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ring-a-ding-dumbass · 3 years

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Companions as Hallmark Christmas Movie Love Interests

Happy Holidays!! I’ve been watching a LOT of bad Christmas Movies, so here are the companions as Hallmark movie love interests! (I’ve left out Codsworth, Dogmeat, Strong, and DLC companions.) [disclaimer: I know most jobs listed in these do not work in the way that I will imply, but that’s pretty standard for these kinds of films, so I’m rolling with it. Also, most of these are based off of SOME movie I’ve seen this Christmas, so obviously it’s not going to be super original. They’re Hallmark movies; they’re not supposed to be ‘good.’]

Note: I’d love to expand these into a fic, but I really don’t have the free time right now. If anyone is interested in taking one of these ideas and running with it, please do!! Just tag me when you’re done so I can read it!!

Cait- Cait owns a bar and she has a strict “No Christmas” policy. No Christmas music. No singing Christmas carols. No decorations. She hates the holidays because she thinks that all of the happiness and love that they inspire is a bunch of BS. She say’s it’s all fake for the sake of Christmas cards and holiday specials. One day, you’re the last patrion in her bar, and Cait slips on some ice while she’s locking up. You take her to the hospital and she has *gasp* AMNESIA. You let Cait stay with you because you can’t find any friends or family of hers, and the hospital can’t keep her. To your surprise, this Cait actually seems to like Christmas. She treats everything like she’s learning about it for the very first time. She’s not all soft and lovey-dovey, sure, but she doesn’t mind the peppermint bark and ice skating and snowball fights and eggnog. As she begins to get her memory back, she gets colder, and she opens up to you that the reason she hates Christmas is because Christmas never meant anything to her as a child. Her parents were mean to her 24/7, and that didn’t stop around the holidays, which is why Cait was always so certain that Christmas cheer was a hoax. Cait regains her full memories, but because of your re-introduction to the holiday, she doesn’t mind it as much anymore. She’s no santa claus, but she does stock up on peppermint vodka and candy canes for the bar, and wears a mistletoe headband during December, which you always manage to take advantage of.

Curie- Curie is the owner of a flower shop in North Pole, Alaska. Every year, more people move out of town, and Curie has to try to sell more items during Christmas, which is her most profitable season. You’re a character actor who works as an elf for a mall santa agency, and this year, you’re sent to the Fairbanks/North Pole region. One day, you go to see the sights in North Pole and meet Curie while she’s working in her shop. She’s running around like a chicken with her head cut off. You ask if she’s busy, and she mentions that she just lost her only employee to the local Build-a-Bear. She charms you, and you apply on the spot. After she hires you, you realize that there’s a well dressed real estate executive that comes in at least once a week to hit on Curie. She explains that he’s been offering to help her business in exchange for a date, but she won’t do it. As you and Curie ready up for the Holidays, you realize that you’re really compatible. You have fights with the fake snow used for window displays, you help organize flowers in the walk in freezer together and bring hot chocolate in when it gets too cold, and you start sneaking kisses to one another when you have to retrieve an order from the back. One day, the business man comes in and tells you that he’s buying the land that your shop is built on unless you can afford to pay an astronomical hike in rent. Curie begins to worry that she’ll have to sell her shop, but you promise her that it won’t happen. Together, you come up with the idea to sell Christmas packages online, so families who live far away from each other can send a little piece of christmas to other family members for the holidays. The idea takes off. Not only are you able to sustain the hike in rent, but you’re able to pay for your own land to move the shop, so Curie will never have to worry about rent again. You never go back to the mall santa place, and you run your shop with Curie for years, making a comfortable living in a cozy town.

Danse- Oh, Paladin Danse-- He’s the son of the president, and one of the best generals in the country, and he’s getting married. You are the baker for his wedding. One day, when you’re trying to haul a prototype cake to the other end of the capitol building to put on display to show Danse and his future spouse, you turn a corner and run into Danse, covering the both of you in cake. You don’t recognize him, and he doesn’t introduce himself, but offers to help you in any way he can to rebuild the cake. He insists on helping, so you let him, which sparks a friendship between you. Once the cake is ready, you bring it back upstairs, to find Danse and his spouse ready to look at the cake. Danse and you start speaking when you run into each other in the halls, and one day, he asks you on a walk around the grounds, where he confesses to you that he doesn’t personally feel attracted to his spouse, but it must be done for the good of the country. Just before his wedding, you confess your feelings and Danse runs off. The wedding comes to a halt and nobody knows why until Danse shows up to tell his future spouse that he can’t go through with this because he is in love with someone else. He approaches you as you’re cleaning up the confectionary table and tells you that he has to be true to himself, and that means being true to you.

Deacon- You’re a server working at a diner in a moderately large town. Deacon comes in one day and introduces himself as the new hire. You train him, and he’s kind of terrible, but he makes you laugh. You slip him your number after a week or so of light flirting and banter, but he turns you down. You leave to let Deacon close, but realize that you left your phone at the diner in an embarrassed hurry. You head back to the restaurant and find Deacon snooping through the boss’s files! After you catch him, he confesses that he’s an undercover spy, sent to keep an eye on your boss, who is suspected of using the diner to launder money. Now that you know, Deacon brings you on as his partner, and swears you to secrecy. You two go on a cute stakeout, have researching sessions together, and slowly fall in love over the course of December. At the end of the month, you come in for a shift to see your boss being arrested, and Deacon isn’t there. It isn’t until Christmas eve that you get a knock on your door. Deacon is there with takeout. He explains that his boss decided to go in without asking him, and they forced him back to the office, barring any outside contact until he could provide a full report. He confesses that he has fallen in love with you, but has also lost his job because of it, because he confessed to breaking cover. You reunite with a warm kiss and warm takeout, and, now that you’re both jobless, you start a P.I. agency together.

Hancock- Oh. Oh. Oh. BAD BOY CELEBRITY gets in trouble with his publicist over general bad-boy-scandalous behavior. YOU are a choir director for a low income rec center in a small town and you are putting on a Christmas Pageant. You don’t have the funds, but eventually the publicist finds out about your little operation, and she is ALL over it. She brings Hancock in to work with the kids and she brings an entire media team with him. He’s arrogant at first, and doesn’t even remember your name for the first few days, but you notice a change in him as you begin to work together. As skeptical as you are, Hancock really connects with the kids, and really seems to care about the Christmas Pageant. While you’re there, the kids start teasing you two, and implying that you have crushes on each other. In the end, The publicist scores him a comeback story and interview on a national morning talk show, but it would mean missing the pageant. While it seems like he’s chosen to go to the talk show, he changes his mind and arrives just before the pageant with flowers to apologize. After you accept his apology, the kids push you two under some construction paper and white puffball mistletoe.

MacCready- RJ is a single father who is still getting over the death of his wife. He has yet to move on in part due to his son’s illness. You are an heiress to a rather large fortune, but you’re told that you have a year to get a job and learn about good old fashioned hard work before you’re allowed to have access to the fortune. You start out with no discernible skills, so you become a babysitter for RJ. He goes to work in the evening as a security guard and you take care of Duncan at home. Duncan confesses to you that things haven’t been the same since his mother died. One night, you decide to ask Duncan what he wants for Christmas, and he tells you that he told the Santa Claus at the mall that he wants his dad to be okay. One night, RJ comes home and confesses that with the holidays coming up, he doesn’t know if he can afford to keep paying you to watch him every night, to which you reply that you’d gladly work for half salary. One night, you two stay up until Duncan has to get up for school, just talking about your lives. MacCready starts inviting you on outings with him and Duncan. One day, after RJ loses his job and can no longer to afford medicine for Duncan, you confess to him that you’ve been rich the entire time, and that you can pay for it yourself. MacCready accuses you of lying to him this entire time about who you are, and he asks if he can ever trust you again. You tell him that omitting to your fortune was a lie, but your feelings for him never were. You two make up, move into a house together, and Duncan thanks you for granting him his wish.

Nick Valentine- Did someone say GHOST ROMANCE? Yes, I did. You inherit a small farmhouse from an old relative that you haven’t seen in years. You go to get a good look at to see if it’s even salvageable, and you find that not only is it relatively well kept, but things move when you’re not looking. You spend the night and are woken up in the middle of the night by someone rummaging around in the attic. You find Nick, and you threaten to call the police. He’s polite, and promises it’s not what it looks like, but tells you not to call the police. When you do, they show up to find nothing in your house. Once they leave, you turn back, and Nick is in your house again. He explains that he’s a ghost, and for some reason, he can only be seen by the deed holder of the house, which is why your relative hasn’t been to the house in years. Nick explains that he died in this house a few decades ago, but he doesn’t know how it happened. Determined to figure it out in hopes that it can help him pass on, he was looking in the attic to see if it might have any proof of how he died and if foul play was involved. Over the course of your investigations, you two become good friends, and as much as you want it to be more, you tell yourself that it could never happen. Together, you slowly piece together that Nick was murdered just before proposing to the daughter of someone who used to own the house. As you and Nick celebrate this information, you realize that Nick hasn’t passed on. Nick explains that ghosts can’t pass on until they feel they have nothing to leave behind. He explains that he has grown attached to you, and doesn’t want to leave you behind. You move into the Farmhouse with Nick where you two live until your spirits can both pass on together.

Piper- Piper is a journalist who has been tasked with writing a weekly features column about Christmas, but she has found herself disillusioned with the holidays. She thought she’d be getting a Christmas bonus that she could use to buy Nat something special, but there was never a bonus, and money is really really tight. You’re quite literally the child of Santa Claus who has been sent out into the world to be with the people and really learn what the true meaning of Christmas is before you start your apprenticeship with your father to be the next in line. You meet Piper at charity event where you’re gathering toys to send to low income communities. After Piper interviews you, you start asking her questions, and upon seeing that the cold world has turned such a warm heart into a Christmas cynic, you decide to give her the Christmas of a lifetime. I’m talking ice skating, light shows, snow on christmas, and Nat getting a few extra presents. On Christmas eve, you’re called back to the North Pole. Your dad wants you to start your apprenticeship with him on Christmas by seeing how it’s done. You tell him that you can’t, because you have your own duties this Christmas, and he’s proud of you for that. You tell Piper about your dad, and she doesn’t believe you at first, but after bringing her and Nat to the North Pole to see it all happen, she apologizes for not believing you. You kiss, and agree to split time between the North Pole and Piper’s hometown, because you would never make her give up what she loves.

Preston- You grew up in a small town, but moved to the city to get a job at an ad agency. Around the holidays, your agency notes that they’re looking for something more down-to-earth and rustic for their new ‘winter campaign,’ so they send you to your hometown for Christmas. They’re expecting a campaign plan by new years, but while you’re trying to do your job, you find Preston, selling Christmas trees at the local Christmas tree farm and greenhouse. He teaches you to slow down, and to appreciate a christmas built on family, camaraderie, and love. You use your ad/social media experience to save his dying christmas tree farm. At the end of the year, you decide to quit your job and stay with Preston, who brings you on as a partner in the business and in life.

X6-88- X6 is a loan company executive who has been sent to audit the inn that you have been taking care of since your spouse passed away years ago. He’s quite serious and no-nonsense, which clashes with the capacity for compassion that you clearly possess. He thinks such traits are inefficient and pointless. Despite that, you include him in all of the Christmas dinners and events that you have planned, even if he’s not enthused about them. Through the Christmastime events that you plan for the inn throughout the Christmas season, X6 realizes that you’re not just all heart and no head. You have great ideas, and you’re inclusive of him even when he’s pessimistic. He uses his own knowledge of your loan plan to outsmart his own company and save your inn for the time being. He decides to leave his job in the city to live with you at the inn so he can handle the business and finances.

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felipeandletizia · 3 years

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December 24, 2020: King Felipe’s Christmas Message.

Good night. I come to you this Christmas Eve when we are experiencing truly exceptional circumstances due to the pandemic.

Many families have not been able to meet tonight as you had thought due to health measures; and in thousands of homes there is a void that is impossible to fill due to the death of your loved ones, whom I now want to remember with emotion and with all respect. A memory that fills our hearts with very deep feelings. And also, at this time, many citizens fight against the disease or its consequences at home, in hospitals or in nursing homes. Today I send you all my greatest encouragement and affection.

2020 has been a very tough and difficult year. The virus has entered our lives bringing suffering, sadness or fear; it has altered the way we live and work, and has seriously affected our economy, even paralyzing or destroying many businesses.

Many citizens and families live the anguish of unemployment or precariousness; the anguish of barely meeting basic needs; Or do you feel the sadness of having to abandon a business to which you have dedicated your life. For all this it is logical and understandable that discouragement or distrust are very present in so many homes.

And yet, the response to a crisis as serious as the one we are experiencing cannot come from the hand of more discouragement or more distrust. The situation is dire. But even so, we have to face the future with determination and confidence in ourselves, in what we are capable of doing together, with courage and hope; with confidence in our country and in our model of democratic coexistence.

We have reasons for this; because over the last decades, faced with serious difficulties, we have always been able to overcome them. And this situation that we are experiencing is not going to be different from the others; because neither the virus nor the economic crisis are going to break us.

Regarding the health situation, it is clear that overcoming this disease will come thanks to science and research. The new treatments against the virus and the development of vaccines that are underway already offer us great hope. But in the meantime, we have a lot to do.

Individual responsibility remains essential and is an effective instrument in the fight against the virus. That is why it is so important to stay alert and not lower our guard.

We once again thank the health workers for their enormous effort, their extraordinary professionalism and their great humanity with the ill. They faced the first attacks of the virus in extreme situations and also overflow in some of our hospitals. Today they continue to face this fight with a great emotional and physical burden on their shoulders. We ask you to maintain all your courage and strength and continue to take care of our health.

The other big problem and challenge is the economic crisis and avoid, above all, that it leads to a social crisis. Each person matters a lot. Therefore, individuals and families must be our primary concern. Especially our young people; their unemployment level is extremely high, and they cannot be the losers in this situation. Our youth deserve to have the most appropriate training, to grow personally and professionally, and to be able to carry out their projects. Spain cannot afford a lost generation.

Protecting the most vulnerable and fighting the inequalities that the pandemic has created or exacerbated is a matter of dignity among those of us who form the same political community. But it will also be essential to recover our economy.

And for this, it is decisive to strengthen the business and productive, industrial and service fabric. The recognition and support of our companies, the protection of our freelancers and merchants, so hit these months, will be essential to create jobs, that job that our country so badly needs. We therefore need to consolidate the foundations that give us a clear horizon of economic momentum, stability and confidence, which encourages investment and the creation of jobs.

The health, economic and social challenges we face are therefore great… enormous, but not insurmountable. Overcoming them constitutes a great national objective that must unite us all; that, as citizens, commits and obligates us all; with ourselves, with others and with our country.

And this requires a great collective effort, a great effort in which each one continues to give the best of themselves according to their responsibilities and to the extent of their abilities.

For this great national effort, we have in the first place what is most important: people; with the example of thousands of citizens who have put their work at the service of others, who have lived these last months with selflessness, commitment and great generosity. People who stimulate our spirit of improvement and of whom we should be justly proud.

All of this has been personally verified by the Queen and I during this time. In the field and in the sea; in towns and cities; in the markets, in the factories we have seen the courage and the nerve of this country. We have felt the pulse of our society which, despite everything, has kept Spain on its feet.

We both have in our memory the living image of those thousands of citizens who represent a society that has felt more united than ever in its struggle and resistance against such an adverse situation; a society that has effective and supportive organizations so that no one feels alone or helpless; a society that has endured these hard months with integrity, responsibility and serenity.

We therefore have a strong society and also a solid state. During all this time, both public and basic services, as well as companies in essential sectors have worked well, trying to put all the means at their disposal. The pandemic has revealed to us aspects that need to be improved and reinforced, but it also shows us our strengths as an advanced State. We have verified this, for example, with the efficiency and dedication of our Armed Forces, our Security Forces, Civil Protection and Emergency services, and many other public servants, who have demonstrated their dedication to service and their full harmony with our society.

And Europe is also very important to face this crisis. We have the European Union, which has made a firm commitment to sustainability and economic recovery in the face of this pandemic. The Union offers us a historic opportunity to progress and advance; opens a new era for Spain to join in a common project to modernize our economy; adapt our production structures to the new industrial, technological and environmental revolution that we are experiencing. And establish with ambition and cohesion our collective role as members of the EU before the world.

And above all we count on our system of democratic coexistence. At a time when the pandemic and its economic and social consequences cause so much uncertainty, our Constitution guarantees us our way of understanding life, our vision of society and of the human being; of their dignity, of their rights and freedoms. A Constitution that we all have a duty to respect; and that in our days, it is the foundation of our social and political coexistence; and that represents, in our history, a success of and for democracy and freedom.

Let us not forget that the advances and progress achieved in democracy are the result of the reunion and the pact between the Spaniards after a long period of confrontations and divisions. They are the result of wanting to look to the future together, united in democratic values; united in an always inclusive spirit, in respect for plurality and differences, and in the ability to dialogue and reach agreements. They are principles that never lose their validity over the years.

And together with our democratic principles and compliance with the laws, we also need to preserve the ethical values that are at the roots of our society.

Already in 2014, in my Proclamation before the General Courts, I referred to the moral and ethical principles that citizens claim from our conduct. Some principles that oblige us all without exceptions; and that they are above any consideration, of whatever nature, even personal or family ones.

This is how I have always understood it, in coherence with my convictions, with the way I understand my responsibilities as Head of State and with the renewing spirit that inspires my Reign from day one.

I have always thought that Spain is an extraordinary country, of enormous wealth and cultural diversity, built over the centuries thanks to the efforts of many generations of Spaniards, and with a great history that has been, for a time, history itself of our world.

We are not a people who give up or resign themselves in bad times. It will not be easy to overcome this situation, and in each house you know it well. But I am sure that we will succeed. With effort, union and solidarity, Spain will move forward. With everyone and for everyone. And, as King, I will be with everyone and for everyone, not only because it is my duty and my conviction, but also because it is my commitment to all of you, to Spain.

It will not be difficult for the year 2021 to improve to this 2020. We are going to regain normality as much as possible in the workplace, in the classrooms, in the squares and in the neighborhoods; in shops, in markets, in bars; in cinemas, in theaters ...; in everyday life that shapes the character of a society like ours.

It's what we all want. And in the assurance that this will be the case, the Queen, the Princess of Asturias, the Infanta Sofía and I sincerely thank you for all the expressions of affection and support that you have transmitted to us this year, and we wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for an especially hopeful 2021.

Eguberri on. Bon Nadal and Boas festas.

#King Felipe #King Felipe of Spain #King Felipe VI #King Felipe VI of Spain #Official Event #Christmas Message #December 2020 #20201224

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stusbunker · 5 years

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Later the Truth Breaks

For Better or Worst: Chapter Six

Featuring: Sam Winchester x Emery Simmons-Winchester OFC

Other Characters: Castiel, Dumah, mentions of Naomi, OC Bandit (their dog)

Season 14 AU

Word Count: 2263

Summary: Mangled magic, dissecting illusions

Special shout out to MJ @thoughtslikeaminefield for beta reading this installment for me.

Series Masterlist

^*^*^

“What the hell?!” Sam snapped, spinning in the driver’s seat to face this, this stalker.

“Calm down. I just want to talk,” Castiel replied brusquely.

“Yeah, well, ever heard of the phone? Or a damn email? Who even are you?!” Sam held up his hands waiting for answers.

“My name is Castiel, and I’m your friend, Sam. You and your brother, Dean, tend to call me Cas, for short. It’s sort of a nickname,” he over-explained.

“I know what a nickname is,” Sam pinched his eyes, the headache had returned full force. Though he felt stable, not close to blacking out again. Not yet at least. “But what I don’t know is how you know me or that I had a brother named Dean.”

“Had? What do you mean had, Sam?” Cas’s jaw jutted out, sitting up to hear what this version of Sam could be talking about.

“Had. As in past tense, Dean died of a heart condition like twelve, thirteen years ago.” Sam watched the weird man process the information. “Why? Does it matter?”

“The spell is more complicated than I imagined, they not only hoodwinked you into being in love with that woman--- they completely rewrote your past,” Castiel peered into Sam’s eyes with the intensity of a microsurgeon.

“Whoa, buddy. Easy there. That woman is my wife, and she’s amazing.” Sam tried to get the man to relax, to realize how insane he sounded. “You okay? You need a ride somewhere? A doctor maybe?”

“No, I am not ill,” Cas answered unironically. “Though, you seem to be quite muddled.”

“Yeah, well, you caught me off guard. Excuse me for being pissed about it,” Sam snapped before locking onto this Castiel’s gaze once more, seeing him completely and with startling familiarity. “How do we know each other? What am I missing here?”

^*^*^

She probably should have eaten something or sipped rather than chugged the wine. Emery was flushed with more than the jets from the tub. Slowly she was able to let the day’s disappointments sink to the back of her mind and just be. No super professor mode, no chipper neighbor filter, no patient and dutiful wife efforts, she was just her. Which wasn’t something she got to do very often, in this life or the life she left behind. When Emery wasn’t working or being for someone else, it got very loud in her head. But tonight, though the thoughts were there, she decided to just push them back, to let them hold her up instead of weighing her down. Emery decided to float above the worries in the fuzzy heat of a drunken bath.

This was ridiculous. There she lay, in a huge tub in a huge house in an overpriced neighborhood. She started to laugh at herself, at Sam, even at Bandit, wherever he had gotten to. She was a freakin’ professor at an amazing school. This was the dream. A dream she got out of nightmares. She didn’t deserve this place, she didn’t need it, it was too much. Suddenly she started to cry, tears leaked down her face, which only made her laugh harder. The absurdity of it all.

Emery inhaled and sank beneath the few remaining bubbles, hovering in stasis until her lungs brought her surfacing. She exhaled. Letting her bangs fall as they may, she hid beneath the mask of heavy, wet reality. Gravity won in the end, and she crawled from the drained tub and burrowed into Sam’s oversized robe. It wasn’t overly soft like hers, though it was thick and comforting, but mostly it smelled like his aftershave. She started working the conditioner into her hair, twisting and pinning it for the night. She was half-assing it and she didn’t care. She swayed absently on the balls of her feet to a playlist as she finished putting her hair up. There, close enough; she had her scarf secured before she scampered downstairs, robe hem dragging behind her like a train.

The haunting blue of the clock above the range glared at her, shuffling into her relaxation like an unsignaled merger. What was keeping Sam?

^*^*^

“Is there somewhere we can talk? I don’t think this is the best place to do this,” Castiel suggested. Sam couldn’t help but agree, a public place would be safer. And much less creepy, as long as the guy didn’t slit his throat the second, he faced forward. Unconsciously, Sam started driving to the bar Cady had suggested, but stopped before the final turn.

He cleared his throat. “You hungry? Emery was going to bring home dinner, but I can just get a drink—if you want.”

“I don’t eat,” Castiel explained.

“Of course, you don’t,” Sam grumbled, pulling into the parking lot beside the chain bar and grill. Appetizers and a stiff drink sounded like manna from heaven at this point in his day. Sam didn’t know why he was hearing Castiel out, but he somehow knew to trust him. To listen, to wait until all the information was explained before deciding on his sanity. Call it instinct or something deeper, Sam wanted him to feel heard.

Once they were settled, drinks in hand, Sam decided to press back. “So, why don’t you eat?”

“This is just a vessel, my grace sustains me and this form,” Cas replied leadingly.

“Your grace?” Sam’s brow furrowed and a smirk played on his lips, despite the constant tension in his jaw.

“I’m an angel, Sam. Much like Naomi, the one who put you in this situation. And apparently buried your memories. Of me. Of Dean and what brought you to this town, away from your family and your calling,” Castiel prodded back, looking for any blip in Sam’s eyes, any wavering, any weakness.

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “My family? I don’t have anyone, man. All I have is Emery and Bandit, and that’s more than I could ask for,” Sam explained. “My mom died when I was a baby, Dean when I was in college and Dad right after that. Why do you think you know anything about my family?!”

Castiel sighed. “I really am an angel, you know. I’m not saying these things to upset you, Sam. I am saying them to see where it started and try and pull back the curtain, as one would say. To reveal what they’ve been hiding from you. I need to search your thoughts and it would be much faster if I could just see what was there.”

“What? Dude. That’s just—” Sam froze, Castiel didn’t wait for an opening, he simply placed two fingers on Sam’s forehead. Suddenly the pain from looking at the self-proclaimed angel started to wane, as their surroundings became overwhelming. The sounds of the patrons and the smells of the food and the beer spattered floor grew too much. Sam hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes, but just as he was about to be sick, Castiel’s fingers spread wider and a deep penetrating chill fell down his back. The nausea disappeared as quickly as Sam opened his eyes.

Perhaps there was something in his drink or maybe he was more exhausted than he thought, but in truth, inevitability had started to creep through the wall of reason and spell work inside Sam Winchester’s mind.

^*^*^

It was fine. There were no problems. He was just going to be late. It was only an hour passed the latest he could have possibly been at work. Things came up. It being his birthday, shouldn’t cause her any more alarm or distress. They were going to be alright. They were safe. Sam would be home soon. Wouldn’t he?

Emery had torn into the bag of caramel corn they’d bought for movie night as she worked through the possibilities in her head. Shoveling handfuls of the tacky sweet kernels into her mouth between checking her phone and looking to Bandit for explanation. The dog, though concerned, had little rebuttal to her teetering train of thought. He did his part by cleaning up after his mama. He was a good boy after all, and she was having a day. She grabbed a fresh bottle from the rack and poured herself another glass. Standing around stewing wasn’t bringing him home any faster and she would not lower herself to be the nagging wife. He was just late.

They had left off in the middle of a season of the latest edgy, politically charged amalgamation of horror and drama on the easily affordable default streaming service. She didn’t want to have to re-watch it when he finally arrived. Which was why, Emery flipped, blazing through the slew of options, from trending to suggested, nothing seemed to hit her fancy. When ‘Touched By An Angel’ appeared from the recesses of heartwarming and nostalgia she dropped the remote and finished her latest glass, tongue worrying over the latest crumb wedged in the back of her gum. She didn’t even want to think that they could be involved.

^*^*^

Three months before

Dumah had her doubts about the whole thing. Naomi using Michael to fuel Heaven and keep the Winchesters apart and isolated, in attempts to keep them from them finding out. It was a knee jerk solution to a problem that was bigger than the few remaining angels could handle. So, she watched the newlyweds go about their days. Invisible, but ever present from their walks to their jobs and home again. She saw how miserable Sam was. How frustrated and untrusting he was of her kind. She also saw Emery, doing everything she could right. It was like the spark that had held them over from their vows never left her. That small dose of true love from the cupids had nestled inside the woman and held firm. Her faith and her determination only fueling the bond that had been formed.

Dumah almost felt bad for her, but she had a stake in the deal too. She had an endgame, or at least a shiny carrot on the end of her stick just as Sam did. Perhaps her naivety helped the disguise, or maybe her need was that much greater than Sam’s. Either way, the angel knew that Emery wasn’t backing down. If this ruse was going to fall apart and leave Heaven at risk, clearly it wasn’t from the wife’s side of things. No, for this to succeed for as long as possible, Sam Winchester needed to be kept in line.

She wasn’t ever there long; Heaven would have noticed her absences if she lingered. Instead Dumah made a game of the randomness of them: length, location, and target all varied. Occasionally it was just her and the dog, sitting in the winter afternoons. It was on the last week of their first month together that she had started hearing the prayers that Emery had been offering up to the Father that never listened.

‘Make this work. Mold us into what is needed for your good works. Let me be enough.’

In the early morning hours, Dumah entered the den and watched Sam toss and turn. He had continued to refuse his wife’s offers to share their bed again. It was there, in Sam’s dreams, the maladjusted angel started building the bridge in his mind, slowly and carefully. She left, just as secretly as she arrived, but not before leaving something upstairs, an innocuous physical aid to bolster the fledgling marriage before it imploded.

^*^*^

“How did you meet Emery, Sam?” Castiel changed the subject on a dime, causing Sam to gasp as he gathered his bearings.

“Uh, a co-worker introduced us,” Sam nodded, a tired smile barely registering on his face. “What does that have to do with anything? Did you see my thoughts or just shove some serious vertigo at me?”

Cas didn’t flinch. “How long did you date?”

“Not long, why?” Sam signaled the bartender for another drink, before realizing Castiel hadn’t touched his.

“Why did you move here? Isn’t it odd to leave one place and pick up somewhere completely different? Especially between terms.”

“Emery got offered a better position,” Sam shrugged. “Listen, I’m all for playing nice here, but you still haven’t convinced me of anything. How are we somehow being used by angels? I mean, you make them sound like the bad guys.”

Castiel didn’t answer right away, instead he grimaced and thought about how to approach Sam, now that he had no history with him. As if he was a stranger needed convincing for the sake of someone, he thought dead.

“You said Dean died while you were in school. Were you with him when it happened?”

“I was—” Sam broke off as his mind reeled, a broken heaving Dean sprawled out on the floor of a stranger’s house. Blood was everywhere, his clothes and his body beneath them, torn to shreds by some invisible force. He closed his eyes, trying to see the memory he thought he knew. Only to be met by another image of Dean, older than he ever could have been. Heavy with anguish and satisfaction, his handsome face mutilated when he looked into Sam’s eyes. A single phrase surfaced, like a fist working against a thick pane, ‘proud of us’ pummeled repeatedly, until it broke through the barrier in Sam’s mind.

The moment Sam was back, Castiel saw it. In his eyes, the set of his shoulders, the tension in his hands. Sam gasped, and gritted his teeth. “Is Dean gone?”

The need to know flooding past the grief and bewilderment.

“I don’t know,” Castiel answered. “That’s what we’ve got to figure out.”

^*^*^

Read On: Older Bonds and Deeper Ties

#supernatural fanfiction #sam winchester fanfiction #for better or worst series #sam x ofc #sam winchester fanfic #sam fic #sam x emery #simwin

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slasherkisss · 5 years

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Cabin Fever - Jason Voorhees x Reader [Chapter 1]

Summary In an effort to remove yourself from your previous life in the big city, you move to Crystal Lake. The cabin you had inherited from your father makes the perfect place for a fresh start, however, there is a secret in these woods (and within yourself) that you must come to accept...and to love.

A/N My first chapter of a Jason story that’s been weighing heavily on my mind as of late. Also a sort of ‘writing christening’ to this new blog! I’ll hopefully be updating this as I go/in between asks. I hope you all enjoy it! This first chapter is mostly exposition, but, set up is necessary for stories at times don’t you think?

You had visited the cabin up at Crystal Lake with your father every winter for as long as you could remember. Despite it belonging to his employer up until the most recent months, it felt like home. The smell of moss and freshly chopped wood made your senses more at ease than the scent of smog and churning machinery. Most of your days were spent tending to the cabin’s upkeep as well as the maintenance of the garden in its backyard. You feel selfish and, perhaps, a bit egotistical in admitting that you had always known that it would find its way into your possession one way or another.

You feel less remorseful than you should, though, in knowing that it took two deaths for you to be able to receive it.

The first was the original owner of the cabin. Your father’s boss had always been a man of delicate emotional standing. After his wife had fallen ill and decided it better to take control of her own life by driving her car off of a cliff, he had tried his hardest to move on and continue with the job turned duty of living to carry on her memory. It was your father who had originally suspected that the man would not last longer than a year. Grimly, you could only agree with him and wait. When both of you were proven right, you were surprised again to see that the cabin had been left to your father in the other man’s will, calling him a brother amongst employees and thanking him for his support in trying times. That had been the first and only time you had seen your father cry. Tears of emotion like runs of rain etched in canvas lining down his face. The sight had made you cry too.

When your father died you had also expected this, but, that did not make it any less heart wrenching. The blood cancer that had plagued him for the later years of his life caught up to him in one fell swoop, sending him to a hospital where he died not days later. You couldn’t remember crying as hard as you did in the hospital room that night when the doctor’s pronounced him officially dead. You still had his obituary report tucked away in the pages of a sketchbook, taped against a canvas of nightmare doodles and eldritch terrors. The knowledge of his death was painful. You had felt your heart rip in two pieces that night, but, it was also eye opening. To therapists, perhaps, it was eye-opening in the worst kind of ways but you had no interest in sharing your emotions with anyone regardless of if your family thought it was a good idea or not.

Life was limited. You would die and, should you dare love anyone as much as you loved your father, they would die too.

You had no choice but to live with your mother and stepfather after the passing of your father, too poor to afford rent or fuel to drive anywhere too far away, you found yourself trapped in a house that only served to further your isolation into yourself. Though your mother tried to encourage you to go out and see friends, perhaps even a therapist, you never did so. Your stepfather encouraged natural medications and herbs, pumping your body with teas and vitamins he imported from one part of the country or another, but you always hid them away instead of taking them like he told you to.

Fights were more common than not. They would argue you with you, plead with you, to pull your head from the clouds. Your warped ideas of life and death ate away at you like a parasite, disconnecting you from reality. It shone in your job as you talked to customers in a monotone voice and shared no smiles or bouts of stories and laughter as you did when you first started. Your managers called you into the office and gave you multiple warnings, letting it go at first as grief for losing such a close family member so suddenly. Whatever friends you had before the funeral were gone now, pushed to the side in the window of unread messages and missed calls. You had disconnected your phone completely at some point, though, you couldn’t quite remember just when.

There was that too. The fogginess of your memory as every day was spent in a stupor of disconnected, warped, and malfunctioning reality. The world was never the right shade of blues or blacks. Ceiling fans swung too fast. You were afraid they would fly off the hinges and decapitate you. Food became unnatural poison that you never trusted unless you bought the ingredients and cooked it for yourself. Your stepfather’s insistences to take the vitamins he offered you became threats of poison if you did not stay in your room though the words he mouthed and the words in your head never seemed to quite match up. The world of the city you lived in became too fast-paced. Too overwhelming. The noise of airplanes flying overhead or cars in the nearby freeway zooming by gave you anxiety. Your heart ached at the mere idea of stepping food out into a world where there was nothing but noise.

It was when you were searching through old pictures of you and your father that you remembered the cabin. You remembered your technical ownership of it now and, with a joyous leap of hope in your heart, you remembered the quiet and self sustaining style that you and your father lived in every winter.

Saving up for the trip from your bustling city home was manageable enough, but, it was the leaving that was the hardest part. Suitcases in the car and last bag wrapped firmly in your whitening knuckles, you could still register the screaming sobs of your mother as you left the home you all shared.

“Running from your life won’t help you, [Y/N]!”

“You’re only going to get worse if you keep this up!”

“Please come back inside, you’re scaring me!”

“[Y/N]!”

You left without heading her warnings, rage bubbling inside of you of her view of the situation. She saw it as running away from your problems. Fleeing your life to hide like a sick dog and lick your wounds until death. You saw nothing of the sort. This trip, this move, wasn’t an escape attempt. It was a chance to start over. To live far away from where things happened and return to a world where you were happier, where memories were yet to be made, and where you could control your own life and the things you truly wanted.

It was a reset period. A well needed one. A chance to travel back into the memories you had built with your father, to properly mourn him through reconnecting in the one place you felt alive. To be safe in a world where you were in control for once and not the outside forces of cities and parents who did not understand why you were how you were. Once you mourned, then, you would have a world where no one would know or remember you. You could be the you that you wanted to be in a place where no one had any previous knowledge of your behavior.

It was perfect.

A heavy thunk echoed, breaking you from the silent flashback you had momentarily experienced. You turned around, cradling the last box of items you had within the moving van that had brought you out there. The man who had driven the van and helped you unload several of your things into the house before you was staring back at you with a frown bristling against his lips. You chose to ignore it, however, and offer him a smile in return despite the uneasiness he caused within you. “Thank you for the help with the heavier things,” You murmured as politely as you could, “Would you like to come in for a drink before you head out? It’ll be cold out there soon and I’m sure I know which box my kettle is in.”

The joke you attempted did not make him laugh. Instead you watched as he stepped backwards towards his truck, head shaking as he declined your offer.

“No ma’am,” His voice was low as he dared gaze around the rest of the woods warningly, “I don’t want to stay in these woods longer than I have to...they say they’re haunted, you know. A young woman like yourself really shouldn’t be left alone in them...Who knows what could lurk around here.”

You could only laugh, the voice he was using a clear warning. A gentle plead to get you to return to the safety of civilization. A foolish sort of mantra from a tongue that didn’t understand the ways of the forest and, thus, fell on the deaf ears of a woman intent on proving a point. Your fingers gripped tighter on the box, shifting it in your hands to keep the steady hold as your head tilted to the side ever so slightly, skewing his personage horizontally by only the slightest of degrees.

“I’m sure whatever is out here,” You responded with a sharp shutdown of his request, “I can handle it just fine on my own.”

“Well,” He chuckled after a few moments of silence, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, miss.”

“Have a safe drive.”

With those last four words you turned sharply on the heels of your feet, bangs brushing against your forehead while you moved forward. You refused to look back as the sound of the truck roaring to life echoed against your spine. As you felt the rumble in the soil to when it left, dissipating from the area and leaving you, again, in the familiar silence of the autumn woods. You took in a deep breath, smelling the moss and decay that had just begun to overcome the wet lakeside soil.

It smelled like a fresh start.

You hurried inside as the wind picked up, placing the final box in your living room and beginning to unpack the necessities for the night. Luckily, your father’s friend had left it furnished upon his death. The only things you had to bring were small. Utensils and electronics for the kitchen. A few pictures and decorations you could not part without. You had left your television and computer behind, disinterested in keeping in contact with those from your past life. Instead you substitute the boxes they would have taken up with books. Piles of books that would garner their own line of bookshelves both downstairs in the living room and up in your bedside dresser. You would wait to unpack them, just as you would have to wait until spring to purchase any sort of gardening implements and seeds for the backyard. There was a silent thanks that echoed in your mind to the past you for remembering to stock up on canned goods and non perishable foodstuffs, as they seemed to be what you were going to mark your survival upon for the next several months.

The unpacking went on well into the beginning of the sunset, oranges bathing the entirety of the cabin through the thin glass windows as signal for you to cease in your movements. Your own humming and gentle melodies had given you comfort as you unpacked your belongings. As you finally decided to stop for the night, pleased with the progress you had made on the living room decorations, you decided a quick dinner would be a good way to celebrate your move into the home. You placed your tea kettle on the stovetop after filling it up with the sink at its side, preparing a single mug with a fished out bag of your favorite decaffeinated chai tea placed within it to serve yourself after the water had warmed.

While waiting, you stopped out onto the porch of your home, gazing out into the vast wilderness around you. From here the world was peaceful, your heart finding pace with the twittering of the birds as they faded to give rise to the cicadas of the evening. A wind bristled at the porch, blowing past you and causing you to shiver as you watched it take a few reddened leaves with it from the ground. A mental note was made somewhere in your peripheral to rake when you could. Clearing the ground now and keeping it clear would make it easier to plant things in the spring as you wanted.

A motion in the forest caught your eye.

It was a brief shift in the trees. A single change of scenery that had your head snapping upwards and staring out into the distance, eyes as wide as a does as you observed the endless surroundings of brown and orange. Paranoia held itself tight against your stomach as it always did when you had seen something from the corners of your eye. It was not the first time something had flitted there aimlessly nor would it be the last. Your mind conjured up the thoughts of the truck driver who had taken you to the isolated cabin and helped to unpack your stuff. Of the tales he had told you while riding with him and the warning he had uttered before leaving you to your own devices.

I don’t want to stay in these woods longer than I have to...they say they’re haunted, you know.

Another shift and you stared further, squinting to try and see just what was constantly bothering your eyes.

As your mind meandered to the remembrance of the tale of Jason Voorhees, who had drowned years ago in the lake so close to your own backyard, you could have sworn that you saw a figure hiding amongst the trees. He was tall, but small compared to the towering pines around you. The cedars reached to the setting sun as you watched the possible intruder, his face hidden behind a single hockey mask as your eyes met. Or, you could only assume that your eyes had met. He felt...unreal. An apparition amongst branches. Something your mind conjured up in its spare time while you were alone. Your heartbeat in your chest was deafening as you continued to stare outwards, mouth suddenly dry at the possibility of confrontation but curious to where it would lead.

The sound of your tea kettle whistling, high pitched and shrill throughout the household, snapped you from your reverie. Your head tilted back to examine the noise, acknowledging it for a moment before turning your head back to the front of the house. But, if there ever was a figure in the first place, it was gone now. The spot you had held eye contact with for so long as empty now, leaving only you and the trees alone together.

Anxiety faded to unsureness and you shook your head, dismissing it only briefly before returning to your home and shutting the kettle off in the kitchen. It was only a momentary trick of the eye, you convinced yourself over and over again with a mantra that soon fell from between your lips audibly rather than just in your head. No matter the repetition, however, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more than just your mind, plaguing you with paranoia. It was something more, just as this forest was something more.

You sipped your tea and took a breath. Whatever it was, you were sure, that the forest would reveal it to you when it trusted you enough. Until then, you were content to wait.

#jason voorhees #friday the 13th #slasher imagine #slasher imagines #jason voorhees x reader #jason voorhees imagine #cabin fever series

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sirlorde7-blog · 4 years

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The UK is such a mess.

Poverty, homelessness, fewer jobs for un/low-skilled workers, kids starving, old people dying, more kids in care, Brexit, adult social care and the NHS!

Parents struggling financially face many problems, not least of all potentially and unintentionally placing additional stress on children. Kids growing up poor understand that no-one knows where the next meal is coming from, or if the electricity will stay on, or if they’ll get lunch during the summer holidays. Not to mention there is no money for extra-curricular activities, day trips out or even a new football to kick around in order to stay out of trouble. (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/dec/02/growing-up-poor-britains-breadline-kids-review-the-lives-stolen-by-poverty)

Too many children live in temporary accommodation, often sharing one room with siblings and parents. They are expected to focus at school, whilst teachers apply pressure to “perform” like monkeys - sit this test, pass that exam, all so the school can justify itself and draw down funding. Our children are more stressed than ever and we’re raising a generation filled with mental and physical illnesses and conditions that a few decades ago hadn’t even been heard of! “The most recent quarterly statistics recorded 84,740 households in temporary accommodation at the end of March 2019. This represents a 77% increase since December 2010, where the use of temporary accommodation hit its lowest point since 2004″ (https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN02110).

Countless parents struggling with with finance, work, housing, accessing support, healthcare and more, may also be suffering with mental/physical health conditions; and therefore, the whole family suffers. And before anyone gets on my case about people on benefits, most of the 4.1 million children living in poverty have at least one parent working! We've created a whole new 'class' of people in the UK in recent years - the "working poor" (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/04/four-million-british-workers-live-in-poverty-charity-says).

However, companies want their profits and too many large corporations make millions, if not billions every year, whilst desperate people cling to work, hoping their child isn’t sent home sick from school, praying their car makes it on the little bit of fuel they’ve just put in; and plugging away for hours on end without any food because there is nothing in the cupboard to make up a packed-lunch and their kids are receiving free school meals because there’s just no other choice.

There are no council houses, social housing is a joke (waiting lists approx. 7-10yrs) in some local authority areas, and private rents are through the roof. Our NHS is slashing services, and closing clinics and local hospitals, which reduces the provision to those most in need; including mental health teams and adult social care (https://nhsfunding.info/symptoms/10-effects-of-underfunding/cuts-to-frontline-services/).

However, children’s Social Services appear to doing just fine in the sense that they’re busy enough accusing parents of abuse and/or neglect, simply because they’re battling ‘life’ on a daily basis. They’re very quick to remove children from ‘good enough’ parents, fast-track the paperwork to court and apply for removal orders left right and centre; leading to private Fostering and Adoption agencies cashing in! This video highlights just some of the issues with Social Services and the system as a whole: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7TcFWqKja8).

Trying to 'survive' creates stress, which has many wide-reaching physical and mental implications; from hormone imbalance, metabolic disorders and weight gain, to fatigue and eating problems. Many parents do go without so that their kids can eat, yet they still gain weight and lose energy, feeling exhausted every day, simply due to the stress they're under. Choosing between heating and eating creates health issues, with malnutrition identified in the 5th richest nation in the world and the elderly dying of being unable to afford the gas fire (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cold-weather-uk-winter-deaths-europe-polar-vortex-a8224276.html).

The Labour Party, under Jeremy Corbyn, aim to privatise energy, water, rail and the postal service, as well as some other utilities and services; however, they need to go one or two steps further. The NHS offer should extend to in-home care and the running and regulation of care homes (with those who can afford to pay, doing so) and the government should regain control of children’s services, with private fostering and adoption companies being take out of existence (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/revealed-companies-running-inadequate-uk-care-homes-make-113m-profit).

Unless something changes on a national scale, with a new government and new direction, the mental health crisis is only going to get worse, along with other social problems such as excessive drinking and drug-taking (used as a form of escape), increased crime rates and gang membership, and anti-social behaviour (often due to boredom), etc. Parenting hasn’t become worse, people are fighting to survive! Nurses are going to food banks, fire fighters work second jobs; Police recruits are low caliber due to the starting pay offered and standards being lowered during recruitment drives. Teachers are watching kids fall asleep in class because they’re not eating and sleeping properly.

You only need to take a look at some news headlines to realise just how out of control everything is. On top of the national political and socio-economic issues facing the UK, privateers are pressing on with a needless and expensive high-speed rail network - HS2 is now an £88 BILLION pound project! Imagine what could be done with all that money (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/03/hs2-to-be-delayed-by-up-to-five-years). It would certainly solve a few problems.

So whilst business commuters might, eventually, be able to arrive at their destination 30mins earlier than before, the general population is duct-taping their shoes together and sewing holes in socks, just so they can go to work to earn enough to barely keep a roof over their head and food on the table, and the big businesses just keep getting richer (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/dec/03/uk-six-richest-people-control-as-much-wealth-as-poorest-13m-study).

And what about the planet? Are poor people really interested in recycling, sustainable living and providing a nurturing garden habitat to attract wildlife (for those lucky enough to have access to a garden of course)? Some might be, but in the main, people are overworked, underpaid, stressed beyond belief, exhausted and trying not to yell at the kids or argue with their partner because everyone feels the same and is rubbing each other up the wrong way.

The UK desperately needs radical change. Never mind the disaster that is Brexit, the more urgent issue is “survival”. Charities, foodbanks and the like help, but they should even need to exist. There is more than enough money, food and water to go round; it’s simply a case of sharing the wealth.

Controlled procreation should also be on the agenda. Not the systematic theft of children by Social Services, ‘upcycling’ kids to ‘better’ families to reduce the number of underclass and bring down the welfare bill. But the responsible, educated, proactive approach from people choosing to have children. Ideally, a couple would stay together and have up to 2 children, live in a safe, warm and comfortable home, raise them well and encourage them to do the same. However, many are choosing to have 3 or 4 children, and in some countries many more, and the planet is overpopulated. Yes there are issues around adult separation and rape case where the pregnancy isn’t terminated, but this focuses on more general planned parenthood.

Birth control and education must be provided worldwide and the relevant support provided to parents who need help - often, it’s simply a little guidance or support, but instead, in the UK they’re often faced with meetings, court appearances and parenting assessments, as they are accused of not being able to cope. As a human race, there is a responsibility not to over-produce more humans! Earth is running out of resources and the air and water is becoming more polluted. Eventually, people will be hunting each other and fighting over scraps because everything else is gone. Millions will have died off through dehydration or starvation. Medical services won’t be available. Money will not longer be of value - unless of course you can digest it to gain a few dollars worth of energy.

Also, we’re so intent on living longer, curing disease and holding onto pregnancies which otherwise would have self-terminated; yet we’re overrunning the planet with more and more elderly, sick, disabled humans needing to be cared for. We’re creating more problems than we’re solving and we’re not being responsible. We all want to keep loved ones close, but can we afford their care, or do we have somewhere to place them until they finally pass? Of course Cancer is a multi-billion-pound industry and therefore, sick people equals profit for big pharma. China had a one-child policy which created many issues for a long time, however, they reduced their population and increased it to 2 only as recently as 2016 (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2214179-chinas-two-child-policy-linked-to-5-million-extra-babies-in-18-months/).

There is no easy answer. Low-skilled jobs are replaced by self-serve checkouts, Universal Credit has plunged thousands of people into unnecessary debt, the rising cost of living is not reflected in wages, people are living in unsafe properties because they have nowhere else to go and others perish in fires due to inadequate building regulations - 2yrs on from Grenfell and still no changes have been made (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/03/fires-grenfell-towers-combustible-cladding).

The poor simply don’t matter and currently, there are too many of us for the government’s liking, so it’s doing it’s best to kill us off. It’s a Social Cleansing agenda which serves the richest, most powerful in society. Many of us will live on, clinging to work, hoping for a brighter day; all the while putting more money into the off-shore bank accounts of the elite from which they buy their yachts and private jets, champagne, cocaine and pretty boys and girls to play with (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/anneke-lucass-harrowing-tale-of-sex-trafficking-am/).

This world is SICK and getting sicker. We’re hoping for change. We’re hoping for a UK Labour government and for Donald Trump to be removed from the White House - that would be a good start. We’re then hoping to cascade the transformation around the world, to lead by example and have the 1% share the wealth they have accumulated through the enslavement of the general population - starting with paying Tax.

If you truly care about your future and that of your children, take action:

- vote Labour on 12th December 2019.

- vote for a decent POTUS candidate.

- boycott big pharma and big corporations - buy local, reuse, recyle and repurpose. Use repair cafes and similar to swap, make good or otherwise utilise products which already exist instead of buying new.

- help your neighbour - buy in bulk, cook and eat together to reduce costs and waste, plant your own food, eat less meat/become vegan. Cook in bulk and freeze meals for another day.

- responsibility manage household energy consumption and look for solar/wind options.

- carefully plan and be responsible for just one or two children, lessening the load on this planet and your bank balance.

- be happy with what you have - go charity-shop shopping instead of buying new; move things around or swap rooms about instead of redecorating every couple of years. If you cannot sell an unwanted item, give it away, don’t bin it.

- stop going mad at Christmas and reduce down what you buy for Easter, Halloween and other occasions. Wrap your gifts in newspaper or recyclable materials.

- use metal or glass water bottles and refill instead of buying plastic all the time.

- understand the law! You never know when you might be fighting a battle with the powers that be - become your own detective and your own legal team. From employment law to the Children Act 2004, familiarise yourself. Legislation touches EVERY part of our lives, from driving to renting a house, and from buying food to taking out a mobile phone contract. You need to know how to protect yourself every step of the way. The authorities (currently) are NOT on your side, so make sure you’ve got your own back!

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theawkwardterrier · 6 years

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Hand in Hand, Side by Side

Steggy Week, day 3 Prompt: AUs and Crossovers

Summary: ...it was a mark of the gruff affection that he held for Peggy that Phillips didn’t think about the ulcer-inducing process of tracking down a teenaged boy who was willing to be a pairs ice skater and replied only, “I’ll find someone.”

AKA the pairs skating AU no one wanted

AO3 link here.

Steve should never have been recruited. He had doctor’s orders to find some exercise to build his stamina and he saw the way his mom winced when she looked at the prices for membership at the nearest pool so he suggested skating instead. The old rink near their house had cheap rentals, so every week Steve made his way over, trading four crumpled ones in exchange for a pair of scuffed skates far past being broken in. He should have skated the perimeter of the rink for a few months, moving from careful and nervous, barely balancing, to increased confidence even without the lessons he could ill-afford, before the experiment was halted.

Except: Abe Erskine had a cousin in Brighton Beach who wouldn’t stop pushing for him to be allowed to emigrate, and finally, in the last months of the USSR, his visa was stamped and he entered the United States. When they asked his occupation at the airport, some exhausted woman with braids piled on her head who didn’t seem to particularly care about the answer wrote down what he said - “Ice skating coach” - even though “Dissident” was the more recent and accurate job title. He hadn’t been to an Olympics since before Sarajevo, and most people didn’t know him anymore, the name only recalled by the occasional ardent skating fan. But he had been able to scrape together a roster of students, and it was while trying not to wince as a talented but mechanical student named Dottie Underwood took all the love out of a Swan Lake program, that he noticed Steve.

He was attempting a jump, something like a toe loop that he had no business trying and was fumbling through quite badly. But the vivid concentration alight on his face was exactly the same as a young girl Erskine had known from the time she was seven until the time she ascended the highest tier of the Olympic podium, and so, after Dottie had packed up and left precisely on time, Erskine found himself going over to where Steve sat on the bench at the intersection of the shadows of the American and Canadian flags. And as Steve unlaced his skates, Erskine offered the question: “Have you ever thought about being coached?”

Steve laughed through the first inquiries, and Steve’s mother laughed, exhaustedly, through the next. Steve was sickly, untrained, and don’t think she didn’t know how much coaching and competition would cost.

“I promise,” said Erskine, who would be going home to a barely heated apartment and once again filling the spaces in his belly with tea, “that you will never have to pay more than your four dollars a week.”

And Steve, who had blocked out as best he could the joy of a smooth pass around the rink, a new trick invented and mastered, because he knew that it would end, said, “If you can keep that promise, Mr. Erskine, then I’d like to try.”

Sarah Rogers paid her four dollars, and Erskine and Steve worked early morning and darkening evenings, skirting Steve’s school schedule and doctor’s appointments and necessary afternoons off because Bucky needed to see some new movie or because maybe Steve couldn’t breathe too well, but he was fast and that was important on a baseball team.

But over the months, despite the breaks, despite the youth, despite the rundown practice facility and the secondhand skates that Erskine had bought for Steve so at least he’d own a pair, somehow Steve became good. They waited a week, two weeks, a month, after the first time someone other than Erskine or Bucky or Sarah Rogers watched Steve try a spin or a jump and cocked their head in unintentional surprise and couldn’t look away. And then, the winter Steve was eleven, Erskine made a phone call because he’d always known that a solo career wasn’t sustainable if he was going to keep his promise to Sarah Rogers.

He and Chester Phillips didn’t generally bother with pleasantries, a good thing as excitement slid through tired veins.

“Phillips,” he said instead, “if your girl is still looking for a partner, I think I have one.”

Peggy skated for the first time when she was small, sliding minutely along the pond at the back of their property, her hands gripped by her brother. Her mother acquiesced easily to lessons when she asked for them, and less easily to hiring a proper coach for her after Peggy presented a carefully researched file of the best options.

That coach recommended Phillips when the Carters announced that they would be moving to New York. Peggy was technically an American citizen - her mother had joined her father on a business trip and Peggy had been a bit too eager to be born - but the only thing that felt like a homecoming was entering her new rink each day. The smell of feet and sweat and cold, while not pleasant, was the same all around the world.

A year into working with Phillips, he told her that she was good, very good, but she was almost certainly not going to become a professional as a figure skater.

He took in the set of her jaw and held back a smile. He had known she’d get stubborn about it. “Don’t think of it as an insult, think of it as strategy. We need to get you in a smaller pond.”

Her jaw slackened, her shoulders dropped. “Pairs?” she asked, because she picked up quick.

He gave her a bared-tooth grin, blink and miss it, before he said, “Hope you weren’t in the sport for the fans. You’ll have to work up to national skill before you skate to a stadium of more than moms and dads.”

But she ignored this. “Who’s meant to partner me?”

And it was a mark of the gruff affection that he held for Peggy that Phillips didn’t think about the ulcer-inducing process of tracking down a teenaged boy who was willing to be a pairs ice skater and replied only, “I’ll find someone.”

They went through three boys before Abraham Erskine walked into the rink, which felt a bit like tossing away rubies because only diamonds would do. But Daniel was too tentative, dependent on her to lead so that they were always a bit off, and Jack preferred showing off his own skills to working in tandem, and Eddie tried to catch her in the changing room and had to be send away with a broken nose. Finally Phillips introduced his old friend and the old friend introduced his floppy-haired student walking in behind him.

“You think this twig’s good enough to partner my girl?” Phillips boomed.

Peggy watched the new boy; she expected him to wince. Instead he said, voice quiet and sure, speaking from experience rather than bravado, “If I say I can do it, I can do it.” And somehow Peggy found herself believing him.

Steve was used to making do, and he’d known for a while that he’d have to skate pairs if he wanted to compete. It was useless to complain or wish for things to be different, because this was what he had.

Except that it turned out that what he had was pretty wonderful.

Peggy was a better skater than he was, but she wasn’t cruel or snobbish about it. She didn’t pity him, either, just worked hard and dared him to catch up.

“That was good,” she would say when he’d landed a difficult jump or had a successful run-through of a program, her voice appreciative rather than condescending, and it startled a grin out of him every time.

He’d thought he’d be nervous around her, just trying to keep his head down and avoid embarrassing himself in front of this unknown and talented girl with her British accent and her Manhattan apartment. But instead he found that he wanted to be friends with her. They came up with a secret handshake for before and after skating, and found out what each other’s favorite candies were. He introduced her to his mother and Bucky. She trained him in how to recognize a phone number by listening to the buttons’ tones, and he taught her about the best ways to catch popcorn or grapes in your mouth.

Steve had hoped to have a good partner. He had never imagined that he would get Peggy.

They had a cheering squad for when they competed locally: the Carters, Steve’s mother if she wasn’t scheduled to work, Bucky and whichever of the Barnes siblings or cousins were looking to tag along, and eventually Peggy’s friend Angie. When they went abroad for their first attempts at more major competition, Peggy’s mother came, as did the coaches, so the number of people who actually watched them skate into sixth place was more limited.

They went up to Canada for their first Junior Worlds. Steve was glad that it wasn’t any farther: no matter how many times Erskine assured her that girls and their families often paid a male partners’ expenses, his mother was already uncomfortable with the Carters covering skates and costumes, much less intercontinental travel. They scored eighth, and when Steve came home, for the first time since Erskine had first proposed the idea, Sarah Rogers asked him if perhaps it was time to stop dreaming.

She recognized immediately the look in his eyes, the willful fire that she’d first seen when he was a baby with a body fighting itself, when the doctor had shaken his head and said helplessly, “Just try to take care of him, Mrs. Rogers.”

“I’m not going to let us down like that,” he said. She was used to Steve being part of an us - it had been him and her for his entire life, and him and Bucky for only a slightly shorter time - but for the first time she realized he had that with Peggy too, a partnership formed from ice and hours and more defeats on the way to greater victories.

The next time she had an afternoon off, Sarah went to the rink and watched Steve and Peggy try a new lift. He nearly dropped her the first time, forcing her to recover awkwardly on one skate. She didn’t position herself properly the next time and they became tangled. After every attempt, they clasped hands, nearly unconsciously, and said something teasing so they would both laugh before trying again. It had seemed impossible that someone was more stubborn than Steve, but that was before seeing Peggy Carter set her jaw and look as if she would camp out on the ice rather than leave things unfinished. They were still working on the lift two hours later when Sarah left.

The next year Junior Worlds were in Croatia, and the lift, now perfect, helped them into second place.

They’d done well enough in their competitions - third at Four Continents, a series of gold medals from smaller events - but the commentators couldn’t hide the doubt in their voices as Steve and Peggy skated out during Worlds for the first time. They were up against more experienced competitors, Peggy was fuller-figured than the average skater, Steve leaner and smaller despite the beginnings of a growth spurt.

When they rewatched the tape later, they found the broadcast silent for nearly fifteen seconds after their swing medley faded and the two of them stood beaming at center ice. Then came the analysis, words piling over each other as everyone rushed to give shocked compliments. All the contrasts between them, the lowered expectations for what they would be able to do, only magnified the synchronicity and ease and care they had achieved.

Someone stuck a microphone in Steve’s face as he went to track down a Band Aid for a nick to his finger and asked what enabled the two of them to improve so much since their last competition. Another reporter found Peggy putting on a jacket and asked her the same thing.

That night the broadcast ended with a recap of the stunning American upset and a split screen of Peggy and Steve each pausing for half a breath and then saying, “Trust.”

Neither of them actually watched their star moment at the time. They’d found an unlocked door to the roof of their hotel the day before and agreed to meet up there. Peggy carried a thermos of hot chocolate; she often teased Steve that he should mature into either tea or coffee, but tonight she agreed that it would be the perfect thing. When he arrived, he had a package of her favorite shortbread in his pocket, and he wouldn’t tell her exactly where he tracked that down in Nice when they’d spent most of their time at the rink and he didn’t speak French besides.

A breeze blew by and they moved closer. They’d never been particularly touchy with each other: obviously things like lifts and throw jumps could be a bit full contact, but mostly they would brush hands or bump shoulders before and after a skate, do a hug during kiss-and-cry and after the judging. Still, after so much and so long - years of helping each other with homework, pushing each other for just that one more run-through of a routine or to get up and smile through a performance failure, discovering together what a boring nuisance international travel could be and working to alleviate that boredom with a million rounds of Twenty Questions and Truth or Dare - after all that, leaning on each other was unconscious, engrained.

“Hey,” said Steve, knocking his tented knees against hers. He almost diverted himself from what he was about to say, but on a near daily basis Peggy relied on him to toss her in the air, to catch her and support her when she came down. He could trust her with this; it was hers too. “What do you think the odds are that we’ll make it to Salt Lake City?”

She looked out for a moment, curled her hands around her hot cup and sipped. Then she turned to him with a grin. “Whatever the odds are, I wouldn’t bet against us. I don’t lose my bets.”

She’d been in the US for nearly half her life and still sounded so precisely British that, as far as Steve was concerned, she could have arrived at Buckingham Palace without an invitation. He reminded himself that he probably wasn’t allowed to be in love with her.

Phillips and Erskine brought in a choreographer to help them prepare for the Salt Lake games. Natasha was a former ballerina who looked barely older than the two of them, but she was Russian and in skating and dance, that had meaning.

Peggy loved Natasha immediately. They went out for drinks together when they were in countries where they were old enough. Steve had to build up a sort of tolerance for her; their personalities didn’t mesh automatically, but eventually they became good friends. She made their routines better either way, but worked them harder too. Some nights, Steve and Peggy sat on the bench by the edge of the rink less because of the chats they’d always liked to have as the lights were slowly turned off, and more because the thought of standing and moving to go home sounded unbearably strenuous.

They got a little press in the lead-up to the games - a People sidebar, a mention in the Times spread on the US Olympians - but Michelle Kwan was better known, considered the one to watch if you were going to catch a skating event.

Michelle walked away with the bronze. Steve and Peggy successfully ignored Phillips’s pacing, Erskine’s clenched knuckles, and Natasha’s terrifying stillness, and got through their programs, one to a Ludovico Einaudi piece and the other to “Killer Queen” for variety. In their hugs afterwards, in their exchanged glance, they felt a shared hope that perhaps they could pull this off. Perhaps all those hours of training and travel and listening to Phillips yell would end in more than just the two of them having found each other...

That night, when they couldn’t sleep for smiling, they found themselves on the floor of Steve’s room, holding their medals beside each other, watching the light play off the gold.

“Thank you,” Steve said after a while. “Mostly for never betting against us.”

She thought about saying something cheeky to keep things light. Instead: “Thank you for never giving me a reason to.”

She bumped his shoulder softly. He bumped back, smiling.

Continue here...

#steggyweek2k18 #Steggy fic #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #Steve/Peggy #Steggy #if you didn't see this coming you have no one to blame but me entirely and I'm so sorry

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matazz · 3 years

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diary entries of roy endoza

here’s some journal entries of roy endoza that i wrote for the duration of the campaign. for the most part, i kinda wrote these in my twitter drafts just to write down roy’s thoughts. sometimes to remember events that happened, and sometimes just to vent out roy’s feelings to myself. i ended up saving these on a document for safe keeping and i’m glad i wrote these.

‪entry 47‬

‪i miss milo so much. his laugh, his eyes, his smile. i would do anything to have that back.‬ ‪i know its my fault he’s gone. its only been a few months, but i’ll fix that; all of it. no matter how long it takes, no matter what happens. i’ll find some way to do it.‬ ‪entry 53‬ ‪i’ve retrieved a letter from a dream telling me to visit latham and retrieve a key. i’m curious, so i’ll check it eventually. it was definitely odd.‬ ‪entry 55‬ ‪i met a young boy. his name is fox. he’s some sort of shapeshifter. he’s quiet, but his presence is nice company. he also received a similar letter to mine. i have a feeling we’ll be travelling for a while.‬ ‪entry 62‬ ‪we retrieved the key & met some other ppl with letters too. we’re heading to a trinket store back in origin now. i dont wish for them to know of my life so i’ve found a way to steer them as far from possible to finding out about myself. i’ll probably visit ma too.‬ ‪entry 63‬ ‪an elf woman named leera attacked us after i told her i wasnt going to give her this key. i dont like her. she seemed very cocky.‬ ‪entry 65‬ ‪delilah is kind.. i feel like i’m able to trust her. i asked her a question about my goals, vaguely, and it turns out that ayce asked a similar question. based on the message in his later i get the feeling he’s undead.‬ ‪entry 66‬ ‪i told ayce the biggest con in all of history.. but i confirmed he’s undead. i have more hope in my goals now that i know its possible. he hugged me bc he thinks we’re similar. i dont usually allow people to do that but i’m sad for him. i wish i could ask more about him. ‬‪entry 69‬ ‪i’m getting closer to ayce, unexpectedly, but good for me. i need his information.‬ ‪he talks to me a lot about his life; i think he’s become dependent on me which is easy for me. its hard for him to see i’m using him when i lie to his face.‬ ‪entry 72‬ ‪we’re travelling to copper coast now for another key. if it werent for ayce, i wouldnt see any other reason for me to come. fox is still around, but i feel like he's doing his own thing. the other two arent big presences for me to care about.‬ ‪entry 73‬ ‪atlas is a werewolf? i didnt think those were real. this group keeps getting stranger. first a shapeshifter, second an actual living zombie, third a werewolf.‬ ‪ive continued my lie to the rest of them. they all seem to have believed me, strangely enough‬ ‪entry 74‬ ‪copper coast was very pleasant. i wish to come back someday.‬ ‪entry 88‬ ‪this trip to clandesteine has been a disaster.. what the honest fuck‬ just happened ‪entry 90‬ ‪fox told everybody about himself, finally. i feel this huge sense of pride?? i’m very proud of him. i dont understand why i feel so attached to him but i adore him so much‬ ‪entry 92‬ ‪((incoherent scribbles, kinda like “vsdjfsasifwnqkosdkv”)) i think i accidentally implied to ayce that i love him romantically and i think he loves me too... i’m freaking out and i dont know how to react... i think he thinks i’m cool and romantic but i didnt mean to be. ‪entry 93‬ in all honesty, i just wanted to tell him he needs to be more cautious of me. a part of me wishes he could figure it out himself so i dont have to tell him. ‪seriously! i dont know how i did that! i do love and adore him too but i feel like shit.. i dont deserve him, especially considering who i am. on the other hand, i hope he never finds out the truth about me.‬ ‪entry 94‬ ‪oh my god. atlas killed a man and ayce and fox proceeded to tell the guards. i feel sick. i’m currently at home but if they say my name at witness testimony i’m royally fucked. i dont know. i might just run for it and live in myr’s peak. maybe no one will find me.‬ ‪entry 95‬ ‪the group managed to get bailed out using ty’s name. benefits of being friends with rich people?‬ ‪fox found my poster though, so he saved my name during eyewitness testimony. i told him the truth. its been the first time i told someone how i really felt. he wants me to tell ayce but hes the last person i can tell. ‪entry 97‬ ‪we’re in lunarden! it feels nostalgic to be back.

i want to go back to every place i miss. i took ayce to that me and nori used to go to back in high school. i think shes currently performing in solardome? i miss her‬ entry 97.2 ‪i came up with a few different ways to complete my goal. i have a few more probing questions, but i will have to ask later. i think i’m getting closer to the answers‬ entry ‪97.3‬ ((scribbled out)) ‪i havent had sex in a while. i’ve wondered this before but realized it was an inappropriate question to ask. i wonder if ayce’s dick works? it probably doesnt. this is so sad. i dont know how i’m going to fuck him if thats true.. yikes‬ ‪entry 98‬ ‪i’m planning to get completely smashed once we get to solardome. i feel like i deserve it.. ive been pretty stressed and havent got laid. i’m crying remembering that ayce might not even be an option.‬ ‪entry 98.2 ((lost)) ‪i love ayce so much, and its confusing. am i just sexually frustrated? am i just lonely? am i just sad? i feel guilty because it tears me apart. im confused because i love milo still, too. i know i should tell him the truth, its whats right but i know he’ll hate me. i dont know what to do. (extra note inbetween the pages, torn out: to mom. i love you venhfrhdy mcuh. thank you fir everhything. yes. roy.) entry 98.3 what happens if i succeed? i hope ayce doesnt kill me. entry 100 ‪good morning. ayce & i are officially dating. were in solardome atm; i dont remember much of last night but i remember thinking he‘s beautiful. is it wrong to fall for him?‬ ‪entry 101‬ ‪good evening. i saw ms winters. she was undead, just like ayce. she died a year ago. her soul was lost though. i killed what remained of her undead corpse. i assume she was trying to remain in this world.. i’m scared that this will happen to him too. maybe ill have to do the same to him. entry 101.2 i hope ayce's soul is able to sustain in his body for longer. i cant afford to lose him. entry 101.3 ‪the blackness on my fingers has risen up more than it has before. its almost hard to write with my hands anymore. i assume its bc the gods know what i'm doing & are against it, so they're trying to give me more recoil than usual. but the last time i killed an undead corpse was in my house 6 months ago, and i promise that the last time i will use it is when i bring milo back. (torn note inbetween the pages: hi ayce. its unrealistic you'll ever find this but there's some things i want to say. back when we first met, i lied to you as a reflex when you asked me why i'm dealing with necromancy. to be honest, i could kind of gather you were undead, but i still lied anyway. my story is personal, its hard for me to be honest. i know i'm an idiot, and i'm sorry i used you. to be truthful, i still am a horrible person and for the entirety of our relationship i've already known that i was using you and i've felt so guilty about that. my feelings are complicated, but i've never lied when i said i loved you, and i still do; but i still want to bring milo back. i made a mistake and i want to fix that. the truth is that i still love him too. i know you deserve better. i'm sorry about lying to you. roy) entry 102 a dragon made us experience our dreams and nightmares. jade's scared of blindness and bugs. a valid fear, in a way. and she was dreaming of doing shows. i think it was supposed to display a feeling of happiness and joy, but it was just spooky since we all experienced her dreams with no sound. i never realized how scary it was to be deaf until i experienced it. atlas' was morbid. people were dying and there was so much gore. then there were people saying they owned him. i knew he was a bad person but it was scary to see all of that again. he dreamt of a workshop with a girl and a young boy. it seemed sweet, with a tinge of nostalgia. i would have never expected him to have dreams. he just seems like a horrible person with no sympathy to me, but i guess he has feelings. i still think he should go to jail, but i feel like he'll just try to kill me if i say anything instead. fox's was sad. we got thrown into a void

of empty space where we were surrounded only by dopplegangers and a vaguely humanoid figure. he seemed so lonely and upset. he's scared of being forgotten by us and that made me so sad. i adore him, and he's grown a lot since we first met. i gave him a hug when we went into his dream sequence. i hope he knows i will never forget him. his dream was sweet. he just wants to save people and hang out with us still. i think he'll go far, and i would love to be there for him still when all of this is over.c (the rest of the pages with entry 102 are torn out) when i saw milo in the old house again just being his happy lovely self i felt miserable and happy at the same time. i love him so much, and i knew i missed him already but seeing him again just made me feel so much love for him all over again. it just makes me miss him more. it's hard not to cry thinking about what i've done to him. i wish he could come back. ayce's was hard to watch. i witnessed myrkul force ayce to choose between killing me and quri. ayce cried as he couldn't make up his mind, and then i watched as i fell into a void. i felt sick and i wanted to puke. i thought ayce found out about me. i thought he knew that i was using him for necromancy, but when i asked him about it, he told me that he thought i killed him with quri. i... personally don't have any reason to ever kill him so that was a bit sickening to think of. i dont ever want to kill anyone. i dont even have anyone i hate enough to want to murder. the only person i hate enough to want to kill is me. i know based on what i said before i guess it might have seemed that bad; but haha... i would never ever want to do that. putting people down at hospital was rough. god, putting ms winters down was rough and she was already dead. i love him, but it's probably better if we end the relationship and just stay as friends? he's already witnessed me still loving milo, and he thinks i murdered him... i'll try to clear up his misunderstanding, but it'll be hard to without giving more of myself away. this relationship has so many problems. entry 103 a new discovery. the world isn't flat? the god's are using their powers to “lock off” the rest of the world. apparently sanctuary is only a small part of the world. that was a really weird discovery to find out? it's kind of hard to believe, but at the same time, not. apparently they keys we've been collecting hold the respective power of the gods, and they're used to “open” the gateway. i have no idea what that means. apparently beshaba wants to use our keys to do exactly that. and also they can kill the god's? entry 112 when we came back to lunarden we discovered that delilah and allen were kidnapped by atlas’ syndicate. i knew atlas was trouble. i hate having to associate with him. we’re going to save them yet it makes me nervous. entry 114 i feel like i almost died in there. we saved the others and no one was hurt though. we’re going to trip back to lunarden and then travel through the travel gates back to origin to try avoid people. allen mentioned something about strange readings. i have a feeling i know what it is. i’m going to ask lathandar questions. entry 115 nvm we encountered leera. this group genuinely scares me. I’m travelling with people who are down with murder. i should seperate. she uncovered my posters to them and i want to die. she also mentioned the last key at a ball. i need to bounce. lathandar also confirmed my suspicions last night. entry 116 fox left before i could. i feel bad. like maybe it was my fault. i miss him. we have to continue though. entry 117 its so hard to find a bag of holding. i just want to have this spirit stone around without having it in the open. entry 118 we’re in origin now and delilah let me rent out her bag of holding. an absolute kind soul. we bought tickets to the ball. so expensive. i wish i didnt do that. entry 123 i’ve done so much in preperation of whats to come. Soon. i hope it works. i’m going to travel to solardome and investigate those readings. entry 124 suspicions

confirmed. miss winters is alive. she captured my biological father. a strange way to meet him. i cant see him as my father. i told her about the key, and we’re going to rearrange our circle. we’ll still use the spirit stones, just as a backup. i’m scared. i’m terrified. i dont know if it will work and i dont know what will happen if it does. i know the gods will be mad but i’ll deal with the consequences when it happens. i’m sure i won’t be a champion anymore. we’re doing this on friday evening, which means i’m no longer attending the gala. they don’t need my assistance anyway.

#roy endoza writing #roy endoza #writing

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magzoso-tech · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/diet-autopilot-thistle-raises-5m-for-health-food-subscriptions/

Diet autopilot Thistle raises $5M for health food subscriptions

What if it was easier to eat salad than junk food? Most diet routines take a ton of time, whether you’re cooking from scratch, making a meal kit, or seeking out a nutritious restaurant. But on-demand prepared food delivery companies like Sprig that tried to eliminate that work have gone bankrupt from poor unit economics.

Thistle is a different type of food startup. It delivers thrice-weekly cooler bags customized with meat-optional, plant-based breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, sides, and juices. By batching deliveries in the less-congested early morning hours and optimizing routes to its subscribers, or by mailing weekly boxes beyond its own geographies, Thistle makes sure you already have your food the moment you’re hungry. Whether you heat them up or eat them straight out of the fridge, you’re actually dining faster than you could even place an Uber Eats order.

The food on Thistle’s constantly rotating men is downright tasty. You might get a sunrise chia parfait for breakfast, a chicken tropical mango salad for lunch, a microwaveable bulgogi noodle bowl for dinner, with beet hummus and kale-cucumber juice for snacks. Thistle’s not cheap, with meals averaging about $14 each. But compared to competitors’ on-demand delivery markups and service fees, wasting ingredients from the grocer, and the hours of cooking for yourself, it can be a good deal for busy people.

“We see Thistle as part of a movement to make health convenient rather than a high will power chore” CEO Ashwin Cheriyan tells me. What Peloton did to shave time off getting a great workout, Thistle does for eating a nourishing meal. It makes the right choice the easiest choice.

Thistle COO Shiri Avneri and CEO Ashwin Cheriyan with their daughter

The idea of button you can push to make you healthier has attracted a new $5.65 million Series A round for Thistle led by its first institutional investor, PowerPlant Ventures. Bringing the startup to $15 million in funding, the cash will expand Thistle’s delivery domain. Dan Gluck of PowerPlant, which has also funded food break-outs like Beyond Meat, Thrive Market, and Rebbl, will join the board.

Currently Thistle delivers in-person to the Bay Area, LA metro, San Diego, and Sacramento while shipping to most of Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. Thistle actually held off on raising more since launching in 2013 to make sure it hammered out unit economics to prevent an implosion. It’s also planning broader meal options, additional product lines, and fresh distribution strategies like getting stocked in office smart kitchens or subsidized by wellness plans.

“The reasons that so many food delivery companies have failed likely fall into two buckets: one, a lack of focus on margins and unit economics, and two, premature geographic expansion before proving out the business model” says Cheriyan. “Thistle makes money similar to how a well run restaurant would make money – by having strong gross margins, efficient customer acquisition costs, and solid customer retention / lifetime metrics. We currently deliver tens of thousands of meals on a weekly basis to customers on the West Coast and our annual average growth rate since launch has been 100%+.”

It’s nice that Thistle hasn’t gone out of business because I’ve been eating its salads 6X a week for three years. It’s been the most efficient way for me to get healthier and lose weight after a half-decade of ordering takeout sandwiches and then feeling sluggish all day. I legitimately look forward to each one since they often have 20+ ingredients and only repeat every few months so they’re never boring.

It’s helped me keep my work-from-home lunches to about 20 minutes so I have more time for writing. Thistle is one of the few startups I consistently recommend to people. When asked how I lost 25lbs before my wedding, I point to Peloton cycling, Future remote personal training, and Thistle salads — none of which require me to leave the house.

Cheriyan tells me “We wanted the better-for-you and better-for-planet choice to be the default choice.”

Growing Out Of On-Demand

Thistle has already pivoted past the business model burning tons of cash across the startup world. The company started as an on-demand cold pressed juice delivery service, sending hipster glass bottles of watermelon and charcoal extract to doors around San Francisco. It was 2013, yoga was booming, and people were paying crazily high prices for liquified lemongrass. Health made simple seemed like a sure bet to the founding team of Alap Shah, Naman Shah, Sheel Mohnot, and Johnny Hwin, some of whom run Studio Management, a family office and startup incubator. [Disclosure: Hwin and Shah are friends of mine but didn’t pitch or discuss this article with me.]

Thistle eventually straightened things out with a shift to subscriptions and batched delivery under the leadership of the hired executives, Cheriyan and his wife and COO Shiri Avnery. “I came from a family of physicians – both my parents, brother, and enough aunts, uncles, and cousins are doctors that they could start a small hospital” Cheriyan, a former corporate attorney in M&A tells me. “A common point of frustration was about patients suffering from diet related illnesses who were unable to make a lifestyle change because it was too hard.”

Avenery, a PhD in air pollution and climate change’s impact on agriculture, had become exasperated with the slow pace of policy change and the inaction of governments and corporations. The two quit their jobs, moved to San Francisco, and searched for a point of leverage for positively influencing people diets and interaction with the environment. They teamed up with the founders and launched Thistle v1.

A lack of experience in logistics led to the initial detour into on-demand. But rather than trying to fix the problem with VC money, Thistle stayed lean and discovered the opportunity nestled between UberEats and BlueApron: sending people food they don’t have to eat now, but that takes low or no time to prepare when they’re peckish. Through its app, users can customize their meal plans, ban their allergens, pause deliveries, and see what they’ll eat next.

A sample of Thistle 8 meal plans

“The unit economics problem most heavily plagued the early on-demand food companies. Food / labor waste and inefficient deliveries were likely the biggest reasons why the economics were unsustainable without venture life support. We know this personally as Thistle started our delivery service as an on-demand company before quickly realizing that the unit economics couldn’t sustain a healthy business” Cheriyan explains, regarding companies like Sprig, DoorDash, and Grubhub. Beyond unsold food, “the margins very likely did not support ordering a $12-$15 single meal for immediate delivery when average hourly driver wages reached $18-20.”

Meal kits were supposed to make dining healtheir and cheaper, but they proved too much of a chore and led customers to boxes of ingredients piling up unused. Munchery and Nomiku went out of business while giants like Blue Apron have incinerated hundreds of millions of dollars and seen their share prices sink.

“The meal kit companies fared a little better from a gross margin perspective (due to preorders and more efficient deliveries) but suffer most from an easy-to-copy business model. This led to a rise in copycats, and, as a result, heavily rising customer acquisition costs, low switching costs and poor retention” Cheriyan tells me. “Fundamentally the meal kit companies face another challenge, which is that people have less and less time to cook and are increasingly looking for ready-to-eat options.”

Push-Button Health

A slower, steadier approach with less overhead, more convenience, and fewer direct competitors has helped Thistle grow to 400 employees from culinary to engineering to logistics.

Still, it’s vulnerable. It may still be too expensive for some markets and demographics. Logistics experts like Amazon and Whole Foods could try to barge into the market. Cloud kitchens without dining rooms are making restaurant food more affordable for delivery. And another startup could always take the gamble on raising a ton of cash and subsidizing prices to steal market share, especially where Thistle doesn’t operate yet.

Thistle could counter these threats would be further eliminating delivery costs by selling through partners like office smart fridges where employees pay on the spot, or equipping gym lobbies with more than just Muscle Milk.

“One opportunity we’re excited to test is attended and unattended retail – it would be great to be able to pick up Thistle products at your local grocery store, gym, or coffee shop” Cheriyan says. As for offices, “Today’s corporate lunchtime solutions often require a tradeoff between health and convenience: either wait in line for 30+ minutes at your favorite salad spot for a healthy option, or opt into catered restaurant meals that leave you feeling sluggish and unproductive.” Thistle could help employers prevent the 3pm energy lull.

The startup’s focus on plant-forward meals also centers it in the path of another megatrend: the shift to environmentally-conscious diets. Almost 60% of of Americans are trying to eat less meat and 50% are eating meat-alternatives like Impossible Burgers. That stems both from interest in the humane treatment of animals and how 15% of green house emissions come from livestock. But 45% of Americans say they hate to cook. That’s why Thistle makes pre-made meals where meat and egg are optional, but the food is healthy and delicious without them.

In the age of Uber, we’ve acclimated to an effortless life. The new wave of ‘push-button health’ startups like Thistle could finally take the hassle out of aligning your actions in the gym or kitchen with you intentions.

#Miscellaneous

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douglassmiith · 4 years

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Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Cecelia Nancarrow had gotten all her ducks in a row for a sought-after internship this summer with manufacturing and retail giant Hormel Foods. The 21-year-old Kansas native and incoming senior at Kansas State University — where she studies sales and data analytics and is a member of the school’s National Strategic Selling Institute — had been chosen for a temporary relocation to Dallas, where she’d be learning some real-world wheeling and dealing at one of the Austin, Minnesota-based corporation’s numerous satellite offices. But as her junior year neared conclusion and travel plans were booked, a public health emergency came crashing down, instantaneously upending the very opportunity she’d been compiling credentials for. In Nancarrow’s telling, she didn’t waste any time feigning disbelief.

“Almost immediately, I didn’t even consider the fact that my internship would not be cancelled,” she recalls matter-of-factly in a phone interview from her home in Manhattan, Kansas. “Restaurants, hotels, hospitals — those would be my customers. So as soon as all of those shut down, I was thinking, if all these places are going to be closed for the remainder of the summer, I have no idea how I would be able to do my job.“

As it turned out, Nancarrow was one of the lucky ones. Hormel, a publicly traded company with dozens of globally recognized brands under its auspices ranging from SPAM to Skippy, was able to marshal its resources and repurpose the geographically sprawling internship program as more of a centralized virtual experience. Nancarrow and her cohort will ultimately be staying in place, but Hormel has equipped them all with computers and quickly strategized ways to remotely simulate everything from orientation to networking opportunities with executives and clients.

“Many of these interns had accepted jobs in October, so as you can imagine, they were quite anxious to understand what the future looks like,” says Amy Sheehan, Hormel’s director of talent acquisition, who oversees the internship program, in a phone interview. “So we worked with our leadership team and said, ‘What does this look like? Is it feasible? Could we still give these interns a virtual experience knowing that it’s so important to our pipeline and filling our needs each year?'”

Fortunately for Nancarrow, the answer turned out to be yes, albeit with a delayed start of June 15, “to give all the teams more time to figure out exactly how it’s gonna work,” she explains. The flip side is that for many of her friends and peers, similar programs, just like sleepaway camps and other summer extracurriculars, have been put on indefinite hiatus. And as a result, the future of student internships — historically both a rite of passage and real entree into building career prospects and contacts — rests in an uneasy purgatory.

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Pamela Nashel Leto can empathize. After more than 20 years working for New York-based music publicity house Girlie Action, where she repped diverse clientele such as My Morning Jacket and Wyclef Jean, Nashel Leto struck out on her own this spring with a new firm, Siren’s Call. Interns have always been an essential, if perhaps taken-for-granted, fixture of the music industry ecosystem, and Nashel Leto had intended to avail herself of one or two in the coming months. But right as she was set to open Siren’s Call’s Manhattan office for business, lockdown orders took hold. The artists she made a living promoting could no longer tour, appear on late-night shows or do in-store performances, and surging unemployment meant less disposable income for people to spend on music — period. Nashel Leto was forced to focus on the walls closing in and couldn’t afford to think about helping young hopefuls get a foot in the door.

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

“I had planned on hiring interns,” she laments in a phone interview from her home in Bayonne, NJ, which has been doubling as Siren’s Call’s HQ for the past two-plus months. “For a music PR firm, a lot of my [intern] work would be based around maintaining my social media, but if I’ve never actual met my intern in person and can’t personally supervise him or her, I’d feel uncomfortable giving them such direct access to my business accounts. It’s sad, because I’d love to just be able to virtually hire people and have trust in them enough to have them work from their house or dorm, but it’s important for me to actually know somebody in real life.”

Consequently, Nashel Leto will likely shift responsibilities normally delegated to interns over to her small staff of employees. That redistribution of tasks has become duly necessary at Champaign, Illinois-based independent record label Polyvinyl, which works hand-in-hand with Nashel Leto promoting one of its cornerstone acts, eclectic indie troupe Of Montreal. Polyvinyl has decided to halt hiring interns for the summer and likely into the fall, despite the fact that some of its full-time staff already works remotely from different parts of the country.

“We’ve always felt one of the biggest benefits to our internships is sitting bird’s-eye view at not only a small record label, but just a small business,” explains Polyvinyl co-founder Matt Lunsford, speaking by phone from Champaign. “They’re absorbing everything that’s going on at our small company, even if they’re working on a typical intern-like task, like research. I feel like there’s not a very obvious way to replicate that without someone physically being present.”

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

While Lunsford has the ability to, as he puts it, “pick up the slack and spread the work out to the departments that would have the interns, or put some of that work on pause or do it later,” he also recognizes that, long-term, continuing to defer intern-recruitment is in no one’s best interests. Among him and fellow upper management, “The consensus is, if this is ongoing for more than this calendar year, then we would probably be inclined to take the time to figure out some sort of plan that would involve making the internships more virtual or maybe coming up with something completely unique so it could be envisioned as virtual from the very beginning.” (Nashel Leto, for her part, says that, “When a vaccine is out there and I work from an actual office again, I can hire some interns, but doubt that will be possible until 2021.”)

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

But what about an operation for which there is inherently no substitute for on-site support, like working the land on a multi-acre spread of field and forest? That’s the conundrum for Unadilla Community Farm in upstate Otsego, New York. This is the seventh year that the farm and educational center has taken applications from interns from all over the world for what its mission statement characterizes as “an immersion into a rural, off-grid sustainable way of life.”

Unadilla has been acknowledged as an essential business since lockdown orders took hold in New York in mid-March, and it is also seated in a county that has been permitted to gradually reopen for some non-essential business by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Still, with participants typically arriving from all over the country and various continents, and safety precautions like social distancing a standing prerequisite even in areas of lower infection, this year’s program — while moving forward — has had to make some concessions.

“The difference this year is we are only accepting interns from the U.S.,” clarifies Greta Zarro, Unadilla’s co-owner and internship coordinator, speaking by phone from the farm. She adds that accepted applicants have also been asked to quarantine at home for 14 days before arriving, and “then once everyone is here, we all quarantine here and don’t have to leave the property, so we’re lucky in that sense.” (One accepted participant delayed his arrival after feeling ill prior to his departure. He tested negative, and then quarantined for two weeks before leaving.) They’ve also “worked to improve our sanitation and hygenic practices,” Zarro says, and will be making their own soap and sanitizer on the premises.

Field trips to other farms and related networking events have been postponed, but there will be some virtual webinars and workshops in their stead. Zarro’s optimistic that even in its somewhat compromised state, the program will reap all its intended rewards. “It’s not going to be 100 percent the same,” she begins. “There’s typically an element where they get to essentially work on another farm for the afternoon and see another operation, but overall, the program is still relatively intact.”

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

If anything, as more traditional internship opportunities have ebbed, enthusiasm for what Unadilla offers has flowed. “What’s been interesting is we’ve actually seen an increase in applications,” Zarro remarks. “People are starting to plant gardens and trees and realize, ‘Wow, we need to be more self-sufficient,’ and that’s the primary thing we’re teaching.”

For companies like Hormel, the jury’s still out on whether its swiftly reconstituted arrangement will feel as close to, or even better than, the real thing. The one advantage across the board for both employers and interns is that this generation of students is wired for digital adaptation and distanced communication in a way none of its predecessors could fathom. That comfort level with all things virtual may help bridge the disconnect that leaves Hormel’s Sheehan in a precarious place of waiting for results and Polyvinyl’s Lunsford reluctant.

“When you think about what they’ve been thrown into with their classroom settings, they’re already used to this,” Sheehan reasons about student interns’ malleability. “It’s not so foreign to them.”

Nancarrow confirms that her age group is, by and large, apt to be less daunted by this sudden shift than perhaps even the higher-ups who recruited them. She’s even come around to see how this could be a unique crash course in the way business is going to be conducted down the road, and as a result of our current crisis, maybe much sooner than that.

“The world is moving to be so technology-focused,” she says. “I am definitely going to need to learn how to communicate in a virtual format. Having this opportunity this summer may not be ideal or what I had originally planned, but it’s going to be extremely beneficial for myself and everyone else in my generation.”

More pressingly, Nancarrow is hopeful that this unforeseen hurdle will be duly taken into account when she and her classmates — whether their internships have been modified or canceled outright — come out the other side: “I’m fairly confident a lot of business are going to be extremely understanding that my generation, as well as the ones around me, kind of lost out on that internship opportunity and be able to look past that and see our potential anyway.”

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/05/will-there-be-internships-this-summer.html

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riichardwilson · 4 years

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/618952865749385216

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scpie · 4 years

Text

Will There Be Internships This Summer?

May 21, 2020 11 min read

Related: Where to Intern If You Really Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Siren’s Call PR owner Pamela Nashel Leto has had to press pause on internships for her just-launched firm.

Image Credit: Siren’s Call PR

Polyvinyl Records artist Jeff Rosenstock, in the days when bands were touring and interns were helping promote.

Image Credit: Amanda Fotes

Related: Every Entrepreneur Should Be An Intern First

Interns and staff enjoying the literal fruits of their labor on Unadilla Community Farm in upstate New York.

Image Credit: Unadilla Community Farm

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/will-there-be-internships-this-summer/

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