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youabandonedthem · 4 months

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Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you’re really not sure why you bother taking your dad’s calls anymore.

There’s a thousand things you could be doing right now, none of them exceptionally desirable, all of them more pleasant than sitting in near-silence on a concrete floor next to a surly Dersite. Even if the Dersite in question did take you in when you were a dumpy little grub.

Now you’re a troll. A dumpy troll. No longer little.

Spades Slick is sitting across from you on the cold floor of the hideout, fiddling with a baggy and some utensils. You keep glancing up at him, and then away; you know he doesn’t like it when you stare for too long. He’s grumbling something to himself as he sorts through his things.

It’s a beautiful day out. You could be anywhere.

He sits up a little straighter and squints at you, his gaze searing through you. Leaning forward, he sets a candle between the two of you and looks away before tossing you a little box of matches.

“Go ahead and light that,” he says casually.

You go ahead and light it. The hideout is already pretty well lit, so the atmosphere of the place doesn’t really change. If you were younger, or feeling bolder, maybe you’d have sighed in exasperation as you shake the lit match into extinction. You look around for a place to throw it out, but the garbage can is a few feet away and you’re pretty sure Slick will have words for you if you get up and start gallivanting about right now.

You stay put with your sad little burnt out match, and when you turn back around to face your adoptive father, he’s holding the spoon over the candle flame. It would be a shocking enough sight if you hadn’t seen it before. You know Slick – know him well enough to know that whoever this is for, it’s not for him.

He’s a professional, best in the business. You can practically hear his voice ringing in your ears. He’d bring it up at random when you were little, taking a walk through the neighborhood or heading back to your car through Wal-mart parking lots. At street lights, gas stations, sometimes even at home, if Deuce was so inclined as to offer him ibuprofen for any of his recurring ailments.

He’s no junkie, kid, he’s no layabout ex-vet or pregnant teenage girl hobbling around with no cardboard sign. He’s a businessman.

And he doesn’t get unprofessional with his goods.

For all you can say about your dad, you’ve never seen him waver on that.

He also won’t sell anything he hasn’t tested. He’s got a reputation to uphold, of course. Normally he’ll select a customer at random for this – they never protest. If he’s feeling thorough he’ll test the same batch out on a human, a troll, and a carapacian, to make sure a batch is good to retail to any species.

Earlier this week you recall him leaving you a voice message on Whatsapp, complaining about some particularly whiny disenfranchised Prospitan roaming about the place. You had kind of written it off since it had, due to the age and deteriorating quality of Slick’s phone and to the closeness of his mouth to the microphone, been largely incoherent. You suppose that must have been his first lucky customer.

Probably he’s going to ask you if you have any friends you can call and ask to come over. Your eyes glaze a little as you stare at the now steadily bubbling liquid in the spoon.

You’re not sure what you’re going to say to that, really.

“Sorry, Dad, I don’t have any friends to call. I don’t leave the apartment that you help me pay for except for to go to work, which I do at night, because I have issues with emotional regulation that make it difficult for me to do work involving frequent or long-term social interaction. There’s no one I can think of to invite over to shoot up for you. Not even for free.”

Without realizing it, your gaze slips off the spoon and towards the bottle sitting on the floor by Slick’s elbow.

The yellow label beams up at you, uncannily bright in the gray hues of the hideout. Mr. and Mrs. Bragg also beam up at you, proud as always to bring you organic apple cider vinegar in the raw.

You’re pretty sure you’ve never seen anyone on the street with a bottle of this stuff next to them. But then again, a 946 mL bottle of Bragg’s Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar was a clear $9.99 when purchased at a regular Healthy Planet location. Just the other night you were stocking some truly monstrous 128 oz bottles of regular Great Value brand white vinegar for a mere $4.67. So there’s that mystery solved.

The Walmart you work at carries Bragg’s too, you’re pretty sure. But it’s pretty nice stuff. Maybe they’ve got cameras in the Bragg’s aisle? Cameras in the organic fermented goods aisle? You make a mental note to check. Maybe they’ve been giving out Bragg’s at the needle exchange this whole time. You’ve never been – you’d be none the wiser.

“Kid.”

Slick’s voice cuts through your idle thoughts, and you sit up a little straighter reflexively.

If something changes in Slick’s expression, you can’t quite perceive it. He keeps staring at you. He’s holding a needle, already drawn up.

“Kid,” he says, “You’re good enough.”

You stare back.

“What?”

He makes a face, dissatisfied with the way he’d phrased his previous sentiment, and wiggles the needle a little.

“You’re good enough to test this out for me. I don’t need any of your stupid friends.”

You don’t pull your arm away when he reaches out and grabs it, pulling it out towards him. But when you see reaching with his other hand for a strip of cloth sitting by the Bragg’s apple cider vinegar, you start leaning away from him, almost involuntarily.

“No, no, I mean, I can find someone,” you wheeze, already feeling yourself flush with panic. “I’ll – the signal is shit down here, let me go upstairs and I can call -”

“It’s ready now, kid,” Slick hisses, narrowing his eyes at you. “It’s a low dose, you’re going to be fine. Not like I’m going to sell it to you after this.”

He laughs shortly at his own joke. You don’t think it’s very funny. He yanks you forward firmly and leans in to tie you off.

You’re trying to think of something to say. You can’t run, and you’re certainly incapable of fighting – not while you’re in this kind of shape, not when you’re at this point in your life, not Slick.

He stretches the cloth around your upper arm and wraps it tight. Then he looks down at your lower forearm and frowns before readjusting the cloth, squeezing it even more firmly around your bicep before he ties it. He looks down and frowns again.

“Karkat.”

Hunched over, he looks up at you. You turn your head to the side, mostly unconsciously, avoiding eye contact. He’s staring at you.

After a long moment, he attempts again to tie you off. When he’s done, he pulls your arm directly in front of his face, staring intently. No luck.

Slick reaches up again to adjust the cloth, and this time, when he tugs at it, it rips clean in two.

The two of you sit in silence.

“Karkat,” he rasps. “If you do this for me, I’ll pay for three months of membership down at the Planet Fitness by your apartment. Whatever that place is called.”

“Okay,” you mumble.

“This is bad, Karkat. Droog’s been talking to me about this,” Slick continues. “It’s, it’s calories, and it’s in everything you eat. You have to pay attention. That junk food, it’s terrible for you. You’ll get sick.”

He looks up at you beadily. You meet his gaze.

“I know.”

He reaches up and claps you gently on the shoulder, the look on his face difficult to read. You’re reminded, as you occasionally are, that this is the Dersite that raised you. This, all of this, stems from a maladjusted desire to care for you, to keep you safe, and to eventually enable you to keep yourself safe, something you are aware is becoming less and less likely to ever come to fruition. He’s not shooting you up with Great Value white vinegar. He got you Bragg’s, from Healthy Planet. Because he loves you.

His clamps around your upper arm, metal fingers squeezing far tighter than the cloth had been able to, and this time, when he looks down, he sees something he likes.

The needle plunges down. To Slick’s credit, you hardly feel it.

You’re already feeling something by the time he’s standing up; makes sense, you’ve never shot anything before. When you look up at him, you’re cognizant of an unusual taste stinging at the back of your mouth.

It’s apple cider vinegar.

—————–

cool story by @myskyperevenge but not that well researched…

#spades slick #karkat vantas #homestuck #midnight crew #apple cider vinegar #stabdads #family bonding #notgoodenough #youarenotenough #the calories part is passable

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fingfamily-blog-blog · 2 years

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More Mid-October

Everyday is a new day. "Sometimes I feel so happy. Sometimes I feel so sad." Actually, quoting Lou Reed there, I wouldn't say 'sad' is the right word. Frustrated, weary, those are more appropriate. Sometimes my students ask, "Have you had any culture shock in Malang?" And I tell them, "A little." But the bigger shock really is technology shock. I've been lucky at my home in the States, to have a wife and kids who are willing to do the technology stuff for me. They have the Uber accounts. I've depended on my university to set me up with Zoom. I've never paid for anything using my phone in America. Here in Malang, I'm on my own, and I'm having to tackle things I would have gladly avoided at home. I've mentioned, in a previous post, that I knew I needed Grab (the Indonesian Uber) to expand my range here and live a more normal life. But uploading Grab has only partially helped me. The good part is that, yes, I have widened my range of experience, going new places and meeting new people. But the bad news is that Grab is erratic with my preferred method of payment - a credit card. My bank at home stopped my card for a fraud investigation, and that appears to have put the spook into Grab. Sometimes they allow me to use the card, which is ideal, right? That I can order and take the ride without using cash? But sometimes they don't take the card, and I have to pay cash, which has put me out, because I don't have a lot of cash and I don't have a bank account. My colleagues tell me, "Well, then, get an Ovo account. No problem!" But they didn't tell me that Grab meant Ovo. And I sit here today, right now, fully assured that once I set up my Ovo account, there will be another problem which will supposedly be solved by another downloaded app. This tentacular technological creep is something I've always wished to avoid, and honestly, have left up to my wife and kids. So is that culture shock because of Indonesia? Or is it just me entering the modern world entirely on my own? Does it matter? Have I talked about the VPT Gym in my neighborhood? I paid about $120 for 6 months access to a serious workout center, run by an Australian gent and his wife, both serious (and I guess professional) body-builders. It has all the equipment and lots of free weights and ropes. When I come in, there are often classes of 5 or 6, and a few private lessons going on as well. I run straight for the elliptical, but, since I've not worked out for over a month upon arrival, I've taken to the rowing and the stair-stepping machines as well. I calculate that I'm exerting about 500 calories in just under 60 minutes, and its such a great benefit to me. I'm not so tense when Grab screws me over (although I am tense about that). I eat well and sleep better. It's just great - very happy to be back in that routine. I've also been buying fruit at a local vendor in my neighborhood, and I bought a blender to make smoothies and juice. That has been a godsend too. Today I did pineapple, mango, a little banana, a splash of yogurt, and a few shakes of turmeric. And it tastes like a tropical rainbow! The energy and freshness and health just sizzle as I drink it down. I also went out on my own for lunch today, to a nearby Ramen shop. I've mentioned my snobbishness about Japanese food anywhere but Japan, and I knew to keep my expectations down. But I've seen the shop a few times in my wanderings around campus, and I wanted to try it out. I won't be bringing my Japanese-food-snobbish family to the place, but it was passable. A traditional ramen has a slice of roasted pork in it. But not here in Muslim Indonesia. So they put a few pieces of kara age (that's battered and fried boneless thigh pieces - very nice) in it! The noodles were inauthentic, but the miso broth was passable, and it had kamaboko (pressed, processed fish) and nori (seaweed). I enjoyed it, without thinking I'll be going again. I'm working on my first expense report and finding that my food budget allows for more eating out than I've done so far. Not that I'll change that, but it's nice to know that I could go out a bit more - if I found places that served food I want. I'm actually in the middle of a class right now! It's a test-prep class, and I've given the students 40 minutes to write an essay, which we will look over using the criteria the exam (called the IELTS, a TOEFL equivalent based in Australia) uses. Australia really dominates Indonesia regarding western culture, exchanges, and education. It's not far away, so that makes sense. And of course, the Dutch history means there are plenty of Dutch influences still around. It's not all USA, USA all the time. Got to get back to work!

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nyortor · 2 years

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writer-ish · 3 years

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The 3rd Annual Bloom Edenbrook Fundraising Gala

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Dr. Brooke Spiers) Word Count: 2.9k Rating: Mostly T (innuendo, language, smooches)

Premise: Dr. Brooke Spiers and Dr. Ethan Ramsey get coerced into answering anonymous questions submitted by generous donors at this year's hospital fundraising gala. They have about as much fun with it as you'd expect.

This idea is all thanks to THIS ASK from the lovely @lem-20. The concept and all questions are hers! Thank you, darling Leah! ♥️

Author’s Note: My first time with a mixed-media type post(!!!) and the writing part has been done almost script-style, similar to the "Not Yet Wed" questions courtesy of @jamespotterthefirst, which you can find HERE. Hope you all enjoy. 🥰

Tickets

Bonus Raffle

SETTING - Diagnostics Office - 5:15 PM

TWO DOCTORS in formal attire sit across from one another. The male, DR. ETHAN RAMSEY, late-30s, devastatingly handsome, leans against a desk, arms crossed. The female, DR. BROOKE SPIERS, late-20s, charmingly attractive, sits on a larger table further away, legs swinging.

Ethan: I can't believe you talked me into this.

Brooke: [smirking] Why does this feel like deja vu?

Ethan: You know exactly why. You coerced me into the same sort of nonsense in your intern year for that magazine—whatever it was.

Brooke: Yeah, and remember how much publicity the hospital got that year? You're welcome.

Ethan: How can you be sure our "publicity" had to do with that article and not the fact that a first-year intern stole from a large pharamceutical company to administer an unapproved drug to—

Brooke: [hands up] Okay, okay, we get it. Regardless, you have to admit I was responsible for all the publicity. [grins]

Ethan: [can't help but grin back] Touche. [sighs deeply] Let's go home.

Brooke: Can't, babe. We're the main event.

Ethan: How did this even come about? Is there not some code of ethics against this sort of thing?

Brooke: [laughs] It's just staff and donors. All adults. We're showing that we're good sports and it's for a good cause.

Ethan: [grumbles] I don't know why people care so much about us.

Brooke: You don't? I mean, have you seen us?

Ethan: [dryly] And so humble, too.

Brooke: Lord knows you aren't with me for my humility.

Ethan: Indeed. [picks up a glass from the desk at his side, swirling the amber liquid] Well, I hope you're prepared.

Brooke: [amused] Prepared?

Ethan: You're used to me being reticent in situations like this and holding back? [downs the liquid in one shot] Not today.

Brooke: [wary] What does that mean?

DR. RAMSEY stands up, crossing the room towards DR. SPIERS until the latter is forced to open her legs to accommodate his presence. He braces a hand on either side of her, leaning forward until their lips are almost touching. Her face flushes. He notices, and a slow, lazy smile spreads.

Ethan: It means [kisses her slightly open mouth softly] I'm answering all their questions.

Brooke: [giggles nervously] All of them? But what if—

Ethan: [punctuating each word with a kiss] All. Of. Them.

He leans forward and captures her mouth in a deep, searing kiss. Her arms twine around his neck and she lets out a soft moan. Drawing her ankles around his legs she pulls him even closer and he places one hand on the desk as the other glides up her back. They stay like that, interlocked for a moment, before he pulls away.

Brooke: [eyes still closed] Hmph.

Ethan: Let's go get this over with.

Brooke: [slowly opens eyes and peers at him, disgruntled] What kinds of questions do you think people are submitting?

Ethan: Like you said, Dr. Spiers... [a slow smile spreads] Have you seen us?

DR. SPIERS laughs as she follows DR. RAMSEY out.

A.N. PLEASE do not look too closely at this very badly photoshopped pic 😂

SETTING - Bloom Edenbrook Hospital, Main Atrium - 6:25 PM

Our two doctors sit beside each other on a makeshift stage. A semi-recognizable third-year resident is the host for the evening. DR. RAMSEY dusts an imaginary piece of lint off his sleeve. DR. SPIERS has her hands in lap, knee shaking slightly. Noticing, Dr. Ramsey reaches over and rests his hand on her leg. She looks over with a small smile and places her hand over his.

Thank you to our very own Chief of Medicine, Dr. Ethan Ramsey, and his partner, head of the Diagnostics Team, Dr. Brooke Spiers, for being here with us today for a good cause. Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Spiers, are you prepared to answer some questions provided by our generous, anonymous donors?

Brooke: Sure, why not.

Ethan: [through gritted teeth] For a good cause.

Alright, excellent. I will be drawing these questions at random. Thank you to all who donated for the opportunity to submit a question.

Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Spiers, you will both be posed a question. If you choose to answer, you must both answer. If you choose not to, you must match the donation made by the donor, in lieu of a verbal response. Are you ready to begin?

Ethan: Mmm.

Brooke: [nervous laugh] I suppose.

Alright, here we go!

First question: If he/she could take one thing to a desert island what would it be?

Brooke: Me.

[Audience whoops and laughs]

Ethan: [can't hide his smirk, before clearing his throat] Brooke would take her phone. Heaven forbid she can't post about something on Pictagram.

Brooke: It's true. I'm sorry for being such a young millennial needy for external validation.

What are your nicknames for each other?

Brooke and Ethan: [look at each other. Brooke laughs.]

Ethan: Just say it.

Brooke: I mean, it's nothing too embarassing. I call him babe usually, or baby sometimes if I'm feeling extra nice. He calls me—[blushes and looks over at Ethan]

Ethan: [sighs] 'My love'. I call her 'my love'.

[Audience "awwww"s]

Who’s the better cook?

Brooke: Oh, Ethan. A hundred percent.

Ethan: It's true.

Brooke: I'm abysmal.

Ethan: Normally I would demur when it comes to Dr. Spiers' perceived faults, but in this case she's correct.

Brooke: Thanks, babe.

Ethan: You have many wonderful qualities that don't involve ovens, my love.

[A squeal from the audience that sounds suspiciously like Sienna]

Who has the last word in an argument?

[simultaneously] Brooke: Ethan Ethan: Brooke

[They look at each other]

Brooke: [laughs incredulously] Seriously?

Ethan: You think I don't hear you muttering to yourself after you walk away, almost every single time?

Brooke: Oh, so cursing your name and your very existence counts as the last word and not you shouting [affects deep voice] "And that's final!"? Duly noted.

Ethan: I don't sound like that or say that.

Brooke: Mm, sure.

Who is best at keeping secrets?

Brooke: Uh, neither of us?

Ethan: I had a secret once and it was hell keeping it.

Brooke: You've had a couple.

Ethan: True. I'm done with secrets.

Brooke: In lighter news, we kept [gestures between the two of them] this thing a secret for a bit. No?

Ethan: [opens his mouth to agree, when he's interrupted by a shout from the audience—]

Audience member that sounds suspiciously like Elijah: Nope! We all knew!

[Audience loudly murmurs in agreement]

Brooke: Never mind, then.

Who wears the trousers in the relationship?

Ethan: Neither of us subscribes to antiquated beliefs of superiority in a relationship. We're partners and teammates and work together accordingly. Sometimes she helps and guides me and sometimes I do the same for her. There is no one person who holds higher ground over the other and to imply otherwise would be foolish.

Brooke: [literal heart eyes at Ethan] What he said. [stage whisper] Except it's me.

[Audience laughs as Ethan rolls his eyes]

What is his/her worst habit?

Brooke: Workaholic, poor communication skills, yells first and asks questions later… I could go on.

Ethan: Charming. I have two words for you: messy packrat.

Brooke: Excuse me?

Ethan: If I had a nickel for every useless piece of garbage you kept "just in case" or for each article of clothing on the floor of my bedr—[clears throat] Just trust me.

Brooke: [smirks and whispers against Ethan's ear so only he can hear] Sorry, who is responsible for my clothes on the floor…?

Ethan: [says nothing but smirks as well]

[Audience murmurs in scandal]

What three words would you use to describe them?

Brooke: Hmm. Let me think.

Ethan: Passionate, caring, intelligent.

Brooke: [looks at him fondly] You came up with those fast.

Ethan: [matter-of-factly] I could give them ten more easily.

[Audience "awww"s]

Brooke: [to the audience] No, no, no don't be fooled, he doesn't mean only the flattering words, trust me.

Ethan: I believe it's your turn.

Brooke: Dedicated, compassionate, brilliant.

Ethan: [smiles softly at Brooke, who avoids his gaze. He reaches over and squeezes her hand.]

Brooke: [mutters] Yeah, yeah.

What celebrity do you/they think they most look like?

[Both Ethan and Brooke look at the announcer quizzically.]

Brooke: Celebrity? Uhh…

Ethan: I don't even know how I would begin to answer this question.

Brooke: Ryan Reynolds?

[Audience laughs and loudly disagrees]

Ethan: Who?

Brooke: [laughs and shakes her head] I don't know! I just named a random hot guy. You name a redhead actress. Jessica Chastain?

Ethan: [confused] Do you mean Jessica Rabbit?

Brooke: No I don't mean— [looks at him incredulously] Are you saying you think I look like Jessica Rabbit?

Ethan: No, I thought that's what you were saying and I was about to tell you how incorrect you were. Er, that is to say—

Brooke: I feel like you're digging yourself into a hole here.

Ethan: Agreed.

Who is the most vain?

Ethan: Both of us have more pressing concerns than our physical appearance.

Brooke: Ethan.

Ethan: [splutters]

Brooke: If you're going based off who spends more time on their hair in the bathroom? Ethan.

Ethan: [crosses his arms and glowers, but doesn't disagree]

What is his/her guilty pleasure?

Brooke: Ethan's is cooking shows, particularly Nigella.

Ethan: It's true. Brooke's is high calorie indulgences like—what's the freezer cake you made me buy the other day? With no identifiable or even passably edible ingredients?

Brooke: Ooh, Deep 'n Delicious. So good.

Ethan: [rolls eyes] Yes, because we all need our daily dose of hydrogenated oils and preservatives.

If they had a free pass, which celebrity would they choose to sleep with?

[Look at each other blankly]

Brooke: Uhh… Nigella?

Ethan: This Ryan Reynolds fellow?

Brooke: [laughs] I don't even like him!

Ethan: So who, then?

Brooke: [crosses her arms] I notice you didn't deny Nigella.

Ethan: This question is stupid. Next question.

Where and when did you go on your first date?

Brooke: Derry Roasters

Ethan: What? No. I took you to Sorellina—

Brooke: What, three years after we first met? No. Our first date was Derry Roasters when you caught me following you that time.

Ethan: Ah, so she finally admits it. I thought at the time I was… what was it, "paranoid"?

Brooke: [laughs only a touch guiltily] Did I say that?

Ethan: So you're treating the first time you trailed after me to the local coffee shop as our first date?

Brooke: Well, you paid.

Ethan: Yeah, after you "forgot" your wallet.

Brooke: What, you thought I pursued you for your good looks? No, sir. I like a man with deep pockets. Plus, you know how I know it was a first date?

Ethan: Please, enlighten me.

Brooke: You ordered for me and I didn't get annoyed and it was horrible, but I still drank the whole thing.

Ethan: The espresso Romano is not horr—

Brooke: Horrible. Coffee and lemon? [shudders] That's how I knew I was into you.

Ethan: [intrigued] Really? Way back then?

Brooke: [nods, blushing slightly, and rolls her eyes] Oh brother, don't act so shocked. You knew.

[Audience laughs and whoops]

Ethan: [shell-shocked face showing he absolutely did not know]

Where was your first kiss?

Brooke: [sheepishly] Miami.

[Audience murmurs in surprise]

Ethan: [sighs] Yes.

Brooke: Is that—are Harper and Naveen exchanging money?

Naveen: [from the audience] Dr. Emery should know better than to question my instincts!

Ethan: [loudly groans] Next question.

Who is the loudest in bed?

Brooke: [yelps and, remembering Ethan's earlier warning, throws her hand over his mouth]

Ethan: [from behind her hand] You probably could have made the answer less obvious.

Brooke: [blushes and groans]

[Audience roars its approval]

Which of your friends do you think he/she is most likely to have a crush on?

Brooke: Ohhh, this is awkward.

Ethan: My friends?

Brooke: Considering we can list your friends on one hand…and some of them intersect with mine. [bites lip] What do we do with this one?

Ethan: [to the host] What did the donor pay?

Sorry?

Ethan: To submit this question. How much?

Oh, uhh—[checks] $200.

Ethan: I'll write you a cheque for $200. Next question.

Brooke: [shakes her head laughing] All the questions, huh?

Ethan: At my discretion, yes.

Bryce: [from the audience] You know the answer was me for both of you, anyway!

Ethan: [scoffs] Fat chance, Lahela.

Brooke: [pointedly silent, staring straight ahead]

Ohh-kay. Next question. Who had feelings first?

Brooke: Ha, me. For sure.

Ethan: Are you sure?

Brooke: [looks at him incredulously] I just told you I liked you even after you bought me lemon coffee at Derry Roasters three years ago. [sits up to look at him more fully] No chance you liked me earlier than that. I mean, like-liked me.

Ethan: "Like-liked you"? Are we twelve?

Brooke: You know what I mean. You were such a grouch and I was just your annoying intern.

Ethan: [irritatedly] The annoying intern I kissed in Miami, what, a week later? Is that how obvious my lack of feelings for you were?

Brooke: [opens her mouth to respond and then closes it again]

Ethan: That's what I thought.

Who’s more dramatic?

Brooke: Ethan.

Ethan: I am absolutely not—

Brooke: See? Honestly, he's exhausting.

Ethan: [glowers]

Who has the weirdest orgasm face?

Brooke: Weirdest?

Ethan: Oh for the love of—

$5000 to not answer this one, doctors.

Brooke and Ethan: [jaws drop simultaneously]

Brooke: Someone paid five-thousand dollars—

Ethan: What kind of a pervert—? Fine, say it's me.

Brooke: It's really not.

Ethan: [quietly] Well, it's certainly not you.

Brooke: Yeah, but—

I believe we have our answer!

Ethan: We'll take it. Next!

What are you most likely to argue about?

Ethan: Brooke believes I could be more communicative about my feelings, especially when I have a problem.

Brooke: You do listen!

Ethan: Of course. We also argue about when she's going to move in with me.

[Audience gasps and murmurs in gleeful scandal]

Brooke: [jaw drops] Ethan!

Ethan: It's true. [turns to host] I believe it should have already happened. She believes she needs to maintain a tenuous hold on a bedroom she rarely occupies for a group of roommates who would be happy for her to move on.

Brooke: [fuming] Of all the high-handed—

Jackie, from the audience: He's right, girl, bigger and better awaits.

Brooke: [through gritted teeth, as Sienna, Ethan, and Aurora all nod and give her thumbs up] Maybe this is something we can talk about later—

Ethan: Whatever you say, my love.

Brooke: Oh, yeah, now with the "my love"s—

On that note! Here is our final question.

What’s the most romantic thing they’ve done for you?

Ethan: [looks at Brooke, who is still glowering] Most romantic?

Brooke: [glares]

Ethan: With Brooke, it's the little things. She'll notice when I'm having a bad day and bring me my favourite donut. Or a well-timed hand on my shoulder or knee when she can see I'm getting riled up.

Brooke: [glare softens a bit]

Ethan: She's thoughtful and kind and extremely empathetic. She knows what I need even before I know that I need it. It's not—candlelit dinners or what have you, but I've already prided myself on being a practical person and this intersection of—of practicality and care? That's what I find… [struggles to get the word out] romantic.

[Audience "awww"s]

Brooke: [screws up her mouth before leaning over to kiss Ethan on the cheek] Okay, that was sweet. [Thoughtfully] Most romantic thing Ethan has done for me? Well… [side-eyes him, before continuing] The HAZMAT suit sleepover last year was probably up there.

Ethan: [uncomfortable] I don't want that to be classified as—

Brooke: You were there for me at a time when I needed you most. If that's not romance, I don't know what is.

Ethan: [increasingly agitated] That's not romance, dammit, that's—that was a necessity. That was vital. I needed to be there. I needed to make sure you—that you—[cuts himself off, clenching his jaw]

Brooke: [eyes soft as she looks at him. Reaching out she rests her hand on top of his clenched fist until it unfurls slowly underneath hers and he releases his breath slowly] See? [softly] Romance.

Ethan: [sighs deeply, then links his fingers with hers and gruffly kisses the top of her hand] All this tells me is that I've neglected you on the "romance" side of things.

Brooke: [still smiling softly] No complaints. [looks out at the audience] Are we done here? [affects a deep voice] Are you not entertained?

Ethan: [fondly] And she says I'm the dramatic one.

I think we got what we needed, doctors. Thank you for helping out for a good cause. This raffle ticket session alone raised a total of $23,000 for Bloom Edenbook Hospital!

Ethan: [dumbfounded] That is insane.

Brooke: I promise we aren't that interesting.

The people beg to differ. Round of applause for Dr. Brooke Spiers and Dr. Ethan Ramsey for being such good sports. Until next time, doctors!

Ethan: [over thunderous applause] There absolutely won't be a next time.

Brooke: [laughs and stands up, smoothing out her dress]

Audience member that sounds suspiciously like Jackie: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

Rest of the audience chimes in: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

Brooke: [crosses her arms, smirking at Ethan]

Ethan: Oh for the love of— [acts like he's walking away, then loops an arm around her waist and pulls her close, tilting her back and kissing her thoroughly]

[Audience roars its approval]

Ethan: [pulls away slowly and sets her upright, chucking her chin with an affectionate and slightly devilish smirk. He starts to guide her away from the host and off the makeshift stage]

Brooke: [mutters, still a bit dazedly] Told you. Drama.

[Laughing, they walk off stage together.]

#open heart #ethan ramsey × mc #ethan ramsey #ethanbrooke facts #questions and answers #open heart fanfic

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themistypolars · 4 years

Text

“If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let’s get to know the person behind the blog 💞” - @elylandon

Sorry that the format is weird! My asks were turned off and this was sent to me from direct messages. I answered it there and will answer it here as well!

1. I know PASSABLE American Sign Language. I’ve honestly forgotten more the language than I’d like to admit since I’ve been out of school, but it’s definitely something I think I might want to do as a career. As an interpreter or such.

2. I own around 100+ books in my room alone (This not including the books I have in other parts of the house).

3. I have hypoglycemia, which just means I have an abnormally low blood sugar and I burn calories more easily than I’m supposed to. Due to this, I’m prone to fainting. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to manage it better.

Thank you for the ask! This is one of my first asks and it means a lot coming from you. I can’t wait to see what else you have in store for your fic, Lost and Found! Go to her blog listed above to check out her amazing story! ❤️

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scripttorture · 5 years

Note

I have read your masterpost on starvation, and it sounds like it's most relevant to acute malnutrition. How bad can chronic malnutrition get? Like someone on a "starvation diet" for several years?

This one I’m going to have to start with the caveat that I’m not a medic. It’s taken a long time because it’s a subject I find quite difficult.

In the context of this particular question- I don’t actually know the technical definition of acute vs chronic malnutrition. My medical knowledge is patchy and I’m not setting out to try and replace @scriptmedic. Frankly I don’t have the skill set.

My knowledge base for starvation is a combination of things like the Minnesota Starvation Report and the WHO mixed with history and survivor accounts. So my impression of what starvation does is less medically based and more person based. It’s English policies in Ireland and India, Mao’s China, Ukraine with the rise of the Soviets.

So I’m not sure how relevant you’re going to find the answer I can give. But I’ll give it a shot.

How bad can it get?

Given the context of this blog, that we’re talking about systematic abuse of human rights: the horror in starvation is that it is social. It’s rarely just one person suffering. Instead it’s whole communities. Suffering compounded on suffering as victims watch everyone they know waste away.

Starvation, in the context of torture, is often part of a deliberate campaign to wipe out a group of people. It’s the extinction of family lines, vanished villages and towns. It’s the collapse of social order, not in any revolutionary sense but in the sense of collapsing ethical norms. It up-ends the social contract.

What follows are descriptions of genocide and the deaths of children. I am giving additional warnings because I usually tone down this stuff for the blog. I try to give you all the information you need to write well without overloading you with history or descriptions of pain.

This is less filtered.

Here’s part of a Ukrainian children’s song from the inter-war period.

‘Daddy and Mommy are in the kolkhoz

The poor child cries as he goes alone

There’s no bread and there’s no fat

The party’s ended all of that

Seek not the gentle or the mild

The father’s eaten his own child

The party man he beats and stamps

And sends us to Siberian camps’*

Judging from the accounts of the time this wasn’t exaggeration or hyperbole. There are a lot of police recordings of murder for cannibalism at the time. Especially of young children.

Here’s a description of the state of an orphanage in Kharkiv*.

‘The children had bulging stomachs; they were covered in wounds, in scabs; their bodies were bursting. We took them outside, we put them on sheets and they moaned. One day the children suddenly fell silent, we turned around to see what was happening, and they were eating the smallest child, little Petrus. They were tearing strips from him and eating him. And Petrus was doing the same, he was tearing strips from himself and eating them, he ate as much as he could. The other children put their lips to his wounds and drank his blood. We took the child away from the hungry mouths and we cried.’

It’s estimated that 3.3 million people died in Ukraine as part of a deliberately engineered food shortage and the violence that followed. Villages vanished.

People tried to flee to the towns, where the food was being taken. But identity cards clearly indicated where people were from and most of them couldn’t afford or find passable fakes.

Townsfolk were punished for giving away food. Immigrants from the country were rounded up and locked in warehouses where they were either left to starve or deported back to the country to starve there.

People held small children out of train windows as they pulled into or away from stations and begged bystanders to take their starving children.

Between 1876 and 1878 Britain oversaw one of the worst famines in Indian history, killing an estimated 5.5 million people and affecting some 58 million.

For reference that’s more than the population of Canada.

During this time Britain exported around 320 thousand tonnes of wheat from the affected area. Whilst consistently denying Indians effective relief. People were forced to work 16 hour days in exchange for ‘food relief’ that was reduced to 450g of grain a day. Less for women and children doing the same work.

Assuming that ‘ration’ was mostly rice that’s less then a thousand calories a day. The estimated daily needs for an adult who isn’t engaged in manual labour is more then double that.

I don’t have any translations of the poetry remembering this genocide.

Then there’s the genocide of the Hereo and the Nama peoples, also using hunger and thirst as a weapon.

People were driven in to the desert. The water holes were guarded and anyone who approached was shot. Some sources claim wells were poisoned. So families; children, women, the elderly, staggered on under the sun until they dropped.

There are disputes about the death toll but it was certainly in the tens of thousands. Not including the people who were put in concentration camps.

Germany has just started giving back their bodies.

In China children were walked by their parents off into the mountains or wilderness and left to die. Because quotas for food exports vastly exceeded the amount most regions could produce. And the quota (or as near to it as possible) was taken whether people had the food to spare or not.

First they ate the seed grain, the grain reserved to plant the harvest for the next year. Without it there would be no food later but there was nothing else. Then they scoured the countryside, eating everything from herbs to non-edible leaves and grasses.

People ate leather shoes and clothing. They ate mud. It sticks together in the intestines, blocking them, tearing them and causing a slow painful death.

It’s not the individual personal perspective but I would argue this is the worst of it-

Picture the place you grew up. If you had a good family picture them and your friends and the casual acquaintances you would have met every day.

Starvation means watching everyone turn on you or die by degrees.

It is everyone in a community wasting slowly. Parents choosing which of their children to feed and trying to decide if it is better to eat themselves so they can protect their children or feed the children so they have a better chance of living til the next day.

It’s people who you know (and sometimes love) stealing the things you need to stay alive. It’s people killing each other so they’ll have a little more to eat, and that little more not being enough to keep them going.

It’s disease, exhaustion, pain and despair driving people to turn on each other.

And when they are dead, when all that is left is eerie empty buildings, then the officials come along. They take down the signs. They tear down the buildings and they clear the ground.

A few years later it’s fields. Or a few scattered houses. Or perhaps a whole new village. And no one in the area remembers that there were people there before. They say it was empty land, countryside, wilderness.

There’s no one to correct them; everyone is gone.

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*R Kuśnierz Ukraina w latach kolektywizacji I wielkiego glodu 2005, via T Synder Bloodlands 2011, Penguin

I recommend Mao’s Great Famine, F Dikotter, Bloomsbury, 2011

You can read about the ‘Madras Famine’ in W Digby’s account from the time: The famine campaign in Southern India, Madras and Bombay Presidencies: And Province of Mysore, 1876-1878 there are several reprints available. Unfortunately I have been unable to find an Indian account of this genocide (so far).

There’s a book by R Anderson on the Hereo and Nama genocide available here. I have not read it.

Finally (another book I haven’t got round to yet) A de Waal’s Mass Starvation Polity Press, 2017 as an overview and summary of famine.

#Anonymous #tw torture #tw genocide #tw cannibalism #tw death #tw famine #famine #starvation #starvation diets #China #Ukraine #India #Namibia #colonial history #colonialism

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teratoscope · 5 years

Text

Enluss

The little shaggy guys started turning up at the camp perimeter the night after you cleared out the den of cunningbears that were sabotaging the mass drivers two klicks out west. You’re pretty sure they’re some kind of mutant. You get lots of those out in the green zones, and the brass gives you hell if you break protocol for indigenes, so for the time being you’ve let them be beyond reading them the packaged non-aggression pact speech. Not like they knew what you were saying. They kept so quiet that most of the crew was pretty sure they don’t talk. They’d shown up right at the edge of camp for two weeks straight, just watching with those big dark eyes that shine when you fix ‘em in the light. Then Tae got shitfaced last night and tried to punt one. They dogpiled him, jabbed him in the neck with this fuckoff huge needle, and vanished into the buffalo grass. Tae’s drinking buddies ran him to the field hospital and strapped him down so he wouldn’t break his own spine from the convulsions. Tae died sometime later that night. That’s what you’re hoping, anyway. That’s the story you’re telling everyone else. You were the one that got tapped for observation duty, and the one who sterilized the area when you realized he was starting to sporulate.

HD 1 MV 120’ AC 12 AT by weapon Special assimilator, virotech

assimilator—Enluss don’t have immune systems so much as they have re-education camps for foreign contaminants. They always have advantage to resist poison, infection, and toxic environments, and once they’ve made a successful save they never have to roll to resist it again.

virotech—nearly all Enluss technology is the product of powerful retroviral agents that directly alter the user’s phenotype. An Enluss can typically maintain one virotech infection per HD listed for an individual specimen. Virotech is contagious; any living thing that makes fluid-to-membrane contact with an Enluss has a 1 in 6 chance of contracting a system. Virotech is keyed to the user’s precise biochemical register, and the transition to a new host is messy at best. The infected must make a Constitution check; if they fail, they lose 1d3 points of Constitution permanently and the infection manifests immediately. If they succeed, their Constitution score is set to the raw result of the check and recovers by 1 point/day; the infection manifests when the infected’s Constitution score returns to normal.

1d10 Virotech Infections

1. Bombardier Pox. Horny conical growths on chest, shoulders, and back spray caustic fluid on command. 1d6 acid damage in a 15’ radius centered on the user, Dex check for half.

2. Gecko Palms. Subject gains a climb speed equal to ½ their MV.

3. Froglung. Subject becomes amphibious, but only swims as well as they ordinarily would.

4. Komodo Mouth. On a successful bite attack, subject’s victim makes a Constitution save after every full rest. On failure their max hp drops by 1d3. Effect ends after victim receives advanced medical care, dies, or manages three successful saves in a row.

5. Kevlar Rash. Skin bunches and hardens when struck with a strong blow. Subject gains 1 damage reduction vs. kinetic attacks the first time they’re damaged each round; this effect dissipates after a full round without being hit. At DR 3, halve MV; at DR 6, reduce it to 1/3. Effect caps at 6.

6. Accelerator Fever. Subject can move at double their base MV and act at the top of initiative on command at the cost of 1d3 hp/round.

7. Vorpal Osteogenesis. Subject’s hand (determine which one randomly) becomes powerfully muscular to compensate for liquified bones, which erupt from fingertips reconfigured into inch-long talons. Subject gains a claw attack for 1d6+1 damage; this attack scores a critical on a 17-20. Hand is miserably clumsy for all other purposes.

8. Transponder Blisters. Subject develops a cluster of antennae and subcutaneous resonators running from the base of the neck to the jawbone that allow them to tap and gauge distance and direction on radio signals within a 20 mile radius. Actively seeking a band to scan requires a Wisdom check and an exploration turn.

9. Alzabo Syndrome. Subject’s tongue becomes extendable and develops a thorny, hollow tip designed to bore into spinal columns. Subject can take an exploration turn to hull and drain a recently-killed or restrained life form; for the next eight hours they gain access to all of the eaten party’s memories ranging from the moment of death to the last time they slept.

10. Alcubierre Organ. Subject develops a faintly glowing growth just above the sacrum that makes the bearer passably spaceworthy and allows subtle massaging of space-time. Subject gains an EVA speed of 90’ and can teleport to any location they have a clear mental image of but will need to messily devour a full-grown person’s worth of calories within an exploration turn of arrival. Failure to satiate the hungers of warp-debt inflicts their own hit dice in damage each round.

1d6 Enluss Weapons

1. Pherogun. 600’ range. Cast ceramic single-shot air rifle. Takes a full round to load. Deals no damage, but specially brewed ammunition vaporizes on hit and binds to the skin, making the target smell overwhelmingly confrontational/appetizing to most organisms. Wilderness encounters happen twice as often, and reaction rolls with wild creatures are made twice, taking the least favorable outcome. Counterscent is usually carried on the wielder’s person, rarely more than a single dose. Effect wears off after a month or if the victim is set on fire for at least 6 points of damage (cumulative).

2. Babel Spore. 60’ cone. Sickly-sweet grayish haze deployed via back-mounted sprayer. Targets within cone make a Wisdom check each round; on failure they can neither use nor comprehend spoken or written language. Pantomime and evocative groans still work. Victims get followup checks to purge the spores after every full rest.

3. Tracker Spear. As normal spear, but on a hit that beats AC by 4 or more, a section of the head breaks off in the resulting wound and puts down taproots. The head requires 2d6 days of dedicated care from a competent surgeon to remove, and so long as it has blood to feed on it will broadcast its pre-assigned radio signature. A target marked this way will never surprise a party of Enluss and attempts to cover tracks or shake off pursuers always fail if the pursuers are Enluss or know their encryptions.

4. Slingbears. Like underfed, shaved, eyeless infant koalas. 30’ range, 1d6 damage on impact. Take a Strength check at disadvantage to dislodge, deal 1d6+1 at the end of each subsequent round attached as they savage with tooth and claw. You can try to kill them while attached; they have 1 HD, AC equal to their victim’s +2 if you’re trying not to hit your friend or yourself, and if you hit but don’t kill they deal maximum damage this round. Utterly helpless once dislodged; they have no notion of how to function without something to latch onto and maul.

5. Starter Grenade. Fragile clay jar with an airtight seal, containing a voracious, quick-growing yeast culture. 30’ initial area of effect, can be hucked up to 60’ by hand or 120’ with a sling. Anything in the area of effect must make a Strength check to pull free of the sticky morass; otherwise they are immobilized until somebody else extracts them and their microbiome is savaged by the yeast’s rapacious hunger, granting an immediate extra Constitution check against any diseases they may be suffering from and disadvantage on all checks vs. disease in the future, barring three days of probiotic treatment. On the second round, the yeast mass grows another 60’, plus 30’ for each target it already trapped. On the third round, the mass solidifies into a huge, misshapen lump of hardtack. Starter Grenades are ineffective in sterile environments.

6. Hornet Claw. Set of four pheromone-bound, heavily armored descendants of V. M. Japonica. Bred for obedience, venom potency, and stinger size. Each latches to a finger stinger-out, forming a sort of living bagh naka. On a bare-handed melee hit, the wielder deals 1d3 Constitution damage. A full rest and a successful Con check or healing check recovers 1d3 of this damage.

Enluss is not a species. It is a movement.

Enluss is the alternative to death. It is the struggle to create, regenerate, and sustain in a world that does not want you.

If you could see the kind of future that would come to pass without us, you would have no choice but to become us. Without us there would be no war, because there would be no world to fight over. You and me and everyone else here would have choked to death on the poisoned air many, many years ago, and nothing would grow here, and the waters would fall silent and still.

It has happened before, in another time.

If we had begun sooner, even a generation sooner, if we had been brave instead of desperate, we would never have needed to leave. We would have reclaimed our world from the worst part of ourselves with time left over to heal it. Instead we had time enough to run away and try again here.

We have seen your mistakes before. We made them. You possess the same craven attachment to false comforts and poisonous ideologies that nearly killed us. You live at war with your own bodies, which you refuse to meaningfully change. You weigh your actions based on outcomes that become irrelevant in spans of time shorter than a single life-cycle. You cling to a notion of self that treasures its worst features and diminishes all that makes you meaningful.

And until you see this and understand, the parts of this world that live and grow will be your enemy. So it was before we came, and so it will be long after we are gone. All we have done is given you a fighting chance.

When we are done, you will either finally deserve this world, or you will feed something that does.

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greyn · 5 years

Text

it’s not really a countryside but!!!!! it’s day six and I’m Sorry

day six // countryside

Sing is exhausted.

Both mentally and physically - they’ve been hiking for over an hour and a half, by now, and not only is he sweating like a goddamn pig, he’s been listening to Yut Lung bitch about how tired he is and how much he’s sweating, when Sing has been hiking for just as long and he hasn’t said a word in complaint.

“How did I even let you talk me into this?” Yut Lung whines.

Okay so, fine. Maybe one of the reasons he hasn’t complained at all is because it was his idea, and really, he’d just look like a total pussy if he started complaining about his own idea for a date.

God, what an awful idea. How did he even come up with this? In his head, he’d pictured a short walk in the forest, the sun shining brightly but not too brightly, birds singing songs in the background, and maybe he’d even get to hold Yut Lung’s hand for a little while.

In reality, the sun isn’t visible, but holy fuck, you can sure as hell feel it, and he’s pretty sure that if they were up to it, a dwarf or two could use his back as a fucking Slip n’ Slide. He smells like shit, he’s sure, and yeah, the birds are fucking singing, but it’s more of a nuisance than anything else, and maybe if he were a little bit ruder he’d just shout Maybe can you shut the fuck up? They’ve been walking for so long, and he doesn’t know why, but he hadn’t expected to hear Yut Lung’s bitching the entire trip up. Not that he doesn’t agree with him, but really, why is it necessary for him to repeat the same damn complaints over and over again?

So, yes. A lovely little idea in theory that hadn’t done so hot in practice.

“Because I’m very persuasive?” Sing finally replies after a long pause full of heavy breathing and the sound of leaves crunching beneath their feet.

“It’s just because I like your face,” he grumbles.

“I’m touched,” Sing says, voice dry.

“Sing, my feet hurt. How much farther is it?” Christ. The complaints never end. He’s heard the same thing at least three times already.

“We’re close, now.”

“You said that two miles ago!”

“Well, now I mean it this time! And I don’t know why you’re complaining. I’m the one carrying all of our bags.”

“You’re carrying one backpack. And you’re the one who chose to bring it, anyway! I really hope there’s food in that thing. I’m hungry and tired.”

“So you’ve said. And I already told you there was! I also told you that you can have some when we reach the top!”

Yut Lung huffs. “I don’t know why you wanted to take us here. Why couldn’t we have gone somewhere with air conditioning? What was wrong with the coffee shop we went to last week?”

“Nothing! Nothing, I just thought it would be a nice change.”

“Nice change, my ass. You were just too horny, last week. It’s hard to get it up while you’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere with some trees and not much else. That was the issue, wasn’t it?”

Sing opens his mouth in outrage, and then shuts it. He’s not… entirely incorrect. “You know what? Yeah. And maybe it would be easier for me to get horny if you fucking walked with me, so that I could fucking see you and maybe even - god forbid - hold your hand - instead of walking behind me and bitching the whole time!”

“You can’t get horny here! It’s physically impossible! We’re in the middle of the woods under the blazing sun! And I’m not holding your hand because, first of all, I didn’t even think you wanted to, and, second of all, we’re both sweating fucking buckets! Do you really want us to rub our sweaty palms together? I haven’t been bitch - Oh, wow.”

They’re emerging from the canopy of trees - they’ve reached the top. It’s, for lack of a better word, really, really breathtaking, because Sing feels like he’s on top of everything, and it’s just them, just him and Yut Lung. Just him, Yut Lung, and endless blue sky. The sun suddenly feels a lot less suffocating, it’s just shining now, it’s shining just for them, and despite himself, Sing feels himself start to smile.

There are thousands of trees stretched out below them, and they’re so far below, they’re so high up Sing can barely believe it.

He turns to Yut Lung, and his mouth is just slightly open, eyes wide, and Sing’s smile stretches even more.

He elbows Yut Lung, earning a yelp and a halfhearted glare. “Not bad, huh?”

Yut Lung glances over. “Passable.”

Sing snorts, and sits down on the large slab of stone they’re standing on, tugging Yut Lung down with him.

“Didn’t you say there was food in the bag? I hope you’ve brought something good.”

Sing pulls out a bar of dark chocolate and a bag of trail mix and smiles sheepishly. “I wanted to go along with the whole hiking theme. But now I’m kind of wishing I’d just brought a bag of chips.”

Yut Lung snatches the bar of dark chocolate. “This is mine. I don’t care what you say. You dragged me into this. You owe me.”

Sing stares at him, aghast. “Are you really gonna eat that whole thing?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. And honestly? I won’t regret it at all. I’m already in negative calories, Sing. I’ve already burned off everything I’m about to eat right now. Enjoy your trail mix! It looks like shit.”

Sing looks down morosely at his bag of trail mix, which does, indeed, look like shit. It’s not even the kind that has chocolate chips in it. He hadn’t really envisioned “sadly shovelling trail mix cashews in his mouth while staring longingly at a bar of dark chocolate that’s currently being devoured by the head of the Lee clan,” as part of this fun hiking adventure, and yet -

Here he is. Karma’s a goddamn bitch, isn’t she?

After a silence which really, could be a lot more comfortable if Sing also had some dark chocolate, Yut Lung lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“You are so needy. Fine! I’ll give you some. But only since you look so lost. What are you, a fucking puppy? Pull yourself together.” He snaps off a quarter of the chocolate bar, handing it to Sing. It’s melted in his hands a little, and now there’s dark chocolate on his fingers.

Sing takes the chocolate gratefully, savouring the bittersweet taste. Ha! Joke’s on him, now he has chocolate and trail mix. Who’s the real winner here?

He knows it isn’t him.

After Yut Lung has polished off the rest of his chocolate and Sing’s trail mix really just isn’t doing anything for him anymore, he packs everything away and looks out.

“How about now?” Sing asks.

“How about now what?”

“We’re not sweating anymore.”

Yut Lung smirks. “And?”

“And… we could do that thing now.”

“What thing?”

“You know.”

“I’m not sure I do. Please, Mr. Soo-Ling, enlighten me.”

Sing scowls, and pauses before snatching his hand.

“You’re so annoying.”

Yut Lung smiles, now. “I just wanted to hear you say you wanted to hold my hand.”

Sing flushes. “Why?”

“It’s just nice to have verbal confirmation sometimes.”

Sing looks away. “Alright, fine. I wanted to hold your hand, okay? And I still do. I like this,” he says, flushing even deeper, but he squeezes his hand anyway.

Yut Lung’s smile turns soft. “I like it, too.” He laces their fingers together.

They sit in comfortable silence for a little while, and then Sing says, “See? This isn’t so bad.”

Yut Lung laughs. “Get over yourself. This was a terrible idea and you know it. Just buy me a latte, next time.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s best. But we’re still not having a terrible time. Admit it. You like spending time with me.”

“I don’t like hiking.”

“But you like spending time with me.”

“Yes, I do.” Yut Lung turns to him, then, and then sun is shining in his eyes. He’s so radiant that Sing feels like he’s melting in his presence, melting into a soft heart and beating flesh.

Sing squeezes tighter and lets himself melt a little bit more.

here’s the link on ao3!

day one

day two

day three

day four

day five

day seven

#yeah i cheated okay #this isn't the countryside I Know #bananafishfluffweek2019 #banana fish #lee yut lung #sing soo ling #yuesing

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winterscribe · 7 years

Text

50 OTP Asks: Avaleara and D

[Part One] [Part Two] [Part Four] [Part Five]

21. Who has an obsession (over anything)?

D once had an obsession with killing Dracula, but that ended when Dracula died. Likewise with Avaleara and Xahros. It seems kinda paltry to call anything else they are really interested in an obsession in comparison.

22. Who goes all out for Valentine’s Day?

Neither of them really go all out for a scripted holiday. They might get each other a nice gift and have a candle light dinner if they have time, but that’s a fairly common date night for them, they don’t necessarily wait for a special holiday, especially since Avaleara’s schedule can get crazy at the drop of a hat.

23. Who asks who out on the first date?

Eh, them getting together was a mutual decision after years of slowly falling in love, but an actual date? Avaleara would have been the one to suggest going out together once they were settled enough in the relationship to go public. (Not that many people realized it was romantic though, especially in the beginning D wasn’t much for PDA)

24. Who is the talker/ Who is the listener?

Avaleara can talk for hours about anything. D is a really good listener. Although Avaleara is a good listener on the rare occasions D is the one talking for awhile.

25. Who wears the other ones clothes?

Avaleara. Avaleara is a dirty rotten clothes theif and D loves it.

26. Who likes to eat healthy/ Who loves junk food?

As stated earlier, D has an odd relationship with food. He mostly eats healthy, home cooked meals, mostly because anything overly processed and chemically doesn’t taste good enough to make him eat it.

Avaleara eats healthy food in general, because it takes a lot of calories to fuel her and most natural food is the best source of good calories. Her diet is really really heavy on proteins. However, she does let herself eat junk sometimes - the odd movie night, out with friends, that kind of thing. She enjoys it, it just leaves her too hungry or too lethargic to be a regular thing.

27. Who takes a long shower/ Who sings in the shower?

D is very utilitarian. I’m not sure if the water thing was like the sun thing and only bothered those of vampiric blood on Earth, but either way, he’s in and out in a couple minutes.

Avaleara depends on her schedule. She can be really quick if she needs to, but she loooooves long hot showers. Water was an element she had a natural affinity for so she finds it really soothing. She meditates a lot in the shower, or just spends a while letting it soothe sore muscles. (there’s a water recycle set up so she’s not wasting it) If she’s in the mood she’ll sing (it happens a lot)

28. Who is the book worm?

Both of them are voracious readers, of both fiction and nonfiction.

29. Who is the better cook?

Avaleara. She comes from a culture where food is a huge thing, lots of communal meals where everyone pitches in something. Even if she didn’t enjoy it she’d be passable, but she genuinely loves cooking and has spent a LOT of time in various kitchens charming delicious family recipes out of people. Everyone loves when Avaleara has time to cook, although you better be prepared for a lot of flavor cuz Avaleara goes hard on the spices.

D on the other hand- well not needing to eat doesn’t lend itself well to learning to cook. It's only a slight exaggeration to say he can burn water.

“One time, Avaleara, that happened one time.”

“One time and it took half my kitchen with it. You chose to defy the witch’s curse and the gods punished you for your hubris”

“Wh- What curse? There is no curse!”

“Darlin’ you can perform advanced chemistry in your sleep but can’t make Fettuccine Alfredo without blowing up half my kitchen, if that ain’t some weird ass curse I don’t know what is.”

30. Who likes long walks on the beach?

They both do. They take a lot of walks in general when they have the time. If they are staying somewhere with a beach they’ll spend hours walking back and forth talking or just enjoying each other’s company and the scenery.

#blood and ash #avaleara and d

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i-read-somewhere-that · 5 years

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Part of the appeal of the new burgers is their smaller environmental footprint. Beef is the most wasteful food on the planet. Cows are not optimized to make meat; they’re optimized to be cows. It takes 36,000 calories of feed to produce 1,000 calories of beef. In the process, it uses more than 430 gallons of water and 1,500 square feet of land, and it generates nearly ten kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions. In comparison, an Impossible Burger uses 87 percent less water, 96 percent less land, and produces 89 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. Beyond Meat’s footprint is similarly svelte.

Yes, a good argument can be made that small-farm, grass-fed beef production (in places that can grow abundant grass) has a very different ethical and environmental landscape, but unfortunately, that’s just not a significant factor. America gets 97 percent of its beef from feedlots. And feedlots are irredeemable.

Beyond gets its bloody color from beet juice; Impossible uses heme—the same molecule that makes our blood red—to achieve its meaty color and flavor. This is its killer app. Beef gets its beefiness from heme. When you cook heme, it produces the distinctive savory, metallic flavor of meat. Since heme is normally found in blood, no veggie concoction has ever used it. Soy plants do make microscopic amounts of it, but not enough to ever use. Impossible Foods’ breakthrough was to genetically engineer yeast to produce soy heme in a tank, like beer. This GMO process is a deal breaker for some people, but it makes all the difference. The Impossible Burger is incredible, the Beyond Burger merely passable.

#beef #meat #impossible meat #sustainability #farming #americana #science #food

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rdclsuperfoods · 5 years

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There’s a famous Gandhi aphorism about how movements progress: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” That was actually written by the Workshop on Nonviolence Institute as a summary of Gandhi’s philosophy, but regardless, it’s remarkable how often it accurately describes the evolution of causes, from legal cannabis to gay marriage. I’ve been thinking about that quote since I wrote my first piece about plant-based meat (or alt meat, as I like to call it) for Outside in 2014. Back then, we were firmly in the “laugh at you” stage. Beyond Meat, the first of the Silicon Valley startups to use advanced technology to produce extremely meat-like burgers, had been ignored for its first few years, but in 2014, it released its Beast Burger, which was treated by the press and public as a slightly off-putting curiosity. What was this stuff? Would anyone actually eat it? Ewwww.

That product wasn’t very good—I compared it to Salisbury steak—and when Ethan Brown, Beyond Meat’s founder, announced his intention to end livestock production, you could almost hear the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association laughing in the background.

But I didn’t laugh. I knew it would keep getting better and beef wouldn’t. And I thought the bar was pretty low. Sure, steak is great, but ground beef makes up 60 percent of beef sales, and most of it is more Salisbury than salutary, a greasy vehicle for the yummy stuff: ketchup, mushrooms, pickles, bacon, sriracha mayo. I knew I wouldn’t object if my central puck came from a plant, as long as it chewed right and tasted right. I suspected others might feel the same.

In the following years, Beyond Meat was joined by Impossible Foods, a more sophisticated startup with even more venture capital. Its Impossible Burger was way better than Salisbury steak. All the cool cats started serving it, from David Chang in New York to Traci Des Jardins in San Francisco. My conviction grew.

By 2018, sales of both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger were surging, and the companies began to ink deals with restaurant chains. Beyond Meat got Carl’s Jr. and A&W (as well as supermarket chains like Food Lion and Safeway), while Impossible got White Castle.

I tracked down a White Castle shortly after the Impossible Slider arrived in the spring of 2018. I’d never been to a White Castle, so I ordered an Impossible Slider and a regular slider. The Impossible was...fine. About what you’d expect. White Castle steams all its meat, which is hard to get past, but with plenty of cheese, it went down easy.

The regular slider, on the other hand, was horrific. I peeled back the pasty bun and stared at the fetid shingle inside. It was appallingly thin and grimy. It made the Impossible Slider look lush and juicy. The bar for fast-food burgers is even lower than I thought. Nobody will miss these shitty little brown things when they’re gone.

Perhaps this explains why the chains are latching on to plant-based burgers as if they were life rings. White Castle initially tested its Impossible Slider in just a few locations in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago in April 2018. It was such a hit that the company quickly expanded the program to all 380 outlets. “People are coming back for it again and again,” White Castle’s vice president, Jamie Richardson, said with a touch of astonishment.

They’re coming back at Del Taco, too, which launched a Beyond Meat taco in April. Within two months, it had sold two million, one of the most successful product launches in its history, so it decided to add Beyond Meat burritos as well.

And then there’s Burger King. The second-largest fast-food chain in the world rattled big beef’s cage by testing an Impossible Whopper in St. Louis in April. Resulting foot traffic was so strong that Burger King decided to serve the Impossible Whopper in all 7,200 restaurants, marking the moment when alt meat stopped being alt.

That was enough to get the meat industry to snap to attention. “About a year and a half ago, this wasn’t on my radar whatsoever,” said Mark Dopp, head of regulatory affairs for the North American Meat Association, to The New York Times. “All of a sudden, this is getting closer.”

The strategy, predictably yet pathetically, was to engage in an ontological battle over the term meat itself. Big beef successfully lobbied for a labeling law in Missouri banning any products from identifying themselves as meat unless they are “derived from harvested production livestock or poultry.” (But this is wrong; the word simply meant sustenance for the first thousand years of its existence.) Similar labeling laws have passed or are pending in a dozen more states, most of them big ranching ones.

Obviously, none of this has stemmed the rise of alt meat. But it did make me think again of Gandhi (a staunch vegetarian, FYI). They ignored, they laughed, and now they were fighting.

This stuff, I thought, just might win.

This year is shaping up to be the inflection point when this becomes obvious to everybody else. Beyond Meat’s products are in 15,000 grocery stores in the U.S., and its sales have more than doubled each year. On May 2, it held its IPO, offering stock at $25, which turned out to be a wild underestimation of what investors thought the company was worth. It immediately leaped to $46 and closed the day at $65.75. That one-day pop of 163 percent was one of the best in decades, putting to shame such 2019 IPOs as Lyft (21 percent) and Pinterest (25 percent), to say nothing of Uber (negative 3 percent). In the following days, it kept ripping, climbing above $150, where it has stayed. The market currently estimates Beyond Meat’s worth at close to $10 billion.

Not to be outdone, that same month, Impossible Foods raised an additional $300 million dollars from private investors (for a running total of $740 million and a valuation of $2 billion) and announced it would be joining Beyond Meat in America’s grocery stores later this year. These companies are no longer little mammals scurrying around the feet of the big-beef dinosaurs. And they are gearing up for an epic head-to-head battle.

Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods recently released new, improved versions of their meat. For the past week, I’ve subsisted on little else. It feels great. Both have the same amount of protein as ground beef (about 20 grams per quarter-pound serving) and less fat. Being plant-based, they also provide a healthy shot of fiber. Both get their unctuousness from coconut oil.

But the core of each formula is very different. Beyond uses pea protein, while Impossible uses soy. Beyond gets its bloody color from beet juice; Impossible uses heme—the same molecule that makes our blood red—to achieve its meaty color and flavor. This is its killer app. Beef gets its beefiness from heme. When you cook heme, it produces the distinctive savory, metallic flavor of meat. Since heme is normally found in blood, no veggie concoction has ever used it. Soy plants do make microscopic amounts of it, but not enough to ever use. Impossible Foods’ breakthrough was to genetically engineer yeast to produce soy heme in a tank, like beer. This GMO process is a deal breaker for some people, but it makes all the difference. The Impossible Burger is incredible, the Beyond Burger merely passable.

The Beyond Burger comes as two premade four-ounce patties (packaged in a plastic tray wrapped in more plastic—strike one). They don’t quite pass as hamburgers. They’re too wet and too pink. They almost resemble finely ground salmon burgers. They cook to a satisfying toothiness on either a grill or a griddle, but there’s an inexplicable cellulose quality to the texture. (This is even more pronounced in the Beyond Sausage.) The flavor is also slightly off. There’s a hint of fake smoke and an earthiness I’m guessing comes from the beet juice. (My wife would argue that it’s more than slightly off; she has to leave the room when the Beyond Burger is cooking. But she also hates beets.) It’s not an unpleasant experience, just don’t expect the burgergasm you get from a quarter pound of USDA prime.

Impossible Foods, on the other hand, has delivered burgergasm after burgergasm. It’s shine-up-the-Nobel-Prize good. Not only does it taste like ground beef, it looks and acts like it, too. It’s truly plug and play.

That wasn’t true for the previous version. When I first wrote about Impossible Foods three years ago, I had to beg the company to send me one patty. It was hesitant. Back then, the burger was fussy. It didn’t work well on a grill, so you had to pan-fry it just right. The company made me do a Skype tutorial first, and when the micropatty arrived in a refrigerated box, with a special bun and special sauce, it was accompanied by pages of printed instructions. The burger was good, certainly the most meat-like plant patty up to that point, but it still tasted like a lite product—a little cleaner, a little less decadent, a little bit like filler.

This time, when I asked the company to send me a burger, a five-pound block of meat—clearly what it normally ships to food-service companies—arrived on my doorstep. No instructions, no hand-holding. It looked identical to ground beef, so that’s how I treated it. And that’s how it performed. I made sliders, kebabs, nachos, chili, Bolognese sauce, even a little tartare (note: the company frowns hard on this).

If I’m being honest, I find that I slightly prefer it to real beef. It’s rich and juicy, more savory, but still somehow cleaner and less cloying. Now when I go back to regular beef, I notice a whiff of the charnel house in it, something musty and gray that I don’t like and don’t need.

In the coming years, expect a lot of other omnivores to have similar epiphanies. Impossible Foods has performed more than 26,000 blind taste tests on its burger, which is on track to surpass ground beef in those tests in the near future. What happens then? Impossible has been laser focused on creating the perfect simulacrum of ground beef. But why? The cow never had a lock on gastronomic perfection. It was just the best we could do given the limitations of the natural material. Firelight was fine until electricity came along. Then things got really interesting.

Look for something similar to happen with alt meat. For now, it’s necessary to make people comfortable with the familiar, the way Steve Jobs loaded the early iPhones with faux felt and wood grain. But once people stop expecting burgers to refer to a hunk of flesh, the brakes on deliciousness will be released.

This will be generational. All change is. Most Baby Boomers are going to stick with their beef, right up to the point where their dentures can’t take it anymore. But Gen Z will find the stuff as embarrassing as Def Leppard and dad jeans.

As this shift accelerates, the beef industry will lose its last advantage—price. Most offerings made with Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are about a buck a burger more expensive. But it’s inherently cheaper to make a burger directly out of plants than it is to feed those plants to an animal first. Beef is currently cheaper because of scale. Big food companies can negotiate tremendously reduced prices for feed, and gigantic factories and supply chains are much more efficient to run.

But the playing field is leveling fast. Last week, Dunkin’ announced a new Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwich that will be just 14 cents more than the meat version. But more than anything Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods has accomplished, the true death knell for the cattlemen is how the mainstream food industry has embraced alt meat. Whole Foods just announced it will start selling burgers from the UK-based startup the Meatless Farm in all of its stores. Nestlé is launching its Awesome Burger this fall. Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat producer, just debuted its own plant-based nuggets, with more products to come. Tyson CEO Noel White said he expects Tyson “to be a market leader in alternative protein, which is experiencing double-digit growth and could someday be a billion-dollar business for our company.”

If that quote isn’t enough to send chills down the spine of any meat producer, try this one from Perdue Farms chairman Jim Perdue: “Our vision is to be the most trusted name in premium protein. It doesn’t say premium meat protein, just premium protein. That’s where consumers are going.”

And that’s where these companies will go. Beef is a headache. It comes with a lot of baggage to worry about: antibiotic resistance, E. coli outbreaks, animal welfare, climate change. It’s the kind of icky biological variable that corporate America would love to leave behind—and as soon as beef becomes less profitable, it will.

Recent projections suggest that 60 percent of the meat eaten in 2040 will be alt, a figure I think may actually be too conservative. An estimated 95 percent of the people buying alt burgers are meat-eaters. This is not about making vegetarians happy. It’s not even about climate change. This is a battle for America’s flame-broiled soul. Meat is about to break free from its animal past. As traditional meat companies embrace alt meat with the fervor of the just converted, making it cheap and ubiquitious, it’s unclear if Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods can survive the feeding frenzy (though Impossible’s patents on its core IP may help), but at least they’ll be able to comfort themselves with a modern take on Gandhi’s wisdom:

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they sue you. Then they try to buy you. Then they copy you. Then they steal your shelf space. Then they put you out of business. Then you’ve won.

via Outside Magazine: Nutrition

#IFTTT #Outside Magazine: Nutrition

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kaoruyogi · 7 years

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How to Win Wars and Influence Nobles (Ch. 5)

Rating: E for Explicit/NSFW Content! (Eventually)

Check it out on AO3!

You’d think a video game lawyer could just drop into a pseudo-medieval universe filled with magic and demons and be totally okay with it, right?

Nah.

In the wake of her brother, Spencer’s, disappearance, Belle dropped into Thedas with luggage, but without a clue. After a brief but memorable panic attack, she resolved to be the best goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. Even if she was the only goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. And even if that obstinate asshole, Cullen, wouldn’t stop giving her the side-eye every time she walked into a room…Or every time he walked into a room with her in it…Or every time they walked into a room together…Or–Fuck it. You get it.

Chapter 5: Don’t You Goddamn Dare

“You look like a frickin’ peacock,” Spencer said.

Belle preened, running her fingers along the frilled collar of her new Orlesian attire. “I like peacocks.”

“That’s good, Belle, because your brother is right. You do look like a peacock,” said Dorian. “Shimmery, green, and quite full of yourself. It suits you.” He sat across from her at a large congregational table in the center of the Herald’s rest. “Don’t you think, Sera?”

Sera, who sat to the right of Dorian, was almost too busy stuffing her face with stew and booze to answer. She did, though, mouth full and muffled. “Dunno, never seen one.”

“But you told me you’d been to Tevinter. Did you not manage to catch a glimpse of just one while you were there?”

“Bit busy, yeah?” she said before swallowing down her food. “I had things to do not looking at your stupid pee-birds. Pretty’s fine, but if you can’t eat it, sleep with it, or steal it, ‘s not worth much.”

“She’s right, you know,” Iron Bull said in his deep voice. “Pretty things are pointless if they’re useless.”

“Well, I suppose it’s good that I’m not useless then, isn’t it?” Dorian asked, leveling a squinting glare at the huge Qunari to his left. There was definitely something going on there.

“I don’t know about that, Buttercup,” said Varric from the end of the table. “You can’t eat, sleep with, or steal the Counselor, and she’s still pretty useful.” Belle loved that he’d taken to calling her Counselor. It lent a sort of foreign familiarity to their interactions.

Sera chewed and grinned at the same time. “Might try number one and two, though, just the same.”

Belle grinned back at her. “Sorry, Sera, I tend to prefer a different set of parts than what you and I got goin’ on.” Belle sipped her water, still smiling.

“Parts you can buy,” Sera said. “Or make.”

Belle’s water nearly came out of her nose. When her laughter had slowed to a simmer, she said, “Very true, but I prefer men anyway.” Sera just scoffed and shoved another heaping spoonful into her face.

“And I know this outfit is a little extravagant, P,” Belle said, turning to her brother, “but it makes my tits look amazing.”

“Here, here!” Bull raised his glass. Belle winked at him.

“Ech! Ew! Can you not, though? Can you just not talk about your…” He waved his outstretched hand around as if to block the offending boobs from view. “Your…those?”

“Aw, come on. What kind of shitty big sister would I be if I didn’t embarrass my little brother every now and then?” She jostled his shoulders. “Besides, you’re leaving tomorrow, and I won’t get to harass you for a month. And I’ve really missed harassing you. It’s probably the thing I missed the most after you vanished.”

“So, what, I should just start talking about who I’ve banged since I got here?” Spencer asked. He was always just as good at playing these games.

But Belle wasn’t about to back down. “Yeah, dude.” She made her tone as serious as she could. “Tell me who you banged.”

“Ohhh no, I’m not f—”

“Tell me who you banged, dude.”

“Blonde hair and a soft mouth.” Cole’s voice slipped up beside her, startling her just a bit. The ethereal boy was a mind reader. She just had to accept that. That was a real thing here. He was also sweet and kind. He’d brought her a cup of ginger tea the day after he returned with Max to Skyhold. “For your stomach,” he’d said. “You’re worried, but this will help.” She’d hugged him tight after the initial shock wore off. She’d hugged him tight a few times since, too. He was like a little mind-reading Winnie the Pooh.

“She’s always mean but she was nice then. Like Claire,” said Cole.

“Ewww, dude! You slept with Claire two point oh?” Belle’s mouth curled up into a sneer that melded disgust with amusement.

“Who’s Claire?” asked Varric. He leaned forward, intrigued.

“Tits McGee? His clingy, weird high school girlfriend.”

“She wasn’t weird, Bete.”

“She was so fucking weird, P. She fucking knocked on my fucking window in the middle of the fucking night after you guys broke up! My window! Not yours. Mine. And she knew it was mine, the creep. I was only home for the weekend, too, the little spaz.”

Sera snorted, and Spencer let out an exasperated groan. “Ugh, fine, whatever. She was weird. But she still had a great rack.” He and Sera clacked their mugs together at that. Belle shuddered.

It was moments like this that eased her mind. As everyone chattered about spying and stew and sexual conquests, Belle settled into the idea of being there. She still wanted to go home, that much was certain, but the people around her grew on her. She was still terrified to let Spencer leave Skyhold with nothing but a sword and shield to protect him, but knowing that Max was a powerful mage who needed little protecting placated her protective nature. Spencer had a dangerous job before being sucked into another dimension. Albeit, no one was actively trying to kill him most of the time, but there was still very real danger in his day-to-day.

At some point in the evening, Spencer excused himself to join his cohorts at another table, and they eventually retired for the night. One by one, the people laughing with her shuffled off into the night to sleep or fuck, or both. They left until she was alone. Wide awake and alone.

Belle wasn’t sleeping well. She thought about it as she trudged back to her tower. Anxiety and insomnia poked and prodded at her. The latter would have been nonexistent without the former. It wasn’t the kind of anxiety that sent her spiraling into a panic attack every night. It was the kind that whispered in her ear and flicked her consciousness just enough to remind her that something was wrong all the time. She was not supposed to be in Thedas. She was not supposed to be there, and it would kill her soon. She was sure of it. She only had seventeen days left. Seventeen days until things went south.

She climbed her stairs, all the while giving silent thanks to God for sending wonderful Josephine to her. Belle hated heights, and that godforsaken ladder had only highlighted her fears. She’d slept wrapped up in a blanket in the corner of her the tower for the first three nights, if anyone could call what she did sleeping. She shivered and wept and curled into a ball on the floor. Perhaps she’d slept those three nights, and perhaps she hadn’t.

The king-sized bed the workers had somehow hauled up to her room was passable. It was soft, if a little lumpy, and the covers were warm and plush. She thanked God again for the clandestine set of clasps she’d managed to have put on every piece of her new wardrobe. She unhooked and unsheathed herself and changed into her nightshirt. It really was too short and thin for the weather in Skyhold, but that didn’t matter. The fact that it smelled different didn’t bother her, either. It was the piece of home she could slip into every night.

Belle wasn’t even sure how long she would be able to keep wearing that nightshirt. It was starting to hang off her frame in a strange way. She was losing weight, already down somewhere between ten and fifteen pounds, she reckoned. To a point, that was to be expected when she stopped eating processed foods and chocolate and climbed every fucking stair known to mankind. But there were also times she wasn’t eating at all. She counted calories as she slipped under her covers and sidled up to the window at her bedside that she liked to stare out of in her sleeplessness. Maybe six or seven hundred calories, eight if she was pushing it. That was all she’d eaten that day. Less the day before. She’d made a good arrangement with the cook so she could avoid her food allergies, but that only took her so far.

Fear gripped her constantly. Fear that at any moment her gastroparesis or her GERD or her IBS would flare up and incapacitate her with no remedy. The meds were for management, they weren’t a cure. She couldn’t even think about her asthma, her chronic migraines, her cervical stenosis, her subluxated lumbar spine, her fucked up sinuses, or her very rare but occasional bouts of chemical depression. It was all too much.

So Belle stared out that window, watching the two moons creep across the sky, so huge that they looked like they would collide with the mountains as they passed overhead. Night sounds of wind and passing birds and the odd howling wolf soothed her. She cried most nights, but she usually watched and listened until her eyelids were too heavy, until sleep clawed its way into her head.

Movement on the battlements below caught her eye. A head of thick, surprisingly curly blonde hair exited the nearest tower. Cullen wore a loose white tunic and brown pants, but no shoes. The easy night wind that breezed around Skyhold ruffled his already mussed hair, and he ran his hand through it as he padded toward Belle’s tower. She watched him stop midway and put his hands on the stone wall.

He looked out at the snowy mountains. A dim and otherworldly blue glow hovered in the air—the moons reflecting off the ice—making him appear as if he’d been made a ghost upon the setting of the sun. He really was impressive to behold. Even under his loose clothes, and even from that distance, she could see that he was carved muscle and sinew and raw power. His profile was striking, and his bare hands looked at once soft and rough, fragile and strong.

Cullen leaned on those irreconcilable hands and stretched and twisted his body. The barest hint of sweat darkened the back of his tunic. More withdrawals. Belle wished he would at least put some shoes on. As hot as he might have been, it wasn’t good for him to be out in the frigid air in nothing but wisp-thin fabric. If it had been anyone else, she might have yelled down to them and grinned like an ass. They might have shared a laugh at the fright she’d given them. They might have gone back to bed or come to keep her company in her solitude.

But this was not anyone else. It was Cullen.

She didn’t hate him. On the contrary, she respected him. It took a while for her to realize that he was like a lot of the cops she’d worked with. He’d probably started out like the brand new cops—baby cops, everyone called them. These baby cops were dead serious about the job, about the cause. They ran themselves ragged working overtime and triple-double shifts and arresting even the most pithy offenders because they were going to make the world a better place, goddamnit.

Then they got tired. They got jaded. Some of them got funny, and some of them got angry. A lot of them landed in between. There was always one moment, one pin in the map of their career, that tipped the scales. An abused kid who begged them for salvation. A cute kid who asked them to play catch on duty. Someone’s schizophrenic brother or husband that shot their partner. Someone’s depressed brother or husband that they managed to talk off of a bridge. There was always something that stuck with them. Plenty of them would keep running themselves ragged until they couldn’t anymore, still determined to make that fraction of a difference. It was admirable, however futile it turned out to be.

Belle wondered what the pin was in Cullen’s map. What was the moment that tipped his scales? How long would he run himself ragged before he couldn’t anymore?

She watched him watch the mountains for uncounted seconds. She didn’t know how long he stood out there, staring at that glittery blue ice that turned him spectral. She only knew once she woke the next morning that she fell asleep watching him. She fell asleep to strange dreams of the blue and blonde phantom that snarled and wept and snarled again, the apparition that ran ragged as he slashed at misshapen demons in the darkness, the ghost that wondered if he would ever make that fraction of a difference.

*****

“You look like fucking frilly Bayonetta, weirdo,” Spencer said into Belle’s hair as she hugged him goodbye.

“And you look like a level two paladin, you fucking dork.” She squeezed him tighter and they laughed.

“I’m sorry I’m leaving so soon after we found each other again.”

“At least this time it’s by choice,” said Belle.

A throat clearing sound came from behind her. Goddamnit. She rolled her eyes while she was still facing away. The sound came from Cullen. She didn’t even have to look.

Belle and Spencer said their “goodbyes” and “I love you’s,” and she made her prerequisite threats that no one better get killed coupled with menacing and pokey fingers pointed from her eyes to everyone else’s. She watched Josephine linger a bit too long and a bit too close to Max. So, this was that courtly love people talked about. Passing touches and amorous gazes and just that inch of space missing between two bodies. It was adorable.

Belle stood sandwiched between a melancholy Josephine and a stoic Cullen. They watched Max, Varric, Vivienne, and Cassandra ride away, followed by Spencer and the rest of his battalion on foot. Belle caught sight of a short swath of blonde hair and an impressive bust on one of the soldiers. Tits McGee part deux, she thought.

She noticed Cullen’s flop sweat only in passing as she beelined for her tower to cry in private.

For the first week, Belle missed having her brother to complain to about what a pain in the ass it was to be without all their modern comforts. Taking a piss was an ordeal that either involved a disgusting bucket-chair contraption or a trip to the reeking communal latrine. Her period had only ended a few days before, and it became a mess of stained rags and embarrassing laundry the moment her temporary tampon supply ran dry. And to pick up said embarrassing laundry was a slew of servants, which made Belle uncomfortable in an entirely different way.

She took it upon herself, over several days, to do some housekeeping of her own with the servants. She checked in on all of them, managing to convince a few of them to speak candidly with her about their salaries and living situations. As it turned out, a position at Skyhold, or any of the Inquisition’s other properties, was coveted amongst the serving class. The pay was good and everyone got their own bed or bedroll, which was more than any of them were accustomed to in the homes of their previous employers. It was a relief to hear, though it brought Belle little comfort in accepting their servitude.

She had also taken to playing herself one song on her mp3 player every morning. The thing had a fully-charged twenty-four-hour battery when she’d been sucked into Thedas, and she figured she could make it last for a few months by turning it on for a single song. She sang along when there were words because she loved to sing. She was also rather good at it, if she allowed herself to believe what she’d been told. Settling into a version of her customary morning routine helped prepare her for the day, even for just a few minutes. It was better than nothing.

Belle also discovered that she liked the Ferelden nobility much better than the Orlesians. They were of sturdier stock, in her opinion, and less likely to find offense in petty things. A Bann named Hammett, there to discuss trading embrium shipments for extra Inquisition patrols, was accidentally served wine meant for the soldiers, much to Josephine’s immediate horror. Before she could have the offending beverage replaced, the Bann guffawed and drank down the whole glass.

“Wine is wine,” he said, “and the Inquisition soldiers are getting some damn good wine.” Belle liked Bann Hammett.

Ferelden clothes were also more comfortable. She had a few frocks made in various earthy tones, and belted at the waist rather than corseted. Each garment hung just above her knees, and was paired with leggings made of cotton, lambswool, or something called “samite,” and knee-high leather boots. Belle took the liberty of having cloth inserts put in for arch support. She had no clue how everyone walked, let alone marched, without arch support. It made her feet ache.

Cullen seemed to like her better in Ferelden garb, chest-thumping Ferelden that he was. He would nod a greeting to her before staring, which was an improvement on the unrestrained staring he’d been doing since she arrived. The two of them even managed to sprinkle some casual conversations into their routine amidst the bickering and shouting matches over who said what or who promised something to whom.

He didn’t look well, though. Every day his skin looked paler or greener. That flop sweat Belle noticed in passing became persistent. He would wobble where he stood or brace a hand on the war table or lean a shoulder against a wall. His symptoms were getting worse. But every time she asked him how he was doing, his answer was the same.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Belle would say back.

She still watched him training from the battlements while she ate lunch. While she’d first started doing it to check his competence as a commander, she’d since begun to watch for his welfare. His hand would rest on the pommel of his sword and his body would sway as he barked out orders or instructions. He looked like he would fall over in a stiff breeze.

About eight days after Spencer and Max had left Skyhold—oh, who was she kidding, it had been exactly eight days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes since they’d left—Belle walked through the rotunda with Dorian and Sera on her way to let Cullen know that she needed two of his men to escort an Arl up from the valley the following day. It was her plan to have dinner with her friends after giving Cullen the message.

“We should ask the Commander to join us,” Dorian said. “I think he must be rather lonely locked away in that tower of his.”

Sera pulled a face. “Pfft! He’ll piss on the party!”

“I’m certain he’ll do no such thing. He just needs to loosen up a little. Perhaps a strong glass of something will help.”

“Trust me,” said Belle as they passed through the door to the battlements, “alcohol is the last thing he needs right now.” It would only make things worse. Alcohol dehydrated people and sapped them of vital nutrients, and Cullen needed every vital nutrient his body could contain.

“Oh? So you don’t think I should ask him to join us?”

“That’s not what I said. Ask him, don’t ask him, do what you want. Do you, booboo.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, but it sounds rather dismissive,” said Dorian.

“And you are right on with that assessment.”

“Perfect! We’ll have an extra dash of dashing at dinner tonight, then!”

Sera groaned.

Belle opened the door to Cullen’s office, talking as she did. “Hey, Cullen, I’m going to need to bor—”

She stopped cold at the sight of Cullen lying face down next to his desk, his arm outstretched, as if he’d tried to catch himself as he fell. A small wooden box lay open beside him, its contents spilled and smashed on the floor.

Belle shouted his name as she ran to him. He didn’t move. She felt the sting and scrape of the stone against her knees when she skidded onto the floor. Adrenaline pumped through her body, helping her roll him onto his back. His eyes were closed, his mouth open.

“Cullen?” She patted his cheek. “Cullen, wake up. I need you to wake up for me. Cullen?”

Nothing.

Sera stood frozen by the door. Dorian had appeared on the other side of Cullen’s body at some point. He repeated after Belle with a waiver in his voice. “Cullen? Wake up. Cullen?”

Nothing.

Belle put her ear down next to Cullen’s open mouth.

Nothing.

She two fingers under his jaw to check for a pulse.

Nothing.

“Sera,” Belle said, keeping as calm as she could. Calamity was her specialty. It was not her way to scream or freeze or run. “Sera, I need you to go get Solas.” Sera didn’t move. “Sera! Now!” Sera muttered something like “sorry, yeah” and ran back toward the rotunda. Solas hadn’t been there when they passed through, and Belle wondered if he’d returned since they walked out.

“He’s not breathing and his heart’s not beating, Dorian. Do you know any magic that can bring him back?”

Dorian looked grim as he shook his head. “Not alive. I’m a necromancer, which means he would have to stay dead for me to reanimate him.”

“Then help me get this armor off.”

Belle tugged Cullen’s mantle out of where it was tucked into his belt, while Dorian worked Cullen’s right arm out of it. She pulled it under Cullen’s body and yanked it off his left arm, throwing it out of her way. A mass of silvery steel still stood in her way.

“Roll him toward you,” she said. Oh God, Cullen, breathe, she thought. For the love of God, breathe.

Dorian did as she asked, and she unfastened a small brown buckle that she wondered how Cullen reached every morning. “Down,” she said, and Dorian set Cullen on his back again. They worked at the twin buckles in the front, and pulled Cullen’s cuirass over his limp head.

“Get the straps on your side.” Dorian obeyed again, unfastening the right side of Cullen’s breastplate from his backplate while Belle worked on the left side. Her fingers were steady. They were always steady in an emergency. She was fire-forged for this exact brand of crisis.

She and Dorian pulled Cullen’s breastplate off to reveal his sweat-drenched tunic, every fiber soaked through. His body was still warm. Dorian tugged the backplate out from under the dead man. He was dead. He would not stay that way. He couldn’t.

In almost any case, you’re only going to do compressions until help arrives. No rescue breaths. But in the event of an unwitnessed cardiac arrest, the body is likely deprived of oxygen, and would benefit from compressions and rescue breaths, she remembered the words of the instructor at her last CPR certification renewal. Not compression-only CPR. Rescue breaths and compressions. Rescue breaths and compressions.

Belle tilted Cullen’s head back to open his airway, and swept her finger through his mouth. She fastened her mouth over his, feeling the smooth skin of his scar and the rasp of his stubble against her lips, and breathed into his body twice. His chest rose and fell with each breath. He hadn’t choked on anything. Good.

She laced her fingers together and pressed the heel of her hand into his sternum to start compressions. Thirty to two, thirty to two, thirty to two. Cullen’s ribs cracked against his sternum with her third push. She counted aloud, all the while singing “Stayin’ Alive” in her head to keep the proper pace for her compressions.

“What are you doing?” Dorian asked, no doubt bewildered by her efforts.

“CPR,” she said as she pushed down. Fifteen. “Don’t you dare die, Cullen.” Twenty.

Belle felt again for a pulse at thirty. Still nothing. She breathed into Cullen’s mouth again, watching his chest rise and fall, and started her second set of compressions. “Wake up, Cullen.” She could feel foolish tears rising, burning her eyes. “Wake up. Don’t you fucking die on me, Cullen.”

His head lurched and his body jolted with every compression, his mouth lolled open. One of Belle’s absurd tears broke free and landed on his chest. He couldn’t die. She needed him. The Inquisition needed him, but she needed him, too. She didn’t even know why. All they did was argue and stare at each other.

An uncharacteristic sob forced its way from her unwitting lips after her third set of breaths. He still had no pulse. It wasn’t working. Maybe she should have made Dorian do compressions, he was bigger. But she would have had to teach him how, and time was of the essence.

Thirty more compressions, two more breaths. Nothing.

Where the fuck was Solas? Where was the fucking guy with the strongest healing magic in Skyhold?

Thirty more compressions, two more breaths. Still nothing.

Belle’s tears were flowing uninhibited. “Wake up, you obstinate asshole! This doesn’t get to kill you! You don’t get to die! Wake up!”

She stopped compressions, and balled her right and into a fist. “Don’t you dare die on me! Don’t you goddamn dare!” She swung that fist down onto his chest as hard as she could, grunting out another sob.

Nothing happened.

Belle screamed as she swung her fist down to thump Cullen’s chest again. It was a desperate scream that belonged to the helpless and hopeless and wretched, to the already-dead warrior thrusting his sword in a pointless final effort to vanquish his enemy. It was fraught and forlorn and tore its way out of her with such force that it made her body tremble.

“Don’t you goddamn dare!”

*****

Notes: Please don't hit me!!! *flinches*

On a side note, I'm not saying that non-rescue personnel should do rescue breaths. I'm an advocate for compression-only CPR for those who are starting out uninstructed. Also, precordial thumps (slamming one's fist on someone else's chest) are *rarely* effective on those whose hearts have stopped beating for an undetermined amount of time. AKA DO NOT TRY WHAT IS DEPICTED ABOVE AT HOME! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU DO, SO DO NOT USE THIS AS A RESUSCITATION GUIDE!

Kay...so...still don't hit me. Pretty please.

#cullen #cullen rutherford #commander cullen #cullen x belle #belle dolan #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #fanfic #mgit #self indulgence au #modern girl in thedas #htwwain

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the-elizabethlee-blog · 6 years

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If you're like me and have been eating raw cookie dough by the handful since the womb, then this recipe is for you. I've tried different variations of this - protein powder, peanut butter based, almond based... my search for a healthy and passable substitute has been fruitless, UNTIL NOW. The recipe below combines some of my favorite power foods - oats, cashews, and dark chocolate, so it's high in healthy fats, fiber, and antioxidants! But here's the best part: it's the closest to real cookie dough I've ever tasted. ••• Ingredients ••• 🥜 1/2 cup unsalted cashews 🥄 1/2 cup old fashioned oats 🍶 1/2 tsp salt 🥚 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 🌰 1/4 cup chopped dates (approx 2 dates - can also substitute with 3-4 TBS honey or white sugar, but you may need to add water or milk to help the consistency) 🍪 4 TB mini dark chocolate chips or cacao nibs. I love @lilys_sweets_chocolate vegan chips, and @scharffenberger nibs ••• Directions: combine cashews and dates and soak in hot water for approximately 15 minutes. In a food processor (or blender or magic bullet) add the oats and pulse until a flour like texture is formed. Remove oats and set aside. Drain water from cashews and dates and add to food processor and pulse. Scrape down sides and repeat if needed. Stir in pulverized oatmeal and chocolate chips. Form into balls and store in the fridge or freezer. Makes 6 large balls, or about 1 cup packed dough. ••• 📍calories per 2 balls: 265 📍P/F/C: 7/15/32 ••• TO CREATE THE BOWL PICTURED 👇🏻👇🏽👇🏿 ••• Blend the following: ••• 🍌 1 cup frozen banana slices 🥛 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I use @almondbreeze 🍫 1 TB cacao nibs or chocolate chips 🥚 1 scoop chocolate protein powder. I use @muscletech 🥜 1 TB @justins almond butter ••• 📍Calories: 390 📍 P/F/C: 27/10/50 ••• When topped with two cookie dough balls and a TB of Nutella: ••• 📍Calories: 755 📍P/F/C: 35/31/94 ••• This is my favorite Sunday breakfast. It's surprisingly filling and perfect after my weekly Pilates. For a healthy weekday indulgence, halve the ingredients and skip the Nutella for a vegan friendly nighttime snack under 330 calories. It tastes oh so sinful🌝 (at Chicago, Illinois)

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secretdestinydaze-blog · 6 years

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Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos

$1 Monday! Culvers single scoops of frozen custard in a dish or cone! Yum!

— BestLife.Tips (@BestLife_Tips) October 23, 2017

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foggynightmarecollectorus-blog · 6 years

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Garcinia Cambogia Pills for That Weight Loss Program

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mellowbananacollection-thin-blog · 6 years

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Best Spa For Sipping Champagne In A Sizzling Tub

Finest Spa For Sipping Champagne In A Hot Tub

I wrote a @PopeyesChicken review from a visit on 19 October, and STILL haven't gotten any response back. #Popeyes near Philly airport SUCKS!

— Jacquelene (@jroesch89) October 31, 2017

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