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salemorbit · 3 years

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Do-Over

[Pro Hero!Katsuki Bakugou x Pro Hero!Reader]

warnings: angst y'all i'm feeling angsty; ends with fluff hehe; it's a LONG one boys!!

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in which you and bakugou hit a speed bump in your relationship

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~~~~~~~

You dropped your keys on the table next to your door, slamming it shut with a sigh. You grimaced as you turned awkwardly to strip off your jacket, your shoulder twinging with pain from a minor injury during your recent scuffle.

The apartment was dark, not a soul around to greet you or wait up for you at such an hour. And that was fine, that was how you lived. But deep down inside, at this moment, you felt a pang in your chest that took the shape of a specific blond haired fireball.

Slipping your phone out of your back pocket, you unlocked it and let your thumb glide instinctively to the contact that you talked to the most. You pressed the call button and held the phone to your ear, slipping off your shoes gratefully.

It went to voicemail. Not even his mailbox was set up, just the automated number played in your ear. You let the robotic voice run through its mantra before leaving a message at the tone.

"Hey, it's me. I just got home. I...just wanted to make sure you were okay." You fiddled with your belt. "Call me when you get this."

You clicked end and slid your phone on the counter, leaving it be while you undressed from your work clothes. You cradled your whining shoulder as you slid off your shirt and tossed it aside, mentally making a note to do laundry later.

The past few days at your hero agency had been hard. There were so many hoodlums and villains clogging up your to-do list that you barely had time to call your boyfriend and make sure he was doing all right. It was radio silence from him nearly all week.

But you two had been busy. For some reason, this week was the one time that every baddie wanted to cause chaos. Or at least it felt like it. You slumped down on your dingy couch and stared at the ceiling. Hero work was exhausting, and you didn't even know if it paid off in the long run.

And just a few hours ago you were dealing with a messy explosion of villainy in the middle of your district. It was hard to keep the destruction in check, and you had gotten minorly injured in the process. Your sore shoulder was a scar to boot.

Katsuki had been there, in fact a few of his co-workers had been, too. But he didn't pay you any special attention. You didn't know if that bothered you or not.

Yes, you were both on the job and vowed not to let your relationship get in the way of your hero work as much as possible. On the other hand, you hadn't seen or spoken to Katsuki in a whole week, and the first time you had and he didn't even nod a greeting. What was his issue? It wasn't like you had gotten into an argument or anything.

Shuddering out of thought, you heard your phone buzz once on the counter. You got up and checked it, half expecting it to just be a junk mail message. You were surprised to see that it was a message from Katsuki himself.

I'm home. Goodnight.

You frowned. That was it? You called and left a message, he hadn't spoken to you all week, and all he sent was a three word text?

You didn't know what overcame you, but the frustration inside bubbled up and spilled over in an instant. You turned and activated your quirk out of pure adrenaline, chucking your phone across the room and sending it straight through the apartment wall and soaring into the street below.

That calmed you down quickly. You ran over to your window and threw up the sash, looking down and around for your shattered piece of a phone. But it was gone. You sighed heavily and shut the window, storming into your bedroom and falling into your sheets with a huff.

Now you needed a new phone and, quite possibly, a new boyfriend.

•••

The next day you were off of work, so you took a pain reliever for your shoulder and headed to the nearest phone store to get a new phone. After awkwardly explaining the situation to the clerk, you received a new model and decided to pay a visit to the one man who had gotten you so riled up in the first place.

Katsuki would've been lying if he said he wasn't relieved to see you on the other side of his door that afternoon. He'd had a tiring week, and honestly all he wanted to do was spend time with you and recharge for the most part before doing it all over again.

What he wasn't prepared for, however, was the frown on your face and the angry tapping of your foot as you stood in his doorway.

"You seem unbothered," you said shortly. Katsuki furrowed his eyebrows and let himself get shoved aside as you bustled into his apartment.

"Who pissed in your cornflakes?" Katsuki muttered as he shut the door. You grit your teeth and crossed your arms, obviously unhappy, though Katsuki couldn't figure out why.

"Go look in the mirror and take a guess," you glowered. "What's your issue? Why haven't you returned any of my messages this week?"

"I've been busy, you know that," Katsuki crossed his arms as well, not allowing you to have an intimidation factor in this conversation. "This week was hell."

"It was busy for me, too, but I still made the time."

"What are you going on about, dunceface?"

"Your inability to communicate!" You threw your hands in the air. "I've been trying to check in on you this week, but you haven't responded, if at all. And you didn't call me back last night! Just a text? One? I wanted to make sure you were okay after that fight, and you didn't even humor me."

"So? I'm fine."

"I didn't know that," you stressed. Katsuki let out a breath, still not getting it, and this made you even more angry.

"I don't know where this sudden clinginess is coming from-"

"It's not being clingy!" You erupted. "Are you so dense that you haven't realized how checked-out you've been recently? I've given you multiple opportunities to pick up the slack. I've excused your behaviours, given you space, and respected your silence this entire time. You haven't given me anything to work with. It's called being concerned and trying to keep our relationship going, which you don't seem the least bit interested in doing."

"And what if I'm not?" Katsuki growled, just plain upset you were accusing him of things he wasn't doing, at least in his mind. "What would you do if I didn't want to keep this schtick up, huh?"

"Then I'd be wasting my time standing here," you snapped. "And I'd have wasted the last two years on you."

Katsuki felt something in his chest cry, shattering and splitting through the floor below his feet. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes, trying his best not to set his living room on fire.

You were there. You were right there, somewhere you hadn't been for the last week. And yeah, he'll admit that maybe he's been a bit distant lately, and the sudden influx in hero-work definitely wasn't helping the situation either. But he was trying to deal with things he hadn't quite felt before, one of those things being his feelings for you.

As of recent, something had shifted in his gut. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, and it wasn't like he was going to consult Kirishima or Kaminari about this. God knows they'd just make fun of him for worrying about your relationship.

Did he feel ashamed? Was it embarrassing him that he felt like this for someone? Katsuki Bakugou didn't get embarrassed, so what was this?

"I think we're done here," you muttered, looking down to hide the tears welling up in your eyes. You slid around Katsuki to reach the door, but you were stopped by Katsuki grabbing your arm gently.

You jerked your arm from his grasp, turning to look at him with your chin held high, keeping your trembling lip from showing itself. Katsuki had something in his eyes that had never been there before, and you hated it. You hated that you couldn't read him anymore.

"I don't know you like I thought I did, Bakugou." He flinched at that one. "This was obviously a mistake. I'll see you around."

And you were out the door and out of his range, leaving Katsuki Bakugou to stand in his living room at a loss for words. Something he hadn't been ever since he first met you.

•••

You took the breakup terribly, to say the least.

Yes, you were technically the one who broke it off, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt to do it. You didn't want to shut things down like that, but Katsuki had left you no choice. He wasn't getting it, and it felt like he was going to continue to not get it. You just couldn't spend your energy like that anymore.

Mina and Momo were there for you from the second you broke down at a bus stop and called them to pick you up. They were there in a split second, not pressuring you for information until you wanted to tell them.

They were more disappointed in Katsuki than mad. They didn't like how he hadn't been communicating things with you about how he felt or why he had been distant. You broke and told them how it had been going on like this for almost a month now, and this last week was just the tipping point. They backed your decision and got you anything you needed for the next few days, until you were able to be on your own and process the emotions you felt.

Katsuki hadn't tried to call you at all. No texts, emails, voicemails. Your phone was a dry desert, except for the concerned text Midoriya sent you after you assumed Mina and Momo had told him about the debacle. He offered to talk to Katsuki about it, but you declined. It was best to just let it be, let it sink in that Katsuki had messed up royally.

Meanwhile, the man in question was quiet for the next few days. His coworkers noticed his lack of remarks, his friends noticed his distant appearances. All Katuski had been doing since you walked out that door was think. He was thinking long and hard about what he wanted, where you fit into his life, and the way he had acted as of recent. This was quite possibly the most Katsuki had ever thought about anything; typically he was so sure on the get-go that he needn't time to stop and reflect.

But this was different. You were different.

It wasn't until the next Saturday after your breakup that Katsuki found himself on the other side of your apartment door, hand poised to knock. He decided he didn't want to do something like this over the phone; it was just too impersonal. So he mustered up the courage to face you again, and prayed you wouldn't throw him out of your four-story high window in the process.

He knocked, waited. No answer. Getting slightly annoyed, he knocked again, louder. Still no answer.

Katuski was now incredibly annoyed, and bent down to take the key from under your doormat and just unlock the damn thing himself. As he lifted the mat, he saw a slip of paper taped to the floor where the key should've been:

Don't try to break in. Calling the police is not below me.

Katsuki huffed, standing up and going to knock on the door again when he was interrupted by the rustling of paper bags. He turned over his shoulder and saw you standing on the opposite end of the hallway, holding some grocery bags in your arms and staring right at the blond standing on your doormat.

There was a tense few moments of silence before you broke it, audibly frustrated.

"Can you get out of the way so I can put these inside?" You frowned. Katsuki blinked, then moved aside to let you fumble your key in the lock dumbly.

"I can-"

"Shut up," was all you said before opening the door and letting it bang against the inside wall. Katuski stood on the threshold, unsure of if he should just walk in or not, before inviting himself in as soon as he figured you wouldn't give him the time of day. He watched from your counter as you passive aggressively slammed things on the counter or into their place in your kitchen.

"Care telling me why you're here?" You asked, flat-toned and not looking at Katsuki in the slightest.

"I wanted to talk."

"About?"

He rolled his eyes. "Us, dimwit."

You stopped and let your head hang, propping yourself on the counter with your hands spread flat. You still didn't look up at him, which was greatly pissing him off.

"We already did. Last week," you said.

"That wasn't a conversation," Katsuki ground out. "That was you coming to me and exploding out of nowhere. I didn't even have the chance to-"

"It wasn't out of nowhere," you interjected.

"Stop interrupting me, damn it, and just let me talk!" Katsuki spat. You looked up at him with a withered look, making his fire simmer down immediately.

"Fine," you said, voice wavering slightly. Katsuki cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" He smiled slightly, bittersweet. You didn't react, so he went on.

"You're an idiot because you've got terrible tunnel vision," he said, glancing at the living room that looked like you had been sleeping in. You had a perfectly tangible bed in the next room, but there were just too many memories in there for you to spend the night in again.

"I can see fine," you grumbled.

"No, you can't," Katsuki looked back at you. "You haven't been able to see how hard I've been trying these last few weeks to figure things out. Figure us out."

"Well how the hell am I supposed to know that if you don't tell me anything?" You asked, trying to keep your voice from rising. The last thing you needed was a fight. You were just too tired.

"That's...something I need to work on," Katsuki muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "And I will admit that. Don't make fun of me for it."

"I never said I would."

"Great, because I gotta whole lotta other things to admit to." His eyes narrowed. "I don't wanna hear shit from you for the next five minutes, got it?"

You sighed, miming zipping your mouth shut as you went back to putting away your groceries. You might as well let him talk, since you knew his stubbornness wouldn't let him leave your kitchen so soon without him getting in his two cents.

"I've been thinking long and hard lately," he began. "On my own. Nothin' from anyone else except my own thoughts. So this is one hundred percent me.

"I screwed up. I did. And it took me a minute to realize it because I was so much in my head about things. I was so focused on trying not to mess us up that I went and did that shit anyway. And all you've been is supportive and caring, and quite honestly I don't know how to handle that since I haven't really been with anyone like that."

He was being honest, you knew from his tone of voice. It was a tone you had heard only a few times before this moment: when he told you he loved you. And you believed it.

Katsuki took in a breath: "So I'm here. And I'm sorry. At first I was mad at you for marchin' into my house the other day and spewing things I knew nothing about, but then I realized that you were spewing those things because you knew nothing about me and where I was at. And that was frustrating for you because you got that whole communication thing you like to do, or whatever."

"Or whatever," you mumbled to yourself, smiling slightly. He picked up on that, his spirits lifting a bit as well.

"I've just been thinking about things and where you are and who I want you to be to me as we live our lives. And I screwed it up by not talking to you about that either. It's a conversation we both should have. So," he sighed, "I'm sorry. And I'll continue to be sorry because you don't deserve to be left in the dark. I love you, and I want to be better."

He finished his little speech and the two of you were quiet. You had paused putting things away about halfway through, really listening to him and what he had to say. He deserved that from you in the least.

You looked up at him and saw that he had already been staring at you, an intent look in his eyes. It was your turn now. He wanted a response to his being vulnerable. You knew it wasn't easy for him to open up like that, despite the last two years of helping him get comfortable, so you didn't torture him with the suspense.

"We'll see," you said. Katsuki did a double take, eyebrows furrowing.

"We'll see?" He repeated. You nodded rounding your counter to stand in front of him.

"If we want to keep doing this for however many more years we keep doing this," the corner of your mouth lifted in a smirk, "then we'll just have to see."

"Great," Katsuki rolled his eyes and sent a seething glare out the window. "I totally lay myself on the train tracks and you just run me over like that. Thanks."

"But," you continued, trying to catch his eye, "I appreciate you coming to me. And I appreciate the apology. However, I won't know if I can accept it until I know you'll actually go through with it."

"Understandable," Katsuki sighed, comprehending this. "I deserve that one."

"Are you ready for a do-over?" You asked, catching his hands in yours. He couldn't help but notice a weight in his chest lift at the presence of your touch after weeks of barely anything. Katsuki still had some work to do, but it was worth it if he could keep you around.

"Always," he kissed you on the forehead and you smiled giddily.

"Awesome because we now have two weekends of cuddle-time to make up for, and my bedroom hasn't been used in a week," you led him to your door.

"Oh no," Katsuki complained sarcastically, "however will we make up for such lost time?"

"Shut up, you big doofus," you grinned. "You know you love me."

"That I do."

~~~~~~~

a teensy tiny bit of OOC bakugou near the end there but like. he'd be a sucker for that and totally willing if it was just the two of you around HAHA

anyways this was cute and i....am forever still in love w bakugou :))))

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glitterge1pen · 3 years

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Tired

Iwaizumi Hajime x reader, sfw, word count 1,424

You were so tired. Tired in your bones, in your eyes, the heaviness of your hair on your head. Your entire being was exhausted. You had work, and projects, and due dates. Friends that needed help, family that called you one too many times. It had been this way for weeks. The work kept coming. It didn't stop. There was always something to do.

Even in the late hours of the night when you found moments of free time, the things you enjoyed didn't seem fun. You didn't want to draw, or paint, or play video games, even watching the tv felt draining. You were so utterly exhausted that it hurt.

But it was Friday night now, and you had nothing booked. You had ignored the few texts on your phone. Turned off your notifications for work emails. You trudged through your front door. Not bothering to kick off your shoes and coat. You headed straight for your bedroom, landing on your bed with a thump. It was 6:30pm and you were going to sleep. You were going to sleep forever you decided.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　

At 7:00 Iwaizumi appeared at your front door with two boxes of takeout. You had been really busy lately and hadn't had time to hang out with him. But you had said Friday was free, that he should come over. He stood there for a couple minutes after he had knocked and rang the doorbell. He texted you again but no answer. He wondered if you were home. He couldn't see if any of the lights were on, you weren't answering.

Maybe something had come up?

Then he got concerned. What if something had happened? He hadn't heard one peep from you all day which was a little odd, you weren't one to blow him off without at least sending a text message either. He checked social media, trying to see if you had posted anything but you had been radio silent on all platforms for the day.

He looked this way and that. Not sure exactly what he should do. He decided that he wouldn't be able to eat all this take out. The best option would be to go inside, spoon some out into a container, put it in your fridge and then leave.

And he was curious.

Iwaizumi went to your mailbox. He stuck his hand inside, grazing his palm on the inside of the mailbox until he found the extra key you had duct taped there. He had seen you do this on many a drunk night.

He unlocked the door quietly. Even though he wasn't doing anything wrong it felt strange to be in your home without you. He crept into the kitchen, setting the food down quietly. Before he got to banging open the cabinets to find a container, he wanted to look around.

All the lights were off so he flicked the hallway switch on. He poked his head into your bedroom. There you were. A lump amongst the blankets and pillows. Laying face down, fully clothed, you hadn't even bothered to crawl under the covers.

And your room. God it was a mess. Iwaizmumi felt bad for judging you on that. But it was really messy. Then it struck him. How busy you said you were, how you haven't hung out as much, how you were texting and calling less. You must have been so fatigued.

He quickly went back to the kitchen, putting the food in the fridge. Then he found a trash bag from under your sink and got to work. Back in your room he tossed away crumpled receipts, some food wrappers, an empty amazon box, junk mail that had piled up next to your bed.

He thought it might be creepy what he was doing. Especially because he kept looking at you to make sure you were still asleep. He wasn't sure if he could handle the awkwardness that would be you waking up to him sorting through your trash.

He moved so quietly, stiff and still. He could hear your breathing. The lull of it made himself sleepy. He thought about what it would be like to lay with you. He noticed your feet hanging off the bed, he wondered if he should push them onto the mattress. You’d be terribly sore if he left you hanging off the bed like that. But he was much too scared of waking you to do so. He’d look at your resting face, see how empty and overworked you were, and start cleaning in vigor again.

Iwaizumi hung up jackets and cardigans. Turned away as he tossed a pile of t-shirts and bras into a hamper. Lined up your shoes into proper pairs in the closet. Straightened up the books, stationery and knick-knacks on your desk. Rid the nightstand of dirty glasses of water. Ran a rag over your lights to get rid of the dust. He even swept the floor.

The only thing he couldn't do was make the bed. He felt proud himself as he scanned the room in its new state of perfection. But that feeling faltered when he thought of what Oikawa would say in this moment. There would have definitely been some heavy teasing. It didn't matter. If you weren't going to take care of yourself, Iwaizumi would do his best to pick up the slack.

In the kitchen he took some of the food for himself, and left the rest for you. Leaving the extra key on top of the container in the fridge. He wrote a simple message on a sticky note. Tacking it to the food. Before leaving he gave the place one more scan. Making sure his presence was not there at all.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　

Saturday morning you woke up feeling as if you had returned from vacation. It was as if you hadn’t actually been in your body for a while. You were also unusually optimistic for just waking up. This good feeling wore off fast. The waves of exhaustion had ceased their attacks, but your body was sore. Specifically your legs. And you were hot, sweaty from sleeping in your clothes. Your face felt dirty. Mouth gross and dry. You had skipped the night routine.

Rolling over onto your back was when you noticed. Your room was spotless. You definitely had not cleaned last night. Or at all in the past few weeks for that matter. Suddenly you felt uneasy.

Had some creep broke in? Was this going to be one of those bizarre news articles about a girl getting murdered in an elaborate way? You glance around for your phone. You thought you had tossed it next to you upon getting home but found it on your nightstand plugged in.

You snatch it up, surprised that it is already 11:45am. There is a missed facetime call from your best friend, a couple instagram notifications, and then a small barrage of texts from Iwaizumi.

“Oh my god”

You say out loud. This was definitely the work of Iwaizumi. Then the rush of guilt flooded into you. You had completely forgotten about him. You winced and then flopped back on the bed. Even worse was that he had seen the total wreck that was your room. It wasn't usually so unkempt but you hadn't had the time or energy to clean at all.

Unsure if this was a calling or texting matter you push it aside for the moment. You needed food. As if on cue you felt how barren your stomach was. You could text Iwaizumi back after you got at least a slice of bread.

Your heart dropped off a cliff when you saw the takeout. It was your favorite, you knew just from the box. In Iwaizumi’s long precise handwriting was his very curt note.

Came with food. Cleaned.

-Hajime

You didn't even warm the food up. Just started eating. You felt as if you should cry. He hadn't even woke you up. You were so overwhelmed by what he had done. It was so much, he had just brought over food and tidied up but it was so much. You laughed at what his reaction would be, if you called him with tears pouring down your face, trying to eat. You were so happy that he had done any of this for you at all.

Phone in hand you hovered over his contact, hesitating. But you know you have to call.

“Hey, you're awake”

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　

A/N: I've never posted writing on Tumblr before so tell me how this goes? I'm working on making some navigation for the blog, hopefully that stuff will be here by the end of the week.

In the meantime feel free to request some haikyuu related things. Drop anything in the inbox, if I write it I do, if I don't I don't.

#iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #hq iwaizumi #iwaizumi x y/n #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi fluff #iwaizumi hajime #fluff #sfw

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kangamommynow · 3 years

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Well then

I went to three different places to find the mailbox that is required to replace my old one, which is getting rusty. No one had it in stock. sigh. so I ordered it.

Then I ran into email issues. In the last 5 minutes:

1) one email from Hotels.com about an upcoming booking, reminding me about it. But I cancelled it already. So I check to make sure it’s cancelled. Indeed it is. So why did I get an email about it?

2) Email from AllofUs about scheduling an appointment. So I log on to schedule one. Can’t remember password. So I reset the password. Log on again to schedule appointments. Oh, they aren’t scheduling appointments because of Covid? Then why did I get an email to schedule one?

3) Junk (I hope) email threatening to send incriminating video of me to “all my contact” (sic) unless I send them $5000 in bitcoin as a “donation”. Delete at my peril (they didn’t say that. Peril is not a word they would know). I deleted it. But if someone gets an incriminating video of me, let me know. If there’s a video of me worth $5000 I’d love to know about it.

Fuck this day. Completely.

But at least I got new houseplants. There’s that.

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willcwthewisp · 3 years

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false god complex | ben & willow

LOCATION: university of maine, white crest. PARTIES: @professorbcampbell and @willcwthewisp. SUMMARY: ben is more than happy to lend willow a helping hand. CONTAINS: elements of grooming.

Willow’s knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel of her car in a near death-grip, already dreading what was to come. Why had the telemarketing company thought she was a good person to deliver toner? She’d done her best to avoid getting too close to anyone in the office, constantly afraid that she’d end up throwing someone through the flimsy walls that made up their miniscule cubicles. But somehow they’d settled on her to make a delivery that required a signature. She couldn’t even find peace in the knowledge that she’d be able drop the package and run. No- the telemarketer would have to come face to face with an actual person. This was the exact opposite of what she’d signed up for when taking a job that was about being away from people.

Pulling into the university, she struggled for a moment with the box of printing supplies, finally managing to balance it on her hip as she locked her car. One slow and deep breath later, she was steeling herself as she walked towards the closest building. Just find a person. Have them sign. And get out. That’s all she had to do. At least it was later in the day, getting closer to a time of the evening when less students were on campus. Throwing a college student into the quad fountain was also on her list of scenarios to desperately avoid. And it was a rather long list. Why were there so many people in the world? Turning the corner into a hallway, she scanned for any nearby lifeforms, finally spotting the back of a man’s head down the way as he walked away from her. “Um- excuse me!” she called out, her free hand waving with uncertainty above her head as she made an awkward shuffle towards him. “Excuse me! Sir? Sorry- I just- well I’m dropping off this toner, and it needs a signature. Do you think- well would you mind signing for it?”

Thumbing through his mail, Ben scanned the various letters. Hardly anyone sent him physical mail anymore, but he made a point of checking his mailbox once a week. It was good practice to walk through the halls, make a show of being polite and friendly to all of the cubicle dwelling student workers and pitiful staff members who didn’t have access to offices of their own. His office was on the third floor of the building, and while he didn’t have a corner office just yet, he had it on good authority that the next vacancy would be his. Tossing a few pieces of junk mail into the recycling bin, he headed out of the mailroom back to his office. He would finish up some emails and then take home his remaining essays to grade. Perhaps stop by the coffee shop, see if he could arrange a serendipitous meeting with a student--

As he walked down the hall, Ben was caught off guard by the sudden flash of movement and a woman’s voice calling out to him. Toner? What, did she take him as a secretary? It wasn’t his job to make sure the printer room was stocked. But, he offered an easy smile instead and hurried towards her. “Here, let me take that.” He said, taking the heavy package of toner from her easily. “You’re a ways off from the printing room. I can carry this and sign once we get there?” He said with a nod.

“Oh- oh no, you don’t have to-” Willow began, but he’d already taken the package from her hip in a movement so smooth she almost forgot to be nervous about the proximity of him. Almost. Realizing how close she’d come to potentially grazing against the man, and therefore possibly tossing him into next week, the medium took a healthy step back. “Sorry- it’s been so long since I went here, and I swear they moved everything around,” she breathed with half an attempted chuckle, trying to set herself at ease after the close call. “You really don’t have to, though,” she started once more, hating to be any sort of inconvenience. “I mean- I didn’t mind carrying it! And it’s not your job, you know?” As she said the words she finally did a cursory one over of the man in front of her, blinking a few times in quick succession as she began to fully understand just how handsome he was. Oh god- now she was nervous again. “And I mean- you could just sign here, if you wanted! Then I could just take it to the printing room or wherever and set it and leave it there since you...signed for it. And it’s just toner! I don’t think anyone wants to take toner or anything, right? I mean, have you ever heard of anyone ever stealing toner before?” Willow ended on an semi-awkward chuckle, practically begging herself to stop talking before she said anything else that sounded equally, or god forbid, more idiotic.

Hefting the box in his arms, Ben made his expression one the model of politeness and patience. It was irritating to have to maintain his role as the good-nature professor for someone who so clearly wasn’t worth his time. Well. She was cute, in an out-of-sorts kind of way. Which was typically how most women acted around him. “No, it’s quite alright. It’s a heavy box and it’s easiest for me to just carry it while I have it now.” He said with an easy smile and tilted his head. “The printer room is on my way back to my office, so it’s no skin off my back. Two birds with one stone, hm?” He said as she rambled on and on. Incredible. She just kept speaking without providing anything of substance. “No need to worry. And no, I can’t begin to imagine why someone would steal toner of all things. Unless they’ve got a massive printer at home, I can’t see why they’d do that.” He laughed. “Ah,” Just shut up, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable by just taking the box from you. You just looked as though you were struggling and I wanted to offer a hand. Or two.” Ben gestured to the box resting in his hands.

“Oh- well...thank you, then.” Willow wasn’t about to argue with a man who was being so perfectly polite about helping her, especially when he looked as handsome as this one did. After all, who didn’t enjoy it when a good-looking man helped you of his own accord without seeming threatening or overbearing? Feminism be damned. “Sure,” she agreed, feeling like she’d be doing that more often as the conversation went on. His words and actions were so confident that they nearly even set her at ease, which was no small feat. “Thank you, again.” She should make conversation, shouldn’t she? It was only polite after he’d helped her. “So you’re...a professor here?” That much was obvious given his mention of an office. “”What do you teach?” For a moment she laughed with him, still somewhat amazed that she’d been able to do so in the first place despite being at risk of telekinetically throwing someone in a public setting. “I guess so. Unless there’s some toner black market that I’m completely unaware of.” It was her own attempt at a joke. “No, no-” she began, not wanting him to think she was upset. “It was nice of you- really. I just wasn’t entirely expecting it and-” She didn’t like people getting close to her. Not when she was a ticking time bomb. “-and I appreciate the two hands.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Ben said with a kind smile he didn’t mean in the slightest. This woman looked familiar, and he couldn’t quite place his finger on why. She looked to be around the same age as him, perhaps a few years younger. Blonde, brown eyed, classical bone structure, but why did she look familiar to him? Perhaps he’d be able to worm the information out of her. “Please, it’s really not a problem. And yes, I am. I teach the classics. Greek and Roman history, culture, and philosophy for the most part, but I dabble in most ancient Western civilizations.” As he always did for the more nervous types-- and this woman struck him as quite nervous-- Ben offered a self conscious grimace. “But, it’s hardly the most interesting field.” He said as he led them through the halls at a leisurely pace. A toner black market. Knowing some of the creatures who roamed this town, there very well might be. “Well, my apologies for startling you. It wasn’t my intention at all. Do people generally let you,” Flounder “Struggle without offering to help? That’s hardly the sort of behavior I’d expect of people here.”

He seemed like a very nice man. Or a well-meaning one at the very least. The more he spoke, the more Willow settled into the situation she’d been handed, figuring there was little she could do at this point if he was going to be so insistent about helping. She just had to keep her distance, and everything would be alright...right? “Oh- well that’s all very impressive sounding,” she replied with a tentative smile, as if she were testing the waters when it came to the expression on her face. “The closest I ever got to the classics or anything like that when I was here were the art and visual culture classes for the eras.” While Ben carefully practiced humility, Willow was already shaking her head in denial of his words. “Oh no- if it’s interesting to you, that’s what matters, right? And I’m sure there’s plenty of people who find it really stimulating.” As she walked along with him, her eyes scanned the hallways, curious to see how her alma mater had changed in the years since she’d roamed it. “No, really- you don’t need to apologize at all. I mean- you were just being thoughtful. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all! Pretty much the opposite, actually. As for other people...I guess I wouldn’t know- I’m not really a ‘delivery’ sort of person, but the usual person was out today.”

Walking alongside the woman, Ben continued to appraise her. She seemed to have calmed down a bit which had resulted in, thankfully, less rambling. Some people rambled in productive ways, providing little insights into their lives, their minds. This woman? Not exactly. She spoke as though she had to fill the air with sound or else there would be dire consequences. “Ah, thank you, though it’s hardly impressive.” Ben said with a shrug. Oh, he was very impressive. Department co-chair, associate professor, and well established within the college at his age? No, he was impressive and he knew it. “Art and visual culture? Are you an artist?” He asked with interest, though internally he couldn’t care less. “Indeed! That’s how I find it as well.” Ben nodded as they continued down the hall. Rounding the corner into the printer room, he set the heavy box on the counter. “Ah, in that case, I’m quite glad I was there to help. It’s never pleasant when you have to take on the responsibilities of others.” He said with a sympathetic smile. He leaned against the copier, waiting for her next move, curious to see how she’d fill this new gap in conversation.

“Don’t say that,” Willow insisted, apparently gaining confidence where Ben carefully lost it. If there was one thing she was confident about it was boosting the spirit of others. “You know something that plenty of people couldn’t even begin to really grasp. Isn’t that impressive?” A friendly nod had her head bobbing up in down as he asked about her, blonde hair bouncing along with the motion. “I majored in Fine Arts when I was here, and then opened a gallery a few years out of school.” A smile grew more comfortable on her lips while he continued to be perfectly amenable. “Well then I’m glad you agree,” she finished with a small chuckle, finding herself more at ease with every moment. “Oh- well I was definitely lucky that you were there to help. And that you’re obviously more than happy to lend a helping hand.” A shrug tugged at her shoulders. “It’s alright- I don’t mind helping.” At least that was usually true when it didn’t put her in public situations that might result in someone getting broken in half. “But um- if I could get that signature from you now, that would be great?” She offered him the little electronic device they’d given her at the office, a pen attached to it. Holding it by the very ends, she desperately tried to ensure that no contact would be made when he took it.

“I suppose it is.” Ben said and offered a sheepish, apologetic smile as the woman admonished him. So she was one of those types. An optimist, someone who tried to lift others up. Naive. Interesting, very interesting. He couldn’t help but weigh and measure her, even if he had no real desire to lure her towards the way of his Lord. But who knew. She might be able to be of use to him, one day. It never hurt to cultivate “friendships.” Just as he thought, an artist, one of those creative types. “Now that, that sounds quite impressive.” As she held out the little device, she watched the way she kept him at arms length. As though she was scared of him? No, not quite. He wasn’t entirely sure why she was so frightened. “Of course.” Ben signed off on the machine with a smile before handing it back to her. “Ben Campbell. A pleasure to meet you..?”

Willow’s grin widened as the man agreed, happy to see that he wasn’t planning on minimizing his accomplishments anymore for the time being. Why shouldn’t he be proud? She was fairly certain everyone had something to be proud of in their lives, and if they couldn’t see that then she was more than happy to help show them. “Oh no- I mean- it’s not that big of a deal.” Willow fell naturally into the persona that Ben had cultivated for himself over their conversation, a slight blush creeping over her cheeks at his praise. “But thank you, nonetheless.” Relief flooded her as he didn’t offer a hand to shake along with his introduction, knowing she would have only made the conversation terribly awkward as she refused to take it. “I’m Willow- Willow Finch. And thank you for the signature, Ben,” she said warmly, already taking a step back as she reminded herself that she was testing the limits of her telekinesis simply by talking to him. “I hope you have a good day, Professor Campbell.” Then she was starting to head off, wishing she could have counted the man as a new friend, but knowing it wasn’t possible with her current situation. But it had been nice to pretend for the length of the walk down the hallway.

#// what a nice chatzy between two new friends <3 #ch:Ben #wickedswriting #chatzy #grooming tw

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everydayanth · 4 years

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Academic Elitism: an institutional issue

Sorry for being so rant-y lately, but the elitism of university has been a problem for me from the exact moment I accepted my scholarship with a signature and a handshake in high school. (The scholarship was later revoked due to state up-fuckery, but that’s another story, and I was already in too deep by the time they told me).

My parent’s house was only an hour north, my younger sister had already claimed my room, but I was excited. I was in the furthest dorm building, because that’s where the scholarship kids went, it was like a poor kid diversity hall, every few doors was someone from a completely different background, but we were all poor except our Swedish RA, and there was an odd pride in that. We all had various scholarships: robotics, dance team, nerds like me, etc. (not the football or hockey athletes though, they had their own dorm next to the library for... reasons, lol).

But being the last hall, it wasn’t actually full, most of us had entire rooms to ourselves, often whole suites; our hall was co-ed, but rooms were only occupied at every-other, staggered down the corridor. Only the front two halls were used, the back two closed off for construction or codes or something. We had to hike up the hill for dining halls, which was fine until snowdays that shut the whole campus down (and I mean west Michigan ones, with 4+ feet of powder and ice underneath). I had an old computer my dad got me for graduation and I didn’t know it was old until my peers started calling it a dinosaur. I had to use the library computers to write and print papers, and most places I went, I ran into the other scholarship kids. We didn’t talk much, just a head bob here and there, awareness at our similarities and an annoyed spite at being thrown together this way. It was lonely for everyone.

I had a purple flip phone I’d gotten only that calendar year (2009) and was still learning to text with (abbreviations? instant messaging? what?). My roommate had come down from Alaska to live near her dad, we’d talked in the summer, but I never saw her. I moved my things in and her stuff was on her side, I texted her about going to turn in paperwork and when I came back, there was a note on my bed and all her things were gone, she couldn’t do it, had never been away from home for even a night. She left a few mismatched socks and a bag of junk pens that I resented for years.

Social media was mostly a way to talk to people across campus and exchange homework and party times/locations. We posted over-edited photos of our food and still jogged with our mp3 players and ipods. But within two years, I had to trade in my computer three times and upgrade to a smartphone to keep up with the expectations of communication. Professors would cancel classes by emails an hour out, and if I was on campus, I simply didn’t get the message, running between classes with 19 credit hours and three jobs. Work would call in or cancel my appointments (tutoring) and I needed to be able to communicate at the rate of my peers, so though it wasn’t something we could easily afford, my parents let me get the smartphone and my dad helped me find computers that could keep up with writing papers and researching without having to go to the lab, which saved so much time.

There was little understanding for my suffering. I didn’t have a car, I had to call my parents and organize a time to get home or take the train which was more expensive than waiting around on an empty campus. They were often things that even the wealthiest students had to deal with, but there were so much more of them for us, more stress, more problems, more solutions, more consequences, and in some ways, more determination.

I spent plenty of breaks holed up in my room, but when the swine flu/H1N1 outbreak happened, guess where they quarantined students?

In our hall.

Not the back one that was closed. In the room attached to my suite.

After half a semester alone, suddenly strangers shared my bathroom. I never saw them, I would just hear the formidable click of the bathroom lock followed by the shower. A week later I got a blue half-sheet note in my mailbox about quarantines. The other kids were as pissed off, as we watched kids escorted in with blue masks and were told to just get cleaning wipes from the front desk –they ran out in a week.

We were the recyclable students, brought in to trade scholarships for university grade averages. Many of my friends were struggling with scholarship qualifications and gpas (which only encouraged my continual obsessive perfectionism and involvement).

We were expendable.

I didn’t understand the elitism then, or I did, but I’d twisted it in my head from years tossed between private and public schools. I was an invader, I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I wanted to be. I understood that I didn’t deserve it, that I had to work harder to stay. I completed Master’s coursework for my Bachelor’s degree, finishing two BA programs (anthropology and English: creative writing) and 2 minor programs in philosophy and world lit, lead several campus groups and volunteered with honor’s societies. I spent hours on campus every day, running home just to go to one job or the other. I slept about four hours a night and I still romanticize it because I loved it. And I was good at it. It was a closed system, easy to infiltrate, easy to watch and observe and follow, to feel protected from the world, but there were always ways that I came up short.

I didn’t have leggings or Northface fleeces or Ugg boots or name brand anything (except a pair of converse I got in 8th grade from my Babcia). I had old high school sweats and soccer shirts, hand-me-down clothes from sisters and cousins that mix-matched a style I thought was unique but I now understand screamed I don’t really belong here. Example: I went to propose an independent study to a professor I really admired and I panicked about what to wear. I still cringe at the memory, gahhhhhh, but I pulled on what I thought was a decent dress because it had no rips or stains or tears and though I’d picked it up from a clearance rack, it was the newest thing and therefore the best. But in retrospect, it was definitely a “party” dress, I grabbed a sweater, hoop earrings that had always been beautiful in my neighborhood, and heels I never wore otherwise, and presented my idea. This old professor was just like “um...did you dress up for me?” Clearly spooked by red flags and I realized my mistake. Saved by quick thinking I clarified “no, I have a presentation later,” and being a familiar face in the social sciences department, I let him assume I was dressed up as something. I just went in my sweats and t-shirts after that, got a haircut that tamed the wavy frizz and learned the importance of muted tones, cardigans, and flats.

I made a lot of interesting friends in the process, people who also stuck out from the American Academic culture: exchange students, older (non-traditional) students, rebels, and other poor kids. But that also meant that we all evolved during our time there, so friendship was quick and fleeting as we adapted or dropped out or remained oblivious, lost in our studies and dreams of changing the world or our lives.

I had no idea how to approach the dining halls because I could only afford the bronze plan that was included with my room+board scholarship. I could enter the hall ten times per week, with four included passes to the after-hours carry-out (this was an upgrade from the free high school lunch I was coming from). I met other kids on this plan and their dorm rooms had fridges and microwaves and shelves of ramen and mac’n’cheese. Mine was sparse, my fridge had jugs of water from the filtered tap in the common room, and though it had a shared kitchenette, it always smelled bad or was being used and the nearest grocery store was Meijers which was a 15-20 minute drive from campus. I used so much energy dividing up my meals and figuring out how to sneak food from the hall for later or just learn to not eat, which is another story involving malnutrition, broken bones, and the American Healthcare System.

We like to summarize the college experience with fond struggles. I went back to my old high school to watch my younger sisters’ marching band competition that first year (it’s MI, and they were good). My old art teacher (not much older than we were but she felt so much older at the time, also her maiden name was Erickson and so was her fiance’s so she didn’t “change” her name and that blows my mind to this day), anyway, she stopped me to ask how school was going, and I was not prepared to be recognized in anyway and stammered out something like “oh, yeah, stressful. Fun, cool, yeah,” like the eloquent well-educated student I was. And she said, “oh, I loved it, don’t you love it? Everything’s so charming, and being poor? Oh man, it’s hard for a while, but it’s so good to go through.”

I was dumbfounded at her reference to poverty as a thing to go through when you’re a student. I again had to remember that I was infiltrating places where people weren’t just marginally more well-off than I was, but far beyond, in a place where they couldn’t comprehend an alternative, couldn’t conceive of surviving poverty, of not having a reliable place to fall if you mess up, parents who couldn’t support you if things went wrong, who couldn’t save you from having to drop out if scholarships were canceled because the money just wasn’t there.

Talking with my parents never worked, and I recently found this video by The Financial Diet about Boomer shame in being poor, where many Millennials were united by it and it was #relatable. But all this is to say that there are so many layers and ways we develop in higher education that are often overlooked by the romantic nostalgia of the elite expectation. What we demand from education vs. what it offers us in return is rarely equal for students coming from poverty, and it starts with that first sacrifice of looking at money and deciding it has to be worth it to do something bigger, and that education is a necessary piece of that goal.

Now I live near Brown University, I’ve been to Harvard when we lived in Boston and recently took a trip to Yale with bold expectations. I am friends with several people who work at these places and I hear the same things: so many students are in a place where their obsessions are considered more important than the larger world, an argument that Shakespeare is a woman is more important to prove than the greater issues of sexism in society as a whole, while others are trained to look at data and the world as a pocketable fact-book, going to conferences and week-long summits and then off to D.C. to make important decisions about places they’ve never been to, for people they’ve never met, about problems they’ve never experienced.

It’s not new. It’s not romantic. It’s not nostalgic. It’s just sick.

I was horrified at New Haven. I have read so many social science reports and papers and experiments and academic bullshit that has come from professors at Yale with a big badge of ivy-league validation. So much of this research was focused on homelessness and culture clash and socio-economics in America, as that was my “dissertation” that got me discounted master’s classes for my BA in Anthropology. Anyway, my point was that I thought this noble, proud university that put out so much research was going to be situated in something of a utopia, where their research is put into practice. Obviously, I was wrong, but I didn’t expect how wrong. (I had also started reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, so... there’s another thing).

My observations were validated by employees of ivy-league schools, who have watched over the past 2 decades as they grow more and more reclusive, hiding away from the public except through a few, probably well-intentioned, outstretched hands that do little to contribute to the world outside the university itself. These ivory towers are built by poaching: environments, observations, resources, research, and yeah, even students.

I love academia. I will sit in a library for hours just pulling down tomes (and putting them back in their proper locations like a dork) and drawing connections just for fun. But right now, I’m a bit bitter and spiteful and angry.

When something like Coronavirus sneaks up on us, we have a tendency to throw the most expendable people under the bus as quickly as we can, and all I can think about is my shadow of a suite-mate sneezing and coughing with swine flu for two weeks, at how I refused to use my own bathroom and listened to my hall-mates’ advice about showering at the rec center a mile away as we all collectively locked our bathroom doors and were left there by the university to get sick without insurance to help with any foreseeable costs.

It’s not the same now, they’ve rebuilt the entire section of the campus, it’s odd to see it, I wonder where they put the expendable kids. Or maybe they don’t accept them anymore. I’ve worked in college admissions since then, and it is a scary industry of politics and preference and hidden quotas and image-agendas. Not all schools are industry monsters, but when you’re expendable, they sure do feel like it, whether you graduate summa cum laude with two degrees, six awards, and five tasseled ropes around your neck or not.

I wish I had a positive message. I wish I was in a place to help people who feel expendable or like they can’t keep up with communications because of technology or language or network or environment. But I don’t have much right now. For all its posturing and linear progression, academia needs to create profit. All I can do is yell about this existing.

If you are feeling expandable in university, I can tell you you’re not alone. I can let you rant about all the small ways your peers don’t get it, whether its an accent they shit on or ceremonies you don’t have the right clothes for or textbooks you share with a friend to cut costs but then they hoard them. I can relate to you about guilt and that sneaking panic that fills you with anxiety at night as you question yourself and wonder if it’s worth it at all, if it’s necessary, if it’s okay to be expendable to follow something that feels bigger. I can validate your doubt and tell you that you’re not actually expendable, you’re a bridge.

I’m sorry it still works like this. I wish we figured out how to change it by now, I wish I had secret shortcuts to tell you about, that there was more accountability or hope, but I’m not seeing it lately. I hope you do. <3

#academia #anthropology #sociology #university #culture #h1n1 #coronavirus #poverty #wealth gap #elitism

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trilliontreesinitiative · 4 years

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THE TRILLION TREES INITIATIVE

It was really all my fault. Stars in my eyes, I haphazardly met strangers from the internet in more-or-less public places and pled my case, just to be brushed off over and over again. Months of pounding the keyboard, and trying to find people to help me, I gave up and decided if it needed doing, I could at least give it a game try.

I posted my plea to every corner of the internet, every newsgroup I could find, every fledgling website. This was back before there were pictures on the internet. I was a true believer then and was sure that if I found the right people, somehow we'd find a way to plant a trillion trees on our planet.

Spare change went to seedlings that I nurtured through frigid winters and increasingly hot summers. I surreptitiously planted them - a spade in one pocket and a sapling or ten in another, all wrapped in a damp rag ready for a moment no one seemed to be watching--I could add a sapling to a border of trees along the waters' edge, or in a little clearing of national forest.

Time passed, kids came, and overwhelmed by the responsibilities I'd willingly accepted without any real sense of the gravity of my commitment to the humans I'd made, I let my zealous mission drift off like my trapeze artist dreams from thirty years earlier. My kids were smarter than me, and kept me busy ferrying them back and forth with their extracurricular activities. I felt like an unpaid lab assistant for their science fair projects, but I knew that sacrifice was part of parenthood and I tucked my passions behind a mask of nurturing officiousness.

I truly forgot about the pleas I'd broadcast so carelessly. The internet was a wild place in the late twentieth century, and twenty years after my last screams into the abyss came the most unexpected answer, delivered simultaneously to my old and new email account and sent as a text.

WE CAN HELP WITH THE TREES.

It looked like it came from my own email address, my own cell number, and it was only addressed to me.

I almost swiped away the messages, but ... but what was I rejecting? My old mission? I still knew we needed trees to help counter our own environmental carelessness. What if my shouts into the void reached someone who could actually help?

I wrote and discarded responses, one after another. Finally, I replied with "I'm open to suggestions," and watched as my own words buzzed my telephone and felt foolish and a little more cynical as nothing happened. What was I expecting? Hackers to show up with bushels of acorns?

__________________________________

It wasn't hackers, it was a strangely bland man who rang my doorbell the next morning right after I'd hugged my kids and seen the bus shuttle them to school. Since I was still wearing pants, I answered the door.

"Sorry, we're renters" has been my greeting to anyone at my door for the last decade. It’s not actually true, even -- we bought our rented house before the kids were born, but it usually cuts off any sales pitch and lets any visitor trundle off to a more likely mark. I wasn't even really thinking about the weird message of the night before--my chore list was mighty and overwhelming and if I wanted to live in a clean house, I needed to make it happen--but the bland man took a breath before I closed the door in his face.

"THE TREES"

I don't know how it sounded like thousands of voices, all at once, at a conversationally comfortable volume, but I got a sense of foreignness, of something far beyond my understanding, happening right at my front door.

My chores didn't seem to be much of a priority anymore. I felt no danger from the stranger, just overwhelming urgency to do as he wished. My desire to invite the stranger to sit at my dining room table and listen was my only priority. I led the way to the table and offered some coffee to my guest.

"NO, THANK YOU" the myriad voices replied, sitting across the table from my spot. He just looked like a guy in his late twenties or early thirties. He could be my pizza delivery dude, or the guy who managed the movie theater, or a shoe salesman. Sandy brown hair was cut and combed neatly. He seemed to be in reasonable shape, with rested placid eyes and a neutral expression on his slightly ruddy face. He seemed both comfortably solid and like he was vibrating almost too fast for me to tell.

"HERE'S OUR OFFER" echoed (maybe only in my head? Maybe I'm actually going crazy. This is the weirdest interaction I've ever had with a sapient creature. I'm pretty sure that guy was not a pizza deliverer or salesman, he was something, maybe many things, different.)

The paper felt high-quality -- thick and smooth, but the letters were iridescent, black at first glance, but racing oil-slick colors at any angle. My eyes couldn't focus on it at first. Did this guy drug me? Why did I let him in my house? He was probably a serial killer. Or a mass murderer? All those voices all at once? This was insane.

"PLEASE READ IT"

I obediently looked down at the words.

"WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, WISH TO SAVE YOUR PLANET WITH YOU"

I looked up at the bland man and tried to explain my insignificance "I like where you're going with this, but I'm just one person. I'm not in charge of anything really, including my own children. I can't even keep my houseplants alive." I pointed at browning foliage in my house, a spider plant that was purportedly unkillable until my indefatigable inability to keep track of my own commitments caught up and dried out.

"WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU CAN BE. KEEP READING."

The words seemed to swim and reform as I looked down again.

"WE WILL BUY VAST TRACTS OF LAND AROUND YOUR PLANET. WE WILL PLANT YOUR TRILLION TREES. YOU JUST MUST AGREE."

I felt completely inadequate. I was in no way qualified to agree to this. I'm a suburban mom, not a diplomat or foreign dignitary. I recycle and try to avoid single-use plastics, but I'm not even sure that I'm doing that right. What if I was agreeing to an alien invasion? My authority is limited to two small humans who were at least half jerk, and that's not counting their father's influence.

More words scrambled across the page. "WE WISH NO HARM TO YOU. WE JUST WISH TO MAKE YOUR PLANET MORE HABITABLE, BOTH FOR US AND YOU."

Ah, there's the catch. Who the hell are they? Do I want to cohabitate with another species? What if they're like kudzu -- invasive and impossible to remove?

The page seemed to shimmer as the letters reformed: "WE WILL ONLY GROW TREES THAT CAN THRIVE WITHOUT DAMAGING OTHER SPECIES."

"But why me?"

"YOU ARE THE DREAMER"

"Even if I didn't want you to do this, there's no way I could stop you, so...sure! Go for it."

A pen rolled across my table and stopped, pointing at a big black X at the bottom of the page.

"SIGN AT THE X"

I looked over the page again. No legalese had suddenly appeared. The words were the same, The pen felt heavy and I knew I was doing something irrevocable but I couldn't seem to stop. I used my best handwriting and signed my name, which of course you all know by now.

The bland man inclined his head and took the paper at once, tucking it into an inside pocket of his tan corduroy jacket.

“THAT SHOULD DO IT,” his voice buzzed more as he stood, and moved to the door.

I felt bemused and a little like I’d signed something expensive away without fully understanding the value as I locked the door behind the stranger. Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe none of it happened.

__________________________________

The first sign that I hadn’t suffered a psychotic break -- to be honest, I was a little surprised it wasn’t, I’d always felt precariously balanced on the edge of sanity and figured this was the final separation of my tenuous grasp on reality -- the first sign was a few days later, when I finished matching another dozen socks, rolling them together, and throwing them in my older child’s underwear drawer. Her room was a pigsty, but we’d come to an agreement that her worktable was her problem and that no food was consumed in her room, so it was relatively hygienic. I looked out the window and saw that the empty lot next to my house no longer had a sign advertising a local Realtor and something was happening.

I slid my feet into flip-flops and walked to my mailbox and saw the bland man riding a giant lawnmower, cutting the native brush to nearly barren dirt. I flipped through three credit card offers I planned to dump straight into the recycling and leafed through the grocery circular and noted that pork chops were a few dollars cheaper per pound, so McRibs would be coming back soon.

The silliest things played through my head as I watched him clear the land, as a flock of quail (I have Opinions About Quail, mostly that they’re only saved from extinction by reproducing so much, because they seem to have a death wish near motorized vehicles) ran on foot just ahead of the mower.

I waved at the man, since we were acquainted. Sort of. I didn’t know his name, and I’d never even thought to ask. Why didn’t I ask? I’d signed a contract that I didn’t truly understand and I didn’t even know his name. I patiently waited for him to mow back toward my property line, the forgotten junk mail between my arm and chest.

He shimmered a little as he hopped off the mower and moved towards me.

“WE MUST PREPARE THE LAND.”

I nodded, like I knew his plan all along and was magnanimously supervising him. I offered him a bottle of water, or the use of my toilet, if he needed it.

“WE HAVE WHAT WE NEED.”

Why was he speaking in the plural? It hadn’t seemed odd until just then. My sense of incongruity and that something was Just Not Right began to ramp up. I waved at them and walked back to my bungalow. I popped online to see what was happening in the world and saw the bigger picture, easily seen by less self-absorbed human beings.

Every single vacant lot in the world was being mowed flat by a bland looking man, who was identical in feature to every other bland-looking man mowing a vacant lot. Too weird. Reporters tried to talk to the men, but they placidly mowed each lot, one after another. Where did all of the mowers come from? There were no brand markers on the machines. As soon as the lots were cleared, furrows were plowed. The bland men moved implacably, good neighbors every one, and stopped the racket of agricultural busywork well before dinnertime. They started the next day after sunrise.

The story got bigger as the days passed. It was on the front page of newspapers, and everyone seemed to have a hot take on what was really going on. Aliens? Nah, they looked too normal. Clones? How could millions of clones make it to adulthood without someone catching on? As far as I could tell, I was the only one who’d successfully spoken to any of these….people, if that’s what they were. I thought I might be able to tell someone about my weird experience, but I was also positive that no one would believe me. I told my husband the strange tale and he laughed at my creativity and rubbed my back as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I drove the kids to school and went to the public library. I used it frequently for escapist fiction, mostly about young women in the early 19th century trying to snag a spouse. I went straight to the reference desk.

“Do you know what’s going on with these guys mowing and plowing everywhere?”

The librarian grimaced, “You’re number six to ask today. We have no idea.”

I returned a stack of Regencies into the slot next to the desk, and walked back to my car without grabbing any new trashy fiction. I drove home pensively, worried that I had fucked up something big.

Safe in my garage, I felt my anxiety rise, and I tried to breathe slowly and smoothly and reason my way through this mystery. I agreed to let someone plant the trees that I knew we needed. We clearly weren’t taking care of our planet and someone else was stepping in for us. Did it really matter that I didn’t understand their reasoning or motivations? I’d been begging the world for so long, and someone finally listened. Panic attack averted, I stepped into my kitchen and rinsed the breakfast dishes before loading the dishwasher.

__________________________________

I looked out of my kitchen window and saw a wall of trees in the formerly vacant lot. Not seedlings, fully grown and mature trees. I flipped on the news, and it was the same everywhere. The trees were in. The space station reported that there were just new trees everywhere, they hadn’t been uprooted from forests, they just suddenly existed. Every tree fit perfectly in its microclimate, and fruit and nut trees were included in each single-lot forest, freely available for hungry mouths.

I ran outside and looked for the man. He was standing with his hands on his lower back, looking up. Fruit trees were in full bloom. Conifers looked like they’d been growing there since time began. I stood next to the man. I didn’t even know what words I could use to express my gratitude, my discomfort, my fear.

“WE ARE DONE, MS. APPLESEED” he buzzed, and suddenly became a cloud of bees. The cloud, the machinery, the man all dispersed. The signed paper fell to the newly turned earth. The trees stayed where they were.

A lot of people had been watching the planters. A lot of people saw the planters become clouds of bees. A lot of people grabbed one of the billion copies of my signed contract, and everyone saw my name, clear as day. “Terra Appleseed, Mother of Trees”, the headlines called me.

My number was unlisted, but my phone didn’t stop ringing for weeks. I didn’t have any of the answers that the reporters wanted. I was just a dreamer, I told them. I don’t know why the bees listened to me.

The scientists had the most to say, of course. Carbon dioxide was down, oxygen was up. Glaciers stopped melting, and while I was trying to sound like a functional adult, refusing any interview requests, my older daughter figured out how to make cold fusion work.

She’d built a variation of a Farnsworth Fusor that fused two atoms of hydrogen into one of helium at room temperature, and suddenly eliminated the need for fossil fuel combustion. With a ready-built platform, we freely gave away her discovery to anyone who’d listen. At first, people thought I’d somehow organized the tree thing to sell my daughter’s invention, but I knew we’d get by fine without charging a dime. The truth was more mysterious and unexplainable, but we, as a species, weren’t going to get ourselves in such a fix again -- we didn’t need to. We just needed the bees to start us off, and my daughter to finish our addiction to combustion.

People started planting their own trees, too, but nothing made them grow forty feet in a day. The bees kept that secret. I was much too boring to stay in the spotlight for long, and I returned to my diet of trashy novels and quiet longing for that feeling of secret importance that had filled the days of planting, the wonder at this enormous leap towards peace and understanding that seemed to fall into my lap.

It was enough. My obituary decades later would focus on the mystery of the trees, the dream I tried to spread, and the unexpected way it came true.

The trillion trees initiative worked. We reached for the stars, comfortable that our home planet was safe. We found life everywhere we looked. As far as I know, no one ever spoke to the bees again.

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cm-reiding · 5 years

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Home

Hey guys this is part one of a two part Spencer Reid x Reader writing. Thank you for reading my first Reid story.

Monday, November 17, 2010 HOUR 1 _______________________ I walked home from work, the cool autumn air forcing me to wrap my jacket tighter around my body. I would have driven but it was a bit warmer than it had been in the last few weeks so I decided to take advantage of the weather, besides it was a short walk to the agency that I worked at. I stepped onto my porch, grabbing the mail out of the small box beside the door. Mostly junk except for a letter that had only my name on it, not my address nor a senders. I unlocked the door and went inside, petting the small dog I adopted 2 years ago from the shelter near my house on the way inside.

I make my way to the kitchen table, grabbing the letter opener and slicing through the envelope with ease. Inside there was a note and pictures of my co-workers and I from different crime scene locations of the latest murder we were working on.

"For profilers, you are all quite slow for seeing what is right in front of you, I will give you thirty-six hours before my next strike and keep the one alive I have until the full moon Good Luck, Agents."

As soon as I finished reading and re-reading the letter, my hands went to my phone calling the first person I could find in the contact list.

"Hello?" Emily picked up, still working in the office alone with Rossi and Morgan.

"Emily, I just got home and there was a letter in my mailbox with pictures from our case and a note." I said, reading the note aloud.

"Okay, (y/n) stay where you are, Morgan will come pick you up. Pack some things you need for a couple days you aren't going back to your house it isn't safe." Rossi said "Don't open your door to anyone except for Morgan."

I mumbled out an okay and hung up the phone, putting my holster back on the band of my jeans and going upstairs to pack a small bag with everything I'l need.

Fifteen minutes later, there is a loud knock on my door, shaking me out of my thoughts. I checked out the peephole and saw Derek standing there looking out into the street for anyone that may be suspicious. I opened the door to let him inside.

"Anyone came to the door?" He asked, glancing around the small house.

"Not that I know of I haven't checked outside since I called Emily." I said, grabbing the small backpack and my purse and badge.

"Okay, let's go." He said, putting a hand on my back as we walked out the front door.

I nodded, picking up the bag I had packed and tossing it over my shoulder, grabbing my house keys.

We arrived at the BAU half an hour later with the letter and pictures that were left at my home. As soon as we walked through the door, Rossi and Hotch came up to us.

"Did you bring the letter with you?" Rossi asked, looking toward the envelope I had been clenching in my hand the entire ride here. I handed it to him as he opened it and put the photos on the evidence board.

"Considering he knows y/n's address it wouldn't be surprising if he knew all of ours. I think for the time being everyone should stay here just to be cautious." Hotch said, walking into the conference room.

"Has there been anyone you didn't recognize in your neighborhood lately?" Rossi asked, handing the letter to Reid.

"Not that I know of, but I'm not really at my house most of the time."

"Morgan, Prentiss go to (y/n)'s neighbors and see if they have seen anything suspicious recently. (y/n) and Reid can run an analysis with Garcia on the handwriting. Rossi and I will go to the other homes and see if anything was left." Hotch called out.

I got up from my seat and began walking to Garcia's office when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked over and saw Reid matching paces with me.

"Don't stress to much, we will find the unsub." He said with a reassuring smile.

"I know it's just that he knows where I live - where everyone here lives. Doesn't that even scare you a little?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I knew what might happen when I started working here, you can't only see the bad side of things (y/n)."

I nodded my head, walking through the doorway of Garcia's office.

"Hello, young geniuses. What can I do you for?" Garcia asked spinning around to face us in her chair.

"We need you to run this letter and see if you can find anyone who has handwriting that matches this in the system. It was left on (y/n)'s door." Reid says, handing over the piece of paper.

Penelope looks over the letter her expression changing to concerned. "He knows where everyone lives?' She asked worriedly.

"We aren't sure it may have just been to get our attention but since it was at my house it is highly likely." I say leaning against the desk, crossing my arms.

She doesn't take another breath before turning back to one of the multiple screens in behind her and typing in different codes into the computer before putting the letter on a scanner.

"I don't see anything that matches." she says, sighing. "Did you have this run for prints?"

"Yes, the results should be coming back any time now." I say "Well, thank you for the help Garcia. We will let you know if there is anything else we might need you for."

"Be safe, peasants." She says, combing through her computer while Spencer and I exchange a look.

HOUR 3 ____________________________________

I was sitting at my desk, putting in files when my e-mail beeped signaling I had a new message.

“Hello Agent (y/l/n). I see that you received my letter and are acting to solve who I am. Let me just say that the last case we worked on together caused me to be transferred. But it isn't that easy, this was 2 and a half years ago. Good luck.”

I ran my hands through my hair, getting up and walking to the restroom and putting cool water on my face.

"Everything okay?" J.J asked, walking through the door.

"I got an email from the unsub. They said that we have worked on a case with them a few years ago."

"Then it should be easier to track them down."

"I guess so, but- it's, we know who this person is. I guess since we have worked with them before."

"Don't worry, we will find them Agent."

I nodded, walking out of the bathroom and back to my desk seeing Rossi looking at the email.

"Why didn't you tell us about this, this is key information."

"I just received it less than 5 minutes ago I was about to ask Garcia if she can find a address that we can track."

He nodded his head before beckoning me to her office.

"Garcia, I have a link to an email I received can you track it?"

"I can try" she says, opening the link I sent her myself.

After a few moments she opens up a tab that shows a computer IP and owner along with the location the e-mail was sent.

"It was sent from Arthur's coffee house in Wilmington. I also have the address for the owner's home. They did not seem to lock down their security very well before sending this."

She hands me a note with both locations and I walk into the conference room where Hotch and JJ are.

"Garcia got these addresses from the sender. Home and location the email was sent." I say, handing over the paper.

"You go with Reid and Prentiss to the Coffee shop, I will go with Rossi and Morgan to the house. Be careful, stay alert." Hotchner says walking to the suvs.

"Yes, sir." I grab my jacket with my badge off my desk chair and call for Reid and Prentiss to come with me .

HOUR 8

When we walked inside the busy coffee house, there were multiple people on computers, all around college age or in business-type clothing.

Reid walks up to the front counter and asks to speak to a manager, flashing his badge.

"I'm Dr. Spencer Reid, this is Agents Prentiss and (y/l/n). We are looking for anyone who may have come in here within the past 20 minutes, may have been an older male on a computer. Kind of suspicious looking." He explained.

"We have a lot of people come in every hour, doctor." He said before looking around, thinking "There was one man who came in a while back, when he came up to the counter he seemed upset and was almost punching the keys on his computer."

"Can you describe him?" Emily asks

"I can't remember, I'm sorry."

"Thank you for the information anyway, it should help." I said, walking to the exit.

I walked out of the coffee shop with Reid and Prentiss on my way to the BAU I glanced down at my phone, checking the time.

"Agent (y/l/n)?"

We looked back up seeing a man around his thirties in front of us, with blonde hair and green eyes.

"Yes, how can I help you?" I asked, his face looked familiar but I couldn't match a name to him.

"That's James Torres, he worked with us in Atlanta" Reid quietly whispered in my ear.

"I am officer Torres, we worked on the Muner case back about a year ago in Atlanta."

"Oh, right! How have you been, officer?"

"Well, after you all left the FBI cost me my job due to the mistaken identity so I had to transfer to Tallahassee." He said, I could tell that he had turned from calm to angry while explaining his situation, not hiding his emotion well.

"Sir, I can assure you that the FBI did not cost you your job. You gave your team the order to kill while we were still unsure of the unsub's identity. The man we suspected had similar ident-"

"I don't want to hear the bullshit that you have been believing from the FBI. I had to start my rank over from 15 years. My family left me."

'I don't understand how that's our fault' Prentiss said from behind me.

"It was because Agent (y/l/n) here was the one to report it to my boss and she cost me my job. She gave me the information about who was the first suspected murderer and led me to kill him." He said, reaching for the gun on his holster which was hidden underneath his jacket.

"When I give out information about a SUSPECT it does not mean they have committed the crime until we have solid evidence. At that point we didn't have any." I said with my hands up, Prentiss and Reid had their hands on their holsters in case the situation went south.

"I don't care your reasoning, this was your fault!"

He shot his gun before he even realized what he had done while you were sent to the ground from the pain in your left arm. You faintly heard gunshots which was Prentiss shooting the officer.

“We need a medic.” Emily said into her wire as you held onto your arm.

"Rossi, (y/l/n) has been shot, we are on eighty-seventh street." I heard Reid shout into his phone and saw him -blurry- standing above me as Emily was crouched beside me.

I heard sirens in the distance as I went in and out of consciousness from the pain. I guess a bystander called when they heard the shot. Then everything went black.

________________________________

#criminal minds reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #criminal minds imagines #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #reid x reader #dr spencer reid #david rossi #criminal minds #reid

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raptorginger · 6 years

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Netherfield Is Let at Last: Chapter 7 - The Secret Life of Daydreams

mood board by the wonderful @prinecssleia

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

The first thing Rey did when she got home a few days later was shove Ben’s sweater as deep into the corner of her closet as she could. However, with the doldrums of fall and the bone chilling cold of winter fast approaching, the damn thing kept creeping its way back out. Rey swore the thing could move on its own.

In her quiet moments, she replayed their last encounter over and over in her mind, turning over every word, every movement, around and around. There was no doubt in Rey’s mind that Ben did not agree with Snoke as to the quality of her character. Angry Rey had thought that in a moment of hazy rage. Ben was an ass but not a monster. But, he had decried and derided her chosen form of expression, more than once and quite passionately. It was hard for Rey not to take that personally. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, Rey reasoned. But he could have been nicer about it. Rey didn’t think she could be in a relationship with someone who looked down on what she did so vehemently. It wasn’t such a large leap to go from not respecting what she did to not respecting her. Even if that kiss was probably the most passionate she’d ever had. Don’t go there, Rey told herself.

In her waking hours, she never did. But when she slept…

Rey is running through the woods. It’s some indefinable time in the past. Maybe a past that never was. The trees are tall and dark. Jagged looking. The air is chilled and hazy, the ground cold and damp. The skirts of her dress rustle and flow as she runs, the sharp wind blowing them hither and yon. She can hear the clank and shouts of the armored men behind her. They are some faceless mass chasing her on the orders of a fearsome man. He reminds her of Snoke. He’s more frail, but somehow yet more cruel as he commands them “Forward! Forward!”. She is the witch that lives in these woods, and they mean to kill her for what she’s done.

A massive black furred wolf leaps out between her and the knights, snarling and frothing in rage. Rey knows it’s him - Ben. The were-touched have been hunted by these men for years, but hypocrites that they are, they kept him alive because he was strong. They are the ones that tried to make him into a monster, and he will make them pay. She knows this; he has shown her. He slays them all with tooth and claw as she keeps running. She rescued him, set him free in her woods. Loved him. For this, they would kill her. He would not allow it.

Rey passes over a line of stone into a clearing. It’s reach is wide and protected by her warding magicks. The air is calmer, warmer here. Her woods is quiet except for a faint ‘chuff’ sound at the edge of the clearing. Rey turns, looking with wide eyes as the black wolf steps from the edge of the clearing, its gait graceful and almost timid. She looks away as the wolf shifts, unable to bear the sight of the twisting limbs and tearing flesh. When she looks up again, Ben stands before her. His human skin is pale, scattered with scars and speckles. A whole cosmos written on his skin. His hair is deepest black, like the wolf’s fur. His eyes, a warm deep amber, are always the same. He is naked before her, completely vulnerable to her. Only for her.

He approaches the line of stone but cannot cross. Not unless she allows it. His warm eyes meet hers, asking a silent question. She nods, her fingers twisting together. He steps over the line of stone and takes her into his arms. He is warm, so warm, like the heat in her belly. He takes her face between his large hands and kisses her deeply. Rey rests her hands on his broad chest, the fingers of her left hand lightly tracing the vicious scar that runs down the right side of his body. She returns his kiss shyly at first, then boldly, almost demanding, tracing his lower lip with her tongue. He growls with pleasure, pulling her dress from her body so she’s as exposed as he is.

As he lays her down on the soft grass and small flowers, his hands simultaneously everywhere and in the one spot Rey needs them most, he purrs lowly against the delicate skin of her temple, “Everything I am is yours.”

As he rakes his teeth down her neck to her shoulder, his throbbing hardness entering her slick heat in one hard thrust, “And everything you are, is mine.”

Rey woke with a start and a gasp, having fallen asleep on her couch wrapped in Ben’s sweater. Again. She’d had the dream. Again. She felt overheated, her core throbbing with want. She was almost sick with it. She groaned and got up, staggering to her kitchen to make some tea. She sat at her small table as the kettle boiled, resting her forehead against her curled fingers, her eyes closed. She tried to force her breathing into a deep, even pattern. Opening her eyes, she saw the email from Poe she’d printed off. While she hadn’t seen or talked to Ben in weeks, she couldn’t say the same for Snoke, unfortunately. The cantankerous old codger had wanted to have her charged with assault for slapping him.

“Probably thinks it’ll help him save face in front of 200 students,” Rey grumbled when she called Finn to ask for his help about a week after she’d gotten home.

She could almost picture Finn’s sympathetic face as he listened to her ranting. “Let me talk to Poe. I think he knows Snoke’s lawyer. Maybe he can get him to back off,” he’d offered. “And if he can’t, Poe’ll represent you, no charge.”

“Thanks, Finn,” Rey replied gratefully. She was sure her publisher would have no problem footing the bill, and they probably had their own lawyers at the ready anyway, but she appreciated Finn’s words.

As it turned out, Poe had been able to convince Snoke’s lawyer to back off. In fact, Wildemount had gotten wind of the whole situation somehow, according to Poe who heard it from Snoke’s lawyer over a Manhattan or two. The Board of Regents began to quietly investigate Snoke and his time as the head of the English Language and Literature Department. Rey was shocked to discover that contrary to the popular myth, there are certain things that can remove a tenured professor, fostering a hostile work environment along with a long list of complaints of harassment, discrimination, and full on assault being the most egregious examples. It didn’t surprise Rey that the University’s investigators were able to compile a veritable mountain of evidence against Snoke. It did surprise her, pleasantly, that they actually did something. Snoke was summarily dismissed, his classes assigned to other professors.

Poe’s email was simply an official notice that no file was opened, all charges, if they could even be called such, had been dropped. Rey sighed. She wondered how Ben was doing, in spite of her promise to herself that she would try to think about him as little as possible.

The wind howled outside the kitchen window as the kettle whistled. Dried dead leaves rustled and scratched at the glass, their skritching and hissing unnerving. Rey crossed her arms over her chest, holding Ben’s sweater closer to her body as she went to the stove and poured the steaming water into a mug, the tag of the tea bag fluttering like a butterfly’s wings in a draft. While her tea steeped, she braved the dark and dashed out to her mailbox, realizing she hadn’t checked it in a few days. She hardly received anything these days, save for a handful of junk mailers, but she always hoped to be surprised. She grabbed the small pile that had accumulated and dashed back to her warm home, the light from the living room a guiding beacon in the dark.

As she flipped through the stack, junk as usual, a confused look crossed her face when she came upon a thick envelope, letter sized. The paper was thick and creamy, the penmanship impeccable. Flipping it over, she saw a blood red wax seal first, the stylized ‘S’ unmistakeable. Just above the envelope’s point was written neatly ‘Professor Benjamin Solo’ and Ben’s address in Coruscant. Rey had to laugh, just a little, at the pretentiousness of it.

Breaking the seal and opening the envelope, a faint hint of Ben’s scent floated up to her nose, and Rey let out an involuntary humming sound. Inside was more of the luxurious paper and beautiful closely lettered but flowing handwriting, a letter addressed to her.

Dear Rey:

I figured if anyone would appreciate an apology in the form of a letter, it would be you. I’m better at writing than talking anyway. It’s harder for my temper and feelings to get in the way.

There are a large number of offenses for which I need to beg your forgiveness. To list them in their entirety would, I’m afraid, result in the fracture of the unfortunate postal carrier’s arm due to the large number of pages required. So let me say in brief here, I’m truly sorry for any offense and hurt I have caused you. I hope that one day, you will allow me to apologize in person, so that I may express the deep fathoms of my regret. You said once that I could be nicer about expressing my opinion. I want you to know that I AM trying. Coming from a long line of bull-headed individuals known, perhaps infamously, for their stubbornness, it is...challenging. But I am trying. With Snoke gone, thank you for that by the way, it’s easier around the office to express dissenting or even simply different opinions. That man ran that department like his own personal...cult I guess. Now that he’s gone, it’s like some kind of fog has been lifted from all our eyes. Did you know there’s a guy here by the name of Dopheld Mitaka? He’s just about the nicest person you’ll ever meet. He loves your books and has gifted me with the first one. I’ll admit, I’m scared to read it. You’ll prove all my opinions wrong, and then what kind of stuck up academic will I be?

I also wanted to assure you of the sincerity of my feelings in regards to my actions on the last day I saw you, after your talk, I mean. When I kissed you. When I held you. Do you dream about me? Because I cry out for you. I wasn’t kidding when I said I could hardly breathe without you. I see your sparkling eyes and your dancing freckles everytime I close my eyes to sleep, and I smile.

I miss you.

-Ben

Rey wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, surprised to feel a wetness there. Carrying her tea up to bed, she read Ben’s letter over and over. When she laid her head down, for once, she allowed herself to simply feel what she felt for him, and she wasn’t surprised when she cried out for him too. His name was a sigh on her lips as she drifted off to sleep that night.

#reylo #reylo fanfic #fanfiction #my fanfiction #rey #ben solo #ben solo x rey #pride and prejudice feels #modern au #ben writes a letter!

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bloojayoolie · 4 years

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Alive, Children, and Comfortable: trilliontreesinitiative THE TRILLION TREES INITIATIVE It was really all my fault. Stars in my eyes, I haphazardly met strangers from the internet in more-or-less public places and pled my case, just to be brushed off over and over again. Months of pounding the keyboard, and trying to find people to help me, I gave up and decided if it needed doing, I could at least give it a game try. I posted my plea to every corner of the internet, every newsgroup I could find, every fledgling website. This was back before there were pictures on the internet. I was a true believer then and was sure that if I found the right people, somehow we'd find a way to plant a trillion trees on our planet. Spare change went to seedlings that I nurtured through frigid winters and increasingly hot summers. I surreptitiously planted them a spade in one pocket and a sapling or ten in another, all wrapped in a damp rag ready for a moment no one seemed to be watching-- could add a sapling to a border of trees along the waters' edge, or in a little clearing of national forest Time passed, kids came, and overwhelmed by the responsibilities I'd willingly accepted without any real sense of the gravity of my commitment to the humans l'd made, I let my zealous mission drift off like my trapeze artist dreams from thirty years earlier. My kids were smarter than me, and kept me busy ferrying them back and forth with their extracurricular activities. I felt like an unpaid lab assistant for their science fair projects, but I knew that sacrifice was part of parenthood and I tucked my passions behind a mask of nurturing officiousness. I truly forgot about the pleas l'd broadcast so carelessly. The internet was a wild place in the late twentieth century, and twenty years after my last screams into the abyss came the most unexpected answer, delivered simultaneously to my old and new email account and sent as a text WE CAN HELP WITH THE TREES. It looked like it came from my own email address, my own cell number, and it was only addressed to me. I almost swiped away the messages, but.. but what was I rejecting? My old mission? I still knew we needed trees to help counter our own environmental carelessness. What if my shouts into the void reached someone who could actually help? I wrote and discarded responses, one after another. Finally, I replied with "I'm open to suggestions," and watched as my own words buzzed my telephone and felt foolish and a little more cynical as nothing happened. What was I expecting? Hackers to show up with bushels of acorns? It wasn't hackers, it was a strangely bland man who rang my doorbell the next morning right after l'd hugged my kids and seen the bus shuttle them to school. Since was still wearing pants, I answered the door. "Sorry, we're renters" has been my greeting to anyone at my door for the last decade. It's not actually true, even -- we bought our rented house before the kids were born, but it usually cuts off any sales pitch and lets any visitor trundle off to a more likely mark. I wasn't even really thinking about the weird message of the night before--my chore list was mighty and overwhelming and if I wanted to live in a clean house, I needed to make it happen--but the bland man took a breath before I closed the door in his face "THE TREES" I don't know how it sounded like thousands of voices, all at once, at a conversationally comfortable volume, but I got a sense of foreignness, of something far beyond my understanding, happening right at my front door. My chores didn't seem to be much of a priority anymore. I felt no danger from the stranger, just overwhelming urgency to do as he wished. My desire to invite the stranger to sit at my dining room table and listen was my only priority. I led the way to the table and offfered some coffee to my guest "NO, THANK YOU" the myriad voices replied, sitting across the table from my spot. He just looked like a guy in his late twenties or early thirties. He could be my pizza delivery dude, or the guy who managed the movie theater, or a shoe salessman. Sandy brown hair was cut and combed neatly. He seemed to be in reasonable shape, with rested placid eyes and a neutral expression on his slightly ruddy face. He seemed both comfortably solid and like he was vibrating almost too fast for me to tell. "HERE'S OUR OFFER" echoed (maybe only in my head? Maybe I'm actually going crazy. This is the weirdest interaction l've ever had with a sapient creature. I'm pretty sure that guy was not a pizza deliverer or salesman, he was something, maybe many things, different.) The paper felt high-quality thick and smooth, but the letters were iridescent, black at first glance, but racing oil-slick colors at any angle. My eyes couldn't focus on it at first. Did this guy drug me? Why did I let him in my house? He was probably a serial killer. Or a mass murderer? All those voices all at once? This was insane. "PLEASE READ IT" I obediently looked down at the words "WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, WISH TO SAVE YOUR PLANET WITH YOU" I looked up at the bland man and tried to explain my insignificance "I like where you're going with this, but I'm just one person. I'm not in charge of anything really, including my own children. I can't even keep my houseplants alive." I pointed at browning foliage in my house, a spider plant that was purportedly unkillable until my indefatigable inability to keep track of my own commitments caught up and dried out. "WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU CAN BE. KEEP READING" The words seemed to swim and reform as I looked down again. "WE WILL BUY VAST TRACTS OF LAND AROUND YOUR PLANET. WE WILL PLANT YOUR TRILLION TREES. YOU JUST MUST AGREE I felt completely inadequate. I was in no way qualified to agree to this. I'm a suburban mom, not a diplomat or foreign dignitary. I recycle and try to avoid single-use plastics, but I'm not even sure that I'm doing that right. What if I was agreeing to an alien invasion? My authority is limited to two small humans who were at least half jerk, and that's not counting their father's influence More words scrambled across the page. "WE WISH NO HARM TO YOU, WE JUST WISH TO MAKE YOUR PLANET MORE HABITABLE BOTH FOR US AND YOU." Ah, there's the catch. Who the hell are they? Do I want to cohabitate with another species? What if they're like kudzu -- invasive and impossible to remove? The page seemed to shimmer as the letters reformed: "WE WILL ONLY GROW TREES THAT CAN THRIVE WITHOUT DAMAGING OTHER SPECIES. "But why me?" "YOU ARE THE DREAMER" "Even if I didn't want you to do this, there's no way I could stop you, so...sure! Go for it. A pen rolled across my table and stopped, pointing at a big black X at the bottom of the page "SIGN AT THE X I looked over the page again. No legalese had suddenly appeared. The words were the same The pen felt heavy and I knew I was doing something irrevocable but I couldn't seem to stop. I used my best handwriting and signed my name, which of course you all know by now. The bland man inclined his head and took the paper at once, tucking it into an inside pocket of his tan corduroy jacket "THAT SHOULD DO IT" his voice buzzed more as he stood, and moved to the door I felt bemused and a little like l'd signed something expensive away without fully understanding the value as I locked the door behind the stranger. Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe none of it happened The first sign that I hadn't suffered a psychotic break - to be honest, I was a little surprised it wasn't, l'd always felt precariously balanced on the edge of sanity and figured this was the final separation of my tenuous grasp on reality the first sign was a few days later, when I finished matching another dozen socks, rolling them together, and throwing them in my older child's underwear drawer. Her room was a pigsty, but we'd come to an agreement that her worktable was her problem and that no food was consumed in her room, so it was relatively hygienic. I looked out the window and saw that the empty lot next to my house no longer had a sign advertising a local Realtor and something was happening I slid my feet into flip-flops and walked to my mailbox and saw the bland man riding a giant lawnmower, cutting the native brush to nearly barren dirt. I flipped through three credit card offers I planned to dump straight into the recycling and leafed through the grocery circular and noted that pork chops were a few dollars cheaper per pound, so McRibs would be coming back soon The silliest things played through my head as watched him clear the land, as a flock of quail ( have Opinions About Quail, mostly that they're only saved from extinction by reproducing so much, because they seem to have a death wish near motorized vehicles) ran on foot just ahead of the mower waved at the man, since we were acquainted. Sort of, I didn't know his name, and I'd never even thought to ask. Why didn't I ask? l'd signed a contract that I didn't truly understand and didn't even know his name. I patiently waited for him to mow back toward my property line, the forgotten junk mail between my arm and chest. He shimmered a little as he hopped off the mower and moved towards me. "WE MUST PREPARE THE LAND. I nodded, like I knew his plan all along and was magnanimously supervising him, I offered him a bottle of water, or the use of my toilet, if he needed it. "WE HAVE WHAT WE NEED" Why was he speaking in the plural? It hadn't seemed odd until just then. My sense of incongruity and that something was Just Not Right began to ramp up. I waved at them and walked back to my bungalow. I popped online to see what was happening in the world and saw the bigger picture, easily seen by less self-absorbed human beings. Every single vacant lot in the world was being mowed flat by a bland looking man, who was identical in feature to every other bland-looking man mowing a vacant lot. Too weird. Reporters tried to talk to the men, but they placidly mowed each lot, one after another. Where did all of the mowers come from? There were no brand markers on the machines. As soon as the lots were cleared, furrows were plowed The bland men moved implacably, good neighbors every one, and stopped the racket of agricultural busywork well before dinnertime. They started the next day after sunrise. The story got bigger as the days passed. It was on the front page of newspapers, and everyone seemed to have a hot take on what was really going on. Aliens? Nah, they looked too normal. Clones? How could millions of clones make it to adulthood without someone catching on? As far as I could tell, I was the only one who'd successfully spoken to any of these....people, if that's what they were. I thought I might be able to tell someone about my weird experience, but I was also positive that no one would believe me. I told my husband the strange tale and he laughed at my creativity and rubbed my back as I drifted off to sleep. The next morning, I drove the kids to school and went to the public library. I used it frequently for escapist fiction, mostly about young women in the early 19th century trying to snag a spouse. I went straight to the reference desk. Do you know what's going on with these guys mowing and plowing everywhere?" The librarian grimaced, "You're number six to ask today. We have no idea," I returned a stack of Regencies into the slot next to the desk, and walked back to my car without grabbing any new trashy fiction. I drove home pensively, worried that I had fucked up something big. Safe in my garage, I felt my anxiety rise, and tried to breathe slowly and smoothly and reason my way through this mystery. I agreed to let someone plant the trees that I knew we needed We clearly weren't taking care of our planet and someone else was stepping in for us. Did it really matter that I didn't understand their reasoning or motivations? l'd been begging the world for so long, and someone finally listened. Panic attack averted, I stepped into my kitchen and rinsed the breakfast dishes before loading the dishwasher. looked out of my kitchen window and saw a wall of trees in the formerly vacant lot. Not seedlings, fully grown and mature trees.T flipped on the news, and it was the same everywhere. The trees were in. The space station reported that there were just new trees everywhere, they hadn't been uprooted from forests, they just suddenly existed. Every tree fit perfectly in its microclimate, and fruit and nut trees were included in each single-lot forest freely available for hungry mouths I ran outside and looked for the man. He was standing with his hands on his lower baçk looking up. Fruit trees were in full bloom. Conifers looked like they'd been growingg there since time began. I stood next to the man.I didn't even know what words I could use to express my gratitude, my discomfort, my fear "WE ARE DONE, MS. APPLESEED" he buzzed, and suddenly became a cloud of bees. The cloud, the machinery, the man all dispersed. The signed paper fell to the newly turned earth. The trees stayed where they were. A lot of people had been watching the planters. A lot of people saw the planters become clouds of bees. A lot of people grabbed one of the billion copies of my signed contract, and everyone saw my name, clear as day. "Terra Appleseed, Mother of Trees", the headlines called me My number was unlisted, but my phone didn't stop ringing for weeks. I didn't have any of the answers that the reporters wanted. I was just a dreamer, I told them. I don't know why the bees listened to me. The scientists had the most to say, of course. Carbon dioxide was down, oxygen was up Glaciers stopped melting, and while I was trying to sound like a functional adult, refusing any interview requests, my older daughter figured out how to make cold fusion work. She'd built a variation of a Farnsworth Fusor that fused two atoms of hydrogen into one of helium at room temperature, and suddenly eliminated the need for fossil fuel combustion With a ready-built platform, we freely gave away her discovery to anyone who'd listen. At first, people thought I'd somehow organized the tree thing to sell my daughter's invention but I knew we'd get by fine without charging a dime. The truth was more mysterious and unexplainable, but we, as a species, weren't going to get ourselves in such a fix again -- we didn't need to. We just needed the bees to start us off, and my daughter to finish our addiction to combustion People started planting their own trees, too, but nothing made them grow forty feet in a day. The bees kept that secret. I was much too boring to stay in the spotlight for long, and I returned to my diet of trashy novels and quiet longing for that feeling of secret importance that had filled the days of planting, the wonder at this enormous leap towards peace and understanding that seemed to fall into my lap It was enough. My obituary decades later would focus on the mystery of the trees, the dream I tried to spread, and the unexpected way it came true The trillion trees initiative worked. We reached for the stars, comfortable that our home planet was safe. We found life everywhere we looked. As far as I know, no one ever spoke to the bees again. Super long, sorry - A modern day fairy tale about trees.

#funny #lol #humor #memes #meme #memehumor #dank memes #funny pics #rolf #lmao #Alive #Children #and

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long-live-jessejane · 6 years

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10 Things to Hate About the iPhone

Of September i took delivery of my iPhone in the beginning, the start of a trying month personally that found me from the workplace for lengthy periods and only touching the globe via my telephone. It had been a baptism of fire for me and these devices. You shall have observed the adverts, used it in phone shops, viewed fellow commuters' shoulders, borrowed your friend's ... great isn't it? Or could it be? In this post I contact on some of the things about the device which have really irked me personally. A bit or quite a lot just. Also to keep up with the celestial karmic stability I've a companion content on a few of the reasons for having the iPhone that I definitely love. There's enough materials for both articles, I assure you! So right here we go, backwards order, the 10 factors that you should hate about the iPhone! 10. Grubby fingertips and the onscreen keyboard The iPhone's onscreen keyboard is surprisingly effective and doesn't take long to get accustomed to. Be sure you wash the hands just before you do therefore just, however! This is not just aesthetic: For reasons uknown I have the ability to keep a sticky tag under my right thumb that attract dirt, biscuit crumbs, or whatever, correct over the erase essential. Generally the crumb lands there just as I finish the two 2 web page email and begins to rub out the whole message character by personality! This is simply not an exaggeration!! It really is, however, not really a daily occurrence!! 9. External memory We went the complete hog and took the 16GB iPhone instantly. I don't regret it! I haven't been selective with my music collection and have pretty much all my ripped CDs stored on the iPhone. That's 14GB. Which leaves valuable little room for true data. On other devices that is rarely a problem and nonvolatile storage is usually flash memory of some description, how big is which obeys Moore's law and doubles in proportions and speed every 9 months or so and halves in physical size every 24 months roughly with a new "mini" or "micro" format. I have yet to perform out of space on a cellular smartphone or mobile phone, with an address book of over 500 names even. The problem on the iPhone is that there surely is no external memory slot no way (short of wielding a soldering iron) of expanding the inner memory. A shame. The ipod itouch has spawned a 32GB edition and I suppose the 32GB iPhone is coming. When that occurs the legacy user base will be left wondering how to proceed next. 8. Electric battery and battery life The iPhone is sleek - a centimetre thick and enticingly smooth with those rounded edges barely. There are few buttons, no little doorways to arrive open and break off in your pocket and no memory slots to fill with fluff and dirt. One of the known reasons for the smooth style is that the iPhone doesn't have a consumer removeable battery. The battery could be changed by an ongoing service centre, and over both years I'll keep this product I have a much to improve the battery at least once, but I cannot perform it myself. Also the battery can be surprisingly little - it needs to be to fit into this neat small package. The purchase price you purchase this is battery life. My gadget is currently 6 weeks outdated and also have been completely cycled about 5 times (I tend to keep the electric battery on charge but let it run flat at least one time weekly). EASILY is not continuously using these devices, checking the device twice one hour and answering phone calls just, using 3G and Press, I could rely on a full morning of 10 to 12 hours between charges. If I start WiFi this drops to 6 or 7 hours. If the GPS is utilized by me without WiFi, autonomy drops to four or five 5 hours. EASILY wanted to be frugal and last a complete a day really, I would have to switch off both Force 3G and email, and reduce screen brightness to the very least. For some social people this is a major issue. For me personally, since I either possess a PC on and can trail an USB cable, or spend your day driving with the iPhone installed as an ipod device and being billed by the automobile, it is much less of a constraint. Nonetheless it continues to be an annoyance. I haven't however noticed an iPhone equivalent of the Dell Latitude "Slice" - an electric battery "backpack" for the iPhone that could a lot more than double autonomy with reduced extra thickness, but I suppose that someone, someplace, is focusing on an aftermarket gadget. 7. Document management There is absolutely no exact carbon copy of the Windows Mobile File Manager or Mac Finder on the iPhone so there is absolutely no way of manipulating file objects on device. Admittedly the iPhone does a credible job of shielding you from the need to do any kind of file level manipulation: Including the Camera includes a photo album that is also available in other applications that require to gain access to images (for instance, the iBlogger application I take advantage of to create short articles on this website). But there are instances if you want to control individual file items still. One is during set up and set up when setting up root certificates for SSL to ensure that these devices can speak to an Exchange server: If you don't use Apple's enterprise deployment device (which locks straight down the device and prevents further configuration changes, thus not necessarily desirable), the only methods to set up these devices for Exchange are to create a short-term IMAP accounts and download an attachment that you open up, or to setup a website with the main certificate and define the correct MIME types on the web server (I possibly could not understand this to work, incidentally!). Just how much easier it could be to download the certificate onto the device using Home windows explorer (linking to a Personal computer vian USB exposes the devices memory as an attached storage space device) and also to have the ability to open the certificate document from memory space on the iPhone. The other key dependence on this functionality is when manipulating attachments on email messages. There is no real method of saving attachments, or attaching documents to a fresh or forwarded message selectively. 6. Navigating through email folders I have a tendency to preserve a complete large amount of emails in my own mailbox. I archive once a full year, and towards the finish of the next year usually. I'm also pretty busy and focus on twelve consulting and business advancement projects at the same time. That means a couple of things: a whole lot of email messages, and the necessity to sensibly organise those emails. I organise my email messages into trees - consulting projects in separate folders and these folders organised by client, all kept individual from businesses I'm committed to and from my own stuff. 40 or 50 folders probably. On Windows Cellular devices I can cleanly organise this quite, having the ability to expand or collapse parts of the folder tree. The tree is normally recognised by the iPhone, but provides me no method of collapsing the hierarchy. The Inbox is always at the very top: Junk email is usually always in the bottom. Moving junked emails means traversing the whole tree incorrectly, which is a discomfort using the classy flick scroll gesture also. It's clumbsy and unnecessary. 5. Filtering offline email content The other side of this complexity is managing just how much of my "online archive" to take with me. You don't have (no space) to take it all with me: I am quite used to putting sensible limits on the portion of the mail folder to take with me. Windows Cell enables me to consider 1, two or three 3 months worth of email with me, to state whether I take attachments with me, all the email or the headers just. I could select which folders to take or leave behind even. And I won't need to worry easily go away and discover I am lacking an essential folder - I can change the parameters and these devices will download what's missing. The iPhone is less flexible slightly. It won't i want to download accessories pre-emptively: It'll just load the message header and keep the attachment behind unless and until I select the email manually. I could define just how many days of email messages i from one day to 1 one month download, but beyond that I cannot specify a limit. I've a filtration system on the amount of messages within a folder that I screen from 25 to 200 messages however the interaction between this environment and the time limit isn't entirely clear. In case you are a light consumer that is less of a concern: For a heavier email user with a complicated folder hieracrchy you have much less control and may come across memory management problems as a result. 4. Message Exchange and management The worst problem with message management on the iPhone is specific to Microsoft Exchange actually. I am a specialist user and like Microsoft Exchange really. It isn't simply my mail server: It's a complete collaboration engine, with group and resource scheduling, rich address book, "to accomplish" lists, journaling, contact histories etc. I don't utilize it for fax and tone of voice mail yet, but that's just a question of failing to have made enough time to get the interface box to the PBX and convert that feature on. THEREFORE I is up there with the additional 60% of business mailbox users that are addicted to Exchange. When the iPhone appeared the Exchange conversation tale was weak 1st. It could do IMAP, but that's only a fraction of the tale. No nagging issue, that wasn't Apple's intended principal audience either, but the enterprise users wanted the iPhone, so Apple surely got to work. To be good to them, Apple have done a complete lot with iPhone 3G to enhance the Exchange story. The majority of the protection protocols is there, including crucial features like remote control SSL and clean, and it facilitates Push. Business deployment is easy as well with a devoted enterprise set up tool that supports remote device construction. Unfortunately Apple appear to have stopped halfway through the API and a complete lot of Exchange functionality is overlooked. A few of this, like losing some data richness within get in touch with and calendar products, doesn't have an effect on all users equally. Other components are more essential, however. The ultimate way to explain this is one way you forward electronic mails with attachments. The Exchange API permits customers to forward the message without the message content being kept locally: You can ahead the header and the server will connect the attachments and other wealthy content material before forwarding. The iPhone doesn't understand why: First it has to download all the message and accessories from the server to the iPhone, then it must add the forwarding address and send out the whole message back to the server. Shifting a note between folders is the consists of and same the same telecommunications overhead. A nuisance for me personally, but only that: If you aren't on a data bundle and pay out by the MB you then have to be cautious with this. [Another side-effect of the issue is certainly that server-side disclaimers and signatures get positioned by the end of the forwarded message, than under new message text rather.] 3. Reading HTML and rich texts I really like HTML emails. I understand that is considered a cardinal sin in a few quarters, but as somebody once stated, if email have been invented after http would email have been performed any other method? HTML is definitely ubiquitous, it really is clean and it functions. Not to mention being the very best mobile internet device available, the iPhone should be an excellent HTML email reader, shouldn't it? Well, it very is nearly. It can some stuff well really. The design is got because of it, it renders inline images, it'll even show some history. But what if the text is wide really? It'll wrap won't it? No, it will not. It'll shrink the written text to match. It'll make the text really, small really. And you can't cheat by rotating the device, making the display "wider" and the font larger, because the mail customer doesn't support scenery presentation (why?). Of course you can zoom in, because it's HTML, nevertheless, you need to scan the complete line then, whizzing over the page to the ultimate end of the line, then whizzing back again to get the beginning of another line again. Oh dear! 2. Task switching The iPhone is a pleasant, clean style. And area of the cool, clean look originates from the lack of nasty brief cut action control keys. The iPhone has only three buttons on the edges of these devices: the on/off button at the top, the volume up/down toggle on the relative side and the excellent single button mute button above the quantity toggle. That's it. The only other button on these devices may be the "home" switch on leading, below the display screen. The house button stops whatever application you are engaged on and goes to the house page of the device - the pretty page filled with icons that set up each application on these devices. Good work it's pretty, because you find a lot of it. There is absolutely no way to jump to your calendar directly, or address book, or email. In addition to the one "dual click" action (consumer configurable to either go for phone favourites or iPod controls), the only method to start an activity is to return to the home page or more again into the application you want. Discover a fascinating URL within an email that you want to check out in Safari? Memorise it well, or write it down, because unless the written text has been developed as a web link you need to get back to the house page, begin Safari, type the URL, realise you have it wrong, press the real home button again, start email, open up the email, find the URL ... and begin again. Or you could just choose the URL and trim and paste it in to the browser address bar ... except ... 1. How on the planet do you cut and paste? Once Xerox had invented the mouse, the GUI and WYSIWYG editing, it had been up to Apple to take that technology and make it affordable with the Lisa and the Mac. And Microsoft to create it ubiquitous, of program. Among the joys of using the mouse, or any pointing device, is that you will be distributed by it a third dimension as you maneuver around the page. You are not constrained by the line or the term or the paragraph - you can leap right to any portion of the record. And you could select elements of a record by dragging over an expressed term, a relative collection, a paragraph, and take action with it. Like reducing it out. Or copying it. Or dragging it. It's regular. That's precisely what you perform. You do not have 3 hour seminars and classes on utilizing a mouse (or a stylus) to point and choose, drag and click. You demonstrate it once, the training student understands and will it. However the company that helped the mouse get away from the lab and enter the shops appears to have forgotten about it. Obtain out your iPhone. Write a sentence. Write a different one. Oops - that second sentence would make even more sense Prior to the initial one. I'll simply slice and paste the sentence. Oh no you will not! Since there is zero paste and lower on the iPhone. Listen to that? No? Well, I'll state it once again! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO Trim AND PASTE ON THE IPHONE. Google around a little and you will find a large number of articles about them. You'll find shock, indignation, horror. You'll actually discover brave Apple gurus explaining sagely that you don't want trim and paste since the iPhone offers you more immediate means of using information, like linking URLS, or detecting telephone numbers, or, er, something. The probably explanation is that once Apple has made a decision to get rid of the stylus, the only UI gesture was to use two fingers and drag that over the page to choose some text. But that gesture acquired already been used with the wonderful pinch zoom motion applied to large files and webpages. There exists a real way to avoid it, however. Some extremely credible proof idea demonstrations have already been place on the internet showing what sort of sustained stage and drag with single finger (just like the stylus selection action in Windows Mobile) will be workable rather than conflict with any various other screen actions on the iPhone. Let's wish that the idea demos function and we see cut and paste applied in an forthcoming firmware release. For the time being, at least every day I wager every iPhone user will silently curse twice, shrug and present up composing that urgent memo because they cannot become bothered to type everything again. So that's it. Do not misunderstand me, The iPhone can be believed by me is an excellent, transformational and iconic device. Much like the Mac pc, it has transformed our perception of just what a cellular device ought to be. Mobile phone smartphones and cell phones will never end up being the same again. It's that for all it's brilliance, it remains flawed. The iPhone may be the product of an excellent and prolific yet highly introspective band of engineers. Left absolve to innovate, unrestrained by any notion of practicality or truth or what the user currently thinks she or he wants, Apple have made a concept gadget. I'm grateful they possess, but I dread that it'll be to others up, with a clearer grasp of what an individual can use, specifically what ELSE an individual does, to consider the iPhone to another step.

#iphone

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jamiexbowerx · 6 years

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10 Things to Hate About the iPhone

#iphone

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islamicbiotic · 5 years

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I hate feeling like I have to constantly have my ear on the ground politically, or be constantly sad and angry because me focusing on things in my immediate life like school and work and faith are just distractions to larger emergencies like inequality! And climate change!

My doubt-self doesn’t see my paid work helping kids at Fullerton’s own backyard answer to Boys and Girls Club with homework etc. as philanthropy that benefits us both.

My doubt-self doesn’t see me being veg for the past 3 years, or the fact that I’ve only ever relied on the goddamn trains (in car country like socal!) (never mind all the bs “sign and send to your reps and senators” emails since 2017) as me doing my part for the environment. That’s just me being me and I’m not doing enough. I’m NEVER doing enough.

I’ve already flipped Orange County blue. I feel like I should rest on my laurels, but... all that e- and snail junk mail saying I have to constantly be on high alert because any fucking day my blue rep is gonna get voted out, or Robert Mueller! I have to constantly worry about Robert Mueller!

My mom complains about all the political junk snail mail I get in our mailbox and I don’t blame her. I want to stop constantly worrying that I have to do something like sign every email (I don’t. Especially ones that involve fake-ass “democratic socialists”). For me, it’s not like that HONY post I posted a day or two ago that I tagged “lol ain’t that some shit”. The one of that kid who was bummed how her mom the activist got so far up her own ass about her onstage persona. Mostly because I’ve read Dune, I know how much people love relishing Messiah complexes. But yeah. Having to constantly worry like that and having that shit seep into your home life is not fun.

I’ve been thinking about that mom from HONY. And that guy who was like “After the election I went on a three-day bender and now I have to constantly check Twitter for Mueller investigation news”. Take it from me, I want to take a break and focus on my writing, on my senior spring of college, on all the friends and family I’ve leaned on these past couple of years. But who has time for that when the next natural disaster/emergency/white terrorist attack/inequality statistic could come out any minute now?

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grimmdoll · 7 years

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My Missing Best Friend Has Been Sending Me Letters From Nowhere, And No One Can Explain It

written by Kiersten Edwards

It all started with a letter.

Who even gets letters anymore? Who sends them? Real pen-and-paper letters, handwritten with care, slid into an envelope and dropped into the nearest mailbox. Emails are easy but to send a letter you have to buy a stamp. Who does that? I certainly don’t, and I couldn’t remember the last time I got one until…

“Riley!” my mom shouted up the stairs.

I had just stepped out of the shower and ignored her to wrap a towel around my dripping torso. I rubbed the steam from the mirror and leaned forward, frowning at a small pimple on my chin.

“RILEY!”

I pulled open the bathroom door. “WHAT?”

“You’ve got mail.” She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, a crisp white envelope in her hand. She waggled her eyebrows and said, “How old fashioned.”

I laughed. “Probably junk. I swear I paid my credit card this month.”

“Sure you did.” She winked and placed the envelope on the bottom step. “But it’s not junk. The address is handwritten and it looks like it’s made quite the trip to get here.” She shrugged and disappeared into the living room. I heard the television switch on and Dr. Phil’s condescending voice drifted up to me.

Thinking nothing of it, I went to my room to get ready for work. It wasn’t until I nearly stepped on the letter as I came down the stairs that I remembered. I stooped to pick it up, turning the envelope over. It was not so crisp and white after all but rather crumpled and dirty. It looked as though it had been dropped several times and possibly stepped on. But on the front it said, in neat cursive writing, my name and address. Something about the smooth looping handwriting was familiar and I curiously tore it open to remove several small pages of rough, cream-coloured paper. As I unfolded the pages I immediately recognized the writing as my best friend Brianna’s. She’d always had the most perfect penmanship, making my handwriting look like a chimp had been given a pen and paper.

Dear Riley,

I write to you from a land far, far away where the days are long and the nights longer. The stars are strangely bright here, as though they are closer to this place than to the rest of the world. Strange birds flutter around sometimes when the sun is going down, making noises that resemble coughing men. I caught sight of one just yesterday, and I am disturbed to report that these birds are unlike the birds of this world. Their eyes are blood red and their feathers an oily black—demon birds from beneath the ground. I don’t glance up at them anymore but I sense they are looking down at me.

The grass here is also very strange. It grows in a way that makes it look as though there is a constant wind blowing, perpetually leaning one way. The green shade of the blades is unlike any other I have seen—one of the locals told me it is stained from the blood of thousands of fairy creatures from a war that was waged many hundreds of years ago.

The utter strangeness of the place I’m in doesn’t end there. Every Sunday evening when both the sun and the demon birds have gone, I begin to hear strange cries in the wind. They start quiet, but get louder and louder as the hours drag by. By midnight there is just one cry made up of hundreds, and it is an eerie sound.

No one will tell me what is going on, but I sense there is a great secret here. The people treasure their mystery and my questions are waved away carelessly. I hope this letter finds you in good health.

Yours truly,

Brianna

I stood in the hallway staring down at the pages in my hand. What the hell was this? I turned the envelope over again and saw that there was no return address, only my own address accompanied by a very ordinary stamp.

“Who’s it from?” my mom asked as she strolled by with a mug of coffee. I jumped and seeing the look on my face, she stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just Brianna being a weirdo.”

My mother chuckled. “I’m glad she hasn’t changed. Is she still at…?”

“Dalhousie? Yeah. This is her last year though.”

“Well write her back!” My mom went back to the couch to resume her show. “Tell her I say hi.”

I took the letter up to my room and reread it. Then I read it again. And again and again and again, until the words swam in front of my eyes and I was left more confused than when I’d first started. Brianna had always had a strange sense of humour, but she’d never been much of a storyteller. This letter was strange alright, but written in a way that was almost… believable.

I reached for my phone on my bedside table and shot Brianna a text.

Hey freak. I got the letter you sent. Are you minoring in creative writing now? Your parents will be so proud. Big $$$.

I read what I’d sent and added,

Call me. I miss you!

Though we’d been best friends since we were nine years-old, I hadn’t spoken to her in almost two weeks. She always tried to make time for me but she had school, I had work, and our schedules rarely matched up. I tacked the letter up on my corkboard beside a smiling photo of Brianna and I, grabbed my purse, and headed out the door. When I started my car I saw that the clock read 9:05. I was already late for work and it would take me 15 minutes to get there.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

A busy day at work kept my mind off the letter. I work at a veterinary clinic and Mondays are always crazy. Within the first hour we had five dogs who had swallowed something they shouldn’t have and a cat who had lost a toe and was bleeding profusely.

It wasn’t until I walked through my front door that Brianna’s strange letter came back to me. I shrugged off my jacket and fished for my phone at the bottom of my purse, where it had stayed all day. I felt a sting of disappointment when I saw that she hadn’t texted me back. She was a busy girl, but she always managed to answer my messages almost immediately. Maybe she was swamped with homework, or out with her cool university friends. Or maybe she had joined some messed up writing circle where they sent their friends weird-ass letters for fun. Whatever. Maybe I’d try calling her tomorrow.

The next morning there was still no word from Brianna. This put me in a foul mood and the first half of the day passed in an irritated fog. But then the next day came with no word, and then the next. The rest of the work week passed before I dialled her number as I sat in my office, bored out of my mind. Friday afternoons were always slow and I couldn’t shake the paranoia that she was ghosting me on purpose.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring

“Hey! You’ve reached Brianna’s cell. Please leave a message or text me instead and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!”

The beep sounded and I said, “Hey loser. Did you misplace your phone again? I texted you forever ago and you didn’t respond. Very rude.” I fiddled with the pages of the calendar on my desk. “Your letter was super creepy. The fact that you sent me a letter in the first place is also creepy. Please call me back before I call the Creep Police.” An older man with a startled looking parrot burst through the front door. “Gotta go. Talk to you soon.”

Brianna didn’t return my call that weekend, and worry began to take over the anger in my chest. This was very unlike her. The longest she’d ever gone without texting me back was three days, and that had been two years ago when she’d gotten very drunk and thrown her phone out of a taxi window. Brianna was a goof, a little too spontaneous, but never a bad friend and never one to leave texts and calls unanswered. I decided that if she hadn’t reached out to be by Monday, I was going to contact her parents.

I was putting on my mascara Monday morning, wondering what the hell I was going to say to Brianna’s mom and dad, when I heard my name being called from downstairs.

“Is this a thing now?” My mother was holding an envelope, same as the first, with a big grin on her face. I must have looked at her strangely because she said, “What’s with the face? I think it’s cute.”

I took the letter from her without a word and went back to my room.

“Don’t you have to work?” she called. I closed my bedroom door and heard her mutter, “Alrighty then.”

The writing on the front was identical, my name and address in fine cursive. The envelope was similarly dirty and stepped on. I opened it slowly, oddly fearful of what was inside.

Dear Riley,

I trust you’ve been well since I last wrote you. Letters don’t often find their way here, so if you’ve written me back it is likely I will never receive it. The oddness of the situation I’ve found myself in continues. A few evenings ago, I could have sworn I heard one of the birds call my name. It was only once and a small noise amidst the cry of the many birds above. I think of it endlessly and it disturbs me deep within my soul. The shopkeeper that I sometimes speak with says everyone hears their names now and then—it simply means the birds know who I am now. They know that I’m here.

It is this same shopkeeper that has offered me answers to some of my many questions. He has told me that every murder that has ever occurred in this place has happened on a Sunday. He says this goes back hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years. When I asked if this had something to do with the horrifying cries I hear on Sunday evenings he only stared at me and placed a finger on his lips. I gather that my questions are unwelcome and possibly even dangerous to be asking.

But I will not stop asking. A curiosity has bloomed within me. Surely you understand.

Still yours,

Brianna

I dropped the pages like they were fire and rubbed my hands across my face. What was going on? Why was she sending these to me? Why hadn’t she called me back? I grabbed my phone and dialled Brianna’s number with shaking fingers.

“Hey! You’ve reached Brianna’s—”

I hung up immediately and punched in the number to Brianna’s house. Her mother answered on the second ring.

“Riley!” she squealed. “What a delight. We just got caller ID and I’m still not over how handy…”

“Mrs. Lawrence, have you spoken to Brianna lately?” I interrupted.

“Brianna? I spoke to her just last week, why?”

“When last week?”

“Sunday afternoon.” The tone in her voice changed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath. “Last Monday I got… well I got a really weird letter from her in the mail. I just thought she was trying to freak me out or something but…”

“What kind of letter?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” I got up and took the first letter from my corkboard. “It’s in her writing but it doesn’t sound like her. It’s written like she’s telling a story or something.”

“Did you try calling her?”

“Yeah I did.” I struggled to keep my voice from trembling. “But she didn’t answer. I texted her too. I figured she was just busy but today… Today I got another letter in the mail.”

There were several moments of silence. Then, “Could you come over here Riley? And bring the letters?”

“Of course,” I said. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to call the police,” Mrs. Lawrence said. “John told me yesterday Brianna hasn’t been answering any of his calls or texts.” John was Brianna’s dad and they’d always been extremely close. I could hear tears in her voice. “Oh, my god, I didn’t even think twice when he said that…”

At first the police didn’t seem very concerned. A girl away at university not answering her phone? You know how girls are. Friends, boys, school—she probably was just preoccupied. But when the subject of the letters came up, things got very serious. Two detectives came to the house to ask some questions. Was I sure she had written the letters? When was the last time we had seen her? When had we spoken to her? Had we tried speaking to any of her friends?

“I have her roommates number,” Mrs. Lawrence said tearfully, pulling out her phone. The detectives sat quietly as she made the call, but it was a short one. No, she hadn’t seen Brianna in more than a week. But her shoes were gone and so was her overnight bag.

“I figured she had gone home for a visit,” I heard Lauren say. She had been Brianna’s roommate for almost two years and sounded frightened.

“Usually we would wait before launching an investigation,” said Detective Kingston after Mrs. Lawrence had hung up. “But these letters raise some suspicions.” He held one letter in his hand and his partner was frowning down at the other.

“They’re very strange,” said Detective Peltier. Her brow was furrowed as she read the pages. “I don’t know what to make of them.”

“We’ll get into contact with the university right away. And I’ll need the roommate’s number for any further questions,” said Detective Kingston. “In the meantime, keep your phones on you.” He leaned forward to touch Mrs. Lawrence’s arm. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get some answers. And please,” he looked to me, “let us know if any more letters come.”

The next Monday another letter did indeed arrive. My mother handed it to me with a grim look on her face, and I called Detective Kingston immediately. Upon his request, I didn’t open it. A mix of anxiety and curiosity was burning a hole in my chest as I opened the door and handed over the letter.

“Any news? Can you tell me anything?” I asked desperately.

“Nobody has seen her,” Detective Kingston said, his voice heavy and tired. He had bags under his eyes and his clothes were a little disheveled. “I don’t understand…it’s like she packed up and disappeared into thin air. I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he added quickly, “so keep this to yourself. But there are no records of her taking a bus or a train… nothing. Even the cameras in her apartment don’t show her leaving.”

Days went by in a haze. I was a zombie, tormented by thoughts of my missing best friend and the letters that kept coming like clockwork every Monday morning. Around noon an officer came to pick up the letter and deliver it to the detectives. They confided to me that there was nothing traceable about the letters themselves. No return address, nothing to hint where the paper was from, and the place Brianna described in increasing detail simply didn’t exist. Once the letter had been looked over by the police, forensics, detectives, evidence team, whatever, it was returned to me. I knew this was unusual; in any other case, the evidence would be kept indefinitely. But the problem was that they had no case. There were no fingerprints on the letters besides those of post workers who had handled them. There was no evidence to suggest she had been kidnapped. The only thing that was certain was that they were written by Brianna. When I was feeling up to it, I would read the letters I hadn’t gotten a chance to open myself before placing them in a folder I kept beneath my bed.

“Riley, are you at home?” Three months had gone by since the first letter had arrived. Brianna’s birthday had passed, Christmas had gone by, New Years had come and gone. There were still no leads, so I was surprised when Detective Kingston called me on a Thursday evening.

“Yes. Did you find something?”

“We don’t know. But we’re coming over with a photo. Stay put.”

The detectives had several stills of a man standing at a post box. He was dressed oddly, in dark clothes that looked handmade and hair that was long and unkept. He was glancing over his shoulder as though keeping watch for danger. In his hand was a suspiciously familiar looking envelope.

“One of our video technicians was going over footage from cameras situated near Brianna’s apartment.” Detective Peltier handed me the pictures and pointed at the envelope in the man’s hand. “Look familiar to you?”

I felt oddly numb as I stared down at the stills in my hands. “The envelope, yes. But not the man.”

“We put him through our facial recognition software and got nothing,” Detective Kingston sighed. “Unfortunately this footage is fairly old. It’s from Monday, November 14th. This was the only time he was at that mailbox. This guy could be anywhere by now.”

Numbness was replaced with a sense of overwhelming dread. “That’s the day I got the first letter,” I whispered.

“Hold on.” Detective Peltier held up her hands in a halting motion. “This guy looks like he’s delivering the letter. How could it have possibly arrived on the same day?”

“Maybe the postal service was extra fast that day?” said the other detective. “What’s the timestamp again?” He took one of the stills from me and squinted. “8:30 in the morning.”

Both detectives looked to me expectantly and I thought I was going to throw up when I said, “I got the letter around 8:45 in the morning. Just before I left for work.”

Nobody said anything for a long while. My thoughts ran circles in my head, questioning how this could be possible. Letters don’t get from Halifax to Toronto in fifteen minutes. Girls don’t just vanish into thin air, not in real life. Brianna would never run away and she certainly didn’t commit suicide. The more time that went by, the further we were from answering all the questions we had and the further away we got from the possibility of finding her.

“What is happening?” Detective Kingston asked quietly.

Two more months passed. Eight more letters. Eight more strange accounts of sideways grass, talking birds, and screaming in the wind. Hope was draining from me like blood and I was beginning to feel empty.

On a quiet Tuesday morning at the clinic, my cell phone rang. Usually I never answer personal calls at work but I had this feeling deep within my core that something was wrong. I didn’t recognize the number and this made me feel worse.

“Hello?”

“Riley,” said Detective Kingston. I could hear it in his voice—sadness, dread, regret, and a hint of anger.

My hand went over my mouth. “No. Please no.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

They had found Brianna’s body in a forested area just outside of Halifax, partially decomposed in a swamp flooded by the April thaw. A jogger in the woods had stumbled across the corpse when his dog tried to drag the body from the marsh. The teeth marks on her right arm were small compared to the rest of the trauma she had suffered prior to her death. Her autopsy revealed she had been beaten, hit over the head with something heavy, dragged to the dumping site, and then strangled by a pair of large hands. All of this was horrific as it was, but the real fucked up thing?

She’d been dead for months.

They never caught the man who’d delivered the first letter, and I suspect they never will. There are no witnesses to speak to, no leads to follow. Her murderer left no DNA, no fingerprints, nothing. Brianna’s brutal murder was and still is a mystery.

It’s been difficult coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been receiving letters from my dead best friend, but after the funeral I became accustomed to the idea. Even after death, Brianna had reached out to me.are connected.

You see, the letters still come. Every Monday morning I check my mailbox and there it is, that dirty stepped-on envelope filled with cream-coloured paper and looping cursive writing. The police asked if I wanted the letters to stop coming. The post office said they could put a block on them, have them thrown out before they got to me. I refused. These letters are all I have of Brianna now.

Dear Riley,

Life goes on in this strange place. Yesterday I took a walk through a bizarre forest filled with white trees with black leaves. Have you ever seen such a thing? I asked a villager what the trees were called, but they would not tell me. I’m getting used to my questions being answered with silence. It seems customary here to only stare when I inquire about anything.

A few of the birds follow me now. I have begun to enjoy their company despite their unusual appearance. Sometimes they whisper things to me, but they have said I’m not allowed to tell you what they say. I know we are best friends and are supposed to share everything, but I find I am unable to even try to write down their words. I’m under their spell.

I had the strangest dream the other night. You came to visit me but you were you very frightened, telling me I was not safe and had to come with you. I tried to follow but I could not. Perhaps you will come visit me? You could stay as long as you like.

I hope you keep all the letters I send to you. You might need them one day.

Sincerely,

Brianna

Find more scary stories here! New stories every Saturday at 6pm est!

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Best Email App For Mac Computer

Best photo app for iPhone PicsArt is an easy-to-use and attractively-designed app that helps you edit photos with mashups, filters, shape overlays, collages, frames and more. Separating amazing apps from must-have apps is the hard part, and we don’t want you to spend hours analyzing the Mac App Store (or scouring the web) to find the very best and most useful apps. A recent surge of worthy new email clients offers Mac users some of the best choices they’ve ever had for managing their mail. With a panoply of clever features and new ideas, these contenders. Apple Mail is one of the best email apps for Mac users. This Mac Email client is well designed for Apple ecosystem and works well with OS X and iOS devices. This built-in Mac email client works well with most of the email providers like Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.

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A recent surge of worthy new email clients offers Mac users some of the best choices they’ve ever had for managing their mail. With a panoply of clever features and new ideas, these contenders have also mounted a serious challenge to the relatively stagnant Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. But with so may options to choose from, it’s now even harder to pick out the best email client for your particular needs. We’ve found one strong program that offers a great mix of features, usability, and value for a broad swath of users, plus several more that will cater well to more specialized preferences.

Top choice: Postbox 3

Postbox 3 () isn’t the newest or sleekest candidate in this roundup. Its design hews more closely to the traditional Mac look and feel, rather than adopting a slick iOS-like appearance. But for $10, it combines reliable performance, smart design, and a wide array of impressive features that make the program feel like what Apple Mail ought to be.

Even though it’s built on Mozilla’s aging Thunderbird underpinnings, Postbox handled my email quickly and confidently. Setting up new POP and IMAP accounts went smoothly; in one case, when I tried to set up a work Outlook account, Postbox patiently guessed at several different IMAP configurations until it found the right one. It then filled up my new mailbox relatively quickly, despite the pile of messages involved, and let me track its progress with a clear but unobtrusive progress icon.

Everywhere you turn in Postbox, you’ll find well-thought-out features that enhance your email experience. Message threads are easy to follow, with each message’s beginning and end clearly marked, and a quick reply box waiting at the end of the most recent message.

An inspector pane next to each message shows you not only who sent it —and, with a click, their entire contact card from your address book—but breaks out any links, images, maps, or package delivery info it finds in the message. You can also easily search for any messages, images, or attachments from a particular sender just by clicking links within their address book info.

And if work requires you to send a lot of form responses, Postbox builds in that ability. Just compose your response in preferences, then choose it from a pulldown menu when you’re writing a new email.

Postbox plays nicely with many popular social and productivity tools. If you have Evernote installed, Postbox can send emails to that service to help you keep track of them. Once you set up your account information, dragging and dropping files from your Dropbox will create links that let recipients download those files straight from your Dropbox account. And you can tie in your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to not only get links to your contacts on those services, but post to all three directly from Postbox. The program will even use the Gravatar service to pull in images for your friends and acquaintances from one or more of those services.

A helpful To-Do mode lets you create new tasks, or turn existing messages into tasks, then check them off as you finish. Postbox also integrates an RSS reader to keep track of your favorite feeds, an increasingly rare feature among modern email clients. And Postbox provides great support for Gmail, including the ability to use Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts. None of these features gets in the way of simply sending or receiving email, but they’re all readily available when you need them.

Finding and using all these features can get a bit intimidating when you first start using it, but Postbox’s clear, straightforward, and easily searchable online help files make the learning curve much gentler.

Postbox 3 has begun to show its age; OS X updates since its initial release have actually broken a few features, such as integration with the Mac’s Calendar. But overall, Postbox seems like the best mix of price, capabilities, and quality for the majority of Mac users.

Best Email App For Ios

Top contenders

Inky

If you use email more for pleasure than business, you’ll likely enjoy Inky’s earnest efforts to present your inbox in ways that matter to you.

Built for portability, Inky () stores information for your POP and IMAP accounts—but not your mail itself—securely on its remote servers. Once you’ve set up that info, a single Inky login will bring all your email to any computer you’re using Inky with.

In a clean, colorful interface, Inky lets you view mail as a unified inbox, by individual accounts, or by several different clever Smart Views. The program’s smart enough to automatically recognize and sort messages containing maps, package info, daily deals, subscription mailings, and other common categories.

By clicking icons on each message, you can also teach Inky how to rank your email by relevance, so that it’ll display messages that matter to you more prominently.

I occasionally had trouble logging in to Inky, and had to quit and restart the program a few times to get to my mail. And Inky doesn’t offer business-friendly features like to-do lists, or any bells and whistles beyond sorting and handling email. But it’s free, it’s fun to use, and it’s full of well-executed and practical new ideas.

Mail Pilot

The same can be said for Mail Pilot (; Mac App Store link), a $20 email client built loosely around the Getting Things Done approach to productivity. It looks terrific, but for all its good qualities, it’s still missing a few crucial features.

Mail Pilot treats your inbox as a to-do list. Each message is a task that you can check off right away, set aside until you’ve got the time for it, or ask to be reminded about on a certain date. Clearly labeled keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the screen make these tasks easy to accomplish.

Best Email App For Mac Desktop

It’s IMAP-only, and setting up your account ranges from simple (Gmail) to tricky (Outlook, although the program’s great help files spelled out exactly what I needed.) Once your mail’s in place, Mail Pilot offers lots of different options to navigate message threads. The variety puzzled me at first, but I came to appreciate the different ways it sorted and stacked my messages.

As a fairly new program, Mail Pilot’s still somewhat under construction. The ability to save new messages as drafts or search by message text won’t arrive until a later version. But if you’re in synch with Mail Pilot’s productivity-first approach, you’ll nonetheless find the program helpful and worthwhile.

Unibox

Give it a few more versions, and Unibox (; Mac App Store link) could become quite the contender. Right now, it’s a very well-designed and usable $10 app with a few pesky hiccups.

Setting up IMAP accounts is fast and easy, and once your mailboxes are populated, Unibox displays them not by message title, but by who sent you mail on a given day. From the top of the screen, you can switch between viewing each sender’s message thread, or seeing all the attachments or images in that thread by list or by icon.

I really enjoyed Unibox’s sleek and efficient one-window interface, which makes maximum use of space while still displaying your mail clearly. The new message window slides down from the top of each message thread. Buttons to sort, junk, or delete a message materialize when your mouse hovers to the left of it; replying and forwarding options appear when you hover to the right.

I wasn’t as fond of the blank screen Unibox displayed upon loading until I manually refreshed my mail. And it has a bad habit of truncating longer messages by default, forcing you to click again to read the whole thing. Still, it’s a smart program full of good ideas; it just needs a bit more polish.

The rest of the pack

AirMail

AirMail () offers an attractive, inexpensive front end for your IMAP-based webmail of choice. But while the program’s interface is nice to look at, it’s not always easy to use, with tiny, hard-to-see buttons and space-hogging new message windows. Gmail messages also take an unusually long time to load; promised Dropbox support proved impossible to set up; and AirMail offers few help features.

Mail.app

I used to love Apple Mail () but it’s begun to stagnate with the last few versions of OS X (Mail is free with OS X Mavericks). The latest incarnation trickles in a few new features, including the welcome ability to search by attachments and attachment types. And, as befits an Apple program, it’s well-integrated with the rest of OS X. It’s also the only client in this review to natively support Microsoft Exchange accounts, although Outlook’s increasing support for IMAP renders that a bit moot.

Alas, the latest version was plagued by troubles with Gmail, and Apple has released updates that address many of the problems. But wouldn't it be nice if it simply just worked?

MailMate

Like a mighty rhinoceros, the $30 MailMate () won’t win any beauty contests; it’s not what you’d call “approachable”; and it’s astonishingly powerful. Its gray, austere, text-only interface conceals jaw-dropping abilities to search, sort, and sift massive piles of mail. Its support for SpamSieve and PGP, and its unbelievably granular search categories—like “level of server domain”—make MailMate the undisputed best email pick for power users, but probably a needlessly intimidating choice for everyday users.

See a list of email clients available for the Mac

Bottom line

Even if you only want a simple, no-frills email experience, you don’t have to stick with Apple Mail. Inky’s a great free alternative for folks who just want a streamlined inbox presented in a friendly way. On the other end of the spectrum, MailMate is ideal for tech-savvy experienced users who want to rule their inbox like a cruel, all-powerful god. And right at the happy medium between those extremes, Postbox offers plenty of easy-to-use enhancements for a fair price.

Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.

Arcode Inky

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