helped by going to a keto diet.

2. [5:33] Sugar addiction Kathryn says: Hey Robb, I am really hoping you can give me some insight into why I can't seem to fully recover from sugar addiction. I have had a sweet tooth my whole life, but in recent years I have learned that I have a true addiction to sugar. In the last four years or so, I have studied a lot of nutrition, functional medicine and ancestral health perspectives and gone on a strict paleo diet for months at a time. In almost every way, a clean diet of whole foods makes me feel amazing (better sleep, clearer skin, joints and movement feels better, etc.), except, I become very depressed. It's not a mopey, weepy kind of depressed, it's literally a depression of all feeling, like I feel very little at all. But I do sometimes feel really, really irritable, or sometimes bouts of rage that don’t match the situations they arise in. But most of the time, I just feel blah. I thought this would go away after a couple of weeks or even a month or two of eating clean, but it didn't. In happy or exciting moments, it was like I just couldn't feel those emotions fully. I also noticed that I didn't crack jokes like I usually do or feel like being social. All my feelings were dulled. Even sad ones. And when I did fall off the diet, and eat sugar, I immediately felt cheerful again. To me, it seems that the years of sugar abuse have altered my brain enough that without sugar, I can't feel normal emotions anymore. So my question is concerning healing my brain. Is it possible to reverse these effects? The longest I have gone on a strict paleo diet is three months. I admit it was hard to keep going when I just didn't see myself ever feeling happy again. If it's possible to heal my brain and increase its capacity for proper dopamine signaling again, are there certain therapies or supplements that can precipitate and accelerate that healing? Perhaps I am ignorant of some other factor or mechanism at work here. I would be grateful for any insight or help you can give. Thanks for the incredible work you do to bring to light the truth about human health and nutrition.

Notes:

Carb 22: https://carbsyndrome.com/nutraceuticals-new/

STEM Talk Episode 69 (David LeMay): https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-69/

3. [11:32] Metabolic Flexibility and Weight Loss/Maintenance Julia says: Robb and Nicki, I am very interested in the concept of metabolic flexibility and eagerly waiting to hear your upcoming lecture on this topic. Intuitively it makes sense that given variation in season and climate that humans would have relied on a menu of macronutrient combinations. My question is: how can developing metabolic flexibility be used as tool for weight loss/maintenance? I have been about 90% ketogenic for the past 28 months; the other 10% would be high carb meals which I have allowed as a metabolically flexible person. I can swing in and out of ketosis with ease; however, I have noticed that if I go through periods of higher carb, it does result in weight gain which is tough to lose even when reentering ketosis. I do crossfit almost daily and practice the 18:6 IF schedule, and I don't notice either of those things affecting my performance. Thanks!

4. [16:31] Low afternoon energy

Laura says: Hi Robb and Nicki, Thank you both for all you do! I've been a huge fan since 2010 and admire your relentless pursuit of the truth when it comes to health and nutrition.

My question is about my extremely low energy in the early afternoons. I know it is a common complaint, but I feel like I've done everything I can to fix the common mistakes that lead to the afternoon slump, and I also feel like my exhaustion is too extreme to be normal for my age and health status.

I'm 32 years old, I eat low carbish (75-100g most days), have toyed with keto, eat mostly paleo with the addition of some dairy and occasional non gluten grains. I do crossfit 3x/week and spend most of my time chasing my 2 year old around. My sleep is good most of the time, and I do not have any major life stressors that effect me currently. No diagnosed health conditions, no rx meds.

I had bloodwork done recently, and my doctor was very impressed with the results, especially my blood lipids. A1c was 4.8, C-reactive protein 0.8, no thyroid antibodies present. Fasting blood sugar 78. The only things that were slightly out of range were homocysteine (slightly low at 4.6), Uric acid low at 2.4, serum iron slightly high at 148, and my free T3 was a little low at 2.5. Another Doctor years ago prescribed me naturethroid but I never took it.

Ive tried changing my diet in every way imaginable to try to combat a possible hypoglycemic or food sensitivity related slump after lunch. I've eliminated various foods that people can be sensitive to,and ive even tried more carbs in the morning, but that leads to blood sugar imbalance and cravings all day. As a result, my breakfasts and lunches would fall under the keto umbrella, as I feel better when I eat carbs later in the day.

The only thing that seems to slightly help is not eating at all, but I just get so hungry! My activity level is fairly high and I don't feel like I'm a great candidate for intermittent fasting at this point.

My mom, who has had MS for about 30 years, does not eat all day and only eats dinner because she's says eating makes her tired. I just can't handle not eating at all, and I do feel fatigued and hypoglycemic if I try to skip meals.

Thanks for reading and for all you do!!

5. [23:08] Carb test and ketosis

Carl says: Hey Robb,

I read Wired to Eat while I was pretty deep into a ketotic cycle, so I didn't immediately get to the 7-day carb test. Years of self-experimentation have led me to a relatively low carb (<50g/day) Paleo diet with an occasional 48 hour fast, an occasional ketotic cycle, and a very occasional carb re-feed. Genetic testing revealed some SNPs that predispose me to insulin resistance, and others that positively affect my fat metabolism, reinforcing the fact that I look, feel, and perform better eating in this fashion. I do enjoy my occasional carb binges, so I'd like to perform the carb test in order to whittle my food selections down to those least damaging to my metabolism; but I'm concerned that my postprandial blood glucose readings will be skewed upward because I don't regularly eat more than ten or fifteen grams of effective carbs at a time. Should I bring my daily and per-meal carb intake up for a certain period of time before starting the carb test, or is a 50 gram bolus of carbs small enough to give me a true measure of glucose tolerance for the purpose of food selection? Thanks in advance.

6. [27:30] Creativity and Writing Process

Peter says: Robb,

I hope all is well. I'm a big fan of the Podcast and excited about the Q & A return. I have a two-parter both within the same general idea.

FIRSTLY: I'm a writer and I am alway curious about how others approach the creative process. I was curious if you could elaborate on how you approach writing and creativity in regards to balancing an active lifestyle? And how a typical day when writing might look.

For example -- Do you do things like meditate? What time of the day do you write? Where do you write? If you write in the morning how do you reconcile with hanging outside first thing in the morning to get some sun? If you do Jujutsu around noon and roll for 2 hours how do you write around it? You've mentioned eating big meals in the morning, if you're in a heavy writing period, is this a habit you stick with? Oh by the way, you have a wife and kids... how do you balance it all?

Do you still do caffeine? Do you force yourself to take breaks during writing? How do you avoid sitting for 5/6 hours straight?

Sorry for all the questions, I've just been thinking about this a lot lately as I enter into a career pursuing my passion as a writer while trying to balance and prioritize my health. As I am sure you can attest, writing can be all consuming if you let it and setting boundaries is vital -- though difficult, especially if you're in "the zone." So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[33:18] SECONDLY: I'd love to get your thoughts on the mechanisms at play when writing or doing anything else that requires intense mental focus in regards to willpower. Correct me if I am wrong, but it feels like for me, many aspects of writing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle (choosing healthy food over shitty stuff, hitting the gym, walking, etc.) can drain from the same willpower tank (if not just psychologically, and physically -- physiologically as well). This isn't to say that both can't exist -- rather does one need to be given priority based on ordering of events throughout the day?

For example, I feel my creativity comes to me first thing in the morning. If I were to wake up and hit a Metcon first thing, I feel my creativity gets depleted from the shared willpower tank. I feel this to be true with little things that chip away at my early morning start time as well. For example, taking the time to make a big healthy breakfast, sitting in the sun, even a short walk, all delay me tapping into when I feel I am creatively primed -- but is it worth the sacrifice of my health?

I was curious if you have any thoughts on when or how you prioritize creativity. Or maybe this is all just a bunch of bullshit like Robert Rodriguez says -- and our creativity is totally out of our control.

Anyways, love the show and everything you do. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Regards, Peter

Source: http://robbwolf.libsyn.com/episode-405-robb-and-nicki-qa-9

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