#wouldn’t keep it as a pet though it’s a wild mouse (probably) and also I am not prepared for a child. pet. either way I can’t afford one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iwillstabyou · 6 months

Note

WELCOME to pick 3 fictional characters to survive the apocalypse with, GHOSTS addition! (but in this case any ghosts are alive)

First pick your characters, and then answering the following:

a. which one accidentally attracts zombies the most

b. which one are you gonna get romantic with

c. which one ends up being the designated cook?

d. which one goes to gather supplies the most?

e. which one has no survival skills and is purely mooching off the rest of you but you love them anyway

f. which one has the map

g. which one borrows the map and loses it

h. which one almost gets killed early on

i. which one adopts a wild animal and what animal is it? (can include lost pets)

j. which one leads you all to safety

Oh my god this looks so fun! Thank you so much for sending me this anon! You are the best! Sorry it took me so long to answer, I just kept forgetting to do it (adhd yayyyy)

Right so I’m gonna pick Robin, Julian & Pat (yes it did pain me to not pick the Captain. I chose not to only because I am literally so similar to him that there’s no point having us both) Okay so…

a. Probably Julian. He’d just never shut up, even though he’s fully aware that he’s probably attracting zombies with the noise. He just can’t resist talking. Robin is loud too, but he has enough experience hiding from bears that he knows how to shut up when he has to

b. Pat for sure (I mean, I’m basically the captain and I 100% ship Patcap so it just makes sense)

c. Definitely Pat. This one’s a no brainer - the guy literally runs food club. Plus, I don’t think Julian is capable of cooking anything more complicated than beans on toast (he’s a spoiled rich kid - you really think he knows how to cook?). Also, even though Robin has experience in foraging, Pat knows how to make it actually taste good

d. Robin. He’s got the most experience in surviving out in the wild after all

e. 100% Julian. Like, look at that guy… there are absolutely zero survival skills in that man. He is absolutely useless in the practical sense, but he keeps us all entertained, which is honestly just as important because we’d all die of boredom without him

f. Definitely Pat - he just wants a chance to relive his scout leader days. In fact, he’d probably treat the whole situation like a scouts activity

g. Julian. I feel like he wouldn’t even know what the symbols mean but he’d pretend he does so Pat would let him hold the map (BIG mistake). He would then lose it within 10 seconds

h. Hmm. Idk. Maybe Pat? It would be for a stupid reason though, like a tree almost falling on him or something like that

i. Robin would adopt some mice (yes, the mouse family are getting a mention. And yes, they survive the apocalypse). They are a very important part of the group and he treats them like his own children

j. It’s really close between Pat and Robin, but I think I’m gonna have to say Robin. Pat is important for the navigation aspect, but Robin is the only one with good survival instincts, so it’s thanks to him that everyone is still alive - there’s no point in knowing how to get to safety if you’re all dead

That was so fun! Please send me stuff like this more often, I really enjoyed that :D

#bbc ghosts #robin the caveman #julian fawcett #Pat butcher #apocalypse #robin bbc ghosts #pat bbc ghosts #julian bbc ghosts #julian fawcett mp #ask game

3 notes · View notes

spacerangersam · 7 months

Note

WELCOME to pick 3 fictional characters to survive the apocalypse with, GHOSTS addition! (but in this case any ghosts are alive)

First pick your characters, and then answering the following:

a. which one accidentally attracts zombies the most

b. which one are you gonna get romantic with

c. which one ends up being the designated cook?

d. which one goes to gather supplies the most?

e. which one has no survival skills and is purely mooching off the rest of you but you love them anyway

f. which one has the map

g. which one borrows the map and loses it

h. which one almost gets killed early on

i. which one adopts a wild animal and what animal is it? (can include lost pets)

j. which one leads you all to safety

Hmm, think I’d go for Pat, Fanny and Robin. Pat’s got some basic survival skills, he knows how to put up a tent etc so he’s a good choice, and while his asthma could slow us down, I mean, I had asthma as a kid and my lungs are still terrible so at least we could be slow together. Fanny is fairly smart and sensible, and I imagine she’d be good at keeping tracking of supplies and figuring out safe spots. Robin’s probably fairly decent at hunting, so him too.

A - I love him but probably Pat. He’s chatty so I imagine he’d talk a bit too much and a bit too loud, and especially if he started getting squeaky… Fanny would probably attract her fair share too though while complaining loudly about something

B - no one. Even in a hypothetical zombie apocalypse, i’m still aro

C - Robin. I’m not sure he’d care much about seasoning though, so Pat would probably have to sneak some in while Robin isn’t looking.

D - Robin again. He’s pretty quick and quiet, though he would probably get distracted multiple times, take way longer than needed, and show up with things no one needs or asked for, but he thought looked cool.

E - Me asdfgh. Fanny technically has no survival skills, but she has the brains so she’s certainly not mooching. I, however, am a writer whose past weekly guide sessions involved sitting in one room playing games or doing something with chocolate, so I’m basically useless.

F - Either Pat or Fanny. It’d probably be passed between them, with them both working out where best to go.

G - Probably Pat. He wouldn’t mean to, but he’d put it down somewhere while talking or in the middle of sorting something else out, forget it, and not realise until way too late.

H - Also Pat. Asthma is a bitch

I - Absolutely Robin, and absolutely a mouse. A whole mouse family, in fact. Neither Pat nor Fanny would be fans, but oh well.

J - Either Pat or Fanny.

3 notes · View notes

mud-castle · 3 years

Note

In the dark mirror au, have their been instances were kittypet queens kinda just expect their kits to be taken and make sure that they're ready? Like, Thunderclan breaks into a Twoleg nest and instead of fighting the queen, she's just like "I've got two mollies and a tom, one of the mollies is a little small, though I think she's big enough to still go with you. I gave them forest-y names; Pebble, Fern, and Sparrow, please let them keep their names as a final gift from their mother." Has something like that ever happened?

Wow, that's depressing...

So, I must put it in:

Story below the cut:

Paprika was a fool.

She had known of the raids the forest cats sometimes launched on the neighborhood cats. She had known of the kits that had been stolen and of mothers and fathers who had been injured when they tried to protect them.

Yet, she had also known that the raids were rare, more often done on loners, rogues, and city cats. The forest cats didn't want to draw the ire of the humans by attacking their pets too often. Rather, their attacks on the neighborhood were more often made at those who had strayed too close to their beloved trees.

So, Paprika had dismissed the concerns of her friend Trixie when she'd told her of her plans to have kits. The last raid the forest cats had been just about a month ago. Often, they only happened two or three times a year. Paprika had seen a number of kittens born, grow, and be given their own housefolk.

Paprika had always wanted kits, little ones running around under her paws. She'd daydreamed of the things she would teach them. Like, the best places to sharpen your claws, the names of types of birds that came around the feeder, how to get your housefolk to scratch the itch you couldn't reach, and so much more. And, like the idiot she was, she'd decided that it was safe to finally have her own.

She'd been given birth to three precious kittens three months later. Two mollies and a tom. Two weeks went by without issue. Parenting was a little harder than she anticipated, but with the help of her housefolk, she took to it rather easily. The kittens had opened their eyes and ears and explored the world that was the basket in the kitchen.

A week later, a forest cat had been spotted four houses from her own. It had simply walked along the fence, looking into houses, and disappeared about an hour later. Paprika kept a closer eye on her kittens. They had begun to babble, weakly attempting to mimic her own words.

Two nights after that, the cat was seen again. Two houses from her own. It had done the same thing, watching the houses, before going off once again. Paprika decided to stay in the house instead of spending her mornings and evenings outside chatting with the neighborhood cats and dogs. Her kits had started mewing their first word. "Mama"

Two nights later, Paprika was awoken by nothing. Her kittens lay sound asleep next to her. She gave each of them a lick on the head, heart warming as they purred contently. Her housefolk had gone to bed a little earlier than usual. She could hear him snoring away. With a yawn, she turned her head towards the window. She froze.

Wide, orange eyes locked onto narrowed, green ones. Paprika had never seen a forest cat before. It was big, far bigger than her. She couldn't see much of its details as it had its back turned to the light of the moon. But she could see its eyes slide over to where her kittens were nestled against her, and the glint of fangs as its mouth parted into a wide, wicked grin.

Paprika bristled, alarm shooting through her body. She turned in the direction of her housefolk's room, wondering if she could wake him up before the forest cat could try anything. But when she turned back to the window, it was gone. Paprika didn't go back to sleep.

Rage hit first, then indignance, then helplessness. There was nothing she could do to protect her kittens. She'd personally seen the wounds on cat who had fought back. The forest cats never killed them, but they left some wishing they had. She plead for help, but no one would. Many cats turned their noses, sneering that she deserved it for making such a idiotic decision. Others simply gave her a pitying look, unwilling to risk their lives for a pawful of kits. They told her to accept her fate. Some of the dogs had wanted to help, but were unable to escape their backyards. Deep down she'd known better than to bother asking.

So, she did the one thing she could think of. She prepared her kittens for the inevitable. She made up stories of strong, noble cats who fought monsters in the woods. She taught them a hunting a crouch as best as she could. They began to speak in full sentences. They played games like "Hunter" where one of them was a mouse and the others had to catch them, or "Battle" where their made up groups fought off monsters.

It took longer than she thought, about a month later. But, she wasn't surprised when one night when her housefolk had gone out they appeared in the kitchen , eyes gleaming, claws flexing. No doubt prepared for a fight. They were big, and their pelts were unnaturally glossy and sleek. Paprika eyed each one, a spotted molly, a light gray tom, and the cat she'd seen in the window. His jaw was scarred and crooked.

She sighed quietly, numbness overtaking her body. She nudged her kittens to the strange cats, ignoring the confused squeaks of protest. The foresters blinked at her in surprise, expecting her to fight back or at least run.

"These are my kits," she began quietly, "there are two mollies and a tom."

She nudged the first kit, a dark tabby molly. "This one is Sparrow, she's the eldest." The bold kit swatted at the spotted she-cat when she bent to pick her up. The wild cat withdrew, hissing slightly, before snatching her up roughly.

"Ow!" Sparrow cried, "Mama! She's hurting me!"

Paprika flinched, but nosed her second kit, "He is Fern, the second oldest." Fern, took a slight step back, glancing back warily.

"Mama?"

He didn't fight when the gray tom picked him up, gentler than the spotted one had been with Sparrow.

A lump had begun to form in her throat by the time she turned to her youngest, the runt. "This is Pebble, she's the youngest. She's a little small but-" she paused to choke back sob, "but, I think she's strong enough to make the journey."

None of the cats moved. The crooked jawed tom stared at the kitten for a long moment. Finally, he sneered, speaking for the first time, "Scrap couldn't even survive a stiff wind." He flicked his tail, and the other two cats moved towards the door.

A strange mix of relief and guilt made Paprika's legs quiver. She quickly took her littlest one back to the basket, almost afraid he'd change his mind if she took too long. Her other kittens cried for her as they were taken away from the basket, away from their home, away from her. She curled her paws around her littlest one, not daring to face the foresters again, unable to face the looks of betrayal her kittens were surely throwing her.

She heard a scoff from behind her, the spotted molly, "I told you kittypets were cowardly, they won't even defend their own kits."

"She'll just have more later." The crooked jawed tom answered breezily, "Probably won't even remember these ones."

Another voice, the gray tom, "Next time she should mate with a stronger tom. These tiny things are hardly worth the effort."

Their voices grew muffled as they left through the cat flap.

She looked to the little kitten they had left her. Pebble. Paprika's lips curled back at the name. Never would this little one be taken from her. She would not touch the land beyond the fence or fight over a pile of bones. Paprika wanted her to never have any association with the wild cats. This little kit would never know hunger, or bloodshed, or anything outside of the housefolk's protection. And she certainly wouldn't bear the name of anything from that wretched forest.

She clutched her littlest one close, her rage giving way to grief. She finally allowed her tears to fall, for sobs to shake her shoulders. How could she have been so stupid?

"Mama?" her kitten mewed, pawing at her face in concern, "Are you okay? Mama?"

"Next time" the gray tom had said.

Next time?

There wouldn't be a next time.

#dark mirror au #story #anon ask #warrior cats au #warrior cats #crookedstar #leopardstar #warriors #wc #myart

278 notes · View notes

ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

Text

What I Thought About "Hunting Palismans" From The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Today, I present to you reason #4,693 for why The Owl House is the best thing at the moment: It's the perfect balance of serialized storytelling with an episodic format. The story always moves forward with an exact order for how episodes should be watched, but each episode still functions as its own standalone tale. Having prior knowledge of what happened before adds more to the experience, but you can still watch whatever you want and still have an enjoyable time. Take "Hunting Palismans," for example. It adds so much more to the overarching narrative while slightly continuing other threads. But it's still something you can watch as is without remembering the past or wondering about the future.

However, to properly explain how requires spoilers. I wasn't kidding when I say that this episode adds so much, so you're going to want to be wary of that when you continue reading.

With that said, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Coven Heads Meeting: We already saw these fellow schmucks in the trailer, but that doesn't take away how cool they are! It's not explicitly stated which head belongs to which coven, but you can already tell who goes where just from their designs alone. And I love that. I love that just by showing us some excellent character designs, anybody with half a brain can already figure out the particular type of magic each Coven Head specializes in. It's a perfect example of the show-don't-tell level of storytelling that is always at its best through animation, and I'm all for it because of it.

What the Day of Unity is: Several fans, myself included, have already speculated that the Day of Unity was that Emperor Belos planned to combine the human world with the Boiling Isles and rule it all with an iron fist. That being said, figuring it out is one thing, but being told that it's true is a whole different level pants-s**ting horror that I AM NOT READY FOR! Even when it's going to happen, I can assure you that I will not be prepared to witness it ...and I am scared of when it does.

Belos Body Horror: ...Disney, I was already scared s**tless of this guy. I DO NOT NEED THIS!

That being said, seeing Belos do...whatever the f**k that was, helps explain further why he needs the magic in palismans. I always assumed because it's like fuel for a car, giving him the power he needs. Now, even though the answer is more apparent, there are still some questions to be had. Is he cursed, and the magic keeps it at bay like Eda's potions? Or did he experiment with the wrong type of magic, and the palismans keep him stable? Only the future can say for sure...and I'm also not prepared for the answers from that either.

Golden Guard is Belos’ Nephew: Gosh dangit, THE INTRO HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET, AND THIS EPISODE IS ALREADY GIVING SO MUCH!

But, yeah, the most powerful witch on the Isles is apparently Golden Boy's Grunkle Belos. That very knowledge is incredibly interesting to discuss while presenting possibilities for future narratives. I don't know about you, but I see the Golden Guard going down the path of Zuko, learning that the magic of friendship is worth much more than whatever power he gains from being Belos' nephew. And possibly earning his uncle's love seeing how he's the only family he has. It's a situation that's vastly different from Amity's because even when she defies her parents, she'll still have Edric and Emira at the end of the day. For Golden Guard, knowing that he lost a great family to wild magic, the inclination to go against Belos is a lot weaker due to him being all he has left.

Oh, and also, Belos' family getting wiped out because of wild magic. Yeah, not only does that give the best type of motivation for Belos' distaste for it, but it also explains the Golden Guard's hesitance to use it. He's inclined to so he can save his uncle, sure. It's only the fact that he knows what happens with wild magic that causes some resistance...Also, we're less than a minute in, and I'm already getting all of this from one discussion between two characters.

HOW IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD?!

Intro Changes: It's about time too. It seems weird that the crew waited to change Eda and King's designs in the intro this late in the game, but it also tells me that Amity dying her hair lavender is the last huge change this season will present. Otherwise, why change the intro at all if you were going to alter Luz, Willow, and Gus' designs anyway? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Luz Keeping the Echo Mouse as a Pet: The fact that she keeps the most important creature in the world to her as a pet...it's...it's adorable, alright? And as we established several times, I cannot hate adorable things.

Don't judge me!

Amity Staying Home: There are two plausible ways why Amity didn't go to school that day. Either she's getting punished for dying her hair or because she's trying to avoid Luz so they won't talk about the you-know-what. Either could work and seem understandable to Luz, thus explaining why she admits how "that makes sense." Although, there is something to discuss in how Luz is curious as to where Amity is. Judging from the tone of her voice, it's pretty clear that she wants to talk about the little peck on the cheek and maybe get some confirmation as to what it means. Because there is no going back from that. You can explain away saying or doing something stupid, but you cannot un-kiss a cheek. That is a point of no return, and if Amity really is avoiding Luz because of it, that means it's up to our favorite weirdo to make the first move. As for what that may entail...we'll just have to wait and see.

Frewin: We get two bits of information here for the price of one reveal here. Knowing that Frewin is a palisman is shocking enough, but the knowledge that Bump is partially blind and needs Frewin to see? That is an intriguing piece of intel that I would have never expected to get revealed. This is reason #5,279 for what makes The Owl House so good. Even when the show presents information you wouldn't guess, it's all so interesting anyways that you can't help but go along with it.

Adopting Palismans: First of all, love the fact that the Bat Queen makes a return to provide a solution to the palisman trees being rare and solving her own problem regarding the discarded palismans. It's a situation where everyone wins in a way that is so clever that I can't help but admire it.

Second, the idea of students choosing to adopt palismans instead is cute. I'd say it gives further insight into who these characters are in how they say what they want to be, but there's nothing really new added that fans couldn't figure out from the get go. But I will say that it's pretty cool to know that these characters have official staffs now. Speaking of which, if you're upset that their palismans don't match up with your headcanons...grow up.

This was a cute and smartly written scene that should not be bogged down by whiney fans who can't accept a series doing something different from what they expect.

Little Rascal: I’d take a bullet for this bird. That is all.

Luz Being Uncertain of her Future: A lot of fans offer several ideas of what the future could look like for Luz. Will she stay in the Boiling Isles? In Connecticut? Or will she go back and forth? We don't know, but one question we rarely brought up is what does Luz want? More specifically, what does she want to do? After everything Luz went through, the adventures she's gone on, and the lessons learned, what is something that Luz wants her future to be? That's an answer she doesn't really figure out, and I'm genuinely ok with that being a question that's tabled for another day. Most kids who ask that question themselves aren't always going to find an answer after a short amount of time and sometimes even need to spend their lives trying to figure it out. So having it be something Luz has to consider and probably find out in a future episode is the smarter option, as it allows time for it to simmer in her own mind and provides more insight into her character. As stated several times in this episode, she doesn't think things through, so it's nice that the writers finally allowed her some time to wonder what's next when the adventure is over.

Luz Having to Improvise Without Paper Glyphs: You want to know what my favorite Spider-Man moments are (this is relevant. Trust me). My favorite moments are when Spidey's web-shooters run out of fluid, and he's forced to improvise with that big brain of his to find a solution. That's sort of what happens with Luz in "Hunting Palismans." She didn't bring her glyphs with her (why would she), so she's forced to use the environment around her to make new ones. Plus, Luz also flexes her knowledge of the Boiling Isles by mixing her glyphs with a magical plant (which Willow certainly told her about) so that she and the Golden Guard could knock out Kikimora's dragon. It's yet another showcase of her intelligence that a lot of fans are too keen to overlook. Unfortunate to see, too, because looking at how well Luz can craft the perfect solutions by fighting smarter, not harder, is a fantastic add-on to her personality. I love characters who win through their wits rather than their raw powers, and I once again hope more people will catch onto that aspect of her too.

Golden Guard Whistling the Theme: Look, I love it when a show acknowledges its own theme song, ok? Leave me alone.

Luz and the Golden Guard: This is one of those dynamics you didn't know you wanted until you have it. And now that I have it, I DEMAND MORE!

Seriously, seeing these two interact off of each other was a ton of fun to watch. When Luz and GG are initially at each other's throats, their threats and mockery towards one another aren't out of spiteful anger between two mortal enemies. It's more like...two siblings who get on each other's nerves yet are supposed to deal with one another. It's equally adorable and hilarious, and yes, I absolutely loved that they're forced to work together in this episode because of it.

Although, while the entertainment value is fantastic, it also adds more proof of why Luz is the best character in the series. She spends one night with this guy, and that's more than what she needed to make a difference with him. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're buddies now, but Luz definitely sowed the seeds into his redemption. He's far from willing to join her side, but he still does something he rarely does with anyone else: He told her that his name is Hunter. And this is what Luz does. Through nearly every person she meets on the Boiling Isles, she always manages to change them for the better. It'll be a while before Hunter deflects from Belos, but if Amity proves anything, Luz has a way of sneaking into people's hearts. They just need to spend more time with one another, and I can't wait to see what happens next because of it.

Kikimora Wanting to Kill Hunter: This shows a lot about who Kikimora is, but it potentially proves just how dysfunctional the Emperor's Coven can be. If Kiki proves anything, the coven must be filled with people willing to backstab and cheat their way to get on Emperor Belos' good side. Just look at Lilith. She literally cursed her own sister just to get in and received all the rewards because of it. The Emperor's Coven may be the best choice for witches to do magic, but if you're surrounded by people you can't trust, then is it really worth it?

The Guards Not Knowing Who Hunter is: This helps add to how much of a big deal it is for Hunter to reveal his name to Luz. If people can't even recognize his face, there's a chance it means that he keeps his true identity a secret except for those in his inner circle.

And the coven guards brushing off his brand is more than believable to me. They may be aware that Belos' right hand is young, but teens will be teens. Anybody with enough artistic talent can fake a brand. So it isn't too far off for those two to think Hunter was just a kid pulling a prank.

Hunter is Powerless Without his Staff: Not much to say here. It's just some more neat insight into Hunter's character that makes me wonder if even Belos' magic is real magic.

But I will say this: The fact that Hunter comes from a lineage of powerless witches, well, who's to say that isn't because of a...certain ancestor?

(*Cough* Hunter is related to Philip *Cough*)

Hunter vs Kiki: A pretty well-animated fight scene that adds potential drama to the story for the future. Now that Kikimora knows that Hunter helped Luz escape with the palismans (albeit unwillingly), she may or may not hold that over his head when the time comes. Or, at the very least, decides to keep a closer eye on him whenever he makes a slip-up.

Eda and King Getting Luz her own Palisman Wood: These last two weeks have been severely lacking in the Eda and King department, but scenes like this more than make up for it. Those two have formed such a bond with Luz to the point where they would do the impossible if it meant she would feel better. It proves just how much of a family they all are and the lengths they would go for each other. After all, weirdos have to stick together.

Little Rascal going to Hunter: Hunter is right. That was surprising.

Given how much Little Rascal stuck by Luz, I was more than positive that she would be the one he chose. So seeing Little Rascal pick Hunter instead is a much nicer twist. There could be multiple reasons why, and I'm just going to leave that to the analyzers in this fandom to decide. Especially since the answer isn't really all that important.

So, instead, I'm going to go ahead and sit in the corner as I wOrRy AbOuT tHe DaY tHaT bElOs FiNdS lItTlE rAsCal!

IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! AND I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOLY, IF THE WRITERS KILL HIM, I WILL NOT BE HAPPY!

WHAT I DISLIKED

First, there's...um...

Well, there was this...

Ok, as much as I liked--No, that turned out well anyways...

…

...

...I've got nothing.

I, honest to goodness, have no complaints about "Hunting Palismans" Not even the tiniest of nitpicks I would usually ignore due to how well-executed everything else was.

It's all written fantastically to the point where it's...perfect.

IN CONCLUSION

"Hunting Palismans" is an easy A+. It introduces even more plot threads, gives insight into characters, and despite being essential to the story, it still manages to be a fun episode all on its own. And, I'd go so far as to say that it's one of the best, if not the best, episodes in the series. There's nothing bad about it, and that surprises me. I rarely find nothing bad to say about any story, even the ones I enjoy greatly. I'm sure there are some flaws that others would be more than happy to point out, but why bother hunting for the imperfections when I could accept that, for once, an episode is simply perfect.

(And that’s six hits in a row...THAT STINKER IS GOING TO HAPPEN! It hasn’t happened yet, BUT IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! I CAN FEEL IT!)

#the owl house #the owl house season 2 #the owl house reviews #luz noceda #the golden guard #hunter the owl house #emperor belos #what i thought about

66 notes · View notes

arvinsescape · 3 years

Text

Minnie

A/N: Been a couple weeks since i’ve had time to write. Hope you enjoy, this got kinda long.

Summary: The story of how you and Tom ended up owning a cat.

W/C: 1.8K

You and Tom had been walking Tess around the park as normal when you noticed Tess stop at a nearby bush. Assuming she’d spotted a stick to bring along on the walk, you continued on when you noticed that she wasn’t following. You turned around and watched as she continued to stare at the bush, seemingly at nothing. Wondering what she was so interested in, you made your way in her direction when she suddenly barked and ran towards the two of you. Deciding she was just being odd, you went to carry on your walk when she barked again and ran back to the same bush she’d come from as if asking you to follow her, you gave Tom a look as if to ask what on Earth was going on, he just shrugged and followed Tess, you just behind.

“What’ve you found Tess?” Tom asked as he neared the bush she was still barking at.

On closer inspection, your heart melted as you saw what it was she was so interested in. It was an incredibly small little kitten. It was shivering and whimpering as if it had been there a while. You looked around for any sign of more kittens and a mother cat, but you couldn’t see anything. You looked at Tom who had been incredibly quiet, it was no secret that he wasn’t the biggest fan of cats but even he would have to admit the small animal was incredibly cute and in need of help, he might have hated cats but he wasn’t heartless.

Tess tentatively moved towards the kitten and sniffed it before licking it, she really was an angel, not an aggressive bone in her body. “What should we do? I don’t think it belongs to anyone and it doesn’t appear to have a mum.”

“Well it’s a Sunday and it’s 6 o clock, the vets aren’t open, and the nearest shelter is quite a drive away.” He concluded, you knew what he was getting at, he just didn’t want to say it.

“Should we take it home? Look after it until tomorrow when we can get it a vet’s appointment and they can make sure it gets to a good home or shelter?” You knew he wasn’t going to say no, the poor thing needed help and he wasn’t a monster, he wouldn’t just leave it.

“Well if we don’t I doubt it’ll make it through the night.” He replied as you were already picking it up and wrapping it into your coat and enveloping the small animal into your warmth. You grinned at him as you leaned up on your tiptoes to kiss his cheek. He might not have liked cats, but you certainly did, and you decided that this was probably the closest you’d ever to get to having a cat whilst you were with Tom.

“Don’t get too attached though Y/N, we can’t keep it. I’m not cruel enough to let it die but I still don’t like cats.” He teased as he grinned back at you. You wondered in your giddy little fantasy if by the end of this you’d change his mind and he’d let you keep it, but he was incredibly stubborn so you’d let it be a giddy fantasy.

Once you’d made it home you’d decided that whilst you were trying to warm the small animal up properly, Tom would go to the shops and get it anything it may need. Tess watched your every move as you nursed the kitten back to some sort of warmth, she was wagging her tail as she watched.

“Maybe we can convince your dad to keep it.” You teased as you grinned at Tess before stroking her. She barked excitedly, almost as if she was agreeing to your words. You smiled to yourself as you continued to attend to the kitten. Deciding it was incredibly soft and she surely wouldn’t mind you placed the kitten in Tess’s bed, your heart melting instantly at the sight, it looked so small in such a big bed. Tom came through the door not a minute later, all the items you’d read you would need in his arms.

“Okay, we should probably- aww.” He cut himself short as he looked at the kitten on the bed. “It really is small isn’t it?” he cooed, you grinned as you looked at him, when he looked back his face somewhat hardened as he pointed a finger teasingly at you “this doesn’t mean anything.”

“I didn’t think it did.” You grinned back, knowing full well what was going on in his head. He just didn’t want to admit that small animal was quickly taking a place in his heart.

“Right we really should start making sure it eats something.” He said as he helped you tend to the animal.

****

It was 3am when you made your way to bed, having spent hours tending to the kitten, you surmised that there really was nothing more you could do, you’d fed it and warmed it up. It still hadn’t moved much but it was breathing.

“Okay baby, I can’t stay awake any longer, I’m going to have to head to bed.” You said as you got up from the couch.

“Okay darling, I love you.” he said as he got up to give you a kiss and a cuddle, you pulled back in confusion. “You’re not coming with?” you asked.

“Nah, I’ll stay up another couple hours and feed it again.” He said as he sat back down and looked at the kitten that was now curled up in the bed with Tess, the sight had made both your hearts melt.

“Okay, I love you.” You said as you made your way to bed, huge grin on your face. Maybe your fantasy wasn’t going to be a fantasy after all.

****

You woke up around 11pm, you felt strangely cold even though the temperature in the room was far from cold. You turned over and noticed Tom wasn’t in bed with you and judging by the coolness of his side of the bed, you guessed he’d been out of bed a while, if he’d even been in it at all. You made your way downstairs and into the living room. You stopped as you took in the sight before you. Tom was asleep on the couch, Tess next to him and you didn’t miss the tiny little kitten laying on his chest as it slept soundly.

Tess was the first to realise you’d entered the room as she bounced from the couch and made her way over to you, you petted her and let her into the garden for a little while. As you made your way back into the living room you noticed Tom was awake now, you grinned at him.

“Don’t say a word.” He said as he looked at your smiling face.

“It climb up there when you were sleeping?” you teased.

“Something like that, yeah.”

****

After booking an emergency vets appointment you were sat in the waiting room as you waited for your name to be called.

“Tess seemed sad to see it go, don’t you think.” You asked.

“She did actually.” He said. No witty comeback? You thought he’d have something jokey to say back. You sat in a comfortable silence as you held the kitten wrapped up in your blanket. Your name was called as you made your way into the vet’s room.

“So, who have we got here?” The vet asked as she took the kitten from you.

“It doesn’t have a name, we found it yesterday when we were out walking.” You explained.

“I see. So, I’m going to have a look at it for you now.” She smiled as she weighed the kitten, it had seemingly gained a little more life, managing to stand on it’s legs and move around a little. “It’s quite underweight” she said as she started examining it further.

“Yeah, we guessed it might be, we fed it what we could, but we read online that you don’t wanna over feed them. I hope we did the right thing.” Tom said as he seemingly grew concerned for the little kitten. The vet looked at him and smiled.

“You absolutely did, I don’t think it would have survived the night if you hadn’t taken it in.” She answered as she continued to check over the animal. After a few minutes she looked back up at you. “Well it’s a girl and by looks of things only about 4 months old. She will need quite a few vaccinations and flea treatment, I think it may have been wild.”

“4 months? But it’s absolutely tiny.” You said, genuinely shocked at the age of the kitten.

“I can only assume she was the runt and unfortunately most wild animals leave the runt, survival of the fittest and all that.” She said as she gave the kitten everything that it needed. You sighed as you heard the news, the poor thing. After another few minutes the vet was done.

“Okay, I have given her all the treatment that I can for now. She needs to put a lot of weight on, I suppose the question now is what to do with her. We have quite a few shelters that are brilliant and will look after her and find her a home as quick as they can.”

Unbeknownst to you Tom had been eyeing you carefully throughout the exchange and he’d surprised himself at the decision he’d come to. You just looked so sad at the thought of the little thing leaving, how could he not? And anyway it was cute and he reasoned in his mind that this kitten owed him one so it wouldn’t turn out evil and he’d be able to trust it. He’d made up his mind as he spoke.

“What if we want to keep her?”

“What?” You asked as you turned to him shocked expression and tears gathering in your eyes.

“What if we keep her.” He said again as he took in your expression. Yeah, keeping this kitten was definitely worth it, if only for the look on your face right now.

“You’re serious?” You asked as you cried happily.

“Deadly, darling” he grinned. You engulfed him in a tight hug as you thanked him and kissed his face all over. The vet grinned at the exchange.

“So what are we going to call her?” The vet asked as she handed Tom the registration forms.

“I don’t know, what do you think darling?” he asked as he looked at you.

“Minnie. You know like the mouse and also how small she is.” You said as you grinned at him. You didn’t think you could fall more in love with the brown eyed, brown haired man, but here he was proving you wrong. He started to write her name as he continued to fill out the forms.

“Minnie. Perfect.”

#tom holland x reader #tom holland one shot #tom holland imagine #tom holland #tom holland fluff

180 notes · View notes

lakesandquarries · 3 years

Text

Baby Shoes - Chapter 4

Bubby has been a doctor at Black Mesa for 20 years, living there for 50. He’s been bouncing around from project to project, working on whatever needs most help. He doesn’t have any opinions on his work or his coworkers or anything like that, preferring to keep to himself.

Then he meets Black Mesa’s newest project.

AKA: Bubby is Benrey’s dad au.

title from “Baby Shoes” by Bad Books.

AO3 Link

The sound of the door opening jolts Bubby back into awareness - and Benrey too. They have another full body flinch, smacking their head against the concrete wall in their scramble.

Dr. Zeki’s heels click on the floor. “Dr. Bubby,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “This is certainly a strange place to find you.”

Benrey’s halfway off his lap already. He moves them gently so he can stand up to his full height, and their hands cling to his pant leg. “I wanted to try something new.”

“You’re attached,” Zeki says. “I should have known better than to let you on this project. It’s not sentient, Bubby. It’s not a fun little pet. Don’t you ever wonder what happened to Dr. Tipton? I’m sure you remember him.”

He, unfortunately, does. Dr. Tipton had been assigned to Bubby long ago, and he’d been an utter nightmare. No sense of boundaries, plus terrible hygiene.

“I recall him, yes.”

“This little subject you’re so fond of nearly killed him. It bit him and injected some kind of venom. We had to develop an entire new antivenom, in less than two hours, just for Dr. Tipton. He’s got permanent nerve damage and lost a few fingers, but he’s alive. I can only hope I’ll be able to say the same for you.”

Bubby glances down at Benrey. They’re clinging even tighter now, claws making small holes in Bubby’s pants.

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“Well, in that case.” Her gaze shifts down to Benrey. “You were so interested in its living situation, weren’t you? I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if we have it stay with you, then.”

“I don’t, actually.” He folds his arms, leveling his gaze right at Zeki, eyes meeting hers. “You know what, I think that’s a fantastic idea.”

Zeki smirks at him, unbearably smug. “We’ll have to move you to the Biological Research wing, of course. You can’t be in a regular dorm with it. I’m sure your old room is still available, tube and all.”

Bubby bites the inside of his lip. He’s hated a lot of scientists in his years at Black Mesa, but he’s never had the repeated urge to strangle someone until Dr. Zeki. “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can find an empty room that can suit my, and the subject’s, needs.”

There’s a buzz from Zeki’s pocket. “Well, you have until I get out of my last meeting. Good luck, Dr. Bubby.” She gives him a final cold glare, turning on her heel and making sure to slam the door behind her.

“Bitch,” Bubby mutters. He hopes Dekkard broke her stuff while he was wrapping it in tinfoil.

There’s a high pitched noise from Benrey, and when Bubby looks down he sees dark bubbles like shadows. He’s careful not to touch them this time, not wanting a repeat of earlier. He crouches back down, eye level with Benrey again.

“Sorry about that,” he says quietly, reaching an arm out and gently placing it on Benrey’s shoulder. “I think I may have fallen asleep as well.”

“I don’t like her,” Benrey mumbles. “She’s scary.”

“I’m not especially fond of her either,” Bubby says. “But, I think this can actually work in our favor.”

“Huh?”

“She tried to scare me with that story, and she thinks she’s punishing me by inviting me to live here with you.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Benrey mumbles, hunching their shoulders. “I just - he kept touching me -”

“I’ve had my fair share of encounters with Dr. Tipton. Whatever you did, I’m sure he had it coming.”

“So you - you actually wanna -” Benrey’s eyes are wide and shiny.

“If you’re alright with it, yes.”

Benrey nods, frantically, leaning their head against Bubby’s shoulder. They can’t quite reach to hug him, so Bubby moves closer, wrapping his arms around them. “I can’t stay for much longer, though. I need to go find us a good room. But I promise I’ll be back, alright?”

Benrey nods, bright yellow bubbles falling from their mouth. Bubby takes a moment to enjoy the wave of joy that comes with them before he forces himself to get up. “I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he says.

Benrey’s whole being seems brighter, somehow. Less grey. Their hands tap against the ground. “Bye,” they say, as Bubby shuts the door gently behind him.

He checks Zeki’s office first. Dekkard is nowhere to be seen, but he’s clearly left his mark. Everything - the table, the computer, each individual pencil - has been painstakingly wrapped in tinfoil.

Bubby grins at the sight, taking a moment to knock a few paper weights off the desk.

He checks Dekkard’s desk next. No sign of him there, either, but his slinky is on the desk, so he can’t be too far.

Sure enough, he’s in the next spot Bubby checks - the break room. He’s standing in front of the vending machine, looking for all the world like a professor stumped by a difficult math question.

“Dekkard!”

He turns and waves. “Oh, hey Bubby. Hey, should I get doritos, or -”

“Nevermind that! I have an important project. I need you to come with me.”

Dekkard raises an eyebrow, turning back to the machine. “Doritos it is.”

Bubby sighs. “Please. Look, this is very time sensitive, I only have until Zeki is done with her last meeting and I’ve already wasted ten minutes looking for you.”

Dekkard reaches into the machine for his bag of chips. “I mean, I’m supposed to be on lunch, but if this is to fuck with her, then I’ll help. Let’s go.”

“I saw your work in her office,” Bubby says as they walk back to Dekkard’s desk. “And I will admit, you did an excellent job.”

Dekkard beams. “Maybe I’m not so underqualified after all.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Dekkard slips into his chair. Bubby’s too anxious to sit, instead pacing back and forth as he waits for the computer to boot up. “So, what am I helping you with?”

“Zeki made a proposal. I’m sure she intended it as a threat, but. I need a free room here in Biological Research. Something livable. No tubes or cages or any of that shit.”

Dekkard’s hands pause on the keyboard. He glances back at Bubby, who’s staring over his shoulder, leaning forward to watch. “Are you…moving in here?”

“Yes. Myself and one of the subjects, so make sure it’s big enough for two people.”

Dekkard spins in his chair. “One of the subjects?”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?” He folds his arms, standing up straight.

“I mean - pretty much every single subject here could kill you, so -”

“I used to be a subject here, if you’ll recall.”

“Yeah, but - you’re not like them. You’re like, a person.” Dekkard sighs. “Is it the alien?”

“Their name is Benrey.”

“You named it?”

“We are wasting time,” Bubby snarls, stepping forward to grab the mouse from Dekkard’s hand. He holds it up, stretching the wire as far as it can go.

“Hang on! Look, I’m willing to help, I just -”

“I don’t have time to argue with you! Either help me, or I will do this myself.”

“Look, Bubby -”

“Dr. Bubby.”

“Dr. Bubby.” Dekkard groans, tipping his head back. “You’re the only tolerable person here, I don’t wanna help you get killed by an alien.”

“Well, luckily for you that’s not what you’re doing. Now are you going to help or not?”

“You’re really set on this, huh?”

It’s a lucky thing Bubby’s control over his pyrokinesis has grown, or Dekkard’s hair would be on fire. “Yes, I’m sure. I - they have them chained up. Like some kind of wild animal. They’re a child, Dekkard. Zeki made the mistake of offering this, and I’m not going to give her the chance to back down.”

Dekkard’s shoulders slump as he spins back to the computer. “I’m not gonna pretend like I understand, but fine. I’ll help.” Bubby takes a step away from the computer to give him a bit of space, not wanting to hover as Dekkard logs into the horribly designed official Black Mesa website. It takes him a minute to pull up a map, but once he does, he waves Bubby back over. “Okay, so. There’s a few empty areas, it looks like. I’m gonna toss these ones immediately -” and here he points to the screen at a cluster of small rooms - “because those are next to whatever the hell it is that screams all night. XEN - uh, Benrey?” He glances up at Bubby who nods approvingly. “Right. Benrey’s over here right now, and I think there’s actually an unused room pretty close? Big one, too.”

“Just find me something and show me it. I don’t need your entire thought process.”

“Hey, I’m the one helping you.” Dekkard’s quiet after that, though, focusing more on the screen as Bubby paces back and forth, glancing at his pager every few minutes. “Okay, come here, I’ve got a list.”

This is the time-consuming part. Dekkard shows Bubby each of the rooms, laying out the size and shape and what they’re near, and then they spend a few moments debating the pros and cons. Bubby knows they’re on a timer, but his attention is elsewhere, and he does forget to check the time.

His pager beeps.

“Oh, motherfucker,” he mutters. Zeki’s meeting must have ended, because she’s sent him a message.

Meet me in my office.

“We need to decide right now.”

“Shit, that her?”

“No, it was the president. Yes, it was her!”

Dekkard sighs, scooting his chair closer. “Okay, I know it’s a weird shape, but I think this one’s best. There’s a bathroom nearby and a sink in the room, which is good. Better than the dorms, even. And you can hang up a curtain or something over here and make it like a separate room.”

He’s gesturing at a vaguely L-shaped room close to the offices and break room. Bubby has seen it before. It’s been unused for ages, gathering dust, and will probably be a pain to clean. But Dekkard does have a point, and he’s out of time.

“Fine. Sure. Yes. What’s the room number?”

“B-22.”

“B-22,” Bubby repeats. “B like Bubby. Excellent. Alright, I’m off to go ruin Zeki’s day.”

Dekkard shoots him a grin and a finger gun. “Good working with you.”

“Also, don’t get the doritos. They’re stale.”

Dekkard looks at the bag on his desk. “God damnit. Asshole.”

#hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #bubby hlvrai #benrey #benrey hlvrai #bubby #cora writes #bbs #adventures of cora #baby shoes au

24 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Survey #287

“keep him tied - it makes him well / he’s getting better, can’t you tell?”

What are you favorite things to watch on YouTube? I like a pretty big variety now. I’d say I’ve been mostly into pet YouTubers lately, especially reptile ones. Oh, and WoW stuff. Can you pick out any constellations in the sky without looking them up online? Besides the Little or Big Dipper (idk which is which), nope. Are you religious? If so, what influenced you to start believing God? If you’re not religious, what convinces you there is no God? I wouldn’t call myself religious, no. I do believe there’s some kind of ultimate power, but hell if I know what it is, and I don’t actually worship it. I don’t believe any “good” god would demand kissing its feet in order for you to end at peace, among a billion other reasons. I believe there is something though because the odds of life and everything is just… too perfect. Plus I believe in the paranormal, so to me, there is obviously something beyond the mortal form. Is there any animal out there that genuinely terrifies you? Is this an animal you’re worried about coming across in daily life? I am terrified of ticks and parasites in general. They’re fucking disgusting. Maggots will also make me scream. Oh, and then there’s whale sharks. In my daily life, I wouldn’t say there’s any that I actively worry about crossing paths with. When was the last time you wore make-up? Around Halloween when Summer, me, and another of her friends did a witch-themed photoshoot. It really fucking sucks that it was so dark by the time we were done that the pictures came out absolutely awful. You can’t see shit, and of course on camera, I look absolutely awful. Have you ever worn colored contacts? No, but I’m totally not opposed for a cool photoshoot. Have you seen any of the Disney re-makes (eg. Aladdin or The Lion King)? What do you think of them? I’ve seen a good number, and I really like them. I think The Jungle Book remake was the best of them. How long did it take you to pass your driving test once you started learning how to drive? Ha, I still haven’t tried. When was the last time you went out for a formal occasion or event? Do you remember what you wore? Uhhhh… I have zero clue. Well, does my last job interview count? I just wore black sweatpants and some kind of formal top. How often do you have the TV on? is it more background noise or are you actually watching things? Y’all know by now that I don’t watch TV. Do you like any songs by Elvis Presley? Well of course. “Devil In Disguise” is my favorite. Do you ever answer the phone to unknown numbers? Nope. Do you eat anything special for breakfast on Christmas Day? Nah. When you go to theme parks, what’s your favorite type of ride? I haven’t been to a theme park in beyond forever, so idk. Are you afraid of falling in love? Ohhhhh yes. Expecting something to change in the next month? No. e_e What is your biggest worry in life right now? That Mom’s cancer will come back. Well, it IS going to eventually flare somewhere else, but no one can estimate when. Could be tomorrow. Could be years. Do you give up easily? It depends. With a lot of things, honestly, yes, because I get upset with my incompetence. What are you listening to? "Going To Hell" by The Pretty Reckless just came on. Is anything bothering you right now? Always. Were you ever made fun of? Yes. Are you currently jealous? I’ve been having episodes of it. Do you find piercings attractive on the opposite sex? I find them attractive on almost all people. Who was the last person you yelled at? I don’t know. Probably Mom. What do you say a lot? “Mood,” “lmao,” “can’t relate,” “same,” “oof,” “yikes,” shit like that, haha. What is your favorite place you have traveled? Chicago. Do you like ice cream? Yeah, that’s my comfort food. Do you like bananas? Yeah, but I don’t dare to eat one if I haven’t had my heartburn medication, because otherwise I get it BADLY. Do you like Paramore? A handful of their songs, yeah. I don’t know a lot though, honestly. Do you plan on getting married? It’d be nice. Ever been given a promise ring? No. Sexual orientation? Bi. Who do you text the most? Definitely Sara. Do you still talk to the person who hurt you most in life? Why or why not? No, because he wants nothing to do with me. I don’t blame him. Have you ever given your number to a complete stranger? Um, no. Well, besides in like, job applications. What color is your keyboard? Black. Your mouse? Mostly black, but it does have this crackled pattern that can glow blue or red. Desktop or laptop? I prefer laptops for mobility’s sake. Do you like sweet tea? I hate tea. How much sugar do you put in your tea? ^ Have you ever called someone useless? Wow, no. Do you have a wood or glass dining room table? Wood. Do you tend to get attached easily? HOLY GOD OF FUCK, YES. Is Joe Jonas really hotter than Nick? I haven’t seen either in god knows how long, but I remember I thought Nick was very cute. Favorite flavor pudding? Chocolate is the only kind I’ve enjoyed. Not that I’ve tried a lot. What are three words used in your area/dialect that many other areas/dialects wouldn't be familiar with? Oh, there are most certainly some, but I can’t think of any right now. How do you feel when your partner is talking to an ex? This would depend on a lot of things. What is the most expensive gift you have ever given? Received? Given, I’m really unsure. I answer enough questions sharing that I don’t have my own source of income, so a lot of times, my mom lets me use her money, but there is obviously a ceiling to how much I can use. Received, definitely my Sager laptop Jason got me one year. Do children like you? I’m always surprised that kids seem to… I don’t know how the hell to interact with kids, but parents tend to tell me that they do like me. If you found your child's diary would you read it? What if you found the diary of one of your parents? Hell no would I read that shit. Both deserve privacy. Have you ever stalked or killed a wild animal? Fuck no. Name something you are now prepared to reveal about yourself that you weren't ready to talk about in the past? The state of my virginity. Name a talent someone has of which you are jealous: I am soooo envious of talented and actually successful photographers. What would you most likely complain about in a hotel? Probably if the bed sheets seemed dirty. Is it possible to be in love with more than one person at the same time? Probably. I’m monogamous though, so I really can’t say because I haven’t experienced this. Do you often feel pressured by others? Society, yes. Should couples live together before marriage? I feel that it’s the better decision, yes. You may not blend well actually sharing the same house. You learn things about your partner. How would you feel attending the wedding of an ex? It would depend on the person. Girt or Sara? I would love to. As a matter of fact, I better be invited lmao. Jason? I couldn’t in ten trillion years. Fiction or nonfiction. I strongly prefer fiction. Can you can lie with a straight face? Yes, if it’s something little. Name three things you have experienced that would shock your parents: Probably just sexual stuff. Do you believe in using the silent treatment? No. I’ve sure done it before, but I’d like to think I’ve grown out of this. Communication is where it’s at. Your most embarrassing thought: *shrug* Your most prejudiced thought: I don’t know. I don’t think I’m very prejudiced. A shameful moment for you: The situation w/ Joel. The biggest gamble of your life: Deciding to drop out of college the last time. Who knows if that was a good choice or not… It’s too early to tell. What is your greatest weakness as a friend? Idk off the top of my head, but I’m sure there’s something. Do you feel better when you have a tan? Nah, I like being pale. I did go through a period in HS of using tanning lotion on my legs though because I was self-conscious of JUST how pale they were. Do you sometimes enjoy being mean? ”I don’t think so. Maybe like... in certain contexts. Like being mean in video games can be really fun sometimes, haha. And being a little mean in a kink setting can be fun too.” <<<< This. Are you high maintenance? Definitely not. Has anybody ever told you that you’re too young to be in love? I think my dad has, just indirectly. Did you learn anything from the last BIG mistake you made? Yes. Do you have a favorite brand of shoes? Yeah, Converse. Do you like rollercoasters with big drops? I’m afraid of rollercoasters so have never been on one. Do you have any inside jokes with your parents? Not really. Have you ever thrown a surprise party for somebody? I don’t think so? Do you know who your mom’s favorite singer is? Oh, she’s totally obsessed with James Hetfield/Metallica. What year were you born in? 1996. What is your favorite card game? Magic: The Gathering, even though I was never great at it or totally understood all the rules. I just adore the artwork, and I like the detailed tactics behind it. Have you ever tried to surf? Nah. Do you want to learn? Nah. Have you ever had a song dedicated to you? What was it? Let’s not with this. What color eyes does your best friend have? Brown. Have you ever been on a blind date? Nah. Which one of your family members do you wish you could see more often? My brother and his son. I got really close to my nephew the last time they visited for a few days. What room in your house is the messiest? Right now, the extra bedroom that I want to make my dayroom. A lot of our “extra” stuff is just shoved into there. Have you ever requested a song on the radio? No. Are you proud of your parents? Yes. Have you ever (accidentally or not) set off a car alarm? I think I accidentally have before. Do you have dimples when you smile? Yes, way more prominently on my left cheek though. Do you find graveyards scary? No. They’re peaceful to me. Have you ever carved anything into a tree? I don’t think so. Do you read those celebrity gossip magazines? Ew, no. Celebs deserve privacy. Do you give or get advice more often? Well considering I’m in therapy, probably get. Did the last type of shoes you wore have laces? No. Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? FUCK no. When was the last time somebody hit on you? Idr. Which one of your friends do you feel most comfortable around? Sara. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Just pass me the rolls lmao. Who did you last spoon with? My cat lmao. What was the last video game you played? I don’t recall the last console game I played, so does World of Warcraft count, even tho it’s a computer game? When you’re in trouble, do your parents ever “middle name” you? Ha, my mom will sometimes. Does getting sweaty or dirty bother you at all? If so, has it ever put you off doing exercise? Very much so. I suffer (and I DO mean “suffer”) from insane hyperhidrosis, so I sweat my ass off if I so much as twitch, if even that. I just hate feeling gross. Have you ever thought about how you want to spend your retirement? No, honestly. It’s hard for me to imagine even *getting* to retirement. Would you describe yourself as healthy? Why or why not? No. I’m physically and even more mentally not okay. Do you miss anything about being a teenager? If you are a teenager, what’s your favorite thing about it? Yeah, some things. Though I really don’t even want to think about it. I look back on me being a teen with both wistfulness as well as bitterness. I don’t know which is stronger.

#survey #surveys #quiz #questions #questionnaire #lyrics: ''welcome home (sanitarium)'' by metallica

2 notes · View notes

meereens · 4 years

Text

a dream of spring rarepairs week - day 2: children

A little foster brother might be just what Tommen needs to wean him away from Margaery and her hens. In time they might grow as close as Robert and his boyhood friend Ned Stark.

On Tommen’s ninth nameday, Mother stuffs him into a spring green Essosi doublet with a gold thread lion in the center. The lion is supposed to have two rubies for eyes, but one must have fallen out somewhere along the way—look, Mother, he’s winking—and Mother goes out into the hall to sternly talk at some maid until he hears a muffled sob. Her cheeks are splotched with red when she returns, red as lost rubies, and Tommen casts his gaze downward. His poor one-eyed lion is less frightening. Mother holds his shoulder like a plump mouse in a claw.

“Thieves in Maegor’s Holdfast,” she seethes, digging in her nails. “Were Maegor still master here, those little sneaks would have their eyes put out and their innards broiled for their treachery.”

“What did you say to her?”

“To whom?”

“The...our servant?”

“Servant no longer,” Mother tells him as her hands move to his laces. “Dorcas! Fetch us something green or gold, with gems sewn in. We cannot have the king playing the pauper on his special day.”

The large woman standing behind a screen for his privacy silently shuffles over to his wardrobe while Mother rips him out of his clothes. The lion splits open, loosening the garment, and he holds up his arms so she can wiggle it over his head.

“You must especially look your best to meet Lady Merryweather’s present.”

That excites Tommen. Meeting means something to make friends with, something to have and to hold like a—

“Is it a kitten?” There can never be too many kittens in the Red Keep.

“No, but you will play together.”

Tommen pouts at that. It will probably be a cuddly rabbit or a little puppy that will grow into a fearsome hound, animals that are lovable enough but cannot capture his heart in the same vein as cats. Margaery understands, he thinks. The doublet Dorcas comes back with is gold, with slashed sleeves, pearl buttons, and garnets lining the neck and shoulders in a crescent shape. His lion had more character, this he knows, but Mother seems at least more pleased than she was before, so he wears it down to the tourney held for his day.

And what a tourney. Joff’s—his heart does a sad little flip whenever he’s reminded of Joff—was pure fun since they put an enemy straw man out for him to batter, but it was a shame they chose to hold it behind castle walls instead of outside by the bubbling of the river and the chirps of baby birds in trees. His is along the Blackwater, as it should be, and all the Tyrells come out to greet him first in varying shades of green. Margaery’s gown is the palest mint, her hair worn loose with a circlet of cloth buttercups on top. Buttercup would be a good name for a cat. She smiles and takes his arm, but as they are about to ascend to their seats, Mother says, “Lady Merryweather, don’t we have a guest for the royal box?”

All eyes turn to Mother’s friend, standing near the back of the rapidly growing group. An olive-skinned boy smaller than him peers out from behind her skirts.

“Russell, go on and introduce yourself to His Grace.”

The boy rushes forward, punches off the ground, then flips before landing neatly at Tommen’s feet. He is too stunned to respond, much less clap for him. Mother does, prompting a few ladies to follow in her example. Russell kneels, and he notices how bushy his hair is, thick black tufts that stick out at every possible angle. He looks to Margaery for what to say, but her face is set in the same soft smile.

“From this day on, Russell will be the Crown’s fosterling,” Mother announces in a regal voice. This time, everybody claps.

Russell’s nameday is today, and he keeps on reminding Tommen that he has to tumble for him the way he did for his ninth.

“I was six and I had more skill in my pinky toe than you do now,” he boasts, puffing up his chest like a proud bird about to shit over a parapet. He taught him that expression, foul mouth included. He always wants to teach him things, from how to tumble to how to lie without bursting into tears to how to start a fight in Flea Bottom and come out scratchless. Half of what Russell claims he’s done when they’re not training sounds like something out of a fable; Lann the Clever’s natural son born thousands of years too late.

“Keep talking like that, and I’ll box you on the nose,” he teases.

“Not fair—it’s too big a target.”

His nose can charitably be called a lightly beaten potato; Tommen was shocked to discover nobody broke it. Grinning, he pulls his companion by the arm and leads him through winding stone corridors, their feet pounding at such a pace that Ser Loras has to run along to play his role as Kingsguard. Russell’s luck struck again when it came time to choose a mentor, since Mother wouldn’t allow the Knight of Flowers to serve as his. “But Ser Loras is my favorite,” he said when she revealed Ser Addam Marbrand would be his knight instead. “Favorites change,” she said.

My favorites never will. He almost misses the Queen’s Ballroom, backing up into Russell as they skid to a halt.

“Are you holding a ball for me?” he launches into asking. “No—a feast?”

It must be hard for him, not knowing. Even worse, being the only one who doesn’t know. He is the first to whisper did you hear when they break their fast together, followed by an enticing rumor he hopes is not true or a tale so outrageously wild he hopes it is.

“No,” Tommen says as Ser Loras opens the doors. “We’re holding court.”

Inside, thick woolen carpets have been placed on the floor, and tapestries of contented animals lounging in meadows and forests cover the walls. There are three large chairs side-by-side, like he asked for, and Margaery sits in the rightmost with a cream kitten on her lap.

The kittens. Everywhere, the kittens. Clawing at loose threads in the wool, or curled up to nap, kittens litter the ground like snow in Winterfell. Each of Margaery’s ladies holds one, waiting dutifully in a line facing the thrones, while servants scoop up more balls of fluff with cradling hands. Grown cats prowl the ballroom as well, though there are fewer in their ranks. A velvet-capped bard strums a jolly tune as two striped ones twine about his ankles. The overall effect is the closest thing to paradise Tommen can imagine; Russell’s mouth is agape.

“You...you didn’t.”

“I did!”

Margaery claps twice. “Presenting the Court of Cats!”

“You know I don’t like them,” Russell groans, but follows him through the horde regardless.

“You will.”

His friend has never had an appreciation for cats, holding his pets at a distance when Tommen brings them in to play or pretending they make him sniffle and sneeze. When pressed, he gives a flimsy excuse like I don’t understand them.

That ends here today. Once Russell finds a cat to fall in love with, his doubts will melt away like rain. He knows they will; it is even surer than his father’s kingly blood running through his heart.

“If this is the Court of Cats, does that make you the king of cats?”

He giggles as he takes the left chair. “Perhaps, though you’re the guest of honor. Sit!”

Megga Tyrell presents first, hoisting a white kitten with a black face up for all to see.

“Darling,” says Margaery.

“Adorable,” says Tommen.

“Looks like it dipped itself in soot,” mutters Russell.

The king and queen exchange a look. “On to the next, then.”

And so it goes. Every time a kitten is presented, even if the Mother’s most perfectly crafted creation, Russell manages to find fault with it. Some are mewling too much, or might as well be mute. Some have too much softness to their limbs, or are too scrawny. Some have tasseled ears that look silly, or their ears are too plain. Once he dismisses an exquisite silver kitten with pale green eyes because it reminds him of another cat that stole a piece of bread. Margaery’s ladies wilt one by one, letting their offerings back onto the floor to search for new ones that will undoubtedly get rejected also. The Court of Cats seems more and more pointless when—

“Shoo! Get out! This isn’t your place, you mangy beast!”

One of the servants is trying to drive a dirty yellow cat away from the others. She kicks it with her foot, but it dives back between her heels, almost causing her to trip.

“What’s going on there?” Russell calls out.

The woman swoops down and catches the cat, who struggles madly from between her brawny arms.

“Apologies, m’lord, this one must’ve snuck in. I’ll throw it out right away.”

“No, bring it here. I want to see.”

Tommen eyes the proceedings with new interest. The intruder is uglier than the bad cat that used to visit his window at night, sporting a crooked, scowling jaw and missing its left eye.

“He’s a pirate cat,” Russell declares. “He lost his eye at sea.”

“It sounds like you like him,” he says.

“I don’t like him—I respect him.”

“That is a good start, is it not?” asks Margaery.

The cat seems to think not, as he starts yowling at the top of his lungs.

“His name is Buttercup,” Russell says, and the king of cats cannot contain his glee.

He is almost sixteen. Almost a man grown, and feeling half a boy. Lady Olenna pulled him aside in the garden the other day to insinuate about performing husbandly duties, which he knows he has to get around to doing sooner or later. But why not later rather than sooner? Margaery is three-and-twenty, in the bloom of her childbearing years, still fecund if they wait until he is eighteen or nineteen or twenty, and he is the king.

He has to remind himself he is the king. At the small council earlier, murmurings arose that the Queen of Meereen was planning to make her way across the narrow sea and reclaim what she believed to be her birthright. Russell’s father, his Hand for the past few years, fumbled around the issue before admitting they were woefully unprepared should dragonfire chance to rain down upon King’s Landing.

That has been my week—fire and bloodlines.

He cannot imagine any two things less appealing to think about. Ser Pounce, Boots, and Lady Whiskers trail him into the royal apartments, sticking their tails up at Ser Boros as they glide past. His bedchamber is a welcome sight, made more so by Russell tickling a surly Buttercup on the bed.

“From rags to the royal bedchamber,” he says when he catches sight of him. “This cat has the life bards dream of.”

“And what of your life?” Tommen asks as he sits by them. Buttercup hisses and slides off to lurk beneath.

“My life? I am the king’s dearest friend, of course! I whisper poison in your ear and thus I am well contented.”

“You do not.”

They stare at one another, until Russell goes cross-eyed and sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth. Laughter bubbles from Tommen’s throat, spreading to the corners of his eyes and falling down as tears. When it dies down, he feels a sudden emptiness.

“I am glad our mothers made us friends.”

Russell snorts. “Our mothers didn’t make us do anything, no more than you made me adopt my Buttercup.”

“It seems like everybody is making me do things. My mother, the small council, even Margaery, sometimes. I am—I wish we could go be pirates.”

He feels the impact of arms being thrown around him immediately after he says it, the hug as instantly comfortable as it is crushing. “My poor king of cats,” Russell whispers. “They mean to take you away from me.”

I am king, Tommen thinks. But that does not mean he is free.

#tommen baratheon #asoiafrare #russell merryweather #asoiaf #tommen x russell #day two children #does that even have a tag lol #this is rough but it's time to submit so buckle in #can we stan characters who don't appear onpage?#mayhaps

18 notes · View notes

shadowthrone-ammanas · 4 years

Text

So the first thing with the tiny Hat Kid/Borrowers AU that I came up with was that originally it was based off of the visual of a mod level I was playing where there was a lantern the size of Hat Kid. I didn’t start it thinking about the Borrowers as “humans but tiny” I was thinking of them as like Hat Kid’s species.

So when I later decided Mu was also tiny that resulted in having Mu be also distinctly not just a tiny human and it had ripple effects on the borrower species design

So, background details: Most of the characters are still the same. However, the locations are different. Mafia Town isn’t on a little island, it’s on a larger one with both underground-undersea Metro tunnels and shipping routes. There is a large forest- Subcon- and some mountains, the Alpine Skyline, which then have a desert in their rainshadow.

So that’s all the chapters except Arctic Cruise on one reasonably sized landmass, instead of scattered all over the planet, much more accessable to tiny Hat Kid

I’m gonna put a ‘read more’ right here for the sake of people’s dashboards. I hope that’s okay.

Borrower biology notes: inspired a little bit by ruffs and also my attempts to work out having Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and Mu as members of the same species

3 or 4 sexes in a similar way to ruffs or white-throated sparrows; about all I have pinned down is that Mu’s facial-hair-no-ponytail-and-long-bangs/tendrils/flaps combo is associated with one of them, bow kid’s no-ponytail, no-hair-flaps, no-facial-hair combo is another, and hat kid’s ponytail-and-flaps-but-no-facial-hair is a third (yes this means two of them are trans)

The Borrowers, as they sometimes call themselves, are the result of an incredibly powerful spell a few centuries back. They used to be about the size of humans, before the spell; and pretty much all of them lived on two islands.

The Mafia wanted to move to those islands, so they gathered up all the Time Pieces they could get into one spot on the island and had a sacrificial Mafia member do A Thing involving the time pieces and a great deal of other magical items to remove the islanders; faking a wild magic surge. The result was that as far as the rest of the world was concerned the entire species simply vanished, turned into these tiny little echoes,and also this was much less scary than it should have been. There is still a spot on the island Hat Kid is from that will likely have nothing grow there for thousands of years.

The Time Pieces exploded into much smaller fragments, time shards, which scattered all over the world, and the shrunken islanders started to try to adjust to their new lives.

Which was made a lot harder by the Mafia moving in; they spread false information claiming that the tiny post-transformation islanders weren’t sapient anymore and were pests, like large mice, to be dealt with with poison and rat traps.

Some Borrowers start using time shards to power things; others do the dangerous thing of tapping electricity from wires; others use tiny candles and other pre-electric style technology or magic.

Their society adjusts to a world where “eaten by a seagull” is a plausible cause of death, everyone can double-jump, most people can carry more than their own weight, and an umbrella is easily enough to completely stop all fall damage. Square-cube law! Luckily the magic helps keep them warm, but Borrowers still have a faster metabolism than they did pre-spell and need to eat more often.

Amongst other details, it’s common for a Borrower to end up on their own due to being separated from their clan or having the rest of their clan die. Solitary borrowers don’t tend to last long, so they generally try to get adopted by the first clan they come across, basically just showing up and starting to pitch in; there’s always something to be done.

Also Borrowers are a little more scent-focused than humans, most noteably being more able to notice the scent of borrowers than a human is able to notice the scent of other humans; this is really helpful for lost borrowers finding other clans.

Hat Kid is the kid of someone relatively important in a borrower community on the other island. They treated her poorly/were neglectful, so she ended up falling in with, basically, the local borrower criminals. (Not many places have enough clans living closely enough together to really have borrowers that are criminals by borrower standards; stealing from the taller folk is not considered a crime but rather just survivial, and attacking the taller folk is basically considered lunacy.)

Eventually Hat Kid, at age 11 (okay actually older, like 16 or so, but she maps to a human 11 year old), decided to fake her death and entirely leave her old clan. Due to various shenanigans including her not being out to her old clan, the fake murder, a real murder done by Hat Kid, and paranoia she managed to be accused of murdering herself and got exiled which is a Big Deal. She stole the one local aircraft (that she had helped build) and fled, exploring far beyond her family’s reach (especially now they didn’t have a timeshard-powered aircraft).

In between her ‘ship’, her skills with an umbrella and movement, audacity, and sheer dumb luck Hat Kid managed to live alone for quite some time, eventually landing in Mafia Town due to an incident involving a Mafia with a bugnet, losing the time shards that powered her ship in the process. She meets up with Mu and is like. FRIEND! Sure, I’ll join up with you!

…aaaaand then Mu wants to use the time shards that powered Hat Kid’s airship thingy to hurt the Mafia more. And Hat Kid is like, no, no I need those. Result: Mu leaves in a huff, Hat Kid is alone again.

Hat Kid’s ship, by this point, has been repaired enough and has enough time shards to fly a little, so she goes and recklessly lands on the local above-ground train and hitches a ride, ending up at Dead Bird Studio. Grooves finds her and is like, this borrower-mouse is wearing decent clothing and a hat. Whose escaped pet is this.

Hat Kid is semiverbal but definitely literate and manages to get her hands on a writing implement and explains that she is nobody’s pet. The Conductor and Grooves decide to hire her for movies.

Directors: a sapient borrower-mouse who wants to be an actress and is actually good at it just when we need a new actor and fresh movie ideas! Perfect!

Hat Kid: This weird clan has lots of infighting and mostly trades in movies? I get to be adopted and to use my skill in acting for things that aren’t lying to people? Perfect!

So that’s a good month or so for Hat Kid, with the culture clash never being clarified, whoops. Both the Directors think Hat Kid is going home to her family when really she’s doing stuff like looking for that time shard she thinks might be present or fixing up her ship more or getting food that isn’t provided by the Directors. (At least they recognize that providing lots of snacks to the tiny child is a good idea.)

Then the movies (both of them) are finished, and the directors are like. Thanks for working with us. There’s no more movies for you, kid, stop showing up to filming there’s no more filming involving you. (Grooves never really started seeing Hat Kid as fully a person and is pretty cruel about kicking her out from his side of the studio, too.)

In the Director’s culture: “Seriously kid contract is done, the movies you starred in have no more filming, wouldn’t mind working with you again later but uh we are not currently working on a movie right now why are you here?”

In Hat Kid’s culture: “We’re exiling you. Again.“

So she goes to Subcon Forest. Yes, this is stupid and risky. Hat Kid does not care.

Snatcher sees this absolutely tiny person and is like. You’re too small to be a threat. Also too small to have a soul worth the effort of eating it.

So he hires her to do stuff like detail work on repainting the Subconites’ houses and other stuff a tiny person can do.

He proceeds to assume she’s being cuttingly sarcastic when she calls him "dad” or “dadcher”. Instead of 100% serious. (Her perception of this as an adoption is helped by Snatcher making an effort to dig out old books and old memories on what of the local flora and fauna is edible and provide Hat Kid with fresh local food, which is a Special Effort as, well, subconites and dwellers feed off of ambient magic and abstract stuff while Snatcher eats souls.)

After maybe about two weeks he’s out of work for Hat Kid and tells her so, like, “No more work for you, kiddo. You’re free to leave.” Then is mystified when Hat Kid leaves in tears. Like what did he do wrong??

I have no clue what Hat Kid would be up to in the Alpine Skyline. Something. Probably trying to impress random nomads and goats and not understanding why they’re impressed but still leave her.

Eventually she finds out that Mu has gotten her hands on time shards and is managing to use them to set places on fire. Hat Kid goes to stop her because no!! You do not just indiscriminately set Mafia Town on fire! Even aside from all the tall folk living there you don’t know how many borrowers are living in the walls!

So she stops Mu, then realizes that pretty much everyone watching her has either ‘exiled’ her or has been known to hunt borrowers before (eg the Mafia) so she flees down a subway tunnel and lives in the Metro for a few days before meeting the Empress. By this point Mu’s very public yelling about how the Mafia were killing her people has gotten on the news, so she’s aware that at least some borrowers are sapient and people, and is like. You work for me now.

Hat Kid is like, my greatest fifth chance!

Eventually, though, Hat Kid manages to annoy the Empress. By this point she’s gotten used to the idea that something is wrong with her, people really don’t care about her, and at any point she could be abruptly betrayed and exiled, so she panics, assumes she’s going to be kicked out very soon, and ends up deciding to preemptively betray Empress by stealing her time shard. Empress is throughly baffled and also very upset and puts out a bounty of a few thousand or so on Hat Kid’s head; time shards are valuable damn it but also…only one?? she’d been known to bring back five or six at once?

(Time shards aren’t very tangible to most people by default. Borrowers can interact with them always and make them solid to everyone. Hat Kid could’ve easily reversed that and forced Empress to use magically charged tongs to pick up her time shards and hire another borrower to fix them but she didn’t. The longer Empress thinks on this, the more confused she gets.)

At some point during Hat Kid’s time in the nyakuza Mu ends up adopted by Cooking Cat. She shows up on TV sometimes, joining in an episode with stuff like running commentary while perched on CC’s shoulder or butting in to help frost cakes or whatever.

Hat Kid’s confused upset post-nyakuza wandering ends up leading her to where the Conductor is just coming back from a cruise. Conductor is like LASSIE I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER! Hat Kid is like ??? and then decides that maybe…maybe kicking her out was entirely Groove’s idea and Conductor still likes her? Maybe?

And then in the ensuring confused discussion Conductor begins to realize the culture clash. Conductor ends up adopting Hat Kid, and later takes in Bow Kid as well because she was separated from her family and saw Hat Kid riding on Conductor’s shoulders and just sort of. Jumped on his other shoulder, startling him, and was like “HI”.

At some point Hat Kid and Bow Kid end up guest starring alongside Mu (they made up) on Cooking Cat’s show. Possibly several times. Hat and Bow are adorable and while they don’t really say much unscripted and it’s usually sentence fragments they’re still popular for a mixture of Adorable and their sense of humour eg Bow Kid insisting that duck is actually “quackers” in a dish involving duck and cheese to set CC up for a terrible “cheese and quackers” pun.

Mu, Hat Kid, Bow Kid, and the TV Trio end up working together a lot to try to change things for the better for the Borrowers. Meanwhile Snatcher is off doing his own thing, having heard of the culture clash (Mu explained it on TV at some point) he works out a schedule for when Hat and Bow are staying with the Conductor and when one or the other or both are staying with him. He ends up with a few borrower clans living in his forest (they followed Hat Kid) and is just like, sure this works.

I greatly admire people who can just come up with AU ideas and build on them and then come up with a whole story for the AU. I love that it has a happy ending too. :)

7 notes · View notes

hecate-herself · 4 years

Note

Prompt list 13. Number 4, I think. Jeremy and Daisy.

“Let’s get a pet.” Daisy said over breakfast, her mouth still full of toast and her small hand on a glass of orange juice.

“There’s a spider in the kitchen,” Jeremy replied. “That’ll do.” She stared at him, blinking large, unmatched eyes. He got up and picked up his own glass, it was empty, and a scrap of paper. There were always scraps of paper, Faryn had been the tidy one and without her, papers seemed to build up at every corner, like they were waiting for her to come home, like Jeremy wasn’t ready to deal with the fact that she wasn’t coming home.

He caught the spider in the glass and used the paper to keep it inside before he put it down on the table, kneeling by Daisy’s seat as the spider, maybe an inch across with long and spindly legs, sat and watched them. She stared back at it before she leant forward and picked up the glass.

The spider suddenly scuttled across the table and she shrieked, dropping the glass as she jumped off her chair. Jeremy grabbed the glass and retrapped the spider. “You really are your mother’s child.” He muttered as he scooped the spider up and carried back into the kitchen, and dropped it out of the kitchen window. “Your ma was scared of them as well.” He picked her up and sat her on her chair again. “Come on, finish your breakfast, I put it outside.”

Daisy had been asking for various pets for the past few weeks, it had been a squirrel last time and whilst he had said no, he had looked to see if you could keep a pet squirrel during a lunch break, the lady at the pet shop had sat no, and also recommended that he didn’t try to catch a wild one as it would probably bite him. She’d wanted a duck as well, but they didn’t have a pond in the garden.

“Tell me?”

He smiled. “She came to see me once, before we got married, long before we had you. She took me by surprise because I thought she was working that day. She asked me if I could come to her a flat and get rid of the spider in her bathtub.” He had been so surprised by the request that he had burst out laughing in her face. She hadn’t been as amused. “So I went over to her flat and got rid of it for her. And the ones in the corners of her bedroom ceiling. And checked the rest of the flat for them. She made me dinner as a thank you. At which point I realised that, not only was she terrified of spiders, she couldn’t cook to save her life.”

He’d done the cooking and she made sure that the house didn’t look like an explosion in a very cluttered library, it had worked for them, their differences had made them really work as a couple, even if she sometimes went spare at his inability to file papers, and he was always ‘impressed’ with her ability to burn toast every time she made it.

“Maybe we can get a dog when you are a bit older.” He said. He doubted that he could look after Daisy and a dog, not yet, not alone. “Or a cat if you would prefer a cat.” Cats were easier to look after and he wouldn’t have to walk it and maybe it would eat all of the pesky spiders, and the odd mouse that came sneaking in.

“A mouse.” She said.

“Maybe. Not yet though. When you are old enough to look after an animal, so that you don’t ask get one and then I am left looking after it.” She nodded. Faryn had wanted to get a dog but then they had found out that she was expecting and they had decided to put it off until later on. There wasn’t a later on for her, but there would be for him, and for their little girl. “I’ll look into it.”

#CLF writing

4 notes · View notes

thecatwhogrins · 5 years

Text

Brought Back (Part 2) Obiyukiweek19 (Day 3: Gluttony)

Part two of the Necromancer AU :)

Warning! Mentions of abuse and death.

Obi sat on his bad with a sigh, a glass of whatever alcohol he had found in his cabinet and wiped a hand over his face, trying to dispel the last remnants of sleeps from his mind.

Instead, when he closed his eyes, he remembered Shirayuki.

He remembered her wide eyes full of fear but also curiosity. When she had softly touched him, he had shivered. Hard. It had been so long since he had felt the touch of someone who was alive and breathing. He decided he would keep that feeling like a token to remember that the real world existed, that beyond the calls of the dead and the pain of the living and the bruises caused by human hands, there also existed good people.

His phone rang, pulling him out of his reverie. He answered, his voice slightly muffled, the pain in his jaw too painful to ignore. As soon as he heard who was on the other side, his day went from bad to worse.

Shirayuki ended her shift, sighing heavily as she took off her equipment, snapping her gloves off. Despite the several coffees she had downed during the day, her whole body still felt heavy with weariness. Yuzuri and Shirayuki were mortuary assistants, they worked with the coroners or medical examiners. It wasn’t an easy job, but she did it well and the pay wasn’t bad.

The body they had just examined was part of an unusually violent homicide case. She wasn’t sure about the details yet, but it seemed to be part of something larger. Yuzuri was worried they might have a serial killer on the loose. Garack, while not voicing it out loud, seemed to think the same. This wasn’t uncommon in a big city like Tokyo, but the thought of it sent shivers down Shirayuki’s back. Suddenly last night’s encounter seemed even less safe.

Her mind wandered off to Obi, wondering if he managed to get back to his apartment without encountering the other man. Yuzuri would probably have a field day admonishing her about the dangers she could have been exposed to once she’d hear about the encounter.

“I’ll be right back, going catch us some lunch. What do you want?” asked Yuzuri, smiling as she headed out the door of the break room. The break room was near the morgue itself, but other staff members of the hospital used it as well. Doctors and nurses were milling around, drinking coffee and eating lunch.

“Just the usual, please. Thank you, Yuzuri,” Shirayuki smiled at her friend.

“Gotchu!” she winked and left.

Shirayuki looked down at her paperwork, absorbed by what she was seeing. The corpse she had just helped examine belonged to a female, probably in her twenties and had had its hands cut off and the face had also been badly mutilated, probably to avoid identification. The strangest detail of this homicide was the fact that the rest of the body had been treated with utmost care, almost reverentially. This was important, as the other bodies concerned in the investigation had also been in the same state. What were they dealing with?

Shirayuki’s mind was reeling when suddenly she noticed someone walking in the hallway.

It was Obi.

His face didn’t look much better compared to yesterday, purple and yellow blotches blooming all over like dark flowers. His gait still indicated that he was in pain and his hair wasn’t brushed. His eyes held a wild determined look as he strode forward. Shirayuki found herself standing up unwillingly as she followed him. He was heading… straight towards the morgue.

No one was there at this hour. She followed from a distance, cautious.

Why was he here?

Obi entered the morgue, hoping no one had seen him. He locked the door, as he wasn’t in the mood for interruptions. What he was about to do was risky and demanded his full attention. Fortunately, this was not his first rodeo.

He searched the tags, looking for the name, Shizuka Atsushi. Having found it, he carefully pulled the metallic stretcher out, revealing the corpse. Obi swallowed heavily, closed his eyes and started invoking. His whole body ached with the effort as the voices screamed in his ears.

The corpse trembled, fingers twitching slightly, as though a newfound breath of life had entered it. But it was unnatural life, a factice, twisted version that crawled throughout the long-dead corpse. The body started sitting up, jerkily, like an obscene puppet being pulled up by its strings. The other voices quieted down and the only one that Obi could now hear was loud and clear and it said:

“Oh my God!”

Obi looked up, startled, as the woman from last night, Shirayuki, stood by the door, mouth agape in horror.

His fragile concentration snapped like a twig and he lost control, the corpse started jerking, the spirit inside trying to break free. Obi brought his eyes back to the corpse, trying to regain control, but he could see the redhead ready to bolt.

He dropped everything and ran to stop her from alerting the whole building. His hip crashed into the side of the stretcher, cursing and in pain, he managed to grab her wrist. Before he could open his mouth, she crouched, used his weight against him and flipped him over her shoulder. He landed on the cold linoleum floor, wheezing, air knocked out of him.

The silence was resounding in the small room as Obi tried to regain his breath and Shirayuki her composure. She turned around once more to alert someone, but he finally managed to talk.

“I swear I wasn’t doing whatever you think I was doing,” he managed to wheeze.

“So, you’re telling you were not about to steal the corpse? I don’t see any other reason why you’d be here. Unless…” A true look of disgust and horror manifested on her face and Obi wished he could die. Telling the truth seemed almost worse than whatever she was imagining.

As he was about to try explaining himself, the corpse started moving again and Shirayuki let out a string of profanities so long, Obi would have laughed in other circumstances. It started to try getting off the stretcher, its stiff limbs and handless arms shambling with dull thuds.

Obi scrambled off the floor and asked a petrified Shirayuki to hold still while he released the spirit. She probably hadn’t even heard him as her whole body was frozen in shock. When she had entered the room and seen the body move, she had thought it had been Obi trying to prop it up. But, clearly, this wasn’t the case anymore. Her mind was reeling, trying to understand and make sense of what she was seeing but she couldn’t.

The corpse stopped jerking and settled back down. Obi heaved a sigh and looked at Shirayuki who still stood frozen. He tentatively touched her shoulder, as he was afraid she’d throw him over shoulder again. Instead, she flinched and cowered from his touch. He couldn’t blame her.

“Did that corpse just…” she couldn’t make herself say the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

Obi was at a loss. Even if he told her the truth, she’d never accept it. This went beyond what the human mind could comprehend. Some days, even he had a hard time understanding his powers.

His curse.

He cursed mentally at himself, at how careless he had been. She was probably going to call the police, and this meant he wouldn’t be able to get the information he needed. Which meant he wouldn’t get payed. Which meant no booze.

Shirayuki was staring at him again, the same expression she had last night was once again on her face, a mix of fear and curiosity.

“You’d better explain this,” she said, almost too calmly.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I did,” he whispered.

“Try me.”

The first time Obi brought a corpse back to life, he had been seven years old. He was playing in the backyard where nothing grew, except for a few weeds and was kicking around rocks, singing to himself the theme of Kamen Raider to cover the sounds of fighting back at the house. The new foster parents were much like the ones before, using him to get perks from the government. He had learned that adults were like insatiable pigs, always searching for more and always taking. He was nursing his sore cheek, and the other bruises were sure to show up soon.

In the dirt, a white pebble stuck out, like a growing plant. Obi kneeled by it, observing the strange protuberance. It was a gloomy day, the sun was hidden and the wind was patrolling the city. On the street, a dog barked, and Obi suddenly wished he had a companion with him to play with.

The wind whistled, then roared. At Obi’s feet, the white pebble started moving on its own, and what he once thought was a pebble turned out to be a bone. Other bones joined, clattering, in a mound at Obi’s feet until there sat a pile of them. The started to form themselves into a small form, like a mouse or a gerbil. The small creature had probably died there and decomposed a while ago, the bones were bleached white, no muscle or meat in sight. The revenant clattered and rattled, threatening to dissolve if it moved too much.

Obi marveled at this but a sense of fear also grew in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t allowed to have a pet in the house, what would he do with his new friend?

He snapped back to reality when a rough hand slapped the back of his head.

“What are you doing here, boy?” the voice was harsh, the smell of alcohol harsher.

Whatever the man was about to say was swallowed by a terrified scream of horror and a string of profanities .

The mouse became a pile of bones once more.

Obi didn’t see the sun for three days.

The day he summoned a spirit for the first time was also the first time he learned he was a monster.

#obiyukiweek19 #gluttony #obiyuki #ans #fanfic #myfanfic #snow white with the red hair #day 3 #didn't manage day 2 but here we go anyway #warning: abuse and death mentions

16 notes · View notes

eekispyykes · 4 years

Text

Mr Sparklepuff Feline Obituary 5.1.2020/Abridged

Mr Puffs 4-2002- 5-1-2020

by Michael Bench

Mr Puffs was an excellent friend and adventurous hiker. He loved to be outdoors. A ferocious mouser ; he did an arc'ing jump on mice and chipmunks from 2 clumps of brush away. The porch frankly stank from all his gifts. An amazing climber and very fast sprinter crossing a square acre in about 3.5sec. Some would ask why he was named as such and close friends know the whole story. A primary point was so people had a good vibe about him and would let him be. In the past two years he had cancer of the face that spread. He had been treated with surgery to remove the tumor. At a shade over 18yo, he set to rest as every night he was shivvering in normal home temp and couldn't keep weight on; refusing to leave the couch; hating being put in pet clothes/infant flannel.

2017-2020 were tough years for him adjusting to a new stray friend we “adopted” from the wild. They were startingn to get along. It played into the stress.I feel bad about this. it split us up somewhat. My younger cat was more forceful about claiming me. It weighs on me; Frankly it seemed like a few rape attempts also that difficulted the social cue of ‘normal cat spooning”.. Mr Puffs was able to get out on a van ride of Fogelsville,PA about three months ago. He also gave some love to his plush hedgehog toy. He gave it a consensual drilling every once a while or daily.

What you should know about Mr Puffs:

:My grilling deputy and trout inspector

:Loved to play the mysterious thing under blanket or newspaper game

:Love to play the mysterious tapping fingers under the many basement stairs game

:Fine taste in music and loved being my karaoke fan. Love you buddy. Not very keen on Tv after Keenan Michael Keys left Animal Planet's morning show.

:Enjoyed less usual faire like potatoes and adored bbq chicken pizza; he could handle medium wings. He WAS WARNED each time and kept him away from it till it was obvious he wanted it. Honey ham, turkey, .. and salami**. Mind you, he has never been overweight and was complimented by his first vet for muscle tone. It's his compliment to own.

:Enjoyed jumping apartment building gaps while in town: we had to rough it for a month in a storage facility after an unexpected eviction.. which we then would go for walks 1a-3a to get his exercise and water the landscape mulch at 11th street Fred Meyers. There's a little marsh back behind the store that became our little daytime haven.

:His Hiking career started in Eugene, OR. We would go night walking ,w/o a leash and whenever someone was coming he would detour off the sidewalk and into the nearest house’s bushes.. This was optimal because he would get back on the lit sidewalk and learn to keep course. This advanced to 5-7 mile hikes from U Oregon campus to Hendrix park and back. One trip such trip he was panting so he didn’t really want to run away anywhere or into traffic fortunately.. The sun had come out of the cloud cover and heated things up above the usual. We stopped at an icecream place on the way back on the edge of campus: Agate and 19th. Even though he was tired, he was a smart and collected guy. so he slinked to the back of the shop till I came back out..It was like escorting the supermodel of manly cats. It was at this time I knew leashes or more distant locations were necessary.

:While we were driving back to Pennsylvania, he decided to have a playfrenzy on the dashboard while I was in heavy traffic nearabouts of Nebraska/Rushmore on the interstate.

:Short story : Since he now had room in the yard to runaround Puffs tested his speed and momentum to get up tree trunks. Our front yard had a medium sized maple oak something. Mr Puffs ran up the tree and alarmed a family of nesting doves. The doves and Mr Puffs seemed to flee the tree foilage each in horizontal directions at about 8ft off the ground.

:Other than a shoulder injury from a fight of somesort, he was very durable. His parent's owners had coined him 'Jaco” after the famous bass player.. A green -eyed Russian Blue tuxedo, angular white paws. with little white hairs across his coat. At times I also referred to him as “Cactus Jack”. Massive front incisors like a miniature sabertooth. I pitied the rabbits who he caught which were still squealing.

:Another Short Story. I coaxed my mom to live a little and put that front addition on the house she always wanted. She got an enclosed porch. Theres an open porch on the back of the house also. When the framing was done.. I went out to the backyard to enjoy the night sky, I heard nothing. When I turned around I had two bright eyes scaring me to the ground. From 9ft, the top of the roof porch he looked at me Apparently Puffs had climbed the 8ft of framing from the work table, crossed the rafters, crossed the whole house roof and decided to voyeur me on the other side of the house. I was very glad he didn't tempt the electric lines whose pole he had tried to climb other days.Stressing moments on me as well.

:Puffs became a pro at taking baths since 2017, and getting nails trimmed at the same time. The trim helped him jump (getting pad purchase) and helped the furniture too.

:Another quick story. Cats can swim. I took him to go swimming in the creek and that went pretty good the first time. (Must always be on leash. And probably use partially inflated swimmy muscle). He was really comfortable in the water if it was shallow(2.5ft). The problem with the creek is its near a road so don't be near roads even with the leash on. He was swimming a good crawl in about 4ft. A fish mustve brushed his foot because he panicked and started jumping out of the water like a bass on a hook. I literally had to swing him in the air (with leash) and onto the shore into some leaves and grass. There's some fault in not being close enough to him to pick him up out of the water directly. He swam pretty good and at range. To ease that trauma.. (nearly heart attack probably; that went sour) , I let him calm down. At a much shallower area no taller than his knees(5-6”) I set him into the stream without much resentment and just petted him to get him calm. (He wasn't a lap cat before that either.) At that point the swimming got shuttered for downhill walks and other casual stuff.

: On similar climbing points.. even till about 2015, he liked to jump the gap from the upright piano top (4ft) to the top of the entertainment center (7.5 ft) plus the hallway gap of 3.5 ft and he was really solid at it. Would stay up there for a while and then jump down onto the sofa table (3 ft tall).. He was always calculating a new feat. When that one item stopped being in his wheelhouse it was clear he was getting bothered/ annoyed and the stress of a cat territory issue wore him down.

If you were to be near him, you'd end up watching him. This statue of a male cat with really long tail. Not lemur-long but really long.. a gray panther. And, maybe you'd try to pet him since he looked inviting. Yet, you wouldn't get much petting done. He'd probably tolerate two brushes and then give your hand a carving with his claws, hiss at you and find a new place to observe the room, That said, he would cruise the neighborhood looking which apartment I might've visited, slink in and check out how other people decorated. A very dignified personality, sometimes to the point of indignant. He was a cat you'd want to clone over and over because he was just that cool on himself. Cloning him was on the slate too until those type of businesses were closed with political force.. He actually inspired a jazz song (currently in midi form) that I’ve yet to record. I was tore up about his first cancer surgery so I started writing. Hope that will be out soon enuff. I hope this can help you appreciate Mr Puffs. He was buried at a spot he chose. It was nearby a set of brush he would choose to hide in hours near the middle of hikes.

.. he loved to hide. Back in Oregon I'd take him in the van with my mentally handicapped clients. He'd be set loose to get his relaxation in. By the time it was time to leave. he wanted to stay. He hid in bushes and culverts. I learned very quickly that such outings had to be local or I'd be driving back hours to go get him at night or worse. Once I knew that, we'd take rides on the bus to the edges of the bus line and just chill on hills overlooking boating lakes. Fern Ridge Reservoir had a nice pine overlook off Territorial hwy. He really enjoyed outings and variety. Maybe thats what kept him interested as a matter of longevity. I want to end on that. He showed me lessons in best intentions and good in the bad.. and murdering all my Egyptian spiny mice within hours of acquiring them and their replacements. Its not like I wouldn't have gotten him a feeder mouse but there were plenty stinking up the walkway as it was. I'm blessed to have spent that month sheltered in a renta-shed with him. It seems the alternative .. without having enough for a pet deposit elsewhere (that moment) was to lower my standards for the landlords daughter and by whatever 'influence' she had. 'evicted us for periodic renovations”. So, eventually we chose instead to leave and he got a brims of fieldmice, chipmunks and forest romping. I hope that was an appreciated choice. He liked city life too. Should you choose to tribute to Mr Puffs, I welcome it. He’d be the type of cat Dos Equis beer would be looking for if he actually drank it.

Hope you’re feeling better, Puffs; BFF

#cats of tumblr #cats of twitter #BFF #most interesting cat in the world

1 note · View note

antonixfawley · 4 years

Text

About: Antoni Fawley

“ I’ll keep all my plans close to my chest . . . ”

Introduction

name: Antoni Fabian Fawley also known as: Toni age: 23 birthday: January 30 astrological sign: Aquarius species: Human gender: Male pronouns: He/Him orientation: Queer

Past/Bio

Early life: Antonio was raised by two loving parents, Peter and Lena Fawley. His father’s family came from a long line of pureblood, members of the sacred twenty-eight in fact. Though his family did keep their bloodline pure, they only did so out of tradition, and not because they really put much stock into blood purity. The Fawley’s were a long line of Hufflepuffs, with nearly every member being sorted into the badger house, aside from those who married into the family, such as Antoni’s mother. So of course he was raised on values of loyalty and hard work, kindness and gratitude, all the makings of another fine Hufflepuff student. Antoni never really clicked with those things, though. He wasn’t as interested in family activities as he was in reading alone in his room, he found making in depth maps of the land surrounding his family home much more engaging than playing silly games or doing chores on those lands. He had difficultly finding time alone growing up, as his father insisted he stay out and spend time with his siblings as well as aunts, uncles and cousins who were always at the estate for one reason or another. From fancy dinner parties to family game night to simply having tea, the Fawley’s adore entertaining guests. Antoni’s mother understood though, the polish witch being a bit introverted herself, she knew her oldest son was a bit more like her than his fathers side of the family. She would let Antoni leave dinner a bit early some days, or skip out on tea to have some alone time. She let him stay up later so he could read a few more pages of whatever book he was on at the time, when his siblings had to go to bed early. Growing up in a household with such high expectations for their children to be a certain way, Antoni became quite calculated in his behavior. He chose when to sneak away and when to be present with family, quickly learning when the right time to speak was, and when he should hold his tongue. He kept most of his thoughts to himself, already being so distant from his siblings and family, he didn’t want to further alienate himself by making any wrong moves. Hogwarts: When Antoni went off to Hogwarts, his whole family was ecstatic to see the eldest son find a place in the line of Hufflepuff legacies, but when the sorting hat touched his head, it had no hesitation before shouting out “Ravenclaw!” to the hall. Most children would be mortified of not being placed in their family’s house, but all of a sudden he saw a sea of blue rise up and welcome him in, a sea of people just like him. He felt like all his years of running off to find a quiet spot, staying up late in secret to read or write were validated now, he wasn’t the odd one out anymore. Antoni’s family, of course, were supportive anyways. After all, what kind of Hufflepuff wouldn’t support their family? There was always teasing though, and his siblings and countless Hufflepuff cousins never let him forget that he was different, he was odd, but he didn’t mind what they said. He knew who he was and he didn’t care what anyone else thought. Toni’s years at Hogwarts gave him time to grow and branch out, finding interest in astronomy, arithmatic, potions, and history the most, though he excelled in all his courses. He continued his hobbie of map making, working tirelessly to document every part of the castle that he could, drawing extensive separate maps of each floor and the grounds. He found many friends in ravenclaw, as well as some outside his house, though he always preferred to be alone when given the chance. He didn’t really find much interest in dating for the first few years of school, but around fifth year, his friends around him began to couple up he knew he needed to blend in with the behavior and found himself beginning to flirt and be more outgoing with other students. His family credits these years as when he started to blossom, as he began to stop secluding himself and interacted much more with others. He enjoyed these little flirtations he found, and some even blossomed into relationships, though they never lasted long. He wasn’t very focused on actually finding love or romance, he was just having fun with what he found to be a challenge. He wanted to see how easily he could get someone to trust him and fall for him, often playing mind games with the people he dated. Antoni grew into an extremely intelligent, calculating, and focused individual, crafting a reputation for himself as a charming, friendly young man with a bit of a heartbreaker streak. Current life: After leaving Hogwarts, Antoni ventures into various places of employment, testing out office jobs, interning at various places, including the Daily Prophet for a spell, though it didn’t last long. None really ever did since he was easily bored and would just quit, getting a new job whenever he wanted. Due to the high marks he reached on both his OWL and NEWT exams, pretty much any job was available to him. Then, Antoni had found an interest in Ministry work, and law had always been eye catching to him as well. Currently, he has been working as an intern for the Auror department at the ministry of magic. He found a place with the Death Eaters not long after graduation, his intellect and moral ambiguity being good qualities for him to apply to the group. He had never grown up being taught about blood purity, but he of course learned of it in school and was quickly swayed. After all, he was a Fawley, a member of the Sacred Twenty-eight. In his mind, he deserved a spot at that table, and he was going to get what he was owed.

About

personality: charming, calculated, friendly, intelligent, and self-serving label: The Facade positive traits: clever, passionate, level-headed negative traits: self-serving, two-faced, easily bored alignment: True Neutral goals/desires: find something that interest him and holds his interest, gain power in society fears: being bored, not finding anything engaging that can intellectually challenge him hobbies: map making, reading, writing, calligraphy. habits: zoning out, over explaining things, lying

Appearance

Face claim: Thomas Doherty height: 6ft eye color: Blue hair description: * color: Dark Brown * highlights: none * length: medium * worn: shaved on the sides, long on top, usually messy and tousled or styled up scars: none piercings: none tattoos: drawing of the golden ratio with a shell and an outline of Poland on his right forearm. A quill on the back of his neck, if you look closely the ink is actually dark blue, not black. clothing style: Clean, often a t shirts and jeans with a flamboyant statement jacket. For work he wears a suit, often dark blue. usual expression: Neutral, basically has RBF distinguishing characteristics: speaks polish sometimes. health physical ailments: none neurological conditions: insomnia allergies: none sleeping habits: bad he doesn’t sleep enough eating habits: also bad he isn’t starving tho exercise habits: decent he likes to keep in shape emotional stability: he isnt very emotional and doesn’t get worked up by much sociability: he’s quite sociable only because he forces himself to be to make himself look good, he would rather not be social. body temperature: cold addictions: coffee/tea/energy drinks(caffeine) drug use: social alcohol use: moderate-high

Relationships

father: Peter Fawley, distant, he doesn’t really understand his son but still has a civil and kind relationship. mother: Lena Fawley, positive, his mother is supportive of him and they are close siblings: distant, less positive, since his siblings don’t like how much he distances himself from them. relatives: Most- neutral, distant, he doesn’t associate with most of his relatives. Jasper Travers (cousin), positive, friendly. family line of work: Ministry work, quidditch players, politicians. best friends: open!!! cohorts: Scorpius Malfoy, Marcelina Bloem, Daisy Dursley, Doe Creevy, Dominique Weasley, Dylan Parkinson idk there’s a lot significant other: none atm gimme crush: open exes: open!! Pls hmu for this connection I’m sure he has loads followers: plots frenemies: plots enemies: gimme plots

Education

school: Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw best core class: Astronomy, potions, charms, defense against the dark arts worst core class: Care of Magical Creatures quidditch: no extra-curricular: astronomy club idk probably others I can’t think rn

Magic

wand: * length: 10 3/4 inch * flexibility: unyielding flexibility * wood: Elder * core: Unicorn Hair pets: none boggart: boredom animagus/patronus: Wild Rabbit amortentia: old books, grass, firewood

Favorites

theme song: wait for it- Hamilton food: toast drink: coffee/tea color: navy blue animal: mouse flower: lavender season: fall

#about #bio #this took forver this is the only time im using adrians format #gimme plots

1 note · View note

pessimisticlatte · 5 years

Text

Hey guys, this is a little off topic for me but here goes:

So, hi Timblr. My name is Imogen but I go by Rosie or Midge, I’m 17 and I live in Australia. A bit of background on me, I live with my parents, my little sister and my two animals, Tabby who is a ginger tabby cat (creative, I know) and MeiMei who is an apricot (fancy word for ginger) toy poodle puppy. At age 6, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorder and anxiety, then at age 14 I got diagnosed with depression and panic attacks, and only this year have I finally gotten my diagnosis for Attention Defecit Disorder (ADD). In May last year, my parents decided to invest in my puppy, MeiMei, as a therapy animal for me because I don’t cope with being alone very well. MeiMei is 9 months old and still has a lot to learn but she is my most favourite thing in the world.

Now, I’m going to get to the real point of this. The organization known as PETA likes animals...or so they think. For a company with an 80% kill rate and a singular braincell between all of them, they claim to love animals. Redundant, I know. Now, I’ve been thinking about PETA’s little kill vans, that they drive around neighborhoods like mine (not mine specifically) looking for animals like Tabby and MeiMei. Tabby likes to spend her days outside, I live in one of the areas in my city where we don’t have a cat curfew or mandatory rules for keeping a cat indoors to protect the wildlife. Now, Tabs has bells on her collar, and she’s not as graceful as she likes to think she is, so she generally doesn’t catch anything. The occasional mouse, but she gets those things from the storm water drain that she frequents. MeiMei can’t come to school with me, even though she’s a therapy animal, she’s a little too young and not well enough trained (she’s only 9 months old and we’re training her ourselves), so she spends her days in our pretty large backyard doing whatever 9 month old puppies do for 7 hours a day while I’m getting my education. Picture of MeiMei below:

Being a puppy, little Mei is by no means quiet and we are taking precautions to train her not to bark at everything, I still love her to death though. I know that in some places in the United States, PETA likes to go looking for animals like my puppy and my cat. They drive their little kill van into the street and pull out their comically oversized binoculars to look out for animals. Now, animals with collars are generally pets? Correct? Not in PETA’s mind. A few years ago there was a lawsuit filed against PETA after they wrongfully euthanised a young girls chihuahua, now I don’t know a lot about this story but I did some reading. This little dog, Maya, who was minding her own business out the front of her home was taken and put down without a single attempt to be returned to her family and her owner, who was a 9 year old girl. Generally, there’s a grace period between when you catch an animal registered as a pet and when you can legally put it down, now PETA didn’t wait for this grace period to end. They didn’t even go looking to see if Maya’s family might be missing her before they ‘mercy killed’ this poor little dog. Yes, a lawsuit was filed and, yes, the family won, but all this proves to me is that PETA, as an organization who say that they love animals, thinks that they are replaceable.

I have had Tabby for 7 years. We got her when both she and my little sister were about a year old. Tabby has a place in our family, she comes to the door and meows at us asking for pats and little bits of meat. At night, she sleeps on the bed next to my mum and doesn’t stop purring the entire time. This cat lives a happy existence knowing that she has a home to return to with food and water set out for her and somewhere warm to sleep with someone who loves her. In her own way, Tabby is my mums therapy animal because my mum has a hard time coping with stress and sometimes needs a little comfort from our animals. Tabby is not replaceable. If she was killed, there would not be another cat in the world, no matter how identical or how cute, that would fill the hole in my family’s heart. My big sister was the one to convince my mum to get us get Tabby. And, 7 years later, Tabby is family. The memories with her are irreplaceable. The sound of her purring and the softness of her fur after a shitty day is irreplaceable. You could give me all the money in the world to compensate for her being taken from my family but it wouldn’t fix the hole that would be left by her absence.

We’ve only had MeiMei for 7 months and I don’t know what I would do if I came home and she wasn’t there. I already get anxious when I can’t find her in our backyard, can you imagine how I would respond if I came home and she wasn’t there at all? Now, PETA and their little kill vans think they’re doing the right thing because they see animals being pets as another form of ‘involuntary bondage’ (The Guardian, 2017, though the statement was made in 2014). Do you think that my dog, my sweet, energetic little puppy would survive out in the wild? The answer is no, and the only thing that PETA could do to change that fact is go back thousands of years and stop dogs from evolving to protect and love the humans who feed them. We love our pets, they are as much a part of us as we are a part of them. Your animal may be a part of your life but to them, you are their life.

I wonder how many people PETA has deprived of their therapy animals because they think they’re justified in their murder. I wonder how many people will go home, even after reading this, to find that PETA has swept through their neighbourhood, combing for animals and has deprived them of their pet. As I keep saying, pets are not replaceable. Just like children are not replaceable. Just like any goddamn member of your family is not replaceable. ‘Oh look, grandpa’s dead, his life insurance means that we get $20,000, so I guess this means that we can go and get a new grandpa and make new memories’, it doesn’t work like that? Does it?

I’m not even going to begin my rant about PETA attacking wholesome Australian legend, Steve Irwin, because that’s a fight I’ll probably take to Twitter, but if you’re looking for someone to support who actually loves animals, look no further than the Irwin’s. Terri, Bindi and Robert have made it their mission to continue Steve’s legacy and, frankly, they know what conservation is. Animals are important to our way of life. Not just as sustenance for those who eat meat but also as pets and valuable sources of scientific advancement. The insulin that people with diabetes could be using in the future comes from pigs and cows and will be refined for human use. It’s not just the clothes you wear or the meat you choose to eat, it’s the animals you let into your home and love like a child. It’s the animals that you learn about on documentaries, it’s the animals that you fight for when their homes are being torn apart. PETA may think that their killing is justified but maybe, just maybe, they should sit down and watch a Steve Irwin video and see what someone who loves animals actually looks like. They could even watch any number of interviews with him or about him from his wife or children. My personal favourite is Terri’s interview with Aussie Comedian, Ahn Do, on ‘Ahn Do’s Brush With Fame’, you can find it on YouTube, I think (if you’re interested). Instead of supporting organizations like PETA who badmouth people who have actually done good things, support people like the Irwin Family and Australia Zoo, Nathalie Boltt (Penelope Blossom from Riverdale) who fights to stop the production of palm oil, Aidan Gallagher (Number 5 on the Umbrella Academy) who is a UN goodwill ambassador who fights for cleaner oceans (you want someone driven, he is so driven! He’s a vegan at 15!) or maybe even any number of the activists out there who are making a difference, some of them are as young as my little sister, nowadays.

You can make a difference too. This isn’t just about your pets, though you should hold them close and love them with all your heart, it’s about all animals. This is our earth. Our home. And we only get one. Organizations like PETA who claim that they love animals and claim that they’re helping, aren’t. The smallest difference you can make is in your own home. Adopt, don’t shop. Donate money to people who will actually help the environment and help protect animals. Don’t stand for PETA’s preachy bullshit because it’s their name in the media and not someone else’s. Fight back, rise up, this is our world and the animals have to live with the consequences of what we do to it.

Think about how many animals PETA has killed (mainly illegally) with their 80% kill rate. Think about how many children they have scarred by turning up to their birthday parties covered in fake blood and mostly naked screaming about how the children were muderers. Think about the people that they scarred in the Sydney CBD a few years ago by holding a barbecue and making it look like they were cooking a real dog. Are these the people you want to support? Shock tactics can work to get people motivated, but you’ve got to know if their reasoning is worth your time or not.

Fuck PETA.

11 notes · View notes

chase-stephens · 4 years

Text

Kitchen - Thalia

@unathaliatorres

Chase: Chase saw Thalia in the kitchen and decided in a moment of drunkness to go and say hello, "Hey there" said Chase in a friendly tone to the girl and took a sip of his drink. "How are you?" he asked.

Thalia: Thalia looked at Chase, after talking to Wren she had decided to get even more drunk, and if she wasn't drunk she probably would ahve just walked away, but she chose to stay" Shit" she replied before taking a sip from her glass" What about you?"

Chase: "Oh I'm doing pretty okay, I'm sorry things are going like shit" said Chase kinda sad to hear it, she looked great like she had come here to have a great time. "Do you need a refill?" he asked.

Thalia: She looked at her almost empty cup and nodded" Yeah, that would be nice" she said and handed him the cup

Chase: Chase ladled some punch into her cup and passed it back to her, "So what's shitty?" he asked, "and could it be fixed with some dancing?" he added.

Thalia: "I just did something stupid" She said and shrugged"And thanks for offering but I don't feel like dancing"

Chase: "What did you do?" he asked, just curious. He was pretty worried about her in general. Chase felt pretty shitty for what he had done to her.

Thalia: "No offence but I don't want to talk about it, especially to you" she said, trying her best not to sound rude

Chase: "None taken, just trying to be helpful" said Chase, filling up his cup, "I'll um leave you to it?" he suggested.

Thalia: "Actually..do you mind staying...I mean, we could talk, just about something else" she didn't want to be alone, and everyone seemed busy, so when someone payed attention to her, she wanted to take advantage of it, even if it was Chase

Chase: "Sure thing, whatever you want to talk about. I like spending time with you" said Chase being honest. He hoped Gabrielle wouldn't get mad at one conversation.

Thalia: Thalia sat down and sipped from her glass" thanks, I apprevciate it" She said with a soft smile"How um, how are you and Gabriela?" She asked, since she couldnt think of anything else to ask him

Chase: "We are doing okayish. She's on her way out, she's just talking to her brother first" said Chase, wishing she had stayed longer. "How are things on the romantic front for you?" he asked not knowing any better.

Thalia: Thalia made a frown" Romantic side? IT's dead, I think I've swearing off romance for the rest of my life" she told him"It's confusing and brings confusing feelings and its dramatic and exchausting" she blurted out bitterly

Chase: "Hey now, that just means you haven't found the right guy ... or girl" said Chase trying to be comforting, "the right person is going to come along, they're probably just someone you don't expect"

Thalia: "I'm really sick of hearing people say that" She said and rolled her eyes" I keep thinking i can eraise feelings by getting some on top of them and like....sometimes it works...but it always ends up crashing down...have you ever liked multiply people at the same time?"

Chase: "I've liked someone and been in love with someone, but no not just two likings at the same time" explained Chase, "I just feel like that's a little different"

Thalia: She nodded"It is different....for sure" She took another sip and looked down at her glass" is love not just a stronger like? like...how do you know the difference?" Maybe she didnt love Wren, maybe she just liked him a lot..for too long..

Chase: "I mean, it's just like all consuming" said Chase, 'Like I would do anything just to spend five more minutes with her. When I'm not with her I kinda feel like I'm choking on air sometimes. Most of the time ... it's just that I cannot wait to come home and be like ... it's you. Always has been always will be" he rambled on, taking a sip of his drink.

Thalia: "that's really adorable" She said, knowing deep down no one would ever feel that way about her" Why did you guys break up?" She then wondered, better to talk about him than herself

Chase: "When her family took me in, one of their rules was that we couldn't date. I took it really seriously and it hurt her feeling a lot" explained Chase, even though that wasn't the full truth. There was a lot of baby stress in there, "Her parents are crazy, and her mom was pregnant at the time so like ... hormones were wild"

Thalia: " Why did they take you in?" She wondered curiously, it didnt make sense to her at all, it would make sence to take him in so that gabriella could be closer to her boyfriend,, but if they werent allowed to date it was hard for her to understand why they would want him in their pool house.

Chase: "Money issues and some other family stuff" said Chase, "I'm kind of a streets pet project" he said dumbing it down so that it would make more sense, considering the whole thing really didn't at all unless you factored in the baby.

Thalia: "Oh, okay.. that makes sense" she guessed it made sence, some people were like that suposedly." whats your favorite color?" She suddently asked randomly

Chase: "My favorite color is definitely green" said Chase, leaving out the fact that green became his favorite color when he was on his first date with Gabrielle and he looked into her eyes after their first kiss. "What about you?" he asked, pushing the thought out of his mind and back to Thalia.

Thalia: " That's funny, mine too" she said and chuckled "When I was little I f-dreamed of having a green cat" She blurted out

Chase: "That would be so funny" said Chase entertained by her enthusiasm.

Thalia: "I know right? I imagined that it would be the best mouse hunter in the whole world because it would blend in with the grass....did you ahve imaginary friends?"

Chase: "Oh for sure that cat would be the best mouse hunter ever" agreed Chase, laughing a little. "I did not, but I also got a little sister when I was 2 so I had a built in best friend" he explained.

Thalia: " You're lucky, I had a lot of weird animal friends as a kid" she admitted with a chuckle

Chase: Chase laughed, he guessed he never really noticed how odd Thalia was, not that it was necessarily a bad thing. "Oh like what?" he asked.

Thalia: " Like my green cat, Whiskers, my winged two headed dog Thorn, a snake made out of cotton candy...I called her pandora" she took another sip of her punch trying to remember more animals" I also had a bird with eight legs, she was really cool actually, but i dont remember her name"

Chase: Chase was mad confused, "How drunk are you?" he asked making sure she was okay. He'd never heard her talk like this.

Thalia: Thalia looked at him offended"I am not drunk, It's called imagination" she said and stared at her glass with a frown, thats what she gets for opening up. Second time tonight this happens, she should never drink.

Chase: “You're very creative" said Chase with a giggle, "I'm just asking because I'm pretty drunk" he added trying to make her feel better.

Thalia: Thalia was quick to chukle and smile as if that frown never was on her face" Oooh, okay, im actually pretty drunk too....not gonna lie...!

#c:thalia #thaliaxchase #party

0 notes