#*flexes my little-used perspective/background muscles*

[cephalosaur]

tw for bright colors

More or less a redraw of this:

^ this one is from 2022

[from-the-clouds]

texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. iv

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist | previous chapter | photo cred

chapter summary: This time, it's different. He’s not here to help you fix something, or to drag Sarah home, or pick up something she’s left behind. At this point he’s stopped lying to himself – Joel’s here to see you.  pairing: pre-outbreak!joel miller x f!reader words: 5.6k chapter warnings: some angst, marijuana use, suggestive thoughts and actions (but no smut -- as always, dm if you want specifics), divorce mention. a/n: The next few weeks of my life will be insane (and NOT just because succession is coming back). I want to keep updating this, but something's gotta give, because the way I've been writing is not sustainable unfortunately. So updates may end up being shorter and the fic having more parts, or updates might be less frequent with longer parts. Also, a question for my loyal readers: Do you make your shirley temples with ginger ale or with Sprite/7up? Because I came from a sprite/7UP family but once i discovered ginger ale instead i was HOOKED. So i am a Ginger Ale Shirley Temple Truther.

-May 5, 2003-

Please pick up, please pick up, you cross your arms in front of you, looking over your shoulder. The pointed toe of your heels clacks against the asphalt as you tap it repeatedly, a steady beat. You have no reason to be so nervous, right now. It must have something to do with who you are calling, not just why. 

“Hello?” the droning ring is interrupted by a voice that sounds skeptical, they don’t recognize your number.

“Joel?” you ask.

“Hey, you,” his tone evens out when he hears you say his name. He had given you his cell phone number a few weeks back, the night he’d caught you smoking on your back porch. In case I’m not home and something’s goin’ on with Sarah, he’d said. It made sense, though all it did was tempt you to call him many times before this, and not about Sarah. You were worried because…maybe this was out of line.

There’s noises in the background that threaten to drown Joel out – saws and various power tools whirring, a jackhammer, men calling out to each other. It’s loud. At your job, you close the door to your office if someone is typing too loud on their keyboard. “I uh- I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

You hear a door shut in response, and the noise fades to a low purr. “Not at all. Everything okay? Sarah alright?”

“Yeah, this isn’t about her, though. I hope that’s okay.”

“It depends,” In your mind, right now he’s leaning against a messy metal desk, one of his hands planted on its surface to keep himself stable, the muscles in his forearm flexing under tension. He’s got a toolbelt slung low over the waistband of his Carhartt’s. He’s a little sweaty – it’s hot out, today – his cheeks flushed, pieces of dark hair clinging to his forehead. The image is doing something for you, and you have to take a deep, measured breath to reset before you can answer him.

“Do you…know anything about cars?” you ask. 

“A little….why?”

“I took my car to get serviced, and…I’m pretty sure I’m about to be swindled.” You hesitate, then qualify. “I didn’t have anyone else to call, and…you seem like you might be good with this sort of thing.”

There are a lot of things you know a lot about, and cars are just not one of them. From your perspective, a car is simply a means to get from Point A to Point B, and the less you know about the how, the better. Although your complete lack of understanding definitely doesn’t help you in your current situation. You’d considered calling your brother, and even your father – but you knew they’d be no help, having lived in Manhattan their whole lives. 

Bradley had a nice car, but you suspected it was more for his image, and less because he knew anything about them. Plus, you didn’t really ask for much of each other outside of sex – and if you started too, it might initiate another talk about where you ‘see him in your future’, and the thought alone is grating, because you don’t. 

Since you moved away from home, you’ve spent a lot of time asserting to yourself that you’re completely independent. But moments like this remind you that it’s not entirely true…it’s not possible to be on your own in the way you want, and you always end up needing someone. 

“I might be able to help.” Joel sounds unconcerned. “What’s goin’ on?”

“They just told me my car needs a new battery, and I need new tires.”

“How old are they?”

“I don’t know like-” your phone vibrates furiously in your hand, an incoming call from your coworker. “Oh my god, leave me alone,” you groan out loud. “-Not you, Joel, sorry. I stepped away for lunch and…you know how it goes. Anyways, I don’t think I’ve gotten either of them changed since I got my car.”

“How old is your car?”

“Seven years.”

“Good lord,” Joel mutters, and he sounds somewhat disappointed. “Yeah, you should get both those things.”

“They weren’t lying? It’s gonna cost a couple hundred bucks.”

“No, I doubt they were,” he gives a warm chuckle, and it melts away some of your stress, even if your wallet is about to take a considerable hit. “Where’d you take your car?”

“I don’t know, just…some place around the corner from where I work.”

“In the future, you should go to Robert’s place in town. He’s done some work on my truck. Probably will cost a lot less.”

“Noted,” you nod. “Thanks so much, sorry for catching you at work.”

“Not at all, I don’t mind…” Joe answers. “Shipments keep getting delayed, so…it’s been kind of a slow day.”

“I’m jealous,” you say. “Because I swear, lately, whenever I leave the office for more than two minutes everything explodes….or at least it feels that way.”

“Sounds like you’re important,” Joel says, you can hear his smile over the phone, see it, practically. 

Scoffing, you answer. “Hardly. But uh, thanks again. I definitely owe you one.”

You expect him to say goodbye, so you’re surprised by what he asks next. “What are you doing Friday?” 

“I don’t know. What are you doing Friday?”

“I’m assumin’ Sarah’s probably left something at your place….if you’re gonna be around, I might stop by to get it….”

“You want me to smoke you up?” 

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant,” You’re direct.

“Look, I’m just sayin’ if it happens, I wouldn’t be mad.”

“I already told you, you’re welcome anytime,” you say. “But won’t Sarah-oh wait, no, she has that school dance, doesn’t she?”

Sarah had taken to writing important events in her life on the calendar that hung on your fridge. It was usually blank, you were good enough at remembering your own plans without utilizing it. But she had told you the empty calendar made her sad, so now it was filled with her doodles and notes, scribbled with blue glitter gel pen. And Friday night’s event she’d underlined three times.

“She does,” Joel answers, seemingly amused. 

Another call comes through on your phone. “Okay, yeah, I gotta go. But I’ll be around Friday.”

“Then maybe I’ll stop by,” Joel says, and you ignore the flash of heat through your abdomen – excitement – at the idea of him coming over.  “Have a good rest of your day.”

“You too.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-May 9, 2003-

Joel arrives at your place before the sun sets, once again. But this time, it is different. He’s not here to help you fix something, or to drag Sarah home, or pick up something she’s left behind. Of course, he’s got his excuse, but really, at this point he’s stopped lying to himself – he’s here to see you. 

“Well, well, well…” you open the screen door, lean against the doorframe, and cross your arms over your chest. “If it isn’t the neighborhood space cowboy.”

“You’re one to talk.” 

You squint at him, but the way the corner of your mouth quirks gives you away. “Touche.” 

God, he’s already regretting this. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. But it’s become increasingly difficult to resist you, and that’s assuming that you’re even interested. He’s all-but kissed you and he’s still not quite sure where he stands. You’re not easy to read, but he has always enjoyed a challenge. At the end of the day it’s never a bad idea for him to brush up on his flirting, Tommy’s words from a few weeks ago have been getting to him. For much as he believes it’s bound to happen, Joel doesn’t want to end up alone.

“Come on in,” you push yourself off the doorframe and lead him through your house.

The last time he’d been here you’d been wearing some long-sleeved, satin pajama set. He remembered because he spent all night trying not to touch the fabric, though maybe he was just looking for an excuse to touch you. Tonight, with your back turned towards him, his eyes wander down to the curve of your ass in your low-rise, bootcut jeans. He feels the slightest bit of shame about doing it, before deciding that what you can’t see won’t hurt you.

“How was the mechanic?” he asks once you’ve entered the back porch.

“Oh fine,” you say, sitting down on the couch, gesturing to the spot across from you. “I’m just pissed I had to spend a bunch of money on a car battery and not something more…fun.”

“It’s a good thing you did,” Joel sits. “Honestly, I’m surprised you called me from the mechanic and not from a ditch on the side of the road.”

“This is my first car, Joel. I grew up in a walkable community,” you pick up an already-rolled joint, the faintest acknowledgement that you’d planned for this ahead of time – and lift it to your lips. 

“It’s okay, I’m teasing.” Joel assures, and lets his gaze linger while you smoke, just admiring, as he often does. When you pass the joint over to him, he speaks again. “I have to be good tonight, cause Sarah’s gonna be home in a couple hours.”

“Yeah, first school dance, big deal,” you raise your eyebrows. “Help me out, because I went to an all-girls school. It’s middle school. Do kids go with dates?”

Joel shakes his head. “Not that I know of. Sarah just went with a group of friends.” 

“That makes sense,” you nod. “Speaking of, I have to be good, too. I’m going to her soccer game tomorrow.”

Joel feels his brows knit together in confusion, and it causes you to continue on. “She keeps asking me to come to one, and I haven’t been able to, so I feel bad. I guess her season’s almost over.” 

“Tomorrow’s her last game…” Joel mutters, looking up towards the ceiling, where the smoke is collecting, and exhales. “But you know you don’t have to do that.”

“Obviously, but…” you shrug. “...I want to.”

He chuckles to himself, runs a hand through his hair, which is still damp from the shower he took before this. “You’re really prepared to put yourself through a middle school soccer game…” 

“Look, Joel,” Your eyes are half-lidded, focused on him, and your arm is slung over the back of the couch, fist supporting your temple. “In case you couldn’t tell…I’m doing this thing where I try to engage in the community I live in. But so far, your family members are the only ones who’ve included me in anything, so until I find someone else….” you trail off. “You’re stuck with me.”

Joel doesn’t want you to find someone else. Being stuck with you is hardly a problem. He wants to tell you, but instead, all he manages is: “We’ll be good tonight.” Still, he’s not entirely convinced that he can trust himself to make a promise like that. 

It’s a tad too early for the sun to be setting, but it’s early in May, so the weather is perfect, and he’s sort of itching to be outside. Maybe there’s something to be done before the light wanes. “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks you.

You seem taken aback by his request, wrinkling your nose.”….I don’t know.”

“It’s a nice night, you might enjoy yourself. And we’re in good company.” 

The grimace on your face disappears, and is replaced by something more amiable. “We are,” you tilt your, make a decision. “Yeah, okay…let’s do it.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Once you’ve locked your front door, closed your windows, Joel walks side-by-side with you down your driveway. You only make it about halfway down when you’re both interrupted by the sound of someone calling out your name, then his. 

Your next-door neighbor, Denise Watson, leans over the railing of her front porch, while her husband John sits in a chair behind her, giving a lazy wave and returning back to his puzzlebook. Joel nods at him, and notices the color has drained out of your face. The Watsons have lived on this street since before even Joel and Sarah moved in. They’re in their late 60s, retired, all their children grown – which gives them plenty of time to get into everyone’s business. 

“Hey,” you offer the most unenthusiastic greeting he thinks he’s ever heard. You’re paranoid, and he’d laugh if it were just the two of you, alone. But it’s not, and he knows these just so happen to be neighbors you’ve been lying to.

“How are you doing, hun?” 

“I’m good,” you say softly, and Joel watches Denise’s eyes flick over his direction. 

“Same here,” he manages. 

“What are you ya’ll up to?”

“We’re just goin’ for a walk,” Joel answers, looking your way. You nod at him, wordlessly, then at Denise. 

“How lovely.” She smiles, and it’s sincere, so he knows she doesn’t suspect anything. “It’s nice to see you two getting along so well.” Even from where he’s standing, Joel sees her eyebrows lift suggestively.

You and Joel both answer the insinuation at the same time.

“Yeah, well-” 

“She looks after Sarah for me, so-”

You bob your head enthusiastically. “Mhm, yeah. Sarah. Great kid.”

Denise opens her mouth again, and you speak so quickly, Joel’s pretty sure it’s because you’re afraid of what she’s going to say next. “We gotta go,” you shuffle backwards a few steps, quickly, and collide with Joel’s chest. “Before it gets dark out,” when you turn, you’re looking up at him with wide, terrified eyes. 

“Oh, alright,” Denise says, sounding a little disappointed. “Ya’ll stay safe, alright?”

“Of course,” Joel calls over his shoulder, managing a halfhearted wave before he’s trailing you around the bend in the cul-de-sac that takes you out of view from The Watsons porch.

The second you’ve made it you whirl to face him, your jaw drops, and you both erupt into laughter. You grip his bicep and lean into him, pressing your face into the cotton of his t-shirt to stifle the noise. He’s tempted to pull you under his arm all the way, but he resists the urge. Would that be okay? He’s not sure. And he’s not necessarily in the best headspace to make the decision.

“Oh my god,” you murmur, swiping under your eyes as you pull back, and start walking a few steps ahead of him. 

“It’s like I’m back in high school,” Joel says. Neither of you decide to mention what your neighbor had insinuated, but it is objectively funny. 

“Oh, I’m sure you were trouble.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” Joel says. “Although I did sneak out quite a bit. But it was only to see girls – well, one girl.” 

“Sarah’s mom?” you ask. 

“Yeah.” Joel isn’t sure why he’s mentioned it. It’s not really something he’s interested in speaking on now – or ever – for that matter, even if every person he’s mentioned it to has questions. What happened? What did you do? You poor thing. Above all else, he hated being pitied. 

But you don’t press him, and change the subject. “So…a few weeks ago you had said you and Tommy had a work project you were gonna book. Did that pan out?”

Joel cocks his head, surprised you remembered. “Actually, it did. Funny you ask. Things moved slow but…we signed the contract today. I’m sort of celebrating.”

“Congratulations,” you look over your shoulder slightly to give him a genuine grin. “But uh…you should’ve told me. Had I known we were celebrating, I would’ve tried to make things more exciting.” 

“Can’t think of anything better.”

You pause, because you’ve reached the end of your cul-de-sac. “Suit yourself.” you say. “Are you gonna lead though? I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.” Joel expects some kind of quip in response, but you just shake your head and narrow your eyes. Tucking your hair behind your ears, he senses a bit of uneasiness. “You alright?”

“I’m fine I just…” you shake your head. “I don’t love being stoned in public.”

“You’re alright.” Joel puts his hand between your shoulder blades, guiding you to fall into step beside him. “Come on, darlin’, just walk with me.” It’s terrible how easily the term of endearment slips out – and he waits for your reaction. But all he feels is the way your body loosens under his touch. 

That brings him some satisfaction, but as usual, it’s not enough. Because if you’re not going to stop him, he longs to push the hair off your neck, kiss along your pulse point, feel you melt even further as his thumbs work at the muscles in your shoulders. Joel fantasizes about what his name might sound like, coming from you, in a breathless sigh. The image works him up a little too much, and he lets his hand fall back to his side.

For a while, you both walk in silence, your fingers brushing against his every so often, but neither of you acknowledge it, apologize, or decide to step further away from each other to keep it from happening again and again.

It’s a beautiful night, the warmth of the day dwindling under the blanket of thinning clouds tinted pink in the sunset. Joel is amazed at how content he feels, can’t remember the last time he’s felt this way – not worried about someone, or something, or letting anyone down. 

It’s May, so almost all the native flowers are in full bloom. Tulips planted in gardens, pansies overflowing from pots on porches, dandelions dotting pristine green lawns. Stepping away from Joel, you pause in front of an empty, overgrown lot that’s basically turned into a wildflower patch. 

“This is nice,” you say, decidedly. “It’s pretty.” 

“I told you.”

Once more, he expects some clever retort, but your eyebrows are pinched together, and you crouch to look closely at some bluebonnets that are the same color as the tight-fitting henley you’ve got on. “I know you mentioned it back there but… Sarah’s told me…about her mom.”

Joel feels himself stiffen. “Yeah….well, she never really got to know her.” 

When he’s feeling particularly remorseful, his brain replays a memory of Sarah, only four years old, toddling around the tiny apartment they lived in and calling out for her mother. His ex had left when she was so young, so he had known there was no way Sarah actually remembered her. But all her classmates had two parents, all the movies she watched at home depicted loving, complete families. That night, after tucking her in, he’d retreated to his room, and cried for the first time since his divorce. Ever since then, it was impossible to shake the feeling he wouldn’t be enough.

Sometimes, he felt better about it then others. Sarah grew out of that phase, and Joel thought that’d be the last of it. When he finally bought the house, he felt like he’d proven he could do it alone. They would be fine. That was until Joel found an old photo of him and his ex underneath Sarah’s pillow while he was changing her sheets. The discovery left him with the same feeling all over again. 

Now, in the wake of the excitement that he’s signed onto his first real contracting gig, a promotion, a raise – this information from you deflates him all over again. 

“You don’t like to talk about it?” you guess correctly. 

“Not particularly.” Normally, Joel would shut something like this down. But he can’t bring himself to be cruel to you. “We were young. What happened was for the best. I wish Sarah understood that.”

“You don’t give her enough credit. She’s a bright kid,” you answer, standing up and putting your hands on your hips. “Anyways, I get it. When you cut yourself off from a bad situation, it's hard. The alternative is worse, though. People forget that part.”

Joel feels a little reassured by what you’re saying. Why he immediately went on the defense when you brought it up, he’ll explore later. “I wish more people understood,” he murmurs. 

“Me too,” you nod, and you nudge him gently to keep walking. “And people process things differently. It makes sense she's curious. It’s a very human thing.” 

“I know.” What was it that you had said a few weeks back? They’re always with you, no matter what. That’s not a sentiment Joel can completely wrap his head around yet. “It does make me think sometimes…maybe she needs some else….someone who isn't…me.””

“Oh, come on, Joel,” you halt in your tracks, almost like he’s offended you in some way. You look up at him from under your eyelashes. “You’re a good man.”

Validation. He doesn’t get it often – ever, really. And he doesn’t need it, but….coming from you, he feels like he just wants more. And more. He can think of a few ways he might get it, too. Some less innocent than others. 

“Should we turn around?” he asks. You nod. 

There’s a bit of light still remaining in the sky by the time you round the corner to Joel’s street, but the sun has set long ago. He’s probably supposed to say goodbye, standing at the end of your respective driveways, but he finds that end to the evening rather disappointing. 

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about right now?” you ask, Joel. He’s a little hesitant to answer, based on the ornery glint in your eyes. All he has to do is raise his eyebrows, and you continue. “A shirley temple.”

Joel can’t help but laugh, and he sees how you light up at the sound. “You serious?” he asks. 

“I know they’re….for kids, but…I don’t know. They’re really fucking good.”

“They are,” he answers, and you’re at the end of your driveway. He hesitates for a second, thinks you might say goodbye, but you just check over your shoulder to make sure he’s following you. He does. 

“This is probably the weed talking, but I’m going to make some.” You unlock your front door, and he holds it open to let you step inside, before following. 

“You have the stuff to make them?” he questions. 

Yes, you bob your head, then walk to the corner of your front room and flick on a light. Warm light floods the room, and you walk through the archway into your kitchen. When he follows you there, your back is towards him, opening a glass-doored cabinet containing various liquor bottles, wines, cordials, and accoutrements. 

“You want one? I have to say, I’ve been making them a lot lately, and I think I’ve perfected the recipe.”

“Well in that case, I’ve gotta try,” Joel wanders to your small kitchen table, about a quarter of it covered in neat piles of paperwork. There’s a messenger bag slung over the back of a chair, and in front of it is there’s a thick contract. The page it’s opened to is riddled with blue ink, crossing through sentences, scribbled in the paper’s margins. He can’t make out any of the jargon in the fine print. Next to it sits a pair of thin black reading glasses, and a sleek fountain pen engraved with your name. 

His eyes fall next to a stack of old photographs sitting atop an opened envelope. With two fingers, he pushes the top photo off the stack, once, twice, three times, until he gets to the bottom of the pile, and they’re spread out in front of him. Maybe he shouldn’t be snooping like this, but his curiosity is getting the best of him. 

Joel doesn’t recognize the people in most of the photos. One of them is a school photo of a young boy, with Spring ‘03 printed in the lower right hand corner. But the remaining two…he realizes are of you, but you’re young, your cheeks rounder, features not quite as defined. Younger than Sarah, if he had to guess. In both, you’re wearing the same thing – a black turtleneck, a plaid skirt that hangs past your knees, and black Mary Janes. 

In one, you’re cheek to cheek with a teenage boy who you’re giving bunny ears. Your brother. Has to be. You look too similar. His arm is across your shoulders, and you’re smiling so wide your eyes are closed. 

In the other photo, though, your face is blank. A wide, empty stare, straight into the camera. Behind you, his hands on your shoulders, is an older man whose gaze has the same determined set Joel has seen on you before. Something about the photo, the haunted look on your face, makes him feel like he’s seen something he’s not supposed to, and he slides the print underneath a stack of papers.

“If you’re gonna look at those papers, I’m gonna need you to sign an NDA,” you say over his shoulder, and Joel is startled by the sound of your voice, and the feeling of a glass, cold and damp with condensation, being placed in his hand. “Here.”

You peer around his shoulder, face brushing against the side of his arm as you see the photos. “Oh,” your voice drops slightly when you realize what he’s looking at. “My brother sent those. That’s my nephew, Ethan.” You point to the school photo of the little kid, but don’t offer an explanation for any of the others. 

Joel clinks his glass with yours and notices that you’ve balanced a toothpick with two maraschino cherries on its rim. It’s refreshing, delicious, and the fizz tickles his nose as he takes the first sip. 

“Restaurant quality,” he tells you. You lean back against your counter, studying him. When you stare at him like this, as he’s caught you doing a handful of times before, it always makes him feel feral. Like some kind of animal, the way he has to hold himself back from pouncing. You look at him like there’s no one else around, and yeah, there’s no one else around right now, but even when you’re in public, you’ve done it, too. And he doesn’t know how to tell you to stop – he doesn’t really want to. “How’d you perfect the recipe?” he asks. 

“Practice,” you glance at the bubbles dancing through the ice in your glass before focusing back on him, sheepish. “Sarah likes them.”

So you’ve made them for her. Joel sits his drink down. “She does.” 

“Are you hungry?” you ask. “I think I need a snack or something.”

“You don’t have any ice cream, do you?”

“Uhhh…check the freezer?” you say over your shoulder, rummaging through your cabinets for a bowl, and Joel rises to do so. “I think I only have coffee-flavored, though.”

“Good choice,” he answers. His favorite.When he opens the freezer, he’s met with a blast of cool air, a cloud of steam. 

“You have a sweet tooth, don’t you?” you tease, coming to stand next to him, but Joel is too focused on the box of orange popsicles he sees in front of him, and pulls them out to look at the box. “You like these?”

“Not really. I’m partial to cherry.”

“Sarah loves these,” he remarks. 

“Yeah.” 

“I don’t buy them for her anymore, because one time she ate twelve in one day.”

You sniff, grin. “She told me that.”

He studies the drink that you’ve set on your countertop, the box in his hand. “So you bought these for her?”

“Yeah, why?” you cross your arms, almost defensively.

“Are any of the other snacks here just for her?”

“...No,” he can tell you’re lying, and your eyes flick over his shoulder for a second. “Don’t look in that cabinet, though.” 

Joel can’t help the incredulous smile that breaks out over his face. “God, no wonder she’s always over here so much. You’re givin’ her all the junk I don’t let her eat, aren’t you?”

You hold your hands up. “I think she deserves to be comfortable here. Do you want her to starve?”

Joel’s sure he’s staring at you slack-jawed. Not because he’s upset with you, no. It’s quite the opposite. He shakes his head, grins, and starts laughing.

“Don’t laugh at me,” but you’re giggling, too. “It’s not funny.” You reach to swat at him playfully, and something inside him snaps. 

Joel is sick of coming up with excuses to see you. He’s sick of holding you at arms length. He’s sick of not taking what he wants to. He’s sick of pretending he hasn’t thought about you every single day since he first saw you, standing in this very kitchen, leaning over the island and chatting with Sarah. He wants to walk in your front door and know that he can have you however he likes, that he’s allowed to. He realizes if he doesn’t act, he’ll never find out. It’ll eat him alive.

So before you can make contact, he wraps his hand around your wrist, draws you in closer. It catches you off guard, sure, but your eyes are locked, and he sees that you’re not shaken in the slightest.

“You know,” he says. “You’re nicer than you think.” 

The energy in the room has shifted. But it doesn’t seem to phase you, and when he’s this close, he can study every freckle on your face, the color of your eyes – can remind himself, again, though he hardly has to – just how beautiful you are. You lower your arm, and at first – he panics, thinks that you might be pulling away. He’s read it wrong, all wrong. But all your doing is giving yourself a better angle to grip his wrist in kind, hand clasping over his broken watch.

“Keep it to yourself, Joel.” you whisper. And it's supposed to be a joke, but you can't seem to tear your gaze off his lips. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“I will.” 

Joel kisses you. Hard. It’s like a dam breaking, every time he’s held himself back from you comes barreling forward, and it’s all right there. Everywhere. Overwhelming. But he can't stop. He moves with purpose, cupping your chin. He winds his other arm around your waist, crushing you against him. You taste sweeter than he’d imagined, cherry-flavored syrup lingering on your lips. You groan against him, your head tilting back as he moves in closer, jaw relaxing, lips parting.

It’s just enough for him to slip his tongue inside your mouth, to continue to explore, to claim. The things he’s going to do to you…It could be the weed, but every nerve in his body is on high alert – his skin scorches in the wake of your hands raking up his biceps, tangling in his unruly waves. It could be the weed, or it could just be that good.

More, he wants more, and he’s crowding you back towards the counter next to the fridge. Somewhere, distantly, he hears the freezer door fall closed – and probably not all the way – the ice cream long since forgotten. The moment your back hits the granite, you pull away with a ragged inhale, only enough to look him in the eyes.

“Took you long enough,” One of your hands rises to his face.

Joel presses his cheek into the warmth of your palm. “I thought it might be better to keep you waiting.”

You only shake your head, pulling him back into the kiss. He shifts his weight to hook his hands behind your knees and lift you onto the counter. It’s a bit overzealous, and your head bumps the cabinet behind you, but you don’t seem to notice. Both your legs hook around his hips, drawing him in further. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so turned on just from kissing someone – not even for that long – but it’s just so fucking hot. You’re so fucking hot. 

But, he’s capable of one rational thought. This can’t be how it happens. You’re worth more than an animalistic fuck on a kitchen countertop. There’s so much more he wants to do that can’t be done here, like this. And…it’s you. You deserve better, although the frustrated noise you let out when he draws back indicates you think the opposite. Another time.

“I’m sor-I-we can’t,” Joel manages. 

Your face drops, you look….almost angry at him. The second he sees it, he realizes what he said was all wrong. “No, I mean we can, we can, just not….not now.”

The anger dissipates, you shift back, but reach out, pushing a piece of stray hair off his forehead and running your thumb along his sharp jawline. “Why not?”

“I just…I didn’t-” he shakes his head and looks down. “I’ve wanted this for awhile now, but….this isn’t…I wasn’t expecting-” Fucking spit it out, you dipshit. “Can I take you out or something first?” 

You don’t answer, just shift forward, your forehead bumping into his chest. Joel he brings his arms around your shoulders despite himself. And then your lips are on his neck, teeth scraping, teasing, working up to his ear, where you whisper. “You don’t have to.”

He fucking has you. He could. So easily. “I want to.”

You pull back, and there’s a split second where he swears you look a little ashamed, and then it vanishes. “You are a romantic.”

“Not entirely…” Joel says. “I just…would rather do things right. For someone I like.”

“Someone you like?”

“Yes.” Obviously. 

“Okay, yeah,” you murmur softly. “I would like that.” 

“Next weekend?” 

“That long?” 

He chuckles. “It’ll be worth the wait.” But you don’t seem convinced. “I promise.”

For a split second his eyes flick over your shoulder to the microwave, and he sees what time it is. “Shit. Shit. I’m sorry. It’s late. Sarah’s gonna be home any minute and if I’m not home-” he pauses, gestures between you. “We shouldn’t uh…we shouldn’t mention this to her. Not for now, at least.” 

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it,” you shake your head in agreement. 

Joel leans in to kiss you again. This time, he keeps it slow, tender, lingering. Even though he knows he’ll get to see you again, he still finds it hard to tear himself away.

----

part v

taglist: @yaskna@venomous-ko@lomljigg@yeehawbitchs@ay0nha @eldahae @lol-im-done@melancholicmelanin@reggies-floatie @omniscientqueer@superflymaterial@mikkorantanev@zbeez-outlet @nadja-antipaxos @strawberri-blonde @jabbajambler @ponyboys-sunsets @kyuupidwrites @r4efromvenus @loveatfirstsight-atlastsight @korianderbandit @nicoleoeoeoe @hotgirlsshareaccounts @madisonred88 @crustyrustydusty @sflame15-blog @issybee0611 @darkemeralddiamond @grandmana @totallynotastanacc @ay0nha @virgogaia @lunarxeclipse @marysucks-blog @jabbajambler @surazim @naiomiwinchester

[seraphdreams]

butterfly

opening day

tooru oikawa; butterfly (located on the collarbone) - you’re his first customer of the day but somehow you just seem so innocent, so easy to manipulate

contains - manipulation/breeding, oblivious!reader

word count - 1.8k

whistling is heard from inside the dark shop. you can’t quite make out the body, other than your own standing in front of the reflective windows, black curtains draped from the interior. you check the time on your phone. 12pm, just like you scheduled but maybe they weren’t open yet. “i guess i’ll sit in my car and wait” you think to yourself. you could barely turn 90° before you hear the latch of the door unlock. a hue of dark brown swiftly treading past you.

you stare in silence as you watch the tall man shake the pack of cigarettes in his hand before lighting it with the small black lighter in his pocket. he takes a drag, a cloud of smoke dissolving in the air. he must’ve now noticed your presence, the way you gazed at him in awe. “are you my 12:00?” he asks, peering from the corner of his chestnut brown eyes.

his voice came out sweet despite the cig in his mouth, and warmed up your insides. you shuffled a bit, straightening out the hem of the tiny skirt you’re wearing. “yeah” you answer in a meek tone.

he rests his hand, holding the lighter and cigarette box, into his pocket. he walks to the glass door of the shop, opening it. you take notice of his lean built arms, muscles flexing as he pulls the door open.

“have a seat, there’s a catalog on the table. i’ll be in there shortly” the pretty boy said, flashing a quick smile as you head inside. the name tag on his shirt flashing from the light of the sun. “tooru oikawa”

a whiff of cologne hits you as you step into the small yet spacious parlor. beautiful framed renaissance drawings hung on the light grey/blue walls. you then look down at the shiny wood floor, not a spec of dust in sight. you directed yourself to the comfy looking couch, decorated in turquoise pillows. a black book catches your eye, labeled in white new times roman font, “ideas”. you flip through the pages, looking at multiple upon multiple various tattoos.

this was your first time getting a tattoo and you said to yourself that you wouldn’t get anything too big and something easy to cover up. “hmm?” you hum to yourself as you found a particular photo that caught your attention.

“found anything yet?” you hear oikawa call out as he walks through the door, the diminutive wind blowing his wavy tresses off his face.

he ambles to lean behind the couch you were sitting at, looking down at the book in your hands, a disregard for personal space. you feel his breath ghost against your neck causing you to shudder inconspicuously. you raise the catalog higher and point at the picture so he could see. a breathy chuckle escapes from his throat, you feel the way his eyes trail up your neck and back down.

“you want a butterfly?” he purrs against your skin. you tense up at the sudden intimacy, languidly nodding your head in response. “hmm? on your collarbone too?” he murmurs quietly, trailing his fingers against the skin. there’s a whoosh of cold air as the man shifts from behind you to sitting on the loveseat in front of you. he tilts his head sideways, brows furrowed.

“have you ever gotten a tattoo before?”. you watch his eyes linger on your bare skin, from your neck to your stomach, down to your thighs. you squirm in your seat. “no”. his face lights up in a smirk, a soft chuckle following suit. he gets up from the seat and stands between your slightly parted legs. you meet eyes with the form towering over you. his previous grin now more mischievous than before.

“maybe i should tell you about the procedure, hmm? just so you’re a bit more comfortable” he leans into your ear with that last word. you feel your heart beat fast, afraid that it might be too loud and he’ll hear. “oh, don’t be so nervous. i’ll take good care of you, cutie” he teases in a cocky tone. you watch as he kneels down slowly, keeping his stern eye contact with you. somehow the rock music playing in the background began to sound quieter, softer and the air you’re breathing felt thicker, holding tension.

his soft hand pressed against your thigh, pushing it away from the other, eyes widening at the sight before him. with his nimble fingers, he drew light patterns on the flesh. “i-i don’t think this is supposed to happen” you mutter to him, cheeks hot from embarrassment and confusion. his devious expression turned serious as your words swirled through his head.

“oh, so you don’t think i know what i’m doing?” his now anger filled eyes, glare up at you.

your breath hitched and you could feel nothing but a sense of danger close up your throat. time felt slow and your surroundings had vanished from your optic perspective. just you and tooru at that moment. “no, no, i-“ he got impatient at your babbling nonsense, adding on “i’m the best in the city. do you want the tattoo or not?”

“yes—yes, i do” you gulp. his expression turns calm, him lifting up your skirt. embarrassment floods even harder through your body but tooru doesn’t notice. he’s to caught up in how pretty your pussy looks, in those white lacy underwear; almost like a present wrapped just for him. he hooks his finger on the lace and pulls it down, revealing glistening folds and plump lips. you gasp at the cold air hitting your cunt. it doesn’t take long for tooru’s fingers to dance their way to your clit, tapping rhythmically.

you huff at the sensation, throwing your head back. you could hear him lowly chuckle in response. “tell me what you want me to do”. he pulls away his fingers and looks up at you with seductive eyes, watching you look down at him, bottom lip tucked between your teeth. “please—make me feel good” you whimper timidly. the words sounded like music to his ears.

using his tongue, he glides down your slit, lapping up the slick. you grab his shoulder, digging crescent moon shapes into the flesh. warmth floods your core as he slips the muscle into your hole, exploring your walls. “nnghh..” you shudder as you clench around his tongue, the grip you have on him definitely leaving a bruise later. he keeps pumping using the sharp tip to curl against your velvet core. your shaky legs try to close around him but the iron force of his arm doesn’t let it happen.

your vision becomes blurry and tear filled as he thrashes his tongue on your sweet spot. loud pants and cries fill the nearly empty room. you use your free hand to rub circles on your neglected clit, begging for release. his ruthless speed doesn’t stop, tipping you further and further off the edge. you feel your heart pound harder when he reaches deeper in your walls, sloppily using his tongue and lips to satisfy you. the familiar feeling in your core begins to overpower you. in seconds, you’re gripping onto the couch for leverage as you gush and cream all over his tongue.

he licks his lips, lifting off one knee to stand over your trembling body, face to face with the swelling of his cock in his jeans. “did that feel good?” he coos, wiping the tears from your eyes. “yeah” you try to say but it comes out as more of a whisper. he settles back down in the loveseat across from you, staring at how your messy cunt drips. you pant even more but stop briefly at the sound of unzipping.

you turn your head to see veiny, pale hands wrapped around the girth that is his dick. beads of precum leaked from the top down to his fingers as he pumped himself a few times. noticing how you stare at him, he pats his thigh, calling you over.

“help me finish, yeah?”

you walk over, legs quivering from the previous action, and straddle his waist. he takes a second to examine you, eyes locked on that sacred spot of your collarbone. “that butterfly s’gonna look real nice on you..”.

he lines his cock up with your drenched opening, teasing the tip in and out. “tooru, please” you mutter. for you to be impaled on his cock, you still had that innocent glow to you, still very pliable. you rock your hips adjusting to his length as he slowly pushes you down further. a shaky moan leaves his lips once he bottoms out. you hum in impatience as he watches your body, moving up and down slightly.

“you must want to get off as well, hmm?” he whispers into your ear. you clench around his shaft, nodding your head. he reaches his hands below your skirt to wrap around your waist, encouraging you to move. you lift your weight up to slam back down, the tip of his cock ever so gently kissing your cervix. “ah!” you gasp. his fingers come up to lay flat on your tongue, reaching deeper down your throat. you continue the bouncing motions on his cock. his eyes narrow as he gazes at you with lust filled eyes, nothing but evil intent behind it.

a wanton whine slips from you as you drag your tight cunny on his length. he was big enough to have you gasping for air every time he hit that spot of yours and brings the both of you closer to reaching that high. skin slapping and squelching was all that filled your little ears. the way he grunted each time you slammed down on him, had you clenching tighter and tighter.

his dick twitched as he let out a choked out “fuuuckk”. you can tell he was close, closer than you were as he reached the digits from his mouth to down where you two connected, harsh circles causing friction on your clit. “no, no..too much!” you cry out in overstimulated pain. but he doesn’t care, those words not meaningful enough to create a barrier. you rest your head against his chest, panting as you lax. he ruts up into your cunt, angered by the fact you got lazy with him.

tears flow down your face, his cock bruising your cervix with each thrust and you can feel the way your body seizes in orgasm. “please! ah, please!” you cry, gushing around his shaft. it doesn’t take long for him to crumble with you, flooding his seed into your greedy cunt.

after you’ve both caught your breaths, he lifts you up. “ah ah ahh, don’t fall asleep on me now. we’ve still got a tattoo to do. and you got knocked up as a present, remember me” he winks conceitedly.

[notyetneedcoffee]

Moving Parts, 3

Part Three

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Graphic Violence

oooo 

Steve shifted in his chair, patience waning. Sun beat through the floor to ceiling windows to heat the back of his neck. His chair looked stylish but was about as comfortable as an off kilter bus top bench. The charcoal suit felt tighter now than it did at eight that morning. He fought back the urge to snatch the pen out of Senator Wallace’s hand. If the Congressman kept incessantly tapping it, he was going to snap it in half.  

“I understand,” Cap forced a smile. “There are a lot of questions, and we do our best to provide answers. However, sir, I hope you can understand the myriad of factors taken into consideration during these battle cannot be adequately expressed in a report. We have training, protocols, and practices to mitigate risks, but in the moment, we can only make the best decision we can. There’s no time or opportunity to analyze details to extent that is done after the fact.”

“Are you suggesting we just trust you and the people within the Avengers because, what, you know best? Of course we are going review every aspect of these reports.” The Senator leaned forward, trying to take up more space, trying to dominate the conversation.

“I’m just asking that you consider the perspective…”

Wallace cut off Steve, continuing with his detailed criticism of the Avengers’ actions. Unfortunately, his phone vibrated for the sixth time in less than ten minutes. It’s been vibrating at increasing intervals for the last couple hours. The phone gave off a distinctive buzzing alarm.  

“What is that?” The Senator paused, scowling at Steve breast pocket.

“Apologies, sir. There must be an emergency. Communications is breaking past the silent status on my phone. Excuse me.” Steve pulled the phone out of pocket, standing to face the window as he answered. “Rogers.”

“About fucking time. You need to look at your mail. Let me know what you're going to do. I leave in a half hour.” Bucky’s voice growled over the phone, his voice low and murderous. He didn’t wait for an answer, just hung up. 

A frown pulled Steve’s brows together. He opened the email forwarded with a high importance and high security. He read, ‘You may violate the sovereignty of other organizations, but know that we will not tolerate acts of espionage or aggression towards our organization. We choose to keep to our kind. Be no bother to you. You should do the same. If you agree to cease all actions against us, we will return your operative. Do not and accept the consequences.’  

He opened the attachment. His entire body locked up. You were tied to a chair, beaten and barely conscious. A male hand held today’s Wall Street Journal before the camera, allowing him to see the headline and date. In the background, someone clad in black hit you hard, causing you to moan. The whole clip was eight seconds.  

“I have to go.” He stared at the phone.  

“We’re not done here.” The Senator had stood up, apparently looking over Steve’s shoulder at the video.  

“Yes, we are.” Cap turned around, rigid.

“Your time is scheduled with us. If there’s an emergency, other people can...”

“No.” He stepped forward. Wallace took a step back. “She is my priority.” Cap picked up his tablet and strode to the door. He keyed the phone, saying as soon as Bucky answered. “Tell me where. I’ll meet you.”

ooooo

Steve’s warm fingertips ghosted over the small of your back. Warm. You adored it. He would lay beside you tracing the curve of you ass, the dip of your lower back, along your spine all day if you let him. He touched you like a piece of art.  

You stretched.

Pain shocked you out the dazed memory. It dumped you back into reality like an ice bath. Stabs of pain burned through your back, your shoulder. Everything hurt.

Taking a mental stock of yourself, you realized you were face down on a concrete floor. It was dark but for a sliver of light crossing your body from a slit of a window high on the wall. You moved muscles, flexed joints. Nothing felt broken. You tasted blood, your lip split open. You couldn’t see very well out of your left eye. You fought off the fog in your mind. The drugs. They’d drugged you again.

Moving slowly, you rolled over and sat up. They’d locked you in the same room as before. Your wrists were swollen and scabbed. You stomach rumbled.  

You weren’t sure how long it’d been since the symphony. They gave you water, but you hadn’t touched the fry bread left on the plate by the door. It could not have been more than two days, maybe three. Getting up, you examined the room again. You never did find any electronics, no cameras or sensors.  

A key entered the lock on the door. You threw yourself on the floor into the same position you awoke in. The door opened. You concentrated. A foot prodded your hip. You remained limp. A rough kick hit your side. The momentum rolled you over. You remained limp. A hand grabbed the front of your shirt. You attacked.

Moving by muscle memory, seeing the room in a blur, you locked his elbow joint and rolled. Your leg fell over his throat, holding him in an arm bar. You pulled his arm, kicked against the side of his throat, breaking his neck. Rolling to your feet, you breathed when you realize he was alone.  

Rapidly searching the body, you found keys and a 9mm with only ten rounds left in the mag. It would do. You silently snuck out.  

After a few minutes you heard gunfire. Making your way to an open window, you peered outside. You looked to be in some sort of old estate. A courtyard outside held three vehicles. Six men ran from a wing to your left toward the opposite wing.  

Glass broke. A body fell from the second floor. Bullets shattered the windows to the right. Fighting men crashed against the now open window. The uniform and cowl unmistakable. You heart stopped. Steve was here. A flash of silver knocked the attacker away. Bucky.  

Adrenaline cleared your head. Moving carefully, staying hidden, you crossed the courtyard and slipped into the open door. A body sprawled across the stairs. You pulled free his knife and checked his gun. Empty. Creeping up the stairs, you slipped behind a nervous guy holding back and watching the fight.  

The sounds of the battle came clearly to your ears. They were under heavy fire but weren’t falling back like they should. They were taking a beating because they thought you were behind the assailants, maybe?  

“Are you going to shoot her too?” A man shouted. “Shower the building with bullets, Sergeant, and kill her like you killed my grandmother!” More shots. Not Bucky’s. You knew the sound of his weapons. “My grandfather! My father! You murdered them.”

“Don’t know you.” Bucky shouted.

“You didn’t bother, neither of you!” The man’s crazed response came out hoarse. “Not back then!”

Looking above the man watching the battle in front of you, the gold gilded Nazi pediment surprised you. Great. Rushing forward, a hand to mouth and brutal stab of the knife to severe the spinal column at the base of his skull, and the man was down with little more noise than a thud.  

Peeking around the corner showed a dozen combatants against Steve and Bucky. It looked like an old parlor or small ballroom. They were behind a stone column to you right. Three stood between you and them. The rest hid behind furniture and columns to your left.  

Moving as fast as possible, you shot the two furthest from you as you blocked the blow from the nearest target. Going low, when he went high, and you dropped him with a single shot. Now hiding behind your own column, you glanced over.

Bucky’s eyes went soft. You were alive and fighting. He could breathe again.

Steve’s mouth hung open just a bit, for just a moment. Then he clenched his teeth, fury filling his face.

“Wha?” The man was cursing, screaming in German. “Kill them!”  

“Do not fuck with my boys.” You growled, swinging your arm around to empty the remaining rounds. The boys attacked with full force, no long worried about where you were. Seconds later, everyone lay dead or unconscious.  

The shield clanged to the floor just before strong arms pulled you in tight. Steve had pulled off his cowl, pressing his face into your hair. He smelled of sweat and gunpowder. You sighed against him. His hand held your head. Arm wrapped around your ribs.

“Thank god.” He breathed, lips pressing against your ear. “I was so... I love you. Are you okay?”

“Love you, too.” You whispered back. Bucky’s hand slid over your hair, your back. His eyes still scanned the area. Your hand found his. “And you.”

Bucky brought your joined hands to his lips. “Let’s get somewhere safe.”

“Yeah,” Steve stepped back, picking up his shield. “We’ll return to the quinjet, get you taken care of, and then we’ll mop up here.”

You followed them out. The jet lay beyond the gardens next to an outbuilding. No neighborhood or houses in sight. You must be on a really large estate. By the time you dropped onto the bench in the jet, the adrenaline was wearing off and everything hurt again. The drop and the pain brought silent tears to your eyes.  

“Okay, Doll.” Bucky dropped his gear and pulled off his gloves. “Let’s look at you.”

Steve moved forward and locked down the jet, setting the sensors. He pulled the med kit out.

“I’m just going to cut this dress off, okay?” Bucky’s voice gently pulled your attention to yourself again, this time beyond bones and joints. You wore the evening gown, now tattered. No shoes.  You nodded.

Moving with sure and gentle touches, they got you stripped down to just your panties. Steve traced his fingers over the bruised lines crossing your back. Bucky bandaged your wrists and applied salve to your lip. Your brain went fuzzy, exhausted.

“Sweetheart,” Steve choked, his nose ghosting over your shoulder. “Did any of them...” His voice trailed off. Bucky froze.  

Numbly you shook your head. “Just the beatings.”

Bucky sighed before continuing. “Doll, let me see your feet.”

It didn’t even register. The soles were bloodied. He grabbed tweezers and started removing shards of glass. You leaned. Steve shifted and held your side against his chest, your face tucked under his chin. Your quiet tears ran down your face, dripping on to his chest, as you watched Bucky work. You felt numb, aware of the pain but apart from it.

He wrapped your feet. Then pulled out a soft thin blanket. Steve lifted you up, helping Bucky wrap it you. Steve put you down on the med bench, helping you lay down and get comfortable. “We’re going to give you something for the pain, okay sweetheart? You sleep while we take care of everything.”

“Don’t want to sleep.”  

“Yeah, you do.” Steve placed soft kisses along your cheek, the corner of your mouth.  

“No.” But your eyes were already closing.  

“You’re safe, Doll.” Bucky’s soft lips kissed your fingers. “You rest.”

“Okay.” You sighed, drifting off. “I knew you’d come. You’re always there.”

Bucky tucked your arm in, just how you like to sleep. He looked up, seeing the pain and grief in Steve’s eyes. “Hey, she’s okay. We’ve got her.”

Steve’s eyes closed, a tear falling free. “She’s okay.” He repeated. His voice cracked, not more than a whisper. “You’ve got her.”

Before Bucky could respond, Steve scooped up his gear and hit the release for the quinjet’s ramp. He heard Steve’s command voice return. “Time to clean up the mess. I want to know who these people are, everything about them, all of it.” 

With a last kiss to your hair, Bucky followed, sealing you up safely inside.  

TAGS

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[near-seth-experience]

I know everyone clamors about wanting a Sinnoh remake, and while that’s something I’d love to see, I think they are capable of doing more/better.

this is a long post, so read more:

If I remember right, the excuse for not having every Pokemon in Sword/Shield was the amount of resources or something, right? Well, I was thinking about how they could potentially work around some of the more demanding technical aspects of the game, and an idea popped into my head when I was considering possible ways to simplify.

I was remembering how battles looked back in the day. I pulled up some gifs like this:

and I compared them with modern Pokemon, which can be anywhere from simple to the over-the-top Gigantamax moves:

Comparing the two, I cannot imagine Scorbunny’s Double Kick animation in 2019 took any more relative effort than the leaf blade in 2003. The main things that catch my eye in the Scorbunny gif are the weather, the background, and the idle animations of each pokemon. Back in the day, the pokemon were static images. At most, they would slide to signify movement. The backgrounds were a texture underfoot with a color scheme relative to the surroundings in the overworld. The weather would only show up between turns to remind the player of the ongoing effect.

If we dumb a new game down and bring battles back to 2D, that would cut down a significant amount. Enough, I’d wager, to make a full dex (and more) much more than viable. And if we’re going to downgrade the look of battles, we would have to adjust the rest of the game as well so that it isn’t jarring or out-of-place, which would cut down even more. 

The surroundings in recent Switch Pokemon games, especially outside, is pretty active and responsive. The vegetation, like bushes and flowers, sway in the breeze, and you push apart tall grass as you walk through. 

Back in the day, not so much. (this is a still image, but you know what I mean. it might as well be a gif. Shush)

In Let’s Go and SwSh, they animated a walk cycle for every available pokemon, they animated fainting, they animated getting hit, and they each have an animation for interacting with the trainer. 

In the scene below from HGSS, Dragonite’s overworld animation is like a two-frame sprite that they slid across the room. The wings are either up or down. If you interact with your partner Pokemon as it follows you in the overworld, it might do a little spin or hop at most.

If all ~900 (I think Calyrex puts us at 898) were to be included in a modern game, they would each need animations for battle, overworld sprites, movement animations, trainer interactions, expressions, and other stuff I’m probably not thinking about, with shiny variants on top of all of that. But, if all of the pokemon were in a game like HGSS, all that’s required would be the effort needed to make new assets. Tech limitations would be a non-issue.

But, it’s almost 2021. People nowadays would expect something of Nintendo DS quality or lower to be free in the app store. They would need to simultaneously dumb it down and improve the visuals to make something that would sell. It took a long way for me to circle back to it, but the idea that popped into my head that I mentioned at the beginning of the post was in regards to this conundrum.

I think a surefire way to breathe new life into Pokemon would be if they created a massive return-to-form and took stylistic notes from Square Enix.

Specifically,if they took inspiration from the look of Octopath Traveler:

Imagine this at night, with a Spiritomb or Gastly in front of the center tombstone.

Imagine a Pokemon Center and Mart in place of some of the houses. Modernize the architecture.

Angle the perspective of the battle in the classic Pokemon style, with your sprites in the bottom left, and the opposing ones in the top right. Imagine the traditional Pokemon battle Names & Health/EXP bars in their respective locations, and the interface in the bottom: fight / bag / poké / run.

And then, imagine the size of the game. Pokemon Platinum, for example, was (according to a few google results, unit conversion, and rounding up) somewhere close to 0.1-0.12 gigabytes. Pokemon Sword/Shield was something like 10gb, with another few gb on top for the two expansions.

Octopath Traveler is (again, google) 2.9gb

If you weigh all of the new assets required to make a Pokemon game in a similar style, (that’s all 900 Pokemon, all of the visual effects/lighting/shading, all of the textures in the world, all of the buildings, characters, animations, attacks, backgrounds, etc) against those in a modern 3D Pokemon title like SwSh, it would be incredibly lightweight, but an undertaking like this would still require a lot of time.

If you’re already keeping the fans waiting, and technical limitations cease being an issue, I say go big. It needs to be a labor of love. We’ll need more than one region to show off the entire dex. Pull a trick out of Gen 2′s book. Let us beat the Sinnoh League and then tell us to Surf and Waterfall our way to another region. Don’t just give us Sinnoh. Give us Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos.

Or, better yet, if you really want to flex the creative muscles, give us Sinnoh, and then go crazy. Rework spinoff regions and write new stories. Redesign the Orre region from Colosseum & XD or show us Fiore & Almia from the Ranger games. There’s tons of untapped potential that can be brought into the canon of mainline titles.

[verypersonalscreencaps]

An interview with Lesley Manville on World On Fire

BBC One | 24th September 2019

Lesley Manville plays Robina Chase in World On Fire.

What is it about Robina Chase that attracted you to the part? Robina is an upper middle-class woman who is widowed and is the epitome of the very posh end of Manchester. Her son Harry is her only child and he goes off to war - Robina’s story revolves around that. Harry’s father, we learn, committed suicide some time ago and she lives in a large country pile that’s a bit cold and soulless. I was drawn to play that class of woman because it’s not something I’ve had to do often before.

How do we see her evolve throughout the drama? There is something quite frozen about Robina at the beginning of the series and then you get to see this woman who melts a bit and comes to some level of understanding about herself and how she’s conducted her life. The fact that Robina is quite emotionally repressed and finds anything to do with love and being tactile quite a challenge says a lot about where she has come from. It’s partly to do with her background, partly the class she belongs to and partly her upbringing and the time period. She’s quite a closed door and nothing gets in - in fact you get the impression that nothing much has ever got in. In that respect she’s quite an interesting person to get your acting chops around.

How did you react when you first read the script? The first thing you look at when considering any part is the writing and if the writing and narrative are strong then it becomes a much easier decision to say yes and this script is wonderful. It’s beautifully written by Pete Bowker and the characters are all very specifically observed. I love the way the story dipped in and out of all these different lives. Yes of course there are the central characters, but it’s a real cocktail of stories about how this epic and tragic event affected different people in different parts of the world. It looks at what the war did to peoples’ lives on a big scale, on a very small scale and on a very personal scale. What it does to love, relationships and families.

How are we first introduced to Robina in the story? In the story we first meet Robina in her mansion, lonely, on her own. Harry has gone off to war and you get the impression that she’s not been the greatest mother in the world. It’s not that she’s an evil woman in any way, it’s just a muscle in her that she doesn’t quite know how to flex; how to be this person who gives warmth and love.

Harry comes back with Jan, a young Polish child, for her to take care of. She’s aghast - why on earth he would think she has any qualifications to look after a strange child who doesn’t speak her language is beyond her. Jan becomes a sort of challenge for her, and it's what I like about the way Peter’s written Robina: you can write her off as selfish, privileged with a blinkered view of the world - someone who only thinks upper class people are important - working-class people don’t really exist in her world - but she has a great sense of humour and is quite wicked and dry, which I liked a lot about her. The journey for her is that she discovers how to be a mother.

How does her relationship grow with Jan? In the 21st century that we live in families are not necessarily made up of biological members. Families now are about embracing children that are not your own; grandchildren that are not your own, but that was obviously not the case in the 1930s and 40s.

However, Robina actually embraces this young boy and very slowly finds herself attached to him. A whole set of feelings that she didn’t know she was capable of start to emerge and it’s very touching. You see the strange relationship she has with her own son, where, by her own admission, she’s been a terrible mother, but they have something that binds them together. They have a humour and archness with each other and sometimes that’s all it takes. Of course it’s not everything and it’s not nearly enough but it’s what binds them. I do love the way you see this woman who has been so bad at being a mother all her life begin to, through maturity, the war, loneliness, whatever find somewhere in her heart where she can open up a bit and give something to this foreign child.

What does Robina make of Harry’s choices in women? Robina thinks Harry’s choice in women is appalling, especially when you know her expectations for him are that he will marry an upper middle-class girl who knows which knives and forks to use; knows how to dress, knows how to speak properly and will be a credit to her husband.

Being in love doesn’t really matter to Robina. If he could only meet somebody who was presentable and could keep up the ridiculous game that she’s played all her life she would be reasonably pleased with that. She’s embarrassed about the manner of her husband’s death. To Robina it’s shameful and embarrassing and a good marriage for Harry would go some way to eradicating Robina’s embarrassment. However, with two women on the go, one a polish waitress (Kasia) and the other a cabaret singer (Lois), it is looking increasingly unlikely that her wish will come true.

Describe Robina’s relationship with Lois’ dad Douglas? Robina’s relationship with Douglas is at first a necessity because of the relationship between Harry and Douglas’ daughter, Lois. She thinks she can handle Douglas easily because he is a bus driver, but he disarms her with his candour and honesty. Given everything that’s happening in Robina’s world she actually opens up to Douglas and realises that he’s an intelligent man. She can see he has a tenderness and warmth that she envies in some way so we see this unusual friendship begin to develop.

Apart from when she’s with Harry we never see Robina with her own people, so it was quite tricky to get that right because there were no other upper-class characters to bounce off. But then one of the directors (Andy Wilson) gave me a great note which is that Robina is naturally upper-class because it’s in her DNA, so she would never think about how should she behave with a bus driver - she would just be Robina.

What was it like to work with Eryk, who plays the little refugee boy Jan? Eryk is quite an exceptional person, and not just as an actor but as a charming young man. He’s full of warmth and life and love and understanding and compassion. One of my early scenes with him was when she starts to see quite how vulnerable he is, how young he is and how far away from home he is. Eryk played it so brilliantly and I found him very easy to work with. It was also very easy for me to take what I felt about him as a young man and convert that to Robina’s growing sense of compassion and love for Jan.

Eryk’s instincts are quite exceptional for a young actor and there’s not a lot that you have to tell him, he understands it instinctively and you cannot teach that. You could send a child to drama school every Saturday school for ten years and they could learn all the techniques, but you could never teach a child that. He has an inherent understanding and he can tap into his heart and feelings and relay them to the actor he’s working with.

How does war change her? Robina’s perspective of the war is from a very cosy and safe position really. I mean obviously nobody was safe, but she is relatively cosy and safe. You could say she is experiencing the war through Jan, and strangely, she seems to care more about him than the fact her son is on the front line. You will see him arriving back and she’s there, waiting with a polite kiss on the cheek if anything, but there’s no kind of charged emotion at the thought of her child returning from war. Somewhere deep inside those feelings are there, it’s just that it was such a repressed time for her class.

[gayoneoffs]

Jamie//Sam

Jamie had just gotten up from her nap. She wiped the crust from her eyes and took a deep breath and swig of water which she always kept by her bedside. It was her father’s 60th birthday tonight and she had to get ready.

Jamie gets in the shower and starts singing as she often does, this time it was something like Maroon 5 or the Jonas Brothers. She already knows what she’s going to wear, her white button down with black slacks, and her black boots. Simple. Classic. Very James Bond. In the middle of a chorus- Amy breaks into the bathroom--

“I have to pee”, she says matter of factly.

“Just don’t flush”, Jamie says.

Amy pees, “you sound good in there”

“Thank you seestor.” Replies Jamie.

Jamie turns off the shower, and gets ready to get out.

“Are you done peeing?” Jamie says

No answer, she must have left, Jamie gets out of the shower, and wraps a towel around herself, patting herself dry, she thinks to herself ‘I did sound pretty good.’ She moves to the sink to wash her face and brush her teeth. There’s a knock on the bathroom door,

“Just come in, I’m done anyway” Jamie says to who she is assuming is her sister.

“Sorry”

Jamie looks up. She sees a beautiful black haired girl, with freckles and green eyes. And immediately becomes aware of the fact that she is in nothing but a towel.

“I’m Amy’s friend from school, Sam. Amy just said to come in, I really have to pee we drove a long way”

Jamie has her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth quite embarrassingly, quickly recuperating from this new entrance, she rinses and spits, as she looks up in the mirror in front of her she catches Sam glancing at her tattoos.

“I’m just finishing up” Jamie says, playing it cool, really hoping she didn’t hear the Maroon 5.

“Thanks, nice rendition of she will be loved by the way”

Jamie winces for a second, but quickly recovers-

“Maybe she will be one day”

Sam laughs, as Jamie exits and shuts the door.

Jamie goes in her room to get ready, again Amy busts in without a knock and slumps on Jamie’s bed.

“So are you gonna smoke with us tonight?” Amy asks absentmindedly.

“Maybe, who is us by the way I didn’t know you were bringing someone?” Jamie says casually.

“Mom said it was cool, so I thought it’d be fun, she’s been around before, I think you’ve met her.” Amy replies.

“I don’t think so.”

Jamie finishes getting dressed it really doesn’t take long, she starts to comb her hair back. She is short and athletic, toned and tanned and has strawberry blonde hair cut short on the sides but longer on the top. She doesn’t often smile with her teeth but when she does it’s beaming.

“You look good stud” says Amy

“Thank you, I think so.” Jamie says

Jamie looks up and sees Sam in her bedroom doorway, she feels a rush of something that she fights back down into her chest or wherever it came from. It’s your little sister’s friend, she’s younger than you, calm yourself, she tells herself.

Jamie, Sam and Amy all cram in the backseat of the volvo, each with perspective things on their laps for the party, beer, wine, cake. They’re celebrating in a wine cellar at a restaurant. Jamie ends up in the middle, because although she’s the oldest she is the smallest. Jamie becomes aware of her and Sam’s knees touching, sort of inevitable, again she reiterates the age old adage get a grip.

Amy and Sam use the car ride to talk about school, and boys, apparently Sam is just now getting over some stupid boy who did some stupid thing. Jamie is crushed, relieved and terrified all at once at this information. They get to the restaurant and file out, sent to the trunk to carry various party decorations, flowers and more booze. Sam and Jamie both reach for a 12 pack to carry inside,

“I got it” Jamie says.

“You sure?” says Sam

“Do I look sure?” Jamie fake flexes as a joke.

Sam laughs again, “Very sure” and Jamie couldn’t be sure it wasn’t her imagination but thought she saw a little smirk and spark in Sam’s eye when she joked back. This could be a fun night.

The night has gone really well, Jamie’s Dad is having a genuinely good time which is not always a guarantee and Jamie is feeling a little buzz from the open bar and having fun joking around with her cousins. She’s particularly close with her one cousin Ian. Ian sees Jamie looking unabashedly over at Sam who is dancing with Amy. He raises an eyebrow.

“Who is that anyway?” ask Ian.

“Who? Oh yeah that’s Amy’s college friend Sam.” Jamie replies trying to play off the fact that she was definitely staring.

“She’s pretty.” says Ian

“Yeah.” says Jamie with a sigh that basically implies so what.

Ian reads this, “So go talk to her”

“Maybe later” says Jamie

The night continues, more and more people get up to dance. Now, let’s be clear, Jamie is an excellent dancer and not afraid to show it off, especially at family events because who do you have to be embarrassed for? Her family forms a circle around her as she breaks it down, for lack of a better term, to a michael jackson song, absolutely crushing it. Her Uncle Greg burts in the circle with his own interpretation of the word dance and Jamie laughs backing up and off the dance floor feeling warm and a bit more buzzed than she realized. She goes outside to get some air.

She takes out a cigarette, a new habit she knows her family would disapprove of. The door opens behind her as she quickly puts it out and blows away the smoke.

“Just me” says Sam with a knowing smile.

“Oh shit, sorry, it’s just if my Dad knew he’d be upset, sad really.” Jamie explains.

“I get it.” Sam moves next to Jamie who is leaning on a banister of sorts on this outside patio type area.

“Do you have anymore?” Sam asks.

Jamie sorta of chuckles

“What?” says Sam defensively

“Sorry, sorry I just didn’t think you’re the smoking type.” says Jamie with her hands up in defense.

“And I didn’t pin you as the Maroon 5 type.” Again with that smirk. ‘It’s killing me, and she knows it’s killing me’ thinks Jamie.

Jamie “Touche” She pulls out two more cigarettes and hands one to Sam who puts it between her lips and leans forward for Jamie to light it, Jamie blocks the wind with one hand and lights with the other her hands close to her face.

Sam takes a long draw and starts coughing, Jamie pats her on the back “You alright there?”

Sam says “Yeah, yeah of course.” Thinking to herself, what an idiot. Also what am I doing, why do I want her hands to be so close to me? Why didn’t Amy mention anything about her sister? I guess it doesn’t really matter now. But all night all she could do was watch Jamie dance, her muscles under her white shirt showing through the sweat.

They stand in silence and smoke their cigarettes. Jamie catches Sam looking over at her in a way she wishes she would, and then tells herself it’s just the booze, at that moment Amy comes outside, “come on we’re gonna sing and do cake”

They go inside, Jamie making a gesture for Sam to enter first. As the night goes on, everyone gets more and more drunk, including Jamie, which is what gives her the courage to start dancing with Sam. There are plenty of people on the dance floor and Sam is dancing sort of near Amy and some cousins. Jamie makes eye contact with her, and Sam holds her gaze, she is feeling sweat down her back all of a sudden. Jamie reaches out her hand and Sam takes it, Jamie spins her and brings her close, Amy woops! in the background but they only feel and see each other, it is electric. They dance close together ignoring boundaries maybe because it’s late maybe because of alcohol and maybe because they’re strangers and what the hell.

They only share that one dance, Amy sweeps Sam away the rest of the night as Jamie and Ian mess around until the party dwindles and it’s time to climb back into the volvo. The seating arrangement is the same, Jamie in the middle Sam and Amy on either side. Sam and Jamie’s knees are touching again, inevitable, but Sam pushes hers against Jamies hard, Jamie smiles with her head down and pushes back. Sam puts her head on Jamie’s shoulder and falls asleep for the rest of the ride. Amy pays no mind as she’s pretty drunk herself.

Jamie gently wakes Sam when they pull into the driveway. It is always strange sleeping in your childhood bedroom when you’re in your mid 20s. It’s comforting and maybe humbling? Jamie stumbles up stairs, everyone takes turns in the only bathroom brushing teeth washing up and all that. Jamie says goodnight to her dad and gives him a kiss on the forehead, and heads to her room. Amy and Sam are sleeping in Amy’s old room down the hall. Jamie feels tension between the walls of their rooms. She gets up to go downstairs to get her glass of water because she forgot to bring one up, she is climbing the stairs in the dark when she bumps into Sam.

“Shit!” whisper yells Jamie, “I’m so sorry, I can’t see a damn thing”

“It’s okay its okay” Sam starts laughing, her shirt is soaked. “I was just coming down to get something sweet to eat.”

Jamie goes downstairs with her and gets her paper towels for her shirt and finds some chocolate covered pretzels in the cupboard for her to snack on.

“Thanks” says Sam shyly “Do you actually think I could borrow another sleep shirt, I only brought the one, and I don’t want to wake Amy.”

“Yeah, yeah of course.” Jamie says in earnest.

They head upstairs, into Jamie’s room. Jamie opens her drawer to find something for Sam and turns around to see Sam has taken the wet shirt off, Jamie quickly turns away and hands Sam the shirt without looking. Sam giggles at this reaction. “It was just cold”

“I get it, I get it. Do you want a hoodie too?” Jamie offers.

“That would be nice actually.” Sam says.

Jamie gets her a comfy warm hoodie and implies that this is the end of this interaction for it’s all she can take. She is aching to just grab Sam and kiss her, but knows she cannot, should not.

“Goodnight” Jamie says

“Goodnight, thanks for the shirt and the sweatshirt and the pretzels” Sam says.

“My pleasure” Jamie says

Sam takes a step closer to Jamie. Jamie closes her eyes for a moment and in a moment of wild courage says “If you come any closer I am not sure I will be able to stop myself from kissing you.”

“Good” Says Sam as she steps closer into Jamie’s orbit.

Jamie pushes a stray piece of hair from Sam’s face and leans in, Sam crashes into her quite unexpectedly, and their bodies are pressed firmly together. Jamie starts slow, in total control of the kiss, but as Sam’s hands find Jamie’s shoulders and back she melts like jelly and is completely out of control, biting and nipping and moaning. Sam is just as passionate back gripping at Jamie’s shirt balling it into a fist, they become aware of the bed that is right next to them and crash into it.

“What is happening?” Jamie says in between breaths

“Don’t think about it” says Sam

And they don’t.

[not-poignant]

Hi! Happy (late) new year! I hope lots of good things will come your way in 2018! I got a little question that I've been wondering for awhile; what font do you use when writing, and what size? I'm trying to find a font that could work for me, but I find it difficult to find one that fits for long hours of writing in front of the computer without straining the eyes. D: And it's well known you tend to write chapters over 10k words. So yeah, what is your secret? Any tips? XD

Hiya anon!

The font I write with changes over time, because I find I get bored of one and then move to another. I worked with 12pt Arial for a while, then Courier, then Arial, than Calibri (fuck you default Word font) and now I’m back to Times New Roman like some kind of generic...something.

For me, I actually just need a decent sized font. So along with the 12pt (which is standard), I actually just write with a document increased to 120% of its original size. That way I can keep a ‘normal’ font size (which helps because I edit on my phone, and my phone can scale fonts strangely unless they’re a nice comfy 12pt), but can also write at any size I want.

Really, you shouldn’t sit for long hours in front of the computer without breaks anyway. Like, that is bad for the eyes, and it will cause eyestrain, even in the most hardened writers (like me). It helps to google or learn tips for helping with eyestrain. A lot of the time it’s as simple as changing your perspective for five minutes (or even one minute). I tape landscapes above my computer screen, and then stare at the horizon line, which forces my eyes to flex and shift, and gifts the fatigued muscles a chance to rest.

Taking time to actually blink (one of the biggest causes of blurriness and eyestrain is blinking less, increasingly, in response to the screen) will help as well. Getting up, walking around for 5-10 minutes every 30 (or if you like to hyperfocus like me, every hour) will help. Staying hydrated helps. Changing from short focus to long focus (i.e. looking in the distance vs. looking up close) helps a lot. Sometimes splashing your face or using eye-drops helps (a lot of the blurriness is as attributable to dry eyes as it is to eye fatigue).

If you wait until your eyesight is blurry, you’ve waited too long. But that’s a skill, and it will take some time to learn how to look after your eyes.

Figuring out what works for you - it changes for everyone. Some people need a black font on a white background. Some need white on black. Some need brown font on cream. Some need high contrast. Some low. Some need bright light, some need muted light (I need a muted light screen, which fucks me up, because I also process a lot of art digitally after it’s been scanned so I’m always changing my light output on my screen). Some need a yellow light and some need a blue light. All those things, if you have the time (and in some cases the money) to play with that, can help you find a nice comfy spot for your eyes.

But if you try and write for hours without breaks or eye exercises you will get eyestrain. That’s just how the body works. The font and background won’t change that. You might be able to delay how long it takes for the eyestrain to set in (which is the goal for many artists and writers), but eyes are delicate, and it’s best to go in with a system of caretaking them which is more than just font and size and background changes. :) Your eyes will thank you for it!

[scottyallenw]

𝙒𝙃𝙀𝙉 𝙄𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝙐𝙍𝘾𝙃 𝙂𝙊𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙊 𝙂𝙍𝙊𝙒 𝘼 𝙋𝘼𝙄𝙍

(2,219 words)

Not long ago a female member of my extended family posted on social media the claim that President Trump fits the definition of a demagogue perfectly. I know that God has anointed Trump to shake up the Washington establishment, remove trade barriers, ignite political firestorms and prosecute widespread corruption. So I reacted angrily to the post. Fired up, I immediately typed the following comment on her post:

“Yes, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Christ) fits the definition perfectly. He went out of his way to piss off a large portion of the populace, sorry ass religious leaders, lawyers and politicians. Yeshua knew what he was doing; he knew what his enemies would do. The rest is history: the Roman proconsul, afraid of a large angry mob, turned Yeshua over to his soldiers for execution. Then he washed his hands of the whole thing. Today we have a President who like Yeshua is taking a wrecking ball to the political establishment, hurting people’s feelings and with his Twitter feed exposing hypocrisy. In my opinion we need more people like Yeshua and Trump, turning the world upside down.”

Shortly after this, the woman deleted my comment. I was saddened, and asked myself if I was too brutal. But no, it is the truth that is brutal. Having thought it over, I had no remorse.

But does Scripture reveal Yeshua's true character? Absolutely. Yet Yeshua is widely misunderstood to be simply an easygoing advocate of love and peace, making no demands of His followers. My reading of the gospels recognizes a Yeshua not only with a prickly side, but a Messiah with a fighting spirit. His actions and remarks often cut into the hearts of His adversaries. He was and still is a soldier in a war against hypocrisy. Some day Mashiach will return and put the wicked out of business. But I'm sure the Master would prefer His people finish the job first.

To properly appraise Yeshua's character one must study the man in action. Consider the following account in Luke 6 where Yeshua encounters on the Sabbath a man whose hand is withered. He wants to heal the man, but He also notices scholars and Pharisees nearby hoping to accuse Him of working on Shabbat.

Yeshua defiantly leads the man to a place where everyone, but especially His potential accusers, can get a good look. Yeshua asks the man a question that He really intends for the ears of the religious leaders:

“What is correct on Shabbat: to cause good or to cause harm? To rescue life, or to harm?” Yeshua “looked around intently at all of them,” before healing the man.

The scholars and Pharisees “were wild with rage...” It is exactly the reaction Yeshua intended to incite. Perhaps Yeshua even relished the anger directed at Him. He knew they would plot His crucifixion. With the Shabbat healing He had handed them as it were the hammer and nails to do the job. But He also knew His time had not yet come, and so He slipped away through the crowd.

John 6 relates an episode that epitomizes the notion that Yeshua, like Trump, was born to offend. It involves a vast crowd which has grown about Yeshua during a series of the Master’s signs and miraculous healings. Yeshua understands that most of the new followers are fake. The masses care only about the spectacle of signs and wonders. They also want to declare Yeshua King. They lack any interest whatsoever in obeying His commands or hearing His interpretation of the Torah.

Yeshua conceives a shrewd plan to thin the crowds. He recognizes that Jewish familiarity with Torah is widespread, particularly its prohibition against consuming blood and human flesh. This is abhorrent to all Judeans. So Yeshua turns to the crowd and makes this startling declaration:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.”

The people are stunned by HaMashiach’s words and begin to murmur. Yeshua’s assertion strikes many as repugnant, and even the Master’s close followers are confused. The crowd begins to disperse. As Yeshua fully expected, little more than the core group of 12 disciples are left. Unlike many 21st century mega church pastors, Yeshua is less interested in numbers than in devotion. By deliberately offending the masses, Yeshua is left only with the loyal few.

Matthew 23 describes another public demonstration of Yeshua's remarkable choice of words: it involves the Messiah’s fiery confrontation in the Holy City with His favorite target audience—hypocritical religious leaders. The passage is popularly known as the Eight Woes. Most Christian translations quote Yeshua’s string of rebukes with these words: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you...”

The original language of the New Testament is widely understood to be Greek. However scholars now believe the book of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and early manuscripts are being studied. The original language of Luke is also believed to be Hebrew and some scholars believe the entire New Testament was originally written in Hebrew.

A few years ago I was seated among a Grand Rapids, MI, congregation whose senior pastor had a background in Hebrew studies. The pastor explained what he regarded as a more accurate rendering of the Eight Woes passage. Yeshua's words are commonly translated from the Greek, “Woe to you...” Properly translated from Hebrew, Yeshua actually said, “GOD DAMN YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites...,” (emphasis added). The pastor’s congregation was stunned by the language, as was I. The fighting words Yeshua used permanently altered my perception of the risen Savior.

Now imagine if you will a society in which ancient truths and assumptions once thought to be self-evident, are questioned and finally tossed aside. This of course is not hard to imagine; it is the current state of American society. Its citizens are told a man can be a wife, a woman can be a husband. and a man can bear a child.. Americans are even told an OB-GYN can treat a person with male genitalia—assertions which only decades ago would be thought absurd.. Such reckless claims are now accepted by a majority as fact!

The United States Declaration of Independence states: We hold these truths to be self-evident... Will these once-cherished convictions be among the next batch of truths to come under attack, and finally discarded?

The following few paragraphs will hopefully add clarity to what is at stake. High school geometry students are taught they must accept certain common sense assumptions on which to build a mathematical framework of theorems. Each of these are proved by a chain of reasoning. For example, students will readily accept the claim that two parallel lines will never intersect, even if the lines extend towards infinity. Widespread rejection of this common sense assumption would make the teaching of traditional geometry impossible.

College mathematics offers students a different perspective of not only geometry, but the nature of truth. A course called abstract geometry is built on a set of counterintuitive assumptions. To pass this course students must for several hours each week discard all notions of common sense. One proposition in this mathematical model is that two parallel lines will always intersect as they extend to infinity. If this is assumed along with other absurd truths, an entire universe of theorems can be proven. It works beautifully. I enjoyed the course. But after final exams we students set aside this nonsense and rejoined the real world. We realized abstract geometry is just mental acrobatics. It can't work in a functioning society. Could the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan have been built using this kind of math?

Abstract geometry is a type of an Orwellian world. It is similar to what our own society is becoming. Highly educated and experienced jurists have in recent decades rejected the bedrock truths of Mount Sinai in favor of new ideas that now enjoy widespread public acceptance. From the legalization of sodomy, these judges concluded by a chain of reasoning that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. From the assumption that a human fetus is not a person, jurists rule abortion is a constitutional right. It's all perfect logic, but the proofs are based on false assumptions. Consider the following scripture:

“You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the ancestors have set...” (Deuteronomy 19:14)

Jewish sages explained long ago that this admonition has a metaphorical meaning in addition to its literal interpretation. It is a warning to elders and jurists: never overturn principles that have been widely accepted and have governed society for centuries, let alone millennia. One by one the courts have within less than an average human lifespan, torn down many of America's boundary markers.

Local school boards in California are already mandating indoctrination of children in Islamic and LGBT ideologies. Boys of believing parents possibly will be taught using artificial body parts how to sodomize another male. Officials are also talking about forcing believing parents who homeschool their children to do the same.

It's time for the Church to flex spiritual muscle. Our model is the biblical accounts of the Master Himself. Yeshua never allowed adversaries to force Him into a defensive posture. He stayed on offense. When accused, Yeshua responded with on-target scripture, a clever parable or pointed questions. He was unafraid to follow up with accusations of His own.

We live in an age when the ACLU regularly sues conservatives, Christian cake makers and flower arrangers for supposed anti-LGBT bias or religious expression in the public square. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for the same reason puts churches and other religious organizations on its well-circulated list of hate groups. Both of these organizations want the public to believe they stand for justice, civil rights and goodness. In reality these are wicked people who are relentless, full of hate and attempting to oppose the Church's every positive move in America.

Why is it the ACLU and SPLC rarely get sued? It's time for the Church to fight back. Let's force the enemy onto the defensive for a change. For that we need generous believers who have money, lots of it.  It's time for wealthy believers in Yeshua to step up. The Church needs its own version of George Soros.

“No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well,” Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) said years ago.

While big money is needed, the most important battles will involve our own interactions with others, especially on social media. Many of our best soldiers regularly get kicked off these platforms. Others suffer more serious consequences for standing on God's Word.

Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) will give us just the right words to powerfully respond to enemy attacks. I was seated once again years ago with that Grand Rapids congregation listening to the same pastor. This time he read the English translation of an ancient Roman court transcript from the time of the early Church. This was a time when the Roman Empire clamped down ruthlessly on the Church, putting many believers to death.

The case involved one of the believers in Yeshua whom the Romans placed on trial for his faith. The man knew the Romans were about to sentence him to death. He addressed the judge and prosecutor with chilling words that brought his modern listeners back nearly two millennia. It was like we were in that courtroom with him. The brave man’s statement, as recorded on the transcript, went something like this:

“A time will come when you will be sorry for what you have done here today. Both of you will stand in a courtroom much like this one. You will be on trial for your lives before a prosecutor and judge, just as I am today. And standing off to the side you will see me, quite alive and well. I will be there to testify against the both of you.”

In his six-volume memoir of the Second World War, the former British prime minister Winston Churchill recalls the dark days of Germany’s relentless bombing campaign against London and other large cities. For an extended period early in the war the cities were all but defenseless, there being no anti-aircraft weaponry available. But eventually large numbers of anti-aircraft

guns were placed throughout the populated areas. War-weary British citizens huddling in bomb shelters heard not only the explosions of German bombs—they were exhilarated by the overpowering blasts of countless heavy guns firing back at the German bombers. The knowledge they were finally fighting back against their merciless enemy did wonders for British moral, and contributed to bringing about eventual victory.

Is the Church up to the task of confronting the forces of evil in America? Will the job require a leader in the mold of Churchill? My choice rather would be a great spiritual leader in the mold of Yeshua Himself. We must view the conflict as Churchill early on wanted his people to view the Nazi threat looming just across the English Channel: “regard the menace of invasion with a steady gaze.” ##

* 𝙔𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙖 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 𝙩𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙙

[jd-the-anime-fan]

Fox of Avarice

Fanfiction.net

Summary: Greed was offered a second chance at life in a new world by Truth, the only catch was to be sealed into an aspiring ninja named Naruto Uzumaki. Throw in an unlikely friendship with a giant fox and the homunculus may soon find his new life more entertaining than he initially thought. 

                                                                                                                              A/N: Hey guys, so this is a story from FF.net that I did as a challenge for a friend there, there is already a second chapter but I wanted to see what you guys think of this before I post that.

"Thank you... and goodbye my friends..."

Greed opened his eyes, immediately becoming confused. The last thing he remembered was seeing the horrified expressions of his comrades after Father destroyed him. Slowly, he sat up realising he did indeed have a solid body, flexing his fingers and other muscles just to make sure. He looked around, though there was nothing much to see, the strange domain that Greed found himself in appeared to be nothing but an endless expanse of white. "Where the hell am I?" Greed asked himself.

"Welcome Greed the Avaricious." A voice stated, immediately Greed whipped around to find the source of the voice. The being was completely white, eyeless and resembled the build of a human male in shape, surrounded by a black, blotchy outline to distinguish itself from the background. When the being spoke, it was as if several voices were speaking at once.

"Who are you?" Greed asked in a respectful tone, sensing the being was much more powerful than he was.

The entity seemed to think for a moment before replying, "I am many things. I am World. I am Universe. I am God. I am Truth. I am All. I am One and lastly, I am You." The figure, now identified as Truth said, a grin splitting apart where the face would be.

Greed was shocked, this was the being that Father wanted to acquire so he could become a god, after a long silence, Greed finally asked, "What do you want with me?"

"I'm glad you asked, you see Greed, I have decided to give you a second chance at life."

Greed, for lack of a better term was stunned, "Why exactly do you want to do that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Truth asked, "I suppose you're not aware given that you died before it happened but by reversing the effects of the Ultimate Shield, you were able to cripple Father, allowing for the Fullmetal Alchemist to deal the final blow to that arrogant fool's physical form. Once that was done, I took care of the rest."

Greed smiled, happy that his allies had managed to defeat Father, "But that still doesn't answer my question." He stated, taking care not to sound condescending.

"Of course, let's call it equivalent exchange, your heroism helped to save one world, so I will give life in a new one. The new world I have selected is not like your old one, instead of alchemists, it is a world populated by ninjas, somewhat similar warriors to the bodyguards of the Xingese prince. However, many techniques performed in that world are powered by chakra, a form of life energy produced through a combination of one's spiritual and physical energy. There are five major ninja villages, each lead by a ninja known as the Kage, they are typically deemed the most powerful, respected and sometimes even feared ninja to exist." Truth explained.

Greed had to admit it was a tempting offer, however, some things seem too good to be true and this deal was definitely one of them, "What's the catch?" He asked suspiciously.

Truth's grin disappeared at that, rather than answer verbally, a shimmering image began to materialise. It revealed what once seemed to be a prosperous city, seemed to being the key term as many buildings appeared to have been ripped apart or crushed by something unfathomably large. Fire damage was also evident, likely having been caused as a result of the attack. One of the city's most prominent features was a mountain with several faces carved into it. Soon though, the image moved closer towards one of the few unscathed buildings, it had a bizarre symbol Greed had never seen before (1), the perspective of the image changed to the inside of the topmost area. The room was an office of sorts, the only occupant being an old man wearing red and white robes, it didn't take a genius to realise that this man was likely an authority figure of some sorts. However, he was looking down solemnly at the bundle he cradled in his arms. It took Greed a moment to realise, but the bundle was a baby clad in a blue blanket, even though he wasn't an expert, it was fairly easy to tell that the baby was a new-born. It had a small mop of blonde hair, but the most peculiar thing about it was three whisker-like birthmarks on each cheek.

"The child's name is Naruto Uzumaki." Truth explained, "He has been orphaned as a result of an attack by a creature of immense power known as the Nine-Tailed Fox. The 'catch' as you called it, is that you will be placed inside him, much like your relationship with the Xingese prince."

"You want me to share a body with a baby?" Greed asked incredulously, "No thanks." He stated, getting up and attempting to walk away from Truth as the image disappeared, Ling may have been an ally and eventual friend to the homunculus but even he didn't like the thought of sharing another body, least of all with a baby.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Truth cried, suddenly appearing in front of the homunculus, "There is one little detail I should have mentioned. You see, the Nine-Tails was not killed, it didn't even run away. It was sealed into Naruto." Truth explained.

"Oh," Greed said in what seemed to be a realisation, "So you want to trap me in the body of a baby with a giant fox? How nice of you." He continued sarcastically.

"That's not what I meant." Truth stated in an annoyed tone, "Naruto will wish to become Hokage, the leader of Konoha when he grows up. However, the implications of the Nine-Tail's sealing will likely mean he will be ostracised by most of Konoha, something he shall want will be the chance to have friends. Sound familiar?"

Greed was surprised and even felt sympathy for the young baby, now he was unsure at the parallels drawn between himself and the child, "There is also something else." Truth said, garnering Greed's attention, "While it is true you would also share a body with the Nine-Tails, it is rumoured to be the most powerful of the tailed beasts, if you help Naruto to control or even convince the Nine-Tails to lend you its strength, you could become incredibly powerful. Also, do you recall the mountain with the faces carved into it shown in the image?" At Greed's nod, Truth explained further, "As I have said, the Kage lead their respective villages, however Konoha has a relatively unique tradition of carving the faces of their leaders both past and present onto the face of the mountain you saw. The last face that was carved on? Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage and Naruto's biological father. While royalty does not officially exist in any ninja village, Naruto is practically a prince. As well as that, Naruto is a member of the Uzumaki clan, a group of ninja famed for having an incredibly strong life force."

Greed thought for a moment, despite his grievances with being sealed into an infant, the potential for what Naruto could become did sound promising. Plus, the fact that the new-born was from a prominent lineage, much like Ling, made the deal seem even better. "I think I'll take your offer Truth." Greed said, the entity's grin growing wider in response, "But, is there anything else I need to know?"

"Yes, there is. You will no longer possess a Philosopher's Stone, your homunculus abilities will instead be powered by Naruto's chakra, should you choose to take command at times. Also, certain ninja wield special abilities known as Kekkei Genkai, which is determined by a combination of what are known as nature affinities, which also show the elemental ninjutsu you will have a better control of. You will be granted a separate nature affinity to Naruto, meaning the two of you shall possess a Kekkei Genkai. Which one exactly, you will have to find out but I know you will make good use of it. Also, I trust this form shall suffice?" At Truth's prompt, a reflective surface was created in front of Greed, allowing the homunculus to actually see what he looked like. Needless to say, Greed was quite surprised to see Ling Yao's face staring back at him. Though he did look exactly like the prince, a certain feature was different from the young man. Unlike Ling, Greed's eyes remained open constantly open, showing off his slit pupils surrounded by purple irises.

His long, black hair was tied back in a ponytail, with a set of bangs swept over to the right side. He was clad in all black clothes that consisted of a sleeveless Nehru jacket under a long trench coat with a pair of slacks and shoes. "This'll do fine." Greed said, quite happy to see his second form again.

"And with that I bid you adieu." Truth said, there was a creaking sound behind the homunculus. Turning around, Greed saw a set of black stone gates decorated alchemical symbols opening, when the gates fully opened, it revealed a pitch-black abyss. Slowly, black tendrils began to slither from out of the darkness and firmly anchored themselves by wrapping around the limbs of the homunculus. The tendrils began to pull Greed towards the open gate, the homunculus offering no resistance making the process that much quicker. As the doors began to close on him, Truth gave him one last farewell, "Good luck to you Greed, may you face the challenges the ninja world has to offer with steadfast resolve!" With that, the gate closed fully, plunging Greed into darkness before he blacked out.

Greed groaned as he began to wake up once again, "I have really got to stop waking up in random places I don't know anything about." He grumbled as he took in his dimly-lit surroundings, if he didn't know any better he'd say he was in the sewers beneath Dublith or possibly even Central. Getting up from his sitting position, he realised that there was ankle-deep water which seemed to cover the entirety of the floor, "So where do I go from here?" He pondered, seeing as the walls of the sewer looked practically the same. Seeing no other option, Greed decided to pick a random direction.

Wandering through the seemingly endless labyrinth of tunnels soon began to feel tedious, however, Greed had begun to develop a gut feeling that felt like it was guiding him towards a specific location. He soon found the answer as he rounded a corner, a large set of red gates with bars reminiscent of a jail cell that appeared to be kept shut by a tag with lettering similar to the one he'd seen on the building in the vision Truth showed him. As Greed slowly approached the cage, he became aware of the air steadily becoming thicker and for some reason a slight feeling of dread was beginning to well-up inside the homunculus.

"You are not my container, in fact, you're not even human, are you?" (2) A demonic voice emanated from the cage, Greed froze and took notice of the sound of footsteps as well as the rippling water. It wasn't long before the leviathan emerged from the shadows, the monstrosity was a gigantic fox, easily bigger than several buildings. It had bright orange fur, intimidating red eyes with black slits for pupils and part of its body appeared to be vaguely humanoid. Though the fox's most prominent feature was nine large tails standing on end behind it.

"You're right, I'm not." Greed said, managing to regain his composure, "My name is Greed," Upon noticing the Nine-Tails appeared to be puzzled by the statement, Greed decided to elaborate, "Let me explain." From there Greed told the Nine-Tails his story, seeing as the tailed beast wouldn't at least tolerate the homunculus if he knew nothing about him. He told the Nine-Tails of how he was created by Father, his first death and revival, and finally, how he had died a second time before being offered the deal by Truth.

There was quite a long silence as the Nine-Tails stared apprehensively at the homunculus, deciding to break the silence, Greed spoke up, "So...? Are we roommates now?"

A/N: Roll credits, people asked for this, I hope I was able to deliver. With any luck, I'll see you guys next chapter.

1) I don't recall seeing any kind of lettering from one of the Japanese alphabets in FMA, correct me if I'm wrong.

2) Animals can sense homunculi aren't human, so I don't see a reason why the tailed beasts can't do the same.

[twosidestarot]

Making Friends with the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot

A new deck in town is always an exciting thing, and maybe I’m crazy, but the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle Deck had me extra excited. If you’ve had a glimpse of this deck online, you’ll know that the production is lux and the art show-stopping. Not only that, but in addition to the standard 78-card tarot deck, it also includes a bonus 22-card oracle deck. Effectively, it’s two decks in one. A hard proposition to resist for those of us who like our cards a little… extra!

Shop the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle Deck here!

 Cosmos is the second collaborative tarot project from the masterminds at Light Grey Art Lab (you can find the first Light Grey Tarot here). Like the first deck, each card in Cosmos is the work of a different artist, bringing together 100 artists from around the world to riff on tarot and astrology in this unique and beautiful deck.

I don’t know how they managed it, but like the original Light Grey Tarot, Cosmos is simultaneously diverse and cohesive, aesthetically speaking. It’s an amazing feat of fortune and coordination to have one hundred artists – not necessarily versed in tarot – create one hundred individual artworks that come together to make a singular working deck. Honestly, it’s kind of remarkable!

Oracle Cards from the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle

The other feat of unification that the Light Grey Cosmos deck achieves is its parallel exploration of tarot, mythology and astrology. Each card has a celestial attribution, bringing together traditional tarot meanings and the symbolic and mythological significance of constellations, planets, and other astral phenomena. Although, to say the tarot associations are traditional is not strictly correct; some of the cards read like their Rider Waite Smith equivalents, but many have been taken in unique directions. Cosmos is definitely kind of deck that rewards study, so get those tarot journals out!

When I look at a new deck, I like to check out how it deals with sexuality and gender, usually by looking at the Ten of Cups, the Two of Cups, and the Ten of Pentacles, and The Lovers. Interestingly, each of these cards depicts a woman either alone or with an animal (The Lovers, which is associated in this deck with the sign of Cancer, shows a woman with an abstract, crab-like creature).

When it comes to racial diversity, there are cards that depict people of colour (to name a few, The Sun, The Star, and the Five of Earth). The art definitely errs on the side of fantastical, so there are also a lot of magical blue people, for example. Cosmos’ depiction of people of colour is not overly realistic, but then, there isn’t much realism at all in this strange, celestial deck.

Interestingly, a goodly proportion of the cards depict non-human figures, landscapes, or symbolic objects. For that reason, Cosmos will definitely appeal to readers who prefer their decks to place less emphasis on mundane human images, or who like their art well steeped in fantasy.

Since this deck very much marches to the beat of its own drum, it’s fortunate that it comes with a pretty detailed book. There are also keywords printed on each card, along with the card name and associated constellation, which you can utilize or ignore at will.

So, I’ve been taking my time getting to know this deck (a lot of which has been spent just oohing and ahhing over the lush gold foiled edges and the gorgeous imagery). After a while, though, it’s time to stop looking and start reading! For the purposes of this deck interview, I’ve excluded the oracle cards. I’ll give them their own review and interview at a later date.

1. TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF. WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTIC? Queen of Fire (Cassiopeia)

Keywords: Consequences of Arrogance. Vanity and Pride.

The Queen of Fire tells the story of Cassiopeia, and her daughter, Andromeda, women punished for their pride by the sea god, Poseidon. While the story of Cassiopeia warns of the potential pitfalls of pride (or perhaps of cranky gods who’d rather keep women in their places), the accompanying booklet says that really, this card is about Andromeda rising above her trials and breaking free.

Freedom is something the Light Grey Cosmos Tarot has in spades! Traditional tarot structures and elemental associations are all up for grabs here, and this deck makes no apologies for it. This deck captures all that dark stuff – pride, revenge, subjugation – but also brings a liberated spirit to the reading table.

2. WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS AS A DECK? XVIII The Moon (Pisces)

Keywords: Subconscious. Indecision. Critique. Sensitivity.

I’m not surprised to see The Moon come up, because this deck can be pretty weird! From the imagery to the keywords to the astral phenomena, Cosmos follows its own lead and resists any assumptions you might want to impose upon it (there’s that free thinking again!). Obviously, this uniqueness and weirdness is a great strength!

When it comes to working with The Moon, we know the best tools we have are intuition and creativity. It’s fair to assume that Cosmos is in its element when the reader approaches with these tools in hand.

3. WHAT ARE YOUR LIMITS AS A DECK? 10 of Water (Corona Borealis)

Keywords: Triumph After Sacrifice. New Beginnings.

Cosmos associates the Ten of Water with the story of Ariadne, who, after being abandoned by her lover, Theseus, finds redemption and a new beginning when she is wooed by Dionysus (it’s worth noting that while the artwork on this card depicts a woman with two leopard-like cats so is not overly heteronormative, the myth that the card is associated with obviously is, so your mileage in that regard may vary!).

So, what do we make of this as a limitation? It would seem Cosmos is not overly concerned with tidy endings, or clean-cut tales of redemption. Don’t expect any coddling here! This deck is complex, and maybe even a little cool, so until you’ve learned to speak its language, reading with it is not going to be a soothing experience. Who doesn’t love a challenge, though?

4. WHAT ARE YOU HERE TO TEACH ME? Three of Air (Hercules)

Keywords: Great Effort. Trial.

Personally, I love this take on the Three of Air. Unlike the traditional meaning of this card (pain, heartbreak), Cosmos makes the Three of Air about proving yourself through strength and endurance. The scene on the card depicts Hercules’ eleventh labour, and demonstrates that we often have to weather many storms in order to get to where we want to go.

Cosmos is obviously here to toughen us up! Or to remind us of how resilient we actually are. I’m already finding that the mixture of tarot, astrology, and mythology in this deck is forcing me to flex my reading muscles, and that’s evidently part of Cosmos’ design. This deck is here to push us as readers, which can only be a good thing!

5. HOW CAN I BEST LEARN FROM AND COLLABORATE WITH YOU? King of Water (Camelopardalis)

Keywords: Seeing the Big Picture. Gaining Perspective.

The King of Water is associated with Camelopardalis, the giraffe constellation, and is associated with the Qilin, giraffe-like creatures from Chinese mythology. This King is all about taking an aerial view of things, stepping back and seeing the big picture.

That definitely feels like a good strategy for reading with a deck that’s so ambitious in scope! The best way to work with Cosmos is to step away from narrow assumptions about traditional card meanings, and instead to allow elemental, mythological, and astrological associations to coalesce into something bigger and more complex.

6. WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OUTCOME OF OUR WORKING RELATIONSHIP? Two of Fire (Fornax)

Keywords: Incubation. Pregnancy.

The Two of Fire tells the story of the Roman goddess of the hearth, Fornax, who was honoured with the festival of Fornicalia to ensure that the year’s grain would be properly baked. Buns in the oven, anyone? I hope we’re all using birth control!

It seems Cosmos is so slick it might even get you laid, but it’s probably more likely that working with this deck will lead to some cool creative breakthroughs. There’s so much richness to delve into here that fruitful inspirations are bound to bloom. Personally, I’m excited to delve into this deck’s depths and get those fiery, creative ideas incubating!

*

Phew! It's been a long one today, but there's just so much in this rich and beautiful deck. Cosmos is definitely a deck that rewards close study, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with it and discovering all of its quirks and secrets!

The Light Grey Cosmos Tarot & Oracle deck is, of course, in the shop now and ready to ship! You can pick up your own copy right here.

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[charles195]

This Body Is Yours Ch. 2

Fandom: Yuuri!!! On Ice

Summary: Destiny? Fate? Soulmates? Reincarnation Without the Death? Otabek mostly thought it was troublesome. They were individuals that had their own aspirations and goals to achieve, and having their souls intertwined by some unexplored metaphysical bond was taking a toll on the both of them.

Pairing: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky

Characters: Otabek Altin, Mila Babichieva, Yakov Feltsman, Victor Nikiforov, Yuri Plisetsky, Georgi Popovich, (Later) Unimportant OCs

Warnings: Body-swap, Body Insecurities

Words: 7k+

Chapter 1

Yuri was having that wonderful dream, again. It was the one where his windows had curtains instead of noisy blinds that clattered at the slightest breeze and he woke up when the sun wasn’t dawdling in the horizon instead of when his phone alarm shattered his fantasies. He stayed in bed for much longer than the ten blissful minutes that came before his next alarm told him to get ready for the day. Naturally being tugged out of sleep by the gentle rays of light was calming. It would waste what little time he had with this dream if he stayed in bed forever, though, so he got out of bed.

He felt heavy. His perspective, too, was a lot higher than it usually was. The room, too, was clean like it was when he last woke up. He curiously checked the dressers and they were organized in the same fashion, but with different clothes. He figured that he might as well set things to its natural order since it was his dream, so he flung the clothes in the general direction of where he remembered they last were. Once the drawers were empty, he searched for his practice outfit.

He kicked a pair of boxers. Everything was the wrong size. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Once, when he and Victor went shopping together, he was frustrated about the men’s sizes being too big for him. Victor said that in Soviet Russia, the sizes weren’t wrong. Rather, the body was wrong for not fitting into the sizes. He wasn’t joking. Their discussion at the time was about the media’s different manifestations of discrimination. It was intellectually stimulating, actually.

“Maybe I’m self-aware enough to lucid dream?” Yuri wondered aloud. He cleared his throat. His voice was never that deep. “Would I be able to--wait, if this is my voice and these are my clothes…” He scanned the room for his cellphone, because if this was his dream then he had to have his phone somewhere in his immediate vicinity, which was on the nightstand. Thank goodness it was still an iPhone. He opened up the camera and flipped the view so he could see himself.

Yuri wasn’t too surprised that he was in the body of a tall, masculine guy with an undercut. It seemed ideal enough for a utopian concoction in his own dream subconscious. It was just so detailed. He could even feel the bulges of muscle when he flexed his arms. Maybe he was suppressing his issues about his real body too much. All he wanted was for this fantasy to not distort into something that resembled a Charles Dickens-Ray Bradbury-Stephen King-Rod Serling nightmare.

He went into what he assumed was his bathroom--nope, that’s a closet. A tiny one, at that. He went into the actual bathroom to study his face in the mirror more closely. He mentally patted his brain on its metaphorical back for the undercut. It was a nice touch. The sharp jawline, too, was incredibly handsome. “I had this dream last time, too, didn’t I?”

His next actions were obvious. He left to practice at the ice rink as soon as he was ready.

He expected St. Petersburg when he stepped out of the apartment, or at least some part of Russia he was already familiar with. He honestly had no idea where he was, anymore, or what any of the signs around him said. Unfortunately, it seemed that his lucid dreaming skills weren’t strong enough to magically skip to the part where he was at the ice rink. “What the hell is this bullshit?”

According to Google Maps, he was in… a place that used some Turkic language because he couldn’t read shit. He changed the language settings. Much better. According to Google Maps, he was in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The surrounding mountains were nice and all, but Yuri didn’t sign up to be a different country along with his different body and life. Russia was already so big; it really wasn’t necessary to live in Kazakhstan in this very inconvenient dream. At least the ice rink was close.

Yuri had no idea what the friendly old man was saying to him, but apparently he was supposed to go by Otabek. Silently nodding was enough to get that man (his coach?) off his back. He had no idea where the dance studios were, if there were any at all at this particular ice rink, so he just stretched in the locker room.

He nearly pulled a muscle just from attempting to get into his usual position for the butterfly stretch. His thighs hurt like he had never stretched them at all, before. He was usually able to lay forward on his chest during the butterfly stretch, but now he couldn’t even bring his feet in any less than six inches without cursing. He was smart enough to take the stretch slowly after the initial shock, hoping that it would get a lot more easier as he warmed up, but it was hopeless. All of the years of stretching he worked on in his original body was useless here. (But in the first place, he shouldn’t have been able to feel such searing pain without waking up.)

He grunted stubbornly as he tried to push his knees down. “This body is terrible!” Lesson learned: Yuri can’t be a handsome, masculine skater that is also flexible and graceful like a ballerina. This was the part where he woke up, called Victor at 3 a.m., and suffered the I told you so lecture from the senior skater. Yes, he should cherish what he had instead of focusing on his insecurities. If he ever found a genie lamp, he would definitely not wish that he complied with gender roles or submitted to toxic masculinity. He’d buy a pink tutu as soon as he woke up to emphasize just how learned this valuable lesson was.

But just like real life, there was no waking up. He pinched himself and bit his tongue, yet he was still stuck. “I’m a really deep sleeper, aren’t I? Well, if this really is the ‘reality’ of my desires, then I’ll just make myself flexible again. It’s not like that was never an option.”

It was frustrating to have his muscles scream at the simplest positions, like touching his toes, but it wasn’t that bad. It only made sense that a body with longer limbs and fuller muscles was severely less flexible than his original body, especially given that “Otabek” didn’t seem to do ballet for off-ice training. Rather, starting all over again from the beginning was refreshing. He was on a new adventure to regain everything he lost, but with a new background and new environment. His old restrictions were gone, replaced by new obstacles that he knew exactly how to overcome.

Yuri’s body may change, but his mindset won’t.

Yuri checked his (Otabek’s) phone while he straightened his back in the straddle stretch. Truly, the best way to get to know someone was to look at their browsing history. There were a lot of videos of his past performances there, as in, Yuri Plisetsky’s previous programs, all from various years and competitions. That didn’t help answer the question of who Otabek Altin was, except maybe that he happened to be one of Yuri’s Angels.

He wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he kept scrolling down: motorcycle chain lube reviews, weather in Almaty, Beethoven Violin Concerto, damdy-nan recipe, define insanity, out of body experience, Freaky Friday, how to start a fire with water… He felt like he knew Otabek a little better, but it wasn’t enough. He kept digging through the apps (no games, no social media, three graphing calculators?) until he found a diary. He thanked Apple for automatically translating all the entries to Russian.

He leaned over to his left leg and reached for his foot with one hand. He hated how far it was. Once he managed to hold onto his foot, he kept breathing deeply and focused on the diary to distract himself from how much he wanted to stop. The stretch one avoided the most was the one that one needed the most. Otabek was avoiding all the stretches and that was a crime Yuri had to atone for if he was going to occupy Otabek’s body in his dreams.  

Tuesday’s entry was boring. “3 mile run. 100 jumping jacks. 50 pushups. 50 sit-ups. 75 crunches. 1 minute plank. Two hours at gym. Triple axel is cleaner, so is quadruple toe loop, but quadruple Salchow is still a struggle,” he read aloud. Yuri rolled his eyes. He thought diaries were supposed to be more scandalous than recording a workout routine. He scanned through the rest of that day’s entry because he understood already, Otabek works out and stunning bodies don’t bloom overnight. The very bottom caught his eye. “Even though I kept myself busy all day, the uneasiness from yesterday will not subside. I can only hope that such a phenomenon is not recurring.”

He swung over to his right leg, passing through the middle, and rested his cheek on his right knee despite how much his legs protested. It was something he did out of habit and it would pay off later as long as Yuri didn’t pull anything.

There was no entry for Monday. How conveniently vague. Yuri supposed Otabek was smart to write in such a manner, in case someone (Yuri) happened to read the diary. If he cared so much about privacy, he should’ve had a password on his phone.

At least they both agreed that something strange happened on Monday that neither of them could describe.

Yuri still had no clue what Otabek’s coach was saying and judging from the coach’s tone and body language, a simple nod wasn’t going to cut it forever. He had just finished stretching and the coach started saying words to him. There were so many words. “Can you speak Russian?” he finally asked. Yuri had a plan, kind of. He knew that Russian was a co-official language in Kazakhstan and he was just going to wing it from there.

“Of course, why?”

The clouds opened up and a choir of angels sang a heavenly chord.

“Speak only Russian to me, from now on. I want to practice that language.”

The coach was impressed by that. “Of course. As I was saying, your jumps are strong, but you still lack the proper grace to make your choreography flow well…”

Yuri was also impressed by himself. He couldn’t believe he managed to pull that off. “I will be more graceful, from now on.”

“That will be the focus of today’s session. I understand that you’re not a typical figure skater. You started late, you lack the ballet fundamentals that every skater practices every day, and you struggle every day… Otabek, you are severely disadvantaged, but I ask you, what is a hero without weakness?”

Yuri withheld a smirk. The thought of him, an addict of winning, being disadvantaged in the skating world was too laughable. He wanted to look around and ask who the hell was being described because Yuri Plisetsky did not struggle, had no disadvantages, and wasn’t in the mood for lame rhetorical questions. “A hero without weakness? That’s the goal.” He walked away and glided onto the ice.

The coach watched from the side. “Show me the most natural skating you know, and we’ll go from there.”

Yuri stared at the coach blankly. They were speaking the same language now, but he still couldn’t understand what the hell the coach meant by his “most natural” skating. Maybe everyone was vague in Kazakh. No wonder Otabek struggled so much. He turned to face the coach with his hands on his hips, skating backwards. “Is my current skating unnatural?”

“When you perform, you have less than ten minutes to leave an impression on the judges. They’re eager to see you. Your natural skating is more than what your choreography wants you to do. It is the movements you resort to when you need something expressed.”

Very profound. Also, very extraneous. Even the melodramatic Victor could have said the same thing without the speech. Skate for me, Victor would have pleaded as he trailed his feather-light fingers along Yuri’s jaw before tilting his chin up so he could see the same three words reflected in those eyes of Victor, which were as clear of a blue as the swatches of sky that peeked behind the cloudy skies of St. Petersburg in winter and gazed down at him like--

Yuri chose to skate Georgi’s 2015 short program as an inside joke. Georgi’s theme that year was “Said, But Not Spoken.” His inner monologue while he skated that program was probably about not being able to express his love for his girlfriend Anya properly, or something equally repulsive. In Yuri’s case, he would be thinking about how little sense there was in the new world he woke up in.

He forgot the song Georgi skated to. Yuri only paid attention to the story Georgi unfolded when he practiced his program. Georgi had a way of skating his love for Anya so blatantly that it made him uncomfortable. There was no other interpretation to read other than the one Georgi performed for the audience. Yuri could hear the exact thoughts running through his rinkmate’s mind with every sharp movement and intense facial expression. He felt like he was at a theater whenever Georgi skated. He always told Georgi that it wasn’t a good idea to base his themes around his girlfriend or he might retire when they broke up because his muse would be gone. Unfortunately, Georgi was a fool that believed in Happily Forever After.

Triple axel. Yuri was surprised he was able to nail the landing in an unfamiliar body. The body must know how to perform triple axels, too.

The coach clapped furiously. Yuri stopped skating. In less than two minutes, Yuri’s grace was proven. He was hoping that their session was done now so he could see test what good Otabek’s muscles really were on the ice.

“I am impressed…”

That was a relief. Yuri didn’t want to explain that he only knew the chunks of the program that he liked the most and wouldn’t have been able to skate an entire cohesive performance. Yakov wouldn’t have even let him past the entrance into the opening pose. Georgi would have tackled him and stolen the show to show Yuri how it was “really” done.

“Now, show me your most natural skating, and we’ll go from there, Otabek.” There was a slight emphasis in the name that hinted, perhaps, this wasn’t a silly dream about a silly life. “That kind of grace does not belong to you. It’s what may seep into your bones after years of experience and sustains the image I saw like lifeblood. You may be afflicted with it right now, like a curse, but it is not yours.”

Yuri tried to tuck hair behind his ear that wasn’t there. He didn’t like this coach at all. Good was good, no matter who skated it or how, and there was no way his gracefulness could have been logically misinterpreted as a mere fluke. If that was the way this coach wanted to play, then so be it. “What is my natural skating? I have forgotten it to pursue grace.”

The coach’s expression did not betray disappointment. Yuri had no reason to feel a pang in his heart for asking. He didn’t care about sticking to a certain style like it was set in stone. Versatility was essential in the skating world. Identity was just a name and a reputation.

“It is valiance when you’re the only one fighting.”

Yuri wondered how close he could get to imitating that on the ice; he wasn’t sure what a hero without weaknesses was supposed to be, anymore.

Otabek had no idea how he was supposed to get anything done with so little time, but he wasn’t really Otabek anymore because he was in Yuri’s body trying to follow Yuri’s schedules and trying so hard to live up to Yuri’s expectations. He was familiar with the old adage about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. It was why he looked at whoever addressed him in the eyes and politely responded back. Life was hard. The whips and scorns of time turned a blind eye to no one. The only new thing he was learning was that Yuri Plisetsky’s life was especially hard.

Cleaning Yuri’s room helped a lot, even if it was a little bit messier than when he left it. Being able to see with both eyes was also a great advantage. Yuri’s hair (Otabek’s, for now) was up in a tiny ponytail while he, Otabek in Yuri’s body trying to do things the way Yuri would have done them, rushed out of the house.

He bumped into four-time gold medalist of the World Championships and Grand Prix Finals Victor Nikiforov on his front step. Otabek was in a dream, he swore, but the arms squeezing his tiny body were too real to deny. They (Yuri and Victor, certainly not Otabek and Victor) followed each other on every social media they had, had nicknames for each other, and were even on a regular hugging basis. He awkwardly let himself be squeezed by the man he envied deeply.

“Dobroye utro, kotyonok!” Victor greeted.

That meant “Good morning, kitten” in Russian. Otabek felt accomplished for knowing that much. His Russian was rusty. “Dobroye utro, Vict--Vitya.” He buried his blush in Victor’s chest. He wasn’t used to being called a kitten and definitely not used to addressing the older man in such a cutesy manner.

Victor actually squealed. “Toooo cute!” He released Otabek from the hug and pinched Yuri’s cheeks.

Otabek agreed. Yuri is absolutely adorable. He tried hard not to imagine what Yuri’s voice would sound like if he said “Qayırlı tañ, Beka” like his little sister did. He didn’t even have to, since he could easily say it to himself when he was alone, but he was a good person that didn’t take advantage of other people’s bodies for self-indulgent purposes. Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes didn’t entail kissing the heels and wishing to be stepped on with those shoes.

“Hey, why don’t I teach you how to drive?”

Otabek blinked. He really did not want to squeeze that into Yuri’s schedule. “When?”

“No better time than the present!”

Otabek had no clue how in the world Yuri handled Victor. “You mean, right now? We have to go to the ice rink right now, don’t we?”

“Yeah! You can drive! It’ll kill two stones with one bird.”

“Wait a second, isn’t it…” That imagery was horrifying. He was glad he already knew how to drive because Victor was the last person that should be teaching it. Victor would have been killing two skaters with one bad lesson.

Getting into Victor’s car was a mistake. Otabek only realized that as soon as it was too late to get out; he needed to start the car as soon as possible or they would be late to practice. Victor wasted too much time insisting that it was only logical that the phrase was killing two stones with one bird because killing birds was bad and difficult to do with one stone. Otabek didn’t know why he bothered arguing that animal abuse was the theme either way and that stones were impossible to kill because they weren’t sentient in the first place. The clock was ticking.

Otabek had to scoot the seat very far forward for comfort and bring the rearview mirror way farther down than it was originally. He buckled in his seatbelt. Victor’s phone camera was audibly snapping pictures of him as he adjusted the side mirrors.

“So, you start the car by pushing the key in and turning it--”

Clockwise, yeah. Otabek would have put more effort in his act of a naive teenager that knew squat about cars, but they had twenty minutes, the ice rink was fifteen minutes away if there was no traffic, and he was going to pretend that Yuri’s prodigal skills also extended to driving. “Seatbelt, Vitya.” He was starting to miss his motorcycle, which never had annoyingly clingy passengers.

Victor laughed. “No, I trust you, Yura! I’ll just give directions.”

Otabek was going to beg Yuri’s grandfather to give Yuri driving lessons instead of Victor. There was no way Yuri was going to be taught how to drive by such an irresponsible man.

“The speed limit is just a suggestion, by the way. Speed up 25 more kilometers per hour.”

“Vitya…” He chose his words carefully. “I’m too scared to go 100 kilometers per hour in a residential area.”

“I suppose I drove at the same speed as you when I first got behind the wheel, too…”

Dear God.

Otabek was barely on time. He had three minutes to get to the ballet class. His parking was crooked, but that was a detail that wouldn’t matter tomorrow, so he didn’t care enough to fix--okay, fine, he did care enough to fix it. It was counterproductive to not sympathize with the poor person that had to park next to him while was busy pitying Yuri and his exhausting life. He had two minutes to get to the ballet class. He could make it.

It was instinct to hold open the door for Victor, even if that meant shaving off more valuable seconds. Victor must have seen him shiver at the initial gust of air from inside the rink because he put his arm around his shoulder. Being so openly affectionate with a living legend was easily the most surreal part of the experience. He kept his eyes down and tried to casually walk past Yuri’s coach, Yakov. Even though it has been five years since he attended Yakov’s ballet camp, he was still intimidated by the coach.

Victor’s hand drifted down to his lower back. “Yuri.”

Otabek had no idea what that tone meant or what he was doing wrong. Maybe Victor just liked saying Yuri’s name. “Um…”

Yakov was more direct. “Yuri! Why is your posture so terrible today?”

Oh. That’s what Victor meant. “Sorry…” He squared his shoulders and straightened his back. Victor assisted by tilting his chin up so that he was no longer staring at the ground.

Yakov gave a stern nod of approval. He wasn’t quite impressed, but Otabek had passed for now. Otabek forgot how strictly disciplined Russian figure skaters were. He never thought about posture too much until his coach pointed it out. It added to the air of a person. Posture correction in itself was intimidating enough. A straight back could easily set you apart from the others. Yet, Otabek also had to wonder why Victor hadn’t gotten called out for his posture. The older skater was casually slouching all of his weight onto Yuri’s small body, which subtly pushed Otabek away from the dance studios and towards the ominously dark staircase.

Victor waved happily at Yakov and Mila. “Dobroye utro, Yakov. I’m going to work with Yuri for off-ice training again.”

Again? Otabek didn’t realize there was variation in Yuri’s schedule that contradicted the exact words Yuri inputted into his phone. 6 A.M. to 7 A.M. was supposed to be off-ice training at Yakov’s ice rink with the female junior skaters’ ballet class in Dance Studio A. All of the events in Yuri’s schedule had precise wording like that, which Otabek assumed was set in stone. It made Otabek’s life in Yuri’s body a lot more convenient. Yuri’s phone was his map and compass. Really, it was only Victor that steered Otabek off-course.

Yakov didn’t let Victor’s casual greeting slip by. “Oy, who’s the coach here? You should be asking for permission, not informing me like you already have it.”

Victor laughed nervously. He was caught. “May I?”

Yakov gave Victor the evil eye.

Now that Otabek thought about it, just because Victor liked being affectionate with Yuri didn’t mean that was a normal occurrence. Victor did as he pleased. Then, that meant Otabek had been relinquishing control to Victor that he normally didn’t have this entire time… “Shouldn’t you be asking my permission?”

Yakov nodded.

Now that was a dream-wakening lesson. Too bad Otabek was just living in a very strange reality, where profound moments were like standalone stories that contributed to no bigger series. This was another isolated event that didn’t have to matter. Otabek wanted it to matter, though.

Victor rephrased himself. “Yuri, I’m going to--”

Yakov shook his head.

“We’re going to--”

Yakov cleared his throat.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Victor swore. “Nobody can control Yuri’s body except for Yuri, of course!”

Victor could have stabbed Otabek in the chest with a skating blade and it would’ve hurt less than that seemingly obvious statement. This body wasn’t Otabek’s.  

“So, Yuri, do you want to train with me this morning?”

Otabek sunk into himself. This entire conversation was pointless because he actually did want to learn from Victor Nikiforov himself and the real Yuri had no say in this. Otabek had to resort to consequentialism for this moral fork in the road since Yuri wasn’t the one who had to experience this and it wouldn’t hurt Yuri either way. “... Yes.”

Victor laughed. “You were supposed to say no.”

Yakov looked ready to explode. “Stop deciding these things, Vitya! Dah isn’t dah without a dah!”

Otabek found the lightswitch at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the second floor of the rink. Before he could even get to the first step, Victor raced to the top and turned off the lights with the switch on top. Otabek tried turning them on again, only for Victor to submerge them in darkness again. He had a feeling this was some kind of riddle, so he switched the lights on, then off again quickly, expecting Victor to instinctively follow by flicking his switch, which would end up turning the lights back on. Victor didn’t. After Otabek accepted defeat and just relied on the railings to get up the stairs safely, the lights were back on.

“Why is it that I was able to anticipate every move you made, yet I’m still surprised?” Victor asked.

Otabek wanted to ask why Victor had to make everything so difficult. He didn’t. He just walked up the stairs like a normal person who wanted to transition between floors in peace.

Georgi looked him up and down. “Yuri, your posture looks terrible.”

Otabek didn’t get it. His back was straight, his shoulders were squared, his chin was parallel to the ground, and yet he was subjected to criticism as soon as he entered the dance studio.

He had met Georgi before… kind of. This was his first year being in the same division, since he had barely gotten out of the junior division, but he saw Georgi at some banquets he was forced to attend. He watched Georgi’s free skate for a couple of minutes at the previous Grand Prix Finals. They were probably in the same hotel at least--well, the point is that Otabek was surprised that Georgi thought his best posture was wretched. Every time they secretly acknowledged each other’s passing presence, Georgi was thinking that his posture was terrible. That is, if Otabek even stood out from the background enough to be noticed.

Russians are relentless.

“He doesn’t mean that,” the redhead female skater assured. “It’s just that the posture looks terrible on you.”

Shoot… What’s her name? Being the antisocial hermit Otabek was, he didn’t bother to learn the names of anyone that he wasn’t going to perform immediately after. Yakov’s coaching at the summer ballet camp he attended years ago was scary enough to leave its own imprint. Victor Nikiforov was, well, the Victor Nikiforov. So, he didn’t know the redhead’s name, but Yuri’s contact name for her on his phone was “Old Hag”, so sarcasm should be the appropriate response.

“Of course,” Otabek said. He mentally kicked himself. His response came out more like he had low standards for himself, not in the dry yet teasing manner that he was hoping for. It was hard to be rude on purpose to an older female skater. Respect for women was basically embedded into his DNA.

Georgi frowned. “Don’t take it so harshly,” he said apologetically.

Don’t say it so harshly, then.

“I’m just used to you being more…” Georgi trailed off. The word was on the tip of his tongue, but on the bottom of his mind.

“Pretty?” Victor provided.

“Feisty!” Mila suggested, with an added hiss and claw-swiping gesture for effect.

“No, no--rude, maybe?” Georgi guessed.

Victor clapped his hands together. “Oh, yes! Like a total bitch!”

Otabek’s face fell. He knew why he was standing out so much despite trying his best to hide, now. He was trying to survive when Yuri always wanted to thrive. It was so obvious that Yuri’s friends could see the difference at a glance. He clenched his fists, then put a hand on his hip and leaned his weight to one side. Throw yourself away, Otabek. You’re Yuri Plisetsky right now. “W… What the hell does that mean?” He glared up at Victor and bared his teeth a little. I’m sorry, Vitya, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

Victor was happy to be spoken at so crudely. Otabek wondered if this was what it was like to have friends.

“You’re certainly not this stupid on a daily basis to not know what a ‘total bitch’ entails,” Victor snapped back with a calm smile. “I’ll volunteer to be your tutor in Russian, too, if that means I can help you understand exactly how much of a bitch you are.”

At this point, Otabek would have usually put on a cool mask and walked out without any further conflict. He imagined that Yuri would’ve said something like… “You don’t have to be superfluous just because I know exactly who’s below me.”

Georgi snapped his fingers. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice!”

A bead of sweat rolled down Yuri’s neck.

“Your hair is tied back! It looks nice.”

Otabek let out the breath he was holding.

Victor nodded in agreement. “Right? I like it better when I can see Yuri’s face.” 

“Whatever,” Otabek spat out. “Just let me stretch in peace.”

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry!

Otabek would stretch for hours every day if he had Yuri’s body. (He does, actually, but that’s not the point.) Victor was watching him do a handstand while he slowly widened his legs into a left splits. Ironically, Otabek would have to stretch for hours every day if he wanted to be as flexible as Yuri. Perhaps he could pencil that into his schedule. If Yuri could when he barely had time to eat a full meal, then it would be a breeze for Otabek.

Yuri must be enjoying Otabek’s schedule. Otabek was glad that he didn’t have as many obligations as Yuri. No ballet classes, bi-weekly private lessons instead of every day, no piano lessons, no intensive homeschooling sessions, no Victor Nikiforov bothering him every second of the day, no rinkmates to criticize his every movement… Why, the only thing that could possibly give Yuri any trouble was the job as a waiter he recently took up at a Russian restaurant for extra money. His shift was only at 10 a.m. sharp…

Every day.

Victor’s quick reflexes caught Otabek when he lost balance and almost snapped his neck in half. “Careful, Yuri,” he chided softly.

Otabek scrambled out of Victor’s arms towards his bag. It was still barely past 7. He could call his phone (his actual phone) and tell Yuri that Otabek had to go to his job. He might also have to spill the beans that Yuri wasn’t dreaming and they really were switching bodies for what seemed like every other day, but there was no way Otabek could miss his entire shift at the four and a half star restaurant he barely got. The pay was amazing. He only had two sponsors, which were both his parents, and he desperately needed that job to afford another season in competition.

He would buy a plane ticket to Almaty right now if that meant keeping his job. As soon as he found his phone, he dialed his number and ran out into the hallway. He practiced what he was going to say.

“Yuri, this voice sounds familiar because it’s… No. Yuri, do you remember me? No, too lengthy. Yuri, I love your body--ah, that’s too suggestive.”

The phone rang only three times before it went to voicemail. Otabek glared at the phone screen. “You seriously declined a call from yourself?”

He didn’t realize that Russia was three hours behind Kazakh.

Yuri hated Otabek’s job. He was barely on time, only thanks to him snooping around in Otabek’s diary. The Medved Tavern and Restaurant was an overpriced poshfest where the waiters were quizzed on their knowledge of the menu every time they took an order and the wine experts turned their nose if you poured the unnecessarily expensive grape juice at an angle they weren’t pleased with. He cringed every time someone mispronounced a menu item and passive aggressively pointed out that it was also acceptable to simply state the number of the item because that’s exactly what those numbers were intended for.

Yuri was smart, though. He asked a coworker how to use a corkscrew before he was pushed out of the kitchen, and after that, he was out serving tables like the rent was overdue. He declined a call without even looking at the caller ID because as troublesome as having a shift during the freakin’ lunch rush was, the prices on the menu guaranteed that Otabek was paid decently. Yuri never could turn away an opportunity for making money, even it wasn’t his.

“Otabek!” a chef yelled at him. Yuri turned on his heel. Strangely, he was already used to being called by a different name. “Tezirek jıljıtıñız!”

Yuri put his hand on his hip and tucked a silver platter under his arm. “Speak Russian, mu’dak. You’ll make this place drop a star if you can’t make the atmosphere authentic.”

He barely blocked the knife thrown at him with the platter. The chef yelled at him in Russian, this time. “Mouth off one more time and you’ll be dead! Now move faster!”

Yuri picked up the knife and stabbed it into a cutting board on the counter. “Why don’t you--”

A coworker slapped a hand over his mouth, replaced the platter with a stack of menus, and pushed Yuri out into the kitchen before any more knives were thrown. Yuri was already handing out menus to another table of impatient pigs and taking orders before he could protest. Such was the norm when one’s shift was right at the lunch rush.

A woman way too old for Yuri, but maybe barely too old for Otabek was trying to undress him with her eyes while he mechanically described the dish of the day that the restaurant was desperately trying to promote. She batted her eyelashes at him and spoke in Russian. “Wow, your Russian is so good. Did you grow up there?” Her hand wrapped around his while he pointed to the item on her menu.

Yuri gingerly removed her hand. Lay off, old lady. This hot body is mine. “I’ll give you time to decide your order.” He walked away with a strong urge to wash his hands. Man, that was a weird thought. This body isn’t really mine, but since I have it right now…

Dress-up was Yuri’s favorite game as a child, to the disappointment of his parents. He never understood what they wanted from him. They were pleased with money, but not his career as a figure skater. They wanted a normal son, but sold his body to ballet and sent him to live with his grandpa. They expected him to grow up like a normal man, but trained him like a daughter. Yuri supposed what they wanted was Otabek.

He unbuttoned his crisp white shirt and let it fall off of him. His fingers trailed down defined muscles, chiseled in the gym and refined in the rink. He admired Otabek’s body. It was one that Yuri could train to be the perfect danseur, with enough time. It could follow his dreams and live up to his parent’s expectations. Yuri’s own body was stuck in its own path to success, long and treacherous and far from everyone else. He could scream without shame, glory, or response. It was his reward and consequence for taking the road less traveled by.

Otabek lived alone in an apartment that he worked hard at a four and a half star Russian-themed restaurant for to keep because it was near the ice rink. Yuri could get used to that. He collapsed in Otabek’s bed and hugged himself.

“So this is what it’s like to embrace a man’s body.”

Yuri had a lot of issues he had to deal with, but Otabek also had a lot of clothes to try on. He was certain that the waiter uniform wasn’t the only outfit Otabek looked good in.

Landing a quadruple Salchow was so much easier in Yuri’s body that his own. Otabek couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. He approached it the way he usually did. After he caught his breath, he went for a quadruple axel. Again, it was better than any attempt he made in his own body.

Victor whistled. “That’s the best I’ve ever seen from you.”

Green eyes widened. “Is it really?” He couldn’t brush it off as muscle memory, although that would’ve been an interesting concept to explore.

Victor nodded. “Yeah, although the height seems to be lacking.”

“Actually, it’s easier to not have too big of a step up so that the skater can pull into the rotation position more quickly… When the x and y velocity components are calculated independently, you can see that it’s more efficient--”

Victor ignored him and did a quadruple axel to see for himself. He used more height than Otabek’s calculations would have recommended. Of course, the landing was perfect because it was Victor who did it. “I don’t get it. More height is more beautiful, no?”

Otabek was suddenly homesick for his rink in Almaty, where he could focus on himself and not be shown up by figure skating legend Victor Nikiforov himself. Adding more height looked more pleasing, but wasn’t necessarily more efficient. Even the execution of jumps was something Victor did the opposite in what was expected. Otabek gasped. “I see! The height characterizes the style of your jumps!” He used to think that jumps were something anyone could do with the right amount of training, that as long as certain qualifications lined up, the jump would go well. He didn’t consider that the math of the jumps could be adjusted for aesthetic. He was focused more on efficiency and technique, while Victor was charming the world with extra difficulty. Victor really did make everything harder than it had to be. “But does your body make your technique possible or is your technique body-independent?” he wondered aloud.

Victor skated circles around him. “I am very independent.” He suddenly skidded to a stop and purposely sent slushy ice in Otabek’s face.

Otabek’s eyes were drawn to the golden blades. He forgot to account for different models of skates. It could be Yuri’s skates that made it easier to land quads. Or, Otabek could be used to expending more effort to perform quads because his body was bulkier and expending that same amount of effort in Yuri’s body, which was much lighter, could be making the quads easier. Meaning, Yuri’s body was ideal for the technique Otabek used.

This was too strange. Basically, Otabek was using muscle memory with entirely different muscles. He wished he could borrow Victor’s body, too, for more experiments.

Victor laughed at his serious expression. “Skate with me, Yuri.” He took off, dragging Otabek along with him. “Watch and follow.”

He raised one leg behind him and extended a hand in front of him while still holding onto Otabek’s hand. Otabek mirrored the same pose. He followed suit as Victor lowered his leg. Victor led them through a curve, leaning in towards Otabek, and twirled Otabek around before grabbing his hips and briefly lifting him into the air.

It was a simple and easy move, but Otabek wasn’t expecting it, so he clung to Victor as soon as he was safely on the ice. “V-V-Vitya! That was…” He couldn’t find a more mature way to phrase it in Russian. “... scary.”

Victor smiled. “Are you afraid of trying new things?”

“I’m scared of finding new ways to die.” Otabek was getting better at bluntly saying the first thing that came to mind, especially when it came to Victor’s antics.

Victor held Otabek, but continued to skate around the rink with him. “Would you like it if I was just ‘horny’?”

Yuri’s face was set ablaze. “W-Wh-Wha…”

Victor just smiled at him and gave no context whatsoever. “I’m sorry, Yuri. I know you want me to be more than that, when it comes to you.”

Otabek didn’t know how to interpret this, anymore. He wasn’t used to having rinkmates, much less one with an ambiguous relationship that could either be strictly platonic, strictly romantic, strictly sexual, or some secretive combination of those choices. “Um.” He hoped that hugging Victor was the right answer. Or, maybe he was accidentally leading Victor on.

If only he could just straight-up reject Victor on the spot.

If only Yuri’s body truly was his.

[kenkaufmancfo-blog]

Are You Just Doing Curls, Or Are you Building real Strength?

Let me start by offering this disclaimer...I am not an exercise or weightlifting expert. I have, however, read enough material and listened to enough trainers and fitness experts to know some of the main do's and don'ts of lifting weights and general exercise. First, a little background and context so you can have the correct perspective on a conversation I recently overheard, hopefully empowering us to apply it many areas of our lives. One of the main rules of weightlifting is that you always begin a workout session with at least one main exercise (like bench press, squats, dead lift, or military press) that works several muscle groups. This effectively warms the body up and ensures strength is being built in a balanced, healthy manner. Then, you move into working targeted, specialized muscles (like biceps, triceps, calves, shoulders, or back). This allows you to focus on improving weaknesses or developing specific muscles that are important for a sport you play or the way you want to look. Balanced workouts among all of the muscle groups are strongly encouraged. An example would be to start with several sets and repetitions of bench press (which works many of the upper body muscles), and then do additional exercises that target the chest and tricep muscles. Then your next workout would hit another group of muscles like shoulders and back, or legs.

Next I need to make sure you know what curls are. Curl exercises target and work only the bicep, meaning they should usually be done after at least one exercise that targets multiple muscles (see image to the right). Yet many people bypass the core strength-building routines because curls make biceps bigger and more defined. And those are the muscles you flex when you look at yourself in the mirror, giving the appearance of overall strength and fitness. For more perspective on this subject, read this: Stop Doing Curls. With that background, here's a conversation I recently heard as two guys walked into a weight room:

Guy 1: "So what do you want to lift today?"

Guy 2: "Let's do curls. I like doing those, and I'm pretty good at them."

Guy 1: "Cool."

As they headed towards the dumbbells, I shook my head a little and then made a brief outline in my head for everything that I think went wrong in that conversation. Here's my list and what I think we can learn from it.

NO OBJECTIVE

What were these two weightlifters really after? Where do they want to be in 5 years, or even 1 year? Are they training for a sport, or do they have other fitness goals they are trying to achieve? I got the sense they really lacked an overall objective.

Whatever you are doing professionally, do you have an overall objective of where you are going and where you want to be in 5 years, or even 1 year? By taking some time to think this through and articulate it in writing, you are well on your way to achieving it. Failing to define it means you will likely not achieve it. Hard to hit the target when you don't know where it is, right? This can apply to any aspect of your life, especially if you feel like you are "spinning your wheels" in that part of your life.

NO PLAN

Without a clear objective, it was impossible for these two weightlifters to connect their daily activities to helping them move closer to accomplishing their goal. If their objective was to try and lift a certain amount of weight for certain exercises at the end of the year, then they could focus their daily activities on what will best help them accomplish that objective. With no objective and no plan, what they choose to do in the gym doesn't really matter. Interestingly, they could end up doing more damage than good if they continue to randomly select exercises without an overall plan and objective. They would create serious imbalance, gain no real strength, and even create the potential for serious injury if they always select to do curls. 

So, think about your life. Are you a dreamer, with lots of amazing objectives and goals for the future, but with no real, viable, plan to get you there? Or, do you love to plan out your days but without an overall vision or objective to guide your activities. Both scenarios are less effective in terms of building real strength (if you are a weightlifter) or making the most progress possible. 

CURLS OVER MEANINGFUL PROGRESSGuy #2 made an interesting comment about liking to do curls. Yet doing what we like is not always the most effective to help us accomplish our goals and objectives. If you are trying to stretch yourself to accomplish something, then it is likely that you have to do hard things. Often you have to learn new things and feel highly vulnerable in the process. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like to get where you want to go. But you're the one that picked the direction and objective, so it must be worth it!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTObjectives may change occasionally, but plans need to be dynamic, always adapting and pivoting to best position yourself to accomplish your goals and objectives.

Originally posted 15 Aug 2013

[contentmarketingallstars]

Content Marketing All-Stars Q&A: Meghan Holzhauer and Michael Tennant of Curiosity Lab

What do younger consumers want from brands? Which companies are doing a great job of connecting with Millennials and Generation Z? How are marketing preferences evolving? 

All too often brands try to tackle these questions through endless rounds of internal brainstorming and debate.

There’s a much more effective approach: simply ask the experts. Specifically, talk to marketers who have already developed successful campaigns that resonate with these audiences.

Recently we did just that: We chatted with Meghan Holzhauer and Michael Tennant, the co-founders of Curiosity Lab, a recently launched consultancy designed to align brands with youth culture.

Check out the full Q&A below to get their take on what brands should – and shouldn’t – do to successfully connect with younger consumers.

Q: Before we dive in, can you share a little bit about your backgrounds?

Meghan: After I graduated from business school I was offered a dream job: I was the Director of Development for a luxury hotel group that was based just outside of San Francisco.

I got to learn so much from incredible hospitality visionaries and flex my creative muscles, but I realized that over and over again I was sitting in conference rooms full of white men over the age of 50 having conversations about the next generation of consumers. I kept hearing things things like: “Airbnb is not a threat” and “we should do things this way because it worked in the past”, assuming past performance is a direct prediction of future success. I realized that a lot of companies, in a lot of industries, are looking backwards instead of forwards; they are not paying attention to how much things are changing.

At the same time I was meeting a lot of entrepreneurs -- this next generation of leaders -- that understood the next generation and were building to meet their needs. Seeing that difference between old school companies and innovators who understood the marketplace made me want to work on this new venture.

Michael: I started my career at MTV working in grassroots and viral marketing before moving in to a producer role within their branding and design group. While I was there, the massive shift from TV to digital was happening, and they were still figuring that out. You could see how things were shifting; Rolling Stone did an article about how a blogger had become the most influential person in music A&R and I realized I wanted to be doing what she was doing.

So, I started my own company that introduced music fans to the next hottest band before they became too expensive to see. From there I went to VICE where I worked a lot on connecting brands to the Millennial audience. Eventually I switched to the advertising world, where I worked on branded content for various agencies. Most recently I was Head of Branded content at PHD.

At the agencies I frequently felt that I was a part of teams that weren’t willing to push brands outside their comfort zones. Eventually I decided to give up the six-figure salary and team up with Meghan on Curiosity Lab.

Q: What is Curiosity Lab?

Michael: Curiosity Lab is an integrated media and brand consultancy. We help brands connect with Millennials and Gen Z by assembling, activating, and aligning with authentic Millennial and Gen Z influencers, publishers, and communities.

Essentially, we have a deep network of voices that Millennials and Gen Z love, and we have the know how to merge them with brands.

Meghan: In addition to the brand work we do, we also work with small publishers and communities that we love.

So, for example, we work with an organization called Breakout, which is a national community of entrepreneurs, leaders, and activists. We help them have conversations with brands and find ways for them to partner in authentic, meaningful ways.

From a brand’s perspective, we are able to connect them to communities and publishers that have hyper engaged audiences and the ability to tell great stories.

Michael: We’ve only been out working with brands for a short while and literally every conversation we have had has led to another conversation. That’s because every brand is asking itself the same crucial question: Why will the next generation of consumers give a shit about me?

We are willing, able, and connected properly to have that conversation and help guide it.

Q: How do you think the needs and preferences of the next generation – Gen Z and Millennials -- differ from those of older audiences? What do brands need to shift in terms of what they’re doing?

Meghan: That goes back to the name Curiosity Lab.

You constantly hear about Millennials and Gen Z, and although we’re using that terminology in this interview it’s something we try to step away from. That’s because it’s not necessarily about an age group; it’s about a state of mind. It’s about values.

When we were brainstorming on what this company would be, we ended up calling this group the Curious Generation; hence Curiosity Lab.

The changes in consumer behavior are being driven by Millennials and Generation Z, but they are also being embraced by people of all ages. It’s about wanting to feel like you belong to something greater than yourself, craving community, and making a contribution to society.

Michael: America is more diverse and more progressive than it ever has been, despite our recent election. And that diversity has given birth to a mindset among young people that embraces open-mindedness and believes very strongly in individuality.

Moreover, there has been deep media fragmentation. A brand can buy a Super Bowl ad and reach the eyeballs of millions of consumers, but to connect with the hearts of people, there is no silver bullet.

That is the biggest thing for us: knowing that you have to embrace the nuances of the consumer base that you’re targeting and find the right way to connect with them authentically.

Q: When it comes to content specifically, what resonates with the Curious Generation? 

Meghan: The key when it comes to content is that the brand has to really care about what you care about. And it has to show that it isn’t afraid to take a stand on issues and isn’t afraid to tackle taboo topics if it can provide useful information. It’s important to have stories that inspire and evoke strong emotions.

Michael: It is not about “renting space” next to the topics that brands think people care about; it’s about really understanding the things that they care about and championing them with the same passion that the individuals themselves would.

Bad marketing aims to exploit trends in communities because they are buzzy in marketing circles. That’s inauthentic and puts the brand message above the interest and passion of the people in these communities. Furthermore, it usually late to the trends and lacking a point of view.

Q: What are some examples of brands that are doing a good job of being authentic and connecting in the ways that you’re talking about? 

Meghan: One brand is Thinx. They’ve done an incredible job of tackling a taboo topic – periods – and taking a stand on a next generation feminism concept. They’ve made it a social issue by addressing how girls in developing nations can’t always go to school when they have their periods. And their marketing is also super strong; they got a lot of attention when the MTA in New York declined to put their ads on the subway, turning a simple OOH campaign into viral marketing.

Another one is Away. They have done a great job of really engaging the travel enthusiast with their luggage. They have been smart about building partnerships with brands that matter to their audience; not just mainstream partners such as Madewell, but also underground cool spots like the Hotel San Cristobal in Baja, Mexico. And they have a great content engine; they’re smart about tapping highly connected and engaged influencers rather than celebrities. 

Michael: Airbnb is another brand we crush on. They start by focusing on their product, then they market to two communities – the host community and the guest community – from there. They’re really thoughtful about those engagements. For example, the Airbnb Open Conference is an impeccable piece of 360-degree work that inspires and provides value to both communities.

Heineken’s Open Your World is a great example as well. It tackled a difficult topic – differences between people – in a very smart way. It was a moving piece of work that didn’t water down the conflict.

Q: Finally, are there any trends in the space that you are watching closely? 

Michael: Our company is built around trends that we see that aren’t going away.

One is that social media has democratized access to audiences, and new publishers can focus on specific audiences that they want to resonate with. In the past it was all about scale and ubiquity, but now it’s all about creating great content for your specific audience.

We really love that and it’s something that we’re trying to help grow further by opening brands’ eyes to what’s happening. With social media, smart distribution, and great storytelling, they can gain a greater connection to people through the things they are most passionate about.

Meghan: To reiterate what we said earlier, I’d highlight the increasing importance of being authentic. It’s necessary for every company to be grounded and connected to the communities that they are seeking to reach.

If Pepsi’s controversial ad had been put front in front of a Women’s March organizer or Black Lives Matter activist they would have told the brand that under no circumstance should it be released. You can’t speak for people without engaging with them directly.