#watching everyone break off into little groups and hang out in a much smaller environment (there are basically four rooms at this spa) was

[missinghan]

「 what am I // stray kids 」

❖ genre : sci-fi; superpower au; platonic relationship au

❖ word count : 3,9k (bullet points only)

❖ warning : explicit language, most likely ain’t scientifically true at all

❖ summary : superpowers manifest in certain individuals once they hit puberty and naturally, those odd abilities will vanish as soon as adulthood occurs; but how will those teenagers protect themselves from the curiosity of science?

❖ a/n : this isn’t a proper fic since I don’t think I’ll actually write smth decent out of this but I don’t want the idea to rot inside my dungeon either- so yea, bear with me through this character intro post(?)

— bang chan ↠ locating ability-wielders & teleportation

· sometimes when he’s running errands for his parents, chan can feel a distinct ‘zing’ ins his bones if someone else with unusual abilities is nearby and can describe their power perfectly to the t; he ignores it at first but learns to make do with it eventually; can teleport another person with him and also needs to calculate carefully before teleporting because he once ends up in the middle of a freeway instead of school resulting from lack of sleep.

· looks intimidating but is the first to talk to a new kid in class and show them around as he’s president of the school’s student council; smiles and laughs a lot once you get to know him, and is also very caring, reliable.

· he wishes to apply for a music production company after his college graduation but his family turned the idea down almost immediately and sent him to a boarding school in Europe.

· chan starts taking notice in strange things at his new school after the first few weeks; for example: how they unreasonably force students to have a daily health checkup, how their food taste like medicine most of the times, teachers don’t really seem to care about what they’re teaching and some of his classmates mysteriously ‘move away’ whenever security shows up at their dorm in the middle of the night.

· after finding out where they actually are via photos of students being locked up inside cells, arms and legs chained up like domestic animals, injected with odd substances on a daily basis which were taken by an anonymous individual, chan secretly packs his stuff and decides to ditch this so-called boarding school for good.

· he works hard to hide his identity ensuing flying back to his hometown for a solid three weeks and the fact that there are more people cursed with supernatural abilities begins dawning onto him; cutting off contact with his family completely, moving from one crusty apartment to another every month, chan tackles this crazy idea of assembling a group consisted of extraordinary people to give him a hand with creating a safe environment for the ‘gifted’ youths.

— lee minho ↠ collapse

· law major, quite the loner, raised by a single mother; didn’t have much since little but his mother’s love and affection make up for everything.

· looks intimidating, is actually intimidating; the only person he talks to in college is his dance coach, doesn’t like school nor has many friends; his slightest glare is as cold as a wife trying to win custody of her children in court.

· minho can make his surroundings crumble and fall apart with his mind, which shouldn’t be confused with telekinesis since he can’t physically move objects to his will; this deadly power is triggered whenever he’s experiencing extremely negative emotions like fear or anguish and he’s not (still isn’t) very good at getting a hold of it.

· a group of suspicious men shows up at his house one day as he returns home from dance practice; they claim to be an agency looking for up and coming talents but by the way that his mother is staring at the ground nervously with her legs trembling, his institution tells him that something’s off.

· he firmly declines their offer with a stiff “I’m uncertain that I’m the talent you gentlemen are looking for, but you should know that when the cops are here to fill out their reports, I’m gonna be very helpful, as helpful as possible.”

· “what other random merry of fucking misdemeanors are going to pop up once they go through your records? domestic violence? illegal substances and weapons possession? human trafficking?”

· with a gun to her head, his mom scrambles to her knees and begs him to go with them, admitting that she’s already signed the contract; if he follows their orders and agrees to become an experimental subject, she won’t have to worry about any financial problems for the rest of her life.

· in the heat of the moment, they ultimately force him to activate his power for the very first time; as a result, his house collapses, the death of his only family and the group of men following suit.

· “I’m too late.”

· chan manages to find minho under the aftermath, severely injured and is hanging by a string of life so fragile that can only be saved after undergoing a twelve-hour operation at the hospital.

— seo changbin ↠ sound waves manipulation

· a good student, reputable within his social sphere at school, and comes from a pretty well-off family.

· changbin is able to bend and control sound waves to his advantage; whether it’s simply for his musical instruments or moving objects around, he can also use something as minor as his own heartbeat when he’s emotionally unstable; using the ability continuously for too long can give him severe migraines and potentially damage his brain to a degree if he’s not mindful of it.

· he stays up late at night to write and produce his own songs, keeping it a secret from his parents; posts his own songs on a SoundCloud account, or performs even live at a random underground club under the alias SpearB if he has the chance to.

· an organization full of outlaw scientists comes across a video of his performance on the web, analyzing how he can enhance the beat, his vocal cords without the help of any form of technology, and just like that, he easily tops the list of their targets.

· having no choice but to do what they want when those men hold his parents hostage inside his family’s mansion, changbin gets sent to the same boarding school as chan but they’re being observed in different buildings for his power is on the more useful and dangerous side; hence, his classes consist of a smaller amount of students and they are put through checkups more constantly.

· he doesn’t really pay attention to the skepticisms that reek off all over the place as he’s too busy being homesick and studying because he fully believes that the harder he works, the more obediently he acts, the sooner they’ll let him go; all hell breaks loose when those photos are scattered everywhere, from the hallways to the bathrooms; changbin takes advantage in the riot to get himself out of there as quickly as he can possibly run to the airport.

· changbin swears to never trust anyone again until chan and minho find him sleeping inside an abandoned grocery store with a pistol inside his sleeping bag, two daggers concealed in his sleeves at all times.

· “are we seriously going to contain some headass who was this close to blowing my brain out of my head?”

· “huh, funny, last time I checked, you almost smothered me to death under a gigantic block of cement when I was trying to save your life.”

· “who are you guys and how the hell did you get in here? I don’t recall not locking the door.”

— hwang hyunjin ↠ permeation & memory manipulation

· a true theater kid, meaning he knows almost everyone but every single student at school knows him; naturally, becomes the Prince after playing one too many male lead roles because of his godly features; rather well-mannered and diligent though he doesn’t look like it.

· mistaken to be a player by every new batch of freshmen that only ever gets to watch him practicing his lines from afar, swooning tremendously whenever he ties up his hair; always carries a camera around, doesn’t like to have too many friends but if you get close enough, he’s probably the most fun to be around, won’t ever judge your questionable life choices.

· hyunjin’s ability allows him to walk right through walls as well as any other solid matters but it will drain his stamina painstakingly, causing him to run short on breaths after using his power to change his costumes faster between scenes; the thicker the wall is, the more strength it takes for him to pass through completely.

· he can also erase a certain chunk of memory from someone’s mind but he needs to physically touch them; has only used this ability one time to wipe his existence out of a childhood best friend’s mind before moving away from his hometown. 

· his interest in photography sparks the moment his uncle comes back from a business trip and gives him a toy camera, it’s nowhere near the real ones but the ten-year-old hwang hyunjin sure takes it very, very seriously; after a decade or so, he has replaced it with cameras that actually work and developed quite the talent for taking photos of sceneries and people (jisung is his number one victim but he can’t care less as long as he looks decent and that hyunjin won’t save any crack ones to blackmail him).

· suddenly gets a sketchy summer scholarship to a boarding school in London (the same so-called school that Chan and Changbin went to), his mom encourages him to go after looking it up on the internet without knowing the chances of her own son being exploited for twisted science is shockingly high.

· and the culprit who takes those photos during a wandering around school after curfew is none other than hyunjin himself; he knows damn well posting those photos means getting himself into trouble but heck, his conscience forbids him to leave this hell-on-earth place without alerting these innocent people.

· so the night before those photos are spread everywhere, in every corner, every edge of the building, hyunjin smashes his camera completely with a baseball bat and burns the broken bits in the school backyard; he tries getting through those sleep-deprived men in their fifties who aren’t likely paid enough with his ability and flees.

· surprisingly, he comes rushing into his best friend’s house right after his horrendous flights only to find him being surrounded by three mysterious men.

— han jisung ↠ plunder

· the jokester of the class, takes great joy in stressing the living daylights out of his professors with irrational questions that aren’t necessarily relevant to the lesson, procrastinates, and sleeps through lessons like there’s no tomorrow but still keeps that shiny ‘A’ on his report card nonetheless.

· being friends with hyunjin results in occasional admirers here and there for him but he does kinda have his own fandom base after being pulled upstage out of the blue in the middle of last year’s spring music festival, musing him an opportunity to show off his rapping skills; because of that event, he takes writing music more seriously with the stage name J.One.

· if jisung is being honest, he hardly uses his power since it’s basically taking over anyone’s body and mind for a maximum of five seconds meanwhile his own body is immobile; and if any physical effects occur (for example, a basketball hits him on the head spontaneously), he’s obligated to endure that pain for that person until they become conscious of their own body again.

· he’s not a creep, he swears.

· and who knows? what if his body gets kidnapped within those five seconds?

· hyunjin and jisung know about each other’s ability but don’t really discuss nor talk about them because they don’t find walking through walls or temporarily possessing someone’s body cool.

· well, that’s that until chan, minho and changbin show up at his house the same day when hyunjin returns from his summer exchange program with a cut lip and bruised knuckles. 

· “han jisung, you’re going to have to come with us unless you want to live inside a cage for the rest of your life.”

· “I’m sorry, are you threatening me?”

· “we’re trying to protect you, smartass, you’re far too dangerous to be roaming the streets so freely.”

· “....me? I’m dangerous?”

· jisung not knowing the slightest bit about his own ability downright baffles chan—he’s only scratched the surface of it at this point; his true potential is if he’s taking over another ability-wielder’s body, he will then take their power for himself; and jisung can’t remember the last time he properly uses it either.

— lee felix ↠ imperfect invisibility

· initially lives in Australia but after finding out about his ability, he moves to Seoul with his parents to live a quieter, more covered-up life without being surrounded by too many relatives.

· an absolute sweetheart, smart, kind, honest, a little slow to read in between the lines at times; can concentrate relatively well on an empty stomach, but gets drowsy quickly after eating, especially big meals. 

· lix is also homeschooled up until high school in order to avoid any unwanted situation; later on, applies for a course that can be taken online for the most parts at an average-ish university to not draw so much attention. 

· since he stays at home most of the time, he spends lots of time playing different video games, experiences random cooking recipes without burning the house down, and teaches himself how to dance through online tutorials, getting awfully good at it fast partially thanks to his natural flexibility.

· he can disappear from a single person’s field of vision for as long as he wants to but it’s still limited and considered flawed since felix can only disappear from the sight one person of his choice at a time; although it can come in quite handy whenever he gets shoved into a dark alleyway by random people varying from cheap pickpockets with a box-cutting knife to muscular men dressed in black.

· learns boxing during middle school so he can still kick asses to preserve his own life.

· felix once punches jisung in the gut and slaps hyunjin in the face with a cabbage after seeing them follow each and every one of his movements the moment he steps out of the supermarket—he’s got used to listening to people’s footsteps over time. 

· “okay, first of all, ow, and second of all, why did I get the punch and he got the cabbage?!”

· “oh, don’t be such a baby.”

· “you two don’t look like those balding dudes in money-dripping black suits...what are you on? crack? what do you want from me? money? food?”

· “of course we’re not balding men in their forties! I take personal offense to that! and please, who do you take me as? a total creep who only ever knows how to follow people with his stupid sidekick tagging along for background noises?”

· “HEY! I NEVER AGREED TO BE YOUR SIDEKICK!”

· “well, it’s time you fucking did then, han.”

· “you know, I suppose this is the part where you two put me to sleep with some kind of drug and bring me back to your excuse of a headquarter.”

· “oh, did you bring the anesthetic pills?”

· “I thought Changbin gave it to you, no?”

— kim seungmin ↠ time-leap

· born in a middle-class family, very studious but also enjoys playing baseball during retreats, takes time to open up to people so he has more acquaintances than close friends but he doesn’t mind, that way he has more time for himself. 

· definitely and never will be the kid who lets his classmates take advantage of his wit, he does do a good chunk of every group project but makes sure everyone has at least one decent thing to do (low-key loves bossing people around); can be pretty distant at first, but he just weirds people out after getting closer and doesn’t hold grudges.

· seungmin is capable of bringing himself back to a specific past event to alter the future outcome though it won’t work most of the time unless he really, really has to for safety purposes or the situation gets out of hands; time-leaping won’t activate if he wants to retake a test but works like a charm when he tries to save a kid on the street from a car accident.

· actually does deep, proper research into other ability-wielders and often stays in school during nighttime to read the news, articles or anything that he can find on the web to learn about how that one cryptic boarding school in Europe that’s accused of abusing their students got shut down all of a sudden, the students never return and family members never bother to look for them. 

· hence, he adapts to hiding his ability and himself fairly well—never takes the late-night buses, doesn’t try to become close and bond with other people, asks his parents to change the door lock every month, burns bills each time he purchases something but he tries not to go out as much as possible. 

· seungmin has seen hyunjin use his power once by accident but decided to say nothing about it; eventually finds chan’s headquarter (which is just his crusty apartment) by following jisung and hyunjin after their practice hour, baffles them all a little but joins in no time. 

· after asking hyunjin to erase his parents’ memory about himself, seungmin gives everyone a hand for their plan of building a school and campus, completely safe and under the radar for other ability welders until their adolescence is over; he time-leaps back to back in order to collect as much information about lottery tickets as he can.

· another flaw occurs when he travels to the past for the third time: his eyesight gets weaker and weaker every time he time-leaps so he starts wearing glasses as a temporary resolution but chan stops him when he tries to do it for the fifth time, saying that they would rather work hard for a little longer than have seungmin lose his vision forever. 

· after over a year or so, they successfully repurchase an education organization and officially establish an exclusive academy for ability-wielders, reaching out to those individuals before scientists can get a hold of them. 

— yang jeongin ↠ superhuman speed

· the quiet kid who most likely won’t talk unless the teacher asks him to answer a question or someone tells him to let them copy his homework; has his earbuds in most of the time to pretend he can’t hear what people are saying so he won’t have to interact with them. 

· joins after you when chan finds him hitting a wall head-on at an abnormal speed while trying to save a kitten in the middle of the streets. 

· jeongin has extremely enhanced agility and reflexes but he still lacks accuracy for he is naturally a clumsy person; therefore, changbin tells him to wear a protective layer under his uniform so even in the worst-case scenario, he can jump off a building and make it out with minor scratches. 

· reluctantly buys lunch for every member of the student council (aka 00 liners + you) on a daily basis although he can’t really see which kind of sandwiches he’s grabbing at and they end up being mushy most of the time. 

· and for those people who say his resting face is scary, he’s mainly just frustrated because of his friends. 

· also usually is the one who returns with the most injuries because of his own ability—he always flees like his life depends on it to save jisung’s ass from being hit by a truck and hyunjin’s camera from being crushed (the sole purpose of the student council will be explained more thoroughly later).

· has single-handedly saved everyone inside a bookstore when a sudden fire breaks out. 

· minho scolds him and felix a lot for spending too much time at the arcade after school instead of doing their required tasks. 

· acts all tough and mature since he’s the youngest of the squad, loves to make fun of jisung for his height but still is and probably will always be a complete child who hates eating vegetables with a passion; gets yelled at a lot whenever there’s a BBQ party since he only ever eats meat. 

· “corn? why are we raiding the Asian market for corn at one AM?”

· “an outdoor, wholesome BBQ isn’t complete without corn, duh.”

· “do you want to get us caught?!”

· “oh please, they’re going to show up either way.”

· “YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE!”

— y/n (reader) ↠ telepathic manipulation

· president of the student council, stubborn, slightly less bossy than seungmin, appears to be apathetic and cranky mainly because you can’t sleep that well; with that being said, you don’t feel too tired during ungodly hours when people are tossing around in the comfort of their bed but snap at irritating people a lot in the morning if they’re making too much noise. 

· your ability allows you to control people to your will, from something as meaningless as slamming their head through a wall to life-threatening actions like forcing them to point a knife at their own throat; it’s somewhat similar to jisung’s power though you don’t have to physically feel what your target is going through and you don’t need to worry about taking over their body.

· the only downside to it is that you easily fall asleep the moment you set your target free.

· minho is the one who gets you out of the laboratory where your parents were working on a huge, secret project about individuals with supernatural abilities for an unknown organization; you’re unfortunate enough to become their first-ever experimental subject which only nourishes resentment slowly, gnawing at your sanity while you’re dreading each day behind those cold metal bars. 

· perhaps joining the student council is what makes your life less depressing, perhaps; you’re far too busy facepalming at the beautiful monstrosity of their friendship and feeding them ensuing returning to the dorm after school since those boys only know how to eat, cooking is too much for them to comprehend (albeit felix).

· when your family was still… normal, your parents sent you to martial art classes every weekend so like felix, you don’t actually need your power to save yourself from some random mobsters on the streets.

· you’re also the only person who eats vegetables properly and even tries to incorporate more fiber into their diets but as always, they never listen, especially hyunjin when it comes to green onions.

· don’t have the best reputation in the academy because the idea of letting the new girl with a seemingly useless ability become president of the student council isn’t very appealing to many people, and it doesn’t help when every member of the council is exclusively allowed to drop out in the middle of a class to ‘collect’ any ability-wielders that chan manages to locate that day since he’s always worn out with changbin and minho from boring paperwork as well as other businessy stuff.

· even when your ability is considered almost perfect, you’ve only used it once when you thought minho was going to sell you off to another place and almost made him put a bullet through his own brain; you’ve refrained yourself from using it since that day.

#skzwritersclub #inkidz #stayshub #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fanfic #bang chan #bang chan imagines #lee minho #lee minho imagines #seo changbin #seo changbin imagines #hwang hyunjin #hwang hyunjin imagines #han jisung #han jisung imagines #lee felix #lee felix imagines #kim seungmin #kim seungmin imagines #yang jeongin #yang jeongin imagines #skz x reader #skz x you

[miraculouslycool]

Author’s Note:

1. This does happen after Miracle Queen. 2. Lukanette and Adrigami are mentioned, but not canon. This story is fully love square. 3. They're aged up in this. Everything in the show happened as it is, except they are 18 here. 4. Ladybug and Chat Noir have been heroes for three years.

Summary:

Marinette Dupain Cheng is the guardian of the Miracle Box. One would normally consider it a huge honor. And it was, only Marinette wished she was one under different circumstances, one which didn't involve her being the reason her mentor lost his memories, one where she wasn't looking behind her back everytime she guarded the box, one where she wasn't pushing everyone away, including the one person she could still hold on to - Chat Noir.

                                                       -------------------------

Ladybug's heart was pounding with fear.

"M-miraculous Ladybug." She said, her whole body shaking as she threw her Lucky Charm - a spade - into the air.

The red ladybugs flew around, cleansing everything the last Akuma had damaged. And evaporated.

A moment later, Chat Noir stood in front of her, after having gotten incapacitated during the battle.

"Whew. That was a toughie." He was grinning.

He was grinning. He was acting like she just hadn't seen him die for no reason , and like she hadn't been fighting by herself for the past half hour.

"Pound it!" He raised his fist, not noticing the inner turmoil she was experiencing.

"Are you serious right now?!" She yelled in his face.

He visibly flinched, his jaw dropping a little, but he didn't drop his fist.

"You go and throw yourself at the villain without thinking and you just come up to me and act like nothing HAPPENED?!" She shouted.

"Ladybug, wait, I-"

She didn't want to listen to whatever explanation he was going to give. She didn't have time for any of this. She had been telling him since the beginning of time to not get himself killed, and he NEVER listened to her.

A month into her being a guardian, and it had only gotten worse.

"Just forget it!" She wrung her hands, glaring at him. "I have to go." Her voice grew smaller and more pitiful and she swung away, leaving a dumbstruck Chat Noir still holding up his fist for her to bump.

                                                  -----------

"What is going on with her??" Adrien asked out loud as he landed in his room.

"Girls. You know how they are." Plagg made a beeline for his cheese.

"No, Plagg. Not Ladybug." Adrien said defensively. "Look, she's been really irritable and distracted over the past month. We barely patrol together, we don't talk as much as we used to, she's getting more snappy at me for making harmless jokes whether it is during the battle or not, it's gotten so bad we've actually stopped talking and directing each other while fighting." Adrien pointed out, holding his head. "Nowadays it feels like we just finish our parts of a group project than work together."

"Give her a break!! She literally just got a huge responsibility handed out to her!" Plagg said. "It's only been three weeks since Fu left. No wonder she's mad and snappy. Those kwamis are quite the delight." He added sarcastically.

"I've tried to talk to her about it, you know." Adrien mumbled. "I've tried asking how things are going. She just changes the subject or yells at me for not focusing."

"To be fair, you ask those things when you are supposed to be fighting." Plagg said.

"When else do I get to talk to her??" Adrien snapped. "She ignores me during patrols other than to order me around. Atleast I haven't changed like she has."

Plagg continue chewing his cheese as Adrien stared at his feet in silence.

"Maybe....maybe she needs some distraction." Adrien said suddenly.

"Distraction?? Don't tell me you're going to ask her on a date!"

"And what if I am?"

"She!! Doesn't!! Love!! You!!"

"No, this is different. I'm only going to ask her to that ball the Mayor is holding in honor of Ladybug and Chat Noir being around for three years. This is just for a change in environment. Nothing else."

"I'm not sure she'll see it that way...." Plagg said nervously.

"No, Plagg, this is perfect!" Adrien said, perking up. "She just needs a little bit of fun after the stress she's been through. It will definitely help." He grew more hopeful. "I'm asking her tonight."

Plagg groaned. Where was Tikki when he needed her?

                                                                                                                                                                                       ---------

Ladybug paced the rooftops, muttering to herself.

She had been extremely short with Chat Noir over the few weeks, and she knew it.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so reckless, but he also didn't deserve to get yelled for it.

When he came over, she was going to explain herself and be on her way.

If he came, that is.

They had been doing separate patrols, and that was mostly because it was peaceful that way. She could catch up on some fresh air for a while before going back to finding a way to deal with the Miracle box.

And her homework.

And her three projects.

And her unfinished designs.

She dropped down on the roof to sit there, her head spinning.

Alya had come over today to rave about Ladybug's new battle, and Marinette had managed to throw the Miracle box into her closet out of her sight just in time.

And that was not the only instance.

The girls had been hanging out with her a lot, and she couldn't fault them for that, according to them, they were helping her get over Adrien, who she had given up on pursuing. They thought her fragile moods, her temper, the eye bags were from heartbreak.

Well, they weren't completely wrong. Trying to get over Adrien had hurt. It had hurt even more to watch him laugh and smile with Kagami. She didn't know what their relationship was like, exactly, but she didn't want to find out.

She didn't speak to them unless she was spoken to by either of them, and she managed to get through those conversations without breaking a nerve. All one had to was smile and nod.

Sometimes she wished Adrien was an insufferable jerk, instead of the kind, sweet, amazing guy he was. It would make it so much easier for her to avoid him, to hate him, to laugh at herself for having ever liked him.

All Adrien had to do was smile at her kindly, ask her how her day went, and she was a goner.

"Ladybug?"

She looked up at the voice calling out to her.

"Chat Noir?" She echoed.

He was standing behind her, looking straight ahead at the sunset, instead of her.

"Nice view, huh?"

She followed his line of sight. The sun was setting, leaving behind the sky with gorgeous pink-orange hues.

Any other day, she would have agreed. Today she realised she hadn't really bothered to look.

"Are you okay?" Chat Noir asked her, when she didn't answer.

Ladybug didn't know the answer to that question.

Many people asked her that question. Adrien, Alya, Nino, Kagami, Luka....she could nod and say yes, she indeed was fine.

Chat Noir asked her that question too. And yet, she couldn't answer him.

She really didn't have time to.

He sat down next to her, making her acutely aware that she hadn't answered or acknowledged him.

"So..." He cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you this morning." She interrupted him.

"Oh. Oh, right. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "This morning...happened."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And?"

"It's fine. Really." He shook his head. "No harm done."

"Good." Ladybug nodded. "I'm glad."

"Yeah." He said.

"Yeah." She repeated.

And thus, the first proper conversation they had in weeks, began.

"So...have you heard that the mayor is holding a ball for our three year anniversary?" He began awkwardly.

"Yes, I have. Kind of impossible not to, because his daughter is going about raging on social media on how she's going to upstage me with her designer clothing." She said bitterly.

He chuckled a little at that. Well, she supposed it was sort of funny.

"She won't have to worry, though. I'm not going to be there to 'upstage' her."

"Yeah, I mean - wait what?" Chat Noir froze.

"I'm not going." Ladybug repeated.

"Why- why not?" Chat Noir sputtered. "We've gone there the last two years."

"Yeah? I don't want to go this year." Ladybug rested her chin underneath her palm. "Go without me, if you want to. Say I got sick or something."

"Ladybug..." Chat Noir said in a low voice. "I know things are hard right now, but that doesn't mean you have to shut yourself away from everyone."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is it really that hard for you to believe that I just don't want to go? What good will even come out of it? Chloe's just going to throw a fit and throw both of us out anyway."

"Believe it or not, even Chloe can't do that. The mayor is kind of obligated to do it. The only reason he's doing it, despite his daughter being disgraced is because there will be public protests if he doesn't."

Ladybug was getting more annoyed by the minute. "I don't want to go, Chat Noir. Drop it."

"Why not? What's wrong with having a bit of fun once in a while? It will do you some good, especially with everything that's going on." He hadn't meant to be harsh, but he was getting fed up too.

"Don't you dare patronize me." Ladybug snapped, getting up and staring him down. "And fun? Fun?? We can't have fun!! We have a job to do here! I can't go to parties and waste time like you!"

"Like 'me' ?" He growled.

She had hit a nerve, and she hadn't meant to, but she couldn't change what she said.

"You actually think I'm asking you to go because I want to slack off??" He got up as well, brushing off the dust from his suit.

"What's wrong with having a bit of fun once in a while?" She quoted him. "Hey, you're the one who said it."

"I was only asking because I thought it would get you to chill out for a while!" He shot back.

"Chill out?? What do you mean 'chill out'?" She asked, affronted.

"I can't even have a decent conversation with you these days without getting scared that you are going to blow up!" He accused, jabbing a finger in her direction. "No matter what I do or say you find a way to turn it into a shouting match!! I can't even invite you to a ball without getting yelled at, excuse me for thinking about both our sakes-"

"What do you expect me to do other than yell?! You are always joking around and punning at the most inappropriate times!! You get yourself killed -"

"I get myself killed so that YOU don't!!"

"I don't care!! It doesn't change the fact that you die and I'm left to pick up the pieces by myself!!" She shouted, and Chat recoiled, like he had been slapped.

She let out a tiny sniffle, it wasn't loud, but it was significant enough for him to notice the first crack in the walls she had built up.

"Ladybug-"

"And that's not all! How can you expect me to have a smile on my face when everything is crumbling around me?! My best friend nearly caught me holding the box today!! My parents and friends are worried about me and I can't tell them anything!"

"What about me, then?" He said, his voice at a normal level again. "Yeah, you can't tell them anything, but you won't tell me."

"I - you -" Ladybug stammered, but he had a point too. And she realised it.

"I'm just trying to make sure that we aren't broken too." Chat muttered. "I try to talk to you, you avoid the subject, you vent out your frustrations, cool, I'm ok with that too, I try to help you ignore things and help you catch a break, I get yelled at. This....is there an end to this? Will we ever go back to the people we were before?"

Ladybug breathed heavily, the energy she used up to scream taking its toll on her.

"Face it. We've changed. The situation has changed."

"I haven't." He said quietly. "I still want to help you. I just wish you don't cast me off when I am only trying to help. It's not making matters easier for either of us."

Ladybug didn't answer.

If she did let him in....he would have to suffer through the consequences too. For her mistake.

And if she let him in, she would have to let go of the wall she built for herself.

And she didn't want to let that go. Stepping out of her comfort zone, the zone with her responsibilities, and her stupid feelings for her crush and her mistakes into whatever was there outside of it....

She was fine on her own. She became a guardian on her own, and she could get through it on her own. Even if that meant being alone.

"We should..." Her voice broke for second there. "We should really stick to helping each other out only during battles. And leave the rest of the other person's business to themselves."

Chat Noir stilled. "What?"

"Don't give me that look. We're superheroes. It's our job. I'm a guardian. That's MY job. I can handle it on my own. I can't tell or do much with you anyway without jeopardizing my identity."

His brows underneath the mask scowled heavily. "So what you are saying is...you don't trust me enough to tell me things?"

"I don't HAVE to tell you anything." She narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah, just enough to keep me at arm's length, just like everyone else in your civilian life, I presume." He snarled.

"Don't give me that, okay?? I'm going through enough! This isn't about you!" Ladybug snapped.

Chat glared at her coldly for a while, trying to find a way to reply and one-up her, so she'd realise that he wasn't always going to put up with being pushed around.

"Fine." He said, bitterly, turning his back on her. "We'll see each other during the next Akuma. Whenever that is."

"Really? You're giving me the cold shoulder now?" She said disdainfully. "I told you, this. isn't. personal!"

"Too bad." He scoffed. "It is to me." He extended his staff.

"Fine, leave then! Go on, continue being childish!" She said angrily.

"Good night, Ladybug." He called her by her full name, which was what he was using to address her for quite a while, just to rub it in even more. He didn't say anything more. She wasn't worth it. He leaped off the roof in the direction of his home.

                                                         --------------

The kwamis of creation and destruction spent that night tucking in their sobbing, distraught owners to sleep.

#miraculous ladybug #her light to his darkness #my fics #ladybug #chat noir #ladynoir #adrien #marinette #adrienette #lila salt

[typewriterghcst]

Title: A Very Small Wish Fandom: The Cat Returns Characters: Baron, Muta, Toto, Haru, plus some OCs Rating: PGish maybe?? Words: 4724 Summary: A pleading request from a parent whose daughter has been cursed by a resentful witch is nothing truly out of the ordinary for the Cat Bureau— in fact, it might be so common so as to be routine— so why does something feel inherently off about this particular one? Notes: Third chapter of six of a Secret Santa gift for @deedee-sunflowers. It’s about here that the chapters start getting a bit long hhh. Tho I think they end up a little shorter again eventually Anyway, the first task. A lot of different influences went into these parts of the story, and I hope they’re not too blatant or distracting, aha ;;  Also, I forgot! I drew a very small doodle of the little patchwork creatures which feature in this chapter, if anyone’s interested `~`;;

                                    Ch. 3: The Sown Forest

The Sown Forest is near deathly silent, or… perhaps at least it feels that it should be, but the crunching of the snow under their collective feet and an ever-present rumbling ambiance akin to a distant earthquake means there’s little true silence to be had. And even without that unexpected ambient background, something about the place doesn’t feel quite right. In every direction grow thin, white trees, scattered haphazardly and yet also in just the right formation to make the forest seem far too organized, tidy. Patterned. 

No matter where they look, the horizon stretches out over an immeasurable distance, and the white of the sky and that of the level, milky ground meld into one. Only the wispy, bare branches of the trees break up the monotony of the landscape.

“Well,” Baron finally thinks to remark, “The bright red of a holly berry is likely to stick out like a rather sore thumb in this environment, isn’t it?”

“Sure, if you can find the one dumb enough to grow right now,” Muta grumbles, burying his nose into the warmth of the scarf wrapped around his neck and grumpily huddling further into his coat.

“Now, let’s not lose faith so early, Muta. Should we remain positive and keep a cool head about this, we’re sure to succeed.”

“Yeah, that’s what you always say…” More grousing.

“We have only a limited amount of time to triumph over all three of these challenges, and I believe we’ll cover more ground if we split up into groups. Muta, Miss Haru— the two of you start in that direction. Mr. Vanya and I shall take the opposite. Toto, see if you can discern anything from the sky.”

“A berry— even a patch of berries, might be difficult to spot from an aerial view,” Toto responds as a gentle caution. “Even in such a uniform environment.”

“I know, but there’s no harm in trying anyhow.”

Toto nods. Then, more firmly than before, “And how do you propose we find this spot again to inevitably reconvene?”

Ah, bless Toto again, Haru thinks to herself briefly, because Baron looks rather comically bemused by this question, and she and Muta and Toto (if possibly even Vanya, the newcomer that he is) know that this very important piece of information had not occurred to him while putting together his impromptu plan. He gives a pensive noise, one hand going to his chin as the other is planted on his hip.

Eventually, he glances at the trees surrounding them, appearing to have been struck by inspiration, and then removes his hat.

Wordlessly, he hangs it on one of the nearest branches, positioning it just so so it won’t slip off or blow away (though there’s not been even the slightest whisper of wind since they’d arrived). 

“Here we are. We’ll all meet back here in an hour— keep an eye on your own footprints. They’re all four of them different, and they should help to distinguish our separate paths.”

Something in Vanya’s gaze gleams as he looks to Baron’s hanging hat, though he ultimately turns away from it to rejoin the group. Instead, he hops like a particularly excited toddler to Haru and Muta (well, Haru, to be more truthful). In one of his paws is what appears to be a skewered snake or worm, which he wastes no time in handing sloppily to the teen, much to her dismay.

“For good luck! This is a traditional Oostal charm good for finding tricky things. And we need all the good luck we can get!”

Haru looks swiftly to Muta for assistance, but the cat is leaning away from her with an expression that speaks to no less than utter baffled disgust. Well. Strained gratitude it is, then, it seems.

“O-Ohh… You’re right, that’s a good idea— th-thank you.”

Vanya beams in a manner eerily reminiscent of the Cat King before scampering back over to his place beside Baron (and it’s only through their long shared history with the cat figurine that Toto and Muta both glean the subtle apprehension in his own expression, that he is mutely waiting in terror for the fox to hand him one of these traditional charms as well). Vanya neglects to do so, however, and Baron’s subdued trepidation is gone almost as soon as it’d revealed itself.

“Remember— one hour. If all else fails, Toto at least should be able to reunite us.”

With that decided, they start off in their opposite directions, Toto taking wing into the sky.

                                                          &&&

It’s terribly easy to become disoriented in the Sown Forest, Haru and Muta quickly find out. If not for their own footprints, they swiftly agree they’d have long since been wandering in tight circles and not even realized it. The seamless boundary between land and sky and tree has Haru occasionally feeling rather like she’s walking on a spinning top which also wobbles across the table.

She eventually places the skewered… animal Vanya had given her down beneath a tree, shooting Muta an injured look when he comments on it.

“Looking a gift horse in the mouth, chicky? Didn’t think you had it in ya,” he cracks with a sardonic laugh.

“I’ll pick it back up before we head back to the others! He’ll never even know. B-Because there’s no reason for me to actually carry it with me the whole time we’re looking…”

“I’m just picking on ya. You dropping that thing is gonna do wonders for my nose. Smells like a spoiled fish.” Then, with an annoyed huff, he continues, “I woulda thrown it at him— try to give me some stinky dead thing on a stick—”

“Come on, he’s not that bad,” Haru tries, but she knows she doesn’t sound all that convinced herself. And Muta’s not about to let it go without comment, either.

“You don’t sound so sure to me, kid.”

Haru turns in her spot on her heel, feeling lost and restless in a hard-to-define way. The Sown Forest is devoid of rocks and bushes entirely; it’s nothing but thin scraggly trees, and she would never have imagined before now that to scour such a nebulous landscape might prove to be so exasperating. Where does one search for a pop of color when there are no hiding places? 

“...do you get… kind of a weird feeling from Vanya..?”

“Yeah,” Muta doesn’t hesitate to respond sourly. “He’s a tiny, annoying puffball with a bad laugh.”

“N— No, I mean— like an uneasy feeling. Like something is… um, off.”

“Probably ‘cause something is off about him. I don’t trust that puffball.”

The relief Haru gains from such a simple sentence is near indeterminable. She almost leaps in victory.

“I knew it couldn’t be just me! Well, and Toto, maybe, but he was more mum on the whole thing. You know how he is.”

“A gargoyle of few words, yeah, I guess. Real annoying, if you ask me. It’d be a lot easier if everyone just said what they mean instead of hanging on to secrets to keep the peace.”

Distantly, Haru gets the distinct impression this complaint has roots beyond the borders of the current situation, and she’s not sure what to say to it.

Muta, also, seems similarly surprised at himself, and in the end, he chooses to bulldoze past it, circling a few trees in the silence and eventually speaking up, “...Anyway, this Vanya creature pipsqueak is fishy, an’ I don’t like him. I don’t know what he is. Something old. And this place is, too.”

“What about Baron? Do you think he’s being careful enough? He’s wandering around alone with Vanya right now…”

“Eh, Baron’s kind of a soft-hearted ham sometimes, but he’s no peabrain. He’ll be fine.”

“Is that really the best you can do to reassure me..?”

“What? I dunno what to tell you, chicky, it’s the truth.” 

“Yeah, but a little more optimism wouldn’t have hurt,” Haru mumbles plaintively.

“If you want, ya could bust on to the scene and rescue him from the puffball to pay him back. Hey, maybe he’ll start crushing on you, then.”

Oh, that calls for a heated blush. Haru stares down at the snow-covered ground of the Sown Forest, hands balled loosely into fists at her sides, though she’s trying desperately to play it all cool. Unfortunately, she’s never been much of an actor.

“He’s my friend— of course I don’t want him to get hurt.”

Muta’s response of the beginnings of a chaffing laugh is not well-received; Haru spins around to protest, but— 

Something comes shuffling into their space from behind a nearby tree. And something is all Haru can think to describe it as— smaller even than Vanya and Siree, with a long, snuffling snout and a soft, bean bag body. The tiny creature lacks arms or wings of any kind, giving it an awkward, waddling gait. Missing also are eyes and any noticeable ears.

Yet the strangest thing is that it appears to have been sewn together out of scraps of colorfully-patterned fabric, much like a quilt. (It triggers a memory of her mother’s handiwork, in fact, and the very idea of her mother back at home, in the real world, throws Oostal’s alienness into stark relief. She’s so terribly far from home.)

Muta and Haru watch the little thing waddle between them and then down the way from them in silence before looking back to each other.

“What is it, Muta?” Haru asks. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“What, you never had a stuffed animal before?”

“Stuffed animals don’t walk, Muta,” Haru responds with a huff.

“Eh, shows what you know.”

Whatever response Haru might have had to this lazy red herring abruptly trails off, because the funny little creature, having paused for a brief moment, now drops its floppy snout onto the ground and continues on in a faintly opposite direction, snorting softly the whole way.

“It must be one of the rumored inhabitants of the Sown Forest, right?”

“Yeh. Bet it’ll lead us to those rumored holly berries, too, if we’re careful about it.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Baron.”

Muta darts out from beside her with a faint derisive groan. “Remind me to scratch you later for that one.”

                                                          &&&

Following a colorful (albeit very small) waddling quilt animal through an otherwise blinding array of white snow and sky proves to be astonishingly more difficult than either Muta or Haru would have expected. More than once they somehow lose sight of the thing, only to have to stop and strain their ears for its characteristic snuffling breaths. 

“It has two little stick legs and waddles like a sedated duck,” Muta complains at one point when they’ve lost it again. “How do we keep losin’ track of it?!”

“Hold on— Muta, I hear it again. It sounds really close.” Then, after a few seconds spent listening, she adds, “...Actually, it… sounds a little like it’s eating something, doesn’t it?”

This is all Muta seems to need to hear before turning on his heel and starting the opposite way.

“Where are you going?” Haru calls after him.

“I’m out!” He hollers back. “Nothing good comes outta anything that involves weird creatures feasting on stuff, I don’t care what it’s actually— woah!!”

“What is it— Muta, what’s wrong?” Haru dashes in the direction of his voice, fearing the worst. Yet she finds him with little difficulty, and in one piece, poised in the same horrified position a housewife might take were she confronted with a trail of muddy footprints across a formerly pristine linoleum floor.

At his feet, so close he could stretch out a paw and tip the little thing over were he so inclined, is the patchwork animal they’d been struggling to track… and the good luck charm Haru had abandoned earlier, which appears a little worse for the wear.

Muta dashes behind her with an unsteady gait, complaining the entire way. “Ughh, it’s even worse than what I was thinking—!”

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Haru tries, even as she takes a repulsed step back at the faint sound of tearing meat and flinches. “...it’s still pretty bad, though.”

It’s as they’re watching from a couple paces away that the little thing lifts its ostensible head to… well, scrutinize them, Haru supposes, though it lacks the eyes to do so. Perhaps there is another, hidden sense that allows it to see in a less traditional manner.

Your trade is acceptable.

Haru can’t quite place it, how she Knows that this is what the creature before Muta and her is communicating, as it hadn’t spoken aloud, nor does she hear the words echoing in her mind as one might expect of a bizarre display of telepathy. Yet, still, the resounding statement is clear.

“O-Oh—” She starts, and her voice is like an echoing gunshot in the silence of the forest, which leads her to whisper her next words, “We’re, um, glad you like it.”

Then, as they watch, it drops its head again and continues tearing delicate slivers off the charm, seemingly oblivious to their presence again.

“Well, now what?” Muta says at her feet. He’s still eyeing the patchwork creature with no small measure of antipathy, but he’s at least not subtly hiding behind Haru anymore.

“I guess we… wait for it to finish..?”

“Great.” Muta sits down with an annoyed huff. “Doesn’t it know we’re on a tight schedule here?”

Haru laughs, but it’s tinged with a speck of nervousness.

If not for the unmistakable noise of flapping wings over the ever present hum of the forest, the resultant wind would certainly give Toto’s arrival away— there’s been not even the barest hint of a breeze since they’ve been searching. The crow perches atop a nearby tangle of branches, cocking his head in a distinctly avian fashion at the creature they’ve run across.

“Ha, looks like you’ve found one of the inhabitants.”

“What was your first clue?”

“The quilt creature down there, mostly.”

Muta, again feeling indirectly bested, only grumbles lowly to himself and crosses his arms. Instead, Haru speaks up.

“It’s taking this good luck charm as a trade for the berry. At least, that’s what it sounded like to me. I guess it’ll… um, show us the way once it’s finished..? I’m not sure how it works.”

“Sounds plausible to me. Baron and Vanya are some ways off in that direction,” Toto also adds, gesturing with his wing. “I’ll go to let them know they can stop searching, and bring them here. Be right back!”

Haru and Muta watch him take off, and for a little while until he’s too far in the distance for them to make out, before turning back to their… companions. It seems in their distraction, more of the little quilt animals had arrived, attracted no doubt by the scent of the ‘good luck charm’ Haru had laid down before the tree.

“They really like this icky stuff, don’t they?” Haru muses in an almost-laugh.

Muta pokes one of them on the top of its soft head, causing it to lose its balance and fall to the side. Grudgingly, he sets it rightside up again. “...Guess that little pipsqueak knew what he was talking about, after all.”

                                                        &&&

Elsewhere, Toto’s return trip hits an unforeseen, somewhat bizarre snag.

“The Very Pretty Vanya Creature does not fly through the air like an unsolicited blown kiss!” 

Baron and Toto share a puzzled, if slightly frazzled, look between them.

“Mr. Vanya, I sympathize if it’s a matter of a… ah, disdain for heights, but the time limit with which we’ve been burdened is perpetually ticking down, and we ought to do all we can to minimize wasted time,” Baron first tries.

“I’m a very careful flier, too. I promise you’ll have your feet on solid ground in no time at all,” Toto also adds.

But Vanya only shakes his head. “It is no matter of fear!” He begins in a manner that says fear is exactly the matter. “It is the principle! Pretty Vanya has no wings. He was meant to stay on the ground.”

It seemed there would be no convincing him. Baron turns to Toto.

“Toto, do you think then that you could fly a little ways overhead and guide us to the others? If we hurry, perhaps we’ll still make good time.”

Before them, Vanya wrings his paws fretfully before finally throwing one arm across his eyes and crying out, “Pretty Vanya must be left behind! He is the millstone dragging everyone else down!”

“N-Now— Mr. Vanya, please, don’t despair—”

“The Most Helpful Bureau must leave me behind,” Vanya insists again, this time without his face hidden, fixing Baron with a determined look. “I said it before, didn’t I? The Pretty Vanya Creature will meet you there in no time, because he is very fast.”

Faced with Vanya’s clear obstinate refusal and the added stress of a ticking clock, it doesn’t take long for Baron to give in, though the veneer of reluctance lingers over him still.

“V… Very well, Mr. Vanya. If you do insist. We’ll go on without you.”

"You will. But there's no reason to worry. It'll be all okay!"

"...Yes. Of course. Be careful."

As they’re flying away, Toto speaks up. “Do you think he’ll make it?”

Baron seems reluctant to answer, gaze distant and unfocused. Coupled with his stilted posture, it gives him the look of someone who is quite diligently trying to avoid jumping to an unpleasant conclusion.

“...It doesn’t matter,” he eventually responds quietly. “I suppose it’s not something which overtly needs his presence.”

“What about covertly?”

“Then we shall hope for the best.”

                                                          &&&

True to Toto’s ultimately fruitless attempts at reassurance, it seems only a matter of seconds when they have their feet back on solid ground, spotting Muta and Haru from the air easily enough and touching down just shy of them in the hopes of not startling the by now bristling crowd of tiny quilted animals surrounding the other two.

“Eh? Where’s the pipsqueak?”

“He chose to find his own way to our location,” Baron first explains in his impeccable manner.

“Scared of heights,” is Toto’s more honest addition.

Muta turns back to the quilt animals with an unimpressed scowl. “Figures. Just make us do all the dirty work.”

“Now, Muta, a genuine fear of heights is nothing to brush off.”

“Yeah, if it’s genuine…” Mumbled under his breath, but distinct enough for them all to hear, and that Baron (nor the other two) step in to offer a defense is telling… but also serves at least to inform them all that they’re all four on the same page.

“What about these little guys? Have they brought up the trade or the berry again?”

“No. I think they wanted to finish off the, um… trade first,” Haru says, looking from Baron and Toto to the gathering of quilt animals scattered about before them. She sits crouched on her haunches with her elbows on her thighs, gazing out at their odd companions with the same detached but amiable curiosity one might reserve for a child’s play.

“Can they really stretch out that one sticky charm enough for this many to have a bite of it?” She eventually notes with some incredulous amusement.

“They’re sure gonna try,” Muta snorts.

Finally, as they watch, in the distance it looks as if there are languid waves in the sea of brightly-colored patchwork, divots in the throng that speak to the movement of only a few individuals while the others part to let them pass.

It doesn’t take long; they soon find themselves approached for an apparent audience with a… particularly diminutive individual which separates from the group, one which also appears to have been adorned with a tattered shawl thrown over its body, which trails like a leaden weight after it (though upon closer inspection, this threadbare train is simply part of the little thing’s frame).

Some of the seams on its patchwork appear to be coming undone. Distantly, Haru wonders what will happen should they truly do so, and— quite swiftly derails her own thoughts before they can wander down distressing paths.

Strikingly, also, unlike the others, this one has been endowed with an eye— a single coffee-colored iris in startlingly familiar, human-shaped white sclera. Situated somewhat strangely off-centered atop its tapered, drooping head, it stares vacantly ahead, half-lidded.

The four of them feel themselves scrutinized by this seeming elder; even Muta has no complaint to offer in an attempt to hurry the process along.

Only one.

Haru can’t quite place it, how she Knows that this is what the little creature before them all is communicating, as it hadn’t spoken aloud, nor does she hear the words echoing in her mind as one might expect of a bizarre display of telepathy. Yet, still, the resounding caveat is clear.

Baron nods stiffly, appearing to have been caught off-guard in the same way the rest of them had. “Yes. Just the one.”

The quilt-like creature responds with some erratic, floppy movements that vaguely resemble an affirmative nod before placing the tapered end of its cloth snout into Baron’s hands, where it drops a single round, bright red berry. It’s about the size of a particularly plump blueberry, though it seems quite larger in Baron’s gloved hands. Seemingly satisfied, the little animal turns then, and begins to waddle away.

“Thank you,” Haru thinks to call after it.

Not too far into the future, they will all four find themselves remembering this particular phrase and wonder furiously why such an innocuous one seemed to have such a profound effect upon the Sown Forest’s minuscule inhabitants. For now, however, it’s little more than a curiosity, when the creature abruptly stops with an accompanying jerk, and then goes quite still.

The others surrounding them, too, copy this one’s motions.

“Uhh, I don’t like the look of that—” Muta starts, but he’s rather abruptly cut off by a hoarse, low-pitched bark which echoes through their surroundings. The four of them instinctively back up in alarm, a sentiment which only grows upon witnessing the little things begin convulsing, tossing their heads into the air and then back down, all the while emitting those same short roars like a baleful staccato.

“That’s loud—”

“I think it’s time we took our leave,” Baron says (he makes a motion to steady his hat, only to belatedly realize he’d left it behind). He’d liked that hat.

No sooner have they turned on their collective tails and fled that the Sown Forest’s inhabitants scuttle and crawl after them in whatever way they can, and despite their obvious disadvantages, the little things are startlingly adept at keeping up with them. Haru doesn’t have the nerve to give their pursuers the thorough, lingering look she wants, too intent on making sure her pounding steps remain even and sound, but the tight-knit mob’s thunderous pursuit is impossible to mistake. It’s not long before panicked discouragement sets in. To everyone’s surprise, it’s Baron who speaks up first.

“We won’t be outrunning them on foot—”

“Good thing we have a gargoyle chicken, then, isn’t it?!” Muta snaps, then calls to said ‘gargoyle chicken,’ “Hey, birdbrain—!”

“Toto’s many good and admirable things, Muta, but I doubt even he is strong enough to carry a full-grown human—”

Haru, overhearing this, burns with the inclination to wildly apologize, all too aware of the cracks of the trees and the deafening crunch of packed snow behind them. She bows her head in remorse, feeling fervently in this moment that her decision to tag along really had been a mistake. She’s so close to contemplating how far she might get should she separate from the group and divert the creatures away… when she notices something rather strange.

“Wait—” Haru gasps, glancing down to herself in a bewildered fashion, so much so that for a fleeting second she stops in her tracks and has to be tugged along by Baron. “I’m not the same size I was— when did I get this small—?!”

Baron sounds just as bewildered when he answers, though he at least moves past it, “Let’s not kick a gift horse, now— Toto!”

“Got it!”

If Toto at all struggles with the effort to carry all three of them, even if Haru has been unexplainably shrunken, then he’s quite gifted with hiding it. He takes off into the air with them, far above the swarming quilt creatures, with no less agility than he usually does, and Baron and Haru spend the next few moments surveying the horde raptly.

“Ya just had to thank them, didn’t you?” Comes Muta’s complaint from his not altogether eager spot in Toto’s talons.

“I was just trying to be polite!” Haru counters just as plaintively, but even she sounds at least a little remorseful. “What kind of place takes words of gratitude as an offense..?”

“They don’t show any signs of slowing down,” Baron notes.

“Are they really gonna chase us all the way to the border?! They barely have the legs to run! You really steamed them with that gratitude BS, chicky.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Haru laments.

“We know you didn’t, Haru, “ Toto tries to reassure.

“Ah, it’s Vanya,” Baron says with a nod in the fox’s direction; he looks quite small (smaller than usual, that is) from their height, rapidly looking between them in the air and the horde of… well, what look to be furious blankets swarming the forest below them. He’s motioning frantically to them to come closer, to land as quickly as they can.

“Is he crazy?! There’s no way we’re landing that close to the forest— if he doesn’t make a break for it, he’s gonna get smothered, too,” Muta says.

Seemingly as an exasperated response to their stubbornness, Vanya points to the forest behind them with an agitated zealousness, or, perhaps more specifically, the perimeter which is teeming with untold numbers of the tiny quilt creatures. The vast majority of them pace behind the line of trees, fretful and overwrought; the unfortunate few that have accidentally tumbled beyond it lie scattered and twitching on the snow-covered ground like marooned fish.

“What’s wrong with them..?”

“Looks like they can’t go beyond the trees,” Toto guesses.

When they land, still uneasy from the agitated mass of patchwork continuing to obsessively tread back and forth just a scant stone’s throw away, Vanya is swift to bound over to them, practically throwing himself at Baron and wrapping his arms around the Creation. If Baron had appeared disconcerted at the mere possibility of being given one of Vanya’s messy luck charms, he’s downright alarmed when being in no uncertain terms ‘glomped’ by the same creature.

“You made it! Pretty Vanya was worried!”

“What’s wrong with the forest’s inhabitants, Vanya?”

Vanya lets Baron go (much to his evident relief) and cants his head in thought.  “The Sown Forest exists as a powerful transformative milieu. Stay too long and one becomes part of it. The inhabitants can’t leave it.”

“What will happen to the ones that accidentally fell out of bounds?” Haru asks, glancing to the small number of quilt animals still lying pitifully just out of reach of the border of trees.

“They will die,” Vanya answers with a shrug. “Eventually.”

“But that’s awful! Can’t we just push them back into the forest..? Will they go back to normal then?”

“Yes.” Vanya sounds confused.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Haru says, starting for the border with a marked lack of hesitation. “There aren’t that many— it shouldn’t take long, should it?”

“Even less with assistance,” Baron agrees shortly, following after her.

“I guess we’re doing this now.” Muta, as well, trails after the two with a sullen grumble.

“Cheer up, kitty, exercise is good for you.”

“Don’t make me cook you.”

Behind them, Vanya, still holding Baron’s hat as if it were a priceless artifact, watches them leave with a hard to define look, moving just a foot or two from side to side (but never so much as a half-step forward). His tail twitches and flutters in a manner quite reminiscent of an inquisitive squirrel, with the searching mien to accompany it, but he ultimately says nothing and seems to content himself with killing time.

#the cat returns #secret santa

[estamos-destinadas]

I saw some people’s headcanons about JULIANTINA’s Hogwarts Houses and it seems a lot of us are agreed that they’d either be in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. I want to think that both of them will be in Gryffindor because a) they’re both very brave, and b) think how cute they would be just cozying up in the Gryffindor common room together.

But...

Here’s the thing...

If they were magical, they wouldn’t go to Hogwarts. They live in the Americas. They’d go to one of the two biggest magical schools in that continent: Ilvermorny (USA, North America) or Castelobruxo (Brazil, South America). In this essay, I will--

(Sike, because I am subverting that meme)

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD

Ilvermorny

I think that between Ilvermorny and Castelobruxo, Val and Juls would go to Ilvermorny.

(Before I continue, it needs to be said: JK Rowling coming up with a school in North America that is just a copy of Hogwarts is problematic because it ignores Native American history. In my headcanon, there are several magic schools all over the Americas with a format/system that is more based on Native/Indigenous American cultures. However, Ilvermorny just happens to be the biggest school in North America. It’s an unfortunate side effect of colonialism.)

Valentina, as a Mexican, would have had the option of going to a school in Mexico that teaches a magic system that is more connected to the land’s indigenous magic and harks back to the Aztec Empire. León Carvajal sends her to Ilvermorny because that’s where he went and that’s where he met Val’s mom. His family has always gone to Castelobruxo, but he broke tradition and chose Ilvermorny, in a way setting up Val and Juls’ meeting in that same school. In any case, the Carvajals have always chosen the big European-based schools over the smaller magic school in Mexico because the Carvajal family could trace its lineage directly back to the Spanish conquerors. Like it or not, the Carvajals chose to be educated in a system introduced by European colonists. Your fave is problematic.

Juliana, on the other hand, was born to No-Maj Muggle parents in the USA. While she is Mexican through and through, the small magic school in Mexico simply do not have the resources to find her. Had Chino not dragged Lupe to the US, Juls would have have been invited to study in Mexico’s smaller magic school. In a way, Chino’s actions also set up Juls and Val’s meeting in Ilvermorny. And so Juls goes to North America’s largest magic school, reluctant because she does not want to leave Lupe alone in Chino’s abusive hands, terrified because everything is completely new to her, but also a little bit excited because magic is real.

Their Houses

Like Hogwarts, Ilvermorny has 4 houses: Horned Serpent (mind), Wampus (body), Thunderbird (soul), and Pukwudgie (heart). I think that JULIANTINA could be in Thunderbird or Pukwudgie, and I really really want them to be in Thunderbird but ultimately I think they’d both be in Pukwudgie. (Ridiculous spelling, I know.) Ilvermorny first years are sorted in the middle of the entrance hall with the older students watching them from a balcony on a higher floor.

First glimpse

Valentina is in her third year (13 years old) when Juliana starts her first (11). This is how their first glimpse of each other goes:

From her spot on the balcony, Valentina watches curiously as Juliana shyly steps up to be sorted. It takes a several minutes for a decision to be made -- the same thing had happened with Val 2 years ago -- but finally she is sorted into Pukwudgie. The older students from her new House cheer, Valentina among them. Juls looks up at the balcony and locks eyes with Val, who gives her a smile which she managed to return nervously before shuffling away from the middle of the room.

A couple of months pass before Val & Juls become friends, but more on that later.

Life in a Magic School

In my headcanon, Mexico has one magic school. Most Mexican wizarding families send their children to this school. However, most of the old money families who are direct descendants of the conquistadores (or those who want to seem old money) send their kids to either Ilvermorny or Castelobruxo. In Ilvermorny, these rich or at least well-off Mexican kids form a glamorous circle, set apart from the rest of the students by the language they speak and the wealth of their families.

In Val’s year, the circle of wealthy Mexican kids consist of herself, Sergio, Lucho, and Nayeli. Sergio is also in Pukwudgie and she considers him her best friend, at least until she and Juls start to bond. Lucho and Nayeli are both in Wampus. (Val is not dating Lucho, they’re only 13 years old. In this story, she will never date Lucho.)

Guille and Eva are also part of that glamorous circle. Guille is in his 5th year, a Pukwudgie like Val. Lots of girls have crushes on him because he’s handsome and nice. Eva is in her 6th year and is in Horned Serpent, like her father before her. She is a prefect, has been since her 5th year, and will undoubtedly be the next Head Girl when she’s in 7th year. She’s that brilliant, overachieving student that everyone knows and respects or fears.

There are other cliques of course: the WASP-y kids, the Latinx kids who live in the US or Canada, black girl magic, etc overlapping with the Transfiguration nerds, the music lovers, the jocks, etc overlapping with the Muggle-borns.

The first few months

Juls doesn’t really feel like she fits in any of the established cliques/groups; she’s Mexican but she’s dirt-poor, she’s a US-born Latina but she’s Muggle-born, she’s Muggle-born but she’s not white. She’s an 11-year old daughter of a sicario who had to leave her mother, the only person she trusts, and she’s thrust into a completely new environment where she feels different from everyone else. She feels like a sore thumb in that school full of happy kids who’ve known about magic all their lives, so she does her best to keep her head down.

She makes friends anyway. Or at least a couple of her fellow 1st year girls who have been “best friends since birth” sort of adopts her because it’s Juls and the right kind of people can’t help but want to take her under their wing.

Juls meets Jane first. Jane’s family has always been magical and her grandmother came to the US from Venezuela. (Yes, it’s Jane the Virgin.) Jane is in Horned Serpent, but she and Juls have a class together and they pair up on an assignment during the second week of school. She thinks Juls is interesting so she tries to draw Juls out of her shell, inviting Juls to hang out with her and her best friend Lina who is in Wampus. But as friendly as Jane and Lina are -- and Juls really likes them -- they’ve been best friends for so long, both their families are magical, and they’re both straight so sometimes they talk about things that Juls simply can’t relate to. It’s fine, of course, they still become good friends with Juls, but no matter how inclusive they are, Juls will always feel like the odd one out with them.

Often, Juls goes off on her own, exploring the grounds outside in the very early morning or searching for secret nooks and crannies inside the castle. She’s trying to learn everything she can about magic by experiencing it even as she continues to keep out of everyone’s way.

Valentina, on the other hand, roams around Ilvermorny like she owns it, the way all the Carvajals do. But whereas Eva struts through corridors expecting everyone to get out of her way, and Guille ambles through hallways seemingly untroubled by anything, Valentina runs around the school like it’s a playground.

Val and her group of friends cause a lot of trouble for themselves, sneaking out after hours, skipping classes, sometimes even pranking other students. Val of course never goes too far as to be actively bullying, but Lucho and Nayeli do. She doesn’t like it and she stops them whenever she can, but she still hangs out with them anyway. Guille quite obviously doesn’t like them, but he never voices his disapproval. Eva doesn’t really care about whether Val’s antics inadvertently hurt someone else, but she does care that Val, in her words, “isn’t living up to her potential”. The thing is, Val doesn’t think of Ilvermorny as a place to learn so much as an escape from the Carvajal house, which has been cold and gray ever since her mom’s death.

So for the first several weeks of Juls’ first year, Valentina and Juliana have no interaction. Still, they notice each other. Of course they do. They are in the same house after all. But that’s not the only reason they notice each other. For Juls, she can’t help but be interested in the pretty older girl with a loud and easy laughter and sky-blue eyes that seem to cloud over when she thinks no one’s looking. For Val, she can’t help but be intrigued by the pretty new girl who rarely breaks out into a genuine smile but whose dark brown eyes twinkle whenever she does.

El Dia de Muertos

Eventually, a little over two months after school started, Valentina and Juliana meet properly on el Dia de Muertos, when Mexicans celebrate their dead.

Valentina, Guille, and Eva forego dinner at the Great Hall. Instead, they go to a small trophy room near the Thunderbird dormitories, bringing traditional food and offerings with them. Their late mother was in Thunderbird and she had a lot of achievements at Ilvermorny; a lot of plaques in that Thunderbird trophy room have their mother’s name on it. Even though none of them are in their mother’s house, Thunderbird students know to avoid the trophy room on el Dia de Muertos, giving that room to the Carvajal kids for that one day. The Carvajals sit on the floor in front of a shelf containing their mom’s trophies as they talk to their dad, contacting him through magical means of course. After they hang up Eva and Guille tell Val stories about their mom. Eva and Guille stay until curfew, but Val has always insisted to stay behind and, in this one instance at least, Eva lets her.

Juliana, even though she grew up in the US, has always celebrated el Dia de Muertos with her mom. Chino is never around on said day so, in a way, it belongs to her and Lupe. After having dinner with Jane and Lina that night, Juls goes to contact her mom. It’s not easy to contact anyone by Muggle means in a place as full of magic as Ilvermorny, but several years ago one resourceful Muggle-born student had set up a room where anyone can contact the Muggle world through phones that are also provided in the room. So Juls goes to that “Phone Room” and calls Lupe. In her 2 months at Ilvermorny, Juls has always missed her mom, but she has never missed being back at their small trailer until that day. She impulsively talks about quitting school but of course Lupe stops her. They talk for a long time and when they hang up, Juls realises that she’s broken curfew for the first time ever.

Ilvermorny’s “Phone Room” is right next to the Owlery which is near the Thunderbird dormitories. Juliana has to pass by the Thunderbird trophy room to go back to the Pukwudgie dorms.

As Juls walks by the trophy room, she hears sobbing from inside floating through the slightly ajar door. Concerned, she peaks around the door to see a girl at the far end of the room, her back to the door. Juls can see that it’s Valentina and her concern grows.

Before she can stop herself, Juls asks, “Estas bien?” (In Spanish, because Juls knows Val speaks Spanish. And they will always speak in Spanish to each other unless the situation necessitates otherwise.)

Val sits up straight, but doesn’t turn around. “Fine. I just want to be alone.”

“Sorry,” Juls says. “It’s just that I heard you crying, I thought-- but you’re right.”

Juls makes to withdraw from the room just as Val turns around to see who the interloper is. When she realises it’s Juliana, she calls, “Oh, wait, sorry. Don’t go.”

Juls takes that as invitation to enter the room and join Val. She sits on the floor next to her and looks up at a moving portrait of a woman that looks like an older version of Val.

“That’s my mom,” Val says candidly even as she wipes away her tears. “She died when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry,” Juls says sincerely, hating the grief she can see in Val’s expression even as she thinks of her own mom. “I can’t imagine...” she trails off, not knowing what to say.

“It was a long time ago,” says Val, shrugging.

Juls takes in Val’s watery eyes and thinks, but you’re still hurting. She doesn’t say that out loud. Wanting to take Val’s mind off of it, she says instead, “Your robe is really beautiful.”

Val’s not wearing her school robes. Instead, she’s wearing a white robe-like top paired with a billowy pants. The white robe has that typical el Dia de Muertos design of a skull and flowers but from time to time, the flowers would bloom and spread around the shoulder area, covering it with colour. Juls has seen moving portraits and pictures in the two months she’s been in Ilvermorny, but this is the first time she’s seen moving images on a robe.

Val looks over at Juls, who is also not wearing her school robes. Unlike Val’s magical clothing, Juls’ casual attire consists of Muggle jeans and a red shirt that has a skull and flower design which she painted on herself as a nod to that day.

“No, don’t look at me,” Juls says self-deprecatingly. “I-- I’m new here, my parents are No-Maj. I didn’t know about magical clothes, or anything about magic really.”

“Well, I think you have plenty of style,” Val says, genuinely liking Juls’ clothes. “Anyway, magic isn’t everything.”

“You don’t think magic is amazing?” Juls asks.

“No,” Val replies surely. To her, it’s just a fact of life. Magic couldn’t even save her mom.

“Well, give me your wand then,” Juls says in her best threatening voice, producing her own wand out of her back pocket and pointing it at Val.

Val stares at Juls in shock until Juls bursts out laughing, saying it’s a joke. Val hides her face in her hands, half-laughing and half-sobbing, so Juls puts down her wand and pulls Val to her, telling Val not to cry.

After they both stop laughing, Val straightens up and offers her hand to Juls. “Valentina,” she introduces herself properly.

“I know,” says Juls, and that makes Val smile widely. “Juliana,” she says, taking Val’s hand.

Val also replies with an “I know,” and they laugh again, both amazed that the other already knows their name, and happy that they have finally properly met.

They continue talking, mostly about their House sorting experience, because Val originally wanted to be in Thunderbird like her mom but she was sorted to Pukwudgie. They also recall Juliana’s sorting, when Val was watching her from the balcony. They soon decide to call it a night because it’s way after curfew. They try to be quiet as they head back to the Pukwudgie dormitories, but they keep bursting into giggles for no reason that it’s a miracle none of the roving prefects catch them.

A friendship blooms

The next day is a school day and Juls drags herself out of bed even though she didn’t get enough sleep. She goes to the Great Hall where, unlike Hogwarts, the seating arrangements aren’t segregated by Houses and students can sit anywhere they please. Juls sits with Jane and Lina, trying but failing not to look around for Val. But Val, who was never a morning person, is running late and hasn’t gone down yet. It isn’t until Juls is leaving with Jane and Lina for their first class of the day that Val hurries into the Great Hall. Val sees her and gives her a wave, which Juls returns along with a small smile, but Val gets called over by Eva so she doesn’t approach Juls. Lina, who has witnessed the exchange, interrogate Juls, walking with her and Jane even though she has a different class.

“Did Valentina Carvajal just wave at you?” Lina asks.

“Um, yes?” Juls says, confused at the awe in Lina’s voice.

“How does she even know you?” Lina presses on.

Jane pipes up then. “They are in Pukwudgie together.”

“Yeah, but still, Valentina Carvajal.”

Jane shakes her head and rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

“What, it’s a big deal!” Lina says defensively.

"Why is it a big deal?” Juls asks.

Lina looks at Juls in disbelief. “Why...?” She starts to explain, but then thinks of something else. “Are you friends with Guille too? He’s in Pukwudgie. Can you introduce me to him?”

Jane laughs at that. Juls is still waiting for Lina’s answer on what the deal is, but they have arrived at hers and Jane’s class. Lina leaves them, but not before asking Juls again to introduce her to Guille.

“Why does Lina think it’s a big deal that I know Valentina?” Juls asks Jane as they take their seats. “Is it because she has a crush on Guille? Because I don’t know him. I’ve only spoken to Valentina last night.”

Jane gives her a sort of pitying look before replying. “See that book you’re holding? Open it to the copyright page.”

Juls does so and she sees that the book is printed by Grupo Carvajal Publishing.

“Grupo Carvajal publishes most of the textbooks used here,” Jane explains. “They’re the biggest publisher in Latin America, but they also publish a lot of English books. I’m pretty sure they have their own newspaper in Mexico too. But it’s not only that. The Carvajals are one of the oldest wizarding families in the Americas, at least of the ones that originated from Europe. They’re definitely one of the most powerful and influential. And, if what I’ve read is true, Valentina and her siblings are descended from Isolt Sayre through their mother.” Isolt Sayre is the founder of Ilvermorny.

“Oh,” is the only thing Juls can say. She knows of course that the Carvajal kids are rich and popular, but she had no idea until now of the extent of their family’s wealth and power. Lina was right, it is a huge deal. She previously hoped that she and Val could be friends, but right now she’s feeling the huge gap between their status in the wizarding community, in any community really.

Sensing Juls’ thoughts, Jane says that just because the Carvajals are rich and powerful, it doesn’t mean that they’re better than everyone else. “Besides,” she adds, “from what I’ve seen, I think Valentina doesn’t care about stuff like that. She’s really nice and friendly with everyone.”

For Juliana, that doesn’t take away the fact that she’s like mud to Valentina’s sky.

Juls tries to avoid Val after that, tries being the operative word. She only manages to do so for a day, and only because Val, who has no idea Juls is even avoiding her, is serving detention for some trouble she got up to a couple of weeks ago (to Eva’s annoyance). On the weekend, three days after they first spoke to each other, Val finds Juls.

Juls is by herself in a quiet and half-secluded area of the castle grounds, not doing homework but practicing a spell that ought to make her drawings move. So far, she has only succeeded in lighting her sketches on fire.

On another part of the grounds, Val is with Eva and Guille laying flowers at Isolt Sayre’s tomb, which has been part of the castle since the founder’s death. They’re walking back to the castle when Val catches sight of Juls. She hurriedly excuses herself from her siblings, checking out halfway through a conversation about their dead ancestors. Eva and Guille can only stare curiously after her as she practically skips towards Juls.

“Señorita,” Val says mischievously, sneaking up on Juls from behind.

Juls, who is just about to cast another spell on her drawings, jumps in shock, accidentally sending a stream of magic towards the ground.

“Ai, me asustaste,” Juls breathes out.

“Hi,” Val greets her properly, giving Juls an almost shy smile.

Juls can’t help but smile back, forgetting for a second about what she’s learned about the Carvajals. “What’s up? How are you?” she asks eagerly.

“Better,” says Val, nodding. “My siblings and I were just at the tomb because we didn’t get to drop by the other day.”

Everyone knows that “the tomb” can only mean the school founder’s resting place; just like that, Juls is reminded about how different their families are. “Oh, right,” she says, losing her enthusiasm, but still putting on a smile for Val.

Val scrambles to prolong their conversation. “I like that,” Val says, pointing to Juls’ Muggle sketchbook, which has fallen closed on the ground. It’s a little singed at the edges after Juls’ experiments, but there are pretty and colourful patterns on the front which Juls drew on herself.

“Really?” says Juls.

“Yeah. I-- I want something just like that,” says Val, meaning the drawn patterns.

Juls thinks Val means the sketchbook itself and she doesn’t believe her. Val’s family publishes magical books; her sketchbook is old, not at all magical, and now singed in places.

“I should--” Juls begins vaguely, picking up her sketchbook. She stands back up only to come face to face with Val’s eager smile.

“Wanna come with me?” Val asks, an idea forming in her head. “I wanna show you something. Please,” she adds in a barely audible whisper.

“I’m trying to learn this spell,” says Juls.

"What spell? I-- I’ll help you.”

“Really?” says Juls. She actually believes that Val knows the “animation spell”, but she doubts that Val will really want to take valuable time out of her day to teach her something.

“Yes, I’m-- I’m a great teacher,” Val says. “But like... what spell are we talking about, because I might not know. But I can still help you! I-- I’ll help you look up stuff or something.”

Juls laughs. Val’s willingness to help is making her forget about their different status in life; or rather, she’s starting to think that maybe it doesn’t matter so much. She likes Val and it seems that Val likes her too.

“I’m trying to make my sketches move like in those moving pictures in books, but they just keep catching on fire,” Juls tells Val.

“Oh!” says Val, surprised that she has an answer. “I know that needs potions, but I’m actually not great at potions at all.” In fact, her last disaster in potions class happened earlier that week; thankfully, it was not quite as bad as that time she accidentally turned all her classmates’ hair into flashing rainbow colours.

“But this book says I only need to use this spell,” Juls says, meaning a book on “recreational spells” that she borrowed from the library.

Val eyes the book suspiciously. It’s thin and doesn’t look reputable at all. “Yeah, if you drew it using quills with special ink.”

“Oh, I only used these coloured pencils, they’re not magic,” says Juls, disappointed. She doesn’t have special quills and she’s sure she’ll require money to get those.

“That’s fine!” Val says bracingly. “You just need to soak it in a potion. I don’t know how it’s made, but I’m pretty sure you can order it from apothecaries.”

Juls thinks that she doesn’t have money to buy anything, but that’s a worry for another day. She wants to spend time with Val now. “You know what, I’ll leave it for later. What were you going to show me?”

Val brightens even more. “It’s a room in the castle, but it’s better if you see it than if I explain it.”

“Ok,” Juls says agreeably as she gathers her things.

Val grabs her hand and leads her towards the castle and Juls follows willingly. Behind them, flowers start to bloom on the ground at the spot that Juls’ spell hit earlier.

Val brings Juls to this abandoned room full of old magical artwork. Val found it during one of her explorations when she was still a first year. She loves finding hidden treasure in that room in the form of magical drawings and even some non-magical ones. She even showed the room to her friends, but none of them is as interested in it as Juls clearly is now.

They spend a couple of hours in that room, Val showing Juls her favourite pieces as they talk about magical art and the process of creating it. Juls even talks about non-magical art, and Val listens to her intently partly because she’s taking No-Mag Muggle Studies but mostly because she thinks Juls has really interesting ideas.

Later, they go to lunch at the Great Hall together. Their respective friends wave them over, but Val only waves back at her friends while Juls tries to convey something like “rain check, I’m having lunch with Val,” in improvised sign language. Val’s friends -- Lucho, Nayeli, and even Sergio -- look at them with raised eyebrows because “is Val really hanging out with that poor first year?” Juls’ friends have a different reaction. Lina is like, “she really is friends with a Carvajal,” while Jane is just like, “I’m glad, that girl seems nice.”

It will be a few years before Vale & Juls get together, they’re still very young after all, but after that day they become each other’s best friends.

Juls still hangs out with Jane and Lina of course but she spends most of her time with Val and they don’t hold it against her.

Val actually stops hanging out with her friends for a while because they said something she didn’t like about Juls, but Sergio apologises to her and Juls after a few weeks so she continues hanging out with him. It’s impossible to avoid him anyway, they are both in the same year and in the same house. Lucho and Nayeli take longer to apologise; Val decides to let what they said slide just that once, but she doesn’t hang out with them that often anymore because she prefers hanging out with Juls.

Guille, who never liked Lucho or Nayeli, greatly appreciates seeing Val spend her time with the nice first year girl in their own House. Eva approves because Val's grades have started improving and she has stopped getting into trouble by breaking curfew.

It’s not that Juliana’s studiousness is influencing Valentina, because she’s not studious at all. She’s just so curious about magic that Val ends up learning more because she wants to help answer Juls’ questions. And unbeknownst to anyone else, Val still continues sneaking around the castle after hours, this time with Juls. It just so happens that Juls, who knows how to be sneaky and stealthy from years of dealing with her dad and his associates, is so much better at not getting caught than a bunch of rich kids who’ve never known danger in their whole lives.

Thus, Valentina and Juliana learn magic together, and actually have fun while doing it. But that is just the beginning.

(Aaaannnnd... that’s it for now, because this has gotten way too long. I’m thinking that Vale & Juls will get together when Val is in her 6th year and Juls is in her 4th, but I don’t know if I even have the mental juices to think about it now, or even write it later. This post exhausted me.)

#juliantina #magic au #this better go in the tags #warning this is long #au #harry potter au #stories #mine

[quirksk-blog]

*  ◜  HOLD YOUR HEAD UP HIGH — AND PLUNGE FORWARD !!  ›

                                   WELCOME TO U.A ACADEMY, KIM MINKYUNG !!

                   〈 " sometimes, you gotta break the law in order to see the best results “ 〉

                                                      • MINI • 20 • UNEMPLOYED •                                           • LAWFUL NEUTRAL • SIZE ALTERATION  •                                                          • TRANSFORMATION •

                       RELIABILITY〈 002 〉ELOQUENCE 〈 002 〉 INTUITION 〈 004 〉                             AGILITY 〈 002 〉 CONTROL 〈 002 〉 RESILIENCE 〈 002 〉

                                  *  ◜  MANKIND IS NOT CREATED EQUAL !!

everyone who was born with a unique quirk of their own eventually dreams of being some kind of hero. she has always been told that once that particular quirk manifests in you, it automatically made you special. she couldn’t disagree, knowing that there were crazy children out there that were born quirkless. minkyung would have felt bad for them when she was younger but once she had gotten older, all she felt was pity for all those people.

her parents had their own quirks, known as the specter heroes but growing up, she specifically remembered watching all might on the news channels - known as the number one hero who never thought to hesitate when saving lives, even if he felt as though he was being outnumbered by countless villains. she could believe that at the time, she didn’t know what being a hero entailed and even now, she still wasn’t sure, but she was still trying to learn.

“i want to be a hero like that someday. no one can ever beat all might, he never fails.”

“that’s a pretty big dream, sweetheart.” mom says.

she knew it was; just thinking about it has gotten her pumped up. she ended up having quite an active childhood, following her group of friends and trying out their quirks in secret in order to showcase them amongst each other. minkyung was always bigger than her friends, much taller than them while her parents mentioned how fast she was growing from time to time. then one day they all talked about their dreams and their ambitions and it had suddenly made her wonder again why she would want to become a hero in the first place.

minkyung had little disregard for rules when growing up, frustrating her father greatly knowing that he wants her to become a better hero than he ever was. it was a mystery as to why her parents were so intent on being so strict and so hard on themselves. as a child, she didn’t initially think her quirk was cool enough to be shown off due to the little control she had and the limits to what she could do with it at the time. when experimenting with her quirk, she damages her father’s car with the bottom of her boot as well as knocking over a few signs here and there, things that she would call an accident but as she got older, she learns to become more comfortable, more aware of her quirk that was much, much different from her parents’ quirks.

months pass and she eventually hears the answer and it turned out that it was quite a story too. they were supposed to be pro heroes with the clear knowledge on what to do and what not to do - but then reckless endangerment occurs and they manage to lose an innocent civilian in the middle of battle without their realization. it was not a surprise that the public didn’t take it very well to that particular incident and her parents forcing themselves to “retire” for an extensive period which minkyung didn’t believe for a second. like, the world needed heroes and it’d be even more shameful for them to quit just because of a mistake like that. but of course it was easy for her to say, she has never been in that situation. maybe it was hard because they have already managed to prove themselves as pro heroes, who knows.

she slowly recognizes the difficulties of being a hero, after considering story after story but that didn’t mean that she was willing to follow their rules. but reckless endangerment, she knew how that could become a problem knowing her past incidents with her quirk.

minkyung finally found her determination and fiery passion when she was ambushed by a villain hanging near a train station releasing toxic gas that forced its way into her nostrils and her mouth. the feeling that she hated most in the world was feeling helpless, unable to save herself from an attack that she never saw coming until someone had to rescue her. rescue her then severely scold her for showcasing her quirk on a villain but she disagreed, thinking she did no wrong when she might have just saved herself from being more affected by the attack.

in truth, minkyung ended up being recommended to join u.a but she refused to let her parents do that to her and wanted to ultimately test herself. even though students questioned her way of thinking, she was always ready to prove them different when moving up the ranks at u.a. the teachers and staff promised minkyung’s parents that they were strongly willing to teach their daughter to the best of their ability and help her improve despite their warnings about her attitude.

                                  *  ◜   WE RISE AND WE THRIVE !!

minkyung found it exciting whenever she gets the chance to show off her quirk, even more when she successfully completes her tasks at u.a without fail. she yearned for praise and the attention that came with it which made students question her intentions but that wasn’t all that she was searching for, surprisingly. minkyung was always the type to break the rules especially if it meant higher chances of success or if it means better results for the sake of the world and the innocent.

when using her quirk, she does not like endangering other students but would most likely force them out of the way before attacking. she’s enthusiastic, eager to improve her quirk to make it the best it can be but she can also become jealous of everyone else’s success especially it it meant they surpass her much more quickly than she would like.

while she’s sometimes reckless, minkyung has keen observation skills when it comes to her opponents and fellow students. she is also very much aware of how much damage her quirk can do, especially if she enlarges herself in confined spaces with the possibility of damaging buildings and risk harming others when not engaging in battle. she’s completely stubborn, not easily willing to listen to others but does keep their advice in mind when given to her. minkyung would more likely listen to a pro than someone with zero experience.

                                  *  ◜   POWER IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT  !!

size alteration: the ability to manipulate the size of herself and objects around her from tiny to absolutely gigantic while maintaining physical proportions, as well as altering the density of herself or another object at the same time. her strength increases when she’s bigger and decreases when she’s smaller.

- while she can increase and decrease her own size and objects, she is unable to use her ability on others. - when growing larger in size, it hinders her ability to evade attacks as she can be easily seen and become easier to strike against. - the larger something is, the more fragile the environment becomes. the smaller she is, it makes the environment much smaller in size, making normal sized hazards much more lethal. - when she becomes too large or too small, she may become stuck in confined spaces which results in damaging herself or her surroundings. this goes for the objects she enlarges as well, etc. - minkyung can control her quirk at an advanced level, meaning she can only shrink down to a quarter while only able to enlarge quadruple their normal size.

                                 *  ◜   NEVER FORGET WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME !!

minkyung’s hero costume consists of a tight black, semi-leather catsuit that covers her entire body along with a zipper in the middle that she is able to adjust for comfort. this catsuit is paired with tall red leather boots that can switch from heels to platform to assist her in climbing or running. her belt also hides her grappling hook that she uses in order to accurately reach big enemies and tall platforms when increasing size of an object. the goggles on her head assists her in seeing from farther away in order to easily maneuver.

#quirk: accepted #pristin #kim minkyung #roa #kpop rp #krp

[mymelodyisme]

Dream # 22 Time Travel?

There were three sections that almost seem like they could never be connected but they are. We begin our story in a room. I left my family in order to go to college, or so it seems, and finally found a room that I could stay in. It was free, which was oddly suspicious in itself, but when I actually got in, I realized why. The room was cluttered with junk, a walking machine, there was no bed and a single closet filled with scattered papers. This room was my old bedroom/computer room from my family’s old house. I don’t have much aside from a large purpose so I clean up a spot on the floor and make myself a small bed with the softest things I can find.

The next morning I find myself waking up cluttered and disheveled. I look around and find the contents of my bag spilled. I grab my phone, which was still on my person, and call my mom to tell her I think I’ve been robbed. She tells me to check if I still have money, I don’t, the person who did this to me left nothing, they even stole my debit card. My mom worriedly tells me that I need to call the back and have them cancel my card before the thief can use my money. I hang up on her and give the bank a call. They cancel my card and I get the idea to look up whether or not it’s been used on my account on my phone. Before I could however, I find myself in a new location in the dream. Staying close in frame to where I’ve been, I suppose I was looking for who had taken my things because I found myself outside of a restaurant. I pull into the drive through and a boy catches my eye. He’s wearing a crown, has slightly curled orange hair fluffed up at the top of his head. His skin is pale and he has freckles scattered about his face. We catch each other’s eyes and we have no idea what the do. I approach the window, order incomprehensible food, and do the like, when I make it back around the boy disappears, the night gets dark, and the world looks empty.

I look around annoyed, I’m somewhere new again. This time I’m surrounded by tools in what looks like a barn-like tool shed. Three other people walk in. Two boys and a girl. The girl sits down on the floor, one boy stands by the entrance acting as a lookout, and the other paces around beginning to complain about “them.” Apparently, “them” stands for the monsters that plague the town, one of which was who robbed me prior. The monsters included a giant frogman, a wolf-man, and a ghost. The group and I took it soon ourselves to catch, kill, or run the monsters out of town. The group and I didn’t already know each other either, we had just met by chance when the ghost began to torment a building in town. The group comes up with a solid plan to capture at least the frogman. They decided that we should lure him into the shed where they’ll shoot it. Seemed solid, until I realized I was the bait. We’ve noticed a pattern in the last few days. Apparently, the monsters are drawn to me, and no one knows why. So the boys get their weapons ready, the girl grabs some other bait and we head off. Almost immediately we find him terrorizing a park and the local food stand. As soon as I walk into the vicinity, the ferocious beast rushes me head on. I start to run not anticipating how fast it was. The group struggles to keep up and I find myself running down the long lonely stretch of road in between buildings as the night sky threatens to get darker and darker. I find the shed and run inside hoping the team had kept up. The frog corners and hovers over me like it had finally found the perfect meal. No shots rang out and I was petrified, I reach into the my pocket and tossed some kind of dust into its eyes before running out, realizing we really were alone. I make my escape not daring to look back. Moments later a shot is heard, I stop and look around, taking refuge in the shadow of a building. Then I spot him, the ghost. I run for my life as the ghost is the hardest to escape. I run into my old house, where the pink room had been, now abandoned, and run into what was my parent’s bedroom. I lock the door, and am surprised to see two identical children, they’re not surprised by my presence and explain that they were expecting me. The ghost, unable to enter despite being a ghost hits the door. I look at the kids, then at the closet. I tell them that it’s dangerous and we need to hide. They inform me that we are safe and always have been. Before I know it the banging stops and I walk over to them slowly. The child, sits on the floor watching television while the other is on the bed. Both are calm and tell me to sit with them. I ask who they are but they only insist that I’ll know eventually. The kids were slightly unsettling because they appeared to be humans, but with skin that was tainted minty and gray. They had short black hair cut into small childish bobs and large relatively normal eyes with non-discernible black irises. The slightly smaller of the two sported a beautiful little smile and seemed the most excited, reading aloud randomly from a book he held. Neither looked threatening, despite their odd skin tone, and both had a relatively calm and safe feeling about them, almost as I had known them for much longer than that minute.

I find myself, again, in a new location. I look around at my grandma’s kitchen. Food is being cooked, men loiter around polishing and loading their guns, and everyone is wearing formal attire, except myself who is wearing a long flowing white dress that looks almost western. Upon further inspection I realize my stomach is a little larger and place a hand on it. A man walks over and rests his hands on my shoulders. He tells me not to worry that I won’t get hurt as long as we stay in this home and wait for them to arrive. I ask what he means and he points to my stomach. Apparently I’m pregnant and there are men who want me dead. I nod in understanding and explore my environment. The western is on the air and on the sheets as I look between rooms. There’s a woman, she walks over and asks if I’m feeling alright or if I’m worrying again. Apparently I’ve been worrying about the baby and why I’m being targeted. She says she doesn’t know but would do anything to protect me. We’re clearly close, but I have no idea who she is. I ask for some further information on the situation and she informs me that the moment I showed signs of pregnancy people had been randomly attacking me, people who I was once close to and had never met at all. It was on the orders of my fiancé that I stay in this house at all times and that everyone should brandish a gun just in case someone managed to break in. I ask why that would seem safe if at any moment anyone here could suddenly want to kill me. She tells me that she doesn’t know why, but something about my baby is special and needs to be brought out into the world. I’m a little weirded out by that and excuse myself. Continuing to explore I find myself pressed up against my fiancé who scolded me for walking around. He tells me that he has everything taken care of and that all I need to do is stay in bed and relax, that as a pregnant woman it’s neither good for me or the baby. He looks almost confused when I ask why I am there and sits me down before explaining the sudden attacks weren’t really sudden but that bad people wanted our child dead. I ask about the child and he looks slightly annoyed. He explains that he’s told me many times that when though it’s not biologically his he loves us and will keep our family safe. He yells out a name and a man walks in. He’s tall and a little bit creepy. He walks over and helps me up. My fiancé explains that I must be really stressed because im forgetting things I already know. The man nods and suggests I am just worrying too much and that I should try to sleep. I come to find out from my best friend that the man was a scientist and the best friend of my fiancé. He practically volunteered to help us when he heard the news of the the attacks.

Moving on, I find myself once again exploring the home. No one is around now, I believe they were having a meeting of some sort in the room beside of me. I sneak my way past the guards watching the main room and enter a side room that once must have been for storage. Not yet having explored this area I look around and find old newspapers, scattered clothes, and a dirty gun. I notice a door on the side, figuring it’s another room I go to open it, and when I do I find myself looking up at a tall man holding a gun to my head. Without hesitating I duck and he shoots. I crawl away and hide behind a barrel, he shoots again, ultimately missing. He parades over and tells me that i can’t escape now he holds the gun over my head. Closing my eyes i brace for the worst when a loud bang comes from behind and a loud thud comes from the floor. I look behind me to find my fiancé looking mixed between worry and anger. My best friend runs over and helps me up holding her gun at the ready. More men suddenly break into the home and guns go off as I’m escorted away. Suddenly I’m pushed into the arms of the scientist who says we need to escape, that well go to his lab where we will be safe. Ans so we go to lab. It’s just the two of us, he tells me to sit while he gets me something to drink as I must be parched after what happened. Annoyingly curious, I start to look through his files not caring about getting caught. A file catches my eye. It contains a cassette. I grab the cassette labeled, pregnancy, and plop it into the slot at his computer curiously. The footage is an ultrasound, two babies can be seen tucked together. I have a feeling of dread wash over me as I press my hand to my stomach. Quickly pulling out the file I realize that there’s a sheet with a photo of me and various details about myself and my life. I skim through the notes only to find the debit card and various other objects including hair labeled “DNA samples” and realize the doctor impregnated me with powerful mutated artificial humans. He had planned to take them from me at birth, but upon further examinations, none of which anyone knew about, he realized that the babies were already sentient and rejecting the scientists advancements. When he found out about this he hired people to kill me, but when that didn’t work, he spread the rumor that my children would grow up to end the world and begin the apocalypse and that I needed to die as well to avoid that. He walks out with a cup of water and stops when he notices what I’ve done. He frowns and placed the glass on the table before pulling his gun. “Drink it.” Instead of doing as he asks, I push it onto the floor. He sighs and cocks his gun ready to shoot when he’s attacked by my fiancé. As it turns out, someone had been captured and questioned at the shootout and the realized that the scientist was a traitor. Knocked back and held at gunpoint by various backup men, my fiancé rushes me out, while the scientist screams that my children are abominations and attempts to shoot. Various gunshots go off and we exit. When I tell my fiancé what I discovered he insists that he will always love me and my children because they are his as much as they are mine. We walk down the hill that the lab is located on and the dream abruptly ends.

#dreams as i wrote them #this one was a ride #long post #somw details I added based on how I interpreted the dream because there was more action than dialogue this time

[tbhstudying1]

from for the dreams i want to catch https://ift.tt/2zZqbzC See More

How to Deal with Study Burnout

As students in this day and age, it’s quite common for us to juggle rigorous academic responsibilities and overwhelming extracurricular activities. As a result, we might feel burnt out. But what exactly is burnout? 

Burnout is when you feel physically and mentally exhausted as a result of constantly lacking the energy required to fulfill the demands of your studying.

Burnout can be broken down into three parts:

Exhaustion is what causes you to feel tired all the time and unable to concentrate. You could also get sick or have trouble sleeping.

Cynicism or depersonalization is when you feel disconnected from those around you, e.g. your friends and family.

Inefficacy is a decrease in productivity, efficiency, or quality of your work.

How do you know if you have burnout?

Symptoms may vary, but they include:

Being unable to absorb new information

Intellectual exhaustion

Decreasing academic performance and productivity

Feeling like you need to prove yourself

Making yourself work even more, even though you’re exhausted or being unwilling to study further

Neglecting your needs

Long term fatigue

Showing disinterest in things you normally enjoy, e.g. hobbies or friends

Denying that something’s wrong with you (may manifest in the form of aggression)

Avoiding social interaction

Feeling empty and depressed

What can I do to fix it?

Here are some short term solutions for dealing with burnout.

1. Take a power nap Power naps are life changing. They help you recharge your energy and get you ready to start working again. They also improve learning, memory, creativity, alertness, and mood. I would recommend napping for 30 minutes at most, because anything more will lead to a longer sleep session.

Optional: drink coffee before your nap - something that takes a short while to consume like a shot of espresso - so that you’ll feel alert and revitalized afterwards!

2. Take a shower A cold one will wake you up, but a warm one will calm you down. I suggest starting with warm water, then ending with cold water.

3. Exercise Whether it’s playing soccer or doing yoga, the important thing is to get moving! Exercise releases endorphins or happy hormones that help you combat stress.

4. Run a quick errand This will help take your mind off things while also getting something done! You’ll also end up walking, which is technically a form of exercise.

5. Call or visit a friend Sometimes what we’re lacking is social interaction, and hanging out with a friend definitely helps. Whether it’s providing you with a distraction or giving emotional support, your friends are always there to help you. Plus, science has shown that being with friends reduces your cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

6. Eat a snack Preferably a healthy one. Eat something with proteins, vitamins, and fibers to boost your mood. Here’s a list of mood boosting foods.

7. Surf the web This requires A TON of discipline, but it’s definitely a game changer. Surfing the web is one of the most relaxing things you could do. I personally look for a good laugh during my study breaks, so I’d watch a comedy or scroll through memes to get those happy hormones up and running.

8. Do an activity you find interesting, e.g. a hobby We all need happiness in our lives, and our hobbies are perhaps the best way to find that joy. You could sit down with a page turning adventure, or go outside and shoot hoops, or listen to a podcast, or even bullet journal, as long as you’re having a good time.

9. Listen to music Music is one of the ways we gain energy, so I always make time for it during the day. However, you should choose the right music, because not all the music you love is going to make you feel energized. For me, it’s pop punk with hard hitting beats, thundering guitars, and really upbeat, enthusiastic vocals. Some of you might be energized by mellow music with dreamy vocals that make you feel like you’re floating in the clouds. If you choose the wrong music, you might just end up feeling sluggish and drained.

10. Get some fresh air Your brain needs 20% of the oxygen in your body. Fresh air brings more oxygen to your brain so that you can think more clearly, feel less tired, and concentrate more easily.

How do I make sure I don’t get it in the future?

Avoiding study burnout in the long term has a lot to do with our study habits - as well as our daily habits. We need to make sure that our bodies and minds receive the things they need, and that we aren’t overworking them.

1. Study a little at a time Break up your notes into smaller, more easily digestible pieces and learn a little at a time. This way, you’re not overwhelming your brain, and you have time to let that new knowledge settle in.

2. Time management Having a good study schedule is crucial in preventing burnout. You don’t want to force yourself to work at your slow hours. Aside from that, you definitely shouldn’t leave things until the last minute, and sticking to a schdule will help you pace yourself. Here’s a post I wrote on How to Make an Efficient Revision Schedule and How to Beat Procrastination.

3. Get enough rest I cannot stress enough that sleep is so important for you. It improves your cognitive functioning and also enhances your mood, making it less likely that you’ll get burnt out. Make sure to take power naps, too, if you feel like you need them. 

You also really shouldn’t pull all-nighters. Sleep is also involved in cementing memories in your brain, so if you study a little before you sleep, you’re bound to remember more than if you studied a chapter during an all nighter.

Having trouble sleeping? Here’s a post I made about my night routine and how to get better sleep.

4. Cycle your study environments Your body and mind are bound to get tired from being in the same location for prolonged periods of time. The best way to fix that is to study in different places: at your desk, your backyard, the dining table, a cafe, a friend’s house, the library, etc.You should find a frequency that works for you. I like to switch it up every 2-3 days; some people change locations every week.

5. Eat well As I’ve mentioned before, healthy foods with protein, vitamins, and fiber greatly improve your mood and your physical health. Proper nutrition will give your brain the power it needs to push through. Also make sure not to skip meals; honestly you’ll just end up feeling terrible afterwards.

6. Take frequent breaks Let’s face it, we’re human, we’re bound to get tired from studying for a long time. Taking breaks enables our brains to digest the information we just learned in a pace that works for it. Breaks also help us focus on something other than studying, so that when we do get back to it, we’ll be ready to digest even more information.

7. Set realistic study goals You’re gonna memorize all 500 pages of your biology textbook in one day? Good luck with that. Some of you might be compulsive studiers, but this kind of habit isn’t very good for your brain or your physical health. Studies have shown that excess studying can lead to lower productivity, fatigue, and - you guessed it - burnout. In the end, this will result in lower academic performance, perhaps even in the long run. So instead of trying to study so much in one sitting or one day, break up your material into chunks.

8. Maintain your social life Wherever you lie on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, everyone needs social interaction once in a while. It keeps you sane and healthy. Go out with your friends, have a sleepover, or maybe even a study date.

9. Start the day right What we do in the morning can significantly affect our mood for the rest of the day. Sometimes we don’t even feel like getting up in the morning, or doing anything that day. One thing you should do is create a morning routine you enjoy to jumpstart your day. Here are 8 Morning Habits for Productivity.

10. Think positive When we’re feeling burnt out, it’s hard to not think negatively about everything. In reality, that just makes our condition worse. So think positively! Start small, like congratulating yourself for getting out of bed today, and then work your way up to bigger accomplishments, like finishing 2 chapters of your textbook.

11. Keep a stress diary This is kind of a new concept for me, but it’s really great. How it works is that each day, you would write down all the things that made you stressed and how they made you stressed. This will help you identify the things you’re doing that’s causing your burnout, e.g.

Too long study hours? take regular breaks

Too much time in the same place? cycle your study environment

Not eating properly? set aside time to eat healthy meals at least 2 times a day

Not doing the things you love? schedule in time for that, e.g. during your long breaks

Not getting enough human interaction? make a study group

Too much negative thinking? adopt a positive mindset (you can always start small)

Not getting enough sleep? fix your sleep schedule

And that’s all I have for you guys this time. Hope these tips will help you manage your stress and study burnout whenever you have them. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop an ask!

P.S. if any of you want to see the images in this post in better quality, click here (link to google drive)

#IFTTT #for the dreams i want to catch

[theconservativebrief]

When scientists offer mice a spread of junk food, they consistently find that only some overeat and puff out into little rodent blimps, while others maintain a normal body size.

A similar thing happens in people. In the US, and around the world, we are now overwhelmed with highly palatable, cheap calories. This has helped obesity rates soar on average. But not everyone overeats and becomes overweight, and not everyone who becomes overweight or obese develops illnesses like diabetes or heart disease. This individual variation — why we have different responses to extra calories and weight — is one of the greatest mysteries of modern medicine.

The best place to find answers is an 11-by-11.5-foot room in suburban Washington, DC. This summer, I spent a day there, one of fewer than 100 patients who will do so this year.

The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center’s airtight “metabolic chamber” is furnished only with an exercise bike, a toilet, and a bed. For 23 hours in June, I was sealed in the chamber, while nurses monitored me constantly through a plexiglass window and video camera in the ceiling.

Like a prisoner in solitary confinement, I ate meals delivered through a small, air-locked opening in the wall. Since researchers were measuring every calorie I used, any leftover scrap had to be sent back through the wall and recorded. A heart monitor and three accelerometers on my wrist, waist, and ankle tracked my every heartbeat and movement.

Inside the metabolic chamber at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The chamber has a “clean” airlock portal where subjects receive their meals, and a “dirty” one where they can pass back any leftovers. Christina Animashaun/Vox

There are only about 30 metabolic chambers in the world, and the NIH is home to three. These highly sensitive, multimillion-dollar scientific instruments are considered the gold standard for measuring metabolism. It’s furthered our understanding of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes — diseases that are now among the greatest threats to health worldwide — by letting researchers carefully track how individual bodies respond to the calories they’re offered.

My participation, as a normal weight “control” subject in an obesity phenotyping study, would be used toward this lofty goal.

But I wasn’t interested in joining the study just for the sake of science; I had selfish motivations too. As kids, my two brothers and many of my friends seemed to be able to binge on junk food without gaining weight. Today, my husband can gulp down mountains of pasta and remain skinny. I, on the other hand, have always noticed the scale creeps up quickly when I’m not careful about my diet. And I’ve harbored a suspicion that a “slow metabolism” might help explain my lifelong struggle to control my weight.

Being a self-imposed NIH prisoner was an exciting and rare opportunity — to see one of the most important scientific tools in obesity research up close and to finally get some answers on this long-simmering question about my body.

But my day in the chamber opened my eyes to how much I got wrong about metabolism, and how distracting and destructive the metabolism focus is for how we think about obesity and weight management.

If you’ve surveyed the covers of women’s magazines, watched Dr. Oz’s TV show, or strolled down the supplement aisle at the grocery store, you might think your metabolism is a single thing that can be calibrated with “metabolism boosters” like chili peppers or coffee, or by following special diets.

In reality, metabolism is the thousands of chemical reactions that turn the energy we eat and drink into fuel in every cell of the body. These reactions change in response to our environments and behaviors, and in ways we have little control over. (Eating certain foods and exercising a little more generally shifts our metabolic rate only marginally.)

Julia Belluz/Vox

There are three main ways the body uses calories. There’s the energy needed to keep our hearts, brains, and every cell of our body working, known as the basal metabolism. There’s the energy used to break down food, known as the thermic effect of food. And there’s the energy burned off during physical activity — like walking around, fidgeting, or exercising.

The basal metabolic rate accounts for the largest amount of the total calories a person burns each day (65 to 80 percent for most adults). Physical activity, on the other hand, accounts for a much smaller portion — 10 to 30 percent for most people — despite what many people believe. And digesting food accounts for about 10 percent.

There are several predictors of how fast or slow a person’s metabolic rate will be. These include the amount of lean muscle and fat tissue in the body, age, and genetics. Women tend to burn fewer calories than men. Counterintuitively, heavier people generally have a higher metabolic rate than skinny folks to meet the fuel demands of their larger bodies.

These processes, essential to any living organism, are complex, and scientists had been working to unravel them for centuries before the obesity crisis hit.

An engraving of Santorio Sanctorius, a 17th-century doctor and scientist, sitting in his “static weighing chair.” SSPL/Getty Images

In the early 1600s, Santorio Sanctorius, an Italian doctor and “founding father of metabolic balance studies,” ran one of the first controlled experiments of human metabolism. He invented the “static weighing chair,” a device that allowed him to weigh himself before and after meals, sleep, toilet breaks, even sex. He noticed fluctuations in his bodyweight, and concluded these could be explained by “insensible perspiration.”

One hundred years after that, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier used a device called an “ice calorimeter” to gauge the energy burn from animals —like guinea pigs — in cages by watching how quickly ice or snow around the cages melted. This research suggested that the heat and gases respired by animals, including humans, related to the energy they burn.

The “metabolic chamber” I entered evolved from Sanctorius and Lavoisier’s work. Over the years, researchers probing the mysteries of the metabolism figured out that the amount of oxygen we take in, and carbon dioxide we let off, changes depending on how quickly we’re using calories and the type of calories we’re using. Measuring these gases in airtight environments can determine a person’s metabolic rate.

The metabolic chamber — also known as a whole-room calorimeter — is the most precise tool available to track this gas exchange minute by minute.

NIH’s three chambers opened in 2007 to focus on the growing obesity epidemic. Eighteen researchers now use the rooms to run about 400 studies every year. And they are part of a broader “metabolic unit” dedicated to understanding the weight problems, obesity, and diabetes that currently affect up to a third of the people on earth.

A hallway leading to the chamber. Through an array of metal pipes spread on the chamber’s ceiling, researchers capture and measure oxygen consumption and CO2 production. Christina Animashaun/Vox

Studying thousands of subjects in the metabolic unit — the chambers plus NIH hospital wings for patients with diabetes and obesity — has helped researchers show how adaptable the metabolism is, and how it works with our appetite, body composition, and physical activity levels to adjust the calories we’re burning at any moment.

For example, by giving people a medication that causes them to lose (through their urine) an extra 360 calories per day, they’ve shown that we unknowingly compensate for those calories lost by eating more.

They’ve found that exposing people to cold temperatures while they sleep causes them to accumulate more brown fat — fat tissue whose main function is heat production — and burn more calories. (These results reversed completely when the study participants slept in warmer temperatures again, revealing how dynamic metabolism is.)

In a remarkable study of Biggest Loser reality TV show participants with obesity, researchers showed that crash dieting can permanently slow a person’s metabolic rate, leading them to hang on to the calories they were eating for longer.

The big theme in many of these studies: Our metabolism silently shifts under new conditions and environments in ways we’re not usually aware of.

When it comes to diets, the researchers have also debunked the notion that bodies burn more body fat while on a high-fat and low-carb ketogenic diet, compared to a higher-carb diet, despite all the hype.

“We could have found out that if we cut carbs, we’d lose way more fat because energy expenditure would go up and fat oxidation would go up,” said Kevin Hall, an obesity researcher at NIH and an author on many of these studies. “But the body is really good at adapting to the fuels coming in.” Another related takeaway: There appears to be no silver bullet diet for fat loss, at least not yet.

Many basic metabolism mysteries remain. It’s not fully known why two people with the same size and body composition have different metabolic rates. They also don’t know why people can have different metabolic responses to weight gain (where some people with obesity develop insulin resistance and diabetes, for example, and others don’t). They don’t know why certain ethnic groups — African Americans, South Asians — have a higher risk of developing metabolic disorders like diabetes, and why people with diabetes have a higher cardiovascular disease risk.

They haven’t even figured out how the brain knows what the body weighs and, therefore, the mechanism that controls our metabolic rate.

“If I knew how the brain is aware of how much the body weighs, and how to regulate how many calories it burned off, I could change that setting and help an overweight person burn more calories through an increase in metabolic rate,” NIH metabolism and brown fat researcher Aaron Cypess told me over the phone before my stay.

Cypess is using the chambers to work toward that, and figure out whether there might be a drug that can do what very cold temperatures do: help people burn more calories. These and other studies in the chamber are a gold mine for data on the metabolism’s mysteries — data that could eventually help uncover cures for obesity and diabetes.

For my part in the research, I’d undergo a battery of physical tests — from blood draws to an EKG — and spend a day and night in the chamber. In addition to watching how much I moved and what I ate, the scientists would get a reading on precisely how many calories I burned and what type (carbohydrates, fat, or protein), every minute of the 23 hours I called the chamber home. I’d also have my metabolic rate checked using two other methods (the “metabolic cart” and “doubly labeled water”; more on these later).

In return, I’d get more granular data about how my body works than I ever could’ve hoped for. And that made me anxious.

Christina Animashaun/Vox

At age 34 and 5-foot-9, my weight hovers in the 150s, and my BMI is normal. But even as a child, I was chubby and seemed to enjoy sugary and fatty foods more than other members of my family. During my late teens and 20s, I struggled to manage my weight and was at times overweight — a situation that worsened at the end of high school. I moved to Italy and indulged in all the pizza, ice cream, and mozzarella my little town in Abruzzo had to offer. Like a research mouse, I puffed out and returned to Canada the following year depressed about my body. It took several years to really start the process of slimming down.

I’d long believed these fat years somehow wreaked havoc on my body. Specifically, I thought they slowed down my metabolic rate, and that that made me prone to weight gain. But I was about to learn this idea I’d held on to for so long was wrong.

Halfway through my morning in the metabolic chamber, I had eaten and rested at prescribed intervals, and hit the exercise bike for 30 minutes. I also meticulously recorded all my activities in a log — when I was standing and reading, lying down, on the bike — so that the researchers could compare how they tracked against my calorie burn.

Just before lunch arrived, Kong Chen, a metabolism investigator at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, turned up on the other side of my plexiglass window to say hello.

“How are you doing in there?” he asked.

I was surprisingly comfortable in the little room, I told him, and asked if he could walk me through precisely how the chamber does the work of measuring the metabolism.

Chen, who has a PhD in biomedical engineering, explained that the room I was standing in was almost airtight, with a fixed volume of oxygen and CO2. Through an array of metal pipes spread across the ceiling, researchers captured and measured the oxygen I consumed and the CO2 I produced at every minute.

The reason these gasses matter for metabolism is simple, Chen said. We get fuel in the form of calories — from carbohydrates, fat, and protein. But to unlock those calories, the body needs oxygen. When we breathe in, oxygen interacts with the food we’ve consumed, breaking down (or oxidizing) chemical bonds where the calories are stored and releasing them for use by our cells. The product of the process is CO2 (and water, in the form of perspiration).

When air is sucked out of the chamber through the pipes, two things happen: First, gas analyzers measure everything the person inside respired, Chen said. Then the gas analyzers send the values for oxygen consumption and CO2 production to a computer, where researchers like Chen plug them into equations to calculate calories burned and what type of fuel was oxidized.

The amount of CO2 we’re releasing, and the proportions of CO2 to O2, changes depending on how many calories we’re using and whether those calories came from carbs, fat, or protein.

The reason these minute-to-minute measurements are so important is that they allow the chamber to detect subtle shifts of energy expenditure — as little as a 1.5 to 2 percent change over 24 hours — in a way no other tool can. “If you have an intervention — a drug or diet — that changes a person’s physiology by a small percentage, we can measure that,” Chen said proudly.

Kong Chen, a metabolism investigator at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, speaking to me before my “metabolic cart” test, in a hospital room outside of the chamber. Christina Animashaun/Vox

The next best metabolism measuring method, called doubly labeled water, involves drinking a sample of water that contains (or is “labeled with”) forms of the elements deuterium and oxygen-18. Since they’re not normally found in the body, researchers can determine a person’s metabolic rate by tracking how quickly they’re expelled through urine sampling. But doubly labeled water can only detect a 5 percent change in metabolic rate over seven to 10 days, more than double what the metabolic chamber can see.

These tiny changes in calorie burn might sound insignificant, but over time, they add up. “Ultimately,” Chen said, “it only takes maybe 150 calories per day difference between food and energy expenditure to make that 2 pounds a year difference of weight gain and loss.”

I asked Chen whether he’d ever used the chamber himself. He told me he was his own first subject, part of an early validation study. What did he learn, and did it change his behavior?

“I found myself to be fairly normal in terms of metabolic rate, which is good and bad I suppose,” he said. “Good because I’m metabolically normal. But it also means that I’m probably just as at risk to anyone else to gaining weight if I’m not watching it. So I’m not one of those people that can eat all they want and not gain weight.”

After Chen’s visit, the rest of my day in isolation whirred by with several more rest periods, exercise bursts, and meals. I went to bed that night thinking about Chen’s results and wondering what the chamber would reveal about me.

The next morning, I woke up groggy from six hours of light sleep. I was eager to open the heavy steel door and get into fresh air.

But the experiment wasn’t over. A “metabolic cart” — which looked like a computer on rollers connected to a tube and a plastic hood — arrived to measure my resting energy expenditure, or my metabolic rate, before eating anything. So I lay in a hospital bed as a technician fitted the clear domed hood over my head while the machine captured the CO2 I respired.

A technician measures my resting energy expenditure with a “metabolic cart” right after I wake up. Christina Animashaun/Vox

On my way out of the hospital, I said goodbye to Chen and thanked the nurses who had cared for me. They reminded me to collect urine samples every day for a week so they’d get a final measure of my metabolism, using the doubly labeled water method. I’d also continue wearing the three accelerometers. Together, this data would give the researchers a sense of my average daily calorie burn as a “free-living subject,” outside the hospital.

A few weeks later, I called Kevin Hall to go over my results. What most surprised me: There was a pretty wide gap between how healthy I was and how unhealthy I expected I’d be.

“[The results] suggest you’re perfectly normal,” Hall said. My metabolic rate was what he’d have predicted for someone my age, height, sex, and weight. In other words, I didn’t have a “slow metabolism.” I had burned the equivalent of 2,330 calories per day in the chamber, including during sleep, and most of those calories (more than 1,400) were from my resting energy expenditure. My biomarkers — my heart rate, cholesterol levels, blood pressure — were all excellent, suggesting no heightened disease risk leftover from my overweight years.

There were other revealing takeaways. Staying awake cost my body only a few more calories than sleeping, which didn’t surprise Hall. “We know the sleeping metabolic rate is about 5 percent less than resting metabolic rate when you’re awake,” he explained.

What’s more, the 405 calories I burned during 90 minutes on the exercise bike was both less than is advertised in spinning classes and just 17 percent of the total calories I had used, validating once again that workouts typically account for a relatively minor part of total energy expenditure.

Even during sleep, my body was busy. “This goes into the question of, ‘Does your brain’s energy expenditure go up when you’re doing a hard math problem compared to when you’re zoning out watching TV?’ And everyone who has measured that has said ‘no’ — it’s a fixed amount, and your brain is not inactive at any point in time,” Hall said.

Christina Animashaun/Vox

As for the “calories in” part: I consumed about 1,850 calories (including 18 percent protein, 36 percent fat, and 46 percent carbs) of the 2,250 calories provided to me. That means I was in an energy deficit, and if I continued eating that much, I’d lose weight.

I also found out that I’m bad at estimating my calorie consumption. During my chamber stay, I told a nutritionist what I’d eaten the day before and filled in a survey of my food consumption over the past year. Based on that, she’d calculated I was eating only 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day. I thought I was being incredibly thorough and generous in my accounting, but if this was really all I ate, I’d be thinner than I am.

The results of these food surveys made me wonder how many of us blame some aspect of our biology for weight gain when we’re really just underestimating our calorie intake, forgetting all the little extras we eat and drink that can add up to pounds over the years. It seems I had too.

I asked Hall if there were any other potential explanations for why I felt I gained weight so easily. He told me NIH does other studies that could answer that. If he had tracked my metabolism before I had lost weight earlier in life, he’d be able to detect any slowdown in response to slimming. Or if I participated in an “overfeeding study” — where I was deliberately fed more calories than my body required — he might see that my metabolic rate doesn’t ramp up to compensate for the extra calories, which happens for some people.

But we didn’t have that data, and according to what he could see, I was in perfect health.

I hung up the phone and reflected on the chamber experience — and my quest to better understand my body.

Spending time at NIH reminded me that our epidemic of weight problems, in addition to damaging our physical health, has left in its wake an epidemic of psychological scars — even in those who, like me, manage to lose weight.

I was genuinely surprised, and somewhat relieved, when nurses and doctors kept referring to my biomarkers as “excellent” and to me as “very fit.” Even though I know my bodyweight is in a healthy range, I still feel like a chubby kid.

And you don’t need a history of weight problems to experience these feelings of inadequacy. Celebrities and big businesses — like Goop and Dr. Oz and many of the supplement, wellness, and exercise companies out there — have minted billions off stoking our anxieties about our physical shortcomings. If we only tried a new exercise, bought a new gizmo, or ate a certain way, they suggest, we’d be slimmer, glowier, healthier.

Yet the truth of the metabolic chamber is that there’s a lot of variation in how people respond to diets and exercises, and so far, no single approach has worked to help everybody. That’s why so much of the one-size-fits-all weight loss advice we’re steeped in is so frustrating and futile for so many.

The chamber has also shown that a “slow metabolism” isn’t a major cause of obesity, despite the focus on “metabolism boosting” for weight loss in the popular health discourse.

If I look back at what helped me lose weight, there was never a magic bullet — a special diet, exercise regimen, or supplement — that worked. Through plodding trial and error, I discovered habits and routines I could stick with to help me eat less and move more.

Christina Animashaun/Vox

I don’t keep junk food in the house, I avoid eating out a lot, I prioritize sleep, and I try to fill my plates with fruits and vegetables. As for exercise, I build it into my daily life — walking or biking to work, or during lunch breaks. And I’ve found mornings and weekends best for dedicated workouts (yoga, running, swimming, spinning, Pilates, etc.).

These routines are a work in progress, and I know that my ability to maintain them is strongly tied to my socioeconomic status and where I live. If I had more personal or financial stress, or lived in a different neighborhood with a long commute to work, I’d probably sleep less and eat more. I certainly wouldn’t be doing Pilates.

Research from the chamber won’t alleviate these socioeconomic drivers of obesity. But a better understanding of human physiology and metabolism — with the help of the chamber — might level the playing field through the discovery of effective treatments. As Lex Kravitz, an NIH neuroscientist and obesity researcher, told me, “Even if a slow metabolism isn’t the reason people become obese, it may still be a place to intervene for weight loss.” The same goes for the other common illnesses — diabetes, cardiovascular disease — linked to extra weight.

More immediately, science from the chamber should debunk our metabolism myths. It certainly debunked mine.

For more information about how to join a study at NIH, check out this link on patient recruitment or contact the NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment at 1-800-411-1222 or [email protected].

Editor: Eliza Barclay Copy editor: Tanya Pai

Original Source -> The myth of the slow metabolism

via The Conservative Brief

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[bodizwonder]

Monsters of the Cart Paths

It’s simply earlier than 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in early June, and a gaggle of 12 cyclists, many with extra wrinkles and crows ft than hair, assembles in a central Texas car parking zone. The lot has slots for automobiles and golf carts.

“Hey! Hey!” yells 67-year-old Phil Durham to his fellow riders as I fumble to seize the smartphone out of my jersey pocket. I need a group shot, and the gathering of cyclists, most of them round Durham’s age and belonging to the Sun City Texas Cyclists club, resist breaking off their pre-ride chitchat. Durham, a retired credit score underwriter however solely a semi-retired street racer, waves his arms. Conversations about epic crashes and helmet manufacturers stall as membership members begin shuffling themselves and their street bikes into the beginnings of a cluster.

“Andrew’s thinking of doing an article on an old-age home like the one we’re in,” Durham publicizes. “And how we’re not all so old and ancient.”

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As I attempt to match every of the fogeyish street warriors into 1 shot, the myth-busting certainly begins. Turns out that you simply shouldn’t decide an athlete by his age, or the cart-path neighborhood wherein he lives.

I’m 35 miles north of my dwelling in Austin, Texas, within the sprawling deliberate neighborhood of Sun City Texas. Sun City, like most of the rising variety of these tidy and swept developments throughout the nation, shouldn’t be an old-age dwelling, or some clichéd retirement neighborhood. Instead these generally huge villages are constructed particularly for “55-plus” or “active-adult” dwelling: the age-restricted amenities cater tightly to a sweet-spot demographic, with no bothersome youngsters, teen drivers, or frantic soccer mothers. Yet no resident is compromised to the purpose of needing dwelling help.

Hanging with the youngish older crowd has by no means been extra in vogue. Fifty-five-plus communities began round 1960, however because of getting old Baby Boomers, in addition to new group-think that asserts health is the fountain of youth, 55-plus communities have swelled, making up an increasing share of the $66-billion retirement-community trade. Fifty-five-plus-living even made headlines final spring in publications like Forbes and Rolling Stone. The huge information: Construction has begun on 2 formidable, Jimmy Buffett-backed, active-adult communities. “Latitude Margaritaville,” full with a signature partying environment, will quickly open in each Daytona Beach, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina. The new digs will, in accordance with the International Council on Active Aging (and as of 2014), add to the estimated 2.7 million U.S. households already designated for 55-plus dwelling. “About 10,000 people a day in the United States are now turning 65,” says Danny Goodman, the chief working officer of 55places.com, a home-listing web site centered on the lively grownup market. “That trend will continue for the next 13 years.”

More and extra of the folks populating these communities are, athletically talking, fairly badass. They’re match and fit-minded; dismissive of canasta or bingo; and much more prone to hike, run, paddleboard, kayak, and follow yoga. There’s additionally a brand new sport that’s all the craze in 55-plus communities: pickleball, a detuned model of tennis (smaller courtroom; paddles as an alternative of rackets; no overhead serve), with its personal nationwide affiliation and championships aired on community TV. “We’re not anti-golf. But folks are migrating away from that,” says William Bullock, a senior vice-president at Minto U.S., one of many main 55-plus neighborhood builders.

A 2016 survey carried out by 55locations.com indicated that 67 p.c of respondents stated a health middle was the highest precedence for an active-adult improvement. Tennis courts acquired 2 simply p.c of the vote.

Then there’s biking. At Sun City Texas, 1 57-year-old member of the 160-rider membership places 10,000 or extra miles on her bike yearly. Another has crisscrossed the nation by bike a number of occasions. Earlier within the decade, Durham was one of many state’s greatest 60-plus racers.

With the Texas morning solar intensifying and the trip now formally late to begin, Durham once more tries to return to my rescue. Watching me battle whereas making an attempt to squeeze everybody into 1 photograph, he barks at his frisky club-mates as soon as extra.

“Hey! Hey!” he says. This time everybody seems to be on the digicam, and smiles. “Now suck it in, guys!”

We trip, heading out on the quiet and seamless road of Cool Spring Way, with a golf course and near-perfect houses lining the route out of the 5,200-acre, 7,500-home improvement. It’s simple to know how such a path of little resistance would possibly induce folks emigrate to such a spot. 

“The easy group-ride does 20 miles on the reservation,” says 74-year-old Mark Geppert as we pedal previous the umpteenth Sun City resident’s golf cart. Some of the golf carts round listed here are used as on a regular basis autos, they usually’re often custom-made, with bespoke paint, wheels, and tires. The carbon-fiber gear beneath Sun City cyclists could be equally blingy.

“Those club members doing the 20 go round-and-round here seven days a week,” Geppert provides with a shrug. Today, we’re taking a really completely different 50-mile loop, which extends nicely past the neighborhood earlier than returning for one thing of a victory lap.  

Folks like Geppert migrate to active-adult communities for a wide range of causes. Some transfer as a result of many 55-plus developments are protected retreats situated close to main metros. Others come for the social scene, with loosened beer caps and peppy nightlife. People just like the enterprise facilities and convention rooms (many in active-adult communities nonetheless work), the gyms that host wellness consultants, the strolling paths lined with train stations, the spotless streets, and the limitless golf equipment and camaraderie.

Some, just like the Sun City Cyclists, just like the using. The biking membership began again in 2001. The members, a few of whom trip 5 or six days per week and know a whole lot of the less-trafficked pavement in and round Williamson County, spend their days exploring backroads to spots like Salado and Lake Buchanan. 

“We know it’s healthy and fun, and that’s the combination that draws most of us out,” says Bill McMillin, as a pickup truck swings extensive across the group. McMillin is a retired CPA who, on this muggy day, is carrying particular, white arm covers which can be designed to work like sunblock.

“It’s a big part of our social lives,” provides Ted Koziell, who’s been using for over 4 many years, and has traversed the U.S., Canada, and, most lately, the Netherlands by bike. “Everyone just bullshits.”

Soon just a few of us line up behind an accelerating John Heckeroth, a semi-retired IBM advertising and marketing supervisor who lives simply exterior of Sun City however whom all of the membership members appear to know. They welcome Heckeroth, who’s often called Too Strong John. We race to the Andice metropolis limits signal. The peloton disintegrates.

A pair laborious efforts later, Phil Durham pulls up alongside me, barely out of breath however smiling. “My brain wrote the check,” Durham says as we crest an increase. “But the body couldn’t cash it.”

Quiet roads, sunny skies, all day to trip and yuk it up together with your friends, and a pleasant bike beneath you. The solely factor lacking, maybe, is a little bit youth.

About 35 miles into our trip, we make a retailer cease at a deluxe Valero in Florence. The cyclists all sit down with sizzling espresso and contemporary breakfast tacos contained in the fuel station’s oversize comfort retailer. The wisecracking instantly begins.

“Around Christmas we have a little club party, and hand out trophies to the people that make their goal for the year,” explains 69-year-old Howard Hammerbeck, who’s nursing a bottle of Gatorade. “Everyone self-reports. One guy did close to 12,000 miles.”

“Howard rode 85,000 in 2016,” says Geppert with a crooked grin from behind his wraparound shades. “Self-reported.”

But the jokes, the electrolytes, and the sausage and egg tacos aren’t the largest gasoline supply for these dudes. They keep younger as a result of they’ll nonetheless get on their bikes. One by 1, the tales come out about bodily setbacks which were offset by biking. Geppert can’t jog due to arthritis. Koziell has AFib, or atrial fibrillation, which is a doubtlessly debilitating coronary heart situation. Tom Crawford was a runner, till he obtained hit by a automotive.

“Not that cycling is always good for us,” says Geppert. “We still have people trying to bowl us over.” 

Of course, a number of older Americans don’t need to swap city grit, road noise, and a close-by taco truck—or possibly a lone log cabin within the woods—for miles of empty farm street. And then there are the folks flat-out repulsed by 55-plus communities, like creator Andrew Blechman, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Des Moines Register who wrote a harsh evaluation of such developments in his 2008 e book, Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children. Blechman’s e book analysis centered on his month spent at north-central Florida’s the Villages, which has an estimated 157,000 residents, and over 30 golf programs.

“I don’t begrudge these people. It’s hard to know where to retire in America,” he advised me in a cellphone interview days after I’d ridden with the Sun City cyclists. “But these folks aren’t old, they’re young. And they’re checking out. It’s societal secession.”

Nearly a decade after Leisureville got here out, Blechman nonetheless thinks equally. In reality, the hedonistic decisions, he says, have expanded—courtesy of the getting old populations’ rising obsession with health.

“The kidney shaped dipping pools and shuffleboard? All gone,” Blechman advised me over the cellphone. “They want to attract people who are really into being sporty. The gyms aren’t little rooms with fans. They’re like something you’d see at an Equinox.”

Goodman, the COO for 55locations.com, admits that the developments promoted by his group are allowed by legislation to limit potential residents based mostly on age and familial standing. But he says that additionally they profit a large viewers, and often in ways in which don’t have anything to do with drink blenders or treadmills. Widows and widowers, he added, appreciated these communities as a result of there are all the time of us round, and issues to do. 

So yeah, active-adult communities might have their warts. They’re manicured to the purpose of seeming hermetically sealed, they usually don’t absolutely embrace kids. But the subsequent time you’re pedaling inside hanging distance of such a neighborhood, and also you go some biking geezers with helmet-mounted rearview mirrors and dorky, fuzzy, little helmet-strap attachments which can be designed to muffle wind noise, give them an attaboy or 2. Salute them for holding onto their youth.

And, maybe, put together to be handed again.

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Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder

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[renegadesepiida]

From February 3 until February 11 another King of the Hammers race week made Johnson Valley an enormous cloud of dust. I’d heard about the craziness of this event since I arrived in the Southern California desert five months ago. That was the time of innocence, thinking there was no possible way our country would take the turn that it has, and out here I was definitely in the minority.

While I don’t want to get too wrapped up in politics, it does have an influence on the world we live in and of course how people see each other. It is a shame, which is why I prefer to keep traveling, to experience every culture, and to understand it with respect. I looked at this event as a perfect way to do just that, understand and respect why these people feel this way.

The first thing I should do is to explain what King of the Hammers is. How my boss explained it to me and just so everyone knows these are the words coming out of a government park institution leader whose family all grew up in this area (so don’t hate me if you’re offended by the next sentence). “It’s a shit-ton of drunk rednecks who come out here with all their heavy machinery to tear up the desert.” Honestly, after hearing that I was way more terrified of participating than I was at the actual event. I expected super rowdy drunk off their ass spectators and racers on motorcycles, quads, and every other tricked out ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) you could possibly think of. There were plenty of tricked out vehicles, which were soooooo awesome to watch. I originally thought the vast majority of people were extremely kind and were just there for fun. In fact, there weren’t people just from that area, but all over the country and even the world. It was truly an international event with people driving from Canada, flying from England, Australia, and even China (along with many others).

I couldn’t believe some of these rigs, they cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, crazy. I could never save up money for that, it’s the racers business, and if this event is anything to go by, business was good.

BOOTH DUTY

For my part, I was working with Art, the Mojave Desert Park Ranger (the only one), to educate the public on the native flora and fauna out in the desert and show them that they should protect it. A lot of the education was geared towards kids, but the teens and adults also got involved with questions and wanting to hold the animals Art brought. All the animals were rescues, or in the case of the baby desert tortoise, born and raised in captivity.

In the case of the desert tortoise, which is an endangered species, we told the people that, should they want a pet tortoise, to adopt one from a shelter. When they are taken out of the wild and interact with humans they develop a respiratory condition that can cause them to die around 15, the female breeding age, and will be passed to their offspring. Therefore, none of them can ever be returned to the wild. And this is especially sad because they can normally live for over a hundred years, and could be passed down through human generations. But they might be picked up, exposed and after a few years the people who took them get tired of looking after them and leave them back out in the desert where, soon enough, they die.

BTW: It’s actually illegal to take them, even really to interact with tortoises at all (except if they are on a road, then you can pick them up, keeping them low to the ground, and move them off in the direct they were originally going.) Also if you see any broken shells DO NOT COLLECT, scientists need to be able to see that that area is a tortoise habitat, otherwise people may try to build on it, displacing many more animals.

PSA… Anyways…

We also passed out maps of much of the land for free, don’t want anyone to get lost, and then it would also help them know where and where not to ride their ATVs. Everyone was extremely grateful for all of this information, and they were happy that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management – who I work for along with ACE – American Conservation Experience) was out getting involved with the public. A government branch that actually cares about the environment and the people – crazy!

Almost everyone who came by our booth really opened up to us: telling us where they are from, what they like to do for fun, and how they feel about the entire environment we were currently in. It’s interesting to see how people will act when you get them talking.

Along with the tortoise we also had a dead, stuffed raven, to explain how they eat the baby tortoises (first pecking through the soft underbelly of the shell, and then one they develop harder shells pick them up, bring them to telephone wires and then drop the tortoises on the rocks to break them – smart animals). Other than the tortoise, the living animals were as follows:

A false widow – looks like a black widow but not venomous and very common.

A desert hairy scorpion – also big (ladies are larger and almost white – glow in the dark with a black light, males are smaller and darker) and a little venomous, but not dangerous unless you’re allergic, like bees. And also very common here, shake out your shoes and jackets, really anything you left on the ground while camping.

A chuckwalla – lizard who thrives in 90+ temperature, with loose skin flaps on its sides so when it runs between rocks it can blow itself up like a balloon to keep predators from yanking it out and the detachable tail.

A California king snake – black and white (sometimes brown or red too, depending on the region) snake who eats all the other animals (including rattlesnakes) so the top predator that is nice to people and keeps us all safe and happy.

The desert may seem empty, but it’s sooooo not.

I spent most of the time with a baby northern alligator lizard, that Art saved to feed to his king snake, who loved my body heat and crawled up my sleeves and hung out under my shirt collar for hours on end. I named it Geoffery Carlile, and didn’t change it when I found out it was female; the name was too good. So now I have a pet/buddy.

OTHER SHIT

We did have a couple less than sober people come by, especially because the vast majority of adult (young to old) were carrying around cans of beer in cozies. But with thousands of people passing over the week there was only one man (probably in his late 50’s or 60’s) who passed celebrating Trump’s idea of shutting down the BLM, and all the ideas he had for tearing down all the governmental structures. What that man probably didn’t know is that, without the BLM Johnson Valley would be taken over by the military and, thus, they could never access it, which would mean no more off-roading. So, YOU’RE WELCOME.

Also btw, that is not me being ok with how much of the land and habitats the off-roaders are messing up with all this crazy behavior. Just trying to appeal to what they care about.

  TIME TO ESCAPE

Because standing/sitting in a booth all day is boring as shit, there were times when I would take a walk to the bathroom and take a longer way back, passing the other stalls and the stages. Almost none of the vendors were selling their products because, as I later learned, the man who puts this on every year charges through the nose for placement, and makes the vendor give him a percentage of whatever they sell. By the end, he’s basically pocketing around a million dollars a year.

But, to the casual fan, this stuff doesn’t have too much of an effect. The booths instead have people sign up through email, which gives them an opportunity to win a $500 credit with their company, spin a wheel, and get free little prizes (like hats, cozies, stickers, etc.). While $500 might sound like a decent amount, most of the products cost over a thousand dollars, so good if you are in the market for stuff like what they sell, but worthless if not.

On Thursday, the day before the final 200-mile car race, one of the fire station volunteers (who also volunteers for the BLM) offered to help me escape the monotony of the booth for a while. I took him up on the offer, we climbed into his jeep and showed me two of the coolest parts of the racetrack: chocolate thunder and the waterfall.

Since I am more comfortable in heels, rather than flat shoes (completely serious) I wore my high heeled boots every day, this made it more impressive (?) to onlookers when I jumped out of the jeep at chocolate thunder and walked through the steep sand hill and over the rocks one handed. The lizard was hanging out in my sleeve still and I didn’t want her shaken up too much. When we arrived we could see that one of the customized jeeps had flipped and the crew was trying to set it right so they could finish the race. The canyon was very steep and rocky and we watched long enough for me to take several pictures and videos of the jeep being righted and passed a couple times.

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The second location was “the waterfall” which had a straight three feet rock that both cars and motorbikes had to navigate both up and down, depending on the race direction. I only got to see the cars going down, but that was pretty awesome. Took some pictures and more videos (btw they have cameras along the track and in helicopters overhead so they can film and live stream the entire race) and my favorite was when one car drove through it like it was nothing, almost on the tail of another car and then after getting through the rocky bit slammed on the gas speeding up on the sand. Vroom Vroom motherfucker

            Watching the whole race filled me with adrenaline; I just wanted to jump on a bike or into a car and speed over all obstacles. Wouldn’t even think twice, as long as the owner wouldn’t care if I messed up the vehicle… no fear. Didn’t get to, though.

Overall, the experience was generally enjoyable and I’m glad I got to talk to groups of people that I would normally clash with. And, as it is Valentine’s Day I wish love and understanding to all people of the world, wouldn’t that be great?

  Happy Valentine’s Day and be safe on all your adventures.

Long Live the Hammer King From February 3 until February 11 another King of the Hammers race week made Johnson Valley…

#adrenalinejucky #adventure #atv #desertlife #dirtbike #gooutandlivelife #kingofthehammers #KOH #ohv #socal #travel #travelblogtuesday #utv

[tbhstudying1]

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How to Deal with Study Burnout

As students in this day and age, it’s quite common for us to juggle rigorous academic responsibilities and overwhelming extracurricular activities. As a result, we might feel burnt out. But what exactly is burnout? 

Burnout is when you feel physically and mentally exhausted as a result of constantly lacking the energy required to fulfill the demands of your studying.

Burnout can be broken down into three parts:

Exhaustion is what causes you to feel tired all the time and unable to concentrate. You could also get sick or have trouble sleeping.

Cynicism or depersonalization is when you feel disconnected from those around you, e.g. your friends and family.

Inefficacy is a decrease in productivity, efficiency, or quality of your work.

How do you know if you have burnout?

Symptoms may vary, but they include:

Being unable to absorb new information

Intellectual exhaustion

Decreasing academic performance and productivity

Feeling like you need to prove yourself

Making yourself work even more, even though you’re exhausted or being unwilling to study further

Neglecting your needs

Long term fatigue

Showing disinterest in things you normally enjoy, e.g. hobbies or friends

Denying that something’s wrong with you (may manifest in the form of aggression)

Avoiding social interaction

Feeling empty and depressed

What can I do to fix it?

Here are some short term solutions for dealing with burnout.

1. Take a power nap Power naps are life changing. They help you recharge your energy and get you ready to start working again. They also improve learning, memory, creativity, alertness, and mood. I would recommend napping for 30 minutes at most, because anything more will lead to a longer sleep session.

Optional: drink coffee before your nap - something that takes a short while to consume like a shot of espresso - so that you’ll feel alert and revitalized afterwards!

2. Take a shower A cold one will wake you up, but a warm one will calm you down. I suggest starting with warm water, then ending with cold water.

3. Exercise Whether it’s playing soccer or doing yoga, the important thing is to get moving! Exercise releases endorphins or happy hormones that help you combat stress.

4. Run a quick errand This will help take your mind off things while also getting something done! You’ll also end up walking, which is technically a form of exercise.

5. Call or visit a friend Sometimes what we’re lacking is social interaction, and hanging out with a friend definitely helps. Whether it’s providing you with a distraction or giving emotional support, your friends are always there to help you. Plus, science has shown that being with friends reduces your cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

6. Eat a snack Preferably a healthy one. Eat something with proteins, vitamins, and fibers to boost your mood. Here’s a list of mood boosting foods.

7. Surf the web This requires A TON of discipline, but it’s definitely a game changer. Surfing the web is one of the most relaxing things you could do. I personally look for a good laugh during my study breaks, so I’d watch a comedy or scroll through memes to get those happy hormones up and running.

8. Do an activity you find interesting, e.g. a hobby We all need happiness in our lives, and our hobbies are perhaps the best way to find that joy. You could sit down with a page turning adventure, or go outside and shoot hoops, or listen to a podcast, or even bullet journal, as long as you’re having a good time.

9. Listen to music Music is one of the ways we gain energy, so I always make time for it during the day. However, you should choose the right music, because not all the music you love is going to make you feel energized. For me, it’s pop punk with hard hitting beats, thundering guitars, and really upbeat, enthusiastic vocals. Some of you might be energized by mellow music with dreamy vocals that make you feel like you’re floating in the clouds. If you choose the wrong music, you might just end up feeling sluggish and drained.

10. Get some fresh air Your brain needs 20% of the oxygen in your body. Fresh air brings more oxygen to your brain so that you can think more clearly, feel less tired, and concentrate more easily.

How do I make sure I don’t get it in the future?

Avoiding study burnout in the long term has a lot to do with our study habits - as well as our daily habits. We need to make sure that our bodies and minds receive the things they need, and that we aren’t overworking them.

1. Study a little at a time Break up your notes into smaller, more easily digestible pieces and learn a little at a time. This way, you’re not overwhelming your brain, and you have time to let that new knowledge settle in.

2. Time management Having a good study schedule is crucial in preventing burnout. You don’t want to force yourself to work at your slow hours. Aside from that, you definitely shouldn’t leave things until the last minute, and sticking to a schdule will help you pace yourself. Here’s a post I wrote on How to Make an Efficient Revision Schedule and How to Beat Procrastination.

3. Get enough rest I cannot stress enough that sleep is so important for you. It improves your cognitive functioning and also enhances your mood, making it less likely that you’ll get burnt out. Make sure to take power naps, too, if you feel like you need them. 

You also really shouldn’t pull all-nighters. Sleep is also involved in cementing memories in your brain, so if you study a little before you sleep, you’re bound to remember more than if you studied a chapter during an all nighter.

Having trouble sleeping? Here’s a post I made about my night routine and how to get better sleep.

4. Cycle your study environments Your body and mind are bound to get tired from being in the same location for prolonged periods of time. The best way to fix that is to study in different places: at your desk, your backyard, the dining table, a cafe, a friend’s house, the library, etc.You should find a frequency that works for you. I like to switch it up every 2-3 days; some people change locations every week.

5. Eat well As I’ve mentioned before, healthy foods with protein, vitamins, and fiber greatly improve your mood and your physical health. Proper nutrition will give your brain the power it needs to push through. Also make sure not to skip meals; honestly you’ll just end up feeling terrible afterwards.

6. Take frequent breaks Let’s face it, we’re human, we’re bound to get tired from studying for a long time. Taking breaks enables our brains to digest the information we just learned in a pace that works for it. Breaks also help us focus on something other than studying, so that when we do get back to it, we’ll be ready to digest even more information.

7. Set realistic study goals You’re gonna memorize all 500 pages of your biology textbook in one day? Good luck with that. Some of you might be compulsive studiers, but this kind of habit isn’t very good for your brain or your physical health. Studies have shown that excess studying can lead to lower productivity, fatigue, and - you guessed it - burnout. In the end, this will result in lower academic performance, perhaps even in the long run. So instead of trying to study so much in one sitting or one day, break up your material into chunks.

8. Maintain your social life Wherever you lie on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, everyone needs social interaction once in a while. It keeps you sane and healthy. Go out with your friends, have a sleepover, or maybe even a study date.

9. Start the day right What we do in the morning can significantly affect our mood for the rest of the day. Sometimes we don’t even feel like getting up in the morning, or doing anything that day. One thing you should do is create a morning routine you enjoy to jumpstart your day. Here are 8 Morning Habits for Productivity.

10. Think positive When we’re feeling burnt out, it’s hard to not think negatively about everything. In reality, that just makes our condition worse. So think positively! Start small, like congratulating yourself for getting out of bed today, and then work your way up to bigger accomplishments, like finishing 2 chapters of your textbook.

11. Keep a stress diary This is kind of a new concept for me, but it’s really great. How it works is that each day, you would write down all the things that made you stressed and how they made you stressed. This will help you identify the things you’re doing that’s causing your burnout, e.g.

Too long study hours? take regular breaks

Too much time in the same place? cycle your study environment

Not eating properly? set aside time to eat healthy meals at least 2 times a day

Not doing the things you love? schedule in time for that, e.g. during your long breaks

Not getting enough human interaction? make a study group

Too much negative thinking? adopt a positive mindset (you can always start small)

Not getting enough sleep? fix your sleep schedule

And that’s all I have for you guys this time. Hope these tips will help you manage your stress and study burnout whenever you have them. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop an ask!

P.S. if any of you want to see the images in this post in better quality, click here (link to google drive)

#IFTTT #for the dreams i want to catch

[bodizwonder]

Monsters of the Cart Paths

It’s simply earlier than 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in early June, and a gaggle of 12 cyclists, many with extra wrinkles and crows ft than hair, assembles in a central Texas car parking zone. The lot has slots for automobiles and golf carts.

“Hey! Hey!” yells 67-year-old Phil Durham to his fellow riders as I fumble to seize the smartphone out of my jersey pocket. I need a group shot, and the gathering of cyclists, most of them round Durham’s age and belonging to the Sun City Texas Cyclists club, resist breaking off their pre-ride chitchat. Durham, a retired credit score underwriter however solely a semi-retired street racer, waves his arms. Conversations about epic crashes and helmet manufacturers stall as membership members begin shuffling themselves and their street bikes into the beginnings of a cluster.

“Andrew’s thinking of doing an article on an old-age home like the one we’re in,” Durham publicizes. “And how we’re not all so old and ancient.”

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As I attempt to match every of the fogeyish street warriors into 1 shot, the myth-busting certainly begins. Turns out that you simply shouldn’t decide an athlete by his age, or the cart-path neighborhood wherein he lives.

I’m 35 miles north of my dwelling in Austin, Texas, within the sprawling deliberate neighborhood of Sun City Texas. Sun City, like most of the rising variety of these tidy and swept developments throughout the nation, shouldn’t be an old-age dwelling, or some clichéd retirement neighborhood. Instead these generally huge villages are constructed particularly for “55-plus” or “active-adult” dwelling: the age-restricted amenities cater tightly to a sweet-spot demographic, with no bothersome youngsters, teen drivers, or frantic soccer mothers. Yet no resident is compromised to the purpose of needing dwelling help.

Hanging with the youngish older crowd has by no means been extra in vogue. Fifty-five-plus communities began round 1960, however because of getting old Baby Boomers, in addition to new group-think that asserts health is the fountain of youth, 55-plus communities have swelled, making up an increasing share of the $66-billion retirement-community trade. Fifty-five-plus-living even made headlines final spring in publications like Forbes and Rolling Stone. The huge information: Construction has begun on 2 formidable, Jimmy Buffett-backed, active-adult communities. “Latitude Margaritaville,” full with a signature partying environment, will quickly open in each Daytona Beach, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina. The new digs will, in accordance with the International Council on Active Aging (and as of 2014), add to the estimated 2.7 million U.S. households already designated for 55-plus dwelling. “About 10,000 people a day in the United States are now turning 65,” says Danny Goodman, the chief working officer of 55places.com, a home-listing web site centered on the lively grownup market. “That trend will continue for the next 13 years.”

More and extra of the folks populating these communities are, athletically talking, fairly badass. They’re match and fit-minded; dismissive of canasta or bingo; and much more prone to hike, run, paddleboard, kayak, and follow yoga. There’s additionally a brand new sport that’s all the craze in 55-plus communities: pickleball, a detuned model of tennis (smaller courtroom; paddles as an alternative of rackets; no overhead serve), with its personal nationwide affiliation and championships aired on community TV. “We’re not anti-golf. But folks are migrating away from that,” says William Bullock, a senior vice-president at Minto U.S., one of many main 55-plus neighborhood builders.

A 2016 survey carried out by 55locations.com indicated that 67 p.c of respondents stated a health middle was the highest precedence for an active-adult improvement. Tennis courts acquired 2 simply p.c of the vote.

Then there’s biking. At Sun City Texas, 1 57-year-old member of the 160-rider membership places 10,000 or extra miles on her bike yearly. Another has crisscrossed the nation by bike a number of occasions. Earlier within the decade, Durham was one of many state’s greatest 60-plus racers.

With the Texas morning solar intensifying and the trip now formally late to begin, Durham once more tries to return to my rescue. Watching me battle whereas making an attempt to squeeze everybody into 1 photograph, he barks at his frisky club-mates as soon as extra.

“Hey! Hey!” he says. This time everybody seems to be on the digicam, and smiles. “Now suck it in, guys!”

We trip, heading out on the quiet and seamless road of Cool Spring Way, with a golf course and near-perfect houses lining the route out of the 5,200-acre, 7,500-home improvement. It’s simple to know how such a path of little resistance would possibly induce folks emigrate to such a spot. 

“The easy group-ride does 20 miles on the reservation,” says 74-year-old Mark Geppert as we pedal previous the umpteenth Sun City resident’s golf cart. Some of the golf carts round listed here are used as on a regular basis autos, they usually’re often custom-made, with bespoke paint, wheels, and tires. The carbon-fiber gear beneath Sun City cyclists could be equally blingy.

“Those club members doing the 20 go round-and-round here seven days a week,” Geppert provides with a shrug. Today, we’re taking a really completely different 50-mile loop, which extends nicely past the neighborhood earlier than returning for one thing of a victory lap.  

Folks like Geppert migrate to active-adult communities for a wide range of causes. Some transfer as a result of many 55-plus developments are protected retreats situated close to main metros. Others come for the social scene, with loosened beer caps and peppy nightlife. People just like the enterprise facilities and convention rooms (many in active-adult communities nonetheless work), the gyms that host wellness consultants, the strolling paths lined with train stations, the spotless streets, and the limitless golf equipment and camaraderie.

Some, just like the Sun City Cyclists, just like the using. The biking membership began again in 2001. The members, a few of whom trip 5 or six days per week and know a whole lot of the less-trafficked pavement in and round Williamson County, spend their days exploring backroads to spots like Salado and Lake Buchanan. 

“We know it’s healthy and fun, and that’s the combination that draws most of us out,” says Bill McMillin, as a pickup truck swings extensive across the group. McMillin is a retired CPA who, on this muggy day, is carrying particular, white arm covers which can be designed to work like sunblock.

“It’s a big part of our social lives,” provides Ted Koziell, who’s been using for over 4 many years, and has traversed the U.S., Canada, and, most lately, the Netherlands by bike. “Everyone just bullshits.”

Soon just a few of us line up behind an accelerating John Heckeroth, a semi-retired IBM advertising and marketing supervisor who lives simply exterior of Sun City however whom all of the membership members appear to know. They welcome Heckeroth, who’s often called Too Strong John. We race to the Andice metropolis limits signal. The peloton disintegrates.

A pair laborious efforts later, Phil Durham pulls up alongside me, barely out of breath however smiling. “My brain wrote the check,” Durham says as we crest an increase. “But the body couldn’t cash it.”

Quiet roads, sunny skies, all day to trip and yuk it up together with your friends, and a pleasant bike beneath you. The solely factor lacking, maybe, is a little bit youth.

About 35 miles into our trip, we make a retailer cease at a deluxe Valero in Florence. The cyclists all sit down with sizzling espresso and contemporary breakfast tacos contained in the fuel station’s oversize comfort retailer. The wisecracking instantly begins.

“Around Christmas we have a little club party, and hand out trophies to the people that make their goal for the year,” explains 69-year-old Howard Hammerbeck, who’s nursing a bottle of Gatorade. “Everyone self-reports. One guy did close to 12,000 miles.”

“Howard rode 85,000 in 2016,” says Geppert with a crooked grin from behind his wraparound shades. “Self-reported.”

But the jokes, the electrolytes, and the sausage and egg tacos aren’t the largest gasoline supply for these dudes. They keep younger as a result of they’ll nonetheless get on their bikes. One by 1, the tales come out about bodily setbacks which were offset by biking. Geppert can’t jog due to arthritis. Koziell has AFib, or atrial fibrillation, which is a doubtlessly debilitating coronary heart situation. Tom Crawford was a runner, till he obtained hit by a automotive.

“Not that cycling is always good for us,” says Geppert. “We still have people trying to bowl us over.” 

Of course, a number of older Americans don’t need to swap city grit, road noise, and a close-by taco truck—or possibly a lone log cabin within the woods—for miles of empty farm street. And then there are the folks flat-out repulsed by 55-plus communities, like creator Andrew Blechman, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Des Moines Register who wrote a harsh evaluation of such developments in his 2008 e book, Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children. Blechman’s e book analysis centered on his month spent at north-central Florida’s the Villages, which has an estimated 157,000 residents, and over 30 golf programs.

“I don’t begrudge these people. It’s hard to know where to retire in America,” he advised me in a cellphone interview days after I’d ridden with the Sun City cyclists. “But these folks aren’t old, they’re young. And they’re checking out. It’s societal secession.”

Nearly a decade after Leisureville got here out, Blechman nonetheless thinks equally. In reality, the hedonistic decisions, he says, have expanded—courtesy of the getting old populations’ rising obsession with health.

“The kidney shaped dipping pools and shuffleboard? All gone,” Blechman advised me over the cellphone. “They want to attract people who are really into being sporty. The gyms aren’t little rooms with fans. They’re like something you’d see at an Equinox.”

Goodman, the COO for 55locations.com, admits that the developments promoted by his group are allowed by legislation to limit potential residents based mostly on age and familial standing. But he says that additionally they profit a large viewers, and often in ways in which don’t have anything to do with drink blenders or treadmills. Widows and widowers, he added, appreciated these communities as a result of there are all the time of us round, and issues to do. 

So yeah, active-adult communities might have their warts. They’re manicured to the purpose of seeming hermetically sealed, they usually don’t absolutely embrace kids. But the subsequent time you’re pedaling inside hanging distance of such a neighborhood, and also you go some biking geezers with helmet-mounted rearview mirrors and dorky, fuzzy, little helmet-strap attachments which can be designed to muffle wind noise, give them an attaboy or 2. Salute them for holding onto their youth.

And, maybe, put together to be handed again.

Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder

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