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egoludes · 4 years

Text

the greatest gift of all.

note: so, to be honest with y’all...i have no idea where this came from. i was just minding my business this weekend, @adorecevans and i started talking about one (1) headcanon scenario, and now here we are! this is going to be a v casual series, basically just snippets of dom!chris and sub!reader (in no particular order) building a relationship. future installments will explore the history more, but what you need to know for this one and the series overall: dom!chris meets sub!reader through a dom/sub dating app of sorts and have been engaging each other long distance for a few months. reader has no idea that it’s chris evans for the obvious reasons, and since he doesn’t give a name at all, she addresses him as Sir. i’ll explore all that background more in the future, but for now: i really hope you enjoy!

credits: unsplash for the stock image, and an anon in @honeychicanawrites‘s asks one day for the image of cevans calling his lady ‘mama’... i had to do it.

warnings: masturbation, voyeuristic vibes, intimacy over video call, dom/sub dynamics, long distance / virtual relationships, sex toys, use of title as name (sir).

wc: 2.3k

The thought comes to you on a Sunday afternoon.

You’re on your belly thumbing through texts, legs up and crossed at the ankles with Sir’s newest gift -- a pretty pink slip -- and your laptop beside you. The screen is dark, save for a grey circle with an initial in the center that lets you know he’s there, listening, when you say: “Have you ever tried one of those dildo molds, Sir?”

The initial silence is suffocating, and you worry for a second that the idea - spur of the moment, really - goes too far. You’re just learning each other, after all; still adjusting to the pictures, the calls, the gifts you model for him with pride.

But then, he speaks, a familiar rasp to the words that makes you clench in your fitting black shorts. The question comes from a place of genuine curiosity, but you’ve riled him up still, which excites you; always does. “That’s what you’re thinking about over there, huh? Feeling me?”

Your body heats, conditioned already to react to that dangerous tone in his voice; but you try to keep your expression reticent when you turn it to your camera. There’s another moment of nothing -- just you watching the lens like it’s him before you. Then, your lips curl, lids narrow, and your voice turns playfully sweet. “Well, when am I not?”

He hisses, a sharp sound that makes you preen, and you can hear him on the other end, adjusting his screen. “Easy, mama,” he growls, earning himself a giggle, “it’s too early for you to be working me up.”

You laugh again, this time with more body before resting your cheek on your palm. Without his video on -- a compromise you’ve grown used to -- you can’t know that he’s actually watching you. But you lean into it all the same, swinging your legs behind you. “But, have you?”

He clicks his tongue, a thoughtful sound, and you imagine what his features must look like, twisted by consideration. “No - I don’t think I know anyone’s who has either.”

You hum, eyes glinting with something that makes him suck in a breath. “I’ve always wondered about it. Not just the process, but just...having one,” you murmur, settling deeper into your pensive stance. There’s a dreaminess to your tone that not even you notice; but he, that ever-mindful man, takes note.

You continue on, none the wiser.

////

A week later, you come home at the top of rush hour, grateful that you’ve made it so early, but burdened all the same. Stress is a fickle, but poignant thing, and you’re feeling its weight extra today as you make your way up to your apartment. You’re excited for the time to yourself, thinking on what you might make for dinner, when you see it - a small, but noticeable box at the foot of your door.

Immediately, your expression turns, confusion and wariness turning your mouth into a scowl. You don’t remember ordering anything, nor are you expecting something for anyone else. You hope the label will give you a clue about what this could be, but to your chagrin, it has no company - just your address and a generic return location.

Still, you take it in, setting it on the kitchen counter, where it stays forgotten as you shower, eat, and pour yourself a glass of wine. You’re halfway through the second when the package re-snares your attention from the corner of your eye. You drain the rest of your drink with a gulp, wiping red off the corners of your mouth before you stand, determined, to approach it.

The box is unassuming; plain cardboard with nothing but the barebones label to distinguish it. You lift it again, this time with both hands, to measure it and feel something heavy shift inside. It’s enough to pique your curiosity, and you tear through the packaging until you can see what’s in it.

At the center is another, smaller box made of sleek black velvet. A card is attached with red ribbon, careful lettering penned in dark ink. Even before you fish it out, you can work out the message, but it doesn’t feel real until the note sits in your hand and you’re reading it up close.

For my favorite girl; so you can feel me any time you want.

Sir.

Your eyes dance over the words a few times before their meaning sinks in and you realize it’s a gift from him. Then, you’re practically rabid, tugging out the box out and flipping the lid in one motion.

When you see what’s inside, it’s all you can do not to buckle at the knees. In the middle of the box, set up almost regally on a bed of plushy silk, is a veined, pink dildo. You don’t need to touch it to know that it’s heavy, but that doesn’t stop you from doing it all the same. Your fingers take it by the base first, wrapping firmly above the balls to test the weight. And you moan at it, that delicious thickness as you lift it from the box with both hands. Your palms curve around it, twitching with want, and you realize then that this is what he looks like, what he feels like.

What you would get if he came home to you for real.

The thought is too much to bear. Your breath quickens, fingers dancing deliberately up and over the shaft to size it up. You tell yourself that this is all you need for now ---- you know better than anyone that to use this toy for the first time without him is a test of his patience you’re certain to fail. But, the more you touch, the more you need, and before you can reconsider, you’re on your hands and knees on your couch, panties pressed sloppily to the side as you guide the heft of Sir’s length past your aching entrance.

The impact is immediate. You fall forward with a gasp as every inch stretches you open and by the time it’s fully seated, your face is completely hidden in your couch cushions. The fabric muffles your voice as your hips start to move, a slow, languid grind to make sure everything is felt.

You get so lost in it, you don’t hear your phone buzzing until it’s almost too late. But, at the nth moment, you recognize the ringtone you’d chosen just for him and, despite the clear risk of answering, you reach for the device, trembling with nerves, excitement, and lust, at the dangerous game you’re about to play.

When you answer, there’s nothing but darkness from his end and your face in the corner. You’re sitting on your butt now, legs carefully spread and hips angled to keep from jostling the toy inside you. But, it’s hard not to squirm in a situation like this; even more so, when he starts to talk, voice raw from the day.

“Hi, honey,” he breathes, the endearment -- your favorite -- making your heart swell, “almost thought you were already asleep.”

You shake your head, biting back a knowing smile. “No, Sir… I’m still awake, just...watching tv.”

“Yeah?” He says, something skeptical in the tone. Even without his video on, you can almost feel his gaze burning a hole in your expression. Like he’s inspecting it, picking it apart for clues. He must find one, because he hums lowly; a dip in the sound that makes it sound like he’s smirking. “Only watching tv?”

“Y-Yes, Sir…”

“Okay, okay -- what’re you watching? Is it any good?”

Your eyes flicker towards the television to glean what’s playing, but Sir catches you before you can get a good look. “Nuh uh -- eyes over here.”

Despite your better judgment, you pout, all but caught now, and the expression makes him laugh. He’d had a number of subs before you -- people who had piqued his sexual interest, but never quite held up to any of his other, more innocent expectations. But you ---- even if he wouldn’t call you something as invested as a lover, your personality makes it hard to be anything but endeared to you. Before he knew it, he was in headlong, calling you for sessions a couple times a week, sending gifts even more than that. You’re fun to just exist with, even in this moment as he’s so deliberately toying with you.

“Can’t be too good if you can’t tell me anything about it without looking, huh?” His voice drops, a dangerous timbre taking it, and you feel your body shake. “So you gonna tell me the truth before you get yourself in more trouble?”

A whimper breaks past parted lips and you bite down a little too late to stifle the sound. “T-The toy,” you whisper, clenching around his cock despite him being hundreds or thousands of miles away. The irony isn’t lost on you - if anything, it’s making your need spike. There’s something so odd, but so enticing about the whole thing. “I couldn’t wait, Sir… your cock just looked so good.”

Sir curses near the phone, so close that you swear you can feel the breath of it on your palm. “Jesus...I knew you’d be hungry for it, but I didn’t think it’d get you this much. Breakin’ our number one rule and everything.” You shift on the couch, free hand reaching to pull out the dildo in anticipation of his punishment. It’s likely to be no orgasms for the night which, as disappointing as that is, seems almost worth it for the pleasure of this weight inside you. Then he speaks again, forcing you to pause in your motion.

“Get on your computer ---- I want to see the way I fit inside you. Then, we can talk about your punishment.”

The minutes between your phone call and the start of the call on your laptop are equal parts tantalizing and tortuous. You’ve only broken this rule once prior and ended up having to watch him fuck his hand through two sloppy orgasms before getting sent to bed without touching yourself even once. So the fact that he seems to be inclined to let you keep the dildo in gives you pause.

But it’s the sort that’s almost intoxicating. Your adrenaline is pumping, thighs slick with want, and by the time you’ve gotten the video up and running, you’ve shed your panties completely, legs wedged open with the camera trained between them as directed.

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetie… look at that pussy eating me up.” You whine out for him, walls clenching visibly at his words in a reaction that makes him purr. “That good? Everything you thought it would be?”

You nod in a daze, cock drunk even with your hips still, and Sir shifts on the other end, the telltale clink of an open belt alerting you to how good it feels for him too. You’re in two minds to beg him to see, even if it’s just a view of the waist down, when he beats you to the punch. “Take it out --”

You blink, trying to focus on his words enough to make sense of his command. He can see the confusion in your face and has to try not to laugh. “Take it out,” he repeats, “and sit on it. I want to see you take it properly.”

It’s a scramble after that -- you, shifting and guiding the toy out of you until you’re hovering over the tip of it on your knees. Lidded eyes dance towards your laptop as you still there, body wound tight in anticipation, and like many times before, you hold his gaze through the lens as you sink down, down, down onto the dildo he made for you.

If you thought you were full before, you’re certainly learning your lesson. The change in angle has the cock dizzyingly deep, enough that it punches the air out of your lungs. You can feel the balls against your bare skin, a permanent reminder of how much you’ve taken, and when he calls for you again, adoration in the breathy tones, you can’t help but buzz.

You love to make him proud of you.

His tone is so tender that you nearly forget you’re in trouble and are about to lift your hips and give him a show when he stops you. “You heard what I said, honey,” he teases when your confused expression returns. “I want you to sit on it. You stay right where you are.”

The urge to beg is potent -- a searing kind of desperation that you’ve never minded indulging with him. But before you can form words in your head, let alone out loud, the dildo comes to life inside you, shaking with such force you cry out from the suddenness. Between being full, and the toy revealing itself to be a vibrator, it’s all too much, so much, and you’re falling back into the couch knees shaking beneath you.

“Now, now, don’t give up on me yet,” Sir coos, a distinct click sounding from his side of the screen and confirming your suspicions when the vibrator turns off right after, “you wanted to feel me, didn’t you?” He pauses long enough for you to nod, gasping in a breath as your teary eyes dance blindly over the screen you wish you could see him on. There’s another click, then a cry as your body arches in an involuntary jolt.

“Then, be a good girl - show me how well you can handle it.”

#chris evans x reader #chris evans fanfic #chris evans writing #dom!chris evans x reader #chris evans masterlist #honey and sir.

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god-fucking-dammit-mizutani · 5 years

Text

Moonlight Mile 2

Rating: G | Word Count: ~5200 Pairing: Taishirou Chapter: 2/3 Tags: Summer Camp AU Part 1 | Read on Ao3

Across the field the early morning sun has ascended just above the tree line, slipping enough light under the propped open window boards to lighten the rec room cum mess hall in a gentle haze.

“I get it,” Mimi declares. Every curl in her hair shines with the vibrant hues of an artificial sunrise. The metal star clips fastened between each ringlet soaks up the sun and reflects little rainbows off the walls, the ceiling, the table.

Taichi stares up at her, watches her chew in an oddly considering way. The slight nip in the air causes his sleep deprived eyes to burn.

“You do?” Jyou asks around his fork. She nods at him, vigorously.

One of the little rainbow lights comes to arc over the back of Taichi's hand. He tries to pin the intangible light beam down with the weight of his fingertips, but they slip away when Mimi turns back to him. She raises her fork up nearly towards the center of his eyes in lieu of her pointer finger.

“What's more surprising than someone being in love you, right?”

“Oh, right!” Jyou thumps a closed fist into his open palm, exclaiming, “I get it!” He smiles brightly as Mimi beams back at him. Taichi's only seen Jyou look this excited when it rains during his field duties and everyone gets stuck inside playing board games and foosball.

“Wow,” Taichi says, dragging the syllable out.

“Not you, you,” Jyou puts in, sheepishly. He makes a gesture Taichi isn't really sure means anything. “But the general you, you know?”

Mimi pulls back her fork and wields it against Jyou next, swiping a few of his tater tots with a single stab. He glares at her, but Mimi just smiles. Jyou moves his tray just a few inches over, using the bulk of his shoulder to ward off any further invasions on his breakfast.

Taichi blinks up at them and then turns away, resting his cheek down on the table. They’re the sort he remembers using in elementary school and if he angles it just right, the laminate surface feels cool and inviting, like an ice pack for his swollen eyes. Beyond the windows, the outside world is quiet. Taichi watches as the wind ruffles through tree branches and thinks about his mother running her hand through his bangs, cooing and asking if he feels well. Taichi’s not sure.

“Come on, Taichi,” Jyou begs softly. He hums in response.

“Don't worry about him,” Mimi says. “Taichi's like a rubber band, he'll snap back.” He hears a crisp woosh over his head and Mimi shouts.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Jyou asks. Taichi tilts his head until his chin lays flat on the edge, watching Mimi wave her hand erratically. There's an angry, red bracelet of skin Taichi knows wasn't there before. It sits under the thick part of her palm, just barely covered by a hot pink hair tie.

“I was proving a point,” she whines. She rubs the mark with her other hand, frowning pitifully.

“It’s not good to wear those things on your wrist anyway,” Jyou adds, frowning.

Taichi laughs, a short little huff through his nose, but it's enough to steal back their attention. They smile at him.

Jyou's eyes flicker over the crown of Taichi's head and they widen momentarily. Taichi doesn't have to look up to know what's caught his attention. Jyou always insists on sitting where he can keep his eyes on the clock despite having a perfectly functioning wristwatch.

He slides his tray over to Mimi's awaiting hands. In her excitement the fork clears straight through the styrofoam, but it doesn't deter her from wiping the debris off the pronged tips and popping another tater tot into her mouth. Jyou winces. Taichi snorts.

“That’s just unsanitary, Mimi,” he says in a high whine already ambling to his feet. Mimi shrugs. “You don't know the last time these tables were washed.”

Mimi snaps her gaze up to him, cheeks puffed up in a pout. “Of course I do!” she shouts. Several people behind them whip their heads around to gander at the outburst. Taichi waves them off and they return quickly to their meals. “Because I washed them. Last night.”

Jyou keeps his nose wrinkled up at her.

“Not that I'm complaining,” she continues, “but there's still ten minutes left. You have plenty of time.”

“But the allergy kids, Mimi,” Taichi puts in just as Jyou follows up with, “but the kids with allergies will be coming in soon, Mimi.”

Mimi looks back to Taichi and they both giggle.

“I just want to be diligent,” Jyou sniffs at them. When his eyes meet Taichi's, a light smile lifts the frown lines along his face. “Hope you feel better, Taichi.”

“Thanks,” Taichi drawls, letting his forehead thunk against the table. It does nothing for the aching in his brain, but the darkness greets him like a comfortable friend. “Have fun getting puked on.”

“I will,” Jyou says back. Taichi makes a face, unseen, because he's not sure if Jyou's being facetious. His footsteps slowly become indistinct among the other camper’s, now little more than the white noise around them.

But Jyou’s still lingering at the far end of the building when Taichi tilts his head that way, giving his other eye a minutes reprieve with the cold surface. A camper wiggles and kicks in his arms, knocking a chair in front of her to the ground. It’s the one that usually keeps the back door propped open, Taichi notices with an amused snort. He’s seen campers and counselors alike through the years pull the chair from it’s post to climb that particular wall because it’s there—the sloppy red-purple stain that haunts the rec room. Even when the rest of the paint and plaster had eroded away, it had remained, stubbornly attached to the crown molding.

Taichi’s heard the rumors, the urban legends; they’ve evolved over the years from the stain being an ominous mark of the apocalypse to a symbol of good luck if you can reach high enough to slap the vibrant blemish with the full of your palm. Taichi’s never believed any of them. Mostly because he remembers putting it there himself after chucking his cranberry juice at Yamato when they were eleven. It’s his greatest regret, missing so poorly.

He can almost hear Jyou across the room, giving his lecture on the dangers of falling from high places as he ushers the camper back to her seat. He takes the chair back out with him, pushing the door open with the broadness of his back. Taichi watches him notice someone in the distance, waving as the door falls shut, Jyou on the other end of it. The slam echoes along the arched ceilings, over the shuffling and rabble of the campers, but no one seems to mind it. Taichi watches the door, though, his heart holding on a beat as the handle jiggles and someone pulls it back open.

Koushirou, notoriously late to breakfast, keeps to predictable this morning. He pushes the chair up against the door and fiddles with it a moment, making sure it’ll hold before stepping up into the rec hall. Across the room his dark eyes meet Taichi's for a moment, and they look, somehow, as if he’d gotten less sleep than when Taichi had last seen him.

Taichi looks away, shoving his half eaten tray into Mimi’s hoard and let's his forehead rest against the table again.

“Hey, Taichi?” Mimi calls him gently. Her hand sits gently on the crown of his head. Taichi welcomes the chill of her fingers where they graze his scalp in soft waves of her hand. “If you don't feel good, you can switch with me today. Or I'm sure Jyou will let you sit out in the first aid tent.”

Taichi looks back up at her again. Mimi's smile is sweet, serene, and it makes his heart both swell and ache. For how much the three of them banter, Taichi enjoys her company, and Jyou’s. But he wishes, too, that Sora were here. He thinks she'd know exactly what to say, but Taichi has no way to contact her.

He props his arm up on the table, rests his cheek inside the cup of his palm, and tries his best to smile. “Thanks Mimi,” he tells her, voice hushed under layers of fatigue. “I'm just super tired.”

“You sure?”

Taichi nods, his eyes following the motion without his permission. He yawns. “I'll let you know if I change my mind.”

On the field, under the sun, Taichi thrives. Usually.

The listless cloud that had kept him company through the morning has since evaporated, the pull of his eyes to remain shut, gone. It feels like every ounce of his blood has been replaced by static, the crackle of it deafening in his ears. He wants to believe it's his natural habitat: the bright skies, the echo of laughter ringing in the air. But he knows it has everything to do with his unlikely company.

Taichi looks behind him, the top of his head scraping along the ground where he’s splayed himself across the slope of the hill nearest the field. Most of the counselors usually hide up in the shade, under the trees at the plateaued top. Taichi prefers being under the sun himself. Koushirou is of the former group, and Taichi understands why, his skin an unhappy shade of red. Taichi watches him struggle with a near-empty bottle of sunblock, alternating between squeezing and slapping the bottom, until it finally deposits the last dollop of lotion into his hand with an undignified plop. Koushirou’s nose wrinkles at the noise, dismayed.

Taichi watches his expression turn to a grimace when he slaps it against his face. He hasn't worn sunblock in so long himself, but his skin still feels the sympathetic prickle of cold as Kouhsirou soothes the lotion into his cheeks.

He notices Taichi's stare a moment later, dark eyes quiet and inquisitive. There is a moment Taichi has to fight the urge to look away.

“Yes?” Koushirou asks. He breaks eye contact to tug his laptop back into the seat of his lap. Taichi can only see the sprout of his hair, darkened by the shade above him, just over the lip of the the back of it. Which is fine. Taichi wasn't going to tell him where he'd missed spots along his face, anyway.

Taichi breathes in and the scent of sun and sweat and everything quintessentially summer wafts in through his nostrils. "It smells like barbeque," he says. To Koushirou's back, a small distance away, is a thicket of woods. Just beyond that is a residential haven, where Taichi hears the owner of the camp lives in a rather sizable craftsman house with a large acre of land for his two large dogs to run around. Taichi only knows about the dogs because they sometimes find their way to camp through the woods, jumping out of the bushes when campers have their lunch out on the lawn on nice days. The old man's daughter used to be Taichi's counselors for years, but now she's some high powered attorney in a big city.

He wonders if she's visiting now, and they're celebrating in that big old craftsman house with the dogs begging under the deck tables. Taichi's stomach growls with envy.

He rolls over onto his stomach, legs kicking up behind him and dismantling grass from the bottom of his shoes as Taichi swings them. He cradles his chin in his hands and watches the bob of Koushirou's hair over the edge of his laptop back. His lower thighs burn where the sun rests upon them. He takes in a deep breath and adds, "and Dr. Pepper." “That's oddly specific."

“Dr. Pepper is very distinct,” Taichi insists. This time when he sniffs, it has nothing has nothing to do with scent.

The clacking of keys stops momentarily. Koushirou tugs down the screen of his laptop until his eyes find Taichi's. It feels like he's staring back down the barren forest roads, deep in the thick of midnight, and Taichi can't seem to breathe in deep enough.

Koushirou sniffs at the air, brows furrowed deep. One of his hands comes up to curl around his chin. Taichi's seen the pose in movies before, the ones with mad scientists and rampaging monsters. Koushirou sniffs again, and the look on his face is the epitome of perplexed.

He should look confused more often, Taichi decides.

“Interesting,” Koushirou mutters. He lifts the screen back up with his other hand and the clicking starts again, but he’s still murmuring to himself. Taichi only understands every other word because he thinks Koushirou's still talking into his palm.

“Would you say it's—”

Koushirou snorts. “Don't start.”

“Come on,” Taichi whines. “You're berry un-raisin-able, Koushirou.”

Unexpectedly, Koushirou laughs.

It's raspy, but loud, and Taichi thinks the toothy smile Koushirou sports could have brightened their way home. His laptop slips from between his crossed legs, gingerly tapping the grass as he falls back, clutching at his stomach and Taichi can't help his own smile.

He can hear some of the kids on the field wondering about Koushirou’s health, asking if they should get Jyou, if heat stroke is contagious. Taichi turns over, crunching to a sitting position and waves them off. Half of them have taken up sitting in the grass, pulling up blades and stray weeds and tossing them at each other. A large group has started playing cards under the goalie posts. Taichi wonders if they'll get in trouble for not watching them properly today, and finds that he can't really muster up the energy to care.

Koushirou has righted himself by the time Taichi peeks back over his shoulder. He's rubbing under his eyes, face still blotchy with speckles of white. He wonders if Koushirou's one of those kids who gets freckles in the sun.

“Can I ask you something?” Rushes out of Taichi's mouth. Koushirou stills, hand already grabbing at his laptop. Taichi doesn't know if the red on his face is from lack of oxygen, or sunburn. It's almost indistinct in the shade.

“The more we talk, the more onerous it is to terminate this feeling.”

Taichi frowns. He looks back at the field, his own fingers skimming along the ground and plucking a few blades of grass when he finds them. It used to be green here, when the sprinklers were used in the summer. Now there's mostly patches of yellowed land that can't quite be called grass or dirt. He sits his collection upon his thigh. Taichi's always been dark, but the skin sitting just under his shorts is almost starkly pale compared to the bits that have been sun-touched.

“Why did you decide to come here—”

But Taichi doesn't know if his question ever makes Koushirou's ear as a shrill tweet cuts through the air. He checks his watch immediately. Five minutes to lunch.

The time doesn't seem to deter campers, or counselors, from leaving their posts. Kids clamber out from every hidden view, from the archery grove and the arts and crafts “tent”, yelling and waving and rushing their way to the mess hall.

Taichi looks back. Koushirou's laptop has already been packed, holstered to his back. His face is down, unreadable, but Taichi watches the sway of a bright orange whistle thump against his standard issued counselor’s shirt.

He watches him go without a word. Even among the crowd, Taichi can pinpoint the shock of red hair maneuvering around a sea of children. He's barely taller than the median age groups.

When he's disappeared into the old building, Taichi turns away. Across the field Hikari stares at him. He can make out the gesture of her finger tapping her wrist, and he shrugs.

“Don't move.”

Taichi opens one eye. A little girl glares down at him, tugging his hand closer to her eye level. Taichi sighs.

“I said don’t move!” she reiterates. She loops a key ring around his pointer finger. Taichi watches her weave gel threads together in what he can only assume is a lizard. Maybe a crocodile.

“Why is this happening to me?” he asks no one in particular.

There isn't much sun that reaches through the canopy of trees, but there's enough light for Taichi to notice the shadow hovering over him.

Hikari smiles down at Taichi. “Well,” she starts, tapping his nose with the feathery end of a paintbrush, “if you're going to lay on the table, then you're going to become it.”

“You don't paint on tables,” Taichi says, narrowing his eyes. Hikari giggles.

Taichi kicks his legs minutely. There’s barely enough room to accommodate six kids sitting up, and so Taichi's legs dangle over the edge. When they smack back down he winces where the wood bites in the plump of his calves. At the far end a little boy shouts.

“I'm going to make you into Miko,” Hikari decides.

She disappears from above him and Taichi breathes in deeply. This corner of camp smells unevenly of paints and sunblock, but above it all the scent of aloe vera is thick. The tickling sensation in his leg returns, the little boy focusing back on his masterpiece blooming along Taichi’s leg. He cranes his neck to try to gain a sneak peek of it, but a few other heads bob in and out of the way, some of the kids using his stomach to hold up their papers. On his free hand, a kid looks up at him with a bright, almost toothless, grin. His brush strokes leaves a colorful trail of paint along his nails.

“I'm going to look like pastel Frankenstein,” he whines. He doesn't really mind, but the outburst gains him several giggles from around the table. He wonders if they get the reference. Hikari returns, smiling back down at him, holding up a small, wooden palette. There's a splatter of old, caked-in paints, but the only fresh color is a giant dollop of black.

“Pastel Frankenstein’s monster,” she corrects him.

Hikari wets the tip of her brush and leans back over Taichi. He scrunches his nose at her as the first, cold plop of paint hits his skin, but Hikari doesn't even reprimand him for it. She looks peaceful, concentrating on her own art, as if she were crafting her magnum opus. She swipes three dark lines on his cheeks, up to his hairline and Taichi thinks she may have gotten some in his hair. The tree branches above them sway in the light breeze, shadows dancing along her face, as she drops three identical marks to his other side.

A crisp whistle in the field signals dinnertime starting in the rec hall. Hikari gets the campers to put their supplies back and Taichi lifts a bucket of water to splash over their hands as they scrub away the evidence of their activities. He fills it back up with a hose attached to the old shed, as the campers scamper off across the way. Hikari organizes the paints together, ordering them into a display of splotchy rainbow containers along the repurposed bookshelf. “So what's wrong?” she asks without looking up.

Taichi frowns. “Why does something have to be wrong?” He takes in a deep breath. “Why are you psychic?”

“You always take Mimi's field shifts for her,” Hikari says, breathing a laugh. “It's just reasonable to think something big must have happened if she was willing to take your spot.”

“She said, and I quote,” Taichi brings up his fingers to create the quotes himself in the air for emphasis, “‘I can finally work on my tan.’ I'm doing her a favor.”

Hikari smiles wryly at him. She strides back over to the table and collects the abandoned paint brushes and twirls them, one by one, into a mason jar until the water turns a dark, murky gray. Taichi takes the brushes from her and dries them off on a paper towel, until the repurposed soup can that houses the camp's paintbrushes is, just barely, full.

“Someone confessed to me,” Taichi says, suddenly, “kind of. I think.” he scratches the back of his neck, a rosy burn spreading across his skin. Hikari looks up at him from wiping paint offfrom the plastic art palettes.

“A camper?” she asks. When he says nothing she guesses, “Another counselor?”

Taichi sits down across from her. He folds his arms and rests against them, until he's looking up at Hikari.

“It's not your first love confession,” she mentions, turning back to her task. “So what's bothering you about this one?”

Taichi watches the shade freckle her cheeks, the sun sit in her amber eyes until they shine golden. “He said he's been in love with me since fifth grade.”

“How sweet.” She means it and Taichi frowns.

“Sure,” he drawls out. He can barely hear himself over the thudding of his heart, the beat of it aching in his limbs. Talking about it more has done nothing for his nerves and it frustrates him. “I guess it would be nice, except I only just met him at camp. This year.”

Hikari doesn't seem phased. “Maybe he met you in school,” she reasons. “One of your classes or clubs or something.”

She takes to cleaning up the table next, rousing Taichi from his resting spot. He almost asks her to thank him, his skin and uniform having taken the brunt of every real mess. But he knows she'll just remind him that he had a choice for where to nap. Maybe he should have taken the risk of getting puked on and rested in the first aid tent instead.

“I would have remembered him if he was in my school, Hikari.” He frowns. “I'm not that oblivious.”

“No,” she agrees, snorting. “But you are a social butterfly. And sometimes a jerk. I'm sure there's people you forget all the time. Sometimes on purpose. Like how you ignored Yamato’s existence for half a summer after he told Sora about your little crush.”

“We don't talk about that year.” Taichi glares at her without any real heat. He'd been at fault for Hikari getting sent home early; Taichi had spent half of camp fretting over whether he'd be an only child after the state she had left in. Their mother had been furious, and he almost thought he’d end up an orphan, too.

Hikari pins him back with one her own glares, the weight of it drooping his shoulders. “That's exactly what I'm talking about.” She takes a deep breath and tells him, “I think you need to talk to this guy directly, otherwise you're never going to get the answers you want.”

Hikari gives him a once over and snorts.

“You should probably wash up before dinner, Taichi,” she tells him from behind her hand, the laughter shining in her eyes. Taichi wrinkles his nose at her and that doesn't really help his case at all.

But he says, “Thanks,” and ruffles her hair on his way past her.

Just before the showers, Taichi hangs left.

His fingers graze through the chain link fence, the metal clicking and vibrating as he walks by. The pool hasn't contained anything but grime and litter since Taichi was fourteen, but it's also overflowing with years of memories. He kissed a boy on a dare, once, in the deep end for five bucks, right under the diving board. Joke had been on Yamato, though, because Taichi had kind of wanted to anyway, but cheating him out of his snack money had been like a price for reinstating their friendship that year.

Taichi grips the pole at the far end and swings his weight around it momentarily. The rod shakes in it's cement shoes and Taichi releases his hold, clenching his fists through the chain link on the opposite side.

Last year they’d hopped the fence, him and Sora and Yamato, after lights out, their stash of an entire summer’s worth of snacks dropping from their arms like a fairy tale trail of their misdeeds. Taichi frowns. It was going to be tradition, they had decided, agreed even when they spent the whole next day in the first aid tent, clutching their stomachs. He squeezes the fence tightly and then continues down the lake path behind the abandoned pool.

Even in twilight gnats hover tightly to Taichi's face along the trail. No amount of swatting shakes them, but Taichi knows this. It is absolutely out of habit.

Campers greet him on their way up, some of the more familiar faces jumping up to give him a high five. Some stop him to take pictures, complimenting Taichi on his new look. He thinks Hikari would be proud.

It's the best time to visit the lake, when everyone else is eating. Plus, it's Takeru's shift to watch the canoes, and he sometimes let's Taichi take one out if he helps fish out the stray life jackets and paddles tossed between the avenues of land and water.

Taichi stutters to a halt when he reaches the mouth of the beach.

Koushirou’s got the fabric of his khakis rolled up high on his knees, to no avail. They're already dark with damp as he splashes along the lakeshore, a small little grunt escaping his lips from the strength it takes him to heft one of the canoes up along it’s brethren on the beach. His hair is as radiant under the evening sun as it is in contrast to the night sky and Taichi frowns as he pads down the sand, coming up alongside him to share in the burden of the canoe’s weight.

"You're not Takeru," he mutters.

Koushirou startles, his fingers slipping from the lip of the helm, but his momentum continues backwards and he drops into the lake with a distinctive plop.

A heartbeat passes between them before Taichi throws his own head back, howling with laughter as he pulls the canoe up on the sand. Koushirou watches him, offering no help. His eyes look so impossibly wide, the sort of deep you can swim in, drown in, and Taichi pushes back the urge to offer him a hand purely out of spite.

He surveys the lake for any straggling gear before he drops himself on the shore, tucking his knees up towards his chest, his shoes squelching with every move. He grimaces, wishing he’d had the foresight to toe them off before trekking through the lake. The fabric of his pants chafing uncomfortably against his knees. Below that, his calves looks bruised, splotchy with a plethora of colors bleeding together where the kid’s painting had been compromised by the splashes of water. He never did remember to look.

"Where's blondie?" Taichi finally asks.

"He's—we—" Koushiro splutters. His face tilts down, exposing the reddened nape of his neck. He manages eventually to say, "T.K. offered to switch with me after lunch.”

To not see me, something tells Taichi. "I couldn’t procure any additional sunblock," is what Koushirou tells him. Water drips from his bangs where his trip into the lake had splashed back up at him. "Jyou said he only had enough to spare for the kids until the next supply run." Koushirou turns to look at him, backlit by the evening sun and static charges in every one of Taichi's muscles. He grips a flat rock in the palm of his hand and tosses it just to the left of Koushirou. It glides quietly along the surface and sinks seamlessly into the folds of a languid wave.

Koushirou picks himself up and plops down a decent distance from Taichi. He notices since they’d last seen each other that the little bits of block he’d neglected to warn Koushirou about have been properly applied now. "Did it hurt today?" Taichi asks. Koushiro blinks at him and Taichi grabs for another rock indiscriminately. It hits the water less gracefully, like a belly flop among swan dives. "Your sunburn." "Oh, " Koushirou says. "Just an iota." "Remember to apply aloe vera or it won't heal well." "I will," Koushirou replies. There's a smile in his voice that Taichi can just imagine blooming shyly on his thin lips and his stomach pinches. "Thank you.”

He’s not the only one who seems to notice anything new, Koushirou’s eyes following from Taichi’s hairline, down to the tips of shoes.

“You look—”

“Don’t,” Taichi says, narrowing his eyes at the tight smile on the other’s lip.

“Glamourpuss,” Koushirou finishes in an absolute deadpan. “That was—”Taichi breaks his own sentence, laughing as Koushirou joins him “—the worst.”

“I purrceived as much.” Taichi sends him a look. “Just simple purrvenge."

Taichi groans and for a while the lake echoes with their laughter.

Wildlife chatters around them, fills in the eventual silence that settles between them, twilight critters stirring in the brush. A little chipmunk pokes out from the corner of Taichi's eyes and swiftly pilfers a forgotten batch of fruit snacks. He bets Koushirou would probably know the exact taxonomy of the little rodent. He probably knows every bird by their chirping alone, because the little that he knows of Koushiro is that Koushirou knows probably everything and Taichi doesn't.

"You said you were in love with me, you know?" Taichi breathes out. It feels like the exhale after taking a soccer ball to the gut. "You wanted me to shock you," Koushirou says smartly. His toe digs a short line in the dense sand, water lapping his toes with swift licks. His face colors, filling in the gaps where the sun hadn't touched. "Enamoured might have been...superlative." Taich breathes out again. "You don't feel anything for me, then?" The breeze shakes the branches above them, swims through the lake like a current. A fish breaches the surface, the only evidence of its ascent a strong, circular ripple. Taichi reaches for another stone and tosses it a good few feet into the water. It takes several steps this time before plummeting. He clutches a new one, but let’s his hand rest in the space between them. Taichi wonders if Koushirou would take it, is considering it, and his heart pounds.

"This lake is so sedentary," Koushirou says instead. "Do you think it's still down there?" Taichi narrows his eyes. Between them is a basin of questions that seems to be ever flowing, yet never emptying. "What?" This time, Koushirou picks at a rock instead. It's heavy and when it plops into the lake not too far from them, water droplets rain and scatter until there's an orchestra of ripples along the shore. A few drops land on Taichi's leg. "The headrest.” Taichi stares at him. There's a glint of mischief in his darks eyes that twinkles and Taichi thinks of stars, galaxies and it feels oddly fitting because Koushirou always seems to be somewhere close, but elusive.

“Fifty dollars says I can retrieve it by the end of the summer."

Taichi looks at the lake, the very last rays of the evening light dipping beneath the trees on the farshore and he licks his lips. "Deal."

#digimon #taishirou #taishiro #as always I will probably not come back to fix the emphasizes that tumblr stole #despite how much it destroys my soul to not have them #anyway!!! I did a thing!!!! WOoohhh!!!!#I rewrote this chapter from it's original draft and it took so long to get it right but I'm...okay with it hahaha #ANYWAY ALL HAVE A NICE NIGHT #sparkle garbage

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septic-dr-schneep · 6 years

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JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Need (Part 19: Remission)

Summary: Now that he knows Jackieboy is down for the count and the responsibility to protect the other Egos has fallen to him, there are things that Marvin needs to address -- specifically, what happened between him and Schneep.

Marvin had tried every possible form of examination. Prying off his mask with a frustrated hiss, he tossed it onto his cluttered desk, eyes narrowed at the doll before him. Every time he doused it with magic, it flailed about, sizzling and burning; it should have been nothing but ashes by now.

Eventually, however, the fire shrank and died away without leaving a single scorch mark on his desk or the doll. In fact, it looked as if it’d been completely untouched all this time. Nothing he had done over the past few hours made any conceivable dent in it; there wasn’t a single string out of place.

“What is this even supposed to be? What does it mean?” he growled to no one in particular, picking up the perturbing plaything and glaring more deeply into its wide, unnerving stitched eyes.

It was entirely identical to him in every way: the long-sleeve blue shirt rolled up to his elbows, the black jeans, the cape, the mask…Even the shade of thread used for its eyes was unique, quite unlike than that of the Jameson doll that had been tossed nearby after an hour or so of examining it with no success—not that he’d found any better success with his own. He leaned over, snatching the little Jameson up a second time and weighing the pair for a side-by-side comparison.

Entirely identical. Marvin’s eyes were darker, glaucous blue. When Jameson made a point of letting his sepia aura recede and color bled into his skin, hair and clothing, it could be seen that the younger Ego’s eyes were quite light, more powder-gray than blue, and the dolls had been stitched accordingly.

If Marvin had to give Anti credit for anything, it was his attention to detail, but the thought that the Defect had ever managed to get close enough to memorize their eye colors made his stomach turn. Distinctly uncomfortable, he promptly set the Jameson doll back in its former place and made a mental reminder not to pick it up again unless absolutely necessary.

His own doll’s thin, loosely tied black cape flapped haphazardly about as he waved it back and forth, unable to think of anything else to do with it. It was unnaturally heavy in his hand, the weave of each piece of yarn dense and tight. It was made to be sturdy, but no natural yarn would be able to stand up to his magic.

Perhaps this was no natural yarn. He couldn’t expect it to be, honestly. Who knew what Anti could have done to it? It was just as cursed as its weaver.

As soon as he and Signe had walked into his room and found the doll waiting for him, resting in the dead center of his pillow, Marvin had been paralyzed, simultaneously dread and fury rooting him to the spot.

Signe had moved ahead of him toward the bed, picking up the doll and asking him uncertainly where it had come from, and Marvin hadn’t been able to respond, stumbling back to lean against the wall as he strained his magic just that much more to perform a locator spell.

It wasn’t a spell he used often, given how much it required of him, but he had needed to see if there were still any traces of Anti’s essence in his room. To his frustration, he couldn’t muster enough energy or magic to tell after the strength he’d spent opening the portal for Jameson. He hadn’t fully recharged and draining himself for that last push had been the final straw for his body. His vision had become a stomach-churning tilt-a-whirl and he knew he was about to make a repeat performance of the spectacular faint he’d performed in Schneep’s lab. He couldn’t—He had to—

He’d very nearly crashed into Signe as he slumped forward, but somehow he managed to keep his feet underneath him long enough to stagger past her and fall toward the bed. He was out cold before he connected and the sleep that enveloped him was dreamless.

When he’d awoken, he was groggy and sore, cursing himself for sleeping on his stomach and creating a throbbing crick in his neck, but he’d felt a little more like himself. While he shook off sleep, he’d shifted limp fingers to get the blood flow back to them, satisfied to see that sparks danced around their tips without too much of a delay. Now that he’d gotten some decent rest, his magic was recovering.

His next bleary glance, aimed at the clock nearby, had told him he’d just slept for twelve hours undisturbed. That was less of a surprise than it should have been, given the household he lived in; more often than not he would have one of the others knocking on his door to wake him for morning cartoons before the workday and for a moment or two, he’d forgotten the events of the day before. When memory sank in, he’d stilled, breathing deeply and taking in the faded scent of cleanser lingering in his sheets as he ran through a mental checklist.

Chase was still at the hospital, recovering from the surgery.

Jameson was still in the ABOP. He had a cot there; hopefully he had slept alright.

Signe had probably opted to stay out of his room because she thought he needed the rest.

It wasn’t any wonder that no one had come to wake him. In fact, he’d genuinely considered closing his eyes and sleeping for a while longer, but it was then that he’d also remembered the doll. He’d forced himself to rise so he could do some research.

Since then, after cramming down two pieces of toast to satisfy Signe’s warnings against working on an empty stomach, he’d been seated here in his workroom, poring over his books for some spell that could unravel this hideous little doll. From the looks of it, there was nothing special keeping it together. It didn’t even seem to serve any magical purpose. Why was it here? Why had Anti put it here and why had he chosen now to do so?

As the doll’s cape clumsily started tangling around his fingers, he broke out of his thoughts, dropping it with a small noise of disgust and then sighing deeply, leaning his elbows on the desk and massaging his temples.

He really shouldn’t be working at all, given that the stitches in his chest were protesting every movement. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken pain medication either, but there were so many other things he needed to do. He needed to check on the Jack and Schneeplestein dolls that had been discovered, he needed to fetch Jameson from the ABOP and check on Sam in the process, he needed to eat something more than that toast, call Chase at the hospital to get an update on how he was feeling…

How on earth did Jackieboy cope with all of this responsibility? Why had Jack made him the next one in line to have that power put on his shoulders when Jackieboy wasn’t there to handle it? Would that it were someone else…

No. It would be an utter disaster. Marvin was molded for this purpose and he was meant to be exactly where he was. If any of the others were to be in his place, they would never be able to stand up under the weight. It would always be his responsibility, even if he didn’t like it. Jackieboy never said a bad word about them when they leaned on him for support, so what right did Marvin have to do so?

Marvin missed Jackieboy more than he could possibly say. He had never been allowed to see him since he’d learned that he was in the coma; police were stationed at both his old room and the room he’d been transferred to, pending the investigation of the nurse’s death. They didn’t know whether or not he was still a target and the family was always the first group of suspects. Worse, Marvin couldn’t even tell them that it was already too late, that the attacker had gotten exactly what he wanted long before they’d arrived.

Come to think of it, he had never even seen Jackieboy since he’d left home. Jackieboy had barely bothered to say goodbye. Now he wasn’t even sure he wanted to, given what he knew would be waiting for him. His next breath was shakier than it should have been, but he needed to keep it together. He was leader. A leader maintained his composure for the sake of the others, no matter the toll it took on him emotionally. A leader—

“Marvin…? If…If I say you’re right, will you stop hating me?”

His train of thought ground to a stop at that voice. Dejectedly Marvin lifted his head, glancing over his shoulder at the doctor who stood in the doorway. He was already crying, he noted, guilt curling up tightly in his stomach. That wasn’t a good sign.

A leader dealt with issues on the inside before trying to address anything else.

“I don’t hate you,” he muttered.

“You do, I know you do!” Schneep protested miserably, ducking his head as the tears raced to escape his wiping fingers. “I want to say whatever will make you stop being angry with me but I don’t know what it is! I want to take responsibility, like you say I should!” Slumping against the wall by the door, he blurted out, “It’s my fault. Is always my fault! I did this to us! I should never have left Jackie. I s-should have stopped him from leaving in first place! I failed him, I fail us, I fail you all the time and—”

“Stop, Schneep, don’t say that,” Marvin cut him off quietly, pushing away from his desk and spinning his chair around to face him. “You’re just gonna keep working yourself up and we both know it’s not true.”

“It is! I mean it! I do—!”

“But I didn’t. I shouldn’t have put that on you. I just…” Frustration and sadness winding into a tight knot in his chest, Marvin shook his head, throwing up his hands. “I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t come to us, why you didn’t tell us what had happened with Jackieboy! One of us could have gone to him while you were treating Jack and maybe we could’ve done something to save him!”

Another surge of anger roughened his tone as he tore his gaze away. “I’m just—I am sick of seeing them get hurt. Seeing both of them sacrifice so much for us and suffer for it—I hate it so much! I hate Anti so much for it that it scares me and when there’s any kind of chance that any of us can prevent it…We could’ve helped you, Schneep. Why did you try to take it all on yourself again?”

“Because that’s my job!”

The magician’s mouth opened at that, nothing less than astonished at how Schneep said that without any hesitation, as if it was something that had been established and understood since he was born. Marvin knew he valued independence over a lot of other things, but did he honestly believe that doing it without any help had been his job since he’d first walked through the front door, barely coherent in his English and greener than Jack’s hair?

Did he honestly think he was meant for that? Had they made him feel that way?

“Are you—are you kidding?” the magician sputtered when he remembered how to find words. “We’re supposed to be a family, aren’t we?! None of us can do it ourselves; that’s the whole point of us living together like this! That’s why Jack brought all of us together! We’re supposed to rely on each other! You weren’t made to handle anything like this yourself!”

“I know, I know! Is why I wanted to prove that I could! Nine months ago I fail with Jack and with Jackie I wanted to try again! I—I want to do something right for once on my own without needing help for the f-first time since Anti took me and instead I just make everything worse!” Unable to stand looking at Marvin anymore, Schneep hid his face in his hands, shoulders heaving, words muffled and broken between the sobs and his fingers. “I j-just wanted t-to be a good doctor!”

The pit of Marvin’s stomach sank at that and he levered himself to his feet, drifting across the room to put a tentative hand on his arm. “C’mon,” he murmured. “C’mon, doc, you’ve gotta breathe—” The rest of his words were forced back into his throat as the younger Ego flung himself at him, burying his face in his chest and drawing a startled grunt from him.

His shirt going damp within seconds, Marvin swallowed hard, gingerly looping his arms around him. The two of them weren’t in the habit of hugging; he’d forgotten what it felt like. It was strange, a little uncomfortable, but Schneep was too overcome to care like Marvin did. Usually Jackie was here whenever either of them needed comfort or reassurance…

Who knew how long it would be before they got a hug from him again? At that unwelcome thought, Marvin automatically tightened his grip and Schneep heaved a shuddering breath, apparently reading his mind.

“I k-killed them,” he whispered hoarsely, clutching at the older Ego’s shirt and lifting his head to stare at him with damp, bloodshot eyes. “I killed them, I killed them and they—”

“No,” Marvin stopped him immediately, shaking his head violently. “No, you didn’t. If they’re still breathing, they’re still alive, okay? Jack did even more than that, remember? He spoke and he opened his eyes! It’s like Chase said; we can still get through to him!”

“But Jackie…Jackie…”

“Whatever happens with him, we’ll take care of it. We’re going to protect him, okay?”

“I c-can’t protect anyone! Any time I t-try, I just make it worse. We can’t lose both of them, Marvin! I can’t do this anymore, I cannot lose them both, not like this! I just can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Shh, shh-shh-shh…C’mon, you’ve gotta get ahold of yourself…” Marvin protested weakly as Schneep’s head fell against his chest again, his anguished mantra dissolving into incoherent whimpers. “Schneep, please, you’ve gotta…you…”

His own pleas were failing now as his throat tightened and Marvin was suddenly all too aware of the fact that he was buckling, losing the composure a proper leader was meant to keep. Stop it, stop, you’re just being ridiculous. This is stupid…Why are you even doing this right now? This isn’t about you; you’re meant to be comforting him, so just suck it up and…and…No, stop, please stop, don’t—

Too late. The tears were spilling like leaks from a sturdy pipe, the cracks growing too fast for him to patch them and allowing more and more to escape. He couldn’t keep up. One minute he was the comforter, the next he had dragged Schneep as close as he could possibly get him, shivering around him as if they were being frozen solid.

“M—Mm—?!” Schneep hiccupped frantically, unable to catch his breath as it was stifled in Marvin’s shirt, and the magician just shook more desperately, tightening his grip enough that he heard a small squeak of pain from the other against the curve of his throat. He wanted to be sorry for it, but he was too caught up in the tide of emotion that had been set loose.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out in grief-stricken stops and starts. “I—I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how we’re ever gonna get through this, Schneep, I just don’t know! Jackieboy’s the only one who stands a chance against Anti! He’s s-smarter and faster and stronger and kinder and if he was here, he c-could figure out what to do! I have nothing! An’ I snapped at you, I blamed you, an’ he never would’ve! He never would’ve turned on any of us! I don’t know how to be what I need to be to protect any of you until he wakes up!”

Schneep’s hyperventilating only worsened the longer his confession went on and something in Marvin sensed it, his next words failing to surface no matter how hard he tried to get them past the lump in his throat. Wordless cries came more easily.

After several rounds of tears that made their whole bodies ache, how long did they stand there, leaning on each other like two playing cards about to topple from the top of their house? Crying for so long had taken something out of him that he didn’t realize he could give. How many months had it taken for that to build up in him?

They were utterly spent, not to mention raw, pained, and soaked. Frankly it was disgusting, Marvin mused faintly, but he couldn’t muster any care. He just had to catch his breath, which seemed perfectly reasonable to Schneep. It didn’t look like he had any intention of pulling away from where he had tucked his face into Marvin’s shoulder.

That…That was okay. Right now, Marvin didn’t have any intention of letting him go.

#youtube #jacksepticeye #fanfiction #youtube fanfiction #marvin the magnificent #dr schneeplestein #jackieboy man #antisepticeye #chase brody #jameson jackson #dapper jack #angst #feels for days #schneep and marv are the best bros #they have their close moments #hurt comfort

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otomeshistarlight-blog · 6 years

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Okay, so. This is a thing. I knew as soon as I saw the dark yokai set last night that I needed to write for all one of them and I got the idea for this scenario from a friend. It features slightly dubious consent, but not really, and just generally extreme sexual imagery so tread with caution. If the Supernatural fandom can write about human dicks knotting then so can I, dammit. <_<;

Yokai Ichimatsu x reader smut below!

The old, decaying wood splintered and groaned in protest as I forced the door open and sunlight poured into the temple for the first time in many years. Poking my head inside, I cautiously glanced around before taking a tentative step over the threshold. I immediately had to duck under an unusually large spider web hanging down from the rafters and I blanched, surreptitiously swiping a hand over my clothes. There was no telling how many bugs and assorted creepy crawlies I was disturbing but I'd come too far to back out now.

I usually wasn't one to fall for haunted destination hoaxes but this shrine in particular had piqued my interest after stumbling upon multiple accounts regarding its authenticity on the internet. It seemed that gender, age, race, ethnicity and religious background, or lack thereof, played no part in determining who experienced unusual phenomena within these walls. Apparently whatever spirits were haunting the area were equal opportunists and I would have immediately ruled the whole thing out as a fake if it weren't for the veritable goldmines of evidence I'd found in abundance. Audio recordings, photographs, even full on video footage was floating around in the ether for anyone who searched hard enough for it and, to my chagrin, it all looked to be genuine. I'd decided in a moment of hubris to track the place down and see for myself whether the stories were true but so far I was getting a whole lot of nothing.

Waving some of the swirling dust away from my face, I squinted through the murky shroud of darkness to regard the bronze cast Buddha statue on the far wall. It was covered in a thick layer of grime and filth, effectively tarnishing whatever brilliance it may have once possessed. Frowning, I turned away from the idol and glanced up towards the ceiling to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything hiding in the rafters. Every blurry image of the apparition in question seemed to capture a fluffy tail of sorts which I was keeping a watchful eye for. I didn't see anything though, and I heaved a sigh as I stepped further into the temple.

The floorboards creaked loudly under my footsteps and I felt a noted spike in anxiety when I realized it almost sounded like someone was trailing behind me. I laughed at myself for being so jumpy as I paused in the center of the room to glance back at the open doorway, somewhat relieved to see that I was completely alone. All those stories were getting to me, amping up my expectations, and I silently scolded myself for being so impressionable. I'd allow myself to be scared when something really happened but until that time, I was determined to remain calm and level headed. A true sign of a serious paranormal investigator.

Feeling quite snobbish in my resolve, I turned my nose to the air and began making my way towards the back wall. There was a door tucked off to one side and I made a bee line for it, hopeful that I'd find what I was looking for in the next room. I was halfway to my destination when a cool breeze blew in from the doorway, carrying with it the smell of spring, and I shivered as it washed over my body like a bucket of ice water. I didn't remember it being that cold outside but, I tried to reason, it was quite a bit more chilly within the abandoned shrine so it really wasn't -

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”

I nearly jumped right out of my skin at the sound of an unexpected voice and my camera fell onto the floor with a loud clatter as I spun around. Wide eyed, I searched for the source but I didn't see anyone. No matter which dark corner I looked at, there was no doubt in my mind that I was alone. Unless …

Heart pounding wildly inside my chest, I lift my head to regard the ceiling and dread settles within my stomach when I realized that I still didn't see anyone. Was I completely losing my mind? I know I'd heard someone else's voice, rich and smooth in its taunting lilt, but where was he?

“You're not too bright are you?”

Whipping around, my breath caught in my throat when I found the mysterious man casually lounging across the Buddha's shoulder like some sort of deranged parrot. But maybe calling him a man would be incorrect, as the ears standing upright out of his mess of dark hair and the multiple tails sprouting out of his backside would seem to imply. Perhaps more alarming was the unnatural red of his eyes and I felt my pulse flat line for a split second. It was obvious what I was looking at, the extra furry appendages were a dead give away, but now that I'd found what I was looking for I just couldn't seem to comprehend it. Was this really an evil spirit – and a powerful fox demon at that? He just looked like an overly dramatic cosplayer for crying out loud!

A tense moment of silence claimed the room as I stared at him in outright shock and, scoffing at my reaction, he shook his head. “How do you expect to find any ghosts if you're too stupid to even hold onto your camera? Isn't that what you came here for?”

I involuntarily jerked at the bark in his voice and darted my gaze down at the floor, only giving myself a brief moment to consider my next move. Diving onto the ground, my trembling hands fumbled with the fallen piece of technology which I nearly dropped in my sweat slicked haste before pointing it up at the statue. My finger was already wildly mashing the button and the sound of the shutter seemed incredibly loud inside the ancient building but, much to my surprise, he was no longer there. A cold sweat erupted across my skin as I wildly searched for him, twisting my head this way and that.

“W-where are you?” I demanded, standing upright and cursing myself for the falter in my voice. This couldn't be happening, dammit!

The sharp pinprick of claws suddenly danced across my jaw, as if materializing right out of thin air, and my heart leaped up into my throat with a start. I barely dared to breathe let alone move as the elegant hand traced an almost loving line across my neck before long fingers curled underneath my chin. Tilting my head back at a vulnerable angle, he set his sights just a pinch lower and the sensation of him squeezing my throat in a barely concealed threat made me gasp. It was only then that I felt his body press up behind me out of the darkness with a soft, barely there flutter of his robes.

“Don't worry,” He purred as he nuzzled the side of my head in some fallacious show of affection. “I'm not going anywhere until I've had my fun with you.”

A shudder raced down my spine, lighting every nerve on fire, but I forced myself to remain still. I had a sneaking suspicion that those talons of his were real and I didn't want to think about how easily he could tear my throat out with them. “What do you mean?” I asked in a quiet voice.

Humming almost thoughtfully, the kitsune pressed even closer so I could feel the hard weight of his body molding over mine before he delivered a punishing nip to the outer shell of my ear. I yelped in response, heat rushing to my face, but he merely laughed and almost casually docked his chin over my shoulder.

“I just think that this could end up being mutually beneficial for the both of us. After all, its not every day that such a cute ghost hunter wanders into my home.”

He lived here? In this dilapidated shrine?

Brows furrowing, I mentally chastised myself for focusing on the wrong things and took a breath with every intention of telling him exactly where he could shove that offer. But then his hand on my neck took an abrupt turn south, grabbing my breast in a tight grip, and all that came out was a startled mewl. I jumped in surprise and dropped my camera so I could snatch at his wrist but the unmistakable strength in just his forearm gave me pause. There was no longer any doubt in my mind concerning what this man was and I found it surprisingly difficult to comprehend that.

“What do you say? If you have some fun with me, I'll let you take as many pictures as you want. I'll even pose for you if you'd like.” He said, the sultry tone in his words sending an unexpected wave of heat crashing down to pool within the pit of my stomach.

Despite my trepidation regarding the entire situation, I couldn't seem to deny the way my body was reacting to him and apparently he noticed it as well. With a breathy little laugh, he started to grope me through my shirt with an undisguised confidence that left me a little weak in the knees. Something in the back of my mind, something primal, was screaming at me to give in to his desires but I somehow managed to retain just enough wherewithal to keep my wits about me. I was wary and I didn't hide that in my body language or in my tone.

“Do I have a choice?” I asked with evident suspicion.

“Of course.” He breathed against my neck. “I'm not some vulgar oni who would take you against your will. You can say no, but you won't get any photographs.”

My fingers tightened around his wrist in a fruitless attempt to ground myself. I was falling under his spell faster than I could register and my reservations were slipping away just as quickly. “You won't kill me? Or maim me? Just sex?”

His body shook against mine with laughter as he abandoned my breast in favor of curling his fingers under my chin again, dragging my powerless hand along for the ride. “I wont hurt you. Not like that,” He assured me, almost sickeningly sweet and it sounded wrong in his deep voice. “But I can't promise that by the end of this you won't be a desperate little cock slut. You've never experienced anything like what I have to give and I can't deny that I've broken a few girls in my time. Mentally, that is.”

The dangerous whisper of his last few words left me trembling in his arms and I was entirely complacent when he turned my head to look back at him over my shoulder. Mischievous crimson eyes found mine, practically boring into my very soul, and I inadvertently found myself melting against him. I wanted – needed that dark promise he was offering me and I wordlessly nodded my head as if in a stupor.

A menacing smirk curled his lips, stretching from almost ear to ear and showing off a gleaming glint of razor sharp teeth. My pulse pounded wildly as he slowly turned me around to face him, giving me ample opportunity to change my mind. I didn't want to though. I knew that without a doubt when both of his hands settled on my shoulders. Maybe it was a trick, some sort of kitsune magic that he was using to alter my perception of reality, but in that moment I honestly did not care. Even if it was only a small taste, I craved the sweet oblivion of release that he was offering me.

“Have you ever worshiped a god before?” He asked me lightly, almost casually, and when I shook my head he snickered with fiendish delight. His fingers tightened on my shoulders, exerting just enough pressure to drop me down onto my knees without resistance. “Then allow me to demonstrate, and do pay attention. I have a feeling that this wont be the only time you'll need this particular set of skills.”

Confusion danced through my mind for a mere second but that all vanished without a trace when he reached up to shrug out of his black cloak. The multitude of tails protruding out of his backside twitched and bristled as he threw the garment onto the floor carelessly, looking for all the world like palms swaying in the wind. The milky white flesh of his shoulders seemed to glow in the dim light and the jet black color of his clothes only accentuated his translucent pallor. I stared at him from my spot on the floor, completely transfixed by his ethereal beauty which was not at all diminished by the aura of danger radiating off of him. The paradox was almost sensual in its own way and I gulped dryly when he reached to undo the sash around his waist.

“We'll start with the basics.” He said conversationally and the sadistic amusement of his expression was not lost on me.

I couldn't bring myself to really care though and when the obi came away entirely, allowing his pants to slide down around his thighs in a rumpled mess, I leaned forward eagerly. His cock was mostly soft but a faint twitch from the hardening organ told me without words that he was looking forward to this just as much as I suddenly was. Scooting closer, I practically thrummed with excitement and my tongue darted out to wet my lips as I braced my hands on the floorboards. My eyes were dilated and trained on his genitals with a laser precision and he didn't seem to miss that as he snickered in amusement.

“Good girl,” He said on a slow exhale, the anticipation in his voice ringing inside my ears. “Now show me what you're capable of.”

That was all the prompting I needed and I swooped in to catch the head between my lips. He twitched inside my mouth, growing just that little bit more firm as I suckled on the tip and the salty taste of precum nearly drove me right over the edge into madness. Hastily worrying the meat of his foreskin with my teeth, I tried to suck yet more of that delicious fluid out of him and I opened my mouth wide to gulp down the rest of him when none was forthcoming. My thoughts were consumed with white noise as I hungrily slobbered all over his cock until it was standing to full attention against my tongue. Electricity consumed my core, setting everything ablaze, when I realized just how thick it was now that he'd grown completely erect and I came up off him with a flustered gasp.

I immediately ducked down and latched my lips around his ballsack, greedily sucking his testes and swirling them with my tongue. A pleased sound filtered through the air as his hand found the top of my head, sharp nails scraping against my scalp in a deceptively soothing touch. I didn't need his encouragement though and I brought my hands up to brace against his meaty legs as I released his balls with an audible pop. Tilting my head back at an almost uncomfortable angle, I pressed my face up into the space between his thighs so I could lap voraciously at his taint before stretching my tongue out to tease his asshole.

The demon tensed slightly in response but he immediately shifted his feet further apart, spreading his legs for me so I could really get up in there. A desperate groan rolled off my tongue as I shoved my mouth up against him and his balls pressed heavy against my nose, threatening to suffocate me with their silky soft weight. I took a gasping breath and flicked my tongue over the tight ring of muscle again, circling it with a taunting slowness before giving it a good suck.

“My, my, you're even more eager than I'd given you credit for.” He groaned as he titled his pelvis so that he was practically sitting on my face, his hand shoving me up against his ass a little tighter. “I wasn't expecting such a perverted little thing to wander into my clutches of her own free will. How does that taste?”

When I tried to answer him, all that came out was some muffled sounds and he gave my head a jostle to further prompt me. I tried again but it was no use with his thighs smothering me and the coppery taste of his asshole overwhelming my tongue. Realizing that it was useless in this position, he pulled me back with a grunt and fisted my hair in a tight grip so he could give me a demanding jerk.

“Well?”

“Good!” I blurted out, gasping in the fresh air as I stared blearily up at his face. “It tastes good, sir!”

Expression twisting up in vicious glee, he brought his free hand down to caress my cheek in a mockingly sweet gesture which I found myself gratefully leaning into. “I'm so glad to hear that, my pet. Since you're doing so well, I'll tell you my name but you have to promise that you wont stop screaming it until your throat is raw. Deal ~?”

I quickly nodded at that, squirming against the overwhelming liquid desire drenching my cunt. “I will! I promise!”

He laughed cruelly at my eager response before standing upright, slowly releasing me so that his fingers tangled and knotted my hair as they slid through it. “Excellent. Then you may call me 'Ichimatsu-sama' to your hearts content. Now turn around and present yourself to me.”

My mind stuttered over itself for a brief moment while I tried to figure out what he wanted me to do but then the demon lifted a single finger to draw a lazy circle in the air, and I immediately understood. Practically tripping over myself in my haste, I spun around so that my back was to him and jerkily yanked my pants down around my knees before fumbling with my shirt. I only managed to get the top and my bra bunched up under my chin when the need became too great to bear any longer and I left it like that, dropping down into a prone position on the floorboards. My chest pressed flush against the grimy wood, I bent my legs and arched my back so that I was completely exposed to his devious gaze and I immediately caught the sound of a bemused chuckle over the pounding blood in my ears.

“What a perfect little pussy you have,” He murmured seconds before I felt a single clawed finger trace a taunting path down the length of my slit. Breath catching, I went ramrod stiff as anticipation rocked me down to the very core and I jutted my ass up a little higher in response. “And look at how wet you already are. Are you really enjoy this that much?”

“Yes, Ichimatsu-sama! I am!” Very nearly wailing, I started to squirm in desperation. All I could think about was that thick cock of his breaking me in half and I could hardly stand the wait any longer. If he didn't follow through on his earlier promise soon I was going to lose my mind.

The sound of rustling caught my attention and I jumped when he reached out to take two big handfuls of my ass, kneading it for a moment before spreading me wide. A needy moan tore out of my throat as I squirmed towards him, blindly seeking out the delicious friction I so badly needed at that moment. Ichimatsu snickered, apparently quite amused with this turn of events, and I felt him lean closer to nuzzle my slick labia with his nose. A short moment later, his tongue flicked out to worm its way between my folds and draw tight circles around my clit, making me jerk at the sensation, but it wasn't enough. Something like that could never be enough.

“Please!” I cried out, practically sobbing as I dug my nails into the floor. “Please, Ichimatsu-sama! I can't! I need it right now – I need you!”

Suddenly sounding incredibly tense, he groaned against me and rose up to finally position himself. I felt delirious with relief as I braced myself, spreading my knees a little further apart to give him better access and the first push against my entrance made me choke in overwhelming need. Ichimatsu seemed intent on drawing this out for as long as possible though and he took his time swiping the head up and down along my slit, pausing just long enough to tease my twitching hole before aiming a little lower and applying an exquisite amount of pressure to my clitoris. I could barely see straight let alone think clearly while he drew my aching need to the very breaking point and when, at last, he started to slowly slide up into me I had to blink away the grateful tears.

“O-oh, god!”

The intense burn of his cock spreading me wide left me shaking like a leaf as he worked his way inside one excruciating inch at a time. I could barely breathe by the time he bottomed out inside of me, settling for a short moment so my straining walls could accommodate the unexpected girth. Ichimatsu leaned over me then, draping his body over mine so that his clawed hands were planted firmly on either side of my head and the pressure from this position made me writhe under him. A dark, throaty chuckle shifted my hair as he dipped his mouth close to my ear and traced a taunting path over the cartilage with his tongue.

“I already told you my name,” He whispered hotly and I groaned when his cock twitched inside me with a quick flex of muscle. “Don't forget to use it, unless you want to irritate me that is.”

I nodded numbly as my body clenched down around him and a soft, keening moan rolled off my tongue. Snickering, Ichimatsu arched his pelvis away from me so he could pull out until just the tip remained sitting heavy within my body. I felt him tense above me, the muscles in his arms straining against the skin as he readied himself to slam back in, and all I could manage was a trembling inhale before he brutally sheathed himself right down to the hilt. A strangled grunt forced its way up my throat and for a split second all I could see was stars while my body heaved at the rough intrusion. But he was apparently done with the slow and steady technique before it had even begun, wildly thrusting at a breakneck pace that jostled me. My wailing voice rose in the air to join the deafening sound of skin slapping skin as he pounded me with wild abandon, grunting softly from the effort.

“Come on. Say it.” He said between thrusts, punctuating his words with a particularly hard snap of his hips. “Say my name. Let me hear you, little human. Tell me how good it feels!”

“Uwaa – aah! I-it feels … nngh, aah-amazing, Ichimatsu-sama! Thank you!”

Breathless, chortling laughter filtered down from above to reverberate inside my ears. I was so lost in the moment, screaming out meaningless gibberish while he continued to mercilessly ram his cock into my pussy, that at first I didn't even notice a tickling sensation on my thigh. I couldn't ignore it any longer when it became more demanding and I realized it was the soft fur of one of his tails brushing over my hip. It was such a drastically different feeling compared to the rough fucking he was giving me that I squirmed, trying to escape it, but he was relentless. The fluffy appendage snaked its way up the length of my body and wiggled itself under my breast where it traced feather light touches around my areola. I gasped in shock at the strangely delicate gesture and arched against the floor, nearly snapping my back in half from how hard I was rutting up into him.

“Hiii- Ichimatsu-sama!”

“Keep going,” He groaned when I clenched tight around his cock and he immediately doubled down on his efforts. “Don't even think about finishing before me! You'll get your reward soon enough!”

Choking in ecstasy, my fingers scrabbled uselessly against the wood floorboards but he just kept going. Over and over again, his dick slammed down right to the base and I could feel the quickly mounting pleasure becoming unbearable. I was vaguely aware of hot drool dribbling down my chin to splatter on the ground but I didn't care. I was far too lost within the euphoric daze of ecstasy to even wipe it away and it was almost too much for my body to handle. He was going to completely ruin me at this rate and somehow I just didn't see a problem with that.

“I … I -aaah! I'm gonna' cuuuum!”

“No you're not!” Ichimatsu snarled, suddenly viciously aggressive as he shoved his face against the side of my neck to take a warning nip at my pulse. My eyes widened in blind surprise and I shook when my impending orgasm inched even closer to the edge, threatening to shove me over at any given second.

Biting my lip, I tried to focus my mind on stopping the inevitable even though I knew it was a fight I'd lose soon enough. But I was determined to ride this out to the very end and I squeezed my contracting muscles in a last ditch effort to stave it off, desperately gasping at the effort. Then, as if out of nowhere, something decidedly bulbous slammed into my pussy from behind and I cried out as it forced its way inside of me. Ichimatsu didn't so much as pause though and, if I wasn't imagining things, he seemed to actually put more force into his thrusts so that he was slamming into me with all of his body weight. The force rocked both of us and on some level I realized that he was forcing that swelling muscle into me despite my body groaning in protest and trying to keep it out.

“Wah-what … I-Ichima – aaah!”

The demon snorted in amusement and pressed the flat of his tongue against my cheek, swiping a sizzling hot line up to my brow in a taunting manner. “Heh. Are you surprised? I am a fox, you know?”

I stammered helplessly underneath him, completely at his mercy while Ichimatsu continued to shove that pulsating knot into my aching cunt regardless of how big it seemed to grow. And it felt massive from my perspective, threatening to rip me right in two but it toed the line between pleasure and pain so well that I found myself screaming out for more. My brain was quickly shutting down and the only thing I could focus on was the overwhelming heat of my squelching pussy as he plunged into it relentlessly.

Suddenly gasping on a stuttering inhale, Ichimatsu let out a wild, animalistic snarl and rammed into me so hard that I collapsed against the floor with a helpless squawk. He immediately fell on top of me not even a second later and the force of his weight was the last push he needed to squeeze his pounding knot into my cunt, effectively locking us together for the foreseeable future. White hot flames erupted throughout every single nerve ending as it settled inside of me and all the hair on my body stood on end when it shoved up against my g-spot so tightly that my heart skipped a beat. I managed to drag in one final, haggard breath that shifted the tight bundle of nerves just right and a hoarse scream erupted from my mouth as an uncontrollable orgasm rocked me. I twitched and writhed below him, wildly crying out in pleasure, but every little movement just made that burning hot knot press up into me even harder. It was practically milking me as one orgasm bled seamlessly into the next, my muscles contracting frantically around Ichimatsu's thick cock. The sensation of him spilling wave after wave of semen against my cervix only helped draw it out even longer and my eyes rolled back into my head in pure, unadulterated ecstasy.

It seemed like many minutes had passed before the endless shock waves finally started to ebb into something less mind numbing but I was too far gone to notice. He shifted above me, the action rubbing his pulsating cock against my g-spot once again, and I devolved into a fresh spasm of wild twitching on the floor. My pussy had never felt so incredibly stuffed in all my life and the only thing keeping the copious amounts of semen inside was that knot plugging me up. Which, I guessed was sort of the point, but it felt like I would burst at any given second and I groaned weakly in response.

“Well?” Ichimatsu gently prodded, lifting his hand to pat my hair in an almost demeaning manner. “How was that? Think it was worth holding out for?”

Slowly nodding, I sucked in a shuddering breath only to wince when it almost threw me into another convulsing orgasm. I couldn't seem to find my voice but I was certain it would be raspy and unintelligible anyway so I merely left it at that, growing still under him once again. Ichimatsu clicked his tongue in response and settled against my back with his chin tucked over my head.

“You know,” He said slowly, almost thoughtfully. “It'll be dark out if you don't recover soon and you'll never be able to find your way back down the mountain. You're welcome to stay the night with me if you'd like -”

“Yes.” I croaked, surprising both of us.

I hesitated before continuing, trying in vain to clear my throat while I reconsidered this decision. There was no going back though, I already knew that. I'd tasted some forbidden fruit, a taboo indulgence that I'd certainly never forget, and everything else would only pale in comparison. I'd made a mistake by agreeing to this but it was too late to think about that now. I just knew without a doubt that nothing could ever come close to bringing me the amount of pleasure he had and I was resigned to that fate. It was the only option, really.

So, with a weak smile, I turned to glance at him over my shoulder and his ears swiveled forward with undisguised interested. “Please, Ichimatsu-sama … won't you fuck me again?”

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imaginetonyandbucky · 6 years

Text

All I Need is the Air

A/n: Chapter refers to the Scarlet Witch in some less than friendly terms. She’s not onscreen at all.

“Can’t you just do your bibbity bobbity boo schtick on him?” Tony perched on the branch over Bruce’s head, which gave him the illusion of being taller than the couatl. That was all it was, an illusion, and Bruce smiled tolerantly. He probably knew exactly what Tony was up to and letting him do it. They’d been friends for a long time.

Winter had stayed outside for a while, long enough to let Bruce look at him. Displayed his back, his wing, the stump end. With Tony’s gentle coaxing, Winter had let Bruce touch him, once, lightly, to test the strength of those muscles in his shoulder. Then, while Tony and Bruce discussed the logistics of the artificial wing, Winter seemed to lose interest. He scratched in the dirt for a while, at ease under the shelter of the coatl’s shadow.

Truly, no one had to be watchful; anything with even half a nose stayed out of the way of the winged snake. Bruce was both enormous and very serpent-like, eighteen feet long, at least, with a very long tail with a massive talon on each of the bifurcated ends. He moved, sinuous and graceful, with the same mesmerizing sway of the cobra and he was able to calm his prey with the same side-to-side movements. For a while, post Tony’s imprisonment; Tony had relied on Bruce’s soothing, hypnotic behavior to calm him, to let him rest. Strange, to rely on a predator that could have eaten him in a single gulp and had room for a whole nest more, but Bruce was one of the rare ones.

A predator that chose to recognize the intellect and souls of prey species. Bruce fed entirely on beasts, animals with no tool-building skills or community. “We must feed,” Bruce had told Tony, in the beginning, “but the thinking creature can make choices not to be cruel.”

After scraping up a few handfuls of grubs and beetles, Winter had taken his snack back into the nest to eat. The poor avian had not offered to share, which would have been polite, and Tony would have politely refused, but he couldn’t blame Winter for a lack of manners. Where would a slave have benefited from society?

“He’s traumatized, and he’s been in the tender care of Hydra for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used some form of their own hypnosis to keep their slaves docile,” Bruce pointed out, bringing Tony back to the present. “If I start trying to put him under, it’ll work, but you’ll also lose all the ground you’ve gained, getting him to trust you.”

“I can’t believe you want me to go to the witch,” Tony grumbled. He had history with the Scarlet Witch, and none of it was good. For that matter, Bruce had history with the witch, and his history was decidedly worse.

“She’s trying to make amends,” Bruce pointed out. “And she’s an herb master. She’ll be able to mix something up to ease Winter’s pain, and let us help him.”

“But why do I have to go?” Tony was plaintive, whining like a child and he knew it. The Witch gave him a serious case of the creeps, and he didn’t want to leave Winter alone for the few days it would take to make the trip.

“You know why.”

(more below the cut)

Bruce didn’t like to talk about it, but when the Witch had torn him loose from reality, he’d done quite a bit of damage to a nearby village and the elves had still not forgiven him. He couldn’t forgive himself, so Tony supposed that was reasonable. The elves, however, were not allowing Bruce near their territory, and the route around would take weeks.

“All right, all right,” Tony finally caved. “I’ll go, but not now. I need to stay. Winter… needs someone around. He gets all… lost in his head. I don’t want him to wander away and get hurt.”

Tony would never, ever put limits on where Winter could go, or what he could do, and he didn’t give voice to the situation in terms of Winter running away, even though it was sort of what it would be. It wasn’t up to him; if what Winter needed was to leave, to find his own way, Tony would fight to the death for him to have that opportunity.

At the same time, he was pretty sure that the former slave would wander off, if someone wasn’t there to take care of him. Not because he thought Tony would want to chain him down, but because he was still scared and trying to deal with the huge reality that was a life without chains.

Tony knew that feeling; he’d been captive for a much shorter period of time, but when he was finally free again, he’d felt ill at ease in his own skin, going for long, brutally exhausting flights until his shoulders burned and his eyes were blurry, just because he could.

And Winter couldn’t even do that. Not yet.

Freedom wasn’t free. And there was going to be a cost involved, because there was no way Tony was just going to let the poor man wander, lost and alone, without even the means to defend himself.

“I should have a prototype ready by the crescent moon,” Tony said. “I’ll go after that.”

“You might want to show him,” Bruce said, reaching up with one overly large finger to tap Tony’s chest. “So he knows that he can trust you.”

Tony scowled, putting his hand over the arc reactor. He wasn’t ashamed of his adaptations, but avians looked at him with pity and disgust when they saw what he’d done to himself. And there had been those who tried to steal it for their own gain. Never again.

“You are meddling,” Tony accused Bruce, because it was true.

“I am only giving direction to your thoughts,” Bruce said. Which was also true. “You’d come to the same conclusions yourself, given time.”

Tony was gone to the market, bartering for food and supplies. It was, Tony said, one of the hardships of being a blacksmith. He had less time to forage. So, trading at the free markets was required. When Tony had mentioned it, Winter felt a deep seated shame: he was taking charity, siphoning off Tony’s supplies and giving nothing back. Exactly what the avians knew he would be doing, and exactly why they would kill him.

He kept thinking he should leave. But that was death, and Winter hadn’t yet decided that death was preferable. If not leaving, Winter should find some way to be useful on his own. To bring something into Tony’s nest. He would forage, he decided. He could do short patrols around the nest, scratch up grubs and worms.

Winter crept into the forge; Tony had invited him there several days before, but Winter hadn’t been able to bring himself to move into the weirdly lit room whenever Tony was there, banging on the metals. The sounds reminded him too much of the mines, the smell, the way smoke hung in the air.

He thought, perhaps, he might find a weapon here, something to keep him safer while he worked for his keep.

But also, curiosity drove him there, now that Tony was gone.

See what it was that his labor had bought for Tony, see what it was that drove the other avian to spend so much time there, among the heat and stench and glowing, orange light.

Tony had cleared a space along one wall; dozens of sheets of thinly woven cloth with inked designs were hung there. Winter examined each, closely. They looked like… wings? With sharp edges and impossibly straight feathers.

Winter stretched his fingers out and brushed them along the drawings -- he hadn’t seen much art before. Enough to know what it was, in a memory that wasn’t a memory, a dream that had happened, although it often seemed like those memories had happened to someone else. Some other Winter. The one called Bucky.

Tony had a lot of tables in his forge, covered with tools and bits of his heated rocks. Bins full of the stuff he called iron. Thin, impossibly tough vines of it -- wire, Tony had said -- and sheets and little knobs and nodules.

Winter lifted one of the thin pieces, held it up to the light. It glittered seductively; a thin rod up the center and hundreds of delicate barbs stuck out at precise angles.

“It’s a feather,” Tony said, and Winter nearly dropped it in shock. “Artificial, of course. A prototype. Unfortunately, iron molded that thin, it doesn’t hold its shape for actual flight; the material’s just… not well suited for that particular task. Decorative only. Maybe, once we get the flight model working, I can add some in, just for the aesthetics of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Winter said, putting the feather back down on the table. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no, that’s fine. It’s for you, eventually. Come on, wanna look at the newest model?” Tony went to another table and whipped a large sheet of cloth off--

A wing.

A full framework, metal… wing.

It was…

Beautiful.

“I still have some adjustments to do,” Tony said, apologetic. “It’s not ready for a test flight, not yet, but soon, soon, I think I’ll have it, and… come here, don’t be shy, let’s see how it fits.”

Winter took a few, tentative steps forward until he could touch the wing. “For me?”

“Of course, for you,” Tony said. “Do you see anyone else around here who needs one? No. This is for you, everything I’ve been doing is for you. Now, we might want you to work-- actually, that’s a good idea, you’ll need to get those muscles back in shape. I noticed you walk a little… hunched over, I know, left over from protecting your stump but--” Tony reached and Winter couldn’t help it, flinched away, his wing coming up to shield him. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just wondering if your stump’s strong enough to bear the weight of it, right now. Come here, come here, sit, sit. I’ll strap it on and we’ll see how it goes. I mean, for actual flight, we’ll need something a little more durable, but that’ll come after we test.”

Winter found himself pushed -- gently, so gently -- onto a bench. There was a hollow tube end that slid right over the stump with a leather harness that went around Winter’s chest to hold it in place.

“There, flex that, see how that feels,” Tony encouraged him. “Once you get used to that, we can add in the rest of the framework, and then hang your flight feathers onto it.”

Winter stretched; he’d barely moved the coracoid bone, all that remained of his wing, at all. With nothing on there, flapping the stump around had always made him feel nauseated, scared. His shoulder ached, just from moving it a few times, but he could move it, and the weight of the metal cap felt…

Good.

“Yeah, that’s the ticket,” Tony said. “We’ll want to work that out, a sort of… remedy routine or something, to make sure you get your strength back. No sense in getting you in the air if you can’t stay there, am I right?”

“You…”

Winter couldn’t breathe suddenly. He had been so overwhelmed by the way Tony jabbered at him, Winter hadn’t thought all the way through the implications. “You think I can fly, again? With this…”

“Contraption?” Tony suggested the word. “It’s certainly possible. It’s a theory, right now. But hey, gravity is a theory and look how well that works.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can lift and support the entire wing structure,” Tony promised. “Which should give me some time to make sure we have a kite for you.”

“A what?”

“I refuse to build something this beautiful and perfect and have you crash into the ground on a test flight,” Tony said. “So… a backup kite; a glider. With an automated deploy system, in case of critical failure.”

Winter nodded, slow. He wasn’t sure he needed a glider, whatever that was. If he was given this impossible, burning hope of being able to fly again, he was positive that he’d rather crash into the ground than lose the hope.

He tipped his face toward the sky, and even unseeing, he felt lighter, somehow.

“Tell me what to do.”

Once Winter had seen the wing, had gotten Tony to explain it to him, it seemed there was nothing Tony wanted to do more than talk.

The first few weeks that Winter had been in the nest, Tony had avoided him, as if disgusted by Winter’s wingless, crawling, revolting self.

But having seen the wonders that Tony created, given that skill its due adoration, it seemed Winter had won himself a place. Tony was alone, and avians, well, avians craved flock, didn’t they? Tony had been alone for a long time; he refused to say how long, refused to say why, beyond the fear most avians had of fire.

Winter wasn’t much a flock, but he was something, and Tony had been jabbering at him non-stop ever since.

Enough so that Winter had stopped cringing away and had started listening.

Tony had a sweet voice and the way his whole face animated when he was speaking, he was like the sun and the stars and the moon all at once.

Beautiful.

Which in turn was wonderful and tormenting at the same time. Winter would have stayed at Tony’s side, just to listen and watch and learn. But Winter had nothing to offer in return. No skills beyond that of digging rocks from the earth. He was useless. There were a few things he’d managed to find that he could do to help. Winter was strong; stronger by far than most avians; working the mines had given him arm strength and tougher bones than most of his kin. Winter could carry a load at least twice as heavy as what Tony could manage.

And Tony, it seemed, needed a keeper. Someone to bring him food, make sure he drank. Kept an eye on how many were left of those wretched little coffee beans that Tony ate constantly to give himself alertness beyond the normal means of avian endurance. Gently chivvied him away from the forge and into his nest to sleep.

“What is this?” Winter asked one day, finding a set of red-painted gloves; thick and plated, yet flexible. Winter couldn’t help running his fingers over the gauntlets, to feel the minute articulation in the joints. Each glove had a brilliant blue plate in the center of the palm, like a jewel.

“An experiment,” Tony said. There was a fey, suspicious light in his eyes, like he wanted to snatch the gauntlets away from Winter.

Winter took a cautious step away, putting his hands behind his back. He knew, instinctively, that his spine was curling, that he was lowering his head, don’t look at me, don’t notice me, I didn’t do anything.

“Hey,” Tony said, and he was a lot closer than Winter expected. “It’s okay, look. I just… avians don’t like it when I remind them how unnatural I am. But… you deserve better than that. I’m sorry, that’s a me-thing. I’ve learned not to share too much of myself with people.”

“It’s hard to unlearn,” Winter responded, because he knew that feeling, he knew it all the way down to his bones and the airsacks inside them. “But I don’t think you’re unnatural.” He waved a hand at all the wonders of Tony’s workshop and forge.

“You haven’t… okay, okay,” Tony said, taking a few deep breaths. He pulled off the leather apron he was wearing, then another, shuddering inhalation. “If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone. Right?”

“You can trust me.” Winter put his hand on Tony’s arm, feeling the smooth skin, the play of muscle underneath. The way Tony was shaking with tension.

Tony nodded. Popped the shoulder clasps of his shirt and unbuttoned the side. Winter had wondered, before, about the covering. Most avains didn’t bother to wear any chest coverings, unless it was brutally cold. The material got in the way of flight, and they were awkward to put on and take off without help. Tony’s shirts were buttoned in such a fashion that he could take them off without too much trouble, or fouling his feathers.

When he finished, he straightened, and Winter suddenly understood why Tony always wore one.

The device that shone out of the middle of his chest was like nothing Winter had ever seen before. Luminescent, perfectly round, it was embedded there, held in a metal socket, glowing and making that soft whirring sound that Winter had caught the edges of before, but didn’t understand. It was… like a star. A shimmering jewel in the night sky that whispered secrets that Winter couldn’t possibly understand.

“What is it?” He reached out, wanted to touch it. Was it warm or cool? What did the surface feel like, ridged or silken smooth? He raised his eyes to look at Tony’s face. “It’s beautiful.”

Tony grabbed Winter’s wrist, his grip strong, steady. For a long moment, they stood like that, Winter unsure if he was being pushed away, and then Tony drew him in, slowly, until his fingertips rested against the pulsing machine.

“It keeps my heart beating,” Tony said. “Saved my life. I built the first one in a cave with a box of spare parts for humans who’d kidnapped me, wanting me to make weapons for them, the way Howard made weapons.”

“Humans?” Winter asked. He didn’t know humans were actually real. They were creatures of myth, legend. The origin, perhaps, of all the demihumans, nagas and avians and even such creatures like Bruce… or Pierce.

Tony nodded. “They exist. They exist and they’re brutal and uncaring and they live to make war on each other. The things they did, to make me do what they wanted--”

“You don’t have to speak of that,” Winter told him, because he already knew what it was to be worn down, made into a servant, a tool, through pain and loss. “I know… I know what they did to you.” He didn’t, not the details, but he couldn’t help but flex the stub of his wing. He knew. He knew too much.

“So, I built the arc-reactor, to keep my heart beating,” Tony said.

Winter wondered if Tony realized that he was still keeping Winter’s hand trapped over the reactor. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to pull back. The reactor was strange, but it wasn’t frightening.

“And then I built these,” Tony said, releasing Winter and pulling on one of the gauntlets. He stretched his fingers out, then attached a little set of leather-wrapped wires to a plug on the side of the reactor. “And I killed every single man who got in my way.”

He whirled on one foot, aimed at a target dummy at the end of the forge. A shimmering light built in his palm, like he’d captured a star and was offering it to the gods. A bolt of light, faster than thought, burst from his hand, and the target dummy whumped backward, caught fire and smoldered fitfully. “Repulsor cannon,” Tony said. “A weapon unlike anything my father created. I… I could level a city with this, if I wanted. Too much power. But I can’t unmake it. So, I keep it here, keep it safe. Keep it away from everyone. There are avians who would want me to use it; they still come, sometimes, try to persuade me to their wars and their raids.” Tony swallowed hard. “Like the one where they brought you to me. I’m sorry. I should have gone. I should have helped you.”

“You’re helping me now,” Winter said, because that was the truth.

“I’m a coward,” Tony said. “I’m hiding from everyone, from everything, because I don’t like what I’ve become.”

“I like what you are,” Winter said, because it was all that he could offer.

“Yeah, thanks, sweetheart,” Tony said. He stripped the glove off, put it back on its table and covered it. He gave Winter a sweet smile, went back to what he’d been doing, and they didn’t speak of it again. But Winter noticed that, if they weren’t expecting guests, Tony was not as quick to pull his shirt on in the morning, and sometimes Winter found himself watching.

Sometimes, in the late evenings, Winter would sing to Tony.

It was nice to sing, Winter found. He’d never considered himself a particularly talented singer. Sometimes those slaves with lovely voices had been taken off, to sing for the foreman, and those few lucky ones were better fed, worked less hard, than the rest. Winter had never been taken, so he didn’t think his voice was all that special.

But Tony insisted that he liked it. It was soothing, was what Tony claimed, and if it was something that Winter could do to help, to earn a place, he would sing until not a note came from his throat, would sing until he lost his voice entirely.

Not that Tony would allow it; he seemed unexpectedly concerned for Winter’s health, comfort, and well-being.

Still, singing. And bringing Tony food. Those were things his aves friends could do for him. Winter needed to be able to do something more. Better. Earn his keep.

His fingers twitched in the direction of the wing; under the sheet where Tony kept it when they weren’t directly working on it.

They hadn’t quite made a practice flight yet; everything was pushing up from the ground. Hard-flight. And Winter could push himself up a few feet, before fluttering back down safely.

Child’s play.

Most adult avians took off from the treetops, gaining momentum, using air currents to their advantage.

If Winter could fly, he could scavenge further, bring back more, faster. Tony was gone, to town, trading for supplies. Something Winter could do, if he could fly.

He’d unwrapped the wing before he could talk himself out of it.

Tony had helped him with the buckles and straps, but Winter knew how it was done.

“Sir, I advise against this in the highest possible manner,” Jarvis, the little aves, fluttered around Winter’s head, bobbing up and down like anxiety given form.

“I can do it,” Winter protested, flapping his hand at the little bird.

“There are near uncountable accidents waiting to happen, if you attempt a solo flight without proper oversight!”

“Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk,” Winter said. He couldn’t help the smile; it’d been too long since he felt this light, this weightlessness. Even a month ago, he would have cringed back, hidden away from anything, even an aves the size of his fist, who’d spoken to him in such a commanding tone.

“That does not make sense, sir,” Jarvis continued tweeting, dodging Winter’s flapping hand with ease, “nor does it apply in these particular circumstances. I do with you would reconsider--”

Winter finished buckling the wing up. It was heavier than a normal wing, given the construction materials, but Tony had weighted the harness to keep Winter stable in flight, centering the excess weight for balance. There were a few drag-weights for his tailfeathers as well; heavier wings needed heavier rectrices for steerage.

Winter climbed out onto the second landing flet. He stared up at the sky and let his body take over. He spread his wings; both of them responded beautifully to the movement of shoulder and back. Just standing there, wings raised, felt more like freedom than anything else ever had.

All I need is the air. Bring me that horizon.

Winter jumped.

** note: Snakes do not actually hypnotize their prey; they can’t blink and the head-motion they use is a way for the snake to accurately gauge distances. The weaving motion a basket cobra does is because the flute player is wobbling the flute and the snake (frequently defanged) is feeling threatened. That being said, this is a story, and the snake-as-hypnotist fits in with Hydra’s brainwashing motif.

#winteriron #prompts #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #tisfan #beir #wing!fic #lack of scientific accuracy

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griffithdylan · 4 years

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Cat Urine Mat Super Genius Ideas

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How Can I Get My Cat To Stop Spraying

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Cat Urine Neutralizer Diy

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#Cat Urine Mat Super Genius Ideas #New Balance 990v4 Cat Urine

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vikireedphotography · 4 years

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Payload

You’re moving to the moon? Does it come with a swimming pool?

History prepared us for the failure of computer AI to estimate mankind’s tendency to obliterate every extra inch afforded them. Earth was rapidly collapsing from the weight of climate change, and the imminent move to our final home, Ganymede (Saturn’s 7th satellite) was forced.

Yale Sevarin was a witness to the last straw.

Russia dropped a RS-28 Sarmat thermonuclear bomb atop US NAMRU-3; a Naval Medical Research Facility loaded with pathogens, viruses. Just to help you sleep at night, NAMRU-3 was a Level-3 containment facility. Think lethal airborne infections. It was the Commander’s last near a time in a combat zone.

Two-years later the International Federation of Earth, (aka Saturn One Mission) became the most important thing in the world, literally. Losing Naples to rising sea-levels, along with the priciest real estate in America, wasn’t enough to engage-funded action. Even after The Bomb the thought of it being too late was impossible to communicate to a population swooned by Energy Czars and members of a solid minority of political fanatics lived to neutralize the science-laden doomsday warnings. What turned the world’s powers into a hive of information sharing and cooperative engineering and merging space program research and tech?

The Seats of Power were held at gunpoint by folks who understood that Cowboy Moosaholic demonstrating defecating in an outhouses was meant for them. Mothers exploded in panic when Puppy Patches sang to children about the use iodine pills to interrupt absorption of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands. The idea of purifying everything that passed the lips was discommoding for a drive-thru culture. The line may have been crossed when Daniel Tiger told kids about the inevitable slaughtering of pets and livestock to save resources for themselves and to reduce methane in our atmosphere. It was too late but it got everyone’s attention.

Commander Sevarin became synonymous with heroism. After a decade in the Air Force, applying his particular skill in managing payload and all integrated systems was the sole factor in the last plane out of Qatar to carry more troops to safety on a Hercules C-130 than engineers would ever certify as possible.

The carrier held 45,000 pounds of cargo, 64 fully prepared paratroopers at 160 pounds, 92 ground-troops of varied weight loaded with 27 pounds of protective gear for starters. There were 11,000 souls and dogs at Al Udeid’s Airbase. There were other Hercules there, but not enough room for all based on standard weights and measures. Yale tried to implement a thorough and detailed passenger arrangement, but the scene mirrored the evacuation of the Titanic. By falling into training, but having so many extra bodies; they’d done the equivalent of having a lifeboat with two rich ladies and a fur coat. By the time the last plane was being swarmed by stragglers, if you can call so many dead men and women that; they had no choice but to listen to Pilot Commander Sevarin.

He knew at worst he’d only had about ten or fifteen percent of the population to worry about. The physics would be daunting but he felt calculable. He began dumping chutes, oxygen, fuel beyond the amount needed to get to Point Z. The dedicated military personnel knew, as they watched their first mushroom cloud from a technically safe position; that they needed to go-now and they didn’t question Sevarin’s order to remove seats, water, ammo, weapons, packs, palettes, phones, vehicles, weapons, ammo, boots, and all but skivvies. The Commander kept to himself that he fully expected to throw a few men into the ocean if his calculations proved flawed.

Staff Sergeant Louis Felly was liked, as a budgeting officer he interacted with every aspect of base life. But his desk job had helped him gain a lot of weight in recent years. At 280 pounds, he was afraid to leave his office, had no weapon, and one could imagine his heart and lungs were well represented by his purple face, and sweat-soaked body. He was the last one to make it to the Hercules, when Sevarin’s precise reorganization of bodies had been completed. Felly looked like he might arrest on the tarmac. The Commander knew even one more thing would cause him to spend precious time, as much as 45 minutes to figure out a way to fit Felly. The fastest way was to remove two existing passengers, which he couldn’t stomach.

Yale descended the rear-ramp and stopped the heaving, sobbing mess of a man.

Having to yell his message made it physically painful to doom the fellow.

“I’m at max capacity! You don’t have a choice, I don’t! Others will come. I’ll radio for rescue!”

Felly looked behind him at the hangers and abandoned buildings. Even the dogs had gotten on board the other planes that were or had taken-flight. This whole base would soon be a target, like other Allied bases in the region.

Felly grabbed his ankles sobbing, with half-naked, mostly young folks laying, leaning, stacked, hyperventilating and not talking on board behind Sevarin, who was six-foot-two compared to Felly’s panting, slobbering oven-mit of a body.

“I’m sorry, sir. Wait for rescue, we have to leave as is!”

Felly screamed some of his last words. Sevarin gave him that.

“Just give my wife a message: tell my wife that our son’s only job in his life will be to kill you.”

Felly then rolled down the end of the ramp and away, the exit-ramp lifted and no one had to be thrown into the ocean on the way home.

A decade later, the moon’s Dark Side compound was completed, the other two domes-MoonLife itself- would reside. All twelve American Flags and the four Japanese remained where astronauts originally planted them, the domes were built on either side as a memorial. The flags of China, Russia, and India were retired without publicity. Life on earth was hot enough.

It took five years to ready the moon for it’s first residents once the Dark Side dome was completed. A fine first run, implementing the solution to construction materials: moondust and cyanobacteria. By combining the baccili with moondust and some water and gelatin, the bacteria is activated. Going into a feeding frenzy and replicating it bonds to the minerals and keeps going until it hits the walls of whatever mold you put it in. When it has nowhere to go, the composite stops growing and dies; hardening into a green-tinted concrete or a clear media that would become the dome. To NASA and the newly founded International Space Federation, the green-tint disappeared two-months before the first citizens arrived via the space elevators stationed around allied nations, and from the International Space Station, they would take another space elevator to the moon.

Once arriving, there was no major physical acclimation because of the atmospheric and habitability management. Earthlings would arrive on the moon in less than a week and disembark to find themselves in a Disneyland-like Utopia organized around a simulated beach, a town green with a faux wooden gazebo, moving sidewalks, trams encircled each dome with air-locked stops named after peace-loving leaders. Hydroponic gardens, simulated parks with actual seeded trees from earth, a public pool, recreation center and a mix of three story apartments, efficiency pods and more stately single-family homes in each of the two domes. The colony was called Saturn-1.

On Ganymede, now only a three-year flight due to Japan’s innovation in comburent recycled propulsion, as it was named. Having reformulated the cyanobacteria concept for Ganymede’s composition, the first and much larger Ganymede dome was finished a mere fifteen years after the Dark Side dome became actively inhabited by engineers and their families. Saturn 2 Colony was a bigger and better Disneyland. It had to be, because the planet we knew was rapidly becoming a large scale Pripyat amusement park.

Among the hundreds of specialists who created these worlds, was Pilot Commander Yale Sevarin. He had the ability to make a quick-lunch out of AI simulations. How could a computer value the agony of reminiscing about the smell of warm, freshly plucked strawberries or processing the agony of Felly’s fate? He was among the first to arrive on Saturn 1. Because of his mental steel, he was consulted as to who could not come to the moon or salvation on Ganymede. The incredibly ill or infirm, the mentally-ill, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, finally all livestock and pets (although DNA from all species of living things not human as possible were amply collected). It wasn’t a moral judgement. There was simply no way to accommodate their special needs and potential disastrous impact. There were no police or prisons off-earth. Hopefully forever.

When Yale turned 63, he was offered retirement. The world sighed as the first outpost of hope was now a functioning community and the first dome on Ganymede was ready for the residents that had made MoonLife home and homey. It was not his plan to go there.

He was exhausted from digesting problems that involved casualties, human traits, and payloads. The Federation didn’t ask him to continue in his role as the flights to build Saturn 2. They could see he was fully shell-shocked. Sevarin’s ears rang with the vibrations of every machine on the moon, even when no one else claimed to hear it. Living inside a dome was depressing enough for a pilot.

Being confined for so many years and immersed in unpleasant noises, and daily doses of ‘live or die’, MoonLife outdoors was his reward. No one but he could sleep in the parks, by the beach or treat the town green’s gazebo as his mailing address.

His homeless apparition was popular on MoonLife, much like the first children born on Saturn 1 (Heidi and Kevin were blogged and vlogged about endlessly in the effort to promote normalcy on the moon. They were more popular than any Royal Baby on earth.) Commander Sevarin was a war hero; he’d been given a commendation by the President, his arrangement of the survivors on the plane generated movies, news stories and tall tales alike.

Such was his fame that Administrators at The Control Tower installed a sealed box for fans to drop donations, love letters, banana powder, offers to live in their homes and requests for interviews. His rejection of these offerings and his refusal to be that guy anymore made further appealing. Yale hoped to live long enough to see something like woods here so he could live in a tent and enjoy the simulated weather as if he were still in Connecticut, before he joined the Air Force and was enlisted by NASA.

It was PTSD, but everyone had post-traumatic-stress-disorder in a Post Cairo world with endless angst over the Pre Cairo world. The Federation officials had no problem granting him some freedoms given how he earned his place. Saturn 1 was his oyster and he kept his security-clearance in exchange for attending regular status quorums at The Federation Control Tower. For a few hours a month he got to sleep on the simulated beach.

Besides, there were no insane people on the moon. He was just special.

Eyes closed, warmish air, the itch of silica in his thinning hair. He looked up at the rise of the Dome, able to see real stars and a crescent Earth, not man-made clouded blue skies. The wave machine generated slow, slurping, laps against the bottom of his bare feet. So glad he insisted on the addition of layered audio enhancement. It created the illusion of a vast ocean like The Atlantic or Pacific-which would surely dwarfed by the thawing waterways on Saturn 2. Yale could imagine visiting that; but he wouldn’t want to live there.

Sevarin opened his eyes feeling sociable, deciding to visit his donation box at the gazebo. Deep sleep happened. So often he lacked adequate recharge because the terrified quaking Felly would stare him down from inside, or the nightmare where the space elevator would stop forever with him in it.

He opened the donation box, its treasures tumbling through his hands like spigot-water. Food, fan mail, art- red letter? He opened it gamely.

In the middle of the paper was written in generic block letters:

‘GANYMEDE IS AN EXPENSIVE ACT OF FUTILITY FOR YOU.”

Sunday wrecked by paranoid flashes, in this case, warranted. Now he knew he was not the only lunatic on Saturn 1.

He was loathe to report the disturbing note, as it surely would trigger a psych house-call. In this case, gazebo-call. Ever since he abandoned his place on the fancier array of homes laid before the town green, the psychological component of the MoonLife team had ordered regular visits. PTSD was a known factor in violence, anti-government ideology, addiction problems, etc.

Yale didn’t aid his cause by growing his beard and hair and often going barefoot always sporting rumpled and mismatched clothing. No, they might take away his freedom to stay outdoors.

Sevarin was out of retirement with his new role: Secret Police.

His first day was spent at Tower Control, where Yale was known to appear with coffee for his former colleagues then work the terminals, reviewing data. Occasionally he’d find something they’d missed. The red letter’s author had to be caught on video. CCTV footage would end the mystery. He found instead a three-hour loop of nothing happening at the gazebo repeated the entire night. Clearly, only someone in the Tower had access to that kind of alteration.

All but one-person was busy preparing for the first Saturn 2 transport in two weeks. The trend continued as he returned to the Gazebo. On a berm intended to be a gathering place for Saturn 1, claimed a generous view left to right of the finest homes-part of the Tower Control High Priority perks. He went directly to his donation box. A basket of potatoes and another red letter. He looked at the outside this time:

“TO: COMMANDER YALE SEVARIN”. No ‘from’. The message inside:

“YOU WILL KNOW ME SOON ENOUGH”.

He wished he could burn-it and piss on it. He jammed it in a pocket in his wrinkled, not so clean trousers. This, like the potatoes would find a home in the air-lock by the Dark Side Dome later.

Liri Wilson’s morning was routine enough. Aneeka, her live-in au-pair and housekeeper made coffee. NASA had created a space-substitute and a prelim bean but it lacked earth-warmed inspiration. It was the only imported earth product aside from rare quantities of aged booze.

Her class of residence had three-stories and walls that reached the top of the dome. Just a foot of bacilli plexi between her swanky party and certain death.

The automatic blinds which retracted almost unnoticed on a schedule, featured a large dark splotch of a shadow amidst the horizontal ones created by the slats.

When Aneeka appeared with three-year-old Jeson in her arms and rubbing his eyes; Liri enjoined her.

“What do you think that is?” Aneeka was only twenty-two, having been born to some of the original workers in the Dark Side Dome. First she looked at the shadow Missus was pointing at, then up at the dome’s ceiling.

“Maybe a shirt? A moon rock?”

“How’d I miss that? How did maintenance miss that!?”

“Show Mister?” Aneeka added.

“Right I will. Anyhoo, let’s get that boy fed, we’ll go to the beach maybe?” With the kiss from a baby she moved on. Yale hadn’t noticed the peculiarity, too busy spying on Milo leaving that morning.

Nothing unusual. Milo heads Environment and Habitability. Down the line, a non-descript parade of civil servants looking bored being on the moon. He had to assume the red-letter writer knew to lay-low. Once a soldier and pilot; being homeless means anywhere is your home and you don’t really register with people.

Yale sat on the floor of the gazebo, eating a cake left in the box. No further red letters. As light dimmed, he sucked down substitute chocolate milk.

Twenty minutes later he observed the Wilson House alight with a party-full of his targets.

The blinds were up because it was virtual night. All of the familiar bosses glided down the moving sidewalk and hopped off at the front door. It was a normal party until Milo activated the opalescent privacy screen in his living room. The only way to ensure no eavesdropping, filming, recording of any kind. Nicknamed the “Cone of Silence” after a television antiquity from earth. Interesting. Who were the high rollers playing blackout with? Suddenly, Liri reappeared with empty glasses, fixing to refill them in the kitchen. She saw the “Cone of Silence” Paused then quickly but delicately grabbed the comm handset on the kitchen wall and listened. You couldn’t block a hard wired comm, but they had no reason to worry about a wife.

She appeared spooked and spastically replaced the handset, scurrying out of site with her fresh cocktails.

When the party concluded, Yale perked-up. Spilling out of the front door, all said ta-rah, nite-nite, etc., recoupled and let the sidewalk coast them home-except for a Science Officer, Rami Mandoon-he waved his wife ahead. His head scanned ceiling to house and back.

The Lewis house lowered its blinds and Yale dragged his finger from Rami’s head to the vantage point which held Mandoon’s focus: the ceiling of the dome. A dark patch that looked like a misshapen flower broke-up the illusion of stars in the simulated night sky.

The next morning, Milo called after having made an early silent exit; skipping breakfast with the baby.

“Liri: listen to me. Don’t interrupt. Call Akeena’s parents and have them meet you at the platform for Shuttle 2. Be there before three p.m. You cannot be late. You must not take a later shuttle to the elevator. This is serious. I cannot tell you why and I have to get off comm now. Are you clear? Say NOTHING to anyone. Tell me you heard me.”

“Darling there’s a sort of greenish ice on the celing…”

“Shuttle 2, three p.m. I love you.” Comm broken.

She tried connecting over and over but his comm was shut-down.

As this conversation ended, Yale was in Tower Control, reviewing system status for everything from environment, to transport. He’d seen the ice. Fight or flight would be the administrative response to something that clearly would have appeared in A.I. data if nothing else. He’d seen no technicians milling around Wilson’s home or anywhere out of the norm.

It failed to show anything but the routine. He would be panicked if he had a wife and child, like Milo does. He focused on him as he delivered coffees and scratched his beard exaggerating his loopy retired boredom. Lewis’s cup remained untouched on his office desk.

It occurred to him, that the Dark Side dome might yield data. Integrity loss could be overlooked because it was hidden from view, it’s the oldest structure on MoonLife. It took fewer than ten minutes to see no one was living there, maintenance was offline. True, the technicians had largely left for Saturn 2. They’d left last year, to make schedule on construction with the planned evacuation happening and needing to be ready for inhabitants in six years when they would arrive. But no one left?

As furiously as he could, Yale requisitioned an engineering drone, taking it offline first and cloaking it. They were the longest 25 minutes of his life. He hummed to look casual and laughed at nothing to avoid the appearance of actually doing something very important.

He turned the cameras on. Even with night-vision employed it was shockingly obvious that the dome was not smooth, clear plexi anymore, but a lumpy curved rock. The synechococcus bacillus hadn’t died once the forms were filled, but they had merely gone dormant. The air-lock between Dome 2 and this first one, was not only shut down but devoured by what reminded him of sparkling, dripping candle wax, blobbing over each new layer. This had not happened in the year since the construction teams had left for Saturn 2. This was why the first import of fresh Terra people was hard scheduled in two weeks. Sevarin tingled recalling The Federation treating his retirement three years previous as an honor for his life’s dedication to humanity. He thought himself a special case and was desperate to stop worrying about other people’s lives so he embraced what he now saw as a con. How could the bacilli remain dormant when we had artificial rain, a beach, pools and lakes? They only needed water and without the gelatin engineered, the reincarnated bacteria would grow into a concrete, splitting the protective domes.

Death to all here with certainty.

Yale then disguised a system query as a signal and repeat ping but what he really was doing was retrieving Milo’s comm activity, starting with this morning.

CLASSIFIED:

DATE: 06/14/52

MEMO FROM ISF COMMAND, EARTH, KSC-0917 a.m.

SUBJECT: ML/SAT. 1 /M.LEWIS COMM-ALERT (RED/1A)

Capt.M.Lewis of IFS Team on Saturn 1/MoonLife comm’d spouse at 08:41. Alerted her to board Shuttle 2, destination Space Elevator Station at 1500 p.m. Capt. Lewis immediately closed comm after aforementioned conversation with spouse. Unreachable directly. Appears to have removed internal GPS tracking. No change in Operation VACATION. Tracking Capt.Lewis on CCTV. Will update as needed. Referring to Capt.Lewis as Fox1, his spouse as Fox2 going forward. Fox2 is currently at Tower Control activating Operation VACATION as previously commanded.

Additional: Comm.Pilot, (ret) Savarin (now referred to as LOGO1) is unscheduled but also inside Tower Control. Alert Watch ACTIVE. Subject is known to visit Tower Control since retirement, documented loss of faculties, living outdoors since retirement of commission. Likely a social visit. Internal GPS tracking active. Updates to follow.

CLASSIFIED:

DATE: 06/14/52

MEMO FROM ISF COMMAND, EARTH, KSC-1545 p.m.

SUBJECT: FOX2, STATUS UPDATE

CCTV tracks FOX2, in the company of Jeson Lewis (age 3) and Aneeka, Bindi and Daku Smithson (DOMESTICS employed by FOX1) to Shuttle 2.

FOX2 appears to be alerted by Shirley Mews (Spouse of Director Alton Mews, 2nd In Command, Saturn 1) who is safely on Shuttle 3, departing at 1500 p.m. FOX2 leaves platform for Shuttle 2 and breaches safety fence to communicate with Mrs. Mews, who expresses visible panic and gestures indicate she has invited FOX2 on board. At this point FOX2 climbs between cars, boarding Shuttle 3.

Simultaneous to this incident, The Smithson Family and Jeson Lewis choose to board Shuttle 2 when it arrives. Akeena Smithson is seen and heard to be screaming for FOX2, who cannot hear her from inside of Shuttle 3. Presumably informed by FOX2, who was directed by FOX1; the Smithsons and minor Jeson board and the doors close on all departing shuttles.

Some alarm appears to spread among those who are waiting for Shuttles 1, 4, 5 and 6, operating normally with local stops between Main Shuttle Station and Space Elevator Docking.

Subjects directed to Shuttle 2 all appear to have boarded as directed securely on 06/13/52. No evidence of a security breach on their parts. Included on Shuttle 2 are all executives and technical staff who were needed to implement OperationVACATION, but who are deemed as non-essential for activities on Saturn 2; and who’s presence on Saturn 2 may be disruptive upon completion of Operation VACATION.

At 1509 p.m. FOX1 and Comm.Pilot Sevarin (ret.) arrive at Shuttle Platform 2 after being visualized on CCTV running from Control Tower at full speed.

FOX1 is observed collapsing, possibly crying. Vocal enough to draw the attention of residents arriving at Shuttle Station for local rides. ISF COMMAND has grave concern about FOX1 and Comm.Pilot Sevarin alerting Saturn 1 remaining population.

FOX1 is observed likely ingestion of cyanide capsule behind commission pin on uniform, made standard from the start of Operation MoonLand. Appearing to have a seizure while still sitting on the ground, then fall to his right side and cease moving.

Unaware residents attempt to call for help at Tower Control, which will result in no answer as the TC is empty on relevant Floors/Offices Three and Two.

KSC has initiated 3 day simulated rainstorm ahead of schedule immediately to force residents indoors.

The tactic appears to work everywhere except for The Shuttle Station, where residents are hovering around a deceased FOX1.

CCTV also observes Comm.Pilot (ret.) Sevarin searching FOX1’s clothing and person.

Highlighted at minute-mark is a section of video running 19.2 seconds, attached with full CCTV report on the incident for review.

Comm.Pilot Sevarin (ret.) retrieves a red piece of paper, unfolds it, reads it, then walks to CCTV Unit #986S1. Subject climbs on a nearby bench and holds one side of the paper to unit’s lens. It reads (confirmed) in FOX1’s handwriting:

“TO: COMMANDER PILOT YALE SEVARIN, ‘HERO’

FROM: LOUIS FELLY, SON OF CAPTAIN FELLY, MURDERED.”

After holding this side of the paper to CCTV Unit #986S1 for approximately .09 seconds, flips the red paper over to reveal a second message, which Sevarin holds up to the same CCTV unit’s lens for remaining 10.07 seconds. It reads (same handwriting):

“MY ONLY JOB IN THIS LIFE WAS TO KILL YOU.

I TOLD THEM YOU WOULD TRY TO STOP THEM.”

At 1539 p.m., the aforementioned red note disappears from view of CCTV Unit #986S1.

Updates to follow.

Sevarin felt badly for Milo, even though he’d hatched a successful plan to follow him all the way from his childhood to the moon to finish his father’s business. Certainly Milo didn’t plan on suicide but he’d missed his ride to Saturn 2.

For the first time since he arrived at MoonLand, Sevarin felt alone because this was the first time his story was important. If he told it, the people left behind under the cannibalistic Domes would react to their imminent demise with the same panic seen on The Titanic. But all of the lifeboats were gone, our leadership having taken just two that appeared to be important, to a dirty escape. Milo was right, I would’ve hampered the IFS and NASA; looking for a solution and trying to engage the hive up until the last minute. They decided to save themselves.

Sevarin walked down the still moving sidewalk to his gazebo to shelter from the pounding, but thankfully warm simulated summer rain. Looking up at the simulated overcast daytime sky, hoping they’d let the program go and grant him sunset over his beloved beach. He’d find an umbrella by then.

Yale wanted to live. That’s human. But this journey from Al Udeid to the moon had cracked him and soon the microbes would fill the void. He grew bored and shuffled to Milo and Liri’s home, having removed his security key from his body. The plan was to watch some movies and figure out what was going to happen when the rain stopped. It really didn’t matter if it did. But on route to his destination, he noticed in the windows of lesser residents, in ground floor apartments, and in storefronts laying inert on the floors of their sealed homes. Some were still besotted with rain, having done exactly what it was meant to do. Made sense. You can’t panic and alert family and friends on Earth if you’re dead.

He wasn’t sure it was safe indoors at this point. Thankfully the people who pitied him left some lovely food in his box, and he’d held onto a book they’d left there. He also had a comm device but it was predictably offline so he couldn’t find entertainment that way.

The next day, he awoke on the gazebo which was showing signs of reproducing and becoming uncomfortable. As were the sidewalks, which were now jammed up by the calcification gone wild. He heard a sonic boom and looked up to see see what was probably one of the Shuttles feathering down in small luminescent shreds. Two left for Ganymede and one, in a sense had come back.

Yale spend a fair bit of time wondering what the plan on earth was. We’d been telling the public for nearly thirty years “Stay here and die, come to Saturn 2 and live!” Now there was no safe place to move the population in groups. They might get a lot of people to the Space Station by elevator if they hurry, and we all know who those folks would be. And those left behind still had guns and bombs and trucks; once the infantry men and women realized they were being left to die, they might not protect those elevators very long.

CLASSIFIED:

DATE: 06/15/52

MEMO FROM ISF SPACE STATION-1800 p.m.

SUBJECT: STATUS OF SATURN 2 TRANSPORT.

AUTHOR: GENERAL MICHAEL THREFALL, ISF

This is to confirm SIMULTANEOUS ENGAGEMENTS OF TARGET, AKA, SHUTTLE 2.

NOTHING INTACT, SOME DEBRIS FALLING TO LUNAR ATMOSPHERE. NO WITNESSES PRESUMED ON MOONLIFE /JUPITER 1 BASE.

SUCCESSFUL RECEPTION OF SHUTTLE 3; REQUEST INSTRUCTION AS TO HANDLING OF UNEXPECTED PX. (FOX2, SPOUSE OF FOX1, PRESUMED DECEASED BASED ON CLASSIFIED REPORT DATED 06/14/52).

FOX2 EXTREMELY DISTRAUGHT AS HER CHILD WAS ON SHUTTLE 2.

MEDICAL EXAMINATION PROVIDES INSIGHT THAT FOX2 IS HEALTHY AND PREGNANT, FIRST TRIMESTER.

WISH TO CONFIRM EXISTENCE OF PILOT COMMANDER YALE SEVARIN IF POSS.

UPDATES TO FOLLOW.

Being last man on pseudo-earth meant he was free to commit breaking and entering; in the hopes that whatever they pumped in the domiciles to kill potential chaos had dissipated.

“EUREKA!” celebrated Yale, adorning a facemask made of his shirt. Smashing the living windows at 12 Adams Street, where Milo lived. Gas and air hissed out. He returned a few hours later, just as the scheduled rain program finally ended. Hoping to have a luxe sleep before he drowned himself at the beach, he raided the Wilson’s pantry, closets and screening room.

Mid-film he realized that Milo wasn’t included in the escape plan. He’d serve a purpose, providing he got on Shuttle 2, since that’s the one he told Liri to board and the one that probably got blown-out of the sky. When those on earth demanded to know why people on Ganymede weren’t answering hails? The IFS on Saturn 2 would have a name. God rest all of your souls, there is nothing more that we can do because of the incompetence and sedition of a man in disguise, Captain Lewis Felly Jr. Yes, the son of that guy.

It made Sevarin laugh as he stepped further into the fake surf than he ever had. The wave machine had stopped generating but the audio enhancement thankfully was inconsequential to shutting down and killing everyone on MoonLife. It made him laugh to think of poor, pathetic Felly.

1 note · View note

trysauna-blog · 5 years

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Evidence Backed Benefits of Sauna Usage

The essential advantages of the sauna are obviously gotten from the hot conditions. Hyperthermic molding is the term for the progressions that your body experiences when presented to warm "stress". This is known as hormesis, the marvel whereby the body receives rewards when presented to low portions of a stressor, for this situation heat. Expanding upon that establishment, here are the genuine proof supported advantages of sauna utilization.

Assisting with Weight Loss

Just as helping you get (and remain) enormous and solid, sauna use can likewise help with weight reduction. In one examination members participating in standard sauna sessions lost just about multiple times more weight and almost multiple times more muscle to fat ratio contrasted with the control group[23]. This is generally because of the way that sauna use can manage the appetite[24], and the warmth stress likewise builds digestion and oxygen use to comparable levels as those appeared during moderate exercise[25].

Battling Pain and Inflammation

From headaches[26] to incessant pain[27], sauna utilization has demonstrated a powerful treatment. A major piece of how sauna washing takes out torment is the manner by which it takes a shot at aggravation. Aggravation is a consequence of the body attempting to mend itself. In any case, there are various natural and conduct factors that can over the top interminable irritation.

Aggravation is the covered up, interior reason for practically all significant illnesses, and hugely adds to maturing and demise. Diminishing aggravation is a major key to enhancing your wellbeing and life span, and studies recommend that the sauna can help. The HSPs I referenced before have an impact, as they are mitigating proteins[28].

Extra investigations do demonstrate that customary sauna utilization decreases proof of oxidative pressure, which can regularly cause irritation. Specifically customary sauna goers have lower levels of C-responsive protein (CRP), which is a particular pointer of incessant inflammation[29]. Thus, warming ourselves up can really decrease aggravation. What's more, this is extraordinary compared to other potential things we can accomplish for ourselves as far as streamlining our wellbeing and life span.

Beating Illness and Disease

Past agony and irritation, sauna use can likewise conceivably battle a scope of sickness and ailment going from Alzheimer's and dementia, and respiratory illness, directly through to disease. As recently referenced, sauna utilization builds HSP and FOXO3 levels, which can assume a key job in fixing misfolded proteins in the cerebrum (a key segment of numerous neurodegenerative maladies, for example, Alzheimer's). One examination has demonstrated that customary sauna use can possibly lessen the danger of Alzheimer's and dementia by over 65%[30]!

Moving south of the psyche, sauna use has likewise been demonstrated to be exceptionally compelling at combatting lung and respiratory ailment. Normal sauna use can decrease the danger of respiratory infection by over 40%[31]. Sauna use causes a hormetic reaction in the lungs which diminishes clog and increment the activity and working of the lungs[32]. This thus encourages the lungs to ward off contamination, and perform at ideal levels, decreasing the hazard and indications of sickness and ailment.

At long last, sauna utilization may have a positive effect in battling disease, by causing apoptosis in tumor cells[33]. It is recommended this could be on the grounds that typical, solid cells are equipped for adjusting to pressure, while malignant growth cells cannot[34]. Once more, FOXO3 can assume a key job in the concealment of tumours[35]. At long last, tumor cells are unmistakably more at risk from warmth because of diminished blood stream. Furthermore, there are ponders that the utilization of warmth can improve the consequences of treating an assortment of malignant growths, by up to as much as 50%[36].

Boosting Your Immune System

Just as battling torment, aggravation and sickness and ailment, sauna use can likewise help support your insusceptible framework. Making you fitter and more grounded and progressively impervious to illness in any case, and increasingly successful at fending it off when it arrives. Warmth stress raises the body temperature, emulating the impacts of a fever, thusly giving your resistant framework an exercise. In specialized terms this might be because of the expansion in HSPs, which invigorates immunity[37].

This fortifies your safe framework and set it up for any ailment and infection. For instance, various examinations have appeared to diminish the event of the basic virus by up to as much as 50%[38]. These ongoing segments feature a large number of the manners by which the sauna can help battle torment, irritation, sickness and infection, and furthermore to support your invulnerable framework. Moreover, the proof supporting these cases is convincing.

Enhancing Your Brain Power

Moving from body to mind. The sauna helps your mental aptitude and wellbeing. It does this by expanding levels of cerebrum determined neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF encourages the development of new synapses, and keeps up existing ones, and it likewise improves neuroplasticity (the arrangement of new neural associations that help with things like learning and memory)[39].

Boosting BDNF creation is frequently connected to work out, and while this is valid, the impact is drastically expanded by joining activity and sauna bathing[40]. This enables your cerebrum to remain solid. Supporting this the sauna utilization additionally seems to help increments in hormones like norepinephrine, and prolactin, which are significant for nerve development and repair[41].

Beating Depression and Improving Your Mood

From body, to cerebrum, presently to mind. There are numerous manners by which sauna utilization can likewise help battle sadness and lift your disposition. Diminishing aggravation, advancing cell autophagy assume a job in making your body, and cerebrum sound and less defenseless to pressure, which thus assists with your psychological states. Sauna washing has additionally been appeared to both discharge endorphins, and make you increasingly delicate to endorphins[42]. At last this sets you feeling better, and keep you there.

Further investigations bolster this indicating explicitly how in numerous situations, heat treatment offers considerably better and longer enduring outcomes as far as diminishing sorrow, and expanding individual associations, stress help and relaxation[43]. Impact which have been appeared to persevere for up to 6 weeks[44], which gives a good old fashioned thumping to upper medications! Truth be told, the sauna is a very incredible remedial device.

Last Thoughts on the Power of Heat to Heal

Along these lines, there you have it. Truly, I've in every case just delighted in a loosening up sauna session after an exercise. Furthermore, while I've turned out to be progressively mindful of the proof upheld benefits throughout the years, when I got profound into research for this article, even I was very astonished by the quantity of wide going advantages of sauna utilization. Really astounding! Furthermore, much of the time the supporting proof isn't dubious, yet profoundly convincing.

I do accept that the whole is more prominent than the parts, and clearly by taking ordinary sauna sessions you will aggregate a wide scope of covering benefits. And all fair from sitting in a sauna and perspiring, which generally speaking is a charming background for a great many people. Furthermore, ordinarily it is exceptionally correlative when combined with customary exercise and medications.

Thusly, I would obviously complete with an update, that while the sauna can offer astounding advantages, you should even now counsel with your doctor for a particular illnesses, and you ought not accept that the sauna can fix every one of your ills! Nonetheless, it offers a ton of advantages and I trust this article gives you cause to burrow further and investigate the amazing advantages of customary sauna washing.

Reviewing this has made me long for a sauna for sure! Along these lines, I'll be taking off to the exercise center for a session at the appointed time. I'll line that up with a decent session in the driving rain dive pool. That likely could be the focal point of a future review. We've discussed the advantages of warmth, and I'll investigate the advantages of cold treatment, and how the advantages of both hot and cold treatment duplicate when they are joined. For more in-depth information about stay in sauna . I highly recommend this website stay in sauna

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hopeless-nostalgiac · 7 years

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Land I Grew: Tiva Fic Amnesty

A/N: Another day, another story, apparently! This is an oldie. Years ago when I drafted it, I used the best parts for Clarity, and the rest sat. With time and tweaks, it’s grown nebulous--yet also streamlined. I have ideas to continue it, but who knows when I’ll find the time. #standardizedtestingseason

The epigraphs are Hem, Half Acre.

Thanks to Dana, my publicist, for the encouragement + unfailing love. <3

Part I

And folded in this scrap of paper Is a land I grew in

“Ohh. Ohhh.” Reclining on the mattress, Tony’s moans rose in volume. “Oh, yeah, yeahhhh, right there, oh yes…”

“Enjoying yourself, Tony?”

Ziva stood at the foot of the bed, eyeing his unabashed indulgence of pleasure with a look that questioned whether or not he had any shame. His display was beginning to draw them unwanted attention.

“If you don’t know what a man in ecstasy sounds like, Zee-va,” he replied, eyes closed to her, “then clearly you’re doing something wrong.”

Her jeering laugh tumbled freely. “Or perhaps you are not doing something right.”

It was all she could do not to leave her partner sprawled out on a test mattress in the middle of the store room, never mind that she was the reason for the trip to The Mattress Superstore in the first place.

Tony, on the other hand, invited himself.

She didn’t care if they came in his car; if he continued with the tasteless antics, she would walk.

“My back hasn’t felt this supported in ages.” His exclamation tore her from reverie. “I think it’s the pillow top. It’s like you’re weightless on a cloud.” He patted the bed beside him, and then his palm flipped open. “Come here, you’ve got to try this one.”

An innocuous request, probably the most appropriate thing he’d said since they arrived. Still she hesitated, hyper-aware of the other shoppers as if hostiles in a dusty village square. She clasped and unclasped her hands.

Tony coaxed, “It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed.”

“That was for a case.” She stopped short of saying everything.

That he’d been an attractive body and warm, responsive lips, making him more enticing than the score of other men with whom she’d performed the same deception in anonymous hotel rooms around the world. That she’d always thought Mossad would reassign her before she ever got close enough to feel anything toward the former cop who played the goofball, toward NCIS, toward that swamp city and its people…..

She stopped short.

That was before.

Tony pulled her out of her thoughts again. “That was a comfortable bed.” Turning his head on the pillow, he trapped her in a stare that would not quit.

“Are those your bedtime eyes?”

“Bedroom. And no. If they were, you would be hopeless to resist me.”

Whether that made her more or less willing to share the queen-sized mattress with him, she did not know.

“Come on. You won’t regret it,” he promised.

“One more sex sound, I will leave you here—and drive your car.”

Her threat jolted him sober. “Deal.”

With a deep exhale, Ziva tucked her knee up under her leg and plopped onto the bed. He scooted over a few millimeters, creating the illusion of extra space, and she stretched out. Side-by-side in their jackets and street shoes, they stared up at the iridescent lights tucked into the ceiling tiles overhead.

At her shoulder, Tony goaded, “Huh, huh? What’d I tell you? Heaven or what?”

Admittedly, the particular mattress was exquisite: not too malleable that she felt as though she would have to dig herself out of bed every morning, but also not overly firm like others she’d tried that day. Almost anything was preferable to the rough Navy barracks, or Gibbs’ lumpy couch, or sleeping on the dirty cement floor of—

“It is…nice,” Ziva agreed, careful of so many things.

Stacking one hand atop the other on her rib cage, she released a slow breath….and felt him watching her. She lolled her head to the side.

A tuft of his gelled, sandy-colored hair pressed up awkwardly against the pillow. Her lip curled. He would spend a ridiculous amount of time fixing the imperfection once he discovered it.

His bright hazel eyes held steady when their gazes locked.

“So,” Tony whispered. “Can you imagine yourself waking up like this every morning?”

Only a thin strip of no man’s land down the center of the mattress kept them apart, with the rest of the store muted around them. It was as intimate as she’d come to anyone since—

Michael.

Tony filling the place of the man he killed raised the hairs along her arms.

She didn’t have the luxury to pretend as if nothing had happened, to go back to the way things had been before.

Ziva reclaimed her gaze from the magnetic field cast out by his eyes.

“I will keep looking,” she told him, and sat up.

Change was all she knew.

Part II

A man is walking on the highway A woman stares out at the sea

A rap-rap-rap echoed off her front door.

The noise was foreign to her ears. She had yet to have visitors at her new place and certainly wasn’t expecting any at 2200 on a Thursday, only an hour after Gibbs allowed the team to end their workday.

Ziva left her salad on the counter next to her holstered gun. If someone was there to kill her, it was unlikely that they would have politely knocked first.

She padded barefoot to the door. A quick look through the peephole confirmed her instinct. A Very Special Agent bobbed from side to side in the hallway. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

Sighing, she cataloged options that did not involve shooting him, but ultimately Tony was easier indulged than dissuaded. She unlocked the door.

“What do you want?”

“That’s friendly. Got any water?” Tony weaved around her into the apartment. His sneakers squeaked on the freshly polished floors.

“Stop that,” she snapped, tracking his unique bouquet of pavement, grass, and deodorant working overtime into the kitchen, where he had already helped himself to water from the fridge.

Leaning back against the counter, Tony dragged so hard on the bottle that the plastic crinkled and caved in on itself. “Where’s your TV?” he asked after swallowing hard.

“I do not have one.”

“That’s cold.”

“I am not you,” she countered. “My life does not revolve around movies, so—”

“Ziva.” He lifted the half-empty bottle to eye level. “Refreshing.”

“Oh.”

Tony took another guzzle, stray droplets splashing onto the day’s growth of stubble around his mouth. A pink tongue flashed out from between his parched lips, a cat unwilling to waste a drop of precious milk.

She would be thirsty, too, if she had ran from his apartment to hers. They were clear across the city from each other now.

“Since when have you taken up running?”

“I had a lot of stress to burn off this summer.” His answer aimed for nonchalance, but landed at restrained. “No couch?”

He could have kept going and listed all the standard items that were missing: a dining room table, shelves for books and trinkets that she did not own, either. The kitchen they stood in was the most complete room in the apartment, because the appliances came furnished.

“I have not exactly had the time to settle in yet,” she explained defensively.

“Yeah, Gibbs has been keeping brutal hours. Some things don’t change.”

Her brown eyes flicked down to the tile pattern, but the weight of his gaze on her remained. “Sometimes they must.”

“Maybe.”

She looked up at the tail-end of his jump shot. The projectile swished into the un-lidded trash can.

“Nothing but net,” Tony declared, smiling for the first time since he arrived.

Ziva regarded him with a tilt of her head. “Why are you here?”

He had a bad habit of showing up where he did not belong.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting your night in with take-out and a 200-something-year-old document?”

“Actually, you are.”

Ziva trailed him as far as the archway, propping her shoulder against the wall. Curiosity delayed her from asking him to leave; she knew better than to believe she just happened to be on his late-night jogging route. She followed his movements around the bare room, his own curiosity about her on display.

“Huge step, becoming a gen-u-ine A-meri-can,” he enunciated in a poor Southern drawl. “Big commitment.” He nudged the pamphlet she left open on a side table. The Bill of Rights. “Sure you’re up to it?”

“Yes,” she assured him. “I came here to make a home for myself. Did you come here to question why I am becoming an American citizen?”

There was that smile again. “I’m here for your bed.”

“What?” Tony had made many a strange request of her over the years, but this took the pie.

“See how it looks in action. I was, after all, instrumental in picking it out for you.” His rubber face molded serious. “Quick peek and I’ll be out of your hair. Cross my heart.” His forefinger marked a lazy ‘X’ over the red appliqué OSU letters on his shirt.

She scoffed. “I do not think that is a good idea.”

“Now, Ziva.” A smirk played at the corner of his mouth. “Is that any way to treat the man who saved your life?”

“What kind of gratitude were you expecting? I have already thanked you…” Her gaze narrowed like the tightening of a screw. “…and forgiven you.”

“I don’t know.” Tony made it seem casual—the way he crossed the floor, chasing the serpentine path of his thoughts—and ending a few breaths away from her, close enough that she had to tip her chin to keep eye contact. “I guess I thought it would be different.”

“Different…how? Between us, you mean?” She used a shrug to push herself off the wall, swaying toward him. “We are partners again.”

A twitch at his right eye. “Is that all we are?”

“What else would we be?”

They were not unlike predators in the wild, circling the same prey. Circling each other. After a moment mirroring guarded stares and silences, she offered a quirking lip. He thawed. They both breathed out.

To hunt another day.

“If you have to ask, right?” Tony swiveled, resuming his examination of her sparse home. “Here’s a thought: hit IKEA and call it a day.”

“It is not that simple.”

“We could help.”

“We?”

“McGeekster, Abs, the Great Woodworker, me.” Tony yanked his foot up to his hip, stretching out his quad. He switched legs, rocking to find his balance. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

“Why do you care? It is my home and my responsibility.”

Back on two feet, Tony reciprocated her earlier smile. “I care… because partners help partners get settled into their new life. You didn’t know that?”

Ziva shook her head. She’d never had a partner who survived as long as Tony, either.

His eyes went glassy. He was thinking, she knew. And heading for her door. Five minutes ago, she might have had to incapacitate him and drag him over the threshold. Now he stepped over it willingly, kicking his knees out behind him.

She vowed to set an early alarm, run an extra mile in the morning. Or two.

“Well, it’s true. About the settling in thing. Say the word.”

“Goodnight, Tony,” she said instead.

He winked. “Thanks for the water.”

Jogging backwards down the hall and almost tripping on her neighbor’s welcome mat was the last of him she saw before shutting the door on the drop-in.

#tiva #tiva fic amnesty #tiva fanfiction #tony and ziva #tat fic #ncis

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itsworn · 6 years

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Unrestored Original 1970 Buick GSX Balances Luxury & Performance

In the 1950s and 1960s, before Japanese, German, and other foreign makes gained a significant foothold in the United States, brand loyalty among American car buyers was at its peak. Successive generations were very likely to buy the same brand their parents and grandparents bought. New York’s Stoldt family was no exception, so there was little doubt that Eric Stoldt, owner of the gorgeous Saturn Yellow GSX featured here, would feel a special affinity for Buick.

“My father bought new a 1961 Invicta convertible that he still owns today,” he recalls. “It’s original and has never been restored. He joined the Buick Club of America (BCA) when it was just beginning in 1966. Shortly after I was born, I was attending car shows and flea markets, such as Hershey. My father had many other Buicks that I remember growing up, but he gravitated toward the 1961 models. Over time we built a father-son collection of 1961 Buicks.”

In 1970, the GSX package added $1,195 to the bottom line and the optional Stage 1 engine cost another $199. All GSXs came with Rallye wheels and a black side stripe that wrapped up onto the rear fiberglass spoiler.

In addition to joining the BCA at its inception, Stoldt’s father and mother were very involved with their local Long Island Buick club. It was at one of this club’s initial meets where he saw a GSX for the very first time. “In the early 1980s I saw a 1970 GSX in white and fell in love. I already had a passion for the 1961 models at a young age, but after seeing that GSX, I knew I wanted to own one. Years later, after getting my driver’s license, I acquired some GSs and Grand Nationals, but I sold them so I could save money for a GSX. Every time I had enough money, however, they seemed to be a little more out of my reach. I did look at a few over the years but couldn’t find one in the condition I was hoping for.”

That changed in 2001 when Stoldt got a lead on a Saturn Yellow GSX from friend Jim Shiels. A pal of Shiels had seen a GSX he described as “an incredible, all original creampuff” at a show in Maine, but unfortunately did not get the owner’s name or contact information. A short time later, however, he saw an ad in a local Maine newspaper for what sounded like the same car. He passed the information along to Shiels, who in turn gave it to Stoldt.

A 455 was standard in the GSX, a Stage 1 455 optional. The Stage 1 engine featured 10.5:1 compression and a more aggressive cam.

Stoldt says, “I called, and the owner answered the phone right away. He said he had just gotten in from a business trip and had other calls on his machine he wanted to contact first. I finally persuaded him to have me be the first to look at it. It was 4 p.m., and I told him I would be at his doorstep at 7 a.m. the next day. I contacted my good friend Marty Jablonski, and within an hour we were on the road to Maine. We got a hotel, but I couldn’t sleep, and 7 in the morning couldn’t come fast enough. As soon as we saw it, Marty and I looked at each other and we knew this was one hell of a car. We went through it, checking the originality and numbers, confirming it was completely original.”

Though it wasn’t exactly what Stoldt was looking for (his ultimate dream car is an Apollo White, four-speed GSX) he couldn’t resist this particular car’s combination of incredible originality and magnificent condition. He quickly made a deal with the seller, and the car was his.

The GSX interior was both luxurious and sporty, with bucket seats and full instrumentation. A 15-inch-diameter, vinyl-covered Rallye steering wheel was standard. Of the 678 GSXs made in 1970, 479 came with an optional Turbo Hydramatic 400 and this center-console shifter.

It’s believed that all 1970 GSXs were made late in the model year, and this one certainly was. It was built the second week of May in Buick City, the Flint assembly plant with roots going all the way back to 1903, when a Flint wagon maker bought David Dunbar Buick’s fledgling gasoline engine shop and produced the very first Buick automobiles.

Like each of the 678 GSXs made in 1970, it came equipped with several features otherwise optional for Buicks and a number of things unique to the GSX. Quick-ratio steering, larger front and rear stabilizer bars, higher rate springs, heavy-duty shock absorbers, and stiffer control arm bushings all contribute to better handling. Stopping prowess comes courtesy of power-assisted front disc and rear drum brakes.

Back in the day, many a street racer was likely surprised by the performance of a GSX. In a 1970 Motor Trend road test, the testers rocketed one from zero to 60 in 5.8 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 13.38 seconds at 105.5 mph.

A larger-capacity radiator cools either the standard 455ci engine or optional Stage 1 455. The Stage 1 mill, which powers our feature car, came in 400 of the 1970 GSXs. It was rated at 360 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque and differed from the base 455 by virtue of a higher compression ratio (10.5:1 vs. 10.0:1) and a more aggressive camshaft profile (0.490/0.490-inch lift, 316/340 degrees duration, and 90 degrees overlap versus 0.3891/0.4602 lift, 290/322 degrees duration, and 67 degrees overlap).

All GSXs came with dual sports mirrors, a hood-mounted tach, G60-15 raised-letter Goodyear Polyglas GT tires on 15×7 Rallye rims, front and rear spoilers, and black stripes on the hood and sides. Four-speed cars got a Hurst shifter, while TH400 automatics had a center-console-mounted shifter. A 15-inch diameter vinyl-covered Rallye steering wheel, Rallye clock and gauges, and bucket seats add to the interior’s appeal.

Stoldt’s car was sold new at Kutner Buick, which was located on Castor Avenue in Philadelphia, from approximately 1949 through 1994. As happened with a number of 1970 GSXs, Kutner held onto the car for several months before selling it. The first owner enjoyed the car sparingly and obviously took exceptional care of it. It was in Pennsylvania for just a few years before the original owner moved to California and then Oregon. After he passed away, his widow brought the car to Florida, where she sold it to a dealer. That dealer then sold it to a prominent collector at a Zephyrhills auction. That collector shipped the Buick to his home in Maine, and eventually sold it to Stoldt.

After getting the GSX home to Long Island, Stoldt meticulously cleaned it inside and out, taking great care not to detract from its originality. The car had been driven a little more than 60,000 miles, and the only significant parts that had been changed were the tires and battery. Virtually everything else, including the paint, interior, complete engine assembly, drivetrain, and even the exhaust, were original to the car. In the intervening years he has done nothing more than basic maintenance like changing all of the fluids, and a rebuild of the original carburetor and brake system. He replaced the circa-1978 tires with correct Goodyear Polyglas reproductions and, more recently, installed a Gardner reproduction exhaust setup in place of the original system, which was in pretty sad shape after 40-plus years of service.

Stoldt has enjoyed showing the car occasionally. One of the more memorable events was a Buick Performance Group (BPG) meet in Ohio, where the organizers managed to gather 99 GSXs together. At another BPG event, the GSX was used at an instructional seminar to help the judges understand what the cars really looked like when they left the factory.

In the 17 years Stoldt has owned his GSX, he has added about 2,500 miles to the odometer, bringing the total to a little more than 63,000. In keeping with the intent of the people who designed and engineered it, the car provides a wonderful combination of comfortable, competent driving and spirited performance.

“It handles well for what it is,” Stoldt tells us, “with a comfortable but firm ride. Something else that I’ve noticed is it’s a little bit quieter and more refined-sounding than other big-block muscle cars from that era. But when you put your foot into it, there’s more than enough power to put you back in the seat and get you a little bit sideways. In its day it was quite a performance car, and it’s still a lot of fun to drive nearly half a century later! I’m proud to be the caretaker of one of Buick’s pieces of history in its original form. After all, they’re only original once!”

At a Glance 1970 GSX Stage 1 Owned by: Eric Stoldt Restored by: Unrestored original Engine: 455ci/360hp Stage 1 V-8 Transmission: M40 Turbo Hydramatic 3-speed automatic Rearend: 12-bolt with 3.42 gears and positraction Interior: Black Madrid- and Laredo-grain vinyl bucket seat Wheels: 15×7 chrome-plated Rallye Tires: G60-15 Goodyear Polyglas GT Special parts: 63,190 miles and unrestored original; Stage 1 package, hood tach, front spoiler/molded fiberglass rear wing, twin door sports mirrors, power front disc brakes, heavy-duty suspension, heavy-duty cooling, air conditioning

Lessons From an Original Car

Unrestored cars are full of interesting tidbits, such as the two different finishes on the bolts retaining this relay. Although they are from the same supplier (possibly MNP corporation in Utica, Michigan, as indicated by the “M’ head marking) one is plated with silver cadmium while the other was protected with black phosphate.

Poor body paint coverage on the back side of the headlamp surrounds is characteristic of factory production and something rarely seen on restored cars.

The spring ring battery cable clamp and weak paint coverage on portions of the front fender are factory original.

The black side stripe and red accenting stripes were painted on. This unrestored example shows us how imprecise they were.

The unrestored trunk shows an overspray pattern and a torsion bar that’s slightly larger in diameter in a GSX to support the extra weight of the trunk-mounted spoiler.

All GSXs came with power front disc/rear drum brakes. Booster and master cylinder cover were cadmium plated, and the master was painted black.

Cowl Tag Decoded

The cowl tag indicates that the car is a 1970 GS 455 two-door hardtop coupe (70 44637) produced in the Flint plant (FL1) during the second week of May (05B) with black trim (188) and Saturn Yellow exterior paint (Q Q). The number in the upper right (246075) is the body sequence number. Though the GSX package was not coded into the car’s VIN or indicated separately on the cowl tag, the paint code tells you this car is a GSX because Saturn Yellow was not available on anything other than a GSX.

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techbarcelona · 6 years

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Surge amusement survey: Sexy arcade hustling in genuine need of a tune-up From the group that brought you Motorstorm comes an excellent, uneven arcade racer.

There's a considerable measure to adore about a brisk look at the arcade-battle hustling of Onrush. Its rankling speed, mammoth hop circuits, and shrapnel-heaving four-wheelers inspire right away both in screen capture and hands-on modes. This positive initial introduction completely demonstrates the cleaves of the amusement's devs at Codemasters Evo, who already kicked barge in on in this classification with the Motorstorm arrangement.

Be that as it may, for all the diversion's amazing tech and fulfilling pummel to-speed activity, Codemasters Evo by one means or another misses the mark—inconceivably short—of conveying a genuine successor to the Burnout royal position. Both on a large scale and smaller scale level, Onrush incorporates various baffling outline choices and execution bobbles. What's more, the subsequent disillusionment is out and out pounding.

Revving to Overdrive

In its most perfect shape, Onrush supports insane driving for speed helps. Much like in the Burnout recreations, you can guide an adversary's vehicle into a disaster area for a colossal surge in your "lift" meter, while other high-octane moves (bounces, stunts, close misses) tick the meter up more gradually.

Surge veers off the Burnout way by putting a particular accentuation on focused multiplayer. The full amusement relies on six-on-six group race rivalries. (Solo players are coordinated to a "crusade" mode in which AI fills the various driver situates.) What's all the more, none of these modes offers a conventional race or time-preliminary mode. Keeping in mind the end goal to underline aggressive, crash filled hustling, Onrush offers four modes.

"Overdrive" is the best of these modes, since it essentially urges every driver to consume his or her vehicle's lift meter; whichever group utilizes the a large portion of its lift (and tries to recharge it consistently!) wins each round. You'll have to drive forcefully to keep your meter up, and keeping the lift catch held down reliably offers a score multiplier for every racer. On the other hand, crushing another racer off the track offers the double advantage of granting the assailant some lift and keeping the adversary's auto out of the lift scoring domain for a couple of moments.

Driving close and slamming into enemies is the most ideal approach to pile on help, however Codemasters Evo likewise offers the smart expansion of apparition autos—AI peons that are intended to be smashed into and disintegrate at the smallest touch. The sheer demonstration of exploring your bumper through these high contrast junk autos is a genuine joy, for the most part since Onrush makes them such destructible weaklings and they offer awesome driving lines to point your auto through while exploring the amusement's slippery slope and trash lined courses.

In "Lockdown," groups must speed ahead to a little, shaded zone, which moves at an indistinguishable speed from a quick auto, and race inside it for five entire seconds to assert a point. In a perfect world, this would prompt a scrum of autos all maneuvering for a similar zone and bonking each other out of it. Be that as it may, practically speaking, it's an activity in disappointment.

The default help speed isn't evidently sufficiently high to rapidly achieve where this zone shows up. Over and over, I'd need to support for a flawless, help constantly keep running toward a zone just to draw near to it, with even one slip sending my auto behind the pack. I would be advised to fortunes utilizing the diversion's worked in "reset position" catch to get in scope of the thing—and if an implicit twisting catch works superior to simply playing the amusement, at that point that appears to be severely improved.

"Commencement" requests that all racers drive through a progression of continually creating slalom doors to keep a meter alive for their group. This mode works in an extremely strange manner: each entryway combine's opening develops in measure when any racer experiences one. I reliably discovered my groups were in an ideal situation remaining marginally behind our adversaries to appreciate the greatest entryway sizes conceivable so a greater amount of my colleagues would tick our meter up to remain alive, since their thin defaults are barely noticeable. Why quicker racers aren't compensated with, say, a higher meter support for experiencing thin paths is past me.

Furthermore, "Switch" is an unadulterated battle mode in which each driver has three lives. When one side loses for its entire lives, the other group wins, however "dead" players get the opportunity to continue hustling and crushing into the opposition. This unadulterated battle mode may be more enjoyable... in the event that it didn't rely upon Onrush's online foundation.

Netcode taps the brakes

Checking on pre-discharge internet recreations is not really the best pointer for a last item, yet Onrush as of now makes them think about whether, or how, it will convey liquid, skittish, 12-player group battle hustling crosswise over different idleness and network issues.

In spite of appending wired Ethernet to my testing Xbox One X support, I reliably battled with auto collisions that looked positively WTF. Autos that didn't give off an impression of being anyplace close to mine would twist into T-boning me (or I would do likewise to different autos, as I'd reliably observe "you took somebody out!" notification and think about how). Whenever various autos and bicycles clustered up amid the Lockdown mode, the where-and-how of my opponents was a get pack. My own partners as often as possible pushed my auto into risk on account of arbitrary, quick moves into my direction.

A couple of times, I even viewed my auto "collision" with zero different autos driving anyplace close to mine. (I needed to begin utilizing the "Xbox record that" capacity to demonstrate that I wasn't envisioning things, as Onrush doesn't offer a "disaster area cam" amid its online matches.)

Codemasters Evo has chosen not to utilize any type of casing constraining or make up for lost time conventions in these occurrences. Rather, its netcode appears to forcefully figure and-change how your rivals are quickening, braking, directing, and boosting. Also, as of press time, it completes a lousy activity.

Be that as it may, suppose my pre-discharge testing was a fluke and that Onrush at last conveys on its guaranteed six-on-six hustling. The inquiry by then, at that point, is: what's as yet absent?

Surge offers eight classes of vehicles, however they don't vary in Mario Kart mold (i.e., weight versus increasing speed as opposed to dealing with). Rather, they offer slight contrasts in how every vehicle gathers and uses its lift meter, alongside various unique capacities. These distinctions are on the whole compliant, and they neglect to underscore novel techniques or energize critical collaboration. Certainly, a few autos dole out rewards to partners or assaults to enemies, however a large number of these lone trigger when your extraordinary meter is full—which means, generally twice a match.

Perhaps more-extraordinary, class-particular forces could have been joined with littler group sizes in modes that had been custom fitted for three-on-three or four-on-four dashing as an approach to make each class feel more impactful and to conceivably cure whatever upsets Onrush's present netcode.

What stinks, rhymes with "boot foxes?"

But at the same time it's difficult to get around the inclination that Onrush was initially planned as an approach to offer plunder boxes.

Codemasters Evo didn't get around to building a gameplay circle past "race for beauty care products." Loot containers are plenteous at to start with, offering some new auto case, paint employments, and character skins after each race. In any case, the pace of these opens backs off drastically after a short time—and a couple of long periods of play is just sufficient to open one of the diversion's 100-ish "amazing" choices (which, obviously, don't show up in a significant number of the amusement's irregular plunder boxes). As of press time, there's no real way to spend genuine money on these things, which could possibly be because of later, vocal reaction against the training. All things being equal, Onrush pushes its plunder encloses your face constantly, despite everything they stink without money appended.

Some portion of that is the inclination that Codemasters Evo was so disposed to push online multiplayer on its Onrush players that it kicked convincing single-player potential outcomes to the check. For what reason not a solitary player (or center) pulverize the-peons craze mode? For what reason not nearby split-screen opportunities to run crash-insane with four companions? Why not crack time-preliminary mode or some type of "get by as long as you can" challenge rally? [Update: I neglected to specify that this online-particular concentration accompanies an especially rankling issue. Crusade advance isn't spared when playing the diversion offline.]

For the greater part of my protests on the diversion's execution, despite everything I have a fine time playing the Overdrive mode—which gives each one of the amusement's ho-a chance to murmur classes have a way to point-scoring and lift aggregation. In spite of the fact that the amusement's Xbox One X adaptation doesn't exactly bolt to its guarantee of a 60Hz "execution" mode, it stays close, and the subsequent activity can be an excite to tear through. The auto taking care of, specifically, is divine. Weight, hold, floating, speed, bounces, reaction time, and even wheel-introduction while nailing a finding: these are generally first rate in Onrush, and they're especially uplifting news in the wake of Codemaster Evo (once in the past Evolution Studios) having a notoriety for floaty, lethargic controls in any semblance of Motorstorm and Driveclub.

Surge offers distinctive circumstances of day and diverse seasons for every one of its 12 fiendish tracks, and whether you're kicking up brilliant starts through dusty, bright landscape or sloshing through tempests and puddles, the vast majority of these look phenomenal. Tragically, a large number of the diversion's battle challenges uphold an evening necessity, and this outright sucks. Surge just gives racers a chance to pick from two camera points, and neither offers an absolutely unhampered in front of racer see, which is sufficiently fair when the races are brilliant and sufficiently bright. Yet, it's much too simple amid the evening segments to unintentionally smash into mammoth hindrances and flotsam and jetsam immediately, particularly when sparkles fly and rivals blast your auto around.

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assaidiayou-blog · 6 years

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6 Common Mistakes When Gymming 6 Common Mistakes When Gymming 1) Having a "Win big or bust" mindset "No Pain, No Gain" "Give it EVERYTHING you have" "Feel the BURN" "In case you're not sore you're not working sufficiently hard" "110% exertion constantly" Some of you may gain great ground with this mindset, and some of you may need to think along these lines to get over levels or get you in the rec center. In any case, in the event that you reliably live by these statements, or something comparative, you're probably going to slow down with your lifts, your weight reduction/muscle building progress, or will simply abhor lifting (in light of the fact that the vast majority don't care about being sore all day, every day). This doesn't imply that you shouldn't ever push hard. There will be days where you'll need to give 110% in the exercise center. Be that as it may, I'm for the most part alluding to the individuals who leave the rec center and aren't ready to take a seat, go upstairs, or lift an arm without agony or soreness after each session. You know your identity. It is conceivable to consume yourself out rapidly on the off chance that you plan to go all out each rec center session. You should discover an adjust for yourself, physically and rationally, while heading off to the exercise center. Some days can be your "win or bust days" while others can be a day of simply gymming and not killing yourself. 2) Thinking you need to be in the exercise center each day (or need to do cardio consistently) You don't need to be in the exercise center 7 days seven days to achieve your coveted wellness objectives. The vast majority make extraordinary results with just 3 days in the rec center (as long as they are putting in the important work). Be that as it may, on the off chance that you like being in the rec center 7 days a week and it isn't an issue for you, at that point go 7 days seven days. It's simply that sometimes individuals compel themselves in the rec center when they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would prefer not to be there in light of the fact that they're excessively worn out from the greater part of the other rec center days, which will simply make an undesirable propensity. Or then again perhaps they simply don't have room schedule-wise, however, keep on telling themselves that they "need" to make it to the exercise center, which is simply going to keep on stressing them out on the grounds that they missed that additional day that they "arranged" ongoing. 6 Common Mistakes When Gymming With respect to cardio, in case you're doing it consistently for unadulterated satisfaction, please keep doing as such. Be that as it may, on the off chance that you've made this suspected the more cardio that you do in seven days, the better and quicker the results you'll get, you'll be baffled. Exceptionally baffled. Not just because of the way that you're putting in a poo ton of time doing cardio and loathe each second of it, yet the way that cardio isn't the best choice for fat misfortune. You'd be in an ideal situation utilizing that time to plan a superior eating routine to suit your way of life and wellness objective while utilizing a combo of weight lifting and molding rather than cardio to decrease the time that you spend at the exercise center and enhance your results. Additionally, our bodies are really astounding at adjusting to stressors (cardio, lifting weights, and so forth ). So in case you're constantly doing cardio for drawn-out stretches of time, various times every week, you'll adjust and turn out to be more proficient at it. What does that mean? All things considered, on the off chance that you began off completing 50 mins of typical consistent state cardio consuming 200 calories (this isn't precise, it's only a case), your body will turn out to be "better" at doing cardio and will consume fewer calories for a similar measure of cardio. This is very irritating in light of the fact that you will probably consume calories, isn't that so? So you'll need to accomplish more to consume what you used to. By using a weightlifting program with molding, there are various approaches to change the stressor (increment weight, reps, sets, diminish rest, and so on ) with the goal that the body doesn't adjust and move toward becoming as "vitality proficient" when contrasted with standard low power cardio. 3) fearing to pick up muscle or getting "too enormous" Expanding bulk and diminishing fat mass is the thing that everybody raves about. They simply don't have any acquaintance with it. This makes what some call, "conditioned, bent, lean, and so forth " With a specific end goal to build bulk, you should lift weights. You should likewise expand the measure of work you do after some time. Expanding work should be possible by expanding the weights you are lifting, expanding the aggregate sum of reps you are performing (by expanding reps per set or keeping reps the same and expanding the quantity of sets), or a blend of both. Ex) 3 sets of 10 with 100 lbs We can build the measure of work we are doing with these 3 choices (shaded in red): 3x10 with 105lbs = 3,150lbs 3x12 with 100lbs = 3,600lbs 4x10 with 100lbs = 4,000lbs On the off chance that the objective is to fabricate more muscle, I would by and by pick the 4x10 alternative because of more general reps and work being finished. Be that as it may, in case you're in a hurry, I would propose alternatives 1 or 2. By expanding the general work you can do (we allude to this as "volume" = the poundage in the case over) the more vitality (calories) you will use. You will likewise exhaust more calories very still with more bulk contrasted within the event that you had less bulk. More calories will be spent to sustain more bulk and accomplish more work. You will have the capacity to expend a higher measure of calories while eating fewer carbs for fat misfortune contrasted with somebody who isn't lifting weights or completing a decent measure of work. Would you gripe about eating more sustenance while inclining out? "Getting too enormous" For one thing, you need to put in some genuine commitment towards preparing, programming, and eating less carbs to get huge. Most broad exercise center goers don't want to put in the measure of mental and physical work to get "too huge". In any case, on the other hand, everybody has their own particular thought of what "too huge" is. So I'll simply say this: In the event that you think you are getting "too huge", you should simply back off the exercise center a little or eat somewhat less. You're not going to stall out with gigantic muscles. 4) Doing activities to lose fat in particular zones You need your abs to appear. You need the underside of your arm to not be as heavy. You need your cushy layers to leave. You need definition in your thighs. "We get it, you need to lean out." Doing crunches wouldn't influence your abs to appear. Doing tricep augmentations won't lessen the fat under your arms. (That is a blend of your tricep muscle hanging with some fat covering it, so it'll never completely leave) Wrapping a midsection mentor won't diminish the fat around your stomach cushions. (In any case, it'll briefly make you look more slender) Leg expansions won't characterize your thighs. (We'll it sort of will since it will assemble quad muscles) You can't focus on specific zones in the body to lose fat mass unless you get liposuction. Kindly don't go that course. I need you to get innovative for a moment and envision fat as a mammoth single cell that is encompassing your body (this is only an illustration). There are sure regions of the human body that store more fat than others. For instance, we tend to store more fat in our midriffs contrasted with our calves. So there might be 1 inch of fat at the calves however 2-3 creeps of fat in the waist. When we lose fat, that entire single fat cell gets somewhat littler. You can't target where it gets little, it just gets littler everywhere. So now you may have ½ inch of fat at the calves however 2 creeps of fat still at the waist. YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. So it's best to simply continue doing what you are doing by hitting the rec center and quit agonizing over focusing on particular body parts for fat misfortune. 5) Expecting results without focusing on slim down The vast majority believe that hitting the exercise center is sufficient to get them their coveted results. A few people will find that they CAN escape with this and not need to stress over what or the amount they eat. Most other individuals will find that they CANNOT escape with this and battle. They will endeavor to accomplish more at the rec center and regularly wind up speculation since they accomplished more, they likewise merit more "prizes" (nourishment, frozen yogurt, wine, you realize what I mean). This makes them devour a larger number of calories than they as of now were and keeping any sort of fat misfortune (if that was their unique objective). At that point, they keep on struggling or feel that "nothing works" and surrender. Try not to be that individual. My recommendation when beginning up at the exercise center: Spend your initial 2 a month making the rec center a propensity. It can be 2, 3, or 4 days/week, as long as it's practical with your way of life and doesn't make any issues with your timetable. When you have made the propensity for influencing a set rec center to plan that doesn't influence your way of life, at that point invest some energy teaching yourself in the exploration of fat misfortune. When you see how fat misfortune happens, at that point you can look into changed eating fewer techniques that will suit your way of life. *Note this isn't a handy solution. This is a way of life change. In the event that you will attempt an eating routine "incidentally", you will just get transitory results. In the event that you need to lose fat and keep it off, you should comprehend the procedure of how fat misfortune works and make an adjustment in your dietary patterns to suit your objective and way of life. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); *Try not to go up against the exercise center and eating regimen in the meantime. This will worry you and overpower you rapidly. 6) Not having an exercise center arrangement In conclusion, having an exercise center arrangement has the greater part of the effect on the planet. Have you at any point made it to the rec center, warmed up on a treadmill, at that point asked yourself, "along these lines, what should I work on today?" Then perhaps you hit a few arms, a couple of stomach muscle machines, at that point extend and you're finished. What do you do the following session? What weight did you use on the stomach muscle machine the last session? What number of reps would you say you were ready to do? Of course, this might be a good time for a bit and I certainly don't anticipate that a newcomer will jump directly into a workout program. In any case, having a program will give you direction and will give you a remark upon. Following the workouts you do, the sets, reps, and weight will demonstrate to you the advance you've set aside a few minutes. It will likewise help give you a thought on what zones you might want to center around (like expanding your squat or deadlift) and will enable you to design better for your next lifting session. You don't need to take after some super complex program or record each and every development you do. Yet, following workouts 6 Common Mistakes When Gymming

http://fithealthy2018.blogspot.com/2018/02/6-common-mistakes-when-gymming.html

#6 Common Mistakes When Gymming http://fithealthy2018.blogspot.com/2018/02/6-common-mistakes-when-gym

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wondersshow · 6 years

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Keys to a Long Life

All things considered, an extraordinary part of our endeavors are somehow roused by a want to continue living - to survive. To this end, life is much of the time spent thinking constantly about the future and passing up a major opportunity for the lavishness of the present minute. None of our stressing influences life to last any more; it just fills in as a disagreeable diversion. As a result, we can ruin our experience of life through our endeavors to clutch it. To cure this problem, it is advantageous to witness our everyday view of our life. Do we invest more energy commending life or being loaded by it? It isn't so much our conditions as our point of view that directs the nature of our life. A basic difference in context can have a tremendous effect, regardless of the possibility that the outer circumstance doesn't change. In case we're not sufficiently fortunate to have a normally joyful aura, our prosperity at keeping up an uplifting standpoint might be to a great extent controlled by plain old train. This is simply the train to discover enjoying show and antagonism, and leaving from the present keeping in mind the end goal to stress over what's to come. It is simply the teach to take back to the present, back to appreciation and reality, back to the sweet breath we're taking comfortable minute. It is the train to recall again and again and over what is truly worth living for. Until the point when we examine and challenge the variables that encroach on the nature of our life, what's the utilization of attempting to drag out it? Presently for some down to earth measures. Following is a rundown of the practices I consider most important for broadening life. I suggest sharing in them generously and energetically. In any case, please recollect, it's feasible for these practices to wind up gadgets that sustain our persevering drive to go, go, go! Instead of review them as the way to escape from death, check whether you can consider them approaches to savor life. Exercise: Everyone is aware of the estimation of activity. The human body is extremely receptive to physical action or a scarcity in that department. Basically, it's "utilization it or lose it." I trust practice that assembles all aspects of the body in each conceivable way is the most ideal approach to keep it fit as a fiddle. Yoga and move are perfect for this. My first yoga educator, Gurunam Kaur, used to state, "You are as youthful as you are adaptable." Exercise that spotlights on building center quality and controlling vitality stream, for example, Qigong and Taijiquan (Tai Chi) is likewise a profitable device for advancing long life. Moving: notwithstanding different types of activity, I feel there is a one of a kind advantage to moving. Move is a standout amongst the most fundamental and primal types of discharge. I'm looking at moving like nobody's watching - putting on your most loved music and truly letting free with unconstrained development. There is a specific magnification we can accomplish through move, and I trust this is powerful solution. Also, hitting the dance floor with others is an encouragement to give the adoration access your heart overflow - why keep it only for yourself? Breathing: The nature of our breathing can profoundly affect all parts of our wellbeing. Profound, full breaths practice the inward body, they send oxygen-rich blood to every one of our parts, they quiet the brain, and they encourage the arrival of feeling. What you're breathing issues as well: perfect, crisp, unpolluted air can be intense pharmaceutical. Past great old profound, unhindered breathing, there are a couple of particular breath-focused expressions that are significantly more powerful at building essentialness and discharging blockages. These incorporate pranayama (a feature of yoga), Conscious Breathing (AKA "rebirthing"), and Holotropic Breathwork, to give some examples. In Chinese solution, there is a maxim: "Qi (life vitality) takes after the breath." That is, breathing advances the dissemination of vitality. It enables us to open confined or denied parts of ourselves, and to share the elusive embodiment we draw into our lungs with each meriting cell in our body. Stance: The principle weaknesses of poor stance are that it confines our breathing and squashes our organs. At that point there are the shoulder, back, neck, jaw, arm, hand and other basic issues it can prompt. The greatest reason for poor stance is sitting in a seat at a table or work area. A large portion of us begin taking every one of our suppers thusly around age 2. We burn through at least 6 hours daily doing this through every one of our years in school. At that point, in the event that we have a work area work, we do it at least 8 hours every day until retirement. In the event that you invest much energy in this position, it merits advancing your seating, work area situating, and ergonomics. Hang up update notes in your workspace. The body basically works better when it's held in an open and adjusted mold. Past all the physical advantages of good stance, a great many people out and out feel better when they lift themselves up. Rest: Americans epidemically exhaust and under rest. An adequate measure of good quality rest can drag out life. Inadequate rest is related with an expanded frequency of heftiness, which is a noteworthy hazard factor for a few conditions that abbreviate lives. Inadequate rest is likewise a noteworthy hazard factor for mischances. In case we're not all around rested, we're running on lower than ideal assets; hence, we have a diminished ability to manage stretch, diminished invulnerability, and a diminished "support" amongst us and the world - all of which affect our wellbeing. Dietary patterns: I could compose pages about nourishment, however for space and effortlessness, I've composed on four things you can change about your eating that will have the best effect. One: Under-eat. Analyses have demonstrated that mice that are never encouraged to the point of "completion" can experience a few times longer than mice that are permitted to eat their fill. The same is likely valid for people. You don't have to starve yourself; regardless of the possibility that you just abstain from gorging, you'll be accomplishing something awesome for yourself. Indulging is burdening to our bodies and is an unmistakable sign that we are somehow "separated" in the demonstration of eating. Think about your stomach as resembling a clothes washer. On the off chance that you stuff a washer to limit, the garments don't course exceptionally well and they don't confess all. Moreover, on the off chance that you pack your stomach, odds are you won't process and ingest your nourishment ideally, and you will without a doubt surpass your caloric needs. Attempt to quit eating when you are fulfilled, with an inclination that regardless you have some room left. Two: Focus. Eat in a moderate, consider, situated, loose, and agreeable path, without doing whatever else in the meantime (e.g., perusing, strolling, driving, staring at the TV). Put your fork/spoon/chopsticks down after eat chomp. This backings great ingestion of the supplements in the nourishment, and associates you to the sacredness and delight of sustaining yourself. I'm not encouraging you to be excessively mechanical about eating, yet to just enable yourself to truly relish your sustenance. Unless you need to eat yucky nourishment, there's awful reason not to relish it. Likewise, when you eat along these lines, it's harder to indulge. Three: Reduce your utilization of sugar (and maintain a strategic distance from manufactured sweeteners). This incorporates all sugars - dissipated stick juice, agave nectar, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, nectar, rice syrup, molasses, malt, and so on - and other refined starches, for example, flour. It's actual that some of these are more awful than others, however the fact is, people are recently not worked to deal with the a lot of sugar the vast majority of us devour. Our rates of sugar utilization have soar in the course of recent hundreds of years and our bodies have not possessed the capacity to keep up. Sugar smothers the resistant framework, imposes our adrenal organs and pancreas, advances weight, and causes diabetes - the main source of visual impairment and removals in the elderly. Four: Choose sustenances with essentialness in them. In the expressions of Dr. Paul Greenbaum, one of my most loved nourishment educators, the principle directing criteria for picking a decent sustenance ought to be that it is entire, unadulterated, and normal. Each progression of preparing our sustenance experiences decreases its essentialness and healthful esteem. Chuckling: If you can't snicker at life, why mess around with life span? We're all acquainted with the truism that giggling is great medication, and we as a whole get a kick out of the chance to do it, so how about we welcome a greater amount of it into our lives. Watch comedies, tune in to comic drama on your approach to and from work, tell jokes, tickle, make interesting appearances, or join a chuckling gathering (individuals who get together to prompt themselves and each other to giggle). Full tummy giggles are best - they get the entire body included. In the interim, lessen how much you develop terrible emotions (fear, anguish, bitterness, agony, awfulness) and cut down on rough and dismal motion pictures, and media that sensationalizes disaster. Singing: When you sit slouched over at a work area, the chest has a tendency to be shut and the stomach area squashed. When you sing or serenade, you work your midriff and open your chest, which fixes the squashing and falling. Singing can enable us to discharge feelings, it can elevate, it can enable us to associate with others (on the off chance that we sing in a gathering), and it can be enjoyable. On a somewhat obscure level, I trust the frequencies and timbres we create when we sing have a thunderous impact all through our bodies that can charge and blend our cells. Group/Companionship: Most of the longest lived people on the planet have individuals who monitor them, who hope to see them, who share warm discussion with them, who eat with them, and who enable them to do a considerable lot of the things I prescribe in this article, for example, work out, snickering, singing, and moving. Additionally, when we place ourselves in support of our group, we see our esteem, we see that we matter, and we take our consideration off our own issues for some time. In addition, when we keep fine examples of humankind close-by, they influence us to need to stick around longer. Human Touch: Human touch influences us like no other remedial "intercession." Compassionate touch passes on warmth, mindful, association, and consolation. The greater part of us start life getting a wealth of sound from Blogger http://ift.tt/2i2bFBv via IFTTT

#Long life

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malto444-blog · 7 years

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InBody Band survey: Activity following meets muscle to fat quotients estimation—yet would it be advisable for it to? Because you can quantify muscle to fat ratio ratios in a hurry doesn't mean you should.

InBody, a South Korean organization that makes far reaching body creation machines, is presently conveying the center of that innovation to your wrist with the InBody Band. The every day movement tracker does the typical things—measuring heart rate and steps and calories consumed—additionally serves as a "body organization analyzer," utilizing a quartet of little cathodes to quantify muscle to fat quotients. That work has as a rule been finished by massive savvy scales that can quantify weight, BMI, and bulk; the InBody Band makes body piece estimations versatile.

Yet, the $180 Band isn't impeccable—and it brings up issues about the handiness of measuring muscle to fat ratio ratios anyplace and all around.

Outline: Electrodes all around

The InBody Band looks the way the new Microsoft Band ought to have looked. It's a totally bended gadget, with a LCD show that sits on top of your wrist. Two bioelectrical impedance sensors embrace the show module; two more sit underneath it. These gleaming little strips measure your muscle to fat quotients and heart rate.

On the correct side of the module is the band's just physical catch, used to wake the show and look between changed details, including steps, separation, and calories consumed. Squeezing the catch once demonstrates the time (since the show isn't generally on, the band isn't a genuine watch substitution; it is additionally constrained to military time). The left half of the module houses the microUSB charging port for charging, which is covered up by a little silicone entryway that is hard to open even with long fingernails.

The strap itself is made of an adaptable silicone material like most different wellness trackers. It snaps shut like the Pivotal Living Band and is less intricate to affix than the new Microsoft Band's snare and-eye conclusion.

The InBody Band comes in little, medium, and substantial sizes, and despite the fact that it doesn't appear as though it, you can swap out straps for various hues (it comes in pink, dark, dim, orange, and plum). Pushing either side of the strap up from where it meets the module will discharge it.

As indicated by InBody, the band ought to last seven to ten days on a solitary charge—however mine was down to 27 percent by day four. The Band is appraised IP56 water-safe, which means it will withstand light water sprinkles, however make certain not to swim or give it.Features: Steps, calories, fat, muscle, and heart rate

The key component of the InBody Band is its muscle to fat ratio ratios appraisal. The four terminals on the band send little electrical flags through the skin and measure the resistance. These signs stream more effortlessly through muscle and blood than through fat. This test, joined with data you give the Body Key application including sex, tallness, and weight, helps the band measure things like muscle to fat quotient, bulk, and BMI.

A video on InBody's site demonstrates to you proper methodologies to take the test accurately: isolate your arms from your body and lift your hand to simply before your stomach, keeping it around four inches far from you. With the band sitting simply over your wrist bone, explore to the test page on the show by squeezing the side catch twice. You'll then be provoked to put your thumb and pointers on the top terminals. Doing as such will likewise press the cathodes on the base of the module into your wrist. The test will begin naturally when the band detects your fingers; it takes 30 seconds or less to get a perusing. Your muscle to fat quotient will appear on the show when the test finishes.

The InBody Band's guideline booklet offers counsel about when to test (morning) and how to do as such (swearing off sustenance promptly before testing, utilizing the restroom first). Test results can vacillate in view of how much water you have in your body, so it's imperative to stay adequately (however not excessively) hydrated. The guidelines likewise encourage you to not practice instantly before testing.I took the test at any rate once every day, directly after my post-morning exercise shower (or about a half hour after exercise finished). I contrasted the Band's readings with those of the Pivotal Living Smart Scale and the QardioBase Smart Scale, and the InBody Band's readings were dependably inside 1-3 rate purposes of both. My muscle to fat ratio ratios comes about fluctuated gently on the off chance that I took the test at various circumstances of the day (which I did, as I was interested), remaining around 26 to 30 percent each time.

InBody has less guidelines for the heart rate test. You measure your heartbeat similarly, pushing down on the terminals while on the heart rate page of the show (three presses of the side catch). More often than not the gadget took only seven seconds to check my heartbeat; the perusing was dependably inside 5 bpm of my own manual heartbeat perusing.

Notwithstanding muscle to fat ratio ratios and heart rate, the InBody Band measures everything else that most trackers do: steps, dynamic time, calories consumed, and separate. It naturally tracks rest, and you can set a caution by means of the application to have the band buzz you conscious. There are a couple of different cautions you can set in the application too, including a caution to tell you you've finished your movement objective for the day, alongside call and content notice alarms.

Body Key application: Simple, direct, exhausting

The InBody Band works with the Body Key application, accessible for Android and iOS gadgets. This is not as outwardly energizing as different wellness applications like Fitbit or Jawbone. It's moderate with a white, dark, and green shading plan; a landing page indicates weight details alongside movement, sustenance, and rest reviews. The main three numbers on the landing page demonstrate your present weight, bulk in pounds, and muscle to fat quotient. Tapping on this area conveys you to a couple charts that show how your numbers fit with ordinary outcomes for your sexual orientation and age.

At the base of this page is a symbol for "understanding," which raises a little window clarifying your numbers. For me, the application said that my "optimal" weight was around 12 pounds lower than my present weight. Likewise, it disclosed to me I have around seven additional pounds of muscle to fat ratio ratios; notwithstanding, I have about five a greater number of pounds of bulk than the perfect range. "To accomplish your optimal body, diminish 5.8 pounds of muscle to fat quotients mass and keep up bulk." While I don't concur with the utilization of the expression "perfect" in this circumstance, I do acknowledge how the application separates my fat and bulk, disclosing to me what I would need to change so as to make strides. Beside this numerical breakdown, the application doesn't give pointers on precisely how to get in shape or how to keep up bulk (which Jawbone's Smart Coach does, for example).

Tapping on the means segment will convey you to a chart indicating how dynamic you were at various parts of the day. This page is the place you can include particular exercises also, for example, skiing, expressive dance, running, baseball—even certain moves like "barbell strolling thrust" and "dumbbell front raise." While I valued the specificity, I longed that I could include basic exercises like "paddling" or "curved" that, for reasons unknown, were excluded in the action library. The band doesn't track ongoing exercise sessions, either, so it shouldn't be considered alongside the Fitbit Charge HR or the Garmin Vivosmart HR.

You can quantify your heart rate whenever straightforwardly from the band; I even did as such amidst a curved exercise. Strangely, however, no heart rate details are recorded in the application—each perusing flashes on the gadget's screen, and afterward it's gone until the end of time.

You can track your eating routine from the application in constrained mold. Sustenance admission is separated into suppers—breakfast, lunch, supper, and nibble—and you can include the same number of nourishments as you need to every feast. Contingent upon the sustenance library you pick, your choice of palatable things might be restricted. Somewhere down in the settings page of the application is something many refer to as "Sustenance DataBase," where you can browse a modest bunch of nations. Since InBody is a South Korean organization, a large portion of the decisions are from Asia, yet Australia and New Zealand are spoken to. I stayed with Australia since the United States wasn't an option.Luckily, I discovered nourishments I eat every day, including "Greek yogurt" and "hummus," yet "granola" wasn't in the Australian database. You can in any case include unidentified nourishments and pick the unit of estimation (serving, ounces, teaspoon, and so on.) and the amount of that thing you devoured. It's surely not as instinctive as an application like MyFitnessPal, but rather the Band's sustenance following lets you log the principle parts of every feast.

The last area on the application's landing page tracks rest, showing your aggregate rest time from the prior night alongside a "rest rate," which measures to what extent you were in profound rest. Tapping on that area raises a pie graph separating how well you dozed in various hours of the night. You can then tap on profound, light, or wake to see more insights about what you were doing while in those stages. Like most wrist-bound rest trackers, these estimations seem, by all accounts, to be construct exclusively in light of development, so bring the rest following with a grain of salt.

The little apparatus symbol at the upper right corner of the landing page prompts settings, where you can alter your profile, gadget inclinations, objectives, and cautions. The Band's cautions live under "InBodyBAND Management" and incorporate a stage alert (to motivate you to move when you've been inert for a really long time), an objective alert (for when you cross your action complete line for the day), a "period" alert (a different ready that I utilized as a wake-up caution), and call and content cautions.

These last things make the band vibrate when you get a call or content to your cell phone; they work, however the message cautions were everywhere. In some cases the band would buzz and demonstrate the message symbol on the show when my telephone was sit still; at different circumstances, the band would go off when I got a Facebook caution, however it's just expected to work for SMS messages.

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tech-usa-blog · 7 years

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Corsair Lapdog versus Razer Turret: Which mouse and console wins for lounge chair gaming? Two distinct goes up against a console and mouse for the lounge—and one clear winner.

Making a console and mouse for PC gaming in the family room is hard, simply ask the scandalous Phantom Entertainment. Subsequent to blowing countless dollars attempting and neglecting to discharge a PC-based support, the organization settled on discharging the ergonomic enormity that was the Phantom Lapboard. From that point forward, few organizations have taken the test. Without a doubt, Valve had a cut at it with its Steam Controller, and keeping in mind that that capacities as a decent substitute for a console and mouse in specific amusements, it's not exactly the same as tapping endlessly on some WASD keys.Fortunately, because of the light PC gaming scene, there's been a recharged enthusiasm for building up a console and mouse that function admirably on a lounge chair. Also, as somebody who fabricated a gaming PC particularly to use in the family room just to fall back on utilizing a Xbox controller, I was especially quick to attempt some new offerings out. Enter the Corsair Lapdog "gaming control focus" and Razer Turret (purchase here), two altogether different goes up against a console and mouse for the lounge.The Lapdog (purchase here) is the "no bargains" arrangement unashamedly went for the in-your-face PC gamer that will acknowledge nothing not as much as a full-estimate mechanical console and laser mouse. In any case, notwithstanding what Corsair says, there are undoubtedly bargains.

With respect to the Turret... indeed, we should simply say that it's a significantly more practical go up against how to bring a console and mouse into the lounge, joining a minimal remote plan with a slick charging dock and a crease out mouse surface.

Both are expensive: the Lapdog costs £110/$160 while the Turret goes for £149/$160. The question is, which is better?

Unleashing the Lapdog

You don't get a ton for your cash with the Lapdog. Inside a curiously large box is simply the Lapdog, which measures a forcing 735mm wide and 261mm profound, measures a robust 2.6kg, and is worked out of a mix of aluminum and stout plastic. Suffice it to state, hiding this thing discretely in a family room is its own particular test. Beside a couple links and a separable adaptable foam underside (which is hung on by solid magnets), there's little else to the Lapdog. It's what might as well be called an extensive board of wood, onto which you need to include your own particular console and mouse.That would be OK, even with the precarious £110 forthright cost, on the off chance that you could utilize any console you like—yet you can't. Similarity is restricted to Corsair's own K70 or K65 mechanical consoles. You're level up the creek without a paddle on the off chance that you possess one of Corsair's Strafe consoles, in light of the fact that those don't fit either. There's likewise the entire matter of assembling the thing. Oddly enough, fitting a console inside the Lapdog requires sinking it. There's no sharp cutting component, no speedy discharge lock, no nothing. Whatever console you yield to the Lapdog will be stuck in there for some time.

What's more terrible is exactly how fiddly the entire procedure is in the first place. You need to fix an arrangement of screws with an Allen key to evacuate the aluminum best plate, slide the console in, string the USB link through the depression, secure the link utilizing the included link ties and circles, connect the USB header to the inside switch-box, and after that screw the entire thing back together. It's a comparative procedure for the mouse, in addition to you can in any event utilize any model you like. For the mouse, you need to unscrew the 28mm² mouse surface, connect it to the interior switch-box, and string the link through a little opening. Tragically, forget about it in case you're left-given: the mouse surface can't be changed to one side of the console.

A common Lapdog setup with a Corsair console and mouse will run you upwards of £230 (~$300+). Ouch.

The genuine kicker, however, is that the Lapdog is wired. Yes, once you've slapped the entire thing together, you then need to run a USB link and a power link (on the off chance that you need to utilize the inherent USB center) to your PC and an extra attachment. Without a doubt, being wired evacuates any of the slack (however little nowadays) or impedance related with a remote setup, yet regarding reasonable family room utilization it's strange—and let's be honest, remote consoles and mice are great nowadays. For the sort of gaming that goes ahead in the lounge room (i.e. not prone to be reflex-substantial e-sports), what little slack they do present is negligible.In utilize, this is not incredible. The adaptable foam base relieves the Lapdog's weight when it's on your lap, and having the capacity to tap away on mechanical keys is pleasant. Yet, that is about to the extent comforts go. The sheer size of the Lapdog makes it dreadfully cumbersome to utilize, and it can see-saw around as you attempt to figure out how to adjust it appropriately over your legs. Your arms feel incredibly far separated as they attempt to traverse its larger than usual width. The edges of the aluminum are sharp as well, and without a wrist wrest it's not some time before they're cutting into your palm and wrist.

Unless you arrange it splendidly the first run through, the mouse link either feels too short or too long, pulling at your hand or hindering your developments. Also, be cautious in case you're an especially abundant mouse client: the lifted aluminum best board is very simple to bash into by misstep.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly beyond any doubt what Corsair was deduction with the Lapdog. Of course, it does give you a chance to utilize a full-measure console and mouse on your lap in the lounge, yet was that ever truly a smart thought? I've generally been awed by Corsair items, especially its PC cases and those things' numerous astute components. Be that as it may, this... this is an outline calamity. I don't know what the people at Corsair were smoking when they thought of this thing, yet damn.

Yahoo for the Turret!

Gratefully, the Razer Turret tolls extensively better. Its £149/$160 RRP gets you a remote console and mouse, which utilize either the included 2.4GHz dongle or Bluetooth. Those availability choices are effectively changed by flicking a little switch in favor of the console or the underside of the mouse. The console is a thin issue that backings up to 10 synchronous key presses, with tablet style chicklet keys that have great travel and a comparative vibe to Apple's portable PC and desktop consoles. Chicklet keys don't have an indistinguishable material reaction from stout mechanical keys, however the exchange off is estimate: the console is a reasonable 510mm in width when completely augmented. At 120mm profound and a minor 12mm thick, it weighs only 700g. Completely augmented? Yes, the Turret's console highlights a smooth overlap out mouse surface for its agreeable, assuming little, Orochi-molded mouse. The mouse includes a 3,500DPI laser sensor and also a replaceable, chargeable battery that is useful for around 40 hours of utilization between charges. The mouse is marginally polarized as well, which assists with resistance without requiring a bundle of weights. It's an incredible touch. Both space into a charging dock (included) when not being used, which is an awesome method for keeping the entire setup perfect and clean. The entire thing looks so great that as opposed to hide the Turret, you may really need to have it out in plain view.

Furthermore, truly it's as simple as that the Turret. It's a basic setup, and as it should be; the exact opposite thing you need when playing an amusement is to tinker with peripherals. The Turret is anything but difficult to get and play, and it interfaces rapidly to a PC even from standby. The elastic sponsorship keeps it solidly planted on your lap. Its diminished width makes it much more agreeable than the Lapdog, and I'd bet that even the most diehard of mechanical console fans would battle to support the awkward Corsair over the more deft Turret. Its diminished thickness implies the Turret sits a little lower, which may not work for a few, but rather that is effectively amended by staying it on a pad. (In the event that you're front room is anything like mine, there's an excess of those coasting around.)

Saying this doesn't imply that the Turret is great. The mouse feels somewhat deficient contrasted with its console, and it's unquestionably not up to the assemble nature of Razer's desktop mice. Contrasted with say, Logitech's K400 with its implicit trackpad, the Turret doesn't rush to get and utilize either to load up media or exploring YouTube. Left-gave people are again disregarded on account of the mouse surface being non-removable—in spite of the mouse itself being able to use both hands—and the absence of backdrop illumination for late-night gaming or motion picture viewing is shameless given the sticker price. Gracious, and in case you're a stickler for the UK console design, with its sensibly-sized enter key, tragically just a US format is available.Still, the Turret is about as close as anybody must making a console and mouse work in the front room. It's a smooth, very much planned item that, while costly, is obviously better than the opposition. Regardless will need to keep a controller around for most amusements, yet in the event that you favor an impact on CS:GO without getting totally possessed, or you simply need to kick back and play some Civ V on the love seat (an extraordinary, if conceivably life-crushing prospect) the Turret is the gadget to go for.

Sorry Corsair, however this one is no challenge. I know precisely what will use in my parlor, and it isn't the Lapdog (which, to be perfectly honest, is loathsome). Razer has made the parlor set-up I've been sitting tight for, and it's one I can completely prescribe. Simply stick a backdrop illumination in it next time, OK chaps?

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