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#plus all the projects from my concentration courses

apple-salad · 2 months

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Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 1: Kumya JSK

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet

To make a matching kumya JSK, I first had to investigate the original dress a little! This I found actually very fascinating because I had never bothered to take a very careful look at the construction details of this JSK (it was, and still is always a precious item that I am afraid will get dusty or dirty if I look at it wrong...)

I actually even found a spot where it looks like the material was torn and someone roughly repaired it by hand (laugh). I have a feeling this was a factory mistake/fix (either from fabric manufacture or sewing) because it's hidden beneath some lace ruffle and I don't really think it's something that an owner would let happen, but who knows.

So here's a few details of RRE~

Many people don't know that RRE is made of velveteen! And further, there is sometimes a misconception that it came in a "cotton" and "velvet" version. As far as I know, there is only one version made out of cotton velveteen.

So the white can get dirty and attract dust super easily :')

The bodice has a panel of 3 ruffles + upper "hashigo" (ladder) lace part with ribbon. It is also boned (BABY's crap boning with sharp edges and no channels, meh...) but obviously I can skip that for kumya.

The skirt has a trapezoidal embroidered panel, the star of the show, surrounded by 3 tiers of ruffles that extend all the way around the back. The last "tier" is not gathered and has a smaller ruffle all around the skirt.

While thinking about how to construct something similar in kumya-scale, I found it fascinating that the under-material the ruffles are attached to are cotton! Makes sense to reduce bulk, plus you can't tell when the ruffles cover it.

The density of ruffle starts out quite concentrated, and then reduces as the bottom ruffle is reached. The cotton under-material also seems to have less material gathered than the main velveteen ruffle. This also makes sense to not only reduce material usage but also because having a huge amount of gather on the bottom tier can make the skirt look too heavy.

Knowing this, I fussed out some semi-arbitrary ruffle multipliers for each tier (and lining) in my notebook. Very important to keep tabs on how many fabric strips I need and their exact widths!

Also since everything is in kumya-scale the gathering is generally reduced by a lot. Kumya doesn't need much to have a very full skirt, and with such tiny tiers the effect of the gathering can easily look like overkill. The kumya elizabeth OP gathered lace/tiers very lightly:

As reference dimensions for kumya, I have these two kumya dresses which I used lightly (mostly the sugar bouquet one because it's a JSK). I also have the babydoll kumya, but as it was out of commission for a while (on my christmas tree!😅) I didn't use it for checks at all.

The sugar bouquet "bodice" is about 3cm long. I decided to extend it one more cm to 4cm to make it easier for me to calculate for the ruffles and also leave enough space so the ruffles would be visible and not potentially buried.

I use a cotton velvet fabric and a mixture of cluny and torchon lace I have on hand. This velvet has a noticeable twill weave to it and is thinner than the velvet BABY usually uses, but the thinness is perfect for this purpose. I was originally going to just use cotton sateen but remembered I had this!

You can't see the weave from afar so I tolerate it. I wouldn't have wanted to use polyester velvet/suede-like/minky, I think.

Since the material is still a velvet and does have a thickness compared to cotton, I decided to roughly hem any ruffle edges by hand with a simple once-turned whip stitch. it kind of seals the raw edge and hems it at the same time. Note that this is not a great idea for something that would be worn and washed a lot, but this piece in this specific case won't be.

In general, when it comes to mistakes with this piece I mostly ignore them because it's kumya-scale and not only will most people not notice, but as stated above it's also not a piece that will be worn and washed often so quality of construction isn't much of a concern.

Mentally deconstructing and calculating the construction of the ruffle part was a bit of a pain. My lace was wider that I needed so I had to roughly mark out where it should be sewn into the ruffle, not always with great success.

I'm also not great with working at small scale...much respect to doll clothesmakers.

The bodice of the sugar bouquet kumya JSK is made from a front trapezoidal panel with a strip of fabric attached to the sides that extends all the way around the back, and the skirt attached to that. So I cut some slightly angular side panels to attach to my rectangular/square-ish front ruffle panel.

(I threadmarked approximately where I wanted the seam to go because I don't trust myself to attach the side panel in the right area/dimension otherwise with such a wonky panel)

Simple straps made from strips of fabric. I make these slightly thicker than a regular kumya JSK as well because I feel like RRE has thicker straps too (well, the entire construction of the bodice is a bit different, but ignoring that...)

And a facing layer of ordinary cotton is sewn to the front panel.

For the section of lace at the top, I frankenstein together 2 types of lace that I trimmed to look more like the lace used on the original JSK. It seems the original JSK also has this lace sewn through the lining layer, so the stitching is visible from the inside.

I use the thinnest ribbon I can find--some silk ribbon in this case. It actually works really well because silk ribbon is very thin/flimsy and can be tied and threaded in nicely with relative ease.

By the way, if you aren't aware already, a yarn needle works very well for threading ribbon through lace.

Bodice portion finished. This took way longer than I was hoping, an entire night. Hopefully the results are worth it.

Next I fuss out the skirt. At this point I am working out the calculations and investigations already mentioned previously. I did make a few mistakes and had to re-cut a couple tiers!

I use a different lace from the bodice for the tiers because I thought the shape of this one was closer to what was originally used (it's actually the bilateral ladder lace used for the bodice, but instead of cutting off the lace edges and using the thread-through part, it's just cut in half)

After hemming the ruffle, I attach the lace to the velveteen ruffle with a single gathering stitch (too lazy to use 2, and the thick material makes it hard to gather anyway). The under cotton layer is gathered separately and sandwiched between the cotton layer of the previous tier.

Coming along. I think the lace length for these ruffles is a bit off/uneven/less than ideal, but oh well, can't be bothered to fix it...

After the third tier, a non-gathered velveteen tier is attached with gathered lace.

I also prepare the bottom ruffle, but that will be attached to the completed skirt.

Next, the most exciting but also potentially the most taxing part must be done--the embroidery!

I know that the top of the embroidered panel is basically the same width as the bodice ruffle (referencing the original dress), but the width of the bottom is a bit arbitrary (about 3x the width of the top of the trapezoid)

I mark out everything roughly with water soluble marker (the darker patches are where I messed up and used some water to erase, waiting for it to dry...)

The midlines of the panel as well as the 1/3 lines were marked because I 100% do not trust myself to make the embroidery symmetric without doing so. I'm a beginner and not nearly skilled enough in embroidery to freehand...

I carefully investigated the original embroidery and copied the locations of roses and leaves to my mini-panel. Once I have the general shape that I'm happy with, I start embroidering.

I didn't take too many progress photos of the embroidery, but I also don't think you need them. Because the scale was small, this took an entire evening/night which I think is not too long?

For the roses I use a combination of the "pinwheel" rose method and french knots (+ some additional plain stitches where I wanted more volume).

The nice thing about ribbon embroidery, I think, is that the ribbons add so much texture that even if it's a bit messy it looks very impressive anyways. Plus your mind will mentally interpret some random puffy ribbon lines as a flower anyways.

I use regular DMC 6-strand embroidery thread (split in half, so 3 strands used here) for the vines and leaves. Because I also suck at embroidery and have never embroidered a real project/learned real techniques I mostly kept the leaves simple and slightly abstract with 3 branchlike stitches. I think I currently can't fuss with making nice rounded miniature leaves without messing up every second stitch...

Finished.

I spray water to remove the marker marks and let dry.

Attach embroidered panel to ruffles. I should have double checked where the panel was aligning with the ruffles on each side since it's uneven, but whatever.

Gather bottom ruffle and attach to skirt.

I attach the bodice strip to the front bodice panel as well, and sew the straps down.

I basted the front of the bodice to the skirt by hand because I wanted to make sure they were aligned. Because I messed up sewing the ruffle tiers to the embroidered panel and they are somewhat misaligned, I tried to adjust where the top of the skirt was sewn to the bodice to compensate, it didn't work that well but eh, it's alright.

Gather the skirt and sew to the bodice portion. This was very fiddly and I had to redo some parts several times because the lace wasn't getting sewn down properly. It's still not great but I'll fix any egregious parts by hand.

The gathering is also pretty uneven, but I'm ignoring it...

Looks almost done but not yet!

There is a tiny bit more embroidery on the edges of the middle ruffle tier. I marked approximately where I wanted the roses to be and roughly embroidered them (without a hoop because it's too complicated to figure out alignment before construction, although embroidery is always easier with one).

I also add a back ribbon to simulate waist ties, a detail I notice on a few other BABY kumya JSKs. The waist ties on RRE have a slightly rounded/pointed shape to them, so I freehand this shape for the bow "tails" (because I'm getting tired and lazy, I didn't really measure although I did check that the width was approximately the same throughout). The backside of the waist tie is another layer of cotton, which reduces bulk when turning the shape inside out (the backside of the original JSK is also just lining material). I also folded a long strip over itself and basted it down, creating a loose tube shape to use for the bow part.

It's pretty hard to create defined folds in the bow with such thick fabric, but I tried my best...at least it's likely the back will rarely be seen.

I gave the dress a final allover spray with water to hopefully erase any remaining soluble marker. Also, some interior hand finishing needed to be done (mainly tacking down some unruly seams)

And finally, actually finished. The embroidery thankfully turned out decent enough to distract from any weird spots of construction and so on. It looks quite remarkably like the actual dress, so goal achieved I think!

Extra contents:

I make kumya little wrist cuffs because some of the kumya variations (such as babydoll kumya) come with them, and that's really cute.

BBD kumya seems to use a type of lace that's already elasticated, but I don't have that on hand so I just sew two pieces of the same lace used for the bodice ruffles together to make it bilateral and stitch on an additional elastic with a stretch stitch. And add on a little ribbon bow (I only have silk ribbon in this narrow width, but I think a ribbon with more body such as poly satin or cotton satin would work better)

And I also make two of those little applique ribbon thingies (you can buy them cheaply from craft stores and so on, but whatever) and stitch them temporarily to kumya's bows for an extra accent.

I'm lazy so I use the bloomers that came with the hawase kumya set underneath (I'm sure making a similar pair of bloomers wouldn't be too much work but I have no idea if these are patterned with some kind of shaping/rise and I don't want to deal with that)

This is actually yuefii's kumya that I am still hoarding for whatever reason and has its eye and mouth fur already trimmed.

And now Usakumya is ready to see the runway :)

Part 2 (bonnet making) is here.

Thank you for reading! If you ever decide to take up a similar project, I'd love to see it!

#lolita fashion #handmade #rose ribbon embroidery #usakumya #baby the stars shine bright

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todoroki-tina · 14 days

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Waiting For a New Arrival

Um yeah..so I wrote a semi fluffy Bi-Han x reader fanfic. This is my very first fanfic so I hope you like it.

Bi-Han x F! Reader

Tags and notes: Domestic fluff, MK1 AU, Childbirth, Family Fluff

Warnings: Mentions of childbirth I guess?

Word Count: 3.137

・———— ・ ✦୨୧✦ ・———— ・

There was two things Bi-Han hated: waiting and not being informed on what was happening in his home, he hated the latter more as he was the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, he was supposed to know what was going on.

Bi-Han paced back and forth in the main sitting room of his quarters waiting for news. Hands behind his back, his eyebrows were knitted together, his lips formed into scowl which were bigger than usual. Every few minutes He stopped pacing, looked up at the clock on the wall then resumed pacing near the bedroom door. Being one the biggest rooms in the Lin Kuei temple, His quarters were large and spacious. Fitting for their Grandmaster to retire after fulling their duties to the clan. The room was flooded with lanterns and candles illuminated the room after the sun set long ago.

On one of the sofa in the room sat Kuai Liang and Tomas. Silently they watched their older brother pacing near the door to his bedroom. They were also worried and anxious about any news but hid it better than Bi-Han; Kuai-Laing was the first to speak up.

“Brother, I know you’re worried, but we need to be patient what can’t do anything right now but wait.”

Bi-Han stopped pacing and looked at his brother with a bit of annoyance “Of course I know that it’s just frustrating I can’t even be in there with her due to tradition.” He growled.

Kuai-Liang was not offended by his brother’s outburst, he and Tomas were long use of their brother’s impatience, but they knew this time that impatience was out of concern.

The birth to his child was happening and couldn’t be in the room to see.

After rushing to return home after getting the news, he was told he could not enter his own bedroom where you were. He wanted to be by your side, but tradition forbids it. Normally Bi-Han was the first to support following tradition in the clan, but this moment made him think not all traditions needed to continue.

Just then they heard a loud moan of pain was heard from the closed doors that broke his concentration, you have been in labor for hours and every hour that passed was torture for you. Hearing your pain was enough to hear and Bi-Han quickly walked back to his quarters to be with you tradition be dammed.

Bi-Han burst through the doors; he saw a few servants near the bed they all turned to see where the loud noise came from. They all felt his cold aura filling the room none of them spoked, fearing the anger from their leader.

Until one of them a familiar face, stepped forward.

“Grandmaster you know it forbidden for you to be here during this time.” Madam Bo spoke firmly.

“I came to see my wife and soon my child.” With a slightly annoyed voice.

Madam Bo stood her ground and Bi-Han couldn’t help but admired her stubbornness.

“I know you’re worried about your wife and child but they’re in my good hands. I have helped deliver many babies even helped your mother deliver you and your brother.”

She stepped close to Bi-Han meeting the man eye to eye. “Plus, it doesn’t help your wife when you come in bursting in making all that noise and bringing in that freezing air.” She gave the Cryomancer a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Trust me I have it covered, you can see her before you leave.” She gestured towards the bed.

Bi-Han walked to the bed where you were sitting. Your hair soaked with sweat, face red. Breathing hard you reached out your hand, and he grabbed it instantly. You were so happy to see him at your side. You were overcome with emotion and just let it all out, how you were scared, afraid you might lose the baby, lose your life, or both. He reassured you would be okay as much as you wanted him to stay, he had to leave. Before leaving their bedroom, He gave your hand a squeeze one more time before exiting.

He returned to the sitting room and resumed his routine of pacing. While pacing he thought back to the day you told him you, he had an heir.

・———— ・ ✦୨୧✦ ・———— ・

Bi-Han had just finished training for the day when you found him and told him the news. He stood in silence for a few seconds not reacting; he then pulled you in a tight embrace and kissed your forehead. Inside he was excited you were pregnant with his child; he was going to have an heir. Someone to follow his footsteps and one day received the title Grandmaster like he had with his father, keeping the Lin Kuei bloodline growing strong for another generation.

The first months passed you noticed how Bi-Han changed. He was more attentive to you, bringing your food and tea in bed, being with you during your visits to clan’s medic, and on presenting small gifts. You never saw this side of him before and thought it was sweet and but towards the end of your pregnancy, you started to feel smothered. He began assigning guards to you, limiting your visits outside the temple and finally not letting you do your previous duties around the clan. He explained that the changes was just for safety so you reluctantly agreed but kept your frustrations to yourself.

The breaking point was an incident near one of the Lin Kuei borders; a report of unknown intruders put the temple on high alert, and you were rushed off to your quarters and locked inside in for hours. That was a bit much for your liking and after the incident was over with the help of Kuai Liang and Tomas, you asked Bi-Han to give you more space. You knew he was worried, but you reminded him you can take care of yourself. Bi-Han admit he acted too controlling and pull back on the changes.

Before your due date Bi-Han was summoned for an outside mission for the Fire God Lord Lui Kang. A few months ago, He would’ve gladly take the mission anytime to show off his skills in Kombat but with you due soon Bi-Han wanted to be on temple grounds for the day, but as Grandmaster had to follow his duty to Lord Liu Kang and protect Earthrealm from any potential threats. On the evening of his departure, you said your goodbyes to Kuai Liang and Tomas and lastly your husband. You hugged him while He gave you a kiss on the forehead and laid a cool hand on your stomach.

“Please be careful and come back safely so you can meet our child.” You whispered.

“I promise I’ll be here when the time comes.” He gave you one more kiss this time he lingered a bit more then left the grounds of the Lin Kuei temple; you watch him disappeared as the giant temple doors closed behind him.

A week passed as you patiently waited for Bi-Han to return. To keep your mind, occupy you went about your days completing your duties around the clan. Which was harder than usual due to being heavily pregnant, but you didn’t want to be a burden.

On the day of the birth, it started off the same you completed your duties for the evening, you and a servant were walking to the dining hall for dinner. You mostly ate in your quarters, but it felt lonely without Bi-Han and wanted company while walking in the hallways suddenly you felt a sharp pain You keel over holding your lower stomach, when you felt something wet down your legs and realized your water broke.

It was time.

Quickly the servant helped you back into your bedroom then left to alert the midwife.

You sat on the edge of the bed keeping your breathing steady. You were in so much pain it was hard to concentrate. You really wish Bi-Han were here with you. A few minutes later the servant returned with the midwife you looked up in surprise to see Madam Bo with another midwife, and a few servants. She looked at you with concern and brushed your already sweat soaked hair from your eyes.

“Don’t worry, I know you’re scared but I promise you it will be okay.”

You smiled at her reassurance and felt a bit at ease until another contraction hit you this one more intense you grab the bedsheets tightly, squeezing your eyes shut you letting out a groan. You were told that contractions were painful but did not know how intense they were when the time came.

“Where’s Bi-Han?” you asked trembling after the contraction ended.

“He’s coming soon, they sent a messenger to alert the Grandmaster. But it will be a while before he arrives” Bo explained.

You were happy someone alerted him but still hated the fact it will take time but hoped he’ll arrive before the birth. The room became chaotic as more servants came in bringing towels, lanterns, and water. They then began to undress you and place you in a simple gown and lay on the bed doing their best to keep you comfortable. As evening slowly crept into night, the servants began lighting lanterns in the room. Hour after hour passed and you were in the worst pain you felt in your life, still no sign of Bi-Han returning. As the contractions shortened Bo told you the time for pushing came close. You were relieved but still wanted Bi-Han with you.

You silently prayed he would return on time.

・———— ・ ✦୨୧✦ ・———— ・

Bi-Han was running a fast as he ever ran in his life, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, His breath shallow coming out in a cool mist from his mask. His legs burning but he didn’t care, he had to return home as possible. Glancing over his shoulder he saw Kuai Laing and Tomas not far behind him. Not too long ago they completed their mission for Lui Kang earlier than expected. They caught their enemies by surprise close to the Lin Kuei border, saving them days of tracking. After providing Lui Kang with an update the God of Fire was satisfied and sent them back home, Bi-Han accepted and was glad to be returning home. The entire trek back he thought of nothing of you and the baby. With the mission ending early they can reach the Lin Kuei Temple by morning.

Treading back Bi-Han decided to stop and rest for a bit. After setting up camp Kuai Liang started a small fire. Once the fire was going his solders relaxed drinking water and taking warmth from the fire. Bi-Han away from everyone relaxed against a tree while observing the forest he notices a small shadow moving quickly and headed straight for them.

Bi-Han quickly stood up taking a defensive stance against the unknown intruder, there was no one else in the forest except Lin Kuei as the shadow approached, his guard was immediately dropped when he realizes it was a fellow Lin Kuei foot soldier.

The foot soldier approached Bi-Han and bowed quickly to his leader.

“What are doing here outside the temple without permission.” he said in a disapproving grunt.

“Apologies, Grandmaster but I came to give you an urgent message. Your wife is in labor you need to return to the temple right away.”

Bi-Han ’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, the time finally arrived.

“Kuai Liang, Tomas!!” he called.

His two brothers were relaxing by the fire when he called, they instantly came to his side.

“What’s going on?” Tomas asked first.

“We must return to the temple immediately Y/N is in labor.”

Both brothers “Understand brother but what about the others?” he said gesturing to the foot soldiers.

“Let them still rest and Have Cyrax take charge while we’re gone, he can manage it.”

“Will do brother.” Kuai Liang noodled he ran to tell Cyrax.

After Cyrax was notified, the three brothers quickly followed the messenger back home. Bi-Han in the lead outrunning the messenger. The only thing on his mind was you and the baby he prayed to the Elder Gods that you will be ok.

Finally Bi-Han saw the tall roofs of the Lin Kuei temple and the lights from the watch tower. They watchers in the tower alerted the ground that Bi-Han and the others were approached and open the gate. Bi-Han quickly entered through the giant gate doors and raced to the main quarters, as he entered his main chambers. but was stop by Madam Bo, hear Bi-Han entered and she informed Bi-Han that you were alright, and was about the start the delivery but he needed to wait out in the sitting room as he wasn’t allowed in the room.

“This is ridiculous as Grandmaster I demand to be in there!”

“Grandmaster or not I can’t let you come in during this difficult and stressful time. You will be able to see them in a soon just be patient.”

Before the Cryomancer could counter back, another midwife poked her head in the door alerting Madam Bo to return. The elderly lady hurried back in the room before he had a chance to speak again.

Bi-Han stood by the lock doors his anger brewing, he ran all the way back home then wasn’t allowed to his wife due to tradition. He could easily break down the doors but remember what Madam Bo said about stress, so he sat with his frustrations until they passed in the main sitting room. Tomas and Kuai Liang entered a few minutes later, after Bi-Han explain they both stayed with their older brother. Keeping him company while He grungily listened and waited patiently at the bedroom door.

・———— ・ ✦୨୧✦ ・———— ・

As Bi-Han was replaying the last hour in his mind your scream broke through his concentration one last time the room was dead silent all three men held their breath until they heard it: a small cry coming from the room. Kuai Liang and Tomas rose up from their seats and hurry to Bi-Han. They heard more noise from the room where Madman Bo exit out quickly, she walked up to Bi-Han then bow her head.

“Congratulations Grandmaster you have a healthy girl.”

“A girl.” Bi-Han thought. He has a daughter.

He was a father.

A look of relief was washed across his face.

“Thank you for your help,” he said with genuine gratitude in his voice.

“My pleasure Grandmaster you can go see them now.”

Bi-Han at last was able to enter his bedroom. As he entered the room, he saw one of the midwives holding his crying daughter over a tub of warm water cleaning her off. She was red from crying but appeared healthy, he then came over to you on the bed. You were still panting but now you also had a look of relief, and happiness across your face. Bi-Han leaned down and kissed your forehead.

“Well done wife, she’s perfect and will become a fine warrior.” Bi-Han said proudly.

You laughed. “Thank you, I’m so glad you made it.”

“I told you I would be back in time.”

Bi-Han watched the midwife carefully clean and swaddle your daughter never taking his eyes off her, remaining at your side he started to Brush the hair from your face.

Once finished the midwife brought the now quiet infant and gently place her in Bi-Han strong arms. He was surprised at how light she weighed. His hard eyes soften upon looking at her. Up close he observes she took after him. She had a full head of his dark hair and had his light brown eyes. Bi-Han couldn’t help himself and found the faintest smile gracing his normally stoic features.

You watched your husband holding your newborn daughter and you thought how gentle he was. His hands trained for combat and killing were now holding something soft and delicate. You would hold onto the image forever. Bi-Han then left the room with her to show Kuai Ling and Tomas their new family member. While the servants began cleaning you up.

Both brothers still waiting by the doors when Bi-Han stepped out carrying the child. They stepped forward to look at their new niece. Tomas carefully touched her face while Kuai Laing placed a hand on his shoulder and gave his older brother a warm smile of approval.

“Congratulations brother, she’s beautiful. Father and Mother would be proud.”

After a quick wash change of clothes and sheets you were placed back in the bed which you happily obliged you finally had your daughter and husband together and was all you needed now. As she was packing up to leave Madman Bo informed you she would stop by in the morning to check on you. Giving you a final bow and left along with the staff while leaving Bi-Han returned with Kuai and Tomas not far behind. He sat on the edge of the bed giving you the baby to hold while your brothers-in-law gave you their congratulations and accepted them with a smile. After a few minutes of admiring and holding their niece Kuai and Tomas said their final congratulations and goodbyes for the night leaving the two of you alone.

As you laid back on the pillows, admired your child you felt the body growing tired, eyelids getting heavy, the need to sleep was creeping up in your body. The adrenaline was finally wearing off. You reached out and grabbed Bi-Han’s muscular bicep.

“I think it’s time for me to rest now.” You said gently.

He took your hand off his bicep and gave it a slight squeeze.

“Understood, take your rest now.” Bi-Han then took your daughter. “You can enjoy her in the morning with full strength.”

“Thank you.” You whispered and lay back and closed your eyes after a few minutes your body fell asleep after a grueling day. Bi-Han still on the edge of the bed watching your chest slowly rise and fall. He did not know why he watched but just wanted to make sure you were fine. He realizes too it was time to rest; he walked over to the bassinet and gingerly place his sleeping daughter in he then quietly walked over to the large chair by the window. Letting his body sink in the soft leather. He let out a large sigh releasing all the tension from the day and evening and feeling the muscles in his body unwind. He looked out the window and saw the first sign of dawn approaching, a small sliver of light was coming up in the east. Today was truly a new day for him he thought and soon became the last person in the room to close their eyes and rest.

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Thank you for reading. reviews, edits, and suggestions are appreciated.

#mortal kombat #mk1 #mortal kombat 1 #mortal kombat x reader #mortal kombat x you #bi han #bi han mk 1 #mk 1 bi han #subzero #mk subzero #bi han x you #bi han x reader #a03 fanfic #read on a03 #subzero x reader #mk x reader #subzero mk1 #subzero x you #fluff

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thecreaturecodex · 3 months

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Protean, Renegwe

"Fang of Nulzann" © Hex Entertainment, by Martin de Diego. Accessed at his deviantArt here

[My final original species of protean, this time embodying plate tectonics as a manifestation of change. I knew I wanted to do a continental drift-themed protean, and this was one of the first art pieces I found when embarking on this project. As a reminder, all of my protean species have a name that's an anagram. I'll be posting the solutions to those at the end of the week.]

Protean, Renegwe CR 19 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This massive creature appears like a snake with a humanoid torso, its body composed of black volcanic rock. A snort hood grows between its head and neck, and a pair of horns like bent stalagmites grows from its head. It shimmers with heat.

A renegwe is a protean devoted to some of the most dramatic changes in the cosmos—plate tectonics. Renegwes are the shepherds of whole continents, observing them move over the course of thousands or millions of years, and steering them if their whims dictate they speed up or slow down. Rather than the immediate thrills of transforming a person into an animal, or the destruction of killing enemies and overthrowing governments, renegwes prefer the gradual pleasures of growing mountains, eroding canyons and rock formation. That is not to say that they cannot be dramatic—a renegwe who grows bored with a landmass’ progress might start earthquakes with magic, or heat up a lava reservoir to re-activate a dormant volcano.

Few renegwes care much about the short lives of humanoids directly, but may become territorial of particular mineral deposits and protect them from mining or other exploitation. They might also come into conflict with magical creatures that seek to stop or mitigate the destruction their earthquakes and volcanoes engender. A renegwe prefers to fight atop or within a solid surface—although they can fly, they feel much more comfortable when touching earth or stone. Renegwes spew lava from their mouths and can fire exploding boulders from their hands. They have relatively few spell-like abilities compared to other proteans, and prefer simple melee tactics to pitched battles at a distance.

Renegwes are more common outside the Maelstrom than in it. They dwell mostly deep underground on planets of the Material Planes, or in places where the Planes of Earth and Fire overlap. From these magma-rich bastions, they may plot against the shaitans and efreeti—both of these genies types are lawful, and seek to impose order where the renegwes prefer chaos. Renegwes are natural allies of magma dragons, but these allegiances may be fractious and marked by power struggles. Few renegwes have much interest in the politics of the protean choirs, but may work for a given protean lord on a temporary basis when their interests overlap. The protean lord most sympathetic to the renegwes is Etna, herself a being of volcanic power.

Renegwe CR 19 XP 204,800 CN Gargantuan outsider (chaotic, earth, extraplanar, fire, protean) Init +6; Senses blindsight 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., Perception +31, tremorsense 120 ft. Aura cloak of chaos (DC 26)

Defense AC 34, touch 12, flat-footed 32 (-4 size, +2 Dex, +4 deflection, +22 natural) hp 330 (20d10+220) Fort +23, Ref +20, Will +26 DR 15/adamantine and lawful; Immune acid, fire; Resist electricity 10, sonic 10; SR 30 Defensive Abilities amorphous anatomy, fiery body, freedom of movement, rock catching

Offense Speed 40 ft., burrow 80 ft. (earth glide), fly 80 ft. (good) Melee bite +31 (2d8+15 plus 2d6 fire), gore +31 (2d8+15 plus 2d6 fire), 2 claws +31 (2d6+15/19-20 plus 2d6 fire), tail slap +29 (2d8+7 plus 2d6 fire plus grab) Ranged 2 lava bombs +18 touch (4d6 bludgeoning plus 2d6 fire) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks breath weapon (80 ft. cone, 20d6 fire, Ref DC 31), earth mastery, trample (2d8+22 plus 2d6 fire, DC 35)

Spell-like Abilities CL 19th, concentration +27 Constant—cloak of chaos (self only, DC 26) At will—chaos hammer (DC 22), scorching ray, stone shape 3/day—earthquake, empowered flame strike (DC 23), greater dispel magic, quickened wall of stone, word of chaos (DC 25) 1/day—clashing rocks (DC 27), repel metal or stone, wall of lava (DC 26)

Statistics Str 41, Dex 15, Con 32, Int 14, Wis27, Cha 26 Base Atk +20; CMB +39 (+41 bull rush, +43 grapple); CMD 55 (57 vs. bull rush, cannot be tripped) Feats Awesome Blow, Combat Reflexes, Empowered SLA (flame strike), Flyby Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (claw), Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (wall of stone) Skills Bluff +29, Disguise +26, Fly +25, Intimidate +29, Knowledge (geography, planes) +23, Perception +31, Sense Motive +29, Survival +29 Languages Abyssal, Draconic, Ignan, Protean, Terran, telepathy 100 ft. SQ change shape (dragon or elemental, elemental shape IV or form of the dragon III), no breath

Ecology Environment underground (Maelstrom) Organization solitary, pair or geoform (3-6) Treasure standard

Special Abilities Breath Weapon (Su) Any creature that takes damage from a renegwe’s breath weapon is coated in lava, taking 10d6 points of fire damage for the next 1d3 rounds (no save). Change Shape (Su) A renegwe can change shape at will, but does not gain the healing from changing shape as is typical for proteans. It can only assume the form of dragons or elementals with the earth or fire subtypes. Earth Mastery (Ex) When both a renegwe and its opponent are touching the ground, the renegwe gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls. Fiery Body (Ex) A renegwe’s body is blazing hot. It deals 2d6 points of fire damage with all of its natural attacks, and any creature striking it with a melee touch attack, natural weapon or unarmed strike takes 2d6 points of fire damage. Lava Bombs (Su) As a standard action, a renegwe can fire two lava bombs, one from each hand. Each lava bomb is treated as a ranged touch attack with a range of 200 feet and no range incremenent. A creature struck takes 4d6 points of bludgeoning damage and 2d6 fire, and then the lava bomb explodes, dealing 10d6 points of fire damage in a 40 foot radius (Reflex DC 29 half). If a creature is in the radius of both lava bombs, it makes a single save at a -4 penalty, and treats the fire damage as coming from a single source. A renegwe can use its lava bombs once every 1d4 rounds. The save DC is Charisma based.

#protean #renegwe #outsider #elemental #lava #plate tectonics #pathfinder 1e

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ihopesocomic · 28 days

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Hi! New reader here! I just got to the part where Hope tries to open her injured eye. It was portrayed as rly cloudy, but I’m not sure how it got that cloudy so fast? It had happened Very recently, and while Vicious’s claws definitely damaged the cornea, idk if that was enough time for scar tissue to have accumulated so thick. It was more likely that it would have been swollen or misshapen, but not opaque/milky yet. As well, though the scar/injury definitely would make her ‘legally blind’ in that eye, it’s highly unlikely even w that damage that she would lose 100% of her vision. Corneal Opacity obstructs light/vision, but it’s quite likely that she would still be able to see brash lights and shadows, maybe some shapes (likely clearer toward the edges of vision, but perpetually out of focus there)

I point this out as someone who is blind in one eye myself from an injury as a child, and that generally we don’t really like the portrayal of “cloudy eyes=blind” in media. It’s usually used as visual shorthand, but bc ppl see it used that way, they think that’s what all blind ppl look like. I’ve gotten ppl who’ve tried and ‘caught’ some of my friends as ‘not blind’ bc their eyes weren’t white/cloudy, which is generally, not the case unless there is serious injury or disease in the eye. As for the 100% vision, we also get ppl who will wave or clap in our faces to try and ‘catch’ us (bc for some reason ppl just think ppl fake being blind for ‘benefits’—what benefits??) and we will always flinch bc 1) that’s the normal reaction, it’s sound and air close to your face, your body will instinctively flinch away from it. And 2) bc many of us still have some amount of useable vision, and getting that close is something even someone w very low percentage of useable vision could detect.

Not gonna ask you to redraw it of course, that’s entirely up to you, and it’s an ongoing, high-intensive webcomic and the page in question is quite a bit back there, but if we see it again plus the POV of Hope’s vision, if you drew a rough lining of that half of the picture, then filled it in with intense white/gray grittiness, more concentrated in the middle and a bit less on the extreme sliver of the outer eye (in Hope’s case, I doubt there would be too much of the eye that wasn’t covered by the scar tissue, Lion claws are huge and thick and at this point she’s had plenty of time to form a significant scar) and the vague impression of light/shadow, that’s a more accurate portrayal of blindness. The eye itself is almost guaranteed to be misshapen, that is, the iris and pupil, not the orb itself (it would have had to puncture through the cornea, and if that was the case she’d not really have an eye) something like a droopy part near the direction of the scar, and a bit more of an oval-ish shape (pics for reference can help if you can do that, otherwise not making it too extreme but enough that it’s visibly a scar and injury in the eye. These are all just suggestions! If you decide you’d like to do a more stylized version of this, just making the iris a bit raised and a little wider at the ends of the scar, and for POV just airbrush w a gritty texture and put some vague shading.

I really love this comic, and it’s portrayal of disability (Hope is just. I’ll cry) but that was just something that nicked me a bit. It’s hard to do everything right, and really hard for a personal project! You’ve done amazing, and honestly this is nitpicky of me I think, I just thought with the positive rep of limb loss I thought I’d give a little advice ig on blind rep, from a partially blind person myself. (thank you SO. MUCH. For not making her ‘mourn’ the limb she doesn’t have. She just doesn’t have it, it’s who she is. She’s not lesser or in parts bc of it, she deals w it, and though it’s still a disability and affects her as such, it’s not something she needs to cry over. She’s always been this way, and she’ll make it through.)

So, first of all: thank you so much for giving an informative and detailed input on this aspect of Hope's character. We truly appreciate it.

We've always intended to show Hope's eye injury gradually changing condition from her POV and her being able to open the eye slightly eventually, so we're not through with representing blindness or partial blindness through her.

As for your comments regarding what we've already shown, Cat did refer to references on that particular front as she did endeavour to get things accurate. While she is willing to admit that she may have got things wrong, the issue of people stereotyping blind individuals based on one form of how the condition presents itself doesn't mean that one form is not accurate or valid, if you feel me? The true issue here is people's ableism towards blind or partially blind individuals and assuming that a disability must present itself in a certain way to "count" (i.e. in a way they're familiar/comfortable with when stfu it's not about you?) when disabilities in general do not work like that.

But I also completely get that there is a need to break down the assumption that all eye conditions work like this. I know what it feels like to be held to a certain standard by my disabilities and it sucks. If there's one thing worse than just flat-out intolerant ableism towards disabled individuals, it's ableism under the guise of 'i understand your condition better than you do bc i saw it on TV once' ugh But yeah, we've put a pin in the helpful description you've provided and will take this on board moving forward because - like you've pointed out - this is how eye injuries actually work. We especially needed this input since we planned on having Hope being able to have the eye open eventually too. Cat certainly wants to go in and fix that panel with her eye opening in the relevant panel and make it not-cloudy, and what you said about the greyscale and filter idea for the panel afterwards where it's her POV will also be implemented. Thank you again for this advice and for explaining it so well, we always appreciate input like this. <33 And thank you again (again) for the kind comments on Hope's character. It's exactly why we opted to not have her injure the limb like Nothing did and have her be born with the condition instead. Not that we're opposed to that kind of representation, as we intend to cover it somewhat with Bronze and the loss of his limb and how he and the other lions of the Thundering Mountains adapted to it. But yeah, we felt like doing things differently a tad with our main protagonist. c: - RJ

#ask #ask us stuff #rj answers #comic feedback #hopeful #golden grove

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faegoddessog · 3 months

Text

Not 'till Monday

Warnings: Explicitly mature content, 18+ only, clit play, fellatio, cum swallowing, cunnilingus, snowballing (male to female), Austin taking SUCH good care of you is SO many ways.

Summary: Recovering from surgery is tough. Doing it with Austin at your side is amazing with one exception-no orgasms allowed. I mean how did the doctor expect you to NOT be turned on when Austin is caring for you? It was fine for the first bit, but as you near the end of your blackout period it gets harder and harder, especially when he's vowed to abstain as well. Monday morning could not come soon enough and that goes for the both of you.

A/N: This little one shot was inspired by a convo with @purejasmine. I basically vomited it up in 24 hours. There are wee references to my other works and yeah, I have completely self serving fantasy that he'd read my work and go... 'damn... that's hot'. LOL! Let a girl dream!!!

Enjoy! let know if you'd like to be added to my tags list!

@purejasmine @slowsweetlove @richardslady121 @austinbutlerslovers

You weren’t gonna read it, your T-besties new dirty smut, but the line just jumped out at you and now you couldn’t stop reading and re-reading just that one line.

“Is this what you want? For me to fill you with my cock?”

Holy. Fuck. You shouldn’t be, but you are so fucking turned on right now. The fucking buzzing and throbbing of your pussy is out of control! Fuck! It is so intense, it's no joke. You give in and read on. When you get to the mutual orgasm part, you squirm in your seat feeling your wetness literally bubbling out. What the actual fuck!

“I can control myself” you think, literally shaking.

Your throat vibrates with a needy groan as you toss your head back. ”Stop triggering me, bro!” you assert to the ceiling.

“Are you ok, Princess?” his concerned voice calls down the hall from your bedroom.

“Yes, I’m fine.. Well not fine.. But I’m ok” you shake your head, sighing, texting your t-bestie to fucking stop, tongue in cheek of course. You never want her to stop.

“What’s wrong, what’d I do Baby,” his voice is hot in your ear, just moments before his hand crosses your upper chest.

“Nothing you did Austin, my love. She’s just at it again,” you hold up your phone to show him the latest smut.

“Princess, you should not tempt yourself. You know the doctor said no orgasms, not until Monday. You can hold out a couple more days,” he lightly kisses your cheek and walks around to sit on the couch with you.

“I know, I know and I’ve been really good and you’ve been amazing. But she writes you so well… plus just having you around keeps me wet all the time.”

“MMM I know, that’s one of a long list of my favorite things about you,” he purrs at you.

Austin has been a freaking angel sent from the beyond since your surgery. Well, longer than that. He’s cooked for you, made sure you’ve stayed on top of your pain meds, stayed up at night to hold you in his arms until you fall asleep. He’s never missed a chance to take your walks with you. Even though they’ve had to be a little slower than usual. He holds your hand and points out animals and trees and the beauty of nature. You are so in love with him, he is the best thing that ever happened in your life. He even declined a project that was supposed to be starting this month because he knew you’d need him.

“Bah, there will be others,” he’d said when you had protested, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it anyway. And I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you after surgery.”

The flip side is that everything he does just turns you on, he is like your own personal interactive pornography. You have excellent self control, something you’d had to cultivate in your previous, toxic relationship. But this was testing your limits, you were starting to have a hard time concentrating on anything.

“I love that you don’t get weirded out by reading her smut that is about you.” You nestle into his arms. You two frequently read her stories together, getting so turned on that you fucked like bunnies. She absolutely loved the idea that her mind fuckery got the two of you off.

“Heck no, not when she’s given us some of the best fucking ideas… like that one about cockwarming…or the one where I dominate you and call you Pet… damn that was one hot time.” He reaches down and adjusts himself. It’s been a while for him too, he vowed no orgasms for himself in solidarity.

“Sweetheart,” you cover his hand with your own, your pinky brushing his burgeoning bulge, “if you want to you can jerk off. You want to cum in my mouth?” You feel bad for him, and you fucking love the taste of his cum. The idea of it makes your pussy throb.

“No, no my Princess. I made a vow and I’m sticking to it. Besides, I was once a teenaged boy, I’ve had plenty of hard-ons that I’ve not played with, and I KNOW how hot that makes you. No way.”

He stands up and offers both hands to help you stand up.

“C’mon, I have a surprise for you.”

He leads you down the hallway, through your shared bedroom and into the bathroom. The tub is filled with steaming water, the scent of lavender and chamomile drift in the air. Two glasses of sparkling water and a plate of your favorite foods sit by the side. You two bought this house in part because of the huge tub. Both of you love baths and wanted something big enough that you could share.

Austin helps you strip naked, put your hair up, and get into the bath before stripping off his clothes. If this was supposed to help you calm down, it’s a disaster. You fucking love the sight of him. He has been working out especially hard and he is fucking ripped right now. His lats pop and the ripples of his torso are fucking gorgeous as he bends to pull his joggers off. He doesn't quite get the first leg off and hops a little, giggling. He is so adorable and sexy at the same time, quite the enigma.

You lean forward as he slides in behind you. You feel the hardness of his cock slide down your back and nestle at the base of your spine. He wraps you in his kind, gentle, strong arms. You melt.

“Fuck Austin, I know you meant this to help… but it’s fucking hot,” you are struggling to keep your hips still.

“You want me to run some cold water?” he says helpfully.

You purse your lips and twist to look at him. He is smiling ear to ear, chuckling. He knows what you meant.

“Just wait love,” he whispers in your ear, “wait and I'll give you the most mind-blowing orgasm with my mouth in a couple days. Then I’ll cum on your tongue, but you have to promise to swallow.” As though you’d ever do anything else but swallow his seed. His cock twitches against your back, his teasing of you is turning him on too.

“Austin, you are not actually helping.” you giggle. Giggling is the only recourse you have right now. You fucking love this teasing, love this mind fuckery. At least you know you’ll get it eventually. Get his mouth, his tongue, his fingers, his body, his cock, his cum. FUCK now YOU are not helping.

“I’m sorry my love, here let me feed you. At least we can appease your slutty tastebuds if not your slutty pussy,” he kisses your cheek and grabs the plate.

“My pussy isn’t slutty!” you say with mock indignation, “it’s only for you Austin. How can it be slutty?”

“Mmm, you are right,” he reaches down to cup your pussy in his hand, but stops himself just before plunging into the water. making a fist instead

“Your wickedly wonton pussy, then” he breathes into your ear. Dear goddess in heaven, he is not making this easy.

He proceeds to give you little tidbits of perfectly cooked bacon, rare steak with goats cheese, roasted root veggies, fruit and yogurt, perfectly ripe avacados. You suck the bits off his fingers as he feeds you.

“My Princess needs her protein for healing,” he kept saying every time he cooked for you inthe past two weeks. He did, indeed, treat you like a princess.

The next two days pass without incident. There are no new story updates, and Austin keeps it surprisingly G rated. Though there is an undercurrent of sexual tension throughout the house. Sunday night is like fucking Chistmas eve, the anticipation is driving you mad in the best kind of way. As you cuddle on the couch watching a film, a standard Sunday night in your joint home, his arm is draped over your shoulder. His fingers lightly stroke your collarbone. You think they are shaking slightly, as though he is a nervous teenager hoping for a gratuitous movie theater-like grope session. Is your mind playing fuckery tricks with you?

You hear him sigh. It’s nothing to do with the movie on the screen. You thread your fingers through his, rubbing your thumb on his palm. You can feel his eyes on you. You tilt your head up to look at his perfect face. His little dimple appears, the one that you can’t help but kiss. Now is no different. You lean up and press your lips to his. His fingers curl around yours as he deepens the kiss almost instantly. You are instantly wet, well, more so than you always are with him. Your tongues touch then caress lips. Lips are momentarily trapped by teeth, before opening to be sucked and stroked by tongues ones again. God his kisses are like fuel to your fire. Your hand drops to his chest, and you turn towards him, fully engaging in the act of kissing this perfectly amazing man. Kissing that quickly ripens into full on making out, including his hand sliding up your shirt to fondle your breasts. Movie theater grope session indeed.

The blaze of passion that ignites in your belly is ridiculous. This is the first time you’ve really kissed like this since the surgery. The forbidden fruit effect is full on. The fact that you can't have it, makes you want it all the more.

‘Fuck it’, you think, your mind clouded with lust, ’what is a few less hours.’

You move to straddle him and at the same time your hand reaches to undo the button on your jeans.

“Whoa, Princess,” his deep voice husky with desire, “not below the waist, not until tomorrow.”

“But…” your face is a mask of petulance, forehead crinkled down and lip stuck out. Your frustration is evident.

“No, my Love, I promised I’d take care of you and that means following doctors orders. No orgasms until Monday, and four weeks still until I get to sink into your tightness,” he reaches out to pet your protruding lip with one long finger. The finger that you want rubbing your clit right now. “I’m sorry I gave in to temptation, Baby.” With both hands he tilts your head down and kisses your forehead.

You close your eyes, breathing deep. He is right, dammit.

Later that night, he is propped up against the headboard. You curl up in his arms, grateful for his love of a good snuggle. He opens the book he is reading out loud to you. His gorgeous baritone lulls you to sleep.

You must be in an orchard, you have to be. What else smells like vanilla and citrus? The tall grass you are walking through brushes against your naked butt. The grass reaches and gropes along your thighs, trying to get to your pussy. It feels good, the grass caresses your ass. You realize it’s not the grass but a shining ethereal being standing next to you, hands cupping your genitals front and back. Warmth radiates from its hands and soaks into your skin. You feel an intrusion inside you, malleable and warm. A sense of peace glows in you, from the inside out and the light erupts from your sacral chakra, like water over pouring from a vase. It feels divine, like an orgasm of light. Then you feel a concentrated rubbing against your mons. You hear a moaning and realize it’s your voice.

You come to full waking consciousness and feel Austin next to you, on his side. The palm of his hand rubbing circles on your vulva. You realize you have been moaning and just came in your dream, or maybe here in waking life too.

“Yeah,” you hear in your ear, “that’s it, cum for me.” You can smell the orange and vanilla on his wrist as he brushes hair away from your face.

You eyes flutter open so see Austin staring at you, biting his bottom lip, nostrils flaring. When he sees your eyes open, his mouth curves just enough to expose the dimple at the corner of his lip. That fucking dimple, it melts you. Then his mouth is on yours hard and fast, the clean taste indicating that he brushed his teeth and rinsed with mouthwash.

His finger dips inbetween your labia, you are so fucking wet, he doens’t even need to pull wetness over your clit. It’s already bathed in your juices. You are pretty sure that you already came once, which is fantastic as you were nervous that something inside might hurt when you finally got to orgasm.

His fingers start working their magic, circling the hood of your clit, over and over. Then switching side to side. His mouth is constantly on yours. You want to stop him and tell him you want his beautiful mouth on your pussy, but it all feels so good. Usually he would gradually get faster, but he keeps a steady pace. It’s mere minutes and your orgasm washes over you. Your body freezes, spine jerking and your little grunts are swallowed by Ausitn’s mouth.

“That’s my girl,” he gently pets your vulva, “How was that my love?”

“Please, please keep going,” you pant, eyes pleading for the overstimulation that he is so freaking good at. You can’t stop your hips from pushing forward and back against his hand.

“No babe, we are gonna take it slow at first,” he smiles, eyes full of love, “don’t want anything to… burst or whatever with a crazy hard orgasm.”

“Hmmmmm” your voice whines, “can I at least have your cum, baby. I need it.”

“That I can do,” he nods imperceptibly, “C’mere sugar.”

You help him pull back the covers as you sit up, unwrapping his gorgeously perfect naked form next to you. His cockstand is a fucking dream, thick and long lying on his chiseled stomach. Your pussy practically drips at the sight of it. You snag the bottle of water from the bedside table and quickly drain it.

“Get that mouth down there, I need to be wet,” his voice is grizzly with need.

You could live off Austin’s cum. In fact you usually get it almost every day. The past two weeks have been torture, not having his milky seed in your mouth.

Eagerly you straddle his leg, bending down. He pulls your hair, still in its sleepy bunny ears, away from your face. He fucking loves watching your mouth on him. You lick your lips, looking at his eyes as he tucks one hand behind his head for a better view. He knows you struggle with your gag reflex and he has never asked you to go beyond your comfort zone.

Tongue out, you lick his soft tip. He releases a shaky sigh. He has missed this too. You bring your lips together pushing saliva out between the seam with your tongue, letting it run down his cock. You push your closed mouth down, tongue flicking his tiny hole. You seal your lips over his red tip, chasing the rivulets and sucking them back up as you pull back. You dive down again, only taking his tip. Your cheeks hollow and the sound of wet suction follows.

“Oh my god, Princess” he breathes.

You rub your smiling lips along his tip in a figure eight, like lip balm. You love hearing his sounds of pleasure. You engulf his head again, just a little farther this time. Your tongue rubs side to side along his frenulum. You bob up and down, up and down, tongue working him, slurping on the end of his cock.

He moans, his hand rubbing down his stomach to the inside curve of his pelvis. His thumb and forefinger catching up the root of his cock. His long middle and ring fingers falling in the crevice next to his balls.

“Yeah, that’s it gorgeous. Get me all wet with that pretty mouth,” he croons at you. His glutes start flexing slightly, pushing his cock up. He’s trying for all he’s worth not to fuck your mouth.

“Princess, I gotta… I’m… I need…oh god” he moans, not able to finish any sentence. You pull back as he holds his hand out, you drip spit into his hand and he wraps that big fist around that big cock. His hips thrusting up into his hand almost violently. He is so considerate and didn't want to do that into your mouth and make you choke. Clearly the last two weeks have taken their toll on his self control.

You love seeing him play with himself. Last summer, you ‘caught’ him jerking off. He had thought you had left. You’d ran back inside to get something you forgot when you heard his moan. Peeking through the door, your pussy had gotten so wet when you saw him sitting at his desk, laptop open. You had almost slipped into his office to help, but when you realized what he was watching, you were too beguiled to interrupt. It was a video you two had made. A close up of your lips around his cock, both oral and vaginal. You didn’t let him know you were there, but you watched through the sliver of the door as he stroked himself to climax. Your hand was down your pants and your finger on your wet, wet clit. It was so fucking hot. You loved the idea of being his porn.

Now, your pussy is again activated watching him pump himself. You realize you have lowered down to his knee and are rubbing your wet pussy on his thigh, riding him.

“Fuck, Princess. That is so hot, you are dripping down my leg,” he seethes through his clenched jaw. “GAH!” he tosses his head back, a sure sign that he is close. His hand speeds up, and stops, speeds up and stops, edging himself just a bit. His forehead is pulled down in concentration, his plush lips form a little ‘o’ as he pants.

Holy fuck, he could not be hotter in this moment. His bicep bulging, his pecs popped, abs contracted and tight, forearm veiny with effort, thigh flexed and wet with your juices. Your mouth is open, tongue flicking.nYour pussy lips dragging back and forth over his skin. Fuck, it feels so good. So much deprivation has made you ultra sensitive.

“Get that greedy tongue down there, so I can cum all over it,” he puffs out.

You tip your head down. His legs are long enough that you can still rub against him and reach his cock with your mouth. Your tongue is out ready to catch.

“Yesssss, here it comes,” he moans.

The warm milky cum spatters your tongue, you know how much he likes to see it hit your mouth. He groans in appreciation. Then you are down on him, sucking lightly, not wasting a single drop. It’s so fucking hot, such an activation for you to have his cum in your mouth. You sit up and grind into his tight quads just at the insertion on the patellar tendon. It's the perfect dune of muscle to rub your clit on. You moan around your mouthful of cum, your tongue rubbing it along the roof of your mouth.

“That’s it Princess, get it,” his hand is still on his cock, lightly stroking himself. He is so fucking turned on with your wanton display. His other hand is on your knee, somehow wanting to help, but not wanting to interrupt your flow.

Your pussy tightens, good lord the friction feels good. Just as you can feel yourself tipping over that brink, you let his cum slide down your throat. Your eyes roll back in your head and your pussy gushes as your hips freeze forward. Your hips and head jerk in unison, grinding your pussy down on him with each jerk. It’s nearly overstimulating… nearly.

You fall forward onto him, ass in the air, panting, shaking. He catches you with waiting arms.

Cradling your head on his chest.

“You good, Princess?” there is just a touch of concern in his voice. You love how he loves you.

You nod, slowly getting your breath under control.

“Could be better,” you look up at him with a glint in your eye.

“Oh yeah,” he gently swipes at a creamy drop on the corner of your mouth, offering the drop to your mouth. You greedily lick it from his finger.

“Yeah,” you say after rolling the salty tang around your mouth, “I, uh, I seem to remember a promise a certain hot fucking man made me. One of a mindblowing orgasm with his talented mouth.” You smile at him, running a finger along the border of his lips. Those perfect fucking lips.

“Oh yeah, when is he getting here?” he jests, chuckling.

You purse your lips and shake your head, you love his silly goofy side.

“Austin,” you kiss his mouth then roll off him, legs wide,”get down there and make good.”

His eyes smolder at you, he loves it when you have just a touch of command in your voice. It usually doesn't last long, as he likes being in control in the bedroom, but it turns him on nonetheless.

“Yes Ma’am,” he nods. Catlike he flips on top of you and slides down your body. In supporting his upper body weight, his shoulders bulge and ripple. That and his ocean blue eyes never leaving yours is enough to set you off.

He wraps his arms under your upper thighs.

He inhales the smell of you.

His eyes close and he moans in pleasure.

His mouth opens and he drags his tongue along your lips.

“Just nothing in, not yet” you remind him.

The apples of his cheeks pop as he smiles up at you, “I know darling.”

His tongue rolls around under your clit, pushing between your labia. He laps your little lips into his mouth, sucking them gently.

You moan at the sensations, god you’ve missed his mouth.

He nestles down at the bottom of your entrance and with a flickering tongue licks your wetness up, sucking your clit lightly into his mouth at the top.

It’s fucking amazing.

He licks again, his bottom lip dragging after his tongue, over and over. Until he settles on top of your clit. One hand slips from your leg and you feel two fingers press, not into your vagina, but in the crevices on either side of your lips. He licks your nub with the tip of his tongue and presses rhythmically on the legs of your clitoris from the outside, milking your pussy. It feels incredible, you had no idea that was a thing, at least not for your body.

Your juices start to flow freely, dribbling down. He greedily licks as much of it up as he can, sucking hard on your labia. Then his mouth closes wholly over your clit and the top bits of your lips. He sucks, the tip of his tongue flickering over the hard little button.

Oh fuck it’s good. He is good. Better than good, with his fingers working their magic. Your hands fly to his hair, fingers tangled in his unruly locks. Breath flutters out his nostrils and onto your pubis. Your hips start pumping against his pretty face. You know he loves it when you just let go and let your body react. He starts groaning, his hips mimic yours, driving against the folds of the sheets under him. The fact that he is so turned on by eating your pussy is exhilarating. The vibrations of his moans send your pussy into overdrive. All of a sudden you are there; screaming, grunting, shaking under the magnificence that is Austin’s mouth. Pleasure floods your body. You writhe. He shifts, letting go the suction and licks long, sensuous strokes along your quivering cunt. He flicks your clit at the top each time, making you shake in aftershocks, making you drip that much more. He closes his mouth wide over your pussy, sucking hard. Then, with a closed mouth he pushes up to his knees over you. His cock is rock hard and jutting out from his lean form. He is a fucking dream. He leans his head forward and dribbles a mixture of your juices and his spit onto his cock and into his hand.

“God I miss doing that to you,” he moans.

You are panting, watching the sex god Austin stroke himself. His hooded eyes are brimming with desire and lust.

“Touch yourself,” he commands, “I want to watch.”

You immediately obey, your finger rubbing back and forth on your swollen clit.

“Yes, finger that clit, Princess,” it’s taking all he has not to slide into you, but he would never endanger your health like that.

Your finger runs in circles around your clit.

“Pull your lips apart, I want to see it all,” his tone is intense, brooking no argument.

You spread yourself for him and continue to circle your clit. Anything for Austin. He spits into his hand again, and continues to pump fiercely on his cock.

“Pull up, I want that little hood pulled back,” he is huffing, his face contorted and serious, “I want you to feel my hot cum as it hits your naked clit.”

Oh. My. God. He has never said that, never done that. Your finger stops rubbing and pulls back your clitoral hood. The cooler air hits your exposed clit. You moan and clench. He watches as your pussy contracts, his breath hissing between his teeth. He glides hard on his cock.

“Keep it up, don’t touch it.” His chest expands in a deep, deep breath. His orgasmic groan begins as a rumble in his chest and blasts out his mouth in unrequited vowel sounds. Hot semen hits your vulnerable clit, it’s like fucking lightning. Your back arches and your hips shake, your orgasm is inches away. All you have to do is rub… but he told you not to.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, his mouth is sucking on you and hard. His tongue rubbing in his cum, back and forth over your clit. Your climax explodes over you like fireworks. You are so fucking lit. Your spine and hips jerk, bouncing you on the bed. He rides you down, lapping up his cum from you. Then he is over you, kissing you deeply with a mouthful of his own, sweet cum. It’s intoxicating, mind blowing, hallucinatory and nearly makes you orgasm again. You swallow every drop, curling your tongue into his mouth, desperate to get it all into you.

He pulls away shaking, having given you the same cum a second time. Clearly he found it just as electrifying.

“Fuck that was unbearably hot, Princess,” he pants.

Your head shakes as you nod up and down, still completely aroused. You pull his fingers between your legs.

“Rub Austin, please,” you beg.

Austin can’t resist it when you beg like that.

You spend the rest of the day either in bed, in the bath or in the kitchen. Austin made you cum in all of them. Orgasm Day, you’d come to call it, your own personal annual holiday. Now, only 4 more weeks and the medical ‘ok’ until you get to feel his thick cock stretching your tight little pussy. Until then, well it’s Austin’s cum for breakfast, Austin’s cum for dinner and Austin’s cum for a midnight snack.

#austin butler #austin butler fanfic #austin butler smut #austin butler fic #austin butler x reader #austin butler/reader

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filmbyjy · 1 year

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I saw this reel on insta and a haikyuu scenario with the post that said: 'im in the library and here's a bf helping his gg study and I've been overhearing part of their conversation for the last hour and said "babe, I'm gonna be honest with you. You're going to fail this test, I love you, but there's nothing we can do about it now"

can you do a imagine based on this with Jay and or any other member if you wanna add

(I have my finals coming up plus another exam in a few day. SEND HELP)

a/n: HELP??? WHY DO I ACTUALLY SEE JAY SAYING THIS?? jay giving you that reality check🤙🏻 also good luck!! I currently have projects due soon hence I’m rushing my work🤧

pairing: park jongseong x fem!reader

genre: studying with bf, fluff

word count: 1K words

warning: there is no real huge warning but there is tons of jay pecking/kissing you. that's a warning itself bc i'd die to kiss jay

there is no hope

finals

everyone hated them. it was the constant studying and staying up that made everyone hate it. nobody likes staying up to work on some stupid mathematic exam. cramming formulas till 4am in the morning was a nightmare.

your phone pings when a notification pops up. it startled you a little since you were heavily concentrated on your studies.

*1 message from jongseong🧸*

— placing this in case the read more messes up —

jongseong🧸: babe, are you still in the library? bc it’s dark in there.

you: why tf are you outside? didn’t you want to catch up on some sleep bc rugby was kicking your ass?

jongseong🧸: bc i’m a great boyfriend and I care about my girlfriend that I can forget about my shit sleep schedule

you: aww jongseong :((

you: i’m at the McDonald’s nearby

jongseong🧸: oh cool. i was kinda craving for some chicken nuggets! i’m bringing my books to help you too.

you: really? thank you, babe🫶🏻

jongseong🧸: anytime love❤️

it was about 15 minutes later when you heard someone sitting in front of you. you knew that familiar scent, it was your boyfriend. you looked up and gave him a warm smile before looking back down at your notes.

he lifts your chin up and leans to peck your lips.

“can’t even get a kiss from my girl without her looking away from her notes.”

“it’s 1am. the workers are staring, babe.” you whisper. jay rolls his eyes.

“well they won’t be staring if i’m here as a valued customer.” jay winks. you sighed.

“could you get me coffee?”

“at 1am? babe, you’re insane.”

“i’m going to need coffee to survive studying till 3am at least.”

jay shakes his head, “fine. i’ll get you some latte or something. nothing too strong because you won’t be able to sleep.”

“aww such a caring and sweet boyfriend I have.” you say. jay smirks.

“you do have a great boyfriend.” he steals kiss from you before going over to order something.

you remained glued to your work. however, nothing was really going in your brain. by now, jay had brought your coffee over and it still couldn’t help you.

“jayyyy, I can’t do this anymore.”

he scans through your notes. nothing made sense to him. he sighs.

“i’m gonna be honest, babe. you definitely failing this test. a 100%. your notes make zero sense to me.”

“you mean to tell me I’ve been studying shitty notes that I thought would help me??” you groaned and banged your head on the table. it catches a few of the workers attention but they quickly dismiss it.

“look, baby. if you wanna pass this test. I can always help you.” jay says.

“really?”

“of course but first, let’s get out of here and hop in my car.”

“why do I feel like this isn’t going to help me at all.” you glared at the boy. he chuckles.

“trust me, love. it’s definitely going to help.” he smirks. you rolled your eyes.

the both of you left the McDonald’s with your things to get into jay’s car. he places both of yours and his things down. once you settled in, you turned to jay.

“so what’s this genius plan of yours?”

“kiss.”

“are you serious, jongseong.”

“i’ll test you and every right answer you get equals to a kiss from yours truly.”

“you are so needy, babe.” you huffed.

“this is beneficial for the both of us. come on.” jay pouts.

you tried to weigh the pros and cons. honestly, there were definitely more pros than cons. you got to kiss jay, he would help you with passing the test and you got to spend time with him. what more could you ask?

"fine." jay smiles at your words.

after letting you read his notes for the topic, he would test you.

"you got 5 answers right. which means, i get to kiss you 5 times." jay says.

"yeah but you tested me 10 questions. i got half of them correct."

"which means you will pass. see i did something good. now, pucker up." jay says.

he leans in and pecks your lips once.

"jongseong-" he pecks it once again.

"this method didn't help." *peck*

"park jongseong." *peck*

"ooo one more." he leans in once again but this time, the kiss goes on far more than a peck. jay's hands rest on your waist. you completely forgot you were even upset in the first place. well that is until you actually remembered you were upset with him. you pushed him away.

"jay, i'm serious. i don't think i'll pass the test." you huffed.

"i'm sorry, i just i miss you. you've been pretty busy lately with studying. how about i help for real this time, hmm?"

"you're making me feel bad now. i'm sorry i don't spend time as much with you." you pout.

"it's alright, you're busy with school work."

"i feel like everyone is advancing faster than me so i take my free time to catch up with everyone. i don't even catch the topic sometimes and i just feel frustrated." you voiced out. jay squeezes your hand.

"well, i'm here. i can help you, babe. you don't have to hesitate to call me or text me when you need help."

"i know. i just feel bad."

jay shakes his head, "you don't have to feel bad. that's my duty as your boyfriend to help you and stay by your side."

"isn't that a job for a husband?" you deadpan.

"we're going to get married eventually, what's the difference." jay nudges your shoulder. you blushed.

"yeah, i guess we are."

"mrs.park, would you like me to help you really study now?"

"yes, mr.park." jay snorts. he leans in to peck your lips.

"okay, where did we stop at?" he says as he scans the notes.

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goldenhypen · 2 years

Text

❣︎ ⎯⎯ work of art .

PAIRING ! yang jungwon x fem!reader // GENRE ! fluff // WC. ! 0.6k

PROMPT(S) ! 4. kiss to the side of the head ;; 8. embracing them from behind ;; 16. taking a photo of them smiling or in their element // requested by two lovely anons <3 // 2k followers event

A/N. ! this is based on jungwon’s pottery en-log did the moodboard give it away?? skdjdjd and it was rlly fun writing this won k lame joke i’m sorry i hope you enjoy! <3

while filming his pottery en-log, jungwon couldn’t stop thinking of you. all that was on his mind was how badly he wished you could experience the time with him. however, the company was strict in not having you tag along that day for jungwon to focus on work, which was understandable.

but this day was different. now, he finally got an actual day off that didn’t require bringing any vlog cameras or staff along. it was just you and him with the entire day ahead of yourselves.

and of course, jungwon had to bring you to the pottery place after having such a good time there himself before, and he knew you’d love it too, whether you liked pottery or not.

and he wasn’t wrong because when you got there, you had such an incredible experience. it was calming and also nice to spend time with your boyfriend.

when it got to the point when you were shaping your clay though, at first, it was obvious that you had no clue what you were doing. you were going to get an employee to help you, however, jungwon stopped you, wanting to help his beloved girlfriend himself.

but before he did, he took out his phone and quickly snapped a picture of you.

he giggled, causing you to look up at him, “what’s so funny?”

he turned his phone around to face you, showing the photo he took. in it, you had your tongue stuck out slightly in concentration, eyes focused. and the funny part was how lopsided your work actually was from jungwon’s angle. you gasped, working on fixing it immediately.

jungwon let out a chuckle before sticking his phone back in his pocket and bringing his stool behind yours, sitting down. he wrapped his arms around you from the back and placed his hands on top of yours, helping and guiding you.

feeling this warming form of embrace, you couldn’t help but smile.

you turned your head slightly, “oh, you’re good at this.”

at the compliment, he smiled, pressing a soft kiss to the side of your head. however, this movement caused your entire project to be shaped in the wrong way.

luckily it wasn’t too bad though and it was easily fixed, but after you initially let out a gasp at the sight, you two were able to laugh it off.

“maybe i’m not as good at this as we both thought,” jungwon said lightheartedly.

“well, you definitely do better without distractions,” you smirked.

“as long as you’re okay with it, i’m okay with it. plus, it’s a work of art anyways,” he paused. “just like you.”

you smiled softly before it quickly fell.

“hey, are you calling me imperfect?” you asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“well, believe it or not, baby, but your imperfections are a part of what make you perfect,” he told you. “a reason i adore you so much is because of those imperfections. so yes, i guess i am saying you’re imperfect, but that honestly just makes me love you all the more.”

“since when have you become so poetic and cheesy?” you asked, emitting laughter from the boy. “but that was sweet, wonie. i love you.”

“love you too,” he said before pressing one more kiss to the side of your head.

A/N. lol don’t mind the ending 😭 turns out idk how to end my fics anymore hELP skdjsj

2K EVENT MASTERLIST.

TAGLIST FORM.

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novantinuum · 2 months

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Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Rating: G Words: 1.9K~ Summary: heart•song (n.): An expression of our most inner being, identity, and reason for existence – what twists and turns of life have led us here, to this dangerous place? And by what strength do we keep enduring? - Or: For a sage to give one their vow, first there must be vulnerability. (A collection of shorts exploring the bond between each sage and Link.)

Yunobo is my OTHER little scrunkly rock boy ;w;

If you enjoy, I’d heartily appreciate your support via reblogs here and/or comments/kudos on AO3! Thanks

____

The blunt reality of the sweltering, hellish place he finds himself in this afternoon still brings him pause.

A volcano.

He— Yunobo— jumped straight into the actively erupting maw of a freakin’ volcano. What in Darunia’s cliff-splitting name was he thinking, goro?

It’s not that he doubts he can handle whatever Death Mountain can throw at him— he’s been really practicing with his swings lately, and of course the fiery roll attack he developed will be a huge boon to their offensive arsenal— it’s that he took the leap without sparing even a single thought towards all the potential consequences first. The old him… the cowering but practical him… wouldn’t be caught half molten making such impulsive decisions. The old him would’ve waited on the rim, would’ve watched Link paraglide down into the Depths with a solid wall of anxiety clawing at his core, chained to the surface by the fears of his own timidity and inexperience. Yet somehow, this time, not a single one of those thoughts even briefly skimmed across his consciousness. Instead all he could think about were the faces of his fellow brothers. His people’s plight… hijacked by their bottomless craving for marbled rock roast, wholly uncaring of all the pressing needs of their youth and elders. Oh, this is a mess, all right… and one that his own foolishness caused.

So this time, with the wellbeing of his city at stake, not only did he take the leap; he leapt first.

And isn’t that what courage is supposed to be? Shouldn’t this be a good change? It probably is, but if so, then… why does he still feel so icky inside?

Yunobo continues to pace across the course sands scattered in concentric circles beneath the lightroot his companion activated just now. He wishes he could find it within him to relax like Link is— sitting cross legged under the root’s regenerating aura as he works to tighten one of the strings on his bow— but instead his mind keeps returning to that damn mask… to the glamor he escaped from under the thumb of only hours ago. At this point, he can barely remember anything from his time under its sway. But with the way young Slergo and Offrack looked to him with such worried relief when he came to, and what little context he gleaned from them and his Hylian friend… plus the distant glimpse he caught of his city while riding up the side of the mountain… things must have been bad. Really, really bad.

Out of nervous habit, he grinds his molars together unnecessarily hard as he continues to chew over this puzzling quandary. How could he let any of this happen? He genuinely thought he was becoming a better leader. A positive role model actually worthy of all the affection and encouragement his two little tagalongs constantly supply. Maybe, though, he hasn’t grown as much as he hoped. Maybe he’s always destined to be a bumbling screw-up. Maybe he’s—

“Yunobo.”

His friend’s voice cuts through all the murk and mire like it’s little more than the thin, newly hardened crust of a cooling lava flow. Humming in idle curiosity and ceasing his paces, his attention snaps towards the Hylian’s face.

“What’s eating at you?” Link manages to coherently sign through the thick glove of his volcano-proof armor, his expression blown wide with palpable concern. His weapon lays momentarily forgotten at his side.

“I—“ he scratches at one of the patches of hardened stone jutting out form the back of his neck— “I guess I’m just thinking about what I can’t remember. Which… means I’m thinking about nothing? Or everything. Gah, I don’t know. It’s… all so confusing.”

Heaving a large sigh, he finally resolves to park himself on the ground. Just for a few minutes. Just until Link’s had enough time to recover from that last camp of lizalfos they had to take care of and fix his bow.

“But if you really wanna know,” he continues, “then I guess what’s actually bothering me is just… that mask. And the fact it could control me like that so easily. Am I…” he pauses, his brows scrunching inwards amidst the thick coils of shame he suddenly feels brimming within, “really that weak-willed, goro?”

“You were tricked,” Link responds in a few swift motions, his expression softening with empathy. “Your agency was stolen from you. That’s never the victim’s fault.”

“But I shouldn’t have been a victim in the first place!” Yunobo blurts out, throwing his arms in the air. “I’m Daruk’s descendant, so everyone’s always counting on me to be the strong one, and I—“

His voice cuts.

There’s a thousand clamorous words piling up behind the face of all this self-directed anger, but no easy way to vent them out. No way to truly make sense of them all unless he digs deep within himself and starts asking the big questions:

What is he really ashamed about?

He sinks into himself, his volume dropping lower. Meeker.

“…and I just hate always feeling so helpless,” he admits, truly feeling the weight of such a statement as he droops his head low. “My brothers need me right now, and I’ve been letting them down. I’ve been letting them down for a really long time…”

Link purses his lips, thinking for a moment.

“Do you wanna know something?” he eventually signs.

“Yeah, goro?”

“Even I feel helpless at times.”

“Wha— really? You??” Yunobo says, his tone unbelieving. “But you’re Link! You’re the hero of all of Hyrule! You never give up for anything!”

He shrugs. “Trying your best to do the right thing doesn’t mean you never feel helpless.”

“Huh. That’s… actually a good point.”

“When I…” his friend inhales deeply, taking a quick moment to center himself before continuing. “When I lost Zelda, and lost my sword, and woke up alone in the sky, it was hard to not feel that way. But—“ he gazes out towards the vast ruins looming in the distance, nestled against the side of a cliff beyond a cluster of bokoblin encampments and a rather majestic lava fall— “life moves on. Sometimes all we can do is move on. Our enemy is powerful— ungodly powerful. So how is it fair to blame ourselves for falling victim to its influence? How is it fair to assume we need to fight this alone, when the enemy is backed up by an entire army of monsters?“

The faint glimmer of fire in the ruins up ahead easily draws his attention as he churns over what Link is saying. This forgotten fortress— forged of igneous stone that looks to have been mined directly out of the heart of Death Mountain herself— is unquestionably of Goron make, and unquestionably ancient. And given its locality, resting this far beneath the familiar slopes of Eldin, the only historic setting he can possibly connect with it is—

Gorondia.

It has to be.

Even thinking the name fills his soul with a swell of unspeakable awe, like a succulent bite of half molten rock roast warming his body from the inside out.

It’s the lost city of an era long past. The crown jewel of endless centuries of Goron artistry. A place so steeped in legend that it was only ever mentioned in the context of make-believe and fairytales. And yet he managed to find it anyways! Him! Cowardly ol’ him! Despite all the odds stacked against this quest (a two person quest all the way through, far different than last time), Yunobo succeeded where generations of Goron scholars failed, and he wasn’t even trying to unearth old history. All he wanted to do was make up for the damage he caused, but then— following in Link’s courageous footsteps— one thing led to another, and now they’ve fought their way through all the terrors of the depths right to Gorondia’s doorstep, vying to liberate his people from gloom’s control altogether. It really goes to show just how much one can accomplish with a friend by their side.

Link, for the record, seems to agree.

“This war is not one man’s fight, and I’m done with pretending otherwise,” he continues, briefly pausing as he uses his hands to push himself back up to his feet. “It’s teamwork and goodwill between regions that aided me in ending the Calamity, and it’s that same kind of companionship that will save us now. I helped you, and now you’ll help me, and if we work together with the rest of Hyrule, I truly believe we can stop this calamity too.”

He clasps his hands together, large rocky nails scraping along his inner palm.

“I… I think that’s the most words I’ve ever seen you say at once, goro,” he says with a soft chuckle. “You’re really passionate about this, aren’t you?”

Link bobs his head in an affirmative.

“Well—“ he picks himself off the ground and trundles to his feet as well— “even if I do still feel out of place, it’s pretty amazing that we’ve made it this far, huh?”

The barest corner of his mouth tilts upwards. “I couldn’t have made it here without your support.”

“And I still would’ve been dealing marbled rock roast to all my brothers if it weren’t for you showing up! I guess we have a lot to thank each other for, huh?”

A rush of emboldened warmth surging all the way from his dense, molten heart to his furthest extremities, Yunobo glances at the road behind, at the winding path they took from the chasm’s opening all the way up to this very lightroot at the highest rim of Death Mountain’s lake. Link’s right. It truly is a wonder, how far they’ve journeyed together. Companionship… all the connections he’s nurtured with folks of all shapes and sizes these past few years… they’ve forged him into the dependable, occasionally courageous (he’s still working on that) Goron he is today. Connection makes them all stronger. Knowing Link has made him stronger. Not too long ago, back when he still hid idly behind his ancestor’s protection, he wouldn’t have been caught dead leaping into the maw of a volcano, let alone working to infiltrate a whole ancient Goron city overflowing with monsters.

But things have changed. He’s changed. He doesn’t need Daruk to shield him anymore, because he’s got his own fire stirring within. That fire is what drove him towards a position of leadership in his city, and— in both a figurative and a literal sense— it’s what’s led him here into the deepest caverns of the Depths today.

So he can’t let himself give up after coming so far, no how, no way! His brothers need him right now. And he needs them. His fault or not, his earlier influence tipped his home into complete disarray, but by Din’s eternal light he swears he’ll be the one to fix it.

Together… hand in hand with his most loyal friend.

Freeing the remainder of his stressors within a deep, sonorous sigh, he bends down to grab the leather wrapped hilt of his most cherished weapon, a Boulder Breaker Link himself passed on to him that used to belong to the great Daruk.

“I’m ready when you are, goro,” he says, hefting the sledge over his shoulder and clenching his opposing palm into an assured fist.

He’ll see this quest through to the end this time, he swears it.

#loz #totk #link #yunobo #loz fanfic #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda fanfic #legend of zelda fanfiction #loz fanfiction #tears of the kingdom fanfiction #my writing stuff

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simlicious · 8 months

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Personal update :)

Despite my body not feeling very well right now, I am still in high spirits. I got vaccinated last week and I had a lot going on, so I could not rest much the following days, but my body is not having it and is forcing me to take it easy now. I still went for a relaxing walk with my best friend yesterday and went on a small picnic with my family today. Usually, I just hole myself up whenever I feel slightly unwell, but I guess I am challenging myself more and more these days, to my own surprise! Another reason is that we have (the probably last) warm summer days and I want to make the most of them. Apart from getting vaccinated, my doctor's visit was very fruitful and I even got a prescription for a medical app to help treat anxiety. The previous doctor was skeptical about it and did not want to prescribe it, but there is a new doctor now and she is really awesome. She took a lot of time to talk to me and took me seriously and could not be happier! Doctor's visits are usually very anxiety-inducing for me, but the atmosphere was pretty relaxing this time, so I did not feel so bad there, which is a huge plus. I got another appointment next month for some routine check-ups and bloodwork. After the doctor's visit, I also feel freshly motivated to change my sleep cycle (I find myself going to bed way too late and sleeping into the early afternoon, which is not good for my mental health and is also affecting my hormones, as the doctor explained). So far, I am doing pretty well, but it only has been a few days so far.

My mind is pretty fragmented these days and I can't seem to concentrate on one thing for much, hence no further updates on my creative/simming endeavors. My health has to come first! Whenever I can focus a bit, I try to figure out what kind of knitting project I could tackle next. I like to knit during the colder months, and my doctor approves of that activity too 😄 Finding a suitable knitting project can be complicated, as I want to use existing yarns that I already have, and incorporate specific techniques that the pattern has to support, and of course the wool needs to be suited to the project, I need enough of it, and it all needs to fit/work together. It needs to be something quick so I will not get frustrated, and I have to feel the right vibes while making it. I had some ideas and started some projects, but something did not go as planned or as I envisioned it and I had to scrap it or put it on hold. I have yet to find a project I can happily work on. Generally, I like to make gratifying projects that can be made in a few days, but still give a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. This is why I usually knit with super bulky wool that knits up very quickly. I kinda want to design my own chunky sweater one day and I am gathering bits of inspiration for it. I am not sure I am ready though - I think I need a bit more experience with regular patterns first. Sooo.... onwards, ever onwards!

#personal #nonsims

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lunartearrose · 2 months

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Ockiss24 day 5 - darkness!

Characters: December (left), Violet (right)

World: my original project Dreamality :) (title is a work in progress i still dont know if i like it)

Writings under cut!

Once again, Violet and December met up for magic practice. It was a bit dark out, but neither of them minded it much. They stuck to the wide open field aways from the forest, and despite no moonlight, the stars seemed brighter than ever.

Violet was pleased to see him after her long day hunting - he was having a minimal pain day by the looks of the cane that sat beside him in the flowers.

Another thing she noted - his eyes were so shiny in the dark. She stared a ways away as he picked a poppy growing nearby, twisting it to and fro as he inspected how it looked, in his own little world of thought.

She could really watch for hours!

….but she should really make her presence known so she doesn't scare him!

So she walked forward casually, wings lighting her surroundings. “Hi December, I'm back! Are you ready for a new spell?”

December perked up at her voice. “Oh! Yes! Um- should I get up? Or?”

“Nah, you don't have to!” Violet replied, “this one's gonna be fun - I'll teach you to float!”

“Oooh, do you think I can do it?” December asks.

“I'm sure you can! It just needs some sort of focus from what I heard - something touching you that helps with the floating. Plenty of witches use their clothes as the object in question to charm. I was thinkin’ your cloak would make some fine floaties! And if not, we'll try it on your cane if you want. Or whichever one first!”

“Alright! Let's try my cloak first, then…” December replied.

Violet proceeded to show him the spell, using her scarf as the focus - he repeated it with his cloak to an amazingly quick success!

But… the cloak wasn't the best idea. The way it hung on its own wasn't comfortable. With the cane, it required him holding on, and it wasn't comfortable to use like a witch broom, besides not having the best arm strength and balance.

Eventually, the two workshopped and fine tuned until they figured out that the bandages he wore worked out perfectly!

Just like that, the two were floating upwards, Violet using her wings to stay afloat. Together, they marveled at the stars and from there, simply worked on how long December could concentrate on the spell.

And being up in the air gave the two plenty of time to chat about life. Violet’s been helping out the less fortunate between her hunting for a cure for River's entrapment, while December was recently accepted into a college for higher learnings of magic. Being able to find a cure amongst that extensive library would be a plus…

And of course, as the two remember what happened to River, a sad sort of silence fell between them.

And so, December grabbed her hands gently.

“I'd be really happy if you applied, too.” December said, smiling a little. “If we can't find a cure there, maybe… I dunno. It's somethin’ to do.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Violet said. “If they accept demons, I wouldn't mind trying school for real.”

“They'd make an exception for you, I'm sure! You're really sweet.” December replied.

And once again, his past conversation with River about Violet crossed his mind. She always classifies herself as a demon, yet she doesn't look or act like one. Her picking of souls isn't whatever is in front of her. She has no horns. Her wings are without proper form, just beautiful, melting stardust.

Maybe he could figure out that mystery, too, and tell River when he's free that his theory about the kid he loved as a daughter was right all along.

“Thanks, December.” Violet says, “show me how to apply when we get home, yeah?”

“Of course!”

At this, Violet starts to get excited thinking about it, swaying their intertwined hands between them in a little mock dance.

And then, another thought that had been nagging her recently crossed her mind.

“Hey, you know what's kinda weird?” Violet asked.

“Mhm?” December hummed in reply.

“I see it happen all the time around me. You know. But I never really do it myself.”

“Do what?”

“Kiss someone.”

At this, December blushed. “O-oh.”

“Right? I kinda don't get the hype. It's like. What does it really do?”

“I… well… it feels nice, i guess?”

“You guess?”

“I-i never really kissed anyone, either.”

Now. She wasn't sure why, but Violet figured she'd ask.

“Well. Do you wanna find out the big deal?” She asked.

December looked a bit nervous, but a bit excited, too. “Um! S-sure! A-are you sure you want to try it with me?!”

“Yup. We're best friends, so I don’t think there's anybody else I'd wanna try it with.” She replied.

“Well.” December replied, pulling her a bit closer as they floated, “Alright. I agree. L-let's try!”

And with that, Violet leaned in an kissed him.

December froze stiff. He forgot to do anything at all!

Including holding his concentration on that spell.

He quickly began to fall, slipping from her fingers a quick second before she quickly dove down and scooped him up. From there, she floated back down to the ground with him in her arms.

“My bad! I kind of forgot about the spell!! No smooches while concentrating!” Violet apologized, flushed from embarrassment.

December was blushing for different reasons. “I-it's ok! I forgot too.” After a pause, he said, “I don't think I kissed you right, either… c-could I try again?”

With that, she blushed even harder. “I! Um! Yeah, if you wanna…”

Truth be told, she understood why kisses were so fun, now.

Eventually, the two of them would come to realize that they didn't focus on any other spells that night.

At all.

Whoopsie!

#ockiss24 #oc kiss week #artists on tumblr #violet (oc)#December (oc)#art #cute

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deathbyoctopi · 9 months

Note

So now, for the fic ask game.

F - I - M - N & S - T

As general asks.

And then as for D, I'd love your answer for "Phantom Threat" and/or "A Comedy of Yi City Errors". If not a Playlist than I'd be really curious to know how you came up with the story idea or what inspired you to write it.

I'd also just in general be interested in anything you'd like to share about one of your fics that no one has commented on so far but that you just want to gush about ☺️

D. A playlist associated with Phantom Threat or A comedy of Yi City errors?

Ever since university, whenever I have to concentrate and work hard on a project I listen to the same video of The Legend of Zelda relaxing music <3 It’s so engraved in my brain that it’s become like white noise for me, but it really does help. I doubt it has any impact on what I write, though, bc it’s the same music either for fluff, smut, angst or reports on the strengths and weaknesses of a nations macroeconomics XD

F. Share a snippet form one of your favourite dialogue scenes and why you’re proud of it

This bit from Phantom Threat:

“Silence! That he should be tainted by a piece of filth like you… You will pay for what you’ve done to him!” “And what do you know about what I’ve done with him? Hmm?” Daozhang’s not going to like this, he knows, but he’d prefer very much to still be alive to apologize later. And he’s enjoying himself too much to stop now. “What do you know of our nights together? This place can get so fucking cold, you know… Can you picture it, Song Zichen-daozhang? How he shivers in my arms, how I pin him down and spread him up, how I fuck him into the mattress until his voice is hoarse from screaming…” “Be quiet!” shouts Song Lan, and Xue Yang is almost certain he saw his hand shake in rage for a split second. “You beast! You lowliest scum–” “Oh, he wants it, too! He asks for it, begs for it! You should hear the sounds he makes." "I said, be quiet!" "And he’s so good with his hands… He draws them all over my body, touches everywhere because he wants to see me, because some ungrateful bastard stole his eyes!”

I really like the whole exchange between Xue Yang and Song Lan, when the latter was just going for the kill but Xue Yang keeps goading him into engaging in the conversation, because “Talk brings thoughts, which bring distractions, which bring mistakes.” Song Lan has always been the better swordsman, properly trained, so Xue Yang has to play dirty… so of course he TALKS dirty about him and Xiao Xingchen! Moreso, it stings more because (as Song Lan suspects/fears) he’s being completely honest! Plus, xuxiao is in a situation here where they’ve shared their secrets and are happy together, so Xue Yang’s trying to control himself not to kill Song Lan because he knows it would upset daozhang.

And he also knows talking this kind of filth will also upset him, but it’s not fatal and he can always apologize <3 I love the sweet dynamics they share in this fic… And the stinger: Xue Yang’s teasing did shake Song Lan up, but what really manages to break his concentration is the last line, his GUILT, when he stresses out that if Xiao Xingchen is so tactile with him is because he has no eyes to see… That really kicks Song Lan in the most vulnerable part of his soul. I’m very proud of that bit, I feel it reflects very well on each character’s personality and I love them so much…! ^-^

I. A guilty pleasure (writing or reading) Is it guilty, to want my favourite characters to suffer as much as possible? ^^U

M. Any premises you want to tackle

So much xuexiao swimming in my brain ///^W^/// And I want fluff and happiness for them, either within canon (three years to explore!) or after the Reveal, and living peacefully and happy together… BUT I also like trauma and pain, which is why I have been simmering in a very nasty idea I don’t think I’ll ever have the time or skill to write properly… Having Xue yang attacking Baixue and blinding Song Lan was just STEP 1 of his Evil Plan™️, the next one is following him up his mountain and massacring the hell out of all his shidis and shimeis. Maybe (surely) Baoshan Sanren would kick his ass to his next reencanation, but she could be out in a grocery run or very busy with song Lan’s eye surgery, but regardless I want her telling Xiao Xingchen “see?? THAT’S why I didn’t want you back, bringing your outside-world bullshit with you!” It would certainly destroy Xiao Xingchen, I feel bad for him already XD

N. Fic you want someone to write or finish for you?

Quite honestly, I want someone to write a sitcom-style story with The cloud Recesses in the previous generation of cultivator’s time. The young adventures of Cangse Sanren, Lan Qiren, Madam Yu, Jin Guangshan… and of course, Clan Leader Yao! In that vein, I’d love a retelling of The Untamed in a Lady Whistledown-style narration, as if Nie Huaisang had his own rumour-and-scandal little clandestine magazine ^w^

S. Fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Subtle power dynamics (the kick comes from the ambiguity, so I find a student-teacher or captain-officer situation much more interesting than a master-slave, which is very obvious and in-your-face pun VERY MUCH intended “There’s only one bed”, “A is hurt in places only B can help bandage”, and any other such tropes that lead to a situation of intimacy between two characters in early stages of attraction, when either don’t think they like the other yet.

T. Fandom tropes you can’t stand?

Miscommunication. If it’s justified by the narrative, it’s ok… but I’m so tired of seeing the character’s keep secrets for no reason as a cheap way to create tension and drama. And it runs rampant in c-dramas, which I find exhausting

Other random things to share:

My absolute otp, and the one to get me in writing fanfic, is xuexiao and I doubt that will change in the foreseeable future. However, lately someone (NOT looking at you @foxyyaoguai ) got me into jadecest, and I’m enjoying a lot that particular side of the mdzs navy. Lan ships are elegant and very hot, so I’ve written quite a bit in this direction, but I will come back to our ramshackle little boat of pain and candy and secrets ^-^ <3 Sometimes the titles are very self-explanatory, but sometimes I have no idea what to call them and I choose a verse of the latest song I have stuck in my head, that vaguely resonates with the fic or the characters. This is the case, for example, of To carry a bit of yesterday “Phantom thread” was the working title for my nameless fic, that had the sole purpose of filling a void in my xuexiao anthology (what if song lan gets to Yi City and xiao Xingchen already knows about Xue Yang, AND XUE YANG KNOWS HE KNOWS???) I had a fic with the first half of the premise, but not the second, so the game was limping a bit with a nonsensical continuity error. So I just made a fic up to fill that blank. It was the first original fic I wrote, and it remains one of my favourites… But there, the title was “phantom thread” because it was a story thread that was missing, and it ended with “Phantom threat” because of the sense Song Lan has during all that story that he is being threatened by Xue Yang, which turns out not to be true.

Final thing, and that’s more a matter of (lack of) self discipline… I barely ever revise or even re-read my fics before publishing them. AFTER, yes, frantically, and I try to edit as much typos and errors as fast as possible… and I keep editing on the go, when I’m in the train or at odd hours at work, because I love rereading my stuff once it’s out in the open and I have a mini heart-attack every time I see a mistake.

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my-skull-is-full-of-sunken-ships · 1 year

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A couple of years ago, when I was graduating from university, I struggled a lot with completing my work on time. My scientific supervisor, who was basically the Gordon Ramsey of my faculty (competent af, but the amount of pressure she put on you was indescribable), didn't make it any easier for me. I was stressed out 24/7 for a whole year.

The worst times were, of course, the days before deadlines. I was supposed to finish yet another chapter of my thesis and complete a hundred tasks and projects for my lectures and seminars.

I have a problem with concentrating on anything for longer than 10 minutes (which may be undiagnosed ADHD, a weird side-effect of my antidepressants, or something else - I don't know), so I have to be creative when it comes to time management. I have two time management tools that I created or adapted for myself. One of them is for when I have tons of work and several days to do it all, and the other is for desperate situations when I have only one day to complete everything.

Here I'll tell you about the first one, which is my favourite: it only requires a pen and a single stick-note (or any piece of paper, really, and it can also be adapted for excel and I’ll show you both variations). Here’s how it goes:

There is a certain number of tasks that you need to do - each one takes a different amount of time and is generally different in complexity.

I usually spend some time figuring out how complicated and time-consuming each one actually is and give them a score from 1 to 10 (or 1 to 5, it depends)

Then there is the number of days I have for these tasks: I subtract one for either rest or (more often) in case I don't manage to do enough in any of the days.

I divide the sum of points I assigned to my tasks by the remaining days and voila - I have a quantitative measure that I need to achieve every day to be certain that I can do everything I planned in time.

It's great if I manage to do more, of course, but overall, when I reach the required number, I can be sure that on the last day I won't have so much work that I won't be able to afford to take a break.

Plus, relatively large and complex tasks can be performed step-by-step without worrying that I have been working on one thing for too long without crossing anything off the list. For example, I might not have finished a chapter but I’ve done enough to give myself 4 points out of 6.

Here’s how my stick-notes looked like:

And this is my excel version of the method:

(don't mind cyrillic writing, these are mostly just disciplines I needed to know for my finals)

I hope it'll be useful for some of you. I'll make a post about my second-best time management tool sometime later.

#time management #studyblr #study space #studyinspo #study aesthetic #time management tools #i came back

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inkofamethyst · 2 years

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August 29, 2022

Anyway I wake up to this message from the professor of my online molecular evolution class and it strikes me as oddly... unwarm. Cold, even. Sterile. I read through the syllabus and the guy is immediately like “this class may be online but it will NOT be easy” and that’s a huge red flag to me. So I look for reviews of the class and prof and they’re AWFUL and so I’ve got thirty minutes to find a replacement class before I have to go to my first class of my ~senior year~. A lot of the good ones, of course, are filled, but I manage to find an evolution principles class with marginally better ratings but at least it’s in-person. The only real downside is that I now have four classes (five hours) on TuTh but I mean I do have an hour and a half for lunch in between which is nice. I’ve done five hours in a row before (last fall) so this is an improvement over that, I suppose. Actually wait there’s another downside: my first class TuTh is at 9:30 instead of 11. This is what I get for picking an online class hoping for its ease and for not reading prof/class reviews like a complete dingus.

I only have one class MWF (it’s got a lab but the lab aspect of it is computer-based which is, as the kids say, based in and of itself bc I’m kinda over the whole learning-lab-bench thing) and the professor seems literally so great and I’m very excited for it!!!! Honestly it’s the one I was most looking forward to so :D

Thinking about taking a stats class next semester to fulfill one of my concentration requirements. Thinking about doing morning yoga MWF.

Missing my grandmother’s puppy :/ Didn’t think I would so soon, but alas.

Gonna eat and watch an episode of Midsomer then get some organizational stuff done.

[4 hours later]

I accidentally decided to do nothing, and it was less of a decision and more of a “it’s not like I got homework” mood (when I do, in fact, have homework and things to do). I will say that the sandwich I made myself today??? Bangin good job.

[an hour later]

All three of my bio classes have midterms in the span of the same two days. I am going to suffer that week and let out the biggest sigh to ever escape my lungs the Friday after they’re all done. At least they have fairly forgiving exam policies (as in, if you do well enough on all your midterms you can drop the final or something to that extent which is the goal (if I do this perfectly I may only have one exam (plus two final projects for anth classes but those are nothing compared to exams))).

[more time has passed lol]

All assignments populated into Notion! Still have a few things to do before heading to bed, but I’ve got a hard cut-off of midnight since I’ve got such a long day tomorrow.

Today I’m thankful for a good first day. I’m thankful that I managed to switch into a different class. I’m thankful that my mom sent me pictures of the puppy today.

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memsmedic1 · 1 month

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Africa! (June 10, 2019- October 1, 2019)

After an uneventful 7 1/2 hour flight I landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia just as it was becoming light outside. None of the flights I saw arriving during my layover here, even the 787’s like mine, pulled up to the terminal to unload, so as I was disembarking and walking over to the waiting airport shuttles I was able to enjoy the crisp, non-humidified air at our 8,000 plus feet of elevation.

Ethiopia is an incredibly diverse country. The Great Rift Valley runs right down through the middle of the country, creating incredible rock formations and waterfalls and boasts the main aggregation of Ethiopia’s iconic rock hewn churches…

…In the northeast Afar Region lies the Danakil Depression, over 400 feet below sea level, with active volcanos, colorful salt and other mineral formations, hydrothermal vents spewing out boiling water and sulfuric acid, poisonous clouds of chlorine and other gases, and the hottest average yearly temperature on earth— 94 degrees Fahrenheit...

...To the northwest are the Simien Mountains, one of the few places in Africa where snow regularly falls. Walia ibex, an endangered wild goat, and the Gelada baboon live in the ledges and rocky outposts of the Simien Mountains. The most iconic highlands species is probably the Ethiopian wolf, which is now on the brink of extinction. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to 80 percent of Africas tallest mountains as well as Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile...

…Southern Ethiopia has the highest concentration of nomadic tribes, many of them living in the same way as they have for hundreds of years.

I was first asked to come to Ethiopia almost 3 years ago while I was in North Carolina taking a remote medicine course from Equip International in preparation for moving to Myanmar. The Dr. who developed the curriculum for that course, Dr. Tosimo, has been working in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia for the past 26 years, and been holding rural clinics for 24 years in addition to various other hospital and mission projects. Dr. Tosimo needed a new medical assistant at that time, but I had already committed to going to Myanmar so I couldn’t accept. Earlier this year I received an email from Equip saying that Dr. Tosimo again needed an assistant, this time only for the short term, and all the pieces fell into place perfectly to allow me to be able to come and help this summer.

I had a 5 hour layover in Addis before my connecting flight out to where the city near the clinic I would be working at was located. I wished I could go outside the airport and sightsee but I didn’t think I would be able to make it back in time and get through security.

So I went through immediately and and then walked to my gate to wait for my flight and researched a few of the most interesting facts about Ethiopia:

Ethiopia has just over twice the population of Myanmar at 111 million, and is approximately 1.6 times as big, around twice as big as Texas.

Ethiopia still uses the Julian calendar which has thirteen months per year, and celebrates their New Year in September. Because of this, the Ethiopian calendar is 7 or 8 years behind the international calendar. Yes, when you visit Ethiopia you are actually traveling back in time!

Originally founded in 980 BC, Ethiopia is the oldest independent nation on the continent.

Christianity was declared an official religion in Ethiopia during 333 AD, making Ethiopia one of the first countries to do so. They were not introduced to the religion by Europeans.

Of all 54 countries in Africa, Ethiopia is the sole nation to never have been colonized.

The airport was fairly quiet since all arriving planes unloaded way out on the tarmac. As it started getting close to my boarding time, the sun went away and a large rainstorm rolled in. It rained so hard that my flight was delayed for over an hour.

Finally we boarded a relatively small turboprop and took off. Through about half of the one hour flight I could look down and see mostly flat land below and the other half we flew through big, fluffy white clouds. As we started to descend we flew over two large dirty brown lakes that I found out later were called Abaya, which is over 100 kilometers long, and Chamo.

After landing and picking up my luggage I walked out front where I was picked up by Silas, the driver Dr. Tosimo had sent for me. Counting vans, busses, three-wheeler taxis, private cars and trucks, and the plane we had arrived in, there were less than 20 vehicles altogether in the whole airport so it was very easy to find him. In fact I had been advised by Dr. Tosimo that all I had to do at the airport was “act lost” and I would be approached by my ride! The Dr. lives in south-central Ethiopia 2 1/2 hours from the closest town with an airport so I got to see lots of the countryside as we traveled. One of my very first sights, not 10 minutes from the airport, was seeing a three-wheeler taxi taking a corner way too fast and then swerve to avoid a pedestrian which caused him to flip onto his side and go screeching off the road into the ditch!

There were very few cars on the road, often we were the only vehicle in sight which was a big change from Asia but I was amazed by all the people who were just hanging out on the road talking or milling about as we drove up, often we’d have to thread our way through the middle of a small crowd or honk in order to get by. Just when I’d decided that nothing was going on at these roadside gatherings we came upon another group that were at a partial bridge washout so we had to carefully pick our way across debris and a very narrow, barely drivable path to get through.

Donkeys were thick on the road, either hauling cans of water or pulling carts, and flocks of goats kept playing chicken with us as well.

At one mostly deserted stretch of road Silas suddenly said “crazy baby” and pointed to a naked baby toddling down the middle of the road towards us. As we were contemplating this strange sight a little girl suddenly appeared out of a small opening in the roadside hedge and came running down the road after the escapee!

Soon we started to rapidly gain altitude as we entered the temperate, forest covered mountains where the Drs. town is located. Arriving in the town the weather was cold, foggy, and rainy, as it would be nearly the whole time I was there. At 6,800 feet we weren’t even as high as Addis Ababa, but being in the mountains as opposed to the high plain the weather was much colder.

Not too cold for mosquitoes however. I had to sleep under a mosquito net and take hydroxychloroquine for malaria prophylaxis the whole time I was there, something I never did in Myanmar, plus for 6 weeks after I got back to the States.

We drove up the cobbled street to the small christian hospital in town which is where I rendezvoused with Dr. Tosimo. Even though she is 77 years old, she came to meet me by herself driving her unwieldy manual Land Cruiser with two spare tires on the roof rack. This is the vehicle that we would pack full of clinic supplies and drive out to the rural village where the clinic is held.

After transferring my stuff over to the Land Cruiser and saying thank you to Silas we headed off to the home of the family I would be staying at. I would be renting a manure and stick hut from the night watchman of Dr. Tosimo, and it was in the same compound as his own hut.

Because the dirt track was too steep and slippery to drive on, even in 4-low, I hired a boy who was just happening by where we were parked pushing a clunky homemade wooden wheelbarrow (right down to the wooden wheel) to help transport my stuff down the hill to my new living quarters.

“Hello” I said as I creaked open the rusty tin gate and entered the compound of my new host.

Of course the whole family came bursting out to meet me, and I couldn’t possibly begin sorting out who was who that evening. At first it seemed like there was a least a couple dozen family members, But later I learn that there was actually 11.

After meeting the night watchman, Alamayhu, and greeting him in the traditional manner of a thumb handshake and two or three shoulder bumps, he took me to a little one-room hut and showed me the intricacies of the door lock and finicky electrical situation.

After my luggage was safely stowed and locked inside my hut the two of us hiked back up to the Land Cruiser and we drove to the Drs. house where I had been invited for supper.

Afterward a mild spat ensued between Tosimo and her husband, Dr. Gary, as to whether there was time for tea or if I had to start back immediately (the night watchman was staying for the night) in order to arrive home before dark, when the giant mountain hyenas, locally known as donkey hyenas, would be on the prowl. There are no lions in the region due to the elevation, but the local hyenas are much larger and bolder than their savannah cousins and are known to kill and eat people on occasion (at least that’s what everyone told me). I ended up leaving soon thereafter armed with a flashlight and had no difficulties finding my way back to my hut.

The next morning I had a closer look at at the construction of my new home. The floor was made of concrete, the walls were framed in small-diameter vertical sticks in the style of a jail cell with a mixture of manure, straw, and muck then chinked in between and liberally spread on both the inside and outside of the sticks for additional strength and insulation. A rusty tin roof capped off the dwelling.

My first order of business was to buy a mop, bucket, and other cleaning supplies and drinking water from town, plus find a shop to buy a SIM card so I could communicate with the doctor. Crossing the compound yard, I walked through the sheet metal gate woven with thorn branches at the top and bottom which opened directly onto the very steep grass and mud “road” outside the front of the compound.

I was immediately inundated by a flock of bright-eyed, laughing, yelling children who probably would have mobbed me when I first arrived yesterday evening if it hadn’t been raining so hard.

I decided that I needed to take Dr. Tosimo’s advice and hire a boy who could serve as my translator and general factotum to help minimize opportunities for the shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and policemen to overcharge or extort me.

I smiled and tried talking to them to see who could converse in english, only to be disappointed when not even simplest words could be understood. I played with them for a while and then went back inside to start sweeping as best as I could with a short, coarse little stick broom I had seen while I waited for Alamayhu to get back home.

To the left of my front door as I was looking out was the courtyard, with my host’s hut beyond, straight in front of me was a small orchard of avocado, mango, and papaya trees moving off to the right with the garden beyond, and to my far right was a living hedge of acacia bushes, behind which was a garden and another manure and stick hut.

Straight out past the far edge of the garden where a red abyssinian banana grove started, I saw a little girl sitting on a stump and studying a book held carefully in her lap. She appeared to be around 10-12 years old. She was barefoot and was wearing a faded knee-length navy skirt and a red long sleeve shirt with a severely stretched out neck opening and a hole under one arm. A discolored pink scarf was wrapped around a head of woolly black hair done up in dozens of short, skinny braids. Just then she looked up and saw me so I smiled at her and waved hello before continuing with my sweeping, not giving her a second thought.

A few minutes later as I was sliding my suitcase up against the wall I glanced at the open door and saw the girl standing on the step watching me. I smiled again and she raised her hand and gave me a shy “hi” along with a little smile showing her white teeth. I motioned her to come inside and she immediately came over and helped me finish pushing my suitcase to its intended destination. I told her my name and asked hers which she said was “Hallelujah”, and the she was 10 years old. I asked if she lived here and she said that she was one of Alamayhu’s children.

After thanking her for the help she said “you’re welcome” and then she asked if I wouldn’t like to see her book? I said “ok” and she walked back outside where she had set it down.

We sat down on the steps together and she leaned against my side resting her left arm on my knee as she opened the book to show me it was a 5th grade english primer. We discussed some of the pictures and she read a few pages to me. When I complemented her on her English she said that she really enjoyed school in the village, and also went to Dr. Tosimo’s English classes sometimes.

After awhile I told her that I had to go find someone to help me in town and she immediately asked if she could go with me and help. This was a new thought for me because I had only been thinking about finding a boy to help me, but I dubiously agreed. This was to prove to be the best decision I made while in Ethiopia. Hallelujah ran back home but soon returned, having put her braids back in a ponytail, stuck a tiny plastic gold jewel onto her forehead, and put on a pair of little faded pink dress shoes with a large hole in each toe. We walked to a busier road and hailed a bajaj. On the way Hallelujah rested one hand on my leg and the other hand on my shoulder leaning her head against me. Arriving in town we started walking down the busy shop-lined streets finding what I needed when she slipped her hand into mine and chattered away in pidgin english as we walked.

After purchasing what I needed we went to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving injera and wat where she ate with a vengeance; I wondered if she was often hungry at home. The hand-holding and physical closeness continued on the way back home and I realized that Hallelujah had somehow attached herself to me emotionally in the few short hours I’d been there, though I had no idea to what extent until the end of the day after she had worked very hard for me fetching water, scrubbing my floor, helping me unpack, and accompanying me on a couple more trips to visit the Dr. to get my first set of orders, and to see where the my running water (a stream) was located for bathing and washing clothes.

At this point, as it was growing dark, I asked her how much money I owed her for all her hard work, because if they’re not begging, all the children and especially the adults who help you with anything here, no matter how simple, expect to be paid. Hallelujah stepped back and put her hands up saying “Oh no, no, I don’t want you to pay me anything”. I reminded her of everything she had done to help me and again insisted that I pay her, but she just shook her little braids at me and smiled saying “You’re my brother”.

I was shocked and tried to think of what I could do to show my gratitude. I told her that instead I would buy her a new pair of shoes tomorrow. At first she laughed and refused politely but when she saw I was serious she suddenly teared up and ran into me giving me a great big hug. After pulling her close for a minute and letting her wipe her eyes on my shirt I told her goodnight and off she went back home.

The next morning (and every other morning thereafter) Halle was back at my hut with a steaming hot, cracked mug of tea made in the local style (apparently equal parts water and sugar with a little tea thrown in for color). I suspected that this tea was her own portion but she always denied this allegation and insisted I drink all of it. Afterwards she would help me cook breakfast or else we would go eat at one of the local teashops, and then she would just hang around for the rest of the day, going wherever I needed to go and helping me do whatever I needed to do.

The very first assignment the Dr. delegated to me, starting the day after I arrived, was to daily clean the wound and change the dressings of a man who had been shot through the lower back and abdomen while he was having tea at one of the many little teashops in the nearby village.

This was an assassination attempt that happened only a week or two before Dr. Tosimo and I had arrived, and the patient had just been released from the hospital and still needed vigilant care to hopefully prevent or at least watch out for any signs of infection.

This man, Elias, is actually Alamayhu’s brother-in-law! The back story is that Alamayhu had recently been a key witness in a case resulting in the conviction of quite a few local gang members, and a price had been put on his head.

Four men- a policeman, a hospital security guard, and two of Alamayhu’s neighbors, who were all said to have been profiting from the gang’s activities, decided to collect the bounty, but word got out and Alamayhu hid at the Dr. Tosimo’s house for several days. Growing angry and impatient, the men were passing through the village when they recognized Elias, who had had nothing to do with the trial, and decided to kill him instead.

Without any confrontation or warning, the policeman shot him in the back with his AK, and then the other three attacked him and started beating him with sticks and a length of chain, with one of the neighbors screaming to the policeman “Shoot him again!” but almost instantly a large crowd had gathered, and becoming scared for their own lives, the perpetrators quickly fled.

They were all arrested shortly thereafter and held in jail for only a week before being released on bail until the trial.

At first, I could look right through Elias’s wound into his abdomen, and could have fit a finger through the jagged exit hole, but fortunately, he never got an infection and the holes soon closed, healing completely in a little over a month!

If I had had a job title it would have been the Dr’s. intern and factotum. Every morning I hiked for almost a kilometer across a meadow, through a beautiful gorge and stream crossing, and up through a eucalyptus forest to the Dr’s. house to see if there’s anything she wanted me to help her with. Sometimes I would wash the Land Cruiser, help her cook, fill the large ceramic Katadyn gravity water filter or anything else that the house boy doesn’t do, and then we would go through all of the clinic boxes and make sure everything was restocked and ready for the next clinic, all the while she would be teaching me things she has learned from her decades of adventures. Sometimes I would run errands in town for her if Dr. Gary was busy. Everyone on the street would constantly gawk at me because seeing a white person is a very uncommon sight here. I didn’t feel any malevolence in this region, more of an opportunistic sizing-up, but I made sure I always took Halle or another local with me.

On clinic days I would help load up all the boxes of supplies and then we would all pile in behind everything. On a regular day the clinic crew was comprised of three translators, a general assistant, a dermatology student (thank goodness), the doctor, and myself on board.

Clinic is held under the mango and avocado trees in the front yard of a pastor in a village 1 1/2 to 3 hours away by Land Cruiser, depending on the road conditions, and is down out of the mountains in a much hotter, sunnier, semi jungly region. Once we left the pavement and the risk of being stopped at a checkpoint decreases, I drove because the road quickly degenerates into a muddy morass which I have the most experience with (aside from the Dr., who isn’t able to drive and see patients on the same day). Along the way the kids all run out to the edge of the road and shout “Dr! Dr!” or they just wave and yell hoping we’ll acknowledge them. It makes you feel happy thinking you made their day if you smile or wave, but then you realize just how little traffic comes through this area and that they probably respond the same way to every big vehicle that passes by.

After arriving at the pastors house I would park in the shade of the four large avocado and mango trees and start triaging everyone who’s waiting to be seen, which involves measuring whether their arm is skinny enough to qualify them for an examination by the Dr., their name, age, weight, village, and chief complaint. On the very first day there weren’t very many patients at first, but people had seen us drive through and coupled with the amazing way news travels down the jungle grapevine patients quickly began arriving, and we saw a respectable number that day after all. From then on, we always had a large crowd vying with each other for the prized treatment cards we hand out to people accepted as patients.

Patients are only allowed to seek treatment for 1 malady per week, in order to help cut down on the common practice of faking a whole litany of subjective ailments and reselling the medicine they receive.

According to Dr. Tosimo, 80-90% of the medicine in sub Saharan Africa is either fake or vastly inferior to medicine everywhere else, so the black market value of genuine, demonstrably effective medicine like we have, even multivitamins, is high. Another huge problem is that even though the government gives hospitals and government clinics plenty of needles and syringes, these places often sell them on the black market and reuse their old ones, so even if the medicine is good, after a couple weeks the patient’s liver and belly swells up from iatrogenic acute hepatitis and they often die, or they develop AIDS later, making people distrustful of the medicine from the hospital.

After all the patients are triaged and marked with a sharpie to prevent them from being paid to stand in line and receive a treatment card for a fatter person, I move over to the tree where the Dr. examines and diagnoses the patients, helping with any additional tests or procedures the patient needs. Dr. Mary is an amazing teacher AND loves teaching so she’s fascinating to listen to and watch how she treats the patients.

Lunch break is taken inside the pastors house away from the dozens of hungry eyes, where we share lentil filled asambusas we purchased from a roadside vendor on the morning drive with him and his family, and he shares homegrown coffee and hominy with us.

In the afternoon the makeshift pharmacy opens in the back of the Land Cruiser and all the patients line up (bunch up) with their treatment card to get whatever medicine or other treatment they have been prescribed and then we return back home in the evening. Usually there’s at least a couple patients who are serious enough to require further evaluation or treatment at the hospital so we take them back with us after drinking our farewell coffee in the pastors house.

Once at the hospital these simple country patients then have to be helped through the convoluted and time consuming process of registration and treatment so taking care of them usually keeps me busy for the next day or two.

Followup is easy because these patients love coming to “their” doctor, most would come to the clinic every week if we let them, so we have to keep their card after they get medicine unless we want to see them again.

Something else I enjoyed doing at the hospital was going on morning rounds with the doctors and residents, and shadowing them as they treated patients during the day, helping where I could. Surprisingly, this tiny hospital in this out-of-the-way town is one of only 10 surgical training centers in Africa, and patients travel from all over Africa and the Middle East to be treated here, so I was able to observe and even assist with dozens of surgeries and ask questions to my hearts content because all the doctors there appeared to love teaching.

*****

Dr. Tosimo had warned me before coming here that I would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Ethiopia, and I must be cautious. All the local people, excepting a very small handful, are compulsive thieves, and everything not nailed down or locked up would disappear, and I’d even have to hire a boy to guard my laundry while it dried, or it would be stolen right off the line.

I was very fortunate I got to stay with the family I did though, because they really took me in as a member of their family and always watched out for me when they were around. At first they would always take my soap and bucket of water inside for me at night or whenever I was gone, but that got annoying real fast so I explained that the soap and water was a gift for anyone who needed it, so after that it was always there to use, though in frequent need of replenishment.

One night I forgot to lock my door before I went to bed, and after a peaceful night I was suddenly jolted wide awake by a deafening sound. It was a violent clattering which I initially thought sounded like someone was rattling my door handle, and I immediately remembered that I hadn’t locked it. But then I realized that a large bird had landed on the tin roof directly over my head and was pacing around, more than likely one of the local black and white Thick-billed Ravens. After that I never had any trouble remembering to lock my door before going to sleep!

Even a few years ago there was no public transport here to speak of, and a person either had to own a vehicle or try to hitch a ride with someone who did or on the back of a farmers donkey cart. Now however, there are public busses for inter-city travel and gluts of little blue three wheeled taxis called a bajaj (pronounced the way a kazoo sounds) for in town. These tricycle taxis imported from India are very similar to the tuk-tuks of Thailand and were my primary mode of transportation anywhere in or near town when I wasn’t going somewhere with the doctor.

Bajaj’s are funny for two reasons: The 1st is how underpowered they are. Going up any kind of incline they lose all their momentum and eventually slow down to a comfortable walking pace, so the drivers always go as fast as possible on the downhill parts of the road to get a running start.

The 2nd is how full they are filled. The philosophy here is the same as in Asia- any free airspace is fair game, there doesn’t have to be a seat below. What was probably designed to hold 5 passengers and the driver comfortably sometimes holds twice that much, with people squatting in the aisle halfway on other passengers’ knees and hunching over the gearshift, plus maybe a few babies and someone on the outside hanging off the handle you’re supposed to use to help pull yourself inside. If you’re afraid of fleas or lice or Ebola or anything else this ride is not for you!

Living in Africa means you have zero privacy; at any time someone may stop by to smile at you and try to use any English words they know, or the whole family may decide to come drink tea on my steps or just sit on my floor and talk to each other and smile at me. If I thought about it like camping though it was pretty fancy, so that’s what I did!

10 days after I got here I came down with an unknown sickness. Symptoms were fever/chills, severe stomach pain, muscle pain, inability to take a full breath because of chest tightness, hallucinations, and red eyes. I knew it wasn’t malaria because I hadn’t been in Africa long enough for the plasmodium protozoa to complete their life cycle if I had been infected. Of course, I had just traveled from another malarious hotbed but it seemed astronomically improbable that I would acquire malaria three days before leaving Asia after being there for three years without trouble.

The one disease I absolutely didn’t want it to be was Yellow Fever, not because it’s the worst one, even though it’s right up there, but because that was one of the vaccinations Dr. Tosimo specifically told me to get before I came, which I hadn’t done. I had tried to get it, but the hospital I went to in Thailand was out of stock, and there hadn’t been time to try another one before I left. I ended up treating myself homeopathically at home, and along with some solicitous care from Alamayhu’s family began recovering after just a few days.

On Saturday evening, June 22, there was an attempted coup by the Amharas, the second largest of the 86 tribes in Ethiopia, to take back the power they held for hundreds of years up until communism took over in 1974. The attorney general, a state president and his advisor, and 2 top generals were assassinated, but fortunately the prime minister survived. The current prime minister, Abiy Ahmad, has only been serving for a year and two months (April ‘18), and is generally supported by all but this one tribe, but he has survived 4 assassination attempts so far.

Whenever there is civil unrest all the government offices and banks shut down and the internet is turned off throughout the entire country in an attempt to prevent the offending parties from coordinating with each other, but this is also highly inconvenient for students trying to write research papers and study for finals, people wanting to communicate internationally, and everyone else as well! But this is how the situation was for much of my time in Ethiopia.

On the 23rd Hallelujah and Kidist and I went hiking and climbed to the top of mount Demota, which is the mountain Dr. Tosimo lives on the flanks of. It doesn’t look very imposing from the village because even though it’s 9,547 feet high, there’s several smaller hills to go over and around to get to the top and the summit doesn’t stand out by itself, but it takes about 3 hours of steady hiking, longer when it’s raining, which it was. Higher up the mountain it turns into a subalpine zone with stunted juniper trees, elderberry trees, mountain ash, tons of flowers, and wild peppermint and thyme and other herbs. It was hard to remember I wasn’t in Montana until we got to the very top of the mountain and there were little farms with banana trees and bamboo growing around them! On of the farmers invited us inside his hut out of the rain and let us dry off by his fire and gave us coffee and shoombra (dry roasted garbanzo beans).

The mountain is named after a diabolical demon who used to terrorize the locals, and in the old witch doctor days (not so long ago) human sacrifices were regularly offered on the summit. But now, even though it is so far from town, a quaint church stands on the spot where the alter once stood and is filled every Sunday.

On the way back down the rain stopped and we had amazing views of the mountains and town below and even lake Abaya off in the distance!

While the lineup of wild animals in the region doesn’t include a lot of the African classics because of the cold and altitude, there’s still a very impressive variety. The apex predator would either be leopards or crocodiles, both of which can be found at this altitude, but the mountain hyena is the animal that everyone is afraid of and always warning me about, they live everywhere in the mountains and are always skulking around looking for an easy meal. Because Ethiopians don’t eat donkeys, when they get too old to work they’re just left out at night and the hyenas eat them. At night I could often hear them laughing in the distance in their psychotic, intoxicated-giggling way.

Other animals include pythons, cobras, vipers, and lots of other snakes, wild pigs, giant African porcupines whose quills I often found laying around, hornbills, the critically endangered Ethiopian wolf, which I eagerly watched for without success, and a cornucopia of small, brightly colored birds that were much more commonly seen than the ones in Asia.

One of delicacies that I enjoyed were the wild blackcaps that grow scattered throughout the steep hillside forests and along the winding mountain trails. Halle and I would sometimes go berry picking when I had the time, which wasn’t often, or I would buy them from the village children. Though a little more seedy than a red raspberry, the flavor is unbeatable and well worth the trouble it takes to collect them. The canes are sometimes close to 8 feet high and can be loaded with fruit but only a few berries ripen at a time so it’s a real challenge to harvest any usable quantity.

Another time I was hiking up in the mountains behind the village with Halle and Tezfanish and got caught in a surprise rainstorm. About a quarter of the way up it started to rain and became cold and miserable. I asked if we should go back home but they wanted us to make it to the top and said no, so we pressed on. After about an hour of drenching rain and bone chilling wind the rain finally let up, though it was still cloudy and blustery. We had all put our ponchos on when the rain started but between the wind deftly flipping them up and blowing mighty sheets of water underneath, and the runoff turning the rocky trail into a big creek we were all soaked to the bone and shivering, with teeth chattering like we were at the North Pole. Then just like that, the clouds parted and the whole mountain began steaming as the friendly sun beamed down and started warming our icy fingers.

Whenever she hadn’t anything better to do, Hallelujah would rummage through my belongings (only after asking for permission). Her prized finds were personal hygiene items such as toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, sunscreen, and my essential oils. As this was nearly my last stop before visiting the States again she inherited most of these things when I left.

One of the local customs is to have bread dipped in tea before the meal (if you’re very poor this might even serve as the whole meal), and whenever she prepared this aperitif something Halle always insisted on doing was feeding me huge bites of tea-soaked bread with her hand. She would do this when we were eating the main meal as well, and on special occasions when I was a guest in Alamayhu’s house or eating somewhere with the doctor, I barely fed myself at all, the preparers of the food or the host would always feed me in this way. I would have thought this act shockingly strange except for the fact that in the inflight cultural propaganda video I watched on my Ethiopian Airlines flight here showcasing the diverse local Ethiopian cultures there was a woman feeding a dignitary some injera and wat this same way. So I at least knew what was happening, that this was a sign of respect, though that didn’t make me feel any less like a baby bird having a beak full of worms poked down his throat!

This custom is called gursha, which is an Amharic word that means “mouthful,” and is a way to show honor to someone. As might be expected, “the practice is a bit of a culture shock for Westerners accustomed to eating from separate plates with sterile forks and spoons,” writes Samuel Mahaffy, author of Eritrean Cooking, “The ceremony defies every social norm in the West around personal space, eating with one’s hands, and much more, placing food in the mouth of another – touching both the food and the one being served.”

On July six I took a bajaj to the hospital where I’d been invited to a late celebration of the 4th of July with some of the interns and doctors and their families. I brought shortcake I’d made in doctor Tosimo’s kitchen and blackcap berry sauce cooked on my charcoal stove from berries that had taken Halle and I a solid 5 hours to forage, but the results were well worth it.

There were fireworks, country music, and a surfeit of genuine American food the likes of which I hadn’t had since last 4th of July; I was in heaven!

In mid-July, Dr. Tosimo’s assistant who usually drove on the paved section of road went to a wedding in Portugal, so I was temporarily promoted to full time driver, checkpoints notwithstanding. While she was there, she stepped backwards off a step and broke her wrist, which was cast wrong and had to be re-broke and re-set once she got back to Ethiopia, so I ended up driving for the entire rest of my time here.

This is an enormous responsibility (not that it isn’t elsewhere) because there’s so many obstacles on the road all the time. If you hit any kind of animal besides a dog you have to pay for it, even though it might have been sleeping in the middle of the road or just sprinted out in front of you. If you hit a person it’s an automatic 2 year prison sentence, whether or not you kill them. In some parts of Ethiopia, if you hit someone, you’re fleeing to prison for protection because the people will chase you down and try to kill you and up to 10 of your passengers to be revenged.

When one of our old translators had to quit, Hallelujah started coming with us on clinic days to take her place. Dr. Tosimo didn’t think that she would have enough comprehension to be useful, but she had a good base to begin with, and had practically been immersed in english since I arrived, and Dr. Tosimo could tell she had improved dramatically in just a few weeks. None of our translators know medical terminology or difficult words, but when the patients talk with us they don’t use terms like that anyway, so all we need is a translator to convert the literal words describing the problem straight across into simple english.

On one of our hospital days we were just really slammed with patients, some we’d transported ourselves, some we’d referred to see us that day, and a couple were special consultations requested by other doctors. By the time I’d wrapped up everything Dr. Mary needed me to do, all the non-emergency areas of the hospital were closed and it was nearly sunset. So, all sweaty and crawling in phantasmic lice, I headed home to get cleaned up like always.

The bathing area is a quarter of a mile or so up the stream in the gorge below my hut, following a trail in the opposite direction of the one that goes to the doctors house. It was probably sunset when I started out but I passed one or two women still washing clothes and another person scrubbing his boots. By the time my quick, freezing ablutions were completed to my satisfaction twilight was giving way to full night and the last of the other people had vanished.

Anyway, just as I’d finished walking along the creek bottom and was shivering my way up the trail out of the gorge I saw something standing in profile on the trail ahead of me. At first I thought it was a dog, which is not bad in and of itself but could be worrisome since so many are infected with rabies and are much more aggressive at night, but then I realized that at the distance it was from me it seemed to be too large for a dog. It had a large, shaggy head and a back that slouched down towards its hind legs. Then it turned to face me and giggled dementedly and I realized it that it was a hyena. It wasn't hunting me, I just happened to be out and about at the same time it was.

Because I always have to lock my door when I go anywhere I always have my keys with me, which includes a micro Spiderco knife that usually gets through airport security without problems and a super bright little flashlight that I’d been given the first week I moved to Asia, which had always served me faithfully and gotten me out of several jams in the past.

I grabbed my keys out of my water dipper and turned the flashlight on hoping hyenas are afraid of light. It flashed on brightly for about 5 seconds and then suddenly blinked out, leaving me alone in the impending darkness (alas, not All alone). Hyenas are cowardly and don’t attack a difficult target (I told myself) so I broke off a big leafy branch from a bush beside the trail, wondering how many more hyena eyes could be watching me from the other side, and held it up over my head while I started walking towards him. The hyena watched me advance for about 10 feet then he turned and ataxicly trotted off the trail in the direction of the creek, cackling hideously once more after he disappeared and from much farther away. Thankfully I didn’t knowingly come any closer than this to a dangerous animal while I was in Africa.

On Friday August 2nd, while Dr. Gary was at work and while Dr. Tosimo and I were seeing patients at the hospital, somebody broke into their house and stole Dr. Gary’s laptop which was full of very sensitive, important documents. When they found out what had happened the police were called and a crowd gathered outside the house. Some of the kids in Dr. Tosimo’s English class said they had overheard Meret, one of the Dr.’s maids she had recently fired for stealing, bragging that she liked this computer and wanted to steal it, and a 5 year old girl said she had seen two people with black-painted faces at the house. They had seen her too and told her that they would kill her if she said anything to anyone, and she didn’t know their names anyway. But, she replicated the distinctive shuffling walk of one of the painted robbers and the gathered villagers immediately recognized it as the gait of the fired maid’s cousin, so the police arrested them both, and after a long and fruitless interrogation, the police started threatening to send both her and her cousin to Kilinto prison just outside Addis Ababa for 5 years if the computer wasn’t recovered expeditiously. This had the desired effect, and Meret finally cracked and the police got her to confess, after which the computer was retrieved from its hiding place and returned late that night, much to our delight.

On August 7th Dr. Tosimo didn’t have anything she needed my help with and I wasn’t scheduled to volunteer in the OR at the hospital so I decided to go hiking in the mountains and summit mount Demota again. I checked with several friends who would normally want to go with me but they were all either working or busy doing something else, so I foolishly decided that I would just go on my own.

After leaving the compound I walked up several primitive dirt roads until I was out of the village, followed a short trail that led to the main paved road and crossed it, then started across two or three kilometers of rolling, gently ascending country covered with forest and crops and dotted with mud and stick hut farms.

I passed many small children playing and gawking and people out working. Farmers were out in their fields, small children minding the family flock of goats, poor girls hauling water in buckets tied to a bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders, rich girls hauling water by driving a donkey laden with 4 jerry cans at a time, and women washing clothes in the creek.

At one point the trail ran in front of a hut with three guys standing outside the door, they smiled at me and waved as I passed and I didn’t think any more of it. After half a kilometer or so however, I looked back and could see one of those three men coming up the trail after me. I wouldn’t have been intrigued at all by this discovery except that I was walking very quickly, which meant that he must be running when he was out of sight around the corners of the trail in order to gain ground on me.

As I am a diehard procrastinator, I didn’t want to meet him any sooner than I had to, therefore I continued on according to my original design. But after 10 minutes he was close enough behind me that I decided to stop on the edge of the trail in the off chance he simply had urgent business on up the mountain as I did.

Unfortunately, he stopped as well and looked at me with a big, sinister smile on his face as he walked over the small intervening space between us and stuck out his hand. I reached out and shook it, wondering what exactly was going on, but I was quickly enlightened. He was still smiling at me in the most unnatural way possible, and I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for this situation, so I tried to disengage my hand from his while trying a friendly greeting. Then I felt something moving around inside my left front pocket. I looked down in alarm just in time to see that he had reached out with his other hand and expertly yoinked my phone right out of my pocket! I was so shocked I could only think of one thing to do, so I hit him on the chin with my non-dominant hand as hard as I could! He dropped my phone to the mud of the trail and we started fighting, still shaking hands like the handicap in a renaissance festival competition, but soon I was able to retrieve my hostage hand and we started fighting conventionally. He also appeared to be taking a great deal of interest in my little backpack, which only had water and first aid supplies in it, and made a couple grabs for it, but thankfully the straps held. It didn’t seem like any time at all passed before he broke free and retreated back down the path the way we had come.

I certainly didn’t want to accompany him back, neither did I fancy just standing there waiting for something to happen, so I decided to continue going on my way and hope for the best much like an Egyptian Plover boldly venturing between a crocodilian’s gaping jaws in search of a choice stringy bit of juicy gristle caught between his teeth.

For probably 20 or 30 minutes everything went smoothly, and soon the preceding situation began to seem so bizarre that I thought that just maybe I had misinterpreted or even imagined the whole predicament. Soon enough, far behind me I could just make out the same fellow who had so kindly bethought himself to help me carry my accoutrements following me again, along with a second man from the original three. They were lurking slowly forward around each corner just as I would disappear around the next corner in front of me.

Before too long my trail led past a field where a young boy was attempting to manhandle a handcrafted wooden plow behind an ox, while his father looked on from the edge of the clearing and happily shouted out advice. In fact, there were several family members enjoying the spectacle and they seemed only too pleased to have me join them on the greensward between the field and the forest. I stayed here for 15 or 20 minutes, the subject of smiles and soft chatter while the boy wrestled to control both the stubborn ox and the unwieldy plow, until tiring of his lesson he relinquished the difficult job back to his father and came over to grin at me and flop down onto the grass and catch his breath.

This whole time I’d been keeping one eye on the trail behind me and hadn’t seen any sign of my would-be highwaymen, so I’d hoped that they had seen me stopping to visit with the farm family and decided to take me on the way back, because I was planning to descend on a different trail than the one I was currently on.

Feeling vaguely confident that I had outsmarted my pursuers I said goodbye to the farmer and his family and continued on up the mountain. This is where my route started getting really steep, as the trail left the mixed tree forest interspersed with meadows and farms behind and started cutting up through a darker forest exclusively composed of tall, closely spaced conifers with long, gracefully upturned boughs.

In this forest I came upon a woman gathering mushrooms with her two children, who were delightfully engaged in grabbing hold of the lowest branch on the downhill side of a tree and keeping hold of it while walking away from the tree, pulling the branch down as they went until nearly at the end when the branch would start pulling them off their feet, allowing them to bounce crazy high off the ground with each jump and swing around like two little Tarzans.

After traveling one or two kilometers from the farm I looked back at the bend in the trail as I’d been doing every little bit and once again saw the two men stalking me, and this time they started getting closer no matter how fast I hiked. Eventually, after another couple kilometers of hiking over the more open, grassy country near the summit they had finally got to within 30 feet of me, which is too close for comfort, and I suspected that they were going to make a grab for me any second.

Now I’m not saying that I was afraid to have a go with both of them, but like I said before, why risk getting stabbed now when there’s a chance to put it off until later?

Right at this spot, slightly off the trail on the downhill side, I suddenly noticed a herd of goats who had been grazing under the watchful eyes of 4 angels in the form of small children. These goatherds had now caught sight of me approaching and were now only watching me with open curiosity. Quickly veering off the trail, I smiled at them and walked down the hill to where they were standing, calling out a Wolaitic greeting. Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out some balloons to share and “chatted” with them while pretending to ignore the men up on the trail, who whisperingly conferred together for a moment and then meandered off on up the trail.

I strongly suspected that the two men had plans to ambush me if I continued up the mountain, and would doubtless overtake me and perform a pincer maneuver with the help of the third stooge if I turned around. I had fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, which says: “never travel through a hostile country without a local companion”, and that was what I needed to remedy in order to get myself out of this pickle.

A little ways further down the mountain in the middle of an enormous cleared field that appeared to be planted in teff I saw the thatch of a rooftop peeping out from under a cluster of trees (no tin up here), so I went down to the hut to see if anyone was home who might be willing to accompany me on the rest of my journey.

Calling out at the front door brought a man around from the back where he had been working in his garden. I greeted him and then realized that I had no idea how to explain my request to him. Fortunately there was cell service right there, but unfortunately even though my SIM card was working fine, before I could get in contact with someone who could translate for me my data packet ran out and the call rudely ended. Embarrassed, I mimed to the farmer that my phone was similar to a nearby pile of fresh goat droppings, and asked if he had a phone, and if I could use it. Incredibly, the answer to both questions was yes, so I used his antique flip phone to finally get a hold of one of my friends from the hospital named Tommy, and asked him to translate for me. I explained what was going on, showed a picture I had taken of the robbers following me, so he could see how the they were dressed, described what they had been doing, and then said I wanted to pay the farmer just to walk along with me, but if we ran into any of the men and things got sporty I would pay him more. Tommy translated everything for me and told me that he was going to call the police just in case we found the robbers.

The farmer readily agreed to this proposal, though he appeared a little bit confused. He seemed to understand what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t quite figure out why I was there to begin with, wandering around in the mountains for no reason at all. I wasn’t selling anything, I wasn’t farming, and I wasn’t traveling anywhere (the top of the mountain didn’t register as a destination with him). After hanging up the phone he motioned for me to wait a moment while he went to get something. He walked around to the back of the hut and almost immediately came back holding a long, thin, machete, at the sight of which I conveyed my deepest admiration and approval of his good judgment.

One of the farmers young boys had come out of the hut and was very friendly and seemed to be interested in what was going on, so I asked him if he would carry my backpack for me, just in case I needed to fight again I wouldn’t be encumbered by it, and he thought that was a great idea.

Then we were off, me hiking up the trail and back into the trees with a perfect stranger, not knowing where his loyalties would lie if I needed his help. Would he remember that he had agreed to help me, or would he decide that this unexpected windfall might be even more profitable if he helped rob me and divided any money or things that he found with the others? For all I knew Mr. Machete might even be related to one or all three attackers, and would change sides to help them out of family loyalty. Unfortunately I couldn’t communicate with my new companion, so I had no sense of what he might be contemplating as we swung along the trail single file. We hadn’t gone around more than three or four corners when I suddenly found myself face to face with the two varlets, who had obviously been loitering around on the trail waiting to ambush me.

For a brief moment a look of triumph flashed across their faces as they saw their plan succeeding, but then they noticed that I seemed to have inexplicably conjured up some backup, creatio ex nihilo, and they suddenly developed an overpowering urge to study the the flowers and scenery along the side of the trail. I had a bold facade as I walked up to them, but all the while was desperately wondering if Mr. Machete was actually on my side, which I still wasn’t entirely sure of. I grabbed a hold of the first guy and started working on restraining him, but the second guy started trying to hit me from behind, albeit ineffectively, and when we went down to the ground he began picking up softball sized volcanic rocks off the hillside and throwing them at me, hitting both of us. That galvanized Mr. Machete into action, and he stunned the man with a hit from the flat side of his machete and then overpowered him. I finally got my guy into a chokehold and soon he calmed down as well.

After we (I) caught our (my) breath, we started walking back down the trail towards the farm, my prisoner frog marching along in front of me, and Mr. Machete holding the point of his namesake between his prisoners shoulder blades with one hand and holding onto a bloody great handful of the back of his pants with the other hand, a most embarrassing and uncomfortable position to be sure, but they were both coming along as gently as little lambs, so something was working.

When we broke out of the trees back into the open farmland, it seemed like people began to appear out of thin air. I had thought this part of the mountain nearly deserted, but suddenly there were farmers and aunties, grandpas and children, mothers and babies crowding around us, all pointing and jabbering excitedly. I was severely handicapped because not only could I not talk to anybody, but everyone could talk to the prisoners, and they did. I couldn’t tell at first which way the mountain people’s sympathies lay, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. A man came over to me and took custody of my prisoner, and I sat down and waited. My best estimate is that there was 60-75 people gathered on the side of the mountain within 10 minutes. Soon I noticed that everyone was being friendly to me, and that whatever the two men were saying wasn’t being bought by the people. After a while Mr. Machete motioned me over and gave me his phone, again with Tommy on the other end. Tommy said that everything was going well, that the police had talked to the village chief and were on the way, and just to wait where I was.

During this distraction, robber number 2 sensed a brief window of opportunity, leaped to his feet from where he had been sat cross legged on the ground under Mr. Machete’s watchful blade, and almost before anyone could draw in a breath to yell a warning he had streaked through the crowd and was shooting straight down the mountain through the fields, taking enormous, moonwalking strides.

The farmer didn’t do anything at all except squint a little, but there was another explosion from out of the crowd, and a teenage boy who I would learn was one of Mr. Machete’s older sons hurled himself over the edge of the trail in brave pursuit.

Now this part of the mountain was really, really steep, and the cleared farmland went all the way down to a ravine with a stream in it 800 vertical feet below. So myself and everyone in the crowd had a birds eye view of one of the most impressive foot chases I’ve ever seen. The robber was fast, and was running from certain punishment, but the boy knew this field by heart, was probably a little more acclimatized to the elevation, and had all his friends and family judging him from behind. They were a close match, but slowly and surely the boy was closing the distance between himself and his quarry, and just before they hit the bottom of the ravine he got close enough to push the robber, sending him spinning and cartwheeling into a crumpled heap next to the water.

A couple men went partway down to help the boy with retrieval, but he handled the robber just fine and didn’t look like he needed any help. It took substantially longer for the two runners to come back up the mountain than it had taken them to go down, and when the prisoner was hauled back up to the crowd of incensed villagers they seemed almost angry enough to kill him on the spot, but the boy was cheered and given a victorious welcome!

We probably sat on the mountainside for another hour before the chief decided that we would start taking the two men down the trail to meet the police part way. So they were prodded up and secured, and off we went. I wasn’t in charge of either prisoner so I took my small backpack back from the little boy and walked along at the back of the procession with him and his older brother the downhill-cross-country racing-champion.

We hiked for several kilometers back down the mountain before, sure enough, we met Tommy and a single policeman coming up the trail toward us. I was very happy to see Tommy, but I was a little bit nervous because I wasn’t sure what the policeman was going to do. I didn’t have to worry long though. For some reason, probably because he was on his own, the policeman was carrying a large metal bar instead of the standard-issue nightstick, and the first thing he did was take that bar and thwack the first schmuck with all his might across the stomach, doubling him over. He then dropped him the rest of the way to the ground and pushed his face right into the mud of the trail and ground it in several times, despite the robbers attempts to avoid the improvised spa treatment. After that both schlemiels were hit with several more hard, energetic, interrogations before we walked the last kilometer or so out to the road I had crossed on my way to the mountain. Here were two more policemen waiting for us with a public transport bus they had pulled over and commandeered to take into town.

I paid and thanked Mr. Machete and his two boys for their quite unexpected and wholehearted help, and then we were off.

At the police station I gave a statement and showed my evidence before thanking and also “thanking” the policemen who had helped me and leaving.

In Ethiopia there is such blatant graft you openly have to pay the police to do their job. Everyone is so comfortable with it that when I was heading out of the police station one of the officers who had helped me came over and asked for a “gift” to give the third policeman, who had already gone back to work again! Who knows if he ever received it.

In order the properly “thank” the two remaining policemen, Tommy said that they wanted me to take them out for a meal, which sounded like a fair bribe to me. Of course the switchboard operator and the sergeant on duty also felt like they were essential to the success of the operation and invited themselves to join us, (I’m just lucky the whole station didn’t decide to close up shop and come along) and we went to a restaurant specializing in probably the second most famous Ethiopian cuisine, tere siga (www.atlasobscura.com/foods/tere-siga), which is nothing more than a platter of fresh raw meat chunks and spicy dipping sauce. The experience was very interesting to be sure, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try it.

Later on when I was preparing to leave Ethiopia, Dr. Tosimo was fixing me up with all the medicines I would need to treat myself for any diseases or parasites that I might have acquired while I was there, and she specifically mentioned that if I had eaten any tere siga there was two additional drugs I would have to buy to treat the burrowing worms I probably had when I got home, because she wouldn’t treat stupidity!

On the 10th I rented a motorcycle and a couple of us headed down out of the mountains to visit a famous waterfall near the area where our clinic is held. It was raining pretty hard when we started but based on previous experience I knew that the rain would stop and the sun would come out as soon as we made it down to the flatlands as it did every day we went to clinic.

Today of course had to be different, in keeping with all the other foul weather days I tried to do stuff, and the farther we rode the harder it rained, until we were soaked to the bone and freezing cold. I also knew that the dirt track out to the falls would be a muddy morass; challenging in a 4 wheel drive truck and impassable on a bike, so I pulled off the road in front of a small mud-stick hut and we squelched over to the open door to ask for a few minutes at their fire.

This was graciously granted, and we soon found ourselves sandwiched in between 4 or 5 kids and the family cow, all trying to stay warm in the one room hut/stable! After regaining sensation in my fingers and dumping out my boots and wringing out my socks, I gave some money to one of the boys and asked him to buy asambusas for everyone. An asambusa is like a samosa that’s filled with dry cooked lentils and spices, wrapped in thin dough in the shape of a triangle, and deep fried. If only the cooking oil was hot they would be really delicious, but the oil is never hot enough and it seeps in and saturates the whole thing during cooking, making them an acquired taste.

The mother of the house roasted a couple ears of freshly harvested field corn over the hot coals and we ate, feeding the cobs to the pampered cow of the house.

After lunch, the rain had almost abated so we said goodbye and rode back home, determining to try to reach the waterfall another time.

August 13th I woke up early and had coffee at my hosts house because today was the day that the four men who had tried to kill Elias (my hosts brother-in-law) were going to trial!

It had rained cats and dogs all night and the morning was foggy and dark with a cold wind disconsolately blowing in sporadic gusts of rain. During coffee we were informed that last night, one of Elias’s extended family members who had been with him when he was shot and was one of the witnesses had been attacked and horribly beaten with a nailed club and robbed; nobody thought that was a coincidence.

Since the road was a muddy morass I decided to be clever and tie a plastic bag around each foot to keep my shoes clean on the 1 km walk to catch a bajaj into town.

My efforts were in vain though, for when I smugly climbed into the bajaj and took the bags off I found that mud had seeped in through the holes that had developed in each bag and uniformly covered my entire shoe surface in a fine brown film.

I realized it wouldn’t matter though when I found out that we weren’t going to the high courthouse, but instead to a smaller petty court directly outside the local prison. This area was rural and muddy and slippery as well so everyone’s shoes matched mine.

After making it down the steep muddy road to the entrance of the unimposing court we were told that the location had been changed last minute to the high court, so we retraced our way back up the mud road to the cobblestone road and walked until another bajaj chanced along and took us across town to the main courthouse.

By now it was nearly 9 o’clock which was when the judge was supposed to open the courtroom to hear this case, but he delayed for quite some time first. After finally initiating proceedings it was discovered that the four defendants were nowhere to be found! The judge found them in contempt of court and convicted them of all charges in absentia, but withheld sentencing until they could be caught and arraigned in the future. In the meantime, the family members of the four who had initially bailed them out of jail using themselves as surety were rounded up and thrown in jail themselves!

On Monday, August 19th, Alamayhu and I woke up extra early to go out to the area of the clinic to guide some of the rural village ladies we’d already examined at our previous clinics back to the hospital in town to get prolapse surgery. Apparently there is a man who normally does this but his brothers wife had just died and the funeral was today so he wasn’t able to help this time.

At this hour there were no bajaj’s so we had to walk all the way from our village into town and then over to the bus station. Finding a van going in the right direction we started off, and after a couple hours and transferring once to a different bus in the town halfway to our destination, we arrived and found the women waiting for us. Unfortunately though, the money which had been given for their travel and other expenses was still with the man who normally takes these patients, so we had to hire a motorcycle taxi to take us the rest of the way to our clinic village and fetch it.

Returning to our patients we set out to get everyone loaded on a bus, but after Alamayhu and I boarded the next bus heading back towards town the driver immediately started driving away, even though the bus was practically empty!

Alamayhu hollered at him to stop but he said something about having all the passengers board several blocks away from the station, which was really odd. The driver did stop 4 or 5 blocks down the street but he seemed to be in a terrific rush and before our patients arrived the second time he closed the doors and started heading out of town again!

Frustrated we stopped the bus and got off, walking back to rejoin the patients who were walking towards the place the bus driver had said he would let people board. We walked back to the station, on the way meeting some policeman and learning that the driver had tried to leave town without filing the necessary paperwork and was now going to be arrested until he could pay a 5,000 Birr fine ($172.00, an astronomical sum here).

Finally getting all our patients settled into the next bus, we waited until it was full and then started off. Several kilometers down the road we had an unexpected stop because our radiator had suddenly malfunctioned; it had either cracked or been punctured and the engine was overheating.

After impatiently teasing off the cap several gallons of dirty brown river water were poured in but just ran right out onto the road, so one of the bus employees rented a motorcycle from a man in the omnipresent crowd and buzzed off down the road. After 5 or 10 minutes he was back with two small sachets of something, which turned out to be finely ground tea leaves. Pouring both packs into the radiator seemed to fix the leak, and soon we were on our way again.

As we were coming into the town of the half-way bus stop, our bus started making a terrible noise, and just as we were making the turn into the bus stop the transmission went out and it died, leaving us parked orthogonally blocking the main road and the entrance to the but stop. Fortunately the exit was unencumbered, and after finding the right van and getting our patients loaded up in it, the rest of the trip was uneventful. While we didn’t make it back to the hospital in time for all the surgeries to take place that day, all the patients were seen either that afternoon or the next morning.

As my three month Ethiopian visa began to run out I tried to decide whether I should extend it or do something else. Originally I was only supposed to help Tosimo until her regular intern came back, but Dr. Tosimo had offered to have me stay on indefinitely and I’d already spent an extra month. I would have loved to stay longer but I was hoping I’d be able to go on another medical trip to India with my M-EMS team in December, and I had a lot of work to do before then if that were to happen.

Another thing I really wanted to do was visit Tanzania, the country where my dad was born and grew up. Johann, an old friend of mine, also happened to be working on a farm in Tanzania at the time, and I thought it would be so much fun to visit him as well.

Tommy, one of my new friends I’d met at the hospital, was also wanting to visit either Kenya or Tanzania, and I thought that it would be much better to go with someone anyway. So on Sunday, August 25th, I took a bajaj into town to meet Tommy at the main intersection and travel up to Addis to apply for our Tanzanian visas.

When I got to the intersection I went to call Tommy and discovered I was out of phone time, which I hated. In all my travels, I’ve never felt like such a target as here. Guys are always eyeing you predatorily, sizing you up. It’s worse if you’re not purposefully going somewhere, and especially worse with luggage or a backpack like I had on. Several times I had people try to pickpocket me on busses or while walking or standing somewhere, and often one or more guys would either walk right behind me or deliberately try to block my path, looking for an opportunity. Waiting unsuccessfully at the intersection, I finally went to look for a place to buy phone time.

A bystander pointed to a shop where I could find a phone card, and I went inside. It turned out to be a darkly lit tea house/chat room a few steps below street level, with several sullen patrons staring at me. I asked for what I needed, fully knowing the answer, and was not disappointed. Next I asked if anyone knew where I could get a phone card, and one of the guys came over right beside me with what I thought was a sinister smile and said “yeah, I know,” without elucidating or breaking eye contact. I thought for sure I was about to be subjected to another attempted robbery, but I asked him to show me where to get it, and he did! I bought two and gave him one, and we were both happy.

After entering the code and topping up my balance, I called Tommy and we finally met up for ginger tea before we had to leave.

11 PM that night Tommy and I boarded the van which would take us up to the capital. Along the way we saw several hyenas, as we do every time when out and about at night, and passed through several severe rain squalls, but didn’t have any trouble.

The next morning after arriving in Addis Ababa we first went to the Tanzanian Embassy to get the application process started. After getting all the prerequisite photos, letters, stamps, and fees out of the way, we left our passports to the tender mercies of the front desk lady, and started looking for a hospital where I could get my long overdue Yellow Fever vaccination, as I could not enter a non-Yellow Fever country without it.

After checking at several different hospitals and putting several miles on our shoes, I found out that in the entire country there is only one Yellow Fever vaccine program, with only one location, and only one nurse authorized to administer it!

Finally finding the tiny Yellow Fever clinic tucked away on the grounds of the Black Lion Hospital, we noted a relatively massive crowd waiting outside. As it turned out, 590 people were waiting in “line” (I use this term loosely) for the nurse to return from lunch break and be vaccinated!

Everything worked out in the end however, because I was able to get the shot for nearly 1/100th of the price I would have paid in America (although it was very possibly only 1/100th the quality as well).

Sunburned for the first time since leaving Asia and with sore feet, we took a taxi to a hotel that one of Tommy’s friends manages and spent the night, returning home on Tuesday the 27th.

On Thursday the 29th I went to Dr. Tosimo’s clinic for the last time, and she even made an exception to the rigid schedule to allow a couple hours in the afternoon to visit the spectacular Ajora Falls. These twin waterfalls plunge 250 meters uninterrupted straight down into a nearly impenetrable rainforest gorge and form one of the countless tributaries of the mighty Omo River.

On Friday I worked my last shift at the hospital, where I helped again in the O.R. and said goodbye to as many of my friends as I could.

Leaving my host family was so much harder than I expected. Saturday evening, the day before I left they decorated the whole living/dining room with juniper trees, wild flowers, and tissue paper and strew the floor with corn leaves and long paper shreds. They also prepared an amazing feast for me, first we had coffee and popcorn, then there was bread and kita with some of my favorite dishes.

After staying up way too late just visiting, there was crying and many sad goodbyes, then I went back to my own hut to pack.

The next morning at 5 AM I was up again getting ready to leave and carrying my stuff through the rain up the steep muddy track to where vehicles can drive. Dr. Tosimo picked me up and we drove into town where she dropped me off along the side of the road where the bus would pick us up on the way out of town.

Even though I’d said goodbye to her along with the rest of the family just a few hours before, Hallelujah insisted on waking up early and coming to the bus stop to see me off with more hugs and tears.

Tommy had bought our tickets already and had told me that the bus would leave at 7 AM but to come at least half an hour early, so I did. Tommy, however, was not there yet. At 20-to-7 the bus arrived, but Tommy and my bus ticket had not. I was hoping that the bus would at least wait until the scheduled departure time to leave, but as soon as the people waiting had boarded, the bus dumped the airbrakes and started to leave!

I would have been completely screwed except that the head midwife from the hospital who I’d worked closely with also happened to be traveling to Addis Ababa on the same bus on the same day on unrelated business, and when he saw that I hadn’t gotten on he was able to hold the bus for a couple of minutes until Tommy arrived!

The trip north was uneventful except for one flat tire half way to Addis. But after arriving in the city, Tommy was very nearly thrown out of our taxi when the front door suddenly swung open going around the first corner on the way to our hotel! I immediately stopped leaning on my own door as a precaution and Tommy had to hold his shut for the rest of the trip.

The next morning, Monday the 2nd, we took a less surprising taxi to the Tanzanian Embassy to pick up our passports, hopefully with our Tanzanian visas inside. I wasn’t worried about my visa, but it’s quite challenging for Ethiopians to get approval to enter Tanzania and some of the other surrounding countries because they have a habit of not going back home. Tommy and I had put an enormous amount of research and work into getting all the necessary paperwork and approvals before applying, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Earlier this year Tommy had tried to visit Kenya and had been denied entry so we were holding our breath this time.

When we arrived at the embassy though we found out that our applications had been approved and we both had our visas! We immediately went and ordered pizza to celebrate!

Very early the next morning we took a shuttle to the airport and by 1030 we were on our way to Tanzania! Landing at 1320 Tommy was ecstatic, having been on his first escalator and first airplane ride! We picked up our luggage and were met outside the terminal by George, an acquaintance of Johann’s, who took us all over the city trying to withdraw money, exchange money, buy bus tickets for the next morning, purchase SIM cards, get supper, and finally took us to a hotel for some much needed sleep.

Compared to Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salaam is very hot, humid, and flat. It’s also much greener, with cherry trees and coconut palms growing throughout the city and a much greater variety of fruit and street food for sale.

At 4 AM on the morning of Wednesday the fourth we were up and getting ready to leave for the bus that would take us 11 hours southwest into the Southern Highlands to Kibidula, the giant farm Where my friend has been working at.

Along the way I was finally able to catch sight of some of the famous African wildlife including giraffes, zebras, baboons, lots of impalas, and wildebeests, passing through savanna, dry scrub forest, a sandy rocky desert with baobab trees growing in it, and many towns and villages. This was also the first time Tommy had seen some of these animals in person.

Arriving at Mafinga, the nearest town to the farm, we were met by the Printer, who had just returned from vacation in the States and traveled out from Dar on a faster bus that same morning. He had already secured a taxi, and the three of us rode out the last hour or so to the farm together.

Here we met up with my friend Johann, whom I hadn’t seen in years, and started getting caught up and unpacked. We would be staying in his house sleeping on the floor for the duration of our stay.

Kibidula is a 6,000 acre avocado farm and agricultural school located at about 6,000 feet ASL in the Miombo Woodland, Southern Highlands. In the German colonial days, this area grew pyrethrum that was processed in Mafinga.

Because of it’s high elevation and closeness to the equator, there is very little atmospheric buffer and the sun is unforgiving, harshly scorching anything it touches. There is also a vast temperature swing between day and night, and sun and shade, you can easily sweat during the day, but if there’s no sun the air is cool even during the day, and at night becomes downright cold.

Early the next morning the three of us woke up and went over to the farm managers house for 6AM breakfast, and then built tables in the wood shop until lunchtime. After lunch we finished building an improvised screen made out of two 55 gallon drums to protect the intake of the pump which pumps water out of a large reservoir up into the irrigation dam for the farm. The day before a large stick had been sucked into the pump and jammed it so it needed to be removed and a filter placed so it wouldn’t happen again, and I was able to help.

We needed to be able to scuba dive down to clear away debris from the pump intake and secure the screen in place, but we didn’t hardly have any scuba gear, so we had to improvise. One of the farm managers is a scuba instructor, and he had a mask, wetsuit, fins, and a regulator, which was a good start.

We took two canoes and lashed them together with saplings to form a bodyless catamaran for our makeshift dive boat. Next we took an oilless air compressor and a portable generator to power it and secured them in one side of our boat, and used a custom fitting to attach the regulator to the end of two 30-foot compressor hoses to create an improvised hookah dive setup.

Using a length of tow chain as a weight belt and a fisherman’s self-inflatable life vest as a BCD we were ready!

We paddled out into the reservoir towing the screen in the water behind our twin-hull craft and tied off at the buoy marking the pump’s location. Donning the equipment one at a time we dove down 30 feet into the frigid, nearly zero-visibility water to dig out a space for the filter to rest and secure it in place.

After the job was finished we immediately went to our respective homes and took hot showers!

That night after supper Johann and Tommy and I along with several other volunteers and farm residents loaded up three mules with our water and blankets to go camping. Not regular camping though!

Riding out through the grasslands and scrub forest we came to a grove of acacia trees where we stopped and built a fire and relaxed for a while. When we were ready for bed we took our blankets and climbed up into the acacias all the way to their flat tops, well out of reach of any hungry lions, where we carefully searched for a place with more sturdy underlying branches and less thorns to spread out our blankets on and settle down to sleep, at least thirty feet off the ground and directly underneath the waxing gibbous moon and brilliant Southern Hemisphere stars.

This is a Kibidula tradition that happens at least once per year, and as unsafe as it sounds, no one has died yet, although people have broken through and fallen out of the trees in the past!

Sleeping on the treetops evokes feelings of intense peril, as any port or starboard movement will certainly send you plummeting down through a hole in your mattress! In addition, the hard, poorly spaced branches are poking up into the bottom blanket making it impossible to get comfortable; they’re reassuring in a way, but not sleep friendly. Night in the Southern Highlands is also very cold, and even though it doesn’t rain for months at a time during the dry season, a heavy dew falls every night and saturates the grass, trees, and our blankets (somehow leaving the thick layer of powdery dust on the roads perfectly dry).

In other words, it was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything!

The next morning we stiffly unpeeled ourselves from the canopy and gingerly climbed back down the wet trees and rode back to the farm. We spent the morning in the shop building tables again, and after lunch hauled some of them to their future home in the avocado packing plant, swept and mopped our house, and then drove way out to a dam construction site to help bring back some of the equipment for the weekend.

The next day on September 7 we hiked out to the old dirt colonial-era Cape Town-Cairo highway that passes near one side of the farm. At one spot an underground spring had abruptly eroded the road down thirty feet or so and we climbed down and explored the resulting box canyon. Even though the road is no longer maintained it is still used, which makes this spot especially treacherous.

On the 8th I finally had a chance to wash my clothes, which Tommy thanked me for, then Johann and I mixed potting soil for a new batch of avocado seedlings for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Later that afternoon, a group of us took some motorcycles to go bouldering and abseiling in a cool valley full of massive rock outcroppings 45 minutes or so from the farm.

Early the next morning Tommy, Johann, and I left Kibidula to start heading to Dar Es Salaam so Johann could fly back home, but we wanted to go on a safari first, and a few other people at Kibidula did too, so we all went together.

Ruaha National Park is the largest park in Tanzania, and it’s only a 4-5 hour drive from the farm, and not too far out of our way. After entering the park we got to see all kinds of amazing animals, from tsetse flies to lions. That night we slept in the park with an armed ranger escorting us around and lions roaring and coughing nearby all night!

In the morning we explored the park for a few more hours and then headed out to Iringa, where the three of us could get a bus to Dar. After lunch and going to the market, we said goodbye and went to our hotel, while everyone else drove back to Kibidula.

That evening as we were walking back to our hotel after supper we were accosted by a fat man claiming to be an immigration officer who said we needed to come with him to the police station and answer some questions. He had a hokey ID card he waved in our faces as if we could read Swahili, and then he grabbed Tommy’s arm and tried to force us to get into his non-government-issue car. As he was obviously an imposter we extricated ourselves from his toils posthaste and took a maze of side streets and backtracked several times to make sure we weren’t followed back to our lodgings.

The next morning on the 11th we took the bus back to Dar es Salaam and accompanied Johann to the airport so he could fly back home later that night.

Afterwards we went back into town and met again with a friend of George’s who has a Kilimanjaro trekking company. Tommy and I had really been hoping to climb Kilimanjaro while we were in Tanzania but we weren’t sure if it would work out until after negotiating a second time. It also turned out that there was a tour starting in two days that we could join, which worked out really well for us time wise, so the next morning we took a bus north to Moshi, where the trek would start from. Arriving in town, we were met by the local tour coordinator who took us to our hotel for the night and made sure we had everything we needed.

The next morning we met our guide, Kaliki, and assistant guide, Douglas, and got outfitted with the rest of the cold-weather gear we would need on the mountain, then drove out to the trailhead of the Marangu Route, which we would be following. Happily for us, the group we were supposed to be joining was under time constraints and had started the climb the day before, allowing us to ascend separately.

While researching this climb, we’d found out that Kilimanjaro is a beast to summit and has a less than 40% success rate: From the wicket gate at the start of the trail we would ascend from 1,879 meters (6,165 feet) to 5,895 meters (19,341 feet), which is 4,016 vertical meters (13,176 vertical feet), and cover 86 km (53 miles) over 5 days.

As one climbs in altitude the percentage of oxygen in the air remains steady at about 21% (up to approximately 21,000 meters or 69,000 feet) but the higher one goes the lower the air pressure will be, and the less densely the gas particles are packed together, so you get less oxygen per breath. At 20,000 feet there’s nearly half the number of oxygen particles in the air as at sea level.

Mount Kilimanjaro is divided into four extremely distinct vegetation zones:

Montane Forest (1,800 to 2,800 meters; 5,850 to 9,100 feet); this zone feels like a tropical rainforest with enormous moss-laden trees, many streams and waterfalls, tropical flowers and vines, and many monkeys and colorful birds.

Moorland (3,000 to 4,000 meters; 9,750 feet to 13,000 feet); consisting of grass, scrub trees, sagebrush, everlasting flowers, Giant Heath, and otherworldly cactusy plants including Giant Lobelia, Giant Senecio, and Giant Groundsels, which can tower over 20 feet high!

Alpine Desert (4,000 to 5,000 meters; 13,000 to 16,250 feet); this is a cold, dry, windy, harsh environment where only the most hardy plants and small animals can survive.

Arctic (5,000 to 5,895 meters; 16,250 feet to 19,341 feet); a moonscape of scree and glaciers. The only plant found in this zone is Helichrysum newii, which grows around the fumaroles (volcanic vents) in Kibo’s crater.

The most dangerous things we had to watch out for (aside from dehydration, Acute Mountain Sickness, and malaria) was probably Cape Buffalo and wild elephants, which left plentiful evidence of their presence in both the Montane Forest and Moorland.

My biggest concern, however, was whether or not my antique pair of EMS boots would survive the mountain. These are the same boots I had been using off and on for the last 7 years, and had been lamenting were completely worn out in Ethiopia (meaning they literally fell apart). I would have thrown them away except I didn’t have anything else to replace them with, so I had the soles re-glued and re-sewn instead. Now the soles were actually starting to disintegrate in addition to separating from the rest of the shoe, and I took pains to avoid sliding them over the trail or wedging them between rocks where possible.

Fortunately for me, the 9 year old Uyghur cobbler at the Chinese Bates Re-education Factory was a master of her craft, and they lasted me all the way to the summit and back to Moshi, where I tried to give them a long overdue funeral, but one of our guides saw me throwing them away and said he could use them or give them to one of the porters, so now they’ll probably be in service for another 7 years! (Starting in 2017, Bates claims to once again be producing a growing range of military/other uniformed services and motorcycle boots 100% sourced and assembled in the USA.)

After reaching camp each evening and resting for a bit, Tommy and I had to take mandatory acclimatization excursions to a higher altitude beyond camp in order to help minimize our chances of getting Acute Mountain Sickness (altitude sickness) and failing to summit. I was very grateful that I had just come from living and exercising at nearly 9,000 feet, or else I don’t know if the daily acclimatization regimen would have been enough.

On the third day we were met by a team of porters evacuating a well bundled up AMS victim off the mountain on a stretcher, and later that afternoon had a helicopter fly past us and briefly land at the camp we were en route to. We thought they were evacuating another patient, but found out that evening that they were flying in a technical rope rescue team to recover the body of a porter who had fallen off a ledge at a difficult to reach spot inside the crater.

Finally we made it to Kibo hut, the base camp we would try to summit from. Because it’s located at 4,720 meters (15,486 feet) there is a high risk of getting AMS even here, so we’d only be staying for a few hours to try to eat and sleep before summiting that night.

I was already feeling sick, with a pounding headache, insomnia last night and this night, absolutely not feeling hungry or thirsty and having to force myself to do both, shortness of breath, and a rapid pulse. When I checked my oxygen saturation I was at 82% in base camp! (Down from 99% normally.)

At 12 AM on September 16 we woke up, or rather got up because neither one of us could sleep, and got ready for our summit attempt. We put on every piece of warm clothing we had and filled our water bottles, then after having tea we started at 1 o’clock.

There was a brilliant, frosty-bright waning gibbous moon to light our path so we didn’t need to use our flashlights, even though from some places a slip could be fatal.

We gained nearly 4,000 feet of altitude in 4 km, scrambling up a volcanic scree slide that seemed nearly vertical, with each step seeming to slide back to the step’s starting point every time we moved. Here we could finally feel the full force of the high altitude, having difficulty breathing, gasping for breath, terrible coordination, and overwhelming exhaustion.

Finally arriving at the top, we followed the rim of the crater around for another kilometer and reached the summit at 0618, exactly at sunrise!

The temperature was well below zero so we only stayed at the top long enough for pictures and then started to retrace our way back down off the mountain.

We got back down into Moshi on the evening of the 17th, and took a bus down to Dar Es Salaam on the 18th. There was an Ebola scare going on in Dar while we were up north and getting ready to go back there, but luckily the autopsies tested negative and we continued our trip as scheduled.

On September 20 we rode the ferry across to Zanzibar and rested our sore muscles for a few days scuba diving and kite surfing before Tommy flew back to Ethiopia and I started flying back to the States on the 24th.

Checking my luggage at the airport revealed it was severely overweight and I had to jettison some nonessentials plus take a second carry-on with me on the plane. I quickly selected some random heavy items to fill my second carry-on and headed through security. My bag was flagged and when security searched it they found my large serrated fixed-blade dive knife and balisong, both of which I’d completely forgotten about while hastily redistributing my luggage. This looked horrible, but fortunately security was understanding, although they had to confiscate both knives.

I flew from Tanzania to Qatar to JFK, where I had a horrible 9 hour layover, and then a 6 hour flight to Seattle, Washington where my grandma and grandpa were waiting to pick me up!

Heading for home we stopped along the way at what has always been an Indian restaurant to eat on our way home, but after it was too late to leave we discovered that, of all improbable coincidences, it was now only serving East African food :(! It was nice anyway, although I wasn’t anywhere near ready to start craving it or wanting it yet.

After supper we started off in earnest and finally made it to my grandparents house around 1230 AM, after nearly 48 hours of traveling. I spent a few days at their house recovering from jet lag, then headed for home, finally arriving on Tuesday, October 1st, after having been gone over a year and a half!

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sizzlingtigerglitter · 4 months

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Perseverance: The Duct Tape of Dreams – How to Stick it Out Until You Win

Ah, perseverance. That glorious word that sounds so inspiring in commencement speeches and motivational posters, yet feels suspiciously like chewing gravel when you're stuck in a creative rut or staring down a seemingly insurmountable to-do list.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for chasing your dreams with the ferocity of a squirrel after a particularly plump acorn. But let's be honest, the path to success is rarely paved with rose petals and unicorn sprinkles. More often, it's a pothole-ridden highway decorated with flat tires, existential dread, and the occasional rogue banana peel.

So, how do we persevere when the going gets, well, not-so-good? How do we channel our inner Rocky Balboa and punch through life's metaphorical Adrian? Fear not, weary dreamers, for I come bearing gifts: the comedically absurd yet surprisingly practical guide to sticking it out like nobody's business. better focus and concentration

Step 1: Embrace the Inner MacGyver (Because Duct Tape Fixes Everything, Right?)

Imagine your goal as a magnificent spaceship destined for the glittering nebula of achievement. You've got the blueprints, the engine humming, and enough ambition to fuel a SpaceX launch. But then, BAM! Reality throws a cosmic wrench in your plans. The engine sputters, the navigation system goes haywire, and you're left floating in the void, feeling about as useful as a chocolate teapot in a space vacuum.

This, my friends, is where the MacGyver in you steps in. Duct tape (figuratively, of course, unless you're actually building a spaceship in your garage – no judgment) becomes your weapon of choice. You use creativity, resourcefulness, and a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor to patch up the leaks, reroute the circuits, and keep your dream spaceship (or career, or relationship, or whatever your metaphorical vehicle may be) hurtling towards its destination.

Remember, sometimes the most ingenious solutions come from the most ridiculous places. So, channel your inner inventor, embrace the absurd, and don't be afraid to get a little (or a lot) goofy in the pursuit of your goals. After all, who says saving the world (or at least your sanity) can't be hilarious?

Step 2: Befriend the Phoenix Within (Rise from the Ashes, Baby!)

Life has a knack for throwing metaphorical flamingos at your face just when you think you've got things under control. A project flops, a relationship fizzles, and suddenly you're curled up in the fetal position, convinced you've peaked at "unemployed couch potato."

But here's the thing: setbacks are like spicy wings – they burn going down, but they leave you wanting more (of success, not wings, unless you're really into that sort of thing). They're opportunities to learn, to adapt, and to rise from the ashes like a magnificent, slightly singed phoenix.

So, next time you face a flaming flamingo (or metaphor of your choice), don't wallow in the ashes. Dust yourself off, channel your inner Beyoncé, and strut your way out of the metaphorical fire. Remember, every setback is just a push-up for your soul, making you stronger, wiser, and even more fabulous in the process.

Step 3: Weaponize Self-Deprecating Humor (Laugh in the Face of Failure, Then Punch it in the Nose)

Let's face it, sometimes the only way to deal with the absurdity of life is to laugh at it. And what better target for your comedic barbs than your own glorious failures? Self-deprecating humor is the ultimate underdog superpower. It disarms negativity, diffuses tension, and reminds you (and everyone else) that you're not taking yourself too seriously.

So, go ahead, crack jokes about your failed soufflé, your disastrous haircut, or your inability to parallel park without hitting a mailbox. Own your imperfections, laugh at your stumbles, and let the world know you're okay with not being perfect. After all, who wants to hang out with someone who takes themselves too seriously anyway? Plus, a good laugh is a great stress reliever, which can give you the mental boost you need to keep pushing forward.